The Sugar Bar » blackberries

Spiced Rhubarb Pancakes with Golden Syrup

diva — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:21:30 +0000

It’s Shrove Tuesday, ie. Pancake Day! Well it’s not like I need an excuse to have pancakes. It sorta is like a Sunday brekkie thing to have but pancakes when it’s not even mid-week is so much more indulgent and delicious. Knowing that just about the rest of England is having pancakes too (albeit the English crepe-like ones) – savoury or sweet – helps with feeling all fat and happy, and a lot less like the lone greedy chubster.

I spied some gorgeous rhubarb pancakes over at Nic’s Cherrapeno and I couldn’t help getting some rhubarb as well. I think it’s gotta be one of the prettiest pink edible things and I simply love it in a trifle or yoghurt. Thanks Nic for a lovely pancake idea. I’m really glad I made this as I love all things tart. Although the rhubarb sauce wasn’t as tart as I wanted it to be (didn’t wanna tart-out my flatmate), I thought it was a very delicious variation of the usual plain pancakes or the same old blueberry pancakes I find myself having every time.

I’d love to stay on here longer, but I gotta hit the books again. Yes I am a geek, don’t judge me. And yes the work’s starting to pile up. Third yes, I’ve turned into a granny who fights the cold with hot soups, cups of tea and blankets about my knees. Well, grannies are so in right now. You can’t fault that. Off I go, leaving you the recipe.

This recipe’s given me the fluffiest, softest pancakes ever. But it didn’t rise enough to my liking and it may have needed some rising agent like baking powder. I might have to experiment and compare with other recipes in the future. Nevertheless, they were good. Like little fluffy clouds.

Recipe yields 8 pancakes
Rhubarb Pancakes
Ingredients

In a dry medium bowl, whisk egg whites to form stiff peaks.

In a separate large bowl, sift flour, sugar and salt. Make a well in the centre.

Beat lightly together the egg yolk, melted butter and milk. Pour into the well and mix gently to form a lumpy batter. Fold in egg whites, leaving some touches of egg whites intact.

In a small frying pan, heat some butter, add a ladle of batter and fry until bubbles start forming on the surface. Flip and allow the other side to cook for another minute or so. Repeat until all the batter is used up. Keep the other pancakes in a warm oven or let the hungry buggers you live with gobble them up whilst you work hard at the stove!

Rhubarb Sauce
Recipe can be found here, which I used for a ganache. You can use this in the pancake batter and to serve over them.

Apple & Summerberry Crumble

diva — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 17:24:41 +0000

Before you say anything, here’s a spoiler: this is a failed attempt! I know…how can one ruin a crumble. Not to worry though, because I did it. I’ve been awarded the champion spaced-out idiot of the century; what a laugh.

Are you a crumble or cobbler person? Can’t decide? I know…the decision is always a tough one but I can safely say crumbles are the mighty winner most of the time.

Cobblers are an American fruit dessert, cooked in a deep-dish, it has a pie-crust top layer as opposed to a crumble layer. The pie-crust top can be cooked till it’s almost like a biscuit top, crispy and sweet or cakey like and it’s very easy for you to control the texture of this top layer. Crumbles are the British side of things and constitute a crumble topping, as the name suggests, usually made with graham biscuit or cookie crumbs, flour, nuts, oats, bread crumbs and even muesli. A very popular dish, it’s a slap and whack type of recipe and scores a 10 for its flexibility as well. Use any type of fruit you’ve got available because it still gives an awesome flavour. Also, this recipe is great for using brown sugar and lots of nuts and wholesome wheaty goodness.

Apples and summerberries are definitely a good, sweet combination. I’ve used a mix of raspberries, blackberries, black and red currants. Instead of using a mix, you can opt for your favourite fruit or combination of fruit. I added some sultanas as well to give it a warmer flavour, seems like it worked out well. Preparing this dish was a joy – easy to prepare and so colourful. A setback, however, was my topping – the key feature! Spacey as I was, I started pressing the topping down with the back of a spoon. It must have been the inner cobbler-girl calling out from within, thereby ruining my crumble topping completely. Tasted great but it just wasn’t quite the perfect crumble. I feel like I’ve shot myself in the foot somehow.

Nevertheless, this is once again another completed kitchen ‘adventure’ by diva, so let’s not be shy and file this in with the rest too.

I used to pester a good friend of mine in college for apple crumble every single week because she made this impeccably great apple filling. In exchange for her culinary delights, I baked her favourite M&M cookies and made sure I brought round a good supply of it for each council meeting. Good times those were. I still miss her apple crumble, as I’ve not kept in touch for about 2 years now. And everytime I think of crumble, I’ll think of her and that wicked crumble-skill of hers.

This recipe has been adapted from one of Delia Smith’s. It serves about 6 in one deep-dish.
Tip from Anna: be very careful when crumb topping starts to brown as the moment it has cooked and you are waiting for this to become the perfect brown, crispy, crumb topping, it can easily burn in a blink of an eye.

Apple & Summerberry Crumble
Ingredients

Preheat oven to 180d Celsius.
Arrange fruit in an oven deep-dish and sprinkle sugar over.
Rub butter into flour till crumb-like. Stir in sugar and cinnamon and pour over the fruit. Spread out with a FORK and do not press down with a SPOON. This is my queue for a shake of the head and a loud, regretful sigh.
Place on top shelf in oven and bake 40-50min.

Serve with pouring cream, ice cream or custard.

Roasted Lamb Fillet in Blackberry and Red Wine Sauce

diva — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 17:04:16 +0000

It hailed today! And it’s supposedly going to again on a perfectly good Sunday tomorrow. To salvage my sacred weekend, I literally fell out of bed in a panic – pulled on my jeans, hoodie, jacket, slipped my shoes on and barely fiddled with my bed-hair – before dashing out the door in the direction of G.A Lockhart. That would be my local butcher. Friendly, fairly good-looking in a buff, burly type of way, he offers a great selection of meats and home-prepared sausages, meat pies, parcel pastries and special sauces (I noticed a jar of goose fat atop the counter as well). If you’re looking for affordable and quality meat, G.A Lockhart is a good place to go – not only does he offer you personal advice on how best to cook the meat, he gives you tips on what meat is good for what, is lovely to talk to and makes a lot of effort to give you the best. Did I mention he doesn’t mind customers, specifically ones that make a breathless entrance with no make-up, a hairdo that magpies would mistake as a sad, abandoned, weather-beaten nest too?

I was really hoping for Best End which would be those fancy, posh-looking lamb racks often found in French restaurants. They are so tender and have a lovely flavour. Unfortunately, there weren’t any today so I was stuck between the lamb shoulder, lamb shank and leg fillet (at least that’s what I think it was). I’m the kind of eater who, other than fish, likes seeing bone on her plate. Not only do I think it makes my meal more heartwarming and real, knowing that this really came from an animal (I never trust what I get at supermarkets anymore), the bone is really what adds to the overall flavour and presentation. My parents have said the bone is where all the flavour lies and I’m sure my dogs would agree plenty. Having watched my mum slow-boil herbal soups, I understand pork rib bones produce one of the best flavours in oriental cuisine.

So of course, I totally chose the leg fillet with all the bone-age over the beautiful shoulder cut Lockhart had lifted out to give me a closer look. This bit of meat comes from the shin of the lamb and is perfect for slow-roasts. A good-sized chunk of leg cost me about 6quid. After getting the bones loosened up a little for easy cooking and carving, I popped into the off license to get a bottle of red wine. I would’ve gone for a good bottle of French, but the wallet has taken a bad turn and I’ve lucked out on moolah. Knowing this would definitely affect the sauce, I still went for a cheap bottle of Kumala: a mixed-grape (and this was seriously quite a bad mix) red hailing from West Cape.

Anyone hoping to keep a lookout for this butcher’s will find the address below. Great meat, great service, good range, free delivery:

G.A Lockhart
Raddlebarn Road
Selly Oak
Birmingham
B29 6HQ
0121 472 2545

The sun came back out for a tiny bit whilst I was preparing the meat in the kitchen. So I took that as a sign that lamb for Saturday lunch was the way to go. I’d had my doubts about having such a large lunch when it wasn’t even Sunday but seeing as I was finally in a good mood, I thought ‘screw it’ and was determined to have a good time this weekend. Of course, that would be balanced with revision. I can’t afford to let myself go completely.

This recipe has been inspired by Gordon Ramsay, kitchen genius, and from some lamb recipes from Delia Smith. There isn’t exactly one recipe that I followed. What I did was kind of got a general idea of the sauces they made and went forward with my own. I’d been playing with the idea of fruit and lamb for some time now. I love pork with sweet sauces, apple sauces and marmalade sauces. But I might have been a little conservative with my lamb. On a day the weather went slightly freakish, I really wasn’t all that bothered about taking the radical train to experiment with some flavours. Just a note: as I’ve cooked this by taste, all measurements stated are written as close to what I can remember. Should you wish to replicate this recipe for your own cooking, I’d advice some watchfulness over the sauce as these measurements are not as accurate as I’d like them to be. I’d served the lamb with garlic mash. Was intending to do a parsnip-potato mash which I’d done once for a Cottage Pie but I was wary of overstepping the line by just doing way too much on a plate. So I left it as it was. Here is a recipe good for 2 with some leftover for a salad or sandwich tomorrow.

Roasted Lamb Fillet in Blackberry and Red Wine Sauce

Ingredients

For the sauce:

For the garlic mash:

The lamb will take 1 3/4 – 2 hrs in the oven so get to work early. Preheat the oven to 200d Celsius. Season the lamb and rub the crushed leaves of rosemary onto it. Place it in a casserole dish with crush garlic and olive oil, rubbing it all around. Pour the wine into the dish and give the lamb a turn to coat it. Cover with aluminium foil and roast. After an hour, remove and give the lamb a turn. Baste it in its juices. Cover with foil again and return to oven to continue the cooking process.
About 10min to end of cooking time, get to work on the sauce. Prepare the onions and stock. Crush about half of the blackberries, be careful not to waste any of the juices that spill from its insides. Using a tiny bit of oil, fry the onions in a large shallow pan. Remove the lamb from the oven and pour the juices and some of the leek into the pan. Cover the lamb with foil again, lower oven temperature to about 100d Celsius and return to oven to keep warm.
Add the stock, vinegar and honey into the pan and stir gently. Let simmer as you want this to reduce a little. Add the crushed berries and stir.
Whilst the sauce is slowly cooking, peel and chop the potatoes. Then peel off the skin of the garlic. Boil altogether. When it is soft, strain the water and mash with butter and milk till it reaches a creamy consistency.
Get back to the sauce. Add the last of the berries that were not crushed. Taste it. It should be slightly tart but having a full, savoury, lamb flavour. The honey and berries work strangely well with the wine.

Plates up. 1.Mash, 2.lamb then 3.ladle the sauce over it making sure to spoon some berries on it. Serve with some cracked black pepper and chopped herbs.

I was honestly thinking this might go very wrong what with fresh blackberries in the sauce. On the contrary, the full blackberries gave the lamb an awesome flavour and when eaten together, was refreshing and almost like a time-out from the bang of the sauce. Indeed, the red wine had taken its toll on the sauce but overall this worked out as an ‘Exceeding Expectations’ meal.

Diva gives her stamp of approval and a pat on the back. Not bad for a sleepy-head and/or lazy fart.

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins with Summerfruit Buttercream

diva — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 15:32:40 +0000

It’s ten to midnight, I’m getting a headache and going slightly insane – swinging back and forth between boredom and the occasional 2 minutes of intelligent writing. I think 2 days of not leaving the house, a lack of fresh air and activity away from the computer, the television and my bass speakers, generally has led me to a near combustible state. I’ve been forced to bake to keep myself rational. The consequence? A line of plates piled with food, an odd mix of all sorts of smells coming from the kitchen, a slightly still-grumpy me, lousy television and my laptop. But to let myself out of this domestic cage (not that I have any problems with it really, just that I believe these headaches are kinda telling me something about it), I’ve decided that a Starbucks therapy session is in order.

However, that will only happen when the weather picks up. It’s still dreadfully grey out which makes it such a depressing background for anything I have in mind. I think it’s times like this, when most of my clothes are grey, the sky is grey, the goats cheese in the fridge has gone grey with mould and even the back of my eyes are starting to look grey that I have to accede to the colour pink!!

I really am not a fan of pink. I remember the sea of pink in primary school. All the girls proudly proclaiming their favourite colour pink. Pink shoe laces, pink school bags, pink water bottles, pink hair ties and gymnastic ribbons. Indeed, my ballet leotard, shoes and hair ribbons were all pink. But of course that little rebel in me insisted blue, orange and purple were one of my favourite colours. And then secondary school got me started on green. And then junior college made it black and red for me. Right now, I’d say blue, green, black and red are still my top favourites but pink, sadly enough, never really scored a goal with me. I hope it never will in fact. I have honestly nothing against it. More so the connotations of pink and the immediate associations of pink with girlishness. Why not something like health? Rather than feminine prettiness, apples, lips, virginity and so on.

Right, back to what this post was initially supposed to be about rather than my grumpy, late night ranting – I thought whipping up something with colour would help alter my mood a little. Got out some summer berries (blackberries, raspberrie, currants), a lemon and baking ingredients and was like oh yea. You know what I’m thinking. An easy recipe. Muffins! Which meant finally I could use the Le Creuset silicone baking pan I’d ordered through the post. I think I’ve always been slightly skeptical of silicone bakeware but now that I’ve tried it, I’m never going back! I’ve stepped over to the Dark Side and I’m not ashamed of it. Silicone bakeware can be used in the oven or in the freezer. Can be squished and folded up to any sort of contorted shape you fancy which means a quick stuff in the bag if you’re intending on running out to someone’s for a baking session. It’s so light and in a nice orange shade, how could I resist! Grease proof, no need for buttering your tray. To remove your muffins, just press the bottom of the cups and push – it pops out quick and easy. What’s even better is if you’re an absolute lazy fart, pop it into the dishwasher. Awesome isn’t it?

So there I was – with a bright yellow lemon, my orange silicone tray and some red and black berries. Heaven. I love anything lemon poppy seed so that cheered me up a bit. Crushing the berries relieved a little stress and made me slightly less angry and bloodthirsty (don’t ask me why I was to start with..I have no idea myself) and preparing the buttercream was just calming, watching the berries bleed into the whitened butter. Someone is probably going to recommend me a shrink right this second for my morbid behaviour. Have no fear, it’s all alright now. Probably is just the stress of my paper getting to me. Anyway, I present to you my latenight therapy which makes 6 large muffins:

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins with Summerfruit Buttercream
Ingredients

For the summerfruit buttercream:

Preheat oven to 170d Celsius.
Combine sifted flour, baking powder, soda, salt and sugar and give it a quick whisk to mix it together. Then form a well in the middle. Beat the egg with the milk, fresh lemon juice lightly then pour into the well. Add the melted butter over that and using a wooden spoon, mix till just combined. Fold in poppy seeds and lemon zest. Spoon into tray about 3/4 full and bake for 25min or till a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Remove from tray immediately and let cool completely.

The buttercream is very simple to make. Whip the butter till nice, smooth and soft. Add the icing sugar little by little, remember to sift so you don’t get any clumps. Beat. Add vanilla essence and crushed berries. Leave some uncrushed if you’d like some added texture, mix it together till smooth then put a good generous dollop on a cooled muffin.
Don’t bother with prettiness. Just reward yourself with a great big bite!