Roll(o) with it.

When is a cookie not a cookie? When it's a mini Rolo pie! Earlier in the year, I made a giant decorated cookie for my partner's younger son's birthday. A few weeks ago it was his elder son's birthday and yesterday I made his treat, the recipe for which had been posted on my Facebook page by a friend. 

I was staying at my partner's house for the weekend, and not being in my own kitchen, I took a few extra utensils with me and I had to make the cookie dough by hand using a mixing bowl and wooden spoon rather than having the luxury of my KitchenAid but that wasn't too much of a hardship. I softened the butter in the microwave and mixed the other ingredients in, and the mixture came together well. Cookie dough always looks dry but when you squeeze it with your hands it does form a decent lump. 

The chocolate chip cookie dough was used to line the holes of a deep cupcake tray. It does have to be a deep one. An ice cream scoop full was the right amount, pressed out with the fingers. Three Rolos were added to each hole, and there were just the right amount for this in four packets, allowing for the fact that some "broken" ones had to be eaten beforehand. Then the rest of the dough was rolled out and lids cut out. One of my favourite Japanese tea cups was the perfect size. They were baked at 170C for 20 minutes, by which time the cookie dough shells were crisp and the rolos in the middle had melted to a delicious gooey, chocolatey, caramely sauce. The hot pies were topped with vanilla ice cream, an extra Rolo, chocolate sprinkles and toffee sauce. I forgot to take a photo of the middles at the time, but the next morning I microwaved the leftover pies so the middles re-melted and I could take a photo.

Both my partner's children and my partner agreed the pies were a success, the descriptions including the words "tasty" and "having warm chocolatey lava". They did suggest trying Maltesers instead of Rolos next time which I thought was a fab idea!  There was a little bit of dough leftover which was turned into normal cookies but sadly they did get forgotten and left in the oven a bit too long!  They were still edible, just not quite optimal.

The pies would also make a really good mince pie alternative, maybe just sprinkled with icing sugar. I'm aware that not everyone is a fan of mince pies (partner included) and though I don't normally think about Christmas until December 1st, mince pies are an exception to the rule. 

New recipes have been reduced this year for various reasons but I'm hoping to be inspired at least a little bit in the next month and a bit. Watch this space. 

Thank you for reading. 

Caroline.

It's all about the cool-down.

It can't have escaped your notice that the UK has been experiencing a bit of a heatwave just lately.  And what better way to cool down than with ice cream?  So here is a chilled blog post about ice cream based desserts.

I lost my new recipe mojo a bit recently but it is now firmly BACK! I had a fab evening with my daughter the other week, sitting on the kitchen sofa, fairy lights on, sharing a bottle of wine (now she's old enough - I am happy to have a wine-drinking companion again!) and planning new recipes.  She found a recipe on the BBC Good Food site called Club Tropicana Ice Cream Cake which we both immediately knew just had to be made.  Reminiscent of the 80s Wham! song with bright dayglo colours and strong fruity flavours it looked so pretty and my end result, though not as perfect as the BBC photo, was fairly impressive and the taste got 5 stars from the family.

To be fair it was more about assembly than actual cooking, but if you wanted to you could make the ice cream, sorbets and cake from scratch.  I didn't this time though. I started with a Madeira cake from Lidl which happened to be flavoured with zesty lime, I felt this really improved the recipe. I trimmed the dark edges off first and cut into 5mm thick slices.  The offcuts were appreciated by my son,no food waste in this family if we can help it! 

I had lined a normal sized loaf tin with several layers of cling film, and the first layer of cake went into the bottom, followed by a layer of mango and passion fruit sorbet, smoothed as flat as I could with a spoon. Into the freezer it went for 10 minutes, then a layer of good vanilla ice cream was added, and another layer of cake,  This was followed by a layer of melted dark chocolate and another 10 minutes in the freezer.  Next came a layer of raspberry sorbet and a final layer of cake.  All was covered in another layer of cling film and frozen until solid.

When it was time to serve, I turned it out and removed the cling film carefully, then topped with whipped cream and cocktail (maraschino) cherries.  The cherries have a story all of their own as they were the most difficult ingredient to find.  I finally found them by asking someone in Tesco,only to be told "Nobody can EVER find cocktail cherries! They're with the pickled gherkins!!" Readers may remember a blog post from several Christmases ago where I had a similar problem with cherries in Kirsch for a Black Forest Trifle.

Anyway, it was a great success, including with my Mum who came for dinner at just the right moment to help eat it.

Another new recipe made recently was Millionaire's Shortbread lollies.  I had some lolly moulds but had lost them, so we ordered  some more on eBay without looking carefully at the dimensions and they were tiny when they arrived.  Happily, however the larger ones had been found by then so we made two sizes.

They were pretty simple, a mixture of evaporated milk and double cream was frozen in the moulds, and when frozen decorated with a drizzle of melted chocolate, gold crunch,shimmer spray, caramel sauce and shortbread crumbs. The small ones were actually just the right size for me. The large one was a bit too much for my son but the cat loved what was left of it when he'd finished! They were meant to have edible gold on, but I had run out.  Next time...

Thanks for reading,

Caroline x

It's only sausage roll, but I Iike it.

Welcome to my first blog post of the year, and the story of the most deluxe sausage rolls I've ever made.  I know at least one of my readers, and very possibly more than one has a special affinity with sausage rolls. I've even delivered them to a hospital inpatient to speed recovery. And quite frankly, what's not to love? Unless you're a vegetarian... but even then, you can get some pretty special cheese and onion ones.  But this post is really for the benefit of carnivorous friends.  I made a mahoosive sausage pie for my uncle's wedding (even winning the prize for the best savoury dish in the process) but the traditional Christmas sausage rolls were always made by my Mum.  Now she doesn't cook much, she handed the baton to my daughter two Christmases ago so I hadn't really made actual sausage rolls myself for years.  Then, a friend of my boyfriend had an idea for deluxe, jumbo, pimped sausage rolls with bacon in as well as the sausage meat. The idea developed between her, him and eventually me. And so we came up with a definitive recipe which was cooked for the first time last night.

I used bought puff pastry sheets.  I'm of the opinion that life is too short for certain things,one of them being making your own puff pastry.  I know I CAN do it, because I did it at school.  But not any more. To give you an idea of the jumbo-ness of the finished delicacy, one sheet of pastry made four sausage rolls.  The width of the sheet of pastry was almost exactly twice the length of a sausage, which was super helpful and probably meant to be. I used two sheets, 12 sausages and 16 rashers of streaky bacon. If you're ok at maths, you'll have worked out that I used one and a half sausages-worth of sausage meat and two rashers of bacon in each one.  I skinned the sausages and formed the meat into a bigger sausage, wrapping the bacon around it.  Then two slices of redwood smoked cheddar were added on top.  The block of cheese was also the same as the length of a sausage. Also meant to be. Then the filling was wrapped in the pastry, edges sealed using egg wash (apart from the first one which got forgotten), crimped rather rustically with my fingers and more egg wash brushed all over by my helpful boyfriend/kitchen assistant.  Three slashes in the top, some seasoning and a little bit more grated cheese and voila!

Thirty minutes in the oven and they were browned and crispy. Served with a "chip garnish" (as we had pastry and there weren't that many chips left in the bag!) and broccoli, boyfriend and children agreed that they were a success.  After debating what to call them, "pigs in blankets in duvets" was deemed the best description.

I have no doubt that I'll be making them again, varying the varieties of sausage meat and cheese means the possibilities are almost endless.  You could add chutney or cranberry sauce in the middle, or sprinkle different things on top.  Herbs maybe? Crumbled pork scratchings?They were almost as good cold for lunch the next day too.

Hopefully more blog posts soon too.  Thank you for reading.

Caroline.