Navel Orange ‘Marmalade’ Curd

While doing my weekly shop I spotted bags of Navel and Seville oranges amongst the usual simply named ‘oranges.’ This made me realise that it must be marmalade making season already! Each year in January, when these special marmalade oranges are available, my mother and grandmother make colossal batches of homemade marmalade. I love the smell and process of boiling the oranges, cutting them, stirring in the sugar, boiling and jarring. Nothing beats the flavour of my mum’s homemade marmalade, shop bought just doesn’t compare and is never allowed to enter my parents/my house.

 

Marmalade making is a traditional I would love to continue myself, only I don’t eat a lot of marmalade, and one jar (provided my mum) will last me for several months. Now I’m not living at home, seeing the Navel and Seville oranges in the shops made me nostalgic for home, and the fabulous zesty aroma of a pan of warm simmering marmalade.

  

I bought a bag of Navel oranges and decided to make orange curd rather than marmalade with them. This way I still got the wonderful sweet orange aroma wafting through the kitchen without the need to make jars and jars of jam, as curd can be made in small batches quite easily.

 

Stirring the slowly thickening bowl of orange curd was quite relaxing and made me feel very nostalgic. Once jarred and cooled and I ate my first spoonful on toast, as a nod to marmalade. It was fresh and zesty, with a bitter-sweet intense orange flavour. Noticeably different to marmalade, being creamier and richer, but the lingering flavour was definitely reminiscent of marmalade. I think it would be brilliant paired with a dark chocolate cake.

Do you like marmalade? Do you ever make your own?

Navel Orange ‘Marmalade’ Curd

Ingredients

Zest & juice of 2 large Navel or Seville oranges

170g caster sugar

55g unsalted butter

2 eggs

Method

Place two small clean glass jars and their lids on a baking tray and place into the oven. Heat to 130C and leave while you make the curd.

Finely zest the oranges into a large glass bowl. Squeeze the juice form the oranges and add to the zest in the bowl along with the sugar.

Place the bowl over a pan of gently simmering water and whisk constantly until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture has turned from cloudy to clear. (You can sieve the zest out at this stage if you don’t want it in the finished curd, but it adds a lot of extra flavour).

Cut the butter into small cubes and gently stir into the zesty syrup with a spatula until melted and combined.

Lightly beat the eggs and then pour into the orange mixture through a sieve to remove any oogly bits, mixing all the time to prevent the egg curdling into scrambled eggs.

Keep mixing gently for 15-20 minutes until the mixture starts to thicken. Do not be melted to walk away or turn the heat up to speed up the process, it will scramble the eggs.

Once the mixture starts to thicken, keep stirring until the mixture is thick enough to coat the spatula. You should be able to run your finger down the spatula, leaving a mark without the curd flowing back over it.

Remove your jars from the oven and immediately fill to the rim with the hot curd. Screw the lids on the jars tightly, using rubber gloves to prevent burning your hands.

Leave to jars to cool on the side – the lids will suddenly ‘pop’ as the vacuum is created, ensuring a sealed and sterile jar.

Store in the fridge for up to 3 weeks.

Makes 1½ - 2 jars of curd

Apple & Spice Baked Breakfast Porridge

Breakfast is my absolute favourite meal of the day. I love it and all kinds of breakfast related foods. It is my comfort food and I could quite happily eat breakfast foods for breakfast, lunch and dinner for a week and not get bored. Porridge is actually one of my favourites, I find it so comforting, warm, milky with a little bite to the oats. My treat is to sprinkle on a few dark chocolate chips and wait for them to melt before tucking in!

Considering my love of porridge and breakfasty things, it is amazing that until yesterday I had never tried baked porridge. This is more commonly know as baked oatmeal, but as it’s made with chunky oats rather than ground (oatmeal), I think porridge is a better name for it. You bake it as you would a baked rice pudding, stir your oats together with lots of milk, bake it in the oven and hey presto – a delicious flapjack style porridge is yours to enjoy!

As the porridge bakes the oats swell and become plump and compact, meaning its spoonable or even sliceable once removed from the oven. One of the best parts for me was the way the top became golden brown and lightly toasted during baking, creating a thin chewy, slightly crisp top layer with the soft and milky swollen oats beneath.

I decided to jazz up my porridge by adding sultanas, dried apricots, fresh apple, pumpkin seeds and spices. This added a wonderful array of textures and flavours. As the recipe contains no added sugar the fruit adds a lovely natural sweetness, the seeds a pleasant crunch and the spices a delicious warming flavour. The apple created little pockets of soft moistness with a slight tang, while the dried fruit added a lovely chew and intense sweetness. I absolutely loved it!

Eating a slice of baked breakfast porridge on its own felt quite indulgent, but to make it even more decadent I drizzled my slice with a little brandy sauce that I had leftover from Christmas. In my defense it needed using up and I actually ate this for lunch rather than breakfast so I didn’t feel too guilty. The fact I went on to devour nearly half the tray, now that I did feel a little bad about, but I just couldn’t resist it.

I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to try baked porridge – it’s a breakfast revelation! I can’t wait to try out some other variants. Imagine pear with dark chocolate chips or fresh blueberries with vanilla; served with lemon curd and fresh yogurt mmmmmm.

Porridge – how do you eat yours?

Apple & Spiced Baked Breakfast Porridge

Ingredients

150g gluten free oats

40g sultanas

30g dried apricots

10g pumpkin seeds

1 eating apple (I used golden delicious)

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp ginger

500ml milk

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Place the oats, sultanas, pumpkin seeds and spices into a 15 x 20cm baking dish. Chop the apricots into pieces roughly the same size as the sultanas and add to the mix.

Chop the apple into small cubes 5-10mm in size. Place into a small dish and microwave on high for 1 minute until slightly softened, alternatively do this in a small pan with 1 tbsp water.

Add the apple to the oaty mixture and stir everything together until all the ingredients are evenly distributed.

Pour over the milk (it will look like a lot but don’t worry).

Bake for 35-45 minutes until the liquid has been absorbed by the oats and the top feels firm to the touch and is golden brown.

Serve in large wedges while still hot, with a little extra milk, cream, yoghurt, fresh fruit or syrup as desired.

Any leftovers can be kept in the fridge and eaten cold or reheated the next day.

Feeds 2-4 people depending on appetite

Sprout & Almond Soup

Happy New Year! Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. After all the rich festive food I always crave a few days of simple, lighter meals. Soup fits the bill perfectly. It’s warming, comforting and in this case, packed full of veggies.

Sprouts have a bad reputation, but I personally love them. I think they only taste bad when they have been overcooked and start of give off the musty damp smell of old socks. Anything that smells of stinky socks and is graying in colour is never going to taste good. Cooked so they are only just soft and still green in colour they are delicious. I even love them cold, yes I know people are probably reeling back in horror now, but trust me, try them sliced and eaten with some warm crusty bread with houmous, or in a cheese and mustardy sandwich and they’re delicious!

As I went home to my parents for Christmas when I returned to my flat I was sadly sproutless. A quick visit to the shops to stock up on supplies and I came away with a huge bag of sprouts that had been reduced to 30p. There was no way I could eat through such a big bag myself so sprout soup it was to be. I know some people are already turning their noses up in disgust, but if I’d said leek soup or even broccoli or spinach, no one would have batted an eyelid. This is not just a sprout soup, it is a sprout and almond soup. The nuts added the same creamy nuttiness that chestnuts do and sprouts and chestnuts are often a classic (and much loved) Christmas side dish.

In this case the almonds come in the form of almond milk, added just before blitzing and also from a splash of almond liqueur. The alcohol itself gets burnt off during simmering, but the flavour remains and it just gives it that little something extra. I’ve seen Brandy used in soups before, so I decided to try Amaretto for an almondy touch and I loved the results.

If you have lots of leftover sprouts, or someone who insists they ‘hate’ sprouts, give them a bowl of this soup and I bet it will change their minds. Just don’t add carrots to the mix, orange carrots and green sprouts = murky brown soup and murky brown sprout soup is never going to convince anyone!

If you’re not much of a soup eater use them in place of cabbage to make bubble & squeak or how about trying some creamy blue cheese & sprout pasta that I made last year?

Sprout & Almond Soup

Ingredients

600g sprouts

3 medium or 2 large potatoes

1 red onion

25g butter

1 tbsp oil

1 tsp ground coriander

1½ tsp dried thyme

1 litre vegetable stock

250ml almond milk (or regular milk)

1 tbsp Amaretto (optional)

To Serve

Chopped almonds

Double cream, crème fraiche or yoghurt

Bread for dipping

Method

Heat the oil and butter together in a large saucepan until the butter is melted, then turn to a low heat.

Peel and roughly dice the potatoes and red onion. Add to the pan, stir briefly and then place the lid on the pan and leave them to sweat for 5-10 minutes.

Meanwhile, remove any dirty of damaged outer leaves from the sprouts, but don’t be too fastidious as the more you remove the less you add to the soup. Cut the sprouts in half from root to top.

Stir the potato and onion mixture in the pan and add the sprouts, don’t worry if a bit of the veg has stuck to the base of the pan, this adds flavour later. Add the herbs; replace the lid and leave to sweat for 3-4 minutes longer.

Add the vegetable stock and Amaretto if using. Bring the mixture to the boil, then reduce to a simmer, replace the lid and leave to bubble away for 15 minutes.

Remove the lid and stir the soup mix well, scraping any stuck on bits from the base of the pan. Test a potato chunk for tenderness. If it is soft, then remove the pan from the heat. If not, then leave to simmer for 2-3 minutes longer.

Once the veg is soft, stir in the almond milk (or regular milk) and blitz until smooth using a liquidizer or hand blender.

Serve the soup in bowls topped with a swirl of cream and a sprinkling of chopped almonds.

Makes approximately 6 servings

Christmas Cake 2013: Penguins

It’s Christmas!

I hope everyone has a wonderful day. I drove back to my parents house last night and I can’t quite believe today is actually Christmas. It all seems a bit surreal, but in a very good way of course.

I wanted to share with you my decorated Christmas Cake. I always do a different design each year and this year it’s Penguins! The theme courtesy of my grandmother’s suggestion – thanks Grandma.

To make it, I covered my gingery Christmas fruit cake with a disc of marzipan and a layer of blue swirled fondant that I made by only half kneading in some blue food dye. The little igloo and penguins are all made out of fondant too. They were a little fiddly to make as their heads kept falling off.

The little penguins features I added by dipping a cocktail stick in black and orange food dye. I’m happy with the finished design though, I think it’s simple but effective.

Happy Christmas everyone!

Starry Mince Pies with Zesty Orange Pastry (& Choc Shot Giveaway Winner)

I can’t believe Christmas is mere days away; it’s probably close enough to start counting down in hours! I have been so busy recently that I am quite behind on my festive baking. Last weekend I realised with shock that I hadn’t yet eaten a mince pie this Christmas! Being coeliac means it’s not so easy to come across gluten free mince pies at social gatherings or in bakers shops and I hadn’t got round to baking my own. I decided this would definitely not do and set about rectifying this immediately.

 

To give my mince pies a bit of an extra festive touch I flavoured the gluten free pastry with some orange zest. This gave the pastry a nice golden hue and a little extra zesty freshness. I liked how I could see the orange strands speckled throughout the pastry too. I love the combination of fresh orange with the heady spices used in the sweet boozy mincemeat.

I also topped the pies with pastry stars rather than round lids, as I like to see the mincemeat poking out between the stars points. Once baked they were given a light dusting of icing sugar and they were good to enjoy – or should that be scoffed considering I ate three in one afternoon? Oh well, they say pastry is best eaten on the day of baking, and I needed to make up for lost time.

 

I used the leftover scraps of pastry to make some festive pastry shapes, which I baked and devoured while still warm straight out the oven. This is a little treat that my mum always used to allow us to do whenever she made anything with pastry. It always makes me feel nostalgic and there’s no point letting it go to waste.

 

How many mince pies have you eaten this year? Do you even like mince pies? If not, what’s your festive go to treat?

 

In case I don’t blog again before Christmas I hope you all have a wonderful fun, friend, family and food filled festive day!

Starry Mince Pies with Zesty Orange Pastry

Ingredients

200g gluten free plain flour blend

90g butter

1 egg

40g icing sugar

Zest of 1 orange

½ tsp xanthan gum

1-2 tbsp water

½ jar gluten free mincemeat (most is GF but always best to check)

2 tsp milk for brushing

2 tbsp extra icing sugar for decoration

Method

Preheat your oven to 180C and have a 12 holed muffin tin to hand.

Mix the flour, 40g icing sugar, orange zest and xanthan gum together in a bowl.
Cut the butter into cubes, add to the flour and rub together using the tips fo your fingers, lifting the flour and butter up above the bowl and letting it fall back in as you squish the two together. Continue until the butter is broken down and coated in flour, it should look like chunky breadcrumbs.

Beat the egg, add to the bowl along with 1 tbsp water. Mix in using the tip of a round bladed butter knife. Once mostly incorporated using your hands to bring the mixture together to form a dough. Add a tiny bit more water if it seems too dry, but you don’t want a wet dough.

Knead the dough gently for 1 minute to ensure everything is well combined.
Roll out the pastry between two large sheets of clingfilm until 3-4mm thick.

Use a fluted cutter to cut out rounds to fit the wells of your muffin or tart tin. Gather up the off-cuts and re-roll them before cutting out 12 stars to act as pasty lids.

Fill the pastry shells with 1 heaped teaspoon of mincemeat and top each with a pastry star. Brush the tops with a little milk.

Bake in the oven for 18-22 minutes until lightly golden and firm to the touch.

Allow to cool in the tin for 5 minutes before lifting out and transferring to a wire rack to cool.

Dust with icing sugar and enjoy while still warm.

Makes 12 mince pies

 

Note: Re-roll any leftover pastry scraps and cut out some festive shapes. Place on a baking tray and bake for 12-18 minutes (depending on size). Once baked, dust with icing sugar and enjoy while still hot.

Choc Shot Giveaway Winner

I’m also delighted to announce that the winner of the Choc Shot giveaway is… comment Number 5 – The Caked Crusader!

Her comment was picked by a random number generator. Congratulations Caked Crusader. I’ll be contacting you shortly for your address.

Choc Shot: A Review & A Giveaway

Choc Shot is a new liquid chocolate product developed by Sweet Freedom. They are well known for their ‘Sweet Freedom syrup’ products, which are made with natural fruit extracts giving them a lower GI compared to other sugar/syrup products. When they contacted me to ask if I would be interested in trying their new chocolate version I was more than happy to accept.

The product is described as liquid chocolate, but it’s more like a thick chocolate sauce. It comes in a handy squeezy bottle and is quite thick, yet soft and wonderfully dark and glossy. As the product is described as liquid chocolate and had a hot chocolate image on the front of the bottle, this seemed a good place to start the taste testing.

I heated some milk and stirred it into about 2 teaspoons of the Choc Shot sauce. This produced a wonderfully dark milky drink that smelt rich and inviting. I took a sip and found it was sweet but not in a sickly way, and the rich cocoa flavour really came through. It reminded me of a traditional hot chocolate made with cocoa, rather than the sugary, milk powder, slightly fake hot chocolates you often encounter these days. It was very comforting, a nice reward after putting up my Christmas tree.

 

Next I tried using the Choc Shot on some toast, in a chocolate spread style. It’s quite thick when you squeeze it out of the bottle, but on the warm toast it soon melted into a dark glossy spread. I found eating it this way was too intense. It was too sweet to use in such concentrated quantities and it reminded me of chocolate fudge sundae sauce, nice but not something you would normally spread on your toast.

 

Finally I tried it on some rice pudding. This worked well as even though it was still quite concentrated, the milky creaminess of the pudding helped tone it down and it was a delicious treat.

 

I think it would be fantastic drizzled over pancakes or ice cream but I most enjoyed it as hot chocolate. Having the sauce ready in the squeezy bottle meant it was super quick to make and very convenient. I love how its gluten free, suitable for vegans and low GI, meaning you don’t get a sugar rush/crash from eating it. Even though it’s sweet, the rich dark cocoa balances this out nicely and makes it taste indulgent without tasting cheap or sickly.

Oh and if you needed even more of an excuse to indulge, it has 85% less fat and only around 15kcal per teaspoon. The perfect rationale for hot chocolates all round this Christmas!

 

Now the Giveaway!

The lovely people at Sweet Freedom have agreed to send a bottle of Choc Shot to one lucky person. All you have to do if leave a comment below telling me how you would most like to try using the Choc Shot. Please make sure to leave a way for me to contact you should you win. The competition runs until 12 noon on Friday 20^th December. Open to UK residents only, only one entry per person. The winner will be chosen at random from the list of entries. Good Luck!

The New Moor Market, Sheffield

Last weekend was the grand opening of the much anticipated Indoor Moor Market in Sheffield. This 18 million pound project takes the place of the old famous Castle Market which, after 54 years of trading, had become a bit rundown. Despite that, I used to love popping into the Castle Market in my lunch hour and picking up a bit of fruit and veg for dinner, where else could you get 8 nectarines for £1. I’m going to miss doing this, but agree the building itself had certainly seen better days.

Yesterday I decided to go and investigate the new Moor Market, placed down the far end of the Moor (what a surprise) to see the improvements for myself. As you get closer a large glass fronted building comes into view, with a sweeping curved wooden entrance that reminded my strongly of Sheffield’s Winter Gardens entrance. I liked that this was in keeping with the current architecture designs within the city.

 

The building was certainly impressive from the outside and stretched quite a long way down, making it seem very large, and yet it didn’t look out of place. Just very sleek.

Once inside it opens up into a very high roofed space, dotted with a wide variety of stalls arranged rather haphazardly in diagonal lines. I wasn’t too sure what the large yellow pipes were for, or why they had drawn your attention to them by painting them yellow. I suppose they were meant to be part of the architecture, but they reminded my strongly of those tunnel slides you used to get at swimming pools.

 

The stalls themselves were a wide variety of new and past traders from Castle Market. Wandering around I encountered shoes, fruit & veg, butchers, bakers, a nail salon and a book store. There were also some new highlights for me – all foodie things of course – were:

Make or Bake: A cake decorating shop – something previously missing from Sheffield to my knowledge.

 

CakeLicious: A fancy pastry counter serving delicious looking French tarts and desserts. I loved the choux swans, but my eyes were drawn to the caramel and pear mousse dessert. Sadly nothing gluten free, but it was nice to look.

 

The big thing I was/am most excited about is near the main entrance where they have made a little square for pop-up producers. The idea is each week 2-3 local businesses can have the stall to show their wares, then the following week it will be someone new. I think this is a brilliant idea as not only will it give local producers a chance to make us aware of who they are and what they make, but it will keep people coming back to see what that weeks special pop-up stand is. When I visited yesterday there was a Brazilian stall (I think) selling flavoured honeys and little pastries and #Brownies, who I have vaguely heard of.

 

Their stall looked so tempting with a delicious array of brownies and layers cakes. I had a chat to the friendly guy manning the stall who said their brownies were flourless but he couldn’t call them gluten free as they did use flour in other cakes and bakes. The brownies all sounded amazing, chili & lime, snickers, Turkish delight and cherry & bourbon.

Set across one wall was a little café area with a variety of tables and 5 or 6 little serving stations selling teas, coffee, cakes and a similar assortment of jacket potatoes etc. It would have been nice to see a deli or something selling gourmet salads, something a bit different/more interesting and healthy than the usual café food, but its only week one after opening so one may turn up.

My only criticism of the market is that the stalls didn’t seem to be arranged in any sort of order, it was more luck than planning what you stumbled across next. Some of stalls were down quite narrow lanes, which meant it got a bit crowded with so many people milling around, not that it being popular is a bad thing.

Overall I think the new market is very impressive and with the new addition of a few different stalls and the local producers pop up section it should persuade more people to visit. If this encourages more people to start buying local produce and supporting local businesses then I’m all for it!

Christmas Pudding for Stir Up Sunday!

Today is Stir Up Sunday – the official day to stir together a delicious mix of dried fruits and spices to make your Christmas pudding. Every year the last Sunday in November, the last Sunday before the start of advent, is the official day to make your xmas pud. It is a tradition that has been going on for decades, possibly centuries, and one I hope continues for many more to come. I love the thought that today people all over the country are today making a pudding for their friends and relatives to eat and enjoy on Christmas day. It’s the kind of unity and homely food based tradition that I love.

Christmas pudding is not too dissimilar to Christmas cake. Your soak your fruits in alcohol before using them, like a Christmas cake, but then combine this mix into a spiced breadcrumb and suet batter. I always made my own breadcrumbs from crumbling up some gluten free bread and use frozen grated butter in place of the suet (which is usually coated in wheat flour). This fruity, spicy mixture is placed into a pudding basin and part boiled, part steamed for several hours to create a densely fruited, rich, spicy and incredibly moist fruit pudding. It has all the flavours of Christmas cake only in a squishier, softer and more intense form. The pudding mix doesn’t look all that appetising before it’s steamed, but it transforms into a lovely dark and sticky pudding after its steaming session. You get the added bonus of it filling the house with a fabulous rich and spicy Christmas scent as it happily simmers away.

 

Like Christmas Cake, the pudding is kept for several weeks to allow the flavour to mature and develop. Then on Christmas day the pudding is heated, doused in Brandy and set alight! The lights are quickly turned down and people ‘ohhh’ and ‘arrrrh’ as wispy blue flames dance around the pudding creating a spectacular end to the Christmas meal. There can’t be many foods that people look forward to intentionally setting on fire! The only other one I can think of is Baked Alaska and that’s more of a gentle torching rather than dousing it in a flammable liquid and setting it alight! However, the actual flames last mere seconds, so no harm comes to the pudding itself, its too moist to get scorched or burnt.

The pudding requires 5 hours of boiling/steaming, but don’t let that put you off. As long as you check the water level a couple of times during cooking, it can be left to its own devises. It’s quite relaxing pottering around the house and listening to it gently simmering, filling the kitchen with the warm spicy note of Christmas. I always like to line the base of the pan I steam it in with some paper. This protects the pudding from the direct base heat of the pan and stops it making too much noise from the pudding basin hitting the side of the pan as it simmers. It’s a great way to make use of some of the tedious junk mail and unwanted catalogues that always get pushed through the letterbox at this time of year.

 

This year I decided to place a thin slice of orange at the base of my pudding, which I hope will give a pretty top when turn out. I’d only got the one orange and when I came to slice it I found it was rather a unique orange in that the inner segments formed more of a random mosaic pattern than the usual triangular segments! While not quite the effect I was after, I think it will certainly look pretty on the pudding so I used it anyway. I’ll let you know how it turns out! Right now it’s wrapped up tight and awaiting its final steam on Christmas day.

Gluten Free Christmas Pudding

Ingredients

230g raisins
125g sultanas
50g glace cherries (check they are GF)
Zest of 1 lemon
Zest of 1 orange
100ml Brandy (I used Amaretto)
20g chopped pecans
50g grated frozen butter
30g gluten free brown breadcrumbs (crumbled from 1 slice of GF bread)
50g gluten free plain flour
90g dark soft brown sugar
½ tsp mixed spice
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp ground star anise (or clove)
½ tsp salt
2 eggs, lightly beaten

Method
The day before (or up to 3 days before), chop the cherries in half and place into a bowl along with the rest of the dried fruits. Grate the orange and lemon zest over the top and pour in the Brandy. Give everything a good stir, cover the bowl with clingfilm and set aside for 24 hours (or up to 3 days) to allow the fruits to plump up and absorb some of the Brandy.
The next day, place all the remaining ingredients into a large bowl. Add the soaked fruits, scraping in any leftover juices. Mix together lightly with a wooden spoon or spatula until everything is evenly combined.
Place a small disc of parchment paper in the base of a 1½ pint pudding basin. Place a thinly sliced disc of orange in the base (optional).

Fill the basin with the pudding mix, pressing down lightly. Place another disc of parchment on top and cover the top of the basin with a sheet of foil that you have folded a pleat into the middle of, to allow the pudding to rise during steaming.
Tie a long strip of string around the top rim of the pudding and then secure it over the top of the basin from one side to the other to form a string handle. (This will help you retrieve the pudding from the pan later without burning yourself).
Lay sheets of newspaper (or junk mail) in the base of a large saucepan. (This protects the base of the pudding from the direct heat from the stove and stops it rattling around inside your pan.) Place the pudding on the papers before filling the pan with boiling water from the kettle, until it reaches halfway up the side of the pudding basin.
Bring the water to a boil, then reduce to the merest of simmers, cover with the lid and leave to simmer gently for 5 hours. It should be barely bubbling.
Every 2 hours lift the lid of the pan to check the water level. Add more boiling water if it’s looking low.
Once the 5 hours is up, lift the pudding out of the pan with the help of the string handle. Place on a cooling rack, remove the foil and leave until cool. Leave it in the basin and with the parchment disc still on top. Once cooled, wrap the whole pudding, basin and all, tightly in clingfilm and store in a cool dark place until required, the longer the better.
On Christmas Day, steam the pudding again for 2 hours to heat through thoroughly. Turn out onto a serving plate that has a rim. Carefully warm a ladleful of Brandy, then set light to it with a match or lighter and quickly pour it over the pudding to flambé. Serve with Brandy butter, Brandy cream or custard once the flames have extinguished.
Makes 1 pudding, to serve 6 – 10 people

The Red Deer, Sheffield Review

The Red Deer is located just off West Street in Sheffield City Centre. My boyfriend A and I were trying to think of somewhere new to try for dinner and a quick internet hunt revealed the Red Deer as a good place to try.

The pub is quite traditional and olde-worlde inside, a wooden bar, little stools nestled around wooden tables and a range of local ales. Instead of feeling dated, this gave it a relaxed and cozy atmosphere.

The menu consists of a range of classics – fish & chips, sausage & mash and burgers, but with a few more modern dishes thrown in – sweetcorn fritters and crab linguine. Their menu mentioned gluten free bread, so I was sure they would have some awareness of coeliac disease. I talked through the menu with the bar staff who checked with the chef what could be made gluten free. I was thrilled to discover that their chips/fries were gluten free as they had their own separate fryer! I knew instantly I wanted some, as it’d been months since I’d had proper chips. The lighter bite options included nachos topped with a bean chili, which always used to be a favourite of mine. Sadly the nacho chips themselves weren’t GF, but they were more than happy for me to have the bean chili with chips instead of nachos.

While we waited for the food I noticed they had a stack of board games set to one side, which people could help themselves too if they wished. Indeed, a group of students behind us were enjoying a heated game of Risk, stopping only for beer refills and extra chips. I thought this was a lovely idea.

When our food arrived I was delighted to see that they had layered the chips with the bean chili, cheese and spicy jalapenos just as if they were nachos. I was expecting chips, on one side and chili on the other but this was much better. It also came with all the usual accompaniments of sour cream, salsa and guacamole. I was one happy girl and the chips were lovely. I admit not a patricianly healthy meal, but for a treat it was delicious. I mentioned to the staff when he came to collect they plates that they should offer chip nachos on their menu, and he said the chef had said the same!

 

My boyfriend A had chosen a burger, topped with a large field mushroom. He too was pleased with his freshly cooked chips and bowl of chunky coleslaw. He was also highly impressed with the bun the burger in; it was a slightly toasted good quality white roll, rather than the usual pappy sugary burger bun.

 

We stayed chatting for over 2 hours and at the end of the night we agreed we’d be making many a return visit. The food, like the surroundings, is simple and rustic but simple things done well are always highly enjoyable.

(Apologies for the quality of the photos, it was dark and they were taken on my phone)

And Now For Something Completely Different

* It’s Stir Up Sunday – Christmas Pudding making day on Sunday 24^th November, so get preparing! Here is a link to my GF ChristmasPudding that I make every year.
* Also, don’t forget to feed your Christmas cake with a bit of booze and tuck it away again for another fortnight.