A week of Cupcakes

Hi All

As some of you know it is National Cupcake Week, this week! And you can never have to many reasons to enjoy cupcakes now, can you? So in honour of this very special week I thought I rework a classic poem:

Monday's cupcake ends up all over your face.

Tuesday's cupcake is gone without a trace.

Wednesday's cupcake makes you go Whoa!

Thursday's cupcake is far, but you will go.

Friday's cupcakes are for giving????

Saturday you have cupcakes, because you work hard for a living!

And the cupcakes that are baked on a sabbath day, is the most moreish and scrummy and make you lick your fingers all day!

Bye for now!

PBx

Bread & Butter Pudding

Hi All

I have been obsessing about make this for ageeees! But as it is wheat based and I never can eat just a little bit of it I really needed to make this when I had guest coming over. Oh well no guest came, so I went ahead and made it anyway, PB’s Banana Hard do Bread & Butter pudding.




I used to love Hard do bread when I was young, it is a Jamaica bread which is slightly heavier and sweeter than English style bread. I'd love to cut extra thick slices toasted with lots of butter and a thin layer of jam, mmmm!

Ingredients

Large eggs x3
Whole milk 600ml
Evaporated milk 1x400g can
Single cream 250ml
Caster sugar 200g
Light brown sugar x2 tbsp.
Nutmeg ½ tsp.
Mixed spice ½ tsp.
Ground Cinnamon pinch
Hard do bread 1 few days old, hand cut slices
Large bananas x3
Vanilla flavouring x2 tsp.
Unsalted butter as needed to butter dish and bread

I normally use natural vanilla extract, or vanilla pods in my cooking, but as this is a Jamaican dish from my childhood, I had to use the vanilla I grew up with and loved as a child.

Yeah I know it says Culinary Flavoring, Artificial Vanilla which is something I normally stay away from, but it just had to be done.

Method

Make the custard first. Whisk the milk, evaporated milk, caster sugar, eggs spices and vanilla in a pan over a low heat. Warm the mixture gently, lightly whisking constantly so the mixture slightly thickens, and doesn’t get any lumps. Add the cream and keep on whisking for another 5 minutes or when it is thick enough to leave a light film of custard on the back of a wooden spoon. Take the pan off the fire, and leave to one side until needed.

Preheat the oven 180C/gas 4, butter a large ovenproof serving dish, and leave to one side until needed.

Cut generous slices of bread, and then cut in half. Butter both sides and layer the bottom of dish with them, take one banana, peel and slice lengthways and layer over the bread, ladle over some the custard mixture and then sprinkle one tbsp. of brown sugar.

Add another layer of butter bread and press down in the dish. Peel the other banana and put lengthways slices over the bread. Ladle the rest of the custard mixture all over the bread making sure the bread is well soaked. Leave to sit for 10 minutes for the bread to absorb the custard. Sprinkle the remaining brown sugar on top and put in the oven and leave for 30-40 minutes, or until it has risen and is nice and brown.

Serve with a big dollop of ice-cream and enjoy!

Bye for now!
PBX

Did you turn it off and on again?

Hi All

Technology appears to be the Bain of my life! If it is not my laptop then it’s my camera or both, so once again my lack of presence on here is due to technology trying to ruin my life!! Okay maybe a tad over dramatic? But I come from the school of plug it in, switch it on and that is all I need to do! So apologies, apologies, I will have something food related in a mo!

Bye for now
PBx

Let me at him!

Hi All

I spent most part of this weekend feeling sleep deprived. And oh how I wished it was due to a night out on the tiles, getting somewhat merry to the wee hours. Then I wouldn’t have minded sluggishly pulling myself through the next day with a slight nervous twitch in my left eye! No it was due to a big fly! Although it wasn’t big by Jeff Goldblum standards, it was big enough to make a loud enough buzz that I couldn’t sleep, which prompted me out of my bed trying to coax it out through the window, or catch it in a glass. After the forth effort back and forth from my bed and realising that the fly did not leave graciously through the window. I turned into a large version of Scrappy Doo, slapping wildly around my bedroom with a slipper and muttering get out or die! Remember I was extremely tired!

By 3am the battle was won! I felt a little bad for splatting the fly however in my heart I do believe it was on it last wings? There are some lessons to be learned:

1) Turning into Scrappy Doo it never a good look!
2) Don’t leave your window open all day when it is summer!
3) Invest in some fly paper!

I am sure these are valuable lessons for you all to take you through the rest of this week?

Bye for now!

PBX

Snakes on a cake

Hi All

I had forgotten to post these pictures from the other week. It was my cousins son’s 10th birthday the other day (I think that’s makes him my 2nd cousin? I get lost after the first.) The brief was an iced cake with jelly snakes on it; to be honest I don’t think the cake was that important as long as it had the jelly snakes on it, as that is was what I could hear him repeatedly shouting in the background while I was on the phone to his mother.

This was a short notice request and my brain was running overtime with ideas on how I wanted the cake to look. Remember, the brief was simple so I don’t know why I was running my brain overtime? (I just like to give myself hard work!) In the end I opted for a fruit cake and I wanted to have the snakes curling around and on the cake in a crazed fashion, however my edible glue that I needed to stick them down with did not arrive until two days after the cake was required. So I think the snakes look like they are on the cake in a lazy fashion, oh well, I still think it looks cute!

Bye for now!

PBx

Reasons to eat chips

Hi All

Personally I thought I had enough reasons to eat chips, they’re tasty, they come in many shapes and sizes, fat, thin, curly, smiley faces! The invention of onion vinegar! And you can eat them with an array of condiments. Now, I love my condiments especially salad cream (I may write a post about this at a later date) so while cruising the aisle of a major chain supermarket the other day I noticed these. Heinz Tomato Ketchup blended with balsamic vinegar and HP Guinness sauce.





I am sure some of you may be contorting your faces at the thought of Guinness on your chips; although I haven’t tried this yet, don’t knock it. As I make a cupcake cake with Guinness and that taste pretty good.

So with my evenings dinner already planned, having Ketchup and HP sauce on it may have lower the tone of the meal to those I would be eating with. And scrapping my evening meal for a portion of chips wouldn’t go down too well, so I have yet to try these. I think a fish and chip supper is due very soon!

Bye for now!

PBX

Something old

Hi All

Over the weekend I attended the Vintage Festival on the Southbank. I was really looking forward to going to this, as I had looked at the pictures online at last years event at Goodwood and I was able to get a cheap ticket which got me into the events going on in the Royal Festival Hall. Although the Festival was celebration of fashion and music over the last fifty years. The majority of people who attended were dressed in outfits form the 1940's - 1950's and 2011 which the latter part was the style I adopted, ahem, check out the piccies below:

I really enjoyed all the outdoor activities, the food stalls , the refurbished double decker buses and the vintage market you had to get to in a hidden part of the Southbank over a small foot bridge, it made it feel like a secret hide away full of treasures. I felt slightly disappointed when I went inside for the events in the Royal Festival Hall, although this had craft workshops, makeovers and a retro living room to listen to music. I felt the vintage retro feel was slightly lost. I had meet an old friend while I was there and they said the same thing, as they went to the one at Goodwood and they I felt they were completely transported back in time at that event. However over all it was a good day and I will definitely go again next year!

Bye for now!

PBX