Two Kinds of Doughnuts

I know I’ve been a little quiet on the blog front but that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten about it completely. I’ve still been out here and there taking pictures for the blog. With new motivation that’s hit me I’m going to try to put them up before it fades.

Right where do I start? Ok how about this. I changed phones recently so I’ll start with the photos on my old camera with the most recent first… Doughnuts.

It was a sunny day and my friends and I were out having a Sunday lunch in the sun. We wondered how we could make the most of what could possibly have been the last sunshine of the season. The answer was donutting in Aldershot.

It’s a great place for cheap lessons if you’re thinking of going skiing this winter and want to make the most of it. Here’s a link to it

I’m going to kill two birds with one stone here. Another thing that popped up in my photo cluster was this.

I found a great recipe for mini baked doughnuts. They’re healthy don’t you know. Well sort of and they are incredibly easy to make if you have a doughnut pan. I haven’t stopped making them since.

For 12 mini doughnuts you’ll need:

• 75g (2½oz) plain flour
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ¼ tsp salt
• 55g (2oz) caster sugar
• 60ml (2¼fl oz) milk
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tsp olive oil (If preferred 10g (½oz) melted butter may be added in place of the olive oil)
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• Extra sugar for dusting

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F/160°C/Gas 3. Lightly brush the doughnut pan with cooking oil.
2. Take a large roomy bowl, and sift the flour, baking powder and salt into it. Add the sugar and give it a stir round to combine.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk the milk, beaten egg, olive oil (I used browned butter) and vanilla extract together and add this to the dry ingredients, mixing thoroughly.
4. Using a piping bag, carefully fill each of the doughnut cups around ¾ full with the batter. Place in the oven and bake for about 8 minutes, or until firm, but springy to the touch. Cool slightly.

From here you can sugar them or ice them. I mixed the leftover browned butter to icing sugar and made a frosting to dip the tops of the doughnuts into. Sprinkled with chocolate while still a little wet et voila.

Bresaola Cups (Low Carb Recipe)

It seems I’m not the only fan of packed lunches in the office. I put it down to the appalling, ceaseless rain making lunchbags the hottest thing in the office playground right now. Mine is bright green.

There’s something deliciously comforting about knowing lunch is already waiting for you. Just sitting there, whispering to you from the fridge.

I’m also a fan of spending as long as humanly possible in bed come sunrise so lunch prep usually starts the night before. That’s not good news for sandwiches. Thankfully a batch of these meaty Italian stallions can be made the night before and their structural integrity lasts all night (or week) long.

Ok so you’ll need:

• Bresaola slices
• Spinach
• Salami (cubed)
• Eggs

Line a muffin tray with your bresaola slices. Don’t worry about the gaps as you can use the spinach to block these.

 Then pile in as much cubed salami as possible…..

…leaving enough room for an egg.

Then bake at 160C for 20-30 minutes depending on how you like your eggs.        

3 recipes – Crab

So after Vegas, we’re back to Farnborough with a thud. The biggest and most exciting thing that has happened in here in the last 12 months seems to have been the opening of the new Costco. Although any place that gives you free tasters is worth being seen in.

At the opening party, you couldn’t move without bumping into someone you know. Even I saw a few familiar faces having only lived in the area for less than a year. As always they laid out a fantastic spread.

Shopping for one, it’s tough to decide whether things in there are a good deal or whether I should stick to fail-safe Tesco. However with the help of a few big spenders in the office, I have decided that you can bag a bargain quite easily if you stick to the following:

• clothes detergent
• fabric conditioner
• toilet tissue
• houmus
• kosher hotdogs
• wine (so I’m told)
• sushi (haven’t been brave enough to try this yet though)

The other day I found this….

A big tub of crab claw meat for £6. I tried several recipes trying to use it all up. The best ones were these:

• Crab scotch eggs
• Thai style crab cakes (using crab instead of white fish)
• The quickest chilli seafood carb-free pasta ever, with this ….

This stuff is made from Juroat, a secret recipe made from a blend of Konjac flour and special oat fibre. It’s Gluten-Free, Fat-Free, Sugar-Free, Wheat-Free and a source of Fibre. It’s also very very chewy.

I steamed a packet of this in a saucepan…

Added the pasta…

slowly….

Cooked it through for a couple more minutes, sprinkled over a few chilli flakes and bish bash bosh, I was done.

 

Lemon Meringue S’mores

It seems every day last week I’d been dodging big fat globules of rain.  Each time wondering whether I should unravel my umbrella for the short walk to my car and deciding it is never really worth juggling an umbrella, my keys and my handbag all whilst trying to get in my car just to stay dry.

Inevitably when I do get home I’m always a little damp and there’s only one way to get warm and cosy again. And that’s putting on the fire, except I don’t actually have one at my flat so I make do with lighting a few candles. Not exactly the same but I can still toast a good marshmallow for a delicious s’more.

I didn’t quite have the right ingredients for a traditional one and so the lemon meringue s’more was born. Unusually I only had one type of biscuit in the cupboard but these hazelnut caffe snaps were perfect topped with a smear of lemon curd and squidged onto a hot gooey marshmallow.

HOD Chocolate

When it comes to hot chocolate I consider myself a connoisseur. There’s a whole cupboard in my kitchen dedicated to it. It’s filled with every hot chocolate mix I have ever come across from Prestat to Tonino Lamborghini. Yes Lamborghini make hot chocolate too (click here for more info).

I even have a special hot chocolate mug. One that’s not too big and not too small but juuuuuuust right! Say hello to my Goldichoc mug.

I recently came across these stir in hot chocolates from House of Dorchester (HOD) which surprisingly I hadn’t tried before and since my supplies were dwindling I quickly re-stocked.

They were so easy to make. Just pop a mug full of milk into the microwave for 2 minutes and stick your spoon in. Couldn’t be simpler.

My favourite was a toss up between the sea salt caramel and the chocolate fudge. The mini marshmallow option unfortunately contains pork gelatine but that didn’t stop me adding my own.

Perfect for breakfast on a rainy morning,

as a nightcap on a rainy evening,

Luckily we get a lot of rain in this country. Oh and don’t forget at Christmas,

Bat Bourbon Biscuits

Still on the theme of Halloween and also my favourite subject in the entire universe; biscuits!! I have recently noticed that despite the vast selection in the biscuit aisle there is a small omission. Why are there no chocolate biscuits? Yes you have your chocolate covered digestive, chocolate covered hob nob, chocolate chip cookies, double & triple chocolate monsters, thickly covered chocolate rings, chocolate Viennese fingers (Mmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!) and of course the classic bourbon but I’m talking about a simple.plain.chocolate.flavoured.biscuit!

Now there’s nothing wrong with any of the biscuits mentioned above but I had a taste for something specific. Something like a rich tea but chocolate flavoured not covered, not dipped and with no chips. I had to make my own. If you’ve ever felt like scraping off the fondant filling and just eating the bourbon biscuit then this recipe is for you.

• 50g Caster Sugar
• 50g Butter
• 1tbsp Golden syrup
• 110g Plain flour
• 15g Coco Powder
• 1/2 tsp Baking powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Pre-heat the oven to 160C/gas mark 3. Cream the butter and sugar together well and then the golden syrup and vanilla. Sift the flour, cocoa and baking powder together and work into the creamed mixture to make a stiff paste. Knead well then cut out into rectangles. Although I used a bat cookie cutter for Halloween. Sprinkle with granulated sugar before baking for 15 to 20 mins. Leave to cool on wire rack. Best served with milk.

Ok ok, I did sandwich these with a chocolate raspberry fondant but only because the world is not ready for my advanced biscuit eating tastes. If you want to stick to the regular sandwiched bourbons then for the filling you’ll need:

• 75g Icing sugar
• 50g butter
• 15g cocoa or chocolate & raspberry cocoa
• 1 tsp coffee

Beat the sugar until soft and then add the sugar and cocoa and beat again.

 

Dissolve half a teaspoon in one teaspoon of water and add to the mixture. This will accentuate the chocolate flavour. Then spread the mixture onto your cooled biscuit and squish another on top.

Oh I forgot about Oreos!

An apple a day

It’s the end of the Great British Bake Off for this year. So there was no requirement to get dinner ready and be seated in front of the TV by 8 o’ clock tonight. Instead I did a little baking of my own  and adapted a recipe from my copy of Joanna Wheatley’s Home Baking book. You may remember her from a couple of series’ ago.

I have a few apples to use so I decided to make individual apple crumbles. As they say an apple a day keeps the withdrawal symptoms away.

To make 2 ramekins you’ll need:

• 1 apple
• 1 tbsp. caster sugar ( I used truvia)
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 50g plain flour
• 25g butter
• 2 tbsp. demerera sugar

Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas Mark 6. Dice the apple into 1 cm cubes and mix together with the caster sugar and cinnamon. Tip into 2 ramekins. To make the crumble, combine the flour, butter and demerera sugar in a bowl and rub together until you have a crumble texture. Sprinkle over the fruit and bake for 25-30 minutes until the fruit is bubbling and the crumble is golden.

It was so quick and perfect for the autumnal verging on winter weather. Even better with a scoop of ice cream.

Tank you for the Cake

It seems there is no other way to raise money for charity than organise a bake sale making it very difficult to stick to a healthy eating diet. Usually they’re also accompanied by a raffle. The latest one at work was no different. Although take a look at this raffle prize. Impressively constructed by one of the canteen staff or so I’m told!

On this occasion money was raised for a charity that supports the armed forces and their families which I used to inspire my baking contribution. My interpretation of the theme emerged as a courgette cake. The speckled green flecks throughout the sponge screams forest army green but to ensure there was no doubt about it I covered it in camouflage cream cheese icing.

Everyone that got to try it, raved on about it. I still get compliments about it but that may be because they’re trying to make conversation but don’t really know what else to say to me. However, I think it’s because I used gluten free potato flour which I have noticed people seem to really enjoy eating. Plus the gluten free flour is better at soaking up the extra moisture from the courgette to leave a perfectly moist cake.

If you’d like to try it for yourself you’ll need the following for a 20cm square cake:

Courgette Cake

• 2 medium – large courgettes, grated using course side of grater
• 2 large eggs
• 125ml vegetable oil
• 150g caster sugar
• 225g self-raising flour/potato flour
• 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Icing

• 200g cream cheese
• 100g icing sugar,
• juice of 1 lime

Start by preheating the oven to 180 C and grate the courgettes

Then combine eggs, oil and sugar in bowl. Sieve in flour, bicarb of soda and baking powder and beat until well combined. Stir in the courgette. Pour into the tin and bake for 30 minutes until slightly browned and firm to touch.

Doesn’t it look army-y??

Once cooled I camouflaged it with coloured cream cheese icing on top although I would not recommend you do this. Perhaps use couloured fondant icing. Let me show you why…

It ain’t pretty. Then again your skills with a palette knife are probably a lot better than mine. Still delicious! Alternatively you could bake the batter in 2 sandwich and use lime curd to layer the cake.

This post seems to be aptly timed as a colleague has kindly brought in some of his home-grown produce. Although this ‘courgette’ should be showing at a country fair. Have you seen one as big as this?

Compared to an apple.

Still can’t grasp how big it is? This is me holding it, more like cradling it like a baby!!

Do you have any courgette recipes for me to try?

Autumn Eats

By popular demand, I’m back baby! Many of you have noticed that I’ve been absent throughout the last couple of months but have I got stories for you. I’ll have to catch you up on a couple of summer festivals, my big birthday celebrations, my new car and of course my various baking attempts.

I can’t wait to tell you about it but first…. it’s Autumn!

Everywhere I look I see the seasons are a-changing. There’s no getting away from it which is great news as it means I can justify a shopping spree. I need cosy jumpers and knee high boots but first I need sustenance.  

I took myself on a walk and picked the last of the summer blackberries only because I had seen this recently and was desperate to try it for myself. Similar to a brie and cranberry sandwich but for autumn not winter. Plus, come on, who doesn’t like toasted cheese sandwiches! I managed to pick enough for a sandwich to feed one hungry person and a little extra to put in the freezer. For a smoothie perhaps.

To make the sandwich I started by smooshing the blackberries particularly the ones that were already bursting with juice, staining the tips of my fingers. Mmm finger licking good.

Then I crammed as much of the fruit into a pitta and topped it with mozzarella and a sprinkle of ripped basil leaves.

Then, if you read my blog regularly you won’t be surprised, I placed the whole thing into my trusted Foreman grill….

 until the cheese oozed. I grabbed a plate and welcomed in the new season. I admit it doesn’t look as good as the inspiration but looks ain’t everything. It was totally scrummm-diddly-mmmmptious!

Bakers Anonymous

I’ve been found out at work! I’m a bake-aholic. So now every time there’s a bake sale I receive an email politely requesting a donation of the treat kind. Of course, I’m happy to oblige as it means I can try out new recipes and ideas without having to eat the end result alone.

Charity bake sales are great. They are win-win situations. Money is raised for a good cause and you get a piece of cake, or two depending on how generous your donation has been. The only problem is deciding what cake to try. However, last week I decided that it was about time someone baked for me for charity. That’s why I went to see a baking demonstration by Jo Wheatley for a the local charity KatCanDo. (Find out more on KatCanDo here.)

Joanne Wheatley was a winner from one of my favourite shows… the Great British Bake Off so I was looking forward to meeting her.

I watched as she taught us all how to bake lemon, white chocolate and macadamia bombs. In less than 45 minutes she had managed to make these dinner party desserts look very easy to whip up.

She had a great tip which I shall be using in the future. She filled a piping bag with chopped white chocolate and placed it in a cup of boiling water to melt. Minimal effort and minimal mess! She then poured it over the cakes. Mmmmmm…

The finished product…

As the finished cakes made their way around the kitchen I happily grabbed a sweet gooey treat all to myself. It was a perfect balance of light, lemony, sweet, crunchy baked goodness.

She even had a very helpful assistant who was there ready at her side with the apporpriate utensil and also available to help clean up most of the mess. A few people asked if she was included in the raffle prize.

Unfortunately she wasn’t but I was one of the lucky ones to win a raffle prize and I picked her latest book, available to buy in Sainsbury’s, containing the chocolate bomb recipe.

Jo very kindly signed the book for me. She was lovely to meet and I’d really recommend trying out one of her masterclasses which you can find on her blog.