This year for hubs’ birthday, la nostra famiglia took us out to dinner at Chiswick in Woollahra. I know that this place has been around for ages so i’m sure you’ve all been already but this was a place that we had always driven past and said “oh how pretty, lets go there sometime!” and never really had. I scoped out the menu online to make sure that it wasn’t going to break the bank and it looked like exactly what we were after, nothing too fancy but delicious and well presented. We weren’t disappointed!
We were seated promptly at a roomy table and began with a pitcher of cocktails. I was impressed when they arrived at the table already poured into six glasses complete with fresh garnishes and there was still half a pitcher left over. This was a mix of gin, watermelon, lavender syrup, cucumber and lemon juice and was particularly refreshing during the hot summer evening we found ourselves in. The wait staff were excellent. Often a place is let down by the waiters (or often the management when they cut costs by understaffing then the poor waiters cant help you because they just don’t have the time) but the staff at Chiswick were exemplary. Our waiter was attentive and very helpful when we were trying to figure out if the share plates would feed all of us and which dishes would work best together.
None of what i’m about to say is ground breaking, but, consider it a hazard of the change of year. On reflection on 2014, I realise that old friends are the best. New friends are great, but its not until you reach a critical mass of late night talks, boozy weekends (or inappropriately boozy work nights) boyfriend discussions, disproportionately calorific brunches and weirdo text messages that you realise – even though as adults we see each other much less often, if I never saw this person again in my whole life, everything would just be that little bit less sparkly and a tiny bit colder.
In 2014 I got married (more about that later I promise!) and I was blessed to be accompanied down the aisle by my mum, my sister, my oldest friend, and my closest friend. These are women who have seen every side of me and still answer the phone when I call. Thank god! These women have seen me through every stage of my life and to be frank but cliched, I don’t know what I would have done without them. As time (years) and distance (sometimes states, sometimes whole continents) tries to move us apart, there seems to be a whole history of love and midnight giggles shared that cant be broken. Again, thank god.
So, to bring the soul searching and nostalgia back to a relevant point, when I was trying to think of a post to mark the new year I wanted to blog about a cocktail. I have been making so many over the year that I felt I had a plethora still to post about. None of the sparkly new concoctions seemed to fit as well as the old favourite – Gin Fizz. This baby is so refreshing and uses pantry staples so I feel as though she is steadfast and a little bit classy, a little bubbly and sweet but with a bite. If I could mix all these women into one drink, I think the Gin Fizz would be an apt one.
Another good friend gave me this little zester to aid in my cocktail making – and remind me of a timely lesson about lemons and cocktails… or is it supposed to be lemonade?
This was another brief post but one to pay a small tribute to the fabulous women in my life as I reflect on the year thats been and think about the year that is to come. I hope that they will forgive me for putting this final picture up to round out this post. Another thing i’ve learned over the years is that its better to ask forgiveness than permission! Oops!
Love these ladies <3
Gin Fizz Ingredients
2 oz dry gin
1/2 oz lemon juice
1tsp sugar
4 oz soda water
2 lemon slices to garnish
ice
Method
1. put ice, gin, lemon juice and sugar in a cocktail shaker and shake until sugar is dissolved
2. pour mix into a tall glass
3. top with ice, soda water and lemon slices
4. sit back in your silk pjamas and pretend you’re in an old hollywood film
Oh baby. I had a slice of delicious lemon drizzle cake from Flour and Stone ages ago and became so obsessed with making it at home that I must have gone through half a dozen recipes before I got to one that I was happy with. Its like sunshine in a cake. This is not at all a recreation but just a damn good lemon cake which I think should be a staple in any baker’s repertoire. I mean, look at it…
Delicious, moist cake with a super tangy, sugary icing. As if your mouth isn’t watering just thinking about making this. P.s. like how arty I am now? With that little lemon in the shot as well as the cake? Yeah, im a real pro.
Ive re-discovered the Nigella Lawson cookbook How To Be A Domestic Goddess and have a few more recipes coming from her in blog posts to come. And yes, they will come. Now that i’m on holidays and have finished a super stressful (but very rewarding) year, I have lots of time for blogging. Fourth post this month peeps! Yeah!
The original recipe just uses normal flour but its such a small percentage of the whole thing that I swapped it with gluten free flour. That way I could make it for my friend’s birthday. I’m still a little wary of the ability of gluten free flour to properly emulate non-gf flour so i’m not quite game to use it in large quantities say for cookie dough or the like. Baby steps for me.
As you can see, the cake is super dense so not for the faint of heart. But, for all its density it is wonderfully moist and the tangy icing sets it off beautifully. The best thing about this is that you can adjust the lemon flavour to your liking just by tweaking how much zest and juice you add. Although, I tend to think the more lemon the better. But hey, do what you like! I’m so glad that I re-discovered this baby as there had definitely been a bit of a citrus drought in the old Casa KB and this cake set us back in balance. And a slice counts as a serve of fruit doesn’t it?
So my lovelies, what old favourite have you re-discovered recently?
Hello Sunshine Lemon Cake (adapted from Nigella Lawson’s Damp Lemon and Almond Cake)
Cake Ingredients
225g soft unsalted butter
225g caster sugar
4 eggs
50g plain gluten free flour
225g ground almonds
zest and juice of 2 lemons
Lemon Icing Ingredients
2 cups icing sugar
1 scant tbsp warm water
lemon juice to taste
Cake Method
1. Cream butter and sugar until super super pale
2. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, adding a quarter of the flour after each addition
3. When everything is incorporated, gently stir in the ground almonds and lemon zest and juice
4. Pour mixture into a 20cm round cake tin and bake for roughly an hour at 180 degrees celsius (check after about 40 mins and if the cake is browning too quickly, cover with alfoil)
5. Boom! Moist and delicious cake. Ready for icing when its cooled.
Icing Method
1. Sift icing sugar into a bowl
2. Stir in lemon juice
3. Add the water in small additions until icing had reached desired consistency. You want it thick and lava-like rather than runny. That way it will coat the top of the cake but give you a nice thick layer of zingy icing.
So, Christmas is creeping closer and so does the pressure of finding at least a passable gift – particularly for co-workers and neighbours. I find these people so difficult to buy for because I want to find something nice but not too pricey. If it’s cute too then that is a massive bonus. Ive learnt that with the flurry of work that happens at the end of Term 4, baking gifts for my teaching colleagues is definitely way too hard so that’s one stand-by option off the table. Then I hit on this. Individual cocktail gifts. Something all teachers definitely need at the end of the year! Perhaps even to keep in your desk in case of emergencies?
so here we have an individual Gin and Tonic!
Huzzah!
It started because I knew that one of my colleagues loves a good gin and tonic and, really, everyone needs a stiff drink by the end of the year. But I thought that giving everyone the same gift was 1. boring and 2. not great because not everyone is a G+T fan (poor souls). I put my thinking cap on and realised that the possibilities really were endless due to the range of tiny bottles of alcohol on sale and small cans of mixers. So I ended up with individual:
G+Ts
Jack and Gingers
Frangelico and Limes
The key to making a nicely wrapped gift out of this is the coaster on the bottom. This gives you some nice crisp edges and ensures that everything stays where you put it. I bought a bunch of them for $4 at KMart! Booyah!
Here they are, all wrapped up and ready to go
Easy peasy!
And fairly cheap too if you’re making a few. The most expensive part of this present is the individual bottles of booze.
All up, depending on where you buy the glasses, this gift will set you back about $10 each.
How are all you lovelies going with your present buying?
Individual Cocktail Gifts – Ingredients
1 glass (doesn’t need to be fancy, just big enough to hold the can of mixer)
1 can of mixer of your choice (tonic, soda water, lime and soda, cola, ginger beer, lemonade)
