Mince Pies : 5 Top Tips

I am currently basking in the glory of having made a near perfect batch of mince pies*, so I thought I'd share with you some tips for making them. I blogged the recipe I use last year and the pastry is yet to fail me, which is saying something if you know about my pastry history before that.

1) Make or buy a jar of really good mincemeat
My Mother-in-Law very kindly gives me a jar or two of her homemade mincemeat once a year, which is excellent. If you can, make your own but if don't it is worth buying a good quality homemade mincemeat - farm shops, delis and local farmers markets have lots of choice. Supermarket mincemeat tends to be full of too much sugar,  which means the sugar caramelises in the oven and bubbles over the sides of your pies. And it also makes the pies stick to your tin if you are particularly unlucky.

2) Grate your butter, don't dice. 
This tip works for all pastry and also for crumble, it is so simple but it makes making pastry ten times easier, and keeps the butter cold. Freeze your butter beforehand if you can too as it makes it easier to grate. Another tip I picked up, which was from Mary Berry, is coating the butter in flour makes it easier to grate without getting in a big mess.

3) Thin pastry is better
It makes sense, a big thick lining of pastry is going to take ages to cook and you'll end up with claggy horrible mince pies. A nice thin layer of pastry, about 3-4mm is best for mince pies - that way your mince pies will stay crisp and will bake in 15 minutes.

4) CHILL
It is really important to chill your pastry after you've made it so that it doesn't shrink up or go all melty in the oven. The pastry recipe I use also doesn't contain any liquid but if you find it takes a while to come together a bit of ice cold water won't hurt, but it helps if you chill your pastry down for a bit longer to counteract shrinking/melty pastry. After filling and topping my mince pies I also give them another 15 minutes in the fridge for the same reason.

5) Don't use too much mincemeat
I'm starting to sound a bit mean now, aren't I? It's ok, you can just eat two instead of one. A scant teaspoon of mincemeat is enough, otherwise you'll have mincemeat bubbling over the edges of your pastry and your mince pies will burn on top and probably stick to the tin.

So there you are, happy mince pie making! I made a double batch of dough and the second half is waiting for me in the freezer so I'll be making another batch this weekend.

Merry Christmas!



* They lose marks for not being too pretty, but if it tastes good, who cares?

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Herman Friendship Cake

If you google Herman Friendship Cake it is basically all over the internet, there is even a whole website dedicated to it.  Basically it is a sweet sourdough starter used to make cake, you divide it into 5 portions - make a cake with 1 and distribute the rest to 4 lucky friends. I'd heard of it a while ago and a couple of weeks ago I got my hands on a bubbling pot of Herman starter from Vanessa.

I fed it with milk, sugar and flour, stirred it (not with a metal spoon, very important) and it stunk out the kitchen with yeasty smells for about a week. I've tried sourdough before, and whilst it was successful soon my starter started to smell of paint and it didn't make good bread anymore, so in the bin it went. Maybe my kitchen has the wrong atmosphere?

I wasn't intending on keeping this starter or passing it on as you are meant to (what can I say, I am greedy) - mainly because I'd never remember to feed this little floury pet every few days for the forseeable future. So about 1/3 went into a Herman friendship cake and the rest into a semi-sweet sourdough loaf (which actually didn't come out too well but let's not talk about that...).

I used this recipe here but substituted the oil for cooled melted butter, because you know, butter is better in a cake. I also added four chopped pink lady apples (and a few sliced up on the top) and a generous amount of vanilla extract. The resulting cake is very proper looking - homey, HUGE with a lovely crispy top. Had I had got around to making custard, I'd say it would be great with custard.

The cake has a yeasty taste which isn't as odd as it seems, to me it tastes a bit like a chelsea bun  - which is why I expect the original recipe contains raisins, I think some nuts would be great too.

I now kind of wish I'd saved the starter for more cake, I'll just have to make more friends with Hermans!

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Addicted to Instagram

Amazing doughnut dessert at The Hole in the Wall (doughnuts, ice cream, vanilla cream, cherry chocolate sauce) - oh my.

Miss Sue Flay's Apple Cake at Clandestine Cake Club

My cold/virus saviour - homemade chicken noodle soup

Cafe CouCou (Saffron Walden) - French Onion Soup

Migas - well my not too authentic version, with avocado and lavash bread

I am all too aware that I am neglecting this space at the moment, but I am still, as ever, addicted to Instagram - anything that can make a quick snap of my lunch/dinner/quick snack look better than my photography skills is good! Have been working too much and been ill too much with cold so not much except quick recipes, some treats in my favourite places and nourishing food.

Have got myself a sourdough Herman friendship cake starter, so hoping to be back soon with some more posts about that! Oh and I'm off to Paris in a few weeks, and I am looking forward to some major food tourism - bread mainly. 

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Margarita Cake & Clandestine Cake Club

Another day, another cake club! My favourite cocktail is a margarita, and I didn't have to think hard when asked to make a cocktail inspired cake for the next Clandestine Cake Club. Apart from anything else, I already had triple sec and tequila in my kitchen, all I needed was limes (oh and butter, sugar, flour...) and a spare evening.

I was also particularly excited because last night's cake club was my first as official co host. It was held at the lovely Greens Coffee in Cambourne, and a dozen cakes and guests settled around a long table filled with all kinds of cakes. We were also joined by the lovely Leanne from Cambridge News, more on that in a couple of weeks....

This cake gets all the flavour after baking - the sponge is a simple vanilla with lots of lime zest stirred in. After it comes out the oven a tequila sugar syrup is poured over the cake to soak in whilst it cools. Then it is topped with even more booze - in the form of a tequila, triple sec, lime and cream cheese icing.

Margarita Cake
makes 1 loaf cake

For the cake:
200g unsalted butter, softened
200g golden caster sugar
4 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
zest of 2 limes
200g plain flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder

Preheat your oven to gas mark 4 / 160 c fan / 180 c conventional. Cream together the butter and sugar til light and fluffy. Then add in the eggs one by one til well combined. Add vanilla and lime zest. Add in all the flour and baking powder and gently fold in til just combined. Bake in a lined loaf tin for 25-30 minutes.

Margarita Syrup
2 tablespoons of icing sugar
1 capful of Tequila
1 capful of Triple Sec
juice of 1 lime

Mix all the ingredients together til the sugar is dissolved.
When the cake is cooked, leave in the tin for about 5-10 minutes, then remove and put on a plate. Poke small holes in the cake with a skewer and then evenly pour the syrup over the cake. Leave to cool.

Cream cheese icing
100g cream cheese
25g of butter, softened
1 tablespoon of Tequila
1 tablespoon of Triple Sec
juice of 1 lime
150g - 200g icing sugar

Cream together the butter and the cream cheese, then add in 100g of icing sugar and the spirits and lime. Add in more icing sugar as you combine til you have a thick icing, slightly thicker than custard - you want nice pourable icing. Refrigerate whilst the cake cools.

This cake is best iced just before you serve it - which I didn't think through very well because it meant I had to arrive at cake club with a tub full of it and a spoon ready to ice at the table. Just pour tablespoon fulls of it over the cake in a 'rustic' fashion! If you have some left it will freeze well and you can use it for another cake.

Our next Cambridge Clandestine Cake Club is the 24th November, sign up on the website.

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Benares restaurant, London

 

 I think I've lost count of the amount of times I've seen Atul Kochar on Saturday Kitchen and said 'oh I really want to go to Benares.' Finally last weekend we made it there for our 3rd wedding anniversary. We booked it way back in late August so I've been looking back and forth at the menu for weeks and the anticipation was great.

 We started with little poppadoms with three chutneys - pineapple, tomato (my favourite) and mango & ginger, they were a good introduction to the style of spicing used at Benares, all very well selected, not too hot but with enough to leave you with a slight chilli warmth when you've finished eating.

My started was the 'Mumbai Pizza' - I guess they were trying to be lighthearted with the name but I think it didn't really sell the dish very well! It was tandoori fish kebab (made with the catch of the day which was Hake) on a sundried tomato naan with micro leaves, lovely pink pickled onion and black olives. The olives worked really well, surprisingly so, especially when you added some of the coriander chutney the dish came with. I would have preferred my naan to be a little crispier, the dish had plenty of oil which didn't make it taste oily but it did make the naan a little softer, but not soggy.

Mr had the roasted autumn vegetable pastries with plum chutney, I of course snuck a taste and they were lovely, possibly a little forgettable but I was concentrating on my starter instead!

For main Mr had the cottage cheese and apricot koftas, which came with herb rice and a tomato and fenugreek sauce, I loved these, a really innovative vegetarian main and despite neither of us being that crazy about cottage cheese or apricots, we both thought they were great!

My main was braised lamb neck fillet with masala turnips and a green peppercorn sauce. The lamb was as I'd hoped, super tender and the spices ran all the way through it. I could have broken into the kitchen and taken home a whole pan of it. Something I definitely want to recreate at home. As part of our mains we also got some tandoori bread, onion rice and gorgeous red dahl - all lovely and a nice touch to have something to share on the table which is so much a part of Indian food.

I'd also ordered some Bhel Puri, which is one of my favourite things to eat, but unfortunately it didn't actually turn up and both of us didn't actually realise this til we were half way through our mains so we didn't ask for it. We probably should have done, but given the quality of the restaurant you'd have hoped they would have remembered! Bit of a shame.

Desserts were chocolate mousse (Mr's) which was encased in a chocolate globe with raspberries both fresh and dried with extra chocolate sauce and orange. Mine was spiced poached pear with vanilla custard and some excellent pistachio kulfi. Both beautiful and just the right amount of spicing again without being over the top.

We also ordered tea - a light darjeeling tea for Mr and some masala chai for me, and happily we also received some perfect petit fours - possibly not entirely sticking to the Indian them but they were excellent - cinnamon shortbread (which were a lot like Nankhatai), peanut butter filled chocolate domes and raspberry rice crispie squares. Loved the fun element of the rice crispie squares, the raspberry flavour was really fresh and vivid.

The tea menu was extensive, with 6 darjeeling teas alone, many of which are exclusive to Benares. The masala chai was made traditionally, although with honey not sugar, and everyone knows masala chai needs to have plenty of sugar, but luckily I'd been provided with a little bowl of it - I guess they know too!

Overall the meal was fantastic and memorable, really interesting food which uses traditional recipes and techniques but gives them a bit of a modern / western twist. The service was a little slow at times - they forgot one of our dishes and we had to wait a while for the bill, so something to improve upon given they have a Michelin star.

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Cambridge Clandestine Cake Club - GBBO special!

A couple of weeks ago, on the night of the final of another fantastic series of The Great British Bake Off, the Cambridge Clandestine Cake Club gathered for an evening of GBBO themed cakes and a screening of the show itself.

The fantastic First and Last pub kindly gave us a venue to watch the programme and eat cake, there were 25 cakes in all kinds of flavours - flourless chocolate hazelnut, grapefruit bundt cake, hummingbird cake, orange and almond cake.. the list was indeed endless!

I baked the Apple Pie Cake from Edd Kimber's first book, The Boy Who Bakes - it is a fantastic recipe which makes a rather large cake! It was my first three layer cake - the sponge is light and gently spiced with nutmeg, cinnamon cream cheese frosting between the layers and finally topped with lightly cooked apples and golden spiced caramel.

Watching the bake off in a room full of 25 other keen bakers was brilliant, we shared the tense moments, the oohs and aahs and giggled at Mary Berry's double entendre. I'm really pleased John won too, he was a fantastic baker and learnt so much from the start of the series.

Our cakey evening also featured in Cambridge Evening News, and my silly face got in the paper later that week, along with my cake of course.

Following the cake club evening I'm really pleased to say I've agreed to be Miss Sue Flay's co-host for future Cambridge Clandestine Cake Club's - so watch out for more announcements from both of us about the next bake off - coming very very soon!

Find your nearest cake club on the site: www.clandestinecakeclub.co.uk

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Food photography workshop with Great British Chefs

Last week was social media week in London, due to my exceptional attention to detail (and the fact that I was organising an event during the week for my job) I spotted a really interesting food photography workshop happening as part of it. The workshop, hosted by Great British Chefs at Google's offices featured dishes cooked by Michelin starred chef from Pascal Aussignac and brilliant photography advice from David Griffen.

After a talk from David we were split into groups based on camera and dishes from Pascal were brought out for us to photograph and of course eat! I've posted photos unedited (L) and edited (R) so you can see how they came out and what you can do in post processing to lift your images. Everything was photographed in artificial light, with my Canon Ixus compact camera. I edited the photos in Picasa, mainly just lightening up, highlighting, cropping and a bit of shadow in places.

Glazed butternut squash, balsamic onion and roquefort tart

 Duck carpaccio, sea urchin foam, romanesco cauliflower, lotus root crisp

(this was amazing!)

A dish premiered at the event. Duchess of Marmite - duchess potatoes, marmite sauce, potato crisps.
Quite strong on the marmite taste, even for a lover of marmite like me, but a great idea.

The workshop was really worthwhile for all levels, I found that I was ignoring all the skills I'd learnt about taking pictures of jewellery, they apply to food! Get a cheap £10 reflector (or try foil wrapped around cardboard), get in CLOSE to take your pictures and move the dish around to get the best light on it. I also took a pretty awesome picture of the last dish on my iPhone, you definitely don't need a big fancy SLR to take great pictures, and mobile phone cameras are obviously better to use in restaurants and cafes.

The workshop is held every year so keep an eye on the social media week site next September, and Great British Chefs is also a great site with loads of fantastic recipes and inspiration - from chefs and bloggers.

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