Recipes Archives - Page 7 of 12 - A Bond Girl's Food Diary

Saffron Macarons with a Dark Chocolate Cardamom Ganache

20th January 201720th January 20171 Comment

My mother gave me a jar of safflower petals for Christmas, among other things. I had never seen or heard of them before – although they are called ‘poor man’s saffron’ in the product description, they’re beautiful, and have a softer, less brassy flavour than saffron proper. I immediately knew what I wanted to do with them: sprinkle them decadently over little saffron macarons. I say decadently, but actually that was quite a thrifty choice when you consider the price of actual saffron.

I have made macarons several times before, and even written about them on this blog, but I’ve stuck with fairly standard, safe flavour choices. However, the rich, dusky warmth of saffron called for a correspondingly exotic partner, so I’ve gone for a dark chocolate cardamon ganache, spiked with a hefty pinch of sea salt, to match up to the spiced shells. Normally, with macarons, the shells are for colour and the filling is for flavour: you can’t mess with the shell recipe too much as they are quite temperamental, so many of the usual methods of adding flavour in baking are out, and you have to rely on getting a big hit of taste into a small disc of ganache, curd, or gel. However, this is where saffron comes into its own. You only need about a gram of it to flavour the macarons, and because it’s dry it incorporates into the almond mix quite happily. You could even add a touch of orange food colouring to the meringue mix to hint at the saffron flavour within, but I had the safflower petals on hand and I wanted a nice contrast between their sunset colour and the pale shell.

It might give you an indication of how hectic my life is at the moment that I have been intending to make these since Christmas Day and have only gotten around to it in late January.

Notes (my standard macaron notes):

For this, you will need at least three baking sheets (I sometimes go onto a fourth) and parchment to line them, a sugar thermometer, a food processor, an electric hand whisk or a stand mixer, and a piping bag fitted with a 1cm plain nozzle, as well as the normal bowls and scales and stuff. Sorry, lots of kit I know, but that’s just how it is for these.
This recipe makes around 50 shells, or 25 paired macarons, although this obviously depends on how big you pipe them.
I don’t personally think you need to bother ageing your egg whites unless they are stupendously fresh to start with – perhaps you have your own chickens or something, who knows – but I do always make sure mine are room temperature.
I am not awesome at piping, and so my personal preference is to line my baking sheets with disposable parchment and, using a cookie cutter, draw circles onto it in black Sharpie as a guide, then flip it over ready to be piped on to. You can also buy templates that are already on silicone mats (which I should do but I am cheap) or print them off the internet, or just pipe freestyle if you are confident. You want to end up with something like this.

Ingredients:

for the shells

200g white caster sugar
75ml hot water (from a hot tap is fine, but boil a kettle if you like)
200g icing sugar
200g ground almonds
1g saffron (this is very annoying to measure unless you have great scales, but it’s basically a large pinch)
160g egg whites (divided into two bowls of 80g each)
Pinch of salt

for the ganache filling

200g good quality 70% dark chocolate
300g double cream
20 cardamom pods
a good pinch of sea salt

to decorate

safflower petals – completely optional

Method:

Get out three baking sheets and line them with parchment (or silicone), and create a template if you need one. Pop your water and caster sugar in a saucepan, stir it gently together with a wooden spoon, and put the pan on a low heat to dissolve the sugar (starting with hot water speeds this up). While that’s happening, pop your almonds, icing sugar, and saffron in a food processor and blitz for 1 minute. Scrape the sides down, then blitz for an additional minute. Pass the sugar, nut, and saffron powder through a sieve into a large bowl. You might be left with some chunkier almond mixture in the sieve. Chuck this away, don’t force it through – you want smooth macarons – but if there are any strands of saffron left in there, pop them into the bowl.
If your sugar has dissolved into your water (the liquid shouldn’t feel gritty), turn up the heat on your syrup, stick your thermometer in it, and start to bubble it up to 115 degrees celsius (which is your target). Meanwhile, mix 80g of egg white into your sieved almond mixture with a spatula to make a thick, stiff paste. It will look like there isn’t enough liquid, but keep working it and it will come together. Pop the other 80g of egg white into a clean glass bowl with the pinch of salt and whisk to stiff peaks.
When the sugar syrup hits 115 degrees, pour it into the whisked egg whites in a thin stream while still whisking them on high speed. The mixture will become shiny. Once all the sugar syrup is in the whites, keep whisking for five minutes or so while the bowl cools until you have your stiff meringue mix. Whack 1/3 of the meringue mix into the almond paste and beat it in any old how to loosen it.
Now gently fold the remaining meringue into your macaron batter with a spatula. You need to make sure it’s well incorporated and there are no streaks, but the more you mix it the more air will be knocked out, and the looser the batter becomes. If you don’t mix enough, there will be unincorporated meringue and the batter won’t smooth out when piped. If you go too far, it will run everywhere when piped. You want to be able to lift the spatula up and draw a trail of batter across the surface of the bowl and leave a line which stays there for around 10 seconds, but then gradually disappears back into the body of the mixture. People say it is supposed to look like lava but that’s totally unhelpful to me as I don’t know what lava looks like. Go slowly, one fold at a time, and keep checking it. If in doubt, go for under rather than over mixing, as the process of piping the batter will knock more air out too.
When you are happy with your batter, put half of it into your piping bag and begin to pipe out your rounds. I find it easier to only use half the mix at once or the weight of it makes it come out of the bag very fast, which is tricky to pipe. Piping these just takes practice. Give yourself space, pipe directly down rather than at an angle, move quickly and get into a rhythm. Your batter will spread a little so aim for batter circles slightly smaller than your template circles. Once you have finished piping, pick up each tray, lift it a good few inches off the surface, and drop it straight down. Do this a couple of times. You need to knock out any air bubbles that have accumulated. After this is done, leave your macarons to rest for around half an hour. Once rested, they should have a slight skin. Leaving them for longer – up to a couple of hours – shouldn’t hurt them.

While they are resting, make ganache. Break your chocolate into small pieces and pop it in a bowl. Crush your cardamom pods to release the flavour, and pop them into your cream. Heat your cream and cardamom in a pan until it’s just steaming and little bubbles are appearing at the edges, then take off the heat, cover, and leave to infuse for fifteen minutes or so. Sieve the cardamom out, and re-weigh your cream – you need 200g, and some of it will have evaporated in the heating process. Reheat the weighed cream until just bubbling. Pour it onto the chocolate, add the salt, and leave it alone to sit for a couple of minutes. Beat the mixture until smooth. Leave to firm up to a pipeable consistency in the fridge
When your macarons have rested, heat your oven to 160C/140C fan/gas 3. Bake your macaron shells for around 20 minutes. This is obviously dependent on your oven and the size of your macarons, so keep an eye on them. Check after 17 minutes. When your shells are cooked, they should lift off your baking parchment without leaving much residue behind. If they are leaving lots of very sticky mixture or not lifting off, give them more time. If they are completely dry and hollow then they are over-baked (but will still be yummy when filled). When they are done, get them on a cooling rack and once they are cool enough to touch, take them off the parchment.
Get your ganache out the fridge – it might need a couple of minutes at room temperature to become pipeable, depending on how long it’s been in there. Match the shells of your macarons into pairs of similar sizes. Pipe a circle of ganache onto the base shell of each pair and gently sandwich on the top shell. If using, sprinkle with safflower petals.

Really, you should store macarons in the fridge in an air-tight container for 24 hours before eating them to let the shells soften into the filling but my willpower isn’t always up to this. Regardless, they keep very well.

Sun-dried Tomato and Olive Focaccia

9th January 20179th January 20172 Comments

Sometimes I think there wasn’t much point in my going to culinary school, because all anyone really ever wants me to make is brownies and bread. Seriously. Those are the things that I get asked to make the most often, and those are the things which always inspire the most delight among the people I cook for. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I understand it. Brownies and bread are delicious. But they are also easy. So easy! I could make these things before I expended vast amounts of time and money and effort getting a culinary diploma. Still, at least now I know in my heart that I could make a blackcurrant souffle. Even though no one ever asks me to.

If you are ever going round to someone’s house and you want to bring them something a bit special, then I really recommend that you bake some bread. People go absolutely nuts for the stuff and they will think that you are amazing, even though really all you have done is mix flour and water and yeast together and then let them do their thing. I am now pretty much obligated to make focaccia for family gatherings, because I did so once and it’s like when we fed the teeniest, tiniest bit of gammon to the cat and now that she knows about the existence of gammon she cannot be happy unless she is actively eating gammon.

When I bake bread from scratch for something, someone always says ‘Oh, I can’t be bothered with making bread. Doesn’t it take ages?’ Well, yes and no. Yes, the time from starting the bread-making process to starting the bread-eating process is a couple of hours, but in those couple of hours you will have about fifteen active minutes in which you have to do things to the bread. For the rest of your time, feel free to be gainfully employed in plumbing the depths of Netflix, alphabetising your spice cabinet, or trying to placate your gammon-crazed pet.

Notes:

I’m not going to lie: this is much easier to make if you have a mixer with a dough-hook. I did not have one until last year and owning one has now made me magnificently lazy. With normal bread dough, ten minutes of kneading by hand is no big deal, and can actually be pretty satisfying (plus I always count it as my exercise for the day). With focaccia, though, the dough is really more like a batter because it is so wet, and kneading a batter is a bit trickier, so it’s much easier to shove it in a mixer. The high water content is what gives the bread its light texture and irregular crumb structure: the water in the dough evaporates as the bread bakes, leading to that classic focaccia look. That said, I made this at my parents’ house at Christmas, and I had to do it by hand because they don’t have a mixer with a dough-hook, and it was fine. Although I did whinge about it a bit.

Obviously you can substitute other things for sun-dried tomatoes and olives if you have anything interesting lying about. I have done this with feta, artichokes, red onion, prosciutto, and various herbs. You can see from the pictures that I had some artichokes in the fridge, so in they went. It’s all good, and it would be fine with just salt and olive oil too.

Ingredients:

500g strong white bread flour
2.5 tsp salt
2 sachets dried fast action/ easy bake yeast (don’t worry too much about what it says on the packet – anything that comes in 7g sachets will be fine)
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (if your sun-dried tomatoes or olives come in good olive oil, you can use that for extra flavour)
400ml cold water
more olive oil, for drizzling
fine sea salt
handful of sun-dried tomatoes
handful of olives
fresh rosemary

Method:

If you’re making this in a mixer, pop your flour, salt, yeast, oil, and water in the bowl and start mixing on the slowest speed. Once it’s all combined, turn it up to a low-medium speed and let it mix for around 5-7 minutes. When you’re finished, leave the dough in the bowl and cover it with cling film. If you’re doing it by hand, put all the same ingredients in a large bowl but only use 300ml of the water. Mix it together with a wooden spoon to begin with, and when it comes together as a batter, gradually add your last 100ml water, working it in. Then you’re going to have to move to hand-kneading – I find that coating your hands in olive oil first stops the dough from sticking to you so badly. Knead it in the bowl for about five minutes, by stretching it up to shoulder height. When it starts to come together you can tip it out and knead it on an oiled surface for another five minutes. After you have finished, oil the bowl you started with, pop the dough back in, and cover it with cling film. Either way, leave in a warm place for an hour.
Line a large baking tray with parchment paper and then grease it with a little olive oil (I use a 33x20cm brownie tin for this, but size isn’t too important as long as it’s fairly large. You can also make two smaller loaves if you prefer). Oil your hands, tip the dough onto the baking tray, and flatten it out so that it reaches all the corners and sides. Cover and leave to prove for another hour.
Heat your oven to 220C/ 200C fan/ gas 6. With oiled fingers, poke your sun-dried tomatoes, olives, and sprigs of rosemary into the surface of your dough, pressing them right down so they don’t spring out during baking. Drizzle the whole thing with plenty of olive oil, sprinkle it with salt (the good stuff, Maldon or Cornish), and then bake it for around 20-25 minutes or until it’s golden and risen with a firm crust and the smell of fresh bread is driving everyone in your house crazy.

White Chocolate, Cranberry, and Pistachio Fudge

25th November 201625th November 20169 Comments

So, it’s exactly one month until Christmas day. Also, it’s a month minus two days until my birthday, in case you were wondering. You weren’t? You don’t care about my neglected and forgotten ill-timed December birthday? How very dare you and so on.

I always worry about Christmas presents. I am slightly uneasy with the consumerist mindset of buying loads of people loads of stuff that they don’t necessarily want in an arbitrary way. I know there are dozens of local charities that need my money more than my uncle needs a new sweater. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I buy things and I like giving gifts: I think Christmas can be a great opportunity to treat someone to something they have been really wanting or needing. But the fact is that you don’t necessarily know everyone in your ‘gift circle’ well enough to get them that perfect, meaningful, useful, lusted after Thing. And you feel rude showing up to someone’s house empty handed, especially when you know that they will have bought you a present. So you panic (or I do, at least) and end up buying them some perfume, or a book, or a gift voucher. And it’s well-meant, and I’m sure it’s appreciated. But it’s not necessarily something they really needed or wanted. And don’t we all just have too much stuff anyway?

I am also, to put it mildly, not exactly burdened by the weight of huge wads of cash. I simply can’t afford to go buying glamourous and exotic presents for every person who I’d like to show I care about at this time of year. The obvious solution is to do what I did last year and make a load of food instead. Yes, you are correct: this is my solution to all problems. But it made sense. I spent days making lots of gift food and packaging it all up in hampers for friends and family. It was less expensive than buying everyone proper presents, and while you don’t know if people are going to have already read that book you bought them, you can be confident that at some point they would probably like to eat some food.

This year, though, I’m doubting myself. Don’t home-made presents stop being desirable and adorable once the giver is past the age of six? What if everyone already has far too much food at this time of year and they’re gritting their teeth and smiling politely while inwardly groaning at having even more to get through? Will I look like a cheapskate giving people this stuff when they’ve actually spent proper money on gifts for my husband and I? Surely people are sick of me giving them food when I literally do that all the time?

I don’t know. I don’t have the answers. There isn’t a proper conclusion to this post.

Except this recipe for white chocolate, cranberry, and pistachio fudge. This is the sort of thing that would make a charming and thoughtful gift for people around the festive season. Or would it? I don’t know. Help me.

It’s really tasty though. I can attest to that because I ate a lot of it this week. Well, I did before I had my wisdom tooth taken out. Now I can’t really eat anything.

Notes: Obviously you can add any fruit, nuts, or chocolate you like. But this, believe me, is a winning combination.

I have a thermometer for testing the temperature of meat and sugar and things like that. I’m not pretending it’s not useful here – they are not expensive and if you do any cooking on a regular basis they are a good investment – but you can most definitely make this fudge without a sugar thermometer if you don’t have one to hand.

This is actually an incredibly simple and easy recipe, but it does require your fairly undivided attention for around twenty minutes. Listen to a podcast or something while you stir.

Ingredients:

500g double cream
500g golden caster sugar (gives it a better colour and flavour, I think, but white caster will work if that’s all you have)
3 tbsp liquid glucose (this sounds like a frightening ingredient but Dr Oetker do tubes of it you can get from Sainsburys)
1 tsp salt
100g good white chocolate (I like Green & Black’s)
75 shelled pistachios
100g dried cranberries

Method:

Put your cream, sugar, and liquid glucose into a big (this is important, a small one will not work), non-stick saucepan. Stir it all together and pop the pan on a low-medium heat so that the sugar can melt. Stir it occasionally (I find a silicone spatula works best for this) and make sure it’s not catching on the bottom. Meanwhile, grease and line a 20cm square tin with baking parchment. Chop your chocolate into big chunks. Chop your pistachios coarsely. Have your cranberries ready to go. Get a spoon and a glass of cold water and keep it by your pan, or get a sugar thermometer ready.
When the sugar has melted and the mixture no longer seems grainy, whack that heat up and boil your fudge mixture hard. Now you have to keep stirring all the time. This is why a big pan is needed, because it’s a lot of mixture and it will be bubbling and splashing around and you don’t want it all over everything (especially your hands, because it will burn you – wear an oven glove if you are nervous). You need to keep bubbling it away until it reaches soft ball stage, or around 118C. To test for soft ball stage, spoon a little mixture into your glass of water and it should form a soft ball you can squidge between your fingers. It will take a good ten or fifteen minutes – depending on your heat and pan – to get to this stage, so make sure you have reached it or your fudge won’t set.
When you’re there, take it off the heat. Stir in your cranberries, pistachios, and salt, and keep stirring for five minutes to let the mixture cool and thicken. Scatter in your white chocolate, stir roughly once, and immediately tip your fudge mixture into your lined tin and smooth it out – your white chocolate will melt and marble slightly, but if you over-stir it then it will just melt entirely into the mix (which will still taste good but look less pretty).
Your fudge should start setting pretty much immediately. I left mine on the counter for half an hour, then froze it for half an hour, and it set completely in the hour. When you’re happy, cut it into squares. It will keep for a couple of months (as long as you don’t let me anywhere near it), but don’t leave it in the fridge because it will go soft.

Double Chocolate Banana Bread

30th October 201630th October 20163 Comments

It’s very weird that it’s taken me so long to post this recipe, because this chocolate banana bread is the thing I bake more often than anything else. Even more than brownies. James’s work snack of choice is banana bread, and every couple of weeks I made a this loaf, slice it up, and freeze it so that he can take a piece out every morning. I actually buy more bananas than I know we can eat for the purpose of letting some of them go past their best in order to turn them into banana bread. I fear I am missing the point of fruit.

Banana bread has sort of gained an unearned reputation for being a healthier choice. I do have a recipe for spelt banana bread which is sort of ‘healthy’ (as it uses spelt and wholemeal flours, greek yoghurt, and maple syrup, rather than white flours and caster sugar) but it’s still, inescapably, cake. Banana bread, you guys, is cake. Let’s not be fooled by the fruit contained within and the sober sounding ‘bread’ in the title. Baking it in a bread tin does not make it bread. It’s no more virtuous than a Victoria sponge. Especially not when you do what I have done here and stuff it with chocolate. But why wouldn’t you? It’s so tasty.

It is a delight of a cake. It’s moist, decadent, and full of flavour. It’s very easy to make, and would be a fun, simple one to do with kids. It keeps beautifully, even if you don’t freeze it. You can make it with whatever chocolate you like, or mix it up and add nuts. None of the ingredients are obscure. I’ve drizzled the pictured banana bread with melted white chocolate, but this step could certainly be skipped.

You could even keep up the charade and pretend it’s healthy because it has bananas in it, if it will make you feel better. I won’t tell.

Source: Recipe adapted from the ever-excellent Smitten Kitchen.

Notes: This, and indeed any banana bread, will not work unless your bananas are very ripe. They can be over-ripe, almost completely black-skinned, but they can’t be firm and green.

You can use any type of chocolate for the chunks in the banana bread, but I love baked white chocolate and like the contrast between the dark cake and the pale chocolate here.

Ingredients:

3 large ripe bananas
115 grams butter, melted
150 grams light brown soft sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
125 grams plain flour
40g cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
100g white chocolate

50g white chocolate for drizzle (optional)

Method:

Put your butter on to melt gently. Heat your oven to 170C/ 150C fan/ gas 3. Grease a non-stick loaf tin. Mash your bananas in the bottom of a large bowl – if they are ripe enough, you should just be able to attack them with an electric hand whisk. Whisk in the melted butter, light brown soft sugar, egg, and vanilla. Place a sieve over the bowl and weigh the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt into it, then sift them over the wet mixture. Break your 100g chocolate into squares and add to the bowl. Fold everything together until only just combined, but do not mix further.
Pour your batter into your loaf tin and bake for around 40 mins, or until the banana bread is risen, firm, and passes the skewer test. Let cool in the tin for around 20 mins, then turn it out to cool completely (or just cut chunks off and stuff it into your mouth when it’s warm, as I definitely do not do every time). If finishing it with more white chocolate, simply melt the chocolate and drizzle over the cake, then leave to set at room temperature.

Crumpets

13th October 201613th October 20162 Comments

I didn’t realise it, but crumpets seem to inspire strong feelings in the general populace. The yeasted crumpets we know and love today are a gift from the Victorians and, as such, everyone has had plenty of time to form very definite opinions about them. I told a friend – a generally good and reasonable person – that I had made and was eating ridiculous amounts of crumpets. Upon hearing I was eating them with jam (shock! horror!) he was scandalised at the notion that I was adorning them with anything other than plain butter, and I’m not sure he’s entirely forgiven me. He is a purist who insists that crumpets + melted butter = perfection, and I am a heathen for messing with this equation. Unfortunately for him, I also love crumpets with a layer of Marmite, topped with a layer of cheese, and grilled until melty golden and delicious (try it, thank me later).

My butter-loving friend is not the only one with strong feelings. I gave some sample crumpets to a couple of other friends of mine after I’d made my first batch, as even I struggle to eat ten crumpets solo. One of these friends posted a picture of one of the crumpets I’d made on Facebook to say thank you, and a person I don’t know commented, saying ‘That looks suspiciously like a pikelet…’. I just love the use of the word ‘suspiciously’. As if it were a spy in disguise, infiltrating batches of baked goods, pretending to be a crumpet when it was only a humble pikelet. There’s a pikelet vs. crumpet debate to be had (although, frankly, who has that kind of time?), but as far as I understand it, pikelets are made without crumpet rings and thus tend to be shallower and more freeform as a result. What I made, then, are technically crumpets. Not that it matters at all, really, as both things are delicious.

I know crumpets are a fairly unusual thing to make, and I can’t deny that it is (a little) easier to simply buy a pack of them in a shop than it is to make them from scratch. But these fine specimens, hot from the pan, tender with gloriously buttery crisp edges, are much nicer than any shop-bought crumpet I’ve ever eaten. Yes, you do have to let the batter sit for an hour once you’ve made it, but it’s a very simple mixture made from cheap ingredients you probably have in the cupboard already, and it will take you literally five minutes to throw together. Also, because no one really makes crumpets from scratch, you will feel like an absolute rockstar for whipping up a batch for appreciative family or friends on a lazy weekend morning.

Notes:

The batter makes 10-12 crumpets, depending on how generous you are with depth and size.

This recipe is very unlikely to work properly if your bicarbonate of soda is out of date. I bake near-constantly, so I finish tubs of bicarbonate of soda and baking powder every month and am constantly purchasing new ones. However, if you turn out baked goods at a more sane rate then it’s perfectly possible that you have bicarbonate of soda that’s been sitting at the back of your cupboard for a couple of years. That stuff does go out of date. Check the label.

Normal people don’t tend to have crumpet rings. They are fairly cheap to buy, but if you don’t plan on making crumpets regularly I can see why you wouldn’t want to bother. But fear not! Just as with American pancakes, you can simply dollop the crumpet batter into a pan and it will cook away perfectly happily. Your crumpets will probably be a little flatter and more irregularly shaped (so technically pikelets, I think, but let’s not get into that), but they will still be completely delicious. Alternatively, if you have sets of cookie cutters (metal, not plastic, for obvious reasons) they will do the job too. Or you could just fill the pan and make one massive crumpet and slice it up, pizza style, to feed a brunch crowd. I haven’t actually tried this as the thought has only just occurred to me, but I can see no reason why it wouldn’t work and actually sounds pretty awesome.

Ingredients:

100ml water
275ml full fat milk
250g strong white bread flour
1 x 7g sachet dried yeast
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp caster sugar
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Butter, for greasing

Method:

Heat the water and milk together in a saucepan until hand-hot. Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl and add the yeast, caster sugar, bicarbonate of soda, and salt. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and gradually add the milk and water, beating with a wooden spoon, slowly drawing in more flour from the edges of the bowl as you add liquid until it is all smooth and incorporated (this is called the batter method, and is the best way to make a batter for crumpets, pancakes, Yorkshire puddings or whatever without getting lumps). Cover the bowl with cling film and leave the batter in a warm place for around an hour.
Your batter should now be thickened, obviously risen and full of bubbles. Grease crumpet rings with butter (if using) and melt a knob of butter in a non-stick pan over a medium heat until gently foaming. Place the rings (if using) into the pan and dollop around 4 tbsp of batter into each (until the rings are nearly full).
Lower the heat and cook the crumpets for around 10 mins. You want the crumpets to rise, form bubbles on the surface, and dry out all the way through. If your heat is too high, the bottoms of the crumpets will burn before they cook through. Remove the rings (with tongs, they will be hot) and flip the crumpets and cook for a couple of minutes more on the other side until golden.
Repeat until you have used all of your crumpet batter. Eat immediately, toast later, or even freeze and toast to defrost when crumpet cravings hit.

Savse Smoothies: Super Orange Prawn and Quinoa Salad with Mango Salsa

3rd October 20163rd October 20162 Comments

Autumn seems to have come suddenly this year. Our lovely, unexpected Indian summer has made the sudden shortening of the days rather startling, and I was dismayed to wake up at my standard 6.30am last week to see darkness outside instead of the bright dawns to which I have become accustomed. I don’t know why, but this surprises me every year, and I can’t quite remember how I got through the darker days last time around. Although I’m generally cheered by the inevitable slide into autumnal crumbles and stews, I felt like having one last go at a bright and sunshiney recipe before succumbing. And here it is.

In case you missed my last blog post, I’ll explain that I am collaborating with Savse, who make delicious smoothies packed full of healthy treats. I’ve tried lots of their range over the past couple of weeks, and this Super Orange smoothie is one of my favourites. It’s got a great balance of sweetness from mango and sharpness from citrus, undercut by the earthiness of carrots. I thought this sunshine drink would be great in a loosely Mexican-inspired dish, with fresh fish, creamy avocados, bright limes, punchy red chillies, and plenty of coriander.

The sweetness of the smoothie is a great partner to the spicy chilli in this dish, and it’s wonderful with the flavours of coriander and lime. I keep glancing out of the window as I write this, and although the temperature has started to drop, everything’s still wildly green and the sky is bright and clear. This is the perfect light meal for these last days of sunshine, or a great healthy pick-me-up for when it gets grey.

Notes: You can use whatever grains you like here – I used a mixture of brown rice and quinoa because it was what I had on hand, but either of those alone would do, as would something like freekeh.

The quantities here feed two people, but the dish can easily be scaled up for a crowd and served as a sharing platter.

Ingredients:

150g quinoa (or whatever grain you like)
1 ripe avocado

for the prawns

1/2 250ml bottle Savse Super Orange
1 clove garlic, crushed
180g raw prawns

for the mango salsa

1 small mango
1 small red chilli, de-seeded
1/2 bunch coriander, finely chopped
juice 1/2 lime
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper

for the dressing

1/2 250ml bottle Savse Super Orange
1 clove crushed garlic
1/2 bunch coriander, finely chopped
juice 1/2 lime
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper

Method:

At least an hour before you want to eat, prep your prawns by removing their shells and digestive tracts, then put them in a bowl with your smoothie and garlic. Mix, cover, and refrigerate.
When you’re ready to start preparing the rest of the dish, put your quinoa on to cook according to pack instructions – it should take around 20 minutes. While that’s cooking, heat a griddle pan with a glug of oil until it’s just smoking. Halve, peel, and de-stone your avocado, season, and then grill for about 1 minute per side, or until you have char-marks. Remove from pan, slice, and set aside.
To make your salsa, peel and dice your mango, de-seed and dice your chilli, chop your coriander (chop the whole bunch because you need the rest for the dressing), juice your lime, and mix all these things together with the oil. Season to taste.
To make your dressing, simply combine all your ingredients. I find the easiest way to do this is to put them all in a tupperware container or jar with a lid and shake. Taste and season. Drain your quinoa well, then mix in the dressing.
To cook your prawns, remove from the marinade and season. Wipe out and reheat your grill pan with some new oil. When it’s just smoking, grill your prawns until gently charred on the outside and warm, pink, and opaque all the way through. Serve your quinoa topped with the avocado, mango salsa, and prawns.

Savse Smoothies: Duck, Beetroot, and Crispy Potatoes, with Super Blue Sauce

26th September 201626th September 20164 Comments

This is obviously not a health food blog. This is a celebratory blog – an equal opportunities blog, where a glorious sponge cake decorated with fudgy frosting is given the same happy reception as a bright salad studded with seeds and fresh fruit. I have no personal need to focus on ‘free from’ food, I am far from a vegetarian, and I believe in eating and enjoying a huge range of things. Really, I just want things that taste good.

That’s why I was delighted when Savse got in touch and asked me if I’d like to participate in a collaboration with them, using their smoothies to devise new recipes. One of the rather lovely things about this sort of task is that you get sent products to experiment with and, lucky old me, these smoothies are completely delicious. They are cold-pressed and natural, with no added sugar, so great to have as a little energy booster and a helping hand towards your five-a-day.

I’ve started with a savoury recipe, which is a little more of a challenge with a fruit based smoothie, but one which I had lots of fun experimenting with. This duck dish is great because it looks fancy if you want to impress someone, but is actually full of really simple processes. The amount served here is enough for a light main course – think elegant lunch or a dinner after which you would like to eat a generous pudding – but could easily be bulked up if you were hungry by cutting the potatoes into chunky wedges instead of cute little cubes.

The thing that really makes the dish is the sauce. Everything else is tasty, but commonly found: pink duck breast with a meltingly crispy skin; golden little mouthfuls of salty potato; earthy-rich beetroot; delicate, fresh lamb’s lettuce. The sauce, though, is stuffed with intriguing flavours. Its base is the Savse Super Blue Smoothie, which is packed full of (deep breath) blueberry, kale, beetroot, spinach, blackcurrant, apple, strawberry, and orange. With all that going on, no wonder it makes such a rich and complex sauce. I took my inspiration for the recipe from the fact that lots of the ingredients in the smoothie are great tried-and-tested partners for duck – blueberry, beetroot, spinach, orange – and went from there. Happily, after my recipe-testing session, the plates were practically licked clean.

Notes: The sauce is the key element of this dish, and it’s the thing you need to pay most attention to. Taste it as you are going along – I am giving rough guidelines in terms of ingredients here. Add more or less of anything to your own personal preference.

If you would prefer to make big chips rather than little potato cubes, you should par-boil them in salted boiling water for five minutes before oven-cooking them, otherwise they might not cook through in the time it takes to prepare the rest of the dish.

The quantities given here will serve two people.

Ingredients:

2 duck breasts
2 pieces of pre-cooked vac-packed beetroot (or roast your own from raw if you’d rather)
1 large or 2 smaller potatoes
2 large handfuls of lamb’s lettuce (or another salad leaf of your choosing)
salt and pepper
olive oil

for the sauce

1 shallot
2 garlic cloves
1 250ml bottle Savse Super Blue Smoothie
1 small glass red wine (or to taste)
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper

Method:

Heat your oven to 220C/200C fan/gas 6. Peel your potato, and dice it into little cubes. Slice your pre-cooked beetroot into rounds. Place the beetroot on one side of a roasting tray, the potato on the other, and drizzle both with oil. Season generously. Place in the oven to roast for around 20 minutes, or until the beetroot is darkened and crisped at the edges and the potatoes are golden and cooked through.
Season your duck breast and place it skin side down in a cold, non-stick frying pan. Do not add oil. Put the pan on a medium heat and let the fat under the skin of the duck slowly render down for about 10 minutes – the pan will fill with the natural duck fat and the skin will become golden and crisp. Check it every now and then to see it’s not burning. While this is happening, finely dice your shallot and crush your garlic. When you’re happy with your duck skin, turn the duck breast over and quickly brown it on the flesh side for 1 minute, and then put it on a roasting tray, skin up, in the oven with your potatoes and beetroot for 10 minutes. (Note: this should give you lovely pink duck, but obviously depends slightly on your oven and the thickness of your meat). When the duck is done, take it out of the oven and let it rest for at least 5, preferably 10, minutes, while you finish off the dish.
Wipe out the frying pan you used for the duck, heat a splash of oil on a medium heat, and soften your shallot. After 3-5 minutes, add your crushed garlic. Cook for 1 minute, then add your bottle of smoothie. Turn up the heat and reduce the liquid down. Add the wine, vinegar, and plenty of seasoning, as well as any juices from the resting duck. Keep tasting it and adjusting according to your preference. You’re looking for a thick, dark, glossy sauce.
Slice your rested duck and serve with crispy potatoes, roast beetroot, salad leaves, and a drizzle of sauce. Finish off by pouring the rest of the sauce over your duck.

Almond Citrus Drizzle Cake

10th April 201610th April 20164 Comments

A couple of months ago, Felicity Cloake reminded me of the existence of the humble choc ice, the prize and delight of children at my primary school: I daresay that these days they have been replaced by something actually resembling a legitimate foodstuff, but when I was eight that slightly soggy cardboard box of reassuringly rectangular ice cream bars covered in something roughly approximating chocolate was pretty much the best thing going.

My favourite (read: only significant) choc ice memory is of the day at primary school when I fell in the playground and sprained my wrist. For some reason there were no ice packs available – perhaps they had been dispatched to other clumsy children – and so the school receptionist sent me back to my classroom with two choc ices secured around my injured wrist with rubberbands.

Of course, like any reasonable child, I promptly ate them.

It was around this age that I started baking. I began with the basics, as I guess most kids do: my family’s chocolate fudge cake; cookies; and the much-loved standby that is lemon drizzle cake. I don’t quite know what it is about the humble lemon drizzle, but it seems to have almost magical properties. When I am going to visit someone and I ask what cake they would like me to bring, lemon drizzle is the most common answer. People request it even more than they request chocolate cake (which would be my choice, every time, if someone offered to bring me a cake. Just, you know, FYI).

So I’ve made many lemon drizzle cakes over the years, and for a while I stuck to a very standard loaf cake. Which was great, but not particularly special. Then I stumbled across a recipe from the wonderful Jane Hornby – my idol, the person I want to be when I grow up – and saw the potential for something much more exciting. I had a play around with it and this is the result. Now, if anyone asks me for a lemon drizzle cake, they are getting this.

Apologies for the awful photos. I had a five minute window in a morning of baking an excessive amount of cake for a tea party and had to abandon any aesthetic principles I may sometimes pretend to have.

Source: Adapted from this absolutely and completely excellent book: What to Bake & How to Bake It, by the wonderful Jane Hornby.

Notes: I have kept the base of the cake much the same, substituting ground almonds for polenta and specifying full fat Greek yoghurt, which I use all the time in baking and generally in life because it’s glorious. It’s the finishing that I’ve messed with here, adding the step of a soaking syrup to veer us into the traditional lemon drizzle territory and finishing with the much-beloved glaze.

I like to do this with a mixture of citrus fruits, partly to add interest and vary flavour but mostly, I must admit, because I think the sprinkling of orange, yellow, and green zest looks pretty. However, if you have a particular preference or are limited by what’s knocking about in the fridge, do feel free to go for all lemon or all lime.

Ingredients:

2 lemons
2 limes
1 orange
225g butter
200g caster sugar
4 eggs
125g plain flour
125g ground almonds
pinch of salt
2 tsp baking powder
125g full fat Greek yoghurt

for the syrup

50g caster sugar
juice of 1 lemon, 1 lime, and 1 orange

for the drizzle

100g icing sugar
juice of 1 lemon

Method:

Heat your oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4, and grease and line a 22cm square tin. Zest the lemons, limes, and orange, then juice them. It’s fine to mix all the zests together, but keep the juices separate. Beat the butter and sugar with 2 teaspoons of the mixed zest, reserving the rest. Beat the eggs in a small bowl, then gradually add them to the butter and sugar, beating all the while.
Mix the flour, ground almonds, salt, and baking powder together, then sift half of it over the butter, sugar, and egg mixture and fold it all together, tossing in any ground almonds left in the sieve. Fold in the yoghurt, then sift and fold in the remaining flour mixture. Scrape batter into tin, level surface, then bake for 20 minutes, or until golden and risen. Turn the oven down to 160C/140C fan/gas 3 and bake for 15 minutes more.
While the cake is baking, make the syrup. Mix the citrus juice (feel free to adjust to take) and the sugar in a pan, then heat gently for a couple of minutes until the sugar has dissolved. When the cake comes out of the oven, leave it in the tin and poke around 20 holes in it with a skewer, then pour over the syrup and let it sink in.
Leave the cake to cool completely. Make the drizzle by sifting the icing sugar into a bowl and gradually, a teaspoon at a time, whisking in the lemon juice. You want a thick icing that holds its shape, and it’s very easy to add too much liquid, so go slowly. When the cake is cool, chuck the drizzle on in an artistic manner and then sprinkle over your leftover zest.

Easter Brownies Two Ways

27th March 201627th March 20164 Comments

Childhood Easter egg hunts are the very stuff of dreams, no? They’re one of those experiences that are utterly magical when you’re small, and it’s the sort of magic that, sadly, cannot be replicated as an adult. Never again will dashing around the garden, crazy high on sugar and looking for your next hit, basket clutched in sticky hands, hold the same delight. Now I am unlikely to run for anything unless being chased by something genuinely dangerous, and I have the means to simply go out and buy chocolate of my own accord. These developments are welcome, but they sadly come at the expense of the exhilarating Easter egg hunts I once knew.

Just a quick post today with a very simple idea: Easter brownies for kids and adults. I love brownies and I go on about them on here all the time, but so far I have only posted one recipe, so now it’s time for me to start slowly expanding my archives. Here, I’ve taken one basic brownie recipe, inspired by the standard in my Leiths textbook, and have suggested two completely different variations. For kids, a lighter chocolate, pieces of toffee, and an assortment of bright eggs. For adults, rich and dark 85% chocolate, homemade marzipan, cherries, a hefty dollop of kirsch, and some white chocolate drizzle. I mean, in theory, one was for kids and one was for adults, but there’s nothing to stop adults eating the kid version, as James proved when he took them into the office. Er, maybe kids shouldn’t eat the adult version though, because they’ve got quite a bit of booze in them.

So it’s just a quick post today, because I have eaten a horrifying and wonderful amount of chocolate and I need to go and have a lie down. Whatever you are up to on this Sunday which is both sunny and stormy (somehow), I hope you’re having a lovely time and enjoying some shameless decadence.

Source: My base recipe is adapted from the one in the Leiths book, which I use on a daily basis.

Notes: This recipe will work best in a 20cm x 20cm square tin. They keep very well and freeze excellently (simply zap a frozen brownie in the micowave for 30 seconds in a chocolate deprivation emergency and enjoy a gooey treat). I always undercook my brownies so that they are fudgy and delicious and, when hot from the oven, almost spoonable, but feel free to leave yours in the oven for an extra 5 minutes if you are looking for something a little bit more robust.

The method is the same for both versions, with slightly different additions.

Ingredients:

200g chocolate (60% for the kid version, 85% for the adult version)
140g butter
225g golden caster sugar
2 large eggs, plus 1 extra yolk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp salt
90g plain flour for kid version, 120g plain flour for adult version

For kid version

2x 90g packets of little eggs (I have used Cadbury and Galaxy here, but anything will work), half left whole and half chopped roughly
3 Creme Eggs cut in half (I find a knife dipped in hot water best for this)
50g toffee pieces

For adult version

100g marzipan, cut into roughly 2cm chunks (I made my own but shop bought is fine – let me know if you want a home made marzipan recipe and I am happy to post one)
4 tbsp kirsch
100g pitted cherries, chopped roughly (I used tinned here)
50g white chocolate

Method:

Break your chocolate into pieces and chop your butter into rough cubes and place them both in a glass or metal bowl over a pan of gently simmering water and leave them to melt, stirring occasionally. Preheat your oven to 180C/160C fan/ gas 4. Grease your square tin. I line the base too, because, you know, belt and braces, but if you have a good non-stick tin or one with a removable base then you can get away with not doing that.
While your chocolate and butter melt, mix your eggs with your extra yolk and your vanilla, and weigh out your sugar. Chop and prep whichever additional ingredients you are using. When your chocolate and butter have completely melted, beat in your sugar (I use an electric hand whisk), followed by your eggs. Sift the flour and salt over the mixture and then beat that in too. For the kid version, stir through some chopped and whole eggs and half your toffee pieces. For the adult version, stir through your cherries, marzipan, and kirsch. Pour the mixture into the tin, smooth the surface, and bake for 25-30 mins or until done to your satisfaction. You want a crisp and crackly top, but remember they will firm up a bit as they cool.
For the kid version, grab your brownies out of the oven 5 minutes before they are due to be done and press the Creme Egg halves and remaining mini eggs into the surface of the mixture, then continue to bake for 5 mins until they are slightly melted into the surface. For the adult version, melt the white chocolate while the brownies are cooking and let them cool for five minutes before drizzling it over the finished product.

Chocolate Vortex Muffins

1st March 20166th March 20163 Comments

This is a ridiculous name for a recipe, and yet it’s what I have always called these muffins, and now, try as I might, I can’t seem to think of another name for them which works for me. I think that once you have moved past chocolate, and double chocolate, and triple chocolate, you are not really supposed to start calling something quadruple chocolate: the thing has surpassed all the normal chocolate categories and become something else. If we can think of a vortex as something regarded as drawing into its power everything that surrounds it, then the title of this post doesn’t seem so odd, at least to me – I was certainly drawn into the power of these muffins and somehow ate three in a row without really thinking. It also sort of reminds me of one of my favourite things on the whole entire world wide web.

I feel like muffins have been slightly forgotten in the cupcake craze of the last decade, which makes me sad. I love a cupcake, as evidenced by the many cupcake recipes on this blog, but I still have a great deal of time for the lesser-spotted muffin, delicious as they are unadorned with pretty frosting and edible glitter. Muffins are solid, dependable, a vehicle for all manner of loveliness. Their pleasing heft and straight-from-the-oven gooey warmth should not be underestimated.

Baked white chocolate is a wonderful thing. I know a lot of chocolate lovers who spurn the white stuff, insisting that it’s ‘not real chocolate’ and is vastly inferior to the stuff with actual cocoa solids. While I know they are technically right, I don’t mind white chocolate – although it’s certainly not my favourite – and would quite happily gnaw away on the better quality varieties. However, white chocolate becomes truly lovely when baked. I don’t know why (maybe because the sugars caramelise?), but it melts more quickly than milk or dark chocolate, turns a beautiful toasty colour, and develops a surprising depth of flavour.

I feel honour-bound to admit that I was making these in a great rush, and initially forgot to add the milk. I looked at my dry, lumpy batter in confusion for a moment before remembering, and quickly dashed in the milk, swearing and beating the mixture rapidly. The muffins came out absolutely fine, so I think it’s fair to say the batter is pretty forgiving.

Notes: These muffins are best when slightly under-baked in the centre, when they become gooey, volcanic, and irresistible, so do err on the side of caution and don’t leave them in the oven forever. They do keep fairly well, though, and are very hearty and chunky beings. You should get 12 good size muffins from this recipe.

I like to make these in the tulip muffin cases in the photos – you can get them from any supermarket, or even fold them yourself out of greaseproof paper if you are crafty – but obviously these are not essential and feel free to use whatever muffin cases you have kicking about.

I tend to keep back a few bits of chocolate from the main mix and push them into the top of the muffins once the mixture has been divided between cases, just before baking, to get the full effect of the glorious bronzed white chocolate.

Source: I got this recipe off the internet years and years ago and saved it to my hard-drive, and have since played about with it a bit. I’m afraid I have no idea where it was from originally, so if you do recognise it then please let me know.

Ingredients:

175g good dark chocolate, 70% cocoa solids
325g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
70g cocoa powder – not the drinking chocolate stuff, proper cocoa powder
125g light brown soft sugar
365ml whole milk
100ml vegetable oil or other flavourless oil such as corn oil
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
125g milk chocolate – either break a bar into pieces, or use chocolate buttons, which work well here
125g white chocolate – as above, buttons work well

Method:

Get your dark chocolate melting slowly in a glass bowl over a pan of simmering water. Preheat your oven to 180C/ 160C fan/ gas 4. Line your muffin tin with paper cases. Sieve your dry ingredients – flour, baking powder, and cocoa powder – into your largest bowl and stir in the sugar. Make a well in the middle.
Measure your milk and oil into a measuring jug, pop in your eggs and vanilla, and whisk it all up to combine. Slowly pour the wet ingredients into the well of the dry ingredients, stirring to combine until evenly mixed. Working quickly now, fold in your melted dark chocolate and your pieces of milk and white chocolate.
Divide your mixture equally between muffin cases and bake for 17-2o minutes, or until risen and mostly set but slightly gooey in the middle. Cool on a wire rack, or shove muffins into your mouth hot, by the handful.