Cream Puffs

A couple of weeks ago Hubby and I were have a conversation about what treats we would like for our, now  annual, Christmas Eve Feast.  It was as part of this chat that Hubby decided to mention that this Christmas Eve Santa would rather not see the regular mince pie and bottle of beer combo ... he has a physique to maintain and a sleigh to drive after all!  Apparently Santa advised Hubby of this request last Christmas Eve but the message seem to have been on divert for 12 months.  Further to this, Santa would like Chocolate Eclairs and a glass of milk ... Rudolph is happy to maintain the status quo with a carrot, but just a wee one as our house is one of the last stops of the night and he is quite full by the time he reaches us!

Honestly!

So this got me to thinking.  Chocolate Eclairs are no problem at all, I've made them before and have actually had an idea tucked away for some time now to make mini versions with cocoa nibs in the chocolate topping for a bit of texture and some added pizzazz.  But cream buns are a different kettle of fish entirely.  I've tried making them before and all was going well right up to the point when I needed to pop the air holes in the underside to dry the insides out.  Every time the rotten things would deflate and end up looking very pathetic, once this happens no amount of baking helps to puff those babies back up!

My Mum is a bit of a dab hand at the old cream puff baking.  In the late eighties and early nineties her party piece would be a showstopping mound of profiteroles (Mum is more sophisticated than me!) piled high on a plate, stuffed full to bursting with chantilly cream and covered in the most amazing, finger licking good, chocolate sauce.  Oh how my mouth waters at the very thought!  So I asked Mum for some tips and what do you know, turns out I was baking them long enough!

To make my cream puffs I followed Rachel Allen's recipe for Choux Pastry that is in her 'Bake' cookbook.  The same recipe can be found online at the Good Food website, so I haven't copied it out here.  The recipe worked a charm though, and so Santa will be pleased to know that Mini Chocolate Eclairs with Chocolate Cocoa Nib Icing will be on the menu this Christmas Eve ... who am I to deny the big guy??

Lemon Marmalade

This is a great recipe for using up that big bowl of lemons that looks really pretty on your kitchen table for a week or so but then you need to find a use for all that fruit or its going to be wasted.  It makes a ton of marmalade, which also makes a lovely gift at this time of year, but goes really well in all kinds of other recipes too.  I'll have some more posts coming up that share how I have been using this golden stash recently.  It is ultra simple to make and uses just three ingredients!

Lemon Marmalade
1kg unwaxed lemons
2kg granulated sugar

Chill a saucer in the freezer, ready for checking the setting point of your jam.  Wash the lemons and remove the top 'button' which would have attached to the stalk.  Put the lemons in a large saucepan with 2.5 litres of water.  Bring to the boil, then cover the pan and simmer for 2 1/2 hours or until the lemon skins are lovl and tender, and can be pierced easily with a fork.

When the lemons are cool enough to handle, remove from the saucepan.  Measure the cooking liquid that is left, you'll need 1.5 litres in total.  If you don't quite have enough, make up the difference with water.  If you have too much, bring the liquid to the boil and reduce to the required amount.

Halve the lemons and remove the pips - reserving the pips and any juices that escape.  Cut the lemon peel and flesh into strips, as thick or as thin as you like.  Put all of this, including any juices, back into the pan.  Put the pips in a small piece of muslin and tie up with string.  Add this to the pot, the pips will help with the setting process.

Add the sugar and bring to the boil, stirring until it has completely dissolved.  Boil rapidly for about 20 mins until the setting point is reached, determine this by either using a jam thermometer or by using the wrinkle test.  To wrinkle test, place a blob of jam on the cold saucer from the freezer, allow it to cool for one min and then push the edge of the jam gently.  If the surface wrinkles the jam is set, if not, pop the pot back on to boil for another 5 mins and then test again.

Leave to cool for 10 to 15 mins, this stops the lemon peel from sinking to the bottom of the jar.  Remove the muslin bag and gently stir the marmalade in one direction to disperse any scum that has formed.  Pour the jam into warm sterilised jars and seal straight away.

Makes 6 x 450ml jars
Taken from the Good Food Magazine, Feb 12

The 2012 Gingerbread House - The Snow Cottage

Has anybody seen the advert for John Lewis this Christmas??  I haven't meet a person yet who doesn't love it. Hubby and I love it so much that we had to try and include the snow couple in this year's gingerbread masterpiece.  For anybody outside of the UK you can see the ad below!



For this years house I went back to the very beginning of my gingerbread baking experience and used the recipe from the Gingerbread Architect cookbook, a fab little book that I would highly recommend for anyway with a keen interest in making gingerbread houses from scratch.  This dough does expand a wee bit on baking, even after sitting in the fridge for 30 mins prior to baking, but I can live with it.  Previous gingerbread dough recipes have resulted with far less pleasing results.

The Snow Couple

When all is said and done I am really pleased with the end results, its my best house yet!  That sounds really big headed of me, and that isn't the intention, but I think that gingerbread house baking ... and constructing ... and decorating, gets a bit easier the more practice you have at it.  Again, quite a big headed statement given that this is only the fourth house ever made in the Chocolate Teapot kitchen, not counting the mini cup sitting ones which really need to be made again!!

So, the 2012 Gingerbread House has some of the same features as last year;

• The 'Dangler-less' Nutcracker is still the Gingerbread House Keeper
• The stained-glass windows have again been made with thanks to leaves of gelatine cut to size
• The yard is filled with Christmas Tree meringues, which have been dipped in white chocolate this year to represent snow capped trees.

New for this year;

• The house pattern has been used from the Good Food Magazine, December 2012 issue.
• In keeping with the cottage theme, the roof has been created using shredded wheats - cranberry flavoured to be precise!  This was then covered with some thinly rolled fondant to look like snow.  If you look carefully you can see some freshly fallen snowflakes on the roof still ;0
• The snow couple are made from fondant too.  To make the Snowladies hat, scarf and mittens I coloured white fondant with red food paste.
• The shutters on the windows have been made with sticks of chewing gum cut to size.  Snowflake accents were glued on then the whole lot covered with more glue and edible glitter was then sprinkled over.
• The curvey path is made with silver sugar crystals I picked up at a cake supply shop.

Have you heard about the Gingerbread Link Up happening over at Turquoise Lemons?  If you have made a gingerbread house for Christmas then head over to link your construction up with all the other fantastically creative houses being made at this time of year ... that is where the Snow Cottage is headed right now.  This is a great idea being hosted by Kate from Turquoise Lemons, Jamie from Jaim's Kitchen and Jude from A Trifle Rushed, a fantastic idea ladies, thanks for taking the time to host this link up party.

Caramel Popcorn

Where is the time flying by to??  Before I know it Christmas will be a dim and distant memory and I've still not blogged last year's Christmas lunch extravaganza.  Think I may need to break into some scheduled posting!

In the meantime, here is something I made earlier.  Heavenly Caramel Popcorn perfect for when you get some time to watch your favourite Christmas movie in the coming weeks.

Caramel Popcorn
2 tbsp veg oil
200g popcorn maize
125g butter, diced
150g caster sugar
2 tbsp clear honey

Heat the oil in a large pan and add the popcorn.  Cover and cook for 3-4 mins, shaking the pan occasionally until the popping stops.  Tip into a large bowl.

Quickly wipe the inside of the pan with kitchen paper then add the butter, sugar and honey.  Cook gently, stirring until the sugar dissolves.  Bring to the boil and bubble rapidly, without stirring, for 4-5 mins, until caramel coloured.

Add the popped corn, stirring until coated.  Tip out onto two non stick baking trays and leave to set and harden.  Break up into pieces and pile into a large bowl to serve.

Waitrose

Hazelnut and Chocolate Chunk Cookies

This bake originally started life as my entry to the November Random Recipes challenge.  Dom challenged us to  pick a random recipe using our birth day and month to pick the cookbook and the recipe to bake.  Given that I broke the rules quite blatantly it probably isn't fair to enter my bake this month, although the essential  idea of the challenge was preserved, as its the first time I have baked anything from my chosen book.  And what a little gem of a recipe it is ;0)

As my birthday is the 17th Feb, I picked the 17th book in my collection, Phil Vickery's 'A Passion For Puddings' ... all going well so far ... but as my birth month is 2 I hit a wee snag.  Page 2 was the intro.  The second recipe in the book was for a very sinful but perfectly scoffable Fudgy Chocolate Croissant Pudding.  Boy did it look good!  For those who have been reading regularly you will know that I am quickly approaching a significant weight lose milestone of 1 and a half stone and this isn't something I really wanted to jeopardise after so much hard work.

So at this point I threw Dom's rules out the window and picked a recipe from the same book that could easily be passed off on other people and save me the humiliation of being frog marched out of my weekly weigh in.  Sorry Dom! 

Hazelnut and Chocolate Chunk Cookies
225g unsalted butter, softened
225g caster sugar
170g condensed milk
350g SR flour, sifted
100g dark chocolate chips
100g hazelnuts, roasted, chopped

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until pale.  Stir in the condensed milk.  Mix in the flour and then work in the chocolate and the nuts.  Divide the dough in half and place each half in a square of foil or cling film.  Roll into two thick sausage shapes.  Chill well; this dough will keep well in the fridge for a week or it can be frozen until you are ready to bake.

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 180C.  Peel off the wrapper and cut off thick slices.  Bake on oven trays lined with baking parchment for about 15 mins or until golden brown at the edges but still a little soft.

Makes about 30 cookies
Taken from 'A Passion For Puddings'

So even though I said I was going to eat any cookies I had to sample them for blogging purposes you understand.  Wow!  Magic little cookies, a great treat to go along side a cuppa.  Next time I think I would maybe add some more chocolate chips to the mix, there seemed to be well more hazelnuts than chocolate, not necessarily a bad thing of course, but this is the Chocolate Teapot after all!

Julia Taylor's Melting Moments

Today marks the start of finals week on Masterchef Australia.  For those who have been watching you will be up to speed with Julia and all the rave reviews her melting Moments have received.  With the end in sight I decided it was possibly time I give her recipe a go for myself and see what all the hype was about.

Annoyingly, these were really rather good (Julia isn't one of my favorite contestants I have to say!)  Kudo's to her though, my Melting Moments were nice and crumbly and the biscuits themselves were not too sweet.  I followed the recipe for Julia's Buttercream filling which was quite a bit sweeter than my normal one but it complemented the biscuit perfectly.  At least I thought it did, Hubby was on a wee bit of a sugar high for the rest of the day!  (PS - the vanilla addition was a stroke of genius Julia!).  Yum!  Another slight deviation from the original recipe was to use some Jumble Berry Jam we already had in the fridge rather than make the Raspberry Jam in Julia's recipe ... it could just be my prejudice ... but tell me, who really uses gelatin in their jam to ensure a set?

If you want to follow Julia's recipe from scratch, then please check it out here.  If you do, please note that Julia makes far bigger biscuits for her Melting Moments than I do.  I opted to use the smallest ice cream scoop that I have to portion mine out and this meant they retained their trade mark 'stripes' when they are baked.  The ones from the show looked a bit more like whoopie pies, that is just my opinion though!

Julia Taylor's Melting Moments - My Way ... kinda!
Biscuits
180g unsalted butter
60g icing sugar
60g custard powder
1 tsp baking powder
180g plain flour
Vanilla Buttercream
100g butter, softened
2 tsp vanilla bean paste
1 cup icing sugar, sifted

Preheat the oven to 180C.  Line two oven tray's with baking paper.

To make the biscuits, cream the butter and icing sugar together for 2 mins in an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.  Add the custard powder and mix until combined.  Sift in the baking powder and flour and mix well.  Use a small ice cream scoop (I use a truffle sized scoop for just the right sized biscuits) and place on the baking tray's.  Press each ball with the tines of a fork that have been dipped in flour to leave an indent.  Bake for 16-18 mins or until they are lightly golden.  Stand on the tray's for 5 mins to cool them then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the buttercream, whisk the butter and vanilla together until nice and smooth.  Add the icing sugar and beat the mixture until it forms a paste, the consistency of thick icing.  Spoon into a piping bag fitted with a small star nozzle.

To assemble, place a spoonful of cooled jam on the base of half the biscuits.  Pipe a star of icing sugar onto the base of the other half of the biscuits.  Gently press one of each biscuit together to form a Melting Moment.  Dust with icing sugar before serving.

Makes approx 1 dozen bite sized Melting Moment, or 5 of Julia's jumbo sized variety.

The verdict?  So good, in fact maybe even the best Melting Moments I have ever tasted, these will be baked time and time again, in fact there is a batch on the cards for this week too ;0)

Have you been watching Masterchef Australia?  Who do you want to win?  Personally I am delighted to see Ben (who is from my home state) in finals week ... c'mon Ben!

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner ...

... OK, it wasn't a chicken dinner up for grabs but a copy of Eric Lanlard's 'Home Bake'.  Thanks to everyone who took part in the competition, I wish I could send you all a lovely prize but I only have one copy of the book!

Congratulations to Anna-Louise Brown, Rafflecopter has selected you as the lucky winner.  I know from your comment that this book will be going to you Mum, I hope she has lots of fun baking with it.  I've sent you a wee email, just send me a quick note back with your address so I can get the book posted out.