Where Cooks Fear to Tread

Picture from art.com

I mentioned yesterday that I was trying a new pastry recipe from Maggie Beer. For those of you who don't know Maggie comes from the Barossa Valley near Adelaide and has a real passion for locally grown good quality produce and is an incredibly creative cook. I gather she's not a professional chef, but she certainly knows her way around a kitchen! She has a show on ABC1 on Wednesday nights a 6.30pm. It's one of the few nights that I do my best to get dinner cooked and finished eating by then so I can sit down with a cuppa to enjoy the show fully.

Anyway...back to the pastry. The recipe is very simple ~ 200g butter, 250g plain flour, 125ml sour cream. That's it. You wiz the first two in the food process and then add the sour cream and wiz that til it comes together in a ball. And it's done. The pastry itself is oooohhhhhh soooooooo wonderful. It does shrink a lot, so you have to trim with that in mind. But it's almost like a cross between a puff and a shortcrust. It doesn't rise like a puff does, but you can see the buttery layers and the taste is superb. I can see why she uses that recipe for everything.

I think I see choc chip sour cream muffins on the Beyond My Picket Fence menu more often...which is what I do with leftover sour cream :)

Well....it is yet another overcast day here with rain falling. A perfect day to stay inside and read a good book, do some baking and end it with a drive 'down the hill' to Rel's place for a movie night with the ladies from church. I think I might venture down the street to poke around the Op Shops for some pretty crockery too. Mmmm don't you love deliciously quiet Saturday's filled with only your favourite things?