Serves: 6
Prep: 5 minutes
Cook: 30 minutes

Ingredients:
2 punnets of strawberries
1.5 cups of white wine
1 cup of sugar
.5 cup of water
1 star aniseed
1 cinnamon bark

1. Top the strawberries and chop in half.
2 Pop all ingredients into a saucepan and bring to the boil
3. Simmer for 30 minutes
4. Blend and refrigerate until cool
5. Serve cold

Optional: You may wish to strain to remove the seeds and roughage. I think it is fine without it. However, if you allow to sit long enough the soup separates in two. By skimming the roughage off the top you get a clearer soup as shown below.

Because I didn’t eat all of it at the time – the remainder was frozen, turning it into this great sorbet sort of thing. Frozen strawberry soup tastes lovely. I think this soup could also have very easily be turned into jelly.

Makes: 25 small cakes
Prep: 10 minutes
Cook time: 8 minutes
Icing: depends how fancy you are!

Ingredients:
100g butter , at room temperature
100g caster sugar
2 eggs
100g self-raising flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
½ cap of vanilla essence
200g dark chocolate , melted
decoration

1. Mix the soft butter and sugar together until well combined
2. Add the eggs, and flour and mix well to make the foundation. This is the point where you can divide the mixture and make half chocolate or half vanilla flavored. If you choose to make them all chocolate or all vanilla you should double the amount listed in the ingredients above as it is designed to cater for splitting the batch and making chocolate and vanilla.
3. Spoon into cupcake papers and bake for 8 minutes.
4. Once cool, melt the chocolate and ice & decorate

I had to bake mine in two batches, but the cooking time is so fast it doesn’t matter. Also – you can see from my picture how not using a muffin trey to support the cupcake mold turned out – flat and fat cupcakes rather than tall and chubby… I’ll be getting a trey for next time.

Makes: 50ish

Ingredients:
250g butter
1 cup icing sugar
1 shortblack
2 & 3/4 cups plain flour

1. Leave the butter out & allow to soften so that it is really mushy and easy to work with.
2. Preheat the oven at 180 degrees Celsius while preparing the mixture
3. In a large bowl beat the soft butter and icing sugar together until the mixture becomes quite pale.
4. Add the sortblack and mix well until combined
5. Add flour a cup at a time and mix in until the mixture is stiff
6. Roll the mixture into small balls and place on the tray around a centre meter apart
7. Squash flat with a fork to make the lovely shape and put in the oven to bake for 15 or so minutes.

I don’t bake often so I’ve copied this recipe at Kitchen Unplugged to the letter. It’s a great cake and so damn moist!

I think next time I’ll be brave enough to modify it a little or use the learnings to apply that lovely caramelized pomegranate for a different dish. Oh my – yummy!

Party plans will be forth coming.

The apex of the Festival of Lex was enjoyed on Sunday late afternoon at The Famous Spiegeltent where we were treated to cupcakes by Amanda and Le Clique by Brett. THANKYOU!!!!

Hangovers were rife and I was just tired – but it was a really great night!!!

Of course – more festivals will be covered through out the year including:

Queer Screen Festival
Festival of My Mother
Festival of Love Declared
Festival of Melinda
Festival of Roxanne
Festival of Vera and Charmaine
Festival of Me….
And so on… :}

We are all hoping that Amanda will comment on this post with the recipe. :]

Serves: 4
Prep: 5 min
Cook time: 25 min

Ingredients:
150g of Arborio rice
500ml of milk
250ml of water
1 cinnamon stick
1 teaspoon of natural vanilla essence
1 pinch of salt
1 huge teaspoon of honey

I grilled some fruit to serve, but you can always add sultanas during the cooking process if desired.

1. Combine rice, milk, water, cinnamon and vanilla essence with a pinch of salt to a heavy based saucepan and bring to the boil
2. Once boiled, turn down to a simmer and cook for around 25 minutes or until the rice is cooked and fluffy and the moisture is almost entirely absorbed. Remember that Arborio rice is meant to come out looking creamy which is why it is the perfect rice for this dish. As this dish thickens it will require more of your attention, so towards the end be prepared to stand next to it and stir constantly to prevent sticking.
3. Remove the cinnamon stick and stir through the honey.
4. Serve hot or cold.

PS. After learning that vanilla beans cost around AU$5 each I have since had wild dreams of becoming a vanilla farmer. I’ll have to move to the tropics. How awesome is that! I think I’ve dreamed up my sea change already.

Serves 2
Prep: 15 min
Cook time: 10 min

Ingredients:
1 cup plain flour
2 eggs
¾ cup of milk
2 tablespoons of melted butter
Fruit, in this case – pineapple, pear and kiwi fruit

For people who like to eat a tin of pineapple for breakfast.

1. Disolve the sugar into the melted butter
2. Mix in the flour, two eggs and milk blending with a bar mix until there are no lumps. This will create some air bubbles so you may want to rest the mixture for ten or so minutes to prevent tearing. I banged the bowl onto the bench which seemed to knock out quite a few.
3. Melt butter in a pan for cooking and spoon the mixture onto the pan. Once the mixture has hit the pan you need to be quick and angle the pan to spread the mixture as much as you can so that you have thin crepes.
4. As they begin to firm shift slightly in the pan to prevent sticking, but cook until it begins to become golden on each side before turning.
5. Serve with fruit, mint, honey or cream if you like.