Pecan Pie

Like Christmas (and most other times of the year, especially those that involve some kind of celebration), Easter at my home is a time for food. And I imagine we're very much not alone in this. Chocolate eggs for breakfast, pace egg smashing, hot cross buns, a a big family dinner on Easter Sunday involving some kind of roast lamb- sound familiar? Thought so.

This year, I put myself in charge of pudding. And for some unknown reason I chose to make a pecan pie. I don't recall ever eating pecan pie before (there is a fuzzy memory in my brain somewhere but I have no idea if I'm just making it up- fantasising about pudding does sound like the kind of thing I would do), but somehow I knew I liked it, which considering I never used to like nuts in things, is a tad confusing. But hey ho. Like anything I decide to make, once I have the idea in my head, I then obsess about it slightly until it is on a plate in front of me, and so I went in search of a recipe. 

After a lot of internet and cookbook scouring (I didn't have an awful lot else to do over Easter- procrastinating aside), I came to the conclusion that all the recipes were essentially the same. Time well spent I'm sure you'll agree (although time spent looking for/at food is never time wasted, so it's all good). So I did what I always seem to do in a baking situation, and turned to The Hummingbird Bakery cookbook. I've read reviews where people complain that the recipes aren't tested enough, and the quantities are wrong etc, but as far as I can tell, everything in it seems to come out of the oven damn tasty, and that's all I want from cake.

And so I made my pecan pie, and as always when I make something (especially when I plan to feed it to others) I got far too over excited and proud of myself. It was, I think, my first time making pastry- at least making it on my own as a grown up- and after only one very small minor hissy fit when I couldn't roll it out properly I somehow managed to get flaky deliciousness that just melted on your tongue. My Dad couldn't stop eating the off-cuts, and he is a massive pastry fiend, so that can only be a good sign. The filling wasn't difficult to make either, and was obviously the epitome of healthy food- at one point what I had in front of me was what appeared to be a pan full of molten sugar. In fact I'm pretty sure that it was a pan of molten sugar. Luscious, sticky, maple-y, rum-y molten sugar (unable to find corn syrup in West Cumbria- although honestly I didn't even waste energy even attempting to find it- I used half golden syrup and half maple golden syrup, and I added a splash of rum because, well, just because). All that was left to do was add it to the eggs, careful not to scramble them (which I managed, and although I didn't scramble my eggs, I did nearly set my sugar/syrup combo in one big hard lump- oops), and the pecans. A slightly OCD arrangement of pecan nuts and stint in the oven later, we were following our roasted lamb (and homemade mint sauce, courtesy of moi- told you I get overly proud) with slices of pecany, syrupy, pie-y goodness.

It's one I'll definitely be making again, and one that I recommend you do if you have the Hummingbird Bakery book. Add a slosh of dark rum, eat, and enjoy. Just don't tell your dentist.

Ginger flapjack (Tea Time Treats)

This is my first time entering anything like this, but after seeing the theme for this months Tea Time Treats, hosted by Karen at Lavender and Lovage and Kate at What Kate Baked, I couldn't resist taking part, and made some ginger flapjack.

I've always loved flapjack (along with most people, I can imagine), it's such a childhood treat reminder, bringing back memories of Tupperware boxes, golden syrup tins and country walks in the frost with a flask of tea (or maybe that's just me); I've also always used the same fail safe recipe with just 4 ingredients, passed to me by my mum and guaranteed to produce sticky, yet crunchy, bars of sweet oaty goodness. However, a few weeks ago at Manchester Feast Market I tried a ginger flapjack from a bakery stall and have been wanting to try my own ever since- it was that good. So I messed a round a little with my fail-safe recipe in an attempt to make it a little gingery and a little more sticky and squidgy, and this was my result. Little squares perfect for tea time, with a hint of ginger that just tingles on your tongue. Unfortunately I didn't quite manage the level of squidginess I was going for- I seem to have inherited my Gran's knack of being unable to make flapjack that doesn't put your teeth to the test (I think 5 minutes less in the oven would have done it)- but they were still delicious, and perfect for an Autumn evening when only a comforting childhood favourite sweet treat will do.

Ingredients

6 oz/ 150g butter or marg

6oz/ 150g muscavado sugar

3 tbsp (ish) golden syrup

1 heaped tsp ground ginger

8oz/ 200g oats

Method

In a saucepan, gently heat the butter/marg, sugar and syrup until melted. 

Stir in the ginger and oats and press into a greased baking tray. 

Bake in a pre-heated oven at about 160°C for around 30 minutes or until golden. 

Cut into small squares (I got 24) and allow to cool in the tin (if you can wait that long).

Bagels

I have been addicted to bagels for as long as I can remember. Whether with smoked salmon and cream cheese, butter and jam, chicken salad and mayo, scrambled egg and bacon... I'm not fussy really. My ultimate bagel, however, is one I fell in love with on a family trip to Florida when I was eleven, and give or take the odd hour, haven't been able to stop thinking about ever since. Breakfast is my absolute favourite meal- it just has all the best food- and on this holiday the breakfasts we had were worth skipping Disneyland for. Massive juicy watermelons (which only ever seem to taste right in hot countries when you know that your skin is going to see some sun at some point- it's just not quite as tasty in the miserable English drizzle), followed by one of the best breakfast foods- actually, scrap that, just general foods- I've ever eaten. Blueberry bagels. Simply toasted with butter, they were incredible. But it turns out they're an endangered species back in this country. 

 After reading a couple of bloggers' posts about making their own bagels, something that for some reason I've just never even considered an option, I decided to give it a go, with the view that if they were successful, I would be able to make my very own blueberry ones and stockpile them in the freezer. I used this recipe from the trusty BBC Good Food website, and they worked quite well. I kept them plain with a few poppy seeds sprinkled on top of half of them (I didn't want to be too adventurous on my first go, I'm far too afraid of failure for that), and having just eaten one warm from the oven with lashings of cream cheese, I was rather impressed with my efforts. They are a little bit fat and round (they remind me a little of hot cross buns, which in turn is making me crave hot cross buns- not entirely appropriate in November), but they taste... well, like bagels. Chewy, doughy, delicious bagels. Which means that I'm that little bit closer to having my very own taste of American blueberry breakfast yumminess baking in my oven. Which is far more excting than it should be.

Birthday fairy cakes

I have come to the conclusion that I have no money. It didn't take me long to reach this conclusion. I'm a student, which by definition means my bank account doesn't look very well, and on top of that I'm a postgraduate student, which means I don't even get a student loan to help fund my Topshop and Costa addiction. But it's all good, I quite like having to budget, challenging myself to cook as cheaply as possible and taking food and a flask with me to the library and such, to avoid the meltdown moment when I've had enough of James Joyce and run to the nearest coffee shop for a vanilla latte and blueberry muffin. One thing I do love doing that costs money however, is giving presents. I really love giving presents, and with Christmas coming up (yes, I am excited already), this means a lot of presents. So I have decided (and fore-warned everybody) that I'm going to get my country-fair on and make everybody's pressies. And it's me, so they're all obviously going to be edible. And with my imagination not stretching very far, I'm really going to have to learn how to make jam...

I started my edible-presents adventure this week with my cousins birthday and made her some cute little cupcakes. Except that my mum didn't have any muffin cases (I probably stole them) so they were more fairy cakes. I used the trusty vanilla cupcake recipe from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook (so easy and oh so very yummy) and decorated them with pretty coloured frosting and sprinkles. They looked very cute, and so my first homemade gift was a success. It may not have taken as much money, but it took more effort and time, and I enjoyed doing it (and I'm sure my cousin enjoyed eating them). So all in all, a good decision. Bring on the jam jar collecting.

Lemon, blueberry and poppy seed muffins

So today, after a shameful couple of days of making nothing more culinary than a cup of coffee, I decided to get my bake on. I opted for a muffin recipe from the show Cook Yourself Thin featuring Gizzi Erskine (one of the many shows that I spend far too large a percentage of my time watching over and over again on 4od). Rather than being a naughty little treat as it were, these muffins are supposedly 'healthy', which is a shocker when you consider the name of the programme. The ingredients list was pretty extensive and strange- grated courgette for a start (although carrot cake is lush so I'll let it go), and have you ever tried to find buttermilk in the middle of Manchester? I gave up and bought yogurt instead with an attitude of 'I can't see what the difference is anyway'. 

Despite the long shopping list the method was pretty easy, although requiring a very gentle hand and champion folding technique (both of which I obviously possess). The only things I altered in the recipe were substituting yogurt for buttermilk, which as far as I can see worked fine, and using about half the amount of poppy seeds, as after I'd put that amount in my mixture was already looking like the middle of a dragonfuit, and I wanted to go for bits of crunch rather than full on gravelly. Also- I got 16 muffins rather than 12- a slight pain when I only have one 12-muffin tray- as there was tonnes of mixture. Does this mean they'll be even healthier as there's less in each one? More likely that I'll just justify that it's ok to eat 2 at a time to be honest.

 Couple of comments- they didn't rise very much which I'm not sure was mine or the recipe's fault. I also began writing this as the first 12 were in the oven and got a little carried away, which means they are a little darker than I'd like- oops. Oh well, they're not burnt and it all adds to that rustic homemade-y ness. They also stuck a little to the paper, but thats all the better for picking at.

 The important bit- taste. If I do say so myself, they are delicious. The blueberries are all gooey and jammy, the lemon is fresh without making you suck your cheeks in, the poppy seeds add a pleasant crunch, they're all cakey and moist, and there really isn't the hint of any courgette. In all- they taste very bad for me. And being that I'm usually a Hummingbird Bakery 'whack a load of inch-adding but oh so delicious butter in' recipe kind of girl, having the same (ish) satisfying muffin-ness without the calories can only ever be a good thing. Now to 'share them with my housemates'...