Christmas Bread that's Christmassy because it's in a heart shape I dunno

My horrid home-made Christmas gifts are coming thick and fast; next on the menu are my wholemeal salt and pepper loaves.
1)Prepare a basic wholemeal dough. Combine 350g strong white flour, 150g strong wholemeal flour with 1 and 1/2 tsp table salt, and stir 7g fast yeast. Don't let the salt and yeast touch. Stir in 325ml lukewarm water and a tablespoon of good olive oil or 25g lard or vegetable shortening to a soft dough. Add more flour or more water to get the right consistency. It should be soft, but still pliable. Knead for 10 minutes by hand, or 5 in a machine until smooth and stretchy. Place in an oiled bowl, cover with cling film and rise in a warm place for about 1 and a half hours, until doubled.
2)Turn out onto a floured surface and punch it down until all the air is knocked out. Divide the dough in two, and roll one into a long sausage. To do this, start with your hands close together in the middle of the log, and pull it towards you, letting your hands separate to the edges. This can't be rushed, if you just pull it, it will shrink back, so go slow. Shape it into a heart shape, having the join at the top, between the two rounds at the top of the heart. Divide the remaining piece of dough into 3, roll each one to the same length. Connect the dough logs at one end, and plait them. Cut the ugly bits at either end of the plait off. Place the two loaves on a greased baking sheet, cover in cling and rise again for about 45 minutes.
3)To top the loaves, I have some fancy Himalayan Pink Salt and black pepper. Sprinkle over the loaves moistened with milk.
4)Bake in a steamy, 180 degrees oven for about 20 minutes, until brown and hollow when tapped.

Special Mince Pies for a Shoddy Christmas Present

At last. Far too late as usual, the tsunami of dreadful homemade presents is beginning to flow over my friends and family. And I can't wait. I can't wait to see their awkward, pretend-that-you-like-it smile once I've given them their gift and I can walk away feeling face-punchably smug.
First on the list are tasty mince pies, with a rustic pastry case that looks... home-made.
1)Prepare the sweet shortcrust pastry. I am usually very happy to use shop-bought puff or filo pastry, but if I bought shortcrust then I think guilt would be induced. It is very easy, tastes much better than from a shop, and I find, quite fun to make. Rub in 125g of butter and 50g of lard (or all butter) into 275g of plain flour and 25g of ground almonds (or all flour). A shortcut is to do this in the food processor which I would normally do, but another shortcut is to grate the very cold fat into the flour, then rubbing it in is much faster. Stir in 75g icing sugar and the grated zest of a lemon. Bring the dough together with the juice of the lemon and about 3 tablespoons of milk, but check if the dough has come together after the second spoon because you don't want it to be too wet. Bring the dough together then knead for a few seconds. Do NOT overwork. Wrap in cling film and put in the fridge for about half an hour. Roll it out to as thin as you can handle,turning the dough evenly and cut with a fluted cutter and place each circle into a greased muffin tin.
2)To prepare the filling, combine 225g Mincemeat with the zest of an orange and a tablespoon of amaretto, or another Christmassy drink like brandy.
3)Fill each case with a small teaspoon of the filling. For a lid, re-roll the leftover pastry and cut into hearts or stars or whatever you like and carefully top the tarts. Brush with beaten egg or milk and bake at 180 degrees for about 20 minutes. Foil is your friend (my only one); if they brown too fast just cover with foil and continue baking.
4)To turn them out, leave them to cool in the tin for about 5 minutes to let the pastry set and then run a palette knife around them and carefully lift them onto a wire rack. Dust with icing sugar.

Raspberry and Orange Mille Feuille with Passion Fruit Curd

You've seen before how my attempts at fine and elegant French sweets turn out, which is why I was very pleased with how these turned out. I like how they look overstuffed, I like how they look like they're about to topple over and I like how they don't look rigid and perfect, they look home-made and welcoming. I also kept my expectations low, because expectation versus reality is painful, so its das Leben.

Mille Feuille itself is a type of French Patisserie, literally 'thousand leaves' made of (shop-bought #thug life) puff pastry and layers of whatever you like, I used an orangey cream, raspberries and an amazing passion fruit curd which makes plenty of leftovers.

1)Prepare the passion fruit curd. At this time of year, passion fruits are tart and dry, so this is a great way of using them up. I found lots are on offer because they are poorer quality now. Scoop out the seeds of 6-8 passion fruit, and drop them into a blender with the juice of about half an orange. Blend them to loosen them, but don't break up the seeds too much. Combine this pulp with 60g of cornflour to a paste. Boil 600ml water, then pour into the paste. It will go really thick right away. Return to the pan and add 4 egg yolks and 175g caster sugar. Stir while heating gently and add more sugar to taste. Leave to cool.

2)Roll out some puff pastry, I use jus-rol because they have a good buttery tast,  that's come to room temperature, to about 3mm rectangle, and then cut the long side into 4, and the short side three so you have 12 small rectangles. Pile them into 4 piles of 3, and trim the edges to make them more even, then place on a baking sheet dusted with icing sugar and then prick gently with a fork and dust with more sugar. Bake at 200 degrees until golden brown and very puffed up. Leave to cool.

4)Whisk 150ml double cream with a tablespoon of icing sugar, 1 teaspoon of vanilla and the zest of one orange, where all the flavour is. Whip until quite thick, but not dry. Place in a piping bag fitted with whatever nozzle you fancy.

5)To assemble, take a pastry layer and gently press it down with the palm of your hand to flatten, which seems a dreadful shame but necessary nonetheless. Blob it with tall blobs of cream, about 6 per sheet and put three raspberries in-between each blob. Place with another sheet and spread thickly with the curd, then pop some more raspberries on and fix the top layer on. Dust with more icing sugar to finish.

Jerk Chicken with Rice and Peas that could be weaponised

We seem to have adopted Jamaican culture recently, with Cool Runnings, Usain Bolt, delicious ginger cake and many playfully offensive Jamaican characters in British comedies such as 'Jamaican Teacher' bringing Caribbean fun to the UK. However, perhaps the biggest hit of Jamaica, was when Levi Roots barrelled through weakly-flavoured plates of British meat and two veg to bring us reggae reggae sauce- a tastefully hot condiment right from the heart of Caribbean street food.
In my dish, it's not like the crispy inferno of street Jerk Chicken, but it's still searingly hot and crisp. The flavour all comes from a strong marinade full of traditional seasonings, which seemed odd to me, including what I think of as more cakey spices such as allspice and cinnamon, but together they form a powerful reggae bassline beneath chords of fresh lime and hot chilli.
To serve with, you really need the cool, sweet rice and peas to extinguish the fire in your mouth. Some other good ideas to serve with it are a crisp green salad and plenty of fresh lime.
1)To prepare the marinade, blend 3 spring onions, 3 roasted red bell peppers, either roast your own or use the shortcut like me of keeping roasted ones in jars, 4 garlic cloves, 4 birds eye chillis (any chillis with the seeds in will do, the traditional is the scotch bonnet, but if like me you can't find them use any small red variety; generally, the smaller the chilli the hotter it is) a 4cm piece of fresh ginger (it's best to blend these vegetables on their own first and they'll chop finer into the rest of the marinade that way), the grated zest and juice of one lime, a splash of dark rum, about the same amount of soy sauce (dark here for colour); to honour Roots' sauce, about a tablespoon of tomato puree. Next, you will have to invade the spice cupboard for 2 teaspoons each of ground ginger, ground cinnamon, ground allspice, ground nutmeg (or I recommend 1 freshly grated) smoked paprika, dried thyme, and about a tbsp of English mustard powder, really depending on how hot you want this, and 2 tablespoons of dark muscovado sugar. Blitz it all together to a fairly fine paste, but still with some texture. If you desired even more pep, add some drops of really viciously hot tabasco.
2)Now, for the chicken. I always feel rather guilty saying I prefer chicken breast, as cooks will often go for the more flavourful brown meat. Although it is true that it has a better flavour, it's not a very good one, and the texture is only more tender if you cook breast meat quickly without a sauce or marinade. For this recipe especially, breast is a perfect smooth and pure canvas for all the flamey flavours of the marinade, and the acidity of it makes the chicken go so succulent. Take 4 breast fillets that are skinless and slash them about three times on the diagonal. Place in a large dish with the marinade and smoosh the chicken in it, which with the searing acidity of the marinade, was not fun for my fingertips. The strength of the marinade makes me go a bit sadistic- I imagine throwing it in the eyes of people annoying me. Leave the chicken to marinate for a good few hours at room temperature or overnight in the fridge. All waffle aside, you could substitute some chicken portions like thigh or drumstick just slashed on the skin if you wanted.
3)To cook it, place each chicken piece in a foil lined tray and coat in the marinade. Cook in a mild 170 degree oven for 30 minutes, then tip out any excess liquid, but keeping some of the grainy marinade on top, sprinkle with salt and bake even hotter at 220 to crisp the top.
4)To prepare the rice and peas, cook an onion in some oil until soft then cook 2 cloves of minced garlic. The ratio of rice to liquid is 1 cup of rice to 2 cups of liquid. In this case, use 1 1/2 cups of vegetable stock and 1/2 cup of coconut milk, including the crumbly mass that collects at the top of the tin. For the peas, beans are actually used because the traditional gungun variety are called pigeon peas. I use a can of drained and rinsed kidney beans, and a very non-traditional addition of frozen soya beans, called Edamame which I get from my favourite shop, Setonaikai. I like them because they have a nice, mild broad-bean flavour, they're very healthy and I've always loved purple and green since The Roly Mole Show. Also, I feel like the soy sauce from the marinade might have wanted a friend traveling all the way from Japan to the Caribbean. They would never be used in an authentic recipe, but you know how much I have a rebellious streak. Rinse a cup of rice by rubbing it between your fingers in a saucepan full of water, then drain in a seive under running water until the water runs clear, then bring everything to the boil, then lower the heat and cook for about 10-15 minutes until dry and cooked, then leave to stand to lose it's stodginess.
5)Serve the chicken on a bed of the rice, and serve with fresh lime and a crisp salad.
*A wee disclaimer, I have exaggerated how hot this dish is. It is very hot, but not hot that it hurts and makes it unpleasant to eat.

Chelsea Buns and Black Forest Palmiers for the lovely cast!

Show week was wonderful! In case any of my performing comrades are reading this, you all made the school production of Beauty and the Beast an absolute joy to show and, according to my family, to watch. I love you all, and can't wait to perform with the rest of you next year, and to those who won't be here next year, you will be thoroughly missed!
The French have a delectable saying, everything in moderation including moderation, and as the rehearsals for the play were often stressful and horribly moderated, I decided to go mega-immoderate for the cast party, and baked over a kilo of flour's worth of Chelsea Buns and (not quite as much) Chocolate Cherry Palmiers which were inspired by a cookbook which I borrowed from Backstage. Well... When I say borrowed, I talked myself into being a rebel and taking it without asking but what really happened was I asked to borrow it and Miss said I could take it because it really wouldn't be missed.
1)Combine 1 kilogram of strong white bread flour with 2 teaspoons of salt then 2 sachets of dried yeast. Make a well in the centre, and pour in 400ml of milk stirred with 120g melted butter and 2 eggs. Normally, it would be better to rub the butter into the flour but there was far too much to do this in time so I just took a shortcut. Stir to form a soft dough and knead in some flour. I kneaded vigorously in two lots to save time and it would be too much work for over a kilo of dough. Coat in grease and rise in a covered bowl for an hour and a half until doubled. Normally, especially for enriched dough, I would do a long cool rise to better the flavour and make the dough easier to handle but I simply didn't have the time.
2)Punch the dough down and roll them both into a rough 30x30cm square (don't go measuring it) and spread with a filling of 60g of melted butter creamed with 30g dark muscovado sugar for each dough square. Fold it over and roll over the folded side back to the square and sprinkle with a mixture of 150g dried mixed fruit that have soaked up the juice of a lemon or orange in the microwave, 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon and ground ginger and the zest of the lemon or orange. Carefully roll it up and start to pull it from either end very gently to make it a bit longer and more even. Using a very sharp knife, cut the log into about 12 buns and lay them cut side up in a well-greased baking tin and leave to rise again for about another 30-60 minutes until the buns are touching.
3)Bake them in a 200 degrees oven for about 25-30 minutes, covering in foil and then removed for the last 10 minutes. Be careful, they won't feel very cooked, they will squidge a lot even though they're done. You'd have to take one out and eat to tell if it's cooked.
4)While still warm and removed frome the oven, drizzle the buns with warmed honey and then leave to cool entirely on a wire rack.
1)The palmiers are an altogether easier affair, but still just as special. Roll some puff pastry, but I used some leftover thawed danish pastry dough, to about a 30x20cm rectangle. You may want to trim the edges to make them more square. Sprinkle with 100g of washed, dried and finely chopped glace cherries and 50g finely chopped dark chocolate and then roll the long end of the dough in half way, and repeat with the other side. Use some beaten egg to secure the centre join. Chill the log in the fridge for about 20 minutes to make it easier to cut.
2)Slice the log into cm thin rounds and then flatten them slightly with your hand before transferring to a lightly greased baking sheet. Sprinkle generously with caster sugar and bake at 200 degrees until golden-brown, about 15 minutes.
3)To serve, I would have dipped them in chocolate halfway, but I only had time to drizzle them with melted chocolate. Leave to harden and serve! This recipe is easily adaptable- use some lovely crunchy demerara or nuts or even go savoury with some herbs and black olives  (but obviously omit the sugar).

Pomegranate, Prune, Lamb and Black Olive Tagine

I'm very OCD about the theory of what goes around comes around, so whenever something bad happens (this tragic day, for example) I look forward to the good thing about to come. Sadly, this often means I feel afraid when something goes right for a change, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. This theory worked for my tagine, as my mediocre Brownies and various other depressing components of today, made this taste even better.
This tagine is spicy and warming, with an unexpected freshness from the pomegranate. Moroccan food typically blurs the expectation that fruit should be kept for pudding, but this still needs to be kept super savoury; the salty-sour capers and intensely dark saltiness in the form of nice Greek black olives (I don't mind pitted as long as they're proper not plasticky) help that. There are lots of ingredients, which makes me question whether they are all necessary, but I suppose if you took one singer out of a choir they would be missed in the harmony? I dunno. I haven't been able to go to choir since I started astronomy.
1)I didn't have an onion which would be the regular way to start any stew/casserole/tagine so I improvised with some white cabbage. If you're not in such an onion-less predicament, use 1 large white onion, although if you can't face chopping I'm a convert towards frozen ready chopped onions. I finely chopped a quarter of a head of white cabbage and cooked it in some oil when I first made this, after tweaking I found great heat and flavour with a whole jar of harissa paste. After it began to soften, I added the many spices: a teaspoon each of ground coriander, cinnamon, cumin, turmeric and ginger. Cook the spices vigilantly, as they can catch.
2)After the onion goes soft, pour in 1 litre of pomegranate juice, use some of it to clean out the harissa jar and bring to the boil. Pomegranate juice is just to enhance the fruitiness, but you could also use red wine or marsala or diluted port. Never underestimate the cheap, shortcut flavour cooking with alcohol can provide. Also, to further make this Moroccan magic, 2 tbsp sour pomegranate molasses.
3)To the pot, add 150g prunes, the same of black olives, 4 tbsp capers and 2 star anise. After that, add 4 seared lamb leg chops or 700g seared lamb shoulder, neck, breast, shank or any lamb cut that stews well and pour in water until everything is just covered. Simmer until a little reduced and then cover and cook in the oven at 160 degrees for about an hour to make the lamb go really tender.
4)This step is great for getting ahead which I had to do as I won't be at home to cook because of the school production (I'm holding back tears right now) so make this a few days ahead and just leave to sit in the fridge for a few days. It deepens the flavour and lets everything  amalgamate. It also takes the edge off the spice; it's still hot but not quite as raw.
5)To serve, cover some cous cous seasoned with salt and paprika with boiled water and leave to sit for about 5 minutes, before stirring in a generous handful of pomegranate seeds. Save the skins and some seeds to squeeze some fresh juice into the reheated tagine, to bring it back to life before serving.
Note: if you have a real tagine, and I mean the cooking one, after you've seasoned it for its cooking  (this must be done once the tagine is first bought you can cook the tagine over an incredibly low flame or a heat diffuser and then cover with the conical, teepee shaped hat and cook over the flame- it doesn't need to go in the oven with its hat on.

Bad Brownies for a Bad Day

So... My first performance of my school production went badly... Then I had to go back to normal school and have a lesson of hockey in the freezing cold- I hate core PE, I didn't take PE for a reason so I don't want to play PE with all the prodigy poo-heads who seem to think it's the Olympic Trials. After that, I had Geography, which I enjoy on the whole but I sit next to someone who I've had a falling-out with. They came round for when I cooked them that meal and now we both seem to have crossed the stairs at the wrong step. As a result of this ugly day I came home craving baking, and as it's the 1st of December I wanted Christmassy Mincemeat Browies, but right on form, they weren't very good.

Although tasty and more moist than your average sponge, they didn't have the essential gooiness that every brownie should have- if you look at the photo you should be able to see the cakey airation. The Mincemeat flavour was good, but not make-again good.

So to conclude, my brownie-making skills need further refining, and me and my friend may or likely not be at tge poiny where I would want to bake them pizza or crumble.