sweet » Kavey Eats

Jelly Belly Jelly Bean Ice Cream (No Churn, No Machine)

12 Mar 2013 25 Responses »

Mar 122013

I can’t remember a time when I’ve not loved them, having come across them in the USA during childhood trips. I didn’t know their history until now, though. The company that makes them was born back in 1869, when two German brothers emigrated to America and set up an ice cream and candy store in Belleville, Illinois. They weren’t responsible for the invention of jelly beans, thought to be inspired by Turkish delight, but they started making them in the late 1800s are certainly strongly associated with them today. In the 1970s, they introduced a range made with only natural flavourings, and the first eight Jelly Belly flavours were born.

These days, there are many more flavours than 8!

Recently, I was sent a box of their Original 50 – flavours which are made and sold all year round. In addition to these, they also make a sugar-free range, Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans (based on flavours from the Harry Potter books), the Sours range and branded ones such as Snapples and Cadbury Schweppes flavours. There are also a number of “rookie” flavours that are being trialled, some of which may make it into the long term top 50 list, if they prove popular enough. I wish I could try honey bean, mojito and mint chocolate chip, from the current list of rookies!

The reason I love these beans is how vivid and accurate the flavours are. They all taste of what they should, rather than the cheap and synthetic flavourings used in many sweets.

Looking for a way of showcasing the range of flavours, I decided to make a Jelly Belly Jelly Bean Ice Cream.

The thick, creamy texture and slightly caramel flavour of a condensed milk and double cream no churn base seemed like it would be a good fit.

Jelly Belly Jelly Bean Ice Cream (No Churn, No machine)

Ingredients
300 ml double cream
125 ml condensed milk
100 assorted Jelly Belly jelly beans

Note: I used two each of every flavour in the box except for cinnamon and liquorice, which I don’t like.

Method

Whisk the cream until it is thick but still a little floppy.

Add the condensed milk and whisk again until it holds its shape.

Fold in the jelly beans.

Spoon into a freezer container or a loaf tin lined with clingfilm and freeze overnight.
Turn the ice cream out of the container or tin (peel off the clingfilm) and slice to serve.

Once frozen, the shells of the jelly beans harden, so it’s like biting down on hard toffee, with a wonderfully chewy interior. We really liked the contrast between the soft creamy ice cream and the harder beans.

(Because the beans become harder, this recipe may not be suitable for very young children or those who can’t chew hard toffee-like textures).

This is my entry into the February & March Bloggers Scream For Ice Cream event, for which the theme is a look back across all the themes for the preceding year.

If you enjoy making ice cream or if you’ve not made it before and fancy having a go, do see if there’s a theme to suit.

You can opt for a custard base, recreate a childhood favourite, make a sorbet, granita, slushy or spoom, do something delicious with chocolate, make ice lollies, use fruit, incorporate spices, be a bit different and try a savoury ice cream, raid the booze cupboard, be inspired by Japan or add in some dried fruit and nuts. Or, like I’ve done, make a condensed milk recipe.

All bloggers are very welcome, experienced cooks and newbies alike.

Kavey Eats received a review sample of Jelly Belly Jelly Beans.

Making Glazed Vanilla Bean Doughnuts + A Review of Pure Vanilla

05 Mar 2013 17 Responses »

Mar 052013

When you think of foods that benefit from deep frying, what springs to mind?

For me, the list was long…

Fried chicken, battered fish, proper chips, pakoras, tempura, tortilla chips, sesame prawn toasts, whitebait, crisps – not just potato but courgette, parsnip and beetroot, fried tofu, onion rings, samosas, calamari, gulab jamon, even deep fried mars bars…

But before all those came doughnuts! So when we were sent a Judge Cookware Multi Basket deep fat fryer to review (coming soon), the very first thing we made just had to be doughnuts.

Well, you would, wouldn’t you?

With a pile of cookery books also awaiting review, we flicked through Pure Vanilla by Shauna Sever and chose her Glazed Vanilla Bean Doughnuts recipe to try.

Published by Quirk Books, a young American publishing company based in Philadelphia, Pure Vanilla has been written primarily for the US market, which means you’ll need to make a little effort to translate aspects of the recipes. Fahrenheit cooking temperatures and cup measurements are easy as conversion charts are handily provided inside the back cover. You’ll also need to parse ingredients such as all-purpose flour, confectioners’ sugar, heavy cream and sticks of butter, but in the era of Google, that’s not too onerous.

Often, single ingredient cookery books can be a little too gimmicky, adding the chosen ingredient to recipes in which it doesn’t really belong or contribute much just to shoe-horn them into the book. But I really like the kind of recipes Sever has included in her collection – I’m drawn to Light, Crisp Vanilla Waffles, Vanilla Cloud Cake, Tres Leches Cake, Vanilla Snaps, Vanilla Biscotti, Vanilla Bean Marshmallows and Vanilla Mojito, amongst others.

There are some weaknesses with the book too: the index is truly appalling – it lists over a third of the recipes under “vanilla”, which is surely a given in every single recipe in the book and should have been excluded!

Not all recipes have accompanying photographs, which is a shame as those which do instantly appeal more strongly.

The recipe we made was straightforward to follow and came out beautifully. The colour of our finished doughnuts appeared a touch dark, and we worried we’d overcooked them but they were perfect in both taste and texture, with a light and fluffy interior and a perfectly judged vanilla flavour – it came through clearly, made a definite contribution but didn’t overwhelm.

As we made half the amounts given, I’m sharing the amounts we used rather than those in the original recipe.

Glazed Vanilla Bean Doughnuts

Makes 6 doughnuts

Ingredients
For the doughnuts:
1.5 teaspoons dry active yeast
2 tablespoons (30 ml) warm water
3 heaped teaspoons granulated sugar, divided
120 ml whole fat milk, at room temperature
1.5 teaspoons vanilla extract (not essence)
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
2 egg yolks
30 grams unsalted butter
225 grams plain flour, plus a little extra for kneading
0.5 teaspoon salt
Vegetable oil, for frying
For the glaze:
100 grams icing sugar
1 tablespoon whole fat milk
Pinch salt
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

Note: Vanilla bean paste is a thick paste full of actual vanilla seeds and is a great alternative to scraping a real vanilla pod. I used Nielsen-Massey’s paste, which I think is excellent. If you can’t find this product, either use the seeds from a quarter of a vanilla pod or an extra teaspoon of extract instead.

Method

In the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk together yeast, warm water and one teaspoon of the granulated sugar. Leave to stand until it foams, about 5 minutes.
Using the paddle attachment on the mixer, at low speed, mix in the remaining granulated sugar, milk, vanilla extract, vanilla bean paste, egg yolks and butter.
Add the flour and salt and mix for a further 3 minutes, occasionally scraping down the sides of the bowl and the paddle.
Turn out the dough onto a floured work surface and knead by hand, briefly, dusting with flour if you need to.

Place in a large bowl, cover and leave to rise in a warm place until doubled in volume. Ours took a couple of hours; you can also leave in the fridge to rise more slowly overnight).

Turn the dough out onto baking parchment and divide into 6 equal portions.

Roll into balls, flatten and cut a whole out from the centre of each one. We used an icing nozzle, as we didn’t have a suitably small cookie cutter. We also combined the dough from the four holes into two small round doughnuts.

Cover with a clean cloth and allow to rise for 30 to 45 minutes or until doubled in size.
Make the glaze by whisking together the icing sugar, milk, salt and vanilla bean paste.

Heat oil to about 180 C and fry doughnuts, in batches, until golden brown – about 2-3 minutes per side. Sever warns against turning too often, as this can result in greasy doughnuts.

Transfer to paper towels to drain.
Spoon the glaze over the doughnuts whilst they are still warm, so it melts and trickles down the sides.

With thanks to Quirk Books for the review copy of Pure Vanilla and to Judge Cookware for the multi basket deep fat fryer.

Home Preserving: How to Can Apple Pie Filling

20 Feb 2013 3 Responses »

Feb 202013

I posted recently about different methods of preserving food, with a particular focus on home canning.

My first experiment last year was salmon, new potatoes and shallots in olive oil but as I was only able to heat treat at 100°C, I’m not confident about having eradicated the risks of botulism, so will likely discard the results, even though they look great in the jars. I am hoping to buy a pressure canner soon, and will return to preserving fish and meat then.

In the mean time, 100°C is considered sufficient when canning products which contain a certain level of acid, such as apples. As I mentioned in my recent post about apple, date and ginger chutney, we have a lot of apples to use up!

There are 10 jars of chutney and 12 jars of apple jelly in the preserves cupboard. The freezer is already full. I decided to try canning apple pie filling. The advantage over freezing (quite aside from lack of available freezer space) is that it’s much quicker to make an apple pie. Buy or rustle up a portion of pastry, line the pie dish, pour in a jar of filling, lay on the pastry lid and bake!

I based my canning on several American recipes, many of which are very similar. They all call for canning into 1 quart (1 litre) jars but I opted for 750 litre jars for two reasons. Firstly, as there are only two of us, we don’t want to make really large pies. Secondly, these jars fit into the cauldron I’m currently using for the heat treatment whereas the 1 litre jars don’t!

How to Can Apple Pie Filling

Makes 6-7 x 750 ml jars

Ingredients
3 kilos apples, unpeeled weight *
800 grams sugar
250 grams corn flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
0.5 teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 litres water
(Optional: extra lemon juice to stop apples from browning during preparation)

Note: I used half cooking apples and half eating apples.

Method

Sterilise jars, caps and lids. I oven sterilise the jars and boil caps and lids on the stove top. I always sterilise a couple of extra jars as when you cook with fresh produce, the amount you make will vary.
Peel, core and slice apples. I peel all the apples first, then core and quarter them all, and finally slice. I store the peeled apples in a large pan of water with a little lemon juice added to stop them from browning while I work).

In a large stock pot combine the sugar, corn flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, lemon juice and water and heat until the sugar fully dissolves, and the syrup thickens.

Drain the sliced apples. Combine the syrup and apples together in a large pan. My 8.5 litre maslin pan from Lakeland was perfect.

First transfer the apples into the sterilised jars up to the marked marked filling line. Use a spatula or spoon down the inside edge of the jars to wiggle the contents about a little and allow them to pack down further. You want to fit as many apples into each jar as you can without actually squashing them down.

Next, pour the syrup into the jars, also up to the marked fill line.

Wipe the rims clean, position the disc caps and screw the lids in place.

Prepare your water bath and bring the water up to boiling. In my case, I used a large aluminium stock pot with a couple of thick tea towels on the base and additional tea towels pushed between and around the sides of the jars to separate them and keep them from touching the pan directly.
Carefully lower jars into the pan, ensuring that the water comes up at least two inches above the tops of the lids.
Boil the jars for half an hour. Check regularly to ensure that the water is still boiling and to top it up to the correct level, if necessary. (Do this from a boiled kettle so you don’t reduce the temperature).
Once processed, remove the jars and leave to cool.
The heat treatment should have created a vacuum seal.

You will notice that the apples shrink during the heat treatment. When we made our first apple pie, we used some of the syrup in the pie and served the rest as a delicious sauce over the top.

The pie filling was fabulous, so I’m really looking forward to cracking open the other jars. However, I’m also very happy that they will last for at least a year or two in the store cupboard, should we wish.

To make your apple pie, simply line a pie dish with short crust pastry, spoon in your filling, lay a pastry lid over the top, crimp the sides, make a slit on top for the steam to vent and bake for about half an hour. I would suggest a 7-8 inch pie dish for a 750 ml jar and an 8-9 inch dish for a 100 ml jar.

You will likely have left over syrup that doesn’t fit into the jars. Either store in sterilised jars or keep in the fridge and use over the next week. It would make a great sauce to serve with pancakes or over ice cream, stir into a bowl of porridge or rice pudding, whisk into a salad dressing with oil and vinegar. I think it would also make a great apple cake, along the lines of lemon drizzle, pouring the apple syrup over a simple apple cake.

With thanks to Le Parfait for sending me some of their jars to play with.

(No Bake) Mini Lemon Ricotta Cheesecakes

18 Feb 2013 12 Responses »

Feb 182013

I recently found myself with some beautiful fresh buffalo ricotta and a plump Amalfi lemon. Courtesy of The Sauce, they were part of a Campania taster box that also contained buffalo mozzarella, fennel salami, sopressata di Gioi (a cured pork sausage with a core of lard) and a Bagnoli truffle.

I wasn’t sure how best to use them but when Pete suggested a cheesecake, I was immediately excited. I had the remnants of a packet of digestive biscuits to use up and it’s the kind of recipe that I knew I could make up as I went.

The result was well balanced in both taste and texture and very quick and easy too.

I opted to make 6 mini cheesecakes in individual glass ramekins but you could make one larger cheesecake if you prefer.

(No Bake) Mini Lemon Ricotta Cheesecakes

Ingredients
120 grams digestive biscuits
50 grams butter
240 grams ricotta
100 ml lemon juice (from 1 large lemon or two medium lemons)
75 grams icing sugar
Optional: lemon zest

Method

Crush the digestive biscuits into crumbs. I use a clear bag (so I can see how I’m progressing) and a wooden rolling pin. Don’t be too aggressive or you’ll burst the bag and get biscuit crumbs everywhere!

Melt the butter. I do this by heating in the microwave for 20-30 seconds but you can also use a saucepan on the stove.
Mix the melted butter into the digestive crumbs thoroughly.

Divide the cheesecake base evenly between 6 individual ramekins and use the back of a spoon to press down and smooth evenly around the ramekin.

Zest the lemon and then juice. I recommend using a finer grater than I did, to produce much smaller zest.

In a large bowl combine the ricotta, lemon juice and icing sugar. You may prefer to hold some of the sugar back and add more after tasting.
Mix thoroughly until the ricotta has broken down completely and the ingredients have formed a thick cream. You may need to beat the mixture a little to make it smoother.
Taste and add more sugar if necessary.
Divide the mixture between the ramekins and tap to distribute evenly.
Sprinkle lemon zest over each dish.

Cover with clingfilm and chill for at least half an hour.

The cheesecakes will last 2-3 days in the fridge.

With thanks to The Sauce for my Campania tasting box.

I’m submitting this post to Tea Time Treats run by Lavender and Lovage and What Kate Baked.

How To Make Walnut Brittle

17 Jan 2013 11 Responses »

Jan 172013

My original plan for January’s BSFIC challenge was a date ice cream, swirling date puree through Pedro Ximinez ice cream… I had these fabulous meltingly soft dates that I picked up from my local Turkish shop before Christmas and I knew they’d be perfect in ice cream. But I made an enormous batch of apple, date and ginger chutney earlier in the month (recipe coming soon) and, half way through cooking, decided it needed more dates, so ended up using the entire box. I know I could have bought another box especially for the ice cream, and in fact, I probably will buy some more while they’re available because they’re so bloody gorgeous. But in my mind, the spirit of this month’s BSFIC is about using leftover dried fruits or nuts, and whilst I don’t mind if others do that or buy them in especially, I wanted to use fruit or nuts I had in the house.

So Pete reminded me about the bag of French walnuts sitting in the airing cupboard, gathered from the grounds in my friend Ian’s Corrèze home, dried in the sun and delivered to me as a very kind gift last year. (Even better was the year we visited and gathered the precious nuts ourselves).

I asked friends for ideas on ice cream recipes using walnuts and was bombarded with delicious ideas including @TangoRaindrop’s Ben & Jerry inspired chunky monkey with frozen banana, double cream, chocolate and chopped walnuts and date and @Josordoni’s walnut ice cream. But my instant favourite was @Palate4Hire’s suggestion of candied walnuts and coffee. Since I adore coffee and walnut cake, this really made me salivate and had the benefit of sounding very simple to make too. A slug of rum from the drinks cupboard would complete the combination perfectly.

First step, make walnut brittle. Or candied walnuts. Whatever! The difference, as far as I can tell, is that for a brittle the nuts are not only enveloped in hard caramel, they are held together by it in a slab. Candied walnuts are also coated in melted sugar, but are loose from each other. And candied walnuts more often have other flavourings added too, I think.

Rather than following a recipe for walnut brittle, I decided to simply wing it, and to my delight, the results were perfect. I’m relieved that I wrote down the amounts I used so I can make it just the same next time.

How To Make Walnut Brittle

Ingredients
230 grams shelled walnuts
460 grams sugar
1 teaspoon salt

Note: You can adapt this to the weight of walnuts you have available. Weight your nuts, use double that amount of sugar, and adjust the amount of salt accordingly.

Method

Line a baking tray with a silicon baking sheet or a sheet of parchment paper.
Break the walnuts into small pieces, though take care not to crush them as you’re not trying to make powdered walnut!

In a large, heavy-based pan dry fry the walnut pieces for a minute or two to give them a slightly toasted flavour. Take care not to burn them. Remove to a bowl and set to one side.
Wipe the pan clean of walnut skin and then spread the sugar and salt evenly over the surface and heat over a medium flame. Don’t stir the sugar, just leave it alone to melt. Stirring tends to result in clumps that don’t melt evenly, as I remember all too well from previous caramelising efforts!
As soon as the sugar melts and takes on a rich golden brown colour, remove from the heat and stir in the walnuts. Work really quickly as the mixture will cool and harden fast and you need to distribute the walnuts evenly throughout the caramel.

Transfer the mixture onto your lined baking tray and spread it out quickly.
Leave it to harden.
Once set, break intro manageable pieces and store in an airtight container.

You may like to ask someone to hide the box from you so that you don’t eat the lot in one sitting.

Coming next, Coffee Rum & Walnut Brittle Ice Cream!

Mitarashi Dango

13 Jan 2013 3 Responses »

Jan 132013

Mitarashi Dango is a popular snack in Takayama. Sold by larger shops and tiny stalls, available hot or cold, this tasty skewered snack consists of sweet glutinous dumplings made from mochiko (rice flour) and basted in a sweet soy glaze. Miso and green tea versions are available, but the soy glazed one seemed most prevalent in Takayama.

These large, evenly-glazed beauties were just 100 Yen per skewer from a shop on Kokubunji Dori, just east of Kaji-bashi (bridge) and only a short stroll from our ryokan.

Even cheaper were smaller hot grilled skewers from the many stalls within the preserved historic districts of the old town area, though the cold ones here were probably my favourite. The staff at this shop were very friendly and helpful, explaining their many products. I also bought some delicious local pickles here, after tasting a sample.

A Quick & Easy Speculoos & Mascarpone Pancake Cake

20 Dec 2012 29 Responses »

Dec 202012

Whether you spell it speculoos (French and Flemish) or speculaas (Dutch), it’s utterly delicious and absolutely perfect for Christmas!

Speculoos are spiced shortcrust biscuits associated with the feast of Sinterklaas (Saint Nicholas) in early December. Made from flour, brown sugar and butter with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, cardamom and white pepper, they are a key taste of the Christmas season, though these days, they’re available all year round.

A few years ago, speculoos spread came into the market – all the familiar flavours of speculoos biscuits in a spreadable form. The texture is much like Nutella, the much-loved chocolate hazelnut spread; the best way to imagine the flavour, if you aren’t already familiar with speculoos biscuits, is caramel toffee with Christmas spices added.

When Abra-Ca-Debora got in touch to ask if I’d like to sample their ready-made Dutch pancakes, I knew immediately that I wanted to combine them with the jar of speculoos spread I brought back from our trip to Amsterdam earlier this year. To cut through the speculoos sweetness but not the richness, I chose mascarpone, which is equally rich and decadent.

The good news is that speculoos spread (known as Biscoff in North America) is now more readily available in the UK. Waitrose are currently stocking it, though it helps to know that they list it on their website as Lotus Biscuit Spread and the jars are labelled Caramelised Biscuit Spread, with no reference to speculoos.

The pancakes come in a sweet or savoury version, in packs of 6 and can be kept in the fridge for a few weeks, or frozen to store them longer term. They’re thicker than French crêpes but thinner than American and Scottish ones, perhaps 3 mm thick or thereabouts.

Ever since I first enjoyed a layered crêpe cake back in 2004 (in a tiny husband-and-wife restaurant in Knysna, South Africa, of all places) I’ve thought about making one myself. But whilst I can make crêpes, I only seem to do so once a year (can you guess the occasion?) and the thought of making the 30 or so evenly sized crêpes I’d need resulted in crêpe cakes being shelved every time the idea popped back into my head.

Not only would the Abra-Ca-Debora pancakes make such a dessert much quicker to make, I figured, they also looked more robust than their crêpe cousins, making them easier to spread and layer without tearing.

In the approach to Christmas, even more than other times of the year, I’m on the look out for dishes that are quick and delicious but impressive too. I think this one definitely fits the bill. All you need for my Speculoos & Mascarpone Pancake Cake are ready-made sweet Dutch pancakes, a jar of speculoos spread, two tubs of fresh mascarpone and a little icing sugar.

Although it’ll take a little time to spread and layer the pancakes, it’s simple to do and the result is, if I say so myself, magnificent!

Quick & Easy Speculoos & Mascarpone Pancake Cake

Ingredients
24 (4 packs) ready-made sweet Dutch pancakes
1 x 400 gram jar speculoos spread
500 grams fresh mascarpone
About 2 heaped tablespoons icing sugar, sieved

Method

Beat the mascarpone vigorously with a fork to loosen, and then beat in about two heaped tablespoons of sieved icing sugar. The aim is to add only enough to remove the savoury edge from the mascarpone, but not enough to properly sweeten it, as the speculoos spread is very sweet.

The speculoos spread is too solid to spread onto the pancakes straight out of the jar so spoon some into a mixing bowl and beat vigorously with a fork to loosen. Repeat this as and when you need more speculoos spread.

Evenly spread a thin layer of speculoos spread over a pancake and transfer onto a large flat plate, spread-side up. I found it easiest to spread onto the paler side of the Abra-Ca-Deborah pancakes, as it was more evenly smooth.

On the next pancake, spread a layer of sweetened mascarpone, and place the pancake carefully on top of the previous one. Take care, as the speculoos spread is sticky, so it’s difficult to lift and re-lay the pancake if you place it incorrectly.

Repeat in alternating layers to build up the cake.

Top the finished stack with a plain pancake, prettiest side up. Eagle-eyed pancake-counters will realise that, as I finished with a mascarpone pancake topped by a plain one, I only used 23 pancakes, not 24! Yes, I ate one whilst working. :-)

Before serving, sieve some icing sugar over the top.I cut out a star shape from paper and placed it on top before sprinkling but because it wasn’t flat to the pancake, when I lifted it away, the outline was fuzzy, so I gave up on the idea and filled in the space with more sugar. And don’t sprinkle the sugar in advance of serving, as it melts into the surface of the pancake and disappears, as we discovered after carrying the cake with us to a friend’s place!

Use a large sharp knife to cut into thin wedges to serve.The cake is very dense and rich (and delicious), so a small slice per person is plenty. We ate a quarter of it between four adults (after a generous dinner). The whole cake would feed 10-15 people, easily.

Pete’s driving was non-too gentle – not completely his fault, to be fair, as there were some real morons on the road that evening – so the top half of the cake had slid to one side during the journey. It wasn’t difficult to push and pull it back upright again, though it wasn’t quite as neat as before. If you want to transport it, it may be worth finding a cake tin of similar diameter, and placing it upside down over the pancake cake.

Do you think using ready-made pancakes is a cheat too far? What fillings would you choose for a pancake cake? And what are your favourite speculoos spread recipes?

As Speculoos is all about delicious Christmas spices, I’m submitting this post to the We Should Cocoa Christmas Special (Cinnamon) challenge on Chocolate Log Blog and Alphabakes December challenge on The More Than Occasional Baker… S for Speculoos! As I ate the leftovers for a very satisfying breakfast, I’ve also been asked to add it to Breakfast Club, which has a theme of brunch (this would be great for a late coffee morning breakfast) and is hosted by Bangers & Mash.

Kavey Eats received a sample of pancakes from Abra-Ca-Deborah.

Gooseberry Cobbler: First Attempt!

11 Aug 2012 6 Responses »

Aug 112012

I’ve not really eaten gooseberries much. I’d never had one raw before, and had only rarely tasted them in desserts such as gooseberry fool. And I’d not been too enamoured with them on those occasions.

Pete’s always been a fan, though.

We inherited a few bushes on our allotment, though they didn’t produce any fruit last year. We figured that could be down to a lack of pruning for the last few years, and Pete pruned them hard last autumn. It worked, and this year I picked berries from three bushes, a mix of smooth red dessert ones and hairy green ones.

I tasted a dark red one whilst picking and, whilst I can’t say they’ll become a favourite fruit for me, it was alright!

I’d never prepped or cooked gooseberries before. Goodness, doesn’t topping and tailing them take time?!

And I’d never made a cobbler before either.

This wasn’t a bad first attempt, though there’s room for improvement: Worried the gooseberries were about to catch, I added a tablespoon of water to the pot, but not long after, the berries finally broke down a bit and dumped their liquid, so the finished fruit compote was a bit wet.

Loosely referring to a few different recipes on the web, I estimated the amount of topping according to the volume of fruit. But as we used a pan that allowed them to spread out into a fairly thin layer, we could actually have done with a little more topping. It does expand on cooking, of course, as you can see from the photographs. Scale the compote and topping recipes up or down separately, as you think best.

Gooseberry Cobbler

Ingredients for gooseberry compote

400 grams topped and tailed gooseberries
50 grams caster sugar
0.5 teaspoon powdered ginger

Ingredients for cobbler topping

70 grams plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch salt
15 grams butter
30 grams demerara sugar, divided into 2 equal portions
70 ml buttermilk

Preheat oven to 180 C (fan).
Combine compote ingredients in a pan and cook until berries have broken down and softened a little and sugar is fully dissolved in the juices.

Transfer to a suitable baking dish.

To make the cobbler topping, mix the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl.
Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
Stir in one of the portions of sugar.
Add the buttermilk and mix into a dough. It’ll be pretty soft and sticky.

Gently drop spoonfuls of the dough onto the surface of the compote.

Sprinkle the remaining sugar over the topping.

Bake for about 25 minutes, until the cobbler topping is golden brown.

Serve hot.

Avocado Ice Cream

17 Jun 2012 26 Responses »

Jun 172012

Where once I might have got most of my inspiration from cookery books, food magazines and even the telly, these days a lot comes from online content. Not just other food blogs (of which I read hundreds and hundreds) but also twitter and, lately, Pinterest.

I was intrigued by the avocado and coconut sorbet my friend Uyen shared in May; she explained that avocado is often used in sweet desserts in Vietnam and that was the first time I ever entertained such an idea. After that, I seemed to spot avocado ice creams everywhere, and pinned this one from The Hill Country Cook blog to try myself.

The avocado tree, native to Central Mexico, is part of the laurel family – as are the trees from which we take cinnamon and camphor – and has a long history of cultivation in central and South America. The fruits, which are actually large berries with a single stone in each, contain soft green flesh which is high in monounsaturated fat.

The word avocado comes from the Spanish aguacate which in turn comes from the Nahuatl word ahuácatl, meaning testicle, in reference to the shape of the fruit. The modern English name of avocado was taken from the Spanish word for advocate, a way of obscuring the meaning of the original Mexican name. Interestingly, in India and parts of China it is referred to as the butter fruit, presumably because of it’s fattiness.

I followed Katie’s recipe almost exactly, though as the avocados I found were small, I used 5 instead of 3.

This is the first time I’ve ever had avocado in a sweet format. Although it’s quite unusual I really, really like the result!

The high fat content of the avocado makes for a wonderfully creamy and smooth ice cream. Although it freezes really hard, dipping the ice cream scoop in a mug of hot water helps carve servings from the tub and it’s instantly smooth in the mouth.

Avocado Ice Cream

Ingredients
5 small avocados
Juice of 1 lemon
1 cup double cream
3 cups whole milk
1.5 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Measure out the cream, milk, sugar, vanilla extract and lemon juice into a blender.

Halve the avocados, remove the stones and scoop flesh out and add it to other ingredients.

Blend until completely smooth.

Pour into an ice cream machine and churn until frozen.
Serve immediately or transfer to the freezer to solidify further.

As you can see, I retained the avocado skins and used them for serving. If you would like to do this, make sure you scrape out every last scrap of flesh and wash thoroughly. Stuff the skins with balls of foil to help them retain their shape as they dry and on the draining board. My skins were washed and dried just after I made the ice cream and I used them as serving bowls two days later.

This is my entry for June’s Bloggers Scream For Ice Cream. Don’t forget there’s a great prize on offer this month!

Petra’s Honey Bread from Leon’s Baking & Puddings

09 Jun 2012 4 Responses »

Jun 092012

The design of the Leon cookery books isn’t for everyone; I’ve seen some comments from those who don’t take to the look of the books at all. But I love the vibrant, light-hearted, quirky, personal and fun-loving approach that is epitomised in the styling and flicking through any of the Leon books always makes me smile.

Book 3, Leon: Baking & Puddings, full of sweet and baked treats, is more of a step away from what the restaurant is best known for. As is always the way with the Leon team, the book turns to friends and family members for inspiration and recipes.

The one we chose to make was Petra’s Honey Bread, a recipe from Leon founder Henry Dimbleby’s mother-in-law. Described as a “tea bread”, it’s basically a loaf cake that is perfect for anytime snacking.

I was really surprised by how the honey and lemon zest combined to create a flavour that was reminiscent of ginger bread, though we’d added no spices at all to the mix.

Henry suggests serving the cake thinly sliced and buttered. We had it plain, which was excellent, and with thickly spread salted Isigny butter – heaven!

We learned during and after making the recipe that there are two errors in it. The first is simply that one of the ingredients is not mentioned in the instructions, though we easily decided where to insert it. The second is that the volume of water should be 150 ml rather than the 250 ml stated. We used all 250 ml and, although the cake batter was quite a runny one, the cake came out very well. However a friend mentioned that she’s made the recipe three times without success, and this may well be why.

I was worried that our experience might suggest a lack of accuracy in other recipes in the book, but have been assured by the lovely Henry Dimbleby that, as far as they are aware, this recipe is the only one with mistakes in it. If you have discovered any others please let me know, and drop a note to the folks at Leon too.

Petra’s Honey Bread

Ingredients
225 grams plain flour
115 grams caster sugar
115 grams honey
150 ml hot water
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
zest of 1 lemon

Method

Preheat the oven to 160 C.
Butter a 450 gram/ 1 lb loaf tin and line with baking paper.
Mix together the flour and sugar in a large bowl.

In a small pan melt together the honey and the water. Remove from the heat.
Add the lemon zest and bicarbonate of soda to the honey water mixture and stir.

Pour the liquid over the dry ingredients and mix until incorporated.

Turn the mixture into the prepared tin and bake in the oven for 50-60 minutes.
Remove from the tin and allow to cool.

This was an absolutely delicious recipe, and one we’ll make again.

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