Category: Baking
Broccoli and Cauliflower Soup
I made a lovely big pot of soup.
It’s a colour only bogey men would love but it’s smells and tastes great.
Or Gracie (just joking, she must have been thinking of FISH here).
Roasted Cauliflower and Broccoli Soup
- 2 middle sized bags of frozen mixed cauliflower and broccoli florets, DEFROSTED overnight, spread out on a baking tray, spritzed generously with Fry Light and sprinkled with a little garlic powder and turmeric.
- Bake for 30 mins on 180º.
- Fry a couple of onions (I use Coconut oil because I know it is magic and will make me immortal).
- Add all the cauliflower and broccolli to the fried onions and continue to fry.
- Stir in 1600 ml of stock (I like Kallo organic vegetable stock cubes and used 4).
- Up to you, but I added some more garlic powder, some black pepper, some turmeric, a little hot chilli powder and a little medium curry powder.
- Leave to simmer for about 30 mins.
- Blend – I use a regular hand blender that does the job easily – and blend it till it’s smooth.
Serve with crusty granary bread – I popped a large granary cob in the oven to warm it through and it tasted like freshly-cooked bread.
Gracie having another nap.
I also made a couple of crochet roses:
The scalloped roses (the orange and grey ones) came from a pattern on Attic24’s blog https://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/may-roses.html and the pale lilac coiled rose came from Pink Milk’s blog http://www.pink-milk.co.uk/2013/11/coiled-rose-crochet-pattern.html
Zzzzzzzzzzzz
All-Butter Shortbread
Love a bit of shortbread.
1 lb plain flour
12 oz butter
6 oz caster sugar
Gas mark 2, or 140º for electric ovens for between 40 mins to 1 hour (depending on whether your oven is fan-assisted or not).
Basically, rub the ingredients together (or just tip into a mixing bowl with a kneading tool and let it mix till it turns into a pliable ball. I do this on a fairly slow setting). Roll out and cut your biscuits. I have a cutter but you can easily make a paper template and cut round it with a knife.
Place on a baking tray giving them some room to spread. Cook till just golden and still slightly soft to touch.
Turn out onto a cooling rack, sprinkle with caster sugar and there you go. Make with love for a Valentine’s Day treat.
xoxoxox
Cranberry Cookies, gingerbread and royal iciing
I’ve been doing a bit of baking and thought you might like to try these cookies.
Remember the Fat Face robot santa – here he is! He’s out for Christmas.
I bought the Walker’s shortbread snowman for the tin and not the shortbread. He is so cute and will be good for other things.
The Christmas cake finally got marzipanned so good progress there. And now for the ambitious bit. I want to make some gingerbread panels in the shapes of houses and trees to go around the sides and a mini gingerbread house on top.
GINGERBREAD
275g / 9.75 oz Plain Flour
100g / 3.5oz butter
90g / 3.25 oz Golden Syrup
75g / 2.5 oz sugar
40g / 1.5 oz Treacle
1 Egg Yolk
1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
1.5 tsp Ground Cinnamon
0.5 tsp Ground Ginger
0.5 tsp Ground Cloves
Mix the butter, syrup and treacle into a large saucepan over a low heat until melted and blended together. Stir in the spices. Take the mixture off the heat and allow it to cool for a few minutes then stir in the egg yolk. Add the flour and bicarbonate of soda into the mixture and blend well.
Take the mixture out of the bowl and wrap it in clingfilm. Put in fridge to firm up.
When the mixture is ready, roll out as evenly as you can and cut out your biscuit shapes. Place them on a baking tray with more space than you’d usually give for other types of biscuits (this mixture tends to spread) and then put the tray into the fridge for ten minutes or so.
Finally, bake at 180 fan oven or gas mark 5 for 10 to 15 minutes.
Leave them to cool thoroughly before icing. If you want to prick your design, leave them for two to three days, by which time they will have softened to make this a relatively easy task.
ROYAL ICING FOR PIPING AND FLOODING
2lbs / 900g Icing Sugar
4 Egg Whites
2 fl oz / 60 ml Water
Whisk the ingredients together in a large bowl. For piping thin lines, see how many seconds it takes for the surface of your icing to smooth over. Between 9 – 10 seconds is a good consistency for piping. You’ll need a fine piping nozzle for this.
For flood icing, to fill in between the piped lines, the icing will smooth over in approximately 6 seconds. You don’t want it to be watery and runny but gently flowing and pourable. Those wooden lollipop sticks you get in Starbucks are perfect to spread flood icing. 🙂
Best apple crumble recipe
Who doesn’t like a good crumble? Apple crumble is a firm favourite and Bramley’s are the queen of apples for this delicious dessert.
Ingredients
- 3 or 4 Bramley apples
- 200g plain flour
- 175g caster sugar
- 100g butter
- A little water
Rub the butter, flour and sugar together until they resemble fine breadcrumbs.
Peel, core and slice the apples into an ovenproof dish.
Spoon approximately 8 tbs of water over the apple slices. You want a little puddle of water on the bottom of the dish but don’t drown them.
Cover the apple slices with the crumble mixture and place in a hot oven at 190 for 25 – 35 mins.
Serve with cream, custard or vanilla ice cream.
Chocolate Cupcakes
These chocolate cupcakes arelovely. Pre-heat oven to 180 / gas mark 4 Fill a baking tray with as many cupcake cases as will comfortably fill it with room for the tops to spread
Ingredients
8.8oz soft butter 8.8 oz SR flour 8.8oz caster sugar 4 tbsp milk 1 oz cocoa powder 4 large eggs
Method
- Cream the butter and sugar together then beat in the other ingredients with a mixer until smooth and fully mixed in.
- Divide the mixture between the baking cases.
- Bake for 20 – 25 mins or until well-risen and golden brown.
- Place on a cooling rack and allow to fully cool before icing
Icing
1lb 1oz of sifted icing sugar 8.8oz soft butter 1 oz sifted cocoa powder Smarties/edible glitter or other edible decorations to finish
- Beat the ingredients together until smooth
- Pipe or spread the icing on the cakes and decorate with edible glitter or other edible decorations
Choc Chip Cookies
These cookies are really good – almost biscuity-crisp around the edges with a soft melt-in-your-mouth middle. This recipe makes about 20 cookies. Enjoy.
Preparation
- Pre-heat oven to 170 C, (Gas Mark 5)
- Line a couple of baking sheets with non-stick baking parchment
Ingredients
100 g butter
50 g coconut oil
80 g of demerara sugar
80 g caster sugar
2 tsp of vanilla essence
1 large egg
225 g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
200 g chocolate with hazelnuts (I don’t like cooking chocolate so buy standard eating chocolate but use what you prefer)
Tube of Smarties or other sweets for decoration.
Method
Blend butter, sugar and coconut oil.
Beat in the egg and vanilla essence.
Mix in the flour, baking powder and salt.
Crush or smash the chocolate (I leave it in the packet , place it on a wooden chopping board and give it a bit of a thrashing with a rolling pin – think Basil Fawlty, the broken down mini and the tree branch) and stir into the mixture.
Use a dessertspoon to spoon small mounds of the mixture onto the baking sheets, leaving room between them so they can spread (hence the name ‘bumpers’). Flatten them slightly with the back of the spoon but NOT pancake thin – just less rounded and more a consistent thickness throughout.
Place on an upper rack in the oven and bake for 15 mins or so. They are ready to come out when the edges have browned and the centres still feel a little squidgy.
When done, remove from the oven and allow to set on the baking sheet for a few minutes. If you wish, press a few Smarties into the cookies while soft then transfer onto a cooling rack until cold.
Lemon and lime cupcakes
I baked some lemon and lime cupcakes yesterday. Usual cupcake recipe with the zest and juice of a couple of unwaxed lemons and limes in the mixture and buttercream topping. They were delicious.
Want the recipe? Here you go:
Lemon and Lime Cupcakes – makes about 24 cakes
Ingredients
250 g soft butter
250 g self-raising flour
250 g caster sugar
4 tbsp of juice from the lemon and lime (save half for the buttercream icing)
4 large eggs
Finely grated zest of 2 small lemons and 1 small lime (save half for the buttercream icing)
Method
1. Put all the cake ingredients into a bowl and beat with an electric whisk until mixture is smooth.
2. Place the baking cases on a baking tray and divide the mixture between them.
3. Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C/gas mark 4 for 20–25 minutes until nicely risen and light golden brown.
4. Put the cakes onto a wire cooling rack, and leave to go cold.
Lemon and lime buttercream icing:
375 g soft unsalted butter
625 g sifted icing sugar
The juice and zest saved from the sponge mix
Edible cake decorations. I like holographic edible glitter.
1. Put the butter and half of the icing sugar into a bowl, and beat with an electric whisk until smooth. Add the lemon/lime juice and the rest of the icing sugar and beat again until light and fluffy.
2. Ice the cakes using icing bags and nozzles or use a spatula to spread the buttercream on.
3. Decorate with edible sprinkles or glitter.
Butter shortbread recipe
1lb plain flour
12oz butter
6oz caster sugar
pinch of salt
Cream the butter and sugar together then add the flour and knead until it forms a pliable ‘dough’.
Roll out onto a lightly floured surface and use any cutter you like to cut your shortbread into approx. half- inch thick shapes.
Sprinkle with sugar, place on a greased baking tray and bake for roughly an hour at gas mark 2 or 150 degrees until they are light or golden brown. They will feel slightly soft to touch but will firm up on the cooling rack when you take them out.
Christmas cake – little girl in bed
My partner said he didn’t like rich fruit cake until he ate mine. Is mine particularly great? Fruit cakes taste like lots of other nice fruit cakes. So why love mine? It turns out his mum must have had the same ideas about fruit cake as my mum did:
Rule 1: Any and all burned currants or fruit MUST be left on the cake for consumption. They will be hidden by a layer of marzipan and coated, like nuclear waste, in a concrete casing of rock hard icing and, therefore, will not be visible. That means you won’t have the option of removing them before you eat. By the time you realise you’re gagging on nasty, you have a mouth that looks like the inside of an incinerator and would just make a completely disgusting spectacle of yourself if you tried to remove it.
Rule 2: Follow the recommended cooking time, then some, just in case any moisture or ‘yield’ is left in the cake. Always thinking ahead and planning for a shortage of breeze blocks, here. These cakes have so many uses.
Rule 3: Never, ever, EVER add glycerine to royal icing. When icing has the consistency of the armoured plating of a rapid deployment tank it will last much longer and still be around the following Christmas. Should war be declared between times, build yourself a air raid shelter with it.
So, for many years, my partner thought all rich fruit cake was like that! Mystery explained.
No More Mondays 