When Gourmet Hot Dogs arrived in my letterbox, the first thing I had to do was wrangle it from my teenage son. Hot dogs are a firm Saturday lunchtime favourite in our house, and within minutes my teen was suggesting (read: nagging) all sorts of amazing toppings and homemade buns to up the ante of our usual cheese and tomato sauce on soft white bread.

Gourmet Hot Dogs is an impressive book (trust me, this is the first time my teen has shown the vaguest interest in any sort of cookbook), every double page spread includes a stunning photograph paired with a recipe and suggestions for gourmet toppings. And we’re not just talking about your average frankfurt here. Recipes include a range of different sausages, buns, and a whole section on the perfect side for your dog, including sauces and quick, simple relish and chutneys.

There’s a twist on the old Chilli Dog – a veal sausage paired with kidney beans, piquillos peppers and melted cheddar served with a milk bun; the Musclor Dog, made with a cervelat sausage (Reynaud gives handy suggestions for substitutes if your local butcher doesn’t have much of a gourmet range), mustard, pear (!) and brie cheese; the Capri comes with a chipolata, caperberries, cucumber and tomato pesto, while the Patate has a merguez sausage, potato, pine nuts and curry sauce.

Sound strange? Trust me – looks delish enough that this will be the first one I try.

Stéphane Reynaud is a renowned chef, and owner of restaurant Bill 9 Trois, just outside Paris. Gourmet Hot Dogs is his eighth cookbook. The others include: Pork & Sons, Terrine, Ripailles, Rotis, 365 Good Reasons to Sit Down to Eat, Pies and Tarts and Book of Tripe. If you’re looking for a cookbook that will interest the whole family, I don’t think you can go past Gourmet Hot Dogs.

*The fries! I forgot to mention the fries. And the House Potato Crisps. Oh my!

Gourmet Hot Dogs — How To Dress Your Dog With Style By Stéphane Reynaud 

‘Gourmet Hot Dogs: How to dress your dog with style is the piece de resistance of dude food, casual snacks and the family dinner table. Featuring 60 easy, tasty hot dog recipes, prepared with passion in charming French style, Gourmet Hot Dogs elevates sausages in buns from hastily devoured snacks to truly memorable food experiences through imaginative topping combinations.’

Murdoch Books

Published: August 2014

Page: 144 Pages

ISBN: 9781743363133

Price: AUD $29.99

Joelene Pynnonen says: ‘I’ve always stayed away from caramel slices, thinking that they were well out of my cooking ability. This recipe, however, is incredibly easy and delicious.’

Base

1 cup plain flour

½ cup brown sugar

½ cup desiccated coconut

125g melted butter

Pinch salt

Filling

2 tins sweetened condensed milk

4 tbs golden syrup

120g melted butter

Topping

125g dark chocolate

Method

Preheat oven to 180°C. Lightly grease and line a deep, 28 x 18cm pan.

Base:

Mix all base ingredients well. Press tightly into prepared pan. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until golden. Remove from oven. Cool.

 Filling:

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, for 8 minutes. Pour over cooled base. Bake for 12 minutes in 180° oven. Cool completely. Refrigerate for 3 to 4 hours.

Topping:

Melt chocolate. Pour over caramel. Refrigerate to set. Cut into squares to serve

 Alayna says that these were gobbled down within a few minutes of them being ready!             — Alayna Cole loves to write stories when she’s not studying for her Bachelor of Education/Bachelor of Arts.

Filling:

• 1 medium potato (peeled if preferred)
• 1 large carrot (peeled if preferred)
• 1/2 large onion
• 1 rashers shortcut bacon
• 3 cups mushrooms
• 1 tomato
• 1 tsp crushed garlic

• Pinch salt
• Pinch pepper
• 1 tsp paprika
• 2 tbls brown sugar

• 4 large eggs
• 2 tbls cream
• 2 tbls water
• 1/4 cup tasty cheese, grated
• 12 slices bread
• Vegetable oil for frying and greasing the pan

Preheat oven to 200°C.

Dice potato, carrot, onion, bacon, mushrooms and tomato. Fry in a small amount of oil with the garlic.

While this is cooking, remove the crusts from the bread. Rub a small amount of oil into each section of a muffin pan. Press the bread into each section, creating bread cups.

When filling is tender, add salt, pepper, paprika and brown sugar. Wait for the sugar to dissolve into caramel, then take off the heat. Spread filling evenly between each bread cup. Press down firmly to ensure it fits inside.

Whisk together eggs, cream and water in a bowl. Spread this mixture evenly between each bread cup. Take it slow. If it doesn’t all fit at first, wait a moment – the bread will absorb and suddenly you will have more space.

Sprinkle each cup with cheese.

Bake for 10-15min. Keep an eye on your quiches during those last few minutes because it doesn’t take long for bread to go from ‘I’ll just leave it a little longer’ to ‘whoops, I left it too long!’

Recently, my niece turned one. Miss Alice is the only girl-child of her generation in our family (I have 3 boys, my only sister has a son as well as Alice), so this pink stuff is a big novelty for us. I have to admit, I was ridiculously excited at the thought of helping out with some goodies for her Alice in Wonderland themed birthday party. My sister Nicole was expecting a fairly large number of people at her home, so I went with a couple of recipes that while simple, looked really effective.

To start with, I went with homemade marshmallow. It’s fluffier than the commercial stuff, while at the same time silky smooth. You can flavour it however you like and it’s easy, easy, easy.

What You Need:

2 tablespoons of gelatine. Use the powdered stuff rather than leaves.

1 ½ cups of boiling water.

3 cups of sugar.

Food colouring. I used yellow, pink and blue.

Flavourings. I used pineapple, raspberry and blueberry.

Spray oil.

½ cup icing sugar.

½ cup of corn flour.

Edible corn starch butterflies, to serve.

How it’s Done:

Unless you have arms to rival Wonder Woman’s, I’d definitely recommend using an electric mixer for this recipe. I made three separate batches of this – one for each flavour / colour.

Grease a large roasting pan with spray oil. In a small bowl, add the gelatine to the boiling water. Stir until combined, using the back of a spoon to help squish out any lumps. Then, place the sugar into a large bowl and add the gelatine mix. Mix with your electric beaters until light and fluffy. This will take anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes. For this batch, I actually mixed for 20 minutes, because I wanted to make an extra fluffy mixture. Just before you finish mixing, add colour and plenty of flavouring. I went with fruity flavours – they not only tasted amazing, but the smell was to die for. Spoon mixture into pan and smooth the top. You need to work pretty quickly at this point because the marshmallow stiffens fast. Pop into the fridge for at least 20 minutes. Remove from fridge and using a sharp knife, cut to size. You could also use cookie cutters for interesting shapes. Combine cornflour and icing sugar in a shallow dish, and toss marshmallow shapes.

Can be stored in air tight container for 4 to 5 days.

*As you can see, I made 3 batches. I found it easier to do it that way, rather than dividing the mix into thirds. The butterflies were purchased from my local cake decorating store, and while they weren’t very tasty, they looked pretty cute!

It’s no secret I’m a huge fan of the humble cake pop. My recipe is a no-bake-no-brainer, and I’ve blogged it a couple of times before. At my niece Alice’s, recent first birthday party, I made a trio of flavoured marshmallows – raspberry, blueberry and pineapple flavoured. To go with them, I made matching cake pops, patterned with pink, blue and yellow. They were the simplest I’ve made yet.

What You Need:

*3 packets of Arnott’s Tim Tam biscuits (for those of you not in Australia and unable to get your hands on the mostamazingbiscuitintheworld, you can replace them with Oreos. Apparently.

*240 grams of Cream Cheese – this works out to 80g per pack of Tim Tams if you need to expand or decrease these amounts.

*Cake pop / lollypop sticks, available from cake decorating shops or online.

*2 packets of dark chocolate buds for melting.

*Candy Writers (actually chocolate in a tube) in various colours.

How it’s Done:

Add the Tim Tams and Cream Cheese to a blender and blitz until well combined. Using a heaped teaspoon for measurement, roll balls of mixture and place on a tray lined with baking paper. Refrigerate for half an hour.

Melt a small amount of chocolate in a cup (I use the microwave). Dip the end of a cake pop stick into the chocolate, and push into a Tim Tam ball. Allow to set in the fridge for another 20 minutes.

Melt more chocolate in a small but deep container. Dip each cake pop into the chocolate, submerging it completely. Place upside down on the tray lined with baking paper again, forming a flat side on the pops. Once the chocolate is set, decorate with the Candy Writers. Now, these aren’t candy as we know it in Australia. They’re coloured white chocolate with a few extras added in, but perfect for this type of thing. In a cup or mug, add really hot (but not boiling) water. Add the tube of ‘candy’, and wait 5 minutes for it to begin to melt. Massage and roll the tube in your hands before adding it back to the hot water for a few minutes. This enables to chocolate to melt evenly. Snip the top of the tube, and add any sort of pattern you like to the flat top of your cake pops. I found spirals and zig-zags were a quick and effective way to go.

As I’ve done before, I served the finished cake pops bunched in a simple glass tumbler. Totally irresistible!