Tuesday 26 June 2012

Malteser tiffin

Part two of the day when I made a monumental mess in the kitchen. This, however, was faff-less. Delicious, and properly edible. Perhaps that's because I actually followed the recipe for once, and bothered to do it the right way. In fact, perhaps that's something that I ought to be doing more often: try the recipe by following all of the instructions the first time and just changing things afterwards. A novel idea, I think, but to be honest, it's just too tempting to change things. Still, I'll keep working at it, and maybe my cooking will be better at the end of this year than it was in January. Maybe.




Another BBC good food recipe...



Ingredients:
200g milk chocolate
100g unsalted butter
2tbsp golden syrup
125g digestive biscuits
135g Maltesers
For the topping:
200g milk chocolate
25g unsalted butter
1tsp golden syrup

Line a 20cm baking tray with baking parchment. Place the 200g of chocolate, butter and syrup in a heat proof bowl and melt over boiling water or microwave. (I now know that it is necessary to stir chocolate periodically when microwaving it, lest it burn to a crisp - I'm just chuffed that I bought extra chocolate, just in case!) Once almost melted, remove from the heat and gently stir until any tiny bits of chocolate have melted. Allow to cool a little.
Place the biscuits and 35g of the maltesers in a sandwich/freezer bag and crush with a rolling pin, until it's mainly crumbs, but a few chunks won't do any harm!
Mix the crushed mixture and the whole maltesers in with the melted chocolate and stir it in until everything is coated. Press into the prepared tin and then make up the topping.
Melt the chocolate, syrup and butter as before for the topping, and spread it over the biscuit base.
If you have a bit of white chocolate, you can just melt a bit over the top for that little something extra.
Cover the tin with cling film or tin foil and fridge for an hour or two before cutting into squares. 

Monday 25 June 2012

Fresh pasta

Yes, that's right... I made pasta! With my own fair hands!



With mum out of the country and a few days off post-exams (highers ma lyf!)  what else was I to do! Admittedly, it may not have been the best idea as by the time I was finished, flour was covering every single surface and I was heading out the door straight after dinner, leaving dad to clean up. (Mwahahahaha - simple pleasures, people, simple pleasures!)



One slight problem that I didn't take into account. That expanding pasta thing. The recipe said that a pasta roller was necessary. Naturally, I decided that a simple rolling pin would do a good enough job, but alas, that was not the case! When they cooked, the majority turned into chewy, starchy doughballs, while there were a few which although initially appearing too thin, were actually pretty nice!



Taken straight from bbc food, apart from the lack of pasta roller (oops)

Ingredients:
300g plain flour
3 eggs
1 tbsp olive oil

Place the flour, eggs and oil in a food processor and pulse until combined.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead briefly until smooth. Cut the dough aside in half and set one piece aside.
Roll out one piece until 1cm thick and then feed it through a pasta machine. Start on the thickest setting, passing the sheet through several times and lowering the setting until it reaches the thinnest setting. Slice the pasta sheet into ribbons 1cm wide. Repeat the process with the rest of the dough.
Rather than cutting into strips, I used a flower cookie cutter instead, to try and make some kind of a shell shape, which didn't quite work, but it wasn't completely awful! 
Cook until, well, cooked.

UPDATE - I got a pasta roller for Christmas. Attempt 2 to follow!!