Aussie Delight-Vanilla Slice

Vanilla Slice

I enjoy making desserts as anyone who actually knows me can attest to. One of my favorite "Aussie" desserts is Vanilla Slice. I call it an Aussie dessert because Australia is where I first was introduced to this divine treat and Australia is where I make it most often. Enjoy the pictures and maybe take whack at making this yourself. The best part of making this in Australia is the passion fruit icing, because I can get passion fruit here. It is so delicious and very light. Creamy custard between flaky pastry topped with a tart fruit and sugar. 

• Ingredients

• 2 sheets (25cm x 25cm) ready rolled frozen puff pastry, thawed
• Melted butter, to grease
•  (3 cups) milk
•  (1 1/2 cups) thickened cream
• 8 egg yolks
•  (1 cup) caster sugar
•  (1/3 cup) plain flour
• (1/4 cup) cornflour
• 50g butter, chopped
• 2 tsp vanilla essence
•  (1 1/2 cups) pure icing sugar, sifted
• 2 tbs canned passionfruit in syrup
  
  
  
  
  Preheat oven to 220°C. Line 2 baking trays with non-stick baking paper. Place 1 pastry sheet onto each lined tray. Bake in preheated oven, swapping trays halfway through cooking, for 20 minutes or until pastry puffs and browns. Remove from the oven. Cover pastry with a clean tea towel and use your hands to gently push the pastry down to flatten. Set aside for 15 minutes to cool.
  Brush  square pan with butter to lightly grease. Line base and sides with foil. Place 1 pastry sheet, flat-side down, in base of prepared pan.
  Meanwhile, heat milk and cream in a heavy-based saucepan over medium heat until mixture just comes to the boil. Combine egg yolks, sugar, flour and cornflour in a heatproof bowl. Whisk until thick and pale. Gradually stir hot milk mixture into egg mixture. Place in a clean saucepan over low heat, stirring with a wooden spoon, for 5 minutes or until custard comes to the boil and thickens. Remove from heat. Stir in butter and vanilla essence until combined. Pour over pastry and place remaining pastry flat-side (unpressed side) up on top. Place in fridge for 1 hour or until custard sets.
  Place icing sugar and passion fruit in large bowl and stir until smooth and glossy. Turn slice out onto a large chopping board and remove the foil. Spread icing over the top of the slice with the back of a spoon. Set aside for 20 minutes or until icing is set. Use a serrated knife to cut the vanilla slice into 16 pieces.Recipe from http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/12569/vanilla+slice+with+passionfruit+icing 
  Enjoy, it really is so very yummy and as Rowan says every time he sees it in the fridge "I'm gonna get sooo fat" which translated means "Ohhhh Yummy" 
  

  

  Siyani enjoying his first taste of Vanilla Slice

  
  

A little Music a lot of Baking

Music Makes the Food Better

This evening is Cruise Night. Every Thursday night Taija and the other import car owners get together to talk shop and drive around. Siyani is now the proud owner of an import so he took his new Skyline out tonight with Taija and Rowan. I stayed home for two reasons. 1) I was invited to a lunch tomorrow with some of the other sisters in the congregation and wanted to make something nice to take. 2) I feel a little out of place with  all these knowledgeable car people as the best thing I can offer is an "oohh pretty" if someone pops the hood of there car. 

So I stayed home to bake 2 pumpkin rolls and 1 orange poppy seed cake. Seeing as I was by myself I put on Jango and went to the Broadway Show-tunes Channel. I was having such a ball singing along I just had to share some of the songs that played. Also I felt this was an appropriate time to share a quick belief. 

The Right Music Makes Food Taste Better.

Why? Because the right music puts you in the best mood and when you are happy pure love goes into cooking or baking and how can anything be bad when it is made with pure love. 

Enjoy the musical selection, emphasis on the "musical" 

Mmm.....Kangaroo

CC and the Kangaroo

Not long after being in Australia I was informed that I was about to enjoy a meal uniquely Australia, Kangaroo. It is a lean meat that has a hint of sweetness to it, because it is cooked for a shorter amount of time than beef it does not get tough at all. The bottle you see positioned behind the plate is Bundaberg Ginger Beer ( think a nice Ginger Ale ) so far since being here I have consumed a number of bottles. I myself quite enjoyed the taste of Kangaroo but I can see why some would find the taste hard to adjust to. 

The Wonderful World of Oz

Everyday Life in Australia

Megan's View:

Being here has brought a lot of changes, who knew it would actually be tough not working. Trying to figure out what to do with your days when you don't have a job or any real form of transportation other then your own two feet makes it a bit of a challenge. It's not that I don't like walking to where I need to be, it's that between the distance and the heat it isn't always a viable option. Thankfully, the sisters of the congregation we are apart of have been wonderful in making sure I have a ride to service on Mondays and Wednesdays and that has been a true blessing. I love Monday service because it is the day everyone "goes out country" and I usually end up spending most of the day away from the unit. Fridays have become my baking and cleaning day which is a good distraction from the biggest change of all. Siyani works 10 hour days and being apart from him for what seems like forever is really hard. Coming from a job where I saw him everyday throughout the day and where we had lunch together almost everyday to a situation where he is gone before I wake up and away for such long periods of time has been a real challenge for me. I have Taija 3 days a week to hang out with and that is great, but you don't realize how attached you are to a person until you don't have them around as often. I always knew CC and I were weird with how much we love spending all of our time together but I guess I never really realized just how real it was. It's not a change I love but one I am learning to live with (mostly cause there is no other option). One of the best changes this move has brought is our reliance on Jehovah and each other. We try harder here in every aspect, we try harder to pre-study, to get to the meetings and to make the most of the time we have with each other.  Change isn't always easy but right now it is really good. 

A little ocean view from us to you

Siyani's View:

Australia has its differences I wont deny it, but other than the fact that the humidity in the air fuzzes my hair there is nothing I can really complain about. As Megan mentioned there are things that we are having to adjust to. I am now working ten hour days, which entails getting up at 6:00 in the morning and not getting home until 5:15. Choice of food while similar has its differences and even things like yogurt are slightly different. One of the biggest changes of all is driving on the opposite side of the road to what we are used to but when my job is cleaning cars that I at times then have to either drive to a storage lot or to the stalls we park the cars in at the Airport, it is a change I have had to adjust to fairly quickly. Even though we are approaching our third week in the country it feels as though we have barely been here a week. Working ( so far ) six day weeks and dealing with the process of buying a car along side day to day life has made things go fairly quickly. I have thankfully been adjusting to the heat fairly well although it is going to get 5-10 degrees warmer so we will see how I am doing once summer fully hits. I do however find that once you hit 30 Celsius anything over that doesn't feel that much worse and while everyone asks me how I am finding the humidity I don't even notice it. In fact I much prefer it to be hot and humid to the dry heat we often get in Canadian summers. That and living next to the Ocean means there is generally a mid day cool breeze that brings with it a pleasantly sweet aroma. Overall I am very happy to be here alongside Megan. I look forward to embracing the changes and taking in all the experiences and lessons that Australia has to offer us.

First Few Aussie Days

We Made It

Thursday, November 8th

So here we are, in Australia, in Mackay and it is wonderful. The flight from L.A. to Brisbane was 13 hours and turbulent. I got a bit of sleep and Siyani got even less. We were both very thankful for all the movie choices we had on the flight. It was a full plane, so the ability to snag an empty row to stretch out on was non existent. We arrived Tuesday, November 6th at 4:10 pm into Mackay after a 6 hour wait in Brisbane airport. As we got off the plane it was very clear we were tired as both Siyani and I walked right past Taija and Rowan. As we were collecting our bags, Rowan then informed us that not only was it meeting night, but it was also the CO visit, we had 3 hours to get home, eat, shower, find clothes and head out to the meeting. 

It was great though, even being so tired (Siyani was literally nodding off). The brothers welcomed us warmly ( this is a new congregation even for me) and I was so happy to see that the CO was Brother Kuvanst. He was serving the Bowen congregation when I was here back in 2010/2011 and it really goes to show just how hard these brothers work to get to know us because even though he didn't remember my name he did recognize me and was happy to see me again and to meet Siyani. It was also such a great thing to go to this CO visit for one very big reason. The first time I ever traveled on my own, my dad said to watch for how similar the meetings are because our unity is seen in even the finite details. Brother Twan came to visit the Summerland congregation before Siyani and I left and his talk was about sacrifices. Brother Kuvanst gave the exact same talk, same scriptures, as he spoke I could hear Brother Twan speaking at the same time. It was really special to experience that. 

Wednesday not much happened as both Siyani and I slept and we went to the mall with Taija to get containers so that the over taking of the living room could be contained. I also got sick but thanks to Rowan I got over it quickly. 

Now for the little bit of the blog post that I promise is not bragging (ok maybe a little bit, but not in a mean way) Check out the pics below to see a little snapshot of life in Australia. 

Just Chillin'

The view from the hammock

Breakfast: Fresh mango, water melon and golden honey dew enjoyed in the hammock outside.

Taija washing the Supra

Waiting in Vancouver

Now we Wait

We have said our final goodbye to Siyani's Mom and Dad and now we wait to board our first of three flights. This is the Vancouver to L.A. flight which leaves tonight at 6:25, YAY 3 hours of waiting. We are thankful for our new computer (see here for that story) and for free wireless at the airport. Technology today is so amazing. We don't have cell phones at the moment, so instead we just Skyed my Mom and Dad to let them know we were doing ok and to say one last goodbye as well. It might not even feel like we are in Australia with things like Skype. Siyani suggested to pass the time that we watch a movie, and I think it is the perfect idea, another thing we are thankful for NETFLIX. Enjoy these last "us in Canada" pictures. The teddy bear is CC, he is coming on this adventure with us and you will be seeing allot of him in the future.

Siyani and I waiting at Gate E83 for our flight.

Last Day in Canada

Good-bye Party & Flight

T-Minus 0 Days. Today we leave for Australia

So here we are. I am sitting in the hotel room at the Holiday Inn Express in Vancouver waiting to catch the shuttle to the airport where Siyani and I will fly to L.A. then to Brisbane and finally to Mackay where Taija and Rowan will be (hopefully) waiting for us. 

On Friday, Mom threw us a small going away party. Arlene from Edgy Petals brought us a beautiful going away bouquet with all my favorite colors, our awesome landlords Dana and Carey came by with a bottle of wine and we got to say goodbye to the kids Paige and Josh. My Uncle Jody drove from Grandforks to say good bye as well.  It was a really nice send off from wonderful people who really care for and love us. 

So here we go, off to Australia and new adventure. It's hard to believe the day is actually here, but what an exciting day it is.