Cranachan

Disclaimer/ Warning: Some pretty dodgy and unflattering photos. This in no way is the Cranachan’s fault but rather this blogger’s ineptitude at photography, along with lack of space and light in the kitchen! Please note I did also over whip the cream.

As I stated in today’s ” Burns Night Supper” post I made a Scottish dessert called a Cranachan to follow the haggis, neeps and tatties.

This is such a simple and quick recipe with only 5 ingredients, of which you more than likely have three of them in your cupboard right now.  Even in my cooking-phobic years (that’s totally a thing) I would make this and not get stressed out by it because its so easy. So easy really, it probably does not need a whole blog post!

Ingredients ( Roughly 4 portions)

80 grams of porridge oats

250 grams of Raspberries ( washed)- although you can add more or less.

300 grams of double cream

3 tablespoons of honey ( clear or heather, whatever you have really will do)

3 tablespoons of good quality malt whisky -well it is a Scottish dessert after all! You may want to start with one tablespoon and add more to taste. I have found other peoples versions of Cranachan the whisky varies greatly!

Oh and please ask the whisky drinker of the house before raiding and using the whisky stash. I made the mistake before of using some of hubbies “guid” whisky in a BBQ sauce and he was very unhappy about it ( it was an amazing BBQ sauce though!)  He has since struggled to purchase any more of that particular kind which has disappointed him greatly. Ironically for the Cranachan, I used a Japanese whisky that had been languishing in the cupboard and which hubbie deemed acceptable for cooking with. Obviously one he doesn’t drink then!

Or to save any hassle you could just buy a miniature of whisky instead.

Method

Lightly toast the porridge oats for about 5 minutes or so, until you can smell them ( a nutty toasty smell… if that makes sense??). I did this on the hob using a crepe pan, however I’m sure it could be done in the oven too.

Whip the cream until it forms soft peaks and try not to over whip like I did… and I said it was easy.Maybe I should have said, yes it’s easy but don’t get distracted by other things like I did! Pay attention to the mixer.

Keep back some of the raspberries to use as decoration. Add the rest of the raspberries to the cream, add the honey, whisky  and oats and carefully fold these into the cream.

Although I had Cranachan where the raspberries and oats were omitted from the cream and instead the separate elements layered  in the glass e.g add the cream/honey/whisky  mix into a glass, then some raspberries, then oats and repeat. The layers do look really pretty in glasses done this way, but it takes a bit more time and I’m more of a clash everything together quickly kinda gal!

Decant into serving glasses, you don’t need a huge amount three – four tablespoons of the mixture into each is a nice amount after a heavy meal. Also with whisky flavoured foods, I find it can be overpowering if there is too much of it. Add raspberries on top. Maybe add some oats if you have some left over or a dribble of honey.

It does taste a lot better than it looks, but if you don’t believe me then please give it a try.

 

Burns Night Supper

“Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face, Great chieftain o’ the puddin-race!” ( Address to a Haggis, Robert Burns, 1786)

Happy Rabbie Burns day!!!!

Unfortunately our haggis hunting was disappointing as we didn’t get so much as a glimpse of a haggis let along the opportunity to capture one. They are devious sleekit wee beasties and their different size legs enabled them to scamper and scurry quickly up the hills as soon as they heard us approach!!

As a result tonight ( to my husband’s disappointment) we had vegetarian haggis instead.

Haggis, Neeps and Tatties…..(in case anyone is unsure Neeps are Turnips and Tatties are Potatoes).

If your haggis hunting is as disappointing as ours, then buy a haggis from your local butcher shop or from your local supermarket. It doesn’t have to be veggie but I don’t particularly like haggis ( eck, my Scottish Nationality may now be questioned!) as it has lamb and beef in it.  As well as lamb and beef, haggis also contains oats, onions and spices too. Veggie haggis also contains oats, onions and spices along with veggies, seeds and pulses.

Prepare as per instructions.  In this case, I wrapped the haggis in tinfoil and placed in a oven dish with 2cm of water. This cooked for 1 hours and 10 minutes in a 180°c oven.

In the meantime make your mashed neeps and tatties. I don’t think I need to go into detail how to do this, other than I keep it simple with a bit of butter in the neeps while mashing them and some butter and milk with the tatties. Although we had one spring onion in the fridge to use up so I chopped and added to the tatties.

Then eat…..

Hope you all have a great Burns night whether celebrating in Scotland or abroad or attending a formal Burns supper or having one in your own home.

In keeping with tonight’s theme I made and served Cranachan, a traditional Scottish dish.

Psst….Don’t tell anyone but hubbie really enjoyed the veggie haggis! This, after he wouldn’t even admit to anyone that we were having veggie haggis tonight!

Christmas Pudding Truffles

With these little adorable treats it’s definitely feeling alot like Christmas.

I decided to make these to use up a Christmas pudding left over from last year that hadn’t been opened and had been languishing in the cupboard. However, it’s a great way to use up leftovers from pudding on Christmas Day.

They look so darn cute that if you popped them in gift boxes or into cellophane bags tied with ribbon they would make great Christmas gifts or hostess gifts. During the holidays there are so many parties and visits to relatives, so these are unique way to say ” thanks for having us”. They’re also incredibly easy to make and no baking involved… unless you count melting chocolate baking!

Christmas Truffles- Although no matter how cute they are I can’t take the credit for the recipe as this is a Nigella Lawson recipe.

Ingredients

Left over cold Christmas pudding or cake about 450 grams.  Alternatively you can buy one specifically, heat in the microwave and then leave to cool.

60ml of Sherry or brandy

2 tablespoons of golden syrup

150 grams of dark chocolate.

150 grams of white chocolate

Glace cherries ( red and green) – if you can’t find green coloured glace cherries then you can use a green icing pen like I did. I had these in the cupboard already and got them in a pack of 4 along with red, yellow and blue. These are were used to create a holly for the top of the truffle so whatever you feel would work, then go for it.

Method

Line baking trays with greaseproof paper.

In a saucepan, bring some water to the boil and place a bowl on top to make a poor man’s bain-marie. Break up the dark chocolate and add to the bowl and slowly melt the chocolate. Leave to cool for a few minutes.

In a large bowl, add the Christmas Pud and break it up. Add the golden syrup and the brandy or sherry or whatever alcohol you have to hand and mix well.Then add the melted chocolate and mix well.

This is the icky bit, so if you have disposable gloves that can be used with food, then I’d recommend using them! Pinch a bit of the mix and roll in your hands to form small truffle size balls. Place on the grease proof paper. Keep going until all the mix has been used up. I made some of mine slightly too big, however it is better to keep them small, especially if you have been heavy handed with the alcohol like I was!

Place the truffles into the fridge to firm up.

In the mean time, creating another Bain-marie, melt the white chocolate and cut up the glace cherries. The red into small bits to form the holly berries and the green cherries to form leaves. If you are using green icing pen instead then you will need to add the icing direct to the truffle, so leave that to the side for a minute.

I would leave the melted white chocolate to cool for a bit, to firm up to make it less messy when using.

Dripple some of the white chocolate on the top of the truffle, then add the bits of the cherry or cherries on top. Or use your green icing pen to add the holly leaves. Continue until you have decorated all the truffles, then leave for the chocolate to set.

Then gift box to give as gifts or serve on a serving plate as after dinner treats to guests. Or my favourite is curl up on the sofa, with a Christmas movie, cuppa tea and eat all these morish Christmas Pudding Truffles to myself!

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas!!

 

Traditional Christmas Cake

It just wouldn’t be Christmas unless there was a boozy Christmas cake for afters. Although, disappointingly  the tradition of making homemade Christmas cake seems to be going by the wayside with many people preferring to buy store bought ( and why not when Marks and Spencers do such delicious cakes for reasonable prices and no preparation required) or forgoing Christmas cake all together.

I’ve came across many people who dislike fruit cake or dislike eating it after the huge Christmas dinner preferring lighter desserts. Thankfully my hubbie loves fruit cake so he makes sure it doesn’t go to waste, but to be honest fruit cake lasts a long time ( I still have the top tier of my wedding cake in the cupboard awaiting my first child’s christening…. I was married over 5 years ago!) so don’t worry if it doesn’t get eaten all at once, this can be kept and devoured long after Christmas has ended.

There is something quintessentially christmassy about baking a Christmas cake, the waft of brandy coming from the fruit as its soaks overnight, the house filling with the aroma of the wonderful festive spices as the cake bakes, the unwrapping of the cake every week to feed with more brandy ( a bit like a Christmas present) and then wrapping it back up in the brown greaseproof paper. The preparation and steps are like my very own advent countdown to Christmas.

Making a home made Christmas cake does requires forethought, organisation and preparation ( oh and many many mixing bowls) but its actually not that difficult and the results are well worth the effort.

The actual baking should take place in early November although this year I was later making it on the 23rd November!! Gasp….. the horror! However, I did read somewhere that November 20th was the last day to bake your Christmas cake so if this is true then I wasn’t too far off! But really my preference is to bake the cake in the first week in November.

You really need to pinpoint a day you have completely free as the baking time can take between 4 – 4 3/4 hours, with the preparation time on the day taking about 30 minutes. and then of course the cooling period before you can start to soak with brandy.

The fruit itself needs to soak for 12 hours, so it really needs done the night before.

The recipe below is my mother in laws, she is the queen of baking cakes. I’m not sure where the recipe originally came from, it could be from Readers Digest back in the day or the Dairy cookbook or word of mouth or experimenting through the years but wherever it came from it’s really good and I’m chuffed to be carrying on her tradition.

Ingredients

450 grams currants, 175 grams sultanas, 175 grams raisins, 50 grams glace cherries ( rinsed, dried, chopped), 50 grams mixed peel, 3 tablespoons brandy, 225 grams flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon mixed spice, 225 grams of unsalted softened butter, 225 grams soft brown sugar, 4 large eggs,  50 grams chopped almonds, 1 dessertspoon black treacle, zest of 1 lemon, zest of 1 orange.

The Night before Christmas Cake bake day……..( try saying that three times fast!)

Mix together the currants, sultanas, raisins, cherries and mixed peel in the 3 tablespoons of brandy. ( Bowl one).  Cover the bowl with a tea towel and soak overnight or for 12 hours.

Christmas Cake Bake Day….

Prepare a 8 inch round cake tin, butter and line with greaseproof paper. Also measure out a double layer of greaseproof paper that would fit on the top of the cake, set this aside as this will be used later.

Preheat oven to 140°C.

Sift the flour, salt and spices into a medium bowl. ( bowl two).

In a large ( and I mean large) mixing bowl ( bowl three) whisk the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

In a small bowl ( bowl four) or if you’ve run out of bowls a measuring jug would do, beat the eggs and then add them to the butter/sugar mixture a tablespoon at a time whisking the mixture continuously until the eggs are all combined.  This is to stop the mix from curdling, but in my experience it can still curdle but don’t worry if this happens, the cake will still be delish!

Gently fold the flour/ spice mix to the butter/ sugar/ egg mix. Then fold in the brandy soaked fruit, nuts, treacle and the lemon and orange zest to the mix. I always find this a great workout for my arms! Beats the gym any day.

** To make the treacle more manageable I usually place the tin into a pan or bowl ( if you have any left) of boiling water**

Transfer the lovely mixture into the prepared tin. I tend to do this using a serving spoon and transfer over a spoonful at a time. Make sure to spread the mix out evenly and smooth out the top.

Take the double layer of greaseproof paper and cut a hole in the middle, about the size of a 50 pence piece, then place on top of the cake mix. This will help to protect the cake during its long baking time in the oven.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Place the cake on the lowest shelf in your oven. My cake was very very ready after 4 hours ( as you can see from my photos), but my oven is very wonky. The cake can take anything between 4 hours and 4 3/4 hours, but definitely check about the 4 hour mark.

 

Take the cake out the oven, leave in the tin for about 30 mins then remove completely and place on a cooling rack. Once the Christmas cake completely cools, use a skewer to make holes in the top and bottom of the cake, then pour 6- 8 teaspoons of brandy over the cake. Then wrap the cake in greaseproof paper and tinfoil and place in a box or tin.

Remove the cake every week and pour another 6-8 teaspoons of brandy over the cake, then re-wrap. Do this until you are ready to cover with marzipan and icing.

Once I have done the icing stage I will post pictures of the finished and decorated cake.

 

Sun, Sea, Sand, Running and Champagne Cake

So every year since about 2009, the last weekend in May we go to the Mull of Kintyre and every year ( apart from 2011) my hubby runs the half marathon along with friends of ours. It’s the only half marathon he does and he runs it simply due to the fact that every year he gets forced into by our friends, although secretly I think he enjoys it! In the evening there is a Ceilidh where previously exhausted runners take to the floor for the Dashing White Sergeant, The Gay Gordons,  Orcadian Strip the Willow , Canadian Barn Dance, the Highland Schottische…..

Hubby in the white top and black shorts running to the finish!

This year we got beautiful sunny weather, whilst lovely it caused hubby and a few of the other runners problems. Some of us Scots don’t tolerate hot weather very much and  definitely not running in it as we are simply not used to it!

Sunbathing in jeans!

The weather was so unexpected that I had no summer clothes packed, no shorts or vests or swim wear instead I had about 5 thick jumpers and long sleeved and long legged flannel PJ’s! Its normally still cold in May, hence the sunbathing in jeans in pic above! Any way this year I managed to get sunburn on my feet and some of my friends actually decided to take a very refreshing ( read extremely freezing) dip in the Irish Sea, I, on the account of having no swimwear (fortunately) declined to go in the sea.

Every year we also celebrate one of our friends birthdays as this falls around the same time. This year I decided to make a cake for her and immediately thought of a champagne cake. However, I have never made a champagne cake before so searching the internet I came across the perfect recipe, Pink Champagne cake from Joanne at Joanne Eats Well with others.  Although, if you take a look at her page you will see I did not decorate mine as prettily as Joannes, however this recipe turned out really well and was straightforward to make, very pleased with the results and would definitely use this recipe again. You can really taste the champers in the cake and frosting, very yummy.

I have detailed the ingredients, methods and how I got on with the recipe, but you could also click on the page link above to get the recipe direct from Joanne Eats Well with Other page.

Ingredients

85 grams of softened organic Scottish butter, 400 grams of sugar, 360 grams of cake flour…… erm what?  Cake flour is not available in shops near me , actually I’m not 100% sure if its available in the UK, so this confused me slightly as I had never seen this before! However, by the powers of google I found a substitution. I used plain flour but for every cup of plain flour I took our 2 tablespoons of the flour and replaced them with two tablespoons of Corn flour…. voila Cake Flour!

Never turn your back on a woman who had flour covered hands! Hee Hee

 

Any way more ingredients were………1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder, 3/4 teaspoon of baking soda ( although I questioned the need to use this given there was baking powder in the recipe but dutifully followed the instructions), 3/4 teaspoon of salt, 6 egg whites ( I kept the yolks and added some to a quiche I made as I really hate when they go to waste), 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract and 500mls of champagne, well I used Asti Spumante instead which is more of a sparkling wine and cheaper at £6.00 rather than £30.00 a bottle!

I didn’t get photos of the baking process as I had 101 things to do and was running very late to get everything done in time for leaving to go the Mull of Kintyre.

Anyway, Preheat your oven to 180° C and grease and line the bottom of two 8 inch cake tins. I always take the bottom out of the tin and place on the greaseproof paper and draw around the bottom.

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

Sift all the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl, the cake flour, baking power, baking soda and salt.

Slowly add the egg whites to the butter/sugar mixture, then add the vanilla.

Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients to the mixer then once incorporated add 250 mls of the champagne, then 1/3 of the dry ingredients, then 250 mls of champagne, then the remaining dry ingredients until all combined.

Split the batter between the two cake pans.  To do this I used a ladle to ensure each pan had the same amount as one of my pans was deeper than the other being a springform pan so it was more difficult just to eye ball.  Place in the oven and cook for between 35 -45 minutes or until cake tester or cocktail stick or knife comes out clean. One of the cakes took 35 minutes however the other pan took nearly 45 minutes until a cocktail stick came out clean, so just keep a careful watch on the cakes. Remove from the oven and wait till cooler then remove from pan and place on cooling rack.

Once cooled remove the greaseproof paper. I then used a knife to level off the cakes.

Frosting ingredients– 370 grams of softened and cubed butter. For me this meant leaving the butter out overnight to get it soft! 480 grams of icing sugar, 65mls of champagne, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract , pinch salt and red food colouring.

In a mixer add the butter and mix until creamy. Then add the icing sugar , champagne and salt and mix until light and fluffy. Add a few drops of red food colouring to the desired colour and mix until combined.

I placed one of the cakes on a plate then added some of the frosting on top of this, then added the remaining cake on top and added the rest of the frosting. However, you may want to cover the whole cake with frosting including the sides or try something fancier. I still had a reasonable amount of frosting remaining, even with slapping a fair amount on top and in between, so in future I would reduce the amount of frosting I make .I also added some edible daisy flowers I had left over.

Strawberry Shortcake (cake)

The Easter Dinner saga continues…..

I struggled to narrow down the dessert for Easter Dinner as there are so many new recipes that I’ve found, in recipe books and from other bloggers, that I really really want to try. I now have a list of      ” Things I have to bake “ unfortunately ( or fortunately ‘cos they all look amazing and I will taste them all eventually ) the list keeps getting longer and longer!

At the end of the day, if a recipe has all good things in it then it can only taste good ( I think it was Mary Berry who said something along those lines) so really it didn’t matter which recipe was chosen for dessert as any of them would have tasted good in the end.

I ended up making Pioneer Woman’s Strawberry Shortcake cake ( although hubbie steadfastly refused to use the extra cake in the title deeming it to be redundant).

Does anyone else remember or did you also have a Strawberry Shortcake doll? This childhood toy/ memory in no way influenced my decision to make this cake!

Ingredients

Cake: 113 grams of softened butter,  1 1/2 cups plus 3 tablespoons of sugar, 3 eggs, 1/2 cup of sour cream, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, 1 1/2 cups of flour, 3 tablespoons of corn flour, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of baking soda.

Filling: 460 grams of British ( if in season) Strawberries, but to be honest I would use more next time to get a good thick layer in between cake layer, 3 tablespoons of sugar.

Frosting/icing: 226 grams of cream cheese, 226 grams of margarine or butter, 680 grams of icing/ powdered sugar, sifted, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, 1/4 teaspoon salt.

*** Please excuse my mixture of measurements and the fact I’m breaking one of the baking commandments. I use metal measuring cups and measuring spoons as I find these quick and easy, but for some things like butter, fruit, shortening I still prefer to use my old fashioned scales and use grams. ***

Preheat oven to 180° C and grease a 9 inch springform deep cake tin.

In a mixer, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each egg.  Add the sour cream but don’t drop the actual metal cup measurement device into the batter like I did and doing it with a girly scream which brought hubby running through thinking I had had a horrific baking accident. So just add the sour cream and then add the vanilla and mix until combined.

Butter and Sugar

Light and fluffy

Mixing the eggs

Sour cream and vanilla mixed in

In a separate bowl, sift the flour, cornflour, salt and baking soda. Then add this dry mixture into the stand mixer bowl and mix until just combined. Pour the luscious batter into the cake tin and bake for 45 minutes or until knife or cocktail stick comes out clean. The recipe says 45- 5o, but mine was ready at 45 so the time will vary depending on your oven.

Dry ingredients

Yummy batter all mixed

Oven ready

Just out the oven

Just chillin’

Remove the cake from the cake tin and leave to cool. However, given how hot it was I waited a little longer to remove the bottom of the cake tin.  Once cooled, cut the cake through the middle to give two layers. As you can see from the photo below, I didn’t get the knife all the way through with my first go around,so I had to go around again and it caused the funny ridge bit in the middle. However this was being covered anyway, so I wasn’t really that concerned!

Place the strawberries onto an tray and mash, then cover with the sugar, toss and leave for a  few minutes.

Then cover each cake layer with the strawberries and place in the freezer for 15 minutes.

My tiny freezer!

 

In the meantime make up the frosting………….

Sift the icing sugar in a large bowl and be prepared for a cloud of icing powder to cover you and your work surface. Add the icing sugar, margarine, cream cheese, vanilla and salt into the bowl of a stand mixer. Make sure to add your mixer guard/shield thing ( not sure its proper name ) so you avoid another icing cloud. Mix until light and fluffy. My frosting had a yellow tinge to it, I think because I used margarine, oh well it’s a pretty spring colour.

Remove the cake layers from the freezer and place one layer on a plate, then cover with the frosting, using about 1/3 of the mixture. Place the other layer on top and cover with the frosting. Then start to cover the sides of the cake with remaining frosting. I arranged a few strawberries on the top of the cake for decoration.

A lotta icing suagr

Lovely yellow icing

I must admit my cake did not look like Pioneer Woman’s cake. From the photos you can see that some of the cake and strawberries were still showing and my frosting didn’t really seem to meld well onto the side of the cake and it wasn’t very prettily done either! Oh and it was a light yellow instead of white colour. Then I decided it didn’t matter, the cake was individualistic and it tasted really good.

 As you can we made quite a dent in the cake!

 

 

 

Hamming it up for Easter!

Apologises for the dodgy and dark photography, which isn’t doing the ham the justice it deserves.

 

Happy Easter!!! The ‘In laws’ were staying this weekend and they kicked off Easter Sunday with a walk around the farm, a very cold, windy, slightly rainy and sleety at time, bracing walk. It swept away the beer and wine from last night by the looks of them when they came back in the door! I, however spent my Sunday morning in bed, then panicked when I remembered that the clocks went forward and it was actually 11am and not 10am. Hence, cooking the Easter dinner in PJ’s. Although my cooking preparation started the day before, so I didn’t have a huge amount to do.

On the Saturday, whilst hubby was player rugger, I was in the kitchen………

Ingredients

2kg British unsmoked boneless gammon joint, 1 organic leek, chopped, 1 organic onion, peeled and chopped, left over celery sticks,chopped, 3 organic carrots, peeled and chopped, one cinnamon stick, broken in half, 1 teaspoon crushed peppercorns, 1 teaspoon of coriander seeds.

In a large pan ( as you can see my pan was nearly overflowing), place all the vegetables, cinnamon stick, peppercorns ,coriander seeds and the gammon joint, then cover with cold water. Bring water to the boil and then turn down the heat and simmer. I simmered for about 20 minutes per 450 kg, so it took about 1 hour and half simmering.  Remove from pan and leave to cool completely before placing in fridge.

Lovely chopped veg

Simmering

Ham all boiled

I left the stock to cool then poured the stock into freezer bags.  To make it easier, wedge the freezer bag into a large jug then pour the stock into the bag and, before tying the bag, remove excess air by squeezing the top of bag, then tie the bag and place upright in a plastic food container . This will help to freeze it in a easy to store shape and the boxes can be removed later. Then place in freezer to be used the next time you make soup!

On the Sunday about 11:01am ……..

Ingredients

Ham: Cloves

Glaze: 1 1/2 cups of brown sugar, 1/4 cup of dejon mustard, 1 1/2 tablespoons of apple vinegar and 350mls of Dr Pepper

Sides: 3 Organic carrots, peeled and cut into sticks, 2 large and wonky organic parsnips, peeled and cut into sticks, 9 organic potatoes, peeled and cut into quarters, 2 teaspoons of corn flour.

Preheat oven to 165 °C. Take the ham out the fridge, score the top of the ham in one direction with a knife and then another direction to form diamonds. Where the lines meet, stick a clove in. Once all “cloved ” up place the ham on the oven tray, then place in oven. In the mean time, make up the glaze. I used Pioneer Woman’s recipe, but there are so many variations of glaze, just have a search online for one you would prefer.  Place  the brown sugar, dejon mustard, apple vinegar and 350mls of Dr Pepper into a pan, bring to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes.

Cloved up

Dr Pepper Glaze

Cook the ham for 38 minutes ( really random number, but that was just when the glaze was ready!). Take out the oven and then cover the ham with the glaze. Pop back into the oven for another 20 minutes, then take out and cover with glaze. Place back in the oven for 20 minutes and then take out and glaze again. Place back in oven for 10 minutes. To be honest, the last 10 minutes were not required, it was ready after 1 hours and 20 minutes, but I wanted to give it another glaze. So again roughly it was 20 minutes per 450kg, but you may want to follow your own packet or butchers instructions for cooking the ham.

I served the ham with some mashed potatoes, roasted carrots and parsnips but you could serve it with whatever kind of veg you want to.

‘Cos wonky veg tastes good too!

 

Sorry, I forgot to get a photo of the finished meal, as once hubby carved the ham, we portioned the ham on individual plates and hurried to the table so we could all add our own portions of potatoes and roasted veg ,which were on the table already, and devour the goodness whilst it was all still warm.

We also had glaze left in the saucepan so I added about 2 teaspoons of cornflour to thicken it up, so it could be served as a gravy/ sauce.

There were some leftovers, so about 2kg could probably do 5-6 people comfortably. Hubby will have some awesome pieces ( sandwiches) tomorrow!

Yummy yummy!

Afters or pudding or dessert or whatever your family call it, was Strawberry Shortcake cake. I’ll put the recipe for this up in a separate blog post.

I’m now away to see whether I can put myself into a chocolate induced coma after consuming my Easter eggs! Yes, I’m a 32 year old who still gets chocolate eggs for Easter! Don’t judge me…

Hope you all had a lovely Easter whatever you were doing!

 

 

Pretty little lemon and blueberry cake

I made this cake as I was supposed to be going into work today ( or my soon to be ex work) to say bye to my colleagues and pack up my locker and desk, however due to it being Easter Weekend tomorrow some of my colleagues took extra days off work to have an even longer holiday, so at the last minute it was decided that I would re-schedule my visit. My colleagues had demanded I bring cake  ( man, they looooovvvvveeeee cake) on my visit, so the cake was already baked and iced.   Oh well, what a pity there will be more cake for me and hubby! Score!!

I found this recipe for Lemon and blueberry drizzle cake on the Goodtoknow website and immediately decided I had to make it. Not just because lemon and blueberry is one of my favourite flavour ( try saying that 3 times fast) combos but because it looked so pretty with the pink icing and flowers scattered on top. I’m such a girl and this is definitely a girly cake, in fact it could be the ASOS of desserts.

Ingredients

Oops forgot the butter, the lemon and the edible wafer daisies. Use your imagination and pretend they are in the photo!

 

Loaf: 125 grams butter, 125 grams caster sugar, 3 medium eggs ( I only had two large eggs left so only used two) , 175g self raising flour, an additional 1 tablespoon of flour, zest of 1 lemon, 100 grams blueberries.

Syrup: 50 grams caster sugar, 4 tablespoons of lemon juice.

Icing: 125 grams icing sugar ( powdered sugar), 1 teaspoon of blueberry converse, edible wafer daisies.

Preheat oven to 170° C. Grease and line a 2lb loaf pan.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the butter, sugar, eggs, flour and zest and mix until combined and light. Before folding in the blueberries, toss them in the additional 1 tablespoon of flour. This will help to prevent them moving to the bottom of the mixture whilst in the loaf pan ( or it should do however from the photo of a slice of the cake you can see some still sank !). Spoon the mix into the loaf pan ( and you will need to spoon as the mix isn’t that runny so you can’t pour it in). Smooth the top of the mix, make sure its evenly dispersed then cover with tinfoil. Bake in the oven for 40 minutes. Then uncover and cook for a further 20 minutes  or until a cocktail stick or cake tester comes out clean and the loaf is golden and springy. Please note I checked the cake after 10 minutes and it was still wet inside, so my cake did need the 20 minutes, however ovens will differ, so you may want to check after 10 minutes to be sure.

Whilst the cake is baking combine the ingredients for the syrup in a pan, bring to a boil and boil for 2 minutes, then take off the heat. The sugar should be dissolved.

Once the cake is out the oven, spoon over the syrup and leave to cool for 30 minutes.  Then remove the cake from the tin and at this point I removed the sides of the baking paper or grease proof paper but did not remove the paper from the bottom as the cake was really quite soft. Leave to cool completely, then remove the remaining paper.

Placed the loaf on a cooling tray, but with a baking tray underneath to capture the icing.

Sift the icing sugar into a bowl, then place a teaspoon of the blueberry conserve into a sieve and press/ rub the conserve through the sieve and scrape the underside of the sieve so that the conserve drops into the icing sugar. Add a few drops of water to the icing sugar and mix . You don’t want the icing sugar to be too runny but you want it to be able to flow off the sides of the loaf slightly. Spoon the mixture over the top of the loaf and then add the edible wafer daisies to decorate. Leave to set.

Gorgeous purple/pink colour!

So pretty!

After the icing had set, I attempted to move the loaf from the rack onto a plate and the movement created some creases in the icing, as you can probably see from the photo at the top of the page in comparison with the photo above on the right.Oh well, I think it still looks pretty and I love that you can see the speckles of the blueberry converse in the icing too. Hubby told me I definitely had to make this cake again, so it must mean it was good!

This was such as easy recipe to make and a lovely variation on the classic lemon drizzle cake. It would definitely make a lovely addition to an Easter meal or just a cake to have on hand for visitors who will pop in for a cuppa over the weekend.  You could also vary the decoration on top, adding your own creative flare or even adding real edible flowers. The original recipe used violas brushed in egg whites and dipped with caster sugar or you could use any leftover blueberries or lemon zest sprinkled on top.

Enjoy and Happy Easter!

What will you be you be making over Easter weekend? Feel free to comment or email me your recipes or Easter cooking ideas or menus at weebluemixer@gmail.com

Currantly…….

It’s nearly Easter Weekend and this means the Easter Bunny is gonna leave me some eggs which I am allowed to gorge on until I am physically sick and no one will judge me, the clocks with go forward and I’ll lose an hour of valuable sleep, Family will come round for an Easter Sunday dinner, daffodils are in abundance and the shops are full of, not only chocolate eggs, but Hot Cross Buns in all their currant-ey, cinnamon-ey, sticky goodness.

Hot cross buns were usually eaten for breakfast on Good Friday, which sounds like an awesome breakfast to me and the only day you’d ever get away with this! The cross on them is supposed to ward off evil spirits who would make the bread go stale and if a hot cross bun is hung in the kitchen it will protect the home from evil spirits as well as ensuring all bread baked for the next year will turn out perfectly. If you’ve read my post about my Pizza dough escapades then you’ll know I need all the luck I can get!

These is also a legend of a widow in London who baked hot cross buns for her only son who was due to return from sea. However, he never returned and she hung a bun from her ceiling and every year she baked and continued to hang a new bun. A pub was then built on the site of the house and named ” The Widows Son” and every year on Good Friday a Royal Navy sailor hangs a bun ( that has the year on it) from the roof as well as singing a few songs and drinking to the lost sailor.

How sad is that?

Also giving hot cross buns to friends on Good Friday will cement your friendship for the rest of the year which I think is a lovely idea. I can see why giving hot cross buns would help with this because so if you have a friend who makes awesome baked goods and gives them to you, you’ll do anything to keep them as a friend to ensure a steady supply of goodies!

To make the Hot Cross Buns I used the Pioneer Woman Recipe, but I halved the recipe to give me 12 buns instead of 24. This is not a recipe to make if you need the buns quickly as it does take a few hours, but it’s well worth it! Also a lot of the ingredients I found were store cupboard staples, so no need to buy lots of new ingredients that you may never use again!

Ingredients

Dough: 2 cups of Organic Scottish whole milk ( or whatever you prefer to use) , 1/2 cup of olive oil, 1/2 cup of Sugar, 4 1/2 cups of strong bread flour ( or all purpose flour) , 1 1/8 teaspoons of fast action dried Yeast, 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda, 1/2 tablespoon of salt.

Filling: 1/4 cup of sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon, a pinch of ground nutmeg, a pinch of ground allspice, 1/4 cup of raisins. The recipe stated to use Cardamom, but I didn’t have any so I didn’t use any!

Glaze: 1 egg white, 1/8 cup of Organic Scottish Whole Milk

Icing: 1 egg white, 1/8 cup of Organic Scottish Whole Milk, 2 cups of sifted powdered sugar.

In a big pan and on low heat add the milk, olive oil and sugar and stir.  Then heat the mixture until almost to a boil. Take off the heat and leave to cool for a wee bit, but so that it’s luke warm.

Add 3 1/2 cups of flour to the milk mixture and the yeast and stir to combine into a sticky icky mess. Cover with the pan lid and leave to rise for 1 hour. I warmed the lid in the oven for a wee bit before covering the pan and left the pan on top of the oven, but not on any hot rings.

Da da, it’s magic,  it rose.

Risen, but still sticky mixture. Looks like rice pudding!

 

Add the remaining 1 cup of flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and stir to combine. In a separate bowl, stir together all the filling ingredients.

Tiny tiny pinch spoon or maybe I have giant hands!

 

Roll out the dough into a kinda rectangle shape and then sprinkle on about tablespoon of the sugar/spice mix, then cover with some of the raisins. I just guessed the amount based on what looked right! Very scientific. Then fold the sides of the dough in on itself ( fold sides into the centre to enclose the sugar/ raisin goodness) and then roll the dough into another rectangle and sprinkle with remaining sugar/ spice mix and raisins. Fold the dough again.

Make sure you have your baking trays prepped before hand i.e covered with baking paper. Then pull off bits of dough and roll into a ball. Now I was unable to get the surface completely smooth using the method described by Pioneer woman but I found rolling the ball of dough on top of the work surface using my palm kinda helped. Place the balls of dough onto the baking tray, cover with a tea towel and leave to rise in a warm place.

Given my previous dilemmas with finding a warm enough place and getting the dough to rise, I decided to turn on my bottom oven and as well as my top oven, but leaving the door of the top oven open ( so really it was the grill that came on) and I placed the baking trays on top of two stools placed into front of the oven. One tray went on top of the oven, but I rotated the trays round to ensure all got a blast of heat. I ended up leaving them for 1 hour and 30 minutes as this was how long I was on the phone to my parents!

It was a kinda crude set up, but it actually worked and the dough rose really well!! Whoop Whoop victory dance!

Preheat oven to 200°C ( well mine was already on and preheated due to the above) then  mix the ingredients for the glaze together and brush the glaze on the tops of the buns before placing them in the oven for 20 minutes. They will be a really golden brown colour. Remove from oven and tray and place on a cooling rack placed over another baking tray. This tray is to capture the icing that drips off when you ice them.

Fresh from the oven

Yummy Yummy

Add the ingredients for the icing in a stand mixer and mix together until smooth. Watch that the icing is not too runny , it needs to be a bit thick so that it sticks to the buns and doesn’t run all over the place but not too thick that you are unable to pipe it. Place the icing in a piping bag, then ice a cross onto the top of each bun. Leave the icing to dry for a bit, then eat or give to friends or hang in your kitchen.

 

Enjoy and Happy Easter!!

Potato, Potato, Potato…. Oh and a Cabbage

I spent all my time today making Guinness cakes and Peppermint Shortbread that I didn’t actually consider what I would have for supper. Upon checking the fridge and freezer, I realized there were slim pickings, and as hubby was away in the car to training I wasn’t able to go out and pick something up from the shops. I resorted to a lone Quorn Escalope that was squashed in the back of the freezer looking quite pathetic. Waste not, want not I suppose [ face scrunches up]. Luckily for hubby he gets his meal at the club tonight. Although I would love to have seen his face if I presented him with a meat-free escalope. Must be the evil wife in me! Hahaha [I can even do the evil laugh].

We also had potatoes and cabbage, so given that it was St Patricks day and I was on a bit of an Irish high from all the baking,  I decided to combine the two and make yummy Colcannon. This is such an easy,comforting and creamy side dish.

Ingredients

Yummy Organic Veg

 

3 x Potatoes peeled and cut into quarters, 1/4 small January King Cabbage ( or any cabbage you have or you could use Kale) chopped . You can add more or less Cabbage as per your own preference.  About 2 tablespoons butter, about 80 grams of cream cheese or you could use milk instead and some salt and pepper. I tend to estimate the quantities of butter and cream cheese or milk.

Boil the potatoes and cabbage in separate pans until soft. Drain, and in the pan with the potatoes, add the butter, cream cheese, salt and pepper then mash together.  Taste and if required add more seasonings or cream cheese. Then add the cabbage to the potatoes and mix well. Then Serve and enjoy, preferably not along with a scabby Quorn Escalope!