Cooking England County by County: Chester: Chester Pudding

 I´d never heard of Chester Pudding, let alone tried it, until I started looking at traditional old British recipes and came across this dessert. It´s a Victorian regional variation of lemon meringue pie so it does not disappoint. The tart lemony curd with a marshmellowy, melt in the mouth meringue topping and lovely, short pastry is a winner.

I had some frozen ready-made shortcrust pastry in my freezer so ended up using that instead of my usual homemade shortcrust pastry and I think it was the only thing that let the pie down.  I may have halved the recipe but I didn´t make any further changes to the recipe. I used the following recipe from the Oakden website. You have to be careful when adding the ground almonds to the meringue as you might lose some of the air and lightness that you´d whipped into the meringue.

I´d 

Cooking England County by County: Cambridgeshire: Duke Of Cambridge Pudding

 I´ve been blogging my way round England county by county to get to know more English regional dishes and recipes to prove that English cooking is not quite as bad as everyone makes out and that it is more varied than you might think . However, with time constraints, I haven´t got much further than Cambridgeshire!!

I discovered this Duke of Cambridge pudding that I´d never even heard of,let alone tried, and as I had mixed peel, which I needed to use up as I hadn´t got round to making a Christmas cake last Christmas, decided to go ahead and make it. Despite it´s name, Duke of Cambridge Pudding is more like a tart or pie rather than a pudding.

I followed this recipe by Pasta Grannies substituting the ready to roll shortcrust pastry for my homemade shortcrust pastry and I think I halved the recipe. The end result is a sticky, gooey tart which reminds me a little of a treacle or syrup tart. It´s quite rich and sweet though so only one helping is enough! It´s delicious served warm and lots of cream...even better I imagine with a dollop of clotted cream or thick double cream!!

Cook & Learn about the World: Albania Part 1 Albanian Shendetlie or Honey & Nut Cake

 Although I haven´t been doing much blogging lately, I have been trying out plenty of recipes, especially for this Cook & Learn about the World post,in which we´re taking a trip to Albania. Although I don´t really know much about Albania or it´s cuisine, it seems like it´s food is made of simple ingredients that can be found easily in any supermarket or kitchen cupboards! Unfortunately,many of the recipes have eluded me and I haven´t been pleased enough with the results in order to make it worthwhile publishing them. I tried Lamb in Yoghurt but it ended up tasting very strong mutton-maybe it was the cut I used- in scrambled egg, then I made a yoghurt drink, which ended up being thrown away as I didn´t like the salty taste of it.

However, some success was finally achieved when I made the simple Albanian dessert or cake, Shendetlie or Honey & Nut cakes.When it is first baked, the Honey & Nut cake seems more biscuit-like in texture and appearance but after it soaks up the sugar syrup, it takes on a more cake-like consistency. Those who don´t have a sweet tooth may find them a bit too sweet but me and my daughter loved them even though I´m not too keen on nuts. I followed this recipe from the blog My Albanian food, only tweaking it a little,for example making only half the amount of the recipe given and cooking it around 10 degrees less than the temperature given in the recipe so at 170 degrees instead of 180 degrees. I made my Shendetlie with whole walnuts which I roughly chopped although you can also used ground walnuts. Dicovering delicious treats like this is a great way to find out about a country´s culture and cuisine.

Although we are still in the middle of cooking and learning about Albania, here is a link to a page where you can find activities to do with your children so they can find out more about Albania: http://www.wartgames.com/themes/countries/albania.html and also : http://dinolingo.com/blog/2012/11/14/albanian-culture-food-festivals-clothes-and-so-much-more/.So far I have only read my daughter the folk story about Rozafa Castle, although I was surprised that it was a story for children! However, I would like to do some other activities with her to teach her more about this country and as I myself also know very little about it!

Biergarten Spanien, Ciudad Real Restaurant Review

 I´ve decided to resurrect my restaurant reviews although in the past this has almost seemed to spell the kiss of death to the restaurant as they ended up closing!!!However, I hope this isn´t the case this time.

The Biergarten Spanien is a fairly new restaurant and which is decorated and made to look like a German beer tent similar as to what you might find in the Oktoberfest. I love the central streamers and sign post that almost looks like a maypole. You can find German beer of course but it also sells Spanish and other beer....I´m not a beer lover myself so couldn´t really comment about the beer but you get a free tapa with your beer-ours was tiny sausages but a fairly generous portion).

My parents and I opted for the pork knuckle,sauerkraut and chips or mashed potatoes while my husband chose spare ribs with chips and my daughter had a children´s portion,of chicken nuggets and chips,which was huge. I hadn´t expected the food to be the best due to the low prices and I thought that it was probably a chain restaurant and sometimes chain restaurants aren´t as good  but I was pleasantly surprized as they served decent-sized portions, the food was hot and it was really tasty. Our pork knuckle was really tender and just fell off the bone. We then had a dessert for 2.50 euros. My husband,mum and daughter tucked into a brownie with a fruit coulis and ice cream but I decided to go for something more typically German and had the apple strudel with  fruit coulis.It was also supposed to come with a vanilla cream or custard like sauce but I didn´t see any evidence of it. However, it was still delicious.


There is also a little area for children to play although it is very small and consists of only a table or two and some chairs, where they can sit and colour.

All in all I enjoyed this new restaurant where you can try some German cuisine and would definitely reccommend it. It´s good food at a reasonable price.  We will definitely be going again!!

Cook & Learn about the world: Afghanistan:

 So welcome to a new regular post I´m going to be blogging about frequently: Cook and Learn about the World. Inspired by the Global Table Adventure blog, I decided that I wanted to also cook the world so my family could try new cuisines and dishes from different countries, eat more variety and hopefully encourage my daughter to be less of a fussy eater while at the same time learn about these countries and cultures and become more tolerant and open-minded. And after the recent attack in London, it couldn´t come at a better time.

The first country on the list is Afghanistan and I was excited to try this cuisine as I´ve never eaten Afghan food before. I turned to Global Table Adventure´s Afghan recipes and decided to make the following recipes:Burani Bonjon (or Spicy Braised Aubergine with Seer Moss(Garlic Mint Sauce);Kabeli Palau(Twice-cooked Basmati Rice with Chicken & Carrots)and Firnee (Cardamom & Rose Water Custard). I chose these particular dishes as they were the ones that I liked the sound of the most but also because I thought that my children might like/eat these better than the others.Although I used Global Table Adventure´s recipes for Afghanistan, for other countries I might use other recipes I find in addition to those of Global Table Adventure.

The first dish I made was the Kabeli Palau(Basmati Rice with Chicken & Carrots). I made the slightly quicker version using chicken breasts and chicken stock(yes, with an Oxo cube!) and even though I made the "quick" version, this recipe did take quite a lot of work but in the end it was so worth it.The rice with tender chunks of chicken lightly spiced is reminiscent of Indian cuisine(one of my favourites!) and the crunchy yet sweet carrot and nutty garnish just finishes off the dish perfectly. I´d definitely reccommend trying this dish.It was a real hit with everyone except my daughter who only ate the rice(and that was with loads of ketchup!!)


The second dish I made was Burani Bonjon(Spicy Braised Aubergine)& Seer Moss(Garlic Mint Sauce) I made this as a side dish. Unfortunately I didn´t make all these Afghan dishes on the same day as it would have made an ideal side dish for the Basmati Rice with Chicken & Carrots. I knew my daughter probably wouldn´t try this dish with it being a vegetable dish but you can live in hopes....I think my 18mth old had a little bit although I think he spat the aubergine out. This was tasty without being too spicy and the garlic mint yoghurt sauce was a great accompaniment to it...very garlicy. I had to use dried mint as didn´t have any fresh so I think the mint flavour was lost a little. Again, I´d definitely reccommend trying this dish.

 Finally, I made Firmee(Cardamom & Rose Water Custard). Both of these flavours were pretty new to me,especially the rose water...which I managed to find in a Morrocan food shop. The recipe itself is pretty easy to make(just make sure you add warm milk to the cornflour not cold otherwise it won´t thicken..I realised this later on but corrected the problem and managed to thicken it up!!)I couldn´t find peeled pistachios so peeling the pistachios was probably one of the things that took up most of the time in this recipe and then grinding it and the cardamom...luckily I had my trusty Thermomix! Unfortunately, we weren´t very keen on this dessert as it has a very strong, perfumed taste despite me only making half the recipe and using half the amount of the rose water.Neither of my children tried this dessert either.


My view:I really enjoyed the food from Afghanistan and would love to try more dishes now including the other recipes featured in Global Table Adventure. However, dessert was a little disappointing.I´ll definitely be making both the rice and the aubergine dishes again in the future.Delicious!!

My children´s view: Not such a success with the kids. The rice was the most successful especially with my 18 mth old and we mananged to encourage my daughter to eat it with copious amounts of ketchup and by saying that it was a special "paella".

Now for the learning part, you can find educational activities about Afghanistan on both Activity Village & Enchanted Learning,however you have to pay to become a member to obtain these activities.I found the following page with various educational activities about Afghanistan and printed out the Afghanistan flag for my daughter to colour.However, we haven´t done anything else so I was a little disappointed that she hasn´t learnt more about this country. I´d love to know of any books aimed at children about Afghanistan or any other activities....please feel free to share them with us. I´d also love to hear if you make any of the dishes too!

Just adding on this quick. I´ve found a book about Afghanistan at my local library(and even better it´s in English!) which looks like a great way to teach my daughter a bit about Afghanistan. It´s called The Sky of Afghanistan by Ana A.de Eulate and illustrated by Sonja Wimmer. I´ve only just borrowed it from the library so we haven´t read it yet but it appears to be a lovely story about an Afghan girl, a dream and a song for peace and it is also beautifully illustrated.

The Great British Bake Off Technical Challenge: Hot Chocolate Souffle

 It´s been awhile since I´ve done a GBBO technical challenge and when trying to decide what to make for Valentine´s Day this year, I knew that this Hot Chocolate Souffle was the perfect dessert for this special day.

My husband isn´t a fan of fondant or buttercream and while I like to experiment and perfect different skills on Valentine´s bakes...it is pretty much wasted on him. However, he does love anything chocolately so thought I´d be onto a winner with this souffle.And this delectable, gooey,chocolately yet light souffle did not disappoint.Chocolate is always a necessity on Valentine´s Day!! I think both of us could even have gone back for seconds!!!

This is not the first souffle I´ve made as I´ve already made Mary Berry´s lemon souffle(here´s a link to my previous GBBO souffle challenge) also for a GBBO challenge, and they were also delicious if a little sunken.This is only the secod time I´ve made souffles and the first time being out of chocolate. The recipe(click here for the Queen of Baking Mary Berry´s recipe!) itself is actually fairly simple if you follow it closely although I think it´d be a whole lot more difficult under the time pressures and only the basic outlines of the recipe that the contestants had to face. The hardest part for me was adding the cooled cocoa milk to the eggs and whisking as I thought it hadn´t cooled enough so I thought the eggs had started cooking and then when I put it back on the heat , it didn´t appear to be thickening!I thought it was going to be a complete disaster!!
                                                  The only changes I made to the recipe were that I only made half the amount as the original recipe is enough for 8 people and as I don´t have a souffle dish big enough, I decided to make it in individual ramekins,which were pefect portion sizes. Half the recipe made 3 and 1/2 ramekins-thought the 1/2 portion would´ve been ideal for my toddler but he didn´t seem too keen and surprizingly (or maybe not!) my daughter wouldn´t even try it! Oh well,more for us...tomorrow´s dessert is sorted out too!! I also made a heart template and dusted the souffles with icing sugar to decorate it more for Valentine´s Day. Served warm with a nice dollop of cream or ice cream and you have the perfect Valentine´s dessert to dive into.This dessert has now become a new favourite of mine and one that I will be making again!                    

Cooking England County by County: Buckinghamshire:Buckinghamshire Cherry Bumpers

I love anything with cherries or cherry flavoured from yoghurt to Cherry Coke and especially cherry desserts so when I came across this recipe I knew I had to make it! Even though cherries aren´t in season at the moment I had a big jar of pitted cherries just begging to be used!

Apparently these cherry bumpers are traditional at the end of the cherry picking season in August and are made "bumper" sized for the pickers!!Here is my version of Buckinghamshire Cherry Bumpers based on this version from the blog AllKitchenRecipes. I only made 3 due to their size!!They are delicious served warm with some cream or ice cream!!

Ingredients:
100g plain flour
1/8 tsp salt
50g butter
4- 4 1/2 tsp cold water
125-135g fresh cherries(pitted) or cherry pie filling
1/4-1/2 tsp brown sugar(depending on how sweet you like it)
To glaze: milk & caster sugar

Method:

1. Prepare shortcrust pastry by rubbing butter into flour and salt until it ressembles breadcrumbs, add cold water and mix till it all comes together in a dough.
2. Roll out the pastry till it is 5mm/1/4inch thick and cut rounds using a medium sized saucer.
3. Place cherries in one half of the round leaving a 1cm border and sprinkle brown sugar over the cherries.
4.Damp the border with water and fold over the rest of the pastry to form a pasty shape and then press a fork around the edges, then put a cross at the top of the bumper. Don´t overfill the cherry bumpers or the filling will ooze out.
5. Brush with milk and sprinkle caster sugar on top of the cherry bumper and place on a baking tray covered with baking parchement.
6. Bake in preheated oven at 180ºC for around 20minutes until golden brown.

Our verdict: Delicious!! Like I said I love anything cherry flavoured or with cherries.

My kids verdict: My daughter wouldn´t even try them unfortunately and my son who usually eats everything didn´t seem too keen either!

Cooking Spain Region by Region: Asturias: Tortilla de Manzana(Apple Omelette)

Despite not having published a recipe for my Cooking Spain Region by Region, it doesn´t mean that I haven´t been trying out some dishes from Asturias, one of them being Patatas en Salsa Verde(Potatoes in Green Sauce) and although they were ok,the results weren´t as successful as I´d hoped.So I thought I´d try my luck with a typical dessert or cake from Asturias,seeing as I haven´t made any yet.

 I decided on this Tortilla de Manzana or Apple Omelette because of it´s orginality and because I thought we would enjoy it and I was definitely not disappointed. Furthermore, it´s the first "trampantojo" I´ve ever made...a "trampantojo" is a Spanish word to describe food that looks like another food e.g. a burger which is actually made of chocolate etc so is sweet but looks like a normal hamburger. This tortilla looks like a normal Spanish omelette but is actually made of apple and is a dessert. This dessert could probably be eaten hot or cold but I definitely reccommend eating it warm and with a nice big dollop of ice cream or                                                           fresh cream.I went back for seconds.

I´ve adapted and translated this recipe from a book about cuisine in Asturias but I can´t remember the name. So without further ado onto the recipe:

IngredientsI(2-4 people....I halved the recipe which was for 4 people but I think it´s enough for four people)
                                                     
                      2 big apples(I used Ambrosia)
                      2 eggs
                      50g butter
                      1 tbsp sugar
                     1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
                     1/2tbsp breadcrumbs
                                                      Method:
                                                      1. Core and peel apples and chop into thin slices.
                               2.Put apple slices in a pan with  172 tbsp of butter, ground cinnamon and 1/3 cup of  water as shown in the photo above(I would reduce the amount of water to 1/4 cup next time I make the recipe as I believe there was too much water) and cook on a gentle to medium heat for about 15-20mins or until the apples are soft (The recipe I was following was a bit vague and didn´t say how long to cook the apples for...)
3. Add the sugar and stir well and then add the breadcrumbs until well combined.
  4. Place apple slices in a bowl(drain if there is too much liquid or juice)     and add the beaten eggs.                                                                      5.Melt some butter (I used around 35g of the 50g which I think was         plenty) and fry until the eggs start to set,then using a plate flip the tortilla over and fry until golden brown and cooked through.

My verdict: A new favourite Spanish dessert. I´ll definitely be making it again and c´mon apple & cinnamon and eggs-what´s not to like?

My kids vedict: Unfortunately my kids were a little less enthusiastic. My daughter wouldn´t even try it just for a change and my son tried it but spat out the apple slices. He´s never appeared to be very keen on eating apple slices or chunks though.Oh well,more for us! Maybe I´ll have better luck with them eating it next time.

The Great British Bake Off Technical Challenge: Bakewell Tart

OMG, I started doing this blog post about 2 months ago at least and didn´t get any further with it!! Things have been really hectic what with birthday parties, ballet shows, parent´s visits etc, not to mention a 10 mnth old screaming baby that is spending more and more time awake and is not happy to be sat anywhere and is constantly disgruntled....hence making it difficult to do anything, let alone blog or even bake and/or cook!!! By the time, I finally get the kids off to bed I´m not so far behind myself as I am constantly knackered!!!

So going to keep this blog post really short but sweet...kind of like me,really....hehehe!!!As I love both Cherry Bakewells and Almond Slices, both of which you can find the recipes on my blog if you click on the links, and as I´ve never actually made a Bakewell Tart before, I decided to make it for this "month´s" Great British Bakeoff Technical Challenge. I wasn´t worried about this bake as I´ve already mentioned I´ve made both Cherry Bakewell tarts and Almond slices which are very similiar and in my opinion fairly easy bakes. I can imagine that they could be more difficult if you didn´t have a recipe to follow though. The hardest part is the shortcrust pastry as it got very sticky and broke quite a lot...I think the best tip I can give you here is to roll it out on top of clingfilm and then place another layer of clingfilm on top of the pastry so it´s between the rolling pin. However, this Mary Berry recipe(click on the link for the recipe) does not disappoint and it is worth the effort as it´s delicious...I´ll definitely be making this again!!As I made it quite awhile ago, I don´t remember if there were any other issues or difficulties in making this bake.

The Great British Bake Off Technical Challenge: Wobbly Apricot Tart

Sleepless nights even before the baby comes, having to get up at least 3 times in the night to go to the toilet or for a midnight snack or just because you are so uncomfortable sleeping on your side, not to mention eaing like a horse and backache! Oh, the joys of being pregnant! I´m trying to bake as much as possible before the little one comes along as I´m not sure if I´ll  have much time(or energy!) after the baby is born! Even cooking and baking is starting to be difficult now, as if I´m stood up too long I get backache and just bending down to take things out of the oven is becoming a real effort!

I had some leftover marzipan and as I love marzipan and thought this dessert looked delicious,I decided to make this Great British Bake Off Technical Challenge recently.It is actually quite simple to make, the hardest thing to make probably being the pastry and getting it thin enough for a tart. This particular tart pastry contains egg,which makes the dough much stickier and harder to work with... I always seem to find pastry with egg in much more difficult to handle! I rolled out the pastry between two sheets of clingfilm but it still stuck a little to the clingfilm. I´d be grateful for any other tip about how to roll it out without it sticking and breaking! My other problem was that I didn´t have a big enough fluted tart tin so had to use a cake tin so combined with the trickiness of the pastry, the presentation of the tart isn´t quite as nice or as professional as I´d have liked...it looks a bit more like a pie than a tart. However, this tart is absolutely delicious! I hadn´t expected it to go down with some of my family as they aren´t so keen on marzipan but they thoroughly enjoyed it too!Plus it´s a great way to use up any leftover marzipan too!So, here´s a link to the recipe. I thought it looked like loads of marzipan so didn´t put quite the full amount in but it is absolutely delicious, so don´t skimp on the marzipan!

Cooking England County By County: Berkshire: Eton Mess

Time to move onto the next county, Berkshire, which I´ve never visited.I decided to kick off Berkshire by cooking the renowed pudding,Eton Mess, although surprizingly enough,it´s yet another dish which I haven´t tried before!This is an ideal summer dessert as it´s served cold and strawberries are in season (at least in the UK anyway!). It´s also great for those of you who have never made meringue before as it doesn´t matter if the meringue goes wrong,as it´s going to get broken up anyway!! Also, it´s a fairly simple and quick dessert to prepare and you can even use ready made meringue nests if you are short of time.It´s definitely a winning dessert and I shall be making it again although my daughter unfortunately wouldn´t try it!

However, it definitely lives up to it´s name...Eton Mess by name, Eton Mess by nature. It´s quite difficult to make this dessert look presentable!Eton Mess was served in the 1930s at Eton College in the tuck shop and orginally consisted of strawberries and bananas mixed with ice cream or cream..meringue was a later addition. It is now served annually at the Eton College cricket game against Harrow School although it has gained popularity throughout Britain.I used the following Delia Smith recipe but used less cream! Enjoy!

The Great British Bake Off Technical Challenge: Banoffee(or Strawboffee) Pie

Well, it´s that time again....time for another Great British Bake Off Technical Challenge and as you have probably noticed I´m not doing these challenges in any particular order other than by what I fancy!!

I´ve only had Banoffee Pie once before which my mother made and I´ve been wanting to make it myself ever since as my mother´s was simply to die for...the only problem is I don´t like bananas. As strawberries were in season at the time I made this, I decided to replace the banana with strawberries, turning the banoffee pie into a strawboffee pie!!

I usually like to try and stick fairly rigidly to the technical challenge recipes but as I already had some frozen homemade shortcrust pastry I decided to use it. This is a great dessert to make if you need something quick or that doesn´t take too long to prepare, you could always make the pastry ahead of time and freeze it or even cheat and use ready-made pastry if you´re short of time. This recipe is Mary Berry´s and is fairly straightforward to follow. The most difficult or challenging part of the recipe is making the shortcrust pastry and making the toffee sauce.

I only made half the amount of the original recipe and up to making the toffee sauce,  didn´t come across any problems.However, I found that the toffee sauce didn´t appear to be setting and eventually put it in the fridge for about half an hour to an hour. It seemed to have firmed up after this time so I put the strawberries on top of the toffee sauce(they didn´t appear to sink,which was definitely a good sign), then whipped up the cream and placed that on top . All appeared to be well however when I cut into the pie, it became clear that the toffee had nowhere near set and it was one, huge runny mess. I liked the taste of the pie although after a couple of mouthfuls, I found it quite sickly so I don´t quite know where I went wrong.I definitely had some issue with the toffee sauce not setting properly but I also wonder if I put too much condensed milk or something, as it was far too sweet. It certainly wasn´t as good as my mum´s version and I will definitely have to play around or practice this dessert as so far I don´t think I´ve managed to fulfil this challenge. Definitely a disappointing result!Let me know if you are also taking part in the Great British Bake Off Technical Challenge and if you´ve had any disasters with the recipes.What would you like the following challenge to be?

Cooking England County By County: Bedfordshire: Bedfordshire Pudding

 I´m on a roll....two blog posts within a short space of each other!! In my quest to prove that English food is varied and tasty and discover new dishes that I´ve never tried or cooked before from my own country, I´ve decided to cook 3 dishes from each county. At the moment we are still in Bedfordshire and this recipe is a dessert, which I think is one of the things we do best.

Again, it´s a dish I´d never heard of before and certainly haven´t tried..in fact I haven´t even seen it before. I couldn´t find much information, only that it might originally have been a religious festival cake, such as Banbury cakes and Shrewsbury biscuits.
Basically, it´s a custard pie or tart with the addition of dried fruits such as raisins and currants. It´s a lovely recipe however it does need tweaking a little as the pastry was a touch overdone for my liking and I will definitely been making it again.Next time I would do the following things....use a different pie dish (the recipe says to use a shallow,rectangular dish but doesn´t specify how big), double the amount of the filling so it´s a bit thicker and either cook the pie at a lower temperature or for a shorter amount of time. Unfortunately it wasn´t such a big hit with my daughter as she would hardly even try it...maybe next time!! Here´s a link to the recipe I used:  Bedfordshire Pudding. This recipe doesn´t state how much shortcrust pastry you need...you could use either homemade (click on the link for my pastry recipe) or ready made shortcrust pastry..I made about 200g but you will definitely have some leftover pastry..you will probably only need about 100-150g. Another note to add is you can leave out the candied or mixed peel like I did, especially if you have trouble finding it where you live or you could just add some grated lemon or orange peel in to substitute the candied peel!

I´ll update this post or add a comment next time I make this commenting on how the alterations to this recipe worked! Hope you enjoy this dish and begin to see that we can cook and our food is varied!!I´d also love to hear about which of these regional dishes you´ve enjoyed the most. Only one more recipe for Bedfordshire to go...what will it be?

Cooking England County by County: Bedfordshire: Bedfordshire Clangers

One thing that has always irritated me a little and is probably what started off my foodie obsession...is the fact that everybody says that British cuisine is bland and boring and that the British can´t cook. So I´ve decided to cook England county by county to prove to people that English food is more varied and tasty than they think.Also, it gives me the opportunity to discover and try out food from my own country that I´ve never had before and also provide us with a more varied diet!

The first county I´m starting off with is Bedfordshire,which is renowed for the Bedfordshire Clanger,something which is completely new to me. Bedfordshire Clangers are very similar to Cornish pasties(again something which surprizingly I´ve never eaten!!)which have a savoury meat filling at one end and a sweet filling at the other end. The idea of the Bedfordshire Clanger was so that miners or agricultural workers could take it to work with them  for their midday meal as they didn´t have time to come home for a big lunch and in this way they could have a main meal and a dessert all rolled into one.

I wasn´t sure if I would like Bedfordshire Clangers as they sounded a bit strange and I´m not sure if the recipe I used is a traditional one but whether it´s traditional or not, it is very tasty.Even my 2 and a half year old ate it!!Here´s a link to the recipe I used: http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/513570. The only thing I did was to halve all the ingredients....the recipe says it serves 2 but even when halved, there was plenty....in fact I think I overfilled my Clangers, which is why one has split open a little and I also had leftover filling. It managed to feed 2 of us plus my toddler! The most fiddly bit was making the wall to seperate the two fillings.
I really enjoyed this dish and will be making it now and again in the future!

Mincemeat & Apple Crumble

Firstly, I apologise for my absence in blogging but there has been a whirlwind of activity going on what with moving house, Christmas and then the usual reasons so I just can´t seem to find time to fit in blogging!!Secondly, I have to apologise for posting a very similar recipe to my last post!!

I thought you might like it though as it´s a delicious way to use up any leftover mincemeat after Christmas (we had a humungous jar!!).It´s based on a Delia Smith recipe which I tweaked to fit with the leftovers I had and because I wanted to make a smaller portion.Also this recipe is so quick and simple you could make it with your children. I tried to get my daughter to join in especially with making the crumble but she didn´t want to...I think she didn´t want to get her hands dirty!!She did help me put the crumble topping on though and flatten it out with her hands,which she seemed to enjoy doing!!I think she thought it was like playing in the sand!!

Ingredients:
Mincemeat leftovers(I used about 215g as that was all I had left)
1/2 cooking apple (Bramley or Reineta)(peeled and chopped)
1/2 Ambrosia apple(peeled and chopped) (I think there was around 150g apple in total)
37g butter(at room temperature)
37g caster sugar
117g plain flour

Method:
1. Mix apples with the mincemeat and place in greased shallow pie plate or dish.
2. Place flour in a large bowl and rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips as if you were making pastry.
3. When all the butter has been rubbed in and the mixture looks like breadcrumbs,add the sugar and combine.
4. Sprinkle the mixture on top of mincemeat and apples and cook in a preheated oven at 180ºC for 30-40minutes or until a golden colour.Serve hot with cream or custard!Delicious!

Individual Apple Crumbles

 Blogging seems to be taking rather a backseat at the moment as I can hardly find a spare minute to write,particularly as my daughter very often doesn´t go to sleep till after 11.30pm!!
I have been baking loads recently though but again finding time is difficult...I have to get up extra early and try to finish before my daughter wakes up. I had a lot of surplus apples so decided to make apple crumble to try and use some of them up but instead of making one huge apple crumble,which would mean a lot of eating up, chose to make smaller, individual ones,based on the following recipe:
 http://irreverentbaker.wordpress.com/2012/06/30/mini-apple-crumbles/. I also chose to use wholemeal flour and oats to make the dessert just that tiny bit more healthier and surprizingly enough you couldn´t tell the difference.It was just as tasty as traditional apple crumble,if not more!! Also as the apples from my tree are very small, I probably used between 8-10 apples!!Try it, I´m sure you´ll enjoy it and it´s so easy and quick to rustle up this family favourite dessert!

The Great British Bake Off Technical Challenges Challenge: Hot Lemon Soufflé

I love The Great British Bake Off, in fact I am obssessed with it and can´t wait to see the new series in August! It has inspired me even more to become a much better baker than I currently am and to persue my dreams so in order to try and achieve both these things, I´ve decided to challenge myself to bake all the technical challenges from all of the various seasons myself and chart my progress here on this blog. Some of the technical challenges I have actually baked already (but not many!) and I want to follow the exact recipes that the Great British Bake Off contestants had to follow.

So here is one of the first technical challenges I decided to tackle: Lemon Soufflé. This was the very first time I´d tried to make any sort of soufflé before and soufflés are renouned for being a little tricky. However, I followed the recipe very carefully and was pleasantly surprised that they aren´t really all that difficult after all. I halved the recipe so it served only two people and whether my ramekins are bigger or what, I don´t know but the souffle mixture didn´t completely fill them up. I made these awhile ago but I don´t remember having any particular problem. I  think I took the soufflés out of the oven just a tad too early, because as you can see in the photo, the soufflés sunk a little although on the whole, I was very happy with my first attempt at a soufflé. The soufflés themselves are lovely and light, with a sharp,lemony burst. Absolutely delicious!We gobbled them up and could easily have eaten more! I´ll definitely be making these again and perfecting my soufflés!If I were you, forget about your soufflé hang-ups and go and try this recipe! It really is a winner!

Pineapple & Lemon Upside-Down Pudding and my new page

Sunday has officially now been declared as Pudding Day in my house! My daughter isn‘t accustomed to eating desserts, apart from fruit and yoghurts, and I thought it would be nice to have a dessert once a week. Any excuse to have a dessert, right?At the same time, I also get to practice and improve my baking skills...and in fact to stretch my baking skills I´ve also decided to bake each of the technical bakes from the hit TV baking programme, The Great  British Bake Off. I´ll be posting about my experiences baking the technical challenges!
Anyway though back to the Pineapple and Lemon Upside-Down Pudding...I decided to make this because I just happened to have all the ingredients lurking in my cupboard,waiting to be used up and I was also hoping that it´d encourage my daughter to eat pineapple!What a great choice of pudding!! It was lick the bowl and spoon delicious....me and my husband devoured it in one sitting and my daughter didn´t even get a look in (no, we did try to give her some and she had a little nibble but I think she was too full from her lunch for any dessert....all the more for us!!!)

Before I get onto the recipe, one of the reasons I haven´t been posting too much on here is because I´ve set up a page ....yes,now you can follow me on Facebook too!!However, it´s not completely related to this blog but more to baking and above all,cakes, so you will see many of the cakes,biscuits etc(including this pudding!)from the blog and others that I haven´t got round to posting and may never get round to posting! You can find my page, Sweet Tooth Bakes, on Facebook...please come and have a look and at the same time press like ; ) The other reason is finding time to blog along with everything else!!!

Here´s the recipe adapted from The Dairy Book of Home Cookery.

Ingredients:(for 2-3 people)
base: 25g butter
       25g soft brown sugar
       1 small can of pineapple rings
Sponge Pudding: 100g self-raising flour
                          1/8 tsp salt
                           50g butter
                           50g caster sugar
                          Grated rind of 1/2 lemon
                          1 large egg
                           2-2 1/2 tbsp cold milk
Method
1. Prepare the base by melting butter and sugar together and pour into a greased Pyrex bowl and arrange pineapple rings on top of the base and around the sides of the bowl.
2. Sift flour and salt into a bowl and rub the butter in until it looks like breadcrumbs.
3.Add sugar and lemon rind and combine,add the milk and egg  and mix to form a soft batter.
4.Place in a preheated oven of 190ºC/375ºF and bake for 30 minutes, then lower the temperature to 180ºC/350ºF and bake for a further 35-45 minutes until a wooden cocktail stick comes out clean,when inserted.
5.Leave in dish for 5 minutes before turning it out onto a plate and serve with cream, ice-cream or custard!
                     

                         

Cooking Spain Region By Region: Andalusia: Polea or Gachas Dulces (Andalusian Sweet Porridge?)

When doing a little bit of research into typical dishes of Andalusia in order to choose which ones to try and cook, I came across this dessert, Polea,which I´d never heard of before. I decided to have a bash at making this dessert as it seemed unusual,what with having croutons in it etc plus it piqued my curiosity. I was a little bit apprehensive at the same time too as I wasn´t sure whether I´d like it because I´m not too keen on  savoury gachas. However, I´m soooooooo glad I decided to make it as it is absolutely delicious, even if I do say so myself! ; )

It has a lovely lemony, milky,cinnamon flavour with a hint of aniseed and is surprisingly light. I served it warm but I think it´d be nice both hot and cold. I´m so pleased I found this dessert as it has quickly become one of my favourite Spanish desserts and I prefer it to flan,natillas or crema catalana. I really don´t know why this isn´t on more restaurant menus for dessert!!I will definitely be making this on a regular basis...in fact I am thinking of making it for a Father´s Day meal for my hubby as he really enjoyed it too but unfortunately my daughter didn´t get round to trying it...maybe next time!!It is really quick and easy to make too, despite being  a fairly easy dish to prepare for some reason,it didn´t thicken up and was still quite thin and liquidy...probably because I didn´t mix the flour in the milk.I ´ve adapted the recipe from the original recipe from Gallina Blanca.

Ingredients (for 2)
 1/2 litre of milk
1 tbsp mild (suave) olive oil
2 1/2 tbsp sugar
grated rind of 1/2 lemon
1 cinnamon stick
1/4 tsp of dried aniseed or fennel seeds (I didn´t have aniseed so used fennel seeds as they still have that aniseed flavour)
ground cinnamon
ready made or home made croutons (I used ready made croutons,just to save time)

Method
1. Heat the olive oil and add the aniseed or fennel seeds and cook for a couple of seconds over a low heat, making sure they don´t burn.
2. Dissolve half of the flour in the milk and then add to the pan.
3.Add the sugar,the rest of the flour,the grated lemon rind,the cinnamon stick and a pinch of cinnamon and cook over a low heat till it starts to thicken, stirring the whole time.
4. Once thickened, remove from heat and pour into serving dish and add the croutons and sprinkle with ground cinnamon according to your taste.
5.Serve and enjoy!

Traditional Queen of Puddings

 I´ve been on a bit of a baking roll lately, trying to hone my skills and bring a taste of home to my kitchen so Sundays have now become dessert day!!

I´ve never tried Queen of Puddings before and had planned to make one of my favourite desserts,Sticky Toffee Pudding, but as I didn´t have enough soft brown sugar and I had all the ingredients on hand for this dessert,Queen Of Puddings it was!!I really enjoyed it too as the sponge has a lovely lemony kick to it and it is quite a light pudding. Plus it meant I got to practice my piping skills a little!!

                                                     The recipe is taken and adapted from the book, The Dairy Book of Home Cookery. I halved the original recipe so that it only served two.

Ingredients (for 2)
37g fresh white breadcrumbs
12g caster sugar
grated lemon rind of 1/2 lemon or about 1/2 tsp
225ml of cold milk
12g butter
Yolk of one large egg
1 tbsp warmed raspberry jam
White of one large egg
                                                      25 -37g caster sugar
                                                     
Method
1.Place breadcrumbs,sugar and lemon rind in a bowl and mix.
2.Place butter and milk in a pan and cook over a low heat until the butter has melted.
3.Pour onto breadcrumb mixture and stir till well combined and leave to stand for 30 mins,then beat in the egg yolk.
4.Place in a small glass bowl and place in preheated oven  at 160ºC/325ºF and bake for around 30 mins until sponge is a light golden colour.
5.Prepare the meringue topping while sponge is cooking by whisking egg white until stiff and peaky and when the bowl is placed upside down,it doesn´t fall out.Fold in the caster sugar gently and spoon into a piping bag.
6. Pipe meringue peaks on top of the pudding,then return to the oven and bake for a further 30-40 mins or until meringue is a pale golden brown colour.