Hugh’s, from the latest Waitrose magazine, that is normally full of poncey crap, but this time I found a few useful things in there.

4 nice apples, cored and chopped and peeled, slowly cooked in a melted butter and sugar mixture, with some cinnamon, left to cool a bit.

For the pie itself I creamed 150 g of butter with 125 g of sugar, 2 whole eggs, and then 75 g and same amount of ground almonds. This mixture I put into a tin layered with baking parchment and the apples went on top, with all their juices. It stayed in the oven for nearly an hour, in 170 degrees. Finished off with icing sugar, like Sniezka on Jana’s photos.

Inspired by a current series of Masterchef. I was just sitting and watching some telly boy making a rhubarb fool with biscuits, while my boeuf bourguignon was nearly done in the oven, my potatoes were nearly soft,   I was thinking – I need a dessert, it’s been a lovely, warm, sunny day off, we’ve had lunch at the river in Kingston, I need a nice finishing touch.

So I made some  nice, quick caramel, threw some chopped pears in, left them in for about 7 minutes and cooled them. I whipped the cream with icing sugar and vanilla paste, as usual, with a touch of lemon juice.  And layered  it all nicely, topped with toasted flaked almonds and some grated chocolate. Nice, very sweet, but nice.

I did make more Chinese tonight, nice beef stir fry, on the photo it looks too similar to the one I made last night, so will give it a miss, when it comes to blogging. I also baked a pear cake for dessert, simple recipe from Good Food, but the damn thing didn’t bake properly. It went to the bin, I got pissed off, thought for a minute and went back to the kitchen with a selection of vocabulary that helped me express the fact, that I wanted a dessert!! There were frozen berries, there was Ambrosia and all the other necessary ingredients, so a Berry Slump was made,  like in the original recipe, not with nectarines, with berries. Softened quickly in the pan with a splash of water and baked off under the mix of butter, self raising flour, sugar( all in the amount of 50 g), 2 eggs and vanilla paste, just as in the recipe months ago, lots of flaked almonds on top, 40 minutes in the medium hot oven. I ended up with a yummy sponge on a sour berries, with a lovely crunchy almonds on top. Simple, but lovely.

I spotted that recipe in one of last year’s editions of Good Food. I baked it this afternoon, it’s moist, springy, sweet and sticky and I love it.

First I prepared the tin, lined with the baking paper, in went about 4 spoons of maple syrup, then 3 ripe bananas, cut in half and placed down in the syrup, while the oven was heating up to 160 degrees ( gas 3).

For the cake itself I used 100 g of softened butter, one ripe banana, 200 g of light muscovado sugar, 4 eggs, some vanilla paste, 200 g of self raising flour, 100 g of ground almonds, 1 tsp of soda and a 200g pot of Greek yoghurt.

Butter, eggs, sugar, paste and banana got beaten up together, then in went flour, almonds and soda, yoghurt in the end. All this went onto the prepared bananas and baked for around an hour. When ready, I pricked the cake and poured some more maple syrup onto the little holes, then turned it upside down.

Very, very happy with the result.

Mum has brought me some good quality cheese for sernik, when she visited us in May. I froze it and only took it out last night thinking- sernik time. It was quite a tube, so I ended up making a large one to take to work tomorrow and 4 little ones for now, with wine. 🙂

The pastry base was Mum’s recipe, 100 g of plain flour, same amount of butter, 2 tbsp of icing sugar, 2 egg yolks, a tea spoon of baking powder and a good amount of cocoa powder. Blind baked was then filled with the mixture that was supposed to be as thick as good cream, Mum says.

In went the whole tub of sernik cheese, about half a glass of icing sugar, a teaspoon of vanilla paste, a dry budyn, 2 egg yolks, 1 egg, less than half a glass of plain sunflower oil. It was thick enough not to add any milk, although Mum says, about half a glass. All this well blitzed, poured into the ready trays and baked off for about 50 mins in 180 degrees.

When cooled and set I decorated it  a bit with some melted chocolate and butter mixture, just to make it a bit more pretty.

Yumminess from Hugh Fearnley- Whittingstall. Second time within 2 weeks I’m making it; last week for the boys at work to make up for the extra work I made them do when I screwed up a take away and pissed everyone off. Tomorrow I’m having another new culinary experience, I’m cooking a staff meal for us,never cooked a 15 men dinner in my life, surely it will require  some help, but nevertheless. The cake is coming along, as a dessert.

250 g of dark chocolate was melted with 250 g of butter.  4 egg yolks creamed with 200 g of sugar ( white and brown, just as Hugh suggests ) , egg whites whipped up. The chocolate and butter mix was added to the eggs, nicely mixed, 50 g of plain flour and same amount of ground almonds added in, and then, in bits, the egg whites. Topped with flaked almonds- my touch- and baked for 30 minutes in 170 degrees. Until just set, should be quite wobbly inside.

My second touch this evening, I sliced it in half and spread some lovely plum conserve by my Mum, just to make it a bit different. Two little ones are for us, the big one is for tomorrow.

Yes, another pannacotta, but as my lemon one was all eaten by The Chief on Monday morning (he said the flavours were good, but a bit too sweet), I was asked to try and make one with yuzu and if approved ….it might go on Dinings menu!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was given some yuzu juice and followed fucking Gordon’s recipe yet again, decreasing amount of sugar, replacing lemon juice with yuzu and skipping lemon zest. So for 7 little ones, I used 350 ml of double cream, 100 ml of milk, about 120 g of sugar and about 50ml of yuzu juice. And 2,5 gelatine leaves. Neither this one nor the lemon one wobbles like those Gabor makes at work, but Gosh, do they taste awesome!

Nothing to do with modesty, but I LOVE THIS ONE. I served with a very simple passion fruit sauce, it’s going to be tasted tomorrow by Nick and Masaki, but even if they decide not to use my recipe, I will do it again and again, I think it’s delicious. We’ve had 2 each tonight.

I saw these in the latest edition of Good Food and wanted to make them straight away. They reminded me of the little pistacchio financiers Gabby use to make in Ubon. She even gave me the recipe, but it included some mega posh pistacchio paste that could be obtained from confectioner’s shops, preferably in France, so I never made them. This recipe calls for no such nonsense, it’s nice and simple and the effect is nearly as good as Gabby’s. Hers were finer. 🙂

I melted 200 g of butter and let it cool slightly. The pistacchios were whizzed until fine, mixed with 85 g of ground almonds, same amount of plain flour and 200 g of icing sugar. I then added the melted butter and 5 egg whites that were slightly frothed with a fork. All nicely mixed together went into the piping bag – what a convenient and mess saving invention- and then into the silicone form especially obtained from TK Maxx for this purpose. I sprinkled the top with a bit of roughly chopped pistacchios as well, looks nice. They baked in 200 degrees for around 25 minutes each batch. I made about 30, we’re half way through them  and I’m glad they’re quite filling, cause I want to take a few to work tomorrow.

They’re lovely, soft in the middle and ever so slightly crunchy on top. Will definitely be made again!

That was the first recipe I saw in the new Good Food and planned on making it last week, but ran out of steam on Wednesday afternoon. Today though, having cleaned the house, done the laundry,  an enormous pile of ironing, cleaned up the garden and relaxed in it for half an hour with a glass of apple martini- there were no more excuses.

I started with the caramel, done it for the first time ever using an actual recipe, rather than chucking lots of sugar into the pan and hoping for it to work. 70 g of sugar plus 2tbsp of water got nicely melted on the pan and some bubbling and colour- changing later I had some lovely caramel, that I poured onto 4 ramekins and got to the custard.

I used 2 eggs and 1 egg yolk plus 50 g of sugar that got beaten up until nice and light and then I gradually poured 250 ml of hot milk while beating still. It needed straining, after which I added some Cointreau for extra flavour and some vanilla paste and finally poured onto the ramekins with caramel. I baked it in bain marie for 20 minutes in 130 Celsius, then cooled and chilled in the fridge for 4 hours.

Very happy with the texture, will be more generous with Cointreau next time.