Profiteroles with Toffee Sauce

I made profiteroles for dessert when my parents were staying recently. I'd never made them before and it turned out that they were pretty easy, and really tasty! I made a toffee sauce to go with them as my dad doesn't like chocolate.

The recipe came from Marian Keyes' Saved By Cake. You need:
85g butter
200ml water
1/2 tsp caster sugar
115g plain flour
pinch of salt
3 eggs, beaten

For the cream filling:
450ml whipping cream
15g icing sugar

For the toffee sauce (I got this recipe from the internet)
120g brown sugar
120g butter
100ml cream

Preheat the oven to 200C. Put the butter, sugar and water into a pan over a low heat until the butter melts and the sugar has dissolved.

Bring to the boil then add the flour and salt and stir. Remove from the heat and whisk until you have a smooth paste.
Then whisk in the egg gradually.

Spoon onto a baking tray spaced well apart. Bake for 25-30 mins.

They came out of the oven beautifully puffed up. Remove from the oven, prick the base with a fork or sharp knife, turn each one upside down and return to the oven for five minutes.

Whisk the cream until peaks form then stir in the icing sugar. Split the profiteroles and fill with cream.

To make the toffee sauce, melt the butter and sugar in a pan until the butter has melted and the sugar has dissolved then stir in the cream.

Toffee sauce ready to be poured

Pour the sauce over the profiteroles and enjoy.

Green & Black's Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie

I made this a little while ago when I had friends over to dinner. It's from the Green & Black's recipe book Ultimate Chocolate Recipes - the New Collection.

You need:

100g butter

100g dark chocolate

2 tbsp strong coffee

ready made sweet shortcrust pastry base

50g cream cheese

40g icing sugar

100g smooth peanut butter

30ml milk

175ml double cream

Melt the butter and chocolate in a bain marie or microwave

Whisk in the coffee and leave to cool a little

Roll out the pastry and line a loose-bottomed cake or pie tin.

Fill with baking beans and bake for about 15 minutes until the pastry case starts to turn golden.

Remove the baking beans and leave to cool. Pour the chocolate mixture into the pastry case.

Whisk the cheese, icing sugar,m peanut butter and milk until combined

Whip the cream until you have soft peaks, then fold in the peanut butter mixture.

Spoon the mixture into the pastry case on top of the chocolate

Smooth the top and chill in the fridge for 4-5 hours or overnight.

Remove from the tin to serve. This was a really nice, rich dessert but I found the coffee flavour a little overpowering (I don't particularly like coffee) and would leave it out next time.

Book Review: How to Feed a Man With Love by Stasha

Book title How to Feed a Man with Love

Author Named only as Stasha - I had no idea who she was so googled her (to be honest thinking from the pictures in the book that she might be a 'glamour model' but it seems she is called Stasha Palos, an arist - and the step-daughter of Top Shop owner Philip Green!

Publisher Opus Media UK

Price/RRP Full price on Amazon is £19.95 but I got it secondhand for £4 including postage

I get the idea....but it's not the most attractive image

Where did I get it? Amazon - I saw the book when I was browsing in Selfridges' cookery book section and was really intrigued, so I looked it up on the internet when I got home and bought a second-hand copy.

The blurb on the back (sic)
Have Passion....
Passion for your Man
Passion for your Family
Passion for your Food
This book is a personal
collection of Recipes, Poetry,
Philosophy and Art
I hope you enjoy it
Love Stash x

Bit of a waste of two pages if you ask me...

Overview of book
Probably the strangest cookery book I've ever come across. I imagined it would be about how the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, and a collection of the sort of recipes my boyfriend would love, like burgers, steak etc. In some ways it is a little like that, but to say this book isn't what I was expecting is an understatement. It's a really big book - I've got the hardback which is A4 and weighs a ton! But unfortunately that's not because it is crammed with recipes. Some pages have a lot of text and others have just a few words and the recipes are interspersed with motivational phrases and little bits of 'poetry': for instance (sic), "Love Eachother. Try for one another.Care.Be kind. Laugh when you thought you didn't have laughter in you. Cry with Eachother" (etc). Another is a double page spread proclaiming "Drink Milk!". The recipes are printed in different coloured text each time, which sometimes makes the words very hard to read against the coloured background, and the last thing you want when you are following a recipe is to struggle to read it.

Quite.

First recipe in the book Teriyaki Chicken

Last recipe in the book Homemade Potato Salad

Random recipe from the middle of the book Lazy slow roast Sunday lunch lamb shanks with creamy mash potato

Can you read the text on this page? Me neither.

Quality/number of photographs There are lots of pictures, probably too many. For instance, a burger recipe has a double page spread of two photos on facing pages showing nothing but the burger - but one page is an exact mirror image of the other which I don't really get. Another page has a recipe for teriyaki chicken, but the picture on the facing page is of a bottle of teriyaki sauce - and the chicken itself gets a double page spread over the page. So four pages for one recipe- a bit unusual. Another page has a double page spread of a fuelometer with the needle pointing to empty and near the end of the book there is the same picture but with the needle pointing to full. Another page, for a reason I don't understand at all, has a photo of the Taj Mahal (the recipes on adjacent pages are Chinese and decidedly British so no clue there). A recipe for carrot cake manages to take up 8 pages - the recipe, along with a picture of a woman dressed as a bunny girl, a standalone picture of a bow tie on another page and a pair of legs in red high heels on another, and the photo of the cake itself takes up two pages. A recipe for hot chocolate sauce is superimposed over a picture of a woman's bottom in stockings and suspenders.

Some inspirational thoughts from the author

Number of pages 283 but I reckon the recipes only take up half that many

Have I made anything from this book? Pasta pomadoro and teriyaki chicken, both of which were OK but recipes I could easily find elsewhere. I won't be making anything else, as I've already given this book to the charity shop.

No idea who this chap is or why he gets a double page spread with a blank facing page

Overall impression in three words I was tempted to write "Waste of space" but instead will go with: Sexy, random, disappointing

Carrot cake recipe, modelled by a bunny girl.

Restaurant Review: Benugo Bar and Kitchen, BFI, London

delicious cocktails

Restaurant name: Benugo Bar and Kitchen
Location: Inside the British Film Institute, Southbank, London (you don't have to be visiting the BFI or pay anything to enter)
Description: Cocktail bar-meets-restaurant-meets cosy drawing room
Reason for visit: Quick dinner before seeing Adrian Lester and Rory Kinnear in Othello at the nearby National Theatre.

I ate: We didn't have long so decided on the bar snack menu; I had some lamb and harissa sausage rolls and some fries. The sausage rolls were delicious
My companion ate: Aubergine bake of some sort which she said was very nice
The food was: Really tasty, and filling even though it was only meant as a snack. The cocktails are to die for.

Bookshelves on the wall of the drawing room

The atmosphere/service was: Great service but best of all was the drawing room. There's a main seating area inside the BFI, then a smaller seating area next to that, then my friend who had been here before took us up a few steps next to a bookcase I hadn't even noticed, and we were inside the drawing room. It has armchairs and side tables, walls lined with books and a small bar - it's a really intimate, cosy area.
Price range/value for money: The cocktails were quite expensive but no more so than any other bars in the area, and the bar food was reasonable.
Would I recommend it: Yes, the drawing room in particular - it would be a lovely place to go on a date.

Pasta Pomadoro with Meatballs

Out of curiosity I bought a cookery book called How to Feed a Man With Love - it's very different to the other books I've got and I feel deserves an entire blog post in itself, so watch this space for a review. In the meantime though I wanted to post this recipe I made from the book - at least, the recipe for the sauce is from this book, the meatball recipe is an old one I already knew.

Pasta Pomadoro (pasta with tomato sauce)

You need:

1 clove garlic

1 carton passata (crushed tomatoes)

squeeze of tomato puree

olive oil

2 tsp sugar

fresh basil

salt, pepper

Crush the garlic and fry in olive oil

Add the passata to the pan and stir in the sugar, tomato puree and season.

Add the fresh basil and allow the sauce to simmer

To make the meatballs, you need:
minced beef
parmesan cheese
dried oregano
half an onion, finely chopped

Mix the parmesan, oregano and onion in a bowl

Add the mince and mix well

Roll into balls then fry until browned

Serve with the tomato sauce and spaghetti

Meal Planning 2013 - Week 27

Last week wasn't at all good... I totally failed at the DietBet challenge to lose 4% of my weight in amonth (4% is a lot!) and I also put on weight at Slimming World this week. Back to the drawing board I guess... but I'm eating out this week for a celebration on Tuesday, out at a blogger event on Thurs (when I don't know what, if any, food will be provided), having people over on Friday and out on Saturday! It's a hard life... :-)

Monday 
Breakfast yogurt
Lunch sandwich as I needed a quick lunch before a meeting
Dinner Choir -will probably have to get a snack beforehand so will pop into the Tesco near my rehearsal venue. Should have planned ahead... (smacks wrist)


Tuesday
Breakfast yogurt
Lunch baked potato with smoked salmon
Dinner - Dinner with my boyfriend - at Burger & Lobster

Wednesday
Breakfast yogurt
Lunch sandwich
Dinner fishcake and veg


Thursday
Breakfast yogurt
Lunch sandwich
Dinner - Out with the More Than Occasional Baker at a blogger event :-)

Friday
Breakfast yogurt
Lunch baked potato with sub-blush tomato tuna
Dinner having friends over - pulled pork


Saturday
Breakfast Cereal
Lunch - out, at an animal photography day at Paradise Wildlife park
Dinner - maybe takeaway as we might get home quite late

Sunday
Breakfast - possibly omlette for my boyfriend, or pancakes, or just cereal
Lunch frittata if I only have a quick breakfast. Or this could be brunch.
Dinner at home - zebra burger I bought from Borough market (!) with homemade Slimming World chips

Alphabakes - July 2013

I'm hoping you've all got some nice summery recipes for this month's Alphabakes now that we've finally got some nice weather!

If you haven't seen last month's roundup of recipes using the letter R, check out The More Than Occasional Baker to see my co-host Ros's writeup.

And as for this month's letter.... we are baking with the letter

F

Remember, it can be the main ingredient (or one of the main ones - I'm afraid we won't accept flour for cakes!), or the name of the bake or recipe. We will also accept old posts if you've already made and blogged about something you want to enter.

We have another prize on offer this month as well, a cookery book called Dutch Oven Baking by Bruce Tracy. It comes courtesy of Publishers Group UK, though we can only send the prize to a UK address. If it isn't obvious from your blog that you are a UK blogger, please let us know when you send in your entry.

A Dutch oven is actually a sort of heavy pot with a lid, usually made of cast iron that is used on camp fires, but you can also cook any of the recipes in the oven, in a casserole or roasting dish. So whether you are camping or cooking at home hopefully you can make use of this book.

The author is a champion Dutch oven baker and breadmaster; his recipes include cheese onion rolls, Challah holiday bread with parmesan dipping butter, Dutch oven poached pear and almond tart, and many more.

Please email your entries to alphabakes@gmail.com; if you tweet @Caroline_Makes and @BakingAddict we will retweet all the ones we see, but please do not rely on this to send in your entry.

A quick reminder of the rules....

1. Post your recipe on your blog and link it to The More than Occasional Baker andCaroline Makes, stating the relevant month's host. If you do not have a blog, email us a picture and a brief description of your entry which we will include in the round-up at the end of the month. 

2. You can use your own recipe or someone else's recipe. The recipe can be sweet, savoury or a mixture! Anything goes as long as the random letter is predominantly featured in the recipe as one of the main ingredients or flavours or in the name of the bake itself (i .e . not as a garnish , or using 'flour' for the letter F!) You can also republish old posts/recipes but you must include the information for this challenge as stated in these rules. 

3. Add the logo to your post and add 'alphabakes' as a label to your post. 

4. Email your entries to alphabakes@gmail.com by midnight (GMT) 25th of each month. Please include: 

• Your name (that you want included in the round up or we will use the name of your blog)
• Your blog post URL
• Recipe title
• Photo of recipe (to be included in the round up)

5. You can submit as many entries as you like.

6. You do not have to participate every month to join in.

7. You may submit your entry to other challenges as long as it complies with their rules.

8. If you use twitter, please use the tag #alphabakes and mention @bakingaddict and @Caroline_Makes. We will retweet all those that we see.

9. Have fun! :)

Lemon Curd Swirl Cake

I made this cake for a picnic I went on yesterday; it was easy to make and travelled fairly well too. I based it partly on a recipe from Weightwatchers magazine but doubled the quantity and used different frosting.

To serve 8-10, you need:

225g butter or reduced fat margarine

150g caster sugar

4 eggs

225g self-raising flour

finely grated zest of 1 lemon

150g cream cheese

3 tbsp lemon curd

Preheat oven to 175C fan. Grease a loaf tin with cake release - or two tins if you have them. (You can either make two cakes and sandwich them together, or one big cake and slice it in half).

Cream the butter and sugar together.

Add the eggs and beat, then fold in the flour and the lemon zest.

 Spoon half the mixture into a loaf tin and repeat, or if you prefer, put all the mixture into one tin.

I baked my cake for 25 minutes then did the same again with the other half of the cake mixture. If you are making one cake with the whole mixture it will take longer to cook.

The recipe I used instructed me to mix 150g of 0% Greek yogurt with 1 tsp icing sugar to make the filling. It may have been because I was using Tesco Light Greek Yogurt but my mixture was extremely thin and runny and I didn't think I would be able to use it to fill the cake. Instead I made some cream cheese frosting using Philadelphia and icing sugar with a few drops of lemon juice.

I levelled off the top of the cake as it had risen a little too much.

Spread the cream cheese frosting on one half of the cake. I then warmed a couple of tablespoons of lemon curd in the microwave until it was runny, and swirled it through the cream cheese.

I then sandwiched the cakes together and used some of the same frosting and lemon curd on top, though I spread it in quite a thin layer as I was going to wrap the whole cake in tin foil to take to the picnic - I had quite a long way to go by public transport and on foot and had a lot to carry, so I decided this was the easiest way to transport the cake!

I'm sending this to Calendar Cakes, hosted by Rachel of DollyBakes and Laura of Laura Loves Cakes, as their theme this month is "pump up the jam" and they have asked for bakes using jam and curds. As I used lemon curd for the filling I am sending them this cake.