Wednesday 31 August 2011

Cheese Soufflés

I'm working from home today so decided to try a new recipe which I could whip up as quickly as making as sandwich for my lunch I found in a free baking leaflet. It's a quick and easy, relatively healthy version of a cheese soufflé made with Philadelphia Light. I whisked 1 egg yolk with 100g of Philadelphia Light and added some thyme and 12g of flour and then folded in the egg white (whipped to peaks). Strangely the recipe had no seasoning mentioned but I added salt and pepper and a grating of parmesan to the top and then put the mixture into two greased ramekins, baked for 25 mins at 160 C and served with a green salad.

The mixture raised well and didn't sink when it was removed from the oven but I felt as though it could do with some parmesan stirred through the mixture to improve the flavour. Also the texture wasn't as good as a normal souffle but I seeing as it's so quick to make and pretty low calorie then I can't complain too much!







Random Bakes of Kindness Two - Spelt Sourdough

I make most of my own bread as I prefer the taste and like to know what has gone into it. I decided to make a sourdough from Peyton and Byrne's British Baking book as I had some Doves Farm organic wholegrain spelt flour I wanted to try. I thought I'd take the opportunity to complete another Random Bakes of Kindness as suggested by @vanessakimbell

Sourdough is a really simple bread as there is no yeast and no kneading. You just mix it all up, working it as little as possible and shaping it into a loaf before baking.





Once out of the oven I had a lovely craggy loaf and two rolls. Delicious with some of the plum jam mentioned in my previous post. The two rolls I'm going to package up and give to my local big issue seller #RBOKindness




Tuesday 30 August 2011

Plum Jam

Miniature plums grow wild in the lanes around my parents. They sent me a huge bag so I decided to turn some into jam.








Some were yellow plums and some red so I decided to spilt them and make a couple of jars of each colour and gave one of each to my nan as she loves jam.

They have a wonderful flavour without being too sweet.




Sunday 28 August 2011

Daring Bakers August Challenge!

I've been taking part in Daring Bakers for a few months now but until now as a non-blogging member. For anyone who hasn't heard of it basically on the 1st of every month a recipe is posted. We all bake the same recipe and then post the results on the 27th of each month.

This month the challenge was to make two chocolates/sweets including trying tempering chocolate.

I decided to make chocolate truffles and chocolate bark. Half of the truffles I dusted in cocoa and the other half I dipped in tempered milk chocolate and drizzled with tempered dark chocolate. For the bark I swirled tempered dark chocolate into milk chocolate and decorated with roasted hazelnuts, squares of fudge and white chocolate chips.




The best dinner ever?

I saw on Twitter that @mistertruffle had some English summer truffles in stock and as I had never cooked with truffles I thought it was worth a try.

The truffles come vac packed to keep them fresh and the delicious smell just hits you when you open the packed.




I wanted the truffle to be the star of the show so I decided to make a simple truffle pasta dish.

I started by making pasta. For anyone who hasn't made pasta it's a simple as a pile of flour, a pinch of salt and an egg cracked into a well and quite a lot of elbow grease! Once you've cracked the egg in just use a fork to gradually incorporate the flour until you get a good dough


Then knead until smooth and elastic and roll very very thin (translucent if possible) make sure you flour it really well to prevent any sticking


Fold in half, slice into thin strip and you're done. Jus point in plenty of salted boiled water for a few mins.



I then rubbed the bottom of my pan with a piece of cut garlic and gently heated slices of truffle in some good olive oil.


Added the cooked pasta, plenty of grated parmesan and a little of the cooking water. Served up and topped with some more truffle and parmesan. We both agreed it was absolutely delicious.







Monday 22 August 2011

Random Bakes of Kindness

I have been meaning to start a blog for a long time and finally got the push I needed when @vanessakimbell started the idea of Random Bakes of Kindness #RBOKindness. It is so simple but such a lovely idea. I couldn't wait to give it a go. Basically you bake a few extra goodies and give them to someone deserving.

Last night I was making some triple chocolate cookies so I decided to make extra, parcel them up and give them to a friend of a friend who is going through a tough time at the moment. Well worth the small extra effort needed to put a smile on someones face!

I don't seem to be able to attach a photo to this post on my phone so for now will put the photo on twitter @skitchendiary.

I think this may well become a regular event...

Photo added!

Sunday 21 August 2011

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