Recipe

- 450g plain flour

- 3 tsp baking powder

- 60g caster sugar, plus a little extra for sprinkling.

- 2 eggs, lightly beaten

- 60g melted butter

- 1 tsp vanilla extract

- 220mls milk

- 1 punnet of strawberries, washed, hulled, chopped and patted dry

- 100g white chocolate chips (or a bar, chopped up)

Method ….

Preheat the oven to 220deg. Line a large baking tray with greaseproof/baking paper.

In a large mixing bowl, mix the flour, baking powder and sugar. Then mix the eggs, butter, vanilla and milk in a bowl/jug. Stir all but a small amount (about 50mls) through the dry ingredients to form a sticky dough. Then stir through the chocolate chips and strawberry pieces.

On a floured surface tip out the dough and bring together lightly. Do NOT over knead – this will make the scones tough and stop them rising nicely. Roll out lightly to about 4-5cm (1 and ½ inches).

Using a cutter cut out scones and place them on the lined baking tray. Brush the tops with the leftover liquid, and sprinkle with a little sugar. Bake in the preheated oven for about 12-15 minutes until dark golden. Remove and cool on a wire rack until just cool enough to eat without burning your tongue!

Happy baking!

Oonagh x.
ps: We are now open for business and running cooking classes, click here for more information!

Recipe

Serves 2 – but scale up, alter ingredients, substitute etc..

- 4 scallions (spring onions, chopped)
- 1 carrot, finely sliced
- 1 stick celery, finely chopped
- Handful spinach leaves
- ½ red pepper, sliced
- 1 thumb sized piece of root ginger, grated
- 1 clove garlic, grated/crushed
- 1 chilli, finely chopped (or a pinch of chilli flakes – to your taste)
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon of nam pla (fish sauce, if you have it)
- Juice of 1 lime
- Veg stock, about 750mls

Optional:

- Noodles – preferably rice noodles
- Chicken breast, sliced (either cooked, or if raw, poach in the stock at the start)
- Prawns, shrimp, cook as if chicken
- Any other vegetables

Method ….

Simply put the stock in a saucepan, and add any raw chicken or fish if using, and poach in simmering water for 5-10 minutes, until cooked. Then put everything else in the saucepan, and bring to the boil. Simmer for 2-3 minutes, taste, adjust seasoning, add a teaspoon of brown sugar if it’s a bit bitter for your taste, or a dash more soy sauce, or more lime juice, and serve. If you have a bit of fresh coriander hanging around, tear and garnish on top.

Simples…

Happy eating!

Oonagh x.
ps: We are now open for business and running classes, click here for more information!

biscuits together using jam, cream, chocolate, curd, buttercream…

The recipe

- 225g soft butter
- 225g caster sugar
- 1 egg
- 350g plain flour
Optional additions:

Any one of the following

- zest of a lemon/lime/orange
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ tsp cinnamon/.mixed spice
- ½ tsp ground star anise
- Handful small chocolate chips

To make them, simply cream the butter and sugar together until it is light and fluffy. You can do this with a wooden spoon, a hand beater, or, easiest of all, a stand mixer. Add in the egg and beat until it

is incorporated. Then add in the flour and bring it together to form a soft dough. Split the dough into 2 pieces, to make it easier to roll. Roll out the dough on a large sheet of greaseproof paper, to the depth you want, I usually go about ½ cm thick. Place in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180deg, and line 2 large baking sheets with greaseproof paper.

When the dough has been chilled, using the cutter(s) of your choice, cut out the biscuits. The dough makes between 20-30 averaged sized biscuits. Re-roll any scraps you have leftover. Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes until the biscuits are pale golden. They will still feel soft coming out of the oven but they will set while cooling. Allow to cool completely on a wire rack.

You can eat them as they are, sandwich them with any filling, or do what I’m doing this evening for dessert, and serving them with ice-cream and macerated strawberries!

Deelicious!

hot cross buns

Hot Cross Buns

Every season brings with it certain traditions in cooking and baking. Easter, nearly upon us, has a wealth of tradition, and hot cross buns has to be one of the most loved, and tastiest!

These buns aren’t difficult to make, but they do require a little time. They are sooo worth it though!

The dough is an enriched one, just meaning that it has butter, egg, and milk in it, but the treatment is very like how you would make a regular yeast bread. Even if you’ve never made bread, just follow the instruction and you’ll be tucking in to warm aromatic buns before you know it.

Ingredients

-          500g strong white flour (not plain flour)

-          10g instant dried yeast

-          10g salt

-          50g sugar

-          300mls milk

-          50g butter

-          1 egg

-          1 tsp cinnamon

-          100g sultanas (or mixed dried fruit)

-          Zest of an orange

For the crosses:

-          150g flour

-          water

For the glaze:

-          4 tablespoons apricot jam, or marmalade, warmed slightly.

Put the flour, salt, sugar and yeast in a mixing bowl (or the bowl of a mixer), taking care to put the yeast and salt on opposite sides of the bowl (salt stops the yeast from working).

Warm the milk and butter together until the butter melts, and when it is hand hot, no hotter, pour into the flour mix, and bring the dough together. Add in the egg. Knead for about 7-10 minutes by hand or 5 minutes with the dough hook of a mixer. The dough is quite sticky but keep at it. If kneading by hand, resist the urge to add more flour, it will eventually become pliable.

Place the dough in an oiled bowl, and cover with clingfilm. Leave it until it has doubled in size – this may take anything from 45 minutes to 1 ½ hours, but usually about an hour.

Knock back the dough by kneading it lightly. At this point add in the fruit, zest, and cinnamon, and continue to knead until it is well incorporated in to the dough. Rest the dough for 30 minutes. It will rise again. (Easter themed!)

At this point get a large baking tray and line with parchment paper – the buns may stick otherwise

After 30 minutes, knock it back one more time, and divide into 12 pieces for large buns, or 16 for small. Rollin to a round bun shape. If you wish to have even sized buns, weigh the dough at this time, and divide by the number of buns you want, then weigh each bun. It’s worth it for a perfect batch, but otherwise give a good guess.

Place the buns in the tray, and cover loosely with clingfilm.  Leave until doubled in size again, up to an hour, but if the room is warm, maybe less.

Preheat the oven to 220deg or 200 fan.

Make a paste with 150g plain flour and enough water to make a sticky paste. Put in a piping bag, or freezer bag, and snip just the tip. ‘Draw’ crosses with the paste on each bun.

Place in the oven and bake for 18-20 minutes until the buns are risen and dark golden.

Cool on a wire rack, and while still warm glaze with a little warmed apricot jam, or marmalade, using a pastry brush.

These are best eaten on the day you bake them, warm and dripping with butter. If you have leftovers, they freeze very well.

If you want them for breakfast, you can make them up until you would have shaped them in to buns, and keep the dough covered in the fridge overnight. Then in the morning you can remove the dough, allow to come to room temperature for about half an hour, then shape into buns and proceed as above.

hand, can end up being bitter and stodgy. I hope you enjoy this take on an old favourite.

I’ve made the sponge from a genoise mix, so almost no fat (always good). The icing is a lighter

alternative to buttercream, I use mascarpone instead. Let me know how you get on

impressive, and taste so delicious, that it may seem like they are difficult to make – but, no! They

really are quite simple, and much easier to master than some recipes in your repertoire.

So, firstly, throw out all the preconceptions you have about pastry. This is pastry by name, but not by

nature. There’s no fiddling around with cold butter, and no handling and all the rest..just follow the

instructions and you’ll have perfect profiteroles pronto!

Prepare
Preheat the oven to 200deg fan.

Line 2 large baking trays with greaseproof/parchment paper

Choux pastry recipe

Ingredients

- 150mls water

- 80g butter

- 100g strong white flour

- 3 eggs, beaten

Method

In a saucepan, place the water and the butter over a medium heat. Bring to the boil while stirring, until the butter has melted. Remove the pan from the heat and add the flour while continuing to stir vigorously. The mixture will come together in a ball – keep stirring for about a minute. Then add the beaten egg, a little at a time. Continue to stir, the mixture will be lumpy each time before it comes together again, at which point you add more egg.

You may not need all the egg. The consistency you are looking for is when it drops reluctantly off the spoon. So it should be soft, but not runny. Using a piping bag with a plain nozzle, pipe small amounts (about a heaped teaspoon) on to the tray, leaving space between them to expand. If you don’t have a piping bag, you can use a teaspoon.

This amount will make 30-40 profiteroles, so you may need a second tray.

Bake in the hot oven for 20-25 minutes until the buns have risen and are dark golden brown. Resist the urge to take them out too soon! When they are baked, remove them and carefully, without burning yourself, poke a small hole in them with a small sharp knife, or a skewer. I do this in the side of them. Return the trays to the oven for 3 minutes. This dries them out and stops steam from making them soggy.

Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack. In the meantime, make the filling and the sauce.

Ingredients for Chantilly cream

- 400mls cream

- 2 tsp vanilla extract
Ingredients for Chocolate sauce

- 200mls cream

- 200g dark chocolate (at least 60% cocoa solids)

- 2 tablespoons Cointreau/whiskey/rum/brandy etc. (optional)

Method

For the cream filling, simply whip the cream with the vanilla until it forms soft peaks.

For the sauce, heat the cream, but don’t let it boil. Remove from the heat, add the liqueur if using, and then add the chocolate. Stir until melted and smooth.

When the buns are cold, find the hole you already made, and make it a little bigger. Then using a piping bag, pipe the whipped cream in to the centre of each bun. If you don’t have a piping bag, then you can cut each in half and fill with cream and replace the top.

To serve, place all the buns on a large plate, or 3-4 on individual plates, and drizzle with the chocolate sauce.

These buns keep extremely well in the freezer before being filled.

Enjoy! xx

New year, new start, new resolutions…how about a new recipe …for yeast bread. Yes, you read that correctly, I’m asking you to try to make a yeast bread. Ah do, go on, you know  you want to.. although there are a few steps to it, the process is simple. And the results – well, fresh crusty bread, still warm from the oven, butter softly melting..need I say more?

Ingredients

The ingredients are few:

- 500g strong white flour (it must be strong, not plain)

- 15g instant dried yeast, or 2 sachets

- 10g salt (2 teaspoons)

- About 300mls hand warm water

Method

Step 1 – mixing and kneading

 Mix all the ingredients together to form a dough. It should come together, but not be overly wet and sticky. Then knead for up to 10 minutes (or if you have a food processor with a dough hook, about 5). Kneading stretches the dough and develops the gluten in the bread giving it its soft texture. There are various ways to do it, but I take the dough, hold it with one hand then stretch it away from me with the other hand, roll back up into a ball, then repeat. The texture will change over time from lumpy dough, to smooth and elastic.

 
Step 2 – proving

When this is done, you need to let the dough ‘prove’ or rest, until it has doubled in size. This can be as short as an hour, or as long as 3 hours, but generally about 1 hour, in a warm place. Just place the dough in an oiled bowl and cover with cling-film. When it has puffed up and is soft, and twice the size, its ready for the next step.

Step 3 – knocking back and shaping

You now need to knock all the air out of the dough, its very satisfying, just punch it, give it a quick knead, and then shape it. Out of this lump of dough, you can make bread, rolls, bread sticks, pizza bases, flatbreads…in fact, at this stage it can be used directly to make pizza or flatbreads, just divide it into 4-6 pieces and roll out flat. If you want to make a loaf of bread, then it needs to be shaped and let prove a second time. So just roll the ball of dough into the shape you like – I just make a smooth ball. Dust a baking tray or tin with flour and place the shaped dough on it.
Step 4 – second prove

Cover again with clingfilm, and leave for up to an hour until doubled in size. Preheat the oven to 220c/200 fan

Step 5 – baking

 Remove the clingfilm when the dough has proved. You’ll know this when you stick your finger in it the indent remains. Place in the hot oven and bake for about 30 minutes Cool on a wire rack, pat yourself on the back, and enjoy with butter, cheese, olives, red wine, a cup of tea, jam…. You know you want to!

Ingredients

For the sponge:

- 50g cocoa powder, sieved
- 3 large eggs
- 75g soft light brown sugar

For the filling:

- 100g dark chocolate (55%-60%), broken up
- 1 tablespoon dark muscovado sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 200ml cream

Method

Preheat the oven to 180c fan, and line a swiss roll tin (approx. 23x32cm)

Place the eggs and sugar in a bowl and whisk with an electric whisk for about 8-10 minutes or until pale and light. Fold in the cocoa, in two goes.

Pour the mix into the prepared tin and bake for 8-10 minutes. It should spring back and have shrunk slightly from the sides. Lay out a clean teatowel, dusted with icing sugar, and turn the cake onto it. Leave the greaseproof paper on, and roll it up, rolling the teatowel with it. Leave until cool – 45 minutes should do it.

Meanwhile, make the filling….

Melt the chocolate with the sugar vanilla and 2 tbsp cream, in a bowl over a pan of simmering water, stirring occasionally. When smooth, remove from the heat. Whisk the remaining cream, and fold into the cooled chocolate mix.

When the cake is ready, unroll carefully and remove the paper.
Spread the cake with the filling, re-roll and place on a serving plate, with the seam down.

Dust with icing sugar, and serve!

You could add some raspberries, cherries, or strawberries into the cooled filling if you wish, or decorate with chocolate curls.

But if you are trying to cut down on fat for perhaps reducing cholesterol, then this is your go-to cake. You can dress it up however you like, plain vanilla cream, lemon curd, rosewater in the batter..use your imagination with flavour, but the basic cake remains the same.

Ingredients

- 10 egg whites

- 300g caster sugar

- 125g plain flour

- 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
- A squeeze of lemon juice

Optional flavourings: one of the following

- 1 teaspoon rosewater/orangeblossom water
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Zest of 2 lemons or oranges or limes

Method

Preheat the oven to 180deg/160 fan.

Use a 10” angel food cake tin, or any non-stick ring cake tin. Do not be grease/oil the tin.
Whisk the egg whites with an electric mixer/stand mixer until frothy, then add 200g of the sugar, the lemon juice, and cream of tartar. At this point, use any of the flavourings you wish. Continue to whisk until the egg whites form soft peaks. While continuing to whisk, add in the rest of the sugar, one tablespoon at a time until the mixture forms stiff, but not dry peaks.
Fold in the flour gently.
Spoon the mix in to the tin, and tap the tin a couple of times on the counter to get rid of air pockets.
Bake for about 40 minutes until the cake is golden and risen. The smell will be amazing – like candy floss!

Take the cake out of the oven and turn the tin upside-down – trust me on this, it won’t fall out. If you don’t turn it, the cake will be dense rather than airy, so don’t skip this step.
If the cake has risen a bit above the top of the tin, simply get a large bottle (e.g. of wine) and put the tin over the neck of the bottle. Leave until cool, then gently ease from the tin on to your serving plate.

It is simple and beautiful as it is, but you can serve with whipped cream (flavoured with the flavour you may have used in the batter).

You could fill the middle with fresh berries.
You could ice it with a lemon buttercream, or a chocolate ganache.
You could dredge with icing sugar and crystallised flowers (as shown).

Because it has no fat to preserve it, this cake will only keep for a few days in an airtight tin … oh yes, you are going to have to eat it all the sooner

It is sticky, comforting, warm and uplifting – like a hug in a cake! And even better – it is so easy to make, it freezes well, and keeps for about a week in a tin. (I’m assuming this as it’s never lasted more than a day in my house). The only drawback is, that one slice is never enough..oh well..the trials of being a baker..

Seriously, and I’m not joking, if you only ever bake one single thing in your life, make it this Banana Bread!!

Ingredients

Recipe:

- About 4-5 bananas, very ripe (almost turning black, if possible)
- 75g very soft butter
- 200g soft dark brown sugar (or muscovado sugar)
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp cinnamon (optional)
- 170g any flour (plain, spelt, wholemeal etc.)
- 1 tsp bread soda

Method

Preheat the oven to 180c (160 fan)
Line a 2 lb loaf tin with greaseproof paper or a loaf liner.

Mash the bananas well, add in the sugar, butter, egg, and vanilla.
Mix very well until combined. Then stir through the flour, and the bread soda.
Pour into the prepared tin, and bake for 50-60 minutes until dark brown and aromatic.
Allow to cool before slicing, buttering, and enjoying.

Variations:

You can add a handful of chopped pecans or walnuts to the mix, or sprinkle on top before baking.
Dried banana chips can be used to decorate the top and give a lovely crunch.
A handful of chocolate chips works very well too.

The bread makes a delicious grown-up treat if you pour about 30mls of whiskey over the top when it is still warm (oh yes!).
It can be served as dessert with a custard or caramel/butterscotch sauce and is also wonderful toasted and coated in fresh creamy butter.