Well, the tarts and sponge cake were all happily eaten by work colleagues, my small group and my brother's small group! I resolved to do less baking, but then I had a friend coming… So, come Friday night, in my typical party animal style, I cleaned my flat. Once I'd cleaned my flat, hoovered, dusted, done the washing up and cleaned the bathroom (aren't you proud ;)) rung my parents and my cousin, I suddenly realised there was no cake in the house and I had someone coming round. As it was heading for 10pm I decided that rock cakes were definitely the way to go. They're so easy to make and so tasty, unlike the other things I have no photos as they're just too run of the mill. I just use the recipe from Bero cook book:
Rock Cakes
8 oz Self raising flour
4 oz marg
1 pinch salt (that I never bother to add)
3 oz mixed dried fruit
1 oz mixed peel (I always add extra as it's my favourite bit)
2 oz caster sugar (granulated works pretty much as well though, just gives a different texture)
1 egg
Milk to mix
Heat oven to 200C/Gas Mark 6
1. Rub in fat to flour til breadcrumb-ish
2. Stir in dried fruit, mixed peel and sugar
3. Mix in egg and bit of milk till still dough
4. Put in blobs onto tray and cook for 10-15 mins (always check after 10 though!)
Happily the rock cakes have mostly been disposed of by me and my friend, and by sending some home with my lovely friend who had come to visit me from Oxford! We had a most pleasant day, catching up, drinking tea, having a wander around Warwick and then deciding to make pie. Now, this pie is a recipe (once again) that I found at work and copied down with some details missing…. So we had fun trying to understand them. I shall recreate them for you as clearly as possible here because the pie was TASTY. As we couldn't wait for it to cool completely we had to eat it when it was still a little bit runny but once it was refrigerated it worked very well, and provided a picturesque slice which I duly photographed!
So, I hadn't a previously cooked pie crust so I made it so we filled it while still warm, which didn't seem to make any difference in the end. I just used sweet shortcrust pastry (8oz flour, 4oz marg, 1 oz caster sugar, water to mix)
Now, the odd thing about this recipe is that you mix 6oz sugar with 2tbsp of cornflour (I had missed the flour out of the ingredients list so its in the instructions but I had no idea how much to put in so I just missed it out!) with 8 fl oz water. What happens is that you end up with a pale white mixture which you heat for ages and then suddenly globules of something jelly like appear in it. Then the rest of the mix suddenly almost solidifies, goes clear and jelly like. It's very, very weird but quite cool. I'd like to know the science behind it because I've never seen any other mixture do it. Anyway, that part of the mixture worked well. The egg yolks were added safely, once we'd mixed some of the freaky mix with them before adding it all back to the mix so they didn't scramble. Then the lemon juice and zest - I added the zest of a whole lemon, because I'm a fan of lemony stuff, and it tasted good in the end.
Now I had no idea what the cream was for as this I'd left in the ingredients but NOT put in the method. So, when I made the choc mix, by taking some of the lemony, freaky mixture and adding the choc, I added some cream. I think it was probably unnecessary though, though next time I'd probably add a bit of milk to make it easier to melt the chocolate without burning it.. Still feeling extremely full as its moreish and light and lemony but then kinda suddenly hits the bottom of your stomach and you feel like you'll be full forever. Probably not helped by the yummy tea that we made of sliced potatoes with cream, milk, butter, bacon and cream cheese with brie on top. Our poor arteries….. Never mind, I'll be nice to them next week. So here's the recipe of the semi-complicated pie, which I have adjusted slightly due to my errors! I can't for the life of me remember where I got the recipe from - will have to start taking notes, otherwise I'll just be pinching people's recipes which was definitely not my intention!
Lemon Truffle Pie
1 baked pie crust, cooled
6 oz sugar
2tbsp cornflour
8fl oz water
2 yolks, beaten
1 tbsp marg
Grated lemon zest of 1 lemon
Juice of 1 lemon
6 oz white choc chips
8 oz light cream cheese
1. Combine sugar, cornflour and flour and mix well - mysterious flour that I left out the ingredients, I think it might be 2 tbsp flour too, might be completely wrong on that, but I can't think it would destroy the world to add it!
2. Stir in water till smooth. Cook over medium heat till boils, stir constantly. - at this point it goes suddenly freaky
3. Reduce heat, cook for 2 mins, stirring constantly.
4. Remove from heat, stir some of the mixture into the egg yolks, blend well.
5. Add egg yolk mix back into pan. Cook over heat till mixture boils, cook for 2 mins, stirring constantly.
6. Remove from heat, add marg, lemon peel and juice.
7.Transfer 3fl oz of hot filling to a small saucepan. Add white choc chips (and a bit of cream or milk) and stir until melted. (leave the rest of the mixture to cool for 15 mins)
8. Beat cream cheese till fluffy, add melted chocolate mix, beat until blended. Spread over bottom of pie shell. Spoon lemon mix over cream cheese layer, refrigerate till set.
No comments:
Post a Comment