Designed to spread the love of home cooking, and of sharing indulgent, comforting, delicious food, Avoca at Home will offer over 100 delicious recipes across eleven chapters in a beautifully designed, hardback cookbook …
September always brings a new lease of life to the kitchen. As the leaves fall outside and we begin to hunker down, spending more time indoors, we take out our old well-thumbed cookbooks in search of our favourite autumn recipes – but we also crave the new, and quieter weekends at home seem to be the perfect opportunity to try out comforting new dishes.
Just in time then, that Avoca’s highly anticipated new cookbook, Avoca at Home, is set to hit shelves on September 29. Over a decade after the release of their last cookbook, Avoca at Home will offer over 100 delicious recipes across eleven chapters in a beautifully designed, hardback cookbook, which will sit perfectly pretty taking pride of place on your shelf when not in use.
A wonderful gift for food-lovers and home cooks, Avoca at Home is sure to spread the love of home cooking and of sharing indulgent, comforting, delicious food. Readers can expect a mix of Avoca classics, exciting new dishes, and tips on how to recreate the Avoca experience at home with simple, accessible, and delicious recipes. Throughout the book there are tips and guides from Avoca’s team of chefs, gardeners, and creative team. From growing your own, to store cupboard tips and how to lay a beautiful table, readers can enjoy recreating the Avoca experience at home, in their own way.
At the heart of Avoca at Home is the unchanging food ethos that Avoca has become known for – fresh, quality ingredients, Irish provenance and seasonality. The recipes in this book have been created to spread the love of home-cooking and of sharing delicious, wholesome food – to celebrate the joy of food and to relish the process of creating something from scratch for friends and family. When it comes to picking up supplies for your next meal, Avoca chefs recommend starting with the best ingredients. Many ingredients will be available at Avoca’s own food markets, which stock a wide range of artisanal and local products. If you’re not near an Avoca food market, you’ll find fantastic outlets for fresh produce all over Ireland – it’s never been easier to source good-quality seasonal ingredients.
To celebrate the launch of Avoca at Home, we will be sharing some of our most-loved Avoca recipes on thegloss.ie over the coming weeks. A firm favourite with Avoca visitors, young and old alike, the first recipe is their Famous Fern House Pancakes, which even feature on the cover of the book. Watch the video below for a recipe guide and before you know it, you’ll be treating friends or family to a delicious weekend feast of pancakes complete with extra special toppings. After all, nothing brings people together like good food …
Avoca’s Famous Fern House Pancakes
Serves 4 to 6
430g plain flour
85g icing sugar
4 tsp baking powder
4 eggs
550ml buttermilk
55g unsalted butter a splash of sunflower oil
120g fresh blueberries
For the macadamia praline:
100g macadamia nuts
160g caster sugar
50ml water
½ tsp butter a pinch of flaky sea salt
For the berry compote:
250g fresh or frozen strawberries
60g fresh or frozen raspberries
60g fresh or frozen blueberries
50g caster sugar
To Serve
Greek Yogurt
Maple Syrup
METHOD
Preheat the oven to 160°C. Line a small baking tray with non-stick baking paper and have it sitting on your countertop, ready to go for the praline.
Scatter the macadamia nuts on a baking tray and toast in the oven for 10 minutes, until light golden.
Meanwhile, put the sugar and water in a medium-sized saucepan over a medium heat. Allow it to cook without stirring until it begins to turn a medium-brown colour. This could take up to 10 minutes. It will continue to cook and reach a deeper brown, so don’t let it go too dark. Turn off the heat and swirl the melted sugar gently around the pot – don’t stir it or the caramel might clump up.
Once the caramel is ready, add the butter and allow it to melt, swirling to combine, then add the toasted macadamia nuts. Immediately pour it out onto the baking paper and spread it out with a spatula as best you can, then sprinkle with a pinch of flaky sea salt and let it cool. Caramel is molten hot, so do not be tempted to lick the spoon! Once the praline has cooled and hardened, break it into small pieces and set aside
To make the berry compote, put all the berries and the sugar in a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat and simmer for about 5 minutes, crushing the berries with a wooden spoon. If using frozen berries, cover the pan and cook for 10 minutes to thaw the berries, then remove the cover and continue to simmer. The compote should be reduced and thick, more like a syrup than a jam, and it will thicken as it cools. Remove from the heat and set aside.
To make the pancakes, sieve the flour, icing sugar and baking powder together into a large bowl.
Whisk the eggs and buttermilk together, then fold this into the dry ingredients until you have a smooth batter but take care not to overmix or your pancakes will be tough.
Melt some of the butter and a splash of oil in a large non-stick frying pan over a medium heat. Working in batches so that you don’t overcrowd the pan, add spoonfuls of the batter and cook 1 minute before sprinkling a few blueberries on top of each one, pushing them down gently into the batter. Cook for about 2 minutes more – when you see bubbles forming on top of the pancakes, flip them over and cook the other side for 2–3 minutes, until golden. Repeat with the rest of the butter and the batter.
To serve, stack up the pancakes on plates and spoon over some Greek yogurt and berry compote. Drizzle with maple syrup and top with the macadamia nut praline.
Avoca at Home is available to pre-order today by visiting linktr.ee/avocaathome.
