Tag Archives: Food

Challenge No. 25 – Sweet Potato Brownie (Gluten Free)

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This challenge was due to be posted last Thursday, however, on Wednesday evening I received the terrible news that my brother’s soon to be father-in-law had been killed in a motorcycle accident.    Dave was a wonderful man who was so full of life and laughter.  It is a heartbreaking loss for his family but also all those who knew and experienced Dave (it has been said that you didn’t just know Dave, you experienced him!).  Sadly Dave died as a result of a car driver pulling out in front of him, the type of accident bikers cannot account for.  His family have already tried to increase awareness for other bikers and so I start this post with my condolences and love to the Cook family but also a message to all those who use the roads – please be aware of motorbike riders, look twice maybe even three time before pulling out.  That final check could stop another family having to go through this painful experience.   Rest in peace Dave, you will be sadly missed by all those who had the pleasure of knowing you.

And so, through teary eyes, I continue with this post…

This challenge was suggested by my friend Danny and it was a bit of a tricky one for me.  Sweet potatoes have soared in popularity in the UK recently and a quick search online revealed lots of recipes for sweet potato brownies.  However, Danny specifically requested the brownies be gluten free.  Trying to find a simple recipe for gluten free sweet potato brownies was more difficult.  All the ones I found used ‘cups’ for the ingredients measurements (which I never use!) and also gluten free flour.  I wanted to avoid using a gluten free flour and so I searched until I found a recipe which used other ingredients.   

Eventually I found this recipe by Lindsay on The Lean Green Bean blog (be sure to check it out)!  I’ve converted the recipe away from ‘cups’ and to make these delicious sweet potato brownies, you will need the following ingredients:-

  • 175 g chopped, pitted dates
  • 130g cooked sweet potato, mashed
  • 190g  nut butter (I used peanut butter)
  • 2 eggs
  • 63g applesauce
  • 40g unsweetened cocoa powder
  • ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 100g dark chocolate chips

Edited - ingredients

I started off by cooking the sweet potato.  I’ve made sweet potato fries before, but I wasn’t sure of the best (and quickest) way to cook the sweet potato for mashing purposes.  I did a bit of research and decided to use the microwave.  I simply pricked the potato with a fork and popped it in the microwave on high for 8 minutes (turning it over half way through).  After cutting the potato open, I realised this wasn’t quite long enough to cook it all the way through.  However, the outside bits were soft enough to give me 130g of mashed potato.

Whilst the potato was in the microwave, I added my dates and peanut butter to a food mixer.  I then added the mashed sweet potato and blitzed it until smooth.  This actually took quite a while because the mix was so thick.  I was slightly worried the motor on my mixer was going to blow, it definitely got very hot but managed to survive the challenge!

Edited- step 1

Once the mixture was smooth, I added the eggs and applesauce and blended the mixture until it was combined.

Edited - step 2

I then decided to tip the mixture into a large bowl before adding the final ingredients.  This is mainly because my mixer is small but also the motor was really hot after working such a thick mixture so a rest was clearly needed!  Once the mixture was in the bowl, I sifted in the cocoa powder and bicarbonate of soda. 

Edite - in the bowl

I tried mixing this together with a spatula but it was so thick, the tip came off the handle! So I switched to a nice sturdy wooden spoon and it came together nicely.

Edited - step 3

Finally, I added the chocolate chips before spooning the mixture into my dish (9×9 inch pan) which I had lined with baking paper.

Edited - in the pan

I popped the dish into my pre-heated oven on 190 degrees celsius.  I checked the bake after 15 minutes and re-set the timer for another 5 minutes.  I then checked it again and decided to give it another 3 minutes.  When I inserted my skewer it wasn’t coming out completely clean but the coating was melted chocolate rather than uncooked batter so I decided it was done.

I left the brownie to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before popping it onto a cooling rack to cool completely.   I then chopped it up into squares and packed the brownies up to take round to my friend’s for the evening.

Edited - cooling Edited - chopped up

Dave and I spent the evening with our friends Matt and Helen, where we enjoyed a beautifully cooked lasagne and a homemade victoria sponge cake made with lemon curd and a coconut topping – all courtesy of Helen. 

Helen is a keen baker, a celiac and a chocaholic making her the perfect taster for my gluten free brownies.  The verdict – a success. 

We all enjoyed these little chocolate treats; even Dave who had turned his nose up at the idea of potato in a brownie (he didn’t believe me when I tried to tell him all brownies have potato in! hehe).  The peanut butter added a really nice flavour to the brownies and I will definitely be making these again!

Edited - served up 2

Coming up next, Challenge No. 26 – chilli con carne.

  

Challenge No. 24 – Scotch Eggs

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This is another dish suggested by my wonderfully supportive mum. I was back in Peterborough at the weekend and I thought a bit of mother daughter bonding in the kitchen would be fun; so I suggested we make the scotch eggs together.  I started doing a bit of research and all the recipes I found involved deep frying the scotch eggs.  I didn’t really want to do this and I had a vague recollection of previously making oven baked ones in my high school cooking class. Luckily my mum is very organised and has a folder with all my old recipes in so she had a look and found the scotch egg one.

Taking inspiration from a recipe on BBC GoodFood, I’ve updated my school recipe slightly and to make my version of the scotch eggs you will need the following ingredients:-

  • 11 eggs
  • 1,300g sausage meat
  • 3 tsp worcestershire sauce
  • 2 tsp english powder
  • Salt and Pepper to season
  • 5 rashers smoked streaky bacon*
  • Approximately 50g plain flour
  • Approximately 150g golden breadcrumbs

*My soon-to-be-sister-in-law doesn’t like bacon so I made half the scotch eggs without the bacon so Nikki could try some 🙂

Edited - ingredients

The above ingredients will make 10 scotch eggs, 5 of which will include the bacon.

Now, I have a quick confession to make before we get started.  Before I attempted this challenge, I had never boiled an egg before! Yep, at the age of 26, I had never cooked a soft or hard boiled egg.  I’ve previously made scotch eggs but my mum got the ingredients ready, including providing me with hard boiled eggs.  At the weekend, I confessed this embarrassing fact to my mum who was deeply ashamed but laughed at my expense. 

So, on with my first attempt at cooking a hard boiled egg.  I put 10 of the eggs into a pan and filled it with cold water, making sure the eggs were sufficiently covered.  I then popped the pan on a medium heat and put the lid on to bring the water to a boil.  Once the water was bubbling away, I set the timer for 5 minutes.  When the timer went off, I decided to give them another minute and then plunged them into cold water.

Edited - eggs in the pan

Practical tip: to check whether the eggs are done, take one out of the water and if the water evaporates quickly it will be done.  if the water takes a while to disappear, give the eggs a little longer. (This tip was provided my mum 🙂 )   

While the eggs were cooking, I had prepared the sausage meat.  I put the meat into a bowl and added the worcestershire sauce, mustard powder and seasoned it with salt and pepper.  I then mixed it up.  I tried to use a spoon but this just didn’t work so I got a bit messy and used my hand – this was actually really fun! 

Edited - sausage meat and ingredients

With the sausage meat ready and the eggs cooled, I set about peeling the eggs by gently tapping them on the worktop to break the shell and then pealing it off.  I dipped each pealed egg into a bowl of water to make sure all the bits of shell were washed off. 

Edited - pelled eggs

Next up, I cooked the bacon rashers.  The recipe on BBC GoodFood said to bring a pan of water to the boil and then to drop in the rashers, turn off the heat and then remove the rashers using tongs by which time they will have cooked.  I did exactly as the recipe said and I have to be honest both me and mum were amazed that this worked! Such a quick and neat way to cook the bacon!

Edited - cooked bacon

I then set up the ‘stations’ for the next stage of the recipe.  I put my eggs on one plate, bacon on another, some plain flour into a shallow bowl and I measured out 10 spoonfuls of the sausage meat mixture onto a chopping board. 

Edited - meat portions

I started with the non-bacon scotch eggs and rolled the eggs into the flour, shaking off any excess.  I then took one ball of the sausage meat mixture and squashed it flat onto the palm of my hand before adding the floured egg.  I worked the meat round the egg until it was fully encased and put it to one side as I carried on.

Edited - step 1

To make the bacon scotch eggs, I wrapped the bacon around the egg before rolling it in the flour and then adding the sausage meat mixture casing.

Edited - bacon wrapped eggs

Practical tip: make sure the sausage meat mixture is sealed all the way round the egg to ensure it doesn’t break open in the oven. I didn’t quite manage this with all of them and I had a few breakers but it just makes them look more homemade 😉

Next up it was time to add the breadcrumb coating.  If your kitchen is big enough, you could do this in with the last stage by just adding two more bowls to the ‘stations’ – one with a beaten egg in and one with breadcrumbs.  I was making these in my mums kitchen which had the benefit of size, however, as I needed to take photo’s and this gets a bit messy, I thought it best to do this bit as a separate step.

Practical tip: to avoid waste, don’t put all the breadcrumbs into the bowl before you start.  Just add a small layer and top up as necessary.

Edited - stations

With all the hard boiled eggs wrapped in the sausage meat mixture, I took one at a time and rolled it in the beaten egg and then into the breadcrumbs before popping it onto a tray to cook in the oven.

I cooked the scotch eggs in 2 batches so I could know the difference between the ones with bacon and the ones without.  The first batch I just put on a lined baking tray, however, they went soggy on the bottom.  So the second batch, I put on a rack on the tray and these cooked a lot better.

Edited - pre oven Edited - cooked

I cooked the scotch eggs for a total of 33 minutes at 190 degrees celsius.   After 30 minutes, I turned the scotch eggs over to allow the bottoms to brown for the last 3 minutes.

Once the scotch eggs were cooled, I chopped them up and my family and I enjoyed them as a starter before a yummy BBQ in a bit of rare English sunshine.  Everyone said they were very nice…even my brother who doesn’t like hard boiled eggs tried the meat and breadcrumb element and said it was a good texture and flavour. However, I think my nan liked them the most.  At 86 her appetite is definitely not what it used to be but she kept going back for more of these scotch eggs!

Edited - on a plateEdited - chopped up 1

Personally, I thought the bacon was a nice extra and made them a little bit special.  However the ones without bacon were also lovely; so much so that I’m not sure which one I prefer – I just wanted to eat them all.

Coming up next week, Challenge No. 25 – sweet potato brownies.

Challenge No. 23 – Chocolate Truffles

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This recipe was suggested by my friend Katie.  On Saturday another friend of ours had a garden party for her hen do and I decided to attempt this challenge at the weekend so I could take the truffles to be enjoyed by all the girls.  I was staying with Katie and she got very excited when I said I was making them to take with us.  Considering I was taking the truffles to a hen do, I thought I would make them a little bit special by adding some alcohol 🙂 So this is my attempt at Prosecco truffles and Disaronno truffles.

I did a little bit of internet searching and found a lovely looking Prosecco truffle recipe by Miss Messy (aka Holly).  I think these truffles are adorable with the addition of the little gold hearts. I even bought some edible glitter so I could do the same but I sadly ran out of time – I’ll have to try this next time.

I adapted Miss Messy’s recipe to make my Disaronno truffles.  The method is exactly the same but it’s just the ingredients which differ slightly. 

  • For Prosecco truffles I used the following:-
    • 280g good-quality dark chocolate
    • 280ml double cream
    • 50g unsalted butter
    • 20ml Prosecco
    • cocoa powder
  • For the Disaronno truffles I used the following:-
    • 280g good-quality dark chocolate
    • 280ml double cream
    • 50g unsalted butter
    • 2 tbsp Disaronno
    • cocoa powder
Ingredients

Note: I accidently left out the cocoa powder in this photo so it its own below 🙂

I started by making the Prosecco truffles and broke the chocolate into small pieces to put into a large bowl.

Edited - chocolate broken

I put the butter into my saucepan, poured over the cream and put it on a medium heat.  I kept a close eye on this and kept stirring until the butter had melted and the cream was nice and hot.  It was just about starting to bubble when I decided it was hot enough.

Practical tip: to help the butter melt quickly so that your cream doesn’t burn, let it sit at room temperature before starting and chop it into small pieces.

In the pan Melted cream

Once the cream was ready, I poured it over the chocolate and let it sit for a minute before I gave it a good stir.  At first, the mix was a bit milky looking but after a bit of patience and continued stirring, it turned a beautifully rich chocolate colour. 

Melting Chocolate ganache

I mixed in the Prosecco and poured the ganache into a clean dish to cool.  I covered the dish with cling film and put it in the fridge. 

In the dish

I then got started on the Disaronno truffles and I repeated all of the above steps.  In hindsight, I could have simply made all the ganache together and separated it into two bowls before adding the alcohol…but I didn’t do this and I’m not sure why! I’m going to put it down to having a bit of a blonde moment.

With both my ganache mixtures chilling in the fridge, I realised it was already 11pm!  The recipe says to leave the ganache for at least 4 hours and considering the time, I decided to just leave it overnight. 

The next morning, I took the dishes out of the fridge to check them and the mixture was really hard! I panicked a little and decided to let them sit at room temperature for about half hour before I started shaping the truffles.  It turns out I didn’t need to do this and it actually just made rolling the truffles a bit more difficult as the ganache was melting.  So I popped the dishes back in the fridge to firm up again.

With the ganache re-chilled, I got a shallow bowl and poured in some cocoa powder. 

Cocoa powder

I took one of the dishes out of the fridge and started forming my truffle balls.  I coated my hands in the cocoa powder and used a measuring spoon to scoop out a small portion of ganache.  I rolled the ganache in my hands to achieve a rough ball shape (as much as tried, they weren’t very neat!) and then rolled the ball in the cocoa powder before popping it to one side and getting on with the rest.

Things got a little messy here so I couldn’t get any photos of the rolling process but here is the aftermath…

What a mess

Once all the truffles were rolled and coated, I put them in the fridge to keep chilled until I left for the garden party.

Done On a plate

So these truffles were really nice, however, none of us could taste the alcohol and I couldn’t even tell the difference between the Prosecco ones and the Disaronno ones! Next time, I’ll just make sure to add some more alcohol 🙂

Whilst all the girls enjoyed these little chocolate treats, some of them weren’t a massive fan of the cocoa coating.  Another recipe I found used a mixture of icing sugar and cocoa powder and I think this would perhaps be a bit lighter.  I’m going to give this a try next time and I’ll let you know how I get on. 

Coming up next week, Challenge No. 24 – scotch eggs.