SAUSAGE LASAGNE

Nigel Slaters Book 'Eat' is great for quick dinners. I bought a copy for my friend Kate who helps with the baking at Fancy. Kate is always cooking wonderful dinners she spends days cooking and stocking  her giant chest freezer up for days to come. Kate doesn't throw any food away, she freezes bits here and there and uses them up in her cooking. The girls at Fancy always ask with interest "what have you got for dinner today Kate ?" I think Kate should start writing a blog with her recipes and ideas for dinners from the chest freezer.

Kate has cooked many recipes from the 'EAT' book already and she recommended this recipe for Sausage Lasagne, she said it was really good, she cooked it for her sister who then went out that night especially to buy the book to use the recipe.

So here goes I cooked it tonight for dinner it was very easy to put together.

Ingredients (serves 4)

350g Cherry Tomatoes roughly chopped

2 Large Tomatoes Sliced

750g Good Quality Butchers Sausages (peel off their skins)

Lasagne Sheets

250ml Double Cream

Parmesan Cheese grated

1 TBS Dijon Mustard

Set Oven to 200 C
Rub a little olive oil oil around a baking dish add sheets of dried lasagne broken into pieces to make them fit.



Distribute half the chopped cherry tomatoes over the lasagne



Cover with half of the sausage meat





Then another layer of lasagne



the rest of the chopped cherry tomatoes



another layer of lasagne sheets



finish with the other half of the sausage meat



Lay the sliced large tomatoes on top

Stir the dijon mustard into the double cream, season lightly, then pour over the top.



Cover with the grated parmesan.
Bake in oven for 45 minutes



Serve with fresh crusty bread and fresh salad leaves





Next time I cook this dish I will use a larger dish and dot the sausage over in blobs and use more sheets of lasagne !

Kouign-amann BRITISH BAKE OFF TECHNICAL CHALLENGE

Kouign-amann is a Breton cake. It is a round crusty cake, made with bread dough containing layers of butter and sugar folded in, similar in fashion to puff pastry. The resulting cake is slowly baked until the butter puffs up the dough (resulting in the layered aspect of it) and the sugar caramelizes. The name derives from the Breton words for cake ("kouign") and butter ("amann").
On episode 7 of series 5 of The Great British Bake Off the kouign-amann was featured as Paul Hollywood's technical challenge.

Here is the link to the recipe from BBC Good Food kouign a mann recipe
Equipment and preparation: for this recipe you will need a 12-cup muffin tin and a freestanding mixer fitted with a dough hook.

Ingredients
300g strong plain flour, plus extra for dusting
5g fast-action yeast
1 tsp salt
200ml warm water
25g unsalted butter, melted
250g cold unsalted butter, in a block
100g caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling

Preparation method
Put the flour into the bowl of a freestanding mixer fitted with a dough hook. Add the yeast to one side of the bowl and the salt to the other. Add the water and melted butter and mix on a slow speed for two minutes, then on a medium speed for six minutes.

Tip the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and shape into a ball. Put into a lightly oiled bowl. Cover with cling film and leave to rise for one hour.
Sandwich the butter between two sheets of greaseproof paper and bash with a rolling pin, then roll out to a 18cm/7in square. Place in the fridge to keep chilled.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to a 20cm/8in square. 

Place the butter in the centre of the dough diagonally, so that each side of butter faces a corner of the dough. Fold the corners of the dough over the butter to enclose like an envelope.

Roll the dough into a 45x15cm/18x6in rectangle. Fold the bottom third of dough up over the middle, then fold the top third of the dough over. You will now have a sandwich of three layers of butter and three layers of dough. Wrap in cling film and place in the fridge for 30 minutes. This completes one turn.

Repeat this process twice more, so you have completed a total of three turns, chilling the dough for 30 minutes between turns.
Roll the dough into a rectangle as before. Sprinkle the dough with the caster sugar and fold into thirds again. 

Working quickly, roll the dough into a large 40x30cm/16x12in rectangle. Sprinkle the dough with caster sugar and cut the dough into 12 squares.

Grease a 12-cup muffin tin well with oil. Gather the dough squares up by their four corners and place in the muffin tins, pulling the four corners towards the centre of the muffin tin, so that it gathers up like a four-leaf clover. Sprinkle with caster sugar and leave to rise, covered with a clean tea towel, for 30 minutes until slightly puffed up.

Preheat oven to 220C/200C(fan)/425F/Gas 7. Bake the pastries for 30-40 minutes, or until golden-brown. 

Cover with foil halfway through if beginning to brown too much. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for a couple of minutes before turning out onto a wire rack. Be careful not to burn yourself on the caramelised sugar, but don’t leave them to cool for too long, or the caramelised sugar will harden and they will be stuck in the tin.

Serve warm or cold.
They were delicious everyone loved them and were very easy too.

Jam Doughnuts

I have always wanted to make Jam Doughnuts, but have never bothered because I don't own a deep fat fryer.  My dad made doughnuts with me when I was younger he say's he can't remember but I do ! I decided to make these for my youngest son Samuels 10th Birthday for our friends and family.

I ordered a cheap electric fat fryer from Amazon just for these doughnuts it was £19.99, although I will be sending it back as it was not very good.

I decided to use Felicity Cloake's recipe from the guardian, I like her recipes as she tests lots of different recipes and then makes a good one out of them all.  (something I like doing but if someone has already done it then I will go with that).  Felicity's recipe is based on Paul Hollywoods recipe with a few tweaks.

Here is the recipe or the link to the recipe is how to cook perfect jam doughnuts

Makes 6
210g strong white flour, plus extra to dust
7g dried yeast
½ tsp salt
15g caster sugar, plus extra to dust
20g unsalted butter, at room temperature, chopped, plus extra to grease
65ml whole milk, warmed
45ml warm water
1 egg, beaten
2 litres vegetable or sunflower oil, to cook
6 tsp raspberry or strawberry jam

1. Combine the flour, yeast, salt and sugar in a large bowl and mix well. Put the butter into a bowl with the warm milk and water, and stir to melt. Pour this into the mixing bowl, along with the egg, and stir until it comes together into a dough: it should be firm, but soft.

2. Tip on to a lightly floured surface, or into a mixer fitted with a dough hook, and knead until smooth and elastic (about 10 minutes). Put into a lightly greased bowl, cover with a damp tea towel, and leave in a warm place until doubled in size (about an hour).

3. Shape into 6 balls of about 80g each, folding each side tightly into the centre in turn, turning as you go, then turn the ball over and put it on a lightly floured baking tray or board, spacing them well apart. Cover and leave to rise again for 45 minutes.

4. Heat the oil in a large pan or deep-fat fryer to 160C. Cook the doughnuts in 2 batches for about 3 minutes on each side, until golden, then blot with kitchen paper and sprinkle with caster sugar. Allow to cool slightly, then make a small hole in the side of each, and use a piping bag to inject a splodge of jam. Eat immediately, while they're still warm.

My doughnuts looked wonderful when they came out of the fryer, they were golden brown with a white line around the middle just as they should look.

I was so excited whilst waiting for them to cool ready to inject my wild strawberry Bon Mamon Jam.  I took a small knife and pushed down gently to the centre with a wiggle to make a slit, I was so disappointed to see raw dough on then end of my knife !!!!!! They were not properly cooked in the centre.  How was I going to rescue my delightful doughnuts ?? I thought if I refry them the heat will not penetrate the centre before burning the outsides.
Instead I cut them all in half and refried them (even though they had been rolled in sugar). I then pumped jam into them and everyone thought they were wonderful.

My deep fat fryer temperature control was not very accurate, so I will be ordering a better one next time as these doughnuts were delicious and will definitely be making them again.

Prinsesstårta Great British Bake Off Technical Challenge

This Swedish Princess layer cake is pastel green and full of custard, jam, marzipan, and a mound of whipped cream!

This cake was one of the Technical challenges on the Great British Bake Off 2014, I have promised myself to try each challenge and then to sell the result in my Fancy cafe.

Adapted from Mary Berry's Recipe
Preparation method

For the vanilla custard

600ml milk
1 vanilla pod, split in half lengthways and seeded scraped out
6 free-range egg yolks
100g caster sugar
50g cornflour
50g unsalted butter

For the Jam
200g raspberries
175g caster sugar

For the Sponge
5 medium free-range eggs
5 oz caster sugar
2½oz cornflour
2½oz plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
50g butter, melted

Filling & topping
600ml pints double cream
50g dark chocolate (36% cocoa solids), melted

For the Marzipan
400g ground almonds
150g caster sugar
250g icing sugar, plus extra for dusting
2 medium free-range eggs, beaten
1 tsp almond extract
green food colouring paste

1. For the vanilla custard, pour the milk into a pan with the vanilla seeds and vanilla pod and place over a low heat until just simmering. Remove from the heat.
2. In a large bowl, whisk the egg yolks, sugar and cornflour together until pale and creamy.
3. Remove the vanilla pod from the warm milk.
4. Stir the warm milk slowly into the egg mixture. Pour the mixture back into the pan and cook over a low heat for 4-5 minutes, whisking, until the mixture thickens. (It should be very thick.)
5. Remove from the heat and beat in the butter until melted and incorporated. Transfer to a bowl, cover the surface with clingfilm to prevent a skin forming and leave to cool. Set aside to chill in the fridge.

1. For the jam tip the raspberries into a deep saucepan with the sugar and two tablespoons of water. Cook gently over a low heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar is dissolved. Bring the mixture to the boil and boil vigorously for about four minutes, or until the temperature reaches 104C/219F on a sugar thermometer. Transfer to a heatproof bowl and leave to cool completely.

1. For the sponge, preheat the oven to 180C/160C(fan)/Gas 4. Grease and line the base of a 23cm/9in springform tin with baking parchment.
2. Put the eggs and sugar into a large bowl and using an electric mixer, whisk together until the mixture is very pale and thick and the whisk leaves a trail on the surface when lifted. This will take about five minutes.
3. Sift the cornflour, flour and baking powder over the egg mixture and carefully fold in using a large metal spoon. Fold in the melted butter, taking care not to over mix.
4. Pour the mixture into the lined tin and bake for 30-40 minutes until the sponge is golden-brown and has just started to shrink away from the sides of the tin. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool. When cool enough to handle, turn out on to a wire rack to cool completely.

To assemble the cake:

• using a serrated knife, cut the cake horizontally into three even layers. Place one of the sponges onto a serving plate. Spread a very thin layer of custard over the base of the first sponge.
• Spoon a quarter of the custard into a piping bag fitted with a small plain nozzle and pipe a border around the edge of the sponge – this is to contain the jam.
• Spoon the jam over the sponge, and spread evenly within the border.

• In a bowl, whip double cream to firm peaks. Fold half of the whipped cream into the remaining custard.
• Spread 1/3 of the custard cream over the jam.

• Place the second sponge on top and spread the remaining custard cream over.

• Place the third sponge on top. Spoon over the remaining whipped cream covering the sides and smoothing into a small dome shape on the top. Set aside in the fridge for an hour.
• For the marzipan, mix the ground almonds and sugars in a mixer fitted with a dough hook, before adding the eggs and almond extract.
• Knead in the bowl until it forms a stiff dough. Turn out onto a surface dusted with icing sugar. Using a cocktail stick add a tiny amount of green food colouring and knead to an even pastel green colour.

• Roll out the marzipan on a surface lightly dusted with icing sugar, to a 40cm/16in diameter circle, large enough to cover the cake. 
• Lift the marzipan up over the cake and using your hands, shape the marzipan around the sides of the cake to get a smooth finish. Trim any excess.

• Spoon the melted chocolate into a small paper piping bag. Snip off the end and pipe a swirls over the top of the cake.

PINEAPPLE UPSIDE DOWN CAKE

Pineapple Upside Down Cake is my youngest sons favourite pudding, he likes retro cakes & desserts like his dad and grandad !

This cake is traditionally baked in a round tin, but if baked in a square or rectangle tin everyone gets a pineapple ring to themselves.

I adapted this recipe from 'Worlds Best Cakes' By Roger Pizey.  I usually use demerara sugar at the bottom of my tin, this recipe caught my eye as it uses golden syrup instead. This gave the cherries and pineapple a lovely gloss and an extra flavour of syrup steamed sponge.

Ingredients

250g golden syrup

10-12 tinned pineapple rings drained from a tin 

glace cherries

225 g very soft butter

225g caster sugar

6 medium eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

400g plain flour

4 tsp baking powder

120 ml warm full fat milk

• Preheat oven to 175 C
• If using a cake tin 30x23cm grease & line with baking paper (i used a foil tray, no greasing required)
• Pour the golden syrup into the tray and spread all over. (warm syrup is easier)
• Place the pineapple rings in tin with a glace cherry.

• Cream the butter & sugar together until pale, light and fluffy, add the eggs one at a time followed by the vanilla extract. (if mix curdles add a little of the flour)

• Slowly add the flour & baking powder until mixed in.
• Finally add the warm milk and mix gently to a smooth batter with a soft dropping consistency.
• Pour the batter over the pineapple rings and smooth over.
• Bake in the preheated oven for 45 mins or until a cocktail stick inserted into centre comes out clean.
• Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes.
• Turn out onto a wire cooling tray, cut and share.