Wholemeal bloomer - healthy home-made bread

I've recently become obsessed with baking bread. Not in a breadmaker, oh no - our poor Panasonic is sitting unloved in the corner. No, I mean by hand - well actually, again not really. Since I acquired my fab stand mixer (a K-Mix in raspberry of course), I've discovered the joys of kneading using the dough hook. I can leave it going and get on with other things whilst watching it.

I watched, glued, to Paul Hollywood's series, Bread, and not because I fancy him, I just really like his way of going about things. I made his basic bloomer recipe from the BBC website whilst the series was on and then, husband bought me the book for a wedding anniversary present (he is a keeper!) so since then, I've made that loaf a few times and started to adapt it for use in my mixer and I've pretty much cracked it. Even if I do say so myself.

However, I'm trying to be healthy and really, I'd like to master wholemeal bread so we can have nice bread and get some good fibre. So, I tried adapting the recipe to wholemeal bread and I think it worked. I used my  breadmaker recipe book to change the quantities as wholemeal flour needs more yeast because it rises more slowly and the bran absorbs more water.

This recipe assumes you have a stand mixer (or hand mixer) with dough attachment. If you don't have a stand mixer, you could try kneading it for at least 10 minutes - you will know when it is "done" as the dough will feel smooth and form a tight ball easily. It is harder to stretch out like white bread dough, again because of the bran.

Try it and let me know what you think. Don't buy cheap wholemeal bread flour - it's really worth spending an extra few pence to get a better quality flour as it will give you a better result. You'll also note that this doesn't use sugar - the yeast doesn't need it as it is surrounded by starch in the flour. It does mean that it takes longer to rise but this is what makes it taste better than the bread you buy in your supermarket.

Wholemeal bloomer
Makes 1 large loaf

Ingredients

500ml wholemeal strong bread flour
10g fast action dried yeast
8g salt
330ml cool water
40ml olive oil, plus extra for greasing

You will also need a lined baking sheet, cling film, and a plastic bag.

1. Tip the flour into the bowl of the mixer, add the yeast to one side and the salt to the other. Measure out and pour in the water - note it doesn't need to be warm as again, this speeds up the proving process and slower proving means nicer tasting bread - on top, then add the oil. Fit the dough hook, and turn the mixer onto a low speed. Once it has come together as a dough, watch it to see that it's coming away clean from the sides. If you think it looks too dry, add another tablespoon of water but do hold back and give it some time. Even a little too much water can mean the bread spreads outwards rather than upwards.

2. Once the dough has fully come together and the sides of the bowl have become clean, turn the speed up to medium and let it knead for 10 minutes. If it looks like the dough is just spinning around the hook, turn it off, remove the dough, then start up again. My lovely friend Ruth recommends kneading for 5 minutes, resting the dough for 5 minutes, then kneading for a further 5 minutes for her loaves. I figure I stop it enough times but it's of merit, although I am apt to forget if I've got something else to do.

3. After the kneading time, check that the dough is properly kneaded - it will feel smooth and quite silky. Now, this is where I get lazy - everyone else says put it into an oiled bowl but I just take out the dough hook and cover the mixer bowl with oiled cling film. Yes, the dough sticks to the bowl but it comes off easily at the end of the prove. Leave the bread to prove in a room temperature kitchen. If it's really cold, I put it on a chair near the radiator.

4. Leave the bread until it has tripled in size. That should be at least an hour and a half but could be double that. Lightly flour your worktop so that you can knock back and shape your bread. Tip out the dough onto the worktop and knock it back by pressing down and flattening the dough or folding it repeatedly. You need to do this a few times just to make sure you have knocked all the large bubbles out of the dough. Again, the dough will feel smooth once it's been done properly.

5. Time to shape  - knock the dough really flat into a rectangular shape. Turn, if necessary, so that the long side is facing you. Fold the long ends into the middle quite tightly over each other and turn it over so that the seam is on the bottom. Roll it gently so that it starts to form the bloomer shape, a bit like a fat sausage. Place it onto a baking sheet lined with baking parchment and re-cover with oiled cling film. You can place it inside a clean plastic bag with room to rise but I prefer the cling film balanced on plastic bottles stood at either end of the baking sheet. Now you're ready to prove again.

6. This time, you want the dough to double in size. Typically, it's 1 hour but it might be as long as 2 hours and  of course, that should mean better tasting bread. Towards the end of the proving time, preheat your oven to 220C/425F/Gas 7. Place a baking tray in the bottom of the oven to heat up and ensure your shelves are spaced to allow the bread to rise as it bakes (I forget this EVERY TIME!)

7. Once your bread has finished proving, spray or sprinkle the dough with a little water then dust with flour. Take a sharp knife and make four diagonal slashes, evenly spaced down the loaf - this will help to make the traditional bloomer shape.

8. Just before you place the bread into the oven, fill a jug with a litre of water and pour into the baking tray in the bottom of the oven to create steam. Place the loaf on the middle shelf of the oven and bake for 25 minutes. Lower the heat to 200C/400F/Gas 6 and bake for another 10-15 minutes. Check the loaf by tapping the bottom - if it is cooked, it will sound hollow; if not, put it back for a few more minutes.

9.  Once cooked, take out of the oven and leave it to cool on a wire rack. Try not to eat it all at once.

Seeing red (and a cherry mess)

Red. Back in the eighties (because, yes, I am that old), I was big on red in my kitchen and bought everything in red. Somewhere along the line, it became untrendy and I stopped buying red things for my kitchen.

My current kitchen is white so anything can go with it and it can be a bit dull so over the last few years, bits of red things have been creeping back into my kitchen. I've started buying more red clothes too. Not everything is bright pillar box red - it started with a hand mixer that I won which I chose in Raspberry and then I acquired the stand mixer too (as you do). Then there was the knife block.

Now I have this.

Food not included

This is the chop2pot from a site for people like me, called Red Candy - everything is red or has some red in it. Heaven! I've lusted after something like this for a while - a chopping board that helps you transfer stuff to your pot, pan, or dish without spilling it everywhere. It's brilliant. It's easy to use and importantly for me, dishwasher safe. I think the larger one would be better for families but if like me, you are chopping things as you cook, it shouldn't be an issue. The only thing I haven't liked about it so far is that it got quite a few knife marks on it after a few uses so I will be interested to see how it fares after some hefty use from me. But other than that, I love it and the site - well, I'm going to have to be strong and resist going mad with the credit card. And red overkill is bad - perhaps that is where I went wrong in the eighties!

Really rubbish photo of a yummy dessert - it's nice, honest

Whilst we are on the red theme, Princes sent me some fruit fillings to try. Although it can be seen as a "lazy option", they are handy to have around if you want to make some fast puds. One of the fillings they sent to me was red cherry so I thought I'd make some cherry mess - a version of the traditional Eton mess but made with a can of red cherry filling. It's uber simple although if you want to be a true domestic goddess, you could make some meringues yourself first.

Cherry mess
Serves 4

Ingredients 
About 16 mini meringues (I used a tub of mini meringue shells from Asda)
300ml whipping or double cream
410g tin Princes Red Cherry fruit filling

1. Break up the meringues into a large bowl- don't break them up too small or they won't provide the crunch.

2. In another bowl, whip the cream until it has reached the soft peaks stage.

3. Open the tin of fruit filling and carefully spoon the cherries into the bowl of meringues leaving most of the juices behind in the tin.

4. Fold the cream into the meringue mixture carefully. Then fold all but a couple of tablespoons of the juice from the tin.

5. Finally, drizzle the last couple of tablespoons of the juice on top. Serve, trying not to drool.

The kids thought it wasn't sweet enough but I thought it was fine. If it's not sweet enough for you or you know you have a really sweet tooth, try adding a tablespoon of icing sugar to the cream.

(Red Candy kindly sent me the Chop2PotPlus and Princes some tins of their fruit fillings to try. I have not been paid further for writing this post and all opinions are mine.) 

My birthday hazelnut meringue cake!

If you saw my birthday post, you'll know I made my own birthday cake. I promised a few people I would blog the recipe.

Part of the reason I wanted to make my own cake was that my joint Christmas and birthday present, which I got very early, was a stand mixer. A red K-Mix. I love it. I've made a few things in it in the meantime but so far, not meringue. I therefore developed the idea of making a meringue cake - especially as we had tons of eggs in the house, as we didn't seem to get through many over Christmas. I also had some hazelnuts in the cupboard so I looked around for hazelnut meringue cake recipes. I have one that is years old in my folder but that used blackberries. I decided I would add some soft fruit and cream to the cake filling and then also add some chocolate ganache.  The final cake is a mix of recipes from different sources so I think I can claim it as my own!

I popped to the shop and found that not only was there some cream reduced, there were also some milk chocolate santas reduced to 19p each! The ganache is good made with dark or milk chocolate but obviously, the darker the chocolate, the darker and less sweet the ganache. I decided to give my ganache a hazelnut flavouring which you could do by adding ground hazelnuts or praline paste. I however, had some hazelnut coffee syrup so used that instead. The ganache was a little firm so I have added more cream here to soften the ganache. If it's too runny, you can whip slightly until it firms up. Don't be scared by the term ganache - it's deceptively easy to make!

We chose strawberries as we decided that they travelled the least distance (Monkey was shocked that the blackberries had come from Mexico, but the strawberries had come from Egypt); it would be good with other soft fruit, like blueberries, raspberries, blackberries etc.

You can make the meringue layers in advance but store them in an airtight container to keep them crisp. This is best assembled on the day you're going to eat it, but if you have to assemble the night before, it will not be the end of the world. It might just be a little softer around the edges.

The one thing to remember when making meringues is that fat is not your friend. Ensure the beaters or whisk and the bowl in which you mix the egg whites is very clean or the whites will not whisk properly.

This is NOT a low calorie cake, but it was my birthday, right?!

Kate's birthday hazelnut meringue cake with strawberries, ganache and cream
Cuts into about 10 pieces

Ingredients

For the cake layers:
50g/2oz roasted chopped hazelnuts (Waitrose do them or roast your own)
5 large eggs
280g / 10oz caster sugar
1 tbsp white vinegar
 A little flavourless oil

For the hazelnut ganache:
200-250g / 7-9oz dark or milk chocolate
125ml  / 4.5 fl oz double cream
2 - 3 tbsp hazelnut syrup (don't fret if you can't get it)

For the filling:
375ml / 13 fl oz double cream
400g strawberries, hulled and halved (or 300g smaller soft fruits, like raspberries)

1. First, prepare two 18-20cm springform or loose bottomed tins. Line them both with foil, and brush the foil with a little oil. Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas 5. Whizz the hazelnuts in a food processor until finely ground.

2. Separate your eggs. I do them one at a time into a small bowl, ensure no egg yolk has got into the bowl, and then tip it into my mixing bowl. Better that than the fifth egg yolk breaking and you having to start all over again!

3. Whisk the egg whites until stiff, dry peaks form. Add the sugar one spoonful at a time whilst continuing to whisk until you get a shiny but stiff meringue. Stir the remaining sugar into the nuts then fold them into the meringue carefully with the vinegar. Use a metal spoon to do the folding and do it slowly and carefully.

4. Divide the mixture between the two tins and level out the tops. Bake for about 35 mins then turn the oven off and leave the meringues to cool in the oven. Once cool, remove from the tins, peel off the foil and store in an airtight tin until you need the cake.

5. Make the ganache at least a few hours before you assemble the cake as it will need to cool. Break the chocolate into small pieces and place in a bowl. Place the cream in a pan and heat until nearly boiling. Remove from the heat and pour over the chocolate. Leave to stand for a few minutes, then whisk until the chocolate is fully melted and the texture is smooth and uniform. Add the hazelnut syrup and stir until fully combined. Leave to cool - refrigerate if you like. If the ganache is too firm when you need it for the cake, heat it in 10-20 second blasts until it reaches the desired consistency. If it's too runny, whisk it gently with a hand whisk until it firms up.

6. When you are ready to assemble your cake, whip the remaining cream until it reaches soft peaks (don't overwhip, so do keep an eye on it). Place one of the meringues on a plate and spread with the ganache. Top  with some of the strawberries and about a third of the whipped cream. Place the other cake layer on top, spread the rest of the cream on top and finish with the rest of the strawberries, which are best placed neatly cut side down so they form a pattern.

Enjoy - although beware, once you start cutting into the cake, it may not be particularly structurally sound!

Corned beef and lentil soup

This recipe (see also Cowboy corned beef 'n' beans pie for details) takes a lentil and bacon/pea and ham soup and gives it a twist. Instead of using cured pork products, I'm using beef instead! I figured it would work well. If you happen to Google corned beef soup, you get a lot of American recipes using the fresh cured product so this product is made for the tinned version instead. It has a slight spice kick to it, but not too hot that the children will turn their noses up to it. Mine won't anyway. Anyway, this is another really easy store cupboard recipe that will fill you up and warm you up on a cold winter's day. No need for tinned stuff.

Corned beef and lentil soup
Serves 6

Ingredients

2 tbsp oil
1 medium onion, chopped
About half a 340g tin corned beef, cut into 1cm cubes
2 carrots, chopped quite small
4 cloves garlic, crushed or chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp mild chilli powder (or hot if you dare or 1 fresh chilli, chopped and deseeded)
2 litres beef stock
500g split red lentils, rinsed and picked over

1. Heat 1 tbsp of the oil in a large saucepan, and add the onion and carrots, cooking for 5 minutes to soften over a medium heat, then adding half of the corned beef cubes to the pan. Cook for another 5 minutes, stirring as little as possible so that the corned beef gets some crisp and colour.

2. Add the garlic, cumin, turmeric and chilli powder, and cook for another 2 minutes until you can smell the spices. Pour in the stock and add the lentils. Cover and bring to the boil, then turn down to a simmer for about 20 minutes. The lentils will lose their shape and look pale yellow when properly cooked.

3. While the soup is cooking, heat the rest of the oil in a small frying pan and cook the rest of cubed corned beef until crispy. Serve the soup sprinkled with the cubes of corned beef sprinkled on top and with some nice crusty bread.

(I was asked by Princes to develop some recipes using corned beef and they sent me 6 tins and an apron for this purpose.)

Cowboy Corned Beef 'n' Beans Pie!

Princes have asked me to come up with some recipes using corned beef as it's more frequently used for sandwiches. Obviously, the standard recipe is corned beef hash but as they already have that recipe on their site, I thought I'd think of something else and came up with a pie. If you look about, a lot of people call a potato topped pie a hash too but to me, a "proper" hash sees all the chopped ingredients (hash comes from the French "hacher" to chop) all fried together, and usually topped with some kind of egg.

The other thing that corned beef goes really well with baked beans. I thought I would combine all three elements here to make an easy, but yummy winter family dish which is pretty cheap to make too.

Cowboy Corned Beef 'n' Beans Pie
Serves 6

Ingredients

1kg white potatoes (starchy rather than waxy), peeled and cut into large chunks
1 tbsp oil
1 medium onion, chopped
340g can corned beef, cut into 1-2cm cubes
1 tbsp dijon mustard (or whichever mustard you prefer)
1 tbsp dark muscovado sugar or molasses
1 tbsp tomato ketchup or tomato puree
420g tin baked beans
400g tin chopped tomatoes
50g grated cheddar (optional)

1. Place the potato chunks into a large saucepan, cover with cold water, cover and bring to the boil, then simmer until they are soft enough to mash.

2. In a medium pan or frying pan, heat the oil over a medium heat. Add the onion and cook for around 5 minutes until softened and colouring at the edges. Add the corned beef, turn up the heat and cook for a further couple of minutes. Try not to stir and turn the beef too much as you want to try and get a colour to the beef. Add the mustard, sugar, and tomato ketchup or puree and give everything a quick stir, then add the beans and the tomatoes. Have a good scrape around the pan so that anything that has stuck to the bottom lifts off and adds flavour to the mix. Season to taste. Pour into a large ovenproof dish - I tend to use a deep lasagne dish.

3. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. When the potatoes are done, drain the potatoes and mash them with whatever you choose to mash with - I used a knob of butter and enough semi-skimmed milk to stop the mash being too stiff but at the same time, not too runny.  Top the corned beef mixture with the mash, ensuring that it is well covered.

4. Place in the oven and cook for about 30 mins, until the top goes slightly brown. If you are using cheese, scatter it over halfway through cooking and if you need to brown the cheddar, finish off for a couple of minutes under a hot grill. Serve - a good dash of ketchup, brown sauce or even barbecue sauce goes well with it. (Actually, if you want the whole pie to have more of a barbecue flavour, add some to the mixture in place of the ketchup in step 2.)

See my other post for my corned beef and lentil soup!

(Princes sent me 6 tins of corned beef and an apron so that I can create some recipes using their products. I have not been paid further for writing this post.)

Chocolate and Raspberry Trick-or-Treat cake

One thing is for sure - going to Clandestine Cake Club certainly stretches your baking capabilities! Every time I see the theme for our local group, I start thinking about what to do and try to come up with something different.

This time, however, I thought I was going to have to give the group a miss as it fell on the day that husband was due to be running the Guild Marathon. However, he had to drop back to the half due to a problem with his knee swelling up over the summer and we worked out it was just about possible to get me there on time if we did some slightly complicated juggling of children.

This time, the theme was Trick or Treat which posed a problem. I don't do fancy or intricate cake decoration - I'm just not cut out for it. That means no cakes in the shape of witches etc, so I had to take a different tack.

I came up with the idea of doing a normal cake but one that bleeds when you cut into it. To me, that meant raspberry and what goes better with raspberry than chocolate? Chocolate cake it was. I tend to stick to the same recipes so Googled a bit and found one I thought would work. It had a raspberry ganache with it but I thought it looked lumpy so went for adding a bit of raspberry flavour to it whilst keeping it smooth. I've never made ganache before so I was a bit tentative about it. Some more Googling offered up the way to get the blood into the middle of the cake - make some raspberry coulis (easy), scoop out the middle of your cake, and "line" it with some buttercream to stop the coulis soaking into the cake. Phew...that gave me a few things to do, which made planning it a bit of a nightmare as I had no time on Sunday to finish off and I was out all of Saturday. So, I had to make my coulis on Thursday, cake and buttercream on Friday, then make my ganache on Saturday and finish it all off.

When I made the cake, the top went a bit mad and bust away from the rest of the cake, which when picked away, left a big dip in the cake, so all I had to do was add the buttercream, spoon in the coulis and sandwich the cakes together. Some of the coulis dribbled down the edges and I was dubious that this was going to work but having procrastinated all evening, I made the ganache and ended up whipping it to thicken it enough to spread. The result was a normal looking cake which gave no clue to its hidden secret.

At our meeting, the cake looked very plain until people started cutting into it and the dark red coulis started oozing out. I usually try my cake first at cake club (just to taste it's OK!) so it took all my self-control not to do so. And it was a huge success - this is yet another cake not for the faint hearted, very rich and certainly, with four chocolate bars in it, not the sort of cake you make every day. But it's really, really worth a go to trick your friends on Hallowe'en which turns out to be a delicious treat.

This was my most popular cake so far at any of the meetings I've gone to - after everyone had taken cake to take home, there was only a quarter left.

Why don't you give my cake a try? Maybe not if you're on a diet, eh?

Chocolate and Raspberry Trick-or-Treat Cake

Serves 16-20 probably - you don't need a huge piece

Ingredients

For the raspberry coulis:
200g raspberries
50g icing sugar (or to taste)
lemon juice, to taste
1-2 tsp cocoa powder (optional)

For the cake:
200g dark plain chocolate, preferably 70% cocoa solids, broken into pieces
200g butter, cut into pieces
125ml freshly brewed (ie hot) espresso, as strong as you can bear
85g self-raising flour
85g plain flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
200g muscovado sugar, preferably dark but light will do
200g caster sugar, preferably golden
3 eggs
1tbsp natural yogurt (I used fat free Greek)
100g frozen raspberries

For the chocolate buttercream:
100g butter, softened
200g icing sugar
2 heaped tbsp cocoa powder
1-2 tbsp milk

For the ganache:
200g dark chocolate, chopped into pieces
300g double cream
1 tbsp light soft muscovado sugar

1. First, make the raspberry coulis. Whizz the ingredients in a blender or food processor, or mash the raspberries with a masher and stir in the icing sugar and lemon. Press the mixture through a fine metal sieve to  remove the pips. Taste and add more sugar or lemon as desired. Sprinkle over the cocoa powder if using, and stir into the coulis - this will help to darken it slightly to make it more like blood, and it will take a bit of stirring to mix right in.  Refrigerate until needed whilst you make the cake.

2. Next, make the cake. Preheat the oven to 160C/Gas3. Butter the sides of a 20cm deep round baking tin ( I use cake release spray) and line the base with baking parchment. Place the broken chocolate into a heatproof bowl and sit this on top of a pan half filled with hot water, taking care to ensure that the water is not touching the bottom of the bowl. Add the butter and the hot espresso, and heat gently until everything is just melted. You can do this in the microwave by heating on medium for around 4 mins, stirring every couple of minutes.

3. Whilst the chocolate melts, mix together the flours, baking powder, sugars and cocoa in a big bowl until evenly distributed. In another bowl, beat the eggs together and stir in the yogurt.

4. Pour both the melted chocolate and the egg mixtures into the dry ingredients, mixing carefully but slowly and stopping as soon as all the ingredients are mixed together. Scrape carefully because the dry ingredients tend to get stuck to the bottom of the bowl! The cake batter will be smooth but quite runny.

5. Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin, tapping gently to remove air bubbles and level the mixture. Press frozen raspberries into the batter evenly across the tin then place in the oven. Cook for 1.5 hours, until a skewer comes out clean. Don't worry if the cake cracks on top. Leave to cool in the tin for a little while, then remove from the tin and leave to cool completely on a wire rack. Place in the fridge to get it really firm, then slice the cake into two. Scoop out some of the one of the halves - choose the less even of the two halves. Leave at least a 2cm gap all the way around the edge of the this half or your cake will not sit evenly.

6. Make your chocolate buttercream. First, beat the butter until smooth, either by hand or with a mixer. Sift in the icing sugar and cocoa powder, mixing thoroughly. Add the milk until you get a light but spreadable consistency.

7. Next, assemble your cake. Place the scooped out half on a plate or board. Spread the buttercream all over the indentation left by your scooping - not too thickly but ensure you have a solid layer of buttercream or the coulis will leak through into the cake. Spread buttercream around the edge as well as this will stick the cakes together.

8. We're now ready to fill the hole with "blood". First, take out 1-2 tbsp of the coulis and reserve for later. Then, carefully spoon the coulis into the buttercream lined hole as close to the brim as you dare. Top with the other half, press down gently. At this point, some coulis may leak out of the sides so it's best to leave this in the fridge to "set" the dribbles. The cake can be refrigerated until you need it. I also spread some leftover coulis over the top of the cake to soak in and add to the raspberry flavour.

9. When you are ready to cover your cake, make the ganache. Place the chopped chocolate into a bowl. Place the cream into a pan with the muscovado sugar and heat until it is about to boil. Remove from the heat and pour over the chocolate, stirring together until everything melts. Stir in the reserved coulis then leave to cool until it is thick enough to spread. If the ganache is not thick enough, you may whisk it with a balloon whisk for a minute or two until it begins to thicken. Beware as the ganache will continue to thicken after you have stopped whisking so stop just short of soft peaks - I whisked until it felt thicker but was leaving a slight trail in the bowl but it soon firmed up further.

10. Remove the cake from the fridge and spread the ganache over the top and sides of the cake, smoothing it with a palette knife. (If you want to get really fancy at this point, you can grate chocolate over the top or decorate with fresh raspberries but I didn't!). Refrigerate to "set" the ganache then transfer to a serving plate. Take the cake out of the fridge about an hour or so before serving to enjoy it at its best. If you end up with any spare coulis, you can always bring it out to pour over the top once the surprise has been revealed!

Linked up to Dollybakes Calendar Challenge for October.

National Baking Week and my attempts to conquer pastry

It's been National Baking Week this week and I've failed to do baking.

Which is a crying shame when I recently acquired a Kenwood stand mixer. As I'm still getting used to it, I thought I'd try to make pastry in it as it is something I struggle with. I was also sent some Trex to try out and the recipes included pastry items so I thought I'd give it a go.

I remember Trex from my childhood but I've never considered using it. It's a vegetable fat so I worried about the fat being hydrogenated but apparently, it's not. It's also dairy free, so great for people who have dairy allergies and want to bake. We decided to make sausage rolls for tea but the children wanted to make lemon curd pies too.

I know that when you use butter for making pastry, it needs to be super cold and cut into cubes. Trex however is not as solid as butter and cutting it up, it felt kind of greasy in my hand. For both recipes, I rubbed in the fat with the mixer which did a fine job of making it into breadcrumbs. However, I think my problem is I add too much water because I think it looks dry.

After a spot of resting, we started putting pastry into my  mini tart tin. I couldn't be bothered rolling it out, so we just used my nifty Pampered Chef tart shaper to bash out the bases.

Because we didn't have a lot of pastry left over, we just cut out stars to put on top. My only problem was that the pastry just didn't really colour. It remained very pale indeed and even though I cooked the tarts for a bit longer, the tops still didn't go very golden. I think it was the Trex because even my pastry made with butter goes browner than that. At least there were no soggy bottoms!

Once we'd made the pies, the children abandoned me for the television whilst I made the sausage rolls.

The recipe suggested adding spring onions but I decided to add a bit of tomato puree, some sage and some finely choppped onion to the sausagemeat.

Again, the pastry didn't colour well and these were even glazed with egg wash. The picture at the top makes them look more golden than they appeared in real life. I think my pastry technique still needs some work you know.

Not that anyone is complaining - there are only a couple of sausage rolls left and the lemon curd pies are disappearing rapidly. What can I make next to practise my pastry making?

(Trex sent me 3 packs to try. I have not received any further compensation. All opinions are my own.) 

Mocha crunch cake - a totally over-the-top birthday cake

Sunday was the first birthday event of the local Clandestine Cake Club. If you don't know what it is, see here - basically, you book onto an event, make a cake to fit the theme, then turn up at the venue (which is kept a secret until a few days before), eat lots of cake, chat with cakey people and get to take cake home. What is not to like?

So, as I said, it was our first birthday event. I have been going since the second meeting ever so I missed the first and although I haven't been every time, I'm a fairly established regular attendee, this being my fifth event.

The theme was, of course, Happy Birthday and I wanted to make a decadent, over the top cake for a special occasion that would be suitable for a grown up birthday. In our house, that means chocolate cake, by and large. I found the original recipe for chocolate crunch cake in a booklet from a Good Food magazine but I wanted to do more to it so I have combined with details from a coffee crunch cake on the Good Food website and added my own details.

I wasn't totally convinced that this would work, particularly as the cake batter was quite runny so it is a bit of  leap of faith, but the meringue stayed on top and baked nicely. I have tweaked the amount of water going into the cake batter as the cake took a lot longer to cook than it should have done. If you find the mixture a bit stiff, loosen the batter with a drop of water.

Just feet from cake club venue.

This is probably best made on the day you want to eat it. I couldn't because logistics didn't allow for it - I was at Body Pump until an hour before. So I made the cakes, stored them in plastic containers overnight, then filled with the cream just before I left for the event, which was held a few feet from Bradley Wiggins's other golden postbox. The cream softened the meringue very quickly, so if you want to keep the crunchy effect of the crisp meringue, I would recommend filling it with cream at the very last minute. And then you have every excuse for finishing it off on the day you make it.

Mocha Crunch Cake
Cuts into about 12-16 pieces

Ingredients

For the cake batter
50g good quality cocoa powder
175ml hot water
100g butter, softened
280g caster sugar, preferably golden
2 large eggs
175g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp (2.5ml) bicarbonate of soda

For the meringue topping
2 egg whites
100g caster sugar, again preferably golden
Coffee flavouring (see below)

For the cake filling
284ml double cream
2-3 tbsp icing sugar
Coffee flavouring (see below)

Also required
100g dark chocolate drops

1, Start by making the coffee flavouring. I make a small cup of double strength espresso from our coffee machine and allow to cool. If you can't make fresh coffee, use as much instant coffee as you dare and dissolve in 100ml hot water. You may need a little more than this but the stronger you make it, the less you will need. Also before you start, place the cocoa powder in a jug or bowl, pour over the hot water and whisk until you have a fairly uniform lump free liquid. Place on one side to cool while you get the cake ready.

2. Grease and line the bases of 2 20cm (8in in old money) sandwich tins with baking parchment and grease the linings. I find the best way to do this is to use cake release spray but you can use softened butter if you like.

3. Place the butter and sugar in a bowl and whisk for 2-3 mins, preferably with an electric hand or stand mixer. There is a lot of sugar in this mix, so it won't go all pale and fluffy like it normally does but do not panic. Add the eggs, one at a time, whisking after each addition and this time, it will go all pale, light and fluffy. Pour the cooled cocoa mixture on top, and then sift in the flour and bicarbonate of soda. Fold everything together gently until thoroughly mixed and smooth. Divide the mixture equally between the two tins. Smooth the tops if necessary. Place the tins on the side whilst you prepare the meringue topping.

4. Preheat the oven to 160C/Fan 150C/Gas 3. You will need to reuse your mixer to make the meringue unless you are very strong or like me, possess two mixers! If you have to clean it first, clean the beaters very well to remove all traces of fat or the eggs will not whisk. Make sure you have a clean bowl too and when you separate your eggs that not a trace of yolk has got into it. (I find it easier to separate the eggs into a small bowl first before adding to the mixing bowl. Whisk the egg whites until they form stiff peaks - when you lift the beaters out, the eggs should make a peak that stays formed very easily. Add half of the sugar to the bowl and whisk again until the mixture becomes glossy. Gently fold in the rest of the sugar and 1-2 tsp of your coffee flavouring.

5. When combined, spoon half of the meringue on top of the cake mixture. Leave a 2cm gap around the edge of the tin as the meringue will spread as it cooks. The tins are now ready to go into the preheated oven.

6. Bake for 40 minutes, or until the meringue is crisp and the cake cooked. Use a long skewer at an angle to test the cake under the middle of the meringue. If the cake needs longer cooking, check how the meringue looks - if it is looking like it will burn, turn the oven down to about 140C and keep in there until the cake is finally done.

Cakes cooling after baking

7. Remove the tins from the oven and leave the cakes to cool in their tins for 5 minutes. Then, really carefully remove the cakes from the tins - this is where loose bottomed tins come into their own! Peel off the paper and leave to cool completely, meringue topping uppermost.

8. When it's time to eat the cake, make the cream filling. You'll need your mixer beaters again - cold if possible (I put clean ones in the fridge to chill) as this makes better whipped cream. Whisk the cream until it forms soft peaks. Sift in the icing sugar and add 1-2 tbsp of coffee flavouring, folding both gently into the cream. Add more coffee or sugar to taste, folding gently as before. You can do this an hour or so ahead if you want and store in the fridge.

9. Right, cake building time. Decide which cake has the best looking topping and reserve that for the top. Place the other cake carefully on a plate and spread thickly with the coffee flavoured cream. Scatter about half the chocolate drops on top of the cream.

Cream on top of bottom layer, with chocolate chips

10. Make some coffee drizzle icing. Place 2-3 tbsp icing sugar in a bowl and add about 1-2 tsp coffee flavouring then mix together. You need an icing that is runny enough to drizzle but thick enough for it to set quite quickly and not dribble over the sides.  You may need to add more icing sugar - mine was too runny but I didn't have time to thicken it further! Drizzle the icing over the top of the cake, then scatter the remaining chocolate drops over the top so they stick to the icing. A final dusting of some icing sugar is completely optional - I didn't bother as I was out of the door within a minute with the cake in a box.

You may like to try other combinations with the chocolate - I can think of using orange juice and an orange liqueur to make a chocolate orange cake or peppermint essence to make mint choc cake. How about some chopped hazelnuts folded gently into the meringue with some frangelico in the cream? Or even some squashed berries in the cream! The possibilities are endless.

Thanks to Susan and Linzi for organising today's event.

The ultimate fish finger wrap?

The finished product

For some strange reason, when I was ill, I found myself thinking about fish fingers. Don't ask me why but obviously a bad chest does that to you. So it was a complete coincidence when Birds Eye offered to send me a kit to try making the ultimate fish finger wrap, but quite a welcome one.

The recipe comes from Phil Vickery and there are a load more recipes (not just fish finger ones) that he's put together with Birds Eye and Saira Khan on their facebook page in the Clarence's Cookbook section.

So, this is the recipe for the wraps.

Ultimate Cod Fish Finger Wrap
Serves 4 

Preparation time:- 15 minutes. Cooking time:- 10 minutes.

Ingredients

4 x 24cm soft flour wraps
8 Birds Eye Cod Fish Fingers cooked and warm
1/4 Iceberg lettuce
4 slices smoked streaky bacon, cooked until crispy
2 hard boiled eggs, halved
4 tbsp mayonnaise
few fresh basil leaves
2 spring onions, finely sliced
salt
pepper
1 medium carrot, finely grated (optional)

1.Lay out a wrap onto a chopping board.  Place a little Iceberg lettuce down one end of the wrap. Top with 1 slice of bacon, sprinkle with a little salt and pepper, add the 2 cod fish fingers. Add half a boiled egg, 1 tbsp squirty mayo, a few basil leaves and a sprinkling of spring onions. Add carrot if you want.

2. Fold bottom edge over the fold in both sides, finally roll up tight, and then wrap tightly in film. Chill well.

3. Remove film and cut in half diagonally and serve with onion rings.

I made these for lunch one day, and to be honest, I couldn't be doing with the onion rings so they didn't happen. There is quite a lot of prep to do - cook fish fingers, slice lettuce, fry bacon, hard boil eggs, for example. I also found it odd that you have lovely cooked fish fingers and bacon, then wrap and chill them. My wraps, therefore, didn't get chilled for very long. Chilled partly, I'd call it but it meant that they were still warm when we got to eat them. I am fairly rubbish at rolling wraps up tight and wrapping in cling film even worse, but I seem to wrap them tight enough for them to stay wrapped after slicing diagonally.

I must admit, I was a bit dubious about putting basil leaves in this. So were the children - when presented with these, they looked suspiciously at the greenery within but after a few mouthfuls, they proclaimed them a success, and asked when they could have them again. That makes them a success. I found the mayo I had used worked well because it is quite vinegary (Asda reduced fat mayo, if you're interested) which was a nice balance to the richness of the bacon and the egg.

I have to say tho, as ultimate as they were, they were ultimate in the amount of washing up it created  - one pan for the eggs, another for the bacon and a grill pan for the fish fingers! My favourite fish finger sandwich is  just to bung them in some soft bread, add some tartare sauce or mayo if you haven't got any. And eat - simples! Having tried this ultimate wraps, I'd probably add some basil (or some fresh dill - I love it with fish) just to make it slightly posh. Even though fish finger anything is not really posh at all.

(Birds Eye kindly sent me a kit to make fish finger wraps, a coupon towards Birds Eye products and an Asda gift card to buy the remaining fresh ingredients required. They also sent two cuddly Clarence polar bears for the children. I have included the recipe for information but all opinions are my own.)

Getting my goat

No, I'm not annoyed at anything. Far from it. I mean, someone sent me some food to try!

Those people were from St Helen's Farm, who despite the name are in Yorkshire, not Merseyside. They sent me lots of different goat products to try out. Now, in this house, we don't really need them as none of us have any dairy allergies but I thought I'd give them a try out as there are a lot of benefits of trying a goats milk diet which husband sometime mentions.

When the box arrived, there was a slight problem with one tub of yogurt which had got squashed in transit but we were able to try what was left in the pot and everything was pretty unscathed. I didn't expect that I would be sent so many different varieties - whole milk, semi-skimmed, skimmed, butter, yogurts and a hard, not soft, cheese, just like cheddar, but cream in colour rather than yellow.

There is no doubt that goat products do have a strong taste to them. Personally, I found that the goat's milk was fine for putting in tea - although I have very little milk in tea - but not for coffee; well, I largely have cappuccinos which are very milky. I could definitely pick up the taste of it and personally, I don't find it pleasant. The yogurts have been used in cooking and mixed with fruit puree for the children to eat and we find that palatable. The butter has a strongish taste too, but I'm yet to try it in cooking.

What I did really like was the cheese. I like the taste of goats cheese, and it was fabulous in toasties with some sliced spring onion. However, I thought I would try this polenta dish out and adapt it - because let's face it, plain polenta doesn't taste of much and is pretty bland so I thought adding the goat's cheese would pack a punch. I have upped the cheese slightly compared to what I actually made as husband made the comment that it could do with being a slightly stronger taste. Of course, with the polenta - which is corn meal - this is wheat free and cow's milk free so it's a nice meal for someone with two of the most common allergies.

This is a very informal dish and can be served as an appetiser, with antipasti, for a larger meal with friends. However, we just had it for tea, sat around the table with spoons scooping it up. It's adapted from a Gennaro Contaldo recipe that I found and have been meaning to try for ages. I changed it because there was loads of oil in the recipe, and I didn't use wild mushrooms; I just used a mixture of chestnut mushrooms and the usual sort you get in the supermarket. It's also pretty quick to make.

Goat's Cheese Polenta with Mushrooms

Serves 4 as a main course, 6-8 as an appetiser

For the mushroom sauce
3 tbsp olive oil
4 cloves garlic, chopped (I use frozen mostly!)
1 tsp thyme leaves, fresh or dried (optional)
600g mushrooms of any sort, sliced thickly
1 tbsp tomato puree
100ml veg stock


For the polenta
1 litre water
200g quick cook polenta
25g butter
150g hard goats cheese, cut into 1cm cubes or roughly grated, plus a few shavings.

1. Heat the olive oil in a large pan, add the garlic and thyme (if using) and cook over a low heat until softened. Add the mushrooms, turn up the heat, and stir fry for a few minutes until the mushrooms start to brown.

2. Stir in the tomato purée, followed by the stock. Cook for a few minutes to reduce the liquid and make a sauce. If the mixture looks too dry, add a bit more liquid but the liquid from cooking the mushrooms should help.  Set the sauce to one side whilst you make the polenta. (This can be done in advance and heated through gently when you are ready to make the polenta.)

3. Now, make the polenta. Place the water - and a good pinch of salt - in a medium saucepan, and bring to the boil. Pour in the polenta in a steady stream, stirring with a wooden spoon all the time to avoid lumps. If lumps do form, beat well and the lumps should break up. Keep stirring until it starts to come away from the side of the pan - this should take around 5 minutes. Stir in the butter and then add the cheese, stirring to distribute.

4. To serve, you need a lightly oiled wooden board. If you don't have one, try a pizza stone or similar, which is what I used. Pour or spoon the polenta onto the board - you want to spread it out to a circle around 20cm in diameter, about 2.5cm thick. Place the shavings on top of the polenta, then top with the mushroom sauce.

5. Place the board in the centre of the table and allow everyone to take their share. If liked, you can serve with a plate of Italian antipasti.

Quiche sans pâte

If you know a smattering of French, you're probably thinking I've taken leave of my senses. "Quiche without paté? Has she gone mad? What quiche has pâté in it?" Well, you're right - none of them do. What's crucial is that their is no é making this pastry, not pâté (pronounced quiche sanz pat, literally). So, we're talking pastryless quiche.

If it sounds a strange concept, it's not. It's brilliant. If you're not good at pastry, (like me), it's a revelation. It's quick to prepare, can be made in advance and eaten at just about any temperature from straight out of the oven hot to chilled for hours cold. And it's made out of store cupboard ingredients and perhaps whatever you have in to fill it. With no baking blind, what is not to like?

I first came across quiche sans pâte when a mum (from southern France, of course) made one for a shared buffet - I was going to say Jacob's Join till I remembered it's a Lancashire term. I asked her for the recipe as it was so fab and made my own a few times. Then I managed to lose the recipe. As Googling doesn't produce a recipe in English, I have taken a recipe in French and adapted it for English tastes. It can be made with various fillings - the original recipe used ham but anything that you would normally use to fill a quiche will be great.

There's hardly any prep, unless you choose any fillings that need pre-cooking but don't forget to leave them to cool a little before adding them to the dish. Feel free to use any hard cheese for the filling. Gruyere is not to everyone's taste (although it is best cooked) and a mature cheddar does just fine. You can add herbs if you fancy it.

Oh, one final thing - it's best cooked in a metal/non stick dish. Make sure you grease anything you use really well as eggs will weld to the surfaces. If you use a dish with a smaller diameter (under 25cm), make sure you use a deeper dish to cook it. Small deep quiches may take longer to cook.

Quiche sans pâte
Serves 4-6, with leftovers

Ingredients

3 large eggs
200ml milk
100ml creme fraiche
2 heaped tbsp flour
100g gruyere or other hard cheese, grated
salt and pepper

Optional fillings
4 slices of ham, chopped
100g bacon lardons, fried until crisp
125g mushrooms, sliced and fried
1 red onion, chopped
4 asparagus spears

1. Heat oven to 200C/400F/Gas 4 and grease your dish well (I always use butter but you can use oil if you like).

2. Mix all the ingredients (except the cheese) for the quiche together in a bowl with a fork. Add all but a handful of the cheese to the mixture and stir together. Season well. All you need to ensure is that any lumps of flour are broken up.

3. Pour into the greased dish and add your chosen fillings to the dish. Scatter over the reserved handful of cheese.

4. Cook for an hour (although I check it about 35 mins in and if the top is already browned, I turn the oven down). It's done when there is no liquid egg left on the surface and it's all puffed up, although it will collapse again quickly. If you are eating hot, just leave it a few minutes before cutting.

This is great with chips or boiled new potatoes, and for veg, a green salad or steamed green beans.

Thai fish pie - family style

This sounds mad, doesn't it? I first saw it on one of the last episodes of Something for the Weekend and thought I had to give it a go. Unfortunately, on looking at the recipe, I realised I would have to adapt it if I were to make it for all of us as it had fresh chillies in it. With this adaptation in mind, I set about buying the ingredients - and discovered that monkfish was not only difficult to find, it was damned expensive. There were various things about the recipe that I felt weren't quite right (you can tell it was written by a chef rather than a food writer) - like I'm still not sure if it was a typo that 200g butter would be added to the mash. So I've done my own version based on this.

I still add a bit of chilli powder to this, but if you want, you can leave it out. However, I like that it leaves a little bit of warmth at the back of your mouth, just enough for you to know it's there but not enough to have Monkey and Missy Woo grabbing drinks and complaining "It's too spicy." They love this, as do I. If you do want it really spicy, just add some fresh chopped chilli in step 2.

The important ingredients are the lemongrass and the kaffir lime leaves, as they really add flavour. Both are easily bought from supermarkets these days - make sure you buy fresh, not dried, lemongrass.

Thai Fish Pie
Serves 4-6

Ingredients
700g sweet potato, peeled and cut into chunks
200g potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
1 tbsp vegetable
1 onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 stalk lemongrass, bruised (just bash it with the handle of a knife)
2 kaffir lime leaves
1 tsp mild chilli powder (optional)
400ml coconut milk
100ml milk
400g white fish, cut into chunks
200g salmon, skin removed and cut into chunks
200g peeled prawns, preferably king or jumbo size, either raw or cooked
25g butter, plus a knob of butter for the mash
25g flour
100g frozen peas
1 lime, juice and zest
fish sauce (optional)


1. First, place the sweet potato and potato into a pan of hot water, cover and bring to the boil. Simmer until soft. Drain.

2. Whilst the potatoes are cooking, heat the oil in a large pan and add the onion, garlic, lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves. Cook over a medium heat for about 3 minutes. Add the chilli powder, if using, stir and cook for a couple more minutes. Add both milks. If using light coconut milk, turn the heat right down immediately. If you have time, turn the heat off and leave to stand for a while to infuse.

3. Add the white fish and salmon to the pan. If you're worried about the coconut milk splitting, turn the heat off and allow the fish to poach using residual heat, otherwise keep the heat down as low as possible. After about 3/4 minutes, add the prawns if they are raw. They will turn pink when they are cooked.

4. Using a slotted spoon, lift the fish out of the pan and place in your dish, putting the poaching liquor to one side. Your dish needs to be about 25cm x 25cm although I tend to use a small lasagne dish. Scatter over the peas.  Turn the oven onto 200 C /400F / Gas 6.

5. When the potatoes are done, mash them with a knob of butter. I also tend to add a squeeze of lime juice to cut the sweetness. Season. Take the lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves out of the poaching liquor before you make the sauce.

6. In another pan, melt the 25g butter, add the flour, and cook for a minute. Add the poaching liquor a bit at a time, whisking constantly. Once it's all added, squeeze in the rest of the juice of the lime and add the zest, bring it up to the boil then simmer gently for 5 minutes, stirring all the time. Season to taste - I tend to do this with a dash of fish sauce, but you can use salt and pepper if you like.

7. Pour the sauce over the fish and peas. Scoop the mash over the fish and rough up the surface in whatever way you choose; I tend to use the back of a spoon. Cook in the oven for 25 minutes. If you like a crispy top (don't we all?), place it under a hot grill for a few minutes.

You can serve with some stir fried greens if you like but it's fine just as it is, and leftovers also reheat well.

Slow cooker risotto - a recipe for success

I love my slow cooker. Regular readers of my ramblings will not be surprised by this revelation as I might have mentioned this before. They are so useful if you want to save money and time, once you learn a different way of cooking - it's not massively different but you do have to adapt recipes for the slow cooker, generally needing less liquid as less evaporates during cooking.

Until recently, I have never considered cooking risotto in a slow cooker. In theory, it should be a prime candidate for slow cooking to save time as risotto does require a lot of attention - constant stirring means you're stood at the hob from the moment you start cooking. After all, I make very passable rice pudding in a slow cooker and the basic ingredients are the same - rice and some liquid. However, I couldn't get over the thought that risotto does need so much attention for a reason - because that attention is what makes it so nice. I'd always steered clear of oven baked risotto recipes for the same reason but people do rave about them.

Putting my prejudices to one side, I decided to give it a go and trawled around some recipes. The first thing that struck me was how many used brown rice, not risotto rice. Maybe I'm a food snob ("Yes!" I hear you shouting at your screen) but I want my risotto to be as authentic as possible and I couldn't see how brown rice could give a risotto that lovely creaminess. Eventually, I found a recipe using risotto. The cooking time  was 2 hours - rice pudding often takes 2 to 3 hours so it sounded right. I put it on one day just before the school run, and checked it after one hour. There was very little liquid that hadn't been absorbed and rice was already well cooked. Overcooked, in fact. By the time it was actually tea time, it was very overcooked. It tasted nice though but the rice needed some work.

I decided to give it another go but keep a closer eye on it to see just how long it needed to make rice that wasn't overcooked (or undercooked, for that matter) because it was obvious to me that it needed much less time. The result I got was pretty much near perfect for my tastes. Husband said it was still slightly different to conventional risotto but the children both loved it and asked for it again!

I use the high setting on my slow cooker. If you want to leave the risotto longer, then do cook it on a lower setting but it can take anything up to twice as long to cook. It might be a case of knowing your own slow cooker to get it right.

I'm making my risotto with leek and mushrooms because that's what we had in. Raw meat should be cooked before you add the onions or leeks.This serves 2 adults and 2 children - if you have 4 adults to feed, or very very hungry children, increase the rice to 300g and stock to about 800ml. The stock doesn't need to be boiling - it will cook quicker that way so only use boiling stock if you really are in a hurry.

Slow cooker leek and mushroom risotto
Serves 4

Ingredients
knob of butter
1 tsp olive oil
3 leeks, thinly sliced (or 1 onion, finely chopped)
200g mushrooms, sliced
250g risotto rice
650ml hot chicken or vegetable stock
50g parmesan, grated


1. Melt the butter in a large pan and add a splash of olive oil so it doesn't burn. Add the leeks or onion and the mushrooms and cook over a medium low heat until the leeks or onions are soft but not coloured, which takes about 3 -5 minutes.

2. Add the rice and stir until it starts becoming translucent, about another 3 minutes. Tip everything in to the slow cooker.

3. Pour in all but 50ml of the hot stock and give everything a quick stir, cover and cook on high.

4. Give it a quick stir if you can after about 20 minutes. After 40 minutes, check the rice to see if it's done  - much like pasta, risotto is best slightly al dente, with a little bite to it. If it's not cooked, test it again after another 5 minutes. When the rice is done, turn off the slow cooker, and quickly stir in remaining stock and most of the parmesan, reserving some for a garnish. Put the lid back on and leave it for 2 or 3 minutes.

5. Spoon into bowls and top with a little parmesan before serving immediately.Buon appetito!

A happy breakfast and lunch wrapped up

Every year, when it's the children's birthdays, we allow the birthday boy or girl to choose what they want for a special breakfast, especially now that the children are at school. We've had some interesting responses which have been quite sweet, like their usual stuff, but then we ask them to pick something special and it's normally something chocolatey or has some chocolate in it somewhere. Of course!

For Monkey's birthday this Friday, he has requested toast and chocolate spread. It made me smile because Warburtons had just sent me some products to try. Along with those, they also sent through details of a survey they commissioned that found that eating bakery products for breakfast made you happier than eating cereals (and even bacon butties). Top of the list for happiness was brioche, closely followed by white toast and crumpets, and in celebration of this, they sent us chocolate chip brioche to try. I'd normally insert a picture here but honestly, it didn't last long enough. Oops. 

Something else they sent was a pack of their Squareish Wraps so we could try out one of their recipes. These are thicker than normal wraps, so you can not only roll them, but also top them or fold them. Actually, I do have to say that I don't find them as good for rolling as usual wraps because of the thickness. Also, I like the way you fold in the edge to keep the filling in - you can't do that with these so the filling just falls out of the ends. 

We did however try them out as pizza bases and made two pizzas for lunch one day. With thanks to Warburton, here is the official recipe.

Chicken & peppers or Cheese, tomato and Rocket Pizza

Serves 2

Ingredients
· 2 Warburtons Square-ish Wraps
· Tomato puree
· Cooked torn chicken
· Char grilled Aubergines, Red and Yellow peppers
· Cherry Tomatoes
· Mozzarella Cheese
· Mixed Herbs
· Rocket Leaves

Method 

1. Spread a thin layer of tomato puree on both wraps.

2. Top one with chicken and vegetables and the other with cheese, tomato and herbs.

3. Cook in a hot oven (200C/400F/Gas 6)

4. Garnish with Rocket leaves.

Now, we took a few liberties with this. We had chicken and a jar of piquillo peppers, which I sliced, but not cherry tomatoes or mozzarella. The rest are not huge fans of rocket so I didn't buy any of that. Monkey helped me "cook" and we just put everything we had on both wraps. I grated cheddar instead of using mozzarella. Monkey enjoyed sprinkling on the cheese, although he did decide at one stage just to dump a load of cheese on the baking sheet "because it was funny". 

I thought that the pizza would come out too flimsy but although they did come thin, cooking made them firmer. I cooked them in the oven for about 15 minutes - I noticed the time is not mentioned in the recipe so I just made sure the cheese was melted. It was very tasty - and quite light for a lunch; a thick pizza would have been way too stodgy for lunchtime. I always want to sleep the afternoon if I have pizza for lunch but this was nice. I am not sure that I would have liked the pizza without cheese - it just doesn't seem right to me.

And there you have it - lunch all wrapped up. (Stop groaning at the back there).

(Warburton's sent me some bakery products to try. I have not received any further compensation. I have not been told what to write. I was sent some recipes to try and include but not obliged to include them on my blog.)

Cake of the Week - a chocolatey Jaffa drizzle cake!

Randomly, I decided to bake at the weekend with Missy Woo and this cake jumped out at me from a booklet with this month's Good Food magazine as I had everything I needed to hand, and it celebrated two things she loves foodwise - chocolate and citrus. This is the little girl that will literally lick the cut edge of lemons and enjoy it.

The original recipe is for a loaf cake but I thought I would share my unique method of preparation with you. As I didn't have a large enough loaf tin (it specified a 1.2 litre loaf tin), I used a 7 or 8 inch round deep baking tin which really requires adjustments of cooking time, which I have given here. Also, I wasn't sure the cake would be orangey enough so I took inspiration from Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries, which has an orange drizzle loaf cake recipe using marmalade, so I bunged that in too.

Jaffa Drizzle Cake 

Ingredients
(Cuts into 10-12)

For the cake:
140g/5oz butter, softened
200g/7oz self-raising flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
200g/7oz caster sugar
3 large eggs
6 tbsp milk
75g any marmalade - shredless is best
1 large orange

For the syrup:
3 tbsp orange juice (from the orange)
50g/2oz caster sugar

To top the cake:
75g/3oz dark chocolate (the darker, the better - 70% cocoa solids is good)

This is how I actually did it.

1. Heat your oven to 180C/160C fan/Gas 4. Butter and line the base of either a 20cm/8" deep round tin or a 1.2l loaf tin with baking parchment.

2. Measure your butter, and place in microwave ready to soften.

3. Place all the cake ingredients into a mixing bowl and start to beat with hand whisk. Realise you haven't grated in the zest of the orange, so stop and finely grate the zest into the bowl.

4. Recommence beating with hand whisk for 3-5 mins and wonder why it's not gone light and fluffy as expected, but more like a cake batter. Realise baking powder has not been added, add that in and mix again.

5. Realise your cake mixture is not going to go light and fluffy. Shrug. Pour cake batter into tin and go to place cake in oven. Turn towards microwave and ..... OH MY GOD! The butter. It's STILL in the microwave. Turn microwave on to soften butter.

6. Wrestle cake bowl that children were about to start licking from small hands, pour cake batter into bowl. Quickly wash out tin, discarding cake parchment. Re-butter and re-line the base of the tin.

7. Add now softened butter. Mix again, and realise that butter was indeed the missing ingredient and the mixture finally becomes light and fluffy. Place in the tin, level the top.

8. Bake in the oven until risen and firm to the touch, should be about 50-55 mins if you use a round tin, 40-50 mins if you are using the loaf tin. In the last few mins of cooking, place the orange juice and sugar in a pan  over a gentle heat, and stir until all the sugar dissolved. Try to keep warm, but don't allow to bubble too much or the liquid will evaporate and dry too hard. (Ahem.)

9. Remove cake from the oven and spoon over the syrup. Leave to cool in the tin. Remove from the tin, using ingenuity and some force to ease the solidified syrup from the top of the cake. Leave to cool completely.

10. Break the chocolate into small pieces and either melt in a bowl over a pan of simmering water, ensuring the water does not touch the bowl or microwave in 30 second bursts and stirring vigorously between. Drizzle over the cake and leave to set.

Thankfully, this is a fairly forgiving cake. It's an all-in-one sponge, so all you do is place ingredients in the bowl and just mix them together. Missing the butter out initially didn't mean the final cake suffered - it was actually light and fluffy, even though it sank back quite some distance after removing from the oven, although the syrup might be the culprit there. It smells gorgeous, even cold. I wondered if you could add some cocoa powder to the sponge to make it fully chocolate and orange flavoured; that might be a step too far but it may be an experiment for another day.

Linking this up with Helen's Cake of the Week feature once again, just because I love her cakes!

A recipe?

Start with an idea, and take a leap of faith. Free range is best; they leap further. Mix thoroughly with some aspirations, but trim to realistic sizes first.

Rinse a handful of risks. Discard any bad ones, leaving the good ones you’re prepared to take. Add them gradually whilst stirring. Use your judgement, and stop when you think you’ve added enough.

Add a dash of hope; for without hope, you will have nothing. Leave to rise until doubled in size. Bake until risen and firm, then cool. Top liberally with wisdom, then slice and enjoy.

Life tastes good, doesn’t it?

This is for 100 Word Challenge for Grown Ups at Julia's Place. This week, the prompt was "Take a Leap of Faith" in honour of  Leap Year Day. Also, if you're interested, why not join in with Feb29th.net today - it's a global blogging project to record this special day. 

Pork, sage and apple meatloaf

Meatloaf has recently become one of my faves for easy cooking. I really don't know why it's taken me until now to realise how easy it is. As family food goes, it's pretty perfect - easy and quick to make, and very satisfying. It also is great to make ahead, and the leftovers are great in a sandwich. It is also an inexpensive dish to make. And if you have kids and they like to "cook", this is great messy play mixing things together - although you might want to make sure they don't try to eat raw meat! Can you tell I love it?

Recently, I've made a couple of meat loaves which I've made for the rest of the family to have whilst I've been away. I've made meatloaves from beef mince and more recently, turkey mince so I thought about making one with pork mince. When I made the turkey and cranberry meatloaf from Nick's book, I noticed that he used sage and onion stuffing instead of breadcrumbs which was frankly brilliant. So, I've used that trick here, hope Nick doesn't mind. I got sage, onion and apple stuffing mix instead here from the supermarket - if you can't get that, just get a smaller pack of sage and onion stuffing mix and see if you can get some dried apple from a health food store.

Coconut & Lime Cake

As you know, I was away last weekend. It's been booked for months, and so felt a bit bad when I realised the school summer fair was on the same day. Never mind, I thought - I'll make some cakes for the cake stall.

Then, I get a note saying that school was having a competition to see which class could make the most cakes. Which meant I needed to make the same number of cakes for each child. Oh, and I promised someone else I'd make a cake for an NCT fundraiser too. My first idea was to make my usual chocolate cake in loaf tins so I could make two cakes in one go. And then I made a coconut sponge cake, my absolute favourite. Having made golden banana cake from Nick's book for the NCT, I still needed to make one more cake so each child had two cakes. Why do I do this to myself?

I realised I still had coconut milk left over. I didn't want to make the same basic cake so I decided to adapt it and add another flavour. I remembered I had some limes lurking in the fridge- and came up with the idea for this. It's based on the original recipe. I kind of made it up as I went along - I decided to add the lime syrup after I'd baked the cake then add the usual buttercream with a bit of lime juice. This is a really easy recipe but the syrup adds another step.

Recipe - Sausage, Bean & Cheese Pasties

I haven't done a recipe in a while so it's time I posted another. I also spied that English Mum was holding another bake-off and this time, you can win a whole fridge freezer. As I need one before our current one dies a death, I thought I'd give it a go.

These pasties are fast becoming a family favourite. What do I mean "becoming"? They already are! Monkey asks for them. They are great food to eat on the run, and work hot or cold. Although they are a bit time-consuming (but not difficult) to make, they can easily be reheated so I tend to make them in advance. And they can be frozen too, which is entirely appropriate given the prize for the bake-off!

Pasties are obviously the original easy to eat anywhere food. These ones are different though - instead of the crust being pastry, it's made from bread dough so really, I guess, they may be technically more like a calzone. But we're not Italian and the filling is definitely British so pasty, it most definitely is. When I first saw the recipe for this, I was intrigued and had to try them out. I'm really glad I did. The result is much lower in fat than a conventional pasty - the original recipe says there are about 350 calories per portion when a standard pasty is more like 500 calories.

This is also quite an economical recipe as none of the ingredients are expensive. Don't get really cheap sausages or they'll just be greasy - I bought some Waitrose essential pork sausages for less than £1 and when cooked, they lost hardly any fat, so they are a decent but inexpensive option. I've tweaked the original recipe somewhat and provide you options for making the dough. In addition, I think the filling only needs one tin of baked beans as I'm always left with quite a lot of filling (or I'm stingy with it but I don't think so) but feel free to add a second tin if you really think it needs it.

Finally, if you wanted to spice these up a bit, I think a dash of Worcester sauce, Tabasco, chilli powder or curry powder would all work well. I reckon also you could vary the cheese for a bit of variety.

These pasties were our tea tonight - Thursday after school is a whirl of activities with Missy Woo having ballet, and Monkey having football so these are great as we can eat in shifts and if I've got my act together, I don't have to do any cooking.

Sausage, Bean & Cheese Pasties
Makes 12

Ingredients

500g/1b 2oz pack bread mix or dough made from 500g/1b 2oz flour
8 sausages or 500g/1lb 2oz sausagemeat
1 420g/15oz can of baked beans
140g/5oz cheddar, grated (we like mature)
1 egg, beaten

1. First, make your dough. Either make up the bread mix according to the packet instructions or use your favourite bread recipe and leave to rise. Alternatively, make the dough in the breadmaker using the dough options. 

2. Whilst that is rising or working in your breadmaker, make your filling. Skin the sausages and roll into about 6 to 8 small meatballs per sausage. Heat a large frying pan and brown the little meatballs, in batches if the pan is too crowded. Drain off any excess fat before returning all of them to then and adding the tin of beans. If you're going to add anything to spice it up, do so now. Stir to combine the filling thoroughly then take the pan off the heat to cool whilst you deal with the dough. 

3. When the dough is ready, heat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6 and grease 2 or 3 large baking sheets well. I find I need to tip the dough out onto a workshop to relax the dough slightly for 10-15 mins before using but you may find different. I also think dough from a breadmaker needs a bit of knocking back as there seem to be lots of big bubbles by this stage. 

4. Divide the dough into 12 pieces. Keep the other pieces of dough covered with a tea towel or oiled cling film whilst you roll each piece out into a circle about 17cm/7 in in diameter. I find this a bit challenging so don't worry too much if they won't roll out to that size - the important thing is that they don't tear. 

5. Fill each circle (I fill as I go, you can roll them all out first if you like) with a scoop of the filling and a scattering of cheese. You'll need to put the filling to one side so that you can make the proper D shape that pasties are, but leaving the edge clear. Fold the rest of the dough over, pressing the edges together to seal and crimp together. I find that rolling the edges round makes the most effective seal. Transfer to the oiled baking sheet. You can keep them covered if you like but I find it makes no difference. 

6. Once all the pasties are made, brush with some beaten egg and place in the oven. Cook for 15-20 minutes until they are looking all golden and have risen nicely. Remove from oven and cool slightly on a wire rack. They can be eaten warm or cold. They also freeze well - cool well and freeze on a covered tray. Transfer to a freezer bag once fully frozen and seal. They defrost overnight in a fridge or 4-5 hours at room temperature. They can be reheated in a hot oven for about 10 minutes until piping hot.

(PS If you don't seal well, the cheese will leak out of crust as shown above!)