AMUSE BOUCHE

An amuse bouche is an appetiser served before a meal usually with a drink or apéritif.  Usually it would be  blinis, dips or toasts, but sometimes something in a small glass called a verrine.  These are often layered up with  cream cheese, chopped veg or salad, chilled soup or even a mini prawn cocktail.

Some friends served a delicious amuse bouche a while ago (in little plastic pots) that she had bought locally and ever since I have been on the lookout for the right kind of glass or verrine.  When I spotted these glass espresso cups on a stall at a brocante it occurred to me that they would be perfect for an amuse bouche.  With a full set of ten for 3€ they were a bargain.  They could even be used for actual espressos if I was entertaining quite a crowd!  You can of course use any kind of glass of the right size but preferably glass not china so that you can see all the layers.  Mismatched glasses look very pretty too.

My first experiment was layers of whipped goat's cheese with crème fraîche, topped with chopped cooked green asparagus and finally chopped dice of smoked salmon mixed with a little lime juice, decorated with some snipped chives and an asparagus tip. For the second attempt I swapped the asparagus for chopped cucumber and decorated with a slice of cherry tomato.  

They were not quite as refined as the shop bought alternatives - a little more rustic or homely looking - but delicious!

I think I could improve the look by whipping the cheese and crème fraîche to give it more volume and  make it lighter in texture.  Piping it into the glass would make it a bit tidier.  But there was nothing wrong with the taste.  The friends I used as guinea pigs were very "amused"!

Ingredients 

2 tblsp whipped goat's cheese or other cream cheese

2 tblsp crème fraîche

1 tbslp chopped cooked asparagus stems (or chopped cucumber)

1 tblsp chopped smoked salmon

1 tsp lime juice

snipped chives

asparagus tips or cherry tomato slices to decorate

Method

Beat together the whipped goat's cheese and crème fraîche and divide between the glasses.  Mix the smoked salmon and lime juice together.  Layer the asparagus and smoked salmon on top of the cheese mixture, snip some fresh chives over, add the decoration and chill in the fridge until ready to serve.

Serves 4.  Serve with a small teaspoon or coffee spoon alongside, small enough to get to the bottom of the glass!

SAUCY LEMON PUDDING

Don't be put off by the rather uninspiring photo! This pudding is delicious!

There are plenty of recipes on the internet for it and this one comes from the Olive Magazine website.  It popped up in my news feed at the right time when I needed a pudding and although easy is a little vague.  The instructions tell you to mix the batter in a food processor, to whisk the egg whites until firm but not stiff and fold the two mixtures.  You can (at the time of writing) see the recipe here.

I dutifully processed the batter in my Magimix, whisked the egg whites separately and…..then what?  I thought tipping the egg whites into the food processor would beat all of the air out of them so I spooned the batter mixture into the egg whites instead.  That seemed like use of a food processor for its own sake and it would have made more sense to mix the batter in a bowl by hand or with an electric whisk then fold in the egg whites.  Then , when I went back and looked at the videoclip in the recipe ……. that's exactly what was shown! 😁 The written recipe did not match the video instructions which made a lot more sense!

If you serve the pudding more or less straight from the oven you get a sponge with a runny custard underneath it.  If you serve it a bit later the custard sets the way custard does but it’s no less delicious for that and perfect with a little cream (or ice cream).  The next time I make it I would use a different dish and take a better photo.  Watch this space!

Ingredients

200g golden caster sugar (or white)

50g butter

zest of 1 lemon

juice of 1 lemon plus extra to make up to 100ml

50g plain flour

3 eggs, separated

250ml milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

Butter a baking dish or soufflé dish.  Preheat the oven to 180C / 160 fan / gas mk 4.

Put the egg whites into a medium bowl and beat with an electric hand held whisk until firm but not completely stiff.

Put the butter, sugar and lemon zest into a large bowl.  Beat with the whisk until paler and creamy.   Add all the other ingredients and beat until you have a smooth batter.

Gently fold in the egg whites with a metal spoon until well combined then pour the mixture into your baking dish. 

Sit the dish in an oven tray half filled with hot water and bake for 40-50 minutes until set and a light golden brown.  

Dust with icing sugar and serve hot so that the sauce underneath is runny.  It will set as the pudding cools but is equally delicious.

Serves 4.

VEG DRAWER SOUP and the death of a soup maker

This very basic vegetable soup has always been one of my favourites.  It uses all the bits and pieces in the veg drawer that could very easily be destined for the compost heap but instead you get a very tasty virtually free lunch.  You can use more or less any veg you have as long as it has something that will thicken the soup such as potatoes or any root veg.  My selection is influenced by the very first vegetable soup I ever made, years ago, to a recipe by Nigella Lawson.

Unfortunately during the cooking programme my soup maker seems to have died.  When it got to the blending stage there was just a weak humming noise.  😞

I bought both of my soup makers in 2021, firstly a Morphy Richards in the UK just after Christmas then one in France a few months later, almost identical but quite a bit cheaper in a sale.  The French one has been used a lot over the years so I suppose for what it cost I've had my money's worth.

When we next go to the UK by car I will probably bring the Morphy Richards one back to France as it doesn't get used very often, only a handful of times per year.  In the meantime, I can use the broken French one on the "chunky" function, mainly used for soups like minestrone, which cooks the soup just the same but doesn't finish it off by blending.  On this occasion I just fished my stick blender out of the depths of the kitchen drawer and used that to finish the soup.  The deep shape of the machine made the blending very easy, probably easier than in a saucepan which would be wider, and much easier than transferring to a separate blender or food processor.  Just one extra piece of washing up, the stick blender wand, so it will do for now.

I notice that I can get a very similar new one for about 50€ on Amazon but would rather not spend the extra money as long as the heating element is still working and cooking the soup.

Update  I made a red pepper and tomato soup yesterday on chunky, got my stick blender ready, and thought I would try the "blender only" function on the soup maker, just in case.  It worked!  Maybe it just needed a rest!

Ingredients

4 small carrots

2 small potatoes

1 leek

a handful of radishes

1 large tomato

1 stick celery

1 chunk of cauliflower

3 broccoli stalks, woody outer layer removed

dry sherry and grated nutmeg (optional)

cream or crème fraîche for serving (optional)

Method

Wash, trim and roughly chop enough veg to fill the soup maker to the bottom line.

Add 1 vegetable stock pot and water to the top line.  Cook on smooth (or cook on chunky and finish with a stick blender).

Stir in a splash of dry sherry and a sprinkle of nutmeg before serving, and a swirl of cream in the bowl.

Makes 4 generous bowls of soup.

BANANA CAKE with walnuts

Using up fruit and veg so as not to waste any is a challenge.  This includes bananas and I'm not always ready to make a cake so lately I have been freezing them at the point where they are just over but still firm enough to peel easily.  I just peel them and pop them in a plastic bag, two at a time, draining off any excess liquid when thawed.  Hence this cake came about because I needed freezer space, we were on a mission to use up frozen food and friends were coming round for apéros.  Why not give them cake as well as savoury nibbles?!

I have made a lot of different banana cakes over the years and there have been some really stunning ones.  In fact the only failure was a recipe using Trex which was, truthfully, grim!  (See here.)  However, I've had my eye on this recipe for a while and decided to give it a go.  The only issue was that it required "4 tablespoons of melted butter" and I wasn't quite sure how to do that - melt some butter and measure out 4 tablespoons - what would you do if there wasn't enough or too much?  Or soften some butter and scoop out 4 tablespoons before melting it?  My butter was quite hard so I googled it and the consensus was that 4 tablespoons was 60 grams so that's what I weighed out and melted and it produced exactly the right amount!

This was an excellent banana cake with a lovely texture and a glossy top.  Very easy to make and definitely a winner. At the time of writing you can see the recipe here and I decorated mine with some walnut halves and banana chips.

Ingredients 

350g peeled ripe bananas, thawed if frozen

180g plain flour

2½ tsp baking powder

60g butter, melted (4 tblsp)

160g soft light brown sugar

2 eggs, beaten

50g walnuts, roughly chopped

walnut halves and banana chips to decorate (optional)

Method

Preheat the oven to 190°C / 170° fan / gas mk 5.  Butter a 2lb (900g) loaf tin or use a paper liner.

Mash 2/3 of the bananas to a pulp in a bowl, add the remaining bananas and mash roughly so that you have a few lumps.

Put the eggs, melted butter and sugar into a large bowl and beat with a hand held electric whisk, or a wooden spoon, until pale and creamy.  Sift in the flour and baking powder, add the bananas and fold in until well combined.  Stir in the chopped walnuts evenly.

Spoon into the prepared tin and bake for about an hour.  Cover loosely with foil after 30 minutes to prevent scorching.

Cool in the tin for 10 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.

Cuts into 10 slices.

ASPARAGUS, CHEESE AND LEEK QUICHE

A change in the weather here in the middle of France has seen us cooking less wintry food; barbecues, quiche and salads.  It makes a welcome change from soups and stews.  We had a whole week of nice warm days and well appreciated it was.

This is a version of a recipe that popped up in my news feed, an extract from a recent Hairy Bikers cookbook.  We don't buy the white asparagus that is piled high in supermarkets and on market stalls, preferring the green stuff which is sold in bundles and always a joy to cook.  This recipe uses just a few stems, so about half a bundle.

I used a pack of pastry which had been brought to France from the UK at Christmas and then frozen.  This might seem a bizarre thing to do, especially as there is no shortage of pastry in the shops here (and I could always make my own).  In my defence, the oblong packs of pastry fit my large English oblong quiche tin, which feeds quite a crowd, perfectly, and shortcrust is only available in circles here, which means a lot of trimming and patching with a strong risk of leakage, unless I do have the time to make my own.  Consequently I took the opportunity to stock up on oblong pastry when travelling to and from the UK by car, which is only at Christmas nowadays.

Mind you, I usually give the pastry an extra roll to increase the size a bit.  This allows it to be draped over the edge of the tin and prevents it from shrinking back during the blind baking.

It was a very tasty quiche and we served it with small potatoes and a large salad, followed by a lemon pudding.  Spring food at last.

Ingredients 

A pack of ready made, ready rolled shortcrust pastry.

2 medium leeks, white part only

Half a bundle, about eight stalks, of asparagus

4 eggs

250 ml double cream

2 tblsp crème fraîche or milk

A large chunk of gruyère cheese (or cheddar)

A few halved cherry tomatoes for decoration (optional)

Method 

Allow the pastry to reach room temperature before unrolling to avoid it developing small cracks.

Preheat the oven to 180°C / 160° fan / gas mk 4.  Grease a suitable tart/quiche/flan tin or dish.

Line the tin with the pastry, allowing a little excess to drape over the edges to avoid shrinkage.  Prick the pastry, line with baking paper, fill with baking beans and blind bake for 15 minutes.  If using a loose based tin, standing it on a baking sheet makes it easier to lift in and out of the oven without the risk of accidentally pushing up the loose base and damaging the pastry case. 

While the pastry is cooking, wipe, wash and trim the leeks and cut into slim rounds.  Fry gently in a little butter until softened but not browned.

Trim and wash the asparagus stalks.  Cut into short lengths, say 5cm, and cook in boiling water for a few minutes until just tender.

Remove the paper and beans from the tart and return to the oven for a couple of minutes to dry the pastry.

Arrange the leeks and asparagus over the pastry and cover with a good sprinkling of grated cheese.

Whisk the eggs and cream together in a measuring jug and make up to 450ml with extra cream, crème fraîche or milk.  Pour this gently over the filling but don't overfill; stop just short of the top.  Dot with cherry tomatoes if using.

Reduce the oven temperature to 160° C / 140° fan / gas mk3 and return the quiche to bake for around 30 minutes or until it is nicely browned with a slight wobble.  Don’t leave it in there until it's solid. Leave to cool a bit to allow for setting before removing from a loose based tin. Trim off the overhanging pastry with a sharp knife.

Serve warm or cool with potatoes and salad.

Makes 6 generous portions.

PROSCIUTTO, PEAR AND BRIE TARTS

These tarts came about after a lucky find at the local déchetterie.  Three apparently brand new Yorkshire pudding tins on the table where people leave good useable items for others to help themselves to.  I don't think I have seen tins like this for sale in France so suspect they came from an English household.  We will never know!

I spotted them and swooped before anyone else did - the table is, I suspect, a good source of items for people to increase their own stock for sale at brocantes!

Thinking they would be great for making not Yorkshire puddings but small tarts for a starter or lunch, I took them home.  Not long afterwards I stumbled upon a recipe for Prosciutto, pear and Brie aperitif sized tartlets, that could be adapted for larger versions.

They worked really well, looked slightly rustic but were tasty and the perfect size for a light starter.  The only tricky part was finding the right object to use as a template to cut circles of pastry exactly the right size.  It needed to be about 1cm larger in diameter than the holes in the tin so that there was not too much overlap or shrinkage. I tried various saucers, jars and plates but eventually found a terracotta dish at the back of the cupboard that was just right.  It later occurred to me that we have a selection of new plant pot saucers that I could have tried!

One pack of pastry will make four tarts of this size with trimmings which can be made into something else, such as sausage rolls, mince pies, jam tarts or cut up and frozen to be used as the topping for a jumblefruit pie.  I imagine that the recipe would work well with other fillings too, such as smoked salmon, mushrooms, lardons, and many other cheeses.

Ingredients 

A pack of ready made, ready rolled puff pastry

8 rashers of prosciutto (or similar)

1 pear

8 slices of Brie

1 egg, beaten

A few sprigs of fresh thyme (optional)

Method 

Remove the pack of pastry from the fridge about 15 minutes before you intend to use it, otherwise it can crack when you unroll it.

Grease the four holes of a Yorkshire pudding tin, or similar tart tins.  Preheat the oven to 200°C / 180° fan / gas mk 6.

Unroll the pastry and cut out 4 circles using a cutter, template, dish or clean plant pot saucer about 1 cm larger in diameter than the holes in the tin.  Press gently into the holes, avoiding leaving a bubble underneath the pastry.  Crinkle 2 slices of prosciutto into each tart.

Peel the pear and cut in half vertically.  Remove the core using a melon baller or teaspoon and slice thinly.  Divide the slices between the tarts and arrange on top of the prosciutto.  

Lay two slices of Brie on top of the pear.  Brush the edges of the pastry with the beaten egg.  Sprinkle thyme leaves over the top.

Bake for 20 minutes until the pastry is golden brown and the cheese has melted.

Serve warm.  Can be made ahead and reheated from cold in a hot oven for a few minutes.

MAY DAY SALAD

We were invited out to lunch to a friend's house for a May Day celebration.

It was a beautiful day.  Dress code was relaxed and floral.

I offered to take a salad contribution and decided to make that also relaxed and floral.  

Ingredients 

2 types of lettuce leaves

Lamb's lettuce (maché)

Peeled and sliced cucumber 

2 types of radish, one mild, the other peppery

Cherry tomatoes, halved

Vine tomatoes, quartered

Spring onions, halved lengthways

A few walnut halves

Edible flowers (violas from our planters)

A dressing made with olive oil, lemon juice, balsamic, mustard, salt and pepper

Serves up to 12 people, depending on how much you prepare, determined by the size of your dish.

CARROT AND GINGER SOUP (soup maker recipe)

 

This recipe arises from the simple fact of having a surfeit of carrots.

Vegetables are not cheap in France, whether in supermarkets, greengrocers or the market.  Frequently they don't keep too long either.  So when a huge bag of nice looking carrots is on offer it's hard to resist them but important to use them up.  

Although the month of May is not far away it's still very much soup weather here in France and the warmth of ginger was a welcome addition on a particularly unpleasant day.

Ingredients

2 medium potatoes

6 medium carrots

1 large onion

2 sticks celery

1 vegetable stock pot

1 small knob of fresh ginger, about 2 cm square, peeled and chopped

Method

Prepare enough veg to fill the machine to the bottom line.  Add the ginger and the stock pot.

Add enough water to fill to the top line (about 1 litre).

Cook on smooth.

Makes 4 generous servings

SIMNEL CAKE

 

The weather on Easter Sunday this year was especially foul.  Cold, grey and with persistent rain that was occasionally horizontal.  Most other options for entertainment were cancelled so it was a perfect day for baking a cake!  A rummage in the kitchen cupboards revealed that I had all the necessary ingredients to make a Simnel cake, including a pack of marzipan.

This is the first Simnel cake I have ever made in my whole life.

Usually I would make a chocolate cake for Easter (see here).

A Simnel cake is a traditional cake for Easter, a rich fruit cake.  It's not quite as rich and dense as a Christmas cake but more so than an everyday fruit cake, containing a lot of dried fruit and some mixed spice.  The secret ingredient is the layer of marzipan, or almond paste, contained inside the cake itself.  This was only just visible once the cake was baked.  

I adapted a Mary Berry recipe using the fruit I had in stock.  Shops are not open in France on Sunday afternoons and in any case the weather was so foul that I would rather not venture out!  It's an all-in-one kind of recipe, no separate creaming of butter and sugar needed, but was quite a hefty amount of ingredients.  Consequently I used my Kenwood stand mixer to beat it as I didn't quite have the muscle power to do it with a wooden spoon and I thought my little hand held mixer would struggle.

It was a delicious cake, very moist and spicy and I would definitely make it again.  It seems a shame to only have one a year - rather like the Christmas cake!  Having never made one before I had nothing to compare it with except that my friend Gaynor makes one every Easter, using a Felicity Cloake recipe, which is lovely. 

Most recipes suggest that the top marzipan layer and the eleven balls (representing the eleven  loyal disciples) should be browned slightly, either under a grill or using a cook's blowtorch.  However, I had spotted an alternative method of decoration as above - simply pressing a mini egg into each ball then dusting with icing sugar.  You can of course decorate it any way you like, with eggs, flowers, chicks, chocolate or whatever takes your fancy.  There are plenty of ideas on the internet. 

Ingredients

225g baking spread (spreadable butter) straight from the fridge

225g light muscovado (or light soft brown) sugar

225g self raising flour

 

115g glacé cherries

175g sultanas

50g raisins

115g currants

115g ready to eat dried apricots

55g candied peel (mine was just orange peel) chopped

zest of 2 lemons

4 large eggs

2 level tsp mixed spice (or quatre épices)

Also

1 pack (roughly 500g) marzipan

1-2 tblsp apricot jam

11 mini eggs

icing sugar for dusting

Method

Begin by cutting the cherries into quarters, rinse well under running water to remove the syrup, tip onto kitchen paper and pat dry.  Snip or chop the apricots into small dice.

Preheat the oven to 150C / 130 fan / gas mk 2.  Grease a 20cm deep round cake tin and line the base and sides with baking paper.

Put all the fruit and other cake ingredients into a large bowl and beat together well by hand or use a stand food mixer.

Spoon roughly half of the mixture into the tin and level the top.

Divide the marzipan into three roughly equal portions.  Roll out one of them into a 20cm circle.  It doesn't matter if the edges are a bit untidy as they won't be seen.  Lay on top of the cake mixture in the tin.

 Spoon the other half of cake mixture on top of the marzipan and level the top again.  

Bake for 2½ hours until the cake is risen, brown and firm.  Check after an hour or so and cover with a circle of foil if it's already quite brown to avoid it becoming scorched.

When cooked, remove from the oven and leave in the tin for 10 minutes.  Then turn out carefully to finish cooling on a wire rack, removing all the baking paper.

Roll out another portion of the marzipan to a 20cm circle to fit the top of the cake, making the edges more tidy this time.  If you are using a tin with a loose bottom you can use it as a template.

Brush the top of the cooled cake with apricot jam.  (You can sieve it to remove lumps of fruit if you wish, or use apricot glaze which is smooth and lump free.)  Lay the second circle of marzipan on the top.

Crimp the edges of the marzipan to create a fluted effect and arrange the balls evenly around the edge.  Dab the bottom of each one with a little apricot jam to make them stick.  Using your finger or the handle of a wooden spoon, push a dent into each ball and insert a small mini egg.  Dust with icing sugar.

Cuts into 11 generous slices or at least 15 regular slices if you remove a ball or two as you go round!  (You can compensate the unlucky recipient of a slice without a ball with another mini egg!)

COFFEE AND WALNUT TRAYBAKE

I had my eye on this recipe for the next time I needed to make a cake for a bit of a gathering and it didn't disappoint.  It’s from the original "Baking Bible" by Mary Berry.

It’s an all-in-one recipe and instead of butter I used the last of my pack of "spreadable" butter called Nordpak which came from Aldi in the UK.  (A number of very similar spreads and butters are available in France.)  After my experience with the lemon cake I did make sure it was very soft by giving it a few seconds of the "soften butter" function on my microwave, i.e. at a very low power.  I have to be careful with this as it’s easy to take it too far and end up with melted butter instead, but it's a useful function.

There are subtle differences between baking products available in France and those from the UK.  Some of my friends have trouble with the flour and the range of sugars on sale.  I'm getting used to using them and on this occasion I used a French brand of icing sugar (sucre glacé) for the buttercream topping.  Somehow this icing sugar seemed "claggy" or almost damp and it was taking ages to sift it.  In truth it had to be pushed through the sieve.  So I resorted to the food processor which made light work of it, giving the icing sugar a blitz on its own first.  Looking at the picture in the book the icing seemed quite soft so I added a few more spoonfuls to make it stiffer.

The cake was not the lightest sponge I have ever made but it tasted good and went down well.  It had risen beautifully and cut into 24 generous squares, ideal for a crowd, just the right size to handle and eat without getting too messy.  I trimmed the edges before icing and slicing to remove the crust from the sides.

Ingredients

For the cake

225g softened butter or spreadable butter product

225g light muscovado sugar (I used mostly soft light brown sugar as that's what I had)

 275g self raising flour

2 tsp baking powder

4 large eggs (I used 5 small eggs as they weighed about the same)

2 tblsp milk

2 tblsp Camp coffee essence

75g chopped walnuts

For the icing

75g softened butter

225g icing sugar 

2 tsp milk

2 tsp Camp coffee essence

walnut pieces to decorate

Method

Line a greased traybake tin, 30 x 23cm (mine was slightly bigger) with baking paper.  Preheat the oven to 180 C / 160 fan / gas mk 4.  

Put all the cake ingredients into a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer until well combined.  

Spoon into the prepared tin and level the top.  Bake for 35-40 minutes until done.  Mine was a little over at 35 minutes probably due to the slightly larger tin, so I would check at 30 minutes next time.

Cool in the tin.

To make the buttercream put the icing sugar into a food processor and blitz for a few seconds to remove any lumps.  Add the coffee, butter and milk and process until combined and smooth.

Make sure the cake is completely cold and slice off the edges.  Spread the buttercream over the top and cut into squares of the size you prefer. 

Decorate each square with half a walnut or a few bits of chopped walnuts.

Cuts into 24 squares.

ICED LEMON SQUARES FOR AFTERNOON TEA

We have a friend whose birthday falls on St Patrick's Day so we held an afternoon tea party in his honour with a couple of nods to the Irish theme.  

A chocolate Guinness cake was the star of the show and of course Guinness was served for those brave enough to drink it so early in the day.

The cake stand had dainty sandwiches including egg and cress, always very popular, on the bottom tier.  The eggs were true free range, a gift from one of the ladies in our watercolour painting class and the yolks are an astonishingly bright orange.  She has a number of hens that lay lots of eggs and she brings everyone a box of half a dozen every week! We also used some home grown cress grown on our windowsill from a packet of seeds smuggled in from our trip back to the UK at Christmas.  (I have never found either cress or packets of seeds other than watercress in France.)

There were also ham and tomato sandwiches, smoked salmon, cream cheese and cucumber sandwiches, all with the crusts removed!  I also made a plate of mini sausage rolls using cocktail frankfurters which were very tasty and well received.

The middle tier had home made scones (made by Nick) and some cream horns.  I wrote about them here.  The top layer had little iced and decorated squares of lemon cake.  I fancied doing French fancies but chickened out when I spotted this Irish recipe by Donal Skehan.  

However, they very nearly didn't happen.  The recipe is an all-in-one method and said to use butter "at room temperature". Well, I ended up with little flecks of butter in the mixture.  I knew that too much beating could make the cake tough not soft and had used up all my lemons so couldn't start again.  I looked for solutions on the internet.  Most said "just cook, it will be fine", a couple said beat harder and several said to sieve the mixture!  I tried that - what a palaver and I soon gave up and went with the "just cook" theory!

I baked it as a shallow tray bake, cut it into little squares and decorated with everything I had to make them look pretty. I made a thin icing using lemon juice and coloured half with yellow food colouring.  They looked perfect and tasted very lemony. The texture was slightly firm, a bit like a madeira cake and there were occasional little holes, presumably due to the tiny lumps of unblended butter.  

I would use this recipe again but make sure the butter was very well softened, not just "at room temperature" next time. I suppose that it very much depends on the temperature of the room!  The creaming method would have worked better to ensure the butter was properly blended on this occasion!

I could imagine my mum saying "you're never too old to make mistakes" and the swish of Mrs Stafford's broomstick as she swooped by!

Ingredients 

225g caster sugar

250g self raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

4 large eggs

225g butter at room temperature (well softened would be better)

3 tblsp milk

Zest of 3 lemons

For the icing:

200g icing sugar

Juice of 1 lemon

Sprinkles of your choice

Method

Preheat the oven to 160°C / 140° fan / gas mk 3.  Line a large rectangular baking tin, 30 x 23cm, with baking paper.

Put all the cake ingredients into a large bowl and beat with a hand held electric whisk until well blended.

Transfer the mixture to the tin and level the top.  Bake for 35 minutes until done.  Remove from the oven and after a few minutes carefully lift the cake in its paper out of the tin and onto a wire rack to cool.

To make the icing sift the icing sugar into a large bowl and beat in enough lemon juice to make it runny but not too thin.  

Divide your cake into half if you are using two colours or thirds if you are using three.  Cut into squares of the size you want, very small and dainty or larger.  Separate slightly on the paper or by removing onto the rack.

Coat one section of cake with white icing, allowing it to drip down the sides of the squares.

Transfer half of the remaining icing into a separate bowl if you are using three colours or colour the remainder with just one colour if you are using two colours.

Decorate with sprinkles.

Cuts into at least 20 squares depending on how dainty you want them!

COCTAIL SAUSAGE ROLLS

I have made dozens and dozens of mini sausage rolls over the years to this recipe here.  Then last year we were invited to a friend's house for a bbq party and amongst the nibbles for apéros a plate of tiny sausage rolls appeared on the table.  They were made using mini frankfurters, were very cute, dainty and tasty so I decided to have a go at making them myself.

The sausages come in tubs or shrink wrapped packs of various quantities.

If you can't get mini ones, use long frankfurters and cut them into shorter pieces.

They were easier to make than using sausage meat.  Very quick and one pack of the little sausages contains enough to create about thirty of them.  I made mine by dividing the rolled pack of puff pastry into half lengthwise but this gave each roll quite a thick blanket of pastry.  I think that next time I would try dividing the the pastry into three to get more sausage rolls with thinner pastry out of one sheet.

However, they were very tasty, very popular and I will definitely be using them again.

Follow the guidelines in my recipe for mini sausage rolls but arrange the little sausages in a line along one strip of pastry and cut it into the right length for each one before rolling up.

BROCCOLI, CAULIFLOWER AND BLUE CHEESE SOUP (soup maker recipe)

It's still very much soup weather here in France.  We seem to get one or two warm, sunny days, getting warmer week by week, followed by perishing cold grey, wet or drizzly days and very cold nights.  The 18°C sunshine  and clear blue sky the other day turned into a clear, starry night only a few degrees above freezing followed by a day of cold grey mizzle.  It's not time to put the soup maker to the back of the cupboard just yet and I regretted putting the electric blanket away already!

This soup was very much a "free soup" idea.  I always have to trim the leaves from a cauliflower to fit it into the fridge so had saved them and several stalks from some broccoli with the idea of turning them into soup.  My research told me it would produce a very delicate flavoured soup, which I interpreted as "not much flavour".  The usual way to add flavour to an otherwise bland soup is to add an extra stock pot or seasoning but I had decided on blue cheese, a popular flavour combo.

I discarded the floppy green bits from the cauliflower leaves and used mainly the thick white ribs.  I trimmed the ends and knobbly bits from the broccoli stems and removed the woody outer part.  I went a bit off piste and for once sautéed the leek.  

Into the cooked soup I stirred several dollops of whipped St Agur, a product I spotted here in France not long ago and it's delicious as a spread on toast or croutons.  I think that crumbling in any kind of blue cheese (to taste) would work just as well.  It added a lovely creaminess as well as the blue cheese flavour and the soup was divine.  Definitely a keeper!

Ingredients

cauliflower leaves

broccoli stems

1 leek

1 large potato, peeled and chopped

1 vegetable stock pot

creamed or whipped or crumbled blue cheese to taste

Method

Trim and wash the leek.  Slice into medium slices and fry gently in butter or oil until beginning to colour.

While the leek is cooking, discard any tired and floppy green parts of the cauliflower leaves.  Roughly chop the ribs and rinse well.

Trim the broccoli stems by removing the ends, the knobbly bits and the outer woody part.  Roughly chop and rinse well.

Add enough prepared veg to the soup maker machine to fill as far as the bottom line.  Add the stock pot and enough water to fill to the top line.

Cook on the smooth setting.

When cooked (or when reheating in a saucepan if serving later) stir in your blue cheese spread or other product to taste, until it melts and blends in.  A little can go a long way with some blue cheeses so go steady.  Season with salt and pepper to taste - remember that blue cheese can make it taste salty.

Serves 4 generous bowls of soup or 5-6 as a starter.

TOMATO AND RED PEPPER SOUP (soup maker recipe)

This recipe comes from an idea I spotted in a blog called "Liana's Kitchen".

I had a couple of red peppers in the fridge and roasting them with fresh tomatoes would have been a great idea.  However, I didn't have any fresh tomatoes and this was a lot quicker!  I used a tin of whole peeled tomatoes and added half a teaspoon of sweet smoked paprika which gave the soup an interesting smoky flavour.  

I had never tried using unsoaked red lentils in the soup maker before and my instincts told me it might lead to trouble (burnt bits in the machine and undercooked lentils) - but it worked!  It was a delicious soup, ready in less than thirty minutes from looking in the fridge to see what we could have for lunch today!  We ate it outdoors in the early spring/late winter sunshine - a rare treat with the very up and down weather we have had so far this year.

An interesting discovery is that the soup is also very good served cold, gazpacho style, in a small portion with a swirl of cream and a sprig of basil, as a starter.  Delicious.

Ingredients

100g red lentils, well rinsed

2 red peppers, washed, seeds removed and chopped

1 onion, peeled and chopped

1 clove of garlic, peeled and chopped 

1 tin whole peeled tomatoes including the juice

1 tsp sweet smoked paprika

1 garlic and thyme or vegetable stock pot

salt and pepper

Method

Put all the above ingredients into the soup maker.  Add enough water to fill to the top line and give it a good stir.

Cook on smooth setting.

Makes 4 generous portions (or six small bowls as a starter).

ANOTHER SUNDAY DINNER SOUP (soup maker recipe)

We are fans of leftovers in this house and there were quite a few after having friends round for Sunday lunch.  The menu was coronation chicken cocktail (a mini coronation chicken salad served as you would serve prawn cocktail), roast pork with home made sage and onion stuffing and apple sauce, cauliflower cheese, broccoli and mashed potatoes.

The table set for Sunday lunch for ten people.

You can see my earlier Sunday Dinner Soup here.  The principle is the same but this time there were enough leftover veg without adding anything else at all so no preparation of extra onion and carrot.  The quickest and easiest soup yet!

I had made the coronation chicken to an easy BBC Good Food recipe you can see here and I poached the chicken for it as per the recipe I used here.  I kept the liquid used for the poaching as stock, along with the bits of carrot and celery, with the possibility that there might be soup in mind.

Everything went into the soup maker and it was delicious, just like Sunday dinner in a bowl!  I added an extra spoonful of warmed apple sauce just before serving.  Yum!

Ingredients 

Two thin slices of roast pork, chopped

Cooked mashed potato and broccoli

A spoonful of cauliflower cheese

A small spoonful of stuffing (there was not much left)

The carrot and celery from poaching the chicken (or use a stick of celery and a carrot, chopped)

A spoonful of gravy

A blob of apple sauce

The poaching liquid from the chicken (or use a chicken stock pot or cube and water)

Method 

Add enough meat, cooked veg and stuffing to fill the machine to the bottom line.  Add the gravy, applesauce and enough of the poaching liquid (or the chicken stock pot/cube and water) to fill to the top line.  Stir well.

Cook on smooth.

Add a spoonful of warmed apple sauce before serving.

Makes 4 generous portions.