I cannot belive how fast the year is galloping past, and we are at the end of January.

Month end also means Fresh From the Oven reveal date, where this month we were challenged by Silvia and Ivan from mushitz, to make bread using the Tangzhong method.

Tangzhong means water roux – and the method was popularised in the 1990s by Yvonne Chen’s book “The 65º C Bread Doctor”.    By making a roux you develop some of the gluten before the bread is baked, and the resulting loaf is very fluffy soft and tender.

The bread was indeed, fluffy, soft and tender and delicious, but was also the stickest dough I have ever worked with, not something that I would have liked to attempt without Fifi, my new and already very loved stand mixer with her trusty dough hook.

I will be making this one again, maybe stuffing the loaf next time.

Thanks to Silvia and Ivan for a fantastic challenge.

Recipe: Tangzhong Bread

Adapted from Christine’s Recipes

For the Tangzhong:

• 30 gr flour;
• 150 gr cold water.

For the Dough:

• 350 gr strong flour;
• 5 gr instant yeast (or 15 gr fresh yeast);
• 55 gr sugar;
• 5 gr salt;
• 1 egg;
• 125 gr milk (buttermilk works too);
• 120 gr tangzhong;
• 30 gr butter, melted and cooled.

For Glazing:

• the rest of the tangzhong – it adds gloss and nice golden colour to the crust during baking.

Prepare the tangzhong. Whisk together cold water and flour (there should be no lumps) and cook over low heat (stirring all the time) until the temperature reaches 65ºC.

If you don’t have a thermometer – no problem – cook until the spoon you’re stirring with leaves a trace. The mixture should have the consistency of something in the middle between crème anglaise and pastry cream.

Leave the tangzhong to cool down at room temperature before using it.

Prepare the dough. Dissolve yeast in the milk. Combine together flour, sugar and salt then add in milk with the yeast, tangzhong and egg. Use your hand or stand mixer equipped with the dough hooks to mix all the ingredients into a soft dough then add in the butter. Let the mixer do the kneading part for 15 – 20 minutes. You can say if the dough is ready by tearing a small piece of it and stretching it to a very thin membrane before it tears. Cover the bowl and leave it to become double in bulk.

Knock the dough down on a lightly floured counter top, give it a quick knead just to let the gas escape, then form it as desired – a loaf or small buns. Transfer to buttered loaf pan or lined with paper sheet pan if making buns. Cover with plastic wrap and let it double in bulk again.

Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Brush with the rest of the tangzhong and bake for around 30 – 35 minutes until nicely golden.

The first cake of the year, from the Great British Bake Off How to Bake book, and a timely post as the celebrity Great Sport Relief Bake Off is on telly tonight.

A full review of the book is on its way, I am hoping it will have been better edited than the one from the first series which I did not have much success with.

I made the sticky orange cake, using homemade butter (recipe to come) made from greatly reduced double cream.

Recipe: Sticky Orange Marmalade Cake

Ingredients
175g unsalted butter – softened
175 caster sugar
3 large free range eggs – beaten
175g Self Raising flour
pinch salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
3 tbs Seville Orange marmalade
2 tbs milk

To finish
3 tbs marmalade
100g icing sugar
2 tbs warm water

Grease and line a 20cm cake tin.

Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F / GM4.

Beat the butter with a wooden spoon or electric mixer until creamy.  Gradually beat in the sugar, continue beating until the mixture becomes pale and fluffy.

Gradually add the eggs, beating well all the time.  Add a tbs of flour with the last of the egg.  Sift in the remaining flour, salt and baking powder and gently fold in.   Add the marmalade and milk.

Spoon the mixture into the in and spread evenly.  Bake for about 50 – 55 mins until golden brown and firm to the touch.    Run a round blade knife round the inside of he tin and turn out onto a wire rack.   Warm the second portion of the marmalade and brush over the top of the warm cake.   Leave to cool completely.

Sift the icing sugar into a bowl, add the warm water and mix.  Spoon the mix over the cake, letting it run down the sides.  Leave to set before cutting.   Store in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

I added extra marmalade to the cake, and found that there was far too much icing – halve the quantity.

Recipe reproduced with permission of BBC Books

Sending this recipe to Dom’s random recipes – where this month the challenge is to cook something from your newest cookbook!

And to #citruslove.

I am a bit of a matcha nut, and today am delighted to have some matcha from Teapigs to giveaway.  There is one main prize of a matcha gift set – with matcha, measuring scoop, whisk and shot glass worth £32.50 and a runner up prize of a tin of matcha.

Matcha not only tastes great, but it also contains 15 times as many antioxidants as regular green tea.  Also it is fab for -

• improving condition of skin, hair and nails
• providing a gentle energy boost lasting 4-6 hours
• reducing mental stress and increasing concentration

As well as all that you can use it in baking – try these matcha muffins or madeleines.

Matcha is also great in dressings too.  Here is a dressing from Laura Santtini’s new book Flash Cooking, which was featured in the Sunday Times for their healthy new year’s diet (part 2 is tomorrow).

Far Eastern (Matcha and Lime Yoghurt) Finishing Yoghurt

1 tsp matcha tea
1 tsp chopped chives
grated zest of 1 whole lime and a squeeze of juice
some dried shisho (optional)
3tbsp Greek-style live yoghurt

Try adding a pinch of wasabi for an unexpected ninja kick!

Stir this into soup, or set a dollop in the centre of each bowl, or sit them on the side of a plate to give a refreshing finish to fish, meat, and vegetable dishes. Add the ingredients shown to 3 tablespoons of live Greek-style yoghurt for enough to serve 2-3 people.

Laura Santtini, Flash Cooking: Fit, Fast Flavours for Busy People (Quadrille.£20)

If you want to try some matcha, or anything else from Teapigs, enter FUSSFREE12 at the checkout for a 20% discount.

Win A TeaPigs Matcha Gift Set

How To Enter

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For more prizes see the giveaways page on both Fuss Free Flavours, and Fuss Free Living

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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4. There is one main prize of a matcha gift set, and a runner up prize of a tin of matcha.
5. I am running this competition in good faith on behalf of Teapigs, who will be responsible for sending the prize to the winner. Their decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into. They reserve the right to substitute the prize for one of a similar type / value if the prize above is not available.
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Good Luck!

Many thanks to Teapigs for the prize and for my tin of matcha.

As a rule I tend not to do trends, and cake pops have only featured on this blog once before.   But I was struck by a, if I might say so, fantastic idea, of a cake pop bauble!

If you google “Cake Pop Bauble” there are bauble cake pops out there, but still on a stick.   I have not seen another hanging bauble non-pop anywhere in the entirety of Foodblog Sphere, which I find pretty darned surprising.

So Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, what I am fairly certain is the first dangling cake non-pop bauble! (Surely the pop is from lollipop – so as there is no stick these are non-pops)

I see all sorts of mileage in these, hearts for Valentine’s day, eggs for Easter, Chinese lanterns.   I am sure that they are probably going to crop up all over the place now, and have probably existed for ages without me noticing them, but, hopefully maybe, once in my blogging life I would have been a baking trend setter.

Firstly make your filling, by mixing up crumbled cake and butter cream, I used Christmas Cake from my Great Supermarket Christmas Cake Taste Test.

Then make your hanging loops, I used bootlace sweets, doubled over and knotted.  Whilst my non-pop baubles were drying 6 out of the 10 snapped.   Doubled up they would work perfectly, or find a slightly stronger or thicker sweet, or make smaller baubles.

Roll a spoonful of cake and buttercream mix into a ball, then poke a hole in it with the scissors and push the knot of the loop in, and roll again the best you can so the loop is sticking out of the top.

Put your naked non-pop baubles into the freezer to chill well before dipping.

For the coating I used red candy melts.   NEVER AGAIN.    I hate candy melts.   I found it really really hard to get the right consistency, and needed to stir like mad after dipping every third pop to get any sort of even coverage.    Next time I will be making a white chocolate ganache and using gel food colouring to dye it.    Works a treat, and tastes far nicer too!

Hang the pops from a dowel to set.   It was at this point that the laces started to break and much swearing ensued.   I was going to decorate them with sprinkles, but had forgotten that I was going out, so ran out of time.

Once set I decorated them using the Mitch Turner Cake Lustres, using a fine paint brush.    I love these lustres, as Sarah said they are like nail polish for cake.   Sadly my artistic skills or the surviving balls and camera I am using  are really not enough to do them justice.

Again, apologies for the photos, my much loved DSLR is at the camera hospital.

Thanks to Baking Mad for the lustres.

sending this to Karen & Kate’s Tea Time Treats, where, surprise surprise the theme is Christmas!

and also English Mum’s Christmas Bakeoff .

I have a bit of a thing for silicone bakeware and I bought the most beautiful petit triskell silicone mould – as well as 4 others -  when on holiday in France in October, but had not quite got round to using any of them.   I had imagined little bite sized madeira cakes flavoured with orange, with white chocolate and pistachios would be the perfect in my new mould.  Sadly, despite copious use of cake release spray, the chocolate drops stuck and my little cakes are not quite as pretty as they could be.

Even so, I love the shape and am quite determined to find the perfect cake for the mould.  Currently I am leaning towards petit triskell madeleines.

They, were however delicious, Ed and I scoffed the entire lot whilst they were still warm.   A 1 egg mix was the perfect quantity for the tray!

Sadly stuck, but you can see how lovely the mould is

The pistachios were a sample from Wonderful Pistachios, as well as the unsalted ones I used, they also come in delicious and very moreish salted, salt & pepper and sweet chilli flavours.   They claim that a visible bowl of shells will make you realise just how many you are eating, which -  in theory at least – means that you do not eat too many.   I am fairly positive that this theory does not work for me.

Recipe: White Chocolate, Orange & Pistachio Petit Triskells

Makes 15 bite sized cakes

Ingredients
2oz / 50g soft butter
2oz / 5og caster sugar
1 egg – free range please
3oz plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder (or use self raising flour)
1 dsp milk
finely grated zest of 1/4 orange
1 tbs white chocolate chips
1tbs roughly chopped pistachio nuts

Method

Preheat the oven to GM4 / 180C / 350F

Using an electric whisk cream together the butter and sugar until soft and fluffy.   Whisk in the egg and 1 tsp of the flour (this stops the mixture curdling).

Fold in the remaining ingredients.

When mixed spoon into well-greased moulds and bake for about 12 minutes, until risen and springy.

Apologies for the photos which are even worse than usual; I dropped my DSLR which is currently with the camera doctor, leaving me praying it will not be too expensive or even terminal.  I am left with using my ancient point and shoot.

Sending this to this month’s We Should Cocoa where the theme is orange.

It has to be said that few people know their own mind as well as a small child, and one particular small child was insistent that he wanted a wolf cake for his birthday party.

6 year old F, who is Ed’s nephew, had already had a bat cake on his actual birthday and the wolf cakes were for his party.   We tried to persuade him to have bat cupcakes, I showed him Sarah’s here, but to no avail.   “But bats are not orange Helly, I want a wolf cake”.  His older sister H, was holding out for the remains of the chocolate orange, but F was not to be persuaded.

“I want a grey wolf cake, but I could also have a yellow or red Ethiopian wolf or a snowy white wolf”.   And apparently Ethiopian wolves do not go grey with age, they stay either yellow or red.

Wolf cakes it was. In a previous year F was equally insistent that he had to have an Easy-jet cake, not BA or any other airline, which required a vat of orange food colouring.

I set to work humming A-Ha to myself.

Given a lack of time I was rather pleased with these, simply pipe a swirl of grey buttercream, then add ears and a nose.   Fangs were cut up mini marshmallows and the eyes gold soft balls from Dr Oetker and the responsibility of my able assistant H.    If I were making these again I would make more prominent eyes using a polka dot with a drop of black food colouring on it.

Both children had a great time practising piping onto a chopping board, we scraped the board clean and refilled the piping bag a good few times.

I have a feeling that with the addition of whiskers these could also work as cat cupcakes?

I have just realised that I do not have a basic cupcake recipe on the site!  Time to write one!

Once again it is the end of the month, and there is another Fresh From the Oven Challenge, this month panettone, chosen by Sarah at Maison Cupcake.   I am doubly proud of myself this month as I have both: -

• Made it on time
• Posted it on time

I am still suffering from the dreaded blog backlog, and despite never learning from my mistakes, already have much of my January content planned (it is a themed month which I am really looking forward to).

Christmas has come early in the Fuss Free kitchen, and I’d like to introduce you to Fifi La Firecracker, who arrived on Friday.

I am already smitten, and the very pretty Fifi (everyone does name their stand mixers surely?) has been put through her paces several times making dough, cupcakes and buttercream.   I am very very lucky, and very appreciative to Kenwood who gave me the mixer for review and extensive testing.

I have already realised that I need slightly relearn making bread, as I up until now I have done it by feel, not appearance.  Already I realise one of the major benefits of a stand mixer is that I can leave Fifi to do her stuff whilst I fill the dishwasher, wash up or put things back in the cupboards.

Back to the panettone, which was delicious, although mine was slightly heavy, caused either by out of date and thus sluggish yeast, or overzealous kneading in the mixer.     Sarah suggested using an Ikea cutlery drainer in place of a panettone tin, I have neither so baked in a standard loaf tin, not as pretty, but does the job perfectly.   I added raisins, chopped dried apricots, and chocolate drops (suggested by the GBBO book).  Usually I am a  fan of chocolate, but it did not quite do it for me here.  Next time I make panettone I think I’ll leave it out.  Sarah’s recipe, directly from the challenge is below.

Recipe: Panettone no.1

(based on involved version from “Great British Bake Off: How to Bake”)

Makes 1 large loaf

Ingredients:

7g sachet dried yeast

400g strong white bread flour

75g caster sugar

2 large free range eggs plus 2 egg yolks at room temperature

3 tablespoons lukewarm water

half teaspoon vanilla extract

finely grated zest of one unwaxed orange and one unwaxed lemon

half teaspoon salt

175g softened unsalted butter

75g sultanas (I made up the weight with raisins too)

50g candied orange, diced or finely chopped

50g dark chocolate chips (or more fruit)

40g unsalted butter to finish

Makes enough to fill a 15cm tall cake tin or panettone mould. Bear this in mind if improvising with smaller round tins.

Directions:

1. Mix 125g of the weighed flour with the yeast and sugar in a large mixing bowl or the bowl of an electric mixer and make a well in the centre. Mix the two whole eggs with the water and pour into the well.

2. Using your hands or a dough hook, mix the flour into the liquid to make a smooth thick batter. Sprinkled a little of the remaining weighed flour over the top of the batter to prevent a skin forming then leave in a warm place for around an hour or until the batter is very bubbly. (Mine expanded but didn’t go bubbly. It was fine).

Missing bit: Stir in the egg yolks, vanilla and grated zest using your hand or dough hook. Gradually work in 175g flour plus the salt to make a soft sticky dough.

3. Next add the softened butter and work in with your fingers or the dough hook on a slow speed. Beat until the butter is incorporated with no streaks.

4. Turn out the dough onto a floured surface and knead thoroughly by hand for ten minutes  (or use the dough hook for 3-4 minutes) working in the remainder of the weighed flour to make a satiny soft pliable non-sticky dough. Depending on the flour, you may not need it all or you may need a little more. (Mine was fine).

5. Cover the bowl with cling film (I used a tea towel as well, mainly because it feels “rustic”) and leave to rise at room temperature until doubled in size, probably 2 to 2.5 hours. Don’t leave in a very warm place as the butter will melt.

6. Next uncover the dough and punch down to deflate. Cover again and let it double in size again (1 to 1.5 hours although I left mine 2 whilst we had Sunday lunch).

7. Meanwhile combine the sultanas with the chopped peel and chocolate chips. Stir in a teaspoon of flour to stop it clumping in the dough.

8. Prepare the tin by lining with parchment paper. The paper should extend 5cm higher than the height of the tin.

9. Punch down the risen dough again and turn onto a floured surface; sprinkle the fruit and chocolate mixture on top and work into the dough gently until evenly distributed.

10. Shape the dough into a ball and gently drop into the prepared tin. Cut a cross into the top. Lay a sheet of clingfilm loosely over the top of the tin and leave for another hour or so until doubled in size again.

11. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 200c / 400f / gas 6. When ready to bake, melt 15g of the butter for finishing and brush it over the risen dough. Put a knob of butter in the centre of the cross.

12. Bake for 10 minutes or until just starting to colour, then brush again with melted butter. Reduce the temperature to 180c / 350f / gas 4 and bake for a further 40 minutes until a good golden brown and a skewer inserted to the centre comes out clean. (My loaf was going very brown after 30 mins and I had to cover with foil to stop it burning).

13. Remove from the oven and place the tin on a wire rack. Allow to cool for a few minutes before teasing it out of the tin. If your crust is fragile allow to cool further before removing from tin.

14. Cool completely before slicing.

If you blog and are starting to think about next year, and new year’s resolutions then why not sign up to join Fresh From the Oven?

And once again, a huge thanks to Kenwood for my shiny stripy Fifi La Firecracker K-Mix!

It is as American as apple pie.  Although I find it nigh on impossible to look at an apple pie without sniggering or muttering “Band Camp” to myself.

Thanksgiving is held on the 4th Thursday of November, which this year is the 24th.   Similarly to harvest festivals held throughout Europe, the first American Thanksgiving was held to celebrate the harvest and a year in a new land by the European settlers who had arrived on the Mayflower a year before.

Traditions abound, the President pardons a turkey, then presumably will sit down for dinner usually consisting of the pardoned turkey’s less fortunate cousin.    Cranberry sauce accompanies the turkey and pumpkin pie is served for pudding.

The cranberries and pumpkin pie gave me the inspiration for these cupcakes, which are based on Sarah’s recipe.   Rather than use tinned pumpkin pie mix I roasted a pumpkin and blitzed it with milk with a stick blender, left over pumpkin is delicious in smoothies.

In an effort to get more done last night I switched off the phone and laptop and went cold (Thanksgiving) turkey on twitter, blogs and the internet in general.    I have to admit that I twitched just a little bit and tried to reach for my Blackberry more than once, but feel refreshed after 12 hours off grid.    I am fairly sure that our brains are not designed for such constant stimulation?

Cakes were baked last night.    Buttercream coloured and prepped and fondant stars cut.   All ready for assembly this morning.

The eagle eyed will see there are only 11 cakes. We had to test one of the 12 last night!

I had a big batch of buttercream in the fridge ready for colouring (Sarah’s idea) it keeps for ages.    I reckon that you need just over an ounce per cake.  I use gel colours, the liquid ones change the consistency too much, particularly when you are aiming for a darker colour.    Disposable piping bags are an essential, I try to live a green a life as possible, and I hate the use once aspect to them, but really life is too short to wash a piping bag!  Use disposable and be extra diligent on sorting your recycling to assuage any guilt.   Klippits (from Lakeland) are essential for sealing the buttercream into the bag until you are ready to use it.

Recipe: Spiced Pumpkin & Cranberry Cupcakes for Thanksgiving

For the cupcakes – makes 12 small

55g butter or baking marge – I use Stork
120g sugar – soft brown
1 egg – free range please
35g roasted pumpkin
55ml milk
1/2 tsp lemong juice
125g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp all spice
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
Handful dried cranberries

Cream the butter and sugar together with a hand held mixer or in your stand mixer.   Put the pumpkin, milk and lemon into a container and whizz with a stick blender.    Add to the butter and sugar mixture together with an egg.  Mix well.

Sieve the flour, baking powder and spices and fold into the batter.   Fold in the cranberries.

Line a bun tin with fairy cake cases.   Fill each case 2/3 with batter and bake at 190C / GM 5 for about 12 minutes.

The buns are done when risen and springy.

For the buttercream

75g butter
250g icing sugar
Food colourings
1tsp vanilla extract
1  – 2 tbs milk

The secret to fluffy buttercream is to beat the butter really well before you add any sugar.     I have also recently learnt the hand trick of making butter cream in the food processor to prevent the kitchen being covered in clouds of icing sugar.     You can make it with a hand mixer, but will need to add the icing sugar slowly to the butter.

Put the butter in the food processor bowl and process for a minute or so, until soft and fluffy.   Pour in the icing sugar and milk, put the lid back on and cover with a damp tea towel, and process again.   Scrape the sides down, add your vanilla and colouring, and more milk or icing sugar if needed and process again.

Pipe red and blue roses onto each cake and sprinkle with white fondant stars.

If buttercream is too sweet for you make a crunchy lemon topping by mixing equal volumes of lemon juice and caster sugar, stirring well and spooning over the cakes.

Click for a printable recipe.

Happy Thanksgiving!

As these contain ginger I am sending them to the inaugural Teatime Treats hosted by Karen of Lavender and Lovage and Kate of What Kate Baked, where the November theme is ginger and bonfires.

I am late again.    I did actually manage to make this on time, but have been in France for a week, with laptop, but sans charger.

The challenge for October’s Fresh From the Oven from Claire, was to make cinnamon buns.

Similar to the  Chelsea buns we made a year ago, I think enjoyed making these.   I have a slightly hazy recollection, as I made the dough, went out with my cousin to a rather lovely dinner at the Vintner’s Company, then upon my return home I assembled the buns.

I have been told how much I had “enjoyed” the dinner and associated wines (bourne out by the liberal dusting of flour I discovered on my evening dress I must have been quite merry upon my return).  My less than clear head in the morning was entirely due to the quantity of the rather excellent wines I was lucky enough to be offered.

As far as I am aware the only modifications I made to the recipe were to substitute the plain flour for whole wheat spelt, and to have a second overnight rise in the fridge.

Recipe: Cinnamon Rolls

400g Strong White Bread Flour
2 Sachets of instant yeast (14/15g)
200g Plain Flour
2 Egg Yolks
250ml Lukewarm Milk
50g Melted Butter
1Tbsp Sugar
1/2 tsp Salt

 Filling

150g Very Soft Butter
50g Brown Sugar – muscovado or demerara
1Tsp Cinnamon
A Handful of Sultanas (optional)

Icing (optional*)

2 Cups of Icing Sugar
1 Tblsp Melted Butter
1/4 Tsp Cinnamon
1/2 Tsp Vanilla Extract
Water to Mix

Instructions

In a jug mix the yeast, warm milk and tablespoon of sugar.

Leave to froth for 10 minutes if you have time then add the melted butter and egg yolks.

Mix this into the flours, with the salt.

Knead for 5-10 minutes on a floured surface or in your food mixer with a dough hook for 5 minutes.

Put in a large bowl with a plate on top and leave in a warm place until doubled in size (1-2 hours)

Knock down and flatten out until it’s about the size of a large baking tray.

Slather with the very soft 100g ofbutter.

Sprinkle with the mix of brown sugar and cinnamon, and the sultanas.

Roll up so you have a long swiss roll type thing.

Slice into 2″ slices and place in a deep cake tin

I used a 26cm Kaiser tin, with a bit of butter rubbed into it.

Allow to rise for another 1/2 hour. Tuck in any sultanas so they don’t burn.

Bake at 200c for 10 minutes

Cover loosely with foil and bake for another 15 minutes or so.

At this point I brush it with a little melted butter and put it back in if not quite cooked through but it’s probably not necessary. I am a born fiddler.

Tip out straight away – using a plate to tip it onto then back onto a 2nd plate.

Top with the warm buttery icing and leave to cool….as long as you can bear it.

They are still good on day two (and even better when warmed for 20 seconds in the microwave)

Delicious.

I am very excited by this month’s challenge, hosted by Sarah, as it is something I have wanted to make for ages.

Here in the Fuss Free kitchen we hate food waste, in fact we positively abhor it.    But let’s face it leftover meals can be a little hit and miss.  As I said when I wrote about my Birdie Song soup there is nothing that I enjoy more than finishing stuff up when cooking a meal.   The more things that I use up, the better!

My leftover fry up above provided a tasty mid week lunch.

I fried half an onion, a stick of celery, half a red pepper, half a green pepper, a spring onion and several cloves of garlic.   I added the remains of a jar of pasta sauce, a bowl of rice and half a tin of chickpeas and let it all simmer for a minute.   I then made two wells in the mixture and cracked an egg into each (yes, these were my last two eggs, “hurrah” I cried as I threw the empty carton into the recycling bin).

The resulting mix was delicious, and perfect for a mid week, pre-supermarket run lunch.   Special mention must be made of my new Neoflam frying pan, which is so non- stick that I am convinced that it has a layer of anti gravity coating.   I am totally in love with it, insofar as it is possible to love a frying pan.   It is lightweight, but still solid and I love that it is both bright red and dishwasher proof.   The non-stick is amazing, everything literally floats in it and I consider it the best pan that I have ever had.  I think that I will be buying another for my mother, arthritis in her hands is making life a bit difficult, especially lifting  and twisting.

My leftover lunch was timely, as I spent the evening with Lucy Cufflin, author of Lucy’s Food, who cooked up a feast of leftovers.   She has a simple philosophy of keeping a well stocked store cupboard filled with simple ingredients and using them to embellish your leftovers, which you must think of as tasty ready to use ingredients.

I have already written about Lucy’s salad soup, which was amazingly delicious, but who would have thought that carrots, chickpeas and peanut butter make the most scrummy dip?

I especially liked that Lucy’s store cupboard was packed with the budget ranges from Tesco, Asda, and Morrisons.   She may be a trained chef, but the food snobbery and love for niche ingredients that is all too prevalent in the world of food blogging and self titled “foodies” has no place in Lucy’s kitchen. Hurrah for someone that caters for the 90% of the British population that shops at supermarkets and lives on a budget.

We ate our fill, and some more, which left me wondering for the umpteenth time why I did not call this site “My second (or even third) stomach”, everything was delicious and I returned home with some leftover chilli calzone, and a leftover Christmas pudding chocolate brownie.   Who knew leftovers could be this good? I’ll be cooking double for every meal from now on and revelling in my leftovers!

Recipe: Lucy Cufflin’s Christmas Chocolate Brownies

Makes 12 large brownies

Oven temperature 180C/350F

Cooking time 25 minutes

Preparation time 10 minutes

Ingredients

200g butter
400g caster sugar
4 eggs
100g cocoa powder
100g milk chocolate
100g SR flour
6 or so large dessert spoons of left over Xmas pud

1) Line a 20x30cm shallow roasting tin with baking parchment

2) Melt the butter and sugar in a large saucepan

3) Add the cocoa and milk chocolate and allow the chocolate to melt.

4) Beat in the eggs and then the flour and spoon into the tin

5) Using your fingers crumble the leftover Xmas pud onto the mixture and swirl around with your finger to mix it in a little.

6) Bake for 25 minutes or until the top is slightly cracked

Allow to cool.

These taste even better after a few days (if you can keep them that long)