Buche de Noel- chocolate log to you and me...

I know it's Stir Up Sunday but as the only one in the house who likes Christmas pudding, the tradition has never quite taken off here. Not one to be deterred though, I was determined to bake something today that got us preparing forthe coming season. Inspired by our walk through Dalby Forest yesterday,  the minis and me opted for a chocolate log...

We went for the Buche de Noel from Nigellas Christmas - although we agreed that it couldn't be a Christmas log yet - it is still November! 

 

 

A quick round up of the kitchen cupboards gave us everything we needed. The recipe calls for the eggs to be separated and the whites mixed like a meringue - we got a bit distracted and put them in whole at first - oops! Not ones to waste ingredients we worked them into a batch of brownies but that's a whole other post! After that mishap SG was on serious supervision watch - although she did ask why the recipe called for it to be mousey - when I explained 'moussey' she looked extremely relieved! 

 

The egg whites were whisked into peaks with sugar, the cocoa and egg yolks folded in and baked for 20 minutes. After cooling we turned it out onto a sheet of greaseproof paper and made a rich chocolate buttercream to spread all over before rolling up. SG got busy with the spatula and voila...

Le Buche...

               

notice how we're sticking with pine cones for now though!... resisting the urge to get festive just yet!

Midnight cupcakes...

What were you doing at midnight? On second thoughts maybe don't answer that! I was icing cupcakes for a school fundraiser - the joys of being a working mother! I'm quite pleased with them though, they started out quite cute but transformed into more gothy blood red vampire butterflies - much cooler! These ones are red velvet with a White chocolate buttercream and finished with a Hershey's cookies and cream sweetie ( now I know I've been watching cupcake wars too much!)

Here's a sample of the others...




Some are vanilla, some are lemon - I've just got to get them to school in one piece... And explain away our blue tongues...

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He knows me so well...

Now that I've finally cleared up from Christmas - well almost - I can show you what Santa put under the tree for me this year... My very own Nigella red (I believe that's an official colour now!) lovely chunky Kitchenaid...swoon...

I believe BH finally buckled under ren years of hints and figured it was a bit like self gifting as he gets to be official cake taster! He also got a great bargain online which made it altogether a much more palatable purchase.

As for me I still have to stroke it every time I pass, I can't wait for all the Christmas grub to be used up so that I've got a good excuse to start baking again!

And thanks to freerangenan I've also got a fab new kniferack - the one sitting behind my lovely red Kitchenaid ( did I mention that already!) so thank you to my lovely family for totally totally getting me x

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A little taste of sunshine...

Last bakeup of the holidays today and a taste of somewhere sunny was definitely needed. We've been surrounded by rain and wind all day, rattling the windows and blowing the wheelie bins down the garden so i wanted something light and zesty to take away the winter blues ( and to use up some the leftover lemons sitting in the fruitbowl!)

These lovely lemon bars come from a favourite cookbook of mine The Dairy HollowHouse Cookbook by Crescent Dragonwagon - fab name I know! Every recipe has a great anecdote with it so if you ever see a copy snap it up.

Here it is...



And here's the recipe

Mix and press into the bottom of a baking tin

Half cup of butter
1 cup plain White flour
Quarter cup icing sugar

Beat

2 eggs
1 cup of sugar
2 tablespoons flour
Half teaspoon baking powder
Juice and rind of 2 lemons ( I added 1 more to the original recipe)

This mixture will be thin. Pour it over the first layer. Bake for 30 - 35 mins. Let cool slightly then sit with icing sugar.

Okay so they won't help with any diet resolutions but they are lush and brighten up the idea of tomorrow's back to work packed lunch.

I did think that a good walk with the dogs would make me feel less guilty about eating cake...I shook the lead, I put my coat on but these two are having none of it!






Oh well i tried!

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Stilton crazy...

Today signals the start of cheese week at our house, when the five tons of Stilton that we bought, received and somehow acquired must be eaten up or rendered somehow useful as part of our war on waste.

First up was the thanks to the mega talented Shaheen at Allotment2kitchen. I saw these cheese, potato and kale pasties on her site and new we had just the leftovers to make them...


Then using the same mixture with addition of cranberry sauce I made smaller puff parcels...



These started off bite size but grew... Or maybe that says something about the size of my mouth!

Then I moved on to cheese scones.




Never having made these before I went to Internet for inspiration and followed the recipe from the Stilton website- where else?! They turned out pretty well, they're bound for the freezer so i'll have to see how they fare there.

And to finish, blue cheese pasta, nice and simple after the afternoons bakeathon...



Okay so that's a blue cheese dressing too! Phew - at least the Stilton is all gone now...until next year that is. Now does anyone know what I can do with a wheelbarrow full of Brie?

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Old School Pancake Heaven

I'm always giving BH a hard time for his conservative approach to pancakes. We've tempted him with everthing from bacon to blueberries, Nutella and raspberry coulis but he's not having it. So for Shrove Tuesday we fillers his lead and went back to basics....



Let's face it, it's a classic for a reason!

MiniFG challenged herself to eat six - but she didn't look so confident when they arrived...



Not for long though...



Unbelievably she polished the lot off - I don't know where she puts it all!

Happy Shrove Tuesday whatever your topping!

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Disco Biscuits...

 I love these Rainy Day biscuits of Nigellas. Firstly because they are so easy, and secondly because their melt in the mouth simple flavour just hits the spot. I tend to make up a big batch of dough with the intention of freezing and using it in batches but so far none has made it to the freezer - funny that!

The recipe is simple

175g unsalted butter
200g soft brown sugar
2 eggs
1/4 teaspoon of almond extract
350g plain flour
50g ground almonds
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

Cream the butter and sugar, add in the eggs and the extract then work in the rest. The dough sits in cling film in the fridge for at least an hour, then its ready to roll.

The biscuits cook very quickly and should stay quite pale. I like them unadorned, I think their paleness is quite elegant. However, my children think this is pretentious nonsense and insist that a biscuit is not worth looking at unless its suitably decorated, oh dear...

 the glitter pixies have been at it again - I swear my children will glow in the dark at this rate!

Rainyday Fudge Cake...

Sometimes on a Sunday, when its too windy for walking and too wet for digging, theres nothing for it but to throw caution to the diet plan and fire up the ovens. My tribe's cake of choice is always of the chocolate variety, so today we decided to go for it and bake a chocolate fudge cake of staggering proportions...

My assistant chef was in full agreement of course!

  We followed Nigellas recipe for Fudge Cake from the Nigella Bites book. The recipe called for:

400g plain flour
250g golden caster sugar
100g light muscovado sugar
50g best quality cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
half teaspoon salt
3 eggs
142 small tub sour cream
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
175g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
125ml corn oil
300ml chilled water

For the icing
175 dark chocolate
250g unsalted butter
275g icing sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

The dry ingredients are combined in one bowl, the eggs, sour cream and vanilla are blended in another. Then the butter, oil and water are beat together in yet another bowl. This cake is definitely one to make only if you have space to spread out!
Next the dry ingredients are mixed into the butter and oil mixture and last of all, in goes the eggs and cream. It mixes together satisfyingly well and pours easily into two sandwich tins. These bake for 55 mins until they come out skewer clean!

 I was a little surprised at how big they got!!!

The filling is a simple chocolate butter cream with which we filled the cakes up and then slathered all over! We topped it off with icing sugar and glitter  - which you can't see on the pictures but now coats everything, everywhere in our kitchen. I think we'll be finding edible glitter for months to come...

The results were delicious; a dense, fudgey, chocolaty reason not mind rainy days so much after all!

Bedtime biscuits...

Our little freerangers are biscuit addicts. Like most children they have no particlar preference. They're not at all elitist in their cookie cravings and given the chance they would probably opt for the nastiest dayglo additive packed fuel on offer. The answer - home made, at least when time allows!



These chocolate and vanilla biscuits are from Tessa Kiros book 'Apples for Jam'. They are super simple to make and rolling them up into twists makes for great fun for little chefs.

You need

180g butter
150g caster sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
240g plain flour
20g cocoa

After mashing the butter and sugar together, add the flour and work it all together. Then whisk the egg with the vanilla and add it to the dough, kneading it well.

Next split the dough and add the cocoa to one half. This needs quite a lot of working in but it will come together I promise! Wrap each disc in clingfilm and chill on the fridge for half an hour.

Finally, roll it out and let the fun begin! They may not look perfect but they do taste yummy!

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A busy week and a bleedin birthday...

Who knows where the time goes? I start each week with a list of garden jobs and house stuff that I either has to be done, should be done or ideally I would just like to do. the list is always ridiculously ambitious which invariably leaves me with a sinking feeling and an unchecked guilt trip.

Earlier this summer I daydreamed about cooking things up out elderberries and brambles, of juicing our apples and stewing up fruit to fill the freezer with pies.

Dream on Freerangegirl - when I finally got out to the hedgerows I found that what hadn't already been picked was shrivelled and dried up already. We haven't plenty of elderberries near us  - i know as I planned to harvest them for elderflower champagne but didn't get round to that either! Ive got the bottles, Ive got the yeast, I just need an extra day in the week.

I think its particularly galling in the garden when you don't get round to a seasonal job as you know that it will have to wait another year - I wonder if anyone else missed out on any planned harvests this year, or is it just me!

Last year year BH had his apple juice production line set up by now and we were enjoying the cloudy nectar well up to Christmas, but what with the big build the juicer is still packed away and at the end of the day we can barely crush a grape, never mind anything else!

Friday was BH's birthday and cake was called for, but as it was a school night this called for a late bedtime whilst my freerangers helped out. They left the final stages to Mum but were more than ready for cake action the next day at breakfast (not sure that's on the healthy schools agenda, but I wont tell them if you don't!)

I love to see perfectly iced cakes, but for our own birthdays I love the child decorated look, so the milky way stars and chocolate buttons got put to very good use. We made a red velvet layer cake and covered it in chocolate ganache. It was a nightmare to get it to set as I was cooking it so late at night I dint have time to let the layers cool and they all wanted to slide off - I ended up securing it with kebab sticks in the fridge overnight.

BH loves a chocolate cake but wasn't quite prepared for the red insides - the words 'chocolate roadkill' come to mind! - well at least it took his mind off getting older!