Welsh Laverbread Cakes

This New Year, Mr P and I spent a lovely few days with our friends Beth and Pete on Anglesey. the trip was memorable for many reasons, not least the following conversation:

Pete: Ooh, I'm going to cook this egg in the log burner.

Me: I'm pretty sure it'll explode.

Pete: Don't be daft, it'll be amazing.

Me: Hmm.

A couple of minutes later...

Me: I really think you should get it out before it explodes.

Pete: It's going to be perfectly cooked, and then you'll be laughing on the other side of your [BANG].

Sometime life grants us comic timing that would just look implausible in a sitcom. As you can imagine, I was laughing on both sides of my face after that little incident. Hysterically. For a long time.

But I digress.... why am I telling you a story about a trip we took almost 4 months ago?

Because it was on that trip that I decided to buy a tin of laverbread, a traditional Welsh delicacy that I'd neither eaten, nor used, before. And I only just got round to trying it out. So after checking out various recipes for laverbread cakes, I came up with this one. It's got a higher proportion of oats to laverbread than you often see, mainly because when I opened the laverbread it absolutely stank (and not in a good, brie-esque way). Although I don't know what authentic laverbread cakes are supposed to taste like, these actually turned out to be not half bad.

 

Welsh Laverbread Cakes

Makes 4

Ingredients:

120g laverbread

45g jumbo oats

1 tblsp sunflower oil

Method:

1. Mix together the laverbread and oats.

2. Form into four 'cakes', and fry in the oil in a frying pan on a low-medium heat until the oats are crisp and the laverbread is cooked through (flip half way through the cooking time).

These are traditionally served with bacon, I believe, but wold be lovely with a nice poached egg on top!

Chocolate and Ginger vegan cupcakes

Call us stingy if you like, but due to our grand plan of trying to save for a house deposit one day before we are both old and grey, Mr P and I try to stick to a budget of £50 per week for our food and other household shopping. I'm constantly amazed by how well we live on this, even though the inspirational Michelle Rice at Utterly Scrummy Food for Families has totally blown our efforts out of the water this week, with her £50 family meal plan - epic!

 

Anyhoo, occasionally if we have extra expenses like bus/train tickets etc, we end up 'borrowing' from a futue week, and then trying to claw ourselves back by living on whatever we have in our store cupboard. And this often leads to a great tendency to experiment, and also to some interesting foodstuffs making an appearance on our table.

 

This week, when I fancied a naughty little sweet treat but we were out of eggs, the obvious answer was vegan cupcakes. We had the syrup from some stem ginger left over from Christmas ready for just such an emergency, so I adapted the Basic Chocolate Cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes take over the world to come up with this scrumptious Chocolate and Ginger delight.

 

Chocolate and Ginger cupcakes (vegan)

makes 12

 

Ingredients:

1 cup soya milk

1tsp apple cider vinegar

3/4 granulated sugar
1/3 cup rapeseed oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1 cup self-raising flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cream of tartar (original recipe called for baking powder, which I'd run out of)

 

For the toppings

1 tablespoon ginger syrup

1/2 tablespoon granulated sugar

1/2 tablespoon icing sugar

orange/yellow food colouring (optional)

jelly sweet decorations (optional)

 

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 10 degrees celcius and line a muffin tray with cupcake cases.

 

2. Whisk the soya milk and vinegar together and set aside to curdle for a few minutes. Then add the sugar, oil and vanilla extract and beat until foamy.

 

3. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, cream of tartar and ground ginger.

 

4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in a few small batches, and beat together until there are no large lumps, then pour the mixture into the cupcake cases.
 

 

5. Bake for 18-20 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.
 

 

Ginger Drizzle topping (top)

This topping needs to be made whilst the cupcakes are still warm: Prick all over the surface of the cupcakes with a cocktail stick, then drizzle 1 tsp of ginger syrup over each of them. Sprinkle generously with granulated sugar.

 

Ginger icing (middle)

Mix the icing sugar with approximately the same amount of ginger syrup, and a little food colouring, if required. Add a little water if needed to thin the icing out. Use this to cover the top of your cupcakes, and finish with a jelly sweet, if you like.

 

Chocolate buttercream topping (bottom)

I had a batch of vegan chocolate buttercream in the freezer, so used some of this to cover my remaining cakes. To make it yourself, you can veganise this buttercream by replacing the stork with Pure vegan spread.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chilli and Vodka pasta

We've had a couple of days of really blustery gusts in Manchester this week, and poor Mr P has had to cycle to work in - not very nice at all. So I decided the best way to mitigate this would be by making him a nice bone-warming dinner to sort him out after his latest 14 hour day.

 

This dish has a little bit of everything you need in this situation - the pasta helps you to carb back up after a tough bike ride, the protein in the kidney beans helps to keep you full, the chilli peps you up when you're dog tired, and although the cooking process destroys the alcohol content of the vodka, it leaves behind a little bit of fiery 'je ne sais quoi' that leaves a satisfied smile on your face.

 

Plus, the whole meal can be easily prepared in under half an hour - bonus!

 

I'm entering this recipe into the monthly Pasta Please, run by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes. This month the theme is chilli, and it's hosted by hosted by Shaheen at A2K.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chilli and Vodka Pasta

serves 2-3

 

 

Ingredients:

 

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, chopped

1 red chilli (with seeds), chopped

1 tablespoon tomato puree

2 measures (50ml) vodka

1 tin chopped tomatoes

1 tin kidney beans, drained

 

enough pasta to feed 2/3 people

 

 

 

Method:

 

1. Start to cook the pasta on the hob, whilst you prepare your sauce.

 

2. Gently fry the onion in your oil in a saucepan until it starts to soften. Then add the chilli, garlic and tomato puree, and cook for a minute or so more. Adding the tomato puree at this early stage helps to take away any bitterness and give a slightly sweeter flavour.

 

3. At this point, add the kidney beans, vodka and chopped tomatoes and stir well. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook for a further 15-20 minutes or so until the sauce has thickened somewhat.

 

4. Meanwhile, when the pasta is cooked al dente, drain well. Serve either with the sauce on top, or stir the pasta into the sauce at the last minute for full coverage.

Draniki (potato pancakes)

After its vague and short-lived attempt at Spring, Manchester has gone drizzly and miserable again, and if there's one thing guaranteed to make me crave comfort food, it's miserable weather.

 

This recipe is for a traditional Russian/Belarusian dish of Draniki, or potato pancakes. In fact, according to wikipedia, variants of this item are fairly common in the cuisines of countries across Central and Eastern Europe and beyond, and when you've tasted them, it will be obvious why they enjoy such widespread popularity.

 

When I've had these in Russia and Belarus, the traditional accompaniment is sour cream. However, I've also had them with vegetable slaw (in Russia) and apple puree (German style). Here's the basic recipe for the Draniki, together with two alternative condiments to serve them with. Although these are best served fresh, they can be reheated and still taste pretty darn good. Though I have to admit, I've rarely experienced a case of leftover Draniki... just sayin'.

 

Draniki

 

Ingredients:

1kg potato, peeled

1 onion

1 tblsp plain flour

1 medium egg

a liberal amount of sunflower oil

 

Method:

1. Grate the potato and onion. Considering that Draniki are a traditional peasant dish, the idea of doing this manually fills me with dread - if you've got a processor with a grater attachment, let it take the strain!

 

2. Mix the grated vegetables with the flour and egg in a large bowl.

 

3. Heat a little oil in a good frying pan to a low-medium temperature (use several frying pans if you have them - you'll save a lot of time if you get a few on the go at once). Place a dessert spoonful of Draniki mixture into your pan, and flatten with the back of the spoon. Repeat with as many as you can fit in the pans. Gently allow the Draniki to fry without burning. You will know that they are cooking at the right kind of rate if the top side starts to go dry whrn the underside is just pale golden. At this point, flip the Draniki to cook from the other side. Make sure you keep topping up the oil, as this helps them to cook evenly.

 

4. When the Draniki are cooked through, drain them on a piece of kitchen towel. If you've still got a large batch to fry up, you can keep them warm by placing on a warmed plate and covering with tin foil, or popping in an oven on a very low heat.

 

5. When ready, serve with your choice of accompaniment.

 

 

 

 

Spiced carrot slaw

Ingredients:

2-3 medium carrots

3 pieces of stem ginger, finely chopped

1 dessert spoon of ginger syrup

 

 

Method:

1. Peel the carrots and grate finely.

2. Combine with the other ingredients, and serve. Simplicity itself!

 

 

 

 

Apple puree

 

Ingredients:

2 eating apples

dessert spoon of honey

1/2 tsp cinnamon

 

Method:

1. Peel the apples and cut into small cubes.

 

2. Put the cubed apple into a saucepan, and add enough water to rise about a third of the way up the pieces.

 

3. Simmer over a medium heat until the apple is tender, adding the honey towards the end of the cooking time.

 

4. Allow to cool slightly, then add the cinnamon and blitz to a puree. Can be served warm or chilled.

 



Cinnamon Rolls

A tasty breakfast treat: cinnamon rolls

I've always been a big believer in breakfast, possibly because I tend to wake up starving hungry most days! Anyway, whilst breakfast is undoubtedly my favourite meal of the day, I tend to most enjoy super-healthy cereals that a lot of people find boring - weetabix, porridge, muesli and the like.

 

Mr P, on the other hand, is not a fan of breakfast - possibly partly because he often has to leave for work super early in the mornings, and can't face breakfast at that time. Hence one of the recurring dilemmas of our marriage - how to bribe Mr P into breakfast (the other is the annual conundrum of how to jazz up sprouts enough for him to give then a go at Christmas).

 

So far from being a healthy and nutritious start to the day, this recipe is, frankly, a bribe. It's a way to make the breakfast so appealing (and so portable) that there are no excuses to fast until lunch. We particularly enjoy these as a Christmas morning treat with coffee, but they are equally good as lunchbox fillers or as sneaky afternoon pick-me-ups.

 

 

 

 

Cinnamon Rolls

makes 16

from Mary Berry's Complete Cookbook

 

Ingredients:

1kg (2lb) plain flour

60g (2oz) caster sugar

1 x 7g sachet fast action yeast

1 tsp salt

about 350ml (12 fl oz) lukewarm milk

2 eggs, lightly beaten

30g (1oz) butter, melted

250g (8oz) raisins

1 tblsp ground cinnamon

sunflower oil for greasing

milk for glazing

 

For the glaze

100g (4.5 oz) icing sugar (Mary uses double this amount)

2 tblsp water (ditto)

1tsp vanilla extract

 

 

Method:

1. Sift the flour and half of the sugar into a bowl, then stir in the yeast and salt.

 

2. Make a well in the middle. Pour in the milk, eggs, and butter. Stir to make a sticky dough.

 

3. Knead on a lightly floured surface until smooth and elastic.

 

4. Knead in the raisins and half of the cinnamon. This is quite hard work, just to warn you!

 

5. To shape the buns, Mary splits the dough into 16 even sized pieces, then shaps each into a 20-25cm (8-10in strand, before flattening and proceeding as below. I find this quite difficult due to the tendency of the dough to spring back so much, so I split it in half (to make the quantity easier to manage) then roll out each piece separately, then proceed as below.

 

6. Combine the remaining sugar and cinnamon, sprinkle it over your flattened doug, and roll up tightly into spirals. If you used Mary's method, you'll need to do them individually, and if you used my method, then you'll need to do two separate 'swiss rolle' type shapes, then cut them each in half and in half twoce more to get your individual buns.

 

7. Lightly oil two baking trays and arrange the buns on the trays, covering loosely with oiled cling film. Leave to rise in a warm place for about an hour, or until doubled in size.

 

8. Brush the rolls with milk to glaze, then bake in a preheated oven at 190 degrees celcius (375 degrees F/ gas mark 5) for 30-40 minutes until lightly browned. Transfer to a cooling rack.

 

The cinnamon rolls will increase in size as they prove

 

9. To make the glaze, combine all of the ingredients, and brush the rolls with the glaze whilst they are still warm from the oven. I find that it's often necessary to do a second coat once the glaze has dried.

 

10. Serve the buns warm or cold. They will keep well in the freezer for about 3 months.

 

Speedy and simple spicy soup

Speedy, healthy, spicy soup

For those of you who don't know, I've just returned from a research trip to wintry Moscow. It's such an intriguing place. Snow-covered streets give it the appearance of a fairytale wonderland, flanked with startling architecture and air that seems saturated with centuries of intense history. And luckily for me, the weather was unseasonably mild for this time of year (around about -7 degrees celcius, but still not nearly as bad as it could have been).

 

Yet frankly, whilst the trip was a success, I have to say I'm relieved to be back at home. The Moscow metro system is intimidating to say the least - as the third most used metro system in the world, it feels like rush hour even in the middle of the day. And if you're unlucky enough to catch yourself down there during the actual rush hour, it's a pretty horrific sardine-like experience of pushing and shoving, made all the more frightening when you're about to enter the third trimester of your pregnancy. Plus, despite the rather spectacular thermal vest and long johns I took with me, I still managed, perhaps predictably, to pick up a cold.
 

 



One of the nicer aspects of the Moscow metro

So, despite the general success of the trip, I was ready to come home, and more than ready for a bit of comfort food. However, after my trip to the midwife today, when my comment about suddenly feeling pretty darn hungry all the time was met with a snarky reply of "Well remember you're not actually eating for two you know", I ended up making a bit of a point with my super-healthy lunch. And you know what? It was bloody lovely, and was super simple to make, in around half an hour. Here's the recipe...

 

 

Speedy and simple spicy soup (vegan)

(serves 4)

 

Ingredients:

1 onion, roughly chopped

1 scotch bonnet chilli, finely chopped

1 large carrot, peeled and sliced

2 potatoes, peeled and chopped into small (1cm) cubes

1 cup of red split lentils, rinsed well

handful of mushrooms , roughly chopped

1 red pepper, roughly chopped

2 pints vegetable stock

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

 

 

Method:

1. Fry the onion and chilli in a tablespoon of rapeseed oil in a large saucepan until the onion is translucent.

 

2. Stir in the carrot, potato, mushrooms and lentils, fry for a minute or two and then add the stock.

 

3. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 15-20 minutes until the lentils and vegetables are tender.

 

4. Add in the tin of tomatoes, bring back to a simmer, and then serve whilst still hot.

 

 

This will make your tummy smile inside, will clear your sinuses like a dream and will leave you with an afterglow of satisfying smugness at its healthy, tasty goodness. Delicious!

 

 

Welcome... to the Crystal Maze!



Aztec zone

So, although I realise my posting has been more than a little sporadic of late, I hope that this sweet little treat will make up for the radio silence. And let me tell you this. It’s a mega treat. Because, it’s that time of year again – Mr P’s birthday!

Those of you with good memories will recall that last year’s birthday celebrations provided my decorating pal Mel and I the perfect opportunity to get creative with a surprise cake based on the Plants Vs Zombies computer game, which completely blew him away. This year, we gave him a bit of a say in the creative process – to decide either the theme or the flavour. After much serious deliberation (or perhaps it was a gut reaction, since he’s been very busy applying for jobs at the moment), Mr P declared that he’d like a chocolate fudge cake.

I am utterly indebted to the marvellous Lindy’s cakes for the recipe I used – you can find their original recipe post here. Flavour-wise, Mel and I agreed that this is probably the best cake we’ve ever made. And as you probably know, I’m not a major chocolate fan, and she doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth at all, so that says a lot about the recipe. Presumably the deliciousness of the cake is inversely proportional to its  healthiness, seeing as it contains roughly a bucket of butter, chocolate and sugar and a comparative sprinkling of flour. But who am I to argue with perfection?! This cake is super moist, and stays moist very well, and is sure to go down well for any occasion.

Crystal Maze cake

 

Medieval zone

Richard O'Brien in sugarpaste form

 

As for the theme, it’s based around one of Mr P’s favourite TV shows from childhood, The Crystal Maze. I haven’t seen any other Crystal Maze cakes online, so it felt like a very original project. There are four separate 5” square cakes, each representing one of the four challenge regions from the original show – Aztec, industrial, futuristic and medieval. The research process consisted of spending two hours of my life (that I am well aware I will never get back) watching old episodes online, whilst screaming at the screen and genuinely wondering if the contestants came from another species altogether. If you don’t value your sanity, knock yourself out here.  

The industrial zone

The futuristic zone

 

Super moist rich chocolate fudge cake

Recipe from Lindy’s cakes
This makes 4 x 5” square cakes; for one 8” round cake, just halve the quantities given below.

Ingredients:

450g (16oz) unsalted butter

450g (16oz) good quality chocolate

2 tablespoon (30ml) instant coffee granules

450g (1lb) caster sugar

450g (1lb) light soft brown sugar

300ml (10 fl oz) water

8 large free range eggs

70ml (2.2fl oz) rapeseed oil (Lindy uses veg oil, but I think rapeseed is less detectable, and healthier too!)

200ml (6.8 fl oz) sour cream/natural yoghurt/Crème fraiche

250g (9 oz) self raising flour

250g (9 oz) plain flour

100g (4oz) cocoa powder

1 teaspoon (5ml) bicarbonate of soda

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 160 degrees celsius (315 degrees F, gas mark 2-3) and line your tin/tins with baking parchment. I also like to line the outside of the tins with a few layers of newspaper as it helps the cakes to rise with a more even, rather than domed top (even though it adds to the cooking time a little). This is more important if you’re decorating with sugarpaste, but if you’re going for a more rustic look, then it’s not such a big deal.

 

2. Add the butter, chocolate, coffee, sugar and water to a pan and slowly melt together over a low heat. I know the idea of adding the chocolate and water rings alarm bells, but you just have to keep the faith here. Once these ingredients have melted together, melted allow to cool.

 

3. Add the beaten eggs, oil and sour cream to the chocolate mix and stir well.

 

4.Sift all the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl and make a well in the centre.

 

5. Pour the chocolatey liquid mixture into well and stir in the dry ingredients, mixing well until thoroughly combined.

 

6. Pour the cake mixture into your tins and bake for about 1hr 30mins (1 hour 45mins-2hrs for an 8” round) or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

 

7. Place the tin on a cooling rack, and leave the cake to cool inside it.

 

To finish and decorate:

This cake is so rich and moist that it doesn’t really need to be cut and sandwiched with buttercream. In fact, it tastes so rich and moist that even without any topping you it still tastes great.

A chocolate ganache might be overkill on a cake like this, but I think a vanilla or chocolate buttercream, or even a cream cheese frosting would work pretty well on top. In my case, I made some mild chocolate buttercream (not very chocolatey and not particularly sweet) – just enough to create a crumb layer on top. Then I covered the cakes with a layer of sugarpaste and finished with sugarpaste decorations.