Friday Pie Day: Fuss Free Chocolate Berry Tarts

Individual tarts are great. One self-contained portion all for yourself and no arguments about who gets the biggest bit. Especially so when it's something chocolatey.

I've always had a bit of a problem with making individual tarts though but I've found a way around this now.

When I use my muffin tray to make individual tarts, I'm always faced with the dilemma of how to cut the correct-sized pastry round for each hole. I don't have a proper cutter the right size, and I've tried all sorts of circle-shaped items from my kitchen to no avail. I always end up with pastry falling too short of the hole.

As I came to make these chocolate tarts, I was pondering whether to just use my cupcake tray instead (which I do have a correct-sized cutter for). But my greedy self reasoned against this idea since this would mean there would be less chocolate per portion.

Whilst staring blankly at the muffin tray wondering what to do, I suddenly remembered these Unposh Porky Puffs that I made a while back. They were unposh because I had simply cut squares instead of circles and draped those into the hole to create the pastry cases.

Ok, so they look a bit funny and perhaps don't look as delectable as a chocolate tart should - but if you squint, then they look like beautiful chocolate flowers don't they? :-)

Fuss Free Chocolate Berry Tarts

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Makes 12:

250g plain flour
100g cold butter, diced
3 tsp sugar
Some cold water
OR
375g sweet shortcrust pastry

200g dark chocolate
200ml double cream
1 tsp vanilla
50g ground almonds
75g blueberries
75g raspberries

If you're using premade pastry, go straight to step 3.

1) Mix the flour and sugar into a large mixing bowl. Rub in the butter to a breadcrumb mixture.
2) Gradually add a tablespoon of water to knead the mixture into a dough.Wrap and chill for 30 minutes.
3) Cut the pastry in half and roll one half out into a large rectangle. Cut into six 4" squares and place each into a non-stick muffin tray. Repeat with the other pastry half. Prick and freeze until hard (about half an hour).
4) Line each hole with some foil and baking beads. Blind bake at 180 degrees C for 15-20 minutes until just brown. Leave to cool completely.
5) Whip the cream to stiff peaks.
6) Gently melt the chocolate in a pan. Take off the heat. Mix in the vanilla and almonds. Fold in the cream.
7) Add some berries into the cooled pastry cases. Spoon the chocolate mixture carefully over to fill each case. Press in some extra berries on top.
8) Chill for at least 4 hours before serving!

Pie out.

Read my other Friday Pie Day adventures.

More chocolately recipes! Continue reading this post..

Almost-like-Mum's Asian Steamed Salmon

One of my favourite dishes when I go back home is when my mum makes steamed salmon. The flavours are simple - soy sauce, ginger and sometimes black beans too. She either steams it in the rice cooker or the wok.

Easy, right?

Well, I've never been able to recreate it myself - it's one of those things where it just never tastes the same as when your mum cooks it.

I don't own a rice cooker, and I don't have a lid for my wok, which you need to enclose the dish when you want to steam something in it. So it's taken me a while to steam a version using other means to get something tasting half as decent.

But hey, I think I'm almost there now - hence my Almost-like-Mum's Asian Steamed Salmon..!

So the method I use is to kinda poach it within the pan that I'm steaming my rice in. If you sit the salmon on top of the rice (yes, slapping the raw salmon on top is fine!) amidst the water, you can steam it this way, whilst your rice cooks.

I coat the salmon fillets in Chinese five spice, then pour over some soy sauce once sat in the rice. The ginger slices are then placed around and over the fillets - this way, the ginger soy flavours are then steamed into your rice as well as the salmon!

Almost-like-Mum's Asian Steamed Salmon

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For 2:

200g basmati rice, washed
300ml boiling water
2 salmon fillets
2 tbsp Chinese five spice
4 tbsp soy sauce
50g ginger, sliced
150g pak choi
2 spring onions, sliced
2 tbsp sesame seeds (optional)

1) Put the rice in a saucepan with the boiling water.
2) Rub the Chinese five spice over the salmon fillets, then sit them on top of the rice in the water. Pour the soy sauce over the fillets.
3) Arrange the ginger slices over and around the salmon.
4) Bring the pan to the boil, then reduce to a low simmer. Cover with a lid and leave for 15 minutes.
5) In the last 5 minutes, add the pak choi and spring onions.
6) When the 15 minutes are up, turn off the heat and leave to sit for 5 minutes before serving. Sprinkle sesame seeds over the top if desired.

Other seafood recipes you might like. Continue reading this post..

Friday Pie Day: Creamy Peanut Butter Chicken Pie

Ah, what a beautifully presented pie, I bet you're thinking...

There's never a better sign of a pie that's truely a mess homemade, when it's looking a bit rugged around the edges.

Funnily enough, I decided to make this pie when I had my friend over for dinner. It's not the prettiest dish to serve to a dinner guest, as I'm sure you'll agree! I wanted to make a nice comforting, belly-warming pie - but didn't really have time to make pastry, so decided to go for a saucy potato topping instead.

It's a bit of a naughty chicken pie really as it contains alot more cream than stock - I wanted the flavour of the creamy peanut butter based sauce to take over the whole pie - so I poured it over the potato topping as well as using within the pie filling itself. Peanut butter goodness all round, mm!

I've adjusted the recipe a little though so that you don't end up with a pie bubbling over in the oven like I did - it was nothing a bit of foil slipped in underneath couldn't fix though ;-)

Creamy Peanut Butter Chicken Pie

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Serves 2-3:

4 chicken thighs or legs, deboned and roughly chopped
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp olive oil
400g potatoes, sliced
Pinch of salt
75g onion, chopped
200g carrot, sliced
150g celery, chopped
75ml hot chicken stock
50g peanut butter
200ml double cream

1) Put the chopped chicken in a bowl with the soy sauce, honey and oil. Leave to marinade for at least 15 minutes. In another bowl, mix together the peanut butter and hot stock. Set aside
2) Meanwhile, bring the potatoes to boil in lightly salted water. Turn down a low heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes until just cooked. Drain and keep warm.
3) Add the marinaded chicken to a hot pan to brown. After a couple of minutes, add the onions, then the carrot and celery. Mix everything well.
4) Turn the heat down and add two thirds of the peanut butter mixture. Leave to simmer for about 5 minutes. Take off the heat and stir in two thirds of the cream.
5) Transfer the filling into a 1 litre ovenproof dish. Layer the cooked potato slices on top.
6) Mix the remaining cream into the leftover peanut butter mix, then pour evenly over the potato topping.
7) Bake at 180 degrees C for about 30 minutes, then serve with some nice steamed veg.

Eat, and feel the warmth in your belly.

Pie out.

Read my other Friday Pie Day adventures.

Other chicken recipes you might like. Continue reading this post..

Orange and Cranberry Yogurt Cake (butter free)

I know this is not the best-looking cake, but this was borne last minute after a previous cake failure (a story I'll save for another time), and I was left to literally use what I had in the house.

Cue an Orange and Cranberry Yogurt Cake which - I must admit - has an odd kind of Christmas appeal to it, despite it being July!

Anyway...

So yes, this is yogurt based, so makes for a pretty moist cake though can be a little sticky on the fingers. I've not eaten any yogurt cake other than my own, so am not entirely sure if it's meant to be that kind of texture. But there are enough yummy noises going around and empty cake boxes after I hand such yogurt cakes out, so it can't be too far off the mark...

Orange and Cranberry Yogurt Cake (butter free)

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For a 7" sandwich tin (8 slices):

125g Greek yogurt
75ml rice bran or grapeseed oil
50ml orange juice concentrate
1 egg, beaten
Zest of 1 orange
150g plain flour
75g white sugar
25g ground almonds
1 tsp baking powder
100g cranberries (fresh or dried)

1) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Mix the yogurt, oil, orange juice, egg and zest in a small bowl.
2) In another large bowl, sift in the flour. Mix in the sugar, almonds and baking powder. Fold in the cranberries.
3) Tip in the yogurt mixture, folding in until just mixed.
4) Transfer to a lined sandwich tin, then bake for about half an hour until you can pull a toothpick out clean.

More Hungry Jenny cakes.

Other butter free baking recipes that might take your fancy.
Continue reading this post..

How to Bake a Cake From Scratch...

...The Hungry Jenny Way...

When I started all this baking lark, I quickly found myself heading into this weird jigsaw maze that I now find myself on with each cake I make.

I look for elements from various recipes I like - this might be a particular combination of flavours, the mixing method, or the texture that specific ingredients will create. Then I might try and find substitutes for other ingredients to rework the idea a bit more, before bringing it all together - hopefully in the form of a tasty cake.

As you can probably tell, this is a pretty haphazard approach, and lately it got me wondering whether there is some magic formula out there for Baking a Cake Completely From Scratch, as opposed to just ripping apart and merging random things together.

Turns out, there is.

Whilst hunting around online, I found alot of blogs raving about this book by Michael Ruhlman called Ratio, where he talks about proportions used in cooking and baking, and how you can use these to create your own recipes.

The intricate science and maths behind it all is something that keeps going over my head I'm still trying to learn, but in the meantime, I thought I'd show you how I use such a ratio to muddle out my own recipe.

First, take Ruhlman's ratio for 'quick bread':

Flour - 2 parts
Liquid - 2 parts
Eggs - 1 part
Butter - 1 part

The Egg
The ratios go by weight so in this case, I tend to start with the egg. I usually take a large egg to weigh about 75g (the edible bit of course, not the shell). So there's your 1 part.

The Butter
Then the butter, this is 1 part too. But I like to go butter-free with my baking so in this case, I decided to replace with oil, which I often use as a fat replacer.

The Flour
Now you go into 2 parts for the flour, which means just double the weight of your 1 part, so that's 150g in this case. But I didn't want to do all flour, so I swap a third of this with ground almonds instead.

The Liquid
Finally, the liquid - normally I just use applesauce - well my version is just boiling down some apples to a pulp and adding a bit of honey, seems to work alright. But in this case, I couldn't be bothered, so decided to mash up some banana instead. The one I had weighed slightly under than the ratio requirement of 150g, but I only had one banana, so the 125g was all I had to use.

Erm yes, so you might notice that I essentially measured oil as the fat, and banana as a liquid, when in a more logical world, I probably should have done this the other way around. I only realised this after starting to mix it altogether, so it was too late! Luckily this didn't ruin the recipe.

Ok, let's recap:

Flour - 2 parts - 100g flour + 50g almonds
Liquid - 2 parts - 125g banana
Eggs - 1 part - 1 egg (75g beaten approx)
Butter (fat) - 1 part - 75ml oil

So what's missing? A bit of sweetness and some flavour!

The Sugar
Following intense research into sifting out the ratio of sugar from various recipes (ok, I looked up three), the favourable proportion seems to be 1 part. So easy, that gives me 75g sugar. But I always like to cut back on refined sugar, so chopped a third off to give me 50g.

The Flavour
Once you've got the base of your cake batter sorted, you can pretty much judge by eye the amount of flavoursome things to add. So in this case, I added some cinnamon and nutmeg, then tipped in some raspberries until...well it looked like there was a decent amount in the bowl (and when it made a nice round number, 100g, on my scale).

And so there you have it - baking a cake from scratch, the Hungry Jenny way - there is some logic in there, right?

Raspberry and Almond Cake (butter free)

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For a 7" sandwich tin (8 slices):

1 egg, beaten
50g white sugar
125g banana, mashed
75ml rice bran oil
100g plain flour
100g ground almonds
1 tsp cinnamon
Pinch nutmeg
1/2 tsp baking powder
100g frozen raspberries

1) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Beat the egg with the sugar. Mix the banana and oil in well.
2) In another mixing bowl, sift in the flour with half of the almonds. Add the cinnamon, nutmeg and baking powder. Fold in the raspberries, coating well.
3) Pour in the banana mixture, folding in until just mixed.
4) Transfer the mixture to a lined sandwich tin, then spoon the remaining almonds over the top.
5) Bake for 30-35 minutes, until lightly goldena and you can pull a fork out clean.

More Hungry Jenny cakes here. Continue reading this post..

Friday Pie Day Faux Pas: Toast Pie

What..in the world of pie...

...is this?

Well, I hate to disappoint you.

But I don't know what the pie this is.

It's not an elaborate and exciting twist on toast. It was actually meant to be just a nice Apple Pie. That turned out looking like some weirdly topped toast.

You see, when I bake with apples, I never usually bother buying cooking apples, normal eating ones work just fine I think.

Then I thought, hey, I'll try and do it properly for once and use Proper Cooking Apples. Little did I know that they would have such beefy ones at the market - one was bigger than my entire hand! Ok, so I'm exaggerating a bit, but they were bigguns.

And it left me a bit stumped as to how to slice them for the pie. As you can probably tell, I didn't really give much thought to it at all.

And look how it turned out. Oh well.

Pie out.

Read my other Friday Pie Day adventures.

Fancy a laugh at my other Hungry-Jenny-Faux-Pas? Continue reading this post..

Say NO to Takeaway: Make a Simple Satay Stir Fry Instead!

Ah, satay.

There seems to be alot of complex satay sauces out there, with long listings of ingredients.

But essentially all you need is two simple items.

Peanut butter. And soy sauce. That's it.

Of course you can go a bit fancy with it and make it spicy with some chilli flakes, or perhaps some coconut flakes if you want to stick to its Thai roots, or maybe even a zesty kick with lemon or lime.

But I just wanted to tell you that it tastes just as good with those two basic ingredients. And this Simple Satay Stir Fry does just that.

Simple Satay Stir Fry

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Serves 2:

2 tbsp peanut butter
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 blocks of dried egg noodles (150g approx)
1 tsp olive oil
200g pork escalopes, cut into stripss
1 tsp garlic salt
100g sugar snaps
2 spring onions, chopped
50ml hot pork, chicken or veggie stock
50g cashews, roughly crushed

1) Mix the peanut butter with the soy sauce until smooth. Set aside.
2) Gently boil the noodles according to the packet instructions. Drain in cold water and toss in the olive oil. Set aside.
3) Fry the pork in the garlic for a few minutes. Mix in the peanut sauce. Add the sugar snaps and spring onions, tossing everything well.
4) Turn the heat right down and pour in the stock. Leave to simmer for about 5 minutes.
5) Add the noodles and carefully mix in to coat in the sauce. Divide into two bowls and top with some crushed cashews.

If you liked this, you might want to try making these other takeaway alternatives too. Continue reading this post..

Friday Pie Day: Pork and Anchovy Pie

Usually I try to make things that at least have the potential to visually please the eye.

This is one of those pies where I didn't particularly think about what it would actually look like.

Yeh I know - it's looking a bit odd.

The silver bits are extra bits of anchovy that I added into the pie after baking it, in a feeble attempt to at least make it look like there was more than just pork in it!

The good news is that the pie itself is one of those lovely stock-warming ones that slip into your stomach rather deliciously. Anchovies are a great way to instantly make a stock or sauce more interesting or different. And although anchovies have quite a strong distinct taste, it's not too overpowering either.

The fishy salty flavour works well with pork, and I poured in some hot stock with lemon and parsley to let it all simmer and bubble away to get the anchovy flavour absorbed into everything. I then reserved some of the anchovy fused stock juice to mash into the sweet potatoes as well.

So even if it doesn't look like a pork and anchovy pie, it will certainly taste like one if you try this!

Pork and Anchovy Pie

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Serves 3-4:

500g sweet potato, chopped into chunks
1 tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove
300g pork loin, chopped
75g red onion, chopped
250g tomatoes, diced
150g carrots, diced
Juice of 1 lemon
100ml hot pork or chicken stock
1 tbsp parsley
75g anchovy fillets, roughly chopped

1) Gently boil the sweet potato chunks for about 15 minutes until just done. Drain and keep warm.
2) Heat the oil in a pan and fry the garlic and pork for a few minutes to brown.
3) Add the onion, tomatoes and carrots, mixing for another couple of minutes.
4) Pour in the lemon juice, stock, parsley and chopped anchovies. Turn down to a low heat and leave to simmer for 5 more minutes.
5) Transfer to an 8" pie dish, retaining a couple of tablespoons of the juice.
6) Pour the reserved juice into the sweet potatoes and mash well. Spoon over the top of the pie and bake at 190 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

Pie out.

Read my other Friday Pie Day adventures.

Other porky and seafood recipes you might like! Continue reading this post..

Invasion of the Giant Couscous

"La, la, la..."

There I was, minding my own business, about to make a nice cous-cous salad, when...

"Pah. Call yourself cous-cous? Move over!"
"Erk!"

These bulky dudes were not going anywhere. Despite smelling suspiciously like pet food, they demanded to be cooked and eaten. There was no option but to try and use this Invasion of Giant Couscous to my advantage. I decided to continue on with the salad I had in mind, which was something I had already made before. That way, I figured there would be less room for error.

Turns out, there was still room for error, when I accidentally burnt it.

"Hmph. How dare you burn me. But I shall forgive you if you serve me in an acceptable state."

Phew. Luckily, the salad I was preparing was a basic mix of salmon and butterbeans, with a generous squeeze of lemon juice over it all. That do you?

"Mm, yes, this will do just nicely."

And I thought so too - it's got that al dente kind of bite to it, so feels a bit more substantial than your average bitty couscous. That might have been because this was a wholegrain version too though. Like normal couscous, I don't imagine this would taste of anything to shout about if served on its own - it definitely needs at least a splash of olive oil over it.

It doesn't take much longer than normal couscous to make either, just an extra 10 minutes I'd say. I followed the packet guidelines of frying the couscous first, before simmering in water, but I might try steaming it next time to see if it might make it a bit softer.

For now though, I think I've tamed the Giant Couscous...

Lemony Giant Couscous with Salmon and Butterbeans

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Serves 2:

100g giant couscous
1 tbsp olive oil
200ml cold water
200g tin of salmon, flaked
150g sweetcorn
75g butterbeans
2 spring onions, chopped
Juice of 1 lemon

1) Fry the couscous in the oil over a low heat for a few minutes until lightly golden. Carefully pour in the cold water and leave to simmer for about 15 minutes until absorbed. Squeeze over half the lemon juice.
2) In a large bowl, mix together the remaining ingredients.
3) Add the couscous and mix well, before dividing into two bowls to serve.

Other salad or seafood recipes you might like. Continue reading this post..

Pie Party - Strawberry Lemon Cream Pies

Pie lovers across the globe will be talking about Pie today. When Shauna Ahern aka Gluten Free Girl started having a casual conversation about pie with a handful of people, it quickly launched into an epic plan to host a Pie Party on the 5th July.

Before you imagine a mass of people gathering on a hill armed with pie, I should point out that it's an online event - people have been ranting about it on Facebook and Twitter. The idea was to make a pie, any pie you like, take a photo, then blog, tweet or Facebook it on the 5th July - or all three of course!

So you'll see blog posts about pies popping up all over the place today, in celebration of all that is pie. And I probably don't need to tell you that I jump on any excuse to spread the pie love!

So here's my contribution to the Pie Party...12 Strawberry Lemon Cream Pies...

Strawberry Lemon Cream Pies

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Makes 12:

250g plain flour
2 tsp sugar
100g cold butter, diced
Some cold water
OR
375g sweet shortcrust pastry

150g cream cheese
25g icing sugar, sifted
1.5 tbsp lemon juice
Zest of 1 lemon
75g double cream, whipped
75g strawberries, thinly sliced

If using premade pastry, go straight to step 3

1) Mix the flour and sugar into a large mixing bowl. Rub in the butter to a breadcrumb mixture.
2) Gradually add a tablespoon of water to knead the mixture into a dough. Cut in half, then wrap and chill for 30 minutes.
3) Roll out one of the pastry halves into a large thin circle. Use a 3.5" round cutter to stamp out 6 circles. Lightly press them into a non-stick cupcake tray and prick the base with a fork. Repeat with the remaining pastry half. Freeze until hard (about half an hour).
4) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C, then bake the pastry for 15 minutes until just brown. Allow to cool completely.
5) Retain 12 strawberry slices. Use the rest to line the base of each pastry cup.
6) Mix the cream cheese, icing sugar, lemon juice and half of the lemon zest. Fold in the cream.
7) Spoon the mixture into the pastry cups, then top each with a strawberry slice and the remaining lemon zest.
8) Leave to set in the fridge for at least 4 hours.

Happy Pie Party Day:-)

Thanks Shauna, let's hope this turns into an annual event!

More pies here! Continue reading this post..

Friday Pie Day: Breakfast Puffs

Puff pastry for breakfast?

Yeh, go on then! Something to set you up for the weekend.

This is like a portable fried breakfast. Well alright, you should use a knife and fork to eat it really, but if you saw one on a plate and you were on your way out, could you honestly say that you wouldn't nab one to eat on the go?

The trickiest part of this is cracking the egg on top - I used a small jug to crack the egg in first, before pouring the egg onto the pastry. The first one I tried, the egg slipped straight off and onto the baking sheet! Slippery little buggers they are. So make sure that the 'lip' of the pastry is deep enough to contain the egg.

Each puff contains a rasher of bacon, some mushrooms and an egg on top (obviously). To some, that would make a fine breakfast. For others (ie me), you will probably want to eat two of them at a time...

Breakfast Puffs

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Makes 4 puffs:

200g puff pastry - try my Quick Puff Pastry recipe if you want to try making your own
2 tsp wholegrain mustard
4 bacon rashers
50g mushrooms, sliced
4 eggs
Some flour for dusting

1) Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C. Cut the puff pastry equally into 4 pieces. On a floured surface, roll each one out to a small rectangle (about 5 x 4").
2) Score a border around the inside about half an inch away from the edges. Roll the edges over to meet the border to create a lip.
3) Bake for about 15 minutes until golden. Remove from the oven and use a spatula to gently press down the centre.
4) Fry the bacon rashers in a hot pan for a few minutes until crisp. Roughly chop up.
5) Spoon the mustard over the central base of each pastry piece, then layer on the bacon and mushrooms.
6) Crack an egg into a small jug and carefully pour into the centre of the pastry. Repeat with the remaining 3 eggs and pastry pieces. Return to the oven for about 10 minutes (for an egg well done), or as necessary to your liking.

Pie out.

Read my other Friday Pie Day adventures. Continue reading this post..