Tag Archives: recipes

Sourdough sandwich loaf

Leave a reply

I’ve been making sourdough for fifteen years, either in a boule shape or a baguette shape or, sometimes, as little rolls. But the thing I really wanted at times was a soft sandwich loaf, but made with a sourdough starter.

There are lots of recipes for such going round the internet and this is one and it’s lovely. I sometimes add a bit of wholemeal flour, or some seeds, but there’s no doubt this should be predominantly white flour for that full soft sandwich experience. The one pictured here used a wholemeal starter but otherwise 100% white bread flour.

It makes for a very soft loaf that produces great sandwiches and is nothing like its crusty trad-sourdough boule cousin, lovely though that also is. Also fantastic toast. Some recipes I’ve seen use butter, in the dough and to brush the top with, but I don’t eat butter so I use olive oil. This makes two small loaves or one big one. I make mine in my Pullman bread tin which is 33cm x 10cm. I’ve yet to leave the lid on all the way through cooking to make a perfectly square loaf. What I do is leave it on for the first 20 or so mins then take it off for the last 10/15 mins.

Anyway this is what you do:

600g bread flour, white or a mix (see intro)
300g tepid water
150g sourdough starter
30g honey
30g extra virgin olive oil
10g fine sea salt

This is way easier and less hands on than traditional sourdough and you rest it in the tin you will cook it in, so no banneton needed. What I do is put everything in a stand mixer and mix it up with a dough hook for ten minutes. Then I rest it for an hour and give it a gentle knead and fold after one hour, then rest it for another hour, then give it another gentle knead. Then I place it in the tin it will be cooked in (I sort of roll it up like a giant swiss roll but you can also shape it into two boules and place them end to end) and let it rise at room temperature for as long as I have but until it kinda doubles in size.

Then I put the lid on (but if you don’t have just cover it with a tea towel) and put it in the fridge overnight.

In the morning I take it out and leave it at room temperature just for as long as the oven needs to come up to temperature: 250C.

Then I put it in the oven (if you have a Pullman, with the lid on if not do I need to point out you don’t put the tea towel in the oven?) for 15 or so minutes then take the lid off and let it cook for another 15/20 mins at 220C. As soon as it comes out coat the top of it with more olive oil (or melted butter).

It keeps really well for several days and like I said makes great toast.

Chocolate Chestnut Rum Roulade

Leave a reply

I’ve made this every Christmas for over twenty years. Last year, I went to look up the recipe on line (it was a Waitrose recipe from Iceland) and it had gone. It was a ‘404’. I panicked. Despite an extensive internet search nothing came up for it.

More panic. This is my pièce de resistance every Christmas, and my children love it so much they have, on occasion, requested it for birthdays.

But luckily – amazingly – I had made a note of it in my Travelling Cookbook which I started up years and years ago to commit my favourite recipes to paper. But if that goes…so finally I’m going to commit it to technology for me, and all, to enjoy.

I won’t say this is difficult. It’s not. But it’s not always perfect and it is a roulade and involves rolling, like a Swiss roll. It’s not super easy but just go with it and don’t worry. It’s delicious and look, no flour.

Ingredients

For the roulade

170g 70% chocolate, broken into pieces
170g caster sugar
Five eggs separated
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
Three tablespoons of hot water (see note later)
Icing sugar for dusting

For the filling

Three tablespoons of icing sugar
115g unsweetened chestnut purée
Four tablespoons of sour cream
100g cooked, peeled chestnuts chopped
Two tablespoons of rum (or liqueur of choice but then it’s not rum roulade!)
285ml of double cream

Method

Now, those are the ingredients above. I admit what I now do is buy some vacuum packed chestnuts, whizz some up and use the rest chopped. Because otherwise I tended to get left with lots of left over chestnut purée. But you do what works.

Preheat oven to 180C. Lightly oil a shallow baking tray of approx 34cm by 24cm and then line with baking paper and very lightly, again, oil. TBH you’re probably fine with just the baking parchment/paper but this recipe is from like 25 years ago so just reproducing what they said at the time..

Now melt the chocolate in a bowl, on top of some simmering water and as ever, do not let the bowl touch the surface of the water.

In a separate, large bowl, beat the caster sugar with the egg yolks until thick and pale and creamy. Add the vanilla extract to that.

Once the chocolate has melted and cooled a little, stir in the hot water until smooth then gradually add into the egg/caster sugar mix. Now again, I’m not sure what the hot water does. I’m quite skilled and fearless with adding hot water to chocolate but chocolate can and will seize if the water you’re adding is too hot or cold, so you might want to leave it out. Gently stir the chocolate until smooth and then gradually stir this into the egg and sugar mix.

Now again separately, whisk the egg whites until they hold soft peaks. Quickly and gently fold them into the chocolate mixture and pour the whole lot onto the lined tray, spread evening and put in the oven for fifteen minutes.

Remove and immediately cover with a sheet of baking parchment and a clean tea towel and leave until cold. Don’t leave it too long though or it will crack when rolling it.

Whilst that’s happening, mix the icing sugar into the chestnut purée, followed by the sour cream and chopped chestnuts. Pour the rum/liqueur and double cream and whisk until peaks, then partially fold the rum/cream into the chestnut cream so you have a marbled mixture. You could technically do this in advance and keep it in the fridge but it’s a perfectly good thing to do whilst the roulade is cooling.

Now the originally recipe asks for you to spread out a large sheet of baking parchment on a clean work surface, liberally dust with icing sugar and then gently turn out the roulade onto it, peeling off the baking parchment.

I don’t do this. To me this is adding too much faff and precariousness. So what I do is I take the sponge off the baking sheet – already on baking parchment – and I use that as the base. If you want, trim the roulade of any rough edges but I don’t – it’s all good. Spread the marbled cream on the roulade and then carefully roll up the roulade from the long end. It may crack – do not panic. What I do is I then sort of mould it/hold it together with cling film (just on top using your hands to do this you don’t take the roulade off the plate to do it it just helps keep it together if that’s what it needs) and put it in the fridge until it’s time to serve it. Then I peel off the cling film and then I sprinkle with icing sugar and decorate it. I’ve made this so many times and sometimes it cracks, sometimes it doesn’t and there seems to be little rhyme or reason. It’s always delicious and it reminds us that, even cracked, things are still beautiful.



Chocolate chestnut cake (a perfect alternative to Christmas cake)

3 Replies

I discovered this recipe in Delicious magazine (the original is here), a couple of years ago. I’m a total sucker for chocolates and chestnuts which is why I paired with Lumi to make Chocolate Chestnut Truffles. (Please note I don’t make any money from these truffles and never have.)

Anyway I made this and it has become a bit of a classic in our house and I like to make it in the run up to Christmas, when you want to give yourself over to festivities but aren’t ready for the full Christmas pudding/Christmas cake yet. Not that I ever make either – I do like them but in small doses. At Christmas in our house I make Chocolate Chestnut Rum Roulade (which I really need to add to this blog before the recipe slips away).

The original recipe calls for a very small cake tin – 16cm. I toy every time I make this with buying a special tin but feel so reckless doing this as I have so many cake tins already. However, the smallest diameter one I have is 20cm so that’s what I make it in and it’s absolutely fine. But if you want a taller, more towering cake then you may want to invest. The cooking time doesn’t seem to change, for me, in the wider tin.

You need:

60g sultanas, put them to soak in 60ml of port, sweet vermouth or whatever nice liqueur you have. I think Cointreau is nice but this year I soaked mine in Plum Liqueur forgetting, foolishly, that I had some Panettone flavoured spirit which is divine (from Selfridges). Give them a really long soak.
100g butter cut into little pieces, it can be from the fridge
300g vacuum packed chestnuts
130g crème fraîche (original recipe calls for 130ml but I just put in 130g as I measure everything into a bowl, atop the scales)
30g plain flour
half a teaspoon of cinnamon
half a teaspoon of ginger
200g of 70% chocolate, chopped into small pieces
3 eggs, separated yolk and white into separate bowls
60g caster sugar

Later, for the ganache

100g 70% chocolate, again chopped
160ml double cream

A tin of 16-20cm (see intro) lined with baking parchment, at the very least on its base, and oven preheated to 160C.

What to do:

First things first: put the sultanas to soak in the liqueur of your choice. I tend to do this in the morning of the day I want to cook, but you can also do it the night before. When you do use the sultanas you’ll need to drain them of the liqueur and if I time it right, I use the liqueur in the cranberry sauce I make (I just stir it in once the cranberries are done, but you could also do it before they cook). If this doesn’t work for you you could whip some cream up with the left over liqueur, to serve with this cake.

In a food processor, blitz together the crème fraîche and the chestnuts.

In a separate bowl mix together the flour, spices and a pinch of salt.

Now you want to melt the chocolate and butter together over a saucepan of simmering water. Make sure the bowl doesn’t touch the water, and you want to take it off before all the chocolate is melted – just carry on stirring – or the chocolate may seize up. I do this part – the chocolate and butter melting – on a fairly large bain marie and I end up using the top part of the bain marie to mix everything together when the time comes. But otherwise, don’t worry: just get a big bowl and decant your chestnut and crème fraîche from the blender into that and this will be your bowl where everything, eventually, meets.

Once the chocolate has melted, put it aside to cool for a bit – about ten minutes. Then mix it into the chestnut and crème fraîche mixture; one at a time stir the egg yolks into this mixture, until everything is fully mixed and then add the flour/spice/salt mixture.

Whisk together the egg whites until stiff, then take a little of the beaten egg whites and mix it into your cake mixture to loosen it. Then taking a large-ish metal spoon as it makes it easier, gently fold the egg whites into the cake mixture. Don’t forget the sultanas, if you haven’t drained them do so now and add them into the cake mixture. It will be a fairly thick mixture, level it out and bake it for 30-35 mins. I admit mine took a bit longer, more like 40mins but the numbers have worn out on my oven dial so it’s possible it was too low. It’s done when a few crumbs of mixture are still clinging to a testing skewer.

Leave to cool for ten minutes in the tin, then turn out. The bottom of the cake will become the top of the cake. You can easily do this bit the day before but, day before or not make sure the cake is thoroughly cooled before you ice it.

To ice the cake, put the chocolate and cream in a bowl again on top of a pan of simmering water. Again: do not let the bowl touch the water underneath. Stir until the chocolate is nearly all, but not quite, melted then take off the heat and keep stirring.

Let the ganache cool for about ten minutes then slather on the cake using a spatula. You can then adorn it quite opulently if you like or leave it plain. It is quite a plain looking cake but there’s no shame in that. The original suggests things like sugared almonds, marron glacés, sugar sprinkles…you get the idea. In the photo here I used caramelised white chocolate and praline covered pistachios which are beautifully green on the outside. I got them from Melt and I loved the colour contrast (not to mention the festive green). They are insanely expensive so I’m only giving you this as an idea, not suggesting you spend all that money on buying a cake topping decoration.

Store in the fridge but bring out for about half an hour to chambré before serving. Truly delicious. And rich.












The best flapjacks you will ever make (a bold claim)

Leave a reply

Many years ago, I co-founded a parenting website called I Want My Mum (so named because I said this a lot when I was pregnant and after I had my first born). It was a small but wonderful little site and many of us are still friends today. Aside from mothering tips we also shared recipes.

From somewhere I got this recipe for flapjacks and they were amazing. I shared it on the board and then lost it and then over the years wondered how I’d ever find it when anyone ever talked about flapjacks…. But a wonderful woman called Sarah Green saved it and started making them.

Recently I asked on Facebook if anyone (I’m friends with lots of ex-IWMMers) just happened to have it. “No,” a few said “but Sarah Green makes the best flapjacks”. Sarah was at choir but when she came back she said “the recipe I use is the one YOU posted all those years ago.” The fact she had kept the recipe (and was so generous, she could so easily have just said it was her recipe, after all it wasn’t actually mine, I got it from somewhere) made me unfeasibly happy.

So to avoid having to hunt for it again, here is the original recipe with Sarah’s additions.

250 unsalted butter
Grated ring of one unwaxed orange
325g golden syrup
325g rolled oats (Sarah sometimes replaces 50g of oats for 50g of oat bran which is a great idea)
75g light muscovado sugar

Preheat oven to 180C/350F/Gas mark 4. You need a tin of about 28cm x 20cm which you line with baking parchment.

Put the butter, orange rind, golden syrup and brown sugar in a pan set over a low heat and stir until the butter has melted and everything is coated. The add the oats to the pan and mix it together. Tip the whole lot into the tin and spread evenly.

Bake for 15-20 mins. Don’t overcook or you’ll lose the lovely chewy texture. You know it’s done when it’s just beginning to go golden brown around the edges but don’t panic cos the mixture will be really soft still.

Leave in the tin to cool completely and it will set. Don’t be tempted to take it out before it’s cool. When it is, take the whole thing out of the tin, holding the edges of the baking parchment and cut into slices as desired.

I will make these again and post a picture but in the meantime enjoy them!

Beetroot salad dressing

8 Replies

I’ve been meaning to post this up for ages, as it’s my current favourite salad dressing. But I couldn’t remember where I’d found it. It was getting pressing as it’s coming into beetroot season now (er, I think, at least ours are being harvested).

When I like a recipe that I see in a magazine, I tear it out and put it in a Muji folder that has clear sleeves, so you end up making your own recipe book. It works really well: you can change the order round, very easily get rid of recipes you don’t end up using much, and the plastic sleeve that encases every page keeps them clean of cooking splashes.

Here is the one of the pages from one of my many recipe books using torn out magazines put into Muji PP folders. It just so happens it’s a pic of some chocolate cheesecake ice cream cookies..also I know that when I post this on Facebook this is the picture that will come up, and I bet more people will read it thinking it’s about biscuits/chocolate rather than vegetables.

If I really like a recipe and use it lots, I write it out in my Travelling Cookbook, which is so named as we take it with us when we go away and is a large Moleskine book, much used, much loved and I like that it’s all handwritten (I have romantic ideas that my daughters will one day inherit this book and say things like “look, that’s Mamma’s famous chocolate mousse recipe“). This is what I’d done with the beetroot dressing recipe, which is why I had no idea whose it was. I have about 10 of those Muji folders, each housing 60 sleeves, ergo 120 recipes, so I kept meaning to go through and find the original.

You get the point.

Finally, as is the way of these things, I found it whilst looking for something else. It was by Yotam Ottolenghi, who is fantastic. He gives it as part of a bigger recipe involving gorgonzola, radiccio and toasted almonds, but you can put this dressing on almost any type of salad. Drizzle it on (use one of those squeezy bottles chef use if you have one) as if you actually toss the salad in it, whilst it will still taste delicious, it really won’t look so hot.

This dressing makes a fair amount – I’d say enough for six very greedy people, it keeps for a day or two but not much longer so make less if there are less of you.

One small beetroot, cooked (I buy mine precooked, otherwise roast it til soft)
20g honey
15g Dijon mustard
1 garlic clove (I tend to leave this out)
25ml cider vinegar
salt and pepper
120ml extra virgin olive oil

Yotam (cos we’re on first name terms, I wish), suggests you blend everything together (I use a mini blender, the one that attachs to my Braun Multistick thing, really useful piece of equipment) and then add half the oil, mix up and then other half. I have to say I just bung it all in and it’s fine.