A Truly Great Pairing

You may have noticed that I casually overlooked Valentine's Day here on Happy Love Strawberry. Any February 14th post? Nooo. We don't have a 14th of February on this blog. No heart-shaped chocolate souffle sprinkle sundae gooey brownie cakes for two to share round here.
Actually that sounds pretty good. But no.

If I was going to bake something to represent my romantic endeavours, it would need to be something as bitter as I am, and so I'm sparing you from that. Instead, I'm going to celebrate a truly great pairing that I do appreciate. The old 'chocolate + orange = ♥' formula (yeah, that 'formula' may help you to understand why I'm so bad at maths. It apparently doesn't go down too well in exams).


I took this to our picnic the other day to help me and my friends celebrate our platonic love, and everyone seemed to agree that chocolate and orange go together like rama lama lama ke ding a de dinga a dong. Who's going to argue with that?

I don't make a lot of chocolate cake (I think I've mentioned that I prefer either chocolate OR cake) but this is a really good recipe as it's particularly moist though oddly, it doesn't look it in the sliced photo; I had to take that a couple of days after it was made as it was a leftover piece. Also this cake did NOT want to photo so you get a good chocolate hit.

Just what you need to sweeten yourself up when you're feeling bitter and resentful. I mean, hypothetically.

Chocolate Orange Layer Cake
Recipe from You magazine, 13th January 08
Makes 1 x 20cm cake

Cake:
225g butter
225g demerara sugar
175g self-raising flour
50g sifted cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp sea salt
4 eggs
100ml milk

Orange buttercream:
220g butter
220g icing sugar
zest of 2 oranges
2 tbsp Cointreau or orange juice
1 egg yolk
orange or yellow food colouring

1. Preheat oven to 190C/170C fan/375F/gas 5 and butter a 20cm x 9cm cake tin.

2. Cream all cake ingredients together (helpful if you have a kitchen aid or mixer or boyfriend to stir for you whatever here) until all smooth and mixed in, then transfer it to the cake tin, smooth the surface, and bake for about 45 mins or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. To be honest I only needed about 30-35 mins but I'm a bit paranoid about undercooking cakes - it's happened before - and I think it would have been moister if I'd taken it out earlier. Run a knife around the outside to loosen, and leave to cool.

3. For the buttercream, blend the butter, icing sugar and orange zest together in a big bowl and whack it around a bit until really pale and fluffy. Add the cointreau/juice and whisk for a minute longer, then the egg yolk and colouring and mix it all in until even. Naturally I chose cointreau, to drown my sorrows in alcohol.

4. Use a bread knife to slit the cake into three layers. Divide the filling into three then spread the bottom and middle layers with filling and whack the rest over the top. I spread it round the sides as well, cause I prefer it that way, though there wasn't really enough buttercream for that. You could decorate it with chocolate orange segments if you had a chocolate orange, but I didn't have anyone to buy me chocolate, so I just crumbled a flake bar over the top. Et voila!

Who am I kidding with the misery act? I'll take cake over romance any day.

Houmous Is Hummous Is Hummus

Sometimes I say things like, 'you know what we should do? Go to a safari park!'. I then get attacked by wild animals and think better of it (photo on the right is the rhino that charged at our car on a day out with my friends yesterday -- 'SHIT, SHIT, THE RHINOS ARE CHARGING! DRIVE, DRIVE!!'). When we decided that everyone should bring picnic food for the afore-mentioned day at the safari park, I said something like, 'you know what the best food ever is? Houmous!'

Since buying houmous is apparently for lesser mortals, I bought a tin of chickpeas and decided to make it. I only had a vague recipe from Good Food magazine, but houmous is houmous is houmous.

Unless it's hummus. Humous. Hoomus? Well, anyway.

The recipe turned out to be not-so-great. I kept sticking spoons in my would-be houmous (hummus?) to try it, and concluding, 'not houmous'. I think where it had gone wrong was leaving out tahini (sesame paste), which other recipes seem to consider a bit of a staple of houmous-making; it did include a tablespoon of greek yoghurt and whatsit, perhaps thinking tahini was a bit of an ambitious ingredient.

I would have agreed, except I opened the fridge and found we actually had a giant tub of tahini there. Ah. Outwitted.
A bit of experimentation later, have a houmous recipe. It's wild and crazy fun, and takes about five minutes if you actually have a recipe and aren't just throwing random things from your fridge and cupboard in a food processor ('anchovies... can't hurt!').

Houmous
Pretty much my own o__O. Though houmous is houmous is houmous (unless it's humus?), so I'm not about to copyright it or anything.

400g can chickpeas, drained
1 tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves
juice of half a lemon (we actually only had half a lemon, so that explains that)
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp ground cumin
2 tbsp tahini paste
Ignore the yoghurt, cause what was going on with that? Bah.

1. Whack everything in a food processor and whizz it to a paste. Mine was a bit thick, so I'd add a tbsp or two of water if I did it again, but I don't want to stick that in the ingredients list in case you don't need it. And you can drizzle another couple of tsp of oil over the top, if you like.

...Thassit.

What else can I say about houmous now? Make yourself a tub of carrot sticks. Take it to a picnic. Use it as bait to distract charging rhinos from your fragile bones. Here, I'll even show you how to dip it.
You can have some good times with houmous, you mark my words.

Bloggers who made this:

20.03.08 Pixie at You Say Tomahto, I Saw Tomayto

No Place Like London

I may not make cheesecake as often as I used to, but I have a definite weakness for it, and if I can get away with making one I will ^__^. This recipe is one I've had my eye on for aaages, but haven't been able to come up with an excuse to make; if it's someone's birthday, I make cake, if it's a picnic or something, we need cookies or bars, and if I'm just at home there aren't enough people around to eat it.

I find myself inventing occasions just so I can have people round to feed them. Does anyone else do this? Please tell me yes.

I had a big group of friends round on Friday night for a Disney sleepover (we get together and have a marathon of classic Disney films; Friday was our fourth XD) so I finally had a chance to give this a go.


I'll let the pictures speak for themselves on this recipe because a) I'm very proud of the pictures, b) Ellie raves about this better than I do and c) I'm extremely tired and lazy and basically can't be arsed.

I'm therefore going to do this the quick way. This description is going to be to a blog post what a haiku is to a love poem.

Please make this cheesecake;
It tastes delicious, hooray
So my friends all say.

Was it just an excuse to make a cheesecake? Yes.

Was that just an excuse to write a haiku? Perhaps.

London Cheesecake

Recipe from Feast by Nigella Lawson

For American measurements, click here.

For the base:

150g digestive biscuits

75g unsalted butter, melted or very soft

600g cream cheese

150g caster sugar

3 large eggs

3 large egg yolks

1 and a half tablespoons vanilla extract

1 and a half tablespoons lemon juice

20 cm Springform tin

extra-strength tin foil

For the topping;

145ml tub sour cream

1 tablespoon caster sugar

half teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Process the biscuits until they are like crumbs, then add the butter and pulse again. Line the bottom of the Springform tin, pressing the biscuits in with your hands or the back of a spoon. Put the tin in the fridge to set, and preheat the oven to 180ºC/gas mark 4.

2.Beat the cream cheese gently until it's smooth, then add the sugar. Beat in the eggs and egg yolks, then finally the vanilla and lemon juice. Put the kettle on. Line the outside of the chilled tin with strong foil so that it covers the bottom and sides in one large piece, and then do the same again and put it into a roasting dish. This will protect the cheesecake from the water as it is cooked in its water bath.

3.Pour the cream-cheese filling into the chilled biscuit base, and then pour hot water from the recently boiled kettle into the roasting tin around the cheesecake. It should come about halfway up; don't overfill as it will be difficult to lift up the tin. Put it into the oven and cook for 50 minutes. It should feel set, but not rigidly so: you just need to feel confident that when you pour the sour cream over, it will sit on the surface and not sink in.

4. Whisk together the sour cream, sugar and vanilla for the topping and pour over the cheesecake. Put it back in the oven for a further 10 minutes.Take the roasting tin out of the oven, then gingerly remove the Springform, unwrap it and stand it on a rack to cool.

5. When it's cooled down completely, put it in the fridge, removing it 20 minutes before eating to take the chill off. Unmould and when you cut into it, plunge a knife in hot water first.Serves 8

Rather than the sauce Ellie made for her cheescake I halved a recipe for black cherry sauce from Vegetarian Supercook by Rose Eliot:

500g cherries, pitted (I used frozen ones that didn't need pitting)
75ml water + 1-2 tbsp
1-2 tsp cornflour
2 tbsp caster sugar

1. Put the cherries into a saucepan with the water and bring to the boil. Cover & simmer gently for about 5 minutes or until the cherries are tender.

2. Mix the cornflour with the 1-2 tbsp cold water, then add to the cherries, bring to the boil and stir for a minute or two until the sauce is slightly thickened. Stir in the caster sugar and remove for the heat. Set aside to cool and serve with the cheesecake.

Ellie made this cheesecake with the base coming up the sides and I think I'll do that next time cause otherwise the base is quite thick.

Tastes good though ^__^

Taking Tea-Drinking To The Next Level

I think it's important, before I begin talking about these biscuits, that I introduce you to a friend of mine. His name, for obvious reasons if you look at the picture on the right, is Beezelbub. Sometimes I have nightmares that he's going to suck out my soul while I sleep, but generally, we get on pretty well.

Beezelbub came free with a giant box of PG Tips teabags, meaning, naturally, that he likes tea. Lots of tea. Tea-drinking happens to be more or less my primary occupation (I average about six cups a day, and I don't mean small cups) so this works for me. But sometimes, a girl needs more than a cup of tea. On these occasions, Beelzebub tends to chow down on some soul, but as my tastes are somewhat less murderous, when I saw the recipe for Earl Grey Tea Biscuits on a food blog round here, I thought it sounded just the job.

I made these as part of a present for my friend Boy's birthday, since he's also a pretty intensive tea-drinker, but not before I snaffled about twenty of them fresh from the oven (they were SMALL, okay?). They don't taste strongly of tea, or anything much really, but it's the whole principle of Tea Biscuits that appeals to me mostly anyway, and they're gorgeous biscuits as they are.

This is ironic as I actually prefer normal tea to Earl Grey, which always tastes a bit like drinking pot pourri to me.

I halved the original recipe by the way, as it seemed to make billions, but my biscuits were very small, so I'd make them a bit bigger than I did. They're a cute size for dunking in a teacup, though ^__^.

Earl Grey Tea Biscuits

Found on Eat Me Delicious, but originally from Martha Stewart Holiday Cookies 2005.
This halved batch makes about 48 apparently, but I'd make them bigger and have fewer next time.

Quantities translated by me, and you know what that means.

For American measurements, use the Eat Me Delicious post.

140g plain flour
2 bags worth finely ground Earl Grey tea leaves (mine were really fine enough without grinding, but I did a bit anyway)
1/4 tsp salt
115g butter
30g icing sugar (I was a bit like o__O over this, so I added a tbsp or so of caster sugar too. Okay, sugar junkie, but whatever)
1/2 tbsp orange zest

1. Whisk flour, tea, and salt in a small bowl; set aside.

2. Put butter, sugar, and orange zest in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to low; gradually mix in flour mixture until just combined.

3. Transfer dough to a piece of baking paper and shape into a log. Roll in baking paper to 1 1/4 inches in diameter (*COUGH* OR BIGGER, IF YOU CAN'T JUDGE MEASUREMENTS), prsesing a ruler along edge of parchment at each turn to narrow the log and force out air. Put it on a level baking tray in the freezer until firm, 1 hour (ppft. Half an hour. Impatient, remember?).

4. Preheat oven to 180C. Cut logs into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Space 1 inch apart on baking sheets lined with parchment. They don't spread, by the way.

5. Bake biscuits, rotating sheets halfway through,until edges are golden, 13 to 15 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks. They can be stored in airtight containers at room temperature up to 5 days.

It's unavoidable. I'm going to put the kettle on.

An Expression Of Affection, And A Meme

So rather than aimless rambling today, I've been tagged to do a meme by Pixie at You Say Tomahto, I Say Tomayto! Thanks Pixie, and if you've not been on her blog, do!

These are the rules: 1. Link to your tagger and post these rules. 2. Share 5 facts about yourself 3. Tag 5 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them). 4. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their Blogs.

So here are a few things about me!

1. One of my more bizarre habits is looking at my friends, or other people I love, and thinking about all the things I want to cook for them. (I.e. 'Oh, she loves cheesecake, I'll have to make this one for her...'). I admitted this over lunch at school once, and after my friends stopped laughing (so, about twenty minutes) they told me it was adorable X__X . I think I just show affection through food - there are a few recipes that I'll only make for people if I really love them, heh. See below.

2. I got an interview to do English Literature at Oxford University at the end of last year. It went okay, but I didn't get a place (there were eight places at the college I applied for, and about fifty people had interviews. God knows how many people applied). So I'm probably going to uni at Southampton in October =]

3. I adore everything about Japan (I went there with a friend last summer) and want to live there some day. Occasionally I feel achingly homesick for it, which is pretty ironic seeing as I was only in the country ten days, haha.

4. I've been planning a novel since I was about twelve and want to get it published one day. Obviously it doesn't bear much resemblance to the twelve-year-old version, but it's grown into something I'm pretty proud of. I'm still not done planning though - it's turned into a bit of an epic, heh.

5. I hate the winter (I have SAD) and was obviously not at all pleased to get up yesterday thinking, 'ah, the first of February! The worst is over!' and open the blind on my skylight to find snow outside. Hopefully it'll get lighter soon and I won't have to wait til the weekends to have natural light for photographs!

I'd like to tag Ellie at Kitchen Wench, Ovenhaven at Epicurian Escapism, R Khooks at R Khooks, Jessica at Su Good Sweets, and Jennifer at Bake Or Break. Obviously you don't have to do it unless you want to!


This recipe happens to be one of the things I often think of when pondering what I'd like to make for someone. My gran used to make these (I'm going in for my gran's recipes a lot recently, aren't I?) so I like to make these for my mum, along with a cup of tea, or when I'm feeling nostalgic. Tea is pretty much the answer to everything, in my view.


Despite the name and appearance, these are NOT Bakewell Tarts, and don't taste anything like them - SO many people, when I offer them one, say, 'no, I don't like Bakewell Tarts'. This enrages me, haha, because they really really don't know what they're missing. TRY them. Give them away if you don't like them, but you will =P. These slices are pretty much the greatest expression of love I can give.


Almond Slices
Family recipe from my Gran

Base:
225g (8oz) plain flour
170g (6oz) butter
60g (2oz) ground almonds
60g (2oz) caster sugar
2 egg yolks
Raspberry jam

Top:
115g (4oz) ground almonds
170g (6oz) caster sugar
2 egg whites

1. Mix dry ingredients for the base in a bowl, rub in butter and mix with egg yolks. Knead together into a soft dough, then place in a flat tin, pressing flat and into the corners with your fingertips (she doesn't say what size, typically, but we use a rectangular slice tin).

2. Spread the base with raspberry jam (a couple of heaped tablespoons should be enough, but depends how much jam you want). Mix the ground almonds, sugar and egg whites for the base together and spread this over the jam, being careful not to get them mixed together.

3. Bake for about 20mins at 200C until the meringue-like topping turns golden. Leave to cool a little while before cutting into slices, but they taste best eaten still slightly warm ^__^

Now you see it...

...Now you don't!

Curry And A Hurry

Alright, so I may be a bit short on photos today, but this was such a nice (and healthy!) meal I thought I'd whack it up here anyway. I had an English exam this afternoon, so in theory that should mean I have some time tonight, but in fact I have homework and ironing to do anyway (and it's Torchwood at nine!). So rather than wax poetic... have a curry.

'Have a curry' sounds like it should be a saying, or a catchphrase or something. It isn't.

At least, I don't think so. I think the English exam made my brain melt.

Egg & Lentil Curry
Adapted from The Detox Health Plan Cookbook by Maggie Pannell

Serves 4. Vegetarian.
202 cals per serving (not including rice)
Takes about 35 mins

75g green lentils (you could use proper lentils if you wanted to simmer them for 15mins with the stock beforehand, but I used ones from a tin. Huzzah)
750ml hot vegetable stock
4 eggs
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
2 fresh green chillies, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1in piece of fresh root ginger, peeled & chopped
2 tbsp curry paste
400g can chopped tomatoes
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp garam masala

Serve with about 200gish of basmati rice, and mango chutney if you like (I recommend the mango chutney, seriously)

1. Put the eggs in a pan and cover with tepid water. Slowly bring the water to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 7-8 mins. Get to your chopping and whatnot here (onions, chillies, garlic etc).

2. Remove the eggs from the pan of boiling water with a slotted spoon and place them in a bowl of cold water to cool. When they're cool enough to handle, peel the eggs and cut them in half lengthways.

3. Heat the oil in a large frying pan and add the onions, chillies, garlic and ginger. Fry the mixture for 5-6 mins, stirring frequently. Stir in the curry paste and fry for another 2 mins, stirring constantly. Add the chopped tomatoes and sugar and stir in 175ml water.

4. Simmer for about 5 mins until the sauce thickens, stirring occasionally. Add the boiled eggs, drained lentils and garam masala. Cover and simmer gently for 5 mins, then serve with basmati rice.

More Tea, Vicar?

Sometimes, just the name of something is enough to persuade me to make them. This is particularly the case in older cookbooks, where you don't have pictures to talk you into it; if I come across something called English Monkey, I'm writing it down for later. These biscuits are from my Gran's old, handwritten recipe books - Parson's Pleasure.

I'm fighting back that old urge for innuendo, here.

I only found out what the name was about when I took them out of the oven; my mum came into the room and got all excited (yeah, we have that in common), asking, 'is this your gran's recipe for Parson's Pleasure?'. When I nodded, she settled down on the end of the kitchen table (we have that in common, too) to tell me where the name had come from. Basically, she told me, my Gran had come across these biscuits at a Church Fete or something - yes, this is back in the good old days when we British did that sort of thing more often. I'm adding 'more often' as a disclaimer, as I actually live in the sort of village that does hold Church Fetes - when a friend of hers had made them. Everyone was sipping their tea, discussing their knitting and the like (I'm using creative license here) and sampling each other's baking, but the vicar, Mr Wooldridge, was in my mother's words, 'a greedy man', and upon trying these biscuits, had to have another. And another. And another.

I realise I'm retelling some mild gossip from about fifty years ago, here.

Anyway, my mum said, by this point all the old ladies were getting 'all twittery', and elbowing each other, muttering. And so when my Gran got the recipe from her friend, she rechristened the biscuits 'Parson's Pleasure', because she was all cool like that, and had a knack with alliteration and wicked irony. And sure enough, when I looked back at the handwritten recipe, she had written 'Mr Wooldridge!' in brackets at the side of the name.

I'd have called them something like 'ginger crack!biscuits', but this is probably due to the generation gap. Or whatever.

Parson's Pleasure
Recipe from my Gran ^__^
Makes about 16.

150g/ 5oz self-raising flour
120g/ 4oz butter
90g/ 30z caster sugar

A little bag of crystalised ginger
Ground ginger & caster sugar in roll dough in.

1. Mix together the flour, butter and sugar into a dough. Roll into balls with damp hands, and dip them into the mixture of ground ginger & extra sugar (sorry I can't give a proper quantity- just sort of 'flour' your surface with it and roll the balls across.

2. Press the balls onto a greased baking tray, squashing them down a little (they do spread though, so don't flatten them out or anything; I think they look nice small and fat). Put a small piece of crystalised ginger on top of each and cook....

...ah. This is where I introduce you to my Gran's method of recipe writing. She says, 'in a moderate oven', with casual disregard for temperature or timing. I put them at about 190C for roughly ten minutes. Keep an eye on them, cause I take no responsibility for something going wrong as a result of my Gran's scorn for specifics.


Thinking of inviting the vicar round for afternoon tea? Put these out, and if he's anything like Mr. Wooldridge, you're going straight to heaven.