Rhubarb and Vanilla Mincemeat

I know I'm leaving it a bit late to finally be posting this recipe but trust me when I say its worth waiting for. This is another Nigella recipe that I came across last year and it completely opened the door to the world of Mince Pie's for me. Before then mince meat was booze sodden mixed peel with some suet mixed in for good measure. Bless that Nigella!

Rhubarb and Vanilla Mincemeat
1kg rhubarb, trimmed and cut into 5mm slices
300g soft dark brown sugar
2 vanilla pods
2 tsp ground mixed spice
225g raisins
225g sultanas
225g currants
2 tbsp brandy (I replace this with either orange juice or grand marnier)

Put the sliced rhubarb with the sugar into a large pan. Cut the vanilla pod in halves length ways and scrape out the seeds, then cut each half into pieces, adding seeds and pod slices to the pan. Add the mixed spice and cook for about 5 mins.

Add the dried fruits and simmer the pan for about 30 mins. Stir in the brandy and take off the heat. When it's cool enough to handle, bottle in jars.

Makes 1.25 litres
From Nigella's Christmas Cook Book

This year I made the mincemeat when the Rhubarb was in plentiful supply and kept it in a dark cupboard until now. Last weekend I used some of it to make Crumble Topped Mince Pies which didn't last long at all.

Crumble Topped Mince Pies
1 quantity shortcrust pastry
200g mincemeat
25g ground almonds
25g flaked almonds (I didn't have any so I just left them out)
Pinch of ground cinnamon
25g soft light brown sugar

Turn the oven to 180C/fan 160C. On a lightly floured work surface, roll the pastry out to a 2-3mm thickness. Using a 9-10cm flutted cutter, stamp out discs from the pastry. Re-roll any trimmings and stamp out more discs until the pastry is used up. Line two 8 hole muffin tins with the pastry discs, then fill each pastry shell with 1 heaped tsp mincemeat and spread out to smooth.

Combine the ground and flaked almonds, cinnamon, brown sugar and the melted butter in a small bowl, then sprinkle a little over the top of each mince pie. Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 20 mins, until the pastry is cooked and golden brown. Cool in the tins for 5 mins.

Serve with brandy butter or creme friache.

* To make ahead, freeze , uncooked, in trays for up to 1 month. Defrost overnight and bake as above.

Makes approx 16
Easy Cook Mag - Christmas 2009

We Should Cocoa ~ Paul A Young's Easter Simnel Brownie

Where to start?  I was more than a wee bit panic stricken when Choclette announced this month's challenge for We Should Cocoa.  Marzipan is a taste that I am yet to acquire ... in fact the vast majority of people I know are yet to develop a taste for it too so I knew that whatever I made it either had to be really subtle or something that could be easily distributed to the small handful of people in my office who like it.  I will admit to not doing a great deal of research into what to make, in fact, none at all!  The decision was made while I was flicking through some recipes I had recently clipped out of a magazine, there on the back of the Double White Chocolate Fudge Cake with Vanilla and White Chocolate Buttercream (I know!!!) was a recipe from Paul A Young for Easter Simnel Brownies.

They were horrendous!  The worst tasting 'thing' I have ever baked and as such I am following Aveen's lead and not posting the recipe (although in my opinion her Batterberg looks mighty fine to me)!  The brownies never even made it into to work, they got flung in the bin as soon as the mandatory 'rest in the fridge overnight' time had elapsed.  I hate wasting food like this,  but there was no way I wanted anybody at work to taste them and think that was the level best of my ability!  Oh well ... back to the drawing board!

We Should Cocoa ~ The Date Challenge

I have to admit that this months challenge was a toughie!  When Choclette announced that we all need to make something with chocolate and dates I had no clue what to do.  Hubby and I could not be considered fine connoisseurs in this department.  For me it is the texture of dates, my Granny used to make date scones when I was younger and I vividly remember the day I bit into one thinking it was full of sultanas, not quite scared for life but it has had an everlasting effect on me all the same.  For Hubby it is the flavour, so I knew that whatever I ended up making both the texture and flavour were going to have to be cleverly concealed.  This was no easy feat!

I scoured the Internet and blogs for ideas and recipes but nothing appealed.  Sticky Toffee pudding is nice but its Christmas time and I wanted to incorporate this into the challenge ... as if things weren't tricky enough!  So I ended up consulting my book shelf and this is what I found;

Christmas Pudding Cupcakes
110g sultanas
110g currants
120g chocolate drops
6 dates, stoned and chopped
170g unsalted butter, room temp
255g dark muscovado sugar
3 large eggs
170g SR flour
1 medium apple, peeled and grated
1/2 tsp mixed spice
4 tbsp rum
1 quantity White Chocolate Truffle Frosting

Preheat the oven to 170C.  Line two 12 hole non stick muffin tins with paper cases.

Place the sultanas, currants and dates in a pan.  Cover with water and bring to the boil.  Turn the heat down and simmer for 15 mins so the fruits are soft and swollen.

Beat the butter and sugar together until the colour begins to lighten.  add the eggs, one at a time, followed by the flour.  Stir in the grated apple, spice, rum and the drained fruit.

Divide the mixture between the paper cases.  Bake in the centre of the preheated oven for 25 mins.  Insert a skewer or knife in the centre to check that the mixture is cooked.  Remove and turn the cakes out onto a wire rack to cool.

Make the icing and pipe onto the centre of the cooled cupcakes using a large star shaped nozzle.  Decorate as desired.

Makes 24 cupcakes
Adapted from Eat Me!

But of course there were just one or two hiccups along the way.  Firstly, I ran out of sultanas so had to make the quantity up with currants.  Then I ran out of the dark muscovado sugar but thankfully had some dark soft brown sugar left in a canister ... I ran out of that too and had to make the rest up with light brown soft sugar.  Turned out all for the best though, these cupcakes are delicious even if I do say so myself.  Sis In Law and Mum In Law were here today and munch away on them happily even when, like me, they aren't big Christmas Pudding fans. 

To decorate them I made use of some fondant I had left over from a cake order and made holly leaves and berries.  On some of them I painted some edible glue and then used wilton's white cake sprinkles to make them look as though they've been touched with frost ... this is not out of place for these parts at the moment!

To see all the other creations for this months challenge please head over to the Chocolate Log Blog after then 25th.  Don't forget to head back here on the 1st January to find out what the next challenge will be ;0)

Stir Up Sunday Comes Early

Did you know that Stir Up Sunday is this coming Sunday?  That's only 6 sleeps away ... not sure if this helping you or not, sorry if it's not!  The thing is that I'm not going to be anywhere near the close and comfy confines of my wee kitchen on Sunday, I'll be in the Lake District instead for a nice long weekend, so I decided that I had better get ahead of the game and start to get myself organised. 

We are not huge mince pie fans in this house, although it just doesn't seem to be Christmas without the little blighters.  Every year I try to find new recipes to try out for alternative mince pie filling, Rhubarb and Vanilla is my all time favourite but owing to a particularly bad rhubarb season for me this year I'm having to go without ... sigh.  Then when I was flicking through the December issue of Delicious I spotted a recipe that, with a few tweaks, I could make my own and hopefully find a new alternative.  This is what I came up with;

Buttery Apple, Hazelnut and Chocolate Mincemeat
Finely grated zest and juice of 2 large oranges
Finely grated zest and juice of 2 large lemons
1 large (about 300g) bramley apple
100g butter
50ml frangelico
200g raisins
150g sultanas
150g currants
150g chocolate, grated (I used Willie's Supreme Cacao - Indonesian Black)
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp mixed spice
175g light brown sugar
50g lightly toasted hazelnuts, chopped

Put the orange and lemon zest and juices into a medium pan.  Peel, quarter and core the apple, then grate ot, stirring it into the juices as you go so it doesn't discolour.

Add the butter, frangelico, dried fruits, vanilla extract and spices, then cook over a low heat, stirring frequently, for 1 hour until the apple has broken down, the dried fruits have plumped up and all the liquid has evaporated.  Leave to cool, then mix in the sugar, chocolate and toasted hazelnuts.

Spoon into cool, sterilised jars, press a waxed disc onto the surface of the mixture and seal.  Refrigerate and use within 1 month.

Makes about 1.2kg mincemeat

Adapted from Delicious, Dec 10

* Because this mincemeat is made with butter instead of suet, it keeps in the fridge for no more than a month.  However, it freezes well for up to 6 months.  For a mincemeat with a longer shelf life, omit the butter and stir in 100g shredded suet at the end, along with the sugar, chocolate and nuts.  This will keep for up to a year in a cool dark place.

The smell from this mixture bubbling away on the stove for an hour was so Christmassy and comforting.  The mincemeat is now sitting happily in the freezer at the moment, can't wait to sample it in pie form! 

Lemonade Scones - CBC 3

Ever have one of those days in the kitchen where everything you attempt turns into a complete mess? That's how my attempts to make scones always end up ... so you can imagine my horror when my brother-in-law requested some scones and jam for afternoon tea yesterday. Eek!

Tomorrow is my Mother-In-Laws birthday. She got given some bad news by the hospital last week when her test results from before Christmas finally got delivered so the whole family pulled out all the stops to help her celebrate yesterday. My brother-in-law flew up from London for the weekend and all the grand kids and their girlfriends turned up for a surprise lunch and she was given a present of a trip to Dublin at Easter, she has always wanted to visit Dublin but never managed to get there. She had a good day ;0)

After lunch we all went back to Sis-In-Laws house for dessert / afternoon tea. I was mortified when she told everyone that I was 'pastry chef' for the day. The scones were lopsided and didn't look at all scone like, the brownies burnt (while I was faffing about with the rotten scones!) and the birthday cake dried up! Grrrrr. At least there was still some jam in the fridge and the Passionfruit Curd didn't curdle!

I thought I would try a 'foolproof' recipe for the scones and kill two birds with the one stone, the recipe came from Belinda Jeffery cook book Hubby gave me for Christmas and has now officially become my Cook Book Challenge number 3. Don't get me wrong, the scones tasted just fine, everyone seemed to like them and the boys didn't leave very many spare out of two batches.

Lemonade Scones

375g SR flour

160g stone ground wholemeal SR flour

75g caster sugar

1/2 tsp salt

100g dried currants or natural sultanas

250ml cream

250ml lemonade

Plain flour or milk, for topping

Jam or curd and clotted cream to serve

Preheat your oven to 200C. Line a baking tray with two layers of baking paper and set it aside.

Put both of the flours, the sugar and salt into a large bowl and whisk them with a balloon whisk so they're really well mixed together. Tip in the currants and toss them about so they're well coated in the flour. Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture and pour in the cream and lemonade. Stir everything together with a wooden spoon until it gets a bit too awkward and sticky to stir, then forget about the spoon and use your hands to bring the dough together. Although you have to make sure the dough is mixed, try not to overdo this as scones are better for a light touch (some cooks are such show offs!)

Tip the dough out onto a chopping board and just bring it together. Put it out into a 5cm thick rectangle - no less if you want good high scones. Dip a scone cutter or tumbler into some flour then stamp out the scones, dipping the cutter into the flour between each one.

Sit the scones fairly closely together on the prepared tray. You'll have some scraps of dough left, so gently knead them together, pat them out, and cut out more scones from this. When they're all done, either dust the tops lightly with flour or brush them with a little milk.

Bake for 20 mins or until the scones are golden. When the scones are ready, cool them briefly on a wire rack then bundle them up in a basket lined with a clean tea towel.

Makes about 18

Taken from Belinda Jeffery's 'Mix and Bake'

I found the dough to be very wet and difficult to work with. I made the first batch with sultanas and then decided to make a second batch without, the second time I dumped quite bit more flour into the mix but the end result was still very sticky and uncooperative. I didn't have any wholemeal SR flour to hand so I made both batches with ordinary SR flour. Not sure if that contributed to the difficulties or not. I will have to try this recipe again I guess ... but it will be in a little while once my self esteem has recovered lol.

Fruit Bread

Its time for me to face reality. Summer is gone and Autumn is well and truly kicking in, the leaves are turning, darkness looms earlier and there is a very certain nip to the air. To most people these alone would be a fair indication of a change in the seasons, it would appear though that I'm quite good at turning a blind eye to these signs. My reality check came when I purchased our Christmas Advent calenders yesterday. I hear you cry "It's only September"! Of course you are right, it is way too early for things like this to be on the shelves but in my world this means Christmas is on its way and if Christmas is on its way then so is winter which, in turn, means I need to start enjoying Autumn! Just between you and me I can't wait for Christmas to come!

Naturally when it comes to this time of year my stomach turns to comfort food. I'm not going to lie to you, I make this recipe year round but when its dark outside and its time to cozy up, a slice of this still warm from the oven with some butter or marg melting over the top is the bees knees. I have been drooling all day at the anticipation of my first slice.

Fruit Bread

300g mixed dried fruit - I use sultanas, currants, raisins, dried cranberries and dried apricots

450ml hot tea

90g light brown sugar

1 lemon, zested

3 cups SR flour

1 tsp mixed spice

1 large egg

Place the fruit in a bowl, pour over the hot tea, cover with plastic wrap and set aside at room temp overnight.

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease a 10 x 25cm loaf pan.

Strain the fruit, reserving the liquid then combine with remaining ingredients. Gradually add the reserved liquid, stirring until a soft dropping consistency is reached. Pour into the pan and bake for 45-50 mins.

Meanwhile, make a sugar syrup: place 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup water in a pan over low heat and stir to dissolve the sugar. Simmer for 10-15 mins. Brush the fruit loaf with syrup while still warm.

Set aside on a wire rack to coll, then slice and serve with butter.

Makes 1 loaf

Adapted from Australian Delicious Mag, April 2002 issue

A few points on this recipe - always, always, always remember to grease the pan. It has remarkable sticking properties otherwise! Also, the original recipe says to use Earl Grey tea but I make it with whatever flavour tea I have to hand, Scottish Breakfast Tea from the Edinburgh Tea and Coffee Company is my current tea of choice but I'm going to try using my favourite 'Tea Pig' flavour next time round (Chocolate Tea - defo worth a try if you haven't already, lovely cuppa!)

I make this is in two smaller pans rather than one large one. I find the top browns well before the middle is cooked in the larger pan, no big deal as a covering of foil once the desired level of goldeness has been reached solves the problem. We like the smaller pans though so we can have one for now and freeze the other for latter or pass it in to Jason's Mum - who has a particular soft spot for Fruit Bread - just reduce the cooking time. Doing it this way also eliminates the need for foil. The sugar syrup as made above is far too much for the bread whether it is made in a large pan or two dinky ones so I keep what is leftover in a jar in the fridge, it'll keep for ages that way.

Lincolnshire Plum Bread

My tie to Lincolnshire is pretty tenuous at best.  I've never lived there and to the best of my knowledge I've never visited the area either.  But my 'Uncle' (a close family friend) comes from Lincoln and there we have my tenuous link ;0)

I was passing through the lounge room the other day, the TV on in the background, when I noticed that The Hairy Bikers were on. Before I knew it I was perched on the couch with a cuppa in hand intently watching them make Lincolnshire Plum Bread.  It looked wonderful and I had to taste it straight away.  Of course this meant a trip to the shops to get the required prunes.

Lincolnshire Plum Bread
225g prunes, roughly chopped
50g currants
50g sultanas
150ml Earl Grey tea
450g strong plain flour
125ml milk
6 tbsp soft brown sugar
110g butter, melted
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp salt
15g dried yeast

Place the dried fruits in a bowl and pour in the Earl Grey tea (I used Lady Grey).  Mix well and leave to soak for 10 mins.

Sift the flour into a large bowl.  Pour the milk into a separate bowl, add the sugar, butter, eggs and vanilla extract, then whisk well to combine.  Add the spices, salt and yeast, whisk once more, then pour on to the flour.  Mix well to form a soft dough.

Strain the fruits, discarding the tea, and add them to the dough.  Knead for 3-6 mins until the dough is smooth and elastic.  Put the dough into a clean bowl, cover with a tea towel and leave to rise until doubled in size - about 1-2 hours.  Take the dough out and knead again lightly to knock out the air.  Place in a large loaf tin and leave to rise for another hour.

Preheat the oven to 190C.  Bake the bread for 40-50 mins until golden and risen.  Allow to cool before slicing and serve with the butter and cheese.

Makes 1 loaf (serves 6-8)
The Hairy Bikers Food Tour of Britain

This bread is quite yummy and I couldn't wait for it to cool before slicing, I always think bread tastes the best when it is still warm from the oven!  We had it with marg spread over and Hubby had some yesterday toasted with jam for breakfast.  It is similar to the Fruit Bread that I usually make, obvious differences are the types of fruit and that one uses yeast while the other doesn't.  Both are firm favourites with us though, especially in the depths of winter with a cuppa ;0)