Wednesday round-up of deliciousness: Halloween edition

To all Nora's readers, I hope you're having a delicious Wednesday. I’m Hilary from Let Her Bake Cake, here to make your day that little bit tastier with a guest Wednesday round-up of deliciousness. Given that Halloween is coming up on Saturday, I thought I’d treat you (pun intended!) to a review of the week's best Halloween fare.

First, dinner. Before heading out to that fancy dress party or herding some small people trick or treating, you’ll need sustenance. To me, autumn food means simple, one pot cooking… and it often seems to involve chickpeas. This spicy squash and chickpea curry from Kitchenist, simple tomato and chickpea soup from The English Kitchen and spiced sweet potatoes and chickpeas from Sprouted Kitchen would all give you energy for the night ahead. If you’re not into chickpeas (though I can’t imagine why), these individual aubergine parmigianas over at The British Larder or a dish of baked ziti and sausage from Mark Bittman, one of my fave food writers, are both hearty enough to keep you warm on a cold night.

For dessert, it’s got to be pumpkin. I’ve been dreaming about Dinner with Julie's pumpkin spice bread pudding since laying eyes on it earlier this week. And Apple and Spice's pumpkin and chocolate version is such a neat take on self-saucing puddings, don’t you think? A simpler option would be The Food Librarian's pumpkin chocolate chip bundt cake, and, although it's an odd choice for October, nothing can beat this pumpkin milkshake at Closet Cooking for sheer ingenuity!

If you’re the driven, type-A, supermum/dad/anything sort, you might even try making your own Halloween treats rather than raiding the supermarket sweets aisle. Canadian food writer Lucy Waverman has some terrifically simple recipes for making childhood favourites at home – I might try out the homemade gummy worms tonight if I'm feeling particularly type-Aish after dinner.

Or take your cue from these crafty bloggers:

Caramel apples at Chocolate Shavings

Spider cupcakes from Bakerella

Candy corn at The Kitchn

Skull cookies from Is This Thing On?

And they might not have been posted this week, but I've just got to share these mummy hot dogs at My Fabulous Recipes. How freaking cute are they? I mean scary. Really, really scary...

Happy Halloween!

Daring Bakers: Macaroons

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

I've been meaning to give these a go for ages, but never got around to it. I'm glad that the Daring Bakers forced me into it, but I'm not sure I would say these are a success! I've seen macaroons all over blogsville recently but everyone seems to acknowledge that they're not easy. There's talk of whether one should age the egg whites, of the dire consequences of adding too much liquid and of issues with getting the little buggers off the paper. As a result of the latter, I popped to Lakeland and invested in a bit of reusable non stick liner, which worked beautifully. Just a shame about the macaroons!
Here they are:


I added a little lemon zest to the macaroons and filled them with raspberry buttercream. (Which turned out to look disturbingly like steak tartare.) And if I'd have wanted to make some nice almondy, lemony biscuits with a lovely raspberry filling, I'd have been happy. But these are not the magic macaroons of blogging legend. I suspect I didn't whisk enough and I'm determined to have another go. But I might well stick with that flavour combination, as it worked pretty well. Just got to work out how to stop the buttercream looking like minced meat...!

Wednesday round-up of deliciousness

First of all tonight, I would like to thank Claire from Purely Food for last week's fabulous round-up. Without it, I would have missed that fab guide to what's in season, not to mention the blueberry and banana breakfast muffins. Though I was glad to see that there were a few things I had my eye on too!
This week there were a couple of cakes from recipe books I own that I really think I should make. First of all, Graphic Foodie made a Red velvet cake from the Hummingbird Bakery, a bright red vanilla chocolate sponge. It looks just so spectacular and sounds delicious. Meanwhile, at What Rachel ate today, we have an Apple and olive oil cake from the Ottolenghi book. Putting olive oil in a cake sounds nearly as crazy as dyeing it bright red, but from Rachel's description ("light and airy ... wonderfully complex flavour ... luscious maple syrup icing ...") it sounds like it really really works.
There's only three more cakey numbers today. (What has come over me?!) But they are good ones, I promise. For a start we have a Simple lemon, almond and apricot cake from Let Her Bake Cake. It's a Nigel Slater recipe, always a sign of quality, and I for one am going to sign up to Hilary's campaign to get Nigel declared a national treasure. The last cake product is Millionaire shortbread with salted caramel from the Red Mangetout. I just love the idea of adding a little saltiness to counteract the sweetness. It's the cake equivalent of eating Walkers Sensations Thai Sweet Chilli crisps with Dairy Milk. Which is yummy, by the way. And finally in the cake section, we have Cinnamon pecan coffee cake from Apple & Spice. I'm not a fan of coffee but I've checked and there's none of it involved here. Phew. It's just a "moist butter cake with a generous middle layer of cinnamon sugar, pecans and raisins". How scrumptious does that sound? And I'm sure it's also perfectly possible to eat with tea!
Now, stuffed tofu may not sound the most appetising of meals, but trust me, go and take a look at this Fish stuffed fried tofu with black bean sauce from Hollow Legs and see what you think. I think it looks so, so tasty. I also like that Lizzie is specific about what kind of tofu you need, having been bewildered by the choice in the past.
But if you prefer a meatier meal, I can offer you two regional variations on the meatball theme. I love meatballs and I can't decide which one to try first. On the one hand we have Swedish meatballs from Cinnamon Spice & Everything Nice. Apparently they are soft with a spicy scent. Mmmmm. But then there are also these Zitoni al forno con le polpettine (basically baked pasta with ragú and meatballs) at Memorie di Angelina. A signature dish of Italian immigrant cooking, apparently. And a bloody good one, by the looks of it.
We have a couple of other examples of meaty deliciousness this week. For a start, we have these Roast chicken quarters with chorizo stuffing from Gastronomy Domine. You pop the stuffing under the skin and it makes the meat all moist and tasty. Yum! And then there's this Hungarian inspired Lamb and butternut squash stew from Sunita's world. It looks so full of flavour and warming.
Also, this week I learnt that a bisque is a smoothly puréed soup - and that I really want to make this Sweet potato, corn and jalapeño version. It's got maple syrup in it, which is quite intriguing, but we all know that sweet and spicy is a great combination (remember that chocolate/spicy crisp combo?). A slightly more familiar looking soup is this Roasted carrot and cumin soup from Rachel eats. The crispy pieces of pancetta on top are a stroke of genius! I might also give that a try with this Roasted butternut squash and caramelized onions over polenta, although it looks pretty damn delicious by itself.
These Asian barbeque chicken lettuce wraps from the Duo Dishes are recommended as a way to use up leftovers and they look absolutely scrumptious. I had a similar sort of thing in Korea and was totally converted. This Risotto with leeks, bacon and peas also looks incredibly tasty - I don't think I make enough risottos, so this would be a great place to start. I'm also going to keep these recipes for Braised red cabbage and Fish pie handy, as they both look like fantastic versions of classic dishes. Although I should warn you that the red cabbage post has some disturbing news about Cluedo.
I came across a couple of cookbooks this week that have gone straight to the top of my Amazon wishlist. Firstly, this post about Andrea Nguyen alerted me to the existence of her book Asian dumplings. Gyoza, spring rolls, samosas and more, apparently. Also known as a few of my favourite things! Meanwhile, The Graphic Foodie reviewed Antonio Carluccio's Simple Cooking. I've never used any of Antonio Carluccio's recipes, but the book sounds absolutely fab. Simple, but effective, you might say!
And to finish with something sweet, check out these Lemon ricotta pancakes with lemon curd from The Pink Peppercorn. Perfect for a showstopping brunch, apparently. So, who's coming over for brunch?

Apple and sultana cake

At the age of 10 or 11, I went to an open day at my local secondary school which involved a class on how to make a little Christmas decoration. The teacher, a Mrs Washington, was obviously quite taken with the design, because she kept telling us how it was 'simple but effective'. I obviously went home and quite mercilessly made fun of her, because 'simple but effective' became a bit of a family joke from then on.
Eating this cake, that little slogan popped into my head. Because it is, quite literally, simple but effective. The most challenging bit is probably chopping and slicing up a few apples. Apart from that it's a simple mix-it-all-up number. And the result is marvellous - a comforting, autumnal, fruity cake. I took it to work this morning and it disappeared very swiftly indeed. In fact, I couldn't even manage to photograph the cake this morning before Mr Splorer had taken a little slice out of it. Can you spot it? Ah well, I'll take that as a compliment!
The recipe is from the fabulous Caked Crusader. Head over to the post here for the recipe and some far superior photos!

Wednesday round-up of deliciousness

Welcome to another guest blogger Wednesday round-up of deliciousness. I'm Claire from Purely food and I will be doing this week's round-up for Nora.

Here in the UK autumn is definitely here and for me that means eating and cooking delicious, hearty, comfort foods such as warming bowls of soups and stews as well as autumnal fruit crumbles. This week there were lots of blog posts that fell in to these categories so I am going to share my favorites with you. First off though I want to share with you a great 2 page guide to what's in season here in the UK in autumn produced by Sophie of Mostly eating. The guide is available here and is free to download. It combines a list of what fruit and vegetables are in season and a lot of quick recipe ideas using them (and is very pretty too!). Mostly eating is a great blog about eating healthily and also ethically and is well worth a visit if you're not familiar with it.

Now on to the recipes. First up is a delicious recipe from Smitten kitchen, who is back in the kitchen (and blogging) just 3 weeks after her gorgeous baby boy was born. This week she shared with us a delicious looking breakfast apple granola crisp, which is high up on my list of recipes to try. Next up is another delicious idea for breakfast from Donal of The good mood food blog. He posted some very tasty looking blueberry and banana breakfast muffins. I couldn't work out how to get a direct link but these were posted on 12th October and should still be on the front page, if not try his recipe archive (trust me, they look worth the effort).

The British larder posted a stunning collection of deliciousness. including a warming bowl of a Turkish inspired aubergine soup, a chocolate and Amaretti torte (in honour of Chocolate week), orange and cardamon soaked brioche buns and venison and smoked pancetta meatballs. I want to try them all!

Gnocchi has been on my list of things I want to try making for ages. This week Vanilla Garlic showed off some delicious looking autumnal coloured gnocchi made with russet and sweet potatoes. Another idea for potatoes caught my eye this week from The pioneer woman cooks, Roasted garlic and new potatoes. I often make my own potato wedges with rosemary or thyme and a few cloves of garlic but I have never tried roasting a whole bulb of garlic to serve with them. I have roasted garlic in this way and used it to make roasted garlic mash potato and Ree is not exaggerating when she says roasted garlic is out of this world! I also love the look of these mouth-watering Shredded beef and caramelised onion enchiladas from For the love of cooking.

As usual delicious baked good and desserts were abundant on food blogs, including pumpkin and hazelnut doughnuts , spiced quince crumble, hazelnut torte, Cinnabuns and a spiced plum and pear crumble.

Today is the reveal date for October's Daring Cooks' Challenge. This month we made Vietnamese pho (noodle soup). You can see my entry here (sorry for the shameless plug!) and also some more great entries here, here and here. There are so many more I could mention but these were just the ones in my blog reader. Worthy of a particular mention is Audrax who as normal did several varieties, was the first to complete the challenge and offered help and advice to everyone else.

I hope you have enjoyed reading my round-up of deliciousness as much as I have enjoyed putting it together.

Wednesday round-up of deliciousness

Hello all, I'm back in the round-up saddle! Thanks again to Issy for a marvellous round-up last week and as I said, she will be first of a series of guest round-uppers. But don't worry, I shan't be deserting you altogether. I'll still be here, not least because I do this for me as much as for you. I really do flick back through these posts looking for inspiration.
And so for that reason, I'm going to cheekily mention just a few dishes from last week, just because I don't want to forget them! For a start, the Fresh from the oven challenge, stuffed buns, looked so yummy and here are a couple of examples: one with a spicy paneer filling and one with a spicy Indian chicken filling. Soft bready buns with a delicious spicy filling - how good does that sound?!
The other things that I don't want to forget about from the previous week are threefold. Firstly we have an Earl Grey tea bread, possibly the answer to all my fruit cake prayers. Secondly we have a Cardamom and ginger chicken with cashews, a favourite of Heavenly Housewife's hubby. I've tried his favourite curry and I trust that husband's taste buds, so I want to try anything that gets his seal of approval. And thirdly I just have to mention these donuts. They are so cute and look like such fun to decorate. I think I need to get me a mini-doughnut tin. How popular would that make me?!
Right, onto this week's round-up. Firstly, the prize for just the most appetizing meal I've seen for quite a serious amount of time goes to the Debora at love and a licked spoon. Her very lucky book group received rosemary cashews, Julia Child's boeuf bourguignon (which is such a nightmare to spell!), lemon posset and lemon-glazed madeleines. In my (newly joined) book club we just go down the pub. I think it might be time to start some kind of book club revolution - I want madeleines!
Meanwhile, there's nothing that attracts my culinary attention more than a claim of greatness. Anne suggests that these are possibly the best ever chocolate chip cookies and I really want to find out if that's true. I'll let you know what I discover!
There are lots of soups around at the moment, due, no doubt, to that autumnal weather going on outside. I know you're not supposed to, but I am loving this weather. Or, perhaps more honestly, I'm loving getting in out of it and making myself a warming soup. So this week I have been tempted by White onion soup, a tribute to Keith Floyd, this Split pea and chicken soup and this Garlic soup. And as usual, there's a delicious bread to accompany it - this time it's Onion and Cheese French Bread.
This Sausage and pepper stromboli looks amazing - it's a pizza rolled up with fillings and baked. Such squishiness and tastiness. This Quiche lorraine also looks so yummy - and extremely impressive considering it was made with a newborn in the kitchen. I can't manage such perfection under normal circumstances! Oooh, and speaking of perfection, check out this Apple and blackberry pie. It's a classic combination but Katie's version is just beautiful.
This Saffron coconut halibut looks so easy - it has four ingredients! And so yummy - I just love the combination of coconut and fish. Deep fried anchovies with chilli and preserved lime mayo also looks like a fab fish dish. I've just got to find some fresh anchovies and I'm making it asap!
And last but not least, there are two recipes that really jumped out at me this week. Something about this Butternut squash, spinach and goat's cheese pie with cheesy pastry and this Rolo cake just really float my boat. Possibly not in the same sitting, but I'm going to make these babies. As Katie says, nothing says I love you like a pie. Or perhaps a Rolo cake.

Smoked haddock chowder with leeks and sweetcorn

Of late, I've been really enjoying Nigel Slater's Simple Suppers series on telly. I love Nigel anyway - he's all about the sausages, chocolate and chips as far as I can tell, and I like that in a man. But the recipes in this series do look genuinely simple and yummy - like the sort of thing you just throw together in your kitchen if you happen to be a marvellous food writer.
Most of the recipes are up on the BBC website. I can't find them in a collection but if you go to BBC Food and type in Nigel Slater's Simple Suppers, they all come up. I'm not sure if they'll be there forever though, so I keep meaning to cut and paste the ones that I fancy.
Anyway, this evening we tried out the Smoked haddock chowder with leeks and sweetcorn. And it was niiiice. But it felt like a starting point recipe. I immediately want to make it again so I can make it better. But I think that is partially the point of the series - these are supposed to be ideas that you adjust according to your taste. So, next time I'd caramelise the leeks a bit for extra flavour, maybe add more sweetcorn and thicken the sauce a bit. If I manage it, I'll let you know! In the meantime, check out the series and/or the recipes.

Raspberry risen pancakes

Hello all. I feel like I haven't been around too much of late - sorry about that. I've had one of those fairly mild but tough-to-get-rid-of fluey things and it just took away all my enthusiasm for eating and cooking. Mr Splorer has been an angel looking after me and making me good things to eat, even when I didn't fancy it.
I even missed my usual Wednesday appointment, but you got the lovely Issy instead. I thought it would be good to have some guest round-uppers. If I'm the only one doing it, you'll never get anything that contains mushrooms, marzipan, peanut butter and any number of foodstuffs I'm not that keen on. Plus, there's only so many blogs I can follow without spending my whole life sifting through posts, but I'm worried that I might be missing out some fab ones. I appealed to the lovely folk of the UKFBA and a few people seemed interested, so hopefully we can have regular guest spots. So, thank you to Issy for being the first ever guest round-upper and doing it so well. (Oooh, that chocolate crunched caramel tart looks amazing!) And if anyone else wants to volunteer, do let me know - the more the merrier!
In the meantime, I'm gradually getting my urge to cook back, although not always totally successfully. Yesterday, I was feeling all nostalgic for the days when I lived in the Welsh borders and we would go out for long walks up bracken covered hills with the most amazing views. Of course, at the time little sis and I always had to be dragged on these walks, occasionally literally kicking and screaming, but looking back, it seems like a great day to spend a day. (Must be getting old...) And then you'd get home and have a slice of cake and a cup of tea next to the fire and watch Pride and Prejudice on TV. And the cake I'm picturing in this fantasy version of my childhood was fruit cake. My parents used to make a great fruit cake - there was something about the crust that was just full of spicy flavour. I mentioned it to little sis and she knows exactly the cake I mean, but Mum didn't know what I was talking about. She said that maybe she used a Constance Spry recipe, maybe a Prue Leith. Either way, she doesn't have it anymore. I suspect it was a much changed version of one or both of the above, adjusted slightly every time she made it. Why didn't I pay more attention to what my parents were doing when I was a kid, instead of lolling by the fire, waiting for cake to arrive?!
So yesterday, the hunt was on for a fruit cake. Not a Christmas cake, definitely no marzipan, and preferably no leaving fruit to soak overnight (I wanted my fruit cake now!). But does no one make fruit cake now except for Christmas?! That's all there was in my books and I couldn't find an online recipe that I had much faith in. So I ended up with an easy Christmas cake from Nigella. But you will, by now, have noted that the title of this post is not fruit cake and yes, that means it exactly didn't go smoothly. I managed to use bicarbonate of soda where I should have used baking soda (who exactly was it that decided to make those pots look IDENTICAL?) and somehow totally forgot to add the eggs. Having just tried it, it's not too bad, quite like a Christmas pudding in taste and texture. But it's not the flavoursome, spicy fruit cake of my dreams.
But I'm not giving up! I'll keep you posted on the fruit cake mission. And of course, if anyone has a fab recipe for a fruit cake, preferably one handed down from a granny, please do feel free to email it to me! (I feel that quite a lot of this post is like the scene in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where Arthur Dent explains to the Nutri-Matic drinks machine about summers on the lawn and the East India company to try and get a decent cup of tea - sorry about that! No idea what I'm talking about? Well, shame on you, go read the books - they're fab.)
Anyway, raspberry risen pancakes! In between all the fruit cake shenanigans, I whipped up a batch of these with absolutely no problems. They were easy peasy, didn't require any special ingredients apart from the fruit, rose beautifully and tasted great. What's not to love? I highly recommend them as a Sunday brunch, especially when you're feeling a bit despondent in the kitchen.
I cut the recipe out of a copy of Observer Food Monthly and my scribbles next to it lead me to believe it's from a book called Spooning with Rosie by Rosie Lovell.

Makes 10

1 egg
130g self raising flour
50g caster sugar
pinch of salt
1 tsp baking powder (check the label!)
150ml milk
2 tbs butter
170g raspberries
icing sugar

Preheat the oven to its lowest setting (about 100C). Pop in a dish lined with a clean cloth to warm up.
Beat the egg, then add half the flour, the sugar, salt and baking powder, beating with a whisk. Then add the milk, making sure there are no lumps, then the rest of the flour. Add a little water if necessary to creat a creamy and lumpless consistency. Set aside for an hour if possible.
Heat 1 tbsp of butter in a large frying pan. When it's hot, add a spoonful of batter and sprinkle with 6-8 raspberries. Cook two or three at a time. Allow them to get brown on the bottom and then flip over and colour the other side. Each side should take just over minute. When they are ready put in the warm dish. They are best after 10 minutes drying out in the warm oven. Dust with some icing sugar.
The recipe says to serve them with clotted cream but that would have involved shopping, so we didn't have any. I'm sure it would make a great addition, but I thought they were pretty good without.

Right, I'm off for a walk on the only hills in Cambridgeshire!