Mince Pies

Perfect for the festive season! Super easy to make and really tasty. You can either buy mincemeat or make your own but I would really recommend making your own pastry because that's what really makes it! The pastry recipe comes from the Good Food website but I felt the mix was a bit dry which is why I add an egg yolk - it also makes it easier to roll out.

Ingredients:

(Pastry)

225g cold butter , diced
350g plain flour
100g Caster sugar
1 Egg Yolk

(Mincemeat)

300/400g Mincemeat Shop bought or make your own.

The best recipe for this I know of is Delia and you can find it here:

Delia Smith's Mincemeat Recipe

(Extra)

1 Egg (Beaten)
Icing sugar to dust the mince pies with

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°c.

2. To make the pastry, rub the butter into the flour to form breadcrumbs. Then mix in the sugar and the egg yolk.

3. Squeeze the mix into a ball, kneading slightly. You can either use the dough straight away or chill it for 20 minutes.

4. Roll out the mixture on to a floured surface and cut rounds the same size as your cupcake tin. Then line the tins with the rounds. (The mix should make between 12-18 mince pies)

5. Spoon a good teaspoon of mincemeat on to each round and then place another round on top, sealing the edges with your fingers.

6. Brush the tops of the pies with the beaten egg and then bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Once out of the oven leave to cool in the tins for five minutes before transferring them to the cooling rack.

7. Dust the mince pies with icing sugar before serving. Enjoy warm or cold.

Pudsey Bear Biscuits (Gluten Free)

These are the Pudsey bear biscuits I made for children in need but this is a gluten free recipe. Bit if you want to just use normal flour it's the same amount. This recipe is from the Lakeland cookie cutter, the recipe on the back. I just used gluten free flour instead and added a bit more sugar to over power the flour taste. This recipe would be good for normal shaped busicuits too I just made these with the cutter.

Ingredients:

100g Plain Gluten Free Flour
50g Corn Flour
60g Caster Sugar
100g Butter or Margarine

(For Chocolate cookies 25g Cornflour & 25g Cocoa Flour. These taste slightly better as they hide the gluten-free flour taste.

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°c.

2. Weigh everything in to a large mixing bowl and then rub all the ingredients together till you get a breadcrumb texture.

3. Then squeeze the mixture together to form a dough.

4. Dust a clean surface with flour and roll the ball of dough out quite thinly (and evenly!).

5. Using the cookie cutter (whatever you choose) cut out your cookie shapes and place on a baking tray.

6. Repeat the process until you've used all the mixture.

7. Chill the baking trays in the fridge for about five minutes and then place in the oven for 10-15 minutes depending on thickness.

8. Remove the cookies from the oven and leave to cool on the baking tray for five minutes before you take them off and place them on cooling racks.

9. DECORATE! - For the pudsey bear cookies I piped on the face features in black and smeared a bandage on. The bandage was made using just icing sugar and water. I then chose to decorate him retro style with just the red spots on the badage.

10. Enjoy, whether you are a celiac or not. Everyone in my house seemed to like them so that's always good news!

Tips for a White Sauce

I learnt how to make a white sauce in middle school and never looked back. There's something so wonderful about a nice thick white sauce. It's so useful to know how to make one too. You can make a cheese sauce for pasta, the white sauce on top of a lasange or a parsley sauce to go with your roast ham on a sunday. It's by far my favourite sauce but there are some easy to make mistakes with this seemingly simple sauce!

You need: Butter, Flour and Milk for the basic sauce but you can add to it at the end - cheese, parsley, chilli, bacon, the list goes on!

1. Melt a good knob of butter in the saucepan.

2. Slowly add a little flour at a time using a wooden spoon. Try to get the mixture to a warm bluetack consistency.

3. Once you have your rue start adding the milk. If you want a really thick sauce it would be better to add tiny amounts of milk to the mixture and stirring in till combined. It's a long process but it does pay off, I find this is better than just pouring all the milk in at once.

4. Once the mixture is starting to look runny add in the remainder of the milk and whisk.

5. Once you've whisked the sauce go back to your wooden spoon, turn the heat up a little bit and keep stirring until your sauce has thickened. Don't add Flour (unless you really need to) just have faith. Once the sauce is thick enough add any extras, but still add the salt and pepper to taste even if you're not adding more.

6. Use on lasange, pasta, potatos, roast dinner...anything!

Hope this guide helps, it's so much better than buying a sauce ready made and so much cheaper!!!

The 5 Minute Mug Cake

This is a must for students (or if you're just peckish and need something NOW!) It's not as good as the real thing but it comes awful close. All you need is a largish mug and a tablespoon.

Ingredients:

4 tbs Self-raising Flour
4 tbs Caster Sugar
1 Egg
3 tbs Milk
3 tbs Oil
1/2 tbs Vanilla Extract
Pinch of Salt

(For the chocolate version add 2 tbs Cocoa Powder and 3 tbs Chocolate chips)

Method:

1. Add dry ingredients to mug and mix well. Add the egg and mix thoroughly.

2. Add the milk and oil mixing well.

3. Add any other ingredients and stir until fully combined.

4. Place the mug in the microwave (maybe on a small plate just incase!) and cook of a high heat for 3 minutes.

5. Watch your cake grow! Don't be too alarmed if it goes over the top! Once it's cooked allow to cool a bit before tipping the cake out on to a plate.

6. Enjoy cold or warm with some ice-cream!

Please comment with pictures if you try making it, they tend to make rather ugly (yummy) cakes but there's something lovely and rustic about that! Have fun with this recipe, it is a lot like a school science experiement!

- Emma xxx

Spinach, Ricotta & Pea Tart(s)

Great dish for dinner (hot) or next day cold for lunch. Quite easy to make and a really nice vegetarian dish!

Ingredients:

1 tub of Ricotta (usually 250g)
3 Eggs
4 Frozen cubes of chopped Spinach (They'll be in most frozen sections in the supermarket)
1 Large Red onion
Peas (up to you how many!)

+ Puff pastry, either some you've made or shop bought. If I'm honest I have no desire to make puff pastry and for a quick meal in the evening I would recommend buying it but if you have the time go ahead!

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°c.

2. Finely chop the onion and gently fry along with the frozen spinach. Don't let it burn but keep going until all the spinach has melted.

3. In a large mixing bowl whisk the eggs and the ricotta together until smooth. Add some salt and pepper and if you fancy you can also add some milk or cream, but not too much.

4. Boil some peas for a few minutes while you sort out your pastry.

5. Pastry. Now it's up to you how big/small you make these. I've made them in muffin tins (could be good for parties), Yorkshire pudding tins (as seen below) or a tray bake. It's completely up to you! Roll out the pastry and line your chosen dish.

6. Drain the peas and add them to the egg and ricotta mix then add the spinach and onions.

7. Spoon the mixture into the pastry and try not to overfill.

8. Bake in the oven for 20-40 minutes depending on how large your tarts are.

9. Serve with veg and mash for dinner or cold with salad the next day for lunch!

Great hot or cold dish, maybe make one too many for your lunch the next day!!

- Emma xxx

Easy Peasy Chocolate Cake

This recipe I've been using for a while, can't remember where it came from and I've definitely changed parts here and there but it's really easy to make and never fails (plus is tastes great!)

Ingredients:

275g Self-raising Flour
225g Margarine
225g Golden Caster Sugar (Or just Caster Sugar)
4 Eggs
20/30g Cocoa Powder
4 tbs Milk
1 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°c.

2. Beat the butter and the sugar together until fluffy and then add the milk.

3. Add the beaten eggs (adding a little flour if it curdles). Then add the Vanilla.

4. Slowly add the dry ingredients and fold in.

5. Spoon into the cake tin or cupcake cakes and bake for 20-45 minutes depending on what you're using. Cup cakes take less time than a large cake.

6. Once the cake is cooked put on a cooling rack and once it's cooled you can start to have fun decorating! Chocolate butter cream goes really well with this to give you a chocolate explosion.

7. Enjoy!

I tend to use this recipe for birthday cakes because it is so easy to make, tastes great but it is also really easy to manipulate. It's light and fluffy but it doesn't fall apart when you try and cut it. Great all rounder!

- Emma xxx

Mars Bar Stuff

You must forgive the 'sophisticated' name but when you're 4-years-old I suppose it's as eloquent as you can be! So as you may have gathered, this is a childhood recipe. My granny made this for us as children with rice crispes but my mum changed the recipe slightly and added coco pops instead. So enjoy this amazing taste of childhood, it's the simplest recipe yet! Takes 15 minutes MAX and you don't need an oven!

Ingredients:

3oz Butter
4 Mars Bars
5/6oz Coco Pops

Method:

1. Break up the mars bars and put into a saucepan, put the butter in too. Melt them on a low heat until you have a smooth mix.

2. Weigh out the Coco Pops into a large bowl.

3. Pour the mars bar butter mix over the Coco Pops and stir until everything is combined.

4. Line a brownie tray with greaseproof paper (or use cup cake cases!) and press down to make sure it will hold.

5. Place in the fridge until it's set and then cut into shapes (I've done stars) or big slabs to go with your cup of tea.

It's so chocolaty and lovely that you could leave it at that but for Christmas we sometimes ass silver balls to make it a bit more festive or you could drizzle some milk chocolate over the top if you really want to go for it! ENJOY.

- Emma xxx

Gluten Free Cooking Tips

One of my housemates is a celiac which means when I came to university I needed to adapt my cooking slightly when cooking for him. I couldn't constantly make cakes with conventional flour for fear of him always missing out. So obviously I've picked up some tips along the way to help you guys out.

1. Invest in gluten free baking products. Doves is pretty good and I would definitely get some gluten-free baking powder!

2. Without gluten cakes don't rise as well. Therefore you need to get LOTS of air in to the mixture to compensate. I often beat the mixture that little bit harder and I also separate my eggs. So I add the yolks but I whisk the eggs (till you get soft peaks) and then add to the mixture. This will create the air you need for your cakes to rise.

3. Adapt, Try, Fail, Try a little differently... I often use normal cake recipes and swap in the gluten free ingredients. If this doesn't seem to work, maybe add an extra egg or some milk. I find this often will help your cake with that added push it needs.

4. Don't be disheartened. Often it won't ever reach the heights of normal flour but you just have to accept it and look on the brighter side - it's slightly healthier for you!

5. Flavoured cakes and buiscuits are your friends. Strong flavours like chocolate can often help hide the slightly bitter(?) taste of gluten free flour. It's also much harder to pick up on in a buscuit.

Gluten free cooking just involves that little bit extra work but it really will pay off! I hope that you will find this helpful and I'll try and post some exculsive gluten free recipes on here too!

- Emma xxx

Sweetcorn Fritters

This useful addition to a lacking meal is one of my childhood (and current) favourites. My granny absolutely HAD to make them when we visited her in Scotland and often it was the only time I would get them so I rarely make them since I still view them as an occasional treat. But they're great fun and a good way of getting children (STUDENTS) to eat veg! You could add peas or chopped peppers as well. Plus they're super easy to make!

Ingredients:

100g Plain Flour
1/2 tsp Salt
2 Eggs (Beaten)
2 tbs Milk
250g Cooked Sweetcorn

Method:

1. Beat the eggs then add the milk, flour and sweetcorn individually.

2. Heat the pan and add some oil (more than in usual cooking as it's sort of like deep fat frying them. However, if you're a bit worried that it might be quite fatty I'm sure they'd work with less oil)

3. Pour the mixture on the pan, don't make it fill the pan, these are meant to be quite small (so you can have lots and lots!) and fry them on both sides until cooked and crispy!

4. Serve instead of potato or the carbs for the meal and ENJOY. These are lovely and one of my best food memories.

- Emma xxx

THE Carrot Cake

Now this recipe is my favourite. Use with caution! It may lead to endless baking and constant requests. It's also my favourite because it's the first recipe I would properly call mine. This is my carrot cake (wow that feels nice to say!) Now this is a plain carrot cake, you can add walnuts but I can't be dealing with that in my cake! So add nuts if you want it's just not really my style.

Ingredients:

250g Carrots (Peeled and chopped ends)
150g Margarine
200g Self-raising Flour
200g Brown demerara sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp Salt
2 tsp Ground cinnamon
2 tsp Baking Powder
(2 tbs Milk if the mixture is really stiff)

Method:

1. Preheat Oven to 180°c.

2. Grate the carrots

3. Heat the margarine in a saucepan till melted then add it to the sugar. Beat well until it's combined and a smooth (as it can be) texture.

4. Add beaten eggs and the carrot to the mixture and whisk to get some air in to the mixture.

5. Combine the dry ingredients together and add them a little add a time to the mixture. Folding the flour in and no trying to overwork the mixture.

6. Spoon the mixture either in to 12-18 cupcake cases, 8 mini loaf cases, a loaf tin or a cake tin. This mixture is really great and adjusts well for all forms.

7. Bake for 18 minutes (cupcakes) 25 minutes (mini-loaf) and 25-35 depending on how big the tins are, I would fetch them out the oven when they look like they're starting to go a darker brown.

8. Icing: I know most carrot cakes have cream cheese frosting but no one close to me is a fan so I decided that cinnamon butter icing was a winner:

75g Butter
175g Icing Sugar
1 tsp Ground cinnamon

Beat all the ingredients together until you get a smooth icing, then pipe on to your cakes and decorate! I've made sugar icing carrots to decorate with before and they look very sweet (I think you can also buy these on eBay). I've also included different icing ideas in the pictures below - these are PERFECT for Halloween because of their colour!

- Emma xxx

After Eight Mint Cupcakes

These are fab! (IF you like after eights...if you don't I really wouldn't attempt unless they're for someone else) It's an adapted recipe from another book, changed it quite a lot, brought the ingredients back down to a sensible normal level and I think it works really well!

Ingredients:

16 After eight mints
160ml Water
90g Butter
220g Brown sugar (It doesn't matter what kind really, depends how dark/rich you like it)
2 Eggs
140g Self-raising Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
3 tbs cocoa Powder

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 170°c.

2. Melt the mints and water in a saucepan until smooth, try not to boil it too much, on a low heat is fine.

3. Beat the butter and sugar until fluffy.

4. Whisk the eggs and add them a little at a time (add some flour if it curdles).

5. Add the water and melted mints and whisk until combined.

6. Then add the dry ingredients, carefully folding in the flour. Try not to overwork the mixture.

7. Divide the mixture into cupcake cases and bake for 20-25 minutes.

ICING & DECORATING:

The original recipe suggested a mousse topping for the cupcakes but I thought that would be too rich, however, if you want to try something like that or maybe a minty chocolate ganche then I think that would work too!

I tend to decorate mine with a simple vanilla butter cream (75g Butter, 175g icing sugar and a little bit of vanilla) and then a flower decoration. The picture below I cut flowers (using an icing cutting tool) out of after eights and they looked really pretty.

But I love icing so be inventive, it's often my favourite part of the baking process - so be creative!!

- Emma xxx

Philadelphia and Bacon Chicken

Now this recipe I think was on a TV advert a while ago promoting Philadelphia and how you can use it in cooking. Changed the recipe slightly to make it a bit more everyday (so substituting parma ham for bacon but by all means use parma ham!). It's a family favourite now and when I come back from university it's definitely a popular request!

Ingredients:

As many chicken breasts as required.
Two slices of bacon per chicken breast.
A Small tub of Philadelphia (or supermarket branded) cream cheese, preferably the garlic and herbs one but if you're not too keen on garlic then plain is fine.
Some onions
Cherry Tomatoes
Balsamic Vinegar
(Herbs: Thyme?)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°c.

2. Cut a slit down the middle of each chicken breast and fill it with a good helping of cream cheese.

3. Carefully wrap the two slices of bacon around the chicken then place in an oven proof dish.

4. Chop up some onions and scatter them in the dish.

5. Add the tomatoes, (herbs), balsamic vinegar (don't be stingy!) and if you want a thick sauce add some tomato puree to the dish.

6. Cook in the oven for about 40/45 minutes.

7. Serve with some greens and choice of potato.

(8. I recommend that you cook one extra chicken because it is FANTASTIC cold in your sandwich the next day)

Anyway, the recipe, like most of mine you'll find is slightly up to you. I've given you the idea and I hope you go and make it your own - comment with some of your suggestions! I cook this dish differently every time and it's always good so don't be afraid to try something new!

- Emma xxx

Quick & Easy Rolls

These rolls almost take as little time to make as they do to eat! They're fantastic if you're in a hurry, run out of bread or just want something a little different. I've put the recipe here for plain rolls but you can add all sorts to them. Like chillies, herbs or even onion! They may not look perfect but that taste amazing!

Ingredients:

1 cup of self raising flour
1/2 cup of milk
2 tbs Mayonnaise (bear with me!)
1 tbs Baking powder

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°c gas mark 5
2. Put everything in a mixing bowl and either whisk or stir together. (If you're adding anything extra stir it in to the mixture now)
3. Grease up either a Yorkshire pudding pan or a muffin pan (I personally prefer the Yorkshire pudding dish as you get bigger rolls!)
4. Spoon the mixture in to the pan, if you're using a Yorkshire pudding pan then the mixture will stretch to 4 and using 5/6 in a muffin pan.
5. Put in the oven for about 15 minutes or until the rolls have a browning top.
6. EAT!

- Emma xxx