Custard Creams.

For my last birthday one of my gifts was a lovely little cookie recipe book, since then I have had great fun testing out the recipes. As you can imagine this goes down with very well with my sweet-toothed other half. Many of the recipes are home-made versions of shop bought classics. I love playing around with them, there is great satisfaction from home making custard creams and chocolate digestives! 

BiBi's.

I've been doing well on the eating out front recently. My "must visit" list has had two strikes.
I went for lunch to BiBi's, a very cute little cafe deep in Dublin 8. As far as I know it's run by two sisters, one half of the venture is a clothes shop the other this cafe. The food is lovely I had a thai-style butternut squash soup and shared a carrot cake for afters. The food was good but I think my favourite thing was  the crockery. It's beautiful hand thrown stoneware, even the water beakers are ceramic. I loved the style of the place, the cakes are displayed all higgle-de-pigglety on a counter top, the menu written up on a chalk board. The one thing I couldn't understand is the fact that the outside tables are very close to a line of wheelie bins. With such attention to other detail I found this amazing, I know I am anal about hygiene but in this case I would not be alone. I hope the bins find a new home soon.
Also on my radar was Murphy's Icecream parlour. I had the joy of having some of this icecream when I was down in Dingle a few years ago. They have come to Dublin, the shop is on Wicklow street. I cannot rate their ice cream highly enough. It was fantastic. I loved the flavours they have some really good unusual ones. Check out the burnt caramel, sea salt, brown bread and lots lots more. The staff are amazingly upbeat, offering samples of any of the flavours. I had to restrain myself consoling myself that I'll just have to have a return visit to sample more! 

Birthday Cake.

For my latest adventures in cake making I took on the challenge of creating a very special cake for a 40th birthday. I went through a few design ideas before coming up with my final plan. The problem with not having loads of experience is I have a idea in my head but it doesn't always come out the same when in food form. I had some glam ideas but then realised it might look too like a wedding cake if it was all white with sparkles. I hit on the idea of using macarons to bring some chi-chi glamour but with colour! I have to admit I was pretty pleased with the end result, and when it was lit up with sparklers it looked good. The celebration was in The Cobalt Cafe on North Great Georges St. I had never been there although I had heard of it as a venue for small gigs and art exhibitions. It is gorgeous, It has beautiful georgian rooms with high ceilings ornate plaster work and massive gilded mirrors. I will definately keep it on file for events in the future.

Sushi making lesson.

Every once and a while I give a sushi making lesson. It's a great lesson as it's actually pretty easy to make decent sushi. I'm not going to arm wrestle a sushi master on this fact but for some californian rolls and some nigiri sushi if you follow instructions and are a little bit nimble of hand you should have no problem. I love the clean tasting flavours of the vinegar and ginger and am a little addicted to the whack of wasabi. I still like to think of it as healthy food, there's a lot of raw ingredients in there. Some kill-joy I was listening to on the radio who will remain nameless was denigrading sushi's nutritional stars, claiming it was high in sugar, low in fibre and therefore not so good for you. I do empathise with those not tolerant to blood sugar fluctuations but I have to think it still has to be better than alot of things. 

Back to the lesson it was a very sociable affair with guests rolling their own dinner to differing degrees of sucess, but that's the beauty of it it all tastes delicious. 

There's a photo of some maki rolls.

Beans and Doughnuts!

Sometimes my job is so very glamorous. I was working on a TV commercial for Batchelors beans for the last few days. I was assisting the food stylist. A large part of my job was sifting through piles of baked beans looking for perfect " hero " beans. I kid you not. The end result looks great, I got a round of applause as much out of sympathy for diligent bean sorting as much as anything. I'll look forward to seeing my little charges on TV sometime in the future.
I've had my eye on Mr Olivers doughnut recipe in his " Cook with Jamie, Cook Book." I made  them last week and found them a little lacking in oomph. It got me remembering doughnuts my sister used to make back when we were small. I remember them being so delicious that we couldn't eat them fast enough, almost burning mouths in the rush. I must give credit to my mother who although had no memory of the delicacies herself sought out the recipe in a ancient copybook. I'm glad to report they were as delicious as I remembered and are also dead easy. I did take Jamie up on his idea to serve the doughnuts with a fruit compote to dip into to. I made a rhubarb one and mmm it was good.


MAIRE'S DOUGHNUTS.
8oz SR flour
1/2 tsp mixed spice
1/2 tsp salt
1oz butter
2oz golden syrup
5fl oz milk
1 egg

Maire's

Jamie's

Sift the dry ingredients together. Rub in the butter. Mix the liquid ingredients together, reserving some of he milk back. Mix the wet into the dry, do not overmix, until you have a soft pliable, rollable dough, add more milk if necessary. Roll the dough out on a floured board till it's 1/4 " thick, punch out rings with cookie dough. Fry in hot oil  c. Flip over half way through cooking, fry until golden brown. Drain on kitchen paper and dust in caster sugar which you have added some spice to. Serve with fruit compote. Enjoy.

Sardinia.

Back from Sardinia.

I'd thoroughly recommend it as a place to go for a week's holiday. We flew direct to Alghero with Mr Ryanair hired a car and motored around.

We spent a few days at the beginning of the week on the west coast around Alghero and at the end further south in Bosa. In between we stayed in a magical hotel inland near Oliena nestled in the Supremonte mountain range. 

We ate, drank and were merry, well, happy for our entire time with a little bit of merriness thrown in for good measure. 

The Hotel Su Gologne, had the most amazing traditional Sardinian food. It was a little like stepping back in time. The meat was cooked on an open fire, and what meat we had suckling pig as tender and juicy as I have ever tasted, boar, rabbit we didn't quite get around to the goat but had we stayed another day no question it was on our hit list. The care and skill required to roast the meat so perfectly was wonderful to watch. That was the other thing the dining room was adjacent to the fire so for curious folk like myself could watch the cook in action. Chef table how are you? We were only meant to stay 2 nights but decided to extend our stay as it was quite stunning. 

The hotel rooms are scattered over a large grounds which we set about exploring, there was a very ancient crazy golf set up, a veggie garden, cocktail bar that only opened for pre-dinner drinks and at that only on one night we were there, we didn't quite get the logic but were happy we caught it as the strawberry daiquiri was pretty delicious. Oh and not forgetting the tennis court. Due to translation issues we thought it was table tennis and on asking for the bats were pretty surprised at what they came back with after a bit of a rummage. We gave it a go and with much laughing did not find we had hidden talents in the tennis department.

I found the turquoise colour of the sea enthralling I did think they touched up photos of the med and yet here it was all turquoisey. I enjoyed many swims, a snorkel would be a good addition to your kit as there was loads to see underwater. There are alot of diving companys in the area which would be worth investigating if diving is your thing. 

I think we'll be back, there's all the central and south of the island we have yet to explore. It was a really relaxing time mainly because everything was pretty easy, getting around was easy, accomodation was lovely, the people are very approachable and easy going and the flight was only 2 + 1/2 hours.

The jumbled buildings of Bosa

The oven in Su Gologne!

Hydrangeas in Castlesardo

Round 2 Macaron.

I've had another go at some Macarons. These were much more successful. You make an Italian meringue in this recipe, which basically means instead of just whisking the sugar into egg whites a la normal meringue, you whisk hot sugar syrup which slightly cooks the meringue. The end result gives you that nice chewiness that is integral to a macaron/macaroon. I am going to make these once more experimenting with some flavours and try to make them a little neater. I wish you could have a taste o vision.