Very easy "Tear and Share" bread

I found the following recipe whilst having a quick break on Pinterst and I couldn't resist giving it a go. This "Tear and Share" loaf is really easy to make and perfect served with a fresh salad for so many occasions here are just a few I thought of:

1) easy week day meal for 3 

2) quick starter if you have impromptu guests round for dinner

3) as part of an anti-pasti shared supper

4) accompaniment to a summer BBQ

Putting it together is really simple too, all you need is

Store brought fresh loaf

Strong cheddar cheese - sliced

Spring onions - finely chopped

Sauce/dressing of your choice

Pre-heat your oven to about 150C fan, take you loaf and cut along it length-ways at equal distance but make sure you don't cut all the way though. Turn the loaf around and do the same again to create a chess board effect. Take your slices of cheese and insert within the gaps in the bread. Next make up a dressing that you want to pour over the bread, I made a simple french dressing with dijon mustard, balsamic vinegar, seasoning and extra virgin olive oil. However you could use what ever takes your fancy, chilli or garlic infused oil for example. Mix your dressing with your chopped spring onions and pour over the loaf. Cook until the cheese has melted to the consistency that you want then tear and share - see soooo easy!

Why not experiment with this, try different types of cheese, chopped sundried tomatoes and olives would also be fantastic. Give it a go and let me know how you all get on, would love to see some photos!

Don't forget you can share your comment photos with us on twitter @WithBells_On

Noya's Kitchen - Vietnamese Cooking Course

It's been just over a week since my last post (oh dear will have to get back on track) but I have finally got around to writing about what me and my friend Alice got up to last weekend! 

When ever Alice and I catch up we always do so over amazing food, whether we we pop to our favourite cafe in London for tea (YumCha), try out a new restaurant, or simply make something tasty at home. For a massive treat last weekend we went on Vietnamese Cooking Course at Noya's Kitchen. 

Alice and I spent the afternoon taking in the sites of Bath and then headed off to find Noya's house. As often happens when you attend a cooking course or supper club at someone's home you have a brief moment of 'hope this will be ok' just as you ring the door bell. However, just as normal, I should not have worried. Noya opened the door with a big smile on her face. She welcomed us into her beautiful home and immediately we knew we were in for a great evening.

Shortly after our arrival the rest of the people on our cooking class also arrived. We all took our places at a beautifully laid table and Noya told us what we would be making that evening.

Our menu was a follows:
Turkey mince Vietnamese spring roles with dipping sauce
Vermicelli rice noodle salad with Lemongrass chicken and beef skewers
Vietnamese chicken curry with sticky jasmine rice

Noya took us thorough ever step. It was amazing to see that just with a few simple tips from an expert that we all managed to produce authentic and delicious Vietnamese food.

Here are two of my favourite tips from the evening:

1) When rolling spring rolls you can create a 'glue stick' to get the pastry to stick together. You do this by cutting a section of banana and trimming off the skin around the edge, how simple is that! Although the spring rolls were delicious on their own but by putting some coriander and a mint leaf on a bit of little gem lettuce and then the spring roll on top the taste experience is totally different.

2) You can wrap meat fillings into leaves and to ensure they stay rolled up whilst cooking you keep about 1.5cm of the stem, punch a little whole in the wrap and tuck the stem inside, again so simple but effective. 

We had a wonderful evening learning all about these new foods and I for one cannot wait to try them out again at home. If anyone else fancies learning how to cook authentic Vietnamese Noya lists the dates of here cooking courses on her website. If, however, you don't feel like cooking but just eating delicious food Noya also runs a supper club which I for one and going to visit in the near future.

Patisserie with Francis - Macaroons

We are back in the Medoc in our little corner of French paradise for Easter (so apologies for lack of post recently we have been enjoying the sunshine!)

An early start for another cookery course with our dear friend Francis and his daughter Cecile.  The demonstration kitchen has now relocated to the garden making it quite divine.  Our task today was the elusive macaroon - we now have the technology!

On arrival we commenced with coffee and freshly baked Palmiers, sugar encrusted pastries lightly caramelised and absolutely yummy.  The volume of butter and sugar is a worry but, oh, they are delicious.

Our first macaroons (we made three flavours) were cafe.  With confidence we embarked on caramel sale and the third batch were chocolate, filled with chocolate ganache.  Shall I go on!

After several hours our lunch arrived giving us time to reflect on our labours and enjoy true Medocan hospitality.  Today it was boudin fait mason and a scrummy lapin casserole, washed down with a light rose wine.

Did you know that macaroons can be kept for up to three days in the fridge.  Just retrieve them 15 minutes before needing them.  The other bonus is they can be frozen and defrosted for about 2 hours.
The result is perfect and makes entertaining so much easier.

The pictures, I think, speak for themselves.

If anyone would like more information regarding the above please leave a comment below and we will do a special post with some recipes.  Or, indeed, if you would like information on the chamber d'hôte which Francis runs with his wife Marie-France click here, again let us know.

Perfect Mothers Day Breakfast - Egg smoked salmon and avocado toastie

Are you looking for something a little different to make for breakfast this Mothering Sunday? Well look no further this recipe will do the trick.

As normal when I pick up my monthly copy of Good Food I spend a great time reading it from cover to  cover deciding what I want to try making in the next few weeks. This breakfast idea was suggested as a special Mothers Day Breakfast in the March 2014 issue. So I thought I would give it a trial run for you all and let you know my thoughts - its fantastic!

What I really liked about this recipe was the heart shaped egg you end up having on the top of toastie. Here are the instructions with a few additions that I made.

You will need the following per person:
Butter
2 slices of white bread
1/2 and avocado
1 egg
smoked salmon slices
watercress

1) Take one slice of break and using a heart shape cutter (the bigger the better) and cut our the shape from your slice. Keep hold of the heart that your cut out - you can fry this up with the other slices of break for a mini heart shaped slice of toast.
2) Put a large frying pan over a medium heat. Butter the slice of bread with the heart cut out of it on both sides. Place it into the frying pan and cook for about 2mins. Pop the other slice into the toaster to cook.
3) Whilst the bread is cooking slice the avocado and squeeze some lemon juice over it.
4) Flip the bread in the frying pan over and crack and egg into the heart shaped whole and cook until the fried egg is the way you like it. Putting a plate or foil over the frying pan will help the egg to cook faster without causing the bread to burn.

5) Layer up the slices of salmon and avocado on the bread that has just come out of the toaster and top with a handful of watercress.

6) Put the slice with the egg in the hole on the top and serve with a little bit of cracked black pepper on the top.

If you give this to your mum for breakfast with a cup of tea and a little posies of flowers she will be completely delighted!

Chocolate Heaven in a Jar

Recently, Emily was a little upset to discover that many big name retailers have no legal obligation to list palm oil on food ingredients, and can hide the presence of unsustainable palm oil under the generic term "vegetable oil". With many friends working out in the forests of Malaysia and witnessing first hand the deforestation and devastation, this labelling issue is something that we feel should be publicised so people can make active choices in avoiding palm oil. There is some good news however, as of the 13th of December 2014 a new EU law will come into effect that meals manufactures cannot hide the palm oil under the term 'vegetable oil' any long. If you would like to find out a little more please check out the ZSL sustainable palm oil platform website. 

One of the worst blows was the discovery of unclear labelling of a famous brand of Chocolate Hazelnut Spread which everyone in our family is rather partial too. So whilst perusing a recent Country Living magazine I came across a recipe to die for that would also solve Emily's ethical dilemma - Homemade Hazelnut Spread.  Trust me, you will never want to purchase a jar again.  The recipe below makes sufficient for 2 jars - it is so moreish you may have to savour the first jar - spoon by spoon.

Ingredients

150h hazelnuts, toasted

240g milk chocolate

100g plain chocolate

100ml 100% vegetable oil (no palms here!)

3 tablespoons icing sugar

1 good tablespoon of cocoa

Half teaspoon vanilla extract

First, toast the hazelnuts in the oven, 170 degrees for about 10 minutes, until golden.  When cool rub the skins off.  I took the tray outside and blew the skins off.  Cool thoroughtly

Melt the chocolate over a pan of simmering water until liquid.  Cool slightly.

Put the hazelnuts in a food processor and whizz until finely ground and oily - they should end up looking like peanut butter.  (I used a coffee grinder for my hazelnuts which was equally as good - you just whizz in small amounts).  Gradually add oil and whizz until smooth.  

Add sugar, cocoa and vanilla and mix again.  If using a processor leave the motor running and gradually pour in the liquid chocolate.  Pour into 2 jars and wait patiently for it to cool.

The good news is you can scrape the bowl with cooking utensils and lick them clean! Additionally the cost of making these 2 jars is equivalent to the price of purchasing a similar weighted jar of the best selling brand of hazelnut spread.

I promise you won’t be disappointed, and leave you thinking of all the ways you can use the delicious spread you have made.   

Until next time.

Barbara & Emily

St David's Day Welsh Cakes

With it being St David's Day today I though I would attempt to make some traditional Welsh Cakes.

I've never tried making these before but have enjoyed eating other peoples! The recipe I have used is taken from a very old copy of the Cranks Recipe Book (so many amazing tasty things in this book definitly worth a look). Here if the recipe below if you fancied giving them a try.

9oz wholemeal flour

1/2 tsp baking powder 

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg 

6oz butter or margarine 

3oz brown sugar 

3oz currents (I prefer raisins) 

1 egg

Mix the flour, baking powder and nutmeg. 

Rub in the butter and then mix in all the other ingredients until you have a soft dough.

Lightly flour a work surface and roll out to 1.5cm think. 

Cut out rounds of about 7cm, this should give you roughly 10 cakes. 

Traditional you use a griddle stone to cook the cakes but as I don't have one of these I used a large flat bottomed frying pan instead. Heat a little butter in the pan place the cakes on. Cook on a I medium heat for about 3-4mins each side or until you have a nicely brown outside and cooked centre. 

Serve straight away as they are delicious warm, but of course they could be kept and reheated later or even the next day (if they last that long!). 

Sorry for the traditional presence of leek and daphodils in the photo - couldn't resit! 

Enjoy your Welsh Cakes everyone.      

Until next time.
Emily

Chocolate Orange Cupcakes

Don't these just look scrummy? Well I can tell you that they really do look as good as they taste. I've been dreaming up the recipe for these Chocolate Orange Cupcakes for a long time and finally caved in and had to try them.

What I think really makes them extra special is the two-tone icing on the top. In order to get this effect I used the fantastic duo icing kit that is available to buy at Lakeland's. This kit makes it so easy to make some fantastic double colour designs for your culinary delights.

Here is my recipe to make your own Chocolate Orange Cupcakes (recipe makes approximately 12 cakes)

Oven heated to about 180C

Sponge
4oz self-raising flour
4oz caster sugar
4oz butter
2 eggs
1tsp baking powder
1tbsp of orange liquor
zest of one orange

Icing - Orange
4oz butter
3tsp orange juice (add more to taste)
8oz of icing sugar
red and yellow food colouring

Icing  - Chocolate
4oz of butter
1tbsp hot chocolate powder or cocoa powder
8oz of icing sugar


Im a big fan of simple cake recipes and this one is no exception. Using my freestanding mixer (or your muscles) start off by beating the sugar and butter together. Once done add all the other ingredients and mixed until and nice smooth cake batter forms. Spoon the mixture into your cupcake or muffin cases and cook for around 20mins or until no mixture comes out on a cake tester.

Whilst the cakes are cooking mix up the icing in two separate bowls until each is equally thick. Adapt these quantities to suit your own tastes by adding more or less orange juice/cocoa powder. Use a fairly large 'star' shaped nozzle and put together the duo icing bag. Fill each side of the icing bag with the separate colours.

Once the cakes are completly cool you can begin icing (don't be tempted to try before). Go round the cake in a steady swirling motion until you cover completely, start from an outside edge and work your way into the centre. To finish top with a segment of chocolate orange.

All that remains is for me to put my feet up with a cup of tea and enjoy one of these ridiculously tasty cakes. So give them a try and let me know what you think.

Until next time

Emily

Un Petit Peu de Pâtisserie

So this weekend saw another birthday celebrate. This time it was the birthday of my partner Lawrence and we had a weekend full of celebrations. 

So to start off with I spent pretty much the whole of Friday in the kitchen making French Pastries. You already know my love of croissants and all other things to do with French food.

A wonderful friend of my family (Francis) who was, until his retirement, a fantastic pastry chef in the Medoc region of France (obviously he is still a great chef!). He has indulged both mum and myself in cooking courses to show us how a real pastry chef works. He taught us the basics of choux pastry and the numerous things that can be done with it. So mum and I had a go on our own. 

We made three things:
1) Chouquettes
2) Lemon Eclairs
3) Canelés De Bordeaux

Chouquettes are simply choux pastry balls that are typically just cooked with rock sugar on the top, or filled with cream or creme patisserie depending on the occasion.

These eclairs were of my own invention, I decided to for something a bit different from traditional flavours. These eclairs were filled with lemon cured laced cream and covered with lemon icing.

Canelés are a regional speciality of Bordeaux (a place fond to the hearts of our family) and have a soft custard centre and a dark caramelised crust on the outside. Serve one up with a lovely cup of hot coffee, a complete winner!

If you are interested in the recipes and fancy giving any of the above a go do leave a comment below and ill do some special posts with a run down of all the instructions.

After a day of baking we then went back to visit our favourite chef Jules at the Secret Supper Society in North Oxfordshire. We had such a fantastic time for my birthday in October that Lawrence was keen to go again. Needless to say the food was yet again fantastic  - better than what you get in so many fine dinning restaurants! I packed up a little box of my pastry treats to give to Jules as a present - from one food lover to another what is better than a present of food! She quickly ate one up and really like them, if her food is good enough for Raymond Blanc and my pasties good enough for her I think I am onto a winner!

Until next time.

Emily

A quick edition to a Sunday roast

What is better than a fabulous roast dinner to finish off the weekend?

So this week why not make a little extra something, home-made yorkshire puddings. Make these and never dream of buying frozen ones again, they really are so easy and so tasty! 

This recipe is adapted from the BBC Good Food website 

This will make either 4 large yorkshire puddings of 8 small ones

2 eggs

70g plain flour

100ml milk

Sunflower oil

Ground pepper

Heat the oven to a hot 210 C and drizzles some sunflower oil into you yorkshire pudding tin for large puddings, or muffin tin for small yorkshires. Put the tins in the oven to warm to oil. 

Beat the two eggs in a bowl, add the flour and mix until smooth.

Add the milk gradually, mixing steadily and then season.

Take the hot tins out of the oven and then pour in the batter evenly. In order to get a good rise grind a little pepper into the centre of each pudding.

Immediately put in the oven and cook for approximately 15mins - don't be tempted to open the door.

Then take out of the oven and enjoy!

Friday Cake Club - Chocolate and Peanut Butter Blondies

Friday is cake day in our department. We have a rota that we all sign up for and take it in turns to make tasty things to have at our morning coffee break.

This week was my turn and I decided to try out a new recipe - Chocolate and Peanut Butter Blondies. Not sure where I found this recipe. I wrote it out quite some time ago in my note book but had not found a good opportunity to make it - so cake Friday seemed like an ideal time.

Ingredients
125g plain flour
150g crunchy peanut butter
175g soft brown sugar
100g butter
1 egg
1tsp baking powder
1tsp vanilla extract
40g white chocolate chips
40g dark chocolate chips

Instructions
1) pre heat the oven to 170C fan, grease and line a a 20 x 20 tin
2) cream the butter and sugar together
3) add the peanut butter, egg, vanillia extract and mix well
4) sift in the flour and baking powder
5) add the chocolate chips and mix well
6) add the mixture to the prepared tin
7) cook in the oven for 20-25 mins

These will go down perfectly for any morning or afternoon coffee break so enjoy.

A food filled weekend

This weekend I was lucky enough to have a visit from two of my wonderful friends, Alice and Ellen.

It's the first time they have been to visit me here in Bristol, and as what always happens when we are together we wandered around lovely shops, chatted, drank and most importantly had a food filled weekend!

The three of us are complete foodies so it is no surprise that it became the main part of our weekend. It all started with Nutella Croissants, followed by lunch at The Mall Deli. Then we made a scrummy feast for dinner. Our menu was as follows:

1) Mango and Passion Fruit Mojitos

2) Babaganoush with warm pitta bread slices

3) Chicken stuffed with garlic, cream cheese and herbs wrapped in Pancetta served with a traditional fattoush salad

4) Classic school days lemon self-saucing pudding

and for breakfast

5) Crispy smoked bacon rashers with local farm scrambled eggs, grilled vine tomatoes, avocado and freshly home made bread.

My mouth is watering just thinking about how tasty it was all over again!

If anyone is interested in some of the recipes we cooked please drop me a comment below and I shall upload them for you all.

Until next time

E xoxo

Weekend breakfast

What would weekend breakfasts be like without crossiants?

Since moving to Bristol I must admit that I am missing my weekly fix. Whilst in Abingdon I was lucked enough to be nearby to the wonderful Patisserie Pascal, which to do date really does do the best crossiants I've found in the UK. 

So when reading one of my favorite blogs The Londoner the other day I saw something so delicious that I couldn't resist trying - homemade Nutella and hazelnut crossiants. Well I say home made not quite, but close enough!

You simply take three easy ingredients, some chopped hazelnuts, a jar of Nutella and a can of pre-made crossiant dough. Having never opened one of these tins before I was delighted to hear that popping noise and to see 6 slices of crossiant dough appear from such a small space. Rosie has some really clear instructions in how to make these little treats so please to check out her instructions out via this link.. 

So what are you having for breakfast next weekend....

Midweek puddings - honey fried bananas

There is often a mid-week slump on Wednesdays, half-way through the week but still a long time until the weekend. I am normally pretty inventive when it comes to the savoury aspect of my evening meals. I spend hours pouring through my cook books and magazine clippings deciding what exciting things to make. However, unless people coming around for dinner my mid-week puddings are often pretty dull. A straight up piece of fruit, yoghurt or even nothing at all is my normal routine. This evening though I felt like something a little different. So I stood staring at the content of my cupboards and fridge for a little time and then realised there was a huge amount of potential lurking there - honey fried bananas!

This could not be an easier pudding to do, you will need:

1 banana per person

butter

honey (runny or set will do)

vanilla extract

cinnamon or icing sugar

Put large knob of butter in pan and allow to melt until it starts to bubble. In the meantime slice up the bananas. Place the bananas in a single layer on the pan and cook on each side for 2-3 minutes.

Place a spoon of honey per person in a little dish (if set honey pop in the microwave to melt for a few seconds) and add a bit of water so they can mix together. Once you have cooked both sides of the bananas add the honey water to the pan with the bananas and allow them to bubble away but not catch. When they are done to your liking pop the bananas onto plates and give them a little sprinkle with cinnamon or icing sugar.

This evening I had mine with yoghurt and cinnamon but they would be delicious with ice cream too - yum!

Until next time ...

7th Craft of Craftmas - Christmas Cake Part 2

Well, the cake has been fed on orange liqueur for a few weeks and is finally ready for icing. I undertook this task this afternoon and I'm delighted, it looks fantastic - truly too good to eat!

Instead of a marzipan layer this one uses a pistachio and almond paste and it is scrummy. This also forms the decorative trees which were place on top. The icing (done with egg whites, liquid glucose and sugar) has a wonderful snowy texture and forms beautiful peaks on which these trees can sit. Finally a sprinkling of icing sugar for snow and truly we have an enchanted forest cake!

As before the full recipe can be found on this link to the Good Food website.