Lemon Drizzle Cake

So I asked Michelle last week what she'd like to learn to bake, she said "ice-cream"....so that was find....then she said "Lemon Drizzle" a few days later. So that was also grand, talking to her yesterday I found out we were going to make both :) This was actually the second thing we started this morning. We began making ths once the custard for the ice-cream was cooling. But not to worry we'll begin here!

What you'll need:

For the Cake:

• 175g softened butter, plus a bit to grease the loaf tin
• 175g caster sugar
• pinch of salt
• Finely grated zest of 2 unwaxed lemons
• 2 eggs
• 75ml milk
• 175g plain flower
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

For the glaze:

• 100g caster sugar
• Juice of 1 lemon

Preheat your over to 170°C/gas 3. Butter a 1kg loaf tin and line the bottom with baking paper. Beat the softened butter, sugar and salt in a large bowl till light and fluffy. Add lemon and whisk well till it's incorporated. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after you add in each one. (it kinda looks like scrambled eggs at this stage) Then add the milk. Combine. Sift in flour and baking powder together. Fold the mixture till it's well combined. Try not to over mix! Pour it into the prepared tin and level it off. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Leave it to stand in the tin for about 15 minutes. Turn it out onto a rack and leave to cool the rest of the way. Once cooled place it on your serving tray. To make the drizzle combine the lemon and sugar in sausepan. Stir gently till the sugar is dissolved. Keep heating till it becomes syrupy. Don't let it boil!

Prick the top of the cake, then pour the syrup all over the top. Don't let hot sugar land on your hand...it's not cool. The cake keeps in an airtight tin for about 4 days.

Making/Baking with the Sister.

What a day we had! Michelle arrived at 9:30 or so this morning. I knew we had to go show a wonderful tourist around the city in the afternoon. So we had to get as much done in as little time as possible. With Michelle learning some of these recipes I am reluctant to do any prep work and we start everything from scratch. The only thing I got around to doing yesterday was leaving the freezer bowl for the icecream in a freezer. So in the order that they emerged from the kitchen!

Click of the pictures to go to the posts! Ah-Yay!

Michelle gently holds her new cookies:

It was great to see Michelle's mind off things for a while today. We had a laugh. For people who don't know which is the majority of you, at the start of the year we lost our Father and Grandad one week apart. It's been particulary hard for my little sister and sometimes I worry that I don't know what to do for her. If this helps her feel better in any little way I'd gladly spend all week creating tasty things with her. But at least for the moment it'll be once a week and it'll be wonderful. Thanks for reading!

Alioli (Garlic Mayonnaise)

I was in Spain last year, was sitting on a balcony and got to watch a friend's friend make this. It was wonderful D: and garlicy...garlicy to the point of I can no longer look you in face. But it's worth it. This with meat or fish or anything....

What you'll need:

• 2 cloves of garlic
• sea salt
• a squeeze of lemon
• 2 organic egg yolks
• 250ml of extra virgin olive oil
• 250ml of rapeseed or another odurless, tasteless oil

Crush the garlic with salt in a mortar till it's as smooth as possible, add the lemon juice. Transfer the garlic and egg yolks into a mixing bowl. Start whisking the mixture with a balloon whisk and begin adding the oil drop by drop very slowly till it's all incorparated. An emulsion with form when everything has been incorporated. Taste and add salt or lemon to taste if you feel it's necessary.

Pop into sterisied jars this makes a little over 500gr of alioli. It's wonderful and doesn't take a huge amount of time for the reward in the end.

When I was making it today I decided to slow roast a head of garlic with olive oil for about 3 hours. This gave the alioli and smoother flavour. Also your breath isn't over the top...I hope. Also I added 3 of the roasted cloves.

Zhoug (a kind of green harissa)

Today has been a very busy day. Making condiments left right and centre. Zhoug is excellent with fish and rice. It doesn't last very long in the fridge but you'll have it for 2 weeks or so. It's just that the fresh coriander doesn't like sitting about very much.

What you'll need:

• 250g long green chillies
• ½ teaspoon green cardamom seeds, green husks removed, finely ground
• ⅓ teaspoon coriander seeds, ground
• ½ teaspoon cumin seeds, ground
• 4 tablespoon of roughly chopped fresh coriander
• 1½ cloves of garlic
• a small squeese of lemon
• 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
• sea salt & pepper

Chop the stems off chillis, cut them in half then with a teaspoon scrap membrane and seeds from the inside and roughly chop. Put everything except lemon and oil in a blender and pulse till everything is smooth. Transfer everything to a mixing bowl and add lemon and oil. Mix well and place in a sterilised jar. You should end up with just above 250g of Zhoug.

Harissa

So I love harissa. It's wonderful. You should always have it in the kitchen/fridge. This keeps really well in a sealed jar. Pop abit of olive oil on top to keep the air off it.

What you'll need:

• 250g long, fresh red chillies
• sea salt
• 3 heaped teaspoons of caraway seeds, ground
• 3 heaped teaspoons of cumin seeds, ground
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 1 roasted & peeled red bell pepper
• 1 heaped tablespoon of tomato purée
• 1 and bit tablespoon of red wine vinegar
• 2 teaspoons of smoked paprika
• 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Chop the stems off chillis, cut them in half then with a teaspoon scrap membrane and seeds from the inside and roughly chop. Blend them with a pinch of salt, half of each of the spice seeds and the garlic cloves until smooth. Keep blending till they're smooth (no little bits) Add the bell pepper and the rest of the spice seeds, the purée and vinegar, and blend again until very smooth. Transfer it to a mixing bowl. Add the olive oil. Don't add the oil when in the blender. Blending the oil in will make the harissa turn a creamy colour. Sprinkle paprika on top of the oil and stir in. Taste and season if you need to balance the vinegar.

I sterilised two 220g jars and it pretty much fills these. In the batch I made today I used some amazing smoked olive oil I pick up in Fallon & Byrne a while ago. Everything for this recipe came from F&B which is rather handy.

Semolina Sponge Cake for Lorraine!

So as it says above this cake was for Lorraine. It was Lorraine's birthday so I decided she would need a cake! I had the idea for this cake on Father's Day when I was teaching my sister how to make a Victoria Sponge. There's 3 main things needed to make this cake. SO this is my first recipe post so you know....bear with me. There's also fondant involved for the lettering.

What you'll need to make this cake!

For the sponge

• 6 eggs, seperated
• 300g caster sugar
• 240g semolina flour
• Grated Zest of 1 organic unwaxed lemon
• 1 heaped teaspoon baking powder

For the salted caramel sauce

• 1 can of condensed milk (379g)
• 150g soft dark brown sugar
• 150g butter
• pinch of maldon salt

...you end up with some extra caramel sauce...but that's never a bad thing.

For the Apricot Butter Cream

• 227g unsalted butter, softened
• 2 lots of caster sugar 50g each
• 8 fresh apricots

or if you get apricot jam just use 1 lot of caster sugar.

• 2 egg yolks

Ok so that's everything! So we'll begin!

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and grease a 20cm cake tin with butter. Whisk the egg yolks and sugar until smooth then gradually whisk in small amounts of the flour. Add the lemon zest. In a seperate bowl whisk egg whites until they form stiff peaks, then fold into the mixture with the baking powder. Pour into the tin and bake for 30-35 minutes. Pop it out and let it is in the tray for 15 minutes. The flip it upside-down on a wire rack and leave to cool. It should look a little like this:

Once it's cool slice it in half like so:

Ok I have acidtate strips that wrap around and keep everything in place, if not place the bottom half of the pizza back in cake tin.

Ok so caramel sauce, in a saucepan melt the butter and sugar together till it's smooth. Once all the sugar is dissolved pour in the condensed milk. Stir it continuously till the first bubble appears. Don't let it boil!

Pour it over the bottom half and leave it to cool in the fridge for a half hour.

Pop it back out and put the top half on.

Now last but not least the apricot butter cream:

In a small pop cook down the apricots with 50g of sugar....or if you have apricot jamdo nothing. Beat the butter till it's pale and creamy. Beat in the remaining sugar, apricots and egg yolks. Mix it till its very smooth.

Spread it over cake and add small insult.

I also made a box for the cake...there's no recipe for this but you can have a look.

Ok. Done. Yay.

Supper for Wednesday 27th!

There's 2 seats left! BYOW and all that! It's probably €20 a head. But it'll be wonderful.

Hello there!

My name's Kevin, this is my new blog. So here's the plan..this will be a food blog. Food is something I love and over the past few years have to come to respect and enjoy. I try cook something new most days of the week. The content I hope to be putting up here will be seasonal recipes from Irish producers. Also reviews of restaurants and new Irish products. I've been around the food industry for a few years now, I've gotten to meet some amazing people and learn alot at the same time. I love it. I really do..maybe a bit too much. But anyway! We shall begin. Soon.