The Great British Pudding Challenge - Chocolate pudding with orange ice cream

When Rosie over at Rosie Bakes a 'Peace' of Cake posted about the apparent demise of the traditional British pudding, I simply knew I had to join her in her efforts to keep the joys of the humble British pud alive. She urged food bloggers to join her this month in baking a traditional chocolate sponge and posted a rather good recipe for us all to follow. This all seemed fine and I was excited about the challenge but then I remembered that I live on my own. Who was going to eat this enormous steamed pudding that serves 6 people?! Sure, I entertain a fair amount but by the time I got around to making the pudding it was too late to make plans to invite people over.

I decided to play with the recipe a little and make individual puddings. Making one would have been too tricky. After all you can hardly divide 2 eggs by 6, can you?! So I halved the recipe and made three different puddings. To one I added chopped milk chocolate, to one Green and Black's Maya Gold which has a hint of orange and to the final one, I added a Lindt d'Or chocolate truffle right in the centre. What on earth possessed me? Well, I once enjoyed a pudding that hid one of these chocolates, gently melting in the centre.


In terms of steaming the puds, I placed them in a roasting tray half filled with boiling water and cooked them in the oven at 170C for around 35 minutes. The results? The Lindt d'Or one was disastrous but delicious. The chocolate melted to form a gorgeous sauce in the middle of the pudding, but unfortunately the top of the pudding remained firmly in the pudding mould. It didn't look pretty!

The one flecked with Maya Gold was my favourite, although again it didn't turn out too beautifully. I served it with a very creamy orange ice cream which I made in five minutes flat. Equal amounts of single and double cream (1 tumbler glass of each), freshly squeezed orange juice (3 large oranges), a little grated orange rind (of one orange) and caster sugar to your taste (around 2 oz). Whisk together and pour into an ice-cream maker. Gorgeously fresh and delicious but very creamy - you only need a small amount and wouldn't want a whole bowlful.

The final pudding with the milk chocolate was adorned with chocolate sauce made with melted dark chocolate, single cream, golden syrup and a smidge of butter. Again, it didn't turn out too well, but it tasted divine.

For those concerned about my ever-expanding waistline (I know I am), fear not. I did not eat all three puddings (although it was tempting). I had a taster of each. The Maya Gold version was my favourite with a little chocolate sauce poured over the top for good measure!

To participate in the next 'edition' of The Great British Pudding Challenge, hop over to Maria's blog for a delicious-sounding recipe for a Festive Steamed Pudding with cranberries and white chocolate.

Mincemeat and apple tart

Whilst browsing in the blogosphere a few weeks ago, a stumbled upon a post on Jeanne's 'Cooksister' blog about the latest theme for the food blogging event 'Waiter! There's something in my...'. This month's theme was to be the topless tart. How could I possibly resist. I love a good tart, be it savoury or sweet. I though awhile about my entry. What would I choose? So little time and so many tarts. Treacle tart is my speciality (or so I like to think) so it would be the obvious choice. I checked the cupboard for golden syrup and vowed to make one the following day.

Of course, all the best laid plans go to seed and I forgot all about the challenge. Until last weekend. I was babysitting for my sister's two little boys - aged 22 months and 8 weeks. I'm a little aged to receive babysitting money so my sister instead bought me a cookbook as a thank you gift. Knowing that I was to be in charge of this year's Christmas lunch for the first time, she thought that BBC Good Food Magazine's '101 Christmas Dishes' would be an appropriate choice. Too true. Within those pages, nestled in between 'Zabaglione Trifle Slice' and 'Pecan Toffee Meringue with Mulled Pears', was a rather tasty looking tart. Laid bare, in all its topless glory.


Better still, it had a mere five ingredients. This was fortunate seeing as I had left my entry rather late and was, therefore, rather lacking on the old time front. I set to it. So simple. Yet so pleasingly and festively delicious. A little slice of Christmas mid-November - it really got me in the mood for what lies ahead and made the kitchen smell wonderfully festive too. Even a non mincemeat lover was suitably impressed and left a very clean plate. Of course, you could make it far more complex and no doubt far more delicious by making your own mincemeat. I haven't done so this year. Maybe next year?

In order to enjoy this tart at its very finest, I recommend a good splosh of custard. Homemade or the lurid yellow stuff from Birds - both, in my mind, have their merits and therefore their place (no doubt the purists will disagree).



Ingredients (serves 6-8)


1 oz golden caster sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
225g shortcrust pastry
410g jar mincemeat
3 small eating apples (Cox's are good for this)
a little milk or beaten egg

1. Pre-heat the oven to 220C. Peel, core and slice the apples and toss in the sugar and spice until well coated.

2. Roll out the pastry on a floured surface until the thickness of a pound coin. Cut a large circular shape (no need to be perfect circle).

3. Spread the mincemeat all over the centre of the pastry circle, leaving an inch or so as a border.

4. Arrange apples on top of mincemeat and then bring the pastry up around the edge of the filling, pressing together so that the sides stand up around the edge....


5. Brush the pastry with milk or beaten egg and then bake in the oven for 20 minutes until pastry golden and apples softened.


6. Serve hot or warm with ice cream, custard or cream.

Notes - the syrupy part of the mincemeat gets very hot in the oven, so be sure to take care with that first mouthful. I was far too greedy and took a bite as soon as it was out of the oven - big mistake... Next time, I think I might jazz up the pastry a little with some nuts - perhaps some almonds or walnuts lightly chopped so there was still a little crunch.


Please note - blogger seems to be playing up and telling me that exclamation marks are not permitted. So please note that I am not lacking in humour this evening, just unable to express my merriment...

Leek and potato soup with mustardy toasts and bacon bits

I love making a big batch of soup at this time of year. It seems like the right sort of thing to be doing on a cold day. It is also a handy lunch for work - I freeze individual portions and take them to work still frozen solid (no worry about leaks or spillages) and by lunchtime they have defrosted, ready to pop in the microwave. Only trouble with this one though is that I can hardly start frying bacon and grilling cheesy toasts to go with it!

Once I had made this leek and potato soup last week, I simply knew that I had to combine it with bacon, cheese and mustard in some form. Delicious!

Leek and potato soup with cheesy mustard toasts and bacon bits

Serves 4

1lb potatoes, peeled and diced small

1lb leeks, finely sliced

1 medium onion, finely sliced

3 tablespoons sunflower oil

2 pints vegetable (or chicken) stock

6 rashers smoky bacon

8 slices of baguette

Good handful grated Gruyere or other hard cheese of choice

2 tblsp grainy mustard

1. Heat oil in a deep saucepan and add leeks, onion and potatoes - sweat until translucent and potatoes are starting to soften.

2. Add stock and bring to boil. Simmer for around 50 minutes.

3. Ten minutes before soup is ready, cut bacon into small bits and fry until crispy.

4. Smear mustard over the baguette slices and top with grated cheese. Grill until bubbling and golden.

5. Blitz the soup in a blender or use a stab-mix - blend until smooth. Add more stock if too thick. Season to taste. Serve with bacon bits and cheesy toasts. Stir in a little cream if you prefer a creamier soup.

Moroccan style lamb chops with chickpea mash

'Beauty comes from within' should clearly be the strapline for this dish. Try as I might, I could not seem to get a decent snap of this tasty supper. The lamb chops were brown. The chickpea mash was... brown. Even the char-grilled courgettes failed to perform for the camera. So apologies for the photos. Think instead of the flavours. Paprika. Cumin. Coriander. Lemon. Garlic. Chilli.

It was nice to ring the changes with these lamb chops - the spicy flavours worked well with the lamb and the chickpea mash was good too. I found it quite rich and 'solid' and could only eat a smallish amount.

Moroccan spiced lamb chops with chickpea mash

Serves 2

4 lamb chops

For marinade -
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon cumin (or better still, cumin seeds crushed in a pestle and mortar)
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon tumeric (optional)
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
grated zest and juice of half a lemon

For chickpea mash -
1 large can of chick peas, drained and rinsed
1 red onion
1 teaspoon paprika
glug of olive oil

1. Bash all the marinade ingredients together in a pestle and mortar, adding olive oil and lemon juice at the end. Pour over the lamb chops and rub all over. Leave for half and hour.

2. Turn grill to high and grill the chops for around 4-5 minutes each side (depending on how thick they are and how you like them cooked - mine were thick and I like them a little pink in the middle). Once cooked, set aside on a warm plate to rest for a few moments.

3. Meanwhile, prepare the mash. Place chickpeas in a pan covered with salted water and bring to boil. Simmer for a few minutes to heat through. Whilst this is happening, chop and soften the onion in a little olive oil. Drain chickpeas and place in food processor with onions, a glug of olive oil and the paprika. Whizz until smooth, adding more oil until you reach desired consistency.

4. Serve with the chops and vegetable of choice. I chose char-grilled courgettes that had been marinated in a herby, lemony, olive oil mixture.

Banana muffins (with a little chocolate for good measure)

I like to think that every cook has a culinary nemesis. A food item that you may love to eat but that the idea of actually cooking sends you into a cold sweat. You've probably tried on several occasions (depending on your patience) and whilst you may not have failed, you have not been 100% happy with the results. For some this might be baking bread. For others, pastry. I have a bit of a thing about rice. Maybe I am wrong - it is quite possible that I am the only one who experiences such insecurity in the kitchen.

One of my 'issues' surrounds the baking of muffins. I adore freshly baked muffins. Blueberry, apple and cinnamon, bran and raisin, chocolate. Bring them on. All of them. At once. Such is my passion that I decided a few years ago that I simply must try to make my own. I found a reliable-looking recipe for raspberry muffins and away I went. So sure was I of success that I even invited people round for 'elevenses' to enjoy my freshly baked muffins. Too cocky. The muffins were hopeless. They tasted fine. But there was nothing muffiny about them. They were, in short, raspberry cupcakes. I was upset. Very upset.

One of my less attractive traits is that I am rather a bad looser. I like to get things right. First time. So upset was I with my muffin disaster that I resigned myself immediately to a life of purchasing (rather than baking) muffins.

This was until Friday. I had a brief lie-in as I work from home on Fridays. I was up at 8ish and stumbled into the kitchen to make a cup of tea before hitting the desk... It was then that I spied them. A bunch of very sad bananas. Going blacker and blacker before my very eyes. Immediate action was required. I simply had to think of some way to use up those overripe bananas. Banana cake? Usually, yes. But I had to start work and needed something quicker than that. I grabbed Nigella's Domestic Goddess book for inspiration. It just happened to fall open on the 'banana muffin' page. Uh-oh.

I decided to bite the bullet and go for it. I had all the ingredients to hand and the instructions were so simple that I really couldn't fail. Plus I was able to knock them up and be at my desk by 8.30am whilst the muffins baked in the oven.


And how were the muffins, I hear you ask. A partial success. Have, since my previous muffin disaster, read that the key to the perfect muffin is not to overmix the... mixture. Combine the ingredients with just a few gentle stirs. Apparently it does not matter if there area lumps of flour. It will, so I'm told, all come out in the wash (... or rather, in the oven. But you know what I mean).

Well. I'm not so sure about this. As you will see from the pictures, some rose much better than others. I can only assume that the bicarb and baking powder were not evenly distributed due to required half-hearted mixing. Clearly I should have thoroughly mixed the dry ingredients first and then mixed everything together lightly. Secondly, my 'muffin' tins are not really 'muffin tins' at all. More like... mince pie tins. I think I should have used a deeper tin. I'd be grateful for any tips though.

The good news? They did have the right texture. And they were delicious. I am therefore prepared to give muffins another whirl - can anyone tell me where I am going wrong?!

Here is the recipe. I added some milk chocolate chips to half of the muffins - just because I couldn't think of any reason not to!

Banana Muffins from Nigella Lawson's 'How to be a Domestic Goddess'


30g unsalted butter (ridiculous amount to weigh unless you have electric scales!)
2 heaped tablespoons clear, runny honey
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 large, very ripe bananas
150g plain flour
1 heaped teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch of salt
small handful chocolate chips (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 190C.
2. Place butter, honey and vanilla into a small saucepan and melt gently. Set aside.
3. Mash the bananas - add the butter and honey mixture to the bananas and mix together.
4. Mix together all the dry ingredients in a separate bowl.
5. Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and combine lightly. Do not overmix - it will look lumpy and sludgy, but do not worry!
6. Put paper muffin cases into a 12-bun muffin tray. Fill the cases about 2/3 full. It will seem like you don't have enough mixture for this. You will. Honestly.
7. Bake for 25 minutes, until they are nicely browned on top. Remove from oven and cool in tray for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack until cool.

Going...


...going...

GONE!

Great British Pudding Challenge and a Chilli con Carne

No. It is not a picture of a great British pudding. You are absolutely right. It is a picture of a jacket potato smothered in chilli con carne and topped off with guacamole and sour cream. Yum. But before I talk about the joys of this delicious chilli, I would like to send you away. I want you to go and take a look at Rosie's blog, 'Rosie bakes a 'Peace' of Cake'. Upon hearing about the demise of the traditional British pudding, Rosie has decided that food bloggers must unite to preserve our wonderful puds. She has launched the Great British Pudding challenge. I fully intend to take part and urge you to do the same - do take a look. Go on. Just click here.

Those who have managed to stop drooling over Rosie's delicious cakes and have returned may like to hear about the chilli I made the other night. Another great winter warmer that freezes really well - I made a big batch and then froze it into smaller portions. I work in the wine industry and, as you can imagine, we are coming up to our busiest time of year - I is good to be prepared with food I can just heat up when I get home exhausted each night!

There is nothing original about this recipe - I found it on the BBC Good Food website. I thought I'd play around with it somewhat, but then I decided that there was really no need. It was perfectly good as it was. The only change I made was to add oregano rather than marjoram (I didn't have any). In fact, being super lazy, I am not even going re-write the recipe - just give a few notes. Click here for the recipe.

Basically, you sweat onion, garlic and red pepper in a mixture of spices (paprika, chilli and cumin). The smell is wonderful. It is a fairly spicy recipe so adjust accordingly. You then brown the meat. I would recommend doing this in another pan, in small batches, otherwise it stews rather than fries - you want a bit of caramelisation on the meat for added flavour. The mixture is then simmered away with tomatoes and stock.

I always add a square or two of dark chocolate to chilli - it adds a lovely smoothness to the sauce. It may sound odd, but you can't actually taste the chocolate. I do the same with venison casseroles - again, it doesn't taste chocolately, but gives a great texture to the sauce.

I am not wild about rice, so I like to serve chilli with jacket potatoes, topped with sour cream and guacamole. Alternatively, it is great stuffed into tortillas, sprinkled with cheese and popped under the grill for a few minutes.

Pheasant casserole with cider

A couple of years ago, I returned home to find two dead birds hanging from the knob on my front door. This was somewhat alarming and unusual as I live in the middle of London and my front door is in fact inside (I have the ground floor flat of a Victorian terrace). Once I got over the initial shock, I noticed that my neighbour had a similar brace hanging from his door. On closer inspection, I saw that these beady-eyed beauties were in fact Partridge.

Slightly bemused by the appearance of these birds, I headed into my flat trying not to knock them off the door knob. A few hours later I received a knock on my door. My neighbour.

Him: 'Hope you don't mind the birds? I haven't got anywhere else to hang them.'
Me: 'No, not at all. Gave me a bit of a shock when I walked in, but it is fine. Would you rather I put them in my shed?'
Him: 'No - they are fine there. Don't suppose you like game?'
Me: [BINGO!] 'I love game'
Him: 'Why not keep that brace for yourself then?'

In the weeks that followed, I was lucky to receive sporadic offerings of a similar kind following his weekend shooting excursions. Pheasant, partridge, wood pigeon - sadly never any grouse! Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to have been so lucky of late. He has a new girlfriend, perhaps she doesn't approve of his country pursuit. Anyway, I have been feeling somewhat deprived and found myself throwing a pack of pheasant thigh and breast meat into my trolley in a certain well-known, upmarket supermarket earlier this week.

Waitrose has a good selection of game, as it happens. I was rather impressed. I shall go back. Or rather I would if it were not for the baffling 'instructions' on the pheasant packaging. I had decided I would make a big casserole which I would then freeze into individual portions. For emergencies. As I took the meat out of the packet I happened to glance upon a notice on the wrapper that said 'once cooked, do not re-heat'. Why? In my book, casseroles always taste better the second outing, once the flavours have had time to mingle. Why, if the meat is fresh, should the casserole not be frozen then carefully re-heated on another occasion? If anyone can shed any light on this, I would be most grateful.

Anyway, here is the recipe for the casserole. I decided to use cider - the appley flavour was delicious with the pheasant. Definitely one to repeat. I made it up as I went along - next time, I think I would add leeks too. It may not be very photogenic (does anyone have any tips for making stews/casseroles look attractive?!), but it tasted absolutely delicious.

Pheasant Casserole with Cider


Ingredients (serves 4)

500g pheasant boned pheasant thighs (or combination of breast and thigh)

2 medium onions

1 large clove garlic

2 large carrots

2 sticks celery

250g mushrooms

1 pint cider

1 tbsp olive oil

Bay leaf

Bouquet garni and/or sprig or two of thyme

Salt and pepper

1. Pre-heat oven to 150C. Heat oil in a large casserole. Brown the meat evenly on all sides and set to one side, covered to keep warm.

2. Slice the onion and celery. Dice the carrot. Finely chop the garlic. Soften the veg for five minutes in the casserole, adding a little more oil if needed.

3. Slice the mushrooms and add to the pot, along with the browned meat. Season.

4. Add the cider so that the ingredients are covered - you may only need 3/4 pint. Add bay leaf, bouquet garni and/or thyme. Turn heat up a little and bring to simmering point - give a good stir.

5. Place in the oven and cook at 150C for 50-60 minutes. Check a couple of times during cooking in case the liquid needs topping up. If so, add more cider or a little chicken stock. Serve with fluffy mashed potatoes and greens, or celeriac mash.
Notes - The sauce is quite broth-like. If you prefer a thicker sauce, sprinkle a little seasoned flour over the meat prior to browning. You could also add some cream for more of a dinner party type dish - I stirred some cream into a little and it was good. But I actually think I preferred the non-creamy version (did I actually say that? I preferred the non-creamy version? I am clearly not yet fully better!).