{"id":30132,"date":"2019-09-19T00:42:54","date_gmt":"2019-09-18T14:42:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/surfcoasttimes\/?p=30132"},"modified":"2019-09-18T14:49:17","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T04:49:17","slug":"great-ocean-food-let-it-snow-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/surfcoasttimes\/living\/great-ocean-food-let-it-snow-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Ocean Food: Let it snow"},"content":{"rendered":"

American influences have been with us a long time. <\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>In the Sixties, my mother had a cookbook from Better Homes and Gardens<\/em>.\u00a0 It was a retro classic, with a red and white check cover and a silhouette of a frypan and a saucepan from memory. \u00a0To an eight-year-old in 1969, it was filled with all sorts of exotic recipes and wondrous treats.\u00a0 Most of these indulgences were foreign to a kid growing up in Geelong.\u00a0 Toffee apples, candy (surely these translated as \u201clollies\u201d), a thing called \u201cfudge\u201d and marshmallows.\u00a0 All standard American fare, but I had never seen such glamorous and downright marvelous creations.\u00a0 Reading that cookbook was my childhood version of winning the golden ticket for a chance to visit Willy Wonka\u2019s Chocolate Factory.<\/p>\n

In fact, I was so captivated, I regularly tried my hand a making marshmallow.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My memory is a little vague about the process, but I will never forget the trouble I had with the powdered gelatin.\u00a0 It was incredibly hit and miss.\u00a0 Sometimes the marshmallow would set perfectly but on other occasions it would be either a sugary liquid or a tough white blob resembling plaster.\u00a0 When just perfect, I would toss the fluffy white delicacies in toasted shredded coconut and enjoy.<\/p>\n

This trip down my culinary memory lane was sparked by catching up with Melbourne based organic chef, Rod Barbey.\u00a0 I first met Rod when I worked with Macro Wholefoods.\u00a0 We were searching for organic sweets to serve in our cafes.\u00a0 At the time Rod had opened BCOZ, a wonderful fully organic restaurant in Hawthorn.\u00a0 His menu was ahead of its time and the restaurant offered petit fours reminiscent of his childhood favourites such as snowballs, chocolate royales, monte carlos, wagon wheels, iced vovos, jelly slice, coconut roughs, coconut ice and Anzac biscuits.<\/p>\n

Rod developed a snowball with fully organic ingredients.\u00a0 It was perfect for our incredibly demanding clientele and they sold like hotcakes.\u00a0 Unfortunately the Macro stores didn\u2019t last long and were sold to Woolworths.\u00a0 I bought Farm Foods in Torquay and Rod transformed BCOZ restaurant into Organic Matters Food and Wine Store.\u00a0 Both businesses have since been sold and our lives have moved on.<\/p>\n

As I discovered over a coffee with Rod, he has held on to the concept of a \u201cClassic Snowball\u2019, a confectionary that grabs your memory and reminds you of the good old days. It\u2019s a sweet that was part of the quintessential fabric of life in Australia, including the ever popular \u201cSnowball Drive\u201d.\u00a0 He gave me a couple of samples and they are delicious.\u00a0 A far cry from the marshmallow I made as a child, these snowballs are enveloped in the most wondrous organic chocolate with silky smooth marshmallow inside.\u00a0 The brand is \u201cGround Hues\u201d and is available at Peaches and Surfcoast Wholefoods in Torquay and good delis in Geelong.\u00a0 Following is a variation on that original marshmallow recipe from Better Homes and Gardens<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 By all means try it, but it would be far easier (and much less time consuming) to track down Rod\u2019s marvelous creations.<\/p>\n

Snowballs<\/strong><\/h2>\n

INGREDIENTS<\/p>\n