Carrot (Happy Birthday) Cake

Light, moist and heavily spiced, this cake is fantastic as a celebration cake. But equally its lack of fuss and effort means it can be your everyday speciality as well. Plus there's veg in it.. what's not to love!? I usually find that carrot cake recipes are a little lack lustre, I like big flavour..So I can assure you that this recipe wont disappoint your taste buds. 

Ingredients
175g soft light brown sugar
175ml ground nut oil
3 eggs
200g grated carrots
175g self-raising wheat flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

Icing
100g (Half a tub) low fat cream cheese, 50g of soft butter, 100g icing suger, 1 tbsp golden syrup, 1 tsp vanilla extract, zest of a lemon or a lime or both. A handful of chopped, toasted nuts, I like almonds & pecans.

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4/fan 160C. Oil and line the base and sides of a square cake tin with baking parchment. The easiest way to do this is to cut a strip the width of the tin and place in the tin so that it covers the base and 2 sides of the tin, (leaving 2 sides exposed). This will give you 2 sticky-outy ends to lever the cake out of the tin with.

Mix the sugar, oil, grated carrot and eggs in a large mixing bowl. 

Sift in the flour, bicarbonate of soda and spices. Mix until just combined evenly. The mixture will be fairly wet.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 45 minutes to an hour, until it feels firm and springy when you press it in the centre. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then turn it out (you may need to run a knife around the edge of the unlined sides), peel off the paper and cool on a wire rack. (You can freeze the cake at this point).

Beat together the icing ingredients in a small bowl until smooth. Refrigerate it whilst the cake is cooling. Once the cake is completely cool, put it on a serving plate and splodge over the icing. Liberally cover in toasted nuts. 

Tagliata

Tagliata is simple, easy and flipping delicous. Everyone should eat this!

Ingredients

A beef steak (a 300g steak between 2 is ideal)

A sprig of Rosemary per person

A garlic clove per person

30 ml Olive Oil per person

Lemon Juice

Salt & Pepper

Rocket leaves

Parmesan

Method

Heat a frying pan over a high heat, then add a glug of olive oil and heat until it is smoking hot. 

Remove the steaks from the fridge. Season them with a little salt and place them in the smoking-hot pan for 15-20 seconds. Then turn the steaks over and fry for a further 15-20 seconds. Repeat this, turning the steaks for 2 minutes. Remove from the pan and allow to rest.

In the meantime, remove the pan from the heat and discard the oil (but don’t clean the pan). Allow the pan to cool for a couple of minutes, then add another good glug of olive oil to the pan. Bash the garlic the side of a knife and add it to the oil. Add the rosemary sprigs. Leave this for 5 minutes while the meat is resting, then squeeze in the lemon juice. Strain the dressing through a sieve and add any juices that have come from the steak.

Toss the rocket leaves with half the dressing. Slice the steaks thinly. Season with salt and black pepper and place on top of the rocket. Spoon over the remaining dressing. Finish with Parmesan shavings and a sprinkling of sea salt crystals.

Vanilla whole spelt & oat pancakes

This recipe is actually foolproof and makes me feel particularly smug of a lazy Sunday morning! It'll give you about 10 fluffy & yummy mini pancakes.

Ingredients to feed 2

1/3 of a cup of rolled oats

1/3 of a cup of whole spelt flour

2 tsp golden sugar

1/4 tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

1 egg

Half a tsp of vanilla extract

1/3 cup of milk

Sunflower oil for frying

Runny honey, salted butter and some lightly stewed fruit to serve

Method

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl. Heat a frying pan over a medium heat and add a little oil. Add the batter to the pan in teaspoon dollops and allow to colour on the under side (for about a minute), turn with a spatula and cook for a further minute or 2. Transfer to a plate. Keep adding a little more oil to the Pan for each couple of pancakes to make them super easy to turn. Serve with some butter melting over the top and warm stewed fruit. i stewed up some frozen cherries. a little runny honey is also awesome especially with some fresh lime juice.

Braised beef cheek in Guinness & Cocoa

Cheeks are a beautiful cut of meat. They should not be overlooked if what you seek is depth of flavour from your stew. They need slow and gentle cooking (I flash fried a piece as an experiment and I was chewing for a whilee) which ensures the meat is melt-in-your-mouth tender. The inclusion of Guinness & Cocoa powder yields a deep, dark, unctuous envelope for the incredibly tender meat. 

Ingredients

500g beef cheek

2 onions

1 can of Guinness (425ml)

1 heaped teaspoon of Cocoa (unsweetened)

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

1 star anise

Salt

Cooking Oil

Method

Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a heavy oven-proof pot over a moderately high heat until hot but not smoking. Brown the beef, without crowding, on all sides, and transfer with tongs to a bowl. Add the onions & Star anise to the pot and cook over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 10 minutes.

Preheat oven to 160oC.

Add the cocoa powder to the pot, stir and then add the stout. Stir again and increase heat to high. Boil rapidly for about 5 minutes.

Fish out the star anise and add the tin of tomatoes to the pot. Bring to a simmer and return the cheek (with any juices) to the pot, then cover and place in the middle of the oven. Leave this to braise for about 3 hours.

Once the 3 hours is up, remove the pot from the oven and shred the beef (this can be done with a spoon the meat will be that tender)! Season to taste and serve alongside some buttery mash and steamed greens. 

The flavour of the cheek will intensify over a few days in the fridge so should you not wish to serve immediately or have left overs, you will be rewarded in the next couple of days with an even deeper deliciousness! 

Apple Flapjacks

Flapjacks are usually chewy and quite crisp, however I am a firm believer in squidge. A bit of squidge is a beautiful thing! In cookies and in people. I have a bit of squidge and I will not be making any (half baked!) resolution to relieve myself of it :). So this is a recipe for squidge-some oatilicious flapjacks. YUM.

Ingredients

160g oats

125g golden granulated sugar

125g butter

2 tablespoons of golden syrup

2 Apples, grated

Pinch of Salt

Method

Melt the Sugar, butter & syrup in a pan over a medium heat until syrupy and well combined. Put all the other ingredients in a large bowl and stir together. Add the melted mixture and stir well. Pour into a greased and lined 8 inch square baking tin.

Bake at 180oC for 30- 35 mins. Allow to cool in the tin, then remove and cut into squares. 

Poached chicken

I'm not sure why poaching isn't more popular. I have only ever poached eggs and even that I haven't done for a while, but it's a fantastic, fuss-free way of cooking a chicken, and ensures even the breast meat remains moist. It is a bit of a lengthy process, but as long as your careful to get the temperature right in the beginning, you can sit back and allow it to do its own thang. If you don't have Clementine any other citrus fruit would be fine.

Ingredients
1 whole chicken
2 onions, peeled & quartered
4 whole cloves of garlic, squashed
1 Glass of white wine
2 bay leaves
1 tsp of whole peppercorns
2 Clementine, halved & squished
2 sprigs of rosemary
Water

Method
Place everything in a large pot and cover with water.
Place over a medium high heat & bring to a very gentle simmer. No boiling or the chicken will be tough. Cook for 45 minutes (my chicken was small, so increase the cooking time for bigger birds - 1 hour will be plenty for a medium chicken).
Remove the pan from the heat, cover and leave for another hour. This will allow the chuck to continue cooking very gently. Then remove the chicken from the cooking liquor and allow to cool.
The broth should be strained, the veg discarded, and used for stock.

Gnudi with slow baked Tomatoes, Garlic, Parsley & Pine nuts

I recently made the mistake of trying to make Gnocci... It was a lot of effort and utterly disasterous! Gnocci should definitely be left to the experts. Gnuddi on the other hand is much simpler and rather delicious. They are little dumplings of Ricotta, coated in flour (i used Chickpea flour) which becomes crispy when fried. They are light and lovely and look just a little bit impressive. The only tip I would say is make sure that you season the ricotta, otherwise they will be a bit bland. The recipe is adapted from this gorgeous blog: the Kitchy Kitchen.

Ingredients

Ricotta

Chickpea flour

Salt & Pepper

2 cloves of Garlic, crushed

Slow baked tomatoes, a handfull each

2 tablespoons of Olive oil

Hard cheese such as Parmesan, grated

Half a small bunch of Parsely, roughly chopped

A handful of Pine nuts

Method

Start the night before and roll the ricotta into little dumplings. The easiest and cleanest way I found to do this was to use a couple of teaspoons and make little quinelles. Roll in the chickpea flour and leave on a baking sheet overnight.

The next day boil a pan of water. Shake off excess flour from the little dumplings and place into the water and cook until they rise to the surface (about 2 minutes). Scoop out gently and place onto a paper towel to drain. In a frying pan over a medium heat, fry the garlic until fragrant but still pale. Gently place the gnudi into the pan and cook until golden all over (you will need to turn them a few times). Also add the tomatoes to the pan (if using) so they can warm through. 

Serve topped with the Parmesan, pine nuts & parsley.