Lemon Drizzle Loaf

At Uni I fell in love with the lemon drizzle muffins that were sold at the library cafeteria. They had a gooey lemony center and sugar crystals on top. Absolutely divine!!! The sad news is that they cost £1.50 for one! But they tasted so good..

Anyways, I was inspired to try and make my very own lemon drizzle loaf (without the gooey center) and for a first attempt I think I did pretty well, even if I do say so myself.

To make you will need:

• 175g Unsalted butter, softened, plus extra to grease
• 175g caster sugar 
• 4 medium eggs
• 3 lemons
• 125g self raising flour
• 50g ground almonds
• 75g sugar cubes

The steps are similar to making my Victoria sandwich, once the sugar and butter are whisked together add the finely grated zest of 2 lemons and juice of 1/2 a lemon.

Fold the flour and ground almonds into the butter mixture, spoon into the tin and bake for 40-50 mins.

Sugar Crystals

Put the sugar cubes into a small bowl (I used only 50g because I didn't want too much sugar) with the juice of 1 1/2 lemons and the pared zest of 1 lemon. Leave to soak for about 5mins and then use the back of a spoon to crush the cubes roughly. Once the cake is warm spread the sugar crystals across the cake.

P.S ... I didn't t use grease proof paper when I made this cake, instead I greased the tin. However, part of my cake got stuck to the tin, so I would definitely advice using grease proof paper just to avoid your cake splitting while attempting to get the cake out.

                                                                Enjoy 

Wish List

I'm currently in awe of Lorraine Pascale a former model turned cook who has her own BBC TV show and cupcake bakery in Covent gardens. She has recently wrote 3 new books and I'm looking to get all 3 soonish..

Once I do, I'll provide an update on them!

So here they are

Recent Purchases

I'm a cook who tends not to measure any ingredients when cooking and hopes for the best (which usually works). However, I decided to change this in the New Year, and get some new tools for my kitchen.

I purchased a hand mixer and an electronic kitchen scale also from Tesco. This has made baking so much quicker, fun and easy. For anyone like me who is looking to purchase any of these items and doesn't want to spend too much I would definetly advice having a look at Tesco's value range.

The hand mixer cost only £6.00 and the electronic kitchen scale cost £9.00

I recently purchased a Baking Book by Good HouseKeeping, to date I have made two recipes from it and they have come out great!! check here to look at my Victoria Sandwich cake.

The book is easy to read and there are clear instructions on each recipe and also images to accompany, which provides good guidance for the end result.  

There are also excellent baking tips at the end.

It cost only £3 from WHSmith (Previously £25) so was definetly worth it!

Victoria Sandwich

Here is a simple traditional cake my little sister and I made

You will need

Ingredients

• 175g (6oz) Unsalted butter, softened plus extra to grease
• 175g (6oz) Caster sugar
• 3 medium eggs
• 175g (6oz) Self - raising flour, sifted

For the filling

• Raspberry or strawberry Jam
• Icing or caster sugar

Add the butter and caster sugar to a large bowl and using a hand-held electric whisk, beat together until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time beating well after each addition. If the mixture starts to curdle add one table spoon of flour. 

Fold in the flour using a metal spoon 

You can either grease two sandwich tin cases or use one deep tin and cut the cake in two like I did.

For the tin case, you will need to cover it in greaseproof paper and then place in the oven at 190 C (170 C fan oven) for 20-25 minutes.

Once ready leave to cool on a wire rack. Slice the cake in half and add the filling, sandwich the two halves together and dust with icing sugar. 

                                                                                 

                       

                               

Bon appetit :)

Moin Moin Elewe

This is a true South-West African dish from the depths of Nigeria know as moin moin or (steamed bean pudding) using ewe leaves. After a little research, I found out that these leaves are from a special plant known as Thaumatococcus daniellii which are known for producing a sweet protein and  fruit ‘miracle fruit’ . 

So that’s ewe for ya...

Ewe can be purchased at  most African supermarkets

As my mother and I, were making the dish for my cousins naming ceremony to feed around 50, you will not need the surplus of ingredients that we used but the process and method will of course remain the same. There are various fillings that can be used however, I will be using mackerel an alternative is corned beef or hard boiled eggs.

So you will need...

• Black eyed beans (peeled)
• Paprika
• 2 Scotch bonnets (optional depending on how spicy you like your food)
• Onion
• Chicken stock (optional)
• 1 Mackerel (Boiled with salt and Maggie)
• Ewe or tin foil
• Salt and Maggie to taste

First of all you will need to rinse the beans ensuring any unwanted floating bits are removed. Once this is done chop the onions, paprikas and scotch bonnets into medium sized pieces.

Insert the black eyed beans, onions, paprika’s and scotch bonnet into a blender and blend until the mixture is smooth, ensuring there are no visible lumps!

The next step is optional – Add chicken stock which provides loads of flavour and acts as a seasoning to the mixture. Then add the Mackerel which should be deboned and cut into small pieces.

You may add additional salt and Maggie to taste but be careful with the amount of salt added as once you add too much there’s no going back, less is better when it comes to moin moin.

 Add some oil – I used sunflower oil but any alternative will do as well.  

Once this is complete the mixture is ready to be served into either the ewe or tin foil.

Before inserting the mixture into the ewe you will need to snip off the ends of the ewe leaf.

Three step guide to folding the ewe leaf

                 (Clean the ewe to remove any dirt using a damp piece of kitchen tissue)

Add the mixture into the ewe, and place two pieces of ewe at the bottom of the pot with 1 cup of water to prevent burning.

The moin moin should take about 1hour - 1hour 30 to cook

Once cooked unravel the moin moin from the ewe as the steam slowly oozes out and its ready to eat.

                                                            Ke gbadun (Enjoy)