It is two weeks since they left and seven until they return.  A year ago had you told me I would choose to move away from my children I would have called you crazy, the thought would have been inconceivable.  I grieved long and hard in making the decision, had points where I didn’t believe I could survive the separation and yet knew I wouldn’t survive returning to the life I had left.

These days it is not hard to be happy.  I feel anxious in the days leading up to their arrival, again in the countdown to their departure and I am sad and kind of lonely in the few days after they have gone.  When they are here my days are so full of cuddles, snuggles, kisses and “I love you’s”. Affectionate boys all three of them, there are all the days, weeks and months of my absence we must make up for.  The first few days after they leave feels like a physical withdrawal from their sweet, unconditional love.

I have always loved cooking for them.  Now I am holiday mamma I notice I spoil them with sweet stuff so much more then I ever used to.  Not long before they left last time, a friend of ours, Julia, passed over this chocolate chip cookie recipe.  I lost count of how many cookies they ate before they left, couldn’t bear to count how many cookie scented kisses I would miss once they were gone.

So today I make cookies to send to them in the post. I pour all my passionate mamma love and yearning into the dough.  Shape the cookies for baking with hands that ache to stroke their hair and caress their cheeks. The taste of cookie dough and the scent of cookies baking makes their absence palpable.  If I lift my head quickly I can almost catch the memory of their reflection in the window pane.  Close my eyes and almost hear the bubble of their laughter in the distance.

In the early evening cool I run up to the Highlands in the village. No-one is building up here yet and the solitude and peace always soothes.  I sprint hard and fast up one of the hills, relishing the exertion, the physical sensations that distract me from my grief.

I have a favourite spot up here where I sit and contemplate the nature of it all.  The birds chime evensong as I watch the sun salute the day’s end.  Soft shades of pale blue and lilac are drifting off to gentle rose and gold.  Wisps of silvery clouds scud across the pastel palette.

Here I free my tears, this is my sorrow – I release it.  And here, here is my gratitude – I embrace it.  Gratitude for the family who have brought me back from the brink, for the family of friends who loved me even in my darkest hours, for a sister who is teaching me the intricate relationship between nutrition and mental health, for this green valley that holds me tenderly and holds me true.  And for my children, oh yes, for my children.

Chocolate Chip And Roasted Hazelnut Cookies

When I arrived here on the Coast the cookie recipes I brought with me didn’t stand up to the humidity.  This recipe works wonderfully because of the extra egg yolk. If you like crunchy cookies they will stay that way for days.  If you like them chewy take them from the oven when they are browning on the edges, or leave in longer for crunchy.

I like to roast the hazelnuts first because the flavour is so good but it isn’t necessary.  If you do roast them, wrap them in a tea towel when they come out of the oven and rub off any skins that are loose.

2 cup plain flour
1/2 tspn bi-carb soda
170g butter
1 1/2 cup rapadura sugar  (or 1 cup brown and 1/2 cup white sugar)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 cup choc chips
1 cup chopped roasted hazelnuts

Melt butter then mix with sugar until well blended.  Beat in vanilla, egg and egg yolk until light and creamy.  Then add dry ingredients, including chocolate and nuts until just blended.

Refrigerate dough for 1/2 hour to an hour, depending on the weather, then shape into rissoles and put on tray.  I like to make the cookies big so I only bake six to a tray.  Bake for 15 to 18 minutes depending on your oven and whether you like them crunchy or chewy.  Leave on the pan for 5 minutes after you remove them from the oven.

Best washed down with cold, raw milk!!

Years ago working as a second chef in a Denmark restaurant, I was thrown into the cake making deep end by the absence of the usual cake maker.  Other than wildly decorated kids’ cakes (– such as a green Bulbasaur cake, remember Pokemon?) – I’d had little experience at café style cake making.  Having been through three pregnancies by this stage and the inevitable craftiness that nesting inspires, I had discovered a latent artistic nature and a talent for working with color and texture.  Instantly, I fell in love with the artistry involved in café cake making and was keen to do more despite the cake maker’s return.

Going home one evening with another staff member who did flower arranging for weddings, we threw together a chocolate cake and then spent the evening making outrageous chocolate decorations.  High on w-aaay too much chocolate and a fair few glasses of champagne, we fantasised about a wedding cake/ flower arranging business. My boss at the time, who was a very uptight young woman, got wind of the fantasy, and my role was restricted to second-chef-ing only in a decidedly cool corner of the kitchen.

Meanwhile a fantastic new café opened up called Lushus.  The logo was a set of hot pink lips, a fibre-glass sculpture of which was hung out on the brick wall in the courtyard garden. Run by two incredibly wild and colorful women, the café was rapidly becoming the place to eat in town.  Eager to become a part of the scene and very keen to leave behind my frosty, lonely kitchen corner, I planned my attack. Julie and Tracy’s food had flair and funk but like many foodies their cakes had limited imagination. I figured my best way in was to show them what I did so I rocked up with this cake and was hired on the spot.

Over the years this has been my most popular cake both in and out of cafes.The flavour is gorgeous, its moistness keeps it fresh for days, it’s so easy to make and easy to make it look fabulous. When I first started working at Lushus, “gluten intolerant” was becoming the latest dietary craze.  A craze that has become a permanent state of affairs for most of us due to the terrible mistreatment our poor digestive systems receive from our industrial diets.  Gluten-free used to be synonymous with unpalatable, but this cake has always been popular even amongst die-hard gluten eating fiends!

I have developed many fantastic variations of this cake which I will share with you, and the techniques to make them look fabulous, over the blogs ahead.  This recipe comfortably serves 12 – 16 people and the mix fills a bundt tin giving the cake a very stylish height.  Because of the type of cake mix and the height of a deep bundt tin, a slight separation will occur so that when the cake is inverted, there is a thin layer on top that is fairly nut free and is a kind of a custard formed from the eggs and fruit juice.  Don’t be disturbed by this!  I’ve had people ask me what it is but never any complaints.  This separation is less likely to occur in a smaller cake.  It also pays to put the tin on a tray as leaking will occur.

Poached Whole Orange and Almond Cake Saturated with a Lime Syrup

4 large oranges
3 cups whole, unblanched almonds
12 eggs
3 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
3 teaspoons bi-carb soda

Poach oranges for 15 minutes in boiling water.  When cool enough to handle, cut in half and remove seeds.  Process nuts until fine blended but not a meal texture.  Beat eggs.  Combine all ingredients and mix well. Lightly oil and line a bunt tin.  The cake may leak early in cooking so place on a tray.  Bake in a slow oven until golden brown on top and reasonably springy to touch.  Remove from the oven and pour hot lime syrup over the cake.

Lime Syrup

3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup lime juice
3/4 cup water

Combine all ingredients in a pan and bring to the boil, simmer until all sugar is dissolved.  Pour hot over hot cake.  When cake is cool decorate.

Decoration
Thin sliced oranges and lime
Strips of orange zest – you will need the zester pictured to do this
1 cup Water
1 cup sugar

Put sugar and water in a pan and bring to boil.  When sugar is melted add oranges, limes and zest and simmer for 5 minutes.  Remove from syrup and allow too cool.  Make a cut in each slice from the edge to the center – use a knife or kitchen scissors.  Twist the slice as shown in the photo and place over and around the bottom of the cake.  Put zest on top of slices.

I know it goes against the grain to use unblanched almonds that aren’t too finely ground but give it a go.  Orange and almond cakes are fairly common but what has always set this cake apart is its texture and color.

Have fun!!

If you use the Beurre Bosc Pears for the topping and leave their skins on you get a beautiful interplay of colors with the hazelnuts.  And as you can see from the photo – a “wow” design is easy to create.

The cake is rich and moist and it is fine to use any pear for the cake mix as the Beurre Bosc are usually more expensive. This cake is exquisite when eaten warm. You can freeze the cake but if so, it definitely needs heating as the gluten free flours don’t freeze so well. Leaving the cake mix for a few hours before baking so the flours soak will also improve the texture.

There are many disgusting gluten free flour blends on the market.  They taste horrible and have a horrible texture. Also, just about every one we have found contains soy flour. (Filippa will tell you all about the evils of soy!)  What I really appreciate about this flour blend is that it creates a balanced texture and is happily consumed by people who have no interest in gluten free products!

2 pears skinned and chopped
125g dried figs, roughly chopped
1/2 tspn bicarb soda
3/4 C boiling water
Put in a bowl together and set aside for 10 minutes

1/2 C amaranth flour
1/3 C quinoa flour
1/3 C brown rice flour
1/3 C tapiaoca starch
1 C rapadura
1/2 cup roughly ground hazelnuts (you can use hazelnut meal but I find it is usually rancid and I like to use ground nut blends that are not so fine and have more texture.  So I blend mine in the processor when they are about to be used)
Mix together in a large bowl

125g melted butter
2 beaten eggs

Add all wet ingredients to dry and mix together.

Line a 20cm spring-form tin.  I don’t bother lining cake tins neatly.  Some people cut the pieces exactly so it is all lined up but I just pull off a square of paper and press it into the tin.  A smear of butter or oil on the tin sides and bottom will hold the paper in place.  Pour in cake mix and bake in a slow oven until top is springy and a skewer comes clean.

Caramel Topping
50g butter
1/2 C cream
1/2 C rapadura (or brown sugar for a richer caramel)
Bring to the boil

1 Beurre Bosc pear, cored and finely sliced
Hazelnuts

When the cake is cooked arrange pear slices and hazelnuts on the cake and pour the hot caramel over them.  Return to the oven for 10 minutes or until hazelnuts looked toasted.

Here are photos from Filippa’s birthday in January – (held again at the ecovillage community center – oh the joys of village living!) – and the cake I made for the occasion. Learning to work artistically with chocolate in a humid climate has certainly presented its challenges. There is nothing worse than delivering a fabulous looking cake that falls to pieces on arrival.

I first began making cakes at Lushus cafe in Denmark, WA.  Orders soon started coming in for special occasion cakes and I was happy to fill them as they were amply rewarded and I loved the admiration I received for my presentation. A local in the town was having a 50th birthday party at a restaurant by the inlet. Holed up at a girlfriend’s place for a few days due to domestic battles with my (now ex) partner, I was under pressure and under prepared. My girlfriend’s house was moments from the restaurant so I brought the cake from work to decorate, and then made the terrible mistake of filling and stacking it when it still held the slightest memory of warmth. Under less pressure I would have seen the folly of my ways, but stress had blockaded logical thinking pathways. Racing out the door – which is difficult to do with a large two tier cake in hand – I watched with horror as a small crack began to appear in the top of the cake …….well, you can guess the rest of the story – restaurant packed with locals, cake in tatters, bravely attempted compassionate face of birthday man, utter humiliation of cake maker in question!!  Note to self religiously practised from there on – ALWAYS chill before you fill!!!

My cake making journey has certainly taken me through a few different recipes on my hunt for the perfect chocolate cake recipe – one that tastes great, has a moist texture and stands up to the challenge of being stacked as a celebration cake. Height is one of the easiest ways to impress at a special occasion and the fastest route to wish for sudden death when it falls!!

Filippa tracked down a great recipe for her son Taiji’s birthday in May – its a gem!  What I like most about it is the light fragrance of coconut that comes through from the coconut oil and the mouth watering moistness this ingredient adds.

I first started using coconut oil in the certified organic skin care range I developed, Elemental Skin Care. Filippa used to tell me that it was wonderful to cook with and eat but back then I believed it would make me fat and so was happy to restrict myself to external application only. A monthly phone call was too little time to absorb all the information Filippa had about nutrition so I smugly kept a closed mind. Now of course, as a co-habitant in Casa Araki, I am a captive audience. She bends my ear from dawn to dusk and I have become guilty by association! Not only do I now eat lots of coconut oil but recently out to dinner with my sons before they flew back to WA after the holidays, I was happily reeling off why a particular oil was an unhealthy ingredient in a chilli oil I was liberally splashing over my dinner – what would life be without being able to live contradictions? Number One son, who is 15 and loves drama, rolls his eyes with studied casualness “you are a constant downer!” And then bestows upon me a sunny smile “Do you like that one – I got it from a movie?”  How could I not?  I mentally file it away to be fired straight back when the perfect moment arrives!

Did you know coconut oil can actually speed up your metabolism?

Devil’s Food Cake

2 cups organic spelt flour

2 cups organic rapadura

1/2 cups organic cocoa powder

1 1/2 tspn bicarb soda

1 1/2 cups milk

1/2 cup coconut oil

1 tspn vanilla

2 eggs

Put all ingredients in a bowl together and mix

Grease and line a 20cm pan

Bake in a slow to moderate oven until skewer comes clean when inserted into cake – approx 45 min.

We like to use organic ingredients whenever possible and prefer spelt flour and rapadura but this cake can be made with wheat flour and brown or white sugar.  You can also replace the coconut oil with butter.

Thanks to The Healthy Home Economist for this recipe.