Rusks for Rascals

For my Birthday I was lucky enough to receive Miranda Gore Browne's book, 'Biscuit' overall the book is lovely and I was definitely craving biscuits after reading it. It's a shame there wasn't space for photos of more of the biscuits though.

I loved the sound of the Rusks for Rascals, but without a photo I couldn't imagine what they'd look like and Google was no help! So here are my photos In case you're interested in making them but not sure what to expect.

Before cooking begins

After the first spell in the oven, before slicing

Cut up ready for the final bake

The final biscuits, a lovely big tin full of tasty nibbles!

Christmas Cake 2012 - Part 2

After a few weeks soaking in the brandy syrup, it's time to bake the fruit into the cake. The cake is always cooked at half term, giving a good few weeks of feeding before Christmas.

I baked the cake according to the secret family recipe, but left out an ounce of sugar to make up for the syrup, then baked for hours and hours until cooked through.

This is my little girl's third year of making the cake with me and properly joined in this year, although I had to stop her doing her usual trick of eating handfuls of the cake mixture: far too much brandy!

Spiced pumpkin cake

As I explained in my last post, I don't like to scoop the seeds from my pumpkin and throw them away, or carve through an inch thick layer of pumpkin leaving the flesh to be thrown away later.

This year I've used Halloween Pumpkin Cake recipe from BBC GoodFood. I didn't use a cream cheese icing, just a little water icing with orange extract, but they were beautifully moist, and the recipe made about 24 cupcakes. Thankfully they should freeze well.

The cake is incredibly moist, and no one could guess the secret ingredient!

Vanilla pumpkin seeds

As soon as my two year old started seeing pumpkins in the shops, she was desperate to get her hands on one. They are quite exciting for a little person as look like a brightly coloured ball!

So I bought one to carve for Halloween. I hate to waste the inside of the pumpkin and scraped out both the seeds and flesh ready for cooking.

First I roasted the seeds. I have done this quite a few times, but usually use sunflower oil and salt, possibly some spices. I decided sweet vanilla seeds would be a nice change.

Recipe
80g pumpkin seeds, rinsed and drained (a whole pumpkin's worth!)
1 tbsp sunflower oil
25g sugar (or try 20g I you have a really sweet tooth)
1 capful vanilla extract

1) Preheat oven to 200 degrees
2) Mix everything up really well
3) Spread over a baking sheet, preferably one with silicon paper (available from Lakeland) to make sure they don't stick.
4) Roast for around 15mins, stirring a couple of times, until they are just beginning to brown.

Variations:
I think using cinnamon instead of vanilla would work well, as would mixed spice.

I hope this encourages you not to throw away your seeds this year!

Christmas cake 2012 - part 1

Soon after marrying my husband I was presented with the top secret family Christmas cake recipe, and all but one year since (I was in the process of losing a few stone...) I have made my cake around the October half term, to this recipe.
Whenever I use dried fruit in baking I always 'soak' the fruit (microwave with sprinkle of water / something stronger and leave to stand covered for as long as I have) as it improves the moistness and stops raisins burning on the top (I hate that taste!)
However, when I saw a recent blog post from Ruth Clements, I knew I needed to modify the recipe to include a longer soak, as it's such a good idea.

I've used the usual weight of fruit from my family recipe substituting in a few figs (from Ruth's recipe) and using pureed mixed peel, an idea from Jo Wheatley's book. I've soaked in the orange juice sugar syrup and brandy, as Ruth's recipe says, and added a drop each of lemon and orange extract. It smells (and tastes!) fab already!

I'll soak for about 4 weeks, rather than the suggested 6, but I'm already excited to see how this year's cake turns out!

Party food: Teddy Bear Biscuits

Although the Little Charley Bear birthday cake was the main baking I undertook for little one's birthday, I did work on some other little treats for the party guests.

One which will be a definite favourite for years to come has to be Jo Wheatley's Iced Biscuits. The dough is really easy to work with, and the biscuits come out not too sweet: perfect for icing.

I followed the recipe up the the point where you freeze the shaped biscuits for a short time, and open froze on silicon paper (from Lakeland, a must have in my kitchen!) before popping in a freezer bag until the day before.

The best thing about these is my little girl could help cut them out in to bears and put them on the tray, as the dough is really easy to handle.

I can see this recipe coming out for a different themed party every year, as well as when I have Jo's cookbook put on my lap with the order to: "Mummy Cook!"

Party food: Cheesy Feet!

I had these cheese biscuits at a friend's house for her 2 year old's party about 6 months ago. A few weeks ago my Mother in Law gave me some foot cutters so I knew I had to make these for the party.

I was surprised (I don't know why) that they were from a Nigella recipe.

They are really easy to make, even for a hot-handed pastry killer like myself, as they are all done in the magimix. I even grated the cheese with it first, then used the mixer to bring it together.

The first batch I made were fantastic, and really reminded me of mini cheddars. The 2nd batch puffed up a but too much, but this was probably me measuring the baking powder wrong, or the fact the dough sat in the fridge for a few days.

Do leave a comment if you have any ideas why they puffed up!