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)

 

 

This is a timely post, as next week the contestants on the Great British Bake Off will be challenged with making a croquembouche.  Admittedly profiteroles are not quite a croque, but if you can make a good choux bun and creme patisserie you are halfway there.

Along with Sarah, Katie and a non blogging friend I was actually filmed making a croquembouche earlier this year for Baking Mad with Eric Lanlard, but sadly our episode ended up on the cutting room floor, due to a “misunderstanding” between the production company and Channel4.

Personally I suspect that our baking skills were beyond the scope of the programme, as we not only managed to successfully make choux buns, creme patisserie and stuck it all together, we also found the time to decorate our croquembouche with macarons and sugar paste flowers as well as the obligatory spun sugar!    However that is the subject for another post, but if you are curious here is the croquembouche.  It is not perfect, but it was only the second time we had made choux or creme patisserie.

Not bad for a first attempt at a Croquembouche

Consequently, I shall be howling with rage at the Bake Off next week, when they once again make out that baking is so very very difficult.  I shall, yet again, point out that it is a matter of practise.  Great bakers are made not born.      Not that I can take the Bake Off seriously anymore having read Sarah’s review of Mary Berry’s lemon drizzle cake mix.

The practice point is made by the lovely Holly on the GBBO this year with her macaron recipe where she says that she had to make about 1000 of them before she could rely on them working every time.    I reckon that is at least 15, if not 20 batches.    How many people in the country have actually baked 15 batches of anything?  I am not knocking her skill, but of course she is good at them by now!

At this point I feel the need for a little Roy Castle of Record Breaker fame.    1980′s yes, but it did make a good point to an entire generation of children.

Tolberone have a new recipe tab on their facebook page, and asked me to come up with a recipe for them.

Toblerone Choux Buns

makes around 18

Toblerone Creme Patisserie (make this up to 3 days in advance)

250ml milk
2 tbs cornflour
100g sugar
1 egg
2 egg yolks
30g butter
100g Toblerone (I used milk)
1 tbs honey

Put the cornflour into a bowl, add a couple of tablespoons of milk and mix to a paste.

Add the remainder of the milk, sugar and Toblerone to the saucepan and gently heat until the chocolate is all melted.

Add the egg and yolks to the cornflour paste and whisk well. Pour over about 1/3 of the hot Tolberone mixture, whisking well.

Pour the hot Toblerone egg mixture into the saucepan, stirring well all the time (I use my electric handheld whisk in the saucepan – if you do this please be VERY careful with the powercord). Bring the mixture back to a gentle simmer, whisking all the time and scraping the sides and bottom of the pan with a spatula (the creme will thicken here first). The mixture will thicken quite quickly.

Pour into a bowl, add the honey and butter and whisk again until quite smooth. Cover the surface of the creme with cling film and once cool put into the fridge.

Choux Pastry

175ml water
85g butter
150g plain flour
Pinch salt
4 eggs

Put the water and butter into a pan and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and stir in the flour & salt. Return to the heat and cook for minute or so stirring all the time until the mixture has dried slightly.  Remove from the heat and add each egg, one by one stirring well between each addition.

Heat the oven to 425F / 220C / GM 7 and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Put the batter into a piping bag (I use disposable ones) and just snip the end off, otherwise use a 1cm tip. Pipe walnut sized dollops of the batter. Smooth the peaks on the top of them with your finger.

Cook for 10 minutes until puffed and golden. Turn the oven down to 350F / 180C / GM5 and bake for another 20 mins to dry out. When I turn the oven down I usually turn the puffs over and spike them with a skewer to let the steam out. Keep an close eye on them. If you have a fan oven I find that it is better to turn the fan off if you can.

Once the buns are cool fill a piping bag with a small tip with the creme patisserie and fill each bun.

Brush melted chocolate over each bun. You can melt chocolate in the microwave on the lowest power if you keep a careful eye on it. I found the melted Toblerone quite stiff so added a drop of olive oil to make it spread more easily.

Click here for a printable recipe

There are more Toblerone recipes on their website here.

I am also sending this to We Should Cocoa ( set up by Chocolate Log Blog and Chocolate Teapot) for their first birthday party.

This month the theme of Forever Nigella is Street Party!  This blogging event was sounded by Sarah from Maison Cupcake and is hosted this month by Mardi at Eat, Live, Travel, Write.    What better to take to a street party than a sumptuous chocolate cake, carried in a cake carrier?

I made Nigella’s Chocolate Malteaser Cake for a friend’s daughter’s birthday party yesterday.    And I have to say was rather disappointed.   I have eaten the cake before when another chum baked one afternoon, and it was delicious, but mine was distinctly underwhelming, dry and, dare I say, a little boring.  However it did not matter too much as it looked great, and the gaggle of 8 year old girls were not that bothered as they had already eaten lots of lunch and were more interested in the serious business of the afternoon of bopping to Justin Bieber.

The recipe  is from Feast, although a quick internet search will probably find it for you somewhere.

I am still slightly embarrassed at the quality of my cake, and not sure if I should give the recipe another go?  Or continue my quest for the perfect fail safe chocolate celebration cake elsewhere?

I love the Lock & Lock cake carrier, although it is a little unnerving carrying it by the lid – I did check the clips were firmly closed 3 times en route!

So if you have the perfect chocolate celebration cake, please let me know!

Some time ago I reviewed the 120 hour conch bar, and noted at the time that it would be interesting to compare side by side with the 96 hour conch.  

I was astonished at the difference an additional 24 hours in the conch made, the conching time being the only difference between the two bars. (4 days as opposed to 5)

The 12o hour bar was far smoother in taste, creamier and with a hint of vanilla, as well as the layers of citrus, red fruit, tobacco & honey.

The 96 hour bar was no less delicious but I thought more challenging; perhaps needing some more thought to work out the layers of flavour, and had more notes of the red fruit.   Altogether more powerful than the 120 hour bar.

Both bars are well worth a try and side by side comparison.  It is fascinating to see just how good and complex unadulterated chocolate can taste.  The Purist range seeks to showcase the 5% of cocoa that can be classified as fine chocolate, which is influenced by terroir as much as a fine wine would be. I think that it is fantastic that Hotel Chocolat is making these speciality bars accessible to all.

I am very excited that I am going on a chocolate tasting course later in the month, which should help me to write better reviews and know what to look for and taste in fine chocolate.

Purist bars from Hotel Chocolat cost £5 for 70g.

Thanks to Hotel Chocolat for my free samples.

When it comes to mayonnaise I do tend to buy Hellmann’s; nothing else quite tastes the same.  It is one of the very few products where supermarket own brand simply will not do, and, similarly to Hoover and vacuum cleaner I sometimes using Hellmann’s when I am referring to any (non homemade) mayonnaise

Hellmann’s was one of the first major brands to change to using free range eggs several years ago, the fact that they did so successfully does make a mockery of other brands claiming that they cannot go free range as they cannot source the eggs.   I have sent a simple “Hellmann’s did”  in response to such excuses received from several companies.

Posh Brownies - Photo from Hellmann's

We were served up a feast of lemon and Garlic Roasted Salmon with Colcannon Mash and the Smoked Haddock Cakes with Mustard Mayo, followed by the brownies.  By using mayo, not butter there is 55% less saturated fat in the brownies, and for pence per gram the mayo is also cheaper.

I was impressed by the dishes (my previous experience of cooking with Hellmann’s was to mix it with pesto as a pasta sauce, a popular late night snack in my student days), although I thought that the brownies could have been moister, Ren also went to the evening and tweaked the recipe from Hellmann’s (below) by adding two bananas.

Hellmann’s Brownies

40g plain flour
tsp baking powder
25g cocoa powder
140g plain chocolate, broken into small pieces
3 medium eggs
225g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
8 dollops Hellmann’s Real Mayonnaise (110g)**
55g walnuts, finely chopped

* *A dollop is one level tablespoon of Hellmann’s mayonnaise (15ml)

Method

1. Lightly grease a 23cm square cake tin and line with baking paper.

2. Sift the flour with the baking powder and cocoa. Put the chocolate into a heat proof bowl over a saucepan of hot water and leave until melted (alternatively, microwave on medium power, stirring occasionally, until just melted).

3. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs with the sugar and vanilla until slightly thickened.

4. Whisk in the chocolate mixture. Fold in the flour mixture, mayonnaise and walnuts.

5. Pour into the prepared tin and bake in a preheated oven at 160°C for about 30-35 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

6. Leave to cool in the tin before cutting into squares.

Thank you to Hellmann’s for the invitation, and the lovely brownie kit you sent me home with, did you know about my weakness for pink kitchenware?

I made these for a friend’s 8 year old, who was having a mad scientist party – complete with a visiting mad scientist; who encased the birthday boy and his friends in bubbles and even set light to them!

I was desperate for some flames for myself, but was firmly at the back of the queue behind the stampede of 8 year olds.

Chocolate cupcakes were deemed to be suitable for the occasion, decorated with bright yellow frosting, oreos, glitter and popping candy with a surprise mini oreo baked into each cake.  I made some toppers with clipart of mad scientists and some laboratory hazard warning signs for extra science madness!  I make small fairycake sized cupcakes for children, half of them will only eat the icing and abandon the cake anyway.

The batter makes enough for 14 cakes, and I discovered yesterday that is is perfectly fine to freeze cupcake batter then defrost and bake it.

Chocolate Oreo Cupcakes (makes 14 fairy cake sized cakes)

Cakes

2 eggs
125g softened butter or baking margarine
125g self raising flour (or plain flour with 1 tsp of baking powder added)
125g white or golden sugar
1 heaped tbs cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch salt
1 – 2 tbs milk
14 mini oreos

Add the eggs, butter, flour, sugar, cocoa & salt to a bowl and beat with a hand whisk until blended.   Add the milk and briefly mix again.   The batter should be loose enough to dollop off a spoon.

Line a bun tin with fairy cake cases, placing a mini oreo in the middle of each one.   Fill each case 2/3 with batter and bake at 190C / GM 5 for about 12 minutes.

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.

You can make butter cream in advance and store in the fridge until needed (remove from the fridge well before you need it) I store mine in the piping bag, with a clip just behind the nozzle and the end of the bag twisted so it is airtight.

Decorate your cakes to your hearts content, adding the popping candy just before serving.

This baking addiction is starting to get out of hand and I thought that it was time to return to Fuss Free Flavours bootcamp basics.   I originally started this blog as I was becoming increasingly upset by the number of people buying fat and additive laden food in the cheap supermarket on the North End Road in West London, when opposite the shop is a market laden with excellent, cheap and plentiful fruit and vegetables.

I know I feel far far better when I eat loads of fruit and vegetables, and I know that it is generally cheaper (and infinitely more satisfying) to cook food from scratch.  If I eat an excellent diet for the majority of the time then I can also enjoy sweet or fat filled treats in moderation.    Diet really is all about balance and  variety coupled with moderation surely?    How sad to be Gillian McKeith, she looks utterly miserable, joyless and half starved, although she self proclaims her diet to be excellent, and I bet she never allows herself the pleasure of eating cake.

Although I feel that Nigella either lost the plot in her last series, or was badly produced, she is obviously a woman that loves her food, eats and cooks well, is attractive and appears to enjoy life (although her success and Charles Saatchi’s vast wealth probably help here).  How happy she seems to be when compared to the myriad of size zero celebrities and models, who all look miserable, scrawny and half starved. Although we love to poke fun at her, Nigella is an excellent example of a successful woman who does not need to starve herself to conform to a misguided idea of beauty.

Enough of my musings, and onwards with Forever Nigella; which is a monthly foodblogging even hosted by Sarah of the fabulous Maison Cupcake.  This month the theme is chocolate.

Now I am not claiming that this cake is healthy, but is certainly is Fuss Free.  You need a saucepan, scales (although you probably could eyeball the quantities), cake tin and a wooden spoon.  That is all.  Easy to make; literally melt butter and then stir everything in, and importantly quick and  easy to wash up afterwards.

The chocolate and marmalade work very well together, and the cake is excellent and the taste certainly implies a little more fuss and effort went into making it than actually did.

The original recipe is from “How to be a Domestic Goddess” and is reproduced all over the internet; just google “Nigella Store Cupboard Chocolate Orange Cake”.  In my quest for moderation I both halved the quantity and reduced the sugar by 30%.   Personally I think it would benefit from more chocolate, or some cocoa?

I was not dressed in a satin dressing gown to bake this, but being hopeful of exuding some Nigellaness I did waggle a batter coated finger in the general direction of my boyfriend’s mouth whilst baking.

I am also sending this to We Should Cocoa where this month’s theme is leftovers, and hosted this month by Chele at Chocolate Teapot.  My leftovers were 2 nearly empty jars of marmalade from the back of the fridge which I used up in my cake, I am thankful they are gone, now there is actually some space.

Imagine a rich, buttery, velvety smooth chocolate mousse; one so rich that an espresso cup full is more than enough.  Now imagine that the little fat in this mousse is primarily monounsaturated (thus good) and the entire pudding is cholesterol free.    Now imagine that this pudding also contains no refined sugars and takes less than 5 minutes to prepare.

Created using Clearspring’s new organic silken tofu which when whizzed up is deliciously creamy,  this was partially inspired by Jac and by an avocado chocolate mousse that can be found all over the internet.    I need you to trust me here, the finished product does not taste of either avocado or banana although on the surface they do seem to be odd ingredients.

This is probably more of a chocolate pot than a traditional mousse, without raw eggs it is safe for small children to eat, and there is no worry about the mousse separating in the fridge.

So Healthy Chocolate Mousse (serves 6)

1 350g carton silken tofu
1 ripe banana
1 avocado
4 dsp cocoa powder
4 dsp maple syrup
Scant zest of half an orange

Cacao nibs (optional)

Add all ingredients to the food processor and whizz.    Dollop into ramekins, or if feeling fancy, chill and then pipe into espresso cups.   Sprinkle with cacao nibs.

Enjoy and polish your halo for being so healthy.

Sending to this  month’s Sugar High Fridays, where the theme is grain free,  hosted by Z at Z’s Cup of Tea.

It has been too long since I blogged a smoothie.   Thick, satisfying and delicious it feels vaguely sinful having chocolate for breakfast, but this really is very healthy despite tasting like a spiced chocolate oaty biscuit.

You need to be slightly organised here and soak the oats and dates overnight for a creamier smoothie.   I think that the addition of a banana or some unsalted cashews would also be delicious.

I am sending this to We Should Cocoa; the monthly chocolate event hosted by Chocolate Log Blog and The Chocolate Teapot, as this month’s theme is chocolate and dates.   I am also sending it to my Breakfast Club this month as I think a liquid breakfast is the perfect thing for the morning after the night before!

Chocolate and Date Smoothie (Serves 1)

1/3 cup oats
1 cup milk (I use soy)
8 dates
pinch of cinnamon, ginger & all spice (to taste)
2 tsp cocoa powder

Mix all ingredients together in a container and leave in the fridge overnight.    Blitz with a stick blender in the morning.  If you forget to prep the night before just go ahead and make it anyway.

Simple and easy!

It would appear that Fuss Free Flavours has recently become a chocolate baking blog.   This is not my long term intention, and normal fuss free service will be resumed soon, but this cake was too good not to blog.   It is also fairly fuss free, the recipe both having a forgiving nature and being of the bung-it-all-in-a-food-processor-and-whizz style of baking that I favour. 

The cake was baked by me, last week, for my birthday party.   I know that something was slightly amiss here, baking your own birthday cake is none too joyous, but people were coming round and I had set myself the task of making sushi, chilli and baking a cake.  All within 2 hours.    Yes, maybe I wanted to show off just a little.  I wanted to make my easier than pie chocolate amaretti cake (which I have just realised that I had not made for 3 years).   I got off the bus with my shopping and realised that despite the first item on my shopping list being amaretti biscuits I had forgotten to buy them.     There were no amaretti biscuits to be found in West Kensington, but I remembered I had a tin of Swedish Ginger Thin biscuits from the fantastic Ikea Swedish Food market that would make a good substitution.

This made a good dense chocolate cake with a firm hint of ginger.   I find nutty flourless cakes are great for puddings, but they do need that large dollop of cream to lift them.   As it was a celebration a sweetened boozy cream was just the ticket.

Chocolate & Ginger  Cake (serves 12 or 8 chocoholics)

2 oz / 50g  ginger thin biscuits
4oz / 100g almonds
7 oz / 175g sugar
4oz / 100g butter
4 eggs (free range please)
6 oz / 150g dark chocolate
Zest of 1 orange

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4, grease the tin and line the base with greaseproof paper.

Put the biscuits, almonds and sugar into the food processor (I use a Magimix) and blitz until all are finely ground, add the butter and eggs and blitz again.

Meanwhile break the chocolate up into a bowl and stand over a saucepan of just simmering water until melted.

Add the melted chocolate and orange zest to the food processor and pulse briefly until mixed. Pour the batter into the cake tin.

Bake for about 35 minutes – when ready the cake would have risen and would have started to crack at the top and round the edges. Leave to cool for 5 mins then run a knife round to separate it from the tin, then release the clip. When cold you can transfer it to a plate.

Serve dusted with cocoa powder or icing sugar and lots of whipped cream.

Boozy Whipped Cream

300g pot double cream
1 tbs brandy
2 tbs icing sugar

Bung in a bowl and whip with a hand blender.