Dessert

Christoffee Knight Cheesecake

Dessert

At the risk of sounding like I’ve softened (and that I am potentially repeating myself), Christopher Knight is a gentleman, a scholar and a saint, and the last almost-fifty years of friendship have meant the world to us.

Now that the niceties are out of the way, let me take you back. We first met Chris and all of the Brady kids through our friendship with the Jackson 5. You see, we were choreographing for the Jacksons (and later invented the moonwalk, but I digress) and Michael introduced us to his girlfriend Maureen who got us auditions for two new roles in Season 5 of The Brady Bunch.

We nailed the auditions and came on board as twin cousins of the Bradys and were so universally despised by the audience that the show was put on hiatus after our first episode and retooled to include a different cousin (with all copies of our episodes and scripts burnt to ensure we were forgotten).

Yes, we were a worse option than Cousin Oliver.

After our unceremonious axing, we stayed close with all of the Bradys (family is family, after all) however it was Chris and Mo that were always our closest.

In honour of the celebratory catch-up, we whipped up a quick Christoffee Knight Cheesecake, (fun fact, it is the cake he made to cheer us up after our axing), to devour as we caught up on each others lives.

 

Christoffee Knight Cheesecake_1

 

The bleeding (well melting, but it kinda looks like it is bleeding so I’ll stick with that) toffee cuts through the delicate cake/cheese and with the added crunch of the nuts (nothing suss) you have no other option but to face-plant into the cake and devour.

Or maybe that is just us?

 

Christoffee Knight Cheesecake_2

 

Christoffee Knight Cheesecake
Serves: Well 3 in this case, 6-8 for normal people.

Ingredients
1 cup butternut snap biscuits (something equivalent), crumbed
2 tbsp butter, melted
500g cream cheese
½ raw caster sugar
½ cup thickened cream
3 tsp gelatine powder, dissolved in ¼ cup boiling water
100g peanut brittle, broken into smallish pieces.

Method
Combine the biscuit crumbs and melted butter, and press into the base of a 20cm springform pan and refrigerate while you make the filling.

In an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese until smooth. With the mixer on low speed, add in the sugar, cream and gelatine until smooth and combined.

Fold through most of the peanut brittle. Pour mixture into the chilling pan (obviously remove it from the fridge, yeah) and return to the fridge for a few hours to set.

Remove from fridge about twenty minutes prior to serving and garnish with reserved brittle.

Tina Souffle

Dessert, Easter Meggstravaganza

Step five is always a blessing and a curse. As Peter Parker famously said, with being a hero comes great power and great responsibility – so trying to pin down Teenz is always a tad difficult.

After we failed to befriend Amy Poehler through Adam Scott, we travelled back in time to the Delaware County Summer Showtime to befriend Tina in her (our?) younger years. It worked and thankfully, history was rewritten with the four of us being best friends (she totally got us in with Ames). Her love for us knows no bounds and she went on to write 30 Rock with Tracey Jordan and Jenna Maroney being based on us. We were also instrumental in the writing of Mean Girls, which was actually a thinly veiled attack at our less successful co-stars at the County Summer Showtime.

Tina was always keen as mustard to help us out with our blossoming careers. She got us auditions with Saturday Night Live, however Ben was overly keen to sleep his way in (even when this was explicitly not necessary). He peddled one junk-shot too many unfortunately and Lorne Michaels banished both of us from the studio, swearing our names would never be uttered on set again and rendering us the unofficial voldemorts of NBC.

Despite trashing the brilliant opportunities Tina generously found us, she still considers us two of her oldest friends. She is always willing to help out so jumped at the opportunity to help another person in dire straits – Meg Ryan and her pitiful, failing career.

tina 2

As Tina is the gold standard in entertainment, we needed the gold standard of desserts. Chocolatey and rich yet light and delicious like the lady herself, the Tina Souffle ticks all the boxes.

tina 3

Tina Souffle
Serves: 6

Ingredients
6 eggs, separated
180g dark chocolate
50ml cream
50g caster sugar
Butter and caster sugar, for ramekins

Method
Heat oven to 200C. Butter and sugar the ramekins.

Over a low heat, melt the chocolate and cream together and allow to cool slightly before whisking in six egg yolks.

Using a stand mixer, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form and slowly add caster sugar until a thick meringue forms.

Cara-mel Gibson Slice

Dessert, Sweets

Mel is wild and everytime we hang out is like a ride through the outback with Max. That being said, the man helped give us a start in Hollywood and we will always be grateful for that, regardless of our personal feelings about things that he has said. Plus, he loves us without judgement.

Mel dropped by for afternoon tea (none of us felt booze and a barbie would end well for any of us) to catch-up on our years apart since ‘Pet Name-gate’ and his fall from grace. We filled him in on our stratospheric comeback and discussed some ideas to help with his.

While he had a bizarre opinion on BOAW2: ROTF (that it was a terrible idea), the man is an old family friend (we first met following my sister befriending his daughter on a Sydney beach) and we will turn the other cheek and even thank him when we are winning Best Screenplay, Best Actress for Golds and Best Supporting Actress and Actor for Annelie and I.

It wasn’t even enough to turn the sweet Cara-Mel Gibson Slice, or the afternoon, bitter.

 

Cara-Mel Gibson Slice_1

 

The simple rustic charm of the slice acted as a symbol of our relationship with Mel; while it can change over the years through reinvention or duplicity (working with Katie Holmes), when we get back to the basics, it is beautiful and perfect.

Enjoy!

 

Cara-Mel Gibson Slice_2

 

Caramel Gibson Slice
Serves: 6.

Ingredients
Base and Filling
1 cup plain flour
½ cup dark brown sugar
½ cup shredded coconut
125g melted butter
60g butter
2 tbsp golden syrup
395g condensed milk

Topping
125g cooking chocolate, milk
60g copha

Method
Preheat oven to 180°C and line a 28cm x 18cm slice tray with baking paper.

Sift flour into the bowl and mix in sugar and coconut, and then melted butter. Press mixture into tray and bake for 15 minutes or until golden.

While the base is baking, melt the remaining butter over low heat in a small saucepan. Stir in syrup and condensed milk. Heat for a minute or two until the colour darkens slightly and remove from heat.

When base is ready, pour filling over the cooked base and return to the oven for 8-10 minutes or until it has darkened and started to bubble on the top. Remove from oven and set aside.

While the slice is cooling, place the chocolate (broken into pieces) and diced copha into a microwave safe bowl and melt in 10-20 second bursts until melted. Once done, give it a good stir and pour over the slice spreading so that it even. Chill for a few hours, then devour.

Before slicing, run the knife under hot water (and then dry it, obviously) to avoid the chocolate cracking.

Panna Cotta Paquin

Dessert, Oscar Gold

Despite being trans-Tasman neighbours, it took us a while to meet and befriend Academy Award winner Anna Paquin.

Unlike most of our celebrity friends we connected with her as fans first, while we were visiting our friend/black-market plastic surgery patient Lil Kim on the set of She’s All That. During an altercation after Lil K found out we weren’t licensed plastic surgeons or you know, doctors, Anna swooped in like a mother-goose and hid us in her trailer.

To show our appreciation, we became her personal cooks during the course of filming and our relationship developed to the deep state of love we currently share and has seen us visit and bake her treats on all of her future sets.

Well except for True Blood after I was thrown out for repeatedly draping myself naked in Alexander Skarsgård’s trailer, car, house, bedroom, etc.

She was sweet about it though and to apologise for the awkwardness I made her a batch of Panna Cotta Paquins, which I whipped up yesterday while we discussed the minimal Aus-Zealand nominees this year and our shared hope that Boyhood prevails for Best Picture.

 

Panna Cotta Paquin_1

 

The recipe is an adaptation of a Nigella classic (from Nigellissima) and is smooth, delicate and beautiful. Like Skarsgård…oh, Skarsy! Maybe Anna will be able to get through to him for me?

Enjoy, while I enjoy this.

 

Panna Cotta Paquin_2

 

Panna Cotta Paquin
Serves: 4.

Ingredients
75ml milk
425ml double cream
50g raw caster sugar
1 vanilla pod
3g gelatine

Method
Combine milk, cream and sugar in a saucepan, stirring to ensure the sugar dissolves.

Slice the vanilla pod lengthways and scrape seeds out with a spoon or (carefully) with the tip of a knife. Stir seeds into the milk mixture and then add the emptied pod.

Heat the saucepan over low heat until it is just about the come to the boil (bubbles will form around the edge). Remove move heat, remove vanilla pod and empty half of the mixture into a heatproof jug or bowl.

Vigorously whisk in the gelatine (you could whisk less vigorously if you dissolve the gelatine in water but I can never be bothered and it never turns out poorly). Pour the liquid in the jug back into the saucepan, whisking as you go until it is all combined.

Pour the mixture evenly between 4 dariole moulds or ramekins and refrigerate until set.

Four hours seems to be enough for me, but Nigella suggests overnight and I would never argue with her!

Serve with fruit, berries, caramel or by itself, it doesn’t matter.

Alicia Keys Lime Pie

Dessert

It is fitting that we caught-up with Alicia during week of the Grammys; fitting and awkward, as she iced us out of winning one with her in 2011 in favour of Blue Ivy’s dad. Thankfully she opened up with an apology, as we kindly opened up our home and hearts to her in the hopes of rekindling our friendship.

Despite the recent animosity (and ourselves), it felt like no time had passed and we were those young ingenues on the set of The Cosby Show once more. We caught each other on what has been happening since we last spoke; she had two kids, we have once again taken the world by storm and have been thrust into the limelight.

We laughed about Kanye’s idiocy at The Grammys and apparent love for Beyonce (move on Kanye, she already has a husband that ruined our lives) and discussed Bill Cosby’s recent controversy before serving Alicia with a slice of humble Alicia Keys Lime Meringue Pie.

 

Alicia Keys Lime Pie_1

 

The tart kick of lime acted as a symbol for our pain over the, well you know what, and the period in her life when she didn’t have us (baby), while the sweet, delicate meringue was an offering of hope that our friendship could continue as sweetly as it used to.

Enjoy!

 

Alicia Keys Lime Pie_2

 

Alicia Keys Lime Meringue Pie
Serves: 8

Ingredients
375g can sweetened condensed milk
4 large egg yolks
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons key lime juice

Crust
1 ½ cups digestives, crushed
2 tbsp caster sugar
5 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

Meringue
4 egg whites
1 pinch cream of tartar
2 tbsp caster sugar

Method
Preheat oven to 170°C.

Stir together digestive crumbs, sugar, and butter in a bowl with a fork until combined well, then press mixture evenly onto bottom and up side of a 9-inch glass pie plate (quiche dish will do in a pinch). Bake crust in middle of oven 10 minutes and cool in pie plate on a rack.

Increase heat of oven to 180°C.

Whisk together condensed milk and yolks in a bowl until combined well. Add juice and whisk until combined well (mixture will thicken slightly).

Place egg whites and cream of tartar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat egg whites until soft peaks form and then gradually add sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks form, approximately 1 to 2 minutes. Use to top lime filling.

Pour filling into pie crust and top with meringue. Make sure meringue completely covers filling and that it goes right up to the edge of the crust. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until meringue is golden. Cool pie completely on rack (filling will set as it cools), then chill covered overnight.

Serve by fallin’ face first into the pie and devouring.

Parvlova Shallow

12 Days of Survivor Christmas, Dessert

It’s always a relief when our escapades don’t wind up with a period of incarceration/sectioning.

After a particularly unfortunate incident involving Bob Harper, several pints of Ben and Jerry’s and hundreds of cable-ties, Ben and I were ordered to deal with our court-determined ‘issues’ through a yoga retreat. Through serendipity we landed in the care of Survivor royalty and all-round legend, Parvati Shallow. Parvati allowed us to express ourselves through a combination of relaxing yoga and scrappy beat-downs (she is also a boxer).

As our kindred spirit, Parvs visits each year for an early Christmas ‘do, where we debrief the most recent season of survivor and inevitably reach consensus that nothing will ever beat her outstanding gameplay in Survivor: Micronesia.

This year we decided to greet Parvati with a distinctly Australian take on Christmas dessert – the Parvlova Shallow.

IMG_7719

Just like Parvati herself, the Parvlova shallow is sweet and enticing with it’s fresh summer berries and pillowy meringue. Also somewhat like Parvati, shortly after consumption you will find yourself rolling around with an intense, cream-induced stomach ache, wondering – how can something so sweet and delightful be such a source of buns-kicking badness?

Parvati, this is our tribute to you.

IMG_7729
Parvlova Shallow
Serves 8

Ingredients
6 egg whites
1 1/2 cups caster sugar
2 tablespoons cornflour
1 teaspoon vinegar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
500mL thickened cream
2 cups mixed berries

Method
Preheat oven to 120 degrees celsius.
In a stand mixer, beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar, one tablespoon at a time, until meringue is thick and glossy. Mix in sifted cornflour, vanilla and vinegar.
Using the base of a springform pan, trace around pan onto a sheet of non-stick baking paper. Place baking paper, circle side down, on a large baking tray. Spoon meringue mixture within the lines of the baking paper circle, smoothing to make a large disk approximately 10cm high.
Bake for 2 hours, or until set. Leave to cool in oven with door ajar.
To serve: Whip cream until soft peaks form. Cover top of pavlova with cream and berries. Serve immediately.

J’Tiamisu

12 Days of Survivor Christmas, Dessert

I’ve said it before (well, at the very least alluded to it), sometimes we are terrible people and that is how we first connected with Cagayan contestant, J’Tia Taylor.

Don’t get me wrong, while her moves with the rice were pretty cruel/amazing, J’Tia is a lovely friend…it is just that we befriended her to try to live out Annelie’s dream of going to space.

You see, while we could have used our friendship with Panama contestant Dan Barry to get on the space program, I incorrectly read her profession to be Rocket Scientist when she was on the Brains tribe (she is a Nuclear Engineer, a job I still wouldn’t understand).

You see, I convinced Annelie that J’Tia could build us a rocket and we could cut out the middleman that is NASA. After a year of awkward hints, blatant threats and blackmail, J’Tia kindly told us she couldn’t build us a spaceship, but offered her friendship as a consolation prize.

To celebrate our first Christmas as friends, we decided to catch up for a dessert of J’Tiamisu as a symbol of her sweet nature…and the fact that we all may need a boozy dish to get along/be tolerable humans.

 

J'Tiamisu 1

 

Inspired by Nigella Lawson’s Tiramisu layer cake, the dish is made of a chocolate cake base, with Tia Maria providing the coffee and the kick. We decided to serve them in individual martini glasses so that we wouldn’t have to worry about portion control (lest J’Tia thought we were going to vote her out) and as we love anything kitsch, and they looked kitsch.

Enjoy!

 

J'Tiamisu 2

 

J’Tiamisu
Serves: 8.

Ingredients
700-1000g chocolate loaf cakes (shop-bought variety is fine)
400ml (ish) Tia Maria
1 tsp cocoa and 1 tsp espresso powder combined, for dusting

Cream Filling
2 large organic eggs
75g caster sugar
500g mascarpone
250ml double cream
125ml Tia Maria

Method
Wash and dry 8 martini glasses and leave aside until assembly.

Slice the chocolate cakes thinly, and pour the Tia Maria into a shallow dish (keep the bottle handy as you may need more), ready for soaking the cake.

Whisk the eggs and sugar, mascarpone and double cream in an electric mixer (I am lazy, you can just use a whisk). Slowly add, the 125ml Tia Maria and continue whisking until light, fluffy and combined.

To assemble, dunk the slices of cake in Tia Maria and press into the base of each martini glass (it will probably be a slice per glass at the start), ensuring that the layer is firm but not too thick. Spoon a layer of cream filling over the cake (roughly 5mm thick). Continue layering, alternating between cake and cream until you have almost filled the glass.

Finish with a generous layer of the cream mixture and dust with cocoa/espresso powder mix.

I always want to add cinnamon, but I think I have an unhealthy obsession with adding cinnamon. Maybe don’t add cinnamon?

Eat straight out of the glass and pretend you’re at a festive swingers party in the eighties.

Rocky Reid Road

12 Days of Survivor Christmas, Dessert

In a season that bought us Dreams, Yau-Man and the delightful Earl you may ask yourselves, why did Ben and I fall so hard for Survivor Fiji contestant Rocky Reid and his serious lack of charm?

Naturally, we have history.

Ben and Rocky were fierce competitors in the 1994 National Sylvester Stallone doppelganger competition in which I was Ben’s micromanaging, cruel and generally narcissistic coach/momager. While Rocky was crowned the winner, Ben went on to body-double for Sly for hit films including Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot and the glorious Rhinestone (we can time travel, remember). Rocky couldn’t handle Ben’s success on the big screen and so naturally the two wound up in a relationship-destroying gutter brawl.

Despite the relationship breakdown, it was our love of (and regular participation in) scrag-fighting that brought the three of us back together. Rocky’s constant clashes with fellow Survivor contestant and expert witness locator Anthony Robinson endeared us to him yet again.

Given that Rocky hasn’t done anything particularly spectacular since his appearance on survivor, he had plenty of time to drop by to catch up on lost time. What else do you serve someone Rocky by name, rocky by relationship nature? Rocky Reid Road was the only possible way forward.

photo(5)

Our rocky road flies in the face of tradition – white chocolate, pistachios and dried cranberry in place of the traditional peanut and cherry combination. While unconventional, it is a truly delicious mix which is also rather festive thanks to the delightful flecks of green and red.

rocky 3

Rocky Reid Road
Serves: 24 small pieces

Ingredients
250g white chocolate
100g mini marshmallows
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup shelled pistachios, chopped roughly
Method
Line and grease a brownie tray.
Gently melt the white chocolate in a double boiler until just melted.
In a medium bowl, mix all dry ingredients together. Pour over melted chocolate and stir until just combined.
Spread mixture into brownie tray and refrigerate until set (2-3 hours). Cut into squares and dig in.

Halle Blueberry Waffles

Breakfast, Dessert

Some people are very, very forgiving.

Very forgiving.

I mean, you can’t blame the teens who threw themselves in front of your car between stints in rehab and their various arrests (fun fact, we also inspired the actual bling ring kids) but to befriend the people who caused you so much trauma, stress and a PR nightmare takes a special kind of person.

Halle dropped over for breakfast yesterday; we think she may be scared to be around us at any event that could involve alcohol, which is fair enough but realistically when is alcohol not involved? Little did she know, we had accidentally spiked the batch of Halle Blueberry Waffles when we got into a fight and knocked over the last glass of our breakfast wine.

 

Halle BlueBerry Waffles 1

 

Over brunch, we caught up on how much our lives had changed for the better since we first connected, the Oscars (she feels snubbed for not getting a nom for Catwoman) and her idea for a potential reboot of The Flintstones, set in the future (that we kindly pretended was great and not at all like The Jetsons).

Thankfully the fresh, fluffy waffles went down better than her ideas with the exploding jewels of blueberry adding some fun to the occasion. We served them with some whipped cream, cinnamon and maple syrup, however they would work just as well with some butter and maple.

Enjoy!

 

Halle BlueBerry Waffles 2

 

Halle Blueberry Waffles
Serves 4-6, greed dependant

Ingredients
2 ¼ cups spelt flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
¼  teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
¾  cup soda water
¼  cup oil
1 cup blueberries
butter, for greasing
cream, butter, cinnamon and/or maple syrup to serve

Method
Preheat your waffle iron.

Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl, then whisk in all wet ingredients until smooth. Fold through blueberries.

Melt butter into waffle iron to grease. Scoop the batter into the waffle iron and close. Cook for 2-5 minutes, then repeat.

Lisa Vanderpumpkin Pie

Dessert

Thanksgiving is such an appropriate time to catch up with Lisa as without her, Annelie and I would already have a Catch Me If You Can/Bonnie and Clyde-esque Lifetime TV movie made about us.

We aren’t proud of our scamming days or that we lied to Lisa about it while living in her mansion, but we are thankful that Lisa is kind enough to give us a second chance (amirite Brandi)?

Lisa and Giggy pulled up in the Bentley yesterday afternoon for a spot of tea and unlike most of the tea parties she goes to in Beverly Hills, this one didn’t end up in a brawl.

We sat down to a seasonally appropriate Lisa Vanderpumpkin Pie and talked about our resurgent fame, her relationship with Kyle and why we are so thankful that we have each other in our lives.

 

Lisa Vanderpumpkin Pie

 

The filling was all at once delicate and robust with a hint of spice on a glitzed up version of Jamie Oliver’s shortcrust pastry, with maple and pecan.

Lisa quoted her friend and party planner, Kevin Lee, to describe the pie saying it was, “Better than Beverly Hills darling, shi shi shi.”

 

Lisa Vanderpumpkin Pie 2

 

Lisa Vanderpumpkin Pie
Serves 12 people…or the three of us

Ingredients
Pastry
250g plain flour, plus more for dusting
50g icing sugar
125g unsalted butter, cubed
1 egg, beaten
1 tbsp maple syrup
50g pecans, crushed/bltized/pulverised etc.

Filling
½ butternut pumpkin, deseeded and diced (roughly 500g pumpkin)
500ml milk
200g raw caster sugar
1 vanilla pod, halved and deseeded
¼ tsp nutmeg
½ tsp cinnamon
2 eggs

Method
Pastry
Sieve flour and icing sugar into a large bowl. Using hands, work the butter into the flour and sugar until the mixture resembles wet sand. Mix through maple and pecan, add eggs and work together until it forms a ball. If the dough seems too wet, add more flour until it is at the desired consistency. Don’t overwork the flour otherwise it won’t be short, as the name demands.

Pat dough-ball into a disc, wrap in cling-wrap and place in the fridge to rest for 30 minutes.

Dust a surface and a rolling-pin with flour and roll out the pastry until it is 5mm thick. Roll the pastry over the rolling pin, then unroll it into a 25cm loose-bottom tart tin (I’d go non-stick but I am crazy lazy) and push it into the sides.

Trim off any excess dough and prick the base with a fork, cover with cling-wrap and place in the freezer to set for 30-ish minutes.

Pre-heat oven to 180C.

Filling
Place pumpkin, milk, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla pod and seeds into a medium saucepan, over medium heat. Keep stirring until it comes to the boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes stirring occasionally. Cook for a further 15 minutes, or until pumpkin is soft/tender/flaccid.

Remove from heat, discard the pod and blitz with a stick blender until smooth. Leave aside to cool with the lid on.

Baking
While pumpkin mixture is cooling, remove pastry from freezer and line with baking paper and blind bake with baking weights/beans/rice for 10 minutes. Remove from oven, remove baking paper and weights and return to oven for further 10 minutes.

Reduce heat to 160C.

Beat the eggs for the filling (you thought we forgot, right?) and whisk through the cooled pumpkin mixture. Pour the mixture into the pastry case and bake for the 30 minutes or until it is set with a slight wobble.

Leave to cool and then serve with a sprinkle of icing sugar and fresh vanilla ice cream.