Stuff yer bake

This is the Pingu cake I’ve been working on for a little boy’s second birthday. I was also given the added task of making it gluten and nut free, arrrgghh. I did, however, find a recipe that was just that. The actual recipe was for a lemon drizzle cake that used ground almonds but it suggested using polenta instead of the ground almonds for a nut free version.

I knew I wanted to make an iceberg and that came out quite nicely but I’m still not altogether happy with my modeling of animals and people. I feel I need lessons as I don’t think I’m getting the consistency right with the paste and I’m not even sure I’m using the right products. Anyway, let’s just say that Pingu is genetically modified or maybe his appearance has something to do with him eating contaminated fish, same goes for Robbie the seal. The next project is my cousin’s three tier wedding cake that I have to transport across the Irish sea in four weeks time, wish me luck. 

I have always been a bit wary of trying battered fish as I had visions of a blazing chip pan inferno and fire engines carrying uniformed, sweaty, powerful men to help hose down your ikea kitchen cabinets, rescue your kitty from the next door neighbours tree etc. etc. (well every cloud has a sliver lining). I opened this months Good Food magazine and spied Golden beer battered fish with chips and plucked up the courage to give it a go. This recipe oven bakes the chips so you have just the one pan to keep your eye on and everything can be served at the same time minus the singed eyebrows. 

The recipe turned out quite nicely but I made a few adjustments as I felt the chips weren’t very crisp. I think this was because there wasn’t enough oil used and I don’t think they were boiled long enough. The recipe also mixed the flour and cold oil together with the chips before being put in the oven. I think tossing the steaming chips in the flour and heating the oil in the oven first should make sure they come out crisp.

The other problem was that the fish fillets were not as nice and thick as I would have hoped but I think a trip to the fish mongers early on a Saturday morning might remedy that instead of relying on the supermarket. I also would have liked the batter to be a bit thicker, so I reduced the amount of liquid in the recipe.

Give it a go and tell me what, if any other alterations you would make.

Serves 2

For the Fish:

50g plain flour

50g cornflour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp tumeric

75ml fridge cold lager

50 ml fridge cold sparkling water

1 ltr sunflower oil

400g fillet sustainable cod, hake or haddock

seasoning

For the chips:

750g maris piper potatoes, peeled and cut into chunky chips

2 tbsp plain flour

4 tsp olive oil

seasoning

Begin by making the batter. Put the flours, seasoning and baking soda into a bowl. Set aside 1 tbsp of the mixture onto a plate then, whilst whisking slowly, add the liquid to the bowl combining until it forms a smooth lump free batter. Put in the fridge for about 30 mins.

Heat the oven to about 190 degrees centigrade. Put the olive oil onto a baking sheet and put in the oven to heat up. Heat a pan of salted water to boiling point and add the chips. Cook for about three or four minutes until the outside is slightly soft, drain and rough the edges of the chips by shaking them gently in the pan. Toss the chips immediately in the flour and add them to the hot oil. Turn them around carefully in the oil and put into the oven. Cook for about 35 to 40 minutes until golden and crisp. 

Heat the sunflower oil in a deep pan until a drop of batter crisps up immediately when dropped into the hot oil. Dry the fish by patting it with kitchen paper then toss in the flour that you set aside earlier and shake off the excess. Drape the fish into the batter to cover completely, allow the excess to drip off briefly, then lower the fish into the hot oil and lay it away from you. Cook for about 6-8 mins depending on the thickness of your fillet, until golden. Remove the fish with a slotted spoon, drain on kitchen paper and sprinkle sea salt over the top, keep warm. Repeat with the other fillet. Remove the chips from the oven and sprinkle with sea salt. Serve immediately with some home made tartare sauce.

Having seen a lot of failed attempts at Chocolate fondant puddings on Celebrity Masterchef this week, I thought I would like to give one a try. I have had shop bought ones before and relished their divine rich taste. To me they are the ultimate of decadent puddings, and the worst things for you always taste the best.

The recipe I followed from the BBC Food page seemed simple enough but I fell at the final hurdle of timings and ended up with a runny, albeit delcious, mess served with orange and vanilla ice cream. I remained undeterred, though, had another go the following night and left them in for a few minutes longer, which was much more successful but still not quite done enough. They still tasted absolutely divine, but I will keep trying until I get the perfect consistency. It’s a hard job, but somebody’s gotta do it!

I have seen quite a few recipes for panna cotta recently and since I have never tried to make it, I wanted to give it a go. I found this recipe and thought it looked nice and simple and now that the strawberries in my garden were starting to blush into a vibrant red colour, I wanted to serve them with it.

I first of all made the lemon thyme sugar. I bought a bunch of lemon thyme the other day to go with squid but I don’t actually like it much in savoury things as I think it tastes a bit soapy so I wondered whether I could make something sweet with it. Basil sugar seems to be very fashionable at the minute so I thought I would try and do the same with lemon thyme.

Pick the leaves off a small bunch of lemon thyme and blitz in a blender with about 6 tablespoons of caster sugar. It should go a nice green colour but will also be a bit damp so spread it out on a baking sheet and put in a very low oven for about 10-15 minutes until it has dried out. You can then keep your sugar in a sealed container and use it whenever you like. 

I made the panna cotta next and left it to cool in the fridge for an hour or so. 

Next take a couple of handfuls of fresh ripe strawberries (you can pretty much use any fruit you like here) hull and halve them and put into a saucepan with a tablespoon of icing sugar and about half a tablespoon of Limoncello liqueur. Warm the berries until the juices start to run but don’t let the strawberries go too soft. Take off the heat and leave to cool. 

Once the panna cotta is set, loosen it from it’s mould and turn out onto a plate, scatter the strawberries around and garnish with the lemon thyme sugar.

The texture and taste of the panna cotta was lovely but the only thing I didn’t like was that all the vanilla seeds sunk to the bottom of the mould and made the panna cotta look burnt and I also need to work on getting them cleanly out of the mould. I think my blowtorch may have to be used. I will definitely have another go at making panna cotta and might try a few different flavours too. 

I wanted to make a cake for my friend who was going off on maternity leave last week so I thought I would try and make a baby out of sugar paste and put various baby paraphernalia around it to jazz it up a bit. When I made the baby I somehow managed to make it look like it had mild learning difficulties and having run out of time, couldn’t really remedy the situation. I tried to think of various things to put with the baby and considering it’s unfortunate appearance a pair of calipers and a wheelchair seemed most appropriate. I thought that the baby looked a little naughty as well as slightly retarded so making a big mess on the top of the cake was probably best and also didn’t require too much technical skill or worry of messing it up. I was actually reasonably happy with the result and everyone really liked it. Another happy customer, just two more to cater for in the next week.

P.S. I apologise for the rubbish picture, I was rushing before I took it to work.

I was wondering what to do with the rest of the fabulous crab I got in Devon so I browsed through the selection of cookery books I brought with me and found a crab ravioli recipe from Rick Stein’s Seafood book. I have never been terribly successful at at making ravioli as they are so fiddly and always seem to fall apart on me and I haven’t made fresh pasta in a while so it took me time to get to grips with the pasta machine again. I really need to invest in one of those ravioli tray things as they are supposed to be quite useful.

Apart from the fact that it took me the best part of two hours to make and some of them burst they turned out very nicely. The sauce in particular was simple yet very flavoursome and well worth the wait.

Fresh Pasta

225g Plain flour (type 00)

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 teaspoon olive oil

2 medium eggs

2 medium egg yolks

Put all the ingredients into a food processor and blend. Once it has come together, tip out onto a work surface and knead for about 10 minutes until the dough is soft and elastic. Wrap in cling film and place in the fridge for about 20 minutes.

Ravioli

175g fresh white crab meat

1 tblsp melted butter

a small sprinkle of cayenne pepper

Parsley and lemon butter

100g butter

2 tblsp chopped flat leaf parsley

1/2 tsp grated lemon zest

2 tsps lemon juice

2 garlic cloves very finely chopped

Mix all the ingredients for the ravioli together. Divide the pasta into three or four pieces and roll out in your machine or with a rolling in until quite thin. Keep dusting the pasta with flour to stop it sticking to the rollers. On one half of a sheet of pasta dot a teaspoon of mixture at 3inch intervals. Wet around each mound of crab with a little water, then fold over the other half of the pasta and starting from the inside out press down around the little mounds pushing out all the air so you have no bubbles in the ravioli. This is the complicated bit and would be so much more simple with a ravioli tray if you have one. Make sure that you flour each one well so that they don’t stick together as they will tear easily. Once your have used up all the mixture get some salted boiling water ready and add the ravioli. Cook for about three minutes, then drain.

While they are cooking make the butter dressing. Simply melt the butter with all the other ingredients, seasoning to taste and once the ravioli is drained and plated up, spoon over the top and serve. Then sit down for a well deserved rest.

I was a bit stressed when I realised that my blog had gone toe up, mainly because I had no idea how to fix it and also because I had nothing backed up (silly!!) so may have lost all my stuff. It is, thankfully, now well on the road to recovery and I have a back log of things to talk about and some yummy pics but in the meantime I will ease my stress with a hot whiskey, which will frankly cure just about anything (I generally prescribe one or two a night for a cold).

Simply squeeze the juice of half a lemon into your favourite mug, add a heaped teaspoon of honey, scatter in as many cloves as you like, a cinnamon stick and fill nearly to the top with hot water before adding a generous slug of whiskey (the more generous the better).

There, all better