Tag: apple

Apple & Cheddar Cheese Soufflés – Great for People Who Stink at Folding Egg Whites

After doing such a great job folding the egg whites into
this apple and cheddar soufflé batter, I celebrated by dropping a measuring cup
into the bowl. By the time I fished it out, cleaned the sides of the bowl, and shook my
fist at the heavens, I’d lost a lot of micro-bubbles.

I pressed on, and despite my tragic encounter with gravity,
the resulting soufflés were simply fabulous, which just goes to show that maybe
we need to relax about this whole folding thing. Sure, more bubbles would make
it go a little higher, but if you’ve never made a soufflé before, I hope this
gives you some new-found courage.

By the way, I don’t know why most similar recipes call for
extra egg whites. Actually, I do know; it’s to make them more visually
impressive, but I think this dilutes the flavor. I use about half the egg
whites normally called for, and these are still light as a feather.

If you decide to give these a whirl, please promise me you’ll use a great cheddar. I used a sharp and creamy Cabot, but any other quality, aged cheddar will work. These apple cheddar soufflés are very versatile, and would
make a great appetizer, a special holiday brunch starter, or deliciously
different dessert. I hope you give
them a try soon. Enjoy!

Ingredients for 4
(I used Le Creuset 4 3/4-ounce size):

For the apples:

1 tbsp butter, heated until edges start to turn brown

1 apple, cubed

1 tbsp sugar

For the batter:

2 tbsp flour

2 tbsp butter

1 cup milk

1/2 tsp salt

pinch freshly ground black pepper

pinch cayenne
pinch nutmeg

3 oz sharp white cheddar, or almost 1 cup grated

2 eggs, separated

Bake at 400 degrees F.
for about 22 minutes

*Assuming you don’t drop a measuring cup into your folded
egg white fluffed batter, you should have about 2 cups of batter. You can
divide each 1/2 cup portion into whatever sized ramekin you have, but a 4 3/4
to 5 oz size is ideal. Basically, when it’s fully puffed and browned, it’s
done. And for goodness sake, serve very warm, but not piping hot!

24 new Halloween recipes to try this year

Halloween has got to be one of the most fun times of the year. Less stressful than Christmas (and whole lot less serious), you can let your imagination run wild with Halloween food – and we did just that!

This year, we wanted to bring you lots of new spooky ideas for your Halloween party and, being goodtoknow, they all had to be quick, cheap and easy!

A long day in the kitchen with lots of food colouring and as many Halloween decorations as we could get our hands on, our Halloween shoot should give you a few new treats to try this year.

Witch’s hat biscuits

You will need: Biscuits (ready made or shop-bought), ice cream cones, chocolate and coloured fondant.

How? See our easy step-by-step guide

Chocolate-covered apples

You will need: Chocolate, apples and food colouring/writing icing.

How? Melt chocolate over boiling water or in the microwave and allow to cool slightly. Pierce an apple with a wooden skewer and dip into the chocolate. Spoon over the white chocolate, over the bowl, to ensure the apple is fully covered. Leave to dry in the fridge, on a piece of greaseproof paper. Once set, draw faces with writing icing.

Twist: Colour white chocolate with food colouring.

Ssssssssnake rolls

You will need: Ready made shortcrust pastry, sausage meat, an egg and a pepper.

How? Cut long strips of pastry and place a thin line of sausage meat down the middle. Glaze one edge of the pastry with beaten egg and roll the other one over the meat, pressing the edges of the pastry together. Curve into a snake-like shape and glaze with the remaining beaten egg. Bake in the oven (200C/400F/Fan 180C/Gas Mark 6) for 15-20 mins until golden brown. Make eyes and a tongue from chunks of the pepper.

Twist: Add tomato puree to the pastry before adding the sausage meat so the snakes ooze ‘blood’

Vampire’s bite

You will need: Packet of jelly, oranges, mini marshmallows and red food colouring.

How? See our easy step-by-step guide

Twist: Use green jelly to make ‘monster teeth’

Choco-bats

You will need: Chocolate mini rolls, black and white fondant, icing sugar

How? Draw a bat wing stencil on a piece of paper, place it over black fondant and cut out several black wings. Make a ‘glue’ from a little icing sugar and water and stick the wings around the mini rolls. Make eyes by placing small black balls of fondant onto larger white balls, ‘glue’ these onto the rolls.

Twist: Give your bats different outfits (like our smart bow-tied chap above!)

Puking pumpkin

You will need: A pumpkin, a sharp knife and some dips

How? Cut a large mouth towards the bottom of the pumpkin and scoop out the seeds. Carve eyes and a nose with a sharp knife. Place the pumpkin on the egde of a plate, spoon the dip into the mouth and spread onto the plate.

Twist: This can be used as a decoration if you replace the dip with the scooped out pumpkin seeds.

Terrifying trifles

How? See our easy terrifying trifles recipe

Zombie-bread men

You will need: Gingerbread men, writing icing, fondant

How? Easy! Make a batch of gingerbread men and rough them up a bit! Decorate with red, white and black icing and make eyes out of white and black fondant.

Twist: Make animals shaped biscuits to create zombie animals.

Crunchy pumpkin

You will need: Mini carrots, courgette or cucumber and a selection of dips.

How? Arrange the carrots in a pumpkin shape, cut the courgette for the mouth and add bowls of dips for the eyes.

Twist: Use salsa for the eyes and mouth for a ‘bloody’ twist.

Ruby red apples

You will need: Toffee apple ingredients and red food colouring

How? Make toffee apples as usual, adding red food colouring in at the last stage of making the toffee.

Twist: Make spiders’ webs with the remaining toffee to decorate the plate.

Slippery jelly worms

You will need: A thick straw and a packet of jelly

How? See our easy step-by-step guide.

Twist: Use different coloured jellies and serve the worms in one big slimy bowl.

Jeepers peepers

You will need: Eggs, food colouring and black olives

How? Hard boil the eggs and leave to cool. Peel off the shell and slice in half. Scoop out the yolk and mash with food colouring. Spoon the mixture back into the egg white and top with ‘eyes’ made from a slice of egg white and black olive ends.

Twist: Add bloodshot streaks with a little red food colouring.

Skele-mellow

You will need: Large and mini marshmallows, wooden skewers, food writing icing and fondant

How? Thread three large marshmallows onto a skewer, add a couple of mini marshmallows at the top for the neck, then add the ‘head’. Stick two smaller skewers out of the top ‘body’ marshmallow and thread mini marshmallows on for the ‘arms’ and large marshmallows for the ‘hands’ – repeat for the legs. Add fondant eyes and decorate with writing icing.

Twist: Give him an evil expression to turn him into a scary zombie.

S-lime-y tarts

You will need: Ready made shortcrust pastry, lime curd, green food colouring

How? Grease a muffin tin and add circles of pastry. Colour the lime curd with green food colouring and spoon into the pastry. Bake in the oven (200°C/400°F/Fan 180°C/Gas Mark 6) for 15-20 mins until the pastry is golden brown. Allow to cool before decorating with sweets and fondant eyes.

Twist: Use classic jam tarts and label them ‘blood baths’

Creepy cheesey faces

You will need: English muffins, tomato puree and cheese slices

How? Cut the muffins in half and spread with a thin layer of tomato puree. Take the cheese slices and carve out scary faces. Place onto the muffin and grill.

Twist: Top a pizza with mini carved cheese faces.

Iced ghouls

You will need: Biscuits (homemade or shop-bought), buttercream icing, fondant, piping bag

How? Fill a piping bag with buttercream and pipe mini ghosts onto a biscuit and decorate with fondant eyes.

Twist: Place a dollop of jam on the biscuit before piping to make the ghosts ‘bloody’

Hollow heads

You will need: Coconuts, red food colouring, black marker pen

How? Cut a lid into the coconut and decorate with the food colouring and marker pen. Drink the coconut milk or serve your spooky cocktails in them.

Twist: Paint vampire faces onto the coconuts and wrap in a black cloak.

Sausage mummies

You will need: Ready made shortcrust pastry, sausages, an egg, black food colouring

How? See our easy step-by-step recipe

Twist: Make mini baby ‘mummies’ to create a whole family

Jello-kins

You will need: Oranges, a packet of jelly

How? Slice the top off an orange and scoop out the orange inside, making sure not to make any incisions in the skin. Place the orange onto a plate, make up a batch of jelly and pour into the orange and leave to set in the fridge. Once set, gently carve the eyes into the skin.

Twist: Make an array of scary faces and arrange them in a Halloween scene on your table.

Fruity faces

You will need: White chocolate, strawberries, bananas and black writing icing

How? Melt the white chocolate, allow to cool slightly, then dip whole strawberries and sliced bananas into it. Allow to set in the fridge on a piece of greaseproof paper. Once set, draw spooky faces onto the fruit with the writing icing.

Twist: A little red food colouring will make these faces even more scary!

Stuffed heads

You will need: Peppers, rice/couscous (a filling of you choice)

How? Make up a batch of filling and slice the top off the peppers, scooping out the seeds. Spoon the filling into the peppers and bake in the oven until slightly roasted. Remove from the oven, allow to cool, then gently carve faces into one side of the peppers.

Twist: Colour the filling with red food colouring for a gory twist.

Rocky claw

You will need: Dark chocolate, marshmallows, biscuits – any sweet treats really!

How? Shape tin foil around a large hand, gathering between the fingers to make a mould. Make up some rocky road and pour into the hand mould, press in marshmallows for the ‘claws’ and allow to set in the fridge.

Twist: Dip the marshmallows in red food colouring before adding to the rocky road.

A ‘pear’ of ghosts

You will need: Pears, white and black fondant

How? Slice the tip of the pear to a flat surface. Drape over the white fondant and stick on black eyes with a dab of water.

Twist: Pierce the pears with a skewer and place them in a large, tall glass for table decoration.

Flying bat rolls

You will need: Ready made shortcrust pastry, cocktail sausages (uncooked), an egg, black olives

How? Cut a square of pastry around a cocktail sausage and wrap around, pressing the edges firmly together. Draw a wings template on a piece of paper, carve wings out of the pastry and press into the pastry on the sausage roll. Glaze with a little beaten egg and bake in the oven (200°C/400°F/Fan 180°C/Gas Mark 6) for 15-20 mins until golden brown. Place black olives onto the bats for spooky eyes.

Twist: Make your own pastry and add a little food colouring to make completely black bats.

Planning a party? Download our Halloween party planner app

See more Halloween recipes

Our best Halloween cupcakes

Decorations from

Asda
Hobbycraft
Lakeland
The Co-op
Waitrose
Morrisons
Dr Oetker
Mustard Gifts
Sainsbury’s

Apple Tart Maman Blanc

The other day I wrote a piece for The Daily Mail and as the paper arrived and I saw that I was on the front page (ack!) with some dastardly headline I felt ill and squeezed my eyes shut and clutched at my pyjamas and waited for the whole internet to fall in on my head all day long.

It didn’t, thank god. Thank you. I mean, I’m sure there were 4,000 comments underneath the piece, all vile, but I don’t read those – (you simply cannot and stay sane) – but I did get one, single, slightly unhappy tweet. “I used to love your blog,” it said, “but now you just troll yourself. How much do the Mail pay you to write this stuff?”

And I realised then, that I should probably explain what happens. I lose track of how many readers I have, I forget that I’m not just writing to Becky B and my husband.

(Becky B’s just had a baby by the way. No pain relief. None. There was briefly a story going round that she had her stitches with no pain killer either, but that turned out to be apocryphal, like that one about how she once put a mugger in hospital just by giving him a nasty look.)

But for other readers, seeing me in the Mail like that must be strange, like if your boyfriend suddenly turned out to be a contract killer, or a pimp.

So this is how is happens: one morning, some devastatingly charming girl emails from Femail, (they’re all charming at the Mail, that’s their deadly weapon), wanting to run a piece that you have already written and to give you, in return, enough money so that you don’t have to work for the next two weeks if you don’t want to, and pay the nanny AND buy a bottle of neon pink nail varnish from Models Own.

And you stop and you think “Oh but my photo will be in there, and some really horrifying headline and there will be pictures of my children…”and then you think “yes but this is my job.” And then you think “money…”. And then you think how pleased your mother always is when you’re in the paper, no matter what you’ve said. And then your husband comes into the room and reads the email over your shoulder and goes “You’re going to ask for more money, aren’t you? Great job. Don’t forget to invoice!”

Then you file your piece and wait. Presently the “edit” comes back to you, which is where they run your normal words through their computer and it comes out in perfect MailSpeak. And you go “fine – can you change this and this?” and they go “sure”.

And then you deal once or twice more with women who, as the deadline gets closer and closer, sound more and more tense, as they sit at their desks, talking to you and eating their lunch at 8.30pm, tapping in tiny tweaks here and there – none of which matter because the headline is going to be MY KIDS ARE SO FACKIN BORING YAH???? so the subtle word changes you are insisting on are like dusting the rotary blades of a helicopter that’s just crashed into the side of a mountain.

Then the paper comes out the next day and you feel crushed and sick until your husband goes “GREAT job!” and your mother, who quite often looks at you blankly like “which one are you, again?” actually rings up and says “They’re talking about your piece on the radio!!!!!!” And then you remember: “money!”. And, eventually, you square it all away and forget about it. Until the next time.

It helps that I am basically a sloppy hack at heart and don’t really mind – not really, otherwise I wouldn’t do it. If my children find these pieces later in life and want to have a go at me about it I will simply start charging them rent.

Another girl in my life who doesn’t judge me for this kind of caper is a French girl called Amelie, once described to me as the “rudest girl in London” but I don’t understand why, because she is simply charming, she is just a bit brisk and French. I think she is terrific.

We went to see her and her husband this weekend for lunch and Amelie calmly went out to the shops to buy some ingredients for Raymond Blanc’s much-celebrated Apple tart Maman Blanc and made it while guests were arriving. She had never made it before! And, she declared “I ‘aven’t cooked anysing for years.” I cannot imagine how relaxed you have to be to do something like this.

Anyway it was just fantastic. I didn’t help in the actual preparation, I just provided moral support and read out the recipe as she was cooking, which she declared was very helpful but I think she may just have been being nice.

This is how it goes: the precise recipe, including instructions for the shortcrust pastry, can be found on p246 of Kitchen Secrets, or online.

Amelie, like all good French girls, just buys her pastry pre-made. I think she used puff (she herself couldn’t remember if she had bought puff or shortcrust – such insouciance!!!) but you really ought to buy shortcrust.

So here we go:

Apple tart ‘Maman Blanc’

1 packet shortcrust pastry
3 dessert apples (like a Braeburn or whatever, just not a super-sour cooking apple)
15g unsalted butter
15g caster sugar
11/2 tsp lemon juice
7g Calvados (if you like)
icing sugar, to dust
1 medium egg
100 ml whipping cream
50g caster sugar

1 Roll out your pastry to fit your tart case and have it slightly higher than the rim of the tin because pastry shrinks on cooking. Prick the base with a fork and put in the fridge for 20 min.

2 Preheat the oven and a baking sheet (or any old tin big enough to take the tart tin) to 220C

3 Peel and core the apples and cut each into 10. Lay them closely together and overlapping in a circle in the base of the tart case.

4 In a small pan, melt the butter and sugar, then take off the heat and mix in the lemon juice and Calvados if using. Brush this over the apples slices and dust with icing sugar.

5 Slide the tart tin onto your now hot sheet and cook for 10 minutes. Turn the oven down to 200C and bake for another 20 minutes until the tart case is brown and the apples look a bit caramelised.

6 For the custard filling, whisk 1 egg together with 50g caster sugar and 100ml whipping cream and pour into the tart 10 minutes before the end of the cooking time.

Et Voila! As Amelie almost never says.