Creamy Brussels Sprout Soup

Here is a recipe using brussels sprouts which I believe even vociferous objectors might find palatable. Personally, I love sprouts and look forward to eating them each year when they are in season… but I am the only one in my household who will eat them and despite the fact that my gang detest them, I still insist on serving them for Christmas dinner.

In my opinion, the problem that most people have with sprouts is the fact that the only way that they have ever eaten them is when they are overcooked and unpleasantly slimy. Sprouts that are just cooked and still retain a little bit of bite are quite different and incredibly tasty, possessing a subtle sweetness that I just adore. This sweetness translates very well to this soup and is enhanced by the addition of some sweated onions.

 

Because this is a subtle soup, I recommend using a light chicken or vegetable stock. For an added layer of flavour, I have also suggested using a little caraway and a good grating of fresh nutmeg. These are both underused spices in my opinion, and caraway in particular gives an extra layer of flavour that complements the sprouts perfectly. Nutmeg is often used in sweet dishes and in particular milk-based puddings, but it can also be used in many savoury dishes too. I always include it when making cheese, milk or cream sauces. It also goes very well with iron-rich green vegetables such as spinach and I think it works a treat here.

 

Some people recommend cutting a small cross in the bottom when boiling or steaming sprouts, but to be honest, I don’t think that this is absolutely necessary and they cook perfectly fine without it.

 

This is a delicious soup, is incredibly easy to make and is something a little different to serve at Christmas or in the days after when you may have a few leftover vegetables.

 

Garnish simply with a few sliced cooked sprouts or merely some single leaves; - this is a very pretty and elegant looking soup.

Ingredients:

900g brussels sprouts, trimmed and sliced
1 medium onion, chopped
25g butter

A small sprig of thyme

½ tsp caraway seeds

50ml dry white wine

600ml light chicken or vegetable stock

250ml single cream

Sea salt, freshly ground black pepper

Freshly grated nutmeg

To serve: (optional)

Some sliced cooked brussels sprouts

A few chopped chives
 

Method:

1. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over a moderate heat and add the chopped onion. Sweat until soft and translucent (about 5 minutes) but do not allow to colour. Add the thyme and caraway seeds and allow to cook for a further minute.
2. Add the wine and let reduce a little and then add the brussels sprouts and stock. Let simmer gently for 10 minutes until the sprouts are tender. Remove the sprig of thyme and then liquidise in a blender or food processor until smooth. For a silky smooth soup, pass through a fine sieve into a clean saucepan. Add the cream and heat gently until hot.

3. Serve garnished with some thinly sliced cooked Brussels spots and a sprinkling of finely chopped chives.

Serves 6.

 

 

Baked Cranberry & Cointreau Cheesecake

I love cheesecakes and I know that they are very popular with many people so it is perhaps surprising that I rarely make them. This is one cheesecake that I think is absolutely delicious, and although rich, it is perfect to serve at this time of year with its festive but fresh flavours. This is something a little different to the normal fruit-laden puddings that are traditionally served at this time of year yet it is still Christmassy in character.

There are two main types of cheesecake; one which is uncooked and where the cheese is often set with gelatine and the cooked variety which are baked in the oven. Both are normally served chilled, cut into wedges. Although I like both, they are quite different from each other. I think the set, uncooked type are great for serving in the summer as they are a little lighter, but the baked kind, although heavier and creamier can be served all year around.

 

Due to the amount of cream cheese and the addition of eggs, this is quite a rich dessert, but in my opinion, Christmas is the one time when you can really allow yourself a little indulgence and spoil yourself a bit.

 

The cheesecake keeps extremely well covered in the fridge and will easily keep for two or three if it is not gobbled up immediately.

 

Orange is a perfect partner for cranberries, so I decided to extend this theme a little and include some Cointreau, which is an orange-flavoured liqueur. The addition of the alcohol really intensifies the orange flavour without being overpowering. If you prefer you can omit it and use some freshly squeezed orange juice instead.

 

I hope you try making this cheesecake because it is incredibly delicious and relatively simple to make. If you really want to go all out, you could serve it with some lightly whipped cream on the side.

 

Ingredients:

Base:
200g digestive biscuits, finely crushed
100g butter, melted

Filling:

675g cream cheese (I used Philadelphia)

250g sweetened condensed milk

Juice of half a lemon

25ml Cointreau

3 large eggs, lightly beaten

125g fresh cranberries roughly chopped

Finely grated zest of 1 orange

To decorate:

Some fresh cranberries, dipped in egg white and sprinkled with caster sugar

A few strips of orange peel
 

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 160C/Fan Oven 140C/Gas Mark 2.  Grease a 20cm springform cake tin with butter and set aside.

2. Place the crushed digestive biscuits in a mixing bowl and add the melted butter, Mix with a wooden spoon until well combined. Press the butter-covered crumbs into the base of the prepared springform tin and refrigerate and allow to firm up.

3. Place the cream cheese and condensed milk in a large mixing bowl and using a hand-held electric mixer, beat together on a low speed until well mixed together. Gradually add the eggs and mix in thoroughly. Add the lemon juice and Cointreau and then fold in the chopped cranberries and orange zest.

4. Pour the mixture onto the biscuit base, place on a large baking tray and bake in the preheated oven for 35-40 minutes until the cheesecake is just beginning to colour around the edges, but still has a slight wobble in the centre.

5. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely in the tin. Carefully run a thin knife around the edge of the tin to loosen it and then refrigerate overnight. Serve decorated with the sugared cranberries and some thin strips of orange peel.

Serves 10-12.

Steamed Pear & Ginger Pudding

Tradition is very important to me and never more so than at Christmas time. I remember one year when my mother decided that rather than dish up turkey and ham for Christmas dinner, we would instead dine on fillet of beef en croute (aka beef wellington). Now, as anyone who has ever cooked fillet of beef will testify, it is an INCREDIBLY expensive cut of meat and this is a very luxurious dish to serve; but I was disgusted!

For me Christmas dinner is just not Christmas dinner unless you have roast turkey and baked ham with brussels sprouts, roast parsnips, roast potatoes and lashings and lashings of gravy made with the turkey giblets. The ironic thing is that beef wellington is one of my all-time favourite dishes, but I still staged a one-woman protest that Christmas and refused to eat it.

For dessert on Christmas day I love homemade sherry trifle or Christmas pudding served with brandy butter. My pudding recipe is based on the one that my grandmother used every year and to this day I haven’t found one that comes anywhere near it. She made her puddings in early October so that they would have a chance to ‘mature’ before Christmas and swore that they tasted better for it.  Rather than use suet, which can be a little heavy, she used butter which made the pudding all the more flavoursome. I just loved it and still do.

It is hugely disappointing to me that none of my children or my husband like Christmas pudding (or traditional rich fruit cake for that matter) so I tend to have a solitary serving of it later in the evening as we settle down to watch the Doctor Who Christmas Special. In fact, I am slowly realising that pudding is one of those polarising foods; you either love it or hate it! The reality is that, even for fervent devotees, launching into a bowl of pudding after a big meal is a dining challenge in itself! Sometimes, something a little less heavy is what is required after the excesses that have gone before and I think this pudding fits the bill perfectly.
 

Like traditional Christmas pudding, this is also steamed - so it has the comfort food factor - but it doesn’t have to be made months in advance. It can be quickly mixed up the night before or in the morning on Christmas day and then steamed for a couple of hours before you want to serve it. The fresh pears add a juicy fruitiness which is perfect against the warm spiciness of the ginger. I have used both stem and ground ginger for a warm and spicy kick. Ginger is a flavour that I have long associated with Christmas and it is one that seems to have broad appeal with both young and old liking it.

You can chop up the pears and mix them through the pudding before steaming or do as I have and place them around the edge of the pudding bowl. When the pudding is turned out they look so beautiful standing proud against the ginger sponge.

I served the pudding with warm homemade custard, but you could always opt for vanilla ice-cream or lightly whipped fresh cream. Any leftovers can be heated up in a microwave or can be sliced, covered with some aluminium foil and steamed in a steamer for 30 minutes.

This is a delicious pudding, a great alternative to traditional pud and one that even the fussy eaters in my house like!

N.B. I cannot stress how important it is to grease your bowl well.

Ingredients:

Ginger sauce:
25g caster sugar
25g butter
4tblsp golden syrup
2tblsp syrup from jar of stem ginger
Pudding:

3 pears (I used Conference), peeled, halved and centre core scooped out

150g butter, plus extra for greasing bowl

150g light muscovado sugar

3 large eggs

150g self-raising flour

2tsp ground ginger

50g stem ginger, finely chopped

50ml milk
 

Method:

Ginger sauce:

1. Place all the ingredients into a small saucepan and heat over a gentle heat until the butter melts and the sugar dissolves. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool for 10 minutes.

Pudding:

2. Generously grease a 1.5 litre pudding bowl with butter and place a little circle of non-stick baking parchment in the bottom. Spoon 2 tablespoons of the ginger sauce into the bottom of the bowl and put the rest aside for serving with the finished pudding.

3. Arrange the halved pears around the edge of the bowl with the round side directly against the edge of the bowl. The thinner ends of the pears should be pointing down to the narrow end of the bowl. Set aside.

4. Place the 150g butter into a large mixing bowl with the muscovado sugar and using a hand-held electric mixer, beat together until light and fluffy.  Gradually add the eggs, mixing well after each addition.

5. Sift the flour and ground ginger together and add in three batches, and then add the milk and stem ginger and mix briefly so that everything is well distributed.

6. Spoon the mixture into the centre of the pudding bowl so that the pears remain towards the edge of the bowl.  Cover the bowl with a layer of non-stick baking parchment and a layer of tinfoil (both pleated in the middle to allow for expansion and secure by tying string around the lip of the bowl.  Steam for 2 hours either using a purpose built steamer or by placing in a large saucepan sitting on top of some scrunched up aluminium foil (to protect it from the direct heat of the bottom of the saucepan) and pour in some boiling water so that it comes half way up the outside edge of the pudding bowl. Cover the saucepan and place over a low to moderate heat so that the water is just bubbling gently. Steam for the required time, but make sure to check every 25 minutes or so and top up the water levels as necessary.

7. Allow the pudding to sit for 10 minutes before turning out by upending onto a serving plate. Remove the little circle of non-stick baking parchment that you had previously placed in the bowl and serve with warm pouring custard, ice-cream or softly whipped cream and some of the reserved ginger sauce.
 

Serves 6-8.
 

Marzipan Buns

Marzipan is another one of those flavours that I forever associate with Christmas, mainly because I was the only one who liked the marzipan layer on the traditional rich fruit cake that my grandmother made for Christmas every year. This inevitably meant that I ate quite a lot of marzipan as I was more than happy to eat the bits that everyone else picked off their cake!

Marzipan is essentially made with three ingredients; - ground almonds, sugar and egg white. There are two ways of making it; - either simply mixing the raw ingredients together  to form a paste or by making a syrup using the sugar and some water and then adding the ground almonds and egg white. Although the first way of making it is probably easier, I prefer the second way as it produces a marzipan which, I think, keeps better and is much easier to work with.

 

I made quite a lot of marzipan recently as I had been commissioned to bake and decorate a number of cakes for the festive season. I deliberately made a little more than I needed as I wanted to experiment by using it in a few recipes that I had playing with, one of which was these buns.

I am definitely on a bit of a bread baking binge at the moment after the evening course that I did on bread baking in the Firehouse Bakery in Delgany, County Wicklow. I have been trying out loads of different flavour variations and have also been experimenting with different flours etc. It has been great fun and everything that I have made has gone down a treat at home. I have always loved sweet, yeasted buns and in particular Chelsea buns – a white, enriched, yeasted dough which encases a spiral filling of dried fruit, sugar and spices… YUM!
 

Keeping it simple, but borrowing from this idea, I decided to use a layer of marzipan in place of the dried fruit. For anyone who likes almonds or marzipan, this recipe is a must. I absolutely loved it. The buns were light and fluffy and the spiral of marzipan added a sweet nutty element but didn’t dominate.
 

I drizzled some almond flavoured glacé icing over the cooled buns and I loved both the taste and look of it, but you could always leave it off if you want to keep the buns simple. Don’t be alarmed by how soft the dough is when you first mix it up; as you keep kneading it will become silky smooth and easier to work with – just persevere. Do NOT add any extra flour when kneading as this will affect the balance of ingredients and result in a heavier bun… trust me; just keep kneading and after a few minutes it will stop feeling so sticky!

Ingredients:

Marzipan:
225g granulated or caster sugar
75ml water

175g ground almonds

½ tsp almond extract

1 egg white lightly beaten

Dough:

300ml milk

40g butter

500g strong white flour

5g fine sea salt

15g fresh yeast

I egg, lightly beaten

To glaze the buns:

1 egg yolk

1tblsp milk

To finish:

75g icing sugar

1tsp boiling water

1-2 drops of almond extract

Method:

Marzipan:

1. Put the sugar and water into a heavy-based, medium-sized saucepan and bring to the boil over a moderate heat. Let the sugar dissolve and then increase the heat and allow to bubble until the mixture reaches the ‘soft-ball’ stage (115C on a sugar thermometer). Remove the saucepan from the heat but stir it with a wooden spoon for another 60 seconds or so, until it starts to turn cloudy.

2. Immediately tip in the ground almonds, almond extract and egg white and mix well until everything is well-combined. You should have a very stiff, paste-like mixture at this stage.

3. Allow to cool completely and then knead briefly into a ball. Cover with cling film and refrigerate until required.

Dough:

4. Put the milk and butter in a small saucepan and heat gently until the butter has just melted. Immediately remove from the heat and set aside.

5. Separately, place the flour salt into a large mixing bowl and mix together well so that the salt is well distributed. Crumble in the yeast.

6. Pour in the lukewarm milk and butter mixture and the lightly beaten egg and stir together with your hands until the dough starts to come together. Turn the dough out on to a clean work-surface and knead for approximately 10 minutes until the dough feels smooth and silky and springs back when poked.

7. Place the dough into a lightly oiled bowl and cover with a clean damp tea-towel. Allow to prove for 90 minutes until it has doubled in size.

8. Line a 30cm x 20cm (approximately) deep roasting tin with some non-stick baking parchment and set aside.

9. Tip the dough out onto a very lightly floured work-surface and knock out the air. Let it relax for a minute or two and then using roll out the dough into a rectangle about 30cm x 25cms and about 5mm thick. Separately roll out half the marzipan into a rectangle about 2cms smaller all the way around. Place the marzipan on top of the rolled out dough.

10. Roll the dough along the long edge as you would a swiss-roll to create a long cylinder and to encase the marzipan. Taking a sharp knife cut the cyl8inder into 8 equal slices. Place these, cut-side up in the prepared roasting tin. Cover with a damp cloth and allow to prove for a second time until almost doubled in size.

11. Preheat oven to 190C/Fan Oven 170C/Gas Mark 5. Mix the egg yolk and milk together to create an egg-wash. Using a pastry brush, glaze the proved rolls with a little of the egg-wash. Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes until well risen and a deep golden-brown colour.

12. Allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to finish cooling completely.

To finish:

13. Mix the icing sugar, almond extract and a little boiling water to make a smooth icing. Drizzle this over the cooled buns.

Makes 8.