Tag Archives: White chocolate

Super Sweet Award!

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Barb Beacham, a wonderful blogger friend whose site is called, “Life in the Foothills,” included me this week for the Super Sweet Award! Thank you Barb. Barb and I started following each other soon after I started blogging. Barb is the wonderful person who sent me a bottle of Spike to try. Barb blogs about food and her marvellous life in the Sierra Foothills.

Please visit her site at: Life in the Foothills http://salmonfishingqueen.wordpress.com/

Now the rules of this award are:

1 – That I give credit to the person who nominated me. Again thank you Barb!

2 – That I answer the super sweet questions. Here are the questions and answers:

Q1: Cookies or cake? I’m a cake person. Although I do like white chocolate and Queensland nut (Macadamia nuts) biscuits (cookies) best. In terms of cake I like a nice Queensland nut (Macadamia but) carrot cake made with crushed pineapple and vanilla icing (fristing).

Q2: Chocolate or vanilla? I am a real fan of vanilla. Vanilla icing on anything really. Vanilla ice cream. Vanilla slice is my favourite sweet.

Q3: What is my favourite sweet treat? Vanilla slice is my favourite. I’ve blogged about vanilla slice before. Check out 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Q4: When do I crave sweet things the most? After a long day at work especially if it’s been tedious and there have been lots of people issues.

Q5: If you had a sweet nickname what would it be? Easy, Yummy Lummy.

3 – The last part of this award is that I nominate a Baker’s Dozen of super sweet bloggers:

Wayfaring Chocolate
Jude the Foodie
Live2EatEat2Live Blog
petit4chocolatier
Back Road Journal
Sybaritica
she cooks, he eats
Putney Farm
BunnyandPorkBelly
Rantings of an Amateur Chef
Texana’s Kitchen
Susartandfood’s Blog
Spoon Fest

These are in no particular order, and each one of them is special to me in one way or another! My very best to those listed.

Thank you again Barb!

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Seasalt Dining in Bruce

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Last night we ventured out with friends to a newish restaurant in Canberra. Seasalt Dining in Bruce is in The Hub apartment complex in Bruce new The Canberra Stadium and the Australian Institute of Sport.

Last night the Brumbies were playing the Sharks at Canberra Stadium so we were a little nervous about parking. In the end it turned out well (the Brumbies were defeated too). They have dedicated parking and from the kitchen the chefs and wait staff can monitor the car park.

The service was really very good. The wait staff were cheerful and helpful. Nothing was too difficult for them and they enjoyed a little playful bantered when we “complained” our desserts weren’t big enough. The menu is pretty good and the place opens for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I elected not to have an entrée while my dinner companions enjoyed Thai fish cakes and seared scallops. I waited instead for the seafood platter, which according to the menu looked like a collection of entrée dishes plus a piece of fish (salmon last night). That’s what it turned out to be. It was very nice, although, compared with our recent Maestral experience, this was not a seafood platter for two. I ate this easily by myself without any discomfort. The fish cakes were a little rubbery compared with the excellent fish cakes from Lemon Grass. That said, the seared scallops were divine.

The restaurant has a nice cake cabinet and I chose white chocolate cheese cake with cream and ice cream.

I would recommend Seasalt Dining in Bruce to anyone living in Canberra. It will soon have its own dedicated website and all going well my fat face will appear after a photograph was taken of me last night with my seafood platter :-)

I kept a parking spot for our friends.

Fish cakes

Seared scallops

Platter plate 1

Plate plate 2. Oysters natural and Kilpatrick.

It came with really nice potato chips (Fries for friends in the USA).

All together. I also got a plate of Thai fish cakes.

White chocolate cheesecake with ice cream and whipped cream.

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Australia Day cheesecake

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For the past few weeks Bron has been talking about cheesecake since she made a white chocolate cheesecake some weeks ago. She has had her eye on a recipe from Nigella Lawson. To give it more interest, Bron chose Nigella’s Chocolate peanut butter cheesecake.

I need to digress and explain why this has more interest for me. I grew up in Queensland in the 1960s and 1970s. We only knew of peanut paste and Queensland nuts. We’d heard of peanut butter and Macadamia nuts but our impression was that only southerners used those terms. As Queenslanders we knew better. There are a few sites that mention the debate, e.g., Peanut Butter or Peanut Paste? and there is also a Facebook page. As far as I’m concerned, the edible species in the genus Macadamia found in Eastern Australia are Queensland nuts and that’s how I shall always know them. While it may be Australia Day, I am and always will be a proud convinced and convicted Queenslander.

Last night I also learned that 24 January is national peanut butter day in the USA from food blogger John-Bryan Hopkins also known as the Foodimentary Guy.

Back to the important stuff though. This is a baked cheesecake. Nigella describes it best, “This is not for the faint-hearted. Unashamed indulgence, wallowingly so, is what this recipe is all about: think reese’s Peanut Butter cup in cheesecake form. For that reason, I don’t bake this in a water-bath as I do the Banoffee cheesecake. The water-bath is excellent if you want a silky texture, but for me, the peanut butter constituent demands a certain amount of pleasurable, palate-cleaving clagginess. And baked like this, too, the top gets a slight crust when it’s cooked, making it all the easier to spread the chocolate topping.”

Baking in the oven

Straight out of the oven

Time for the chocolate topping.

Here comes the chocolate topping

It is good.

Smoothed over chocolate

Melted chocolate swirls.

Chocolate swirls

The finished product with the Queensland nut brittle similar to the cheesecake we had at Kingley’s steak and crab house.

A perfect slice of cheesecake with Queensland nut brittle

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Some of the preparation happened in a new blender.