Apple Custard Cake

While I was rooting around my pantry cupboard looking for some pasta, I came across a tub of custard powder. It's been in there, unused, since Christmas time. It's not often we eat custard, so I started to consider what else I might use it for. A quick Google search offered much food for thought. From tarts to pies, I found plenty of inspiration!

After some consideration, I settled on an Apple and Custard Teacake recipe from a fellow blogger: http://tonicoward.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/apple-custard-teacake.html. It's an American blog, so the first thing I needed to do was to convert the recipe from cups, into grams. This reminded me that I really must buy myself some cups, so I can make American recipes more easily in future!

Here's the ingredients in grams:

For the Cake:

150g butter

168g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

312g self-raising flour

300ml milk

3 apples, peeled cored and cut into 1cm pieces

1tbsp demerera sugar 

300ml custard (ingredients and recipe below) 

For the Custard:

2 Tbs custard powder

55g caster sugar

250g milk

20g butter

2 tsp vanilla

And here's how I did it, step-by-step:

1. Make the custard

2. Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy

3. Whisk in the eggs (add a tbsp of flour, to prevent curdling)

4. Whisk until well combined

5. Spread half the cake mixture into a lined and greased 20cm square cake tin

(the remaining half of the cake mixture)

6. Spread the custard over the cake mixture

7.  Top with 2/3rds of the apple slices

8. Spread the remaining cake mix into the tin

9. Top with the remaining apple slices, and the Demerara sugar






10. Bake it in the oven for (in my case) 45 minutes. The recipe states 1.5 hours, but as you can see, mine was already a little crisp after just 45 mins!

Beef Strogonoff

This week I got some lovely, thin cut sirloin steak on my weekly food shop from Waitrose. I contemplated making a stir fry, but finally decided that what with all this rain and dreary weather, I really needed something more comforting, more creamy. I settled on Beef Stroganoff from BBC Good Food.

It's an easy recipe, it doesn't call for too many ingredients, and I happened to have all of them in my fridge or cupboard. Once everything was chopped, sliced, crushed and measured, it was simple and quick to sizzle it all up in my big frying pan. After around 10 minutes it was all done and on the table.

It looked good, but it was a little disappointingly bland, even though I seasoned generously and went a little overboard with the paprika. Would I make it again? No I wouldn't, I like my meals more flavourful than this was, and I'm not sure there was much I could do to give it more punch.

BBC Good Food - Beef Stroganoff

Chocolate Muffins (Adapted from Hummingbird Bakery recipe)

Another week, another cake to bake! Usually, around 6pm on a Sunday afternoon, I start to ponder the contenders for this weeks cake. I often find myself drawn to tried and tested options like Marble Cake, Lemon Drizzle and Chocolate Cocoa Brownies. But luckily I have you, reader, to motivate me to try something new.

Today, I whittled my shortlist down to Chocolate Muffins ala Hummingbird Bakery, a recipe that often tempts me with its delightful photography, but which, for some reason, I have never got around to trying until now.

So here goes. My experience with Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook recipes has thus far been disappointing. A past attempt to bake their stem ginger muffins (mmm... sounds like a surething, right?) resulted in an utterly depressing yield of lumpy, insipid and bin-worthy blobs of dough. So I was very careful this time to measure accurately, and follow the instructions very precisely (apart from dividing the recipe by two).

Chocolate Muffins (from Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook)

Firstly, I measured out all my ingredients. The recipe yields 12 muffins, but I only needed 5, so I divided the recipe by two.


First things first, I cracked one egg, into a jug with the sugar.


Next, I added the vanilla to the milk, in a separate beaker, and forgot to take a picture, sorry. Please imagine milk in a beaker.

Then, I whisked the eggs and sugar with my Kenwood hand whisk (godsend), for about 3 minutes.











I measured out the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa, salt and baking powder)in a bowl, ready for sifting.

Then I put them in the sieve...

... and sieved them.

Mix it all together, and you get a lovely chocolatey rich looking muffin batter. As always, be careful not to over stir muffin mixture, or they won't rise into those little mushroom domed wonders.

Into the muffin cases, and ready to bake!









I failed to take a photo of the finished product, but I will absolutely ask my other half to photograph one before he swipes the lot.

The final results were pleasing, and I'm happy to say trust in my Hunningbird Bakery cookbook has been restored. These were moist, yummy and chocolatey. Not at all dry, which is often the case with muffin recipes. Fantastic, I recommend you give them a go.

Chilli Con Carne + Cocoa

I received a recommendation recently to try a teaspoon of cocoa powder in my Chilli Con Carne, to give it extra depth.

I'd tried adding a block of chocolate before, but found my Chilli was much too sweet as a result.

This was a great tip however, the chocolate flavour added exactly the depth desired in a good Chilli Con Carne, but the bitterness of my 75% cocoa meant there was no unwanted sweetness.

Yum yum!

Leftovers for Lunch: Chicken and Mushroom Puff Pastry Pie

So, David Cameron "loves a hot pasty", but has introduced VAT @ 20% on these warm lunchbox treats nonetheless. For some, this may be cause for concern, perhaps it may even be the nudge you needed to start considering home-made alternatives?

Inspired, I set out to test a recipe that's been on my to-do list for a while: Chicken and Mushroom Puff Pie, from BBC Good Food.

Rarely does this happen, but I actually followed this recipe pretty precisely, and it turned out great.

All I did differently was:

1. Add 2 chopped leeks I had in the fridge, sliced thinly, and added to the pan just after the onions. Remember, be careful with leeks - unlike onions they do not benefit from browning.

2. Instead of making one large pie suitable for 4, I split it in two, and made one pie suitable for 2, and two personal pasties for (you guessed it) lunch the next day.

The main pie we ate for supper and it was delicious, rich and flavoursome. Surprisingly it wasn't too heavy either.

The pasties however, were not such a great success. i took a bit of a risk here, hoping that the puff pastry would survive being reheated in the microwave. Sadly, it resulted in warm, soggy, deflated and slightly rubbery pastry.

If I made this recipe again (and I would like to), I would make my pie for two, as I did here, but thin down the remaining mixture to make a delicious soup instead.

Leftovers for Lunch: Chilli Con Carne

My first ever exerience of Chilli Con Carne was from a tin. I did not have high expectations. It turned out however, to be absolutely bloomin' delicious.

While I was at uni, my now-fiance and I had very little money, and even a tin of stagg was out of our budget. We tried to make EVERYTHING ourselves, from scratch, to reduce costs. But no matter what recipe I tried, or what combination of spices, I just couldn't capture that depth of flavour needed to make a good Chilli. As a result, Chilli fell out of my repetoire.

That is, until about a year ago, when I came across, completely by accident, a wonderful discovery at the supermarket.

Look in the beans and pulses isle, and you will find Kidney Beans, tinned, in CHILLI sauce. What does this mean, I wondered? Is it a very hot sauce? Is it watery, or thick? Is it smooth or chunky?

So, I bought it, and gave it a try. The 'chilli sauce' is in fact like a delicious spicy barbeque-style sauce. By adding this sauce, along with the kidney beans, to your chilli, you are guaranteed to achieve that smoky, spicy flavour that a proper chilli should have.

So, here it is, my own (almost completely) homemade Chilli Con Carne recipe.

Chilli Con Carne
Serves 2 for dinner + 2 for lunch

Recipe	Ingredients
First, heat the oil in the pan, and then add the onion. Sauté over a low heat until softened and glistening. Add the garlic and fry for a further minute.	1tbsp olive oil
	1 large onion, finely chopped
	1 clove garlic, mashed
Add the minced beef and fry over a very high heat until browned. Reduce the heat and add the dried chilli and chilli powder.	500g minced beef
	1 tsp dried chilli flakes
	1 tsp hot chilli powder (mix of chilli, cumin, cayenne etc)
After 1 minute, add the chopped tomatoes, kidney beans and their chilli sauce and the tomato purée.	Tin chopped tomatoes
	Tin kidney beans in chilli sauce
	1tbsp tomato purée
Simmer for 25 minutes or so, until the tomatoes have disintegrated and the chilli is nice and thick. You'll need to stir regularly, or the chilli will stick to the bottom of the pan. I recommend using a cast iron casserole pan for this recipe, metal pans just don't produce the same result.
You may want to simmer for longer if you have time, to develop the flavours, in which case, check on the chilli regularly and top up with a few tablespoons of water to stop it drying out.
Serve with plain boiled rice. Yum.

When I'm serving this up for dinner, I put 1/2 the rice into two tupperware pots, then top with half the chilli con Carne. Pop it in the f ridge overnight, and then reheat in the microwave for 3.5 mins for lunch the next day. It'll taste even better than the day before, guaranteed!

Re-use a Recipe: Oat and Stem Ginger Cookies / Sweet Oat Biscuits

Has anyone ever had Sweet Oat Biscuits from AMT coffee? They are to die for! Like a hobnob - but not so dusty, more buttery, sweeter, and with a light hint of coconut. Perfect dunked in coffee. Costa's stem ginger cookies are also similarly de-diddly-licious, with gorgeous chewy ginger chunks baked right in. I've searched high and low for a recipe that approximates to these wonderful cookies, but alas, I have yet to find it.

The closest I have come is a slight adaptation of a trusty Anzac biscuits recipe on www.bbcgoodfood.com. This recipe is so versatile that with some minor tweaks, it transforms from Anzac, into a Sweet Oat Biscuit or a Stem Ginger and Oat cookie, with dependable and delicious results.

Oat and Stem Ginger Cookies

Recipe	Ingredients
First things first, preheat your oven to 160C (fan). Grease and line 2 baking sheets.
Mix together the oats, stem ginger, ground ginger, flour and sugar in a large bowl.	125g porridge oats
	35g stem ginger in syrup, approx 2 balls, chopped finely
	10g ground ginger
	115g plain flour
	100g caster sugar
In a small pan (or in the microwave) melt together the butter and the syrup. Then add the bicarbonate of soda, and the boiling water. Stir.	100g butter , plus extra butter for greasing
	1 tbsp golden syrup
	1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
	2 tbsp boiling water
Add the wet ingredients to the dry in the large bowl, and mix to form a dough.
Split the dough into 10 balls and place them on a greased and lined baking sheet (you'll probably need two).
Bung them in the oven for 10 minutes.

Sweet Oat Biscuits

Recipe	Ingredients
First things first, preheat your oven to 160C (fan). Grease and line 2 baking sheets.
Mix together the oats, stem ginger, ground ginger, flour and sugar in a large bowl.	115g porridge oats
	55g desiccated coconut
	85g plain flour
	100g caster sugar
In a small pan (or in the microwave) melt together the butter and the syrup. Then add the bicarbonate of soda, and the boiling water. Stir.	100g butter , plus extra butter for greasing
	1 tbsp golden syrup
	1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
	2 tbsp boiling water
	1/2 tsp vanilla essense
Add the wet ingredients to the dry in the large bowl, and mix to form a dough.
Split the dough into 10 balls and place them on a greased and lined baking sheet (you'll probably need two).
Bung them in the oven for 10 minutes.

Adapted from: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3803/anzac-biscuits

Leftovers for Lunch: Lasagne

Lasagne is a Sunday night staple in my house. It's oozy, creamy, tomatoey, cheesiness is exactly what I need to prepare me for another week in the office: comforting and nourishing at the same time.

As a result, lunch on Monday is always a slice of the leftover lasagne from the night before.

Lasagne can require quite a bit of time, not to mention a lot of attention, and with a mile-high pile of ironing to do for work, you might be easily put off making a lasagne from scratch. But it doesn't have to be a long and labourious process, over the years I've perfected my own recipe, which is really tasty, not too unhealthy, and doesn't take long too boot

Despite its relative speediness, this lasagne recipe is completely home-made, and involves no "cheat" ingredients whatsoever. Here it is:

Lasagne (pronto)
Serves 4 (or 2 dinners + 2 lunches)

FOR THE MEAT SAUCE
1tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
500g minced beef
2 cloves garlic, mashed with a pinch of salt
1tsp dried chilli powder
400g tin chopped tomatoes
200ml water
1 beef stock cube
1tbsp oregano (or basil, italian seasoning or similar)
1tbsp tomato puree
pinch salt, to season
black pepper, to season

FOR THE WHITE SAUCE
50g plain flour
50g butter (or margarine)
1 pint milk

Lasagne sheets
Cheddar cheese or mozzarella, to top

Prep: Preheat oven to 190 degrees.

Heat the olive oil in a large heavy pan. Add the onions and fry over a gentle heat until softened and glassy (around 5 minutes). Add the garlic and chilli and fry for a further minute.

Turn up the heat to high, and add the minced beef to the pan. Fry until all the meat has browned.

Add the tomatoes, water, stock cube, oregano, tomato puree, salt and pepper to the pan, and simmer over a medium heat until the tomatoes start to dissolve.

While the meat sauce is simmering, we can make a start on the white sauce. Melt the butter in a pan (make sure the pan is big enough to hold 1pint of milk) over a low heat. Take the pan off the heat then add the flour and stir to make a paste (called a "roux"). Put the pan back over the heat and fry the roux for 1 minute or so. Remove the roux from the pan and place it in the fridge for 5 minutes or so to chill.

After 5 minutes, but the roux back in the same pan, and gradually start adding half of the milk, bit by bit, while stirring continuously with a whisk. The idea here is to get rid of all the lumps! Now add the rest of the milk, and put the pan back on the hob over a medium heat and bring to the boil, stirring regularly. After about 5-10 minutes the sauce will be lovely and thick. Season with salt and pepper.

This whole process takes roughly 20 minutes.

Now that your white sauce and meat sauce are both done, you can start layering them up a lasagne dish. I layer mine up like this:

*1/2 meat sauce, spread evenly
*layer of lasagne sheets
*1/2 white sauce, spread evenly
*remaining meat sauce
*layer of lasagne sheets
*remaining white sauce

Finally, cover the top with some slices of cheese, and bung in the oven for 20 minutes. Go and have a sit down!


One of my favourite things about this lasagne, is that it's so much yummier the next day after all the flavours have developed!

Top Ten Lunchbox Essentials

10. Lock & Lock tupperware

This is the kind of tupperware with 4 clips on each side of the tub. Shake it all about, do the hokey kokey and turn around, and your soup will still be inside the tub, and not inside your handbag.

9. Cling film

Making delicious cakes and cookies for a mid-afternoon pick me up is one thing, keeping them fresh (and in one piece) is another. I wrap muffins, cookies, bars, cake slices etc in cling film as soon as they've cooled to ensure they stay fresh in the fridge until they are needed.

8. Vanilla essense

You want to bake cakes? You're going to need vanilla essence in your cupboard. Just a teaspoon of vanilla and some jam, and you've got a delicious Victoria Sandwich. Vanilla essence is also scrum-diddly-scrumptious addition to a simple apple cake.

7. Cocoa

Like vanilla essence, you need cocoa in your cupboard. Choco-chip cookies, chocolate muffins, marble cake, brownies... the possibilities are endless.

6. Canned tuna

When you really don't want to cook, a can of tuna is a lifesaver. Make a juicy Tuna-Mayo Sandwich, or top a jacket potato with tuna mayo mixed with sweetcorn. Or why not whip up a Tuna Pasta Salad?

5. Banana's

Research shows that banana's are one the very best sources of energy, and they provide variety of essential vitemins and minerals needed to keep you healthy. For those of you who prefer fruit, rather than cakes and biccies, to keep you going through a long afternoon in the office, then you can't go wrong with a banana.

And for those of you who do like a sneaky snack, banana's are really useful for baking once the skins are brown and the banana is soft and sweet. There are hundreds of recipes out there for banana based treats, and any one of them is bound to be fantastic. My fave so far is a Banana and Toffee Loaf cake, but I cannot for the life of me remember which cookbook this heaven sent recipe appears in, but I will hunt it down. When I do, I'll bake it for you some time!

Not to mention, have you noticed how inexpensive banana's are?

4. Apples

An apple a day keeps the doctor away, so they say. Also, you can rely on an apple to arrive at it's destination intact and unsquashed, and for that alone it beats the banana.

Apple's are also rather fantastic in cakes and bakes. Apple-cakey receipes to follow soon.

3. Pasta

Need I explain? When you cannot decide what you have, the answer is pasta.

2. Museli

Why museli, I hear you ask. We're talking about lunches, aren't we? The answer to this mystery is Museli Bars. You could mix nuts and fruit with oats yourself, but why bother? Look in the cereal isle for museli (look for the special offers), and pick a combo you fancy. The results are impressive. Prior to this little experiment, my museli bars were always in the following formula: (Oats + Raisins) + (Sugar + Syrup + Butter) = Museli Bar. But consider this: museli is often a much more complex afair, bringing in seeds, spelt flakes, puffed rice, exotic fruits etc. And it's all put together for you, and it's often cheaper than buying the individual compontents yourself.

1. Fresh or frozen 'soup base' vegetables

A medley of  'soup base' veegtables (including a selection of onions, celery, carrot, swede, turnip, potato...) is a godsend for last minute lunches. Use the veg's as a base for almost any soup you can imagine, or even a stew! For starters, you could try any combination of Vegetable soup, Chicken & Vegetable, Spicy Parsnip, Chilli Veg, Moroccan Chickpea....

The frozen variety is especially useful:
* No waste
* No mess
* Can be used directly from frozen
* Use only what you need, and keep the rest in the freezer for another meal!

Christmas Laziness

My apologies reader, for my short Christmas-induced absence.

December is like a sock drawer when it comes to getting things done. All my good intentions get sucked into an oblivion of laziness. Next year I'm just going to write December off in advance.

I can only hope that you, like me, had the Christmas break off work, and thus required no packed lunches.

New Years resolution - I will make up for lost time. Twice as many recipes in January!