We Should Cocoa: Cocoa Dukkah

This month, We Should Cocoa is ringing in the new year with a sugar free challenge hosted by Choclette. You can read all about We Should Cocoa and the rules on Choclette and Chele's blogs. Last month's Christmassy cinnamon challenge, can be found here.

I have a spice rack. Like a normal person.

Then I have a whole bunch of other herbs and spices that don't fit on the spice rack and just sort of hang around in a basket. Now the point of a spice rack is to store and display your spices so you know what you have, what you need and what you don't.

The problem with a spice "basket" is that you duplicate. Or triplicate. Or have half open packets of paprika which explode like a spore flinging funghi. I also tend to bulk buy my spices from a local Indian cash and carry so as well as the spice rack and the spice "basket" there are bags of whole spices lurking in the back of our cupboards.

It has to stop.

So as part of my to-do list blitz, I did a spice audit. Threw out that jar of marjoram that I swear has moved house with us. Moved house with us twice. Coughed and choked in a paprika cloud. Refilled the jars from the cupboard bags of spices. I had a small crowd of duplicate spices so set about using them up.

Dukkah is an Egyptian dry spice and nut mixture that is served as a side dish with bread and oil for dipping. It is heady with spices and I first had it sprinkled on soup. Any leftovers can be stored in an airtight container and used on roasted vegetables, meats and baked into bread. This is not an authentic recipe (mainly because I stuck cocoa in it...) You can read more about dukkah here.

Ingredients

40gr whole almonds
35gr pumpkin seeds
5gr coriander seeds
5gr cumin seeds
3gr fennel seeds
1/2tsp rock salt
1/2tsp coarsely ground black pepper
1tbsp dried mint
2tbsp cocoa powder

Method
1, In a dry frying pan, toast the almonds and pumpkin seeds until the pumpkin seeds start to split and pop and the almonds start to darken. Tip them into a large mortar and pestle.
2, Repeat the process with the coriander, cumin and fennel seeds until they start to brown gently and smell aromatic. Add these into your mortar and pestle.
3, Add in the salt and pepper and gently start to pound it all together. You want a kind of gravelly texture. Aim for some largish chunks of almonds. Alternatively, you can quickly pulse all the toasted ingredients in a blender.
4, Stir through the mint and cocoa powder and serve with plenty of bread and dipping oil.

(I also made flatbread, but I'm not 100% happy with the recipe. If anyone has a good one, a link popped in the comment box would be most appreciated!)

Spiced Plum & Sesame Seed Galette

Some great things have been discovered as the result of accidents.

I'll do you a quick timeline:-

1853 - George Crum creates the humble crisp after a customer complains his fried potatoes were too soggy.

1878 - Constantin Fahlberg accidentally discovers saccharin because, after doing some lab experiments, he didn't wash his hands properly before eating dinner.

1928 - Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin because he didn't wash up some petri dishes before going on holiday.

2012 - Hannah Hearsey accidentally creates a sesame seed galette because she wasnt paying attention and dropped sesame seeds in her pastry when digging around in some seriously disorganised cupboards for some table salt.

OK. So it's not going to be written about in science journals or become hugely mainstream and be bagged and sold across the world as beverage sweeteners or crunchy snacks. Accident or not, spiced plums and sesame seeds imparting their delicate nuttiness to light, tender buttery pastry are a winning combination.

Ingredients

200gr plain flour
125gr cold unsalted butter, chopped into cubes
40gr sesame seeds
Pinch of salt
100gr caster sugar
1 egg
8-10 plums
1 cinnamon stick, broken in half
3 cardamom pods, lightly crushed
5 cloves
1/2 star anise, split into segments
Zest of half a lemon
2tbsp honey

Method

1, Make the dough first by rubbing the flour and the butter together until they look like breadcrumbs. Stir in the sesame seeds, salt and sugar.
2, Add in the egg and bring together into a doughy ball. Wrap this in cling film and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
3, Prepare the plums next by washing and then cutting them in half. Add the spices and zest on top and drizzle with the honey. Bake in a preheated oven at 200o/c for 20 minutes or until just soft.
4, Stir the plums and the allow cool completely before removing the stones and whole spices and putting the galette together.
5, When you're ready to make the galette, preheat your oven to 200o/c, roll out the pastry on a floured work surface into a round about 25-30cm. Shift onto a lined baking sheet.
6, Add the plums in a single layer in the middle of the pastry in a circle formation. Trim the pastry so you have a border around the edges of about 4-5cms and fold it up and over the outside plums. Pinch together any cracks or splits.
7, Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the pastry is golden and the fruit is bubbling.
8, Cool slightly before serving in slices.

Pumpkin Panna Cotta

Happy Halloween!

I adore the run up to Halloween. Black and orange confections start appearing in bakery windows. Spiders and vampires perched on cakes. The seasonal sections of shops go from the bright pinks, blues and yellows of summer to the dark, spooky and mysterious blacks, oranges and purples, holding off the red, greens and sparkles of Christmas. A quick jaunt into town will inevitably lead to you seeing a small child, trailing its parents, swinging a scythe or wearing a witch hat. Large purple bins of pumpkins crop up.

If you want to eat your pumpkins rather than carve them, here is an easy recipe to put together.

Makes 2

Ingredients

125ml semi-skimmed milk
125ml double cream
70gr pumpkin purée
3tbsp pumpkin spice syrup
10gr granulated sugar
1 1/2 level tsp powdered gelantine (around 6-7gr). I used Dr. Oetker powdered gelantine. 1 sachet set around a 570ml of liquid. Half a sachet provided a slightly firm set.

Method

1, Blend the milk, double cream, pumpkin purée, spice syrup and sugar together until smooth. Pass this through a sieve and heat in a small saucepan over a medium heat.
2, Bring it to a gentle simmer and remove from the heat. Whisk briskly and add in the gelatine powder in two or three batches. Carry on whisking until the gelatine has dissolved completely. If the gelatine clumps, set it over a very low heat and whisk briskly. Do not bring to the boil.
3, Pour into two short tumblers, cover with cling film and cool in the fridge until set which will take a couple of hours.

Pumpkin Purée
To make a simple pumpkin purée, divide a small sweet edible pumpkin into 8 pieces and removed the seeds and stringy bits. Steam for 15-20 minutes or until the flesh is soft. Leave to cool, uncovered and peel off the skin. Mash the flesh with a fork and pass it through a sieve. Store in the fridge until use.

Pumpkin Spice Syrup

No matter how cold you get, how wind blown you get, how damp around the edges you get - this syrup will soothe it all away.

Just a couple of tablespoons in a cup of coffee is all you need.

Ingredients
450ml water
300gr granulated sugar
2 cinnamon sticks
1/2tsp whole cloves
1/2tsp ground cinnamon
1tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/2tsp ground ginger

2tbsp steamed puréed pumpkin

Method
1, In a small saucepan, over a medium heat stir the sugar into the water until it dissolves and bring it to a gentle simmer.
2, Add in all the spices and pumpkin and simmer for 10 minutes.

3, Remove from the heat and leave to cool completely.
4, Fish out the whole spices and strain through a piece of muslin.
5, Decant into sterilised bottles or jars.

Mini Hot Cross Buns

I feel like a giant when I eat these.  I deliberately move in slow motion and make a loud scoff sound.  Please don’t feel obliged to do this though.  It does make eating them far more fun…

Easter wouldn’t be complete without hot cross buns and these are my favourite apple and cinnamon ones.

Plus, these are living proof that if you put something tasty on a stick, people will say ‘awwh’…

Ingredients

Zest of one lemon and one orange

100gr sugar

650gr apple and cinnamon bread flour (or 630gr strong white bread flour, 2tsp ground cinnamon and 20gr dried apple, cut into small pieces)

Pinch of salt

1tsp mixed spice

1 packet of easy blend fast action yeast (7g)

140gr sultanas (chopped up finely)

1tbsp brandy

1 egg

300ml warm milk

Plus flour and water blended together to make a thick paste for piping the crosses on top. 

Method

1, Mix the zests with the sugar and leave to one side for a couple of minutes

2, Sift the flour, salt, spice and yeast into a large mixing bowl and add the apple chunks left in the sieve in too.

3,Take a tablespoon of the flour mix and toss the sultanas in them, set these aside as well.

4, Stir in the sugar.

5, Beat the egg and add that to the bowl with half of the warm milk. 

6, Stir slowly, adding the rest of the milk bit by bit until you get a very slightly sticky dough.

7, Turn the dough onto lightly floured work surface and knead for 5 minutes until the dough is soft and elastic. Knead in the chopped sultanas in well 

8, Put into a greased bowl and cover with cling film and leave to double in size in a warm place for an hour or two.

9, Knock back the dough with your fist and give it another quick knead.

10, Return to the greased bowl, cover back up with cling film, return to the warm place for another hour.

11, Divide the dough into little balls and place in a greased oven proof square dish.  I made 24 mini ones and 4 average sized ones.  Pipe a thin cross of the flour/water paste onto each of the buns

12, Cover and leave somewhere warm for another 15-30minutes

13, Preheat the oven to 220o/c and bake the small ones for 8 minutes and the big ones for 10 minutes until they are golden brown.

14, Brush the tops with sugar syrup mixed with a little mixed spice when they are fresh out of the oven and leave to cool slightly before eating.  Keep in an airtight container. 

Oh! It’s also my hundredth post! That sneaked up quickly!

Winter Spiced Macarons with Mulled Wine Buttercream Filling

Ok, I know I’m late to the macaron party.  Not even fashionable late…  Sorry…

I made some last summer and something terrible happened .  I made them, waited for them to form a skin, baked them, danced around the kitchen in joy as they had worked amazingly well with perfect little feet and then had to nip out to get some bits in town.  When I came back, I nearly cried.  My perfect, in my eyes, macarons were covered in ants!  Pesky arthropods! (one of my favourite words!)

I’ve added some mixed spice and all spice to these ones to give them that autumny wintery taste and smell I appear to be addicted to at the moment!

Unbaked... 

This is the recipe I used with the simple addition of half a teaspoon of mixed spice and half a teaspoon of all spice. 

...Baked! 

I made a simple mulled wine buttercream by reducing 250ml of mulled wine down to around 3tbsp of liquid, this takes around five minutes but keep an eye on it! Then whipped together 35gr of butter, 100gr icing sugar and 1 tbsp of the mulled wine syrup. 

Sorry about the terrible photos! Having real issues with not having time to catch proper daylight! Anyone have any tips? x x