Month: October 2013

Baking, Cookery Classes, desserts, Food, Recipes

Sammy the Spider

heypesto

Have I mentioned that I love the variety of what I do -from catering to canapés to classes?

One of my latest ventures is Chocolate Cookery Classes at the famous Butler’s Chocolates.

So when they asked me to do a Halloween class I had to put my thinking hat on and Sammy the Spider was born …..

Meet Sammy! Meet Sammy!

To make this cake and be the star of your Halloween Party just follow my instructions which I hope don’t ramble too much…..

The body of the cake is made using one of the most versatile chocolate cake recipes you’ll ever need. I was introduced to it about 10 years ago by Tess and Nicola when I worked in Wicklow and since then I’ve used it for cakes, muffins, mini cupcakes, sweet canapés …..and now spiders.

What you need :

  • 8oz/200g Self raising Flour
  • 9oz/225g Soft Brown Sugar
  • 2o/50g Cocoa Powder
  • 1/4 pt/125ml  Milk (the full fat variety please!)
  • 1/4 pt/125ml  Sunflower Oil
  • 3 eggs , separated

What you do:

  • Preheat your oven to at 180C /170 C  Fan/Gas 4
  • Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl.
  • Mix the milk and oil in a jug and whisk in the egg yolks.
  • Whisk the egg whites until they’re thick and glossy (as if you were making meringues).
  • Add the wet ingredients to the dry, mix well and then fold in the egg whites – being careful not to knock out all the air.
  • And that’s it ! Now pour mix into baking tins – I used two 11.5 cm  and one 20 cm- you could make 2 large cakes or 4 small ones.
  • Bake for 12-15 minutes, until firm to touch.
  • Leave to cool in the tin for about 5 mins then turn out onto a wire rack  and allow to cool completely.

Note:  It’s not worth halving the recipe to make just one small cake so freeze the extra cakes for     another day – or make a family of spiders!

Now comes the fun part – the decorating.

First you need some Chocolate Ganache:

To make this you simply heat 200ml  cream until simmering then pour over approx 125g dark chocolate chips and stir until melted. If you think it’s not thick enough you can add more chocolate but do remember it will thicken as it cools.

Place on of the 11.5cm cakes on your serving plate (you can do it on a turntable but you have to be very careful when transferring it to its final plate!)

Cover the body of the cake with the ganache then get ready to add the legs. I used wafer rolls for the legs though I think chocolate fingers might work as well. wafer rolls

You need 16 rolls – two for each leg to allow for the bend! Cover each roll in the chocolate ganache (Didn’t I warn you it could get messy!)

Stick 8 of them into the body of the cake to form the tops of the legs. Then carefully ‘glue’ on the bottom half of each leg (wafer) using more of the ganache. (I’ll repeat the picture so you can see what I mean – I hope!)

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For the face you need some roll out icing – white for eyes, orange for mouth. Stamp out two white circles for the eyes, ‘glue’ onto the body and then attach an M&M’s to each circle with a little of the ganache.

To make the mouth cut out a smile from the orange icing and stick it on.

Et voila! Your Halloween spider cake is complete  and totally worth the mess!

Happy Cooking & Happy Halloween!

PS the best compliment I received on this was from my soon to be 3-year-old nephew – he wants a spider as his birthday cake 🙂

Baking, Cooking, Recipes

Wild Garlic Soda Bread

heypesto

I know , I know. I said I was going to get back to blogging earlier in the year but between moving house, setting up a new kitchen for Hey Pesto! and my involvement in the inaugural Harvest Offaly Food Festival it just didn’t happen.

So here it is – my first blog post in months and I’m starting with an easy one! Earlier in the year Helen from  Failte Ireland asked the food champions for an Irish recipe with a ‘modern twist’ and this was mine.

My Nana was famous for her soda bread, well within our family anyway and there’s enough of us! Everyday she made two loaves in her Aga . Always two, never any more than two and to paraphrase an ad ‘when it was gone, it was gone’.

I asked her once for the recipe and she told me ‘a handful of this and a handful of that’. If I’d had the sense at the time I’d have measured the size of her hands! I’m still trying to recreate the taste of her bread and apparently I have come close once or twice though I think the real difference is that she used unpasteurized milk straight from the cow that my great uncle kept in the orchard, that was allowed to go sour naturally (the milk not the cow!)

The great thing about soda bread is that you can add flavours – such as pesto or sundried tomatoes or even chocolate chips for a sweet cake.

In this version of soda bread I have added  wild garlic pesto and dried wild garlic leaves to give the taste of summer. I also use spelt flour, an ancient relative of modern wheat, which I think gives a better, lighter loaf

What you need:

  • 450g/1 lb. white spelt flour
  • 1 level teaspoon salt
  • 1 level teaspoon bread soda
  • 340-400 ml / 12-14 fl.oz approx buttermilk
  • 1 tbsp wild garlic pesto
  • 1-2 tsp dried wild garlic leaves 

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What you do:

  • Preheat oven to 230ºC/Gas 8
  • Mix all dry ingredients in large bowl, making sure that you sieve in the bread soda.
  • Add in the wild garlic pesto and the dried leaves if you have them ( dry them overnight in a very low oven when in season and store in an airtight jar).
  • Make a well in the centre and pour in most of the buttermilk at once. The exact amount of buttermilk can vary, even according to the weather!

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  • Stir in the liquid until completely mixed but be very careful not to overmix.
  • Turn the dough out onto a floured board and  gently form into long ‘loaf’ shape.  I know a circle is more acceptable but this is the shape my grandmother always used and it makes cutting the bread much easier!

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  • Place the loaf on lined  baking sheet.  Score a deepish line down the centre and prick the sides  to let the fairies out.
  • Bake in a hot oven for 20 minutes,  then reduce heat to 180ºC/Gas 4 for another 15-20 mins, or until just cooked.

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  • Tap the bottom of the bread; if it is cooked it will sound hollow. Cool on wire rack and eat as soon as possible!

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  • Perfect with soup or with as a base for bruschetta

I’m not sure if Nana would approve of the garlic but it went down very well here.

If you don’t have wild garlic pesto or if you just fancy a plain white soda then leave it out.

Give it a try – you’ll be amazed at how quick and easy it is to make your own bread.

Happy Cooking!