Number Twenty Three: Fairy Cakes

I went to a friend's birthday barbecue on sunday and promised to provide some cake! Not one to break a promise, I whipped up some fairy cakes from How to Be a Domestic Goddess. The quantities below are supposed to make 12 cakes but I actually made 14 - think I used slightly smaller cases.

Nigella's method is to blitz everything in a food processor, which works fine. However I like the mixing part so I made them the traditional way. Do as you will.


Ingredients

125g soft unsalted butter
125g caster sugar (I used golden but you don't have to)
2 large eggs
125g self raising flour
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 - 3 tbsp milk


Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200C, or 180C in a fan oven.

2. Cream the butter and sugar together until really pale and fluffy. This will take a good few minutes with an electric mixer.

3. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

4. Beat in the vanilla and milk. Then, sift in the flour and baking powder, and gently fold with a metal spoon. Don't over mix it as this can make the cakes tough. You may need to add more milk if it looks too thick.

5. Spoon into the cases until about 2/3rds full.

6. Bake for about 15 minutes, until golden and cooked through.

Now you can ice them however you like! Wanting to fit with the barbecue theme, I made corn on the cob cakes :)

Enjoy! Thanks for reading :)

Number Twenty Two: Mozzarella and Mortadella Frittata

My parents are out at a murder mystery evening tonight, so I'm cooking dinner for me and my brother (who came back from a year in the US on wednesday!)


I wanted to cook something quick and easy, as frankly I've been feeling pretty lazy lately and didn't want to spend hours chopping etc etc :)


This recipe comes from Kitchen - it's actually the first one in the book!- and is quite an easy store cupboard recipe. But unfortunately we had no mortadella to hand, so I substituded ham. Well, it's still pig!




Ingredients


6 eggs
125g mortadella (or ham), chopped
125g fresh mozzarella cheese ball, chopped into small chunks
1 tbsp chopped parsley (plus extra to serve if you wish)
1 tbsp freshly grated parmesan
sea salt flakes and pepper to taste
1 tbsp butter
drop garlic oil




Method


1. Turn on the grill so it can get hot. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

2. Stir in the mortadella, mozzarella, parmesan, parsley, and seasoning to taste.

3. Heat the butter and oil in a large saucepan, about 25cm in diameter (non-stick to be safe). When hot, add the egg mixture.

4. Cook for about 5 minutes, without stirring, until the frittata is set underneath.

5. Transfer to the grill to finish cooking. It is ready when it is set and golden on top.

6. Leave to stand for a few minutes, then loosen the edges with a spatula and ease of the pan onto a board or plate, keeping it the same way up. Cut into triangles, and serve!

Very tasty! If there are any leftovers, Nigella recommends having them cold in a bun, as offered under glass counters in bars all over Italy. But it's unlikely there'll be any left!

Thanks for reading! :)

Number Twenty One: My Brown Bread

One of the first things I did after finishing my last (important) exam - besides eating - was making this bread! I'd been wanting to make it for ages, but hadn't really had time until now. And now I have ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD!!!! Muahahahahahaa.

Okay, so this recipe comes from How to be a Domestic Goddess, and makes one loaf.


Ingredients

200g rye flour
200g wholemeal flour
200g strong white flour
7g sachet easy-blend yeast
1 tbsp salt
approx 300ml warm water, but be prepared to use more
1 tbsp unsalted butter


Method

1. Put the flours, yeast and salt into a bowl and pour in about 200ml of the water, mixing as you do so with a wooden spoon. You might need more water, but remember, you want it to be - as Nigella says - a 'shaggy mess'.

2. When it is a 'shaggy mess' (and I feel what I have below is about right), add the butter.

3. Then, knead with your hands or with a dough hook, for at least 10 minutes. When it's ready it will be smoother and less sticky.

4. Oil or butter a bowl, then form your dough into a bowl and pop it in, turning once so the top of the bread is coated. Cover with clingfilm and leave in a warm place for 1 - 2 hours, or until doubled in size.

5. When ready, punch it down. Preheat the oven to 220C (200C in a fan oven). Then knead the dough for a minute, form it into a rough loaf shape, and place onto a baking tray.

6. Loosely cover with a tea towel, and leave for a further 30 minutes or so, until puffy and again almost doubled in size. When ready, dust with flour, then pop in the oven for 35 minutes.

7. It is ready when you can knock your knuckles on the underside and make a hollow sound. When ready, remove to a rack to cool a little before slicing.

And that's it! I am not very deft at cutting bread - my slices always come out very thick and uneven. But it's yummy so it doesn't matter!

Om nom nom :)

Number Twenty: Creme Brulee (1/5th of the way there!)

After the sausages and mash, which was an absolute TOUR DE FORCE (if I may say so myself), we moved on to creme brulee for pud. I made the custard mix and put it into ramekins the day before (really doesn't sound like I've been doing much revising at all now does it!) so all I had to do before serving was add the sugar and blowtorch it.

The recipe fills six 150ml ramekins, but Nigella prefers to use one large dish. Do as you will.

Under the custard layer, I had a layer of rhubarb and orange blossom compote (homemade, of course), as my dad loves rhubarb and I thought it would work nicely.


Ingredients

600ml double cream
1 vanilla pod, split
8 egg yolks
3 tbsp caster sugar
about 6 tbsp demerera sugar (but I didn't need quite this much)


Method

1. Put the six 150ml ramekins/one 20cm pie dish (filled, if you want, with a layer of fruit compote) in the freezer for at least 20 minutes. Half fill the sink with cold water - if the custard looks like it's going to split, you can plunge the saucepan in here and beat furiously to save it. Seriously, make sure you do this. I needed it. Twice.

2. Put the cream and the vanilla pod into a saucepan and bring to boiling point, without letting it boil.

3. Beat the egg yolks and caster sugar together in a bowl large enough to comfortably house the cream.

4. When the cream is ready, pour it into the egg mix, vanilla pod and all, beating whilst you do this. Rinse and dry the pan, and then return the cream and egg mix to it.

5. Cook over a low heat, stirring pretty much the whole time, until the custard thickens. This should take about 10 minutes - you want it to be really thick and creamy.

6. Retrieve your ramekins/pie dish, discard the vanilla pod, and pour the custard into the cold container/s.

7. Leave to cool, and then put in the fridge until cold. You can leave them for a day or two until needed. To serve, sprinkle the demerara sugar evenly over the cremes.

8. Then, blast them with a blowtorch until you have a blistering crust on the top. If you don't have a blowtorch you can use the grill, but the torch is way more effective, so I recommend investing in one. It doubles up as a lazy man's campfire when you want toasted marshmallows on a whim.

9. Give the crust a moment or two to harden into its crunchy glory. Then serve.


I did have a picture of one of the creme brulees with a spoonful taken out, so that you could see the rhubarb compote beneath...but it looked really ugly so it's not emerging. Sorry.

Of course, it is perfectly acceptable to have the creme brulees as they are, unadulterated by any adornments. But if you want to jazz it up a bit as I did, any sort of fruit compote would work nicely, as would a layer of jam, or a layer of fresh summer berries. I suppose you could also try a layer of chocolate or caramel sauce, but if you use fruit then at least you can pretend it's healthy ;)

Number Nineteen: Mashed Potato

Hello again!!

Apologies, it has been quite a while since I last posted! But I have a valid excuse - I've been a busy bee revising for my A levels, and as much as I'd like to spend all day procrastinating by baking cupcakes and the like, I felt I should get my head down and do some work.

And it has paid off! (I hope)

All the exams that matter are done now. YAY!! There is the small matter of a general studies exam on monday, but considering almost no university considers that anyway, I feel it isn't worth worrying about.

Now, onto the recipe. I DID manage to find time between revision sessions to cook my dad a father's day dinner on sunday. One of his favourite meals is sausage and mash, so I used Nigella's recipe for mash from Nigella Bites, and some delicious sausages we bought the day before from the Good Food Show (yes, somehow I also managed to find the time to tear myself away from revision and enjoy a day of free samples, cooking demonstrations and shopping. Funny that.) For dessert we had Creme Brulee, which I will post next.

The quantities below are enough for one person, so increase for however many people you need to feed.
Nigella suggests investing in a potato ricer (which I did), as the mash comes out a lot smoother, and you don't need to peel the potatoes. The ricer works really well! But I still think you should peel the potatoes as they got caught in my ricer so I had to keep picking them out which was a bit annoying.


Ingredients

250-350g potatoes, such as Maris Piper or Kind Edward
approx 75g warm milk or cream
approx 50g unsalted butter
salt and pepper
freshly grated nutmeg


Method

1. Slice the potatoes into same-sized chunks.

2. Boil in a large pan of lightly salted water, until soft enough to mash. I usually stab them with a knife - if it slides in easily like butter then they're ready.

3. Drain the potatoes thoroughly. Now you need to rice to potatoes, so swap to a smaller saucepan if you want - it makes it easier to mix in the milk/cream and butter later.

4. Rice your taters!! They come out looking like grated cheese. It's pretty cool.

5. With a wooden spoon, beat in the warm milk or cream (add this slowly as you don't want to add too much and have runny mash!), the butter and the seasonings. Beat quite well - you want to get lots of air into it.

6. Now serve! We had the sausages and mash with peas and gravy. Yum yum! My dad was really happy which means I was happy with it too:)

Number Eighteen: Spaghetti with Marmite

I decided to cook pasta for tea tonight, as tomorrow me and my dad are doing a half marathon!!! (A walking half marathon mind, but still, it's pretty tiring. Honest!) So I thought pasta would be good energy food for the night before.

I've been looking at this recipe in Kitchen for a while but never actually got round to making it until now, and I'm glad I did - it's ridiculously easy and tastes SO GOOD! You wouldn't expect it but it really does!

The quantities below are for 4 - 6 kids, but if it's for adults go for 300g pasta for 3 people, with the same amount of sauce; 400g for 4 and increase the sauce a bit, and so on and so forth.


Ingredients

375g dried spaghetti
50g unsalted butter
1 tsp marmite, or more to taste (I used about 1.5)
freshly grated parmesan cheese to serve (If my parents are involved, A LOT of parmesan will be required)


Method

1. Cook the spaghetti in boiling salted water according to pack instructions.

2. When nearly cooked, melt the butter in a small saucepan, and add the marmite and about a tablespoon of pasta water.

3. Drain the pasta, reserving about half a cup of pasta water.

4. Return to the pan and pour over the marmite sauce, adding some of the reserved pasta water if necessary to loosen it up a bit.

5. Mix well, then serve with plenty of parmesan.

Fabulous! You can use vegemite too - Nigella says this works just as well.

Thanks for reading!!

What became of the victoria sponge recipe

I told you I would update you on my jubilee cake, and here it is!

My corgi cake and pupcakes! I'm sorry but if I tell you how I made the pupcakes I'd have to kill you - trade secret you see ;)

I tweeted a picture of this to Nigella and her reply was "It's brilliant!"

Brilliant!!

I won the bake off and got the bottle of champagne - it was between me and a rather impressive chocolate cake, but mine won on taste :)

Hooray!!

Here is a rather unattractive picture of me that slightly resembles a squirrel, with my MUM champagne, actual mum, and the cake (minus a sneaky lil slice).

The champagne will be utilised when my exams are over.

Thanks for reading!

Number Seventeen: Lily's Scones

To celebrate the jubilee we decided to have a little family tea party. No street party for us - our road is too busy to be closed off, and the cheeky neighbours round the corner didn't invite anyone on our street to their's! How rude. Well, their loss, they missed out on some impeccable scones.

This recipe comes from How to be a Domestic Goddess. It usually makes 12, but me and dad used a 6cm cutter instead of a 6.5 one, and I think our's weren't quite as thick as 3cm, so we got 20 of them! (The more the merrier!)

This is a great recipe - the scones look heavy but they're lovely and fluffy. Yum yum yum!

Ingredients

500g plain flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
4.5 tsp cream of tartar
50g cold unsalted butter, diced
25g Trex (or another 25g butter if you don't have any)
300ml milk
1 large egg, beaten, for egg wash

Optional - 75g grated mature cheddar / 75g raisins or sultanas / 75g dried sour cherries with finely grated zest of half an orange

Also need 1 x 6.5cm crinkle-edged round cutter


Method

1. Preheat the oven to 220C (200C for a fan oven). Sift the flour, salt, bicarb and cream of tartar together in a large bowl.

2. Rub in the fats until incorporated (or as Nigella says, till it goes like damp sand.)

3. If using one of the optional extras, add this now. We used sultanas.

4. Add the milk all at once and mix briefly. Then turn out onto a floured surface and knead lightly to form a dough.

5. Roll out to about 3cm thickness. Make sure you flour the rolling pin or it will stick.

6. Flour the cutter, and then cut out rounds from the dough, placing close together on a lined baking tray. You want them close together so that they bulge and stick together when they cook.

7. Brush the tops of the scones with the egg wash.

8. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes (but if you used a smaller cutter like us, check them after 8) until risen and golden.

9. Let them cool a little, and then serve! They are best when warm. We had them split and filled with clotted cream and strawberry jam, or you could try Nigella's favourite - 'Thunder and Lightning', which is clotted cream with black treacle.

Thanks for reading!

Now, back to revision..... :(

Number Sixteen: Eton Mess

Third Nigella recipe of the day! On a roll here!

For dessert after the lahmacun I decided to make eton mess. Nice and summery, despite the sudden turn in the weather.

Dad: "Hope you're not going to make a mess. Oh well, we're eton it anyway."

The quantities below make enough to serve 4.


Ingredients:

500g strawberries
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp pomegranate juice
500ml double cream
4 meringue nests


Method:

1. Hull and chop the strawberries, and pop in a bowl. Sprinkle over the sugar and juice, and leave to macerate while you whip the cream.

2. Whip the cream in a large bowl until thickened, but still soft.

3. Roughly crumble in the meringue nests. You want a mix of chunks for texture, and dust as well. Mix gently.

4. Scoop out a ladleful of the berries, about 100g, and put to one side. You'll use these to decorate at the end. Take the rest of the berries and fold in to the meringue and cream mix.

5. To serve, divide the creamy-meringuey-berry mix between four little bowls or plates. Top with the reserved berries, and eat!!

Yum yum yum :)

If I make this again, I'll add more meringue, but if you like it as it is you can keep it that way - I just always like lots of extras, like extra sauce on sticky toffee pudding, extra cake in a trifle, maybe extra gravy on a roast.... om nom nom :)