SWAMP SOUP

I love the swamp, I love gators and I love Cajun!  This good for you green soup is really tasty but very swamp looking which is super cool too, no alligators were harmed in the making of this soup!  A good soup for Halloween fun.

Cooking time 15 minutes

Ingredients 

(serves 2)

1kg petite pois peas

1ltr chicken stock

Himalayan sea salt 

White pepper

Bring the chicken stock to a simmer, add the peas and simmer for 10 minutes, blitz with a stick blender, taste and season with salt and pepper.  Leave to stand for 5 minutes and the peas will separate and sink to the bottom off the stock!  Stir to combine before eating...

SALTED CARAMEL TRIPLE CHOCOLATE FUDGE CAKE

OSCAR STYLE

WoW what a show stopper of a cake, as usual I like to go big!  This recipe came from one of my Birthday presents and what a gorgeous first cake to bake for my friends and family, there is going to be NO dieting around me this year 😆

Allow yourself a couple of chilled me time hours

3 x 20 cm sandwich cake tins lined

Ingredients 

(Serves 8-10)

The Cake

400g plain flour

640g caster sugar

180g 75% cocoa powder

1 tsp bicarbonate soda

1.5 tsp baking powder 

1.5 tsp sea salt

4 lrg eggs 

2 tsp vanilla extract

120 ml vegetable oil

410 ml buttermilk

250 ml water

Shaved chocolate to decorate

Salted Caramel

290g caster sugar

35g golden syrup 

20 ml water

160 ml double cream

1 tsp sea salt

80g unsalted butter room temp

Chocolate Frosting 

I00g icing sugar

200g cocoa powder

320g unsalted butter room temp

150 ml whole milk

First make the salted caramel, this was super exciting as I have never made this before and it acts up like a bubbling volcano, really exciting.  Follow the method to the letter otherwise you can end up with a lumpy separated sauce.  In a pan put the sugar, golden syrup and water, do not stir at all on a medium heat let all the ingredients melt together, when there has been a slight colour change to a light brown, take off the heat and slowly pour in the cream whisking all the time until smooth.  Then put the caramel back on the heat for a couple of minutes and boil until 115 C, remove from the heat immediately add the salt and transfer to a bowl, pop in the fridge to cool and set.

 

Now to make the cake batter, pre heat your oven to 175 C, in a large bowl place the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, bicarbonate soda, baking powder and salt, beat to a smooth mix, in a large jug whisk the eggs, vanilla, oil, buttermilk and water.  Slowly pour this to the dry ingredients whisking in until just combined then beat the mixture for one minute.  Pour equally in to your three tins, pop in the oven and bake for around 30 minutes until light and springy.  Turn out on to a wire cooling rack and leave to cool.

While the cake is cooling make the chocolate icing, this sometime just goes wrong for me and separates, but today it did not Ya!  In a large bowl place the icing sugar, cocoa powder and butter, whisk until sandy in texture, slowly add the milk then keep whisking for about five minutes until light and fluffy.

Now to layer the cakes, you can cut the cakes in half for a more dramatic layered look like I did or just stack them, place the first layer on your cake stand and spread a third or sixth of the caramel depending on how many layers, repeat, I also like to spread some chocolate fudge over the layers too!  Once all layers loaded cover the whole cake in the chocolate fudge icing and finish off with shavings of chocolate and enjoy.

HALLOWEEN SCARY MUFFINS

Great fun making these scary chocolate muffins for friends this Halloween.

Making / Cooking time 1 hour

Ingredients 

(makes 8)

4oz butter room temperature 

4oz golden castor sugar 

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla paste

3.5oz self raising flour

1 tbsp cocoa powder 

Decoration

Coloured icing

Icing sugar

Pre heat your oven 180 C.  Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth, add the eggs one at a time and beat in until smooth, then stir in the vanilla paste..  Fold in the flour and cocoa powder.  Place your muffin cases in your baking tin and fill the muffin cases 2/3 with the cake batter.  

Place in the oven to cook for approx 18 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.  Place on a wire rack to cool.  To decorate roll out your coloured icing, cut and form in to Halloween shapes and decorate the cooled cup cakes.

WOOD FIRED SAN MANZANO PIZZA

Wood Fired Pizza's 

There is nothing more satisfying than making your own SAN Manzano Pizza and cooking it in your own wood fired pizza oven.  My mum built this pizza oven herself and is very proud of it.  Check out her blog Flower pot kitchen build your own wood fired oven.  

The secret to the most amazing pizza dough is in the ingredients and proving method, the professionals make their dough using the very best Italian 00 flour and leaving the dough to slowly prove in the fridge, YES the fridge over 24hrs, this is actually a easy method giving you more control over time.

Ingredients 

(Makes 6 pizza's)

The Dough

500g 00 flour

15g dried yeast

10g sea salt

50ml olive oil

320g water room temperature

Toppings 

San manzano tomatoes 

Di Campaina Buffalo mozzarella 

Fresh basil leaves 

First make your dough, you can once made leave to prove in a warm kitchen for around one hour tomprove, then your dough is ready to go the difference in proving your dough slowly in the fridge for 24 hrs is the improved texture in the dough when cooked as the slow proving gives you a crispier base.  Also the added bonus of being ahead on the day!

BONUS

Once your dough has proved you can now FREEZE the dough in portion balls so that all you have to do to be ready to go I whip out the dough, leave to defrost and come up to room temperature for about one hour and your a pizza a go go!

Place the flour and salt in a large mixing bowl, in the measuring jug of water add the yeast and leave for a couple of minutes, its woth noting that if salt comes in contact with dried yeast before mixing it can de activate the yeast which will result in a low proven heavy dough.

Add the oil to the mixing bowl along with the water and yeast, mix bringing together to form a dough ball, either by hand or with a dough hook on a mixer knead the dough for seven minutes until smooth and elastic.  

Prove how you want to, when ready to use roll out on a slightly 00 floured work top and top with your favourite toppings and cook, these take a couple of minutes in a wood fired oven or if using a pizza stone in your oven around 8-10 minutes.  Enjoy.

TURMERIC CHILLI SQUID

CLEAN AND GLUTEN FREE

Salt and pepper squid seasoned with turmeric and Kashmiri chilli and lightly tossed through corn flour.  Using corn flour instead of potato flour was a risk well worth it!  Potato flour guarantees a light crispy finish to the squid, but I wanted to remove the starchy element, so I decided on corn flour.  As soon as I tossed my squid in the corn flour it became moist rather than the dry fluffy coating from potato flour, however this sticky coating crisped up really well in the pan and added a gorgeous layer of flavour that made these some of the best salt and pepper squid I have ever cooked!  

Prep time 5 minutes / Cooking time 3 minutes / resting time 5 minutes 

Ingredients 

(Serves 2)

2 large squid tubes prepared and tentacles 

4 tbsp corn flour

1 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder

1 tsp turmeric powder

1 tsp Himalayan sea salt

1 tsp ground black peppercorns 
1/2 lemon 

4 tbsp ground nut or coconut oil for frying

I get my fish monger to prepare my squid for me, then all I have to do is slice the tubes in to rectangles, score the inside with a criss cross pattern, this is for presentation, and that's the squid ready to use.

Pre heat a small skillet with the oil to 180 C, don't heat above this level unless you are using a high temperature oil.  

Mix the dry ingredients, corn flour, turmeric, Kashmiri, salt and pepper together, toss in the squid and coat well.  Drop the squid in to the hot oil and leave to cook for around 45 seconds then turn and cook for another 45 seconds, at this point your squid should be cooked, an solid white colour all the way through, remove and place on paper towel to drain and rest then serve with a wedge of lemon.

Squid shopping at our local beach fish mongers.

TURMERIC MAYONNAISE

This is a super good for you recipe that is a brilliant way to get some turmeric in your diet every day, turmeric fights inflammation and also has anti fungal and anti viral protection, I have been eating turmeric forever!  I have some homemade chicken bone broth everyday loaded with lots of super ingredients, turmeric being one of them.

Quick and easy to make in under 3 minutes! 

Ingredients 

(Makes 150ml)

1 organic egg yolk

200ml cold pressed olive oil

1 tsp white wine vinegar 

1 pinch Himalayan sea salt 

1 pinch white pepper 

1 tsp mustard Dijon 

1/2 tsp ground turmeric 

Place the egg yolk and white wine vinegar in a large jug or bowl, start whisking and very slowly drizzle in some of the olive oil, whisking all the time, if you add too much oil at the beginning the yolk can not absorb the oil and will split and become watery in texture and will not make mayonnaise.  Once you feel the egg yolk thicken you can add more oil at a much faster rate, whisk in the oil until you have a nice thick mayonnaise.

Season your mayonnaise with the sea salt, white pepper, turmeric and mustard, that's it, super quick and super say to make, brilliantly good for you home made free from any preservatives mayonnaise.

KETONE PALEO GLUTEN FREE CHIA AND FLAXSEED BLUEBERRY MUFFINS

WoW these are super AWESOME and so Ketogenic Diet friendly as low on the glycemic index chart.  These are great for my dad too who has Diabetes, he thought these felt like a really naughty cake treat, that was my aim and Chef Oscar succeeded!  What's more I cannot wait to play with lots of other flavours so look out for my next blog! 

Prep time 8 minutes / Cooking time 15 minutes

Ingredients 

(Makes 15)

Dry Ingredients 

30g chia seeds

220g flaxseed milled

3 tbsp xylitol 

150g blueberries 

1 tbsp cinnamon 

1 tsp baking powder

Wet Ingredients 

50ml XCT coconut oil

3 eggs 

60ml water

This is super easy, pre heat oven 180 C / 360 F whisk the wet ingredients preferably with a hand blender for around thirty seconds until fluffy.  Place all the dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix evenly, add the wet ingredients and using a spatula fold in until evenly mixed.  

Place your muffin cases in you tin and spoon in the muffin mixture, fill the cases almost to the top as these will not rise very much.  Pop in the oven and bake for 15 minutes, take out immediately and transfer to a cooling rack, if you leave the muffins to cool in the pan they will be dry.

That's it, enjoy on their own, with butter, with cream cheese or what ever you fancy.