Lincoln promised me he'd remember every thing extra that I chucked in the recipe, so I could remake it. I should really test his memory, as this is testing mine!
I started off with the standards...
1 cup of self raising flour
3 tablespoons of cocoa
1/2 cup caster sugar
80g butter, melted & cooled
1/2 cup milk
1 egg, beaten
(and then I investigated the fridge, and found the chocolate melts I'd bought for some reason but hadn't used)
1 bag Cadbury milk chocolate melts (I think dark would have worked well, too)
(realised there was no vanilla, and hell, I like vanilla)
1 tablespoon vanilla
pinch of salt for the hell of it.
For the sauce:
1 cup brown sugar
4-6 tablespoons of cocoa powder
2 cups of boiling water.
Preheat oven to 180c. Grease a 2L+ (I used a 2L container, and it JUST stayed in the container. It was close though. Use a bigger one if you have one) baking dish.
Sift flour, salt, caster sugar & cocoa in to a large bowl.
In a smaller bowl/jug, whisk butter, milk, vanilla and egg. Slowly add this to the flour mixture, although I forgot and just dumped it all in, and it worked out well. Mix well.
Add in the chocolate melts, stir to combine, then pour in to baking dish.
Sprinkle brown sugar & cocoa on top of pudding mix (I think I used 4 heaped tablespoons of cocoa). Using the back of a soup spoon or other large spoon, slowly pour the boiling water on to the spoon to fall in to the pudding dish. Why do you do this? It apparently stops the boiling water from disturbing the sugar - but when you think about it, the sugar's going to melt anyway. I generally get bored of doing it that way about 1/2 way through. Also, I have a tendency to burn my fingers when I do it that way. Perhaps I should pour slower.
Bake in oven for 30-40 mins. Lincoln had his with just king island cream, I had it with mixed berries and cream.
What I want to try next time: chopping up a block of Lindt dark chocolate and chucking that in, instead. Leaving chunks of chocolate to see if you get chocolate pockets. Would also be interesting to try with some Haighs peppermint or orange pastilles. If you don't do another flavouring, I also think a shot of espresso would work well in it, too.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Dad's Pea and Ham Soup
Another family recipe, this time from the van der Wel archives. This is Dad's recipe, I'll start with what he wrote:
"If making a big batch with plenty to spare I usually have in it:
750 gms yellow split peas (I buy them at a health food place in the market in the western mall close to Gouger St because they are the freshest I have found)
750 grms bacon
750 grms bacon bones
10 debreziner (hard sausage - source is barossa fine foods stall in market)
3-4 leeks
1 carrot
3-4 sticks of celery
1-2 onion
1-2 potatoes
This quantity fills the large stock pot you bought me - from memory this is about 10 litres"
Great, thanks Dad! I don't remember how big the stockpot is - to be honest, I don't remember buying you a stockpot. Ok, maybe vaguely.
Dad's pea and ham soup is obviously not the normal English pea and ham soup... And certainly not the stuff you could float a pie in. But it's really tasty, and I think he actually normally makes it in a pressure cooker.
Which I'm going to try. I have a pressure cooker, I've had one for a few years now. I'm just not so certain I want to cook in something that's liable to explode if I forget about it. That's not FOOD under pressure, that's ME under pressure.
But then thanks to Liv, I found out about the pressure cooker/slow cooker all in one. That's my kind of thing. Means I can recycle the slow cooker to someone else (thanks for taking it, Dad!) and have a two in one combo that takes up the same amount of space. Anyone want an un-used normal pressure cooker?
Anyway, onwards. Dad forgot to tell me that he usually does the split peas and ham bones in there, and then once they're done adds all the vegetables to the stockpot and adds more water.
I put it all in the pressure cooker and then watched it, hoping it doesn't explode. I know you're wondering how long, and truthfully, I don't remember, I just used the guide from my pressure cooker.
Ah hah! According to the instructions, it was 40 minutes.
So, that's how I did it. According to Dad's spoken instructions, (ie, when I was telling him about the volcano I had in my kitchen), he does peas/bacon/bones in pressure cooker, then pours in to 10L stockpot, adds more water, vegetables and the rest of the meat. Until done. Vegetables should be very soft.
"If making a big batch with plenty to spare I usually have in it:
750 gms yellow split peas (I buy them at a health food place in the market in the western mall close to Gouger St because they are the freshest I have found)
750 grms bacon
750 grms bacon bones
10 debreziner (hard sausage - source is barossa fine foods stall in market)
3-4 leeks
1 carrot
3-4 sticks of celery
1-2 onion
1-2 potatoes
This quantity fills the large stock pot you bought me - from memory this is about 10 litres"
Great, thanks Dad! I don't remember how big the stockpot is - to be honest, I don't remember buying you a stockpot. Ok, maybe vaguely.
Dad's pea and ham soup is obviously not the normal English pea and ham soup... And certainly not the stuff you could float a pie in. But it's really tasty, and I think he actually normally makes it in a pressure cooker.
Which I'm going to try. I have a pressure cooker, I've had one for a few years now. I'm just not so certain I want to cook in something that's liable to explode if I forget about it. That's not FOOD under pressure, that's ME under pressure.
But then thanks to Liv, I found out about the pressure cooker/slow cooker all in one. That's my kind of thing. Means I can recycle the slow cooker to someone else (thanks for taking it, Dad!) and have a two in one combo that takes up the same amount of space. Anyone want an un-used normal pressure cooker?
Anyway, onwards. Dad forgot to tell me that he usually does the split peas and ham bones in there, and then once they're done adds all the vegetables to the stockpot and adds more water.
I put it all in the pressure cooker and then watched it, hoping it doesn't explode. I know you're wondering how long, and truthfully, I don't remember, I just used the guide from my pressure cooker.
Ah hah! According to the instructions, it was 40 minutes.
So, that's how I did it. According to Dad's spoken instructions, (ie, when I was telling him about the volcano I had in my kitchen), he does peas/bacon/bones in pressure cooker, then pours in to 10L stockpot, adds more water, vegetables and the rest of the meat. Until done. Vegetables should be very soft.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Dairy/Wheat/Sugar* Free Cherry Ripe Muffins
Or in other words, challenge accepted. With more footnotes than a Terry Pratchett novel.
I was talking about this recipe in another group, and figured I should probably get it down somewhere before I forget it, and get asked for the recipe a week later, at which point I struggle to remember what I put in it.
This is actually mark II of everything free cherry ripe muffins. The first ones didn't have enough cherries in them. I've a sneaking suspicion this lot don't either.
1 3/4C Almond meal**
1C dessicated*** coconut
1/2C cocoa
1/2t bicarb soda
pinch of salt
1C + 1/2C cherries
1/2C raisins
1/2C water
1 banana
1/3C liquid coconut oil
1t vanilla essence
1T lemon juice
4 eggs
200g 85%**** chopped***** dark chocolate
Chop up cherries, I put 1 cup in a saucepan, and the other 1/2 cup left to go straight in to mix. To the saucepan, add raisins and water, and bring to the boil. Simmer for a minute or so, then remove from heat, leave to cool for about 10 mins.
Preheat oven to 180C.
In a blender, mix the cherry/raisin/water mix, add the banana, coconut oil, vanilla & lemon juice. Mix until reasonably smooth.
In a large bowl, whisk together almond meal, coconut, cocoa, bicarb soda and salt.
Pour the blended mix in to the bowl, then add the eggs, mixing well.
Fold in the chopped chocolate and cherry pieces.
Pour in to muffin tins. This mix made 15 muffins.
Bake for 20-25 mins, they're done when a skewer comes out clean.
Cool in tray.
* from title: clearly, 85% chocolate has sugar in it. I'm still not counting that.
** when I say 1 & 3/4 cups, what really happened is that I ran out of almond meal. It should have been 2 cups. I don't think it's suffered.
*** Have I mentioned previously that as a kid I used to call it desecrated coconut? Couldn't understand why my mother laughed whenever I said it.
**** last time I used 90% dark chocolate. I didn't have any in my stash this time, so had to go down a level.
***** I chopped up the chocolate quite coarsely this time. It's got some nice chunks in it, so that if the muffin gets microwaved, it'll have some gooey chocolate in it. You can thank me later.
I was talking about this recipe in another group, and figured I should probably get it down somewhere before I forget it, and get asked for the recipe a week later, at which point I struggle to remember what I put in it.
This is actually mark II of everything free cherry ripe muffins. The first ones didn't have enough cherries in them. I've a sneaking suspicion this lot don't either.
1 3/4C Almond meal**
1C dessicated*** coconut
1/2C cocoa
1/2t bicarb soda
pinch of salt
1C + 1/2C cherries
1/2C raisins
1/2C water
1 banana
1/3C liquid coconut oil
1t vanilla essence
1T lemon juice
4 eggs
200g 85%**** chopped***** dark chocolate
Chop up cherries, I put 1 cup in a saucepan, and the other 1/2 cup left to go straight in to mix. To the saucepan, add raisins and water, and bring to the boil. Simmer for a minute or so, then remove from heat, leave to cool for about 10 mins.
Preheat oven to 180C.
In a blender, mix the cherry/raisin/water mix, add the banana, coconut oil, vanilla & lemon juice. Mix until reasonably smooth.
In a large bowl, whisk together almond meal, coconut, cocoa, bicarb soda and salt.
Pour the blended mix in to the bowl, then add the eggs, mixing well.
Fold in the chopped chocolate and cherry pieces.
Pour in to muffin tins. This mix made 15 muffins.
Bake for 20-25 mins, they're done when a skewer comes out clean.
Cool in tray.
* from title: clearly, 85% chocolate has sugar in it. I'm still not counting that.
** when I say 1 & 3/4 cups, what really happened is that I ran out of almond meal. It should have been 2 cups. I don't think it's suffered.
*** Have I mentioned previously that as a kid I used to call it desecrated coconut? Couldn't understand why my mother laughed whenever I said it.
**** last time I used 90% dark chocolate. I didn't have any in my stash this time, so had to go down a level.
***** I chopped up the chocolate quite coarsely this time. It's got some nice chunks in it, so that if the muffin gets microwaved, it'll have some gooey chocolate in it. You can thank me later.
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