GFM website

The Farmers Market Commity have made a new website. Go and have a look, there are some good photos of my stuff.

http://www.gisbornefarmersmarket.co.nz/market/home.php

New Pictures

The 5 Categories

Celine, our french willing worker, is a great market assistant. Especially since I am notorious for forgetting the camera or bringing the camera with a flat battery OR the camera without the battery even in it!

(Above is actually a photo of me - not Celine - in case that was a little misleading.)

Great photos too.

I'm still working on the system of: small sweets - savouries - bigger/danish pastries. But I have now categorised my top shelf also. So I now have: tarts - eclairs/choux - petit fours/bundles.

And I even made a few savoury petit fours/bundles for the middle shelf which sold quite well.

Its more like 5 categories now, I'd like to try and separate them a bit more... cabinet display, signage, multiple factors.

Donna Hay chocolate and coconut tarts - great, beautiful, but a bit big I think. They were very rich.

Normandy Apple tarts were gorgeous. By the time I had finished arranging the apple in the last one I think I had it sorted. Could have made it a bit tighter though. The pretty rose look and the just apple, caramel (and custard which I now think was unnecessary) filling - seems to be the answer to my problem with the sale of apple products.

It was a rather freezing cold winter market - I am now in the market for a good big jacket and thick (water proof if that's possible) socks.

Petit Fours

Almond and Pistachio Pears from the passionatecook.typepad.com.

I am always in awe of the American "bloggers" who seem to be like a community of there own with their fabulous lives, fabulously catalogued for the rest of the web surfing world to appreciate in a step by step format.

I thought I'd give this a little go.

The recipe I followed (loosely) used Pistachio's but they are crazy expensive and we have abundance of walnuts - so why not.

It's a relatively simple recipe - mix ground nuts, sugar, fine semolina or polenta, little bit of lemon zest. Bind it all together with egg white to a model-able dough.

It was oddly difficult to shape the wee pears, at one stage I couldn't really remember what a pear really looked like. Good fun though, took me back to my play dough days.
Once the clove was in place they really took shape though. This bit is always the best/most stressful - putting beautiful things into the oven.

Will they come out just as beautiful and more delicious OR is this going to be that absolute disaster that happens every so often.

Nicely browned. The clove fragrance was amazing while they were baking. It's a spice that is not often seen as the star of the show.

A little icing sugar makes them look all snowed on and Christmas-like.

I've been playing with Petit Fours Glace - these would fall under Petit Fours Sec. Lets see how these go at the market.

Winter baking

I know that I haven't post for a long time.
My sister had a baby - babies are very distracting and time consuming.

With winter settling in, I'm getting a little bit nervous about rainy markets, cold mornings when people really don't want to leave the house. But this weekend I learnt that on a cold and raining day when everyone just wants to go home to a good book and a warm fire - they see a beautiful display of decadent dainties and think one of those would be nice with that book.

I have extended the savouries range because it was becoming the biggest seller. Our home garden is not yet hugely productive and probably won't be for a few months but we have a great deal with the organic vege growers at the market.


Lemon Meringue Tart, Strawberry Eclair, Chestnut and Dark Chocolate Tart. I made ribbon tied bundles of Orange Financiers and Coconut Macaroons.
It was my first go a Meringue Tarts - They were delicious but I think I could have done better with the arranging of the meringue, looked a bit flatter than I'd hoped.

Fig and Ginger layer cakes at the top of the image. I want to get more into Petit Fours. I trialled Petit Fours Glace (fully iced squares), it took me so long to get the poured icing right and then I discovered it actually tastes like plastic. Having the single layer of (YUMMY) buttercream on the top of the cake not only tastes better but I like the look of the layers of jam that are visible.

Question: Was it the chili in the (delicious) pumpkin tart that frightened people off

OR was the whole fresh sage leaf ( admittedly a bit much - should of added it before baking).

Photographic overview

Top: Fig danish, Blueberry danish, Apple and raspberry danish

Left: Cardamom quince tarts

Front to back: Fig and apple millefeuilles, Mulled wine pear and almond tart, Strawberry tartlet, Nut tart, Fruit flan

L to R: Pear and chocolate danish, Fig danish, Blueberry danish, Apple and raspberry danish, Pain aux Raisins, Pain au Chocolat

Front to back: Fig and apple pie, Blackberry tartlet, Pumpkin pie, Fruit flan

Canning Week

Greengage plums, which we began to eat a few weeks ago. They were green and crisps and surprisingly sweet. They are now a green-yellow colour and just taste like fleshy honey, almost too sweet.
I found a nice looking recipe for a sorbt which is basically just greengage pulp - so I bottled some pulp.
I added lemon juice to keep the colour but on tasting absolutly no sugar was necessary and it's very tasty.

Tomatoes - no our own. We bought them at the cheap end-of-season rate. This is some what of a tradition in our family to make bottled tomatoes, tomato sauce and tomato stock to last the year - sometims two. And this year we added chilli sauce to the repetoire.

We, personal, have a ridiculous abundance of ripening figs of varying varieties.
These are photos of some all layed out for dehydrating.

I'm not sure of all the names but these ones are a yellow skined, pale middle variety. We also have enormous ones as big as a tea cup that are a pale green. The black skinned, bright red flesh variety that I think are Turkish.

These tear-drop shaped ones are quite unattractive on the outside - a bit grey and shrivelled looking - but they are my favourite. It's like jam in a skin.

Father also has another way of preserving them (these are the big kind). He poaches them in syrup for multiple hours and then half dries them. They become deliciously moist and sweet.

We even have bananas!! Only two, so thy were not preserved, we just shared them.

(this is pregnant sister Jenny)