HOT SPICED PLUM CHUTNEY 

Chutney, relish, pickle, achar... whatever you call it, a preserved condiment is a good partner to have when it comes to eating.

Of course, not all preserves are made alike.  Some are sweet, others are hot, and some are sweet and hot. There are also sour preserves and salty ones too.

I keep quite a few varieties on hand. Some can be kept in the store cupboard, others have to be refrigerated. I've recently been enjoying some kumquat pickles my mother made and salted fish achar from a home-based business, both of which I've been having with my rice and curry dishes.

But chutneys, relishes, pickles and achar don't always have to play sidekick: How about a tamarind and date chutney baked into a cake or a sour masala jam of chillies, pineapple and cucumber which can hold its own against meats? And a good mango achar takes centre stage in a grilled cheese and chutney sandwich or sabich, an eggplant sandwich with hard-boiled eggs.

Recently, I got a bag of purple plums and ate most of it fresh. But I got down to the last three and thought I would turn them into a hot and sweet spiced chutney. After pitting the plums, they weighed close to 250g, which made hardly enough chutney to fill a Chinese soup bowl. But I tend to forget what I have in the fridge so if I have too much, it might just go to waste if I didn't finish it. Anyway, the chutney doesn't take long to make (though it needs to sit at least a day before eating), so I can always make more.

I don't have a precise recipe for this plum chutney. The ingredients are all to taste, but here's a rough guide.

Hot Spiced Plum Chutney

Makes ¾ cup

250g purple plums (about 3 medium)

½ tbsp neutral-flavoured oil
1 tsp black mustard seeds

1 small red onion, diced

2 tbsp sambal oelek (red chilli paste)

100ml (scant ½ cup) white vinegar (white wine or rice)

1½ tbsp brown sugar

Water

1 tsp cayenne pepper

¼ tsp each ground cinnamon, ground allspice and asafoetida

Salt to taste

Pit the plums and chop them up into medium-sized chunks.

Heat the oil in a saucepan and toss in the mustard seeds. Stir them around until they start to pop.

Add diced onion and sauté till translucent.

Add sambal oelek (chilli paste) and sauté briefly. Add brown vinegar, sugar and 2 tablespoons of water. Bring to the boil, then add the chopped plums. Simmer, uncovered, over medium-low heat until fruit is soft. Use a potato masher or the back of a wooden spoon to break up some of the fruit. Stir occasionally until the mixture has thickened. Add more water if it looks dry.  

Stir in the cayenne pepper and spices. Add salt to taste. Simmer a while longer. Spoon into clean air-tight bottles and store in the refrigerator. Best left a day before consuming.

BROWN SUGAR CHOCOLATE CAKE 

I've been watching the TV show, 2 Broke Girls. It's not the best, or even cleverest, show around and a lot of things don't make sense: like how two penniless women can keep a full-grown horse (all they seem to feed him is skinny carrots), or how they can stand on the job in a diner in six-inch heels (and keep wearing them throughout the day). Err, why am I watching it?

In one episode it was pointed out that the cupcakes are made from prepared box mix. Well, it doesn't surprise me that they're not made from scratch – after all, none of the chain bakeries and some standalone shops do that. How else would they be able to produce hundreds of cakes a day? (What's not right is calling their business Max's Homemade Cupcakes. Again, why am I watching the show?)

However, a couple of the flavours those girls have on the show sound intriguing. Beer batter with maple bacon frosting? Oh yeah, I can see that being a hit (especially with the stoners, said Martha Stewart in the episode in which she appears).

In contrast, a brown sugar chocolate cupcake with treacle chocolate fudge icing may not sound as compelling. But this chocolate-on-chocolate ensemble – surely the direct opposite of Max's Very Very Vanilla Cupcake – doesn't need a fancy name after you peel off a little of the cupcake case, lick the icing off your fingers (yes, it is gooey) and then take a bite.

Mind the gooeyness 

These cupcakes are made from Dan Lepard's recipe for Brown Sugar Chocolate Cake (which he makes in a loaf pan) and covered with Treacle Chocolate Fudge Icing from his book, Short and Sweet (see him talking about it in this video.) Mr Lepard provided the recipe for the cake in The Guardian way back in 2005 and the recipe for a similarly named frosting two years later. That frosting contains egg yolks, however, while the one in the book doesn't. If the icing is left in the fridge, it becomes firm and I can imagine it becoming delicious truffles. Or drop a spoonful of it into chocolate cake batter baked in a ramekin and the cake would come out with an oozy molten lava centre.

A little bit about Short and Sweet: A lot of the recipes can be found on The Guardian website, but this book is so much more than a collection of recipes. And it's not filled with the mundane me-me-me writings of celebrity chefs who come out with books to coincide with their TV shows. Short and Sweet is an excellent baking reference – which is why I got the book – with recipes that I know are going to keep my oven in constant service and my family and mates in baked goods for a while.

LIME SAVARIN WITH COCONUT CUSTARD AND GRILLED PINEAPPLE

Every step of the process of making savarin is rather enjoyable! The dough is very sticky, and developing the gluten by hand takes a while, but I really liked it. And when the outcome is as delicious as it was, well, all that effort was worth it.

Natalia of Gatti Fili e Farina challenged us to make a traditional Savarin, complete with soaking syrup and cream filling! We were to follow the Savarin recipe but were allowed to be creative with the soaking syrup and filling, allowing us to come up with some very delicious cakes!

I made mini savarins with half the recipe provided by Natalia. Almost all the liquid in the dough comes from the eggs which I thought was unusual since water is usually one of the components of bread. I didn't follow the instructions as given though and made the dough with much fewer steps.

I mixed and kneading the dough completely by hand, so I know this can be done without a machine.

Here's a video of how I kneaded the sticky dough (or view it on YouTube). This was after about 25 minutes, and the dough was already getting stronger. It was my first attempt at filming anything with my phone camera (the DSLR is being serviced) and I was holding it in my left hand so the video is a little shaky.

My kitchen is not the brightest spot in the flat so I had to take the mixing bowl to a table by the door to the balcony, and there are sounds of cars passing by outside. In between, when the dough plops against the bowl, there's a squelching sound of air bubbles popping. Also, the dough starts coming away from the sides of the bowl and takes scraps sticking there along with it. Another eight minutes of this and the dough had become nice and elastic, and was ready for the proofing stage.

Pipe savarin dough into mini bundt moulds

To get the dough into the mini bundt moulds, I used a piping bag, pressing out three blobs to fill the holes, then cutting the dough with oiled scissors. With a wet finger, I smoothed out the surface. Unfortunately, the pattern doesn't really show up on the mini savarins (the grooves are too shallow). And I probably could have got one or two extra savarins if I hadn't overfilled some of the moulds.

Mini savarin with lime syrup, coconut custard and grilled pineapple

Mini Lime Savarin

Makes 10-12. Find the original recipe here.

175g bread flour, divided

2 tsp sugar

¾ tsp instant yeast

1 tbsp water

3 medium eggs, separated

½ tsp table salt

40g butter, softened

Lime syrup (recipe follows)

To serve

Coconut custard pudding

Grilled pineapple rings

Toasted dessicated coconut

Place 2 tbsp flour, sugar, yeast and water in a small bowl. Blend into a paste and set aside for 10 minutes.

Put the remaining flour in a large mixing bowl with the egg whites. Stir together to form a batter. Set aside for 10 minutes.

Add yeast mixture to the egg white mixture along with the egg yolks and salt. Mix to blend.

Add butter in three batches and stir well to blend well after each addition.

Knead the dough until elastic (see video above). Place dough in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with cling film. Set aside until tripled in size.

Lightly oil a 10-hole mini bundt pan and scoop savarin dough into a piping bag. Pipe dough into the moulds (or use two teaspoons), cutting the portions with oiled kitchen scissors. Smooth out the surface with a wet finger. Cover the pan and set aside until dough reaches near the top of the moulds.

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 180°C. Bake mini savarin until golden and cooked, 18 to 20 minutes. Cool in tin, 10 minutes, then completely on a wire rack. Dunk into warm syrup. Pipe coconut custard into the centre of the ring, sprinkle with toasted coconut and serve with grilled pineapple rings.

Lime Syrup

½ cup caster sugar

100ml water

Large pinch of salt

2 tbsp lime juice

½ tbsp rose water

Put sugar, water and salt into a saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring constantly until sugar dissolves. Lower heat and simmer syrup for 10 minutes until slightly reduced and thickened. Take off the heat and stir in lime juice and rose water. Use while still warm.

* * *

Traditional savarin ring

Earlier, I used the recipe from this video to make a savarin in my new 24cm classic savarin mould.

It rose very high and emerged from the tin looking like an inner tube!

Not your traditional savarin

I diverted from tradition by slicing the savarin in half  and brushing on an orange-pomegranate syrup. There were pockets of dry crumb though, because they didn't get enough syrup.

The savarin was filled with pastry cream, then the topped was glazed with salted brown sugar toffee.

Pastry cream-filled savarin with salty toffee glaze 

This savarin was all right but I definitely prefer the mini ones since they're much easier to eat.

Check out other savarins in the slideshow on The Daring Kitchen.