Hello World…..Everyone

So I’ve had this blogname registered for ages.  I’ve had another blog before; http://www.fairycakeheaven.blogspot.com.  I’ve had this one on my mind for a few weeks now as it’s more me, now….. I’ve gone a full 360 since writing fairycakeheaven, healthy eating, exercising 5 times a week, dropping 3 clothes sizes, not baking anymore….this will be about healthy eating, living, clothes, exercise and general random rambles…come read me, or not…love to see you………………..

Hello World

So I’ve had this blogname registered for ages.  I’ve had another blog before; http://www.fairycakeheaven.blogspot.com.  I’ve had this one on my mind for a few weeks now as it’s more me, now….. I’ve gone a full 360 since writing fairycakeheaven, healthy eating, exercising 5 times a week, dropping 3 clothes sizes, not baking anymore….this will be about healthy eating, living, clothes, exercise and general random rambles…come read me, or not…love to see you………………..

Find me for the moment

here at http://www.fairycakeheaven.blogspot.com

I’m back with blueberries

Hey all, am back from 2 weeks of being lazy and not doing very much cooking. Thanks so much for your concern in wondering had I fallen off the face of the earth, unfortunately not, but I was away last weekend in the lovely county of Clare hence the no posting but I didn’t make am amazing fennel, parsnip and potato gratin that I will post about when I make it again but suffice to say it was divine and of my own creation aswell (go me).

There was a wonderful trip to the Milk Market in Limerick where I met the wonderful Maz from Style Treaty along with her boyfriend and parents and had a flying visit from Laura from EatDrinkLive and her gorgeous little girl. A foray into Cafe Noir which was lovely, fantastic coffee and fantastic cakes, what more could a girl and her wonderful cousin Cait want (Hi Cait and thanks to you for putting us up – Again!).

There were some lovely individual sponge cakes made with duck eggs I got in the market but these didn’t get photographed either, very lazy of me I know but himself was eating them in 2 bites so I didn’t have much chance!

So this is my return post, it’s a kick back to a few months ago and the wholemeal pikelets which were lovely if I do say so myself. I bought some fresh blueberries in Tesco on Friday night reduced to a mere 93 cents a punnet so of course I couldn’t help myself and bought 2 even though I should have gotten more and frozen them but my head wasn’t working as efficently as it should have been after a week at work and I’ll have to make so with what I got, both are now gone as I can’t get enough of fresh blueberries at the moment – I think I’m addicted but am hoping over eating doesn’t make any parts of my purple!!!

So picture this if you will it’s Sunday morning, the sun is shining again but for how long so I decided a summery breakfast was in order and not having any buttermilk for buttermilk pancakes and not being in the mood to seperate eggs and whip egg whites I decided to make these as they are a very easy to make and the batter is quite thick but they’re lovely and light when they’re cooked.

I made a couple of changes and used a duck egg instead of my normal organic egg as I had 2 to use up, the last egg went into something else I’ll post about soon, when I had the batter in the frying pan I popped a couple of blueberries on the top so when the pikelet was turned over they cooked into the batter and were divine, also I served these with a pomelo and lime curd (I finally made a curd that set up properly) I made on Saturday morning as pomelo’s were reduced to an even more bargaintastic 35 cents in Tesco and the recipe for this will follow later on today as part of my entry for the Sugar High Friday blogging event.

So sit back, enjoy the sunshine, and have a leisurely breakfast, can’t be wasting this sun now can we……………………

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Hay Hay it’s Donna Day #19 – The Clafoutis Edition Event – Caramelised Apple Clafoutis at that!!!!

So every time Hay Hay it’s Donna Day is on I look at the event on Is My Blog Burning, think oooooo yes I’ll definitely do that and then never get around to it!!! This month I was determined to do it cos I LOVE CLAFOUTIS!!!! or anything with a batter/cake like consistency, am easily pleased when it comes to desserts.

I have amalgamated 2 recipes, the batter mix from Donna Hay as posted on Bron Marshalls blog (and the lovely Bron is also this HHDD’s host) with a couple of moderations and an idea from a Bill Granger recipe for a puffed apple pancake so this is a Caramelised Apple Clafoutis and let me tell you – ’tis divine!!!

So for the batter you’ll need:

200ml milk (I used low fat but whatever milk you prefer)
100ml cream (this is to make up 300ml in total but Bron’s original recipe used 300ml full fat milk)
4oz caster sugar (In the original recipe 4 tbsp sugar is kept back to sprinkle over the fruit before the batter is poured on but I just didn’t use this as there’s brown sugar on the apples)
1tsp vanilla extract
I used 1 large, 1 medium and an egg white I had left over from the Daring Bakers challenge but the original recipe uses 3 free range eggs
pinch of salt
8oz plain flour

Mix all the batter ingredients together using a whisk or in a mixer/processor. Heat the oven to 190/Gas 5.

For the caramelised apples you’ll need:

50g butter
4 tart apples, (I used Braeburns but Granny Smith’s would be lovely too) cored, peeled and cut into eights (or smaller if you apples are very big)
3tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tsp vanilla extract

Put whatever dish you’re using in the oven to heat it.
Melt the butter in a pan and add the apples.
Cook on a medium heat for about 5 mins
Sprinkle over the sugar and add the lime juice and vanilla extract and cook until the sugar is melted and caramelised.
Take the dish out of the oven and put the apples and caramel in the bottom.
Pour over the batter and put the dish in the oven and cook for 35-40 mins until browned and puffed up.

Seriously this dessert has taken over from Bread and Butter pudding as my favourite dessert, it’s cakey and battery and there’s a lovely hint of lime off it along with the creaminess of the batter and the apples are lovely and tart. I served with unwhipped cream poured over in my new GIANT cups I got for my birthday from my wonderful auntie T!!! DIVINE!!!! We also had the wonderful cannelloni that Lorraine blogged about this week, twas also gorgeous and the husbag ate half a dish of it!!!!

Daring Bakers Challenge 2 – Cheesecake Lollipops

So this is my second month as a Daring Baker, and to be honest I think it hasn’t gotten off to a very good start!

I intended to make these cheesecake lollipops 2 weeks ago and it didn’t happen due to being out on the lash for my birthday. I intended to make them last week and it didn’t happen due to extreme illness in the form of a crazy virus!! So this weekend was my last chance – late in the day but thankfully the cheesecake was a breeze to make taking about 50 minutes to do it’s thing in the oven and with my history in cheesecakes I wasn’t overly positive when it went into the oven but came out very well and is definitely be a recipe I use again as I loved the texture of the finished cake. I’m so glad I didn’t have the problems with it some other people did with the cheesecake not setting as this would have most likely ended with me not making a second one and completing the challenge.

After couple of hours in the fridge the cheesecake was ready to form into balls, overnight in the freezer and the balls were ready to cover with chocolate, this is the finished product and as I write this I am STILL singing the Chocolate Salty Balls song from South Park – classy wha??????

So this months challenge was picked by Deborah from Taste and Tell and Elle from Feeding My Enthusiasms and is from a book called from Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey by Jill O’Connor which I’ve never heard of before but if this recipe is anything to go by the recipes in it are yum and fun!

I haven’t given the full recipe as it’s on Taste and Tell but I couldn’t recommend this enough and if you don’t want to make the pops then just try the cake. I made half vanilla and then I added some lemon extract just to change it up, I think I preferred the lemon as it was fresher with the chocolate but the vanilla tasted like ice-cream which was good aswell and the husbag loved.

I’ve been tagged…………….

By the lovely George from Culinary Travels of a Kitchen Goddess and Brenda from Tea and Wheaten Bread on the same round of tagging, George tagged Brenda and I and then Brenda tagged me aswell, mad isn’t it!!!!

As both tags are the same, to describe myself in six words and then tag 6 other bloggers so here goes

• Passionate
• Fun
• Talkative
• Loyal
• Protective
• Shoe mad

Hope that will give you all an insight into my personality and the people I am tagging are

• The Airy Fairy @ ~airy fairy cupcakes~
  
• Lynnie @ Lyndar the Merciless
• Katy @ Sugarlaws, one of the newer blogs that’s going around the same length of time as myself, Katy makes gorgeous food and I’m still dying to make her Smoked Pheasant salad!
• Victoria @ Ommnomnom, a new vegan Irish blog that has gorgeous recipes
• Lisa @ Little Bits, Lisa was my Blogging by Mail match a month or so ago and she has the most lovely recipes on her blog.
• and finally Maz @ Style Treaty for her endless inspiration and wonderful outlook!

And on another note, I don’t think there’ll be a food related post this weekend, I’ve got some crazy virus that’s doing the rounds since Wednesday and it’s taking me ages to shake it off so I doubt I’d have enough strength to stand in the kitchen to boil a kettle not to talk about make anything!! It’s taken me half an hour to write this short post cos I keep having to stop aswell!!! Wish me better soon girleens……………………….

Oh and the pictures are of some lovely orchids I got for my birthday from my fantastic friend Jenny whose a florist! There is nothing like some flowers to make someone smile and these are absolutely gorgeous – Thanks Jen!!!!!

Oeufs en cocotte – Waiter there’s something in my……………….breakfast

or baked eggs for those of us not sophisticated enough to be French!!! This is my entry for this months Waiter There’s Something in my………………….blogging event which is hosted by Johanna over on The Passionate Cook. I haven’t entered this before but look at it every month and think I’ll enter and then I don’t and the deadline is passed so this month is it as I’d made these on Sunday. I admittedly had these for my tea but you can see why I didn’t have breakfast below, these are my absolute favourite breakfast meal of all time!!!

I hadn’t intended cooking anything today as my birthday party was last night, I wasn’t overly hungover but had just decided there was nothing in particular I fancied making. But true to form I couldn’t stay away from the oven for the day but did manage to make somthing simple and gorgeous!!!

These are lovely for breakfast, which is when I normally make them, or for a light Sunday tea when it’s pushing 8 o’clock!

For 2 people you’ll need:

4 large eggs (I used local organic ones but whatever you use yourself)
4 tbsp cream
salt
enough melted butter to coat the inside of 4 ramekins

I also decided to experiment and used in my eggs

1/4 tsp garam masala per ramekin
1 cherry tomato, chopped
1 spring onion, chopped
1/4 green chilli, finely chopped

Heat the oven to Gas 5/190.
Boil a kettle of water
Butter the inside of the ramekins with melted butter and add the tomato, spring onion, chilli and sprinkle with garam masala.
Crack an egg into each ramekin, sprinkle with salt and pour over a tablespoon of cream on each egg.
Place the ramekins into a deep tin/dish and pour the boiling water in around the ramekins so it comes half way up the sides.
Bake for 15 mins and eat alone or with some buttered crusty bread if you have it.

This recips is one I’ve used time and time again and the addition of the garam masala is amazing, I wish I had added the changes to my second egg. The husbag normally has cheddar grated into the bottom of his eggs. Just make sure you add whatever additions to the ramekins before the egg and cream as it can burn if it’s on the top.

The Indian inspiration comes from Anjum Anand and the water bath idea is from Nigella’s latest book Nigella Express as I had been making these before her book came out but never this way which seems to prevent the eggs getting that goldy brown crispy stuff on top of them which I really don’t like.

Enjoy or to be all French about it Bon Appetit!!!

Oh and check out my new ramekins, they’re from a range called Natural Elements and everything in the range is either lovely matt cream, the sage green you can see here or gorgeous dark matt wood, you can see some of it here on deCuisine.co.uk but I got mine in a shop in Navan called Sage & Stone that’s just reopened after being refurbished and I’ll be divorced if I buy anything else in there!!!

Finally……………………..

I found a madeleine tin in Dublin!!!! Kitchen Complements you are my saviour!!!!

I was in there to get some almond extract determined not to look at anything else other than that and as I was leaving after successfully avoiding all other tins, edible lustres and silicone rolling pins I happened to spy a madeleine tin out the corner of my eye!!! I was in shock as I been searching for a madeleine tin in vain for ages and was even trying to coerce my mother and sister into getting me one in New York next month (they weren’t being coerced too easily though). But lo and behold there is was, as if a light was shining from on high and with that it was purchased (along with the almond extract and a palette nife but we won’t talk about those)

So here it is, Saturday afternoon, the sun is shining, I’m after making the Daring Bakers cake again to bring to a friends house tonight (she’s pregnant and I wouldn’t like to say no as she might beat me or worse………………….hi Sinead), the football is on the tv (go on the Pool) and I’m flicking through my Domestic Goddess book when suddenly I spy Nigella’s rosebud madeleine recipe. So off I totter downstairs to make these with shouts from the husbag ringing in my ears at the ref, Arsenal players and whoever else should slight the godlike Liverpool players.

This recipe is so easy, these madeleines are so light and I would have eaten all 12 if I had no conscience, but unfortunately I do and it told me to only eat 3 (or 4), the rest are downstairs on a spotty plate calling me “Rachel, eat us, please, we’re so pretty and light with hardly any calories!!!” The little feckers!!! Tee hee

So anyway here’s what you need, if you can find a madeleine tin that is! I didn’t make rosebud madeleines as rose isn’t to everyone’s taste so I made lemon madeleines with lemon zest and extract for extra lemony goodness!!!

50g butter
1 large egg
40g caster sugar
pinch of salt
45g plain flour
1 tsp lemon zest
1/4 tsp lemon extract
icing sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 220/Gas 7.
Melt the butter over a low heat and allow to cool. Put a tbsp of melted butter aside to grease your tin.
In an electric mixer beat the egg, sugar and salt together until thickened like mayonaise.
Sift the flour into the mix and fold in with a wooden spoon.
Add the lemon zest and extract and mix in.
Add the melted butter and mix in well.
Grease your tin with the melted butter you set aside at the beginning.
Spoon roughly a teaspoon of the mixture into each madeleine shape.
Bake for 5 mins but check after 3.
Sprinkle with icing sugar if you wish and eat them all!!!!