Summer Berry Pie

Fantastic Mr Fox and I went to America (New York and Washington) on honeymoon in 2010 and then to Chicago, New England and Boston the following year. One side effect of this (and my love for the TV series Pushing Daisies) was that I developed a minor obsession with pies, fruit pies in particular. Unfortunately, pastry is not my strong point.

In a branch of Barnes & Noble (what's a holiday without a visit to a book shop?) I found a Williams-Sonoma Pie and Tart book by Carolyn Beth Weil. Now, I LOVED Williams-Sonoma kitchen store when I visited it (and I'm trying to forget that they now deliver outside USA...), so this seemed liked a perfect way to develop my pie repertoire. 

Last summer I tried a couple Georgia peach and strawberry-rhubarb, which were very good. I've also made the caramel cranberry almond tart (not a frangipane) that tasted brilliant even though I burnt it slightly (and it's on my remake list).  

Anyway, a flick through the book and I narrowed it down to blueberry pie or summery berry pie and Fantastic Mr Fox voted for the latter. 

The pastry for the pie is straightforward to make - but slightly odd because you don't chill it before rolling it out. It rolls out just fine. And also whereas most recipes tell you to rub the butter in until it looks like breadcrumbs,  this recipe suggests lumps of butter no bigger than small peas. 

So with the pastry made and rolled out you mix the fruit (I used radpberries, blackberries and blueberries) with sugar, cornflour (I used almost 4 tablespoons, substituting additional cornflour for instant tapioca), cinnamon and salt and then make the pie. Chill the pie and then bake it (to try and avoid a soggy bottom, I put a baking tray to pre-heat - but I was also using a ceramic dish). Then leave the pie to cool completely before serving to let it set (you can reheat). 

I made it on Sunday evening and it wasn't quite cold when I went to bed. This resulted in a major dilemma this morning: is pie a breakfast food? 

I think I slightly overbaked the pie and the filling was perhaps a little wet, but it was delicious - i really liked the cinnamon in it. I definitely want to make it again!

Happy baking! 

Raspberry buttermilk cake

It's been hot here recently - not as hot as  England has been, but enough to make our flat a little warmer than entirely comfortable, particularly with regards to sleeping. So, I've been a bit  reluctant to turn the oven on and further add to the heat. So about ten days ago I was debating whether to make this raspberry buttermilk cake from Smitten Kitchen or not - heat vs raspberry season. cake won. Let me tell you: it was well worth turning on the oven. 

The cake was straightforward to make using my Kitchenaid. It was a bit like the triple berry bundt cake. Mine took slightly longer to bake - I made it in a 8 inch tin, not a 9 inch one. The cake was delicious - it is also great warm. Mmm...

Happy baking! 

PS the recipe is here: 

http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2009/05/raspberry-buttermilk-cake/

Not baking: Peach iced tea

With the weather continuing to be hot over the weekend, I was craving some nice peach iced tea. On Friday I searched for something at lunchtime and slightly to my surprise came up with some Lipton iced lemon tea in the wee tesco opposite  work, but that only made me long for some peach stuff. That was when I decided to make some. 

About four years ago, I went on holiday with a couple of friends (aka The Grand Tour) and we stayed a few nights with one of my friends' friend in Paris. He'd made us some iced peach tea which I duly refused because I don't like tea, but fortunately everyone insisted I tried this. I was an instant convert and swore I'd make my own. He used some peach tea and had fruit and mint in the brew, so I looked online for something similar and then tried to find peach tea in Sainsbury's. I hit the jackpot with peach and cherry blossom tea. 

I adapted the recipe at the end of the post.

I used two bags, a sliced almost ripe peach and 2 cups of boiling water. I let it brew for 5 minutes and then added 1/2 cup of sugar, but I'd reduce that 1/3 cup sugar in future, I think. I'd also be tempted to try Demerara or other brown sugar sine I like the taste. Anyway, I digress. Take the tea bags out and add 2 cups cold water. Let it cool then chill in the fridge and serve with or without out, with or without the peach slices. 

Original recipe here:

http://howto.yellow.co.nz/food-drink/non-alcoholic-drinks-and-beverages/how-to-make-iced-tea/

Not baking: espresso granita

So it's been really hot all over the Uk as summer finally arrives. I'm now dreaming of iced coffee and iced tea, so it seemed like a good time to make the espresso granita I saw a few weeks ago on Smitten Kitchen. 

We have a nespresso machine, so I used that to get my coffee for this. I used decaffinated as I'm trying to avoid caffeine at the moment. I also used demerara sugar (which I think is similar to turbinado sugar) because I prefer it over white sugar is espresso. 

I chilled it overnight and then froze it as per instructions.  Then when I got home from church followed by a food shop this morning and was rather hot and bothered, I decided to try some. I whipped a bit of (double) cream as per instructions and then tucked in. It was awesome! Dangerously awesome, in fact. I can see I'll need to make this again soon... 

Happy freezing! 

PS recipe is here: http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2013/06/espresso-granita-with-whipped-cream/

Rhubarb Strawberry Butter

Having never really come across the combination of rhubarb and strawberry before a couple of years ago, suddenly it's everywhere. Have I been blind or is this a North American thing that has only just reached us? In any case, it's something I want to embrace. 

A few weeks ago I saw a recipe for a rhubarb strawberry butter on Simple Bites that sounded good. I made an apple cider butter from the River Cottage Jams and Preserves book by Pam Corbin and it was amazing, so I thought I'd give this a whirl. 

I have to say that whilst it tastes nice, it did turn out to be a lesson in reading the recipe properly. North American recipes are very fond of canning as a form of preservation (that's making whatever you're preserving, putting in your jars and then boiling the jars in order to kill bacteria and achieve a vacuum seal). To me as a UK reader, this seems a lot of faff, but there really isn't much sugar in the recipe, so I felt obliged to can and bought appropriate jars (much to Fantastic Mr Fox's horror as I am usually unable to pass storage jars without buying some... You'd think it would result in a tidy kitchen, wouldn't you?). 

Anyway, it worked and I seem to have a vacuum seal on at least one of my jars (I only tested one), but it was more effort than normal - and since I failed to start early enough did keep me out of bed... I might make less another time and keep in the fridge or freeze it. 

I'd also cook it a bit longer - I think mine is more compote than butter... Tastes nice anyway! 

Recipe is here:

http://www.simplebites.net/preserving-spring-strawberry-rhubarb-butter/

Fantastic Mr Fox's birthday cake

It was Fantastic Mr Fox's birthday a couple of weeks ago, so of course I had to make him a cake. I spent a lot of time considering different cakes and had tentatively decided on a Battenberg Cake   when I remembered last year's Cake of the Summer. It was a triple berry bundt cake with a lemon icing from the Smitten Kitchen website and it was truly amazing. Once I had it in my mind, I couldn't buy make it again. 

I think last year I used black currants, raspberries and blueberries. This time round I used blackberries, blueberries and raspberries.  

The cake is pretty straight forward to make - I used my KitchenAid. I had a slight moment of panic about getting the cake out, but it was needless. The cake was delicious and I expect to be making it again soon!

Happy baking!

PS The recipe is here:

http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2012/06/triple-berry-summer-buttermilk-bundt/

Peach cobbler muffins

When I heard about the Back in the Day Bakery cookbook online, I was pretty sure I would like it. And it was soon added to my ever expanding cookery book collection. I've made a  few things to date: maple cinnamon, granola, hummingbird cake, brown sugar banana bread and pecan chocolate espresso coffee cake. The results so far had been good - especially the hummingbird cake and the coffee cake.  The only snag from my point of view is the fact that the recipes are in cups, which being Scottish, I find much more intimidating than weights. On the plus side, I do love using my pretty bird cups. 

Anyway, I had some ripe peaches, so I decided to make some peach cobbler muffins for breakfast. I mixed the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients separately last night to make it speedy. The results were pretty good - the cinnamon is a nice touch. They were pretty easy to make, too! Although I would be tempted to halve the recipe -in my  standard muffin tin, I got 17 muffins rather than 12... I have to add that not all my muffins rose well - perhaps I over mixed them??? 

Happy baking! 

Not baking: raspberry blancmange

I had never tasted a blancmange, but I have long been familiar with them at second hand through children's novels. Not the more contemporary ones (which are probably nothing of the sort for today's readers), but the older ones from the first half of the 19th century. These featured food extensively and one of the more esoteric delights (as far as I am concerned) was blancmange. But Annie Bell's Gorgeous Desserts features a few (as well as lots of jellies) and last summer I bought a jelly mould in the sale, so I thought the time had come. 

I made a raspberry blancmange featuring raspberries, double cream, a bit of sugar and gelatine. I figured that it was almost bound to taste nice, even if the set didn't work (my fears are the legacy of trying to convert a recipe for leaf gelatine to powdered gelatine for my dad with no guidance and a resulting very rubbery panna cotta...). 

You whizz raspberries with icing sugar and strain them, soak the gelatine and then heat the cream, stir in drained leaf gelatine, followed by the raspberry purée.   Then you pour it into a greased jelly mould and leave to set in the fridge overnight. Simple! 

Much to my surprise, I managed to in mould the blancmange (with some difficulty), but in more or less one piece! 

I served it with a roasted strawberry sauce from simple bites I'd made previously (very easy and good for solving the problems of too many strawberries about to turn).

It was good! And easy! I recommend it!

Happy non-baking!

PS if you also love children's novels and food, you might enjoy 'Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer' by Jane Brocket

PS Strawberry sauce recipe:

 http://www.simplebites.net/frozen-treats-roasted-strawberry-sundae-recipe/