Plum & Almond Crumble Slice

Plum & Almond Crumble Slice

It's described as a buttery tray bake, full of new season fruit and spice.

I made it for my turn at afternoon tea at work and it went down a storm together with the Mint Aero Cookies.  One comment was "I'd pay good money for this !"

250g pack butter, very cold
225g caster sugar
300g ground almonds
140g plain flour, plus 25g
2 eggs
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
approx 6 plums, stoned and cut into 6ths
50g flaked almonds

Heat oven to Gas 4/180ºC. Grease and line with baking parchment a 20cm x 30cm baking tin.

Put the butter, sugar and almonds into a food processor, pulse until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Remove half of it and set it aside.

Add 140g flour to the processor and whizz until it forms a dough. Tip into the tin and press down with the back of a spoon.  Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden. Leave to cool for 10 minutes.

To make the filling, put the butter sugar mix that you set aside earlier into the processor saving a few tbsp for the topping. Add the eggs, cinnamon and baking powder and whizz to a soft batter.  Top the shortbread base with this then put the plum pieces on top of this.

Bake for 20 minutes then sprinkle with the remaining crumble mix and the flaked almonds.  Cook for another 20 minutes until golden. Leave to cool in the tin before slicing.

Mint Aero Chocolate Cookies

This recipe is a variation on chocolate chip cookies and was passed to me by my niece Danielle.

Mint Aero Chocolate Cookies

Cream together 100g butter or margarine and 75g light soft brown sugar.  Mix in 175g self raising flour, 2 tbsp milk, 2 tbsp golden syrup and a 113g bag of mint aero balls.

Place in lumps on a greased baking tray and bake at 180'C/Gas 4 for 10-15 minutes until golden. Cool for a couple of minutes on the tray then transfer to a cooling rack.

Middle Eastern Meatloaf

This is a Waitrose recipe and it's quite tasty........

Middle Eastern Meatloaf

125g Bulgar wheat (dry weight)
grated zest of 1 orange
1 onion, finely chopped
2 carrots, coarsely grated
250g pack minced lamb
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tbsp pine nuts 
50g sultanas
2 beaten eggs

Preheat the oven to 190'C, Gas 5. Grease and line the base of a 1.5k (2lb) loaf tin. Cook the bulgar wheat in a pan of boiling water for 10 minutes until tender.  Cool slightly then drain well and tip into a large bowl.

Stir the remaining ingredients into the bowl and mix well to combine.

Transfer the mixture to the prepared loaf tin and press down very well with the back of a spoon.  Bake for 40-45  minutes until cooked through and nicely browned.  Turn out of the tin and slice.

They suggest serving it with lightly steamed Savoy cabbage, we had it with steamed Kale.

You could use cooked brown rice or even couscous in this recipe and I found I had no pine nuts so I used almonds instead.

Teviot Pie

To describe Teviot Pie, it's like Cottage Pie or Shepherds Pie but with a suet crust instead of potato. Like mince and dumplings pie. Googling has led me to various recipes. 

To quote wikipedia.....

"The term Teviotdale was used in the past to define an area which was drained by the River Teviot, the River Tweed and their tributaries."

So I reckoned to begin with I would make this recipe from the website Scotland for Visitors.

http://www.scotlandforvisitors.com/recipes/teviotpie.php

A Healthy recipe

This recipe has become quite a favourite in our house.  It comes from a Weight Watchers recipe book, but don't let that put you off. This is the recipe as it comes in the book.

Chermoula Pork

Serves 6

6 x 110g lean pork steaks
1 tbsp medium curry powder
low fat cooking spray 
300ml hot chicken stocak
150g low fat soft cheese
1 tbsp ground cumin
2 tsp paprika
2 garlic cloves, crushed
30g jalapeno peppers from a jar
2 tbsp fresh coriander
2 limes cut into wedges to serve

Coat the pork with the curry powder.  Heat a wide, deep, non-stick frying pan.
Spray the pork steaks with the low fat spray and cook in the pan for 10 minutes until brown all over.  Remove, cover with foil and set aside.

Add a splash of stock to the pan to deglaze then stir in the soft cheese, cumin, paprika, garlic and jalapenos.

Gradually stir in the remaining stock.  Bring to the boil and simmer for 2 mins.  Return the pork to the pan and simmer for 1 minute. Sprinkle over the coriander and serve with the lime wedges.

Notes:

I usually make the same amount of sauce for 3 or 4 people.....I like sauce.

For low fat soft cheese use Philadelphia light or extra light.

I used creole spice last night instead of coriander and omitted the spices from the sauce.

For the weight watchers among you, this recipe as written above will cost you 3 points (not propoints).  Its aso a core recipe. (UK weight watchers)

The Great British Bake Off......

A new series of this has recently begun and I have been inspired to make this 8 strand loaf. I have no idea what attracts me to baking bread as it is not my forte, but the idea of plaiting the 8 "tentacles" into something resembling Paul Hollywood's loaf called to me and here we are.

The recipe is here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/eight-strand_plaited_57815

As I write, I'm waiting for it to double in size and then the fun can begin.

A bit slow at first but it's getting there.......

Ready to plait..........let the fun begin

Well........it looks a bit like it should.  Prove for 1 hour.

And here's the finished article....... smells good, hope it tastes good.

Filling in the gaps

It's been a while since I posted anything.....how remiss of me.  So by way of catch up, here's a few things I've made since I last posted and a few things I've made pre-blog which are worthy of note ...............

How about a nice Lamb Casserole with Feta Dumplings

The recipe came from Channel 4's Sunday Brunch.

Simon Rimmer’s rich lamb casserole from Sunday Brunch is easy to make and is topped with crisp golden dumplings and feta cheese

Serves 4

Ingredients

For the filling

• Vegetable oil, for frying
• 450g good-quality lamb mince
• 1 onion, finely diced
• 1 carrot, finely diced
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tbsp tomato purée
• Few sprigs rosemary
• 200ml Madeira
• 200ml strong beef or game stock

For the topping

• 225g plain flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 100g unsalted butter, cubed
• 175ml sour cream
• 150g feta cheese

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/fan 180°C/gas mark 6. For the filling, heat some oil in a deep heavy-bottomed saucepan and brown the mince. Remove the mince from the pan and set aside.

2. To the same pan add the onion, carrot and garlic and fry gently to soften but not colour.

3. Add the lamb mince back to the pan, add the cinnamon and tomato purée and cook out for 4-5 minutes.

4. Add the rosemary, Madeira, stock and some seasoning, and bring to the boil. Then allow to simmer for at least 30 minutes.

5. For the topping, in a blender pulse together the flour, baking powder, salt and butter. When it looks like breadcrumbs add the sour cream and do the same again. The dough will be very sticky.

6. Spoon the filling into individual pie dishes, then spoon dollops of the batter on top. Sprinkle over the feta and bake for 25 minutes until crisp and golden.

Then the Hairy Bikers Big Book of Baking was out again to make the 

Pogasca or Bacon Scones

The recipe for these can be found here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/bacon_or_crackling_75198

An unusual and very tasty version of Brownies made with Guinness !  Hence the name Guinness Brownies

these went down very well and if you want to try them, the recipe is here:

http://hiconsumption.com/2012/06/guinness-brownies/?utm_source=scribol.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=scribol.com

Rocky Road

This recipe came from BBC Good Food Magazine August 2012 and was titled Emma Morris's Rocky Road.  It's very rich and chocolatey.  

100g butter
300g dark chocolate, broken up
3 tbsp golden syrup
135g rich tea biscuits, broken into pieces
handful of mini marshamallows
140g chocolate bars of your choice

Put butter, chocolate and syrup into a pan over a low heat.  Melt them together, stirring until smooth.  Cool for about 10 minutes.

Line a 17cm (about 6" ) square tin with foil.

Stir the biscuits, marshmallows and sweets into the chocolate until they are covered.  Spoon the mixture into the tin, level it out a bit.  Put into the fridge until it is hard then remove from the tin and cut into squares or fingers.


When I made this, I used ginger nut biscuits instead of rich tea.  Digestives or shortbread would be nice too.  My marshmallows were the standard sized ones so I snipped them up with scissors.  I used Maltesers, though I reckon Crunchies or Diam bars would be good.

You could add dried fruit to the mixture too.


"Here's one I made earlier"

Baked Raspberry Cheesecake

A recipe from Olive magazine:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3842/baked-raspberry-cheesecake

Chocolate Torte a variation on the Salted Caramel Chocolate Torte found here:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/896660/salted-caramel-chocolate-torte