January 26, 2007

Happy Australia Day!

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I don’t care how much snow there is outside. As far as I’m concerned, it’s Australia Day and that means it’s warm and nice and I should be on the beach at Byron Bay, eating ice cream. Two years ago today, that’s where I was and that’s where I’d like to be right now. Unfortunately that’s not an option, so instead I made ice cream to drown my tears in. I actually made ice cream yesterday as well. It was Dad’s birthday so I made him his regular, angel food cake, from scratch, with chocolate whipped cream. That meant I had a whole lot of egg yolks leftover that needed using up. I was undecided on what to make with them but was feeling as though something was missing in my life, but I couldn’t quite figure out what it was. Then it hit me: I hadn’t made a Dorie recipe in over a week. The horror! (I’m not actually joking here…) But I knew that there were ice cream recipes in Baking: From My Home to Yours, and I knew that ice cream required egg yolks. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened next. Since Dad’s a big chocolate fan I opted for the Chocolate Ganache ice cream. Yes, you read that correctly, a ganache ice cream! I’d actually never made ice cream using egg yolks before, (usually mine was just mass amounts of cream) but I was confident that with Dorie behind me, everything would be ok. But why make things easy on myself? I decided to make the Chocolate Ganache ice cream at the same time as I worked on a top secret kitchen project that will be revealed January 30th. Since it’s top secret, I can’t tell you anything else right now, but suffice to say that it’s a project that required my undivided attention and I shouldn’t have been making ice cream at the same time. But despite my difficulties in multi-tasking, this was the best ice cream I’ve ever made, and possibly one of the best ice creams I’ve ever tasted. And that’s saying a lot. I used to work in an ice cream store that served over 35 flavours… This ganache ice cream was smooth and creamy and wonderfully chocolaty.


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You are perhaps looking at the first picture and noticing that it doesn’t look very chocolaty. That’s because it’s not, it’s Burnt Sugar ice cream. Everyone ate all of the chocolate last night with the angel food cake. I was sure I’d have some leftover for Australia Day, but noooooo, they licked the bowl clean. I suppose I should be flattered by that, but somehow I’m more annoyed that that I don’t have any super tasty ice cream leftover. I guess I can’t be too annoyed with them because it running out of the chocolate ice cream meant that I got to make another batch, and try out another Dorie recipe. This time I went for the Burnt Sugar ice cream, (you could also call it caramel). But why stop there? I went on to make Dorie’s Chocolate Oatmeal Drop cookies as well. They look pretty on the side of the ice cream but they’re even better when they’re broken into pieces and mixed in. Mmmm cookies and ice cream. Although the Chocolate Ganache ice cream was better, I still thought this was a worthy contribution to the celebration of Australia Day. I just wish I was actually there.


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For those of you who have not experienced Australia, you’re missing out. But allow me to tell you a few of the reasons I love Australia:

1- I don’t think I need to state this, but their accents are pretty freaking cool.

2- They have Tim Tams.

3- They have the best sand for playing beach volleyball in.

4- Despite the fact that English is the primary language, you wouldn’t always know it… Aussies love to vary words and use short forms. Only an Aussie could manage to make the lowly blood sucking mosquito sound appealing by calling it a mossie. Bikkies are cookies, a bottle-o is a liquor store, an esky is a cooler, university is uni and if someone tells you they’ll see you this arvo, it means this afternoon. I could go on forever. I love it.

5- They embrace the concept of “Go big or go home” with countless ‘Big’ roadside attractions such as the Big Banana, Big Prawn and Big Pineapple just to name a few. Oh and they’ve got that reef that’s big, and that rock too.

6- Australia has all of the world’s top 10 deadliest snakes and is home to a variety of other deadly critters. Even the cute little platypus is venomous.

7- They have the best place names like Indooroopilly, Wollongong and Gympie, (and those are the normal ones).

8- It’s warm.

9- The people are fun.

10- Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!



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22 comments:

Anonymous said...

Stone the flamin crows mate.. strewth even. Who knew anyone else remembered it was Australia. I've almost forgot about it and I live here.

Although currently sweltering under near 40C weather, i'm not feeling particularly patriotic... but thanks for thinking of us all fondly.

For true Aussie passion though, i'd be making Anzac biscuits or pavlova, but I'll let you off this time because it's too hot for baking here.

Some other linguistic anomalies you may find interesting.

flip flops are called thongs

- north american "biscuits" are scones

- small pancakes are pikelets

- diapers are nappies

- making fun of = taking the piss

- how-you-goin-alright? is a complete conversation.

- Vegemite is a valid part of the food pyramid.

I could go on... oh, and there's no 'e' in Oi ! :)

Bloody good work though.

Matt :)

Gattina Cheung said...

Brilynn, you're the queen of ice-cream! About that cookies ice-cream, give me two gallons!

Anonymous said...

:) such yummy funny photos :D enjoy australia day :)

wheresmymind said...

Given that there's a wind chill of -15 up here in Beantown today, I could use some more Aussie in my life :D

Lis said...

Yum! Ice cream is an addiction with me. Sadly. Ask my hips.

Anyway.. PLEASE make the ganache kind again and post.. PLEASE.

I've never been to Australia although it's on my top 5 places to visit. I'm quite fond of their accents too. =)

FH said...

We have Indian Republic day today as well!Great naked and dressed goodie!
Aussies,good day mates!

K and S said...

your posts always bring a smile! Happy Australia Day!

Anonymous said...

Can you share the ganache recipe?? My brother and I are ice cream/gelato fanatics! We have tried tons of recipes, but not that one...I would love to give it a whirl! Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Brilynn, that Angel food cake looks to die for! And i love your lists of reasons you love Australia. Oh, how i'd love to go there!

Mae

Jenny said...

Looks great, everything looks great!
I have Dorie's book but have barely started reading it, and I always read the books before I start cooking from them! I guess I'd best get reading.

Anonymous said...

I told myself I wasn't going to be eating any sweets today, but this post has me craving a big old dish of ice cream!

Haalo said...

You've got to explain rooting ;)
Happy Australia Day to you too!

Anna (Morsels and Musings) said...

and don't forget woolloomooloo. that's my favourite suburb name.

Helene said...

I made the ice cream over the summer and it was a hit! It was so smooth and flavorful!
Thanks for celebrating our Australian friends!

Anonymous said...

Happy Australia Day Brilynn ;) Glad you're as fond of Oz as I am :)

And, by the way, may I disagree with Matt re: the vegemite? Personally, I think it looks/smells/tastes like a dog's breakfast and wouldn't feed it to my firstborn. Nutella may not be patriotic, but I'd rather have that on my toast any day!

Christine said...

If you are going through Tim-Tam withdrawal, I'd be happy to supply you with some!

Anonymous said...

Uh oh... it's a blog off...

Ellie... clearly you weren't brought up on Vegemite... so i'll forgive your shameful lack of patriotism for not liking it... in my eyes it'll always be the yeast extract of choice.

Vegemite and cheese sandwiches... now thats Australian... :)

evinrude said...

i love aussie! anyway we have tim tams in singapore too!

Brilynn said...

Maria- the chocolate ganache recipe is staright out of Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours. I didn't adapt it at all so I decided not to post it. Her book is one everyone should have anyways!

Matt and Ellie: Fight! Fight! Fight!

Anonymous said...

well, i never figured our accent to be cool by any stretch of the imagination but, okay, we'll happily accept the compliment (and any other ones)!

and now for my two cents...i wasn't brought up on it either but vegemite on toast is a wonderful thing.

maybe it helped that i was brought up on the taste of marmite and bovril which are both similar in taste to vegemite. these are both great in a plain congee. mmm, so soothing.

btw, there's always next year, Brilynn :)

Eva said...

Having already celebrated my second Australia Day I just realized that every country should have such a day! Unfortunately, Germans won't ever come up with such a fun concept... Instead of throwing a shrimp on the barbie my fellow Germans would argue about what's there to celebrate - and our national anniversary is in autumn anyway. But I can fully understand what you miss as I didn't have any problems settling in here in Sydney!

Anonymous said...

Hi Brilynn, loved your site!! Drooling all over your entries:)
Happy to know you loved Australia!!
I also happen to live in Wollongong:)
Cheers, Gina