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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