I’m a cheater.
I had promised to get through every recipe in “In The Mix” before I embarked on my pristine copy of “In The Mix 2”, but a family birthday and continuing hot weather in Melbourne meant I couldn’t make the Cucumber, Mint and Lime Sorbet that I have been wanting to attempt for so long. I was prepared to risk keeping the dry ice for 24 hours, but with the temperatures we’ve been having here, I just wasn’t that game, so I took a peek into In the Mix 2 and the Anzac Crack grabbed my fancy.
Julia Taylor (think tall, be-spectacled, slender blonde that was a legal secretary…possibly from Brisbane?) from Australian Masterchef Series in 2012 it to thank for this recipe and – –
Oh. My. God. This is the bomb! It’s amazing!
I made this on the Saturday for a dinner on Sunday night. I needed something that would keep reasonably as we had my Dad’s party on the Sunday afternoon which meant I would have no prep time on the Sunday for anything. It kept beautifully and there are still a couple of slices in the fridge which I am working my way through… thank God I’m doing Boot Camp at the moment or I’d be a goner!
The Anzac Base of this cake is beautiful. The macadamia nuts give it a lovely boost, and it’s great even by itself – the leftover bits didn’t last long at all between the three of us. I’d be tempted to use this recipe as my Anzac recipe in future. I have the worst set of springform tins and I was planning on getting some new ones, but I decided with the volume of liquid that this recipe uses, that I’d use my amazing Profiline Push Pan. I love this tin… definitely worth looking at them if you use springform tins on a regular basis or do things with crusts. I’m going to lash out and buy a couple of other sizes of them too. They are completely leak proof and perfect for cheesecakes, or things that need to set.
In an ideal world, I would have already bought a larger push pan, but the one I used was the 22 cm one, and it was fine.
I made the Anzac Base – easy as. I used raw macadamia nuts and toasted them with the coconut in my new oven (which I also love) until they were a lovely pale gold colour. I greased and lined with baking parchment my pushpan, even though they are non-stick, I was leaving nothing to chance! I rolled the Anzac base out between my thermomat and another piece of baking parchment until it was the required 2mm thick, and then stuck it in the freezer for 10 minutes. It gets pretty stiff pretty quickly, but if you are chilling yours on the thermomat, don’t use a sharp knife to cut your circle – I stole one of Master 5’s Play Doh knives and it worked perfectly and doesn’t damage your thermomat. I baked the leftovers straight afterwards while the oven was still warm.
Next to make was the Crack, which is best described as a cross between butterscotch and caramel. I was a little weirded out to read that there were breadcrumbs in there, and the only ones I had were some I had blitzed up a few months ago from some leftover wholegrain bread – but surprisingly enough they seemed to work ok. I did have some egg yolks in the freezer but opted to use fresh egg yolks instead for this component and used my frozen ones for the Chocolate Mousse later on. This process makes the most gooey, rich, butterscotchy sauce which you pour over the cooked Anzac Base, and then put it in the freezer straight away for at least an hour or until it’s really quite firm. I took a little break here as I wanted to make sure it was well set before I made the Passionfruit Jelly, as I’ve ruined too many layering deserts in the past by being impatient! Dani says to put it on a tea towel in the freezer to protect your shelf, which is what I did. I guess you could also put it on a cold baking sheet in your freezer if you’re worried about it cooling off-balance.
Several hours (and crack cooling time) later, I made the Passionfruit Jelly. I couldn’t find good fresh passionfruit so I (eek!) used a small tin of the passionfruit pulp from the supermarket. Sorry, folks. One day I will grow a passionfruit vine…
The recipe calls for white sugar, which I don’t have any more – we are just a raw sugar household these days – and it was fine. There was a tiny bit of bloom on the end result, but I’m not sure if that was from the raw sugar or something else, I’ll try this again and see how it goes with white sugar one of these days. I used the required amount of peel and sliced ginger, I did about 10 – 15 slices with the 2cm, and believe it or not this really infused quite a strong ginger flavour in the jelly, almost overpowering the passionfruit. Next time I might reduce the amount of ginger that I use to infuse, and see if that is more to my liking. Don’t get me wrong – it was still awesome, just quite gingery!
I was quite game and took a chance on some frozen egg yolks that I had in the freezer and used them to make the Chocolate Mousse. They were fine – and this is a wonderfully smooth chocolate mousse. I poured it into one of Master 5’s tupperware lunch boxes as everything else I had was already in commission, and popped it, lid on, into the crisper (the only place I had room in the fridge) for a few hours… perfect!!
There were a few slices left over – only because we had all eaten too much – and they have been eaten over the last few days. Master 5 has developed a serious Chocolate Mousse addiction and there has been enough for him to have a little scoop after his dinner the last few days as well, without possibly running me short.
So – get to it! This is one of the most decadent deserts I’ve had in ages!
In the Mix Tricks 