Chez Luce

Kitchen adventures on Wandsworth Common

Daring Bakers Challenge February 2010: Heaven on a Dessert Plate! February 27, 2010

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Recipe: Tiramisu

 

 

 

 

 

 

The February 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obsession.

 

Yes, as you can see this month’s daring bakers challenge was the italian layered dessert, tiramisu. I can’t say I had tried it before and this recipe was a huge undertaking as we not only had to make the sponge fingers, but there was also homemade mascarpone cheese, zabaglione and pastry cream to contend with!
I am so glad I got to try out all these different component parts. The zabaglione originally called for marsala wine but I used kahlua to intensify the coffee taste. I had previously thought that zabaglione wouldn’t really be my ‘thing’, but my god it is so thick and gorgeous, I can’t wait to try it with different flavours.

 

The first thing that had to be done was bake the savoiardi biscuits (ladyfingers). I did some in an onblong shape and some small circular biscuits to ultimately help fill in any gaps in my tiramisu layers. These are incredibly light and take on other flavours well, although I thought they were a bit ‘nothingy’ on their own.

 


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Elevenses February 4, 2010

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Recipe: Coffee and Walnut Cake

 

Nigel slater said he would have this coffee and walnut cake for his last meal on earth, and I would be inclined to agree. But I can’t have it with a cup of coffee, oh no. It has to be tea. Proper, English, tea and cake.

 

Perfection

 

Give it a try, I swear it is one of the best stress relievers… And don’t give me any of that green tea nonsense. English breakfast only.

 


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Daring Bakers January 2010 Challenge: The World Comes to Canada January 27, 2010

Recipe: Graham Crackers & Nanaimo Bars

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca

 

I really enjoyed this month’s challenge as Nanaimo Bars are not something I have heard of before here in England. Although one of the optional challenges was to use Gluten-Free flour, I used regular flour in my crackers as GF would have been cost prohibitive for me. I look forward to trying gluten free baking in the future, though.

 

The crackers were made completely in the food processor and were therefore extremely quick to make. They are also delicious and are what Americans use for cheesecake bases where we would use digestive biscuits or gingernuts or something.

 


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Appley Caramelly Goodness January 21, 2010

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Recipe: Gingerbread-apple Upside Down Cake

 

I saw this recipe on Smitten Kitchen (one of my home-page blogs – yes, firefox takes a long time to load due to unhealthy amounts of food-porn…) and just had to make it! And, as luck would have it, the british transport system failed yet again so I was at home on a school-day.

 

Anyway, the recipe as I made it was quite far removed from the original but was still delicious! It makes a lot of batter, and I made 6 individual dessert portions plus a 6 inch round cake. I used russet apples, an english classic, which is currently being sold off cheaply by the supermarkets due to their dull brown appearance. What people are failing to realise, however, is that they have a much better flavour than the huge red shiny apples which sell for such a premium. All the better for us foodies, I suppose…

 

 

 

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Snow day baking! January 6, 2010

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Recipe: Maple Pecan buns

 

Due to the large amount of snow currently covering the UK, many of us (including me) are home from work as travel is near on impossible!

So what better thing to do than warm the house up with some nice baking (ok ok, any excuse to bake…)?

You may remember I had made some banana and cinnamon buns before, well I used a similar recipe but tweaked the ingredients and method to make this maple-pecan version. They are delicious! I should go to the Common and give them to all the children making snowmen but I am just too cosy and warm to brave the oustide world!

Whatever you are getting up to today I hope you all keep warm and stay safe x

 

Warm, bready, sticky goodness

 

Maple Pecan Buns
450g bread flour
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp caster sugar
7g sachet easy-blend yeast
150ml warm milk
1 egg , beaten
1 tbsp vegetable oil
200 ml water
50g salted butter , melted
Handful dark muscodvao sugar
Handful chopped pecans
Handful sultanas
4 tbsp maple syrup

 

Combine the flour, salt, sugar and yeast, warm milk, beaten egg, oil and enough of the water to form a soft sticky dough.
Knead until smooth and leave in a warm place, covered, until doubled in size.
Roll out on a floured surface into a 40 x 20cm rectangle. Brush with butter and sprinkle over the pecans (reserving a few), sugar and sultanas.
Roll up into a sausage shape, and cut into 16 pieces.
Nestle into a buttered 20x20cm tin, sprinkle over the remaining nuts and bake at 180c for 35 minutes or until golden and puffed.
Mix the butter with the maple syrup and brush over the buns when they are still hot.

Eat with a cup of tea!!

 

Nibbles January 3, 2010

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I was feeling industrious a couple of weeks ago when my parents had some people over for pre-Christmas dinner. As well as making the main meal (rack of lamb with flageolet gratin …again) I decided to put together some nibbles for when people arrived.

 

The first thing I knew I had to make was David Lebovitz’s sweet, salty and spicy Pretzel and Nut Mix which I had tried a week or so before. Let’s just say the huge batch didn’t make it through one evening of ‘Come Dine With Me!’  I originally saw this recipe in David’s book: The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World’s Most Glorious–And Perplexing–City, which I highly recommend, but saw that he had also posted it on his blog.

 

The recipe actually makes a shedload of the mix, so I put some in individual cellpohane bags and added them to a Christmas gift hamper I made.  I think they made a lovely present!

David Lebovitz’s Pretzel and Nut Mix
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Daring Bakers Challenge December 2009: Home for the Holidays December 27, 2009

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Recipe: Gingerbread House

 

So I decided to join the Daring Bakers. Basically, it’s a food blog baking ring, which coaxes people into baking complex and challenging confections once a month.

It being December and all, my inaugral challenge was to bake a festive gingerbread house. Anyone who knows me will be aware that I am one of the clumsiest people alive, so a 3-D baked structure definitely wasn’t going to be my strong point. But anyway. I took a deep breath, and set about making the dough.

 

The recipe I chose was Scandinavian Gingerbread (Pepparkakstuga) from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book by Beatrice Ojakangas. We were given a choice of two, and I chose this one because the other recipe contained cream which I didn’t have any of!

 

I blended up the ingredients in the magimix to give a stiff dough which I left in the refrigerator for a couple of days while I visited my parents for Christmas (which was lovely, by the way).

 

Upon my return I rolled and baked the pieces, using this template. They shrunk quite a bit in the oven, and were much much thicker than they should have been. I will know for next time I make a gingerbread house (it may be some time…!) that the dough should be rolled very thinly. The pieces for the chimney came out very misshapen so I decided that the house would have electric heating rather than a wood-burning fire…

 

Anyway, this is how it turned out, I don’t think I did a bad job overall, but I look forward to my next daring bakers’ challenge which will hopefully be something more delicious than disastrous!

 

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Rainy Sunday November 22, 2009

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Recipe: Plum crumble shortbread

It’s a nasty day today.  You know, the kind of day when it rains so much you can hear car alarms being set off. The kind of day when the last thing on your mind is venturing into the gloomy, grey outside world. Luckily, I don’t have to because it’s Sunday, so what better thing to do than bake something warm and golden to bring a bit of cheer into what is otherwise a dismal day!

I bought a punnet of plums last week with the intention of using them just to snack on, but as we are at the end of plum season they were a bit mealy, sour and generally a bit tasteless. So I decided to cook them down to a thick compote and use this for a fruity filling in some shortbread biscuits.

I used a basic shortbread recipe with some cornflour to enhance the crispness of the base.

Butter and sugar for shortbread

As the shortbread and topping are quite sweet, I added some lemon juice and zest to the plums to make the sourness more pronounced, together with a pinch of cinnamon to give the compote a warm autumnal taste. (more…)

 

Birthday treats part 1 November 9, 2009

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Recipe: Fruit and nut flapjacks Fruit and nut flapjacks 2

Having earned my title as ‘the office Nigella’ over the last year and a half, I thought i’d better live up to my name and bring in something home-baked for my birthday rather than just going to M&S like everyone else.

The first thing I decided to make was flapjacks. After a root around in the cupboard I found some blanched almonds, hazelnuts, dried cranberries and sultanas to add to the basic flapjack mix.

I toasted the nuts in the oven to bring out the flavour . Well, they were on the well-done side of toasted, because I shoved them in the oven and promptly forgot they were in there. It was only when I went to put something else in that i discovered them just about to burn! Anyway, I melted the butter with the golden syrup and poured the mixture into a bowl with the oats, sugar, fruit and nuts. After a quick mix they were ready to bake.

When the pan came out the oven I was convinced I hadn’t added enough of the wet mixture to bind the oats as it seemed far too crumbly, but after cooling it had gained a bit more integrity and could be sliced up into sticky, delicious squares.

All in all, I had great reviews from my work colleagues and would purposefully use this mixture of fruit and nuts next time.

Oh yeah… and because I had to provide snacks for the whole office floor, I had to go to M&S anyway.

Fruit and nut flapjacks 1 (more…)

 

Baking day November 1, 2009

Filed under: Uncategorized — chezluce @ 11:58 am
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Recipe: Banana cinnamon buns

Yeasted deliciousness


So on Thursday, I was at home all day studying for my (yawn) pensions exams, so I thought I would take the time to bake something I hadn’t tried before. There was also a bunch of bananas getting a little bit past their best, and after a quick search on ‘banana’ I found a recipe for banana cinnamon buns. Perfect. Lots of proving time to do more exam questions (urghhhh).

Banana cinnamon buns 2

After reading the blurb on my packet of yeast, I realised in fact that it wasn’t the easy-blend type, and had to be reactivated first. Which begs the question, howcome things I have made before without reactivating the yeast came out well?! But anyway, I added the yeast to the milk and sugar and left it in the airing cupboard for 15 minutes to do its stuff.

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