Category Archives: What’s new
Clafouti
This is an adaptable recipe. Any tangy fruit or combinations will work in it but the dark coloured summer fruits or berries make a great flavour and colour contrast. My clafouti pictured here is made with late summer plums and it fits a med sized 25 cm flan dish or wider pizza dish.
plum clafouti
Ingredients
enough fruit pieces or 1/2’s to cover the bottom of your flan dish with some spaces in between
3 eggs lightly beaten
1 & 1/2 cups of whole milk, or a mixture of milk and double cream
1 tsp finely grated lemon zest
1 tsp vanilla extract
110 g (1/2 cup) sugar preferable castor
50 g (1/3 cup) plain flour
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
icing sugar to dust (optional)
Heat oven to 180C. lightly whisk the eggs in a bowl, add the cream, milk, lemonzest and vanilla until combined.
Combine the sugar, flour and salt in a separate container and make a well in the centre. Pour the egg mixture into the well and whisking until combined . Pour the batter straight into your flan dish- no need to oil it or dust with flour. Push the fruit down into the batter, or scatter it on the top, or both, depending on what fruit you are using.
Bake for 20-25 mins or until cooked. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly before serving.
South Coast Collective has moved to 93 Aro Street, Wellingon
South Coast Collective <southcoastcollective.nz> is group of Wellington small businesses with an eco-design and sustainability kaupapa. We popped up in Island Bay 3 years ago and have been in Webb St for the last 18 months. Then, amongst all the mad scrambles of the last few days before the Covid 19 level 4 lockdown, we had to move, earlier than we were expecting. We scrubbed floors, painted our new shop at 93 Aro St and moved all the stock to the new (albeit month by month) premises in 4 days. We’re looking forward to opening…we may not be able to celebrate that with the public for a few months but we’re hoping to open the door to customers when we come off level 3. Sales for the shop are available @ https://verdantdesign.co.nz/product-category/ecofriendly-homewares/pottery
We sell : my pots of course, Anthea Grob’s pottery and ecofabrics, Verdant designs organic cotton, linen, hemp and wool furnishing fabrics, Hoopla organic childrens clothing and sox, books, Sisterhouse bird feeders, up-cycled and re-upholstered furniture, Kawau prints.
Day 2
Day 2 Janett eand Demelza
Day 3 Rowan
Day 4
Day 4 incredibly there was time to put some stock in the window
Day 4 Ollies non docial distancing drawing
Day 4 state of exhaustion
Making a chicken brick
My terracotta lidded baking dishes are made individually in my 2 press molds that I had made to my own design. Each base made only fits its own lid; the 2 pieces are carefully fitted together and dried slowly over a week or two.
The making process happens over 3 days. Day one, pressing into the mold. Day 2: fitting, trimming, attaching, shaping handles and painting. Day 3- scraffito cutting and tidying up. The designs are painted in coloured clay slips, so that you can easily see which way the lid fits.
The entire hands-on process, from wedging and rolling the slabs of clay to sanding and washing after firing, takes about 3 hours – or more if I’m getting carried away by a new design.
1 adding a lip to the lid 
2 trimming the lip on the lid 
3 base in the mold 
4 top and bottom pieces start to dry 
5 attaching and shaping the handle 
6 painted, scraffito decorated and ready to dry.
Wellington Empty Bowls Project
is being launched early September ’17 with Rex Morgan @ Moore Wilson. Twenty potters and most of the pottery clubs in the Wellington region, as well as the sponsors on the poster below are contributing to the donation of 600 + bowls. It’s $25 for each bowl of soup. All of that $25 will go straight from the Moore Wilson tills, directly to the Downtown Community Ministry.
I am half way through firing my 30. It’s a new decorating style for me, using a slip under the glaze. The slip is a volcanic ash clay from Mt Sumner in Canterbury.
NZPotters 58th National Exhibition
The Quartz Gallery is well worth a visit. As well as this exhibition it contains examples of the lifework of potter Rick Rudd, and his substantial collection of NZ potters over 4 decades.
My contribution: Naked Raku ‘Kereru Jars’, Feather series:
8.5cmH 11.5cmW $140 11.5 cmH x 13’5cmW $160
These Kereru Jars are some of my first on my journey of colouring the terra sigillata slips. I want to recreate the colours and sheens of the beautiful birds that I get to photograph outside my studio.
Sauerkraut /Fermented Vegetable Jars, Oval Bread bakers
These jars are made with a ‘water seal’ gallery to create a ‘moat’ that the lid sits down into to keep the contents of the jar airtight.They are carefully glazed to make sure there are no pinholes inside barrel of the jar..The outside is unglazed clay slip decoration. Pictured is 2L and 1.5L. 3L and 4L sizes are available.
The oval bread bakers come in 2 sizes, a standard loaf and a cute small one. Oil them a little to season them and away you go with your favourite bread recipe.
Decorated’Pizza stones’ and Flan dishes.
These are great for cooking pizza and flans. cooling food doesn’t ‘sweat’ and go soggy or cause rust on the surface as with a metal tray . The crust separates easily from the porous surface and the terracotta holds the heat much longer than a metal baking tray. My design has sides of various depths, a decorated rim for easy handling and attractive serving , and a turned base with 3 ‘feet’ to make them lighter and avoid thermal shock. I have a range of sizes from dinner plate size up to 38 cm.
How to use your chicken brick
This earthernware dish has been shaped for cooking chicken or other fowl. It can be used for cooking vegetables or other meat, as long as the flavours of the food don’t clash.
The clay walls of the pot are unglazed and therefore porous. Flavours from the food are released and absorbed during cooking. The more the dish is used, the more flavoursome food cooked in it becomes.
To cook your chicken, place it with seasonings, herbs, spices, vegetables and/or wine, straight into the dish and into the oven.
For a slower method, soak one or both parts of the dish in water for 10 minutes before adding the food and placing in the oven. The porous walls of the dish will absorb the water, and for the first part of the baking, the food is steamed. Alternatively you can add stock or wine and cook in it rather like a casserole. You need less liquid than usual because less of it escapes during cooking.
Don’t subject your dish to sudden or extreme changes in temperature, such as placing it on a cold surface straight put of the oven or putting frozen food in it and into the oven. You can place it on a naked flame or element when the dish is already hot, for example straight out of the oven to stove top to make gravy, and increase the heat gradually. As with all ceramic cookware, you must make sure the dish contains liquid if it is in immediate contact with a heat source, otherwise it will crack.
After cooking, rinse the dish in hot water and scrub to remove food particles. Don’t use detergent or soap and the porous walls will absorb this too. Dry the dish thoroughly (in the oven is a good way).
Store in an airy place.
I hope you enjoy using your baking dish for many years
What’s the difference between soaking your terracotta baking dish and not soaking it?
Here is a ‘before and after’ view of a simple meal that I cooked in my baking dish using the soaking method.
Rosemary O'Hara - Raku and domestic pottery 