A Sprinkle of Sequins

Loving a little orange

After a leisurely day filled with reading, looking at some wonderful photographs at the mac and a having a gentle walk in the park (maybe gentle was a bad idea though, as pretty soon me and my companion were very almost freezing, but in it's favour it did work us up a grand old appetite!), we decided to head back over to the north side of Birmingham to visit Lichfield. 

After another gentle walk and weighing up the various options we decided to try a place which we hadn't been into before but looked popular and welcoming called Joe Delucci's Steak and Pasta House on Bird Street, it's a New York/Italian styled restaurant with mainly pasta and steak as its focus (though enough options of both to give plenty of choice).  We managed to bag ourselves a cosy table and had a wonderful meal (sorry no photo's as i completely forgot to grab the camera before leaving the house, always frustrating).  I fell in love with my starter which i have to confess to never having heard of before but now that i look them up on the net they are everywhere.  I had arancini filled with mozzarella and prosciutto and they were delicious.  Apparently these deep fried beauties are popular in Sicily and arancini means little orange in Italian.  I get the feeling that it would be a good recipe to play with and try different fillings, i like the look of this one from Gino D'Acampo with a lovely arrabiata sauce.

The rest of the meal was good, especially the tangy lime cheesecake with a citrus sorbet on the side, delicious and palate cleansing.  Will definitely have to try a recreation of this one at home!

A Strange Mix

Poor dear blog, you have been neglected and i know how you are suffering...no attention, no love, no time lavished upon you.  How can i make it up to you? 

Yes, yes, i can feed you with some photo love!  Look, since i have been gone i have been making things, things to bring you pleasure...

                              

Yes.  Rustic, i hear you say...but it's soothing and homely.  Oh, ok blog, you want something more fancy, something a bit more frivolous...

                                 

and get this...   

Yes, it's the beautiful inside of the gorgeous egg i showed you the other week.  The chocolate was fantastic, and then inside the egg were some lovely little baby eggs - some foil wrapped in glittering colours, others nestled in pastel shells, and then to top it all a naughty looking rabbit sat proudly at the top of the bounty...

Oh fickle blog, what is that i hear you cry?  Some savoury food to nibble on, hmmm.  I can provide you with something spicy and aromatic and colourful all at once.  It is the delicious chicken, cashew and almond curry...

                                

There, is that enough for you?  Are you satisfied now dear blog that i haven't forgotten you?  I have been cooking and baking things with you in mind, it's just that i got rather waylaid along the way and never made it to this final hurdle of posting to you my culinary lovenotes.  I am back and promise not to stray, well at least for a little while...

Easter Bunnies and Chocolate

                                    

I was a very happy girl (in fact i still am!) yesterday as i was given for Easter an egg which i have always wanted to try.  It's from Chouchoute, which is one of my favourite shops in Birmingham.  A beautiful, tiny shop in an arcade which is just full of exquisitely made chocolate.  I had hinted that i would love, love, just for this one year to try one of their Easter Egg's.  Then, i can happily report that my wish came true when i saw this bag in front of my eyes on Sunday morning...

                                                   

See sometimes wishes do come true...

IMBB #13 - My Little Cupcake!

The glory of cupcakes...I was excited when it was announced by Maki that the theme for this month's Is My Blog Burning, was to be cupcakes or muffins.  Now, i don't profess to be a master baker or anything, but i do like a playful bit of baking in my kitchen and so this theme had me tickled pink!

Whenever i'm baking i always feel a little more contented than usual, it makes me feel serene and happy to be home.  Baking is also a temporary respite from the mundaness of everyday life, you know the kind of feeling you get in the middle of winter when the day's just seem to be going on and on and then...i'm baking and the scent  and waft of wondeful things happening in my oven help me to rise above the glum and dark day.

So for this theme i decided to go with a couple of different cupcakes that relate to my recent and younger times of life.  The first cupcake i offer has become a firm favourite over the last few years and i make it often.  Taken from Nigella Lawson's wonderful, wonderful book How to Be a Domestic Goddess, the recipe is "Carrot Cupcakes with Cream-Cheese Icing", and i think it is my idea of cupcake heaven.  Nigella suggests they go down particularly well after fish, but i think they go especially perfectly with a nice steaming hot cup of tea.

Carrot Cupcakes with Cream-Cheese Icing

Makes 12 cupcakes, using a 12 bun muffin tin, lined with muffin cases

For the Cupcakes:

100g light muscovado sugar

175ml sunflower oil

2 large eggs

225g plain flour

3/4 teaspoon bicarb of soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

pinch of salt

zest of 1/2 lemon and 1/2 orange

150g carrots, grated

100g walnuts, chopped

For the icing:

125g cream or curd cheese

250g icing sugar, sieved

1-2 teaspoons lime juice

12 walnut halves

Preheat the oven to 200 deg C/gas mark 6.

Beat the sugar and oil together, then add the eggs one at a time.  Add the flour, bicarb, cinnamon, salt and zests, then fold in the grated carrot and walnuts.  Spoon the mixture evenly into the muffin cases, and bake for 20 minutes.  Cool on a rack and you can then start the icing.

Beat the cream cheese in a bowl until it is smooth and somewhat softened, and then beat in the icing sugar.  Squeeze in lime juice to your taste.

When the cupcakes are cool, just smear the icing on top and pop a walnut half in the centre of each iced cupcake. 

Now that i've introduced you to my adult choice of cupcake, it is now time to let you into my favourite cupcake of the past.  The second part of this "Tale of Two Cupcakes" is one of the very first recipes i remember making as a child, and that is "Butterfly Cakes".  I have very fond memories of making these gorgeous, pretty cakes with my mum when i was little and all the fun i used to have licking the spoon, and ok the bowl as well sometimes!  So today, as a dedication to my wonderful mum i thought i would make these little gems...

How perfectly they turned out, just like i remembered.  Wonderfully  light sponge and and then the yummy buttercream, and then there was the fun part of adorning the cake with wings and then decorating the middle of the wings...this was pretty baking of the highest order, and they tasted good too!  All in all a fun afternoon of baking was had and of course there were lots of appreciative tummies afterwards too..

Sugar High Friday #6 - Caramel - Sticky Date Pudding with Caramel Sauce

I've made it just in time!  Didn't think i would, but i was determined to take part in my first SHF, so i pulled my finger out and got on with something this evening and i now feel like a total pig!  Caramel was such a great choice, so thank you Debbie at Words to Eat By for such a fabulous topic to cook by.  But i'm afraid, no, what am i talking about!,  i'm not actually afraid because i enjoyed it so much, but my entry was a full on stodgy one!  I took a vote with my colleagues at work and they all ooohed and aaahed over this one and said it had to be.  This is even though it was a beautiful weather day here in the UK and in no way was it a night for eating calorific, winter stodge...but hey, sometimes a girl just has to get on with it...

My entry is taken from The Essential Dessert Cookbook, which is a lovely huge tome of a recipe book just filled with sweet thing after sweet thing, it's enough to make you want to jump for joy at the greatness of dessert...Highly recommended.

Sticky Date Pudding with Caramel Sauce

Serves 6-8 people

370g pitted dates

1 1/2 teaspoons bicarb of soda

1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger

90g unsalted butter

250g caster sugar

3 eggs

185g self raising flour

1/2 teaspoon mixed spice

creme fraiche, for serving

Caramel Sauce

150g unsalted butter

230g soft brown sugar

80ml golden syrup

185ml cream

1. Preheat the oven to about 180 deg C.  Grease and line the base of a deep 23cm (9 in) diameter cake tin.  Chop the dates and put them in a pan with 440 ml of water.  Bring this to the boil, then remove from the heat, add the bicarb of soda and ginger and leave to stand for 5 minutes.
2. Cream together the butter, sugar and 1 egg.  Beat in the remaining eggs one at a time.  Fold in the sifted flour and spice, add the date mixture and stir well until well combined.  Pour into the tin and bake for 55-60 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the middle.  Cover with foil if overbrowning during cooking.  Leave to stand for 5 minutes before turning out onto a serving plate.
3. To make the caramel sauce, stir all the ingredients in a pan over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved.  Simmer, uncovered, for about 3 minutes, or until thickened slightly.  Brush some sauce over the top and sides of the pudding until well-glazed.  Serve immediately with the sauce and a dollop of creme fraiche.

    We thought it turned out wonderfully.  The pudding itself was a very nice texture thanks to the lovely dates and it smelt gorgeously aromatic.  The caramel actually turned out pretty well too, and look at the photo, we had tons of it to enjoy and slather onto the pudding, always a bonus i think!

Fingers crossed i think this has turned out ok for a first time effort.  If you've got any comments for me i would love to have some feedback either on the recipe or how i have written about it (not totally sure on the protocol of these things, have i noted the weights and measurements in the right way, have i forgotten to include anything of importance).  Anyway, hope you enjoy this recipe, give it a go on a cold and rainy night when you need something to provide sustenance and food satisfaction.