Went shopping for some bits tonight and I ended up buying a pile of cookbooks bigger then me.; not the hardest task admittedly but still. In it was Gwyneth Paltrow's cookbook "Notes from my Kitchen Table". I feel a bit bad for this mrs really. She seems to get a bloody load of stick for I can't see what really. I read a thing about her blog and book on the Heat website and it made me feel genuinely defensive of her. Don't ask me why, I couldn't bloody tell you and I think she is probably big enough to stick up for herself, but still... It said that she was a bit of an arse really and wrote "gems" such as 

“One cold wintry day in London, I was dreaming about salad niçoise.” 

Good luck to her!!

I'd love to sit and dream of salad Nicoise! If I'm not too busy trying to dress my pug up like a ladybird then I'm thinking about food. The way I see it, a blogs a very personal thing and I know how much time and love I put into this one and this is on a tiny scale. If you don't like the woman, don't go to her place. It's like not liking Cher and then going tiny outfit and surgery shopping with her, you just wouldn't. So I say leave Gwyneth alone and let her dream of Nicoise in peace.

(Also I'm baking some of her cookies as we speak, I'll let you know how they go... If there rubbish, I take it all back, the woman's a twit >__< )

xoxox 

Red Velvet and Chocolate Heartache

For years now, it has been so, that a carrot seems to be the only real vegetable that we put in cakes and i still know people who find it odd! Carrots!! In Cakes?? Oh thats disgusting! - Yeah weird I know as carrot cake is probably my favourite cake out there. I was having a little mooch round a bookshop one ridiculously wet afternoon and needed some kind of soul revival due to the horrific weather and I saw Harry Eastwood's "Red velvet and Chocolate Heartache". Harry is part of the team behind the brilliant "Cook Yourself Thin" series which I was already a fan of. I was instantly brought in by the cover and had to have a good instore inspection and was won over and bought it immediately. I had heard a great deal about the book already that promises to supply bountiful bucketloads of flavour via a delivery van of vegetables. Yes, It has been deemed that it is not simply carrots that we can use in our cakes but a delectable host of veggies. So to the look, firstly for a girly girl like myself the book is heaven. The pictures are a smorgasbord of pink and glitter and flowers and fun and the cakes are beautifully, if not whimsically presented. Each chapter is colour coded and she works her way through a "who's who" of the stars of the book namely Aubergine, Beetroot, Squash, Courgette and Parsnip and each ones virtues. My first run out with the book was when "The Manfriend" was going away to work so I wanted to make him a sweet treat to send him on his way. The one that called out to me, for it's simplicity and quick construction as much as the taste was "Chocolate and Peanut Butter Cupcakes". Described by Harry as "that photograph of your sister or son, who, aged two and a half, is hiding in a corner of the birthday party with chocolate smeared all over their face". For as indulgent as this description is, It is actually completely correct. Its the shock as you bite into it, the surprise of the taste and the insistence that anyone watching you would remove themselves so you can return back to your chocolate universe undisturbed. The surprise punch in this knock-out cake is the vegetable itself. Possibly an obvious choice to substitute the carrot for, for its similar sweetness is a butternut squash. So here is my attempt, which for the evening was re-named the "Goodbye for Now Cupcake"

Makes 12

Ingredients:

100g unsalted peanuts (if you don't have a food processor to grind down the peanuts, simply replace them with ground almonds, they work just as well)

3 medium free-range eggs

200g light muscavado sugar

200g peeled and finely grated butternut squash

                                   (or pumpkin)

100g white rice flour

40g of best quality cocoa powder

                         (I like green and blacks...)

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

For the icing:

60g smooth peanut butter

2 tbsp of golden icing sugar, sieved

2 tbsp cocoa powder

pinch of salt

5tbsp boiling waters 

For the top:

small handful of roughly chopped peanuts or some grated dark chocolate

• preheat your oven to 180°C. Line your muffin tray with 12 paper cases
• blitz the peanuts in a food processor until totally ground into a fine, even powder 
• whisk the eggs and sugar for 5 minutes until a pale coffee colour and beautifully fluffy
• next whisk in the grated pumpkin, followed by the flour,cocoa powder, baking powder, salt and peanuts until everything is completely combined and lusciously covered 
• congratulate yourself on a thoroughly excellent whisking! .....my step not hers, but completely necessary
•  spoon the mixture into the paper cases so that it comes four fifths of the way up the sides then place in the oven for 30 minutes. Just as a note- my cakes took only 22 minutes so i would suggest checking them after the 20 mark by giving them a good prodding with a wooden skewer
• remove the cakes from the oven and cool for 10 minutes in the tray and then transfer to the fridge and leave to cool completely
• To make the icing, mix the peanut butter, icing sugar,coca powder and salt with the back of a spoon to form a paste. Next slowly and gently incorporate the boiling water with a balloon whisk, one spoonful at a time. You get a smooth and delicious paste. Ice the cupcakes when completely cold and decorate with some roughly chopped nuts or some grated chocolate

To me though, the proof was in the pudding and the happy look on the man's face was enough for me, though getting him to let me photograph him was another story....

I was ridiculously happy with the cookbook which is just a joy to devour. It may be a bit self indulgent for some but I like self indulgent, I mean isn't that what this type of cooking needs to be; spoiling yourself and whoever it is your cooking for?! Where this book is indulgent in verse, it makes up for it in the shrewdness off calories and for a cupcake with chocolate and peanuts and icing all for less then 200 calories- I don't need to say anymore except for buy this book and treat yourself; your waistline will thank you! 

xoxox

I Heart Macaroons

My single most obsession at the moment seems to be my ever expanding selection of cookbooks. Most ladies of an evening like to sit and read a copy of VOGUE, Martini in hand. I, however like to sit with a cookbook and a mug of tea plotting my next dinner party or baking opportunity. So what could be a more perfect way to finish off any evening, then a mouthful of crunchy, meringuey, almondy macarons. So perfectly tempting were these little beauties that after purchasing the very cute "i 'heart' macarons" I immediately hopped to it! 

I had heard many a myth about how frustratingly hard macarons were to make. There seem to be a million rules with them. For example, each beautiful little baby is meant to have a small skirted frill for at the bottom. This little skirt is called a "pied" in its native French, or foot to us, but without it each little pastry cannot be called a macaron. I think its this type of rule that puts people off making them in the first place! DO NOT BE PUT OFF!! If my little batch were anything to go by, surely each of us could be a world famous patisserie chef in a couple of hours and a couple of cooking cocktails...

The layout of the book makes it so simple and gives some really helpful tips, like rotating your trays, rapping your baking sheet sheet on a work surface to help create the perfect pied and if god forbid something does go wrong with your macarons, why it may have happened and how to amend it. It is also laid out with a complete photo guide to help coax you along each little step. 

Later on in the book, once you've had a go at creating your first macarons, are sections on combining different colours and flavoured puffs and creams, what to do with your left over egg yolks and how to package them for gifts.All in all, I think this is a great little book. Okay, so its not revolutionary but what it is, is a simple step by step guide to making the PERFECT macaron and as a beginner who needs more then that? Its not particularly a lengthy book and is bulked out by a myriad of beautifully shot photographs, but I purchased my book on one of my Amazon splurges for just under five pounds and for that I couldn't be happier! I urge you if you have ever been tempted into making macarons and have been put off by the alleged difficulty of making them, or if you have never even heard of them and just stumbled across them today, make them, eat them, fall in love with them!!