Christmas Cake

Merry Christmas everyone!

I make my buttery and rich Christmas Cake in November then I drip Amaretto over it weekly for 4 weeks, keeping it wrapped in cling film and foil and sealed in an airtight container. I marzipan the cake during the first week of December and Ice it during the second week. Here I have used ready to roll icing, I usually make Royal icing but with so much going on this year it was an easier option. I'll add another picture after the cake has been cut over the Christmas period to show you the cake inside together with the layers of marzipan and icing, mmm, I can't wait!

Deck the halls with boughs of holly, tra, la la la la, la la la la...

Chocolate Brazil Nut Brownie Cake

 

This cake is a bit special, two fudgy, nutty and chocolatey brownie layers, sandwiched and covered all over with a thick and creamy chocolate ganache, decorated with chocolate covered Brazil nuts and finished with a dusting of cocoa, need I say more?

Chocolicious!

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

A fabulously 'retro' cake, if you were at school in the '70's then you probably made one of these in Home Economics! To make the cake all sticky and moist, spread the lining paper for your tin with soft butter and sprinkle on a good layer of caster sugar, arrange the pineapple rings and glace cherries, I added a few drops of coconut extract once the fruit was arranged in the tin, it adds a lovely fragrant element to the cake.

I'll pop the recipe here soon...

Eccles Cakes

Usually when I offer Eccles Cakes to visitors they are met with a grimace, it's a shame that these gorgeous little gems from Lancashire have got such a bad reputation, no wonder really, mass manufacturing is to blame for producing lardy and tasteless lumps of nothingness.

Now these are a different experience indeed, I use flaky pastry and fill the cakes with a mixture made with melted butter, soft, light brown sugar, currants, freshly chopped preserved peel, cinnamon and freshly grated nutmeg. The top of the cake is brushed with milk and sprinkled with caster sugar before being baked in a hot oven for 15 minutes.

Eccles Cakes are absolutely delicious served with some Lancashire cheese, believe me, it really does work!

I'll pop the recipe here very soon.

Bramley Apple & Cinnamon Crumble Cake

As autumn approaches, windy days come along causing fat and juicy fruits to fall off heavily laden trees, little gifts from nature which are then turned into tasty and satisfying little treats. Here, I have made a light and moist cake flavoured with ground cinnamon and stirred in some cooked apples then layered some atop the cake mixture and finished it off with a layer of buttery crumble with the addition of ground almonds then sprinkled it with cinnamon sugar as it left the oven for a little more aromatic sweetness.

Absolutely delicious, the best of two worlds, cake and crumble, no more having to choose one or the other! You still need to decide... Ice cream, custard or cream? 

All three, why not!

Thai Crumbled Chicken with Cos Lettuce Wraps

This fiery hot yet fragrant chicken dish is so delicious, it tastes so wonderful that you just can't believe it's healthy too! There is very little fat, just a spoonful of olive oil and Cos lettuce is used as a 'wrap' instead of a bread based one.

The recipe for 2 good portions

4 medium sized chicken breasts

2 tablespoons olive oil

4 red chillies, chopped

3 big fat cloves of garlic

1 teaspoon Thai 7 spice (I use the Schwartz version)

1 tablespoon fish sauce (nam pla)

2 tablespoons sweet chilli sauce

2 good bunches spring onions

a good bunch fresh coriander (cilantro)

Juice of 2 limes

2 Cos (or Romaine) Lettuces

Put the olive oil into a frying pan and place over a low heat, you want to get the oil just warm at this stage. Chop up the chillies and garlic, no need to be fancy, it all goes down the same way! Remove the seeds from the chillies if you don't want it too hot, pop the chillies and garlic into the pan and give it a stir, you just want to get them warm at this stage, leave them to cook whilst you chop up the chicken breasts, again, no need to be fussy, make the pieces about a teaspoon size.

Wash the coriander, spring onions and lettuces, separate the lettuce leaves and place all on a clean, dry tea towel.

Sprinkle a teaspoon of Thai 7 spice into the pan, add the chicken and turn the heat up high, keep stirring and fry off the chicken until cooked through. Splash in the fish sauce and let it evaporate, then drop in the sweet chilli sauce, stir all the time until the mixture in the pan goes quite sticky, at this stage add the juice of 1 lime, turn the heat down and let the contents of the pan simmer for 5 minutes.

Chop half of the spring onions and coriander and pop them into the pan, turn the heat back up, cook whilst stirring for 2 minutes. Turn off the heat and cover the pan with a lid, foil or greaseproof paper. Let the whole thing stand for at least 2 hours.

When you are ready to eat, take the lid back off your pan and place it back onto the heat, when it is thoroughly heated all through, throw in the rest of the chopped spring onions and coriander, spritz the remaining lime juice all over and turn out into 2 bowls or plates. Grab yourself some lettuce leaves and sit down to eat, put spoonfuls of the chicken into the 'cup' of the lettuce leaves and scoff it down, you'll be mmm-ing and ahh-ing within seconds! 

Enjoy.

Raspberry Swiss Roll

What can be more lovelier than a nice cup of tea and a slice of home made Swiss roll?

This cake is so light and fluffy, it has no butter and no raising agent in it, the lightness is achieved by whisking eggs and caster sugar until really thick and pale, then the plain flour is sieved and very gently folded into the mixture, it is baked in a hot oven for 10 - 11 minutes.

Trev's Tasty Tip

Use home made Vanilla Sugar to enhance the flavour of the sponge, delicious!

Here's how to make it

Equipment

An Electric Mixer with Whisk Attatchment

Mixing Bowl

A 12" x 8" x 1" Swiss Roll/Roulade Baking Pan (I use the Alan Silverwood anodised one)

Greaseproof paper to fit the baking pan

Greaseproof paper to turn out the sponge on to

Soft Plastic Spatula

A Small Palette Knife

Cooling Rack

The Recipe

3 Eggs

3oz Caster Sugar or Vanilla Sugar

3oz Plain Flour

2 Heaped Tablespoons Seedless Raspberry Jam

A handful of Frozen Raspberries

White Vegetable Fat for lubricating the greaseproof paper

A little caster sugar for sprinkling

The Method 

Preheat your oven to gas mark 7 (220C).

Cut 2 pieces of greaseproof paper to fit your baking pan, smear one of the pieces with some white vegetable fat, I use Trex or Cookeen, all over the paper on one side. Place the greaseproof paper with the greased side uppermost and gently tease it into shape to fit the tin. Lay out your other piece of greaseproof paper on a worktop or table and sprinkle with a nice layer of caster sugar.

Put the eggs and sugar into the mixing bowl and whisk at high speed until the mixture is very, very light and fluffy, you should be able to leave a trail on the surface of the mixture when you lift out the beaters, when they are turned off, which stays there for a while.

Sieve the flour over the mixture and use your spatula to gently fold it through, pour the mixture into the prepared baking pan scraping the bowl out gently. Tip the baking pan back and forth, corner to corner to move the cake batter so that it fills the tin evenly, do not spread the batter with a utensil, you'll press all the air out of it.

Put the tin on the middle shelf of the oven and bake for 11 minutes.

Take the sponge out of the oven and turn it out onto the greaseproof paper that has been sprinkled with caster sugar. Quickly spread the raspberry jam over the surface of the sponge with your palette knife. Break up the frozen raspberries and sprinkle them over the top of the jam. Quickly roll the sponge up lengthways, take one end of the paper and lift so the sponge starts to roll into itself, gently guide the sponge until it is all rolled up. Use the paper to roll around the newly formed Swiss roll and scrunch up the ends to keep it in shape. Place this little parcel of loveliness onto a cooling rack, leave to cool.

Once completely cooled, remove the sponge from the paper and sprinkle on a little more caster sugar. Store in an airtight container in the fridge if you are not going to eat it straight away, like that's going to happen!

 

Serve a good thick slice with some really good vanilla ice cream for a really lovely dessert.

Lemon and Lime Butterfly Cakes

These little beauties are made with a sponge flavoured with lime.

 

Trev's Tasty Tip   

Add very finely grated lime zest at the creaming stage of the butter and sugar. The sugar is slightly abrasive and helps to break the zest down and extract more of the fragrant oils that live in the skins of citrus fruits. 

 

The cakes have had the tops cut out and the wells left behind were spread with really good lemon curd, I piped in some lime and vanilla buttercream icing, made with freshly squeezed lime juice and vanilla extract, topped them with butterfly wings made by cutting the earlier decapitation into two pieces and finished with wafer daisies and a dusting of icing sugar.

 

 

Very pretty and very tasty too!

Raspberry and Vanilla Butterfly Cakes

These are vanilla sponge cakes made with vanilla sugar, the tops have been cut out and the piece taken out is cut into two pieces to create the 'butterfly wings', the well left behind is filled with really good seedless raspberry jam, whipped vanilla cream is then piped on, the 'wings' and a whole raspberry are arranged on top and the whole thing dusted with icing sugar.

Trev's Tasty Tip

I am lucky enough to be able to grow my own raspberries, I collect the beautiful little red jewels on a daily basis and pop them straight into an open container in the freezer, when they are solid I transfer them to a lidded container. It is easier to handle the frozen raspberries when using them to decorate cakes and other gorgeous things to eat.

I'll put the recipe here very soon, for now, I must get back to the kitchen, some other little Tasty Treats need my attention...

Hallowe'en Squidgy Skull Cakes

With autumn fast approaching, I'm digging out some titbits to use for ideas for Hallowe'en.

I'll just park some pictures and brief notes here for now, I'll get the recipes put together and post them on soon. Boooooo!

I used some small Hallowe'en themed D'oileys and scrunched them up into the holes of a muffin baking tin and when I took the cakes out of the oven I placed one in each hole and it sort of 'ironed' the paper so that they held their shape. I took the cakes out again once cooled to decorate them then placed them into their newly formed muffin wrappers.

Trev's Tasty Green Tomato Chutney

Sorry, I don't care for metrification! It’s pounds and ounces here!

This recipe gets you between 2 and 21/2 lb of chutney. Sterilise two 1lb jars and one 8oz jar and you should be alright. To sterilise, I wash the jars and stand them upright on an oven shelf with the oven preheated to gas mark 1 (140C) for around 30 minutes.

For larger quantities I only ever double up the recipe, any more and you can't get the liquid to evaporate so well, besides, if you make smaller quantities you can experiment with other ingredients, one variation I like with this chutney is to add chopped, plump red chillies and some toasted Cumin Seeds, very special indeed!

Ingredients

11/2lb chopped green tomatoes,

1lb chopped Bramley apples,

10oz Demerara sugar,

12oz sultanas,

4oz chopped dates (Medjhool are best),

4oz chopped onions,

12 cloves of garlic, peeled and halved lengthways,

1oz ground mixed sweet spice,

1/2teaspoon mustard powder,

1 pint of vinegar, malt is best.

Method

Put all the ingredients into a large pan, bring to the boil, simmer for 11/2 to 2 hours, stir from time to time to stop it catching and burning. When it is really dark in colour and goes sticky then it is ready for sealing into warm sterilised jars. It is best kept for a few weeks before eating, but there's no harm in having some right away! It keeps for about 2 years in a cool dark cupboard.

This chutney is fantastic with cold cuts and cheeses at Christmas time!
Another fantastic tasty treat is to put some of this glorious chutney under the cheese before you grill your cheese on toast.