An Autumn Picnic
I’m yet to find anyone that doesn’t love autumn. Autumn comes with the magic of cool nights, warm days, and an ever changing, colourful landscape. Our region in autumn is really is hard to beat. It’s the season of some of the best fruits like apples and figs and it’s when we start to make the switch from white wine to red wine.
What better way to celebrate this glorious season than with a picnic. And by that we don’t mean just any old ordinary picnic with your classic, plastic picnic wares. We mean a proper picnic with all of the beautiful pieces you have invested in – ceramics, cutlery, linen, serving plates and bowls etc. PACK THEM! Going outdoors doesn’t mean you can’t picnic in style.
Picnics aren’t meant to be hard work so keep the menu simple. Think cheese platters with wine and dessert with tea. If you’re super organised, bake a cake ahead of time and don’t forget to fill the thermos with hot water ready for your tea.
And because the apple trees are abundant with apples right now, here is an APPLE TEACAKE for you to bake and pack.
INGRIDIENTS (SERVES 8)
180g unsalted butter, softened
2 tsp grated lemon rind
1 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 caster sugar
3 eggs
1 cup self-raising flour
1⁄2 cup plain flour
1/3 cup full cream milk
2 medium apples (or more if you want to cover the whole cake)
METHOD
Pre-heat oven to 180 ̊C. In an electric mixer, beat the butter, lemon rind, vanilla and caster sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time until well combined. Sift in both flour and milk and beat gently until smooth. Put mixture in a greased and lined, 20cm spring form cake tin and level the top.
Peel, quarter and core the apples. Make cuts lengthways in to the round sides of the apple quarters, cutting about three-quarters of the way through. Place the quarters evenly around the edge of the cake, rounded side up.
Bake in the preheated oven for 50 minutes or until browned and cooked through.
Cool the cake before cutting and then dust with icing sugar and serve with a big dollop of thick cream.
This feature was styled and photographed for POP Canberra.
All images are by Tim Bean Photography and styling is by Belinda Neame.