Farmersgirl Kitchen

Thursday, 13 August 2015

Chocolate Caramel Malteser Cake

Chocolate cake is the usual request for celebration cakes in our house and I've made quite a few different kinds of chocolate cakes over the years. I'm easily bored, so always like to use or create a new recipe and I found my inspiration at Lavender and Lovage, where my friend, Karen had posted a Salted Caramel and Chocolate Fudge Birthday Cake, many thanks to Karen for allowing me to post her recipe here with my minor variations.

Salted Caramel is very on trend and we love it, but as this cake had to be eaten by family with ages ranging from 2 years old to 90+ years old, I needed to keep the flavours a little more traditional, so I took out the salt but kept the caramel.

Maltesers make a really effective and simple decoration and they certainly went down well with everyone.

Chocolate Caramel Malteser Cake

For the cake

140g crème fraiche
125g butter
200g soft light brown sugar
2 drops vanilla extract
4 free-range eggs
170g plain flour
50g cocoa powder (not hot chocolate)
1 teaspoon baking powder

for the caramel spread

3 tbsp caramel sauce or dulce de leche

for the buttercream icing

125g soft butter
2 drops vanilla extract
250g icing sugar

for the caramel buttercream

6 tbsp caramel sauce or dulce de leche

for the chocolate buttercream

60g dark chocolate

for the decoration

121g share bag of Maltesers

To make the cake

Pre-heat the oven to 180C and grease and line two 20cm sandwich cake tins.
Put all the cake ingredients into a large mixing bowl and beat well for 3 to 4 minutes with an electric hand whisk, or 5-6 minutes by hand.
Spoon the mixture into the prepared tins and level the tops, leaving a slight dip in the middle of the cakes so they rise evenly. Bake for about 25-30 minutes, or until the cakes are well risen and shrinking away from the sides of the cake tins. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tins for about 10 minutes, before removing them from the tins and cooling completely on wire racks.

To make the two kinds of buttercream icing

First make the basic buttercream, beat the butter with an electric hand whisk until it is well blended.
Sift the icing sugar and the vanilla extract into the butter and gently mix together, then using the electric mixer beat until the mixture is fully blended and fluffy.
Remove a third of the mixture and place in another bowl, add 3 tbsp of caramel sauce or dulce de leche to the buttercream and mix again. If the mixture seems a little too stiff, then add a little milk.
Place the chocolate in a bowl and either melt over a pan of hot water, or melt in the microwave in blasts of 30 seconds to make sure you don't over heat it. Cool the chocolate for about 5 minutes, stirring regularly. Add to the remaining buttercream and beat with the electric whisk.

To assemble the cake

Place one of the cake layers on a serving plate, spread 3 tbsp of caramel sauce over the base (it will sink in). Now spread the caramel buttercream over the base and place the second sponge on top.
Cover the top and sides of the sandwich cake with the chocolate buttercream and cover the top with Maltesers, starting at the outside and making concentric circles of the chocolates.

If you like the idea of pairing chocolate with other flavours, here are a few ideas for great combinations from popular UK Food Blogs:

Slow Cooker Chocolate Mint Aero Bubble Cake - Baking Queen 74
Triple Layer Chocolate Mud Cake - Made with Pink
Chocolate Orange Cake - The Foodie Couple Blog
Jelly Tots Chocolate Cake - Planet Veggie
Moist Chocolate After Eight Cake - Tinned Tomatoes
Chocadoodledoo Cake (with minted strawberry cream) - Tin and Thyme
Chocolate and Porter Cake - Kavey Eats

I'm entering this for Bake of the Week run by Casa Costello and hosted this week by Jen's Food

This is my first entry for Cake Club at Kerry Cooks. Kerry is also featuring a Chocolate Malteser cake, they are obviously popular!

Anything goes at We Should Cocoa this month as long as it contains chocolate which this surely does! We Should Cocoa is a long standing blog challenge run by Choclette at Tin and Thyme.

Labels: cake, caramel, chocolate, Lavender and Lovage, Maltesers

Monday, 10 August 2015

The Great British Blackberry Recipe Round Up

After the success of the Great British Rhubarb Recipe Round Up in the spring, Karen at Lavender and Lovage and I are launching a new Linky Party to celebrate the blackberry harvest. As Karen is in SW France and I am in SW Scotland, the blackberry season starts and finishes at different times for us, so the Linky will remain open until the 18th of September so everyone has plenty of time to forage in the hedgerows and make delicious recipes with the blackberries you pick.

The Great British Blackberry Recipe Round Up

You don't have to be British to join in and you can use fresh, frozen, canned or any other kind of blackberries that you can get your hands on. It's very simple, here is what to do:

Post your recipe on your blog with a link to Farmersgirl Kitchen and Lavender and Lovage and attach the Great British Blackberry Recipe Round-Up logo as shown below

If you put your post on twitter please mention @FarmersgirlCook @KarenBurnsBooth and #GBBR in your message and we will retweet all those we see.
By entering you are agreeing to let us use an image from your entry on this site, and to pin to Pinterest.
Please be respectful of other people's copyright and give credit where it is due.
Add your recipe link to the live Linky posted at the bottom of this page.
Closing date 18th September 2015

An InLinkz Link-up

Labels: Bake, blackberries, Blackberry, cook, Lavender and Lovage, recipe, The Great British Blackberry Recipe Round Up. bramble

Monday, 20 April 2015

Easy Rhubarb Millefeuille for the Great British Rhubarb Recipe Round-Up

The Great British Rhubarb Recipe Round Up Linky Party opened on Saturday and is proving very popular. I'm not quite sure why we have such an affection for these acidic pink stems. I can only imagine that it is because they are the first 'fruit' of the year and a harbinger of spring.

There is a local rhubarb connection here in the south west of Scotland as James Mounsey, a Scot who had been the doctor to Tsar Peter III, fled for his life back to Dumfriesshire when the Tsar was assassinated. He brought rhubarb seeds with him and from these he successfully grew fields of high quality rhubarb. The house he fled to is only about half a mile from where I live, so it is perhaps, not so surprising that our rhubarb is prolific and that our plants must be nearly 50 years old.

I thought a lot about the recipe I would make for The Great British Rhubarb Recipe Round-Up, I changed my mind several times. I wanted to make something impressive, that didn't need a huge amount of rhubarb and that was easy enough for anyone to make, here is what I came up with:

Easy Rhubarb Millefeuille
Serves 4

125g filo pastry (half a 250g pack)
50g butter, melted
125g caster sugar
6 to 8 slim stems of rhubarb
200ml thick and creamy vanilla custard (I got mine at M&S)
150ml double cream
tablespoon of icing sugar, sifted

Lay a sheet of filo pastry on to a baking sheet covered with baking paper, brush with melted butter and sprinkle over a little caster sugar. Cover with another 3 sheets of filo, each brushed with butter and sprinkled with sugar, press down.
Cut into even rectangles, you will need 12 rectangles in total (3 for each portion)
Bake at 160C for 8-10 minutes until golden brown, leave on the tray for a few minutes, then transfer to a cooling tray until cold.
Measure the length of the pastry rectangles, then cut your rhubarb into lengths to match. You will need 24 lengths of rhubarb (6 for each portion). Place the rhubarb into a baking dish and sprinkle over the remaining sugar (75g), roast the rhubarb in the oven at 160C for around 12 minutes or until you can easily pierce the stalks with a knife but before the rhubarb starts to disintegrate. Remove and leave to cool.
Whip the double cream and until very thick and stiff, fold in the custard and load the mixture into a piping bag with a large star nozzle (Wilton 1M).
Place the pastry rectangles onto the serving plates, pipe cream in three rows, place three stalks of rhubarb on top, then place another pastry on top and repeat the cream and rhubarb. Top with the final pastry rectangle and dust with icing sugar.

I hope you will join me and Karen from Lavender and Lovage by sharing your rhubarb recipes and enjoying the inspiration of the great entries we have already received.

An InLinkz Link-up

Labels: cream, custard, filo pastry, Lavender and Lovage, Millefeuille, rhubarb, The Great British Rhubarb Recipe Round-Up

Saturday, 18 April 2015

The Great British Rhubarb Recipe Round-Up!

While slender stems of forced rhubarb are proclaimed as a delicacy, I prefer my rhubarb when the stems become thicker and turn a beautiful ruby red, Karen at Lavender and Lovage shares my love of rhubarb and rhubarb recipes, so we are inviting you to join us for

The Great British Rhubarb Recipe Round-Up

You don't have to be British to join in and you can use fresh, frozen, canned or any other kind of rhubarb that you can get your hands on. It's very simple, here is what to do:

Post your recipe on your blog with a link to Farmersgirl Kitchen and Lavender and Lovage and attach the Great British Recipe Round-Up logo as shown below

If you put your post on twitter please mention @FarmersgirlCook @KarenBurnsBooth and #GreatBritishRhubarbRecipes in your message and we will retweet all those we see.
By entering you are agreeing to let us use an image from your entry on this site, and to pin to Pinterest.
Please be respectful of other people's copyright and give credit where it is due.
Add your recipe link to the live Linky posted at the bottom of this page.

Closing date 30th April 2015

For some inspiration check out the recipes on the Farmersgirl Kitchen Rhubarb Collection Page

An InLinkz Link-up

Labels: Farmersgirl Kitchen, Lavender and Lovage, recipes, rhubarb, The Great British Rhubarb Recipe Round-Up

Thursday, 23 May 2013

Chocolate Drops for Tea Time Treats

These odd little biscuits (cookies) are called 'Chocolate Drops', they come from The Dairy Book of Home Cookery, a rather retro cookbook I used for my April Random Recipe: Treacle Bites

As the Treacle Bites were such a success, I thought I'd try one of the other recipes on the same page. The Chocolate Drops were not in the same league as the Treacle Bites but they are also very good and incredibly easy to make. They taste a bit like a chocolate Viennese finger or shortbread, very short in texture. I'm not sure they were supposed to come out quite so lumpy as mine did, perhaps if I were more delicate in blobbing them onto the tray they might have looked better! My answer to that was to melt about 100g of white chocolate and dip the dark Chocolate Drops into it so they were half coated, that certainly improved the look of them and, I have to say, added to the general pleasure of eating them.

Chocolate Drops (makes 18 -20)
100g.4oz softened butter
50g/2oz caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
90g/3 1/2 oz plain flour
15g/1/2oz cocoa powder

1. Cream butter with sugar and essence until light and fluffy.
2. Stir in flour sifted with cocoa
3. Drop 18 to 20 teaspoons of mixture, well apart, on to butter baking tray.
4. Bake just above centre of moderately hot oven (1190C/375F or Gas 5) for 17 minutes.
5. Leave on tray 1 or 2 minutes before transferring to wire cooling rack.
6. Once the Chocolate Drops are completely cold, melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of hot water and dip each biscuit into the melted chocolate to half coat it. Place on rack until the chocolate has set.
6. Store in airtight tin.

Printable Recipe

The theme for Tea Time Treats this month is 'Biscuits and Cookies' so I am entering these Chocolate Drops. Tea Time Treats is organised and hosted alternately by Karen at Lavender and Lovage and Kate at What Kate Baked.

Labels: biscuits, Chocolate Drops, cookies, Lavender and Lovage, Tea Time Treats, What Kate Baked

Saturday, 2 March 2013

The Marmalade Awards 2013

These quirky awards were founded in 2006 by Jane Hasell-McCosh with the initial idea of preserving, growing and widening one of the most British of customs – making marmalade. They have gone on to generate a following far beyond Jane’s wildest expectations and allow many different varieties of marmalade to come together and allow the judges the great opportunity to taste them all!
Proceeds from amateur entry fees will be donated to charity. The 2013 beneficiaries are Hospice at Home and Action Medical Research.

The idea of entering and visiting the Marmalade Awards came out of some Twitter exchanges with Sue from A little bit of Heaven on a Plate and Karen from Lavender and Lovage. It's not that far over the border for me to get to Dalemain Mansion near Penrith where the awards are held, so I was keen to attend. I managed to source some Seville oranges and duly sent off my pot of Seville Orange Marmalade.

The Awards are centred on Dalemain Mansion, a Georgian stately home lived in by the same family for over 300 years, which also happens to hold a very rich archive of Marmalade recipes. The courtyard of Dalemain was set up with various stalls selling artisan foods and other related product. I met up with Sue in the courtyard...NO that's not her, that's an Alpaca!!! Sue likes to preserve a little mystery so there are no photos of her in this blog post. Unfortunately, Karen wasn't able to join us, but we were able to meet up with Vivienne Lloyd, more of that later.

I bought some flour from Little Salkeld Watermill, which is located near Penrith, I'll write a little more about their plans for a community buy out of the Watermill soon.

I also bought a couple of fabulous looking and tasting loaves from More, Artisan Bakery. I chose the Lakeland Walnut and Treacle Loaf and Rye with Figs and Walnuts

As well as the stalls, there was a marquee with workshops and lectures and the location of sponsors Mackays of Dundee.

It was soon time to hear the prize winners announced by, celebrity baker and author, Dan Lepard at the front of Dalemain Mansion.

Here are the winners in the children's category

There was quite a crowd outside the mansion despite it being pretty cold standing there.

Paddington Bear was there with his marmalade sandwich.

The hostess of the Marmalade Festival and Awards was also in attendance.

Jane, a self confessed marmalade bore, is passionate about the preserve. As a child she helped her mother make marmalade year-round, a tradition she has continued with her own three children.

Frustrated by an apparent growing decline in the popularity and standards of marmalade making, Jane decided six years ago to hold a small event with her friends, celebrating this most British of preserve and, at the same time, raising money for Hospice at Home. This became an annual event, growing in size every year, and is now the largest of its kind in the world.

And then it was time to enter the house and find out how we had got on with our marmalade entries. I did not have high hopes as I knew mine was over set and the peel was too thick (I'm not patient enough to spend two hours finely slicing peel!) what I didn't expect was that I would have two points deducted for using a 'commercial' jar! There was no mention in the terms of entry of the type of jar to use and one of the the winning entries used the same type of jar. What was really thrilling was how well Sue did with her entries, a gold and two silver stars! Karen also managed to collect a silver, a bronze and a merit for her entries. Huge congratulations to both!

Winning Merry Marmalade in same 'commercial' jar as my entry

The Awards have inspired people from all over the world to get involved. In 2010, 800 jars of marmalade were sent in from countries far and wide including the Yukon - Canada, Japan, Australia, Spain and France. I overheard one of the organisers say that there were nearly 1500 entries this year.

International Marmalade entries

Amazing Marmalade display in the dining room

The rooms were packed and everyone was very friendly, you can just see me (in the turquoise hat) chatting to some poor innocent bystander!

Oh, there I go again, chatting away to people I've never met before, and looking scarily like my mother from behind - eek! Thanks Sue!

In the middle of the 'madding crowds' sat a huddle of judges, tasting and judging marmalade from Britain and Australia for the Marmalashes Award. That's Vivienne Lloyd, author of First Preserves and winner of the 2008 Marmalade Festival, with Dan Lepard to her right.

Pam 'the jam' Corbin was also judging along with representatives from Fortnum and Mason and Mackays, the last remaining producer of marmalade in Dundee, the home of marmalade.

I loved this replica of Dalemain Mansion with the jars of Artisan marmalade in the the 'windows'.

And here I am with a Marmalade coloured VW Beetle outside Dalemain, what a great day out!

The winners:
Amateurs:　Best in Show - Yen-Chung Chong; Man Made dark and chunky - Adrian Young, Canberra, Australia; Man Made Seville -Tom Maier, Compton, West Sussex; Children's (sponsored by Paddington Bear) - Matthew Foster, Stanwick, Northamptonshire and William Preston, Silsden, West Yorkshire; Seville - Margaret Burke, Knutsford, Cheshire; Heritage (sponsored by Mackays) – Mary & Nicholas Hart, Morden, Surrey; International (sponsored by Mackays) Tom Benford, Kyoto, Japan; Dark and Chunky – Elizabeth Maclay, Andover, Hampshire; Merry - Yen-Chung Chong, Brighton; Novice - Jane Boylan, Penrith, Cumbria; Any Citrus - Jonathan Hamel Cooke, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire; Clergy - Rev James Milnes, Macclesfield; Tri-Services - Colonel Kieran O’Kelly, Andover, Hampshire.
Artisan & Commercial Producers: Double Gold - Nase Dobroty
Gold – Nase Dobroty (Marmalade with Interesting Additions Bourbon and Vanilla), Hubble Preserves (Fine Seville Orange Marmalade), Bracken Hill Fine Foods (Savoury Marmalade Orange and Cider), Mary’s Marmalade (Medium Seville and Any Citrus Grapefruit), Radnor Preserves (Medium Seville, Any Citrus Blood Orange and Any Citrus Lime), Mrs Jampot’s Parlour (Savoury Marmalade Clove and Cinnamon), JR Jams (Any Citrus Marmalade Three Fruit), Jammy Bodger (Medium Seville), Jill’s Natural Preserves (Marmalade with Interesting Additions with Somerset Brandy), Love Jam Kitchen (Any Citrus Marmalade Pink Grapefruit), Wild & Fruitful (Savoury Marmalade Thai Lime), Beta 5 Chocolates (Any Citrus Marmalade Yuzu).

To find out more about the Marmalade Awards visit www.marmaladeawards.com.

Labels: A little bit of Heaven on a Plate, Dan Lepard, Fortnum and Mason, Lavender and Lovage, Little Salkeld Watermill, Mackays, marmalade awards, More Artisan Bakery, oranges, Pam Corbin, Vivienne Lloyd

Friday, 15 February 2013

Rice Pudding with Butterscotch Apples

Random Recipes is now going into it's third year and to celebrate Dom at Belleau Kitchen is kindly allowing us to choose our book our own way. We still have to pick a random recipe from it to celebrate our love of recipe books and those wonderfully talented people who write them (with apologies to Dom for paraphrasing!).

The book I chose for my Random Recipe was The River Cottage Year by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. I picked this up recently for £2.99 in a discount book shop. The randomness of my recipe choice is relative since I decided to go with the chapter for February, on the basis that the recipe was likely to be suitable for this chilly time of year, but I promise that I did choose the recipe in the February chapter quite randomly, just by identifying the beginning and end of the February chapter and then opening the book randomly to find...

Rice Pudding with Butterscotch Apples

Serves 6
For the rice pudding
50g unsalted butter
100g pudding rice
500ml whole milk
500ml double cream
50g caster sugar
Fresh nutmeg (optional)
For the butterscotch apples
4-5 firm, tart, eating apples (about 400-500g)
50g unsalted butter
50g light brown sugar

Heat the oven to 140C/gas mark 1 and butter a deep ovenproof dish. Melt the butter in a saucepan over a low heat and add the rice, stirring until coated with butter (it shouldn't fry or even sizzle).
Mix the milk and cream together and add to the saucepan. Stir in the sugar until dissolved.
Transfer to the ovenproof dish, grate a little nutmeg over the surface (if using) and cook for 3-3½ hours. Every 30 minutes, stir gently from bottom to top to separate the grains and work the surface skin back into the pudding, until the rice has expanded to fill the dish and is quite tender (2½-3 hours should do it). For the last 30 minutes, leave to cook without stirring so a golden-brown skin forms, turning the oven up to 170C/gas mark 3 for the last 10 minutes.
Peel and core the apples and cut them into 1-2cm dice. Melt the butter in a large frying pan and fry the apples very gently. After 2 minutes, sprinkle with the sugar then gently toss and fry for 12-15 minutes, until tender and glazed. Serve immediately with a generous dollop of the hot rice pudding.

I'm sure my regular readers will not be surprised to learn that I made a few changes! I buttered the dish, put all the rice pudding ingredients into the dish including the knob of butter and baked the pudding in the oven for the required time. I also used a little more milk and a bit less cream.

This was undoubtedly a treat, the butterscotch apples were gorgeous and a perfect foil to the rich creamy rice.

I am also entering this recipe for Tea Time Treats as the theme for Feburary is 'pudding' and it's being hosted this month by Kate at What Kate Baked as I think Karen at Lavender & Lovage is lying down in a darkened room to recover from the massive round up of Tea Time Treats from January!

Labels: Belleau Kitchen, Lavender and Lovage, Random Recipes, Rice Pudding with Butterscotch Apples, River Cottage Year, Tea Time Treats, What Kate Baked

Saturday, 12 January 2013

Spicy Pork stew with sweet potatoes and beans

I'm on a bit of a mission to try to use up food from my freezer and dry goods from the larder. I had four pork steaks in the freezer which with some extra ingredients would make a meal for Saturday and also enough left for Monday night's dinner.

I had picked up a copy of February's Delicious Magazine and saw a recipe for Spicy pork stew with sweet potatoes and beans. The recipe combines spices and herbs with pork, tomatoes, sweet potatoes and kidney beans in a sweet and warming stew with just the right level of spice for me. The recipe suggested serving the stew with crusty bread, but to make it go further I added some basmati rice from my larder supplies!

As the recipe contains both oregano and coriander, I am entering it for the Lavender and Lovage, Herbs on Saturday which is being hosted this month by Vanesther at Bangers and Mash

Labels: Bangers and Mash, Delicious Magazine, Herbs on Saturday, Lavender and Lovage

This Page

Farmersgirl Kitchen

Thursday, 13 August 2015

Chocolate Caramel Malteser Cake

Monday, 10 August 2015

The Great British Blackberry Recipe Round Up

Monday, 20 April 2015

Easy Rhubarb Millefeuille for the Great British Rhubarb Recipe Round-Up

Saturday, 18 April 2015

The Great British Rhubarb Recipe Round-Up!

Thursday, 23 May 2013

Chocolate Drops for Tea Time Treats

Saturday, 2 March 2013

The Marmalade Awards 2013

Friday, 15 February 2013

Rice Pudding with Butterscotch Apples

Saturday, 12 January 2013

Spicy Pork stew with sweet potatoes and beans

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