Month: July 2016

Madeleines Albright

Amer-she-can Week, Baking, Cake, Dessert, Sweets

If there is anyone that can follow up my date with POTUS, it is Mads All-right. She may be very small, but my girl Madeleine has the biggest heart and legacy I know.

As the first woman to become the Secretary of State – I pushed BC to give her the job on account of the fact that she is a damn saint – Maddy is a pioneer and has long been someone I’ve admired.

We first met on Ellis Island in the ‘40s when she emigrated to America. I had recently arrived from Australia and was trying to be adopted by a kind emigrant family who could fund my pursuit of stardom thinking I had no one. Despite seeing through my sham the Korbelovás were so kind that they took me in anyway and Mads and I quickly formed a close sibling-esque bond.

While I made my way from Long Island to Broadway, I always stayed in contact with Mads and she supported me despite the myriad of crimes and misdemeanours I racked up.

I haven’t seen Mads since the New Hampshire Primary, where I played an integral role in her inclusion of her quote that Taylor Swift likes to lift when feuding with the Poehler-Feys. As you know, it didn’t go down well so I’ve tried to lay low until things blew over.

Thankfully my dear, sweet Mads isn’t one to hold a grudge and we spent yesterday afternoon gabbing – in French, which is the only language we speak together – over a tray of my delightful Madeleines Albright.

 

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Like Mads, these delicate little cakes really pack a punch with the sweet vanilla hitting all the right notes. And then some.

Enjoy!

 

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Madeleines Albright
Serves: 12.

Ingredients
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
salt
6 large eggs, room temperature
1 cup raw caster sugar
2 tbsp muscovado sugar
225g unsalted butter, melted, plus extra for the pan
2 tbsp vanilla extract
icing sugar, for dusting

Method
Whisk the flour, baking powder and a teaspoon salt together in a bowl.

In the large bowl of an electric mixer, whisk the eggs and caster and muscovado sugars on high speed until they are pale and fluffy or about ten minutes.

Remove the bowl from the mixer and fold through the flour in two additions, broken up by folding through half the butter and vanilla.

Cover and refrigerate for a couple of hours while you preheat the oven to 180°C. Remove the batter from the fridge and leave to rest for fifteen minutes.

Butter the madeleine pans with the extra butter and spoon the batter into the pans and bake in the middle of the oven for 8-10 minutes, or until golden and crisp. Remove from the oven and flip them out onto a cooling rack.

Rebutter the moulds and repeat the process until the batter is done.

Dust with icing sugar and devour.

 

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Barack O’lamba

Amer-she-can Week, Main

Happy Fourth of July!

Go big or go home, has long been my motto. Originally in my ads for a sugar daddy in ‘80s West Hollywood – it originally read, go big and I’ll go home – but I’ve digressed.

Since it is his final Fourth in office, Barack has relaxed his stance on the privacy of our annual Fourth cook-out celebration and is letting me take our friendship public. I guess he figures he needs to make the most of his final months.

As I work as HRC’s interior designer – amongst other jobs – I needed to drop in on the White House and take some measurements for the renovations I have planned to make the second Clinton White House the biggest and best sequel ever produced. So this visit – soz Barack – helped me kill two birds one stone.

Well three, considering Michelle and I will be able to release her workout DVD next year, Michelle’s Ob-arm-a-rama System © – a collection of arm workouts set to the classic music of Bananarama.

Anyway, I really need to learn to stay on topic – amirite?

So, I’ve been friends with the Obamas for about thirty years now after meeting Barack in Harvard where I was running a scam as a Law Professor. Despite the fact that I was unqualified, I somehow taught his cohort enough for them to attain their qualifications and pass the bar – I assume that you pick up a thing or two when you’ve spent a life in the courts defending your various crimes – so thankfully Barack never held my indiscretion against me.

Despite not having an official role in the administration, Barack has relied on me to provide advice during his presidency and it is such a thrill to finally be able to share our White House bond with the world.

It was such a joy to be able to sit down – for what will likely be our last time together in the White House – and reminisce about our past and his future, following Michelle and our booming fitness empire (watch your back Bridges).

We needed something hearty and robust to be able to stand up to our deep conversations, so I opted for my (very Australian) Barack of O’lamba.

 

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Yes, Amer-she-can Week is all about celebrating America, HRC’s upcoming presidency and Independence Day (not the terrible movie and – I assume – its terrible sequel), Barack wanted our final Fourth together in the White House to be more like a state dinner – celebrating the culture of his foreign guest.

Plus, HRC wanted the week to celebrate culinary diversity … unlike any week Trump would have me host. Thankfully we are feuding … and you thought he hated Rosie O?!

And anyway, who can go past succulent lamb on a bed of sharp goat’s cheese, creamy potatoes and blistered tomatoes? Exactly.

Enjoy!

 

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Barack O’lamba
Serves: 4.

Ingredients
6-10 small chat potatoes
1 punnet cherry tomatoes
8-bone rack of lamb
olive oil
1 handful pitted kalamata olives
a bulb of garlic cloves
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
a few sprigs rosemary
150g feta
olive oil

Method
Preheat the oven to 190°C.

In a large pot of salted water, parboil the potatoes until tender.

Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a large frying pan over high heat and sear each side of the lamb until golden. Remove from the pan.

Reduce the heat to low and add the potatoes, smash with a spatula and fry each side until crisp. Remove from the heat.

Squeeze the tomatoes to break them and add to the pan with the olives, the leaves of the rosemary and garlic. Empty into a large roasting pan, chuck the lamb on top and cook for about 30-40 minutes, depending on the size of the lamb / whether they’ve devoured roids.

When done, rest the lamb for five minutes and slice into pairs. Serve, crumbling the feta over the garlicky, tomato, potatoes.

Then devour.

* Adapted from a Jamie Oliver recipe.

 

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Amer-she-can!

Amer-she-can Week, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Guys guys guys, relax – Fourth of July is tomorrow and I am in the mood to shake that Conga.

Again.

I was heading over to the grand U S of A to discuss a very exciting job that I’m about to commence – which I’ll announce Friday, so stay tuned – so decided to round up some of my best friends to celebrate Amer-she-can Week in honour of my dear friend (and … TBC) Hizza finally clinching her historic presidential nomination!

Given that it is an election year, I’m sticking to my friends in D.C. so get prepared for a week with gastronomic, governmental gravitas. I want you, to get excited – Amer-she-can Week starts tomorrow!

Now who is stately enough to start off my Hizza celebration?

Picture source: Still from Drop Dead Gorgeous (New Line Cinema Productions, Inc.).

 

As you can probably tell, we are very social but the fun isn’t only limited to celebrities! You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr and Google+.