Posts Tagged ‘Dessert’
Chocolate Nutella & Walnut Cake with Vanilla Mascarpone
July 21, 2020 | 
Author In these challenging times, uncomplicated and delicious home cooking is more of a necessity than ever. Having a repertoire of such recipes is essential, and we have been aiming to bring you these via Noosa Foodie for the past 4 months. Whilst healthy eating is important, the occasional treat (especially homemade) is a great way to cheer yourself up. We make this Chocolate Nutella and Walnut Cake in our Italian Long Lunch Cooking Class. It is always well received and ticks all the boxes: it’s a little bit naughty but extremely nice, quick and easy to make and guaranteed to brighten even the gloomiest of moods.
I hope you have been enjoying our recipes. If you have, feel free to share or leave a comment below.
Port Poached Pears
As you know, my preference is to eat by the seasons and incorporate seasonal produce into my cooking daily. There are so many benefits to this! To name a few: the produce is at its optimum taste, it lasts longer, it is least expensive, and with less food miles to travel it is better for the environment.
Pears are in season right now and this elegant dessert is a winner at a dinner party. Shapely pears standing upright in a puddle of deeply coloured syrup – what’s not to love? These Port Poached Pears are best made the day before to allow the flavours to infuse, and can be served either hot or cold. Serve with mascarpone or crème fraiche alongside a glass of liqueur muscat, and you will be sure to be the host(ess) with the most(ess)!
Festive Tropical Trifle
The traditional trifle gets a makeover with this tropical version which combines a coconut custard with panettone (Italian sweet bread) and fresh mangoes. And what would a trifle be without a little booze, so in keeping with the tropical theme we have used white rum. This luscious dessert is perfect for your Christmas table, and can be made the day before so all that needs to be done on the big day is to tuck in and enjoy.
Chocolate and Orange Avocado Mousse
Noosa Foodie loves to cook by the seasons, and as avocados and oranges are plentiful right now this seemed like the perfect recipe to share.
I created this dessert for our Hello Paleo! cooking class (it is sugar, dairy and grain free), and as well as being extremely nutritious is super-decadent and delicious.
Serve this at a dinner party and your guests will be none the wiser I promise you!
Strawberry Ice Cream
One of the many advantages of living in the Noosa region is the availability of incredible strawberries much of the year round. They are abundant right now, and when life gives you strawberries we say make strawberry ice cream!
Who doesn’t love ice cream, and with a recipe this easy why go for store bought when you can make your own? Don’t panic if you don’t have an ice cream maker – we give you an alternative method which will give you an equally delicious result.
Rhubarb Upside Down Cake
Rhubarb is currently in season, and whilst most people think rhubarb is a fruit it is actually a vegetable. Known for its tart, tangy and slightly sharp taste, rhubarb is a great filling for pies and crumbles, marries beautifully with cream and custards and also has its place in savoury dishes. I have wonderful childhood memories of my Mum’s delicious rhubarb crumble…
Frozen Mango Yoghurt
Mangoes are in season and although the majority of them are coming from the Northern Territory presently, it won’t be long before we’ll be eating Queensland mangoes. When mangoes are in abundance and inexpensive as they are now, I say make the most of them any way you can in your cooking. I devised this recipe the other day, as I had a fruit bowl full of mangoes and a large tub of beautiful local yoghurt from Maleny Dairies* in the fridge which needed to be finished up.
Mango Pie
When you see mangoes at your local farmers market, you know summer is definitely on its way. Whilst the mangoes that are available at the moment are mainly coming from Northern Territory, it won’t be long before we’ll be enjoying Queensland mangoes. Mangoes are such a versatile fruit, and can be used in savoury dishes, drinks, baked goods and desserts to name but a few! One of my favourite ways to cook with mangoes is this Mango Pie, a recipe I developed quite a few years ago but find myself making over and over again. The pie filling is luscious – creamy, fruity but not to sweet. I like to make my pastry from scratch, but if you’re pressed for time just use a sheet of defrosted shortcrust pastry. Either way, your guests will be coming back for seconds, I promise you!
Recipe: Crostata (Rustic Italian Jam Tart)
It’s been a long time between posts, and that’s because this foodie has been eating her way around Europe! Having just returned from a wonderful month travelling Italy, France, Belgium, Holland and England, I’m back in Noosa with renewed culinary inspiration. There were several highlights to my trip – one was dining at Heston Blumenthal’s restaurant The Fat Duck, an incredible experience, and the other was travelling around rural Italy. I concentrated on a fairly small area, which included the regions of Liguria, Tuscany, Umbria and Marche. On my gourmet escapades, one of the things that was very apparent is the diversity of foods in each region. For example Liguria was abundant with seafood and is where the famous pesto sauce originates, whereas Tuscany cuisine was more meat-based, with game being readily available.
Pesto Making in Liguria
Posted in Events & experiences, Places to visit, Recipes | 
Tags: Dessert, italian food | 
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Recipe: Poached Spiced Tamarillos
Tamarillos, also known as the tree tomato, are plentiful on the Sunshine Coast at the present. One of my lovely neighbours who has a tamarillo tree which is abundant with fruit kindly gave me a large bag full, which led me to creating this recipe. Poaching tamarillos in a sweet syrup is one of the nicest ways to enjoy this often overlooked fruit.
