COOKIE COMFORT

Can you believe that I took this photo yesterday ....  in Ireland ...... in March!!!!!  We have been having the most unbelievable weather recently,  last week was all bright sun (although cold) then we had (almost) torrential rain on Monday, then SNOW yesterday.

Of course my thoughts turned to food the minute I looked out the window!!  Comfort food was what the doctor ordered, so I turned to Nigella.com and to the members own recipes.  There are two recipes that stand out on the cookie front:  CAL's oat cookies, and Jon's peanut butter cookies.  They have one thing in common,  they are so much more than the sum of their parts.  Both have few ingredients,  but taste truly wonderful.  If I had to choose one to go for it would be the oat cookies (sorry Jon!!) and that's a textural thing, I love that crumbly, crunchy feeling.

These are both real "store cupboard" standbys.  The oat ones particularly handy as they don't contain any egg (the ingredient I am most likely to run out of),  and they taste great.  What more could you ask for??

Here goes:

CAL's Oat So Simple Cookies

Preheat oven to 180 C
Line baking trays

100g   Oats
100g   Plain Flour
100g   Caster Sugar (see a pattern here??)
100g   Butter
1 tbsp Honey/Golden Syrup
1 tsp   Cinnamon/Mixed Spice

Makes about 15 cookies

Mix oats, flour and spice.
Melt the butter, sugar and syrup in a saucepan.
Combine the flour and butter mixtures.
Use two spoons to form into balls and place on the lined baking sheets.
Dampen the spoon and press down on the cookies.
Bake for 15 - 20 minutes, or until golden brown.
Remove from the oven and allow to rest for 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

It is simple to make large batches of these little beauties, as the proportions increase easily.


Jon's Peanut Butter Cookies

Preheat oven to 175 C
Line a baking tray

1 cup      peanut butter (I used crunchy)*
1/2 cup   sugar**
1             egg

Beat the egg until frothy.
Add the peanut butter and stir with a wooden spoon until smoothish.
Add sugar and stir until smooth
Roll walnut sized portions between your hands.
Place on baking tray and press down with a fork.
Bake for 10 minutes (approx)
When baked remove tray from oven and leave for 5 minutes, then transfer cookies to a cooling rack.

*Use good quality peanut butter.
** Original recipe called for 1 cup of sugar but I found this too much.


Enjoy.

MYSTERY RECIPE!

Had a bit of a cake emergency recently (!) - my nephew's birthday cake of choice was out of stock at the shop, so Aunty Brownieville Girl had to step up to the the (cake) plate!

The resulting cake was one of the best yet, I used an old favourite for the cake, but the icing was where things really hit the dizzy heights!  AND I DON'T KNOW HOW I DID IT!!!!!!!!

Well I do know how I made it, I just used up any left over icings in the fridge, added a couple of tablespoons of Nutella and hay presto, delicious icing.  I had a small amount of both malteser and chocolate icings and a larger amount of the custard icing I made for my pimped biscuit, I added the Nutella whipped this up for about five minutes and yummmmm!!!!!   The obvious problem is how to replicate the icing,  I will try, and try and try and I promise to let you know how it goes.

The cake is moist and soft and chocolatey, here is the recipe.

Excellent Chocolate Cake
Based on Margaret Costa's Chocolate Fudge Cake

225g    plain flour
2 tbsp  cocoa
1 tsp    baking powder
1/2tsp  coffee powder
1/2 tsp bread soda (bicarbonate of soda)
55g      70% chocolate
115g    butter
175g    caster sugar
1          egg
150ml   soured cream
1/2 tsp  vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 190 C
Prepare 21cm ( 8") cake tin

Sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder, coffee and bread soda together.
In a saucepan melt the chopped chocolate with 30ml of water, when melted stir until smooth -  allow to cool slightly.
Cream the butter and sugar together thoroughly, and then add the beaten egg a little at a time.  Mix well.
Beat in alternately, half of each at a time the chocolate, flour and the sour cream.  Finally add the vanilla extract.
Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for about 50 minutes.  The cake is ready when  a skewer comes out clean.
Allow to cool in the tin for 15 minutes, then to finish cooling on a wire rack.
Decorate with your chocolate icing of choice.

Enjoy.

MORE BREAD

This is another one of our regular breads - really handy when there is no buttermilk in the house. The abundance of seeds really bump up the volume both taste and health wise - great when that combination comes together!

Before my blog addiction started, and all my recipes came from cook books I had thought this bread unusual as it uses just baking powder as the raising agent - now of course I realise that there are plenty of yeast and bicarbonate free recipes around, but I still think that this one is a winner.  It is incredibly easy to throw together, it's my bread of choice when I'm distracted (not an unusual occurrence!) as a light hand isn't necessary (as with soda bread) and energy isn't needed either (as with yeast!).

You will see from the photo that I have upped the sunflower seed ratio,  I love that they can be used here with no risk of the "green" goblin (bicarbonate of soda reaction) getting to them!!


Extra Healthy Brown Bread

300g      wholemeal flour
200g      plain flour
50g        bran
100g      seeds (whatever combination you want)
1 tbsp    treacle, honey or dark sugar
2 heaped tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp   salt
600 ml    milk (maybe less)


Preheat oven to 200 C

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl.  Add the treacle (or whatever you are using) and stir in enough milk to make the mixture moist, but not as wet as a soda bread mixture. 

Place in a well oiled 900g tin (or I use a tin lined with parchment paper to save on the wash up!) and bake for 1 hour, after the hour remove the bread from the tin and tap the bottom, if it sounds hollow remove to a wire rack - otherwise return it to the oven without the tin for another 10 - 15 minutes.  I usually give it the extra time as the crunchy texture this gives is popular here.

MALTESER REVISIT

I blogged about the wonderful Malteser Cake some time ago,  I just thought I'd show you how well this recipe translates into cute little baby muffins!!!

These little cuties would be wonderful at a party (kids or adults!)

LESSON LEARNED

Please forgive me for repeating a picture - it's just that David Roche's version of his slow cooked chicken looked alot prettier than mine!

I think that it's a very good sign when a cookery demonstration inspires you to cook a dish within a day of seeing it prepared, and David should take a bow!!  I was really anxious to try this pot roast chicken and to see if it was really as easy as it looked, and if it could handle all that salt!

My version was all I hoped it would be, really moist and packed full of flavour,  and I don't know where all the salt disappeared to, it just made a free range chicken taste like an organic one! (There were no organic chickens available when I shopped)

The only bit of faffing around was the browning of the chicken before it goes into the oven, but that only takes a couple of minutes and is really worth it.  About 35 minutes before the chicken was cooked I added new potatoes and carrots to the casserole - next time I will put them back in the oven to brown while the chicken is resting - that really is the joy of everyday cooking, you learn by trial and error with no pressure!

The really good thing about this chicken is that there is loads and loads of really tasty oil left - I am going to use some of it with the juices and some of the meat to make a simplified version of Nigella's Venetian Chicken.  I will just cook some pasta and dry roast some pine nuts.  When the pasta is just short of done, I'll drain it, put it back in the pan add some of the juice, oil, chicken and  the pine nuts -bring this back to hot and serve. Really, really delicious.



Pot Roast Salted Chicken with Lemon and Rosemary


1   medium fresh chicken
Good handful of Maldon salt (or similar)
250ml  olive oil
1 tbsp   flour (heaped)
1 head  garlic
4 sprigs of rosemary
1 lemon
100ml  white wine
150ml  chicken stock (I forgot about the stock, to no ill effect!)


Rub the chicken with the salt and leave to stand in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.

After the 20 minutes preheat the oven to 150 C, and heat the oil in a casserole (big enough to hold the chicken)
Split the garlic into bulbs but leave the skin on, and put into the warming oil.
Bring the oil up to hot.
Rub the chicken with the flour, and then place breast first into the casserole to seal and brown.  Seal all the chicken in the oil.
Squeeze the lemon over the chicken and place it and the rosemary in the pot, add the stock and wine.
Put the lid on and bake in the oven for 90 minutes.
Remove the lid for the last 10 minutes of cooking.
When cooked remove the chicken from the pot and allow to rest for 15 minutes, then place in a platter and garnish with olives and some of the cooking liquor.

Enjoy.

LOVELY DAY

I had a lovely day yesterday, I headed over to Kilmacanogue to Avoca Handweavers for a cookery demonstration.  David "chefs don't burn things they caramelize them!" Roche was our chef/teacher for the morning, and although he professed having nerves for his first ever demonstration, none were evident.  It was an entertaining and educating experience (what a great combination).  David's demonstration was full of chefs tips - exactly what we were all after. 

He started with a pea and coriander soup, his tip here was to add your pepper with the butter and oil at the very beginning, as you would any other spice (I would usually season further into the cooking process).  Aren't the pea shoots a beautiful garnish?

David also showed us a pot roast salted chicken with lemon and rosemary - my lesson here was not to be afraid of the amount of salt and oil in the recipe,  he used a good handful of Maldon salt and 250ml of olive oil.  I don't think I could have used that much salt on a chicken until I saw David doing so.  He also told us that although there was a large quantity of oil in the recipe, you can reuse it the next time you cook this chicken and that it keeps very well in the fridge.

A fantastic Tarte Tatin was probably the most instructive part of the demonstration,  as smell plays a huge part in each stage of this dish.  I would never have had the nerve to allow the caramel get as dark as David did, and it was so much the better for it.  Then little pointers like bringing the caramel back to the simmer after the apple is added -  before covering  with the blanket of pastry.  Again allowing the tart to come up to heat before putting in the oven.  You know your tart is done when you start to smell appley caramel instead of baking pastry.  Finally and most importantly - don't turn out the tart for at least an hour after taking it from the oven.  Two reasons for this, safety... that caramel really burns! and because it tastes much better warm rather than hot.                                                            

 

David in full flow.  You can see here the beautiful gardens at Avoca.

After the demonstration I spent far too long (and too much) in the shop, but everything is just so appealing!

I would like to thank everyone at Avoca for a really enjoyable morning.

Apple Tarte Tatin

75ml       water

100g       vanilla caster sugar

20g         butter

5             golden delicious apples peeled, cored and halved

250g       all butter puff pastry (defrosted)

Preheat the oven to 200 C

In your oven proof pan of choice (fairly small - just big enough for the apples to fit snugly) place the water and sugar over a high heat. Simmer until the syrup becomes a dark golden colour.  It is really important not to stir as this forms crystals in the caramel. (and we don't want that!)

Stir in the butter, again swirl rather than stir.

Place the apples in the caramel as attractively as possible.  David put them on their sides.

Wait for the caramel to come back to a bubble, then place the pastry over the pan tucking it around the outside of the apples. 

Again continue on the heat until the caramel bubbles, and then place in the oven for about 20 minutes.

When the pastry looks and feels cooked and when you can smell the appley caramely sauce, remove from the oven (remember to use a cloth) and leave aside to cool.

When ready to serve turn your tart very carefully onto a plate.  (I intend to go outside for this bit!!!)

Enjoy!

RED FOR DANGER!!!!

Just when I thought that all was rosy in the garden a Red Velvet Cake came and bit me you know where!!

I have been reading about the American favorite "Red Velvet Cake" for forever, and finally decided to give it a go as I had managed to source some red colour paste (I didn't fancy using half a bottle of the supermarket stuff), I can assure you that the rest of the paste will be kept for my icing!!!

Never one to leave well enough alone I decided to make the cake mixture into mini-muffins and ordinary muffins - I made the batter, filled the cases half full and in return I received - a considerable amount of time scrubbing muffin tins!!!

The really awful part is that I had a house full of teenage boys (well four, but they are very tall!!) and they wouldn't even eat the ones I salvaged ..... this is not a good sign.  I can't say I blame them, these uglies had a strange texture and taste.  I wonder if the whole point of Red Velvet Cake is the icing, and I gave up the game too soon?

Anyway,  these go into the "never try again folder"!

The recipe I used was from Rachel Allen's Bake, I won't bother giving it to you!  In Rachel's defence this is the first recipe I've tried from this book that didn't taste great.