Chocolate Choux Buns

We made choux buns on Sunday afternoon - the first time I have made choux pastry and it was surprisingly easy!

Here's how we made them:

Heat the oven to 220 C (425F or gas mark 7).  Butter two baking trays and then hold them under the cold tap for a few seconds (no idea why - but I do as I am told).

Sift 65g of plain flour onto a piece of baking parchment and leave to one side.  Break two medium eggs into a small bowl and beat with a fork, set aside.

Cut up 50g of unsalted butter into a saucepan with 150 ml of cold water.  Heat this gently - as soon as it starts to boil take it off the heat and quickly tip all the flour into the pan.  Stir it in for approxmately one minute until the mixture begins to form a ball in the emiddle of the pan.  Let this cool for five minutes.

Add a little egg, stir in well, then repeat until all the egg has been added.  Then put teaspoonfuls of pastry onto the baking trays, leaving a good amount of space between them.

Bake for ten minutes, then turn the heat down to 190C (375F, gas mark 5) and bake for a further 25 minutes until they are puffy and a golden colour.

Take the buns out of the oven and transfer to a wire rack.  Prick a hole in the side of each bun to let the steam out.

In the meantime whisk 200 ml of double cream with half a teaspoon of vanilla extract and 1 tablespoon of icing sugar.  The buns take very little time to cool and by this time were ready to have the cream added.  We cut the buns in half and filled with the cream.

We then melted 100g of plain chocolate with 25g of butter and 2 tablespoons of water in a bowl over simmering water.

Once this was smooth and completely melted we spooned the chocolate sauce over each bun and left them to cool.

These ingredients made 16 buns - enough for 4 each!!!!!  We had to taste test them whilst the chocolate was still warm, but enjoyed them better when they were cold and had been in the fridge for a couple of hours.

I think we need some again this weekend!

Salty or Sweet?

After an afternoon spent at Tilbury Fort (see my other blog for photographs) we were disappointed to note that there was no cafe to indulge our longing for afternoon tea.  They sell hot drinks in the shop - from a machine - not quite what I had in mind though, which meant going home to rustle up something sweet to have with our tea!

I had a packet of Feuilles De Brick - which is fine mediterranean pastry - and a pot of ricotta cheese in the fridge.  I simply mixed the ricotta with three dessertspoons of caster sugar and spread this mixture on each layer of pastry - rolled some up into a cigar shape and others in small packages and baked in the oven at 220C for approximately 4 minutes.

A sprinkling of icing sugar and our appetite for something sweet with our tea was satisfied - in no time at all.  The only disappointment was that the pastry was salty - but not so much as to be inedible for a sweet confection.

Next time I will make my own pastry or try to find something "unsalted".



Yesterday, however, was a different story - youngest daughter Sera and her friend Elle - at a bit of a loose end decided to make some cupcakes and decorate them.  They were rather pleased with the results.

No problem deciding what to have for afternoon tea yesterday!!



Twinings Tea

My sister wrote about the Twinings Tea that she usually drinks being different - see magnoliaverandah.blogspot.com - then I read in yesterday's newspaper that their Earl Grey has had a change to its blend too.  Why do they do this?  I don't drink Earl Grey every day and so have obviously not yet bought some of the new blend.  I hope I'm not going to be one of the disappointed.  Apparently "all products need to evolve to keep up with people's developing palates", but do our palates develop  that much to need favourite drinks and foods to be altered in this way.  According to  Claire Forster, Twining's Marketing Manager this tea was thought of traditionally as the tea you had when you went round to your grandmother's but that now a lot of young people are getting into Earl Grey.  It has never seemed like a "grandmother's tea" to me, maybe because my grandmother always had "builder's tea" and because she always bought sterilized milk in bottles from her milkman it always had a different taste to that I was used to.  My preferred tea is Twining's Green Tea blend - long may it remain untouched!

Afternoon Tea?

The cupboard was bare of any cake yesterday afternoon - so we had a look through to see what we could have with our tea.  I had missed lunch so was rather peckish and knew that I couldn't last until I had finished cooking dinner.  Luckily we had some fresh crusty bread and found a jar of Tahin (sesame paste) and a jar of Pekmez (Carob) - mix the two together in fairly equal quantities.  You can either spread this onto the bread or, do as we did, stood and dipped the bread into the mixture.  Yum yum yum.

Happy Days

After a little potter around the garden yesterday - picked a few flowers to enjoy in the house.

Hope you're having a good weekend.

Too Late

I've just read the latest posting from A Trifle Rushed blog and followed the link to Simple and in Season/Fabulicious Food - wish I had read this before I posted my latest - could have entered my ice lollies on the blog.

Never mind - maybe next month - shall have to start thinking now!

I Scream You Scream We All Love Ice Cream ........

Well, not exactly ice cream more a case of ice lollies.

I had some blackberries that were destined for a blackberry and apple crumble - except that my twelve year old declared that she didn't like blackberries!  They sat in the fridge from Sunday until last night when I decided to make some ice lollies (I was determined to get some blackberries into my daughter) so I cooked the blackberries with a few strawberries to make up the weight to 200g  and cooked them together with two tablespoons of icing sugar.  Today (with my little helper) we pureed them, passed them through a seive and mixed them with 150 grams of yoghurt - spooned them into ice lolly moulds and voila.  She loves them.

We managed to get six small ice lollies - which allowed for a very small amount of tasting along the way.

Hope you are managing to keep cool and enjoy the hot weather.