My version of cottage pie

As the title of this post says, this is not the traditional British cottage pie, but a version I made because I didn't have some of the ingredients ^.^U Basically, I replaced the beef stock with tomato sauce and added a leave of laurel and some pimetón (spanish paprika). Anyways, the result is delicious so I'll be sticking to this recipe in the future.

I decided to try this traditional British dish when I was trying to decide what could I make with a package of ground beef, if meatballs or a hamburger. Then it hit me that I hadn't baked anything in a long time due to the lack of appropiate equipment, but a cottage pie only requires an ovenproof recipent (which I had bought that very same day). By the way, I don't have an electric mixer yet and I didn't have a whisk or a mixing bowl till last week because my boyfriend and I have moved to another apartment -_-U In the other we could use the owner's tools but this one comes with just the very minimum furniture which means no plates, no glasses and, of course, no mixing bowls.

Ingredients:

450g minced beef
1/2 big onion
1 big carrot
50g peas
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 clove of garlic
400g tomato sauce
4 big potatoes
4 tablespoons whole milk
2 tablespoons grated cheese (I used mozzarella)
10g butter
1 leave of laurel
salt, black pepper and pimentón

Method:

1. Add one tablespoon of oil to a saucepan anf fry sighly the beef, just until its brown. Take the meat out of the saucepan and reserve.
2. Mince the vegetables. Add two tablespoons of oil to the saucepan (don't take out the sauce left when cooking the meat) and fry the onion, garlic, carrot and peas. When the onion begins to cook add the tomato sauce, laurel leave, the reserved beef and salt and pimentón to your preference (be careful with the salt). Cook until the sauce reduces.
3. Meanwhile boil the potatoes until they're soft. Take them out of the water and let them cool sightly before peeling them.
4. Mash the potatoes and mix them with the cheese, butter, milk, salt and black pepper.
5. Preheat the oven to 180ºC. In an ovenproof dish put the beef and then spread the potato mash over it.
6. Bake for 20 minutes or until the potato mash begins to brown. Take the cottage pie out of the oven and serve immediatly.

Layered chocolate chip cookies

As soon as I saw this post I knew that I HAD to try this recipe but for some reason or another I have postponing the moment. The main reason was that I was kind of unsure about making cookies with such a huge amount of sugar. I finally settled that it was best to do only half of the recipe and to cut down the sugar being used.
The original recipe calls for dark brown sugar but I didn't have any of it and instead I had a package of muscovado sugar therefore I substituted it. Another change that I made has to do with the number of layers, even though the original recipe states that 3 layers of cookie shall be made (with chocolate between them), due to the amount of dough that results from making only half of the recipe I only used 2 layers (it was like a cookie sandwich). The last change has to do with the type of the chocolate: the original recipe uses semisweet or bittersweet chocolate but I used milk chocolate (which I prefer).

The resulting cookies were a bit too greasy but delicious anyway. Next time I'll be cuting down the amount of butter to 100g to seen how the come out.

Ingredients:

140 g all-purpose flour
1/4 + 1/8 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 + 1/8 teaspoon salt
115g butter, at room temperature
75g muscovado sugar
50g granulated sugar
2 large egg yolks, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
85g milk chocolate, chopped into shards

Method:

1. In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together.
2. In another bowl, cream the butter and both sugars until light and fluffy. Then, add the egg yolks, one at a time, beating until combined and then add the vanilla.
3. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, beating just until incorporated.
4. Divide the dough into two equal portions and shape each into a ball. Then wrap them in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
5. Unwrap the dough and place one on a lightly floured work surface. Shape the balls into equal rectangles (don't make them too thin, its better if they're thick). Sprinkle the chocolate evenly over one of the rectangles and top with the second piece of dough. Dust the top piece of dough lightly with flour, then use a rolling pin to gently roll the stack of dough and chocolate into a 4cm thick rectangle. Use a round cutter to cut as many rounds as possible from the dough and transfer the rounds to a parchment-lined baking sheet. Gather the scraps of dough together into a 4cm thick mound and cut additional cookies out (most of my cookies were made from these scraps as I only managed to get 5 cookies in my first cut).
6. Cover the baking sheet loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate the unbaked cookies for at least an hour. The original recipe states that the more time they spend in the fridge the better they taste when baked but I couldn't wait so I juste left them an hour.
7. Preheat oven to 190ºC. If you're going to bake all of the cookies at once, separate them onto a few baking sheets, leaving at least 5cm between them because they'll spread a lot.
8. Bake for 14 minutes, or until the edges of the cookies are set (rotating the baking sheets halfway through if you're baking more than one sheet of cookies). The centers will still seem really soft and underbaked but they'll set up as they cool. Transfer the baking sheets to wire racks and let the cookies cool for about 5 minutes before removing them to the racks to cool completely.

Chocolate torte soufflé

Actually, I made this cake last year but I completely forgot to upload the recipe -_-U

This recipe used A LOT of eggs so its packed with calories (yummy calories ^^). The cake had a very rich flavour and an airy and soft consistency that I loved. The original is here and uses Frangelico but I ommited it because I don't drink alcohol and my parents don't drink this tipe of liquor so I didn't want to buy a bottle just for the cake. Also, this recipe was enough to fill a round 22cm cake pan and a rectangular 15cm large bread pan so next time I'll be doing half of it.

Ingredients:

120g unsweetened chocolate, chopped
150g unsalted butter, cubed
7 eggs, seperated yolks and whites
170g caster sugar
1 pinch of salt

Method:

1. Preheat the oven at 150ºC. Line the base of a 22cm springform baking pan with aluminium foil, grease the pan well with butter and set aside.
2. In a medium saucepan, whisk the chocolate and butter together over low heat until a smooth mixture forms. Set the chocolate mixture aside to cool.
3. In a large bowl, whisk the egg yolks together. Add 110g of sugar to the yolks, whisking well until the mixture turns thick and pale yellow. Gradually add the cooled chocolate mixture to the yolks mixture, whisking until combined.
4. Using an electric mixer, whisk the egg whites together with a pinch of salt until soft peaks form. Gradually add the remaining 60g of sugar and beat the egg whites till they hold their shape but are not dry.
5. Fold the egg whites in three batches into the yolk mixture only until just combined.
6. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and bake for an hour before lowering the oven temperature to 120ºC and baking for an additional 30 minutes. When the cake is done baking, turn the oven off and leave the cake in the oven to cool, leaving the oven door slightly ajar until the cake comes to room temperature.

Honey and walnut cookies

Today I'd like to introduce you to the easiest-to-make cookies you could ever think of. They only have a few ingredients and 3 steps (4 if you count melting the butter as a step).

I found the recipe here long ago when I was searching for a honey and walnut biscoti recipe (until I realised there existed none). The original recipe calls for one large egg but I forget to use it and the cookies are still amazing, which makes them even better (one ingredient less, yuhu!).

Ingredients:

125g plain flour
70g butter, melted
100ml honey
30g chopped walnuts
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 pinch of salt

Method:

1. In a bowl mix all the ingredients until smooth. Let the mix sit for five minutes so it hardens and meanwhile preheat the oven to 190ºC.
2. With a spoon plop dollops of the mix about 5cm apart on a foil-covered cookie sheet (or baking tray). Bake for 13 minutes or until they're light brown.
3. Take the cookies out of the oven and let them cool before transfering them to storage.

When taken out of the oven the cookies are very soft but don't be scared because they won't break (they're are tougher than they seem ;-D). As they get colder they also get firmer but I prefer the texture they had when I first ate them still warm, they remind me of a cake ^^

Apple tart

It looks like it has been quite a long time since I wrote my last post -_-U Well, I could use a long range of excuses, being the first one that I've moved to London, but they would sound a bit lame. Anyways, i'm back to baking (at last!) so I'll try to update this blog more frecuently.

My latest bake has been an apple tart for my boyfriend. I made it for Valentine's day because it's his favourite dessert (and besides, he doesn't like that much red colored desserts nor sugar hearts XD). It took me a little more than I expected to roll the pastry dough because I'm quite clumsy with the rolling pin but I somehow managed to make it look neat.

The recipes I used come from a book called Step-by-step baking and they're a mixture of two different ones with a little "personal touch".

Here come the recipes I used:

Ingredients for the pastry crust:

150g plain flour, plus some extra for dusting the surface when rolling
100g butter, diced
50g caster sugar
1 egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Method for the pastry crust:

1. In a bowl, rub the flour and the butter together to form fine crumbs.
2. Add the sugar and the cinnamon to the crumbs and mix.
3. Beat the egg yolk separately and then add it to the crumbs and mix until well blended.
4. Form a dough (if it's too dry add a little water), wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for 1 hour.
5. Preheat the oven to 180ºC and meanwhile roll out the pastry to form a 3mm thick circle.
6. Line a 22cm loose-bottomed tart tin with the pastry, trimming any excess pastry that may hang down from the border of the tin.
7. Prick the pastry base all over with a fork and then put over the pastry a piece of baking parchment (covering the base of the pastry).
8. Fill the base of the baking parchment with baking beans (I don't have baking beans so I use raw chickpeas) and bake it for 20 minutes in the preheated oven.
9. Remove the beans and the paper and bake for 5 minutes more. Take out of the oven but not out of the tin and let it cool.

Ingredients for the crème pâstissière:

100g caste sugar
50g cornflour
2 eggs
400ml whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method for the crème pâstissière:

1. Beat the sugar, cornflour, eggs and vanilla extract in a bowl.
2. Boil the milk in a heavy saucepan and take it off the heat as soon as it bubbles.
3. Pour the hot milk into the egg mixture while whisking (if you stop whisking the eggs will begin to cook and thus to harden).
4. Put the mixture in the saucepan and bring to boil over medium heat, whisking constantly. When it thickens, reduce the heat to low and keep whisking for 2 minutes more.
5. When the cremè is done (it must be thick but not set) transfer to a bowl and cover with cling film until it cools completely.

Ingredients for the assembling of the tart:

1 pastry case
1 bowl of crème pâstissière
2 small apples (I used Royal Gala)
juice from 1/2 lemon
2 tablespoons apricot jam

Method to assemble the tart:

1. Preheat oven to 190°C.
2. Beat the crème pâstissière and spread it over the pastry case.
3. Peel (I didn't peel them because I though that they looked prettier with their reddish peel on) and thinly slice the apples (I found easier to slice the apples when I didn't core them, but instead I took a whole apple and sunk the knife into it following its lenght and then I sunk the knife parallely to the prior cut but about 2 mm away) and arrange them over the cremè. Brush the apples with the lemon juice.
4. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until the apple slices have softenedand are starting to turn pale golden.
5. Warm and sieve the apricot jam and brush it over the top.

My boyfriend loved the tart though he said that the apple were sightly uncooked. I guess I'll have to practice more with my new oven. It's a gas oven and I'm not used to this kind but here, in UK, everybody seems to have very old appliances and prefer gas ovens to the electrical ones (and I don't get why seeing that electricity here is cheaper than gas -_-). To be honest, our home right now is old and outdated, so I'm not sure if I can apply what I'm seeing here as a general rule (though I'm looking for another apartment and all I've seen so far are gas ovens). Thank God we're moving next month! (to another house, not back to Spain T_T)

Walnut and honey biscotti

This is my very first recipe. And with that I mean that this is the first recipe thata I have ever created, so I'm feeling quite overexcited all over it ^o^ I've looked it up in the internet to be sure that there's no oder recipe similar to mine and therefore I can proudly state that this is my original creation. Ok, there's people who do that nearly everyday but, as it's the first time that instead of following a given recipe step by step I've adventured through an unknow path, I'm feeling great about it.

It all started when I saw dailydelicious' post about nutty biscotti and I thought: "Hey! I've got some walnuts in the kitchen! I could make some walnut biscotti". My parents are eating 3-4 walnut on daily basis because they've been told that the walnuts are good to prevent heart diseases, thus in my mind I was going to make some "healthy" biscuits ;-) As the walnuts pair wonderfully with honey, I decided to incorporate some to the recipe. Therefore, I had to take out some sugar, adjust the amount of flour, adjust the baking time... After my second attemp I got them right and then I looked again to the original recipe and said: "Hell! What I did has nothing to do with this!... OMG!".

So...here it comes!:

Ingredients:

250g all-purpose flour
20g corn flour
100g walnuts
70g white sugar
50ml honey
1 egg
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 dash of salt

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 170ºC.
2. Toats the walnuts in the oven for 10 minutes. Take them out and let them cool but don't switch .
3. Mix together the honey and the sugar. Then add the egg and beat until well combined.
4. In another bowl, mix the flours, the salt and the baking powder. Add it to the wet ingredients and mix through until there are no lumps.
5. Knead the walnuts into the dough. At this point you'll need to use your hands to do the kneading because the dough is very dense.
6. Divide the dough in two and roll them until each part is about 1ch high and 5cm wide. Put them in the baking tray.
7. Bake them for 20 minutes at 170ºC.
8. Take them out of the oven and lower the temperature to 150ºC. Slice the dough into 1cm wide slices.
9. Bake the biscotti for 15 minutes. Take them out from the oven and let them cool completely in the tray before transfering them to a wire rack.

Maple syrup butter cookies

This cookies were super delicious!!!
They're melt in the mouth cookies with a nice maple syrup flavour that makes them way better than the old vanilla ones. And the recipe is super simple, as they are your typical butter cookies.

I found these little treasures in dailydelicious while browsing through the blog after quite a long time without having a look at anything food-related in Internet.

I don't know why, but I've been feeling lazy since last spring. Fortunately this lazyness seems to be over and my baking lust has returned although I don't know when I'm going to recover my blogging lust -_-U, so this time I'll just post the pictures and the link to the recipe. I followed it step-by-step so there's nothing new I should be telling about it.