Perfect Pecan Pie.

I disappeared of the face of the earth again. I honestly don't know where the last month went, I could have sworn my last post was just the other day, but it turns out it was over a month ago!! Shocking.

Anyway, I'm back again with some delicious treats that I've cooked up in the last week or so, and first off is a Pecan Pie that will just make your New Year virtue melt away...it's one of the yummiest things I've ever made, and I didn't even know I liked Pecan Pie!! Once again, it's a recipe from the Hummingbird cookbook, a firm favourite with me and those around me!!

I was given some maple syrup brought all the way from Canada from my sister not long ago, and wanted to use it for something really special, so when I came across this recipe after a flick through my growing collection of recipe books, I knew this was the perfect time to open it. The recipe tells you to use golden syrup, but I think the maple syrup gave it a really lovely subtle taste, and probabaly a slightly lighter filling, which was mouth-wateringly moist, buttery and sweet. God bless those Canadians and their syrup!

I have to admit that I wasn't overly impressed by the pastry recipe from the Hummingbird book, it needed much more liquid than the recipe specified, and was rather hard to work with. Neverthless, it did the job and was tasty enough with the filling. It was a plain pastry recipe without any sugar, which I think was probably for the best - any more sugar on top of the maple syrup and sugar in the filling would have been overkill.

So on to the filling, let me just list the ingredients for you: maple syrup, sugar, butter, eggs, pecans...need I say more? When has a recipe consisting of those ingredients ever been something other than deliciously naughty, and completely irresistible?! Melt everything down, pour on to the eggs, beat, then add the crushed pecans, and pour the silky mixture into the pastry case. Then lay on top pecan halves to decorate, put in the oven, and try to distract yourself for 40 minutes untill the pie has browned on top, with a slight wobble in the middle.

The mixture rises while it cooks, creating some cracks on the top, but I personally love how it looks with the caramelised top giving away sneaky peaks of the golden centre, just begging me to cut a slice an tuck in! Eventually, as it cools, the pie sinks back to its original height, and the cracks disappear, keeping the secret inside until you dive in.

This is hardly a good start to the traditional January detox, but it's worth it. Perfect for those cold evenings, or with a cup of tea for a decadent afternoon snack, I can't think of a more satisfying sweet fix. This is definitely a recipe I'll be using again, surprisingly easy and completely hassle free, it ticks all the boxes, and of course, as seems to be tradition with the Hummingbird book, completely extravagant and wicked. Enjoy!

Pear and Almond Cake and Chocolate Chip Cookies

I recently bought Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's book River Cottage Everyday, which I've been pouring over for hours, accumulating an ever growing list of recipes I want to try, and longing for a life out in the countryside, with land, a big vegetable patch with what seems to be a relentless supply of produce during every season, a few chickens, ducks, maybe a goat or two...ahhh, to live Hugh's life!!! Anyway, fantasy life aside, the book is filled to the brim with delicious, comforting and homely recipes, which avoid the pitfall of most recipe books - hideously long lists of ingredients to buy for one single recipe.


I finally settled on a pear and almond cake, which was on the television programme River Cottage 2009 too, and looked too good to pass up. I've never really given much thought to pears, I tend to get over excited by apples, pumpkin, squash, and so on when autumn rolls around, however good old Hugh inspired me to give the humble pear some attention this year. And I'm really, really, really glad I did. I think this is probably the nicest cake I've ever made (well, the Chocolate Cake I made is a fairly strong contender, maybe I have two favourites!!).



The pears are quartered and cored, and softened in butter and sugar (I used vanilla infused sugar for a little extra delicious-ness) which are then set aside to cool while the sponge batter is made. This is a mix of the usual suspects - butter sugar eggs and flour, but with the addition of ground almonds for an extra moist sponge which also gives it a denser texture. The butter is whipped until pale and glossy, then the sugar is added, followed by the eggs, then flour and ground almonds. This produces a satisfyingly gloopy batter, thick and heavy, which is then transferred into a lined cake tin, and the pears are laid on top of the mix, with the sugar and butter caramel-syrup poured on top - for extra nutritional value!!






Then bake in the oven at about 180 degrees for 40 minutes. The pears will sink slightly into the cake, which is a little less pretty than when it first goes in the oven, but when you slice into it you discover hidden gems of pear, soft and yielding, sweet and buttery, encased in moist, dense and almond flavoured sponge, which is truly lovely.

Now, I'm not going to lie, we got through an embarrassingly large amount of this cake in a very short amount of time. However, there was a distinct chocolate shortage going on in the house, so I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies - using Terry's Chocolate Orange to give it a bit of a Christmassy feel! Another Hugh recipe, I melted some butter, then beat it into some caster sugar and soft brown sugar, before adding eggs and flour. Eight minutes in the oven, and hey presto, chocolate fix sorted!!

Roasted Partridge with Roasted Carrots and Redcurrant Sauce.

I love this time of year food-wise generally, but I particularly love the variety of meat we're offered when the colder weather draws in and the leaves are turning golden. There's autumn lamb, pheasant, venison, beautiful duck, and what we decided on last week, partridge. We popped in to the butchers at the end of the day on Sunday looking for something a bit different, and settled on a couple of partridges. They were inexpensive and ideal for a quick meal, as they are so dainty and cook in no time at all - just under thirty minutes in the oven after searing. We had fairly simple vegetables with them, roasted carrots (mmmmm, I loooove roasred carrots, really sweet and caramelised, delicious!), and some lovely boiled new potatoes and cabbage. We also had a simple redcurrant sauce with it, which was just some sweated onions and garlic, redcurrant jelly, a splash of red wine and a little stock.

A lovely quick dinner that took all of 40 minutes, and beautiful meat that needed nothing much done to it for a deeply satisfying Sunday night meal.

Just a short blog post this week, I'll be back soon with what I hope are some more delicious cooking exploits!

Delicious Lasagne and Apple Pie

Autumn just makes me want to snuggle up on the sofa with a giant mug of tea and lots of warming food. The colder weather and drizzly days are such a great excuse for whipping up a load of comforting food and indulging in some really cosy nights in. I love baking on a wet and rainy Sunday afternoon, filling the house with delicious smells and eating home made scrumptiousness!! This weekend we had a busy Friday and Saturday, and Sunday was really gloomy and rainy, so it seemed the perfect day to hole up in the kitchen and make lasagne and apple pie - possibly two of the most warming, comforting dishes ever to have been invented. I mean, having a creamy, rich and meaty lasagne followed by sweet apple pie with melt-in-the-mouth pastry for dinner can only make things better...and a perfect end to the weekend!


The lasagne was a giant dish of hearty goodness, layers of deep tomato and meat sauce, cheesy bechamel and pasta, topped with even more cheese. I softened some onion and garlic, then added the beef mince and browned it off. After that I squeezed in a tablespoon or so of tomato puree and cooked it out for a couple of mintes, a splash of red wine, a tin of chopped tomatoes, about half a tin of water, and seasoning. Then I let it simmer for about 45 minutes for a really deep flavour. For the cheese sauce I made a simple bechamel and added a generous couple of handfuls of cheddar cheese. Then I assembled the lot layering the meat, then pasta, then cheese sauce, and repeat finishing with the cheese sauce and an extra sprinkling of cheese. Bake for about 30-40 minutes in an oven at 180 degrees until the pasta is soft (I checked it by skewering it with a butter knife, and took it out of the oven when the knife slid through easily). And then a lovely big portion each, Yummmmmm!!!



Then on to the apple pie :-)



I used a pastry recipe from Valentine Warner's book 'What to Eat Now, More Please!' which was really lovely. Pastry is always a slightly nerve-wracking prospect I think, but this one was really buttery and short, and deliciously melt-in-the-mouth. Not overly sweet, it complemented the cinnamon flavoured apples beautifully, and an extra sprinkling of vanilla sugar on top was perfection! I didn't have a pie dish, so I used a cake tin, which worked just as well, and made for a deeper pie, which can never be a bad thing!! For the apple filling I followed a Hummingbird Bakery recipe, which I've used before for brownies, cupcakes and a chocolate cake. The Bramley apples are sliced and cooked in butter, cinnamon and caster sugar until slightly softened, then placed in the raw pastry case, and baked for about 35-40 minutes at 180 degrees until golden brown. Leave to cool for a while, then we had it with a healthy dollop of custard.



Needless to say we put away a hefty amount of pie in one sitting, and were completely stuffed... and happy!!!

Rich Indulgent Chocolate Cake

Cake is the answer to all problems. There is nothing that cake can't make you feel better about (except maybe feeling sick from too much cake...but let's not focus on that). And when cake is on the cards, why do it half-heartedly? I baked the most rich, indulgent, and completely over the top chocolate cake this weekend. It was another Hummingbird recipe, like the cupcakes I made a few weeks ago. The sponge is so rich yet not heavy, and the frosting will completely blow you away!! It is creamy, buttery, chocolatey heaven, and teamed with the sponge it's a chocolate hit that really hits the spot!

When freshly baked the sponge was delicious on it's own, add a lashing of frosting which slowly melted with some seeping into the cake, and it was comfort food perfection! Obviously, my impatience got the better of me and I iced the cake slightly too early...but it led to the lovely warm icing bleeding into the sponge, which, whether or not it looks perfect, tastes divine. Obviously we demolished a wedge right away with a cup of tea, and after it had cooled later in the evening I couldn't resist another sneaky slice with a glass of wine - complete and utter heaven!!

This is definitely my absolute favourite sponge recipe. You whisk the dry ingredients and the butter until they resemble a sandy texture, then add the egg and milk to make a batter. So easy, yet so successful. So you go from this...

To this...!!

The cupcakes take about 12 minutes, and the large cake took about 25 minutes - however, my oven is pretty bizarre and I think is hotter than usual, so a normal oven at 180 degrees may take a little longer!

Considering how big the cake was, it was pretty impressive how quickly it disappeared!! Between very few of us, a considerable amount was devoured over the weekend, and I brought some back to Bath for my housemates which went down pretty well, leaving a satisfyingly small wedge at the end of the weekend. If ever there was proof of a delicious cake, it's a plate covered only in crumbs a mere 48 hours after baking!!

Carrot Cake Extraordinaire!

Trust me when I say, you need not try another carrot cake once you've tried this one. Immodest, I know, but honestly, this is the god of all carrot cakes. My quest for the perfect carrot cake came to an end when I was given the recipe for this delight when I was working at Michael Caines' restaurant in Exeter. Soft and moist in texture, dense yet not overly rich...that is, it's quite easy to reach for another slice. A quality I truly respect in cake.

I can never have too much cake.

It doesn't really rise that much, there is a small amount of bicarbonate of soda, but you don't want it to rise like a sponge, or you sacrifice the moist texture that makes this carrot cake so spectacular. You need to keep an eye on the cake when it's coming to the end of it's baking time, and take it out as soon as a knife comes out just about clean when you skewer it. Be brave when you take it out of the oven, it's ok if a few crumbs stick to the knife, better to be slightly underdone than over done in my opinion.

The cake itself is something to salivate over, but add the indulgent and rich cream cheese frosting, and you've got something truly special in your kitchen. A mix of butter, cream cheese and icing sugar, this is not for those looking to keep an eye on their waistline...that said, I think this cake is probably worth a little restraint the next day to even out the balance!

So here's the recipe:

Carrot Cake
120ml vegetable oil
160g caster sugar
2 eggs
large pinch of salt
110g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
140g grated carrot
handful chopped walnuts

Beat the oil and sugar until it's thick.
Add the eggs gradually.
Then add the salt, flour, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon.
Lastly mix in the carrots and walnuts.
Transfer the mix into a cake tin, at bake at 160 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour, checking regularly.
Transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool.

Cream Cheese Frosting
75g soft butter
110g icing sugar
150g Philadelphia

Beat butter and icing sugar together until smooth, then add the cream cheese.
Generously dollop on the cake, and spread to the edges.

So there you have it, the perfect carrot cake. Try it, trust me, you'll thank me.

Stuffed Butternut Squash and White Chocolate and Strawberry Cupcakes

Well, I have had a goooood food weekend!!

It was a busy Friday and Saturday, but on Sunday I had some time to indulge my culinary desires, and decided to welcome the autumnal delights with a stuffed butternut squash. I can't tell you how much I love this dish, I look forward to October when the golden leaves which crunch and crackle as you stomp through them, and the crisp cool mornings also spell the beginning of a new food season, and one of the most exciting vegetables for me is butternut squash. It's soft sweet flesh is utterly comforting, and roasted and stuffed is a lovely start to Autumn. It's warming yet not overly stodgy, and works as a great accompaniment to a dish, as well as acting as the base for this particular recipe.

I sliced the squash in half, and scooped out the seeds as well as hollowing out some of the flesh to create a squash 'bowl' as it were, with a deep enough cavity to hold a decent amount of filling, but a thick enough wall (about 1.5cm) to support the filling and hold up during roasting.

Then I softened some onion, garlic and mushrooms in a pan and threw in some lardons until they were just cooked, and allowed to cool in a bowl. I then chopped up some of the squash into a fine mush (or as fine as you can get it!!), and added this to the onion mix, along with a handful of basmati rice, some mixed herbs, and salt and pepper. Mix all this together then spoon into the butternut squash.

Put both halves together and rub all over with some olive oil. Wrap in foil and place on a baking tray. Bake in a preheated oven at about 180 degrees for about an hour and a quarter. Then unwrap the silver blanket and I served it with some grated cheese. Delicious!!

For dessert, we had vanilla cupcakes with white chocolate and cream cheese frosting topped with fresh strawberries. They were amazing!!

I made a basic sponge mixture for the cupcakes and for the frosting I melted 150g white chocolate and set aside to cool. In a separate bowl I beat 150g of cream cheese with 50g of soft butter and 5 tablespoons of icing sugar. Then add the white chocolate to the mixture and leave to cool and set slightly.

To be honest, as usual I was too impatient and tried to ice the cupcakes before the frosting had set a little, so it was still quite runny. Instead of scooping the frosting on the top of the cupcake, I hollowed out a little of the cupcake and filled it with the runny frosting before adding sliced strwaberries. It tasted amazing slightly warm but just didn't look quite as nice. Turns out patience really is a virtue. Wonder when I'll finally learn my lesson.

After about half an hour or so in the fridge, the frosting had set and was the perfect consistency for icing the cupcakes for a cleaner and more professional look. Totally indulgent and a perfect end to the weekend!!