Pizza!

Everyone loves a good pizza. But how about making your own?

For the dough....
450g strong white flour
1tsp salt
1tsp sugar
2x7g sachets of fast action yeast, OR dry active yeast (read directions for use)
300ml pint of warm water
2 tbsp olive oil


Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl. Add the sugar, water, oil and yeast. *(NOTE: if you are using dry active yeast granules, pre-mix the sugar, water and yeast and leave to activate for 10 minutes before adding to the dough mixture.)
Work this into a nice soft dough. Roll the dough onto a flat surface, and knead for ten minutes. Roll the dough into a ball, and put into a bowl. Cover the bowl with a tea towel, and leave in a nice warm place for an hour. When you come back, the dough should have doubled in size!

Knead the dough for a couple of minutes, and then roll out into a pizza shape! Put this onto a lightly oiled tray.
What I do here, personally, is put the pizza in the oven for a few minutes- no more than 5 - to harden up, since I have a fan oven. (apparently fan ovens are no good for pizza dough - in a regular oven the heat comes from below, and cooks the dough first, then the cheese. In a fan oven the heat comes from all around and I often find that whilst my topping is almost burnt, the dough is still slightly soggy.)

Making pizza sauce is simple - I usually just mix 1-2 large chopped tomato (or a tin of chopped tomatoes), 2-4tbsp tomato puree, crushed garlic and herbs and slop onto the pizza. But of course you can use ready mixed pizza sauce, or try your own recipe.

Then, it's topping time! For this particular pizza I used cheddar cheese, mozzarella cheese, peppers, mushrooms, and some yummy chorizo sausage - but of course you can put anything you like on there!

Place into an oven pre-heted to 180C for about 15-20 minutes. Take out and slice!

Chocolate Cake with Fudge-esque icing!

This strange cake is also taken from "Sam Stern's Student Cookbook", like the cloud cake. What is so weird about this cake, is that instead of eggs, it uses mayonnaise. Honestly. But don't fret - as promised in the cookbook you wont taste the mayo at all! The icing is AMAZING, it is quite honestly the yummiest chocolate based icing I have ever tried. I have a feeling I will be using it more often!

Ingredients;
-275g white self raising flour
-1 1/2 tbsp baking powder
-225g sugar
-200g Mayonnaise
-225ml boiling water
-4 tbsp cocoa powder
-1 tsp vanilla extract

For the icing;
-275g Icing sugar
-25g cocoa powder
-110g butter
-3-4 tbsp water

Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease a 8inch (20.5cm) cake tin.
Sift the flour, baking powder and sugar into a bowl. Beat in the mayonnaise - don't worry that it's lumpy, it's supposed to be that way!
In a separate bowl, pour boiling water over the cocoa and vanilla extract. Stir, and then pour into the main mix. Beat until soft and creamy.
Tip all this into the cake tin, and bake for 40 minutes.

I was stupid and kept opening the door, so it didn't rise as much as it should have (although looking back I may also have used the wrong flour...although I'm not 100% sure!)
In the oven...mmmmm



After ten minutes of cooling time, tip the cake out of the tin, and leave to cool.

Whilst it's cooling, make the icing! Sift the sugar and cocoa. In a pot, gently melt the butter and water without boiling. Add this to the sugar gradually - you may not need all of it. The mixture should be smooth, and not too runny. Pour this over the cake, and decorate!

Perfect Stuffed Peppers

Stuffed peppers are nice and easy to make - and even better, you can stuff them whatever you want!




Ingredients;

-4 large peppers
-Dash of olive oil
-a few cloves of garlic
(For the fillings, you can put almost anything you like - but here is what I used)
-Salt and pepper
-50g feta cheese, crumbled
-1 Tomato
-A handful of Mushrooms
-About 1/2-3/4 a cup of rice.

Slice each pepper in half lengthways and scoop out the seeds and core. Its handy to wash the inside peppers to get rid of any stubborn seeds. Crush some of the garlic, and rub it around the insides of the pepper. Roll the outsides in olive oil.

Oil a dish and lay the peppers inside it. Now to make the toppings!

Cook the rice in a pot, adding salt, pepper, and any other spices as it simmers. In a separate pan, gently fry the remaining garlic along with the mushrooms. After a couple of minutes, transfer the mushrooms and garlic to the same pot as the rice. Mix. Chop the tomato into tiny chunks and add this to the rice as well.

Spoon the rice mixture into the peppers, topping with the crumbled feta cheese.

Cover the dish with foil, and bake for twenty minutes at 200C. Remove the foil, and cook for a further ten minutes.

Macaroni Cheese!

Where would a student be without macaroni cheese?!

It's an easy recipe to modify too, so if you're feeling adventurous, try adding different types of cheese!

Ingredients;
-about 225g macaroni
-50g butter
-50g flour
-600ml milk
-200g grated cheese (plus extra for topping)
salt & pepper
a dash of cayenne pepper (optional)


First, cook the macaroni as you would any other pasta - in a nice big pot of boiling water. Cook until its soft, and drain. This should take about 15 minutes.
Whilst you're doing this, melt the butter in a pot, and add the flour. Mix this to form a paste ball (apparently this is called 'roux'). It's important not to let this burn. Stir for 2 minutes and then remove from the heat. Slowly beat in the milk, making a smooth sauce, being careful not to make it lumpy. Return to the heat and cook gently until the sauce begins to thicken.

Simmer the sauce gently and add the 200g of cheese. I always think it would be interesting to try adding a different type of cheese here, maybe Gorgonzola, or mascapone. Last time I made this dish, I used half cheddar cheese, half creme fraiche, which made for an especially creamy macaroni. Add the salt and pepper, and if you're using cayenne (which I think is gorgeous with cheesey dishes) add that too.

Stir the sauce into the pasta and pour into a ovenproof dish. Top with grated cheddar cheese, or if your feeling adventurous, try mozzarella. Bake in an oven preheated to 200c for about 20 minutes (or until the cheese is as crispy as you like it.)

enjoy!

Chocolate Cloud cake

I made this cake for my flatmate's Birthday - a few things went wrong with it, but I'm sure practice makes perfect!

Recipe taken from "Sam Stern's Student Cookbook" (AKA my food bible!)

Ingredients;
- 110g/4oz soft butter
- 110g/4oz Caster Sugar
- 2 eggs
- 110g/4oz self-raising flour, sifted
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2 tbsp drinking chocolate powder
- 1 tbsp cocoa powder
- 2 tbsp milk
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

For the Icing
- 50g/2oz melted chocolate
- 110g/4oz soft butter
- 225g/8oz sifted icing sugar
- 2tbsp milk (if necessary!)

Before you start, it is very important to make sure you have the right sized cake tin - it really does make a HUGE difference to the outcome of the cake. This recipe wants a 7 inch (18cm) cake tin - I used an 8 inch tin, which made the cake flat and miserable :( If you really want to use a larger tin, adjust the recipe accordingly, however you will have to keep a careful eye on the cooking time, as this will be altered too.

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Line the base of 2 cake tins - although you can grease them, using baking parchment is a much, much better alternative. Your cake is less likely to stick as you can carefully peel the parchment away :)

Either beat all ingredients with an electric mixer, or, if you don't have one, first beat the butter and sugar for three minutes until light and creamy. Next, beat in the eggs gradually, and finally add the dry ingredients, the milk, and the vanilla essence.

Spoon the mixture into the cake tins, making sure the mixture is evenly spread. Bake for 20-25 minutes until springy. Do not burn yourself when taking the cakes out, like I did. WEAR OVEN GLOVES.

To make the icing; melt the chocolate (you can either do this in the microwave or on top of a pan of gently simmering water. It is important not to let any water or steam into the chocolate, as this will destroy it. I always prefer to use the microwave for this reason. I blast it at a medium setting for 30 seconds until nearly melted, then I let the last bits melt on their own. It's important to stir between blasts in the microwave, as chocolate keeps it's shape when melted!)

Beat the butter until creamy, and gradually add the icing sugar. Stir in the melted chocolate, and add milk if necessary. Use to sandwich the layers together and spread on top. Decorate with sweets and stuff! I used leftover melted choccie, some jazzies, and 'chalk' letters! I also dusted some plain icing sugar over the top.

Chicken Tikka Masala

A long time lover of curry, I decided to have a go at making my own! For best results leave the chicken to marinade overnight, but if you don't have time for that, then an hour should do fine.

Ingredients;

-One chicken breast per person. This recipe serves four, so I will use 4 free range chicken breasts :)

For the marinade;
- 1 tsp cumin
- 3-4 cloves of garlic, chopped
- 4cm root ginger
- 200ml natural yogurt
- 1tsp chopped coriander leaves
- 1 red chilli
- 1 tbsp paprika
- 2 tbsp garam masala
- 1 tbsp mustard seeds (optional)

Finely chop the garlic and ginger, or blitz in a food processor. Chop the chilies and mix well. Heat oil in a pan and add the mustard seeds, followed by the garlic, ginger and chili mix. Add the paprika, cumin, garam masala, coriander and gently fry. Add the yougurt, mix, and add to chopped chicken pieces. Leave to marinade in the fridge.


For the Sauce;
- 2 tbsp tomato puree
- 115ml double cream
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1 red onion, finely chopped
- 3.5 cm ginger
- 1 tsp cumin
- 3 tsp coriander
- 1 tbsp garam masala
- Squeeze of lemon juice
- 1/2 a pint of chicken or vegetable stock
- Pinch of salt

Melt butter in a pan and when heated, gently fry the chopped onion. as before, blitz the ginger in a food processor or finely chop/grate. Add the cumin, coriander and ginger into the pan and cook for 15 minutes. Add the tomato Puree, 1/2 a pint of stock and bring to the boil. Salt to taste.
Fry the marinated chicken, and when fully cooked add to the sauce. Add cream and garam masala. Garnish with paprika and coriander leaf!

Serve with Basmati , and enjoy :) To make the rice extra tasty, add some cardamom pods whilst cooking. You can also add turmeric to the rice to make it yellow! If you like it spicy, why not try adding more chili, or even adding chili powder to the sauce? I added 1 tsp to the marinade for some extra spicy chicken, but you could add it to the sauce if you preferred!

Nutella cookies!

Hello there!

For my very first post, i'm going to show you how to make nutella cookies. I found the original recipie here.




I decided to modify it a little, because I enjoy experimenting, and also have a rather unfortunate dislike of nuts. Here is my edited recipe!

Nutella Cookies

1 1/3 cup plain flour
2 tbsp cocoa
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
7 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temp.
1 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup Nutella Chocolate Spread
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips (white chocolate is best if you want them to stand out! If you cant find chocolate chips, grating a bar of chocolate can give a similar effect)
1 tbsp Golden Syrup
1tsp milk (optional)

Preheat oven to 350F (180C)

Sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside dry ingredients.

Cream together butter and granulated sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in Nutella, golden syrup, and vanilla extract. Mix in egg, and add milk if you want.

Add flour mixture and mix until just incorporated. Add chocolate chips.

Drop blobs of dough 2 inches apart onto parchment lined baking sheets. Bake for about 11 minutes until the edges look set. Cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes then carefully remove to cooling racks.



all done! Now enjoy! I found that they tasted quite similar to Millies cookies; have I discovered their secret recipe? My flatmates loved these; they were fighting over who got the last one!