recipes

r e c i p e s . . .
The last time I followed a recipe exactly I think I was doing a badge for Brownies and needed to make meatballs – I don’t believe it was a meatball-specific badge, probably just a cookery badge!
The whole meatball-making process started after school about 4pm and the food wasn’t on the table until 6.30pm! By this time I had to go to Brownies so I think I had a jam sandwich for my dinner that night (which tasted much better than my attempt at meatballs)! My unlucky brothers were the recipients of what was probably described as “another one of Laura’s cooking attempts” ... around the same time I burnt potatoes when boiling them, couldn’t use a tin opener and tried to pass off porridge oats and raisins as home-made muesli!

Things have progressed since then, I learnt to follow recipes and then I learnt not to follow recipes.

For me, there are times I need to follow recipes – making pastry

And there are times when I don’t – making anything other than pastry

As a Disney pirate once said “the code is more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules” and this is perfectly applicable to recipes too!

So substitute away, probably within reason, and if you need any more encouragement to ditch the coriander* and try something different then have a look at The Flavour Thesaurus. It’s an inspired book about flavours that go and flavours that contrast & compliment. Really well written and easy to reference if (like me) you don’t have everything in your cupboards that a recipe suggests. 

*NB – I would like to take a moment to point out that I don’t have anything against coriander as an ingredient in recipes!

pistachio-joy!!

p i s t a c h i o - j o y ! ! . . .
Now I’ve showed you what I think are my standard cakes (carrot cake, vegan chocolate cake, Marieke cake), I can move on to my favourite cake...

I could eat an entire one of these cakes in one sitting....partly because I love cake but mostly because I LOVE pistachios!! It would make more sense for me to just eat a bag of pistachios but it’s not really the same!!
The most laborious part of making this cake is shelling the pistachios so you should either put some time aside to do that or get some recruits (even Niall helps with shelling pistachios for this one and it’s rare that he will help with anything baking related given there is no reward for him – he doesn’t really like cake...I know, weird!!).

I'm surprised there are pistachios left on the top!

So for the recipe:
125g butter - soft; 175g caster sugar; 3 eggs – beaten; 125g plain flour; ½  tsp baking powder; 100g(ish) pistachio nuts – chopped; 1 lemon – juiced & zested
Cream together the sugar and butter until fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Add in the flour & baking powder. Stir together until combined. Stir in most of the chopped nuts and finally add in the lemon juice & zest. Bake at Gas Mark 4 for 20 – 30 minutes, until the top of the cake is golden and it bounces back up when you press it gently.

To ice it I just sprinkle it with some icing sugar – you really don’t need anything more than that...the pistachios do all the work.

I did once end up with hardly any pistachios in my cake as I’d eaten so many in the baking tasting process. I tend to cook with some at the side now!!