The never ending cycle of forgotten food blogs - scone recipe included.

I've found myself back here on a random Friday evening after plans have been cancelled, impromptu baking done and a large gin & tonic consumed, with the itch to write a post. Keeping up with this blog has clearly never been my strong suit, however much I'd like to motivate myself to but I'm hoping this will be more than my normal yearly post.

A lot has changed in my life since I last updated my blog, in fact pretty much every aspect, excluding friends and family, is totally different. These changes were without doubt 100% for the better and I've found myself in a very happy place. A large amount of this happiness has come from my current job as a pasty chef, which I've been doing for just over a year at a hotel on Park Lane. I still can not believe how much I've learnt in this time and how it has caused such a drastic change in the way I work in the kitchen. I suppose this little update is my way of giving an insight in to my career and to document the recipes I use, try out and want to give a go.

I'll start with something simple, quick and already in my head so there will be no need to go searching for a recipe and method. Its a timeless classic and something I have to make on a very regular basis so I like to think they are pretty darn good. I've also included some nice variations at the end to give some inspiration.


Scones
Makes about 15 if using 6cm cutter

500g plain flour
35g Baking powder
1 pinch of salt
75g Butter - cold
100g suger
2 eggs
165g buttermilk

1.  Start by weighing out the flour, baking powder and salt in the mixing bowl and mix briefly. You can use a stand mixer or food processor too, which I would recommend, as long as you're very careful not to over mix. 
2. Add the butter to the dry ingredients and mix until you have a breadcrumb like consistency.
3. Next add the sugar and any extra dry ingredients such as raisins. 
4. Lastly, whisk together the eggs and buttermilk and slowly pour on the flour with the mixer running. As soon as the dough comes together to form a ball, stop mixing! You don't want to over mix and end up with rock hard scones. 
5. Tip the dough on to a floured surface and pat in to a flat-ish rectangle shape, do not start to knead or work the dough. Take a rolling pin and roll until you its about 1.5cm thick, turning the dough 90 degrees every so often to ensure a level surface. Then take the dough and fold it in half, like a book. Repeat this process 2 to 3 times until you have a lovely and smooth top and a thickness of 1.5cm again. 
6. Take your cutter, dip in flour and cut, making sure not to jiggle from side to side. Just cut straight down and lift off again, this will help the scones to rise! 
7. Place the scones on a baking try and leave to rest for 20-30 minutes where they will begin to rise. 
8. Take some egg wash and brush the tops, leaving the sides clean and ready to puff upwards.
9. Bake at 200 degrees for 8 minutes, check colour and add 2 extra minutes if needed. 

Variations

Orange and cranberry - Add the grated zest of 1 orange to the flour at the beginning and 50g of dried cranberries roughly chopped with the sugar.

Rosewater - Add 1/2 or 1 tsp (depending on personal preference on strength) to the egg mixture.

Sultana - 50g sultanas with the sugar

Savarin, Rum babas and Parmesan Grissini

Well after the success of my last post and being retweeted by Richard Bertinet I thought I probably couldn't leave so much of a gap in between posts as I did last time. I'm cheating slightly as I'm skipping ahead a week with the recipes from my course because I seem to have miss placed week 2. Once I've retrieved them on Wednesday I can get back in order and everything will be right with the world again. 

So if I recall correctly (this was in october 2012 so bear with me) week 3 was continuing on with all things yeasty. Savarins and Babas are both made with the same enriched dough containing yeast, eggs and lots of lovely butter. They are then proved, piped, baked and soaked with a syrup. You can decorate with whipped cream or fruit though I'm not sure I got that far looking at my photos. The only tricky thing about the savarin is that you'll need to get a special savarin ring but you can pick them up easily in most homeware shops. For the babas you can use a normal individual pudding basin or anything mini as long as you can turn it out easily. The grissini recipe is from a chef called Giorgio Locatelli and it makes the most amazing breadsticks. If you fancy making some bread but want to do something a bit different then make these. Seriously, they are so good and actually pretty quick and easy for a bread recipe. If you have friends coming for drinks then this is the recipe to impress them with. Also with all that salt they will be drinking a lot more which will make any party a hell of a lot more fun. Not that I think you might need help in making your parties fun..... oh jeez. 

Savarin/Baba Dough

300g strong flour
20g yeast
6g salt
100g milk at roughly 37 degrees (body temp)
3-4 eggs
the zest of 1 lemon
5g barley malt extract
30g sugar

125g melted butter

• Preheat the oven to 220C/fan 200C/gas 7
• Disperse the yeast in the milk but be careful not to have the milk too hot or it will kill the yeast. Place the flour, sugar, salt and malt in to a bowl and mix. 
• Slowly mix in the yeasty milk and then incorporate the eggs.
• Pour the melted butter over the top and just allow it to sit like that while the batter proves. 
• Leave in a warm place for about 20 minutes or until the mixture starts to bubble. 
• Add in the lemon zest and stir in with the butter that's been sitting on top. 
• Fill a piping bag with the mixture and pipe in to the savarin ring and baba molds so they are about half full.
• Leave to prove for another 20 minutes or until the mixture is three quarters up the side.
• Bake for 15 minutes or until well risen and golden. Whilst they bake make a syrup up of 3 parts water to 2 parts sugar and add lemon peel, orange peel, coriander seeds, cinnamon stick and a bay leaf. Heat up and then leave to cool a bit. 
• Once the savarin/baba have baked then turn them out and while still warm soak with the syrup. The most effective way to do this is pour some syrup in the mould and place the savarin/baba back in to soak it up. They will need a lot more soaking than you would think so don't be afraid of over soaking. Brush of the tops of the babas with rum to give them their name.
• Once cooled you can pipe whipped cream on top and place any fruit of your choosing. 

Giorgio Locatelli's Parmesan Grissini

(makes about 25)

50g unsalted butter
200g whole milk
10g fresh yeast
375g strong white bread flour, or Italian “00” flour
3 generous tbsp grated parmesan
10g fine salt

• Preheat the oven to 230
• Melt the butter in a pan, add the milk and heat gently till it is warm to the touch, then whisk in the yeast.
• Put the flour, Parmesan, and salt in a bowl, then add a little of the milk mixture at a time, mixing it well and kneading it.
• Turn the dough on to a clean work surface, and dimple it with a method called “colomba”
• Spread the dough out into a rough rectangle by pressing down with the tips of your fingers (like you would for a foccia), stretching and dimpling the dough at the same time, to create pockets of air that can be trapped. Fold the top third down to the center and dimple it lightly again, then fold up the bottom third over the top and dimple again, then turn the dough 45 degrees and repeat the process.
• Cover with a damp tea towel and leave for 30 min.
• Repeat the dimpling process, cover again, and leave for another 30 min
• Cut the dough in half lengthways, flour your work surface and roll each piece out into a big rectangle. At this point you can sprinkle with a little rock salt and cracked black pepper. 
• Cut the dough across it’s width into strips about 1 cm wide.
• Roll each strip with your fingertips, starting at the center and moving outwards, stretching the dough slightly as you go. Press each end lightly with your thumb to make an “ear” shape, lay on a non-stick baking sheet, and leave to rest for 10 min.
• Turn the oven down to 180c, and bake for 10-15 min until crisp and lightly golden. Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack. 

The great food blog revival

So where do I begin? This food blog was once my little passion on the side where I could write about the foods that excited me or share a new recipe with my rather small but much appreciated group of readers. It has shamefully been neglected and left to gather virtual dust with no posts in over a year. I have however somehow managed to reach over 1200 views which seems slightly bizarre to me when considering my blog writing absence. Well this all changes here. Since I last wrote on here many things have changed and I have a lot more exciting food related topics to talk about. I have left Starbucks, I'm working as a chef and I'm on a patisserie course which I finish in June. Thanks to Facebook I have a nice little collection of photos and posts in chronological order of the tasty bakes I have been producing on my course. So I thought it would be fun (when I say fun I obviously mean incredibly boring for any normal person) if I start my blog again from the beginning of my new course, a fresh start and all that jazz. Hopefully you will get a little insight into the joys of being a patisserie chef and learn a few things along the way.

It all began in September after a very last minute and quick admission on to the course. I mean literally, I was signed up the week before term started so with a mad panic I ordered chef whites, a neck scarf and skull cap (really) and my dough scraper. When it came to my first day I was a bag of nerves but off I went on the train with my backpack full of uniform and knives. Really it wasn't so bad in the end, the people were lovely if a little intimidating and the actual lessons were really fun (once again fun has its second meaning.) My course, which is every Wednesday, soon became the highlight of my week and continues to be.

In the first week we started with a basic bread recipe. We were taught the method used by Richard Bertinet, a French baker who has a lot of skill in his field. He goes back to basics and argues that you simply need four ingredients to make fantastic bread; Flour, yeast, water, salt. That's it. He also has a rather interesting way of working the dough which you can see along with the whole bread making process here. Even if you're not really interested in the kneading its worth a watch just purely for his sexy french accent.

With the basic white dough recipe we made some poppy seed rolls and some olive, herb and parmesan sticks. We also made some rock salt and rosemary focaccia with a basic olive oil dough. Lets just say I'm not the best baker, I'm more of a pastry kind of girl but I was quite happy with the results. The rolls were a little chewy but I think I just needed a bit more practice, the focaccia however was delicious and went down a storm. Here are the recipes so you can give them a go!

Basic White Dough

Ingredients

500g (1lb 2oz) strong bread flour
350ml (12 fl oz) water
10g (1 heaped tsp) yeast (fresh if possible) 
or 5g (½ level tsp) dry
10g (1 level tsp) sea salt

• Preheat oven to its highest level.
• Rub the yeast into the flour (or mix in if using dried yeast). Add the remaining ingredients and the water. Mix for a couple of minutes until the dough starts to form.
• Transfer the dough onto your working surface. Continue to mix the ingredients by stretching out the dough and folding it over onto itself.
• Keep working the dough until it comes cleanly away from the work surface and is not sticky.
• Lightly flour the work surface, place the dough on the flour and form the dough into a ball.
• Place the dough into a mixing bowl and cover with a tea towel.
• Rest the dough for a minimum of an hour. Turn out gently onto a well-floured surface. Be careful not to deflate it but expect it to spread out to cover a square of your work surface. Generously flour the top of the dough, cover with a clean tea towel and rest for five minutes.
• Once rested you can cut with your dough scraper and shape in to rolls. Place on a baking tray and leave to prove before you place them in the oven. Then bake for 10-15 mins until golden brown. 

I'm a cheater but I'm using a link to the recipe for the olive, herb and parmesan sticks

And lastly,

Rock salt and Rosemary Focaccia

Ingredients

500g strong bread flour
20g coarse semolina
15g yeast (fresh if possible) – same amount if dry
10g salt
50g olive oil
320g (320ml) water
4tbsp olive oil plus a little extra
A few springs of fresh rosemary – dried works well too though
Rock salt

Preheat the oven to 250C. Mix the bread flour and semolina together and rub in the yeast, using your fingertips as if making a crumble. Add the salt, olive oil and water, then mix the ingredients using your hands or a scraper to bring the dry up into the wet.
Lift out the dough onto your work surface. Do NOT flour or oil the surface – it may look sticky, but it will all come together. Knead the dough for 10-15 minutes, as per the demonstration in the video. Put the dough into a floured bowl and leave to prove for an hour in a warm place, until it has roughly doubled in size.
Turn the dough onto an oiled tray. Drizzle the oil over the dough, then, using your fingers, push and prod the dough so it spreads from the centre towards the edge of the tray. Cover with a tea towel and leave to rest somewhere warm for 45 minutes.
Prod again, dimpling it with your fingertips, and rest for a further 30 minutes.
Take the leaves off the sprigs of rosemary and push them evenly into the dough. Sprinkle on the rock salt and immediately put into the preheated oven. Turn down the heat to 220C and bake for 25-30 minutes, until it is light golden brown.
Cool on a wire rack. Brush with a little more olive oil while still hot.

The hot hot dog

After a couple Man V Food marathons my friend and I were getting massive cravings for slow roasted, gut busting, meaty and cheesy American grub. Last Sunday turned out to be the perfect time to fulfill those meaty urges when we decided on some delicious chili hot dogs. To get the slow cooking element in to the recipe we chose to cook the chili in the oven for a few hours, until all the flavours had really mingled and the meat was almost melting. The recipe which follows is actually more of a guide because I made it up as I went along and it was down to personal taste. I think next time I would do more of a savoury, meaty chili as the one we ended up with was quite sweet and had a rich tomato flavour. We got some nice Polish frankfurter type sausages which had turkey and pork in them and some soft fresh buns. It definitely was man vs food when it came to serving up the chili dogs but this time, man won.

Chili Hot Dogs

Chili:
300g beef mince (or a mixture of beef and pork if you want a really nice chili)
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1-2 tsp chili powder or to taste
1 tsp sweet paprika
1 tsp hot paprika (if you want a really hot chili)
1 tsp cumin
a sprinkle of chili flakes
1 beef stock cube
1/2 tin of chopped tomatoes (add the whole tin if you like it to have a bigger tomato flavour)
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp cocoa powder (trust this, it works!)
salt & pepper to taste
dark sugar if sweetness is need

Preheat the oven to 150°C/Gas Mark 2/3. Start by browning the meat off in an oven proof pan or casserole dish, then add the onions and cook down until they become soft. Add the crushed garlic and all of the spices and fry them all for a couple of minutes. Add the stock cube mixed with a little hot water and the chopped tomatoes and mix in until you have the consistency of watery porridge, adding more water if necessary. Stir in the Worcestershire sauce and the rest of ingredients and cook for about 5 minutes. Give the chili a taste now and adjust the ingredients depending on what you think is needed. Don't be afraid to use a fair bit of salt to prevent the chili tasting bland. Once you are happy with the taste, pop your lovely chili in the oven and leave to cook down for as long as you can wait.

Once ready, boil the sausages for 3-4 minutes and serve the hot dog and chili in a nice, soft bun with grated cheese, American mustard and some chopped onions. Meaty heaven!

Giant Raspberry Cupcake

The other week my mum asked to borrow my giant cupcake mould to make a cake for a couple of her friend's for their birthday lunch. Instead, seeing as I love a good old bake, I proposed that I would go home and bake the cake for her. When talking over what flavour I should do, a few different options came up but we decided on doing some kind of strawberry cupcake creation with fresh strawberries in the center. So off we went to Waitrose only to find they had no strawberries in stock. They did however have a nice deal on fresh raspberries so that is what we came home with. I made the recipe up as I went along and the outcome seemed to work, especially from the feedback I got form my mum's friends. I did cheat slightly and used some jam and some lovely raspberry sauce from M & S. It was a lot like a raspberry coulis so could be made by hand if you were that way inclined. The cake ended up being a vanilla sponge with a mascarpone and raspberry filling topped with raspberry icing. Lovely as an unusual birthday cake for a child or an adult!

Giant Raspberry Ripple Cupcake


Sponge:

340g butter, softened
340g caster sugar
6 large free range eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
340g self raising flour
2 tsp baking powder

Filling:

1 small tub mascarpone
1 tbsp raspberry jam
raspberry coulis/sauce to taste
1 punnet of fresh raspberries

Icing:
(recipe taken from british bake off book but modified slightly)

125g butter, unsalted
400g icing sugar
1 tsp milk
3-4 tbsp raspberry coulis/sauce

Preheat the oven to 160°C. Cream together the butter and sugar for the sponge until light and fluffy. While mixing, gradually add each egg and the vanilla until fully combined. Then carefully but firmly fold in the flour and baking powder until just mixed in. Spray the mould with cooking spray or grease with some butter. Add your mix to about 2/3 full, being careful not to over fill. Cook for 1 hour but check on it at 40 minutes to be sure you don't over cook the sponge. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 5 minutes before turning out to cool on a wire rack.

Next combine the mascarpone, jam and sauce in a bowl making sure it isn't too runny or too sweet. Then carefully fold in the raspberries and set aside.

To make the icing, cream the butter until smooth then add the rest of the ingredients and mix for at least 5 minutes. The icing should be light a fluffy and hold its shape if you plan on using a piping bag.

When the cakes are cool you can assemble the top and the base. I cut out a small well in the top of the base and spooned the mascarpone mixture in to it There is an extra part to my cake mould that you can use to make a well already but I find you don't get a good bake on the bottom sponge. The filling then acts as a sort of glue for the lid to sit on top of. Then you can pipe the icing all over the top and decorate with more fresh raspberries or sprinkles.

Mammoth dinner/picnic menu part 4

 Finally I have reached the pudding part of the epic meal I made for my parents to take for their upmarket picnic. I thought that the best bet would be to have individual puddings for each person rather than have something to share out between everyone. Saves on extra plates and cutlery! As I have mentioned before, I love trying out new and strange flavour combinations and when I found this recipe by Nigel Slater I definitely wanted to try it. It turned out to be rich and luxurious, perfect for those chocoholics out there looking for something a little different.

White Chocolate and Cardamon Mousse

Serves 6-8


8 plump green cardamom pods
100ml milk
3 bay leaves
250g white chocolate
300ml double cream
3 free range egg whites
best-quality cocoa powder for dusting


Break the cardamom pods open and extract the seeds. Crush them lightly, then add them to the milk and bay leaves in a small saucepan. Warm the seasoned milk over a moderate heat until it approaches the boil. Remove from the heat.

Meanwhile, break the chocolate into small pieces and melt in a bowl balanced over a pan of gently simmering water. It is best if the bottom of the bowl does not touch the water. Overheating the chocolate will cause it to go lumpy, so as soon as it starts to melt, turn off the heat but leave the bowl in place.

Whip the cream so that it forms soft mounds rather than peaks. In other words it should not be too stiff. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

When the chocolate is completely melted, remove from the heat and pour the warm milk on to it through a sieve. Stir the chocolate and milk together till velvety.

Scoop the mixture on to the stiffly beaten egg whites and fold gently together with a large metal spoon (a thick wooden one will knock the air out). Now fold into the softly whipped cream. Scrape into a serving bowl or espresso cups and refrigerate for three or four hours till set. Dust with cocoa or serve with a jug of chocolate sauce.

Mammoth dinner/picnic menu part 3

 Now I have finally got round to continuing the picnic menu I started in the summer. I doubt any one will remember but I managed to get up to the appetisers and starters. This post is the recipe for the main course which was a beautifully sweet rack of lamb. I found the recipe in one of my mum's cookbooks which is from Ottolenghi. It wasn't really a cookbook which had a lot of recipes that jumped out at me but my mum had only just got the book and said she had only tried a few recipes from it. It was for this reason I wanted to make sure I included a recipe from the book and it turned out to be the perfect one. When it came to planning the main course, I had difficulty finding something interesting and meaty that would be nice to have cold. When flipping through the ottolenghi cookbook, I stumbled across this recipe which said it would be perfect hot or cold. From then I was sold and I'm glad I made that decision. I was lucky enough to try the end result too as some of the lamb came back from the picnic and it was delicious!


Ottolenghi Marinated Rack of Lamb with Coriander and Honey

(serves 4)

1kg rack of lamb, french trimmed

20g flat leaf parsley, leaves and stalks

30g mint, leaves and stalks

30g coriander, leaves and stalks

4 garlic cloves, peeled

15g fresh ginger, peeled and sliced

3 chillies, seeded (I actually deseeded the chillies and I think the heat was perfect, any more and it would have been too much)

½ teaspoon salt

50ml lemon juice

60ml soy sauce

120ml sunflower oil

3 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

4 tablespoons water

Make sure most of the fat is trimmed off the lamb, leaving a uniform thin layer that will keep the meat moist and add to the flavour. Use a very sharp knife to separate the rack into portions of two or three cutlets. place in a non-metal container.

Blitz together all the remaining ingredients in a food processor, pour them over the lamb and make sure it is well covered for a night in the marinade. Refrigerate overnight.

Preheat the oven to 200c and heat up a griddle pan.

Remove the meat from the marinade, shaking off the excess. sear well on all sides, about 5 minutes in total. transfer to a baking tray and cook in the oven for about 15 minutes, depending on the size of the racks and how well cooked you want them.

Meanwhile, heat the marinade in a small pan and simmer for 5 minutes.

I served with some lovely herby couscous and roasted peppers, perfect for a warm evening.