Cherry Shortbread Biscuits

These are relatively plain little shortbread-like biscuits, but they are absolutely delicious and incredibly easy to make.

The biscuits are simply decorated with half a glacé cherry impressed into the centre of each biscuit prior to baking. You can of course use natural un-dyed glace cherries, but these madly pink coloured ones seem to add an extra childish frivolity to the finished biscuits which I find particularly appealing and which reminds me of when I was a child, squabbling with my brother over who would get the cherries that were used to decorate the iced buns that my grandmother only ever made for special occasions.

 

Because this recipe is so straightforward, it is a great one to get the children to help with – I know that my three love any opportunity to cook and bake and I think that if you can learn to tolerate the mess that they inevitably always seem to make, it is great to let them assist in making the foods and meals that they eat. I do think it is interesting, that their favourite things to make seem to be chocolate brownies, chocolate chip cookies and chocolate cake! Anything that includes chocolate seems to be a sure-fire winner in our house.
 

These biscuits don’t contain chocolate, but they are another firm favourite and I make them regularly to satisfy the hungry vultures, AKA children in my house. I’m not going to suggest that I only ever eat home-baked biscuits, because that wouldn’t be true; there are quite a few mass-produced biscuits that I am rather partial to and which I buy from time-to-time, but I do love making my own and mostly I think that the taste is far superior.

These biscuits keep incredibly well if stored in an air-tight container or biscuit tin after they have cooled. As with most of the biscuits I regularly make, I think that these ones are lovely with a cup of tea, but I have also been known to serve them alongside ice-cream as I think the short texture coupled with the bright pink of the slightly chewy glacé cherry perfectly complements the cool creaminess of the ice-cream!

 

Ingredients:

115g butter, softened140g caster sugar

2 large egg yolks, separated

300g self-raising flour

To finish:

2 large egg whites, gently beaten

40g caster sugar

15-18 glacé cherries, halved
 

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/Fan Oven 160C/Gas Mark 4. Line two large baking trays with non-stick baking parchment and set aside.
2. Using a hand-held electric mixer, cream the butter, sugar and egg yolks together until light and fluffy. Work the flour into the creamed mixture using a wooden spoon to create a dough.

3. Take walnut sized pieces of the dough and roll gently in your hands to form little balls. Place each little ball on the parchment lined trays, leaving at least 4-5cms between each to allow for spreading while baking. Flatten each ball slightly.

To finish:

4. Brush each flattened biscuit with a little of the lightly beaten egg white and sprinkle with caster sugar. Press half a glacé cherry (cut side down) into the centre of each biscuit.

5. Bake in the preheated oven for 17-20 minutes until the biscuits are golden brown. Allow to cool on the baking tray for 5 minutes before removing to a wire-rack to finish cooling completely.

Makes approximately 30 biscuits.
 

     

Cottage Pie

This was standard fare when I was growing up and one of the meals that I used to most look forward to. It was filling, comforting to eat and so incredibly delicious. I just love food like this. When I think of my childhood and the wonderful meals that my grandmother used to cook, this is the one that I always remember.

It probably sounds completely uncouth, but I particularly love to eat it with a mound of simply cooked frozen peas and a splodge of ketchup on the side. Cottage pie represents, in food terms, all that family means to me.

There is often confusion about the difference between cottage pie and shepherd’s pie and often the two names are used interchangeably to mean the same thing. In my mind there is a clear distinction between the two; cottage pie includes beef and shepherd’s pie includes lamb – hence it is called shepherd’s pie.

Traditionally cottage pie was made with left-over cooked meat from the weekend family roast. This was minced up and cooked in a tasty gravy, before being topped with mashed potatoes and baked in the oven. These days, it is most often made with freshly minced beef.

Although homely fare, the principles behind cottage pie have been adopted and refined by many top chefs and included on their menus in fine dining restaurants. I have seen cottage pie made with slow-cooked oxtail and also beef-cheek which has been served as part of beef tasting plates. I have also come across cottage pie made with duck and other meats. For so long dining in high-end restaurants seemed to be all about the experience and how the food looked rather than the primary focus being on the flavour of the food presented.

 

In recent years, top-chefs have been re-visiting some of the basic recipes that we all grew up with and that provoke warm feelings of nostalgia within us and have been using them in updated and exciting ways. I am all for this, because it helps to remove some of the snobbery and affectation associated and focuses on the fantastic taste of simple food prepared in a sympathetic way with lots of love, care and attention thrown in.

      

Ingredients:

3tblsp vegetable oil
2 onions, finely chopped,
1 large carrot, finely chopped
2 sticks of celery, finely chopped

1 garlic clove, crushed

900g lean minced beef

2tblsp plain flour

1tblsp tomato purée
1 tin of chopped tomatoes

400ml beef stock

3tblsp Worcestershire sauce

Sprig of thyme

2 bay leaves

For the mashed potatoes:

1.5kg Rooster potatoes, peeled and chopped into large even-sized chunks

150ml milk, warmed

50g butter

Sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

 

Method:

1. Heat half the vegetable oil in a large saucepan and fry the onions, celery and garlic over a moderate heat until beginning to soften but not colour. Add the carrots and allow sweat over a gentle heat for about ten minutes, again without colouring.
2. Add the rest of the oil and turn up the heat, and add the minced beef, breaking it up as it fries. Stir the meat regularly until it is evenly browned. Season generously with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

3. Reduce the heat and sprinkle in the flour. Allow to cook out for about two minutes, stirring continuously. Add the tomato pure and allow this to cook out for a further minute, stirring continuously.

4. Add the chopped tomatoes followed by the stock and Worcestershire sauce and stir everything together. Add the sprig of thyme and the two bay leaves. Reduce heat and allow the mixture to blip away for about 1½ hours. The sauce will reduce during this time and become slightly thickened.

5. While the sauce is cooking, make the mashed potatoes.

Mashed potatoes:

6. Put the potatoes in large saucepan and cover with cold water and a teaspoon salt. Bring to the boil and then reduce heat and allow simmer until tender. Tip the potatoes into a colander and allow to drain well. Pass the potatoes through a potato ricer back into the saucepan in which they were cooked.

7. Add the butter, followed by the milk and mix well together to create a smooth mash. Taste and season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

To finish:

8. Pre-heat the oven to 180C/Fan Oven 160C/Gas Mark 4.

9. Spoon the meat sauce into a 40cm x 26cm x 6cm (approximately) oven-proof dish and spread out evenly over the base. Spoon the mashed potato on top of the meat sauce and spread out, or as I have done, pipe out evenly.

10. Place the dish on an baking tray and cook in the pre-heated oven for about 40 minutes until the potato is golden brown and the meat sauce is bubbling up around the edges.

Serves 6.     

Pistachio Cake

Pistachios are extremely versatile and like most nuts can be used in a range of both sweet and savoury dishes. I love them. With their fresh, pale green colour, beautiful sweetness and distinctive taste, they add something unique to the dishes in which they are used.

This is a really simple cake that can be served at room temperature to be enjoyed with a large mug of tea or slightly warmed with a scoop of ice-cream or a dollop of whipped cream and some poached fruits on the side, as a dessert. I have served it here with some fresh segmented oranges and some pomegranate seeds on the side. The fruits really complement the cake and when eaten with some softly whipped cream, it truly makes an elegant but delicious dessert.

 

If you like you can use blanched and skinned pistachios, but they can be difficult to get your hands on and believe me, it is a thankless task to do it yourself. That said, there is no denying that the resulting pale green colour that skinned nuts lend to the finished cake is extremely attractive. To be honest, I tend to buy the nuts and process them to a fairly finely ground powder myself, but don’t bother with skinning them as it makes little difference to the end taste of the cake.

 

I have always loved the combination of orange and pistachio, so I have included finely grated orange zest, but if you would prefer, you can use lemon zest instead. When I don’t have oranges to hand, I sometimes use a little orange-flower water instead and this really gives the cake an air of the exotic.

This is a beautiful, moist and simply a very tasty cake and I urge you to try making it if you get the chance.

 

Ingredients:

100g shelled pistachios
4 eggs
175g caster sugar
Finely grated zest of 1 orange

150g pot plain yoghurt

75ml melted butter

100g plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C/Fan Oven 160C/Gas Mark 4. Butter a 24cm round spring-form tin and line with non-stick baking parchment and set aside.
2. Grind the pistachios fairly finely in a food processor, but do not over process or they will become oily.
3. Put the eggs in a large mixing bowl with the caster sugar and orange zest and using a hand-held electric mixer, beat together until pale and creamy and almost doubled in volume. Gently mix in the yoghurt and the melted butter. Sift the flour and baking powder together and fold into the egg mixture along with the ground pistachios.
4. Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake in the preheated oven for 40 minutes approximately or until the cake is well risen and golden brown and a thin skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

5. Allow the cake to cool in the tin for 10-15 minutes and then turn out and allow to cool completely on a wire cooling rack.

6. Serve dusted with icing sugar.

Serves 8-10.
 
     

Salted Caramel Apple Tarte Tatin

Apple tarte tatin is a classic dessert and if you use pre-made all-butter puff pastry, relatively easy to make. For the tarte tatin pictured I used homemade puff pastry, but I’ll be the first to admit that it is a bit of a production to make your own and you have to be in the humour, so feel free to purchase it instead.

There are certain flavours or dishes that really represent the fashions and tastes of an era… although it sounds a little pompous, such dishes symbolise the culinary zeitgeist. For me the one flavour that has really done this over the past couple of years is salted caramel. It is not hard to understand why it is so popular. Caramel, by its very nature and because of the fact that it is mainly comprised of sugar, is incredibly sweet. It can also possess a slightly bitter note depending on how dark the caramel is. Salt tempers this sweetness but at the same time accentuates the underlying buttery flavour of the caramel. The salt also manages to highlight the taste of the apples used in this particular dish and everything works harmoniously together.

Of all the foods and recipes that I cook, this is the one, more than any other, which elicits the most appreciation. This never fails to amaze me, because it is really so simple to make and includes very few ingredients… yet it is the one that people seem to love the most. I suppose that if you think about it, it’s not really surprising… what is there not to love about the marriage of hot, soft apples covered in a seductively sweet caramel and crispy, buttery pastry.

 

Ingredients:

6-7 Granny Smith Apples, peeled, cored and halved
150g caster sugar
85g unsalted butter

½ tsp flaky sea salt

350g puff pastry (homemade or made with all-butter)
 

Method:

1. Place the sugar in an oven proof frying pan, with 2 tablespoons of water and heat gently over a moderate heat until all the sugar has dissolved. Once the sugar has completely dissolved, turn up the heat until the sugar mixture is bubbling and allow it to bubble for almost five minutes –watch it like a hawk and remove immediately from the heat if it is getting too dark. What you are trying to achieve is a rich golden colour.
2. Once your caramel is a rich golden colour, remove from the heat and stir in the butter but be careful as the mixture may foam up quite angrily. Add the salt and mix through.
3. Place the apples cut side uppermost in the caramel, fitting them as snugly as you can. Return to the heat and allow to bubble gentle for about five minutes. Remove from the heat and let the apples cool completely.

To finish:

4. Heat the oven to 220C/Fan Oven 200C/Gas Mark 7. Roll out the pastry to a thickness of approximately 3mm and into a circle large enough to cover the apples in the frying pan. Lay the pastry over the cooled apples and tuck in any excess around the edges. Place on a baking sheet and bake in the preheated oven for approximately half an hour until the pastry is a golden and well-risen.

5. Remove from the oven and allow stand for about five minutes before carefully inverting onto a serving plate.

6. Serve immediately with crème fraiche or a scoop of vanilla ice-cream.

Serves 6.
 

    

Pear & Hazelnut Frangipane Tart

I have posted a number of frangipane tart recipes over the past few months, but the reasons for this are simple;- frangipane tarts are relatively simple to prepare, are extremely flavoursome and they keep well for a few days. Although classic frangipane is made with ground almonds, it is very easy to substitute other ground nuts and experiment a little. I love the combined flavours of hazelnut, pear and chocolate – they just go so well together; each bringing out the best in the other.

I use whole hazelnuts which I roast and remove the skins of before grinding to a relatively fine powder in my mini food-processor. Although ground hazelnuts are available in the shops to buy from time to time, I prefer to roast and grind my own because I think that the flavour is richer and nuttier.

 

Usually when I make pear frangipane tarts, I tend to use fresh pears but the problem is that if they are very hard, you need to poach them lightly before baking them in the tart or they may remain bullet-hard, or if slightly over-ripe they may disintegrate into a mushy mess on baking. In this instance I used pears tinned in their own juice and I think they worked a treat and gave a far more consistent result than the use of fresh pears would have given. I am all about producing tasty, but easy-to-prepare dishes, so I think that it is perfectly acceptable to take these shortcuts every now and again.

As already mentioned this tart keeps very well if cooled down and stored in an air-tight contained for a couple of days. I tend not to refrigerate it as I think that chilling dulls the taste a little, but if you feel more comfortable by all means do so. I should mention that this tart is truly delicious served still slightly warm from the oven with a scoop of ice-cream as a dessert.

 

Ingredients:

Pastry:
175g plain flour
50g icing sugar

100g butter, cubed

1 egg yolk

1tblsp cold water

Frangipane:

125 butter, softened

125g caster sugar

100g ground hazelnuts

25g ground almonds

2 large eggs

2tblsp plain flour

1tblsp Frangelico (optional)

To finish:

1 tin of pear halves in fruit juice, drained

3tblsp apricot jam

50g dark chocolate, melted

Method:

Make pastry:
1. Sieve the flour and icing sugar together into a large bowl. Add the diced butter and using your fingertips, rub into the flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
2. Make a well in the centre and add the egg yolk and a tablespoon of water and mix using a fork until everything comes together to form a dough. Turn out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead briefly to form into a ball. Wrap in cling-film and place in the fridge to rest for at least half an hour.
Make the frangipane:

3. Using a hand-held electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs gradually, beating thoroughly after each addition. Fold in the ground nuts and flour and mix through the Frangelico, if using. Set aside.

To finish:

4. Preheat the oven to 190C/Fan Oven 170C/Gas Mark 5. Roll out the pastry dough thinly and use to line the base and sides of a 35cm x 10.5cm x 2.5cm fluted, loose-based oblong tart tin.

5. Next spoon the frangipane mixture into the dough-lined tin and spread out evenly to the edges. Place the drained pears, cut side down into the frangipane mixture. Bake in the preheated oven for approximately 35-40 minutes until golden brown and slightly puffed up. Remove from oven and set aside to cool in its tin.

6. Heat the apricot jam with a couple of tablespoons of water in a small saucepan until bubbling. Remove from heat and sieve into a small bowl (this is to remove any lumps of fruit from the jam).

7. Brush the smooth jam over the tart. Finally drizzle the melted chocolate over the tart and allow to cool.

Serves 6-8.