Around the world in 80 (cough, nearly) bakes - week 1

Malaysia!
Never been, no idea about baking in Malaysia at all!

So, a google gave me this idea. It's called Kuih Sarang Semut, or 'honeycomb cake' or 'anthill cake' due to the interesting honeycomb structure which forms as it bakes.

And the results... Delicious! Think this might become a favourite - a little faffier than the usual but the results are spongy, kind of chewy and a bit crumpets, with a delicious caramel flavour. Worth a go (and you sound well fancy saying what you've baked :)

Here's the recipe I used...

Ingredients (I used a 2lb loaf tin)

• 250g sugar
• 250ml water (weigh it if you want it accurate!)
• 100g stork / marg / butter
• 250g plain flour
• 6 eggs
• 180g condensed milk
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1 teaspoon vanilla paste

Method:

1.  Put the sugar in a pan over a medium heat until all melting into caramel, then turn the heat to low until it goes the colour of golden tea like this:

Don't stir it and don't use a non stick pan - the sugar might crystallise and turn into a grainy solid burny lump. Unfortunate. If this happens, make a sad face and start again.

2.  Now, this is the bit that comes with a health warning - be CAREFUL!!! The caramel is heinously hot and you're about to make it boil and splutter. All in the name of cake. Why not?! So, standing well back, add a tablespoon of water at a time while the pan is off the heat and stir it in. It'll all go crazy and a bit set and boil - that's OK:

Add the water bit by bit - it'll take a good few minutes to add all the water in. Keep stirring to melt any set sugar - you may need to warm it up a bit again. (NB - washing up the pan can be fun - hot water will melt the sugar off nicely, don't panic!

3.  Add the butter or marg into the caramel off the heat and stir until melted, and set aside. Tricky part done :)

4. Now the more conventional cakey part - in a mixer, place the flour and add about half of the caramel butter mixture (lukewarm, not hot). Beat it for a couple of minutes until smooth and not lumpy. Don't worry about overworking the flour and getting glutenous, it's meant to be kind of a tad rubbery (in a nice way!). Once all the lumps have gone, gently drizzle in the rest of the liquid until it's all mixed. It'll be tres sloppy. Fear not.

5.  Now, add the eggs one by one to add to the slop along with the condensed milk and vanilla paste.

 Left is initially, right is after all the slop is added together.

6. Now SIFT (I know, I hate sifting, but here I imagine you'd get lumps to end all lumps if you didn't) the baking powder and bicarb in and mix mix mix for a minute or so until it looks bubbly.

7.  Pour into the tin... I know, it looks terrible and crappy and sloppy and fizzy. I was more concerned than I like to admit. 

8. Now, the eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed I didn't say to preheat an oven at any point... you put this in a COLD oven. Witchcraft. So, plonk it into your oven, shut the door, put the temp to 150 degrees C and bake for an hour or so, until a knife / skewer / cocktail stick / pokey thing comes out clean. You will have something like this...

Yay! Look at all those lovely little tunnels and holes for the ants to run through! More to the point, it's deee-lish. And lasts really well wrapped up in a bit of cling film. Go Malasia!!!

Next week... Iran. Iran?!....

JB x

A plan has been hatched...

So. Mr B and I have been talking. I've hatched a plan and it goes like this...

Every week, I will bake a recipe from a different country in the world. I'm aiming to do this for a year, so 52 countries in total will be baked... Savory, sweet, bread, cake, pastry etc all count, the only rules are the recipe must be a traditional kind of recipe and involve flour or an oven in order to create it. I've found a random country generator to help me out but any suggestions welcome!!

This week... Malaysia! 

It worked!

So, cauliflower base pizza. Actually tastes lush. Method was exactly as previous link; only difference was I had a baby courgette to use up instead of onion as the topping, Grana Padano instead of Parmesan, and 125g of Tesco half fat mozzarella as it is lower in calories than the cheese used in the original. 240 calories per half pizza!

Yummy! 

JB x

Cauliflower base pizza

This will follow tomorrow. One of those crazy weird no carb paleo type things, but I have on good authority it actually tastes OK. I'm going to try out the recipe on this lovely blog...

Cauliflower pizza

Will report back. Have cynical face on but open to it...!

JB x

Proper flapjacks

This is the real shizz. he kind of flapjacks that are buttery, soft, chewy, syrupy and instantly gratifying, satisfying, and other things-ing. It is absolutely not healthy in any way - I'm imagining the beta-glucans in the oats would offset approximately 1/27th of the butter in one of these bad boys.

This recipe has taken me a few years to get right - if you like those kind of stodgy, solid flapjacks you get in a sealed wrapper with an alarmingly long 'use-by' date, move along. Similarly, if you're interested in crunchy, thin flapjacks, you have no business here. These are, in my opinion, perfect squares of golden loveliness which make you want to eat the whole batch. Feel free to add things like raisins, dried cranberries, figs, apples etc. Or more to the point chocolate in chip form or on top. I'll love you a bit more for that.

Makes one 23 x 30cm tinful
Ingredients:

150g butter (I use salted, if yours is unsalted please add a good pinch of salt)
100g soft brown sugar
4 big tbsp golden syrup (these three are the bad things)
Enough oats to bind (The only good thing - I usually start with about 400g, it seems like loads but trust me...)

1. Preheat the oven to 140C (fan). The method is sooooooo easy. Melt the bad things together on the hob in a pan until caramelly and liquidy and buttery and amazing. At this point add any dried fruit you want - if adding chocolate chips wait until you've added about half of the oats or they'll melt.
2. Add the one good ingredient and stir properly (not like a polite old lady shaking hands). Give it some proper welly to get as many oats covered as possible. When the last few oats are really hard to get covered and remove their powdery look, you've got the right amount. If you don't have an achey arm then you haven't tried hard enough.
3. Squash it into the tin (lined with baking paper) and really get it nice and compacted.
4. Bake it for about 15 minutes (NO MORE).
5. Remove it from the oven and let it cool in the tin before cutting it up and revelling in sugary fatty heaven. I think these may have magical powers - use them wisely.

JB xx

No added sugar or fat flapjacks

OK, let's lay down some groundrules. I love carbs, and fat, and sugar. However Mr B is on a mission to reduce his body fat to 'professional athlete' levels, and unfortunately my regular flapjacks contain more than a tad of each.

My normal flapjack recipe will follow (and I admit it tastes waaaaaaaaaay better) but... For those with dietary issues or trying to be virtuous, what follows is actually pretty good. Anyone who eats breakkie on the run would certainly be better off with one of these and a cup of tea than those breakfast biscuits you get filled with weird stuff...

Ingredients (makes 9 largish flapjacks)

• 400ml apple juice
• 3 apples (dessert) or pears or a mixture
• large pinch salt
• 130g raising or other dried fruit
• 30g seeds of your choice (pumpkin, sunflower etc)
• 250g oats
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• good grate of root ginger if you have it - dried if not.

Method

1. Core and chop the fruit roughly (leaving the skin on for added good stuff). Poach it in the juice gently for 30 mins or so until it's nice and squish-able, although it will hold its shape.
2. Blitz the apples until you have a lumpy purée (only a few pulses).
3. Add the flavourings (cinnamon, salt, ginger) and dried fruit and seeds to the apple schmush and stir it in.
4. Finally, add the oats until you have a cement like mess. It's meant to look like this, honest.
5. Squash into a tin lined with baking paper (mine is 23 x 30cm) and bake at 180C for 30-40 mins.

So here we have them...

Not too bad for health food!

Vegetables...

So, I've been growing veggies this year in my little veg patch. It's 3 metres by 1 metre so pretty small - I also have herbs and tomatoes in pots.

This is my little haul today - pretty normal for a summery day...

We have...
Courgettes (black beauty and F1 hybrid ones) - grow really well even in a little space, produce tons of courgettes. Think I'll try some yellow ones next year just to be different! Hence why many of the recipes we've been eating are courgette based...

Beetroot (choggia and bog standard bolt hardy varieties). I learnt from last year not to squish them in too much, these ones are a much better size.

Tomatoes (maskotka) - a pretty ugly variety but grow well in pots. Mine offend my anally retentive side as they trail all messily and are all leggy. Tomatoes taste lovely though - think I'll try tumbling toms (yellow and red) in hanging baskets next year.

Lettuce - cut and come again - always go mental even in our slightly iffy weather. Also spinach but that all bolted...

French beans - Safari variety - started off indoors this year, and they're my little stars! Lots of lovely fine beans, not stringy at all, delicious. Think next year I'll sow them in a couple of shifts as after a month of producing my ones are running out of juice a bit, would be nice to have some more.

Rocket - grows like nothing else!!

So there we have it! I'm sure I'll get better at growing things and getting more yummies out of the garden soon. I also have a huge number of pumpkins and squashes growing... Will update as they get ripe!!

JB x