perfect soda bread?

Regular readers will know that I'm a fan of Felicity Cloake's series in the Guardian 'The Perfect...'. This soda bread recipe is taken from her recent soda bread explorations and I have to say it has worked out really well. The oven in my apartment is a bit rubbish so food doesn't always brown properly on top but loaf turned out pretty well anyway and it was ridiculously easy to make. I put everything together when I woke up this morning, put it in the oven and sat down to enjoy a cup of coffee and in almost no time at all I had a freshly baked loaf of delicious soda bread ready for brunch. I think scrambled eggs and maybe some bacon is called for here. If there's any bread left over from brunch soda bread is a great accompaniment to homemade soup.

Ingredients
450g wholemeal flour
50g rolled oats
1 tsp salt
1 level tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tbsp treacle
1 tbsp honey
450ml milk soured with a tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp melted butter

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6 and line a baking sheet with baking parchment.
2. Put the flour, oats, salt, and bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl and mix together well.
3. In another bowl or jug mix together the soured milk, treacle and honey then pour into the dry ingredients. Mix everything together quickly and trying not to work the dough too much as this will make the resulting bread tough. You will end up with a soft and sticky dough. (Mine was a little too wet and gloopy so I needed to add a little extra flour.)
4. Transfer the dough to your prepared baking sheet, form into a round and then cut a deep cross into it. I covered my loaf with an upturned cake tin to help maintain the shape while it was baking but feel free to leave it uncovered if you prefer a more free-formed shape. 
5. Bake in the oven for about 50 minutes or until it is golden brown and cooked through. 
6. Once you've removed the bread from the oven brush the top with melted butter and then leave to cool before eating. 

apple sauce flapjacks

Some of you probably already know but I'm soon to be moving to Bangkok. I'm beyond excited but also a little overwhelmed but everything I need to get done before I go. Thankfully one of the items on my list is to use up as much of the stuff I've got lurking in my cupboards and fridge as possible. I hate waste and I couldn't face throwing away perfectly decent food.

I've recently come across the lovely Credit Crunch Munch people and thought this recipe totally fits in with their aims - money saving but super tasty food. Check them out Fuss Free Flavours, Fab Food 4 All and the current hosts Fish Fingers For Tea. Do check out their work when you get chance they've got some awesome ideas going on.

This flapjack recipe results in a fairly soft and tasty snacking treat and I suspect it may be a little more healthy than the typical flapjack due to the lower sugar/syrup quantities. I started with my standard easy flapjack recipe and made a couple of adjustments. So here it is.

Ingredients
500g rolled oats or muesli of your choice (I used 350 rolled oats, 50g dried cherries, 30g currants and 70g chopped hazelnuts)
250g butter
250g apple sauce (I had a jar of homemade apple sauce my mum had given me a while back)
100g soft brown sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 160C fan. Grease a square brownie pan or other ovenproof dish
2. In a saucepan over a low heat, melt the butter, sugar and apple sauce together until they are thoroughly combined. Don't panic if the sugar doesn't completely dissolve. 
3. Throw in the the oats/muesli/nuts/dried fruit that you're using and coat thoroughly in the buttery sugary goodness. 
4. Press the mixture into your prepared dish then put in the oven for around 45 minutes. The flapjack is ready once it is golden brown.
5. Leave to cool for at least 5-10 minutes minutes before you mark into pieces.
6. Now leave it to cool completely before turning out of the pan otherwise you'll just get all burnt and the flapjack will fall apart. Enjoy with a nice cup of tea.

easy flapjacks

Ok, so all flapjacks are easy to make but I threw these together tonight because I had a few odds and ends in my cupboard that I wanted to use up and I love flapjacks. The beauty of a flapjack recipe is that it is quite forgiving. Once you understand the basics you can vary things according to your preferences. Essentially you need 2:1:1 of oats/nuts/muesli:butter:sugar with some additional syrup if you want the goo. The quantities below make a fairly thin flapjack

Ingredients
200g rolled oats or muesli of your choice (I used a mixture of muesli, crushed walnuts and rolled oats, just make sure you've got more oats than everything else)
100g butter
100g sugar (I used about 80g caster and 20g dark brown sugar because it was the end of a bag in my cupboard)
1 tbsp golden syrup

1. Preheat the oven to 160C fan. Grease a square brownie pan approx 20cm x 20cm.
2. In a saucepan over a low heat, melt the butter, sugar and syrup together until they are thoroughly combined. Don't panic if the sugar doesn't completely dissolve. 
3. Throw in the the oats/muesli/nuts/dried fruit that you're using and coat thoroughly in the buttery sugary goodness. 
4. Press the mixture into your prepared dish then put in the oven for around 30 minutes. The flapjack is ready once it is golden brown. Avoid over cooking as it will continue to cook once out of the oven because of the high sugar and fat content. 
5. Leave to cool for at least 5-10 minutes minutes before you mark into pieces.
6. Now leave it to cool completely before turning out of the pan otherwise you'll just get all burnt and the flapjack will fall apart. Enjoy with a nice cup of tea.

rum balls / romkugler / rum truffles

Ever end up with just too much cake in the house? No, it doesn't happen to me often either! However, I've recently been on a bit of a cupcake making spree and had far too many around and the freezer was full. It seems wrong to me to throw anything away that still has use so I looked around to find something different to do with all this left over cake. This recipe is my version of a rum ball. Many countries have their own versions, mine is more influenced by the scandinavian approach and in particular the Danish romkugler. I know I ate these somewhere when I was younger but they just don't seem to be around anywhere at the moment. I do urge you to try this recipe. It's a proper blast from the past and delicious.

This recipe is intended to use up any regular chocolate cake, however I used my left over salted caramel chocolate cupcakes and some of the cherry filled version. As a consequence I didn't need any additional jam, just from blitzing the left over cupcakes I ended up with a fairly gloopy paste, especially after I added the rum. To thicken it up a little I added in a couple of handfuls of rolled oats and blitzed them up a bit too. This was inspired by the Swedish chokladboll. You may beed to adjust the quantities depending on the moistness of the cake you're using. The most important thing is that you achieve the right consistency.

 Ingredients 
around 800g left over cake bits
70g cocoa
3 - 4 tbsp jam (apricot or dark cherry work particularly well)
1/2 cup dark rum (or more to taste)

rolled oats if needed
150-180g dark chocolate vermicelli/desicated coconut/roasted, flaked almonds/chopped hazlenuts for coating

1. Put the cake and cocoa in the food processor and blitz until all the cake is pulzerised to fine crumbs.
2. Add the jam then pulse until thoroughly combined.
3. Pour in the rum and mix for 20 seconds or so.
4. At this stage, if the mix is too runny add in the oats and blitz. Don't get carried away by adding too much in one go. Add a little at a time and mix thoroughly after each addition until achieve a thick paste.
5. Remove the mix from the bowl and place in another container to firm up in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
6. Once the mixture has chilled and firmed up remove a spoonful at a time and roll in your chosen coating. Place in paper cases and serve.

gooseberry and blackberry crumble

Feeling inspired following a visit to this great farm shop in Kent on the bank holiday weekend we came home and made an awesome, yet super simple gooseberry and blackberry crumble. This recipe is not too sweet so the sharpness of the fruit really shines through. Feel free to add more sugar if you have a sweeter tooth than me. It is particularly good enjoyed with some good quality vanilla ice cream. I had some assistance making this crumble so don't be concerned by the masculine hands appearing in the pictures!

Ingredients
Crumble topping:
280g Self Raising Flour
140g unsalted butter
140g sugar
60g rolled oats / ground almonds or other nuts (optional)
1 tsp ground cinnamon

Crumble filling:
1 punnet of blackberries, rinsed
500g gooseberries, rinsed
Generous sprinkle of sugar. (approx 50g)

1. Preheat the oven to 180C (fan assisted)
2. Place the fruit in an ovenproof dish and sprinkle with the sugar.
3. Place the flour, butter, sugar and cinnamon in a large bowl and rub together with your hands until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. You can also complete this step in a food processor. Use the pulse function so that you don't over mix it.
4. Stir through the oats or nuts if using them. 
5. Sprinkle to crumble topping over your fruit then place in the oven.
6. Depending on the size of dish and what your oven is like it will take about 30-40 minutes to cook. You want the topping to be golden brown and the fruity mixture below just bubbling through.
7. Serve with a generous scoop of ice cream or custard or cream.