Possibly the best ever Christmas chocolate brownies

I was very excited when The Holiday, starring Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz and Jude Law first came out in 2006 as Winslet’s character was a journalist on a real-life British daily newspaper - where I actually worked. There were even rumours that Jude Law had been seen on a tour of our real-life office though I unfortunately didn’t see him myself!

While the film was lovely what I found most far-fetched was the depiction of some of the details. Winslet works on the paper’s obituaries desk and manages to own a beautiful roomy cottage in Surrey (surely out of her price range) which is apparently a 40 minute commute - my memory is more like 40 minutes after leaving the office you would probably still be standing at the station waiting for a delayed Southern train). 

The village where many of the U.K. scenes are filmed isn’t that far away from me - Shere, near Guildford - and though I haven’t actually been there, but we did do a Weber barbecue cookery course in a village called Abinger Hammer a few years ago which is only a five minute drive from Shere, and I can vouch for the fact that there really are some English villages as picturesque as the ones in the Holiday! 

Debra at Eliot's Eats selected The Holiday as the theme for this month's Food 'n' Flix, The idea is that we all cook or bake something inspired by the film, and it's a great movie to rewatch at Christmas!

In terms of foodie inspiration from the film itself, one of the scenes that stands out is when Amanda (Cameron Diaz) arrives in her house swap and goes to the local shop where she stocks up on wine, chocolate, Christmas cake, mince pies and more. The shop keeper assumes she’s having a party but it’s all for her! The other food moment that sticks in my mind is when Iris (Kate Winslet) makes Christmas fettuccine, which I didn’t realise was a thing (and according to a few rather indignant posts I’ve read online, isn’t). 

I decided to go with something a bit more traditionally festive - chocolate brownies. They strike me as both the sort of thing that Amanda may have bought to indulge in at her holiday cottage but also the sort of thing that she might make herself - she doesn’t strike me as much of a cook but I can’t help feeling that she would have made brownies before even if from a packet mix!

I used a recipe I found on a website called Jane's Patisserie and I can say that these are some of the best chocolate brownies I’ve ever made. They are particularly good on day two if you keep them in the fridge!

I didn't add anything to them (Jane's recipes suggest adding chopped up chocolate bars like Mars or Crunchie, but I just wanted the standard brownie texture) but I decorated the top with some drizzled icing and some mini KitKat Santas, but you can put anything you want on top, or indeed nothing at all. These are truly more-ish and might have to become my go-to brownie recipe!

 

Lotus Biscoff Doughnuts for Food 'n' Flix - Knives Out

I used to take part in a blog challenge called Food ‘n’ Flix where the person hosting each month chooses a movie and everyone taking part bakes something inspired by that film. It got me to watch quite a few films I otherwise would never have seen and to try a few recipes I almost certainly wouldn’t have made otherwise!

As I’ve been baking and blogging less it fell off my radar a bit for the past couple of years but I came across it again last month. Wendy from A Day In the Life on theFarm chose the film Knives Out, which had been on my 'to watch' list for a little while, so it was a good reason to bump it to the top!

I wasn't sure what to expect from the film, which stars Daniel Craig as a detective trying to solve the mystery of a family patriarch's death. His family members all seem to have secrets and possible motives for their involvement in what may or may not be a murder, though the police have ruled it a suicide. There is an all-star cast including Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Collette, Don Johnson, Chris Evans and Christopher Plummer, and the film reminds me of an Agatha Christie-style 'whodunnit' - but at the same time it's also very funny. I really enjoyed watching the film as it made a nice change from the sort of things we usually watch.

In terms of food references and inspiration, there's a lot of indirect inspiration that could be taken from the family setting, but I prefer with this challenge to use a direct reference. There's one scene set in a restaurant where one of the main characters eats sausage and beans - a dish my husband would enjoy but I hate beans so this wasn't one for me. What actually stuck in my mind more was doughnuts!

There's a scene where Daniel Craig's detective Benoit Blanc summarises how confusing the case appears to be, saying: "A doughnut hole in the doughnut's hole. But we must look a little closer. And when we do, we see that the doughnut hole has a hole in its center - it is not a doughnut hole at all but a smaller doughnut with its own hole, and our doughnut is not whole at all!"

After that, all I wanted was a doughnut, so that's what I decided to make! I've never tried to make proper doughnuts as they need to be fried - I don't have a deep-fat fryer and don't really fancy filling a pan with that much oil. Instead, I've made baked doughnuts a few times and have the Wilton doughnut pan which makes these really easy.

I used this recipe for the doughnuts from the Wilton website.

When it came to decorating them, I was missing Doughnut Time (yes I know they deliver but I don't think it's a good idea for my husband and I to have a box of six of their doughnuts between us!) but I still wanted to do some sort of indulgent filling and topping. Lotus Biscoff immediately sprang to mind, since as well as the biscuits, they make a spread which I could eat just from the jar! I used some of the spread to fill the doughnuts (which I sliced through the middle - I wasn't quite up to injecting the filling like shop-bought ones!) and then covered the top in a chocolate glaze which I made from a mixture of chocolate and butter. 

I poured the chocolate glaze over the top and topped with a Lotus Biscoff chocolate biscuit. These weren't as gooey or indeed a patch on the ones I've had from Doughnut Time but they were very good and didn't last long!

I'm sharing this with A Day in the Life on the Farm for November's Food 'n' Flix challenge.

Vegan Watermelon Sorbet and an Easy Watermelon Cocktail

I had a real ‘I carried a watermelon’ moment on holiday. My husband and I were staying in a small village in Gozo (an island off Malta) and had walked to the local grocery shop to buy food for the week, having been told the shop would deliver. Forget Tesco two-hour delivery slots: we purchased our groceries, told to pack it into an empty cardboard box and leave it in the corner, and they would bring it to us in about half an hour.

 

Almost an hour later there was no sign so I left my husband in our rooms and went over to the reception of our apartment complex - and found the delivery driver there asking directions. I hopped in his car and we drove over to our building, where he proceeded to unload the car. I asked if I could carry anything, which is how I ended up ringing the bell on our apartment door, and my husband opened it to find me standing there holding a giant round fruit and uttering the immortal line from Dirty Dancing: “I carried a watermelon!”.

 

Watermelon is delicious when the weather is hot; you can freeze it in cubes or munch on a whole slice. There are loads of recipes you can make with watermelon as well.

Watermelon cocktail

 

While I was in Gozo I made an impromptu watermelon cocktail given I had very few tools and ingredients; cut a few chunks of watermelon and discard the seeds and muddle in the bottom of a tumbler until the watermelon has broken down a bit (you could also put it in a blender if you wanted a smoother drink).

 

Add a splash of rose wine (or more than a splash, if you like) and top up with lemonade. If possible, enjoy beside the swimming pool as I did!

 

Watermelon Sorbet

 

We had a barbecue last weekend despite the weather, as it had been organised several weeks in advance and there wasn’t a suitable date we could postpone to. It was rainy and not particularly warm so most people were indoors – luckily we have a gas barbecue with a lid so we could still cook outside!

 

I made a couple of desserts in advance, including the chocolate ice cream from a KitchenAid recipe I made once before (but leaving out the chocolate chips this time), which is delicious. I needed a vegan dessert as well and decided to make a very simple watermelon sorbet. Simply dice some watermelon and remove the black seeds and put in a blender with some sugar syrup (which you can buy in a bottle or make yourself). Spoon into a plastic container and freeze overnight or longer. You will need to take the sorbet out of the freezer for an hour or so before you want to serve, as it will be rock solid; after an hour at room temperature you can scoop it into bowls and enjoy.

 

 

I was so busy at the barbecue I forgot to take a better photo!

This month’s Food ‘n’ Flix challenge is hosted by Chef Sarah Elizabeth who has chosen the film Dirty Dancing. I loved this film as a teenager and there’s something very timeless about it even though it’s 30 years old (I can’t believe that!). The idea of the challenge is to share a recipe inspired by the film and having had my own ‘I carried a watermelon’ moment, that was the inspiration I chose.

Vegan French Apple Tart

This month's Food 'n' Flix challenge is French Kiss - the 1995 movie starring Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline. The film was chosen by Food 'n' Flix creator Heather at All Roads Lead to the Kitchen - you can see her announcement post here, and you can take part any time this month.

The premise of the film is that Kate (Meg Ryan) is flying to France alone, to confront her cheating fiancé; she is seated on the plane next to Luc (Kevin Kline), a thief who hides a stolen necklace in her bag. Which of course means that he needs to retrieve the necklace later, so Luc offers to help Kate win back her fiancé.

They bond and Kate learns that Luc gambled away his birthright to the family vineyard but dreams of buying his own vineyard some day. I won't spoil what happens as Kate goes after her fiancé and Luc tries to sell the stolen necklace - you will have to watch the film yourself!

I enjoyed the film even though it was a bit predictable and quite dated, but Meg Ryan is always good in a rom-com.

There are plenty of nice foodie references as well; for instance Kate finds her errant fiance eating in a restaurant with his new girlfriend's parents. She tries to hide and sneaks around the restaurant so she can spy on them, and predictably ends up crashing into a dessert trolley and getting a face full of food

Kate and Luc are having breakfast on the train of French bread and cheese and Luc tells her that there are 452 official cheeses in France; she tries some but is sick as she is lactose intolerant (presumably the cheese is worth it!). This means they have to get off the train part way, in what is Luc's home town and they stay at his family home, and this is where Kate learns about his dream to create a vineyard.

 

When I was thinking about recipes to make, I kept thinking of tarte tatin - a lovely French tart that is cooked upside down in a pan using apples or sometimes pears, that I have made a few times and really love. I wanted to make something a bit different but the vineyard idea had put fruit in my head as well.

I was visiting friends for new year's eve and had been asked if I could bring dessert. I made these chocolate brownies with candy cane frosting but wanted to make something that wasn't chocolate, and that my vegan friend could enjoy. (I would have made vegan brownies but was only using ingredients I already had in the house, and didn't have what I need).

I found a recipe on Good to Know for French apple tart and decided to make it vegan by making my own pastry.

What I love about this tart is that you have fluted apple slices on top which look appealing, but underneath a layer of sweet stewed apple. The combination of textures is amazing and it tasted delicious.

This is what I did:

To serve 6, you need:
for the pastry:
125g plain flour
55g vegan (soya) margarine - I used Pure
2-3 tbsp. water
for the filling:
6 eating apples
20g butter
50g caster sugar plus 2 tbsp. for later


First make the pastry, by sifting the flour into a large bowl and using your fingertips rub in the soya margarine to make a breadcrumb texture. Add a couple of tablespoons of cold water and mix by hand until you have a dough consistency. Form the dough into a ball and wrap in clingfilm; put the dough in the fridge while you make the filling.

Cut one of the apples in half and peel four and a half. Cut the peeled apples into small chunks and put in a saucepan with the butter and 4 tbsp. water. Bring to the boil and simmer until the apples have softened; you may need to top up the water as you go. You don't want the mixture to be wet at the end, though you can drain it through a sieve if necessary.

When the apples have softened add the 50g sugar (return the apples to the pan if you have drained them) and heat, stirring, until the sugar has dissolved. Leave the mixture to cool.

Preheat oven to 190C. Roll out the pastry and line a 9-inch fluted tart tin. Line with greaseproof paper and fill with ceramic baking beans or raw rice and bake the empty pie crust in the oven for 10 minutes.

Carefully remove the paper and the baking beans and bake the pie case for another 5 mins until golden brown.

Spread the apple filling over the pastry base then peel the remaining apples.

Remove the core with a corer or knife and slice the apples very thinly all the way around so you can fan them out over the top of the tart as shown.

Sprinkle over the remaining caster sugar and bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes until the apples have turned golden brown. Serve warm or cold.

I'm sharing this with Food n Flix as described above.

I'm also sharing this with CookBlogShare, hosted this week by Sneaky Veg.

Mascarpone Orange Streusel Slice from Burnt

 

I'm hosting Food 'n' Flix this month and the film I have chosen is Burnt. (If you haven't seen the film - spoiler alert!). There are so many wonderful scenes that centre around food - at the beginning when Adam has gone to work in obscurity in New Orleans, as a self-imposed punishment for his bad behaviour, he is shucking oysters and only once he has done 1,000 will he stop.

When he returns to London there's a great sequence where he's eating different foods including a lamb wrap and another where he is cooking food late at night in a friend's flat where he is staying. His friend and the guy's girlfriend are surprised to find him cooking in the middle of the night but happily tuck into mussels, summer veg on a bed of ricotta, and smoked mackerel on duck egg.

When Adam is trying to persuade Sienna Miller's character Helene to work for him, he arranges to meet her in a Burger King; she refuses to eat there and there is a conversation around the consistency you get in a Burger King which they hate.

Adam meets Uma Thurman, a top restaurant critic, over a cooked breakfast in a café and when he takes over the restaurant, there are beautiful montages of cooking and food being plated up.

I thought about making turbot for my Food 'n' Flix recipe as in one scene, Helene messes up cooking a piece of turbot and Adam humiliates her by making her apologise to the fish; we then see a sequence where she is repeatedly cooking the fish for her daughter at home (even for breakfast) in an effort to perfect it. I did look at the major supermarkets to see if they had turbot but none of them did. There's also a scene later with Adam at Billingsgate fish market but I wasn't going to go there to buy fish!

Ultimately it's Helene's idea to bring in a sous-vide cooker that changes the way the restaurant cooks food, to great acclaim. A sous-vide seals food in a packet and poaches it slowly at a low temperature to seal in the flavour - you can buy the cookers from Lakeland but I don't have the space or think I would use it that much.

While I was trying to decide what to make, I googled the film to see what recipes were already out there and found an official site for the movie, that actually had recipes on it! Needless to say they were really complicated recipes, sometimes involving things I'd never even heard of (trimolene, anyone?) - but as I'm not one to shy away from a challenge, and I was at the start of a whole week off work, I decided to have a go at this recipe for mascarpone blood orange streusel.

I'm not going to re-post the recipe so do have a look at the link. It was very time consuming and complicated involving four different elements - not including the ice cream which I decided not to make. I had varying degrees of success with each one!

I started by making the mascarpone mousse which should have been fairly straightforward. I mixed the mascarpone, cream cheese, crème fraiche, sugar, vanilla, orange and lemon zest and juice and slowly added the Cointreau, which I already had in the cupboard. I softened the gelatine in water, but when I melted in the pan I had a slight concern that I couldn't get it all out of the pan. I added it to the mousse and blended it but when I strained the mousse, I could see that some bits of the gelatine were left behind in the sieve where it had already congealed. I suspected that the mousse might not set and I was right, so after a couple of hours in the fridge I put it in the freezer to harden. Failure number one.

The blood orange gel was easy enough, other than the fact that I couldn't get hold of blood orange juice and had to use regular OJ. I actually had some agar agar powder - it's a vegetarian alternative to gelatine and was part of a molecular gastronomy kit I was given once, similar to this:
Molecule R-Evolution Cuisine Kit plus Molecular Gastronomy Book with 40 Recipes Introductory Package

 

I simmered the juice and added the gelling agent, and spread the resulting liquid onto some clingfilm. It set quite quickly and I was able to slice it into strips easily. Success!

I was excited about making the honeycomb as it's something that I love to eat and the recipe didn't look too complicated. I put the honey, sugar, liquid glucose (which I already had from making marshmallows) and water into a pan and let it caramelize, then whisked in baking soda which made the whole pan froth up. Apparently all I needed to do was 'pour onto a baking sheet.

Allow to set and then break into pieces'. I ended up putting it in the fridge and even then didn't set - it firmed up a bit, but I had to scrape it up with a spoon and it looked nothing like honeycomb! Another failure.

Finally for the streusel layer which is somewhere between a crumble and a biscuit - I mixed the flour, ground almonds, sugar, salt and butter, moulded it into a block and put it in the fridge. But even after two hours it was still really crumbly and difficult to roll out without breaking. I baked it in the oven for longer than the given time, since after 10 minutes it was still soft and crumbly, but I ended up over-baking it and when it came to cutting up, the strips I cut broke into a couple of pieces. Partial success.

So when it came to assembling the dessert, I laid pieces of the broken streusel on the bottom, a thick slice of the semi-frozen mousse, then a slice of the gel, and a few pieces of the sticky in-set honeycomb on top. I added some crumbled streusel on the side and a few dots of the gel layer on the plate.

 

 

And how did it taste? The streusel was nice but a bit overcooked; the mousse had a delicate flavour and didn't come out too badly from the freezing (it had the consistency of soft scoop ice cream) but I didn't like the gel layer - the texture was just a bit strange. The amount of effort this took meant it is definitely not something I will be making again - it also shows me how skilled chefs in places like the Langham actually are!

If you want to join in Food 'n' Flix you don't have to make anything this complicated - there are lots of ideas you can take from the film! Find out how to take part here.

 

 

 

Food 'n' Flix - Burnt

I'm hosting Food 'n' Flix again this month - a challenge that turns movies into food. The film I have chosen this month is entirely about food so there should be no shortage of inspiration for things to make!

Burnt stars Bradley Cooper as a chef, Adam, who has ruined his career and needs to start over, so gets a job running a friend's restaurant in a luxury hotel and devises a new menu, via trying out all sorts of eateries and street food stalls around London, in an effort to get a Michelin star. He hires Sienna Miller to work in his restaurant, which is shown to be in the Langham Hotel. I know the head of PR at that hotel and she had a great time watching the movie being filmed and was even in it as an extra, though I didn't spot her when I was watching the film!

I really enjoyed this film - it was impressive to watch the restaurant scenes (Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller both had to learn to cook and I've seen interviews where they talked about the lengths they went to and how good they now are at filleting fish!). It's also a great one to choose for Food 'n' Flix as there is so much to take inspiration from!

How to participate in Food 'n Flix:

• Watch the chosen film (Burnt).  Taking inspiration from the film, head into the kitchen and cook or bake or make something.
• Post about it on your blog with a link back to THIS post and a link to Food 'n Flix.  Use of the logo is optional.
• Alternately, post a photo of the dish you made on Instagram (public accounts only). You must include the following in your caption: short intro, recipe, #FoodnFlix and tag (@carolinemakes).
• You must post must be current (during month of film). And of course we don't mind if your post is linked to other events...the more the merrier.
• Have fun with it!
• Email your entries to me at caroline@carolinemakes.net  and cc heather@foodnflixclub.com and include:

                     -your name
                     -name of blog as you want it written
                      -name of the dish/drink you created AND a direct link to your post (blog or Instagram)
                      -attach a photo or give permission to pull one from your post
                     -indicate "Food 'n Flix Submission" in the subject line

Deadline for submission is: November 30, 2016

Back to the Future: 1.21 Gigawatts Wake-Up Juice

 

 

There’s one 80s movie that consistently comes top of the ‘100 greatest’ lists. It was never one of my favourites – the male leads, sci-fi theme and plot that revolved essentially around a car – never really appealed to me as a little girl. But I always enjoyed it when the film came on TV and conjured up a picture of the future, where we had self-tying trainers, self-drying clothes and hoverboards.

 

That movie is of course Back to the Future, and do you know what day it is today? October 21, 2015 is the day in the second movie that Marty went forward to…. In the future. Well, we may not have all the things the film predicted, but in some cases, we are not that far off.  Lexus has managed to invent a hoverboard (of sorts),

 

 

  

mobile tablets and wearable technology is here to stay and Pepsi has launched a limited edition Pepsi Perfect to tie in with the film today.

  

I wanted to make something based on the film, and struggled a little – I’d love to make a cake in the shape of the Delorean but time is not on my side. Instead, one detail stood out – in the first movie, the Delorean needed 1.21 gigawatts of electricity to make the return trip. That much power can only be generated by a nuclear plant, or a bolt of lightening, which is how the movie culminates in a race to connect a wire from the clock tower during a storm.

 

There’s another scene where two characters give a drink called “wake-up juice” to Doc after he has drunk too much in a saloon in the 1800s, which revitalizes him quickly (and unpleasantly).

 

I decided to combine these two things into my own recipe, for what I’m calling:

 

1.21 Gigawatts Wake-Up Juice

An original recipe by Caroline Makes

 

Half a can of Red Bull

1 shot Raspberry vodka (Absolut is good)

1 shot tequila

Blue Bols foam - this is something I bought ages ago online and forgot until now I had. It comes in different flavours - I have cassis - and it comes with a pump you insert into the bottle. It turns the liquid into a foam so you can get it to sit on top of the drink, but it still tastes alcoholic, which is really cool - and I think makes this drink a bit futuristic!

 

Before the foam is added...

and after!

Cheers!