Healthy Zucchini, Feta, Hummus and Tomato Pizza

So the main reason I blog, bake and photograph is too escape school and do something I actually like to do, also to escape homework and pathogenesis's theorem......                                                                                                                        

But in the holidays I didn't have to do much escaping from that so all was good. I have a few photos and posts lined up which I'll have get round to editing and writing at some point, so don't be confuzzled if I'm still posting summery recipes into autumn! 

This pizza reminds me of Italy: 1. because it's pizza and 2. Because it's green, white and red! Anyhoo I have a story to tell........  Meet Paul my baby courgette, he was massive! 

spiced parsnip and hazelnut cake with maple frosting

Wow, I can nae believe that it is the April already and Mr Spring seems to still be in hibernation after that delicious lemon and raspberry battenberg, grrrr....... 
Because of this I decided to give it another go with this spiced parsnip and hazelnut cake with maple and mascarpone frosting, it is bliss, or in my Mum's word 'heaven' (but that is a tad bias, you'll only know if you give it ago however). I was going to make a carrot cake with our amazingly moist and TRULY scrumptious recipe from 'cakes and bakes from my mother's kitchen' recipe book but I decided that I was a bit fed up of the famous carrot cake, time to break the mould! (Not literally it was still cake shaped as you can see). 

I mean don't get me wrong, I love carrots.... That's a lie, I don't really, they usually make me feel ill but: 1. everything tastes better in a cake and 2. any fruit or veg in a cake counts towards your 5 a day but in cake form, right? I don't like parsnips with my Sunday roast either and the reason for that is because I just find them too sweet to be having in a savoury dish so I thought this would work quite well. 
The cake is extremely moist, so moist that when trying to cut it for the photos it collapsed so I brought in a fork to help clean up, I kept in the spices from the carrot cake recipe so it has a nice warmth to it but definitely has a parsnip taste to it. If you choose not to make this cake though you must do one thing for me and that is to make this icing. It's from my all time ultimate, best tasting cake ever (I will have to write the recipe out one day when strawberries are in season because it tastes best with them, it's white choc and maple syrup cake) and is made mainly with mascarpone and maple syrup so is quite liquidy really so best left in the fridge to set a little once iced.

On with the cake!

Spiced Parsnip and Hazelnut cake 

with Maple frosting

cake

• 225 grams of self-raising 
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder (you need extra rising agents because the grated parsnip makes it hard for the cake to rise)
• 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg (or freshly grated)
• 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg
• 150 millilitres of sunflower oil
• 3 eggs
• 200 grams of light soft brown sugar
• 350 grams of grated parsnips (I used about 4 parsnips and grated them using the food processor after peeling because it's quick and I'm lazy!)
• zest of one orange
• 80 grams of roasted hazelnuts roughly chopped

the amazing maple frosting!

• 250 grams of mascarpone
• 3 tablespoons of maple syrup 
• 1 tablespoon of icing sugar

• a handful of chopped hazelnuts

1. preheat the oven to 180oC/ 350oF/ Gas mark 4 and grease and line a cake tin (I used a 22 centimetre one for this)
2. mixing the flour, baking powder and spices in a large bowl and make a well in the middle
3. in a separate bowl beat the eggs before adding the sugar and oil and mixing again until combined
4. add the liquid to the flour and mix well before adding the parsnip, zest and hazelnuts and mixing
5. pour the mix into the tin and bake for 50- 60 minutes 
6. leave to cool on a wire rack while making the frosting
7. put all the ingredients in a bowl and beat.... (that's it!)
8. pour the frosting over the cake (there's enough to cover the sides too if you want... or you could just eat it like I did)
9. sprinkle over the hazelnuts and eat!

This cake is best kept in the fridge and eaten in 3- 4 days

smoked mackerel dippy eggs

Smoked mackerel dippy eggs

Well I got quite busy with my Easter baking yesterday, after posting the sourdough recipe; I then went on to make hot cross buns and orange marmalade loaf. I wanted to make sour cherry and chocolate hot cross buns but my Mum didn't like the idea of starting the day off with chocolate so I settled for plain and used Paul Hollywood's recipe but added sour cherries and cranberries instead of sultanas and next time I'll be adding more cinnamon as I like them a little more spicy. I also made a marmalade loaf because when my parents made their stock of marmalade for the year they made a tad too much (we'll be using it until the 22nd century at this rate!) so I found this recipe. It ended up using quite a lot of marmalade and being quite orangey because I read the recipe wrong and put an extra 3 table spoons in the cake by mistake, tastes okay though.

Paul Hollywood definitely not chocolate buns

So anyway, on with the real recipe I'm going to post: smoked mackerel dippy eggs (or eggs en cocotte if you want to be posh/ french about it). I know I said yesterday at the end of my sourdough post this accompaniment to sourdough toast would have an Easter theme, and it does, to an extent. It uses eggs, chicks and chickens are Easter related so I figured it could be called Easter themed, also it uses nutmeg which is a spice. I absolutely love smoked mackerel, it's saltiness works great with the sour bread and this would be great to have for tea after a big Sunday dinner or for brunch if you're having a big Sunday tea.

Smoked mackerel dippy eggs (serves 4)

• butter to grease
• a bag of spinach
• a pinch of nutmeg
• 5 tablespoons of double cream
• smoked mackerel (about 2 slices)
• 4 eggs
• 4 medium tomatoes halved 
• 4 slices of sourdough

1. preheat the oven to 220oC/425oF/gas mark 7 and grease 4 ramekins with the butter
2. put the spinach in a pan with a little water and place over the heat until wilted. Stir in a tablespoon of double cream and a good pinch of nutmeg before splitting and putting some in the bottom of each ramekin
3. flake some of the smoked mackerel on top of the spinach (skin removed) try to leave it is fairly largish pieces
4. crack an egg on the top of each and put on the tomato halves before grinding on some black pepper (you won't need any salt because of the mackerel)
5. place in a bain marie in the oven for 12 minutes until the white is cooked but the yolk runny. While at the end of cooking remember to pop your sourdough in the toaster too!
6. carefully put the ramekins onto the plates, butter the toast and enjoy!

Smoked mackerel dippy eggs with sourdough toast

Simple sourdough

Today, well I started last night actually, I made my first sourdough loaf with Susan the sourdough starter (if I give her a name I remember to feed her!). 
I've made sourdough once before but I think I killed the starter before I baked the bread but I made it anyway, the result was a little flat and dense but tasted okay. I can safely say however that Susan is a great success! 

look at those air bubbles!

While baking her I thought it wasn't going too well though because after the first rise I expected the dough to have doubled in size, it hadn't and when I then knocked it back there was no air to knock out! It was just a huge gunky pile of goo which was virtually impossible to kneed and just had to be dumped in the proving basket without any shaping what soever. When I can back after the second rise this morning nothing seemed to have happened either but I guess there must be a sourdough fairy in our oven or something. 

I looked at a few different sourdough recipes in books and on the web and kinda just mushed them all together into the shortest recipe I could. I was going to use the white leaven recipe from the famous bread book from the award winning baker Dan Lepard but the recipe was absolutely ridiculous to me. I know sourdough is suppose to be a slow labour of love but his recipe took about a week of kneading, knocking, rising, proving. It said to go back every half hour and kneed for 10 seconds, are you serious? Who on earth has the Patience? (Dan Lepard obviously)

After this successful bake with Susan though she has safe and firm place in my heart. I can't wait to try out some more adventurous sourdough recipes, I have a few ideas for sourdough waffles, bagels, crumpets and maybe even hot cross buns! (if you hear no more on any of these ideas you can assume they were all complete failures).

Simple Sourdough 

• 300 ml of sourdough starter
• 500 g of plain white bread flour
• a good pinch of salt
• 350 ml of tepid water
• flour to sprinkle
• semolina to sprinkle

1. First of all mix the starter, flour, salt and about 300ml of water in a large bowl until it forms a dough. Sourdough dough should be really sticky so if it's quite dry or normal bread dough consistency you might want to add all the water (I did).
2. take out and kneed for 5- 10 minutes so it becomes smooth and elasticy before placing is a lightly oiled bowl, covered in a warm place for 2 hours
3. Prepare a basket lined with heavily floured muslin for the dough to prove in
4. this is where I expected my dough to have doubled but it hadn't changed size dramatically so don't be worried! Also it had become SUPER gooey and gunky. Kneed it again to knock the air out, I gave up after 5 minutes but maybe if you carried on it might form a smooth dough again (I am very lazy). Try to place it in the proving basket as best as you can, cover and leave to rise for 8- 12 hours (I left mine overnight because the longer the better). 
5. before baking preheat the oven to 220oC/ 425oF/gas mark 7. 
6. place a heavy baking sheet, or even better a pizza stone in the oven to put the bread on. Fill a roasting tin with about 1cm or less of water and place under the sheet to warm up, this will create steam so the bread will have a nice crust.
7. take the hot pizza stone out and turn the bread from the basket onto it. Dust with semolina, you might want to make a stencil from paper and dust with flour too, before slicing with your own pattern on the top with a sharp knife
8. place back in the oven for 35- 45 minutes until the crust is nice and brown. I found that the base didn't go solid and sound hollow because sourdough has quite a chewy texture.
9. take out and leave on a wire rack to cool before enjoying slathered in butter!

paper stencil 

Tomorrow I'm going to make a kinda Easter themed lunch/ brunch idea to have with sourdough toast because it really does make the best toast ever. I hope you have a nice holiday today and get making some sourdough starters!

Lemon and raspberry battenberg made with homemade lemon curd

As I've said in a previous post I really don't know when spring is actually planning to arrive this year but it better be soon as the wind whipping around my house is FREEEZING, we've been waddling about like penguins for the past three days. To try and coax Mr Spring out from hibernation (or Mrs spring!) I decided this weekend to make a fruity battenberg with zesty lemon curd. That's right, this is not your average battenberg my dear friend.

This is a terrible picture, I know, I'm really upset with how the battenberg pictures turned out today, next time I'm either not going to use this blue background or iron it more thoroughly. Anyhoo this is my lemon and raspberry battenberg sandwiched together with a very generous spread of lemony lemon curd and covered in fondant icing (shop bought icing sorry). Now I know raspberries aren't in season but for this recipe I used frozen rasps, which can be cheap as chips, and if they don't taste too good just add a little icing sugar. If your still not convinced on frozen raspberries, read this, this cake is positively healthy!....
First of all I'll give you the lemon curd recipe otherwise you might do what I did and get to the part of assembling the whole cake and realising you forgot to make it. Luckily it's super quick, tastes utterly nom and pretty much uses store cupboard ingredients (depending if  on your stores of course), you will never be reaching for that rip off shop bought stuff again! I found this ammount made enough do sandwhich the battenberg and fill a medium sized jar with about three table spoons left to eat for yourself.

Lemon Curd

• a steralized jar
• 2 eggs
• zest of two lemons
• juice of two lemons
• 180 grams of caster sugar
• 110 grams of butter
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of corn flour

1. crack your eggs into a heavy based pan and whisk (not on the heat)
2. add all the other ingredients and whisk
3. set over a medium heat and continue whisking for 8- 10 minutes until it thickens, it won't become the exact consistency of lemon curd yet becase it's hot
4. take off the heat and pour into a jar, save some for the battenberg too!

original recipe from Delia

Didn't I tell you it would be easy?

And on to the Battenberg.....

Lemon and Raspberry Battenberg

• two loaf tins (I used 2 lb ones)
• 150 grams of butter
• i50 grams of caster sugar
• 150 grams of plain flour
• 1 generous teaspoon of baking powder
• 3 eggs
• zest of one lemon 
• juice of 1/2 a lemon (maybe a bit less)
• 100 grams of fresh or frozen raspberries blitzed to a paste
• Zesty lemon curd (see recipe above)
• white fondant icing
• (for the perfectionists like moi) a ruler!

1. grease and line your two tins and preheat the oven to 180oC/ 350oF/ gas mark 4
2. put the butter sugar, flour and baking powder in a food processor or electric mixer and pulse until you get bread crumbs
3. add each egg, one at a time and blitz well inbetween
4. divide the mixture equaly between two blean bowls
5. to one add the lemon zest and juice and to the other add 2 or 3 tablespoons of the blitzed raspberries (you will definately not need all the paste because this will make the batter too wet and won't rise well, the same with the lemon juice)
6. divide the mixtures into the seperate tins and bake in the preheated oven for 20- 25 minutes (you might find one takes longer than the other, my rarpberry batter was wetter than the lemon so took almost 30 minutes)
7. leave to cool completely on a wire rack
8. next cut each of the cakes in half, you might need to do some neatening on the tops and edges with a knife so it will fit together nicely and this means they'll be some pieces of cake to put into your cake hole to put in the bin or make a trifle
9. roll out your fonfant icing on a piece of baking parchment to about the thickness of a pound coin, if you're like me you might want to measure the deph and width of your cake to check it's gonna fit
10. get a slice of the cake and cover one side genorously in lemon curd and place curd side down on the icing before covering the side facing inwards too, get your piece which will go next to it and cover one side with lemon curd and again face curd side down next to the previous piece. cover the top of these two before placing another cake slice on top, covering the inward side, and placing the last piece next to it.
11. Cover the remaining three outer sides in lot of lemon curd and lightly brush the icing with a thinlayer of water to make it nice a sticky
12. use the baking parchment to help you carfuly and tightly roll the icing around the cake (like a swiss roll)and use a damp finger to neaten the ends to the icing
13. brew a cup of tea and enjoy!

adapted from Lorraine Pascale's baking made easy

I really hope you enjoy your battenbergs and lemon curd, and that spring arrives soon!

My Mum's Mother's day

Mum's presents

So as my family are a la'al bit out of sync with the rest of mankind (see Dad's birthday post for why) my Mum had Mother's day today. My present to her was to cook all the meals for the day as well as the card I made above (you can NEVER have too much glitter in my opinion), a card stating I would made her afternoon tea on a day of her choice, granola, rhubarb jam and cooked all the meals for the day.

the card

 For the granola I used a recipe from bbc good food and only added dried cranberries for dried fruit and no coconut so called it 'cranberry crunch'.  
For the rhubarb and vanilla jam I used an excellent recipe from cook republic, it was incredibly simple but also incredibly delish. We had it on apple scones with clotted cream for breakfast after the granola, I don't think I've ever had scones for breakfast but I think it could be a new breakthrough.
I like to put fabric circles tied with string on top of jar when I give them as gift because I think it makes them look really pretty and homemade. To make them all I did was measure the diameter of the lid, double it, find a plate or bowl with that diameter (I really cannot use a pair of compasses to save my life), draw around it and cut out. Simples!

Rhubarb jam on apple scones, breakfast breakthrough! 

Next up lunch! For this I used my new fabulous baker brothers' cook book. It's a really good cook book in my opinion and has some of the recipes they make in their new series (more 4, 9 pm on a Tuesday) as well as some new ones. They make really different and delicious food, things like creme brulee porridge, mushroom ketchup, how to make your own sausages, viking pizza, pulled pork burgers and looooads more.
For lunch I made 'gunpowder lamb' on rotis (a type of flat bread) with salad to test out some of the skills I learnt on work experience. The recipes used lamb neck fillets (NOT lamb necks like I asked the butcher for, turns out they're completely different!), you marinade them in lots of spices such as cumin, coriander, turmeric and a few more while you make the roti dough. The flat breads were extremely good and very quick because you only need to let it rest for 5 minutes, after kneading, in which time you can start grilling the lamb. I managed to get them really thin ready for shallow frying, all that pizza practise on work experience must have payed off! 
I also decided to put my creative salad skills to the test so made a cous cous salad to have in the flat breads too.

red onion and pepper cous cous salad

makes enough for 3-4 people as a salad

• flavorless oil
• 2 tsp of mustard seeds
• 1 tsp of dried chili (add more if you like it hot!)
• a red onion, cut in half and sliced
• a red pepper, cut into strips
• 120 grams of cous cous
• fresh coriander finely chopped
• a lemon
• a red chili, deseeded and diced

1. put a really good glug of oil in a heavy based pan (about 2- 3 tbsp I used) and put over a medium heat before adding the dried chili and mustard seeds.
2. wait until the mustard seeds have begun to pop and the oil has become infused before adding in the onion and pepper and stirring well. 
3. Leave for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, so the veg becomes slightly cooked but still has a bit of bite crunch.
4. Meanwhile measure out the cous cous, add a good pinch of salt and cover with boiling water, leave to absorb.
5. Take the veg off the heat and add in a good sprinkling of fresh coriander and fresh chili (you might want to save some to decorated) add the juice of 1/2 the lemon, taste and season accordingly. I found I needed the juice of almost all the lemon and quite a bit more coriander.
6. stir in the cous cous, you shouldn't have to add any extra oil or butter to the cous cous because of all the extra infused oil with the veg which should also help flavor it.
7. put into a bowl and decorate before serving straight to the table, enjoy!

For tea I made a sweet potato lasagna from bbc food by one of my favourite chefs,Lorraine Pascale. I absolutely love vegetarian food because it focuses more on the flavors rather than the huge hunk of meat and this was true to that. I was able to make it yesterday too while my Mum was out of the house, it was really simple as you only have to cook the sweet potato (I left out the butternut squash). The white sauce is mainly ricotta mixed with Parmesan so doesn't need heating and isn't too heavy, it tasted nothing like your average lasagna but in a good way. It was mashed sweet potato, then a layer of chopped rosemary, sage, pine nuts and spinach leaves before layering on the pasta sheets and a final layer of the white sauce before repeating. In the recipe she uses dried lasagna sheets and cooks then for 5 minutes before assembling but when me and Mum make lasagna they always end up sticking together so we uses fresh and save half the time. For this recipe I found whole wheat fresh lasagna sheets from the local health food shop, which really helped add to the whole vegetarian vibe running through the dish! 

sweet potato lasagna with rocket

For pudding I once again turned to the fabulous baker brothers' book and made rhubarb Knickerbocker glory as I've never had any kind on Knickerbocker glory before. I also made part of this yesterday as you roast the rhubarb with rosemary and ginger before draining and use the juice to set a jelly in the bottom. Another layered meal! This one was rhubarb, ginger and rosemary jelly in the bottom, roast rhubarb, ice cream and sweetened whipped cream whipped cream before repeating and topping with pistachios. A great first taste of Knickerbocker glory and a nice way to finish my Mum's mother's day.

I hope you had a nice mother's day last weekend, if you're normal and celebrated it on the 10th, and had a lovely day today too.

Rhubarb Knickerbocker glory!

Guess who met the fabulous baker brothers?

The answer to the above question is me, not once but three times in fact!  

All of yesterday afternoon was spent in my kitchen making and baking to enter the Kendal festival of food competitions. After many spillages of food dye, a few minor disaster and lots of taste testing I managed to finish my entries. They had a theme this year from the sponsor which was 'Herdy, the face of the lake district', a really cute cartoon herdwick sheep. They had two categories for this: children's decorated cupcakes and a novelty cake decorated with a herdy theme. I entered for the cupcakes with my Guinness cupcakes but changed the Guinness to a different stout from my town's brewing company which made them taste even nicer than last time. I managed to come first in the cupcake competition  with my knitting themed cakes and a seal of approval from the judges (Channel 4 Fabulous baker Brothers themselves!).  

Here's a picture of the novelty cake winner which I thought was amazing but also very clever.

The other competition I entered was the multi-grain bread competition, I entered pecan and maple syrup bread and managed to come third. I've come to the conclusion that I'm more pleased with this result than the cupcakes because this round had more entries, was more technical, against adults and Tom Herert is a professional baker so I'm guessing knows a whole heap about bread.
We made the bread from one of our many cook books the other week and the flavors go really well together, when my Mum suggested it I was a bit sceptical about it being to sweet but it tastes just great.

Maple and Pecan Bread from 'cakes and bakes from my mother's kitchen' by Linda Collister 

Makes 2 loaves

• 350 grams of strong wholemeal bread flour
• 350 grams of strong white bread flour 
• 2 teaspoons of salt
• 7 grams of dried yeast
• 375 ml of warm water
• 150 grams of maple syrup
• 200 grams of pecans (we found this too many last time so used 150 grams this time)

1. Mix the flours salt and yeast in a large mixing bowl and make a well n the centre.
2. Pour in the warm water and maple syrup and mix until you have a soft, but not sticky, dough.
3. If the dough is too dry add a little bit of water, if too soft add a teaspoon of flour.
4. Knead the dough for about 10 minutes until it becomes elastic before returning to a clean oiled bowl. Cover with cling film and leave to rise for 1 1/2 hours.
5. Oil two loaf tins, take the dough out and punch the air out of it, divide into two and place into tins. Cover loosely with oiled clingfilm again and leave for another hour, or until double in size (this bread is a labour of love!).
6. Preheat the oven to 200oC/ 400oF (gas mark 6.
7. Take off the clingfilm and bake for 30-35 minutes, it should make a hollow sound when tapped and be brown on the top.
8. Leave to cool on a wire rack and enjoy within four days.

The rest of the festival was great fun too, there was lots of made in Cumbria produce stands and cooking demonstrations, even a farm animal tent. We met the baker brothers in waterstones before meeting them a second time for their demonstration, which they posted on twitter. I got to hold the dish they prepared in the front which was 'gunpowder lamb with carrot and pepper salad on roti), 'twas very nom. Lastly I met them when they presented the 5 competition winners and got my picture taken with a signed copy of their new book, a lakeland voucher and a herdy apron. 

the farm animal tent

My signed book

I hope you had a good weekend too and I've inspired you to read up on the fabulous baker brothers if you've never heard of them, I can strongly recommend their new book!

Valentine's day Guinness cakes and card

 Well as valentine's day is coming round the corner I thought it might be appropriate to do a valentine's post, even though I sadly don't have one myself. One thing I'm certain of though is that men like beer and women like chocolate, so why not put the two together? Today me and my Mum have been baking chocolate and Guinness cakes, the reason they're called cakes and not cupcakes is because we baked them in a muffin tin in muffin moulds but with cake mix so it seemed more appropriate. They were reasonably simple, the only vaguely difficult part was heating, and taste so good they'll be sure to win over your valentines! 

Chocolate Guinness Cakes 

(makes 12 muffin sized cupcakes)

we adapted the recipe from Nigella's chocolate Guinness cake

 Ingredients

• 125ml Guinness
• 125 grams of butter (cubed)
• 40 grams of cocoa powder
• 200 grams of caster sugar 
• 70 ml of sour cream
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tablespoon of vanilla extract
• 140 grams of plain flour
• 1 1/4 teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda
• 
  
• 50 grams of softened butter
• 100 grams of icing sugar
• 1 200 gram tub of Philadelphia
• 
  

1.) Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180°C and line a 12 muffin tin      with cases
2.) Put the Guinness into a pan and put on a low heat before adding the butter, stir until melted. Add the cocoa and sugar and whisk together before taking off the heat.
3.) In a separate mixing bowl whisk the soured cream, egg and vanilla. Add the Guinness mixture (it doesn't have to have cooled) and whisk together.
4.) Add in the plain flour and bicarb, whisk again until the mixture is smooth with no lumps.
5.) pour the mixture into the cases and bake for about 20 minutes until they spring back when pressed and leave to cool.

6.) For the icing whisk together the icing sugar and butter until smooth before adding about 100 grams of cream cheese. If you like your icing sweet I suggest you stop there and it may be a little runny to pipe. If you want to pipe the icing you might have to add the whole tub like I did.
7.) Next cut out heart shapes from the top of each cake, as though making fairy cakes, and pipe the icing underneath before replacing the heart.
8.) enjoy while you create your valentine's card!

Adaptations

chocoholic? For even more chocolaty flavor add some melted white chocolate to the icing.
feeling guilty? Add some fresh or frozen raspberries to the cake mixture.

Simple and sophisticated Valentine's card

This card was just as simple as the cakes but looks really really nice and classy I think. All you need to make it is:
 1 sheet of white card
 1 sheet of coloured paper (I used red)
 Glue and glitter
 A craft knife and chopping board
 A black pen and pencil

1.) Take your white card and draw a large heart with a smaller heart within it on the top 1/3 like on the photograph. Cut out the hatched area with the craft knife on the chopping board.
2.) On the red paper in the exact same place as on the white card draw a big heart, glue around it and cover with glitter before shaking to remove any excess.
3.) Fold the paper and card in half before glueing the red paper inside, you might want to cut it a little smaller than the card so it fits in nicely.

4.) Write your message on the front and inside with the pen and send to your valentine's!

I hope you enjoy your cake, your valentine enjoys their card and you get one in return, happy Valentine's!