German Apple Cake

I love apple cake, it is a very autumnal thing and being as it has felt autumnal for about 3 weeks now I think it is the perfect cake to be baking at the moment. I'll start off with a little disclaimer, I didn't bake this cake, Mr Giraffe did, but it was so yummy that it needed to be blogged about.

This recipe is from Honey & Jam - it is a very simple sponge with none of the usual spicing that most apple cakes have, the sponge is very buttery and light and the apples really stand out. The apples aren't peeled which works suprisingly well, especially if you have good quality apples.

I think we/I will be making this again soon!

Cambridge Clandestine Cake Club & Banana Oat Cake

Yesterday I went to the 2nd Clandestine Cake Club for Cambridge held at the fantastic Greens Coffee Co. in Cambourne. You really have to love cake to go to one of these, and fortunately I do. Everyone brings a cake along and then you spend the evening drinking tea and eating your away around all the sugary offerings.

There we over 20 cakes this time and every one looked amazing. I didn't try all of them but I managed 4 slices whilst I was there and took some home - much to Mr Giraffe's delight.

My offering was a Banana and Oat Cake with Elderflower Cream Cheese icing. The cake was originally meant to be vanilla sponge but it came out of the oven dense and flat, and my buttercream failed too. Luckily I'd also made banana bread so I jazzed that up with the icing (made at work the next day, before the club!) which worked really well.

Yummy.

The evening is organised by Miss Sue Flay of tea party fame. I'm really looking forward to the next one.
There are lots of Clandestine Cake Clubs being held by other people around the country - check the website to see if there is one in your town. 

The banana loaf recipe started off wanting to be the one from the Hummingbird Bakery book but I edited it so much it pretty much is a different recipe now. I subbed out a lot of the sugar, used less flour and added oats.

Banana Oat Cake

140g sugar
2 eggs
2 bananas (about 200g peeled weight), peeled and mashed.
140g plain flour
40g porridge oats
1tsp baking powder
1tsp ground cinamonn
1tsp vanilla extract
1tsp ground ginger
100g unsalted butter, melted and cooled.

Preheat oven to 170c / gas mark 3. Grease and line a loaf tin. 

Whisk the eggs and sugar together until well combined. Then add in the mashed bananas and mix well again. Fold in the dry ingredients carefully, and then pour in the melted butter and fold again. Pour into the prepared loaf tin. Bake for 35 - 45 minutes until cooked through.

Elderflower Cream Cheese Icing

I really struggle with buttercream, it tends to split very easily for me. I love cream cheese icing because it is just as decadent but so so much easier to make. This recipe is based on the Jamie Oliver recipe that goes with his carrot cake.

100g mascarpone cheese
200g full fat cream cheese
2 tbsp of elderflower cordial
85g of icing sugar

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl and then spread all over your (cooled) cake.

Ridiculously Good Oreo Fudge Brownies

Bet you are already thinking about when you can next bake.

I am very late to this party, I saw the brownies on Lorraine Pascale's show a few months ago (ok it was January, doesn't seem that long ago!) and ooohed over them and then never got round to making them, which is my usual trick. Ireena made them and so did Katie and I ooohed again.
I kept on buying oreo cookies and they'd get opened and suddenly there were no more oreos. So I bought a pack and hid them at the back of the cupboard for a few weeks, and finally today I made oreo brownies.

I make a lot of brownies but I think these might be the best. Rich, sweet and almost moussey in the middle (from whisking eggs, something I've never done for brownies) and very crispy on top - and then you get an oreo in there too - magic!

You should definitely try these, I think they'd be great in place of birthday cake or even for a dinner party. Or for, you know, eating two in a row. The brownie base itself without the cookies is a great one.

I made three alterations - I didn't include the 2 extra egg yolks - mainly because I didn't have enough eggs but really I felt it was a bit unnecessary. The chocolate was just broken into small pieces, I think grating chocolate would get melty and messy! And I had some fudge chunks lying around so I put those on top before baking, they melted into the batter and then when cooled became crispy and sticky, yum!

Recipe on BBC Food.

Lavender Wholewheat Scones

Until now I have only ever used lavender in my bath, probably like most of you. There are a few things that lavender really works with especially sweet things. I've heard lovely things about lavender panna cotta, I've eaten lavender shortbread before. I've seen some people put it with lamb but I'm not entirely convinced about that.

I had been given some very nice strawberry and rhubarb jam and the best thing to do when you get jam is make scones! The perfume of the  lavender in the scones works really well with the sweet jam, and I think the wholemeal flour makes it nutty, meaning the lavender doesn't overpower.

I am by no means an expert on scones yet, these still didn't have the required oomph that I was looking for, I think they need self raising flour, which I keep forgetting to buy. And in fact I keep forgetting to get more plain flour too, hence the reason for wholemeal - which worked out nicely anyway!

I used this recipe, subbing with wholemeal and 2 teaspons of baking powder. And my lavender was in the form of homemade lavender sugar (grab a bunch of lavender flowers, hang upside down for a month, remove purply bits, add to a jam jar of caster sugar, wait a week), so I just replace the plain sugar with that.

The lavender comes through really well, not too soapy and just the right amount of perfumeyness.
They are perfect for a tea party!

Candied Ginger Brownies

You'd think I would have enough brownie recipes on here but I don't think there is such a thing as too many brownie recipes, or too many brownies!

Lately I have been more of a fan of brownies with things in them, before I was more of a chocolate nut and just wanted them to be as chocolatey as possible - which is obviously no bad thing either. But sometimes it is fun to experiment!

Spiced brownies are lovely and these candied ginger ones give you a good hit of ginger in each bite, and a bit of texture from the candied coating.

If you really like ginger I would make your pieces big but if you don't chop them up finer than I did, it will all work out fine either way. These are semi gooey brownies, with a nice crisp top.

100g good quality (70% cocoa or more) dark chocolate
70g butter
100g caster sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp of vanilla extract
75g self raising flour
1 tsp of baking powder
25g cocoa (or just use more flour)
100g candied ginger, chopped

Preheat your oven to 400f, 200c (180c fan) or gas mark 6

Break your chocolate into pieces and melt together with the butter in a bowl over a pan of simmering water, stirring frequently.
Take the bowl off the heat, leave to cool for a few minutes and then add in sugar and then your eggs one at a time.
Then add in the vanilla. Sift in the rest of the dry ingredients and fold together.
Then carefully fold in your chopped candied ginger, saving some for the top.

Pour into a non stick or greased and lined 9 inch square cake tin and sprinkle over the rest of the ginger. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes.

Elderflower Fritters - version 2

It's elderflower season!

Well strictly speaking it isn't but the whether has been so warm lately that elderflowers are blooming nearly more than a month early. I know this because I made fritters in late June last year. 

They were so good that I couldn't wait to get my hands on some more this year, so I am glad they are early.

Elderflowers grow almost everywhere so you shouldn't have too much trouble finding your own in the countryside.  I am lucky, I have a tree in my garden!

I am waiting for some more to bloom so I can make cordial too. So check back for a post on that.

Last time I made fritters they were nice but the batter was a little dense and my technique wasn't so great so they weren't all that pretty. I replaced some of the milk for sparkling water this time around, giving them a light batter, much like you would use for tempura.

Elderflower Fritters - serves 2 / makes 6 fritters

6 heads of elderflower - checked for bugs

50ml of milk
100ml of sparkling water
100g of self raising flour
pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 egg

ground nut or sunflower oil for frying

Use your elderflowers as soon as you've picked them, if left too long they start to smell strange and lose their floral scent. Check them for any bugs but do not wash them otherwise you'll lose all the lovely pollen, which is where the flavour is.

To make your batter mix together the milk, water and then the egg. Slowly whisk in your flour, salt and baking powder until you have a loose batter - the consistency of single cream. Add more water if necessary.

Heat about 2-3 inches of oil in a large saucepan. Pop a bit of batter in after about 2 minutes to check if it is hot enough.

Dip your elderflower head in and twist slowly to make sure it is fully battered, then pull out and let the excess batter drip off. Carefully put into the hot oil - if you keep the stems long when picking you will have something to hold on to. Fry in batches for a few minutes until golden brown, drain on kitchen paper.

I like to serve them drizzled with honey and with a scoop of ice cream.

Lemon & Ricotta Breakfast Muffins

I called these muffins so you can eat them for breakfast.
I am kind to you like that.


I made these for three reasons.

1. I had a lot of lemons
2. I wanted to test out my new silicone cupcake breakfast muffin cases

3. I like to eat cake for breakfast.

On a serious note, they do have much less sugar than a cupcake, and of course no icing or buttercream -they aren't particularly sweet, so add more if you want a sweet muffin. They are lovely split open and served with some natural yoghurt and honey.


Lemon & Ricotta Muffins
makes 12 muffins

1 cup (200g) of self raising flour
1/4 (50g) cup of sugar
half teaspoon of baking powder
pinch of salt
2 tablespoons of honey
1/2 (100g) cup of ricotta
1/4 (50ml) cup of milk
3 tablespoons of melted and cooled butter (approx 75g solid)
1 egg
zest of 3 lemons, juice of 2
oats or wheatgerm to sprinkle on top - optional

Preheat your oven to gas mark 4 / 180c / 160c fan.
Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Do the same with the wet ingredients and the egg, whisk them together. Slowly fold the wet into the dry, taking care not to over mix.

do you like my silicone cupcake liners? fancy and useful.

Fill the cupcake cases generously with the mixture, about 1 cm from the top - you want them to rise high.
Sprinkle with some oats or wheatgerm if you'd like.

Bake for 15 - 20 minutes until they are cooked through.

Lemon Bars for UK Handmade Summer Issue

Hello!

I have been a bit quiet on the blog front recently, I have just started a new job and still getting into the swing of things. Also I had a rotten stomach bug last week which left me with nearly a whole week off unable to bake anything!

I did however recently write a recipe for the UK Handmade summer issue, some gloriously summery lemon bars. It is on page 47, please have a read and the rest of the magazine is just beautiful this month.

I will be back very soon with some new recipes :)


Deepa

A Lovely Loaf of Bread

I have baked a lot of bread before, no knead bread, one hour bread, soda bread, potato bread and various other things which have been eaten too quickly to blog about. But I never seem to get around to cooking a normal white loaf, you know one you can slice and use for sandwiches and toast. I guess because it is easy to get supermarket bread for that and make fancy bread homemade. But really baking an everyday loaf is really satisfying because you can include in your everyday meals to make them more interesting.

 This recipe has more water in than normal bread doughs and I proved it once for an hour, and second in the loaf tin for 45 minutes. This mean it was moist,  very well risen and airy, I think if I'd left it the second time for another 15 minutes it would have bloomed a bit higher. I sprinkled it with poppyseeds for extra crunch and prettiness.


Simple White Loaf
makes one small loaf


300g (2.5 cups) of strong white bread flour
1 1/2 tablespoons of sugar
3/4 tablespoon of salt
1 flat tablespoon of instant yeast
1 tablespoon of olive oil
150ml of warm water

Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl, then make a well in the centre and add the oil and water. Slowly incorporate the flour into the well until it combines fully, mix to a fairly sticky dough. Flour a board well and knead the loaf for a few minutes until it is smooth, you may need to keep adding flour to stop it being too sticky.

Put into a large clean bowl dusted with flour, cover with a tea towel and leave in a warm place for 1 hour.

After an hour turn the dough out and knock it back, kneading lightly for a minute. Then shape into a rough loaf shape and pop into a floured loaf tin. Prove again for 45 minutes to 1 hour in a warm place, covered with a tea towel. Preheat your oven to 180c / gas mark 4 before the proving is nearly up.

Once proved slash the top with a sharp knife, about 3 or 4 slashes should do. This will allow the loaf to rise and air to escape during cooking. Dab with some water or brush with milk and sprinkle on about 1 teaspoon of poppyseeds.

Bake for 30 - 40 minutes in the middle of the oven.

Remove from the oven, grab the butter, slice and spread and EAT!

I think this bread would take really well to other flavourings such as cheese, herbs, sundried tomatoes, whatever you can think of. Sesame seeds and a drizzle of oil would be an nice twist too. The possibilities!

I toasted it the next day and spread it with honey, it toasts extremely well.

Coffee & Hazelnut Cupcakes

I think I have a cupcake fixation. I think it is because they are a) really easy to make b) cute and c) great to photograph.

I have no less than 7 (now 8) cupcake recipes in my reasonably petite recipe archive. They are a bit like brownies (I have a lot of those blogged too), adaptable and everyone loves them. I don't always like icing or frosting, it can make the cupcake overly sweet for an everyday lunchtime snack, but for special ocasions you have to. My favourite cupcake is lemon drizzle, which is also my favourite cake.

These cupcakes are again super easy and people always swoon when you mention coffee cake in any form - have you noticed that? I played around with the traditional walnut and decided to sub hazelnut instead because I prefer them. There is a mixture of whole and chopped hazelnuts, along with one of the top which gave it a slightly er, protuding appearance - oops!

I am a coffee snob and I much prefer proper fresh ground coffee to instant, but instant is always the best thing to use for baking - unless you can find coffee extract. You can get a much stronger coffee taste, and I've tried using freshly made proper espresso before, than real coffee. Trust me!

Coffee & Hazelnut Cupcakes
makes about 12 cupcakes

200g butter, softened
200g white or brown sugar
4 eggs
175g self raising flour
4 tsps of instant coffee (dissolve about 2 tsps of powder in as little water as possible, approx 75ml)
dash of vanilla extract
chopped and whole hazelnuts - about 100g in total plus extra for the top.

Preheat your oven to 200c / gas mark 6
Cream together your butter and sugar with a spoon and then whisk in the eggs one by one, mixing well to incorporate each time. Add in your vanilla, coffee and then the flour, folding in, try not to overbeat. Then add in your hazelnuts.

Line a muffin tin with cupcake cases, and fill to about 2/3 full, top with hazelnuts. Bake for 10 - 15 minutes til cooked all the way through.

I did intend to ice them with chocolate and coffee icing but trying to eke out some leftover chocolate frosting with extra coffee and milk made it go all runny, whoops! I experimented with one but the chocolate just wouldn't set, but it was tasty when topped with more hazelnuts.

P.S. The other cupcakes in the picture are lemon cupcakes, recipe in the Hummingbird Bakery Book :)

Sourdough Bread

I started my sourdough starter nearly two weeks ago, and the week between making the starter and making the bread made me really impatient!

I love sourdough bread, it keeps really well and has a really distinctive taste.

I used the recipe from River Cottage to make my bread, using 100ml of my starter (which I fed again once I had taken some out for bread). You have to make a 'sponge' first and leave it to ferment overnight. This bit is a bit nerve wracking first time because it is then if you find out if your starter will ferment - luckily the morning after I was greeted with a nice bubbly bowl of sponge.

Once worked into a dough and proved all day it baked to a lovely big loaf. I think the only mistake I made was getting a bit carried away with making sure I had a nice crisp crust. I poured water into the tray a few times during cooking so the crust was really thick, not so great the day after, but good straight out the oven.
Next time I will fill up one tray of water and leave it at that.

I am looking forward to making some more bread next week. I have also seen a recipe for sourdough pancakes which sounds interesting!

I made a simple tomato soup to go with our sourdough which I topped with cheese and grilled. Yum!

Starting a Sourdough Starter

I have started a sourdough starter! I started it on Sunday, so far it is going well and I had bubbles last night. I am probably too excited about it. Hopefully I can make some sourdough over the weekend.

This blog post from Joy the Baker is super useful, some of the other recipes out there are ESSAYS on the subject, really it is simple. One cup of bread flour. One cup of water. Blend. Every 24 hours for the first 3-4 days you need to feed it. Do this by throwing half away, and adding half cup of water and half a cup of flour. Stir. Leave in a warm place. Once it has established itself you keep it in the fridge and feed it once a week.


(if anyone knows how to take an attractive picture of this big yeasty floury mess I'd be grateful, haha).

Mushroom Ragu

We've been going veggie in this household, the last 3 and a bit weeks we have only eaten veggie evening meals (except for a couple of slip ups, one involving takeaway pizza) which has made me more creative and I have tried lots of new recipes.

This mushroom ragu is one of my favourite meals from the last few weeks because it is so MEATY and really easy to put together. Other highlights from our veggie adventure include Ottolenghi's black pepper tofu and pasta puttanesca. You must try the tofu, it will convert you if you don't like tofu- but you must use silken tofu as stated.

Anyway, onto the ragu. You can use any mushrooms you have, about 300gs serves 2 people, I had some mini portobello mushrooms (yes I admit I bought them because they were cute) which I put in. A mixture of different interesting mushrooms would be lovely, maybe with a few dried mushrooms thrown in.

Mushroom Ragu
serves 2

half an onion or 3 shallots
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tbsp tomato puree
approx 300ml passata or pureed tomatoes
300g mushrooms, sliced
dried or fresh herbs - oregano, thyme, basil - about 2 tsp if dried, handful if fresh.
bay leaf
dash of chili flakes
milk

Fry the garlic and the shallots in some olive oil, then add in the mushrooms and cook for a couple of minutes. Then add in your tomato puree and passata with your herbs, bay leaf and chili. Season.
Bring to the boil and then simmer very gently for about 15minutes, stirring every now and again.
I read somewhere that a splash of milk or cream at the end is lovely in ragu, so I always add some in, it takes the acidity out of the tomatoes.
Serve with spaghetti and parmesan on top (apparently parmesan is not veggie but you can sub with cheddar or maybe some nice feta?).

This is so rich and comforting, definitely cured my craving for a proper meat ragu.

My First Macarons & Using Up Your Egg Yolks Lemon Curd

Hurray some food blogging!

I've been a bit remiss since Christmas (ok way before then) even though I've been baking lots of things and making lots of things.

Macarons have been on my lists for ages and ages, our last house had the worse oven on the planet, it couldn't even cook a baked potato evenly so I wasn't trusting it with macarons. Since we have moved we have a nice shiny electric oven which keeps the temperature even and cooks things nice and quickly. I can now bake a whole cake in less than an hour and without checking it every 2 minutes impatiently.

This also means I can now make meringues, lemon meringue pie specifically! Yum.

I used the recipe over on The Catty Life, she embued me with confidence that I Can Do It. Macrons scared me a bit, maybe I read too much into them and worried about how hard they would be.

I didn't age my egg whites, like you should, because I forgot. I still got the taste of macarons and the airy inside, but I didn't get the longer for 'feet' and a thicker shell. You can make macarons with un-aged egg whites but they won't be as pretty!

Vanilla Macarons with Lemon Curd Filling 
recipe from the catty life 

100g ground almonds
200g caster or icing sugar (I used caster which was fine)
50g caster sugar
3 egg whites - preferably aged by leaving them in a bowl at room temperature for 24 hours.
squirt of vanilla extract

Whip your egg whites still they start to foam/turn white, then add in the 50g of caster sugar slowly to combine. Whisk further til you the eggs form stiff peaks, add in the vanilla extract.
Combine the almonds and the 200g of sugar in a bowl, mix, then carefully fold them in to the meringue mix, adding it in quarters til combined.
Using a piping bag dot the mixture on to a lined baking tray, mine were about 1.5 inches wide, they don't spread too much in the oven.
Leave for 30 minutes to an hour til the mixture sets a little, it should form a 'shell' on the top.
Bake at 150 degrees celsius for 15 minutes. Keep checking, the recipe says 10 minutes but I needed a bit longer.

Remove when cool by sliding a knife under each macaron.
Sandwich with lemon curd, eat four in a row like I did.

Lemon Curd
This lemon curd is great because you can use up your leftover egg yolks from the macarons.

3 egg yolks
100g caster sugar
juice and zest of one lemon
50 grams of unsalted butter, cubed

Beat the egg yolks and caster sugar in a heatproof bowl using an electric whisk til the sugar has dissolved.
Then place the bowl over a saucepan of boiling water, add in the lemon juice and zest plus the butter. Whisk to melt the butter, the eggs should start to thicken, keep whisking. Keep an eye on the heat as you don't want the eggs to scramble. The mixture is done when it coats the back of a wooden spoon - it will thicken further as it cools.
Immediately pour into hot sterilised jars (this actually makes one jar) and seal. Keeps for 2 weeks in the fridge, after opening.

Easy Peasy Mince Pies

I love homemade mince pies, shop bought ones are always disappointing, too much filling and horrible dry pastry. Mince pies are also very satisfying to make, they seem like a big achievement but they can be really easy.

I was given a jar of homemade mincemeat which went into these pies, it was much lovelier than shop bought - not too sweet, boozy and well spiced.

The pastry contains no liquid, just butter, flour and sugar. A lot of butter, which is what makes it stick together. The resulting pastry case is very close to shortbread but crisper and sweeter. I think these took me just over an hour to make, most of the time was spent because I had to bake in two batches.

They are not the prettiest mince pies ever, not neat but what I like to call 'rustic'. They taste brilliant though, which is what matters!

I played around with the mincemeat, the first batch had pure mincemeat but the second I added some chopped hazlenuts and grated apple (spotted that tip on Kirstie and Phil's Christmas) which added lovely texture and also meant I could eke out the mincemeat more.

Makes approximately 16 - 18 mince pies
adapted from BBC Good Food

225g very cold butter
350g plain flour
100g granulated or caster sugar
1 jar (about 300g) mincemeat
egg or milk to brush over tops

Add your flour to a large mixing bowl, then grate in all of your butter. Grating cold butter means that you have finer strands in your flour which allows you to incorporate it better. Rub into the flour til you have a texture like fine crumble. Mix in your sugar and start to knead into a dough, the butter will be warmer now and so you will be able to work into a dough. Try not to add any liquid as your pastry will shrink in the oven later on.
Once it starts to form knead briefly and it is ready to use.

Preaheat oven to 200c (180c fan) or gas mark 6.
Lightly grease a nonstick cup tin, you don't have to but I wasn't going to trust my tin entirely after last year!
To form the bottoms you can either form walnut sized pieces of dough, flatten and then spread out into each cup to form a base. Or you can roll out the dough carefully (using plenty of flour) and use pastry cutters. I found the pastry cutters a better method although a little more time consuming. Form tops using pastry cutters or small sized balls squashed out.
You can also go for a lattice effect (which may look neater than mine, I am sure) or top with chopped nuts - both of which are delicious.

Brush the tops with beaten egg or milk, bake for 20 minutes til golden brown.
Leave to cool for 5-10 minutes before taking them out of the tins.

Lemon Drizzle Cupcakes - Gluten Free

These are properly syrupy, sticky and sweet cupcakes with a lovely lemon tang - I didn't start out intending for them to be gluten free but they are which is a great bonus! I made them by replacing the flour for ground almonds - which makes the cakes light and slightly nutty as well as gluten free.

I sprinkled the cupcakes with sugar before baking for an extra crisp top, and then drizzled them with a generous amount of syrup when the came out of the oven.

Makes 12 muffins / large cupcakes

175g unsalted butter
200g sugar
200g ground almonds
zest of 2 lemons
juice of 2 lemons
1 heaped teaspoon of baking powder
3 eggs

Cream the butter and sugar together til well combined, then whisk in eggs, fold in almonds, zest and baking powder. You can add a dash of vanilla extract here too.  Spoon into cupcake cases, leaving about 1cm from the top of the case. Sprinkle each cake with sugar, be generous!

Bake in the oven for 10 - 15mins til cooked through, they will be squidger than normal cakes but they will be cooked through. They won't rise to a dome like a flour cake either, mainly cos of the sugar topping too, but the baking powder will help them along a little bit.

for the drizzle:
juice of 2 lemons
approx 3-4 tablespoons of sugar

mix the drizzle ingredients together til you have a consistency like double cream, set aside while the cupcakes cook. as soon as the cupcakes come out prick them a few times each with a fork, and then drizzle some of the syrup over the top.

Leave to cool and then eat! These are so soft and syrupy that they make a lovely pudding with some creme fraiche or ice cream.

Risotto with Baked Ricotta, Tomato and Herbs

I won something! I never win anything!
I entered a competition on the Laverstoke blog to win a parcel of their lovely buffalo ricotta and I won!
What was even better is that they sent me a whole array of goodies, I got two pots of their fresh mozarella, some of their smoked streaky bacon, a big pot of ricotta and a carton of buffalo milk.

We have enjoyed the mozarella on pizza and the bacon in sandwiches (naturally) and diced and combined with some ricotta gnocchi (I used the rest of the ricotta here). We aren't sure what to do with the buffalo milk, I could make burrata (although I do have a lot of mozarella already) or we could just have it in our tea!

Being as the ricotta was the main prize I thought I'd come up with a nice recipe for you. This risotto is slightly summery but comforting enough to warm you up on this early autumn days. The ricotta is baked in the oven for 10 minutes which makes it meltingly tender and allows you to infuse it with herbs.

Risotto with Baked Ricotta, Tomato and Herbs
serves 2

Knob of butter
olive oil
approx 200g arborio rice
2 cloves of garlic
handful of cherry tomatoes
about 1 tablespoon of fresh italian herbs - I used sage and oregano
about 1 pint hot chicken stock
parmesan
4 tablespoons of ricotta

First preheat your oven to a medium heat. Put your ricotta in a small ovenproof dish, spinkle with herbs, olive oil and seasoning. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes whilst you make your risotto base.

Chop the tomatoes into halves or quarters, add to a bowl and add a little olive oil, cider vinegar and seasoning.  Leave to stand whilst you make your risotto.

Next start to make your risotto. Melt your butter with a splash of olive oil in a large nonstick pan, add in your crushed garlic and fry for a minute. Then add in your rice. Stir quickly to coat all the rice in butter and oil. Cook for another minute. Then start to ladle in your stock in small amounts, stirring and waiting for the stock to absorb before you add the next ladle. Keep testing your rice for done-ness all the time, you might not need all of your stock.

When the rice is about 3/4 done add in your tomatoes, herbs, another knob of butter and about 2 tablepsoons of parmesan, stir to combine and melt the cheese and butter. Take your ricotta out the oven. Put half into your risotto and stir in.

Once the rice is done and everything combine in the pan serve in warmed bowls. Divide the rest of the baked ricotta between the plates and serve on top. Serve with a bit more parmesan and black pepper.

Yum!


You can find Laverstoke in branches of Waitrose and some Sainsburys. You can also buy from their website.