biscuits on a hot day - choc chip and wholemeal?

Despite the Great British Bake Off being back on the TV for a whole week, there has been a dearth of baking in this house. With Kitty's first day back at school, there is a call for biscuits, so I am revisiting this recipe, and I'm going to mess with it.

Although many of us hanker for one of those chewy chocolate chip cookies you see in speciality cookie shops as we nurse a cup of tea at home, somehow when you have them to hand, or you follow the chewy chocolate chip cookie recipes those biscuits deliver too powerful a sugary hit. Even when eaten with coffee. Hence the logic of adding wholemeal flour, and some milk powder. Why milk powder? Because it adds a bit of chewy without too much extra sweetness, after all, some biscuits use condensed milk. Also the powdered stuff is easy to store and doesn't add liquid to the mix.

So, the questions fly, how to get an even biscuit in terms of mix and measure? I like this mixture, which is quite easy to handle, even with two spoons. I have yet to buy myself an ice cream scoop, but I think it might be the way to go. I saw someone using one for biscuit mixture, dolloping out even mounds, and I have to concur: the logic is good. The scoop works for ice cream, it works for the more solid mash, and it works well for biscuit mix. Alright, cookie dough, if you insist on going all American. Add scoop to the shopping list.

Set the oven to Gas Mark 4/350F/180C and line several baking sheets with baking parchment.

Ingredients

• 150g butter
• 50g vanilla caster sugar approx. 2 tbsp
• 90g soft brown sugar approx. 3 tbsp
• 1 egg
• vanilla essence
• 100g plain white flour
• 75g plain wholemeal flour
• 2tbsp powdered milk
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 150g plain chocolate chopped into pieces – I like them the size of a large square pea

Method

1. Beat together the butter and the sugars, adding the vanilla essence.
2. Beat in the egg.
3. Add the flour and keep beating.
4. Add the chocolate pieces.
5. Use two spoons and drop large teaspoonsful of mixture onto the sheet, allowing plenty of room to spread. 

Cook for around 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Allow to cool before removing from baking sheet, or you may lose most of the chocolate.

Makes around 18 large biscuits.

the chocolate chunks are still warm...

Choc chip

Picture these on the plate fresh from the oven. Guess what? They include wholemeal flour.

last gasp picnic

I learnt my picnic technique from my mother, who could prepare a hamper with a whole salmon and all the trimmings to feed 10, throw together a sandwich or knock up a fire on a beach and cook sausages. It helps to have the right gear, but the main ingredient necessary is being up for it.

Yesterday the local festival, here in the cultural centre of the world, Cricklewood, had scheduled an outdoor showing of Some Like It Hot in a park on the dark side (Barnet). Hurray for the Cricklewood Silk Road Festival. Outdoor viewing said picnic to me. So I started getting the picnic kit together, and decided on the menu: chicken and salad wraps with cider to wash them down.

The chicken was marinaded for a few hours and then thrown on the griddle. It cooked beautifully, but left me wishing that I'd spared my clean hob and grilled it instead, letting the oven take the flack. I finally cooked some of the lovely looking split peas I have had for a while, to make a herby salad, and the mayo in the jar was going to get a makeover with paprika and friends. Add some rocket and a wrap, and napkins would be needed to catch the drips and wipe the mouth while it was being devoured.

What else do you need for a picnic? Leaving aside the hordes of helpers to carry the full dining table, crockery and chandelier, I prefer not to do disposable. This the gear I go for:

• a drying up cloth (tea towel to some) with cutlery rolled into it: sharpish knife, spreading knife and spoons
• duralex glasses or other almost unbreakable glasses, in another cloth, to prevent cracking
• picnic blanket, such as bedspread or a couple of sheets. 
• cold bag or box with ice, camping cold pack or my preferred version, a not quit full plastic bottle of water - if it's full it cracks btw. And maybe some ice to throw into a drink as well.
• food
• drink
• something warm to wear in case the weather changes

So this is a cookery blog, let us consider the food prep. 

Chicken with basil and parsley marinade

Ingredients:

• Chicken pieces - I cut up a whole chicken following this video , but cutting it into eight pieces

Marinade

• 1 clove garlic
• small bunch of basil
• small bunch of parsley
• juice of 1 lemon
• olive oil
• glug of cider
• pepper and salt

1. blitz the garlic, basil, parsley and lemon juice together, or chop the dry ingredients finely and then add the liquid and seasoning
2. mix with the chicken pieces and leave for a few hours - to speed things up you can slash the pieces to help the marinade penetrate
3. to cook grill or griddle all the pieces until both sides are well browned, about 5m a side

Maionnaise with additions - I like to add paprika, garlic, lots of pepper, lemon and olive oil to bottled mayo, to give it a kick. This salad is refreshing and not too heavy, the peas should be firm but not at all hard, and they keep a lovely green colour. The herbs and lemon lift the flavour.

split pea salad

• small bowl of split peas
• handful of each: mint, parsley, coriander
• 1 clove garlic
• two tomatoes
• half an onion
• pepper
• salt
• lemon juice
• olive oil

1. cook the split peas in boiling water, it takes about 20 minutes
2. deseed the tomatoes and dice the flesh
3. finely chop all the herbs, onion and garlic
4. drain the cooked peas - they should still be firm - and mix in the herb mixture, and leave to cool
5. add chopped tomatoes, then pepper, salt, lemon juice and olive oil to taste

For the wrap, I start with a smear of the spiced up mayo, add rocket, pea salad and bits of chicken, and then I roll the lot up, carefully folding one end. Don't think it won't drip, because it will.

chelsea buns sourdough experiment

I am trying out my sourdough starter in a sweet bun - based on this recipe....

Kofte to everyone

Just had lovely lunch of wrapped kofte made by David, with houmous, salad and yoghurt. His recipe includes pine nuts with pork and beef. It reminded me of jzz bzz kofte, which I must make again soon, to eat with tahini sauce and rocket.

Salad composee

Despite the rain, it is still great weather for a plate of salad, so long as it is full of flavour and colourful.

mixed bounty from France, ripe Camembert, pave sausage and celeri rave
with green salad and tomato salad

Sourdough Bread

I've been working on my sourdough technique, along with thousands of others. I am using a wet dough, and results vary. The weather, the flour, the method and the time, all make a difference. One of the most successful things I made with the sourdough has been sweet buns, a sourdough brioche.

Custard tart

nutmeg visible, and evidence that the oven was maybe a bit hot....

custard tart

A custard tart is certain joy in my house. Custard is true alchemy in the kitchen, as the uncooked egg and cream mixture transforms into something wobbly but sliceable. A wobbly pleasure in a crisp crust, or even with a soggy bottom. We aren't discriminating. This is not a tart to be thrown, but to be eaten. 

I have always loved the type of custard tart that you often get in sandwich shops or greasy spoon cafe as well. I mean the supersized for one person type, with piped custard, about the size of a clenched fist. That kind of custard tarts doesn't use egg custard, but rather a very low tech version of creme patissiere, using some kind of gelling agent, often a rather violent yellow. It isn't a health food.

Baked custards are a high protein high fat food, supposedly easy to digest, and used to be a go to food for invalids. No chewing needed. It's also a way to use lots of eggs, I am looking forward to getting some new chickens, once we have sorted out the fox proofing. However, I am not making custard tart for anyone's health. I am not sure it counts as a health food when you are getting plenty of protein etcetera from the courses preceding it. 

So, why custard tart now? Well, I had some left over pastry, and friends were coming to share a meal provided by Bhavna Sweet Mart, our local South Indian. Our usual fare, bhel poori, dahi vada and a couple of vegetarian curries, along with veg samosas and a tub of their delicious fresh chutney. I felt I needed to make a bit of an effort, show willing. And as the other half of the pudding was plums from the neighbours' tree (I'm allowed), I thought I'd make a custard tart instead of going labour free and buying in ice cream. Ok, I could have made ice cream, but custard tart beckoned.

So the debate began, milk or cream for the custard? Most recipes seem to favour cream, it is all in the name, it makes the mixture richer, or indeed creamier. Having carefully bought too little (it looked like a large pot to me), I added some butter to my mixture. It worked okay in terms of flavour and texture, but the purist in me blames the bubbles in the final tart on the butter. Or it might have been my putting the oven on a bit high, so hard to tell. You can make a great custard with milk and eggs, however it might be an idea to increase the egg content.

Feel free to make your own mistakes, if only to comfort me a little. Even with basic culinary errors and other types of carelessness, a custard tart is hard to mess up if you take it step by step, and rewards the eater. Of course, if you don't want a soggy pastry bottom you can avoid this completely by cooking your custard in pots, in which case to help the heat be distributed evenly, use a bain marie.

If you use a dish with sloping sides, I think it looks better... I didn't have one to hand. Also, it may sound obvious, but don't overfill the pastry case, it is amazing how much spills as you walk towards the oven if you do. Not that I would know. 

If you are baking your pastry blind, pinch the edges of the pastry, to give it a thicker lip. This helps keeps the custard in and it adds a welcome crunch when bitten into.

Recipe

you'll need a 9"/22cm pastry case which has been baked blind

set oven to gas mark 5 375F/180C

Ingredients for the custard

3 large eggs, plus two egg yolks

1 pint/500ml single cream

2oz/50g caster sugar (call it two flat tablespoons of sugar)

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

1tsp grated nutmeg

Method

• Sprinkle a couple of pinches of nutmeg over the prepared base.
• Put the cream into a pan and heat it until it is almost simmering, and leave to cool a little.
• Put the eggs and yolks together with the sugar in a heatproof bowl or jug.
• Beat the egg mixture gently, making a loose mixture, pour on the warmed cream, mixing gently, adding the vanilla essence and a healthy pinch of nutmeg.
• Pour the custard mixture into the pastry case, and sprinkle the remainder of the nutmeg over the top of the tart.
• Move the tart carefully and put into the preheated oven.
• Cook for 35 minutes, until the mixture is a golden colour, and firm to the touch in the middle.

You can eat the tart hot or cold, as you like. Enjoy the wobble. You can share it with 3-5 friends, depending on how much they like it.

PS

Oh, and by the way, I have made this without heating the milk or cream and it works just fine.

mocha cake with ganache

Steve seemed happy with his birthday cake!