Festive Lemon Meringue Ice Cream

This Lemon Meringue Ice Cream is one for those of you who perhaps want a change from the filling mince pies and rich christmas puddings one tends to overindulge in at this time of year.  Another recipe to take the weight of your shoulders at christmas, you can prepare it well is advance leave it in the freezer and produce it as a refreshing alternative pudding over the festive period.

There is no need for an ice cream machine or even to mix twice, once its in the freezer the ice cream can stay there until served. Another short cut is to use shop bought meringues they don't seem to compromise the flavour or texture at all, in fact they are easier to break up than the slightly gooey home made ones.

The flavour is a good balance of sweet and sharp. I served the ice cream at a dinner party and this was a pudding that someone who doesn't normally like puddings devoured and then had second helpings of- so it is guaranteed to be a hit with hungry guests at christmas.

To serve six you will need...

-50g Meringue 

-300ml Double cream

-Zest and juice of one lemon

-Half a jar of home made or shop bought lemon curd

-One 900ml pudding basin or pyrex bowl and some cling film

You will need to...

-Line the pudding bowl with cling film so there is enough to cover the ice cream in the freezer

-Break the meringues into smallish chunks, I put them in a freezer bag and hit them with a rolling pin

-Pour the cream into a large mixing bowl and whip until soft peaks

-Fold in the lemon juice, rind and lemon curd to the cream and pour into the lined pudding basin

- Cover with clingfilm and place in the freezer for at least six hours

Enjoy Z x

Jane Lovett Cookbook Giveaway! - Festive Ginger Creams With Pistachio Brittle

With the festive season upon us and lots more mouths to feed, we are always on the lookout for quick, easy and delicious recipes that can feed an army. Jane Lovett is our go-to woman for this, and if you follow us on Instagram you may have noticed that we have been fans of hers for a while. Her book 'Make it Easy' has been like a bible for us on many a cooking job in Scotland, especially as she specialises in foolproof do-ahead recipes that always go down a treat. Jane has recently re-released her book, and has kindly sent us one to giveaway to YOU our readers! Either give it to a loved one as a Christmas gift, or use it yourself and impress friends and family with some delicious dishes over the festive period. To enter the giveaway head over to our Instagram page by clicking HERE and find all the details over there - GOOD LUCK!

Here is one of our favourite festive puddings from the book - Jane's Ginger Creams are ideal Christmas Party showstoppers as they are easy and can be made well in advance, yet look as impressive as a classic Crème Brûlée. The combination of fiery ginger, smooth cream and crunchy pistachio brittle is also heavenly...enjoy!

To make 8 you will need...

6 tbsp ginger preserve

6 egg yolks

450ml double cream

175g granulated sugar

3 tbsp water

100g roughly chopped pistachio nuts

Icing sugar

You will need to...

- Preheat the oven to 180C. Place 8 ramekins into a deep roasting tin and boil a kettle of water in preparation. 

- Whisk the ginger preserve and egg yolks together in a mixing bowl until pale. Bring the cream to just below boiling point and pour over the egg mixture, whisking all the time.

- Once the mixture has thickened slightly transfer into a jug and pour into the ramekins. Put the roasting tin with the filled ramekins into the oven and carefully pour in enough boiling water to come halfway up the sides of the dishes. 

- Cook for 20-25 minutes or until just set with a slight wobble in the middle (custard continues to cook when removed from the oven!) Remove the ramekins from the water, allow to cool then refrigerate for a few hours or overnight.

- To make the brittle start by lightly oiling a baking sheet. Put the sugar and water into a saucepan and cook over a low heat, giving the odd gentle stir, until the sugar has dissolved. 

- Turn up the heat and boil fast until the sugar caramelises into a deep golden colour. Quickly add the pistachios, stir, and tip out immediately onto the pre-prepared baking sheet. Spread the mixture out as thinly as possible and leave to cool.

- Serve the creams straight from the fridge dusted with icing sugar. Bash, snap, or break the brittle into random sized pieces, and scatter over the top with the occasional shard sticking out as you desire. 

Enjoy! C & Z x

Spinach and Gruyere Quiche

This quiche is always a winner. It can be served hot for dinner or cold at lunch time with salad, I used this recipe a few times while I was cooking in the lodge in South Africa and it always seemed to go down well with the guests. 

Having lots of spinach breaks up the egg giving it a lighter and more varied texture but make sure you drain your spinach well after wilting it otherwise the excess water makes the pastry soggy. Another thing to be aware of is not to add too much salt as the bacon does this for you! To prepare in advance you can make the pastry the day before and keep in the fridge covered with clingfilm or alternatively you can make the whole quiche cook it, leave it to cool, and it will freeze for up to 2 months. I tend to make this quiche in a china Flan dish as I like to make the filling quite deep, this also prevents any of the filling leaking through any holes that may be in the pastry. 

To serve 8 You will need... 

A round flan dish roughly 30cm diameter

For the Pastry

-225g of plain flour

-100g of butter

-1 egg yolk

-2-3 tbsps of water 

For the Filling

-350g of bacon pieces chopped 

-1 large onion chopped

-350g fresh spinach (I usually use baby spinach) or 450g of frozen leaf spinach thawed and drained

-5 eggs and 1 egg white (If using bought pastry just use 5 eggs)

-300ml double cream

-300ml milk

-175g Gruyere Cheese grated. 

You will need to...

-Preheat the oven to 180C

-Rub the butter and flour together in a bowl until you have a breadcrumb texture. Add the egg yolk and water until a dough is formed. You can do this in the food processor. 

-Wrap the pastry in clingfilm an put in the fridge to chill for at least half an hour.

-Roll out the pastry on a floured surface so it is slightly larger than the dish then flute the edges, then blind bake at 180C using baking paper and baking beans for the first 15 minutes then remove the baking beans and cook for a further 5-10 mins or until pastry is golden. 

- Fry the bacon pieces over a high heat until browned, lower the heat and add the chopped onion until softened 

- Wilt the spinach in a saucepan remove from the heat and make sure you drain properly. 

-In a bowl whisk the eggs cream milk and seasoning. 

-Scatter the bacon, onion and spinach over the pastry, sprinkle half the gruyere cheese and then pour the mixture over. 

-Finally sprinkle the other half of the gruyere on top and place in the oven at 180C for 35-40 mins or until the filling is set and golden. 

Enjoy! Z x

Great British Bake Off - Pecan Pie with Spiced Rum

As any avid baker will agree, Wednesday nights mean only one thing - The Great British Bake Off.  Now as I'm sure you are aware, tonight is the grand final of the 2015 series, and it therefore seems appropriate to have a GBBO themed blogpost to mark the occasion. If you cast your mind back to last series, you may remember finalist Richard Burr - the laidback builder-turned-baker who cooked up a storm with his trademark pencil behind his ear. Richard has gone on to prove that there is life beyond the tent, having published his debut cookbook BIY- Bake It Yourself (see what he did there?) last month. It is a cracking book, with a good mix of fairly simple but delicious recipes, as well as a few trickier showstopper bakes for the more ambitious baker - Hazelnut Chocolate Opera Cake anyone? If you follow us on Instagram, you will have seen a couple of the recipes I have tried out already, however it was this Pecan Pie with Spiced Rum which really caught my eye. Quick, simple and totally moreish - this proved a huge hit with the family, and is the ideal pudding to round off these colder autumnal evenings. It also keeps well, and seems to improve with age, which is always a bonus if it hasn't been demolished in one go!

Read on for my take on Richard's recipe…

To make the pastry you will need…

- 200g plain flour (plus a little more to dust)

- 100g cubed butter

- A pinch of salt

- 2 tbsp caster sugar

- A couple of tbsp cold water

To make the filling you will need… 

- 100g golden syrup

- 100g maple syrup

- 100g caster sugar

- 50g soft light brown sugar

- 75g butter

- 3 large eggs

- 1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste

- 2 tbsp spiced rum

- 100g chopped pecans

- 100g ground almonds

- 100g pecan halves

You will need to…

-  Make the shortcrust pastry - either by combining the ingredients together in a food processor with a little water to bind, or if by-hand, rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in the salt and sugar, then use a palette knife to stir in enough cold water to bind the mixture. Knead your ball of pastry gently for a minute or so to combine, then wrap in clingfilm and set in the fridge to cool and firm up for half an hour. 

- Preheat the oven to 200C and find yourself a 23cm loose-bottomed tart tin.

- Remove the pastry from the fridge and roll it out on a floured work surface. It should be large and circular enough to fit the tin, and only couple of centimetres in thickness. Roll this up onto the rolling pin and then lay it out into your tin. Press the pastry into the edges of the tin, but leave a little excess overhang as the pastry will shrink in the oven. 

- Line your pastry with a disc of baking parchment and fill with baking beans - blind bake in the oven for 15 minutes.

- Take the tin out and remove the parchment and baking beans. Bake the pastry case for a further 8 or so minutes until golden brown. Take out of the oven and leave to cool. Trim off any excess pastry.

- To make the filling, melt the golden syrup, maple syrup, butter and sugars in a saucepan over a low heat. Allow to cool so as not to cook the eggs.

- Beat together the eggs, vanilla paste and rum, and stir into the cooled sugar mixture along with the chopped pecans and ground almonds. 

- Pour the pecan mixture into the tart case and carefully arrange the pecan halves on the surface in concentric circles - this can be a bit fiddly as the mixture underneath moves around a bit!

- Bake for 35-45 minutes until the pie has risen a little in the middle and is golden brown and set. If the nuts are browning too quickly cover with a little tin foil. 

- Set on a wire rack and remove from tin once completely cool.

- I think this is best served at room temperature with a generous pouring of cream or crème fraîche.

Enjoy! C x

A Visit To Hemelhuijs Restaurant - Cape Town, SA

Whilst working in South Africa recently, I was lucky enough to experience some of the culinary delights of Cape Town and the surrounding area. There was never a shortage of fantastic places to eat, and I was particularly excited about having some interesting fresh food having lived in the bush in The Waterberg for the last 3 months. After trying a few, the restaurant that proved to be my favourite was called Hemelhuijs. The restaurant itself is very modern in both its menu and decor - there is a face on the wall made out of croutons, bright furnishings, and plenty of light let in through big glass windows looking out onto the street.  

The crouton mosaic! 

Their menu offers a healthy array of fresh salads, meats and vegetables. The menu itself is presented with wonderful big photos, making it very difficult to choose a dish! Anyway after much deliberation I chose their vegetable platter which was perfect having overindulged in both food and wine all week! I received a board with avocado, corn on the cob, butternut squash, rocket, beans and sweet roasted carrots, accompanied by some tasty homemade humus. It was the most delicious and fresh meal that I have ever eaten in a restaurant; colourfully presented and washed down with a delicious glass of Usana Pinot Gris. My friends enjoyed their gnocchi and kidneys too. For dessert we all decided each to try a different pudding from their freshly baked selection of sweet treats. I had slight food envy when I saw the cheesecake and apple tart - perhaps my taste has not fully adapted to the Afrikaans traditional milk tart that I chose! 

Vegetable Platter with Hummus

Traditional Afrikaans Milk Tart

The next day I had planned on climbing Table Mountain, however the weather was miserable so I paid Hemelhuijs another lunchtime visit. This time I had a maple baked parsnip salad with whipped herb cheese, navel orange and mustard dressing to which I added slow roasted duck. The mustard dressing came in its own glass container on the plate, no pre dressed leaves meant the rocket and lettuce leaves still had a nice crunch, complementing the tender duck and soft parsnips. To follow I decided to try a thyme infused hot milk with Dulce de Leche which was amazing, sweet and warm but with an interesting hint of thyme. 

Duck Salad

Thyme infused milk with Dulce de Leche 

Both my trips to Hemelhuijs were simply delicious and at a very good price too, the total for the duck salad came to only 150 rand which is about £10 for a dining experience that you would be paying well over £20 for in the UK. So if you are visiting Cape Town I would highly recommend this as a restaurant to put on your list of places to go. 

Enjoy! Z x

Hotel Chocolat Easter Treats & Toscakaka Cake

With Easter just around the corner, Hotel Chocolat offered to send me some of their seasonal treats to sample, which I obviously gratefully accepted - I'm only human! Hotel Chocolat never disappoint with their innovative seasonal chocolate collections, and this year is no different with their Egglet H Box providing a sophisticated and interesting alternative to your traditional Easter Egg.

Raspberry Supermilk

Salted Caramel

With fifteen little Egglets in ten different flavours ranging from a zingy Raspberry Truffle to a boozy Calvados Caramel, there really is something for everyone. My personal favourites were the Coffee Caramel (the ideal after-dinner treat) and the Speckled Praline - a smooth and moreish nutty centre sealed in caramel chocolate speckled with vanilla seeds - A-mazing. So amazing, in fact, that it has inspired the following Toscakaka recipe… 

Toscakaka is a Swedish cake with a vanilla and orange flavoured sponge and a chewy, almondy, caramely topping that oozes into the sponge when baking and gives the cake a praline-like flavour. It is really simple to make, and would make an ideal Easter centrepiece if you're feeding friends and family next weekend. Scroll down for the full recipe…

You will need…

3 eggs

150g caster sugar

Zest of 1/2 an orange

1tsp vanilla extract or paste

150g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

A pinch of salt

75 ml milk with a drop of lemon juice

75 g butter - melted

And for the topping…

150g toasted flaked almonds

125g soft light brown sugar

100g butter

2 tbsp whiskey

You will need to…

- Preheat the oven to 180C and grease and line a 9 inch springform tin.

- In a large bowl whisk together the eggs, sugar, vanilla and orange zest until thick and pale.

- Sift in the flour, baking powder and salt and gently fold into the egg mixture.

- Mix together the melted butter and milk, then fold this into the cake mixture too. 

- Pour the mixture into your prepared tin and bake for 20 minutes.

- In the meantime, make the praline-like topping by combining the almonds, sugar and butter in a small saucepan.

- Bring this mixture to a rapid boil and cook for about a minute, then remove from the heat and stir in the whiskey.

- After 20 minutes, carefully take the cake out the oven and gently spoon the almond mixture on top, taking care not to disturb the partially cooked sponge.

- Return the cake to the oven to cook for another 15 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

- Leave to cool in the tin and serve with a generous sprinkling of icing sugar. 

Enjoy! C x

Smoked Salmon, Avocado and Beetroot on Spelt Loaf

This is so simple it doesn't really warrant a 'recipe' - it was just such a delicious lunch that I felt it would be a shame not to share it on here. It also raked in a fair few likes on our Instagram page so I thought it was only fair to share the dish in full! It only takes a few minutes to throw together and - ta dah - you have yourself a colourful, fresh, healthy and tasty plateful. This would make an ideal lunch, brunch or light supper that also provides a welcome contrast to the grey January days!

For one generous portion you will need…

2 slices smoked salmon

2 slices spelt loaf or another good crusty loaf e.g. rye or sourdough 

Soft cheese (I used Philadelphia)

1/2 an avocado

1 small pre-cooked beetroot (I use the vacuum packed ones sold in most supermarkets)

Fresh dill

Black pepper

1 wedge of fresh lemon

You will need to…

- Pop your slices of crusty bread into the toaster.

- Once toasted, spread each slice with a generous layer of soft cheese.

- Top with your smoked salmon and then scatter over sliced avocado and cubed beetroot.

- Sprinkle some fresh dill and ground black pepper on top.

- Squeeze over the fresh lemon wedge and serve.

Enjoy! C x