Oh my! Apple pie!

Smartie cookies

2009-05-07T14:17:00.003+01:00

I think everyone has a soft spot, and recipe, for Smarties cookies. I adore them and so do my children. After all these years they still get excited when they see these cookies in the biscuit tin and they always disappear quickly.
I can't remember exactly where I got this recipe from, I think it it was 'Good Food' magazine but I can't be sure, it was scribbled down in my hand written recipe book years ago and has been used many times.

Smarties cookies

100g/ 4oz butter
100g/ 40z soft dark sugar
1 tbsp golden syrup
150g/ 6oz s/r flour
85g/ 30z Smarties

Pre-heat oven to 180c/ gas mark 4.
Beat butter and sugar together in a bowl until creamy.
Beat in the syrup.
Work in half the flour, stir in the Smarties, add remaining flour and bring the dough together with your fingers. Divide into 14 balls.
Place well apart on a baking sheet, do not flatten them.
Bake for 12 minutes until pale golden on the edges. Cool on a wire rack.

This recipe makes a soft, chewy cookie. I get 14 good sized ones from this amount of dough but you can divide the dough further to make thinner, chewier cookies from the dough if you wish.
I think the reason I love this recipe is it reminds me so much of my Mam's gingersnaps. No-one ever made gingersnaps like my Mam, soft, chewy not crisp like my Granny's, I realised today that if I get rid of the Smarties and add ginger they would be my Mams biscuits. I love 'food nostalgia', hopefully my kids will one day look back at this recipe and feel the same about these cookies.

Hello stranger!

2009-04-20T21:46:00.010+01:00

Long time no see! It's been quite a while since my last post, why?, I'm not sure really.
I lost my mojo, wasn't really inspired to cook at all, let alone think of blogging, and as always, life has a way of creeping up on you and taking over. I still haven't got that spark back but as I felt a little inspiration to stir up some treats in the kitchen I thought I'd share them with you.

Lunchbox treats

50g milk chocolate
150g rice malt syrup (I used a less healthier golden syrup)
55g butter
60g rice crispies
30g cornflakes (I crushed them a little)
40g quick cook oats
75g sesame seeds

Melt the chocolate, syrup and butter gently in a heavy-based saucepan.

Add all the other ingredients, turning to coat everything well.

Using your hands (encased in CSI gloves), shape the mixture into walnut-sized balls. You should get about 25; you could also make this using a 12-bun muffin tin lined with muffin papers to get 12 larger cupcakes.

Let them set in the fridge for an hour or so, and they will keep quite happily in there for a week of treats.

I spent the day pottering about and decided I wanted to bake but without the mess, some light weighing and stirring, these lunchbox treats from Nigella Express sounded perfect. Nigella says these are a ideal wholesome snack, including rice malt syrup, seeds and cereal. I can see how that is a healthy snack option, I had no rice malt syrup, so I substituted for good old unhealthy golden syrup. I imagine this substitution made quite a difference to the flavour of these treats and dare I say, for the better. These moreish bites were a cross between a Toffee crisp bar and a Lion bar (remember them?) delicious. Nigella does say that they will last up to a week in the fridge, this batch lasted a few hours, they disappeared in a blink of a eye.

Jammy coconut mallows

2009-02-21T15:24:00.007Z

It's no secret that I love baking and one of my favourite parts of baking is taking something old fashioned and easily bought in any shop and recreating it at home. For example I am always baking biscuits and lets be honest, unlike cakes and puddings, it is very easy to buy in good quality biscuits very cheaply, especially here in Britain, we love our biscuits here.
Custard creams, digestives and shortbread are firm family favourites and you can buy them in any corner shop but nothing compares to the real deal.

Flicking through this months Good food magazine I came across these mallow biscuits, a reworking on a old fashioned favourite. The original versions were a square shortbread biscuit covered in two rows of coconut dusted mini mallows with a row of raspberry jam running down the centre.
This recipe makes coconut biscuits sandwich together with jam and melted marshmallows, the biscuits are then rolled in jam and coconut, a new twist on a old favourite....a taste of my childhood.

Jammy coconut mallows

For the biscuits:
250g butter, softened
140g golden caster sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
300g plain flour
100g desiccated coconut
For the middles and coating:
about 175g raspberry jam
18 large pink and white marshmallows, cut in half across the middle
25g desiccated coconut

Heat oven to 190c/ gas 5.
Beat butter, sugar, egg and vanilla together with a pinch of salt until smooth. Fold in the flour and coconut to form a dough.

On a floured surface, shape the dough into a round, then roll to the thickness of a £1 coin. Cut into rounds using a 6cm cutter. Lift onto baking sheets, then bake for 14 minutes until light golden. Cool for a few minutes then transfer to a cooling rack.

To sandwich the biscuits, lay half out on a baking sheet, under-side up. Put half a teaspoon of jam on each one, and top with a piece of marshmallow, then bake for 2 1/2 minutes or until just melted. Remove from oven, then quickly top with the other biscuits, pressing down so that the marshmallow sticks them together and just oozes out.
Cool for 10 minutes. Put the coconut and remaining jam onto plates, dip the edges in the jam, them roll in the coconut.

These really took me back and boy, were they popular, more so with the adults than the children. These biscuits will be a regular in my biscuit tin

Raisin and cinnamon milk loaf

2009-02-17T15:10:00.004Z

I came to bake this bread by chance really, I set out to make the Cornish saffron bread from Rachel Allen's Bake.
This recipe intrigued me as it uses warm milk infused with saffron to give a lovely colour to the loaf. The only problem was that on eating this loaf I discovered that I have a intolerance (I don't like to use the term allergy here) to saffron.
Weeks ago I developed a ever so slight rash on my face (after eating paella) it faded quickly and I thought nothing of it, until now. As soon as the loaf was cooked and had cooled enough to eat I took a slice, withing minutes the same rash again developed on my face. Trying to convince myself that I do not have a saffron intolerance I later ate another slice, as you do, and the rash worsened. It covered my whole face, so saffron is now off the menu at my house.
However, apart from giving me a nasty rash we all thought the bread was very good, it had a different texture to regular bread, I put this down to the milk and my daughter commented that the crust was delicious, she hates homemade bread crusts. My only gripe with the recipe was it needed a extra something....cinnamon.
So, the following day I made the loaf again, I omitted the saffron, and instead infused the milk with a cinnamon stick, and added ground cinnamon to the flour. I also used a smaller tin than the one Rachel recommends. The loaf was perfect.

Raisin and cinnamon milk loaf

350g strong white flour, sifted
1 tsp ground cinnamon
50g caster sugar
100g butter, softened
75g raisins
1/2 cinnamon stick
200ml cold milk
1 x 7g sachet of fast acting yeast

1 lb loaf tin.

Grease and line the loaf tin.
Place flour, cinnamon and sugar in a bowl, mix well. Rub in the butter, until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add the rasins.
In a small saucepan, bring the cinnamon stick and milk to the boil over a low heat. Remove from the heat, cool to body temperature, remove the cinnamon stick, then add the fast acting yeast.
Pour liquid into the dry ingredients, mix well then knead for 10 minutes.
Place in a large bowl, cover, and leave to rise until it had doubled in size.
Knock back the dough, knead again and place in the prepared tin. Cover again and leave to rise for another hour.
Preheat oven to 180c/ gas mark 4, when the dough has doubled in size bake it in the oven for 50 minutes to 1 hour.

I must admit I did prefer the second version of this bread and will make it again. I love the idea of using warm milk in the dough, the dough was fabulous to knead, in fact to look at, it reminded me of choux pastry, it had a lovely feel. The cooked bread had the texture, almost, of brioche, so, so light and fluffy. A perfect fruity loaf.

Half term baking - Valentine's cookies

2009-02-13T21:32:00.007Z

It's half term here and with the weather looking decidedly bleak the obvious way to kill a few hours is with some home baking, Valentine's day is a obvious theme right now. Cut out cookies it was to be but the 'problem' with cut out cookies and children is that children love to 'play' with their piece of dough. It gets rolled, shaped, crumpled up, re-rolled, re-shaped and so on after a while it becomes tough and inedible - for the children - personally I don't eat the re-rolled creations, I simple admire the work of my little angels.
In my quest to find a good workable, child friendly dough I tried a much recommended one from Martha Stewart, her sugar cookies. This dough was great, I found it a little wet to start with and added a extra 3/4 cup of flour but apart from that it was a dream to work with. We started off with heart shaped cookies, moving onto champagne flutes - quite fitting for Valentine's day, before long my son was cutting out palm trees and flamingos - wishful thinking for a drab and dreary February.

Sugar cookies
from The Martha Stewart cookbook
Makes approx. 2 dozen cookies

2 cups of all purpose flour (I needed a extra 3/4 cup)
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 pound butter, softened
1 cup of sugar
1 egg
2 tbsp brandy - I swapped for milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Sift together the dry ingredients. In a electric mixer, cream butter and sugar until light; add the egg, brandy and vanilla and beat well. Add the dry ingredients a little at a time and mix until well blended
Wrap and chill the dough for at least 30 minutes before rolling.
Preheat the oven to 400f. On a lightly floured board, roll out one third of the dough at a time. Roll to about 1/8inch thick and cut out with cookie cutters. Put shaped on parchment-lined baking sheets and bake for 10 minutes. Do not allow to burn. Cool on racks.

Decorate as your children choose to do so.

This dough was incredible, very robust but still came out of the oven light and crisp, they went down a storm, a great recipe.

Oat, seed and raisin cookies

2009-01-27T18:50:00.010Z

There is nothing flash or fancy about oat and raisin cookies, indeed I'd go as far to say that they are home baking at it's best. Simple, wholesome ingredients, yet still deliciously addictive.
I have been baking oat cookies for my kids for years and years and everyone loves them, this slightly healthier version proved just as delicious.
This recipe, from Annabel Karmel (fabulous kids food expert) includes sunflower seeds alongside the oats and raisins. It's a great way to get extra seeds into the children's diet, they didn't realise the seeds were there at all and really enjoyed the cookies.
I have to say I loved the addition of the seeds the cookies tasted very much like Hob-nobs and to say there is relatively little sugar in the recipe they taste as though the have been drenched in syrup.
Chewy, crunchy and (sort of) good for you....what more could you wish for in a cookie.

Oat and raisin cookies

75g butter
85g golden caster sugar
1tsp vanilla extract
75g raisins
50g sunflower seeds
50g plain flour
1/2tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2tsp salt
40g porridge oats

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Stir in all of the remaining ingredients until completely combined.
Shape into walnut-sized balls and flatten slightly by pressing in the centre with your fingers.
Place in an oven pre-heated to 180c for 12-14 minutes until golden.
Cool on a wire rack.

Makes 12-15 biscuits.

Pacific lime chicken

2009-01-27T14:10:00.006Z

I wasn't going to blog about this chicken dish, mainly because I find it impossible to take a half decent picture of chicken portions, I don't know why, I just can't make them look nice, I really need to work on my plating up skills, lol. However as soon as I tasted this dish I knew I had to post about it as it is, by far, the most delicious chicken recipe I have tried in a long while.

The recipe comes from Diana Henry's Cook Simple, a fantastic book that I have lusted over for months and finally picked it up. I have heard many good things about this book from other bloggers and on foodie forums and new this would be a great book for me, I'm not disappointed, in fact it is one of the few books I own that I could quite easily cook everything in it.

This is the very first recipe in the book and as I had everything to hand I gave it a go, so glad I did, everyone raved about this chicken, in fact my son and I resorted to spooning the leftover cooked marinade out of the dish stove-side, we couldn't get enough. I have mentioned before of my love of sticky chicken, this is super sticky and the limes really come though, I find that a lot of marinades don't really penetrate the meat, this really did and I only left it a few hours, overnight marinating would be spectacular.

Pacific lime chicken - serves 4

8 chicken thighs, bone in, skin on

wedges of lime, to serve

Marinade:

5 tbsp runny honey

5tbsp dark soy sauce

juice of 4 limes

3tsp soft brown sugar

3 garlic cloves, crushed or grated

leaves from 5 sprigs of thyme

black pepper

Mix all the marinade ingredients together. Make incisions in the underside of the chicken and pour the marinade over it. Cover with cling film. If you have time, leave the chicken to marinate - anything from 15 minutes to the whole afternoon - in the refrigerator, turning the chicken pieces every so often.

Lift the chicken out of the marinade and put it in a small roasting tin or shallow gratin dish; it needs to lie in a single layer. Roast in an oven preheated to 190c/ gas mark 5 for 35-40 minutes, basting every so often with the leftover marinade and cooking juices until cooked through. If it gets too dark in colour, cover the dish with foil. The finished dish will be sticky and glossy. Serve with fresh limes, cut into wedges or halves.

Luscious lunch

2009-01-20T20:33:00.007Z

I am not a girl who can skip lunch, or any other meal for that matter, I need breakfast as soon as I wake up and then spend hours dreaming of lunch time. This recipe comes from the first Cook yourself thin book and it is meant to be a tasty side dish, but it's great for cabbage lovers (like me!) as a really quick cook lunch. The original recipe is shredded savoy cabbage with toasted pine nuts and crispy prosciutto. I often chop and change it, any green cabbage will do and the prosciutto is often swapped for Serrano ham, as I used today, or my favourite, crispy pancetta....drool. The only thing I never change is the toasted pine nuts, I adore pine nuts and often I'm so hastily wanting to eat them I don't toast them properly, as in the picture, lol.

Shredded savoy cabbage with toasted pine nuts and crispy prosciutto

250g savoy cabbage

20g pine nuts

35g prosciutto - or other continental meat

1/2 tsp olive oil

2 sage leaves, finely chopped - I omit these

salt

1/4 tsp white pepper - I prefer to use black

Serves 2 - as a side dish

150 calories per serving

Take the outer leaves off the cabbage from the outside in and, using a sharp knife, remove the core. Roll the leaves up like cigars and slice into thin ribbons. Give them a quick wash under the tap and set aside without bothering to dry them too much.

In a large dry frying pan, toast the pine nuts over a medium-heat until golden. When toasted and lovely, remove them from the pan and set aside. Next add the prosciutto, laying it out flat in the bottom of the pan for 4 minutes until it has shrunk slightly and gone crispy. Set aside with the pine nuts.

Heat the pan up and pop in the olive oil, sage and cabbage. Stir-fry this mixture for 5 minutes, then put in 1 teaspoon of water, turn the heat off completely and place the lid on for another 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, then add the prosciutto in little shards and pine nuts before serving.

Date bars

2009-01-19T13:57:00.009Z

After my subtle hints for Rachel Allen's new book, Bake, for Christmas fell on deaf ears I decided that for my birthday I'd drop subtle as a sledgehammer hints for this book, it worked, after receiving some lovely gifts for my birthday what fell through the letterbox but Bake, it was well worth the wait.

I am the first to admit I find Rachel quite uncomfortable to watch on TV, she doesn't seem to have that natural show business flair, but I adore her books, they are all so homely and family oriented and I love the fact that in some of her recipes she will tell you to go and have a cup of tea while you're waiting on something coming out of the oven.

Flicking through the book so many wonderful bakes jumped out at me, in particular the blueberry cheesecake but I settled on these date bars mainly because I adore dates and stocked up on loads of them in the post Christmas sales.

These bars are a cross between a fruit slice and fruit crumble, basically a crumble mix, half of it pressed into the base of a tin, covered in a layer of fruit, and sprinkled with the remaining crumble. They are really delicious, sweet, sticky, light and fruity. My OH wasn't too interested in their appearance but fell in love them after one bite. They would also be fabulous with a apple and blackberry filling which I shall be cooking in the Autumn.

Date bars from Rachel Allen's Bake

250ml water

200g dates (stoned and chopped) I used 150g dates and 50g of prunes that were needing used up.

175g plain flour

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

175g soft light brown sugar

100g porridge oats

good pinch of salt

175g butter, diced

20 x 20cm square tin

Preheat the oven to 180c/ Gas mark 4. Butter the sides of the cake tin and line the base with greaseproof paper.

Place the water and chopped dates in a medium-sized saucepan and bring up to a simmer. Cook for about 10 minutes, uncovered, on a low-medium heat until the date mixture is very soft and thick, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature.

Sift the flour and bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl. Add the sugar, oats and salt and mix well. Add the butter and, using your fingertips, rub it in until moist clumps form.

Press half of the oat mixture evenly over the base of the prepared tin. Spread the cooked date mixture over this, then sprinkle with the remaining oat mixture. Press gently with the palm of your hand to flatten it on top.

Bake in the oven for approximately 40 minutes or until golden brown at the edges and set in the centre.

Allow to cool completely in the tin, then cut into bars and serve.

Persian-style onion soup

2009-01-12T21:02:00.007Z

French onion soup is a Bistro classic, delicious it may be but it is a faff, then add croutons or bread and a mound of cheese and the calories soon add up. Still recovering from the festive season I am craving some lighter foods and turned to Gordon Ramsay's Healthy Appetite for inspiration. This simple, aromatic and lightly spiced soup immediately caught my eye, I don't know how I managed to overlook it before.

Persian-style onion soup
serves 4

3 tbsp olive oil
5 large onions, peeled and thinly sliced
sea salt and black pepper
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds
1/2 tsp dried mint
2 tbsp plain flour
700ml vegetable or chicken stock
1 cinnamon stick
juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp caster sugar
few flat leave parsley sprigs, I swapped for coriander.

Place a heavy based pan over a medium heat. Add 2 tbsp olive oil, the onions and some seasoning. Cover and seat for 12-15 minutes until the onions are soft, lifting the lid and stirring occasionally. Remove the lid and increase the heat very slightly.

Add the spices, dried mint and remaining oil, then stir in the flour, cook, stirring frequently, for 3-5 minutes. Gradually pour in stock, whisking as you do so to prevent any lumps forming. When it has all been added, drop in the cinnamon stick and simmer over a low heat, partially covered with the lid, for 30-40 minutes.

Stir in the lemon juice and sugar, then taste and adjust the seasoning. Discard the cinnamon stick. Ladle the soup into warm bowls and scatter over the herbs to serve.

This soup is very good, quick enough to make for a special lunch and uses store cupboard ingrediants. The subtle spices make a wonderfully aromatic base for this soup, I can't get enough of it and I'm planning to cook it again this week.

2009-01-03T22:26:00.013Z

As promised here is a little taster of some of the goodies we ate over the holidays, I decided not to show the pile of selection boxes, Quality street and Toblerone's we scoffed, baked goodies only, it was only as I uploaded the pics I noticed they were all recipes from Nigella's books, all very good and I recommend you try them all.
I apologise for the dodgy photography, not my strong point at the best of times but I think these pictures are proof that I hit the Eggnog a bit heavily.

Seasonally spiced nuts, from Nigella Christmas....fabulous!

Star topped mince pies from HTBADG, I made Delia's mincemeat, it is wonderful.

Chocolate Christmas cake from Feast/ Nigella Christmas. As a Christmas cake lover I was wary of this cake, I needn't have been, it is delicious, although I couldn't taste the chocolate in it...and I'd added extra.

Chilli jam from Nigella Christmas....Like a thick set sweet chilli dipping sauce, wonderful! I am adding it to allsorts. Fantastic addition to any sandwich, I will up the chilli ratio next time though, I like to have a small fire in my mouth, this needs more fire.

Christmas pudding bonbons....what a carry on, lol. Thanks to 'Rhyley's granny' for supplying me with the elusive green glace cherries, I cheated and instead of making pudding bonbons I made dark chocolate truffle versions of them. Kitsch, yes, a pain in the backside to decorate...Oh YES!

Christmas cupcakes from Nigella Christmas. My son baked these when he was home sick, child's play to make and eat.

Marshmallow squares from Nigella Express. I made these twice in one weekend, we all couldn't get enough of them, they looked so pretty covered in glitter that hasn't shown up in pics but believe me they were cool.

Hopefully normal service will be resumed soon, I can't wait to get back to blogging and back to normal.

NO, I havent dropped off the face of the earth...

2008-12-29T17:59:00.006Z

but I can see why regular readers may assume I have done so. I havent posted since the beginning of December and I really don't know where the time went. On top of the regular December madness I was ill, had sick kids to deal with and was without internet access for over a week (that was worse then being ill) however I have still been cooking and hopefully before New year I will at least show pics of what we ate over Christmas.

Another apology to the Daring bakers, I was unable to take part in this months very tricky challenge.

This month's challenge was brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux. They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand, and you can look at the hundreds of Daring bakers take on this challenge by checking out the blog roll.

Hopefully things will be back to normal by next month and I can look forward to another challenge.

Once again, my sincere apologies, I hope to back very soon. I hope everybody had a fabulous Christmas and has a prosperous New year.

Maple chicken

2008-12-07T21:23:00.008Z

This is always a hit, and always requested by my son, the recipe comes from Nigella Express and in the original recipe you use chicken and ribs, my son loved the original recipe so much that it toppled Elvis' backyard ribs from his top spot, he is extremely fussy about his ribs, I will blog Elvis' ribs one day, they are so good that they never hang around long enough to have their picture taken.

Like most people I am forever looking for ways to jazz up chicken drumsticks so I simply left out the ribs and used this tasty marinade, made with store cupboard staples.

Great for a simple supper.

The original recipe from Nigella Express

Maple chicken 'N' ribs

12 pork spare ribs

12 chicken portions, skin and bone still on

250ml apple juice, as sharp as possible

4 x 15ml tablespoons Maple syrup

2 x 15ml tablespoons vegetable oil

2 x 15ml tablespoons soy sauce

2 star anise

1 cinnamon stick, halved

6 cloves of garlic, unpeeled

Put the ribs and chicken in a couple of large freezer bags or into a dish.
Add the remaining ingrediants, squelching everything together well, before sealing the bag or covering the dish.
Leave to marinate in the fridge overnight or up to a couple of days.
When marinating time is up, take the dish out of the fridge and preheat the oven to 200c/ gas mark 6.
Pour the contents of the freezer bag into one or two large roasting tins ( making sure the chicken is skin side up), place in the oven and cook for about a hour and a quarter, by which time everything should be sticky and glossed conker-brown.

Serves 6-8.

This is such a simple recipe and I always have everything to hand in the store cupboard for it, the flavours are subtle though so overnight marinating is essential. It really is delicious, a slight sweetness against the savouriness of the chicken and as always, sticky food is always delicious.

Sparkly gingerbread

2008-12-05T17:59:00.013Z

I came to gingerbread quite late in life, gingersnaps, yes, fresh ginger, yes, gingerbread, no, not for me. That changed earlier this year when once again I was baking a cake I didn't like (i.e gingerbread), so I wouldn't eat it. I know, I know, I need to stop doing that as I always give in and find, yes, actually I do like that particular cake.

Anyway, in January I made Nigella's stem ginger gingerbread from How to Eat and I was converted, it is a wonderful cake and I will blog it one day, I just try not to bake it as I know I will eat it (I know, I know). Since then I have tried many gingerbread recipes but I always go back to Nigella's recipes.

These gingerbread muffins are Nigella's Christmas morning muffins, mine too now, but I make them often, not just for Christmas, as they are always welcomed by my family. This recipe is very easy and very, very tasty. Looking in Feast this week I noticed that Nigella suggests rubbing some edible gold leaf on these muffins as soon as they come out of the oven, and when my gold disco glitter arrived this week I knew it would be perfect on top of these muffins.

I am a magpie for anything sparkly, glittery or shiny, I love it and at Christmas I have a excuse to have glitter everywhere...even on my food.

Gingerbread muffins, from Feast

250g plain flour

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1 egg

50g dark muscovado sugar

50g light muscovado sugar

150ml full fat milk

1/4 ts balsamic vinegar

6 tablespoons vegetable or corn oil

4 tablespoon golden syrup

4 tablespoon black treacle

Preheat the oven to gas mark 6/ 200c. Line a 12 hole muffin tin with muffin papers. Combine the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and spices in a large bowl. Whisk the egg in a large measuring jug then add the sugars, breaking up any lumps. Add the milk and vinegar then measure in the oil with a tablespoon. Use the same oily spoon to add the syrup and treacle so they don't stick to it. Whisk the mixture to combine and add to the flour and spices.

Stir until mixed but still fairly lumpy - the mixture may be more runny than you expect for muffins - but you need the dense stickiness of gingerbread, rather than a cakey crumb.

Spoon or pour the mixture into the muffin papers and bake for about 20minutes until the tops are dry; the muffins will still feel squidgy when you take them out of the tins to cool on a rack.

Sprinkle lightly with gold glitter.

These fabulous muffins keep very well, unlike regular muffins, in fact like most gingerbread they get better the longer you keep them. I am rather surprised the glitter shows up in the photo, although it looks like a rather subtle dusting of it I actually drenched them with it.

Daring bakers

2008-11-27T13:26:00.009Z

Caramel cake with caramelized butter frosting

(and optional caramels)

This months challenge was co-hosted by Dolores from Culinary curiosity, Alex from Blondie and brownie and Jenny from Foray into food.

The recipe this month was caramel cake with caramelized butter frosting, this recipe comes from Shuna Fish Lydon from Eggbeater.

This recipe involved making a caramel syrup, cake and frosting and to be honest I felt it was sugar overload but I went with it. The Caramel syrup freaked me out a little, it involved making a syrup with sugar and water and when the syrup was ready adding cold water to it, I was surprised actually that the syrup was a success, I imagined it seizing and setting in a big candy ball.

It looked like maple syrup and was tooth achingly sweet.

I decided to make cupcakes instead of a individual cake. The cake was a doddle to make, pretty much a regular cake recipe but with some of the caramel syrup added to the mix. The uncooked batter tasted divine.

The cooked cake was more like a sweet bread than a cake, very dense, but delicious.

When the cupcakes were cooked and cooled I prepared my frosting. I've done a caramelized butter frosting before and loved it. First you need to cook your butter until it is brown, pour it through a sieve and leave to cool. The cooled butter is then used to make a butter icing with icing sugar and the caramel syrup, a little salt is added and believe me this icing is so sweet you need that salt.

It was a dream to work with and made a pretty cupcake but anymore than one of these and I'd be in trouble with my dentist.

Optional caramels:

Golden vanilla bean caramels recipe from Alice Medrichs.

This was a optional extra and I wasn't going to do it, I've made caramels very successfully before and I can't leave them alone, for the sake of my waist I was going to leave this recipe out. Then I had a brainwave and although it is this worse for my waist I still gave it a go.

Caramel hokey pokey ice cream, yum.

I followed the recipe provided, but I didn't take it so far so that it would set into caramel, I made the syrup and let it cool, basically I made caramel sauce. It was delicious, I ate a lot of it straight from the pan, so creamy and, well, caramell-y, lol.

Usually when doing something like this I would make my own ice cream, today I cheated and did something Dorie Greenspan suggests in her book, dressing up shop bought ice cream. I bought some very good quality vanilla ice cream and let it go softish, I mixed some crushed cinder toffee through and swirled with the caramel. The caramel went to toffee as it froze but melts again as the ice cream comes out of the freezer.

Very quick, such a cheat but so, so delicious. Any ice cream lover has to try this, I have hidden it in the depths of the deep freeze for Christmas.

The original recipes can be found on the hosts blogs. Thanks to this months hosts Dolores, Alex and Jenny, don't forget to check out their blogs and the other Daring bakers blogs on the blog roll.

Beanz Meanz ....Christmas?

2008-11-14T19:57:00.009Z

Boston baked beans.

I have to admit that I adore good old baked beans, on toast with bacon chopped through it, heaven, not much beats it for comfort food. This recipe comes from Nigella Christmas, Nigella's newest gorgeous offering and I love, love, love this book.

This recipe was one of the first that really caught my eye, yes, in a book filled with luscious, decadent food I fall for baked beans. I was slightly mystified at first, why on earth would baked beans ever be classed as Christmas food? Hardly up there with turkey, stuffing and bacon wrapped chipolatas is it....yet still, I knew this was the first thing I would cook from this book.

Baked beans are not something I have ever cooked myself from scratch, they are one of the few things I am quite happy to open a tin for, my OH was mystified when I told him I couldn't go swimming as I had to spend the next 3 hours making baked beans, in fact is actual reply was "havent you heard of Heinz?" this was a adventure into the unknown.

Boston baked beans

Serves 8

500g haricot beans

2 x 15ml garlic oil

125g smoked streaky bacon, chopped somewhere between finely and roughly

1 onion, peeled and chopped

100g grainy mustard

2 x 15ml tablespoon tomato puree

100g dark muscovado sugar

1 litre of water, plus 60ml

1 x 15ml tablespoon cider vinegar

2 teaspoons Maldon salt or 1 teaspoon table salt, or to taste.

The night before you want to make this recipe, soak the beans in plenty of water for 24 hours.

Once the beans are soaked, drain and rinse them and put aside. Preheat the oven to 150c / gas mark 2 and heat the oil in a large flameproof casserole or a ovenproof pan with a lid.

Fry the chopped bacon briskly in the hot oil and, after 5 minutes, turn down the heat and add the chopped onion. Cook alongside the bacon for about another 10 minutes.

Add the mustard, tomato puree and sugar and 500ml of the water, stirring everything together well.

Stir in the rinsed beans, and add a further 500ml of water. Bring to the boil and let it bubble for 10 minutes.

Put a lid on the casserole or pan and transfer to the oven for 2-2 1/2 hours or until tender.

Remover from the oven and add the remaining 60ml water along with the vinegar and, after tasting carefully (don't burn your mouth), the salt if wished.

The beans were a doddle, quickly flung together and then left to bubble away for hours, the aroma of these beans was amazing but when would sugar, bacon and mustard not be amazing. We ate these beans as Nigella suggested with sausages, they were the perfect match. The were far superior to any tinned bean, slightly to firm for my OH's taste but I suppose that is to be expected when using dried beans, they weren't hard, just firmer than tinned beans. My daughter absolutely loved them as did I, although they didn't convert my son, baked bean hater, we can't please everyone.

I will certainly make the beans again the salty, sweet, smoked flavour was to die for, but not for a quick midweek supper. Perfect for posh sausage, chips and beans.

Finnish rye bread

2008-11-10T22:34:00.011Z

It seems I spend a awful lot of time baking bread these days, who can blame me, it is so therapeutic, but I mainly keep it up as I prefer to know what is in my food rather than buying ready sliced shop bread full of preservatives to ensure a long shelf life. I usually have three or four different loafs sliced and well wrapped in the freezer ready to use at any time.

I eventually stumbled across rye flour which it seems is scarily hard to find around here....well it was, funnily enough as soon as I tracked it down in a health food store I noticed that Asda had stocked it all along.

I prefer to make healthier loafs using wholemeal flours and adding seeds or grains, every little helps after all. As soon as I spotted the rye flour I knew what I was going to bake, Finnish rye bread from Nigella's How to be a domestic goddess. Nigella describes this bread as dense, dark and aromatic in a extraordinarily comforting way, she isn't wrong. I couldn't stop myself from eating this rustic bread, it is wonderful, I served it along side ham and pea soup, it is perfect for mopping up soup.

Finnish rye bread from How to be a domestic goddess.

225g rye flour

300g strong white flour

7g easy-blend yeast or 15g fresh yeast

1 tbsp dark muscovado sugar

2 tsp salt

300ml warm water

45g unsalted butter, melted

1 baking sheet.

Put the flours, yeast, sugar and salt into a large bowl and slowly add the water, mixing with your hands or a wooden spoon, until you've got a messy but vaguely cohesive lump of dough. Add a tablespoon of the melted butter and mix just to incorporate it. Start kneading, either by hand or with a dough hook, until the dough comes together smoothly to form a dense ball, adding more water or flour as necessary.

Use some more of the melted butter to grease a bowl and turn the dough ball in it so that the top is oily (and won't therefore dry out), then cover the bowl with clingfilm and leave to rise in a warm place for a hour or so.

When the dough's doubled in size, punch it down. Give a good few kneads, and then form into a round loaf. Sit the loaf on the baking sheet, cover it with a tea towel and leave to get puffy for about 30 minutes, during which time preheat the oven to 190c/ gas mark 5. Bake for 45-55 minutes, or until the loaf is cooked through.

Brush with the remaining tablespoon of melted butter and leave on a wire rack to cool.

I forgot to brush the remaining butter over the top of the cooked loaf, I found the melted butter on top of the microwave a hour after I had cut into the bread. I don't think it suffered for it. This bread kept very well, it made great toast the next day.

I used leftover bread we had to make croutons. I cut the bread into cubes, drizzled with olive oil

and salt and pepper and baked for 10 minutes,they were the best croutons ever.

Goodbye Pistachio

2008-11-06T13:17:00.006Z

Yesterday many of us received the tragic news that our dear friend Pistachio had passed away.

Pistachio was known to many on the Internet from Nigella.com and later helping Violet's with the job of keeping us in line on Violet's pantry a fabulous foodie forum, and a great job she did too. A avid blogger, who's recipes could always be depended on and became a regular in many homes across the world.

Pistachio was a warm, elegant and eloquent woman and she will be sorely missed.

Goodbye Pistachio, sleep well.

Date and walnut flapjacks

2008-11-04T13:57:00.005Z

I am always looking out for ways to boost my fibre intake and like most people would like the fibre filled food to taste good. As far as a snacks go "healthy" doesn't always equal tasty. Everyone knows that flapjacks, full of oats, are better than a bar of chocolate for a quick sweet fix but I still find most flapjacks just too sweet, most are made with sugar and added golden syrup, soon your healthy snack is turning into another fat filled treat.
Looking for healthier flapjack recipes I came across lots using dried dates, I was intrigued as in baking dates can give a lovely fudgy, softness such as in sticky toffee pudding.
The original couple of recipes I looked at didn't do it for me mainly because of unusual measuring method i.e teacups (?) and 'half tubs' of stuff....so I combined a everyday flapjack recipe with a inspired date and walnut flavouring. It worked.

Date and walnut flapjacks

125g butter
1 tbsp runny honey
100g dried dates, soaked in boiling water for 5 minutes, drained well and chopped
50g broken walnuts
50g caster sugar
a handful of raisins (optional)
125g oats

Heat oven to 180c, grease a 8in square baking tin.
Put honey, butter, dates and walnuts into a pan, heat until the butter melts. The dates will turn fudgy and almost melt into the butter.
Stir in the caster sugar and raisins if using.
Stir in oats and mix well.
Bake for 20minutes, cut into bars as soon as you take them from the oven but don't try to remove them from the tray until cooled.

I have to say I adored these flapjacks and will bake them for myself again and again, my daughter, flapjack queen, wasn't impressed so we'll stick to usual flapjacks for her.
The dates did give a lovely fudgy, toffee flavour to the flapjacks and were complimented beautifully by the walnuts. They weren't however chewy flapjacks I suppose that is down to the lack of refined sugar, so they had a more cakey texture, either way they were delicious.
Although dried fruit itself is quite high in sugar I feel better about eating these flapjacks than a everyday one, plus the dates go toward your 5-a-day.....well, you might have to eat a few flapjacks to reach that but I'm willing.

Daring bakers

2008-10-29T00:01:00.004Z

Two days work, two days work, in a heap on the floor, arghhhhh!

The Daring baker's challenge always comes around quickly, and reveal day, where the months challenge is announced is always a exciting day.

This months challenge is very poignant to all Daring bakers, old and new, as this challenge was to be co-hosted with Sher from What did you eat, Glenna from A fridge full of food and Rosa from Rosa's yummy yums. Sher sadly passed away this summer, a dear loss to all Daring bakers.
Glenna has also left the Daring baker's due to personal reasons, so Rosa is now hosting alone.
In memory to Sher her chosen recipe is this months challenge, and a exciting choice it was too.

This months challenge is 'Bake your own pizza's like a real pizzaioli'. To make our own real pizza dough, the recipe chosen was "Pizza Napoletana" from Peter Reinhart's "The bread baker's apprentice"

The challenge: to make your own pizza dough, and try the tossing method for at least 2 of the bases. Try to get a photo of the dough tossing in action.
The rules: To make pizza dough as stated in the recipe, a pizza sauce and topping. You must use both sauce and toppings but have the freedom to use whatever sauce, ingredients you wish.

I must confess, in a tiny little voice "I don't like pizza" yes, I know, I know, I am the strangest person to walk the earth but it just doesn't do it for me....or my children who also will not eat pizza. However I was still looking forward to trying this recipe as I do often make pizza for my OH.

The recipe given yields enough dough for 6 pizza bases, I halved the recipe to make three, I planned to make 2 pizza's for the challenge (one for my OH and a sweet version for me and the kids) and freeze the remaining dough for a rainy day.

While I am confessing I also have to admit I failed miserably in the dough tossing photograph challenge, I only had a seven year old nearby to take the picture and the results weren't good, lol.
The full recipe can be found on Rosa's blog

The dough had to be made over a two day period, on day one the dough was made in a mixer, kneaded by hand, split into balls and placed in the refrigerator overnight. I loved this dough, it was a little sticky but not gloopy, it was a very silky dough...if that makes sense.

On day 2 the dough is ready to be used, and then the fun starts.

Exactly two hours before you need to use the dough you must remove it from the fridge.

The dough had to be sprinkled with flour and shaped into disks, covered and left for two hours.
45 minutes before baking a pizza stone needs to be heated in the oven, as hot as the oven gets.

To toss the dough, generously sprinkle the back of a jelly pan with cornmeal, flour your hands.
Take 1 piece of dough, lay the dough across your fists in a very delicate way and carefully stretch it by bouncing it in a circular motion on your hands, and by giving it a little stretch with each bounce. Once the dough has expanded outward, move to a full toss.
When the dough has the shape you want, place it on the back of the jelly pan making sure there is enough cornmeal on it to stop the dough sticking to the pan.

I enjoyed tossing the dough although it was a little scary at first. It nearly ended up on the floor a few times. The dough shaped really quickly and gave a thin centre and thicker edges, which concerned me a little.
Now to get adventurous.

I used one piece of dough to make a sweet pizza, along the lines of a danish pastry. I spread the dough with apple puree, and covered the pizza in cubed, blanched apples. Sprinkled the apples with slivered almonds, butterscotch sugar and cinnamon and baked in the extremely hot oven for 5-8 minutes. After cooling the pizza slightly I drizzled with glace icing.

This sweet pizza was heavenly, absolutely divine. I adored the pizza crust but the centre was awfully thin and fragile, and couldn't cope with the liquid that came from the fruit. I decide to combine my two remaining dough balls to make a larger pizza for the savoury version.

I found it much easier tossing the larger dough portion than the smaller one, it thinned out more evenly.

For my savoury pizza I used a basic pizza sauce, this one comes from Jamie Oliver's book "Jamie's Italy"

Tomato sauce:

extra virgin olive oil

1 clove of garlic, peeled and finely sliced

a bunch of fresh basil, leaves picked

1 x 400g tin of good quality plum tomatoes

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat a saucepan, add a splash of oil and the sliced garlic and cook gently. When the garlic has turned light golden add the basil, the tomatoes and a few pinches of salt and pepper. Cook gently for 20 minutes, mashing the tomatoes until smooth, then taste, season again and put to one side.

I made this pizza to my OH's tastes, authentic it ain't.

I spread the sauce over the dough, sprinkle with grated cheddar cheese, add sliced mozzarella, peperoni, sauteed onions and a sprinkling of oregano. Bake for 8-10 minutes.

Then it happened........the pizza emerged from the oven and I had to stop OH from eating it until it had it's photo taken....the batteries were flat, every other battery in the house wasn't powerful enough for the camera. With a "do not eat that pizza!" warning, I raced to the shop, raced back and got snapping. Pheww!

OH tucked in and announced this pizza was fantastic, delicious, passed a slice to his friend, friend agreed....delicious, passed a slice to friend number two, yep, still delicious.

Then, bang, whilst helping him self to a second slice, OH miss judges where the table is and my delicious pizza is a mangled heap lying on the floor.

It was one of those super slow motion moments, I could have cried, so could the boys, they were all really hungry.

So, I am asked " how long will it take to make another one"

I answer " two days...."

the boys "eh?!?!"

I loved this challenge, it was great fun. Would I use this recipe again, I'm not sure, the recipe is good, works well and is delicious but two days for pizza dough is a little much for me.

Thanks to Rosa for hosting this months challenge and don't forget to check out other pizza's on the Daring bakers blog roll.

Teacakes

2008-10-21T14:02:00.012+01:00

Fruited teacakes, not the marshmallow-y Tunnocks variety, always remind me of home. My Grandma always had teacakes in the house, and she was very pernickety about them, they had to be bought from the post office at the end of her street and they had to be that mornings batch, she didn't want them to have sat around. We would slice them open, toast them on the open fire, smear them with butter (always salted in my Granny's house) then we would 'write' our names on then by drizzling golden syrup off the end of a spoon over the hot, toasted teacake.

It took longer to toast and drizzle them than it took to eat them but it was fun, and they never tasted the same in anyone elses house.

I must admit I'd forgotten all about teacakes, instead I settle for a bought cinnamon and raisin loaf from the supermarket...oh the shame...in fact it is really delicious and my kids instead on a slice of it, toasted before bed.

Then we ran out of raisin bread.......tears before bedtime indeed.

After the kids went to bed I thought about replicating their favourite fruit loaf and that's when I remembered teacakes. I knew my kids would love them.

I found this recipe on my bookshelf, I should really look through books after I buy them. It comes from the 'Big book of bread' by Anne Sheasby, mentioned on the Focaccia thread. I tweaked it slightly by adding some much needed spice.

Fruited teacakes:

450g strong, plain white bread flour

1 tsp salt

25g butter, diced

1 1/2 tsp easy blend yeast

25g caster sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp mixed spice

115g currants/ raisins

about 250ml warm milk, plus extra for glazing.

Grease 2 baking sheets and set aside. Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl,then lightly run in the butter. Stir in the yeast, sugar, spices and dried fruit.

Make a well in the centre, then stir in enough milk, mixing to form a soft dough.

Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead until smooth. Shape into a round, then place in a oiled bowl, cover and leave to rise in a warm place until doubled in size.

Knock back the dough on a floured surface, then divide into 8 equal pieces. Roll and shape each piece into a round teacake and prick each one twice on top with a fork. Place on the baking sheets, cover and leave to rise for about 30 minutes, or until doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 200c/ gas mark 6. Brush the teacakes with a little milk, then bake for 20-25 minutes, or until risen and golden brown. The teacakes will have a lovely soft top.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

To serve, split each teacake in half, toast lightly on a roaring open fire (a grill would suffice though) spread generously with butter and write you name on the top with golden syrup.

Chocolate chestnut muffins

2008-10-20T20:44:00.013+01:00

Chocolate chestnut muffins.

I was in the mood for something sweet after dinner tonight, but not sickly sweet, definitely chocolate but dark and sophisticated. I came up with these 'grown-up' muffins, grown up as in more for adults than regular muffins that easily please masses of children. I am the first to admit that I love everyday chocolate muffins but for a little luxury this recipe really hits the spot.

I combined two cake making method to make these muffins, the usual muffins method of wet ingrediants into dry, and the chocolate brownie 'melting' method. I melted very dark, good quality chocolate into butter and stirred in sweet chestnut puree, after cooling slightly I stirred in beaten eggs and a little sugar, then folded in flour and very good quality cocoa, to give the muffins a little depth of colour. As a extra special treat I poured in a glug of Tia Maria, I recently fell in love with Tia Maria and am now finding uses for it all over the shop.

Chocolate chestnut muffins:

100g best quality dark chocolate

100g butter

250g tin of vanilla sweetened chestnut puree

2 eggs, beaten

75g caster sugar

125g self raising flour

25g good quality cocoa

a glug of Tia Maria

Preheat the oven to 180c.

In a large heavy bottomed pan melt together the chocolate and butter, remove from the heat and stir in chestnut puree.

Cool slightly and stir in eggs and caster sugar.

Sift together the flour and cocoa and fold into the chocolate chestnut mixture, spoon into muffin cases and bake for 20 minutes.

Now, I did say that this recipe was intended for grown-ups, however my two children loved these and polished off two each before I hid the remaining muffins. They are very light, but a little goes a long way, they are very intensively chocolatey. I do think they would be very good as 'pudding' with coffee, or Tia Maria, after dinner with friends. The first thing that hits you is the chocolate, they are extremely chocolatey, and you can really taste it, I can't stand chocolate muffins that are just brown cakes with no hint of chocolate to the flavour.

Then the chestnut hits you, chocolate and chestnut, a great combination.

The liquor really gives a adult kick, it doesn't alter the flavour of the cakes, just adds a little depth to it.

Do give this recipe a try, and don't be put off by using chestnuts before Christmas, this is how I came to use the chestnut puree tonight, it had been sitting around in my cupboard since last Christmas as it didn't feel 'right' to use it any other time.

I recently heard of baby born born in the height if summer, who had been named Holly.

"you can't call a summer baby Holly" I declared, and so had a number of other people, as babies Grandad was very determined when he said, "It's not just a Christmas name!" So on that reasoning I decided if Holly wasn't just for Christmas then neither are chestnuts. Although these would be very good to leave out for Santa.....

Stem ginger fruit cake

2008-10-15T15:46:00.006+01:00

This is another of those cakes that I lovingly make for others when I don't want to eat cake, I'm not one of those people who can make cake and leave it alone. So rather than gave up baking for a while I simply bake cakes that I don't like. It's logical really.

I am not that keen on fruited cakes, although they are growing on me rather rapidly. However fruit cakes are very popular with my loved ones, this cake is sort of made up on the spot, I started off looking at my regular fruit cake recipe (Bara birth), bored I decided to tweak it, I threw in a bag of mixed red berries (cranberries, cherries etc...) a dredge of cinnamon, mixed spice and nutmeg then the stem ginger hanging round the back of the cupboard caught my eye, I chucked in a couple of stems (grated) and a spoonful of the syrup from the jar.

The recipe (as I remember it) is

Stem ginger fruit cake:
300g s/r flour
300g dried fruit (I used raisins, currants and a berry mix)
2-3 stumps of stem ginger, grated.
100g soft brown sugar
1 tbsp mixed spice
1 tsp cinnamon
grating of nutmeg
pinch of salt
1 egg, beaten
100ml milk
2 tbsp stem ginger syrup.

Preheat oven to 180c/ gas mark 4. Grease and line a 8in loaf tin.
Mix the dried fruit, stem ginger, sugar, spices and salt in a bowl.
Beat in the egg.
Gently heat the milk, stir in ginger syrup. Pour into cake mixture and stir well.
Scrape the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 1-1/4 --- 1-1/2 hours.
Cool, slice and spread thickly with the best butter you can find.

The aroma coming from the oven when this cake was baking was delicious, and reminded me of my Granny's house, ginger, cinnamon, mixed spices, perfect scent for autumn.

Maybe I got carried away with the cake, as for someone who didn't want to like it, I found it a little too delicious. It was moister than a lot of fruit cakes, probably because of the syrup, but as there was no fat in the cake it was hugely complimented by a thick smearing of butter.

Cloud cakes

2008-10-06T14:26:00.010+01:00

These little cakes are a firm favourite with my children, they are Nigella's Love buns from Feast, in which Nigella suggests these Mr Whippy-esque cakes as part of a romantic valentine's day meal.

The first time I made them my daughter renamed them Cloud cakes, as the soft gooey meringue topping looks like clouds. The name has since stuck and they will always be cloud cakes in my house.

The recipe is very straight forward, basic cupcakes topped in the most dreamy cloud like topping, a soft meringue cooked on a double boiler. A word of warning though, these cakes don't like heat, they wilt very quickly in the heat of my kitchen, note the landslip starting in the pictures, so I store them in the fridge, yes the cake does suffer a little for it but I prefer the topping straight from the fridge, the texture changes slightly once it's been chilled going a little more marshmallowy, in fact just like a Tunnocks teacake. Heaven!

Love buns (more aptly named Cloud cakes) from Feast.

For the buns:
125g soft butter
125g caster sugar
2 eggs
125g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 tbsp milk

for the topping:
2 egg whites
4 tbsp golden syrup
100g caster sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1tsp vanilla extract
(heart shaped sprinkles to decorate - if using on Valentines day.)

Take everything you need out of the fridge in time to bring it to room temperature - this makes a huge difference to the lightness of the buns later - and preheat the oven to gas mark 6/ 200c.
Put all of the ingrediants for the buns, except for the milk, into a food processor and blitz until smooth. Pulse while adding the milk down the funnel, to make a smooth dropping consistency.
Divide the mixture into a 12-bun muffin tin lined with papers or heart patterned cases, and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes. They should have risen and be golden on top; you want a little peak if possible.
Let them cool in their tin on a rack, and then take them carefully out of the tin to cool in their papers, still on the wire rack.

Topping:
This is a topping that has a kind of meringue base, by which you whisk egg whites over heat until they are stiff and gleaming. Think Mr Whippy. So make a double boiler with a bowl that will fit snugly over a saucepan of barely simmering water, and put all the ingredients for the icing, except for the vanilla and sprinkles, into the bowl. Whisk everything with a electric beater until the icing becomes thick and holds peaks like a meringue. This will take about 5 minutes, so be patient.
Take the bowl off the saucepan and onto a cool surface and keep whisking while you add the vanilla. Then keep whisking until the mixture cools a little. You want a proper peaked and whipped covering here, so spoon some icing over each bun, and then dollop another spoonful over in a swirly fashion. Cover with sprinkles if using.

Do try this recipe, it would be perfect as Nigella suggests for a Valentine's dessert but even better for kids to get in a mess with, just keep some baby wipes handy as the topping gets everywhere, around mouths, in hair, oh the joy of having children.

Daring bakers

2008-09-24T21:15:00.023+01:00

Daring bakers time again, this months challenge was co-hosted by Natalie from Gluten a Go Go and Shel from Musings from the fishbowl and this was the first ever 'alternative' Daring baker's challenge.

The challenge: This was also my first savoury challenge since joining the Daring baker's, this month we had to bake Lavash crackers, the recipe came from Peter Reinhart's book 'The bread baker's apprentice' and also make a accompanying dip/ salsa/spread or relish to go with the crackers.

The rules: We really had so much leverage with this challenge,what with which seasoning or spices we added to the crackers and make whatever dip/ relish we wish.

The only strict rules we had were to make the Lavash crackers with either wheat flour or use a gluten free alternative.

All relish / salsa/ spread or dips must be vegan and gluten free.

I was really excited about this challenge, the lavash crackers were very simple to make, a lightly yeasted dough, that was difficult to knead but I got there, and the dough was wonderful to work with once it had had sufficient kneading.
The dough has to be rolled very thinly and placed on a baking sheet, we had complete freedom with out toppings/ seasoning so I used Nigella seeds (I am loving Nigella seeds at the moment) and on my second batch I used sea salt and cracked black pepper, hardly original but they tasted divine.

The big part of this challenge for me was making sure my dip was vegan and gluten free, I suppose I eat many foods that fit into both categories without realising it but it is different when I have to stick to the rules. I decided to make a dip using my favourite ingrediants red pepper, chilli, garlic and onion.

Roast pepper, chilli and garlic dip

1 1/2 red peppers
1 red chilli
4 cloves of garlic
1/2 onion
olive oil
salt

Heat the oven to 180c
Cut red pepper into quarters,
place in a roasting tin with the chilli (quartered), garlic cloves (skinned but left whole), onion (cut into 4) drizzle with olive oil and season well with salt.

Bake for 30-40 minutes, cool, and pulverise in the blender not to a pulp though, leave some texture.

I loved this months challenge, I have never made crackers before, but they were so easy and quick too, I also loved having a lot of freedom with the dip,it was delicious, and having the too there together were the perfect duo to have nibble on all night.

Thank you to this months host Natalie and Shellyfish, don't forget to visit their blogs where you will find this months challenge recipe and also check out the Daring baker's blogroll for more Lavash crackers.

Award time

2008-09-23T16:14:00.003+01:00

Beautiful site award

Maria from The goddess kitchen has given me this lovely award, the 'Beautiful site' award. Thank you very much Maria it is much appreciated. Do go and look at Maria's beautiful blog.

I shall pass on this award to some beautiful sites I often visit, do go and visit them yourself.

Culinary travels of a kitchen goddess

Tea and wheaten bread

The clayton's blog

The best chocolate chunk cookies

2008-09-19T12:14:00.009+01:00

These are my favourite cookies, crisp on the outside, soft, chewy and melting in the middle, I love them.

The recipe comes from Phil Vickery's 'A passion for puddings' this is a great book done in conjunction with Carnation milk to raise money for the charity 'Shelter'. Every recipe in the book contains Carnation condensed milk but the variety of recipes is great.

The recipe found here http://www.nestle.co.uk/OurBrands/Recipes/OldFavourites/HazelnutandChocolateCookie.htm

is the recipe Phil used for his petits fours in a hotel, they are so good, I have passed this recipe on many times and it always gets rave reviews.

I ommitted the hazelnuts and used belgium and white chocolate, the uncooked cookie dough keeps very well, infact it gets better if kept in the fridge for a few days. I must admit my version never looks like Phil's, his always look crisp, like biscuits, mine have never turned out like that but I still love them. They are especially good slightly underdone.

Chocolate orange cake

2008-09-17T14:06:00.009+01:00

I rarely bake for myself, meaning for my own benefit. I bake for my loved ones, what they like to eat. I bake for other people, most people that come to my house end up eating cake and I like that, it is homely, welcoming and comforting.

It was a bit of treat to bake something just for me, to be truthful the reason I decided to do this was, after a disagreement with my OH I decided to annoy him and please myself by baking a favourite of mine, that he just happens to hate, chocolate orange cake. Revenge is sweet, even more so when it's sugar sweet.

I find it so strange that anyone can not like the combination of chocolate and orange, the flavours merge together brilliantly but my OH can't stand the two together.

Baking is my ME time, I love nothing more than pottering around the kitchen rustling up delicious goodies, but it was more pleasurable when the sole purpose of this was for my own pleasure.

Looking through my books I found only a couple recipes for chocolate orange cake, both from Nigella but neither did it for me, one was a store cupboard cake using a jar of marmalade and the other was based on Nigella's famous clementine cake, I didn't like the clementine cake last time and to be honest the idea of boiling oranges for hours on end didn't interest me. So I went it alone, I decided on a plain loaf cake, the best, darkest cocoa I could find and for the orange I used freshly squeezed orange juice and orange zest.

Chocolate orange cake

250g self raising flour

225g butter

175g caster sugar

50g good quality cocoa

3 large eggs, beaten

juice and zest of 3 large oranges

juice of 1 lime

Preheat the oven to 180c

Line a 2lb loaf tin.

In a mixer combine the flour, butter, sugar, cocoa and eggs.

Stir in the freshly grated orange zest.

Pour in the orange and lime juice. Mix well.

Pour into the prepared tin, bake for 1, 1/4 - 1, 1/2 hours.

A very simple recipe, and a very simple but delicious cake. Super moist, this cake was perfect with a cup of tea.

The orange flavour however wasn't as strong as I would have liked, it was very subtle, I thought adding the lime juice would have helped bring out the orange flavour, next time I think I would add a splash of cointreau or maybe a drop of orange oil...but still a wonderful treat for myself.

Sourdough

2008-09-08T21:28:00.016+01:00

Sourdough is bread with a natural leaven i.e no yeast. Dating back to 1500BC, it is the more than likely to be the original leavening available for bread baking. This is biblical bread.

As sourdough uses no yeast you need to create your own leaven or 'starter' of flour and water, and feed it for several days in the hope of catching the natural yeasts in the air and breeding them, as they breed they give off carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide produces a bubbly mix which (hopefully) will help your bread rise.
I cheated a little by making my starter on my bread baking day, hoping that the yeast in my dough (and therefore in the air in my kitchen) would encourage the natural yeasts in my sourdough to breed.

I used Hugh Fearnely-Whittingstall's recipe from 'The family cookbook'

day one

Measure 3 heaped tablespoons of organic strong white flour into a large mixing bowl. Add a tablespoon of organic wholemeal flour. Tip in the juice of half a orange and enough lukewarm still mineral water or rain water (I used boiled and cooled tap water but Hugh says not too) to make a thick stir-able dough - about 4 tablespoons.

Stir this mixture and then beat it with a wooden spoon or a whisk for a few minutes to drive air into it. Cover the bowl with clingfilm and set it aside in a warm place.

day two

Day two:

Check for frothy bubbles- signs that your mixture is 'breeding' and therefore producing carbon dioxide gas.

Beat in another 4 tbsp of white and wholemeal flour just as before, plus 4 tbsp of water.

Cover with more clingfilm and leave overnight.

day three

Day three:

Hopefully the dough will be quite active - bubbling furiously and rising up the bowl.

Beat in another 4 tbsp of flour and 4 of water.

Cover and leave overnight.
day four

Day four:
Tip in 6 tbsp of organic flour - 5 of white and 1 of wholemeal. Stir well and allow the dough to rise again but just for 2-3 hours this time.

final stage

The dough will look puffy.

Take out 2 tbsp of dough mix and put in a small bowl and put to the side. (This is now your starter for your next loaf.)

Tip in 125ml water and 300g organic strong white flour, plus 2tsp of salt and enough warm water to make a smooth dough.

Mix, knead, prove and bake (200c for 25 - 30 Min's) as you would any other loaf. This loaf will take much longer to rise than a regular loaf and won't rise as much either.

unbaked dough

fresh from the oven

Although this was a lengthy process it wasn't hard work, in fact it was rater fun to keep checking in hope of finding your starter had worked and started breeding.

The starter had a slightly sour smell to it, not unpleasant, rather like beer (unsurprisingly)
The dough was great to work with too, the finished bread was delicious, it wasn't as heavy as I'd expected it had a lovely texture and chewy crust....with a slight sour tang, delicious!

Wholemeal honey bread

2008-09-02T23:07:00.007+01:00

I love baking bread, it is one of those foods that you can't rush, it needs love and attention and never fails to make me feel like domestic goddess. Homemade bread is the best, nothing compares to the aroma that fills the house from bread baking in the oven. Well, maybe the only thing that rivals the smell is the taste of warm bread, fresh from the oven and smothered in butter.

I bake a lot of bread although havent blogged about it, I thinks is probably because it doesn't hang around long enough to have it's photo taken.

My usual homemade breads are a plain white loaf, always popular and naan bread (my personal fave) I try not to eat white bread often, preferring wholemeal / brown loafs in place as I have found homemade brown loafs quite heavy, until I tried this recipe from Rachel Allen.

This brown loaf took my fancy as it uses honey in place of sugar, I prefer natural sugars to processed white sugar, it takes a wee while but is well worth it. This recipe makes enough for two loafs I split the dough and added a bag of mixed seeds to one half of the dough (but forgot to take a picture :)) I think I preferred the seeded loaf and will make this one often.
Rachel Allen's wholemeal honey bread
makes 2 x 900g loaves
450ml warm water
3 tbsp honey
3 tsp dried yeast
600g strong white flour
300g wholemeal flour
2 tsp salt
100g butter,cut into cubes.

In a small bowl, mix the warm water with the honey, add the yeast and leave to stand for 5 minutes until frothy.

Place the flours in a big mixing bowl (or the bowl of a electric mixer) and mix in the salt and then rub in the butter. Pour most of the frothy liquid into the flour and mix to a dough - it should not be too wet and sticky; if it's too dry add more warm water and if it's too wet, add more flour.

Knead by hand on a floured surface for about 10 minutes (it may only take 5 minutes in a mixer) until the dough is smooth and springy. Place in a large oiled bowl, cover with cling film and leave somewhere warm (like a warm spot in your kitchen) for 2-3 hours until it's doubled in size. It has risen enough when it does not spring back when you push your finger onto the dough.

When it's risen, knock back by punching it down in the bowl and kneading on a floured surface for 1 minute. (This is when I add the bag of mixed seeds) Allow to rest on the work surface, covered with a tea towel for 5 minutes before shaping it. (Rachel makes 2 round or oval loaves) Slash the loaves four or five times with a sharp knife.

Preheat the oven to 200c/ gas mark 6.

Place the loaves on a floured baking tray, sprinkle with flour (or more seeds if using) and cover with a tea towel and allow to rise (this may take another 45 minutes) and, again, leave somewhere warm until they have doubled in size. The dough has risen enough when it does not spring back when you push your finger onto it.

Remove the teatowel and bake the bread in the oven for 30-40 minutes or until it sounds hollow when tapped on the base.
Leave to cool on a wire rack.

This is a delicious loaf, very light not dense and heavy. I sliced one loaf and froze it, next time I shall up the ratio of wholemeal flour to white.

This bread will be a regular in our house.

Award time

2008-09-01T18:22:00.005+01:00

I have been given another award, this time from Jilly at 2 drumsticks and a bottle of wine, please go and check out Jilly's lovely blog and see who else she passed her award on to.

I have to pass on this award to 5 other blogger's, here are the rules:

1. Choose 5 blogs that you consider deserving of this award for their creativity, design, interesting material and their contribution to the blogging community.

2. Each award has to have the name of the author and a link to his/her blog.

3.Each award winner has to show the award and put the name of and a link to the blog that presented him/her the award.

4.The award winner and the one who has given the prize has to show the link of Arte Y Pico blog so everyone will know the origin of this award.

5. Show the rules.

Thank you Jilly for my award, I am going to pass it on to:

1. Kelly jane at 'Cooking the books'

2. Linda at 'Thinking about food'

3. Laura at 'Hungry and frozen'

4. Amy at 'The New Nigella'

5. Kerry at 'Me and my three'

Congratulations to these very deserving blogger's, go and have a look at their blogs and see who they pass the award on to.

Daring bakers

2008-08-26T17:59:00.015+01:00

Chocolate eclairs

Daring bakers time again, my first challenge last month, was extremely challenging and although delicious the finished cake was not as attractive as I would have liked. I was so looking forward to this months challenge but slightly apprehensive at the same time, however when I discovered what this months challenge was any apprehension I had melted away.

This months challenge was hosted by Tony Tahhan and MeetaK from 'whats for lunch honey?' - they choose Pierre Herme's Chocolate eclairs from 'Chocolate desserts' (Pierre Herme & Dorie Greenspan) I was so excited by this recipe choice, I love Pierre Herme's recipes and I adore chocolate eclairs.

The challenge consisted of three elements, pate a choux (choux pastry), chocolate pastry cream
and a chocolate glaze.

Modifications: The hosts stipulated that the choux pastry dough used must be the Pierre Herme recipe, however we could veer away from the filling and glaze recipes as long as one of the original chocolate elements remained. I chose to keep the original chocolate glaze but substituted the pastry cream filling for regular whipped cream - while I like pastry cream, for me a eclair needs whipped cream.

The choux pastry was relatively straight forward, bring milk, water, butter sugar and salt to a boil, add flour and stir vigorously until the dough comes together, stir a little longer so the dough can dry out a little.

In a mixer, add the eggs to the dough, the dough is ready when it is thick and shiny. While the dough is still warm it needs to be shaped, this is the fun part, using a 2cm plain tip nozzle pipe the dough onto baking sheets in 4 inch long eclair shapes.

I found the cooking instructions a little odd, Pierre's recipe instructed to bake the eclairs for 7 minutes, then slip the handle of a wooden spoon into the oven door to keep it ajar. After the eclairs have cooked for a total of 12 minutes the baking sheets need to be rotated from front to back then cooked for a further 8 minutes. They should emerge from the oven golden and firm.

I am not sure why the spoon is inserted in the door, maybe to moderate the heat, maybe to let out steam (although I was always told eclairs need steam) and I am not sure if it was completely necessary but I did as I was told. I did veer from the recipe at one point by slitting the eclairs with a sharp knife as they came out of the oven - Pierre's recipe did not stipulate this but if hot air is trapped inside a eclair it will go soggy and no one wants a soggy bun.

When the eclairs were cool I sliced them in half and lay the top half on a wire rack to be glazed. Pierre Herme's chocolate glaze is absolutely wonderful, I will use this again for other cakes, totally delicious and very simple too.

In a saucepan bring heavy cream to a boil, remove from the heat and add chopped chocolate. Stir in butter and Pierre's chocolate sauce (dark chocolate,water, double cream and sugar,boiled together in a small saucepan,then cooked gently until thickened). This makes the most delicious chocolate glaze.

I piped the chocolate glaze over the 'tops' of the eclairs, I found piping it gave me more control over where the glaze went and allowed a thick covering. Once the glaze had set I filled the bottoms with very softly whipped double cream and placed the lids on top.

This recipe was delicious and I really enjoyed this one, especially compared to the stress my first challenge caused last month. I will definitely makes these eclairs again.

Thank you to this months hosts, Tony Tahhan and MeetaK the recipe for these eclairs can be found on their blogs, don't forget to check out other Daring baker's challenges on the Daring bakers blogroll.

Strawberry jam

2008-08-22T19:29:00.010+01:00

Before I write anything I feel I must apologise, as I have failed to blog anything for a few weeks now, life just got in the way, in a wee spare moment I decided I had to use up the strawberries sitting in the fridge before they got wasted, jam seemed the obvious answer so I turned to the gorgeous James Martin. I love James' recipes and his passion for British food, and as a jam making novice I thought his recipe would be fail safe.

This recipe, found here , simply uses preserving sugar, lemon juice and strawberries. The jam making process was straight forward and it smelled absolutely wonderful, the only problem I had with it was it didn't set quite as thick as I would have liked it, I love a thick set jam, my foodie friends on a forum I frequent advised me to boil the jam back up for 10 minutes and it should set perfectly, I did this and also added a extra half a lemon of juice to it .
This worked perfectly, a lovely thick, chunky strawberry jam.
The kids and I decided this was the most delicious jam ever, they particularly liked getting whole strawberries in their jam on toast....who wouldn't.

More Ottolenghi

2008-07-31T23:25:00.005+01:00

Chargrilled broccoli with chilli and garlic.

The Ottolenghi book is rapidly becoming my favourite cookbook, gorgeous recipes, gorgeous photos. I am not going to lie, it was a review of this recipe that prompted me to buy the book, I finally got round to cooking this divine recipe as a quick lunch dish for myself. Chargrilled broccoli with chilli and garlic, a few very basic every day ingredients make such a lively, colourful and absolutely delicious dish. I love broccoli anyway but I never thought it could taste this good.

Try it with lemons slices, they really make the dish.

I scaled down the recipe for myself, the original is:

2 heads of broccoli

115ml olive oil

4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

2 mild red chillies, thinly sliced

coarse sea salt and black pepper

thin slices of lemon (with skin) to garnish.

Prepare the broccoli by separating it into florets. Fill a large saucepan with plenty of water and bring it to the boil. Throw in the broccoli and blanch for 2 minutes only. Don't be tempted to cook it any longer! Using a large slotted spoon, quickly transfer the broccoli to a bowl full of ice cold water. Drain in a colander and allow to dry completely.

In a mixing bowl, toss the broccoli with 45ml of the olive oil and a generous amount of salt and pepper.

Place a ridged griddle pan over a high heat and leave it there for at least 5 minutes, until it is extremely hot. Depending on the size of your pan, griddle the broccoli in batches. Turn them over so they get char marks all over.

While grilling the broccoli, place the rest of the oil in a small saucepan with the garlic and chillies. Cook them over a medium heat until the garlic just begins to turn golden brown. Be careful not to let the garlic and chilli burn - remember, they will keep on cooking even when off the heat.

Pour the oil, garlic and chilli over the hot broccoli and toss together well. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

Serve warm or at room temperature. You can garnish the broccoli with lemon just before serving.

Try it...and buy the book, you'll love it!

My first Daring bakers challenge

2008-07-27T14:55:00.017+01:00

The Daring bakers are a Internet baking group with around 1000 members, founded and organised by Lis of La mia cucina and Ivonne from Cream puffs in Venice. Once a month a Daring baker member sets a challenge for the group who then bake and blog it.

I have followed the Daring bakers for almost a year now, I love reading different views on each challenge, what worked for some and didn't for others, I finally took the plunge and joined the group, stepping out of my comfort zone and into new challenges I never would have usually attempted.

This months challenge was a Filbert gateau with praline butter cream set by Chris at Melecotte, you'll find the recipe by clicking on the link.

Now I know the point of joining the Daring bakers was to be challenged but when I looked at this recipe, I nearly fainted :) after reading all 6 pages of it a few times I realised it wasn't so bad, just a lot of steps. This cake, from Carol Walter's 'Great cakes', consists of a filbert genoise, laced with syrup sponge, layered with praline buttercream and whipped cream, covered in a delicious chocolate ganache then decorated with more butter cream.

Once I'd separated the different recipes I set about baking this cake.

The cake itself was a breeze to make, Processed hazelnuts were mixed into a mixture of beaten egg yolks and egg whites, baked and split into three layers, I loved splitting the cake, I have never attempted this before and tackled this by making out the layers with cocktail sticks and sawing threw the cake with a serrated knife.

Things started to get difficult when it came to the buttercream, unlike usual buttercream (butter and icing sugar) this recipe called for egg whites whisked over a bain marie so the sugar dissolved, then blending the butter into the mixture. The praline paste, made by covering hazelnuts in a sugar caramel, setting it, then pulverising it in the food processor, is , at the last minute, mixed into the buttercream.

My buttercream was a nightmare it would not come together at all, I tried everything to resurrect it but that probably just made matters worse, lol. In the end I gave up and stuck the very liquid buttercream in the fridge to firm itself up.

The cake is assembled by layering it up with sponge, sugar syrup, buttercream, whipped cream, sponge and so on , the top is covered with a apricot glaze then adorned with the most heavenly, glossy chocolate ganache. After it's stint in the fridge the buttercream looked a lot firmer, it was fine for layering the cake, although as it was quite liquid it was absorbed into the cake making it a little less photogenic, it tasted absolutley divine, but would it stand the piping for the final stage of the cake.....in a word, no! It did firm up but as soon as I piped the butter cream onto my perfect ganache it flopped, and slid off the cake, here my darling OH stepped in and marbled the buttercream through my ganache in a very artistic manner, it looked very pretty actually.

My first challenge exhausted me, starting off very positive, I was nearly in tears by the buttercream stage, but I think I pulled it off, and my, the finished cake was more than worth it, this cake was delicious, moist, creamy, the ganache was gorgeous and the nightmare praline butter cream made the cake for me, absolutely divine. I will definitely incorporate the praline in to a safer buttecream recipe another time, and a family member asked for the recipe, which always proves it's a winner.

Thank you to Chris at Melecotte for hosting this months challenge, check out her blog for the recipe and her cake, and check out the Daring baker blog roll for more Filbert gateaux.

Roll on next month!

Black cherry muesli

2008-07-16T00:01:00.009+01:00

Black cherry muesli

I adore oats, 9 times out of 10 I have them for breakfast, usually as porridge, occasionally granola and very often muesli.

I always make my own muesli as most commercial brands, well the tasty ones, are full of sugar. As muesli is so simple I make my own and have complete control of what goes into it.

This recipe is based on Nigella's from Feast. The original recipe uses sultanas, I used black cherries and a handful of raisins as a tasty alternative. It is so easy to get a good variety of dried fruit now, I adore the dried strawberries, they are like sweets, so you can easily adapt this recipe to your taste or the seasons etc.

Nigella's original recipe uses mixed nuts, organic oats, sunflower seeds, sultanas and brown sugar. I have altered the ingredients but kept the quantities the same.
This makes enough to fill a 1 litre storage jar.

Black cherry muesli

200g mixed nuts
200g organic oats
75g mixed seeds
100g dried black cherries
50g raisins
1 tbsp brown sugar.

Preheat the oven to gas mark 5/ 190c
Put the mixed nuts into a food processor and pulse st that some are finely chopped to blend with the oats and others are bigger to give texture.
Spread the oats, nuts and seeds onto a baking sheet and toast for 20 minutes. After 10 take the tin out, give it a good shake so that everything toasts evenly, and put the tin back in the oven.
Then, when it's had its full-time, take the tin out again, give the contents a stir around, and then leave in the tin to cool completely.

Once cool stir through the black cherries, sultanas and brown sugar and store in a air tight container.

What I love about this muesli, is that only 1 tablespoon of sugar is used in the whole recipe, I know dried fruit is high in sugar anyway but it really doesn't need any more added to it. It is so tasty and very good using a dried berry mix (cherries, blueberries, strawberries etc.)
Perfect for breakfast with milk or a dollop of fromage frais.

Ottolenghi

2008-07-09T18:40:00.007+01:00

Turkey and sweetcorn meatballs with roasted pepper sauce.

The Ottolenghi cookbook has been on my Amazon wish list for a while, I finally succumbed and it was well worth it. The cake section of this book had my daughter drooling, she has a list of teacakes I must bake soon.

This recipe caught my eye, and as I had everything to hand, decided to give it a go.

Turkey and sweetcorn meatballs with roasted pepper sauce

serves 4

100g sweetcorn kernels (fresh or frozen)

3 slices of stale white bread, crusts removed

500g minced organic turkey breast

1 free range egg

4 spring onions, finely chopped

2 tbsp finely chopped parsley

2 1/2 tsp ground cumin

1 1/2 tsp black pepper

1 garlic clove, crushed

sunflower oil for frying

Roasted pepper sauce

4 red peppers

3 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp salt

25g coriander, leaves and stalks

1 garlic clove, peeled

1 small mild chilli, de-seeded

2 tbsp sweet chilli sauce

tbsp cider vinegar or white wine vinegar

1. Preheat the oven to 200c/ gas mark 6. To prepare the peppers for the sauce, quarter them with a sharp knife and shave off the white parts and the seeds. Put them in a roasting tray and toss with 2 tbsp of the olive oil and 1/2 teaspoon of the salt, then roast in the oven for 35 minutes or until soft. Transfer the peppers to a bowl and cover with cling film. Once they have cooled down a little, you can peel them, although it isn't necessary for this sauce. In any case, place them in a blender or food processor with their roasting juices and add the rest of the sauce ingredients. Process until smooth, then taste and adjust the salt if necessary. Set aside.

2. For the meatballs, place a heavy, non-stick frying pan over a high heat and throw in the corn kernels. Toss them in the hot pan for 2-3 minutes until lightly blackened. Remove and leave to cool.

3. Soak the bread in cold water for a minute, then squeeze well and crumble into a large bowl. Add all the rest of the ingredients except the sunflower oil and mix well with your hands.

4. Pour a 5mm depth of sunflower oil into your heavy frying pan. Allow it to heat up well and then fry about a teaspoonful of the mince mix in it. Remove, let cool a little and then taste. Adjust the amount of salt and pepper in the uncooked mixture to your liking.

5. With wet hands, shape the mince mix into balls, about the size of golf balls. Cook them in small batches in the hot oil, turning them around in the pan until they are golden brown allover. Transfer to an oven tray, place in the oven at 200c and cook for about 5 minutes. When you press one with your finger, the meat should bounce back. If unsure, break one open to check that it is cooked inside. Serve hot or warm, with the pepper sauce on the side.

Simple, tasty food, what more could you want. The roast pepper sauce was fantastic, bursting with colour and flavour, a great recipe.

Tagged

2008-06-16T20:10:00.006+01:00

George from Culinary travels of a kitchen goddess has tagged me.
Here are the rules:
1. Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
2. Share six random and / or weird things about yourself.
3. Tag six random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
4. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Here we go:
1. Four generations of my family, my Gran, Mum, myself and my daughter all have the same shaped birth mark in exactly the same place. (Cue spooky twilight zone music)

2. I love Marigold Swiss bouillon and drink it like others drink tea, it's delicious, try it and be converted.

3. I was teachers pet in home eccies, I was SO proud when my teacher stole my strawberry tart with almond cracknell recipe for her garden party.

4. I am a serial recipe hunter, I am constantly scouring Google for new and exciting ideas.

5. I played the piano as a child. (Wish I'd kept it up.)

6. I am a very bad gardener, everything I plant wilts :)

I will tag:

Kelly-Jane

Laura

Violets

Kerry

Rosie

Linda

Thank you to George for the tag.

Eccles cakes

2008-06-16T18:09:00.007+01:00

Dried fruit has seemed to take over my cakes recently as you'd see from my latest posts, for someone not keen on fruited cakes I seem to be eating a lot of them. I came across this recipe for Eccles cakes in Delia Smith's Book of cakes, if I'm honest the only reason I baked them was, bear with me, because I don't like Eccles cakes, so therefore I wouldn't eat any of them (the bikini holiday is nearing closer and closer), so my logic was, bake something you don't like and then I wont eat them, genius :)

Oh how wrong I was, these little cakes, easy and enjoyable to bake, are totally delicious and moreish, I ate one, the one cut in half in the picture (the steamy and blurry picture :)....and loved it, them ate two more. I had to physically be removed from the tin.

This is Delia's Mum's recipe for her delicious Eccles cakes.

Quick flaky pastry:

225g plain flour

175g margarine

a good pinch of salt

For the filling:

75g butter

150g soft brown sugar

150g currants

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

the grated rind of 1 large orange

50g finely chopped mixed peel

To finish off:

To make the pastry, weigh the margarine (hard from the refrigerator) then wrap it in a piece of foil and place it in freezer for half an hour.

Meanwhile sift the flour and salt into a bowl, then when you take the margarine out of the freezer, hold it with the foil, dip it into the flour, then grate it on a coarse grater placed in a bowl over the flour. Carry on dipping the margarine into the flour to make it easier to grate. When you have finished you will have a lump of grated margarine sitting in the middle of the flour.

Then take a palette knife and start to cut the fat into the flour (don't use your hands) until the mixture is crumbly.

Now add enough water so that it forms a dough that leaves the bowl clean (you can use your hands for the dough), then place it in a polythene bag and chill in the refrigerator for half an hour.

Meanwhile prepare the filling by first melting the butter in a small saucepan. Then take it off the heat and stir in all the filling ingrediants, stir thoroughly and leave to cool.

Next turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll it out to 3mm thick, then , using a plain 8cm cutter, cut the pastry into rounds.

Put a teaspoon of the filling on to each round, then brush the edge of half the circle of pastry with water, bring the other side up and seal it. Bring the corners up to the centre and pinch to seal well.

Turn the sealed pastry parcel over, so that the seam is underneath, then gently roll the whole thing to flatten it to about 1/2 cm thick and pat into a round shape.

Place them all on a greased baking sheet and gash each cake diagonally across three times.

Brush the tops with milk and sprinkle with caster sugar.

Bake them in the oven (gas mark 7/220c) for 15 minutes.

Cool on a wire rack.

These little parcels of deliciousness, are kind of the wrong shape, when I flattened them I should have rounded them off I didnt, not that that affects the taste in any way.

The pastry is light and flaky, I will use this pastry method again, but overall as much as I love these cakes I am a little dispaointed...I didnt want to like them. I don't need bikini stress.

Golden syrup fruit cake

2008-06-13T20:11:00.008+01:00

Although I am not a huge fruit cake fan I do love the aroma a fruit cake baking in the oven gives off, luckily the others in my house do love fruit cakes so I spent quite a lot of time baking them.

I find fruit cakes can be tricky they often can be too dry, sometimes a bit too Christmas cake-y and lets face it they have 'old people' stamped all over them, lol.

I found this recipe on The Guardian website you'll find the article (and the science bit) here.

The golden syrup adds a lovely flavour and colour to the cake and I am converted to the idea the Guardian suggest of using strong bread flour in the cake in place of plain flour, it really did help 'hold the fruit up' IE the fruit didn't sink to the bottom of the cake as it often can do.

The blurb above the recipe in the link gives you all the science bit about the syrup and bread flour, very interesting.

I used raisins, and a dried berry mixes consisting of blueberries, cranberries, cherries and strawberries (I didn't add the strawberries as they were my cooks treat)

this recipe is a keeper and I shall be baking this one again.

Golden syrup fruit cake

50g light soft brown sugar

125g unsalted butter

100g golden syrup, plus an extra tbsp for the top

2 large eggs

450 - 500g chopped dried fruit

200g strong white flour

1 level tsp baking powder

2 level tsp mixed spice

75g ground almonds

50ml milk50ml whisky, plus an extra tbsp for the top.

Beat the butter, brown sugar and syrup until light and fluffy.

Whisk in the eggs, one at a time, until combined, then stir in the fruit.

Sift the flour, baking powder and spice together, then stir with the almond, milk and whisky into the fruit mixture.

Line a 2lb loaf tin, spoon the mixture into the tin, smooth the top, cover the to with a sheet of foil and scrunch it secure at the sides., then bake at 180c for 45 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

Cool for 5 minutes. In a cup, stir together the remaining syrup and whisky. Prick the surface of the cake, spoon over the syrup and leave to cool.

Madaleine squares

2008-06-13T19:46:00.004+01:00

First, can I just say , these rather tacky looking cakes are the old English Madeleines not the sophisticated French biscuity Madeleines. After my previous Melting moments post I spent a bit of time flicking through the ever faithful Be-Ro book.

These fatless sponge cakes are normally baked in dariole moulds and usually end up looking like bright red coconut haystacks decorated with a glace cherry (the Be-Ro book LOVES glace cherries, lol) I decided to make them in the form of the more commercialised square version...mainly as I don't have dariole moulds, I must get some.

As I said, this is a fat less sponge cake, baked in a brownie tin, coated in jam and tossed in shredded coconut. They look tacky and old fashioned but they are a real treat.

Light as a feather too.

Madaleines

2 medium eggs

75g caster sugar

75g self raising flour

raspberry jam

shredded coconut

Heat oven to 180c/ gas mark 4.

Grease and line a 8 inch square baking tin

Break eggs into a bowl, whisk lightly, add sugar and whisk well until thick creamy and almost white in colour.

Lightly fold in the flour, place mixture into the prepared tin and bake for about 30 minutes.

While the cake is cooling, gently heat the jam, about half a jar full (?), cut the cake into 12 squares, dip each square into the jam so it is completely covered and quickly toss into the shredded coconut.

Enjoy with a mug of tea.

Summer berry tart

2008-06-08T17:46:00.006+01:00

The great British summer doesn't have much going for it, it can be wonderful, but more often than not it is a complete washout. However, nothing says British summer more than strawberries, in season right now they are tasting delicious.

This Summer berry tart is the perfect way to use them.

I used a recipe from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's 'The family cookbook', this tart is a sweet pastry tart base filled with creme patissiere and covered in summer berries, I am using strawberries and raspberries.

Summer berry tart

Sweet pastry:

200g plain flour

50g icing sugar

125g butter

pinch of salt

2 free range egg yolks

Sift the flour and icing sugar into a bowl. Cut the butter into cubes and rub into the flour with the salt, until it resembles very fine breadcrumbs.

Add the egg yolks, stirring with a knife, using your hands, bring the dough into a ball.

Knead very lightly until it is smooth.

Flatten slightly, wrap in cling film and rest in the fridge for 1-2 hours.

Place a baking sheet in the oven and heat to 190c.

Roll out pastry and line a 23 cm flan tin with the pastry, trim any overhang and place in the freezer for 10 minutes.

Prick the tart base with a fork, line with baking parchment and fill with baking beads, bake for 15 minutes.

Remove baking beads and bake for a further 3-4 minutes.

Remove from oven and cool completely.

Creme patissiere:

50g unsalted butter

25g plain flour

50g caster sugar

2 free range eggs

150ml milk

2 capfulls of vanilla extract

Melt the butter over a low heat, tip in the flour and sugar, break in the eggs and beat until smooth.

Pour in the milk, stir continuously until thickened, turn off the heat and whisk until smooth.

Put back on the heat and cook for 2 minutes, stirring all the time.

Stir in the vanilla extract and leave to cool.

Fruit:
250g each of strawberries (halved) and raspberries

3 tablespoons of strawberry jam

Spoon the filling into the tart base and chill for 30 minutes.

Arrange fruit on top of the creme patissiere.

Gently heat the jam in a pan and brush over the fruit.

This tart is perfect for a summers day, light and fragrant and very adaptable depending on what fruit is in season.

Melting moments

2008-06-02T20:34:00.006+01:00

I had some sad family news this week and spent quite a bit of time looking back at my childhood, I got thinking of my paternal Grandmother, I spent a lot of time with her when I was younger and she was always cooking, always good old fashioned food, the stuff that warmed you on the coldest winter days. Her house always smelled of fruit cake, and when I bake fruit cake I am always reminded of her house.

These biscuits, Melting Moments are what we would bake together, I loved them as a child, in fact I still love them just as much now even though the are rolled in dessicated coconut and adorned with a gaudy red glace cherry.

I suddenly thought of these biscuits today and knew they would be a perfect way for my son and I to spend half an hour together in the kitchen.

This recipe comes from the essential 'Be-ro' cook book, my Granny wouldnt have been without it.

I must say though that my Granny's original Be-ro book, which I inherited from her, saw better days long ago, I bought a updated version last year and found the Melting moments recipe had changed, the addition of half a egg was wrong and completely disappointing, these biscuits should be crisp and buttery not cookie like which was how the egg made them, after much searching, god bless the Internet, I have found, supposedly, the original Melting moments biscuits.

Here is the recipe, cook them, you'll love them:

5 ounces soft butter

3 ounces caster sugar

2 teaspoons of vanilla essence or 1 tsp of vanilla extract

5 ounces of self raising flour

desiccated coconut

glace cherries

Heat the oven to 180c/ gas mark 4. Grease two baking trays.

Cream the butter with the sugar until very light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla essence or extract.

Stir in the flour and mix well.

Roll walnut sized pieces of the mixture into balls and toss in dessicated coconut.

Cut each glace cherry into quarters, a quarter for each melting moment.

Place on baking trays, flatten slightly and place a small piece of cherry on each biscuit.

Bake for 10-15 minutes until golden brown but NOT dark brown.

This egg less original version of the recipe was perfect, these shortbread-y biscuits are crisp and melting, they instantly took me back to my Granny's kitchen.

They are perfect for children to bake too, my son loved tossing them in the coconut and would have polished off the tray of biscuits if I'd let him.

Rather amusingly, when trawling the net for the original recipe I found that these biscuits have a cult following. Try them!

George's toffee apple cake

2008-05-29T16:22:00.019+01:00

George, from Culinary travels of a kitchen goddess has a truly inspirational blog, stunning recipes, stunning pictures and she uses the most wonderful ingredients. If that wasn't enough George is writing a much anticipated cookery book. As she approaches the final stages of writing she has asked many foodie bloggers to test and blog about her recipes.

I must admit looking through the recipe list I was spoilt for choice and have a few recipes in mind to test for her.

First up though is Toffee apple cake, please check out George's original post about this recipe and to find the recipe itself.

This cake caught my eye as it sounds wonderful, toffee and apples are a perfect combination and this recipe didn't disappoint.

The ingredients were all easy to find, in fact I had them all in the cupboard and the recipe was written very clearly, although the lemon oil listed in the ingredients wasn't mentioned in the recipe, as it came last in the list of ingredients I added it last, over the apples.

While the cake was baking my kitchen was filled with a gorgeous aroma, normally when you bake you can tell what you are baking by the smell coming from the oven, this cake was different, I got individual wafts of olive oil (used instead of butter), then toffee then wafts of Cinnamon and apples, it was a treat to the senses.

My cake took 10 minutes less time to cook than specified in the recipe, but I put this down to my very fierce oven.

The cake was delicious, dry and crumbly, again down to the olive oil, added moisture came from the apples which were cooked perfectly then complimented beautifully with the dulce de leche.

Would I do anything differently? Next time I would use a spring form tin, as I like to serve

my cakes on a cake plate and this is quite a large cake to manoeuvre.

Would I make this cake again? Yes, yes, yes!!!

The cake you want to eat when you've been chucked

2008-05-28T13:51:00.008+01:00

Any Nigella fan will know exactly which cake I am talking about just by the title of this post. If you're not so clued up on Nigella this is the chocolate fudge cake from Nigella Bites, this is what Nigella says about it 'This is the sort of cake you'd want to eat the whole of when you'd been chucked. But even the sight of it, proud and tall and thickly iced on it's stand, comforts.' Nigella has never said a truer word.
We had a family birthday this week and a when a chocolate fudge cake (with extra chocolate flakes) was requested I couldn't wait to make this cake.
Why have I waited so long to make it.

Chocolate fudge cake
for the cake:
400g plain flour
250g golden caster sugar
100g light muscovado sugar
50g best quality cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 eggs
142ml sour cream
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
175g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
125ml corn oil
300ml chilled water

for the fudge icing:
175g dark chocolate
250g unsalted butter, softened
275g icing sugar, sifted
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180c/ gas mark 4.
Butter and line the bottom of two 20cm sandwich tins.
In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugars, cocoa, baking powder, bicarb and salt. In another bowl or wide necked measuring jug whisk together the eggs, sour cream and vanilla until blended. Using a freestanding mixer, beat together the melted butter and corn oil until just blended, then beat in the water.
Add the dry ingredients all at once and mix together on a slow speed. Add the egg mixture and mix again until everything is blended and then pour into the prepared tins.
Bake the cakes for 50 - 55 minutes, or until cake tester comes out clean.
Cool the cakes in their tins on a wire rack for 15 minutes, and then turn the cakes out onto the rack to cool completely.

To make the icing, melt the chocolate in the microwave- 2-3 minutes on medium should do it - and let cool slightly.
In another bowl beat the butter until it's soft and creamy and then add the sieved icing sugar and beat again until everything's light and fluffy. Then gently add the vanilla and chocolate and mix together until everything is glossy and smooth.
Sandwich the middle of the cake with about a quarter of the icing, and then ice the top and sides too, spreading and smoothing with a rubber spatula.
Serves 10. Or 1 with a broken heart.

This cake is to die for, it is so delicious. The sour cream in the cake really cuts through the sweetness, it is light and fluffy, so moreish.
I covered mine in, as requested, chocolate flakes, they made a tasty addition and covered my not-so-perfect cake decorating skills. Although I must say that the icing was a dream to work with and I had more than plenty left for a bowl licking treat afterwards.
Everyone who had a slice of this cake raved about it, it is a must bake, even if you don't have a broken heart. Well, why would you want to wait around for that to happen.

Chelsea buns

2008-05-25T21:05:00.010+01:00

Chelsea buns, Bath buns, Paris buns, well, any buns to be honest are popular in my house but Chelsea buns always go down a storm. A favourite of my loved ones I make these for them as a special treat when I want a extra way to show I love them.

This is a simple yeasted recipe can be done in a couple of hours, Although I usually make the dough the night before and let them have a slow rise over night.

This recipe comes from, again, The big book of bread, as mentioned in the garlic focaccia post.

Chelsea buns

225g strong white bread flour

1/2 tsp salt

55g butter, diced

1 1/2 tsp easy blend instant yeast

25g caster sugar

1 large egg, beaten

100ml warm milk

85g mixed raisins and currants

55g sultanas

55g light soft brown sugar

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

2 tbsp honey to glaze

Grease a 8inch square tin and set aside. Sift flour and salt into a large bowl, then lightly rub in 25g butter. Stir in yeast and caster sugar. Make a well in the centre, then add the egg and enough milk, mixing to form a soft dough.

Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead until smooth. Shape into a round, then place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover and leave to rise in a warm place till doubled in size.

Knock back the dough on a lightly floured surface, then roll out to form a 30 x 23 cm rectangle. Melt the remaining butter and brush it over the dough.

Combine the fruit, brown sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over the dough.

Starting with the long side, roll up the dough, fairly tightly like a Swiss roll. Cut into 12 even slices, then place the rolls, cut side up, in the tin. Cover and leave to rise until doubled in size.

Meanwhile preheat the oven to 190c/ gas mark 5. Bake the buns for about 25-30minutes, or until risen and golden brown.

Remove from the oven and brush twice with honey while still hot. Cool slightly in the tin then turn out onto a wire rack. Serve warm or cold.

These delicious buns don't last long, not that they don't keep well, I mean they don't hang around long, they quickly disappear.

I often substitute the honey glaze for a sticky sugar glaze and I always garnish them with a handful of preserving sugar, the coarse granules give a 'coffee shop' look.

Masala omelette

2008-05-19T21:41:00.006+01:00

I can hardly call this a recipe, I cook it so often for myself that it is a way of life. Probably one of my favourite recipes from Nigella. So simple yet so satisfying.

It comes from the 'All -day breakfast' section of Nigella Bites, and while I started off cooking this as a breakfast dish, I now cook this whenever I get a chance.

Yes, chilli for breakfast may seem odd to some people, I love it, I am a chilli freak though.

The original recipe ,below, is really just a blueprint, as Nigella says this recipe lends itself to many different combination.

Masala omelette

1 tsp vegetable oil

1 spring onion, sliced finely

1-2 chillies to taste, red or green

1 clove of garlic, finely chopped

1/4 tsp turmeric

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp ground cumin

2 eggs, beaten

freshly chopped coriander for sprinkling over

chapattis to eat with, if you feel like it.

Preheat the grill.

Heat the oil in a non-stick frying pan 20-27cm in diameter, and fry the spring onion, chilli, garlic and turmeric until soft. Add the other spices and fry for another minute, stirring occasionally, then add the beaten eggs, swirling the pan to help the eggs set underneath.

When the omelette is nearly set, flash it under the hot grill to finish it off, and serve with chapattis.

Serves 1.

So adaptable, Nigella suggests adding mint or grated ginger, I usually up the garlic and chilli's and leave out the chapatti, sometimes I abandon the grill as I like this quite underdone, nothing worse than a over cooked omelette.

Garlic Focaccia

2008-05-17T17:43:00.008+01:00

I love Italian bread and as tonight is pasta night what better than a focaccia. The original recipe I used comes from 'The big book of bread' by Anne Sheasby. This book is a bread bible, every bread you can think of is in this book and it is a real inspiration to me. I did fiddle with the recipe, although the dough is the original recipe from the book I made this into a garlic focaccia. Sauteed garlic was wrapped inside the bread dough then I studded the bread with garlic cloves and rosemary, fresh from the garden.
Focaccia:
(based on half quantity)
225g plain white bread flour
1 tsp salt
1 teaspoon easy blend yeast
1 1/5 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
110ml warm water
I added to this:
8 cloves garlic, chopped
12 cloves garlic unpeeled.
3 tbsp olive oil
Few sprigs of rosemary

Preheat oven to 200c.
Grease a baking tray and set aside.
Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl, stir in the yeast.
Make a well in the centre, then add the olive oil and enough water to make a soft dough.
Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead till soft and elastic. Shape the dough into a round, then place it in a lightly oiled bowl, cover and leave until doubled in size.
Meanwhile:
Gently saute the garlic in a 1 tbsp of olive oil, when golden brown, remove from the pan and pour over the remaining oil. Set aside.
Gently simmer the unpeeled cloves of garlic for 10 minutes in a pan of water. When soft drain and set aside.
Knock back the dough and roll out to a large rectangle, spread the sauteed garlic (keep the oil for later though) over the dough and fold over the edges to enclose the garlic.
Turn the dough over and brush with the remaining garlic infused oil, stud with the cooked garlic cloves and rosemary. Sprinkle a little flour over the top.
Bake for 20 minutes.

This bread was delicious, and very simple to do. The garlic centre was very mild and the garlic cloves steamed in their skins, making them a aromatic contrast to the rosemary.
I will be baking this bread again and again.

Sour cream chocolate muffins

2008-05-11T22:46:00.006+01:00

Sour cream chocolate muffins, the title says it all. I first discovered the sour cream, chocolate combination through Nigella Lawson, she uses this in many of her chocolate cakes. The sour cream seems to cut through the cloying sweetness of the chocolate. You don't get that sickly feeling meaning you are always able to go back for seconds.

As with most muffin recipes, this is so simple, mix wet into dry ingredients, mix not- so-well, bake and devour.

dry ingredients:

200g plain flour

1tsp baking powder

20gg caster sugar

P.O.Salt

50g cocoa

wet ingredients:

200g butter, melted and cooled

142ml pot sour cream

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

optional: 150g chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 180c.

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl.

In another bowl add the wet ingredients, whisk well until combined.

Pour wet ingredients into the dry bowl and mix to combine. Do not over mix the batter should be lumpy.

Stir in chocolate chips, if using.

Spoon into muffin cases and bake for 25 - 30 minutes.

These muffins were delicious, dense and velvety. The sour cream makes such a difference to any chocolate recipe. I think this mixture would be great cooked in a loaf tin, sliced and served with cream.

Award time

2008-05-11T21:10:00.005+01:00

I was very happy and surprised to be awarded a 'I love you this much' award by the lovely Rosie from Rosie bakes a 'peace' of cake. http://rosiebakesapeaceofcake.blogspot.com/ please go and have a look at Rosie's gorgeous blog, it is a inspiration.
Thank you so much Rosie!

I am going to pass this award on to Anna from 'At Anna's kitchen table. http://atannaskitchentable.blogspot.com/ I love Anna's blog, it has a lovely homely feeling, as if you are part of the furniture there. She is passionate about food and her family and it really comes though in her writing. She is very deserving of this award. Please go and visit her kitchen.

Easy chocolate croissants

2008-05-09T19:44:00.006+01:00

This comes from Nigella Express, and to be honest the only reason I hadn't made these earlier was that I thought it was sacrilege to call a puff pastry parcel a croissant. Authentic they aren't but other than spending two days making real croissants this is the next best thing, well, apart from visiting a very good bakery.

I decided to make these as I had half a packet of pastry leftover from the curry puffs, waste not want not.

Basically this is what to do:
1 x 375g ready rolled puff pastry
1 x 100g dark chocolate
1 egg, beaten

Preheat oven to 220c. Unfurl the sheet of pastry and cut into 6 squares.
Cut each square diagonally to give 2 small triangles. Put the triangles with the wider part facing you, and the point away from you.
Break off small pieces of chocolate (approx. 1cm) and place on the pastry triangles, about 2cm up from the wide end nearest you.
Then carefully roll from that chocolate-loaded end towards the point of the triangle.
You should now have something resembling a straight croissant. Seal it slightly with your fingertips and curl it around into a crescent.
Place the 12 chocolate croissants on a lined but not buttered baking tray and paint with the beaten egg. Bake for 15 minutes until they are golden and puffy and exuberantly, if minaturely, croissant-like.

Well they were cute, even though they refused to turn golden brown. My daughter, croissant conosseuir, asked why I had tried to replicate her favourite French pastry with puff pastry, sacrilege indeed.
Would I make these again, only to use up leftover puff pastry, not that they weren't tasty, they were, if you like chocolate wrapped puff pastry. They were wolfed down rather quickly, but a visit to a good baker would be just as easy and far more delicious.

Curry puffs

2008-05-08T18:37:00.006+01:00

This recipe comes from my favourite food writer's column, Tom Norrington-Davies, writing for delicious. Talking about snobbery towards curry powder, yes I am guilty too, we all seem to have a tub of the stuff lurking at the back of the cupboard, yet tend to use a array of delicious spices to achieve that hot, aromatic base for 'curry' in it's place. I use 'curry' as the word we British in particular use for anything even slightly spiced and not really authentic.
This recipe for a simple cheats samosa really caught my eye, if I can give in too curry powder I can live with a puff pastry style samosa.

Chicken curry puffs, from Tom Norrington-Davies.
450g potatoes, cut into 1 cm dice
3 garlic cloves
2 shallots
3 -4 sprigs fresh coriander
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp mild curry powder
1 tsp tomato puree
3 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp groundnut oil
250g coarsely minced chicken
500g block puff pastry
1 egg

Cook the diced potatoes in a pan of boiling salted water until they are just tender. Drain and cool.
Chop the garlic, shallots and coriander to a near paste using a food processor, place in a small bowl and season with the curry powder, sugar, tomato puree and soy sauce.
Heat the groundnut oil in a frying pan, and fry the curry paste over a medium heat for 10-15 minutes until it is a deep golden brown colour.
Add the minced chicken and a couple spoonfuls of water to moisten and continue frying until the meat is cooked through.
Fold in the cooked potatoes and check the seasoning, you might one more soy or a pinch more sugar. The flavour should be spicy-salty-sweet. Cool completely.
Preheat the oven to 200c / gm 6, roll out the puff pastry. Use a saucer as a guide and cut out 8 smallish discs; the size is up to you really, they could be canape or snack size. I use a 13cm saucer.

Make a egg wash by beating the egg with 3 tbsp water. Egg wash the edges of the pastry discs and fill the centres with the curry filling. Fold the discs into turnovers and crimp the edges before egg washing the pastries.
Line a baking tray with baking paper. Place the curry puffs on the tray, bake for 125minutes or until they are golden and fluffy. Rest for 5 minutes before attacking.

I was unsure how the curry puffs would live up to my beloved samosa but the filling of cooked potato and spiced chicken, tasted absolutely divine, so good that I almost did away with the pastry and had the filling as a side. Combined with buttery, flaky pastry these were a real treat along side my Saturday night 'curry' definatley a keeper. I will make these time and time again.

Almost Angel cake

2008-04-30T15:26:00.015+01:00

Almost Angel cake

Angel cake, the layered pink and white loaf cake similar to Battenberg is popular with my kids. This is a alternative version, a marbled sponge cake, layered with jam and as I don't 'do' marzipan a almond butter icing.

This cake was so simple to make, it is a rubbed-in cake which saves on washing up the mixer, basically you rub the flour, butter and sugar together then mix in the wet ingredients, split the mixture in half and dye one half with a little food colouring paste. Then get creative marbling your cake mixes. If this was a true Angel cake / Battenberg it would be finished with a layer of marzipan, sticking with the almond flavour marzipan would give I substituted it for a almond butter cream. The cake is filled with plum jam as plum works very well with almonds, a match made in heaven.

Almost Angel cake:

225g S/R Flour

225g caster sugar

125g butter, softened

2 eggs

150ml milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

few drops food colouring paste

4 tbsp plum jam, to sandwiching sponges

Frosting:

100g butter, very soft

100g icing sugar

150g ground almonds

Grease and line two 20cm cake tins,

Preheat oven to 180c.

In a bowl sieve the flour, add caster sugar and butter rub together until it resembles breadcrumbs.

In another bowl whisk together eggs, milk and vanilla extract.

Add to flour mixture and mix together until it is smooth. Remove half the batter to another bowl, add a few drops of food colouring paste to one bowl and mix well.

Place alternate spoonfuls of each mix into the cake tins. To create the marbling affect drag a skewer / cake tester through the cake mix to swirl the colours together. Bake for 25 minutes.

To make the frosting place the butter, icing sugar and ground almonds in a blender and mix until smooth, taste and add more sugar or almonds depending on your tastes. Firm up in the fridge. When the cakes are cooked and cooled sandwich together with the plum jam and cover with the butter cream.

This cake was delicious, the rubbed-in method made it a moist and tender sponge, the plum jam and almond icing work well together and the marbled pink and white cake looked very pretty. Proved very popular with my daughter...but anything pink is popular with her.

Another tag

2008-04-23T15:33:00.018+01:00

I have been tagged, this time by the lovely Amy from The new Nigella / Cooking for Chris , this tag was started by Anna
The challenge was to show your top ten pics from your blog.
As I have only been blogging for about a month I'm not sure if I have 10 pictures, let alone a top 10, so I have picked my favourite pictures of the food I enjoyed blogging about the most.

I am not a natural photographer, in fact I am one of those people who can take something of beauty and make it a thing of sheer ugliness in one click of the camera :) I am eager to learn though and have a new camera on the way woohoo!

Home cured bacon

Chicken from the Venetian ghetto

Meringue cupcakes

Oaty shortbread

Dulce de leche chocolate cake

Chocolate brownie with hot blonde sauce

Easter bonnets

I have to tag 5 other bloggers, most of the blogs I was planning to tag have already been tagged, so instead I shall just put the links to blogs up (all with fabulous foodie photos) please do visit them, they are well worth a look.

Brenda - http://www.teandwheatenbread.blogspot.com/

George - http://www.culinarytravelsofakitchengoddess.wordpress.com/

Rosie - http://www.rosiebakesapeaceofcake.blogspot.com/

Violets - http://violets-homecooking.blogspot.com/

Kellyjane - http://www.cookbookqueen.blogspot.com/

Bringing home the bacon

2008-04-16T20:23:00.020+01:00

You can buy bacon just about anywhere nowadays, in desperate times the key ingredients for a bacon sandwich i.e bacon and white bread can be bought in any corner shop. I prefer my bacon to come from my butcher, not just because I care about where my meat comes from but the fact that mass produced shop bought bacon just doesn't compare to butchers bacon.

First of all no white gunk leaking out the meat into the frying pan and second of all it actually tastes like bacon.

So if my butchers bacon is so good and easy to get a hold of, why on earth am I planning on curing my own bacon, in fact I thought it was such a strange idea that it has took me best part of a year to get round to it, and I am only doing so now out of amused interest.

It could be a complete waste of time, then again it could change my bacon eating life for ever.

This recipe comes from Hugh Fearnley - Whittingstall's 'The River cottage family cookbook'
I halved the quantities in this recipe.

Free range piece of pork such as loin (I used organic), about 1.5kg
for the dry cure mix:
bay leaves,
2 juniper berries, 10
Coarse salt, 500g
Soft brown sugar, 100g
Coarsely ground black pepper

First prepare the dry cure.

Finely chop the bay leaves, lightly crush the juniper berries and add both to a non-metallic bowl along with the salt, sugar and pepper. Mix thoroughly together.

Rub a handful of the salt mix into the pork, when all the surfaces are covered put it in a Tupperware box, cover and put in the fridge.

After 24 hours drain any water that the salt has drawn out of the meat and rub another handful or two of the salt cure into the pork. Return to the fridge.

Repeat this process everyday, after 4 days the bacon will be 'lightly' cured (ready to use as bacon sandwiches) although you could cure it for up to a week, this will make it too salty for bacon rashers though so more suited to using in cooking such as soups.

When you've finished curing your bacon, rinse off the excess salt and pat the meat dry with kitchen paper.

Ideally the meat should be hung for 24 hours.

Wrap the finished bacon in greaseproof paper, to let it breathe, and slice as needed.

The 'cure' mix, rubbed into the pork.

So was it worth it, 4 days wait for a bacon sandwich, well, yes it was.

I sliced lovely rashers and fried them (a treat in itself) and served them on fluffy homemade white bread with chunky oven chips.

It was the most delicious bacon, I was quite unsure how it would taste actually, especially as I have such a soft spot for smoked bacon, and while I am not yet ready to attempt smoking bacon just yet as I was surprised at how 'bacon-ey' it tasted.

And while it produced no white gunk in the frying bacon it did produce lovely juices perfect for dipping my bread into.

The only down side I can see to this is that the bacon was slightly over salty for my liking, next time I might cure it for a day less, although the salty bacon will be perfect as a flavour base in many meals.

A long wait but well worth it.

I've been tagged!

2008-04-16T18:26:00.006+01:00

The lovely George and Vi from Violets pantry have tagged me, this is for a challenge set on Violets pantry to get bloggers to get to know each other a little better, basically I have to describe my self in 5 words and then tag 5 other bloggers.

I would describe myself as:
trustworthy
loyal
quiet (yes, really!!!)
greedy (where cake is concerned)
fun
that was quite hard actually.
I am tagging:

Tina - http://tina-cookerybookchallenge.blogspot.com/

Teresa- http://www.teresagskitchen.blogspot.com/

Amy- http://www.cookingforchris.blogspot.com/

Laura -http://www.hungryandfrozen.blogspot.com/

Gayle- http://theovenison.blogspot.com/

please have a nosey at some of the above mentioned blogs, they are all fantastic.

Lemon curd

2008-04-15T17:47:00.026+01:00

I always thought I did not like Lemon curd, I never ate it, as in a shop bought jar, on toast in place of jam, we never had it in the house growing up so I always thought it was just like a yellow marmalade. Yuk.

Once I got thinking about it I saw it was just my preconceived marmalade-esque thoughts that were putting me off. One of my favourite desserts is lemon meringue pie....full of lemon curd, talk about not seeing the wood for the trees.

Nigella's lemon meringue cake in Feast had caught me eye many times but I had always made the Strawberry version (from Forever summer) instead of the lemon version.

My first attempts at lemon curd making was for the above mentioned cake, I used Nigella's recipe, adapted from her Passion fruit curd recipe. I admit I was slightly nervous at making this, I don't really go in for jams and preserves but this recipe is so simple and extremely gratifying.

Lemon curd:

2 unwaxed lemons (zest and juice)

2 large eggs

2 large egg yolks

150g caster sugar

100g unsalted butter

Juice and zest the lemons.

Beat the eggs, egg yolks and sugar together.

Melt the butter over a low heat in a saucepan, when melted stir in the sugar-egg mixture and the lemon juice, keep cooking gently, stirring constantly, until thickened.

Take off the heat and whisk in the lemon zest, cool slightly and pour into a sterilised jar.

Store in the fridge.

Simplicity itself, I am always amazed at the cheerful yellow colour and extreme lemon taste this produces, all from 2 lemons, eggs, butter and sugar.

As it is so simple to make I always have a jar in the fridge now so I am never far away from a intense lemony hit.

This is great in Nigella's Lemon meringue cake, her 'Fried egg' biscuits from 'How to be a domestic goddess' and probably best of all, spread on fresh brioche.

Venison

2008-04-12T15:52:00.010+01:00

Venison, I love venison.

I first ate it as a child, my Mum had a fondness for game meat, I grew up on pheasant, guinea fowl and rabbit which are quite hard to get a hold of here, although something tells me that my Mum wouldn't be able to go to the local butcher and pick up a unplucked pheasant anymore, such a shame.
I found my venison at my local organic farmers market, it is only held once a month and I finally remembered about it and got there before they had sold out of everything.
I don't 'do' early on a Saturday morning.

I don't think I had eaten venison since my childhood until recently. I think of it now as one of my favourite dinners, a venison steak, served rare with a red wine, chilli and chocolate sauce. Chocolate compliments venison beautifully, not surprising really as chocolate goes very well with beef and venison is similar to beef, although richer and lower in calories, fat and cholesterol, yay!

Venison is best served rare....why would you want to eat it any other way?

I quickly seared it in a hot pan and then cooked for 3 -4 minutes each side. Plus 5 minutes resting time.

While the meat is resting you can get on with the sauce, it really is that quick.

Red wine, chili and chocolate sauce:

50g butter
150ml red wine (just whatever is sitting by the stove)
pinch of chilli flakes
1 tbsp good quality chocolate

Measure out the wine and quickly soak the chilli flakes in it.
Pour wine into the venison pan, de-glazing all the meaty cooking juices, simmer until it reduces by half,
add the chocolate to the pan, stir until melted,
whisk in the butter,
serve with rare venison and new season asparagus.

A must for game lovers, it is the tenderest meat, as it is very lean it doesn't like being overcooked, anything more than 'medium' would spoil it, the red wine and chocolate sauce is the ideal match for this meat, I don't think I would want to eat it any differently.
A word of warning, the couple of times my OH has eaten this he comments that it reminds him of liver, as I love liver it isn't a problem for me, but yes, I can also taste the similarities. So maybe not a meat for liver haters.

Tea and biscuits, milk and cookies

2008-04-09T15:56:00.014+01:00

Tea and biscuits

Tea and biscuits, sometimes in life only this will do, I suppose that sounds very quaint and English but it is true.

Ask anyone, they all have their favourite biscuit for tea, either to eat along side a cup of tea or a good biscuit to dunk, (for the record, mine is a good old digestive) these biscuits aren't so good for dunking but nevertheless they are fantastic tea biscuits, I suppose I like them so much because they remind me of my Dad's favourite biscuit the 'Hobnob'.

At first bite I wasn't too impressed with these biscuits, but they are seriously addictive, they are quite robust but light at the same time, and they contain lots of oats so they are practically health food, if only.

This recipe comes from Rachel Allen's 'Food for living'

Oaty shortbread

275g oats
100g plain flour
150g caster sugar
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 level tsp salt
25g butter, softened.

Preheat oven to 180c
Whiz oats in a food processor until they are quite fine
Add the remaining ingredients and whiz until the dough comes together.
Roll out the dough on a floured surface to a thickness of 5mm.
Cut into shapes and place on baking trays.
Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, or until pale golden and slightly firm
Transfer to a rack to cool.

This will make around 40 biscuits, they keep very well, if you can bear to leave them alone.

Milk and cookies

Chocolate mint cookies
A favourite with my children, chocolate mint cookies from Nigella Express.
Chocolate and mint, a match made in culinary heaven. My kids love them as they taste just like those lurid green Aero bars that I don't like them eating. These are a breeze to make and were decorated by my daughter.

The cookies are chocolate chip cookies and the mint comes from a icing glaze, having made these before I knew that I'd up the amount of mint extract for a more pronounced flavour. I also didn't make up for the extra liquid in the icing with more icing sugar, going for a sticky glaze instead of a hard set icing.

Chocolate mint cookies

100g soft butter
150g light brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
150g flour
35g cocoa powder
1/ tsp baking powder
200g dark choc chips
Glaze:
75g icing sugar
1 tbsp cocoa, sieved
2 tbsp boiling water
1/4 tsp peppermint extract (I used 1 tsp)

Preheat oven to 180c
Cream butter and sugar, beat in the vanilla extract and the egg.
Mix the flour, cocoa and baking powder in a bowl and gradually beat into the cream mixture.
Finally fold in the chocolate chips.
Using a rounded 15ml tablespoon measure, spoon out scoops of cookie dough and place on a lined baking sheet.
Bake in the oven for 12 minutes, cool slightly before moving to a wire wrack.
Put the glaze ingredients into a saucepan and heat until combines.
Using a teaspoon, zig - zag the glaze over each cooling cookie. (We poured over the cooling cookies, lol.)
Makes about 26.

My kids love these with a glass of milk as a after dinner snack.

Sunday lunch....My way!

2008-04-06T17:15:00.015+01:00

Sunday lunch, traditional family meal, roast dinner and Yorkshire pudding, food heaven?...well it can be, but , in my house at least, it is more like this... 'the beef is too bloody', 'ahh, I don't want broccoli' and worst of all 'damn, my Yorkshires didn't rise'

What starts off as a lovely meal can leave you stressed and harassed.

This Sunday my dearest OH found himself suffering from the dreaded 'man flu' poor him, or poor me depending which way you look at it :). So this left me with a dilemma, a Sunday dinner for myself and the kids, well one child as my son was also poorly, would be far too much work and not worth the bother. Using this to my advantage I made Sunday lunch my way.

Completely selfish and completely enjoyable, relaxing and delicious.

I had a few organic chicken legs in the fridge so decided on cooking one of my favourite meals 'Tagliatelle with chicken from the Venetian ghetto' from Nigella's How to eat.

I love this recipe, although I altered it slightly, by using linguine in place of tagliatelle and whole chicken legs in place of a whole chicken, well, there was only two people eating it.

This is so simple, roast your chicken (I throw some chopped onions and unpeeled garlic cloves in with it too), rip it apart, toss chicken, skin and all the roasting juices in the pasta with some toasted pine nuts and sultanas, delicious. Perfect for slurping.

My Sunday lunch version of Venetian chicken :

2 chicken legs

1 tbsp EVOO

needles from 1 / 2 sprigs of rosemary

I onion, peeled and cut into 8

4 cloves of garlic (in the skin)

20g sultanas (soaked in water)

50g pine nuts, lightly toasted

200g linguine

Preheat oven to 200c

Rub chicken with oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, place in a baking tin with the onions and garlic and sprinkle with the rosemary.

Roast for 30 - 40 minutes, until well browned, and the juices run clear.

When the chicken is nearly done put a pan of water on to boil.

Remove the chicken from the oven and take the meat off the bones, leaving on all the skin, rip apart into 'mouth' sized chunks.

For the sauce pour all the juices from the roasting tin, along with onions and garlic cloves, into a saucepan, add the drained sultanas and toasted pine nuts, simmer while you cook the pasta in the salted water.

When the pasta is cooked and drained, toss it in the pan with the sauce, throw in the chicken and transfer to a large bowl. Enjoy.

Pudding

I always cook a pudding on Sunday, but my original plan for rice pudding got put on hold, as due to illness it would get wasted.

My self indulgent, simple Sunday pudding was gooey chocolate brownies with creamy vanilla ice cream and hot blonde chocolate sauce.

These were absolutely delicious, although after two helpings I started to feel slightly nauseous.

Hot blonde sauce:

100g white chocolate buttons

280ml double cream

Heat cream in a saucepan til just warm,

add white chocolate to the pan,

after a minute or two turn off heat,

stir until chocolate has melted and the sauce has thickened.

Pour over gooey brownies and cold ice cream.

Sunday lunch heaven....I wish it was like this every Sunday.

Confessions of a recipe addict

2008-03-28T17:43:00.015Z

I have a recipe 'habit', like most food lovers I have a large, ever growing collection of cookery books but I have a bigger collection of 'tear outs'. Recipes collected, over the past 5 years, from magazines, newspapers, food packets. In fact I can hardly leave a printed recipe alone, they are currently housed in a ring binder, so full it no longer closes and many times I have tried to organise and clear out the deadwood but it is such a mammoth task and to be honest I usually get distracted by a delicious sounding recipe and abandon the organising to cook it.

It was last week whilst searching for a granola recipe that I realised I hardly ever cook from this ever growing collection, flicking through the hundreds of recipes, ranging from puddings, cakes, pasta, fish I realised there must be some absolute gems of recipes amongst them, and probably a lot of not so good ones. Time to get cooking and clearing.

Meringue cupcakes:

How could I have not made these sooner, this recipe was folded up and stuck in the back of a plastic wallet when I pulled it out I gasped, just as I had when I ripped out the magazine years ago. 'Cupcakes' made from meringue, sliced in half and filled with a boozy mascarpone mixture. The magazine I ripped this from suggests serving these instead of a pavlova.

Meringue cupcakes

3 large egg whites
50g caster sugar
Filling:
250g mascarpone
250ml double cream, lightly whipped
2 tbsp icing sugar
Splash of Marsala

Preheat oven to 130c/ gas mark 1/2
Line a muffin tin with 6 paper cases
In a bowl mix egg whites with a pinch of salt til they form soft peaks.
Whisk in sugar, spoon by spoon, until the mixture is stiff and shiny.
Spoon into muffin cases, cook for two hours and cool in the oven.
In a bowl mix mascarpone till softened, stir in whipped cream.
Into this mix the icing sugar and a splash of Marsala.
Split the meringue in half and fill with the mascarpone cream.

Pear and almond tart:
Another tear out, this tart is delicious and very simple to make, a digestive biscuit base topped with a almond sponge and studded with pears (I used tinned, oh the shame, lol) which made it even easier as it involved no peeling or blanching of the pears.

This tart was very light and the contrast of texture between crumbly biscuit base, light almond sponge and juicy pears was wonderful. Although next time I may omit the flour from the sponge and make a frangipane instead.

Base:
225g digestive biscuits, crushed
75g butter, melted
Filling:
100g butter
100g caster sugar
3 eggs
100g S/R flour
100g ground almonds
1 1/2 tbsp milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tin of pears (or 2 comice pears, pealed, chopped and blanched)
caster sugar to sprinkle.

Mix biscuit crumbs with butter and press into a 30cm flan tin. Chill.
To make the filling, beat the butter and sugar till pale and creamy, beat in eggs, one at a time, mix in flour, almonds, milk and vanilla extract.
Pour cake mix over the biscuit base and arrange pears around the outside of the tart. Sprinkle with caster sugar and bake, at 200c / gas mark 6, for 25 minutes.

Summer berry cheesecake:

One lot of recipes I have sorted is the cheesecake collection, strange really as I don't really make cheesecakes. I have a variety of recipes for baked, unbaked and diet versions, this one caught my eye, a unbaked summer berry cheesecake.

My son helped make this and it is surprising we had enough filling left as he found it delicious and ate most of it straight from the bowl. Usual biscuit base, a cream cheese and whipped cream filling and a summer berry topping, as we are only just in spring here I substituted fresh berries for summer fruit compote.

Base:

250g digestive biscuits, crushed into crumbs

75g melted butter

Topping:

400g cream cheese

250ml double cream, lightly whipped

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 tbsp icing sugar

500g fruit compote

Mix biscuit crumbs with melted butter. Press into a 20cm spring form tin, chill.

Stir cream cheese till soften, stir in whipped cream, vanilla extract and icing sugar.

Spread over the base, chill for a few hours.

Before serving, unclip the tin and pour over the fruit compote.

The three recipes I cooked were all really simple and all made from my usual fridge and store cupboard ingredients, the meringue cupcakes were really good and looked impressive too, I enjoyed the pear tart but as I said, would try it with a frangipane topping next time, the cheesecake was delicious and very quick and easy to make, these recipes will go into a 'kept' folder, only a few hundred more to work my way through.....

Easter

2008-03-23T13:14:00.026Z

I love spring, full of promise of new life and new starts. The first spring flowers and the buds on the trees are always a welcoming sight, finally throwing back the curtains and letting the bright spring light shine through. My first born was a spring baby, born just before Easter...I loved pushing my pram through parks full of sunshine yellow daffodils, one of the happiest times of my life...early spring always reminds me of that time.

I always mark Easter with a leg of lamb, lamb and spring time go and hand in hand but it is very fitting for Easter.

Nigella writes in 'Feast': 'The word 'Easter is supposed to derive from 'Eostre', the Norse Goddess of spring and Rebirth but not only as a mark in the calendar, it shares much with the Jewish Passover, from the Paschal lamb (though in the latter to signify the sacrifice offered to God rather than by God) to the name itself: the Hebrew for passover is pesach; Easter is pesach; Easter is paques in French, Pasqua in Italian.'

Our Easter lunch is slow roasted leg of lamb, roasted on a bed of onions with garlic and fresh mint served with sticky garlic potatoes (from Feast), my kids have issues with eating lamb but both decided it was delicious and took seconds....what more can you ask for. The potatoes are wonderful, I love new potatoes but cooked this way, half mashed half roast.....delicious!

Pudding caused a bit of a dilemma, I had promised my daughter that I would bake the Easter nest cake in 'Feast' she has had her heart set on this cake for a few years now but a whole host of family events have always got in the way, this year I was going to bake it....well, I was until I actually read the recipe, I then realised that this recipe was the exact same as Nigella's Cloud cake (from Nigella Bites) I HATE Cloud cake! I had heard good things about it, drooled over it in the program, baked it...and was bitterly disappointed. It just wasn't for me, or anyone else here to be honest as it sat, left alone for days before being binned. That never happens, lol.
Instead, I fiddled with a recipe I had ripped out of a magazine ages ago, Chocolate caramel cake. This was just the thing to round off a Easter lunch, a chocolate sponge, filled with vanilla cream and Dulce de leche with a side serving off Mini eggs, full of unnecessary calories but Oh so good!

chocolate caramel cake:
225g butter
225g sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 large eggs
200g plain flour
25g good quality cocoa
1tsp baking powder
3-4 tbsp milk
250ml double cream, lightly whipped
5 tbsp ducle de leche
cocoa and sugar coated eggs to decorate.

Pre heat oven to 180c
Cream butter, sugar and vanilla in a mixer.
Add eggs, one by one adding a spoon of flour after each.
Add remaining flour, cocoa and baking powder.
Add milk.
Split between two 8in baking tins and bake for 25 - 30 minutes.
Cool and sandwich together with the dulce de leche and double cream. Sprinkle with cocoa and decorate with sugar coated eggs.

Easter

2008-03-20T18:43:00.011Z

Easter bonnets
Aren't these pretty. I was leisurely flicking through a supermarket magazine at the weekend when the page fell open at these, my daughter and I both gasped 'Aaawww' 'Wow' and we decided they would be perfect for Easter.
So today, Good Friday, the kids and I are getting ready for Easter. We painted eggs, made Hot cross buns and these very cute Easter bonnets.

Easter bonnets:
150g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
50g icing sugar
50g cold butter
finely grated zest 1 lemon
1 large egg, separated
For the bonnets:
12 marshmallows
1 tbsp apricot jam, warmed
juice 1 lemon
350g icing sugar, sifted
a few drops of pink and yellow food colouring
ribbons to decorate

Put the flour, icing sugar, butter and lemon zest into a food processor and pulse until it resembles breadcrumbs.
Add the egg yolk to the mixture. In a small bowl loosen the egg white with a fork and add half to the mixture. Briefly whiz adding more egg white if necessary.
Chill for half an hour.
Preheat oven to 180c /gas mark 6.
Remove the dough from the fridge, flatten slightly, then roll out on a lightly floured surface to 3-4 mm thick. Using a 3in plain cutter, stamp out as many biscuits as you can and place on a baking sheet, leaving at least 2.5cm gap between them.
Prick the top of each biscuit with a fork and bake for 8-10mins or until a light olden colour.
Transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool.
To decorate:
slightly flatten each marshmallow, spread a little jam on the underside of each and sit one, slightly off centre on each biscuit.
In a bowl, stir the lemon juice into the icing sugar, mixing to a smooth, slightly runny consistency, stir in a few drops of food colouring.
Spoon the icing over the biscuits and leave to set.
When set, decorate with ribbons and artificial flowers.

I must add that the photo really doesn't do them justice they are very cute and extremely simple, the biscuit dough was a joy to work with, it came together very easily and held it's shape time and time again even after the kids had rolled and re - rolled it. They were also very simple, especially for children, to decorate. Cant say I enjoyed eating them, not a fan of icing, but my children loved them, will definitely become a Easter tradition here.

We also made Easter egg nests, they were really good. Made with shredded wheat, child friendly milk chocolate and sugar coated eggs, which mysteriously vanished one by one....

Oh my! Apple pie!

2008-03-18T14:58:00.000Z

I had to start with a family favourite, my apple pie.

My apple pie evolved after years of baking 'not quite good enough' apple pies. I had tried all combinations, cooking apples, eating apples, half and half of each, shortcrust pastry, sweet shortcrust pastry, crumble topping on a pie base, although all the pies were edible they weren't delicious. Eventually I stumbled across a Jamie Oliver recipe which gave me hope, after a bit of tinkering I made a perfect apple pie.

This pie is, for me, the perfect combination, not too tart, not too sweet due to a mixture of half cooking and half eating apples cooked til just soft in water with cinnamon and brown sugar added, once cooked drained and cooled completely.

The pastry, a rich, crumbly, sweet shortcrust bound with egg yolks rather than water and sweetened with caster sugar is, although a pain to roll out, wonderful against the natural tartness of the apples. The egg yolks add a richness to the pastry which is short but a little cakey too.

Dusted with cinnamon and demerara sugar before a slow bake in the oven, perfection.

Whilst baking it creates the most delicious, homely aromas. I always hope that in years to come the smell of homemade cinnamony apple pie will instantly remind my children of home.

For me apple pie must be eaten with very good quality vanilla ice cream although in desperate times double cream or custard will suffice.

Oh my! Apple pie!
Filling:

6 Bramley apples

3 eating apples

1 tbsp brown sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

Pastry:

10 oz plain flour

7 1/2 oz butter, diced

4 1/2oz caster sugar

2 egg yolks

Topping:

2 tbsp demerara sugar

egg / milk glaze

Preheat oven to 150c

Grease a 8 inch spring form cake tin.

In a mixer, combine flour, butter and caster sugar, add egg yolks and a splash of water (if necessary) to bind, leave to rest in refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Peel and quarter apples, put in a pan with brown sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon and a little water. Simmer of 10 Min's or until apples are just tender.

Drain and leave to cool completely.

Divide pastry into two, roll out half and line baking tin, it is very fragile you will need to patch it up.

Fill with apples, sprinkle with remaining cinnamon. Roll out remaining pastry and cover the pie, pinching the edges together to seal.

Glaze the pie with egg/milk wash, pierce top with fork and cover with the demerara sugar.

Bake for 45 - 50 minutes.

Serve hot with creamy vanilla ice cream.