MaltEaster Bunny Brownies

I have a total weakness for the MaltEaster bunnies that pop up in the shops around Easter time, so naturally I decided to bake them into a brownie! I used a really basic and quick brownie mix here, but feel free to use any brownie recipe as your base. Just push the little chocolate bunnies into the tray about 10 minutes before the end of baking. It's hardly gourmet, but they are great with a cuppa!

(Makes around 20 brownies)

Ingredients:

400g caster sugar
225g melted buter
60g cocoa powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 eggs
225g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large bag of regular Maltesers
3 bags of mini MaltEaster bunnies


1. Preheat oven to 180C.

2. Mix all the ingredients thoroughly in the order listed, apart from the regular Maltesers and MaltEaster bunnies.

3. Add 2/3s of the bag of Maltesers to the mix and gently fold through.

4. Pour the mix into a greased lined baking tray (it should fill a 23x33cm rectangular tray) and smooth out with a spatula. Bake for around 20 mins.

5. Remove from the oven, and push the rest of the Maltesers and MaltEaster bunnies into the brownie crust gently, being careful not to burn yourself.

6. Return to the oven and bake for another 5-10 mins, until just cooked. If you find the top is going too brown, cover with tin foil and continue to bake.

Poires Belle Helene

Poires Belle Helene (or poached pears with chocolate sauce) is a totally indulgent and beautifully simple dessert. We are lucky enough to have a little pear tree in our garden, so when that bears fruit we tend to eat a lot of pear-based dessert like this, as well as pear and almond tart, another family favourite.

You can poach the pears in advance, and then store in the fridge in an airtight container in the sugar syrup for a few days. The cold pears, combined with the hot chocolate sauce is just heaven!

Ingredients:

4 Pears

4oz or 115g golden caster sugar

zest and juice of half a lemon

1 vanilla pod

Chocolate sauce:

150g good quality dark chocolate

100ml double cream
2 table spoons of Poire William liqueur (not essential, but adds a nice dimension to the sauce)

Method:

1. Fill a medium-sized saucepan with just over 1 pint of water. Pour in the golden caster sugar, lemon zest and juice. Slice the vanilla pod lengthways, just to split it open, and add that to the water too. Give it all a stir, and heat until it is nearly simmering, and all the sugar is dissolved.

2. In the meantime, peel the pears, leaving the stalks on. Slice the very bottom of the pears off, to create a firm base on which they can stand upright. 

3. With the sharp end of the peeler (if your peeler has one- if not use an apple corer or a small sharp knife), carefully remove the core of the pears, leaving the stalks on.

4. Place the pears in the saucepan upright, and make sure all the pear flesh is submerged in the liquid (if not, add a splash more water). Poach for 20 mins, or until the pears are soft through. When they are cooked, remove from the heat, and just leave them to cool in the syrup.

5. To make the chocolate sauce, break the chocolate into a heat proof bowl, and add the cream and pear liqueur if you are using it. Place the bowl on top of a saucepan filled with a couple of inches of water. Place on a gentle heat, so that the water is just simmering. Don't allow it to boil, or touch the base of your bowl with the chocolate and cream in it. Stir every now and again, making sure it doesn't catch on the bottom, until your sauce is silky and smooth,

6. To serve, scoop your pears out of the syrup, drain and put in your serving bowl. Pour over the chocolate sauce and serve with vanilla ice cream or cream (or both!).

LEITHS Foodstyling Course session 4 with Katy Greenwood

It's taken me a while to get round to writing this blog post, I've had the busiest few weeks recently, having to reapply and re-interview for my job (it's a long and very boring story- I got it though which is good news), but better late than never!

So our 3rd foodstyling session was with Katy, and it was cake night. Katy gave a few demonstrations of different icing techniques, and showed us how to make the filling look abundant, whilst still creating a nice clean picture. She also showed us ways to cut it, to make a nice clean slice, and some techniques for dribbling icing down the sides of the cake. She said that she particularly likes doing cakes, because you get a bit more freedom and can be more creative with them, which I can understand.

We were then put into groups, and got given a challenge on a piece of paper. My group had to make a 'homely, achievable, women's institute' style cake. It was a lot of fun, and nice to try out some of the techniques she showed us. Here are some photos from the night, enjoy!

Working on our filling- doesn't it look delicious

My groups 'Women's-institute' style Victoria sponge

Pretty tasty looking hey?!

Mastering the controllable-ooze with the filling...

We made a stencil out of strips of baking paper to create this criss-crossed top

One of the other groups 'Afternoon tea' inspired cake- isn't it lovely?

Lovely piping on the Donna Hay inspired cake

I think this was my favourite - the Marks and Spencers cake- I love how clean it is, they piped the icing on beautifully.

All of them together- comparing cakes. (NB this is showing the bad side of our cake- the other side was it's front!)

The Main Event- Goose

This year, it was our turn to cook and host, and we decided on roast goose instead of turkey. We all much prefer the taste, and although it's more expensive, my view is that if you're going to have to spend a lot of money on a big bird anyway, you may as well spend a little bit more and have something you enjoy. 

Serious business- the veg box.

Galloway smoked salmon, soured cream, dill, and caviar blinis to start.

So once we'd worked out cooking arrangements and found a roasting tin big enough to fit the enormous goose, we got cracking. I can't really take credit for this- although it is a family effort on the whole, my mum is the brains behind it all really.

We stuffed our goose with a sausage meat stuffing made with good quality pork sausage meat, onion, mixed herbs, salt & pepper.

To stuff it, you need to loosed the skin first with your hand, then push the stuffing as far up beneath the skin and the meat as possible. It wants to be pushed right up to the neck end of the bird.

Then put a halved onion and halved lemon in the cavity.

Prick the goose skin all over to allow the fat to run out of it. Season all over with salt and pepper, then roast at about 170 degrees. We roasted ours for about 3 hours, but I think most recipes say to cook it for 30 mins per kg. You need to keep basting it, and pour off the excess fat (there will be a lot) as you go- use this for the roast potatoes and parsnips!

Let it rest for a good 30 minutes before serving. Now I'm not saying this is the only way to cook goose, (there are lots of great recipes out there) but it did taste pretty great! It's a delicious meat, and I'd serve it with something a little bit sharp, like red cabbage, to cut through the richness.

What a beauty!

As well as all the standard veg and condiments (roast potatoes, parsnips, brussel sprouts, bread sauce, red cabbage, carrots, gravy), one thing we did have which went down well, was carrots cooked in vegetable stock, and then mashed with a bit of cream, butter, and salt and pepper. A luxurious alternative to straightforward carrots.

Essentials....cooked with bacon.

Christmas time, Sloe Gin and Wine...

So, as we've just had Christmas, what better way to kick of my first blog post than with an insight into how we do Christmas in my family!

This year we've been fairly organised, and back in Autumn, we picked bags and bags of sloes, to make sloe gin. It has apparently been a good year for sloes due to the mild weather, so we picked plenty as you can freeze them for next year too.

They make lovely gifts- use some nice bottles, ribbons, labels etc.

This is the recipe we used:

450g/1lb sloes
225g/8oz caster sugar
1 litre/1¾ pint gin

Firstly, in order to extract the juices from the sloes, you must pierce their skins. A great way to do this is to firstly freeze them in a bag, then when fully frozen, give them a smash with a rolling pin. This will break their skins, without getting juice everywhere, and will also mean you don't have to sit there piercing each individual sloe which can be time consuming.

Then put the prepared sloes in a big seal-able container. Add the sugar and gin and shake well.

You need to store it in a cool, dark place (we put ours in the garage) and shake every day for a week.

After the first week, shake once a week for at least two months.

When you're ready to bottle up, simply strain the sloe gin through muslin into a sterilised bottle. Make sure you get some nice bottles, as it's great to give as present- ebay or amazon is a good place to look, although we found some at our local hardware shop.

Decanting the sloe gin

The final product is fruity and delicious, and the most amazing vibrant colour. It really is very easy, it just takes a bit of planning and organisation. But it's certainly worth it, and it saves you a bit of last minute present panic, knowing you can give people a bottle of this. 

You can serve it as a liqueur after dinner, or add it to a glass of champagne, (apparently called a 'Sloe Royale' or 'Sloe Gin Fizz') to start Christmas off with a bang- it certainly put our family in the party mood pretty quickly!

Enjoying a Sloe Royale overlooking the Scottish hills

We enjoyed ours with some smoked salmon, sour cream and caviar blinis, and smoked salmon on brown bread. Smoked salmon from the Galloway Smokehouse- you won't find any better: http://www.gallowaysmokehouse.co.uk/