Science is Delicious

Salted caramels

2017-01-05T23:06:38+00:00

Chewy, slightly soft, very buttery, nicely salty. What more do you want?

Shiny, sticky, sweet sweet, salted caramels

This recipe scales up pretty well, I had started out with a larger recipe but decided the 170 mL carton of cream is the most common carton. If you want to scale it down, you'd need to find specialist pots though.

170 mL cream
110 g golden syrup
180 g caster sugar
60 g salted butter
2 g salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

Choose a pot that will leave plenty of room for the ingredients to bubble up, I used to use the middle size (18 cm) pot in my saucepan set, but lately I picked up a taller 15cm pot. The pot also needs to be narrow enough that the liquid height reaches the thermometer comfortably.

If you're using a glass candy thermometer in a metal housing, they usually sit right at the bottom of the pan, as the metal is designed to keep the bulb off the bottom of the pan. With a probe thermometer, you'll need to adjust the clip (before you put anything into the pot) such that it's at least 5mm off the bottom of the pot, otherwise you'll a) get the wrong temperature, b) damage the probe and break your thermometer.

Now that you have the right pot and the thermometer is adjusted, weigh all the ingredients, apart from the vanilla, into the pot. Put the pot on a medium heat and stir until all the sugar is disolved. Clip the thermometer to the pot and allow it to come to 125 °C. In the meantime, line a dish with baking paper (I use a 15 cm x 15 cm square dish).

Yes, this 15cm x 25cm dish isn't the dish I call for in the method, but it's a good dish for a scaled up quantity or a regular quantity with 100g of salted peanuts.

As soon as it reaches 125 °C, take the pot off the heat and stir in the vanilla. Pour into the prepared dish. Any bubbles can be moved with a spoon, or you can just ignore them. Let the caramel set overnight at room temperature. When set, the caramel can be sliced with a big knife. I usually slice off a row then make it into small pieces before cutting the next row, as when you go boldy into cutting the whole thing as a grid it tends to stick to itself.

At this point, the caramel will tend to absorb water and become sticky and start to melt. *shakes fist at the hygroscopic nature of sugar*
Either keep the caramels in an airtight container, separated with waxed papers, wrap them, or dip them in chocolate to ... ehh... protect them from the environment.

Salted caramels, carefully placed on non-stick paper.

To make Ladies Mini Marathons, pour the caramel over 100g of salted roasted peanuts (in a slightly larger dish), then when it's set, cut it up and dip it in plain chocolate. After the cooled chocolate sits for a few seconds, touch the top with a fork to make tiny little pyramids on top. Even if the chocolate's not well tempered, or the caramels aren't fully coated, they still taste great and anyone who likes peanuts in caramel and chocolate will be demanding you make more of them, for practise of course.

A montage of ladies mini marathons

Sausage pasta bake

2016-04-08T21:21:21+00:00

Leftover tomato sauce from pizza has to get turned into something tasty. It's even better if it can be turned into something delicious with low effort for the next day's dinner. Pasta bakes can be prepped ahead of time and thrown in the oven whenever, making life pretty easy. Soaking the pasta in hot water instead of going to the trouble of boiling a pot of water makes things easier again. Cover it in cheese, and sure put more cheese on it when it's served up.

As the pasta will be baked in the oven (and possibly sitting in sauce for 24 hours), it doesn't need to be fully cooked before assembling the dish. By soaking the pasta in water before cooking, it has time to fully hydrate, the final stage of cooking can then happen in the oven. Using hot water shortens the hydration time, but cold water works just as well, but takes longer (I use this method for lasagne as I like to do a long low simmer on the ragú). The starches all swell up with the water, and don't take anywhere as long to cook as usual. Don't forget to salt the water as usual, and to save dishes, I soak the pasta in the dish it'll be baked in. Respect to Ideas in Food for the idea, and their book of the same name that's light enough to read in bed. I've been soaking lasange sheets since I read it. The other advantage is that your pasta probably won't soak up as much sauce as usual, so you'll still have an actual sauce in your pasta bake.

The choice of sausage doesn't matter. Pork sausages are tasty, but vegetarian sausages are easier in this house. Pick whatever you like, and leftover onions from dressing pizza are welcome too. I like to assemble this while the pizza is cooking, so two day's worth of dinner are out of the way in no time.

Pre-soaked pasta, sausages, onions, tomato sauce, ready for mixing before baking.

150g pasta
1 tsp salt
A kettle of boiling water
2 medium onions
4 large sausages or as many as you'd usually feed two people
Oil for frying
2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp paprika
2 tsp black pepper
2 tsp garlic paste (or minced garlic, or leave out if using leftover pizza sauce)
1 tbsp tomato purée
Glass of wine (optional)
Can of chopped tomatoes (or carton of passata, or strained juice and leftover sauce from pizza night
Grated cheese

Vegan(!) sausages and plenty of onions. Happy days.

Weigh the pasta into the dish you plan to use for baking the final dish. Add the salt and enough hot water to cover the pasta. Set aside while you prepare the rest of the dish.

Slice up the onions and sausages (if using regular pork sausages, snip them into bitesized pieces with a scissors). Fry them till the onions are soft and the sausages are browned. Add the garlic and tomato paste and fry briefly, then add the herbs and spices. If using wine, deglaze the pan (i.e. use the wine to scrape up all the brown gunk) and reduce down. Then add the tomatos/passata/leftover sauce and simmer for five minutes.

Strained soaked pasta. It's not cooked, but it's fully hydrated so it won't take long to finish.

Strain off most of the water from the soaked pasta, and add the pasta to the sauce. Mix well and pour into the dish. Cover with a generous layer of cheese and some tinfoil. You can let it sit overnight, or you can bake it right away, depends on how soon you want to eat it.

Don't hold back on the cheese. That poking out pasta will dry out in the oven due to insufficient cheese coverage :(

Bake at 180°C for 20 minutes, then remove the foil and rock the temperature up to 220°C for another 15 minutes until the cheese is all bubbly and crispy. No need to preheat the oven, but start the 20 minute timer when it gets up to temperature. Serve with more cheese and black pepper. Happy days.

It doesn't have to look beautiful if it tastes good.

Slow-cooked shredded chicken

2016-04-01T18:49:55+00:00

Slow cookers are great for ignoring; put things in, turn on, ignore, eat. You can ignore them completely if you get one with a timer, or get a timer plug. The things made in slow cookers aren't delicate, but they can end up juicy and tender. They usually travel well to potlucks, where you can wow people by telling them "oh yes, this took 8 hours to make" (although it took only 10mins of hands on work).
Shredded chicken takes 8 hours on low. During this time, all the connective tissue between the muscle fibres breaks down and melts away. You're left with juicy shreds of muscle for very little work. The seasoning can be changed to suit. To minimise the work in this, I pick up a packet of taco seasoning. The full packet can be a little salty in the small volume, but you can add less or make your own.
The shredded chicken is great with bowls of rice and some grated cheese, but you can also just serve it up as a tasty dip for crunchy tortilla chips. If making a mess is your thing, then load it into burritos. It freezes well, and seems to keep its flavour for a long time. I've eaten this from the forgotten depths of the back of the freezer months later, and it's been grand (though you're best off eating it w/i a month before freezer burn or general degradation kicks in).

Brown goop. *Delicious* brown goop.

I have a small 3.5L slowcooker, if you have a regular sized 6L one, double the quantities. Get a timer plug if you don't have a fancy slowcooker with a built-in timer. I use a timer plug and set it running before I go to bed usually as it reheats pretty well and I'm in no mood to set it up in the morning.

2 large chicken breasts
1 (400g) can chopped tomatoes
1 drained and rinsed can of kidney beans
1 packet of taco spice seasoning (use half if you find it too salty, otherwise, if you have your own blend for spicing tacos or chilli, use that instead)
1 medium onion, thinly sliced (optional)
2 handfuls of sweetcorn (optional)
Boiled rice, tortilla chips, grated cheese to serve

Onions, then chicken, then spice, then the tomato and the beans, then timer on. Then patience.

If using the onion, I tend to put it at the bottom of the dish under the chicken breasts. Then put in the chicken breasts. Cover with chopped tomatoes, mix the spice blend into the tomatoes. Dump the beans and corn in on top. No need to stir, once the chicken is below the height of the liquid, you're golden. Turn the slow cooker to low for eight hours. Don't open the lid while it's cooking, just ignore it, get on with your life.

When the cooking time is up (or you get out of bed), shred the chicken using two spoons (it'll fall apart and still be juicy, it's amazing). Serve hot over boiled rice, with a fistful of grated cheese on top. The photographed chicken never saw rice, it just went to a house party with refried beans and lots of crispy tortilla chips.
It freezes very well, just divide into portions in freezer bags or lunchboxes. Reheat in the microwave. It's also tasty cold, I have been known to just scoop up the cold chicken with tortilla crisps while I waiting for the rice to boil.

The delicious reward for 8 hours of patience and a bit of shredding.

Hello new postgrad researchers

2015-09-29T19:20:53+00:00

The other week, I was asked to give a five minute overview of my experience as a postgrad and any advice I thought might be useful to incoming postgrad researchers. I discovered that five minutes is not enough, and that other's don't seem to think I'm as cynical as I am (or it just didn't come across clearly).
In essence, I want to tell new postgrads that not everything will be rosy all the time, but that people are there to help (although they may not be the people you want to help). I think the main point I had was to look after your mental health.

Research can be a bit isolating, whether you're locked in a lab on your own or surrounded by other researchers, you'll usually be working on /your/ project with /your/ problems and research questions. Sometimes people will offer help. Sometimes people will be too busy to notice you and you'll have to ask for help (it's usually nothing personal, they're as engrossed in their own work/problems as you are). Learn to ask for help. You're new in the door (or even around for a while), you're not expected to know it all, you're expected to learn. Do ask for help, you'll often find out that others have encountered the same problems you have before and might know a solution (or at least be able to tell you which avenues not to bother with).

Make friends in your department, outside your department, outside the university entirely. Have people who'll listen. Go for coffee with people, even if you don't drink coffee. Colleagues in the department will know what you're going through and be able to fill you in on local politics and advise you who's approachable. Colleagues in other departments will agree with you that $administrativedepartment is just utterly unhelpful and it's not just you. Friends in other universities can tell you how life isn't perfect over there either, which can be very reassuring.

Find hobbies outside your research. If you take up a fiddly hobby in first year, you'll be able to do it without thinking by the time you're writing up and it might actually be relaxing. I can highly recommend making bread, you can punch the dough AND you get a tasty loaf. Likewise, find things that might be relaxing on campus. There's a community garden down the back corner of DCU where it's usually pretty quiet and there's all sorts growing. Turn up to science events in town, volunteer, join an organisation close to your heart, not only will these things provide a welcome distraction but you might pick up useful life skills and gain another support network. If you're in science, get involved in outreach activities (and it doesnt need to be tied to the uni's work), it's a super way to meet people in your field and generally make friends. It'll also force you to be able to think about your topic in a way you can explain to anyone (it can be especially hard when people don't share the same vocabulary as you) and to practise public speaking (you might not get as many chances in your postgrad).

Do make use of university supports. If you've got a long term illness that might interfere with your work, talk to the disability office. If you're not sure how postgrad funding works or why there are so many forms, talk to the grad studies office. Need a book or paper that the library doesnt seem to have? Ask in the library, if they can't source it from another library, your department might have a budget to buy books (just write an email saying why it's a necessary investment, though if you over sell it they buy the book and put it on short term loan!).

Talk money with your boss. How long is your stipend guaranteed? Who'll pay your fees if you run over? How much do you have to spend on project costs? Is there money in the budget to travel to conferences? Also, start saving (or at least clearing off loans), just in case you don't fall straight into a job after or your studies run longer than your stipend (you'll not be paying PRSI for the next few years, so when you're done, you won't be entitled to job seekers benefit), and if you don't need to lean on it, you can have a holiday when you're done (or keep saving).

I might seem cynical, doing postgrad research is very rewarding, but you'll have plenty of people to tell you that. Yes, it's the time when you're in the most control of your research, but you also have to be in control of less fun parts of your research. Be aware that things can go wrong and what you can do about it, who's there to help and when to ask for help. And keep an eye out for your fellow postgrads too, they're in the same boat, take care of each other and enjoy the research!

Pizza, bread, dough

2015-04-08T19:56:05+00:00

About five years ago I started making yeast breads and asked my beloved for a pizza stone for my birthday. Thus began the great pizza-making adventure. A good yeast bread isn't too hard to make, though making great yeast bread took a bit more experimenting. Same with the pizza, a good pizza is easy to make, great pizza takes a bit more thinking, but even failed attempts are delicious.
For yeast breads, I found that I am very happy working with stupidly wet doughs. Though it took a couple of years to get there, it's worth every ten-minutes-scraping-your-hands-under-the-tap-trying-to-get-the-sticky-dough-off until you realise that you don't even need to knead this bread all that much. You end up adding a bit more flour when you roll out the pizza bases but the matching loaf made with the leftover dough is wonderfully fluffy with a chewy crust.
Last year I picked up a tub of horlicks intending to make @wholesomeIE's malted milk biscuits (which I still haven't made...) and wondered if there were any other recipes I could use it in. Horlicks is a mix of malt and milk powder, so I wondered if you could use it as a dough improver. A lot of the loaves of yeast bread I made, I used half milk/half water as it gave a softer inside and the bread lasted a two to three days without turning into a rock. It turns out horlicks is a brilliant dough improver. The horlicks bread keeps as well as the milk breads and gets a browner crust thanks to the malt. The pizza crust turns out better than a milk bread pizza crust too. Since I discovered horlicks as a dough improver, I haven't made a batch without it and have gone through two tubs of horlicks (it's also nice added to hot chocolate, but made up on its own with milk it's gross).
As well as owning a pizza stone, I can highly recommend owning dough scrapers. They're pretty handy for scraping wet dough off surfaces, folding over wet dough, and scraping all the flour up when you're finished. You can use them to cut dough as well, or move lumps of dough about. After five years of making bread without them, and a few months making bread with them, I would say don't wait as long as I did to get a pair (one is good, two are better).

Two doughscrapers, dredger and a tub of horlicks. Non essential yet essential, highly recommended

I usually start the bread/pizza dough in the morning, abandon it on the counter, and brag about how I've got dinner started already. I make the sauce closer to pizza assembly time, just because I can be lazy in the mornings. We used to make slow cooked tomatoes sauces, but they can be a little wet. I came across Smitten Kitchen's pizza sauce recipe last year and haven't looked back. The strained tomatoes sauce is thicker, easier, and let's be honest, you don't appreciate a nice slow cooked sauce on a pizza anyway.
We use coarse polenta on a rimless baking tray to stop the pizza from sticking while we dress the base. The pizza can then be slid directly on to the hot pizza stone for baking.

Start the dough

450g strong white flour
5g salt
1 (7g) sachet quick yeast
25g Horlicks
25g Wheatgerm (optional)
350g water

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl, a good mix so everything is evenly distributed. Then add the water and give it a good stir with a strong spoon. You can mash it about with your hands for a bit if you think you haven't given it a good enough mix with the spoon. Getting the dough off your hands is a pain, you can scrape it off and then wash them with loooooads of soap. Cover the bowl and ignore it for at least two hours, ideally leave it for six to eight hours.

It rises up, you squash and fold it back down and ignore it again. Or maybe bake it...

Make the sauce

400g can of good chopped tomatoes
1-3 cloves garlic
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon salt

Strain the tomatoes. Keep the strained liquid for some other recipe (baked beans or bolognaise are good). Put the strained tomatoes into a narrow container, add the garlic and salt, then use a stick blender to blitz the sauce till it's smooth. If you don't have a stick blender, crush the garlic and then mash into the tomatoes until it's as smooth as you can get it. Set the sauce aside.
This is enough sauce for four pizzas for hungry adults.

Make the pizzas and bread

Bread dough from above
Sauce from above
Grated cheeses (dried mozzerella is my preferred cheese, with or without cheddar, the wet fresh mozz you get in bags leaves you with soggy pizza)
Dried oregano
Toppings!!!

Pre heat your oven to as hot as it gets, if you're using a pizza stone put it in while the oven is cold. I usually let the stone heat for 20 minutes and start preparing the bread while the heating happens. I put the stone on the bottom rack of our conventional oven (top and bottom elements), when we used a fan oven it stayed in the middle, when I visit my mother the stone goes on the top shelf of her conventional (side elements) oven. Get a baking tray with no sides for transferring the pizza to the stone (or baking the pizza on directly if you don't have a stone) and sprinkle some polenta on to stop the pizza base sticking.
Put plenty of flour on the worktop. Plop the dough out of the bowl on to the counter. If it's a bit wet, use dough scrapers to fold it on itself a few times. If it's not too wet, knead it about for a minute.

Plopped out, onto the floured worktop, ready for action

The entire lump of dough will make 6 pizzas for hungry adults, so cut off as many pizza pieces as you'll need. If you have dough leftover, put it into a well oiled 1lb loaf tin, slash the top and set it aside somewhere warm (I leave mine on the grilltray sitting on the hob over the hot oven).

Dough chopped up for two pizzas and one loaf

The remaining dough has been deposited in a greased 1lb loaf tin and slashed gently

For the pizza you can make them thick or thin. Use plenty of flour, be careful not to tear the dough, but if you do, just fold the dough over and mash it back together.
Thin pizzas get rolled out in this house. I'm not going to learn about throwing dough in the near future. People say rolling gives fewer bubbles, but that's ok, in this case we want a thin crispy base. Sprinkle flour on the dough and counter, turn the dough 90 degrees to get an even shape. They don't need to be perfect circles or squares, they're just food. The dough usually ends up less than 5mm thick. I find the easiest way to transfer the base to the baking sheet is to fold it into quarters, move it and unfold it.
Thick pizzas I stretch out with my hands, sometimes rolling a little if I'm in the mood. The dough ends up between 0.5 to 1 cm thick. Again, folding them up is the easiest way to move the dough to the baking sheet without tearing.

The polenta stops the pizza base from sticking to the tray, so it's easy to shuffle onto the stone

Spread a thin layer of sauce on (especially on the thin bases). Give the pizza base a little shuffle to make sure it hasn't stuck (it'll be difficult to shuffle off if it has, free it and put a bit a bit of flour under it to keep it free). Apply toppings as you see fit.

Too much sauce makes the base soggy. If you have a thin base it'll soak through and make it stick to the tray, so dress the pizza shortly before you plan to put it in the oven.

My beloved likes thin base, plenty of sauce and cheese, a liberal sprinkling of oregano, and finishes it out of the oven with chilli oil and black pepper. I like the thick base, thin sauce, more mozzerella than cheddar, plenty of oregano with slices of chorizo and onion or black pudding on top. When I put sweetcorn on, I put it under the cheese to reduce the risk of it rolling off.

Going to the oven, rescue any stray pieces of cheese that aren't on the pizza.

Shuffle the pizza off the tray on to the stone (or place the tray into the hot oven if you're not using the stone) and let cook until the pizza looks delicious (ten to fifteen minutes usually for our rubbish oven). Then slide the pizza off on to a chopping board, add post-oven toppings like black pepper and or a drizzle of pesto, slice and serve. You can put on the next pizza, or give the pizza stone ten minutes to recover (so the next base is as crispy as the first).

Black pudding is an excellent pizza topping.

When the final pizza is done, it's time to do the bread (if you didn't use all the dough on pizzas).

Doubled in volume while the two pizzas were made. The loaf is good and light and ready for its go in the oven.

Take out the pizza stone and leave it on an appropriate surface. Put the bread into the oven on the middle rack, then turn the oven temperature to 200°C. Give the loaf about half an hour and check on it. Take it out of its tin and tap the base, if it sounds hollow it's done, if it sounds dull put it back in for another ten minutes at 180°C and check again. Leave the loaf to cool before thinking about attempting to slice it. Wrap it in a tea towel for a softer crust, or leave it uncovered for it to stay crustier. Do NOT slice it till it's cold, you'll mangle the loaf otherwise.

A bit overdone for my liking. I always forget to set a timer and go an enjoy a pint and end up with over crusty bread

A few bonus points:

The salt is important for the development of the gluten network. It allows the gluten proteins to come close together and have stronger dough. Don't forget to add it.
Strong flour has a higher gluten content than plain flour. Plain flour doesn't really work very well for bread, though it can be OK for pizza or yeasted pastries like cinnamon rolls or croissants. Self-raising is terrible for bread (the raising agents in it seem to make the yeast very unhappy).
Distribute the salt and yeast through the dough before adding the water. If the salt is bunched on top with the yeast, when you add the water you're basically drowning the yeast in a salty sea and it won't be happy.
The Horlicks contains milk, you can probably substitute it with some malt sugar and half the water as milk. For the lactose intolerant, leave it out. It'll still be a nice bread, but it won't last as long on the counter.
The wheatgerm I throw in because I need to use it up (that stuff has a very short shelflife). It's great in soda bread but you don't really notice it in the white bread. It probably gives some sort of nutritional value to the pizza and loaf, so if you have it, throw it in and use it up.
You can get polenta in healthfood shops if you can't find it in the supermarket. It's just coarse maize. It's also nice pressed into the top of the unbaked loaf.
Replacing the pizza sauce with a layer of beef bolognaise is pretty good.
You can also press the pizza dough into an oiled pan for deep pan pizzas. Use plenty of oil, and just put the tin onto the stone directly, no need to shuffle the pizza out. If your non-stick tins aren't very good, use baking paper or a circle of silicone baking sheet, otherwise you'll end up trying to chisel out the pizza (which will be tasty, but you'll be angry, so you won't care). Likewise you can make the loaf into a big tray of focaccia like bread using a tin. Drizzle with extra oil and brush with garlic and herbs.
The loaf freezes well, sliced or unsliced.

Thanks to my beloved for taking photos while my hands were floury and covered in dough, and proofreading this longer than normal post.

Baileys and milk chocolate cheesecake

2015-01-04T22:34:08+00:00

Instead of trifle and romantica, for Christmas dessert this year my mother requested I made my lemon drizzle cake and she'd make a Bailey's cheesecake. When the drizzle cake was made, I offered to make the cheesecake while I was at it, as I love making cheesecake and don't make it as much since I moved to Dublin (my beloved doesn't care for it, and the fridge in work is just manky so you can't offload it there). I probably based the recipe off a few other cheesecakes I made years back. Before I left for Dublin, I left the recipe with my mother who gets to make it a lot more often than I do, so I just used that piece of paper instead of my memory.

It's gelatine free, the chocolate ganache isn't runny so it stays reasonably stiff. If you like, you can leave out the Baileys. Use the best chocolate you can find, there's so few ingredients that you want to use the finest you can.

The biscuits are counted out as filling the 18cm loose bottomed tin at a depth of approximately 2 biscuits, I'm not sure how much they weigh, someday I'll check. Crush them in a strong plastic bag, ziplock top bags are usually sturdy enough or double bag a thin sandwich bag. You can bash the biscuits with a rolling pin or you can just mash them with your fingers. Chocolate digestives work well with it too, they're smaller, so you'll need more than eleven :) For a larger tin, scale up the biscuits and butter, scaling the cheesecake depends on whether you like a huge layer of cheesecake on the base or not.

Floral arrangement by my mother, laser cut decorations by Fiona Snow, cheesecake by me.

11 mcvities digestive biscuits all crushed up (for other brands see my above advice on measuring out)
75g butter melted
200 + 50 mL cream
200 g best quality milk chocolate (we usually use the Lindt extra creamy, all of two bars go into the cake, so you'll need a third to munch on)
360g full fat cream cheese (2 philadelphia tubs)
75 g baileys (about two Irish measures (37.5mL) or three UK measures (25 mL ) )

Melt the chocolate with 50 mL of the cream. Stir well and set the ganache aside to cool.

Crush the biscuits well. Stir into the melted butter and press into the bottom a loose bottom or springform tin (my mother's tin is about 18cm in diameter, you can use slightly larger too). Pop into the fridge until you're ready for it.

When the chocolate ganache is cool, beat it into the cream cheese, then beat in the baileys. Whip the remaining cream. Fold the cream into the chocolate mix, then pour on to the biscuit base. Put in the fridge for at least 2 hours if not over night.

To get the cake out of a loose bottom tin, put it on top of a can (beans, chopped tomatoes, it doesnt matter), and press down evenly on the sides. There'll be minimal cheesecake left stuck to the sides. For springform, loosen the spring slightly, if you need to free the cake a little, run a knife around the edge. Then open the spring fully and lift it off carefully. Then enjoy any cheesecake that was stuck to the sides!

Om nom nom, this wasn't my first slice of this, so I could eat it slow enough to take pictures...

Spiced madeira cake

2014-11-09T21:40:56+00:00

I love cinnamonny things, especially on a winter evening, but you can't have mulled cider everytime you want a warm spicy treat. This spiced madeira cake is a lovely, caramelly treat that's great fresh from the oven, or taken from the freezer and toasted.
The muscavado sugar gives a lovely molasses-y flavour, and I added the nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger in my usual quantities of 1:2:3. If you had ground cloves, they might go well in the cake too. I only keep cloves for mulling though, so my cake gets a pass on that flavour.
I don't care for fruit cake, but you could add any sort of dried fruits that you think might go. Madeira cake is pretty forgiving, so you can add as much as you feel like (or none :) ).

Look at that lovely cake. All the flavours of Chrismas, with no hidden fruit.

225g butter (softened)
110g muscavado sugar
110g caster sugar
3 extra large eggs (about 200g of egg, 4 medium will probably work just as well)
1 tsp ground nutmeg
2 tsp ground cinnamon
3 tsp ground ginger
225g self raising flour

Preheat the oven to 170°C. Line a loaf tin (2lb tin? it's 23cm long anyway). Cream the butter and sugars well (I used an electric whisk, that really doesnt like if you don't soften the butter). Add the eggs one by one, continue beating well. Add the spices and flour, mix just until the flour is combined. Pour into the tin and bake for 1 hour. Check it's cooked by stabbing it with a knife and seeing if the knife comes out clean.

When the cake is cool, it can be sliced and frozen (or eaten, I won't demand you pass up a slice of very fresh cake). The frozen cake slices can be toasted and, if you're feeling especially bold, spread with butter or speculoos paste.

The loaf is half sliced, almost ready to be bagged and frozen, ready for breakfast during the week...

Mulling syrup for cider

2014-10-26T23:23:13+00:00

Mulled cider is a great drink on a winter evening. Heavy on the cinnamon, warm to clutch in your frozen hands. What's not to like? (Cider itself according to himself). So I make mulled cider for one by adding some pre-spiced syrup to a single can or bottle of cider.

It's a fairly flexible recipe, so if you want it sweeter to go with a dry cider, add more sugar. Love cloves more than I do? Fire a few more in the pot. Can't find ginger root? Substitute it for crystalised ginger and remove some sugar (I think I dropped it by 50g that time). I add the juice toward the end, as I don't think it benefits from boiling. You can just quarter the oranges and throw them in at the start, but it doesnt really get as much juice out and you end up with some bitterness. If you're hosting a party, skip making the syrup and add everything bar the water to the cider and heat that for a half hour instead.

I usually end up with about 600mL liquid in the end (after reducing to half and then adding in the juice), which does about 2.5 - 3L cider. As when mulling wine, if you use a terrible cider, it will be drinkable, but if you use a good cider it'll be outstanding. If you're planning to use it to mull apple juice (or low alcohol ciders), reduce the sugar by at least half, they're very sweet to begin with, and adding loads of syrup will make it undrinkable.

Bottle, ikea. Funnel, ikea. Strainer, the metal filter from the drip coffee machine (paper reduces the grit at the end of the coffee, so the mesh is for mulling now)

1 litre water
200g caster sugar (you can go up or down depending on the type of cider you normally get)
6 cinnamon sticks
1 tsp nutmeg (ground or grated, up to you)
12 cloves (precise, you can up it if you love cloves)
4 inches of ginger root, sliced (or a bag of crystallised ginger, but reduce the sugar)
Zest of 2 oranges (life's too short for microplaning for this recipe, a regular zester will do)
Juice of 2 oranges

Put everything except the juice in a pot. Heat until it's steaming gently but not boiling. Stir occasionally till the sugar is disolved. Continue to heat for about an hour and the liquid has reduced to half or a third of the starting volume. Add the juice of the oranges. Strain into a bottle. Let to cool, then store in the fridge.

The sad remains after the syrup is done.

When you want a hot cider, pour a bottle or can into a pot, add about 100mL of the syrup (or more or less to taste, 500mL + 100mL is about right spicewise to start with, drop to 60mL for longnecks). Heat gently and pour into a giant mug (or two regular mugs if you can share). I usually swirl the bottle of syrup before pouring as the ground nutmeg settles otherwise (it fits through the strainer, so it'll always be there).

Polenta Spud Waffles for Chilli

2014-04-12T19:46:54+00:00

Thanks to Lidl and Clare, I now own a waffle iron. I'm still trying to figure out the optimum breakfast waffle, and have yet to try mad things like waffling brownies, but I did make a potato-corn-based-waffle for going with delicious chilli. It's not like a Potato Waffle, but as they're already perfect and available frozen by the kg, I don't need to figure those out.

Waffles with beef chilli, sour cream and chive, tortillas and a reasonable amount of cheddar.
There was no time for finding the proper camera, so it's back to phone pictures.

This recipe makes about 6 Belgian waffles-worth. Enough for three big plates of chilli, or two chillis and some breakfast.

250g cold (leftover) mashed potato
30g flour
20g polenta
2 tsp baking powder
1 egg
100mL milk
butter for oiling the waffle iron

Mash up the potato with the flour, polenta, and baking powder. Beat the egg and milk together in a jug. Pour into the spud/flour mix, beating all the time with a fork. The mix doesnt need to be smooth, just well combined. Turn on the waffle iron, and brush the plates with butter.
The batter puffs up, thanks to all the baking powder, so take care not to overload the iron. Turn halfway through cooking if needed.
Serve with chilli and lashings of cheese and sour cream. Any leftover waffles can be cooled on a wire rack and toasted for breakfast (or frozen for the next time you have chilli).

Chilli non carne with plenty of cheese. Note the absence of sour cream. A foolish way to eat chilli

Raspberry bakewell tart

2014-03-16T22:25:37+00:00

In my quest to learn how to make laminated doughs (think croissants), I picked up Murielle Valette's Patisserie. It's brilliant, I've even cooked more than one thing from it already (croissants, pain au chocolate, lemon tart, dense chocolate cake and the modified bakewell below). For my colleague's birthday, I insisted on making her some cake, and made a bakewell as I had all the ingredients to hand (in fact, the pastry had been made and frozen the weekend before). Instead of the apricot and almond tart in the book, I went for a raspberry bakewell, which went down very well when I brought it into work on the Monday.

Look at that beautiful layer of jam

I'd highly recommend the book if you like French pastries (and cake in general), it's divided into a techniques section and various chapters based on particular doughs (puff pastry/brioche/choux) and I'll certainly be making more from it. It's a great way to fill your workmates with butter, as it's a critical part of most of these tasty treats.

What a marvellous book!

Pastry

230g flour
140g salted butter (normal butter in a gold wrapper, otherwise add salt)
55g caster sugar
1 egg

Rub the flour and butter together until it's breadcrumblike. Don't overwork it or the butter will melt and the pastry won't be lovely and crisp. Mix in the sugar, add the egg and mix quickly until it forms a large ball. STOP WORKING THE PASTRY. Mash into a vaguely rectangular shape, wrap it in clingfilm and put it in the fridge, have a coffee and sit down for an hour.
Divide the dough in half and freeze a portion (you can use this for more cake in the future). Roll the dough out on a floured surface until it's about 4mm thick. Gently lower it into your favourite pie tin and form gently into the corners. Trim the top of the pastry with a sharp knife and put the pastry into the fridge for another half hour. Pre-heat the oven to 160°C.
Put a load of baking paper into the pastry case and fill with baking beans (or uncooked rice or lentils, I use some red lentils I don't care for). Bake for 40mins. Remove the baking paper and contents and put the pastry back in the oven for 5 more mins to brown the middle slightly. Take out of the oven to cool while you prepare the almond filling. Leave the oven on, you need it at 160°C in ten mins anyway.

Filling

110g softened butter
110g caster sugar (plain sugar or vanilla sugar)
1 tsp vanilla extract, if you use vanilla caster sugar, you can leave this out
90g ground almonds
25g flour
2 eggs
3 dessertspoons of good rasberry jam
a large handful raspberries, frozen is grand

Beat the sugar, butter and vanilla essence together. Add the ground almonds and flour and mix well. Beat the eggs and add a little at a time, mixing well.
Spread the jam on the bottom of the pastry case. Pour over the almond filling. Drop in some raspberries. Bake at 160°C for 45 mins. Cool in the tin. Turn out and serve with the best coffee you have.

Ready to go to work and get chopped up and devoured