Stuff yer bake

I started my cake decorating course a few weeks ago and I have done nothing but scream, stamp and swear. We are doing a royal iced cake, which means layers of thin, crisp smooth icing and a light dusting of nervous breakdown. The first task was breaking the bank, buying all the initial equipment and then I had to ice my cake board. Easy you might think… not really. We were told to put a damp tea towel underneath the board to keep it still, then a thick even layer to be pasted onto the board and then scraped off in one steady motion. …Arrrrrggghhh. The damp tea towel helped for a while but then the dampness seeped through and warped the board, so I had no chance! I ended up getting a new, smaller cake board, which thankfully the cake covers most of and it was easier doing a smaller board anyway.

We are now doing runouts, which is piping around an outline. This
had me sweating and cursing under my breath too, but I seem to have gotten a bit better at it.

We are also royal icing the cake, which involves, icing two opposite sides, waiting 24 hours, then icing the other two sides, waiting 24 hours, then doing the top, waiting 24 hours, and you continue like this until you have three even smooth coats but it really should be 6…great. So if anyone wants a royal iced cake when I hopefully get a business up and running,…..tough!

Technorati Tags: royal icing, smooth, cake, cake board, runouts, piping

Last weekend I decided I fancied pizza, but being on the old diet again I thought it would be better to make one myself. We got the recipe from Silver spoon, a wonderful large volume of Italian recipes which topped the pizza with chopped tomatoes, anchovies and mozzarella. The only problem we had was that we put the dough to rise in with the boiler, thinking it would be lovely and warm, but it was actually quite cold so the dough didn’t rise as much as it should have. The finished pizza was very thin and very crispy, so I think next time I think I’ll roll out, put on the topping and let it rise again for a while before putting in the oven, or not roll it out too thin.

Technorati Tags: pizza, tomatoes, mozzarella, anchovies, dough, crispy

Just a quick post to say I got a fabulous new cook book a while ago. It is one of the new Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray River cafe pocket books. I got the puddings, cakes and ice creams one. I am a big fan of their recipes and I have a couple of their other books. Their recipes are all of Italian influence, simple and delicious. I haven’t made any of the recipes out of it yet as I’m suppose to be watching the old waistline, but I have my eye on a few tasty ones. I highly recommend purchasing it, and it’s quite cheap too.

Technorati Tags: River Cafe book, Italian, puddings, cakes, ice creams

Last weekend I decided to make a delicious winter spiced plum crumble and cinnamon ice cream. I love plums and crumble has to be one of my all time favourite puddings. I also make a lot of ice cream when the mood takes me so I decided, while I was making the cinnamon ice cream anyway, I would make a large batch of the basic ice cream mixture and try out different flavours.

I made a white chocolate and Kahlua ice cream and took a few of the plums and some of the syrup I made to go with them in the crumble and made some ice cream with that too. The flavour of the spiced plum ice cream was delicious but the texture wasn’t so great. I will have to work on that one.

The recipe goes as follows:

Ingredients

• 1kg plums
• 120g plain flour
• 85g butter (fridge cold)
• 4 tbsps golden caster sugar
• 4 tablespoons ground almonds
• handful of flaked almonds

Winter spice syrup

• zest of orange and lemon
• juice of orange and half lemon
• 3 pieces of stem ginger (you can get this in a jar with syrup)
• 2 tbsps of the stem ginger syrup
• 250ml water
• 1 tbsp runny honey
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 2 star anise
• 8 cloves

Method

Put all the ingredients for the syrup in a pan and reduce by half. Taste for sweetness, remember that it will depend how sweet your plums are and also how sweet a tooth you have. Halve and stone the plums and arrange in the bottom of a deep baking dish. To make the crumble topping whiz together the flour and butter in a food processor until it resembles fine breadcrumbs (if you don’t have a food processor rub the mixture between your thumbs and fingers lightly to achieve the same result). Then add the ground almonds and sugar and stir to combine. Sprinkle about a tbsp of caster sugar on top of the plums and then the syrup. Top with the crumble topping and cook in a 180 degree oven until golden on top and the fruit is bubbling underneath. This should take about 45 minutes.

Basic ice cream mixture

Ingredients

• 400ml double cream
• 300ml whole milk
• 5 free range egg yolks
• 80g caster sugar

Flavourings

• Vanilla pod
• Cinnamon
• 100g White chocolate (Green and Blacks or other good quality chocolate)
• Kahlua, a sweet coffee liqueur

Kahlua makes very nice cocktails. Use a glass of the milk you bought for the ice cream and put a shot of Kahlua and a shot of vodka in with some ice cubes and you’ve got yourself a White Russian. Mmmmmm!

Method

Put the cream and milk on a medium heat. Whisk the egg yolks and sugar together until smooth. Once the milk and cream have come up to near simmering point pour slowly onto the egg and sugar mixture while whisking the eggs and sugar to avoid scrambling the eggs. Return the mixture to the pan, and still whisking, put back on a medium heat. Bring up slowly to near simmering point until the mixture has thickened (you should be able to draw a line on the back of a spoon and it will hold for a good few seconds). Take off the heat and cool. Some chefs say to sieve the ice cream mixture before churning to get rid of any lumps, but I never do. The mixture needs to be fridge cold before putting into an ice cream maker (if you don’t have one of these you need to put the mixture into a plastic container and take out of the fridge every so often to whisk through with a fork to break up the ice crystals).

If you want to make vanilla ice cream, put a vanilla pod in with the cream and milk to infuse, take it out for whisking into the eggs and sugar but you can replace it while it cools. Then split the pod and scrape out the seeds with the back of a knife and add the ice cream mixture before churning.

For the cinnamon ice cream add a cinnamon stick to infuse as you would do with the vanilla pod and then take it out before churning and add a couple of teaspoons of ground cinnamon.

For the Kahlua and white chocolate ice cream omit about 20g of sugar in the basic mixture as white chocolate is quite sweet. Take 100g of white chocolate (Green and Blacks or other good quality chocolate) and melt over barely simmering water (don’t allow to touch the water). Add to the basic ice cream mixture. Take 100ml of Kahlua and reduce over high heat to about half. Add this to the ice cream mixture, cool in the fridge and churn in the ice cream maker.

Delicious!

Technorati Tags: plum, crumble, winter, cinnamon, ice, cream, white, chocolate, kahlua, spice

This week Graeme and I went out for a slap up meal to celebrate six years together. It was a place in Lapworth called The Boot Inn. The atmosphere in the pub and the upstairs restaurant was lovely, very warm, homely and inviting. The service was unintrusive and swift and for a Wednesday night the pub and restaurant were quite busy.

For starters I had a lovely smooth chicken liver parfait topped with butter and duck confit and served with toast and a lovely sweet onion chutney. The parfait was very nice but I think that my chicken liver pate has a little more flavour.
Graeme had black pudding and kidneys in a mustard cream sauce served on a piece of toast. We both thought it was lovely, but the portion was maybe a little large for a starter.

For the main course Graeme had a sirloin steak with chips, onion rings and halves of tomato spread with pesto. The steak was cooked exactly to specification but was not as tender as it might have been. The chips and onion rings however were absolutely spot on.

I had a couple of slices of roast pork, with a rich mash and gravy. The flavour was lovely but the skin on the pork could have been crispier.

For dessert I had a lovely apple and raisin crumble with a rhubarb ice cream and Graeme had a chocolate tart with orange confit.

The meal was very nice but not outstanding, but for the price (two pints of beer, an orange juice, gin and lemonade, two starters, mains and desserts, glass of dessert wine and two coffees came to £68) I think it was worth it, especially as it was largish portions. It is a good place to go for a Sunday lunch or when you want to spend a bit but not break the bank. I would certainly go back.

Technorati Tags: The Boot Inn, chicken liver parfait, chutney, black pudding, kidneys, pork, steak, onion rings, chips, chocolate tart, orange confit, apple and raisin crumble, rhubarb ice cream, coffee, dessert wine

We are still trying to fight our way through the rest of the ham. There have been ham sandwiches, ham and pickles, split pea and ham soup (of which there is a boat load in the freezer) or just ham on its own. It was a very nice ham and looked glorious when it came out of the oven, but next time I would go for an unsmoked joint instead and it was definitely better served cold as heat accentuates the smoked and salty flavour. Never again will I buy such a big ham!

I made the celeriac remoulade which was ok but I wasn’t overly keen on it. Everyone else seemed to like it but I think a mayonnaise would have been better with it rather than crème fraiche so it wasn’t as sharp tasting. The best accompaniment to the ham I think is good old strong english mustard.

I’m slowly losing the will to live but I hate waste and the ham was very expensive. Once it’s finished I think I won’t care whether I don’t see a ham again for a long time! Sorry piggies!

Technorati Tags: unsmoked ham, crème fraiche, english mustard, celeriac, split pea soup, pickles, sandwiches

I finally got round to icing my Christmas cake last night. I know Christmas is over but I wasn’t here for Christmas and the thought of yet more cake while still digesting turkey and stuffing by the bucket-load didn’t seem appealing. Even I have to have a detox day here and there.

The quantity of icing seemed a hell of a lot and it is quite rich when you each the cake but it is nice and Christmas cakes are supposed to be indulgent. The stem ginger really stands out in the cake but it isn’t too overpowering and even though I didn’t have quite as many walnuts as the recipe suggests there were just enough to give a bit of texture. Now all that remains is to eat it… Yummy!

Technorati Tags: Christmas cake, walnuts, Christmas, turkey, stuffing

Well the festive season is nearly at an end, actually it ended for me on the 27th when I went back to work, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have an excuse to continue to feast until my new years resolution kicks in. I ordered a whole cured and smoked Gammon on the bone before Christmas and tomorrow night is when we intend to eat it (and also probably for the next month as it weighs over 14lbs). It looks wonderful and hopefully we will do it justice and cook it well. At the minute it’s being lovingly soaked in a cool box full of water.

We are following Delia Smith’s recipe for glazed ham. When it’s nearly cooked you peel off the skin, score the fat into a diamond pattern and stud each diamond with a clove. Then cover the ham in English mustard and demerara sugar and put it into a hot oven to caramelise.

She suggests serving it with a Cumberland sauce, which we will be doing. It contains red currant jelly, orange juice and port (any old excuse for more alcohol).

We are having a few people over the next day to help finish it off, so we are having it cold with a celeriac remoulade, cheese, pickles and plum chutney. The plum chutney, we made last year out of Tamasin Day-Lewis’ book, Tamasin’ Kitchen bible and the celeriac remoulade is a recipe out of the Nigel Slater’s Kitchen Diaries. The remoulade is almost like a coleslaw but with celeriac, crème fraiche, walnuts and lemon juice.

I will take some pictures of the finished article and upload them (yes I am actually taking the pics myself, as my boyfriend finally got tired of me hassling him to take photos of my creations and bought me a digital camera for Christmas!).

Technorati Tags: Gammon, cured, smoked, celeriac remoulade, cheese, pickles, glaze, digital camera, Christmas

Doesn’t much feel like it though, the weather is crap at the moment!! mild, wet and very windy, not a bit of frost in site. Ignoring the weather ’tis the season to force feed yourself large quantities of rich food and strong alcohol, I love it!! Christmas is my favourite time of year and I love winter in general. I much prefer snuggling up to a warm fire than sweating profusely in the midsummer heat.

Today was our work pre-Christmas binge so I cooked a Delia smith Buche de Noel (or chocolate chestnut log to you and me) and a chicken liver pate (I don’t tend to bother with the brioche soldiers or as much butter as he suggests, it’s rich enough. Oat cakes or normal bread is fine). Again I managed to do something stupid. I poured the chicken liver mixture into the blender intending to take out the large sprigs of thyme before blending….I forgot. Actually it was really nice and everyone loved it. All of us felt like barrels on legs and made getting motivated to work in the afternoon and not collapsing in a soporific heap a chore.
The chestnut log turned out quite well as well. I wasn’t sure about the chestnut puree, it had a strange texture and slightly odd taste, but I’d never had it before so maybe it was just that it was new to me. I also couldn’t get a hold of any candied chestnuts but it didn’t seem to matter so much. I think a hazelnut puree would be lovely in it too but maybe not quite so Christmassy.

It’s the Christmas work do tomorrow night so I’m going to have to loosen the belt another notch or two and I’m homeward bound on Saturday for Christmas for more food and drink. The scales are going into hibernation until I have eventually got round to starting my new years resolution (I know what it is because it’s the same resolution every year). Turkey and stuffing here I come.

Technorati Tags: Christmas, weather, chocolate chestnut log, chicken liver pate, alcohol, turkey and stuffing

The above sums up my weekend, minus the blood thankfully. I decided a good few months ago that I would take some girls from work to Belfast for the weekend and this was the weekend we went. When it comes to flying I’m not a happy bunny. So with a reasonable wind predicted for Saturday when we flew to Belfast and gale force winds predicted for Sunday night for the flight back I was less than pleased.

I spent the days running up to Saturday until we touched down in Birmingham on Sunday night in a permanent state of stress. The flight over was not too bad but the flight back was something else.

We had had a nice day in Belfast and all of us went down to my parents house for Sunday dinner. As it got darker it got windier. You could hear the wind racing outside forcing the letterbox open and howling down the chimney. There were moments when I thought I wasn’t going to make it onto the plane that night and was looking at alternatives to get back. The only other thing was the ferry but it is an eight hour crossing and with the wind might have been a tad choppy.

There was nothing for it, I had to down the second glass of Brandy my Dad gave me (these old medicinal cures work a charm) and force myself to get onto the plane. As soon as I got on I asked the air hostess if it was going to be bumpy. Her words were “I’m not going to lie to you, it not very smooth, this particular aircraft isn’t very good in rough weather”. S**T! I really thought about getting off but I didn’t and I lived to tell the tale. I am actually quite surprised at how calm I was even though it was bumpy. I think it’s the anticipation more than the actual flight that gets me and once I accepted there was nothing I could do about it I calmed down.

Well apart from the flying the weekend was really good. The B&B (Taralodge) we stayed in was well positioned to get into the centre of Belfast and it was clean and comfortable. The breakfast was also really nice.

The one thing I miss when I’m in Coventry is fresh fish, something I was used to having at home in Northern Ireland. I always make an effort to have something fishy when I’m at home, which isn’t usually a problem as my Dad loves fish. We went to a bar/bistro in Belfast called The Cloth Ear, which is adjoined to the new very exclusive Merchant hotel (needless to say we didn’t go in there, looks like the kind of place where they ask for your gold card before entering). The bistro itself is nicely decorated and more importantly the food is good and not highly priced. Three of us had scampi and chips, which was lovely and the other two had a chicken pie and chips and sausage and champ. I would recommend for anyone to go there for lunch and the cocktails looked good for the evening but we didn’t get a chance to go there later. Instead we went to a bar called the Apartment, right next to the city hall. I had been there before and liked the cocktails. It was very busy but it didn’t take that long to be served and more impressively when I ordered 10 cocktails for all of us the bar tender remembered the lot without asking again what they were (I couldn’t even remember what I’d ordered!). I have heard that there are some nicer bars in Belfast so I might try out some more next time I’m out.

There are continental Christmas markets on in front of the City Hall until the 19th December so we went there both days. There was such an amazing range of foods from different places such as huge pans of paella, fantastic bacon sandwiches, mulled wine, hog roast, fudge, chocolates, crepes, waffles, delicious patisserie, bratwurst, French and Irish cheeses as well as arts & crafts and small Christmas trees & holly bushes. One of my friends bought a raspberry Breton cake to take down to my parents. It didn’t look that great but we warmed it up and had it with some vanilla ice cream and it was absolutely gorgeous. It was a really soft but slightly dense cake probably made with ground almonds and it had a layer of raspberry jam in the middle. I will have to try and find a recipe for it and make it, either that or go back to the market when I go home for Christmas in less than two weeks and see if I can charm the recipe out of them.

Well I think I need a while to recover from the weekend, but it was good and the girls seemed to enjoy it. It would be good to do it again if someone can do a Mr T on me and drag me onto the plane.

Technorati Tags: flying, christmas, market, breton cake, Belfast, Birmingham, Brandy