Ham and Cheese Muffins: Part Deux

I made some ham and cheese muffins recently from the Hummingbird Bakery book and they were pretty yum but I wanted to try them again with a couple of changes.  This afternoon I decided to give them a go as I fancied someting yummy and savoury to munch on.  The main change I made was to use wholemeal flour instead of plain flour in an effort to make a tasty, healthy snack to be indulged in without guilt.  The second change I made was to omit the onion inclued in the last batch as for my taste I felt it was slightly overpowering. 

I really enjoyed the amended recipe and think that they will be a firm favourite to pop in the freezer and enjoy whenever I fancy a little treat.

Wholemeal Ham & Cheese Muffins
(makes 12)

50g Butter
360g Wholemeal Flour
2&1/2tsp Baking Powder
200g Grated Cheddar Cheese
250ml Whole Milk
1 Egg
80g Smoked Ham(finely chopped)
Salt and black pepper

1.  Preheat the oven to 170°C/325°F/Gas 3 and line a 12 hole muffin tin with paper cases.
2.  Melt the butter and season with some salt and ground black pepper.
3.  Mix the flour, baking powder and cheese in a bowl.
4.  In a seperate bowl mix the milk and egg, add this along with the melted butter to the flour mix and stir well until completely combined.
5.  Add the ham and mix to distribute evenly throughout.
6.  Spoon the mix into the paper cases until 2 thirds full.
7.  Bake in the preheated oven for 30-35 mins until golden brown.
8.  Remove from the oven and leave to cool on a wire cooling rack.

To freeze, individually wrap in cling film and place in the freezer to be enjoyed at a later stage.

And for dessert madam? One large slice of memory please

When I am in a restaurant and the dessert menu happens to find itself in my mits I follow the same process everytime, EVERYTIME.  I open said menu, do a quick scan, locate the word chocolate, read the description of the chocolate offering and then disregard everything else.  To some this may seem boring or habitual, to those who know me it is regarded as normal, without question.  I am a chocoholic so any fruity options to me are just blah.

My husband is the opposite as are some of my friends and would favour a sweet, tangy crumble or pie over the dense, rich, smooth indulgence of chocolate.  For me chocolate is pure, decadent luxury and as such is the perfect way to finish a delicious culinary experience.  I would feel it a waste of a fine dining experience to come away having not sampled the pastry chefs chocolate creation, an insult almost to there time and effort toiling in the heat of the kitchen.

My husband and I enjoy entertaining in our home meaning our guests reciprocate and cook for us in their home.  Such invitations are always accepted with enthusiasm as we are blessed with a network of friends all of whom are very skilled in the culinary department.  I do however always feel a pang of anxiety depending on the house to be visited regards dessert.  You see some people like myself (I always have at least two desserts to choose from in an effort to suit all tastes) will plan their menu according to the tastes of their guests, others however suit their own tastes.  It is in these house I know I will be offered up poached fruit or some such confection which is perfectly delicious but give us a birra chocola pulease!!!

Two weeks ago myself and the hubby attended Sunday lunch in the home of the parents of our sister in law.  My husband is not backward in coming forward and harrasses the poor woman every time he sees her for an invitation to Sunday lunch for some of her famous mushy peas.  So it would seem that he wore her down and she finally told our sis in law to invite us.  It was a delicious mammy's dinner.  Full of flavour, every mouthful a little bit of comfort on a fork and each plate groaned under the weight of enough food to feed a small family.  Then dessert was brought to the table, two deep filled apple tarts.  I smiled politely and enthused that they looked delicious whilst inwardly whinging at the thought of NO FRICKIN CHOCOLATE!

My manners are impeccable so I accepted my plate with much thanks and politely proceeded to spoon some into my mouth.  Bang.  I had tasted this deliciously perfect apple tart before, fresh from my mams oven and many, many years ago.  However, following years of dismissal of such caca milis I had completely eradicated all traces of it from my memory right up until this moment.  It brought the warmest of smiles to my face to remember happily tucking into large wedges of apple tart, still warm and smothered in cream on many Sunday afternoons, my mam standing over the kitchen table ensuring everyone happy and contented before she sat down to hers, wiping her hands on her orange and yellow ditsy floral print apron.  The day of this magical epiphany, Mothers day, how apt as she so vividly flooded my consciosness and a love of apple tart long forgotten was reborn.

For that reason I have, as best I can, recreated a version as closely matched to my mam's as I can remember.  I hope to enjoy this many times again, and that many others will too.

Apple Tart

For the pastry:
175g/6oz Butter (softened)
50g/2oz Caster Sugar
2 Eggs
250g/9oz Plain Flour (sieved)
For the filling:
700g/1&1/2lbs Bramley Cooking Apples
150g/5oz Caster Sugar

1.  For the pastry cream the butter and sugar until pale and creamy using a a hand held electric whisk with dough hooks.
2.  Add one egg and continue to beat.
3.  In a seperate bowl beat the second egg and add half to the butter/sugar mixture, reserve the rest for later, continue to beat.
4.  Sieve in the flour and beat until the mixture forms a ball of dough.
5.  On a clean work surface knead the dough for a couple of minutes.
6.  Divide the dough in to two pieces, flatten each into a round, wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour.
7.  Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4.
8.  Lightly grease a baking dish/tin with butter.
9.  Peel and slice the apples and toss in the caster sugar.
10. Once chilled place the dough onto a floured work surface and roll each round to a depth of 3mm.
11. Line the prepared dish/tin with one sheet of pastry dough and trim any excess from the edges.  Brush some of the reserved beaten egg around the rim.
12. Fill the pastry case with the apples, layering them evenly throughout.
13. Place the second sheet of pastry over the top of the apples, press down on the rim and trim any excess.  Brush all over with the remaining beaten egg.
14. Place in the preheated oven and bake for 45-50mins or until golden brown on top.
15. Allow to cool slightly and enjoy with fresh cream, custard or ice cream.

I want me mammy

So I'm currently laid up in bed with a rather bad ear and throat infection and feeling just generally crappy.  It is on days like this that I long to be at home in my childhood bed being looked after by my mam.  My hubby is here and he has stockpiled the fridge with ice pops to cool and soothe my throat and bought some chicken soup to make sure I eat something and keep my energy up.  Average treatment from someone who loves you and wants to help you feel better.  But, my mammy he is not.

No one can nurse you like your mammy can nurse you.  Dosing you with sugary pink Calpol on the dot every four hours, making little cotton balls to keep the cold out of your aching ears, running a strict hot water bottle rotation to ensure the cosiness of your bed is never compromised and cooking delicious batches of chicken broth the mere smell of which harnessed powerful healing properties.

My mam was relentless in her care of her girls whenever we were struck with a virus or infection or tummy bug.  She played the role of nurse to perfection preempting our needs so as to always appear at our bedside at just the right time with the perfect remedy.  Dry toast just as hunger started to set in following a tummy upset, cough medicine at 2am during mid sleep coughing fits that she never slept through, steaming chicken soup to help break a cold and the remote control on that last day of bed rest when really we were well enough to go to school but she pretended not to notice to allow us one last day of indulgence.

A constant across the spectrum of illnesses are the things that I would love right now.  A wibbly wobbly bowl of jelly and ice cream and an ice cold glass of 7UP.  I remember sitting on my mams lap in our doctors surgery and when he handed over the prescription for that yucky banana flavoured medicine he would always add "and plenty of 7UP and some jelly and ice cream".  On leaving the doctors we would walk across the road to the chemist to pick up the said scustin' medicine and then drop into the shop to pick up a packet of jelly and a block of HB vanilla ice cream.

I dodn't think it matters how old we are, we are never to old to crave the love and care of our mammy when we are ill.  I unfortunately do not have the luxury of my favourite nurse anymore so will have to adjust my expectations in line with the level of care offered by my wonderful husband.  What I do have and am grateful for are the memories of those days to keep me warm and bring a smile as I shiver here in my sick bed.

1 Mississippi 2 Mississippi

I'm a bit of a bore at heart. I've never been a wan for boozing and clubbing, falling over the cobble stones of Templebar at an ungodly hour of a Saturday evening and requiring strategically placed yellow stars on photographs the next day. Nope, I'm a bit of a bore. I would garner much more pleasure from an evening sat around my kitchen table with family and friends savouring mouthfuls of delicious food I have laboured over all day. I revel in these days, with the menu planned in advance and all of the ingredients bought and safely stowed in the fridge or press I rise early to start the preparations.

Saturday was one of these blissful days. I started off at about 8:30am by mixing together some chocolate truffles before safely stowing the mix in the fridge to set. Then it was onto the cake which was made in three pretty straight forward stages and left to cool. Sorted.

We were having my brother in law and his wife over but the hubby had fecked off out to visit his mammy in advance of Mothers day, the cheek, and then to the gym to pump some iron or do whatever it is the men folk do there. As I had been abandoned and the clock was ticking down it was up to me to crack on and give the house a bit of a spruce up so out came the duster and the hoover, followed by the mop. Right so that’s the dessert and the hovel sorted which was in my world good going as I usually have to shove the hoover in a corner somewhere as the doorbell rings.

2 o'clock, I could lounge on the sofa for a few hours and shovel some of those deliciously delish homemade truffles in my gob but alas no, a friend is popping in at 2:30 to show off her new babog and I am looking as my mother would have said like the wreck of the hespiss. Half an hour just wasn't gonna cut it so I had to make a very bold decision, horror of horrors I was gonna have to face my friend with a face untouched by the wonders of modern concealers, hair scraped back into a pony that would ensure no unruly frizzy bits could escape and peel my very comfy tracksuit away from my body in exchange for some jeans.

That brings me right up to 6 o'clock, perfect. Just enough time to beautify myself and prep the rest of the food. 7:30pm and I am back in the kitchen applying a little lip gloss when the hubby starts shouting at me cos he is under pressure to prep the starter and I am obviously not contributing enough to the nights preparations. I smiled politely as the only other option was to knock him to the ground and drag him around the house by the ears and point out all of the things I had spent the day doing. A nice little smack of the lips to ensure even distribution of said gloss and sure I'm only massive. With that I dressed the table and flittered about the house lighting approximately 17 gazillion tea lights to set the ambience for the evening ya see.

Ding Dong and they're here. Plenty of mwah mwahing could be heard for the next few minutes with a light sprinkling of compliments before I find myself back in the kitchen whipping up a little pre dinner cocktail which was quaffed by all and seconds promptly requested. A few hot 'head in oven' minutes later the gong sounds and three hungry souls were seated around the table and I served up the starter which hubby declared to be his creation lest I try to take credit for it, heaven forbid. Compliments all round and hubby decidedly pleased with himself removed himself from the table to cook the mojito chicken he had been so looking forward to trying http://www.thegoodmoodfoodblog.com/2008/07/mohito-lime-and-mint-chicken.html. I joined him at the hob as my perfect hostess status was possibly in jeopardy as I hadn't knocked up a batch of my addictive Rocky Road and had numerous phone calls throughout the day from my bro in law from which I got the distinct impression he would be devastated if a plate of this did not appear at some stage throughout the night. Rocky Road chilling in the fridge and main course served there was silence again for a few minutes bar the sound of metal scraping delph until plates were clean and bellies full.

Having waited a sufficient time to talk and laugh ourselves peckish again we arrived at my favourite part of the evening - dessert. To me starters and main course are merely a means to an end and that end is dessert. The pop of a champagne cork is the most suitable herald of dessert in my book so once glasses had been filled with pretty pink bubbles the Mississippi Mud Pie arrived at the table and four very generous slices were cut and distributed followed mere seconds later by copious ooohing and aaaahing in appreciation of its chocolaty goodness and all round deliciousness. Now at this stage you would imagine we were all fit to burst and couldn't possibly manage another morsel. Well we were, but sure when I arrived at the table with tea and coffee accompanied by chocolate truffles and rocky road we heroically managed to squeeze in a taster of each before wisely vowing to only let cocktails pass our lips for the remainder of the evening and very sensibly toddling off to bed at 4 am. A very successful evening all round and another delicious dessert to add to the arsenal. Result!

Mississippi Mud Pie

I got the recipe for this from Something for the Weekend so am gonna be a bit lazy and just post the link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/apps/ifl/food/mobile/queryengine?templatestyle=one_recipe&config=db_one_recipe&SuppressCaching=1&attrib_1=filename&oper_1=eq&val_1_1=mississippimudpie_93659

Plain Dark Chocolate Truffles

(Makes, well, a lot!)

225g/8oz Good Quality Dark Chocolate (broken into small pieces)

300ml/1/2pint Double Cream

• 
  
  Place the chocolate pieces into a bowl.
• 
  
  Bring the cream to a rolling boil in a saucepan and immediately pour over the chocolate.
• 
  
  Blend until all of the chocolate has melted.  Allow to cool at room temerature (approx 1-1&1/2 hours).
• 
  
  When the mixture has set spoon out some of the mixture and roll into balls between the palms of your hands (dust hands with some icing sugar or cocoa powder to stop the mixture from stcking to them).
• 
  
  Roll the truffles in cocoa powder, icing sugar, chopped nuts, flaked cocolate or anything that takes your fancy.

Alternatively:

• 
  
  Line a square baking tin with grease proof paper.
• 
  
  Once the chocolate and cream have combined pour the mixture into the prepared baking tin and chill in the fridge.
• 
  
  When the mixture has set lift out of the baking tin with the grease proof paper and place on a flat surface.
• 
  
  Dust lightly with cocoa powder, lay a sheet of grease proof paper on top and turn upside down, remove the original grease proof paper from the bottom and dust lightly with cocoa powder.
• 
  
  Dust a sharp knife with a little cocoa powder and cut into strips of approx 2cm.  Dust knife regularly to prevent sticking.
• 
  
  Once the square has been cut into strips turn the grease proof paper once and cut at 2cm intervals again to give perfect square truffles.
• 
  
  Use any remaining cocoa powder to dust the freshly cut sides.

By jove, I think she's got it!

Morning peeps,

So I have mentioned a couple of times that I wanted to try to recreate a cake I had in one of my favourite cafes, actually, I did recreate it but felt it still wasn't up to scratch. Well I think I may have it. The cake in question was made using a digestive biscuit base, perfectly acceptable for a lot of cakes but for this particular creation I felt it left it wanting something. As I was making the base for Saturdays dessert it suddenly occurred to me that maybe it would work with said cake, so next time I will try it with my new favourite biscuit base and it that fails I shall have to pray for inspiration. Think I have eaten twice my own body weight in delicious food this weekend so will wait a few days before I bake anything but will post a recipe as soon as I succeed. Recipes from this weekends dinner party will appear this week so keep your peepers on alert for Mississippi Mud Pie and chocolate truffles, delicious!

Busy Weekend

Afternoon all,

Well I have a busy weekend ahead with two lots of visitors scheduled in for tomorrow and then dinner in someone elses house on Sunday (thank God, 'cos I imagine I will need a bit of a break). I have some baking scheduled in for a dinner party on Saturday night and hopefully if I find the time some home made chocs. Will also try to whip up a little sweet confection for tomorrow afternoons visitors. Probably won't get time to post results and recipes until next week so keep an eye out. Enjoy your weekend and to all of the yummy mummys out there Happy Mothers Day. Mwah.

xxx