Rice pudding with apple compote and shortbread crumble recipe

I first made this 3 years ago for a christmas party and was impressed by the taste of it. I just love how the texture harmonises together i.e. the bite of the crumble within the rice pudding. Just taste so good that I had to make it again. This time round, I made it on my birthday which was 2 weeks back. It still tasted soooo amazing! Attempted making 3 course meal which my boyfriend said that this dish was the best among the others. Just had to concur with him.

Rice pudding with apple compote and shortbread crumble recipe by Stephen Terry in the Good Food Guide Recipes book. 

Makes 4-6 individual crumbles

Ingredients:

For the rice pudding:

250ml double cream

250ml milk

1 vanilla pod, split in half lengthways

85g pudding rice

55g caster sugar

 

For the apple compote:

2 large bramley apples, peeled, cored and cut into 5mm dice

50g caster sugar

 

For the shortbread crumble:

25g butter, softened

40g strong white flour

Generous 1/2 tbsp cornflour

pinch of baking powder

20g caster sugar

Pinch of Halen Mon sea salt

 

Steps:

1) For the rice pudding, put the cream, milk and vanilla pod into a saucepan and slowly bring to the boil. Then add the pudding rice, reduce the head and simmer for 12-15 minutes or until the rice is just cooked. Add the caster sugar and bring back up to the boil. Remove from the heat, leave to cool, and remove the vanilla pod.

2) To make the apple compote, put the apples and caster sugar into a pan and cook over a medium heat until the apples are cooked and tender, but still holding their shape, Remove from the heat and leave to cool.

3) For the crumble, preheat the oven to 140 celcius/Gas 1. Put all the ingredients in a bowl and rub together with your finger tips to the consistency of large breadcrumbs and then spread on a baking sheet. cook for about 35 minutes or until golden. Remove and leave to cool.

4) To serve, heat the rice pudding and apple separately. Put the rice pudding and the apple compote in large glasses in alternate layers and sprinkle generously with the shortbread crumble.

Ferrero rocher butter cake recipe by Kenneth

Stumbled across a ferrero rocher cake recipe from a blog http://kwgls.wordpress.com/2014/03/28/rich-mans-butter-cakeferrero-rocher-butter-cake-or-hazelnut-butter-cake-or-oreo-butter-cake-（金莎牛油蛋糕）/

Thought that it sounds like heaven adding ferrero rocher into a cake!

Hence decided to try baking it and my friends loved it! Only thing was I turned down the temperature a bit too low after the initial 20 minutes bake so my cake took longer to cook. Then I got a bit impatient at the end and turned up the heat above 175 celcius for 10 minutes which resulted the top in looking marginally burnt….well close to tasting like bitter chocolate haha….but it still tasted pretty good and moist! Liked the hazelnut crunch form the ferrero rocher on top of the cake.

Would try it again, hopefully without any mistakes. Forgot the icing sugar on the cake this time!

For those who have been asking for the recipe, please refer to the master of the cake: http://kwgls.wordpress.com/2014/03/28/rich-mans-butter-cakeferrero-rocher-butter-cake-or-hazelnut-butter-cake-or-oreo-butter-cake-（金莎牛油蛋糕）/

You will see step by step pics which will help a lot! 🙂

Btw, I increased the amount of ferrero rocher in the cake from 250g to 300g, just because I am plain greedy and my boyfriend brought back 500g of ferrero rocher rather than 250g, so might as well….

Enjoy!

Raspberry and double chocolate cake recipe

Bought 7 boxes of raspberries at a reduced price from Waitrose (still in pretty good condition!) and didn’t know what to do with them. Sudden inspiration to bake a double chocolate cake topped with raspberries. I was surprised how well the taste turned out though. When i was cutting the layers, I somehow think that this cake can be split into 3 layers but of course I didn’t have enough cream to do so. Perhaps next time… Got this recipe from a website but the instructions were pretty confusing at one point so I did some rephrasing work on the recipe.

Nevertheless, credits to the original person who made this recipe: http://www.redonline.co.uk/food/recipes/raspberry-and-double-chocolate-cake

Ingredients:

200g self-raising flour
25g cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
225g butter, at room temperature, plus a little extra for greasing
225g caster sugar
4 eggs

For the filling:
200g white chocolate
300ml double cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
300g fresh raspberries

Method

1. Sift the flour, cocoa and baking powder into a bowl. Cream the butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl with a wooden spoon, electric mixer or food processor if you have one.

2. Beat in one egg, then a spoonful of the flour mix, continue adding eggs and flour alternately until it has all been added and the mixture is smooth.

3. Pour the mixture into a lightly buttered 23cm spring form tin, that has been lined with a circle of greaseproof or non-stick baking paper, then bake in a preheated oven, 160°C /325°F /gas mark 3 for 35-40 minutes, or until the top feels firm and a skewer comes out cleanly when inserted into the centre.

4. Leave to cool in the tin for 15 minutes, then loosen the edge and unclip the tin. Loosen the base and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

5. When the cake is cold, melt the white chocolate in a bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water. Whip the cream in another bowl then fold in 3/4th of the melted chocolate and the vanilla. Reserve the 1/4th of melted white chocolate for making curls.

6. Peel the lining paper from the cake, then cut into two layers. Put one of the layers on a serving plate, spoon over half the cream then sprinkle with half the raspberries. Add the other cake half and repeat the layers.

7. Drizzle some melted white chocolate from a spoon/disposable piping bag in zigzag lines over the top of the cake and finish with the chilled chocolate curls. Cut into slices to serve.

Lemon madeleines recipe

I love madeleines that I have been dreaming to bake them for a long time (I am talking about years..). Finally decided to buy a madeleine tray today and baked them the moment I got home! I love eating madeleines alongside a cup of tea and dipping the madeleines into a bowl of melted chocolate. TOOOOO delicious…

Anyway, my attempt to bake madeleines was not too bad an attempt. Pretty pleased with the result.

You can watch a youtube video on Gordon ramsay making lemon and poppy seed madeleines:

https://www.youtube.com/watcah?v=jTi8-_ykIx0

Lemon madeleines recipe (makes 29): Adapted from http://recipeyum.com.au/lemon-poppy-seed-madeleines/

Ingredients:

6 eggs

160g sugar

160g self raising flour

150g butter

zest of a lemon

Steps:

Melt the butter gently in a pan.

Crack the eggs in a large bowl. Whisk together with sugar until incorporated and mixture becomes thick and light in colour.

Sift and fold the flour into the mixture.

Add lemon zest and mix everything together.

When the butter is slightly cooled, pour into the batter and gently combine to make a batter.

Butter a madeleine tray and lightly dust some flour onto tray.

Pour the mixture into the tray until the top.

Bake at 180 celcius for 10-12 minutes.

Remove from tray and serve warm.

You can add poppy seeds into the madeleines. To do this, fold in the poppy seeds after you have fold in the flour, then add the lemon zest. I could not find my poppy seeds so just had to do without them.

Fluffy American pancakes

Decided to make some pancakes over the weekend because my sister came to Glasgow for a visit and my boyfriend have never tried my homemade pancakes before! Definitely prefer the fluffier American style pancakes!

Mmmmmm… yummy maple syrup drizzling away…

Recipe from http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/fluffyamericanpancak_74828 by Louisa Carter,

Ingredients

• 135g/4¾oz plain flour

• 1 tsp baking powder

• ½ tsp salt

• 2 tbsp caster sugar

• 130ml/4½fl oz milk

• 1 large egg, lightly beaten

• 2 tbsp melted butter (allowed to cool slightly) or olive oil, plus extra for cooking

To serve

• Maple syrup

• Butter

Preparation method

1. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and caster sugar into a large bowl. In a separate bowl or jug, lightly whisk together the milk and egg, then whisk in the melted butter.

2. Pour the milk mixture into the flour mixture and, using a fork, beat until you have a smooth batter. Any lumps will soon disappear with a little mixing. Let the batter stand for a few minutes.

3. Heat a non-stick frying pan over a medium heat and add a knob of butter. When it’s melted, add a ladle of batter (or two if your frying pan is big enough to cook two pancakes at the same time). It will seem very thick but this is how it should be. Wait until the top of the pancake begins to bubble, then turn it over and cook until both sides are golden brown and the pancake has risen to about 1cm (½in) thick.

4. Repeat until all the batter is used up. You can keep the pancakes warm in a low oven, but they taste best fresh out the pan.

5. Serve with lashings of real maple syrup and extra butter if you like.

Recipe tip:

For extra-fluffy pancakes substitute self-raising flour for plain flour and still use the baking powder. Serve the pancakes with fresh strawberries and good vanilla ice cream. Use half buckwheat flour and half plain flour and serve with maple syrup and bacon. You can also add one teaspoon of ground cinnamon to the buckwheat batter and serve with caramelised apple slices and thick double cream.