HEALTHY CHRISTMAS CAKE

This is stolen from Kate Farrells Facebook page.  Completely and unashamedly:

I made this one on monday, turned out beautiful. Plus its gluten and dairy free for those with allergies and intolerances. 

600 g mixed dried Fruit or a mix of the following (raisins, prunes, figs, apricot, currants, sultanas, dates)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla bean extract or paste
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
zest and juice from 1 orange
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 eggs
200 g (2 cups) ground almonds
50 g walnuts

Preheat your oven to 150 C (fan forced)
Prepare a 20 cm round cake tin with baking paper lining the sides and the base.
Combine dried fruit, spice, vanilla, orange zest + juice, olive oil and eggs.
Add the almonds and walnuts and mix through.
Spoon Christmas Cake batter into your baking tin.
Bake for 1 hour and 30 minutes. Check with a skewer to see if it comes out clean, if not bake for another 30 minutes.
Cover the top if necessary to prevent over-browning.
Cool, then remove from the tin and store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 month.

NOTE:
If you wish to soak your Christmas cake in orange liqueur, as soon as you remove the cake from the oven, skewer holes through the cake and drizzle over 1/4 cup orange liqueur so it can penetrate through the holes and infuse into the cake.

This cake can also be served as a pudding served with vanilla bean custard or thick natural yoghurt.

For nut allergies replace the almond meal for 1 CUP wholemeal or spelt flour and omit the walnuts. Add one more tablespoon olive oil.

20 serves per cake 
Nutrition per serve:
Protein: 4.4 g
Total fat: 9.8 g
Saturated: 1 g
Carbs: 18 g
Fiber: 3.3 g
kilojoules: 740
Calories: 177

Thanks to The Healthy Chef (www.healthychef.com)

Pecan Pie and Vanilla Ice-Cream

Happy Thanksgiving folks   I'm going to a potluck Thanksgiving dinner in Balally in Dublin tonight.  And I will be bringing some of these pecan pies (because I have a bottle of Karo) and some homemade ice-cream made with condensed milk (because traditional egg custard based ice-cream is rich with protein which will not be welcomed by the Move 4 Parkinsons choir that will be present).

This is Bakerella's recipe for Pecan Pie (Irish-ised).


Mama’s Pecan Pies
Makes 3 pies or about 33 mini pies

450g pecans
200g Butter
450g package light soft brown sugar
1 heaped tablespoon Self Raising Flour
16 oz. bottle light corn syrup (Karo)
1 tablespoon Vanilla Extract
6 eggs
3 regular size (not deep dish) pie crusts

Melt butter in the microwave for about 2 minutes or until melted and set aside.
Prepare your pecans. Remove any unwanted brown pieces from the pecan crevices and shake out pecan crumbs in a colander.
Place brown sugar in a large bowl. Work out any lumps with the back of a spoon. If the brown sugar is too hard, you can loosen it up in the microwave. Heat it for a few seconds and it will be fine.
Add a heaping serving tablespoon of self-raising flour and stir until the flour disappears into the brown sugar.
Add a bottle of light corn syrup. Then add 1 serving tablespoon of vanilla and stir until thoroughly combined.
Add melted margarine. Fold carefully into the mixture so it doesn’t splatter. Fold until the margarine is thoroughly worked in and disappears.
In a separate bowl, crack open six eggs. Remove the “roosters” and loosely beat the eggs with your spoon.
Fold the eggs into the pie mixture until they disappear.
Add pecans and stir until completely coated.
Remove three pie shells from the freezer at this point and check for cracks. If you do have a crack, thaw and knead the crack together and refreeze.
Pour the mixture evenly into the three shells. You’ll probably have a little bit leftover in the bowl. Tap tops with a spoon to check consistency and make sure there is the same amount in each pie. Redistribute pecans if necessary to make equal.
Bake for 45 minutes to an hour at 175. Cook pies until they swell and then fall. At that point they are done.
Remove and cool for about three hours. Store on the counter or in the refrigerator depending on how you like your pie.


Eggless Vanilla Ice-Cream
1 can of condensed Milk
1.2Ltr Double Cream (I know insane right)
2 tsp Vanilla Extract

1. In a stand whisk ingredients together until thick and quite stiff.
2. Pour into a freeze proof container and cover with cling film (this ice-cream does not need to be churned.

Footnote
I wound up being too late and now have much Ice-cream in the freezer and Pecan Pie in the fridge

Brownies - an Adendum

So a little experimentation (this time last week) following a bit of Pintrest browsing allowed me to put aside one of my snobbery's.  You see I abhor recipes that include the likes of

'add one pack of cake mix to...'

So here I am to admit I may have been just a little too hasty.  The two experiments that I tried were based on American confections (it coming up to thanksgiving and all).

The first was putting Reeses peanut butter cups in brownies and the result was pretty meh - nothing unpleasant but nothing special.

The second was the delightfully decadent Oreo stuffed brownie.  The Oreo remained soft due to the moisture in the brownie - amazing!

Try this with one of the Brownie Recipes below;

Katherine Hepburn Brownies

Brownies

DO THIS NOW your taste buds will thank you for it.

Katharine Hepburn's Brownies

I am open to be corrected on this but so the story goes that Katharine Hepburn was asked to submit a recipe for a charity thingy and she submitted a recipe for brownies.  It quickly became the 'go-to' recipe for brownies at the time.  But due to my brownie 'curse' I haven't ever been able to make them work.  Below is the original (I believe).

Maple Pecan Pie

• 1 prepared unbaked pastry shell, 9-inch
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup pure maple syrup
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cups pecan pieces or halves

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350° and place rack at lowest position. In a large bowl, beat eggs. Add maple syrup, brown sugar, melted butter, and vanilla. Blend well and stir in pecans. Pour into prepared pie shell. Bake at 350° for 35 to 40 minutes, or until golden brown and the filling is set.

Whiskey Fed Christmas Cake - The Preparation

And so I did start with the Christmas Cake

Add half a bottle of whiskey* to 450g of Dried Fruit** cover with cling film and pop it into the hot press for a day or so take it out and stir it every once in a while (twice a day) so that all of the fruit gets a chance to plump up and get a little drunk.  Think of it like a tea brack looking at you cross eyed!  By the time you get to mixing up this cake the whiskey will have combined with the sugars from the fruit to create an unctuous syrup.

*Jameson Whiskey

**This years dried fruit combination:
Dried Blueberries
Dried Cranberries
Flame Raisins
Currants
Golden Sultanas
Sultanas

Christmas Cake

BTW My Christmas cake is not close to being baked. I have bought an impressive array of dried fruits I just need to get my hands on a bottle of Jameson will post when I get cracking.

The kitchen in the new house.

So it would appear all my promises of Christmas baking have been lies till now.  I've just moved house and I've been working on getting that into order.  The old kitchen in the new house is significantly smaller than the kitchen in the house we were renting.  We have a room now ready to house a swanky new kitchen but cant afford to kit it out (because as it turns out there was nothing holding the slates (roof tiles), on being that the slats had dissolved!).  The old kitchen in the new house is a double galley kitchen and works really well if one person is cooking, everything is in easy reach.  Small kitchens can be a blessing in disguise.  In renting over the past 12 years we got really, really good at designing efficient kitchens.

1st Goal - Storage
Its really difficult to find stuff.  Most of it was packed away in chest of drawers (my clothes are from the laundry or a skip bag at the moment - ironing was never a high priority).  Two big billy bookcases took a large chunk of the storage needs from the garage and later down the line we can look at buying doors for them.

2nd Goal - Clear Counter Tops
We went to Ikea and got a bunch of rails and hooks to deal with my obscene need to have utensils (there are 20 filled hooks and we still need more).   We bought a magnetic strip for the knives and got rid of the knife block.  We discovered that the Goodalls spice/herb tins are magnetic so we will probably pick up some more magnetic strips.  I have other hook mounted spice jars that everything else can go in.  My weighing scales is wall mounted and I have one of those plastic bag storage thingys.  The hand blender went up on the wall too and we've run out of wall space.

Whats left to do in the old kitchen...

3rd Goal - Brighten the place up a bit
There are solid wood doors and crap cabinets.  Sugarsoap, Sand, Undercoat and Paint the Cabinets.  Get rid of the current light fitting (the roof is 6'6" and the other half is 6'5") and insert under cabinet lighting and lighting over the food prep/serving area.

4th Goal - Finishes
I will paint the center panel for some of the cabinets with blackboard paint for shopping lists and menus (I have a painfully bad memory).  Some of the tiles need re-sticking and I need to paint the little bits that need painting.  The final thing is that the cooker needs a splashback.  I like the stainless steel ones for practical reasons.

Christmas is coming...and I'll be getting fat ;)

About this time every year I get to thinking about Christmas or at least the food part of Christmas which is my favourite.

The reason I am thinking about Christmas so early is because I like a mature Christmas cake.  Many families have their own cake recipes and mine is no exception and in the spirit of generosity I will give you my Mamas recipe which is essentially an Oxford Lunch.  My own recipe for Christmas cake kind of evolved from that and became something else entirely.  My cake is a whiskey fed Christmas cake and the 9" round cake takes an entire bottle of Jameson over the following few months.  Last year I made almond paste for the first time (again with the whiskey) and it tasted infinitely better than the crap that I've been buying in the shops for years and it's really easy to make too.  Theres also a guide on how to apply almond paste.  This year I'll take a crack at making fondant for the first time and let you know how I get on.

I made Christmas puddings with my Mama every year but have never made one of my own.  This year I'll make a crack at it and I also have a version of it that is Gluten, Dairy, Egg and Sugar Free that I'm going to try (for my sister in law Melina) and a dairy free cream that goes with that.  I have recipes on Mince pies from last year and of course whiskey/brandy butter.  I also have a recipe for Mincemeat Gingerbread that you should take a look at for an easy winter pud.

For edible decorations there is nothing nicer than gingerbread which can be made into tree decorations and gingerbread houses which make lovely gifts too.  There is a huge range of easy to make greatly appreciated edible gifts for the christmas too.  Sweets, truffles, fudge, biscuits. I'll make, bake and post over the next few months and you'll find everything under the Christmas Baking label on my blog.

Vanilla Syrup for Coffee

If you like vanilla latte this is the super easy recipe for the vanilla syrup that you put in coffee. Syrup can also be used for a vanilla sponge pudding or over fruit in a crumble, cobbler or eves pudding

2 Cups White Sugar
3/4 Cup Brown Sugar (I use a mix of demerara and soft brown at a ratio of 2:3)
21/2 Cups of Water
4 Tbsp Vanilla Extract

1.  Mix the first 3 ingredients together and bring to the boil for at least 10 mins.  Give a little stir the first few times so that the sugars are dissolved properly.
2. Add vanilla extract and stir.  Allow to cool
3. Pour into a jug and into sterilised bottles (Kilner bottles are good but you can also use Grolsch bottles or similar style)

 

Hungarian Chocolate Cookies

 Truthfully I don't know how authentic these are but I adore how they taste.  They are really straightforward to make and the results are delish.

Ingredients:

Biscuit
100g Butter
50g Caster Sugar
100g Self-Raising Flour
25g Cocoa
A few drops of vanilla extract
Filling
50g Butter
100g Icing Sugar
25g Dark Chocolate
2Tbsp Hot Milk

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 190C
2. Cream butter and sugar until it pales in colour and becomes light and fluffy.  Beat in the vanilla extract.
3. Sieve togeth SR Flour and Cocoa.  Fold into the creamed butter and sugar.
4. Roll the dough into equal marble-sized balls and flatten a little with a fork.
5. Bake for 10mins and leave to cool on a cooling rack
6. Filling: Beat together butter and icing sugar.  Grate chocolate and melt in the hot milk.  Add melted chocolate to butter icing.
7. When biscuits are cool sandwich together

Viennese Fingers

You'll need a piping bag with a large star nozzle for these.  Not to worry if you dont have the equipment I've used the same recipe to make Jammie Dodgers. They taste wonderful and are one of my all time favourites

200g Butter
75g Icing Sugar
1tsp Vanilla Extract
200g Self Raising Flour
Pinch of salt

1. Preheat the oven to 190c
2.  Soften the butter in the microwave and then beat together with the icing sugar until it is very soft.  Add the vanilla extract and mix through.  Stir in the flour.
3. On a a greased baking sheet.  Pipe the mix into cigars go for a little forwards and backwards wiggle if you're feeling exotic. 
4. Bake in the oven for 15-20 mins
5. Sandwich together with a little butter icing and jam and dip either end in melted chocolate.

Chocolate Vodka

Where are my manners?  I tempt you with such delicacies as chocolate vodka but dont deliver? - shame on me.  I used a bottle of vodka and two bars of chocolate one dark, one milk.  This is what I think would taste better but havent tried so cant confirm.  I reckon that the recipe was a little bitter and that using just milk chocolate would've been a better idea not just that but I think that the sweetness of a light rum would have rounded that note out perfectly - course if you're feeling fancy you could just make chocolate vodka using chilli infused vodka and dark chocolate.

Water makes chocolate seize and this is kinda true for this too.  Be patient it's worth it in the end.  Add a little vodka to cooled melted chocolate stir, add a bit more - stir, repeat until both are well mixed (I used a spatula at first then a whisk).  Make life easy on yourself and pour using a funnel or jug back into the Vodka bottle.  Put the lid back on and shake for all your worth.  Then chill in the fridge - it should be good for a few weeks.

Frozen Mudslide Cocktail

So tasty it should be illegal.

2 parts Vodka
1 part Kahlua
1 part baileys
3/4 Glass of Ice
Mars Bar / Baileys IceCream Sauce

Method

1. Drizzle a tall glass with Mars Bar/Baileys Sauce
2. Place Ice in a blender with alcohol and blend
3. Pour into Glass

Baked Blueberry Cheesecake

I trawled the internet for a baked cheesecake, my friend Aishling makes an awesome one but I wanted to see what else was out there.  The recipes that I came across were for a much too large cake for my needs (and besides I only had one pack of cream cheese).  Blueberries were on special in Aldi for 69c so I bought about 4 punnets freezing them on trays and then bagging them.  I have been quite extravagant with the blueberries and really you don’t need so many.  You can also use any summer berry for this.  I also used their own brand cream cheese which was significantly cheaper that Philadelphia.  The recipe for blueberry Sauce can be used on pancakes, waffles, Ice-cream.  I used a 20cm round tin and there was enough in this for 3 people who all had little seconds. 

Base:

6 Digestive Biscuits Crushed

50g Butter

1 tbsp Demerara Sugar

1 Punnet Blueberries

Cheesecake Mix

1 Egg + 1 yolk

200g Cream Cheese

1 Tub of Crème Fraiche (I used most of a tub left over in the fridge)

25g (1 heaped tbsp) Plain Flour

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Blueberry Sauce

2tbsp Maple Syrup

1 Punnet Blueberries

Method

1.  Preheat the oven to 190c
2.  Melt butter in a pot over a gentle heat, add sugar and biscuit crumbs.  Empty into a loose bottomed tin or a springform tin and press into the base.  Sprinkle Blueberries on top.
3. Mix together Cheesecake mix and beat until smooth.  Pour onto biscuit base.
4. Blueberry Sauce: Heat blue berries and maple syrup together in a pot as the maple syrup heats it will cause the the berries to release their juices. 
1. Method 1 Pour in drops in four or five locations and use a cocktail stick to create a marble effect through the cheesecake
2. Method 2: When the cheesecake is baked top with warm blueberry sauce.
5. Bake in the centre of the oven until the cheesecake is slightly wobbly in the middle (30-40mins).
6. Allow to cool then chill in the fridge before serving.  I served it with a side of chopped strawberries macerated in Galliano and a little cream.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

When I first discovered red velvet cake I was truly weirded out by it but it is wonderful and frivolous and most importantly delicious. This recipe is provided by Miss Laoise Curtin a fellow avid baker and niece.  Below are some notes of hers.

I've researched and tried this recipe and found that the butter milk can be substituted with normal milk and a couple of teaspoons of clear vinegar .

Ingredients

60g of unsalted softened butter

150g caster sugar

1 large egg

20g cocoa powder 

1x 1oz bottle of red food colouring

1/2 a teaspoon of vanilla extract

120ml buttermilk (110ml of normal milk with 10 ml of clear vinegar)

150g plain flour

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 1/2 teaspoon clear vinegar

1. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees and line a cupcake tin 
2. Cream the softened butter an sugar
3. Add the egg to the mixture.
4.  In a separate bowl, mix the cocoa powder ,the food colouring and the vanilla together
5. Mix the red mixture and the light mixture together
6. Add the buttermilk to the now combined red mixture 
7. Add the flour
8. Add the bicarbonate of soda and the vinegar
9. Mix IMMEDIATELY as the reaction of the bread soda and vinegar is going on at that moment.Get the in the oven as fast as possible and bake for 20-25 minutes.

For the icing

Mix 50g of softened butter and 125g of cream cheese .Then add 300g icing sugar.

Mars & Baileys Ice-Cream Sauce

Warm gooey sauce for grown ups who like ice-cream

A couple of mars bars
Baileys

Method

1. Chop up your mars bars nice and small  so that it melts really quick (patience isnt always a strong suit of mine)
2. Add Baileys a little at a time and mix well. I havent specified how much Baileys (after all who am I to judge) but you want a thick pouring consistency

Oreo Cocktail (Cookies and Cream Cocktail)

I have a few of the cutest babysham glasses from the 60's (a bit like a martini glass) and this gave me a chance to use them.  In terms of decorating for this cocktail you can dip the rim in water as you would for salting a rim but instead of dipping it in salt you can use oreo crumbs instead.  The other thing that you can do is to just stick a whole oreo in the cocktail for dipping purposes.

Oreos
Galliano/Baileys
Cream

Method

1. In a blender put a glassful of ice, a shot of cream a shot of alcohol
2. Blend baby blend
3. Add an Oreo
4. Blend baby Blend
5. Pour in prepared glass
6. If you want to make it a bit more swish consider adding some chocolate vodka

Milk and Cookies Cocktail Party

Milk and Cookies was the theme for my birthday this year.  But it was a little less innocent than the name suggests.  Normally I would use 1 part alcohol to 4 or 5 parts base but due to the amount of ice I upped the alcohol content to taste.

Drinks
Obviously there was milk but I popped some ice-cubes in the blender and started mixing

• Galliano - Vanilla Liqueur
• Kahlua - Coffe Liqueur (alt. Tia Maria)
• Baileys - Irish Cream Liqueur (alt. Any Irish Cream Liquer)
• Mickey Finns Butterscotch Liqueur
• Homemade Chocolate Vodka

This is what I knew going in:
Kahlua + Milk = Brown Cow
Gad's homemade speciality - Brown Goo = Vodka + Kahlua + Vanilla Ice Cream + Coke
Kahlua + Baileys 'head' = Baby Guinness

This is what I learned:
Galliano + Milk = Tastes like a vanilla milkshake only lighter
Kahlua + Galliano = Vanilla Frappuchino
Kahlua + Chocolate Vodka = Mocha Frappuchino
Oreo Cocktail

The rest can be mixed with Milk or Cream or each other, ad. nauseum 

Cookies
Homemade and Shop Bought just cause I have this weird fondness for oreos.
(I also like Bourbon Creams but I didnt have them)

Dark Chocolate & Orange Biscuits

I genuinely wonder how these would fair with coffee - I don't drink it myself.  These would be amazing at the end of a meal with a glass of port.  This I know as there was a little excessive quality control testing on my part with these.  As always when dealing with chocolate get the best quality chocolate and cocoa you can.  Drinking Chococolate is not a suitable substitute in this recipe

Ingredients:
50g Plain Flour
25g Cocoa (I used Green & Blacks)
1 orange
50g Butter
25g Sugar
25g Dark Chocolate

Method:

1. Using a sharp paring knife peel a piece of orange rind from the top of the orange to the base being careful to take as little of the pith (the white part under the skin) with you. On a cutting board shred that into fine slivers.  Grate the remainder of the rind on the finest part of the grater again being careful to avoid the pith.
2. Cream butter and sugar and add orange zest and slivers.
3. Sieve Cocoa and Flour together to blend and remove lumps.  Add two thirds to the butter sugar mix in batches and mix well.
4. Chop Dark Chocolate quite fine (these biscuits will be rolled out quite thinly) add to the remaining flour before adding whole lot into the biscuit dough and mixing well
5. Form a large ball with the dough, wrap it in cling film and chill in the fridge for 30 mins
6. Preheat the oven to 190C
7. Roll out thinly and cut with a glass or cookie cutters.  Bake on a baking sheet in the oven for 10mins.
8. Allow to cool on the baking sheet for 5 mins before transferring them to a cooling rack.

Orange and Lavender Cookies

This is the place where I would have entered a recipe about Lavender and Orange biscuits but the following happened - I tasted them!  I had seen the combination in a recipe book in cake form and thought to myself wow that really is something pretty wonderful and applied the same logic in an appropriate ratio.  Nasty Nasty Nasty

Shortbread Jam Rings (Jammie Dodgers)

200g Butter
75g Icing Sugar
1tsp Vanilla Extract
200g Self Raising Flour
Pinch of salt
Jam

1. Soften the butter in the microwave and then beat together with the icing sugar until it is very soft.  Add the vanilla extract and mix through.
2. Stir in the flour and roll into a ball.  Wrap in cling film and leave to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes
3. Preheat oven to 180C.
4. Roll out on a floured surface to 3mm thick.  Cut matching 'tops' and 'bottoms'.  On the tops cut a hole in the centre with a small cutter (I have a little heart).
5. Bake in the oven for approximately 20 mins.  Leave them to cool slightly on the baking tray before transferring them to the cooling rack.
6. Melt about four tablespoons of jam in the microwave for about 30seconds. Stir well it should be soft enough to sandwich two layers together.
7. To decorate sprinkle with icing sugar.

Camomile shortbread

These have a really subtle but pleasant flavour.  Highly recommended if in need of chilling out.  I used vanilla sugar instead of sugar and vanilla extract.

1tbsp Dried Camomile Flowers finely chopped
225g butter
140g Sugar
1egg yolk
280g Flour

Method:

1. Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

2. Stir in the flowers then beat in the egg yolk.

3. Add the flour and mix until a dough forms. Wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge

4. Roll out on a floured surface. Cut out using a cookie cutter.

5. Bake for 10mins at 190c

Alternatives:
Try using a tablespoonful of limeflowers or elderflowers