Sticky Carrot and Coconut Babycakes - makes 24

So long previous carrot cake recipes - this ones for keeps.

I love lightness in cakes and I love stickiness - sometimes it's hard to attain these in equal measures - too much flour and your cake is a bit dense - too much sugar/butter and you won't maintain the structure of your cupcake. Pineapple juice is key here, it keeps the cake moist and sticky while maintaining the sugar content so your cakes don't flop. Be sure not to over cook them (5 minutes over and the you lose the essential stickiness that makes these standout).

Ingredients
200ml melted butter
200g Castor sugar
4 eggs
100ml pineapple juice
100g chopped pineapple
2 medium carrots (grated)
100g dissected coconut
300g wholemeal flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tblsp mixed all spice

Butter cream icing
100g dissected coconut
100g icing sugar
100g melted butter
1 tub  full fat cream cheese

Mix sugar, eggs and butter. Add pineapple juice. Add grated carrot to egg mix. Add chopped pineapple and coconut. Separately, mix dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and all spice). Then combine the two (add dry to wet). Pour into cupcake cases - fill 3/4. Bake for 20 - 30 minutes at 180 degrees, check at 20 minutes, you want a skewer inserted to come out clean. Make the butter cream icing - whisk coconut, sugar, butter and cream cheese. When cakes are cooled at the butter cream icing with a piping bag.

Crock Pot Pulled Pork with Chorizo and Red Wine. Hell Yeh.

Take the time. 

(Enough for 4)

I bought some crackin' free range pork from Pheasant Hill Farm off lovely Julia Bailey and then made the best braised meat of my life. That you cook the pork for so long makes it feel like you have this treasure or this night before Christmas feeling knowing something specials on the way - I'm sure the delayed gratification of a 4 1/2 hr wait heightened the delight of eating. The red wine balances out the fattiness of the pork, mixed with chorizo and pimento and you get spanish thoughts of hillside taverns.  The only thing out of the ordinary is the time and the time is the essence of this dish, so take it.

to braise: seared or browned in fat and then simmered in liquid on a low heat (for like ever)

What you need

1 kg Pork shoulder (fat removed and kept)

3 shallots

2 cloves of garlic

3 tblsp of pimento spice

12 cherry tomato's on the vine

1/2 bottle red wine

150 ml stock

1/2 ring of chorizo, chopped

A heavy based dish with a lid you can put in the oven

What to do

Chop shallots and fry in the fat on a medium heat, for 7 mins. Remove fat. Add the chorizo, cook until the oil is released (3-4 mins). Add the garlic, brown the pork shoulder on all sides in the dish. Add the pimento and mix. Add the red wine, let the alcohol cook off for 2 mins. Add the stock. Leave cherry tomato's whole and add to the dish. Put a lid on and put in the oven on low (110 degrees) for about 4 1/2 hours.  Remove pork from dish and allow to rest for 30minutes at least. While resting put the dish on a high heat with lid removed and reduce by 1/3 (keep reducing until the pork is rested). When cooked, the meat should come away from the bone easily, pull the meat apart using 2 forks to get a shredded effect. Return meat to dish and serve with crusty bread and lemon butter beans.

Spicy Parsnip Soup

Totz gonna go drink soup on the beach

This soup has a good kick to get you into springtime and it's thick so fills you up. The cooked sweet parsnips create a deep caramel sweetness that blends so well with the Indian spices. I made some sour dough croutons too which means you get these little hits of salty flavour, hell yeh.

Ingredients (Makes 2 people full)
50 g butter
2 medium onions

2 cloves of garlic

2 fresh red chilli's

1 tbsp madras curry powder (could also use garam masala)

1200ml-1400mls of vegetable stock (use extra water to loosen up after blending if needed)

2 large parsnips (280g)
1 large potato (220g)
2 slices of sour dough bread
salt and pepper

Melt the butter when it starts to foam add the onions and garlic, turn the heat down low. Cook for 10minutes. Chop the chilli's finely (set one aside to top the soup later). Add the chili, curry powder and stock. Cook for 20minutes. Chop the parsnip and potato into cubes, add to the stock and cook for a further 30minutes. Blend. Heat some oil in a pan, cube the sour dough, add to hot oil with lots of salt and pepper. When crisp serve on top the the soup.

Duck Dumplings

40 dumplings later...

Happy Chinese New Year! What better way to celebrate the year of the snake than with some salty little duck gifts. This recipe makes about 40 dumplings, which gives you loads of time to get good at crimping the edges. The repetitiveness has a similar affect on your mind as kneading can, quite relaxing really. This salty meditative combination is a perfect cure for any edgy hangover.

Ingredients for dumplings (Makes about 40-50)

2 duck breast (fat removed)

2 large spring onion (or 4 -5 smallish ones)

2 tblsp of chopped ginger

2 cloves of garlic (finely chopped)

4 tblsp light soy sauce

4 tblsp balsamic vinegar

1 tblsp sesame oil

1 tblsp Chinese five spice

juice of 1/2 lime

1/3 of a Chinese cabbage (finely chopped)

1 pack of gyoza wrappers (or wonton wrappers)

For the dipping sauce

2 tblsp light soy sauce

2 tblsp balsamic vinegar

juice of 1/2 lime

salt 

What to do?

Start by making the filling. Slice the raw duck breast then blend in a food processor for about 10 seconds (you don't want it too smooth but then again you don't want any big lumps of duck either). Combine all the duck with all the ingredients for the dumplings and leave this for 20minutes to let the flavours develop. The gyoza wrappers I bought were frozen so this gives some time for these to begin defrosting. 

To assemble the dumplings, put 1 tsp of the dumpling mix in the centre of a gyoza wrapper, put a little water around 1/2 the edge, fold the sides together, crimping as you squeeze any air out. You want to be left with a flat base, so squash it down a little if you need to. 

They look trickier than they are, but you will get better at sealing them and getting a good shape as you go along. The important thing is to ensure they are sealed and the base is flat, so you don't lose any delish filling during cooking! 

To cook them heat a frying pan up to a medium high heat, add some oil then add the dumplings on the flat bottoms, fry for about 2 minutes. The flat bottom should go golden brown, then pour water into the pan so it comes half way up the sides of the dumplings and cover with tin foil so the dumplings steam. 

Take the lid off once the water has evaporated, let the dumplings crisp up on the bottoms then serve with the dipping sauce. YUM YUM NINJA.

Mexican Bean Wraps

A burrito, a taco and a quesadilla all in under a week. Keep it coming.

Desire for Mexican street food is booming, ques for La Choza in Brighton and the rammed Wahaca in London are the source of this great insight.  It's quick, moreish and doesn't lead to that weasy grogginess. This recipe takes about 10 minutes to wrap up'. Cooking the tomato sauce right down on a really high temperature means the sauces grips hold of the beans and it becomes almost sticky. The lime, coriander and spring onion garnish keeps it all fresh and zingy.

Ingredients
1/2 red chili, sliced and diced

1 clove of garlic

2 tbl sp cumin
salt and pepper to taste
juice of 1 & 1/2 limes
1 tin plum tomatoes
1 can of butter beans (better yet black eyed beans)
1/2 tsp dried chili flakes
handful of fresh coriander and some basil
3 spring onions, finely chopped
2 wraps
2 tblsps sour cream
3 handful of Cheddar cheese

What to do?
Heat frying pan up on hottest heat, add a little oil, add the garlic and fresh chilli. 1 min. Add the cumin, 30 seconds. Add the juice of 1 lime. Add the chopped tomatoes. Cook for 5 mins on high. Drain and add the butter beans to the sauce, continue to cook on highest heat for 4 minutes. Chop the spring onion and coriander with some salt and a squezze of lime - this is the garnish. Grate the Cheddar. Add the juice of the other half lime to the beans. Heat the wraps and assemble with the bean mix, cheese, sour cream and garnish.

Chocolate Orange Brownie Cake

Brownie cake for tea

I got this book, Bouchon Bakery, around Christmas time and it's totz changed my pastry / cakery world. The "Bouchon" brownie recipe makes me melt, the buttery-ness with coco powder rather than real chocolate gives this feathery lightness with a deep chocolate hit while the granulated sugar creates a sort of cookie chew.

Two new skills for brownie making: mixed temperatures of butter and lots of whisking. This chocolate orange cake comes off the back of this book. Gooey centre, saltiness, pangs of orange. Heaven with double cream and marigold tea, no dinner nessesary.

Ingredients
40g plain white flour
40g coco powder
pinch of salt
2 eggs
110g granulated sugar
seeds from vanilla pod
100g butter (cubed)
Juice and zest of 2 baby oranges
60 g chocolate chunks (70% coco solids)

What to do?
Melt half the butter in a pan, when it starts to foam add this to the rest of the cubed butter. Allow to come to room temperature and whisk a little. Whisk flour, coco powder and salt together in a separate bowl. In another separate bowl whisk eggs, sugar and vanilla together with juice and zest of baby oranges. Add the mixtures together in 3 additions to the eggs mix. You should end up with a glossy chocolate moose like mix. Fold in chocolate chunks. Scoop into greased baking tin (I just a banana loaf tin). Bake for 15-20 minutes at 200 degrees.