Mrs Frosts Kitchen

Deluxe outdoor dining experiences Gold Coast Hinterland farm

julie

Grandma’s Jam Drops

These old fashioned biscuits hold huge sentimental value for me.

I stood on a chair in my Grandma Calvert’s kitchen, aged 7, while she taught me the finer points of making these simple biscuits of comfort.

They were always a reliable staple in her ancient cake tin on the top of her fridge, to be stolen whenever she wasn’t looking and, as an adult, have made countless batches for friends (and myself) who have needed comfort and cheer.

I have since inherited Grandma’s old cake tin and lovingly filled it to overflowing with jam drops to share at her funeral.

With a cup of tea, they bring Grandma back to me every time.

A tray of homemade jam drop biscuits

Ingredients: 

  • 120gm very soft butter
  • ½ cup castor sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence
  • 1 ¾ cups self-raising flour
  • Pinch of salt
  • About 1/3 cup any type of jam (MFK apricot jam is good)

Method: 

  • Pre-heat the oven to 180C fan forced. Line a large biscuit tray with baking paper, you may need 2 trays as this batch makes approx. 40 jam drops.
  • Beat butter and sugar until pale and creamy. Add the egg and beat it in well, then the vanilla. Reduce the speed of the mixer and slowly add in the flour and salt until it’s a stiff paste.
  • Take small dessert spoonful’s of mixture and roll into balls with your hands and place on the lined trays with good spacing between each, they spread quite a bit as they cook.
  • Make a hollow in each ball with a small thumb or the back of a tsp measuring spoon, deep enough to hold ¼ tsp of jam in each. Fill each hollow with jam and bake in the oven for about 12-15 minutes or until lightly golden.
  • The jam is HOT so let them cool a little before enjoying with a cup of tea or glass of cold milk.
  • Store in your Grandma’s cake tin or similar. They freeze beautifully too, so why not make a double batch!

Kitchen Conversations e-Magazine Issue #1. Feb 2020

This month I chat with Stuart Hollindale, the local milkman. There’s a recipe for my Summer Peach and Rose tart as featured in the latest edition of Scenic Road Magazine and some ideas for using my latest fav ingredient, Australian native finger lime. Plus all that’s going on out here at Frost Farm.

Sweet French Shortcrust Butter Pastry

This is a delightfully crispy, buttery and lightly sweet pastry perfect for making tarts and pies with. I blind bake a tart shell days in advance ready to fill and devour when I have guests over. Or if I’m making little mini tarts filled with my cointreau and orange sweet fruit mince, I don’t even bother pre-baking, I just whack them in the oven to bake all in one go! After I have cut my shapes for tarts I’m left with odd shaped little scraps which, when baked for 12 minutes on a tray and dusted with icing sugar whilst still warm, make excellent morning tea biscuits for my husband to enjoy with his coffee. And in it’s raw state, a lump of this pastry freezes beautifully for up to 2 months so I always have a few frozen single tart sized pieces ready to thaw and roll out for a short notice dessert.

 

This recipe makes enough for a 24cm loose base quiche/tart tin, leaving enough scraps for decoration or biscuit making.

Ingredients:

  • 200 gm Plain flour 
  • 25 gm Almond meal 
  • 100 gm very cold butter. Cubed. 
  • Small pinch of salt 
  • 75 gm Icing sugar 
  • 1 small egg or exactly 35 gm of egg, lightly beaten, chilled. 
  • Possibly 1-2 teaspoons of iced water. Maybe! 

Making pastry: 

It’s easy but there are some critical technicalities. Namely make every ingredient very cold first and keep returning your pastry, in all its stages, to the fridge, especially in our hot Australian summer weather! 

In a food processor and using the blade accessory, pulse the flour and diced cold butter until only just like clumpy sand. Add the salt, almond meal and icing sugar and pulse for another 10 seconds. 

Whilst running on a slow speed, add the very cold beaten egg. The pastry should start to come together and begin to ball up in the processor bowl, be patient it will happen suddenly. If it doesn’t quite make it, add little sips of the iced water and just as it’s balling up… STOP. Work quickly and tip the whole pastry mess onto a spread-out piece of cling film on the bench. With your hands, lightly pull the dough together into a thick round disk, wrap fully in the plastic film and put it in the fridge for at least 45 minutes, even overnight if preferred. (Actually, I’ve left mine in the fridge for 5 days at this stage of the game, without it suffering in quality or performance)

Blind baking your tart shell: 

Pre-heat the oven to 180 deg C. Lightly spray the tart tin with cooking oil. 

Unwrap your chilled pastry disk and sandwich between two sheets of baking paper on the bench. Working quickly, use a rolling pin, roll out the pastry to make a circle evenly 3-4mm thick and larger than your tart tin.  

Pick up the dough over the rolling pin and lay it over your dish. Gently push the pastry down into the dish, up the walls and into the corners, be careful not to stretch it. Pinch, mould, repair holes and add bits as required, rustic is all the fashion! Chill in the fridge for another 30 mins. 

Remove and with a fork, prick the pastry on the bottom of the dish, lots and lots, 20-30 times. Put it in the oven and blind bake for 12 minutes until very lightly coloured. 

Now relax. This blind baked shell, still in its tart tin, will keep in an airtight container, in the fridge for a few days until you are ready to fill it. 

Head from here over to my Summer Peach and Rose tart, as featured in the latest edition of Scenic Road Magazine, for the perfect way to use your freshly baked tart shell!

 

Summer Peach and Rose Tart

Deliciously sweet summer peaches and the exotically heady perfume of rose water is a match made in heaven- a flavour combo that will keep your guests swooning with delight … and guessing!  

Serves 8-10 people 

 

Ingredients: 

  • 500gm of fresh peach flesh, deseeded, skinless. Equates to approx. 800gm unprocessed fruit. Easy skin slipping method below. 
  • Catch the peach juice and retain as you process the fruit. 
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract 
  • Juice of half lemon 
  • 2 tbsp. castor sugar 
  • 1 tbsp. Cornflour 
  • 100 ml combined of retained peach juice and water 
  • 80ml rose water 
  • 1 sheet of store–bought readymade shortcrust pastry. But if you would like to make your own totally-worth-it deluxe pastry, check out my recipe for Sweet French butter Shortcrust pastry in the recipe section on this website.

 

Making the filling: 

Slip the skins off the whole peaches by blanching them for 3 minutes in a saucepan of boiling water. Spoon them out into a bath of iced water and gently ‘slip’ the skins off with your hands when they’re cool enough to handle. Try to buy peaches that come easily away from the seed, and cut the flesh into eighths wedges. Reserve any fruit juice you can, add enough water to bring the liquid total to around 100ml and mix this with the cornflour in a little separate bowl, to a runny paste. 

In a medium saucepan, add the processed fruit, cornflour paste, all the remaining filling ingredients except the rose water and bring to a quiet boil, stirring gently so as not to break up the fruit too much.  Stir in the rose water. Put aside to thicken and cool completely.  

 Blind baking your tart shell: 

Pre-heat the oven to 180 deg C. Lightly spray a 24cm Loose base quiche/tart tin with cooking oil. 

Separate out a sheet of pastry from the freezer and leave to thaw slightly on the bench until just pliable.  

Pick up the dough over a rolling pin and lay it over your tart tin. Gently push the pastry down into the dish, up the walls and into the corners, be careful not to stretch it. Trim, pinch, mould, repair holes and add bits as required, rustic is all the fashion! Chill in the fridge for 30 mins. 

Remove and with a fork, prick holes in the pastry on the bottom of the dish, lots and lots, 20-30 times. Put it in the oven and blind bake for 12 minutes until very lightly coloured. 

 

Now relax. This blind baked shell, still in its tart tin, will keep in an airtight container, in the fridge for a few days until you are ready to fill it. 

Bringing it all together! 

Pre heat the oven to 180 deg C. Spoon the fruit filling into the pastry shell, sprinkle the top with a little castor sugar and bake in the oven for approx. 20 minutes or until the pastry edges have browned a little more. 

Cool on a cake rack, pop the fluted sides away, slide the round metal base out and centre the tart onto a cake stand or plate. This is all a bit of a juggle and nerve wracking but worth being delicate because it will look beautiful when complete. Decorate if desired with a dusting of icing sugar, flowers, leaves, fruit or nothing at all. Serve slices with a big dollop of cultured crème fraiche or double cream. 

Roasted Pumpkin & Miso Soup with Toasted Pepita Crumb

This is a soup I made in huge quantities for my recent Paddock Picnic in July 2019. I made 36litres of the stuff in my regular kitchen up at the house and then had to transport it in two massive cooking pots, without lids, in the back of the Hilux ute down to the picnic paddock. It was a flawed plan from the start because despite driving like a grandma down our driveway hills, I still managed to slop hot pumpkin soup all over the ute tray! Now it’s stuck like enamel paint to the metal, forever a reminder of my soup-carrying journey.

Pumpkin-soup-Mrs-Frosts-Kitchen

Ingredients

Soup (feeds about 4 people)

  • 1kg Kent Pumpkin or similar
  • 4 heaped tablespoons white miso paste. Approx.
  • Water
  • Olive oil
  • Salt & pepper

Crumb (Save the leftovers to sprinkle over a salad)

  • 2 cups of stale bread torn into small pieces
  • 3 tablespoons of chopped Italian parsley or any green herb of choice
  • 2-3 tablespoons of dry toasted pepita seeds (toast in a dry non-stick frypan for a few mins without oil)
  • Olive oil
  • Salt & pepper
  • Optional Nutritional Yeast Flakes

How to make it

Preheat a fan forced oven to 200deg.

Remove skin and seeds from the pumpkin and cut into 4cm-ish chunks. Arrange in a single layer on a paper-lined baking tray. Slash some olive oil over the pumpkin pieces and season with plenty of salt and pepper.

Tear up by hand the stale bread into rough thumb size pieces and spread on another paper lined baking tray. Sprinkle evenly with toasted pepita seeds, chopped parsley, plenty of salt and pepper, a good drizzle of olive oil and dried yeast flakes if using.

Roast the pumpkin in the hottest part of the oven for 30min or until lightly browned on the tips and thoroughly soft (mashable with a fork).

Roast the crumb in the coolest part of the oven for approx. 15mins or until toasty brown all over. Beware it will easily burn. Remove and set the tray of crumb aside to cool while the pumpkin continues to cook. When cooled, the batch of crumb might need some extra hand-crushing for a less chunky result.

Tip all the roasted pumpkin into a measuring jug to determine how much you have and then transfer into a large saucepan. Add as much plain water as there is volume of cooked pumpkin (maybe a bit less).

Spoon in a heaped tablespoon of white miso paste for every 400ml of water/pumpkin combo you have in the pan.

Blitz until fully blended and smooth with a stick blender, or whiz in a food processor if that’s easier.

Heat the soup on the cooktop, check the taste and seasoning. Add more miso for greater umami and saltiness and lots of ground black pepper. Add a squeeze of lemon for an extra bit of lift if you want.

Serve in mugs or bowls with a generous amount of the pepita crumb sprinkled over the top. Eat with lots of hot buttered toast around the campfire. Enjoy!

Slow Campfire Pork with Apple, Dill & Fennel

This is a reliable campfire crowd-pleaser, perfect for when you don’t know quite when you and your guests will be ready to settle down and eat. It’s a long and slow cook so the quality of the meal is not reliant on exact timing, temperature or how many red wines you’ve already had; all things that you don’t have a great deal of control over when cooking outdoors.

Slow-Campfire-Pork-with-Apple,-Dill-&-Fennel

My quantities are rarely specific so feel free to add a dash more of whatever takes your fancy. Outdoor cooking is meant to be like that; casual, not rulesy, intuitive and fun. If you muck it up this time there’s always another campfire to perfect the recipe with next time!

Ingredients (Feeds 4 fairly hungry adults)

  • 1.5 to 2kg rolled pork roast (de-boned, skin on and as fatty as possible)
  • 4 Spring onion stalks, roughly chopped.
  • 1 large green apple. No need to peel or de-seed, thinly sliced.
  • 1/2 large fennel bulb, washed & roughly chopped.
  • 5-6 large sprigs of dill.
  • 80ml Apple Cider Vinegar (or any vinegar)
  • 400ml full sugar Ginger Beer
  • 1 tbsp Ground ginger.
  • 2 tsp Salt & 2 tsp ground black Pepper
  • 1/4 cup Olive oil
  • Delicious Optional Extras:- Slices of peeled orange, honey, sultanas, prunes, dates.

How to make it

3 Oven cooking options:

  1. My preferred method, the tastiest and the way I have instructed below, is to cook in a domestic oven at 160deg for 3-4 hours then finish in a camp oven on the fire for 1-2 hours.
  2. 5-7 hours in a domestic oven at 160deg. The safest controlled method for when you NEED it to work out!
  3. 5-6 hours on coals beside the campfire. The riskiest, most social method for when you are camping out bush.

My preferred #1 method:

Pre heat your oven to 160deg. Light your fire to generate cooking coals at least 2-3 hours before eating/serving.

Scatter about half of the fennel, dill, apple, spring onion, ground ginger, salt & pepper ( and any other flavouring ingredients you’ve chosen to use) to make a bed on the bottom of a large roasting pan.

Remove the binding strings that are keeping your pork rolled up and any packaging moister absorption pads. Lay the pork out flat on the flavoured bed with the skin side facing up.

Pile the remaining half of the flavouring ingredients on top of the pork skin and sprinkle over them, the vinegar and olive oil.

Pour the ginger beer into the sides of the pan, not over the pork. This will create a 1-3 cm braising bath for the entire cook and will ensure the meat remains moist and succulent. The bath may require topping up with more soft drink or plain water periodically, so keep an eye on this.

Tightly cover the pan with foil and bake in the domestic oven for 3-4 hours at 160deg. It is at this point you can stall your preparation if you wish. Remove from the oven and refrigerate until you are ready to continue on to the campfire cooking part.

Or remove from the oven and put aside while you prepare your camp oven. My best camp oven tip: I love cooking in them but I hate cleaning them afterwards. Here’s how you get around that. Buy one of those disposable thick aluminium baking trays and put it into the bottom of your camp oven, reshaping and moulding it to fit snuggly in the bottom but still with deep side walls so that you can accomodate your braising bath liquid.

Carefully pull the pork skin off and discard. Transfer the entire contents of your pork roasting pan, flavourings and braising liquid included, into the aluminium-lined camp oven. Top up the bath if necessary. Securely locate the heavy cast iron lid on top. Heave Ho it to fire side!

Using a shovel, break apart your established fire and on the side, out of the fire, place 1 small shovel full of coals and spread to make a level pad. Place the loaded camp oven on top of the coals. Shovel another small amount of coals onto the oven lid. Not a pile… just a single layer. This is where most of us get too excited with fire and make it all too HOT: I still do this every so often!

Let this tootle along for 1 to 2 hours or until you are ready to eat. The meat is essentially cooked, you are just adding ‘campfire smokey’ from here onwards. Now is the time to start thinking about your veggies and other accompanying sides.

Check the bath every 40 mins and spin the oven around to have the other side face the fire.

Make sure you open that lid and let the delicious aromas out while your guests are watching, it will impress them no end. Tear and pull the meat apart with a fork and tongues and mix in with what’s remaining of the gravy bath. Let people serve themselves straight from the camp oven. This pork dish is sensational served with a fresh, crisp and sour coleslaw, fire baked sweet potato and corn on the cob!

With love from,

Mrs Frost’s Kitchen xx