Crunchy Blueberry Muffins

Makes 8 large muffins, or 16 mini muffins





1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
1 cup fresh blueberries

Topping
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup butter, cubed
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.
Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, salt and baking powder. Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup. Mix this with flour mixture. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups right to the top, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.

To Make Crumb Topping: Mix together 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 1/4 cup butter, and 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon. Mix with fork, and sprinkle over muffins before baking.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done.

Grublover comment
These muffins are so delicious and the crumb topping just makes them all crunchy mmmmmmm. Great for breakfast.

Tigerlils II

Stupidly I returned to Tigerlils, being sucked in by a free lunch.

Again I was extremely disappointed.

No need to even comment on the food because I feel sick to the stomach thinking about it but it looked and tasted like it had been sitting around with flies laying eggs on it for hours.

I vomited straight after.

Don’t go here if you value your health at all.

Flower Drum…review by Jessica Anderson

Flower Drum Restaurant
Melbourne 17 Market Lane 3000
(03) 9662 3655




It was a rather interesting weekend when my friend decided we needed to eat somewhere fantastic. Too long had we savoured the kebab and cheap pizza, we needed something special. Flowerdrum has a reputation that all restaurants would envy and so we went to find out if it was true.

On entry we were greeted by a lovely door man who escorted us to the lift and took us to the restaurant. I must admit, the decor disappointed me and the repeated “do you have a booking?” was also frustrating, especially because the restaurant was no where near full! We did however have a booking and were taken to our table.

Any reservations I may have had after the first impressions was whisked away as our lovely waiter Barney came to look after us. We ordered the set menu, which was a modestly priced $55 for lunch (it is $150 at dinner). From that moment on, Flowerdrum became everything we hoped.

We ordered cocktails (Planter’s punch and Pimm’s punch) which were a fresh and cool alternative to wine. They also complimented the Chinese food perfectly.

Our first course was three dumplings. One was filled with a smooth crab filling, another with a bitey pork and the last, was seafood which was dipped into a soy and ginger sauce. All were sublime and had us hankering for more. The texture was perfect, the dumplings held their shape and didn’t fall apart in your chopsticks and the sizes were large, but not too big for your mouth.

The next course was a deep fried garfish. Firstly let me say ..there was not one bone. The fillets were long and perfectly fried for the crunch on the outside and the soft/flaky in the middle. This was lovely, however was the least favourite of all the courses

The third course was peking duck. The trolley was wheeled out to the table, and I almost squealed in delight. The pancakes were rolled in front of us, a large cheek of crispy skinned duck was placed with the hoi sin sauce, cucumber and spring onion. It was sublime. I savoured my first and last bite and was so relieved when the waiter asked if we were ready for our 2nd one. Same again, beautiful duck, chewy and soft texture of the pancake, all perfect.

The last course was breathtaking. Grain fed rib eye cooked medium rare in a black pepper sauce. I have never in my life had meat melt in my mouth the way this cut did. It was by far our favourite. The rib eye was cooked perfectly and the broccolini that accompanied it was firm and delicious. The cut was very generous and still rare in the middle; the restaurant could have served only this dish and would still be regarded as one of Australia’s best.

Our other waiters; Jeff, Tommy and Trainee were all as fantastic as Barney. They had pleasing, genuine smiles and they made sure out glasses of water were constantly filled (it seems like a simple gesture but was much appreciated). The timing of the meals between each course was also down to a fine art. I never felt starved, but always ready for my next meal and the waiters never made us wait too long.

We were brought coffee and some almond biscuits to finish our meal and were suitably stuffed by the end, but did not feel gluttonly full. The meal really was a great experience. I recommend it to all who are in Melbourne to try this institution on the restaurant scene.

Jessica Anderson

The Pony Club…review by Lisa Tibbits

Mt Lawley 620 Beaufort St 6050
(08) 9228 8801
www.theponyclub.com.au

I had the great pleasure of dining at The Pony Club in Mount Lawley on Saturday night. I must admit that after reading both rave and scathing reviews of the restaurant, did not have very high expectations of the place and knew that it was going to be an expensive evening. Whilst the evening definitely hurt the hip pocket, I had a great time and was definitely impressed with the food, the wine and, of course, the company!

After trying for weeks to organise a girly catch-up between 5 very busy ladies, we finally managed to lock in a 7pm start on a busy Saturday night. We arrived a little late which didn’t turn out to be a problem as there was only a hand full of diners in the candlelit room. We were seated in a corner of the restaurant near the entrance. I thought this was going to annoy me as we would have people walking past us all evening, but to be honest I didn’t even thing about it again after 5 minutes of being there. If anything, the staff would maybe have regretted seating us there as we definitely got quite loud and silly towards the end of the evening

After taking a few happy snaps and settling in, we decided to order some drinks. It took quite some time to attract the waiters attention, but eventually a bottle of the Brokenwood Semillon ‘06 (Hunter Valley) ($37) was delivered to our table. One of us decided to get into the cocktails early and ordered an ‘Emma Dilemma’ (vodka, muddled pineapple, lychee and basil) ($14.50). Both were sensational, although we were disappointed to discover that we had actually ordered the last bottle of the Brokenwood as we would have loved another bottle.

With lots of girl talk and gossip to catch up on, a glance at the extensive tapas menu revealed that we were going to have to really think about what to order and how many dishes to get between us. Thankfully we turned the menu over and discovered that we could choose from 2 ‘banquettes’ - $50 or $60 per person which showcased the best dishes on the menu. We decided to go all out and order the $60 banquet. Sorted. (I’ll quote the individual prices next the to food which we actually ate to give you an idea of prices).

While we finished off the bottle of Brokenwood, some olives with chilli garlic and lemon fennel ($6) arrived at our table, along with some salted almonds ($6). As we got stuck into the appetisers, we noticed out glasses were empty and decided to order more wine. Again, it took ages for us to attract the attention of the waiter. When we finally managed to call someone over, we ordered a round of ‘Peachy Keens’ (pompero rum, peach liqueur, muddled peach and lime) ($14.50), a few ‘How’da Like Them Apples?!’ (apple vodka and liqueur, muddled apple and cardamon pods) ($14.50), as well as a bottle of the Lenton Brae late Harvest Semillon ‘04 ($27) and ‘The Yard’ Shiraz (Frankland River) ($38.00). The Shiraz was sensational.

Our next round of food arrived and consisted of:

Haloumi, pan seared with a chilli lime pesto ($9.80)
Char Grilled asparagus spears with goats curd and porcini oil ($11.30)
Truffled honey Persian feta crostini with walnuts and torn basil ($11.20)
House cured juniper salmon served with a beetroot and orange blossom salad ($14.80) and
Char grilled king [prawn with cucumber, paw paw and pomegranate molasses ($16.20).
My favourite dish was the Persian feta, which just melted in your mouth and was absolutely divine. Each serve also catered for 5 people, so we all got an equal share of everything with none to spare.

There was probably a half hour or 40 minute wait between this course and the next round of food, but that didn’t bother us as we kept drinking and talking and thoroughly enjoying the darkened atmosphere in the restaurant. By this time the restaurant was full and all the diners around us seemed to be having as good a time as us too. When our main courses arrived there was plenty of food to go around. Unfortunately, the menu on the restaurant’s website is obviously not the current menu as I cant remember some of the dishes that we were served. However, we were served with a curry-type dish with chick peas and tomato, a beautiful lamb dish with eggplant and lentils (my favourite dish of the evening, the lamb just crumbled when transferring it from the serving bowl to your plate), a fish dish and also another dish. Every dish was amazing! Most of the main dishes are around $30 per dish if bought individually.

After that we continued drinking (I am pretty sure another few rounds of cocktails were ordered), taking photos, ducking outside occasionally to the comfortable smoking area, generally laughing and having a fun time. We never felt like we had to leave now that we had finished and we spent at least another hour at the table after the main course had been cleared. During this time we also had Churros with chocolate ganach (think doughnuts to dip in chocolate sauce) ($10.50).

At the end of the evening we split the bill evenly. At $120 each (I actually though it was going to be more to be honest!) it was an expensive, but awesome evening. It was definitely a special “once off” night… I dont think I could justify spending $60 on just food for myself again anytime soon, but we all had a brilliant time and I would definitely recommend it for a group of people looking to try something different!

Food: 7.5/10
Drinks: 8/10
Service: 6.5/10
Overall: 7.5/10

Lisa Tibbits aka Mono Lisa

Food and Sex

The world is a kitchen and everyone is a chef… some just have more imagination than others. One doesn’t have to be a prostitute to be good at sex. A chef is just someone who makes money from cooking…

Transformers Cake *Optimus Prime*

Fondant
60g vegetable shortening (copha)
2 Tb lemon juice (for a chocolate cake use 2Tb water and 1 tsp vanilla)
2 Tb water
750g icing sugar

Place shortening, lemon juice and water in a saucepan.

Heat gently, stirring until shortening has melted.

Sift 250g icing sugar into the pan. Stir continuously over low heat.

Once sugar has dissolved stop stirring. As soon as the mixture starts to boil remove it from the heat.

Gradually add enough of the remaining sugar to form a soft paste. Mix until mixture is smooth.

Dust a work surface lightly with icing sugar and knead fondant until it is no longer sticky. Add more icing sugar until fondant is firm.
Stir fondant in an airtight container so it doesn’t dry out.

Working with Fondant
It is quite difficult working with fondant the first time. Here are some tricks we picked up:
- roll the fondant on baking paper. When you have got the desired thickness place the cake on top of the fondant and then curl it up the sides. This saves you picking the fondant up as it will break if you try to do so.
- ‘Patch’ up any bits that crumble off or split with a finger dipped in water.
- If you are adding colour do it when you add the first round of icing sugar - it will be much easier.

Making Optimus Prime
Winny and I made optimus for Dan’s 26th birthday.
First we baked two square chocolate malteser cakes, and one rectangle butter cake.
We cut the malteser cakes into three and then stacked them two high, joining them with a choc malteser butter icing. We then covered them in blue fondant.

We cut the third strips into squares to make the feet and again joined them with butter icing, and covered them in blue fondant.

To make the cab we covered the butter cake in red fondant.

We decorated it using butter icing coloured in grey and black (made with black food dye) butter icing, and silver balls.

Marshmallow headlights, oreo tyres.

We made the logo out of fondant and decorated it with piped black icing.

I feel sick now from eating too much icing….

Apple Custard Streusel Slice

Makes 16 pieces







Pastry
1 and 1/4 cups (155g) plain flour
1 Tb caster sugar
80g butter, melted and cooled
1 egg yolk

Apple Custard Topping
3 green apples
20g butter
4 Tb caster sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup thick cream
1 tsp vanilla essence

Crumble Topping
1/2 cup plain flour
2 Tb dark brown sugar
1/3 cup finely chopped walnuts (or pecans)
60g butter, melted

Lightly grease an 18 x 28 cm shallow tin and line with baking paper, overhanging two opposite sides.

To make the pastry, sift the flour and sugar into a large mixing bowl. Add the melted butter, egg yolk and 2-3 Tb of water and mix until it comes together.
Roll out the dough between two sheets of baking paper to fit the base of the tin. Refrigerate for 20 minutes. Preheat oven to 190 C.
Line the pastry base with baking beads or uncooked rice or beans. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove the paper and beads, reduce oven temperature to 180C and bake for 5 minutes, or until golden (it does not have to be competely cooked or hard at this stage). Leave to cool.

To make the apple custard topping, peel, core and chop the apples and place in a saucepan with the butter, half the sugar and 2 Tb of water. Cover and cook over low heat for 15 minutes, or until soft and pulpy. Uncover and simmer for another 5 minutes, to reduce the liquid. Use a wooden spoon to break down the apples until they have a smooth texture. Leave to cool.

Whisk together the eggs, cream, remaining sugar and vanilla essence in a mixing bowl (hand whisk is fine). Spread the cooled apple mixture over the pastry and then carefully pour the cream mixture over the apple. Bake for 20 minutes, or until the custard has set.

To make the crumble topping, mix together the flour, brown sugar and walnuts in a mixing bowl. Stir in the melted butter until the mixture is crumbly (I found this was too much butter so I ended up adding more flour and sugar). Sprinkle the crumble over the custard and bake for 15 minutes. Leave to cool in the tin nbefore slicing.

Grublover comment
This slice is a real winner - absolutely delicious. It will store for up to a week if refrigerated in an airtight container.
As you can see I didn’t have an 18×28cm tin so I used a round tart tin - worked fine.