Saffron Sultana Cake

For this month's Random Recipes, Dom at Belleau Kitchen challenged us to make a recipe from the first or last page from a randomly chosen book from our shelf. The book I pulled out was Food of the Sun by Alastair Little and Richard Whittington.  Tucked away on the last page was this recipe for a very simple Saffron Sultana Cake. 


The recipe called for saffron powder which I didn't have so I used saffron stems instead. Mine didn't come out quite as yellow as the one in the book. I also added some grated orange zest to the recipe. It's a bit of a weird cake - it really reminded me of a trifle sponge. I felt it was a little dry so made an orange syrup which I poured over the whole cake.  It would be nice served alongside something like caramelised oranges. I've actually frozen it and do intend using it in a trifle sometime in the near future.


I've included the recipe below as as far as I can see this book is now out of print.


The Recipe


55g unsalted butter, diced
125g plain flour
pinch of salt
2 tspn saffron powder or a pinch of saffron stems
55g sultanas soaked for as long as possible in brandy. Drained and tossed in flour (mine still sunk!)
4 eggs
125 caster sugar
orange zest
orange juice and caster sugar melted together to make syrup (optional)


1. Preheat the oven to 180c/gas 4 and line a swallow square tin or swiss roll tin. 
2. Place a heatproof bowl over a bowl of barely simmering water. Add the eggs and sugar to the bowl and  whisk for about 10 minutes until the mixture is thick.  Remove the bowl from the heat.
3.  Add about half or a third of the flour and butter and fold in.  Repeat until it is all mixed in and the butter is melted.  Finally fold in the sultanas and pour into the prepared tin.
4. Bake for around 15 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean.  Turn out on a rack to cool. Pour over syrup if you wish (if you do make holes all over the cake before you do so).

Chocolate Pudding Cake with Raspberries

For the one year anniversary of Belleau Kitchen's brilliant Random Recipes Challenge, Dom asked us to think back and return to the first book from which we chose a random recipe.  The first time I entered this challenge I made scones from Eat Drink Live by Fran Warde. On going back to it I had to 'randomly' hunt around a little for a baking recipe amongst the salads and other savoury options and finally came to this one for Chocolate Pudding Cake with Raspberries.  It's one of those recipes that's tucked away a little in the bottom left hand corner of the page near the crease, with no photograph - the poor relation to the other recipes on the page with their artfully styled pictures.  But I randomly made this one and what can I say but thank you Dom! Without this challenge this little beauty would probably have never seen the light of day and that would have been such a shame as it is absolutely bloody delicious.


The Recipe


250g dark chocolate (70% cocoa)
200g butter
1 tspn instant coffee, dissolved in 1 tbspn hot water
5 eggs
100g caster sugar
75g plain flour
150g raspberries (I used less than this)


1. Grease and line a 20cm springform tin. Preheat oven to 170c/gas mark 3.
2. Put the chocolate, butter and instant coffee in a small saucepan and heat gently until melted, smooth and glossy.  Set aside.
3. Beat the eggs and sugar until pale and fluffy.  Then add the flour and chocolate mixture and combine lightly.
4. Pour the batter into the tin. Stud the top with the raspberries and bake for around 40 mins or until the cake feels firm and is starting to shrink from the sides.


Lovely eaten warm or cold!

Hot Apple Flan

For this month's Random Recipes Challenge set by Dom at the idyllic Belleau Kitchen we were asked to randomly pick a recipe from a new cookbook.  One of the books I received for Christmas was 80 Recipes Brasseries Bocuse.  Paul Bocuse is a French chef based in Lyon where he has five brasseries as well as his famous restaurant L'Auberge du Pont de Collonges just outside the city. The author of the book, Jean Fleury, manages the brasseries and is a protege of the famous chef.


I spent a year living and working in Lyon where I had ample time to sample the amazing food this city has to offer.  I left after 12 very well fed months and 1 stone heavier.  This book was a very much appreciated Christmas gift from one of my Lyonnaise friends.  It has been great flicking through it reminiscing about the city and its wonderful restaurants of which the Bouchons are the most famous. The tradition of bouchons came from small inns visited by silk workers who were passing through Lyon in the 17th and 18th centuries. A bouchon serves traditional Lyonnaise cuisine, such as sausages, duck pate or roast pork. The dishes are generally focused around meat and quite heavy (remember the 1 stone...). Nowadays there are around 20 officially certified traditional bouchons in Lyon.


While the five Bocuse brasseries span many different types of cuisine the Brasserie du Nord chapter of the book focuses on traditional Lyonnaise cooking served in the bouchons and it was from here that I chose my Hot Apple Flan recipe. For me, apple flan is a quintessentially French dessert yet is is something I've never previously made.  The recipe itself was pretty simple although I struggled a bit with the Pate Brise pastry. In the end I changed the quantities slightly, reducing the amount of flour used,  as I felt the one in the book wasn't working out.  I definitely rolled the pastry out too thinly too meaning it burnt slightly during cooking. I've got a bit of a fear of pastry so that is something I need to work on this year.  Despite a slighty burnt crust this flan was rather delicious - Mr CB and myself devoured it in about 10 minutes flat (I feel the 1 stone might be coming back to haunt me.....).  


The Recipe (adapted from 80 Recipes Brasseries Bocuse)


6 apple, peeled, cored and thinly sliced
30g butter, diced
30g caster sugar
apricot jam


Pastry:


100g plain flour
50g soft butter
50g icing sugar
2 egg yolks


1. Start with the pastry.  Cream the butter and icing sugar together in a food processor until pale and creamily.  Add the egg yolks and flour and blend until it comes together into a ball.  Wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for an hour. 
2.  Preheat the oven to 180c.  Roll out the chilled pastry and lay it on a loose bottomed flan tin. Arrange the apples in layers over the pastry.
3. Sprinkle the top with caster sugar and the butter. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes. Once cooked, warm the apricot jam and brush over the tart.

Banana Turnovers - A (very) Random Recipe

For this month's Random Recipe Challenge, Dom at Belleau Kitchen paired us up with another blogger so we could each choose the other's recipe.  I was paired up with the lovely Choclette of Chocolate Log Blog fame who randomly chose Dr. Oetker's German Baking Today, a cookbook which has been lingering unused (and unloved) on my bookshelf for the last 6 years. This book was actually a wedding present from some family friends in Germany.  I have flicked through it on several occasions thinking I should make something from it but when it comes down to it I like my cakes to be a bit more ooh-la-la than oom-pah-pah. Choclette picked page 173 which led me to a recipe for Banana Turnovers in the in the 'cheese and oil cake mixture' (are you understanding me more on why this book just doesn't invite you in....) chapter. I do love the fact that this blog challenge does what it says on the tin - to me you can not get a more random recipe than this.  Now if I was looking at a cake menu Banana Turnovers would not be up there on my list of choices. But, I am the first to criticise those who pah pah food before they've even tried it so I was happy to give them a go.  


When I first read the recipe I was a bit stumped as to where I would find curd cheese, one of the ingredients (cheese and oil chapter remember!) as I know my local Sainsbury's doesn't sell it.  It was a lovely lady in Harrods foodhall (I don't have delusions of grandeur - I work right next to it) who told me that it is just kwark cheese or in otherwords fromage frais.  So it turns out my local Sainsbury's does sell it.  I had high hopes for this recipe as I made the dough (with my new non smoking hand mixer with dough attachment!) - it was soft and pillowly.  That's where the hopes ended.....  The recipe says it would made 9 turnovers - I managed 5 and a half but the first 3 were write offs.  I rolled the dough too thinly at first so they split a little when cooking. I left the dough a bit thicker on the last 2 and a half and they turned out significantly better.  The final result - well they didn't look as pretty as the ones in the book but the last batch were OK.  I just don't think I'm a fan of cooked banana really (too baby food) so that doesn't help but Mr CB's response was not even lukewarm. You know it isn't good when someone turnsdown your turnover.....


The Recipe


300g plain flour
3 tspns baking powder (the recipe called for 1 packet so this was a bit of a guess)
75g caster sugar
3 drops vanilla essence
pinch of salt
125g fromage frais
100ml milk
100ml cooking oil (I used rapeseed)


For the filling:
2 bananas
4 tspns apricot jam
4 tspns lemon juice


For the coating & topping:
1 egg beaten
flaked almonds


1. Preheat the oven to 180c, gas mark 4. Line a baking sheet with baking parchment.
2.  Sift together the flour and baking powder into a large bowl. Add all the other cake ingredients and mix together with a hand mixer using the dough hook.  Don't knead for too long as you don't want the mixture to go too sticky.  
3.  Place the dough on a floured surface and make it into a cylinder shape.  Roll it out into a square shape around 36cm x 36cm then cut it into 12cm squares.  
4.  Mix together the apricot jam and lemon juice and brush each square with this mixture, leaving the edges clear. Put a piece of banana diagonally onto the square and brush again with the apricot mixture.  Brushes the edges with the egg wash and then fold over and seal.  Brush the turnovers with more egg and sprinkle with almonds. 
5. Bake for about 15-20 minutes.

Chocolate & Raspberry Cheesecake Brownies - A Random Recipe

When it came to my blog I got all out of kilter in July and August due to some lovely weekends away and a long holiday.   September has been a bit like going back to school for me and the routine has returned.  With that return to more normal weekends has been the chance to see what blogging challenges September has brought.  Dom over at Belleau 'spanking brand new' Kitchen (and very nice it is too!) set us the task this month of sifting through any saved recipe cuttings and picking one to make for his Random Recipe Challenge.  I love this idea - I am a serial magazine recipe snipper.  As a consequence I have recipes shoved in the front of books, in the magazine rack and in my 'to do' pile, all waiting to be tried out. If they make the grade they then get written or stuck in my actual recipe folder.  It wasn't hard to randomly select one and this ridiculously rich brownie recipe was the one I found. I think it is from an old copy of Sunday Times Style which was featuring recipes from the Green & Black's cookbook but I'm not 100% sure as I don't have the full article. I've been meaning to make this brownie recipe for ages, mainly because it looked so sinful on the picture. It is very puddingy in the respect I think it would be better eaten as dessert rather than with a cup of tea.  It tastes as decadent as it looks.  A little goes a very long way (probably on the hips too....).

The Recipe

For the brownie:

280g unsalted butter (yes more than one block of butter, sinful I told you)

170g dark chocolate (70% cocoa at least)

350g golden caster sugar (sinful again)

70g plain flour

pinch of salt

5 eggs

2 tspn vanilla extract

100g white chocolate, broken into small pieces

For the cheesecake:

350g cream cheese (I used 300g as that's what size the large tubs come in)

75g golden caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

170g fresh raspberries (I used one punnet)

1. Heat the oven to 180c/gas mark 4.  Grease and line a 20cm square tin.

2.  Make the brownie mixture by melting the butter and chocolate (microwave is fine and easy).  Remove from heat and set aside to cool. Combine the sugar, flour and salt in a large mixing bowl, pour over the cooled chocolate and mix until smooth. Beat the eggs separately before adding to the mixing bowl along with the vanilla extract and the while chocolate.  Blend together until the mixture is shiny.  Pour into the prepared tin.

3.  Make the cheesecake mixture by whisking the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla extract and eggs until smooth and creamy.  Pour this over the brownie mix, trying to create an even layer.  Drop the raspberries into the tray.  Use a fork to swirl the mixture for a marbled effect.  

4. Bake for about 45 mins. The brownies should be set but still wobbly.  Leave to cool.

Gwyneth's Blueberry Muffins

This month Dom at Belleau Kitchen challenged us to cook something from our newest cookbook for his Random Recipe Challenge. I was recently given Gwyneth Paltrow's cookbook 'Notes from my Kitchen Table'. I decided to give this recipe a go as I was interested to try these muffins as she gives two versions of them in the book - her mother's original recipe and this 'healthier' version. I've been meaning to try cooking with Agave Nectar, which has a lower GI index than normal white sugar. Also the bikini countdown has started and lets face it every little helps! The recipe is so quick to make and results in very light muffins. You could literally knock these up for breakfast - well on a weekend anyway. If I was to make them again I would however put in less maple syrup as they are quite sweet with a dominant syrup flavour.

The Recipe

125ml vegetable oil (I used rape seed oil)

125ml soya milk

125 maple syrup

4 tbspns light agave nectar

100g white spelt flour

125g whole spelt flour

2 tspns baking powder

1/2 tspn salt

300g fresh blueberries

1. Preheat the oven to 190c/gas 5. Line a 12 hole muffin tin with paper cases.

2. Mix the wet ingredients together, stir in the dry ingredients and fold in the blueberries.  It is very runny mixture.

3. Divide between the cases and bake for 25-30 minutes or until they are golden brown and a cocktail stick inserted into the centre comes out clean.  Cool before eating. 

Mjuk toscakaka or Amazing Swedish Cake

For this month's Random Recipe Challenge Dom at Belleau Kitchen told us to dig deep into baking books/sections and pick a baking recipe. This obviously suited me perfectly! After gathering a tottering pile of books I picked at hazard The Art of the Tart which is a sweet little book by Tamasin Day-Lewis. I've made a couple of the savoury tarts from this book but the opening at page 80 was for this Swedish tart recipe. This is I think my absolute new favourite recipe which would be as apt for a dinner dessert as it would be with a mid afternoon cup of tea. This tart shaped cake is moist yet light with the most delicious crunchy, fudgey flaked almond topping.


The Recipe


150g butter
125g caster sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
150g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
5 tbsp water


Topping
30g flaked almonds
60g butter
5 tbsp caster sugar
1 tbsp plain flour
1 tbsp milk


1. Preheat oven to 180 c and butter a 22cm tart tin.
2. Cream the butter and sugar together. Beat in the eggs one by one, then add the vanilla extract. Sift in the flour and baking powder, beat thoroughly, then add the water and continue beating until smooth. Put the mixture into the tart tin, smooth the top and bake for about 30 mins. Remove from the oven and then turn the temperature up to 200 c.
3. For the topping, put all the ingredients together into a saucepan and heat until the mixture bubbles. Spoon the mixture over the tart and return to oven to brown for 5 mins.

Sultana Scones

This recipe is for Dom at Belleau Kitchen's Random Recipe challenge. The challenge this month states that a random recipe must be cooked from your first ever cookbook. I unfortunately don't have my first one still which was, I think, The Usborne Beginner's Cookbook. I'm really disappointed about this as there is a fair chance I would have spent this morning making my favourite Chocolate Cornflake cakes! I had a look on my bookshelf and after some deliberation decided that my oldest book on there is Eat Drink Live by Fran Warde, which was given to me by a friend many years ago.

I admit that to get a baking recipe it took a few random openings but on the third attempt I came to the Sultana Scones page. While I know this isn't the most exciting thing to bake I was actually really pleased as I've never made scones before. It was also quite appropriate as I know Dom is currently looking for the perfect scone recipe so he triumphs at his village fete competition. Mine are certainly not perfect - they are a bit heavy which I think was due to over kneading. They wouldn't make the afternoon tea bill at Claridge's - they reminded more me of the type served at Watford Gap Services! So I think more practice is necessary but the clotted cream and jam certainly elevated them up a level....

On a final note, I was wondering what the correct pronunciation of scone is - I'm in the minority that I say scone as in cone rather than scone as in con. I thought this poem I found online summed it up nicely:

"I asked the maid in dulcet tone

To order me a buttered scone

The silly girl has been and gone

And ordered me a buttered scone."

The Recipe

500g self raising flour

125g butter, diced

100g sultanas

300ml milk, plus extra for glazing

1. Preheat the oven to 220c/Gas 7. Lightly dust a baking sheet with flour.

2. Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl, then rub in the butter with your fingertips until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the sultanas.

3. Make a well in the centre and pour in the milk. Mix with a round-bladed knife until the mixture is soft and spongy.

4. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for a couple of minutes until smooth. Roll out the dough to a thickness of 2.5cm. Use a 6cm biscuit cutter to cut out 6-8 rounds. Brush the tops of the scones with a little milk

5. Put on the baking sheet and cook for 10-12 minutes.