Kugelhopf....

I was watching Food Safari on SBS a few weeks, and it was a show on the Jewish community and food in Australia.. and I saw a beautiful poppy seed Kugelhopf cake and became pre-occupied for the next couple of weeks with the image of those wonderful moulded cakes with dark stripes of poppy seeds. It took me a while to locate my recipe, my very old kugelhopf tin which has only ever seen short bursts of attention over the last 20 + years... and finally, the poppy seeds which were nowhere to be found except at the supermarket.
I love yeast cakes.. they were some of the first cakes I learned to master, and I could never understand why there was any apprehension about cooking yeast cakes.. they are sooooo easy.
For this recipe, I kept the dough much moister than previously and I used my much loved kitchen aide. I used less poppy seeds than the recipe and added saffron for colour and a bit of flavour as I couldn't justify the 6 egg yolks in the original recipe.

Creme Brulee with Black Sticky Rice

My son, Jorge, asked me to make this at home after we had it at Hanuman Restaurant here in Alice Springs. I think I've got it right.. finally. A couple of tips... please don't use that horrid thickened cream. There is one brand of Pure Cream that is worth buying... apart from some incredibly expensive gourmet or organic brands.

Ingredients
1 cup black sticky rice
1/3 cup castor sugar
water

4 egg yolks
400 mls fresh pure cream
100ml full cream milk
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 vanilla bean or vanilla extract

Method
Soak rice overnight in cold water. Rinse, and cook for around 1 hour. 15 minutes before the rice is cooked, add the sugar. Allow to cool.