Sugar and Spiced Walnuts

Ingredients:

1/4 cup water
170 g caster sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 nutmeg
1/4 ginger
200 g walnuts

Method:

Roast the walnuts in a pre heated oven on a baking tray for 10-15 minutes until they are browned and the kitchen smells nutty.

Whilst they are roasting, add the sugar, water and spices to a pan and heat up to the boil, until it thickens.

Take the nuts out of the oven, and add to the caramelised sauce. Mix.

Place the newly coated walnuts on a tray lined with baking parchment and allow to cool. Place them in the fridge to speed up the cooling process.

Gingerbread biscuits

Ingredients:

250 g plain flour
4 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
120 g muscavado sugar
130 g salted butter (softened)
1 egg yolk
5 tsp golden syrup

Method:

Sift the flour, spices and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl.

Cut the softened butter into cubes and add it to the flour mixture in the bowl. Using your fingers rug the mixture together until it resembles fine bread crumbs.

Add the sugar, egg yolk and syrup and mix until it turns into a dough.

Wrap the dough in clingfilm and place in the fridge for at least an hour.

After an one hour, preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Line two baking trays with baking parchment. Roll out the dough on to a lightly floured surface to about 4 mm thick and cut out your shapes using biscuit cutters and place them on the baking trays.

 Bake for 10-15 minutes. The Gingerbread may darken a little. Leave to cool before you ice or leave them plain.

Countdown to Christmas

In the short run up to Christmas I am going to cook one Christmas recipe a day. Some of which will be traditional recipes and others exciting Christmas alternatives. I am going to start with Gingerbread biscuits.

Raspberry and White Chocoloate Muffins

Ingredients:

Basic muffin recipe
2 ripe bananas
1 egg
100 g muscavado sugar
300 g wholemeal flour
75 g butter
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 1/2 tsp of baking powder
275 ml Buttermilk
1 tsp demarara sugar.

Additional ingredients:


200 g raspberries
100 g white chocolate, broken into small chunks.

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C, and line a muffin tin with cases. I followed the same method/recipe from a previous post, 'blueberry muffins' so follow that recipe up to the point where you add the blueberries and instead add the raspberries and white chocolate. Cook for 20-25 minutes.

Verdict:

I used some baking cases which SEMI EXPAT had given me all the way from Australia. They taste perfect.

The Baked Bean

A little history of the baked bean.
Baked beans have become synonymous with the brand Heinz, who first introduced the beans to the English market in 1901 in Fortnum and Masons, Piccadilly, London.

 
Since then, they have made their way into supermarkets and corner shops all over the UK. A staggering 1,000,000 cans of Heinz Beanz are consumed everyday in the UK which is approximately 485 million cans per year, therefore they must be doing something right. I am not going to knock the Baked Bean, particularly the Heinz Baked Bean because they are instantly satisfying and healthy. However I want to be able to make these beans for myself, and for them to be as flavoursome if not more.



Ingredients.

2 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 medium onions, finely diced
2 cloves garlic chopped
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp ground cloves
2 heaped tbsp tomato ketchup 
125 ml passata
150 ml water
1 cans haricot beans, rinsed and drained  
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

Method.

Heat the oil in a large ovenproof pan. Add the onions and garlic and fry until soft and golden. Sprinkle over the paprika and ground cloves and cook for 1 minute then stir through the ketchup.

Add the passata and water and bring to the boil. 

Simmer for about 10 minutes before liquidizing until smooth. Add the drained beans and Worcestershire sauce to the pureed tomato sauce. Season with salt. Stir well and bring back to the boil.

Put a lid on the pan and transfer to the oven for 1 hour 30 minutes. Stir in some boiling water before serving if the beans are a bit dry. 

Storage.

Store in the fridge and consume within 2-3 days.  

Try.
For different variations try adding chopped bacon or chilli flakes to the beans once they have been baked. Fry chopped up pieces of bacon and stir them into the beans before serving.

Verdict.
Obviously they take longer to prepare and cook compared to tinned beans however they are packed full of flavours, more wholesome and definitely worth the effort. They are a different and much better alternative and they don't contain any sugar unlike Heinz beans, the sweetness comes from the tomatoes in the passata and I thought it was unnecessary to add more. I am converted and will now cross beans off my supermarket list.  

Blog Project

I am going to embark on a project on my blog and it is going to be, to make the things that I always buy from a supermarket from scratch, like mayonnaise, beans, ketchup, hummus, bread, pesto, that kind of thing, peanut butter, jam, everything that I buy in jars and tins. This is of course the aim of every cook, but as we all now, sometimes due to convenience and lack of time, it is not always possible to do this. It is much easy to buy a jar of Branston pickle rather than, buying the pickles, dicing them, pickling them and preserving them in vinegar. However, I am becoming, like a lot of people, more and more aware about what goes into the food that I buy and therefore eat. Whenever you give yourself time to make things at home, it ALWAYS tastes so much better, so why should we continue to jeopardise taste and nutrition for convenience?

I am going to see if I can find, and create recipes, that are easy, cheap, nutritional, and fresh without a 2015 sell by date and compare them to the big brands, and shop brought products that I constantly buy. From now on, I bid farewell to the tin, the packet and the pre-made sauce and say hello to the Tuppawear box, the foil and the self filled jar.

So, I shall begin. 

And I begin, with the all time favourite, THE BAKED BEAN. 

Birthday Cupcakes

Makes 12.

Ingredients

For the cakes:
3 eggs
180 grams butter
180 grams caster sugar
180 grams self raising flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking powder

Butter Icing:
250g icing sugar sifted
80g unsalted butter at room temperature
25ml milk
A couple of drops of vanilla extract

Method:

Line a muffin tray with paper cases and preheat the oven to 180C. Cream the butter and the sugar in a bowl until it is light and fluffy.

Add the eggs to the butter and sugar one at a time

Sift the flour into the mixture and fold.Add the baking powder.

Spoon the mixture into cupcake cases.

Bake them in the oven for 15-20 minutes until they have risen and are golden on the top.

Once the cupcakes have complete cooled, frost with butter-cream icing.

Cream the butter until it is light and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract and gradually sift in the icing sugar. If you have an electric mixer - this will be easier. I don't and it works fine with a wooden spoon it just takes a bit more time and effort to get the icing light and fluffy but it is worth it in the end.

Cover the iced cupcakes in hundreds and thousands. I'm sorry I don't have a picture of the final cakes. I was in a rush in the morning as I was late for a rehearsal so had to get the cakes and run. I will make sure I get a good photo of the next cup cakes I make.