Some people love christmas cake, some people love christmas pudding, some love mince pies...
we might not agree on any of the above, or what film we want to watch, but the one thing my whole family can agree on is that we all love trifle!
It does help with this one if you've already made the swiss roll and the custard!
Take a large mango (or a few peaches, nectarines... anything of that nature. I chose mango because they're still in season in Southern Spain in December and can be shipped here without airmiles). Skin and slice into small wedges. Melt a couple of tablespoons of dark sugar in a frying pan, chuck in the fruit and sprinkle a tablespoon of brandy over. Cook until the fruit is lovely and soft and the sugar has turned to caramel.
Slice the swiss roll and layer the bottom of a trifle dish with it. Sprinkle over a couple of tablespoons (or more!) of brandy, and then tip all the cooked, caramelised fruit on top. Spread the custard over the top, cover with clingfilm and put in the fridge for as long as you can - ideally a day.
Mix together two tubs of creme fraiche with the seeds of a vanilla pod and a tablespoon of dark sugar. Slather on top of the custard and pop back in the fridge.
Melt a couple of tablespoons of caster sugar in a non-stick pan and throw in a small packet of salted peanuts. Cook, stirring, until the sugar has turned light brown, then tip out onto a sheet of greaseproof paper. Let cool, then crush with a rolling pin and sprinkle on top of the trifle before serving.
Go to the Christmas Dinner (2011) post
I have a lovely neighbour who looks after my car ("Big Sil") as I am rather mechanically challenged. Last week he very kindly filled her up with coolant, checked the oil and tyres and things so I thought I'd make some cookies for him and his family.
The recipe comes from Kitchen by Nigella and worked out absolutely perfectly. Instead of a bag of chocolate chips, which I think sometimes taste a bit... funny, I just got a bar of organic cook's chocolate and cut it into chips.
First, melt 150g of butter in a pan and then set on one side to cool down. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C.
Measure out 125g of soft brown sugar and 100g of normal caster sugar into a large mixing bowl, then pour the warm butter over the top and stir together. Add 2 teaspoons of vanilla essence followed by a chilled egg and extra yolk. Beat them together until lovely and creamy and then slowly fold in 300g of plain flour and 1/2 a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda.
When you have a beautiful, golden, sticky dough, chop up your chocolate to make chocolate chips - about two thirds of a large bar - and stir it through.
Lay out a baking tray and line it with greaseproof paper, oil it lightly to make sure your cookies won't stick. Use an ice cream scoop to place dollops of dough on top, cook them in two batches as they spread out quite a lot when they cook. The recipe said this would make 14 cookies and that's exactly what I got.
Bake for 17 minutes and leave to cool slightly before transferring to a wire rack. They do need to be cool before you eat them for the texture to be just right.
It's no secret amongst my family and friends that I love cherries, particularly sour or morello cherries, or those preserved in liqueur. My parents even created an alcoholic morello cherry fruit salad as my birthday "cake" this year and I was delighted.
A while ago I went looking for preserved cherries to keep in my storecupboard, to guard against future sweet cravings. I found jars of sour cherries, made by Windmill Organics / Biona, on sale in a webshop and promptly ordered three jars.
So it came to pass that the other night both my husband and I wanted pudding. I'd sent him to the supermarket to pick up a couple of things and while he was there, he phoned me to regale me with descriptions of the various pre-made puddings they had laid out to tempt him. Weirdly, for a hot summer's day, all they had in the organic section were treacle tarts, sticky toffee puddings and the like.
A little too wintery for me; I can eat those things in the middle of winter if I want (and lovely they are too), but I really wanted some fruit to round off a brilliant, sunny day. So, instead, I asked him to bring home a pot of cream and an apple.
This recipe is really just another version of my Rhumble, but I think it's always worth sharing variations on a theme. The topping is the same, but the filling is very different, though perhaps even simpler.
First job is to peel and core the apple, then gently heat it with the apple juice from the cherry jar, a dash of cherry liqueur/brandy if you have it, and a sprinkling of brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Once it's started to go soft, stir in the cherries from the jar and have a little taste. Add more sugar or some lemon juice as you like.
Tip this into a baking dish and set to one side while you make the topping.
The topping, as before, is just 100g of flour and 50g butter rubbed together until breadcrumby. Mixed in with 50g brown sugar, oats and some chopped nuts; I used walnut peices and some salted peanuts.
Pour this over the top of the fruit and put in the oven for 20 minutes at 180 degrees. Simple as that!
I had some blueberries delivered on Friday, I was intending to eat them as they are but, when I was in the supermarket earlier due to cat food and shampoo shortages, I walked past some Spanish nectarines and had a sudden craving.
I'm sure I've seen Nigella make a fruit tart with blueberries and nectarines before, and I decided this was exactly what I wanted to eat tonight.
I picked up three nectarines and some pre-made puff pastry (super-laze), knowing I already had cream and sugar at home. There is definitely a gap in the market for organic pre-made pastry, not even waitrose sell any.
Rolled out the pastry and scored a border, covered it with thinly sliced nectarines, topped with the blueberries and lots of muscovado sugar. Baked it in the oven at 220 degrees for 20-25 minutes.
I cut us a huuuuge slice each, covered them with double cream, ate the lot, felt deliciously fat and fell asleep on the sofa. Aaah, bank holiday weekend.
