Domestic Goddesque » yummy recipes

Around The World In 12 Dishes: Russia

Domestic Goddesque — Tue, 08 May 2012 01:43:11 +0000

In continuing our Russian Adventure this month, and after the success of our Russian Icons, The Girls and I have been looking at Russian Dolls. Dimples received a set from her Godparents for Christmas, and I then found a very simple Matryoska Doll jigsaw puzzle at Tiger a couple of weeks ago. Both have proved a great hit.

When I asked around for ideas of what to make that is authentically Russian, Potty Mummy- currently living in Moscow and therefore has her finger on the pulse of these things- directed me to the most amazing site, The Moscovore. I urge you to read it. In particular the recipe for Kharcho, which sounds simply heavenly and is on my list of things to attempt in the future. More realistic and, as it turns out, very authentic, were the Russian Tea Cakes that The Girls helped make -and eat- a couple of days ago. We even pushed them upon our cleaner early one morning in an effort to confirm their authenticity. She gave them her whole-hearted support.

They were really easy: I ground up a packet of Pecans in the hand blender, and we added them to the butter, icing sugar, flour and vanilla extract. It was a bit of work to blend it all together so I took over. The Girls joined back in to roll the dough into balls and then we baked them in the oven. The trickiest bit was rolling the straight-from-the-oven teacakes in the icing sugar. They are jolly hot. But the heat amalgamates with the icing sugar and forms this thick sweet coating on the outside which, once cooled, gives them a clean ivory colour. Just a sprinkle of icing sugar on the top- or some of the pulverised pecans- and they are ready to be served with tea from a Samovar.

Quite delicious. And I cannot wait to see where the 12 Dishes adventure will take us next.

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How to make Chocolate Cinnabuns

Domestic Goddesque — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 21:55:22 +0000

In one of Dimples’ cooking classes we made Cinnamon Rolls. They rose beautifully in their tin on the way home so that they were oven-ready. Whilst they baked, I whipped up some glace icing to drizzle on top, and DH and I devoured them whilst they were still warm. They are now a regular fixture, usually at weekends, but although the Little Misses like making them, LBG recently admitted that she doesn’t really like the taste of them. So I tinkered with the recipe to create a chocolate version which, unsurprisingly, has been a spectacular success.

I will make it clear here that when I say ‘tinkered with the recipe’, I have to admit that the printed copy of the recipe has been AWOL from our house since shortly after the initial baking class. As a result, when DH asked if we could have them again, I recreated them from memory using a bread roll recipe with mixed results. Since then I have used a shop-bought white bread mix:

Make up the bread according to the instructions on the packet, and leave to rise.
In a bowl, beat together 1tbsp of butter with 1 tbsp of drinking chocolate. You can also add 1 tsp of cinnamon.
Place your dough on a lightly floured surface and roll out into a rectangle approximately 1/4 inch thick.
Spread the butter evenly across the surface of the dough rectangle.
Next, roll the dough into a fairly tight sausage, along the longest edge of the rectangle.
Tidy up the ends, then cut the sausage into equal pieces about 1.5 inches across: I usually get a dozen pieces from a standard Bread Mix.
Turn the pieces on their sides, squidging them (and yes, that’s a technical term) into rounds if they have become particularly squashed, and arrange in a greased/lined tin that allows them space to spread. I use a rectangular casserole dish but you could use a roasting tin.
Cover with a damp cloth and leave to rise for 30 minutes in a warm environment. Turn the oven to 170C and leave to warm up. I generally leave my buns on the hob above the oven to rise whilst it warms up.

Bake for about 20 minutes until golden brown.

Transfer the buns from the dish to a cooling rack. Meanwhile mix 2 tbsp icing sugar and 1 tbsp cocoa with a couple of tablespoons of warm water until you have the consistency of double cream. Drizzle over the buns once cooled.

You can also make the buns in advance and leave overnight to rise, so that all you need to do in the morning is bake and serve. The icing is optional. And often messy.

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Espresso Brownies

Domestic Goddesque — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 06:37:11 +0000

Another recipe from my Coffee Morning a couple of weeks ago, I think these brownies are a super caffeine-tinged chocolate pick-me-up, and they went down a treat.

350g caster sugar
225g butter, melted
70g cocoa powder
1 tbsp Camp Coffee (or 3tsp of instant mixed with 1 tbsp of hot water until dissolved.)
4 eggs
225g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl, then pour into a greased rectangular baking tray (25cm x 35cm)

Bake at 180C for 25 minutes until crisp on top.

Leave to cool then, using a circular cutter, cut as many rounds as you can from your brownie. (The trimmings make excellent treats for small children.)

To the centre of each circle, add a spoonful of coffee icing , and decorate with a coffee bean (I didn’t in the photographs because I ran out of time: I just dusted them with icing sugar and cocoa.)

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Swedish Visiting Cake

Domestic Goddesque — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 05:46:31 +0000

It’s month two of Around The World in 12 Dishes and we are visiting Sweden (see yesterday’s post on Swedish Midsummer). This works for me as we are trying to arrange a house swap in Sweden next summer, so it gives me a good opportunity to poke around on Pinterest and see what I can find. I confess that, despite knowing several Swedes, I know very little about Swedish things beyond Ikea. If you asked me to name Swedish food, I could have come up with:

Ikea meatballs

Gravadlax

Pickled Cucumber

Ummmm.

See? Actually, I can add Princess cake to that list, but only because a Crown Princess was recently born in Sweden and a mother at school, who is Swedish, told me that she had made the traditional cake to celebrate the occasion. Princess Cake was my first thought when I was looking for recipes for the Challenge- I assumed that most other people would go down the meatball route. But have you seen what’s involved with a Princess Cake? Don’t get me wrong, those things are beautiful, but there’s a good reason there hasn’t been a need to make one for the past 30 years!

Which sent me back to the drawing board, by which I mean the Pinterest board. And before you could say ABBA, I found the perfect cake: Swedish Visitors Cake. It is a dream to make, and both The Little Misses enjoyed eating it, so I’m confident I’ll make it again! I adapted it, as I had an excess of pears to use and a lack of almonds and have printed my adaptation of the original below:

Swedish Visiting Cake Recipe by Dorie Greenspan Baking: From my Home to Yours, via Bella Eats

Ingredients
125g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
200g sugar
Grated zest of 1 lemon
2 eggs
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
200g plain flour
2 pears, peeled, cored and sliced

Method
Preheat oven to 180C. Grease a springform 9 inch cake tin.

Mix lemon zest into sugar with your fingers until sugar smells warm and lemony.

One at a time, whisk in the eggs until well blended, then add in salt and vanilla and almond extracts and whisk further.

Carefully fold in flour.

Finally, fold in melted butter.

Arrange pears in the base of the cake tin, then cover with batter, smoothing down with a spatula. Sprinkle the top of the cake with a teaspoon of sugar.

Place the tin on a baking sheet and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until golden and pulling away slightly from the edges of the tin.

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Coconut and Banana Bread

Domestic Goddesque — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 05:26:07 +0000

You may have seen a couple of weeks ago that I hosted a Coffee Morning for school mums at my house. It’s organised by the Parent Reps, one for each year group, regularly throughout the school year as an opportunity to get to know other parents. I served a selection of cakes, along with fruit, yogurt and granola, as the Coffee Morning starts after the morning school run, and I know that it’s not always easy to get a proper breakfast when you are wrestling a three-year-old into their shoes.

The cake that got the most praise was my Coconut and Banana Bread- a lighter loaf than standard Banana Bread which, as it turned out, was perfect for the warmer weather we have had of late. On that basis, I thought I might share the recipe.

125g soft brown sugar
½ tsp salt
350g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 large egg
125ml coconut milk
50g butter, melted
2 ripe bananas, mashed

Preheat the oven 180°C. Grease and line a loaf tin (mine is a 2lb one.)
Mix sugar, salt, self-raising flour and baking powder in a large bowl. Make a well in the centre.
Add the egg, coconut milk and cooled melted butter and mix until combined.
Add the bananas to the mixture and fold them in using a tablespoon.
Pour batter into loaf tin and level with back of spoon.
Put the loaf on the middle shelf of the oven for an hour until risen and golden brown. Check that the middle by inserting a skewer. If the skewer comes out clean then it’s cooked. If not, put back in the oven and check again in 10 minutes.

Serve sliced with butter. You could add some lime zest to the mixture as well to give the loaf a tropical feel, or try mixing lime zest into Mascarpone cheese and serving with the Coconut and Banana Loaf. Delicious!

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How to make Unleavened Bread

Domestic Goddesque — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 05:54:21 +0000

Easter makes me think about bread…..I assume that it’s the time of year. I have also been aware that Passover, a spring festival that typically falls in March or April, is upon us. I know relatively little about the observance of Pesach, but the unleavened bread thing always sticks in my mind. So I thought I’d see how hard it was to make some. Turns out it was quite easy.

Unleavened bread, as a search term, brings a wide variety of recipes to your laptop, from ones using baking powder to strict Kosher versions. As I was making it with the Little Misses, I didn’t want to make a flour-and-water-type-bread, but luckily I found the ideal unleavened bread recipe on Honeycomb Adventures. I have reproduced it below with UK equivalents and alterations I made.

Unleavened Bread

240ml cold water
1 egg
100ml honey
3 tbsp butter, melted- this gives about 45ml
30ml oil
1 tsp salt
500g bread flour

Place all ingredients except the flour in a mixing bowl and mix well. Add 2/3 of flour and mix, then stir in the remaining flour, a little at a time, with a wooden spoon until you have the right consistency. You have added enough flour when the dough leaves the sides of the bowl and follows the spoon. In actual fact I needed all of my flour.

Then knead the bread on a floured surface for about five minutes until it becomes elastic. By this I mean that it springs back into shape if you stretch it or squash it.

Shape the dough into two balls and put each one on a baking tray that has been greased or lined. Flatten each ball out with your (oiled) hands, followed by an oiled rolling pin until it is 5mm thick.

Using a sharp knife, make cuts across the dough in both directions to create a criss-cross of squares. Then poke one or two holes in each square with the tip of the knife.

Bake at 200C until edges begin to turn brown. The type of baking sheet influences baking time considerably, so watch it closely. It takes about 9-12 minutes.

The resulting bread is strongly reminiscent of a sweet naan and quite appealing. It doesn’t keep particularly well, so you can always make half the recipe. I’m having a go at a rosemary and salt one next…..

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Easter Bunny Cookies

Domestic Goddesque — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 08:00:11 +0000

There is still a question mark over the survival of Pinterest, but I’m pressing merrily on and making lots of Easter stuff that has been inspired by things I have seen on the remarkable collection-creator website. A case in point, this beautiful collection of Bunny Biscuits.

Image source: Just crumbs Etsy Page

They are deeply gorgeous. And small. Mine were not so small, partly because the only egg-shaped cutter I had was a larger one. How did I make them?

1. I made a batch of plain biscuits from my favourite Biscuiteers recipe.

2. I whipped up a batch of thick strawberry flavoured fondant icing: just thin enough to spread with a knife.

3. I spread the aforementioned icing across the biscuit to the edges.

4. I took one white marshmallow, snipped it in half widthways so that it was round, and fixed it onto the rounder end of the biscuit. This is the bunny tail.

5. I took a pink marshmallow and squashed/stretched it a bit, then cut lengthways into strips.

Taking the middle two strips/ovals, I stuck these into the wet icing at the pointy end of the oval to create the ears.

6. I left them to dry overnight.

7. When the icing was dry, I used an edible felt pen to add eyes, mouth and nose. But you could use black/brown icing.

They didn’t quite match up with the picture I had in my head, but The Little Misses loved them. And that’s what counts.

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Gruffalo Crumble

Domestic Goddesque — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 07:08:40 +0000

Rainy Day Mum caught my attention recently with a project they are doing called Around The World in Twelve Dishes. It seemed like a great idea, firstly because I like teaching our Girls about The World: we have family overseas so the more they understand about different countries, the better. Secondly, I grew up an ex-pat brat so travelled around a great deal until I met my Domestic God. And thirdly because we are currently trying to teach LBG her address and consequently, her ‘place’ in the World.

But the best thing of all is that the 12-month journey is kicking off in the UK. Growing up overseas, but in the Community of the Armed Forces, I had a very strong sense of Britishness, albeit an interpretation dependent on what could be sourced locally. I distinctly recall a dinner party being arranged because someone had come to visit with 2kg of parsnips, unknown to locals at the time. And there was the time that a delivery of furniture arriived in Cairo from the UK with a dozen crates of Boddingtons on the back. Some of those crates lived in my parents bedroom for months, covered in a white sheet, until they were slowly consumed.

Things that remind me of ‘home’ are PG tips (not that I drink tea, but Mum always managed to have a stock) Marmite, Baked Beans and Red Leicester. recipes that remind me of home are anything that can be served with custard. In this instance, crumble.

This particular crumble is named after a creature that LBG spent quite some time learning about in the run-up: The Gruffalo. Now I have searched the internet, so I know that there is an ‘official’ crumble recipe. It’s savoury however and I know that unless it was smothered in tomato ketchup and buried under sausages, there’s very little chance of getting past the Domestic God’s lips, never mind The Little Misses. So, taking my lead from the mouse who took a stroll in the wood, this recipe is made with those fruits that you can find in a wood.

Gruffalo Crumble

Serves six

2 apples, peeled cored and diced

1kg mixed fruits (we used frozen blackberries, cherries and other berries picked and frozen last year)

2 tbsp Vanilla Sugar

2 tbsp Apple Juice

200g plain flour (you can also use 100g flour and 100g oats)

100g butter

75g sugar

2 tbsp demerara sugar

Preheat oven to 180C.
Arrange your fruits in a large ovenproof dish, then sprinkle over the apple juice and vanilla sugar
In a bowl, mix flour (or flour/oat mix) and sugar. Add cubed butter and, using your fingers, squidge butter and flour together until the mixture resembles sand.
Spread flour mixture over the fruit and level out. Sprinkle with demerara sugar.
Bake for 30 minutes, or until golden and bubbling.
Serve with lashings of custard. Or Owl Ice-Cream

And whilst our Gruffalo dish was in the oven, LBG got busy colouring in her Gruffalo mask to wear whilst eating it.

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Valentines treats: White Chocolate Fudge and Strawberry Creams

Domestic Goddesque — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 07:21:49 +0000

When I went looking for some treats to make for Valentine’s Day, I headed over to Baking Mad, which has a brilliant database for all kinds of recipes, savoury or sweet. Whether you want to make bread or Valentine’s Cupcakes, they have something for everyone. And boy did I score huge points with DH when I whipped up a batch of White Chocolate Fudge. Simple to make, delicious to eat, the only downside was losing my sugar thermometer down the back of the cooker. But as we are (hopefully) getting a new kitchen before next Valentine’s Day, I should be safe.

If sugar thermometers aren’t your thing, then may I suggest very easy and super-child-friendly Valentine’s Cremes. If you saw my post on making Peppermint Creams at Christmas, you’ll know they require few ingredients:

Fondant icing- either white or pink (again you could buy it or colour it yourself)

Strawberry flavouring

Dark chocolate

1. First, colour your fondant, if that’s your plan, then add a good couple of teaspoons of flavouring to the mix and knead until smooth. The best way to stop the fondant from sticking is to use cornflour, rather than icing sugar.

2. Shape the fondant into an oval, wrap in cling film and chill for 20 minutes.

3. Once cooled, roll out to 5mm thick and use a small heart cutter to cut out your Creams.

4. Melt your dark chocolate slowly over a low heat until liquid. Beat well, then dip the Strawberry Hearts into the chocolate. Let excess chocolate fall back into the warming pan, then place your chocolate hearts on a cooling rack to dry. Be careful not to leave the hearts in the chocolate for too long as they will melt.

5. Package and give to your beloved this Valentine’s Day.

Alternatively, you could pinch walnut-sized pieces of fondant and roll into balls, then press down to create Strawberry discs. Likewise, drizzle the discs with molten chocolate rather than dipping them if this is easier. This works very well with younger children. Like mine.

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Slow Cooker Pulled Pork

Domestic Goddesque — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:09:46 +0000

I am new to slow cooking. In fact my mantra of late has been fast cooking: the kind of cooking that can be whipped up in twenty minutes from when I come downstairs having ~~left The Girls screaming~~ put The Girls to bed to when DH walks through the door. My life involves short-cuts and cheats (hence the -esque in the blog title, in case you were wondering).

Now what better cheat could there be than to take a bunch of prepared ingredients, shoving them into the cooker and leaving them for eight hours. Seriously? Why has it taken me so long to get behind the slow-cooker movement?

Anyhow, back to Tescos last week. I saw the hugest ~~lump of meat~~ joint of Pork on special offer. I bought it because it was on offer, not having the first clue what to do with it, but when you are buying over 5kg of meat for a tenner, you know you’ll be able to find something. And I did:

Pulled Pork in the slow cooker

The recipe called for pork butt, not that I have a clue what that is, and I had shoulder, but I figured it would work anyhow.

The recipe also called for Diet Pepsi. I didn’t have that, so I used Diet Coke.

The recipe called for Barbecue Sauce. Nope, not that either. HP Fruity.

It’s kind of pathetic when a recipe calls for three ingredients and you have to use a substitute for every single one.

And do you know, it was awesome. So awesome that we are still eating it. So let me tell you a few things that you can do with 5kg of delicious pulled pork:

Freeze it, in batches. A little goes a long way.

Serve with mashed root vegetables, broccoli and some of the reduced sauce.

Slap in a bun with a dollop of applesauce.

Spoon over rice with a side of stir fried vegetables.

Make pulled pork tortillas with avocado, refried beans and some sour cream.

Put it between two tortillas, sprinkle with grated cheese and microwave for a minute or so.

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