Umami? Who, Me?

Leaving aside the more avant garde (Heston Blumenthal, this mean you...), there are a lot of flavours that can be used in both sweet and savoury recipes...

...lemon...

Pictures: The Creative Pot and Three Squabbling Asians

...peanut butter (and, come to that, all sorts of nuts)...

Pictures: Dishing the Divine and Let's Start Simple

...honey (and often maple syrup, too)...

Pictures: The Girl Who Ate Everything and Fisher & Paykel

But do you think that both options work? As far as I’m concerned, peanuts belong firmly on the sweet side of the fence, preferably paired with chocolate and / or caramel. Reese’s peanut butter cups, Snickers bars M&Ms and all kinds of questionable mass-produced suchness* can be devoured in single bounds. Satay sauce, on the other hand, leaves me cold.

Almonds suggest many sweet options than savoury ones – friands, marzipan, amaretti, clafoutis, praline...

Lemon can be a bit more hit and miss. At first glance, it brings to mind dodgy msg-laden Chinese takeaway lemon chicken, and should be avoided like the plague. But lemon with fish can be a great combination. Or lemon risotto. Or with pasta and ricotta...

The one that gets me again and again is bacon. To me, it is unquestionably savoury (hence the curious distaste for the bacon and egg icecream). But I seem to be in a minority...

Bacon meets maple syrup in French toast**

Picture: Tres Lola on Flickr

Bacon with candied popcorn...

Picture: Daily Feed

Bacon chocolate chip cookies...

Picture: Ketchup to Chutney

Maple bacon corn muffins...

Picture: A Spicy Perspective

Sage biscuits with bacon, strawberries and honey crème fraiche

Picture: Zested

Bacon doughnuts...

Picture: Under the High Chair

Bacon cupcakes ...

Picture: 52 Kitchen Adventures

Bacon and strawberry salad (got to get some greens with that bacon every once in a while)...

Picture: Caper Berry

There are even ways to combine the bacon with the peanut butter...

Picture: New England Candy Co on Etsy

For me, these really takes the prize... bacon brownies. No bacon-as-salty-window-dressing here, these have the bacon baked right in. And there are two kinds!

Pictures: The Hungry Engineer... here and here (and the blondies have bourbon as well as bacon!)

Surely only an engineer could come up with these! But they pop up all over the interwebs once you start to fall down that rabbit hole...

But if anybody could convert me to baking with bacon, it might be Lemon Pi... with these macarons... They make bacon look so refined***.

Picture: Lemon Pi

Chances of bacon going out of fashion any time soon?

Picture: Cosmic Firefly on Etsy

* I appear to have invented a word (again). Not necessarily elegant, but useful. And slightly different to suchlike. Hmmm, italics on part of a word. Is that supposed to be done?
** French toast, as far as I’m concerned, should only ever be accompanied by Heinz tomato ketchup and, of course, more French toast.
*** The elegant sort of refined, I mean; not the awful processed kind of refined.

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It's Right Where You Left It

Everybody stop looking!

The snark was trapped inside a notebook all this time. Never mind the forks and hope – you just need to look on Etsy to catch your snark...

Picture: Subu on Etsy

Next time, just remember where you put it before you wander off. After all, your snark is always in the last place you left it (often with your car keys, or else it's fallen down the back of the couch).

If, on the other hand, too many snarks are never enough*, then there is Just The Place For A Snark, which has brilliant illustrations, and possibly the best blog post titles ever. Really.

* Is that possible? I have a sneaking suspicion that there is (or isn't, as the case may be) only one snark...

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Wanting A Badger Doesn't Come Cheap

The Weekend Australian Magazine often has some interesting places on its real estate page, but a recent issue surpassed all expectations...

Oh, that looks pretty. Hang on... nooooo. It can't be. But it is. It's in...

WANTABADGERY...

Imagine living in a town called Wantabadgery - that would just be too good for words! And property in Wantabadgery (this one, at least) clearly carries a hefty price tag. $10 million... you'd want to get a lot of badgers for that kind of cash...

Better get down to Wantabadgery quick, before it goes.

Picture: Sky Kite on Flickr

Although the way this badger's moving, he might be after the hovering cats, instead...

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What's For Dessert?

We’ve had cupcakes (oh, and how). We’ve had doughnuts (just a scattering so far, but it may be building). We’re having macarons in the most extraordinary way (especially when Masterchef got going on them). And when we’re worn out from all of those, and have stopped clutching our bulging tummies... what next?

How about éclairs?

Picture: Tartelette

They have all the potential for the Next Big Thing...

Picture: Simon Food Favourites

... able to be done in an enormous variety of colours and flavours

Picture: Yuichi.Sakuraba on Flickr

... beautiful to photograph

Picture: Serious Eats

... a little tricky to make well , so there’s a sense of accomplishment in mastering them (or finding somewhere else that does!)

Picture: The Puff List

... and, most importantly, delicious!

Picture: Anne's Food

I’ve recently discovered Christophe Adam and his amazing creations for Fauchon. These are definitely setting the ultimate standard in beautiful éclairs...

Picture: Fauchon

They just look so perfect...

Picture: Le Blog Ou Le Gout Se Fait Beau

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Travels With A Penguin

I can’t believe I’m getting quite so excited about the prospect of somewhere I’ve not been before as this... but I am...

Picture: 3 Lambs Graphics on Etsy

I’m not expecting the streets to be paved with gold or anything, but if this exchange is anything to go by, New York could have quite the burgeoning penguin population... there’s something a little Noo Yawk about it...

Picture: Frantic Meerkat on Etsy

I think a penguin in a mink coat trumps a turducken any day of the week (although not to eat, I hasten to add).

All of this has been prompted by the booking of flights yesterday. While this penguin isn't planning any mink coats any time soon... she is going to visit New York. Eeep!

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Unexpected Ideas (Quack)

For very many years indeed, every winter one of my friends and I decide to go for cassoulet. This usually goes something along the lines of... "Duck season!" "Rabbit season!" "Cassoulet season!!". And then, every year, we fail to go. Scheduling nightmare, much?

While contemplating cassoulet, I came across two interesting alternatives...

Firstly, canned confit...

Picture: The Kitchn

For some highly infuriating reason, this is now turning itself into a little ditty in my mind, along the lines of a dodgy riff on Jamiroquai's Canned Heat. But of course. And if you thought it was dangerous ending up on the couch with a packet of Tim Tams or a box of breakfast cereal (moi?), imagine having tins of duck in the pantry...

And secondly, vegetarian confit...

Picture: Smitten Kitchen

This sounds like it might be an oxymoron. But not, it is truly lacking a duck (a smattering of pig doesn't count*). And it doesn't look bad (although it would, in my view, look better with a duck).

Perhaps this year, there will be a cassoulet. A real one... Because it is definitely cassoulet season again.

* Oh god! Did I really just imply that pork is a vegetable. The evil plan of a certain friend of mine to take over the world appears to be working. You with the yum cha, you know who you are!

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Commuting Is An Ass

I would love to get this print put on a t-shirt...

Picture: Roll and Tumble Press on Etsy

... and wear it on the bus*. Especially on a Monday...

* Because, last time I looked, buses were "indoors".

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Following Sweetness

The past few weeks, as well as the usual insanity, have involved a small food expedition. Better still, an expedition in search of baked things (which means provisions for the trip aren't even required - but are still optional!).

I first discovered Sweetness via The Unbearable Lightness of Being Hungry* and, after pootling longingly through their website, decided they had to be sussed out. Far too many options...

Pictures: Sweetness (above), me (all the others)

The first part of the expedition was to the Northside Produce Markets. It was my first time at these, and they were a pleasant surprise, with a good mixture of growers and sellers... the beautiful, sunny morning didn't hurt, either. There was that lovely clear, crispness in the air**, combined with the virtuous feeling of being up and about early on a weekend... which leads to justification of baking for breakfast...

There was a chocolate gluten free brownie...

Any brownie that doesn't taste gluten free is onto a winning formula, and this was sweet and moist without being cloyingly rich.

And there was a white chocolate and raspberry muffin...

...which was also gluten free, and was also very more-ish. You can tell it was good, as it was half demolished by the time I managed to get near it with a camera... Although the brownie may have pipped it to the finish!

This weekend, a more serious foray was called for, and there was hiking out to the Sweetness shop, itself a charming little pistachio confection, somewhat incongruously situated in Epping. And everything in it looks both astonishingly photogenic and delicious. And there are little samples of almost everything, to help you decide just how much just has to come home with you.

The spoils of the afternoon were a lemon and coconut cake...

And also a pair of blueberry marshmallows...

There were twenty-two flavours of marshmallow. Narrowing down the choice (and limiting it to just one) required an inordinate amount of dithering, and several samples. And they have about as much in common with those pink-and-white marshmallows that come out of bags in the supermarket as Buzo's vincisgrassi*** does with fried lasagne.

The final part of the baking expedition was the discovery that there are vanilla chiffon cakes. With creme patissiere filling. I'm not sure that even superfluous use of italics can express how exciting that prospect is. One very such cake is lurking quietly on the horizon, biding its time before making an appearance.

* When I mentioned having found her online, Gena, who owns Sweetness, was interested in which blogger I'd found her through, and was very kindly disposed to food bloggers in general - yay!
** This gives away how long ago it was - that clear crispness has lately turned into a grey shiveriness which is much less appealing.
*** Which approaches astonishing.

P.S. Big apologies to anybody who got the draft version of this yesterday... mysterious Blogger fail. Harrumph!

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Seeing The Light... Then Eating It

Too much thinking about food can result in losing the capacity for rational thought, and considering buying lots of things that take up space and won’t get used much. A madeleine pan? Of course I need something that can only get used for making one thing. One thing that is unlikely to be made all that often. Why not!

Picture: BootsNGus on Etsy

Much as I love the idea of just moving into the Bay Tree, I can’t quite decide whether this is the right side of whimsical-and-baking-obsessed. In the right house, it might work perfectly – lots of white cabinetry, a scrubbed wooden table, and copper pans on hooks.

Although rational thought hasn't deserted me so much that I think it could be got away with in my slightly less spacious kitchen...

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What Do You Get If You Cross...?

Snow leopards, which were occupying my mind a little more than usual the other day are also called ounces. My mum advised me of this, and I was initially convinced she was winding me up*. Why does an animal need another name for itself anyway? Is it only called it under particular circumstances (like stoats and ermines, say)? And where does the name come from?

Picture: Kitchen Critic

When you look at a snow leopard, you don’t exactly think of ounces – they look a bit too substantial**. If hedgehogs or guinea pigs were called ounces, it might be vaguely more logical. Especially guinea pigs – it’s only a stone’s throw from a unit of currency to a unit of measure, after all.

But what happens if you cross a snow leopard with a tare panda? Aside from ending up with something that doesn’t have the energy to wrap its tail round its neck, that is. Perhaps a tare panda is designed for keeping an ounce in. Or maybe it should be the other way round?

Picture: Kurai Karasu 49 on Photobucket

* How does one animal get odd pseudonyms and complex tails (well, one each, anyway)? That seems to be more than a fair share of interesting things.
** Next time I’m baking something from an old (or US) recipe, I suspect there will be thoughts about how many snow leopards fit in a mixing bowl...

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