Autumnal Plum Crumble

As it's getting a bit colder i'm looking forward to doing a bit more baking. It's been a while and i love baking but slaving over a hot stove in the depths of summer isn't for me, I'd much rather be out there basking in the sun I'm afraid!

Living in the countryside has brought seasonal eats to the forefront as I was presented with a bumper crop of petite plums, yum! But what to do with them? First up plum crumble, dare I say a winter warmer!

What you need for the filling;

• Plums - about 12 -15 shop size plums, but you can see the basket full of plums I used, these are about an inch and a half long.
• Juice of 1/2 a lemon
• Caster sugar 160g

What you need for the crumble;

• Butter - 125g - cubed and cold
• Flour - 175g
• Caster Sugar - 50g
• Brown/Muscovado Sugar - 50g
• Zest of 1 Lemon
• Nuts/Oats - 100g - what ever takes your fancy

How to make it:

• Grease your dish with butter
• Slice up your plums and throw them in - no prettiness required
• Pour over your lemon juice
• Pour over your sugar

Filling sorted - easy - now for the crumble;

• Put your flour, sugars and butter in a bowl and pinch it together with your fingers until you get a texture like bread crumbs
• Add in your lemon zest
• Add in any oats or nuts you want, i used large porridge oats and ground almonds
• Pour on top of your fruit 
• Add any more nuts - I used hazelnuts for a decoration and they were delicious (Mr Ward said hte best bits)

What a masterpiece?

Now stick it in the oven for 45mins, until the topping has started to brown and your juicy plums are oozing out from the edges

Oozy Fruit Goodness

Now stick it in a bowl, smother with custard and dig in!!!

If you have too much fruit you can make lots of crumble and pop it in the freezer before you bake itm then you've got a delicious pud just an hour away. Any fruit works in a crumble too and you can mix and match.

Now what to do with the rest of the plums? Jam or chutney perhaps??

xx

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year I hope you are enjoying 2013 so far?

To bring in the New Year I celebrated with Mr Ward and a few friends, we really indulged with tonnes of food and wine and it was fantastic.

To make the evening special we made a number of dishes with ingredients bought from the market in leeds including Jose Pizarro's salt and fennel baked prawns which stole the show. 

It looked to our guests like such an extravagant dish with the salt crust being cracked open to serve, but it is really simple to make; 

2.5k of rock salt is mixed with whisked egg whites and fennel seeds and then layer a third of the mix in a roasting tin. Throw in some shell on prawns, cover and bake for 8-9 minutes. 

It tasted so delicious and we have saved the salt because we will be making this one again.

We also made some lovely pear and parma ham bites; 

Peel and core a pear into 1cm thick chips, add a bite size piece of mozzarella and wrap in parma ham, bake them in the over for about 6-8mins. Another delicious but simple treat. I aren't normally a fan of pears because of the texture but this makes them soft, sweet and scrumptious!  

I wanted our dining table to look special, but not too Christmassy and as we have a country style old pine table I didn't want it to look too modern.

I bought a bouquet of cool water roses and some sprigs that had been sprayed gold for that extra New Year sparkle.

I love the idea of using kilner or mason jars for decor and found an old one in the cupboard, but using this alone I was stuck with too many roses. I had a root around and found some old jam jars that had been through the dishwasher with the labels faded so used these too, along with some candlesticks they added a difference in height which made the arrangement more interesting and I think the labels just look so cute.

Roses

Its great to make something that looks so pretty on such a small budget (about £6) and you can do this easily with any sort of flower and old jars you have.

The Centrepiece with Candlesticks

'Home Made' Jam Jars

This has definitely inspired me to do more floral arrangements, especially for dinner parties, so that's something to add to my New Years Resolutions, along with eating more healthily, doing more exercise and the usual.

I hope you have had a great festive period, enjoyed your NYE celebrations and are going all guns blazing at your resolutions.

Bye for now (off to do some Pilates!)

What I Love About The Weekend... Food!

Home Made!

Hopefully Mr Ward might treat me to one of his wonderful pizzas again this weekend!

The Big Cake!

Although i haven't been baking every week i did go all out in April for a friends engagement party. I'm not quite sure what you get a couple for their engagement so i opted to use my skills and make a cake for their party.

The Finished Product

After a few weeks of trial runs (some really bad) and people telling me i'd put too much pressure on myself it all ended quite well and i learnt how to make sugar paste roses!

After a chocolate cake disaster i opted for a White Chocolate & Cardamom recipe from my favourite Fiona Cairns book. A proper grown ups cake, sweetened with a rosewater cream filling.

Practise Run - White Choc & Cardamom

Then to decorate it, well i always wanted to try the sugar paste roses so i built my cake around this. Next was the colour, the party was going to be in a Moroccan style room so lots of oranges and my friends support Hull City FC who are amber and black so orange it was, with some amber and yellow too.

Sugar Paste Roses

The roses where a lot easier than i expected and i was pretty pleased with myself so i made loads! These can be made in advance and stored for a while so it's a good skill to learn.

Actually icing the cake was my biggest hurdle, if anyone knows where you can buy pre-rolled Royal Icing for anything bigger than a 20cm cake please let me know. After several attempts the bigger, orange, layer of my cake did look a bit ropey so after a quick visit to Hobby Craft all sins where hidden with the shimmering orange ribbon. Phew! I also picked up a bit of bling with the gold leaves and beautiful butterflies, this really turned it into a celebration cake!

Ribbon & Gold Leaf Accessories

The Finishing Touches On Top

Then all that was left was getting it to the venue, this entailed my dad driving very slowly and me being an extremely nervous passenger! Then i got to surprise my friend and show off for most of the night that "Yes it was me who made the cake"!

Curry... again

Now if you ask me there's nothing wrong with eating curry everyday, as long as it isn't synthetic red, covered in grease and enclosed in a polystyrene box...

Home made curry is the way forward and it's easy even if you're not a michelin star chef in the making, there are plenty of curry kits out there which make cooking curry simple with no need for recipe books and a store cupboard full of ingredients.

I recently tried a kit from Sugar & Spice which was delicious and healthy too. A classic curry better than anything from a jar and my favourite a spice mix to make your own spicy squash soup - brilliant for winter packed lunches! These kits are just the spice mix but still easy to use, just make sure you have a read of the ingredients and instructions before you get started and you'll have a delicious meal in no time.

Apparently chilli boosts the metabolism so we should all be eating a bit of curry every now and again!

Afternooon Tea with an American Twist

I have had some cranberries hanging around in my fridge - bought by the other half, no idea what to do with them - and i was inspired by Bake Lady's Blog to use them in scones. So here i am taking part in the Scone Recipe Challenge!

As cranberries are the American berry I looked to the first lady of American cooking, Martha Stewart, for recipe advice. After some conversion dilemmas (hate the cup system) and a few tweaks I ended up with this;

Makes 12 small scones

• 450g Plain Flour
• 60g Caster Sugar
• 1 tbsp Baking Powder
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 85g Chilled Butter
• 180ml Semi-Skimmed Milk (a bit more than Martha suggests as the mixture was  dry)
• 110g fresh cranberries halved (you could use frozen as well)

I had never eaten these gorgeous jewel berries fresh before, only in juice or as craisins and they tasted like tiny tart apples, with the same type of texture and sound as when you slice an apple. I was a bit nervous that the sugar in the recipe wasn't enough to balance out the tang so i made sure to do a nice dusting afterwards!

Tiny Tarty Berries

Method;

1. Mix together all of the dry ingredients
2. Add the chilled butter in small cubes and use your hands to rub it together and create a crumb like texture
3. Toss in your halved cranberries if using frozen dry them on kitchen paper first.
4. Add the milk and knead the mixture together
5. Dust your surface and rolling pin with flour and roll your dough to 1" thick and use a cutter of your choice

6. Finish your scones by brushing with milk and dusting with caster sugar

        7. Bake at 180c for around 20minutes

Here's what i ended up with...

Could be mistaken for my favourite cherry scone

Lovely with salted butter!

It's Hotting Up in Here...

Never mind putting the fire on, warm yourself up with one of Hare's Moor DIY Curry Kits. I got myself a job lot of four packs, we love curry in my house but i'm not too good at making it. Hopefully this will make life a bit easier and tea a bit tastier!

Here's what i chose and i'll update you when i've made each one

If you fancy having a go and are a bit of a curry amateur like me get yours here haresmoor diy kits

Food Art

How on earth can someone make a turnip look so beautiful?

After a bit of discussion and deliberation I know it's a turnip not because i ate some (although i did have a tiny nibble - it was tasteless) but because i asked my waiter.

So much effort must go into these gorgeous garnishes i only wish they tasted good too, then the hours of prepartion would be even more worthwhile!

Have a look at this site and learn how to make you're own http://www.finedinings.com/Garnishes.htm It beats a sprig of parsley any day!

p.s. My favourite is the courgette flower - simples!