HAPPY HALLOWEEN !!

Happy Halloween all!! I'm so excited it is my favourite time of the year!! Sad thing is I'm not really celebrating it properly until Saturday. But that's ok because me and Carly are carving our pumpkins tonight!!

I've just realised it been a while since my last post tut tut! I have been rather busy! 

Today I sorted out our living room table bowl...

So Last weekend Carly, her mum Carol and I did a Car Boot Sale again. This time it was totally AWFUL ;(
On Saturday we spent the afternoon making Halloween Cupcakes to sell at the car boot and had a bit of a mare making Orange coloured frosting. Please note DO NOT mix red and yellow food colouring liquid (the cheap stuff from the super market) until you nearly have your colour!. You will use too much and it WILL taste FOUL as we discovered. So we had a trip to our local Cake Baking shop and got Orange food colouring gel, which is totally amazing. 

This is with Orange Gel, AMAZING :D

So we made some super cool as Cupcakes and were really chuffed with them. 

Sunday morning we got to the Car Boot and set up and made everything look really pretty. We even now have Cupcake Cases to sell them in and keep covered from germs. Everything was all nice and lovely until the table opposite us was a Cupcake Stall!! We found out the Car boot was in fact a Car Boot mixed with 'Market Stalls'. Which we were not happy with at all! We weren't there to make a living from the Cupcakes we are doing it for fun but she was there to making a living and we were soooo angry! At the end of the Car Boot we only sold a few which was very disheartening, but we will come back next year bigger and better than ever and bucks Car Boots wont know wha's hit them!

My Handmade Aprons

Cute Button Hearts with my little Handmade books and Our Cakes

CAKE!!
Chocolate sponge with homemade jam filling and orange coloured frosting with a homemade spider/web on top.
Red Velvet Sponge with home made strawberry jam filling and homemade fluff topping and our jam to make it look like brains :D

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Indian Style Focaccia

Hi all!! So I've just had some perfect news!! I got a new job at The Perfume Shop!! 

So today I thought I would share with you my Indian Style Focaccia which is so stupidly easy to make. The Instructions may look long but I promise you this is very easy otherwise I wouldn't be making it myself :D

Ingredients

500g Strong Bread Flour
7g Dried Active Yeast
1 tsp Sugar
1 tsp Salt
25 ml olive oil plus extra for greasing drizzling over bread
300ml water 2 parts cold 1 part warm (water should be tepid)

2 tbsp Cumin Seeds

2 tbsp Coriander Seeds
1tsp Chilli powder
1 tbsp sea salt

To Make

Put the flour into a large bowl and add the 1 tsp of salt, mix well.

In a jug add the water, Yeast, and Sugar. Mix well and cover with cling film leave for about 15 minutes until most of the top of the liquid is covered in brown froth. 

Make a well in the centre of the flour and add a small amount of the yeast mixture and all the oil to the flour and mix with a desert spoon. Keep Slowly adding and mixing the yeast mixture and flour until well  combined. If you feel the mixture is too dry add a little more water. Remember water can be always added but not taken away!

Once all bound put the dough mixture onto a floured surface ready to kneed (are those muscles ready?!).
If the dough is a little on the sticky side don't worry the flour on the work surface will help. Do not use too much flour tho as the dough does not need any more flour added to it. Kneed the dough for about 10 minutes until smooth and elastic. This does not have to be perfect and remember practice makes perfect :D
Place in the dough in a oiled bowl and cover with cling film. Put in a warm place to for the dough to prove and double in size, this usually takes about an hour.

Take the dough out the bowl and place into a well oiled tray that has edges about 1 inch deep. The tray I use is about 12 inches wide, but something a bit smaller or bigger will work.
Push out the dough into the tray and stretch out until the try is covered with the dough. Poke the dough with you fingers to create lots of dimples in the dough.

In a dry pan toast the cumin and coriander seeds until you can smell the aroma from the seeds. Put these into a pestle and mortar with the chilli and sea salt and bash up. The seeds do not need to be ground to a powder, but just until the seeds have broken up.
Drizzle some oil over the dough, not so much to drown it but a nice amount and sprinkle over the spice mixture. Push the spices and oil into the dough.

Put the dough into an oven at about 220C (fan) for 10-15 minutes until the bread is golden, puffed up and smelling super yummy! When you take the bread out of the oven you should be able to tap the centre and it should sound a little hollow. 

Serve while warm and enjoy!!

<3 <3 <3

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Pre Halloween cocktails!

So while watching Great British Bake Off with Carly last night I made us some yummy cocktails inspired by Halloween.

Spooki Tuti Fruti Martini

Makes 2

2 shots vodka

2 shots midori

4 shots apple juice

1/2 shot lime juice

1/2 passionfruit

Drizzle grenadine

Put 4-5 icecubes in a cocktail shaker together with all the ingredients apart from the grenadine. Shake well and taste. Adjust the lime if you like it zesty. Pour into a martini glass through a hawthorn strainer so the seeds of the passionfruit go into the drink to add spookyness to your drink. Then drizzle a small amount if grenadine into the centre of the glass and it will drop to the bottom of the drink for a blood like effect.

Serve and enjoy!

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Cheese and Leek Cupcakes !!!

Hi to my new followers!!!

So today its all about savoury Cupcakes! Last week it was Carly's boyfriends birthday and he doesn't like anything sweet! Shocking I know! So we decided to make Cheese and Leek Cupcakes. And they were amazing!
To make them choose a savoury muffin recipe of your choice. I cant remember which one I used but if you just type cheese and onion recipe into Google there is plenty on there. We substituted onions for leeks for a more mild favour.
For the topping I mixed cream cheese with loads of pepper and some salt. Mix till the cheese is loose and smooth. Put into a piping bag and pipe :D Happy Days!
When making these my head was spinning with so many different ideas for savour flavours like cheese with a bacon frosting! Will be trying that out this weekend I thinks!

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Ham Hock Terrine

So I managed to make my first ever Ham Hock Terrine and its amazing!!!
I decided to use a mixture of ingredients and methods, and mainly followed advice of my partner Steve who is a fabulous chef :D

We got a bit fancy and served it with Garlic oil dressed rocket and a Victorian chutney someone gave us. To go with the starter I made a selection of bread; Chilli and Cheddar, Boursin and black pepper and a Salt, Pepper and Garlic oil Focaccia. 

Ham Hock Terrine

2 large or 3 small Ham Hocks
1 Carrot
1 Stick Celery
1 Onion halved

10 Peppercorns
4 Cloves
3 Bay Leaves
Whole Grain Mustard
Handful Chopped Parsley
Chopped Cournichons 

To Make

Put the ham hocks in a pan of cold water and bring to the boil. Once boiled drain the water and rinse the pan. Refill the pan with water, and place in the ham, pepper, cloves, bay and veg. Bring to the boil then turn down and simmer for 3-4 hours until the meat is tender and falling off the bone.

When the ham is cooked take out of the pan and set aside. Discard the veg and spices. 

Strain a pint of the cooking liquid through muslin into a clean pan and reduce by half. This will make the binding agent for the terrine. Hence why it is important to add the veg and spices to flavour the cooking liquor. When reduced strain again through muslin into a jug.

When the ham has cooled pull apart the meat and discard any fat/skin and bone. The meat should be in chunks still and not too broken down. To the meat add as much or little as you like of the cournichons, parsley and Mustard as you like. Remember that if you add too much you can't take it away but if you add a little at a time you can add to it. Once the mix is all incorporated and the favours are to your taste put into a double cling film lined terrine/loaf tin. Make sure there is cling film over hanging's, enough to cover the top of the terrine. Press the mixture down and slowly pour in the reduced liquid and allow to settle throughout the mixture. Cut a strip of card the same size as the top of the tin, cover with foil, then press on top and weigh down with some tins.

Serve with your choice of chutney, dressed rocket, and some nice crusty bread.

Hope you like!!

I will add some bread recipes over the next week.

<3<3<3 

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COOKIE MONSTER CUPCAKES!!!!

OMG!!!!! So last night me and Carly made Cookie Monster Cupcakes!!! And WOW they are soooooo cool!!!

I have yet to eat one tho because when we were making them I ate far far far too much butter cream icing that now I feel a bit sick thinking about it! But I'm sure later today I'll be craving the icing and the cake of course :D 

The best thing about them is that its not just boring sponge mix for the cake its Rhubarb and Ginger so a bit fancy too! The recipe for the sponge is from The Primrose Bakery Book but instead of using fresh Rhubarb as there wasn't any available atm we used tinned which is almost as good. For the Topping we made a vanilla butter cream icing with blue food colouring in it. And the fluffy bit is coconut. I put a load in a bowl and added food colouring and mixed really well until desired colour. Then laid it out on a baking sheet till dried then it was sprinkled onto the icing which was put on the cake by spoon. For the eyes we used white chocolate buttons and choc drops stuck on with icing. Then for the cookie use any type you like, we just used supermarket ones. Once the cake is iced and the coconut is on it make a slit through the icing and cake to fit in the cookie. Then put the eyes on after.

The cupcake would have looked nice also with a bit of the blue icing on and a little coconut sprinkled on the top too. Also what would be fun would be to change the colours of the icing and coconut and have some fun with it.

Invasion of the Cookie Monster in our fridge!

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Present for carly

Here is a pretty vase of hearts on sticks I made for Carly last weekend as a surprise. I found the inspiration from a few blogs online.

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Beautiful find! Damon's + Gin = Damson Gin!!

Wow! So a few weeks ago I was walking home from town and spotted what I thought was plum tree, a few moments i realised it was a Damson tree! Jackpot! I took one home to check it with Steve to make sure it was actually a Damson, we came to the conclusion that it was (hopefully!) I went back to the tree and picked as many as I could get. Then decided to make the most easiest and tasty drink! Damson Gin! We haven't opened the bottle yet as we have another 2 months to wait, perfect timing for winter cocktails! Fingers Crossed!

Damson Gin

Ingredients

Large jar or bottle enough to fit in Damsons, must be serialized

Enough Damsons to fill 1/2 the jar
Granulated sugar

Gin

Method

Put all the damsons into your bottle/jar. Pour in enough sugar to totally cover the damsons and give a good shake. Top up to recover the fruits. 

Fill the jar with any gin, I'd advise not to use expensive gin until you have perfected the recipe.

Give a jolly good shake and store in a dark cool place for about 3 months to develop. Keep shaking the jar every week or so to get the sugar dissolved and mixture to even out.

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Cocktail Time!!

Hi everyone I thought I'd make a post of a my current signature cocktail I'm in love with! Especially because the jam is home-made.

Gooseberrytini

Ingredients (makes 1 strong or two weak drinks)

2 shots Gin preferably Bombay Sapphire or Bloom

2 Tablespoons Gooseberry and Ginger Jam

Ginger Ale

Ice

Juice of Lime

Method

Half fill a cocktail shaker with ice, add in the 2 shots of Gin and the Jam. For now squeeze in the juice of 1/2 Lime.

Shake the cocktail for about 30 seconds till blended well.

Taste the mixture to check for sweetness/acidity and adjust to taste.

Pour into a chilled Martini glass or wine glass if you don't have one.

Top up with a small amount of Ginger Ale and enjoy!!

This recipe would be great to adjust! Change the jam to Raspberry, Strawberry or whatever tickles your fancy! Also changing the Gin to Vodka would be fab too!

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Few Bits

OK so I thought id post a few pics of things me and Carly have made in the kitchen over the last few months as we are really getting into cooking, and now making preserves and chutneys :D

Rhubarb Syllabub! This was absolutely delicious! 

Recipe:

Few sticks of Rhubarb cut into small chunks

1-2 pieces of Stem Ginger finely chopped

few tbsp Stem Ginger Syrup

75g Caster Sugar
100ml White Wine

100g Mascarpone

300ml Double Cream

50g Icing Sugar

Put the Rhubarb, Ginger, Caster Sugar and White Wine into a pan. Bring to the boil then simmer till Rhubarb is soft and slightly broken down.
Meanwhile Whisk together the Mascarpone, Cream and Icing Sugar to soft peaks then fold in the Ginger Syrup. 

Let the Rhubarb mixture cool right down in the fridge with the cream mixture for about 30 min to an hour.

To serve use small pretty glasses or bowls and layer the mixtures alternately, then enjoy!! 

Smoked Mackerel and Horseradish Salad

Serves 4

4 Fillets Smoked Mackerel 

1 bag New Potatoes

2-4 tbsp Horseradish (depending how hot you like it)

Juice of 2 Lemons

Tub of Creme Fraiche

1-2 bags of watercress and rocket salad or any salad of your choice.

Boil the New Potatoes in salted water until cooked.

Meanwhile make the dressing by mixing the Creme Fraiche, Horseradish and Lemon juice. Add some black pepper but not any salt as the fish is quite salty and the potatoes have already been seasoned.

Drain the potatoes and set aside to cool for a few minutes. when cooled a little mix in the dressing and flake in the fish (but not the skin). Mix together Gently and serve on the salad leaves.

For an added extra bit of healthyness we added some Tender Stem Broccoli as it needed using up and it worked really well with it. Also a wedge of Lemon for some extra ZING!

Our Home-made Strawberry and Gooseberry Jams :D

Millions of recipes and be found on Google.

I haven't tried any of them yet but Carly has and says the strawberry is yum! Yet to try the Gooseberry which was our first ever jam eeek!

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