The Fussy Eater

Here’s another frosting recipe that I used for some of my Christmas cupcakes. I came across this gem while looking for some gingerbread recipes. I didn't make the cupcakes from the original recipe. I (created my own recipe) made some ginger and molasses cupcakes instead.
Once again I’m sorry for the quality of the photos!

Ingredients:

200 g butter, at room temperature
50 g soft brown sugar
3 tbsp milk
200 g icing sugar

 

Method:

Place 50 grams of the butter in a pan with the brown sugar and cook over a low heat until melted. Add 2 tablespoons of the milk and stir to form a thick glossy toffee sauce. Leave to one side to cool to room temperature.

 In a large mixing bowl beat the butter until smooth, then start to sift in the icing sugar, stirring regularly. Add the toffee sauce and stir until thoroughly incorporated. Add a splash more of milk if the mixture seems too thick - the frosting should be light and creamy.

















Click Here for original recipe

Sometime last year I was watching an episode of Nigella Kitchen and she was making this Devil's Food Cake with Rich Chocolate Frosting. The frosting looked sooo rich and velvety and chocolatey ohhh it looked sooo good!! I knew I just had to try it. I decided I was going to make the frosting for some cupcakes I was going to give away as christmas presents. The frosting was everything I thought it was going to be and more :) The only thing I changed or rather added to the recipe was a cheeky splash of Baileys with a hint of Coffee.Unfortuately I forgot to take pictures of the finished product. AND once again I apologise for the poor quality of the pictures that I did take. I really need to change the light in the kitchen... someday!


 Ingredients:

125ml/4fl oz water
30g/1oz dark muscovado sugar
175g/6oz unsalted butter, cubed
300g/10oz best-quality dark chocolate, finely chopped

  

Method:

Put the water, muscovado sugar and butter into a pan over a low heat until melted.

When this mixture begins to bubble, take the pan off the heat and add the chopped chocolate, swirling the pan so that all the chocolate is hit with heat, then leave for a minute to melt.

Once melted, whisk until smooth and glossy.  * At this stage I added some Coffee Baileys*

Set the frosting aside for about one hour, whisking now and again.

  It is quite a liquid mixture. At first, it looks like it will never thicken but it does.
 However, it will not harden or set like a ganache. It's quite a soft frosting, just perfect for licking off the spoon ;)








Click here to see Nigella's recipe for Devil's Food Cake and Rich Chocolate Frosting

 

It has been a crazy 3 weeks! I've been trying my best to keep up with the posting. Its only been 3 weeks since my last post... as opposed to 3 months. I'm still working through a huge backlog of photos and recipes. My target for this month is to clear the backlog! So without further ado, here is my recipe for Cabonara :)
(p.s: I am terribly sorry about the poor quality pictures!)

Ingredients:

75g parmesan, grated
2 medium eggs, whisked
6 rashers of pancetta/streaky bacon, chopped
½ tsp garlic paste (optional)
Spaghetti, enough for 2 people
Plenty of black pepper
1 tbp Olive oil

Method:

Grate parmesan.

Heat the oil in a large pan (I like using a wok) and fry the pancetta under a medium heat until it’s crispy.

While the pancetta is frying away, cook your spaghetti (follow pack instructions).

Mix together the whisked eggs, grated parmesan and black pepper in a bowl.

Once the pancetta is crispy, add the garlic and turn down the heat to as low as you possibly can.

The pasta should be cooked in the time that it takes the pancetta to crisp up.

Drain the pasta and add it to the pancetta.

Give it a good mix, then turn the heat off.

Working very quickly, add the egg mixture to the pasta and mix thoroughly, making sure every bit of pasta is covered in the egg mixture.

The heat of the pan and pasta will ‘cook’ the eggs, turning it into a thick sauce that coats and clings to the pasta.

Serve immediately and enjoy!

I had seen a recipe for steamed prawns with tofu and tung hoon HERE.
It looked so nice, I just had to try it out! I already had all the ingredients, it was just a matter of putting them together and devouring :)
I decided not to use any tung hoon since Martin doesn't like it.  We had the steamed prawns with boiled rice and stir fried veg. Delish! The only thing I am unhappy about is the quality of my pictures! Recently, all my pictures have turned out really badly. I normally cook at night and seeing as how it is winter, there's no natural light to help my photos AND my extractor fan light isn't working either!
Roll on summer!!

Ingredients:
1 tube soft tofu
10 prawns, devined and balled

Sauce:
2 tbp light soy sauce
1 tbp rice wine
1/2 tbp oyster sauce
dash sesame oil

Garnish:
2 tbp oil
2 garlic cloves, finely sliced
2 (asian) shallots, finely sliced
1 stalk spring onion, finely sliced
chilli flakes/ finely sliced chilli

Method:

Cut the tofu into thick rounds and place on plate/dish (that you intend to use in the steamer).
Place one prawn on each tofu round.
Place all the sauce ingredients into a small bowl and stir.
Pour sauce over the prawns and tofu.
Steam prawns for 8-10 mins (this depends on how big you prawns are).
While the prawns are steaming, heat the oil(garnish) in a small pan.
Fry the finely sliced shallots and garlic until crispy.
Once the prawns are cooked, sprinkle the spring onions, chilli flakes, crispy shallots and garlic plus the oil that the garlic was cooked in, over the prawns.
Serve immediately.




Unfortuately, I don't have a better picture of the 'balled' prawns.
I sliced the back of the prawn too much and it ended up looking like elephant ears!

You could even mince up the prawns and top the tofu.
Or, how about trying some minced fish/scallop/crab meat instead of prawns?

Here are some pictures of Dominic from Halloween. He was dressed as 'Woody' from Toy Story and that is actually Tony's old outfit, believe it or not!

Here are some pictures of Dommy's 3rd birthday.

I made these for Christmas dinner. I normally make the puds for Christmas and this year I thought jelly was the way to go! The last thing you want after a rich meal is a heavy, stodge laden pud. What you need is something light, refreshing and festive!
Enter Clementine Wine Jellies :)

4 Reasons why these were great.

• They are easy to make - this was a big plus, especially since I was sick as dog over the holidays.
• Loved by everyone - who doesn’t like jelly?!
• Covered the ‘Refreshing’ by introducing a citrus element to the dessert – I checked and yes, clementines are totally christmasy :)
• Jellies are for kids parties – Not if you put wine in them!

( Click here to read more... )

Got this lovely praline & white hot chocolate powder in the Whittard’s sale.
I'm thinking of making a cake with this powder....

 We had our White Christmas in our new Snowman Mugs :) Aren’t they just adorable!




 

 

I was terribly disappointed with this unmitigated disaster!

 Let me explain. I saw this cute little Bulging Bug Brain Jelly kit in Marks & Spencer’s and thought it would be perfect for Halloween.

In the kit was: 

A brain shaped mould for the jelly
A pack of caterpillar sweets
A pack of strawberry jelly cubes n instructions on how to make the jelly 

1stly the jelly would not un-mould (I made it twice and had the same problem both times).

2ndly the jelly took forever to set and was extremely soft. I think it could have done with a little less water. I used Hartleys jelly cube for the second try and it was infinitely better (though it still would not un-mould).

3rdly M&S claim that the mould could be reused. I’m really not to sure about that. The only reason I used it again was mainly because I was determined to have a ‘Bulging Bug Brain’ Jelly! The minute the hot jelly liquid touched the thin plastic, the mould started its slow descend towards misshapen alley. This did not surprise me too much as I had suspected the thin inferior plastic would bend to the hot liquid’s will.

4thly this is linked to the 3^rd point. The instructions really should have said to pour the liquid only after it has cooled off slightly. Since the instructions was so sparse and seeing as how its from M&S, a name we can all trust, I figured, ‘what the hell, just pour the hot liquid in’. Big Mistake!

Anyway, I’ve still kept the mould. I’ll need to try the jelly again. I WILL have my Bulging Bug Brain!

  caterpillar anyone?

   Bulging Bug Brain my ass!