Look at what we found on our walk up the road…….

I couldn’t believe my eyes…. blackberries in July??? Albeit the 31st of July, but still that’s remarkably early. Whenever we go on walks or cycles in late August and early September, I am always armed with a reused soup container, for any berries that we may find…. but I was taken by surprise today so we picked 3 cupped handfuls and brought them home carefully.

Not quite enough blackberries to make a pudding on their own – I ventured into our garden to see if one of our apples was ripe. They are huge apples this year, much bigger than in previous years, so I thought it might be alright. It also felt quite light, which is usually a good sign. Upon cutting, however, the pips were still white, so I may leave the rest for another few weeks.

So, blackberries soaked for a little while to remove maggots, I went onto making some individual puddings – I use those little metal pudding bowls and bake them in the oven, but you could use plastic and cook them for a couple of minutes in the microwave to get a steamed pudding.

Quite a rough recipe (sorry)… I must learn to weigh what I am using!

Mini blackberry and apple puddings – makes 4

3 cupped handfuls of wild blackberries (soaked in water and then drained/dried)
1 apple, peeled, cored and chopped
1 tblspn sugar, 1 tsp Lurpak butter spread

80g plain flour
25g sugar
40g butter (I used Lurpak spread as I had no butter in and it worked well)
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 large egg
75ml milk

• Soften the fruit by first cooking the apple with the butter and sugar for 5-6 mins – add the blackberries for a further minute
• Cut rounds of baking parchment to fit the bottom of your dishes and grease these well
• Put 1/4 of the fruit mixture into each dish
• Mix the remaining ingredients (use a mixer to make it even easier)
• Spoon 1/4 of this on top of the fruit
• Bake in a preheated 180C oven for 12 minutes – check to make sure they are cooked by inserting a skewer – it should come out clean
• Cool for a 5-10 mins and serve with ice cream

How to impress your mother-in-law #2

Following the triumph of the Hummingbird Bakery’s Carrot cake, where I definitely won many brownie points… I knew I had to go one better! So after picking my bodyweight in blackcurrants from our garden, I decided to make this fantastic trifle from Nigel Slater’s ‘Kitchen Diaries’ (July 24th entry – also the date when I made it!).

I also had the last of our strawberries and blueberries to hand so I turned it into what I have called my ‘Summer Pudding Trifle’, but the credit has to go to Nigel for his ingenious way of topping the fruit using a combination of mascarpone custard (no cook), whipped cream and beaten egg whites. It seems like a large layer when you look at the trifle, but the flavours are in complete balance when eating and it is so light that you almost don’t consider the calories!

I should also say that I made this, the night before so that I could sleep well in the knowledge that once more I would be the best daughter-in-law (there is competition!) All my husband’s family thought this trifle was absolutely gorgeous, my brother-in-law had seconds larger than his firsts…. it is now added to my armoury of recipes which will be repeated again and again! It is a true summer stalwhart, combining two of my summer dessert favourites…..

Summer Pudding Trifle – adpated from ‘Nigel’s delightful trifle’ (Kitchen Diaries – Nigel Slater)

Fed 7 adults and 4 children (with seconds for some!) It’s a biggun’!

Layered up and ready to go!

2 madeira cakes (about 700g in total)
2 large eggs – separated
4 tblspns caster sugar
500g mascarpone cheese
4 drops vanilla extract
500ml whipping cream
sprig of blackcurrants to decorate

For the summer pudding layer – this could be altered to suit you but this is what I used:
blackcurrants – 750g
strawberries and bluberries to make up 200g
water – 8 tblspns
caster sugar – 4 tblspns

• Clean up all the fruit ready to cook (remove stalks) and put them in a saucepan with the sugar and water. Simmer for 7-10 mins on a low to moderate heat. Once there is lots of juice, remove from the heat
• Break the cake into small pieces and press into the bottom of your bowl. Spoon the fruit and their juices over the cake and leave to cool – the sponge should soak up the juices
• For the custard – mix the egg yolk and sugar well, then stir in the mascarpone and vanilla – see below

Marscapone custard - no cook - great temptation to scoff it all rather than putting it in the trifle!

• Then whip the cream until it is thick enough to lie in soft folds (not stiff peaks), then fold it lightly into the custard
• In a separate bowl, whisk up the eg whites until almost stiff and fold this into the mixture
• Top the cooled fruit with this gorgeous mixture, making sure that all fruit is covered.
• Decorate and refrigerate for at least an hour – mine was refrigerated for about 16 hours and was delicious!

Crowning glory - some blackcurrants and blackcurrant leaves from the garden

A quick Sunday morning loganberry ‘cheesecake’

Went out to the garden this morning to give it some much needed love. Reports, field trips and end of term events have all dominated my existance for the last week and although I’m not quite on the final leg of term yet…. some garden respite was needed! I was rewarded with amazing produce – no doubt following the wet week that we’ve had. Turnips, potatoes, peas, broad beans, strawberries all came in and I was delighted to see some wonderfully ripe loganberries poking through the leaves in the fruit cage! I decided that we would have them for Sunday lunch, but this was at 9.30…. and time was running out!

Loads of amazing berries to come!

Some of today's bounty - loganberries, strawberries, peas and broad beans

I decided to make up a sort of cheecakey dessert with what I had in the fridge and the biscuit crumbs left over from Jon’s birthday cupcakes (these will be in a later post!). So this is my…..

Quick loganberry ‘cheesecake’ cups – makes 3 – this would work equally well with raspberries

25g butter, melted
1 cup digestive biscuit crumbs and 2 tsp sugar
100g cream cheese (like Philli)
6 tblspns natural yoghurt
3 tsp sugar
3 tsp loganberry jam
16-20 loganberries (or more if you have them)

• Combine the biscuit crumbs, 2 tsp sugar and butter – press most of it into bottom of 3 cups, glasses or small bowls – reserve a little for later
• Mix the cream cheese with the yoghurt and 3 tsp sugar until smooth – split between bowls
• Place a tsp jam on top and gently swirl
• Top with loganberries and a sprinkling of biscuit crumbs
• Pop it in the fridge for as long as you have – I left them for about 2 hours and this was enough…

The finished dessert - pop in the fridge for a few hours (or as long as you've got)

Don’t be a gooseberry – bake a cake and then everyone will be your friend!!

On Sunday, my friend Vic hosted a wonderful 4th birthday party for her daughter, Mia. Vic, being Vic, had totally gone to town, in addition to catering for over 40 hugely excited children. There was fairy crown making, fairy wand making, bee/ladybird/dragonfly making; I was helping children to ice and decorate their own cupcakes and the long-suffering husband named himself the ‘bouncy castle fascist’ – monitoring how many children were on at one time and counting down their bouncing time!

How do you cater for that many children and their parents?? Vic made all children a sausage in a roll, served up veggies with houmous and crisps; finishing up with birthday cake! Parents were treated to a range of homemade cakes made by Vic, family and friends and the cake below was my offering – a gooseberry cake made with the gooseberries Abbie and I found at Groveland farm shop last Wednesday.

My gooseberry cake… – makes a large loaf tin shaped cake – easy for party slicing
280g/10oz self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
75g/3oz caster sugar
100g/4oz demerera – you’ll need an extra bit at the end for sprinkling to make the top crunchy (always do this on my loaf cakes)
100g/4oz soft soya marg
2 eggs
tiny splash of vanilla extract (or use vanilla sugar in place of caster)
1 large punnet gooseberries (sorry I didn’t weigh them) – top and tail

• Preheat oven to 180C. Line your loaf tin with parchment and grease the sides
• Stew the gooseberries by bringing to boil and then simmer for 5 mins until soft and popping out of their skins
• Beat the dry ingredients to combine
• Add marg, eggs, vanilla  – beat lightly until it looks like cake mixture
• Add all but 1 cup of the stewed gooseberries (if you want some for a pudding) – fold in
• Pour in to loaf tin and sprinkle demerera sugar on top
• Bake for 45 mins and check that it is cooked by inserting a skewer into the middle – it should come out clean – if not bake for 5 mins and try again!
• Cool in tin for a little while and then remove to a cooling rack (or take it to the party in the tin as I did and turn it out there!
• Slice and enjoy!

Gooseberry cake, stewed gooseberries and Nigel Slater's amzing mascarpone cream

Abbie was dying to try gooseberries; I think she has had them before, but couldn’t remember – so that was an interesting experiment while we made the cake. Luckily she LOVED them! So I snaffled a few leftover pieces of cake from the party and served it up for our pudding.

I served it up warm with some stewed gooseberries and made Nigel Slater’s Mascarpone cream to go alongside – trust me when I say this is AMAZING!  A no-cook custard which can be whipped up in a few mins.

Beat 2 egg yolks with 2 tblspns caster sugar; add few drops vanilla and 250g mascarpone, beat until smooth and custard-like! If it weren’t for the calories, I’d make it everyday!

Unfortunately I think we will have to rely on Grovelands for our gooseberries – have counted and we have 7 berries on our bush (still in trauma from last year’s frost obviously). I may be back this week!!

Sundae strawberries! Named and made by Abbie…

Look what was waiting for us on Sunday morning!

I knew that we had to do something special with our handfuls of strawberries and so I constructed this layered dessert ably assisted by Abbie, who also came up with the name ‘Sundae Strawberries’!

Sundae Strawberries – makes 3 martini or wine glass portions

10-15 strawberries (depending on size)
1/2 lemon
Icing sugar (4-5 tsp in total)
2 tblspn thick double cream
2 tblspn natural yoghurt
6 sponge fingers
Lemon curd

• In a bowl, combine 2/3 of you strawberries (sliced) with the juice of half a lemon and 2 heaped tsp of the icing sugar – stir and leave to one side for later
• In another bowl, stir together the yoghurt and double cream with the other 2 tsp icing sugar
• Break the sponge fingers into halves, spread thickly with lemon curd and place 4 of the halves at the bottom of each of your glasses
• Then layer up as shown in the photos below, finishing with the remainder of the strawberries (sliced) and some curls of lemon zest
• Refrigerate for the morning (at least 2-3 hours) and eat for lunch!

Spreading the lemon curd on the fingers....

Starting to layer, sponge fingers first.....

.... then strawberries....

.... letting the lemon berry syrup soak into the sponge...

All done! One 'Sundae Strawberries' ready for the fridge

Demolished in a matter of moments!

What do you do when you have no energy, but your daughter is bouncing off the walls??

Answer – to the kitchen! I was able to sit, with the occasional move whilst we weighed, mixed, poured and baked Nigel Slater’s ‘Lemon Frosted Pistachio cake’; surely guaranteed to lift my spirits and put a smile on my face. Abbie is becoming suddenly more independent in the baking arena and now insists on trying to do everything herself…. cracking eggs has definitely improved – I only had to retrieve 3 pieces of shell (a definite improvement on previous attempts!)

Weighing and measuring...

If you could hear this photo it would say...'Ta da!'

Juicing the orange - luckily I only need 2/3 of its juice

This was a great recipe for trying new things – ‘green nuts’ went down very well, although she came a cropper later when sneaking a naughty one as my back was turned…. tried to eat the whole thing, shell and all!! That’ll teach her! Abbie also enjoyed pinches of ground almonds (so different to how whole ones taste) and smelling the rosewater which she said smelled ‘flowery’.

Thank goodness also for Jonts, who probably wished he hadn’t called to say he was coming home, as he was greeted with a ‘please could you just……’ (this happens quite a lot). Anyway, he was the cake’s hero as without him and the bottled lemon juice, there would have been no icing!

GORGEOUS!

This cake is GORGEOUS!… we ate it with berries and creme fraiche. I made 2/3 of the recipe and we were only supposed to eat a third of the cake. Confession: there is only half left and I am not sure that it will make it through the evening – I am in bed and I can almost hear Jon sliding a plate from the cupboard…. opening the fridge door….. Hero or not, there had better be a piece for Abbie and I tomorrow or he’s in big trouble!

Abbie has seconds and then asked to share my second piece! Cheeky monkey! Of course I let her - weak!

Have to say, I am a Slater convert at the moment as I have not had any kitchen disasters with any of his recipes and they have all been simply delicious. In fact I am at present thinking up a name for all Slater followers…. maybe I am a ‘Slaterite’, ‘Slatertater’ or a ‘Slaterplater’? All lame I know! I’m sure you can do better……

LEMON-FROSTED PISTACHIO CAKE (from Nigel Slater’s ‘The Kitchen Diaries’)
serves 10-12

250g of butter
250g of caster sugar
3 large eggs
100g of shelled pistachio nuts
100g of ground almonds
An orange
1 tsp of rosewater
60g of plain flour

Icing:
100g of icing sugar
2 tbsp of lemon juice
Preheat the oven to 160° C. Line the bottom of a non-stick 22cm cake tin with baking parchment.
Cream the butter and sugar until very light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating between adding each egg. Blitz the pistachios in a food processor to turn them into fine crumbs and then add them, along with the almonds, to the butter, sugar and eggs. Add the zest and the juice of the orange and then stir in the orange blossom water and, finally, fold in the flour.
Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 50 minutes, covering the top lightly with foil for the final ten minutes. Check that the cake is done by inserting a skewer, it should come out quite clean with no wet mixture stuck to it. Leave it to cool in the tin before turning out.

Make the icing by mixing the icing sugar and lemon juice together until smooth and then pour it over the cake. If you have any leftover pistachios use a few to decorate the top of the cake. Leave the icing to set and then serve and enjoy.

Book club….. ‘One Day’ and Mexican food to celebrate Cinqo de Mayo!

Loved loved loved this book!

Our monthly book group convened at mine on Wednesday night to discuss ‘One Day’ by David Nicholls – a book given to me by Jon for Christmas which I had been dying to read and then had the chance to, and not only that but also share the experience with good friends! I loved this book….. the idea is that it follows two people, Emma and Dexter through 25 years of their lives but you only see one day a year – the 15th July! Great concept and a real page turner – Vic read it in 3 days (and she has been known to purchase the audiobook in the past!).
 

Digging in to quesadillas...

Anyway, I thought I would continue the Mexican theme that seems to be infiltrating all my cooking at the moment, especially as Cinqo de Mayo was the next day – that and I couldn’t think of any Star Wars themed nibbles to deliver for May the 4th be with you!

I made quesadillas from Nigella Express, adapting them to omit the parma ham and including olives as the veggie option. This was followed by Margarita Ice Cream (again from Nigella Express). Jon was doubtful when I said I would be making this, but it really was the fastest ever ice cream and I didn’t even need my ice cream maker!! Just a bit of forward planning as I made it in 5 minutes (actual time!) on Tuesday night! The ice cream was a massive hit and I am now inspired to try other cocktails, turned into frozen desserts – Long Island Ice Tea Granita may be next!

Anyway, here is the link for the recipe: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/margaritaicecream_87463

and the most amazing margarita ice cream!!

Mmmm Sunday lunch and a lemoniscious trifle from Nigel Slater ….

Roast chicken, new potatoes, kale, carrots and yummy homemade gravy today. Did my chicken the Jamie way – boiling a lemon for 5 mins, stabbing it and shoving it in the chicken with some salt, pepper, garlic and herbs before roasting – keeps it really moist.

Abbie and I got up early this morning and made the lemon trifle – another wonderful dish from Nigel Slater’s ‘Kitchen Diaries’. It was a really easy trifle, couldn’t believe I could make something that resembled a custard from just double cream, sugar and lemon juice – no egg and therefore no curdling!!

After our main meal, which Abbie polished off in record time…. she asked to get down… I was surprised as Abbie usually loves her puddings! The following conversation then took place…
Me: Don’t you want pudding?
Abbie: Mmmm…. no I don’t think so…………… what’s for pudding?
Me: Lemon trifle…. it’s in the fridge….
Abbie: Maybe I’ll just go and have a look……. (goes to the fridge) …… Hmmmm…. Mummy…. I think I will just have a bit of pudding!

As you can see from the photos, Abbie was very reluctant to lose possession of said trifle! I adapted Nigel Slater’s recipe only slightly, replacing crystallized violets with white chocolate chips as I had them in the cupboard. It was enjoyed so much that we will be making it again when my mother-in-law comes for lunch next Sunday!

Link to the recipe: http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/533841

very protective of the trifle!

can you see Abbie's hand creeping in to get her portion??

a happy girl....

Good Friday, good morning, great pancakes – white choc and cranberry……

Abbie wanted pancakes for breakfast this morning and as they are also my favourite, who was I to resist….. I had made white chocolate and cranberry cookies on Christmas morning – a huge success with all of our families, so I wondered whether I could repeat the triumph in pancake form!!

served up with raspberries on the side

 

White chocolate and cranberry pancakes – makes about 15
 (I freeze the leftovers and reheat in the microwave when needed)

150g plain flour
1 desertspoon baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarb of soda
1 tablspn vanilla caster sugar (or caster sugar and a drop of vanilla extract)
1 egg
250ml milk
1/2 tblspn oil at most

White choc chips and dried cranberries

• Mix flour, baking powder, bicarb, sugar, egg and milk together – I do this in a mini-food processor
• Heat the oil in a frying pan or flat skillet – I brush the oil around my skillet
• Pour pancake sized blobs into the pan – beware they will spread – these are the American style of pancakes so about 10cm diameter at most
• Sprinkle the pancakes with white choc chips and cranberries as the first side cooks, when it looks bubbly on top, flip it for a short while on the other side (not too long or the chocolate will burn)
• Serve hot (you could also make this for a pudding and serve with vanilla ice cream…)