Apparently it’s fashion week something I’m quite oblivious to. I only really notice it when I see the super skinny, super tall girls in the metro with their books and paris maps in hand. I’m really tempted to point them in the direction of the nearest tasty bistro

So while the rest of Paris are deliberating over next season’s cut and colour I’ve been running around like a headless chicken prepping 300 canapés for an haute couture fashion event. And what does one make for an event like this? Well, I wasn’t sure either so I went with a variety of small little “oh so chic” bites.

One of the bites on the menu will be mini versions of these whiter than white lychee panna cotta (ok, I know I’ve added lychee juice which technically makes it more of a jelly than a panna cotta). Creamy but fruity and in a beautiful shade of white. I’m hoping it might even tempt the models.

Whiter than white lychee panna cotta

3 gelatine leaves
250ml lychee juice from the tin
250ml double cream
1 tin of lychees, chopped

4 ramekins

Soak the gelatine in cold water until soft. Heat the all the other ingredients (apart from the lychees) in a pan until it comes to the boil. Take off the heat. Squeeze out the water from the gelatine, add to the cream mixture. Stir well until all the gelatine is disolved. Add the lychees to the ramekins (keep some for serving) Pour into ramekins and leave to cool. Once cool put into the fridge and chill for at least 4 hours (or overnight).

To unmould: Run a sharp knife around the ramekin and then dip the ramekin in a large bowl of hot water for 10 seconds. Place a plate on top of the ramekin and turn over. Decorate with lychees.

I’m very sorry for the slight absence recently. Lots of things happening (some good, some bad). As you can see I’ve been busy doing some coding. I decided to give my blog a little “facelift” and decided to host the site myself which has given me the plus of being able to add more images. Let me know what you think.

Roland Garros just finished in Paris which means Wimbledon is just around the corner. And Wimbledon means strawberries and cream. It’s an absolute “must eat” at the tournament. You usually end up eating them while you’re waiting for the rain to clear. If you’re lucky you might get Cliff Richard doing an impromptu performance

I’ve eaten strawberries and basil before and they go very well together. I recently read that pepper supposedly brings out the sweetness in strawberries. So, I was looking of a way of bringing everything together and thought of a pavlova (partly because I have copious amounts of egg whites leftover every week, any recipes with egg whites welcome ). If you want something more classic just leave out the pepper and replace the basil with mint (or leave it out altogether).

Pepper Pavlova with strawberries and basil syrup

Meringue
3 egg whites
150g sugar
2 pinches of freshly ground pepper

Preheat the oven to 120°c. Whisk the egg whites, add the sugar and pepper halfway through. Beat until stiff. Place 2 large tablespoons of the meringue mixture on the baking paper lined tray. Make sure you leave some space between each meringue. Bake for 30 minutes and then switch the oven off and leave until the oven is cold. I tend to make them the night before and leave them to cool overnight.

Garnish

2 tbsp of chopped fresh basil
A handful of small fresh basil leaves, decoration
50g sugar
50ml water
1 punnet of strawberries, washed and quartered

250ml whipping cream
1 tbsp sugar

Place the sugar and water in a pot and bring to the boil. Shred the basil leaves (save a few small ones for decoration), add to the syrup and leave to infuse. When the syrup is cool, add the strawberries. Gently mix together. Whisk the cream and sugar until stiff.
To serve: Take a meringue, heap some cream in the middle and pile the strawberries on top and garnish with a basil leaf.

Hand me those cupcakes, I need my sugar fix! Well, it certainly feels like that there are a whole load of cupcake junkies out there at the moment. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that everybody in Paris is cupcake crazy. Well the proof has definetly been in eating the pudding! So much so that I’m doing another “Pimp my cupcake” session. It’s already booked up with a waiting list. Wahey!

So next week my kitchen will become a cupcake factory with prepping to do for my class and an order of 500 cupcakes. I’ll probably be suffering from a repetitive cupcake making injury by the end of the week.

My “500 cupcakes” client is after a super fluffy icing (kind of cloud like). The classic buttercream icing just wasn’t fluffy enough for me. So off I went on the quest to find the fluffiest icing possible. I didn’t want to use cream as it has the risk of melting if the it gets too warm. I stumbled across the idea of doing a meringue based icing (sometimes called a 7 minute icing). What I didn’t understand though is that every recipe I came across seemed to contain enormous amount of sugar. Do you really need all that sugar (175g sugar to 1 eggwhite)? I tried mine with a little less and it worked perfectly fine. What’s nice about this icing is that after a couple of hours, it sets and becomes marshmallow-like. Miam miam! If you’re worried about the egg whites (which will be partially cooked) then use powdered egg whites instead.

You can flavour/colour your icing with anything you fancy. I used a rose syrup in this picture but will be using vanilla and pink colouring for the event. Yes, the cupcakes will be super girly with little pink and white heart decorations.

If you don’t hear from me next week it’s probably because I’m suffering from an overdose of cupcakes. I know I’ll end up having to make 520 cupcakes because at least 20 of those will end in my tummy. I mean how can you resist to a cupcake like that?

Fluffy cloud icing

1 egg white
50g sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence (if you’re using other flavouring start off with a tsp, taste and then add more if necessary)

Combine the egg white with the sugar in a heat proof bowl. Set the bowl over a pan with simmering water (=bain-marie) and whisk for 5 minutes. The icing should become thick and glossy. Take off the heat, add the flavouring and coloring (if you’re using any) and whisk for another 2 minutes (5 + 2 minutes = 7 that’s where 7 minute icing name comes from). Ice cupcakes, sprinkle with decorations and leave icing to set. Icing enough for 12 cupcakes.

For a plain vanilla cupcake recipe, click here.

Here’s my pick of cupcake books:

Like every blogger I check my stats regularly. I’m less bothered about it, then when I first started. It’s a hobby not a career (hence me not always blogging, if I don’t feel like doing it, I just don’t). My no. 1 search engine term seems to be 80s. I think it’s because I mentioned it a few times and even made 80s biscuits a while ago. Anyway, this got me thinking about what 80s food I could eat today without having to wear a shellsuit.

Back in the good old days of the 80s at every kids’ (yes, I was still a kid back then ) party I went to, there would always be cheese & pineapple sticks sitting on the buffet table. This party snack came second for me after all the E-numbered and fluorescent coloured junk food.

Even a couple of years of living in a country which produces some of the best cheeses in the world, I would still say that this combo is pretty good. The sweet slightly acidic tang of the pineapple with the saltiness of the cheese is one hell of a match. Change a few things and this would make a perfect canapé (or dessert) for any noughties soirée.

In order not to have that 80s “naff” factor (unless you want that), I think it’s key to:

a) Use fresh pineapple (none of that tinned stuff, thank you!)

b) Not chop everything into cubes and do the classic cheese ‘n pineapple cocktail sticks. Slice them in triangles, circles, heart shapes…be imaginative, just don’t do the cube thing. I cut the pineapple into quarters and then sliced it, which kind of made “triangles”.

Alternatively, you could easily do a pineapple capaccio (you’ll need a good sharp knife to slice the pineapple fine enough), crumble the cheese on top and sprinkle it with freshly chopped mint.

Voilà a quick and simple dessert/starter with no eighties shoulder pads in sight.

80s Cheese & Pineapple, noughties style

1 pineapple, ripe (it’s ripe when you can pull out one the leaves easily)
250g feta cheese
1 bunch of mint, chopped

Do I really need to tell you how to do the rest? No, I thought not.
Send me a mail if you’re REALLY stuck

You say tomatoe (just imagine the yankee accent ) I say tomato (and a brit one here). The same could go for cupcakes or as us Brits call them fairy cakes. I was doing some research for my next cookery class. The theme is cupcakes which is all the rage in Paris and I found a few interesting titbits…

According to the “The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America”, cupcakes were originally just small cakes minus the icing, that came in the 1950s. The “cup” derived from two origins:
1. The switch from weighing to using cup measurements in the 19th century American households.
2. The practice of baking in small containers or cups. Large cakes were often burnt in the the hearth ovens.

Brits use the term “fairy cakes”, as you normally scoop out the top, fill that with buttercream and jam and then cut the top into two wings which you place on top. Hence them looking slightly fairy like. I would normally call those butterfly cakes and all the plain iced cakes, fairy cakes.

Anyway, at the end of the day they taste delicious and bring back memories of sticky little fingers at birthday parties (well, that is if you had an anglophone childhood).

By the way thanks a mil to all those who wished me luck for my muffin class. It went very well. We even had a waiting list for the class. Everyone seemed happy and went home with their little goody box of muffins and muffin secrets. If you’re on Facebook, you can check out the pictures on the La Cocotte group page.

Fairy cakes/cup cakes/small cake

recipe inspired by Donna Hay (my food styling hero )

125g butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla extract
150g caster sugar
3 eggs, beaten
200g self-raising flour
60ml milk
Preheat the oven to 180°c. Cream together the butter, sugar and vanilla essence. Beat in one egg at the time. Sift the flour into the mixture and then add the milk. Spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases and bake for 15 minutes or until the cakes bounce bake when touched or the skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool on a wire wrack.

Dulcheese frosting/icing

75g cream cheese
125g ricotta
200g dulce de leche

Sprinkles/decoration/chopped walnuts

Combine all the ingredients. Spoon into a piping bag. Pipe onto cupcake and sprinkle on decorations. Eat immediately or put in fridge (take out 10 minutes before consuming).

Here’s my pick of cupcake books:

Right now I’m busy prepping for my first cookery class @ La Cocotte this Thursday. I’ve been busy researching, testing, tasting, doing all things muffiny…so much so I think I’m actually becoming a muffin. I found out the word muffin comes from the old french term “moufflet” (=soft). And that the American muffins did originate from the English ones but quickly developed their own style.

The polenta, feta & sundried tomato muffins are ones I’ll be putting in the goody bag which everyone at the cookery class gets to take home (with a few sweets ones too). I’ll let you know how it goes.

Wish me luck!

Btw I tend to use a mini muffin tin because the size is great for snacks or dinner party canapés. But you can make it any size you like, just change the cooking time accordingly.

Polenta, feta & sundried tomato muffins

240g plain flour
150g polenta
2 tsp baking powder
150g sundried tomatoes
150g feta
1 handful of parsley
1 tsp of salt
1 egg
250ml milk
2 tbsp olive oil

Preheat the oven to 185°C. Chop the feta, sundried tomatoes and parsley smaller. Mix all the dry ingredients together. Then mix all the other ingredients. Combine both mixtures (don’t overmix will result in tough muffins). Spoon the mixture into the muffins cases. Bake for 20 - 25 minutes until they are golden. To verify poke a wooden skewer into the centre, if cooked it will come out clean.

I realised after I shot* this, that the raspberry coulis looked rather “blood like” and I even subconsiously made bloodlike splatters.

* Shoot/blood = Hmmmmmmm, maybe I have murder on my mind

I also made a lychee version of this for an event at La Cocotte. I chopped up tinned lychees and placed them at the bottom of the ramekins, poured the panna cotta on top.

Almond milk panna cotta

3 gelatine leaves
250ml almond milk
250ml double cream
2 tsp almond essence
25g sugar

4 ramekins

Soak the gelatine in cold water until soft. Heat the all the other ingredients in a pan until it comes to the boil. Take off the heat. Squeeze out the water from the gelatine, add to the cream mixture. Stir well until all the gelatine is disolved. Pour into ramekins and leave to cool. Once cool put into the fridge and chill for at least 4 hours (or overnight).

To unmould: Run a sharp knife around the ramekin and then dip the ramekin in a large bowl of hot water for 10 seconds. Place a plate on top of the ramekin and turn over.

Serve with raspberry coulis*

* I just heat frozen raspberries up with some sugar and a bit of water if necessary. Wizz it up with a blender and pass it through a sieve. Or if I’m feel extra lazy I just buy ready made stuff. Shock horror!

“When the going gets tough, the tough gets going!” Everyone has some phrase or another for times which are trying. I’ve been hearing a lot of them recently. And I think the saying above is great way of handling things. So I went on a bit of a mission this weekend. Sleeping was definetly not on the menu. Discovering new things, places and lots of dancing (I love dancing = instant happiness for me). On Saturday I came across a new blog which described an exhibition in Paris I just had to go to. I instantly rang to make a reservation, crossing my fingers they would have some spaces free.

Luckily they did, so the next day I made my way to find this 3 day only café/exhibition. Hidden behind a heavy door and up some winding steps, the gallery was situated in two apartments. Anne, the curator and creator of the exhibition gave me a guilded tour. Explaining the work of Guillaume Hillairet and the beautiful ceramic objects she had made. The tea salon was situated in the living room which had wonky doors and floors. She served a warm orange flowerwater rice pudding with orange compote and a buckwheat biscuit. The tea cup (which was designed by Anne like all the tableware) came wrapped up in the cutest red and white polka dot fabric. She also had a very interesting documentary on Japanese food preparation running on two screens in the tea salon.

So all in all I had a delightful Sunday afternoon and weekend. No recipe unfortunately but I thought I’ld share this with you instead!

Talking about sharing some gems, a while ago I was awarded an Excellent blog award by Happy Love Strawberry. The idea is you pass on the award to 5 other food bloggers. It’s a pretty difficult one to do as there are so many beautiful food blogs out there. But here’s my selection (in no particular order):

Whiteplate

The fact I don’t understand what Liska @ Whiteplate writes about (although she does translate the recipes sometimes) is outshone by her tasty and beautifully photographed recipes.

Fayeki

With recipes like Cherry blossom cardamom English cream or Raspberry swirl brownies and stunning photography, how could you resist?

Sooishi

Ok, it’s in French (but google does a fairly good translation and I’m sure Sooishi would help you if you ask nicely ;-)) Great inspiration if you want to try something a little different.

Nordljus

If only I had just half the patience and skill to make these amazing dishes.

Nectar & Light

A little less foody but there’s just something about these images. Looking at them you know that the dishes have been made with a lot of love.

And voilà my little selection. Tough one to make with so many amazing blogs out there.

Just a quick mention: Last week I won the DMBGLIT edibility category for my Blueberry pancakes. Thanks you judging panel! I could not believe it. I had to do a little celebration dance when I saw the results announced on Cookbook catchall.

]]> http://www.rkhooks.net/2008/04/08/hidden-tasty-treasures/feed/ http://www.rkhooks.net/2008/04/01/a-match-made-in-heaven-currant-scones-clotted-cream/ http://www.rkhooks.net/2008/04/01/a-match-made-in-heaven-currant-scones-clotted-cream/#comments Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:42:45 +0000 rkhooks http://rkhooks.net/?p=482

Currant scones*

1 tbsp sugar
300g plain flour
11⁄2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
200ml/9fl oz milk
50g/1oz butter, melted
150g currants

Soak the currants in hot water for an hour. Preheat the oven to 220°C. Sieve the flour and baking powder together, add the sugar and salt, mix. Drain the currants. Add the currants and the milk and butter to the rest of the ingredients. Mix and then knead together to form a dough. Roll out to 3cm thickness on a floured surface, then using the rim of a glass, cut out 5cm wide rounds and place on a greased baking tray. Bake for 10 minutes, until golden. Serve with clotted cream, jam and of course, tea!

*P.S. This recipe isn’t an April fool

Remember back in October my fifth time lucky muffins? Well, this week the book came out for which we (La Cocotte and I) wrote the recipe for. The delivery guy hardly made it through the bookshop’s door this Tuesday I was so excited. Like a kid on Christmas day I ripped open the box and flicked through the book to find my recipe. Very very happy with the result (I’m even in the picture, well half of me is ;-)) and the book has lots of other amazingly delicious recipes too (Rhubarb & strawberry, sticky toffee…the list goes on). Taking a leaf out of the book, my mum and I decided to invent our own muffin recipe. Currently at my parents this weekend, with the weather being snowy one minute, sunshiny the other, the best bet is to stay inside.

If you’re in Paris on the 29th March we’ll be having a “Muffin” booklaunch at La Cocotte. So do pop by if you’re around. There’ll be lots of tasty muffins to eat.

These muffins would be for a perfect packed lunch. Easy to make, with sunflower seeds and a fruit component. This is a much healthier dessert option than a chocolate bar. Check out Coffee & Vanilla’s Wholesome lunchbox event for other great ideas!

Lemon, sunflower seed & plum compote Muffins
taken from “Les recettes de Bob: Muffins originaux et authentiques”

Muffin mixture

2 eggs
110ml sunflower oil
150ml milk
110g sugar
240g self raising flower
75g sunflower seeds, chopped
1 lemon

Plum/Oat mix
75g oats
100g plum purée/compoté*
1 tablespoon sugar (optional)

12 hole muffin tin with papercases

Preheat the oven to 160°c. Grate the zest of the lemon and then juice it. Add all the other ingredients to the bowl except the plum/oat mix. Mix together (if there are a few lumps, don’t worry. It’s better not to overmix , otherwise the muffins will come out brick like). Mix together the oats and plum purée add some sugar if the mixture is not sweet enough. Spoon a heaped tablespoon of the muffin mixture into each papercase and then add a heaped teaspoon of the plum/oat topping. Slightly fold (or marble) the mixtures together using a knife. Bake for 25-35 minutes.

*My mum just chopped up some plums and boiled them with a little water until they were soft enough to purée. She added no sugar as the plums were sweet enough.