Weekend Cooking: What I Baked in My Kitchen in November

Welcome to the first Saturday of the month where I usually share everything I have made over the previous month. I did try a couple of new things this month!

The first treat I made this month was Orange Poppyseed Loaf which was from Nagi Maehashi's new cookbook called Tonight. This was a big winner, especially the cream cheese frosting. I love it when a recipe includes cream cheese frosting. It's a shame that you can't put it on everything!

My next bake is called Plum and Mascarpone Karpatka, which is also known as Polish mountain cake. The recipe comes from the cookbook Sift by Nicola Lamb, which I reviewed a couple of weeks ago. I also shared the recipe. This was a delicious cake, consisting of two layers of choux pastry, filled with a mascarpone custard and a plum jam!

We had a 13 people around for lunch last weekend. My husband cooked a barbecue and made pap and gravy (which is a South African dish), the guests bought the salads, and I did two different types of dessert. The first dessert was a pavlova board. I made the pavlova nests, but like last month, it took two attempts. I had made the nests on the Thursday and they were in the oven drying out. When my step daughter was asked to put the oven on for dinner, she didn't check and so it was only when she smelt sugar  burning that she realised they were in the oven! I therefore had to remake them. That's five lots of meringue over the last two months for various reasons!

I can't, however, take credit for the presentation of the pavlova board. When I made one a few years ago, my fruit was just all mixed up,  but Ash did a great job of making the board look pretty. The sauces are a salted caramel sauce, a chocolate sauce and a raspberry sauce which I made.

The other dessert was a Coffee Cream Cake. This is one of my husband's favourites, and now, it is one of his friend's favourite as well! I have shared the recipe for this one before.

I went to Aldi the other day. Even though I do my best to resist the lure of the centre aisle, I wasn't strong enough to not buy this 3D Christmas tree cake pan. I am planning just to do a very simple vanilla cake and then decorate it for our family Christmas lunch in a couple of weeks time. Hopefully it will look okay! I think that the other dessert will be a Peppermint Crisp Tart which my husband makes so it would appear that I won't have too much to do for the family Christmas lunch.

We visited the French Christmas Market last weekend. Whilst I didn't think it was particularly Christmassy, I was very excited when I saw that there was a company there selling baking kits. There were four different varieties available including canneles, madeleines and two different flavours of macarons. I chose Salted Caramel Macarons, but I fully expect that I will buy the other kits at some point. It reminds me of the Bake It Boxes that I used to love so much in that it has everything you need in it, except for the eggs.

We also picked up what was being advertised as the best pate in Melbourne. We had had this brand of pate before, so this time we picked up a terrine as well.

The other new thing for me this week was going to a very popular  cheesecake shop called  Lulu & Me. This is a place where they only sell several different varieties of cheesecake each day, and you can either buy a whole one, or by weight. So if you only want a small slice, say 100g, you can just buy that amount. I bought home some of the basque cheesecake and some of the Passionfruit and Hazelnut cheesecake which was delicious. I would be more likely to buy some of the flavoured cheesecakes because I know that I can make basque cheesecake at any time. It's a pretty easy recipe!

New Recipes

We have tried a few new recipes in the last month. 

Indian Coconut Prawn Curry (Nagi Maehashi)

Honey Pepper Chicken (Nagi Maehashi)

Japanese Chicken Curry with Vegetables, Udon Noodles (Atlas)

Chicken Nanban with Stir Fried Asian Greens and Roast Potatoes

Japanese Beef and Rice Bowl (Atlas)

Weekend Cooking posts over the last month

Widow Cliquot (movie review)

Sift: The Elements of Great Baking by Nicola Lamb

A Recipe for Christmas by Jo Thomas

Cook the Books: Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

Weekly meals

Saturday - Nothing
Sunday -  Leftovers
Monday - Chicken kebab wraps
Tuesday - Japanese chicken curry with noodles (Atlas)
Wednesday - Chicken
Thursday - Beef
Friday - Pork spare ribs, potato salad and ciabatta

I am sharing this post with In My Kitchen hosted at Sherry's Pickings

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page