Of all my food weaknesses I’d have to say bread and salted butter is my greatest. After having a week off work testing bread recipes I’ve certainly eaten plenty of slices this week!
Tag: recipe
Passionfruit and lime curd
This stuff disintegrates on the tongue and has the silkiest feel, shortly followed by the strongest kick of citrus I’ve ever experienced. It thickens up pretty quick, and you wont want to browse through your phone whilst you whisk away because you might just be mesmerised by the most beautiful shades of yellow melding together in the pan. Continue reading
Caramelised white chocolate and pecan cookies
Sometimes I just absolutely have to bake cookies. There’s no negotiation. Luckily 9 times out of 10 I have all the ingredients in ready to whip of a bowl of dough. After reading Michelle’s post last week about slice and bake chocolate chip cookies I had to give them a go. So Friday afternoon Matilda and I played in the kitchen and made cookies. I didn’t freeze them but just left them in the fridge overnight. The recipe is from Tara O’Brady at Seven Spoon’s book and is my new favourite cookie recipe. So so easy and tastes amazing.
It’s been a while since I revisited caramelised white chocolate and I forgot that it’s actually a doddle to make. I had a couple of bars of Lindt white chocolate lying around from Christmas – how these didn’t get eaten I don’t know, White chocolate is like crack to me. I heated my oven to the lowest heat – 130 C/266 F – and spread chopped white chocolate over a clean oven tray. At ten minute intervals I stirred the chocolate around the tray with a spatula until it was smooth and golden. I transferred the melted chocolate to a small tray and let it re-set in the fridge before I chopped it into caramelised white chocolate chips. Just try not to eat them all before they go into the dough. It’s basically a homemade Caramac bar.
I had Matilda’s wonderful assistance the second time as well and whilst I was taking the photos she brazenly walked up and helped herself to a cookie. I said if she was going to pinch the cookies she could at least be cute and hold a plate of them as well >.<
These cookies are crisp and buttery on the edges and soft in the middle. The caramelised white chocolate works perfectly with the pecans and a hint of sea salt on top balances everything out. Just as in Michelle’s post you can of course freeze the dough in balls if you only want a few at a time. If you want to make a full batch then leave them in the fridge overnight. Letting the dough rest is like magic and the difference between baking straight away and waiting overnight is very noticeable. They are definitely worth the wait.
Kitchen sink raspberry jam blondies
This is my favourite kind of baking. Throw everything in baking. This tray of blondies seriously disappeared in less than 24 hours. I didn’t even have a full tray to photograph because it was too dark when it came out of the oven and there was no way we weren’t going to eat them until the next morning. Sorry, I have no self control when it comes to eating cake.
Seasonal Eating in June & July
British tomato season is upon us! They’ve come a long way since first being cultivated in South America in around 700AD – literally, as tomato seeds spent six years in a satellite orbiting Earth. In addition to being the base of loads of sauces, they’re full of vitamins and anti-oxidants, which almost certainly means pizza is a health food. At the very least, we can feel virtuous with dishes like basil tagliatelle with fiery cherry tomatoes or avocado, tomato, and goat’s cheese toast. For a more robust meal, look towards baked cod bruschetta with hot tomato & aubergine salsa, or if breakfast’s your thing, a Mexican hash brown stack. Continue reading
Flourless caramelised white chocolate and mini egg cake
My contribution to Easter: taking a recipe that really really doesn’t need to be any sweeter, and adding Mini Eggs to it. It sounds gross, but most of what baking is is layering sweet things on top of each other. You’re supposed to introduce a savoury element, reduce the sugar where appropriate, balance the flavours (salt, acid etc.) in your baking to make sure the end product isn’t cloyingly sweet. Instead, I thought about the flourless dark chocolate cake and I wondered whether it would work with white chocolate and Mini Eggs. The result has the texture of a blondie, just a little bit gooier because of the lack of flour. You still get a crackly top – I always feel disappointed when I see a brownie/blondie without one so this was definitely a win-win situation.
The cake would have been too sweet if I didn’t caramelise the chocolate for an hour and a half, even if sticking your head in a hot oven every ten minutes to stir chocolate feels a bit OTT – caramelising the chocolate is necessary, especially if you’re going to add crushed up bits of chocolate that contain an indecent amount of palm oil and E numbers. If you can’t be bothered to caramelise the white chocolate and can’t justify buying a 2.5kg bag of it (smaller quantities yet to be seen), you could fold through crushed raspberries. Or save yourself the hassle, use dark chocolate, leave out the Mini Eggs and serve with a dollop with crème fraiche – it doesn’t get much more sophisticated than a flourless chocolate cake, and it would make the ultimate dinner party dessert. Continue reading
Chamomile buttermilk pie in a chocolate crust
Another day, another pie. I promise that my next post will not have a short crust casing! It might be something round, but that’s about as pie-like as it’s gonna get. As for the last of the pie chronicles, this one took me by surprise. It claims to be a buttermilk custard pie, but the taste is so similar to cheesecake that I have to question whether it’s custard at all. It’s not too sweet, thick and creamy and has a tangy flavour – pretty much everything you’d ask for in a cheesecake.
I infused the cream in chamomile before adding it to the rest of the “custard” ingredients for a very subtle tea-ish flavour. If you want something more pronounced, I recommend using Earl Grey or Lapsang Soushong.
I used the leftover chocolate pastry from the white bottom matcha pie as there was plenty leftover. It’s a system of waste not want not really, and since we’ve taken an interest in saving our planet recently (and for good reason – our sea mammals shouldn’t have to swim amongst our waste products) it makes sense to do a kind of ‘look what you can make with your leftover pastry dough’ kinda post. Continue reading
Beetroot Crème Egg brownies
Let me just round this off by saying that beetroot and crème eggs go REALLY well together. Admittedly, grated beetroot folded into a brownie and then topped with an overly sweet (and therefore only acceptable at Easter time slash all year) confection is a far cry from perfect – think savoury chunks that, better welcomed in a summer salad. Continue reading
Rhubarb kadaif pie
I don’t really eat pies with the filling in mind. For me it’s all about the pastry mixed together with custard and a bit of the fruit juices – that makes the perfect mouthful of pie and any chunks of soggy fruit just get in the way of my pleasurable experience. This winter though, I’ve become unhealthily attached to roasted rhubarb. I’ve been eating it with yogurt for breakfast, using it to make a British Bakewell classic and drinking rhubarb soda to pep me up for the last leg of the bakery shift. I’m even feeling a bit anxious for when this forced Yorkshire rhubarb season draws to a close, other roasted fruit just doesn’t offer the same texture and tartness – even if they are much cheaper. Continue reading