Ash's Same Ol' Crap, The One Bowl Wonder

Ash’s Same Ol’ Crap, The One Bowl Wonder
7 August 2014

This chick is another recent addition to my women folk friends. We have known of each other for quite a while, it is all very Melbourne, sharing friends, circles over lapping circles. But we both now live in the sticks and not too far from each other. We both appreciate the loner within and enjoy the lack of expectation in keeping touch and hanging out. We have, I believe, an understanding that at the age of 38 (she will be tomorrow too!) that you don’t need to call everyday, or even every week, you can just exist knowing that they are there and they are pretty lovely. And she is lovely.

So take it away Ash, with one of my staples in the kitchen, the one bowl wonder cake!

xx

Baking is not something you do, it is a place that you go to…

It’s my favourite Melbourne lane way with a friend I haven’t seen for far too long, the wind whipping our coat tails as we seek refuge in a bubbling café.

It’s my great Nonna’s house, I’m 8, I can’t understand a word she says but I can’t get enough. Her laugh, the smells, the kitchen table brimming with freshly plucked produce from the garden. I soak it all up.

It’s a stolen afternoon in Paris.

My mother’s hand on my back.

My daughter licking the bowl.

And when the days ahead are filled with meetings, deliveries and school runs, I like to extract myself from the mix and pull up a spot at my kitchen bench. I like to create little crumbs of contentness to nurture us all through the week. It’s at these times that the glorious ‘one bowl wonder’ really weaves her magic.

Pear, rosemary and olive oil cake

WHAT YOU NEED

• 2 ¼ cups (225g) self raising flour
• ¾ cups (120g) caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract or 1 vanilla beans worth of seeds
• 1 ¼ cups (310ml) olive oil
• 2-3 pears cut into 1cm chunks, skin on
• 1 tbsp finely chopped rosemary

WHAT YOU NEED TO DO

1. Preheat oven to 180˚C.
2. Line a 22cm spring form cake tin with baking paper and spray the tin with olive oil.
3. Chop the pears and rosemary.
4. In a large bowl whisk together the olive oil, sugar, eggs and vanilla.
5. Add all remaining ingredients and mix with a fork until it JUST comes together.
6. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 1 hr or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.