Mini Chocolate Blueberry Cakes

Sugar & Crumbs, a maker of flavoured icing sugar, recently sent me a few samples to try, including a tiny amount of blueberry flavoured buttercream. When I saw that the chosen ingredient for We Should Cocoa this month is blueberries, I decided to order a bag of the icing sugar and incorporate that into a recipe.

A little while ago I was in a café and saw some really cute stacked cakes that were like mini Victoria sponges, but cupcake sized. I thought these would be fun to make for a barbecue when I had some friends over including a vegan so found one of my most successful vegan chocolate cake recipes so far, which you can find here.

I baked them as cupcakes, and when they had cooled carefully sliced off the top of the cupcake as it was domed, so I had several flat discs of cake.

I made up the icing which just involves mixing the icing with softened butter but I used vegan margarine; the flavoured icing sugar itself is suitable for vegans. It has a lovely blueberry taste but I decided I wanted it to be blue in colour as well so added a few drops of food colouring.



I then used some of the buttercream to sandwich the cakes together and placed a circle of fresh blueberries on the icing in the middle of the cakes. It did make the cakes a little hard to keep upright though! I decorated some of them with blueberries on top as well but as the cakes were in danger of falling over decided not to do it on all of them!

I'm sending this to We Should Cocoa, hosted by Choclette of Tin and Thyme, as the chosen ingredient this month is blueberry.

I'm also sharing these with Tea Time Treats, hosted by Karen at Lavender and Lovage and Jane at the Hedgecombers as I made these for a barbecue which is their theme this month.

For the same reason I'm sending this to Treat Petite, hosted by Stuart at Cakeyboi and Kat aka the Baking Explorer as their theme is summertime.

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Meal Planning Monday - week 30

Monday
spaghetti bolognese

Tuesday
BBQ: sausages

Wednesday
Boyfriend at his mum's so home by myself: fish and vegetables

Thursday
Sharknado 3 premier! TV dinner of chicken curry

Friday
fish/chicken and chips

Saturday
Lunch: Langos like this
Dinner: BBQ: poussin for me (if I can work out how to barbecue it!); he will probably just want burgers and sausages

Sunday
Lunch: Out at a car show. May take picnic.
Dinner: Something from the freezer - not sure what time we will be back

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Quick recipes for a mid-week barbecue

Now that we’ve got a gas barbecue it’s really easy to come home midweek and grill something for dinner outside. And since we spent quite a lot on a very good Weber barbecue I want to make sure we get enough use out of it!

 

When it’s 7pm before you even walk in the door from work, you don’t want to spend too long fussing around with recipes. And marinating something the day before requires too much forward planning – the beauty of a gas barbecue is you can decide on the spur of the moment to fire it up if the weather is nice. Even if you have a traditional coal barbecue and are grilling at the weekend, you don’t always want to spend all day preparing a selection of dishes. So here are some easy, speedy ideas for a quick barbecue.

 

The meat

Stating the obvious but for me there’s nothing like a sausage on the Barbie. They are quick to cook – Richmond’s work really well, just make sure you don’t buy the skinless variety as they don’t barbecue so well. You can keep a selection of condiments in the fridge (ketchup, mustard, BBQ sauce, Nando’s sauce) and even buy pre-cooked crispy onions from the supermarket.

 

Lamb: these minted lamb chops from Asda were gorgeous on the barbecue

http://ift.tt/1TKHKWb

 

Chicken: I find chicken skewers, with small pieces of poultry, dry out quite quickly and are easy to overcook. Chicken mini-fillets are a bit too small and fiddly; we tried these garlic and herb chicken steaks from Asda recently which cooked to perfection. The easiest cut to cook is something large and flat.

http://ift.tt/1Mj2nrv

 

 

Fish

A whole fish looks gorgeous on the barbecue, only takes a few minutes and tastes delicious, like this one I made earlier:

Prawns are very quick on the barbecue - simply thread onto a skewer. You could brush them with sweet chilli sauce or just leave them plain.

 

Tuna steaks barbecue really well as it’s a robust, solid fish, and you don’t need to marinade them the day before to get a nice flavour.

I made this recipe from the Weber website for tuna with a salmoriglio sauce which was delicious.

 

 

Potatoes
I like having some form of potato with my barbecue, whether that's potato salad or a jacket potato but that takes too long to cook midweek. So instead these microwave jacket potatoes from McCain work really well - they take 2 mins in the microwave and then you can wrap them in foil and finish them off on the BBQ. Add some cheese, sour cream or butter and they are perfect.

Vegetarian/Vegan
There are plenty of vegetarian burgers and sausages available, some - but not all - of which are vegan. I recently bought some Linda McCartney mushroom and spinach burgers for a vegan friend which she said were lovely and made a nice change from meat-style veggie burgers.

It's also pretty quick to make some veggie kebabs by simply chopping veg and threading onto skewers. A couple of things to note: if you are using wooden skewers, soak them in water first to prevent burning. Also, if you marinade the vegetables they taste much nicer and if you use an oil-based marinade they won't stick to the grill. I mixed some cayenne pepper into olive oil and tossed my veg pieces in that before threading them onto the skewer which worked well. They don't take long to cook on the barbecue though you will have to turn them a couple of times.

 

Bread

I’d never really thought about barbecuing bread before until I came across this recipe from the Weber website.

 

Looking for quick and easy recipes meant I wasn’t about to start making my own bread, so bought a loaf of sourdough from the supermarket and was going to make the blue cheese walnut spread, but couldn’t find any walnuts in my larder – so used what I did have. I thought the slightly waxy texture of pine nuts would go well with the cheese. It’s really quick to make – I used Gorgonzola, which is a soft blue cheese, so I just creamed it together with the butter and used garlic puree again for speed. Add the lemon juice, pepper, parsley and pine nuts, and you have a delicious spread.

 

I sliced the loaf and placed a few slices on the barbecue as the heat was dying down and grilled it for a few minutes. The result was a lightly toasted piece of bread that was still lovely and soft inside; the warmth meant the spread melted every so slightly but not too much. It was delicious and is a side dish I will definitely be making again.

Snacks
It's also a good idea to have a few nibbles on hand for hungry people while the food is cooking - even if the food is pretty quick! These new snacks from Ritz are like crisps but made from baked crackers. They are called Ritz Crisp & Thin and come in four delicious flavours: cream cheese & onion, sea salt & vinegar, sea salt & black pepper and sweet red chilli. The sharing bags are particularly good for barbecues.

 Thanks to Mondelez International for the Ritz snacks

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Huevos Rancheros - Mexican breakast eggs

Translating as "rancher's eggs" this is a popular Mexican breakfast dish, though not one that I actually managed to eat while we were in Mexico! Because of that I decided to make it as a light lunch/brunch after we came back. I found this Food Network Jamie Oliver recipe but adapted it to make it quicker - rather than make my own tomato sauce I used passata from a box. I'm also not a fan of fried eggs so I decided to make this with poached eggs instead and it was really nice. I also forgot the cheese on top!

Here's how to make my speedy version. To serve 2:
1/4 onion, diced
100g diced chorizo
oil for frying
2 flour tortillas
2 eggs
8 tbsp. passata
fresh coriander to serve

Fry the onion and chorizo in a large frying pan until cooked through then add the passata and heat. Meanwhile poach the eggs.

In another frying pan, heat a little oil and fry the tortillas for a minute each on each side. Place an egg on each tortilla on a plate and top with the chorizo and passata mixture. Top with a little chopped coriander.

 

I'm sending this to Simply Eggcellent, hosted by Dom at Belleau Kitchen; this month he's asking 'how do you like your eggs in the morning?'

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Restaurant Reviews - Mexico Part 1

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Chocolate Milk Ice Cream Lollies

I never seem to have enough freezer space to make ice cream, and while I do have some ice lolly moulds I have no idea where they've gone since I moved house. I was browsing on Ebay and found a cute little plastic mould for chocolate lollies in the shape of cows (my boyfriend's last name is Cowe so I have a bit of a thing for cows!).

I didn't want to make ice lollies as I don't particularly like them and these moulds weren't really big enough, and I remembered eating "mini milk" ice creams as a child; so I knew there must be recipes for milk-based lollies out there and had a look online. I adapted one I found on the Telegraph website as the quantities were far too great and it also said to add sugar which I thought was a bit odd.

The quantities of milk, cream and chocolate were:
500ml whole milk
250ml double cram
150g dark chocolate

I scaled it down and used two parts milk to one part cream and used about 3 tbsp. milk and 6 tbsp. cream, but I used a lot more chocolate with it - about 60g. I used milk chocolate which is sweeter than plain anyway so didn't add any extra sugar.

I put the milk and cream into a pan and brought them to a simmer, then stirred in the chocolate until it had melted. Allow to cool enough that you can pour into the moulds.

Place cake pop or lolly sticks into the mould - mine actually had gaps for them and though I had to trim the length of the sticks, they otherwise fit well. I poured in the chocolate and placed them in the freezer overnight to set.

I was a bit worried from the outset that the mould - which I paid £6 for including postage - was rigid rather than silicon and that it would be hard to get the ice creams out. Which proved to be the case - one lost its head, one broke into several pieces and one came out perfectly only minus the stick!

These tasted nice - very chocolatey but like ice cream - so I think the recipe is good, but the mould wasn't very easy to use. I might try making chocolates in the moulds but I don't think it will be much easier.

 

 I'm sending this to Bloggers Scream for Ice Cream hosted by Kavey Eats, as the theme this month is ice lollies. While these aren't made with water I think they still count!

 

 

 

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Banoffee Cheesecake with a Cornflake Base

It all started with a basket of fruit that we were sent at work. By the end of the week, there were a couple of bananas left that were going really soft. I was the last person in the office on the Friday (sigh) so thought I may as well take them home as they would only be thrown away otherwise - even though I don't like bananas! A few of my boyfriend's family were coming to our house at the weekend for an informal barbecue and I wanted to make dessert; I knew they liked bananas even though I didn't so I thought this would be a good way to use them up. Though I don't think the person who sent the healthy fruit basket necessarily expected the fruit to end up in a sugary dessert - we did eat the rest of the fruit whole!

I remembered that I had bought some cornflakes at Easter to make chocolate cornflake cakes and it had been a massive box. I'm not a big fan of cereal anyway and find cornflakes very plain so most of the box was left. I wondered idly whether you could use cornflakes as a base for cheesecake rather than crushed biscuits - and it turns out you can!

I used this recipe from RTE Food but I had to almost double the amount of cornflakes as it wasn't anywhere near enough to cover the base of the glass-bottomed pie dish I was using.

To serve 8, you need:
2 bananas
100g chocolate, melted
300g cornflakes
100g caster sugar
100g butter
100ml double cream
400g soft cheese
50g icing sugar
dash of vanilla extract

Melt the chocolate and mix with the cornflakes in a large bowl. Press down the cornflakes into the base of the serving dish and place in the fridge for half an hour to set.

 Heat the butter and sugar in a pan until the sugar has dissolved and carefully place the peeled bananas sliced in half into the pan. Bring to the boil and turn the bananas occasionally until they are caramelised.

Remove the bananas to a plate with a slotted spoon. Keep the caramel over the lowest heat until you are ready to use it otherwise it will start to set hard.

Mix the soft cheese, cream and vanilla and icing sugar and spoon onto the cornflake base.

Slice the banana and place over the top of the cheesecake then drizzle over the toffee sauce.

This was a delicious cheesecake (though I took the banana pieces off mine!) but it doesn't keep long - the cornflake base started to go soggy after the second day. It won't be sitting in our fridge for long I expect anyway!

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Mini Lemon Meringue Tarts

I love lemon meringue pie and these tarts are a great little twist – they are bite-sized, quick to make and would be lovely for afternoon tea. I made them when we had friends dropping by a few weekends ago. I used shop-bought lemon curd though you can make your own; for me though the great thing about these are that they are so quick to make.

  

To make about 8, you need:

225g plain flour plus extra for flouring the work surface

110g butter

80g caster sugar

1 egg

8-16 tbsp lemon curd (about half a large jar)

4 egg whites (I used Two Chicks egg white that comes in a carton so I didn’t have yolks to use up)

100g caster sugar

Preheat the oven to 180C.

In a bowl, cream together the flour and butter then work in the caster sugar and egg until you have a dough. Knead on a lightly floured work surface and roll out. Cut out small rounds with a circular cutter, and place in a greased muffin tin. This is the base of the tart; cut a strip of dough and place this around the side of the muffin hole, and press together with the base piece so they are joined. Alternatively if you have a big enough cutter, cut a circle that is large enough to place into the muffin tin so that as well as covering the bottom, it comes up the sides.

Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes depending on the thickness of your pastry. When cool, place 1-2 tbsp lemon curd inside each pastry case.

Beat the egg whites until stiff and gradually add the sugar; continue beating until thick and glossy. Spoon the meringue onto the top of each tart.

You can then either brown these under the grill or use a cook’s blowtorch as I did, to caramelize the top. Allow to cool before eating.

I'm sending these to the Pastry Challenge, hosted by Jen's Food; this month she is looking for pastry-based recipes that are quick to make.

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Meal Planning Monday - week 29

I’ve finished my cake decorating class – the first couple of sessions were great, then I had to miss a few due to holiday and work, then the final few were a bit disappointing in terms of what we covered, but that was always the risk joining a class aimed at all levels (everyone else was a beginner). Even so, I have signed up for another course next academic year starting in September – at least it was meant to start in September, they already called me to tell me that the tutor can no longer do the first few weeks so it’s now  a 5-week course starting in November! Let’s just hope they don’t cancel the course entirely like that particular college has for the last two courses I signed up on.

Anyway, what it means is that Monday nights are my own again – no more rushing out of work and eating a sandwich in the classroom for my dinner! I do enjoy the evening classes but it will be nice to have a bit more time at home. This week I’m not doing much at all but am having a big barbecue/baby shower (for a friend, not for me!) at the weekend. But I've just seen the weather forecast for this weekend and I think we might be eating indoors!

Monday

Lunch: sandwich as I will be on conference calls

Dinner: pizza as we're going to start having a games night - we have all these expensive Xbox games we never play so now that I've finished my cake decorating class, Monday night is games night!

Tuesday

Lunch: watermelon and prawn salad from this recipe

Dinner: BBQ: sausage and kofta kebabs for him, salmon for me based on this recipe followed by grilled fruit and marshmallows from this recipe

Wednesday

Lunch: sandwich or salad

Dinner: My boyfriend is going for dinner at his mum's so I will have some pasta and make extra for lunch tomorrow

Thursday

Lunch: pasta

Dinner: chicken fajitas

Friday:

Working from home – car being serviced

Lunch: salad

Dinner: salmon en croute for me and chicken pie for him

Saturday

Lunch: bacon sandwich to win over my boyfriend as he will have a houseful of my friends this weekend

Dinner: barbecue with my friends

Sunday

Lunch: with my friends who stayed over

Dinner: barbecue leftovers

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F1 Foods UK roundup and the next challenge: Hungary

The latest Formula 1 Grand Prix took place in the UK at Silverstone and was a home-ground victory for Briton Lewis Hamilton who drives for Mercedes. I invited bloggers to send in their British recipes in honour of the race but my challenge wasn't particularly well publicised so there were only three entries.

I made a cake inspired by one of my favourite summer drinks, Pimm's. I filled the cake with fresh cream and decorated it with the fruits you usually get in a pitcher of Pimm's and lemonade.

Suelle at Mainly Baking made these gooseberry and hazelnut slices, after deciding upon gooseberries as a very British fruit and found a recipe that would keep for a bit longer in the hot weather we've been having.

Finally a pork pie from Jane at Onions and Paper. I had a picnic today and thought these would be great but didn't have the courage to try making one as they seem pretty hard! I'm very impressed with the way Jane's turned out.

The next Formula 1 Grand Prix takes place in Budapest, Hungary, on July 24-26. So I'm opening the linky now and leaving it open until August 12th. So that's a whole month to find a recipe - I expect you will all be searching the internet for inspiration for this month's challenge!

');

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Utah Scones - a different take on doughnuts?

The letter that Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker has chosen for Alphabakes this month is a bit challenging - U. This is the second time through the alphabet in the blogging challenge which I co-host with Ros, and last time around I thought quite creatively and made this Umbongo cake from a recipe I devised myself, which I was really pleased with.

This time my mind went to Utah and my United Cakes of America cookery book, which I haven't used for a little while. I visited Utah as part of a US road trip in 2012 and ate some lovely food. The cookery book didn't let me down with a recipe for Utah Scones - these are pretty different to English scones as they are deep-fried. The book said they were similar to what people call "frybread" elsewhere in the US; as part of the same trip I ate Navajo fry bread in Arizona and these did remind me a bit of that, but they also reminded me of churros (only more dough-y) and also a little like doughnuts. You need to make the dough the day before you want it and be very careful when you are deep frying but otherwise these are pretty easy and taste really good with the recommended honey butter; my boyfriend had them with chocolate sauce and loved them.

This recipe makes about 24 so I'd recommend halving the quantities, though I didn't.
You need:

2 cups buttermilk
7g dried yeast
2 tbsp. warm water
5 cups plain flour
1 tbsp. vegetable oil plus extra for deep frying
1 tbsp. caster sugar
2 eggs
1.5 tsp baking powder

to serve: optional-
softened butter, runny honey
icing sugar
chocolate sauce

Dissolve the yeast in a small bowl with the warm water and leave for ten minutes.

Meanwhile warm the buttermilk and place in a large bowl (or stand mixer if you have one) with all the other ingredients apart from the optional serving suggestions. Add the yeast and water and beat everything together until you have a stiff dough.

Roll the dough out onto a flat baking tray, cover with a clean tea-towel and leave to prove in a warm place for about 30 minutes.

 

 

Punch down the dough, cover with clingfilm and refrigerate overnight.

 

When you are ready to cook the dough, cut into wide strips and then cut the strips into triangles.

Heat about 1 inch of oil in a frying pan and when the oil is hot, using tongs carefully place the triangles into the oil. Allow to bubble and cook on each side for a few minutes until browned, then carefully turn over and brown on the other side.

Remove from the oil with tongs or a fish slice and drain on kitchen paper. Sprinkle with icing sugar, or serve with honey butter (beat softened butter with runny honey to taste) or chocolate sauce.

These are pretty filling and definitely more of an occasional treat but I'm glad I discovered them!

I'm sending this to Alphabakes, hosted by Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker, as the letter this month is U.

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