Caramel Apple Crumble with Bourbon vanilla ice cream

The day after halloween always seems to be a little bit of a let down for the hatchlings, and this particular 1st of November, all their activities went wrong as well.

When we finally came home after a long morning of things going wrong, we needed a dinner that felt something special and this was even better than that.

I glazed 12 cox apples, peeled and chopped, in calvados and brown sugar.

I poured the apples into an oven dish and sprinkled with a generous quantity of cinnamon.

Then I topped the apples with some homemade muscavado rum caramel. 

(1 tin of condensed milk, 2tbs muscavado rum, 1tbs brown sugar, 1 tsp vanilla bean paste, 1 tbs butter, bring to a boil for 2minutes)

Then I crushed 8 digestive biscuits and added 3/4 cup rolled oats, and 1/2 cup dried coconut; to this I added 1/4 cup of melted butter, mixed it in and poured it over the caramel.

I put it all in the oven for 30 minutes while our ice cream maker chilled my bourbon vanilla custard into ice cream.

Needless to say, we all felt a lot better afterwards.

Swookies

Best ever swookies (sweets + cookies) 

So, you take 200g butter, 2 eggs, and blend with 200g brown sugar, and a 1tbs vanilla bean paste. Then mix in 200g plain flour. 

Then chop minimum of four chocolate bars, tonight we added 1 kitkat, 1 share bag of rolos, 2 tubes of smarties, a lindt hazelnut bar. All chopped. Mix in chocolate chunks, then mix in another 75g plain four. Bake at 190. Happiness.

Spiced Plum and Port Jam

Lidls has been selling plum at roughly £1 a kilo!

And after our failed rosehip jelly this year, the hatchlings and I needed an easy success to sooth the loss of a dozen hours spent deseeding rosehips.

Today was spent making this:

1kg plums, stones removed, quartered

60ml orange juice

250ml water

1 cinnamon stick, halved

½ tsp cloves

1 star anise

Approx. 1.1kg granulated sugar

125ml port

Combine plums, juice and water in a large pan and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes or until plums are pulpy. Meanwhile, tie the cinnamon, cloves and star anise in muslin.

Using a cup, measure fruit mixture into a large pan – allow a cup of sugar for each cup of fruit mixture. Add the port and muslin bag. Stir over high heat without boiling, until sugar dissolves.

Bring to the boil; boil (uncovered) without stirring for 35 minutes, then test for a set. Test every few minutes until setting point is reached.

Discard muslin bag. Pour into warm, sterilised jars and seal immediately.

Good afternoon (apple cake)

The winds are blowing, and the sound of the rain on the roof is soothing.

Lucky me, I have a big box full of apples.

Which I fully intend to make pies with.

However, this afternnoon felt more cake like than pie.

So I looked up a few recipes.

I have no sour cream for my normal german apple cake recipe, 

and I stumbled upon Mary Berry's aga apple cake recipe.

Oh how I would like an aga, and an apple cake, I thought.

Here is the thing, this aga apple cake recipe was lacklustre!

Hence, I made up my own! 

Sorry, Mary Berry, but seriously, no cinnamon, no brown sugar, no vanilla, or walnuts, and..

So I creamed 5 eggs with 350g of butter, some vanilla bean paste and a heaping tsp of cinnamon, some nutmeg and a tiny dash of mixed spice.

Then I added in 300g of brown sugar, and 100g of caster sugar, 

and when it was mixed in nicely I added 1 tsp baking powder, and 435g of self raising flour.

To this sturdy batter,

I added 200g walnuts, 130g desiccated coconut, 4 large peeled and chopped apples, and an extra sprinkle of cinnamon for good measure.

The schlepped the lot in the oven at 180 until it was cooked through.

It came out lovely, if I do say so myself, though I need not, if I want a piece before the hatchlings demolish the rest. 

Happy Friday afternoon! 

Orange Yogurt Cake

1 cup caster sugar

Zest of 2 oranges, plus juice of 1 orange

3 large free range eggs

250ml oil, I used olive oil

300g natural yoghurt, I used Greek Style

300g self raising flour

Preheat oven to 180C/160C Fan.  Grease and line a 23cm round cake tin.

Place the sugar, zest, eggs, oil, yoghurt and orange juice into a large bowl.  Mix with an electric beater until thoroughly combined.  Measure in the flour and fold through gently until just combined.  

Pour the cake batter into your prepared tin and bake for 50 - 60 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.  Remove from the oven and leave the cake in the tin to cool.  Remove the cake from the tin once cool and dust with icing sugar or spread with icing before serving.

Mini egg rocky road bars

500g Melted dark chocolate

3 tbs butter, melted

8 malterser bunnies, chopped

150g chocolate digestive biscuits, chopped

200g mini marshmallows

400g Cadbury mini eggs

Melt chocolate and butter in a bowl over a pot of water.

Stir in remaing ingredients, saving half the mini eggs for decoration.

Then place in the fridge to set for one hour.

Advent day 12: Edible trees

We decided to try out making chocolate trees,

which came out well; however, our enthusiastically placed decorations meant it could not slot together.

'Oh dear,' hatchling no1 said. 'I suppose we'll just have to eat it and start again.'

The hardships, I tell ya.

Next, we baked a dozen and a half star shaped sugar cookies.

Frosted, stacked and then glittered.

To make a lovely Christmas tree. 

The hatchlings are enthused, they have plans for a whole Christmas forest. 

Our sugar cookie recipe, should you need one can be found here:

http://followingourrainbow.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/advent-day-14-filling-cookie-jar.html

Advent day 5: Gingerbread cupcakes and Salted caramel frosting

Ingredients

• 140g/5oz unsalted butter
• 200g/7oz sugar
• 60g/2¼oz treacle
• 60g/2¼oz golden syrup
• 2 eggs, plus 2 extra yolks
• 300g/10½oz plain flour
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground nutmeg
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 240ml/8½fl oz warm milk
  
  For the icing

• 125g/4½oz white sugar
• 80ml/2½fl oz double cream
• ½ tsp salt(or to taste)
• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
• 160g/5¾oz soft butter
• 200g/7oz icing sugar

Preparation method

1. Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas 5. Line two 12-hole muffin tray with 15 paper cases.
2. Beat the butter and sugar together in a bowl until light and creamy. Beat in the treacle, syrup, eggs and egg yolks until well combined.
3. Sift together the flour, ginger, nutmeg, baking powder and salt. Add half of the flour mixture to the butter mixture, then beat in half of the warm milk. Add the remaining flour mixture and the remaining milk and beat until well combined.
4. Spoon the mixture into the muffin cases and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until well risen and lightly firm to the touch. Remove the cakes from the tin and set aside to cool on a cooling rack.
5. For the salted caramel buttercream, heat the caster sugar and four tablespoons of water in a saucepan over a gentle heat until the sugar has dissolved, then increase the heat and cook the caramel for 2-3 minutes, or until golden and slightly thickened. Remove the pan from the heat immediately and stir in the cream. (CAUTION: the caramel may splutter a little when you add the cream.) Stir in the salt and vanilla and set aside to cool completely.
6. Cream the butter and icing sugar together for at least 4- 5 minutes, then beat in the caramel. When combined pipe or spread the icing over the cup cakes and sprinkle with a little extra sea salt.
7. Decorate the cupcakes with the buttercream.

Advent day 3: Homemade Vanilla Extract

Homemade Vanilla Extract: The Recipe

Ingredients and supplies needed:

1/2 pound vanilla beans
1/2 gallon (1.75 liter) vodka, any inexpensive brand will do (or bourbon, or rum for gluten-free)
sharp paring knife or kitchen scissors
very clean 1/2 gallon jar with lid or two quart jars
place to store
little bottles (if making gifts)

Method:

The ratio of beans to alcohol according to this excellent tutorial is about 8 vanilla beans (1 ounce) for each cup vodka. A half gallon is 8 cups, so that will be your entire half pound (8 ounces) or about 64 beans.

Honestly though, you can use a little less, up to half (32 beans), and still have excellent vanilla. Other sources used 32-40 beans per half gallon.  Frugal and faster. Sounds good! You can also put your jars in the sun on warm days to speed up the extraction.

Make sure your materials, especially the jar for extraction, is as clean as can be (running it through a dishwasher on hot with heated dry should do it). You don’t want to risk weird stuff growing in your vanilla, since it will be sitting at room temperature for perhaps years.

To prepare the beans, you have 3 choices 

Cut the beans lengthwise with a sharp paring knife and scrape out the seeds, using all of the parts in the alcohol.

Snip the beans lengthwise and in half with clean kitchen scissors. 

Just snip the beans into smaller pieces so that they are totally immersed in the vodka and not sticking out the top.

Any of the methods work, but some believe that the more you open up the vanilla beans, the higher quality and flavor your finished product with have.

Seeds and beans all go into the jar; cover with alcohol and shake well.

For the first two weeks, try to remember to shake up your bottles or jars every day. After that, give them a good shake once a week (or whenever you bump into them in the cupboard). 

After about 6 months (or 10 or so, if you’re forgetful like me), just strain out the beans and seeds and store your homemade vanilla extract back in the jars you’ve been keeping it in or pour into dark bottles for gifts. (Really anytime after 3-4 months, you can strain the beans or pour off little bottles for gifts.)

Between the second and sixth month, you can begin to use the extract and simply top off the jar with more vodka as you go, tossing in a few beans if you like as well. It’s not necessary to add vodka, but it extends the quantity of vanilla you can make.

You can also try a second extraction with the same beans, although it might take a little longer to get a nice amber colour.

When you’ve used the beans as much as possible, you can still make vanilla sugar by covering the leftover (already used) beans with sugar, letting it sit and shaking it occasionally for a few weeks.

Pumpkin cheesecake

Today, is our test run for our care package to daddy dragon. 

And I think we have finally settled on a recipe.

We are going to use this one and then tweak accordingly for the one we put in the post on Monday.

http://www.browneyedbaker.com/2010/11/01/pumpkin-cheesecake-recipe/

If you have a favourite pumpkin cheesecake recipe, I'd love to hear it. 

Here's hoping our's turns out half as nice as this one. 

Chocolate bread pudding!

This recipe is a modified version of Delia's, which is absolutely the best winter dessert

In a bowl pour 400ml of double cream, 200g of dark chocolate, 1/3 cup sugar, 3 tbs rum, and 1 tsp vanilla bean paste.

Place the bowl over a pan of simmering water, until it all is melted and combined.

Take off the heat and let cool for five minutes.

Beat 3 eggs, and mix in.

Slice up and remove the crusts from 10 slices of bread.

Pour 1/3 of the chocolate mixture, add a layer of bread, repeat, and top with the rest of the chocolate.

Allow to rest in the fridge for 24 hours.

Bake in a pre - heated 180/350 oven for 35 minutes.

Serve with whipped cream.

YUM!

Advent day 22: Reindeer cupcakes

Reindeer cupcakes, and prepping and delivering turkeys is on the list for today.

The winds have picked up to gale force... perfect weather for prepping turkeys, non?

Our neighbours are stuck out on the mainland, and can not get home, so we are going to brave the winds and get over to feed their pigs.

Lots to do, and not a lot of daylight.

The hatchlings are completely thrilled just a couple more days left!

And tomorrow Strictly finals! 

Advent day 20: Brandy Butter and Chantilly cream

So tasty for topping mince pies and fruit loafs.

1. Cream together 4 onz of butter with 4 one of sifted icing sugar.

2. Add 1 tbs water and 4 tbs of brandy and beat into the butter.

Keep in the fridge.

For the cream

Take 250ml of double cream,

and add

1 tbs honey

4 tbs whiskey

1 tsp vanilla bean paste

then beat until it is smooth and thick.

(Everything is better topped with cream!)

Advent day 14: Filling the cookie jar

Today, we made a simple cookie dough base and turned it into different kinds of cookie. Minimum effort, maximum effect. 

We made a sugar cookie base, and turned one quarter of the dough chocolate by substituting the flour for cocoa, and rolling it flat.

Then hatchling no2 smashed up some candy canes with a rolling pin, and we mixed those into another quarter of the dough.

We laid the candy cane dough over the chocolate dough, and rolled it into a log. Sliced it, and baked it in the oven for 12 minutes. It tastes far better than it looks.

This is a cookie after about 4 minutes out of the oven. These cookies come out soft and squidgy, and then firm up to be soft and chewy.

Then we took another quarter of the dough, and cut it up with cookie cutters.

The remaining hatchlings took their turns to bash up hard boiled sweets.

They put the smashed up candy in the centre of their cookies,

 and we baked them for about 10 minutes.

they came out looking like this,

and are almost see through. (maybe we used a bit more than we needed...)

Then we baked up the middles in little star shapes and filled them with chocolate gnache.

And we still have one quarter of the dough left to roll out for the hatchlings to cut up and decorate with sprinkles tomorrow.

Our base sugar cookie recipe

1 cup softened butter

1 cup sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

3 cups of flour

Divide into quarters and place in the fridge for an hour ahead of rolling out.

This makes about 60 cookies.

Advent day 12: Gingerbread house

I am so pleased with this year's gingerbread house, as we baked it ourselves. I have always been nervous about this and certain it would all fall spectacularly to pieces, but ta - da, It worked! 

The secret seems to be in the icing. I had no idea what to use, and researching it lead me to find the advice is to use 2 egg whites, and 500g of icing sugar. We tried this, and not only does it work, but it is so quick drying and tough that I think it may actually be quite difficult to eat.

The gingerbread recipe was really quite simple too.

We put 250g of butter in a pan on low heat and spooned in 8 tbs of golden syrup.

Then we added 1 cup of dark brown sugar.

We add 1 tsp cinnamon and 3 tsp ground ginger.

Then we sifted in 4 1/2 cups of plain flour and 2 tsp of bicarb of soda. 

We then baked it at 180/350 for about 25 minutes.

and then let it cool.

I'm really pleased about this cost wise. I normally buy a kit for £12 -15 and this came to £4.38. Not bad and it really was easy to do.

Advent day 11: Coconut Snowman cake

The girls have a party today and everyone must bring something, so they are taking this snowman.

My girls are now worrying that everyone will bring snowmen. 

Girls, eh!

Coconut cake 

1/2 cup softened butter

3 eggs

2/3 cup sugar

100ml milk

1 tsp vanilla bean paste

the zest of a lime

1/2 cup coconut

1 1/3 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1. Beat the 5 ingredients together, then mix in the remaining ingredients.

2. Bake in a pre - heated 180/ 350 oven for 18 - 25 minutes depending on your oven and cake tin size.

We doubled the recipe to make two 'snowballs' and the decorated with cream cheese frosting and topped with coconut.

Advent day 9: Homemade Baileys

I am dizzy after having watched the price of Baileys jump up and down each week at the grocery store. 

If the price changes one more time, I think I may explode in frustration.

It is a budgeting nightmare!

If you enjoy Baileys and want to have it at a fraction of the price try this recipe.

Home made Baileys

284 ml single or double cream (we used double)

1 tin sweetened condensed milk

1 1/2 cups Irish Whiskey or your favourite

1 tablespoon of instant coffee (or if you are me, one sachet of Nestle double chocolate mocha)

2 tablespoons of chocolate syrup (I melted down chocolate and stirred in a little hot water. I probably added close to 4 tablespoons...)

1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

I gave it a quick stir, and voila, pretty darn tasty!

If you have pretty jars, it might make a nice gift, otherwise it is supposed to last up to 2 months in the fridge.

Advent day 8: Fudge

Whiskey, Baileys, or Vanilla...

Easy Chocolate Fudge

Put one tin of condensed milking a bowl, 2 tbs of butter, and 400g dark chocolate.

Place bowl over a pan of simmering water until all melted, stir to combine.

Add 100g of icing sugar, and pour into a tray.

Chill until set.

For whiskey or baileys fudge, add 4 tbs of whiskey and 50g of icing sugar only, or omit the icing sugar all together.

We don't add the sugar at all, as we find it too sweet.

Chop and put in cute cellophane bags to give as gifts.

Easy and yummy!

Advent day 6: Gingerbread

Not hard biscuit gingerbread.

Soft, sticky, and moist cake.

1. Put 180g butter, 225g Golden Syrup, 225g Black treacle, and 150g dark brown sugar in a pan on low heat. Stir until combined.

2. Add 1 tsp cinnamon, 2 1/2 tsp ground ginger, 1/2 tsp cloves.

3. In a small bowl whisk 250ml milk with 2 eggs, and add to the syrup mixture.

4. Add 1 heaped tsp of bicarb of soda, and 285g plain flour.

5. Place in a pre - heated oven at 160 for 45minutes.

6. Serve dusted with icing sugar and a large dollop of brandy cream.

Advent day 3: Mince Pies

I don't know about you, but my house smells so much better when I have mince pies in the oven.

This year we tried out a cranberry mince recipe.

It may not be to everyones taste, but the hatchlings and I prefer it to previous attempts. 

It is just right without raisin over load.

I don't feel like parting with £3.50 for tiny pie tins, so I used muffin cups.

They are a little quirky, but absolutely delicious.

Here is our recipe.

80g brown sugar 

125ml of ruby port

300g dried cranberries

75g currants

75g raisins

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp nutmeg

Zest and juice of an orange

50 ml brandy

1 tsp vanilla

2 tbs honey

Gently heat half the port and dissolve in the brown sugar.

Stir in the fruit.

Take off the heat and add all remaining ingredients.

Pour into sterile glass jars and keep in the fridge.

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