A 'blue' day for cake bakers?!

I've been asked by a colleague of mine to produce some 50 red velvet cupcakes for her mum's 50th birthday party. Now, these are to be made very soon, and most people would have found the perfect tried and tested recipe before promising such things..I however, am not one of those people. Infact I think I'm one of the most disorganised and last minute people I can think of.
So, thinking I should probably get my arse in gear, decided that I should find a fool proof recipe for the occasion. Step up Nigella Lawson!
Handily, Nigella had a recipe for Red Velvet cupcakes which I have been dying to try so figured I would give it a go.
Whilst browsing the chillers in my local Asda, I stumbled across a product I'd not seen before - Kerrygold 'lighter' butter. It was hard, sold in a foil wrapper, was unsalted, and £1. Well, why not give it a go.
The ingredients list is a little more extravagant (and possibly a bit more worrying) than proper butter, but it'll be these additions that make it lighter I suppose. But you know what, it was a brilliant find. Not only does it behave and taste exactly like butter, but because it's got oil in, it's slightly softer so doesn't take a whole DAY to get to room temperature to cream into a lovely soft mixture. I'd highly recommend giving this stuff a go if you get the chance.
I'm not going to give the recipe out here because well, it's in the Nigella's 'Kitchen', and the only substitutions I made were live yogurt for buttermilk & blue colouring for red (don't ask me why I chose blue!).
The cake was super moist, but not greasy as many oil based red velvet cakes tend to be. It had just the right hint of cocoa flavour. I wasn't too convinced with the buttery cream cheese frosting that Nigella recommends, so I upped the amount of cream cheese as I didn't think the original packed a cheesy enough punch.
Anyway, they were delicious, and I can always say this was all just 'product development'!

Rhubarb Ripple deliciousness

It's April and it's unusually hot. Cupcakes, cake, brownies or cookies just won't cut it...it's ice cream time!
I know there is absolutely no need for an ice-cream maker, but all that faffing with taking the ice cream out of the freezer every few hours or so to beat out all the ice crystals to make it super smooth, takes out all the fun of making it in the first place! So, Nigella has several no-churn ice cream recipes which I'm yet to indulge in, but I'm not entirely convinced as they basically just contain sugar and cream, so I can't help but think it would just be like hard, frozen cream...not at all what I fancied, so I had a looksee on good ol' www.bbcgoodfood.co.uk and came across more no churn recipes which contained condensed milk along with whipped cream which create a smooth, silky and wonderfully creamy mouthfeel, bingo!
The recipe is adapted from the blackcurrant ripple ice cream recipe, as it's not quite summer berry season and thought rhubarb needed to have a look in for a superbly tangy, fruity and aromatic ripple!
So here it is - adapted from www.bbcgoodfood.co.uk

Ingredients

400g Rhubarb (cut into rough chunks)
1 Orange - juice and zest
Zest of 1 lemon
2 tbsp sugar
2/3 tbsp runny honey
1 Vanilla pod (split, with seeds scraped out for later)
600 ml double cream
Tin of condensed milk
Seeds from vanilla pod

Method

• Chuck in the rhubarb, juices and zests, sugar, honey and vanilla pod into a saucepan with a lid, and bring to a simmer until all the rhubarb has broken down into a lovely mush. Taste it to make sure its sweet, but not overly so. You want a nice tart contrast but not mouth puckeringly so!
  
• Once its nice and cooked, you need to separate the juice from the fruit in order to make a lovely thick syrup. Use a sieve to separate, and put the juices back into the pan and boil vigorously until it reduced by about half & nice, thick and syrupy.
• Chill the rhubarb syrup and fruit to room temperature
• Now whip the cream with the vanilla seeds until soft peaks
• Pour in the condensed milk, and whip up again until soft peaks come back!
• Pour half the cream mix into a suitable freezable container, followed by a thick drizzle of the rhubarb
• Pour the rest of the cream over the top, finishing with another thick drizzle of the fruit.
• Use a knife to swirl all the layers together, then pop in the freezer for a cpl hours and serve! Yum.
  

Don't let the meat beat us

I think watching Man V Food continuously on Youtube has had a profound effect on both myself and Steve. So much so, it suddenly feels acceptable to purchase a HUGE 3 Kg piece of pork shoulder, knowing it would just be the two of us enjoying its porky delights!
Yep, watching my new hero, Adam Richman, chomp his way around the States sampling the most grotesquely huge portions of BBQ meat has inspired us to embark on our own supersize feast.
Luckily, Asda had some pretty hefty pieces of British pork shoulder for us to purchase at the time of our visit and we saw this as a sign from the meaty Gods of Gastronomy! So this morning, despite losing a whole hour of sleep (curse you British Summer Time), still in our dressing gowns we started Googling the best way to go about this.
As much as the American's rock their meats, I'm afraid we cannot possibly roast pork without the obligatory thick strips of crispy, crunchy and supremely tasty crackling, hence we thought it better to steer clear of any liquid based marinades. A dry rub it had to be. After a quick read of a couple recipes, the majority of the dry rubs we found contained a mix of smoked paprika, cayenne, mustard powder, salt, pepper, cumin, brown sugar, onion powder and garlic powder. Luckily, the majority of which were already lurking in my spice rack, hurrah!
So the rub we used was pretty much:

Smoked paprika (both hot and sweet varieties)
Cayenne pepper
Mustard Powder
Brown Sugar
Salt
Pepper
Sezchuan Pepper
Fennel Seeds

Rubbed this all over the flesh and sat the meat over a couple cloves of unpeeled garlic.

Now, the method of cooking. However fabulous it would be to BBQ such a hunk of meat, that aint gonna happen in this corner of Doncaster, the oven was the only option. My usual method of cooking roast pork relies on starting the meat off in a searingly hot oven, then turning it down for the majority of the time, then back up for the final 20 mins or so. I've always had mounds of crackling, and super juicy meat using this method so thought, why not!? Had a quick search on www.bbcgoodfood.co.uk for a vague idea for cooking times and temps for a piece of meat of a similar size & came up with approx 30 mins at 220/230 degrees C, then slow and low at 150 degrees C for 6 hours, yep 6 HOURS. After checking with a fork to make sure it's tender and pulls apart easily, we took the beast out of the oven, carefully removed the skin and popped it back in the oven to make some super crispy crackling..oh yes.
Whilst watching MvF, I'd noticed a few of the BBQ places would use a vinegar finishing sauce on the pork to bring out the sweet juiciness of the meat, so I just had to give that a go to. Unfortunately I can't really remember the quantities of ingredients, but it was pretty much:

Equal quantities vinegar to water (about 1/2 a cup of each)
Heaped tsp brown sugar
2 tsp treacle
2 tbsp maple syrup
2 tbsp tomato ketchup
Pinch of dried chilli
generous pinches of smoked paprika and mustard powder
salt & pepper
Dash of A1 steak sauce

Heat all that up until the sugars all dissolved and taste, adjusting if necessary. It needs to be sharp but not too mouth puckering so! Somehow this just emphasized the sweetness of the original marinade and made it even yummier. Dabbed this generously over the pulled meat well before serving so it soaks right in. And that was pretty much it - dished up with baked potato & cheese, salad and gerkins..just.yum.

Super Sour Saturdays

So it's been quite a while since I last posted anything..infact I do believe it may have been about a year since I even touched this thing - not good.
Well, what on earth have I been doing all this time eh? Well, 2 rather important baking developments have emerged during this time..Sourdough Bread and Macarons. Yup, myself and my lovely fella decided to take on two of the biggest challenges ever..and you know what, we SCORED :D
So first up, the sourdough - something we have Mr Fearnley-Whittingstall to thank for! After getting his newest book - "Everyday", and following the associated TV program, feeling inspired and totally fed up of the plastic, mass manufactured, flavourless excuses for bread, we decided to make every effort to never have to buy any of these "loaves" again.
Sourdough looked like the perfect, self-sustaining recipe, and my, did it take some looking after! The thing about sourdough bread is that you don't use any yeast, the bread rises from the natural yeasts to be found in the flour and the air around it. As such, all one needs to begin is some good strong white flour and water, and just 5 mins once a week (once you've got it really going after a week or so of feeding everyday), and you are ready to rock.

So now you have your starter which you can use to make as many loaves as you want! The basic recipe we use to make our mega loaf you see above is:

250g sourdough starter
500g flour (we like a mix of 100g Rye, 400g strong white)
350g tepid water
1 Tbsp oil (we use rapeseed or olive)
Tsp salt (use sea salt please!)

Method

1. Add your flours to the starter, followed by the water and oil
2. Mix thoroughly and leave for 30 mins at room temperature
3. Add the salt & knead, knead, knead! You may find that the dough is super sticky, so just keep gradually adding flour if it feel too moist. Try to keep the dough as wet as possible though because this will make a better loaf once cooked. When it feels nice & springy you're ready to let it rest.
4. Put the dough in a bowl that's been lined with a clean tea towel & very well floured. Very loosely cover & put in a warm place for about 3-4 hours until well risen
5. Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees C, and put a shallow baking tin at the bottom of the oven ready to slosh in some water. Plop the dough onto a baking sheet and slash the top in a cross with a very sharp knife. Tip a glass of water into the hot baking tin that's in the oven then pop your loaf in & bake for about 40 mins or until well browned and the bottom sounds hollow when tapped.

There ya go! Now I won't lie to you - this did take a bit of practice to get it just right, but every imperfect loaf was perfectly edible. It just requires a bit of patience & time but the result is sooo much better than the ready sliced variety!