Pudding Archives - Page 7 of 10 - All That I'm Eating

Cranberry, Cointreau and Clementine Sauce

December 9, 2012 By All That I'm Eating 26 Comments

cranberry, cointreau and clemantine sauce (1 of 9)

Christmas cannot be a cranberry free zone; this versatile berry can be paired with both sweet and savoury things. Not only is this fruit a great all rounder but it makes itself into a sauce in no time. As the cranberry transforms so simply into a sauce it lends itself to interference, by you, to turn it into something new and exciting. This recipe is for my cranberry sauce with Cointreau and clementine which is extremely delicious when used as a mini pie filling, or, as I like to call them: festive puffs.

You will need (for the cranberry sauce):
200g cranberries
80g sugar
50ml water and 50ml clementine juice, mixed together
Splash Cointreau

Put all the ingredients into a pan and cook for five minutes until the cranberries start to burst. If it looks a like there’s a little too much moisture (I find cranberries to vary a lot in their water content) then cook for a few minutes more to evaporate some of the water. Put the cranberry sauce into a bowl and leave to cool. I’m not sure it gets much simpler and this sets to a lovely dolloping consistency. read more

Chocolate Covered Salted and Sweet Popcorn Bars

November 20, 2012 By All That I'm Eating 23 Comments

I love popcorn. I don’t know what it is that makes it so addictive that you carry on eating it even though you know it’ll be stuck in your teeth for hours afterwards. I think popcorn is responsible for starting a lot of arguments; queuing at the cinema inevitably results in the question, “Salted or sweet popcorn”? and the ensuing debate afterwards discussing the merits of both flavours.

If I had to choose it would be sweet. Fortunately I no longer have to make this decision as the ingenious people from Toasted have made the ultimate popcorn; sweet and salt. If ever there was a day to rival the invention of sliced bread it has to be this. Never again do we need to decide and end up wishing we’d had the other. This popcorn deserved to be treated to something a little special.

You will need:
300g milk chocolate (I used Milka with Daim)
A few large handfuls of popcorn (salted and sweet ideally)
100g white chocolate read more

An Autumn Picnic 3 of 3: Caramelised Pears with Crumbled Parkin

November 6, 2012 By All That I'm Eating 21 Comments

A picnic must always have something sweet to round it off; a jam tart or two, some chocolate biscuits or even a slice of cake. This being an autumn picnic meant that the sweet must have a seasonal feel. Pears were an obvious choice but you can’t finish a picnic with just a pear that would be akin to having a carrot instead of a birthday cake. No, these pears needed some warmth and caramelised pears seemed just the ticket.

Parkin is a traditional cake eaten on Bonfire Night so I made some a few days before the picnic as I had heard it is a cake better left before eating. This would be the perfect accompaniment to the warm gooey pears. read more

Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Rice Krispie Squares with Vanilla Salt

October 25, 2012 By All That I'm Eating 16 Comments

vanilla salted marshmallow crispy cakes - All That I'm Eating

Sometimes I feel like I need to let my inner child out and indulge in something so wonderful and absorbing that I can think of nothing else. I wanted to make some marshmallow rice krispie squares, as I had made them once before with great success, but this time they needed to be even more sensuous and luxurious. Thus, these chocolate coated marshmallow rice krispie squares with vanilla salt were born. A bit of a mouthful both to articulate and masticate. I’m sure lots of people claim to have been on the salted caramel scene before it became fashionable but I was not one of them. No. I was on the salted chocolate scene when I was a teenager enjoying nothing more than alternating a ready salted crisp and a bite of chocolate. I have to admit that I thought it was weird and no one would really ‘get it’ hence why I never made stuffing my face with crisps and chocolate in quick succession a public matter. Now is the perfect time to publicise my secret salted chocolate love affair as I have recently been made aware of Vanilla Salt from Halen Mon. They kindly sent me a tube to try for myself.

You will need:
50g butter
300g marshmallows
120g rice krispies
100g milk chocolate
Vanilla salt

Start by warming the butter and marshmallows over a low heat until melted. Stir in the rice krispies. Put the rice krispie mixture into a greased dish. Those three steps sound wonderfully simple and they do result in exactly what you’d expect them to, however, it’s the bit in the middle you want to watch out for. Once the rice krispies are in it’s a countdown to see how quickly you can distribute and deposit them before you end up like I did. I have never met anything as sticky as this; it could have stuck greaseproof paper to a non-stick frying pan if it wanted to. During the transition from pan to dish the marshmallow underwent some sort of metamorphosis. It changed from being silky and smooth to stringy and awkward. If you had walked into the kitchen at this moment you would have thought I was preparing far too early for Halloween in making my marshmallow cobweb costume. I had to use my hands to scoop the mixture into the dish and then realised I myself was part of the marshmallow mixture and much time and gentle coaxing was needed to extract myself from the tangled web of mallow. If nothing else make this just to have ten minutes pretending you are Spiderman.

Let the mixture cool before you portion it up. Melt some milk chocolate and either dunk or dribble the chocolate onto each square. Let the chocolate cool for just a minute before sprinkling the vanilla salt crystals over the top. You want the crystals to stick to the chocolate but not to dissolve into it. Leave to cool.

I knew what to expect from the rice krispie square before I wrapped my teeth around it but I was really surprised at how the other flavours and textures turned this into an incredibly generous treat. Imagine: firstly your teeth crunch slightly on the chocolate and salt and then sink down into a pink pillow of fluffy marshmallow interrupted by the crisp cereal. Then you get the mouth coating that only chocolate can provide interspersed with sweet and chewy marshmallow and the crunch of the rice krispies. Finally there is the unctuous vanilla salt rounding the whole thing off. This is a treat for all the senses. read more

Pears Poached in Elderberry Wine

October 21, 2012 By All That I'm Eating 21 Comments

Pears are funny things. They make us wait for that moment of perfect ripeness and when it occurs we have to eat them immediately. I had two conference pears in my fruit bowl. Every time I went into the kitchen I could see their skinny, stalked tops just poking out over the bowl looking at me, testing my patience. These pears seemed to be staying forever firm; even after four days there wasn’t a whisper of softness. Pears poached in red wine is a classic but not something that I’ve ever tried. If anything was going to soften these pears it was being simmered in alcohol. Not just any wine mind but Elderberry wine. Poaching pears is incredibly simple, takes around half an hour and is brilliantly tasty. I also quite like how the pears look afterwards; slightly over to one side almost as if they are drunk.

You will need:

2 firm pears 1 bottle Elderberry wine 100g sugar

Start by putting the wine and sugar into a pan and bring it to a simmer. While you wait for the wine to warm peel the pears and cut the bottom off so that they will stand up when cooked. When the wine is simmering add the pears and leave for 20-30 minutes or until soft when tested with a skewer.

Remove the pears when they’re soft and then turn the heat up on the wine. Boil the wine until it has reduced to a thin syrup. Depending on the ferocity of your flame and how much evaporated while the pears were cooking this can take anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes. Bear with it though and don’t give in to impatience; pears in wine soup would I’m sure be delicious but it’s not quite what you’re after. Serve the pears with their syrup. read more

Quince baked with Honey and Star Anise

October 16, 2012 By All That I'm Eating 20 Comments

Being a rare fruit I would have thought that a quince would be grateful when somebody bought it and allowed that person to enjoy its flavour with ease. For something so elusive it puts up a pretty good battle when you want to get into it. You wouldn’t have thought so by looking at it; a curious undulating shape and light brown fuzz all over it looks like a right cutie. The glorious smell entices you in and before you know it you’ve picked up a few felt festooned fruits.

Quinces need time to be tantalising; it’s not one for the lunch box. This is a great way of turning your determinedly firm quinces into soft, sumptuous fruits that you can use in a myriad of different ways. When the ground is covered in fallen leaves and the evenings are slightly cool, the smell of this wafting from the kitchen is unimaginably warming.

You will need:
3 medium quinces
300ml water
3 tbsp runny honey
1 star anise
(Lemons)

You will also need a very sharp knife, determination and a whole lot of lemons. Once exposed to the air the flesh of a quince browns like no other; blink and you’ll think your quince has been replaced by a muddy potato. To prevent this you need to put lemon juice on everything the quince is likely to touch; chopping board, knife and even the quince itself. It’s also advisable to squeeze some lemon juice into a bowl of water to store the quinces when they’ve been peeled. read more

Blackberry and Perry Jelly

September 30, 2012 By All That I'm Eating 21 Comments

Nothing says autumn like a huge hedgerow full of blackberries. There’s not much that compares to putting on your wellies, grabbing some receptacles and heading out to the nearest scouring ground. I think there’s an unwritten law somewhere that decrees, ‘one for me, one for later’. That’s how I operate anyway.

The potential that a blackberry brings to the kitchen is endless; add a few to some gravy for a wonderful sweetness or, inevitably, use them alone or with other fruits for a marvellous array of puddings. Autumn also brings with it apples and pears and, preferring to eat my pears nice and ripe, I turned to perry to pair with my berries.

In order to use some locally made perry I had to get my Poirot on and try to find a supply. As luck would have it my butcher lives next door to a man who happens to make some using local pears. I returned to the old (and I think better) bartering system I managed to procure a bottle of fine perry in exchange for some rabbit ragu. Marvellous. read more

Pear and Damson Lattice Pie

September 20, 2012 By All That I'm Eating 25 Comments

You know when you’ve just always wanted to make something? I’ve always wanted to try a lattice pie; one with lovely red fruit under the interwoven top. I imagined it would be assembled in a cloud of flour with pastry flying all over the place while I tried to weave the lattice. I envisaged having to try and find my inner Mr Tickle. In reality it was a comparatively calm affair with only slight frowning during the construction. Some people, I like to think of them as having iron teeth, will happily eat a damson just as it is. I find them far too sour; comparative to eating a stick of rhubarb, and so cook mine (or mix them with gin) to encourage their flavour with a little sugar. Damsons are rock hard plums with a lovely deep purple skin. I have been lucky to find some growing nearby but they are so high up only some enthusiastic tree shaking would get them down. I think I’d get some funny looks. Luckily my greengrocer has ample damsons and also (of benefit to the finished pie) some unripe pears.

You will need:

Large handful damsons, stones removed 3 unripe pears Sugar 250g plain flour 125g cold butter A few spoons of cold water 1 beaten egg

Put the damsons into a pan with a spoonful of sugar and a little water and heat them gently so they start to soften. While they are cooking, peel and dice the pears and then add them to the damsons. You want to keep them on a heat where the fruit makes gentle pfft pfft noises as it cooks, lid on, for about 20 minutes. You might need to add a little more water if the fruit starts to catch. After 20 minutes give the fruit a little squidge with a masher to puree it a little, keep a few lumps though. Taste it and add more sugar if you think it needs it. Remove from the heat and allow to cool, you don’t want much moisture left in the pan. read more

Plummer Pudding

September 5, 2012 By All That I'm Eating 23 Comments

My Auntie Jean was not in fact my Auntie; she was my Granny’s sister which made her my Great Auntie. When I was at primary school I used to gambol back to my Granny’s house every day to have a sandwich, play some cards and on the best days have some sweets. My Auntie Jean’s house was conveniently on the way to my Granny’s and I used to stop off some days to have a glass of squash and catch up on the latest news. Some days the two sisters (and on rarer days the three sisters) would meet up and I would tag along. My Granny and I would walk over to Auntie Jean’s house and have a great afternoon trying to coax the tortoise out of his home and watch him happily munch on lettuce. I didn’t think strawberries could get any better than when served with cream but one very hot day we all sat down to a Wimbledon-esque afternoon and for the first time ever I sprinkled some sugar on top. I licked the bowl to within an inch of its life trying to get every last drop of sugary cream out.

One of the things I remember about Auntie Jean’s garden was the fruit trees. I think it was back then that I fully appreciated fruit came from trees and not from a packet. Trying to avoid the wasps while picking plums and apples was the aim of the game as far as I remember. Sadly Auntie Jean is no longer with us but her daughter has inherited her fruit trees and was kind enough to let me pick some plums and go back to the garden that I remember from so long ago.

This Plummer Pudding is an unctuous and simple dessert of summer pudding but made from plums. read more

Guest Post: A Plum Slump

September 2, 2012 By All That I'm Eating 21 Comments

This is the first guest post I have had on my blog and what a guest it is. When I started blogging I think Toni (from the brilliant blog Boulder Locavore) began around the same time. What started as a few likes and comments here and there grew into a friendship and Toni and I now email regularly. We share a passion for local and seasonal food and infusing fruit and alcohol is something we both indulge in! It’s great to be able to see what’s happening on the other side of the Atlantic. Her photography leaves me green with envy and her recipes are always mouthwatering. Toni lives in Colorado and this is her fantastic recipe for Plum Slump. read more