THE FIRST STAGE OF MAKING THE CHRISTMAS PUDDING

 

This is a gorgeous Christmas pudding, light in texture and full of Christmas flavour, overloaded with too much brandy, but it is Christmas!

(makes 10 small)
(or 1 large pudding)

Ingredients

225g currants
225g sultanas
175g raisins
50 mixed peel
1 orange zest and juice
3 tbsp milk
100ml brandy
150g self-raising flour
2 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp grated nutmeg
175g butter
150g fresh breadcrumbs
3 medium eggs beaten
150g muscovado sugar

Pre-heat the oven 180 degrees, place all the dried fruits, zest, orange juice, brandy and milk in a bowl and stir well.  In another bowl sieve the flour, spices and a pinch of salt together, leave to one side for a mo while you melt the butter.  Pour the melted butter over the dried fruit mix, stir in and then add the spiced flour mix and mix well, now add the breadcrumbs, eggs, muscovado sugar and mix in well again. 

I like to make 10-12 small puddings so that my husband can have individual portions as he is cake monster lol, even more so at Christmas time!  You can make one beautiful large pudding base pudding, I often do both, so the we have puddings for the Christmas period and a large pudding for the day on the table. 

To cook, I grease and base line the moulds and divide the pudding mix almost to the top of each mould.  I then cover with a folded piece of tin foil with a pleat to allow for expansion and place the small puddings in a roasting tin 3/4 filled with foil and the cover the whole tin with foil and steam for approx one hour until cooked.  If you are making a large pudding, I place the pudding on a upturned side plate in a deep saucepan and fill 2/3 with water and with the lid on steam for approx 3 hours until cooked.  To test if cooked I use the same cake method, insert a skewer and if the skewer comes out clean then the pudding is cooked, tip don't remove the foil top, just pierce through.

Leave to cool and then I like to re-wrap in fresh baking paper and give a good glug of brandy over each pudding,  I keep the puddings in a air tight container and every week I like to add another glug of brandy and turn each pudding over.

 



This is the stage I am at now, I will keep topping up with brandy and turning the puddings so on the big day the are perfect.

On the day I re-heat in the steamer or microwave depending on how much time and cooking space I have!  I love to heat more brandy in a pan and then to serve I take a ladel of the hot brandy and light the ladle and pour over the pudding so it is a proper flaming figgy pudding as that is what we all want on our family Christmas day.  Perfect family time.  Then my dad has to have tons of brandy cream and my husband loves brandy cream and butter and me and my mum have our pudding somewhere in the next week lol!

FABULOUS FUN MINI CHOCOLATE STUFFED SPONGE CAKE

 

Fabulous fun little sponge cake, and so many different flavours to be tried. 

 

(makes 12)

 

Ingredients

4oz butter or stork

4oz caster sugar

4oz self raising flour

2 eggs

150g butter

100g icing sugar (maybe more)

3 tbsp green & blacks cocoa powder

Mini Victoria sponge tin from Lakeland

 

Cream the butter and sugar together until light, pale and creamy.  Add one egg at a time mixing well, I sometimes add a spoon of the flour to stop any curdling, beat well and then slowly fold in the flour and cocoa powder, fill the baking tray 2/3 full in each well.  Bake in a pre-heated oven 180 degrees for approx 15 minutes.

 

Take out and leave to cool.  To make the butter icing filling, beat the butter until soft and fluffy, now slowly beat in the icing sugar and cocoa powder until you have the desired consistency you need to layer in the centre of the mini cakes. 

 

Take the mini sponge cakes and slice in half, fill the bottom layer with thick butter icing and then place the top back on, dust with icing sugar or cocoa powder to finish.

PIRATE CAKE

 

The Pirate Birthday cake for my fabulous son 11 yrs

 

 

Simple moist double chocolate sponge cake, painted with some vanilla icing to help stick the regal fondant icing.

 

This is the very first time I have actually regal iced a cake and it came out prefect, I have learnt to make sure I have double the regal icing I need and not to roll it too thin, as I have done so in the past, and then had to start all over again as the icing breaks and falls off the sides of the cake, and I then get great cake stress and have a perfectionist strop and take the easy route out by making some vanilla butter icing and then ice the cake with that, however I have now leaned how easy this was, just by paying attention and following a better method, in fact it is harder to butter ice a sponge cake as the crumbs of the cake always move and stick to the icing, which in turn then leads me to adding touch up patch up areas, so in short I have been making icing a cake a harder more stressful experience just because I did not think I could regal ice a cake!  So pleased with myself.

 

The top tier, I sat in the front room with a 2kg of white regal icing and a picture of a skull, and just played around, I admit to crushing the made skull three times!  I still think the first one I made was the best, but because of my perfectionist strop I re-molded and this is the finished skull.  I brought some edible paints and some gold leaf for the decoration and for the middle tier a basic double chocolate sponge, regal iced with red regal icing strips.

For the bottom tier, lots of regal icing which I treat like playdo and just play, my fabulous son asked for scenes from his favourite movies Dead Mans Chest and On Stranger Tides, therefore he decided he wanted a pirate ship, the kracken, pirate waves, a treasure map, NO MERMAIDS as he really does not like them and then a pirate skull to finish off the cake.

 



 

Final touches make all the difference so I raided Oscar's treasure chest and used the ruby's and emeralds and diamonds with gold and silver pirate coins around the base.

Ingredients

For a 6" deep tin (top tier)
6oz room temp butter or stork
6oz caster sugar
3 eggs
4oz self raising flour
2oz green & blacks cocoa powder

For a 8" deep tin (base)
12oz room temp butter or stork
12oz caster sugar
6 eggs
9oz self raising flour
3oz green & blacks cocoa powder

Sugar syrup (optional)
3 tbsp sugar
8 tbsp boiling water (mix together)

Regal Icing for this cake
4kg white regal icing
250g brown icing
250g red icing
750g blue icing
250g purple/blue icing

Edible paints
I like to keep in stock red, yellow, brown, black, white, blue and gold.  I also keep some edible glue and glitters in the cupboard too.

To make the wonderful cake batter, beat the butter/stork with and sugar until light and pale in colour, then on a slower beat add the eggs one at a time, sometimes I like to add a tbsp of the flour and cocoa mix after each egg to stop any hint of curdling, then add the remaining flour and cocoa mix and mix gently till all incorporated.

Grease and line your tin completely, pour in the batter and place in a pre-heated oven 200 degrees for approx 1 hr for the  8" tin or until springy to touch and approx 30-40mins for the 6" tin.  I sometimes find I need to put a foil top on the 8" cake as the top starts to catch after 40 minutes.

To see if my cake is cooked, I use the skewer method and place my wooden skewer into the centre of the cake, when it comes out clear I know my cake is cooked, I take the cakes out of the oven and then I like to drizzle the sugar syrup over my cakes to add a bit of moisture back, if the cake is flavoured with lemon or vanilla I would add that flavour also to the sugar syrup.  I then wrap the warm cake tin in clingfilm to hold all the moisture in and leave to cool.   Once cooled turn out and trim the top to make it level, turn upside down and paint with some warm jam or butter icing to help the regal icing stick.

For the icing, I do cheat and I buy the regal icing already made in all the colours I need and I keep in stock edible paint, glitter and gold leaf for decorating.

To regal ice the cake I take more than I think I need and mix all the blocks together, mix 2 x 1kg blocks of white icing for the 8" cake and roll out keeping nice and thick, this is the key to success!  I take the baking tin and lay the icing over the tin to measure if the icing is sheet is big enough, I do not guess this one.  Once the icing is the right size I just lay the centre point over the centre of the cake and let the icing drape down, gently I hug the icing to the base of the cake and then trim leaving a good 1inch diameter which I gently hug and tuck under the base of the cake.

For the red stripes, this was really very simple and quick, roll out the icing and trim 8 finger slices all the same length, place the first stripe on the cake and then have a pair of scissors handy and with each strip you place, you will just need to snip a diagonal off the top to fit the circle it is forming, even though no one will see this as it will be under the skull top tier.

To make the skull I sat in my front room one evening and had a couple of glasses of wine and played, until I had the skull I was happy with, just.  I then painted the skull with the edible paints and left to set overnight.

To make the pirate ship and the kracken I just played with the icing sugar and made the shapes I then  glued them to the waves of the cake.  There was lots of room for many more creatures, but my son did not want them.

I assembled the cake by placing the middle tier on top of the sea kracken scene, and then topped with the pirate skull, I then placed lots of jewelry, silver and gold coins around the base to finish off the cake.

In all a perfect Pirate Cake my son says xxx x x x  That is my Michelin star...

CAPTIAN JACK SPARROW CAME FOR OSCARS 11TH BIRTHDAY PARTY

 

Captain Jack Sparrow, Oscar's scallywag pirate friend came to celebrate at his birthday party

 

 

The Pirate birthday cake

 

 

Fabulous find these cup cake holders

 

 

Excellent pirate balloons

 

 

 

Walk the plank over shark and kracken infested waters, Arrrgh me maties

 

 

Captain Jack walked the plank and there was mutiny at foot when a shipmate scuppered the Captains plank and sent him flying into the Briney blue sea

 

 

Shark bay where you will be made to walk the plank!

 

Captain Jack Sparrow getting to know his new crew and setting them challenges

 

 

Captain Jack Sparrow and Captain Oscar making an accord, Captain Jack said Oscar needs to eat more as all his bones were showing!

 

Oh that is just mean, being blindfolded to walk the plank!

 

 

The Pirate Lesson



 

 

The Pirate lesson, Captain Jack Sparrow took all the young pirates into Oscar's pirate room and they had a lesson on being a pirate, once they had all leaned all of the words like avast, shiver me timbers, booty, looting and splicing the mainbrace they were awarded a pirate certificate which gives each pirate the right to plunder and pillage under the safety of Captain Jack Sparrow

 

 

Treasure hunt now that all Captain Jack's crew had passed their pirate lesson it was off to find some booty and look for clues to find the missing parts of the treasure map.

 

Lets go looting and find this treasure.

 

 

The treasure map before it was hidden with clues to lead you astray.  The final clue being on the back of the whole map once put back together.

 

 

Arrgh the treasure be found, cursed Aztec gold from Cortez.

 

 

Happy Birthday Captain Oscar 

 

 

Captain Jack at the head of the table with Captain Oscar for pirate party tea.

 

Pirate boats for plates, how cool!

 

 

 

In all the very Best Every Pirate party, Captain Jack Sparrow (Melo) was the most fantastic Captain Jack Sparrow and person, we all had an awesome time and Oscar is so pleased that Captain Jack came to his house to celebrate his birthday, The pirate games where fantastic and really good fun made so much more special by Captain Jack whose character remained throughout, with great improvisations including all us adults as well as the children.  Highly recommend Melo, (confuzinJack) for any entertainment venue, just wish we could have kept him.

 

 

 

SHASIMI WILD ALASKAN SALMON, LINE CAUGHT YELLOW FIN TUNA, SQUID AND OCTOPUS SALAD

 

Love assembling this dish, quick and easy non cooking required and virtually no preparation for such a tasty and fresh lunch

 

(serves 2)

Ingredients
4oz fresh tuna, yellow fin if you can find it, finely sliced
4oz wild Alaskan salmon, finely sliced
1 squid cleaned and cut into small rectangles
2 fillets smoked trout
1 cooked baby octopus
1 tube of wasabi paste
1 punnet micro salad

Just assemble the slices of fish on the plate, I like to swirl and curl them, some standing up and some laying down for presentation, with the wasabi you only need a pea size amount per person as it has a cracking kick to it.  Sprinkle the micro salad among the shasimi and enjoy.

MY HUSBANDS TWIST ON THE REUBAN, PASTRAMI CIABATTA

 

 

This is one of my husbands favourite toasted sandwiches, I love making this for him as I love to see him stuff his face and just nod his head and make mmmm, yummy sounds while he devours this sandwich.  That is the whole point of cooking for me.

 

(serves 2)

 

Ingredients

2 ciabatta rolls

4 slices of Swiss or Monterrey Jack cheese

12 slice of fresh deli pastrami or rare beef or corned beef

4 tbsp sauerkraut cabbage, squeezed.

For the Reuben (thousand Island) sauce

4 tbsp mayo

2 tbsp tommy k

A pinch of paprika

1 tsp horseradish

1/2 small onion fine diced or grated

1 dash Worcestershire sauce

1 pinch celery salt (optional)

Salt and pepper to taste

 

Heat a panni grill which is easiest or a plancer or the oven, slice open the cibatta rolls and spread some butter on each side, on the base cover with a ton of the pastrami or beef or corned beef if using, now place the cheese slices followed by the sauerkraut and then on the lid of the ciabatta smother generously with the Reuben sauce, sandwich together and place on your panni press if you have one and cook for 5 minutes until the ciabatta is hot and toasted with the cheese oozing out the sides, if you don't have a panni press use the oven or a flat top plancher and turn over half way, it does exactly the same job but just takes 5 minutes or so longer.

 

Now cut in half and enjoy a fabulous sandwich full of flavour and crunch with a great layer of textures, I never fancied this sandwich, but recently in the USA, my husband had it again and this time I had a bite and was quiet smitten, hence it has recently been a weekly lunch in our household. 

 

 

 



MARINATED LAMB NECK FILLET KEBABS

 

Lamb neck fillet marinated in ooil, oregano, garlic, salt and pepper, pan seared fast to keep the lamb juicy and tender.  Loaded into a large pitta bread with raw onion, lettuce, white cabbage, garlic, Greek pickled chillies, a must have, mayonnaise and chilli sauce.  I love a good homemade kebab I want a messy mouthful so I get hot meat, crunchy onion, crisp salad, a bolt of chilli and creamy garlic mayonnaise with the comfort of the pitta holding all together.

 

LOVE MAKING THIS IN ADVANCE SO THAT ON OUR DATE NIGHT IF WE FANCY A TAKEAWAY WE CAN WITHOUT THE COST AND WITHOUT THE WORRY OF QUALITY

 

( serves 4)

 

Ingredients

4 large pittas or wraps

2 neck fillets trimmed cut into chunks

1 tbsp oregano

1 very lrg pinch of salt

1 lrg pinch white pepper

3 garlic cloves diced

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1 glug ooil

Shredded iceberg lettuce

Sliced raw onion

Shredded white cabbage

12 Greek pickled chilli peppers

4 tbsp garlic mayo

Chilli sauce

 

 

Skewered marinated lamb chunks, makes for quick and easy cooking

 

Fabulous juicy top notch kebab without any concerns of quality, I have been making this for my husband and he is so happy as now we have instant kebabs on demand, and in the freezer.  I portion the meat and make the pittas and freeze them together so when he says he fancies a kebab I can say me too and we have a fairly healthy kebab with fabulous fresh salad and do not feel cheated in anyway, we have all the flavour and full control over the quality, perfect.

BBQ CHICKEN BURRITO WITH HABANERO PICO DE GALLO, SALSA, FRESH GUACAMOLE AND REFRIED BEANS

 

LOVE LOVE LOVE EATING BURRITOS

I WILL NEVER BECOME TIRED OF EATING BURRITOS SUCH A GLORIOUS MOUTHFULL OF FLAVOURS AND SUCH A WIDE VARIATIONS OF FILLINGS

 

(serves 4)

 

Ingredients

 

FOR THE SMOKEY CHARRED SALSA

3 fresh plum tomatoes

1 fresh green jalapeno or chilli

2 cloves of garlic

1 lrg pinch of sea salt

1 pinch ground black pepper

2 tbsp chopped coriander

 

 

TO MAKE THE SALSA

Place the tomatoes, a jalapeno or green chilli and a couple of cloves of garlic, skin on in a hot non stick pan and char the skins.  Remove the garlic skin and place all the ingredients in to a pestle and mortar, you can blend this in a blender but you will not get the same beautiful flavour you get from using a pestle and mortar. 

 

Once you have pounded the tomatoes, chilli and garlic, (skin off), add the coriander and pound until you have a nice salsa, season with salt and pepper to taste.  I like to then heat this salsa up and keep some reserved for the finished dish.

 

 

 



FOR THE BURRITO FILLING

400g left over roast chicken

100g good quality bbq sauce

8 x 10-12"" flour tortilla

200g grated mozzarella and cheddar cheese

1 ice gem leaves separated

200g sour cream

40 slice's of jalapenos peppers

1 tin of re-fried beans

 

TO ASSEMBLE YOUR BURRITO

I find it is much easier to have all the ingredients ready to use, then assembly just takes a couple of seconds to serve which helps keep the burritos hot.

 

Place the chicken and bbq sauce in a pan and gently warm through, keep ticking over until you are ready to use it. 

 

Warm the re-fried beans in a pan with a tbsp of water and bring to simmer then turn down to tick over, add a lrg handful of cheese and stir in well.

 

Place the ice gem leaves on a plate with the jalapenos, put a spoon in the sour cream pot and a spoon

 



TO MAKE THE HABANERO PICO DE GALLO

2 fresh tomatoes de-seeded, fine diced

1 small  onion finely diced

1 habanero chilli finely diced

1 spring onion finely diced

1 bunch fresh coriander rough chopped

1/2 lime juiced

1 pinch sea salt and black pepper

 

Mix all the ingredients together and season with the lime juice, salt and pepper.

 

FOR THE GUACAMOLE

1 ripe hass avocado

1 spring onion

1 bunch fresh coriander

1 pinch sea salt and black pepper

1/2 tomato de-seeded

1 chilli de-seeded

Sea salt and black pepper

 

Place the avocado in the pestle add the rest of the ingredients and pound to a chunky consistency, season to taste.

 

 

TO MAKE THE BURRITO
Heat the tortillas in a warm oven or microwave for a minute or so just to warm them so that they are soft and easy to work with. 

For each burrito, place two flour tortillas 1/3 over lapping on you worktop, spread the re-fried beans in the centre and spread out to the left and right, add some more cheese if you want at this stage.

Now place your bbq chicken on top, followed by the hot smokey salsa, ice gems, jalapenos, habanero pico de gallo, guacamole and finish off with some sour cream.

Now to wrap the burrito, take the side nearest to you and roll over half way and pull back just a little, now take each side and fold in, still holding the ends, place your thumbs behind the side you have already folded and roll over the rest of the filling, lift and place on your plate, finish off with a drizzle of the hot salsa.