Earl grey bread & butter pudding

This is the first recipe I have posted in which tea features as an ingredient, and by no means will it be the last.  When last year I posted my recipe for Chai, I also introduced my passion for loose leaf tea.  This passion is such that I see tea having the potential to be [...]

Vanilla creme brulee

The reason I settled on this dessert to complement my lamb recipe was because someone had made it for me a week prior. I forgot how a simple vanilla crème brulee can completely blow your socks off and selfishly I wanted to revel in that taste again.

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Apple and blackcurrant pie

I wanted to cook a dessert I could imagine farmer’s wives cooking during the winter to feed their hard working husbands and hungry, growing children. Although, growing up in suburbia my knowledge of farm meals is lacking. I talked to my workmate Nicola who grew up on a farm in Timaru and got some inspiration of foods synonymous with rural NZ.

Schiacciata con l’uva

This office is full of passionate people – car enthusiasts, extreme mountain bikers, hunter/gatherers, rock-climbers, artists, musicians – but one passion most of us have in common is for good food. Simon, one of our senior engineers, has taken this passion further than most – travelling to Italy, Australia and around New Zealand indulging in [...]

Feijoa and sauvignon blanc bavarois

Bavarois or Bavarian cream is a dessert that owes its origins to Switzerland according to the French. It is a crème anglaise (or English custard) thickened with gelatine and lightened with whipped cream.

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Rum and raisin ice cream

Annie who works in the F&P Industrial Design team in Dunedin told me a story about when she was young, growing up in the Netherlands there were only three types of ice cream available: vanilla, strawberry and rum and raisin – the latter of which children were forbidden to eat.

Riesling syrup cake

We tasted many wines on our team trip into Central Otago.  While the region is best known for its (delicious) pinot noirs, we tasted a couple of delightfully syrupy, aromatic rieslings along the way as well.  They proved the perfect inspiration (along with the stunning scenery) for this syrup-drenched cake.

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Stone fruit tarte tatin

French food ranges from haute cuisine to very rustic dishes.  The soufflé I posted earlier in the week requires a gentle hand and close attention to the clock.  Tarte tatin is a lot more forgiving.  In fact, the legend goes that this classic French dish was created entirely by mistake when Stéphanie Tatin accidentally put [...]

Tapioca, caramel and mango pudding

My time in Thailand, although brief changed how I cook and how I eat. Since going there about a year ago I have fully embraced the cuisine which is now a staple of my diet. I vividly remember eating foods for the first time – dragon fruit, steamed broth from a side cart, whole soft shell crab. And first time food experiences – having to hang my drink on a door handle

Raspberry brownie

Should you be on the hunt for the ultimate brownie, there is little doubt that your search will reveal a plethora of recipes all vying for the attention of the inspired cook.  What makes this particular recipe stand out from the bunch however is the addition of raspberries, which, like little red jewels, provide a [...]

Layered coconut and lime cake

I am never that sure about coconut. Maybe it’s because my sister was allergic to it growing up and it was never a household staple, whatever the reason I tend to veer away from it. This recipe intrigued me though, whether it was the extraordinary height of it or the dazzling white of the icing, [...]

Nectarine coconut pound cake

The original cookbook tells of pound cakes relying on a thorough creaming or beating of the butter and sugar in order to get them to rise. When I read this I had instant appreciation for my electric beater. Due to the lack of raising agent, this cake’s consistency is dense and ballsy though the coconut [...]

Tropical eton mess

This is another of Sarah’s beautiful recipes.  Serve it up over Easter weekend and your guests will love you!
Named after the school of Eton, this is usually a delicious mash-up of yummy meringue, berries and cream.  I have added an extra twist by making it tropical, and if made 20 minutes in advance, the flavours [...]

Easter doughnuts

While I know some of us may find it hard to comprehend (on some level I struggle to believe this myself!), not everyone is a chocolate fiend.  And while I am all about Easter being a celebration of chocolate in all its wondrous incarnations, there is room on my table (and in my belly) for [...]

Carob truffles

These truffles are completely chocolate free, using the much underrated and underused carob. When I started my quest for an interesting carob recipe, my boyfriend screwed his face up in disgust. After a childhood of carob treats due to an eccentric mother who had a passion for looking after her

Chocolate mousse-filled easter eggs

Being of the non-religious, sweet toothed persuasion, Easter for me is a celebration of chocolate in all its delicious forms. In my humble opinion, these chocolate mousse-filled chocolate eggs are a good place for the party to begin. A perfectly made mousse is deliciously rich, silky-smooth and decadent.

Chai spiced honey cake

This recipe is out of one of my favourite recipe books, A Neoclassic View of Plated Desserts, a whole book devoted to completely amazing and decadent desserts. I cooked my final for my chef training out of this book and over the years have been slowly meandering my way through it.

Chocolate caramel slice

This caramel slice is the kind of food to show appreciation or apologise, it will help win votes, help someone get well and will create more office smiles when made and brought into work.

Valentines day shortbread

Happy Valentine’s Day readers! Each year, February 14th creates its fair share of controversy; there are the believers and the non-believers and there are the gift receivers and the non-receivers. I can understand those that don’t agree with this tradition, those that make the stand that every day should be

Summer fruit salad with peach & mint vinaigrette

The peach and mint infused vinegar I posted earlier in the week makes a great base for a sweet and tangy vinaigrette to dress this summer fruit salad. Strawberries in particular love a good smack of vinegar, and the fresh flavours of mint and basil really make this salad pop.

Baileys custard-filled profiteroles

Profiteroles are definitely something that have crept into my Christmas food traditions. Chocolate-dipped and custard-filled, the mere sight of them fills me with Yule tidings. I hope this association travels into my two-year-old son as the years go by.

Truffles

These truffle recipes come to us from Sophie (a.k.a. Fabulous Sophie (because she is)), our marketing guru Sydney-side.  When I first started at Fisher & Paykel, Sophie was based down here in Dunedin, and she always brought a little ray of sunshine (and glamour) into the office.  I have fond memories of these truffles made [...]

Christmas wine soup

As promised, Balint has provided us with two traditional Hungarian Christmas recipes this month; Christmas wine soup and Poppy seed bread pudding (Mákos guba). For those of you who don’t know, Balint is our technical writer and he has shared with us previously his beautiful photographs and story ‘Eating tour of Hungary’.

Poppy seed bread pudding (Mákos guba)

And here is Balint’s second recipe…
“Pronounced “MAH-kosh GOO-bah”, this no-fuss Christmas dessert combines simplicity with Hungarians’ love of consuming poppy seeds in quantities that would be considered bordering on the illegal in some other countries…

Almond drops

The 1st December marks a very special day in Auckland’s Christmas calendar.  On this auspicious evening every year just as dusk turns to dark in one of our central city streets, a row of houses light up with the spirit of Christmas.  Draped in curtains of Christmas lights these houses are transformed and it is [...]

Spring frangipane tart

As I have said in an earlier post, always try to use seasonal produce.  I hate the thought of people travelling all over the place, trying to find an ingredient for a recipe and  ending up either paying 10 times the price they would have had it been in season or getting fed up looking and cooking [...]

Lemon and yoghurt cake

This recipe is from Laura-Daisy who looks after refrigeration performance in Product Development. Laura is an accomplished rower and to look at her, you wouldn’t think a sugar-laden treat has ever passed her lips. But on the contrary, she loves to bake and workmates birthdays see her bringing in her

Chocolate self saucing pudding

Chocolate self saucing pudding is synonymous with the Kiwi Sunday roast. Easily pre-prepared and banged into the oven as the roast comes out, I imagine it’s kept many a farmer happy after a hard day’s yakka.

Kiwifruit sorbet

I love sorbet, especially freshly churned sorbet on a hot summer’s day. When thinking of a new way to serve kiwifruit with the pav I decided, hey, why not make kiwifruit sorbet. I had heard that freezing fruit and then blending it in a food processor with some sugar and water was an easy way [...]

Traditional Kiwi pavlova

Pavlova is the ultimate Kiwi classic. It is synonymous with the Saturday barbie, covered in kiwifruit and usually over-whipped cream, plonked surreptitiously on the bench until mass amounts of beer and sausage have been consumed and the greedy hoards come looking to satisfy their sweet tooth.

Passionfruit lamingtons

I have made over the humble lamington in this simple recipe.  Once more, I am publishing ‘small food’ and for that you inevitably want maximum flavour.  In my opinion, sponge cake doesn’t quite cut it so I have made a light blondie-brownie as the base.  The catering company I worked for gave me the idea [...]

Spiced banana cakes with hot caramel sauce

For me, the perfect banana cake need not involve chocolate. I feel it needs something more gentle, more loving, more saucy to tenderly wrap it in dreamy deliciousness. Enter hot caramel sauce. Roasting the bananas before using them in these little cakes also lends a delicious caramel flavour—it brings out the natural sweetness in the [...]

Poached pears with mascarpone

Being a fan of puddings, desserts and generally all things treat-like, I love to serve a sweet course to finish a meal. The nice thing about this dessert is that it is sweet without being sickly, and all those who try to refuse dessert because they are ‘just too full’ (wimps!) can be persuaded to [...]

Non traditional vacherin

A traditional Vacherin dessert is created by layering meringue disks with crème Chantilly. It gets its name from a cow’s milk cheese made during the cold winter months in France and Switzerland; the colour and shape of vacherin cheese compare to that of this dessert. In this non-traditional vacherin

Chilli chocolate brownies

After falling in love with chilli dark chocolate, I thought what better way to warm up a gloomy winter Tuesday than to make some chilli chocolate brownies for morning tea? Well, the warming effect was certainly intense! My first attempt at these sent a few of the more fragile members of staff running for the [...]

Vanilla panna cotta with coconut macaroons

This combination of smooth, creamy panna cotta and crunchy, slightly chewy macaroon is really rather luscious! You can either serve the panna cotta atop the macaroon (as shown in the photos), or on the side with a little fresh fruit or berries.

Green tea creme brulee with burnt orange

Crème brulee is one of my favourite desserts, it is the smoothest richest custard and the crunchy caramel sugar topping adds that extra something that tips it over the edge to ultimate deliciousness, definitely a decadent dessert for a celebratory feast.

Parkin

This recipe was written by a former colleague of ours Karen O’Neill. Karen has moved on from Fisher & Paykel after six years as the product evaluator for cooking products. Her knowledge and experience were invaluable—we certainly learnt a lot sharing the cooking lab with Karen, and her English plumb and laugh are sorely missed [...]

Little lemon meringue tarts

I love making small or bite sized morsels. Whether they be presented lined orderly on a clean white platter for a cocktail party or piled high on a tiered cake stand for a baby shower, smaller foods are more likely to be sampled.