Heston's Triple Cooked Chips

                                 heston's triple cooked chips with their crisp glass like finish

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Heston Blumenthal is popping up in my home state of Melbourne, well at least his world renowned UK restaurant 'The Fat Duck' is. For sixth months from February 15th 2015 the 'The Fat Duck' will be at Crown Casino. With only 16,000 seats available those hoping get a table must enter an online ballot. The ballot is open until midnight October 26th, if your successful break open your piggy bank to pay $525.00 per person without drinks. 

Dang, I want to experience four plus hours and 12 - 15 magical courses but I might have to settle for Heston's triple cooked chips.

Watch Heston himself make his chips, this video stops at final fry.

Heston's Triple Cooked Chips

Ingredients

1 kg (2.2lb) of potatoes ...  (use the best frying potato in your area)

Grapeseed oil for deep frying 

salt

chips cut not too big or too small ... shhh, I had a ruler out the first time I made them. 

Method

Put the cut chips into a bowl under running water for 5 minutes to wash the starch off. Ok, being on water restrictions a lot here, I caught as much water as I could and transferred it to the garden. 

The weird step; Place 2 litres (8 cups) of cold tap water in a large saucepan and add the potatoes. Place the pan over a medium heat and simmer until the chips are almost falling apart (approximately 20–30 minutes, depending on the potato).

Carefully, no really "carefully", remove the cooked chips with a slotted spoon and place them on a cooling rack to dry out. Then place the rack in the freezer for at least 1 hour to remove more moisture.

Heat a deep-fat fryer or a deep pan no more than half filled with oil (to a depth of around 10 cm - 4 inches) to 130ºC (266F). Fry the chips in small batches until a light crust forms (approximately 5 minutes), remove from the oil and drain on paper towel.

Put the potatoes on a cooling rack and place in the freezer for at least 1 hour. You can do this ahead and store the chips in fridge for up to three days. 

Heat the oil in the deep-fat fryer or deep pan to 180ºC (356F) and fry the chips until golden (approximately 7 minutes). Drain and sprinkle with salt.

I served the chips wrapped in food colouring printed newspaper, for a fun nostalgic presentation. 

The best chips we have ever had... the most work for a chip... longest time investment for a chip... but oh baby it's a great chip! 

Haven't entered the ballot yet and want to try for a booking ... head on over to The Fat Duck/Crown Melbourne.

Happy Baking :) 

You might also be interested in Nutella Dust

Shark Nuggets

panko crumbed shark nuggets

Order 'Fish n' Chips' in my home state of Melbourne it's most likely going to include fillets of 'flake'; flake is a generic term used here for shark, usually gummy shark. Gummy shark is a popular eating fish for it's boneless plump white fillets and mild flavour. 

Two flake and chips from our local fish and chip shop

Mustelus antarcticus 'Gummy sharks'

wikipedia

Gummy sharks are small variety of shark with a minimum catch size of 45cm (about 18 inches), making them a popular with weekend fisherman.

Today I'm making panko crumbed shark nuggets. Served with a chilli lime mayo, you might prefer sweet chilli sauce or tomato sauce (ketchup) for the kids. 

Method

Cut the flake fillet (preferably Gummy) into bite sized pieces. 

Dip pieces in seasoned plain flour (all purpose), shake off excess. Dip into beaten egg, allow excess to drip off. Roll in Panko or breadcrumb of choice. 

Shallow fry in batches for 3 to 4 minutes depending on the size of the your pieces, allow a test piece to break open and check if it is cooked. Your looking for the fish to have changed colour and be white throughout and still juicy.

Drain on paper towel.

Serve with salad, as part of a Japanese meal or as an appetiser with drinks. 

Happy Baking, or in this case frying :)

'The Cupcake Bakery' Cupcakes Review

                            Custard Tumble cupcake $4.50

Daniel teenage stepson of The Lone Baker;

Greetings! Welcome to the first, of hopefully many more reviews of Dan and Eliza’s to be featured on The Lone Baker.

To start us off, we decided to visit one of ‘The Cupcake Bakery’ stores, inside Melbourne Central.

Okay, no lies here… this was an extremely embarrassing experience… firstly, I was way too indecisive to actually place the order for the cupcakes, and had to ask Eliza to kindly ‘do the honours’. This was an entertaining decision, as I was privileged enough to hear Elly awkwardly ‘Fumble’ around with the Cupcake names ;)

As I handed the bakery employee the money however, thinking I had given her a $20 note, I stood, and stared at her waiting for my change for a substantial amount of time. I was asked strangely if I wanted anything else, to which I replied; ‘My change would be good’. An awkward pause, and some puzzled moments of following explanation revealed that I had indeed given her the EXACT change… The Cupcake Bakery’s staff are kind, willing to laugh, and joke. We found this out quickly!

I did mostly enjoy the cupcakes, for aesthetic reasons at least. The shop window revealed quite a vast selection of  ‘butter frosting swirled’, ‘glittery’ and ‘ridiculously chocolate-y (in a good way!) cakes, all of which leaving the customer a very strong desire to scoff down some cupcakes fast.

Elly and I selected 3 to taste test, ‘Red Velvet’, ‘Vanilla Strawberry’, and the ‘Custard Fumble’- I mean, ‘Custard Tumble’, which was a decadent cake from the stores more ‘deluxe’ range, with a debatably difficult to read label in front of the product.

red velvet, strawberry vanilla & custard tumble

-So, this spot right here, was initially where I was to have my cupcake review. Though, due to self-consciousness and fear of having the ‘inferior’ review of the two, I have stepped down and given Eliza this position. But in all seriousness, hers was naturally way better than mine, and covered everything awesomely. Thanks! :P

Eliza teenage friend of the the teenage stepson of The Lone Baker;

They say you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover, but in the case of The Cupcake Bakery’s window display of all their different styles of cakes, it was hard not to. A good five minutes were spent by Dan and I just looking at and admiring the fancy little treats. The Vanilla Strawberry cupcake, topped with a swirl of icing and pretty pink sugar, and the Red Velvet with its colourful cake and cute-as-a-button, heart-topped icing looked so good I wanted to hang them from a necklace or smear them on a T-shirt, or something equally as unorthodox. While the pièce de résistance of our cupcake quest, the Custard Tumble (or the Custard ‘Fumble’ as I incorrectly read AND ordered) with its miniature mountain of profiteroles and caramel sauce looked so good you wanted to eat it… which I guess was the point.

vanilla strawberry $3.50

And the icing and decorations certainly didn't disappoint when it came to eating it; but while the icing didn’t, the cakes themselves did. The Vanilla Strawberry cupcake was a nice enough vanilla buttercake, but its ‘strawberry filling’ was really nothing more than a dollop of strawberry jam on top of the cake- more of which was on my half than on Dan’s. But to be fair, I’m sure The Cupcake Bakery hadn’t anticipated a pair of teenagers buying a bunch of cupcakes and dividing them in half for one another using an expired metcard, and purposely put more on my half.

metcard; public transport ticket & makeshift cupcake divider

Who would have known, though, that the quaint little Red Velvet cupcake was meant to be a ‘red coloured chocolate cake’?

I certainly didn’t. To be honest, I just thought it was ‘red’ flavour at the time, and it wasn’t until a few days later that Dan pointed out to me that it was meant to be chocolate. You couldn’t have picked it. I didn't. The Red Velvet was the only cupcake of the three we tasted that I really had a problem with. Again, my half was fine, but when I tasted some of the larger half that Dan snuck for himself, there was something horribly bitter about it. It was almost as if there was an ingredient that shouldn’t have been there, or the baking soda wasn’t mixed in properly. It didn’t make the whole thing overly appetizing. It did look really cute though.

inside a red velvet cupcake

Then there was the Custard ‘Fumble’. This little slab of decadence kind of proved to be a bitch to cut in two using our metcard-knife, and most of the toppings ended up smeared on my leg. Beneath the pile of choux pastry, there was a concealed pool of custard embedded into the top of the cake, which I guess is where the ‘custard’ part of the name comes in. Like all the others, though, the garnishes on the cupcake turned out to be better than the actual cake itself. The ‘vanilla almond buttercake’ was really no different to the vanilla buttercake of the Vanilla Strawberry cupcake, and nothing extremely special. The mini profiteroles and caramel sauce made the $4.50 paid for the cupcake all worthwhile though.

        review & photos; Eliza Nicoll & Daniel Paxton-Zahra

The Cupcake Bakery can be found at...

shop GD006, Menzies Lane, Melbourne Central, La Trobe Street, Melbourne

Lindt Chocolat Café, the 'Macaron's'

Passion & Champagne Macaron's Lindt Café $2.50 each

I'd love to see you on facebook too! 

Step son Dan was telling me on the weekend about visiting the Melbourne flagship Lindt Chocolat Café in Collins Street. He bought macaron's with his hot chocolate & emailed a photo he took with his phone, this gave me an idea... Daniel could be the roaming Melbourne reviewer for The Lone Baker.

I can't get out much with the fibromyalgia, Daniel is in Melbourne five days a week, hmmmm, he has a great palette & appreciation of good food plus he is a fabulous writer.

I'll ask him nicely if he will do it, otherwise try some bribery with cheesecake and chocolate!! But for now a quick retelling of Daniel's macaron tasting;

Lindt Chocolat Café Collins Street

The Lindt Café macaron's are the 'Delice Collection'

Backcurrant, Vanilla, Strawberry, Champagne, Coconut, Excellence 70% Cocoa Chocolate, Hazelnut, Milk Chocolate, Passion, Peach, Pistachio and Roselli

Eat in pricing examples; $2.50 each macaron, $6.50 hot chocolate, $7.50 iced chocolate, $12 slice of cake

Daniel sampled two flavours in the macaron range;

Passion

Passion fruit flavoured macaron with a passionfruit & milk chocolate cream centre finished with a  dusting of cocoa.

The advertised 'passionfruit twice' was a little too strongly flavoured for Daniel, he thought it was, well, "too passionfruity" & that it cancelled out the flavour of the milk chocolate and almond meringue. 

Champagne

Classic almond macaron filled with a white chocolate and champagne cream. This is one Daniel will go back for!  He enjoyed the subtle flavour of the champagne against the creaminess of the white chocolate. 

Foodies:  Appreciation Evenings are run at the Collins Street store monthly 7pm to 8.30pm. Costing $70 per person the evening covers; history, skill & the tradition of chocolate, plus a demonstration by a Master Chocolatier. Yes, it does include chocolate and cake tasting! For bookings.

Where:

271 Collins Street, Melbourne

Tel: (03) 9667 0900

Monday – Thursday: 7.30am – 7pm
Friday: 7.30am – 9pm
Saturday & Sunday: 9.30am – 7pm