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Quickles

honeyanddough

September 4, 2014

Sometimes, you have to stand by your decisions as an adult. Like cutting your own fringe or deciding that fondant fancies for breakfast and diet coke for dinner is a totally acceptable diet. I stand by the word “quickles”.

A filthy, amalgamation of the words quick and pickles. The Brangelina of the brined cucumber word. I’m not apologising for anything.

Ingredients

A cucumber. I snatched mine out of the garden, it was firmwith a tougher skin than those you get in supermarkets.
Salt
Pickling vinegar. Plain white vinegar is good.
Peppercorns/any other pickling spice you fancy
Sugar
A sterlised jar to hold the finished item

Method

1, Slice the cucumber thinly. Not wafer thin, but like 2-3mm thin. Stick them in a sieve or colander and put them over your sink. Sprinkle on about 2tbsp of salt, shake so they’re all covered and leave for 15mins. Use more salt if you’re doing a big batch.

2, Rinse all the salt off the cucumber slices and set to one side. In a small saucepan, bring the pickling vinegar to a gentle simmer with a couple of peppercorns and a pinch or two of salt and sugar. You want heat enough up vinegar to cover your pickles once they have been stuffed in a jar because that is what we’re going to do next.

3, Add the cucumber slices to the pan, remove from the heat and carefully transfer into the jar. Seal the jar. Leave to stand until completely cool, refrigerate for at least a couple of hours before eating. Quickles. Best eaten quickly. Quicklesy.

Feast Maidstone

honeyanddough

1 comment

August 26, 2014

Jim and I went to Feast; a food festival held in Maidstone’s Mote Park on Saturday.

It was lovely seeing some Kentish producers that we’ve previously seen at farmers markets etc although the VIP section was a let down and we expected it to be bigger. It was still a good day, the cooking demos were fun and everything we ate was really good. (Especially the lemon meringue and peanut butter marshmallows from Marshmallow Heaven (link to their facebook page here) and the soft, sweet, eggy canneles from Sylvia and Terry (link to their website here).

Orange Souffles Glaces

honeyanddough

10 comments

August 23, 2014

I am the world’s best inventor. At 2am. When I can’t get back to sleep.

Last night, I thought about a machine that would give you a never-ending cup of tea. You’d have a cup, it would have a docking system which would have a refrigerated milk tank and a hot water tank. You’d have to load it up with assam and sugar obviously. It would keep your tea warm and continuously top you up so there would always be tea. You could set your optimum tea temperature, strength, milkiness and sweetness. It would have a built in biscuit barrel too.

Then there was an anti-gravity food shopping bag. This obviously isn’t possible but I’m laying claim to the idea now. Y’know so you don’t have to struggle to carry your bags in.

And last, but certainly not least, a freezer that could make these little frozen orange mousse cups. Bitter dark chocolate that snaps when you bite into it. Soft, orangey mousse. I’d happily have a freezer that kept a drawer full of these.

Do you have a foodie invention?

I’m entering these into Kavey Eats Bloggers Scream for Ice Cream Challenge who has joined forces with Random Recipes. I landed on the Divine Chocolate Cookbook. (Page 158)

I didn’t make any changes to the recipe other than halving it and making them in mini silicone muffin cases.

Chipotle Rolls

honeyanddough

no comments

August 17, 2014

I’ve always been envious of cook-offs. Chilli cook-offs and barbecue cook-offs. You don’t see that in the UK.

You don’t see the British people taking over a Sainsbury’s car park with their cars, open flames and tanks of calor gas. You don’t hear shrieks of “OOOooowWeee! We’re cooking with GAS”. With the obligatory cooler filled with ice and beer. And a table full of unimpressed looking judges.

It’s not fair. I think we’re missing out. I’d go to one. I’d make my favourite chilli or my butterflied barbecue chicken.

In the meantime, I’ll settle for these chipotle rolls. Enriched bread dough with smoky and spicy chipotle. Lovely.

Ingredients

500gr strong white bread flour

Pinch of salt

7gr fast action yeast

50gr room temperature butter

250ml warm water

3 chipotle chilis in adobe sauce

1 egg

Method

1, In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook attachment, sift the flour, yeast and salt together.

2, Add in the butter and turn the stand mixer on. This will break the butter up for you.

3, In a blender (or cup blender) blend the warm water and chilis together until smooth. There may be some chunky seeds floating about but that is fine.

4, With the stand mixer still on, add in the egg and wait for it to break up and become incorporated. Slowly add in the chipotle water until the dough comes together. Leave this to knead on a medium speed until the dough is smooth and elastic.

5, Transfer into a greased bowl, cover with cling film and leave to rise for an hour or until it has doubled in size.

6, Knock the air out of the dough and give it another quick couple of kneads by hand. Divide the dough into eight pieces and place in a greased baking dish.

7, Cover back with cling film, return to the warm place while your oven preheats to 220o/c.

8, When the oven is hot enough, brush the tops of the rolls with a little flavourless oil and bake for 20-25minutes. They will be cooked through when the underside of the rolls is tapped and it sounds hollow. You might have to cover them with foil for the last five minutes in the oven; this just helps the tops from not going too brown.

9, Cool slightly before serving either warm.

Coconut Rum Marshmallows

honeyanddough

9 comments

August 10, 2014

Coconut Rum Marshmallows

For the past two months, I have had a song intermittently stuck in my head. This is purely my own fault.

As soon as summer hits, I listen to every Beach Boys song that I have on my iPod at full blast.

This is my welcome in summer ritual and I’ve never regret doing it. Until now.

I thought I had cracked it. I thought it had gone, but as I was measuring out the 100ml of coconut rum that goes in these marshmallows (at 8.30am on a Saturday), it came back.

How do you get songs out of your head? I’m trying by eating a lot of marshmallows.

Ingredients

100ml coconut rum (like Malibu)
20ml water
23gr powdered gelatine

1tbsp cornflour sifted with 2tbsp of icing sugar
Flavourless oil for greasing

160ml golden syrup
440gr caster sugar
Water

2 heaped tablespoons of toasted desiccated coconut
50gr milk or dark chocolate

Method

1, (Aruba, Jaimaca, ooh I wanna take her) Put the coconut rum, water and gelatine in the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with a whisk attachments, and give it a quick mix. You need to leave the gelatine to absorb the liquid and “sponge”.

2, (Bemuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama) Brush a thin layer of oil on the bottom and sides of a seven inch square cake pan (I use a silicone bakeware for this but if you are going to use a metal cake pan, line it first with cling film, then oil that). Shake the cornflour and icing sugar combo mix around the pan, making sure it is completely covered. Shake out the excess.

3, (Key Lago, Montego, baby why don’t we go) In a large saucepan, stir together the golden syrup, caster sugar and enough water to cover it. Set this over a medium heat, clip on a sugar thermometer and stir until it starts to boil. This needs to reach 130o/c. If you see any little sugar crystals around the edge when you are boiling, carefully brush them out of the pan with a wet pastry brush. If you go over 130o/c, bad things will happen. The marshmallows will lose their classic chewiness and become kind of brittle and grainy.

4, (Off the Florida Keyes, there’s a place called Kokomo) When the syrup is up to temperature, turn on the stand mixer to a low/medium speed and carefully trickle the hot sugar into the bowl. Take care not to hit the spinning whisk, you don’t want this spitting up into your face.

5, (That’s where you want to go, to get away from it all) When all the syrup is in, turn the mixer up to a medium/high speed and beat until it pales, increases in volume and has a texture that is like really sticky bubblegum. Scoop this out into the prepared pan and give it a little wiggle to help smooth the top. Sprinkle the toasted coconut on top and gently press this down so you have a completely flat top.

6, (Bodies in the sand, tropical drink melting in your hand) Leave to cool and set for at least three hours. Remove from the pan and slice. Melt the chocolate and drizzle over the top. Leave this to cool until set and then enjoy.

(We’ll be falling in love, to the rhythm of the steel drum band, down in Kokomo)

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I’m entering these into We Should Cocoa, a monthly chocolate challenge created by Choclette. This month is hosted by Rebecca at BakeNQuilt who has set marshmallows as a task. You can read all about We Should Cocoa and how to enter by clicking here.