Dutch King's Day Tompuce

In the Netherlands, April 27 is a national holiday celebrating the king's birthday - King's Day. To mark the occasion many people hold or visit flea markets (it's the one day of the year street sales are allowed without applying for a permit); there are parties and events, people wear orange - the national colour - and eat tompouce.

These are a pastry similar to a mille-feuille, but with one layer instead of two, consisting of a piece of crispy puff pastry, a layer of creme patissiere (pastry cream, often referred to as creme pat) and another piece of pastry, with royal icing spread on top. Normally the icing is pink but on King's Day, when these are popular, the icing is orange.

This King's Day I was invited to a party by a Dutch colleague and wanted to take something with me, and learned about tompouce via the internet (apparently they are named after a 19th century actor). I found out from my friend that he had been unable to find any tompouce in the UK, but that they are a lot like mille-feuille, which you can find in most bakeries - though probably without the orange layer on top. As he had only just moved to the UK a few months before I thought I would try to recreate a little taste of home!

I found a recipe for tompouce online - there are several but I used this one from My Red Kitchen and pretty much followed it step by step, but made the icing orange. It felt like I was doing a technical challenge from the Great British Bake Off - making something I'd never heard of before, that involved several steps (though I used ready-made puff pastry which would have been an automatic fail on GBBO!), and instructions like "cut each sheet [of pastry] into 16 equal squares". 

I may have made mine too big but having never seen a tompouce I'm not sure what size they are supposed to be, and they seemed on a par with mille-feuilles. I didn't know exactly how much gelatine to used just said 'one envelope gelatine' and referred to jell-o at the store which makes me think this is perhaps a standard size in the US. I had a packet with four leaves of gelatine remaining which it said was the right amount for one pint of liquid but the creme pat had already thickened quite a bit so I probably didn't need that much. Rather than using a piping bag I was able to actually slice it (as I'd let it set in a large shallow rectangular dish), which I thought was quite handy at the time but in retrospect it doesn't look great and I should have piped it. Still, they tasted pretty good!

Puff Pastry Cheese, Bacon and Spring Onion Tart

This is an easy meal idea that is great for an informal dinner with friends, as it can be assembled before your guests arrive and then can go in the oven 20 minutes before you want to eat. You can play around with the toppings as well to use whatever you fancy - it's a good way of using up odds and ends in the fridge as well.

Simply take a piece of ready-made puff pastry - around 200g per person should be plenty, and I made each person their own - and roll out on a lightly floured surface into either a circle or square shape (or something in between!). Place onto a lightly oiled baking sheet.

Chop a few rashers of bacon and fry along with some chopped spring onions. When cooked, remove from pan and allow to cool.

Spread the pastry base with garlic and herb-flavoured soft cheese then scatter over the bacon and spring onion. Grate some cheese - Cheddar works well - and sprinkle over the tart. I also added some crumbled blue cheese.

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180C for 20 minutes or until the pastry has risen and is golden. Serve with a green salad.

I'm sending this to Cook Blog Share, hosted this week by Easy Peasy Foodie.

GBBO Roast Vegetable and Cashew Pie

I haven't actually done any proper baking for ages - I've been far too busy at work and with other things to do at home. Since I treated myself to the latest Great British Bake Off cookery book recently I realised I wasn't going to have a lot of chance to bake from it so decided to try one of the savoury recipes. I was intrigued by this roasted vegetable pie which used cashews as a form of protein, and decided to make it but change some of the vegetables. Instead of aubergine, courgette and red pepper, I used carrot, sweet potato and butternut squash.

The original recipe is here; I'm not going to type it all out but essentially you roast the vegetables with some garlic, oregano, salt, pepper and chilli flakes and allow them to cool.

Roll out some ready-made puff pastry and spread the veg across the pastry; at this point I added some red onion I had softened in a frying pan as well. Add the cashews and some sun-dried tomatoes.

 

Place another piece of pastry on top, press down the edges and crimp with a fork, and make a little air hole in the top. Brush with beaten egg and bake in the oven at 220C for about 25 minutes until golden brown.

This pie was delicious; the cashews soften a little and provide a nice texture contrast to the softer vegetables and I really like the way it looks! All this needs is some green veg or a green salad to serve for a hearty, filling vegetarian dinner.

This is something I think you could serve even as the main course for a vegetarian Christmas dinner, so I am sharing this with Charlotte's Lively Kitchen for the Food Calendar challenge.

Cinnamon Puff Pastry Twists

These are super easy and quick to make so if you are catering for a crowd or throwing a party, or just need something sweet that won't take long, they are just the thing.

It's not a recipe as such but a few very simple instructions. Roll out some puff pastry to a rectangle on a lightly floured surface.

Preheat the oven to 180C and line a baking tray with grease proof paper.

Mix 2 tbsp melted butter, 1 tbsp brown sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon and spread over the puff pastry, pressing down.

Cut the pastry into strips then holding each end, twist it a few times.

I'm sending these to Tea Time Treats, hosted by Jane at The Hedgecombers and Karen at Lavender and Lovage.

Place each twist on the baking tray and bake for about 15 minutes. Serve either warm or cold.

Two-Pastry Fish Pie

I was given a pack of Jus-Rol shortcrust pastry and another of puff pastry to take home after attending an event recently and decided to use them - both of them - to make a pie. I've never used more than one type of pastry before but thought that the shortcrust would work well on the bottom, and the puff pastry on the top to make a lattice. So this is more of an idea than a recipe post, but it worked pretty well so I want to share.

Take an ovenproof dish - I used a small pyrex dish that was enough for two servings - and line the bottom with rolled out shortcrust pastry. Line with greaseproof paper (I forgot this part but it makes it much easier) then fill with ceramic baking beans, or uncooked rice, and bake blind in the oven for 15 mins.

Meanwhile I poached some smoked haddock in milk

I also had a packet of salmon flakes (cooked) which I bought as they were reduced in the supermarket, and I decided to throw these in as well.

When the base of the pastry is cooked, spoon in the fish. I used the poaching milk as a basis for a small quantity of a white sauce which I poured over the top. 

I've written before about my lattice pastry cutter; it's definitely easier to use with shop bought than homemade pastry! Roll out your pastry and roll the cutter over the top, then use your fingers to gently prise apart the lattice - you can see here I've done the top section but not the bottom section yet.

Place over the top of the pie and cut off any excess, then brush with milk or beaten egg.

Bake in the oven for 15-20 mins until the pastry on top is risen and golden brown. I think the lattice effect makes the pie look nice and it reduces the amount of pastry you need on top so it's even a little healthier!

Turkey Wellington

 

 

I had some of my school friends over for a pre-Christmas dinner last weekend which was great fun - we had Christmas crackers containing whistles, that were numbered and sounded at a different pitch, and came with a songsheet so we attempted to play some Christmas carols, which was very funny.

 

I was planning to cook dinner for 9 people - my biggest dinner party ever, but now we have a new house there's a lot more room - but unfortunately one of my friends was ill so she and her husband didn't come.  When I was planning the food though I knew I needed to cook something that would feed a lot of people (aside from one vegan, as I made something different) and wanted to do a turkey as it was Christmas. But I wasn't sure how big a turkey I needed to feed 8 people, and didn't want to faff around with all the side dishes. I also didn't want to cook the exact same thing they would all be eating about ten days later!

 

I had an idea for a turkey dish that would be a one-pot meal (with some easy side dishes), go quite a long way and also not cost as much as a whole turkey - turkey wellington. I had a look online to see if I could find a recipe and was immediately taken with this turkey, brie and cranberry wellington from BBC Good Food. Mine didn't turn out anywhere near as pretty as the picture and I wasn't convinced by the brie in the middle - rather than melt, it held its shape and took on a bit of a rubbery texture. I wonder if there is another cheese that work better in this, though brie is quite Christmassy. So if you decide to give it a go, let me know what you think! Overall it was a really nice dish, a change from roast turkey but still very Christmassy. You could make this at any time of year and you could also make smaller portions - maybe individual wellingtons- with chicken breasts.

 

I bought a large turkey breast from Ocado and cut a slit in the middle, into which I spooned some cranberry sauce and then an entire wedge of brie. You also need to preheat the oven to 180C.

 

 

 

I used ready-made puff pastry to save time. I did make my own stuffing from sausage meat, adding sage, onion and breadcrumbs. I found it easier to roll out the pastry and spread the stuffing over the centre of the pastry than to put the stuffing onto the turkey breast.

 

I also found it easier to cover the turkey breast with two pieces of puff pastry and join them around the sides by rolling over the edges, rather than trying to wrap it in one huge piece of pastry. I finished the pastry with an egg wash (a beaten egg, brushed over, to help it brown) and then covered with foil as it went into the oven, as I didn't want the pastry to cook too quickly. I followed the packet instructions for the turkey and I think in total it took about three hours to cook.

 

Here it is when it came out of the oven.

The wellington was easy to slice and you can see the cheese and cranberry in the middle. One thick slice was plenty per person; I served this with roast potatoes and a selection of vegetables, and of course gravy. The turkey breast I'd bought had been cured so it fell apart easily; the texture was likened by one of my friends to slow-cooked ham!

 

 

It made a great centrepiece for a pre-Christmas dinner and was suitably festive without being exactly the same as what my friends would be eating on December 25th, so I was really pleased with it.

 

 

 

 

Christmas Hamper from HamperGifts.co.uk

Christmas hampers were a big feature of my childhood. They came from the milkman and my parents paid a few pounds every week into a sort of savings scheme, which meant they could choose from a selection of hampers just in time for Christmas. It was delivered by the milkman and it was like Christmas had come early, it was so exciting seeing what goodies the basket contained! I have hazy memories of Fray Bentos pies and tinned ham – so it wasn’t just a hamper of chocolates and biscuits, but some staples and things you might want to eat on Boxing Day after having cooked a huge Christmas dinner the day before.

 

I definitely prefer luxury hampers that are full of treats, be it chocolate or posh tea, biscuits and savouries. So I am pleased to be able to review this Christmas hamper from HamperGifts.co.uk. OK, it's quite a while until Christmas - nearly three months - but I'm sure I'm not the only person who is already looking forward to it and trying to sort out with various family members and in-laws where we are going to spend Christmas day!

If you are the type of person who likes to do their Christmas shopping early as well, why not head over to www.hampergifts.co.uk and see if there's anything you like - as well as Christmas hampers they offer new baby hampers, bath & beauty, cheese, chocolate, beer, wine, and some lovely themed hampers like 'breakfast for two' or 'romantic surprise' - great for newlyweds or people who have just moved into a new house (not that I'm hinting!).

The hamper I was sent to review was beautifully packaged, in a reusable wicker basket, covered in cellophane with a big bow on the front. I couldn't wait to unwrap it!

I think I was sent a selection of products as the contents don't tally exactly with any of the hamper gifts on their website, but that means I can let you know which products I think are particularly good, and there is probably a hamper to suit everyone. Prices for the hampers range from £19.99 for the smallest, to £275 for 'the majestic', though there are lots within the £30-£50 range which I think is quite reasonable for this type of hamper.

My hamper contained:

• Edinburgh Preserves honey mustard with whisky - I love mustard and particularly those with honey as the sweetness and sharpness of the mustard go wonderfully together. I'm looking forward to trying this mustard with beef.

• Walkers Chocolates of London milk chocolate praline seashells - 160g box. Nicely packaged so I gave these to a friend as a gift (I couldn't eat everything myself, or you'd be waiting another month for this review) and she was really pleased.

• Apple and apricot meli melo in violet flavoured syrup - 200ml glass bottle. I've seen this sort of thing (bottled fruit in syrups) before but never tried them. See below to find out what I did with them.

• Luxury fruit cake, made by Pittas Foods- this looked lovely, with  caramelized brown sugar on top and packed with fruit. Again it's nicely packaged with a bow round it; I gave this to my parents to try. My mum said it was "packed with large chunks of fruit, nice and spicy, and very moist." Definitely went down well!

• Alice Mcpherson's luxury butter shortbread - this was one large round piece in a cardboard box, so wouldn't exactly go far, but a nice addition to the basket 

• Diane cinnamon crunch truffles - 150g box. None of these are brands I recognise but they all seemed to be good quality and in many cases small local producers, which I like. These truffles were described as 'speculoos flavour'  - speculoos is a spiced biscuit popular in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe. I gave these to my sister though I think my boyfriend would have preferred us to keep them!

• Pearl's Flapjack - There were two large flapjacks, one apricot flavour and one cherry and coconut. They were absolutely delicious - very sweet but really moist and hit the spot when I was ravenous after getting home from work perfectly.

• Mini nutmeg grater and nutmegs - this was so cute, with the mini grater and nuts in a little box with a red ribbon round it - would make a great gift and I'm looking forward to using it in my Christmas baking.

•  Baronie Belgian chocolate classic chocolate sticks orange made with all natural ingredients 75g - a lot like Matchmakers but smooth - if I recall, orange Matchmakers have a slight crunch inside them which I never really like. These are solid chocolate sticks but with orange flavour and tasted heavenly - my boyfriend never even got to see them!

• Pearls luxury brandy Christmas pudding - only 100g so not family sizes but a little extra festive treat that you heat up in the microwave.

• Olives et al sunshine rosemary and garlic olives from the Greek Island of Evia - 150g jar. I don't like olives but my sister does so she pounced on these! 

• Edinburgh tea and coffee company breakfast fresh ground coffee 56g pouch - I'm not much of a coffee drinker so I gave this to my mum, she said the coffee was "smooth, rich and full of flavour".

• Cairnsmhor fine foods Parmesan and pepper oatcakes 150g - it's not Christmas without cheese and biscuits and these were lovely.

• Individual wrapped caramels that were strewn throughout the basket - they didn't even make it as far as being photographed! They tasted very good though they were not quite as runny inside as I like.

• A small hessian bag of traditional hand baked biscuits - white chocolate and strawberry flavour. The biscuits melted in the mouth and the chocolate pieces gave a satisfying crunch.

• Big 200g bag of chocolate buttons - my boyfriend demolished most of these. Not the best quality chocolate - it didn't taste quite as good as Cadbury's - but he wasn't complaining!

Here's a quick recipe for the apples and apricots in syrup, which is really easy to make.

Roll out a square of puff pastry and place the fruit on it in a diagonal. I used two pieces of apple (the large pieces in the photo) and alternated them with two apricots, which used up about half the jar.

Fold the corners of the pastry which don't have fruit on them to the middle and seal to make a parcel.

Bake in the oven for about half an hour until the pastry is golden brown.

The picture doesn't do it justice - this tasted just like the things I've bought from bakeries in the past. The syrup from the fruit gives the pastry a lovely sweet coating but isn't so much that it goes soggy, and the fruit is lovely once hot and baked.

Thanks to Hampergifts.co.uk for sending me the Christmas hamper to review.

2 course menu: cod en croute with crab and sticky toffee apple crumble

 

I love apple crumble and I love sticky toffee pudding, so I decided to combine the two and create my own pudding - which tastes amazing! I've never come across this before though perhaps someone has already invented it, but I am very pleased with my sticky toffee apple crumble.

I made this for the SACO Kitchen Challenge. SACO is a company that provides serviced apartments worldwide - as an alternative to staying in a hotel, where you might have more space but also the ability to cook your own meals, an option you don't have in a hotel.

The challenge is to come up with a two-course meal for two, that guests could cook in a SACO apartment kitchen with the standard equipment provided in the apartments. They sent over the inventory and I was impressed at the range of utensils, pots and pans and so on - there are too many things to list here but you get things like a mixing bowl, pie dishes, cheese grater, glass oven proof dishes, tea towels and so on.

This time of year is great to get friends and family together whether it's to go and see the fireworks on November 5, visit another country for a Halloween break or to check out the Christmas markets, or to do your own take on a Thanksgiving meal with family or friends - after all, not many people have enough room in their homes to put up that many people overnight, so you might be better off renting an apartment for a night or two!

With that in mind I wanted my two-course menu to be fairly autumnal - hearty food with warm flavours. I decided to make cod en croute stuffed with crab with potato wedges for the main course, and sticky toffee apple crumble for pudding.

Cod en Croute stuffed with  Crab - an original recipe by Caroline Makes

serves 2

2 cod fillets

170g tin of shredded crab meat

1 piece of day old bread, chopped into small cubes

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

2 tbsp mayonnaise

1 tsp capers, chopped plus two extra for decoration

dash of lemon juice

200g ready-made puff pastry

1 egg

For the potato wedges:
5-6 potatoes depending on size
olive oil
salt

Preheat the oven to 175C. First prepare the potato wedges. Wash and dry the potatoes with a clean tea towel. Slice with a sharp knife on a chopping board into wedges.

Line a large baking tray with foil or grease with a little oil. Toss the potatoes with the salt and a dash of oil and spread out across the tin. Bake in the oven for one hour, turning half way through.

For the fish:
Roll out the puff pastry on a lightly floured chopping board. Using a sharp knife, cut out a fish shape slightly bigger than your piece of fish; use that as a template to cut out another three.

Drain the tin of crab meat and mix in a small bowl with the bread, salt, cayenne pepper, mayonnaise, capers and lemon juice.

Place the cod pieces onto a piece of fish-shaped puff pastry and spoon half the crab mixture on top of each piece of fish, spreading out evenly.

Place the other piece of pastry on top. Place a caper where the fish's eye would be.

Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes until the pastry is golden brown. Serve with green veg and the potato wedges.

For the sticky toffee apple crumble
Serves 4 - ideal if there are two of you because you will want some more of this the next day!
75g unsalted butter
125g light brown sugar
2 eggs
200g self-raising flour
2 apples
50g light brown sugar
50g unsalted butter
75ml double cream

Preheat oven to 175C (or make this and the main course at the same time).

Grease a glass oven proof dish.

In a bowl cream 75g butter with 125g light brown sugar. Beat in two eggs and 200g self-raising flour.

Thinly slice two apples.

Spoon half the cake mixture into the base of the ovenproof dish and place the apple slices on top. Spoon the rest of the cake mixture on top of the apples.

To make the toffee sauce, place 50g light brown sugar, 50g unsalted butter and 75ml double cream into a small pan.

Bring to the boil and simmer for 1-2 minutes then pour over the top of the apple and cake mixture.

Place 200g plain flour, 120g butter and 120g caster sugar in a bowl and rub together with your finger tips to make a breadcrumb-like texture - this is your crumble topping. Spoon the crumble mixture over the top of the pudding.

Place the ovenproof dish on a baking tray in case of any leakage and bake in the oven for half an hour.

When you dig in you will see the base is like a sticky toffee pudding - the caramel sauce will have soaked in to the cake mixture as it cooks, giving a lovely sticky, moist base. Then you have the layer of apple in the middle and the crumble topping which will be a lovely golden brown. This is a very sweet pudding but absolutely delicious.

 This is my entry in the SACO Kitchen Challenge - thanks to SACO for providing £20 with which to purchase all the ingredients for these two courses.

I am also sending this to a blogging round-up called the Four Seasons Food challenge, hosted by Louisa at Eat Your Veg and Anneli at Delicieux. Their chosen ingredient this month is fruit.