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.

Another week, and another Friday so it Presto Pasta Night!    This is my 6th time of hosting, and PPN is one of my favourite food blogging events, so firstly a huge thanks to Ruth, and to everyone that takes part.

Firstly was chicken noodle soup from Tandy, Lavender and Lime, which I think is perfect for the winter colds and chills here in the UK.

Fabulous turnips, with leeks and ricotta, a use for turnips that  I had not thought of from Stash at the Spamwise Chronicles.

A living pasta salad using sprouted beans and seeds, mixed with veggies, tuna and pasta from Alisha at Polar Bee!  How good for you will this be?

Frugal, quick and delicious, Penne Arrabbiata ticks all my Fuss Free boxes – this week’s second dish from Stash.

Ruth is hankering for a pasta attachment for her stand mixer, and I am looking forward to seeing her homemade pasta soon.   This week she made Sacchettini with Salsa Verde with fresh pasta she had bought.

Fresh and simple, spaghetti al limone with a hefty chilli kick from Jamie at Cookin’ With Moxie.

Delicious healthy pasta with broccoli, olives and feta, perfect for your healthy new year eating plans, from Joanna at Eats Well with Others.

Roasted vegetables, with pasta and venison salami from PPN first timer Charlotte at Charlotte’s Kitchen Diary.  Looks lovely and hope to see lots more pasta from her.

Many thanks to all who took part this week, next week’s host is  Alisha of Cook, Craft, Enjoy.

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.

Just cook some pasta (or noodles), write a post, mention Presto Pasta Nights and Fuss Free Flavours (with links), and e-mail the link to your post to me (helen (at) fussfreeflavours (dot) com) and copy (ruth (at) 4everykitchen (dot) com) by evening on Thursday 12th.

I love food blog events, it is a great chance to interact with other bloggers and not feel that you are out there blogging and posting by yourself.

If you are interested in hosting – this is my 5th time – do get in touch with Ruth. I am looking forward to seeing your pasta recipes this week. If you have not taken part before why not jump in and submit your recipe!

Come the cold bright light of New Year’s Day, I, perhaps like the majority of the population, consider some New Year’s Resolutions.  They usually last a week or so before being abandoned.

I think that New Year is possibly the wrong time to decide to make changes to your life.   In the Northern hemisphere it is winter, dark, damp and cold.  I struggle with the lack of daylight and find getting anything done a chore, setting high expectations is akin to donning a hairshirt and doomed to failure at the first hurdle, which serves to make me feel inadequate and miserable.    Instead I have set a few goals, and have resolved to look after and value myself more.   After all if I cannot do that for me, how can I expect others to?

Goals can be reviewed either when the clocks go forward, or at Easter, both times of spring, growth, rebirth and renewal, and longer lighter days which will put me into the right mind set to make changes, decisions and plans.

Similarly I am skeptical of the “January Detox” diet.   This month I have planned to try and eat better, and am thinking of it of giving my system a break.  I overdid it in both November and December and felt ghastly, also I have put on a few pounds, I want to lose them before it becomes a problem.   I’ll try to eat a diet that is predominately plant-based, with perhaps more raw food than usual.    I’ll try to drink a little less, and will certainly think before reaching for the bottle and corkscrew, but in the spirit of looking after me, if I think that having a glass of wine will bring me pleasure than I certainly am going to have one.    Moderation is key, and, perhaps the only resolution that any of us need?

On to the Bircher muesli.

I have mentioned before how I spent most of my adult life thinking that I did not like cereal, when in fact it was an aversion to cow milk.   It is one of the few breakfasts that keeps me going until lunchtime, which is always a bonus.     Made the night before it makes the perfect breakfast to grab from the fridge before work and eat at your desk, far healthier than a Danish or bacon sandwich!

I make my own muesli, using a 4 grain mix of equal quantities of oats, wheat, barley and rye flakes (the last 3 are available in Wholefoods bulk section for a bargainous 99p a kg),  then I add a mix of seeds, nuts and dried fruit.  80% flakes and 20% “bits” seems a good ratio.      If you buy packed muesli check the ingredients, added sugar, and boring “bits” are common, and packet mixes are far more expensive than making your own.

Ideas for the bits are seeds – pumpkin, sunflower, hemp – there is little point in linseed – grind a spoonful and sprinkle then on instead.    Nuts – raw cashews, almonds, walnuts, cob & hazelnuts.   Fruit – unsulphured apricots (makes such a difference to taste), dates, figs, cranberries, raisins, currants, sultanas etc.

Recipe: Bircher Muesli

Serves 2

Ingredients

125g / Scant cup muesli – preferably homemade
2 oranges – juiced
1 apple grated

To Serve

Fresh berries
Yogurt

Last thing at night grate the apple and stir into the muesli.   Pour the orange juice over, there should be some juice at the bottom of the bowl.   Give a good stir, cover and leave in the fridge overnight.

Serve with fresh berries and yogurt.

Sending this to both this month’s Breakfast Club where the theme is detox and to this month’s Frugal Food Fridays.

Both events are blog hops, so please take part, grab the code and hop from blog to blog!

Frugal Food Fridays!

Breakfast Club

Now Christmas has past, and January seems a very long month, let’s let Frugal Food Fridays begin in ernest!

Some themes for money saving ideas that I have thought up are:

• Dishes using cheaper ingredients – cheap cuts of meat or vegetarian
• Meals using leftovers
• Meals using up the ends of packets
• Substitutions of cheaper ingredients
• Packed lunches
• Meals that use less energy to cook
• Pressure cooking
• Slow cooking
• Faster cooking – less oven time for example
• Batch cooking for the freezer
• Using Sustainable foods
• Food you have grown yourself
• Meals from reduced food in the supermarket

I expect that there are many many more. Let me know any more you think of and I’ll add them in.

Following a Twitter conversation just before Christmas I am also expanding the theme to include frugal “fotos” – good food styled simply.    No ribbons, no baubles, and napkins are only allowed if you use them anyway!

Frugal Food Fridays

To take part, simply blog about any money saving idea that is vaguely food related.

There are a few rules

• Please link to the Frugal Food Fridays page
• Please link to the current host (ME!)
• Please use the Frugal Food Fridays Badge
• Tweet using #frugalfoodfriday

But feel free to

• Send to as many other events as you like, let’s help everyone save money!
• Blog any day of the week! Not just Fridays!

Tell me about your money saving ideas on the linky below! I am also making this a blog hop, so feel free to grab the code and add to your post too. Let’s spread the money saving meme!

Let me know if you would like to host too!

Breakfast Club: Because breakfast should be more interesting
than tea & toast or coffee & cereal!

This month Breakfast Club is hosted by Food, Je t’Aimée.

And the theme is January Detox!

To take part, simply make a healthy breakfast and blog about it!

• Mention Breakfast Club in your post and use the logo
• Link to Aimée’s post and the Breakfast Club page
• You are welcome to send in old recipes, but please add the information above and republish
• Entries can be sent to other events, but please respect their rules
• If you tweet please tweet using #blogbreakfastclub and mention me @fussfreeflavour
• Add details of your breakfast onto the Linkie, and grab the code for your post too as this is a blog hop!
• Closing date is 31st January 2012

Let me know if you would like to host later in the year.

Let’s keep breakfast interesting!

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.

Christmas is an expensive time of year, and with continued economic gloom we’d all like to save a little money to spend on the fun things in life.

Bring on Frugal Food Fridays from Fuss Free Flavours (what a lot of f’s!) – to bring you some inspiration and money saving ideas!

Some themes for money saving ideas that I have thought up are:

• Dishes using cheaper ingredients – cheap cuts of meat or vegetarian
• Meals using leftovers
• Meals using up the ends of packets
• Substitutions of cheaper ingredients
• Packed lunches
• Meals that use less energy to cook
• Pressure cooking
• Slow cooking
• Faster cooking – less oven time for example
• Batch cooking for the freezer
• Using Sustainable foods
• Food you have grown yourself
• Meals from reduced food in the supermarket

I expect that there are many many more. Let me know any more you think of and I’ll add them in.

Frugal Food Fridays

To take part, simply blog about any money saving idea that is vaguely food related.

There are a few rules

• Please link to the Frugal Food Fridays page
• Please link to the current host (ME!)
• Please use the Frugal Food Fridays Badge

But feel free to

• Send to as many other events as you like, let’s help everyone save money!
• Blog any day of the week! Not just Fridays!

Tell me about your money saving ideas on the linky below!   I am asoo making this a blog hop, so feel free to grab the code and add to your post too.   Let’s spread the money saving meme!

I am running this first Frugal Food Friday until the end of December, and will post a round up in early Jan – I am looking forward to lots of Christmas leftover ideas!

Let me know if you would like to host too!

I first made cranberry vodka as a result of desperation one Christmas day evening.

A few years back I somehow had not managed to pick any sloes and there was not a drop of sloe gin in the house at Christmas time.    I had the brainwave of adding the remains of the (homemade) cranberry sauce to half a bottle of gin and giving it a good  shake.   Very good it was too.

I think that most of foodblogsphere is aware of Vanessa’s Let’s Make Christmas Event, held a few weeks ago at Fortnum and Mason, where 50 bloggers gathered, talked, took photos and talked lots more.

My photos are woefully non existent.  Sarah, who has a super swanky new lens had a flat camera battery, so being a kindly soul, I lent her mine, her write-up is here.

My homemade gift was a Christmas vodka, using cranberries, oranges and warming winter spices of cinnamon, cloves and a hint of star anise.

So without further ado the recipe!

Recipe: Festive Spiced Cranberry & Orange Vodka

Makes 70cl.

200g cranberries
Zest of 1 orange – use a vegetable peeler to obtain wide strips
1” cinnamon stick
2 cloves
2 segments of a star anise
4oz sugar

About 450ml vodka.

Place the solid ingredients into a clear bottle and top up with vodka. Shake daily until the sugar is dissolved.

Leave for a good few weeks before drinking, the longer the better as the drink will become smoother with time.

Enjoy!

Click here for a printable recipe.

For a mammoth round up of all the recipes see here.