2nd Pudding of the year - Banoffee Pie

Well, today we had a friend over for roast dinner, a lovely flaky roast lamb and my husband mentioned that his friend loves Banoffee pie, so I thought, no better time to get baking again!  

Banoffee pie is so easy and can be made in a number of different ways.  I must admit that today I cheated slightly as I used a can of Carnation Toffee sauce instead of making the sauce the long winded way with evaporated milk.

I used the basic recipe from my Gregg Wallace Pudding book to make the base and then just chopped up 2 bananas and whipped up some double cream.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

125g butter - melted

250g Digestive biscuits

2 Bananas - sliced

1 can of Carnation Toffee sauce

Approx 400ml Double cream

Square of dark chocolate for sprinkles

Prep 20 mins

Chilling time  1 hour





Crush the digestive biscuits in a plastic bag with a rolling pin.  I used a lovely little gadget my mum bought me a couple of years ago,  a Kenwood mini food processor, one of these:
http://www.johnlewis.com/230843343/Product.aspx?s_kwcid=ps_pla
They are great for all the little chopping jobs in the kitchen when you don't want to get out a big food processor or do all the washing up involved (when you don't have a dishwasher as i don't!)

Put all the crushed digestives into a bowl, melt the butter gently in a saucepan and gradually mix the butter and biscuits together.  Then push the mix into a flan dish or other suitable size dish (i used a dish approximately 10 inches wide).

Most recipes tell you to then chill the base, but i put it in the oven to give the biscuit a better flavour for about 5 minutes.  Be careful when taking it out of the oven as I lost my grip for a second, stuck my oven glove into the top of the base and made a real mess some of it ending up on the floor and had to start over again, pushing all the base back into the flan dish (but obviously not using the stuff that had fallen on the floor! lol)!! Then I chilled the base for about 30 mins,then I chopped the bananas, tossed them in some lemon juice to stop the bananas from going brown, placed them on top of the biscuit base and then spread a layer of the toffee sauce.  Then I added another layer of the bananas, whipped up the double cream and spread it on top, with a good sprinkling of grated dark chocolate to finish off.

Then place in the fridge and chill for at least an hour although you can eat immediately if you like! lol

Bake of the week - Somerset Easter Biscuits (but it's not Easter i hear you say!!)

Today I thought I would have a go at baking some biscuits.  Somerset Easter Biscuits, the recipe is from The Great British Book of Baking.  I know it's not Easter yet but I had to try them as they sounded so tasty.  A butter-rich short dough flavoured with those ingredients associated with Easter; warm fragrant spices, dried fruit and candied peel.

These cookies were so tasty and smelt so great I was eating them before they even reached the cooling rack!

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

125g unsalted butter, softened
75g caster sugar
1 medium, free range egg, separated
200g plain flour
a good pinch of salt
a good pinch of baking powder
half a teaspoon of ground mixed spice
half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon
50g raisins (use small ones, not big juicy ones)
1 teaspoon of finely chopped mixed peel
extra caster sugar, for sprinkling

a 6.5cm fluted, round biscuit cutter
2 baking trays greased with butter



Prep 20 mins

Cook 12-15 mins

Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°C/gas 6/180°C Fan

In a large bowl, beat the butter until creamy, using a wooden spoon or an electric whisk or mixer.  (I used an electric mixer).  Gradually beat in the sugar and continue the beating for a couple of minutes, until the mixture is light and fluffy.  Add the egg yolk (save the egg white for the topping) and beat for a further minute.  Sift the flour, salt, baking powder, mixed spice and cinnamon into the bowl and stir until thoroughly combined.  Work in the raisins and chopped peel  with your hands to make a firm dough.

Turn out onto a lightly floured work surface and roll out to about 5mm thick.  Cut into rounds using the fluted cutter, re-roll the trimmings and cut out more rounds until all the mix is used.  I had to lever each round off carefully with a flat bladed palette knife as even though the work surface was floured the mix still sticks a bit.

Arrange the biscuits, slightly apart on the greased baking trays.  Bake int he preheated oven for about 10 minutes (a bit less for a fan oven) until firm and pale golden.

Remove from the oven and lightly brush each biscuit with the gently whisked egg white, then sprinkle with a little caster sugar.  Return the biscuits to the oven and cook for a further 3 - 5 minutes (less for fan oven), until the tops are golden and crunchy.  Leave to cool on the trays for a minute then carefully transfer to a wire rack to cool completely, then try not to eat all the biscuits straight away!!

Store in an airtight container.

The recipe says that this will make 16 biscuits, I made over 20, although it went down to 16 quite quickly!

These cookies are really tasty and I think my husband will definitely agree, I am writing this blog at 9.40pm having made the biscuits this afternoon and there aren't many biscuits left already, will be making these again and maybe even do them at Easter too.

Pudding Pixie makes the first pudding of the year - Sticky Toffee Pudding

I know, it's not Masterchef, it's a picture of a pudding on a plate, but boy, what a yummy first pudding of the year.  I've always been a big fan of Sticky Toffee puddings (STP) but this one was great, .....if i do say so myself! lol
Sometimes STP's can be overly sweet and sticky and sickly, but I was pleasantly surprised at how this turned out.  My husband bought me a book last year by Gregg Wallace, that lovely guy from Masterchef who loves puddings, and I kept looking through it and putting markers in the pages but never got around to starting to bake anything, so this is the first and here it is.
A lovely light sponge with dates in it and a simple toffee sauce made with cream, butter and sugar.  Is your mouth watering yet?

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

• 75g dates, stoned and chopped
• 75g butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
• 50g light brown soft sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract (although I used vanilla paste) 
• 140g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder 

FOR THE SAUCE

• 150ml double cream
• 75g light brown soft sugar
• 25g butter

Prep 15 mins

Cook 30 mins

1. Put the dates in a small saucepan and pour over 75ml water. Bring to a simmer and cook for 3-4 mins until the dates are mushy and have absorbed the water. Use a blender to blend the mix or a hand held food processor.  Put mix aside and leave to cool.
2. Heat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Grease and line the bases of 4 x 150ml pudding moulds. In a large bowl put the butter and sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour and baking powder and blend with an electric whisk until the mix is blended. Fold in the blended date purée and divide between the moulds. Transfer to a roasting tin and pour enough boiling water in to reach halfway up the moulds. Cover the tin with foil and cook for 25 mins until risen and firm to the touch.
3. Meanwhile, make the sauce. Pour half the cream and all the sugar and butter into a small, heavy-bottomed pan. Heat gently until sugar has dissolved, stirring often. Turn up the heat and bubble for 3-4 mins until the sauce is glossy and thick, be careful here to not burn the sauce (as I did the first time!!) then stir in the remaining cream. Re-heat the sauce when the puddings are cooked and serve poured on top.

PER SERVING

716 kcalories, protein 8g, carbohydrate 73g, fat 46 g, saturated fat 26g, fibre 2g, sugar 46g, salt 1.1 g

These puddings are individual servings and can be frozen, I would recommend that the sauce is made fresh at the time of pudding consumption.  I made 8 puddings at the time and gave 4 to my parents to scoff, we ate two on Sun (8th Jan) and I refrigerated the other 2 for eating this week (they've all gone now!)

If you need to re-heat the puddings, I put them in the microwave on high for approx 25 secs (850W microwave), the same with my sauce, a quick nuke to warm it back up again, oh i'm soo gourmet! ha ha ha (or you can reheat in the pan I suppose, but carefully to ensure you don't burn the mix)