Recipe: Custard Buttons

I don't tend to do many "cover recipes"- from books, magazines or celebrity chefs, but with these little morsels I have made an exception. These are an adapted version (I added vanilla, changed amounts around a bit, and increased cooking time) of "Abbie's Custard buttons"- published in "Take a Break My Favourite Recipes" magazine, created by Abigail Smith. What's great about this recipe is it is so incredibly quick to make, yummy- and this batch was actually made with "Pure dairy free soya spread" instead of butter. So this recipe can be turned vegan if so desired!! People at work enjoyed them. I find a nice addition if you have time for it is pink icing and a sprinkling of dessicated coconut on top.

Custard Buttons (makes 18)

200g butter
100g icing sugar
200g flour
60g Bird’s custard powder
½ tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Cream the butter and icing sugar in a mixer until well mixed. Add the flour, custard powder and vanilla extract, and mix until well combined.
2. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper. Roll out small circles of the mix with your hands, and place on the baking sheet. Push down slightly, and then with a cocktail stick, make 4 little holes in the mix (so once baked they look like buttons!).
3. Bake in the oven for 22 minutes. Remove, and allow to cool- serve!

Competition: Good To Know's Strawberry Recipe Competition

Hey guys. So I entered this recipe competition about a month ago, which was held by recipe Magazine/ website "Good To Know" to raise money for Breast Cancer Care, and I was one of the runners up! The only rules were that it had to be a sweet dish, and that it had to contain strawberries. There was 1 winner and 4 runners up, and my goodness, the standard of the entries that were sent in were phenomeonal!!! That's why i'm kinda proud that I even got a runner up prize actually, because although i've only won a recipe book, most of the other entries in this competition look absolutely stunning- literally as if they were created by professional food photgraphers.



The winner (winning a rather scrumptious looking set of Le Creuset bakeware- jealous muchly!) was Lucy Clark's "Strawberry Cupshakes". Funky looking isn't it?



The runners up are here, and my one is the one on the bottom right and displayed in a larger picture below- my "Strawberry, pistachio and custard tart" (recipe on site). In my opinion, my dish doesnt look nearly as nice or professional as some of the entries that werent chosen- but I reckon my recipe and a few of the others were chosen because they were a little bit unique. We used some quite interesting flavour combinations, like my combination of strawberries and pistachios, or one of the other's ideas of combining strawberries and basil. Slightly unusual I guess, so they stood out a bit more.





Anyway, so I won a copy of the new book "Bake and Decorate" by Fiona Cairns (who is the same woman who made the cake for "The Royal Wedding") and it looks very nice! Ok Ok, so most of the decoration section is completely beyond me, but there are some very nice, tasty looking, simple baked dishes for me to have a go at some point.

Recipe: Strawberry, Pistachio and Custard Tart/Tartletts

Hey guys. I made this recipe to enter it in an online magazine strawberry recipe competition, and figured i would bring it to the neighbourhood barbeque too. Turns out that when you make it as one large tart (rather than lots of little tarts), it's a little messy to eat, so not really suitable for a fork + paper plate kind of event. As my mum said, it's more of a "spoon dessert" (as in you need a proper bowl and spoon in order to eat i- due to the texture of the creme patisserie). So yeah, i reccomend using little sweet pastry tart cases if you can find them. Anyway, i think that this dish is pretty enough to impress at a dinner party, and the flavour combination of pistachios and strawberres is divine!

Strawberry and Pistachio Custard Tart/ Tartlets (serves 8-12)

Crème Patisserie
300ml whole milk
1tsp vanilla bean extract
4 egg yolks
50g caster sugar
25g flour
25g cornstarch

Tart
1 large pre-made sweet pastry case, or 12 smaller ones.
About 12 Strawberries, sliced thinly
Handful of chopped pistachios

1. For the custard, In a bowl mix the egg yolks, sugar and vanilla extract together. Sieve the flour and cornstarch together into the egg mixture, and mix well.
2. In a saucepan heat the milk until just before the boiling point. Pour the hot milk mixture into the egg yolk mixture, whisking constantly, until everything is well mixed. Transfer this mixture into a bowl placed upon a pan of boiling water. Stir until the mixture has thickened as much as to “coat the back of the spoon” (takes about 5 minutes).
3. If needed, pass custard through a sieve to get red of lumps. Allow to cool.
4. Spoon the thick custard into the tart case/ cases, arrange the sliced strawberries on top, sprinkle with chopped pistachios, and serve!

Recipe: Quick Banoffee Puddings

My dad told me the most hilarious thing whilst I was making these. He said "up until the age of 40 I always though Banoffee Pudding was named after the guy that created it- 'Mr Banoffee'". He is actually such a numpty bless 'im. He also pointed out that I shouldnt really be making these, as me, mum and dad are on diets, so we shouldnt really be eating anything that involves toffee or cream- let alone both! But I had a really ripe banana and had a jar of dulche de leche in the cupboard which had been there for ages, so I thought what the hell. Dulche De Leche is this gorgeaus Spanish toffee sauce. I get it from my local farm shop, but if you can't find any of it yourself, i'm pretty sure Carnation do something very similar. You would find it in the baking section of the supermarket.

Bannoffee Cups (makes 4)

125g (half a packet) Fox’s butter crinkles biscuits
1 450g jar dulche de leche
1 very ripe banana, mashed up
40ml double cream
Whipped cream
Dark chocolate, finely grated

1. Crush the biscuits until fine crumbs (either in a processor or just bash it up with a rolling pin). Spoon the crumbs equally into 4 glasses of your choice (I use wine glasses).
2. Mix together the dulche de leche, ripe banana and double cream into a fairly smooth consistency. Spoon equally into the 4 wine glasses. Put in the fridge until ready to serve.
3. Before serving, pipe some whipped cream into the glasses, and sprinkle with some finely grated dark chocolate. Serve!