DESSERTS using Native Foods

[Shalem]

For the Wild fruits in syrup used in the pavlova nests above, the jar says they are gluten free.

Some things it contains are apple juice, muntries, quandongs, native currants, passionberries, illawara plums and desert limes.

There was a gorgeous syrupy perfume smell as soon as the jar was opened, disappeared soon after.

[Bluetongue]

Ok you've inspired me enough to actually get off my derierre and give this cooking malarky a go. Someone gave me Mark Olive's book, so I'll have a crack at the cheesecake... if it looks respectable enough I'll post pics.

Those pavlova nests look amazing too ~ thanks so much for posting pics, Shalem.

[eataust]

Cheesecake can be painful to make - it's all very well to say "cream the cheese" but actually it's really tricky. If you've got a Kenwood Chef or similar, use the "K" beater - the one you'd use for cakes. Don't use the whisk attachment because the cheese just gets caught up and stays put. Microwaving it very briefly to soften helps a lot too.

Other than that, however, lemon myrtle, wattleseed and cheesecake are a truly brilliant mix. Actually, most bushfruits go amazingly with cheesecake, probably because of the sweet/savoury nature of the cake itself, which mixes really well with the tart/sharp sweetness of bushfruits and berries. Quandong soaked in Jaggard (quandong liqueur) was FABULOUS.

[Shalem]

I've never found unbaked biscuit based cheesecakes to be painful or tricky (I've never tried baked ones with pastry bases). They're one of the easiest and enjoyable desserts I've ever made (and eaten).

A mixer whisk attachment is typically designed to be used for incorporating air into something, Eg for eggs, egg whites, cream, etc. The mixer manual will also advise on this.

A mixer beater attachment, like in the photo I attached further above for my cheesecake, is used to mix and beat mixtures.

I don't think I mentioned further above that the cream cheese should be softened to room temp (I take mine out of the fridge and leave it there till soft). I didn't go into those details as cheecake recipes will say "softened" etc.

Before I bought my latest mixer, I used a hand balloon whisk many times for stirring, mixing and beating mixtures together, from thin to dense thick mixtures.

I've been planning to make that lemon ironbark cheesecake again. For those of you in the forum keen or interested in trying out a cheesecake but don't have any appliance, I'll make the filling by hand and post up some pics and info etc. Hopefully I'll get the chance and time to do it. Its filling uses cream cheese, condensed milk, cream, lemon juice.

Some cheesecakes don't have bases, eg I read of a bushfood cheesecake the other day that didn't have a base. Though I've never tried it, a TV chef crushed biscuits inside a ziplock bag with a rolling pin, so it may be possible to do a biscuit base like this, but I'll do my base for this cheesecake electrically, as the filling is what I'll be concentrating on.

As I mentioned further above, cheesecakes come in various dairy fillings, so cream cheese isn't the only type of filling. There are even softer cheeses and diary ingredients than cream cheese, eg yoghurt, ricotta cheese, cottage cheese, quark cottage cheese, etc, so these may even be easier to beat up by hand.

[Shalem]

Wattleseed Pannacotta garnished with Dining Downunder's rosella confit.

using recipe from www.benjaminchristie.com




This recipe simply involves heating some skim milk, cream, sugar & wattleseed on stovetop. I've made it with full cream milk as that's what I use daily.

Then mixing or dissolving some gelatine into this mixture and straining.

I use gelatine leaves with panacottas. These get soaked in water briefly (see above jug) until it resembles a "sea jellyfish". This happens quickly so with gelatine leaves, it's best not to walk away or they disappear completely into the water.

Benjamin states how much gelatine powder or gelatine leaves to use in this.

I'm not sure on this, but occasionally when I made other panacottas with gelatine leaves, the panacotta didn't set. Two possibilities for this could be not enough gelatine leaves or the mixture wasn't heated enough. If anyone knows the answer, please let me know.




Seen above, the ground wattleseed produces a beautiful type of coffee colour.

Pour into dariole moulds and pop into fridge to set.

When I unmould mine from a metal mould, I run a knife around it. This causes my panacottas to sometimes not have a nice smooth edge like in this photo.

I'm suspecting plastic flexible dariole moulds might fix this, but I haven't bought these yet.

Perhaps a chef or anyone else in the forum could advise me?

[Shalem]

Pavlova topped with Australian native (indigenous) fruits






Native Fruit toppings: Top l-r clockwise:
Australian Desert Limes in syrup,
riberries,
Dining Downunder's rosella confit,
native currants,
Outback Pride's wild fruits in syrup,
red finger limes.

If anyone else has ideas for arranging native fruits on pavlovas, please let me know as this is my first large pavlova with native fruits and I hope it doesn't look overcrowded.

Perhaps an arrangement like this may be better suited to small pavlova nests.

[Shalem]

Bluetongue,

thanks for your comments Jan12.

Looking forward to seeing your cheesecake.

[Shalem]

When I went to buy more jars of Australian Wild Fruit in Syrup, I found they're on special today from Oxfam online shop for $7.15 ea.

www.oxfamshop.org.au

They've got a section called Indigenous Range with quite a number of foods, some of which are gluten free.

For more info/pics on this jar, refer pavlova nests & whole pav in this topic

[Shalem]

Home made RIBERRY DESSERT TOPPING

Syzygium leuhmanii

Stovetop: 100g riberries, sugar, water, gluten free arrowroot, Lilly Pilly liqueur

takes several minutes

for cheesecakes, mousse, icecreams, pavlova nests, muffin batters etc.

I have not tested it in all these yet.

[Shalem]

CHOCOLATE WATTLESEED MOUSSE

ready for Valentine's Day tomorrow.

DELICIOUS!!! Together, Chocolate and wattleseed are an excellent combination.


Recipe

Used my normal choc mousse recipe but with additions:

1) 1-2 tbsps Wattleseed Extract from Cherikoff Dining Downunder into the whipped cream;

2) Softened wattleseed: 1.5-2 tbsps roasted ground wattleseed soaked in some boiling water. The wattle "swells" up and becomes a sort of thick paste. I did this to soften the seeds in case they'd be too "gritty" or crunchy in the mousse. End result was they were nice in the mousse, not crunchy.

3) Couverture chocolate idea from Benjamin Christie

(Have also made very delicious choc mousses using dark compound chocolate buttons.)





MOUSSE DECORATIONS


Rich & delicous plain, but here's some final touches.

Riberries in Syrup

Wattleseed chocolate mousse topped with homemade Riberry Dessert Topping from previous post.

Benjamin Christie's got a choc mousse recipe on his website topped with Riberry Confit from Cherikoff Dining Downunder online store, so this is where I got this idea from. (Haven't used confit here as I have none).


Other Options

- Wattleseed cream (cream and wattleseed extract)
- Native Peppermint chocolate
- Rosella flowers in syrup



CHOCOLATE MOUSSE INGREDIENTS

Once cream is whipped and egg whites whipped to soft peaks, mousse simply involves stirring in one thing after another.

Home made Wattleseed Extract: With the soften wattleseed paste, was a small amount of liquid leftover. This was consistent in its smell and colour to the Wattleseed Extract from Cherikoff Dining Downunder.



My Wattleseed Chocolate Mousse just after it'd been whipped and mixed together, all done by my mixer and whisk attachment. Simple and easy!

Note: choc mousse can also be made by hand involving whipping and stirring motions.





Speckled effect from ground wattleseed

[Shalem]

Wild Rosella Jelly

using wild rosella flowers. More info in Rosella Topic.

Delicious. Can be made in a jelly mould and served on its own at children's parties, or served with custard or in a trifle.

Next time I make one in mould, I'll post pic.

[Shalem]

BUSHFOOD TRIFLES

We had a dinner evening with Mum and it was my job to do the dessert, so I thought it would be lovely to try a bushfood trifle.

To my surprise, Mum and my husband said they enjoyed it immensely and each finished their own.

Assembling a Trifle

Mum taught me years ago to make a trifle and her process lof layering was: Slices of jam swiss roll cake on the bottom, then jelly, custard, canned peach slices and cream on the top. They look effective in clear individual glasses, or a large clear serving bowl.

My trifle layers

1. Cinnamon Myrtle Cupcakes using Teacake batter from Kay Joyce's "Bushfood Herbs & Spices" book; Poured some Wild Fruit syrup over the cakes.

2. Wild Rosella Jelly - Juleigh Robins "Wild Food" book;

3. Lemon Myrtle Custard - Kay Joyce's pavlova in "Bushfood Herbs & Spices" book;

4. Outback Pride Wild Fruit in Syrup & home made Riberry Dessert Topping;

5. Wattleseed Cream using Cherikoff's Wattleseed Extract. (Note: cream looks whitish as running low on extract).

6. Cream decorations: Ground wattleseed or Riberry Dessert Topping.




Above: all the layers except the cream to illustrate the native fruit layer, and also that the trifle could be served like this without cream.

Options:
A friend's mother onced served me her trifle with sherry on the cake, but I prefer my trifles without alcohol. If you like alcohol in your trifle, it's possibile to try a bush liqueur (see Liqueur Topic).

Question: I've seen photos of trifles where each layer is very precise, neat and even. Does anyone have tips on how to do this?

[Shalem]

WILD ROSELLA CHEESECAKE


Recipe 1: I used the cheesecake recipe from "Bushfood Herbs & Spices" book and put some home made wild rosellas in syrup into the filling. Of course, with trillions of cheesecake recipes around, it's possible to try this with others.


Recipe 2: There's a wild rosella cheesecake recipe in Wild Lime book (Juleigh Robins) which I tried a couple of years ago. She uses chopped raw rosella flowers in the filling, which I mentioned elsewhere in the forum, that it didn't appeal to me as I felt the filling was crunchy. I prefer the flowers sweet & soft in this cheesecake. However, that's a personal thing, so others may enjoy the Wild Lime recipe.


Wild Rosella Syrup Topping: This is a home made syrup using equal parts of chopped rosellas, sugar and water. Boiled down to a syrup, then blended with a stick blender, strained, and re-boiled down again.

When Mum ate a slice of this cheesecake, she didn't know what the syrup was made of, thinking it was toffee syrup. I also thought it tasted like a toffee/caramel syrup and found that interesting. I suspected this was contributed by the sugar. However, my husband said my dehydrated rosella flowers (in Dehydrator topic) tasted like toffee apple, so perhaps rosellas produce a toffee/caramel flavour.



A homemade rosellas in syrup, similar to above, but more thick & dense, was put into cheesecake filling.




Cheesecake filling: Using mixer and flat beater which did a great job distributing the thick rosella mixture evenly through the filling. Making filling by hand instead, would just involve beating/stirring.

[Shalem]

BABAS


Here's a quick simple dessert that can be served to family or friends.

It's a type of muffin that uses white bread flour & yeast. After it's cooked, it gets hot sugar syrup poured over it, & garnished with Rainforest Lime Confit. Traditionally, these are rum babas which get rum put into the syrup. But I've used Lilly Pilly liqueur instead.

Any of the Fruit Confits from Cherikoff Dining Dowunder store could be used to garnish these, making the whole process simple, and very appealing to the eye. {More pics/info on fruit confits in Dining D'er topic}.

[Recipe: For more info on how to make babas, refer Breads topic].

Served with thick pre-whipped cream sprinkled with ground lemon myrtle. In Qld, this cream (called "Dollop") is available from supermarkets & dairy home deliveries. It's really handy, able to be served straight out of the tub.

[Shalem]

For a while now, I've been curious to know what these are. They come out of Outback Pride's Wild Fruit in Syrup jar.

Question: Does anyone know what they are? Could they be passionberries?

When I baked them in my native fruit muffins (Muffins topic), they had a taste and texture similar to when I've baked apple slices, say on an apple teacake.

(More photos of this fruit in this Desserts topic.)