Smoked Salmon Parcels with Cucumber Ribbons and Melba Toast

The inspiration for this recipe was a Christmas present, the salmon being the ‘parcel’ and the cucumber strips the ‘ribbons’. Quite rich and very spoily, it made the perfect starter to our Christmas Day feast, and was terribly simple to make too, allowing for optimum present opening time. None of the flavours overpower the salmon, instead complimenting one another, and it looks suitably celebratory on the plate. With Valentine’s Day coming up there really is no excuse not to make this starter, perhaps in heart shaped moulds.

Serves 6

700g high quality smoked salmon slices 

300g creme fraiche

100g cream cheese

1 tbsp finely chopped fennel

1tsp caster sugar

2 tbsp lemon juice

fresh dill, finely chopped, plus sprigs to decorate

1 lemon, cut into quarters

olive oil, to grease the ramekins

5 slices of white bread

1 cucumber, peeled into ribbons

1. Whizz 200g smoked salmon in a food processor briefly, so that it remains bitty and hasn’t turned to mush. Add the creme fraiche, cream cheese, and whizz briefly again.
2. Put into a bowl and add the fennel, sugar, lemon juice, chopped dill (to taste), salt and pepper.
3. Grease 6 ramekins (which can hold about 100ml of water) with the oil, then line with the remaining salmon.
4. Spoon in the mixture, and then seal by turning over the edges of the salmon, and adding a further piece to ensure there are no gaps.
5. Cover with cling film and chill in the fridge overnight.
6. To serve, turn out on to plates (they should come out with a little coaxing using a knife), and surround with the cucumber ribbons. Add a dill garnish to the top, and scatter around, and add the lemon quarters. Serve with the melba toasts.

To make the melba toast, toast sliced bread in a toaster, then when it pops up immediately slice the toast again and cut off the crusts. Place in the oven, middle, non toasted side up, and leave until the toast starts to curl and brown. This will take about half an hour, but keep an eye on it!! Carefully remove, and store in an airtight container until ready to serve. 

Christmas Cake: Part Two 'Wreath Design'

So here it is, Part Two of this years Christmas Cake creation. The presents have been bought, wrapped and placed under the tree, the larder has been stocked and the first Guylian seashell of the season has been scoffed. It was time for one of my last, and most favourite Christmas traditions of the year, decorating the cake. Scan down to the next post and you will see that with the help of Dad (and Delia) I made my first Christmas cake from scratch, so spent a long time deciding on the best way to decorate it, to truly do it justice.

Past decorations have included Santa’s and Trees, Presents and Carol Singers, a classy Candle creation and a slightly less classy Christmas dinner spread. This year I opted for the traditional Christmas Wreath, and went all out buying edible powders, glitters and stars to make it dazzle.

I started by putting a layer of marzipan and icing on to the cake, before creating the holly and ivy leaves by hand, which I painted in situ on the cake.

I created sparkly paint by mixing the gel colours with golden powder, which created a beautiful metallic effect. I then added berries for the holly before rolling out strips of marzipan to create ribbons that appear wound around the wreath and a big bow to finish the whole thing off. 

I finally sprinkled some edible gold stars over the wreath, and VOILA, my Christmas Cake of 2012 was complete.

Wishing all my lovely readers an Exceedingly Happy Christmas!!

Raspberry Layer Cake with Raspberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream

It was one of my best friend Maddy’s 22nd Birthday on Saturday, and I knew I just had to make her a cake to celebrate. I opted for a Raspberry Layer Cake with Raspberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream. I had made Swiss Meringue buttercream before, for Ben’s Rainbow Cake, and knew I had to try it again; it's honestly like eating a cloud. 

I weighed out the cake batter, splitting it three ways to make a slightly taller cake, and then sandwiched each layer with a little raspberry jam, the buttercream and a sprinkle of fresh raspberries. On top I plonked a good layer of buttercream, and then covered it entirely with fresh raspberries - mostly because it looked pretty, but also because my buttercream didn’t go exactly to plan. Last time I made swiss meringue buttercream with Rose it went perfectly, but this time it just didn’t really do its thing. First, it went a little soupy, so I popped it in the fridge, but then it went a little lumpy, so I whacked the KitchenAid up to high speed and hoped for the best. Unfortunately, it just didn’t come together, so I gave up, added a little seedless raspberry jam, and went with it. It tasted perfect, and that’s the most important thing, and once I’d added the fresh raspberries it looked pretty good. And so the Rustic Raspberry Layer Cake with Raspberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream was born. 

So much cake.

Fast forward to the party, and Maddy got to blow out the candles on not one but two Birthday cakes, her lovely boyfriend Tony bought a deliciously decadent brownie cheesecake from the Hummingbird Bakery. It was a fabulous night, filled with far too much cake and wine, so Thank You Maddy, and Happy Birthday once again!!

Adapted from Good Food

-For the Cake-

4 eggs

225g caster sugar

225g self raising flour

2 tsp baking powder

225g butter, at room temperature

Loads of fresh raspberries

1 tbsp raspberry jam 

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease and line the bottom of 3 20cm cake tine (if you only have two like me, you might have to do this in stages).
2. Mix all the ingredients together until combined, but not over-mixed. It should drop off the spoon easily. 
3. Divide the mixture between the tins. I did this by weighing the mixing bowl empty and then with the mixture. I minus-ed the bowl weight from the other weight and then divided by three. 
4. Place the tins on the middle shelf of the oven and bake for about 25 minutes until the cakes are golden brown and coming away from the edge of the tin. Press gently to check they spring back.
5. Leave in the tins for 5 minutes, then ease the cakes out with a palette knife. Cool on a wire rack, and make the buttercream (see below).
6. Place one of the cooled cake on to a plate, spread over some jam, then buttercream, and sprinkle over some fresh raspberries. Repeat this process once more, and then on the top layer, just smooth over the buttercream, and cover with more fresh raspberries. 

Adapted from Whisk Kid 

-For the Buttercream-

300g caster sugar

7 egg whites

381g unsalted butter, at room temperature and cut into small cubes

1 tbsp seedless raspberry jam

1. In a small saucepan, heat the egg whites and sugar, whisking constantly until the sugar is completely dissolved. To check this, rub some of the mixture between your fingers, it should be completely smooth.
2. Pour into a bowl, a stand mixer works best, and whip on high speed. Then, on a low speed, add the butter, waiting until each piece is combined with the mixture before adding the next one. 
3. Beat until the mixture is light and fluffy, then add the jam and beat to combine. 

If you have issues with your buttercream like I did on this occasion, check out Whisk Kids excellent guide to Swiss Meringue Buttercream HERE. 

The Rainbow Cake

Around about a month ago I texted my good friend Rose to check that she was free on the 10th March for a very important baking mission. I had seen the rainbow cake doing the rounds for a good few months on the blogs and just knew that I had to make it. After visiting countless sites and watching plenty of videos I felt prepared enough to try it out for Ben's Birthday. 

Rose arrived at 1pm and it wasn't until 5pm that we were finished (and thats with using the trusty KitchenAid too). Thankfully, we managed the whole thing with just one minor hiccup, the second batch of frosting just wouldn't whip, but this was quickly solved with five minutes cooling time in the fridge. 

19 egg whites, 750g of butter and a whole kilo of sugar, this cake is not good for you in any way shape or form, but it just looks soooo pretty!! The cake itself is moist and tasty, and the Vanilla Swiss Meringue Frosting is to die for (definitely my frosting of choice from now on). Simply white with a few sprinkles on top, the cake appeared unprepossessing from the outside, and it was not until Ben had cut a slice that its true wonder was revealed. Beautifully defined and vibrant stripes of colour, this cake was famous on Facebook within 5 minutes, and I think Rose will agree that we make a dream baking team. 

We followed the original Whisk Kid recipe, following the tutorial on the Martha Stewart website for pointers. We made the cakes in three batches (I only have two tins), they came out pretty flat, which is totally fine. To create the colour we used a combination of gel colours (available in Sainsburys) and liquid food colouring which also worked perfectly (you will need ALOT). To make Vanilla Swiss Meringue Frosting we swapped the lemon for a couple of capfuls of vanilla essence, and we assembled the whole thing on some baking parchment, sliding it on to a clean plate when finished. 

Thank you for all your help Rose, and Happy Birthday Ben xxxxx

An Indian Feast

Last Bonfire Night, I hosted an Indian themed supper. Each guest brought a dish, and I made chutneys and onion bhajis. It went so well that I decided to recreate the feast again this week, but this time I made everything myself, including three curries, chutneys, raita, bhajis and naan bread. As you can imagine I was pretty exhausted after a good four hours of cooking - I think I chopped 12 onions, 12!!

All the recipes came from the wonderful BBC Food and Good Food websites, except for the main chicken tikka curry which is a Gordon Ramsay creation, originally found by my lovely friend Maddy. The best thing about these recipes is that they can all be made up ahead and reheated, saving time, energy and hob space later.

Chicken Tikka Masala

I doubled up the Chicken Tikka recipe to serve 6 people with leftovers. I started by making the sauce and blending it, then leaving it to one side, before reheating it just before serving and adding the browned chicken pieces which I allowed to infuse in the sauce for about 10 minutes or so. This curry has a good red colour, creamy texture and a deep flavour, with just a hint of spice that should appeal to even the most chilli fearing of friends.

Spiced Paneer and Tomato Curry

I’m a big fan of paneer, an Indian cheese similar to halloumi, and the Spiced Paneer and Tomato Curry I made was sympathetic to its delicate flavour. Again the spice level was more warming hint then blast.

Chickpea and Spinach Curry

The final curry I made was a Chickpea and Spinach number, Ben’s favourite, which made for a bit of colour on the table, and also could be described as healthy (mainly because it was green). I made the entirety of the curry up ahead, except for the addition of the spinach, which I added to the warmed sauce to wilt, about 15 minutes before serving.

The mix for the onion bhajis was again made up ahead, except for the flour, which was added to the onion, egg and spices just before frying. Once fried, I popped the bhajis in a Pyrex dish and placed them in the oven, on a low heat, to keep them warm until I was ready to serve.

Onion Bhajis, Raita and Naan

I can’t take all the credit for the feast though. Ben did make the Naan breads. He followed this Madhur Jaffery recipe, and cooked them on a slightly oiled pan on the hob rather then in the oven. They puffed up perfectly, and made for a sweet and fluffy accompaniment to the meal.

Alongside all this I served my trusty coriander chutney with the addition of a little natural yoghurt to create a smoother consistency, and cucumber and mint raita to cool everything down.

Phew, I’m exhausted just recounting it all to you here, but I’m pleased to say the meal went down very well, and six people managed to eat almost all of the different curries, which had been meant to make 16 portions!!

Happy Christmas!!

A belated Merry Christmas to you all!! I hope that you have all had a wonderful time, however you choose to celebrate. I am pleased to report that all my culinary related Christmas wishes came true and I am now the proud owner of a red KitchenAid Stand Mixer, as well as numerous baking tins, cutters and icing nibs. I also have 6 new recipe books to add to my now overflowing collection.

As expected, I have eaten a lot of very good food and generally over indulged as in only right during the festive period. My Christmas culinary conquest offerings starts with the Christmas cake that I decorate every Christmas Eve. Penguins, carol singers, flowers and of course Father Christmas have all adorned the top of my cake over the years, but this year I opted for something completely different and created a Christmas Lunch table on my cake. Consisting of a candle centrepiece, turkey, Chistmas Pudding and crackers amongst other things, I created the decorations by moulding marzipan and painting each with food colouring. It’s certainly a conversation starter!!

To see my 2010 Christmas Cake decoration, click here.

Sunday Feast: with Roast Potatoes, Nut Roast and Bread Sauce

You’d be forgiven for thinking that all I eat these days is roasts, seeing as this is the second post on the subject in the space of three. What can I say, I’m a big fan of tradition and this is one of the best. On this occasion I decided to tart up the more basic roast that I am accustomed to making, mainly because I wanted to impress some new friends.

To do this I bought one massive chicken that virtually filled the whole oven, and as well as serving my customary honey roast parsnips, carrots and sweet potatoes and greens, I attempted proper roast potatoes, for the first time ever I might add, bread sauce, pigs in blankets and my super-duper tasty nut roast.

This week I took the plunge and bought my first ever food magazine. I really can’t resist a Christmas theme, and the December issue of Good Food certainly delivered. It was from here I found the Roast Potato recipe, which was surprisingly simple, and delivered on flavour and colour, with a deliciously fluffy interior incased in a golden crispy shell.

-For the Roast Potatoes-

Adapted from the Good Food Magazine

Serves 8

2.5kg roasting potatoes, peeled, and larger potatoes halved or quartered

1 tbsp plain flour

150ml (approx) vegetable oil

2 tbsp sunflower oil

1. Tip the potatoes into a large pan of cold salted water and bring to the boil. Boil for 6 minutes exactly, then drain in a colander and allow to steam dry for a few minutes. Toss in the colander to biff up the sides.
2. Transfer to a large bowl, sprinkle over the flour and toss to combine. Pour over around half the vegetable oil and toss to coat.
3. When ready, preheat the oven to 200C. Pour the remaining vegetable oil and the sunflower oil into a baking tray, and put into the oven to heat the oil for around 15 minutes.
4. Carefully add the potatoes and roast for 25 minutes. Remove the tray from the oven, increase the oven to 220C, turn over the potatoes and return to the oven for a further 40 minutes until gold and crisp.

You may think its more suited to your Christmas Day turkey but the home made bread sauce made a welcome accompaniment to our chicken. This hugely simple recipe is from the most recent episode of Saturday Kitchen and can be found HERE (as can the recipe I followed for the Roast Chicken).

My nut roast has been a firm favourite since I discovered it, I think in an old copy of Waitrose magazine, a few years back. It’s the only nut roast I’ve ever made or even tried, and its far from the bland dry nut roast that is the stuff of veggie legends. This nut roast is sweet and nutty and cheesy and moist and basically YUM. I serve it as an alternative stuffing, but would be happy to have it in place of meat any day.

-For the Nut Roast-

Serves 6-8

1 chopped onion

2 carrots, grated

1 clove garlic, crushed

large handful mushrooms, chopped

175g cooked brown rice

115g brown bread crumbs

55g finely chopped almonds

55g finely chopped brazil nuts

115g grated cheddar

2 eggs, beaten

1 tbsp chopped fresh basil

1. Fry the onion, carrot and garlic in a knob of butter for 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook until soft.
2. Remove from the heat and stir in the rice, bread, nuts, cheese, eggs and herbs and season with salt and pepper.
3. Bake in a greased tin or Pyrex dish at 180C for one hour.

The whole thing may have taken four hours to make, and I didn’t half need those glasses of wine come serving time, but the excellent company, yummy noises and a Scrabble themed Thank You made it all worth while. 

Halloween Cupcakes

Wishing you all a belated Happy Halloween!! I hope you had the most gorgeously ghoulish of times. I ended up working on the actual night, but managed to attend a Zombie party and dress up as the Solar System over the weekend. And I got in to the spirit by baking and decorating some creepy cupcakes to celebrate.

For the teeth cupcakes I made pink buttercream and attached some sweet toothy accessories, for the devil cupcakes I fashioned devil horns and tails from ready made icing and placed on to more coloured buttercream, and my friend Rose put together some fantastically scary spiders using more of the coloured readymade icing. 

Tapas

Has any one else noticed how expensive tapas has gotten lately? Either I’m eating in the wrong places or the world has gone a little bit mad (that or I have been forever spoiled by the incredible tasting menu at El Pirata DeTapas in Wesbourne Grove). £8 for three cat bowl sized portions of decidedly disappointing and really not very authentic food? No Thank You. After one too many less then satisfactory meetings with this so called ‘tapas’, I decided to take action and make my own. It was this week’s Delia Smith/Waitrose recipe collaboration that encouraged me, who can resist heavily discounted king prawns and manchego.

I trawled Google to find suitable recipes, and stuck pretty firmly to my favourites, going for a spicy Patatas Bravas, Vodka Flambeed Chorizo, Triangular Slices of Manchego Cheese with Quince, Garlicky Griddled Sour Dough, Gordon Ramsay’s Garlic Prawns, Garlic and Sherry Mushrooms (scroll down the linked page for the mushrooms), and a selection of tasty Marinated Olives.

Yes garlic loomed large, 10 cloves of garlic in fact, but I am of the opinion that garlic is one of the best ingredients, it goes in pretty much all my food, and it’s good for you to boot.

Ben had to give me a hand with the timings, which is always my downfall when it comes to cooking. Ask me to do a roast and it’s more then likely we’ll end up having a separate meat and vegetable course… If you can get the timings right (or you have a Ben to sort them for you) this Spanish inspired feast is really very easy to make, and would be perfect made in larger quantities for a group of friends before a night out. 

Curry Night

It was no mean feat getting everyone on my course together between holidays and the start of exams, but I managed it and the result was plenty of curry and cake. Managing to fit 8 people round my small table was also quite a challenge, considering I only have 4 actual chairs (a coffee table, step ladder and guitar amp made good alternatives). I started off by making two chutneys, coriander and mango, to dip poppadoms into, which went down very well if I do say so myself. I went on to make Sophie Dahl’s Dad’s Chicken Curry, brilliantly easy to make with a very delicate flavour making it suitable for all, while my friend Lydia rustled up a veggie option. Clean plates all round. And what did I get in return? 4 cakes, including 2 chocolate fudge cakes; don’t I have lovely generous friends.

-Coriander Chutney-

Makes one ramekin

One large handful of coriander, roughly chopped

½ red onion, roughly chopped

1 green chille

1 tsp cumin seeds

juice of ½ a lime

1 tsp light brown sugar

pinch of salt

1. Put all of the ingredients, apart from the coriander, into a blender and blend to a coarse paste.
2. Add the coriander and blend to a fine paste.
3. Check to see if you need any more salt.

Recipe for the Mango Chutney can be found here.

Culinary Know How: FRESHER

Budget: CORIANDER CHUTNEY – UNDER £1.50, FOR THE WHOLE MEAL - £3 MEAT EATERS/£2 NON MEAT EATERS

Kitchen Requirements: CORIANDER CHUTNEY - BLENDER, RAMEKIN.

CAKE!!

Bacardi Party (How to make Cuba Libre's and Mojito's)

So today’s post is a slight diversion from my usual food related musings. However, there are still recipes, although on this occasion they are of the alcoholic variety. My friend Emma won a Bacardi hosted ‘Mojito’s at Mine’ competition, and I was lucky enough to bag an invite. We were provided with cocktail tuition, and plenty of Bacardi, all served up behind a makeshift bar. I can now make a mojito whilst blindfolded, an invaluable skill I’m sure you’ll agree. Thanks to Emma and the Bacardi girls.

CUBA LIBRE

50ml Bacardi (Rum)

150ml coca cola

½ lime

Cubed Ice

1. Half fill a highball glass with ice.
2. Squeeze in the juice of half a lime and drop the wedge into the glass.
3. Top with more ice, the rum and the coca cola.

MOJITO

50ml Bacardi (Rum)

½ lime

2 tsp caster sugar
12 mint leaves
dash of soda water

Crushed Ice

1. Slap the mint leaves against your hand to release the flavour, then rub them around the edge of a tall glass, then drop them into the glass.
2. Pour over the juice of half a lime and the caster sugar, and half fill the glass with crushed ice. Churn with a long spoon to dissolve the sugar.
3. Fill the glass with more ice, add the rum, a dash of soda and swizzle the long spoon to mix everything together. Garnish with mint.