What's the best way to eat crumpets?

It was crumpets that started this whole book journey.

A post I wrote about crumpets a few years back came under the radar of some folks at Random House.  Who can resist a photo of a homemade crumpet dripping with butter and honey?  Even book publishers are rendered helpless, such is the power of the crumpet.





So it's kind of fitting that there's a crumpet recipe in my book, (an updated recipe), because obviously, they hold a special place in people's heart.

Which brings me to the question, "What's the best way to eat crumpets?" This week, over at Meet Me At Mikes, Pip is generously having a giveaway of my book. To enter, leave a comment on her post about how you like to eat crumpets.  Even if you don't want to enter, the gorgeous comments are worth reading as they all sound super delicious.

With all this talk of crumpets,  I thought I would share the recipe for crumpets from my book.  You could make a batch, then tell Pip how you like to eat them.

A Crumpet Recipe, from A Table in The Orchard 

250g bread flour

250g plain white flour

10g dried yeast

2 teaspoons sugar

250ml warm milk

250ml warm water

150 – 250ml warm water, extra

1 teaspoon bicarb soda

1 teaspoon salt

 butter, for greasing the crumpet rings

In a stand mixer, put both flours and yeast in the bowl and mix to combine. In a separate bowl, dissolve the sugar in the warm milk, then add the warm water and pour onto the flour mixture. Beat the mixture until you have a smooth batter
, about 2 minutes.

Cover the bowl with cling film or a tea towel and leave to stand for about an hour until there are lots of bubbles on the surface.




In a jug, mix the extra warm water with the bicarb soda. Fold this liquid into the batter until evenly combined, it will take a bit of work. You may need to add more water to get a dropping consistency.

 Cover the bowl and leave the batter to rest for another 20 minutes until more bubbles rise to the surface.

Heat a heavy based frying pan on a medium-low heat. Generously grease the inside of four metal crumpet rings with butter.  Lightly grease the pan with butter.

Put the greased crumpet rings on the pan. Ladle enough batter into the rings to come just below the rim.

Cook on an even low temperature until small holes appear the top starts to look dry.  This will take some time, at least 7 minutes, but keep the temperature nice and low, don't be tempted to increase the heat.

Flip them over carefully and cook for another minute or two, then lift it off the pan onto a wire rack. Remove the ring

Serve the crumpets straight away with plenty of whipped butter, I like honey or a smidge of vegemite myself. What do you think? 

book friends

One more thing, if the heart of my book is crumpets, Pip's new book Craft for the Soul has jaffles at its core. Although it is filled with loads of good things, of course it's the jaffles that have first caught my eye!  It's a guide to living a creative and fun life. I received a copy today and, well, really it's super beautiful. I can't wait to read it. 

A biscuit and a book tour

Hello! How are you? Would you like a biscuit? 

I'm dropping in to let you know that this Friday is the official release date of my book! How amazing is that?!  I'll be hanging out in a few bookshops to promote it. Which is rather wonderful because bookshops are one of my favourite places to hang out.

When Elsa was a newborn, and we lived in the inner city suburb of Leichhardt, there was a bookshop I'd often walk to.  After coffee and a sfogliatella , I'd push that chunky pram into the store and browse the shelves.  Books on gardening, cooking, farming, tree changes and decorating country houses were the titles I'd covet the most. Twelve years later some of those books are still on high rotation on my reading pile. Well-loved classics.





Funny thing is, I'm going back to that very bookshop for an event as part of my book tour.  Never, in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that we'd move to Tasmania let alone that I'd end up writing a book about it.  Back then, even leaving the city seemed an impossible dream.  Elsa would be almost two before we actually took the leap and landed in Tasmania.  I cannot get over the serendipity.

I'm looking forward to hitting the road and meeting people and telling my story. I will probably be overwhelmed, I will probably cry.

As a special part of the book tour, I am also super excited to be teaching three Food Styling and Photography Workshops at The School with incredible Megan Morton.  Not only do I get to teach you all my tricks and feast on some recipes from my book, but we get to play on the most stylish camera on the block - the Olympus OM-D E-M10.

Maybe you could come and say hi!  I will also be doing a lot of radio interviews so I'll keep you posted on my Facebook page, if you want to listen in.

What a chatfest over the next few weeks. I'm certainly going to need more biscuits.



A Table In Orchard Tour Dates * 

30 April 5:30pm  Fullers Book Shop Hobart Thursday 

Saturday 2 May ABC Bookshop Hobart - 11am  and 2pm 

Friday 8 and Saturday 9 May AGFEST Not Just Books stand (CWA Drive)
 (if you can't find me I'll probably be over near the tractors)

Tuesday 12 May 7pm Melbourne Books for Cooks event 

Wednesday 13 May 12:30 Readings Hawthorn 

Thursday 14 May 6:30 Sydney Berkelouw Leichhardt 

Saturday 6 June Hobart Food & Styling Workshop 

Saturday 27 June Sydney Food & Styling Workshop 

Saturday 4 July Melbourne Food & Styling Workshop 

* All these dates have links to the details.

Apple Pressing Day

Almost a year ago now, on a blustery morning last autumn, my neighbour George stopped by to deliver 30 litres of fresh apple juice.  He'd just crushed it himself, made from a ute load of golden delicious apples picked from a mate's old tree.





Intrigued at how one can crush a ute load of apples, I headed over to George's to see the set up for myself.  There I saw a motorised apple muncher made with the blades of an old push mower, encased in a wooden chute, that chops the apples to a pulp.  The pulp is then placed in a vintage wine press bought from an old Italian guy.  Impressed with the display of incredible resourcefulness that seems to be the spirit of the Huon, along with the flavour of the sweet cloudy juice, I asked if we could help next year, sure that an extra pair of hands would always be welcome.

Which brings us to last Saturday, where as good things invariably do, this year's apple pressing day had become bigger and better.  It took place in an actual orchard at the gorgeous Clifton Farm, (dating back to the 1850s, which deserves a blog post of its own) where there were several rows of cider apple trees that needed picking.  Can you imagine? Old orchard, rustic timber sheds, heritage cider apples, sunny day and a covetable 70s Fergie tractor in the mix, heck I really was in heaven.

With many hands we quickly picked about 800kg of apples, of about a dozen varieties whose names I can't remember except for Kingston Black. There where tiny yellow ones, big blousey green ones, small spotty red ones and decent sized stripy ones.  Rest assured there was not a red delicious amongst them. They made such a picture all mixed together in the wooden apple bins, before the tractor took them back to the crushing setup near the farmhouse.

There, we fed apples into the chute, a job that all the children loved, then filled the press with the pulp and turned and turned the handle as the juice trickled out to fill the buckets below.  Although we drank plenty of juice as we made it, the real purpose of the day was cider making. And several barrels of juice was collected, while the happy chickens scratched over the plies of remaining dry pulp.

"Community" is what the farmer said as we sat around eating a shared lunch of soup, bread and bramley apple cake.  Four families working together to make something delicious.  For me the day was also about connection. Doing something that generations of farmers had probably done at this very spot before us, brings a profound sense of connection to a place.  This place called the Huon.  It was grounding. It felt right.

With our share of the juice we're having a go at making wild cider, exposing the juice to the wild yeasts in the air, following the method in Sandor Katz's book.   Who knows if it will work, it's hardly the point.  Being outside in the autumn sunshine, picking apples with family, friends and a covetable red tractor, excited children ("much more fun than passata day") and happy adults is what matters most.

And if the cider doesn't work, well, there's always next year.

New Book Smell

"Did you smell it?"  Nola asked me when I told her that I had been sent an advance copy of my book.  Did I smell my book I thought??....no I didn't.  Was I supposed to?  I didn't know that new book smelling was a thing.

I love the smell of old books, I know that's a thing.  I have piles of old books around the house, with their mostly red covers and aged yellowing paper, they smell of musty grass, faintly of vanilla, faded ink and of the many hands that have flipped the pages.  That's a smell I know and love.





But I had never smelt a new book before, well not intentionally. What would my book smell like I wondered? What have I been missing out on?

I thought it might smell of apples and orchards. Of freshly dug earthy potatoes and newly watered gardens, of late summer peaches and fresh strawberry jam. It would also smell of biscuits baking in a wood oven, of birthday cakes being sliced and the briny scent of a Bruny Island beach. There would be a faint whiff of dreams and hopes mixed with the smell of blood, sweat and tears.  Yes I could imagine exactly what my book would smell like.

When I got home I grabbed my book, opened the pages and inhaled deeply to breathe in the smell. And it did have a smell, a distinct and not unpleasant smell, one of clean fresh paper and newly printed ink.  Is smelt like a book store. It smelt good.

Then I realised, that I hadn't formally shown you my book.  So here it is.  A Table in the Orchard. It even has my name on the cover. Which feels amazing in itself.

Inside there are pictures of baked biscuits and freshly dug earthy potatoes. There are some recipes and lots of stories about orchards and apples and buying an old farmhouse in the Tasmanian countryside, with plenty of photos too.  But you can't smell it yet.

It will be released on 1 May.  You should be able to buy it at these stores listed below.

And if you do happen to get a copy, please let me know what you think of the smell....

Bookworld 

Abbey's 

Booktopia 

Angus and Robertson 

Check out this link for other retailers here

Do you smell books?