Mary Berry's Christmas Chutney

Now I know chutney is not baked or necessarily sweet but this recipe is from the queen of baking herself, Marry Berry. And so I am adding it to my blog.

I think that the reason its called Christmas chutney is that it goes well with leftover turkey, ham or cheeses, none of the ingredients themselves are particularly christmassy.

Mary Berry's Christmas chutney

makes two small jars

300g tomatoes
1 red pepper
1/2 green pepper
1/2 small aubergine
230g onion
115g granulated or caster sugar
100ml white wine vinegar
tsp salt
tsp coriander seeds, crushed
tsp paprika
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

Peel the skins from the tomatoes. You can do this by scoring a cross at one end and placing them in boiling water for a minute, the skin should peel away easily. 

Chop the tomatoes, peppers, aubergine and onion. Pop into a large saucepan and, on a low heat, bring to the boil. You have read that correctly, no extra liquid is needed, the vegetables will release enough by themselves. Cover with a lid and simmer for about 1 hour, stirring occasionally  until the vegetables are tender.

Tip the sugar, white wine vinegar, salt, crushed coriander seeds, paprika and cayenne pepper into the pen.and bring to the boil over a medium heat. Stir until the sugar has dissolved, continue to boil for 30 minutes until a chunky chutney consistency has been reached and all the watery liquid has evaporated. Make sure you stir from time to time, especially towards the end of cooking time to prevent the chutney catching on the pan base.

Spoon the chutney into sterile jars and seal while hot. 

Ideally leave this to mature for 4 weeks. The one I am giving as a gift will have matured but the spare one I cracked into after 1 week. Mind you it was still absolutely amazing, I had it in a sandwich with leftover roast chicken and it was the most fantastic lunch!

Chocolate truffle cupcakes

As mentioned in a previous post we have two books in this months cupcake book club.

This is my bake from the first book 'Meet me at the Cupcake Cafe' by Jenny Colgan.

In the book these are called double chocolate cupcakes. I have called them chocolate truffle cupcakes as they are very dark, chocolately and quite dense. Certainly an adult chocolate cupcake.

I have paired them with a light and creamy white chocolate frosting, the perfect contrast to the dark cake.

Chocolate truffle cupcakes

makes 6 (I had to do some serious maths, by my reckoning the recipe Jenny supplies would make 300!)


For the cakes
90g good quality dark chocolate
50ml double cream
1 egg
35g caster sugar
30g plain flour
tsp cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder


For the frosting
60g butter
125g icing sugar
1 tablespoon milk
50g white chocolate

Place the dark chocolate and cream in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of barely simmering water. Stir occasionally until the chocolate has melted, set aside to cool slightly.

Whisk the egg and sugar until doubled in volume. Gradually add the chocolate and cream, mixing well. Add the flour,cocoa powder and baking powder and fold in.

Divide the mix evenly between baking cases and bake in a preheated oven for 15 minutes.

Allow to cool completely on a wire rack.

In the meantime make the frosting. Melt the white chocolate, in a heatproof bowl over barely simmering water, and set aside to cool.

Beat the butter with the icing sugar and milk for 5 minutes until very light and creamy. Add in the cooled white chocolate and beat until incorporated. Make sure the chocolate is nice and cool or it will melt your frosting, 

Pipe the frosting onto the cooled cakes and enjoy!

Mincemeat

I am confused, I should like mince pies. I like pastry, I like dried fruit, I like spices.  And yet the mystery remains, I do not like them.

I have decided to investigate this. I suspect that it may be that I was given mediocre shop bought ones and this has put me off. I haven't tried one in years.

I am going to make my own home-made mincemeat and then make my own mince pies. I have to put some thought into what pastry to use but I shall cross that bridge when I come to it, I have time, my mincemeat will need a little while to mature.

I had a look round at various recipes and below is my interpretation using what I like.

Mincemeat

small bramley apple
130g raisins
130g sultanas
40g stoned dates, chopped
50g almonds, chopped
150g suet
250g brown sugar
tsp mixed spice
tsp cinnamon
fresh grating of nutmeg
Zest and juice of a small lemon
Zest and juice of half an orange
50ml brandy

Put the raisins, sultanas, dates, almonds, suet, sugar and spices into a bowl and mix. Peel and grate the apple then add this to the bowl along with the citrus juice and brandy, Give the whole thing a good mix.

Leave overnight, giving a good stir every now and then. By morning it will be slightly darker and lovely and sticky.

 Pack into sterile jars and leave to mature for two weeks and then its good to go!

Odds and sods jars collected through the year!

I know I say leave for two weeks but I will be making a trial run of mince pies next weekend!

Spicy peacekeeper cookies

This month we get a bumper two books for the cupcake book club. 'Meet me at the Cupcake Cafe' and Christmas at the Cupcake Cafe, both by Jenny Colgan.

I plan to make something from both books. These are from the Christmas book and made at the special request of my boyfriend. He loves this sort of biscuit and as soon as he knew about them they had to be made! To be fair I like this sort of biscuit too, and I have dates left over from making Christmas cakes which need using. Still have plenty left though so need to put my thinking cap on to use them up!

I have adapted the recipe only ever so slightly. I am not convinced that 14g of walnuts is right, it may be a typo and I have taken it to actually be 145g. Whether I am right or not remains to be seen.

Peacekeeper spice cookies (adapted from Jenny Colgan, Christmas at the cupcake Cafe)

makes 34

110g butter

100g light brown sugar

118g treacle

egg yolk

tablespoon soured cream

375g plain flour

tablespoon baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

tsp ginger

tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp mixed spice

50g raisins or sultanas

50g walnuts, roughly chopped

50g dried dates, roughly chopped

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and creamy. Add the treacle, egg yolk and soured cream and mix until well incorporated. 

In a separate bowl combine the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and spices. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet, mixing well after each addition.

Finally add the dried fruits and nuts and blend well. 

Chill the dough for 1/2 hour to 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 160C/140C FAN and grease baking sheets, I did not grease mine but I know that it is very super non stick. 

Roll out the dough ~1cm thick and stamp out rounds.

This dough rolls beautifully!

 Cook for 12-15 minutes until lightly golden.  Using a palette knife transfer the biscuits to a wire rack and allow to cool fully.

Wow, I halved the recipe and still have ended up with 34 biscuits! Its a good job that they are delicious. They are spicy and light with lovely textures from the fruit. These would definitely cheer anyone up and keep the peace.

So many cookies!

Spicy gingerbread men

One of my pet hates is being tempted into buying a gingerbread man and then tasting nothing, not even a smidgen of ginger. I don't really like it when they are iced either, for me its all about spice and warmth not sugary sweetness.

I love gingerbread men so very much, I am terribly unrestrained if I have them in the house, but now its December it feels the perfect time to bake these spicy little biscuits.

Some basic recipes have egg in , some do not. I do not know if this would make a huge difference to texture, so in the interests of research, and not because I want to eat ALL the gingerbread men, I am going to try a few batches. Below is my egg-less version of gingerbread, good if you have no eggs in the house or have an allergy.

Gingerbread men

makes 8, depends on cutter size, recipe easily doubled

70g butter
30g treacle
50g light brown sugar
170g plain flour 
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 1/2 tsp ginger
1 tsp mixed spice
balls of stem ginger chopped, plus 1 tablespoon of the syrup
raisins to decorate (optional)

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C FAN and lightly grease a baking sheet, unless you know that yours is super non stick, then this is not necessary.

Gently warm the butter, treacle and sugar until melted.

Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda, spices and stem ginger together in a bowl. Add the stem ginger syrup to the melted mix. Mix the wet and dry ingredients, press together until a dough is formed.

Lightly flour a surface and roll out the dough, it may crumble a little, just push it together with your hands. Stamp out the men, re-rolling the trimmings until all the dough is used up. Press chopped raisins into the dough as eyes and buttons if you like. 

Cook in the preheated oven for 8-12 minutes, depending on size. Keep an eye on them, they will catch very quickly.

Leave to cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes then carefully transfer to a wire rack.

Once cool the men can be decorated with royal icing or melted chocolate if you wish.

These were really nice and warming gingerbread men, I will keep the spicing the same in the next batch and compare the textures of an egg and egg-less batter.

My ugliest googly eyed ginger bread man, I felt sorry for him, so ate him first!

p.s. sorry not many pictures, camera was charging!