Baking Made Easy

Happy New Year everyone! Hopefully you enjoyed fun & food filled festivities (but are not being too hard on yourself calorie counting now!).

Lorraine Pascale's new cookery show, 'Baking Made Easy' won't be any help to you if you are. The six part series kicked off tonight at 8.30pm on BBC2. It was fantastically filled with lots of deliciously tempting goodies including a savoury fig, mint and pistachio tart, soda bread, parmesan lollipops, blueberry mille feuille and an amazing 'I can't believe you made that cake'. Now, I can save you the calories if you like and tell you that having eaten everything, everything is definitely worth eating!!

I skipped off to London in early last summer for a few weeks to work on the show and ended up staying for five. And boy, was it a long hot summer. We had four ovens on the go with 30 degrees of heat blazing from the sun and of course couldn't open any doors or windows because of noise. Mega Melt. Mega melting chocolate. Mega melting pastry. Mega melting everyone and everything. Thankfully, that didn't show in Lorraine's cool performance!

Here are some behind the scenes snaps...

my very glamorous head quarters in the studio. I could come back from the kitchen to find my desk anywhere, including the garden at one point. on the only rainy day!

some continuity snaps of Lorraine's soda bread bites and the mille feuille pastries.

I can't believe you made that cake!

Festive Blueberry Pies

We are coming over all Christmassy at Blueberry Pie....Here's a recipe for my signature Blueberry Pies with a festive twist...

Makes 24

SWEET SHORTCRUST PASTRY

225g plain flour

150g cold unsalted butter

75g icing sugar

1 egg

BLUEBERRY FILLING

150g blueberries

25g caster sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

2 tsp cornflour

YOU WILL ALSO NEED:

1 egg, beaten

icing sugar for dusting

2 x 12 hole mini muffin tins, lightly greased

To make the pastry, blitz the flour and butter in a processor to fine crumbs. Whiz in the icing sugar for a second and then add the egg in. The mixture will come together into a dough ball within a few seconds. Shape it into a smooth, flat disc. Cover & refrigerate for about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the filling. Tip the blueberries into a pan with the sugar and cinnamon and allow to cook gently for 6-8 minutes until they begin to pop. Blend the cornflour to a smooth paste with a tablespoon or two of water and stir through. Simmer for 2-3 minutes until jammy and then remove and leave to cool and thicken.

Back to the pastry, I usually divide the dough in half (one for each tray) to make it easier to manage and roll. Then from each piece cut out 12 discs with a 6.5cm straight sided cutter and 12 stars with a cutter measuring 4.5cm from point to point. Refrigerate the pastry pieces for about 10 minutes until they firm up a little.

Preheat the oven to 180C. Use the pastry discs to line the muffin tins, fill each one with a teaspoonful of the blueberry filling and then top with a star to decorate. Brush the tops with the beaten egg to glaze and bake for 20 minutes until golden.

Leave to cool a little in the tin before easing out gently and leaving to cool completely (or not, if you can't wait!) on a wire rack. Dust with plenty of snowy icing sugar before serving.

TIP

Obviously, you can make the full recipe and then refrigerate or freeze half of it to make some fresh pies another time.

Totally Dublin

Ooh, how exciting...look what has made it to the front cover of this months Totally Dublin...

Gotta Get a Gateaux

I spotted these bright images on a truck on one of our grim days earlier this week. I styled these shots as part of Gateaux cakes repackaging sometime last year (or the year before even?) with photographer Peter Clayton. It's always exciting to see your work driving down the road!

Absolut Art

Well, I am finally resurfacing from a fantastic Vodka fueled evening at the preview of the Absolute Art Exhibition (as per yesterdays post). Here, ladies and gents is the finished creation...what do you think? It took hours, days in fact and a whole ton of icing...

Photographer & Creative Director: Cliona O'Flaherty
Fashion stylist: Aishling Farinella
Stylist assistant: Arsheen Qsaim
Food styling (& frilly tablecloth!): Moi
Hair: David & Anthony @ Toni & Guy
Make up: Julie Ann Ryan
Model: Maria Boardmam @ 1st Option

Here's a link to the exhibition site where you can see more creations by fabulous people like Chris Judge, Steve Doogan, Aisling Farinella, Rich Gilligan & DADDY to name a few. The collection is showing in an amazing new venue, the smock alley theatre, lower exchange st, templebar, daily between 5 & 10pm from September 5th - 20th. Admission is free, so go check it out for yourself.

Get Well Soon

The photographer on yesterdays shoot told me his granny, Maisey had just gone into hospital as she fell over and broke her hip. I saw a really cute photo of her waving and smiling from her hospital bed. She must be a really strong woman as she is 92! We are always looking for takers for the leftover food from shoots so we packed up a little get well soon goodie bag for Maisey. Hope it cheered her up!

some Easter chocolate cupcakes, leftover mini eggs,
fruit smoothie and some prop daff's!

have your cake

Here are some snaps (with Photographer Jack Caffrey) from a recent shoot for The Journal Magazine in the Farmer's Journal...

and the finished feature....

and Neven's recipe....

PEANUT TOFFEE SHORTBREAD

Makes about 16 bars

300g butter, at room temperature (plus extra for greasing)
125g caster sugar
1 egg
175g plain flour
175g light muscavado sugar
2 tbsp golden syrup
1/2 tsp lemon juice
400g roasted unsalted peanuts

preheat the oven to 180C (Gas Mark 4). Lightly grease a 18 x 27cm (7 x 11in) baking tin and then line the base and sides with parchment paper.

Using an electric beater, cream 100g of the butter with the caster sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy. Add the egg and beat well to combine. Sift the flour in a seperate bowl and then fold into the butter mixture using a large metal spoon until just combined. Press into the lined tin and bake for 15 minutes or until firm and very lightly browned. Leave to cool for 10 minutes.

Place the remaining butter in a heavy based pan with the muscavado sugar, golden syrup and lemon juice. Cook over a low heat for a couple of minutes until the sugar has dissolved, stirring constantly. Increase the heat slightly and simmer for another 5 minutes, stirring.

Remove the toffee from the heat and stir in the peanuts. Using two spoons, spread evenly over the shortbread base, being very carfeul as the mixture is extremely hot. return to the oven for another 5 minutes to help the toffee to set. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for 15 minutes, then turn out and cut into squares or small bars.

To serve, arrange on plates or wrap in greaseproof paper to take on picnics or in packed lunches.

little love muffin..

(C) Cliona O'Flaherty

Well, Valentines is looming and as much as the cheeseyness fills my heart with dread, I do give into gorgeous edible temptations (any excuse of course!). This is a recipe I wrote for Food & Wine magazine a couple of years ago. Keep them to yourself or send them to your little love muffin...

CHOCOLATE, CHERRY & HAZELNUT BROWNIES

Makes about 18 hearts

200g plain 70% cocoa chocolate, broken into pieces
100g unsalted butter (plus a little extra for greasing)
2 eggs
125g dark muscavado sugar
50g hazelnuts, roughly chopped
50g dried cherries, halved
50g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
pinch salt
icing sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 170C (Gas Mark 3). Grease a 19cm square cake tin, line with parchment and grease again.

Melt the chocolate and butter in a small heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water.

Meanwhile, beat the eggs and sugar together in a large bowl until smooth. Pour the melted chocolate into the egg mixture, add the hazelnuts and cherries and mix everything together.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt over the mixture and gently fold through. Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake for 30 minutes, until a skewer comes out just slightly wet.

Remove from the tin when cool enough to handle and leave to completely cool on a wire rack. use a heart shaped cutter, measuring 4cm at it's widest point to cut hearts from the brownie. Dust with icing sugar and send to your sweetie in pretty packaging.

TIPS:
- I'm sure the leftover bits of brownie from cutting the hearts out won't last long, but use for quick individual trifles or crumbled over ice cream if any survive!
- This brownie is even better a day or two after making so get organised and make in advance, leaving nothing to do on valentines day but love!

Baking Bonanza

A girls dream come true - a recent two days spent in an amazing bakery in Nenagh, Co. Tipperary called Quigley's. It was fantastic to see cakes being produced in vast quantities - I drooled over cream buns, ginger bread men, apple slices, fairy cakes, carrot cakes and white chocolate cookies and that was just for starters - a total cake fest!

Ginger bread men are in

big demand in nenagh!

Professor O'Flaherty & Head Chef Aoife

Oh, & I wasn't auditioning for the next 'Charlie & the Chocolate Factory', I was actually working, jammy job eh?! Cliona O'Flaherty was the ever amazing photographer (who only complained at the end, of a very sore finger from pressing that button all those times!) and was assisted by the fabulous Aoife Herrity.

We all looked like doctors in our gorgeous personality stripping white coats. In fact some of the staff thought we were doing a project for 'school' (if only!). We snapped lots of fun photos for our scrapbooks too...

Yum Yum