Category / Eating & Drinking

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

My name is Alex, and I’m obsessed with MasterChef Australia

Like, seriously obsessed. I’ve forgotten to watch all but one episode of Glee this season, but I get seriously grumpy when I don’t get my fix of Aussie culinary glory.

It’s just so damn good. And at this point I’d usually link to examples to show you what I mean but I’M AFRAID TO GOOGLE IT IN CASE I ACCIDENTALLY SEE WHO WINS. Which would upset me far more than is reasonable.

I felt relatively smug when I managed to predict the likely winner of the last series, but I’ve just taken a kick to the gut seeing my early pegged winner plunge into an elimination and promptly lose it.

Everything about it is wonderful. The challenges are extraordinarily freakin’ difficult. The guest judges and guest chefs are a brilliant mixture of the Nigellas and the Hestons (both appeared just this past week) and less mainstream but even more stellar culinary superstars. I’m not saying that John and Gregg aren’t brilliant, but how can they hope to compete with a contest that flies contestants to Malaysia for a masterclass with Rick Stein?

Although there is a serious dearth of announcements about cooking not getting any tougher than this, which they should really borrow from us.

Also, there’s a Greek judge. Alright, Greek Cypriot, but when you’re half a world away that’s closely related enough. And they help the contestants when they get stuck. And everyone sobs, and you can’t blame them because you can’t even begin to understand how you make a DESSERT THAT HAS TO BE SPRAY PAINTED WITH CARAMEL.

(You’re going to be doing some Googling, aren’t you?)

Oh, the huge manatee. You can keep your X Factor and your Weasels Got Talent. I know what I’ll be watching.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Maternity leave has turned me into a zombie…

No, really. Well, okay, it might be the pregnancy and the bizarrely persistent unusually hot British Summer (note to God: this is not a complaint. Keep it comin’…).

There are so many things I want to be doing, but my head can’t seem to get it together. I want to write some posts for BitchBuzz because it is an awesome site that Cate Sevilla has worked her arse off to make a success. I want to get back to writing the damn novel I’m 20,000 words into, but somehow when I try it all comes out sounding wrong and then I get dispirited. I know that is exactly the point at which I should continue to write, not give up, but I’m scared I’ll end up so irritated that I’ll scrap the whole lot. Although I think my husband might go mad if I did that; he actually enjoyed reading it. I want to plough on and finish before I go back and edit because otherwise edit is all I’ll do, but I can’t take my mind off a continuity slip I know is festering in one of the earlier chapters.

I want to review the mighty Keris Stainton’s excellent book, Della Says: OMG! but the words are Just. Not. Coming.

On the flipside, I have filled up the freezer with meals and baking to be enjoyed after Octobaby makes her appearance, and I have got almost everything ready for her room, etc. I have an appointment with the consultant next week to ensure I’m still low risk and can keep planning for the birth I’d prefer (on the understanding that ultimately it’s Octobaby that decides). I do need to step up the hypnobirthing practice a bit but I haven’t let it slide completely either. Octobaby is currently forcing us all into a guessing game by refusing to reveal to the midwife which end is up (or down) – perhaps she’s re-enacting the tale of the Grand Old Duke of York – which is making me slightly nervous. Yes, I’d rather have a planned Caesarean than an unplanned breech birth, but I will be a little bit gutted if it comes to that, because surgery was the one thing I wanted to avoid, and I have had back surgery that makes me worry about the effects of an epidural.

I now feel huge but am apparently still not carrying that prominently considering that on Saturday I’ll be a full eight months gone. But then, it’s a novelty having clothing clinging to my stomach and not feeling self-conscious about it!

Mr. G. is taking a couple of days off – tomorrow and Monday – to help get the final bits and bobs ready to welcome our little wriggler into the world, so I’m hopeful this will fill me with renewed purpose, so that I’m not wandering around the house reading baking books and wittering to the cats. Because I have my retirement for that. (Joke! I have very active parents and in-laws; I am not being ageist. Promise.)

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Octobaby and the Courgette and Camomile Cupcakes of DOOM

Actually, there’s nothing particularly doom-ridden about them at all. They were a fraction dry, because I had to make a last minute substitution of brown rice flour for white (storecupboard fail) and didn’t trust my instincts to add some milk, but there you go.

It was the first time I’ve made anything using the powder from the insides of teabags before. The recipe, which I made in order to have some readily available homemade cake in the freezer once Octobaby is here, came from a late birthday present, Harry Eastwood’s Red Velvet and Chocolate Heartache. All the cakes in this book are made without butter / oil / margarine, and using a base of a finely grated vegetable, such as carrot, courgette, potato, sweet potato, swede or even beetroot.

This unnerves some people; even those who have happily snaffled down carrot cake without a thought. But vegetables are a great source of moisture and natural sugars. So not only are the cakes (added) fat-free, they’re generally lower in sugar as well. And though you can use plain flour in the same amounts, Eastwood prefers white rice flour as you might as well make the cake gluten-free as well while you’re at it.

Anyway, I forgot to take photos and they’re packaged up and frozen now, but dry edge notwithstanding, they’re very tasty, and will undoubtedly be better once iced. The camomile tea ingredient makes them taste strongly of cinnamon and nutmeg, neither of which are actually in the recipe; the courgette base makes for quite a plain and (if made correctly) moist sponge, so all in all it’s a simple, spice-edged, satisfying cake.

As for Octobaby (so-called since I’m convinced she has several tentacles given all the directions she can squirm at once), she is growing well and her heart is thrumming away like a baby bird’s. The only slight fly in the ointment is that even the midwife can’t work out which way up she is at the moment. She has two weeks to turn decidedly head down before the worry starts. I might email the hypnobirthing practitioner for a good visualisation to help encourage her. I certainly need to do more exercise, too – walk, trying not to waddle, more, sit on on the birthing ball at home, etc (she says from the sofa).

So, yes. I live. I bake. I get impatient to meet my daughter. How have you been?

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Red velvet cupcakes with white chocolate star mold topping

I don’t have as many funky baking gadgets and gizmos are you might expect, mostly for the following three reasons:

  • I’m not rich enough
  • I don’t have enough time to get really good
  • I don’t have enough natural / scary / innate talent to miss out the practice

But from time to time I feel I need to give in and get something a bit pointless that I won’t use very much but that will let me get creative in the baking department. Especially if it’s not too expensive. This lead to me splashing out a whopping £6 on Miniamo star-shaped mini molds, that can be used for baking or setting a liquid in the fridge. It was a spur of the moment decision made in a baking shop; you can undoubtedly find them cheaper online.

My first thought was to make mini star shaped cakes in a contrasting colour-  perhaps vanilla-based cupcakes with red velvet star shaped cakes on top. Then I thought about how to embed a star shape in the top of a cake, and the experimentation began…

I switched from Rachel Allen’s red velvet recipe to Hummingbird Bakery‘s, mainly because the latter had already been adapted (cooking time and temperature) for cupcakes. I’m glad I did; lovely as Rachel’s is, the Hummingbird cupcakes were undeniably fluffier and, as the recipe calls for more colour, a richer and more tempting red.

The experiment was, taste-wise, a success. However it wasn’t perfect, and I’ll explain what I’d do differently next time as I go through…

Unbaked cakes with molds

Once I’d made the mixture, I pushed in the molds delicately in the centre. I had thought that delicacy was wise, since I didn’t want the mold to a) sink to the bottom or b) get so deeply stuck in it ripped the cake apart when I removed it. However, I was a fraction too hesitant, as you’ll see from the next picture… Next time, I would push the mold in a little further and possibly weight it with a couple of baking beans or similar.

Cakes with tipsy molds

The more hesitantly applied molds – and possibly less evenly poured in batter – resulted in some cakes with rather random angles at the top, and also one or two whose indentation was too shallow. Contrary to this dreadful photo, however, some did come out rather well, as you’ll see below!

Unfinished cake awaiting chocolate

This was one of the best ones. Please note that you have to wait until the cakes are at least 90% cool before removing the molds. If you don’t, it will just get really shredded around the edges. I suspected this, so I tested on which became the ‘sample’ cake (don’t pretend you’ve never done that). And it was genuinely in the spirit of experimentation rather than impatience, for once! The good news is, between baking and cooling you’ve got masses of time to melt some white chocolate and half-fill some molds with it. I bought 24 so I could bake 12 and prepare 12 toppings at the same time, but you could wait, wash the molds and start from there.

Oh, and a tip about cooling chocolate; it will get far less gloopy if you cool it at room temperature before finishing off in the fridge.

Chocolate molds

Then, when set, pop them out and, handling as little as possible, press them into the indentation left in the cake!

Red velvet cupcakes with white chocolate stars

Again, I would have liked the chocolate to be a little deeper into the cake – possibly even flush with the top for a quite dramatic look – but given the cocoa base for red velvet cake the two went together very nicely and the stars added an element of creaminess without the sickly edge that a huge hunk of buttercream or cream cheese icing can give (and it says something when white chocolate is less sickly than pretty much anything else. I guess it’s the amount!).

Maybe I’ll find time during maternity leave to do more baking. Then again, a first time mother with a newborn? Maybe not.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Autumnal / Thanksgiving Baking: Pumpkin pecan muffins and mini pumpkin pies

Of course, I couldn’t just stop experimenting with muffin fillings after the apple crumble muffins. And once I’d spent a hysterical amount on a 425g can of Libby’s pumpkin, imported from the USA, I wanted to get my absolute money’s worth out of the rich orange paste.

Why not use fresh pumpkin? Because I haven’t before, and frankly it looked too much like hard work. Here’s what I made.

Pumpkin and Pecan Muffins

Pumpkin and pecan muffinsThe old Rachel Allen 30 day muffin recipe came out again. I made a fresh full batch and used 500ml to make 22 mini muffins (again baked at around 170-180 for fifteen minutes until risen and spongy. Added to the 500ml was:

200g pumpkin pure
1 heaped teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
75g chopped pecans (walnuts work just as well)

I reserved some entire half pecans to put on the top. Now, this comes out very savoury. I prefer it this way, and would probably make maple buttercream icing (see below), then pop a half pecan on top. I didn’t have any maple syrup, and was short of time, so I just served them as is.

Alternatively, you could add 50ml or so of maple syrup / 50g of brown sugar direct to the pumpkin mix before stirring into the muffin batter; I haven’t tried it but expect that would work just as well. Or you could warm a little syrup and, when the muffins were still hot from the oven, prick the cakes on top with a toothpick and spoon warmed, runny syrup over the top, then serve as sticky cakes with vanilla ice cream.

Mini Pumpkin Pies

mini pumpkin piesThis meant making a batch of my shortcrust pastry, then following the recipe Libby’s give for pumpkin pie, making changes where I didn’t have the spices they suggest. I also had to make my own evaporated milk because I was out, which meant putting twice the amount of milk I needed in a saucepan and simmering gently – not boiling – until it reduced by half.

It worked out to:

225g pumpkin
1/4 pint evaporated milk
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Stir those all together into a relatively runny batter. Roll out the pastry to no more than 3-4mm at most, and stamp out circles, pressing them gently into tartlet molds. Pour a spoonful or so of filling into the hollow of the pastry, and bake at 180-190 (depending on oven) for 20 minutes, then check. At this point they might need another 5-10 minutes, or might be perfect, depending on the oven. They’ll be ready when the filling has set and just started to brown at the edges.

For the second batch of these, I made a buttercream icing (using golden syrup as I still hadn’t got round to buying maple, recipe below) and had some fun doing some cack-handed amateur icing. I also made a batch of slightly bigger mini-pies using an average-sized cupcake tin. They took around 35-40 minutes to cook.

Simple Buttercream

mini pumpkin pies with buttercreamIt’s best to make this with butter but if needs (or diet) must, margarine will do. It’s a little oilier, but it works. The icing pictured is made with it, as I was out of proper butter. It also needs to be last minute – although it will keep perfectly well overnight in the fridge it is a dairy ingredient and ought to be treated with respect from a food hygiene point of view. Oh, and don’t even try and cut corners and ice before the baking is completely cooled; you will just end up with a melted, messy, hard-to-handle blob (the thicker the paste, the easier it is to control the piping bag, and what I’ve pictured is slightly more melted and runny than I would usually like, due to tiredness and impatience!).

1 part butter – for 14 mini tarts I used 3 tbsp
Flavouring – in this case, 1/2 tsp vanilla and 1/2 golden syrup (maple syrup would have been more seasonal)
Icing sugar
Colour

Once the butter has been beaten with whatever liquid flavouring you’re using, start mixing in heaped tablespoons of sugar until a thick, pipe-able, pale, fluffy icing has formed. It will warm up from your hand in the piping bag, so a stiff icing is essential. You’ll need at least three times as much icing as butter. When it’s at the right texture, add whatever colour you want, or just leave it to its rich, buttery, natural yellow.

I piped most of them round the edges, but also did some comedy ones, spelling out Ash’s name or trying a swirl in the centre (a mistake – the piping nozzle I’d chosen was too small for a centre piece, and it looked a little like the icing monster had had an ‘accident’ on the pie).

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Recipe: Apple Crumble Muffins

muffinsI’m going to do a really annoying thing and refer you to another site for this one, because I’ve already written up and published the recipe on BitchBuzz.

The basic premise is plain muffins with an apple filling and crumbly topping. I give the recipe for the filling and links to the book I got the muffin recipe from and a Google search for plain muffin recipes. I also list some alternatives I’d like to try out.

As my colleague Lo would say: I’m not gonna lie to you. They were gorgeous.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

This week on BitchBuzz: simple recipes and women’s resources

And no, sexists among you, they’re not the same thing.

I’ve got a bit of a list of things to write about for BitchBuzz and haven’t had the time to do much of it.  I have made a start on a new post I hope to make quite a regular one, which is Simple Recipes for Anyone; basically, if you can’t make these then you should probably step away from the kitchen, never to return.

First up is shortcrust pastry, and in the schedule (but not live yet) is chocolate ganache icing. If you read this blog, you’ll actually already have seen the recipes for both of them… Given that the vast majority of people who come looking for this site are actually seeking buttercream icing, that’ll be next.

The women’s resources, on the other hand, are quite different and much more serious. The post is all about the Women’s Resource Centre and the wonderful things it does to support women’s organisations and lobby the Government.

Oh, and top of those I got in a quick piece about the Islington Contemporary Art & Design Fair, which fellow design fans ought to enjoy as it happens over the next few weekends.

Next on the list:

  • Quick travel guide to Rome
  • A piece about a very talented UK baker who’s now launching her own business
  • A savoury recipe (I know!)
  • A post on a cute cupcake bakery (no, there can never be enough)

Just as soon as I have time to write them.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Christmas ‘Baking’: Chocolate Rum Raisin Snowcups

rum raisin snowscapeYes, I used the C-word. Christmas.

It is a little early, but I really want to take some of the stress off my mother this year and, yes, show off a little. I went round to my mother-in-law’s last Friday for Shabbat (late to the party and baffled? I’m not Jewish, but my husband is) and she had made these plain chocolate cups by lining cupcake papers with melted chocolate. She then filled them with fresh whipped cream and strawberry slices and topped the whole mess of wonderful off with crumbled Flake. Gorgeous. And of course it got me thinking of what I could do. This is my first experiment.

As DiDi warned me, if you don’t coat the edges nice and thick, the cups fall apart when you peel away the paper. I was being a bit hasty so some of mine did fall apart. I was using petit fours cases and found that actually you could get away with a certain amount of crumbled edging if it’s small, cute and going to be filled to the brim. But perfectionists should be prepared to spend lots of time applying layers of melted chocolate onto paper cases with whatever implement suits you best (I used a grapefruit knife, my mother-in-law a plastic spoon).

Anyway, once they’ve fully set in the fridge, peel away the paper and get inventive with the filling. I put a handful of raisins in a saucepan with a healthy splash on rum on top, then simmered the contents of the pan for a couple of minutes. Then the heat went off, the lid went on and I gave them half an hour or so to soak up the drink. They then sat out (covered) long enough to cool down.

A heap of raisins went in the chocolate case and a little white chocolate was grated on top to make an artful, Christmassy snowstorm (at least that was the aim; if you think it looks more like Santa’s dandruff, you can leave it out).

Some other ideas I’ve thought of to experiment with:

  • Plain chocolate cups, blackberries smooshed into a lumpy, fruity syrup over heat with sugar and water, white chocolate curls
  • Any chocolate, mincemeat (as in what goes in mince pie, not lasagne!), crumbled cookie / oat topping
  • White chocolate cups, red berries in a little fruity syrup, decorated with holly leaves
  • White chocolate cups, crumbled up left-over Christmas pudding, a blob of cream
  • Layered cups – changing the colour of chocolate every time (after they’ve set in the fridge). Perhaps with a little hollow left for something crunchy – honeycomb?

I’m still thinking this through; I haven’t even got to the creamy or custardy fillings. The possibilities are endless provided you’re willing to spend hours footling chocolate around in paper cups. Of course you could do it without unpeeling them, leaving them in pretty paper cases but still getting the glorious choccy flavour, if you’re in a hurry.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Baking meets Disney: A Little Mermaid Hen Do

Little Mermaid DecorationsI’m nervously tracking my parents on a flight to Greece; I hate flying and so does my mother, but family reasons have forced her onto a plane. The plane tracker has lost sight of the aircraft because they don’t pick up data over the sea (they must be between Italy and Athens right now) which is making me uncomfortable.

Usually I’d distract myself baking but I can’t fill the house with yummy smells because Ash will return from shul soon to begin his Yom Kippur fast. So it would be a bit mean. Instead, I’ll finally catch up on a post I meant to write an age ago.

Yesterday was the wedding of my oldest and closest friend in the world. The girl I used to make forts under the duvet with, whose shoulder I cried on when lesser men than my husband broke my heart, who celebrated the good times with me (and cake). She looked beautiful and the day went without a hitch; we took some photos in a gloriously dry and sunny Hyde Park which I really look forward to seeing. But some weeks ago, before all this matrimonial celebration, was her hen do. Following on from mine, for which I requested an old-fashioned tea party, my friend Lizzie took the helm to create a themed party for the then bride-to-be, Em.

The theme chosen was suitably Disney (we’re friends for a reason); as you might have guessed from the photos, it was The Little Mermaid

The Theme and Decorations

Little Mermaid Hen Do

Lizzie worked relentlessly and tirelessly for around two months before the day. I won’t give away exactly how she did everything as it’s not my work, but the photos in the post should give you a great idea of the fantastic attention to detail she demonstrates. Every inch of the party area was lovingly converted into an under sea grotto, with characters from the film, sandcastles, seaweed, balloons, bubbles, shells and even a treasure chest helping to set the scene. The walls were hung with underwater and sandy bottom cloths, which made for a particularly fun treasure hunt, for which Lizzie wrote a pirate-themed set of clues. To complete the beside-the-seaside feel, the entertainment was a classic Punch and Judy show!

The Baking

Red Velvet Mini Wedding Cakes

The only part of all this wonderment I asked – and was allowed – to get in on was the baking action, and I was duly granted this task. Knowing Em loves chocolate, I dipped into Nigella’s classic How to be a Domestic Goddess and fished out the recipe for the supremely rich, muscovado-sugar packed Dense Chocolate Loaf Cake. I then personalised it by whacking on some chocolate ganache and crushed pistachios (picture and recipe for ganache below as it’s one of my own / my mum’s). Alongside this was the more exciting part, using my brand new Wilton tin in the shape of cross-sections of mini wedding cakes!

Given that they really ought to have white frosting, I revisiting Rachel Allen’s red velvet cake, and then festooned the finished and iced cakes with red rose petals. I did have a shot at sugar-frosting another set of petals myself, but it went horribly wrong so I resorted a sprinkle of the fresh sort at the last minute. I also wanted to get a lot fancier with the frosting, piping finer details on and making it look sharper and more elaborate, but those plans fell by the wayside. In fairness to myself, I’d never done it before and was baking both these cakes, cooling and frosting them and knocking off a set of cookies all on the same evening after work…

Kosher vegan cookiesThe cookies, by the way, were Levana Kirschenbaum’s kosher chocolate chip cookies – recipe online -, which were made vegan by substituting a heaped dessert-spoonful of vanilla (plain will do) soya yogurt per egg at Lizzie’s suggestion. It makes the dough much more crumbly, but if you persevere they will come out beautifully light, moist and chewy. Ash isn’t prone to exaggeration for all his love for me and he said he’d “pay for them”, so they must have been nice… Oh, and it goes without saying that the chocolate chips should all be plain and lactose free for vegan chums. Excuse the slightly fuzzy photo; I was shattered by then!

The Ganache Recipe

Nigella Chocolate Cake and toppingsThis is – perhaps frustratingly – a very imprecise recipe, for which I apologise. Growing up with a Greek mother I got taught to make a lot of things “with the eye” and this is one of them. It’s annoying, I know. You need:

A block of butter

Caster sugar

Cocoa

Milk

Melt some butter in a reasonably thick-bottomed pan. For the loaf cake I used about a quarter to a third of a 250g block. To this I added two heaped tablespoons of cocoa plus the same amount of sugar. Stir constantly and swiftly and then start dribbling in a little milk at a time until the chocolate reaches a shiny, almost oily texture that drips from the spoon but isn’t runny. Taste a little (hot butter can burn, though, so be careful) and balance out the flavours as you prefer; the cake being very sweet I wanted a little cocoa bitterness to come through. While it’s still warm, pour over a completely cooled cake. It’s a little uncontrollable which is why it particularly suited this cake which tends to sink in the middle.

Before it had completely set I bashed the life out of some pistachios in a plastic bag with my rolling pin and sprinkled them on top.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Simple short crust pastry jam tarts (diabetic option too)

Baking02-10Partially inspired by one of Rachel Allen’s programmes I was half-watching, I had a yen to experiment with some pastry as I’ve never really made it before. I thought I’d start with the simplest, which is short crust.

The principle with short crust is that fat should be half the weight of the starch in the mixture. So if you use 200g of (plain) flour, then you need 100g of fat. And for every 200g of flour you need roughly half a beaten egg. I use, at my mother’s suggestion, though Nigella concurs, a mixture of Stork margarine / butter and vegetable shortening (I use Trex but Crisco is much of a muchness). You could use entirely the latter for vegan pastry, but you’d probably have to be even more restrained with the egg as Trex is more damp than butter.

For 30 of these (using two silicon tarlet tins of 15 each), I used 300g of plain, 00 flour, 75g of Stork and 75g of Trex. The fat and flour go into a food processor and are quickly pulsed to make damp sand (or rubbed together with fingers if you’re without electrical aid). I guessed at pre-heating the oven fortuitously accurately. For little pats of pastry like these, around 150 degrees Celsius is fine.

For sweet pastry you can add one tablespoon of icing (confectioner’s) sugar, or a teaspoon of fructose for diabetic-friendly cakes. For savoury, a teaspoon of salt will do nicely. Or you could add nothing at all – I’ve forgetfully done that before and it still makes for lovely, buttery pastry.

A little of the beaten egg is poured in at a time and it’s pulsed / combined until it just combines; the pastry shouldn’t be too damp. I found I used just over one, but it will vary so best to just add a little at a time.

Once you can just about bring it together, wrap it up tight in clingfilm and pop it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. In dire straits, Ms. Allen says the freezer for 15 will do. It makes it far more workable.

Roll it out between two sheets of clingfilm and use a cookie cutter just wider than the tarlet cases. Stamp out your shapes and pop them into the tartlet tins, pushing down gently to form a dip. Then drop around half a teaspoon’s worth of the jam of your choice into the dip – a no-sugar-added version if necessary. Don’t be tempted to overfill – some of the ones in the picture are slightly too generous and it upsets the nice pastry to sweetness ratio if you overdo it. The jam heats up and becomes rather runny, spreading to become a fetching jewel in the middle. I also used lemon curd which tastes wonderful but needs a lot longer to set after heating.

Eight to ten minutes is ample; the pastry might still look quite pale but it will be quite a dry texture already, and firm up more as it cools.

Half an hour to cool… and then a yummy tea time. Very simple, very quick, generally made from storecupboard ingredients and pleasing to everyone from kids (who can easily help to make them) to grannies. Love it.