I get by with a little help from my friends

Yummy lemon drizzle cake

My friend Helen has become a proper little baker recently, she's been baking more than me and I'm very envious that she's found the time to spend in the kitchen.

I've tasted her cooking myself and she's pretty darn good at it. I loved the feta and spinach pie she did from Jamie Oliver's 30-minute (or an hour if you're normal) meals book. 

Her two latest creations were a moist lemon drizzle cake, which looks amazing (although she didn't save me any - Helen you need to make this up to me), and a bacon and cheese bread loaf from Rachel Allen's cook book.

  

I think the lemon cake is a Nigella Lawson recipe and the details are below. I'm going to try it very soon, when we hold a charity cake sale at work for two local hospices. 

Don't forget that it's National Baking Week from Monday, October 17 to Sunday, October 23, so get baking and send me your recipes!

Lemon drizzle cake

Ingredients for the cake

125g butter
175g caster sugar
2 beaten eggs
Zest of one lemon
175g self-raising flour
Pinch of salt
4 tablespoons of milk

Ingredients for the syrup
Juice of one-and-half lemons
100g icing sugar

Ingedients for the glaze
Juice of half a lemon
150g icing sugar

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees or gas mark 4, butter and line a tin (Helen used a loaf tin)
2. Cream together the butter and suagr, add eggs and zest
3. Fold in sifted flour and salt, add milk
4. Bake it for 45 minutes or until a knife comes out clean
5. Heat together the juice and sugar for the syrup, and once the cake is cooked and still hot, pour it over (Helen poked some holes in the top with a knife so the syrup soaked through the cake - good tip Hells Bells!)
6. Mix together the glaze ingredients until white and smooth, and drizzle over the cooled cake.

There's always time to make cup cakes

Well it’s been a busy few weeks and I’ve barley found the time to cook at all, let alone write about it.

We’ve just got back (me and Paul) from a lovely weekend in Ambleside in the Lake District where we completely overindulged in food and drink.
I know it’s a bold statement, but I have to say I ate what I think was the best meal I’ve ever had in this country at Dodd’s (http://www.doddsrestaurant.co.uk/).

The food was stunning and amazingly enough, three courses each and a bottle of wine came to less than £70. Just enough change left for a cheeky Mojito at Lucy 4 Wine Bar. I cannot wait to go again!

So back to reality and to work and life is less exciting, but tonight I wanted to take ten minutes out of trying to complete my busy list of ‘things to do’ to write about my hugely successful cup cakes.
To be honest, and I know pride is one of the seven deadly sins, I want to scream and shout about these cakes, I’m very proud of them, although my decorating skills leave something to be desired.

I baked a batch for a gathering of 14 women at my house last week and they went down a storm. I won’t pretend I made them off the top of my head, I used chef Dan Lepard’s recipe from the BBC Food website.

Cup cakes, a modern take on fairy cakes, are extremely popular these days and with The Great British Bake Off currently showing on BBC2, everyone is talking about them.

Dan Lepard is an award-winning baker and food writer who was born in Australia but uses simple and traditional ingredients to produce classic British recipes.

These cup cakes were totally scrummy and it was impossible not to eat one as soon as they were ready, even after eating the buttercream out of the bowl with a teaspoon.

My tip is, don't think about how many calories are in them (thousands!) or you’ll spend the rest of the day feeling guilty. Just indulge, or make them as a gift and share the guilt – it is well worth it, I assure you.

Cake ingredients
100g unsalted butter
250g caster or brown sugar
50ml/2fl oz sunflower oil
25g arrowroot or cornflour
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 medium free-range eggs
80ml/2½fl oz milk
100ml/3½fl oz double cream
300g plain flour
3 tsp baking powder

Buttercream ingredients
300g icing sugar
25g liquid glucose
50g condensed milk
2 tsp vanilla extract or other flavouring
200g unsalted butter, softened
100g baking margarine, softened
200g icing sugar
100ml/3¾fl oz double cream
few drops food colouring or flavouring
sprinkles to decorate

Method
Preheat the oven to180C/350F/Gas 4 and line a muffin tin with cases.
Melt the butter over a low heat in a small pan, pour it into a bowl with the sugar, oil, cornflour and vanilla. Beat well until smooth, then whisk in the eggs followed by the milk and cream.
Sift and beat the flour and baking powder into the butter mixture until smooth.
Spoon the mixture into the paper cases until about two-thirds full, then bake for 20-25 minute, until the top is springy to the touch. Remove the cupcakes from the oven and cool.

Meanwhile, for the buttercream mix the icing sugar, glucose, condensed milk, flavouring and butter with an electric mixer in a bowl until smooth and light, and beat in the margarine until smooth.
In a jug, stir the icing sugar into the cream until dissolved, then add any colouring or flavouring or leave plain. Beat this mixture gradually into the butter mixture until light and fluffy. (You can prepare the buttercream in advance and keep covered in the fridge for two to three days.)

To decorate the cupcakes, use a piping bag to ice a swirl of the buttercream on top when fully cooled and decorate with sprinkles or your choice.

When recipes don't always go to plan, there's always a man around to eat it all up!

The first rule of baking club is to never speak about baking club. The second rule is to never try and bake whilst doing something else. The whole thing about women being able to multi-task goes out of the window when it comes to baking.



The no-so-perfect result, or what was left of it!

I recently learned the importance of rule number two when attempting to make caramel shortcakes after work on a Wednesday evening.

At the same time I was making tea, washing the dishes and there was a plumber in the kitchen assessing our boiler. It doesn’t work. Baking must be done in a private, peaceful and quiet environment and with full concentration.

I got this recipe from the side of a tin of condensed milk which was knocking around in the fridge.

It seemed pretty straight-forward and I had most of the ingredients in the cupboard so I thought I’d give it a go with the intention of taking the finished treats to my friend Cherry’s house the next night.

Basically this needs to be done in three stages and each stage requires focus.

Stage one is making the biscuit, which is easy. It comes out as quite a crumbly texture but it moulds together into a ball once to get your hands in.

Once this is cooked and cooled you can move onto the next stage which is making the caramel.

This is where it went wrong for me as I left the pan on the hob whilst I went to do something else and the caramel burnt.

But I persevered and figured that the whole thing would be so sweet anyway once covered in chocolate that nobody would notice a few burnt bits.

Once the caramel is set on the biscuit base you can melt the chocolate on top.

The key here is to slice the cake into squares before the chocolate fully sets, not fall asleep on the sofa and leave it in the fridge over night like I did.

What I woke up to on Thursday morning was a huge solid slab that was impossible to break without creating a gooey mess. I decided it wasn’t fit to show to anybody else so I left it in the fridge.

But when I came home that night, Paul had eaten half of it, hence why what you see in the photograph are the few reaming chunks, oozing with gooey caramel.

I can see why he couldn’t resist because it was totally delicious and very naughty. It proved that it’s not always about looks; the proof is in the pudding. Literally!

Biscuit ingredients

85g soft, unsalted butter

45g caster sugar

150g plain flour, sifted

Filling ingredients

120g soft, unsalted butter

2 tbsp honey

75g brown sugar

1 small tin condensed milk

 225g milk chocolate for covering

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

For the base, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in the flour.

Press together to form a dough and roll onto a lightly floured surface.

Knead for about a minute. Press into a greased, shallow tin and bake for about 25 minutes. Leave to cool.

For the filling, put all the ingredients (except the chocolate) into a pan and bring to a boil.
Keep stirring, turn down the heat and simmer for about three minutes until think.

Pour over the base and cool for several hours in the fridge.

When set, melt the chocolate and pour over the caramel. Leave at room temperature and after about half an hour, slice into squares then chill in the fridge for several hours.

Chicken and leek pie with accompaniments

After a week of working late shifts and pesto pasta for tea each night, I finally got around to some home-cooking on Monday.
On the recommendation of my friend Helen, I decided to go for a pie from the reliable Jamie Oliver’s 30-Minute Meals book.

This book is like a bible in our house at the moment; we cook something from it at least once a week. Although I refuse to believe the dishes can be done in 30 minutes.

But when I have time, I pick something I’ve not done before and usually end up adapting it slightly to suit my preferences.

With the summer seemingly at an end (I’m actually wrapped in my blanket as I write this), I opted for a heart-warming and traditional chicken pie, with minted peas and baby gem lettuce, and a carrot and sweet potato mash.

I swapped the mushrooms (which I like to refer to as the devil’s food) for leeks which I know work perfectly with this type of pie.

While I went to work, I sent Paul to the supermarket with a list of ingredients, and they're all pretty simple, most of which you’ll probably already have in the fridge.

I raced home from work and put on my kitchen scruffs, plugged in the Ipod and put on an album (Them Crooked Vultures to be precise).

Once it’s in the oven you can crack on with the accompaniments and wash up before it’s ready.

As with everything I make and eat, my perfectionism kicked in and I wasn’t 100 % happy as the sauce was slightly on the thin side and the pastry was slightly thick.

But it was tasty and satisfying, and as usual with Paul, it barley touched the sides. He liked it so I’m happy, and there was enough for leftovers tonight!

Ingredients

For the pie…

4 skinned chicken breasts

knob of butter

bunch of washed and sliced spring onions

150g washed and sliced leeks (Jamie’s  recipe uses the devil’s food)

1 heaped tbsp plain flour (make sure it’s heaped – I think that’s why my sauce was thin) plus extra for dusting

2 tsp English mustard

1 heaped tbsp crème fraíche

300ml organic chicken stock

few sprigs fresh thyme

1/3 of nutmeg, grated

1 sheet pre-rolled puff pastry

1 beaten egg

For the extras…

3 medium-sized, peeled and sliced sweet potatoes (not in Jamie’s recipe, but I love sweet potatoes so use them wherever I can)

3 large carrots, peeled and sliced

2 baby gem lettuces, washed and sliced

I tbsp plain flour

300ml organic chicken stock

few sprigs fresh mint

450g frozen peas

½ lemon

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees C. Fill up the kettle, get out a pie dish and put a large wide pan on a medium heat.

Slice the chicken into chunks and fry in the pan, along with a splash of olive oil and butter, for about three minutes.

Add the spring onions and leeks with the flour and stir. Add the mustard, crème fraíche and stock and stir well. Pick the thyme leaves and add to the pan with the nutmeg and salt and pepper, then leave to simmer for around five minutes.

Transfer into the pie dish and roll out the pastry onto a surface lightly dusted with flour. Put the pastry (approx. 30x25cm) over the filling and tuck in the edges.

Lightly brush the pastry with the egg and stab a couple of holes in the pastry.

Put on the top shelf of the oven for around 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, put the sweet potatoes and carrots in a pan of salted boiling water, cover and simmer for around 15 minutes.

Return the empty chicken pan to the heat and add the butter and flour. Add the stock and a few mint leaves and whisk into a smooth sauce, then add the peas and sliced lettuce.

Squeeze over the lemon juice (beware of pips), add a splash of water and season, then put the lid on and leave to simmer for a few minutes.

When the peas are tender they are ready. When the carrots and potatoes are tender, drain and mash with a knob of butter, the thyme leaves, salt and pepper.

When the pastry is golden and crisp and the sauce is bubbling around the edges, it’s ready!

I chat to Michael Caines at Bolton Food & Drink Festival

On Friday I had the pleasure of visiting Bolton Food and Drink Festival.

My excitement has been building for weeks as organisers set out to make it the biggest event ever.

And big it is, with extra stalls, cookery demos, and even more goodies to sample.

(I tasted chicken and pepper paella from the traditional market stall, and a Manchester Tart chocolate bar from The Ramsbottom Chocolate Café.)

Now in its sixth year, it’s a four-day event showcasing the best in food and drink.

Celebrity chefs are making appearances over the weekend, including star of I’m A Celebrity... Gino D’Acampo; the Hairy Bikers, aka David Myers and Simon King; and Saturday Kitchen presenter and top chef James Martin.

Yesterday, I spoke to two Michelin-starred chef Michael Caines, of Abode in Manchester, about where his love of food came from and how he copes with cooking under pressure.

“I was one of six children,” he said, “and my passion grew from growing up in a large family, sitting around the table at meal times and eating and drinking together, that’s what it’s all about. We used to grow our own vegetables and get involved with food and cooking.

“A lot of people say they don’t have time to cook, but if you prepare things the day before it can be a joy to cook, I find it very therapeutic.

“But when you do live TV, like Saturday Kitchen, you only have eight minutes, it’s live so you can’t swear and you can’t go over time.”

The chef cooked three dishes at the festival: vegetable and herb soup; roasted curried monkfish with mussel and saffron sauce; and honey-glazed duck with mushroom sauce.

He added: “The demos are a bit hectic but I want to make them fun and engaging, and hopefully people will go away and buy some ingredients and have a go at the recipes themselves.

“I’m so impressed with the festival this year, it’s just phenomenal. There are lots of regional producers and it’s a great location in the heart of the town. And as always you get a warm welcome when you come to Bolton and I haven’t stopped smiling since I got here.

“These events are important because they support the local economy and keep producers and farmers in business and they provide an event in the community for everybody to engage.

“At a time when some communities have been questioning the social fabric of society and times are tough, events like this give people the chance to celebrate life through food and drink.”

For details of events, visit www.boltonfoodanddrinkfestival.com

Kids' roaring dinosaur cake - perfect for the hols!

Today's blog is about cooking for fun, which in my opinion is what cooking should always be about. And one of the most enjoyable experiences in the kitchen is baking with your son, daughter, sister, brother, niece, nephew or grandchild.

You can lick the mixing spoon without any guilt, splatter cake batter everywhere, and there's no pressure at all for a perfect result, just a sugary one that gets the kids running wild.
This is my friend Carla's little boy Mason, who is four and starting school in September. He is dinosaur mad! At two-and-half years old he knew all the dinosaur names and pronounced them perfectly, and he has more dinosaur toys in his bedroom than in Jurassic Park.
Carla used a basic chocolate Victoria sandwich recipe to make a roaring dinosaur-shaped cake during a recent baking session with Mason, without the butter cream filling. And you can adapt this sponge recipe for any occasion and any style of cake as long as you have the right mould.
Mason started by greasing the mould and preparing the cake mixture, with some help from his mum, before baking it in the dinosaur tin and covering the finished cake in green, dinosaur skin-coloured icing. Carla very kindly sent me pictures of Mason baking (see below) and a copy of the recipe (see below) but unfortunately failed to send me any cake! Stay behind after class Carla and write me 100 lines: "must save cake for Sarah, must save cake for Sarah, must save cake for Sarah..."

Ingredients
200g softened butter
200g caster sugar
4 medium eggs
175g self-raising flour
25g cocoa powder


Method
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Grease and line a dinosaur cake tin (or any tin of your choice).
In a mixing bowl cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Beat in the eggs one at a time and if the mixture begins to curdle, add a tablespoon of flour.
Sieve the flour and cocoa then fold into the mixture with a metal spoon.
Put the mixture into your tin and smooth out with a knife. (For a traditional sandwich cake, split the mixture between two 20cm tins).
Bake for about 25 to 30 minutes until the cake is golden and bounces when lightly touched.
When cooled, cover with green butter icing and decorate to look like a dinosaur. (Or for the traditional version, sandwich cakes together with chocolate butter cream and dust with icing sugar.) 

My Moroccan lamb and squash tagine with couscous

This is my cheat’s Moroccan lamb and squash tagine – it’s a cheat because it’s done like a casserole as I don’t own a tagine, and I don’t know many people who do, so the recipe is one everyone can try. It’s best done in a slow cooker if you have one so the lamb stays really tender.

The recipe uses butternut squash to give it sweetness and texture, and it makes it a healthier option too. Plus it looks pretty and colourful! Forgot to take a photo again!

Squash is coming into season now so it’s the best time to use it, or wait a few weeks and pick up a pumpkin instead – a perfect way to use them up after Halloween!   

If you have a slow cooker you can put it together in the morning and leave it for a good eight hours or more so the lamb is tender and delicious.

The best thing about these slow-cooked recipes is that you can prepare them early, stick them in the oven, tidy up and still have a couple of hours free to spend how you wish.

I decided to do this in the oven as I didn’t have time to plan ahead for the slow cooker version, and I definitely noticed the difference, the lamb wasn’t as tender. It was still very tasty though and the meat wasn't tough. Maybe I browned it for too long? If anyone has any tips, or their own tried and tested recipe, please let me know and I’ll give it a go!

I served the dish with herby lemon couscous, hummus and warm pitta breads.

It’s a recipe I’ve done before, and too be honest it changes every time! It’s one you can adapt to suit what’s in your fridge as long as you keep the basic spices the same.

This is the recipe I used…

Ingredients

Tagine

2 tbsp olive oil

500g lean lamb, diced

1 medium onion, chopped

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp ground coriander

½ chilli powder (for easier option: use Asda’s Moroccan ‘Reason to Season’)

230g chopped tomatoes

300g butternut squash (or pumpkin), diced

350ml beef stock

50g sultanas

50g dried apricots

1 tbsp cornflour

Couscous

250g/9oz couscous

Juice of one lemon

350ml hot vegetable stock

1 tbsp freshly chopped flat-leaf parsley

1 tbsp freshly chopped mint

Method

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees (fan assisted), or use slow cooker.

Slightly brown the lamb with the oil in a frying pan then set aside.

Add the rest of the oil to the pan and lightly fry the onion. Add the spices then tomatoes and cook until simmering. Put into a casserole dish or slow cooker along with the stock and squash. (Scoop out seeds from the squash, peel and cut into 2cm dices).

Cook in oven for about 2 ½ hours or slow cooker for several hours.

About 30 minutes from the end of cooking time, stir in the sultanas and apricots. Five minutes from the end, stir in the cornflour (mixed with a little water) and cook to thicken.

Put the couscous in a bowl and add lemon juice and stock. Cover with clingfilm and set aside for 5 minutes. Uncover and fluff with a fork. Season and stir in the fresh herbs.

Serve with hummus and pitta breads. (Drizzle olive over breads, season, wrap in foil and put in oven for 10 minutes.)