Sparkling Redcurrant Cupcakes - Recipe

I revealed on Facebook that I had for no apparent reason gone into blogger meltdown.  It didn't matter what I cooked it just seemed to fail. Cherries falling to the bottom of my cake, rocky roads that didn't quite rock and on and on it went.  I even made hubby a bacon sandwich that you definitely wouldn't pay for!  Although he did remind me he had already paid and that it tasted good all the same:)

My cupcakes may look a little like Christmas with the frosted redcurrants but I love redcurrants coated in sugar, the combination of sweet and tart is amazing, second only to dipping a stick of rhubarb into a bag of sugar.

I've got three redcurrant bushes in my fruit garden and they reward me with lots and lots of bright red bead like jewels that glisten in the sun.  The fruits can be eaten raw, cooked or can be frozen.  They fruit from July through to the middle of August and give us that all important vitamin C.  Unfortunately ants seem to enjoy my fruits too but there isn't much I can do about that!

Redcurrants cost a ridiculous amount of money in the shops and they are sold in minute quantities, I've no idea why because they grow so easily in this country.

At Christmas time we see recipes and images of redcurrants, where do we buy them from at Christmas and where do they come from?

These lovely cupcakes can be made using raspberries or a combination of redcurrants and raspberries. Yes, the fruits are inclined to sink to the bottom of the cupcake cases..........I've got that sinking feeling again!

Makes: 9
110g caster sugar
110g softened butter
110g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
100g redcurrants

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC/Fan 160ºC.
2. Place 9 cupcake cases in a muffin tin.
3. Add all the ingredients, except the redcurrants, to a bowl and mix together for 4 minutes until soft and fluffy.
4. Fold in half the redcurrants.  Place scoops of the mixture into the cupcake cases. Sprinkle the remaining redcurrants on top of the cake batter.
5. Bake for 30 minutes until cooked through. Place onto a cooling rack.
6. To make the icing: Add 100g icing sugar to a medium size bowl and stir in enough lemon juice to make a pouring consistency.  Colour the icing with a few drops of pink colouring.  Pour into a plastic bag, cut a tiny corner off the bag and decorate the tops of the cooled cupcakes. Take a few sprigs of redcurrants and brush with lightly whisked egg white, spoon over caster sugar to frost.  Place onto a tray lined with wax paper to dry.

Mini Lemon Cheesecakes - Recipe

The inspiration for these mini desserts - yellow diamonds!

The way to a man's heart..........in my case my hubby loves jelly! He went to a posher school than me, they had an amazing school cook who made wonderful nursery puddings. He would happily eat nursery puddings and jelly and ice cream every week if I let him.

This lemon cheesecake is my hubby's favourite, it's a little retro using jelly instead of gelatine as a setting agent, but in this recipe it works really well, although to make the cheesecake layer less sweet simply cut down on the amount of sugar. I mostly make this dessert in a 20cm loose base sandwich tin for a low faff dessert but mini desserts always look really pretty.

You will need:  silicone cupcake tray

Makes: 8

170g Hobnob biscuits crushed
100g butter
Half a 1 pint lemon jelly
225g full fat cream cheese (not low fat)
55g caster sugar
grated zest of a lemon
Topping:
juice of a lemon
1-½ to 2 tsp arrowroot
30g caster sugar
butter
yellow food colouring (optional)
For the decoration:
Half a 1 pint lemon jelly

1. Place the biscuits into a bowl and crush using the end of a rolling pin(no fancy kitchen equipment needed here). Melt the butter.  Add the melted butter to the crushed biscuits.
2. Put the silicone tray onto a sturdy metal tray.  Divide the biscuit crumb mixture between the cavities. Press down with a spoon. Place in the fridge for a couple of hours to chill.
3. Boil the kettle, add half the jelly tablet to a jug and make up to ¼ pint with hot water.  Stir to dissolve the jelly.  Cool and then place the jug in the fridge to chill until it is the consistency of unbeaten egg white.
4. Beat the cream cheese with the caster sugar and lemon rind.  Gradually whisk in the chilled jelly.  It will go lumpy but keep on beating with a hand whisk and it will become smooth.  Remove the cupcake tray from the fridge and fill the cavities nearly to the top with the cream cheese/jelly mixture making sure there is a space for the topping. There will be some cream cheese mixture left over when you make individual cheesecakes.  If making the 20cm cheesecake all the mixture will be used up.  Place the silicone tray back in the fridge to chill until the filling is set.
5. To make the topping: Make the lemon juice up to ¼ pint with water.  Place the arrowroot into a basin and mix with some of the liquid to make a smooth paste, add the rest of the liquid and the sugar. Pour into a small saucepan, bring to the boil whilst stirring to prevent lumps.  Boil to produce a clear mixture.  Remove from the heat, add the butter and a little yellow food colouring.  Let the mixture cool.
6. Take the cheesecakes from the fridge.  Spoon the sauce over the top.
7. Place the cheesecakes into the freezer to partially freeze, this will make it easier to remove them from the moulds.
8. In the meantime, make up the other half of the lemon jelly to ¼ pint as before.  Pour into heart shaped silicone moulds.  Chill down and then place in the freezer.  Remove from the freezer and take the hearts out of the mould.
9. Take the cheesecakes out of the freezer and remove from the moulds, place on individual plates to return to room temperature.  Place a heart on each plate.
10. Decoration: Half a lemon jelly dissolved in ¼ pint of hot water. Place on a tray and chill in the fridge until set, remove from the fridge and chop to make 'diamonds'.

Strawberry Cake - Recipe

                                              Fantasy Cake - a recipe by Lisa Faulkner

I've been away from home this week and have indulged in some fabulous food, especially my treat of the week, which was an evening meal at Le Caprice. As regular readers know I love coffee, and I've had more than a few expertly made cups this week but the best was definitely at Le Caprice.

I made this cake a couple of weeks ago and have to say my strawberries have been amazing this year, I can't believe how many strawberries you can get off two rows. I've made a few strawberry cakes this year from them and these are now my favourite summer cakes, they're fabulous, especially if you serve them with cream.

I came across this recipe whilst browsing through some cookery books in the library, a quick search on the web and everyone agreed this cake is one of the best strawberry cakes ever.

The recipe can be found on the Waitrose website and they have a video on You Tube showing the cake being made -  I'd recommend using the method shown on the video and not the one on the website. My only comment regarding the recipe is the amount of strawberries used which is 400g, I used less and it was absolutely fine.

The cake keeps really well covered in cling wrap and stored in the fridge.

Make it before all the fresh strawberries disappear!


                                                       VIMTO SQUEEZY - REVIEW

I was delighted to be sent Vimto Original, Cherry and Strawberry to try, the weather has been hot and the timing was perfect.

The Vimto Squeezy is lighter than a cordial in taste, I'm not always very keen on cordials, some taste like boiled sweets - perhaps it's just me who thinks this, but these are excellent and definitely don't taste like boiled sweets!

These mini bottles are easily transportable to flavour bottles of water whilst you are out and about. Handily they will also fit into my handbag and take up no space at all.

The squeezy bottles come in a small 50ml bottle and are sugar free.  To flavour a 500ml bottle of water simply squirt in one teaspoon of Vimto.  There are approximately 25 servings in a bottle and at a RRP of just £2.49 they are very good value.  Available from Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Co-op Stores.

Disclaimer:  I was sent the products for review, all thoughts are my own.

Mini Raspberry Cream Brownies - Recipe

These petits fours are 'high faff' and take a bit of patience to make but they are well worth it. They're quite rich and I could only manage to eat one, which is no bad thing, because I really wouldn't want to know how calorific they are.

I've got a few raspberry canes at the bottom of the garden, there's nothing quite like home grown raspberries, they are in a league of their own.

My hob is induction and melting chocolate is a dream, it's possible to place the chocolate in a pan and melt it gently on the hob, it's so much easier than melting chocolate over a pan of water and I find the chocolate never overheats.

The cream is made from raspberry puree, cream and melted white chocolate, I added a little red food colouring to brighten up the raspberry cream to give it a pretty pink colour.

When I piped these I didn't let the raspberry cream chill down for long enough

I'm off for a week to eat at a few posh restaurants and some not so posh, drink coffee at some trendy coffee shops and some not so trendy.......but meanwhile I'll leave you with the recipe for these fabulous brownies.....

You will need:  22cm square baking tin, greased  and lined with baking parchment so the paper extends over all four sides.  4cm cutter.

80g salted butter
150g dark chocolate
115g caster sugar
2 small eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
60g plain flour
3 tbsp cocoa powder

Raspberry Cream
250g raspberries
1 tbsp icing sugar
60ml cream
125g white chocolate

1. Preheat the oven to 160ºC.
2. Place the chocolate and butter into a bowl and place over a saucepan with gently simmering water. Stir until the butter and chocolate have melted. Remove the bowl and allow to cool.
3.Place the sugar, eggs and vanilla in a bowl and mix until pale and creamy.
4. Fold in the cooled chocolate.  Sift over the flour and cocoa powder.
5. Pour into the baking tin and cook for 15-20 minutes. Cool in the tin. Place in the fridge for an hour.
6. Raspberry Cream.  Place 125g raspberries with the icing sugar into a food processor and blend until smooth.  Strain through a fine sieve. Add the raspberry puree to a small saucepan along with the cream and bring to the boil.  Add the pieces of white chocolate to the pan, remove from the heat and spoon the raspberry cream over the chocolate pieces.  Leave it for approximately 5 minutes and then whisk to a smooth glossy sauce.  Pour into a bowl and place in the fridge until chilled and set.
7. Take the cake out of the fridge, remove the cake from the tin.  Place on a board and cut out rounds using the cutter.
8. Place the chilled raspberry cream into a piping bag fitted with a 1M Wilton nozzle and pipe onto the brownie rounds, top with a fresh raspberry.

I'm submitting this post to the recipe linky #cookblogshare over at Supergolden Bakes.......

Strawberry and Rhubarb Crumble - Recipe

One of my favourite fillings for crumble is strawberries and rhubarb - both the strawberries and rhubarb were picked from my garden and so it was more or less a free pudding.

The downside of this filling is that it looks more than a bit of a mess when it's served up and I think the filling is best suited to individual crumbles.  On a positive the filling is a glorious bright pink and tastes like heaven.  I like to let the crumble cool down for a while before I serve it with a dollop of ice cream.

I prefer to roast my rhubarb

The rhubarb is placed in the dish with the strawberries

A top tip is to combine the butter, flour and sugar with a fork -
 this method keeps hands and rings clean

The crumble rubble

For the filling:
6 sticks of rhubarb
4 tbsp water
8 tbsp caster sugar
250g strawberries

For the crumble:
110g butter
110g demerara sugar
200g flour

1. Preheat the oven to 180C fan.
2. Cut the rhubarb into sticks and place on an oven tray, sprinkle with the water and caster sugar and roast in the oven for 10 minutes.
3. Remove from the oven and place the rhubarb without the juice into a greased ovenproof dish.  Add the strawberries to the dish.
4. To make the crumble, rub the butter into the flour and sugar. Cover the rhubarb and strawberries with the crumble mix and bake in the oven for 45 minutes until the crumble is golden and the filling is bubbling over the crumble.

Meringue Roulade with Elderflower Infused Strawberries - Recipe

Strawberries from the garden, egg whites from the freezer, chocolate from the store cupboard - I only had to buy the whipping cream.  I nearly got away with a free dessert!

The slightly adapted recipe is by Mary Berry and one I have used many, many times and in true Mary Berry style - I cut the finished roulade in half and put one half in the freezer for another day.

I serve my meringue with lots of macerated strawberries

I'm very sad but I always feel happy when I line a tin neatly

Remove the lining paper and dab meringue into the four corners (this secures the lining paper)
place the lining paper into the tin and then add the meringue

The cooked meringue 

Now for the recipe:
4 egg whites
225g caster sugar
pinch cream of tartar
300ml whipping cream
1tsp vanilla extract
icing sugar for dusting
dark chocolate for decoration

1. Preheat the oven to 200ºC/180ºC Fan. Line a large baking sheet with baking parchment.
2. Whisk the egg whites with a pinch of cream of tartar until stiff. Add the sugar a teaspoon at a time, until the egg whites are stiff and glossy.
3. Spread the egg whites evenly on the lined baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes until golden. Remove from the oven and cool on a baking rack for 10 minutes.
4. Take a large sheet of baking parchment and dust with sifted icing sugar.  Turn the meringue over onto the baking parchment.  Remove the paper from the base of the meringue.
5. Whip the cream and vanilla extract to soft peaks.
6. Spread the cream over the meringue, roll the meringue from one of the long ends, using the parchment paper to help with the rolling. Dust with icing sugar.
7. Melt a few pieces of dark chocolate and drizzle over the meringue.
TIP: The cream of tartar helps stabilise the meringue and prevents weeping too.

Elderflower Infused Strawberries
200g fresh strawberries
1 tablespoon elderflower cordial
1 tablespoon caster sugar

1. Wash the strawberries.
2. Cut the strawberries into quarters.
3. Pour over the elderflower cordial, sprinkle over the caster sugar.
4. Mix together.
5. Cover and place in the fridge overnight.

The swiss roll tin I used measures 34x24x2 and is part of the range of The Bakers Dozen James Martin Bakeware by Stellar Cookware.