Month: November 2014

Blue Cheese & Bacon Grilled Cheese Sandwich

- Michael Leave a comment
Blue Cheese Grilled Cheese

Fuck Man, cheese. It’s the one. Also blue cheese. Sometimes I get cravings for it. I may have covered that before when I put up my blue cheese scone recipe. But it’s something I could easily chat about for ages. I often find myself sat with friends just talking cheese and realise that a good 45 minutes has gone past. I also really like bacon. Bacon is good. Basically what I’m trying to say is that I’m really good with hangover/comfort food. The other day I made an awesome 3 cheese & chorizo mac’n’cheese (I’m going to put the recipe up for that soon) and I had some leftover blue. So what did I do? Grilled Cheese Sandwich. Stuffed with blue cheese, mozzarella, basil and bacon.

Grilled Cheese Sandwich

I used my frying pan for this, and it came out wonderfully. It’d work a number of other ways. Toastie machine, grill etc. Just make sure you both sides are golden and that the cheese has reached that wonderful gooey stage. There isn’t much more I can say about this other than: MAKE THE FUCK OUT OF THIS.

Blue Cheese & Bacon Grilled Cheese Sandwich
 
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Serves: 1 Sandwich
Ingredients
  • 2 Slices of bread, buttered on one side of each slice (I used white)
  • Blue cheese (I used Stilton)
  • 5-6 pieces of Mozzarella (Sliced off a ball)
  • 3-4 Basil leaves
  • 4 Bacon Rashers, fried (I used streaky)
Instructions
  1. Heat up a non stick frying pan.
  2. While it's heating up form the sandwich. The buttered sides need to face outwards. Layer blue cheese, mozzarella, basil and bacon. Making sure that there is a layer of cheese either side of the bacon/basil.
  3. Place on the warm pan, butter side down. Leave to fry for about 90 seconds, making sure it doesn't stick to the pan.
  4. Flip and fry for 30 seconds, then check that both sides are cooked. They should be golden brown.
  5. Press down while it's frying to help push the cheeses together.
  6. Slice down the middle and serve
 

Maple Pecan Pie Bars

- Michael Leave a comment
Maple Pecan Bars

Our oven is fixed. This is the best thing that has happened since I moved to London (OK, that’s a lie, but what you gonna do about it?). I can now bake things to my heart’s content. And by bake things, I mean cook pizza. To say it’s been broken I’ve still managed ok, once I got the hang of the temperature. I managed to make a Pumpkin Spiced Loaf and a Victoria Sponge for my flatmates birthdays. The sponge came out better as I’d had the practise with the Pumpkin Loaf. After the loaf I had a large amount of pecans left over. So spent some time flicking through some suggestions on Tastespotting (I spend far too much time on that site, it’s brilliant/it makes me hungry). I eventually landed on this recipe, for Maple & Caramel Pecan Pie Bars.

Maple Pecan Bars

Maple Pecan Bars

Proper Pecan Pie has been on my list for a very long while, but to do it properly I’ll need to do it when I’ve got more time as I want to make sure the pastry is absolutely spot on. These bars use a very, very, basic base that isn’t quite pastry, so it can be thrown together quickly and doesn’t need chilling etc. In fact I chucked all of this together despite getting in from a burger place with my workmates at about 8.45.

Maple Pecan Bars

Make sure you don’t overbake the base. You are going to be putting the whole thing back in the oven once you’ve added the topping so the last thing you want is for it to be overcooked or burnt. Another thing I must confess is that I bought the Salted Caramel from the shop. I wouldn’t usually, for instance you can find my recipe for caramel here. But as I explained, due to time constraints and doing this on a bit of a whim I didn’t have time.

Maple Pecan Bars

 

Maple Pecan Pie Bars
 
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Serves: 16 Bars
Ingredients
  • Crust
  • 128g all-purpose flour
  • 75g brown sugar, packed (light or dark)
  • 115g unsalted butter, very soft
  • Filling
  • 1 large egg
  • 75g brown sugar, packed (light or dark)
  • 80ml maple
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • pinch salt, optional and to taste (consider omitting if nuts are well-salted)
  • 200g pecans (I used raw, unsalted, whole pecans; use halves and pieces, salted and roasted, or your favorite type)
  • about ¼ cup salted caramel sauce (homemade or storebought), for drizzling
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C(160°C fan assisted). Line an 8x8 tin with greaseproof paper. These get sticky.
  2. For the crust, rub the butter into the flour and sugar, rubbing/cutting in until there are no large lumps.
  3. Turn the mixture, which will have started forming in a dough, into the base of the prepared tin and, using a spatula, flatten it out evenly across the base.
  4. Place in the center of the pre-heated oven and bake for around 15 minutes, until it has coloured slightly. Don’t overbake as it’ll be going back in the oven.
  5. While it’s baking make the topping. In a large bowl combine the sugar, syrup, vanilla and egg. Mix in the pecans and set aside.
  6. Once the crust has baked gently spread the topping over the top and place back in the oven. Make sure they are spread evenly.
  7. Bake for between 16-19 minutes. When you try gently shaking the pan the mixture should be set.
  8. Allow to cool in the pan on a wire rack for at least 1 hour before you drizzle the salted caramel over the top.
  9. Slice and serve.
 

Pumpkin Spice and Pecan Loaf

- Michael 4 Comments
Pumpkin Spice Loaf

Pumpkin season is not over yet. It’s thanksgiving for you guys across in the US this week, right? That makes me feel better about baking with the stuff. I’d originally hoped to do some things in the run up to Halloween, but without my own place and baking stuff it ended up not working. On my list, as well as the more standard pumpkin pie, was a Pumpkin Loaf with Cinnamon Drizzle. What I’ve ended up doing was a Pumpkin Loaf with a cinnamon swirl (see here for similar) and stuffed with pecans then drizzled with icing. It was good, really good. Oh and I baked it in my still broken oven, which means I’ll be doing it again soon to make sure I get the temperatures and times exactly right.

Pumpkin Spice Loaf

Just a month or so ago everyone started raving about pumpkin spiced latters again, yawn. I’m not a coffee fan, and even if I was, places like starbucks aren’t exactly my cup of tea. I typed that, I realised what I’d done, I then took a sip of my tea. Tea > Coffee, there, I said it. But yes, I do however love cinnamon, as I wittered on enough in the last post, I’ll save you from that again. I also discovered that the Tesco at the end of my road sells tinned pumpkin, something that I struggled to find in the entirety of Leeds city center (it also sells buttermilk, which I could only grab from M&S in leeds). This is all great news, so it meant I got to finally bake up some pumpkin goodness.

Pumpkin Spice Loaf

I came across a recipe for a tray bake, here, added some pecans, the cinnamon “swirl” and turned it into a loaf. I bought the loaf in to work for the Children in Need Bake Off, to find I was the only one who had. Er, oops? But it at least helped raise a little for charity.

Pumpkin Spice and Pecan Loaf
 
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Serves: 1 Loaf
Ingredients
  • • 110g margarine
  • • 220g dark brown soft sugar
  • • 135g bread flour
  • • ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
  • • ½ teaspoon baking powder
  • • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • • ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
  • • ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • • 175g tinned pumpkin
  • • 2 eggs, beaten
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to: 180°C and either grease or line a loaf tin.
  2. In the bowl of an electric mixer (or by hand) cream together the margarine and the sugar.
  3. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Add in the rest of the ingredients and mix until smooth.
  4. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin. (Optional – if you want to do the swirl, mix some cinnamon with brown sugar. Add half the batter, spread some of the cinnamon sugar mix on top then pour the rest of the cake batter on top of this).
  5. Place in the center of the oven and bake for approx. 35 mins or until a tooth pick inserted into the center comes out clean.
  6. Allow to cool before removing from the tin.
  7. Drizzle with icing if desired.
 

 

 

Nuts and Nuts and Nuts for Candy (Cinnamon Sugar Cashews)

- Michael 1 Comment

I like nuts, and I also like a Blood Brothers reference. Specifically I really like Cashew nuts. I also really like Cinnamon. Also it’s November so brace yourselves for me continually talking about cinnamon, cinnamon and yup, you guessed it, more cinnamon. I only did 2-3 posts about last year. THE SHAME! If you want to see them they are here, here and here. They are all tasty recipes that I still highly recommend. I will rebaking a couple of them this year.

Cinnamon Candy Cashews

Anyway, I’m having oven issues. The thermostat on our new oven is, to put it lightly, fucked. I burnt a batch of my Peanut Butter Cookies last week with the oven set to 140 for 5 minutes, and by burnt, I mean black. The tray was also too hot to hold through my oven glove. This means that the large amounts of baking and recipes I’d intended to be flooding you with are going to have to wait until this is fixed. I can’t risk things like cakes/cookies etc when I just plain can’t guarantee what my oven will do to them.

Cinnamon Candy Cashews

However, I can still do a few things, if I’m just very careful. For instance these Cinnamon Sugar Cashews don’t need to rise and/or won’t collapse in on themselves if checked often. So if I set my oven to 40 (FORTY, SERIOUSLY?) then it isn’t too bad. These make a great snack, any time of year, but I made them to take with me to the Battersea Fireworks display last Saturday, which was phenomenal. I also made a huge batch of Mulled Cider (it was tasty, but could have been mulled a tad longer, I was in a rush). I’m still experimenting with roasted nuts so used recipe from here as a base.

Cinnamon Candy Cashews

Other than the oven being tricky, and needing a bookcase plus bedside table (anyone got any spare?) I am thoroughly enjoying having my own place again and being a resident in Clapham.

And while I’m a Londoner now, I just want to give a huge shout out to the guys across at Leeds Indie Food, as they successfully got funded through kickstarter and their site went live this morning. Go check it out!

Nuts and Nuts and Nuts for Candy (Cinnamon Sugar Cashews)
 
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Serves: One small bag or bowl
Ingredients
  • 250g Cashews (pecans and almonds would also work, as would a mix)
  • 1 egg white
  • 1 tablespoon water
  • 1 cup light brown granulated sugar
  • 1.5 teaspoons cinnamon
  • Couple of pinches of nutmeg
  • Couple of pinches of salt
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 150°C (I did it on 40 due to my thermostat being messed up) and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
  2. Beat the egg white with the water until it forms stiff peaks.
  3. Fold in the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt carefully so you don’t knock all the air out.
  4. Fold in the cashews until they are well coated.
  5. Spread the cashews out evenly over the baking sheet and place in the center of the pre-heated oven.
  6. Bake for 45 minutes, turning every 15 minutes to ensure they are evenly roasted.
  7. Remove and allow to cool slightly before serving. These are great slightly warm but also just as tasty cold.