Getting creative with 1 of my 5 a day...

Peach and raspberry "coffee" cake

I've had a bit of a fitness burst in the past couple of weeks.  With a three times a week kickboxing purchase off of groupon (I only go 1-2 times), tap class, my normal gym visits, and my 1-2 weekly yoga sessions, my normal 3-4 times per week workouts have been randomly upped to 5-6 since the beginning of July.  This waranted Mama Cupcakes asking me last night if I was "addicted to exercise". I laughed - because of course I'm not.  But then, I gave it a think for more than 2 seconds and realised it's not the exercise I'm addicted to...it's...well...cake.  Linked to the increase in exercise has been an increase in treats coming out of my oven.  I'm not sure whether or not they are directly correlated, but regardless it's probably for the best (the excessive exercise, not cake making).

I really should give more away at work, but with the office running at about 20% capacity (all of Norway and my fellow Norwegian colleagues here in London seem to be off) there's actually just too much cake to go around at the moment.

Last night's cake making was my standard Silver Palate "coffee cake" but with a number of delicious peaches and raspberries added to the mix.  Just after I started making it I realised I was missing a few key ingredients... just shy of the right amount of butter, not enough sugar...I filled in the blanks with a few other ingredients (e.g. brown sugar instead of white) and added 1.5 cups of the fruit to the cake batter resulting in some interesting textures and tastes.  In its virginal Silver Palate state it's a classic but with the adjustments it was part crumb-like and part delicious fruity and moist bread pudding like.  I'm not sure I could repeat in the same exact way again (I didn't measure very much), but I will keep in mind the addition of fresh seasonal fruit. It's a very palatable way to get one of your five a day I say!

Pimm's Cup(cakes)

Candied minted cucumber

Strawberries and Pimm's cream galore

Pimm's cup(cakes) with candied cucumber

What to drink at an English Summer Garden Party? Pimm's Cup (obviously).

As a party snackaroonie - maybe not quite so obvious? Some Pimm's Cup(cakes).

Last week's GP theme was "English Summer Garden Party". With Koko decked out in some festive bunting and many a party goer in their floral finest I was tempted to stick true to the theme and bake something for the gaggle of GP's motley crew of merrymakers.  Strawberries and cream was the obvious answer, but I figured I could do even better than that.

All of my ambitions aside there was a slight snafu earlier in the week.  On Tuesday, as I was mixing away with my hand mixer for a colleague's birthday cake I started to smell something burning.  Next I noticed red sparks that seemed to be going off inside the machine.  Then there were the small flames coming through the vent.  Last stage? Trying to turn it off and failing.  All speed settings (and the off position) were set to "fast."  Thankfully here in the UK our outlets have those little switches that cut off the power like a light switch.  I'm not sure how keen I would have been to frantically pull the plug directly from the wall.

The death of a much used and loved kitchen appliance is a sad day.  If I'm honest with you all though, this was a classic case of kitchen appliance abuse on my part. I took and took and took some more from this little electric hand mixer. It gave with all it's might and I gave it little time for rest in return.  In the end, it was death by cake batter.

I suppose there are worse ways to go.

So, not wanting to disappoint (and loving the idea of playing around with some candied cucumber), I managed to swing by and purchase one Friday after work right before the shops shut.

And here's what I came up with....

Minted candied cucumber

Cut 1/2 an English cucumber into slices about 1/8-1/4 inch thick and cooked them on the stove top in 2 cups of water, 1 cup sugar and a "large handful" of mint cut finely.  The temp was set to low and stirring fairly frequently I let them simmer for about 25 minutes.

After laying them out single file on a silicone baking sheet I placed them in oven set around 175F or 80C and just let them dry out.  In the end it took about 3 hours or so...although they were pretty tasty at 2 hours I was looking for something a bit crispy as opposed to chewy.  Personal preference really.

Pimm's cupcakes

Using my fail proof martha yellow cupcake recipe that's been posted on abiteof before, I replaced 1/3 of one of the cups of buttermilk with Pimm's.  I also always reduce the flour by 1/2 cup and since they don't have cake flour in the UK - just use all regular flour.  Only additional change I might make? Up the Pimm's to at least 1/2 cup - it could have done with a bit more of the flavour in the cake part of the cupcakes. Note: This recipe makes about 36 cupcakes so you may want to halve (or alternatively like me, freeze half of them for a cupcake rainy day).

For the frosting I kept it simple - I didn't want to start faffing around with a buttercream, especially as it's really not my favourite.  I stuck with something easy that I love - whipped cream and berries.  I wasn't sure how alcohol would take to cream, but seeing as I always use a healthy dose of pure vanilla extract when I whip it up anyway, instead I replaced it with about 1/4 cup of Pimm's. I also added about 4 tablespoons powdered sugar.  After whipping it all up until stiff I folded in strawberries and raspberries.  Note: I used about 1.5 cups whipping cream (and it covered 18 of the cupcakes) but you could certainly double everything if you were throwing a super shindig since you have the 36 cupcakes anyway.

For the strawberries I cut up one cup very finely. For the raspberries, I took about 1/2 cup and smooshed them completey with the back of a flat knife.  The raspberries were what gave the frosting the lovely shade of pink while the strawberries were whole enough to get that real strawberries and Pimm's cream feeling.

For assembly I used a pastry bag with a wide tip nozzle (so those pesky strawberries wouldn't get stuck) and added the candied cucumber and mint for that added flare.  

JubilTEA

JubilTEA party

Chocolate and blueberry curd tart

This week was an exciting one.  In the lead up to Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee weekend (hurray for 2 extra days off!) I received my permanent UK residency (after a horrific 6 hour wait at the Croydon Home Office).  Which essentially means, as long as I want the UK - she's stuck with me.  It also means that in 12 months I can get my British Citizenship.  I'll happily be a two passport totin' lady (I'll get to to keep my US citizenship - obvs).


So in an impromptu play on words I invited some friends around on Monday afternoon to celebrate my "britishness" with a JubilTEA.  I did so at 9 pm the night before.  That meant that it was just a few who came around - as well that I had to put some hustle in my bustle if I was going to have any tea-time treats ready by 3 pm the next day.


Now, I know it was really just the thought that counts and I could have just as easily bought some scones and such but well...that simply goes against everything I know.  So without further ado, I whipped up the following that morning / afternoon (I won't lie, I was pooped by the time my friends arrived).  But all of that said, it was a lovely way to celebrate the Jubilee and my new residency status.


Scones - two ways (plain and with sour cherries and white chocolate) modified from Sara Foster's recipe (I reduced butter by 1/4 and flour by 1/5)


Chocolate and blueberry curd tart


Chocolate crust - 1.5 cups ground chocolate wafers mixed with 3/4 stick melted butter, baked at 325/ 165 for 12 minutes.  Let cool.


Blueberry curd - In a saucepan over medium heat add 2 cups blueberries and the zest and juice from 2 lemons. Cook for about 10 minutes until the blueberries are soft and starting to release liquid. Transfer to strainer and using the back of a spoon press juice from all the berries.  Discard any leftover fruit (or like me gobble it up by the mushy spoonful). Place blueberry juice back on stovetop, add 1.5 cups sugar and dissolve.  Add 100 grams butter and stir until completely melted.  Sloooooowly whisk in 3 slightly beaten eggs and continue to stir for about 30 minutes on a med-low heat until thick and curd worthy. Strain again if you so choose.  Let cool and then pour into chocolate crust.


In celebration of Great Britain I decided to decorate my blueberry tart with a union jack.  I hadn't really factored that blueberries are actually purple...so you'll have to forgive the photo above. I piped sweetened whipped cream and used some strategically cut strawberries as well to complete.  Voila!


Banana, peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies


Ok, this flavour combo is more stars and stripes than union jack but even though I do love my adopted country, I am a good American girl through and through.


Now I love peanut butter any which way - and the same can be said for chocolate. Come to think of it - let's throw bananas into this category as well. These cookies are chewy and full of flavour. Oooh lala. These are good.  I'm planning on another batch, this time with candied bacon* pieces mixed in as well. 

2 cups flour

3/4 tspn baking soda

1/4 tspn salt

8 tablespoons melted (and cooled) butter

10 tablespoons melted (and cooled) crunchy peanut butter

1 cuppacked brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 egg

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 ripe bananas, mashed

1 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F / 165 degrees C.

Mix the flour, salt and baking soda and set aside. In another bowl, combine butter and peanut butter and both sugars until combined. Lightly whisk egg and add to wet ingredients along with vanilla. Fold in smooshed bananas and mix until combined. Add in dry ingredients and finally fold in chocolate chips. Eat with fingers.

Oh wait...no...that's just what I did (at first).  If you so choose (you may or may not) continue along...

Spoon out tablespoon balls of dough onto a greased cookie sheet, 2 inches apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until golden. Cool completely. Bottom's up!

*No, not gross.  Expectations for deliciousness exceptionally high with the addition of candied bacon.  Clearly not for the veggies in my life. This one will be for the non-Kosher carnivorous sweet toothers.**


**Never a sentence I imagined needing to write.

Spring (on the inside)

Strawberry shortcake with thai basil cream

SAD = Seasonal Affect Disorder

"Seasonal affective disorder (SAD), also known as winter depression, winter blues, summer depression, summer blues, or seasonal depression, is a mood disorder in which people who have normal mental health throughout most of the year experience depressive symptoms in the winter or summer, spring or autumn."


It's May 20th and I'm still wearing my winter coat. I am still wearing thick black tights to work. My spring / summer clothes are still packed up waiting to be brought to the forefront of my closet. 


This is depressing.


With the weather absolute crap in London (although the long range 10-day forecast does have what appears to be a big yellow circle in the description).  I think it's the sun, but it's been so long since I've seen it one can't really be sure.


With it winter outside I decided to make it spring inside.  The past few weeks I've been buying up as many spring ingredients I could find and cooking away.

• Asparagus every which way (the best way was just steamed, covered in gruyere and baked on buttered brioche)
• Savoury rhubarb and cherry sauce (served with roasted chicken)
• Homemade rhubarb and cherry jam (I bought way too much rhubarb for the chicken)
• Strawberry shortcake with thai basil cream

As you can see from the photo above I keep forgetting to take photos of my cooking.  Pathetic excuse I know. But in actuality, the strawberry shortcake was my favourite of the bunch anyway.

So where did the thai basil come in? 

Saturday I was invited to a dinner party hosted by SA-A - hooray! SA-A and GT had been in Thailand last month and had the opportunity to practice their culinary prowess at a cooking school in Chiang Mai.  They wanted to share (ahem, 'test' things out on a few friends).

When asked what I could bring I was first told that nothing was necessary - food stuff was covered.  But then, well - somehow the possibility of "a second dessert" came up, so we went with that.

Now I didn't get the brief that I needed to bake something Thai, but I figured why not be inspired along with some East Sussex strawberries and see what we could come up with. 

I thought about a few different variations with chocolate perhaps but what I couldn't get out of my mind was how much I love mint and fruit (ala fruity mojitos).  I know that mint and basil are very different but somehow at the time, in my mind - I could use them interchangeably*.  Luckily enough, without a doubt - it worked.  The sweetness of the strawberries and the cream set of the mild bitterness of the basil and gave it that "je ne sais quois".  It gave a traditional strawberry shortcake a "grown-up edge".  

I would have said that generally it would be a dessert for a more mature palate but the next day I received a photo from SA-A.  The lovely hostess had kept the leftovers and brought it to her two young nephews.  The photo? Of one of them gobbling it up with wanton abandon.  

*Note  - my post dinner drink of fresh mint tea will not be replaced with fresh basil tea anytime soon.

One is the loneliest number

Passionfruit Caipirinha Number 1

In 2006 I spent 12 days in Brazil.  It was my first trip to South America and I loved it. Well, most of it.  One thing I never truly got my stomach around? The caiparinha. I tried them every which way - au natural. With strawberries. Even with my beloved maracuja. Nothing worked. Cachaca was not my friend. Just like tequila. 

Fast forward 6 years.  I'm a quasi pseudo proper grown up now and last month had to travel back to Brazil for work. Arriving into Rio de Janeiro Saturday evening to prepare for the week ahead I spent a lovely Sunday doing some work (sat at the roof deck pool of my hotel), popping by Ipanema beach to check out the "sites" and doing a bit of shopping.  As the balmy humid day started to come to a close I remembered all of those futile attempts with the caipirinhas back in 2006 and thought...heck, why not give it another go? You never know right?

Well apparently I have "matured." I have become what I can only describe as - more of an alcoholic -  because quite simply - I loved them.

Here I was, thinking I would just try ONE caipirinha just to confirm my continued dislike...and ended up having not one, not two...but many (as the week progressed and work took over I still managed 1-2 an evening) culminated with arriving at the Rio airport 3 hours too early for check in for my flight back...and consumed three more.  But then I remembered, in the fair words of Three Dog Night - one is the loneliest number. So I was in fact, doing myself a favour cramming in just as many as I could.

Meat-Off

Meat Fest at Salt Lick

Piling it up and pairing it with some local beer.

Was too busy eating to remember to shoot a pic of the food. But basically $50 a person!

A few weeks back I had the pleasure of 72 hours in good ol' Austin, Texas.  Flying over with RL to visit the lovely KC we spent 72 hours drinking, dancing, shopping and eating.  The highlights of the Lone Star State?  George teaching me the 2-step at The Broken Spoke, the "Urban Cowboy" and the meat fest at Salt Lick BBQ.


The following week I was back in the UK and with JB-P in tow we headed out to the relatively new Pitt Cue BBQ in Soho.  I've been complaining for years about the lack of good 'cue in London - and with a lot of hype around this place (and queuing outside for about 2 hours - the place has about 4 tables) I was hoping to get me some seriously tasty meat.


So - in the end how did they stack up?  I've broken it down into a few categories...


Best Meat: Winner - Salt Lick.  Even though Pitt Cue's brisket and pork ribs were super tasty - they paled in comparison to Salt Lick. In particular the brisket - it's the stuff of legend.


Best Sides: Winner - Pit Cue BBQ. Clearly the focus at Salt Lick is on the meat - the sides are standard (basic potato salad, beans, white bread) and play second fiddle. Contrary to this, Pitt Cue puts it's sides at centre stage.  Vinegary slaw and pickles, baked beans with lots of hammy essence, burnt end mash (creamy mashed potatoes topped with crispy ends of the brisket), grilled sourdough. And while waiting at the bar? Deep fried pickled shitake mushrooms. Sounds weird. Tastes phenomenal. Pitt Cue is definitely aiming for the gourmands here.


Best Drinks: Tie. Salt Lick is BYOB which adds to the authentic feel.  Eating some 'cue and drinking local Texas beer - definitely can't be topped.  That said, the yuppy in me can't deny Pitt Cue's great job at the whiskey cocktails.  They mix them up strong and tasty - throwing in egg whites and pickled beet juice where necessary.  Plus the bartender kept giving me samples to try...which means they started to taste even better and better...


Cost: Winner - Salt Lick. It's not even close here.  Salt Lick was "all you can eat" - yes this is partly why everything is bigger in Texas...and even when finished we were given a massive plate to take home.  In contrast, Pitt Cue - adding in the yuppy Soho factor, the bill came out at around 3 times as much as Salt Lick.  That said, until something better comes around -I'll definitely be back when the 'cue craving comes back.

Just bEAT it.

In the past week I've had a slight obsession with cooking beetroot.  Just counting off the top of my head, since Tuesday I've managed 5 meals with it (of 2 variations).  Tuesday I made some roasted beetroot, cauliflower and coriander fritters (not as crispy as I'd like, but still a nice new addition to my favourite food group - the "fried fritter").  This served as a hearty side dish for (count: three nights).  Then Friday - in preparation for the snow I whipped up a beetroot puree and used it as a base added to some home-made pizza dough...and then topped that off with feta, caramelised onions, grilled chicken and broccoli (count: two nights).

That leaves me to an hour ago - about to head downstairs to the gym I did a quick scurry of my fridge to grab anything "past date" to throw in the trash.  That's when I noticed two lonely little beets that had rolled into the back of the fridge.  Sad and with only each other for company - I thought I'd take them out to see if they were in any state for a good scrubbing or if in fact - they were destined for the basement bins.

After giving them a wash and a little squeeze I thought they had just enough life in them left - but what to do?

For one I just peeled and cut into pieces for a bit of roasting alongside my baked sweet potato fries I'd scheduled for tonight's pre-Superbowl festivities.  But the other? This is where things got exciting...

I'd been meaning to use up some dried figs this weekend and figured that what better place than a "healthy" cookie.  Packed with oats (dietary fibre - YAY!), dates (potassium - BOOYAH!), and dark chocolate (an antioxidant POWERHOUSE I say!) I thought that certainly that would balance out the minimal requirements of butter and sugar.  First things first though...was that above mentioned trip to the gym.  That is of course - until I got distracted by that lone last beetroot. Cunning fellow.  Can you see why I love him so much? He artfully manipulates me baking cookies over a visit to the elliptical machine.

Inspired by the last beetroot I decided to whip up these SUPERFOOD cookies (have I convinced you yet?) and set to the task at hand.  After creaming the butter and sugars (brown and granulated), I went to town healthifying these guys up.  In went the fibre, the potassium, and the antioxidant POWERHOUSE... clearly you can see where this is going?

I used that last little beet and grated it up and added it to the cookie dough mixture (IRON, VITAMINS A, B6, C, FOLIC ACID, more FIBRE!). So what that my countertop looked like the forensic site of a mass murder? All in the name of health!

And let's be serious. The best bit? My cookies are PINK!


I can't believe this website exists, but I love it. Just a little sad I didn't come up with it first: http://www.lovebeetroot.co.uk/