Really simple fresh churros (donuts) recipe

Last weekend we took our little family to the beach, where my daughter discovered fresh donuts and loved them!

Today I've just looked up how to make them and actually it's much simpler than I expected. Doesn't need as much oil as I thought either (although I wouldn't make them with my daughter "helping" as it does still need a cm or 2 of hot oil)

You will need

• a small mug (to measure ingredients)
• a sauce pan (to make the mixture in and then fry the donuts in)
• A tablespoon (measuring)
• A wooden spoon (mixing)
• A slotted spoon (retrieving donuts)
• Paper towel (to remove excess oil)
• A piping bag and large nozzle (or whatever they're called!!)

• 1 mug of water
• 2 tablespoons of butter
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• 1 mug of flour
• 3 eggs
• sugar (and perhaps cinnamon) to coat

Let's do it!

• Add the water, butter and sugar to the sauce pan and bring to the boil
• Reduce the heat and then slowly add the flour, stirring all the time
• Continue stirring until a dough is formed and cook for 2 minutes

• Allow to cool for 15-20 minutes (this is very important or you will end up scrambling your eggs at the next step!)
• Now add the eggs one at a time, stirring constantly. If it looks like it is all going lumpy - stir harder/faster, or get an electric whisk out!

• Next put about 1-2cm of oil into a pan and heat
• Spoon the batter into your piping bag
• To check if the oil is hot enough, drop a small amount of batter into the oil. It should puff up and bubbles form all around it.
• Once the oil is hot enough, pipe short sausages of batter directly into the oil

• Once the donuts are a light golden brown on all sides, remove from the oil and place on paper towel to remove excess oil
• When all of the batter has been cooked, sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

Your donuts should be light and fluffy on the inside and just slightly crisp on the outside. Yum Yum!!

Simple freshly made donuts (churros) recipe

 

 

Really easy (but seriously impressive) bakewell slices

This bakewell tart looks really impressive with its clear layers, but by using bought short crust pastry it is actually really simple to make

You will need

• Rectangular tin
• Ready rolled sweet shortcrust pastry
• 4 tbsp of cherry jam (or raspberry if you can't find cherry jam)
• 200g butter or marg (plus a little for greasing)
• 200g caster sugar
• 100g self raising flour
• 1 tsp baking power
• 50g ground almond
• 1/2 tsp of almond extract
• 10 glace cherries
• 200g icing sugar

Getting started

• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C
• Grease your tin and cut the pastry to fit the base, press it gently into the corners and then prick it all over with a fork to prevent it rising too much

 



The use the paper the pastry came off to cover it, and then add baking beans (or pasta)

Bake in the oven for 10 minutes until just cooked, and then remove the paper and beans/pasta and then return to the oven for another 2 minutes

Spread the jam over the pastry and set aside while you begin to make the filling

 

• In a large bowl, combine the butter, sugar, ground almond, flour and baking powder and mix.
• Break the eggs into another bowl, add the almond extract and beat

Slowly incorporate the eggs into the large bowl and mix well until you have a loose cake mix

• Pour this slowly/gently over the pastry (to prevent disturbing the jam layer) and then place in the oven
• After 35 minutes check how things are going and if the middle still wobbles but the edges are cooked, loosely cover with tin foil before returning to the oven for a further 10 minutes

• While the bake is cooling, slice your cherries in two and mix the icing sugar with a little water. Do this slowly, so that the icing has some movement and will slowly run off the back of the spoon but is not too wet.
• Spoon the icing onto the cake and spread to the corners
• Decorate by laying the cherries out in a grid pattern

• The cake can then be cut between the cherries to make slices (2 cherry halves per piece) or smaller squares (with a cherry in the centre)

Finally serve and allow people to admire the perfectly formed layers!

Really cool ice cream cone cakes

Who knew ice cream cones can survive 20 minutes in the oven? Well they do, and look what that means you can do with them...

Really cool ice cream cone cakes - look like ice creams but are really cakes!

 

You will need

(Makes 12)

• 12 (flat bottomed) ice cream cones
• 60g cocoa powder
• 175g of butter
• 175g caster sugar
• 120g self raising flour
• Level a teaspoon of baking powder
• 2 large eggs

To decorate

• 80g of butter
• 200g icing sugar
• Splash of milk
• Hundreds and thousands
• Mini chocolate Flakes (or 4 large Flakes cut into 3)
• Icing bag and large star shaped nozzle (see below)

Getting started

• Pre heat oven to 160 degrees and put your cones onto a baking tray

• In a large bowl, add the sugar, flour, eggs, cocoa powder and baking powder.
• Mix well for around 5 minutes then spoon the mixture into the cones
• Each cone should be between half and 3/4 full to avoid them over rising or not reaching the top of the cone

• Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes, until the cake has risen and is springy

Next to decorate

Make sure that your cakes are completely cool before decorating, or the buttercream will go grainy and may not hold its shape

• Making the buttercream is as simple as adding the butter, icing sugar and milk and beating until thick but smooth. If it doesn't hold a peak in the bowl, then it won't be thick enough to pipe out as "icecream". Add more icing sugar now.
• When piping, start from the outside of each cake and pipe in a spiral into the middle following the shape of the cake underneath. Try to keep the spiral tight so there are no gaps in the icing effect.
• Finally finish with a sprinkle of hundreds and thousands and a chocolate flake.

Possibly the best chocolate cake ever!



Possibly the best chocolate cake recipe ever!
Dark choc icing with milk choc buttons, and Milk choc icing with white choc buttons 

To substantiate that claim... in my real life I manage a team of 10 technical IT analysts/developers (90% of the team is male). Every other month we have a team meeting, and every team meeting at least one person has "reason" they cannot attend (e.g dealing with major incidents/in the middle of an upgrade etc. etc.)

Last month I baked this cake and last month I had 100% attendance!! therefore I've concluded that the cake really must be something special or perhaps has magical powers!

You will need

For the cake

• 230g butter
• 230g caster sugar
• 210g self raising flour
• 30g cocoa
• 4 medium eggs

For the icing

• 100g butter
• 200g icing sugar
• 100g melted (value or cooking) chocolate (or 30g of cocoa and a splash of milk)

To decorate

Chocolate buttons (Tesco and Morrisons both do their own brand 3 packets for £1,  2 packets is just enough)

Or

Maltesers (This is a little extravagant as it would take 3 packets to do this properly. In the pic below I used 2 packets and it would have been better with 3)

 

Getting started with the cake

• Pre heat oven to 180C
• Grease 2 Victoria sponge tins
• Beat together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy and then slow begin adding the flour and eggs.

Next add the cocoa powder, mix some more and  then pour into your greased tins.

Allow your little monster(s) to lick the beaters!

Bake for 30 minutes


Let the cake cool completely before beginning to decorate, otherwise there is a danger the buttercream will begin to melt and slide off.

Icing and decorations

Break the chocolate up and place it in a heatproof bowl. Then microwave for a few seconds (stir and then put back in if necessary). Do this very slowly rather than risk burning it!

To start the icing, add the butter and icing sugar to a bowl. BEFORE you put a mixer in there (and send an icing sugar cloud across your kitchen), take a wooden spoon and slowly and gently mix the sugar and butter together until it looks a little like scrambled eggs.

Add the melted chocolate to your icing. (The first time I did this I really worried that the warm chocolate would melt the butter and it would all go wrong, but it didn't and everything was good!!)

Now mix with your electric mixer until light and fluffy.

You can then begin assembling and decorating your cake.

Place one cake on a plate, and cover the top with around a 3rd of the icing.

Place the other cake on top, and then use the remaining icing to cover the top and sides. It doesn't need to be thick on the side, just enough to hold the buttons on!

Finally begin the decoration, starting from the outside and working in and then down the sides.

Soon the cake will look amazing and also be light, fluffy and absolutely gorgeous to eat.

Yum yum yum. Eat up!

 

Here is the massive 3 tier malteser version I made for my team meeting

And here's what it looked like less than an hour later!

No bake, throw it all in, Rocky Road

This "no bake, throw it all in" recipe is perfect for making with children.

The ingredients aren't particularly important, providing you have rice crispies or cornflakes and chocolate, everything else is a bonus!

There is no baking, and no measuring, but lots of stirring and potential for spoon licking.

The results taste pretty good too!

You will need

• 200g Chocolate ((value)milk or cooking)
• 2-3 handfuls of rice crispies or cornflakes

Suggested extras

• Mini marshmallows
• Cherries (halved)
• White chocolate chunks or buttons
• Mini smarties
• Maltesers
• Jelly tots
• Popping candy

Equipment

• Baking parchment/greaseproof paper
• Tin (optional but used to for a uniform shape)
• Sauce pan
• Heatproof bowl

Get started

• Put some water in your pan and heat to a low simmer
• Break all up the chocolate in your bowl
• Put the bowl of chocolate into the pan - ideally so the bottom doesn't touch the water.
• Gently stir the chocolate until it melts

Alternatively the chocolate can be melted in microwave if you know what you're doing!

• Begin by adding any extras you have to the melted chocolate EXCEPT white choc, if you add this too soon it will melt into the mix and you won't notice it was ever there. You may also want to hold back a few mashmallows to decorate the top with later
• Then begin adding your rice crispies one handful at a time whilst stirring. Do this slowly so that you can stop adding crispies when then there is just enough chocolate to cover all the crispies and make sure that everything sticks together
• Tip the chocolate crispy mix on the baking paper and spread it out (put this inside a tray if you want a uniform shape)
• Sprinkle with the remaining marshmallows

 

• Cover the mix with another sheet of baking paper and then press down evenly and gently across the mix to help it compact and stick together

• Leave to set for an hour or two and then uncover

 

• Your finished rocky road can now be cut into slices using a sharp knife

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Simply Delicious Steak and Ale Pie

Very simple but very tasty Steak and Ale Pie which will very comfortably feed at least 4 adults - Served to 3 generations of my family last weekend and well received. Clean plates all round!

It can be prepared in advance and reheated when required so there is no slaving in the kitchen when your guests arrive.

You will need

• A large frying pan
• A pie, pyrex or casserole dish
• 800g of diced braising steak
• 200g of smoked bacon/lardons
• Splash of olive oil
• 1 pack of chestnut mushrooms
• 2 large or 3 small onions
• Tablespoon of flour
• 200ml Beef stock
• 500ml Real ale (I used Rev James)
• Tomato puree
• Ready to roll, or pre rolled puff pastry

Active cooking (i.e. prep and hob) 30 minutes - passive cooking (i.e. pie in oven) 2-3 hours

Let's do it!

• Slice the onions into small chunks and quarter the mushrooms
• Heat the oil in a large pan
• Seal the beef on all sides and then add the onions
• After the onions are starting to soften, add the bacon and mushrooms
• Instead of draining off the juices, add a heaped tablespoon of plain flour. This will suck up the juices and help make a thick delicious sauce

• Put your oven on to begin heating up to 180C
• Add half of your ale and wait for the head to die down!

• Make your stock and add this to the pan.
• Allow to simmer for a few minutes and then transfer to your pie dish.
• Put the pie dish in the oven uncovered and leave for an hour.
• After an hour, stir the pie mix and top up with the remaining ale

• Return the pie to the oven for an additional hour or two (stirring once or twice and turning the oven down if you are concerned your gravy is reducing or thickening too quickly)

At this point you can either let the pie cool, or go on to the next step.

• Take your pre-made pastry out of the fridge about 5-10 minutes before you want to start rolling/cooking it
• Cut the pastry to fit on your pie and decorate with a few extra cut offs (don't go over the top as this can weigh the pastry down and stop it rising. If you do have extra pastry, you can always cook this on a baking tray separately from the main pie.)
• If desired, brush with milk or egg so that the pastry will brown

• Return the pie to the oven for the final time, and cook at 200C for 30 minutes, allowing an additional 5 minutes if you are cooking your pie from chilled

 

Remove from oven and you're all done. Yum yum yum!

My signature butternut squash risotto

Not particularly quick to make, but very simple and everything is in one pot, so there is no juggling of hot pans or worrying about timings.
 
I usually make it with bacon bits or pancetta and chicken stock, but last week I did it for a veggie friend and we all had it made with vegetable stock. It was just as good.


 
You will need (serves 4)
 

• A medium butternut squash
• A large onion
• 4 cloves of garlic
• Pancetta, bacon bits or lardons
• 2 cubes of stock (chicken or vegetable, or one of each)
• A large handful of cheese
• 75g of risotto rice per person (300g)
• White wine
• Pinenuts (optional)
• Seasoning
• Boiling water
• Some oil
• A baking tray
• A large saucepan


 
How long will it take?
 
5-10 minutes prep
50 minutes cooking time

 
What do you do?
 

1. Put the oven on to heat up to 180 while you prepare the butternut squash
2. Prepare the squash – I usually cut the top off, cut the bottom off, so it has a
        flat base. Then cut it into two at the base of the neck (before it bulges
        out). Then, rather than peeling the thick skin with a peeler, I just slice
        it off with a knife. You loose a bit more of the flesh, but I think it’s
        worth it for the ease. Once peeled, cut the smaller (neck part) into 1.5cm
        cubes. Slice the other part in half length ways and then scoop the seeds
        out with a spoon. This can then also be cut into cubes.
3. Put the cubed squash onto the baking tray with a drizzle of oil and a crushed clove of garlic
4. Whack the squash in the oven for about 45 minutes. While the squash is roasting, you can be getting on with the rest of the risotto. Alternatively the squash can be roasted in advance and the risotto prepared separately.
5. Chop the onion and put this into the saucepan with some oil and the remaining cloves of garlic (crushed).
6. Fry the onions until soft then add the rice and a little more oil
7. Put the kettle on to boil, and gently fry the rice until it starts to look more transparent
8. Make the stock following the instructions on the packet and then add a good slug of wine (two small glasses)
9. Now we're going to start adding the stock slowly to the rice. Make sure it's over a low heat and then add enough stock to cover the rice. Gently stir until this has been absorbed.
10. Add some more stock, gently stirring every so often so that it doesn't stick to the pan
11. Keep adding stock until its all in. If the rice isn't soft, just keep adding hot water until it gets there
12. Take the squash out of the oven. Mash half and set the other half to one side.
13. Put the pinenuts onto the baking tray and put into the oven (keep a close eye on these as they can burn easily)
14. Mix the mashed and remaining cubed squash through the risotto.
15. Throw in the cheese and mix through. This makes it creamy and sticky (gorgeous)
16. Top with the toasted pinenuts and serve.

 
Yum yum yum!

Making the perfect cupcake

This is officially the perfect cupcake!

Over the last few months I have been trying out lots of different recipes in practice for my baby's Christening. I've tried lots of different types, lemon, chocolate, raspberry swirl, but concluded that this vanilla cupcake recipe is the best. Simple to make but gives a lovely rise and perfect base for any favour icing or special decoration.

This recipe takes about 10 minutes to make and 25 minutes in the oven.

 

Pre heat your oven to 160 degrees and put 12 cases into a cupcake tray.

 

Begin by measuring 2 large eggs. This will be your base weight. For example 150g.

 

Whatever your 2 eggs weigh, you will need the same amount of self raising flour, same amount of caster sugar and same amount of butter.

 

This ensures the cakes are perfectly balanced. Using the freshest eggs you can find will also help the rise.

 

What to do...

1. Beat the butter and sugar together


2. Mix in one egg at a time, adding a small amount of flour between each one to prevent the batter from splitting


3. Slowly mix the (sifted) flour into the batter


4. Give the batter a final stir until it's almost smooth - if you're planning to add chocolate chips or similar, do it now!


5. Divide the batter between the cases - if necessary use more cases rather than overfilling!


6. Bake for 20-25 minutes


7. Allow to fully cool before icing or decorating


8. Decorate as required (Buttercream is great)