Author: Notnick

Gingerbread

Ingredients

125g unsalted butter
100g dark muscovado sugar
4 tbsp golden syrup
325g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp ground ginger

Method

Preheat the oven to 170°C
Line baking trays with baking parchment. Melt the butter, sugar and syrup in a medium saucepan, stirring occasionally, then remove from the heat.

Sieve the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ginger into a bowl and stir the melted ingredients into the dry ingredients to make a stiff dough.

Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and roll to a thickness of about 5mm. Dip biscuit cutters into flour before cutting the dough, or cut around templates, which you can find at waitrose.com/christmas. Place the shapes onto the lined baking trays and bake, in batches, for 9-10 minutes until light golden brown.

While still warm, and using a skewer or chopstick, make any holes that you will need to hang up the biscuits with ribbon or to make a yuletide garland. If you are decorating your Christmas cake with gingerbread people, make the holes in their arms so that ribbon can be threaded through at a later stage.

When they’re cool, decorate with the icing.

Italian Beef Meatballs

500g Mince beef
3-4 slices smoked bacon, finely chopped or minced
1 slice of bread (soaked in water)
about 1cm x 1cm x 2cm chunk of parasan, grated
1/2 onion, grated
1 large clove of garlic, grated/minced
1/2 tsp celery salt
1 tblspn herbs – a mix of oregano, parsley, margarum

put it all in a bowl and mix with your hands. make sure everything is well mixed.
Once done, break into meatballs and either fry or roast. Add to a marinara or arabietta sauce and serve with pasta.

Raspberry & Vanilla Muffins

This is one of my favourite recipes, and is an adaption of a blueberry muffin recipe I found in an American cookbook. This is an American style muffin- it has less fat in than a UK style muffin/cake- and is a little more bready. These muffins are great when made fresh for breakfast. Let them cool first, because the raspberry juice leeches into the rest of the muffin as it cools. Mmmmm.

2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup cooking oil or melted butter
1 cup rasberries (fresh or frozen)
vanilla essence
demerara sugar to top

Really easy to make. Mix everything in a bowl except the demerara and raspberries. Once it’s all mixed, fold in the raspberries. If you’re using frozen, you can be a little rougher at this stage- you want the raspberries to stay mainly whole if possible.

Put the mixture into paper muffin cups, and fill nearly to the brim (when they rise up, the mix is nearly twice as high as the cup, and looks really impressive.)

Sprinkle demerara on the top of each, and cook in a hot oven- 200 degrees C for 15-20 minutes- until they’ve risen and browned.

Cornish Pasty

For 4 good sized Cornish Pasties

500g strong bread flour
120g lard
25g cake margarine
5 gms salt
175 gms cold water

Pastry
Mix fat lightly into flour until it resembles breadcrumbs.
Add water and mix until pastry clears and becomes elastic.

Leave to rest for 3 hours in a refrigerator

FILLING

450g good quality beef skirt
450g potatoes ( a firm waxy potato such as Maris piper.)
250g Swede
200g onion
Salt & pepper
butter

slice the filling finely then add to the rolled out circles of pastry raw. Layer the vegetables and meat adding plenty of seasoning. Put a knob of butter on top.

Cooking time – 165c for about 40 mins

Cinnamon Donut Muffins

1 3/4 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/3 cup oil
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup milk

Combine dry ingredients then add the wet ingredients, mix. Add to muffin tins and bake for 180°C for 20-25 minutes. take muffins out immediately and apply the topping.

Topping:
1/2 cup melted butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Dip muffins in the melted butter, and roll in the sugar and cinammon.

Victoria Sponge Cake Mix

4oz SR flour
4oz Sugar
4oz margarine, or butter (margarine actually creams better, butter tastes nicer)
2 Eggs (oddly weighing about 4oz)
1tsp baking powder

This is the most versatile mixture ever, and the simplest to remember (4oz of everything, or 2oz for a 1/2 batch). With this you can make:

Fairy cakes/cup cakes
Victoria Sandwich
Steamed puddings (in the microwave- cook for 2 minutes)

replace 1/2 oz flour with cocoa for a chocolate version
Add 1 oz dessicated coconut for a coconut version
Add fruit, nuts, ginger, coffee powder, vanilla etc for other flavours.

Sweet Popcorn

I can’t remember when I started making popcorn- under 10 though. (I was very young though.) The beauty of this recipe is that it all goes in one pan, but makes really good sweet crunchy popcorn. It doesn’t keep very long at all – hours- so make it hot when you need it, and don’t try to store it! It only takes a couple of minutes to make though!

1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup pop corn kernels
1/2 tsp salt

Put a large pan (with a lid) on the stove to heat. Add the oil, then all of the other ingredients. Shake briskly to mix it all up. Leave on the highest heat until you hear the first kernel pop.

Once you hear a pop, shake the pan hard every couple of minutes. The popping should get more frequent, then begin to drop off. One it all starts slowing, get ready to pour the popcorn into a big bowl. There’s a fine balance to this bit- leave it too long, and the toffee coating starts to burn and taste bitter. Don’t leave it long enough, and there are too many un-popped kernels in the popcorn.

Ginger Muffins

Again, this is an American style muffin that is less fatty and a little bready. I was trying to find a recipe a bit like Starbucks’ Skinny Ginger Muffins, and this isn’t too far off.

2 cups plain flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 cup sugar
2-4 tsp ginger powder (depending on how gingery you like it. I go for 4 for me, but 2 for the kids)
1/2 cup crystalised ginger
3 Tbsp golden syrup
100g melted butter
2 eggs
1 cup milk
Stem ginger pieces to add to the mix

Topping
1 cup Icing sugar, water (or ginger syrup) to mix

Combine the dry ingredients.

Melt the butter and warm the golden syrup in the microwave. Add the milk and eggs and mix. Add to the dry ingredients. Beat well. Combine mixtures and lightly mix.Add the ginger pieces.

Put into large muffin cases and cook for 15mins at 200c.

Once cooled a little, ice the top.