Author: Notnick

Apple and Cinnamon Swirl Cake

Oven – 160C (FAN). Line an 8″ square tim.

First off the apple –
2 apples – peeled and diced (1cm ish)
45g white sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
– add apple to the sugar and cinnamon and mix – leave it on one side till you’re ready to pop it the cake batter.

The cinnamon swirl –
150g light brown sugar
2 tablespoons(!) of Cinnamon
120g melted butter
– Mix together, ready to dollop and swirl into the cake.

The cake batter-
300g plain flour
200g sugar
4 tsp baking powder
200g Milk
1tsp Vanilla
2 large eggs
110g melted butter
– Mix the batter ingedients together

The glaze –
200g icing sugar
40ml milk

Add the apple mix to the cake batter.
Add this to the lined cake tin, then dollop the cinnamon swirl mix into the batter, and swirl once with a back of a spoon.

Bake for 45 minutes at 160˚c
whilst still warm, glaze the cake, and let cool.

Olivia’s Baked Lemon & Raspberry Cheesecake

Ingredients:

Biscuit Base
300g digestives (crushed/blitzed)
100g butter

Cheesecakey bit
600g cream cheese (full fat – lets not mess around eh)
30g plain flour
200g sugar (white,Caster if you have it)
2 lemons (zested and juiced)
3 Eggs
175g creme fraiche
250g frozen raspberries

raspberries, dried raspberries, coulis

preheat oven to 220ºc (200ºc fan) – make the biscuit base to a 20cm round springform cake pan.

Add the cheesecakey ingredients (except raspberries) to a mixer bowl and mix till smooth, then add the raspberries. Add to the cake tin on top of the biscuit base.

Bake for 10 mins at 200ºc then reduce the temp to 110ºc/90ºc and bake for a further 25-30 minutes. Then turn off the oven and leave the cheesecake to cool in the oven, with the door ajar for 2 hrs.

Once cool, wrap in foil (still in its tin) and refridgerate overnight. Next day remove from the tin and deccorate. (raspberries, dried raspberries, coulis)

Oatcakes (a journey)

Oatcakes – the bread of Scotland, or at least they were once. Ther range of oatcakes available in the shops (in Scotland, were I live) is huge – some are like brown crumbly pastry, some hard dry crunchy oat blocks. I’m trying to find a recipe I like and this is the start of the journey.

Oatcakes – first take

225g oatmeal (course ground oat flour)
60g plain white flour
60g butter
1 tsp salt
4 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
60ml (upto 90ml) hot water

Mix the oatmeal, flour, salt, sugar and bicarb together and rub the butter in to make a breadcrumb mix. Add hot water little by little to make a dough – it will thinken with work, so dont worry if its a bit sticky at first.

Flour a worktop and rollout the dough to about 1/2cm thick (pastry thick). cut into rounds (using a tumbler) and bake at 170c for about 20mins until golden.

Taste notes – I wanted a sightly sweeter oatcake, so I will add a little extra sugar next time. This recipe works well for an oatcake. Next attempt – I’ll try to grind the oatmeal a little finer, or add a bit more flour. I’ll add a bit more sugar for a sweeter biscuit. I’m looking for something between a digestive and a trad oatcake, and something a little less rough!

Sauerkrout

Sauerkrout – I don’t really know if I like it. I add it to a hotdog or a chicken kebab, but not a lot. Its hard not to make a lot, so if I make a batch its going to be too much.

Anyway – Sauerkraut is femented cabbage. Fermentation by lactobacilli that gives it a sour sharp flavour. Its made with salt, so the taste is salty sharp sour cabbage.

Ingredients:
Roughly 2kg of white cabbage for 3tbl salt
maybe a bit of carrot ribbons or a (mild) chilli or two
some people add caraway seeds or black peppercorns

First slice the cabbage on a mandolin. In a big bowl, add the salt and massage it down so that enough juice comes out of the cabbage to cover it. (takes a while).

Add to a kilner jar, and add a weight so that no cabbage is above the juice line. Add any carrot, chilli or caraway you want.

Leave it for 1-3 weeks to ferment. you should see bubbles when you open the bottle. Put in the fridge when its matured enough for you. will last a few months.