I'm glad it burnt RSS feed

Chocolate mince pies with marzipan tops

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 21:16:42 +0000

Homemade mincemeat recipe (courtesy of peasepudding.wordpress.com)

2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/4 cup brandy
1 Granny Smith apple (peeled, cored and grated)
100g raisins
100g currants
100g sultanas
Juice & zest of 1 orange
1/3 cup breakfast marmalade
1/2 tsp mixed spice
40g dark chocolate
40g milk chocolate

I used shop-bought Dessert pastry. Of course, you can use pastry for the tops if you not keen on marzipan.

...and if you have a sweet tooth whack on a lump of brandy butter too! mmm.
Thoroughly mix Brandy, butter, icing sugar and muscovado sugar (optional) into a paste: Simplz.

Easy dulce de Leche cookies

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 18:55:35 +0100

I spotted these on TasteSpotting.com, a great website for cooking inspiration. Don't they look yum!?

Dulce de leche literally means "sweet of milk", and can be found next to condensed milk in the shops. It's pretty much the same but more caramelly.

Read the Wikipedia definition.

Here is the recipe I used (translated from American cups, into grams/mls). It differs slightly from other recipes in that, the cookie mixture itself contains Dulce de leche (where as usually it is just the filling).

http://buttersugarflour.com/2007/12/double-dulce-de-leche-biscuits/

Ingredients

200g unsalted butter, softened
64g brown sugar
64g caster sugar
397g tin of Dulce de leech (Nestle Carnation Caramel)
2 eggs
340g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt

Instructions

Preheat oven to 180°C. Prepare two baking trays with non-stick baking paper
Put the butter, sugar and half the tin of dulce de leche in a large bowl and mix
Beat in the eggs
Add the flour, baking powder and salt. Sifting the flour if inclined
Use a piping bag to squeeze the mixture on to the baking tray
Bake for approx 10 minutes.
Use the remaining dulce de leche as the fillings for each double cookie.

Tips:

If you don't have a piping bag, make your own using a sandwich bag with a hole in, or some baking paper rolled into a funnel shape.
No need to squeeze them out perfectly, as no matter when they look like raw, they always turn out nice and circular.
Alternate between your two baking trays (One in the oven, whilst you prepare the second batch).

Makowiec

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 11:24:01 +0000

Continuing on our journey into the land of bread... here is the second loaf, a Polish poppy seed swirl cake called Makowiec. We used the recipe from Taste.com.au - this is a great website, kind of like the Australian equivalent of the equally great BBC good food.

You can see from the photos that we decided not to smother it with lemony icing sugar. This was because, pretty much everything that could go wrong went wrong! And when it came it, we couldn't be bothered (It was the right decision in the end anyway...)

We ran out of plain flour and had to use wholemeal flour - which made it look (and taste) much more bready than cakey.
We also used 50 grams too little of poppy seeds, which resulted in very sloppy innards
We had no rolling pin!
To add the chaos we were simultaneously cooking tea (Creamy pesto gnocchi)

We put the hefty lump of gloopy dough into the oven, and crashed out for 40 mins whilst it cooked, disappointed with our efforts and not expecting it to work out at all. But, despite appearences this rather ugly looking thing tasted much better than the Finnish Pulla bread.

Finnish Pulla Bread

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 13:31:20 +0000

First in a series of bread-related posts is the sweet and slightly over powering Finnish Pulla bread. The recipe is Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's and was in the Guardian newspaper, but is also available online as part of his Cardamom recipes.

Hugh describes it as a brioche-style bread (Light and rich), but our attempt proved extremely dense and quite dry. Still delicious don't get me wrong - and the smell was amazing... enough to bring my housemates of their rooms!

Perhaps the reason it turned out so heavy is because I didn't knead the dough enough. That's something I hope to improve on over the forthcoming recipes.

Being quite stodgy, and not really knowing what the bread is supposed to acompany, we ended up using it to absorb some tasty tomato and basil soup. Even though I think it's a desert bread, the combination was yummy.

I'm not ashamed to say (as a bloke), that I platted with confidence. It's quite tricky because once you've stretched the dough to 40cm as described in the instructions - all it wants to do is retract to it's original size. So you have to work quickly!

Egg Custard Tart

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 23:10:12 +0000

Whenever I make something with pastry, there's always some left over. Of course I make the obligatory jam tarts with the spare pastry, but this time I decided to make something else. A personal favourite of mine are Egg Custard Tarts, and since earlier on in the day at school, I'd made another tart - I had some left-over pastry.

Some people say never to re-use pastry, but any sensible foodie would never throw it out!

Here's my recipe for a large Egg Custard Tart (not individual portions!)

What you need:

4oz Shortcrust Pastry
2 medium eggs
½ pint milk
2 tbsp sugar
Grated nutmeg
7 inch tin

Step 1. Start with rolling out the pastry on a floured surface until it's around ¼ cm thick.

Step 2. Place it over your tin and cut off the excess pastry. No, don't do that - I did, and of course pastry shrinks in the oven... so let a bit of pastry hang over the top.

Step 3. Bake blind for 15 minutes at 180°C, or gas mark 4. (FYI: Baking blind means we replace what would be the actual filling with anything that will prevent the pastry base from rising - usually dried beans, rice or lentals).

Step 4. Whilst the pastry is in the oven, we'll make the proper filling. Pour the milk and sugar into a saucepan and bring to the boil. In a separate bowl, lightly whisk the eggs. When the milk reaches boiling point, pour it in with the eggs and stir well.

Step 5. Once the pastry is cooked, remove your fake filling of choice. Now your can cut the excess pastry off. Pour the egg mixture into the cooked pastry case. Cook for a further 15 minutes until the egg mixture has set.

Here's where I went slightly wrong - The pastry had shrunk a little and made gaps between the pastry and the loose bottom tin I was using. Not wanting to waste anything, I carried on pouring over the top of the pastry. Of course I forgot about the loose bottom and it went everywhere! So, my advice is to put it on a baking tray to avoid making a mess of your kitchen :)

Even after cooking the egg tart, there was still pastry left over, so with that I made Jam Tarts.

If that happens to you too - here's what to do...

Roll out the pastry to your preferred thickness
Cut out the correct size with a pastry cutter
Put a spoonful of jam in, again don't over fill - but don't skimp either!
Bake at 180°C for 15-20 minutes. Simplz.

Matcha latte

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:32:27 +0000

The other day, browsing the internet in a sleepy haze I discovered this Matcha Tea stuff. Apparently it will instantly elevate my mood and raise my energy.

It's a bright green, highly concentrated green tea powder full of antioxidents and nutrients, made from tea leaves grown in the shade (see the wikipedia page as to why). As well as for brewing up, it can also be used in things like cake and pastries, and mousses and ice cream.

The stuff I ended up buying cost £25, which was a shock. I got an even bigger shock when it arrived in a tin a mere 2 inches cubed. Not to worry though, apparently you can get about 25-30 drinks from it - about a quid a go.

Check out these interesting statistics on the Tea Pigs website where it came from, they claim ¼ teaspoon is effectivly the same as 15 cups of normal green tea!

All I did was mix the powder up and add some milk, then pop it microwave for a bit. If you were to dip your finger in the powder and taste it, it's kind of like... hay or straw or something. But mixed with the milk it was pleasant enough, could do with some sweetening though.

Stay tuned for future posts where I'll be using it in a dessert of some sort!

Coconut pyramids

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:17:38 +0000

My colleagues at work are aware that I'm a so called 'foodie', and 2 years on the trot they've bought me a book of recipes for my birthday. It's very generous of them, but I can't help but think it's just so I'll cook them treats :)
I'm fine with that!

One of my work mates has coeliac disease, and so every now and again I'm obliged to make something nice that doesn't have gluten in. So here is a really quick and moreish recipe called Coconut Pyramids, or coconut macaroons.

Things you need:

2 egg whites (whisked until stiff)
150g desiccated coconut
150g caster sugar
Edible rice paper (wafer-paper actually made from Potato starch, water and vegetable oil)

What to do:

Combine the ingredients and place in the fridge for an hour
Now place small dollops on the paper, and shape
Bake at 140°C for 45 minutes, but worth checking after 30.

Tip: If you can't be bothered making pyramids, you can push the mixture into a small funnel. Then, (although slightly unyhygenic) blow through the end which releases the funnel-mold from the mixture!

I made quadrilateral pyramids, shaped with a fork. Much easier than 3 sided!

Unfortunately, this time round, my pyramids sank! This is probably due to the fact that I was experimenting with the addition of some extra ingredients including: Ground almond; Almond essence; Vanilla essence; butter; and Agave syrup. Never mind.

To melt the chocolate, I added some Green & Blacks to a bain marie - but because the pyramids hadn't worked out shapewise (unlike these) - I didn't bother to neatly dunk them in the chocolate, as it wasn't really worth the effort.

Good luck if you have a go, they taste great!

Yummy haggis samosas

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:34:52 +0000

This evening I decided to try making these yummy haggis samosas (with a twist). As you can sea from the pic - they worked out just great!

I first heard about haggis samosas on The Hairy Bikers' latest series "Mum's know best". Apparently they're one of the featured mums' family favourites. The twist is: Instead of using the traditional samosa pastry, you use tortillas.

If you're thinking that the mixture of dry tortilla and claggy haggis is going to be a bit too much stodge - think again, they're just right.

Haggis isn't something I usually have lying around the kitchen, it just so happens I spotted it in the reduced section at Booths recently. Note: Booths is not my usual supermarket (waay too posh!).

You'll be amazed at how quickly these things come together, here's what to do:

Slice the tortilla into two strips, about 4 fingers wide, discarding the leftover edges.
With one of the strips, put your finger where the red dot is in the diagram, and fold each side across to make a cone shape, with a flap at the top.
Fill with haggis.
Brush the inside of the flap with egg and close it, squashing it firmly shut.
Brush the rest of the entire samosa.

I found that I had to microwave the haggis for a few seconds on medium before it was pliable enough to fit into the samosa.

If you don't have a deep fat fryer like me, you can just pour the oil into a pan and use that instead. Make sure it's deep though, better safe than sorry!

Maple taffy on snow

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:35:03 +0000

When I was in Canada in February 2009, one local delicacy I repeatedly bought was Maple Taffy. It's maple syrup (made in the local area), heated to boiling point and poured over snow in thin streams. A wooden skewer is then dipped in it, and once the syrup has hardened slightly it's rolled up. Thanks to the recent so called 'Big Freeze' in England, we were able to re-create this splendid treat!

I know what you're thinking; We're always told not to eat yellow snow, well this is an exception to the rule :)

All you need is:

1 Tin of golden syrup (or maple if you can get it!)
Snow, in a baking tray, patted down flat
Some chopsticks/skewers.

Step 1) Bring the syrup to boiling point

Step 2) Pour the syrup over the snow and immediatly put the stick in.

Step 3) When hard, roll the syrup around the stick.

Step 4) Eat!

Step 5) Thoroughly brush your precious teeth with a fluoride toothpaste :)

Kopparberg cake

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 18:22:07 +0000

A good friend of ours made a status update on Facebook saying she'd made Kopparberg cake. Intrigued, I asked for the recipe, and she obliged by uploading a mobile-phone photograph of the recipe page.

Hannah, I have no idea where you got the recipe from, but it's really tasty! Especially with vanilla ice-cream. Thank you!

In fact, my attempt at the cake had to be eaten with ice-cream because, it wasn't really held-together enough to be eaten as a normal slice of cake. Hopefully future versions will be more refined!

The great thing about this recipe is all the ingredients pretty much just get bunged into one bowl and mixed together.

Ingredients

6 tablespoons of butter
225g self raising flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
75g caster sugar
50g dried apple, chopped
75g raisins
150ml of Kopparberg or any other sweet cider
1 egg
175g raspberries / mixed berries

In translating the blurry mobile-phone photograph I noticed it said 6 tablespoons of butter. Would anyone in the right mind use a tablespoon to measure out butter?? No, I didn't think so. It's about 85 grams anyway.

Instructions

To keep this short, and sweet, (like the cider) just do this:

Put the flour and butter in a big mixing bowl
Get a sharp knife and fork, and chop it up as best you can
Now get one hand in, and smear the butter and flour through your fingers, making a dry, bitty mixture.
Okay, that's as bad as it gets. Next add all the ingredients to the flour and butter.
Mix, and mix well.
Bake for 40 minutes at 190°C

Kind of looks like puke after a night on red wine.
But I guarantee you, it smells amazing!

After 40 minutes, do the knife test - and depending on the depth of the cake tin you used, it might have to go back in for another 10 or 15 minutes.

The original recipe called for a 20cm/8 inch cake tin, but we reckon a shallow brownie tin would have been a much better idea. So that it gets cooked properly in the center.

The apple symbol is a tribute to my new Macbook Pro that I finally got this week after saving for many many months.