Food Olympics

So its been a while but I'm back..
Inspired by a suggestion from a very dear friend to encourage the consumption of a wider variety of foods, I have decided to feed the family foods from around the world during the Olympics and have them give a score for the meal. At the end of the week we are going to have an award ceremony and award Gold, Silver and Bronze.
Tonight is the kids worst nightmare, vegetable curry, dhal and roti - wish me luck!
Recipes and scores to follow...

As fast as Lightning....

So what cake would a four year old boy want?

Lightning McQueen of course...

So its been a while since I last blogged, infact nearly a year but birthday cakes are a reason to blog...
I went with an old faithful recipe from Nigella Lawson, Buttermilk Birthday Cake.


This cake is ideal for any birthday cake you want to make in a special mould as it holds its shape brilliantly, or if you need a firm cake which will hold its shaped.
But you don't have to wait for someone's birthday - it's a great recipe to cook with the kids at any time …
Recipe

Serves 10
250g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp salt

200ml buttermilk (or 75g yogurt mixed with 125ml semi-skinned milk)

125g softened butter, plus extra for greasing
200g caster sugar
3 large free-range eggs
icing sugar and ready-to-roll icing to decorate

(I used double this quantity as I wanted to be sure there was plenty of cake.)
Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas 4. Grease and lined roasting tin.
Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate and salt together. Mix the buttermilk (or yogurt mixture).
Cream the butter and sugar together. Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a little of the flour with the last one. Gradually add the rest of the flour with the buttermilk, one after the other, until thoroughly mixed.

Pour into the tin and bake for about 30 minutes or until well risen and pale golden brown. Loosen the sides of the cake with a round-bladed knife and turn out onto a wire rack to cool.


When cooled you can carve and decorate with ready to roll icing.



I bought pre-coloured red icing as I have never had any luck trying to make red (it always turns out pink!)

For the cake base I decided to do a checkered flag made from black and white icing squares.
It was then just a case of assembling the pieces of cake and covering with butter icing and read to roll icing.

Just add one very excited soon to be four-year old..

Chocolate fudge cookies

Some days only one thing will hit the spot and if thats not on offer, these certainly help...

Be under no illusion though these are certainly not healthy but if you can handle the temptation and eat in moderation, the amount of mental well being these bring, out weighs the calorific content :)

180g / 60z plain chocolate chips

180g / 6oz plain flour

3tbsp cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking powder

120g / 4oz butter

240g / 8oz dark sugar

2 eggs

1tsp vanilla essence

Makes approx 25 biscuits.

Method

1) Set the oven to 180C, melt the plain chocolate

2) Sift together the flour, cocoa and baking powder

3) Beat the butter adb sugar together in a large bowl until creamy and add the eggs and vanilla essence. (if starts to curdle add a heap tablespoon of the flour mixture)

4) Add the melted chocolate and the flour mixure. (Can also add a few white chocolate chips at this point too)

5) Drop a tablespoon of mixture onto a non-stick try about 2" apart abd bake for about 5-10mins.

These have almost a cake like consistency so resist the temptation to overcook them.

Adventures in breadland- part 1

Ok what kind of fool buys a machine to that makes their favourite food? Yep you guessed it.

Well the first attempt with the machine was a hit and I bought it home, eager to test out many recipes and to my disapointment, failed on the next few attempts, producing stodgey, inedible substances, which infact resembled my mum's dreaded bread pudding!

Not to be detered (and out to prove a point that it wasn't a waste of money that will end up in the back of the cupboard), I trawled the internet for failure reasons and a recipe for malt loaf!



Well having sorted out the failure reasons most likely being due to my slap dash additions and not the carefully ordered approach that seems to be required. I measured and waited and waited and added and waited and breathed deeply. The heavenly smell of freshly baked malt loaf was rising from the kitchen.



I used this recipe and added extra raisins and mixed fruit and needless to say didn't wait for it to cool completely before cutting and and smoothering a slice in flora. True heaven. This was why I bought the bloodly thing!



My next exploration was some bread to have with the Jalfrezi I was making (recipe to follow)


Chilli, Coriander and Garlic Bread

150ml (1/4 pt) coconut milk

150ml (1/4 pt) water

3/4 tsp salt

500g (1Ib )strong white bread flour

2 mild green chillies

handful of chopped fresh coriander

large squirt of lazy garlic

Method

If using a bread machine

Add all the ingredients in the order listed to the bread pan, with the exception of the chillies, garlic and coriander.

Fit the pan to the bread machine and close the lid.

Select the BASIC WHITE setting and this will beep after the second mixing for you to add ingredients such as the chillies and coriander. Select a MEDIUM crust .

When the program has finished remove the bread and turn out on a cooling rack. Allow to cool if you can resist temptation.

This has to be the most perfect loaf to date, such a great texture and incredibly tasty!

Look out shops next size up in clothes required!

Bread Maker

Ok, so I've given in to temptation and bought a bread maker and am strangely excited by it. I have to wait until the weekend to try it because its at my mums, but be sure I'll post some recipes on here as I try them out.
Here's hoping it doesn't end up in the back of the cupboard with the toasted sandwich maker !

The (toy) story so far...

So what cake would a three year old boy want?
Well it bl***y better be this one is all I can say!

So at first glance you could be forgiven for thinking I'd spent hours carefully moulding icing into intricate figures but this is a bit of a cheats cake this year, in that I bought the Toy Story mini figures ,

So i decided to take a break from force feeding my kids various vegetables in their cakes and went with an old faithful recipe from Nigella Lawson, Buttermilk Birthday Cake.

This cake is ideal for any birthday cake you want to make in a special mould as it holds its shape brilliantly, or if you need a firm cake which will hold its shaped.
But you don't have to wait for someone's birthday - it's a great recipe to cook with the kids at any time …
Recipe

Serves 10
250g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp salt

200ml buttermilk (or 75g yogurt mixed with 125ml semi-skinned milk)

125g softened butter, plus extra for greasing
200g caster sugar
3 large free-range eggs
icing sugar and ready-to-roll icing to decorate

(I used double this quantity as I wanted to be sure there was plenty of cake.)
Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas 4. Grease and line a 23cm square cake tin.
Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate and salt together. Mix the buttermilk (or yogurt mixture).
Cream the butter and sugar together. Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a little of the flour with the last one. Gradually add the rest of the flour with the buttermilk, one after the other, until thoroughly mixed.

Pour into the tin and bake for about 30 minutes or until well risen and pale golden brown. Loosen the sides of the cake with a round-bladed knife and turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

When cold, drizzle with icing sugar mixed with lemon juice – get the kids to help - and decorate with ready to roll icing.

I bought pre-colour icing too to make the toy blocks.

For the floor I made a fairly thick fondant icing and added food colouring to make a light brown floor colour. I spread it thinly on the cake board and when almost set, scored the lined to make floor boards. After some drying time I painted in-between the floor boards with black food colouring and added some nails.
It was then just a case of assembling the pieces of cake and covering with icing sheets and a duvet.

The head board was made of ginger bread (see below) and cut out using a handmade cardboard template.
Ingredients
350g plain flour
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
100g butter
175g soft brown sugar

1 egg

4 tbsp Golden Syrup

Method: How to make gingerbread

1. Mix together the flour, spices and bicarbonate of soda.
2. Rub in the butter until it looks like breadcrumbs.
3. Add the sugar.
4. In a separate bowl mix together the egg and golden syrup then add to the dry ingredients.
5. Mix together until it forms a dough. Tip out onto a clean, floured work surface and knead for a minute or two until it is smooth.
6. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4.
7. Roll out the dough to the depth of a pencil (approx 5mm) and cut out around the cardboard template.
8. Lay the biscuits on a greased baking tray and bake for 10-15 minutes until golden brown.
If the holes in your cut out have joined together during baking, you can cut them out again using a sharp knife before the gingerbread cools completely.
Store the gingerbread in an airtight container to avoid softening and add to the cake just prior to serving.

Chocolate beetroot muffins

Discovered this recipe a few years back, as I'm not a huge fan of beetroot and was looking for palatable ways of using it up when we got it our veg box. The muffins are surprisingly light and using the beetroot makes such sense as, like carrots, they're a high-sugar root vegetable. It's from Jill Dupleix originally, but I've made a few minor adjustments but I'll give the more standard recipe here.

Preheat the over 180C (or 160C fan). Put 12 paper cases in a muffin tin.

Sift together:
75g cocoa powder
180g plain flour
2 t baking powder
Stir in:
200g caster sugar

With a food processor, blend 250g cooked beetroot until as smooth as possible.
Add:
3 eggs, one at a time
1 t vanilla essence
200ml corn oil

Pour the wet beetroot mix into the dry mix. Mix until smooth and combined.

Divide between the muffin cases and bake for 30 mins.

Cool on a rack, then dust with icing sugar for serving.

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