Crème Brûlée

Crème Brûlée

This has to be one of my favourite desserts ever, there’s something so satisfying about cracking the caramel disk on the top to discover the rich, silk-smooth vanilla cream underneath.

There is a lot of argument over where Crème Brûlée was first discovered with England, Spain & France all vying for the title! I myself being a Brit will claim that it was out discovery and the story goes a little something like this…

England's Part of Crème Brûlée History

Sometime during the 17th century, young college student offered the kitchen a culinary delight: a creamy unsweetened custard with a caramelized topping. However, the college student's creation was spurned by the cooking staff. . .until he became a fellow. It was after his fellowship that the cooking staff suddenly took great interest in his custard creation with the burnt topping. After replicating the recipe, the cooking staff dubbed it "Trinity Burnt Cream" and all the world emulates this delectable dish. Or so the tall tale goes.

(Taken from: http://gourmet.lovetoknow.com/Creme_Brulee_History)

You can also flavour your Brûlée with a variety of things, coffee, lemon, Irish Cream, lavender, chocolate, and coconut (I’ll be trying this one soon – I’m a nut for coconut!) or even put a layer of cooked fruit in the bottom first.

So, now that your mouth is watering, here is the ‘How To’

Ingredients

5 egg yolks

50g Caster Sugar

85ml milk

1 vanilla pod, split and seed scraped out

500ml cold whipping cream

Demerara Sugar for the crunchy topping.

Method

·         Place the egg yolks in a bowl with the sugar and mix together until well combined.

·         Place the milk into a saucepan and bring to the boil with the vanilla pod and the seeds.

·         Pour the milk into the bowl with the egg mixture and mix well.

·         Add the cold cream, mix and leave to infuse for 10mins.

·         Preheat the oven to 150°c

·         Remove the vanilla pod and divide the mixture between 6-8 ramekins (depending on their size!)

·         Place the ramekins in a Bain Marie (filled with hot water, and put in the oven for 40-45mins until they are just set and still a little wobbly in the middle.

·         Remove from the Bain Marie and leave to cool.

·         Once cool, sprinkle the top of the Brûlée evenly with Demerara sugar and either heat under a hot grill or with a mini blowtorch until caramelised.

Enjoy!

·         You can actually make a caramel to top the brulee’s with, but this involves a lot of sugar heating and extremely high temperatures and is not for the faint hearted.

Bitter Chocolate Crusted Lemon Tart

This is a classic with a twist of chocolate...

It is a perfect combination of bittersweet chocolate pastry mixed with a sharp creamy lemon filling. Perfect for those who don’t have an overly sweet tooth,  but for those of you who prefer something a little sweeter, reduce the amount of cocoa to 10g and up the icing sugar to 35g – you could also replace the layer of dark chocolate with milk chocolate.

For the pastry

175g plain flour

25g cocoa

Pinch of salt

25g Icing sugar

125g unsalted butter

1 large egg yolk

2 tbsps. water

For the chocolate layer

75g grated dark chocolate

·         Sieve the flour, salt & icing sugar together

·         Rub the butter into the dry mix

·         Mix in the egg yolk and water and then wring cling and      put in the fridge to chill for 30mins

·         Grease a 9” flan ring or a tart tin and line with the        pastry, chill for a further 10mins.

·         Bake blind for 15mins @ 200°c for 15mins, then remove the    beans and bake for a further  5mins @ 160°c.

·         Remove from oven and while the tart base is still hot        scatter the 75g of grated dark chocolate over the base      evenly and then allow to cool.

For the filling

3 unwaxed lemons

150g caster sugar

4 large eggs

150ml double cream

Icing sugar (for dusting)

·   Finely zest and juice the lemons, add to the sugar and whisk.

·   Whisk in the eggs and lastly add the cream.

·   Pour into the cooled, cooked case and bake at 180°c for 30-35mins until just set.

To finish you can either:

Leave plain, dust with icing sugar or dust with icing sugar and then colour with a blow torch (personally for me – any excuse to us the blow torch!)

Oat & Buttermilk Muffins

Oat & Buttermilk Muffins

These muffins are great, the buttermilk in them acts as an extra raising agent and produces lovely light & airy muffins.

These are great for a grab and go breakfast, I freeze mine & then grab one in the morning and it’s defrosted by the time I get to work,  they are also lovely split & toasted, and then spread with a little butter, sounds strange but trust me it works!

IMPORTANT – READ THIS BEFORE YOU START TO BAKE!!!!!!

Step 1 is: Place oats in a bowl, stir in the buttermilk and set aside to soak for 1hr – so you can’t make these in a hurry!

Makes 12

Ingredients

115g rolled oats

250ml buttermilk

115g softened butter

75g soft dark brown sugar

1 egg

115g plain flour

1 ½ tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. bicarbonate of soda

Pinch of salt

25 raisins (optional – you can substitute this for a different dried fruit if you like, e.g. cranberries, apricots)

Method

·         Place oats in a bowl, stir in the buttermilk and set aside to soak for 1hr.

·         Preheat oven to 200°

·         Grease your 12 hole muffin pan or line with paper cases.

·         Put the butter and sugar in a large bowl or your electric mixer and beat till light and fluffy, then beat in the egg.

·         Sift together the flour, baking powder, bicarb and salt.

·         Stir into the butter mixture alternating with the oat mixture – try your best not to over-mix.

·         Fold in the raisins.

·         Fill the muffin tin/cases two thirds full and bake for 20-25 mins.

·         Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

(The Best) White Bread Rolls

“If thou tastest a crust of bread, thou tastest all the stars and all the heavens.” --Robert Browning

There is nothing better than the smell of fresh bread to make you feel like you’re ‘home’, this is a recipe for very simple white bread rolls but trust me, although I would quite happily make them for the smell alone they taste amazing too!

Ingredients

Makes 8-10 rolls

270g Strong white flour

30g unsalted butter

5g milk powder

15g fresh yeast or 1 sachet of EasyBlend yeast

150ml tepid water

7g caster sugar

1 egg (for egg washing)

Seeds of your choice, e.g. sesame, poppy

Therapy Method

1.       Sieve the flour into a suitable basin, add the salt

2.      Rub the butter through the flour, don’t leave any big lumps!

3.      Mix in the milk powder

4.      Mix the sugar, yeast, and water together.

5.      Make a well in the flour and pour the yeast water in, incorporate into the flour using your hand.

6.      Once the dough is formed, removed from the bowl and place on a lightly floured surface (you might require a little more water or some more sieved flour at this stage, the consistency of the dough should be soft, but not sticky.

7.      Knead firmly until the dough is smooth and elastic (about 5 mins in an electric mixer with a dough hook or 10 mins the old fashioned way!)

8.      Wipe out the bowl and oil lightly, place the dough in the bowl and cover with (oiled) Clingfilm and put somewhere nice and warm to prove – the dough should double in size.

9.      Once doubled in size, knock back the dough (bash it and squash it for about 30 seconds) to expel the air and carbon dioxide.

10.   Roll into a tube shape and divide into 8 -10 pieces.

11.    Shape into designs of your choice, basic round rolls, plaits, knots.

12.   Place onto a baking tray lined with silicone paper.

13.   Egg wash and decorate with seeds if using.

14.   Leave to prove once again until doubled in size (this rise is the air that will be cooked in your bread, so try not to fiddle around with it – let it rise in peace!

15.   Bake in a hot oven, 200°c until golden brown. Try not to knock your tray when putting it in the oven otherwise the rolls will lose their air and collapse.

( DON’T slam the oven door otherwise you’ll lose all the heat that’s in there!)

17.   Once cooked (you know how to check, if you tap the bottoms they should sound hollow) move to a wire rack to cool (this allows the air to circulate, if you leave them on the tray they’ll get soggy bottoms!).

18.   Enjoy!!!!!

A little food for thought.......

Food for thought:

Jonas Salk said, "If all the insects on the planet died today, life as we know it would end in 50 years. If all the people on the planet died today, life as we know it would flourish".

Makes you feel slightly humble..........

Cream Cheese Frosting

Cream Cheese Frosting

Now, I don’t know about everyone else but I find butter cream frosting far too sickly and sweet, which may seems crazy as normally I have a very sweet tooth, but I just feel that it takes too much attention away from the cake underneath.....so I began the search for an alternative and so far this is the best cream cheese frosting I’ve found, not too sweet and not too ‘cheesy’..It’s just right!

Enjoy!

Makes enough to frost 12 cupcakes.

Ingredients

300g icing sugar, sifted

50g unsalted butter at room temperature

125g full fat cream cheese, cold

1.       Beat the icing sugar and butter together in a freestanding mixer until the mixture comes together and is well mixed – it won’t make a paste but will kind of be crumbly (like when you’re rubbing butter into flour to make a sponge).

2.       Add the cream cheese in one go and beat until incorporated.

3.       Mix on a high speed for at least 5 mins until light and fluffy......however keep an eye on it, if you overbeat it will become runny and there will be no way to rescue it!

4.       Enjoy.

Items frosted with cream cheese should be kept in the fridge if not being eaten straight-away, if you don’t like cold cake just make sure you take your yummy goodies out of the fridge a couple of hours before you want them.  Also, you can keep any unused frosting on the fridge for up to 3 days.

The Cookie (no more explanation required!)

The Cookie

(adapted from Gesine Bullock Prado)

Ingredients (makes approx 20 large cookies)

2 ½ cups all purpose flour
¼  cup bread flour
2 cups packed dark brown sugar
2 eggs
1 large egg white
11 ounces  unsalted butter

2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder

Add ins

I divide the dough in half, putting 1½  cup chocolate chips in one and ½ cup each of chopped pecan nuts, dried cranberries and white chocolate chips in the other.
(you can choose what you want to put in these but work on 1½ cups of add ins per half of the dough, so if you’re making all choc chip...3 cups.)

Procedure
preheat oven to 180º

-Cream together butter and sugar.
-Add eggs and egg white, one at a time.
-whisk together dry ingredients and slowly add to the mixer, being VERY careful not to over mix.
-fold in the add ins
-Use a  large cookie/ice cream scoop, space the cookies 3 inches apart.  Then flatten them with the palm of your hand (this works best if your palm is wet, so the dough doesn’t stick to you!).

-Bake the cookies for 15 minutes or until slightly golden

For a good chewy cookie here's the trick....during the baking, about every 5 minutes, open the oven and take the cookie sheet from the oven and SLAM it down on the counter and put straight back in the oven.  You see,  the cookies start to puff a little (of course they are, they have leavening in them) so to keep them  CHEWY and flat  slam that cookie sheet every 5 mins to counteract the leavening puff.  

Sounds crazy, but it works!