Spelt and Rye Crusty Dipping Bread

It's great when you throw a few ingredients together and it works, that's what happened here.  I wanted to make a small rustic loaf to have with baked camembert as a starter.  I had a small quantity of spelt flour and some wholegrain rye flour so thought I would do a mixture of the two.  

The shape is inspired by the French fougasse bread which is made in the shape of a leaf with slits in it...I haven't been quite that creative but I think the idea of increasing the surface area to create more crusty edges is great for a dipping bread. The texture is quite chewy with big air holes and it's full of flavour, I have found that I make this again and again!

Ingredients

150g White Spelt Flour (plus more for dusting)

150g Wholegrain Rye Flour

1 teaspoon Salt

200ml Warm Water

1 tablespoon Olive Oil

1 teaspoon Sugar

7g (1 sachet) Dried Fast Action Yeast

• Mix the flours and salt in a large bowl.
• In a measuring jug, measure the water then add the sugar, yeast and oil, mix.
• Pour the water mixture into the flour bowl and mix with a fork until a dough is formed.
• Tip it out onto a floured surface.  If the dough is too wet to handle, dust with more spelt flour (or strong white flour) and work in until it is reasonably easy to handle, it will still be a bit sticky.
• Knead until bouncy, about 10 minutes should do, then put the dough back into the bowl which you have oiled.  Cover with cling film and put somewhere warmish for 1-2 hours until the dough has doubled in size.
• Tip the dough back onto the surface and knock the air out, then knead for a few minutes, flatten and shape into an oval.  Put it onto an oiled baking tray and with a sharp knife, cut slits all the way through depth of the dough, keeping it attached at the sides.  Pull the strips apart to create space between them.
• Recover the dough and leave for 45mins - 1 hour to rise again.
• Pre-heat the oven to 220C (fan) and bake the bread for 20-25 minutes until dark golden brown and hollow sounding when tapped underneath.
• Leave to cool, but not totally....it's fabulous warm!  

Raspberry Cheesecake Sandwich Biscuits

These were supposed to be heart shaped....but guess what I can't find the night before Valentine's Day?  My heart shaped cookie cutter naturally!  Of course, for the rest of the year it will be leaping out of the cupboard at me every time I open it....

Anyway, here are my Raspberry Cheesecake Sandwich Biscuits, which certainly aren't to be limited only to Valentine's Day!  They make a fabulous dessert or an afternoon tea treat.  Normally I prefer to be seasonal but wanted a red berry for this and raspberries are my favourite.  As I'm only using them to make a coulis, I'm very happy to use frozen raspberries for this.

Ingredients

50g Caster Sugar

100g Butter

150g Plain Flour

5 Digestive Biscuits, crushed

approx. 4 tbsp Double Cream

250g Raspberries (I use frozen- thawed)
60g Caster Sugar

200g Cream Cheese

175ml Double Cream

approx. 4 tbsp Icing Sugar (more if you want it sweeter)

More icing sugar for icing if wanted

• To make the biscuits, preheat the oven to 175C (fan).  Cream the butter and 50g of caster sugar together then add the flour, digestive biscuits crumbs and enough double cream to bring it all together into a firm (but not crumbly) dough.
• Shape the dough into a ball, wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for 20-30 minutes.
• Lightly flour your surface and your rolling pin then roll the dough out until 5-10mm thick (keep moving the dough and lightly flouring the surface after each roll to stop it sticking)
• Using a cookie/pastry cutter (or a round glass or cup if you don't have one), dip the edge in flour then cut as many biscuits as you can out of the dough, reforming into a ball and re-rolling when needed.
• Put the rounds (or hearts, humph!) onto a lined baking sheet (my circular cutter is 7cm in diameter and I got 16 biscuits - so 8 when finished)
• Bake in the preheated oven for approx. 10 minutes until golden brown at the edges and firm in the middle.
• Transfer them to a plate or rack and leave to cool completely.
• To make the raspberry coulis, put all the raspberries in a small pan and add the 60g of caster sugar.  If you're using frozen there will be enough liquid as they go quite mushy when thawed, if using fresh raspberries you may need to add a tablespoon or two of water to encourage the raspberries to get juicy!  On a medium heat, gradually warm the mixture, stirring to dissolve the sugar, until it starts to boil, then take off the heat.
• Sieve the raspberry mixture into a bowl, you will need to press and wiggle with a metal spoon to get as much pulp as possible.  Get rid of the seeds then sieve it again to get out any determined seeds that have got through the first time.  Put the coulis aside to cool completely.
• Mix the cream cheese with the icing sugar until creamy.  Whisk the double cream until forming soft peaks then fold into the cream cheese.  Get your cooled raspberry coulis and tablespoon by tablespoon lightly fold it into the creamy mixture, you should need about 7-8 tablespoons leaving some left over for icing or for making raspberry bellinis...yum!
• Being generous with it, use the pink, raspberry cheesecake filling to sandwich the biscuits together.
• If you want to do some icing for the top, use some of the leftover raspberry coulis and add enough icing sugar to make a thick icing.  Then either pipe or just spread onto each sandwich biscuit.
• These can be eaten straight away but do squidge out at the sides (I know from experience)....probably best to chill in the fridge for a few hours to set the filling a bit and soften the biscuits.

Creative Cookies

This is my first of hopefully many 'interactive' blogs.  

I love the thought of a recipe being a flexible idea rather than written in stone and always have.  Some recipes lend themselves to this idea more than others and cookies are a great place to start, especially with children involved!
So the idea for this one is to take my Double Chocolate Cookie recipe and, keeping the basic ingredients the same, open it up to different additions and flavours.  It's a great thing to do for a children's birthday party, although I would weigh out the butter, sugar and flour first and have in bowls.  Also then have available lots of different possible additions, for example; nuts, chocolate chunks (white, milk and dark), dried fruit, orange or lemon zest, peanut butter, coconut...etc.  It's also good to have a few kinds of sugar so they can have the choice with that too!


I had a lovely cookie-making afternoon with three enthusiastic and inspiring girls, Megan, Hannah and Lucy and of course our two little monkeys Jack and Archie...thank you Nadine for giving up her kitchen!  Here are the results....

Megan and Hannah's White Chocolate and Cranberry Cookies

  

Ingredients

110g Spreadable Butter

100g Caster Sugar

100g Light Muscavado Sugar

175-225g Self-Raising Flour

1 Large Egg

1 tbsp Golden Syrup

1 tspn Vanilla Extract

150g White Chocolate, chopped into big chunks

A few handfuls of dried cranberries

• Pre-heat the oven to 160C (fan).
• In a bowl cream the sugar and the butter together with a wooden spoon.
• Beat in the egg, syrup and vanilla extract.
• Add the flour and mix in until a stiff dough is formed (start with 175g and add more if needed)
• You could now add the white chocolate chunks and cranberries as they are but the girls decided to melt half of the white chocolate and keep half in chunks.  They stirred the chocolate chunks and cranberry pieces into the dough then swirled through the melted chocolate.  The cookies did spread a bit in the oven so they decided to add a bit more flour next time.
• Spoon the dough onto a lined baking sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes until puffed and firming around the edges.

Lucy's Fruit and Chocolate Cookies

Ingredients

110g Spreadable Butter

100g Light Muscovado Sugar

100g Caster Sugar

1 Large Egg

175-225g Self-Raising Flour

1 tspn Vanilla Extract

1 tablespoon Cocoa

8 Dried Apricots, chopped

60g Sultanas

100g Mixture of White and Milk Chocolate Chunks

• Pre-heat the oven to 160C (fan).
• Follow the same method as above to make the basic dough.  Then add the cocoa.
• Mix through the chocolate and dried fruits then spoon the dough onto a lined baking sheet.
• Bake in the pre-heated oven until puffed and firming around the edges. 

Jack's Pecan and Chocolate Cookies

(supervised to prevent too much chocolate disappearing into his mouth)

Ingredients

110g Spreadable Butter

200g Caster Sugar

1 Large Egg

175-225g Self-Raising Flour

1 tspn Vanilla Extract

2 Handfuls of Pecan Nuts, roughly chopped

2 Chocolate Flakes, roughly chopped

A handful of Dark Chocolate Drops

• Pre-heat the oven to 160C (fan)
• Follow the same method as above to make the basic dough.
• Mix through the pecan nuts, chopped flake and chocolate drops.
• Spoon the dough onto a lined baking sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes until puffed and firming around the edges.

Crusty Rustic Loaf

This bread has a crunchy and slightly chewy crust and a soft, holey interior.  It's particularly good with pate, a ploughman's or a mediterranean-style lunch or starter as it's got a savoury, yeasty flavour made more punchy with olive oil.  I've used extra virgin olive oil but it can certainly be made with a lighter oil if you want a milder flavour.

This loaf does require more yeast than I normally use, which is needed to produce the big air bubbles in this country style loaf.  I normally have the sachets of fast action yeast in my cupboard for making everyday bread and pizza dough but have recently progressed to a little tin of active dried yeast for making breads like this one. 

Ingredients

500g Strong White Flour (plus a small amount for dusting)

2 teaspoons Salt

300ml Warm Water

30ml (2 tbsp) Olive Oil

20g (approx. 2 level tbsp)  Dried Yeast (or 2 sachets of Fast Action Yeast)

• Put the flour and salt into a large bowl and mix together.
• Measure the water in a measuring jug then add the oil and the yeast to this and stir, this then needs to be left for 10 minutes to activate the yeast (if using sachets of fast acting yeast it can be used instantly). 
• Stirring with a fork, add all the water and oil mixture to the flour and stir until a ball of dough is forming.
• Using your hand, start to knead the dough in the bowl to collect up all the flour and transfer to a lightly floured surface.  Knead for about 5-10 minutes until the dough feels bouncy.
• Put the dough back into the bowl which you have lightly dusted with flour and leave for 2 hours to rise.  It doesn't really need to be somewhere warm but if it's very cold it may need longer.  It also doesn't really need to be covered.
• After the dough has doubled in size take it out of the bowl, back on the surface and knead for a few minutes.  Shape into a fat sausage shape and put on to an oil baking tray/sheet and leave to rise again for about an hour.
• Pre-heat the oven to 210C (fan).
• When the dough has risen again, make horizontal slashes across the top of the loaf, brush or spray lightly with water and bake in the oven for 30 minutes until dark golden and hollow-sounding when tapped underneath.

The Custard Tart Quest

I love, love, love custard tarts but I'm a bit fussy; pastry too thick, big crunchy bits of nutmeg getting stuck in my teeth or a solid rather than soft, wobbly custard.

My grandma used to take great pride in her custard tarts and I decided a while ago that I would love to try to recreate the masterpieces that she once made.  Unfortunately, I suspect that her good-with-pastry gene went to my sister, who can whip up a quiche with her eyes closed whereas I break out in a cold sweat at the thought.

But I am determined...I will not be beaten...I will stay true to my Northern roots, beat my pastry demons and make a custard tart that would make my grandmother proud!

The traditional method does not require the pastry to be blind baked, but one of my issues is that often the pastry is too thick.  So for my first attempt, to try to avoid this, my pastry was too thin and the custard leaked out.  On my second attempt, I decided to blind bake but the base was too hard and stodgy!

I'm feeling positive about the third time lucky rule, taking deep breaths and getting myself in a zen-like state, I'm feeling the pastry-love.......

I think I've cracked it....soft pastry underneath, crisp pastry around the edges, no leakages and tender, wobbly custard.  I've reverted to tradition and not blind baked the pastry, hopefully I've done my grandma proud x

This is using a 10 inch fluted loose-bottomed flan tin

Ingredients

200g Plain Flour

100g Cold Hard Butter (plus a bit extra for the tin)

1 heaped tbsp Caster Sugar

Cold Water as needed

450ml Whole Milk (you could use cream but milk is more traditional)

3 large eggs

4 tbsp Caster Sugar

Whole Nutmeg for grating

• Thoroughly butter your flan tin making sure you do up the sides.
• Put the flour into a bowl and grate in the cold butter (top tip I picked up during internet-based pastry research), this then needs a quick rub with your fingertips but there will still be slivers of butter.  Mix 1 tablespoon of caster sugar into the flour and butter.
• Tablespoon by tablespoon gradually add the cold water mixing with a fork until it's all coming together in a soft ball of dough.  Wrap the dough in cling film and put in the fridge to rest for about 30 minutes.
• Pre-heat the oven to 175C (fan).  Unwrap the dough and put on a lightly floured surface, flour the rolling pin and roll the pastry out (moving it around to prevent it sticking to the surface) until it's about 3-4mm thick.
• Use the pastry to carefully line your flan tin, pushing it into the edges.  If it tears patch it up thoroughly with a spare bit of pastry from the edge.  Leave an overlap to allow for shrinkage, it can be trimmed off when the tart is cooked.
• In a bowl beat the eggs then dip a pastry brush into this and brush the pastry case to seal.  Add the milk to the bowl of beaten eggs and add the 4 tablespoons of caster sugar.  Mix thoroughly until the sugar is dissolved.
• Pour the custard mixture into the pastry case (it's easier if you put the pastry in the oven first and pour it in with the oven door open) then grate a sprinkling of nutmeg over the top.
• Bake the tart for approximately 35 minutes until the custard has a wobble but no liquid remaining.
• Allow to cool in the tin then carefully remove.  This can be eaten warm or cold. 

Seeded Rustic Loaf

I make this with all white flour so the bread is soft and fluffy with the lovely crunch of the seeds.  You can use whatever seeds you like, I've used pumpkin and sunflower with the addition of poppy seeds.

Ingredients

500g Strong White Flour

1 heaped tspn Salt

1 tspn Sugar

330ml Warm Water

1 sachet (7g) Fast Action Dried Yeast

1 tbsp Olive Oil

Approx. 60g Mixed Seeds (your choice)

• Mix the salt into the flour in a large bowl.
• In a measuring jug, measure the water then add the sugar, yeast and olive oil.  Give it a good mix.
• Make a well in the centre of the flour and pour in the liquid mixing with a fork until it comes together.  Ditch the fork and start to work the dough with your hands to incorporate all the flour.
• Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and start to knead, it will need about 10 minutes.  It will be quite sticky but keep working it, you can add some more flour if you're struggling but try not to add too much.
• When you have been kneading it for a good 10 minutes and it's a bouncy, very soft dough, put it back in the flour sprinkled bowl and leave to rise.  I like to give it at least 2 hours, the longer the proving, the better the flavour.  It doesn't really need covering.
• When you've got a well risen dough, tip it out of the bowl and knead it a bit to knock out the air.  Start to add the seeds, gradually as you knead so they get worked into the dough, remember to reserve some for the top of the loaf.
• Shape the dough into a round and put it onto a floured baking tray.  Sprinkle on the remainder of the seeds and put it aside to rise again, for about an hour, until doubled in size.
• Pre-heat the oven to about 220C and bake the bread for approximately 25 minutes or until browned and sounding hollow when tapped underneath.
• Transfer to a rack to cool completely.

Broccoli and Blue Cheese Soup

Brrr....it's a soup day today methinks.  I love making soup for lunch, especially in the winter, I normally make a vat of it then freeze in individual portions.  It's often a generic 'soup' made with whatever veg I have in the fridge, however this morning I bought some broccoli on offer (50p!) so am making this comforting classic.

I'm using St Agur rather than the traditional Stilton because it's milder and more creamy so the children prefer it....it's also a bit cheaper.  If you really don't like blue cheese you can use mature cheddar maybe with a sprinkling of parmesan.

Ingredients

1 head of Broccoli, chopped into chunky pieces

1 Onion, chopped

1 medium sized Potato, peeled and cut into small cubes

1 litre/approx. 2 pints of Chicken Stock (if you want it really rich you could do half stock, half full-fat milk)

Half a pack (approx. 60g) St Agur (or any blue cheese)

1 tbsp Creme Fraiche (or cream)

Salt and Pepper

• Sizzle the onion in a little olive oil or butter until softened, then add the potato, broccoli and stock.
• Bring to the boil and simmer for about half an hour until the potato cubes are soft and the broccoli is falling apart.
• Take off the heat and liquidise (I have a hand/stick blender - a god send for soup making!) until smoothish.
• Add the creme fraiche and the crumble in the cheese then stir until melted.  It will need salt and pepper so add to your taste.
• Ladle into a bowl and add a swirl of cream if you want to be a bit fancy.....enjoy!