Comfort food for a cold weekend

Its been a cold weekend again. Frost in the mornings, icy roads. There's been a beautifully clear and crisp feel to the air.

To my mind freezing weather requires home comforts, and I don't think it can get any more comforting than bangers for tea. Dan's dad and uncle had made a load of sausages and given us a few, so it seemed the perfect time to try out a dish that has been on the 'to do' list for a while: Toad in the Hole. Very traditional, very stodgy, and oh so perfect for a cold night.

I went back to my good old Kitchen Bible for this recipe, so it was Tamasin Day-Lewis' method. It turned out really well, despite the fact that I'd run out of plain white flour so had to use nearly all wholemeal. That didn't seem to spoil it in the least.


It even looked like the picture in the book! I was so proud.

Neither Dan nor I had ever had Toad in the Hole before, but we'll definitely be having it again. Dan had so much that he had to lie down to recover. The combination of crispy yorkshire pudding batter, good sausages, and wholegrain mustard, all dished up with green veg and gravy (me), plus mash (himself) - oh yes, its definitely a keeper.

Also this week, I finally baked the cookie dough I made before Christmas. It has sat in the freezer for over a month feeling unloved, but it is designed to be frozen, and it came out and baked up unspoilt.
So, White chocolate and Pecan Cookies (from the Hummingbird Bakery cook book) were also eaten in quantity over the last couple of days. Yummy. (A few did make it to the intended recipients - my running club - but not as many as I had planned. Dan kept swiping them every time he walked through the kitchen.)

Devil's food cake...oh yum

February is a month of birthdays in our family. In fact, its quite ridiculous - of the 9 members of my immediate family 4 have birthdays in February. My younger sister comes first on the 6th. So birthday cake was required.

Now then, as far as I'm concerned birthday cake means chocolate cake. Nothing else will do.

I decided to try out one of the recipes from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook.



The book has had terribly mixed reviews, but I love the cakes in the cafe so I decided it was definitely worth a go. It had to be Devil's Food Cake; surely the ultimate chocolate cupcake?

I was a little puzzled by some of the instructions in the recipe until I decided that it was written for people making cakes in a food processor. It wasn't too tricky to work out how to adapt it for those of us who don't think its worth paying £400 for a Kitchenaid.


(Even if they are pretty)

The method for this cake was quite different to how you'd normally make a sponge cake so I could see why practiced bakers might read it, decide it didn't make sense, adapt the method, and end up with a bad cake. I followed the instructions (well duh!) and it worked out just fine.

I iced the fairy cakes with vanilla frosting, but found I actually only needed half the recommended quantity. The cakes turned out moist and chocolatey but not heavy.

I do like chocolate cake.



Devil's Food Cake (makes about 12 cupcakes)
This is my adapted method for people making it by hand.

100g plain flour
20g cocoa powder (I used Green and Black's)
140g caster sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
pinch salt
40g butter (at room temperature)
NB: I used goat's butter which I'd never used before but it worked really well
120ml milk
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 170C.
Put flour, cocoa, sugar and baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Rub in the butter until the mixture is the consistency of breadcrumbs.
In a separate bowl whisk together egg, milk and vanilla.
Pour half of the liquid into the flour mixture and stir to combine.
When well mixed add the other half of the liquid and mix until smooth. Don't over mix!
Spoon into cake cases and bake for about 20 minutes.

Allow to cool completely before icing.

Icing

Beat together 125g sieved icing sugar and 40g butter. Combine a tablespoon of milk and a drop of vanilla extract. Add the milk mixure to the icing sugar mixture a little bit at a time. Keep beating away until the whole lot is light and fluffy and well combined. Spread over your cakes and decorate as you see fit.

Food foibles

There are certain tastes you are expected to grow into as you get older. Dark chocolate, for example, or olives. A full-bodied glass of red, strong dark coffee. All of these I adore. They are grown-up tastes. To be lingered over and savoured, but too intense to tempt one into over-indulgence.



Smelly cheese, so ripe it oozes definitely makes it onto the list, but this is a taste I just can't seem to acquire. When I mentioned this is a previous post, Carisa was has horrified and it got me thinking - Isn't it interesting how, even as adults, we still all have certain food foibles?

I'm well aware of the ridiculousness of eating raw fish with enthusiasm but being unable to force myself to eat a mushroom.


I've eaten a whole bowl of snails (actually rather nice - a bit like mussels), but I'd rather go hungry than eat anything with mayonnaise on it.



My complete failure to see the point of condiments remains a source of puzzlement to Dan, and makes buying a sandwich tricky. (Next time you buy one see if you can find one without mayonnaise, mustard, salad dressing, or cheese - see, its not easy!)
Apparently I've been this way since childhood. My mother still shudders at the shame of me declaring at a friend's house that I wouldn't eat food with 'guck' on it. I was 5 years old.

As a child I had an allergy to beef and dairy products and I still tend to avoid both. I don't understand the lust a good steak inspires in people - give me fish or seafood any day - and all I see when I look at a latte is a tummy-ache.
I love fresh, flavoursome fruit and vegetables, interesting herbs and spices, and the satisfaction of a plate popping with different colours and tastes. A little good-quality meat (I'm a terrible snob about meat) and as much fish as I can decently manage.

Whilst this all sounds horrifyingly healthy, I do have to confess to having a terribly sweet tooth. My current object of obssession are the Hummingbird Bakery's muesli bars. Sound's healthy doesn't it? They're not. I'm pretty sure there's condensed milk, butter and sugar in there; so sweet it almost makes your teeth ache, but soooo goooooood! The irony of eating super-healthy, low cal, low fat, blah, blah, blah all day, only to scupper the whole thing with one innocent-looking sweet treat is not lost upon me.

But I'm sure cake should count as a legitimate food group.