Food and wine matching - part 1.

"Good wines if you can afford 'em, tra la la la la la la la, will soon do away with boredom, tra la la la la la la!" Or so go to the words to the champagne chorus in the opera "Die Fledermaus" - in which I will be singing the part of Ida next February.

Recently the husband and I decided that life's too short to drink bad wine, and no longer were we prepared to slum it with three for a tenner deals.  For some (who know who they are) life's too short to drink any wine, but that's not for me to discuss here...  We would much rather have something of higher quality and less of it, a bit like our attitude to meat.

Anyway, as luck would have it, I was one of ten lucky people on Facebook, out of over two thousand commenting no less, who were chosen to be wine reviewers for  Asda, specifically for their extra special Barbera as featured in a recent TV advert. The idea was to like the post, and add a comment stating why you would like to be an Asda wine taster.  Not thinking in the slightest that I'd be successful, but at the same time that you had to be in it to win it, I posted the following comment:

"Hubby and I would love to be tasters please.  We are loyal Asda shoppers and regular red wine drinkers. I also write a food blog and I'm planning a post on matching wines with food. :-)"

 

A bit of creeping, I said "please" and insinuated I'd be sharing it, and sort of promised them some publicity, so I hoped I might get picked. I had forgotten all about it until about a week later when a message arrived from Asda asking for my address and phone number so they could deliver me six bottles, and it arrived a few days later.  Three different reds and three different whites - and all that was asked of me was to comment on them on social media including the hashtag #asdawine.

 

 

 

The first one we tried was a Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon Valle de Colchagua 2011. We don't usually go for a Cabernet as they tend to have a lot of tannin and are better with food than on their own, but this was very smooth. We had it to accompany roast gammon with clementines and ginger, plus the remains of the bottle the next day with a vegetable pizza.

 

The next one we had was Spanish. Old vine garnacha 2012, another red.  We paired it with a Spanish dish of poached chicken breast and cavolo nero (black kale) on a bed of butter beans and chorizo with some of the poaching liquid, and sprinkled with smoked paprika. It also went well with a pistachio praline in dark chocolate that I had afterwards by way of a mini pudding. 

 

The third bottle was a white - Chilean again - Sauvignon Blanc Romeral Vineyard 2012.  Hubby said it was the tastiest white wine he had ever had.  It was very floral and recommended with Thai food.  A friend had given us some home made Thai curry paste she had made and I was looking forward to trying it out so after discussion we went for a prawn curry.  I found the recipe on the BBC Good Food website and tweaked it a bit.  Basically you soften onion and grated root ginger in some oil, then add the curry paste followed by a sachet of creamed coconut and a tin of chopped tomatoes.  I added some chopped fresh tomatoes too as they needed using up and it worked very well, making the dish extra fresh tasting.  Then the prawns went in, I happened to have cooked ones so I just heated them through in the sauce, though the recipe stated raw ones and cook for longer.  Served with fragrant rice and a sprinkling of coriander leaves, it was hugely successful, mainly due to the fabulousness of the curry paste, better than any jar!  It was deemed to be the best curry I have ever made.  The wine matched it perfectly, standing up well to the chilli heat.

 

 

My wine and food pairings were partly guided by Asda Master of Wine Philippa Carr's recommendations on the back of the bottle, and partly due to general wine knowledge gained from my Dad over the years, and from reading "Jancis Robinson's Wine Course" ages ago.  I'm no expert,  but I've been to a couple of tastings run by a local company, and like to think I know a bit about wine.  Sometimes it's not about whether to have red or white or rose with a dish, but about how full bodied the wine is and how strongly flavoured the food is.  I'm looking forward to tasting the other three bottles, including the Barbera, and they'll be discussed in part 2 of this blog post.

 

In case you're wondering, all the wines retailed at £5 a bottle, though I noticed in store that that was the rollback price and the full price of the Garnacha was £8-something.

 

A few days later I won another prize on Facebook - a  Lurpak tea towel!  One of twenty lucky winners picked out of about 750 commenting on a post about favourite soups.  I wonder what the third thing will be?  Remember - you've got to be in it to win it!

 

Thanks for reading, lots more planned, and I won't leave it so long next time.

 

Caroline x

 

#asdawine

Adventures in pasta-making.

I've recently had a birthday, and my lovely husband bought me the present I really wanted: the pasta roller and cutter attachments for my kitchen aid mixer.  Pasta has been around since 1154 and for years I've been wanting to have a go at making my own, but never got around to it.  According to Wikipedia Italians eat sixty pounds in weight of pasta per person per year, and they have to import wheat to make it as their individual consumption exceeds the average production of wheat in the country.

The kitchen aid attachment is fab because there's no turning handles, the rollers turn automatically at a speed set by you, and you have both hands free to manoeuvre the dough, which makes it so much easier. Another bonus is that it comes with two cutting attachments for spaghetti and fettucine (it says tagliatelle on the box but the word fettucine is actually etched into the metal - anyway one is just a slightly bigger version of the other) - so you can almost effortlessly create perfect spaghetti or ribbons of pasta which would be tricky by hand.

There is also a ravioli maker but that costs a whopping £90 extra so I think when I try that it'll be hand crafted...

The attachment - attached!

Close up of the rollers.

 Feeding the dough through, to knead and thin it.

The cutting attachment...

The finished dish: fettucine with salmon, asparagus and peas in a crème fraiche, lemon and dill sauce.  The hubby's verdict: "I'm never eating dried pasta again!"

 

 

You get an idea of the process from the photos, but I need to go back to the beginning of the story.....

  

The first thing you need to make pasta is the right kind of flour, you can't just use bog standard SmartPrice Plain flour.  It took a bit of hunting down but I got there in the end.  I was hopeful that I would find it in our large local supermarket, and at first I thought they didn't have any.  So I phoned my brother-in-law and sister-in-law who are pasta pros and make it all the time to find out where they source their flour.  It turned out they bought it from Carluccio's and they kindly offered to get me some the next time they get some for themselves, together with some semolina flour which is apparently great for dusting the finished pasta with before cooking to give the correct "bite".  However, I wanted to get started that very day as I had promised the family fresh pasta for dinner so I rang two other  nearby supermarkets who did stock it but didn't happen to have any in at the moment.  Disappointed, I had one more look at the flour section and hiding at the bottom, at the back, and happily on special offer too I found "00 Grade Premium Plain Flour" and in smaller writing "suitable for pastry, sauces and pasta"!!  00 grade flour uses the purest, whitest, central part of the wheat (or so the packet says).  The resulting flour is incredibly silky and white and blends more easily with fats and liquid than other flours. I was very happy and hot footed it home to start experimenting. 

 

 

 

Although you can make the dough easily enough just on the worktop and knead it by hand, I thought as I did have a mixer why not make use of it?  So I followed the instructions and mixed the flour and eggs with the flat beater, changed to the dough hook and kneaded for two minutes, then another two minutes by hand.  Then it needs to chill and rest for a bit.  The kitchen aid recipe book said one hour, the kitchen aid instructions for the pasta attachment said 20 minutes, the sister-in-law said it's supposed to be ten but a couple will do!  I can't remember what we did in the end but it wasn't very long.  Then came the fun part.

 

The dough was divided into three portions to make it easier to handle, then flattened out with a rolling pin before feeding it through the rollers with the mixer on speed 2.  The rollers start out quite far apart and as you feed it through more and more times you adjust the rollers (easily, no faffing about) from setting 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 to 5.  The dough gets passed through several times (between 5 and ten times on each setting, folding in half each time until you get to setting 5), ending up with really thin pasta ready for cutting with the other attachment(s).  This may seem like a bit of a palaver but actually it's fast and fun without having to turn a handle! After cutting you can dry it but if you're going to cook it straight away there's no need.  I found when dropped into salted water at a rolling boil it took about 5 minutes to cook, I'm sure it depends on the size and thickness of the pasta and how "al dente" you like it as I know people who only cook fresh pasta for 45 seconds.

 

So - my first attempt at pasta was a success, and my daughter enjoyed it too, so much so that she wants to make us fresh pasta for dinner when we come home form work!  Yes please. 

 

I think there's a lot of conflicting information out there, and I've got a lot to learn and a lot of experimenting to do - the aforementioned brother-in-law and sister-in-law have given me tips already, such as using a pizza wheel to cut it up, and putting garlic oil in the water, but I'm sure there will be a "further adventures in pasta-making" blog post in the future.  I want to use some really good free range eggs (there's a lady at work who sells them from her chickens) to get a better yellow colour, for example. I'd also like to experiment with adding other ingredients to the mixture, making ravioli and tortelloni etc. Also need to get the portion sizes sorted, we used 300g flour and 3 eggs between four of us and there wasn't any left, maybe we were just keen for the first ever helping...

 

Thank you for reading.  Feel free to comment, or share this blog with anyone who you think might like to read it.

 

Caroline x



 

A passion for fruit (Part 2)

Ok, so at the end of the last post I had gooseberries and blackcurrants to use up.  A friend told me about her Mum's gooseberry flan with German "biscuit pastry" so I thought I'd have a go at that.  The biscuit pastry was made in an entirely different way to any pastry I'd made before, and it used vanilla sugar which I liked the sound of.  You stir the dry ingredients together, add milk, then cut the cold fat onto it and knead together.  Maybe I was doing it wrong but I found the end result a bit dry and crumbly and tricky to roll out.  I did manage to get it into the tin eventually, but some of it went in jigsaw puzzle fashion.  The recipe said to roll out a long sausage and put it around the edges, but it was too dry for this so I just squashed the remains of the pastry into the sides of the tin and blind baked it.  Then I added the gooseberries (stewed with sugar and the juice drained off) and glazed with the juice cooked with a bit more sugar and some cornflour to thicken in a pan.  I finished it with some blanched almonds I happened to have in the cupboard, gently toasted in the oven.

 

I liked the end result, but some family members would have preferred more sugar in the gooseberries, and I'm not sure I'd make the biscuit pastry again, I'll probably use the sweet pastry recipe made in the processor that I'm used to but substitute vanilla sugar.

 

As for the blackcurrants, I had found a recipe on the BBC food website for blackcurrant and mint sorbet.  I had all the ingredients, including plenty of mint growing in the garden and liquid glucose in the cupboard.  I started by making a sugar syrup and steeping a big handful of mint leaves in it.  When it was cool I discarded the mint and cooked the blackcurrants in the syrup with liquid glucose, which stops the formation of too many ice crystals, good for someone like me who doesn't have an ice cream maker.  When soft, the fruit was whizzed in the processor then pushed through a metal sieve to get rid of the pips.  The juice of two lemons was added and the mixture allowed to cool.  Then I froze it in a lunchbox, giving it a mash with a potato masher two or three times over a few hours.  And that was it.  Most refreshing.

Another fruity recipe I've made only this morning was a raspberry variation on a lemon meringue pie.  I thought, just for once and for an experiment, I'd do something I'd never done before and use a pre made pastry case, bought from the supermarket.  I wasn't holding out too much hope, as it's best before date was December (can pastry really keep that long?) and the ingredients list revealed it was made with margarine which I am not a fan of, but to be honest it wasn't that bad.

The raspberry mixture was made by pureeing the raspberries, again using the sieve to de pip them, and mixing with melted butter, sugar, 3 whole eggs and 2 extra yolks in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water.  I was cursing myself as I tried to separate the eggs and kept getting bits of yolk in the whites reserved for the meringue topping... I put them in the fridge for scrambled egg later.  The raspberry mixture took ages to thicken, I hate recipes that say "cook until thick" without giving you any idea if that will take 45 seconds or 45 minutes!  I made notes for this blog with the other hand while I was stirring it!!  Eventually it did thicken and was poured into the pastry case and cooked for 15 minutes.  This led me to a other downside of the bought pastry case.  Not big enough!!  So I poured the rest of the mixture into a cereal bowl to make a smaller pastry free version (suitable for coeliacs!!) Then the egg whites were whisked with sugar and cream of tartar to make the meringue which was blobbed on top, styled with a palette knife and baked for another ten minutes.  And the end result was a good four and a half out of five, probably would have been a five with home made pastry.  I wonder if anyone else has had warm raspberry meringue pie for breakfast?

 

 

I've just discovered dropbox.  It's one of those things, like the amazon cloud player, that everyone else has probably been using for ages but I've only just found out about.  It makes adding photos to my blog so easy, take with phone or upload from camera and ping! they are on all computers including my netbook so wherever I am, I can find them easily.  Genius.

 

I'm going to Wales on holiday in a few days, so hoping to have some delicious Welsh foodie experiences.  More posts soon.

 

Thank you for reading,

 

Caroline :-)

 

A passion for fruit (Part 1)

The title of this post is slightly misleading, as I haven't really got a huge passion for fruit, in fact I prefer vegetables.  However, at a recent "over 40s health check" at my GP surgery, the nurse told me that many people make up their five a day with mainly fruit and not many vegetables, and that this can be a problem, as fruit is higher in natural sugars, leading to obesity and so on. Fruit is also generally lower in fibre, iron, calcium, folate and some vitamins compared to veg.

Having said all that, I do like fruit, but more so when not just eaten as it comes but transformed into something a bit more interesting.  This week I have been to my parents house and picked gooseberries, blackcurrants and raspberries, and needed to discover something to do with them.

The raspberries were eaten by the kids, and added to my breakfast cereal and yogurt.  The gooseberries and blackcurrants were partly used to make a Nigel Slater recipe: gooseberry and blackcurrant crumble cake.  He suggested a few fruits that would work, including these two, but his final version was made with just gooseberries.  I decided to use half and half gooseberries/blackcurrants.  You make a sponge with ground almonds in, and before cooking it top with a layer of fruit and a layer of crumble mixture.  It worked fairly well, but was a bit overdone around the edges, I think it would have benefitted by having some brown paper tied around the outside of the tin with string, like I do with Christmas cakes.  It tasted good though with a cup of tea, once I had cut off the very outside edges. I might try it with cream later too.

The title of this post was also inspired by another recipe of Nigel Slater's that I discovered the other day - passion fruit creams.  Passion fruits are sometimes the fruit that nobody knows what to do with, and lots of people seem to not like them.  Maybe it's because they're a bit "perfumed", maybe it's because they have quite big seeds and you might not know whether to eat them, or they're a bit too crunchy.  It might be because people eat them under-ripe and not sweet enough.  You can tell when a passion fruit is ripe because its outer skin goes from smooth to dimpled like a golf ball.  I find it takes a good week after buying them from a supermarket for them to be properly ripe.  The first time I used passion fruit in a recipe was last year, when I made a passion fruit tart with coconut pastry, and also a lemon and passion fruit tart.  Since then I've used one together with strawberries and cream to fill a "Wimbledon Cake" - on the cover of Mary Berry's Baking Bible if anyone has that book - oh, and I had one on my weetabix, which worked really well, and that's about it, until today.

 A nearly ripe passion fruit.

The passion fruit creams were easy to make, you halve them and scoop out the seeds and pulp into a sieve over a jug, scraping as much of the juice and pulp through the sieve with a teaspoon, leaving the seeds behind.  This took rather a long time, and I hoped the end result would be worth it (and it was), but I got 100ml of juice from eight passion fruit, leaving a lot of seeds left behind.  Some of them got added back to the dish later, but most were composted, which seemed like a bit of a waste when they are edible, but while a few for a little bit of texture are nice, too many would have spoilt the finished dish.

Then you boil cream and sugar together for a few minutes, and add some lemon juice and some of the passion fruit juice, cool and pour into tiny espresso cups.  I bought some cups really cheaply on ebay ages ago and had been waiting for a recipe such as this to use them!  Then after putting a few seeds back into each one for texture and interest, and refrigerating for a few hours, they are served with more passion fruit juice poured on top, to mingle with the creams when you eat them.  My daughter and her friend have just tried one and they got the thumbs up.

You might have noticed the title says "Part 1".  Part 2 is going to be about what I do with the rest of the gooseberries and blackcurrants.  Any suggestions gratefully received!

To be continued...

Thank you for reading.

Caroline :-)

Spice up your life.

I've grown to like chillies more and more since I started this cooking thing... I will never like food as spicy as my husband, but I can stand the heat much more now than I used to.  Mum never used chilli in anything when I was young.  Curries used mild curry powder, and a chilli con carne was not spicy at all.  In total contrast, these days our house is full of assorted chilli based flavourings and condiments, and my husband and his brothers are on a non stop quest to discover the best chilli sauce.

Drowning everything in chilli sauce is sometimes, I feel, a little bit insulting to the cook, as it can drown out the other flavours and ruin a dish.  However, I've kind of got used to it.. perhaps the hubby's taste buds have been dulled by years of smoking...  I do agree that a little dip of it can really lift a dish, it works very well with oriental flavours like the twice cooked melting pork I made the other weekend, garnished with slices of raw red chilli and spring onions; it also works really well with cabbage, I've discovered.

I like Blue dragon sweet chilli sauce, it comes in mild, original and hot strengths. Also Riverford the vegbox people do a lovely organic one.  There's a company called Jules & Sharpie who make a hot pepper jelly, again in various strengths, and we bought it online in little plastic buckets!

The husband's favourite for quite some time though is the Flying Goose Brand from Sriracha - imported from Thailand and available in Asda, though only the one with the green lid.  The ones with the yellow and purple lids (see below) is the extra garlic versions and are extra delicious, they are available from other supermarkets (and via assorted brothers in law!) and online.

I have made my own "nam jim" thai chilli dipping sauce, we had it drizzled over ginger poached chicken and spring herb salad:

A friend of mine also made her own chilli sauce, which was successful, apart from the part where she tried to remove her contact lenses afterwards!  Ouch!  You do need to be aware that the juice doesn't wash off with soap and water so the zing will stay on your fingers for a good while afterwards, unless you use an astringent such a witch hazel or cold tea (only just found that out, and I'll be giving it a try soon).  I used to put my hand in a plastic bag when I chopped them, but I can't be bothered with that these days. 

Fresh chillies are good (green tend to be hotter than red) and there are so many varieties as anyone who has watched "Man vs Food" will know; but chilli flavour can also be added with dried chillies (whole or as flakes) cayenne pepper, etc. 

This blog post is not just about chillies, it's about spices and seasonings in general.  Over the years I've discovered many wierd and often wonderful things.. on holiday, on the internet (amazon and ebay mostly) and even in the supermarket when I wasn't looking for them.  Here is a photo of my spices and seasonings cupboard:

Having a good stock of things makes all the difference when planning meals, knowing you've got a selection of oils, spices and blends means that when you need it, it's there.  Of course over time they do lose their pungency, but they don't usually go off (except things with a high oil content like sesame seeds).  Mustard powder is a good staple, cumin (seeds and ground), coriander, garam masala, turmeric, star anise, nutmeg, fennel seeds, smoked paprika, cardamom... the list goes on.. On Facebook I once wrote a list of 100 essential storecupboard ingredients. The Old Bay Seasoning on the top shelf is imported from the USA and comes recommended by Nigella Lawson in one of her books in a recipe that I have made for deep fried squid.  A quote on their website states that there are two things you need to know about Old Bay Seasoning: 1. it's great on seafood and 2. it's great on everything else!!

Sometimes I grind my own spices after toasting in a pan to make my own curry pastes, sometimes I just mix the powders like an alchemist. Things I use a lot of such as cumin seeds come from Indian supermarkets via friends in a massive pack, and I refill the litle jars as required.  You can always adjust the recipe depending on how hot you want it.  And the husband can add a generous extra sprinkle of cayenne pepper to his portion...

This afternoon my son and I are on a mission to make shortbread dominoes, we will keep you updated.  Two blog posts in one day, that's a first for me.

Thanks for reading,

Caroline :-)

Risotto relaxation.

This week my teenage daughter has been seriously in my good books.  I came home from work on Wednesday to a delicious smell and she and her friend were halfway through making the seafood risotto I had planned for that night's meal.  I've mentioned risotto in my Meat Free Monday post, but I thought it deserved a post all of its own, because it is my all time favourite thing to cook. 

Lots of people think all that stirring is boring but I LOVE it, it's as if all the cares and stresses of the day melt away as the spatula goes round and round in the pan.  And as you usually have to add a glass of wine to it, it's only right to have a glass to sip whilst cooking it. I always find that it takes longer than it says in the recipe for it to be cooked properly, you have to keep on trying a few grains to see if that chalky texture has gone.  In the words of the wonderful Nigel Slater (reading his books always inspires me to write a blog post, and the following quote was actually referring to lamb shanks but I think it applies equally to risotto): "Of course, modern cooks demand a recipe that is done in the time it states, but.... we must enter a different mindset, one where something is done when it feels like it, not when a recipe says it should be."  I think it is the hob setting that influences it, the stock needs to be absorbed by the rice, rather than boiling so firecely that it just evaporates off.  On masterchef they always say that a risotto is an easy option, and doesn't show much skill, but the ones who do cook it always seem to get it wrong!

The first risotto I ever made was the classic risotto primavera, "the risotto of spring" with spinach, peas and asparagus.  I love spring and greens, so it was the ideal recipe for me.  Since then (OCD counting things alert!!) I've made another twenty five different risottos, pretty much all successful apart from the sausage, radicchio and red wine one which was a complete waste of the wine!  We ate the sausage out of it and the rest was consigned to the food waste bin.  The radicchio is just too bitter for all of our tastes, even when cooked in this way. 

Favourites have included broad bean & bacon; mint & prosciutto; salmon & mange tout; smoked fish with a poached egg on top; chorizo, squash & pea; asparagus & lemon, risotto nicoise with fresh tuna, green beans & black olives; leek, goats cheese & crispy bacon; prawn, squid & samphire and jerusalem artichoke with fennel seeds.

There is so much scope for variety, just soften a chopped onion and some garlic in butter, olive oil or a mixture of both, coat the rice with it until glistening, throw in a glass of wine or vermouth (and savour the most amazing smell!) add stock ladle by ladle as it becomes absorbed by the rice, plus your choice of whatever you fancy.  When done, add cheese, usually grated parmesan (unless it is a fish risotto), leave to stand for five minutes and serve.  I sometimes like to top it with something, such as in my favourite ever risotto, caramelised carrot.  Very simple, but when topped with homemade hazelnut and watercress pesto it is taken to a new dimension.

I don't seem to have many pictures of risotto - in a way they're not very photogenic, but here is the beetroot and gruyere one, which IS, as you can see:

This one is spinach and dolcelatte (not a great photo as taken with my old phone):

The better the stock, the better the risotto.  Home made is best, I once made a duck stock from a five spice roast duck and used the stock and the leftover meat in the risotto with soya beans for an oriental twist.  I always freeze chicken carcases when we have roast dinners and make stock with five at a time in a massive pan I got from Ikea.  When boiled the stock can be frozen and used at a later date. I also make stock with the Christmas turkey bones. If home made stock isn't available then I use Knorr stock pot, little jelly pots that you add to boiling water; or oxo liquid stock concentrate.  But at the end of the day you can always use cubes and it will be just fine.

What to do with leftovers has never been an issue for me as we never seem to have any!  But I know people who have made is into cakes and fried it, with or without a breadcrumb coating.  If you do want to reheat it, even the same evening, you will need to add some boiling water to loosen it up a bit. Nice when dipped in sweet chilli sauce.... the staple condiment which inspired my next blog post. I'm halfway through writing it and will publish soon.

Until then, thank you for reading,

Caroline :-)

Cupcake Crazy!

Earlier this year, there was a post doing the rounds on Facebook called "Creative pay it forward" (if I remember rightly).  Basically, if you were one of the first five people commenting on the post, you would receive some kind of creative home made gift from the person posting, on the understanding that you would re-post the status, and give five other people something made by you, and so on.  The rules were that it must be something handmade by you, and all five people must receive their something by the end of 2013.  I received my something a few weeks ago, and the time has come to start the pay it forward part.  So, I decided to make some cupcakes for the first person on my list.

Cupcakes are pretty much enjoyed by everyone.  Even my husband, who claims not to like cake, has been known to change his mind with a cupcake when he has one.  Though small children often just lick off the icing and leave the rest!  So, having ascertained that my person likes all foods apart from coconut, I decided on lemon cupcakes, with lemon frosting, decorated with edible glitter, lemon sugar crunch and wafer daisies.

Cupcakes, of course, are different from fairy cakes.  Cupcakes originated in America, as early as 1796, according to Wikipedia, when a recipe notation of "a cake to be baked in small cups" was written in a book called American Cookery by Amelia Simmons.  The name "cupcake" is now given to any small cake that is about the size of a teacup. "Fairy cake" is an English term, describing a smaller cake which would be appropriate for a party of fairies to share.

Fairy cakes are what I used to make with my Mum when I was little, she just called them "little cakes".  In fact she still makes them now, in large batches, as they freeze well.They usually had chocolate chips and/or sultanas in, and weren't iced.  Sometimes for birthday parties the plain ones would be transformed into "butterfly cakes" by cutting a circle from the top, filling the hole with butter icing and cutting the little circle in half before replacing it to look like butterfly wings.  I didn't know about cupcakes until I read about them in childrens books written by American authors, and didn't experience one until I was a lot older.  But these days, I make them quite a lot.

Ususally I use paper or foil coated cases, though I do sometimes use silicone ones which can be washed up and reused.  Cupcake cases are smaller than muffin cases, but quite a lot bigger than fairy cake cases:

The size does cause debate.  A good sized cupcake is normally enough, you wouldn't want two in one sitting.  Or I wouldn't anyway. Some even think one is too much.  The larger ones are best eaten with a fork, especailly if theres a lot of icing, so you don't make too much of a mess!

One of the best things about cupcakes is the endless variety.  Firstly, there is the sponge flavour (and colour).  Then you can scoop out some of the middle and fill them with a little surprise, like custard, or jam, or melted marshmallows.  Then there is the icing (or frosting, to give it the American name - they mean the same thing), and finally my favourite bit, the decoration...

An optional procedure after baking, recommended by Peggy Porschen (great name!) in her excellent book "Boutique Baking" is to drizzle some kind of flavoured hot sugar syrup over the cakes when they've just come out of the oven. This keeps them moist, a good idea as I think there is nothing worse than a dry cake of any description.

I bought a book of cupcake recipes years ago, which was quite frankly, rubbish, and put me off for a while, I tried making peanut butter ones, and caramel ones, and they were rather disappointing.  Then I bought the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook and my cupcake making was revolutionised.  Their recipes were much more successful and I got the bug.  Their famous red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and topped with red edible glitter were requested by my daughter for a birthday several years ago. I' ve made lots of their recipes, including chocolate, chocolate and hazelnut (filled with nutella and topped with a whole hazelnut), and strawberry cheesecake cupcakes (with chopped fresh strawberries in the sponge mixture and cream cheese frosting sprinkled with crushed digestive biscuits).  Another of their recipes was green tea cupcakes, using milk infused with green tea in the sponge, and icing containing matcha green tea powder sourced via ebay (see photo below):

Their marshmallow cupcakes were also a great success, with melted marshmallows in the middle and mini marshmallows mixed into vanilla frosting for on the top, all piled up like a glamourous hairdo!

Other flavours I've had a go at include cappucino, chai tea with cinnamon vanilla frosting and chopped pistachios, rosewater, raspberry and lemon (with a whole raspberry in the middle and one on top of lemon icing), rhubarb and custard (see the rhubarb blog post for a picture of that one), macadamia and white chocolate, Easter nests and chocolate devil's food.

 

Easter Nest Cupcakes

 

Jubilee cupcakes made for a street party, with tricolor icing swirls

 

Lemon and raspberry

 

 



 Rosewater

 

Icing can just be spread on with a small palette knife, or piped with a plain or star nozzle.  I've just got a duo colour piping set so I'm looking forward to having a go with it soon.  The jubilee cakes pictured above were iced by using three plastic sandwich bags with the different coloured icings in, inside the main piping bag.  I swear by my lakeland silicone piping bag as it's so easy to clean.

 

Probably the best part is decorating them.  There is such a wide choice available, you can get polka dots, sugar strands, fudge pieces, mini marshmallows, chocolate shapes, edible glitter, neon coloured sugar crystals and even silver and gold shimmer spray to give a metallic effect.  I've found that the silver is much better than the gold, which doesn't seem to show up very well, even on chocolate icing. And I love the wafer daisies.

 

Presentation is something to think about if the cakes are going to be a gift.  The main supermarkets sell lovely boxes quite cheaply which I use for macaroons too.  If you're going to be displaying them you can get cardboard stands in a range of designs, I've inherited a fabulous perspex one that used to belong to my sister (see below) and it can have anything from one to five tiers.  Normal ceramic cake stands loook very effective too.

 

Double choc - for a wedding.

 

So, that is the wonderful world of cupcakery!  Long may it continue.  And if you're one of the other four people on my creative pay it forward list, you'll get your something before the year is out.  It might not be cupcakes, but it is likely to be edible.

 

Thank you for reading,

 

Caroline :-) x

Gadgets galore!

If I die first, my husband says he is going to order a skip for all the kitchen gadgets.  I think this is a little harsh, but anyway, I'm not planning to die first, and when he goes, I'm getting a chandelier for the living room!  However, I do have to admit I am at pretty much full capacity when it comes to kitchen cupboard space.  Some gadgets I couldn't do without, some I have not used very much and given away, and joyfully, I can't think of anything I haven't got and would like, except a pasta machine attachment for my KitchenAid stand mixer.

I got the KitchenAid for Christmas, and gave away the bread machine to make space for it.  The mixer will knead the dough for me (and save my wrists, especially the left one which has never been the same since my tendon surgery) and I'm happy to bake the bread in the oven.  The breadmaker was ok, but it was always a pain to dig the little paddle thing out of the bottom of the loaf, it always seemed to just get pushed further in - and I didn't seem to use it that much.

 

I LOVE my KitchenAid, and don't know how I managed with a little Kenwood hand mixer for sixteen whole years, including making two wedding cakes (mixed in a storage box). I still have it in case of emergencies though.  So far the KitchenAid has done sterling work with bread, cookie and pizza dough, meringue, buttercream, whipped cream, cake mixture, fondant icing, flan filling, cheesecake and brownie mixture.  It has given better and lighter results in so many recipes including cakes, macaroons, swiss roll, cheesecakes and more.

Another gadget I wouldn't be without, and didn't have for a long time is my food processor.  Having started the new recipe resolution in January 2008 I kept finding recipes which made me think "I could make that if I had a food processor" or "that would be so much easier with a processor" and for Christmas 2009 I got my wish.  I use it for breadcrumbs, biscuit bases for cheesecakes, stuffings, macaroons (the ground almonds need to be processed with the icing sugar to make the super light), it's brilliant for shortbread and I have never bought shortcrust pastry again as it makes such a great job of it in no time. Plus you can add flavourings to the pastry like lemon zest or walnuts. I've made my own pesto, dips, tahini and hummous.  The liquidiser is fab for soups and smoothies.  The mill is good for chopping nuts and grinding spices.  I have to admit I've never been bothered to use the centrifugal juicer though.

Sometimes with kitchen gadgets, as with other things in life, it's a case of want rather than need.  Such as my washing up rack, officially named a "dish garden" by the manufacturer.  I was sick of metal ones going rusty and this one just gets a scrub now and again to make it as good as new.  I think it looks fabulous and quirky too, and even though it was quite expensive for a mere dishrack it will last for years.  Also, all the water comes out of one hole at the bottom rather than dripping all over the draining board, meaning less cleaning. It looks from the picture like you wouldn't get much on it, but you'd be surprised, with a bit of creative stacking...

Sometimes too, it's the small things that make a difference.  Like this elevated palette knife with a weighted handle (another Christmas present - my Mum took me a cookware shop to choose some presents, I was in heaven) made by the brilliant Joseph Jospeh.  No more splats on the worktop!

 

 

Other small gadgets I use a lot are my metal folding steamer basket (when my son isn't using it for an alien spaceship); silicone baking "tins" with glass base - great for cheesecakes, and no need to worry about using a metal knife when cutting into slices; my Jamie Oliver rice pot, - cook and serve rice in the same pot, and it goes in the dishwasher; a mandoline (nicknamed the "fearsome slicer", it needs to be treated with respect if you value your fingertips), poultry shears and an ice cream scoop that conducts the heat from your hand to seve the scoop of ice cream.  I buy my baking trays from amazon, supermarket ones are rubbish and buckle at the lowest oven temperatures, also there is so much choice, you can get the perfect size.

 

The biggest and favourite of all, if you can call it a gadget, is the cooker, which was half price when I bought the kitchen units.  It has a ceramic hob, which looks nice and is easy to clean but doesn't cook a stir fry as well as a gas hob would.  I haven't got gas to the house though, and it would be too much hassle to connect it just for the sake of a few Chinese meals.  I got one without a glass panel in the door on purpose, so the dirt wouldn't show from the outside and it wouldn't need cleaning as often, the second oven/plate warmer is only used for large family gatherings, otherwise it doubles up as a handy storage cupboard for baking tins.

 

 

 

I sometimes look through the Lakeland catalogue and marvel at a multitude of things I don't need - waffle irons, cake pop makers, cupcake makers, ice cream makers... but I'm very strong minded, and I still squeeze lemons with a little plastic lemon squeezer that came free with a bag of oranges!

 

In other news, I've joined the Clandestine Cake Club, just finding out about a nearby meeting to go to, with a view to starting up my own local group. watch this space...

 

Thank you for reading, feel free to share.

 

Caroline x

A question of cheesecake.

My husband does not like baked cheesecakes, and judging by a quick poll of my Facebook friends, he's not alone.  He much prefers the unbaked version, he doesn't like the texture of the baked ones, he says it's like egg custard and panna cotta, hard to describe but he just doesn't like it.  I don't mind, because it just means extra helpings for the rest of us, although I do think I slightly prefer the unbaked ones.

I like both varieties, and have made quite a few in my time.  The husband's favourite is the Mars Bar Cheesecake, closely followed by the white chocolate cheesecake. My personal favourite is probably a peanut butter cheesecake, I've tried baked and unbaked versions of this one and I like the unbaked one best.  The great thing about cheesecakes is the way you can vary the type of biscuit in the base as well as the filling.  Yesterday I made a raspberry cheesecake brownie, of which more later...

My first cheesecake experience was the Greens and Sara Lee packet mixes bought from the village shop and made with Mum, where the biscuit crumbs came in one packet and you mixed them with butter; and the rest of it came in the other packet and was whisked up with milk (and possibly something else but it has been a VERY long time since I have made one so I can't actually remember). And then you squeezed some kind of fruity stuff over the top.

I think my later fondness for cheesecakes started with the Mars bar one, from a recipe book called "Wicked Sweet Indulgences" that I was given for Christmas in the Secret Santa at work one year.  It's a biscuit base made with plain choclate digestives, then a gelatine-set cheese, sugar and cream mixture with chopped up Mars bars in layered with butterscotch and chocolate sauces and a feathered deisgn on the top, the two sauces being gently mingled with a skewer.  It uses lots of bowls and pans (you make the butterscotch sauce and the chocolate sauce in separate pans) but it's so worth it.

Then I made the white chocolate one, with hob nobs for the base. I've also made individual white chocolate, lemon and pistachio ones; and a baked white chocolate and ginger one with cranberry coulis for  a New Year's Eve party.

Next I found a recipe in a Sunday supplement in the tea room at work for a Turkish Delight cheesecake.  This one had rich tea biscuits for the base, mixed with cocoa powder; and an unbaked filling including chopped up chocolate-covered Turkish Delight bars and rosewater.
I've made a raspberry and lemon one with amaretti biscuit base, a baked maple and walnut one, the peanut butter ones (unbaked one being topped with chopped up fudge pieces and toffee sauce), a vanilla baked one with rhubarb topping and a rather fab rosewater and coconut one with the base being made from Cadbury's Turkish Delight biscuits (from a brilliant book called "Saved by Cake" by Marian Keyes).

 

The maple and walnut one.

 

You can set them with gelatine, or vegetarian gel powder, though if you're using the veggie one the procedure is different, be sure to follow the instructions or it won't work.  I found this out when making a limoncello cheesecake and had to put it in the freezer before it went too "freeform".  I also found out it's not a good idea to make the gelatine-set ones after a few cans of cider:  I didn't dissolve the gelatine properly and although the cheesecake did set, some of the gelatine had formed unplesant hard bogie-like lumps which you had to spit out and leave on the side of the plate.

The baked ones sometimes crack when you bake them, or after during cooling, you can minimise this by putting a roasting tin of water in the oven shelf below when you bake them. If they do crack though, you can cover it up with topping, or a dusting of icing sugar or cocoa powder.

Fruity flavours are popular, and my facebook survey revealed lemon to be the most popular.  I did a mango and lime one once, but maybe a purist lemon one is something I should try soon; along with a recipe I've just found, espresso cheesecake with biscotti.

I've even made a Nowegian savoury cheesecake, with chives and dill in the (baked) cheese part and topped with soured cream, smoked salmon and caviar - it got a mixed reception, but I loved it:

So, back to the raspberry cheesecake brownie.  This was a favourite from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook, and my daughter suggested I make it for the Laxton Pudding Challenge.  You may be familiar with this if you've read the "competetive spirit... or not" post.  I came second last year and was determined not to be beaten this time.  And....... I won!  The recipe is a three layered fusion of moist chocolate brownie on the bottom, baked vanilla cheesecake in the middle and raspberry cream on the top, so there is something to please everybody :-)  I made a sparkling rose syllabub too, but that didn't score so highly.

 Showing the layers, which were more even nearer the middle!

 

 

The trophy has pride of place on my mantelpiece, for a whole year, what will I make to defend my title?

Thanks, for reading, more soon.
Caroline :-)


How to cook an egg...

My husband said to me recently that he didn't know how to make scrambled eggs until he met me.  It got me thinking of the different ways there are to make scrambled egg, and indeed boiled, poached, fried and other methods too.  It was how Delia started off her "How to cook" series some years ago.  Eggs are the ultimate in healthy fast food.

When scrambling - the big question is whether or not to add milk.  I prefer not to.  Adding milk is a poor man's measure to increase the volume, to make less eggs go further, but I think it spoils the flavour and texture.  All I add is a knob of butter and a bit of seasoning.  I also happen to think that whisking them to a frenzy also ruins them, as with omelettes, a gentle mixing up is all that's needed. I tried microwaved scrambled eggs once, but never again.  They were like rubber.  I like a bit of therapeutic stirring, anyway, hence my fondness for risotto making as well. My Mum always used a spoon with a squared off corner and a hole in the middle, and she gave my daughter one for a present once, so I always use that, it's good for getting to the edges of the pan. Cook them on a medium to low heat in a non stick pan, stirring all the time. I have memories of doing this when I was little, standing on a chair at the cooker, waiting for what seemed like an eternity before the "scrambly bits" came! When the scrambly bits do start to appear, give it a minute or two longer, then turn off completely to let them finish off using just the residual heat in the pan, still stirring all the time.  A grind of black pepper, and voila!

Another thing my Mum taught me was a brilliant way of frying eggs without using loads of fat and making a mess.  Great for one or two eggs at a time.  Put a drizzle of oil in the bottom of a non stick milk pan and crack your egg or eggs into it, being careful not to break the yolk.  At this point, if you have any extra yolks to use up (such as from making macaroons) add them.  Then pop a saucer or side plate on top and leave to cook over a medium heat until the white is set but the yolk still runny.  Perfect, and no need for basting.  Also the pan is easy to clean afterwards, just a brief wipe out is all that's needed.

Sometimes, you can't beat a boiled egg and soldiers. I cook mine in a dinky egg boiler that I was given seventeen years ago and is still going strong.  It looks like this:

 

The head is a salt shaker, and the body comes apart to reveal a rack for up to four eggs.  You measure out water in the measuring cup provided, the amount varying depending on how many eggs and the degree of firmness required, and pour into the base.  The measuring cup also has a handy spike in the bottom with which to pierce the rounder end of the egg.  Then put it back together, switch on and when the buzzer goes, perfectly boiled (or steamed really) eggs.  I wish the buzzer made a chickeny noise though.... I sometimes cut the crusts off my soldiers, and wait for the toast to cool down so the butter doesn't melt too much, maybe it's just me but I think it makes them even nicer.

I've also got gadgets for poaching eggs, because if I try to do it the usual way they always seem to go wrong and/or don't look very appetising!  I use poachpods, lightly oiled, they even have a special tool for lifting them out of the water when cooked.  Can you understand why I don't have much space in my kitchen cupboards?

A poached egg is delicious on top of a smoked fish risotto, or mushrooms on toast cooked in cider and thyme (mentioned in a previous post).

I've cooked with duck eggs and turkey eggs, but never tried cooking a quail's egg, it's something I intend to try in the future.  Duck eggs make the best omelettes, the white is a bit firmer.  I couldn't cook omelettes at all for years, my Mum makes lovely ones and so I thought I'd try, my first attempt was a broccoli omelette for my first husband, luckily he and I just laughed at it, and ate it anyway, even though it was like rubbery scrambled eggs with hard broccoli in.  I learned to do it properly from Delia, with an aluminium pan bought from a special offer in the Radio Times, and a metal tablespoon, tilting the pan, scraping sides to middle and finishing off under the grill, sometimes with extra ham and cheese.  I like a chunky rustic omelette, none of your thin, pancaky versions for me!  I've taught my daughter to make them too, and she is very good at it now.  Even though the broccoli one didn't work all those years ago, I recently made a spring greens omelette with chilli and it was a great success.  I've even made a Japanese omelette that you cut up and serve cold on top of sushi (it has fish stock in and is traditionally cooked in a square pan for ease of folding, though I managed with a round one); and a leek and goats cheese souffle omelette, where the egg whites are whisked and mixed in separately, a different effect, but works.

Baked eggs are good too, in a ramekin in a bain marie with ham and/or mushrooms in the bottom; or a chinese version has soy sauce, sesame oil and prawns in, and is steamed instead of baking, but the end result is similar. 

In other news, today's new recipe for Meat Free Monday is artichoke, asparagus, broad bean and almond pilaf.  And I've bought a new book called "Boutique Baking" - the first recipe I made from it was lemon and raspberry cupcakes, they went down well at a garden party I went to yesterday, but I had one and a half, by which time the sugar got a little bit too much!

Thanks for reading, more soon, I feel the need to make, and write about, cheesecakes soon.

Caroline x