Pancake day! Served with strawberries and a vanilla bean sauce

Well its shrove tuesday and that can only mean one thing, so heres my pancake recipe.

200ml Milk 50ml water
2 large eggs
140g flour
20g sugar
1 tsp salt
zest of a lemon

whisk up the eggs with the sugar and the lemon zest, then add the milk, then from a height sieve the flour and salt into the mixture whilst whisking, then briskly whisk the mixture until smooth, I then usually chill it in the fridge for 30 minutes.

The quality of the pancake really only depends on the quality of the pan, you need a good thick based pan which preferably is non stick and never used before, rarely is this the case, so its best to salt your pan and have it on a high heat for 10 minutes, then carefully remove the salt (now extremly hot so be careful!) and wipe pan clean with a dry cloth, then add a small amount of butter or oil, making sure the pan is evenly coated, after which remove the excess oil, making sure that its not too hot that the oil starts to smoke.

When you have finally got to this stage, add a small ladle of the batter and swirl it round to get an even smooth covering, cook on one side for about 1 minute until the edges crisp and start to lift, then attempt to flip it (or use a spatula)

You can add various things into your mix, for example, the seeds of a vanilla pod, cinnamon, five spice, various fruit zests, blueberrys, cardamom...to name a few


enjoy :)

Pecan and Caramel Cheesecake

Heres a quick dessert at work, simple to make with no baking involved.

Recipe:

Base
250g Shortbread biscuit
250g Pecans
150g butter

Blitz biscuit and pecans down into a small crumb, add the melted butter and mix into a paste... here I added caramel too, but if your are not confident with sugar work then its best to miss this out as it can be quite dangerous, if you are then bring 100g sugar to the boil with 50ml water and bring to a light coloured caramel(takes about 6 minutes on a high boil or 160-170 degrees on a sugar thermometer) then quickly whisk in 20g butter and 50g double cream and keep whisking until it comes out in a smooth thick caramel, immediatly pour into the base mixture

With or without the caramel, set the base in the bottom of a lined large cake tin, spread to about 1cm thickness

Filling

500g Cream cheese
200g Caster sugar
300g Double Cream
1 Vanilla pod
4 leaves gelatine (and 50ml water to dissolve them in)
2 whipped egg whites (stiff peak)

Cream the cheese sugar and double cream together with a whisk until a light paste, soak gelatine in cold water before dissolving into the boiling water, then add to the cheese mixture, whip up the eggs by hand with a small amount of sugar, then add to the cheesecake mix, pour into the lined tins and set for about 2-3 hours in a fridge


Topping - Crushed pecans brought down to a fine crumb, with caramel from the base recipe poured in swirls on top covered with the pecan mix rubbed into the unset top of the cheesecake so it sticks.


To cut the cake, use a warm wet thin knife, cleaning the knife after each cut making sure to firmly go all the way through the base.

Enjoy :)

Time for a dessert now, layers of finely rolled shortbread, filled with blueberry and strawberry creams with a spiced raspberry coulis.

Well here goes! Heres a Ham Hock terrine I made at work with layers of ham hock strips, ham cubes, layers of gherkins running through and set in a white wine jelly. Served with a picalilli dressing and toasted onion bread.

First Blog test

Well here goes...