Grape Tomatoes, Rosemary, Roasted Garlic Foccacia

Serves 4-6

500g strong flour/white bread flour
1 heaped tbsp fine semolina
2 tsp of dried yeast or about 14g
About 50ml olive oil, plus extra for kneading
150 g of grape tomatoes, or any small sweet tomatoes (about 30)
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, leaves only.
 Sea salt and freshly ground pepper.
In a jug, mix 120ml of cold milk from fridge with 150ml of just boiled water
1/2 a bulb of garlic ie about 6-7 cloves.

Prep 1
Wrap up the whole garlic in aluminium foil with skin on. No need to break the cloves apart. Put in oven. Turn oven on at 200C or 180C fan forced. Bake for about 25 minutes. Remove from oven, remove foil. Using a scissors, cut off top of bulb of garlic, and squeeze out all the melted roasted garlic into a bowl. Its like a garlic paste. Leave for later to spread over dough.

Leave oven on.

Prep 2
Separately, in a big mixing bowl, thoroughly mix flour, semolina and yeast with a pinch of salt, say half tsp.
Make a well in the middle, and pour in the liquid in jug and oil.
With a fork, mix the mixture until it comes together like a ball.
Cover with damp papertowel or cling wrap and leave for 15 minutes.
Tip the dough out onto a lightly oiled surface and knead for a couple of minutes, using push, fold, knead method, until smooth and elastic.
Cover with cling wrap to rest for 15 minutes.
Repeat kneading motion.
Cover with cling wrap and leave to rise about 1 hour or double in size.
Preheat oven to 200C.
Place the risen dough onto an oiled baking tray say 28x20cm. I used a large rounded pizza baking tray.
Grease your fingers with a little oil and prod out the dough to the edges of the tray, dough is about 2 cm thick.
Gently and lightly, rub roasted garlic all over the top of the oiled dough surface.
Press the whole tomatoes into the dough so that they are only slightly poking above the surface. Scatter rosemary, sea salt and pepper all over. Drizzle with a little olive oil all over.

Bake for 30 minutes until golden.

Turn out of tray onto a rack, cool down and rest for at least 30 minutes before slicing and serve. Or if you like, transfer to board and serve immediately, but the resting provides better texture.

Note: I also steam the oven with 2 ladles of icecubes before putting the dough in, to facilitate dough rising in the oven. If you are doing this, leave oven door open with heat still on at end of 25 minutes, and bake with oven door open for another 5 minutes to let steam out and let the crust crisp up.

Bon Appetite!

Dan Lepard's Double Chocolate Lamingtons.

Ingredients

300g castor sugar

50g cocoa

75ml milk

50g unsalted butter

50g dark chocolate

50ml sunflower oil

4 medium eggs

100ml low-fat natural yoghurt

3 tsp vanilla extract

175g plain flour

3 tsp baking powder

For the coating (makes 750ml)

15g cocoa

50ml cold milk

175ml boiling water

200g dark chocolate, finely chopped

450g icing sugar

1-2 250g bags coconut (that is, much more than you would think)

Method

1. Line the base of a deep, 20cm square cake tin with non-stick paper and heat the oven to 170C (150C fan-forced). Put the sugar and cocoa in a bowl and beat in the milk. Melt the butter and chocolate in a saucepan, and add to the sugar mix along with the oil. Beat in the eggs until smooth, stir in the yoghurt and vanilla, and mix in the flour and baking powder. Pour into the tin, cover with a slightly domed sheet of foil and bake for an hour. Lift off the foil for the last 15 minutes. Remove, cool in the tin and, while warm, cover with cling film.

2. For the coating, mix the cocoa and milk until smooth, whisk in the boiling water, then stir in the chocolate until melted. Whisk in the icing sugar until dissolved and pour into a deep, wide jug. Cut the cake into nine, dunk each piece in the coating and fish out with two forks. Roll in coconut and leave to set.

Note: Lepard advises putting foil over the cake because it helps the cake rise more evenly. You'll have about 250 millilitres of coating left over - just the stuff, he says, for lamington milkshakes with ice-cream and coconut.

Sourcream Sandwich Loaf

This is an adaptation from Dan Lepard's sourcream sandwhich bread, to adjust for slightly smaller loaf and to use up my leftover doublecream. It has a beautiful tender crumb and crisp golden crust. I also mix with soy milk which further makes the bread softer. Very soft bread.

180ml cold soy milk (out of fridge)
100ml boiling water
*100ml double cream or sour cream (out of fridge)
1 tsp fine salt
1 tsp castor sugar or demerrara sugar
2 tsp of fast action dry yeast
450g strong white flour (bread flour) plus extra for dusting.
oil for kneading, I used olive oil.

Mix cold and boiling water together in large bowl/jug, stir in cream, sugar and yeast.
Separately in large bowl, mix flour and salt. Make a well in the middle.
Pour liquid content into flour bowl and mix till it forms a rough ball.
Cover bowl with cling wrap, and leave for 15 minutes.
Lightly oil hands and 30cm work surface (say 2 tbsp oil).
**Gently knead the dough, repeating twice more at 10 minute intervals, then leave dough covered with a cling film for an hour (or 50 minutes in warm weather). For 2nd and 3rd kneading, I dust work surface with flour before kneading.  Make sure cling film is a large enough as dough will about double its size.
Line a long 20-23cm long deep loaf tin with baking paper.
Pat the dough gently out to about 2 cm thick, roll it up tightly like a scroll, fold in the 2 pointy ends, and squish it seam-side down into the tin. Do not punch it, we want to hold on to the aeration in the dough.
Preheat oven to 200C/180C fan force.
Leave to rise until increase in size by 3/4 i.e about an hour, or 50 minutes in warm weather. Dust top with flour.
Just before putting dough in oven, put a large handful of ice into a baking tray in the oven below baking rack. This will create steam which aids the dough to rise further, otherwise the skin of dough will dry up quickly and form crust before dough gets a chance to rise further.
Place tin on baking rack and bake in oven about 35-37 minutes. Leave oven door slightly ajar to let steam out (by placing a wooden spoon in between) and bake another 5 minutes.

Note:

*The fat content in the cream is what gives the crust its tenderness, so do not be tempted by low fat substitutes. Make sure we give loaf plenty of headroom when come to bake it, as it has more "oven spring" than most. It actually rose 1 -2 cm within 5-8 minutes in the oven. For same reason, baking paper lining loaf tin need to be taller than height of tin if necessary. Dough rises to about 10-11cm height when final proofed, and to about 12 cm in the oven.

**When kneading dough, make sure movements are gentle, do not pound or tear the dough. Take edge of dough further from you and fold towards you, then with heel push down into the dough and slightly push and knead/stretch away from you. Give dough clockwise 1/4 turn and repeat folding, kneading, stretching.  Repeat this turn, fold, knead, stretch about 8 times, no more.

Bon Appetite!

Heston's Lemon Tart

This was made using Heston Blumenthal's recipe, but I had to modify as my tart tin was smaller and I wanted the tart less sweet. Baking this tart was a good learning experience on how to bake a custard filling to just setting condition.

The pastry was tasty, soft and crumbly. The filling just set and no more, smooth, very lemon tangy and not too sweet.

Serves 6-8 (small serves)
24cm tart tin, 2 cm deep

For the pastry
60g icing sugar
3 L egg yolks
300g plain flour
150g unsalted butter
1/2 tsp salt
Zest of 1 lemon

For the filling
Finely grated zest and juice of 3 large lemons
250g double cream
120g white castor sugar
7 XL eggs

To finish and serve
50g unrefined castor sugar

Pastry
Blitz icing sugar and egg yolks in a tall container with a hand blender.
Use a mixer with a paddle attachment to mix flour, butter and salt on low speed until resembles fine cornmeal (about 2-3 minutes approx)
Add lemon zest, egg yolk mixture and mix on low speed until fully combine and a very soft dough has formed. The dough will "unstick" from the surface of mixer at this point. This can happen quite quickly especially on a warm day.
Mould dough into a flat square ad wrap in clingfilm, place in fridge for 1 hour.


Blind baking - Preheat oven to 180C/160C fan force

Roll pastry between 2 sheets of baking paper to 2mm thick, place in freezer for 30 minutes. 

Line the tart tin with pastry, prick the base with fork, then place back in freezer for 10 minutes.
Line pastry case with scrunched baking paper and beans/clean coins/rice on top.
Place in oven, blind bake for 20 minutes.
After 20 minutes, remove paper and contents, and return tart case to oven for further 10 minutes.
Take tart case out of oven to cool a little. Trim the overhanging pastry by running a sharp knife round the top of the tart tin and discard. Leave to cool completely.

When ready to bake filling, preheat oven to 120C/100C fan force.
Place all filling ingredients in a bowl and mix together using a spatula.
Place bowl over saucepan of simmering water and allow to warm up until temperature reaches 62C. At this point, strain the mixture through a fine sieve into a pouring jug. With a spoon, remove bubbles from surface, if any.
Slide the oven rack out a bit, pour the mixture into the warm pastry case inside the oven.
Fill the case to the top, slide the rack carefully back in.
Bake approximately 25 minutes or until temperature of filling reaches 70C.
Allow to cool completely at room temperature.

Just before serving, sprinkle a think layer of sugar on top of tart.
Using a blow torch, gently caramelise the sugar while continuing to sprinkle further sugar on top.

Bon Appetite!

Fresh tomato soup

Fresh tomato soup is best when tomatoes are in season, when tomatoes are ripe, juicy and sweet, and cheap.

For 4 p
12 large juicy tomatoes, about 1.5 kg - I used egg tomatoes.
1 tsp of dried oregano or any herb like thyme, basil etc.
Olive oil
3 cloves of garlic, skins removed, and bruised
1 large red onion chopped or 3-4 small ones.
1-2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt, or more if required
1/2 L of chicken stock, or water is ok.
A small bunch of fresh basil, chopped.

Preheat oven to 180deg.

Drizzle some olive oil onto a baking tray.
Cut tomatoes into halves and place on a baking tray, skin side down.
Sprinkle the dry herb all over the tomatoes.
Drizzle some olive oil over it, sprinkle with some salt and pepper.
Bake for about 30 minutes, or less if tomatoes starts to burn around the edges.
Separately in a thick based pot, saute the garlic and onion with some olive oil.
Add the roasted tomatoes, sugar and salt.
Saute 1-2 minutes.
Add stock or water, and simmer for 20-30 minutes.
Turn heat off, cool for a few minutes.
Blend with stick blender or food processor.
Pour content through a sieve and press out all the liquid.
Reheat the sieved liquid.
Serve, with sprinkle of fresh chopped basil.

Bon Appetite!

White Chocolate Cranberry Oat Cookies

Makes 20
100g butter, chopped
60g soft brown sugar
1 large egg
60g of white chocolate
60g rolled oats
150g plain flour

1/2 cup dried cranberry (rehydrated by soaking in water)

1/2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
1/2 tsp of cinnamon/all spice powder
Optional: 1/2 cup sesame seeds

Preheat oven 150C fanforced.
Line a large baking tray with non-stick baking paper.

Cream softened butter with sugar, add egg and beat till creamy.
Sift in flour, cinnamon powder, baking powder, salt, stir to combine.
Add cranberry, oats, chocolate and combine.
Spoon a tablespoon of the dough, roll into ball and place onto tray. Place each ball of dough about 3-4cm apart.
Flour bottom of a glass, and depress on each dough to flatten.
Bake in oven for 13-14 minutes.
Remove cookies and cool on rack before storing/serving.

Bon Appetite!

Baked Orange and Cranberry Cheesecake

I adapted this from a Gordon Ramsay's recipe. It is light, a bit crumbly and citrusy.
This is a brilliant dessert to make the day before as many recipes do suggest letting the baked cheesecake set in fridge overnight. I made this the night before, and it was great the next day for a lunch party:-)

Serves 8
Butter and flour, for greasing and dusting cake tin.
400g of cream cheese ( I used Light Philadelphia cream cheese)
80g caster sugar
3 eggs, whisked till very pale and creamy
2 tsbp plain flour
1 tbsp corn flour
Zest and juice of 1 orange
1 tsp of orange or lemon oil (optional, if you want stronger orange flavour).
3/4 cup of dried cranberries (alternatively, 200g raspberries).

Preheat oven to 150 deg C (fan forced)/170 if no fan. Lightly butter a 23cm springform tin, and dust with some flour. The lower temperature plus the use of the corn flour helps to minimise the cake surface cracking during cooking.

If using dried cranberries, barely cover the cranberries with water and soak, for say 15 minutes.

Beat together the cream cheese and sugar. Fold in the flour, zest, fruit, and slowly, incorporate the juice bit by bit. (for this one, I used only half the orange juice and replaced the other half with juice from soaking the dried cranberries).

Fold in the whisked eggs say over 3 batches.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin, gently tapping against the work surface to remove any bubbles.

Bake in preheated oven for 35 minutes. Turn off the oven, and leave in oven for another 10 minutes. Open oven door, and leave in the oven for another 5 minutes, then take the cake out of oven. Leave to cool in tin. The slow progressive cooling prevents the cake from collapsing in the middle since there is no baking powder used.

If serving the next day, just cover loosely with cling film and keep in fridge. If covered too tight, the surface may get stuck to the cling film when removing.

Bon Appetite!