Django Unchained tribute: Crimson-splattered white cake

Note: This is not a review of Django Unchained. This is just me expressing my intense admiration for a genius masterpiece in the only way I know how to express myself; through food.

The foodie in me woke up at the white cake scene. Instead of listening to the conversation they were having, I was looking at the cake and wondering how they made it so white (it looked like snow!) and what kind of icing they used (it looked extra smooth and white). The 2nd time I watched it, I was able to observe the cake scene more (sad, right?) then I made up my mind that I was going to make a white cake.

I chose a red dusting because everyone knows how Tarantino likes his films; witty, action-packed, gory, bloody and bloody and Django Unchained was filled with all that and more. I especially loved the symbolism of blood and the striking images of red on white:

• Various scenes of Django wearing the dead slaver’s bloodstained coat
• The scene where Big Daddy was shot and his blood was splattered all over the white horse he was riding,
• When Ellis Brittle was shot in the cotton field and the camera beautifully captured the fine details of his bright red blood sprayed on pure white cotton,
• The almost-farewell scene where Dr. Schultz shot Monsieur Candie and the bullet went through his white rose ‘brooch’ and into his heart then blood seeped out of him and trickled down the rose.

If a movie is able to get me to voluntarily bake a triple-layered cake then it must’ve been something pretty special.

Now on to the technical bit. I tried to make the cake as white a possible so I used white caster sugar, thoroughly beaten butter, egg whites, white flour, milk, cream cheese filling and royal icing frosting. Although the vanilla essence was dark, I only used a little bit of it which I doubt would’ve made a difference to the colour of the cake. The outcome was great; it was moist as a result of the milk, I also loved the slight saltiness of the cream cheese filling and the gentle sweetness of the royal icing but visually the sponge itself didn’t come out as white as I wanted. If anyone knows how I could get a whiter purer-looking cake please let me know, I’ll pay you in virtual hugs

Ingredients
For the sponge (makes 2)

• 230g butter
• 260g sugar
• 240ml milk
• 1.5 tbsp vanilla extract
• 390g flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 7 egg whites

For the cream cheese filling (enough for the 3-layers)

• 150g cream cheese
• 85g icing sugar, sifted

For the royal icing (enough for the 3 layers)

• 2 egg whites
• 400g icing sugar
• 2 tsp glycerine

Method (makes two cakes)

Preheat the oven to gas mark 4

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar on the high setting for about 7-10 minutes, until it’s really fluffy and pale.

While it’s beating, sift the flour and baking powder into another bowl as well as the pinch of salt. Also in a different bowl, whisk the egg whites with an electric whisk until it’s doubled in size or until extra white and fluffy.

In batches alternate between adding the dry ingredients and milk plus vanilla extract (begin and end with the dry ingredients) into the butter mixture while mixing on low setting.

Stop the beating and fold in the egg whites with a spatula or metal spoon until the mixture is smooth.

Transfer to the greased, lined and floured baking tins. Bake for 40 minutes on gas mark 5 or until golden brown or until the cake tester/toothpick comes out clean.

When it’s done, take out of the tin and leave to cool completely or overnight on a cooling rack.
Sandwich the cakes with the cream cheese frosting (cream cheese + sugar, whisk lightly)

Prepare the royal icing by whisking the egg whites with an electric whisk until fluffy. Stop whisking, add the icing sugar 2 tablespoons at a time, whisk again and repeat until you’ve used up all the sugar and the mixture looks extra white, glossy and spreadable. it would be wise to do this part in the since because trust me, the icing will get EVERYWHERE.

Using a spatula, palette knife or cake smoother, slather the royal icing all over it then smooth around and decorate.

Slice off as much as you want because this is the moment you’ve been labouring for.

Guten Appetit!

Has a movie ever inspired your inner foodie? If so, what movie and what did you make?

Feel my pulse(s): Hearty chunky lentils + beans soup

Lately it’s been cold and icy and some days are snowy, I swear I just want to retreat to my bed and hibernate, the real hibernation that real animals like bears do. Think about it, it could totally work if we were all synchronised. All we’d need to do is eat as much as we can, get fat then live off our body fat while we hibernate (until the weather becomes bearable). If we all cooperated and did this in unison, we won’t even have to do anything or need any energy to do anything, no jobs etc because we would all be hibernating and the world will be at a stand still. I just need to send a memo to everyone in England…Twitter would probably work right? While the memo’s invisibly floating around the world wide web, I reluctantly decided to brave the cold and go running and surprisingly managed to not slip and got a few shots on my phone (I take it with me for the GPS running app), everywhere looks beautiful in the snow!

Anyways, I digress. The only things that got me through those runs were the longing for warmth and thoughts of warm hearty food like this delicious, easy and highly nutritious ‘throw everything together’ soup. Pulses like beans, chickpeas, lentils etc are a great source of protein, which I needed in order to repair my muscles and keep me fuller for longer (so no chance of calorific snacking) after that run. It was just what my mind and body needed to function.

Ingredients

• 1/2 onion, sliced thinly or chopped
• Handful of diced chorizo
• Handful of sliced cabbage
• 1 carrot, chopped or diced
• Sliced or chopped chillies
• 1 litre water
• A knob of ginger, grated
• 1 cup of green lentils, rinsed in cold water and drained
• 1 can (400g) chickpeas, rinsed in cold water and drained
• 1 can (400g) butter beans, rinsed in cold water and drained
• Salt, enough to taste
• 1 tbsp paprika
• 1 tsp dried rosemary
• 1 tbsp cayenne pepper
• 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 1/2 handful of coriander, chopped

As always for dishes like this one I literally just threw in whatever I found in the fridge and cupboards. I would have liked to put in some kidneys beans but we didn’t have any so I substituted with the creamy buttery butter beans which were a good choice. It’s not necessary to be confined to using chorizo, I wanted to use chicken but we didn’t have any available. You get the idea.

Method

In a deep pan, fry the onions in a tablespoon of oil on low heat for about 3 minutes then add the diced chorizo, stir and leave for 5 minutes until some oil has been produced by the chorizo.

Throw in the sliced cabbage, chillies, carrots, water, ginger and the condiments and leave to simmer for 5 minutes.

Add the lentils into the pan then put the lid on and leave to simmer on low medium heat for 40 minutes or until they are almost soft (more done than al dente).

Now add the chickpeas and garlic, simmer for 5 mins

Throw in the butter beans and coriander and leave for 3-5 more minutes. They’re very tender even before cooking so overcooking them will make them quite mushy unless that’s your preference.

Get cosy, put on your favourite episode of Girls, Breaking Bad, The Office or Sex and the City and enjoy your soup with some bread or just by itself. If you’ve still got some left try it as a sauce with spaghetti, it tastes just as delish!

Are you with me on the whole hibernation thing? What would be your pre-hibernation meal?

Good things come in small pastries: Banana tarlets + toffee sauce

Pastries and anything to do with dough are two things that scare me. I throw in the towel whenever I’m faced with a challenge like that and I don’t even know why. Maybe it’s because I feel that it’s so easy to get something like bread so wrong; as much as I use precise measurements, there are still many factors that come into play such as temperature, mixing and kneading, time etc. It scares me and hey, I’m only human.

So imagine how ecstatic I was when these tartlets came out better than I ever imagined; no soggy bottoms, no cracks, just a lovely sturdy biscuity shortcrust pastry case capable of nestling its banana custard filling and lashings of sweet sweet toffee sauce. Although optional, I particularly loved the slices of fresh banana on top because altogether they kinda had this soft serve ice creamy taste which is just pure bliss.

A dessert like this is perfect for when you’ve got those almost black bananas that no one will eat laying around; DON’T THROW THEM AWAY, make this instead or a banana cake and everyone will be grateful you made that decision. We only had 8 of the pastry tins but I’m pretty sure I could’ve got about 2 more out of the remaining dough, so the only downside was that there wasn’t enough. I have a big family so we could only have one each. Wellllll two  for me seeing as I had to endure the labour of love..

Ingredients

For the sweet shortcrust pastry

• 250g plain flour
• 25g icing sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 150g chilled butter, cubed (if using normal butter tubs, skip the salt above. If unsalted butter blocks then include the salt)
• 2 medium egg yolks
• 1 egg white

For the banana custard filling

• 25g plain flour
• 30g sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 2tsp vanilla essence
• 150ml milk
• 50ml double cream
• 2 extremely soft bananas, mashed

For the toffee sauce

• 25g butter
• 35g caster sugar
• 25g light brown sugar
• 75g golden syrup
• 85ml evaporated milk

Method

Starting with the pastry, sift the flour, salt (if needed), sugar and add the butter into a food processor. Pulse until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs then add the egg yolks and 1 tablespoon of cold water. Pulse again then take out and knead gently into a smooth round dough.

If you don’t own a food processor then unfortunately you can’t make this. Just kidding. I’m pretty sure you could use your fingertips when you add the butter, water and yolks, the result should be the same.

Wrap the dough in clingfilm and leave it in the fridge for 30 mins.

Roll out the dough on a floured surface so that it’s thin but not see through then transfer unto the tins and ensure that the rolled dough is touching every part of the tin inside.

Using a fork, prick the bottom of the pastry then leave in the fridge to chill for 25 mins.

While it’s getting chilled, preheat the oven to gas mark 6.

Start making the custard. Heat the milk and double cream in a pan on low/medium heat. In a bowl, mix the remaining ingredients together then pour into the pan and whisk gently for about 4 minutes or until the mixture becomes thick.

After 25 minutes, line the pastry cases with greaseproof paper and fill with ceramic beans or uncooked rice. Bake in the oven for 13 minutes until it has an underdone biscuit colour to it.

Take out the greaseproof paper and the beans then pop back into the oven for 4 minutes. Remove, brush with the egg whites then put back into the oven for 2 minutes. Remove it  again and turn the oven down to gas mark 1/2.

Pour the filling (about 2 tablespoons each) into the pastry cases and bake for 45 minutes. Take them out of the oven and leave to cool while you make the toffee sauce.

For the sauce, melt the butter, sugars and syrup in a pan. Leave to boil and stir occasionally for 5 minutes (start timing from when they ingredients hit the pan).

Pour into a small bowl, add the evaporated milk and mix until thick and light brown in colour.

Sprinkle the tarlet with icing sugar decorate with banana the add drizzles of the toffee sauce.

Nom nom nom.

Do you feel the same way when it comes to pastries and dough? How did you get over this trivial ‘phobia’?

Zero-fuss pasta: Spinach + chorizo tagliatelle

You know when you really really fancy a tasty meal that requires minimal effort? I was in that kind of mood when I made this dish. It was simple, straight to the point, quick  (yup I honestly think 15 minutes to prepare a meal is quick…and totally worth it) but delicious. What else does a girl need? Chorizo has always and will always be my favourite kind of sausage meat, its subtle spiciness added a bit of a kick without being overpowering. Also I put the garlic in towards the end so that its taste was more evident instead of fading away in the background with the onions. This dish is all about the balance of dynamic flavours to keep things simple. Keyword being ‘simple’.

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp oil
• 1/2 onion, finely sliced
• A small knob of ginger, finely sliced or grated
• 100g chorizo, sliced
• 1/2 fresh plum tomato, chopped
• 4 nests of tagliatelle
• 2 ladlespoons of pasta water
• Pinch of salt, to taste
• 2 pinches of paprika
• 1 clove garlic,  finely sliced or grated
• 1 handful of spinach

In a pan of salted water and 2 tablespoons of olive oil, boil the tagliatelle for 10 minutes on medium heat or just follow the instructions on the pack

Don’t forget to reserve some of the pasta water

While the pasta is cooking, in another pan fry the onions for 1 minute

Add the chorizo and ginger, stir and leave for two minutes

Throw in the tomatoes then add the pasta and paprika. Using pasta ‘claw’ spoon or a fork, stir gently to incorporate.

Add 1 ladlespoonful of the pasta water, mix and leave to absorb for 1 minute

Add the spinach, mix then add the rest of the pasta water

Mix again, add the garlic then turn off the heat.

Serve with parmesan cheese et voila!

Do you have any fool-proof meals that require minimal effort?

A short-term cake alternative: Courgette ribbons, tomatoes + parma ham salad

I think a little bit of me dies each day I don’t bake. This has been going on for almost 2 weeks now all because I have a 10 km race coming up on Sunday, so I’ve decided to cut off SOME refined sugar and carbs from my diet. It definitely has to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done especially because I wake up to the smell of freshly baked bread almost everyday (metaphorically speaking, my mumma’s the snake tempting me to take a bite of that calorie-filled apple/sweet bread roll). So I decided to take matters into my own hands and make something  light and delicious as well as healthy that my body will be thanking me for when I complete that race on Sunday.  And then after that I can stuff myself with everything sugar-filled in this world…until I’m ready to start training for another 10 km race in February.

Some good things about this salad:

• It is extremely versatile because you can eat it by itself, with spaghetti, on toasted ciabatta bread or with whatever floats your boat.
• It is obviously nutritious. I mean look at all those vibrant natural colours! And my gosh it tastes extra extra fresh. Fresher than the prince of Bel Air.
• It is a great meal to make when you’ve got leftover vegetables just chilling in your fridge. Simply slice them, throw them together and bish bash bosh, you’re done!
• Also, lately my body hasn’t been responding well to starchy foods; I instantly feel bloated and uncomfortable and it doesn’t help that these carbs represent majority of what we eat in this house (my brothers need all that because they go to the gym a lot and play rugby etc and my mumma loves them more than she loves us girls and our low-carb needs). So this salad saves me from a lot of discomfort.

The salad tasted so good…ALMOST as good as a chunky slice of chocolate cake! I normally dislike courgettes so I wanted to see what else I could do with them. The zingy lemon dressing with the crunchiness of the courgettes complemented the cool sweet taste of the tomatoes. The creamy eggs and salty anchovies married with the chewy parma ham made it more perfect. Gone are the days of trying to stomach a bland-tasting lettuce-filled salad. If this courgette salad was a person, it would be Michael Jackson; charming, modest and totally bad ass.

Ingredients

For the dressing

• Juice of one lemon
• 1tsp wholegrain mustard or dijon mustard
• 1tsp olive oil
• 1tsp white wine vinegar or balsamic vinegar

For the salad

• 1 courgette, peeled and sliced with a vegetable/potato peeler
• 1 large plum tomato, chopped
• 2 0r 3 slices of Parma ham
• 1 hardboiled egg, quartered
• 4 anchovy fillets

Boil the egg for 13 minutes; on high heat for 10 minutes then medium/low heat for 3 minutes.

While the egg is boiling, whisk all the lemon dressing ingredients together.

In a bowl, pour some of the dressing over the courgette strips and tomatoes, and toss with your fingertips or a fork.

Throw in the slices of parma ham, eggs and anchovies.

Drizzle with a bit more dressing.

Enjoy!

Nothing can beat a lovely slice of cake but do you have any cake alternatives?

Rustic autumnal pleasure: Pear + stem ginger cake

This season, I feel like a newborn experiencing everything for the first time. I don’t know if until now my vision has been selective or all I’m seeing now has never been there in the first place but it feels like this is the first autumn I’m witnessing. I feel so alive, so at peace and so warm inside. The best sensory experience for me is when I go running; the music thumping in my ear, the beautiful warm auburn colours of the leaves scattered everywhere, the crisp chill air, the slight ache in my calf muscles, the smell of nothing, the quick breeze as cars whizz past me. It’s a lot to take in and I’m  in awe every time at how mother nature can evoke so much emotion even when she’s calmly watching over our chaotic lives. Autumn has officially become my favourite season.

We are all aware of staple ingredients that epitomise autumn; cinnamon, pumpkin, apples, etc. but we never remember the humble ones that sit and watch from the sideline. Alone they are almost forgettable but together they create a synergy unlike anything else. I’m talking about the fusion of delicate and gentle pears with the warm and strong ginger. For me, the taste of this light cake will now be strongly associated with autumn and therefore  imprinted in my memory every year. As the cake was quite moist (which I liked but my sister didn’t), I found that leaving it to sit for a few hours before eating improved the texture…or if you don’t want to wait that long, just add about 50g more flour. The flaked almonds added a bit of crunch to the moist cake and there was a surprise in every mouthful as my teeth sunk into a random chunk of ginger.

Ingredients

• 100g self raising flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1tsp nutmeg,grated
• 100g caster sugar
• 100g ground almonds
• 3-4 ripe but firm pears; 300g after peeled, cored and diced
• 75g stem ginger, chopped roughly
• 1 tsp fresh ginger
• 100g butter, melted
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 15g flaked almonds

Preheat the oven to gas mark 4

In a bowl, sift in the flour and baking powder.

Add the nutmeg, sugar and ground almonds and stir.

In a seperate bowl whisk the eggs and vanilla extract together

Make a well in the centre of the dry mixture bowl and put in the pear, stem ginger, melted butter, egg mixture and grated fresh ginger

Mix thoroughly until combined

Pour into a greased and floured tin, sprinkle the flaked almonds and bake for 40 minutes

Take out of the oven, sprinkle with ginger-infused sugar (one tablespoon of sugar + 1/2 teaspoon of grated ginger) and leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes.

Transfer to a baking rack and cut out a chunky slice.

Serve with melted dark chocolate or with vanilla ice cream

What flavours immediately remind you of autumn?

*adapted from Delicious magazine

Moist, rich and minty dessert: Fresh mint filling + chocolate layered cake

There are so many different things in this world that we directly compare which we probably shouldn’t. iPhones and Blackberrys, Romney and Obama, Twitter and Facebook, chocolates and sweets. For me, you’re either a sweet person or a chocolate person. I could probably live on sweets all day everyday (haribos, jelly beans etc) and I can do without chocolate for even a year but lately I’ve been slowly falling in love with dark chocolate. It’s kinda like the kid at the back of the class that you’ve never noticed until now and you see that he’s got the most beautiful eyes in the world. Dark chocolate is bitter but sweet, it’s subtly sexy and it’s less sickly compared to milk chocolate. And what else goes best with dark chocolate (apart from my banana cake) other than the modest mint?

The sweet warm bitterness of dark chocolate coupled with the mint makes this cake the perfect and most relevant dessert. Hands down. I used fresh mint because as you all know I like trying new flavours; it made the mint filling taste slightlyleafy but strongly minty in a surprisingly good way. The result? Moist, rich dark chocolate sponge with a hint of mint in every mouthful.

Ingredients

For the sponge

• 115g butter
• 100g dark chocolate, broken into equal chunks
• 55g cocoa powder
• 125g self raising flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 6 eggs
• 225g caster sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

For the mint filling

• 14 fresh mint leaves
• 100g cream cheese
• 2 tsp peppermint flavouring
• 2tbsp icing sugar

For the frosting

• 100g butter
• 70g icing sugar
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1 tbsp cream cheese
• 50g dark chocolate, melted

Firstly, prepare the mint filling

• Use a pestle + mortar to grind the mint leaves. Add the peppermint flavouring then the cream cheese and lastly the icing sugar. Taste and add more leaves or flavouring depending on how minty you want it. Put in a bowl and leave in the fridge until ready to use.

Secondly, the chocolate cake

• Preheat the oven to gas mark 4 and line two sandwich tins. I greased them, ‘floured’ the sides with cocoa powder then used greaseproof paper for the base.
• In a small pan, melt the chocolate and butter on low heat until completely smooth. Transfer to a bowl and set aside. {I was worried about it solidifying so I immersed the bowl in a larger bowl of some boiling water just to keep it warm. Thinking about it now though, it probably wasn’t gonna solidify anyways because of the butter.}

• Sift the flour, bicarbonate soda and cocoa powder together using a very fine sieve. Sift it 2 or 3 more times in the same bowl. We’re doing this because later we will be gently folding the final mixture so ensuring that there are no lumps of flour etc helps us avoid beating the mixture thereby losing the air in it. When this is done, set aside.

• Now on to the fun bit. Place the egg yolks and sugar into a heatproof bowl over a pan of almost-simmering water (leave on low/medium heat). Use an electric whisk to whisk the mixture on a high setting for 7-10 minutes. You should stop when it looks frothy, pale, fluffy, light, thick, it should leave a trail when you lift the beaters and it should’ve doubled in size. When this is done, take off the heat and add the vanilla extract.

• Sift in the dry ingredients in 3 batches; sift then fold, sift then fold, sift then fold. Fold gently so you don’t knock out all the air you spent like 7 minutes trying to create. Use a large metal spoon or like I did, I used a wooden spoon with a hole in it (I swear I didn’t DIY this. They actually sell them in shops and everything!) so that you do less folding as the mixture is evenly incorporated.

• Divide the mixture evenly between the two tins, place on the middle rack in the oven and bake for 25 minutes (trust me). If you really want to open the oven, wait for 15 mins so that it doesn’t sink in the middle.

While it’s baking, make the frosting

• Beat the butter until pale, add the icing sugar and cocoa powder then beat continuously until incorporated. Add the cream cheese and melted chocolate. Carry on beating for 2 minutes and set aside in a cool place or fridge until the cake is ready.

• Take the cakes out of the oven and tins, remove the greaseproof paper from the bottom and leave on a cooling rack for 20 minutes.
• Cut off any raised bits on the top of the bottom cake so it’s leveled. Spread the mint filling evenly using a spatula then sandwich and stack the cakes carefully.
• Spread and decorate the chocolate icing evenly on and around the cake.
• Eat, eat and eat like no one’s watching.

Apart from mint, do you have any other dark chocolate combinations?

A warm heart hug: Mussels in creamy white sauce

Lately I’ve been feeling down and cooking and baking have actually made me feel a bit better. Okay that was cheesy. On a scale of nacho cheese to chat up lines, that would be on the extremely cheesy end. Seriously though, cooking time is great reflection and unwinding time for me, so  making something that requires loads of chopping and stirring just like this simple mussels recipe is just perfect.

Cleaning the mussels is quite tedious though. I mean do they really need those beards? They could’ve just had waterproof webs or little exterior fins but of all things in the world, they had to choose annoying straw-like beards. Good thing my mumma was willing to help. After de-bearding, make sure you soak the mussels in cold water until you’re ready to use them. And if they stay open then throw them back into the sea.

This dish is all about freedom! Throw in things, chop them roughly or thinly. Create textures. You want things to sit in the shells when the mussels open up. I like how the sliced onions and parma ham hung out of each shell while the chopped mushrooms and white onions sat inside the shells with the sauce  and the mussel meat. Eat them with your fingers, spoons are unnecessary. Split the shells and scoop up the sauce and everything with the meaty side then slurp. This is probably the only dish where table etiquette is thrown out of the window into the sea with those pre-opened mussels. Don’t think, just do!

Ingredients

• 1 kg live mussels, thoroughly cleaned and debearded
• 1 tbsp butter
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
• 1/2 white onion, finely diced
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• Grated knob of ginger
• 1/4 fresh scotch bonnet chillies, finely chopped
• 4 slices parma ham, chopped + thickly sliced
• 4 chestnut mushrooms, diced
• 3/4 anchovy fillets
• 400ml water
• 200 ml skimmed milk
• 100ml double cream
• Handful of chives, chopped
• Handful of parsley, roughly chopped
• Salt, paprika and seasonings to taste

In a deep pan, melt the butter and olive oil then add in the onions. Leave for 4 minutes or until they start to look a bit translucent, stirring occasionally.

Now add the garlic, ginger, chillies and parma ham. Stir, mix and make sure everything in the pan’s touching each other and invading their personal space.

Pour in the liquid ingredients, chives and mushrooms then simmer on low/medium heat for 5 minutes. It doesn’t need to boil vigorously.

Now add mussels and stir. They will start to open. Cover and simmer again for 3 minutes then throw in the anchovies, salt, paprika and seasonings to taste.

Cover again and leave for 5 minutes on a low heat.

Turn off the heat then throw in the parsley, stir, then cover and leave to rest until you’re mentally ready to get physical. Enjoy by itself or with crusty bread.

Note: Don’t be put off by the long-ish list of ingredients, I basically just chucked in everything I found in the kitchen. So like with everything in life, work with what you’ve got. You could swap the double cream for single cream or even that can of coconut milk. You know the one that has been in your cupboard for so long, just chilling there like it’s paying the rent. Or even swap parma ham for bacon or flakes of smoked fish. You get the idea.

What’s your comfort food for days when you’re feeling down?