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Entries in nuts (9)

Tuesday
09Feb2010

walnut and cocoa nib brownies

DateTuesday, February 9, 2010 at 05:00

 

i had a real chocolate craving on friday and having finished the box of geranium dainty dollops that a friend gave me a few weeks ago (thanks sue, they were delish!) i decided to get baking. i’m not sure how i found jennie’s recipe for walnut fudge brownies but having read her descriptor i had to give them a go. i particularly love the idea of putting the walnuts on top so that they become slightly toasted.

i followed jennie’s recipe but added cocoa nibs for a bit of interest. i also fiddled with the sugar content and used a mixture of milk chocolate and a dark chocolate with orange oil and spices – this was instead of the coffee powder which she uses.

the resulting brownies were really wonderful – i had mine with cream and david went for ice cream. thanks jennie.

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Saturday
07Nov2009

cobnut, apple & cinnamon cake

DateSaturday, November 7, 2009 at 16:56

i used my cobnuts to make an apple and cinnamon cake. the recipe i used was a nigel slater one for moist plum cake (see here for a cherry & almond version, including the recipe which you can adapt if you fancy giving this a try) which uses a mix of flour and ground almonds.

i blitzed the cobnuts in my food processor and used this in the place of the almonds. a teaspoon of cinnamon into the mix and pieces of apples on top of the cake mix and that’s it. the cobnuts added an extra depth of flavour, similar to hazelnut. because i used the nuts fresh they were quite coarse which added a really nice crunch to the cake texture.

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Sunday
09Aug2009

rosewater meringues with pistachio

DateSunday, August 9, 2009 at 06:00

aren't they pretty? i added a couple of teapoons of rosewater and a few drops of pink food colouring to my meringue mix then dusted them with pistachio crumbs before baking. we ate these with berries and cream. a real taste of summer.

 

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Friday
05Dec2008

roasted jerusalem artichokes with goat’s cheese, roasted tomatoes and agresto

DateFriday, December 5, 2008 at 07:46

 

i loved skye gyngell’s first recipe book and am now working my way through her second, finding many, many recipes which make my toes curl with pleasure.

 

my absolute favourite so far has been this roasted jerusalem artichokes with goat’s cheese, roasted tomatoes and agresto. as ever there are many layers of flavour – pungent garlic, the nutty sweetness of roasted artichokes, the tang of the tomatoes and wow, wow, wow, the magic that is agresto.

 

in skye’s words, “agresto is a soft, rounded pounded paste made with very fresh young creamy walnuts” but it also so much more. the walnuts (it’s too late in the year for wet walnuts but this was fine made with older fresh walnuts) are combined with anchovy, garlic, lemon, chilli, parsley and olive oil and result in a wonderfully fresh zingy paste with the base flavours of anchovy and nuts.

 

we ate this two days running and it is a serious contender for any festive meal which needs a starter. i am also really excited about trying the agresto in different forms. i love the idea of tossing it with pasta, perhaps replacing the anchovies with crumbled blue cheese.

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Wednesday
30Jul2008

daring bakers: almond gateau with praline buttercream

DateWednesday, July 30, 2008 at 06:09

praline-cake-top.jpg 

another month and another daring bakers challenge. chosen by chris from mele cotte (it means baked apples in case you’re wondering) this month we’ve all been baking nut gateaux with praline buttercream.

swiss buttercream to be more precise. uh oh, that was not a good thing to see – last time a recipe called for a meringue buttercream (which used a similar technique to this swiss buttercream) i had a disaster and had to use an alternative icing. however, i decided this was an opportunity to get it right so i planned a day of baking and got stuck in.

this is a complex recipe which has many different components:

  • nut genoise – i chose almonds and orange as my flavouring, rather than the suggested hazelnuts and lemon
  • sugar syrup – i flavoured this with orange flower water
  • whipped cream
  • praline buttercream – again i used almonds to flavour my praline
  • fruit glaze – i used raspberry jam
  • chocolate ganache

so, how did i get on?

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