This is a great Christmassy cake that I treated my friends to on Sunday when they came over for lunch.
It is nice and moist and has a lovely colour from the saffron. Served with lightly whipped cream and a warm raspberry sauce this is divine!
Saffron cake with marzipan, serves 8
250 ml caster sugar
100 ml grated marzipan
100 ml plain flour
3 eggs
2,5 tbsp vanilla sugar
a pinch of salt
125 g melted butter
1/2 g saffron powder (if you buy the long strands grind them in a pestle and mortar with a tbsp of sugar)
Grease a sprinform and cover it in breadcrumbs. Stir together all the dry ingredients apart from the saffron. Add the saffron to the butter. Add the butter and eggs to the dry mixture. Combine and pour into the springform. Bake in 180C for about 20 minutes until it has set.
To make the raspberry sauce, bring frozen raspberries (or fresh) to a boil, break them down with a fork and add some caster sugar, so it is still tart but not so much. Serve warm with the cake and lightly whipped cream.
On Saturday we had a little Christmas dinner among friends. It was David, Gaby, Ian, Anna and me and Christopher and we all contributed to the dinner by bringing different dishes, and the result was a great smorgasbord of Christmas food with an international touch.
Blinis with smoked salmon, chives and creme fraiche
Anna (who has a Russian mother and a Finnish father) served homemade blinis with smoked salmon, chives and creme fraiche as a starter. Wonderful!
For the first time I tried making meatballs in the oven and then fry them afterwards, and they were perfect. đ
Instead of a main course we had a buffet with different dishes; David and Gaby’s amazing ham, Anna’s Salad Olivier (Russian salad with boiled eggs, potatoes, carrots, beetroots, frankfurters, gherkins, grated apple and mayonnaise), roast potatoes, meatballs, anchovies bake, brussel sprouts with bacon, carrots in orange butter, green beans and a shallots and red wine gravy. Really nice! đ
The prettiest ham ever!Ham with wholegrain mustard from Daylesford organic.Salad Oliver!Anchovies bakeBrussel sprouts with baconA plate full of wonderful food!
Gaby made a lovely crumble with apple and blackberries for dessert. After that we had some Christmas sweets, the almond biscuits with cream and jam, clementines, tea, coffee and quite a lot of port.
Apple and blackberry crumble with custard
I woke up poorly the next day though. đŠÂ I hate having the flu, but it is difficult to avoid it this time of year… I really hope I will be feeling better towards the end of the week, because I’m flying home to see my family and friends on Friday.
Anchovies bake, serves 6
10 large potatoes
1-2 onions
1/2 packet anchovies with brine
300 ml cream
butter
bread crumbs
salt
white pepper
Grate the potatoes and the onions. Butter a regular dish and fill it halfway up with potatoes and onions. Cut the anchovies fillets in small pieces and scatter them on top. Put the rest of the potatoes and onions on top. Pour over the cream and the brine from the anchovies. Place a few dollops of butter around the dish, and sprinkle over some salt and white pepper. Lastly cover the dish with breadcrumbs. Bake in 200C for 45 mins to 1 hr. The potatoes should be soft and the top crispy. Â
Brussel sprouts with bacon
500 g brussel sprouts
8Â slices of bacon
butter
grated nutmeg
salt
white pepper
chopped parsley
Trim the brussel sprouts (a really boring job, but it has to be done. Take the outer leaves off if they look manky and cut off the white bits). Boil them in salted water for 10 minutes or so. They should be softer but still quite firm.
Cut the bacon in pieces and fry them crispy in butter. Add the drained brussel sprouts, salt, pepper and grated nutmeg. Add the parsley and serve straight away.
We have the tiniest freezer. It is not even a freezer, it is just a tiny freezer compartment in the fridge. That is the only downside with our kitchen, but it is a big one… Well, a girl can’t have everything, and at least it stops me from baking lots of cinnamon buns that I would fill the freezer with if we had one.
But it is always a puzzle when you buy food, to not buy more food that needs to be frozen than we have space in the tiny compartment. So when I buy icecream I want to eat it quite quickly as we could use the space for other more important things than icecream… (Yes, there are such things! ;-))
This is why I came up with the excuse to make caramel sauce. I used Pioneerwoman’s recipe and it was really nice and easy. The first evening we had just vanilla icecream with still warm caramel sauce. Lovely and simple. The second evening we had icecream, cold caramel sauce, meringues and warm chocolate sauce. Yu-um. And last night we finished off the icecream with pancakes and some more caramel sauce. Not bad that either. đ And now the icecream is finished so I have room for meat in the freezer instead. Job done.
Following the Jerusalem artichoke soup with girolles as a starter, and pork fillet with crunchy potatoes and lovely sauce, I served Nigella’s glitzy chocolate puddings as dessert at last week’s dinner party.
I expected the chocolate pudding to be good, but not as good as it was. Please, please, try this, or you’re really missing out on a fantastic pudding!
In the recipe Nigella suggests ramekins, but normal sized ramekins are a bit too big for this recipe I think. I used Christopher’s chinese tea cups that are smaller and that was the perfect size following two courses.
Break up the chocolate and melt it with the butter in a bowl in the microwave or in a double boiler. Once it’s melted, sit the bowl on a cold surface so that the chocolate cools.
Preferably in a freestanding mixer, beat the eggs and sugar until thick and pale and moussy, then gently fold in the flour, bicarbonate of soda and a pinch of salt.
Fold in the slightly cooled chocolate and butter mixture and then divide between eight ramekins, put in the oven to bake for 25 minutes.
Meanwhile, get on with the glaze by melting the chocolate and butter in a microwave (or double boiler), then whisk to form a smooth glossy mixture, and spoon this over the cooked puddings.
Decorate with Crunchie rubble: I just put the bars in a freezer bag, set to with a rolling pin and strew over the top.
After the autumnal casserole on Sunday I made an old-fashioned semolina pudding for dessert. I vaguely remember mother (or maybe grandmother?) making one with raisins when I was a child. I am no fan of warm raisins so I made mine without and served it with strawberry jam. It was the first time I made it myself, and I liked, it is a very comforting dessert, but Christopher didn’t like it much. He had pictured it as sweeter and more like the semolina porridge his mother just to make for him as a child. It starts off with the porridge, but it sets in the oven.
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Semolina pudding, serves 2-3
450 ml milk
75 ml semolina
a pinch of salt
1/2 tbsp butter
some lemon peel
75 ml granulated or caster sugar
1 egg
50 ml double cream
Start off by making semolina porridge. Bring the milk to a boil, then add the semolina and salt. Add raisins if you prefer. Cook the porridge slowly while stirring for 3 minutes. Add the butter and lemon peel. Put aside and leave to cool.
Add sugar (I used double the amount), egg and cream (which I whipped lightly before adding, but I don’t think that’s necessary). Pour the mixture into a buttered ovenproof dish and bake in the middle of the oven for 30 minutes in 200C. Serve with strawberry conserve and maybe some whipped cream.
Beat the eggs and sugar fluffy, fold in the flour and then the butter. Pour into a springform which is greased and coated with flour. Slice the pears and put them into the batter in a circle, and put some in the middle of the cake. Push the pear slices down as far as possible. Bake for about 30 minutes in 175 degrees. The cake should be a little runny in the middle. Serve with whipped cream flavoured by some vanilla sugar or St Germain. Enjoy!
This is a lovely chocolate mousse made on the Finnish sweet called Dumle, so next time you see it at an airport make sure you grab a bag. Or if you live in London, pay a visit to Scandinavian Kitchen. They might have some at Ikea as well.
This was the grande finale for the crayfish dinner. Yum!
Dumle chocolate mousse with nut brittle, 4-6 portions
1 bag dumle sweets
300 ml whipping cream
4 tbsp granulated sugar
2 tbsp butter
a large handful of mixed nuts (I had almonds and hazelnuts)
The day before: Cut the sweets into smaller pieces and put in a bowl. Heat up the cream in a pan, when it starts to boil pour it over the sweets and stir until they’ve melted completely. Let the mixture cool and then place in the fridge overnight.
Put the sugar and butter in a frying pan, and let it melt on medium heat. When it’s melted put the nuts in the pan and stir until the mixture is starting to brown. Remove from heat and pour it onto a sheet of parchment paper. Let it cool and solidify, chop roughly with a knife and place it in a bowl or tupperware over night.
Same day: Whip the cream mixture with an electric whisk until wanted thickness, but be aware that it can split if whisking too long. Place in portion bowls and prinkle the nut brittle on top. Enjoy!
I made this crumble the other day nad even though I’m not a huge fan of crumbles, I must say I liked this one. However, if making a crumble with gooseberry for example that melts in the oven, you need more crumble than I had, so I have changed the recipe and added more flour and sugar to make it less moist. It was still lovely but a bit too juicy.
Gooseberry crumble, 4 portions
400 g gooseberries, rinsed and ends removed
3 tbsp granulated sugar
200 ml plain flour
200 ml granulated sugar
200 ml ground almonds
100-150 g butter, at room temperature
Put the berries in a quiche dish, pour over 3 tbsp sugar. The make the crumble by mixing butter, almonds, flour and sugar. Pour over the berries. Bake in 175C for 20-30 minutes, until nice and golden. Serve with vanilla icecream or custard.
This is the Swedish substitute to Eton Mess, I like them both. Meringue suisse (MarĂ€ng suisse) is a common dessert for children’s birthday parties, but it is nice for grown ups too!
If you have time to make your own meringues and your own icecream, do, it will of course be even yummier, but it works fine with a nice vanilla ice cream from the shop and bought meringues too. Luckily for me, I could use the meringues we were given last time we went to Trinity, so I got homemade meringues without having to make them. đ
Meringue suisse
Lightly whipped cream
Vanilla icecream
Sliced banana(s)
Meringues
Chocolate sauce: equal parts cocoa, granulated sugar and water (for two people 3 tbsp of each is enough)
Pour the ingredients for the sauce into a pan and stir until it has boiled for a few minutes. Place the icecream, cream, banana and meringues in individual bowls, without mixing it. Pour the warm chocolate sauce on top. Yum….
Scandelights 