The Crazy Kitchen: September 2014

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Tuesday 30 September 2014

Cumin Seed Crackers, Chutney and Carnivore Club

I had some pastry left over from the Chicken Korma pie that I made recently, and decided to roll it out thinly and bake it with cumin seeds & salt sprinkled on, and it was bloomin' lovely. This gave me an idea for cumin seed crackers, which turned out light and crispy just as I'd hoped.

Cumin Seed Crackers, Chutney and Carnivore Club

Cumin Seed Crackers

150g wholemeal self raising flour
25g cold butter
1/2 tsp course sea salt, plus extra for sprinkling on top
1 tsp cumin seeds
approx 3-4 tbsp cold water
1 egg white
  • Rub the butter into the flour
  • Crush 1 tsp of cumin seeds in a pestle & mortar
  • Add the salt and cumin to the flour
  • Add the water a little at a time, until it all comes together
  • Knead for a couple of minutes until it becomes more elastic
  • Place into a bowl and cover with clingfilm and leave to rest for an hour
  • Divide the dough into 3 pieces and roll out between 2 sheets of greaseproof paper as thinly as you can
  • Cut discs with a pastry cutter
  • Lay onto a baking tray and brush with the egg white
  • Sprinkle a few seeds and salt over the discs
  • Bake in a preheated 180C oven for 10 minutes until just turning brown
  • Leave to cool

I served up a little platter with cheese, a batch of this year's home made chilli plum jam, grapes and some of the contents of my Carnivore Club box.

Cumin Seed Crackers, Chutney and Carnivore Club Cumin Seed Crackers, Chutney and Carnivore Club Cumin Seed Crackers, Chutney and Carnivore Club Cumin Seed Crackers, Chutney and Carnivore Club

Carnivore club is a monthly subscription service that sends out a box of 4-6 handcrafted cured meats from top artisans; perfect for a charcuterie buff. The box I was sent had the following meats in :

Cornish Chorizo
Wild Venison Bresaola
Black olive salami
Pokers (snacking salami)
Cornish Coppa

Cumin Seed Crackers, Chutney and Carnivore Club Cumin Seed Crackers, Chutney and Carnivore Club Cumin Seed Crackers, Chutney and Carnivore Club

I was provided with the Carnivore Box free of charge

Chicken Korma Pie

If you ever fancied yourself as a bit of a piemaker then get your thinking cap on as Higgidy are on the search for their next pie, in their Higgidy Recipe Hunt.

Higgidy Recipe Hunt

I was sent a few goodies to help me create my own recipe to enter into the hunt, including my very own personalised rolling pin!


Since attending an Indian cookery course last week I've been a little addicted to making chicken korma, so I decided to make a chicken korma pie.

Chicken Korma Pie

You can find the chicken korma recipe here (I used chicken breast) and my recipe for cream cheese pastry here, which I added a little turmeric to, to give it a great yellow colour. Instead of a pastry base I added approx 200g of cooked basmati rice to help soak up some of the excess sauce. Despite the shrunken pastry the pie was so good, and all the family loved it, and it tasted so much better than it looks. The pastry was lovely and light and crispy, and the offcuts were baked with a sprinkling of cumin seeds and salt and eaten with cheese & chutney!

Chicken Korma Pie Chicken Korma Pie Chicken Korma Pie Chicken Korma Pie Chicken Korma Pie Chicken Korma Pie

It was a complete meal in a pie, however we enjoyed it accompanied by Naan breads, poppadoms and chutney.

Monday 29 September 2014

Caramel Apple Choux Buns

What do you do when you have more apples than you can possibly eat and there's no more room in your freezer? You cook with them and make dessert, of course.

We have loads of apples at the moment - you may have noticed a few apple recipes this month - Toffee Apple Cinnamon Bun Rings, Toffee Apple Cobbler, German Apple Streusel Cake and Cinnamon Apple Breakfast Rolls, but you can never get fed up of eating apples if they're smothered in a caramel sauce, like these choux buns.

  Caramel Apple Choux BunsCaramel Apple Choux Buns Caramel Apple Choux Buns Caramel Apple Choux Buns

You can find the full recipe on Great British Chefs here.


This recipe was commissioned by Great British Chefs


entered into the Rix October draw

Thursday 25 September 2014

Toffee Apple Cinnamon Bun Rings

After watching Bake Off last night I knew exactly what I was going to bake this week, and it wasn't going to be 36 doughnuts or Povitica. I love making cinnamon buns, but as they don't have fruit in, and I have a load of windfall apples to use, I decided to pimp up my regular cinnamon buns with an apple & raisin filling and a toffee drizzle.

Toffee Apple Cinnamon Bun Rings

Toffee Apple Cinnamon Bun Rings - makes 2 rings / 12 buns

500g white bread flour
1/2 tsp salt
50g caster sugar
50g butter, softened
7g yeast
225-250ml milk
1 egg

filling
4 apples
Juice of half lemon
75g raisins
25g butter
25g soft brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
extra butter for greasing

Toffee sauce - recipe here
  • Add the flour, salt, sugar, butter & yeast to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a flat beater
  • Add the egg and 225ml of the milk with the motor running, until it all starts to come together, adding more milk if necessary
  • You want the dough to be slightly sticky, but not wet
  • Turn out onto a floured surface & knead for 5-10 minutes, until soft, stretchy and smooth
  • Place the dough in a greased bowl and cover with clingfilm
  • Leave to double in size for approx 2 hours
  • In the meantime peel, core & slice the apples
  • Add the apples to a pan with the lemon juice, raisins, butter, sugar and cinnamon
  • Heat until the butter has melted, and mix well
  • Place a lid on & cook gently for 10 minutes, until the apple has softened but holds its shape
  • Leave to cool & then drain any excess juice
  • Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and roll out into a large rectangle
  • Cover evenly with the apple mixture
  • Roll up tightly into a long sausage
  • Slice the ends off and then slice into 12 equal pieces
  • Grease two 8" sandwich tins with butter
  • Lay 6 slices into each tin
  • Cover with clingfilm and leave to prove for an hour
  • Brush the tops of the dough with melted butter
  • Bake in a preheated 200C oven for approx 15 minutes
  • Allow to cool in the tins for 10 minutes before turning out & drizzling with toffee sauce
Toffee Apple Cinnamon Bun Rings Toffee Apple Cinnamon Bun Rings Toffee Apple Cinnamon Bun Rings Toffee Apple Cinnamon Bun Rings Toffee Apple Cinnamon Bun Rings Toffee Apple Cinnamon Bun Rings Toffee Apple Cinnamon Bun Rings Toffee Apple Cinnamon Bun Rings Toffee Apple Cinnamon Bun Rings

GreatBloggersBakeOff  photo BAKE_ALONG_LOGO_zps284c894d.png

Monday 22 September 2014

Sprinkle Party and a 5 layer Sprinkle Covered Ombre Cake

How do you keep eight 11/12 year olds happy?

First of all you let them hang around in trees for 90 minutes at Go Ape, working up an appetite. You then let them loose on sandwiches, crisps and a whole lot of sugar, then you send them home to work the sugar off in the comfort of their own homes!

Last weekend Hanna and her friend had a joint birthday party, and my part was to provide the party food. I've wanted to make a sprinkle cake for ages but have never been brave enough before. So what do you do when you're nervous about making a sprinkle cake? You make two of them, of course!

Sprinkle Party and a 5 layer Sprinkle Covered Ombre Cake Sprinkle Party and a 5 layer Sprinkle Covered Ombre Cake Sprinkle Party and a 5 layer Sprinkle Covered Ombre Cake
Sprinkle Party and a 5 layer Sprinkle Covered Ombre Cake Sprinkle Party and a 5 layer Sprinkle Covered Ombre Cake Sprinkle Party and a 5 layer Sprinkle Covered Ombre Cake Sprinkle Party and a 5 layer Sprinkle Covered Ombre Cake Sprinkle Party and a 5 layer Sprinkle Covered Ombre Cake

Once I'd decided on the cakes, a quick browse on Pinterest (if you can ever have a quick browse on Pinterest) led me down the path of other sprinkle covered party foods.

Sprinkle Party and a 5 layer Sprinkle Covered Ombre Cake
chocolate covered breadsticks

Sprinkle Party and a 5 layer Sprinkle Covered Ombre Cake
chocolate covered Oreo pops

Sprinkle Party and a 5 layer Sprinkle Covered Ombre Cake
chocolate covered marshmallows on cocktail sticks

Sprinkle Party and a 5 layer Sprinkle Covered Ombre Cake
 chocolate covered pink wafers

Sprinkle Party and a 5 layer Sprinkle Covered Ombre Cake
cake pops (made from off cuts of birthday cake and leftover buttercream)

Sprinkle Party and a 5 layer Sprinkle Covered Ombre Cake
chocolate covered Rice Krispie bars (cut into 3 pieces)

Sprinkle Party and a 5 layer Sprinkle Covered Ombre Cake
chocolate covered strawberries 

Sprinkle Party and a 5 layer Sprinkle Covered Ombre Cake Sprinkle Party and a 5 layer Sprinkle Covered Ombre Cake Sprinkle Party and a 5 layer Sprinkle Covered Ombre Cake
Sprinkle Party and a 5 layer Sprinkle Covered Ombre Cake
Sprinkle Party and a 5 layer Sprinkle Covered Ombre Cake
Sprinkle Party and a 5 layer Sprinkle Covered Ombre Cake

The 5 layer ombre cake was made using a Wilton layer cake pan. They are only 6" pans but it makes a cake which is plenty big enough to go around 8-10 people. I used ingredient quantities as below :

250g butter
250g caster sugar
4 eggs
250g self raising flour

This was then divided between the 5 pans, and once the cakes had cooled I sliced the tops off to level them (and used the off-cuts to make cake pops).

TIP : I see many recipes for Ombre cakes telling you to divide the cake batter into separate bowls (5 bowls in this case), but that really isn't necessary for an Ombre cake - a rainbow cake then yes, but not an ombre cake. What you need to do is weigh your cake batter - the easiest way to do this is to weigh your bowl before starting and then weigh it once the batter is made, and deduct the weight of the bowl. I divided this by 5 (5 layers), and this is the quantity of cake batter that would go into each greased and lined tin (give or take a couple of grams). Once you've made your calculations you need to colour the batter - add a little colouring to the whole batter (this will be the colour of your palest layer), and then weigh out the batter into one tin. Then add a little more colouring, and weigh the batter out into the second tin, and so on, until all tins have been filled - saves washing 5 extra bowls unnecessarily. 

The cakes were then sandwiched together and covered with vanilla buttercream, which I then left for a few hours (and overnight for one of the cakes) before rolling in sprinkles - not as easy as it looks (lots of tutorials on Pinterest)! The confetti dot covered cake took 3 full tubes of dots, however the 100's & 1000's covered cake took less than 2 tubes.


Sprinkle Party and a 5 layer Sprinkle Covered Ombre Cake

We also had sandwiches, crisps and teapots filled with pink lemonade, and Jack made some place cards and tucked a napkin into each tea cup.  It was a party very heavy on sugar, but that's ok once in a while, and especially when it's possibly the last party of this kind for this group of primary school friends, now they're all at high school.
Sprinkle Party and a 5 layer Sprinkle Covered Ombre Cake

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