Pumpkin Streusel Cake

After making pumpkin soup, pasta with a pumpkin, bacon and blue cheese sauce and giving a huge wedge away, I still had some of our GIANT pumpkin left over!

I haven't done any baking for a while, so figured this was the perfect time to experiment with a pumpkin cake. You can make carrot or zucchini cakes, so why not pumpkin?

I modified a recipe for a carrot cake that I picked up from somewhere years ago and decided to dress it up with layers of a streusel topping. You could probably put the topping onto the top of the cake, rather than baking it in layers, but I think it was nice to have the surprise of the nuts, sugar, cinnamon and dates inside. I used mixed nuts as that's what I had in the cupboard, but feel free to use your favourite type of raw nut. Walnuts, almonds, pistachios or pecans would all be lovely.

The pumpkin flavour wasn't as strong as I thought it might be, but it certainly added a different flavour than carrot or zucchini. Slightly more earthy and not quite as sweet.

All in all, I was pretty impressed with how the cake turned out. It does take a long time to cook, so you might need to protect the top of the cake with some foil if it's starting to brown too much.

I didn't ice my cake, because the kids wanted to eat some straight out of the oven, but you could simply dust with icing sugar or make up some cream cheese icing. In fact, lemony cream cheese icing would be perfect on this cake for a morning or afternoon tea treat.

Pumpkin Streusel Cake

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup mixed nuts, chopped

1/3 cup dates, finely chopped

1 tsp cinnamon

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and set aside.

3 cups SR flour

1 1/2 cups caster sugar

2 cups pumpkin, grated

3 eggs

1 cup natural yoghurt (you could use vanilla too for a slightly sweeter version)

1/3 cup vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

Grease and line a 22cm round cake tin.

Sift flour into a bowl and then add the sugar and pumpkin.

In a separate bowl, combine eggs, yoghurt and oil.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined.

Spread 1/3 of the cake mixture into the tin and top with half the streusel mixture.

Repeat layers, finishing with a layer of cake batter.

Bake for 1 1/2 hours or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Gently place a piece of foil over the top of the cake if it's getting too brown.

Allow to rest for 5 minutes in the tin before turning out onto a cake rack to cool.

Dust with icing sugar or ice with cream cheese icing, if you like.

Enjoy!

Roasted Pumpkin And Capsicum Soup

Given how cold the weather is in Melbourne at the moment, I couldn't go past making some warming soup with the giant pumpkin from our garden. 

I wanted to try something a little bit different to the usual, so thought that adding some roasted red capsicum to the mix would create some extra sweetness. It certainly did add sweetness and that beautiful charred flavour you get from roasting capsicum. As well as the flavour, the soup turned out a lovely orangey red colour. Perfect to warm you up!

To add a bit of crunch and texture, I decided to top the soup with some chopped parsley and chopped roasted macadamia nuts. Delicious!

I hope you ejoy this simple bowl of comfort in the cold weather too.

Roasted Pumpkin And Capsicum Soup

1.2kg pumpkin, skin and seeds removed and chopped (you want about 1kg of flesh)

2 red capsicums, halved lengthways, seeds and membranes removed

1 large brown onion, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

A drizzle of olive oil

1 litre of chicken or vegetable stock

1/4 cup macadamia nuts

A handful of parsley, chopped

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

Place pumpkin and capsicum in a baking tray and drizzle with oil.

Roast until the pumpkin is soft and the skin on the capsicum is blackened and blistered. This will take about 45 minutes. If the capsicum seems to be burning, remove it from the oven before the pumpkin.

When cool enough to handle, peel the blackened skin from the capsicum.

Meanwhile, place the macadamia nuts in a small oven tray and dry roast for 5 to 10 minutes, shaking the tray every so often to stop them burning. Remove from the oven when they are golden brown.

Allow the nuts to cool  then coarsely chop and set aside.

Heat another drizzle of oil in a large saucepan over medium heat and cook onion and garlic until softened.

Add the roasted vegies and cook for another couple of minutes.

Add the stock, bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes or until the pumpkin is very soft.

Allow to cool slightly, then blitz with a stick blender until smooth. Season to taste and add extra stock if the soup is a little bit thick.

Serve steaming bowls of the soup topped with a sprinkling of parsley and macadamia nuts.

Enjoy!

Yoghurt Scones With Quick Berry Jam

A few weeks ago I submitted an entry for the Mamamia Food Blogger Idol competition. The competition was sponsored by Rachel's yoghurt and you had to use one of their products in your recipe. I wasn't selected as a finalist, so now I can share my recipe with you. It may not have been quite what the judges were after, but I still think they are pretty damn tasty scones!

Take a look at the five finalists and their beautiful looking recipes here. You can vote for a winner too and go in the running to win one of five $100 Universal gift cards. The winner of the Food Blogger Idol gets a three month paid food blogging job with Mamamia. What a great opportunity!

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It’s time for afternoon tea and you put the kettle on to boil for your favourite tea or coffee. You feel like a bit of a sweet treat, but there’s nothing in the cupboard that takes your fancy.

Scones would be the perfect afternoon tea treat, but you’re trying to be healthy and don’t have the butter or lemonade and cream to make them. What to do??

You do have a tub of Rachel’s Gourmet Yoghurt in the fridge.

Hey presto! Hot scones in an instant. Yep, really!

I would never have believed that scones could be made with yoghurt either, until I gave it a go. To make mine a bit more fancy, I added some chopped white chocolate, which caramelised beautifully on cooking. You could always add some chopped nuts too. Macadamias would be perfect! Why not make them extra special and add both?

The great thing about this recipe is how versatile it is. Change the flavour of the yoghurt to use what you have. I used the Black Plum and Roasted Fig, but the Mango and Madagascan Vanilla or Wild Strawberry and Rhubarb would be equally as wonderful.

This recipe makes about 10 scones, but it is so easy to halve or double, depending on how many scones you want. The mixture is quite wet, compared with normal scone dough, so it’s best to place spoonfuls on the baking tray, rather than trying to roll it out and cut with cutters. I think rustic looking scones are the best anyway!

Like all scones, these are best made and eaten while they are still warm. Whip up the jam while the scones are cooking and you’ll have fresh hot jam to go on top. Finish with another dollop of Rachel’s Gourmet Yoghurt and you have the perfect (almost) guilt free sweet treat.

Enjoy!

Yoghurt Scones with Quick Berry Jam

½ cup plain flour

½ cup SR flour

1 Tbs caster sugar

¼ tsp baking powder

½ cup chopped white chocolate

½ Rachel’s Black Plum and Roasted Fig Gourmet Yoghurt

2 Tbs milk

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

Lightly grease a baking tray with oil spray.

In a medium sized bowl, combine flours, sugar and baking powder.

Stir through chopped white chocolate.

Add the Rachel’s Gourmet Yoghurt and stir until it starts to thicken and come together. There will still be a lot of dry mixture.

Add the milk and mix gently until the mixture comes together. If it’s too sticky, add a little bit more flour.

Tip out onto a lightly floured surface and gently knead to make sure all the ingredients are combined and their aren’t any lumps of flour.

Take spoonfuls of the mixture and place on the prepared tray. You can make the scones big or small, depending on how indulgent you feel.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown on the outside. The chocolate will brown as it caramelizes, but it’s not burning.

Remove from the oven when cooked and allow to cool slightly on the tray.

Quick Berry Jam

150g mixed frozen berries

1 Tbs honey

Combine berries and honey in a small saucepan.

Bring to the boil, stirring to combine and then simmer for about 5 minutes, or until thickened.

Allow to cool a little before serving.

To serve your delicious scones, cut them in half, spread with a spoonful of jam and then dollop with extra yoghurt. Delicious!

Haloumi and Herb Stuffed Mushrooms

It's meat-free Monday again and I couldn't go two weeks in a row without using haloumi in my recipe! If that makes me a bit boring, well then so be it. Instead of just frying up the haloumi in slices, I did grate it and stuff mushrooms, so I was a bit creative!

The haloumi went all oozy in the oven and mixed with some herbs it tasted delicious with the juicy mushrooms. To top it off, a homemade red capsicum and cashew pesto made a dressing of sorts. A nice light vego meal to start the week.

Haloumi and Herb Stuffed Mushrooms With Red Capsicum Pesto

1 medium sized red capsicum

1 clove of garlic

1/2 cup toasted cashews

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

1-2 Tbs olive oil

4 large field mushrooms

180 g haloumi, grated

A few sprigs each of oregano, thyme and parsley, finely chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

A few handfuls of baby spinach

To make the pesto, cut the capsicum in half and remove the stem, seeds and membranes. 

Place skin side up on a sheet of foil under the grill and grill until the skin is charred and blistered.

Wrap the capsicum up in the foil and set aside for 10 minutes to make the skin easier to remove.

When cool enough to handle, peel the blackened skin off.

Place the capsicum, cashews, garlic, oil to taste and lemon juice in a small food processor and blitz until combined but still a bit chunky. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add more oil if it seems too thick.

Set aside until you are ready to serve.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

Place mushrooms on a baking tray and drizzle with oil. Bake for 10 minutes or until starting to soften and release their juices.

Meanwhile, combine the grated haloumi and finely chopped herbs.

Take the mushrooms out of the oven and pile the cheese and herb mixture on top. Grind some pepper on the top and then return to the oven.

Bake for another 10 to 15 minutes or until the mushrooms are soft and the haloumi is golden.

To serve, toss the baby spinach with some of the pesto and pile on to plates. Top with two mushrooms each and another few blobs of pesto.

Enjoy!