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.

Mini Sticky Toffee Pudding with Irish Whiskey Sauce

These mini sticky toffee puddings are delicious though the sauce is very sweet!

I got the recipe from the Good Food Channel; I was looking for Irish recipes for a blog challenge as it was St Patrick's day this month. I made half the quantity of the recipe which made three - obviously I was a bit more generous with my portions as the whole recipe is supposed to serve 8, but mine really weren't that big.

To make three, you need:

75g butter

extra for greasing or Cake Release or similar

85g ready-to-eat dates (without stones)

150ml water

1/2 tsp bicarb of soda

85g brown sugar

85g self-raising flour

1 egg

For the sauce:

150g caster sugar

150ml water

125ml cream

40g butter

2 tbsp Irish whiskey

Preheat oven to 180C and grease three ramekins or similar small dishes. Put the dates in a pan with 150ml water and bring to the boil. Simmer for 5 minutes until softened then stir in the bicarb of soda; the mixture will foam up. Remove from the heat and leave to cool for a few minutes, then blend in a liquidiser so you have a thick puree.

 In a bowl, cream the marg and sugar and add the egg. Fold in the flour.

Finally stir in the date puree.

 Spoon the mixture into the ramekins and bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes. You can either turn these out onto a wire rack then serve them in a bowl, or serve them as they come in the ramekins.

I found making the sauce quite tricky and I'm not sure what I did wrong. I took my eye off the first batch for just a minute and it burnt - and when I made it again, I couldn't get the sugar to caramelise. But these are the instructions in the recipe: put the sugar and water in a pan, bring to the boil then simmer for 15 minutes.

Stir in the cream, butter and whiskey and cook gently for another 8-10 minutes until thick. I used Bushmills Irish whiskey.

The sauce did turn lightly golden and thicken but it had the consistency of sugar rather than a creamy sauce, I'm not sure what I did wrong!

Pour the sauce over the puddings and serve. These were very good though extremely sweet - but my boyfriend liked them enough to have two!

I'm sending this to Baking with Spirit, hosted by Janine at Cake of the Week, as this month she has chosen dark spirits including whisky.

These puddings are also ideal for Treat Petite, hosted by Stuart at Cakeyboi and guest hosted this month by the Baking Explorer; the theme this time is Ireland.

Green & Black's Chocolate Sticky Toffee Pudding

Isn't that just the perfect winter warmer?

I actually made this back in January shortly after starting this blog, but never got around to posting! I'd received the Green & Black's Ultimate Chocolate Recipes book for Christmas, and this was the first thing I decided to make from it.You can find the recipe here.

It's pretty straightforward to make: preheat the oven to 180C and grease and line a 20cm springform cake tin. Soak the dates in a pan of simmering water for ten minutes and in the meantime, melt the chocolate in a microwave or bain marie.

Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl, beat in the eggs one at a time, then mix in the melted chocolate.

Sift in the flour, bicarb of soda and baking powder, then the dates and the water they have been soaking in. Pour the mixture into the cake tin and bake for 50 minutes.

While it's cooking, make the toffee sauce - put the golden syrup, brown sugar, butter, cream and vanilla into a pan and bring to the boil, then cook, stirring, for about 5 minutes.

Pour the sauce over the top of the pudding when it is cooked. You can either do this in the tin or transfer the pudding to a serving dish then pour the sauce over. Any extra sauce can be poured into a jug and passed around for people to help themselves.

This is quite a heavy pudding so you need to leave room for it after a meal! It's a lovely winter warmer and the addition of chocolate - not something I'd put in a sticky toffee pudding before - was lovely. Obviously as this is from the Green & Black's cookery book you should use Green & Black's chocolate (though any kind would work!) and you could experiment with their different chocolate flavours - I think orange and butterscotch are flavours that would work well.

I'm sending this sticky toffee pudding to Ros at The More Than Occasional Baker, who is my co-host for Alphabakes and is running the challenge this month, as our randomly-selected letter is S.

I am also sending this to Tea Time Treats, hosted by Karen of Lavender and Lovage and Kate of What Kate Baked, as their theme this month is chocolate.