I fancied meaty, tomatoey and deep flavour so threw together a bolognese first thing in the morning for the slow cooker. Ten hours later a rich stew awaits me. YUM.
Spaghetti bolognese for the slow cooker:
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, sliced
1 carrot, diced
1 celery stick, diced
500g beef mince
1 tablespoon flour
1 tin tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato puree
A little bay, thyme and oregano
100ml red wine
100ml beef stock
Cook the veg in a frying pan for a couple of minutes. Add the mince and brown, then add the flour and cook for a minute.
Add the rest of the ingredients. Bring everything to the simmer then add to the slow cooker. Leave for at least 8 hours, and serve with pasta, shredded basil leaves and grated cheese.
An unusual post this one: it’s a birthday gift show-off in disguise and I didn’t cook the featured articles!
Recent birthday gifts were: individual silicone cupcake cases (re-usable and easy to remove from the cases you see), a wiry cupcake stand, and my first ever piping bag. As I was about to spring into baking action, my 4 month old daughter fell asleep on my shoulder, so Mrs. Roastpotato stepped in to bake. I can be a nightmare to cook in front of, with my pestering and pointy fingers. Luckily she manage very impressive cakes despite my interference. We felt like baking the same cupcake base, with three toppings: coffee, lemon and vanilla.
We were deciding on which cupcake recipe to go for and went for Delia’s Complete Cookery Course. Out fell a grubby, yellowed piece of paper which was once lined. On it was familiar: my Nan’s tiny, curly handwriting. It was her recipe for ‘Queen Cakes’, which are fairy cakes studded with sultanas. They made the most perfect, golden, light and moist little gems. Luckily the toppings did them justice: a zingy, crisp lemon icing, a dense, sweet coffee rush and oozy, rich vanilla buttercream.
Fairy cakes (measurements and method are presented old school, exactly as per my Nan’s instructions) – makes 23:
8oz butter
8oz sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp baking powder
A little milk
Cream fat and sugar add eggs beaten well. Fold in sieved dry ingred. little milk if ness to soft dropping consistency. Bake in mod oven 15 – 20 mins.
I’m a sucker for a chocolate cake, so it was next on my hitlist. I turned to a very underappreciated but well-read book from my shelf, How to Cook the Perfect…by Marcus Wareing. It’s an excellent guide for obvious recipes, but the killer app is the additional flashpoints from Marcus, pointing out where the potential problem areas are. It’s great reference material.
This chocolate cake recipe itself isn’t Marcus’s but his mother-in-law’s. If Marcus says it’s good, it must be! And it is, an excellent cocoa flavour but with moist sponge texture. My only change was to add clotted cream to the chocolate buttercream – I had some knocking about ready to go off. It made for an interesting ‘cheesecake’ style flavour which I really enjoyed.
Marcus Wareing’s chocolate cake:
225g self-raising flour
25g cocoa powder
Pinch of salt
250 softened butter
250g caster sugar
4 beaten eggs
To finish:
200g icing sugar
4 tablespoons cocoa powder
100g softened butter
75g clotted cream
Preheat the oven to 170°C. Grease and line 2 x 20cm circular tins.
Cream the butter and sugar together and add the eggs a little at a time. Fold in the sifted flour, cocoa and salt into this mixture.
Divide the batter between the tins and bake for 25 mins or until a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool on a wire rack.
Mix the buttercream ingredients together well and until smooth. Sandwich the cakes together with the buttercream and dust with icing sugar.
Regular readers of this recipe rolodex may be quite surprised to learn that I’ve never made my own mayonnaise. One more reading of Nigel Slater’s Appetitenagged at me to do so, so I did. I was wary of the whole splitting thing but luckily did not encounter any of the emulsion demons. I gathered about half a dozen different recipes and picked and choosed my favourite parts of all of them. How many eggs? Which oil? To lemon or not to lemon? What I ended up with was very tasty (and perfect for the roast chicken baguette I paired it with) but a touch harsh on the extra virgin olive oil. My next will definitely get less olive oil and a little more grapeseed oil.
Mayonnaise:
2 egg yolks
½ teaspoon English mustard
100ml grapeseed oil
100ml extra virgin olive oil
Your strongest wrist
Give the yolks and mustard a few beats with a pinch of salt to begin firming everything up. Add the grapeseed oil a drip at a time, whisking vigorously – don’t stop. After about half of it’s gone in, you can move to a trickle.
Once the grapeseed oil is gone add the olive oil and continue to whisk. You may not need all the olive oil, check the consistency as you go.
Once it reaches the desired, thickened, wobbly consistency check for seasoning. A little lemon juice for acidity is also welcome here.
