Homemade gingerbread biscuits

This recipe came to me by way of my work colleague and fellow domestic goddess Katherine Welch. She brought a batch of beautifully shaped gingerbread people into the office for us all to munch on pre-christmas and I had forgotten how much I love them!

Biscuits aren’t usually a part of my cooking repertoire as those lovely people at McVities make them so well, and until today I hadn’t baked any since I was about ten years old. The best piece of advice I can give you is to space the biscuits far apart on the baking tray- they seem to double in size once under heat. Also, flour your cookie cutters well- I gave up on the people shaped cutters after producing three biscuits which looked like victims of an awful limb-loss accident and switched to just rolling them into rounds- see what you think, either way they are delicious.

The dough can also be made in a food processor. If you choose to do this (as i did) just chuck all the ingredients into the machine and blitz until they bind together.

Ingredients

• 350gms plain flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1tsp ground ginger
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 egg
• 100gms butter
• 4 level tbsp golden syrup
• 175gm soft brown sugar

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade and oil and flour a large baking tray.
2. Mix together the dry ingredients in a large bowl then rub in the butter using your finger tips to form a breadcrumb-like mixture.
3. Combine the egg and syrup in a cup then beat into the flour mixture.

4. Turn the dough out onto a clean work surface once it forms a ball and knead with a little flour until you have a smooth texture.
5. Roll out with a well-floured rolling pin to approx 1.5cm thickness and cut into shapes.

6. Place the shapes onto the baking tray (you may need to cook them in batches as they will need to be spaced at least 2cm apart) and bake for approx 10 mins- keep an eye on them, once they are golden around the edges they are ready.
7. Use a fish slice to transfer the biscuits to a wire cooling rack and bake the next batch.
8. Dredge with a little icing sugar and serve.

Pomegranate and clementine scented jelly

I found this recipe on the Guardian website a couple of weeks ago and thought it would be the perfect antidote to the feast-laden drowsiness that can spring upon you after a large Christmas dinner.

It is important that you buy proper 100% pomegranate juice and not a carton of juice drink as these are often chock full of sugar and it is the tartness of the pomegranate which makes this dessert so refreshing and fruity.

Ingredients

• 700ml pomegranate juice (I used Pom which comes in a strangely shaped and slightly bulbous plastic bottle)
• 4 strips of peel from a washed Clementine
• 1 tbsp rose water (optional)
• 2tbsp caster sugar
• 12gms leaf gelatine (it must be leaf not powdered or chances are high that it won’t set)
• A sliced Clementine and a few pomegranate seeds to decorate
• A pretty glass bowl or tureen

Method

• Pour the juice into a large saucepan. Add the Clementine peel and warm it over a low heat stirring from time to time.

• Bring the juice almost to the boil then switch off the heat and leave it to infuse for a few minutes.
• In the meantime, soak the gelatine sheets in a little bit of warm water. When they have softened and are squidgy (after 1-2 mins) drop them into the juice and stir well until they are dissolved.
• Add the sugar and rosewater and again, stir well until the sugar has dissolved.
• Pour the juice through a sieve to remove the peel and ladle into your choice of bowl.
• Add the Clementine slices and pomegranate seeds to decorate and place in the fridge overnight to set.

p.s. if you are using seeds from a fresh pomegranate to decorate, cut the fruit in half, hold it over a large empty bowl and bash the top with a metal spoon- the seeds will fall out and save you a lot of digging time! But please remember to wear an apron.

Bigger and better...

Now seems like a good time to point out a few new features which i have added to my blog as i strive to make it bigger and better :)

Many of you will have already seen the new Carly Cooks facebook page which has a link on the right hand side of the blog. there is also a 'like' button which you can click to tell your friends about the page and blog if you enjoy it.

Below each post there is also a choice of three buttons- like alot, like and dislike which you can use to rate recipes- let me know what you think and it will help me choose which kinds of recipes to post.

There is also a box on the right hand side of the page labelled 'receive email updates' if you enter your email address you will receive my posts directly to your inbox- never miss a tasty recipe again!

In addition, several people told me that they had to sign up to Google to comment on my posts- ive checked this out and lifted the restriction. Everyone can post now without signing up so please feel free to drop me a line!

frozen banoffee pie

For those of you who missed this recipe the first time around...

I got the idea for this recipe when watching Nigella’s Christmas series on TV a couple of years ago. She makes an icecream cake with a biscuit base, vanilla icecream filling and butterscotch sauce on top- so it seemed like a natural move (to me anyway) to add some bananas!!

The first time I made it was for Christmas 2008 and thanks to my over excitement and the lack of space in Sue’s freezer, we took it out too soon and were faced with a big, (but still delicious!) banoffee puddle for pudding. The second time around it was perfect. It’s incredibly moreish and the butterscotch sauce is heaven. In fact, you could make the sauce to go with any kind of icecream… or pudding really! If pushed for time you could use dulce de lech sauce from a jar, but the real stuff is amazing- try it just once.

By the way this cake cant be made all in one go, you have to freeze it for a few hours in between the icecream stage and topping it, so its handy for dinner parties, Christmas etc. when you want to do all the faffing around before hand and no hard work on the day.

Ingredients

• 2 packs of Maryland double choc chip cookies or equivalent cookies
• 4tbsp unsalted butter
• 1 big tub of good quality vanilla icecream or two smaller (ben and jerry sized) ones- I use Green and Blacks with Madagascan vanilla
• 2 large ripe bananas
• 200ml double cream
• 150gms unsalted butter
• 100gms soft brown sugar
• 2 heaped tbsp golden syrup
• 8inch springform tin

Method

1. About ½ hour before you want to make this get the icecream out of the freezer to soften- you want it to be spoonable but not liquidy.
2. Grease the springform tin then crush the packets of biscuits to crumbs. I get a rolling pin, and leaving the biscuit packets closed, bash the hell out of them- don’t do it too hard or they’ll explode!
3. In a large saucepan melt the 4tbsp butter and once melted, stir in the biscuits until well coated

4. Pour the biscuits into the tin and press down with the back of a spoon to make a base (almost as if you were making a cheesecake).
5. Spoon in the icecream on top of the biscuits, smooth down until the biscuits are fully covered and put the tin back in the freezer. It can stay there until you need it- probably up to a week if you cover it with some cling film.
6. Then make the butterscotch sauce. Again this can be kept for up to 4 days in the fridge until you need it. Just put the butter, cream, sugar and syrup into a saucepan on a medium heat, once it has all melted bring to the boil and simmer for around 3mins stirring occasionally then leave to cool completely before refrigerating. Be careful- this will be hotter than Daniel Craig’s backside- you will get third degree burns if you get molten sugar on yourself and certainly do not lick the spoon!! Nick nearly learnt that lesson the hard way!
7. When you’re ready to serve the pudding, take it out of the freezer 20mins beforehand so the icecream can soften up.

8. Peel and slice the banana and arrange it on top of the icecream. Either take the butterscotch sauce out of the fridge an hour beforehand or warm it up for 10 seconds in the microwave.
9. To serve, lift the cake out of the tin and on to a plate (keep the base in place or it will all go tits up) then pour the sauce over and cut everyone big slices.

p.s. try and eat it all, or return it to the freezer once you’ve cut a few slices, you can’t refreeze icecream once it has melted.

Colin's pulled pork chilli- part two

Well, i finally did it. Sunday nights pulled pork became chilli on monday and i must say, i was rather pleased with it! The only ingredient that i couldnt get hold of was the tin of salsa de chipotle (apparently Tesco's in Hemel doesnt stock Discovery foods products either) but it was still tasty and has provided me with two lunches worth of yumminess too.

It was warm and spicy, without being mouth burningly hot, smoky and tomatoey but not overwhelmingly so, and there was just the right amount of kidney beans (some chillis are swamped by the damn things) could this be the perfect chilli recipe...?

For those wishing to recreate it see  http://www.shizzling.com/2010/02/shredded-pork-in-chipotle-chile-salsa-recipe.html 

Cupcake extravaganza

I had to share this with everyone. It was my cousin Sophie's birthday the weekend before last and her best friend and baker extraordinaire Eimear Hurley, made her this stunning cupcake tower for a birthday cake!

There were even four different flavours- plain chocolate, chocolate and peanut butter, black forest gateaux and oreo cupcake- and i can vouch that they were ALL delicious!

You have seen true greatness my friends, now go bake!

Chocolate and guinness cake



the last slice!

 I made this in honour of a friend who was leaving work recently and it went down a treat! Although the thought of adding Guinness to a cake put me off a little at first, and really, the mixture doesn’t look very pleasant at the butter melting stage, it doesn’t make the cake taste of beer at all. It just adds a rich tangy flavour to the chocolate and enhances it perfectly.
The cream cheese icing is to die for. I could eat a whole bowl on its own if I’m honest!

Ingredients
Cake:

• 400gms caster sugar
• 250gms butter
• 75gms cocoa powder
• 275gms self raising flour
• 2 eggs
• 250ml Guinness (there is 440ml in can- don’t use all of it!)
• 2tsp baking powder
• 2tsp vanilla essence
• 142ml (small pot) sour cream

Icing:

• 150gm icing sugar
• 300gm (1 pot) philadelphia cream cheese
• 125ml double cream

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees centigrade. Grease and lightly flour a deep 8inch cake tin.
2. Put the butter and Guinness into a saucepan and heat gently until the butter is melted. Put this aside to cool for a few minutes (it will look a bit gross at this stage but bear with me).
3. In a bowl or a food processor, mix together the sugar and cocoa then slowly pour in the butter/beer mixture and sour cream and beat well.
4. Beat in the eggs one at a time then fold in the flour, baking powder and vanilla essence.
5. Pour the mixture into the cake tin and place in the oven. Bake for 15mins then turn the heat down to 150 degrees centigrade and bake for 1- 1½ hours. Check after an hour by poking a knife into the centre. If the knife comes out clean its ready. If there is still uncooked batter on it, return the cake to the oven for a bit longer.
6. When cooked turn the cake out onto a wire rack to cool.
7. In a large mixing bowl whisk together the cream and cream cheese until it is fluffy and looks like American style cake frosting (approx 2-3 mins). Add the sugar and mix well.
8. When the cake has cooled, top with the icing (it should look a bit like a pint of Guinness) and serve.

Colin's pulled pork chilli- step one

My friend Colin made a scrumptious authentic chilli for a mates 50th birthday celebration a few months back and as i was feeling the need to keep out the bone chilling weather a week or so ago with good food i asked for the recipe.

It is made with slow-roasted pulled (shredded) pork instead of the usual mince meat, which has to be be cooked first. At Colin's suggestion i bought a big piece of pork, made the pulled pork yesterday and had half for dinner, then saved the other half to make the chilli tonight.

I shall report on the full results tomorrow however, i can tell you that the pulled pork made for a meltingly tender, juicy, smoky flavoured sunday roast and im looking forward to stage two immensely!

The recipe for both the pork and the chilli can be found on Colin's blog Schizzling! http://www.shizzling.com/2010/02/shredded-pork-in-chipotle-chile-salsa-recipe.html

Festive cheer!

I must apolosise for the lack of blog posts over the last two months. Im afraid that work (the paid kind) and a string of pre-xmas parties have left me feeling a bit deflated and extremely short on time. But the christmas season is here hurrah!! and with that comes ten days of holiday, a chance to re-coop and a flurry of delicious recipes which i shall be making for various celebrations.

These will include- frozen banoffee pie (see recipe from August), pecan pie and scented pomegranite jelly among others- lots to look forward to then! I hope your Christmas is as delicious as mine! love to everyone cx 

Fiery jerk chicken with rice and peas

To my amazement this dinner was nick’s suggestion! He had been watching Nigella’s new Kitchen series on TV (something to do with the suggestive way in which she bastes her chicken breasts I’m sure!) and asked if we could look up the recipe online. Thanks to BBC iPlayer I was able go one better and watch her whip it up on one of my lunch breaks last week, and this was the result- juicy pieces of chicken crusted in a fiery chilli spice paste and tempered by the creamy, coconut softness of rice and black eyed beans. A delicious winter warmer that was just what I needed on a powder snow-coated Saturday night!

Serves 2-3 people

Ingredients (jerk chicken)

• 3 chicken breasts without the skin
• 1tsp ground all spice
• 1tsp dried thyme
• 1tsp cayenne pepper
• 1tsp ground ginger
• 1tsp ground nutmeg
• 1tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 garlic clove peeled
• 2cm piece of fresh root ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
• 1tbsp dark muscavado sugar
• 2tbsp dark run (I used Bacardi because it was all I had lurking in the cupboard and it tasted fine)
• 2tbsp lime juice
• 2tbsp soy sauce
• 60ml cider vinegar
• 2 fresh whole red chillies, stalks removed but seeds left in (you can remove the seeds if you’re chilli-phobic)
• 1 small onion, peeled and quartered

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees centigrade
2. Put all of the ingredients except for the chicken into a food processor and whiz to a paste (you could also use a hand blender for this.)
3. Slash the chicken breasts 3-4 times each, about halfway through to let the spice paste penetrate the meat and place them in a small baking dish.
4. Pour over the paste and massage in well until the breasts are coated.
5. Bake in the oven for approx 40-50 minutes. Use the skewer test to make sure the chicken is cooked.
6. While the chicken is cooking make the rice to accompany it….

Ingredients (rice and peas)

• 1x 400gm can of black eye beans (if you can’t get those any kind of beans will do)
• 1 small onion peeled and finely chopped
• 1tsbp olive oil
• 1 red chilli de-seeded and finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
• 400gm basmati rice
• 1x 400ml can coconut milk (I used low fat)
• 600ml chicken stock
• 1 tsp chopped fresh thyme leaves
• Pinch of salt

Method

1. Drain and rinse the beans in a sieve, then heat a tbsp of olive oil in a deep heavy based saucepan which has a lid.
2. Fry the onions in the oil for 3-4 mins over a low heat until softened but not brown, then add the garlic and chilli and fry for another minute.
3. Tip in the rice and stir well to coat all the grains in the oil, then add the beans, coconut milk, stock and thyme.
4. Bring the mixture to the boil then turn down the heat, clamp on the lid and let it cook gently for approx 15 mins. Give it a little stir every now and again to check that the rice isn’t sticking. It should be ready when the stock is nearly all absorbed and the rice is tender.
5. Serve with the chicken immediately.