Michael Jackson Cake

 Using the recipe in my post from March for the cake and vanilla buttercream (5oz softened butter, 10oz icing sugar, 1tsp of vanilla essence for the crumb coat, half that for the final layer of icing) icing at the birthday boy's request, I made the magnificent creation to the left.

I did use paper towels/kitchen paper to smooth the buttercream down as the internet advises but my paper towel had quite a bumpy pattern AND it was the last sheet on the roll so had some creases on it so my finish was not quite perfect. Alas.

I bought black ready-made fondant icing from Tesco which tastes pretty decent. I printed the silhouette of Michael Jackson from a Google image search and put it over the rolled out icing, pricked all around it with a pin and then cut it out carefully before placing on top of the cake. I think it worked quite well and the birthday boy was pleased. My next challenge may well be making my own marshmallow fondant.

Chocolate Cake

This one is adapted from this recipe here . However, I have adapted because I am a traditionalist and feel compelled to use butter, not oil, in a cake. It's actually in the oven baking as I type so who knows if this adaptation was a success.
Update 1 - just looked in the window to the oven. With 12 minutes baking time left, one of the cakes has overspilled the tin. However, it does look quite delicious.

It has also been partly driven by necessity and availability of tools - I have no weighing scales at the moment so cups were an easier measurement.

Ingredients
2 cups sugar
100g of butter (well, actually, about 1/4 of the 454g package of butter)
2 eggs
1.5 tsp of vanilla essence
2 cups of self-raising flower
1.5 tsp of bicarbonate of soda
pinch of salt
.75 cup of cocoa
1 cup of milk
.5 cup of boiling water

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350F/180C
2. Cream together butter and sugar
3. Add eggs and mix
4. Add vanilla essence and mix
5. Add 1 cup of flour and .5 cup of milk and mix
6. Add second cup of flour with salt and bicarbonate of soda and mix
7. Add the other half cup of milk and the cocoa and mix
8. Add water until you have the desired consistency - not runny but not stiff...just about pourable
9. Put into two prepared cake tins and bake in oven for approx 35 minutes until toothpick inserted comes out clean

Meatballs in tomato sauce

I am not sure why but the sauce for these always seems to work better than my almost identical attempts for bolognese sauce. Hmm.. I use a medium tray, I suppose of minced beef. Will have to check the packaging but it's about 2lb, I think. This made 23 meatballs last night of which 14 were cooked in the sauce and 9 were frozen for use at a later date.

Ingredients

For the sauce
- splash of olive oil
- teaspoon of fennel seeds
- 1 small to medium onion, chopped
- 1 small carrot, finely chopped or grated
- 3-4 cloves of garlic (the more the merrier, to be honest..but I guess it depends on your taste)
- 1/2 big tin of crushed tomatoes
-1/2 of the tin (or 2 small glasses) of water
- 1tsp sugar
- salt and pepper

For the meatballs
- minced beef, I try to buy medium but it's more often lean (not extra lean)
- salt and pepper for seasoning
- 1 egg
- breadcrumbs - about a cup
- 1 or 2 cloves of crushed garlic

Method
Sauce
1. Heat the oil in a pan on a medium heat with the fennel seeds
2. While this is happening, chop your onion finely
3. Add onion to oil and fennel seeds and cook, stirring occasionally for five minutes...or a bit more even
4. Chop or grate the carrot while onions are cooking and then add to the pot and allow to cook for 3 further minutes
5. Stir in the majority of the crushed garlic cloves (so, if using 4, crush 3 of them into the pot now)
6. Add tomatoes, water, sugar, and salt and pepper and stir.
7. Bring to the boil over the medium heat and simmer of five minutes before blending (careful now!) with a hand blender
8. Allow to simmer away while you make the meatballs, lid off is fine. Stir occasionally. Reduce heat once it has boiled.

Meatballs
1. Empty mince into large bowl.
2. Season with salt and pepper and add crushed garlic
3. Add breadcrumbs and crack the egg into the bowl.
4. Mix and squeeze it all in with your hands
5. Once thoroughly mixed, shape into balls. I make them about the size of a ping pong ballish, I think. To make sure they will hold their shape, a squish in the fist and re-roll doesn't go amiss.
6. Add them to the simmering sauce, one at a time until the pot is at capacity and give a gentle stir.
7. Add the final clove of garlic from the sauce mix now.
8. Simmer for 20 minutes on a gentle heat or until it is dinner time

Serve with buttered spaghetti

Butter Chicken

I have combined 2 recipes in this mostly according to what ingredients I had around and the amount of time I was willing to put into it all. I have made it a few times and it generally goes down well.

Chicken for marinade
- chicken - I generally have 2 chicken breasts from the supermarket, about 1lb
- 1tbsp of lemon juice
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1/2 tbsp garam masala
- salt

1. Cut up the chicken into cubes
2. Combine the ingredients in a zip top bag and massage it in, leave to stand while you get the sauce ready OR overnight in the fridge

Sauce
- 1tbsp butter
- 1 chopped onion
- 4 cloves minced garlic
- 1 tbsp grated ginger
-  1tsp chili powder (I have mostly used a shake of paprika 'cause my chili jar is empty)
- 1/2 tsp of turmeric
- 1/2tsp of ground coriander
- 1/4tsp (or a bit more) of ground cinnamon
- 1/4tsp (or a bit more) of ground cumin
- 1/2 can of chopped tomatoes
- 1 cup of chicken stock
- 1/3 tbsp of brown sugar
 - salt
- pepper
- 1/4 cup of sour cream (have often left this out or substituted yoghurt)
- chopped fresh coriander
- 1tbsp of cashew butter (often have left this out)

1. Melt butter in large pot, medium heat
2. Add onions and garlic, cook slowly, stiffing often for about 5 minutes
3. Add ginger, chili, turmeric, ground coriander, cinnamon and cumin and cook for 1 minute.
4. Add tomatoes, stock, sugar, salt and pepper. Top up with some water if there is not enough sauce.
5. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 10  minutes.
6. Blend sauce using hand blender to make it smooth
7. Add chicken to cook for 20 minutes or so, ensuring it is simmering and bubbling.
8. When just about ready to serve, stir in sour cream, cashew butter and fresh coriander.

Serve with yummy rice.

Chicken soup stew (eaten by Zeds and R)

Ingredients

- olive oil (1 tbsp)

- onion

- garlic

- ground cumin 

- fennel seeds

- finely chopped carrot

- chopped pepper

- diced chicken breast

- salt and pepper

- chicken stock

- peeled and diced potato

Method

1. Heat oil

2. Add finely chopped onion, fry for a few minutes til some starts to brown. Add cumin.

3. Add garlic, fennel seeds and carrot and fry for a few minutes

4. Add chicken and cook on medium I'm mostly white

5. Cover with cup of stock and added water

6. Add potatoes, bring to boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer 'til ready to serve.

Chocolate brownies- good ones

This was the pan half an hour after they were cool enough to eat- the Zeds had 3 each with Z1 repeatedly proclaiming them to be delicious.

Ingredients

- 1/2 cup butter

- 1 cup sugar

- 1 tsp vanilla essence 

- 2 eggs

- 1/3 cup cocoa

- 1/2 cup flour

- 1/4 tsp salt

- 1/4 tsp baking powder

Method

1. Preheat oven to 355F and grease pan

2. Melt butter in a medium pot

3. Remove from heat and mix in sugar, eggs and vanilla essence

4. Beat in cocoa, flour, salt and baking powder 

5. Pour into tin

6. Bake for 25 minutes. Don't over cook. Cool and cut in the pan.

Zucchini and Apple Cake

Yes, I am Irish and zucchinis are really called courgettes in my brain but courgettes do seem to be chiefly used in cakes in North America and so zucchini cake, it is.

We were given a very large zucchini by our neighbour so baking had to be the way to go.
I made chocolate zucchini muffins (from some recipe on Pinterest that I did not save...well, the recipe was for cake/bread but I didn't have a suitable cake tin so made muffins and Z1 enjoyed them for her first week of school at lunch) with one half of the courgette and Z1 wanted to bake on the following rainy Saturday. She wanted to put apple in it and so we did. She had strong ideas about the apple  -  it was to be peeled and chopped but NOT grated and not sliced and put on the top a la upside down cake or as decoration.

Here is the recipe we used:

INGREDIENTS
2 cups of flour
2 cups of light brown sugar
2 tsp of baking soda
1tsp of baking powder
1/2tsp of salt (recipe said 1tsp but I found the muffins of earlier in the week too salty so cut it down)
1tsp of cinnamon (I might use 2 next time)
1 cup of oil
3 eggs, beaten
2tsp of vanilla
2 cups of grated zucchini (I left the peel on, you can do either - taking it off will mean it's easier to pass  off as not containing vegetables if that's what you want to do!)
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and chopped into pieces, kind of dice-sized, probably a bit bigger.      Roughly cubed, I guess one could say.

METHOD

1. Preheat oven to 350F
2. Grease your loaf tin/cake tin (we used a cake tin)
3. Mix dry ingredients together 
4. Add vanilla essence, egg and oil to the dry ingredients and mix well
5. Add in the grated zucchini and mix well
6. Mix in the chopped apple and try to distribute it evenly throghout the mix 
7. Pour into cake tin and check again to distribute the apples evenly
8. Bake for about 1h10minutes...not sure if I should have made it 375C for shorter or what but tis took a LONG time to bake.
9. Leave to cool in tin for 10 minutes and then remove and allow to cool on a wire rack