Sundried Tomato, Roasted Pepper & Spinach Lollipops

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At the last Plate Lickers Supper Club we served a selection of canapés which included these lollipops. They are super straight forward to make and are great if you have some entertaining to do. They would make a great treat for Halloween and fireworks night too. Just be sure to call them Catherine wheels instead! Kids and grown ups are sure to love them.

You will need-
Makes approx 30

• 1 block of puff pastry
• 280g frozen spinach- defrosted, water squeezed out and finely chopped
• 40g sundried tomatoes, patted dry and finely chopped
• 40g roasted red peppers, finely chopped
• 140g mayonaise
• 60g freshly grated parmesan or other hard cheese
• 1tsp garlic powder
• 1tsp onion powder
• Wooden lollipop sticks

To start, mix together the spinach, tomatoes, red peppers, mayonaise, parmesan, garlic & onion powder and then season to your taste. Next, cut the puff pastry in half so you are left with 2 rectangle pieces.

On a floured surface, roll out one of the pastry blocks so it measures roughly 25x30cm. Spread evenly with half of the mixture leaving a 1cm thick edge on the long side furthest from you.

Wet the edge you have left with a little water and then roll the pastry up tightly. Wrap in clingfilm and then repeat with the 2nd piece of pastry. When they are both wrapped in clingfilm, place them in the freeze for at least 30 minutes (these can be left in freezer for up to 3 months). Then, when you are ready to bake, pre-heat your oven to 180C. Take the cling film off the rolls and cut about 1/2cm off both ends (you can bake these as your tasters). Cut 1cm thick discs and place on a lined baking tray.

With a sharp knife, cut a small incision into the roll and carefully insert a lollipop stick. Bake in the oven for around 15 minutes or till lightly golden and puffed up. These are equally delicious hot or at room temperature.

Caramelised Pear & Pecan Bread Pudding

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Theres nothing like blowing monday's cobwebs away than with a bread pudding fresh out of the oven. My mum alway makes bread pudding with brioche so I bought a delicious loaf and with pear season in full swing I thought it would be rude not to include them. The custard is really simple to make, theres no egg separating or even heating you pretty much just whisk everything together and then pour onto the brioche before leaving it to soak. This pudding takes around an hour to cook so you do need to be a little patient but my god is it worth the wait! Its safe to say my husband was jumping for joy when he got in from work to discover this little beauty waiting for him!

Makes in a 9x8" dish

Recipe adapted from Tartine

You will need-

• 6 1inch slices of brioche bread
• 8 large eggs
• 3/4 cup caster sugar
• 4 cups whole milk
• 1 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 3 pears, peeled & cubed
• 50g unsalted butter
• 50g soft light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup roughly chopped pecans

Pre-heat the oven to 170C. Place the brioche on a baking tray into the oven till its lightly toasted. Leave to cool whilst you make the custard.

In a large bowl whisk together the eggs before adding the sugar. Continue whisking till smooth and then add the milk, vanilla, salt & cinnamon. Mix one more time then set aside.

Place the brioche slices in your dish and then pour over the custard, you may not be able to fit it all in, if this is the case leave it to one side for topping up later. Let the pudding sit for at least 10 minutes so the bread has time to soak the majority of the custard.

Top up if needed and then cover with foil and bake for around an hour. Be sure to check at the 45 minute stage, just use a knife to peek into the middle and if its still really liquid cook for another 15 minutes or so. At this stage place the pears, sugar and butter in a saucepan and cook gently till the pears soften. When the bread pudding comes out of the oven poke little holes in the top and press the pears deep into it. Scatter the rest on top and pour some of the caramel onto it. Top with the pecans and then put back in to oven without the foil for 5-10 minutes. This will give the pudding a lovely crunchy topping. Let it cool for at least 30 minutes to give the custard a chance to set and then serve on its own or if you want to be really indulgent, with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream.

If you do have lots of custard left over like I did, just pour into individual ramekins and place in a ban-marie in the oven. Bake at 170C for around 30 minutes or till set. Once cooled, turn out onto a plate and there you have a delicious cinnamon flan! 2 desserts in 1, what more could you ask for?

Childhood Memories Supper Club October

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Last night saw our 3rd Plate Lickers supper club. This time around the theme was childhood memories and we had so much fun planning the menu. Through all the recipe tests we ran I really struggled not to share any photos so I am so excited to finally be able to share what we have been up to. Our guests dined under a sparkling mirror ball and were welcomed with a little milk bottle filled with white Russians. We had a lot of fun making the canapes, especially the pork pies, but a special mention has to go to the pineapple chutney. I'm so glad there's a little left for my cheese sandwiches this week!

Next up was the fish finger sandwich. Served in some delicious sourdough bread from Earth's Crust on the market and homemade tartare. For one of our guests, this was his first ever fish finger sandwich and the feedback was great!

Now I have a bit of a confession to make, our very special surprise guest had turned up by the main course and I was so fascinated by what he was up to that I totally forgot to photograph the main course, The main consisted of a shoulder of lamb that had been roasted for 6 hours and then turned into a stew accompanied by potato gratin & a winter slaw of fennel, carrots, celeriac, cabbage... this list goes on! This was served in a school dinner style and each diner came up to collect their meal.

We were extremely lucky that Jack of @jackmade_gelato agreed to come along and do our sorbet course for us. Guests were treated to Jack's take on a Cornetto. Dark chocolate ganache at the base of each cone followed by vanilla cream and finally topped with a quince sorbet. I'm mostly grateful that there was enough left for us to have a cone each. Although I got a little distracted eating it and almost forgot all about the dessert!

Dessert was my take on a Jaffa cake, combining a Lamington with Jo's incredible seville orange marmalade which was lastly followed by a petit four of marshmallows which we had a lot of fun making, especially trying to get the colour perfect.

Jo & I, as always. had so much fun playing host and hearing the chit chatter of all our guests whilst we were in the kitchen. Hearing everyones feedback made it all feel so worth while. We will be announcing the next 2 dates very soon so please sign up to our mailing list (here) if you haven't done so already to hear about it first.

Beef & Guinness Stew with Dumplings

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I'm really not quite ready for autumn & winter to rear their ugly heads. I'm sure like most of you (UK based anyway) feel somewhat cheated out of the summer we've just had. But the one thing that always gets me excited about a cold dark evening is the promise of a comforting stew with dumplings. When I first starting cooking, stews were definitely my favourite things to make, they're easy to prepare and as long as you cook them for long enough they always come out great. This was the first time I've done a stew using Guinness but I know this will be my go to meal this winter. This stew would also be fantastic in pie form which I think I'll have to try out next time. They always say stews are better the next day so it would be worth making the stew and chilling it over night before placing it in a buttery puff pastry case the next day and baking it.... I think thats Sunday dinner next week sorted!

Serves 4

You will need-

• 1kg stewing beef cut into 2cm cubes
• 4 carrots peeled and cut into large chunks
• 2 parsnips prepared the same as the carrots
• 1 onion roughly chopped
• 1tbsp flour
• 500ml Guinness
• Good quality beef stock cube
• 3 bay leaves
• Big sprig of thyme
• Pinch of sugar
• Salt & Pepper

For the dumplings

• 100g self raising flour
• 50g vegetable suet
• Pinch of salt
• Approx 5tbsp cold water

Begin by browning the beef in small batches in a casserole dish on the hob. While its browning pre-heat your oven to 140C. Once all the beef is browned add the vegetables and brown in the meat juices for a few minutes. Next add the flour and mix well before adding the beef and any juices followed by the stock cube, Guinness, bay leaves, thyme & sugar. Season well and the put the lid on the dish and place into the oven. Set the timer for 2 1/2 hours and then sit back and relax. 20 or so minutes before the stew is ready make the dumplings by mixing together the flour, suet and salt and then add cold water a tablespoon at a time till you get a soft dough. Roll the dough into balls and place on top of the stew. Place the lid back on and cook for 20 minutes.

I have to apologise for the quality of the photos, the light had faded and I was too hungry to wait any longer before eating. But as you can see, after all that stewing the meat was falling apart and the vegetables were covered in a glossy, sticky sauce. It was pure heaven and we fought over the last dumpling!

Ombre Mr Penfold Cake

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I recently set myself a challenge of making the tackiest cake I could (without including edible glitter, don't get me started on that). I'm not normally one for overly decorated cakes as I feel they're just trying to compensate on the lack of flavour. Give me a 'rustic' looking walnut loaf any day over a red velvet layer cake with all the bells and whistles. But I have always secretly wanted to have a play around with gel food colouring and as pinterest calls it, an Ombre cake.

Last week was the opening for the All Type No Face exhibition and I agreed to make a cake. I had initially thought to make a typography cake by cutting letters out a a sheet of cake but as Tim's painting include quite a lot of fades I thought this would be the perfect solution. I took inspiration from the painting below and quickly set out making 4 batches of sponge cake. As I only have 2 cake tins I did these in 2 go's making a simple sponge consisting of 180g sugar, 180g unsalted butter, 3 large eggs, 180g flour, 2 tsp baking powder which then got split in half (weigh the total mixture and then divide evenly) before adding varying amounts of pink food dye. If you want to do this at home, these measurements are for a 9" tin but would also work for a smaller one if you were happy to have a taller cake, just watch the cooking times. To put the cake together I made up a simple buttercream using equal measures of softened butter & icing sugar. Once you've put all the layers together I recommend doing a 'crumb layer', which is a thin layer of icing over the whole cake that holds all the crumbs in place. If you pop the cake in the fridge for 15 minutes that will slightly set and will make putting the 2nd layer of icing much easier.

Finally, I used coloured royal icing which I rolled out thinly and Tim & I set about cutting a face for the character. This was a hardest past and made the perfectionist in me twitch, but I was pretty happy with the final result. Unfortunately for me, the cake was eaten in the blink of an eye so the only photo I managed to get was on my phone. Tim & I didn't even get to sample our creation in the end, but the feedback was pretty good.

Fig & Feta Salad with a little indulgence

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They always say the simplest things are the best and when it comes to food that couldn't be more true. Don't get me wrong, I love to submerse myself in a complicated recipe that takes days of planning but when you have amazing ingredients you really don't need to do much. I recently discovered truffle honey at a new bar, 196 on Mill Road in Cambridge and ever since have been day dreaming about it... I even had a dream one night where I was attempting to make my own with terrible results. I randomly found a jar of the honey on a recent trip to Marks and Spencer and have been trying it out with different things ever since - my favourite being on crackers with some comte cheese. That was until today anyway. Only last night I was talking to Tim about how figs are my favourite fruit. I think it stems from my summers in Croatia as a child where we would steal figs straight off a tree before tearing them open and eating the insides. I digress, today whilst at the supermarket I quite surprisingly found some beautiful looking figs on offer and knew they had to be mine. I initially planned to bake with them but I also wanted to eat some fresh. After a very quick scan of the fridge I knew what had to be done. This would make a fantastic starter or side for a dinner party but would also make a very sophisticated canapé if placed onto a cracker or bruschetta.

I won't bother with an ingredients list as I'm sure you know whats in it by now but to assemble place some rocket on your plate, top with wedges of fresh figs and crumbled feta, sprinkle with a little salt and drizzle with some extra virgin olive oil. Finally, drip some honey over the whole thing and there you have it. If you were wondering, the honey is currently £3.99 and I am planning to stock up before everyone else gets in there and buys the whole lot!
P.S This isn't a sponsored post, but if any truffle companies wish to send samples, my door is open.

Sweetcorn Pancakes

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This weekend saw my 27th birthday and as I am fast approaching being middle age (I joke) Tim very generously bought me an all singing, all dancing Magimix food processor. I can't tell you how over the moon/excited I am about it so first thing on Sunday morning we gave it a whirl. I should begin by saying these pancakes don't have to be made in a food processor, you can do it the old fashioned way with a whisk, but you will need to finely chop the sweetcorn to get a similar consistency.

These pancakes, served with salted butter taste just like sweetcorn from the barbeque, smokey and creamy. We had them for breakfast along with some smoked frankfurters but they would make a great alternative to rostis or latkes for dinner. I can just imagine a perfectly poached egg sitting atop a stack of these with cured meat and grilled asparagus. Ok, I'll stop daydreaming and get on with the recipe.

Makes enough for 2 (aprox 8 pancakes)
You will need-

• 60g plain flour
• Around 125g sweetcorn (defrosted if frozen)
• 2 medium eggs
• 1.5 tbsp milk
• Salt & Pepper

Heat a pan on a medium high heat and lightly oil. Place all of the ingredients in the food processor and blend for a couple of minutes. Spoon the mixture into the frying pan to make small pancakes and serve right away with a knob of butter and your favourite sides.