Viennese whirl mince pies

Viennese whirl mince pies

This is a John Whaite (of Great British Bake Off fame) recipe and it's one I'll make again.  I love Viennese whirls and I love mince pies so what's not to like here?

Pastry

200g plain flour
1tsp mixed spice
100g butter, cubed
1 large egg, beaten

(or 300g shop bought shortcrust pastry)

Filling and Topping

12 tsp mincemeat, approx 170g
150g unsalted butter
150g plain flour
30g cornflour
30g icing sugar and extra to dust

For the pastry, toss the flour and spice together and rub in the butter until it looks like fine breadcrumbs. Add the beaten egg and bring the pastry together. If necessary add water a few drops at a time to make a soft dough.

Flatten the dough and wrap in cling film.  Chill for at least 30 minutes.

For the Viennese whirl topping, beat the butter until it is very soft, add the flour, cornflour and icing sugar until you have a smooth paste, like thick buttercream.

Roll the pastry on a lightly floured surface, as thinly as you can and cut circles to fit a 12 hole bun tin which has been greased. Line the holes with the pastry circles.

Fill the pastry with 1 tsp mincemeat. Using a piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle, pipe a neat spiral on top of each pie.  Chill for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to Gas 6/200ºC .

Bake the pies for 15-20 minutes or until the topping is just starting to turn a light golden brown. Cool in the tray, carefully remove and dust with icing sugar.

British Rail Gingerbread

British Rail Gingerbread

So, we were in Newcastle for the Chinese New Year Celebrations, and afterwards, walking back to the car we gazed in the window of the Pink Lane Bakery where they had on sale "British Rail Gingerbread".  I was intrigued and so "googled" it and came across this recipe on a blog called Bakestone, which is a hybrid of recipes by Linda Collister in the Baking Book, Food From the Place Below and Nigella Lawson in How to Eat.

I'm still not entirely sure why it's called British Rail Gingerbread, but I'll go along with it.

So:

Ingredients

225g self raising flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tbsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

grating of fresh nutmeg

100g butter

3 pieces of stem ginger

100g muscovado sugar/dark brown sugar

300ml milk

100g black treacle

100g golden syrup

3 balls of stem ginger (approx 45g)

1 egg, beaten

Preheat the oven to Gas 4/180ºC

Grease and line a 2lb loaf tin.

In a pan, dissolve the sugar in the milk and leave to cool.  Melt together the syrup and treacle. Let them cool.

Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda and spices and rub in the butter.  Grate in the stem ginger.  Now add the milk mixture, the treacle mixture and the beaten egg and mix well.  

Pour into the tin and bake for 45 mins to 1 hour.

Wrap in greaseproof paper and it will keep for several days in a cake tin. (Based on what evidence I wonder?)

Here's mine.....it's lovely.....reminds me of my Gran's gingerbread

Frangipane topped mince pies

Frangipane topped mince pies

This is a based on a Paul Hollywood recipe.  I enjoyed them, lets face it, there's no such thing as a bad mince pie, but personally, I would have liked them more almondy, more like a Bakewell tart filling, so next time I make them I will make them so! I may even make them into one big tart like a Bakewell.

Makes 12

400g mincemeat, preferably home-made

Pastry

165g plain flour

25g ground almonds

120g cold butter, diced

55g caster sugar

1 medium egg

Frangipane

100g softened butter

100g caster sugar

40g plain flour

60g ground almonds

2 large eggs,  beaten

2 tbsp flaked almonds

To make the pastry, stir the flour and ground almonds together in a bowl.  Rub in the butter until it looks like fine breadcrumbs, stir in the sugar and then gradually add the egg until it comes together into a soft dough. 

Tip onto your lightly floured work surface, flatten to a disc and wrap in clingfilm. Chill this for at least 3 hours before using.

Preheat your oven to Gas 6/200ºC. Grease your 12 hole bun tin.

Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface to 3mm thick. Cut out discs using a 10cm pastry cutter, re-rolling if neccessary so you have 12 discs.

Line the prepared tin with the pastry.

Make the frangipane by beating together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Mix in the flour, add the beaten eggs and mix well. Now stir in the ground almonds.

Put about 1½tsp mincemeat into each pie case.  Don't be tempted to overfill as it can leak out when the pies are cooking. Spoon the frangipane over, or pipe if you prefer. Scatter with the flaked almonds.

Bake for 20 mins until the topping is golden, risen and set. Carefully remove from the tin onto a wire cooling rack. Serve dusted with icing sugar.

Chicken Katsu Curry

Chicken Katsu Curry

This recipe is from the Slimming World website.

Serves 4 Syn free

4 skinless chicken breasts
240g fresh wholemeal breadrumbs
1 egg
salt and pepper

Sauce

1 onion, chopped
1 courgette, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp fresh ginger
1 tsp turmeric
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tbsp artificial sweetener
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 litre chicken stock
1 bay leaf
1 tbsp fat free fromage frais
low cal cooking spray

Spray a large heavy-based saucepan with low-calorie cooking spray. Add the onion, garlic and ginger and cook for 3 minutes or until the onion is softened. Add the carrots and courgette and lightly fry for a further 4-5 minutes. Add the turmeric, cumin, coriander, chilli powder and sweetener and evenly coat the vegetables. Add the stock, soy sauce and bay leaf and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

While the sauce is cooking, preheat your oven to 200°C/180°C Fan/Gas 6. Season the breadcrumbs with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Place each chicken breast in some clingfilm and flatten with a rolling pin or meat tenderiser. Remove the clingfilm and dip the chicken in the egg, then coat with breadcrumbs and place on a baking tray sprayed with low-calorie cooking spray. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through

For the sauce remove the bay leaf and pour the contents of the saucepan into a blender. Blitz until it becomes a thick, smooth sauce and stir in the fromage frais.

To serve, slice the chicken breast into pieces, spoon over the curry sauce and serve with steamed jasmine rice.

Cajun chicken and chorizo pasta

Cajun chicken and chorizo pasta

This is a "make it up as you go along" recipe.  I was using up ingredients I had in the fridge.

For 4 people

3-4 chicken breasts, cut into bite sized pieces
cajun seasoning
50g -100g chorizo, diced
2-3 sun dried tomatoes, chopped finely
peppers, sliced
fine green beans, blanched 
150 ml chicken stock
2-3 tbsp quark cheese
pasta of your choice

So, I fried the chicken and chorizo together with 1 tbsp cajun spice mix (use more or less to suit your taste) in a non-stick pan (I used a wok). I didn't add oil as there was enough in the chorizo. 

After about 5 minutes, I added the sun-dried tomatoes, peppers and blanched beans and cook for 1-2 minutes.

Add the stock and cook for 10 minutes until the chicken is cooked. Let the stock evaporate until almost gone.  Meanwhile cook your pasta according to the pack instructions. 

Drain the pasta and add to the pan with the quark.  Turn off the heat and stir until the quark is well combined.

Serve

Boned and stuffed turkey crown

Boned and stuffed turkey crown

This recipe is from the Christmas 2016 Olive Magazine.  It is easier to do than it looks and tastes fantastic, well worth making. (It's called Janine's Porchetta Style Turkey in the magazine.)

Get a turkey crown that is already boned to save yourself time and trouble, any good butcher could do this in minutes for you.

Serves 10-12

Ingredients

8 herb and garlic sausages, skinned (or any flavour you like)
100g grated fresh parmesan
handful of fresh sage leaves, chopped
200g chunk ciabatta, roughly chopped and soaked in 6 tbsp milk
1 x 3-4kg boned turkey crown
approx 18 slices unsmoked, thin streaky bacon

Mix the sausagemeat, parmesan, sage, soaked bread and some seasoning with your hands until well mixed.

Put the turkey, skin-side down onto a board.  You want to butterfly the breasts open. The easiest way to do this is make 3 incisions, about 2cm deep, lengthways, making the turkey breasts wider.

Spoon the stuffing evenly over the surface of the turkey, then bring both sides of the turkey into the middle until all the stuffing is enclosed. You can use a skewer to keep the ends together and keep the shape if you like.

Lay the bacon out on a board and run the flat of a knife along to make the slices longer.

At this point I placed a large piece of cling film onto my kitchen surface and over lapped the bacon on this.  

Sit the turkey on the bacon, skin side down, then using the cling film to help, wrap the bacon around the turkey.  Flip over and tie with kitchen string so that the turkey holds it's shape whilst cooking. 

Weigh the stuffed joint to calculate the cooking time at 20 minutes per 500g.

When you are ready to cook, heat the oven to 190ºC/Gas 5. Put the turkey into a roasting tin, neat side up and cook for the calculated time. Cover with foil if it seems to be browning too much in the last half--hour.  Rest under loose foil for 20 minutes before carving.

Shortbread Biscuits

Shortbread Biscuits

This is the recipe from our family archives.  It was made every Christmas and we made double the quantity.

As it's such an old recipe it's in ounces but I've put an equivalent in grams beside it.

5oz (150g) plain flour, sifted
3oz (90g) cornflour, sifted
5oz (150g) butter
3oz (90g)caster sugar

Heat the oven to 350ºF/180ºC/Gas 4

Cream the butter and caster sugar until light and fluffy. Stir in the flour and cornflour and bring together into one lump.

Roll out on a floured surface to about 0.5cm thick and cut into shapes using whatever cutters you have, or into fingers. Place on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until pale golden.

Cool on a wire rack and sprinkle with more caster sugar if you like. 

This year I made stained glass window cookies from some of this mixture. Cut a shape from the middle of the cookies and fill with crushed boiled sweets. Cook as above.  (It's important to have them on baking paper if you are doing this or they stick to the trays)

You can also ice the biscuits in whatever way you like.