Chocolate Hot Cross Bun and Butter Pudding

The We Should Cocoa cooking link-up, hosted this month by Linzi at Lancashire Food, (WSC is the brainchild of Choclette, at Tin and Thyme, who usually hosts the link-up on alternate months) has the seasonal theme of eggs. The challenge of putting eggs and chocolate together isn't difficult, but I wanted to bake something that relied on eggs for it's substance rather than just choosing a cake with the usual eggs in.

As it was a cold weekend I decided to treat us to a hot dessert rather than make a cake, and the proliferation of Hot Cross Buns in the shops in the run-up to Easter gave me the idea of making a bread and butter pudding with them. This fitted in well with the theme of eggs, as egg custard is an essential component, and adding chocolate to B & B pudding didn't seem a step too far!

The most challenging part of the dessert was slicing the buns thinly! I wanted to retain the crosses on the six buns for the top of the pudding, and still slice the remaining bun in half. Once that was done, I sandwiched the bun slices with butter and ginger jam, cut them in half crossways, and packed the little sandwiches into a buttered baking dish, as you would for a regular bread and butter pudding. I then scattered 50g of chopped dried apricots amongst the buns and placed the slices of bun with the crosses flatly on top. Finding the right sized baking dish is quite important here, so that the pudding looks right!

For the custard, I heated 350mls of semi-skimmed milk to about 60C, so that it would melt 50g plain chocolate when it was added. I then poured the chocolate milk onto 3 eggs and 2 tablespoons caster sugar and whisked together to mix evenly and dissolve the sugar. The custard mix was then poured over the buns in the baking dish and left to stand for an hour or so, to let the eggy mixture soak into the bread.

The pudding was baked for 45 minutes at 180C (160C, fan) and then cooled for about 20 minutes before serving.

This was a tasty dessert, with just enough chocolate to compliment the added ingredients and the fruit and spices already in the Hot Cross Buns without overwhelming them and becoming the dominant flavour. Using ginger jam was a good step, as it contained quite large pieces of preserved ginger to add to the bun spice. Unfortunately, it wasn't very pretty to look at, and I was also photographing it in bad light, so you'll just have to believe me that it tasted better than it looked!

Over a Belleau Kitchen, Dom's Simply Eggcellent link-up this month is a celebration of eggs with a focus on seasonal dishes, including those suitable for Easter. As Easter is early this year and it looks as if it might not be good weather, this hot pudding certainly fits the bill.

Chocolate Orange Cheesecake

Although I love a traditional Christmas Pudding, the rest of the family are not so keen - especially the younger generation. For many years our tradition has been something with chocolate for dessert on Christmas Day. This dessert, from the 2015 Christmas (November) issue of Good Food magazine (the only issue I buy now), fit the bill, although the chocolate was very much in a minor role to the deliciously creamy baked orange cheesecake.

This recipe for Chocolate Orange Cheesecake was simple to make. I don't have a large food processor, so made the base by hand - crushing the biscuits with a rolling pin and mixing in the melted butter - and mixed the ingredients for the filling with a hand-held electric mixer, on slow speed. I chopped the chocolate for the topping in a mini-processor - much simpler and faster than grating. The only issue I had was leakage of the very sloppy cheesecake mixture out of my springform tin - I think it's time for a new one, hopefully with a tighter leak-proof fit between sides and base. Fortunately the wrapping of foil which was designed to stop the waterbath water seeping in also contained the mess, and the heat of the waterbath set the cheesecake quickly around the edges to prevent too much loss.

Although no-one wanted to eat much  dessert after Christmas Day dinner, CT and I both tried a small piece. I expected the topping to be difficult to cut, but the chocolate rubble had stayed as such, and hadn't set into a hard layer, as melted chocolate spread on top would have done. An excellent idea which I will remember for the future! In fact it was the base which was hard to get through - after serving two small slices, I realised I hadn't actually cut through the base at all, but had lifted the cheesecake off the biscuit layer! After that was sorted, subsequent slices were easier to serve!

As a baked cheesecake, this was deliciously soft and creamy - only just set, but just right! The orange flavour of the zest and liqueur in the cheesecake mixture shone through, highlighted by the orange flavoured milk chocolate in the topping. Adding a proportion of almondy milk chocolate to the topping added extra crunch and flavour, and the base was thin and crisp. All round, an excellent dessert, and one I will use again.

I promised to mention FB's mincepies in my post. It was her first attempt at making pastry, and an excellent attempt it was too! She used this Mary Berry recipe which added orange zest to the pastry, chopped dried apricots to the mincemeat and topped the pies with grated marzipan. They were really good - tasty adaptations to bought mincemeat to make the pies extra special. My thanks go to her for taking on some of the Christmas cooking.

The use of many eggs in this cheesecake means I can enter it into Belleau Kitchen's Simply Excellent link-up for December. Dom's theme this month is Anything Goes, so I'm expecting to see a lot of Christmas desserts!


Chocolate in the base and topping also makes this cheesecake eligible for this month's We Should Cocoa event, a blog cooking challenge originated by Choclette at Tin and Thyme and hosted this month by Munchies and Munchkins, who has chosen the theme of Christmas.

Almond, Raspberry and Rose Polenta Cake

- both gluten and dairy free

This was my second attempt at this recipe; the first being this cake, where I changed both the nuts and fruit used. The outcome was delicious, but the fruit sank and spoiled the look of the cake. This time, I made even more adaptations (naughty me!) because I wanted the cake to be dairy-free as well as gluten-free, and I also didn't want to use any citrus fruit. While I was making changes, I decided to replace half the polenta with fine cornmeal, to reduce the graininess of the texture

Ingredients
225g dairy-free spread (I used Pure sunflower spread)
225g caster sugar
3 large eggs
60g fine cornmeal (not cornflour)
65g polenta (the instant kind is all I can get)
125g ground almonds
1 teaspoon gluten-free baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon rose water (or more, depending on strength*)
a few drops of almond extract*
50mls water*
200g raspberries

* The rose water, almond extract and water replaces the citrus juice and zest in the original recipe. 50mls is less than the juice of 2 lemons, but I felt the batter was too sloppy the first time I made this cake. 

I only used 1 teaspoon of rose water as the brand I use is quite concentrated. I often see recipes using a lot more, so the strength must vary from brand to brand. I once made the mistake of adding more of the Neilsen-Massey rose water, and the result was inedible because of the overpowering rose flavour.

Method
Grease and line the base of a 23cm springform tin. Pre-heat the oven to 160C.
Cream together the spread and sugar, in a large bowl, until light and fluffy.
In another bowl, mix together the cornmeal, polenta, almonds, baking powder and salt.
Add the rose water and almond extract to the fat and sugar mix, then beat in the eggs, one at a time, adding a tablespoon of the dry ingredients with each egg.
Fold in the rest of the dry ingredients, in portions, alternating with a splodge of the water, until all ingredients are added.
Let the batter stand for 5 minutes (I was distracted by a phone call at this point, and the batter thickened a little while I was away - I think this may be an advantage, so I'll be adding this stage to the recipe in future!).
Spread half the batter in the baking tin, then sprinkle with half the raspberries (I used the small and broken fruit in the middle). Gently spread over the remaining batter, then arrange the rest of the raspberries on top, spacing them evenly.
Bake for 50-60 minutes, until the cake is golden brown and just firm in the centre (I use a colour-changing cake tester, as a probe isn't always reliable when there's fresh fruit in  a cake).
Cool the cake in the tin, and if desired, dust with icing sugar before serving.

I think this cake is one of the best gluten and dairy free cakes I've ever made, and possibly the most delicious seasonal fresh fruit cake I've eaten this summer! That's really saying something, because, as you know, I'm quite critical of my baking and can usually find something wrong.

Unfortunately, I was taking this cake to a friend's house for lunch, and only managed to photograph the cake still in it's baking tin, and the leftovers, so for such a great cake, I'm not showing it at it's best! As you can see, though, the fruit didn't all sink (hooray - main objective achieved!).

The rose flavour was subtle and well balanced against that of the raspberries and almonds. The addition of a few drops of almond extract really brought out the flavour of the nuts - sometimes ground almonds on their own don't have a very strong flavour, which is OK if you're just interested in adding moisture and texture, but not good enough if you want a cake to taste of almonds. The texture was good too - moist, but still quite light, with an even close crumb, and not too gritty from the polenta. I think the only improvement I could make would be to add another 50g of fruit - 200g in such a large cake is quite sparsely distributed.

Late decision - rather than miss the next round of Formula 1 Foods, run by Caroline, from Caroline Makes, because I will be on holiday for most of the first half of September, I will enter this cake. The next F1 GP race takes place in Italy, during the first weekend in September. Almonds and polenta seem to crop up frequently in Italian cake recipes, so this could be said to be an Italian inspired cake, although I'm not sure raspberries and rose flavour really fits the bill! It's this or nothing, Caroline!

Another late decision - as this is by far the best cake I've made for ages, I'm also adding it to the Simply Eggcellent link-up over at Belleau Kitchen. Dom's theme this month is cakes, so I'm looking forward to seeing all the entries and getting some new ideas!

Ham and Courgette Slice

This savoury bake is ideal for summer, especially when the forecast is for weather so hot that you wouldn't want the oven on, and you have enough warning and time to bake ahead. It's also good for when the courgettes are producing fruit faster than you can harvest them, or there's a glut on the market. We're not quite at the over-production stage, but I'm determined not to allow things to get out of hand this year - I don't want any marrows!

My inspiration comes from this recipe on Fig Jam and Lime Cordial, which I've written about before. This time I used two thick slices of smoked ham instead of the bacon, and added a sliced chilli and some shredded sage leaves for extra flavour.

This is what I used, but it seems a very versatile recipe, so a little more or less of any of the flavouring ingredients probably won't make a lot of difference, as long as you keep the batter the same (the eggs, flour and oil). I guess it would also be OK to add things like leftover cooked vegetables to the mixture too, as part of the total weight of vegetables.

300g coarsely grated vegetables (I used roughly 220g courgettes with 80g carrots for colour contrast)
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 red chilli, de-seeded and finely sliced
about a dozen sage leaves, finely shredded
100g grated cheese (I used 60g strong cheddar and 40g parmesan)
100-150g smoked ham, cut into small strips
5 large eggs
125mls light olive oil
130g SR flour
salt and pepper to taste

Just mix everything together, pour into a parchment-lined baking dish (I used a 23cm (9") cast iron pan) and bake in a pre-heated oven at 175C (fan) for around 50 minutes until firm and golden brown. The baking time depends on the depth of mixture which is determined by the size of the dish you use. A 20 x 20cm (8 x 8") square dish would be a similar size - anything smaller will give a deeper mixture which takes longer to cook.

This is best eaten warm or at room temperature. It's probably OK hot too, but I haven't tried that - I'd still let it rest for about 15 minutes after coming out of the oven.

Although this is very similar to a quiche filling, or a frittata, the SR flour makes it a little sturdier, whilst still keeping it light because of the raising agent, and the oil keeps the texture moist. The added bonus over a quiche (besides not making pastry, thus avoiding a soggy bottom) is that the onion doesn't need pre-cooking - any moisture given out during cooking is absorbed by the batter, which doesn't happen with a quiche filling.

I'm sending this to Belleau Kitchen's Simply Eggcellent bloggers' link-up. Dom is allowing us free reign this month saying that 'anything goes'! This dish makes a quick and easy main course, could easily be made vegetarian  and is robust enough to hold up in a lunch box or picnic basket, making it a useful recipe during the holiday season.

Cauliflower, Blue Cheese and Walnut Cake

Last week, the weather suddenly changed from the usual non-descript British summer to a heatwave. A real heatwave too - the temperatures here in East Anglia got over 32C on the hottest day, and there were several days in succession when the temperature was in the high 20s. This played havoc with my eating plans, as we only wanted salad for most of the week, and left me with, amongst other things, a huge cauliflower which wasn't going to last much longer. I needed to make something which would be suitable for hot or cold meals, depending on how the weather changed.

This cauliflower cake was inspired by Yottam Ottolenghi's recipe from Plenty More, which I enjoyed a lot when I made it last year. This time, about the only thing I took from his recipe was the ratio of eggs to flour, and the cooking temperature, but I would never have thought of making this without trying his recipe first.

Ingredients
1 large cauliflower, cut into even sized florets, about 5cm across
120g plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
7 eggs, preferably free-range
3 tablespoons sunflower oil
150g blue cheese (I used Roquefort)
3 spring onions, including green parts - finely chopped
a handful of parsley - finely chopped
50g walnuts - coarsely chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
black pepper to taste
25g parmesan cheese - finely grated

Method
Cook the cauliflower in boiling salted water, for about 8 minutes, until just tender. Drain well and cool.
Preheat the oven to 180C (160C fan), and line a 20cm diameter springform tin with baking parchment (to save heartache later, line the sides as well as the base, even if your tin is non-stick).
Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl, add three of the eggs and mix to a smooth paste, then mix in the other 4 eggs and the sunflower oil. Crumble in the blue cheese, then stir in the walnuts, spring onions, parsley, salt and pepper.
Gently fold in the cooked cauliflower, being careful not to break up the florets too much.
Tip the mixture into the prepared baking tin, trying to get the cauliflower evenly distributed and level in the tin.
Sprinkle the parmesan over the surface, then bake for about 55 minutes, until golden and firm. (If you use a larger tin, as in Ottolenghi's recipe, it takes about 45 minutes to cook, but I liked the idea of a deeper cake)
Best eaten at room temperature, or just a little warmer, but however you intend to eat it, leave it in the tin to cool.

This is more like a tortilla or frittata in texture, than a cake, but the addition of flour and baking powder makes it both lighter and more robust - ideal for food you might want to stand up to the rigours of transporting to a picnic, for example. The addition of blue cheese and walnuts added two strong flavours to the cauliflower, and the walnuts gave a welcome crunch to the texture, The finely chopped spring onions and parsley added attractive flecks of colour to an otherwise plain looking dish.

Over at Belleau Kitchen, this month's theme for Dom's Simply Eggcellent challenge is 'Eggs in the Morning'. While this cauliflower cake might not be most people's idea of a tasty breakfast, it would certainly be good on a brunch menu.

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Gooseberry and Elderflower Cheesecake

While checking around the garden recently, I noticed how quickly the gooseberries were growing. That reminded me that there were still some of last year's gooseberries in the freezer, which ought to be used before this year's excess fruit went in. So when I needed a dessert to take to lunch with friends, something that could be made with frozen gooseberries seemed the best idea.

The biggest problem with taking desserts to other people is carrying them with no damage. It's also a good idea to take something ready to serve, so you're not doing last minute cooking in someone else's kitchen, or taking up oven space at an inconvenient time. A cold dessert, which was not likely to spill while travelling, seemed ideal and I eventually decided on cheesecake. After looking at several very different recipes, I chose a Mary Berry recipe (from her book 'Ultimate Cake Book') for a set gooseberry and elderflower cheesecake using gelatine. A gelatine based cheesecake could be transported still in the springform tin in which it was made, and the sides removed when ready to serve.

I never like to make an untried recipe for other people, so I had a trial run with the cheesecake the weekend before it was needed.

I adapted the recipe slightly so that I could use leaf gelatine, which I find much easier to use than powdered. I also made a few other changes, such as leaving the sugar out of the biscuit base, using the whole 250g tub of cream cheese, rather than having 25g left over, and leaving off the whipped cream decoration, as extra cream didn't seem necessary for the trial run. All I needed to do, to use leaf gelatine, was to soften nine leaves in cold water, then add them to the sieved gooseberries while the purée was still warm.

As with the rhubarb meringue pie I made recently, the addition of cream to the fruit seemed to mute the flavour. It was good, but decidedly 'delicate', and not as sharp as when using gooseberries in a pie or crumble. The crumb base was thin but this was good, as thick bases can be too hard to cut and eat easily. The set cheesecake mixture had bonded with the base well, so there wasn't any danger of things falling apart. The texture was very light and aerated - very mousse-like - so it didn't really seem like eating a cheesecake at all.

Because I was a little worried about the lack of flavour, I decided to make a tangy gooseberry sauce to eat with the cheesecake when I made it the second time, for those who liked the sharpness of gooseberries. I made this by simmering 550g of gooseberries with 80g of sugar until softened. I strained the juices back into the pan and reduced them by about half, until syrupy, while I sieved the cooked gooseberries to remove the pips. The concentrated juices were stirred back into the purée - more sugar could be added at this stage, to taste, but I decided to leave the sauce quite sharp.

By the time I made the second cheesecake, the elderflowers were almost out, so I decorated the cheesecake with small sprigs of flower buds and gooseberry leaves, rather than whipped cream, and served it with creme fraiche. Unfortunately, as I had to leave it in the springform tin for transportation, I couldn't get a good photo of the second cheesecake.

As the mousse-like texture of this cheesecake relies on beaten egg whites, I'm entering this into Belleau Kitchen's Simply Eggcellent bloggers link-up for June, which is for recipes where free-range eggs feature heavily. Dom hasn't set a theme for this month - anything goes - but a light cheesecake with seasonal fruit is perfect for this time of year.

Cheddar and Jalapeno Cornbread,

made with Quark.

I love the AlphaBakes challenge, where we are asked to cook something using a randomly chosen letter of the alphabet, as either the starting letter of a principle ingredient (eg B for bacon), or as part of the name of the dish (eg B for Battenburg Cake). Admittedly, some letters of the alphabet prove more difficult than others, but that's all part of the fun.

Last time the letter Q came around I made a cake using quinoa, which had a fairly unpleasant texture and didn't go on my list of things worth making again; this time I intended to play it safer with a quiche. Except every time I suggested quiche for dinner, my husband vetoed the idea, so I had to think again. Quark seemed the next best idea, and while searching for recipes I came across this cornbread recipe from The Fabulous Baker Brothers.

This is a luxury version of cornbread, compared to recipes I've tried before. It contains lots of cheese, sweetcorn kernels, onion and jalapeno peppers for flavour, and uses quark instead of the sour cream or buttermilk more usually found in cornbread recipes.

This was a straightforward recipe to follow, but my batter was very dry and I needed to add a few tablespoons of milk to give a stiff dropping consistency. The cooked cornbread was quite dry and crumbly, so it wouldn't have hurt to make the batter a little sloppier. The cornbread also took a lot longer to cook than the 40 minutes the recipe suggested - I think mine was in the oven for a touch over an hour!

We both really liked this - it was very cheesey, and well spiced with the jalapenos, which I had chopped quite finely. Most cornbread recipes contain a proportion of wheat flour, which I think lightens the sponge texture; this one was all cornmeal, and also contained coarsely puréed sweetcorn kernels, so it was quite dense. It definitely needed more liquid in the batter though, to reduce the crumbliness a little.

We ate the cornbread, still warm, with a spicy ratatouille. The following night we ate it with a pork and bean chilli, but after two meals I'd only used half the cornbread, so I had to freeze the rest. I hope it doesn't become even more crumbly in the freezer.

This cornbread also fits the brief for Dom's Simply Eggcellent challenge over at Belleau Kitchen. This month he wanted our savoury recipes using eggs. While eggs are not the principle ingredient of a cornbread, it's almost impossible to make any sort of cake without eggs, so I think it's OK to submit this recipe.








AlphaBakes is co-hosted by Ros, at The More Than Occasional Baker and Caroline, at Caroline Makes. This month's challenge, using the letter Q, is hosted by Ros, who will be posting a round-up of entries at the end of the month.

Chocolate Cheesecake

An Easter Eggstravaganza!

Easter wouldn't be Easter, in this household, without chocolate. Not Easter Eggs though - our children quickly caught on that you didn't get much chocolate for your money in an Easter Egg, so our tradition became a Terry's chocolate orange (or something similar) and a chocolate dessert for the weekend. Now that they are adults we've stopped buying chocolate presents, but the tradition of a chocolate dessert lingers on.

I decided on a baked cheesecake because it's fairly light on added sugar, compared to some of the desserts I could have chosen. I picked this recipe from Good Food, because it sounded quite light (despite some of the reviews claiming it was too rich!). The recipe uses cocoa and relatively small amount of plain chocolate to get a good flavour, rather than a lot of chocolate.

As usual, I only used the recipe as a guide to the correct quantities for the cheesecake mixture. I introduced a hint of nuts by adding finely chopped toasted hazelnuts to the biscuit base, and Amaretto liqueur to the cheesecake mix instead of a coffee liqueur. I also used plain chocolate instead of one with coffee flavour.

The base was made from 170g of chocolate and oat biscuits from IKEA, 50g toasted hazelnuts and 60g butter. I reduced the butter a little from the usual 50% of the weight of biscuit because I wasn't sure how absorbent the biscuits would be, and I didn't want the base to be too heavy - I prefer a slightly crumbly base rather than one which is dense and crisp. I followed the recipe for the cheesecake mixture as far as quantities of ingredients were concerned, just making the changes I've already mentioned.

I was rather concerned about how liquid my cheesecake mixture was - the recipe said to smooth the top after pouring it onto the base, but my mixture flowed like custard and certainly didn't need any help from me to become smooth and level. Perhaps because of this, the cheesecake took a little longer to cook than stated in the recipe. It also cracked badly, with one deep crack going right down to the base (which explains why there's no photograph of the whole cheesecake!). When cold, I decorated the top with a drizzle of plain chocolate, rather than the cream and chocolate sauce suggested in the recipe. I thought it better to serve cream as an optional extra, rather than force everyone to eat some.

Although I'd expected this cheesecake to be light, it was very different in texture to what I had hoped for. It was more like a set cheesecake or a mousse than other baked cheesecakes I've made. It still tasted good though, which is the main consideration. The hint of nuttiness was just right, and the chocolate flavour was strong enough without being too rich at the end of a meal.

I didn't really manage to get any good photographs after the cheesecake was cut. By the following morning the remnants were a bit worse for wear  - the chocolate topping was a bit weepy, and the cheesecake was crumbly to cut straight from the fridge. I think this bottom photo shows the texture quite well, despite all that.

I'm entering this cheesecake into the April 'Simply Eggcellent' link-up set by Dom (of Belleau Kitchen); with due consideration for our priorities at Easter, his theme for this month is chocolate.

Jammy Bread and Butter Pudding

As a cake and dessert maker, a lot of what I make contains eggs - cakes, tray bakes, brownies, cookies, mousses and cheesecakes. They are indispensable for perfect results, and often the most nutritious part of many recipes. So I'm happy to join in with Belleau Kitchen's new blogger link-up - Simply Eggcellent - which celebrates the versatility of eggs.

Bread and Butter Pudding is made from bread soaked in a simple egg custard - usually just eggs and milk or cream, and maybe some sugar. The fun comes with the extras that can be added - dried and fresh fruit, chocolate, alcohol, preserves, nuts and spices.

This Jammy Bread and Butter Pudding was a spur of the moment dessert, to use up the end of a stonebaked sourdough baguette and the last of a carton of sour cream. I decided to keep things simple and use gooseberry jam to provide the main flavour, some sultanas for juicy fruit chewiness and a little nutmeg to spice it up a little.

I sliced the bread thinly and made jam sandwiches, which I fitted into a small ovenproof dish, interspersed with a handful of sultanas. The baguette was quite thin, making it impossible to remove the crusts, so I arranged the bread with the crusts uppermost, so that they would make a crisp topping after cooking.

I was only making two portions, with about 100g of bread, so a custard made from one large free-range egg, 50ml sour cream and 150g milk was sufficient. I didn't add any extra sugar to the custard as the jam was going to provide a lot of sweetness.

I poured the egg mixture over the bread and left the dish to stand for about an hour before baking, to allow the custard to soak into the bread. Before baking I sprinkled the top of the pudding with Demerara sugar and a grating of nutmeg. I baked the pudding in a bain marie, at 180C for 45 minutes.

Using jam to flavour this bread and butter pudding worked very well; together with the sultanas and sugar topping it was plenty sweet enough. The custard soaked bread was light and moist, with a lovely crisp crunchy topping made from the crusts on the slices of bread and the sugar.

As usual, it isn't good for food photography to take something out of the oven at 6pm, and need to get it photographed before it's eaten a few minutes later, so I apologise for the strange colour!

You can read all about Simply Eggcellent on the link above. I look forward to seeing how Dom, at Belleau Kitchen, develops the core theme of eggs over the coming months.