Random Recipes - Apple Snow with Yogurt and Oatmeal

I was determined to participate in random recipes this month hosted as ever by Dom from Belleau Kitchen. As an avid magazine subscriber I have piles and piles of them, and couldn't even begin to think about picking a recipe. But then I remembered my blue folder.... In days gone by when I was more organised (and had fewer magazines) I'd eventually get round to cutting out the recipes I fancied (and some that I didn't) and sticking them onto A4 paper, held in the aforementioned blue file.

However, I had a habit of cutting out not only the recipe I really fancied, but the ones I thought I might fancy at some point in the future (when I had lots of money/access to super-fresh seafood/a hugely carnivorous OH/a family of eight to feed) so there are many recipes in there which  I actually don't fancy at all! In addition, if there was a feature in a magazine on, for example, the food of Sicily, I'd clip the whole lot out, to avoid having to either decide what to take out or because I was feeling lazy with the scissors and glue!

So it was with some trepidation that I opened this file (nothing has been added to it for about five years...) and was very pleasantly surprised to find that I would be making apple snow with yogurt and oatmeal, which is a Nigel Slater recipe from the Sainsbury's Magazine in the early 2000's. Not only did it appeal to me, it was simple to make and in season too! Nigel suggests serving this as a dessert, and mentions how pleased he is to find a dessert without added sugar. I agree, but would also suggest this as a lovely refreshing breakfast.

With only three ingredients I thought it only fair to stick to the recipe as closely as possible.

Apple Snow with Yogurt and Oatmeal
You will need 2 medium apples per person, 60g thick sheep's milk yogurt and 1 tbsp of medium oatmeal.

Score lightly around the centre of the apples and roast in an oven set to gas 6/200C for around 35-40 minutes depending on size of apples and their variety. The scoring stops the apple exploding! When they have a fluffy midriff and are soft, remove from the oven, and when cool enough to handle, scrape out all of the flesh, mash with a fork and leave to cool. Chill thoroughly in the fridge.

Meanwhile, toast the oatmeal until it starts to colour and smell nutty and toasty. Using little glasses, Nigel suggests Moroccan tea glasses, spoon in the apple fluff and then top with the yogurt. Sprinkle over the oatmeal and eat straightaway - the suggestions are either to take a little of each layer, or to mix into an apple-yogurt fool.

I used coxes apples for this and the beautiful pink blush on the skins transfered to the flesh during the baking, giving my apple snow a rosy glow. I haven't had sheep's milk yogurt for years, but it was fresh and tasty and the combination of sweet apple, refreshing yogurt and toasty oatmeal was a definite winner for me. Sorry you've had to wait until the very last minute for my submission to your event Dom, but I'm glad I made it!

Double chocolate blueberry cookies

Sorry about the lack of activity round here. I've got lots and lots to post but have been unexpectedly without internet access for the past few days - I was staying in a hotel that I'd expected to have wi-fi and had been planning to catch up on some posting, but there was no wi-fi, so obviously no posting! Never mind, I'll try and make up for it now. Starting with 101 uses of a tin of condensed milk. Well, perhaps not quite. When I made these caramel muffins I not only found Carnation Caramel, but tins of condensed milk too, my cupboards truly are a voyage of discovery sometimes!

A recipe in the current issue of the Sainsbury's magazine (June 2011) had caught my eye, and required 2 tbsp of condensed milk. Obviously it's not ideal to open a can for just 2tbsp (unless you want to risk eating the rest just as it is....) so this post is the first of a mini series using condensed milk. Onto the recipe...

Double chocolate cookies
Ingredients
125g butter, softened
125g caster sugar
2 tbsp condensed milk
125g self raising flour, sifted
50g cocoa powder, sifted *
100g plain/white chocolate, cut into chunks or 50g each dark chocolate and dried blueberries

* I think I used slightly less cocoa, because 50g is an awful lot, and then just added a little more flour to substitute. I think I used about 30g cocoa powder.

Method
- Preheat the oven to 150C/gas 2. Line a couple of baking trays with parchment paper.
- Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy.
- Beat in the condensed milk and then add the flour and cocoa and mix. Stir in the chocolate and blueberries.
- Roll into 12 walnut sized pieces (I got about 25) spacing well apart on the baking tray. Flatten slightly then bake for about 25 minutes** (I did 20 and they were overdone) until firm at the edges but soft in the middle.
- Leave to cool for a few minutes before transfering to a wire rack to cool completely.

**Gas 2 seemed very cool, so I used gas 3 and baked for 20 minutes. I forgot that because the recipe was only supposed to make 12, so mine were effectively half the size, that they'd need less time anyway. They weren't burnt, but they were definitely overdone - lovely cookies, but too crispy. 

Originally from Sainsbury's magazine, June 2011.

These were nice cookies, but as I say, I definitely overcooked them, and they deserve another chance. I do like the combo of dried blueberries and chocolate. I used quite big chunks of chocolate rather than choc chips, and it was nice to hit a big lump of chocolate; I bet they'd be great warm, or dipped in coffee! They aren't as good as the world peace cookies though! Other flavour variations suggested in the recipe are: White chocolate and cranberry, Zingy ginger and lemon, Maple syrup pecan, Oats and honey, Cherry and flaked almond and Toffee fudge chunk. I quite fancy trying them with maple syrup and cranberry, in a combination of the flavours they suggest!

Blueberry orange yogurt scones

Inspired by Johanna's recent post about her scones, and by Choclette's recent chocolate chip scones, I decided it was long overdue for me to make some more of these delicious treats. I particularly enjoy scones because they're so good for snacks and seem a good way to have a sweet treat without too much fat or sugar.

I had a large pot of yogurt in the fridge that really needed to be used up and recalled that a few months ago Sainsbury's magazine had a feature written by Dan Lepard for scones. There's a basic recipe and then various sweet and savoury variations; blueberry clementine, triple-chocolate pecan, double ginger and apple, almond cherry and then savoury red chilli and tomato, onion, herb and bacon. I can't say the savoury ones are anything I'd usually want to try but the tomato based ones look really good! So, taking inspiration from the blueberry clementine recipe, I decided to make blueberry orange flavoured scones.

I've adapted the recipe a bit to suit what I had available (who has 25ml of double cream hanging round? and what do I do with the rest of the pot once it's open? that ingredient went pretty quickly!). The original recipes can be found in the November 2010 issue of the Sainsbury's magazine.

Blueberry and orange yogurt scones

Ingredients

175g wholemilk yogurt

75g caster sugar

400g plain flour

2 tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

50g cold diced butter

zest of 1 large orange plus 50ml juice (but see below)

100g dried sweetened blueberries

Method

- Preheat the oven to gas 6 1/2/210C. Put a piece of baking parchment on a tray.

- Stir the sugar into the yogurt and leave for a few minutes to dissolve.

- Sift (and I actually did - normally too lazy) the flour, bicarb and cream of tartar into a large bowl.

- Rub in the butter, then add the dried blueberries and stir to mix.

- Zest the orange into the yogurt mixture and add the juice to this.

- Mix the wet ingredients into the dry and bring together to form a dough. At this point I thought it looked a little dry, but persevered, turning the dough out and trying to form it, but ended up putting it back in the bowl to add some more liquid. I think it needs about 2tbsp more liquid than stated in the ingredients above.

- Pat out to about an inch and a half thick and cut out scones in the size you choose. I used a small cutter (2 inch) and got 19 normal scones and a massive offcut scone!

- Moisten the tops a little (I used water here) and sprinkle with demerara sugar.

- Bake for about 12-15 minutes until lightly golden brown.

- Allow to cool on a wire rack, or eat warm if you really can't wait!

This recipe differs quite a bit to my usual recipe. I usually use self raising flour rather than plain plus raising agents and more butter but less sugar. They were reasonably successful but I didn't think they were quite as light as my usual ones. However, this could be due to me overworking the dough with it being initially too dry and having to add more liquid. The flavours were great though - dried blueberries are delicious, it's just a pity they're so expensive usually, and the orange flavour made them interesting enough to eat without butter, although served slightly warmed and with butter would be my favourite way to eat these. I ought to give the recipe another go, perhaps the apple and ginger variation - two of my favourite ingredients!

Blackcurrant and apple creme fraiche cupcakes - an apology and a thank you!

Naked!

The apology and the thank you are, oddly enough, to the same person. No surprises that it's Dan Lepard, who originally published this recipe in the Sainsburys Magazine in the February edition this year. I've already blogged about it here, but really didn't do justice to this lovely cake. So with a tub of creme fraiche (it was a full fat, French DOC Isigny Ste Mere type, I'm not sure how other types would work) in the fridge about to expire I decided to substitute this for the specified clotted cream. I also chopped up the apple more finely, and because I found the mixture quite stiff, added a fair amount of milk to slacken it (a good few tbsp). I made the cakes in muffin rather than bun tins, which meant that I could add a blob of jam, blackcurrant this time, (which I left alone, not adding any water as last time) and it stayed put with more cake mixture on the top. I used the new season Discovery apples, but only used two rather than three and this time just added extra flour rather than semolina in place of the specified ground almonds. So the apology is for playing fast and loose with Dan's original recipe, but on the other hand it's not as if I'm complaining that the recipe didn't work, after not following it and making my own adaptations!

I had some fantastic feedback about these buns - one person said they were 'messy to eat, but absolutely amazing' and a couple of people said they were the best thing I've brought into work yet. I was really pleased that the jam stayed put in a blob, and the soft gooey cake around the jam blob was really delicious. The cake has a close moist texture and the apple had sort of almost dried out during the baking, becoming slightly chewy in the final cake, which was a great contrast to the soft cake and gooey jam and icing. The icing doesn't set at all, remaining sticky without any kind of crust or hardening, which is great, but really, really messy to eat! I tried to get a photo of the inside of the cakes but it was too dark when I was eating them to be successful.



I'm glad I tried the creme fraiche as a substitute for clotted cream though, because it's more readily available for me, and more affordable too, and that'll encourage me to make them again, which is good because they were really, really good, and I definitely want to make these again. I'm wondering if other combinations of fruit and jam would work - chopped pear and cranberry jam or jelly perhaps for autumn? Or apricots and raspberry jam in the summer? So many possible combinations!

Apple, blackcurrant and clotted cream cupcakes

Presenting to you the reason that I bought the tub of clotted cream in the first place, which led to me having half a tub of clotted cream left to use in this shortcake. So was it worth buying the clotted cream - oh yes! I discovered two good recipes so a definite bonus. This recipe is from the Sainsbury's Magazine (excellent value for money, as I'm sure I've said before) and generally full of interesting things to read, and really good columnists, both foodie and otherwise (and no, I am in no way connected to/employed by/recieving anything from Sainsbury's for saying this, but if they want to offer.....) so if you can get hold of a copy do! The recipe came from a feature on afternoon tea which caught my eye when first flicking through the magazine and then when I looked more closely it turned out that the recipes were by Dan Lepard, which only served to make me keener to try them - I know that his recipes work well. Other than the clotted cream, I had everything to hand. I made a few small changes to the recipe, which I'll outline below.

I made these for a 90th birthday party I went to where the recipients (of varying ages!!!) were of conservative taste. Another party go-er made banana toffee meringue pie, which looked delicious, but which was repeatedly greeted with 'oh, I only like lemon' and a disappointed look before walking off. Needless to say, anything that didn't look conventional or perfect didn't go very well, and I'm very sad to report that these cupcakes suffered this fate. I blame myself. The recipe clearly specifies two bun tins, and I possess only one muffin tin. Hmm. Even though I used two paper liners and squashed the cases into a relatively tight space, it just wasn't happening. Hence the rather erm.... 'rustic' appearance of the cakes. However, as I'm sure you know appearance is not everything, and what these lacked on the looks front, they more than made up for on the taste front. In a way, I feel sorry for the people who didn't try them when they had a chance, they really missed out!

Mmm, square cupcakes - special!!!

Anyway, fewer excuses for appearance, more recipe for cake....

This recipe was first published in the February 2010 issue of Sainsbury's Magazine, and is reproduced by kind permission from the editorial team there, and by Dan Lepard, whose website (currently undergoing an exciting makeover) can be found here, along with the forums where you'll be able to find many more excellent recipes, worthy of your time and effort along with invaluable advice from fellow bakers. Go there, go now and you won't regret it. Well, actually, stay long enough to read the recipe here first and tell me what you think, then go!!!

Apple and blackcurrant clotted cream cupcakes
Ingredients
3 dessert apples, peeled and cored
2 tsp mixed spice (I omitted this)
50g unsalted butter, softened
113g tub Taste the difference clotted cream (or half of a 227g tub, which appeared to be the only size they sold in my local store)
150g caster sugar
1/2 tsp almond extract (I omitted due to allergies)
2 large eggs
75g ground almonds (I substituted with semolina due to allergies)
225g plain flour
2tsp baking powder
100g high quality blackcurrant conserve (Taste the difference is specified, I used Bonne Maman)
For the icing
150g icing sugar, sifted
75g blackcurrant conserve, as above

You will also need 2 cupcake trays lined with 20 cupcake cases (you really do need these.....and I made around 25 cupcakes)

1. Preheat the oven to 190C/Gas 5. Chop the apples into rough small dice (I was doing this by hand and mine were probably about 1cm square, which I think with hindsight is too big. They need to be really quite small). Toss with the mixed spice until covered.
2. In a bowl, beat together the butter, clotted cream, sugar and almond extract (if using!) until smooth, then fold in the ground almonds (or semolina). Sift the flour and baking powder into the bowl and fold this through, too. Add the apples and fold very gently until just combined. I found the mixture very stiff and difficult to fold the apples into. Gentle didn't come into it!
3. Half fill the cupcake cases with the mixture. Dilute the conserve with 25ml of boiling water, beat well, then spoon a little into each cupcake. Top each one with a teaspoonful of cake mixture. I have to confess that due to the combined problems of stiff batter with large lumps of apple in it, this was really difficult - I ended up with some cases full of essentially apple and little batter, others all batter, little apple. I also found that the let down jam ran out and everywhere, next time I won't let it down. It was difficult to properly cover the jam because it had run out and because of the lumpy sticky batter, so eventually I gave up, and marbled the rest of the jam through the remaining batter, which was much easier. I will try again the proper way I think.
4. Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden; leave for 5 minutes then loosen each cake with a knife and move to a wire rack to cool.
5. For the icing, beat the icing sugar with the conserve and a little water until creamy. Spoon on to the cupckes and leave to set.

The accompanying photo in the magazine looks much better than my efforts, although my top photo is ok. Next time I would chop the apple smaller, and perhaps let the batter down with a little milk to make it easier to work with. I also wouldn't dilute the jam. But I would make them again, the flavours were lovely and the blackcurrant and apple together were really nice. It was also a good way to use up some dessert apples I had lurking, and it's always nice to use things up!

Like I said, I had a few escapees. I like to think of this cupcake as the elephant man of the batch. Still delicious though and all were eaten with relish by colleagues who didn't have a choice of other items and I think know that most things I bake are edible if not really quite yummy!!!

Peanut and cranberry oat bars

I'm sort of at a loss as to how to describe these. I want to call them flapjack because they are a baked bar containing oats and no flour, but to me, flapjack is full of syrup and butter and these bars contain neither, so I'll stick to the name in the title, which is descriptive if a little clumsy. The recipe comes from the Sainsbury's Magazine, which I buy each month and think is great value (£1.40 compared to around £3.40 for most of the other monthly food magazines you can get - Olive, BBC Good Food etc). However, I enjoy buying and reading the magazine, but rarely get round to making anything from it (although this applies to most of the magazines I buy - am I the only one who is guilty of this? I suspect not.....) and so for me to make these within a few months of seeing the recipe, even within the same season, is something of a surprise! In fact, I have made them twice, with slight differences.

The feature they come from is all about 'The fats that help your health' and is explaining about mono-unsaturated fatty acids being beneficial for health so the recipes are low in saturated fats and high in mono-unsaturates - plenty of nuts, seeds and avocados. Fear not, this recipe does not contain avocado! It does contain nuts though, and the original version also contained seeds, but I left these out as I'm not really wild about them. Peanuts are one of the few nuts I am not allergic to (I have been eating them all my life, and am very lucky, because peanut allergy can be extremely severe and peanuts/peanut oil are used in a lot of commercial goods) and are not actually a true nut, growing below the ground as explained in the article linked above.

I actually decided to make this recipe (on both occasions) to help with an overabundance of low fat yogurt in my fridge as the recipe calls for low fat yogurt to provide the moistness. (If the picture above looks dry, this is my poor cutting skills - it is really, really moist!) As with flapjack, the recipe is a doddle to put together and can be done at the last moment. Great for lunchboxes (unless your child's school has banned peanuts!) or as a healthy breaktime snack for the grown ups too.

Peanut and cranberry oat bars

Ingredients

75g crunchy peanut butter

100g caster sugar

6tbsp agave nectar or honey (I used honey the first time, and golden syrup the next....)

225g virtually fat free yogurt

100g dried cranberries (I didn't have enough the first time so used half and half cranberries and raisins)

275g porridge oats (the recipe specifies 225g but I found this made a very wet mixture)

Method

- Grease and line an 8"/20cm square cake tin with baking parchment

- Preheat the oven to 190C/Gas 5.

- In a pan, gently heat the peanut butter, sugar and honey until melted. Then stir in the yogurt and dried fruit and then the oats.

- Tip into the prepared tin and smooth the mixture into the corners with the back of a spoon.

- Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown. Mine took longer to become the colour you see in the pictures, probably nearer 45 minutes, but because the mixture is so moist there doesn't seem to be any detrimental effect.

- Using a small sharp knife mark into rectangles (8-10) and then leave to cool completely in the tin.

- When cold turn out and cut into bars.

Recipe note: The original recipe says: 'The bars will keep for several days in an airtight container. They freeze well too."

In its second incarnation this recipe contains all dried cranberries instead of mixed with raisins, golden syrup instead of honey, and butter instead of peanut butter. Just as moist as the version above, but almost certainly significantly less healthy. Guess which version I preferred. Sigh. Oh well, it's still lower in fat than traditional flapjack, and is a good way of getting oats into your diet. (Yes, I grant you that porridge is still a better way, but these are more portable!)

Colleagues enjoyed both versions and the moistness of the bar was a welcome contrast to the chewy dried fruit and oats. I would make these again, but probably only to use up excess yogurt if I have it hanging around in the fridge.