Blowing Hot and Cold

February comes in like a lion

 At the time of writing, Storm Ciara is raging outside and it feels more like Autumn here.

Nothing to be done, except cocoon myself in the kitchen and do some baking- and whilst we  are waiting for the weather to warm up, a little added spice doesn't go amiss.


Some leftover tinned sweetcorn inspired this first bake. Sweetcorn really doesn't keep well so needs using up pronto. Combined with some Mexican Cheddar, garlic and herb soft cheese and a muffin batter, I made these delicious Chili Cheese and Corn Cakes.

Mmm... apero time

Assemble your ingredients- for the dry part: 220g flour, 1 tsp salt, 3 tsps baking powder, 125 g tinned sweetcorn and 125g grated Mexican Cheddar ( or other strong cheese and some chopped red chillis if you can't get it).

The dry ingredients

For the wet ingredients- 200 ml milk, 125 g soft garlic and herb cheese ( I used Quark ), 75g melted butter and 1 egg.

The wet ingredients mixed

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees and generously grease some mini-loaf or muffin tins.
Mix the wet ingredients into the dry and beat together.

Mix wet and dry

Spoon into your tins and bake for around 15 minutes until risen and golden.

Spoon into muffin or mini-loaf tins

Lovely eaten warm with tomato soup, or with an early evening apéritif.

Chilli Cheese and Corn Cakes

With Easter not that far off, I thought I would have a go at making hot cross buns- but when the dough was ready for baking, I decided at the last minute to put it all in a loaf tin and make a Hot Cross Bun Cake. I was pleased with the result, and we ate it sliced with butter and jam for pretty much the rest of the week! Here's the recipe:

450g flour
pinch of salt
100g sugar
 7g sachet yeast
180 ml milk
1 egg
1 tsp each cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger
180g sultanas ( soaked in tea to plump them up)
70g melted butter
1. Warm the milk to blood temperature and mix in the yeast and  2 tsp of the sugar. Leave to rest 10 minutes.

Warm the milk and mix in yeast and sugar

2. Mix together the flour, salt, sugar and spices. Add the sultanas, tea, melted butter, milk mixture and  beaten egg.

Mix together all the ingredients

3. Knead well on a floured board until nice and elastic.
4.Place back in the mixing bowl, cover with a clean cloth and put in a warm place to rise for an hour or so.

Dough has doubled in size

5. When doubled in size, take out the dough and either make it into 12 buns or put it in a loaf tin.
Cover again and leave for another 30 minutes or so before cooking at 200 degrees for around 35 minutes.
6. When cool, you can either pipe a cross onto the top or glaze with a little icing sugar dissolved in hot water.

Hot Cross Bun Cake ( ready for icing)

Finally-I know it's not baking ( or even cooking ) but I did want to share with you my Instant Ginger Ice Cream- which goes beautifully in a banana split.
I make this now whenever I have half a tub of vanilla ice cream leftover. It is also really good made with soya ice cream for vegans or those on a dairy-free diet.

Just chop up 1-2 tbsp stem ginger in syrup

Chopped stem ginger

and quickly mix in a bowl with your softened ice cream.

Quickly mix and refreeze

When thoroughly mixed, put the ice cream back in the freezer until you are ready to serve.

I served it here with a Banana Split and topped with some of the ginger syrup from the jar or a caramel sauce and some crushed sesame snap biscuits for more crunch.

Banana Split with Ginger Ice cream

So there we are- some spiced recipes to take you through this stormy weekend. 

Next time I write this blog, I'm hoping for some spring weather to make us all feel good.

Yeah!

Week 51- Nearly There!

Nearly at the summit!

Just one more week of the challenge to go- and the summit is just in sight!

I mustn't run out of steam yet- but my hopes of inspiration from an evening cooking class were dashed when it was cancelled due to lack of numbers.

So, I had to search elsewhere for ideas to tide me over the week.





Looking through my cupboard, I spotted one of those silicone cake-pop moulds which I bought in the January sales- and decided to give it a try using my savoury cake/muffin mix which readers on the blog seem to like. I also had a delicious slow roasted pork belly with a ginger beer gravy at my local pub and decided to recreate that as the main.

For pudding, I thought about climbing to the top of the blog mountain- and decided to make a dessert which represented that thought: Baked Alaska!

So, that's the menu for this week: Brie cake pops with cranberry relish, slow roasted pork belly with a ginger beer gravy and Baked Lemon Meringue Alaska.

I'll make the main course first.

Pork belly is a wonderful cheap cut of meat, which is transformed by very slow cooking. I'm using the crockpot, but a low, slow oven will work well too.

Pork belly, ginger beer, 5 spice and salt..

First slash the skin on the meat with a sharp knife and rub in some sea salt and Chinese five spice if you have it, pepper if not.
Heat a spray of oil in a frying pan until smoking hot and sear the skin until dark brown.

Sear in a frying pan

Lay the belly pieces on top of some sliced carrots and leeks in the crockpot.

Lay the belly slices on the veg

Deglaze the frying pan with the ginger beer and pour around the meat.
Leave to cook for 6 hours or more if you can.

Lift out the meat when it is very tender, place on a wire rack on a baking tray and flash into a hot oven for 15 minutes or so to crisp up the skin.

Scoop out the veg and thicken the gravy if necessary or thin it with some stock if that is more appropriate. If you want to crisp up the skin on the pork, flash it under a hot grill for a few minutes before serving.

Hearty comfort food for a wet and windswept Britain tonight!

Pork belly with ginger beer gravy

For the cake-pops, I'm using up some leftover bits and pieces of cheese - some Brie and some Cheddar. (This a good way to avoid throwing away those little bits of cheese leftover in the fridge.)

In a jug, combine 100g self raising flour, 2 tsp of baking powder, 1 cup of natural yoghurt, 2 eggs, 100g cheese (grated Cheddar and Brie with the rind cut off and the cheese cut into small pieces), 1 cup olive oil, salt and pepper and a teaspoon of mustard.

Lightly grease the silicone moulds with a spray of vegetable oil.
Place a small piece of Brie in the bottom of each pop-hollow and pour the mixture into the half-mould.

Put a small piece of Brie in each mould

Put on the lid and bake for 15-20 minutes or so at 200 degrees.
Allow to cool before un-moulding and pranging with a lolly stick. (Wooden coffee stirrers make a good substitute if you don't have lolly sticks... I'll leave it to you to think how you might end up with a pocket full of those..)
Serve with cranberry sauce or chutney (I bet you have a jar left over from Christmas still as I do.)

Cheesy Brie cake pops with cranberry relish

Now for the pud.
I use a sponge flan base, but you can use any cake (chocolate, ginger, whatever) if you have some needing using up. First preheat your oven to 200 degrees.
Whilst it's heating up,  shape your ice cream (again any flavour - but I had lemon meringue pie flavour in the freezer) into a mountain shape with a base the diameter of your cake. The easiest way to do this is to lay a piece of cling film out over the cake base, shape the ice cream on the plastic film, wrap, push and prod until you are satisfied with its shape. Seal it up quickly in the cling film and put back into the freezer to get really firm again.

Wrap the ice cream in cling film to shape it

Separate 3 eggs (I used the yolks for scrambled eggs for lunch- deliciously yellow and creamy!) and put the whites in a clean bowl.
Whip with an electric mixer, adding spoons of caster sugar as you go until you have a very firm white meringue, with peaks that stand up and hold their shape.

Now- quickly- lay the sponge base on a baking tray, unwrap your frozen ice cream mountain, lay it on the base and then cover quickly with the meringue. Use a palette knife to spread it evenly all over in a thick layer, paying particular attention to where it meets the sponge base.
Be sure to cover every tiny hole, where the ice cream could leak out.

Pop it in the oven and watch closely through the glass door. In four minutes it should turn beautifully golden. Out it comes and voila! Hot meringue and cold ice cream in a scrumptious pudding.

Lemon Meringue Baked Alaska

So, three more recipes to tempt you and use up stuff in your cupboards and fridge.

I've added a survey to this week's blog so you can vote for your favourite recipes (you can choose more than one category and vote as many times as you like). It would be good to get your feedback on what you've enjoyed - or even tried out - so do cast your votes and ask other people/ family members/ friends to tell me what they think too.

I'll keep an eye on your responses during the week and report back next weekend - when we reach the final frontier!

Week 49- Burns Supper Leftovers

The great chieftain o' the puddin' race- dressed for battle!

The 25th January has come round again and Burns Night is upon us. We will be raising a glass to toast the Baird, and piping in the haggis this Saturday night.

This is as much in remembrance of my teenage years, growing up in the village of Alloway in Ayrshire, as it is a celebration of his poetry.

Smoked salmon starter

As last year ( see blog entry 'Here's tae us' ), we will be dining in Caledonian style with a Scottish seafood starter, (mussels or Orkney crab or smoked salmon with rye or soda bread), the main attraction- haggis, neeps and tatties, then a pudding of whisky cake with cream. All of these recipes are on the blog or in the cloud above.

Whisky cake

Soda bread

Scottish mussels

Rye bread

However, for this year's Burns blog, as you already have the recipes for the event itself,  I thought I would look at creative ways to use up the leftovers from the feast- so I'm making spiced clapshot soup with haggis samosas, followed by a haggis hash with crispy ham and eggs, and whisky cake pieces with cranachan topping.

The clapshot soup uses up the leftover root veg from your meal. I roast mine prior to 'bashing' for the 'neeps'- but if your leftovers are already bashed, that's even simpler.

Veg ready for the soup

I fry the root veg in a tablespoon of curry paste or powder and add 1 litre of strong stock (chicken is best but vegetable is OK if you're cooking veggie). Simmer for a short while (the veg is already cooked after all, you just want the flavours to mingle.) Blitz and serve with the samosas.

Spiced clapshot soup with haggis samosas

For the samosas, I use spring roll wrappers from the Chinese supermarket, but filo pastry is fine too.

Fold the square of pastry in half lengthways, put a  large teaspoon of haggis in the bottom right hand corner, fold over, then back on itself, and again, until you have a neatly wrapped triangle.
Brush the triangles with a little melted butter or Flora and a sprinkling of black onion seeds if you have them.

Place on a greased baking tray and bake at 200 degrees for 10 minutes or so until golden.

You could make spring rolls if you prefer using the technique below.

Fold over top corner

Fold in sides and roll

Any remaining haggis is delicious combined with leftover mashed potato and fried in a little vegetable oil to make patties. The flavour is like a hash.
Top with some crispy grilled Prosciuttio and a poached or fried egg.

Haggis hash with poached egg and ham

For dessert, I took some of my leftover whisky marmalade cake, cut out rounds and topped with ice cream (I used creme brulee flavour and it went well) and some toasted oats, with extra whipped cream and whisky/honey syrup.

To toast the oats, melt 100 g of butter in a frying pan, add some rolled oats and stir through until the oats begin to turn golden, add a drizzle of honey or golden syrup and as soon as it bubbles, pour over the ice cream.

Cranachan topping toasting in the pan

Whisky cake pieces with cranachan topping

Anyway, enjoy your haggis on the 25th- boiled, steamed or lightly grilled!

Lightly grilled haggis!

Slainte!

Week 37- Hallowe'en Recipes for Grown-ups

Well, grown-up is a relative term.

These recipes do still have a slightly silly theme to them- but you can make them sensibly if you want -without all the ghoulies and ghosties.

If you are planning a Hallowe'en drinks or dinner party this year, I've put together some creepy concoctions for you to give you some ideas- starting with cocktails and nibbles, followed by wild mushroom pate with creature crackers. Main course is stuffed snail bake with blood-stained garlic bread and dessert is chocolate and plum cake with oozy bramble glaze (served with toffee apple ice cream).

Does it all sound appetizing? Probably not. But I assure you it's good really. (And it's a vegetarian dinner party too).

For cocktails, I'm offering mulled red wine or kir (not shaken or stirred so it keeps it's layers). There are lots more ideas on http://www.marthastewart.com/275515/halloween-cocktails-and-drink-recipes/@center/276965/halloween

A kir is a mixture of creme de cassis and white wine- I poured the wine in first, then the creme de cassis so as to keep them separate. Then added a garnish of a little olive spider- made from a black olive and some cocktails sticks.

Kir cocktail and friend

Black olive spider garnish

To go with the mulled wine, I made some tapenade spiders. I found this spider biscuit cutter in a cookshop and made a dough from 150g of plain flour, 1 tsp baking powder, a pinch of salt, 30g of butter, 1 tablespoon of tapenade (black olive paste) and a little milk to mix. (Put the flour, baking powder, salt and butter in a food processor and pulse till fine. Add the tapenade and drizzle in some milk slowly until the mixture comes together as a dough.

Cut out the shapes, bake them on a greased baking tray for about 15 minutes until crisp and starting to brown. Serve with some extra tapenade to dip if you want.

Creepy-crawly nibbles

Moving from spiders to other creepy creatures, I made some crackers to go with my wild mushroom pate from a similar mix to the biscuit one above- but used granary flour and no olive paste. This time I cut out circles and then pulled them into weird shapes and cut eye holes etc with scissors before baking.

The mushroom pate serves as the starter and also the filling for the snail shell bake so make twice as much as you need for the entree.
Soak a handful of dried porcini mushrooms in warm water for 15 minutes or so. Squeeze them out and chop them finely (but keep the soaking liquid). Pulse 150g of portobello mushrooms, a clove of garlic and 1 small onion in the food processor until it is a fine duxelle. Add the chopped porcini and then place in a frying pan with a little olive oil and fry gently. As it begins to dry out, add the strained soaking liquid and a dash of dry sherry and continue to cook until all the liquid has evaporated.

When cool, mix with a small tub of cream cheese and adjust the seasoning with lots of salt and pepper to taste. Chill well before serving in dishes with creature crackers (or sensible crackers if you prefer). This mixture is enough to serve two- so double it or triple it according to your party numbers.

Wild mushroom pate with creepy crackers....

....or sensible snacks

Meanwhile, put some large snail shell pasta (conchiglioni rigati) on to cook in some boiling water. Cook it until it is nearly al dente- then drain it, and cool it under some cold running water.
When cool, pipe or spoon the leftover mushroom pate into the shells and arrange in a baking dish.

Pour over some tomato sauce and some grated cheese and bake in a moderate oven for 20 minutes until golden and bubbling.

Snail shell bake

Serve with blood-stained garlic bread- garlic bread slices with sun dried tomato paste drizzled over. I left two unstained for more sensible eaters.

Blood-stained garlic bread

For dessert, I made a chocolate sponge cake (various recipes on the blog if you click on the cloud above) with some fresh plums, halved and stoned and dropped into the mixture. When cooked and still warm, I drizzled over the remains of a jar of bramble jelly mixed with a teaspoon of icing sugar.

Chocolate plum cake with bramble drizzle

To serve with this I also made a toffee apple ice cream by churning leftover creme anglaise, stewed apple compote and caramel sauce in the ice cream maker.

Just churn for toffee apple ice cream

So, there we are:  a hallowe'en menu (or autumn dinner party) depending on whether you want to trick or treat your guests.