Tagged "british" | Je Goûterai

No. 80: Jaffa Cakes – 26.2.13

That’s right bitches. Jaffa Cakes. I made Jaffa Cakes. I don’t even know if I should write an introduction to this. Recipe was taken from the Sorted website.

http://sortedfood.com/#!/core/jaffacakes/

Makes 12 Cakes/biscuits (you choose what you believe in) , Preheat the oven to 180oC

1 Orange
1 pack of Orange Jelly Cubes
50g Plain Flour
50g Caster Sugar
200g Dark Chocolate

Zest the orange into a bowl and set aside for later.
Dissolve the jelly in half the recommended amount of water and squeeze in the juice of the orange. (I used about 250ml of boiling water and the juice of an orange is about ¼ of a cup of juice. Making up about 300ml all together)
Pour the Jelly into a shallow baking tray lined with clingfilm so that it forms a sheet about 1/2cm thick. Place in the fridge to set.
Meanwhile, boil a pan of water and reduce to a simmer.
Place a mixing bowl over the simmering water and add the sugar, eggs and orange zest and whisk until pale and fluffy. I would do this with an electric whisk and will take about 5-8 minutes.
Remove the bowl and carefully fold in until well mixed.
Grease a muffin tin and spoon in the batter, only enough to coat the bottom of the indent, about a heaped teaspoon – a tablespoon
Bake the cakes for 10 minutes until golden and spring back when lightly touched.
Ease he sponges loose once they have cooled, keeping them in the muffin tin.
Melt the chocolate slowly in the microwave or in a bowl over a pan of simmering water.
Cut the jelly sheet into discs a little smaller than the diameter of the cakes.
Place a jelly disc onto the centre of each sponge and drizzle the melted chocolate so that it just covers the cake, spreading with the back of a spoon so it reaches the edges too.
Wait for the chocolate to set by placing the fridge or leaving out for a little bit.

Yum yum yum! I couldn’t get hold of orange jelly so I used strawberry jelly with a ¼ cup of apple and raspberry juice. I think the jelly was still a little bit too thin for these Jaffa Cakes but they were pretty good replicas! The sponge was really light but with a slight chew like the Jaffa Cakes themselves. I probably over did it with the chocolate. I would say these are wonderful to have a go out with kids or with a group of friends :)

The Cake and Bake Show - London Earl’s Court 2012

Last weekend was The Cake and Bake Show in London where I travelled up from my little house in Bournemouth on the train to Waterloo and made my way to the venue. It was huge.
There was an array of speciality sugar craft shops along with company’s selling their cupcakes, cookies and breads (actually there were only 2 savoury stalls, one breads and one pies, which was a real disappointment!). There were classrooms which you prepaid for and learnt sugar craft techniques, but also free classrooms where you could try out truffle making or cake decorating.
The main events though were the Bakery area and the Cake Kitchen where famous bakers would demonstrate different recipes. Great British Bake Off judges Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry were the highlights of these stages with thousands gathering round to watch. I tried to get on my little tip toes to catch a glimpse! I went to a lot of other talks, Tom Herbert making a sour dough bread in the Bakery, Edd Kimber who was the winner of the first Great British Bake off, in the Cake Kitchen, Eric Lanlard and one of the highlights of my weekend was The Big Bread Debate!
The panel was made up of famous artisan bakers debating about bread in large supermarkets, how there should be a law in place to list the ingredients on their breads (because there isn’t) and how we should all be eating ‘Real Bread’. It was truly inspirational!

I also went to a few talks in the Chocolate area where chocolate companies spoke about their chocolates and the ideas behind their lines. (Where I got to try one of Lucky’s Mad Hatter themed chocolates, a brownie but lighter like a mouse encased in a thick layer of chocolate. Oh my word)

But I think the best thing about the weekend was eating everything. oh my word there was some incredible foods there!! Vegan cake shops, marshmallow specialists, chocolatiers and stand after stand of cupcake stalls!

It was amazing! Next year they’re having an early event in Manchester and then again in September in London so will definitely be booking my tickets as soon as they’re on sale!

Passion.

Our nation seems to be one of those envious of all other nations for the passion which oozes from their cultures. For example, the french for a passion for love along with their adoring passion for food which we also see from the Italians and Spanish. Why can’t we bring this into our own British every day culture? In most Asian families children are taught to cook early and consistently help out during cooking or are left to cook. Most people I knew who came to uni couldn’t cook. Yes fair enough, I only started to cook properly when I moved away but at least I knew how to make a basic white sauce!
We spend about a quarter of our days eating and cooking or preparing food. Well a quarter of our lives I should say! It shouldn’t be seen as a chore. It should be enjoyed. I’ve seen people say things like “Food is Fuel”, which yes, is true but it shouldn’t be treated reluctantly like you would when filling up your car with petrol. It should be enjoyed, appreciated and you should be able to taste the your passion for the food you make when eating. We have taste buds for a reason, we need to eat to live. So why aren’t we making the most of it?

British Strawberries

I bought some Strawberries today from Asda for a quid. I knew then, Strawberry season is here! They were so sweet and so juicy, they were the best strawberries I’ve ever eaten. Why am I saying were?! I HAVE MORE LEFT IN THE FRIDGE! Anywho, One of my favourite snacks is melted a couple of squares of 70% Dark Chocolate and coating my strawberries in it. These were delicious

No. 43: Tasty Toad-in-the-hole with Onion Gravy – 04.6.12

Seeing as it’s the Jubilee long weekend I wanted to make something quite British as a new recipe. I was going to make this last night but we couldn’t get to a shop for the sausages we needed! So I decided to do it tonight. It seemed a nice warm and comforting meal which I really needed after a very very tiring day at work! I had chosen this recipe when looking through Mrs Beaton’s Best of British Cooking for ideas for British food (obviously) but decided to go with a healthier version from ‘Cook Yourself Thin – Quick and Easy’.

Serves 4 PREHEAT the oven 200oC

For the Toad-in-the-hole
65g Plain Flour
100ml Skimmed Milk
1 medium egg
1 tsp rosemary
1 tsp thyme
1 level tsp salt
½ tsp ground black pepper
8 lean or low fat Chipolatas
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

For the Gravy
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, cut in half and thinly sliced
2 beef stock cubes
1 heaped tbsp cornflour, mixed with 2 tbsp of cold water

Sieve the flour into a large bowl and make a well into the middle of the heap where you now pour in the milk ,egg, herbs and salt and pepper. Now with a whisk, begin from the well and work your way out to incorporate all of the flour until the batter is smooth and set aside to rest at room temperature
Prick the sausages and place in a large cooking dish a coat in the olive oil and place in the oven for 15 minutes or until browned.
Remove from the oven and pour over the batter mix, immediately place back into the oven for a further 35mintues or until risen and golden brown.
Whilst this is cooking, make the gravy!
Cook any fresh vegetables you wish to serve with the dish and keep them warm and keep the water for the gravy!!
15 Minutes before the Toad-in-the-hole is finished, add the olive oil to a large saucepan and gently cook the onion until golden brown. Add 1 pint of the vegetable water to the onions along with the stock cubes and cornflour mix. Stir well and cook until thickened!
Cut the toad-in-the-hole into quarters and serve with your choice of veg and spoon over the gravy!

This was a lot yummier than I thought it was going to be! Rosemary in the batter was really yummy (I had no thyme) but it gave it more depth in flavour which means you savour the flavours more than just shovelling as much delicious stodginess as possible. I added Ham Hock as well before pouring over the batter which gave it an extra bit of texture and the saltiness worked really well with the rosemary and it was so yummy and juicy! As you can see from my picture, my batter didn’t rise properly this is because the hot oil used in the sausage baking process is vital for the batter rising. I completely forgot about this and poured it away before adding the batter (I saw that about of oil and was like ‘I could make this healthier if I get rid of it’, what a joke) so yeah, it didn’t puff up as I would have liked it to but whatever! It still tasted damn fine and I served it with corn on the cob :)

No. 42: Chocolate Scones – 27.5.12

Feels like a life time ago I did a new recipe. It’s now about quarter to 11pm as I write this and I have done my recipe for this week! I panicked when I realised I hadn’t done one so searched my cookbooks for something quick, simple and sweet. Something I could bake because I knew I would have all the ingredients here. I also had a bar of 70% Dark Chocolate with Raspberries in my cupboards so looked for something chocolatey too. I remembered I owned Marks and Spencer’s ‘Chocolate Box’ Cookbook so skimmed through it and found Chocolate Scones. I’ve never heard of putting chocolate with scones and you only needed 55g of it so I thought why not?! It’s quick and very simple!

Makes 9 scones PREHEAT the oven to 220oC

70g butter, plus extra for greasing
280g self raising flour, sifted
1 tbsp caster sugar
55g Chocolate Chips, or chocolate chopped into chips
150ml milk
plain flour for dusting

Lightly grease and line a baking sheet
Place the flour into a bowl and cut the butter into small pieces. Add this to the flour and rub it into the flour until it resembles fine bread crumbs.
Stir in the caster sugar and chocolate chips and then pour in the milk a little at a time, stirring as you go until it forms a soft dough. You may not need all of the milk.
Lightly flour a work surface and roll out the dough until it forms a 10x15cm / 4x6inch rectangle, about 2.5cm / 1 inch thick and cut into 9 rectangles.
Place the scones on the baking sheet spacing them well apart, brush the top with a little milk and bake for 10-12mins or until golden brown and risen.

And that’s it! That is all you need to do! It’s pretty straight forward and a quick and easy recipe. They look so good and smell great when you take them out of the oven. I had one straight away, the dough still warm and the chocolate melted and oozing from the scone. They were nice…. Basically a scone with chocolate chips…. That’s all really! Don’t get me wrong, the outside was crisp and crunchy whilst the inside was perfectly soft so they were good scones! But they weren’t really anything special. To be honest, when looking at the ingredients list I didn’t expect much. I think it could be a good idea to add some spices or something into the dough mixture to add a little more depth, for example, nutmeg or cinnamon, or anything of your choice really! They were just a bit plain for my liking!

Fried egg recipe from Gizzi Erskine’s Kitchen Magic

Mary’s Tarte Au Citron (Or lemon tart ^_^ )

Je Goûterai - I will taste