Nigella's Hokey Pokey

Hmmmmmmmmm ... how to describe how this irresistible little treat ended up being made?  If I were to cut straight to the chase I would explain that I made it to go alongside a recipe that I tried to convert from an American magazine.  The recipe, for pie, failed ... I think maybe I didn't convert one or two of the weights quite right [hanging my head in shame] and so we ended up eating the pie with a straw purely as a 'tester' ... I have pledged to adapt the recipe until it can be eaten with a spoon!  Anyhoo, the pie was to have Honeycomb / Hokey Pokey / Cinder Toffee (call it what you will) generously layered on the top and the chief taste testers (namely Hubby and Mr JS) saw no point in wasting this treat.  They claimed a piece just happened to fall into their mouths every time they passed the tin!

Nigella's Hokey Pokey
100g caster sugar
60ml golden syrup
1 1/2 tsp bicarb of soda

Put the sugar and syrup into a saucepan and stir together to mix.  You mustn't stir once the pan's on the heat, though.

Place the pan on the heat and let the mixture first melt, then turn to goo and then to a bubbling mass the colour of maple syrup - this will take 3 mins or so.

Off the heat, whisk in the bocarbonate of soda and watch the syrup turn into a whooshing cloud of aerated pale gold.  Turn this immediately onto a piece of reusable baking parchment or greased foil.

Leave until set and then bash at it, so that it splinters into many glinting pieces.

Makes 125g
Nigella Express

Express Rocky Road

I know I said the last recipe from Nigella Express was going to be the last recipe from Nigella Express ... but this one managed to sneak in to my kitchen this afternoon!  Work has been particularly insane lately, hence the lack of blogging but Hubby made a request last week for Rocky Road (and brownies and ice cream and a whole string of other chocolate related food stuff!) and I promised him I would make some.  A hectic week at work usually means I want to do nothing more at the weekend but potter in the kitchen, but I'll confess to having lost my baking mojo.  I tried to make Chocolate Fudge Cookies through the week, they were such a disaster that I have vowed to stay away from cookies for the foreseeable future, there was a loaf of bread that was also quite spectacular in its failure ;0(

So the long and the short of it is that Nigella's Express Rocky Road was about as much as I could summons today!  I'm hoping the mojo returns by tomorrow though as I have a Fresh From The Oven Challenge to bake - eeeeeeeek!

Nigella's Express Rocky Road
125g soft butter
300g chocolate (I used milk but Nigella used dark)
45ml golden syrup
200g rich tea biscuits
100g mini marshmallows (I only had regular sized so I cut them up with scissors)
2 tsp icing sugar, for dusting (optional!)

Melt the butter, chocolate and golden syrup in a heavy based saucepan.  Scoop out about 125ml of this melted mixture and put to one side.

Put the biscuits into a freezer bag and then bash them with a rolling pin.  In Nigella's words you are aiming for both crumbs and pieces of biscuit.

Fold the biscuit pieces and crumbs through the melted chocolate mixture in the saucepan and then add the marshmallows.

Tip into a foil tray (24cm square); flatten as best you can with a spatula.  Pour the reserved 125ml of melted chocolate mixture over the marshmallow mixture and smooth the top.

Refrigerate for about 2 hours or overnight.

Cut into 24 fingers and dust with icing sugar by pushing it gently through a tea strainer or a small sieve.

Makes 24
Nigella Express

I found the mixture for this Rocky Road quite dry once all the biscuits and marshmallows were mixed in, for this reason mini marshmallows are defo recommended, they would have been much easier to mix through evenly.  Also, although Nigella says you're looking for both biscuit and crumbs, i would suggest more crumbs than anything else, if the biscuit chunks are left too large then the finished Rocky Road is very crumbly.  I think next time I will bulk about the amount of chocolate [shame!] and maybe add some nuts of some description, I think brazil's or macadamias would work really well.

I love the use of the foil tray to set the Rocky Road in.  Not only is there no washing up afterwards but it makes it portable to, this would be great for a picnic ;0)

Lazy Loaf

So ... I'm beginning to see that the upshot of becoming a World Cup widow is getting more time to spend in the kitchen baking ;0)

Lazy Loaf
200g best quality oaty sugar free muesli (I used Kellogg's Raspberry and Cherry muesli and some Dorset Cereal muesli too)
325g plain flour (original recipe suggested wholewheat bread flour but I didn't have any bread flour to hand!)
6g easyblend yeast
2 tsp maldon sea salt (or 1 tsp table salt)
250ml skimmed milk
250ml water

Mix the muesli, flour, yeast and salt in a bowl and then pour in the milk and water and stir to mix.  It will be like a thick porridge.

Transfer to a greased or silicone 900g loaf tin.  Put this in a cold oven, turning it immediately on to 110C and leave for 45 mins.

When these 45 mins are up, turn the oven up to 180C and leave for 1 hour, by which time the bread should be golden and cooked through.  slip it out of its tin and, although dense it should feel slightly hollow when you knock it underneath.  you can always slip it back in the oven, out of its tin, for a few mins if you think it needs more.

Remove to a rack and let cool.

Makes 1 loaf
Nigella Express

I promise this is the last recipe from Nigella ... for a little while!  Its the danger that comes from rediscovering one of the books on your shelf! 

This recipe produces a wonderfully moist loaf with a crunchy crust, its a little plain on the flavour side though.  We started off by trying this just with some spread but it needed something sweet to help balance the flavour for the old taste buds.  In her book Nigella has smeared slices with what looks like marmalade [blah!] so we decided to try it with some Apricot and Passionfruit Jam.  This helped a great deal but I do think that the next time I make this I'll be adding some sugar along with the museli, its just a small tweak though!  Can't wait to try some toasted for breakfast tomorrow!

Breakfast Club - Smug Pancakes with Peach and Rosewater Curd

After my disappointment of last weekends Pancakes I retired to the couch to catch up on some of my Sky+ viewing.  By pure chance I had recorded an episode of Nigella Express where she made pancakes for her daughter and friends, using a pancake mix she had already prepared.  This was a true light bulb moment for me!  And this morning the mix was put to the test ~ it passed in flying colours, so I have renamed them 'Smug Pancakes'

Smug Pancakes
For The Pancake Mix
600g flour
3 tbsp baking powder
2 tsp bicarb of soda
1 tsp salt
45g vanilla caster sugar

Mix all the ingredients together and store in a jar.

When ready to make the pancakes, proceed as below.

Make The Batter And The Pancakes
For each 150g pancake mix, add and whisk together
1 egg
250ml semi skimmed or full fat milk
15ml melted butter

Heat a flat griddle or pan with no oil.

Spoon drops of 1 1/2 - 2 tbsp of batter onto the hot griddle or into the pan and. when bubbles appear on the surface of the little pancakes, flip them over to make them golden brown on both sides.  a minute or so should do it.

Makes approx 15 pancakes
Nigella Express

These pancakes were soooooooooo good.  Really light and delicate.  If I'm being fussy then they were still a little on the flat side of fluffy, but they were a definite improvement on last weekends pancakes.  That said, I did make a couple of modifications which may have resulted in the finished product not being quite the same as they had been on the TV show.  I didn't add the melted butter, but only because I knew they were being served with curd, I figured there was enough butter on the offering already!  This did mean that the first two pancakes stuck fast to the non stick pan which is now soaking in the sink.  I ended up using fry lite in between batches to make sure they didn't stick.  Next time though I'll go whole hog and add the butter.  My batter seemed much runnier than Nigella's had on the show, so next time I think I'll cut back on the amount of milk.  I also added a bit more sugar than Nigella's recipe, I like sweet pancakes and the mix tasted a bit salty on first tasting.

This morning the pancakes were served with curd.  Passionfruit curd is a given these days ;0)
But with a couple of punnets of peaches in my fruit bowl needing to be eaten ASAP, I got to wondering about peach curd.  There were a few different recipes to choose from after a quick Internet search, all but one using lemon as one of the key ingredients.  My only problem with lemon in curds is that it can tend to overpower the flavour of the other ingredients, at the end of the day if I want to eat a curd that tastes like lemon then I'll make lemon curd!  The recipe below still uses lemon juice but in much less quantities than the others, and it had the added flavour of Rosewater which sparked my interest.

Peach and Rosewater Curd
4 egg yolks
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup fresh peach puree (put them in the blender or food processor to make)
lemon juice to taste, about 1 tsp
1/2 teaspoon rosewater (use regular water if you can't find this)
90g butter

Beat the egg yolks with the sugar, peach puree, lemon juice, and rosewater.

Place over simmering water and stir constantly until thickened.

Remove from heat and beat in butter, bit by bit.

Strain well and chill.

Use on cake, ice cream, scones etc.
 
Group Recipes
 

 
I pureed the peaches with the skin on and then strained them, as much as I liked the pink flecks running through the puree I wasn't so sure it would look that appealing in the finished curd.  I'm really pleased with the end result though, it tastes amazing! While the peach is the main flavour the addition of the rosewater has added a little exotic touch to it at the same time.  When spooned over the pancakes I was in seventh heaven, it was a proper girly breakfast!

Gratitude Cookies aka 'Nigella's Chocolate Mint Cookies' - CBC 11

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.

It turns what we have into enough, and more.

It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.

It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.

Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.

-- Melody Beattie

One batch of these babies and you will be very grateful for the time and care you have taken to make them!  One mouthful and all the stresses and rages of the work day will fade away and you will be thankful you don't have to live in your office ... although if my office was my kitchen I reckon I would be pretty happy right about now!

Gratitude Cookies
100g soft butter
150g light brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
150g plain flour
35g cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
200g dark chocolate chips (I used milk chocolate)
For The Glaze
75g icing sugar
1 tbsp cocoa, sieved
2 tbsp boiling water
1/4 tsp peppermint extract

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Cream the butter and brown sugar in a freestanding mixer, then beat in the vanilla extract and the egg.

Mix the flour, cocoa and baking powder in a bowl and gradually beat in to the creamed mixture.  finally, fold in the chocolate chips.

Using a rounded tbsp measure (I used an ice cream scoop), spoon out scoops of cookie dough and place on a lined baking sheet, leaving a little space in between each one.  (They will spread!)

Bake in the oven for 12 mins and then let them sit on the baking sheet for a couple of mins before moving  them to a cooling rack, with some newspaper on the surface underneath to catch any escaping glaze later.

Put the glaze ingredients into a saucepan and heat until combined.

Using a teaspoon, zig zag the glaze over each cookie.

Makes 26 cookies for Nigella and 23 for me
Taken from Nigella Express

Forever Nigella ~ Brownie Bowls

I will admit to be a little bemused for this month's Forever Nigella challenge.  Street Parties seem such a British concept to me (sorry if that offends anyone) ... but why not call it a picnic ... or a BBQ ... that is held in a street!  Clearly, I am missing something here.

So I had to think long and hard, not only about what was appropriate food to take along to a 'street party' but actually about what a street party really was.  I can remember an old black and white photo that my Mum has, it shows her and my Uncle as young children tucking into party food at a street party in London ... I want to say it was for the Queen's coronation, but I fear that such a statement may be a bit 'ageing' towards my Mum and Uncle!?!?!?!  I seem to recall the street party was indoors, maybe it was raining outside, and the food was in the middle of a large table with kids dotted all around the outside, eyes bulging with the idea of all that food.  It looked for all the world, to be a child's birthday party to me and had my Mum not actually told me it was a street party I'd still be none the wiser.  I wish now I had asked her about what a street party was and what kind of food was on offer!

With this photo in mind (so wish I had a scanned copy I could include on this post!) that I settled for Nigella's Brownie Bowls from Kitchen, figuring that they would be portable enough to take along and fill with whatever was on offer for dessert.  We had ours with strawberry and whipped cream, the decorating style was all Hubby's own work.

I didn't have the correct pan as used in the recipe for the book so I substituted Yorkshire pudding pans, they didn't really turn out bowl like but they still made a pretty scrummy base for the strawberries and cream.  The recipe also said to use 15g malt powder and 15g chocolate powder so I used milo for both as it is a chocolate malt drink, thus putting a proper Aussie spin on a thoroughly British concept ;0)

They tasted mighty fine too and my mind is already spinning with all the different variations for them.  Nigella seems to really like the idea of using them to serve ice cream, but I'm wondering now about chocolate mousse or maybe a truffle / ganache pudding type of dessert ... the list is endless!

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

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

This post brings me up to date with everything that went in the Girl's Christmas Presents. Phew! Being a 'wishy washy' fan of peanut butter myself (sometimes I like and other times I'm not so bothered) you will be surprised to know that I've had to freeze the 'leftovers' so as I still have some for Christmas Day, otherwise they just seem to jump right into my mouth one after the other, through no will of my own you understand. Nigella Lawson introduced me to these last Christmas and not only are they so morishly delsih they are also so easy to make. They are now firmly a part of our festive food traditions so much so that I even seem to have developed a tradition for myself in the way that they are made, I set myself at the dining room table with all the components in front of me, pop the 'Holiday' in the DVD player and away I go ;0)

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

For the Base

50g soft dark brown sugar

200g icing sugar

50g soft butter

200g smooth peanut butter

For the Topping

200g milk chocolate, chopped

100g dark chocolate, chopped

Edible gold buttons and stars to decorate, or other decorations, eg gold dragees, or red, white and green Christmassy sprinkles

48-50 petit-four paper cases

Mix together the brown sugar, icing sugar, butter and peanut butter wither a freestanding mixer to make a sandy paste. This step can also be made either by hand or in a bowl with a wooden spoon but I like to follow Nigella's lead and let the mixer do all the hard labour for me.

Use your hands to form scant 1 tsp discs to fill the base of about 48 petit four cases placed in miniature tart tins or mini muffin tins (each indentation about 4.5cm in diameter). Press the sandy mixture as best you can to form a layer at the bottom of each paper case.

Melt both chocolates very gently, either in a heatproof bowl suspended over a pan of simmering water or, using a suitable bowl, in the microwave, according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Stir the melted chocolates together and allow to cool a little, then spoon 1 tsp into each petit four case, covering the sandy base.

Decorate with a gold button or gold star in the middle of each chocolate covered peanut butter cup. Or sprinkle over any other decoration of your choice. Put in the fridge to set for 30 mins or so before serving.

Makes approx 48 (I always seem to get a lot more out of this recipe than stated though)

Nigella's Christmas Cookbook

This recipe comes with a couple of pointers from Nigella;

* Don't use whole nut or other virtuous peanut butter here, only the regular sort. Nigella uses Skippy and I use the supermarkets own label.

* To make ahead, make cups up to 2 days ahead and keep, loosely covered, in a cool place.

* To freeze, make the cups and open freeze on a baking sheet. When frozen, pack into a rigid container. Thaw overnight in a cool place on a wire rack.

Enjoy!

Anti Mince Pies (AKA Nigella's Mini Apple Pies)

I know there will be a fair few of you out there who will consider me a pure heathen for making 'Anti Mince Pies'.  Sorry!  But ... and in my defence ... booze sodden candied peel just isn't my thing ... apples on the other hand are always my thing, especially when they are wrapped in pastry and come to me courtesy of Nigella!  So if any of the Anti Mince Pie brigade should come to call sometime in the next week or so then having a sneaky batch of these at the ready can only be a good thing!

Nigella's Mini Apple Pies
1 quantity sweet shortcrust pastry
1 large egg, mixed with 1 tbsp water, to glaze, optional
For the Filling
2 cox's apples (375g total weight)
1 tbsp caster sugar
pinch of ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
zest of 1 orange plus 1 tbsp orange juice
1 tsp lemon juice
15g butter

Peel, core and finely chop the apple.  Put them into a saucepan with all of the other filling ingredients and cook over a medium heat with the lid on for 5 mins or until soft.

Transfer to a bowl and let the mixture cool.

Use the sweet shortcrust pastry to line the tins and fill them with a teaspoon of the apple mixture.  Use the same cutter to make lids with small stars cut from the centres.  Paint with glaze, if using, and bake in a 220C oven for 10-15 mins or until golden and bubbling.

Makes 36 mini pies or 24 regular pies
Taken from Nigella's Feast

For a bit of added 'yum' I also sprinkled the tops with some demerara sugar after painting the glaze on.

Forever Nigella ~ Chocolate and Frangelico Tiramisu

For this month's Forever Nigella the them was Italian.  Originally I was toying with the idea of following Sarah's suggestion and making some gelato but while searching through the various books I stumbled across the recipe that was somewhat of my nemesis at Christmas time.  You see both Nigella and Nigel appeared on TV in the lead up to Christmas preparing recipes that included my most beloved Frangelico.  Ordinarily not a problem except that in this case it had the 'Delia effect' and stocks of Frangelico totally disappeared and my local supplier had a 6 week back order!!!!  You can imagine that finding out the week before Christmas that a batch of my Christmas Cream Liqueur was not going to be available on our table caused a wee bit of a strop.  Bl**dy Nigella!  (We never curse Sir Nigel in this house!)

Now that the Frangelico balance has been restored I felt I was able to forgive Nigella her fopar and graciously I thought I would give her recipe for Frangelico Tiramisu a try and have it for dessert after today's family lunch.  In keeping with the challenge I haven't included the recipe here but you can find it in 'Kitchen'.  The only real change I made to the recipe was to swap the coffee for hot chocolate and I reduced the quantities by half and preparing the tiramisu as individual desserts in glasses.

Sis In Law and I really liked it (she makes a mean tiramisu herself so I was a little worried what her verdict would be!) by Hubby didn't care for it quite so much, oddly enough because the coffee flavour was too strong for him even though there was no coffee in it.  I was surprised to find it did actually have a coffee tang to it, must be the frangelico but it was the lovely nutty side of the flavour rather than the strong bitter side that so often over powers.  Next time I make this I 'll stick to the original quantities and and make it as one large dessert to serve up, it was a bit tricky to make the individual ones look as pretty as they could have been.

Forever Nigella ~ White Chocolate and Mint Mousse

As soon as Sarah announced that the challenge for this month's Forever Nigella was 'Seduced By Chocolate' I knew just what I was going to make, and that I was going to make them for dessert for our valentines day meal.  I had wanting to make the White Chocolate and Mint Mousse from Nigella Express for ages but Nigella insists they should be served in shot glasses ... I know you'll find this hard to believe, but I didn't own any.  Not through of lack of trying mind you, but nice shot glasses are actually quite elusive items to find, then I spotted some lovely ones in the Christmas sales and snapped them up, just waiting for the right opportunity to use them.  (If I'm being honest I actually found a lot of glassware in the sales but instead of seeing them as the cocktail or wine glasses of their origin I bought them to use as individual trifle glasses or because they would like nice with cookies or macarons piled up in them!!!  Does anybody else do that or is it just my kitchen paraphernalia fetish rearing its ugly head?  Um .... should I be using the word 'fetish' in a Valentines Day post??????)

Anyhoo, I served the mousse with chocolate dipped strawberries as they are Hubby's fave valentine day treat.  And while I may have cursed Nigella on more than one occasion for her adamant stance on the presentation of the mousse I now understand why ... these babies are rich but totally delicious and such an extravagant treat that they shouldn't be such a cinch to whip up.  I wish now that I had also made some little shortbread hearts to go along with them, not that they were needed, just that I would have liked to have made them!  The chocolate coated strawberries complimented the mousse really well and helped to cut through the richness of the mousse.  We will certainly be having these again!

Now on a completely unrelated note ... I'm wondering how many of you are on Twitter?  I'm not, although I do regularly check in on Jenson Button's tweets [ahem] but I'm wondering if I am maybe missing out?  Is there another dimension to this blogging community that is passing me by?  I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on this ... either for or against ... I'd like to make a balanced decision after all ;0)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Breakfast Club - Nigella's American Breakfast Pancakes

Can you believe this is the very first Nigella recipe to appear on this blog? Incredible but true! I can assure you that the balance will be seriously redressed at Christmas time when calorie control is given a temporary holiday and all the Nigella books come out of hibernation from my bookshelf.

I gave the recipe a slight makeover (or under!) to reduce some of the calories and all in all they aren't too bad a way to start the day every now and again. I replaced the butter with low fat spread and the full fat milk with semi skimmed. Mine weren't quite as fluffy as those in Nigella's picture but nobody was complaining and they went down a storm. Also, in my head at least, a pancake should be larger than a pikelet, if not then the pancake would indeed be just a pikelet, so I threw Nigella's bilini sized guidance to the wind and made mine extra large and still managed 13 decent sized pancakes from the mix. Breakfast was complete with a drizzle of the Blackberry Sauce left over from the ice cream sundae's.

Nigella's American Breakfast Pancakes

225g plain flour

1 tbsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

1 tsp vanilla sugar

2 large eggs, beaten

30g butter (I used low fat spread)

300ml milk (semi skimmed for me!)

Butter for frying (I used a non stick pan so it only needed a light spray with cooking oil to start off with)

The easiest way to make these is to put all the ingredients into a blender and blitz. (Ingenious! Can't believe I never thought of that before!) Nigella likes to leave the batter to rest for 20 mins before using it so I did too.

When you cook the pancakes, all you need to remember is that when the upper side of the pancake is blistering and bubbling it's time to cook the second side.

Makes 13 (ish)

From 'How To Be A Domestic Goddess'