Hello!

I'm just posting this little note to let you know that I'm taking a break from blogging for a month or two. I know I've worried when friends blogs have been static for a few weeks. Hope to be back in October.

Hope everyone enjoys the rest of their Summer and Autumn when it comes.

Best Wishes KJxx

Filbert Gateau with Praline Buttercream – July 2008 Daring Baker

I used some of the leftover praline to decorate the plate
It’s that time of month again - Daring Baker time. This month sees a challenge set by the lovely Chris of Melle Cote. It’s a mutli layered cake with seven different parts, making up the one big gateau. It hails from Great Cakes by Carol Walter, a book full of, well great cakes!
The cakes
The various elements of the hazelnut gateau were a Filbert Genoise – light and airy hazelnut sponge, a Sugar Syrup for soaking the sponge, Praline Buttercream for which you needed to combine a Swiss Buttercream and a Praline Paste, finally there was an Apricot Glaze and a Ganache Glaze to finish it all off.

Hazelnuts and caramel, ready to be ground
I usually multi task quite efficiently, but this time blips were coming at me think and fast. I take full responsibility, I guess it’s possible my brain might just be in overload currently.

The cake in it's dinner jacket of chocolate
First there was the sugar syrup, which I didn’t read correctly and instead of ¼ cup of sugar and 1 cup of water I used 1 cup sugar and ¼ cup water. It was close to being soft ball in consistency, and I melted my favourite plastic measuring spoon. I would add that I moulded it back the best I could, seeing as it was so floppy, and it’s worked a bit, but it will never be quite the same again, what a silly goose I am. Never mind I made a new batch with the correct measurements. Next I layered the cakes with the praline buttercream and when I got to the top realise that the sugar syrup with rum added was still in the fridge. I remedied it the best I could by placing the cake on a serving stand with a lip and dousing the top then placing spoonfulls of the syrup on the stand and tilting it until the syrup disappeared into the sponge. The third and final mishap was when I was piping the buttercream onto the top of the cake, when my piping bag burst on top of the shiny chocolate! I thought well the top won’t be quite what it was but I get a plastic food bag and use that, it burst too, so I just blobbed on little dollops and also round the base of the cake. When I cleaned the nozzle I found a bit a praline the bad been to big, blocked to nozzle and had therefore made the bag burst.
I’m actually feeling quite lucky that it turned out even halfway decent, I guess the moral of this story is don’t attempt too much if you are overloaded already! It was fun though, and the cake was good, even better with some double cream on the side.

A really messy cake! I just couldn't recover the spodged on top!!
Thanks Chris for a great challenge. Visit the Daring Baker Blogroll to see some more great filbert cakes.

Fantastico Modern Italian Food

Tiramisu
This book I’m posting about today was published last year, but I only bought it a few weeks ago, and have been cooking steadily from it since.

Italian Shepherd’s Pie
Fantastico Modern Italian Food by Gino D’Acampo, is just what it’s title says, Gino’s mantra seems to be ‘minimum effort, maximum satisfaction’ and it does seem to be very fitting, but when the recipes are fast the ingredients have to be top notch. This is fine by me searching out good food is one of a food lovers joys, and searching for them in Italian delicatessens is right up my street, but I digress.

Apple and Pine Nut Cake with Honey-Marscapone
I’ve cooked five of Gino’s recipes and here they are three mains and two puddings. Savoury first, the first was a recipe I saw him cook on TV, when he was a guest chef on Market Kitchen, he made Italian Shepherd’s Pie, which is a mince and tomato basil flavoured base topped with cheesy sweet potato mash and sprinkled with more Parmesan to finish. Really delicious.

Pasta with Ham and Mushrooms in Cream
It led me onto Pasta with Ham and Mushrooms in Cream, and then Sausage, Bean and Olive Casserole which was so very good.

Sausage, Bean and Olive Casserole
The two sweet dishes were his Tiramisu and an Apple and Pine Nut Cake with Honey-Marscapone. Both were lovely, the Tiramisu was flavoured with Amaretto,

Tiramisu
light and creamy, mmm. The cake was very unusual and a recipe given to Gino by his Mother-In-Law, which he left unchanged out of respect to her, my little one was wild for the mascarpone cream in particular, we liked it all =)
He has a new book out this year which I’ve pre-ordered on the basis of this one, looking forward to it already.
Click on these links for the recipes for Tiramisu, Italian Shepherd’s Pie , Sausage, Bean and Olive Casserole

Cooking up Some Barefoot Contessa!

I’ve visited a few of Ina Garten’s cookbooks before on my blog, but Ina’s books could never be a one recipe wonder, well not in my house anyway. We have eaten many great meals courtesy of Ina, and although I sometimes drift away from the Barefoot Contessa books, I always find my way back again.

UKTV Food channel in the UK has been showing Ina’s TV programmes for a while now, and I do like to watch her shows. I know from comments I’ve read on foodie forums that I frequent that Ina is either a like her or loathe her kind of woman, I like her a lot!

The most frequent question I get in relation to Ina is which book should I buy first? It’s a hard question, and one that I can’t really answer as I like them all; but this is not very helpful, so what I tend to say is I started with the first cookbook – The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook and followed with the second Barefoot Contessa Parties! And have pre-ordered the rest as they came out. She has a new one out later this year – Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics for anyone interested.

Here is a selection of the most recent Ina recipes I’ve tried - all delicious.

Ina’s Creme Brulee from Barefoot in Paris, I’ve made this a couple of times and I played around with it a bit, half milk and half double (heavy) cream is my preferance. Recipe Here.

This is an absolute must try! Curried Couscous from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook. I found it hard to stop eating this – and believe me I never thought I’d say that about couscous =) Recipe Here.

Lemon Chicken

Lemon Chicken with Satay Sauce both from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, a terrific combination, her satay sauce is lovely, a bit thicker than many I’ve made before but packed full of flavour. Recipe Here.

A family supper, Mac and Cheese from Barefoot Contessa Family Style, makes a huge amount! Recipe Here.

Asian Salmon, Vegetable tian and sauteed sweetcorn from Barefoot Contessa Parties! (salmon and Corn) and vegetable tian from Barefoot in Paris, a really great Summer supper. Recipe Here, and Here and Here.

Pear, Apple and Cranberry Crisp a gorgeous crisp from Ina’s most recent book – Barefoot Contessa at Home. There is plenty fruit and loads of topping, mmmm. Recipe Here.

No Daring Baker Challenge

Sorry I just didn't manage it this month, but do click on my Daring Baker blogroll link, and see many lovely Danish braids.

Apple Blondies with Brown Sugar Frosting

I saw these blondies on a blog, and just had to buy the book… It’s an Canadian baking book called Bars & Squares by Jill Snider. This book is choc-a-bloc with delicious sounding and great looking baked goods, like blueberry cheesecake bars, coconut chocolate caramel squares and amazing Amaretto brownies.

It was really the frosting that had propelled me kitchen ward, but after I made them it was the fabulous apple blondies that were the star. The frosting gilded the lily, but the brownies could easily stand alone, the apple-y taste was just wonderful! They were even better second day, the frosting settled down and blended with the blondies better, well in my view anyway =)

Thank you to Maria of The Goddesses Kitchen for making the blondies first - see here - and putting me in touch with a new book!

My notes are that I just sifted the icing sugar straight into the pan, see method and I got 24 good sized squares.

Apple Blondies with Brown Sugar Frosting
From Bars & Squares by Jill Snider

Blondies:
2/3 cup butter, softened
2 cups brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
Pinch salt
1 cup peeled chopped apples
3/4 cup chopped walnuts

Brown Sugar Frosting:
4 oz ½ cup butter
1 cup brown sugar, packed
¼ cup milk
2 cups icing (confectioner's) sugar, sifted

Blondies:
Lina a 13 x 9 inch baking tin with baking parchment. Set oven to180oC / 350oF.
In a large bowl, using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat butter, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla until thick and smooth, about 3 minutes. Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add to butter mixture on low speed, mixing until blended. Stir in apples and nuts, mixing well. Spread evenly in the prepared tin and bake until set and golden, 25-30 minutes. Let cool completely in pan on rack.
Brown Sugar Frosting:
In a small saucepan over low heat, melt butter. Stir in brown sugar and milk. Bring mixture just to a boil then remove from heat and let cool to lukewarm. Sift in the confectioner's sugar, mixing until smooth. Spread evenly over bar. Let stand until frosting is firm enough to cut. Cut into bars or squares.

More Nigella Express

57 Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge Sundae Sauce

I haven’t done a Nigella Express post for a while, but I’m still cooking, often repeat recipes that I’ve already blogeged about, but here is the next round up.

As always (for anybody new) this is a sort of mini project I gave myself to cook a good number of dishes from Nigella Express by Nigella Lawson. The numbers in front of the recipe titles represent their number as I've posted about them (I've cooked more than this!), and again as always I don’t post the recipes, because I couldn’t post so many recipes from any one book! Hope you enjoy!

48 Avocado & Tomato Bruchetta
A breakfast this was meant to be in the book, but I made it quickly one day for my solitary lunch, it was good, actually surprising in its simplicity, but none the worse for it. The tomato and avocado flavours just jumped!

49 Festive Fusilli
A little pasta recipe from the Holiday Snaps chapter, we liked this a lot, slightly warming with a little vodka, creamy with mascarpone and vibrant with sun blush tomatoes.

50 Pineapple upside Down Cake
It was this recipe that prompted me to make my other (Wanda) upside down cake. I made this pretty cake with a view to having some leftovers, but sadly it was all gone =)

51 Quesadillas
Or hot tortilla sandwiches, thin mouthfuls of ham and cheese and tortilla, yum!

52 Mirn Glazed Salmon
It has taken me so long to make this salmon, and so many of my Nigella friends have raved over it! In served it with noodles and greenery, lovely. I used sherry in place of the mirn, just because this is my preferance – mirn makes me so thirsty for ages afterwards!

53 Aromatic Crispy Duck
When I made this I couldn’t help thinking to myself that it would be nothing like the fantastic restaurant duck of the same name, but it was really very good! Duck, Chinese wheat pancakes, hoisin sauce, cucumber and spring onions.

54 Scallops and Chorizo
This was very quick, very tasty and very colourful.

55 Chickpeas and Rocket
The scallops above went with this dish of warmed chick peas and wilted rocket, this part wasn’t quite my thing.

56 Puy Lentil Salad
Made with tinned puy lentils, a product hitherto unknown in my kitchen, but it made a fast good salad! Serve not long after making, as it went a bit unpleasent kept in the fridge overnight, fortunately I only kept a spoonful.

57. Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge Sundae
This recipe is so simple an older child could easily make it, I didn’t let mine do it, as although she gets to help Mummy, I don’t let her near the actual cooker yet. It is a great little sauce for ice cream, Nigella suggests vanilla, chocolate and caramel ice creams for a full on ice cream sundae. We tried vanilla and caramel. Although I liked the vanilla, I’d just serve it with caramel ice cream next time. As the flavour sensation between the caramel and the sauce was really very very good! I even managed to use my new little jug! This is one of the recipes that I’d say if you have the book make make it soon!