birthday almond cheesecake

almond cheesecake
Originally uploaded by silamuta

it was my birthday a few days ago and mel asked me what kinda birthday cake i would like. i remembered an almond cheesecake that she made last year and asked if she could make that again. OF COURSE was the answer!! its great being hitched to someone who loves to cook. (NB my waistline might disagree!) what with one thing and another going on during the week mel finally managed to make the cheesecake on saturday. and wow it really is great. not too sweet but definately almond!! even the biscuit layer is almond. needless to say ive probably eaten more than my fair share already. im currently sitting in the pub while writing this post so i dont have the recipe to hand. but ill ask mel to add it to this post later or if anybody would like it soon just leave us a message and we will post it pronto. well after i leave the pub and go home. and oooh gordon ramseys restaurant on hospital road on wed. look out for that posting. CANT WAIT!!

carrot cake

carrot cake
Originally uploaded by silamuta

ooooooh cake. lordy!


I liked the cake. really i did. but after reading eggbeater's exhasutive analysis of Why do cakes sink? i'm now convinced this cake was a bit of a disaster. too dense. no crumb. was it the too cold butter? was it the silicone pan? did the ground almonds have somthing to do with it? hmmmm.

dundee tart

dundee tart
Originally uploaded by silamuta

yesterday was burns nite and all over the land people were eating haggis. we were not, for a change. but we did make and enjoy this dundee tart which comes from Scottish Kitchen by sue lawrence. its called dundee tart as dundee is famous for its marmalade which is made from very tart seville oranges. If any one would like the recipe email us and we will happily post it.

OK request received... here's the recipe:

Dundee tart (serves 8)

200 ml Seville orange juice (about 4 Seville oranges), or pink grapefruit juice
200g golden caster sugar
5 large free-range eggs, beaten
200 ml double cream

For the pastry:
150 g plain flour, sifted
25g golden caster sugar
75g ground almonds
115g chilled butter, diced
1 large free-range egg

1. To make the pastry place the flour, sugar, ground almonds and butter in a food processor and whiz briefly, then add the egg through the feeder tube while the machine is running. Bring the dough together with your hands, wrap in clingfilm and chill. Roll out to fit a buttered deep 24cm tart tin. Prick the base and chill well -- preferably overnight.


2. Preheat the oven to 200C. Fill the tart tn with foil and baking beans and bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes. Remove the foil and beans, continue to bake for 5 minutes and then remove and cool. Reduce the oven to 170C.


3. For the filling, strain the juice into a bowl and beat in the sugar until dissolved. Push the beaten eggs through a sieve placed over the bowl containing the orange juice, add the cream and combine. Pour the mixture into a jug.


4. To fill the tart, I f ind the easiest way is to place the tart case on a baking sheet in the oven and pull out the oven rack. Very slowly pour in the mixture and then carefully push the oven rack back in. Bake for about 40-45 minutes or until the filling is just firm: if you shake the tin it should still wobble a little in the middle.


5. Allow the tart to cool, then remove it to a serving plate.

Aye, aye, lemon meringue pie

I had lemons, i had eggs and i thought, Mel, it's about time you tried making a lemon meringue pie. Never made one before, ate plenty and have fond memories of sitting in tacky new jersey diners watching them in the rotating cake display case. I don't know, until now lemon meringue pies have been something that somebody else makes. I just never thought to do it myself.

This particular pie was meant to make 8 individual pielets, but i don't yet have a set of individual tart tins (see i don't really have EVERYTHING in the kitchen yet). Instead i made one big pie, and well, being the piggies we are, kels and i finished this off in 2 days -- that's 2 portions x 2 days. Yup, that good.

This recipe is courtesy of one of last year's issues of
Olive Magazine.

Lemon meringue pie

For the pastry:
125g plain flour, plus extra for rolling out
75g unsalted butter,diced and chilled
1 tbsp icing sugar
1 egg yolk

For the lemon curd:
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
75g unsalted butter, diced
100g caster sugar
2 unwaxed lemons, zested and juiced

For the meringue:
2 egg whites
50g caster sugar

1. To make the pastry, put the flour, butter, icing sugar and a pinch of salt in a food processor and pulse until the mix resembles breadcrumbs. Whisk the egg yolk and 2 tsp cold water, add to the pastry mix and pulse until it comes together. Tip onto a lightly floured work surface, lightly knead then wrap in clingfilm and chill for 30 minutes.


2. Dust the work surface with fiour and roll out each piece to thickness of a £1 coin. Carefully press the pastry into a 23cm loose bottomed tart tin and prick the base with a fork. Chill for 5 minutes.


3. Heat the oven to 180C/160C/gas mark 4. Line the pastry case with a square of foil and baking beans or rice. Cook for 20 minutes or until golden.


4. To make the lemon curd, beat the eggs and egg yolk together in a heatproof bowl. Add the butter, caster sugar and lemon juice. Put the bowl over (not in) a pan of simmering water. Stir until the mixture reaches the consistency of very thick custard. Take off the heat, strain into a clean bowl and add the lemon zest. Cover the surface of the lemon curd with clingfilm then cool. Fill each pastry case with lemon curd and chill for 20 minutes.


5. Turn up the oven to 230C/fan 210C/gas mark 8. To make the meringue, whisk the egg whites until they just hold stiff peaks. Gradually add the caster sugar, beating, until the meringue is stiff and glossy. Fill a piping bag with the meringue and pipe a generous swirl of meringue over the lemon curd (or just spoon it on top). Cook for 2-3 minutes or until the meringue is tinged golden brown at the edges. Cool before serving.

dinner with lorna and italian for beginners

Yesterday was a lazy day. Kels and I spent the afternoon in the garden talking about our plans and other musings. We also built a ping pong (i call it ping kong) table of sorts and played a couple of sets.

As the afternoon progressed, so did thoughts of dinner. We kept alternating between barbecue chicken (it was sunny out) and just using what we already have. We decided to go with the latter, and chose Sweet Potato Curry. I found the recipe on the blog Gastronomy Domine that i really enjoy reading. Given that it was a vegetarian dish we thought we'd invite our friend lorna over to share it with us.

For dessert I wanted to keep to the really easy theme so decided to make Eton Mess. Ainsley Harriot has a version of it in his book ainsley harriott's all new meals in minutes that uses crushed maltesers. Don't ask me why, but those maltesers make all the difference! Turned out we made a quick run to the store anyways to get the eton mess ingredients, and to get a 'sticky' as kelsie is now calling sweet dessert wine. We actually didn't have to get the meringue nests because Lorna brought some home made ones over -- way better of course, than store bought meringues.

Not sure if i've mentioned this before, but we're going to be taking a beginner italian course this autumn with our friend lorna. To get us psyched for the course we watched a dvd of the film Italian for Beginners. Lorna and Kels were quite right in pointing out that the film really isn't about Italian lessons, but hey ho, it was in the title, and i enjoyed it.

Eton mess with maddie malteasers
[from Ainsley Harriott's All New Meals in Minutes]
Serves 4

300 ml double cream
50g caster sugar, plus extra, if the berries are tart
250 g fresh raspberries
2 meringue nests, about 75g
40g packet Maltesers

1. Whisk the cream with 1 tablespoon of hte sugar in the bowl, using a balloon whisk or an electric beater, until soft peaks form. Be careful if you're using electric beaters, as this will happen really fast.


2. Place the reaspberries in a separate bowl with the remaining sugar and, using a fork, lightly crush -- you may need to add some extra sugar if the raspberries are particularly tart or if you have a very sweet tooth.


3. Lightly crush the meringues and the maltesers. Don't overmix here, but gently fold the raspberries into the cream wtihthe crushed meringue and Malteseres, until you get a rippled effect. Spoon the mixture into serving glasses. Serve immediately.

Adventures in Ice Cream: vanilla, vanilla vanilla

For my xmas this year Kelsie gave me an ice cream maker. This is something I've been wanting for a very long time. It's the kind of ice cream maker where you have to freeze the bowl first -- for at least 24 hours in fact. Between Xmas and now I haven't had the space in my freezer to fit the bowl in! Chicken carcasses waiting to be made into stock, chinese sausages, frozen veg, leftovers from a gnocchi experiment and a big tub of leftover minestrone have taken all the available space. I finally cleared enough room and was able to fit the bowl in this past week.

Next step was finding a basic recipe to start with. Kelsie also gave me Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream book to help get me started. They have three different sweet cream bases each with varying amounts of butterfat which is one of the deciding factors in how creamy your ice cream is. I also got Iced as a back-up. The difference between the B&J recipes and the Iced recipes is that B&J don't say anything about cooking the custard first. They pretty much say to whack everything into the machine and churn. Iced, as well as other recipes say to make a custard first. I figured I'd try the harder one first and went for the Vanilla recipe in Iced.

You may have read about my past trials with custard. And again on this occasion i felt a bit of trepidation. Lucky for me, our friend Lorna was over to watch some tennis and help out with sampling the first batch. She's got a great attitude about facing challenges in general and encouraged me to just go for it and not worry. So i did, and i must say, i'm very happy with the results!

Vanilla Ice Cream
makes 1 litre

375ml milk
375ml whipping cream
2 vanilla beans, split lengthways and seeds scraped (i used an extra pod that had already had the seeds scraped)
145g caster sugar
8 large egg yolks

1. Put the milk, cream, vanilla beans, scraped seeds and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring, for a few minutes, or until the sugar has dissolved and the milk is just about to boil. Set aside for 15 minutes to infuse. Remove the vanilla beans and gently reheat.


2. Whisk the egg yolks in a large bowl. Whisk in 60ml of the hot milk mixture until smooth. Whisk in the remaining milk mixture, then return to a clean saucepan and stir constantly over low-medium heat for 8-10 minutes, or until the mixture thickens and coats the back of the spoon. Do not allow to boil. Cool slightly, then cover and refrigerate until cold.


3. Transfer to an ice cream machine and freeze according to manuFacturer's instructions. Alternatively, transfer to a shallow metal tray and freeze, whisking every couple of hours until frozen and creamy. Freeze for 5 hours or overnight. Soften in the fridge for 30 minutes before serving.

Something new: Chickpea and pumpkin salad + little strawberry tartlets

Back in the groove here, and i've got a couple of recipes to share that i decided to try out tonite. The first is a warm salad, complements of one of my fave books: Casa Moro. For pud, the recipe is complements of the June 2008 issue of olive magazine. Both have made it into the 'keeper' category of my recipe database.
We drank a really crisp Sauvignon Blanc with the meal -- see the photo above. It worked perfect with the lemony tahini sauce.

Chickpea and pumpkin salad with tahini sauce
Serves 4

For the salad:
1 kg pumpkin, peeled, seeded and cut into 3cm cubes
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1 garlic clove, crushed (i used 4)
salt
pepper
olive oil
1/2 red onion, finely chopped
250g cooked chickpeas or 1 400g tin drained
4 Tbsp roughly chopped coriander

For the tahini sauce:
1 garlic clove, crushed into a paste with salt
3-1/2 Tbsp lemon juice (i used juice of 1 lemon)
3 Tbsp tahini
3 Tbsp water
2 Tbsp olive oil

1. Preheat the oven to 220C. Toss the pumpkin cubes with allspice, garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil and spread out on a baking tray. Bake in the oven for 15-25 minutes or until the pumpkin is tender.


2. While the pumpkin is cooking prepare the tahini sauce. Mix together the garlic paste, lemon juice and tahini until combined. Thin to desired consistency with water. Finally, stir in 2 Tbsp olive oil. You want to be able to drizzle the finished sauce and it should be balanced between the lemon flavour and the tahini flavour.


3. When the pumpkin is done, mix in a bowl with the onion, chickpeas, chopped coriander and season to taste with salt and pepper.


4. To serve, transfer the salad to a shallow serving bowl and drizzle with the tahini sauce. NOTE: i served this with couscous

Mini strawberry tartlets

For the tartlet cases:
180g plain flour
1 Tbsp chopped hazelnuts
60g icing sugar
90g chilled butter, diced
1 egg

For the filling:
150ml double cream
200g white chocolate

To serve:
strawberries, halved

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/fan 160C. First make the pastry. Whizz together the flour, hazelnuts and icing sugar together with the diced butter in a food processor until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. With the machine on, add the egg and process until it forms a ball of dough. If the mix doesn't come together in a ball add a splash of ice water.


2. Roll the dough out on a floured surface until thin. Cut out 16-24 small circles and place the circles in the holes of a tartlet mould or mini-muffin pan. Chill the cases in the freezer for 20 minutes. NOTE: i was able to get 16 tartlet cases, but probably could have gotten more had i rolled the dough out thinner.


3. Remove the cases from the freezer and bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes or until light brown. Cool on a cooling rack.


4. While the cases are cooling make the filling. Heat the double cream over a bowl of simmering water and add the chopped chocolate. Whisk constantly until well incorporated. Pour into the tartlet cases and chill in the fridge for at least an hour.


5. To serve, halve a strawberry and poke into the tartlet filling.

Custard Adventures with Eve, Curt, and Grace

This week we had our friend Curt over for dinner. Curt is here in Glasgow for two weeks and I figured he'd want a break from hotel/restaurant food or whatever it is that you eat when you travel for work. So for this occasion I planned a nice home-cooked meal of Clapshot Shepherd's Pie and Eve's Pudding. Kelsie raised her eyebrows when I told her the menu choice, but Curt was happy with it. Turns out his husband David makes Shepherd's Pie all the time. According to Curt, this one was pretty damn fine so I'm including the recipe here for David to try out when Curt is back in their love nest.

For dessert I finally got to try out a recipe for Eve's Pudding that I've been eyeing. It's pretty easy to do -- just apples topped with a sponge. The tricky bit is the custard that you're meant to serve it with. I have some kind of mental block about custard and tonite was no different.

The first time I made custard was at my first job as a commis chef. On that occasion I overtempered the eggs and they turned into a mass of vanilla flavoured scrambled eggs. I tried it again this past Christmas when I was making a Sherry Trifle. That time I was so paranoid about overtempering that I didn't cook them enough. The custard was runny and never thickened.

So you can imagine the trepidation I felt this time! This custard turned out a lot better than my previous attempts. It wasn't that thick but further research reassures me that my custard met all the requirements. Next time I'll try it with cream instead of milk to see how that makes a difference.

Clapshot Shepherd's Pie serves 4
(recipe from Sue Lawrence's Scottish Kitchen by Sue Lawrence)
for David
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, peeled and finely chopped
450g beef mince
2 tsp plain flour
150 ml hot beef stock
1 Tbsp tomato puree
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbsp finely chopped parsley
salt and pepper
400g potatoes, peeled and chopped
400g turnip, peeled and chopped
40g butter
1 Tbsp finely chopped chives

1. Heat oil in pan, cook onion for 10 minutes, then increase heat and add mince. Brown all over. Sprinkle with flour and add hot stock. Bring to boil and add tomato puree, Worcestershire sauce and parsley and season with salt and pepper. Stir, cover and cook for 15 minutes.


2. Preheat oven to 180c


3. For topping, boil potatoes and turnip until tender, then drain well. Mash with butter then add chives and season with salt and pepper to taste.


4. Spoon over mince and bake 35-40 minutes.

Eve's Pudding
(recipe from Olive Magazine March 2008)

600g cooking apples, peeled, cored and roughly chopped
75g light muscovado sugar
Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
100g butter
100g caster sugar, plus extra for dusting
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
100g self-raising flour

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Put the apples in a large bowl with the sugar, lemon zest and juice and the cinnamon. Transfer to a round, 2-litre ovenproof dish and set aside until needed.


2. Beat the buitter and caster sugar in a bowl until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, mixing after each addition. MIx in the vanilla, then sift in the flour and gently mix to make a dropping consistency.


3. Spread the mixture over the apples and bake for 40 minutes or until the topping cooked through and golden. Sprinkle with extra vaster sugar and serve with custard.

CRÈME ANGLAISE (Custard)Makes 290ml

290ml milk
1 vanilla pod, split lengthways, or a few drops of vanilla essence
2-3 egg yolks
2-3 Tbsp caster sugar

1. Heat the milk and vanilla pod, if using, until steaming. Leave to stand for 20 minutes to allow the flavours to infuse, then scrape the seeds from the vanilla pod and stir into the milk


2. Beat the egg yolks in a bowl with the sugar. Pour the milk slowly on to the eggs in a thin stream, stirring constantly. Rinse out the pan to remove the coagulated milk proteins, then return the milk to the pan.
   
   


3. Stir over a medium-low heat until the mixture thickens sufficiently to coat the back of a spoon (when the custard starts to steam it is almost cooked). Do not boil or the egg will coagulate into lumps.
   
   


4. Strain into a chilled bowl to remove any fragments of cooked egg and stir from time to time to help the custard cool quickly and prevent it from cooking further or forming a skin. Add the vanilla essence if using.

The finished product: