Ahhh . . . Winter. That time of year when the heart and belly long for
warming, comforting, sustenance food. Foods like stews and soups . .
.
Cabbage. Cabbage has to be one of my absolute favorite vegetables and never more so than when it is cut into thick wedges and roasted. There is something about roasting cabbage that really brings out its very best qualities.
Rocky Road Brownies. Prepare yourself to fall in love with this wonderfully deliciously British version of a North American treat.
Brownies, who does not love a good brownie? Classed as a favourite amongst oldsters and youngsters throughout the world, there is something about fudgy, moist, chocolate filled brownies that speaks to the glutton in most of us.
This delicious recipe I am sharing with you today was adapted from a small baking book which I picked up in Marks and Spencers a number of years back. You can't beat M&S cookbooks. I have had a number of them through the years and all of them have been filled with deliciousness.
This one is par excellence! Filled to overflowing with fabulous brownie recipes designed to tempt every taste and desire! Not all brownies are chocolate.
Rocky Road is a completely different thing in the UK than what it is in North America. In the UK, Rocky Road is also known as Tiffin Cake, and is said to be Prince Williams favourite cake. I am not sure if that is true or not, but I can tell you that Tiffin Cake is quite delicious!
Rocky Road or Tiffin is an unbaked chocolate slice typically composed of melted chocolate, crisp broken biscuits/cookies, marshmallows and some type of dried fruit. But not always. It can vary quite a bit from country to country and region to region. In short it is a chocolate fridge cake, similar to a fudge or candy, but uncooked with the exception of melting the chocolate.
A brownie is a type of square or cake that is mostly but not entirely limited to chocolate. Dense and fudgy you can find it in many versions now, one of which is the blondie.
A good brownie is something you should be able to pick up in your hands to eat and is totally enjoyable. Moist, rich and fudgy . . . totally appealing, especially to those who love chocolate.
Rocky Road Brownies are a glorious amalgamation of the two things. I like to think it is composed of the best of both worlds.
You get a dense fudgy brownie, filled with sticky sweet cherries and toasted nuts. Top that with a rich chocolate glaze and sweet mini marshmallows and you have a heavenly bar that everyone who loves brownies is sure to fall in love with!
I have used glace cherries in these. Glace cherries are also known as candied cherries and can be found in the dried fruits/baking aisle of the supermarket. You can also find them online in speciality shops and on amazon.
They are sweet and delicious, and come in a wide variety of colours. I prefer to use the undyed ones which are a bit darker red in colour.
I always rinse them off in warm water before using them in baking. I just pop them into a bowl of warm water and give them a good swish around. I then drain them and pat them dry with some paper kitchen towels.
This helps to prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the bake. You really want them evenly distributed throughout the bake.
You can also toss them with a bit of the dried ingredients to hedge your bets even further. Not a lot, just a TBS will do. Note, if you cannot get candied cherries, feel free to use well drained and dried maraschino cherries.
I also always toast my nuts before baking with them. Both Pecans and walnuts. Toasting your nuts just makes them taste nuttier and is not all that difficult to do.
Just preheat your oven to 350*F/180*C. Pop the nuts onto a baking tray and then toast them in the oven for about 8 to 10 minutes at which time they should be smelling all toasty and nutty.
Do check on them to make sure they don't burn. Nuts are expensive baking ingredients and you don't want to waste them. Once they are toasted let them cool completely before using them in any baking recipe.
I often toast my nuts well in advance, doing a whole bag at a time. I then pop them into an airtight freezer container and into the deep freeze where they are ready to use at a moments notice. You don't need to thaw them out.
Toasted nuts also make great snacks. Just saying.
I have used walnuts today, but feel free to use pecans if you would rather. They work really well as do macadamia nuts. (My favourite nut. Especially with chocolate.)
A beautiful chocolate glaze goes on top of these. Not thick enough or fluffy enough to be called a frosting, this is a thick glaze that is very simple to make. Its more like a thin icing.
It gets spread over the top of the cooled bake and then mini marshmallows are pressed into the top before it sets so that they will adhere better to the frosting. Simple.
Once everything sets up they are ready to be cut into delicious bars. I have a confession. I cannot cut or even draw a straight line.
I always bake my bars and cakes that I plan on cutting into squares in pans which I have lined with baking parchment. I make sure I have an overhang of paper so that I can lift them out easily once done. Much easier to cut that way. At least for me.
Now doesn't that look delicious. Like something you can't wait to sink your teeth into? I promise you they are totally delicious.
Amazingly
delicious, a tiny bit dangerous, these are the type of brownie that
everyone need to experience at least once in their lifetime! These brownies are rich, chocolatey and moist, holding well together. Everything a good brownie should be!
Rocky
Road Brownies. British style, with plenty of chocolate oomph , candied
cherries, toasted nuts, a lush choccie glaze and mini marshmallow
topping!
Be warned. These are highly addictive. I am quite sure you won't be able to stop at eating just one. These are just good, good, good!
Rocky Road Brownies
Yield: 16
prep time: 15 Mincook time: 40 Mintotal time: 55 Min
Quite simply delicious. Not the North American version of Rocky Road, but the British with glace cherries, walnuts and marshmallows.
Ingredients
- 1 cup (225g) butter, melted
- 3/4 cup (100g)plain flour
- 3/4 cup (140g) granulated sugar
- 3 TBS cocoa powder, sifted (not drinking mix)
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 2 large free range eggs, beaten
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup (70g) glace cherries, quartered
- 2/3 cup (70g) toasted walnuts
For the frosting:
- 1 1/2 cups (200g) icing sugar
- 2 TBS cocoa powder, sifted
- 3 TBS evaporated milk
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup (60g) mini marshmallows
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 165*C/325*F/ gas mark 3. Butter a 9 inch square baking tin and line with baking paper. Set aside.
- Whisk together the melted butter, eggs and vanilla. Sift the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder into a bowl. Stir in the sugar. Make a well in the centre. Add the wet ingredients all at once. Beat well to mix together smoothly. Stir in the cherries and walnuts. Pour into the prepared pan. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes until just firm on top. Leave to cool in the tin.
- To make the frosting, place all of the ingredients into a bowl and beat together with an electric whisk to give you a speadable consistency. Spread over the cooled brownies. (It won't be really thick, but it shouldn't be runny either.) Sprinkle the marshmallows on top, pressing down slightly. Leave to set before cutting into squares to serve.
- Store any leftovers in a tightly covered container.
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!
Lemon Curd Cookies. There lush and buttery shortbread cookies are flavoured through and through with lemon from the inside out. Crispy edged and dimpled with lemon curd centres, they are real lemon winners!
These delicious lemon cookies are the lemon lover's ultimate dream! If you love lemon as much as I do, you are sure to love these!
This is citrus season right now. The perfect time of year to be cooking with and baking with citrus fruits. Lemons, limes, oranges, etc. If I was in my own place right now I would be making marmalade.
Once you have tasted orange marmalade made from scratch you won't quite ever settle for anything else. Its quite labour intensive, but worth all of the effort.
This is also the time of year to be making your own from scratch Lemon Curd! I love lemon curd. You can find my easy recipe here. Homemade Lemon Curd is the best. I could eat it with a spoon.
Its fabulous on toast, or crumpets. Or crackers. Scones. In between vanilla cake layers and yes, it is perfect in these delicious shortbread cookies!
You can of course use any good store ready prepared lemon curd as well, obviously. They will still be very delicious. I was just thinking since this was citrus season there was no time like the present to make your own curd.
Shortbread cookies. Of all the cookies in the world, next to chocolate chip cookies, shortbread cookies are my absolute favourite kind of cookie.
A good shortbread cookie should be nice and buttery of course, but never greasy. They should be crisp edged and they should melt in the mouth. These are all that and so much more.
These are lemon flavoured shortbread cookies. There is lemon juice and finely grated lemon zest right in the dough itself, giving you a double blast of lemony tastiness.
Then of course there is that little dimple of lemon curd which gets baked right into the centre. You may be tempted to add more than 1/4 teaspoon of the curd, but don't.
1/2 teaspoon is the perfect amount of lemon curd. Any more than that and it will overflow the dimples and burn on the baking sheet. What a waste of deliciousness.
So now you have a "hat trick" of lemony tastiness, but the lemon favour doesn't end there. The finishing touch of lemony goodness is that drizzle icing on top.
And such a simple touch to add. Just lemon juice and icing sugar whisked together until you have a smooth drizzle icing.
Flicked over top it is the perfect finish for the perfect cookie. Just look at how pretty they are and how lemony delicious they look.
Sinking your teeth into one of these is sinking your teeth into lemony bliss. OH MY GOODNESS! Let me repeat. OH MY GOODNESS!
Sorry for shouting but these lemon curd cookies are so dang good you just want to shout it to the rafters and beyond. There is no way you want anyone you care about to miss out on one of these, or maybe . . .
There is a risk that the inner glutton will take over and you won't want to share. Either way these cookies are worth shouting about!
These are pretty enough and delicious enough to serve at a ladies' Tea party. So dainty and pretty. With your best linens and tea cups. Not that many of us are having tea parties with our friends at the moment, but we can live in hope, surely!
I believe that one day we will be able to meet again and what a celebration that will be. We can raise our tea cups together in salutations to each other, pinkies uplifted like the mucky mucks do in them fancy places.
Seriously tasty. Will that be one lump or two in your tea? Sugar lumps that is. I have always wanted to make my own fancy sugar cubes, pressed into flower shaped molds. Perfect tea party additions.
Do you like lemon in your tea? I do. I don't drink black tea but I do love herbal infusions. I especially like the fruity ones, with lemon ginger being a real favourite of mine.
Surely dainty little morsels like these are deserving of your best linens and china. I am trying to remember if I packed my Katie Alice plates and cups in my boxes I was able to bring. I surely hope so, but I cannot be for certain.
I don't think I was exactly thinking straight. I only had three days to get myself out of Dodge. Not near enough time to really plan properly. When I finally get to the point I can open my boxes I may be really surprised at what I did choose to pack. I dread to think about it really.
I do so love pretty linens and pretty tea things. I am a girly kind of a girl. I just like pretty things and I love, LOVE these cookies! You will too!
I can almost guarantee it! Well, why not bake them for yourself and see what lemon deliciousness is all about! I double triple dog dare you!
Lemon Curd Cookies
Yield: makes 42 cookies
prep time: 1 H & 10 Mcook time: 15 Mininactive time: 5 Mintotal time: 1 H & 30 M
Crisp, short buttery shortbread cookies, infused with lemon zest, filled with lush lemon curd filling and a lemon drizzle glaze. Seriously moreish!
Ingredients
For the cookies:
- 1 cup (240g) butter, at room temperature
- 2/3 cup (130g) granulated sugar
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- the juice of 1/2 fresh lemon
- the finely grated zest of one lemon
- pinch salt
- 2 cups + 2 TBS (280g +2 TBS) plain all purpose flour
- lemon curd to fill
For the glaze:
- 1 cup (130g) icing sugar, sifted
- the juice of 1/2 lemon
Instructions
- Cream the butter, sugar, vanilla, salt, lemon juice and zest together in a bowl until creamy with an electric whisk, scraping down the sides of the bowl periodically. Add the flour in 3 parts until well combined. Cover and chill for 1 hour in the refrigerator.
- Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Line several baking trays with baking paper.
- Shape the chilled dough into 1 inch balls. Place 2 inches apart on the baking sheets. Make an indention in the centre of each, using the end of a wooden spoon. Don't try to push it in too deeply, only about halfway down. I rotate it a tiny bit to make the hole about 1/3 inch in diameter. Fill each hole with heaped 1/4 tsp of lemon curd.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, until puffed and the edges are golden brown. Leave to rest on the trays for a few minutes before removing to a wire rack to finish cooling.
- Whisk the icing sugar and lemon juice for the drizzle icing together until you have a smooth and drizzleable mixture. Flick over the cooled cookies and allow to set. Store any leftovers in an airtight container.
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!
This fresh apple torte recipe I am sharing with you today is unlike any other that I have seen online. It boasts a delicious buttery crust, layered with jam. On top of that goes a lush cream cheese filling.
Slices of sweet apple are layered on top of that and the whole thing is sprinkled with slivered almonds before baking to perfection. Is this a cake? Is this a pie? Is this a cheesecake?
Its actually all three rolled into one delicious dessert! This is one of the most perfect winter desserts when not a lot of fresh fruit is available. We always have apples though and here in the Annapolis Valley we grow some of the best!
For this recipe you will want a sweet eating apple. I would highly recommend a Cortland. Not only are they firm and crisp, but they bake up nice and tender and are nice and juicy. They are also quite resistant to browning. They are perfect for this kind of dessert!
The original recipe for this beautiful torte comes from a Robin Hood leaflet that I saved from out of a magazine many years ago. It was destined to become a tried and true family favourite. Everyone I make it for loves it, and no small wonder!
First of all you have that buttery base, which is somewhat reminiscent of a sweet short bread cookie in texture. Short, buttery, crisp. You simply make the mixture and then press it into the bottom and up the sides of a spring form pan.
I suppose you could also do it in a pie plate, but a spring form pan makes for a much nicer presentation. A spring form pan also makes it relatively easy to serve.
Just undo the clip and slip off the sides. Presto, chango, the torte is ready to be cut into delicious thick wedges. (Yes, I AM a glutton, especially when it comes to dessert!)
A thin layer of jam is spread over the shortbread crust. I like to use raspberry jam. Raspberry and apples have a natural affinity for each other. Feel free to use a seedless raspberry jam if the seeds bother you.
You might be tempted to skip this part, but I am begging you not to. It adds an amazing layer of flavour to the torte that you really don't want to miss out on. If you are not fond of raspberry jam, why not use marmalade, or even strawberry jam?
I think marmalade would be an exciting flavour to add to the mix. Not only is this citrus season, but apples and marmalade also go together very well.
A rich velvety cheesecake type of filling is poured over the layer of jam. This is so delicious and somewhat decadent.
Flavoured with vanilla it is in perfect contrast to everything else in the torte. Rich and lush it adds a beautiful element of creamy deliciousness into the mix.
The only faffy bit about this is slicing and layering the apples on top. Don't be tempted to slice them overly thick. You want them to cook through in the allotted time.
Neither do you want them too thin as you also want them to hold up and keep their shape. Somewhere fair to middlin' is the perfect choice.
These crisp apple slices are tossed together with cinnamon and sugar for the ultimate experience in apple flavour. You could add a pinch of nutmeg also if you wish. Or even just use apple pie spice if you have that in the house.
I always peel my apples. I do not think that apple skins would be very nice in this. I think the texture would be off-putting to say the least.
The faffy bit is layering them decoratively on top of the cream cheese filling. I do it in circles beginning at the outside of the pan and working my way in.
Try not to layer them too much over top of each other. They cook more evenly and much better if you don't. Trust me on this. You don't want hard apples on top of your torte.
A sprinkle of slivered almonds is this tortes crowning glory. You could use flaked if you have them. Today I did not. I only had blanched almonds.
And so I slivered them with a knife. Not an easy chore if you know almonds, but I managed. Oh, if you can get marcona almonds, so much the better.
Marcona almonds are fabulously tasty. They are like the Queen of the almond kingdom. Most are produced in Spain and they have a beautiful texture and flavour.
Rounder and plumper than traditional almonds they have a texture not unlike that of macadamia nuts. They are sweeter than regular almonds with a much more delicate flavour. I love, LOVE them!
The smell when this is baking is a-maze-ing!! Truly. Your home will be filled with the beautiful scent of cooking apples and cinnamon. Your family will be drooling in anticipation. I guarantee!
One of my favourite parts is the sugary caramelization that forms around the edges of the torte as the juices from the apples work together with the sugar as they bake. Yum . . . soooooo tasty!
.
Ideally this should be served warm with a nice scoop of cold vanilla ice cream on top. We only have candy cane crackle in the house, and I don't think that goes well with this type of dessert. Plain cake maybe, but not this.
We made do with a nice dollop of whipped cream. You can sweeten it lightly if you wish. I never do. I came to love unsweetened whipped cream when I lived in the UK and much prefer it that way now.
Fact is, this is a fabulously delicious dessert no matter what you choose to serve it with. Plain or with ice cream. Whipped cream . . . dare I say it . . . clotted cream (Oh how I miss thee)!
The British would enjoy this delightful dessert with lashings of warm custard. And who can blame them. Fabulously tasty any way you serve this. Why no bake up some loving from your oven today!
Yield: 10 - 12
Fresh Apple Torte
prep time: 15 Mincook time: 40 Mintotal time: 55 Min
A very simple and easy apple dessert which cuts into nice firm pieces. With plenty of apples, a cream cheese filling and a buttery base, this is good eating. Plain and simple.
Ingredients
For the Base:
- 1/2 cup (125g) butter, softened
- 1/3 cup (70g) granulated sugar
- 1/4 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup (140g) plain flour
- 1/2 cup (120g) raspberry jam, loosened with a fork
For the cream cheese filling:
- 8 ounces (225g) full fat cream cheese
- 1/2 cup (95g) granulated sugar
- 1 large free range egg
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
For the Apples:
- 4 medium apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced (bout 4 cups)
- 1/3 cup (70g) granulated sugar
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 cup (85g) slivered blanched almonds
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200*C/400*F/ gas mark 6. Have ready a 9-inch round spring form pan. Set aside.
- Cream together the butter, vanilla and sugar for the base. Add the flour and mix until you have coarse crumbs. Press into the bottom and 1 inch up the sides of your pan.
- Spread the raspberry jam over the bottom.
- Whisk together the ingredients for the cream cheese filling until smooth and pour over top of the jam.
- Toss the apple slices with the sugar and cinnamon. Arrange gently over top of the filling. Sprinkle with the slivered almonds.
- Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Bake for a further half an hour until the apples are tender. Cool in the pan before removing sides.
- Serve cut into wedges with or without a dollop of whipped cream if desired! Store any leftovers in the refrigerator.
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com
Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Social Icons