I was babysitting a friends children earlier this week, and I was it total heaven. Not only did I get a scrumptious meal cooked for me, a honeycomb magnum (ice cream), I also got a pile of her great food magazines to keep me occupied all night.
I love flicking through food magazines, my heart skips a beat and I get so excited and enthusiastic when I look at them, thousands of ideas run through my head. How did they do that? Wow look at that prop! What could I make? How could I photograph it? I don’t get excited about much but food that is presented and photographed well makes me so happy, it just so inspiring. This next recipe is inspired by my night of indulgent magazine flicking.
Recipe
Honey Cake with Candy Apricots
Soda Bread
Last Saturday, I had a wedding to photograph 3 hours from Melbourne in a little town on the Victoria and New South Wales boarder. Me being me, I left 6 hours hours early. So having plenty of time to kill I stopped in at a few little towns on the way. One in particular took my fancy and I have now fallen in love with. A town called Chiltern, its like it came out of a movie set, a town that has almost stood still since the time of the gold rush. Its so picture perfect and quaint. It has so many Antique shops for a town as small, a junk collectors heaven.
In this town there is a little junk shop that is so full to the brim you won’t believe your eyes, I walked in and just stood still, it was incredible.
Behind the desk sat a older gentleman, Ned, who is 95. He owns and runs this little shop, and wow what a man. He had so many story’s to tell about his life, and just one I would like to share with you, the one that inspired this bread.
When Ned was a young man, newly returned from the war, he headed to a small town where his mother was living at the time, in order to start a bakery. Being the end of the war supplies were slim. Ned took all the money he had and brought two big bags of flour, having no yeast and knowing full well how to make some good damper from his war days, he mixed the flour with some baking soda and water and went off and forgot about it for a few hours.
He told me the dough doubled in size and he punched it down and formed one hundred loafs of bread. He placed the bread in the oven and the smell attacted all the towns folk. Who came out in search of the freshly baked bread. Ned said he sold every loaf in less that ten minutes not even having time to wrap the bread for them. And that was the start of Ned very first business and he has never worked for a boss, his entire life.
Its amazing the stories that our elders can tell us we just need to take the time to listen. If your ever in chiltern seek out Ned’s little shop and meet the man, I’m sure he will have a story to tell you, he certainly made my day.
Today I decided to try out some of this soda bread and found a recipe in an old cook book that sadly has no cover so I cannot tell you the name.
Hokey Pokey Ice Cream
Apologies for being very slack with updating the blog in the past month, I returned home to New Zealand, the land of the long white cloud, for a couple of weeks. Then when I got back I have been flat chat shooting weddings, so simply haven’t had the time. I went to New Zealand to go to my nephews 1st Birthday who I had never met, so thought it was time I went over. He is so adorable, one very cute baby.
I had such a wonderful time in New Zealand, I always feel like I’m returning home when I go there, the country side is so lush and green. I get to catch up with all my friends and family, and eat some amazing food.
Whenever I return to New Zealand I live on ice cream for the entire time, so much so that my Uncle stocks up when he knows I will be in town. He went out and brought 3 tubs and I showed up with 1 so we had 4, 2 litter tubs to get through. Yep thats right 8 litters of ice cream. Good thing ice cream is my favourite food.
So I thought it fitting that for the first recipe I posted on my return would be a kiwi classic, Hokey Pokey Ice Cream!!! For those of you that think hokey pokey is a dance (my boyfriend included) where have you been living? Obviously not in New Zealand! It is the greatest ice cream in the world!! Hokey Pokey is what most people would know as honey comb, and when you put it in to ice cream its like a marriage made in heaven.
To make these little chunks of gold only requires 3 ingredients, its one of the easiest recipes. You could coat the Hokey Pokey in chocolate and make your own home make crunchies or violent crumbles, but I think its best in ice cream.