ChrisZ

Thanks for the heads-up. I'm watching it online here. I can't see any obvious disclaimers on the SBS website about video being restricted to Australian residents only, so there's a slim chance that it's open to viewing from other countries...

I have always assumed it's to do with the gluten in flour. If you mix the gnocchi too much then you're developing the gluten and they get tough. If you try to make gnocchi in an electric mixer (for example) you will end up with little rubber balls! When I make gnocchi I add the flour with the same delicacy & technique I otherwise reserve for meringue, and basically mix it as little as possible. Maybe I'll try making gnocchi with cornstarch, just to see what happens...

Out of curiosity, I googled "DIY centrifuge" to see what came up. I had visions of sticking a cordless drill into the middle of a lazy susan... A number of links came up, but most interesting was the "Dremelfuge", which can apparently go up to 33,000 RPM for about $50. I already have a dremel, and I've been fascinated by the concept of "pea butter" which was on one of the videos on the Modernist Cuisine website, and $50 doesn't sound like that much... Other DIY centrifuges that Google found included one that used to be a hand-cranked cream-seperator, one made from a salad spinner (total cost - $30!), and one that used to be a washing machine... the salad-spinner one looks very simple and relatively safe, not to mention cheap. Anyway, food for thought...

If you have until June you have plenty of time to test different options. I'd make a list of them, work out their pros and cons, and decide what you're most comfortable with. Then make a small test, and another, until you're happy. Butter, sugar and eggs are pretty cheap, especially when compared against the expectations of a wedding cake. I agree with Robyn that there's probably nothing that will stand up to heat significantly better than anything else. Buttercreams are easy to make, flavour and spread. If you have until June then you can even experiment with Swiss/Italian & French styles to see if you have a preference! If you increase the ratio of chocolate to cream then you could also consider a ganache, but this would definitely require some experimentation with the exact brand and type of chocolate you'd use on the real cake to find a balance between heat resistance and spreadability. With white chocolate you might need to go to a 2:1 chocolate-cream ratio, and large quantities of ganache can take a long time to set before you can start spreading. If it's a big cake then the cost of white chocolate can add up- it's hard to judge but the one in your photo might need about 3kg (6-7 pounds) - so buttercream could also be a lot cheaper. It's personal, but I think the advantage of a ganache is the taste- it's mostly chocolate, as opposed to being mostly butter. I would guess that a buttercream and a ganache melt at roughly the same temperature, so it will probably come down to your personal preference. I've never tried a marshmallow icing but I definitely agree that you want to keep the cake inside for as long as possible!

Thanks for this, I really appreciate it. The reason I haven't bought one yet is because we don't have room for the common 5.5l ones, and the smaller 3-4 litre sizes are much harder to find.

My mum (and her mum, etc etc) would make a German kartoffelkuchen (potato cake) that was studded with sultanas and topped with crunchy nutmeg-flavoured streusel. Making the streusel while mum made the cake was one of the earliest things I did in the kitchen. The cake would usually be made to use up leftover mashed potato, and although mum used SR flour I'm sure the original recipe used yeast as a leavener for an even more distinctive taste. An alternative version was to top the cake with apricot halves (fresh not canned) neatly arranged in a perfect grid, and each apricot half would be filled with sugar before the cake went into the oven. As I kid I was always mystified by the way the sugar had 'vanished' when the cake came out of the oven. My personal favourite oldie is a simple Victoria sponge filled with whipped cream and a berry jam, and I especially love the miniature versions which were known as 'powder puffs' when I was a kid. I still make them occasionally.

Hi Anna, I've been casually looking at slow cookers for the past few months, but have yet to choose one. Can you let me know which brand you bought (and where from) so I can avoid the same mistake? I browsed the Egullet forums for advice and one thing I read was to look for a slow cooker that had a variable thermostat, rather than a simple low/hi setting. However I haven't seen a single slow cooker with that feature! Even the really expensive ones are just low/hi. In Australia there is a magazine called "Choice" which reviews products after testing them thoroughly. A search on the Choice website found a review of 15 different slow cookers, ranging in price between $44 and $200. Unfortunately I'm not a subscriber, so I couldn't skip straight to the results, but if you have a local library they will almost certainly have the magazine and you will be able to read it there. I'll have a look next time I'm near my own local library, because I'm just as interested in what they recommend and luckily I'm not in a hurry to buy. For free you can look at other review sites on the internet, which can be interesting but they're not unbiased or very thorough. But I'll probably end up going for one of the usual suspects in the mid-price range - Breville or Sunbeam.

Fifth... your kitchen bench, walls and floor can quickly adopt an oily sheen if you're not careful about how accurately you point the can. The convenience is rarely worth the mess.

I've never seen 'hot cocoa' on a menu or cafe board anywhere, even if most cafes (in Australia) make 'hot chocolate' from a powder mix. I guess 'cocoa' just sounds cheap... depending on which part of the world you're in it probably comes down to marketing. It was probably less than ten years ago that I first saw a hot chocolate that was actually made from real chocolate- courtesy of the Max Brenner chocolate chain. It was revolutionary to me at the time, and made the cafe worth a special trip. It was something to marvel about with friends. But in parts of Europe - especially Belgium - it seems normal practise to order a hot chocolate and to receive a jug of hot milk and a mound of real chocolate. Oddly enough, my morning coffee bar (in Sydney) has this option but calls it 'Italian hot chocolate', and when I asked why the owner said it was because the supplier is Italian. Because I usually have a mound of dark couverture in the pantry, I serve up hot chocolate to guests as a jug of hot milk and a jug of melted chocolate and everyone always comments on how 'fancy' it is...

The Harrods Rotisserie (in the food court) serves the "£100 Gourmet Burger", which I could never afford so I just took a photo of the menu instead. It is described as "A hand cut fillet of beef burger laced with foie gras and truffle, served in a fresh truffled brioche bun. Served with foie gras souffle, espuma and oven baked potato wedges". I don't know if it is the best burger in London, but it's probably the most expensive. In my experience, the best burger in London is the one you have after 6 pints at the pub watching Liverpool beat Man United...

I probably make spinach and ricotta pasta once a week, although not always ravioli as it takes longer. But still... I use frozen spinach, and always have more ricotta (by weight) than spinach. Frozen spinach comes in 250g blocks, to which I would add about 300-350g ricotta. On top of that I would add a big spoonful of parmesan cheese, very generous amounts of freshly ground black pepper, and a dash of nutmeg. I used to add an egg but after a while I realised it didn't make much difference. And as Jaz says - I try to get as much water out of the spinach as possible, after it's defrosted. I've had a look at many recipes for spinach and ricotta cannelloni and all the ones I found had roughly equal quantities of ricotta:spinach, or perhaps even more spinach. But personally I like it much creamier and would happily go to a 2:1 ratio of ricotta:spinach. I've made it using fresh and even home-grown spinach but didn't weigh the spinach to see how much I used. One benefit of using the frozen stuff is that it's chopped really fine and so it doesn't clog up the piping bag nozzle!

Thank you, this has been very inspiring. Not only have you introduced me to some great local suppliers but you have also made me value the variety and quality of the food that I have at my front door. I have really enjoyed reading through your foodblog and I appreciate the effort you went to!

It's become a sort of quasi-tradition to serve a cafe latte in a glass, while a cappuccino is served in a cup/mug. It's not just an Australian thing though, but maybe it's more common here. Certainly if you search for 'latte art' on google most of the results show cups/mugs and not glasses, but when I lived in London a latte would be served in a glass. Something that may well be Australian is the 'flat white', which is an espresso coffee with milk that is either lightly steamed or not steamed at all. So a flat white has less foam than a latte, which has less foam than a cappuccino. A flat white and a cappuccino will be served in a cup/mug, but the latte in a glass. A cappuccino will usually be dusted with cocoa, but not a latte or a flat white... I would be interested to know how this started too!

I'm thoroughly enjoying Nick's blog, and as I live about 10 minutes away I'm thrilled to have been introduced to some great local businesses. I'll be heading to the Fourth Village Providore asap! I can sympathise with overseas readers in regards to comparing prices (which is pretty much the first thing anyone does in a different country...) so as a point of comparison I noted a few fish prices at my local, normal, everyday supermarket. There's no way that the quality of supermarket fish compares to boutique outlets like Penny's, and a lot of it is imported rather than local, but the prices reflect that too. As wonderful as the Sydney fish market is, there's only the one and so most people will be buying their fish from their local supermarkets and fishmongers- and even dedicated fishmongers vary widely in quality. I don't think I've ever bought fish from a supermarket, but sometimes their prices on prawns are too good to pass up. In kilograms, our supermarket had squid tubes for $14 (Penny's $37), flathead fillets $43 (Penny's $57), Atlantic Salmon fillets $30 (Penny's $43), and whole cooked prawns in a range of sizes from $10 - $30. In US pounds, this equates to supermarket squid tubes $6.36 (Penny's $16.80), flathead $19.55 (Penny's $25.90), Atlantic Salmon $13.63 (Penny's $19.54) and whole cooked prawns from $4.54 - $13.63. I won't bother doing the conversions for the prices at the Sydney fish market, but judging from the photos the market is cheaper and the produce is better. Which pretty much sums up the whole point of shopping at markets. Am looking forward to more posts, it's been very inspiring...

I would also agree that a well cooked scallop is too good to be covered in a sauce. But a drop of sweet, thick balsamic vinegar can be complimentary, and in the last few months I've seen a number of recipes that pair scallops with pureed cauliflower.

Personally, I've always thought that Vegemite/Marmite/Promite are quite similar, and that someone who has tried Marmite shouldn't be too surprised when they try Vegemite. But when I lived in London I was always surprised/amused by the way people would strongly prefer one over the other, and I worked with a few people who had Marmite on toast every day but were completely repulsed by Vegemite... Each to their own I guess!

Hi Nick, I'm really looking forward to this. As someone who is new to Sydney's Northern Beaches I'm looking forward to hearing about where you like to shop!

If you've got some spare time, then work your way through the braising discussions that are hosted here at the eGCI. The first part especially is devoted to the differences between different types of cooking vessels. Within the various posts (spread out over several sections) are loads of opinions and feedback about different types of casserole pans/ dutch ovens. It's a great way to begin, and you'll learn a lot about braising too :-)

The basic Brita-style water filters have long been rumoured to improve the quality of cheap vodka. One article testing this theory dates 2004, and seeped into public consciousness enough to make it onto an . If you google something like "water filter vodka" you'll find a number of websites that suggest that - to answer the original question - they do do something...

I've made two chocolate wedding cakes that included kahlua. You would have to use loads and loads of kahlua for the cake to taste alcoholic. If it's a really rich chocolate cake the kahlua will only add a subtle note to the flavour, but even if the cake is light I don't think you'll ever get to a 'boozy' stage. The first chocolate-kahlua wedding cake I made used a chocolate/kahlua mousse between layers of chocolate cake. A mousse is lighter than a buttercream or ganache but you want to make sure it's firm enough to support the weight of the cake. You can add kahlua to the mousse mixture to your taste, so you can easily add a little at a time until you reach a flavour balance you're happy with. The second one I made used an espresso buttercream that's much thicker, richer and more decadent than a mousse. The kahlua was very subtle here, coffee was the dominant flavour but again you can keep adding kahlua until you're happy with the balance. In both cases I also mixed kahlua with milk (in equal proportions) and sprinkled the cake layers with a few tablespoons of the mixture as I was layering it up. This lets a kahlua flavour permeate the cake as well as adding moisture and richness. BTW if you're planning on using a white chocolate ganache to cover the cake (because it's a wedding cake) then I would suggest that 1:1 will be too runny to spread. With white chocolate you'll probably want a 2:1 ratio of chocolate to cream, and allow plenty of time for the ganache to set (more than a day). Then whip it again and it will become less yellow as well as more spreadable.

I would be surprised if this helps. Dishwashing powders are (usually) mostly caustic soda; dishwashers are fairly simple devices that clean by spraying their contents with hot caustic soda until the food corrodes off the plates etc etc. Anything acidic, like vinegar, will neutralise the alkaline caustic soda and reduce its corrosiveness.

As Tmriga says, a basic pound cake recipe is fine- equal quantities by weight of butter, sugar, eggs & flour. A few months ago I googled through loads of cupcake recipes. They were all pound cakes. Some had a small amount of milk added, or perhaps orange juice, but in terms of proportions all the recipes I found were 1:1:1:1. You can easily add cocoa/chocolate, orange zest or even a gingerbread spice mix without catastrophe.

I'm interested to try and airbrush luster dust over a white cake, just to add a subtle shimmer/ sparkle. I have a selection of luster dusts, a budget airbrush, some 90% pure alcohol, and a cake that will be covered in a white chocolate ganache. Just wondering how much alcohol to luster dust I should mix up for the airbrush? I don't want the cake to look like it's been spray painted silver, and equally I don't want to spray it with alcohol and end up with a soggy cake and no visible luster! Any guides or ratios to follow? It's subtlety I'm after, I have considered trying to brush dry luster powder on the cake but I'm concerned it will be too heavy. -Thanks

Arancini (fried crumbed risotto balls). Marinated and grilled/ bbq chicken drumettes (the meaty part of the wing) Melon pieces wrapped in proscuitto

Lots of great advice here. Another place to compare prices is Victoria's Basement (no! Not Victoria's Secret...). I haven't been to the shop but they routinely have big ads in papers and on TV, lots of heavy discounts and clearance items. Always some type of knife block or cutlery set on sale. They deliver too. I have wondered how genuine the price reductions are but if you simply want to see online prices for comparison then it's a very useful site. When I moved to Sydney from London I ended up taking everything I could, simply because the shipping was so cheap after the first few boxes it hardly made any difference to add more stuff. The tax question depends on how old your stuff is, the authorities are probably more concerned with quarantine issues. I can't remember the details now but it gets confusing because there's both tax (GST in Australia) and duty. I recall some type of rule that you only had to pay on stuff that was less than a year old and worth more than $900. Don't quote me on that, though, but if you're shipping everything over then your shipping company should provide you with all forms and information. And you'll easily be able to buy more fleur de sel and porcini powder, no shortage of decent food shops here...