competition

Bloggers Scream For Ice Cream: May Roundup & Winner

05 Jun 2013 7 Responses »

Jun 052013

I knew when I set May’s #BSFIC theme as Cones & Cups, Biscuits & Baskets, Wafers & Waffles (or indeed, any other edible containers for ice cream) that it was quite a challenge. Lots of choice on what to make, lots of scope for creativity but also lots of potential for things to go wrong.

So I was super impressed with all the entries, below, which I’m sure you’ll agree showcase a fabulous range of ideas!

I started things off early with my own post for which I recreated the BSFIC cartoon badge I drew back when I set the first challenge. I used my new review Lakeland Waffle Cone Maker (with lots of help from Pete) to make the cones, made a simple but really delicious basil ice cream to serve in them and melted some dark chocolate to create the drizzle on top.

Showing great ingenuity in the face of no waffle maker, Gary from Big Spud made Waffles on a George Foreman Grill. He paired them with some Ben & Jerry’s Winter Berry Brownie for a fruity chocolatey hit. Great proof that you don’t need to fill your kitchen with gadgets to be creative in the kitchen, a lesson I’ve not yet truly accepted!

Julia from Food Blog London initially thought about making stroopwafels (keep your eyes open for an upcoming post of mine, Julia!) but decided in the end to combine the new challenge with the recent Baked Alaska theme. Her Waffle, Blueberry Sorbet and Meringue dessert may not have looked as pretty as she hoped, but it did look pretty darn tasty! I like the idea of using a waffle instead of a cake as the base for a baked alaska, and the sorbet sounds so refreshing.

Now if you want to talk about thinking outside the box, blue sky thinking, pushing the envelope or, as us normal people call it, originality then look no further than Hannah of Corner Cottage Bakery’s Strawberry Jelly Ice Cream Bowls. And of course, she didn’t use the ready made cubes of jelly like yours truly would have – she made beautiful delicately pink jelly from real strawberries and served it with vanilla ice cream. A totally grown up twist on a childhood classic.

Julia from Something Missing had an ice cream crisis recently. She ran out of ice cream! Now that just won’t do… so a root around her store cupboard revealed just the ingredients to make a tasty Frappuccino ice cream using Ferrero Rocher, coffee and a condensed milk base. For her edible Hazelnut Chocolate Bowls, she used Nutella and ground hazelnuts for a gluten-free bake. I love the pretty shape of the bowls!

Asbestos fingered Jennie from All The Things I Eat made cute little cones, using a David Lebovitz recipe. These she then turned into nifty Cornettos by filling with vanilla condensed milk ice cream and coating with chocolate and chopped toasted hazelnuts. It’s hard not to sing like a Gondolier at these beauties!

After throwing down the gauntlet to me to try making ice cream cones out of crushed popcorn, Gill from Pigling Bland decided to make Brandy Snap Baskets with Banana Ice Cream. She added a little desiccated coconut to a Mary Berry recipe for the brandy baskets and combined frozen bananas and condensed milk to make a base ice cream to which she added vanilla and chocolate.

Foodycat’s Alicia shocked herself silly when she realised, after much Googling, that her idea was indeed so original she couldn’t find any evidence of anyone having done the same before. Having often thought of a new idea myself, only to discover that many others have had just the same inspiration before me, I know well how rare this actually is! Keen to represent the flavours of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, Alicia made Raspberry Choux Profiteroles filled with Peanut Butter Ice Cream. I’ve never encountered flavoured choux pastry before and love the idea!

With such wide-ranging and creative entries, I really struggled to pick a winner, and turned to Pete to help me make the final pick. Between us, we selected Hannah from Corner Cottage Bakery to win the prize – a Waffle Cone Maker, kindly provided by Lakeland. We loved her clever take on ice cream cups; and such a pretty and summery post too.

Hannah, drop me a line with your postal address and I’ll send it on to Lakeland straight away! Congratulations!

I’m a bit late posting the new Bloggers Scream For Ice Cream challenge, so I’ll make it a two month theme again. I’ll announce that one soon!

Win Hotel Chocolat’s Entire Rabot 1745 Range

13 May 2013 20 Responses »

May 132013

As a chocolate lover, I’ve come across single origin chocolate, made with cocoa from a single country or region. And I’ve come across single estate chocolate which, as the name suggests, is produced by one cocoa plantation.

But I’ve never before come across “single côte” chocolate such as Hotel Chocolat’s new Rabot Estate Marcial 70% Dark.

Instead of blending all the cocoa grown across their property in Soufriere, Saint Lucia, Hotel Chocolat have picked and processed the cocoa from each plot of land within the estate separately. The Marcial plot is described as “mix of grizzled 80-100 year-old trees and fresh new four-year-old trees planted as seedlings” near the Rabot lake.

Hotel Chocolat refer to the cocoa variety grown in Marcial as Trinitarios, a “rare bean unique to the Rabot Estate”. I assume it to be a variant of Trinitario, a hybrid of Criollo and Forastero. (Criollo makes up only 5% of the world’s cocoa crops. It demands high prices because it’s difficult to grow and yields are low. Forastero, on the other hand, makes up the bulk of the crop, being far easier to grow and harvest. However, it’s described as bland and lacking in complexity of flavour. Trinitario is said to combine aspects of both parents, and represents around 15% of cocoa grown).

Flavour wise, the marketing blurb for the bar says it has “notes of shiraz wine, antique oak, roasted cocoa and
stewed spiced plums”.

Personally, I don’t pick up wine, oak or stewed plums but the chocolate has a wonderful fruitiness that is reminiscent of cocoa from Madagascar, which is a favourite of mine. It’s nicely balanced with a hint of acidity that reminds me of balsamic vinegar in flavour. The roast is well judged too, enough to taste but not enough to make the chocolate too strongly bitter. It’s a lovely bar indeed.

Marcial 70% Dark is one of 18 chocolates that make up the Rabot 1745 range, a collection of chocolate made with cocoa from the world’s top cocoa growing regions. The batch label on each bar will not only tell you where the cocoa was grown but also the length of time it was roasted and conched, the name of the individual chocolatier who created it and the year of harvest.

It’s a great way of learning about the characteristics of chocolate from different parts of the world and narrowing down your personal preferences.

Currently in the collection are bars made with cocoa from Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Java, Madagascar, Peru, St Lucia, Trinidad, Venezuala and Vietnam.

Hotel Chocolat have generously offered a set of all 18 bars (35 grams each) in their Rabot 1745 collection to one lucky Kavey Eats reader. The prize is worth over £60 and includes free delivery anywhere in the UK.

HOW TO ENTER

You can enter the competition in 3 ways:

Entry 1 – Blog Comment
Leave a comment below, telling me which Rabot 1745 bar you are most looking forward to trying, and why.

Entry 2 – Facebook

Like the Kavey Eats Facebook and leave a (separate) comment on this blog post with your Facebook user name.

Entry 3 – Twitter
Follow @Kavey on Twitter. Existing followers are, of course, welcome to enter!
Then tweet the (exact) sentence below.
I’d love to win the @HotelChocolat Rabot 1745 Collection from Kavey Eats! http://goo.gl/HJ2Go #KaveyEatsHotelChocolat
(Please do not add my twitter handle into the tweet; I track entries using the hashtag. And you don’t need to leave a blog comment about your tweet either, thanks!)

RULES & DETAILS

The deadline for entries is midnight GMT Friday 7th June 2013.
The winners will be selected from all valid entries using a random number generator.
Entry instructions form part of the terms and conditions.
The prize is a set of eighteen 35 gram bars of Hotel Chocolat’s Rabot 1745 collection and includes free delivery anywhere in the UK.
The prize cannot be redeemed for a cash value.
The prize is offered and provided by Hotel Chocolat.
Where prizes are to be provided by a third party, Kavey Eats accepts no responsibility for the acts or defaults of that third party.
One blog entry per person only. One Twitter entry per person only. One Facebook entry per person only. You do not have to enter all three ways for your entries to be valid.
For Twitter entries, winners must be following @Kavey at the time of notification. For Facebook entries, winners must Like the Kavey Eats Facebook page at time of notification.
Blog comment entries must provide a valid email address for contacting the winner.
The winners will be notified by email, Twitter or Facebook. If no response is received within 7 days of notification, the prize will be forfeit and a new winner will be picked and contacted.

Kavey Eats received sample bars from the Rabot 1745 collection.

May BSFIC: Cones & Cups, Biscuits & Baskets, Wafers & Waffles + Fantastic Competition

01 May 2013 8 Responses »

May 012013

The May Bloggers Scream For Ice Cream challenge is all about edible ice cream containers. So much so that you can opt to fill your home-made cones, cups, biscuits, baskets, wafers and waffles with your favourite ready-made ice cream (or sorbet) if you don’t have the time or energy to make your own, this month. Of course, home-made is always welcome in BSFIC!

Foodycat’s green tea ice cream in a sesame snap bowl, for October’s Japan themed BSFIC

As soon as this theme formed in my mind, I knew I wanted to recreate the waffle ice cream cone (with scoop of green ice cream and drizzle of chocolate sauce) that I drew for the BSFIC icon, below. That’s the point at which I realised I’d need a waffle cone maker and turned to my friends at Lakeland.

They sell this Montiss Waffle Cone Maker (£29.99), which provides a quick and simple way of making slim textured waffles. Just pre-heat the appliance, pour batter onto the cooking plate, close the lid, and allow to cook for a couple of minutes. You can adjust the temperature to suit your recipe. To turn waffles into waffle cones, lift the hot pliable waffles from the press and quickly wrap them around the cone-shaped form provided. The casing is made of durable bakelite and the cooking plates are non-stick, so should be easy to wipe clean with a damp cloth.

To my delight, Lakeland not only offered me a review sample of the waffle cone maker, so I can make the ice cream cones of my dreams (and then give homemade stroopwafel a try), but very kindly agreed to give a second one away to the winning entry from this month’s challenge!

How To Take Part In BSFIC

Create and blog a recipe that fits the challenge by the 4th of June.
In your post, mention and link to this Bloggers Scream For Ice Cream post.
In your post, include the Bloggers Scream For Ice Cream badge.
Email me (by the 4th of June) with your first name or nickname (as you prefer), the link to your post and an image for my roundup, sized to no larger than 500 pixels on the longest side.

You are welcome to submit your post to as many blogger challenge events as you like.

If the recipe is not your own, please be aware of copyright issues. Email me if you would like to discuss this.

If you like, tweet about your post using the hashtag #BSFIC. I’ll retweet any I see. You are also welcome to share the links to your posts on the Kavey Eats Facebook page.

I’ll post a round up of all the entries at the end of the month.

About The Competition

Valid entry into the May 2013 BSFIC (as above) will be considered entry into the competition for the Lakeland Waffle Cone Maker. (If for any reason, you don’t wish to enter, please advise in your email).
The deadline for entries is midnight GMT 4th June 2013.
We will select a favourite entry from those submitted. We will be looking for an entry that meets the challenge theme well and a post that is engagingly written, attractively presented and provides easy-to-follow instructions.
The prize is a Lakeland Waffle Cone Maker and includes delivery to a UK mainland address only. (Those outside the UK are welcome to enter and nominate a friend’s UK address for delivery).
The prize cannot be redeemed for cash.
The prize is offered directly by Lakeland.
The winner will be notified by email. If no response is received within 14 days of notification, the prize will be forfeit and a new winner will be picked and contacted.

Edit: 23 May 2013 – please note that the deadline for this month’s BSFIC has been extended from the 28th May to the 4th June.

For more ideas, check out my Pinterest Ice Cream Inspiration board and my Pinterest BSFIC Entries board.

With thanks to Lakeland for providing sample and prize waffle cone makers.

Win A Side of Irish Organic Smoked Salmon from Burren Smokehouse (Closed)

19 Mar 2013 46 Responses »

Mar 192013

Burren Smokehouse are one of the wonderful Irish producers I met at Dublin’s Bloom In The Park last year.

Birgitta Curtin of Burren Smokehouse

This family business was set up by Birgitta & Peter Curtin back in 1989 and takes the best from the smoking traditions of both Ireland and Sweden to produce a high quality Irish product. Their salmon is sourced from Irish fish farms on the Atlantic coast. Once it arrives it is checked for quality, filleted, salted with pure sea salt to cure and then cold or hot smoked in oak smoke. Finally it’s vacuum-packed to maximise shelf-life.

It’s a quality product and tastes fabulous. I tried a number of the Burren products at Bloom and found them all excellent.

COMPETITION

Burren Smokehouse have generously offered a side of Irish organic smoked salmon, worth approximately £50, to one lucky Kavey Eats reader. The prize includes free delivery anywhere in the UK and Republic of Ireland.