Blog migrated

If you see this, I have migrated my blog to the new blogger style.

Quick Sherry Trifle

This is a family recipe, and tastes amazing. Although it is not really sutable if you have to drive home... Anyway, the following steps make enough trifle to fill my large plastic bowl (about 4 L big):

1. Add maderia cake, or jam swiss roll, slices to cover the bottom and sides of the bowl. Seems to work better if the cake is stale!
2. Now moisen the cake with sherry until it sill soak up no more
3. Drain two tins of fruit cocktail, and put to one side
4. Mix up one pack of fruit jelly (to match the fruit you add) that should make 1pt of jelly. I added a small amount of water, heated in the microwave (as per the packet!) and then added the syrup from the fruit cocktail, and a good bit more of the sherry. Now it is important to add too much liquid so that it doesn't set too hard. Probably add around 1.25 to 1.5 pints for a 1 pint jelly.
5. Now add the fruit into the jelly mix and pour over the cake base, making sure all the cake is covered up.
6. Now put this into the fridge until it has set
7. Now about one or two hours before you want to eat the trifle get some thick fresh custard (at least 1 pint) and pour that over the top of the jelly mixture to make a nice thick layer.
8. Now whip some double cream (at least 1 pint) so it is fairly firm and carefully spoon over the cream (so you get two clear layers!)

I like to decorate the top with some coloured sugar strands and glace cherries, it is really tasty and reminds me of home!

Yorkshire Curd Tart

Last night, since I had some friends around for new year, I decided to have had a quick go making these curd tarts. They are based it on things people have told me, the curds I have bought from the shops, and what I have seen done on the TV. They are a nice sweet snack. Due to the way I made the curds below, they are a little like egg custard, but that is no bad thing.

1. The first thing is to make some short crust pastry, and I used a large Yorkshire pudding tin (4 per tin, not 12 per tin) but that is up to you. This filling below seemed to fit nicely into the 4 medium curds.
2. Beat 2-3 eggs, add 1 pint of whole milk, and beat together with a fork
3. Now gently heat the mixture, stirring all the time (not quite ever bringing to the boil) and curd like lumps will start to form
4. Once no more lumps are forming, drain the mixture through a very fine sieve
5. Add a tea spoon or so of ground nutmeg, a small handful of raisins and a few desert spoons of caster sugar
6. Stir the mixture, being careful not to break up the eggy curds too much
7. Spoon the mixture into the pastry bottoms (a bit like jam tarts, except filling with the mixture above), and sprinkle a bit of sugar on top for decoration
8. Bake in a preheated hot oven (200C) for about 15-20 mins (until golden brown, but not dry).

Minestrone Soup

I have recently made a lovely soup. Here is what is in the soup for 4 people (if its just for a starter, or 2 people for a full meal):

• 1 tbsp Olive oil
• 1 onion, sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped/crushed
• 75g rashers of streaky bacon, diced
• 2 celery sticks, chopped
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 1 Potatoes, diced
• 500ml stock (Just Bouillon vegtable stock seemed to work well)
• 1 bouquet garni
• 1 handful Parsley, chopped
• 75g canned beans (i used tinned cannellini beans)
• fresh ground black pepper
• 6 Tomatoes, chopped
• 50g spaghetti, broken

Its really simple, and takes about 1 hour to cook. So first prepare all the veg as above then:

1. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan and then add the onion, garlic, bacon, celery, and carrot and fry for two minutes, stirring often (so it doesn't stick like hell!)
2. Then add the potato and the stock and bring to the boil.
3. Now add the beans and bouquet garni. Then add some of the parsley and season with freshly ground pepper. (I try not to cook with salt, there is enough in the dammed stock cubes!)
4. Bring to the boil again, then simmer for 45 minutes.
5. About 10-15 mins before seriving add the tomatoes and spaghetti. Cook until the spaghetti is tender.
6. Serve the soup with a bit of parsly on top and a some nice bread, if you are feeling that way inclined.

Current Cooking

Reading this reminds me that it is time, now exams are over, to start doing more crazy cooking!

Some more fudge

I have just tried out a recipe from this website: http://www.uktvfood.co.uk/index.cfm?uktv=recipes.recipe&iID=513459

It produced a very tablet like fudge. It tasted good, and was made using very simple ingredients - quite impressed. Not sure I quite got all the measuring correct, it should have been smother fudge. This seems to make quite a big difference - like in baking! This did seem to burn quite easily on the bottom of the pan - prehaps easier when you are not using a little electric hob! Not sure what next week will hold, but I am enjoying experimenting with desert type things...

Fudge Production

I have now come up with a useful thing to do with this blog – publish and recommend some recipes! To start this off I will recommend a good Fudge Recipe I have found: http://www.vanilla-pods.co.uk/fudge.htm

It produced some lovely smooth fudge. I used cream instead of milk, and also checked that the temperature did not go beyond the softball stage during 30mins of heating. I also didn’t want the expense of vanilla pods, so just used vanilla extract.

A big challenge was heating the mixture slowly enough and with enough mixing that you do not get burnt bits in your fudge! (Moving the thermometer around the pan a bit more, so it doesn't all burn to the bottom of the pan underneath the thermometer, might be a good idea for next time!)

I do hope to soon try a slightly different recipe to make a more crystalline fudge, possibly making use of: http://www.uktvfood.co.uk/index.cfm?uktv=recipes.recipe&iID=513459

If ever anyone finds some corn (glucose) syrup then I could start trying more advanced recipes as explained in the web pages: http://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/candy/recipe-fudge.html

Warning: the pan should be big, else its likely to boil over! Oh and that boiling sugar solution is damm hot!