The fickleness of kids..

I caught up with two sets of friends I hadn’t seen in ages at the weekend. Both have children and I thought I’d make some cookies for them. Personal intials are always a winner, I decorated them with chocolate and sprinkles. Surprising to me, although one of the girls sucked the chocolate off all the ones in her batch refusing to eat the plain cookies, the little boy in the other family wouldn’t eat the chocolate part. I can never tell with kids. Perhaps they are perfect partners if you subscribe to the opposites attract theory. It reminded me of a catering job I did a little while ago it was a christening, a handful of the diners were children. I thought I’d keep them happy while being a little healthier than normal by doing roasted baby potatoes to accompany their meal. They weren’t buying it, ” these chips are horrible ” I think the quote went. Another of my great ideas thwarted. I’ll stick to chips in future!

Here is the recipe for the cookies:

175g soft butter

200g caster sugar

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

400g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

Pre-heat oven to 180c

Cream the butter and sugar together until pale, and moussy, then beat in eggs and vanilla. Combine the dry ingredients, add to the butter mixture, mix gently until it comes together, try not to overmix. Let rest in the fridge for 30 minutes. Roll out to 1/2cm thick. Cut as desired. Bake for 8-12 minutes until golden, cool on a rack.

Decorate with coloured glace icing or what I did was melt some chocolate and dip the ends of the cookies in that and then in whatever sprinkly bits you want. 100’s and 1000’s are good, silver balls, nuts whatever you like.

Macarons

I've been contemplating making some macarons for ages now, they are very a la mode. I tasted a divine Lauderee salted caramel creation and vowed to give them a go myself. Many months later I finally got around to it. I hunted down some recipes courtesy of the www, my favourite included some powdered egg white, my search for this was fruitless and was taking up far too much time so I opted to change recipes and see how I'd get on. You can see photo's of my chocolate, and salted caramel attempt.
They look ok, not quite the shiny smooth finish I was hoping for, and they taste quite nice but what I loved about the lauderee one was it's intial crunch and then it's soft chewy centre, mine was all crunch so it's back to the drawing board with it. The salted caramel was wonderful though, and very easy. I'll post the recipe. Once I perfect the macarons I'll post that recipe too but work is needed before that happens.

Salted Caramel:
200g caster sugar
1 vanilla pod
200g cream
4g maldon sea salt
140g butter, chilled and cubed
Cook the sugar in a heavy bottomed pot, stirring all the time until you get an even caramel. Meanwhile bring the cream up to boiling point. Add the seeds from the vanilla pod to the caramel. Add the cream bit by bit as it will bubble up. Then add the salt. Stir to make sure the caramel is all dissolved. Cool the mixture to approximately 50 c. Blend the butter in gradually with a stick blender, until you get a smooth glossy paste. Cool, then store in the fridge until you need it. Spread on macarons to sandwich two together.

I think this has potential for many uses, it is really delicious. It should store in the fridge fine for a week or two, if it lasts that long of course!

The Winding Stair

This is my first restaurant review and I'm sorry it's a bad one. It was a special occasion last Sunday and I jumped at the chance to go to one of my favourite spots in Dublin, The Winding stair. Previously I have been very impressed with this establishment, I've liked the food the ambience and the service. To give it it's due credit the ambience and the service were good, it was the food that let everything down. We had a hot buttered crab starter to share. There was an overabundance of onion in the crab, to the extent that you could taste nothing else. A sizeable piece of shell, so big my neighbours thought I'd broken a tooth, was left in the crab. It put me off a bit but I understand it can happen. Next my main, lamb with minted peas and cheesy gratin. It looked lovely, it was cooked well, unfortunately the lamb tasted of nothing, I mean it there was no taste, the texture didn't help it was chewy and then papery, I was left with potatoes and peas to eat. I felt like I had a junior dinner, trying to eat peas with a fork. The other main was a steak and chips, it was fine except the steak was served w a garlic butter, there was so much of this the chips were sitting in a lake of melted butter, I challenge anyone who thinks this is a good idea. French paradox or not. My sense of occasion made me want to linger a little but we just weren't feeling it. I won't be in a rush back...

mmm Cakes.

This blog seems to be bringing the cake out in me....
These were some lovely chocolate, almond & amaretto tarts.
I'd been eyeing up the recipe in Allegra Mc Eveedy's book for ages, I made them and some portugese custard tarts, much to my surprise the custard tarts won the favourite prize though it was pretty unanimous that these ones were delicious too, just not quite as delicious. I'll root out the recipe for the portugese tarts and post it soon....

Edible birthday gifts...

I've been working on some edible birthday present ideas.
I'm pretty happy with my results, I made mini cupcakes, filled them with lemon curd and topped them with proper vanilla buttercream made by beating egg whites in a bain-marie until cooked and then beating in butter. The result was worth the effort. I loved doing the lettering but I'm going to keep quiet on how I did it......

Cookies.

I’ve been having a bit of fun playing around with some recipes for homemade versions of some classic “ shop bought “ biscuits. My favourites were the custard creams, the inclusion of custard powder lending the biscuits a lovely crispness. Although I do object to using hard vegetable fat, I’m going to try them with all butter.Unfortunately I have no photos of these but I think the jammie dodgers look great as do the iced gems. The high percentage of coloured royal icing of the latter isn’t so good to eat, though maybe age plays a part in my preference..

CUSTARD CREAMS.
175g plain flour
3 tblsp custard powder
1 tsp baking powder
60g unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
60g cookeen, cut into small cubes
3 tblsp icing sugar
1 lrge egg
1 tblsp milk
Pre-heat the oven to 190c.
Sieve the flour, custard powder and baking powder into a bowl, rub in the fats until it has the consistency of sand. ( I do this in a food processor ). Add the sugar and mix. In another bowl beat the egg and milk, pour this onto the flour, and mix well and form into a ball. Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for 30 mins. Roll out the dough to 3mm thick. Cut the dough into strips 3 cm and then across 4 cm to give rectangles. Bake for 15 mins. Leave to cool.
FILLING.
50g unsalted butter softened
1 tblsp custard powder
100g icing sugar
few drops hot water
Cream butter, sugar and custard powder together until light and fluffy. If the mixture seems stiff add water.
Sandwich 2 biscuits together.

NY.

Another trip, I'm doing well at the moment, this time I had a few days in New York. This was my second trip there and this time I enjoyed it even more than my first. I had done a little research this time around and was rewarded by eating some fabulous meals. I feel truly inspired. There is a style and panache to the food scene over there that seems truly effortless that I love. I find it hard to describe, It’s part shabby chic part utilitarian, but it is a self-conscious style. It’s all about the details and I suppose that’s why it rocks my boat being an anal details person myself. I’ve taken a snap of the menu in one of my favourites, Marlow & Sons in Brooklyn and then a lucky fortune fish that each guest receives in The Mermaid Café in the East Village. The food combinations were simple but quite new to me for example I had lamb 3 ways, a chop, some braised shoulder and some merguez sausage so far not too wild but it was served with a lovely creamed polenta that just brought it all together in a lovely smooth silky way. Another I loved was skate with black butter and capers, also nothing new there but it then it was served with a roasted cauliflower puree which had the most lovely deep nutty flavour and colour. Divine.
Asides from eating we did take in a few NY sights. I made it to the Guggenheim, a building I’ve been inspired by for quite some time. The Art was good but the building for me was by far the star. The lines of the architecture with the smoothness of the finish and unusually shaped rooms are such a delight. Another favourite venue was the High Line. This is an elevated park, it’s a converted disused railway line. They are still extending the conversion so it has a bit of the feel of Gaudi’s sagrada famillia. The style of the park is very zen, lots of wild but not really wild grasses and plants, it has concrete walkways the slabs in shapes evoking the old railway lines, lots of clever benches and sun recliners. I recommend to anyone to go and have a look. It’s there or thereabouts W 14th street accessible by lift or steps from most of the cross streets. A few days is not even scratching the surface of the city. I do feel the familiar desire to spend longer possibly working for a time there but that is something I have done regularly in my past and now I think I’m happier here in my settledness as long as I can keep having forays into the distance. I imagine I’ll keep going back to visit for a long time yet. I don’t usually revisit places too often but this is different.