Mmm Flapjacks 

Baking Mad recently contacted teaandcake to tell us about the Baking Mad website which has lots of yummy looking recipies. I decided to taste test their flapjack recipe for an afternoon tea I was having with friends.

Flapjack Ingredients 

226 grams Butter or margarine
170 grams Golden Caster Sugar (Billington's)
340 grams Porridge Oats
0.25 tsp Salt
3 tbsp Golden Syrup (Silver Spoon) large

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F or gas 4. Line a tin with baking paper, the tin should approx measure 28cm x 18cm x 3cm or 11in x 7in x 1.2in method tip

In a large pan gently heat the butter or margarine and golden syrup. Heat until the butter is all melted, do not boil. (Using a wooden spoon is advised)

Remove pan from the heat and add in the oats, sugar and salt. Mix very well until all the oats are covered.

Put the mixture into the prepared tin and smooth evenly into the corners.

Bake in the oven for approximatly 15minutes, then turn the tin around and bake for a further 5 minutes. Bake until golden brown. method tip

Remove the tin from the oven and allow to cool for a short while. With a palette knife lightly mark out into 18 pieces before it sets. Cut up when cold.



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Result

Despite having to pop to the shops for more porridge oats when I needed to add them, and forgetting to take them out the oven on time (ooops!)... they still tasted really good and went down well with friends. They even improved with age as they got a little softer (may have been due to being slightly over baked in the first place!).

I'd like to bake them again - but next time I'd try adding a little more butter and golden syrup just to see the difference!

Guilt

Guilt is a nasty thing. And I have been suffering.

Late last year, the nice folks at Whittard sent us some teas to test. But I was busy, then I got a stomach bug, then I had a Christmas shopping panic, flu, a holiday...

 The tea has been waiting in my Kitchen. Chastising me. Every time I stepped in there.

 NO MORE! New year, new start. I've got the kettle on and I've brewed up three mugs at once to show you how serious I am.  Here we go.

1. Whittard Assam
I'm a big fan of Assam. Did Whittard know this? Anyway - the nice, round teabag brews up well and goes a good malty brown colour. It's got a really smooth taste with quite a strong (but not unpleasant) tannin-y aftertaste - a bit of sharpness. I think this would be a good staple cup to get you through the working day. Yes - I like it. I've just drained the cup.

2. Whittard Orange Blossom Tea A loose leaf tea! This stuff was a pleasure to open & smell (even if I split the package & spilled tea everywhere). The black tea is in quite large ebony coloured flakes and there are big bits of dried, zesty peel. I liked this - it's very reassuring in a world of chemically-derived flavor additives to see that an orange has really been involved. I brewed this tea in a hurry and didn't warm my pot - so the resulting tea is a bit pale. The orange scent comes through. And the flavors pair well together. I added my usual spoon of sugar - this may have been a bit of an error. It enhances the orange and makes it taste a bit like you're drinking tea whilst eating orange jelly. Next time I think I'd cut my usual sugar & be happier with the cup. The tea doesn't seem to be bitter so I think that would be safe enough. I imagine this would be a good tea to drink black, if your proclivities run in that direction. it's quite a refreshing cup - I can imagine it going well with a weekend breakfast of pancakes.

3. Whittard Green Tea
A confession - I don't like green tea. So I packaged this one off to Janine. However, since she has a baby to look after and has moved house and I haven't reminded her, the results are not back in yet. We'll update this post when we have her feedback.

4. Betty's Spiced Christmas Blend
Obviously this one didn't come from Whittard - but since I'm in a rare reviewing mood, I thought I'd add it on. It was a Christmas present from the lovely Janine (T&C's resident Queen of Tea). It smells like your average Chai - I'm getting cloves from the scent. And maybe Cardamom and Ginger? The spices are so well balanced it's hard to pick out exactly what's involved. The tea is mellow and not bitter at all - so the main feeling you get when drinking this is comforting and mellow. I think there's something fruity in here, too. Orange? Or bergamont? I could check the packaging but I think that might spoil the fun. I'm not sure how different this is from a normal Chai (there could be a tea test in that!) but it's an enjoyable and relaxing cup. I'm struggling to finish it - but that has more to do with the fact that I've just downed three cups in a row than being any comment on the tea.

So! That's it. Tea is nice in all its many forms.

One item is now ticked off my guilt list. Next up: laundry pile. Watch out world, I'm on a roll...

Big thanks to Whittard for the tea samples and to Janine for being my tea-themed Christmas fairy.

teapigs tea tests

We were very excited to be asked by teapigs to test some of their teas. Their carefully packaged offerings are usually seen in higher-end tea shops & we have often wondered what some of their more exciting creations tasted like. When we review tea we usually get a whole box of each variety, and involve friends & family via a gathering of some kind or via Royal Mail to participate. As well as being lots of fun, this give us a cross section of views & palettes to base reviews on. Teapigs obviously do things a bit differently as they sent us just 2 tea bag samples of each variety. So we gave the job of writing the reviews to our most trusted tasters, Janine (Tea) and Barry (Brew). Here's what they thought....

The teapigs packaging is very quirky and fun and on opening each packet you are presented with a beautiful silk pyramid that contains all the tea leaves to make the brew. Its a beautiful thing. An object of quali-tea!

teapigs 'morning glory' tea everyday brew
On reading the instructions it says to allow at least 3 mins to brew. I made the tea in a mug, allowed 4 mins to brew and added milk once the teabag was out. The colour was just right a mid brown colour just as I like it. Its made of 3 varieties of tea, Assam, Ceylon and Rwandan. I've not had the Rwandan tea in a mix before and I have to say the mix is lovely. There is a mild malty taste, which gives it a lovely flavor without being over powering. I can imagine if you over brew this one it would be too strong for me, but 4 mins was just right. I would recommend this tea as an everyday brew if you like a taste to your tea.

teapigs 'chocolate flake' tea
Again I made the tea in a mug and allowed 4 mins to brew. I then decided to taste the tea without milk and it tasted nice this way. It was quite a delicate flavor at this strength so if you like your tea with milk every time it may be better to brew for longer (I will do for the 2nd tea bag). It is very refreshing without milk though so would probably buy this and drink it black for a change!
The second bag I allowed 6 mins to brew and added milk. The extra 2 mins made all the difference. The chocolate flavor comes through more and it is lovely with milk too. So depending on mood I'd drink this both with and without milk.

Sam's extra comment: Janine was really kind and sent me some of these teabags. I brewed one. Whilst the chocolate came though in the smell, and the taste was sweet & rounded, I was a bit disappointed.  I said so to my boyfriend. He said: "you wanted it to taste like you were drinking a cup of tea through a chocolate flake, didn't you?". As usual where I am concerned, he hit the nail on the head. This is a very nice chocolate-scented tea. For my daydream creation of a tea-mocha, I'm going to have to get creative with a pan and a whisk. I'll let you know how that goes.

teapigs 'peppermint' tea
I made the tea in a mug and allowed 3 mins to brew. I usually drink peppermint tea after dinner or if I have an upset tummy. This was very pleasant tasting tea. A good flavor of peppermint, a slight tang, not too much or bitter. I would recommend this tea to peppermint lovers. A lovely refreshing tonic of a tea if you fancy a brew without milk.

teapigs 'rooibos crème caramel' tea
Brew drinks rooibos tea all the time... but straight - no added flavoring or milk. So he tested this tea 1st. Now he wasn't so keen on it but thought it may be better with milk! I made this according to the instruction - 3 mins brewing time and added some milk once brewed. Much like the chocolate flake tea the taste is very delicate. I think if we had more tea bags I'd like to try it again with a longer brewing time to see if I could get a stronger taste or I'd like to have tried it without milk. I think the taste would come through more that way. So the jury is out on this one – best to give it a go for yourself!

teapigs 'tung ting oolong' tea
I made this according to the instruction (3 mins brewing) then tasted and popped the tea bag back in for a min or 2 for a fuller flavor - no milk required! I have to say it's a lovely brew. No bitter taste at all (which you can get with green tea especially if brewed for a while). If you don't have milk with your tea or fancy a brew without milk from time to time its very easy drinking. I would strongly recommend this one if you fancy something a bit different!

teapigs 'pure mao feng green' tea
Again I brewed the tea for about 3 mins then tasted it. This is a very nice delicate green tea... its not bitter like a lot of green teas. I then popped the tea bag back in and forgot about it for about a further 5 mins! Ooops! I found timing is of the essence as it did become too strong and a little bitter!. It is a lovely brew though if you follow the instructions and brew for 3 mins!

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teapigs have offered 15% off* at www.teapigs.co.uk using the code BLOGGERS12 (*enter code at checkout. discount does not apply to gifts and cheeky deals as these are already discounted)

Hampstead Tea Tests

The folks over at Hampstead Tea were kind enough to send us a selection of their finest for us to sample. Overall, the teas were all of an excellent qualitea. A couple appealed to some testers' tastebuds more than others....

Hampstead Assam

A popular tea with all our reviewers. Strong and malty with a mellow flavour and no hint of bitterness.

3 reviewers rated this tea at 4/4
All said they would buy again

"Very nice – a mellow tea. Lovely with a drop of milk, made a good strong cup."
J9

"Really tasty & malty. Good follow-through taste, with or without milk"
Mike

"A good, flavourful Assam – this is a really great cup"
Sam

Hampstead White Tea

This tea split our reviews – it’s delicate and light. Fans of green tea will probably enjoy a cup.

Most people rated the tea highly and would buy again, with one dissenter.

"Very nice and smooth with no bitter aftertaste."
Cathy R

"It’s very light – almost too light."
Adam W

"I don’t seem to like white teas – just tastes like a bitter, pale green tea to me."
Sam

Hampstead Rosehip

Another tea which split our reviews. Those who enjoyed herbal or fruit teas really loved it. Others just couldn’t see what all the fuss was about.

The people who liked it gave it full points & would buy again, the others said 'no way!'.

"Quite fruity and has a refreshing depth of flavour (I left the teabag in for maximum steepage").
Sam

"Lovely refreshing fruity flavour"
J Whelan

"Bleurgh!"
Richard

Hampstead Darjeeling

Overall this was the reviewers’ second favourite tea. Darjeeling’s got less punch than our favourite (the Assam) but it’s still tasty – reviewers described it as refreshing, smooth and lovely.

People rated this tea highly overall, and most would buy again.

"Doesn’t taste of the Himalayas nor does it remind me of the B class of the DHR but it is refreshing and I would drink it again."
Richard

"This has a lovely delicate flavour."
J Whelan

"Very light, delicate taste. Good without milk. Smooth, easy to drink."
J9

"I’m not normally a fan of darjeling tea, t’s often a bit insipid. This one is more robust, it can take a bit of milk & still has a reasonable flavour. Makes a nice cuppa."
Sam

Hampstead Oolong & Elderflower Iced Tea

Another tea which scored well with our testers. It’s a grown up elderflower cordial with a tea-y aftertaste which would suit genteel summer picnics.

Most people enjoyed this & would consider buying it again.

"I mainly go for hot drinks, so I’m unsure if I would buy this. But it had a very nice taste and served cold it is very refreshing."
J9

"I really enjoyed this – adding the tea to the sweet elderflowers gave it a bit of body and nice contrast. It’s a very elegant drink, would be good for a genteel picnic."
Sam

Hampstead Ginger Green Tea

You’ll either love or hate this one – it split our tasters right down the middle. Some thought it smooth, refreshing and easy to drink. Others labelled it as bitter and were under whelmed by the ginger content. You’ll have to try it yourself to decide if it’s for you!

"Meh. I’d rather drink Crabbies ginger beer."
Richard

"Nice ginger smell but couldn’t taste it. Bitter aftertaste."
Cathy R

"Very light but with a ginger taste, refreshing. Very easy to drink – light tasting and not bitter like many green teas can be."
Barry & J9

"I enjoyed this – I was careful to not let the tea over-steep (as I find that green tea can go bitter if you stew it too long). I usually think of ginger as an autumn flavour but this was refreshing and surprisingly enjoyable on a warm summer day."
Sam

Hotel Chocolat Review

When teaandcake got offered some free Hotel Chocolat goodies to review, there was only ever going to be one answer to the question of ‘what would you like’. ANYTHING AT ALL as it all looks divine.

Here’s what the nice folks sent us.

Peepster Box – White Adventure

£14.50 for 4 bars
This multi-pack comes in luxurious packaging – thick, glossy cardboard with a neat silky cord carrying handle (the handle is very pretty, but we’re not sure it’s terribly recyclable). Each bar comes wrapped in a plasticy cellophane – a bit cheap looking but it does showcase the pretty swirls and top-quality finishing touches on the chocolate bars.

The first thing to say about Hotel Chocolat’s products is that the bars are shaped like small slices of toast, or ingots. They seem precious and at the same time happily domestic and informal. We like them.

You probably wouldn’t get something this well packaged just for personal consumption whilst Eastenders is on. It’s a gift pack from heaven for your favourite chocoholic.


Caramel Road
One solid, chunky bar – ½ caramel chocolate, ½ white chocolate. Caramel buttons, cinder toffee pieces and one little chunk of florantine.

What We Thought
Good chunks of caramel (not really like cinder toffee, but probably nicer overall) – they had just the right amount of resistance in the chewing texture

The caramelly chocolate was very nice – possibly one of our overall favourites of the day.

The white chocoalate was really nice – really creamy rather than sugary, and had a really nice texture as ir melted. It’s not too sweet for a white chocolate, very vanillar-y.

The caramel buttons nice, and the Florentine chunk was lovely (thought there was only one, making it look more decorative than deliberately part of the bar’s taste experience). We’d quite happily buy this one & take it home.


Strawberry Fusion
Two thinner slabs of chocolate – ½ white, ½ strawberry (real strawberries used in the flavouring).

What We Thought
The two halves of the bar are swirled together appealingly. It’s a very pretty effect. The strawberry half tastes like strawberry icecream or strawberry milkshake (a good quality strawberry icecream). It had a really good depth of strawberry flavour and a slightly grainier texture, due to the fruit used.

The white chocolate was as above – really lovely. The two halves complimented each other well.


Cookies Crème
One solid, thick bar of white chocolate. Generously peppered with small milk, dark and shortbread biscuit pieces.

What We Thought
First impression – it’s clearly inspired by Hersheys. That said, the chocolate is (as above) gorgeously smooth and creamy, with a good distribution of crunchy biscuitty bits. Lots of these escaped when the bar was broken into pieces, so this is one to probably eat over a plate, or you’d loose the cruncy spheres.

The textural combination is really great, but there is less of a flavour hit than the other bars – it’s your classic white chocolate with a different density. It’s more about ‘mouthfeel’ sensations than taste sensations.

Think a very high-class nestle’s crunch bar, or yorkie with biscuits, and you’re imagining this.

We might sound underimpressed, but it was our second favourite overall. It’s a classic combination done really well.


Classic White
Two thinner bars of white chocolate. No decorative touches, but patterened (looks a bit like it’s embossed with mini Union Jacks).

What We ThoughtReally tasty. As above, this is top quality white chocolate. It melts better for being a thinner bar. It’s smooth and luscious and unadulterated. there’s not much more to say.

If you like white chocolate, you’ll love this.


Our overall comments on the Hotel Chocolat Experience
We all agreed we couldn’t eat an entire bar (or even half a bar) in one sitting. Barry (a dark chocolate fan) found all chocolates in this pack too sweet - so you'll denfinately select to pick chocolates to suit your particular chocoholic.

All chocolates were quite rich – this is quality chocolate you have a bit of rather than pigging out on. You’d want it to last at this price – and it would. We thought that one bar would probably be about 4 portions.

This might be partly due to it being white chocolate, which feels sweeter and creamier than the bog standard milk chocolate we’re used to guzzling on the way home to stave off hunger cravings.

Our overall favourite was the caramel chocolate, but in fairness we happily sampled them all and what’s left will not be going to waste.

Thanks for the samples, Hotel Chocolat.

We’ll be drooling over the rest of your wares online and wondering what we should buy next. We were all left very curious as to what the rest of the Hotel Chocolat ranges tasted like, so you can count us as three customers who’ll be back soon.

Muffins!

Gosh, it's been a while since I've posted stuff here. That is not because I've not been baking, I should point out. I've been baking. Oh, yes. I've been doing my usual cake and whatnot, but also kicked off a sourdough starter and made a loaf from it; this is quite exciting and will take up a post all of its own, but for now I want to talk about muffins.

Y'see, I had a quiet weekend planned. I was going to go to a brunch event on Sunday organised by Culture Vultures, called (in it's shortened form) Platespinning. Held at Armley Mills it was a discussion about how to keep as many projects going for as long as you can without them all coming crashing down amongst your ears. Sounds like fun, so I signed up.

On Friday I got a message from the delightful Bake Lady asking if I wouldn't mind doing some muffins for the event, for various reasons. The main catering was being done by Fish&, so I didn't mind pitching in. And, yanno, I like baking.

So I made three batches of muffins (actually four, but that was because one batch was so good I didn't get to try any of them!): some Raspberry & White Chocolate, something I made up on the spur of the moment, Bakewell, and something else I made up on the spot, Carrot & Ginger.



The raspberry & white choc ones are a staple repertoire muffin - I make them a *lot* - but they're delightful. If you use chunks of chocolate instead of drops they're even better, but sometimes it's just easier to open a bag of drops and pour them into the bowl.

Recipe
Oven to GM5, or 190°C-ish. Use a muffin tin, line with muffin cases (that fit!) and this will make 12 muffins.

Ingredients are; 250g self-raising flour, 200g caster sugar, 100g white chocolate drops, 150g frozen raspberries (or fresh, but they're out of season at time of writing and frozen are perfectly acceptable), 2 medium eggs, 100g milk and 100g sunflower oil.

Note: yes, that's 100g there on the liquids. 100g milk is 100ml of milk, but 100g of oil (because it's less dense) is 125ml of oil. I like to use digital scales for weighing stuff out and because I can't be bothered trying to read those tiny, raised numbers on plastic jugs I'll just read the scales.

First, in a jug, whisk together the eggs, milk and oil. Next, in a bowl put together all the dry ingredients and mix well. Add the raspberries and mix them in too. Then add the liquid, pour it all in and with a metal spoon fold the liquid into the flour until just mixed. Don't worry about lumps, and don't over mix otherwise the muffin will go chewy and the razzies will break up too much. Just get the flour combined, and you'll be fine.

Pour into the cases, put in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes, or until golden on top and not wobbly if you tap the tin. DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN FOR AT LEAST 15 MINUTES. Really, don't, they'll collapse and be awful.

Easy peasy!



The other two follow the same basic principles but use slightly different ingredients. Let's do the bakewells first.

Same oven, muffin tin and liquid rules as before (ie, 100g milk, 100g oil, 2 eggs). In a bowl mix 150g self-raising, a half-teaspoon of baking powder, 100g ground almonds, 175g caster sugar. Add a big handful of frozen cherries (cf what I said about razzies above) and mix as before. After putting the mix in the cases dab a half-teaspoon of cherry jam on top, and then top with some flaked almonds. Bake as before.

The carrot & ginger ones are just as simple. Same liquids, and the dry ingredients are 250g self-raising, 150g caster sugar, 1tsp ground ginger, 100g grated carrots (from the bag in my fridge that's about two medium carrots, peeled, topped & tailed) and 50g mixed dried fruit, and four chunks of stem ginger that have been finely diced. Add a couple of tablespoons of the syrup from the stem ginger to the oil/milk mix. Bake as before.

See? Muffins are easy, and coming up with ideas for them are, if you follow the right basic guidelines, almost as simple.

Anyway: in addition to my muffins were some superb examples from Lynn (some chocolate chip ones, and a batch of apple & cinnamon) and the food done by Andrew & Debs was excellent: kedgeree, smoked salmon blinis and sausage-in-a-bun. Top marks all round, I think!

And the event was enormous fun, with conversations from the Queen of the UK Supper Club Scene amongst many other plate-spinning luminaries, artists and clever people. My photos from the event are on Flickr; I had fun, and I hope everybody else did too. (And that they liked my muffins!)

Rhubarb & Egg Custard tarts

You know how I have a bad recipe book habit? I bought a copy of Peyton and Byrne.

Don't get me wrong; this is a lovely book. Great photos, clear text, sensible design. But I wonder about the recipes; Peyton & Byrne has a recipe for egg custards that I looked at and thought "what?" as it required 2 whole eggs, 4 yolks, and only 60ml of cream. No, no, no. It'll make the custard very eggy and have a strange, bouncy texture. Way too much egg to cream. A proper egg custard is one of the prerequisites for a good recipe book but I couldn't imagine this working tremendously well. Still, there's no reason why I couldn't tweak the recipe a little...

So I doubled the cream with the same amount of egg. So far, so normal; but I'd had a thought about some rhubarb that I'd bought that morning. A blob of stewed rhubarb in the bottom of an egg custard. Could that work? Rhubarb and custard is a time-honoured traditional dish, of course.

Next I made some ginger shortcrust; normal 2:1 shortcrust with a teaspoon of ginger added to it, and (after chilling) rolled out on icing sugar for (i) crispness and (ii) a tiny touch of sweetness.

For pastry novices; two parts flour (200g) to one part butter (100g). Rub together to a sandy texture, no big lumps, then sprinkle a tablespoon of water over it and mix in using a flat, rounded knife. Add a bit more water and carry on mixing, and it'll come together in a soft ball; overdo the water and it'll turn to mush, underdo and it'll be too stiff. Wrap in cling, fridge for 30 minutes, then roll out to desired thickness; in this case, 2mm thick, and cut into 10 circles to fit my (buttered) muffin tin.

Into the muffin tin, into the oven for blind baking, there we are.

Except everybody has an off day. It didn't work, for two reasons: I didn't fill the shells with baking beans/rice whatever and I didn't chill the pastry before putting it in the oven. I could have got away with either, but not both; in the end my pastry shells started sliding down the sides of the tins like Nora Batty's tights, and ended up looking very flat, wrinkled and sad.

After a tiny amount of swearing I redid the pastry and using fairy cake cakes as liners inside the tart shells I filled them with rice to support the structure. This time it worked; 15 minutes at GM4 and the shells had picked up some colour. Picked out the rice, filled with custard, blobbed in a teaspoon of stewed rhubarb with honey, and BAM; ended up with these little bundles of joy:



These are so good. Faint ginger notes, crisp pastry, zingy rhubarb and slightly bouncy custard. Bloody lovely stuff. Made ten, there were five left when we went to bed, I expect there will be two left by the time I get home tonight. The thing to note here is: pastry is capricious, but simple enough so that if you cock it up you can re-do it without too much faff. And making pastry interesting is not difficult.

I'd better write an article on pastry, I suppose; it isn't as scary as people so often think, but at the same time you need to treat it with respect.

Also, the book has some great looking recipes in that I have no doubt will work superbly. And - oh, such an important point - it is all about British Baking. There is much to be said for proper patisserie, but I think there is much to be said for picking a Chelsea bun over a Danish.

Minor edit to add: the non-rhubarb egg custards look like this:


Interesting bubble structure and this doesn't have the sense of fragility that a great egg custard often has. But it is still very, very tasty.