Cake, cake and more damn cake!

It was my wonderful friend Hannah's birthday on the 1st, so on the 7th we threw her a 'do! I promised I would bake her a big cake.  And big it was.

It is covered in chocolate ganache and on the inside it's chocolate and vanilla sponges.  I baked a bit tipsy so I think it turned out well!  Everyone seemed pleased with it, so that's a plus!  It was a lovely evening and the next day I had to make yet another cake for a colleague of my boyfriend who has just had a baby! 

I had just bought a piping set from Tala baking and the squeezy bottles are so easy to use, I have no patience for bags, I always mess them up! They work beautifully so I must recommend.

The above cake is a Lemon drizzle with buttercream.  Again it went down very well.  So with being a bit drunk when I made Hannah's cake and then having a stinking hangover when I made the Lemon one I think that overall it was a fantastically successful baking weekend! 

I will follow up with the recipes for each cake later but I wanted to get on and show you the results of a busy weekend of cooking! 

Loch Fyne, Covent Garden

Long time without posting, which I know is bad seeing as I am trying to launch something wonderful that people love to read. 
Enough of the grovelling!  I wanted to write a quick post about our dinner out on Wednesday evening.  We went to Loch Fyne in Covent Garden and I have to say it was really enjoyable.  As I have mentioned before in this blog I adore seafood, and it was a first for my boyfriend in a lot of areas, Lobster, Oysters and Langoustine.  Yummy.

All of my favourites in there!

  As you can see it was beautifully presented.  My gripe is, and it was £40.95, is that on the menu it says that it feeds four as a starter and two as a main course.  Do they mean birds? Or small children?  This was not a main for two people!  And for the price it was!  It's cold seafood there was no cooking involved at all.  Needless to say it was delicious but I am so happy that we ordered chips, that were fabulous!  Really crispy and just so moreish!  I really do think that we would have gone hungry if we hadn't ordered chips and then the cheese board for dessert.

My biscuits were broken!

The cheese board was lovely too, a glorious blue cheese that totally knocked our socks off!  Our wine was really delicious too.  However again a complaint.  The biscuits on my cheese board were broken as though they were from the bottom of the packet and chucked on the plate.  My partner and I rarely get to to out to eat and spending £80 on a meal that wasn't totally filling was disappointing.  Michael's chip shop up Leyton way know how to portion.  Massive fish, loads of chips, you are never disappointed by size or price! 

Just Deal With It

I have previously written about Jamie Oliver and how I feel that he is jumping on a 'recession' bandwagon. http://cuttingcooks.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/mr-olivers-recession-bandwagon.html 

Today as I tuned into Twitter I discover that he has said some really dubious things about eating culture in today's cash-strapped Britain.  
First of all he told the Radio Times that he was 'not judgemental' when it came to poor families.  OK so first of all he is trying to promote a book and series to just these types of households and second of all he is 'non-judgementally' attacking them in the same breath.  

I haven't written a blog with any new recipes for a while.  This is because my staples are all listed here and I haven't had the money to experiment or try anything new, so it has been difficult thinking of something to write.  Jamie, thank you for the inspiration. 

So as I sit here in front of my big telly, (which was a gift, so there) I contemplate the media culture of recession porn.  TV shows, guest spots and news stories gearing us to think 'It's OK to be struggling, this is how you get around it'.  Well maybe I would like to be paid more, maybe my partner would like a raise, maybe I would like our council tax to be lowered or stay static.  Thinking about Thames Waters' potential price rises are giving me a dicky tummy.  Another £30 a month, no problem.  Also TFL (Transport for London) hiking prices, again.
How these companies think that they can take another piece out of our non-rising wages is a joke.  These are the things that need to be fixed before we ask people to 'just deal with it'. 

The government has to be realistic.  If we are going to pay all these rising prices, shouldn't they be represented in our pay packets?  Look I am not an economist, I barely got away with Maths GCSE.  Barely.  All I know is that we are just going to get deeper and deeper into debt as the government tries to dig itself out.  We break our backs for them and what do we get?  Chips, Cheese and big TV's according to multi-millionaire Oliver. 

This is not a Jamie Oliver 'hate blog' but he is not doing himself any favours lately, his obvious snobbery does not sit well in my stomach.  He is not the only one at it.  Kirstie Allsopp is at it too.  You can buy things cheap second hand!?  Maybe even get it for free from local message boards, Gumtree etc!? My goodness, there was something I didn't know.  (Need sarcasm font obviously).

This 'just deal with it' attitude from the media has to stop.  How about you make programmes criticizing and investigating the governments role in the demonisation of the poor, the squeezing of a middle-class that is shrinking at a rate of knots.  People earning what my partner and I earn shouldn't have to squeeze as many pennies as we should.  While saying that it brings up another gripe.  Our letting agents sticking their oar in to the tune of £600 before we got into our flat.  Make a TV show about that. 

Just deal with it!? No I won't Messrs Oliver & Allsopp et al.  I'm going to fight until we get what we deserve.  A life without constant struggle.  

Chilli Cheese Scones

I felt an autumnal chill in the air this morning, is it just me?  Anyway it got me thinking that it is approaching one of my favourite times of the year.  So I thought I would try a new recipe for the coming coolness in the air and made scones.  I didn't have anything sweet in the cupboards.  I love fruit scones with lots of butter and jam, but I decided to change my recipe for these up a bit.

You can make all sorts of tweaks to this recipe which is why it is so wonderful.  


Chilli Cheese Scones:

Recipe makes 6 big scones, you can double up if you want more, which will be the case after you've tried them once!

Ingredients:

200g plain flour
50g butter (cold and cubed)
80g strong cheddar cheese
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 heaped tsp sugar
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp chilli
1/4 tsp salt
100ml milk

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 220c then measure out the flour and add the other dry ingredients and mix them together.
2. Drop in your cubed cold butter and rub together until the mix resembles fine breadcrumbs.
3. Now add the cheese and mix so evenly distributed.
4. Gradually add the milk and mix with a knife until it starts to clump together into a dough.  Get your hands in and knead softly to form a ball.
5.  Turn dough out onto a floured surface and roll, or pat out until it is about 2cm thick.  I use a wine glass to cut out my scones because I don't have a cutter but the size is up to you.
6.  Place onto a baking tray and bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes.  Don't leave them for longer than 10 minutes without checking because depending on the oven they can burn quickly.

Take them out when golden and crisp on the outside.  Serve them with a bit of butter, but if they are just out of the oven I think they are good on their own.  Bizarrely they might be nice with jam if you're into that sweet and savoury thing.  Lovely.  Again these, with a cup of tea are glorious.  

Mr Olivers Recession Bandwagon!

So Jamie Oliver's new book and show will deal with waste, money saving tips from the restaurant trade.  Wonderful.  We are going to have a multi-millionaire raiding the fridges of people who don't know how to save, or cut corners in the kitchen.  

Press Release on Channel 4, Jamie cooks up meals on a budget. 

Frankly I've had a bad day today and this news really put the cherry on my cake.  

I have never had much of an issue with Jamie.  I was fully behind his campaign to improve school dinners, his attack on the evil Michael Gove and being part of the campaign about sourcing more sustainable fish.  Some of his recipes are great too.  Especially some of the 15 Minute Meal ideas, which I find fantastic, apart from his love of serving things on a chopping board.  Awful.

I can think of all sorts of things that Mr Oliver can throw his weight behind rather than trying to tell people with the smallest amounts of cash how to spend part of it on food.  I think that the premise of this show/book is good.  People do need to know what to do with very little in the kitchen.  God knows the subject of waste can get me going too.  But I don't see how these people can stand being preached to by someone who will never have money problems for the rest of his life.  Someone who couldn't possibly understand the drudgery of the daily, weekly or monthly shop on a pittance.  

I would say that I am pretty creative in the kitchen, and I don't struggle with a few ingredients put in front of me.  A lot of people do, which is one of the reasons why I started this blog.  If through this programme/book Jamie actually spent time living on the budget that his subjects are I would be surprised.  It is not indicated anywhere on the press release or amazon article.  If that was the case then it might be a more interesting venture.

It is hard, and it is stressful, it is depressing and it is sometimes very boring.  I can't understand someone who hasn't had these worries being able to tell people what is going to work for them.  Especially since he isn't coming from any semblance of experience that I can discover.

I know this blog entry may come off slightly as if I have a touch of the green-eyed monster but that is not (totally) the case.  I feel strongly that Mr Oliver is jumping on some sort of 'recession bandwagon', it's kind of distasteful.  With so many people struggling with the basics of life, people resorting to the food bank, and other charitable organisations are we really going to listen to someone worth approximately £150 million tell us how to 'save'?  I certainly can't, well maybe with a big pinch of own brand salt. 

This is my Potato Cake recipe, there are many like it, but this one is mine!

Cheese and Bacon Potato Cakes

I love cakes, so if I can have them for tea then that is all the better.  These are obviously savoury but really delicious.  Crunchy on the outside and soft, fluffy and cheesy on the inside, with pretty little flecks of piggy, you can't go wrong.  Either for a snack or as part of a meal I think these are great.

I am not going to suggest that you have a ton of leftover mashed potato either, because that hardly ever happens Messrs Slater, Ramsay & the rest!  You just need to boil about a pound of potatoes for this recipe.  More if you got more, less if you got less.  The thing with this recipe is that you can adjust the quantities depending on your requirements.  I'm feeding three, and my recipe makes 6 big fat yummy cakes.

Ingredients: 

4 tsbp of vegetable oil
1 lb of potatoes
150-250g of grated Mature (is there any other kind?) cheddar 
4-5 rashers of smoked bacon chopped finely and cooked
Salt and Pepper to taste
A few sprinkles of flour

Method:

1.  I am not going to tell you how to boil potatoes but one they're done mash them all up with some salt, pepper and milk.  Get as smooth a mash as you can.  My masher is rubbish, but I toil away until I get something decent.  
2.  Mix in your bacon, make sure everything is cool(ish) because A) You don't want to burn your hands and B) You don't want the cheese to melt.
3.  Scatter in the cheese and mix in bit by bit so it doesn't clump together.  Then season and taste the mixture making sure its perfect for your tastes.
4.  Grab a handful and shape into a burger type form so you can handle them well in the pan.  Place them onto a floured surface, sprinkling the top of them too, I used a baking tray.

5.  Once they are all done put them in the fridge for about 30 minutes to ensure they're stuck well together.
6.   Heat the oil in a pan and when at a good frying temperature (use a bit of bread to check) place your cakes in the oil.  I did two at a time so I didn't crowd the pan too much.  

Once these gooey beauties are done serve them with anything you like, or eat them on their own.  Regardless, they are fantastic!  Enjoy!

Carrot Cake, Karate Cake...

Today was a cooking day, it was lovely.  The weather was nice, I had the back door open and Radio 2 on.  God I'm getting old!
Digressions aside I decided to attempt carrot cake.  Or Karate Cake as dubbed by my brother.  Who also said 'ew, it's got carrots in it' before eating a slice and declaring it moist and yummy, which it is.

Carrot Cake/ Karate Cake

Ingredients:

175g light muscovado sugar
175ml of vegetable oil
3 medium eggs beaten
150g of grated carrots
1tsp of baking soda
1 heaped tsp of cinnamon
1 half tsp of nutmeg

Method:

1.  Preheat the oven to 180C and prepare your tin by greasing it lightly and dusting it with a little flour, I used a loaf tin, but you could use a regular cake tin if you like.
2.   Mix together your sugar and eggs until combined and a lovely dark colour, then add the carrots and stir till combined.
3. Sift the dry ingredients into your bowl and mix to combine the mixture.  Once done pour the mixture into your tin and place in the oven.  Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean.  

This recipe was done with what I had in my kitchen.  I would have loved to have added the zest of an orange or lemon perhaps.  Maybe prepared an icing or a zesty syrup to go on top of it.  This would be lovely sliced with a bit of fresh cream also.

Regardless of this I must say a slice of this cake with a cup of Yorkshire gold really did hit the spot today.  Wonderful.