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Category Archives: Sweet Things

Orange Conserve

04 Monday Apr 2022

Posted by Nevenka in Preserves, Sweet Things

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Preserves, Sweet oranges

These conserved orange slices keep that fresh orange tang and colour while not having any bitterness. They are fabulous in the summer with ice cream, yoghurt or fresh cheeses, and also a useful addition to cakes and sweets, as in the Chocolate Paradise of the previous post.

The recipe is very simple.

For every kilo of sweet oranges you will need half a kilo of sugar.

Wash the oranges and top and tail them, taking just the peel from the top and bottom.

Prick the oranges all over with a large needle or pin.

Put to soak in fresh cold water to cover the oranges, they will float.

Change the water for fresh every day for three days. This removes the bitterness from the peel and also soaks into the oranges

On day four slice the oranges and put into a pan with the sugar and stir to mix.

Slowly bring to the boil, stirring from time to time. The mix will create its own juice.

Simmer for 30 minutes, by which time the oranges will be cooked and some what softened.

While still hot put into warm, clean and dry jars. This will keep for a year or so if kept in a cool dark place. Refrigerate once opened.

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Intense Chocolate Heaven

26 Saturday Mar 2022

Posted by Nevenka in Sweet Things

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Almonds, amaretto, biscuits, cantucci, Chocolate, Dark chocolate, dried fruits, ginger biscuits, nuts

For dessert these days I prefer to serve fresh fruit, but then with coffee is good to have a mouthful of sweet intense naughtiness. This tiny chocolate loaf fits the bill. Amaretto infused biscuits, dried fruits and nuts, bound together with a thick dark bittersweet chocolate mousse. What’s not to like?

I’ve made this Chocolate Heaven twice now, the first time using the very sweet dried pears from my own tree, which produced a bumper crop this year, and ginger biscuits. For the second version I managed to get hold of cantucci biscuits, not common in southern spain, which I paired with orange peel from my Orange Conserve. I mistakenly thought that I had given you the recipe for this, so it will appear as the next post on here. Both versions were successful, so any flavour crunchy biscuits can be used with what ever dried fruits you fancy and whichever nuts you think will go with them. Have fun experimenting.

My loaf tins are small, 12 x 7 cm and 5 cm deep, and take 350 ml volume, and the amount below make two loaves.

200 grams – dark chocolate 85% cocoa solids

110 grams – biscuits – almond (cantucci) or ginger. 

100 grams – dried fruit – pears, apples, apricots or candied citrus peel

60 grams – toasted almonds

4 tablespoons – amaretto

3 egg yolks

Slice or cut the fruit into chunks and put into a bowl big enough to eventually take all the ingredients.

Put the biscuits into a plastic bag and with a rolling pin break them into smallish pieces, add to the fruit.
Add the toasted nuts to the fruit and biscuits and mix throughly.

Break the chocolate into pieces and put into a bowl over hot water to melt. Stir from time to time so that it is evenly melted.

Put the egg yolks into another bowl and beat until pale, creamy and thickened.

Once the chocolate has melted thoroughly, remove the bowl from the hot water. Fold in the egg yolks, and then the amaretto.

Add the chocolate mix to the fruit, nuts and biscuits and mix to blend.

Line your loaf tins with cling film and divide the chocolate mix between them tamping down lightly so that you don’t have air gaps but not compacting the mix too much.

Cover and put in the fridge to cool. The Chocolate Heaven will keep well in the fridge up to four weeks.

To serve, unmold and unwrap a loaf and cut into thin slices. As it is very rich , one slice per person is enough.

Hazelnut Toffee Tart

21 Friday May 2021

Posted by Nevenka in Sweet Things

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bananas, banoffee, Condensed milk, hazelnuts, pecan nuts, toffee


I often end a meal with just fresh fruit, but sometimes there’s an urge for something quite sweet, not a big portion, but a mouthful or two of delicious sweetness, and this set of super easy desserts fits the bill. They all have a biscuit base, topped with a caramel toffee made by boiling tins of condensed milk to which chopped nuts are added.

If you have not come across this way of making a toffee before it’s, as I have already said, very easy, if a little disconcerting. You take the labels off your tins of condensed milk, and without opening or piercing them, put them in a pan with enough boiling water to cover and simmer them for three hours. If the water level gets below the top of the tins during cooking just add some boiling water. It’s three hours simmering wether the tins are the small or the larger size. I usually boil three of the small, 400 gram tins together. Let them cool for several hours in the water in which they have cooked. The caramel, being in tins will keep indefinitely of course, so it’s a good standby to have in the cupboard. Even an open tin will keep for several weeks. Shall we slide quickly past the reason being the high sugar content of the toffee…..

When you get to opening your tin you will find a thick caramel that holds its shape and can be spread onto a biscuit base. My favourite tart is to mix chopped nuts into the toffee before spreading it onto the biscuit layer, then decorate the top with whole or half nuts. I’ve made this with Pecan nuts and with Hazelnuts, both are very good. You can also put the a neat toffee layer onto the biscuits, then top that with banana slices and whipped cream for a Banoffee Tart.

The little tart pictured is made in a 10 cm wide loose based tin, which makes 6 my size mini portions or 4 larger ones.
For a 15 cm wide tart tin double all the amounts in the recipe.


60 grams biscuits – finely chopped in a food processor

20 grams butter

200 grams toffeed condensed milk

100 grams hazelnuts

Just in case you have never made a biscuit base, melt the butter in a pan over a low heat, add the biscuits and mix well.
Tip into the tart tin and spread into an even layer, tamp down firmly with either your fingers or something flat. Put to cool in the refrigerator.

Cut enough hazelnuts in half to decorate the top of the tart, then roughly chop the rest.

Mix with the toffee, then once the biscuit base is cooled, spread over this in an even layer, and then decorate with the hazelnut halves.

That’s it! Serve with fresh cream.

Oriental Rice Pudding

19 Sunday Jul 2020

Posted by Nevenka in Sweet Things, Vegan

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coconut milk, lime sherbet, rice noodles, Vegan

This pudding is in need of a name, so I would be grateful for any suggestions, or should I just stick to Oriental Rice Pudding? I was looking for a light dessert to follow the Gado Gado which I served for lunch, and remembered an Indian milky dessert called Sheer Korma. That is made with a very fine wheat vermicelli, seviyan, cooked in sweetened milk with nuts and flavoured with saffron, so I thought to make it more in tune with an Indonesian dish, and to make it vegan, to substitute the wheat vermicelli for fine rice noodles and use coconut milk instead of cows milk. I think it worked very well.

For 4 servings

80 grams rice vermicelli

160 ml can full fat coconut milk

40 grams pistachios

25 grams flaked almonds

25 grams broken pecans

75 ml agave syrup / honey

few strands saffron

For lime sherbet topping

2 tablespoons caster sugar

1 lime

Start by making the lime sherbet as you have to do this a day in advance so it can dry. This amount is more than you need for garnishing this dessert, but the sherbet keeps well for a couple of weeks in an airtight jar and is lovely on plain ice cream and fruit salad.

On a flat plate or tray sprinkle the sugar in an even layer.

Using the zester on your grater, grate the zest of the lime in an even layer over the sugar, then with your fingertips lightly mix the two together still leaving the mix spread out.

Leave in a warm dry place for several hours or overnight until dry and crunchy.

So for the rice pudding –

Soak the rice vermicelli in cold water for an hour.

Drain and cut into shortish lengths.

Put into a saucepan with the rest of the ingredients and bring slowly to a simmer.

Simmer for 5 – 10 minutes until slightly thickened. Leave to cool.

Serve at room temperature with the lime sherbet sprinkled over the top.

Banana, Coconut & Cardamom Buns

01 Wednesday Jul 2020

Posted by Nevenka in breakfast, Sweet Things, Vegan

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banana, Cardamom, coconut cream, sweet buns

These slightly sweet breakfast buns were inspired by an article on what to do with bananas that had got too soft. In the piece one of the cooks suggested making banana and cardamom puris. I just love anything flavoured with cardamoms and the idea of mixing the spice with bananas was very appealing.
Puris are made from a rich yeast dough, which of course can be baked as well as fried. I replaced the butter and milk in the puri recipe with coconut cream, some slivers of fresh coconut would add to this flavour, but I thought of that after I had made the buns. I was forgetting that I have some coconut flesh in the freezer, so next time…

250 grams whole meal spelt flour

7 grams fresh yeast / 3.5 grams powdered yeast

6 green cardamom pods

2 medium sized ripe bananas

120 ml coconut cream

2 teaspoons soft brown sugar

Egg white and more sugar for a topping

 

Put the flour into a large mixing bowl.

Add the seeds from the cardamom pods, the sugar and the yeast. Mix well.

Peel and either mash or pulse the bananas in a food processor. You don’t want a purée but some texture remaining.

Add the coconut cream to the bananas and mix.

Make a well in the centre of the flour mix and pour in the banana and coconut cream. Mix in to form a sticky dough.

Cover the bowl with a clean tea cloth and leave in a warm drought free place for a couple of hours until it has doubled in size.

Flour your work surface and tip the dough onto it. Knead the dough for a few minutes then divide into 8 equal balls.

Place on a baking tray and again in a warm drought free place leave to prove for 30 minutes.

Heat the oven to 175 C and bake the buns for 10 minutes.

Turn the oven down to 150 C and bake for another 5 minutes.

Take the tray out of the oven and brush each bun with egg white then sprinkle on a little brown sugar. Put the buns back in the oven for 7-10 minutes until the tops are nicely browned.

The Glass Strawberry

29 Wednesday Jan 2020

Posted by Nevenka in Main Courses, Snacks and Tapas, Starters, Sweet Things, Vegan, Vegetable Dishes

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doncaster, restaurants, theglassstrawberry

To start with – what a fab name for a restaurant! This cafe in Doncaster is one of my must do stops when I visit the town. The food is freshly cooked and super tasty, the service friendly and efficient, and the decor bright and cosy at the same time. You can eat lunch at a dining table or lounge on a comfy sofa with your coffee and cake.

I have my favourite dish that I like to order, The Naked Vegan Burger. Two burgers made from quinoa, beetroot and edename beans, served with yummy sweet potato fries, mixed salad and a pot each of hummus and sweet chutney.

If this is not for you, worry not, the menu has plenty to tempt all tastes – from breakfasts to sizzling pizzas. You can see the full menu on their website – http://www.theglassstrawberry.co.uk

A Mid-Week Dinner – Continued

27 Friday Mar 2015

Posted by Nevenka in Starters, Sweet Things, Vegetable Dishes

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Cardamoms, Custard, Figs, Garlic, Lemon, Parsley, Pine Nuts, prawns, Raisins, Shortbread, Spinach

For the – probably one of you – who has been waiting for the rest of the recipes for this dinner, here at last they are. IMG_1518 SPINACH WITH PINE NUTS AND RAISINS

For 4

25 grams pine nuts

A good bunch of fresh tender spinach

Olive oil 25 grams small golden raisins

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Firstly toast the pine nuts until a golden brown in a thick based pan over a low heat. Shake the pan from time to time to turn the nuts.

Wash and drain the spinach.

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a shallow pan. Add the spinach, cover and let wilt for a couple of minutes over a low heat.

Add the pine nuts and raisins and stir to mix.

Season then cover the pan again and leave to cook for about five minutes.

Serve on hot plates.

PRAWN WITH GARLIC, LEMON AND PARSLEY

For 4

20 medium sized peeled prawns

1 large clove garlic

Olive oil

Juice of half a lemon

Chopped flat leaved parsley

Heat a tablespoon or so of olive oil in a frying pan.

Add the chopped garlic and fry until light brown.

Add the prawns and cook quickly on a high heat until opaque and slightly browned.

Squeeze in the lemon juice and stir to collect any brownings at the bottom of the pan.

Sprinkle in the parsley and serve immediately on a hot dish.

IMG_1525 CARAMELISED FIG CUSTARDS

FOR 4

The only remotely complicated thing about this recipe is remembering to cook the custards early enough that they can cool completely. You can of course cook them the day before they are needed.

I will point out also that it is not an error that the custard does not have sugar added to it. There is enough sweetness in the caramelised fig to balance the less sweet custard.

4 tablespoons caramelised fig jam

Butter for greasing your pots

2 eggs

200 ml full fat milk

Few drops vanilla essence

Preheat the oven to 140C

To cook this you will need individual ovenproof pots for the custard. Most crockery is oven proof provided you don’t heat or cool it too rapidly. I used some glass coffee cups to cook my custards.

Grease the pots with butter and then put a tablespoon of the fig jam in the bottom of each.

Break the eggs into a jug and whisk lightly to mix.

Add the milk and vanilla essence and whisk a bit more to mix this.

Pouring through a sieve to remove any solid bits in the egg, pour the custard into the pots.

Put the pots into a deep baking dish and add boiling water to the dish to come about 2cm up the pots. This prevents the custards getting too hot and burning on their bases.

Put in the oven and leave to cook for about an hour until the custards are just set.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely.

To serve slide a thin knife around the edge of the custard, put a small plate on top of the pot and invert the whole lot. You may have to give the custard and encouraging shake. If any of the jam stays in the pot, simply spoon neatly on top of the custard.

MINI CARDAMOM SHORTBREADS

100 grams plain flour

40 grams fine semolina

Quarter teaspoon ground cardamoms

30 grams sugar

100 grams butter

Put all the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix.

Cut the butter into small pieces into the flour mix and rub in.

Bring the mix together in a firm dough.

On a floured surface roll the dough out to just under a centimetre thick.

If you have a very small round cutter – ideally about 3cm diameter – then cut into small biscuits. Otherwise cut into small squares or lozenges.

Bake at 150C for about an hour until pale golden.

A Mid-Week Dinner

09 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by Nevenka in Main Courses, Starters, Sweet Things

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Beef, Custard, Figs, Gremolata, Oxtail Stew, Pine Nuts, prawns, Rabo de Toro, Spinach

PRAWNS WITH LEMON & GARLIC, SPINACH WITH PINE NUTS & RAISINS

RABO DE TORO SERVED WITH PLAIN BOILED POTATOES

CARAMELISED FIG CUSTARDS SERVED WITH CARDAMON SHORTBREAD BISCUITS

This didn’t seem like a complicated meal for mid-week when I cooked it the other week, but now that I am writing about it, there is quite a lot of work. I must have been in one of those Zen cooking moods.

Much of it is done in advance, which makes it feel less work. The oxtail stew is cooked the evening before and left to very slowly cool in the oven overnight, which lets it cook long and slow and so develop a rich flavour. I cooked enough stew so that there was enough not only for this meal, but also for making Fresh Pasta with Beef Ragout for my sisters the following weekend.

IMG_1518

I have jars of Caramelised Fig Jam, made from fruit from the farm last summer. So for the dessert, I only needed to mix an egg custard, put that in pots on top of the Fig Jam and then put the pots in the oven to cook and set.

But then I got into biscuit making mood. The custards are perfectly fine without the biscuits. But I had that yearning in my minds stomach for buttery, crunchy, sweetness with the gorgeous fragrance of cardamoms…..

IMG_1522

I am giving you the stew recipe today. You will get the starters and dessert tomorrow.

RABO DE TORO – OXTAIL STEW

Serves 6

6 pieces oxtail

2-3 tablespoons flour

salt and freshly ground black pepper

olive oil

4 cloves garlic – finely chopped

1 large onion – finely chopped

2 red peppers – cut into strips

2 large tomatoes – skinned and roughly chopped

half a bottle of full bodied red Spanish wine

1 clove

5allspice berries

Small piece of cinnamon bark

salt

freshly ground black pepper

Gremolata – finely chopped fresh garlic, flat leaved parsley and the finely grated zest of one lemon

Put the flour in a shallow dish and season very generously with salt and black pepper.

Heat 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil in a thick based casserole.

Coat the oxtail pieces in the seasoned flour and fry on a medium heat, turning each side until browned all over.

This may have to be done in two batches. The meat pieces will brown more easily if they are not crowded in the pan.

Add more oil as you go along if needed.

Remove the meat from the pan and put to one side.

Add the onions and garlic to the pan and cook for a couple of minutes.

Add the peppers and continue cooking for about ten minutes until the onions are slightly browned.

Add the tomatoes and cook for a further five minutes scraping any flour stuck to the base of the pan into the sauce as it is moistened.

Put the meat back in the pan.

Add the wine. It should just come up to the top of the meat.

Heat to a simmer.

Put the clove and allspice berries into a thick based dry pan and heat slowly for five minutes or so to toast and bring out the flavour.

Grind to a powder with a pestle and mortar.

Add this to the stew with the piece of cinnamon.

Cover the casserole and put in a low oven, you want the sauce to be showing an occasional bubble but no more. For my oven this is 120C.

Leave to cook for 6 hours. Turn the oven off and leave to slowly cool.

Reheat at 180C the next day to serve.

Serve with plain boiled potatoes and gremolata sprinkled on top.

 

 

Christmassy Things – Part Two – Lime & Quince Mincemeat

18 Thursday Dec 2014

Posted by Nevenka in Preserves, Sweet Things

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Christmas, Limes, Mincemeat, Preserves, Quince

IMG_1442

Sweet Mincemeat is so easy to make and so much tastier than the ready made that I don’t understand why anyone would not make their own. Also when you make your own you can control the amount of sugar in it. I find most commercial food products that are sweet have increased the proportion of sugar over the last few years.

I am a great believer in using either what you have or can get hold of locally. Frequently this can point you in the direction of improving on an original recipe, as is the case here. The limes giving the mincemeat a fresher and slightly more acid citrus zing than the lemons that are normally used.

I only have one small quince tree, but it works incredibly hard and produces 40 to 50 fruit per year, some weighing as much as 800 grams. They made fabulous quince jelly, and using an old recipe where the fruit is sweetened with raisins and flavoured with orange peel, Mermelada. This being the Portugese name for quince and the recipe being the forerunner of the marmalade we know today.

IMG_1683

Still there were plenty of Quince left for other things. Being of the same family as apples, surely I thought, they could be substituted for them in any preserve recipes? And of course I am always looking for new ways of using my limes…..

LIME AND QUINCE MINCEMEAT

1 kilo Limes
1 kilo Quince
1 kilo Sugar either white or unrefined
300 grams Beef suet
300 grams Raisins
300 grams Currants
100 grams Candied orange and clementine peel
250 ml brandy

IMG_1450
Firstly find yourself a container big enough to comfortably take all of the above.

For the limes, having a lime farm, I am able to wait until my limes are fully ripe quite yellow and sweeter than the hard green ones generally available. If when buying your limes some of them are more yellow than others, go for those as they are sweeter. If you can find unwaxed ones so much the better.

Wash them then put them in a pan with just enough water to cover and bring slowly to the boil. Simmer for an hour until tender.

Drain the limes and let them cool. Halve them and remove any pips. Put them in the food processor and process them into a coarse pulp. Put the pulp in your container.

Next the quince. Peel and core the quince and grate them. I use the grater on the food processor for this as well. Quince are so hard that grating by hand would be a bit onerous.

Immediately add to the limes and mix well. Add the brandy and the sugar and mix again. This will stop the grated quince from going brown.

For the suet I prefer to use fresh beef suet. Although the trimming and chopping of the suet adds more work to the recipe I find the end result lighter than using prepared packet suet.

If you are using fresh suet, trim off any sinewy or bloody bits, then chop the suet finely.

Mix the suet and then the currants and raisins into the lime and quince mix.

For the candied orange and clementine, I like to make my own. Not because I have orange and clementine growing on the farm, but because home made candied peel has much more zing than most that you buy. It is not difficult to do.

Take the peel off some washed oranges with a potato peeler, until you have 50 grams. Chop it into strips or squares and put it into a small saucepan.
Wash and peel some clementine until you have 50 grams of peel. Again chop into strips or squares. Add to the orange in the pan.
Add enough juice from the oranges to just cover the peel. Add 150 grams sugar. Bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes until the peel is brightly coloured and the liquid reduced.

Add the above peel and its juice to the mincemeat mix and stir well to amalgamate.

Pack the mincemeat into clean and sterilised jars. Seal.

The mincemeat will look quite pale to begin with, but will darken as it matures. I like to make the mincemeat one year and then use it the next, although in recent years I haven’t managed that as it is so good that it all gets snapped up by friends and family.

The above amount made 12 jars of 350ml capacity.

Christmassy Things – Part One – The Pudding

16 Tuesday Dec 2014

Posted by Nevenka in Sweet Things

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Christmas, Christmas Pudding, Eliza Acton

To develop my recipe for Christmas Pudding I tried out some very old recipes including the Plum Pudding that was popular before the currant and raisins version that we like today and I tried out other modern chefs recipes. The basic recipes I kept coming back to were Eliza Acton’s, first published in 1845 and that of Peggy Libby (my sister’s mother-in -law) which was taught to her by her father. The two recipes were almost identical, differing only slightly in proportions of ingredients.

Both recipes make a pudding light in colour and texture, and not overly sweet. Neither recipe uses too much in the way of spice, only nutmeg, which I think gives it a cleaner less complicated taste.

I have added to and tweaked the recipes to my own taste. My two pudding gurus did not put nuts in their puddings, but I like the texture and taste of nuts so they are in. You, of course, can decide for yourself which way you want to go.

IMG_1445

CHRISTMAS PUDDING
Makes enough to feed 12, either as one large or two smaller puddings
100 grams fresh fine breadcrumbs
100 grams plain flour
200 grams fresh suet chopped finely
400 grams dried fruit – a mix of raisins, currants and cranberries
125 grams minced/grated apple
150 grams light brown sugar
1 unwaxed orange
half an unwaxed lemon
40 grams walnuts
40 grams hazelnuts
40 grams almonds
Half a teaspoon ground nutmeg
3 large eggs
Small glass of brandy

I am not a big fan of the commercially produced mixed peel and prefer the flavour and zing of freshly boiled peel. So start by cutting the orange in half and with a very sharp knife pare off the zest leaving the pith behind. Cut into either fine strips or small pieces. Do the same with the half lemon. Put in a small saucepan together with the juice from the fruits.

Bring to the boil and simmer for 7 minutes. Turn off the heat and leave to cool.

IMG_1440

If you can get fresh beef suet, which most butchers will provide at a good low price, it makes I think a lighter pudding. I am a little suspicious of how long some of the boxes of ready chopped and floured suet may have been hanging around. Vegetarian suet? If you must. You won’t get the same texture of pudding.
For the fresh suet, all you need to do is chop it finely. Do not be tempted to do this in the food processor as it turns to mush. (As I have learned by grim experience)

Put all the ingredients in a large bowl and stir well to combine to a firm mix. If the mix seems a bit too dry, add a little extra brandy.

Generously butter your pudding dish and add the mixture.

Cut a piece of baking parchment to fit the top of the pudding. Then cut a piece of aluminium foil that will cover the top and come two to three centimetres down the basin. It is useful to tie string round the basin to hold the foil, and then loop it round the base and tie at the top to make a handle to aid removal of the pudding from the steaming pan.

The puddings need 3 and a half hours steaming altogether. I give mine a steam for two and a half hours when I first make them, and then another hour or so when I come to serve them.

The pudding will keep for a long time, you can even make them one year for the following one. If you do this keep them in the fridge and every six months or so check that they are all right and feed them with a little brandy.

Generally speaking I like to make my puddings in September for that years Christmas, although this year I have only just made them and we are already well into December. I will let you know if they suffer from a lack of maturing time.

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