Original subtitles

Mike, it's that time of day

where we get to have a little piece of cake and a cup of tea,

and I am here for it.

You love your tea.

I do love a cup of tea, but I love a piece of cake.

And I love helping people understand how to make the healthier versions of cakes as well.

So I'm going to make this delicious gluten free almond and coconut cake.

And I love serving it up with a dollop of yoghurt

or some custard or something along those lines.

It's my favourite.

Sounds beautiful. I love almond and yoghurt cakes.

I said yo-ghurt. It's yoghurt. It's yoghurt.

I can't get on with the Aussie 'yo-ghurt'.

Sorry, people, I love you all, but it's yoghurt.

I'm actually going to do a upside down cake and I'm actually

using yoghurt in mine as well because I love the flavour

and that sourness that you get through the cake.

Battle of the cakes today and my tummy is ready for it.

Let's do it.

Mike, I see you've got a coffee there.

So I figured the best compliment to a coffee is probably

something like cake.

Or there's nothing better than cake and coffee, is there?

No.

We're going to do my vanilla, coconut and almond sponge.

And again, because it's a jack cake, it comes together pretty simply.

Two of my favourite ingredients in there - coconut and almonds.

Like, I think in a cake, it's a great combination.

It truly is because you have the beautiful creaminess

of both, right?

But almonds are super nutritious.

They're a great source of magnesium, of vitamin E, they're going to add

good quality fibre to the cake, so you actually get a lot more bang

for your buck than a traditional vanilla cake

that has just plain flour.

So the nutritional value of the almonds

in the cake still holds, yes?

You're still getting the good stuff,

even though it's in cake form. Yeah.

So I'm being healthy when I eat cake.

I'm trying to make you the healthiest possible cake

to go with your coffee so that we can bump up your nutrition.

Look, at the end of the day, we have to live.

It's still a treat, but you just don't overeat it, right?

You still enjoy your cake, but you don't need to eat the whole cake.

You still just have a piece and move on.

I try, I try.

Problem is, I have a little piece

and I go back and I have another little piece.

Yeah. I'm the sliver cutter.

The sliver guy. Yeah.

We all have those in our lives.

So we've got our extra virgin olive oil in here

with the maple syrup to sweeten,

and then four eggs.

Now, I know you're a fan of butter, so of course you could use some

melted butter in place of the extra virgin olive oil.

I just really like extra virgin olive oil because it adds

in that antioxidant status as well as being super convenient.

I would say that...

You don't have to melt it. That's right.

And if you just want one less step in your baking process, then that's

a really easy way to cheat your way through it, essentially.

And then we just whisk these ingredients together.

What's your favourite type of cake?

I love moist cakes, OK?

Like they've got to be super moist and juicy.

I love a orange flourless cake. Yum.

And I think my number one is probably carrot cake.

Yeah, it's a goodie, the carrot cake. Love a carrot cake. Yeah.

I'd love to try your version of a carrot cake too.

Do you know what? I don't think I've actually made a carrot cake in years and years.

You know what?

My wife makes me a carrot cake every year for my birthday.

With my kids helping. Oh, that's so lovely.

Yeah, and I just wait for that once a year.

Ah, well, that's a good way to look forward to it.

Exactly.

Alright. This is looking pretty good.

So let's get ourselves a wooden spoon or anything else

that we can stir with, really.

Doesn't matter too much for me.

And then we'll add in our desiccated coconut.

Put you to work. Makes coffee.

I'm enjoying watching you, uh, hustle, Jac. (LAUGHS)

And then you can go ahead and add in the almond meal.

Now, almond meal is quite different to almond flour, so don't confuse

the two because you won't get the same result.

The almond flour is much drier, whereas with the almond meal,

because it's the ground almonds, you'll get those beautiful fats,

which is what makes this cake so delicious and rich

and moist. Moist.

Yeah, people don't like me to use that word 'moist',

but some things are just moist, you know?

And cakes and using almond meal makes it moist.

That's right. (LAUGHS)

Alright. I think I pushed my luck now. Right?

(LAUGHS) And arrowroot flour to finish,

which will just make it lighter and fluffier.

So it's not so dense because often when there's almond meal in cakes

it can become a little bit more dense.

That's the nature of the fats.

But when we get some arrowroot in there,

it just makes it that little bit fluffier.

And if you didn't have arrowroot,

could you use something like baking powder

or something like that to give it a bit of a lift?

Yeah, I mean, we've used baking powder in it. Yeah.

You could also...

I mean, you could leave it out, essentially.

Use a little bit of extra baking powder and you would have probably

a more dense cake and still tastes great.

You know, the rest of the ingredients are going to make it taste beautiful.

So, now, we'll get it straight into our tin.

You really have been able to kick back on this.

I know. Do you want me to hold the bowl?

Do you want me to do something? (LAUGHS)

It's OK.

Just enjoy my double espresso. Yeah.

You know, there's some days in the kitchen where we're together

and we make each other work.

And today I'm just letting you kick back and enjoy your coffee.

I'm trying to save a little bit till the cake's baked.

Oh, that'll be a tough one.

OK, all our batter's in. Our oven's preheated to 180 degrees.

We're going to pop this in for 25 to 30 minutes.

And that's the perfect time just to put your feet up, relax.

And finish my coffee. And have a coffee.

The cake's had time to cool in the tint,

so let's get it plated up

before that coffee gets cold.

(LAUGHS)

There you go. Thank you.

Nice. It's cooked beautifully.

It's not a huge cake, but because of the nature of the ingredients being,

you know, fat rich, those almonds, you don't need stacks of it.

I'm just going to give it a little drizzle of maple syrup

to give it some shine to the top.

Feed me, Jac, feed me.

Yeah!

Let's cut it and see what it's like inside.

So I've made this for a kid's birthday party,

our kid's birthday party,

and I've done a double batch

and popped some ricotta in the middle with fresh blueberries.

And then I've drizzled chocolate through it as well and over the top.

And it's worked a treat.

Beautiful! That's beautiful.

Gorgeous. That's all you need.

So vanilla, coconut and almond cake.

I swear it is as good as the original that you'd eat,

but with much healthier ingredients.

And I'm pretty sure you're going to enjoy it too.

Can I have a bite? Yes, you can.

Mmm!

Moist. Juicy.

The coconut's prominent, the almonds rich and nutty.

And it's a delicious cake, guys.

Beautiful.

Easy one for the family.

Easy for you guys to do at home.

With an upside down cake, for me,

it's all about the presentation of the base to begin with, you know?

So I like to put a little bit of love and care and attention

in that, just so that when you turn out that beautiful cake at the end,

you're left with a showpiece.

Yeah.

So I'm going to work on layering out my apricots first,

and I'm using some beautiful apricots from SPC.

It's a, you know what, with seasonal fruits, if you don't get them

banging season, go tins.

Like, they're picked at the right time.

You know, they're captured and the flavour is beautiful.

The quality is kept.

It's a great way to enjoy seasonal fruits all year round.

It sure is.

I'm going to use this and put a layer at the bottom

with some fresh thyme, some vanilla.

Jac, if you can start on the actual cake mix for me

by beating the butter, the sugar,

and then slowly adding in the eggs one at a time.

Yep.

So I'm going to start off by just drizzling a little bit of basically

a sugar syrup at the base of this cake,

and I've made it from the leftover juices from the tin fruit

and then sugar and water.

That's it. Just a basic sugar syrup.

Equal quantities of each basically.

So let's say 100 mil of juice to 100g of sugar to 100 water.

Really easy for you guys to make at home.

And I'm just going to start by layering the apricots.

And we're just going to keep it in a nice, beautiful pattern

on the outer strip.

Do you like making upside down cakes?

I love cake, I really do.

I like to find the healthier options for them.

But when you get fruits in, because the fruit gives so much

additional kind of sweetness to the cake, you don't actually need

stacks of other ingredients to make it shine.

The fruit really does hero the cake.

That's it. You use the fruit for the natural sugars, right?

Natural sweetness. Yeah.

And the juice in this one as well is so delicious.

So don't let it go to waste.

There's some really great ways that you can use up the juice.

Like in the syrup.

You can do it in savoury dishes.

You can use it to base meats and things as well.

Never thought about basting meat with it.

It's very handy. Tim taught me that. Yeah.

A bit vanilla for you. Thank you.

And then I'm using...

OK. Same way we don't like to waste the juice in the tin,

don't waste your vanilla pod.

Put the vanilla pod in there.

It's going to give a beautiful flavour to your cake.

Nice little bit of presentation.

So I put some beautiful fresh thyme down in there as well.

You don't have to add it but I love the flavour of apricots with thyme.

Such, such a nice combination.

And with those apricots I've dried them off previously as well,

so I just literally just on some kitchen towel.

Make sure you absorb up as much of that moisture from the juices

as possible so it doesn't seep out into your cake as you're baking.

I love the thyme in the sweet dishes.

Yeah. It's so yum.

It's a beautiful way of doing it.

OK... You're using a fork over there, Jac?

Yeah. Look, you know what?

We bake differently.

You're very traditional.

I'm a little bit rough around the edges.

I'm happy to... (LAUGHS)

Do you know what, guys? I'm happy to own that.

If it works for you, it works for you.

Whatever makes you happy.

I'm like the home cook,

finding like cool ways to bring good nutrition in.

That's it.

I don't want to split these eggs, though.

No, you're doing a great job.

It looks really good consistency so far.

And if it does look like it's splitting, guys, don't panic,

because as soon as you add the flour in,

it's going to bring it back together and make it a beautiful consistency.

Alright. So, Jac's almost finished beating in those eggs.

We're now going to add in our plain flour, our almond.

Because you know I love my nut flour in there as well.

We've got some orange zest that's going to go in there.

The baking powder which is going to help it lift and rise.

A little bit of yoghurt for the sourness.

Then we're going to pop it in our cake tin,

bake it at 180 for about 45 minutes,

come back for hopefully our beautiful cake.

You've done it.

Some great anticipation for this cake.

I don't understand why everyone's, like, giving me all this energy

about this cake.

It's just an upside down cake.

You talked it up.

I do, I like to talk up my cakes.

Hopefully they don't disappoint.

There's some good stickiness coming around the tin.

Yeah, that's the syrup. That's a good sign.

(LAUGHS)

Oh!

Look at that. Yeah!

That is a beautiful cake. Beautiful.

Beautiful cake.

So you can see how you've got the beautiful colour on the outside.

It's nice and dark and what you expect from the cake.

The top hasn't coloured as much, but that's OK.

It's just the juices from those tinned fruits.

So those gorgeous juices have seeped in and made the top slightly softer.

It's alright.

It's still going to eat beautifully.

You can see it will

because there's such an abundance of the apricots in the cake...

That's it. ..that bring all of that flavour.

Is that too big a slice?

(BOTH LAUGH)

Do you know what, I don't care.

Let's go for it. That's a me slice.

Honestly, all of the apricots are yum!

Beautiful. You can see the vanilla speckled in there as well.

For me, it's the sort of cake that I just love.

It's just moist, juicy.

And then you just serve it

with a generous dollop of thickened cream on the side.

Beautiful cream.

Alright, Jac, should we get stuck in?

I'm excited for this one.

I don't even know where to start.

You've really served it up well.

Not without the cream.

I just love how pretty an upside down cake looks.

Mm!

So good. Light and fluffy.

There's the orange zest coming through into the cake

and then you get that juicy...

Apricot on top.

Mm! Yeah.

I mean, for me it's just... it's layers of fruit.

That beautiful apricot on top.

You've got that gorgeous syrup,

the juice from the apricot seeping into the cake.

The orange zest.

Then you've got the sour from the...

It's just a delicious cake. Really is.

It's how I like to eat them.

Definitely one of your top three, my friend.

Thank you.

I'll be making this one at home for sure.

You've had garlic bread, but have you had black garlic bread?

That's what we're going to make today. Black garlic bread.

I know a lot of you out there are probably scratching your head,

thinking, "Black garlic?

"He's gone mad."

But no, trust me, stay with me.

This is a fantastic recipe.

And once you have black garlic bread,

you won't want to have your garlic bread any other way.

So this is black garlic.

Now, I really want to show you guys this.

So black garlic is just regular garlic that's been cooked

in a really low oven for up to 40 days.

And the result is this beautiful black colour.

And what you can do is just squeeze...

..just like that.

Look at that gorgeous black garlic.

There we go.

So what we want to do is get six cloves of our black garlic

into our bowl here.

The thing with black garlic is it loses its raw flavour.

Because it's cooked for so long in that low oven,

you don't even have to cook it.

You could literally just spread this on your toast

and it becomes beautiful and sweet

and just has the most amazing flavour.

Now, black garlic would be hard to make at home, but it's getting

really readily available from all your gourmet greengrocers

and speciality stores,

so really seek it out.

Oh, amazing, I love it!

Not only does black garlic taste amazing,

it's also really, really great for you.

It's got more antioxidants than normal garlic.

Good for your heart and just an all-round superfood.

Our black garlic is in the bowl.

Now we're making a little compound butter for our garlic bread.

So, a compound butter is just a fancy name for a flavoured butter.

So we've got our black garlic as our base.

Then I want to add some chilli flakes.

I use chilli flakes a lot because I like spicy food,

but I just like that little hum that the chilli flakes

are going to give us in our garlic bread.

So a good sprinkle of chilli flakes.

If you're not a fan of the heat,

you could always easily leave them out.

Then we've got some miso paste.

The miso paste is really going to add a great umami flavour

to our garlic bread.

So we'll just get a nice spoonful of our miso paste into our bowl.

Love it.

Then we've got a lemon and I want to zest the lemon.

I love using lemon in my cooking, especially savoury cooking,

because it really just adds a zingy, zesty burst to our dish.

I created this recipe not long after MasterChef.

I did one of my first pop-ups at a local restaurant in Ballarat,

and I thought,

"How can I take the humble garlic bread to the next level?"

And I thought, "Hmm, black garlic."

There's an amazing black garlic supplier

just down the road in Ballarat.

It was a hit on the night.

So we've got our lemon zest in there.

Then... I don't want to waste the juice either.

So we're going to put the juice of the lemon into the bowl as well.

We're just building flavour here. Just building flavour.

Other half.

Then we've got some parsley.

Just some nice fresh parsley.

Just bunch that up so it's easier to chop.

And we'll just throw our parsley straight in.

Now, we can't have black garlic bread without the butter.

So we've got beautiful organic butter.

100% Australian family owned business. Grass-fed cows.

You know this is good quality butter.

So we've just softened this butter

so it's easier to mash everything together.

So, whole pack, 250g.

In you go.

We just want to get a fork and give that a good mash around

just to get everything combined.

That black garlic will just mash because that's nice and soft.

And then we'll make the most beautiful compound butter

to stuff our bread

and make the most amazing garlic bread,

the best you've ever tried in your life.

That's all mixed together.

That is an absolute flavour bomb.

That would be amazing on your steak, your baked potatoes.

But today, garlic bread.

So we've got our loaf here.

Let's get our bread knife out.

Now, I just want to cut some slices.

And I don't want to cut all the way through.

So just that...leave a little bit at the bottom.

Cut all the way along.

Alright.

Now we want to get in with this beautiful black garlic butter.

And we're going to generously spread that in between our layers.

Then I'm going to grate some cheese

and get that in between the layers as well.

Wrap it all in foil.

I like to cook in a nice hot oven, about 220 or so for 10 minutes,

until the bread's nice and crispy

and the butter is all melted into the different layers of the bread.

And then we eat.

Our black garlic bread has just come out of the oven.

Now, for those last five minutes in the oven, I just unwrapped it

to get it extra crispy

and allow that cheese to get all extra gooey.

Have a look at that!

Alright. Now, if I'm serving this at home, I would just unwrap it.

Try not to burn yourself.

Get this on a board.

And if I was serving this at home,

the board would just go in the middle of the table

and everyone would just attack it like cavemen and rip it apart.

And have a look at that.

Next time you're giving garlic bread a crack at home,

track down some black garlic,

good-quality organic butter.

Enjoy.

Captions by Red Bee Media