Tag: Book Theme
Afternoon Tea Sandwiches

Afternoon Tea Sandwiches

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Every afternoon tea starts with a delicious selection of finger sandwiches. For this spread I went for cheese and ham on brown bread and then cucumber and smoked salmon on white bread. These are personal faves  of mine, but feel free to get experimental! So yes I am going to write a recipe for sandwiches, here we go…

Recipe

Makes 6 of each type of sandwich

Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

  • 6 tsp Unsalted butter
  • 6 slices Brown bread
  • 6 slices White bread
  • 2 tsp cream cheese
  • A few pieces of Smoked salmon
  • ¼ cucumber
  • 3 Slices of Honey smoked ham
  • 3 Slices of Cheddar cheese

Method

  1. Begin by buttering (the proper technical term) the brown bread slices and half the white bread. Then spread the cream cheese over the remaining White bread slices.
  2. To make the smoked salmon sandwiches lay the smoked salmon in  a layer over half the cream cheese covered bread. Then sandwich these sandwich halves with the rest of the cream cheese covered slices.
  3. Now make the cucumber sandwiches. Thinly slice the cucumber and then lay the slices over 1/2 of the white bread slices.  You might need to cut some of the cucumber discs in half so all the bread is covered. Top with the other slices of white bread and leave to one side.
  4. To make the remaining sandwiches lay the ham over 3 buttered brown bread slices and the cheese slices over the another. Then top with the remaining slices of brown bread, butter side down.
  5. Take a sharp knife and cut the crusts off all the sandwiches (keep these in an air tight box as they make great snacks!) and then cut each sandwich in half vertically to make two finger sandwiches. (Depending on the size of bread you’re using you might need to cut the sandwiches into three or something, but just use your judgement). Serve!

Thanks for reading! Next afternoon tea recipe coming out tomorrow!

Emma x
Mad Hatter’s Tea Party

Mad Hatter’s Tea Party

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“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast” – Lewis Carrol, Alice in Wonderland.

We’re at the end of book themed month (where did that go?!) and so I’ve decided to end like we started and do a week of recipes themed around one book – this time that good old favourite Alice in Wonderland! I’m from Oxford and there’s loads of Lewis Carrol references around the city that I’ve been trotted around since I was very young, so I’ve always had a fondness for this crazy story. Although it’s technically a children’s book I think the actual themes and plot are pretty incomprehensible and I remember being really confused with it as a kid, but re-reading the book now in my early adult years I’m finding it much more insightful and interesting.

So, back to why we’re here, the food! When doing an Alice in Wonderland themed week on a food blog it’s kinda compulsory to do a Mad Hatter’s tea party so that’s what we have. This is an all bells and whistles afternoon tea, but you could scale it back if you don’t want to spend two days baking. If you really don’t want to bake that much you could just take inspiration from what I’ve put together and buy the elements from a shop. I have to admit to being sooo tempted to just buy a bakewell tart on my way out of the shop when I was buying the ingredients for this! In my opinion a ‘complete’ afternoon tea needs…

• Finger sandwiches

• Scones

• Some kind of cake

• Some kind of biscuit

• Something made out of choux pastry (e.g a profiterole)

• Something made out of Shortcrust pastry (e.g a tart)

• And of course lots of tea!

I’ll be posting a recipe a day which you’ll be able to find on the main page of my blog, or on this post where I’ll be collating all the links…

First up is the base of all afternoon teas – finger sandwiches!

Afternoon Tea Sandwiches

Scones

Banana, Cinnamon and Rum Friands

Bakewell Tartlets

Passion Fruit and Chocolate Profiteroles

Chocolate Ginger Biscuit Shards

Thanks for reading!

Emma x
Red Dragon: Thai Red Chicken Curry with Crispy Chicken Skin

Red Dragon: Thai Red Chicken Curry with Crispy Chicken Skin

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 A while ago my friend Macks recommended I read Red Dragon, the first book in the Hannibal Lecter series, for my book-themed month and so this fiery curry is an attempt at translating that book into a dish.  Now, I’m not a fan of thrillers or horror novels, so I confess I went back to my English student days and worked from the sparknotes summary of the book instead. Due to the action in the novel I wanted to make something with a good kick of heat and spice in it, and a Thai red curry is a fab spicy dish to work with. Ideally this would be a dragon curry, but as dragons don’t seem to exist I had to go another way – but lets be honest, if dragons did exist they’d probably taste like chicken anyway!

This Thai red curry is served with crispy dragon/chicken skins (which are way easier to make than I would have thought!) and lime leaf rice. I’ve cooked rice in other recipes like this and I always find it makes it a bit more exciting. You  basically add a couple of fresh lime leaves to the water when cooking the rice and then grate a little lime zest over the rice when it’s plated and it makes the rice super fragrant and a perfect pairing for a warm curry like this.

Recipe

Serves 4

Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients

  • 1 tbsp Vegetable oil
  • 1 tbsp Root ginger, grated
  • 2 Garlic gloves, crushed
  • 1 Red chilli
  • 5-6 tbsp Red curry paste
  • 800ml Coconut milk
  • 8 Chicken thighs
  • 1 stick of Lemongrass
  • 2 tbsp Fish sauce
  • 1 tsp Brown sugar
  • A handful of Thai basil, plus some extra to serve

To serve

  • Jasmine rice
  • Zest of 1 Lime
  • 2 Fresh kaffir lime leaves

Method

  1. Begin by heating the oil in a pan. Add the ginger and garlic and fry for 2 minutes and then add the curry paste and fry for 1 minute. Add the coconut milk and bring the mixture to the boil. Reduce to a simmer and then leave until oil rises to the surface.
  2. Take the skin off the chicken thighs with a sharp knife, keeping it for later, and then chop the meat into chunks. Then take the lemongrass and bash the end with the flat of a knife to squash it. Add the chicken meat and lemongrass to the curry and leave to simmer for 12 minutes until cooked through.
  3. Meanwhile put on a pan of water for the rice. Once boiling add the rice and the lime leaves, stir once to break up the grains and then leave to simmer until cooked through.
  4. Now make the crispy chicken skins. Pre-heat the oven to 180˚C. Take the skins which you took off the thighs and spread them out flat on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Sprinkle them with a little sea salt and then sandwich the skins with another sheet of baking paper and a baking tray.
  5. Cook the skins in the oven for 10-15 minutes until crispy and golden. Leave in the oven with the oven turned off until needed.
  6. Once the chicken is cooked add the fish sauce and sugar to the curry and then bring to the boil again. Then take the curry off the heat and add the Thai basil.
  7. Spoon the soup into serving bowls and top with a little more basil and the chicken skins. Drain the rice and then grate a little of the lime zest into the mixture and serve with the curry!

Note: If you have some leftover roast chicken it works really well in this!

Thanks for reading!

Emma x
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe: Turkish Delight

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe: Turkish Delight

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When I was younger one of my favourite book series was The Chronicles of Narnia, and my favourite of those was The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (or LW+W as I’ll refer to it from now on – great book but hella long title!) As you may have noted by all the other books that have inspired me this month, anything based in a fantasy world or with mystical imagery will tick my box, and so the idea of a land cursed with eternal winter appealed to me from a young age.  Those of you who’ve read LW+W will know the reason why I chose Turkish Delight as my inspired creation for this week (and those of you who haven’t should read the book!) and although I wouldn’t say it’s worth-betraying-my-family-to-the-white-queen good, it’s still pretty tasty!

Turkish delight is one of those things that is really easy to make… if you know how to make it. Those of you following my Instagram may have seen my first attempt at this which ended up as a burnt, black sludge that was binned pretty quickly. After a few recipe tweaks though I’ve ended up with this which I think is pretty successful and pretty easy to get right.  I’ve used a 20cm square tin here to set the sweets in which has made them a little flatter than you’d normally find Turkish delight – but hey, as long as they taste good right? If you prefer yours as proper cubes though just use a smaller tin.

Recipe

Makes 24 squares

Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients

  • 1 tbsp Cornflour
  • 2 tbsp Icing sugar
  • 9 Gelatine leaves
  • 450g Granulated sugar
  • Few drops of rosewater
  • Few drops of Pink food colouring

Method

  1. Lightly oil a 20cm square tin. Then line the tin with cling film. Mix together the cornflour and icing sugar in a bowl and then sift it into the tin. Move the tin around so the sugar mixture dusts the whole inside, then tip the excess out for later and place the tin to one side.
  2. Pour 300ml water into a large pan. Add the gelatine and leave it to soak for about 5 minutes, until soft and pliable.
  3. Place the pan over a medium heat and stir gently until the gelatine dissolves. Then add the sugar and continue to stir until the sugar dissolves (you shouldn’t be able to feel anything gritty on the bottom of the pan).
  4. Bring the mixture up to the boil and then reduce the heat to low and leave the mixture to simmer for 20 minutes.
  5. Take the pan off the heat and stir in the rose water and food colouring until the colour is even through the mix.
  6. Pour the mixture into the lined tin and then leave to set overnight.
  7. The next day sift a little of the icing sugar/cornflour mixture from earlier onto a board or plate. Turn the Turkish delight out onto the dusted surface and, using a sharp knife, cut the Turkish delight into strips and then squares about 3x3cm.
  8. Use the rest of the dusting mixture to coat all surfaces of the Turkish delight to stop it from sticking to everything, and then it’s ready to eat! These should be stored in an airtight container, probably between layers of baking paper or cling film to stop the layers from sticking together, for up to a week.

Thanks for reading!

Emma x
The Hobbit – Honey Cake with Catalan Cream and Lemon Curd

The Hobbit – Honey Cake with Catalan Cream and Lemon Curd

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“THERE WAS A BUZZING AND A WHIRRING AND A DRONING IN THE AIR. BEES WERE EVERYWHERE. AND SUCH BEES! BILBO HAD NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THEM.”

I have to confess to being a huge Tolkien fan, and so either LOTR, The Saumarillion, or The Hobbit had to pop up on here sooner or later this month. Whilst I’ve taken The Hobbit as specific inspiration for this one, you could say that it’s generally a Middle Earth inspired dessert.

When thinking about making a Hobbit-inspired dish you’d probably expect some kind of ring cake, or generally a ring-shaped thing. So you may be wondering why I’ve made a honey bee out of cake instead? Well there is a reason. When Gandalf, Bilbo and the dwarfs end up staying at Beorn’s home before departing for Mirkwood (sorry to anyone who hasn’t read/seen The Hobbit), there’s lengthy descriptions about the gigantic honey bees in the garden which really hit my imagination, and therefore I’ve gone bee-themed for this one. As a parting gift Beorn also gives the company jars of honey from his bees to nourish them on the trip and anyone who’s seen the film might remember the big fuzzy bees swarming around the barn as they run in.

Whilst Middle Earth inspired the components of the dish, it was my trip to the Edinburgh Fringe a couple of years ago that inspired the flavours. Whilst up there I went to this amazing ice-cream shop which always had a selection of really interesting flavours. One day I had the lemon, honey and black sesame ice-cream and it was sublime! So, as a result, lemon, honey and sesame all feature in here. There was also this really cute campervan at the festival that sold little creme brulees and Catalan creams (basically creme brulees flavoured with lemon and cinnamon). This inspired me to fill my honey bee with some Catalan cream, set with gelatin, and then caramelise sugar on either end. You could also fill the cake with pannacotta, mousse or jelly if you’d prefer!

Recipe

Makes 2 Bees (but leaves some leftover cake and biscuits to nibble on!)

Time: 2 1/2 hours, plus setting time

Ingredients

For the Décor paste

  • 114g Unsalted butter
  • 114g Icing sugar
  • 2 Large egg whites
  • 90g Plain flour
  • 40g Cocoa powder
  • A few drops of black food colouring (optional)

For the Honey cake

  • 50g Butter
  • 20g Runny honey
  • 110g Self raising flour, sifted
  • ½ tsp Baking powder
  • 2 Large eggs
  • 120g Caster sugar

For the Catalan cream

  • 335ml Whole milk
  • 50g Black sesame seeds, plus extra to garnish
  • 1 Cinnamon stick
  • 2 leaves of Gelatin
  • Zest of 1 Lemon
  • 1 tsp Vanilla bean paste
  • 200g Caster sugar, plus extra for caramelising
  • 1 ½ tbsp Cornflour
  • 2 Medium egg yolks

For the Honey tuile

  • 20g Runny honey
  • 30g Unsalted butter
  • 1 Egg white
  • A few drops of Vanilla extract
  • A pinch of Salt
  • 3tbsp Plain flour

To Decorate

  • Lemon curd
  • 1/2 Lemon, cut into little pieces
  • Fresh Mint leaves
  • Freeze dried raspberries (optional)

Method

  1. Line a 38x26cm tin with butter and baking paper. Pre-heat the oven to 160˚C.
  2. Begin by making the décor paste that’ll make the stripes on your bees. Put the butter and icing sugar into a bowl and cream them together until smooth. Add the egg whites and whisk until combined. Then add the flour, cocoa powder and food colouring (if you’re using it) and mix together until a uniform colour and smooth.
  3. Pour the batter into a piping bag with a small, round nozzle. Then pipe lines horizontally across the lined tin, about 2cm apart, to make your stripes. Leave the tin the freezer for at least 20 minutes, or until needed.
  4. Now make the honey cake. Put the butter, honey, flour, baking powder, eggs and sugar into a bowl and whisk until combined – an electric whisk here can make things easier!
  5. Pour the cake mixture over the stripes in your tin and smooth the mixture out so it’s an even layer. Then bake the cake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, until puffed up, golden brown and so that the cake springs back when it’s poked gently.
  6. Meanwhile take 2, 6 ½ cm diameter metal rings. Grease them with butter and then line them with clingfilm.
  7. When baked, turn the cake sheet out onto a wire rack and remove the baking paper. Quickly cut the cake into strips, following the lines of the stripes (so not cutting across the stripes). The width of the strips should be the same as the height of your metal rings.
  8.  Take one of the still warm cake strips and fit it into the ring. To make a tight fit you might need to cut the strip to make it shorter, but do this carefully as you need the cake to fully wrap around the inside of the ring. Repeat with the other ring and then leave to one side for later.
  9. Next make the Catalan cream. Take a large saucepan and put in the milk, cinnamon, lemon rind, sesame seeds, and vanilla. Bring to the boil and then leave to simmer for a couple of minutes. Sieve the milk to remove the sesame seeds and then pop to one side.
  10. Put the gelatin into a bowl with some cold water and leave for at least 5 minutes until soft and flexible.
  11. In another bowl whisk the egg yolks, cornflour and 150g of the sugar until thick and creamy. Slowly pour the milk into the mix, whisking constantly until smooth.
  12. Pour the mixture back into the pan and place over a medium heat. Stir the mixture constantly until it beings to thicken. Add the gelatin to the mix and whisk in until dissolved. Then take the pan off the heat and leave to cool until luke warm.
  13. Carefully pour the cooled cream mixture into the rings lined with the cake and leave to set in the fridge for at least 3 hours, or better still overnight.
  14. Now make the tuiles. Put the butter and honey into a bowl and mix together until smooth. Add the egg white, vanilla and a pinch of salt. Then add the flour and mix again until all combined.
  15. Take a sheet of acetate (or you can improvise straight onto a baking sheet) and cut out a wing shape with a scalpel. Line 2 baking trays with baking paper.
  16. Place your stencil onto your baking tray. Then dollop 1 tsp of the tuile mixture onto the space in the stencil (you don’t need very much). Take a palette knife and smooth the mixture over the gap and then sweep the knife across the stencil at a 45˚ angle to remove the excess mixture and to make the shape clear. Repeat over the rest of the baking sheets to get a lot of little wings. (You’ll need two per bee, but some will break so always make more than you need).
  17. Pre-heat the oven to 140˚C. Bake your tuiles for 5-8 minutes until just starting to brown at the edges. Leave to cool completely and then transfer to a wire rack until needed.
  18. Once the Catalan cream has set, sprinkle a little caster sugar over the exposed cream so it’s covered. Then, using a blowtorch, lightly brush the sugar with the flame until golden and caramelised. Leave to set for a few minutes before turning the ring over and repeating on the other side so both ends of the bee are set with caramel. Repeat for all your bees.
  19. Now start plating – you can do this on any shape of plate but I find rectangle or round works well. Remove your bee from it’s ring, peel off any clingfilm and place it on your plate. Take a sharp knife and make two small incisions into the cake near the top – these will be the holes for your wings. Take two relatively similarly sized wing tuiles and insert them into the holes you just made.
  20. Next make the trail behind the bee. Spoon the lemon curd into a piping bag or bottle and squeeze little dots in a swirl across the plate- this swirl will be the template for the rest of your garnishes. Take your little lemon pieces and place them along the swirl. Then take a teaspoon and sprinkle little piles of sesame seeds and freeze-dried raspberries along the same shape. Finish off with some fresh mint leaves and some broken bits of tuile to garnish. Serve!

Thanks for reading!
Emma x