815. Bacon and Egg Pie
Yesterday I posted a salad, so today of course I’m posting a pie. A pie with bacon. This bacon and egg pie is of Australian origin, and is supposed to be a manly pie, because ‘men don’t eat quiche’. It basically consists of layers of thick bacon with a whole egg cracked in between, a little parsley for seasoning, and a whole lot of pastry all around the outside. It was RICH, which I fully expected, hence why I made the pies in this mini size.
815 down, 981 to go
809. Crepes Suzette
I MAY have kind of forgotten about this picture until like, 5 seconds ago. This was taken at the Cardiff Harbour Festival which was in oh, July maybe. I actually had a pretty great day so I have no excuse for forgetting about it! The Harbour Festival is a sort of food festival, but also has boat displays and activities for kids. Luckily, it was held on just about the only day of nice weather we’ve had in Cardiff for the whole entire year.
As my lunch, I got a crepe suzette from Creperie Sophie, who now have a cafe in one of the Cardiff arcades. Suzette is a crepe cooked with a little marmalade and orange liqueur. It gives a lovely adult quality to what is often a relatively basic dessert or snack dish.
810. Piccalilli
The festival also had plenty of the traditional food festival type stalls selling jams, chutneys, and the like. I took the opportunity to try piccalilli at one of them, as I knew full well that as a pickle I was pretty unlikely to enjoy it. In these cases I always like to take advantage of free samples! Even though this was a lovely homemade version made with cider vinegar, as i suspected I didn’t enjoy it!
811. Elderflower Wine
Elderflower wine I did enjoy very much though! I always enjoy trying different fruit and floral wines, and elderflower is one of my very favourite flavours. If you’ve never tried elderflower cordial I suggest you go out and get yourself some this very minute as it is beyond delicious.
811 down, 985 to go
Ever since starting this blog, I have been keeping my own list of foods which aren’t in either of the books, but I think really should be. I’m going to start posting some of these with recipes and making up a new little collection of foods that I think are must-eats.
First up is cinnamon buns. Not the kind that you get at Cinnabon, where they stick to every part of you, and where the smell of the store makes you feel a little nauseated because it’s so sickly. I mean the fresh ones you make at home that are warm and light and packed with cinnamon with just a drizzle of icing. (Writing this is now making me really regret the fact that I just had toast for breakfast today).
I base mine on the Pioneer Woman’s recipe, though I make 1/4 of the amount she does in that link as I only have 2 people to feed not a whole neighbourhood! However instead of the maple frosting she makes, I just top mine with a super simple icing - a 1/2 cup of powdered sugar to which you add water 1 tsp at a time until it reaches a thick but runny enough to pour consistency. My picture is buns pre-icing, but that will make enough for a generous drizzle.
793. Torta di Castagne
I had this can of chestnut puree in my cupboard for ages. Not so long that it was bad, but long enough that I really should think of something to make with it, so when I was browsing my list and found this Italian chocolate chestnut cake it seemed pretty serendipitous.
It’s not quite a flourless cake, but it has a very small amount of flour, so it would be easy to switch it out for ground almonds if you did want to make it gluten-free. The cake itself is super moist, with a crisp top and a fudgy brownie-like centre. The chestnuts add a lovely mild flavour, but they aren’t so nutty that it would be offputting for anyone who doesn’t like nuts (chestnuts also don’t apply to most people who have nut allergies so this is a great cake for them too). My can of chestnuts made for a lot of cake, so I took all the leftovers to work which went down rather well with my team!
Recipe - Makes 2 x 7” cakes (16 servings)
Preheat the oven to 170C. Grease and line the bottom of 2 7inch cake tins.
Break up the chocolate and melt it together with the butter. You can do this over simmering water or in the microwave, just be careful not to overheat it (it’s better to take it off before the chocolate is 100% melted if you aren’t sure).
Sift the flour into a bowl and add the egg yolks, chestnut puree, vanilla, and baking powder. Mix together and then add the melted chocolate and butter.
In another bowl, add the egg whites and whisk until just stiff. Continue to whisk whilst slowly adding in the sugar. Scoop a quarter or so of the egg whites into the other ingredients and mix. Then gently fold in the rest of the egg whites until just combined.
Split the batter between the two cake pans and bake for 20 minutes.
Serve by itself, or with whipped cream.
793 down, 1003 to go
785. Battenberg
Battenberg is a traditional British cake. It is made of 4 almond sponges (2 pink, and 2 yellow), joined together with jam, and all wrapped up in marzipan. It’s like an almondpalooza, which is great for me as I love all things almond and cherry flavoured, but it does make it one of those Marmite, love-it-or-hate-it type foods (it would be my brother’s nightmare food). I ate this whole thing. Not in one go of course, I’m not quite THAT greedy!
785 down, 1011 to go
774. Fortune Cookies
Unlike in the US, we don’t really get fortune cookies in the UK. You certainly don’t automatically get them with Chinese takeout or at the end of a meal in a Chinese restaurant. So, I had to go and buy a big bag of them from the Chinese supermarket. It seemed a bit odd eating them as a snack, as even though they’re not a common British thing, it’s still very engrained in me (probably from TV), that a fortune cookie is just what you eat at the end of a Chinese meal. Obviously the point of a fortune cookie is more the fortune than the cookie, because the cookie itself is pretty bland, but they’re still a lot of fun. I was going to save my fortunes so I could write them up on here, but I forgot. Oops!
774 down, 1022 to go
750. Tarte Tatin
I finished off the French meal with a classic tarte tatin. Any kind of apple and pastry dessert is good, and tarte tatin has the added bonus of being all caramelized and gooey. I’m not usually a big fan of vanilla ice cream, but with the tart it was a delicious combination.
750 down, 1046 to go
745. Rugelach
After the wattleseed cookie fiasco, the next time my dad and brother came to visit I decided I’d have to rectify the situation and make some biscuits that were actually good. I’d wanted to try rugelach for a while and the recipe was really easy to cut down into a nice small batch. It surprised me just how easy the recipe was, the actual parts that involved me took only about 5 minutes. And the result was delicious. I filled mine with chocolate chips, sugar and cinnamon but I would love to try them with some nuts in too.
745 down, 1051 to go
740. Wattleseed
Normally I pride myself on being pretty good at baking; cookie making in particular. This day I was obviously having an off day though as somehow I managed to make my cookies with half as much sugar as they should have had in them. The results were… erm… certainly not my best work. BUT, the one success was that I used wattleseed as a flavouring. Wattleseed is an Australian seed which has a slightly bitter, nutty flavour that’s really reminiscent of coffee. I shall make sure to attempt another batch with the correct amount of sugar this time!
740 down, 1056 to go
739. Belgian Frangipane Pastry
These are one of the many pastries that use frangipane which is a thick paste made of ground almonds. They are a really simple combination of a pastry shell, with the frangipane filling and a little bit of white icing on the top. I can never get enough of almond anything, so I really enjoyed these (although I can’t deny they would be even better with a drizzle of dark chocolate across the top). Yum.
739 down, 1057 to go
Hi! I'm Laura, I live in Cardiff, and this is my food blog challenge to try 1796 must-eat foods. Expect foods from the delicious to the disgusting, with some recipes and restaurant reviews scattered in between.
Read more about me and my challenge here
Nominated for Best Food and Drink Blog 2012
