Recipe: Coffee Crème Caramels

From WeightWatchers the Complete Kitchen by Tamsin Burnett-Hall

29 ProPoints values per recipe

Serves 6

Ingredients

150 g ( 5 1/2 oz) granulated sugar
A kettleful of boiling water
500 ml (18 fl oz) skimmed milk
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons instant coffee dissolved in 1 tablespoon boiling water

1) Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 2/150 degrees C/fan oven 130 degrees C

2) To make the caramel, place 100g (3 1/2 oz) of the sugar in a saucepan with 4 tablespoons boiling water. Heat gently, stirring, until the sugar has completely dissolved

3) Increase the heat under the pan and boil the syrup for about 5 minutes or until it is a rich golden brown. Don’t stir (as it may cause the syrup to crystallise and solidify); instead, shake the pan occasionally

4) Pour the syrup into 6 150ml (5 fl oz) ramekins and swirl to coat the base of each.

5) Add the milk and the remaining sugar to the syrup pan. Bring to a simmer

6) Meanwhile, whisk the eggs and vanilla together in a bowl then add the hot milk and the dissolved coffee.

7) Place the ramekins in a large roasting tin then add boiling water to come halfway up the outside of the ramekins.

8) Strain the egg mixture into the ramekins, pouring it through a tea strainer or sieve to catch any eggy threads

9) Bake in the oven until the crème caramels feel just firm to the touch when the centre is pressed gently. Use a turner or wooden spatula to lift the ramekins out of their hot water bath and transfer to a wire rack to cool. Once cool, chill in the fridge for at least an hour.

10) To serve, run a knife around the edge of each ramekin to release. Place a plate on top then swiftly turn the plate and ramekin upside down, giving them a shake to loosen the crème caramel from its mould.

Cook’s tips

The crème caramels are baked in a hot water bath (also known as a bain marie) to give them a lovely smooth texture. Because the water can’t rise above 100 degrees C, it keeps a steady temperature so they can’t overheat and curdle as they bake.

If there are any lumps of caramel stuck to the saucepan, simply add water and bring to the boil to dissolve them. This is much more effective than trying to scrub them off

Recipe reproduced with permission from WeightWatchers.

Many thanks to WeightWatchers for the cookbook and video camera to make the film.

Here is the last of the festive recipes from Miisa Mink at the Nordic Bakery.

Recipe: Frozen Lingonberry & Ginger Biscuit Cream with Balsamic Vinegar Sauce

Serves 6

40 g powder sugar (icing)
50 ml water
2 egg yolks
5 tbsp lingonberry jam
300 ml whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
50 g ginger biscuits, roughly crushed

Sauce:

50 g unsalted butter
150 ml double cream
3 tbsp maple syrup
3 tbsp Golden syrup
2 – 3 tbsp Balsamic vinegar

To make the cream add sugar, water and egg yolks into a pan and bring to boil. Keep mixing well until sauce reduces. Remove from heat and set aside to cool. Add lingonberry jam and place in the fridge. Whip the cream in a separate bowl until it becomes fluffy. Fold whipped cream, vanilla extract and crushed ginger biscuits into the cooled down lingonberry sauce.

Pour into six individual serving pots or one round pie tin and place into a freezer for a minimum of 2 hours or over night. Take the frozen cream out of the freezer 15 minutes before serving.

To make the sauce, place all ingredients into a saucepan and slowly bring to boil. Simmer for 20 – 25 minutes mixing occasionally. Remove from the heat when sauce thickens. Pour hot sauce over the cold lingonberry and ginger biscuit cream and garnish with more ginger biscuits. Serve immediately.

Thank you to Miisa for letting me reproduce her recipes.  If you like this I thoroughly recommend the Nordic Bakery Cookbook.

Most people know at least something about food and wine matching, even if it is just following the most basic rule of white with fish, red with meat.    For the novice wine drinker the first differences you learn are between red and white, light or heavy, dry or sweet.   As you drink more wine your palate develops and you learn to identify and label many different tastes.   It is very similar with both chocolate and coffee.  I have realised that both are easily as complex as wine, but I have been lazy about properly tasting them, I tend to munch and gulp rather than actually taste and think.

I have been to two amazing coffee events recently that have really forced me to think about my coffee, the first was with Union Roasted (the post is coming) and the second was with Cafe Direct who invited me to a food and coffee matching class and to taste their range of Fair Trade coffees.

Cafe Direct's Coffee Tasting Flavour Wheel

I was challenged to come up with a recipe for Cafe Direct’s Kilimanjaro coffee, which they describe as bright, lively with berry and citrus flavours.   I was given a bag of apples, lemons and limes, access to some basic pantry ingredients, and set to work.

I loved my lemon & lime posset which I paired with an apple filo strudel, but was quite disappointed in the filo pastry, the resulting strudels were heavy and soggy; frankly not worth eating.  I realised after cooking them that the packet of pastry had about a quarter of the sheets that my usual brand does, but weighed the same, so the sheets were 4 times the thickness!

Photo by Cafe Direct

I have tweaked and recreated the pudding, layering the posset on top of the apple.    Served in a wine glass I think this makes an elegant, and easy pudding that you can make up to 48 hours in advance.  Perfectly fuss free!

Recipe: Apple, Lemon & Lime Possets

Makes 4

Ingredients

For the Apple Compote

2 small apples – peeled and finely chopped (this will be about 8oz / 200g prepped apple)
30g / 2 tbs golden syrup
Juice of 1 lemon
Scant amount of water

For the Posset

284ml carton double cream
Juice of 1 lemon (reserve 2 slices for garnish before juicing)
Juice of 1 lime
75g / 3oz sugar

Place the ingredients for the compote into a small saucepan and gently simmer until the apple is soft.   Allow to cool (pouring something hot into a cold glass could easily crack it) and divide between 4 wine glasses.    I use a jam funnel to ensure the fruit lands at the bottom of the glass rather than sliding down the sides.

Put the cream into a medium sized pan and bring to the boil.  Add the juice and  sugar and simmer for a minute or two stirring well.   Remove from the heat.   Allow to cool, to avoid cracking the glasses,  and then pour over the apple compote.   Chill to set for a few hours in the fridge before serving.

For an extra indulgence pour a little more cream over the top of the possets before serving.

You may also like this recipe for elderflower and lime possets.

Click for a printable recipe for  Apple, Lemon and lime possets.

Thank you to Cafe Direct for a lovely and informative evening.

For a chance to win vouchers for £500 to spend at the famous London cookery school L’atelier des Chefs, and a night for two in a hotel, head on over to Cafe Direct’s Facebook page and come up with your own recipe to match with one of their coffees.   Closing date is the 25 November 2011.

Also sending this to Cook Eat Delicious Desserts, where this month the theme is apples hosted by Nayna.

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.

On our recent week away in Cheltenham I made full use of the household’s  ice cream machine.   You can make ice cream without one, but have to remember to take your mix out of the freezer and stir it well on a regular basis to prevent ice crystals forming.     However, with a machine ice cream making becomes somewhat easier.

To make good ice cream you need to stir or churn the mix as it freezes, this breaks up ice crystals as they form giving a smooth cream texture, otherwise you would get a solid lump.   There are two types of machines, the cheaper where you freeze the base for 24 hours prior to use (this needs freezer space a valuable commodity in the Fuss Free kitchen), or the more expensive, larger and heavier machines that have a compressor which chills the mix.   Both have paddles that will churn the mixture.

Lakeland have an excellent machine of the first type for £39.99,  that will make a batch in 20 minutes which Solange reviewed here.

My experiments taught me a few things.

• Do not pour all your ingredients into the frozen bowl of the machine, then try to fit the paddle and the lid, especially if you have not used the machine before, and are unsure as to how it all fits together.    I did this and could not work out how the machine worked then realised that there was a layer of frozen mix at the bottom of the base that was stopping me putting the paddle in properly.    The only solution was to pour everything into another container, allow the base to defrost along with the solid ice cream, clean the base and refreeze.   This takes over 24 hours.
• Ice cream from the machine still needs a spell in the freezer to firm up, I found it very soft straight from the machine.
• My photographic skills are not up to the challenge of making ice cream look attractive.   To buy myself some time I carefully scooped my ice cream into the bowl and then popped it into the freezer for an hour so everything was solid before I started.

Many ice creams are custard based, and would be an excellent use of all the spare egg yolks I end up with in the freezer when making meringues, but we are on holiday and I wanted an ultra easy ice cream without the faff of making custard.

This is based on a supposedly no churn recipe that was in the BBC Good Food Magazine a couple of months ago.  The recipe did not really work for me as the resultant ice cream was hard and crystalline.  Only 4 ingredients are used here.  Simply pour everything in and let the machine do its magic! If destined for children leave the framboise liqueur out!  The resulting ice cream is super creamy, and if you use low fat yogurt low in fat too!

Recipe: Easy Peasy Strawberry Ice Cream

Makes 1 litre

Ingredients

500ml pot natural yogurt – any is fine
400 g tin of condensed milk
4 – 6 oz Strawberries – well mashed with a fork
Espresso cup (60ml) Framboise or other fruity liqueur (optional)

Method

Turn the ice cream machine on, pour everything in and leave to do its magic for 20 mins.

Scoop into a container and pop into the freezer to firm up.

Enjoy!

Notes

This recipe is very adaptable, try with fruity yogurt or different berries or liqueurs.

Click Here for a printable recipe

I have a confession to make that I actually made this for supper last night, but it would make a lovely weekend breakfast that is not too sinful.

At the moment people seem to be throwing yogurt at me, not literally, but in the last few weeks 3 cool bags of the stuff have arrived.  I have already written about Total and The Collective.  Both Onken and Twekkelo are in the review queue.

Making toffee yogurt by sprinkling dark brown soft sugar over natural or Greek yogurt and leaving it to dissolve is an old, but useful trick.   The resultant mixture is delicious, sticky and toffee like, but still not too sweet and with none of the nasties of many commercially produced flavoured yogurts.   Being allowed a sprinkle of dark brown soft sugar on cereal was a weekend childhood treat.

I combined my toffee yogurt, with sliced bananas, Dorset Cereals new pecan and toffee good honest crunch cereal and a few raspberries.   Dorset Crunch’s slogan of  “life is too short for boring breakfasts” reminded me that we are nearing the end of the month and I have not yet made anything for Breakfast Club, which this month is hosted by Nayna with the theme of berries.

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

Recipe: Indulgent Breakfast Banoffeeish Pots

(Serves 1)

1 small banana
about 4 oz / 1/2 cup natural or Greek yogurt
2 tsp dark brown soft sugar
2 tbs crunchy cereal
handful raspberries

Slice the banana and place in a glass, cover with the yogurt, then sprinkle the sugar over and leave in the fridge overnight.

Just before serving sprinkle over the cereal and the fresh berries.

 

I see no reason why this would not work with non dairy or soy yogurt.

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.

Would you believe that I had never made custard until earlier this evening?     I am somewhat surprised myself, but think it is because I thought I preferred cream.    I think I could become addicted.  This was delicious and very easy!

But I think that the recipe makes it more complicated than it need be.

Split a vanilla pod, scrap the seeds, infuse in the milk, then wash & dry the pod which can then be used in vanilla sugar? I do not think so!  It is not fuss free and certainly not how I cook.  I used a good dab of vanilla bean puree; I have been using Taylor & Colledge.  If you do not mind not having the little black flecks of vanilla seed I highly recommend using Steenbergs vanilla extract, which is both organic and Fairtrade.  (They also have 5 different types of vanilla pods and tonka beans too.)

Pour the warm milk from the pan onto the egg yolk and sugar mix, whilst stirring constantly? For goodness sake just whack it directly into the warm milk and give a good stir, as long as the milk is not too hot it will be fine.

Serve as soon as possible? Mine was left in the pan, got cold and was reheated and was quite perfect with not a hint of skin; despite the fact I did not sprinkle it with sugar as directed.

I think that the recipe misses a trick by not giving any indication of how long the custard takes to thicken, and it does not point out that the spare egg whites can be used in recipes A, B or C or frozen for future use.

All in all delicious custard, and something I shall  be forsaking my cream for in the future.

The Great British Bake Off.

]]> http://fussfreeflavours.com/2011/01/bake-3-custard-%e2%80%93-the-great-british-bake-off-cookbook-challenge/feed/ 5 http://fussfreeflavours.com/2011/01/bake-2-seville-orange-marmalade-pudding-the-great-british-bake-off-cookbook-challenge/ http://fussfreeflavours.com/2011/01/bake-2-seville-orange-marmalade-pudding-the-great-british-bake-off-cookbook-challenge/#comments Mon, 03 Jan 2011 21:30:59 +0000 Helen http://fussfreeflavours.com/?p=2279 The Second Bake of my Great British Bake Off Cook Book Challenge.

This is an orange sponge pudding with marmalade that is cooked in the oven rather than steamed; which is meant to be far easier, especially if you have the oven on anyway.

But I have to say I am slightly cross.     I halved the recipe, but did not half the amount of marmalade in the pudding and I still have far less than the photo in the book, where a seemingly huge dollop of extra marmalade has been put on the pudding.   I know that there is artistic license allowed in food styling, but the recipe does not suggest using additional marmalade to serve.   Given the success of the programme, I would think that many first time bakers have bought the book and will be cooking from it, and I think that this is not fair to them.  A less experienced cook may simply be disheartened by this rather than realising the food has been styled “out” of the recipe.  I am also fairly certain that the pudding would have been better, or at least tasted more steamed, had it been covered whilst baking.

The pudding was OK, but not a recipe to cook again.  If I want a steamed pudding I will use my microwaved steamed pudding recipe as a base.  It is easier & far quicker then cooking in the oven.   My version is both egg and diary free without sacrificing either flavour or texture,  so it contains no cholesterol; therefore you can choose between feeling virtuous or tuck into the cream and custard with impunity!

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.