Beautiful Day, Beautiful Bakewell Tart Recipe

With spring now officially here it is so nice to be able to think of some more exciting and seasonal bakes! This means lighter puddings and fresh flavours! Things that can be eaten cold and without custard (although hot and smothered in custard is still okay too!)

This week I decided to make a classic Bakewell tart, packed full of my grandma and granddads home-made raspberry jam to give it a little bit of extra zing!

The fists step in making a Bakewell tart is that pastry. I use a standard shortcrust recipe but you can have a look around on-line for so many different versions or a sweet pastry recipe (just be aware that if you opt for a sweet pastry base be aware that you may need to leave it in the fridge to rest overnight or a few hours so plan your time accordingly!)

After you have  your pastry base all layered out into your tart dish its time to choose your jam. raspberry is the traditional flavour but if you fancy something different then feel free to experiment!

The final layer to your tart is the frangipan mix. this requires 125g of caster sugar and 125g of butter, mix them up until they are nice and light and fluffy and then add in one egg and 126g of ground almonds! mix all of your ingredients together until you have what looks like a slightly grainy cake mix and spoon into of your jam, smoothing as you go!

Place your tart into the oven at 200 degrees for 30 minutes to an hour, keep and eye on it as you dont want the top to catch and burn!

When your tart is nice and firm and cooked through take it out and leave it to cool down.

The final finishing touch is a little bit of icing and some flaked and toasted almonds, although you can decorate however you like! I went for colourful sprinkles as we were all out of flaked almonds.

Let me know if you give this tart a try and what your favourite spring recipes are!

Thank you for reading :)

Katie xxx

The Best Raclette! - Holiday Food

One of my favourite things about going on holiday is the chance to eat even more than normal! and hopefully try some new things too!

I have just come back from a week of skiing in the French alps and althoigh the whole holiday was amazing! there is one major thing that sticks out!

Melted cheese is pretty much one of my favourite things! but in France they really know how to do this right! Racclette is a special type of cheese that has a particularly good and gooey melting point! making it perfect for pouring over just about anything and in particular cold meats, potatoes and bread! 

We found a lovely little deli shop in Morzine village that for 9 euros each the lovely French man (complete with black beret!) will lend you a raccelt machine as well as enough meats, cheeses and potatoes to feed a little army!(or sink a small ship) Combined with some lovely local wine this evening was so much fun!

Its pretty hard to top an at home raclette party unless you happen to go to Le Grillon, The local restaurant that we stumbled into on our last night in Morzine. Here they offer a proper raclette (minimum two people) and they like to do it properly, without the fancy modern machine! 

After a bit of a faff sorting out where the machine would go and getting it all set up, a huge half a cheese was brought out of the kitchen and to our table. We were given pretty basic instructions on how to actually use the machine and then we were ready to go. Essentially you manoeuvre your cheese under the hot grill until enough is melted, then using a special wooden paddle you scrape all of the melted goodness pretty much all over you plate of food! This continues until either you run out of cheese (absolutely no chance!) or your stomach gives up after way way way too much cheese and you begin to sweat slightly before having to go home and try to get some sleep in-between the really weird dreams! It was all totally worth it though!

This was such a unique and delicious experience one I hope never to forget and something I would defiantly like to go back and do again!

Thank you for reading :)

Katie xxx

Home Made Chinese Take-away For Valentines Day

I love that everyone has different little valentines traditions that they roll out each year no matter how big or small they might be!

This year is mine and t's third Valentines and our little tradition is that he always cooks! we avoid restaurants and bars etc like the plague as I usually find that on this night of the year especially prices go up and quality goes down!

It nice to have the opportunity to put my feet up an let someone else do the cooking once in a while and T likes to come up with new and exciting dishes that I wouldn't always try!

This year he made Chinese crispy beef and home and egg fried rice, with prawn crackers from the Chinese opposite the road! This is an extra special treat for me as I don't usually get to have any sort of Chinese food because of all the wheat containing soy sauce that goes into just about everything! (luckily we have the gluten free version at home!)

I can't include any recipes as I didn't make this meal but I can tell you it was from the Hairy Bikers Asian Adventures book and share all the pictures of a very lovely meal!

Thank you for reading :)

Katie xxx

Sunday Brunching

For Christmas me and T decided it would be a good idea to get some people experience presents! We saw it as a way of making Christmas last a bit longer and giving us all nice things to look forward to throughout the year!

For my parents present we decided to treat them to a morning at The Carding shed, with brunch at the Oil Can Cafe in Hepworth.

 For my mum we thought it would be nice for someone to cook her breakfast for a change and we thought my dad would appreciate all of the classic cars and 50's racing memorabilia!

We all went for the large breakfast, they even had a gluten free option for me which was brilliant! There was just the perfect amount of food on our plates and we all felt just the right amount of full by the end of it! The Yorkshire tea in vintage tea cups and saucers was a nice touch too although I think we were all hoping for a bit of a top up at the end!

I loved looking through all the vintage shops, on the hunt for little pieces for our flat, whilst my dad and T pretty much disappeared as soon as their plates were clean for a close up look at the classic cars!

We ended up spending the best parts of our morning here and everyone (especially my dad) is already planning multiple return visits!

Thank you for reading :)

Katie xxx

Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

This weekend we were asked to cater a buffet for a birthday party. I'm always looking for opportunities to try new things that don't just taste great but can look good too! Its a challenge creating eye catching things that can also be done on-mass! (In this case 50 cupcakes)

I decided to combine a few of my favourite techniques and make some show stopping lemon meringue cup-cakes.

I started by making a basic sponge recipe and then adding the juice and rind from 2 lemons. Whilst they were cooking in the oven I made some lemon curd:

Lemon Curd Recipe: 
4 lemons (zest and juice)
200g caster sugar
100g unsalted butter
3 eggs and one egg yolk

Method: 
- Put the lemon juice and rind into a heat proof bowl with the sugar and eggs + egg yolk.
- Stir until everything is well combined and then place your bowl over a pan of simmering water
- Add in the butter and stir slowly until the butter has melted
- Continue stiring gently until your mixture has thickened and is the consistency you are looking for.
- Remove from the heat and allow to cool

This recipe is one of my favourite it is so easy to do but you can really tell the difference between this and the shop bought stuff! It is so versatile and makes a great addition to so many recipes. You can even store it for up to 3 months in the fridge...providing you use properly sterilised jars! and it makes a lovely little gift too! :)


Now back to the buns! I decorated  the cooled cupcakes with some of the lemon curd and then topped with some home made mini meringues!

I thought these little guys ended up looking quite cute! and most importantly they all made it to their party in one piece!

Let me know if you give this recipe a try and how you get on!

Thank you for reading :)

Katie xxx

Gluten Free Chicken Pie For When It Snows

I make pie every week at the Cafe (Wednesday is pie day!) but very rarely do I make it at home. 

This is mainly because gluten free pastry is not quite so simple to make as the other stuff. Sadly gluten-free pastry is a skill I am yet to master so for this little recipe I have to confess that I cheated and bought some ready-roll short crust from Tesco! 

The filling was all my own tho! and this is how I made it: 

1. I put some olive oil, onion powder and a tiny pinch of garlic powder in a large, heavy based frying pan and added quite a lot of fresh thyme, salt and a very generous grind of pepper! 

2. I cooked this off for a couple of minutes before adding some diced chicken breast (3 to be exact) I left that cooking until it was all cooked through, stirring occasionally. 

3. In a separate pan I made a quick roué, by melting butter, adding flour to make a paste and then gradually adding milk until the whole thing is nice and thick. I then made sure I seasoned this too, before adding it to the chicken in the frying pan. 

4. Lastly I crumbled a chicken stock cube into my pan and stirred until everything was combined. 

4. I placed the filling into a pie dish and covered with the pre-bought gluten free pasty, taking a lot of care not to tear it too much. Such a hard thing to do with gluten free pastry, it's just too damn crumbly!! 

5. Lastly I covered the top of the pastry with a egg wash and placed in a pre heated 200 degree oven for about 45-50 minutes! 

I served the pie with garden peas and green beans. The perfect comfort food for a chilli night in watching the snow fall through the window! 

If anyone has any advice, tips or tricks for gluten free pastry I'd love to hear them! and let me know if you give this recipe a try! 

Thank you for reading :) 

Katie xxx

Gluten Free Burgers On Tap

So a little while ago (okay quite a few weeks ago now)  me and T were planning to spend our weekend in the usual way: eating, drinking and sleeping!

We were heading into the centre of town (Huddersfield) for a spot of shopping and we thought we would probably need food too so wherever we ate needed to be close to the centre.

Unfortunately I cannot be so spontaneous and pick any place I choose, and a little bit sick of our usual convinience food stops (revolution and Nandos - huge thank you and congratulations on your GF menus tho!) so we had a little look on the internet to see what else we could find.

To our surprise one of our favourite bars kept cropping up! But having been to Northern Taps quite a lot of times I was sure that my choices on the menu were really limited! However according to Trip Adviser there gluten free burgers are bangin! ...so we went on down to check it out!

Turns out its true! all you need to do is ask and they will give you a copy of their allergens menu which clearly lists everything on their menu! :)  - Handy Tip: All restaurants, cafe's and absolutely anywhere that makes and serves food now (since 2015) has to have a list of all of the ingredients and possible allergens in each and every dish on their menu, it is a legal requirement! So if you are ever in doubt about what you can and can't have, ask your server for a copy of this!!!

My burger was lovely and the bread (which can be super dodgy) was amazing too! very happy to know there is a place in town where I can get a great Gluten Free burger and a decent drink on Tap! :)

Thank you for reading :)

Katie xxx