The Apple Pie Project: English

This months Apple Pie Project goes to my home country, England. Although the apple pie is seen as an American symbol, in England it is an historic dish which has been eaten for centuries. The British apple pie also has many differences to it’s American counterpart. Instead of a super sweet filing, the English pie is more tart and sour with a hint of sweetness, using good old large cooking apples, such as the Bramley. This apple is a vibrant green, the size of a fist (or larger), sour and juicy. Once the Bramley apple has been cooked its keeps a more stable form, rather than turning mushy, being hailed the apple ‘King of Covent Garden’.

I have decided to use a very famous British cookery writers recipe to illustrate the quintessential  English apple pie. Mrs Beeton produced a very famous Victorian book on how to run the perfect household, and within it holds a wonderful collection of recipes, with useful hints and tips. Her apple pie recipe is simple, straight to the point and flawless, which for me represents traditional English cookery at its best. I also recommend every cook to own the book. (^-^)

February Cook of The Month: Seasonal Pavlova

Looking at the market stall inspired me to to buy some lovely ruby red and emerald green rhubarb. I always remember as a child having rhubarb in crumbles, pies and with custard. The sour and sweet taste and the soft texture is enough to make my mouth water. I saw a recipe on television where Gizzi Erskine used rhubarb on top of a Pavlova.Sadly I could not find her recipe online, so I recreated my own version with a few twists, as an ode to February Cook of The Month. Erskine is a product of Nigella Lawson, a glamourous, cocktail dress wearing cook from England. Her food is quick, bright and unapologetic, as she kneads bread in stilettos. Mentioned in the latest issue of Vogue, she is tipped to be a rising star in the cookery world.

My recipe:

Ingredients:  5 eggs whites, salt, 500g caster sugar, 1tsp white vinegar, 2tsp corn flour, 500g rhubarb, 1tsp orange blossom, 400ml double cream, 50g icing sugar, 25ml cointreau.

Preheat the oven to 150C.

Firstly make the meringue base. Simply whisk the egg whites and a pinch of salt until white and thick and gradually whisk in 300g of sugar. Do this until you can form peaks, or even hold the bowl over your head. Now fold in the vinegar and corn flour until combined well. Place in the shape you want and put in the preheated oven and bake for 1 hour and 30 minutes.  Leave to cool.

For the rhubarb, chop into think length way slices and mix with the rest of the sugar and the orange blossom. Lay on a tray and bake in the oven on 200C for 20 minutes. Once donn drain the syrup from the rhubarb and leave to cool.

When the meringue and rhubarb is cool it is time for the Chantilly cream. Take the double cream and whisk with the icing sugar and alcohol (you can use orange blossom if you wish). Once thick, pile on top of your meringue base followed by the rhubarb. Serve or chill for later. (^-^)

Pecan Pie

Since watching Gone with The Wind  and reading Cold Mountain for the first time last year the American South has become an intriguing obsession, especially when it comes to food. I have never been to the south but the romantic descriptions of sweet tea, salt pork, red eye gravy and fried chicken skins makes my mouth water. So today i decided to bake something I have never tried or made before, Pecan Pie. First of all finding dark corn syrup in rainy Cambridge was my first mission, which i failed and had to settle for golden syrup, corn syrup can only be bought in the UK online or in specialist stores. I used a mixture of different recipes I have picked up and tried to create my own… which turned out not so bad. (^-^)

What You Need:

Pastry: 1 egg, 175g butter, 250g plain flour, 20g caster sugar, 1 tbsp water

Filling: 100g pecans, 50g butter, 3 large eggs, grind of salt, 250ml golden syrup, 25ml apricot brandy, 200g caster sugar

Preheat the oven to 180c.

In a mixing bowl sieve the flour and rub in the butter to create bread crumbs, then stir in the sugar. Add the egg and water and combine with a round edged knife in cutting motions. Once into a ball, kneed lightly on a floured surface and refrigerate for 10mins. Then roll out the pastry to fit the case and refrigerate for a further 20mins.

For the filling, add the syrup, sugar and salt to a pan and melt down and boil. Set aside. Whisk three eggs in a heatproof bowl and pour in the slightly cooled mixture. Over a tray of boiling water place the bowl of mixture into the bath and stir vigourously making sure it is combined well, then adding the butter and brandy. Place the chopped pecans into the refrigerated pastry case and pour over the warm mixture. Place in the oven and bake for 45 mins or until dark brown. Then serve.

Yum.

Mince Pies

So here is what i made with my mincemeat filling from before. What a perfect traditional christmas treat. Especially served hot with brandy butter and a glass of baileys. Simply follow my mincemeat recipe, incase in any pastry type of your choice, glaze with a beaten egg, sprinkle with sugar and bake for 10-12 mins on 180C, eat warm or cold. Good for freezing and using when you want, or even leave a few out for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.

Seasonal cheer.

The Apple Pie Project: American

There is always something warming and reassuring about a home baked apple pie. The simplicity of the filling and the crispy crust. As this is such a popular dish around the world there are also many different types and ways to make such a traditional dish. Although the first apple pie came from Europe, America and the apple pie has become an iconic within American culture. Every month I want to try out a different apple pie recipe and this month its the American apple pie. This recipe is Martha Stewarts ‘Mile High Apple Pie’. To me this seems typical american style, piled high, large and excessive, but also rich, flavoursome and made by a true american icon (for british readers I would say Martha Stewart is the equivalent of Delia Smith infused with Philip Green). Here’s how it Went:

Her recipe was really easy to follow, once i had converted all  the measurements to kg. The pastry worked really well and was very easy to roll out and cut. The size really is amazing and quite impressive, this would be a a perfect end to a dinner party, and to impress your guest. The recipe is also very sweet, which is quite different to a British style apple pie where the apples are more sour and less sugar is used.

You can find this recipe here.

Enjoy. (^-^)

Almond Fingers

Almond fingers really are one of my favourite sweet  treats. i remember at Glastonbury festival,  the food which I brought (well stuffed into a camping bag) consisted was these. Thankfully It did only rain on the first night, but unfortunately my tent was cheap and leaked… but it was o.k I had my almond fingers as comfort food, and the festival was great. This recipe makes 15.

What You Need:

200g ground almonds, 100g caster sugar, 1 zest of orange, 2 drops of almond extract, 2 eggs, 1tsp baking powder, Icing sugar to dust.

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Simply mix all the ingredients in a bowl to form a pliable dough. Line a baking tray with parchment paper and icing sugar. Take around a tablespoon of dough and form a cigar shape, roll in icing sugar and place on the tray. Do this until you have used all the dough. Then place in the oven for 15-20mins. Take out, cool and then serve.

Best with mint tea (^-^)

Banana Tart

My Family sat down today to a lovely traditional pork roast dinner, which was lovely. So I decided to make a dessert for everyone. I was a bit dubious at the start as for starters when it comes to pastry making I feel a little devil is sitting on my shoulder watching me screw up, and secondly cooked bananas have never been my taste, ever since eating a tin foil wrapped hot banana with chocolate sauce on a very cold and wet camping trip with the Cub Scouts when I was a child. However, a new challenge is always good, and I will never perfect my pastry making skills unless I keep practising, and the result was not bad at all, but quite delicious!

What you Need:

Filling: 7 bananas, 100g of butter, 1/2 cup of water, 1tsp of mixed spice ( cinnamon, coriander and cloves), 2tsp vanilla extract, 1tablespoon of caster sugar. Syrup : 4 tsp butter (melted) 1/2 tsp of mixed spice

(For the pastry I followed a simple short-crust pastry recipe, which I let rest in the refrigerator for one hour and the rolled out and baked blind)

Preheat the oven to 180c

Simply, slice four bananas and add to a saucepan with the water, butter, vanilla, spices and sugar. On a low heat gently heat and watch the the butter melt and the bananas soften, until it forms a nice thick sauce. Set aside to cool. Then pour into the awaiting pastry case and even out with a spatula. With remaining bananas chop and arange on the top of the mixture. Place in the oven for 10mins.

Whilist in the oven prepare a light syrup with melted butter and mixed spice. Once the pie is heated take it out and pour over the syrup and spinkle the top of the tart with sugar. Pop the tart under a hot gril for 2-3mins, or until golden brown.

Serve hot with a dollop of fresh cream. (^-^)

Mum’s Christmas Pudding

Christmas Pudding for me makes christmas day. The rich fruit, the smell of sherry and the thick dollop of brandy butter on the side. So I would like to share with you my mum’s christmas pudding, this recipe is to keep one for yourself and to give one away as a present, a personal christmas touch. You can make this up to six weeks ahead of the day.

What You Need:

200g Currants, 200g Sultanas, 200g Cherries, 100ml Pudding Sherry, 135ml Creme de Cassis, 133g Plain Flour, 165g Bread-crumbs, 200g of suet,  200g Light Brown Sugar, 1 and a quarter tsp ground cinnamon, quarter tsp ground gloves, 1 and a quarter tsp of baking powder, 4 eggs, 40ml honey, one orange, one lemon zest.

This recipe makes two, 2 litre puddings.

If you like, one week before soak the dried fruit in the sherry and creme de cassis.

It’s pretty simple to prepare a christmas pudding, its the cooking which is difficult. Simply weigh out all the ingredients, chop the orange and cherries and mix all together until well blended. Then spoon evenly into buttered pudding bowls (2 litre).

The cooking, prepare two steaming pans, half full with water. Cover the pudding bowls with buttered parchment paper cut to fit the bowls and to turn up at the sides. This is to stop water and condensation building up inside the pudding while it is cooking. Now place the bowls into the steamers and steam on a simmering heat for 5 hours.

There you have it, once done, cool turn out and wrap air-tightly ready for Christmas. On the day of cooking reheat in the steamer for 3 hours and the serve.

The second one is for my Aunt:

Pumpkin Pie (Gretchen Inspired)

While I was living in South Korea I made many American friends who were living there. One of them was Gretchen, I remember around American Thanksgiving time she told me how amazing Pumpkin Pie was and it was a shame she could not make any because people in Korea rarely have ovens. So Gretchen and I hopped on a train for two hours in search for the mythic pie, but atlas we never found. So now I am back in England and that time of year has come around again so I have decided in honour of my friend to have a go at making Pumpkin Pie…. here goes lol

First I decided to use a real pumpkin and not the canned kind. Unfortunately I could only get the Halloween kind, which is o.k just make sure you get as much water out of the pumpkin as possible (I will explain later). First I chopped the pumpkin in half and took out all the seeds and stringy bits. Then chop up into smaller slices and steam, it probably will take around 10-20 mins but you know when it is done because the pumpkin with be bright orange and the skin will just slid off the flesh.. yum! Now when that was all nice and soft, to take out all the water I took the flesh and put it in a cloth and made a bundle and squeezed all the excess water out. Finally put in a blender and blitz until smooth, then refrigerator-ate.

Now I prepared the pie base, a nice simple recipe of short-crust pastry which I then baked blind  in the oven for 20 min and left to cool.

Once the pumpkin mixture was cool I transferred it to a sieve over a pan and left for 1 hour to just to eliminate anymore pesky water, because you don’t want a soggy bottom for your pie!

The filling:

5 eggs, 1tsp ground ginger, 1tsp Ground Allspice, 1.5tsp Cinnamon Power, 3 drops of Vanilla Essences, 300ml of Evaporated milk, 1 cup of golden caster sugar and 3 cups of Pumpkin.

Mix these all up well and pour into you prepared pastry case and pop in a preheated oven at 210C for 15mins and then 175C for 40-60mins.

Cool and then eat ! Yum! Thanks Gretchen for inspiring me to make an unusual dish for an English Guy.

Strawberry Dip Cake

For my brother 11th Birthday I wanted to make him a cake for a present. While I was searching for recipes the usual birthday cake seems boring and outdated and the shop bought ones tacky. So i decided to adapt a cherry cake recipe I found, as cherries are not in season I decided to use a children’s favourite.. strawberries!

Making the cake was not all plain sailing, with a dog running under your feet and the kitchen the size of a shoe box,  you can imagine at some point the stress kicked in! But the overall cake was a success

What you need:

• 175g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 140g golden caster sugar
• 140g very soft, salted butter
• 3 eggs
• 3 tbsp milk
• 1  Mashed Banana

Topping

• 200g white chocolate
• 400g Strawberries
• 150ml crème fraîche

Ok first preheat the oven to 18oC/gas 4 and then line two 20cm sandwich tins and grease. and while the oven is heating up grate the milk chocolate.

Now add the sugar and butter to a mixing bowl and ‘cream’ the mixture until white and fluffy (here you need to make sure the butter is really soft, otherwise it will go all lumpy and horrible). Once ‘creamed’ add the flour, eggs and baking powder and hand mix until light and dough, making sure everything is mixed in nicely. Then throw in the grated chocolate the mashed banana and fold into the mixture. you will smell and lovely banana-ry scent which will make you want to lick the spoon.

Take the mixture and evenly spread into the sandwich tins and bake on the middle self of the oven for 20-30 minutes, until  golden and springy. Once done take out and cool. I think it’s best to make the sponge the day before and store in an air tight container.

Now for the topping, break up the white chocolate and melt in a bain-marie slowly, then set aside for 5 mins. After it has slightly

cooled and gone a bit thicker take half of the strawberries and dip them into the chocolate, placing them delicately on parchment paper to set. While they are setting take the remainder of the strawberries and cut up into small pieces, and we will use them later.

Take the melted chocolate and add the creme fraiche stand for 5 mins, and separate into two bowls. With one bowl and the cut up strawberries and mix, this will be the sandwich filling so liberally spread on the top of one sponge cake. Place the other on top, don’t worry about neatness, i think when you can see the yummy goo running down it looks nice! Then simply take the rest of the milk chocolate mix spead on the top and arrange you dipped strawberries! Enjoy!