Who needs a partner on Valentine's Day

 

When you can have a baking day with a friend and then go to one of your favourite shops to watch peculiar romantic French films in their back gallery! Admittedly a partner might be nice to have but I think I have given up on one of those.

Kal and I both agreed that wearing red clothing would be fun but when she arrived it was discover we had both settled on red and white and actually co-ordinated slightly more than originally intended! We made honey and rosemary cake with lemon icing in the shape of a heart (there was so much lemon in the icing it was too yellow to add pink food colouring!) and dark chocolate mousse with a couple of blocks of chocolate. I couldn't find the vintage wine glasses we usually use for mousse so I decided mousse in teacups might be cute. And it was! I'm going to do this more often.

It has cooled down very very slightly so I decided I could wear my beanie again. Oh how I loathe consecutive days of 40+ degree heat. It's just disgusting!

 Kal and her Dalek apron.

 

 

 

Hope you all have a lovely Valentine's Day whether or not you spend it in a traditional way 

x.

Christmas in a Lick

The making of Pfeffernusse has become highly linked to Christmas for me. While I eat store bought ones all year round the MAKING of these tasty treats smells like Christmas. It's the mix of the spices and honey I think. I was going to make these earlier in the week but I love making them on Christmas Eve and I ran out of time earlier in the week. If you don't know what they are they are a slightly cakey German/Dutch gingerbread in little dollops rather than figures or shapes. They are usually iced in a thin layer of crunchy white icing. Sometimes I ice mine with icing, sometimes with melted chocolate and sometimes with just icing sugar. All are very tasty but the icing sugar ones last a bit longer.


Here is the recipe that I use courtesy of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

Ingredients

• 200g plain flour, plus a little extra for dusting
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground allspice
• ½ tsp ground cloves
• ½ tsp ground mace
• A pinch of salt
• 225g honey
• 30g butter, plus a little extra for greasing
• 2 eggs

For finishing

• 100g icing sugar
• 2 tbsp water
• A little plum jam
• About 150g dark chocolate

Method: How to make pfeffernusse

1. In a bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, spices and salt. (This stage smells so good.)

2. Melt the honey and butter together in a saucepan then leave to cool until lukewarm.

3. Whisk the eggs into the cooled honey and butter, then add this to the flour mix and beat together with a wooden spoon. Cover and refrigerate for an hour, to firm up. Pre-heat the oven to 170°C/325F/gas mark 3.
4. Lightly grease a baking tray with butter. Take dessert spoonfuls of the mix, roll into balls using floured hands, and place on the baking tray. Bake for 10-15 minutes, until risen and golden brown. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

The next couple of steps are up to you depending on how you want to ice them.
5. Whisk together the icing sugar and water. Melt the chocolate gently in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering water. Dip half the pfeffernusse in the icing, and put them back on the rack. When the icing has set, dip again. Cut the tops off the other half, scoop out a little of the inside, and dab in a little plum jam. Replace the tops, and dip in the chocolate. Return to the wire rack.
6. Remove the pfeffernusse to a silicone mat or baking parchment before they set completely, to stop them welding themselves to the rack. They don’t keep well - eat within two days.

 Merry Christmas!

St Patrick loved apple tarts, did you know?

Ok, so I have no idea if that is true =P In fact I suspect it is a complete lie. But this is how I ended up spening my St Patrick's evening. Baking apple tarts and cupcakes and eating yoghurt with chopped strawberries. Quite a delicious evening actually.

I make these tarts quite often, I just play them by ear and use whatever I have handy. They are great for a quick spur of the moment dessert.

If you wanted to make one of these or a few small ones they are very easy and take no more than 20 minutes and that's including cooking time.

You will need:
Puff pastry squares/sheets
One apple per rectangle (about half an apple for a tart that is 1/4 of the pastry sheet)
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
Honey
Apricot Jam
Sugar
Boiling water
Melted butter
One greased oven tray

The last few things are up to you. Really you only need the pastry, butter and apples.

Grease an oven tray (I always grease it because I find that pastry just adheres itself to the baking paper we have) and set the oven to moderate or 180 degrees.

Trim the edges from your pastry as they will be a bit dry and crusty and you want nice puffy pastry tarts. Cut it either in half or in quarters depending on what you want and how many people you have to feed. Place on greased tray so you don't have to move it after assembly, because that would be extremely difficult! Use a fork and lightly prick down the centre of the tart where the apples will go. Lightly brush the whole square/rectangle with melted butter

Take the apple and cut it into reasonably even and small slices, and cut out the core parts and lay them in a row down the centre. Brush a bit of the melted butter on top and now you just add whatever you want. Personally I add cinnamon and nutmeg and then I put a bit of boiling water over a teaspoon of sugar to make a weak syrup and carefully pour it over the apples.

Bake until the pastry has puffed and is turning a bit brown then take it out and you could brush the tart with either honey or apricot jam while it is still hot.





Happy day of the Irish x

Baker Of Honey Cakes

I have a new recipe book, which I quite frankly adore. To be perfectly honest I think I purchased it more for the photos and imitation fabric pages within it than for the recipes. It is a beautiful book. However, the recipes are delightful and organised by colour! What more could you want.

I immediately wanted to try this recipe for a number of reasons. One it's a honey cake and that, to me conjures up images of Winnie The Pooh and bees and delightful sweet things. I do not think Pooh bear would have eaten this one though for it is quite strange.
The second and third reasons go together. The first being the picture and the second being the fact that the cake contains rosemary. In the picture the cake is beautifully iced with lemon icing and decorated with tiny purple rosemary leaves. My rosemary (or rather my friend's rosemary) did not have any flowers but it looked pretty good all the same. There was also a tablespoon of finely chopped rosemary leaves inside the actual cake mix. My mother was quite concerned when I was making it that the cake would not be 'cake like,' for neither of us had ever heard of a cake containing rosemary.

But I have to tell you it was amazing! Unfortunately I forgot to take photos of the final product before it was all eaten but I am sure I will make it again one day and upload the recipe from Tessa Kiros's book Apples for Jam.

My beautiful new book

lovely and fragrant ingredients

all good things go in pots