An Evening of Coffee & Ice Cream

I have spoken recently of my longing for an automatic ice cream maker and it seems as though the ice cream gods have been listening as last week I was invited to attend an evening of coffee and ice cream run by Gaggia – an Italian company who make great coffee machines and also…a professional automatic ice cream maker!

Feeling very excited I turned up at a secret location in London (La Cucina Caldesi Cookery School) where I met up with two other bloggers – Dom from Chocoblog and Kevay from Kevay Eats, who I’ve had the pleasure of meeting before.

We were introduced to a top barrister, Paul, who took us through the finer points of coffee growing, the importance of grinding and how to make the perfect cup of coffee. This was really interesting and I picked up lots of hints and tips. What Paul doesn’t know about coffee isn’t worth knowing!

Did you know that despite popular belief that keeping coffee in the fridge will keep it better this is actually not true – not in terms of brewing the perfect coffee anyway. It’s the oils in the coffee that contain the flavour and so keeping them in a cold place will make them harden and not release their flavour so effectively when used – imagine what would happen if you tried to keep your olive oil in the fridge. Also, taking the coffee in and out of the fridge every time you use it will keep altering the humidity and temperature within the bag, creating moisture, which will probably actually speed up the rate of deterioration. It’s best to just squeeze the air out of your bag of coffee and keep it in a cool dark cupboard instead.

Paul also explained how when using freshly ground coffee its important to only use the first shot, around 30ml to get the best purest flavour. An espresso shot amount. If you want a larger or weaker cup of coffee than an espresso, don’t simply leave the water running through the machine for longer, as this draws the bitterness out of the coffee resulting in a poor tasting coffee. Instead, just dilute your espresso shot with clean hot water or milk. To prove this to us he made an espresso shot of coffee, which produced a rich darkly coloured liquid with a thick crème head that smelt rich, slightly sweet and smoky. He then took another shotfull, which turned out much weaker in colour, with no crème head and smelt strongly like stale ashtrays – not pleasant. If you had used a large cup and left the water running you would ruin your first run of fabulous coffee by adding the stale ashtray into it. Try making a cup yourself both ways and you’ll see what I mean (sorry the photos a bit blurry).

We then got to experiment with the machines ourselves making espresso’s and cappuccinos.

Buzzing with caffeine we then moved onto ice cream. This was run by Jo Pratt who is a food stylist, writer and presenter. She was lovely and very easy to talk to. She showed us how to make two different batches of ice cream using the new automatic Gaggia Gelateria which doesn’t need any pre-freezing. One was a divine salted caramel ice cream and the other a delicious fresh strawberry and marshmallow ice cream.

The salted caramel one was divine – unbelievably smooth and so creamy. Just like the gelato I remember eating in Italy a few years ago. I’m not normally a caramel fan, as it often tastes just of sugar, but this one had such a depth of caramel flavour, sweet yet with a salty note. Jo also showed us how to make some cinnamon roasted pecans to accompany the ice cream. These were divine and I couldn’t stop munching them, were fabulous with the ice cream.

The strawberry ice cream was made with fresh pureed strawberries. This resulted in a pale, yet naturally pink tinted ice cream and the flavour…WOW! It was so fresh and summery and obviously strawberry flavoured. Goodness knows what shops put into their strawberry ice cream, but they never taste like this.

Then oh joy of joys, we were presented with an ice cream machine and a table of ingredients from which to create our own ice cream flavour – eeeeeeee!

I created a cinnamon (obviously) ice cream with fresh blueberries and crumbled pecan nuts. It was so much fun watching it churn in the ice cream machine and as I hadn’t added any additional liquid ingredients to the ice cream base, my ice cream was ready in about 20 minutes! You can’t beat that for speed. It ended up wonderfully thick and creamy. The cinnamon flavour was really pronounced, but I think next time I would cook the blueberries a bit of sugar as they stayed restively whole and went a bit hard. My ice cream was also lacking a bit of sweetness, I’ve learnt you have to over sweetened the mix as the sweetness flavour lessens after it’s frozen. I’ll know for next time.

Kevay created a delicious, yet incredibly alcoholic ice cream using chocolate liqueur, kahula coffee liqueur, chocolate chunks & toasted pecans. Whoa! This tasted almost of pure alcohol, but would be fantastic served in shot glasses with a dessert at a dinner party. Not one for children or the afternoons though.

Dom made a caramel ice cream with chocolate chunks, pecans and Grand Marnier liqueur. I really liked the combination of the chocolate and orange liqueur.

Everyone gabbed spoons and went round tasting all the different ice creams. Ooff I ate so much! I couldn’t decide which was my favourite and kept having ‘just one more spoonful’ of each just to check. I think in the end Jo’s strawberry ice cream (minus the marshmallows) was my favourite. It was so fresh and fruity.

The evening ended with Paul making some coffee cocktails and some amazing coffee art on the tops of some frothy coffees. Much more impressive than the usual cocoa dusting.

It was a fabulous evening and I went home buzzing thanks to a concoction of coffee, alcohol and copious amounts of ice cream. I was so overly stimulated, and different ice cream flavours kept floating into my head, that I didn’t sleep a wink that night but it was so worth it! I am longing to have my own ice cream maker even more now. The extra exciting news, that had me jumping up and down in delight, is that Gaggia are going to loan me the Gelateria for a couple of weeks to see if I can create some new ice cream flavours!!! How cool is that?!

Below are the recipes for Jo’s caramel and strawberry ice creams, with (hopefully) some of my own to follow shortly.

Strawberry Mallow Ice Cream

150ml milk
2 large egg yolks
½ tsp vanilla extract
125g caster sugar
150ml double cream
250g fresh ripe strawberries
75g mini marshmallows, or larger ones, chopped

Pour the milk into a saucepan gently bring to the boil.
Beat together the egg yolks, vanilla extract and roughly half of the sugar until they are pale and creamy. Stir in the hot milk, return the liquid to the saucepan and stir continuously over a low heat until it thickens and just starts to coat the back of your spoon (it should be the consistency of double cream). Make sure you don’t boil the custard because it may separate and curdle. If you feel it is getting too hot, remove from the heat and just continue stirring until it thickens.
Remove the pan from the heat, stir in the cream and leave to cool slightly.
Meanwhile, place the strawberries and remaining half of caster sugar in a food processor or liquidiser and blend until smooth. Push through a sieve to remove any seeds. Stir into the cooled custard along with the marshmallows.
Place in the ice-cream machine and churn for 30 minutes, until thick and frozen.
Note: If you don’t have time to make your own custard, then simply use 250ml of bought ready-made custard and stir in 200ml double cream before adding the pureed strawberries and marshmallows.

Caramel Ice Cream with Cinnamon Pecans
The pecans are a delicious serving suggestion, but are equally good eaten on their own.

Caramel Ice Cream
150g caster sugar
200ml milk
4 large egg yolks
200ml double cream
large pinch of salt

Pecans
200g pecans
½ egg white
½ tsp ground cinnamon
pinch of salt
75g caster sugar

To make the ice-cream, place half of the sugar in a saucepan over a low heat, and gently heat until the sugar dissolves and turns to a deep golden colour. To ensure even colouring, swirl the pan a couple of times throughout. Once the sugar has caramelised, leave to cool for about 5 minutes before adding the milk. Return the pan to the heat and bring to the boil, stirring until the caramel dissolves into the milk.
Meanwhile, beat together the egg yolks, salt and remaining half of sugar until pale in colour. Stir in the caramel milk, then add the cream. Leave to cool completely before pouring into the ice-cream machine and churning for 30 minutes, until thick and frozen.

To make the pecans, pre-heat the oven to 200C/180C fan ovens/gas 6.
Lightly whisk the egg white until it is frothy. Add the pecans, cinnamon, salt and sugar. Mix until the nuts are evenly coated before transferring to a baking tray lined with baking paper. Spread into a single layer, and bake for 8-10 minutes until they are crunchy. Cool for a few minutes before breaking any that have stuck together.
The pecans are now ready to scatter over the top of the finished ice-cream.

A Fantastico Evening with Gennaro Contaldo & Bertolli Sauces

Tuesday evening found me gathered in the downstairs cookery workshop of London’s L’atelier des Chefs along with a group of 10-12 food bloggers for an evening of Italian food and sauces. The event was being run by Bertolli to showcase their new range of Italian sauces in association with none other than famous Italian chef Gennaro Contaldo! For those of you who don’t know Gennaro the man responsible for inspiring Jamie Oliver’s love of Italian cuisine and has also appeared in a number of his tv programmes.

Walking down the stairs to the cookery workshop I felt like I was entering some secret underground bunker. The walls were lined with cookware while a large professional kitchen was visible through a huge glass wall. The room was dimly lit and a large table filled one end of the room, covered with a red chequered tablecloth and bowls of olives, bread and olive oil and balsamic for dipping.

Over drinks and introductions we waited for Gennaro to arrive. The other bloggers were a lovely bunch and a lot of them seemed to know each other. I had a great chat with Helen of Fuss Free Flavours but I was also pleased when Anne of Anne’s Kitchen turned up, as I’ve met her once before and it was good to catch up. Then all of a sudden Gennaro arrived and everyone became very excited as he took time to chat to us all individually.

We then made our way to the kitchens where we were given aprons and big white floppy chefs hats to wear before being split into tables to work with. Here’s Anne modelling the outfit. I don’t know if the hats were sized, but I think mine must have been a large as at one point in the evening it fell completely over my eyes and nose, making me feel very foolish. Thankfully I think everyone was too absorbed with what they were doing to notice.

Gennaro started by telling us that most Italian sauces start with a Soffritto base. This is a mix of finely diced carrot, onion, celery and garlic with is sweated off before adding tomatoes and any other ingredients. This gives the sauce extra depth of flavour and is the method and base used for all the Bertolli sauces, which are also made using Italian ingredients. Gennaro told us that he wasn’t promoting the sauces to replace normal cooking but more as good staples to have on standby for when you are short of time or come home late and open the fridge to find only some milk and a few bendy carrots for dinner.

The sauces come in a range of flavours and Gennaro demonstrated three different dishes to us using the sauces. He cooked a chunky beef ragu using the bolognaise sauce, some poached mackerel, capers and oregano in the tomato and basil variety and a vegetarian mushroom and courgette bolognaise. The smells coming off the dishes were fantastic and very fresh and authentic. Gennaro is so passionate and enthusiastic about Italian food and cooking that he was constantly jumping around, shouting Italian phrases and making us laugh with stories, all accompanied by big hand gestures and facial expressions. It made a great atmosphere but meant he never stood still long enough for me to get an un-blurred photo of him!

While these dishes were bubbling away we got to make our own Soffritto base to which we added tins of whole Italian tomatoes – which we had to squash using our hands – nice and squishy!

He then demonstrated that by adding a few chopped chillies we could turn our simple sauce into a spicy Arrabbiatta sauce. He said to use 1 or 2 chillies as the small ones he was given were quite hot, but he then got a bit carried away with his story about how not to touch your face or go to the toilet after chopping chillies (see pic below) and ended up chopping about 12 which he divided between our four joint pots – good thing I like my sauce spicy!

We didn’t have time to finish cooking our sauces so we were all provided with our own customised jar and label so we could bring our sauce home and continue cooking with it later. I thought that was a really nice touch.

Then it was time to eat. We all sat around the big table sipping Prosecco and nibbling on the bread and olives while the dishes were plated up.

Gennaro asked if there were any Vegetarians and of course, up went my hand rather sheepishly. It was the only hand… but Gennaro proclaimed loudly that he loved Vegetarians and that some of his favourite recipes were Vegetarian and gave me a huge portion of the Veggie ragu on tagliatelle while the others sampled the mackerel followed by the ragu (modelled here by Josh of Cooking The Books).

The veggie ragu was delicious and had a wonderfully deep tomato flavour. Being Italian the pasta was of course served al dente, just as I like it. By the appreciative sounds coming from the other diners I think the other dishes were very good too.

At the end of the evening we were all presented with a selection of the Bertolli sauces, recipe cards and recipe book for us to take away and experiment with ourselves. I was also delighted to be given a signed copy of Gennaro’s cookery book, complete with lots of delicious sounding dishes. I came away full, happy and inspired to get cooking Italian food. Thanks to everyone at Wildcard and Bertolli for organising it and to Gennaro for being so enthusiastic and friendly. It was a fantastico way to spend an evening!

Jordans Country Crisp Appreciation Society Day

Yesterday I was one of a few lucky bloggers to be invited to the first Country Crisp Appreciation Society day run by Jordans Cereals at Leiths School of Food and Wine in London. I was delighted about this as I adore cereal and have been eating Jordans products for many years. For those of you who don’t know, Jordans produce a delicious range of oat based mueslis, cereal bars, porridge oats and Country Crisp clusters. They are based in Biggleswade, in my own hometown of Bedfordshire and use only the finest natural ingredients in their cereals.

Some of the other cereal enthusiast bloggers were:
Kavita of Kavey Eats
Signe of Scandilicious
Mathilde of Mathilde’s Cuisine
The Muesli Lover
Greedy Diva
The Ginger Gourmand
Danny of Food Urchin
Maunika of Cook in a Curry

Jordans Country Crisp cereal has been around for several years, and comprises of clusters of oats and barley baked into various sized clusters. It comes in many varieties depending on what add-ins you have with it. I have always favoured the raisin one which has lovely giant chewy flame raisins mixed in with it. The crisp clusters are hugely popular and the whole Country Crisp range has now got such a fan base that Jordans have just launched a Country Crisp Appreciation Society. People can’t get enough of it and are eating it not only at breakfast but also baking with it and snacking on it straight out the box. As a result they have recently launched a honey variety which is designed with snackers in mind – bigger clusters with no add-ins to pick through, although, it does of course still taste great for breakfast.

After a meet and greet one of the two founders of Jordans, Bill Jordan himself then gave us a talk about the history and philosophy behind Jordans. He was ever so friendly and stayed to answer all our questions as we got down to some baking. Apparently it took 83 different recipes before they achieved the perfect cluster – now that’s dedication! Jordans were also the first to offer freeze fried berries in its cereal and all its oats are grown in the fields near the factory and to conservation standard.
Jordans head of taste, Kirsten, then talked us through a Country Crisp Pear and Chocolate Crumble Cake we would be baking using Jordans Chocolate Country Crisp. We were each given our own work space and ingredients and set about baking. It was a vanilla sponge cake, studded with chocolate chips, topped with a layer of Chocolate Country Crisp, sautéed sliced pears and a final sprinkle of more Country Crisp. The recipe can be found here. It produced a delicious cake and it was interesting to see how everyone’s cake turned out a little differently, even though we had all followed the same recipe. The way the pears had been sliced or the amount of Country Crisp topping made each one unique.

While our cakes were baking Kirsten talked us through the secrets to making new Country Crisp recipes. There are 3 different cluster bases, Vanilla, Nutty and Honey from which to add and create new products. Getting the clusters just right took a lot of research. Customers told Jordans they liked the big clusters but then complained that it was too much to chew if the pack only contained big clusters. Too many small clusters meant they weren’t clustery enough. Jordans have found that a mix of small, medium and large clusters is most successful. To do this they sort and grade the clusters after oven baking them to ensure every box is perfect. Even the add ins have proved problematic as high water content fruits like peaches proved too bland and the cut or shape of a nut dramatically changes the texture and mouthfeel of the cereal. It’s Kirsten’s job to taste and help develop the recipes – how fantastic a job does that sound!

We then got the opportunity to get creative and mix our own Country Crisp cereal using the oaty crisp clusters as a base and a fantastic array of add-in ingredients. I chose pecans, hazelnuts, giant flame raisins, pumpkin and sesame seeds, natural apple and apricot pieces and flaked coconut. I then went back and added a handful of dark chocolate curls – being curls they just melted in the mouth, and even sprinkled in a generous amount of cinnamon for an extra warming Christmassy scent. I was so excited by this as I absolutely adore cinnamon with nuts and chocolate, plus its meant to be very good for controlling blood pressure. Once our cereals were mixed we were then presented with our very own personalized country crisp cereal box complete with our picture and a short character description! How cool is that!!

I had a bowlful of the cereal this morning and it was divine. Nutty with crisp oaty clusters, chewy raisins, creamy coconut and the warming scent and flavour of cinnamon. If you live in the Bedfordshire area and fancy creating your own cereal mix then you can visit their shop in Biggleswade to stock up on all the raw ingredients they use in their own cereals or simply just pick up one of their ready made mixes from the shelves. I have visited the shop many times (it also sells a great assortment of herbs, spices and other gifty things) and found out yesterday that the lovely lady who runs it is actually Bill Jordans Mum!

It was a fantastic morning and we left with a bag full of our lovely goodies – pear chocolate crisp cake, personalized cereal and box and a couple of boxes of the Country Crisp cereal. Thank you so much to everyone at Jordans and Wild Card for arranging the day and it was great to meet so many cereal enthusiasts.

BBC Good Food Show Birmingham

A few weeks ago I got an email from Miele who are sponsoring the BBC Good Food Show asking if I would like to part of a VIP group of bloggers attending the Birmingham show, hmmm hard choice – yes please!

We arranged to meet at the show and I was a little nervous and extremely excited about meeting fellow bloggers and getting to be a VIP for the day. I needn’t have worried, as everyone was so friendly. We were met by Molly, Colin, Juliette and Kaz from Miele.

Including me, there were 7 bloggers in total and it was a fun beginning of “so what’s your blog called? – oh yes I know that one!” as we got to know each other. The other bloggers consisted of:

Nicola from Cherrapeno
Anne from Anne’s Kitchen
Sam from Antics of a Cycling Cook
Becky from Girl Interrupted Eating
Francesca from 101 Things
Joanna from Joanna’s Food

I spent a fun morning exploring the food stands with Sam, Nicola and Anne. The hall was HUGE and there was such a wide variety of food, drink and general cookery items on show, most of which were giving away free samples which we lapped up. My first freebie was a raspberry vodka chocolate, followed by chocolate ice cream from Carte D’or – at only 10:30am in the morning I could tell it was going to be a good day.

There was plenty on offer for all tastes, including a few gluten free stands. I think the quality of these have improved immensely in recent years and I wouldn’t even have known that my bakewell slice sample was gluten free had I not known.

I loved the stand selling Munchy Seeds which are a mix of different seeds with a variety of flavours to be used in baking, on cereal, in salads or just for random munching. I loved the vanilla pumpkin seeds (show in the pic). I was unsure if vanilla and pumpkin would pair together but I loved it and couldn’t resist buying some. If only all shops let you try before you buy.

Liquorice must be the new ‘in thing’ as there were at least 4 or 5 stalls dedicated to it.

There were stalls by famous chefs such as Paul Rankins Irish Soda Breads, a whole assortment of preserved ginger, salad dressings and one healthy eating stand giving away samples of Jazz Apples – hurrah an apple stand :)

You could stop for an antioxidant shot of pomegranate juice before moving onto a whole host of dips and dressing in all colours and flavours imaginable. The wasabi and lime dressing and the Mooli chutney certainly woke your taste buds up.
A yummy range of Gu and Fru puddings or divine chocolate bars. There dark chocolate was especially good.

If in need to a half time break then this stand would certainly oblige. The Lemonade Factory consisted of two guys, one squeezing fresh lemons and the other adding a little sugar and water to make fresh lemonade. The zesty aroma coming from this stand was unbelievable. I didn’t taste any myself but I think it must have been a little sharp for some tastes as some people were coming away with puckered faces but it would certainly cleanse the palate.

It was then time to meet up with Miele and the other bloggers for lunch. As we were VIP’s we got our own little room. When we walked in the starter of prawn salad was already on the tables and I felt a little apprehensive as I’m Vegetarian. I whispered this to one of the waiters and my dish was whipped away and replaced a few minutes later with a wonderful honey grilled pear with a little ball of goat’s cheese on a slice of lightly toasted brioche. I was very impressed and think I ended up with the better deal. The main course was a buffet of salads, tart, meats and potatoes followed by a very pretty caramel milk chocolate orange mousse.

Then who should turn up but James Martin!!! We got to meet him and get a free signed copy of his book. Here we are proudly displaying our treasures.

After lunch we were free to explore again and I came across a stand selling sweet pizzas. The one in the picture is chocolate, marshmallows and honeycomb on a biscuits base. You melt it in the oven until it goes all gooey – a novel idea but a little sickly sounding. There were also more traditional sweets such as toffees and nut brittles on offer.

There was even the 3 wheeled robin reliant that Gordon Ramsay used as a smoker in his latest F-Word series.

In the afternoon we found out Rachel Allen was signing copies of her new book ‘Bake.’ Rachel was lovely and took time to chat to people and pose for photos. I got my own signed copy and she took a blog card off me – so Rachel if you’re reading, I can’t wait to get baking from your book!

We then met up again to watch James Martin give a three course meal cookery demonstration. He was fantastic. It was not so much the food he cooked, but the way he presented it – everyone was in stitches. The demonstration was sponcered by Sainsbury’s so he was meant to be endorsing their produce. For his dessert of puff pastry and raspberry cream stack he took some pre rolled puff pastry out the fridge, he then said : “You can buy this at Sainsburys……but Asda is cheaper.” The lights went out and the big screen went black and everyone laughed. The lights came back on and James then said “and Waitrose is better.” More laughter and darkness.
He then proceeded to ‘borrow’ an old gentlemen’s walking stick to drape his signature spun sugar over, only thing is he walked off with the stick so not sure how the man got it back again. Hopefully they were just going to clean it for him as it was probably sticky. He also said that he’s fed up with people complaining that he never washes his hands when presenting Saturday Kitchen. He let us into a secret that when they bend down and wash their hands under the counter, they are only pretending, as there is nothing there and its just to stop people complaining – naughty naughty.

It was then time to head off home and I was sorry to leave. It was such a fantastic day, thanks Miele, I really enjoyed being treated like a VIP for the day and meeting so many lovely foodies. It was nice to talk to people who didn’t think I was odd for filling half my wardrobe with baking tins that didn’t fit in the kitchen cupboards.