Party time!

Part and parcel of the festive season is of course the traditional buffet! I love a buffet! My friend Nicky from work is totally on my wave length here and agrees with me that there are few better meals than a buffet, and what buffet is complete without sausage rolls?! As a vegetarian, good vege sausage rolls are hard to find so I am a huge fan of my friend Dave's vege sausage rolls. They are super quick and easy to make and sooooo delicious. There are only 4 ingredients (including the eggwash) and can be in the oven in under ten minutes.

Dave's Vegetarian Sausage Rolls

1 sheet of ready made puff pastry (you could of course make your own but I have never attempted rough puff myself!),

1 pack of cauldron vegetarian sausages,

3 generous tbsp of red onion chutney/marmalade,

1 egg.

1. Preheat the oven to 180C fan/gas mark 4.

2. Cut the sausages into pieces and mash with a potato masher. Add the chutney and stir well. (It does NOT look attractive at the stage but trust me it will be yummy!)

3. Lay out the sheet of puff pastry and cut in half lengthways.

4. Put half the mixture down the middle of each of the sheets you have cut and roll up, giving the seam a bit of a squeeze to keep the mixture in.

5. Turn seam side down and cut each roll into 8 pieces, so you have 16 in total.

6. Break the egg into a cup and mix. Brush each sausage roll with the egg wash and then bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until golden brown on top.

A must for the festive season, and a great addition to your buffet for vege friends! Trust me, both meat eaters and veges will love these.

xxx

Snow is falling...

Now that advent is here it really feels like Christmas is soooooo near and that means Christmas baking! Our gorgeous little boy arrived 10 days early 4 weeks ago and time has flown by, but I've finally managed to get back in the kitchen and first on the agenda was a batch of mince pies. Last year was all about adding marzipan to my mince pies:

http://yummymummy2012.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/hidden-delights.html

but this year I have given Mr Hollywood's recipe a try, with added tangerine and apple and scrummy homemade pastry. Here is a link to the recipe I used:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/paul_hollywoods_mince_04604

I found it made enough pastry for 9 mince pies and enough filling for well over 12 (although the recipe says it makes 12 but only gives instructions to cut 6?!- Paul, I'll forgive you as they are so yummy!) so I have a box of frozen filling now for next time I make these. They are made in a muffin tin and are definitely 'mansize' (not that I'm complaining about that) but next time I would probably do them in a fairy cake tin so they aren't quite as big!

Merry baking!

xxx

Christmas Strudel!

Apologies first of all for the lack of photos on this post, camera is packed in my hospital bag ready for when our 'bun in the oven' makes his appearance. Not long to go now!! 

The recipe is from the Christmas issue of Good Food magazine which I don't think is out in the shops yet, but when it is, the gorgeous picture of it is on p.88. This recipe appealed to me straight away as I LOVE all the ingredients in it, and I'm sure you could easily swap them for others if there was one you didn't like, and it definitely evokes the flavours of Christmas to me! I deviated a lot from the original recipe but only in small ways so have added my ramblings, but you may wish to follow the original recipe which I have posted.

I found it made enough filling for 2 strudels, each made with 6 sheets of filo pastry but probably depends which brand of pastry you buy as to how large the sheets are. Perfect as one for tonight and one for the freezer!

Pear, Chocolate and Marzipan Strudel

Serves 6-8 if you make 2 strudels

75g/3oz melted butter, plus a little extra (I actually didn't use this as I never butter my filo, shocking I know!),

5 pears, peeled, cored and chopped (I used tinned as I only decided today to make it and didn't have time to wait for them to ripen!),

4tbsp light muscovado sugar, plus a little extra,

1 tbsp Disaronno (optional) (Missed this out as I'm 'with child' but would definitely add this post birth- lush),

100g/40z ginger biscuits, crushed,

1tsp ground cinnamon,

100g/4oz dark chocolate, broken into chunks,

100g/40z marzipan, chopped into small pieces,

250g pack of filo.

1. Melt a knob of butter in a frying pan and add the pears and 1tbsp of sugar and cook for 5 minutes (I didn't do this step as tinned pears are very soft already). Tip into a bowl and leave to cool.

2. Add the Disaronno, biscuits, chocolate, cinnamon, mazipan and 2tbsp of sugar and mix well.

3. Line a tray with baking parchment and lay down a sheet of filo and butter it and sprinkle with sugar (again I missed this out and put all 6 sheets down in one go). 

4. Put the filling down one of the long sides of pastry then fold over the ends and roll it up to make a sausage, making sure it is seam side down. If you are going to freeze it to cook at another time then roll it in the baking parchment and foil and pop in the freezer for an easy pudding.

5. If you are cooking it to eat now then heat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas mark 6. Brush with melted butter, sprinkle with sugar and then bake for 35-40 minutes or until golden and crisp. Leave for cool for 10 minutes, brush with icing sugar and enjoy. We had ours with some Ben and Jerry's ice cream.

Happy eating!

x

Long live the King!

Some of our lovely friends moved house recently so I thought when we visited their new pad we would take a yummy gift with us and I decided on Empire Biscuits.

Traditionally they were based on a German biscuit called the Linzer Biscuit, but they were renamed Empire Biscuits during WWI. They are deliciously sweet and simple biscuits and matched the tin I'd bought for them really well! I made them in two sizes so the little ones could dig in too and they made 12 sandwiched biscuits, 6 bigger and 6 smaller ones (24 individual biscuits).

Empire Biscuits
12oz/300g plain flour,
8oz/200g Stork,
4oz/100g castor sugar,

Several tablespoons of raspberry jam,
1/2 mug icing sugar,
12 halved glace cherries.

1. Preheat the oven to 190C/gas mark 5.
2. Mix together the plain flour, Stork and castor sugar until it forms a dough. It is quite a short dough so dust your worktop/board well with some more flour.
3. Roll out/squash out with your hands until the dough is about 1 1/2cm thick. Cut out and place the biscuits onto a greased baking tray. 
4. Bake for 12-15 minutes until lightly golden brown. Leave to cool on a wire rack.
5. When cool, mix together the icing sugar with a small amount of boiling water to get a thick glace icing. Spread on the top of half of the biscuits and top with halved glace cherries.
6. Spread raspberry jam onto the other half of the biscuits and sandwich neatly together.

Enjoy!

xxx

Coffee and Walnut Cake!

After changing my cover photo on my Facebook page Let Them Eat Cake (https://www.facebook.com/yummymummyletthemeatcake), I've had lots of messages asking me for my recipe for Coffee and Walnut Cake so here it is:

Yummy Mummy's Coffee and Walnut Cake

Cake:
8oz/200g self raising flour,
8oz/200g Stork,
8oz/200g castor sugar,
4 large eggs.
100-200g chopped walnuts (I personally don't like to skimp on the nuts but some people prefer a lot less),
4-6 heaped teaspoons of instant coffee (depends on your brand/how strong you like it to be).

Buttercream:
6oz/150g icing sugar,
2oz/50g Stork,
3-5 heaped teaspoons of instant coffee (depends on your brand/how strong you like it to be).

Icing:
3/4 mug icing sugar,
2 heaped teaspoons of instant coffee (depends on your brand/how strong you like it to be),
Chopped/halved walnuts.

1. Preheat the oven to 190C/gas mark 5.
2. Mix together the self raising flour, Stork, castor sugar and eggs. Add the walnuts and mix thoroughly.
3. Boil the kettle and make up a short measure of strong instant coffee and beat quickly into the cake mix. I usually put the coffee granules into a mug then add about 1 1/2-2inch of boiling water. You can make the coffee earlier and leave to cool, I never remember to do this. If you add hot coffee the cake mixture can look like it's split but I promise you it's fine as long as you then work quickly to get it in the oven. 
4. Quickly put the mixture into lined cake tins and bake for 18-22 minutes until golden on top and cooked through. Cool on a wire rack.
5. Whilst the cakes are cooking make the buttercream. Mix together the icing sugar, the short measure of strong, instant coffee and Stork. If it is too runny then add more icing sugar to get the desire consistency. Put into the fridge to use later.
6. When the cakes are completely cool, sandwich them together with a generous amount of buttercream. If you have any left over if can be kept in the freezer and defrosts quickly.
7. To make the glace icing, combine another measure of strong, instant coffee with the icing sugar until you have a spreadable consistency. Quickly spread over the top of the cake and top with walnuts. 
8. Leave to set (if you can) and then dig in!!

Happy baking!

xxx

Easy peasy choccy biccies!

Decided to make some 'easy peasy choccy biccies' with my little man today. This recipe I've posted before is so simple to adapt for different flavours:

http://yummymummy2012.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/1-2-3-super-easy-biscuits.html

I added 1oz Green and Black's cocoa to the recipe, then got to business rolling and cutting with my little man. We made them into sandwich biscuits (a bit like a bourbon) with chocolate buttercream that I had in the freezer (my freezer is full of little pots of different flavours of leftover buttercream so this is an easy way to use them up as you don't need much). Looking forward to one later on!

Ready to mix...

 Dough...

 Rolling and cutting time!

Hot from the oven! 

 Sandwiched and ready for nomming!

Some suggestions you could add to the original recipe are:

• 2oz/50g of chocolate chips, coconut, raisins, glace cherries or chopped nuts,
• 1oz/25g cocoa powder or hundreds and thousands.
• 1 tsp cinnamon or other spices,
• 1 tbsp peanut butter,
• Smarties,
• Few drops of almond essence.

Happy easy baking!

xxx

Devil's food cake...sinful!!

I had a delicious piece of chocolate and orange Devil's food cake with some friends at the weekend so when my little man said he wanted to 'bake Daddy choc cake' I knew we would have to give a Devil's food cake a go.

Devil's food cake is the chocolate companion of angel food cake and red velvet cake, and is a light, moist, airy cake that uses cocoa and hot water as opposed to chocolate and milk. It also uses bicabonate of soda which (ready for the science part) raises the pH level making the cake a darker colour than normal chocolate cake. I used Nigella's recipe which can be found on her website here:

http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/DEVILS-FOOD-CAKE-5310

Instead of making a chocolate ganache though (due to the lack of 300g of dark chocolate in our house) we made chocolate buttercream with icing sugar, Stork and cocoa which was delicious and topped it with chocolate covered pretzels.

 Cocoa, sugar and boiling water.

 Creaming the Stork and sugar.

Adding the flour etc.

 Adding the cocoa mixture (I love my spatula!)

 Fresh from the oven.

Ready to eat!

I have to say it didn't last very long in our house!!

xxx

Sugarcraft Figures!

Just spent a lovely evening with Nickie from Cakes by Nicola (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cakes-by-Nicola/148705945245272?ref=ts&fref=ts and http://cakesbynic.weebly.com/) at Make - Horsham Craft Project learning to make sugarcraft figures, and here are my first efforts! I'm really pleased with them and have learned loads from Nickie. She's a fab teacher and took us step by step how to make them, explaining all the tools, pastes and techniques clearly. Watch this space for more fondant friends in the future...!

Jason's WORLD FAMOUS ginger cake!

I was treated to this recipe at my Grandma's 90th birthday party this summer when my lovely cousin Charlotte made these as muffins, and I knew I needed to get my hands on this recipe! It was created by one of her work colleagues, Jason (who I've been told is an amazing baker), and he has kindly let me share it with you. 

The original recipe is designed to bake 2 x 2lb loaf tin cakes and I have used it to make 18 large muffins/cupcake size cakes.

Jason's WORLD FAMOUS ginger cake

2 mugs of self raising flour,

1 mug of sugar,

2 heaped tsp of ground ginger,

1 heaped tsp of bicarbonate of soda,

4oz/100g of Stork,

2 generous tbsp of golden syrup,

1 mug of boiling milk (I heated this in the microwave for 1 1/2 minutes),

1 free range egg.

1. Preheat the oven to Electric 180C/Fan 160C/Gas 6.

2. Mix together the self raising flour, sugar, ground ginger and bicarbonate of soda.

3. Add the Stork, golden syrup and milk and mix until smooth.

4. Add the egg and mix until well combined, it should resemble a runny batter with some bubbles.

5. Either pour into 2 lined 2lb loaf tins or spoon into 18 muffin cases (I made a bit of a mess doing this as the mix is runny, which led to a few odd shaped muffins. I used a knife to even them up after and eat the bits, what a hardship).

6. Bake the loaves for about 40 minutes and then leave to cool. I baked my muffins for about 25 minutes in an electric fan oven, you may find they need less time in a gas oven.

I decided to add rather messy lemon icing (made of icing sugar, a bit of hot water and lemon juice) to mine. 

This recipe is perfect for this time of year as the night's draw in and really make me feel all Christmassy. The cakes are soft, squidgy, gingery and delicious, I am definitely going to try it as a loaf cake soon too!!

Thank you Jason for letting me share and enjoy your recipe!

Happy baking!!

xxx

Chocolate praline truffles!

I have ALWAYS wanted to be a chocolatier so decided I should give making hazelnut praline truffles a go! As a total amateur to chocolate making I decided to stick with a recipe for my first attempt and have got my suggestions for how I would improve it personally next time. This is the recipe I used:

http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/9622/hazelnut+praline+truffles

You'll notice mine don't look anything like the pictures on there but they have probably made them loads of time (I'll tell myself that). Here's some pics of mine in the making and the final products, with a few tips and ideas for improvement along the way:

 Sugar dissolving in water to make caramel.

 Uh-oh, this recipe doesn't have enough water! I have just realised this is an Australian recipe and Australian 'cups' are slightly smaller than American cups (which I have) so that must be why!

 This is what happened to my 'caramel', lumps of hard sugar! Luckily I quickly added a good slug of water and it dissolved again...

 And turned into beautiful caramel, sorry saucepan!

Stirred in the hazelnuts (PS. buy blanched ones rather than bothering to roast and rub your own) to make the solid praline.

Utter decadence- chocolate ganache from dark chocolate, butter and cream. Next time I would make this with half milk and half dark chocolate as it's very rich and wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea. 

 Whizzed up hazelnut praline.

 Chocolate ganache and hazelnut praline combined to make the filling for the truffles. 

Truffles rolled out and coated in white and milk chocolate. The white chocolate wasn't as easy to coat with as it started to melt the truffle which showed through on the outside, my husband said he thought it was intentional though and that he likes them best. Next time I would make them half the size the recipe suggests as they are HUGE! I'm not complaining though...

Looking forward to trying these again with all my improvements and hopefully a much nicer finish on them too, think being smaller would help that as they would be easier to coat, these are nearly the size of golf balls!

Happy chocolating!

xxx

Cake and Bake Show!

It's been AGES since I've blogged without giving you a recipe so please forgive me for this one! I've had a fab day out at the Earl's Court Cake and Bake Show in London today, tired feet now and propped up in bed with all my pregnancy pillows!! It's the first cake show I've been too so wasn't sure what to expect but it didn't disappoint. There was LOADS of stalls, celebrity chefs, workshops and demonstrations. We got the goody bag when we arrived (who doesn't love a goody bag?!) then hit the 'marketplace'. Nearly every stall was giving away tasters, especially good for cheese and bread (Tom's Fudge place take note- if it's less than half the size of my fingernail on my little finger I can't taste it!) and there was so much variety. Marmite brownies were scrummy, may have to make some of these!!

We decided to do a full circuit before coming back to buy pecan and honey biscuits from PS. Love Biscuits, amazing tomato and smoked garlic cheese and caramelised onion and Rioja cheese from the Cheshire Cheese Company, Oreo cake pops and a box of delights from the Little Round Cake Company. I am really taken with these cakes, if you haven't heard of them before (which to be fair neither had I) they make something called a 'tweener' which is a small cake filled and topped and easily enough for 2 or 3 to share. They had such yummy looking flavours too and we were not disappointed with the one we tucked into when we got home! 

http://www.thelittleroundcakecompany.co.uk/cakes/tweeners.html

I'm going to be on the look out for some tweener tins to make my own! Lunch was courtesy of an Italian bakery; bruschetta topped with spicy chilli paste, it was to die for!!

We took a well needed rest to watch Rosemary Shrager bake hot chocolate cakes with caramel sauce which also looked yummy. She was hilarious and took no prisoners! The sound guy had to keep turning her down as she only seemed to shout, but her recipe looked great and I am going to have to make my own caramel sauce soon as it looked really easy to do; just sugar, water and cream!

Next on the agenda was all the cake making accessories and I had to be restrained here. I bought some gorgeous little pink, blue and white buttons for decorating cakes and a cocoa butter transfer sheet which is always something I've fancied trying. If you're not sure what this is I will attempt to enlighten you, and will do a more detailed description when I've actually used it. It is a design made from cocoa butter printed on acetate that you apply to either melted chocolate or fondant icing and when it is cooled you peel it off and the design is left on your baking. Here's a couple of examples from google images to explain it a bit better:

Something else I was delighted with, although I have no idea what I am going to use it for yet, was my new GIANT Bonne Maman glass jar! I'm sure my husband will wonder what on earth it is for but I LOVE it! I may use it for storage in the kitchen or just make a giant amount of jam.
I'm sure I have many other goodies too but am shattered now! Thanks for reading this far, and thanks for a lovely day Mum! Will post again soon with new recipes and ideas.
Much love, 
Yummy Mummy
xxx

Back To School!

Back to school time! Whether your little one is just starting, your older ones are starting a new year or you are back to work as a teacher/TA/parent who has had a lovely summer at home with the children, lunchboxes are back on the agenda! These flapjacks are quick and easy to make, easy to transport in lunchboxes and you can easily add 'extras' to suit your family's taste. Flapjacks are often toted as a 'health food', don't be fooled, most are made like these with butter and sugar/syrup but the oats will help keep little ones going and everything is good in moderation. This recipe is very quick to do and has enough stages for little helpers too as the pan doesn't get too hot!

Super Quick and Easy Flapjack

250g/10oz rolled oats,

125g/5oz Stork,

125g/5oz sugar,

2-3 tbsp of golden syrup/honey.

1. Preheat the oven to 180C.

2. Weigh out the Stork, sugar and golden syrup into a pan (my little man's favourite part is spooning out the butter!)

3. Melt on the stove over a low heat until the sugar and syrup has dissolved and the Stork has melted.

4. Set to one side. Weigh out the oats and add to the melted Stork/sugar mixture. You can also add some extra ingredients here if you want such as dried fruit, chocolate, nuts etc.

5. Line a small tin with foil (I found that a 'normal' brownie tin needed double this mixure to fill it fully as you don't want them too thin).

6. Bake for 18-20 minutes until lightly golden on top. If you bake them longer they will be crunchier so it depends how you like them! I like mine quite squidgy! Leave to cool in the tin before cutting and enjoying.

If you've got any good recipes for 'back to school' lunchbox goodies please share them on my facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/yummymummyletthemeatcake

xxx

Super simple strawberry jam!

Strawberries have got to be one of my favourite treats of summer, and a huge favourite of my little man's too (although he strangely doesn't like jam!). This jam recipe is super simple to do and makes 4 very full jars of jam (I used old Bonne Mamon jam jars to give you a rough guide). Make sure the jars have been washed in hot, soapy water then washed cleaned and sterilised. I do this by putting them in the oven on a baking tray for about an hour and using them straight from the oven. I always use Silver Spoon Jam Sugar with added pectin and the recipe is from the back of the packet:

Super Simple Strawberry Jam

900g of strawberries (you could also use raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, cherries, pears, peaches, rhubarb and loganberries with this same recipe),

1kg (1 pack) of Silver Spoon jam sugar with added pectin,

Knob of butter.

1. Hull the strawberries and place int a large saucepan. Crush them with a potato masher until they are pulpy.

2. Add the jam sugar to the pan.

3. Heat gently and stir continuously until the sugar melts. Do not bring to the boil at this point. Add the knob of butter.

4. Keep stirring, gradually increasing the heat until it reaches a rolling boil that bubbles up and cannot be stirred down again. Boil for 4 minutes, stirring often.

5. Spoon/pour (if you have a steady hand and a good saucepan) into the four sterilised jars and seal immediately. Leave to cool completely before storing in a dark, cool place until you wish to use them. A general guideline is to use within a year if kept unopened and when opened, store in the fridge and use within a month. When my jars have cooled I will add some labels and pretty toppers too!

Perfect for scones with clotted cream!

xxx