FoodNerd4Life

Blog Address Change

2012-08-14T01:58:00.002-07:00

Hi lovely blog followers and foodies,

Just a quick message before I get back to finishing my latest post, I've been playing around a lot with my blog trying to make it look as nice as I can possibly can and trying to add as many features to make it a more usable site for everyone.

I've decided that using a different blog site will allow to do this - you'll be able to see all the old posts I've already done and the address isn't changing too much - if anything shorter!

So would love to see you visiting the new site - www.foodnerd4life.com and let me know what you think of the new site and later I will delete this site and only update the new one.

Have a good week!

FoodNerd x

All Right My Cupcake

2012-07-27T07:34:00.000-07:00

The joyous time has come around again - PUDDING CLUB!!! It's been a while and not as regular as we had hoped when starting it but never mind when cake is involved!

We had more eaters than bakers this time, but due to the level of richness of the three puddings made, I think any more and we would of had even worse sugar highs. To be honest, we did end up eating a lot of sweet treats, drinking a lot of a wine (and on a school night - a Monday no less!), having a huge sugar high whilst googling hot shirtless men, then old school r'n' b tunes and turning my tiny lounge into a mini rave. It was brilliant, a nice group of friends, just laughing and having fun- although the level of estrogen coming from my flat would of choked a whole male rugby team!

I think have a huge amount of time to come up with something to make so again turned to my old favourite recipe for chocolate brownies and used it as a base for cupcakes then tarted up the mix.

A joy of my job as new food product developer is that companies are always sending in weird and wonderful samples that they think will work well in the items we make. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes not so much! So not to waste the samples we normally share them amongst the staff, again some items go quicker than others, chocolates, fruit juices, booze do, chopped prunes not so much. I'm currently in the process of moving flats so trying to work down all these random collections of samples (if anyone has any recommendations for 1kg of star anise or 2kg black treacle - please let me know!!), one big tin of red cherries needed to be used up. Cherries + Chocolate = Classic. So this is my take on a Black Forest cupcakes...kind of

Chocolate and Cherry Cupcakes - Black Forest - kind of....

Makes around 16 standard cupcakes

250g unsalted buttter
500g caster sugar
100g cocoa powder
100g self raising flour
4 medium free range eggs
1/2tsp almond extract
3 tbsp cherry compote or quality cherry jam
300g tinned dark cherries or cherries preserved in kirsch/brandy
300g milk chocolate
300ml double cream
15 fresh cherries with the stalk on

1. Oven to 170C. With flouncy cupcake cases line a muffin tin and set aside.I used my brownie mix on top which I wrote about in my Easter Chocolate post- but a quick refresher. In a large saucepan, melt gently the butter, sugar and cocoa powder until smooth. Fold in the flour and when cooled slightly, beat in the eggs, one at a time to make your brownie batter.

2. Stir in the cherry compote, I used some homemade cherry jam, that defied me and wouldn't set properly, so now use it on top of yogurt and in baking. If using a lot of tinned or preserved cherries you can miss this out.

Homemade jam with the least attractive label ever

3. Stir in the almond extract, drain the tinned or preserved cherries (if in kirsch or brandy you can spoon in a few tablespoons in the mix and save some for the frosting) roughly halve and add to the mix. Spoon into the prepared cases. Bake for 15-18 minutes, so the brownie is still gooey, as they will set a little bit more on cooling.

Cherry loaded

4. While the cupcakes are cooling make the frosting, by melting the chocolate in a baine marie, to gently melt. Cool slightly and stir in the cream, this will make a soft ganache frosting, you can add slightly less cream if you want a firmer frosting. At this stage add a small amount of the saved kirsch or brandy. Spoon into a piping bag and decorate the top of the cooled cakes, then place a shiney cherry on top.

Frosting baby

Tad-da!

The other offerings to the pudding gods

Left: Kate's Shortbread, Salted Caramel and Chocolate Torte, Middle : Cat's Lemon Sponge Right: My Chocolate and Cherry Cupcakes

I promise the next post won't be chocolate brownie based!!! Now what to choose......

P.S. If you want to know when new posts are up follow me on twitter at @FoodNerd4Life and on Facebook.

The Hand and Flowers....simply divine

2012-07-25T05:07:00.002-07:00

The summer solstice, an excuse to go out for a nice meal with my family. No there wasn't any sacrificing of goats at hight alters whilst chanting around an open fire, but cocktails, dressing up, pig head's and amazing food. Yes pigs heads.

My Uncle had arranged a meal at The Hand and Flowers, at Marlow, having won two Michelin Stars this year, for select family members and friends to sample the delights on the longest say of summer. And based on the weather we've been having it was a nice excuse as we weren't going to see much of Summer after that.

Set in a cosy restaurant, of low beams and large wooden tables with soft candle light the anticipation of the menu was high. And it didn't fail to deliver. I love going to a restaurant that when you open the menu the table goes quite, just everyone is so engrossed in making decisions. Now mama FoodNerd actually always looks at a menu backwards, as she doesn't want to choose a main or starter that will be too heavy so she can't manage a delightful dessert. Swears the menus are printed back to front and don;t get me started if the desserts are on another menu!

Sorry some of the pictures are a bit dark but didn't have time to compose them properly as wanted to get stuck in!

So for my starter I went for the Crispy Pig's Head with Rhubarb and Crackling. At first I was apprehensive as never tried pig's head before but so glad I tried it. The soft pork was mixed with mustard to counter the richness, then formed and fried in panko breadcrumbs for a great contrast. There was also a rhubarb purée and poached slices which again cut through the richness of the pork and a small cube of sticky rich pan fried black pudding that working nicely with the dish. There was also a fine matchstick of cracking too which added another pork flavour and texture to the starter- amazing.

For my main course, I went for the pan fried duck breast, with sauté peas and jus, served with duck fat chips, which were the crispiest chips I had ever had, almost mini roasties! The duck was cooked perfectly and the fat had rendered out to leave a fine layer of fat that had caramelised and sticky and simply delicious! So filling as well and well balanced.

Now puddings, it was such a hard choice as they were all so amazing! Normally I'm a chocolate fiend, but it was a warm day and thought 'hey lets try something different'. I went for the passionfruit soufflé (made to order) with kaffir lime ice cream and warm toffee sauce. Luckily there was a 15 minute wait for the soufflé so could rest after the beautiful duck.

The soufflé was magnificent, the lighten than air soufflé had a good under tone of the sharp sweet passionfruit, the odd seed to have contrasting texture. The ice cream worked beautifully with the soufflé, the fresh citrus flavour lightened the whole dish. The warm toffee sauce was really nice, but didn't feel it needed it really. But overall, a perfect way to end the meal and evening.

The Hand & Flowers was a lovely evening with exceptional food and would go back in a heart beat. Delightful!

S'MORE....JUST GIVE ME S'MORE!!!

2012-07-03T08:43:00.001-07:00

As I'm not an american, who as I imagine the clichés, grew up on going to summer camps and songs around camp fires, I haven't tried a s'more first hand. However, growing up with American TV and films, vaguely aware of this American institution that is having s'mores. So when I was recently in Boston with friends for a couple of days, after visiting New York, we found one of the coolest cupcake shops I've ever been in to. Now cupcakes have been around for a while and think that they've gone from the boring sponge topped with a mountain of overly sweet butter-cream icing, to beautifully crafted desserts with refined flavour and balanced sweetness.

Sweet Cupcakes in Boston, is stylist whilst being cute and attention to details (such as free birthday candles), that meant the shop had a long queue. And it was well deserved, the cabinet of cupcakes could rival a patisserie's window in Paris. They have their daily standards like The Sweet Cake -creamy Madagascar vanilla bean cake with buttercream frosting in vanilla or chocolate, The Organic Karat -Moist carrot cake with shredded organic carrots and crushed pineapple topped with classic cream cheese frosting and an edible gold leaf petal - yum! Then through the seasons specials are added such as in Summer, The Peach Cobbler, vanilla bean sweet cake filled with handmade peach preserves laced with cinnamon sugar. Topped off with classic vanilla buttercream and a no-nuts streusel crumble. I went in October so had the Fall menu to choose from and went for - surprise surprise the S'more cupcake. Rich Callebaut chocolate cake a top a buttery graham cracker crust. Finished with a swirl of marshmallow and a dusting of graham cracker - double yum!

S'more cupcake at the front

Such a good combination, the oaty crumbs of the graham crackers base with the rich, moist chocolate sponge added a slightly bitter note which balanced out the sweetness of the marshmallow on top. Perfect!

Only this week have I had a chance to actually attempt my own version, only 8 months in the waiting! So my local supermarket had a sale on marshmallow fluff and having seen jars of the sticky stuff in specialist food shops for £6 a jar, it being only £1 meant I was going to finally be able to make some s'more cupcakes.

S'more Cupcakes

Makes around 16 cupcakes and mixture to eat while the cupcakes cooks...

150g HobNob biscuits, blitz into crumbs (closest I could get to Graham crackers)
250g unsalted buttter
500g caster sugar
100g cocoa powder
100g self raising flour
4 medium free range eggs
1 1/2 jars of marshmallow fluff (if you can't get this, make a classic Italian meringue as you would for Baked Alaska as will be safer if you serve the cupcakes to children as the hot syrup 'cooks' the egg whites.)

1. Oven to 170C. With flouncy cupcake cases line a muffin tin, spoon in each case roughly 3/4 tbsp of the HobNobs crumbs into the base (for my first attempt, I spooned them in dry but think when I do them again I would add a few tablespoons of melted butter to the crumbs before spooning into the cases, to make more of a solid base.)

Oh crumbs...

2. I used my brownie mix on top which I wrote about in my Easter Chocolate post- but a quick refresher. In a large saucepan, melt gently the butter, sugar and cocoa powder until smooth. Fold in the flour and when cooled slightly, beat in the eggs, one at a time to make your brownie batter. (I should of added some choc chips to make this extra naughty....)

Brownies a go-go

3. I spooned on a couple of decent tablespoons of the brownie mixture into the cases, being careful not to disrupt the crumbs as I wanted a neat base to the cupcakes. Bake for 15-18 minutes, so the brownie is still gooey, as they will set a little bit more on cooling.

Ready to be baked

4. FLUFF TIME!!! Having never used it before, I was unsure what to expect other than a sticky mess knowing me! I carefully spooned the marshmallow fluff into a disposable piping bag that I hadn't cut the tip off and placed in a tall glass to act as a piping bag stand. It didn't look like it would hold any piping design so when ready and the cupcakes were cooled down, I cut the pipping bag straight across and pipped a blob of the fluff in the centre of each cupcake. The fluff will spread out when being toasted so don't disheartened if it doesn't cover the whole cake.

Sticky Sticky

5. I unfortunately did't have my blow torch to hand so preheated my grill to high and blasted the cakes whilst in the muffin tray to control it better. I went for a light golden colour but you can charred those babies if that's your thing. The top was nice when straight from the grill (be carefully- hot sugar!) as the marshmallow will have a crisp shell when toasted (which it will lose the longer you store them) but they are tasty whenever you tuck in. A really quick easy recipe and you'll wow your friends as they didn't last long in my office!

Toasty....

So mine...mine oh and mine!

San Sebastian... you have my heart on a plate

2012-06-26T03:57:00.001-07:00

Summer holidays! Time to get away with great friends, explore an area whilst eating your way through local delights and sampling the local tipples.

And that's exactly what I did last week, boarded a sleazy-jet plane to the sunny shores of San Sebastian with five awesome friends who are equally foodie and nerdy (covering a wide spectrum of nerdiness). We were all set our holiday jobs, mine was to find and book a good restaurant for a special night that we could all dress up and find other foodie delights to target when it was snack- o'clock.

From my research, (which I went deep and international (NYC Times no less)) it sounded like we were going to be spoilt for choice and won't go hungry. Due to the number of Michelin star restaurants in the city and surrounding area, all the restaurants are at such a high standard even if they haven't been awarded a Michelin star.

Beautiful San Sebastian

From my research I found Ni Neu, a cute modern restaurant set on the side of the beach, with beautiful views. The restaurant was cool without being pretentious and with a relaxed feel. The staff were very attentive, with excellent English to explain some of the finer details to the delicious dishes on offer, which also came in handy when booking the table.

Ni Neu

We went for the 30 euro menu which also included wine for the meal, loco I know! We started our meal with an aperitif, the girlies went for the Martini with cherries and the guys a classic Tequila Sunrise. (Both 3 euro's each)

Shaken not stirred...

Normally in restaurants I tend not to go for the beef carpaccio as they are either overly thick or chilled so much the flavours don't come truly through. But what caught my eye on this menu was that it came with smoked watermelon, hazelnuts and Idiazabel cheese. I was sold. The beef was silky and tender, with the smoked watermelon having the texture of steak tartar complementing the beef with the toasted oily hazelnuts.

Beefy Love

Others on the table went for the seafood rice cooked with saffron stock, mussels and a light garlic mayonnaise. Now I must admit and I'm a shamed to say as a FoodNerd, I'm not a fan of fish or seafood. I know I should hang up my food lab coat with shame. It just never appeals over any meat dish on the menu- BUT I thought of all the places to try and sample different seafood, San Sebastian would be the place being renowned for their incredible fish. It was beautifully balanced and not to fishy, nearly converted me...nearly.

Little fishy

Main course I went for the boned roasted lamb with butternut squash purée and a stroke of coffee and cardamom. WOW. Just wow. I was actually sad half way through as I knew it was going to end and I just wanted it to keep lasting. Hands down the best lamb dish I have ever tasted, I still dream and salivate at the thought of the lamb. The outside of the lamb was deliciously sticky and the meat soft and flavoursome. Complemented with the butternut squash and not detracted by the minimal of coffee and cardamom. Beautiful.

Food of dreams

The others ordered the slow roasted pork ribs with the rosemary quinoa with garlic paste. Again the chef had the cook of the pork exactly right, just melting and flavoursome. With all the dishes, they are healthy portions that don't leave you wanted more in the sense you're still hungry.

Mr Porky

Now time had come for the puddings and they looked amazing, so having 5 puddings and 6 people we were gonna try all of them and double up on one of the treats. My favourite the peaches and the French toast.

foam of caramelized "mamia" with reineta apple juice

french toast soaked in egg yolk and fresh cream, caramelized in the pan, served with ice cream

marinated strawberries with mascarpone cream and fresh beetroot sponge cake

air dried peach with almond sand and fresh cheese ice cream

chocolate bubbles with ginger ice cream and light chocolate cake

Quite the selection I think you would agree! Luckily we're all good friends so the spoons were flying and the plates being passed around from everyone to have a try. After all the beautiful treats, we ended the meal with a coffee which came accompanied with parma violet marshmallows, pistachio friand and salted chocolate biscuits for petit fours.

Petit Fours

A Fuego Nergo

Another restaurant I had found for more up market lunch/pintxos (slightly larger tapas) was A Fuego Nergo . A very cool bar with an interesting take on classic dishes. Again amazing value for the quality and quantity of the food. They had a four course tasting menu, which the whole table had to choose and it would be a surprise as to what you got. Remember I said I don't really like fish or shellfish, well this menu push my limits but thoroughly enjoyed it. As well as being small portions, we were surprising filled up afterwards.

Very cool setting

Salmon, grapefruit, orange, linseed salad (had one to share between two)

Marinated octopus, mushrooms, purple potato crisps salad (had one to share between two)

Vegetable tempura with home-made ketchup and potato alioli

Blacken monk fish and pepper pearls (Really pushed my fishy tolerance! But still enjoyable)

Mini lamb kebab, with red pickled cabbage in a cornmeal pita pocket

Agorregi

After all that amazing meals you would think that was enough to tide us over on the fancy eating department. But from our meals and seeing the quality of the food for such reasonable amounts, we checked out a few travel websites when we were out there and came across Agorregi. It had amazing reviews for the tasting menu, that at around 30 euros for five courses excluding wine, which was world class. Not the most obvious location, so worth a taxi ride there but you won't regret it! The quality was incredible, the attention to detail on all the dishes was spot on. Again unlike restaurants in the UK where the taster menu is literally a small taste of a few dishes, the restaurants in San Sebastian have it just right, enough to excite your palate but leave you wanting more for the next course, but not so full that you don't enjoy the courses or whilst leaving thinking of the snack you're going to have at home to fill you up. A must try restaurant!

Ham and Cheese Croquettes

Fresh tomato gazpacho with anchovies

Fresh pasta with tomato and Iberico ham - again was very sad when I finished these, I think we could of easily eaten a lot more of these beautiful pasta parcels

Pan fried hake with roasted spider crab and pepper

Slow cooked ox cheek with pan fried foie gras and apricot puree

Red berry soup with fresh strawberries, buttery biscuit and vanilla ice cream

Almond Tuile to go with the coffees

Prize for the least favourite meal.....

We took a day to Bilbao to visit the Guggenheim to take in some culture and see some sights. After feeding our minds it was time to feed our bellies. Again the area was renowned for it's fine food restaurants. From the Guggenheim we followed our noses and found Restaurant Vienes, a collection of well dressed locals sampling a delicious looking steak whilst basking in the sunshine during their lunch breaks- clearly a very good sign. For 12 euros each we could get 3 courses ( each course having 3- 4 option per course) and a bottle of wine or water- bargain. First course I went for garlic cauliflower which was nice but an interesting choice (didn't photograph that great) and the others went for the salt cod starter which was like two giant vol au vents. Again nice but interesting. But the main course was lovely, the four girls went for the juicy steak we saw the locals chow down on, with salty chips and marinated pimento peppers. Yum.

Hearty lunch

Now the two guys we were with decided to go for the pork as the waiter translated it was cooked in the traditional style, why not, when in Rome......

What arrived can only be described as a quaking gelatinous skin and bone mound in a greasy orange sauce. My brother will try and normally finish anything you put in front of him, but you know it's bad when he doesn't eat it. It looked like someone had already had a good poke of it and sent it back to the kitchen for them to then reheat it for the next person to pick over. After a bit of googling, it turned out to be trotter after us speculating it was all sorts of parts of the pigs anatomy it could be. I'm sure the locals go made for it, if they had been brought up on it but unfortunately didn't float our boat.

This little piggy....

Dessert wise, there was chocolate tart which unfortunately they only had 5 portions left, like a gent Ben offered to have the custard.... again he lucked out as the chocolate tart was rich and dense in flavour, his dessert was a glass of warmed custard with a rich tea biscuit floating on top....nice.

Rich and dark

Custard anyone...

Saying that it could of been worse and can't be so picky for a 12 euro menu. But I can say I truly enjoyed my visit to San Sebastian and as I work with food each day at work it is easy to get a bit food jaded and stuck into the same routine cooking at home after work. But this trip has reignited my passion for food and cooking, and looking forward to spending my evenings and weekends trying out new recipes and ingredients. And this I think is why travelling is so important to me, to pick up new ideas, techniques, flavour combinations you might not of thought of, to develop your knowledge base and constantly learning.

You Put the Lime in the Coconut...no..no you don't

2012-06-22T06:29:00.000-07:00

Before heading off on holiday, like everyone I rather do some cooking late into the night instead of getting all my bits ready. Just me.....

I'm very low maintenance when it comes to going away, so when getting ready to go off to San Sebastian, I only took hand luggage for the week giving me plenty so time to knock up a sweet treat. Trawling the internet for inspiration I came across Scarletta Bakes , a really nice blog with New Mexico, Mexican and Native American, such as Black Bean Brownies. On her website I found a recipe for Cocado, a coconut bark. Coconut is one of the finest things you can use in baking, just makes things better in life!

I must admit I maybe didn't use a big enough baking tin for this but it still turned out a charm and got hoovered up at work the next day. It's sweet so serve in small squares so people can come back for more- and they will! Also a nice simple ingredient list that isn't going to break the bank but deliver mass satisfaction! This turns out like a caramelised milk coconut ice/fudge and there's nothing wrong with that in my book!

Cocado - coconut delight

Makes enough to feed a whole food factory or around 20 greedy people

2 cans of condensed milk (approx. 800g)
400g desiccated or shredded coconut
1tbsp runny honey
1tsp vanilla extract
175g golden syrup

1. Preheat oven to 175C. Line an 11” x 17” baking sheet with parchment paper. With the high sugar content it's going to stick like you wouldn't believe. I had no parchment to hand so ended up using a silicone tin but it didn't dry out the bottom as using a lined tin would, worthwhile getting some parchment to make it more caramelised.

The sweet sweet ingredients

2. In a large mixing bowl, stir the condensed milk, honey, golden syrup and vanilla together until well-blended. Fold in the coconut and mix by hand until coconut is well mixed.

All the good stuff

Mix it up baby...

3. Spread the coconut and milk mixture onto the prepared baking sheet. Spread out the mixture evenly. Bake for 25-28 minutes. The cocada will bubble as it bakes and turn a deep golden brown, with the edges becoming especially dark – it is done baking when the top appears golden throughout.

4. Allow the cocada to cool and set for at least two hours. Using a sharp, lightly oiled knife, slice the cocada into squares, carefully remove each piece from the parchment lining, and enjoy straight away or store in an airtight container. Enjoy with a cup of tea or a tequila....

Dive in and close your eyes and you're on a desert island

Bristol Street Food Revolution & Being Very Greedy

2012-06-19T09:03:00.003-07:00

Being relatively new to Bristol, I'm still pleasantly surprised when there is a lot going on on the weekends and not the usual farmers market or council event. As I'm now so taken by Bristol, I'm slowly persuading friends from home that they too should move to the West Country capital.

Luckily my best friend from home and fellow greedy foodie has recently found a job and place in Bristol, which means she helps so I don't look as much of a sad loser on my own taking pictures of my food and making notes on my phone to what it actually is. (I have a shorter memory span than an average goldfish!)

But I'm a bad friend, I flounce away most weekends to the bright lights and allure of London, or off in Europe somewhere of a weekend getaway or doing family duty, so never really in Bristol on the weekends to help my friend explore Bristol - boo hisssss.....

But by the shear chance of it, the first weekend I was around in Bristol for for two months, there was a street food festival in the nice fancy bit of Cabot's Circus. Having been naughty and not had breakfast that morning, I was really to get properly stuck in!

There was a nice buzz about the place and with around 10 different street carts, from Bryon burgers, kedgeree, frozen yoghurt and stone baked pizza's. I love me some street food, I dream of the holiday to road trips across America stopping at little t-mex carts for soft tacos then moving on to the next hidden gem.

As a warm up, I swung pass the Big Apple Hot Dogs who I had heard a lot of people raving about on twitter, but always seemed to miss them on my many visits to London, so very pleased to get a chance to try them out. The have four different sausages and a far cry from the cheap hot dogs from fairs and cinemas. The dogs are poached then finished off on the hot plate to crisp then delicious natural casings- I went for the Pimp Steak, which using high quality beef and pork, blended with garlic, black pepper and paprika, was probably the best dog I've had. Still juicy in the middle, not tough and nicely blended herbs. I was a bit feral and went for grilled onions, ketchup and gherkins on mine, which maybe should of been missed out to not mask any of the lovely flavours, but hey when in Rome. The only slight down side for me was the bun, on their website they mention they are made by a local baker for them. It was nice and didn't detract from the sausage but it didn't add anything either. But saying that next time I'm in London, will be trying again when pining over New York.

Sausages a go-go

Love a good sausage...

After such a meat feast, a sweet treat was in order and as my friend is vegetarian, she needed a treat after watching me demolish the hot dog in front of her! So we went to Daisy Green Frozen Yoghurt . My friend works next to Cabot Circus managed to try them out on her lunch break on the Friday and made me so jealous she had tried some on a scorching day while I was stuck in a test kitchen with no windows! Unfortunately they had ran out of caramelised bacon which tickled my fancy, so went for the classic of crushed Oeros and my friend went healthy-ish flaked almonds and chocolate sauce. Very rarely does a frozen yoghurt actually taste rich and like real ice cream as it tends to be watery and lack the richness I want from my sweet treats. But these deliver! Massive Yum!

mmmmm...

Clawing our cups of goodness

But we weren't done there, oh no we weren't! It was time for......BUBBLE TEA!! Having never tried it before and my friend mentioning how she had tried it once whilst travelling, I had to give it a go! To admit to something really girlie, I was also drawn to the baby blue truck they were serving out of as it matched my kitchen aid colour! There was quite a queue which when it comes to food, I take as a very good sign. Cupp Tea Bar , the first UK mobile bubble tea bar, was definitely a revelation, I went for traditional bubble tea, with tapioca pearls, green tea, mango and passion fruit popping pearls and my friend went for a soya strawberry bubble tea with tapioca pearls and coconut jelly. (phew... a longer ordering list than ordering breakfast in an unforgiving American diner!)

I loved the popping pearls of the passion fruit juice and was slurping the drink down too fast to get to the pearls. Need to hunt them down again!

Strawberry sweety

After that, we needed to curl up on the sofa and watch a Ryan Gosling film to digest before starting to get ready for the next meal.....

Cute Cupp Tea Bar

My pearly delight

Amsterdam - Pleasures of the Flesh...

2012-05-24T08:56:00.003-07:00

Amsterdam, not most people's first choice when it comes to a mother/daughter get away. But that's exactly what I did. For a long weekend, after a hard week at work, me and mama FoodNerd were off on a girlie trip. As we wouldn't be partaking in certain activities that Amsterdam had to offer, we had planned places we wanted to visit. To be honest these were Anne Frank's House and around 10 different chocolate shops and other foodie spots.

With the joy of the budget airlines now, to get an actual budget flight you have to go at crazy hours, but that suited us fine as we landed, found our hotel, dumped the bags and hit the city all before 10am.

Normally the Hawk (aka mama FoodNerd) would have a route planned out for the most efficient way to see the city. We free styled this trip with only a couple of places we wanted to make sure we visited. We wondered the 9 Streets area (Jordaan), home to a huge food market on Saturdays 9am- 5pm, where there is fresh bread, local honey and all sorts of delights to tempt you. Also home to many of the flagged up foodie spots to visit.

Firstly, was Puccini Bomboni, who have two shops in Amsterdam, one which has also a cafe attached to it, which we also sampled over the weekend. These chocolates are beautiful, large and a wide range of flavours including tamarind, honey, tea, fig marzipan, pecan and mint.

Decisions....Decisions

Even more decisions...

My Selection

The beautiful chocolate are fairly expensive, so settled on three for myself to be savoured and some as gifted for nearest and dearest. From clockwise; raspberry truffle (with chocolate curls), pecan and coffee. The flavours came through as a fresh note, not competing but complimenting the dark quality chocolate. These three chocolates were nibbled and savoured over the space of 3 weeks- which I think I deserve a medal for the level of will power!

For lunch, after visiting the Jewish Museum, in the museum quarter, which is near the Puccini that served as a cafe too, I had the ciabatta sandwich with pastrami, gherkins, salad and swiss cheese. It was huge but so flavoursome! The perfect sandwich! Everything was seasoned beautifully.

Beautiful Sandwich

Obviously, site seeing can be tiring work and many pause-cafe is needed. Whilst shopping and site seeing we found another fantastic tea room that had been ear marked for a visit. Pâtisserie Pompadour (Huidenstraat 12), is a tiny tea room for space for around 15 people to sit and have their amazing hot chocolate and patisserie's. When in such a lovely tea room there is only one drink you must order, which sets the bar of the quality of the place and that's the hot chocolate.

Have you seen anything more beautiful.....

The hot chocolate was served with a little moist almond friand, not overly sweet and just the right size to go with the rich, dark, velvety hot chocolate. A lesson I learnt in Paris one holiday is if the hot chocolate is this rich, order some tap water to go with it as you won't be able to finish the smallest cup- which is just a crying shame! The friand as lovely as it was, it wasn't needed as the patisserie's that we ordered, were out of this world.....

Treats in the window

Just - wow...

My treat of choice

Mama FoodNerd's

Mine was a chocolate mouse with a crème brulee centre with a a dark chocolate ganache and chocolate macaroons on the side. Mama FoodNerd's was a chocolate sponge, mouse with a salted caramel middle. Divine....

Working my way through...

Job well done...

More treats in the window

After all these sweet treats, we needed meat. Where we were staying near the central square which is a stone throw away from the Red Light District, where most restaurants catered for certain type of tourists. There was a lot of Chinese buffets, Argentinian Steak houses and Irish pubs. After trawling the streets, we came across CAU. Yes an Argentinian Steak House, but the menu and dining room looked so much nicer than any other ones we saw.

With the menu split into the type and weight of steaks on offer as well as burgers (which uses the trim from the steaks, so using top notch mince), salades, fish etc. Me and Mama FoodNerd went for the 300g rump steak, mine cooked rare. We also got a side dish of the tripe cooked chips, red and green salad and garlic aioli (which we had to order more of!). it was the most delicious rump steak I've had the fortune to try. Cooked to perfection and sliced like butter, and so flavoursome. All conversation stopped between us and just slowly savouring the delightful flesh! Mama FoodNerd very rarely has chips, but these broke the chip drought, crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside - perfect. We did actually manage a pudding, but to share the dulce de leche pancakes, which was just enough of a sweet edge but we did have to roll back to the hotel.

On the second night we tried to find another restaurant to rival CAU, but after a lot of searching all we wanted was more steak! This time we knew the lay of the land, we order two portions of the chips and aioli and forgo dessert, and switched the salad for the tender stem broccoli with jalapeno and shallots. This time with a margarita or two, the food was still so good and of a high quality. The second night we we're sat next to the kitchen and could watch the chef slicing the steaks to weight, clearly an art form.

But you're thinking, 'That's great but I don't want to go to Amsterdam for one of the best steaks of my life!' Fear not, CAU has come to the UK!!!!! Same menu and the flagship restaurant has opened in Guildford and run by the same guys how brought us Gaucho restaurants so you know it's going to be good! Next break I'm there!

Oh my...

I'm Kind of a Big Dill

2012-05-17T06:05:00.000-07:00

To quote a close family member, fellow blogger and amazing friend, 'you like to make weird stuff not the usual foodie things.' I kind of agree but think if I did make just the usual things all the time, I wouldn't half the Food Nerd I am today.

So after being introduced to the most insane place to do your food shop by a work friend, which turned out to be Costco wholesale, the place where if you can store kilos of things, you'll be quids in. (For months we've had 46 loo rolls hiding everywhere in my tiny flat - but hey they were on offer!) Managed to stock on the essentials, giant lemons (used for my lemon curd), 2kg of quinoa and enough toothpaste to sink a battleship! But also found in the fruit and veggie section, snacking cucumbers! Now I've been wanting to make my own gherkins for a long time, as my obsession for eating them straight out the jar has hit new heights over the last year. Luckily the pack was exactly the right amount to make a jar of them for a first attempt. So below is the recipe I used as a reference, adapted from Jams and Preserves by Nerys Purchon.

Homemade Gherkins

Makes a 600g of gherkins

125g salt (don't use expensive sea salt flakes, table salt is fine for this)
4 cups of water (no particular temperature)
600g fresh gherkins or small snacking cucumbers
1tsp whole black peppercorns
several dill sprigs (unfortunately my local shop had ran out so mine doesn't have any.)
2 cups white wine vinegar (you don't want to use malt as would be too heavy for these.)
2 tsp whole mustard seeds (again the shop had ran out so used whole coriander seeds instead which worked well- really need to fine a better stocked local shop!)
2 tsp salt, extra (same as above table salt is fine)
2 tsp caster sugar

1. Mix the salt and water in a bowl until the salt has dissolved. I trimmed the tops of the cucumbers just so they would fit into my jar but you can leave them with a little amount of stalk if you like.

The beauties

2. Add the gherkins to the brine and leave for 12 hours, covered, stirring often. I left mine overnight and they were perfectly fine with a stir every couple of hours but it's really up to you.

In their briny bath

3. Drain and rinse the gherkins well under fresh water and leave to drain. Sterilise a large kilner jar that will hold all the gherkins snugly, while they drain. If you need to know how to sterilise the jars, check out the link to my lemon curd post above.

Arty shot

4. In a sauce pan, add the extra salt, sugar, vinegar, peppercorns and coriander seeds (or mustard seed), bring to the boil and carefully pour over the packed gherkins in the jar, including the peppercorns and coriander seeds.

Just about to add the brine

5. Seal the jar whilst the brine is still hot and leave to cool. These lovelies need to be stored in the dark for 2 months before trying - upsetting I know that you can't tuck right it, but I hear patience is a virtue. So in two months time, I'll post an update as to whether they were a success or not- here's fingers crossed!

Want to try them now.....

Don't be a lemon- it's Curd time!

2012-05-09T04:29:00.002-07:00

My copy of Nigella Lawson's Domestic Goddess cookery book is wrecked. It's not from a lack of care or love but due to being a source of great baking wisdom and recipes that work time after time. One of my favourites and has been for years is her Chinese Plum Sauce, which from having two plum trees in my parents garden you get sick of making plum jam each year. This sauce is used for stir fry, glazing gammons and as a chutney for cold meats. When the plums are ready later into Summer, I'll post some pictures of my efforts.

One recipe that stood out straight away for me to try is the Passionfruit Curd. From the first time I made it (actually for my A Level Food Science project) me and my family have been hooked. Whether on toast, over vanilla ice cream or my mum's favourite - straight off the spoon, it's a real treat!

I'm not the most patient person, I'm a bit bish bash bosh however there are certain things I will take my sweet time over and making curd is one of those things. Unfortunately, I was a bit short of passionfruits on the weekend so resulting in making the classic lemon curd. There tends to be multiple ways of cooking the mixture; in a bain maire on the stove, over direct heat or thickened with cornflour. I prefer the direct heat method as I'm a bit slap dash with the starch and find the bain marie is more time consuming. Direct heat is more risky to turn to sweeten lemon scrambled eggs but for me, I've always had the best results from this method. I also doubled Nigella's quantities as one jar is never enough!

Lemon Curd

Makes around 3 smallish jam jars

4 large unwaxed lemons (I had some old-ish small lemons to use up but depends how tart you like your curd)
450g white sugar
6 free range eggs (the passionfruit recipe uses 2 whole eggs and 2 egg yolks)
120g unsalted butter

1. Using a grater, zest all the lemons into a large bowl. I use my Microplane - the holes for the grater as laser punched rather than mechanically punched, so the the lemons are shaved rather than torn with the grater allowing more zest to be collected and less pith of the lemons. Juice all the lemons and add to the bowl of zest.

Lovely zested lemons

2. In the bowl, sugar and eggs and stir until the sugar starts to dissolve.

Mixing it up

3. In a large saucepan over a very low heat, gently melt the butter, then stir in the sugary egg mix and keep stirring until you want to throw the pan across the kitchen! Seriously you want to take your time with this part and slowly cook the mixture until it thickens, around 20 minutes. Any higher heat and you run the risk of having coagulated egg in your silky lemon curd. At the start of the process you have more flexibility to not stir it continuously, so I use this time to sterilise my jam jars by pouring them with boiled water straight from the kettle whilst standing them in a clean sink and about 10 minutes before needing them, pour out the water carefully and drain on a clean draining board. When the curd has thicken until it coats the back of a spoon, take off the heat and using a ladle and jam funnel fill the jam jars. Seal with the lids whilst hot and then cool. Then store in the fridge until all used up (which won't be long!)

Getting there slowly but surely...

Lushness Lemon Curd

I'm nuts about you...Nutella!

2012-05-03T08:37:00.002-07:00

Pintrest. The new social media for people aspiring to cook better, have glossier hair and to find funny pictures of cats in bread. For people who haven't tried it out yet, it is a site that acts like a huge electronic pin board (get-it - what a clever bunch of people who name it) so if you see on a website something like a recipe you want to try out later you can 'pin-it' to refer to it later. I have friends who are wedding planners and dress makers, who use it almost as an electronic planner for clients.

Being a massive geek and loving trying out new trends when related to food, I gave it a go. It's fair to say I've been sucked in! I probably have now more recipes than I could possibly try out, a lot peanut butter and chocolate based as you can imagine.

I settled on try out a home made Nutella recipe- as Nutella is a thing of beauty, whether just eating it off the spoon watching a rom-com, warm toast or in cakes or ice creams- it's incredible! I know in an earlier post I mentioned how I don't like cooking with American cup measurements, with this recipe it just seemed easier to use them than measure out the ingredients which the conversions were odd grams etc.. The comments on the recipe, said how the Nutella was far too wet and that 1/2 a cup less of the milk would help. I tried it with the less milk and wished I had added a splash more milk before it setted as it was a firm ganache, rather than a spread. Below I've put the full amount so use your senses when it comes to adding it.

Homemade Nutella

Makes around 3 smallish jam jars

1 1/2 cup whole hazelnuts
1 1/2 cup whole milk
3/4 cup powdered milk
1 tbsp honey (Father FoodNerd, has taken to keep bees so luckily had some very local honey to try out!)
pinch of salt
1 heaped cup of dark chocolate around 72% cocoa solids, chopped
1 cup of milk chocolate, chopped

1. Oven to 205C, place the hazelnuts on a tray and toast for 10 minutes. Transfer them to a clean tea towel and gather into a bundle and rub together to remove as much skin as possible. While still warm, transfer to a food processor and blend until they go from finely ground to a thick paste. This took ages in my ancient processor and must admit I had a slight hangover so maybe didn't grind them as much as I should of!

Preparing the hazelnuts...

2. In a sauce pan, mix the whole milk, powdered milk, honey and salt, heat over a low heat until the mixture starts to boil. Remove from the heat. Melt the two chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water, stir occasionally until smooth.

My Dad's first batch of honey from his bees

Milky concoction

Mmmmm....

3. Add the melted chocolate to the ground nuts in the processor and mix, stopping to scrape down the sides. Add the warm milk mixture to the processor and process until everything is well blended and as smooth as you can get it. There was another tip left by someone who had tried it out, which was to strain the spread at this stage to remove the bulk of the hazelnut, it seemed like a waste to me! So left the spread as it was and spooned into sterilised jam jars. Keep the spread in the fridge due to the dairy content and it shouldn't last too long!

The finished spread ready to fall in my mouth!

Jarred to stop eating it out of the bowl

I don't think it was better than Nutella in any way but made a delicious nut spread, and since making it, I have seen a recipe by Paul.Young the chocolatier I mentioned in my Easter post, who uses hazelnut oil instead of hazelnuts which would give you a much smoother texture.

Portuguese Custard Tarts and their brown bottoms....

2012-04-23T03:50:00.000-07:00

As usual the Easter bank holidays were a wash out, but not to let that get us down, I turned my hand to some wholesome pursuits. Mastering mah-jong with the most competitive family known to man was interesting!

The Tuesday following the Easter Bank holiday was scheduled in for the second Pudding Club with the ladies, I had confirmation that at some point someone was going to soak raisins and everyone up for it. Unfortunately, the evening was struck with bad luck and a couple of friends were poorly and couldn't make it. Which meant the follow recipe I made for the pudding club was mainly consumed by myself and another friend - I'm not proud but they had to go to a good home! (Okay some did make them to work to be shared out but barely!)

I, like the name suggests, I am a Food Nerd so do get a lot of food magazines and it got to a point when my shelves in my room at my parents (I started being a Food Nerd at a young age), were bowing and there was serious concern for the floor boards with the added weight with all my cookery books. So I purchased a mountain of Paperchase recipe folders and lovingly copied out the recipes of interest and cut out the pictures, as what draws you into cooking first is the appearance.

These tarts came up often and looked fairly simple to try out. As the last couple of recipes I had made had been chocolate based I was after something a bit different. This is probably the most untraditional method to make them and sure there are going to be people horrified that I made them like this- write to me it would be good to see how you would make them and I know I should of used hand made the pastry and custard, but it was Easter Weekend and sweet treat was needed, so these can be made using cupboard ingredients.

Portuguese Custard Tarts with Dulce de Leche and Orange

Made 12 tarts with some extra leftover bits

375g ready rolled butter puff pastry
1 tsp cinnamon
3 tsp icing sugar
1/2 a can of Dulce de Leche
500g high quality ready made vanilla custard
freshly grated nutmeg
1 orange zested finely

1. Oven to 180C, I placed a baking stone on the rack to make sure the tarts got a crisp bottom and was crisp by the custard had gently set and not curdled.

2. Unroll the pastry and sieve the cinnamon and icing sugar over the top of the pastry. Roll the pastry from the short side to make a tight sausage.

The pastry with it's cinnamon and sugar dusting

Keep Rolling...Rolling...Rolling....

Cut into 12 portions. Take one piece and with the spiral side facing upwards and gently roll to a circle roughly 8-10cm in diameter. Use the disc to line a hole of a muffin tin.

Discs of Joy

Lining the holes with the flavoured pastry

3. Continue until you've used up all the pastry pieces. Spoon a good teaspoon amount of the dulce de leche in the bottom of each pastry case. Like I said earlier, I made these using cupboard ingredients and used a ready made can, however you can easily make it, some recipes start off using fresh whole milk and adding sugar and cooking the mixture. But you can take an unopened can of condensed milk, cover with water in a saucepan and simmer for 2-3 hrs, leave to cool then open and you'll have a lovely toffee/dulce de leche sauce to use.

Dulce de leche bottoms all round!

3. Stir the orange zest into the custard, with a healthy dose of fresh grated nutmeg, enough to have a slight spicy note to the custard. I didn't add the orange juice to the custard as was concerned it would cause the custard to spilt and make the mixture too wet and not set.

4. I then spooned the flavoured custard over the dulce de leche and baked for 15-18 minutes until the pastry was golden and the custard started to colour in areas. If I made these again, I think I would dust with icing sugar just before baking to give a better sheen.

Finished with a custard top

5. These little tarts are best served warm, they are nice cold too but the pastry softens over time and the custards cracks in places which isn't horrific, just not as beautiful as they should be.

The finished tarts and some of the worse food styling ever....

Unfortunately there isn't a picture of the tart beautifully piled up in a stylish cake stand - they just didn't make it that far!

MOOOve over... I'm not a lady but a Cavelady

2012-04-18T14:39:00.000-07:00

I realised the the last couple of posts have been very sweet orientated and needed to rectify this. After all there

Being new to Bristol, I had to do my research and ask around my work friends and the consensus place for a Sunday roast and amazing hunks of beef is The Cowshed. Home on Whiteladies Road and next to Ruby and White Butchers, a meaty haven. Carving the way in the premium butcher market, selling beautiful locally, ethically sourced and expertly prepared joints of beef, poultry and game.

They've changed the look of butchers, far from the blood and saw dust butchers of the olden days, Ruby and Whites has preserved the link with their food and whilst making it a great shopping experience that doesn't scare off the weak hearted shopper. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of these wuss's, I'll get involved and actually after a butchery course to get suck in to!

So they've cleverly opened a lovely restaurant next door to showcase their amazing produce. Foe my mum's birthday, like a good daughter I treated her to a delicious meal!

We started off sharing the rabbit terrine and was warned by the waiter to be careful of any small bones you might get with rabbit, but ours was just lovely. Served with toasted, onion marmalade and fresh salad to balance the game flavour of the delicate and well seasoned rabbit.

(Peter) Rabbit Terrine

Now my mum did have the seabass as she doesn't really get a chance to to cook it at home, dad being a fish wuss! I had to step up to the plate and try the roast. Epic! The 31 day aged West Country Sirloin roast was fantastic. Served on a platter with a mountain of Yorkshire puddings and crunchy roast potatoes, and the thickest slices I've ever had of roast beef and served medium rare (like it should be! I'm definitely in the school of rarer the better and well done is sacrilege!)

Beauty on a wooden platter

If that wasn't good enough (and if it isn't then you're like to be a vegetarian or crazy!) the roast comes with a plethora of delightful side dishes. Cauliflower cheese with a slightly crunchy top, buttery chantenay carrots and fresh steamed kale. We ploughed through them like a trooper, but they were delicious!

Would you like a side with your cow?

Like all good pudding lover, I have a separate stomach for pudding, that no matter how much savoury food you've just eaten I still have room for a pudding. The treacle pudding and ice cream was calling to me... it was the best treacle pudding I had had. Fluffy, treacley, sticky and crisp topped and plenty of sauce so you don't have half a sponge with no sauce to mop up. Yum.

Nom O'Clock

It was around £30 per person so not the cheapest Sunday roast around but for speical occasions and the quality speaks for its self. Giving it a go as I will definitely be going back again soon!

Oh Easter Bunny.. I will stalk you for your treasure!

2012-04-10T05:41:00.003-07:00

This might sound a bit big headed but I'd like to think that I'm unique and don't always follow trend to some degree. But when it comes to loving chocolate, I'm a sheep.

Since a young age, chocolate was amazing! Any form would do from milk buttons, Bounty's, galaxy, you name it I would love it. I'm pleased to say it has taken 24 years (yes I am that age even though I do sound sound like a nana, with a crochet blanket on my lap), to refine and change my trashy chocolate eating habits.

It started by actually enjoying the taste of dark chocolate and quality chocolate, rather the vegetable oil, sugary crap that is now sadly the majority of commercial chocolate. Since then when travelling I try to find chocolatiers to sample the delights of beautiful chocolates!

Before Christmas, I travelled to Bruges for the first time to the chocolate capital of Europe, for the Christmas markets with friends. Now, I wasn't efficient in my chocolate quest, but as luck be has it we ended up in front of The Chocolate Line . The shop is small and was crammed with people like me, look for the next chocolate hit. This shop is well know for their tequila chocolate. Now, I also love tequila. Not the most ladylike drink I know but give me a tequila and gingerbeer any day and I'm a very happy girl.

The tequila chocolate comes in a rich dark chocolate shell, with a small sprinkling of sea salt flakes on the side, a lime ganache with a pipette of silver tequila. Me and my brother (a fellow tequila lover) joined me in this delight at ten in the morning and something did get lost in translation. We stupidly tried squeezing the tequila into the ganache, resulting in a delicious mess! What we should of done was, lick off the salt on the side, squeeze the tequila into our mouths then eaten the chocolate. Either way the result was amazing!

The tequila chocolate

To further my quest to delicious quality chocolate, I recently visited Paul A Young fine chocolates in Soho, after seeing post after post on twitter of his amazing and anticipated salt and pepper brownies. So I knew if I was coming all the way from Bristol, I needed to make it count so I brought with me a fellow FoodNerd, who like me can't get enough of the rich stuff. (Who also converted me to Montezuma Very Dark chocolate- now my work draw treat) The shop smells incredible, the air heavy with the scent of beautiful chocolate. We were drawn to the bubbling cauldron on the counter of rich hot chocolate. We shared a cup of the nectar and from recommendation for the shop assistant tried the spice blend of green cardamom and chilli. The zest flavour of the cardamom worked well with the earthy heat from the chilli. Sorry no picture- it just didn't last that long!

The wonder brownie

I bought the aforementioned brownies but also treated myself to their Easter brownies- wow! Spiced plump vine fruit studded rich fudgy chocolate brownie with a marzipan crust. Like the baked cheesecake in New York at Carnegie Deli - no others would now compare, once I tasted that brownie I was ruined to all other shop brownies. Why try others when they can't beat perfection? Again no picture - didn't last long enough! Get yourself one before they stop making them, you won't regret it! The salt and pepper brownie was...... as all the other bloggers have said, amazing! The subtle salt makes the chocolate flavour sing and the fruity peppery notes works brilliant with the salt and chocolate.

I also bought their recipe book and have pawed at it many times since buying and keep changing my mind as to the first thing I want to make, it all looks so good! Next time i'm loading up on their truffles!

All this talk of chocolate made me want to dust of my mixing bowls and make some brownies myself!

From all my recipes books and countless recipes for chocolate brownies, I have found the easiest and the recipe that gets the best consistant results is from Liz Franklin Brownies and Bars , No Nut Brownies. I think brownies shouldn't have nuts - there I've said it! Walnuts just ruin it for me, why put in something that takes the space that more chocolate could take??

So after the damp Easter, I spent the morning baking and as a result will have more posts coming up!

So the No Nut Brownies couldn't be any easier- one saucepan, no crazy whisking until you see your future in the glossy appearance and arms dropping off. I've kept the core recipe the same as Liz's but do add extras and have dropped down the cooking time slightly so the brownie is nice and gooey with a minimal sugar crust on top.

Makes around 12 depends on how many greedy people you have over

Ingredients -

250g unsalted butter
500g golden caster sugar
100g good quality cocoa powder
100g self raising flour
4 large free range eggs
any extra's you want to add, I've tried huge choc chunks, white chocolate chips, frozen raspberries, shredded coconut, peanut butter, chilli flakes but anything can works really, let me know if you try it out and what extras you play with

1. Oven to 180C and line a large rectangle roasting tray with parchment. I've tried this recipe out in a silicone case and doesn't work that great really. In a large sauce pan, melt the butter, sugar and cocoa powder until the mixture is smooth over a low heat.

Good amount of sugar

2. Take off the heat and stir in the flour, it doesn't need to be folded in as you would for a sponge, just a good mix so you don't have any flour streaks. Mix in the eggs one at a time until all incorporated.

3. Mix in any extras you fancy adding in at this stage. For these brownies I had a huge chunk of 72% cocoa solids fairtrade converture, that I had a kilo for a gift, that I've been chipping away for a long time making fudge, cakes and brownies with.

My hunk of chocolate

Don't add a shy amount of the chosen extras!

4. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 25 mins until the brownie has set but still has a slight wobble as it will carry on cooking for a while after it's taken out of the oven. Leave to go warm then serve with ice cream, custard, crème fraiche, fresh fruit or just on it's delicious own.

Fresh from the oven

Dive right in!

I bring to order the first official pudding club....

2012-03-06T13:39:00.000-08:00

I have great friends. I have crazy friends. But importantly I have foodie friends, who are greedy like me. After a dinner out and a few gin and tonics...maybe a tequila or two, conversation turned to food again. We were all complaining how we all have lovely recipe books and kitchen equipment but never really try any new recipes or the fact it's a little depressing making a nice big cake and it going to waste. (A travesty I know!)

So after maybe a couple more tequilas, a blurry plan was starting to form. A monthly pudding club!! We would make a new recipe we hadn't tried before and to make enough for those coming. Also we would take it in turn to host the evenings at their place.

A couple of days before the first pudding club, I couldn't decide what to make; there was too many choices and all the pictures looked so good! A dear fellow food nerd friend and sharer of the love for a food blog, sent me a link to www.poiresauchocolat.net . A beautiful blog with lots of gorgeous sweet treats.

I finally decided to try out the Coconut Milk and Chocolate Brownies. My pictures don't do it justice - they are delicious! You use quite a few bowls so be prepared to roll up your sleeves and do a mountain of washing up, but again so worth it! I hadn't seen a recipe before using coconut milk in a batter or in a ganache, so was definitely going to give it a try!

Ingredients -

55g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids minimum, chopped)
85g cocoa powder
200ml boiling water
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
90g salted butter (the blog said to use unsalted, but I like to use salted with the chocolate as I have a thing for salted caramel at the moment)
230g caster sugar
50g dark muscovado sugar
2 medium free range eggs
275ml coconut milk

Coconut Milk Ganache -

250ml coconut milk
250g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids minimum, chopped)

1. Line a square tine with parchment, (this a moist cake and you'll want to make sure you save every last crumb and make sure it comes out perfectly.) and preheat the oven to 180C. Place the chopped chocolate into a bowl with the cocoa powder and pour over the boiling water. Carefully stir with a whisk until smooth and the chocolate has melted. Leave to cool.

2. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder together in a bowl. (I'm mad these after a long day, I was feeling lazy and didn't sift mine - huge problem! Some of the agents lumped in the final batter and when cooked I had a couple of lumps which didn't look so nice against the dark contrast of the cake, so I fished them out and they were so salty so don't be lazy like me and sift it kids!)

Left - the melted chocolate, Middle - flour mixture, Right - combined sugars

3. Melt the butter in a small pan. In a bowl mix the two sugars together, whisk together and add the melted butter. Add the eggs, one at a time, whisking well for 3 minutes until pale and thick.

The sugars mixed with the melted butter

Adding eggs to the sugar, butter mixture

4. Shake the coconut milk can well until well mixed, stir the coconut mix in to the sugar/egg mixture, followed by stirring in the chocolate mixture. Whisk in the flour until combined well. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 30-40 mins. Until just set as it will continue to cook slightly once out of the oven. Cool on a rack.

Adding the coconut milk to the batter

The final brownie batter

5. I doubled up the quantity of the ingredients for the ganache, because there's nothing worse than a mean amount of frosting on a cake. Pour the coconut milk into a small saucepan and place over a medium heat, when the milk comes to a boil, pour over the chopped dark chocolate, mix until smooth. Cool for 10 minutes before pouring over the cake.

The finished brownies

This is a really moist rich delicious brownies, which I would recommend to serve in small squares. The other puddings at the club were a cold mango and coconut soufflé, hot lemon sponge and Brookies (a combination of half chocolate chip cookie and half chocolate brownie) and all lovely. The next club has been booked and can't wait to try something else new.

The soufflés, hot lemon pudding, coconut milk and chocolate brownies and the brookies.

I took half of these brownies to work the next day and they disappeared before Elevenses! Will definitely be making these again and soon!

Sticky Sticky Toffee Cupcakes...

2012-02-23T14:22:00.008-08:00

Okay, confession time. I have a lot of cookery books, okay not a lot... a hell of a lot. It's an obsession and I need help. Hello, I'm FoodNerd and I have a cookery book problem....

Another problem is, although they are well thumbed and the beautiful pictures have been poured over many times over the years, some have yet to have any of the recipes actually made from them. A travesty I know.

There are some that are well used and I will go back to time and time again for certain recipes, like my Nan's Dairy Recipe book she bought from her milkman. Which is the best place for the random basic recipes you can't remember from the top of your head like jams, batters etc.. It's so well loved in my family, it has a beautiful build up of yellowing sticky tape to keep its well worn cover on.

BUT! Things are about to change! 2012 will be the year of the random trial of new recipes. So it began on a dull Saturday with no really exciting rock 'n' roll plans any food nerd would have. So I closed my eyes and pulled out a random book.

TA-DA! Lola's Cupcake Book is the lucky book! I have sampled some of their delicious cupcakes in Selfridges in London. Me and my fellow foodnerd friend tried their Red Velvet and their Peanut Butter cupcakes. They were delicious and when I locked eyes on their new recipe book in my local book shop, I knew I had to have it.

At the front- Peanut Butter and the back - Red Velvet Cupcakes

After browsing through all the delicious recipe, including basic cupcakes and more fancier ones. Their recipes are also in metric and american cups, which is one of my major turn-offs of trying out new recipes - the time it takes to convert the recipes from cups as my cups have their own minds and are always hiding from me!

I decided to try out their Sticky Toffee cupcakes. Most their recipe had multiple components and this recipe had a rum toffee ganache which had three stages, that took longer to make than the actual cake base. It was fairly time consuming but well worth it!

Ingredients -

180g chopped pitted dates (I left mine fairly chunky but if I did this recipe again I would pulse them in the processor lightly)
2 tbsp golden syrup
130ml boiling water
200g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
100g unsalted butter
160g muscovado sugar
2 medium free range eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

Rum Toffee Ganache -

200g caster sugar
50g unsalted butter
150ml double cream
2 tsp dark rum (I'm a huge fan of Sailor Jerry's as has nice vanilla and buttery notes)
300g white chocolate, chopped
200g icing sugar

1. Oven to 190C. Put the chopped dates, golden syrup and the boiling water into a bowl and leave to soak until the water has cooled to room temp or while you get on with the rest of the batter.

2. Sift the flour and baking powder together into a bowl and set aside. In another bowl, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and beat in one at a time, then add the vanilla.

3. Break the dates up with a fork, slowly add the sifted dry ingredients and the date mixture to the mixing bowl and beat on a low speed until smooth. Divide the mixture between 12 muffin cakes and bake for 15-20 minutes or until well risen. Cool on a wire rack.

The finished cakes after cooling

4. For the ganache, scatter the caster sugar over the bottom of a heavy base frying pan, set over medium heat. Do not stir ( I must admit I'm a fiddle and can't leave pans without stirring - honestly DON'T do it!!! It will go lumpy and lump to your whisk!!)

5. When the sugar has melted and starts turning an amber colour, remove the heat and stir in the butter. Add 3 tbsp of the double cream and the rum and whisk until smooth. Let it cool to room temp (I still had a few small lumps of toffee in the sauce, but that was nice in the finished frosting to find tasty nuggets of toffee.)

6. Put the remaining cream in a saucepan over a medium heat and heat until it starts bubbling around the edges. Remove from the heat and stir in the white chocolate. Stir until the chocolate has melted. Leave to cool to room temp.

7. When both the caramel and white chocolate ganache has cooled, mix them together and then add the sifted icing, mix well and chill for 10 minutes.

Caramel and Ganache mixed together

8. Spoon the frosting into a piping bag and pipe to decorate or spread on the top of the cakes. Lola's recommends to to serve these with ice cream wafers and a scoop of vanilla ice, however I found the icing sweet enough, to not add to it.

The finished piped cupcakes

I took these cupcakes to work so I didn't demolish them all myself! The general comments were that they were delicious just very sweet, most work peeps split them so not to wreck productivity with epic sugar highs! I would try another recipe from this book again, I would just put aside a leisurely afternoon to take your time to make all the components.

Stay tuned for the next random recipe trial.....

Homemade Pastrami aka THE BEAST!

2012-02-16T13:43:00.000-08:00

I thought I would give making pastrami at home a go after recently visiting New York for the second time. We went to Carnegie Hall Deli the home to the most amazing pastrami on rye sandwiches. You have the option to double the amount of the meat, which means you have an epic tower of pastrami goodness to plough through! Delish!

I adapted the recipe I used from the Guardian food section and had to utilise the fact I work in a food factory but a very easy recipe, that takes a few 10 min sessions of prep then let it do it's own thing.

I became close to my pastrami over the madness around the lead up to the Christmas holiday and affectionately called mine the Beast... name not necessarily required to make this....

Ingredients-

1.25kg piece of brisket, you want a layer of fat, not too lean as it carries flavour
100g honey
2 litres of water
200g table salt
75g caster sugar
3 bay leaves
12g pickling spice (I used equal amounts of ground mace, all spice, juniper berries, ground coriander, ground ginger, dried chilli flakes and cloves)
10g black peppercorns
10g coriander seeds

The beautiful piece of brisket

1. Place the brisket into a heavy duty freezer bag, (I didn't have any large enough so ended up taking mine to work to use the vacuum packer to seal mine - if you don't have a food factory to hand, use a large container that has an air tight seal) pour over the honey and set aside.

The delicious flavoured brine

2. In a large pan, bring the water, salt, sugar, bay leaves and pickling spice combination to a boil and leave to cool. Once cool, ladle the brine over the meat and seal in the freezer bag or seal the container, making sure the meat is covered. Place in the fridge and turn the meat daily for 5 days.

The Beast over the soaked wood chips

3. After 5 days, remove the brisket from the brine and and pat dry, put to one side. In a bowl, soak some wood chips (I used mesquite wood chips, which worked well and gently flavoured the pastrami without overpowering it) for 20 minutes in cold water. Crush the black peppercorns and coriander seeds (which oddly smells just like pastrami without the beef!), massage the spice mixture all over the beef.

4. Oven to 70C. Line a big tray with plenty of foil, drain the wood chips and place on the tray with a rack on top. Place the BEAST on top of the rack over the chips. Tightly wrap the tray with more heavy duty tin foil. Place in the oven and depending on the weight of the brisket, smoke for as long as possible, 45 minutes to an hour per pound of brisket. Until the internal temperature is 165C.

5. Once smoked, loosely unwrap a corner of the foil, and add a few centimetres of boiling water to the base of the tin, re wrap. Oven to 120C. Return to the oven and cook for another 3 hours.

The Beast all finished and delicious!

6. The BEAST is finally ready!! And boy is it worth the wait! We attacked it as soon as it had cooked as it smelt so good when it was cooking. But if you can wait a little longer for it to cool, pile wafer thin slices on top of rye bread, lather up with mustard and topping with plenty of beautiful sliced gherkins. Trust me, once you've put in the mild effort into making this, you'll never go back to the slimy pink slices you get at supermarkets. Enjoy!

Welcome fellow nerds!!

2012-01-19T10:36:00.000-08:00

Hi there!

I'm a Bristol based food nerd, who works in a food factory developing new food products for a living which is very cool, getting to invent and play with dishes all the time!

I also love cooking at home, if I haven't had enough of it at work. Sometimes it can be really quick yummy dinners made from whatever I have in the fridge or more time consuming dishes/projects such as homemade pastrami.

I've just moved to Bristol and want to explore all the cool foodie delis, restaurants, cafes, bars, it has to offer and find unusual gems. I also love getting new cookery books which I'll try out some of the new recipes and trial some of the more crazier ones.

Get in touch if you have any recommendations of places to go, food products to try and recipes to play with.

Cheers

Food Nerd