Jetlag Sausage Bake

I always find that aeroplane food, especially after a holiday that involved a lot of good food, puts a bit of a dent in the end of the trip. This time I decided to not really eat on the plane but brought some peanuts and raisins in the hope that they would keep hunger pangs at bay for 11 hours. It also meant I got to try out a jetlag cure which says you shouldn’t eat while travelling over time zones and wait until the next meal time when you land, before eating again. I sort of kept to it – I ate some cheese pasta and a yoghurt because peanuts and raisins get fairly dull – and actually now don’t feel too bad. However this could be attributed to my determination to stay awake for about 26 hours (give or take a couple of short naps) and then sleep for about 10 hours. I can’t say it was entirely scientific.

Coming home always means that you’re not only dealing with the down from the end of a holiday but all the clothes washing and the restocking of the kitchen as well. Today I really couldn’t be bothered with much hassle at dinner and The Thew is on a massive health kick due to ‘overindulgence’ on holiday (we have differing view on what constitutes overindulgence but I’m sure I’ll get on to that in time) and the fact that he has to run 66 miles in a couple of weekends time. He also does the washing up so I thought I should be nice to him.

This is where the Jetlag Sausage Bake comes in. It’s basically things still in my fridge and a few things I could pick up on my way home. To be honest you could chuck most things in and it would work but below is what I put in.

Ingredients

1 pack of good quality sausages

1 large sweet potato

3 or 4 small to medium carrots

1 red pepper

1 red onion

A few slices of chorizo

1 blub of garlic

Some dried herbs

1.   Preheat the oven to 200° or GM6.

2.   Chop the sausages in half (or not but I like how it looks), chop the sweet potato, carrots, pepper and onion into fairly large pieces. Chuck them all into a baking tray. Add the chorizo.

3.   Cut the garlic blub in half and add to the rest of the ingredients. You can just use cloves and less garlic but I just like how the bottom of the bulb looks in the tray!

4.   Season and add some dried herbs. I went heavy on the sage because of the sausages but whatever you have will work.

5.   Add some oil and whack in the oven for about 45 minutes. Done.

6.   Eat straight from the tray if you want to minimise the washing up.

A Birthday Cake for Lucy

I'm cheating here as I made this a few weeks ago. However I'm writing this before I go holiday, for me to publish on holiday, so that I have a nice steady stream of posts. Dedication!

I always get excited when making a cake for someone's birthday. I think it's because I associate it with the amazing cakes my parents made for me and I really got into the swing while I was at university. When I started university my mum gave me a '1000 Recipes' book that covered everything - I still have it and do refer to it when I get faced with something random - and it had a whole 'Celebration Cake' section.

I gave this book to my friend Neil and said he could pick any cake he wanted for his birthday. Now they were pretty much all round or square and I figured I could get through any icing requirements with minimal fuss. However Neil chose the 'Hedgehog' cake which not only required the cake being cooked in two different sized pudding bowls but the cutting and constructing of the hedgehog shape from these. I think marzipan was also involved which just goes to show how random this cake was. Anyway, it all worked out and a successful birthday party was rounded off by a hedgehog aflame with candles.

Since then I do love a random cake mould but there is so little call for them in everyday life. I can never really justify it for a one off cake but a couple of years ago I invested in a giant cupcake mould. Since then it has brought nothing but joy into my life and so when Lucy on my team had her birthday coming up I decided that nothing but a giant cupcake would do for her.

It's really all in the preparation of the mould and the bravery of extraction. Everything else is just literally frosting and baubles!

This is basically Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Fudge Cake recipe but in a different shape.

Ingredients

Cake
400g plain flour
250g caster sugar
100g light muscovado sugar (soft brown will do)
50g cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda (I kind of heap it up a bit)
1 tsp salt
3 large eggs
Small tub of sour cream (they come in 142ml and 150ml)
1 tbsp vanilla extract (I think it’s worth investing in a good one so about £5 a bottle)
175g butter melted and cooled (use a large saucepan – see below)
125ml corn oil
300ml cold water

Fudge icing
200g dark chocolate (I go for the 72% one as any higher gets a bit powdery in taste)
250g butter softened
275g sieved icing sugar (if you can do this outside all the better as icing sugar gets everywhere)
1 tbsp vanilla extract

      Cake

1.   Preheat the oven to GM4 or 180°.

2.   Put the flour, both sugars, cocoa powder, baking powder, bicarb and salt in a large bowl and mix together.

3.   Add the oil to the butter in the large saucepan – this then becomes the main mixing bowl and minimises washing up. Whisk together – an electric whisk is going to be your friend here. Add the water and whisk again.

4.   Add the dry ingredients and mix well.

5.   In another bowl, or the measuring jug you had the oil in (washing up again), put the eggs, sour cream and vanilla extract. Add this to the other ingredients and mix well.

6.   Make sure your mould is well greased with loads of butter and put a small round of baking paper at the bottom of the mould. Fill it with cake mixture - go easy on the deeper side as it does rise -and bake for about an hour but you’re going to need to test it by shoving a skewer in and checking it comes out clean.

Fudge icing

1.   Melt the chocolate and leave to cool slightly.

2.   Sieve the icing into the butter (if you can do this outside all the better as icing sugar gets everywhere). Then cream together.

3.   Add the melted chocolate and vanilla and mix well.

4.   (Or buy a tub of Betty Crocker Fudge Frosting. Don't be proud as it's actually doesn't taste that different!)

Construction

1.   Cut off any cake that is excess and over the top of the mould. Eat this.

2.   Get the cake out of the mould! Leave it to cool and then just be very careful. I can't give much more instruction but just wish you luck. If the top sticks you don't need to worry as you're going to be covering it in fudge icing. If part of the bottom sticks then just make sure that's not facing front and on show!

3.   Use about a 1/3 of the icing to sandwich the two parts together and cover the top with the rest.

4.   Cover with as much decoration as you can get on there. I used silver balls, sugar butterflies and edible gold spray (possibly my favourite decoration ever). You're going to have to throw the decorations at it as it's not a flat surface but this is lots of fun. If there are children around get them to help.

Spicy Chorizo Sausage Rolls

Mondays aren’t the most amazing day of the week for people but for me once the working hours are done there is a feeling of the week having started and energy levels rising. I used to play netball on a Monday but when that finished I thought that I should put the night, and energy, to good use and start to expand my baking. There are so many recipes I want to try but find myself making the same things – mainly because those are the ingredients I have in my cupboard and fridge. I also want to start putting more personal twists on things so Mondays will become my night to bake.

It just so happens that I have an order to fulfil tonight (I said I’d bake in exchange for a favour).These have proved so ridiculously popular that I’m normally asked for these, over cake, if people are given the choice. The fact that I use ready rolled puff pastry does mean that these can be done really fast and considering my kitchen is tiny, and heats up fast, making pastry isn’t always on option. I also have ‘hot hands’ so when making pastry I tend to have to keep putting it in the fridge which I really can’t be bothered with!

Best eaten hot but most people only get them cold because I bring them into work. The heat comes from the spices, not the chorizo, so you can adjust to taste. Fresh chilli might also work but I prefer ground spice for these.

Ingredients

1 x pack of 8 pork sausages

1 x pack of ready rolled puff pastry

2 x smaller cooking chorizo or about 1/3 of a chorizo ring, chopped into small chunks

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp cayenne pepper (less or more depending on how spicy you want it)

½ tsp very hot chilli powder (I use Barts as everything else just seems weak compared to it)

1 egg, whisked (milk will do)

1.    Pre-heat an oven to GM5 or 190°.

2.    Remove the skin from the sausages and put in a bowl. I have made these – by accident – with reduced fat sausages and it worked. You just don’t get the wonderful colour from the chorizo and paprika oozing into the pastry as much. It does seem to give a firmer sausage in the middle so try whatever you like.

3.    Add the chorizo and spices and mix together. I always start with a wooden spoon and then realise I just need to get my hand dirty. I tend to have some water in the sink so I can do quick rinses without getting the taps dirty but I’m weird like that.

4.    Roll out the pastry a bit more as I don’t find the pack size is big enough and the pastry is too thick for a sausage roll. Just a little bit longer and wider should do it. Cut in half lengthways.

5.    Divide the sausage meat in two and roll between your hands so it fit the length of the pastry strips. Egg wash one edge of each strip, fold the other side of the pastry over the meat and seal by pressing along the join with a fork. I find something deeply satisfying in creating the fork impressions in pastry.

6.    Cut into each long roll into your desired sizes – I tend to get 8 out of each – and place on a baking tray (or two) and wash with the egg. Then cut a small hole in the top of each (I use scissors) and there you go.

7.    Pop in the oven for 20-25 minutes. If you’re using two trays and they are on different shelves the ones on the lower shelf might need more time. You basically want them to go golden and look like the picture. Then they’re done.

8.    Eat.

Why I bake

Baking for me is something that I learnt from a young age while watching my mum. The techniques that seem to confuse people or need explaining are second nature to me and I’ve grown to have a feel for what you can get away with. It’s an amazing gift that I’m not sure my mum even realises she has passed on – she probably thinks that she hasn’t passed a skill on to me as she never got around to teaching me Irish which is her first language.

Most of the baking in my house, when I was growing up, wasn’t consumed in the house. Cakes were always a gift item to show love and affection to family and friends when visiting them. However there were always those birthdays where my mum and dad would come together to create something quite special – log cabins, caterpillar cakes and pink castles with turrets. My mum made the cakes and my dad constructed them into fabulous structures using inspiration from cake books found in the local library. This is an area I lack in as I don’t have a love of icing but cakes as a celebration item is integral to my makeup.

My friends and family repay my baking by furnishing me with wonderful cake tins and baking accessories. My work colleagues heap praise on me to encourage yet more baking. I don’t think many believe me when I say that baking isn’t a chore – it calms me and I get enjoyment from thinking of the pleasure people get from eating the results. There is also probably an element of control that I get from it. As long as instructions are followed the results can be relied on and after a tough day I do reach for the mixing bowl over a bottle of wine.

The variety of things to bake, the smells, the textures, the edible gold spray paint (!) are all things I love and I hope to share some of that with you.