Milk Bar Grasshopper Pie

This space has been quiet for a while. Real life has taken over this month and I feel very guilty about it, so here is a pic of the Brownie Pie that I made on Valentine's Day from the Milk Bar Book, to keep the blog breathing. 
My friend Hannah is making their 'crack pie' on Sunday... I. can't. wait. 

NERDS CAKE

 
It was my niece Jasmine's 8th birthday last week. Holy Moly, where does the time go? 
I went to the trouble of making Amanda's super yummy and wholesome chocolate cake (I used wholemeal flour) and then covered the whole thing in little nuggets of dextrose, sugar and malic acid. OOPS! I hate to think what a mission it was to get the kids to sleep that night. 
I wanted to make Jasmine an awesome cake but didn't have time to do anything 'novelty'.. so I took a moment to think what I loved to eat at her age... NeRdS! NERDS AND POPPING CANDY! 
From the base to the top we have..
Grape-Wild Cherry-Strawberry-Peach-Amped Apple-Double dipped lemonade-lightening lemon. If that wasn't already a party for your mouth I chucked a load of popping candy on the top last minute. Fizztastic. 

 

This cake is seriously moist and tastes just how chocolate cake should and the bonus is, you can cut all the tops off and dip in left over soured cream icing (from that blueberry cake)

 Layer with a firm buttercream and plaster round the sides to stick in all those nerds. I used a spoon and didn't worry too much about where they were going, you could just mix them all up and throw them on, that would be fun.

 Layer up baby.

 Love you Jazzle Fizzle, here's to many more years of silly cakes and Jessie J sing offs. xxx

Spiced rack of Lamb with Persian Rice

 

A rack of lamb takes 25 minutes to cook (the same time as the rice), it's quick and easy to carve with no waste, I love it. Give your lamb some love by marinating it over night with a homemade rub and letting it REST after roasting, it's so important if you want juicy meat. See the juices creating a steady pool under the lamb, yeh, you want that!

You can put whatever you like in your marinade. I don't want you to look at my recipe and be put off by the number of ingredients. If you only have ginger, garlic and garam masala then that's enough to make a real difference but this marinade is seriously the bee's knees. Score the fat of the lamb (not too deep) and rub in the marinade, sit over night or at least 8 hours in the fridge.
I'll write the recipe at the bottom of the post, but here are the steps. You need to oil the lamb and bring to room temperature before searing.

Sealing and blackening the meat.

 Soaking the golden raisins and barberries

Putting together the ingredients for the rice whilst the lamb cooks.

Once the meat is sealed on all sides, pop it in the oven to roast for 15 minutes on 190C.

Take it out, pop it on a plate and cover with foil for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, make your rice.

When the rice is ready, slice up the lamb and pile it on top. Easy Peasy.

Marinade
Juice of 1 lime
Dried lime powder or the zest of the time
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 thumb of ginger, grated
1/2 tsp sumac
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1 heaped tsp garam masala
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
2 black cardamon pods, bashed (or green, if you don't have black)
2 pinches of salt and freshly ground pepper
Rice
3 cups Basmati rice (this make loads for 4 people, but trust me, this is magical rice, you'll want a mountain of it)
1 red onion, strips fried until crispy
Big pinch of saffron
2tbsp of the following-
toasted flaked almonds
chopped pistachios
dried barberries (soaked in water)
golden raisins (soaked in water)
Big pinch of dried rose petals
grated zest of 1 lemon
Cinnamon bark/ 1 tsp powdered 
knob of butter
1tsp sugar
Fresh coriander, chopped

To make the rice, and this is by no means authentic, just what I like to do..
Wash the rice 3 times in water. 
1.Cover the rice with water 1cm above the rice level and bring to the boil.
2.Quickly reduce the heat to a bare simmer and place a lid on the pan, leave for 10 minutes without checking/lifting the lid.
3. Lift the lid and stir in all the ingredients bar the coriander.
4. Mix and return to the heat with the lid on and after 3 minutes, turn the heat off and let steam away with no heat. This should provide a slightly crisp base (delicious)but the rice will be fluffy.
5. Season with a little salt, stir through coriander and serve with the lamb. 
I like to serve with a little salad and yogurt dip. Do you have any interesting ways with lamb?

Soured Cream and Blueberry cake - Hummingbird Bakery

 

I made this cake for our second meeting of Putney Clandestine Cake Club and have had a couple of email requests to post the recipe. Yes, there is such thing as cake club, you should get involved!

If a hug had a taste it would taste like this cake. I'm no good at describing things so you'll just have to make it and see for yourself. It's a hummingbird bakery recipe that I've been making for years. Its got a golden crunchy crust that contrasts with a sponge that feels like you've just face planted a warm pillow. The bursts of blueberry that dye the sponge in purple, inky patches goes so well with the sour cream icing. I've made a few minor adjustments to the cake, mostly to the icing and I add lemon zest to the cake.

The girls how the blueberries stay suspended in the mix, hopefully you can see from the pic above that the batter is thick enough, like a muffin or scone mix for the berries to stay put.

Do you know why I love this cake so much? Because it yields slightly too much batter for my tin and so I'm left with a few muffins on the side. Soft, fruity, moreish muffins.

You could eat the cake unadorned if you so wish, it would taste just like a giant muffin!

But I prefer to spoon over the sourcream icing so it starts to fall down the sides, in that ever so inviting 'scoop me up with your finger' look!

Blueberry cake - Adapted from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook

Preheat oven to 170C fan

350g butter, unsalted, room temp

350g caster sugar

6 eggs

1tsp vanilla extract

1 lemon zested

450g plain flour

2 tbsp of baking powder plus 1tsp

270ml soured cream

250g blueberries plus extra to decorate

1 quanitity of cream cheese frosting

(300g icing sugar, 50g unsalted butter, 125g cream cheese)

loosened with 30ml of soured cream and 20ml of lemon juice

25cm ring mould, greased and lined

1. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy

2.Add eggs, one at a time

3.Beat in vanilla, lemon zest, flour and baking powder

4.Add soured cream and beat until combined, gently stir in blueberries

5.Fill your tin and smooth surface over with a knife

6.Bake for 40-50 mins until the crust is golden brown and the sponge springs back.

7.Leave to cool in the mould for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wired rack, removing the paper. 

8.When the cake is cool, pour the icing mix over the top and sprinkle with blueberries.

Prawn, cucumber and wakame salad

This is my favourite salad in the world. It has depth in the seaweed and dried bonito flakes and a freshness in the crunch of cucumber and juicy prawns all bought together in a sweet, salty and sour dressing.  Today, I didn't bother salting the cucumbers, I just sliced them straight in. I can be impatient, especially when I'm hungry.
I am on a self imposed baking ban this week. So will probably blogging more meals, we can't live off cake alone. 
Having said that, I've got a few posts from before Christmas in Spain I had forgotten to post so Pistachio, lemon and rosewater cake may make an appearance to sweeten things up a little.

Prawn, cucumber and wakame salad
Serves 4 - Recipe by Reiko Hashimoto 

1 large cucumber
1/2 teaspoon salt
10g dried wakame seaweed
100g cooked peeled prawns
2cm piece of fresh ginger root, peeled and thinly sliced
10g bonito flakes

dressing-
55ml rice vinegar
1/2 tsp instant dashi powder
1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
3 tsp caster sugar
1 tbsp mirin
1 tsp grated fresh root ginger

1. Mix all ingredients for dressing together, except for the ginger in a small pan
2. Bring to the boil, for only a minute or so, until the sugar dissolves
3. For the salad, peel and halve cucumber lengthways
4. Scrape out seeds and thinly slice the cucumber on the diagonal
5. Place the cucumber in a small bowl, sprinkle with salt, mix and leave for 15 minutes. 
Place in colander and rinse with cold water, drain, thoroughly and pat dry. 
6. Put the wakame in a bowl of cold water for 5-7 mins to soften. Drain, squeeze out water.
7. Mix everything together and decorate with the bonito flakes.

Blood orange cake

 

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! How lovely are these blood orange wrappers?! After I made these cakes, I sliced big chunks and wrapped them in the papers for gifts... sharing the love.

 

Don't worry, you won't find any soppy stuff here, just 'bloody' yummy cake. However lovely it is to be in love, speaking as someone who has spent the last year single after many years of being a couple.. I have really enjoyed getting to know myself this year. Without going into much detail, my year of saying 'yes' has been a really exciting one. Today should have less stress on love and more stress on happiness. I hope you are happy... and if you're not, chin up.. here's some cake. See the little flecks of orange in the sponge?

I find the internet such an inspiring place. When I stumbled upon the 'Cake Hunter' on my tea cake search I didn't realise how happy her blog would make me. This week it has inspired me to join a gym (eek!) and to make blood orange cake. Sophie made the Ottolengi recipe, but I needed to make Gluten Free for my GF friend and fancied using olive oil, in hope that this would taste of the blood oranges and olive oil of Spain.  I was feeling experimental on the weekend so threw something together with inspiration also from smitten kitchen. 

 The leftover pulp from the glaze made a good jam to top the cake.. eating the scraps can be the best bit.
Blood Orange Loaf Cake (makes 2, fortunately) 
4 blood oranges
200g caster sugar
140ml of natural yogurt
3 eggs
160ml extra virgin olive oil (or mix of olive oil and sunflower)
125g Gluten Free flour
60g quick cook polenta
60g ground almonds
2 teaspoons gf baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
For the glaze - I used 50g of simmered and strained raspberries here to add a little colour. 
100g orange juice 50g lemon juice 
100g caster sugar
(simmer the above for a few minutes until sugar has dissolved and the liquid thickens to a maple syrup consistency)

1. Zest the oranges and add zest to sugar
2. Supreme 3 of the oranges by slicing the top and bottoms off and then slice away the peel with the first layer of skin. Now you'll be able to see clearly where to cut. Catch the juices for the oranges, squeeze out the top and bottoms and add the juice of a lemon and other orange until you have 150ml of liquid. The remaining liquid, add to your yogurt.
3. Use half your segments, flaked up to add to your cake mix and reserve half for decoration.
4. Mix your yogurt, sugar, oil thoroughly and then add dry ingredients. Pour into two lined loaf tins and bake at 170fan oven for 40 minutes. After 40 minutes, check they are cooked through. 
5. Once the cakes have come out the oven, brush with the warmed syrup, repeatedly. Reserving half. 
6. Reduce the syrup a little and pour onto cakes once they have cooled for 20 mins or so. (little trick for you there) 
Serve with more yogurt and orange segments.

 I hope you do something lovely tonight. I've got beers chilling for a girly night of gossip, takeaway pizza and naughty, calorific pie. Further afield, one of my friends is heartbroken and another is very ill, I so wish I could send hugs. 
If you need a quick fix idea, why don't you make sugar biscuits or shortbread (easiest and tastiest things ever) If you have no time to ice them, make them into pretty shapes or stamp out a message, I did this one out of leftover dough. From me, to you, with love x

Rhubarb and custard tart

 

I love baking with Josh. It's a messy, sticky and giggly affair. When the oven's switched off we sit down to eat the results with a cup of tea (he has a small cup) and we chat about his future and how he wants to be a cowboy or Michael Jackson when he grows up. I tried to explain that one was unlikely and the latter, impossible, but that is what playing is for..so we played cowboys. 

 When the weather is bleak, a bit of rhubarb brightens the day.. to the shops!

 

Josh makes the crème patissière.. and eats half the bowl before the pastry is ready..

 

Recipe at end of post, but here are some step-by-step pics

 

 Oh and the toys got a play..

 

 Our tart was fierce, I actually love this pic. Perhaps Josh could be an artist?!  

Josh and Milli's Rhubarb and custard (kind of) tart
1/2 pack of Jus Rol Puff pastry
3 sticks of rhubarb
2 tbsp sugar for sprinkling
60ml of orange juice and a big splash of grand Marnier
crème patissière (Bourke St Bakery)
250ml whole/ss milk
1 vanilla bean, deseeded
50g caster sugar
3 egg yolks
15g all purpose flour
We added 50g of ground almonds to the creme pat once cooled for that frangipane taste but you don't have to.

1. Preheat oven to 200C
Make crème patissière 
2.Pop your egg yolks in a bowl and whisk in the sugar a little at a time, now whisk in the flour.
3.Heat the milk and vanilla seeds to just below boiling point. Now slowly whisk in the hot milk, pouring it through a seive. Leave to cool on the side.
4.Pop rhubarb in the oven, sprinkled with a little sugar and orange juice and optional Grand Marnier, you can cover it with some paper/foil and it will take 10-15 minutes to cook through.
5.Roll out the block of pastry (or used ready rolled) and cut into half lengthways once the pastry is 5mm thick
6. Score a thin border 1cm thick around the inside of the rectangle and pop in a preheated oven at 200C for 10 minutes or until the border has puffed up. 
7. Take out the pastry and brush the sides with milk. 
8. Spoon on the crème patissière (mixed with almonds if you choose) and then layer on your rhubarb, you will not use all the mix.
9.Return to the oven at 180C for 20 minutes or until the pastry has puffed and golden. 


note-  had a little rhubarb and c.pat left over so made a few small tarts on the side.