Christmas turkey and ham pie

We managed to get a bit of the turkey used up in this pie. You could use leftover veg if you were making it on Boxing Day, but its also a good way to use up what's in the fridge.

Soften an onion in butter for about 7 minutes then add sliced leeks and carrots. Cook for a few minutes. Add 200ml stock and 200ml cream (use less cream/more stock if you need a few less calories). Let the sauce thicken.

Add diced turkey and ham, then place mixture in dish. Top with puff pastry. Glaze the pastry with beaten egg then bake at 200C for 20 minutes or so until golden.

Enjoy!

Rum and whiskey truffles

Another warning - these are delicious. They are seriously easy to make and I am planning to give them as Christmas presents. Well, some of them anyway.

Bring 150mls of double cream to the boil. Pour the cream over 200g of broken up chocolate. I used milk chocolate (about 35% cocoa) for the rum truffles and slightly darker chocolate for the whiskey truffles. You could use really dark chocolate - whatever you like!

Stir the cream and chocolate until the chocolate has melted then add 5tsps of your favourite tipple. I added Morgan's rum to the first batch and Glenfiddich to the second.

Leave to set at room temperature. Then, shape into bite size pieces using a teaspoon or melon baller. I found the whiskey truffle mixture to be quite soft and couldn't shape it by hand.

Dip or roll the truffles in e.g cocoa powder, icing sugar, chopped nuts or similar, then place in the fridge to set. The truffles should keep for a week in the fridge but I don't think that will be an issue.

Enjoy!

Brendan's coffee and walnut cake

I'm going to start this post with a warning.

This cake is delicious and addictive!

The first attempt to make a coffee cake was a total disaster. So I turned to the master...the lovely Brendan from The Great British Bakeoff.

I followed the recipe with no ad libbing and it turned out brilliantly. The only changes I made were to use a different tin size and a simple coffee buttercream.  Visit Brendan's website.

Cream together 175g butter with 175g sugar. Beat in three eggs. Add 175g self raising flour plus 1tsp baking powder.

Dissolve 3tsps coffee granules in 1. tbsp boiling water and add. Finally, add 65g chopped walnuts.

Bake until done at 180c. It took about 35 minutes using my tin.

To make the buttercream, use a ratio of half butter to icing sugar. Eg for 100g butter use 200g icing sugar. Add 3tsps coffee granules dissolved in 1tbsp boiling water to the buttercream.

Cover the cake with buttercream and decorate with walnuts.

Apparently the cake will keep for several days in a tin. Mine didn't last that long!

Duck tales #2

A (not) very sad farewell was said to four fawn runner drakes today.

Of the six duck eggs hatched in the incubator, only two were ducks. Could have been worse...

It was impossible to tell the boys and girls apart until they began to moult. The drakes then developed the give-away curly feather on their tails.  They were much bigger than the ducks and developed beautiful plumage.

The other way to tell them apart is by their quacking, or lack of. Drakes make a characteristic rasping noise and ducks quack. Loudly!

Anyway, the boys are off to their new life on a pond with lots of other ducks. And I am looking forward to making duck egg sponge cake in the spring.

Chocolate cake for Arlene

This is a first go to perfect a chocolate cake. My friend Arlene is hunting for a recipe so thought I would give it a go. Of course if I was any sort of decent friend I would have taken her some to try.... But it didn't last long enough!

I will just have to make another one.

This recipe is from Cake Icing and Decorating, another from the St Michael cookery library circa 1978.

Cream 100g of butter with 100g sugar until pale and fluffy (as always I did a bit extra due to my addiction to the mixture).

Beat in 2 eggs, a little at a time. Then, sift in 100g self raising flour and 4tsps cocoa powder.

Fold on the flour then place mixture in cake tin, which is lined and/or greased appropriately.

Bake at 160c for about 20 minutes or until cooked. Turn out into a cooling rack.

The cake didn't rise as much as I thought it might but my cake tin might have been a bit big.

To decorate I used buttercream icing.

Cream 100g butter then add 200g sifted icing sugar. Beat together but if not coming together add 1tsp milk. If you need to add more milk then do it 1tsp at a time.

Spread over the cake. Lick the bowl so as not to waste any!

Enjoy.

Cranberry and clementine chutney

Much as I try to avoid anything Christmassy until at least the 1st December, this needed to be made so it has time to mature.

While most chutney turns a shade of brown, this is a lovely red colour. I'm looking forward to my turkey sandwiches already!

The recipe is based on one from November 2012's Good Housekeeping magazine. I only ad libbed a little....

To a large pan add:
650g chopped apples (I didn't bother to peel them)
6 clementine oranges (peeled and roughly chopped)
2 large onions (peeled and chopped)
200g sultanas
700g cranberries
15 peppercorns (approximately!)
500mls red wine vinegar
500g light brown soft sugar
1tsp chilli flakes

Bring to the boil, stirring, and then simmer for about 45 minutes until fairly thick.

Stir in 300g cranberries and cook for another 5 minutes until they have softened.

Put into sterilised jars and open at Christmas.

Give extra jars as Christmas pressies.

Enjoy!

Choccy Halloween buns

The correct title for this post should be badly decorated Halloween buns but not to worry. They taste good!

Cream 100g sugar with 100g butter. Beat in two eggs. Sift in 100g self raising flour and 3 tablespoons coco powder.

Bake in individual bun cases for 15 minutes or so at 180c.

Decorate and enjoy!

The pumpkin turned out better so there is a pic of him guarding the back door too :-)