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Showing posts from January, 2013

Kitchen

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We're having a new kitchen installed starting on the 28th, so today is my last day for using my oven. Tomorrow, OH and friend are taking out the last part of the old kitchen which I've been hanging on to, the sink unit, dishwasher, cooker and washing machine. From tomorrow, I'll have a microwave and a slow cooker in the dining room for 2 and a bit weeks.  What fun! So I decided to have a bit of a Bake In today, last time in my gas cooker, as it will be looking for a new home on Freecyle. I'm having a new electric oven and gas hob. The gas cooker was in the house when we bought it, so we decided not to change it till we changed the kitchen. The Bake In - I made some chocolate chip muffins, a banana loaf, cheese scones and a very easy Bara Brith - not using Gran's recipe, but one a new friend gave me.   I made the cheese scones from the Good Food site; here's the recipe: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/cheesescones_1287 The banana bread recipe

Savoury tartlets

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Something savoury for a change.  I recently bought myself a deep fluted tartlet tin from our excellent local family 'everything you'll ever need' store, so for New Year's Eve, I made some tartlets to have as part of the buffet. I suppose they're like little quiches, as they have an egg filling. I made 2 types -  bacon and cheese and mushroom and garlic. I used the HB's recipe from their 'Perfect Pies' book, but used my deep tin instead of making them in mini muffin tins. I made 18 tartlets. I can't find the recipe online so this is what you'll need. The pastry is a shortcrust one with a little grated cheese added, rolled and and cut out to fit your tin. The egg custard type filling is enough for the 18, and it's just eggs, creme fraiche, some chopped parsley, s&p. For the bacon and cheese you need a little onion fried with the bacon, put into the pastry case and top up with some egg custard. Sprinkle some grated cheese on

Chocolate meringue log

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A very Happy New Year! Here's to lots of great baking. After the success of the meringue on Christmas Day, I thought I'd try a variation as a dessert for New Year's Eve. I hunted through my cookbooks and folders and found a recipe for a meringue log in a Home and Freezer Christmas book. Anyone remember Home and Freezer magazines, littles ones which were always in racks by the checkouts? Anyway I thought it sounded ideal, although it has a fewextra ingredients in it, like mini marshmallows. You could use a chocolate sauce as the filling instead of the spread if you wanted, as this what was in the original recipe. I thought the spread would be more substantial when rolling up the log. I had visions of the sauce running out of the sides of the log! I know there's hazelnuts in the spread, but I don't think this will change the taste of the log very much. 5 egg whites, beaten 150g icing sugar, plus 1 tbsp extra 2 tsp cornflour, sieved  1 tbsp cocoa powder 400m