Raspberries

I'm fast becoming convinced that my favourite part of our garden is the fruit. I love reaching that time of the year when you get a complete glut of one thing or another. The effort required to sustain them - pruning the trees, or tying up bushes, is minimal compared to the potential rewards.

At the moment this joy is coming from the raspberry canes as we go out every few days and collect another tub-full. Mostly we're just eating them, often with ice-cream. So good. There really is very little to beat soft fruit fresh from outside.

The hens, of course, would heartily agree. They are complete gluttons over all things fruity and always hang around while we're picking in case any manky bits get thrown their direction for them to fight over.

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Weeds or um, harvest?

I was really hoping that this would be a finished bathroom post, but a kerfuffle with the flooring means its still not quite finished - though a lot closer than last weekend. Instead we've been getting on with other things, including returning our conservatory to a dining room rather than a workshop - removing large quantities of dust as we went. Happy days!

Joe recently inherited some demijohn's from a friend who no longer had use for them and has been contemplating thoughts of homebrew ever since.  When he came home from work one day recently to find me tackling the stinging nettles that were threatening to take over part of our veggie patch it all seemed simple... nettle wine!

So he popped the nettles along with some sultanas, sugar and yeast into a brewing bucket and left it to fester on the kitchen side for 9 days the result at the end of which was this...

...which has since sat on the side for another week or so. It has clarified a lot in that time which makes a huge difference to how drinkable it looks but it has another few months sitting to do before the final verdict!

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A Charity Shop Find

A couple of weeks ago we were at a wedding, and found ourselves wandering the streets of Wells between the service and the party in the evening. Not one to resist a charity shop we popped into an Oxfam book shop and left again 10 mins later with a copy of 365 Reasons to Sit Down and Eat for the princely sum of £2.99. It's a recipe for every day of the year, some interesting, some intriguing
and some downright odd!

We certainly wouldn't religiously follow it every day - it would produce the most random of menus - and the first recipe we've tried was from September. (Yes, we were feeling rebellious that day, why do you ask?) It was a hit though - gnocchi with mushrooms in a white wine sauce. We were after a quick meal at the end of a day of DIY, so bought the gnocchi and just made the sauce to go with it. Not the healthiest of meals, but certainly rather tasty.

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In My Kitchen: Trying Something New

Joe and I are definitely creatures of habit. We love to cook and experiment - Joe's entries for the Great Swift Bake Off could be taken as proof of that - but when it comes to our everyday dinner we end up eating the same things over and over again. They're good things, we're not denying that; actually, it depends on your definition of good. All are tasty, not all are healthy!

This year we've decided we're going to cook more new recipes (note that: we are going to cook more new recipes). In January we managed that three times, enjoying spanish meatballs, Thai prawn, ginger and spring onion stir-fry and spiced chicken, roasted pepper and hummus flatbread wraps.

The meatballs were a definite hit. I always like the thought of meatballs in a rich tomato sauce, but often find the result a bit dry and bland. The use of the olives in these, along with a packet of well seasoned crackers instead of breadcrumbs (though not M&S for us) meant that they were neither. Hopefully these might make a regular feature. Unfortunately we weren't quick enough with the photos for this one.

The stir-fry wasn't quite such a success, though was better on the second night when the marinade had time to sit for a while so that might be the answer.The prawns themselves had good punch of flavour which promised well. the rest just needs a little tweaking to help it along.

As always we employed our bread machine to take care of the mixing and kneading with the flatbreads needed for our final recipe. We left the dough to prove for a couple of hours as Rosie recommends before ignoring her instructions and rolling them out with a rolling pin! We also added a tin of chickpeas to the chicken and peppers to be roasted off in the oven which works well. The only thing that could have improved this recipe would have been fresh summer salad leaves - but that simply means we'll be giving it another go in a few months.

Linking in with In My Kitchen run by Celia at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial. 

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Kitchen Gadget 11. Non-stick Sheets

A long time ago, back when this Kitchen Gadgets series was in its infancy, we talked about pizza. We mentioned in passing that we use non-stick sheets to stop our pizza sticking to its baking tray. It might have been a fleeting reference but the truth is that we have a growing collection of these sheets and we love them. We use them nigh on constantly.

You might then ask why it has taken us so long to give them a post of their own. The truth is that we use them in so many small little ways that it's been hard to think of a recipe to give you that highlights just how useful they are.

You see we baked biscuits on them and popped one in our roasting tin for sweet buns. We've used them for breadsticks and for collecting fresh pasta. The more I looked them more I saw them lurking in the background of bake after bake, blog post after blog post, they are the unsung heroes in our kitchen.

So, here's just one more recipe that we use a non-stick sheet for: Stollen.

Stollen
This is Joe's modified version of Delia's stollen recipe. We use our bread machine to make the dough and then plait the stollen and marzipan into three strands as this disperses the marzipan throughout the stollen - not just in the middle. Unorthodox, but tasty!

7g Dried Yeast
350g Strong White Bread Flour
50g Caster Sugar
1/4tsp Salt
110g Butter
1 Egg
150ml Milk
Zest of 1/2 Lemon

200g Dried Fruit and Nuts, approximately (use what you have around):
 - 100g Sultanas
 - 25g Glace Cherries
 - 25g Mixed Peel
 - 25g Apricots
 - 25g Flaked Almonds

200g Marzipan


1. Put all the ingredients, minus the fruit/nuts and the marzipan, in a bread machine on a dough cycle. Once finished mix in the fruit/nuts.

2. Split the dough into three equal pieces and then roll these into three sausages of equal length and thicknesses.

3. Flatten the sausages and tweak if needed to make them the same.

4. Roll out lengths of marzipan approximately a fingers width in diameter and lay them along your dough stopping 5cm short of each end.

5. Wrap each length of dough around the marzipan to re-form them into sausages.

6. Plait the three strands taking care not to stretch the dough as you do so (it will want to stretch!). Once you've finished plaiting tuck the ends of the plait under and transfer to baking sheet lined with a non-stick sheet.

Ours turned out to be a little long for the tray...

7. Leave to rise again (until doubled in size if you can be that patient).

8. Bake at 170C fan for around 30mins or until the top is golden and the bread sounds cooked (hollow when tapped - normal bread making rules apply).

9. Transfer the stollen on its non-stick sheet to a wire rack and allow to cool.

10. Once cool turn over and the sheet should just peel away.

11. Enjoy with a cup of tea!

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Chocolate and Salted Caramel Swiss Roll by Mel

Today's post comes to you from a bit of a time warp. Due to crossing the international date line on an overnight flight we're skipping the 17th September this year and going straight from Tuesday in Canada to Thursday in New Zealand. Strange!

Since we've temporarily ceased to exist we've got the first of our guest posts for you today. Over to Mel:

You will by now be very familiar with the Great Swift Bake-Off, but as Joe stated in his first Bake-Off post, he got the idea from a friend who’d done something similar. Well, that’s me. In a much less organised manner, I and my friend and colleague Nikki vie for ‘Queen of the Cake-Off’ on an approximately monthly basis. So far we've covered ginger cake, lemon drizzle, Halloween, brownies, cupcakes and an Easter spectacular, plus a few more - we've reached about 10 now. This week it was Swiss rolls; inspired by the Great British Bake-Off the other week I went for a Chocolate and Salted Caramel swiss roll, I can’t take credit for the recipe I’m afraid, but here it is:

Chocolate and Salted Caramel Swiss roll

For the cake mix:

• 4 eggs, separated into whites and yolks
• 70g icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste (or extract)
• 80g plain flour
• 20g cocoa
• 1 tsp baking powder

For the salted caramel:

• 80g light brown muscovado sugar
• 25g butter
• 1 tsp water
• 100ml double cream
• 1 pinch flaked sea salt

For the butter cream:

• 200g unsalted butter
• 350g icing sugar
• 100ml of the cooled salted caramel sauce

Apologies for my photography skills, I’m not as kitted up camera wise as Jenny and Joe!

Start by whisking the egg whites to stiff peaks – using a gadget always works best for me, hand whisking is too much hard work. I've been given a tip that it’s best to do this in a glass bowl rather than plastic, as plastic can retain some greasiness, even after washing, which will prevent the whites from whisking well, so I always whisk eggs in glass.

Once you've got stiff peaks whisk in the sugar then gradually combine in the egg whites whilst still whisking, add the vanilla essence at this stage too.

Sieve the dry ingredients over the egg mixture and gently fold it in, trying to keep as much air as possible in the eggs. The air makes the sponge stay nice and light, and less like a pancake . . . more on that later.

  

Gently pour the mixture into a lined, greased tin ~21x31cm, and even the mixture out by tipping the tray and gently smoothing with a spatula, do not bang it, all the air will disappear! Approximately 8 minutes in the oven (175C for fan oven (190C non fan/gas mark 5 1/2)) and you will end up with a nice springy sponge, slightly pulling away from the edges of the tin.

Whilst the sponge is still hot, spread a piece of greaseproof on a clean work surface, tip the sponge straight out on top and peel off any lining paper you used. For a nice tight roll, use a knife (doesn’t need to be a sharp one) to score a line along the short edge about a centimetre in and about half the depth of the sponge.

  

Use the greaseproof to grip the hot sponge as you tightly roll it up, the sugar now stuck to the outside will help it come apart again later, but if you try to roll it cold you tend to end up with massive cracks. Leave it to cool.

Meanwhile:

  

Melt together the sugar, butter and water to make the caramel. Swirl it rather than stirring, otherwise you’ll probably end up with crystals instead of caramel. After bubbling for a few minutes, take it off the heat and whisk in the cream and the pinch of salt (I used ground, not flaked, don’t think it ought to make a difference really). Again, leave to cool.

Meanwhile some more:

Beat the (room temperature) butter to soften it, and then gradually beat in the icing sugar and ¾ of the caramel sauce. It gets quite stiff once you’ve added all the icing sugar, but eases off a bit once you add the caramel.

  

I piped my buttercream, filling the bag a little at a time so that it doesn’t get too warm from my hands, and using a star piping nozzle makes for nice patterns later. And here the humble water glass, essential to filling a piping bag, and not making a mess once it’s filled . . . 

  

Unroll the sponge roll and pipe/spread some of the buttercream across the surface, then roll tightly. You don’t need to pipe perfectly to the edges, the buttercream spreads to the ends as you roll it tight.

  

First to admit I’m rubbish at piping, but here’s my attempt at a nice smooth covering, with nice arty ridges created by the star shaped nozzle. Drizzle with the remaining caramel sauce and voila, an iced chocolate and salted caramel swiss roll, fit for a Queen of cakes.

Yes, I won. Unfortunately Nikki’s recipe stated whisking the eggs whole, rather than whites separately, which meant almost no volume to her sponge . . . so it ended up a bit like a rolled up pancake. But she’s not the only one to make that mistake, I attempted a Slimming world friendly Chocolate and strawberry roulade earlier in the weekend, and also ended up with a slightly pancakey sponge. Tasty though, and much less guilt eating it!

---

Mel is an Electronic Engineer living in Stevenage. She designs and tests motor control circuits at work, but like to fill her spare time with activities like baking, knitting, cross stitch or just hanging out with her pair of house bunnies. She met Jen on the first day of university, when they found themselves sitting together in an introduction session, having unconsciously grouped together as some of the few female engineers in the room!

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Photo Friday - Duchess Bake Shop, Edmonton

We happened to be walking past one of the best bakeries in Canada this week and... 

Well it would be rude not to sample the produce! Pain Au Chocolat for a second breakfast from Duchess Bake Shop, Edmonton.

P.s. Don't forget you can stay up to date with our travels at http://twitter.com/urban__cottage 

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Kitchen Gadget 8. Thermometer

Being scientists at heart we love lots of gadgets that make cooking more predictable, and this is definitely one of them. The food thermometer. Again, a very simple piece of kit, we bought ours from ebay for the princely sum of £3 and it gets used several times a week, though often this is as an upgrade to the little finger method of testing our reheated dinner is hot enough. It's been called in to service for everything from sugar syrups and caramels to checking BBQ food is safe and meats are cooked to perfection.

As an aside; when we're on our own we tend to cook enough for four people and eat the same thing for two nights. An odd habit but we've found it tends to be a little cheaper and means we only cook from scratch every other day - we both work full time and as much as we love cooking we also like getting home and not having to cook. Popping something in the oven to warm up is therefore an everyday occurrence (no microwave - about the only gadget we don't own).

Back to the topic at hand; on occasion we use our thermometer for slightly more technical things than reheats. This week we had roast pork and did just that.

Roasting with a Thermometer

Temperature has a very predictable effect on meat, be it a joint, fillet, or whole bird and you can use this knowledge to aid you in your cooking. Knowing the temperature of the centre of your meat will tell you all you need to know about its current state and should mean that you can go through the whole cooking process without needing to cut it open and check the colour.

The same temperatures apply to all meats - though what is considered a safe temperature varies. There are many references to what each temperature means for the proteins in the meat you are cooking, and we won't attempt to match that level of detail here - instead, we've put together a quick guide to the temperatures we refer to most.

McGee on Food and Cooking by Harold McGee has plenty to say on the subject!

How well done is my red meat?
55C - Medium Rare
60C - Medium
70C - Well Done
90C - Falling apart
Don't forget that these are the maximum temperatures in the middle - a big roast will climb a few degrees whilst resting (up to 10 for a particularly large joint) so if you want your roast beef perfectly cooked pull it out a few degrees early.

What's safe for other meats?
60-70C will kill most bacteria depending on how long the meat is held at that temperature, but over 65 is a safe bet. You also need to make sure you are measuring the thickest part of the meat - the outer section will be much hotter but it is the minimum temperature in the meat that matters. 90C in the middle will have it falling to pieces so long as it is still moist - 90C and baked dry will be like leather!

What does the Food Standards Agency have to say about this?
If we have any doubt about the quality of the meat we always go for food standards agency levels. Sausages, regular burgers, reheating things that have been in the fridge too long etc all get this treatment. I'm sure many chefs would point out that the best ways of cooking things wouldn't always hit these guidelines though! They recommend achieving one of 60C for 45 mins, 65C for 10 mins, 70C for 2 mins, 75C for 30secs or 80C for 6s.

We work on the 80C and it's dead rule - gives a bit of leeway for error of temperature reading. It is also a great target for most BBQ foods - its surprising how paranoid we have become about burning our sausages and chicken to a crisp before declaring it cooked but a quick stabbing with the temperature probe can ensure the food comes off cooked but still juicy and tender.


Roast Pork

The joint was seasoned and sat in an oven at 180C. After around 45mins it registered 49C, not cooked yet.

40mins later it had reached 72C. This is now cooked and safe to eat but not quite what we were aiming for on this occasion.

Finally we reached 88C - plenty enough to clear 90C after resting. This joint could bake to falling apart temperature as it had a good layer of fat on it to keep it moist.  After being covered in foil for 15 mins it was ready for carving. Being only a small joint 15 minutes was plenty of resting time and allowed it to rise the last couple of degrees. We tend to leave big joints 20-30 minutes to rest.

Perfect.

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Elderflower Champagne the Second

Our elderflower champagne has been quietly brewing for the last six weeks and has turned out very tasty - if a little syrupy. It did an excellent job in helping us to celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary last weekend with most of those fine people who were willing to be bridesmaids and ushers for us at the time.

We also had five dessert courses - because that's what every fifth anniversary needs, don't you think? Unfortunately we were bad bloggers and took hardly any photos so you'll have to imagine the de-constructed trifle, tripolino, lemon sorbet, chocolate mousse and fresh berry pavlova. Sorry!

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Elderflower Champagne

On such a beautiful sunny weekend it seemed a shame not to get out into the hills around us. It was too warm to go hiking far though so instead we decided to go for more of a stroll and do some foraging. We returned home with a bag of elderflower heads ready for turning into elderflower champagne.

A lot of the best heads were out of reach for me - so I left Joe to it and took charge of the camera instead!

To make Elderflower Champagne you will need:

1 UK Gallon of Water

1.5 lbs Sugar

2 Tbsp's White Wine Vinegar

2 Lemons (sliced)

6 Elderflower heads

Start by boiling the water, sugar and vinegar to dissolve the sugar and to sterilise it all. Leave this to cool until blood temperature.

Just the task for our large grocers scales

While waiting for the liquid to cool remove the elderflowers from the stalks. Some stalk is okay as you will strain this later - but get rid of most of it.

Once the liquid has cooled add the lemons and the elderflowers and leave to steep for 3 days.

Once the three days is up strain the liquid and decant into bottles or a brewing barrel and leave to ferment for 6 weeks. Leave some space at the top for the gasses to expand.

And that's all there is to it. Joe decanted ours into a barrel last night, and we'll have to hope it works because Joe never does things by halves. 

Yes, that's nearly five gallons of elderflower champagne!

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