A very yummy barbeque

Summer fruit pavlova 

Turkey mince Caesar burgers

Blueberry Baked Cheesecake

Recipe

8 crushed digestive biscuits and 50g melted butter combined, pressed into base of 20cm tin and baked at 180*c for 5 mins. Remove and cool in tin for a bit while you get...

600g light Philadelphia, 142ml half fat creme fraiche, 2 large eggs plus 1 yolk, 175g caster sugar, seeds from 1 vanilla pod, 2 tbsp flour; beat together in a mixer until combined. Then add fruit - we added  about 250g frozen blueberries (I didn't bother to defrost them), pour on base and put back in oven for 40 mins, or slightly browned but centre still wobbly. Remove and cool in tin. Ideally refridgerate before serving.

Strawberry and Raspberry Ice cream cake

Make a regular sponge and cut in half. Get a tub of vanilla ice cream and spoon through a punnet of raspberries. Cut a punnets worth of strawberries in half.

Compile in a lined cake tin and freeze. 

Take out 10mins before you wish to slice and serve.

Roast Autumn Fruits tart on Blueberry Almond cake base

This was the perfect weekend pudding for a very autumnal feeling windy day! It also used up some soft fruit I had left over from the week.

To make this tart requires 3 stages; roasting fruit, making cake base and making creme patisserie

Roast fruit

• 1 punnet (about 5) nectarines (cut in half and stoned)
• 1 punnet (about 5) plums (cut in half and stoned)
• 1/2 punnet blackberries
• 1/2 punnet blueberries
• vanilla syrup (type used for coffee - or sugar would do)
• cinnamon, ground ginger

Pre heat the oven to 200*c

Put  the prepared fruit into a large baking tray, spinkle with some cinnamon and ginger (about 1 tsp each) and pour over syrup until all fruit lightly coloured, and bake for 20 mins or until soft and smelling good!

Blackberry, blueberry & almond cake tart base

 This is a take on a classic cherry and almond tray bake cake.

• 125g self raising flour
• 50g ground almonds
• 125g butter
• 125g caster sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 large or 3 small eggs
• 1/2 punnet each of blueberries and blackberries

Throw all ingredients in a mixer and whisk up.

Stir in the fruit.

Place in one 20cm cake tin .

Bake in a preheated oven for 20 mins or until golden and a wooden skewer comes out clean.

Creme Patisserie

 We followed this recipe Creme Patisserie but substituted soya milk for milk as we had some from a visiting friend that needed using up. It worked perfectly well!

Then assemble the cake by spreading creme patisserie onto the cooled tart base and put the cooled fruit on top. I also glazed with some warmed homemade plum jam to make it lovely and shiny! 

Bob's your uncle!

To be honest writing it out here makes it sound very complicated. We had made the creme patisserie for something else and had loads left over so we didn't do it at the same time. You do just bung the fruit in the oven really and all the cake ingredients into a mixer. 

Salted Caramel, No Bake, Cheesecake with Chocolate Buttons

Now before I give you this recipe, I don't necessarily believe I have found the ultimate salted caramel cheesecake but everyone else in this household pushed down seconds and some thirds so it seemed to have been a big success non the less. Here is this recipe for now, but I will continue to hunt down the nirvana of a cheesecake recipe.

Salted Caramel No Bake Cheesecake Recipe

Base

• 50g melted unsalted butter
• 8 plain chocolate digestive biscuits crushed to crumbs
• Mix together, push into a 20cm cake tin and chill

Cheesecake

• 5 gelatine sheets (soaked in cold water, drained and stirred into 3tbsp of boiling water)
• 400ml double cream
• 100g light brown sugar
• 50g dark brown sugar
• pinch sea salt
• seeds from one vanilla pod
• 400g cream cheese (I used Philly light)

• Warm the cream, sugar and salt over a low heat, stirring continuously until it is melted and smells good. Turn off heat
• Then add the vanilla and the gelatine goo, cool.
• In a food mixer/blender, whizz the cheese up then add the the cream/sugar/gelatine mixture and whizz again. Pour over the cheesecake base.
• Chill over night if possible.

Chocolate buttons

I very recently purchased a button mould from ebay. And today I made dark, milk and white chocolate buttons. I love my new purchase and can't wait to find another excuse to use it!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BUTTONS-Chocolate-Candy-Topper-Silicone-Bakeware-Mould-/380361474729?pt=Uk_Crafts_Cake_Decorating_MJ&hash=item588f4f82a9#ht_2733wt_1139

Caramel sauce

6 tbsp caster sugar, melted until light golden brown then add enough cream until a light brown caramel colour and whisk until combined. Chill and use as required. It should store in the fridge for at least a week or two maybe (we'll see!)

Ice cream update

I thought i would just give you an update, less than one month in, to how many different ice creams we have made with the new ice cream maker.
I haven't any decent photos as we were too excited making them to take photos, but maybe you can imagine them!

1. Madagascan vanilla (Gordon Ramsay base recipe - lots of cream)
2. Nutella (Gordon Ramsay base recipe adding nutella and omitting vanilla)
3. Oreo Cookies (Nigel Slater base - more egg, & milk not cream with crushed oreos)
4. Smarties (Nigel Slater base with crushed smarties)
5. 'Bounty' (Using cocomut milk in place of cream in the base plus toasted desiccated coconut and grated milk chocolate)
6. Mint Choc Chip (By infusing milk/cream mix with finely chopped fresh mint, straining and adding grated milk chocolate)
7. Banana Sherbert (like a sorbet but with milk in too, infusing the bananas in the milk)
8. Tropical fruit sorbet (mangoes, pineapple and passion fruit plus stock syrup)
9. Raspberry ripple ( Nigel Slater vanilla base with fresh raspberry coulis rippled through)

So far my favourites are the Nutella and the Bounty. When I get more time I will post the exact recipes and methods.

Cherry & Chocolate Pavlova

As we have been making so much ice cream we have loads of egg whites going begging, so I made a meringue and topped it with some whipped cream, some pitted fresh cherries (getting covered in cherry juice in the process of pitting) and grated over some cherries.
Perfectly seasonal and just as delicious as the more classic pavlovas.
If I had thought ahead I would have put a bit of cocoa in the meringue and make it a chocolate one to go with the topping

Ice Lolly? One slice or two?

The cups I have are just too big, and they take up a lot of space in the freezer. This seemed like a fantastic solution to all the problems!

I needed to use up some ageing fruit, so I bunged 3 nectarines, 2 bananas and half a punnet of blueberries in the blender with some yoghurt and orange juice. Whizzed it all up and put it in a loaf mould. After a few hours in the freezer it was stiff enough to put the sticks in without them falling over. Put it back in the freezer to firm up fully over night.

I had to leave it out for 5 minutes before it was soft enough to cut with the knife, but it worked well.  

And even Charlie tried a little bit - it was his first ever food. I think he liked the feeling of the cold on his gums more than the taste of the fruit!

Banoffee Pie (It's been a long time old friend!)

Banoffee Pie. It has been a long time since we made one of these. Probably at least 8 years. One of my favourite memories from starting to date my highly trained chef husband, was eating out and him saying very seriously "I wonder why they call it Banoffee Pie?". We still laugh about that, what fun we have!

It is such a simple pudding, but it is so good!

Hobnobs (300g) and butter  (70g) base

1 tin condensed milk - boiled for 2.5hrs

3 bananas, sliced

250ml double cream whipped with 1 tbsp icing sugar & 1 tsp vanilla extract

Chocolate shaved with a vegetable peeler

Nectarine Flower Tart

I had some nectarines that needed using up so I made a quick tart for the boys pudding. It looked really pretty, like a flower. The recipe is embarrassingly easy as usual!

1 slab frozen puff pastry, rolled out into a small dish (about 18cm dia)

3 nectarines cut into wedges about 1 cm thick. Arrange the nectarine in the pastry.

1 tablespoon of apricot jam warmed for 30seconds in the microwave with about 2 tsp vanilla extract stirred in, brushed on top generously. 

Cook at 200*c for about 20-25mins or until looks done.

Don't do what I did and brush the jam on the pastry edge - it burns (as you can see!)

Rosewater and Maple syrup milk jelly,

I couldn't resist buying some Peonies yesterday. I miss being a florist so much, when the peonies come out is always one of my favourite times of year. They are so pretty. They inspired me to make something I cut out of a magazine about 5 years ago and never got around to trying. Rosewater and maple syrup milk jelly. I also checked that peony petals are edible (they are) and crystallized some to pop on top to make this very pretty pudding. I was worried it would be to floral a taste for the boys to enjoy it so made some regular strawberry jelly just in case they didn't like it but they gobbled it up happily!

Recipe is as follows;

• 1 pint full cream milk
• 5 leaves gelatine (cut up and soaked in cold water until wobbly)
• 3tbsp maple syrup
•  a good glug of rosewater (about 5tsp)

To make the jelly, warm the milk slowly until nearly boiling then whisk in the soft gelatine and then the syrup and rosewater (I also added a couple of drops of red food colouring to make it pretty)
Strain into a mould and refrigerate.
To make the crystallized petals, wash them and then dip into lightly whisked egg white and dust with caster sugar, shake off any excess and dry for several hours.
I served it with some extra syrup I made from some warmed maple syrup and rosewater, so that you got a bigger hit of flavour if you wanted it, as it is quite mild.
I think it would be even nicer with an extra dash of cream or maybe a top layer of homemade raspberry/rhubarb or strawberry jelly. Next time....

Fresh Berry Tart

We had a couple of bramley apples that needed eating up so my husband rustled up this lovely fresh berry tart for our Sunday lunch.

Fresh Berry Tart Recipe

1 pack frozen puff pastry

2 bramley apples (cored, peeled and diced)

3 braeburn apples (cored, peeled and sliced in about 2mm think slices)

1 punnet each of strawberries, blueberries and raspberries

1 x 284ml carton of double cream (we used Elmlea double light in a vague attempt to be healthy!)

A couple of tablespoons caster sugar

Vanilla extract.

1 tbsp jam (we had strawberry)

First warm the bramley apples on the hob with 1 tablespoon sugar until it goes soft and pureed. We then blended this in a mini processor (but this was not completely necessary). Cool.

Roll the puff pastry thin enough to line a whole swiss roll pan.

Spread the pureed apple over the pastry and then place the braeburn apple slices in neat rows.

Cook in an 180*c oven for 30 mins.

Whip the cream with the vanilla and sugar

When the tart is cool, spread over the cream mixture and sprinkle the berries on top.

Then warm the jam in a small pan on the hob and brush onto the fruit as a bit of a glaze.

Grown up Strawberry Ice Cream

This morning I went to use the strawberries that were delivered last night and half of them had already gone squashy. I appreciate strawberries have a short shelf life but I didn’t imagine I would have to use them within 12 hours of the delivery coming!

So I needed to find a way to use them quickly and as I was half way through making the honeycomb ice cream below, I decided to have a bash at turning it into a Strawberry ice cream and so I put aside about a third of the cream/condensed milk mixture.

I warmed the less great strawberries (about 500g) in a pan with some vanilla extract (~3tsp), about a tablespoon of caster sugar and a tiny splash of balsamic vinegar. Then I blended them with the hand held blender. Cooled the puree quickly by putting the pan in a sink full of cold water and then added them to the cream mixture (see honeycomb ice cream recipe below). I had visualised it being a strawberry ripple effect but there was actually 2/3 strawberry puree to 1/3 cream so I just mixed it all together. I then got a bit worried that it would set too hard so I added a couple of shots of framboise liquer as the alcohol should stop it completely freezing.

I did have to fork the mixture a couple of times while it was freezing and there are still some ice crystals in it but the flavour is really good, I especially like the framboise in it. If you have an ice cream churn I would use it if repeating this recipe.

Super easy chocolate honeycomb ice cream

This is my mother in law’s recipe for Crunchie ice cream that she used to make for my husband and his sister when they were young. I was introduced to it a couple of years ago and it was so scrummy and moreish I couldn’t believe how easy it was to make! There is no ice cream machine required, no getting the ice cream out the freezer part way through and mixing it up. And it is smooth and scoopable straight from the freezer.

I have used the basic recipe to make multiple variations, adding Fudge bits (as in finger of Fudge), crushed up Malteasers, Smarties and KitKats. But Crunchie is still my favourite (closely followed by Malteasers) – it’s the really fine bits of dust that flavours the ice cream all the way through that does it! I wonder if mint Aero would work?

Honeycomb ice cream recipe

5 Crunchie bars (smashed up making sure there is a good mix of dust and big chunks!)

1 tin Condensed Milk

500ml Double cream

Whisk the cream into soft peaks. Add the tin of condensed milk and continue whisking (I use the kitchen aid). Then fold in the crunchie pieces, pour into an empty ice cream tub and freeze! See told you it was easy!

                           

Lemon Meringue Roll with Strawberries

We had some friends over and I decided to do a nice pud. I had a random jar of lemon curd which I really don't like on toast and so thought of making a Lemon Meringue pudding but didn't fancy the pastry element. I think I had seen something like this on the Cook website when I was looking at what we might buy to serve at Charlie's christening.

Lemon Meringue Roll with Strawberries

It turned out well, it had a lovely balance of fresh tartness from the lemon and sweetness from the meringue. And the strawberries complemented it well, though obviously these could be left out. I think next time I would experiment with some lemon zest through the cream, or maybe puree the strawberries into the cream?

Anyway, this is the recipe I used;

5 egg whites

150g caster sugar

1tsp cornflour

284ml double cream (elmlea light) whipped

1 jar lemon curd

1 punnet strawberries, thinly sliced.

Fan oven at 140*c

In the kitchen aid (or by hand) whip the egg whips until stiff then add the sugar and cornflour a bit at a time

Line a swiss roll pan. Spread the egg mixture onto the baking parchment and bake in the oven for 45mins at 140*c.

Cool completely, uncovered. Remove baking parchment and place on another sheet of parchment that has been dusted with icing sugar to prevent it sticking. Then spread the meringue with the whipped cream, followed by the lemon curd and then the strawberries. Then using the paper roll from the short side into a roulade shape. 

It needs to be served quite quickly as the juice from the strawberries runs out after a while and makes the whole thing a bit more soggy - though still yum!