Reblochon Quiche Lorraine

Week 44, Bake 44. 

So now that I am all-warmed-up after my cold morning at Stourhead, I decided to spend the rest of my day baking, especially as I haven't been well enough to bake at all this week! I love a French dish called tarteflette and this is my bake-take on it. A Reblochon Quiche Lorraine. And it tastes SMASHING. 

Ingredients:

• 250g of plain flour
• 150g of soft butter
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• pinch of salt
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon of milk
• 200g of Reblochon cheese
• 6 rashes of bacon
• 1 clove of smoked garlic
• 4 eggs
• 100ml of milk
• 100ml of double cream
• cherry tomatoes, sliced to decorate 

Method:

1. In a large mixing bowl, make a well in the flour, pour the egg, butter, salt and sugar. 
2. Using your hand scrunch the ingredients together bringing in the flour, this makes a lovely squelchy noise. 
3. Add the milk and continue to bring the ingredients together until it becomes a short dough. 
4. Cling-film and pop in the fridge for 30 minutes. 
5. Once it has relaxed, butter your quiche tin and roll out the dough as thin as possible. Lay it in the tin, and use some left over pastry to push it into the folds of the tin. Prick it with a fork (we don't want any soggy bottoms here!) and once again cool in the fridge. (I cooled mine for 20 minutes). 
6. Pre-heat the oven to 190c and then pop the pastry in and blind bake it (I used rice and greaseproof paper) and bake for 15 minutes. 
7. Remove the greaseproof paper and rice and bake for a further 4-5 minutes until it slightly colours. 
8. Remove from the oven and now make your mixture. Reduce the oven temperature to 160c.
9. Fry the bacon and garlic until it slightly colours and leave to cool. 
10. Cut the Reblochon up into cubes (you can leave on the rind as this is edible).  
11. Whisk the eggs, milk and double cream together.
12. Now layer the quiche, bacon first, then the cubed Reblochon, the egg mixture and then decorate with your halved cherry tomatoes.  
13. Pop into the oven and cook for 20-25 minutes. 
14. Serve when the center is only slightly wobbly. It may look runny, but this is the pockets of Reblochon.

 

Stourhead on such a cold day!

So today is the day when the leaves were supposed to be best at Stourhead and thankfully the weather was perfect for taking photos... although a little on the absolutely freezing side! As you know already Stourhead is my favourite place to go in Somerset (actually technically it is in Wiltshire but I am allowing it to be in Somerset, just because I'm nice!). So here are a few of my pictures, the composition gets worse and worse throughout as my hands got colder and colder. -1c! I got there when the gates opened with a lot of other budding photographers who had bigger cameras than me... and stayed for 3 hours, with a cuppa break to bring my fingers back to life. As I was leaving the place started to really full up with people, and driving out of the car park there were queues back to the main road of cars. So clearly I got the best day and the best time... hope you like my pictures.

Cornish Pasty all-in-one meal

Week 43, Bake 43. 

The Great British Bake Off is over! And I am really happy with the person who won. But now my Tuesday night has just gotten a little worse. So this week I decided to make something with pastry as I havn't done that in a while. I got this idea after my dad suggested it (then I adpated his idea) and I do feel guilty that I havnt made it for him, my plan was to go home in half term but its such a long way so I decided to make the pasty this week. This pasty has got a savory content at one end and then at the other end it has apple sauce as a dessert, a whole meal in one!

Ingredients:

• 500g of plain flour
• 125g of lard
• 125g of butter
• pinch of salt
• two small potatos
• half an onion
• 300g of pork sholder
• a few sprigs of rosemary
• half a can of sliced tinned peaches
• apples to make apple sauce
• caster sugar
• 1 egg beaten

Method:

1. In a large bowl rub together the salt, cold lard, cold butter and flour. You want to get it to become breadcrumbs-like. I do mine from a height so that air gets trapped in it. 
2.  Now using 6 tablespoons of water bring the pastry together and wrap in clingfilm to put in the fridge for 30-60mins. 
3. Meanwhile prepare your ingredients: dice the onion, potatoes and pork.Sprinkle the pork with seasoning and rosemary. 
4. Chop the peaches into chunks and drain some of the syrup off them by using kitchen towel. 
5. Make the applesauce by softening apples over a medium heat in some butter, adding caster sugar to taste. 
6. Pre-heat the oven to 220c.
7. It is time to assemble the pasty's now. Roll out a quarter of the dough into a circle about 23cm diameter. 
8. In a quarter of a circle pile up the potatoes, onion, meat and peaches. In the other quarter of the same half, pile up the cooled apple sauce. Leave enough of a ring around the filling to be able to crimp. 
9. Seal the pastry using the beaten egg then crimp the circular edge by folding it over. 
10. Egg wash the whole of the pasty and pop it onto a baking tray lined with baking parchment. 
11. Bake all 4 pasties in the oven for 10 minutes, then turning the temperature down to 180 after and baking for a further 40-45 minutes. 
12. Remove and serve warm. Yum!

Banoffee cupcakes

Week 42, Bake 42.

Banoffee cupcakes. This idea came to me one night (as they do) and so I decided to create a banoffee cupcake to take into work for my fellow therapists. As an added wow I thought I should use my new chocolate transfer paper!

Ingredients:

• 125g of soft butter
•  175g of caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 large bananas mashed
• 1 tsp of baking soda
• 2 tablespoons of hot milk
• 1tsp of baking powder
• 225g of plain flour
• 1 packet of green and blacks dark chocolate
• 170g of butter (for the icing)
• 2 cups of icing sugar
• 60ml of water
• 100g of caster sugar
• 118ml of double cream
• 2 tsp of vinilla essence
• chocolate transfer paper

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 170c.
2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. 
3. Beat the eggs into a cup and add a little at a time whilst beating the butter/sugar mixture. 
4. Now fold in the mashed bananas. 
5. In a small mug, mix the baking soda and milk together until dissolved. 
6. Now add this to the cupcake mixture and fold in the sifted flour and baking powder. You dont want to loose too much air at this point.
7. Divide into cupcake cases (I piped mine in) and cook for 15-20 minutes. 
8. Remove the cupcakes from the tin and cool. 
9. Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. 
10. Now the exciting bit, get out the chocolate transfer paper and spread thinly your chocolate over it. Let it cool in a cool room. My flat was actually quite warm from all the cooking so it took longer to set. 
11. Once it is almost set carve out your shapes in the paper. 
12. Now, make the butter cream icing. Beat the butter till light and fluffy. 
13. Gradually add in the icing sugar and beat together. 
14. Either pipe or spread the icing over the cupcakes. 
15. Now make the caramel, in a clean saucepan mix together the water and sugar. 
16. Let it boil on a medium-high heat until it becomes amber. 
17. Now pour in the double cream (and vanilla essence) this will bubble and spit a lot so make sure you have your extractor fan on (I am very proud to say my fire alarm didn't go off!). 
18. Put back on the heat and continuously stir for 3 minutes. 
19. Now let it cool for a minute or two and then drizzle over the top of the cupcakes. 
20. Divide up the chocolate shards and pop into your cupcakes and your done!

Apple and Blueberry Slump

Week 41, Bake 41.

I have been ill this week. I do not like being ill, it is really really boring. I vaguely remember when I was a kid that we had a 'rainy days' box which my parents put in different bits and pieces which we could do when we were ill. So I remember there were colouring books and toy cars and just anything to keep you entertained when you were ill. Sadly I do not have one of these boxes anymore, and so I popped to TESCO and brought gossip magazines and a Christmas making magazine. I am rubbish at being ill, I have now exhausted sky+ and read all my magazines, but thankfully today I am a bit better. So I decided to bake... this recipe is my mothers (taken from some magazine ages ago) and has become a family classic. Sadly I cannot eat it tonight, as it is destined to go to a lunch with me tomorrow.

Ingredients:

• 450g of apples
• 30g of butter
• 150g of blueberries
• 75g of light brown sugar
• 250g of marscapone
• (For the slump):
• 85g of butter
• 200g of self-raising flour
• 50g of light brown sugar
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 1/4 pint of milk

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 190c.
2. Peel, core and thinly slice the apples. In a frying pan, melt the butter and on a medium heat add the apples turning occasionally until soft. 
3. Tip in an oven proof dish and mix in the blueberries, now add the sugar and stir it together. 
4. In a large bowl, tip in the flour and cubed butter and rub it together with your fingers. Once it resembles breadcrumbs, mix in the sugar and the lemon zest. 
5. Make a well in the mixture and add in the milk and mix it until it becomes a paste. 
6. Now put blobs of the mixture on top of the apples and also put blobs of the marscapone on top to make sure the apples are covered. 
7. Cook for 20-25 minutes or until the the topping has risen and is golden.