Minty lemon and lime syrup

My husband has recently been extolling the virtues of Laimon Fresh, a lemon, lime and mint flavour soft drink. I enjoy fizzy drinks, but have them very infrequently due to the amount of sugar, colourings and flavourings they contain. I invested in a Soda Stream a few months back primarily to have cheaper fizzy water, but one by-product of this is that I have been experimenting with creating flavouring syrups. Using this recipe, you can create a refreshing drink made with fresh ingredients and far less sugar than is found in commercially available soft drinks.

The finished syrup

Ingredients:

1 cup chopped mint

1 cup pale sugar

1 cup water

1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon and lime juice

1. Place the mint in a heat proof container.

2. In a small saucepan heat the sugar and water together, stirring until the sugar is dissolved and the syrup boils. I used golden caster sugar, meaning that the resulting syrup was a pale golden colour. If you use granulated or plain caster sugar the syrup will be paler. Do not use dark sugar, as this will overpower the delicate citrus and mint flavours.

3. Pour the sugar syrup onto the mint, making sure it is all below the surface of the liquid. Cover with cling film and leave to cool to room temperature.

4. Once cool, stir in the lemon and lime juice then strain into a jar. The syrup will keep for several weeks if stored in the fridge.

Serve with fizzy water (adjusting the amount of syrup to taste) for a refreshing soft drink. For an alcoholic drink, add white rum for a twist on a mojito or vodka to create a drink similar to a lemon drop.

Pimm's Raspberry Fizz

I recently bought a bottle of Pimm's Blackberry and Elderflower on a whim. The instructions on the bottle simply said to serve it over ice with lemonade, but I thought I could be a little more inventive than that.  Here's what I came up with.

Ingredients (per person):

Ice - cubes or pre-crushed

A generous handful of raspberries

A double measure (50ml) of Pimm's Blackberry and Elderflower

Lemonade

1. Blitz the ice and raspberries together. A food processor works best for this, for other blenders you may want to do this in larger quantities.

2. Pour the raspberry/ice mixture into a glass. Add the Pimm's and top up with lemonade.

3. Stir to mix.

4. Enjoy!

Chocolate cake with crème de menthe frosting

This is the recipe of the cake I made for Calum's birthday. It's based on a chocolate cake recipe from the BBC website, but with a crème de menthe buttercream rather than the chocolate ganache they suggest.

Ingredients:

140g/5oz butter, softened

280g/10oz icing sugar 

1-2 tbsp milk

4 tbsp crème de menthe (you can also use mint flavouring and some green food colouring if you want to get rid of the alcohol content)

Equipment:

2x 20cm diameter sandwich tins

pallet knife

Cake

1. Follow the BBC recipe (linked above) to achieve a moist and fudgy cake, or any recipe of your choosing.

Crème de menthe frosting

2. Beat the butter until fluffy then whisk in half the icing sugar until combined. Beat in the crème de menthe and the rest of the icing sugar.

Construction

3. Once the cake is cool, use the pallet knife to spread about a third of the frosting onto one cake and use it to sandwich the two halves together. Spread the rest of the frosting onto the top, decorating it to your choosing. As it was for Calum's birthday, I put a letter C on the top with edible silver glitter.

Slippery Nipple cupcakes

I got a little carried away on a recent trip to Lakeland and bought some flavour extracts (namely chocolate, lavender and anise). When I had explained to my husband what anise tastes like, he suggested that we try to bake something which tastes like a ambuca-based drink. Lo and behold, the Slippery Nipple cupcake was born. These cupcakes are based on the BBC's vanilla cupcakes recipe, but with an aniseedy twist.

Ingredients (makes 8 large or 12 small):
80ml grenadine
40ml water
1 sheet gelatine

85g unsalted butter (at room temperature)
170g icing sugar
2 tbsp Baileys

Grenadine jelly
1. Soak the gelatine sheet in water for around 5 minutes. Mix together the grenadine and water and gently heat in a pan. Squeeze the gelatine gently to remove any excess water, then add to the grenadine and water mixture and gently heat until the gelatine has dissolved then simmer for 2 minutes, stirring every so often. Pour into a container and leave to cool slightly before transferring into the fridge until set and jelly-like.

Cupcakes
2. Follow the BBC recipe (linked above) or any recipe of your choice, replacing any vanilla extract called for with anise extract.

Baileys buttercream
3. Beat the butter until fluffy then whisk in half the icing sugar until combined. Beat in the Baileys and the rest of the icing sugar.

Construction
4. First, fill the inside of each cake with some of the grenadine jelly; this is the "nipple". To do this, first cut a circle around the top of the cake, angled at about 45 degrees into a "cone" shape, keeping the "cap" you cut off to one side. Make the hole within the cake a little broader by cutting around it a little more, the cut or spoon some of the jelly into the hole. Replace the "cap" so that the cake looks as it did before -- the perfect crime!

Final touches
5. Pipe the buttercream onto the cupcake in a swirling motion. Voila!

Nut-free lemon macarons

I'm always very impressed by and slightly envious of the macarons shown on cookery shows. They are crunchy and gooey and come in a plethora of flavour combinations. However, I am the cruel victim of a nut allergy and have never eaten a macaron since the main ingredient in them is almonds. But this situation has now been rectified! Part of my Christmas present from my husband was a macaron making class at JoJo's Danish Bakery, meaning that I was taught the correct technique for making them as well as suggestions of substitutes for the almonds. The recipe below is my nut-free adaptation of the recipe we were given in the class. It's also best to use an electric whisk, as this will cut down the amount of time you have to spend whisking.

Macarons:

75g desicated coconut

115g icing sugar

2 egg whites (medium/large)

50g granulated sugar

1/2 tsp lemon oil

Little gel food colouring of your choice

Butter cream

Ingredients

40g unsalted butter

80g icing sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Cut up baking paper to fit perfectly inside 2 large flat baking trays - set aside for later. If you want to use a template trace around something with the diameter of about an inch (we used a whisky glass), spacing them about half an inch apart.

2. Weigh out your coconut and icing sugar. Blend the coconut to a fine consistency (a coffee grinder is good for this). Add to the icing sugar and then either blitz together in a food processor for 15 seconds or sieve together into a clean dry bowl. Any coconut left in the sieve needs to be put back into the mixture to keep weight correct.

3. Weigh out granulated sugar.

4. Put your egg whites into a clean, dry, grease free bowl and whisk on lowest speed for around thirty seconds. Increase the speed to medium and whisk until soft peaks form. Continue whisking on medium adding 2 tablespoons of sugar at a time in 10 second intervals until all the sugar is incorporated. Turn the speed up to high and whisk until glossy. Stiff peaks should form and stay when the whisk is lifted out the mixture.

5. Add the colouring to the whisk and flavouring to the mixture, whisking until just coloured. It is very important not to over-whisk at this point as that will ruin the mixture.

6. Gently fold a third of the coconut and icing sugar mixture into the meringue until just combined. Continue to do this with the remaining mixture. When it is fully combined check the consistency by using the spatula to pick some macaron mixture up and see how it falls back into the bowl. It should flow off the spatula to leave a ribbon trail that settles and almost disappears after 30 seconds.

7. Fit your piping bag with a 1/2 inch plain nozzle. Half fill the piping bag and firstly pipe a small amount onto the corners of the baking tray to stick the baking paper to. If using a template pipe put macarons onto baking paper then transfer and stick to baking trays or if doing free hand pipe your macaron shells onto baking paper already stuck to baking tray.

8. Bang your baking tray on your counter top to remove air bubbles and settle the macarons.

9. Leave the macarons out to dry on the counter top until they do not stick to your finger when gently touched. This can take anywhere between 30 minutes and 2 hours.

10. Preheat the oven to 150 degrees Celsius when the macarons have begun to dry slightly. When the macarons have dried, bake them for 5 minutes, then turn the temperature down to 135 degrees, bake for a further 5-7 minutes.

11. Remove from oven and leave to cool on the baking trays then transfer the baking paper to a cool surface or wire cooling rack to cool completely.

12. Once cool gently and carefully peel back the baking paper from the macarons and match up like sized macarons in pairs. If you do have a problem removing them from the baking paper, place the cooling tray over a pan of simmering water and the macarons should peel away easily.

13. At this point, make your butter cream. Beat butter until soft, shiny and very pale (almost white), then add the icing sugar, beating until incorporated, and the vanilla extract. Continue to mix until consistently smooth.

14. Sandwich the macaron shells together by piping a round of butter cream onto one half and gently twist the two halves together.

Maple banana muffins

I like bananas, but have a tendency to forget they're there and leave them to get very ripe. Banana bread is a great way to use up over-ripe bananas but this time I decided to branch out a little and make banana muffins, using a recipe on the BBC website but giving it my own twist. I scaled the ingredients up to make 15 muffins, instead of the 10 in the original,  as well as substituting maple syrup for the sugar to make them less sweet as well as having a subtle maple flavour. Because maple syrup is very liquid I also had to alter the amount of milk in the recipe.

Ingredients:

112.5g unsalted butter

375g self-raising flour

1 ½ tsp baking powder

¾ tsp bicarbonate of soda

pinch of salt

¾ tsp ground cinnamon

¾ tsp ground nutmeg

1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

3 large, ripe bananas

2 large or 3 medium eggs

80ml milk

80ml maple syrup

paper cases

2 12-hole muffin trays

Heat the oven to 190C/180C fan/Gas 5. Melt the butter and allow to cool. Mash the bananas well. Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg together in a large bowl and mix together.

In another bowl beat together the eggs, vanilla extract, melted butter, maple syrup and milk, then add the mashed banana and stir through.

Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and add the egg mixture, stirring roughly with a fork until it is a lumpy paste. Don't over stir, as you want to retain some air in the batter to make the muffins lighter.

Set paper cases into the muffin trays and spoon in the mixture until almost full, then bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the muffin comes out clean. Remove the muffins from the trays and leave to cool on a wire rack. These can be served warm or cold, ideally with a glass of milk.

Prawn cocktail vol au vents

This year my husband and I were charged with the task of making the starter for the family Christmas dinner.  He suggested making a creative twist on his family's traditional starter (prawn cocktail) and suggested trying them as vol au vents. So with a little help from the instructions on the back of the pastry packet, we set to work.

Ingredients (makes 40):
500g packet pre-made puff pastry
1 egg, beaten
450g prawns, cooked and peeled
1 avacado
mayonnaise to taste
ketchup to taste
splash of lemon juice
splash of Worcester sauce
splash of hot sauce (optional; we used a Cajun jalapeño sauce from Louisiana)
ground paprika

Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius. We have a fan oven, so the temperature for a normal oven would be 190 degrees. Roll the pastry out on a floured surface until it formed a rectangle about 30cm by 20cm and 5mm thick, then cut these into small circles.

Cutting pastry with a whisky glass

Once the pastry had been cut score a circle half way down, leaving a small border. This makes it easier to remove the centre once baked, meaning that the pastry case can then be filled. Place the pastry circles on a baking tray lined with baking paper and brush each circle with some beaten egg to give it a better colour once cooked.

Brushing with beaten egg

Bake the pastry until it has risen and is golden brown on top (about 12 minutes) at which point remove them from the oven, carefully peel away the baking paper and place them on a wire rack to cool. When they are cool enough to touch, run a knife around the pre-scored circle and that section should pop out easily. Then leave the pastry cases to cool completely.

Pastry before the removal of the centre...

...and after

While the pastry is cooling, make the prawn cocktail. Place the prawns in a medium sized bowl. We used king prawns which were slightly too large for the cases, so I cut them in half. To these add the ketchup, mayonnaise, Worcester sauce, lemon juice and hot sauce to suit your taste. The mixture should be quite wet, but not swimming in sauce. This can be left in the fridge for a few days, depending on when you need to use it.

To serve, peel the avacado and remove the stone, then slice into thin strips about the height of the pastry case. Place 3 or 4 of these strips into each case, spoon in a little of the prawn cocktail sauce, arrange 2 prawns inside the case and sprinkle with a little paprika. These vol au vents can be served either on a large platter or on individual plates as below, where some of the remaining prawn cocktail mixture has been placed on some thinly sliced avacado to bring the plate together.