Recipe: Raspberry Meringue Croquenbouche

Gold shimmer spray gives this festive dessert a luxurious look

So it's the 27th December, and we're into that weird part of the festive season where some people are back at work, others are still partying and others still are sitting with their Christmas presents/mounds of cooked turkey wondering what to do next.

We had this as our dessert on Christmas Day itself, but it would work just as well if you're seeing family or friends in between Christmas and New Year, or if you're being super grown up and having a sit down dinner on New Year's Eve (instead of just ordering pizza to go with your champagne as I usually do).

You might think it's mad to attempt a dessert with 5 separate constituent parts. And you'd probably be right. The choux pastry took three attempts after some rather pancake like affairs. Many thanks to my Mum Rachel for her calming of me when I went full Bake Off meltdown, sitting crestfallen in front of the oven after batch two, and to my brother Chris and his girlfriend Sarah for their expertise in choux pastry. The recipe below for the pastry part is hers.

For the raspberry meringues:

6 egg whites
2 tbsp freeze dried raspberries
1 tsp sherry vinegar
300g caster sugar
2 drops pink food colouring

For the creme anglaise filling:

6 egg yolks
600ml whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 tbsp caster sugar
1 tbsp cornflour
4 sheets gelatin

For the choux buns:

50g butter

100ml water

65g plain flour

2 eggs, beaten

1 small punnet of raspberries

For the raspberry coulis:

1 small punnet of raspberries

2 tbsp water

4 tbsp caster sugar

For the chocolate ganache:

200g dark chocolate

50ml whole milk

gold shimmer spray

To make the raspberry meringues, whisk the egg whites with an electric whisk until at the stiff peak stage. Slowly add the caster sugar one spoonful at a time and continue whisking until you have stiff glossy paste and all the sugar has been incorporated into it. Slowly fold in the pink food colouring, sherry vinegar and dried raspberries. If you want to go full on camp Barbie pink then do so, but you may want to use a pink food gel instead as too much liquid will destabilise the meringue.

Line a deep round 8-10" springform cake tin with greaseproof paper. Draw around the tin three times onto three other sheets of greaseproof paper and pipe or spoon the meringue mixture onto the circles. Leave a gap of 1-2cm between the edge of the circle and the meringue to allow for it to rise in the oven. Bake in the oven on 180C for 1 hour or until the meringue is lightly caramelised on top. Allow to cool.

Heat 300ml of the cream in a saucepan. Using the electric whisk again, mix the sugar, egg yolks, cornflour and vanilla extract until pale and light. Soak the gelatin in cold water for 5 minutes then add to the cream and stir until melted. Pour the cream into the egg mixture, stir until combined, then return to the pan and heat gently until thickened. Allow to cool slightly then refrigerate until solid. Whip the remaining cream until thick, then whisk the custard mixture to break it down. Slowly fold in the cream.

To make the choux buns, heat the butter and water until the butter is melted. Allow to boil slightly. then take off the heat and quickly shoot the flour into the saucepan. Beat with a wooden spoon until it forms a glossy roux that comes away from the sides of the pan. The roux will be slightly spongy. Beat in the eggs a little at a time until it forms a glossy stiff paste. Pipe or spoon small 2cm balls on to greaseproof paper and bake for 10 mins on 220C, then lower the temperature to 190C for 20 mins until golden brown.

Add the sugar, raspberries and water to a small pan and boil until the raspberries have disintegrated. Push through a nylon sieve and set aside. Heat the chocolate and the milk in a double boiler until combined and glossy.

Put the first layer of meringue into the lined cake tin. Don't worry if it cracks slightly. Spoon a little chocolate ganache over the top. Spoon or pipe the custard cream into the choux buns then arrange the first layer over the top of the meringue. Sprinkle some raspberries over the top and some of the raspberry coulis. Repeat until you have all 3 meringues, coulis, raspberries, ganache and choux pastry used up. The last meringue layer should be the top. Put the whole tin into the fridge for at least an hour to allow it to set further. 

When ready to serve, place the tin onto a glass and use it to push the cake out of the tin. Arrange on a plate and spray with the gold spray. Add chocolate decorations if you would like. 

3 Hot Drinks for Christmas

So we're coming up to the big day itself and no doubt most of you have had a LOT of mulled wine already in the lead up. Try my recipe for a fruitier, sweeter mulled wine below as well as two other Christmassy drinks to get you in the festive mood.

Mulled Wine

2 bottles red wine
500ml orange juice
300ml ruby port
2 cinnamon sticks
3 star anise
6 cloves
1 orange
50g caster sugar
Muslin bags (you can buy these on Amazon)

Pour the wine, orange juice, sugar and port into a large pan and heat gently. Don't allow to boil or you'll lose the alcohol content (and nobody wants that!)

Cut the cinnamon sticks with a sharp knife into small parts and pack into the muslin bags along with the cloves and star anise. Add into the liquid. Slice the oranges thickly and add to the pan. Serve in wine glasses with a napkin to hold if too hot.

Winter Punch

This makes a nice change to mulled wine.

1 litre cranberry juice

1 litre apple juice

100ml plum brandy (I use Croatian slivovitz)

100ml port

100ml bourbon

2 cinnamon sticks

Heat all the ingredients gently in a large saucepan until hot to taste. Don't allow to boil or you'll lose the alcohol.

Boozy Hot Chocolate

4 pints whole milk
2 tbsp cornflour
400g dark chocolate
200ml Baileys
100ml Tia Maria

To serve, grated chocolate, ground nutmeg, whipped cream, marshmallows

In a small mug mix the cornflour with a little of the milk until smooth. Pour the rest of the milk into a large pan then whisk in the cornflour mix. Break up the chocolate into squares and add to the milk mixture. Heat gently on the hob, whisking continually until all the chocolate has melted into the milk. Add the Baileys and the Tia Maria just before serving.

I'm on Youtube!

First video blog with my friend Chris filming. Completely unscripted, no idea what I was doing! Hopefully more to come in the future :)

Slow braised lamb, celeriac puree, roasted cauliflower and beetroot and white wine jus

Hello readers of my blog! Proper hearty winter fare today, prepared this the other day for friends coming over for dinner. Love using a slow cooker in the winter, you just put it on in the morning and later on it's all done. Here's how I did it:

400g deboned lamb shoulder (most supermarkets sell it like this)
Half a bottle dry white wine
570 ml chicken or turkey stock (fresh is ideal!)
3 sprigs of rosemary
4 cloves of garlic

half a cauliflower
half a large celeriac
1 stock cube
knob of butter
dash of milk
olive oil
3 beetroot

Put the lamb, wine, stock, rosemary and garlic into your slow cooker, put on the lid and set on to LOW. The lamb will take about 8 hours to cook at this setting. You can do it for 5 hours on HIGH, but the flavour won't be as developed.

Cut the cauliflower and beetroot roughly (careful, it stains!) and drizzle some olive oil over them. Roast them for 30 mins at 220C. Wash, peel and roughly chop the celeriac, add it to a saucepan with the stock cube and water to cover. Boil for 30 mins or until soft. Drain and puree with the milk and butter.

To make the jus, once the lamb is cooked, take it out to rest. Cover with foil. Pour the cooking juices into a wide frying pan and boil the liquid away until it is thick and shiny. This should take about 30 mins.

Apple and Sultana Crumble Cake

Made this for my mum and her friends at the gym (yes...they all eat cake!) and apparently it all got eaten! It's a big cake, good for a party, or serve it hot as a dessert.

225g butter

225g demerera sugar 

225g self raising flour

4 eggs

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp mixed spice

150g sultanas

4 small apples

For the crumble topping:

100g butter

100g self raising flour

100g caster sugar

Preheat your oven to 180C and line a 10" cake tin with greaseproof paper. 

Cream the butter and the sugar together in a large bowl. You may need to melt the butter in a microwave first so that it's soft enough to mix with the sugar.

 

       

Stir in the eggs, spices and flour and beat with a wooden spoon until thoroughly combined.

Mix in the sultanas.

Spread half of the mixture into the prepared tin. Peel and slice the apples thinly and layer on top like below. You may want to do it in a pretty pattern of interlocking apple slices, but remember this layer won't be seen...

Combine the crumble ingredients in a small bowl and bring together with your fingers. It should be somewhere between a dough and breadcrumb texture.

Spread the rest of the cake batter over the layer of apple and the sprinkle the crumble topping over the cake.

Bake for an hour and a half on the middle shelf. After about an hour, cover the cake loosely with foil to stop the top from burning.

Gluten Free Lemon and Blackcurrant Tart

This was a dessert I made for a group of friends, one of them not being able to eat gluten. It was a bit of store cupboard invention! The rice flour pastry can be a little dry and powdery, so it's good served with some creme fraiche or ice cream.

Make pastry with equal parts butter, caster sugar and rice flour and a little water to bind them. Mix in about 20g ground almonds as well. The pastry will be very crumbly as the rice flour is so fine textured so you won't be able to roll it. Press it into a tart tin, reserving about a quarter of the dough. Bake this blind in the oven at 220C for about 15 mins or until it is pale but hard to the touch. It may crack slightly but don't worry, the filling is solid enough. Mix the rest of the dough into half a jar of lemon curd until it is smooth and glossy. Spread this into the baked pastry case. Drain a can of blackcurrants and spoon these over the top of the lemon mixture. Use the back of a spoon to push them in slightly. Return to the oven on 150C and bake for a further 15 mins or until the filling is set. It may still be wobbly in the middle but this will continue to cook as it solidifies.

The Masterchef Ingredients Challenge

This is the second time I've done this with my friend Tom. It's roughly based on one of the tests on Masterchef, where the chefs are given a box of ingredients and told to make a dish from it under timed conditions.

We've had to modify it slightly. We didn't have a time limit as sadly my kitchen does not have two professional standard cook stations with hobs, sets of pans each etc. We also take it in turns to do savoury and sweet so that we actually have a meal out of it. We set a budget of £10 each, down from £15 last time as it seemed a bit too high.

So here is what Tom presented me with this evening:

Chicken breasts, peppers, cherry tomatoes, conference pears, couscous and feta cheese. There was also balsamic vinegar which I strangely omitted from this photo

And here's what I bought for Tom:

Eggs, blanched almonds, Green and Black's Maya Gold dark chocolate, tinned apricots, cream, sauvignon blanc and gelatin

Tom selected his ingredients with help from The Flavour Thesaurus. We both took a few minutes to plan out our ideas and in about an hour and a half produced the following dishes:

 

Main Course

I stuffed the chicken breasts with the feta and rolled into a ballentine, held in place with cling film and foil. These were then poached and the pan fried for some colour.

The pears and balsamic vinegar were reduced down then and the pureed to make the dark sticky puree on top of the chicken. This contrasted well with the sharp feta. 

I skinned and finely chopped the green and yellow peppers and mixed into the couscous with the roasted cherry tomatoes. Finally the red pepper was blended with stock (admittedly too much, I didn't want it so liquid!). Overall I was very happy with the flavours but could have done a bit more with the presentation...

Tom's dessert was an ambitious chocolate panna cotta with apricots, almonds and a chocolate curl. The texture was very smooth but there was some difficulty getting them out of the moulds, leading to it melting a bit on the plate. He first heated the cream and some sugar then slowly whisked in small pieces of chocolate to melt it without catching. The chocolate curls were made by using a large sharp knife and pulling it over melted and solidified chocolate. We didn't realise at the time but the Maya Gold chocolate has hints of cinnamon, nutmeg, orange and vanilla. Luckily for us these flavours combined really well with the almond and the apricot!

Dessert

Trifle Squares

Everyone likes mince pies but they're always there, at every party throughout December. Here's something a little different for a Christmas party that should go down well!

Makes 50-70 small squares depending on size of tins

Sponge:

6 eggs

150g caster sugar

150g self raising flour

3 tbsp sherry, amaretto or pistachio liqueur

Fruit gel layer:

250g mixed frozen berries

1 sachet gelatin powder

1 pack Hartley's strawberry jelly

Custard gel layer:

3 egg yolks

100g caster sugar

Few dashes vanilla extract

300ml double cream

200ml milk

2 sachets gelatine powder

Cream and decorations layer:

300ml double cream

Flaked almonds, fresh raspberries, hundreds and thousands or freeze dried raspberries

Line two swiss roll tins with greaseproof paper and preheat the oven to 200C. Whisk together the sugar and the eggs for the sponge layer until they are thick and creamy and the mixture leaves a trail in the bowl. Carefully fold in the flour, making sure that there's no lumps. Pour into the two lined tins and bake for 10 mins until light brown. Sorinkle the alcohol over the top.

Once the sponges have cooled, remove the greaseproof paper and reline the tins with cling film, allowing plenty to overlap. Put the frozen berries, jelly cubes, gelatine powder and about a pint of water into a microwaveable jug and heat on high until the cubes have melted and the fruit is soft. Blend with a hand blender until smooth and pour over the sponges. Chill in the fridge for an hour or until the gel has set.

Beat the eggs, vanilla and sugar together for the custard layer. Heat the cream and milk together over a low heat (don't let it boil). Once it is heated through, pour onto the egg mixture and whisk together. Return the mix to the pan and add the gelatine powder. Continue to heat through gently until it thickens slightly. Pour carefully over the sponges, trying to avoid it mixing in with the fruit mix. Return to the fridge to set. When ready to serve, quickly whip the cream and spread thinly over the top of the sponges. Sprinkle decorations over and cut into 2-3 cm squares to serve.

Canape Party and more recipes!

My friends Glen and Luke have this amazing warehouse flat in London, it's such a great space for parties, and this year they asked me to do the food. I met with them a few weeks ago to go through what kind of things they wanted and we decided on the following menu:

Mini hamburgers with tomato chutney and cheddar
Honey Roast Sausages
Salmon blinis
Tortilla squares
Ardennes pate, red onion marmalade, crostini
Red pepper filo parcels
Sundried tomato and mozarella arancini
Lime and mango chicken
crudites and dips
Mini chocolate cupcakes with gold frosting
Salted caramel and chocolate shortbread


I've included some of the basic recipes below, and some photos of the platters :)

Chocolate cupcakes. The colour doesn't come through all that well in the photo but these were topped with chocolate fudge frosting and then sprayed gold. My piping bag split in half when I tried to pipe the first one so I had to  spoon it on and shape each one.

These are very easy to assemble, you can buy crostini from most supermarkets. The red onion marmalade is easy too, just put 2 finely chopped red onions, 1 tbsp olive oil, 3 tbsp balsamic vinegar and 2 tbsp sugar in a saucepan and slowly heat through until the sugar dissolves and the onions are soft.

Totally cheated on these, they're just shop bought puff pastry cut into squares and topped with slow cooked peppers in a tomato sauce

Again, very simple, make a marinade from 1 tin of mangoes and tbsp curry paste and blend until smooth. Stir into 1kg diced chicken breast and leave in the fridge for at least 2 hours. Pour into a greased oven proof dish and cook for 30 mins on 200C.

The blinis are a basic pancake mix thickened with a little more flour and some baking powder to give them a fluffier texture. They are then topped with cream cheese, salmon and dill, then garnished with lemon twists (for that ultra 70s look)

Omelettes and tortillas are really hard to make in a frying pan, especially if you want them to come out in one piece. Sidestep all this by making it in a greaseproof paper lined roasting tin. It will take about 30-40 mins in the oven to set. Basically it's a quiche without the pastry.

A selection of dips for crudites and crisps, mostly Asian flavour inspired, garlic ginge and star anise, chilli salsa, thai green curry and soy and chilli

Again, a very simple recipe. If you've ever made risotto you'll know how easily it goes solid once it's cold. That's what you're trying to achieve here. The risotto was made with 2 mozzarella balls, half a bag of risotto rice, and half a jar of sundried tomatoes. Once it's cooled, you roll them into little balls and bake them at 220C for about 20 mins until slightly browned.

These little burgers or sliders are made with the smaller versions of the dinner rolls from the last post. The burgers are 750g minced beef mixed with one egg and 1 finely grated onion. These were served with tiny slices of cheddar and tomato chutney.

First Recipe: Bread Rolls

So as some of you may know, I've applied for the Great British Bake Off for the last few years and have applied again this year. As preparation, I've been trying to get my skills up on a few things that I don't bake often, namely bread and pastry.

Now previously, I've tried making bread in a bread maker at my mum and dad's. And for the most part it came out so dense and chewy it was barely edible. So I decided that I'd go back to basics and make it by hand. After a few goes I'd gone as far as I could with the basic flour and water white loaf. Here's the recipe for the bread rolls I made for the Thanksgiving dinner (see last post).

BREAD ROLLS 

500g strong bread flour
30g butter, in small cubes
1 sachet dried yeast
150ml milk
150ml hand hot water
2 tsp salt
3 tsp sugar
1 egg

Warm the flour in the microwave for 1 minute on high. This will encourage the gluten to stretch further.

Make a well in the centre and pour in the yeast.

Mix together the milk, water,sugar, salt and butter and microwave for 30-40 seconds until the butter has melted. Stir together with a spoon. The mixture should still be "hand hot", any hotter and it can kill the yeast. If it's too hot, let it cool for a few minutes.

Pour the milk mixture over the flour and yeast and mix together with a wooden spoon. It will seem very liquid at first but will come together to form a ball.

Take the dough out and knead it on a warm surface (I use a large wooden chopping board). This should take somewhere between 5-10 minutes. You'll know when it's done as the dough will take on a shiny, blistered appearance.

Put the dough back in the bowl and cover with cling film, place in the fridge. Usually doughs are proven at room temperature or above which makes the yeast work very quickly. Proving at the much lower fridge temperature slows the yeast down and keeps the bubbles very small and develops the flavour. The dough needs a minimum of 8 hours at this temperature to rise to double the size. It works quite well as a last minute before bed or first thing before heading out to work thing.

Once the dough has risen, take it out of the fridge and knock it back down so that the air is squeezed out. Don't overknead it, it will be more than elastic. Shape it into rolls (it will make 8 regular sized round rolls) and using a sharp knife, cut a slit across the top of the dough. Brush with the egg and leave to rise again for another hour at room temperature.

When they've risen again, bake them in a preheated oven at 230C for 30 mins. You may need to cover the rolls with foil after 15 mins to prevent them getting too dark on the top.

Thanksgiving in London

So obviously there's no tradition of Thanksgiving in London. A few years ago my family had the traditional American dinner as it coincided with a day in November when we could all get together. It was good fun, and a bit of a change from the usual roast that we normally have as a family meal.

This year, a friend of mine was visiting London from Chicago and although he loves the UK (check out his blog The Curious American) he was sad that he would miss Thanksgiving in the States. So I thought it would be fun to do a dinner here with him and some other friends and see how it goes.

When I started researching this I realised there's no set standard meal really, it varies from family to family and region to region. A lot of the sites I found with menus had ideas to do different and exciting things for Thanksgiving, finding instructions for a traditional dinner were tricky as in America, everyone already knows it! I eventually settled on the below menu from a selection of sources and a few ideas of my own that seemed vaguely 'murican'. I decided to cut out some things like the sweet potato casserole as I didn't want to eat marshmallow with turkey!

Starter:

Sweetcorn and bacon chowder with cheddar and paprika straws

Main:

Roast turkey with cider gravy

Pork, maple and pecan stuffing

Mashed potatoes

White dinner rolls

Green bean casserole

Honey roasted squash and carrots

Dessert:

Apple and pecan pie with maple cream

Here's the pie before it went into the oven. First time doing lattice work as I don't do a lot of pastry as a rule but it was a lot easier than I thought. The case was first blind baked then the spiced apple and nuts put in afterwards. Hopefully this will avoid the dreaded GBBO 'soggy bottom'. 

Apple and Pecan Lattice Pie

This is the stuffing mix before it's cooked, it's sausagemeat, polenta, milk, red onion, pecan nuts and maple syrup. 

The leftover stuffing (when cooked) was rather nice for breakfast!

I thought these little turkey napkins would be fun, they took longer to make than I thought!

Here's the table layout, my housemates brought back the placemats from Japan, they were kind of Thanksgiving sort of colours so I decided to use them. 

After all my concerns that the turkey wouldn't be ready in time or would be frozen in the middle, it was absolutely fine. We had a fair bit of it but I still have a huge box of cooked turkey meat left, think I might make a curry later :)

Here are the honey roasted carrots and squash, the mash and the stuffing balls. 

Here's the pie cooked, I drizzed maple syrup over the top to give it sweetness and shine to the pastry.

Yay First Post!!

Ok I guess the whole "first post" thing doesn't count when it's your own blog. Especially as no one is actually reading it. Yet.
So this is something I've been meaning to do for for a while. I cook and bake a lot, and read a lot about it too. I guess the trigger for me was finding out that the wedding cake I made for my friends in September has been featured on a wedding website as part of a profile on their wedding. You can read about it here and there's some photos of the cake and other things in my gallery.
So this will be a mixture of things really, some photos and posts of my baking and cooking projects, some restaurant reviews and some of my musings on techniques, ingredients and the food industry in general.