Gary Mehigan's Carrot Cake with Olive Caramel

To begin with, I am so obsessed with Gary Mehigan & George Calombaris that even I cant describe my obsession for them. My love for them started with the start of Masterchef Australia. And if I can make or bake or cook remotely anything to what and how they cook, I am literally on cloud 9!! So imagine my state of euphoria when I tried to make Gary's carrot cake with olive caramel.
It sounds weird right?! Who would think of olive caramel! But yet these people did think, and how!! 

I would like to think of this cake as a tasty yet a healthy cake!! Tasty because its a cake after all I mean whats a cake if it is not tasty? And healthy because its made from olive oil instead of your regular oil or butter or shortening. Now I have used the regular cake flour here, but if you want it to be more healthy you can bake this using wheat flour instead. The olive caramel is made using olive paste. Now olive paste is available in a few stores by the name tapenade but this includes garlic and oregano and other spices. So this clearly is not apt for desserts. You can make olive paste at home very easily. Just blitz a few olives in a food processor and you have olive paste ready. 

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients are 
For the cake:

• 2 eggs
• 250 gm soft brown sugar
• 150 ml extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 200 gm plain flour
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 340 gm grated carrots
• 100 gm sultanas/raisins
• 75 gm chopped walnuts
• double cream to serve

For the black olive caramel:

• 200 gm castor sugar or brown sugar
• 50 gm liquid glucose
• 100 gm black olive paste

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 160C.
2. Place eggs and sugar in a bowl and beat them well till the mixture is light in color and frothy. Gradually add the oil while continuing to beat. Fold in the all the rest of the ingredients.
3. Pour batter in a baking tray & bake for 40 mins or until the skewer inserted comes out clean.
4. Meanwhile, for black olive caramel, place sugar & glucose in a saucepan over medium high heat & cook until light brown golden. Remove from the heat and cool slightly. Whisk in the olive paste, whisking continuously. Strain through a fine mesh into a bowl. Keep warm.
5. Serve slices of carrot cake with spoonfuls of warm caramel & double cream alongside.

So here it is, go ahead, try it and you will know the goodness of carrots in a cake!!

Happy Eating guys :)

Profiteroles / Eclairs

Profiteroles are basically cream puffs which after the baking process puff up & are hollow from within. You can fill them up with any filling of your choice but traditionally it is filled with a combination mixture of pastry cream and custard and whipping cream.

At first just by the looks of it, the process of making a profiterole looks very daunting and high stage cooking skills level. But trust me, its not that difficult at all. Just a bit of patience is what you need, and come to think of it, at the end of everything you have your own masterpiece to devour :) :)

So here goes...

For the Pate Choux or the pastry you will need :

• 250gm milk or water
• 110gm butter, cubed
• a pinch of salt and sugar
• 140gm flour
• 3-5 eggs
• 1 egg wash + 2 tbsp milk which is to be used as egg wash

Method:

• Take a non stick pan. Put in the water or milk, butter, sugar, salt. Use a rounded wooden spoon to mix everything but first let everything melt on a very low heat.
• As soon as the butter melts, add in the flour & mix with the wooden spoon. Mix for exactly 30 seconds on low heat or till everything comes together.
• Now, turn on the heat to high & keep mixing for a couple of minutes. (So let me give you a little heads up here, this step here is a really very rigorous process its good hand workout and will make you literally sweat. All good things come with a price !!!)
• The importance of this step is because you need all the moisture removed away from the batter, such a rigorous mixing is required.
• Heat and mix it till you see a dry film on the pan.
• Remove the dough in a bowl. Beat it with an electric mixer for 5 mins or so, so that the remaining mixture is also released.
• Keep the mixer running and add in the eggs, one at a time. Mostly only 3 eggs are required but you need to see if the mixture is in piping consistency stop adding the eggs but minimum 3 and maximum 5 eggs are required.
• Now transfer the mixture into a piping bag. Over a parchment paper on a baking tray, pipe your eclairs.
• Brush egg wash over it. Bake for 40mins at 180C/400F
• Cool eclairs in oven for 10mins with the oven door slightly open.

For the pastry cream, you will need:

• 500ml milk
• 1 vanilla bean pod
• 4 egg yolks
• 75gm sugar
• 2 tbsp flour
• 2 tbsp cornflour
• 100ml cold heavy whipping cream

Method:

• Combine in a pan milk, vanilla bean & bring it to a boil. Once it bowls, turn off heat. Keep aside for 15 mins.
• In another bowl, place egg yolks & sugar. Whisk them together nicely till mixture is light & creamy.
• Add the flour and cornstarch. Mix well.
• Remove the bean from the milk. Pour some of the hot mixture onto the egg mixture & stir quickly to avoid curdling of the eggs. Now put this mixture back to the pan of hot milk mixture.
• Heat it whisking constantly till it turns a bit thick. This will take app 3-4 minutes.
• Remove this into another bowl. Place this over a bowl of ice cubes. Once it cools down, cover the cream with a cling film & refrigerate till its very chilled.
• Separately whisk the heavy chilled whipping cream & add it to the chilled pastry cream. Very slowly incorporate the whipping cream. refrigerate.
• Fill your pastry with this cream with the help of a piping bag.

For the chocolate glaze, you will need:

• 60gm bitter sweet chocolate
• 2 tbsp heavy whipping cream
• 1 tbsp honey
• 2 tbsp water

Pour hot cream over chopped chocolate. Mix well and then add the honey after the chocolate has melted completely. Add the water as well and mix well. Dip the top of the profiteroles in this glaze and refrigerate them preferably over night. Or if you can't wait till the next day to eat your hard work, just gobble them up right away. Well, that's what I did :) :)

Happy Eating...