My New Magimix!

I have been lusting after a new food processor for some time. I have been using my sister's which only has a 1.4l bowl - so when doing a simple sponge mix of 6, 6, 6 and 3 (for those not so familiar with this I will explain later), I had to split the mix in half.  Try splitting an egg in half - its not easy!

So I invested in a Magimix 4150 the other day and today it arrived. Joy of joys!

This is the new vs. the old:

Quite a size difference!

To celebrate (and test the machine out) I whipped up some vanilla cupcakes. 

Recipe:

6 oz self raising flour (I never sift the flour - I once saw a TV programme that proved it made no difference if you sift it or not, so why waste time?!)

6 oz caster sugar

6 oz butter (however I always, always use flora light - it gives a much lighter texture)

3 medium eggs (these should also weigh 6oz - if they weigh more/less just adjust the weights of the other ingredients)

I'm a huge fan of the all in one method.  I can't be faffed with creaming the sugar and butter first, then this, then that... Just pile the ingredients into a food processor and blitz away until smooth:

Then pop the mixture into cake cases or cake tins lined with baking paper.  Have the oven preheated to 150 degrees C (for fan assisted ovens), 170 for non-fan ovens and bake until it looks golden on top, and a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.  Tip: don't open the oven for the first 10-15 mins else your cake will not rise properly.

Cool on a wire cooling rack, and let it cool completely before decorating.

Happy new year everyone, I'm looking forward to a 2013 filled with lots of baking, and getting to know my new Magimix :)

Summer Fruits Pavlova

I wanted to make a light dessert for Christmas Day - so I decided to make a pavlova.  It was quick and easy to prepare and bake and slipped down nicely after a full on lunch :)

I used a handheld mixer to whip up the egg whites in to soft peaks:

I added half the sugar and cream of tartar, one spoonful at a time and whisked until it became stiff peaks.  I then folded in the remaining sugar with a metal spoon and then spooned it onto a prepared baking sheet.

It was then baked on a low heat (120 degrees centigrade fan oven) for about an hour.  After it has been baked, turn off the oven and leave it in there to cool.  I did this on the evening of Christmas Eve so it could cool in the oven overnight. 

After the meringue was done it was a simple case of whipping up the double cream and preparing the fruit.

Easy peasy!

Who's Lorraine? Quiche Lorraine

The in-laws arrived last night but the food shop isn't due till tomorrow (Ocado - anything to avoid facing the supermarket at this time of year!) so I had to pull together some sort of lunch.  I hit up the BBC Good Food website and came across this recipe (http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2868/ultimate-quiche-lorraine) for a quiche lorraine.

I kept forgetting to take photos so apologies that they are a bit sparse in this post!

I blitzed the pastry ingredients in the food processor and then blind baked as instructed.  It looked like this:

After frying off some lardons, dicing some Gruyère, and blending some double cream, crème fraiche and eggs we were good to go.  I didn't tip it into the pastry case all in one go - I topped it up when it was level in the oven to save on spillages!

Here is it cooking:

It took about 40 minutes, rather than the suggested 25 minutes - but it was worth the wait.  I forgot to take a  picture of it fresh out the oven, and before I remembered, it had been mostly wolfed down at lunch.  It was ever so light and really quite tasty though - I would definitely recommend anyone give it a go.

Here is what was left:

I've also been busy this week desperately trying to jazz up our frankly naff xmas tree, with these hand made cuties:

They cost about 25p each to make and are a doddle to make.

Happy Christmas everyone, hope you all have a great day.  I'll have a few more posts over christmas - I'm intending to pull together a pavalova (or a "pav" as nigella calls it) as well a few other bits, but for today that is it from me.

Welsh Cakes

As promised, today I made some Welsh Cakes.  The "christening" of the plank took most of the day to be honest! Putting it in the oven for half an hour... waiting for it to cool... washing it... putting in on the hob... scrubbing it with salt... waiting for it to cool... washing it.... But at least now the process is done and next time I use it I can just get it out and get cooking!

I've got to admit, the mix was so yummy, I couldn't help having a nibble even before it had been cooked.  Dan's Mam's top tip was to have the mix on the dry side so that was my aim:

I rolled it to about 1/4 inch thick and used a round cutter to make the cakes. I already had the plank on a low heat so I was ready to get cooking.  

My main problem was getting distracted by cutting out the next cakes while there were cakes on the griddle. The result - burnt welsh cakes :( They just seemed to cook a lot quicker than what I was expecting.  I think next time I would definitely cut them all out and then cook them in batches - watching them the whole time!  The ones in the middle were definitely the worst as it was a hot spot so for the rest of the cakes I avoided the middle of the plank.

These were some of the least burnt ones:

And with a sprinkle of caster sugar to finish:

For not many ingredients I made about 50 so will definitely be taking some in to work tomorrow so Dan and I don't scoff the lot :) 

Wedding Present Pasta

As I mentioned a few post's ago, we received a pasta maker as a wedding present from some lovely friends.  We've had a busy few weeks so have only just got round to using it.  I know making pasta isn't technically baking but I shall blog about it anyway!

So the ingredients are pretty simple - '00' flour (an extra refined flour) and eggs. The dough didn't come together very well so I added a little water to acheive an "homogenous" dough (the recipe's requirements).  The dough was ever so tough that I was starting to   wonder if I had gone wrong already!  But I ploughed on.

I set up the machine by clamping it to the work surface - this wasn't easy, as unless you have a breakfast bar I expect most people have cupboards directly under their work surface. So a bit of bodging later, we had a secure machine - there is no way you could do this without clamping it down!!

As I hadn't use the machine before, I had to use a bit of the dough to clean the machine.  This involved rolling through a sheet of pasta a few times - which I then had to throw away.

The general process was roll it through on the thickest setting about 8 times (folding the dough in between rolls), before slowly making the thickness setting thinner and thinner.  Some of the pieces of dough got incredibly long and difficult to handle so needed to be cut in half.  (An extra pair of hands also helped!)  I didn't take many photos as with one hand turning the handle, one feeding the dough in the machine, one taking it out, I was already one hand down!

After it had got to the right thickness, and had dried a little, it was time to cut it.  The machine came with two cutters (a fettuccine and a spaghetti width I believe) so we decided we wanted the fettuccine one.   Straight through the cutter rollers and we were almost there.

After laying out the pasta over every flat surface in the kitchen to dry it all, I can understand why people have pasta drying racks.  This was just a very small amount of the pasta drying:

After it had dried, it was ready for the pan - I cooked it for about 2-3 minutes but that was slightly too long in retrospect.  But it was lovely - definitely worth the effort.  

Top tip: enrol an extra pair of hands to help!

Tomorrow -> welsh cakes :)

Tis the season for... Mince Pies!

With only 17 days to go until Christmas, today I have only just made my first mince pies of the season. Shocking I know.  Traditionally I have been quite lazy with mince pies and I was always a ready made pastry and a jar of mincemeat kind of girl.  This year, I am changing my ways, and doing my own pastry.  I found this recipe:  http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2174/unbelievably-easy-mince-pies?pager.offset=240 after a quick google search and it had rave reviews so thought I would give it a go.

The first thing I noticed about this recipe was that the pastry was very very short! I whizzed the butter and flour in the food processor before adding the sugar and salt.  It looked like this:

I pulled together about a walnut sized piece, rolled it into a ball, and squidged it into the bun tin.  There was no way this was going to roll out!  For once in my life I actually managed to make exactly the amount the recipe said I was going to make.  I did however, use much more mincemeat than the recipe suggested - I used 411g (a jar) of Robertson's mincemeat split between the 18.

I added a tiny bit of water to the remaining dough to make it of rolling-out consistency.  I then cut stars and christmas trees out of the remaining pastry with cutters.

A little egg glaze and 20 minutes in the oven later, ta-dah!!

I only lost one to the cake tin, through sticking - grease your tins well my dears!

They tasted divine - a combination between shortbread and shortcrust pastry.  Will definitely be making more of these over the festive period!