Nigella’s.

I came across the recipe when looking for muffins that would be similar to those from M&S I used to buy, the lemon and white chocolate ones.  This recipe appealed to me a lot, the addition of raspberries unplanned, but I had some frozen, so why not indeed.

60 g of melted butter, 200 g of plain flour, 2 tsps of baking powder, 0,5 tsp of baking soda, 130 g of sugar, a pinch of salt.  Nigella’s recipe called for a zest and juice of 1 lemon, I used the zest as asked, but instead of the juice I used 3 tbps of yuzu.  Then about 120 ml of milk, 1 beaten egg. A good handful of chopped white chocolate chips.Dry ingredients mixed with all wet ingredients, only just mixed till combined, I actually used a KA bowl and a spatula.  150 g of frozen raspberries thrown at the end.

Filled the muffin cases, 11 of them, baked in 200 degrees for about 20-22 minutes.  Finished with a little smear of melted white chocolate and yuzu juice. Florian just had 4 and that’s having had pizza for dinner. Therefore good! 🙂

We were supposed to have guests this weekend, but the guests cancelled, so I changed my Ocado shopping list, got rid of some items, added some other and decided to make these, recent from Dorota’s mojewypieki.com.  When it comes to macaroons I do prefer the fruity ones, the lemon, blackcurrant flavours of the filling against sweet meringue, but one has to try things.

I had a little help with preparing the nuts-

The macaroons are made the same way as always, only not with ground almonds, but with finely ground peanuts.  They smelled great in the oven and I was also extra careful not to overmix the Italian meringue with the nuts. Experience now shows that makes them spill and crack in the oven- very frustrating to watch.

There are 2 fillings; chocolate ganache, made of 150 ml of double cream, hot, 150 g of dark chocolate melted in it, excellent, I must say. Not too bitter and once cooled, nice and easy to pipe onto the macaroons.

Then the caramel one. I used the Bonne Maman Caramel spread, 130g  of it mixed with 250 g packet of mascarpone. This one didn’t make me sing. It took quite some time to cool it, but it still spilled out. And when tasting the ready macaroons I decided I’m not getting much of the caramel, so I nuked a bit of the caramel spread in the microwave and drizzled some over the top.

They are lovely. Decadent. Nutty. Sweet, but not sickly. Happy me. 🙂

There’s got to be something sweet baked for the weekend, so I dug deep into mojewypieki.com again and picked this little gem. Good apple pie is never bad, as written before, provided it’s a real deal. The apples here are covered under a sweet duvet of budyn, only made with a bit less milk than the packet suggests.

Shortcrust pastry; 225 g of plain flour, 125 g of butter, 1 egg, 1 yolk, 4 tbsps of icing sugar, 0,5 tsp of baking powder and 1 tbsp of cream, all mixed into a dough, which divided into 2 went to the fridge and freezer respectively.  In the meantime I got my apples ready, not the most awesome apples on earth, just cheapish Co-Op stuff. Lots of sugar, lots of cinnamon, some raisins.

Budyn cooked with 375 ml of milk, not 0.5 litre, as the packet suggests, 2 tbsps of sugar and a touch of vanilla paste added.

The pastry from the fridge went on the bottom of my small, square tray, prebaked for a few minutes, a little sprinkle of breadcrumbs to get the moisture from the apples on the bottom. Apples in, budyn on top. The dough from the freezer onto the budyn, grated on the rough end of the grater. Also added a sprinkle of chopped hazelnuts and baked in 200 degrees for about 35 minutes.

If I were a posh Brit I’d say I rather liked it. 🙂

An intense discussion has been ongoing between friends recently about different approach to healthy eating/fitness/weight loss and stuff.  Most of us, good food lovers would benefit from losing a kilo or two, I, for one, have a stomach that is far from flat. Florek could shed a good 10 kg.

Jana, fitness queen among us, who’s always done some sort of sport for most of her life and now enjoys great body and feels great for it, has suggested somebody’s recipe for an apple tart made of millet, instead of flour.  The idea Jana found interesting I found revolting. I’m all for health, but I refuse to compromise on taste and flavour, so instead of using freaky ingredients, I make half a portion of cake, but a good cake it is. Full of flavour.  Made with butter and flour.

Yesterday Florek treated me to a few pieces of nice baking equipment in Lakeland, including 2 new baking trays. The small square one is perfect for a midweek cake for 3 of us, I tested it today with a lemon drizzle cake, Mary Berry’s. If someone knows how to bake, it’s Mary.

Easy- all the ingredients into the bowl of the Kitchen Aid, worked a couple of minutes- into the oven. The ingredients are; 112 g of butter and caster sugar, 137 ish g of self raising flour, 1 tsp of baking powder, 2 whole eggs, 2 tbsps of milk and a zest of one lemon. That’s all. Into the prepared, lined tin and into the oven for 35 minutes in 180 degrees.

Once baked and slightly cooled, I made lots of little holes with a skewer, so that the lemon syrup went all the way down. The syrup is simply a juice of 1 lemon and about 80 g of sugar- yes, sounds mental, but it tastes great. Citrusy, light, flavoursome.

Another round of macaroons, this time with blackcurrants, which were not too easy to obtain in January. But I asked Robert, who grows them in his garden and then freezes them. He gave me some in summer, Izzie enjoyed vitamic C packet compots made of them. I offered to buy some off Rob, but he said I could have some and he’d just like some of whatever I’ll be baking with them. Pleasure doing business with this man!

Usual recipe for the macaroons, but they haven’t risen as much as I’d have liked. The curd however is freaking sensational.  250 g of frozen blackcurrants cooked quickly with 70 g of sugar, then sieved for smoothness. 2 egg yolks +2 eggs, lightly beaten added, 2 tbsps of creme de cassis, bought especially for this purpose from Ocado and 80 g of butter.  All this heated up slowly, stirred until thickened. Luckily it made more than I needed, I’m planning on baking more macaroons with this curd, it’s that good. Florian had about 5 after dinner, that’s before the dessert. 🙂

What a lovely way to finish the first dinner in New Year, in nice company ( Jimbo and Louise came over).

I saw it on telly, some Christmassy special with Mary Berry, saw it and I knew I’d have to try it. Bought a bottle of Grand Marnier, which won’t be wasted, as this cake will be done again.

First job, a large orange gets thinly sliced and then cooked for nearly 2 hours in a sugar syrup- 400 ml of water, 400 g of caster sugar, slowly and gently. After 2 hours the oranges are out and drained, 50 ml of Grand Marnier goes in and it’s set aside.

Next creme pat. 600 ml of milk warmed up with lots of vanilla paste. 4 eggs whipped with 100 g of sugar, then 60 g of flour added. Almost boiling milk goes into the eggs, lightly whipped, back onto the heat and constantly stirred, while it thickens. Transferred into a clean bowl and covered with cling film, cooled, chilled.

First time ever for me and a genoise sponge;50 g of melted butter, 4 eggs, 100 g of sugar, 100 g of plain flour. Eggs and sugar lovingly whipped till pale and fluffy, flour goes in, melted, cooled butter goes in. And then it bakes for about 25 minutes in 180 degrees.  I think the sponge is the only thing in the whole cake I could have done better, it could have risen a bit more.  When cooled I sliced it horizontally and cut round with the help of a plate.

300 ml of whipped cream is the next thing, whipped and happy to proceed, creme pat mixed in bit by bit.

Finally, the pretty bit. A large bowl lined with 2 layers of cling film, the sliced oranges arranged in a pretty way- this will be the top of the dome, when ready to serve. Onto the oranges goes half of the creme pat, nicely smoothed, then half of the sponge. The sponge then gets soaked with boozy sugar syrup. The other half of creme pat will have the remaining oranges, chopped finely and mixed in. I’m thinking maybe even an extra splash of Grand Marnier would not be a bad idea. That onto the sponge, the other half of the sponge on, syrup and then a heavy plate on top and to the fridge overnight.

It came out of the bowl without effort. Tastes rich, light, orangey and luxurious. Super pleased. 🙂

Aska brought one last weekend and I thought it was my favourite cake I’ve ever tasted that came out of her kitchen.  I immediately asked for the recipe, got it and got cracking.

It takes 150 g of butter, 100 g of blanched hazelnuts, 140 g of self raising flour, 100 g of sugar, 2 beaten eggs, 5 ripe conference pears and 50 g of chopped, dark chocolate.

While the oven warms up to 160 degrees, the tin is buttered and lined, the hazelnuts get ground till fairly fine. In goes the butter and the flour, till the mixture resembles crumbs. In goes sugar and eggs. 2 of the pears, peeled, cored and chopped- in, as well as chocolate. The mixture is unusually thick, needs to be worked with a fork. When in the tin and flattened, the remaining sliced pears go on top.  It bakes for about an hour, till firm.

Aska omitted the chocolate in her bake, I didn’t, I think it’s money, the whole cake reminds me of some decadent cocktail, maybe espresso martini with some Frangelico or hazelnut vodka.  Super nice.

I saw them being made on GBBO, obviously from scratch, puff pastry and all. I ordered the cute, metal horns from Amazon to make them with and today did, to have something sweet when my man comes home after 2 long weeks in Canada. I bought my puff though.

They were fun to make, to roll onto the horns, painted with egg yolk and baked till golden. When cold I piped in some vanilla whipped cream with fresh strawberries. I intended to dip the front in chocolate too, but forgot to buy chocolate. Next time I won’t forget, there will be plenty of next times, the horns are sheer delight.

Yup, they look like they’re ready for Halloween.  I admit, I didn’t do a great job mixing the food colourant with the rest of the ingredients, I wonder if kitchen aid would do a better job, only I wouldn’t be quite following the recipe. We’ll see. For now, we’re having tea and the scary macaroons stuffed with rhubarb filling. If I were to make improvements, I’d add more rhubarb, than the 280 g that I had. Experience now shows they taste best when the filling is sharp, lemon, yuzu kinda sharp, raspberries- the contrast with sweet almond cookie is then delightful. I made the filling with 280 g of chopped rhubarb, quickly cooked with 3 tbps of sugar till falling apart, then a packet of unsweetened budyn smietankowy mixed with 1/3 of a glass of water- in. All mixed together, nice, tasty, but a touch too sweet, this sharp contrast is missing today.

Still. Being eaten and quite quickly. 🙂

All my ambitious plans of flattening my stomach again are pointless. I love eating too much. I can’t just have 1 eclair, I have 3, with beautiful whipped vanilla cream and the coffee glaze dripping down my fingers. So much more pleasure than sweating on the floor with Ewa Chodakowska, hoping to lose 2 kg around the stomach. Sorry Ewa, eclairs 1, you- 0.

Eclairs were one of the challenges for the Bake Off contestants last Wednesday. Most of them were mixing plain flour with the strong one, hoping to make the choux more stable and drier. I tried that trick, I thought my choux was excellent, but whether it was due to that addition or not, not sure.

For the pastry I used 105g of flour, 30 g of which was  a strong one, 85 g of butter melted in 225 ml of water, a pinch of salt and 3 lightly beaten eggs. Until today I didn’t know I should really cool the flour/ butter/water mix before I add the eggs, now I know. The end result- smooth and shiny dough, ready for the piping bag.

I piped my eclairs quite small, that made me around 16 of them. The sight of eclairs rising in the oven is lovely, I was watching them with Izzie. One day I’ll teach her to bake with me.

They baked for about 25 minutes in 200 degrees, then I got them out of the oven, made a small hole in each and returned them in for another 4 minutes to dry them out.

When ready for dessert, I stuffed them with vanilla cream and finished with coffee glaze- just a double espresso with about 5 tbsps of icing sugar. Keeps nicely in the fridge, our eclairs are being enjoyed for 3 consecutive evenings. Yum.