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The Marzipan & Pecan Cookie

For my birthday, my dear friend Clare brought round a batch of her homemade Marzipan & Pecan cookies for me. And I really loved them. They are crispy and chewy, just like a cookie should be and the union of the soft marzipan and crunchy pecan comes together perfectly. Although we are in the mad process of moving house, I still found time to make them -proof that they are a quick wee treat to throw together, even if the storage boxes are piling high. Maybe this is due to the fact that there are so many 150g measurements in this recipe..?

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Makes roughly 25 cookies

150g unsalted butter, softened
150g soft brown sugar
150g granulated sugar
150g plain flour
150g rolled oats
1 large egg
1 tsp almond extract
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarb
1/4 tsp salt
100g raisins
100g chopped pecans
50g marzipan

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Cream the butter and both sugars together, until light in texture. Beat in the egg and almond extract. Sift in the flour, baking powder, bicarb and salt. Add the oats and mix well until combined. Next add the chopped pecans and raisins and mix in thoroughly.

Using two spoons (or your hands!) form walnut sizes balls and place a little pea sized chunk of marzipan in the middle. Place the balls onto a lined baking tray and pop in the fridge for 15 min.
Bake the cookies in a preheated oven set to 170°c /fan 160°c/gas 3-4, for 15 min. Remove from the oven an transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool.

Wild, Hot Smoked Salmon with Egg, Potato and Apple.

Published by Anna @ Camera & Clementine

Wild, Hot Smoked Salmon with Egg, Potato and Apple.

We are in the middle of packing up our house, getting ready to move to a new one.(one with a rain-proof roof) So dishes that can be made in one pan are very welcome indeed. I came up with this dish, for that very reason! I made it in my Le Creuset pan, as it can be safely put in the oven, with no danger of melting plastic handles! Its a thoroughly satisfying dish to prepare and eat, as it leaves you feeling that you have had a hearty meal, but all done in 20 min. Splendid!

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Serves two (just make more and add extra eggs in you are more than two!)

Half a head of white cabbage

1 large red onion

1 apple

150g wild hot smoked salmon. (go out of your way to get the wild kind. I don’t think salmon have much fun swimming round in a circular tank their entire life..They need to leap and spawn, and be shared with the bears)

4 red duke potatoes

2 free range eggs

a handful of red chard

1 splash of olive oil for frying

1 pinch of nutmeg

salt and pepper to taste

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Wash and cut the potatoes into quarters. Boil the potatoes until tender, roughly 20 min. I leave the skin on, as they have a lovely red colour, but peal if they are to tough.

Heat up the frying pan with the olive oil and add the onion, sauté for a min. Add the chopped cabbage and let it wilt for a few min whilst stirring. Next add the apple and potatoes, fry for a further 5 min. Sprinkle in the nutmeg, pepper and salt. Now add the red chard, mix in, then flake the salmon on top.

Make two nests for the egg’s, by making an indentation into the mix. Crack the eggs into the hollows and fry for 1 min, then place the pan into a preheated oven set to 200°c/fan 180°c/gas 5 and bake for 2-3 min, or until the eggs are done the way you want them. If you want a solid yolk bake for an additional min.

Be My Valentine Macaroon

Published by Anna @ Camera & Clementine

Be my Valentine Macaroon

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As a little valentines gift, I decided to make my Valentine a batch of Macaroons. They are sweet, romantic, pretty and a whole lot of hassle! I don’t want you to be under any illusions that these are quick to whip up! Oh no, they took me 6 hours and my kitchen was turned into total chaos by these dainty cakes. Half way through I was frantically texting my baker friend for help (got phone covered in sticky goo in process) due to the difference in texture between the two colour batches..and I thought all was lost…But, just like magic, they came out of the oven looking gorgeous and tasting fantastic. Phewww!

What dishes do you find stressful to make?

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‘I adapted Edd Kimber’s recipe, winner of BBC’s Great British Bake Off, by changing the filling from chocolate to custard.

‘

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Makes roughly 30 macaroons

170g icing sugar

160g ground almonds

120ml egg whites from about 4 medium eggs, separated into 2 equal batches

160g granulated sugar

a few drops of food colouring in your choice of colour
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Filling

100g unsalted butter, very soft

2 egg yolks

50g granulated sugar

3 1/2 tablespoons milk

seeds of 1 vanilla pod

1 tbsp raspberry jam

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Put the icing sugar and ground almonds in a food processor and blitz until fully combined. Sieve the mixture into a large bowl, discarding the granules that stay in the sieve. Add the first batch of egg whites to the mixture and mix to form a sticky paste, set aside.

Now make the Italian Meringue by heating the granulated sugar with 50ml of water in a saucepan over medium heat. Meanwhile pop the second batch of egg whites into a very clean bowl, set aside. Bring the sugar to the boil and monitor it using a sugar thermometer, cook until it reaches 110C, at which point start whisking the egg whites using an electric whisk. Once the syrup reaches 118C take it off the heat and pour it slowly down the side of the mixing bowl, whilst continuing to whisk the whites.

Continue to whisk at high speed until the meringue mixture can make shiny peaks when the whisk is lifted out. Now add the colouring. If you want different coloured macaroons, divide the meringue mixture as well as the almond mixture in equal portions, and colour the meringue separately.

Now tip the meringue onto the almond mixture and gently fold together. It is important not to over-mix the batter – it should fall in a thick ribbon from the mixing spoon. The ribbon should also fade back into the batter within about 30 secs – if it doesn’t, fold a few more times.

Heat oven to 170°c /fan 150°c /gas 3-4.

Line 3 baking trays with good quality baking parchment so the macaroons don’t stick and scoop the prepared mixture into a piping bag fitted with a plain nozzle. Pipe round blobs of 2.5cm in diameter onto the baking trays and then tap the trays hard onto the work surface. This forces any air bubbles out of the macaroons and gives a smooth finish.

Bake the macaroons for 14 mins, one tray at a time. Remove the tray from the oven and slide the parchment onto the work surface and cool for a few minutes before gently peeling the macaroons off the paper. If they don’t come of by themselves, gently help them using a flat pallet knife.

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Make the custard filling

Make sure your butter is very soft, you can help it along by mashing it.

In a small bowl, whisk the egg yolks and granulated sugar together until pale. Then add the milk and combine.

Pour the mixture into a small saucepan and heat over low heat and add the scraped out vanilla seeds. Whisk the mixture frequently to ensure that it does not scorch and cook for a few min until the mixture becomes thick like custard.

Pour the egg mixture back into the bowl and whisk continually until it returns to room temperature. Now whisk in the butter in three batches and stir until smooth, then add 1 tbsp raspberry jam and stir until all ingredients are combined.

Finally sandwich the macaroons together using the filling.

Chunky Peanut and Almond Butter by Miss May

Published by Anna @ Camera & Clementine

Since starting this blog, I have wanted to feature Guest Bloggers that could contribute with their own recipes and photography. So I am super excited to be able to share this latest post with you, written by my talented and good friend Victoria May.

Miss May is a fellow blogger from chimneystack.wordpress.com and a world traveler, whizzing from continent to continent with her ‘old school’ film camera- all along the way cooking, baking and eating her way through her journey.

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This is her recipe!

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I love peanut butter. It’s both a comfort food (smothered on hot toast) and an energy bomb (whizzed up with banana, muesli and yogurt in a breakfast smoothie), and never fails to remind me of my time in the States. Americans really know how to harness the full bad-ass potential of P.B.

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This is my throw-it-together recipe.

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Makes 1 large Jar or 2 small ones

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3 cups peanuts (unsalted)

1 cup almonds

50ml organic rapeseed (olive is too over-powering a flavour)

salt to taste

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In a blender, grind the nuts together and slowly pour in the oil until you get the texture you want. I quite like my peanut butter chunky but if you like it smooth, just keep on blitzing. Add salt to taste and spoon into sterilized jars.

(this is my friend madi eating a peanut butter and jelly donut from the Donut Plant, an artisan donut bakery in the lower east side)

‘

Photography by Victoria May

Pizza Florentine with Egg, Spinach and Homemade Pesto

Published by Anna @ Camera & Clementine

I make homemade pizza a lot, with a variety of toppings, but one that always makes an impression is the egg topping on Pizza Florentine. It looks impressive and tastes great too. I like it for lunch, but I think it would be great for brunch too.

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Dough

300g strong organic flour

½ tsp fast action yeast

2 tbsp olive oil

170ml water

½ tsp salt

Topping

4 tbsp of pasata

2 eggs

a handful of spinach

6 cherry tomatoes

1 mozzarella ball

1 tbsp of dried oregano or a sprig of fresh

3 tbsp homemade pesto Get that recipe here

3 or 4 basil leaves

salt and pepper to taste

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If you have a bread machine, whack the ingredients in that, and follow your manufacturers guidelines for making dough.

If you are making it by hand, here’s how:

Tip the flour, salt and yeast into a large bowl and make a well in the middle. Pour the water and oil into the well and in a circular motion start to gather the flour from the sides of the well. Keep going until all the flour is incorporated.

Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and kneed for 5-10 min. Place back into the bowl, cover and leave to rise for 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 220 °c /fan 200 °c. Remove the dough from the bread machine or bowl and lightly kneed again. Divide the dough into two equal balls and roll out using a rolling pin. I go rustic on the shape, but feel free to make it perfectly circular if you want! Transfer the pizza bases onto two baking trays, or a pizza stone.

Next spread out 2 tbsp of pasata onto each of the bases, leaving a 1 cm edge free. Scatter the spinach leaves, baby tomatoes and the torn mozzarella on the pizzas then add a few spoonfuls of pesto on top. Sprinkle with a little oregano, basil leaves and black pepper and bake in the oven for 10-12 min, then quickly crack an egg in the middle of the pizza and bake for a further 3 min until the white just sets, but the yolk remains runny.

I bake the pizzas one at a time, to ensure a good distribution of heat.

Serve with a good salad. Maybe this one?

Blood Orange, Red Chard and Stilton Salad

Published by Anna @ Camera & Clementine

During the summer months, I eat a lot of creative salads, but in the winter I usually go for more substantial dishes. However, when you can combine blood orange, red chard and stilton, Im all for eating salads during the winter!

Juicy blood oranges can be found at the moment in the shops. I got mine in my local farm shop along side the delicious red chard, which really brightens up salads with its colourful deep red stems.

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Serves 2

2 extra large handfuls of red chard, washed

1 blood orange

150g good stilton (add more of less to suit your taste)

2 tbsp mixed seeds, such as pumpkin and pine nuts

1 tbsp olive oil

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Segment the blood orange, (here’s how) and try to capture most of the stray juices. Cut the stilton into randomly sized chunks and toss with the washed leaves, seeds and blood orange segments. Finally drizzle the renaming blood orange juice and olive oil over the finished salad.

Serve with a few slices of good bread, for example this one!

Blueberry and Orange Polenta Cake

Published by Anna @ Camera & Clementine

Blueberry and Orange Polenta Cake

A couple of years ago I tasted the most heavenly polenta cake with a rosemary sirup in the cafe of The Scottish National Galley of Art. The soft texture and sticky sirup was a cake triumph! And even after thinking about this cake more than one should think about cake, it’s taken me this long to give polenta a go myself.

If you need a gluten free friendly cake, this is a good start.

Adapted from Sainsburys Baking Collection.

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100g unsalted butter

100g caster sugar

2 large eggs

100g almonds

50g cashews

90g fine polenta

zest and juice of half a orange

1 ½ tsp baking powder

100ml of crème fresh

100g blueberries

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Preheat your oven to 180 °c /fan 160 °c / gas mark 4. Grease and line a 2lb loaf tin.

In a food processor, whiz the almonds and cashews to a fine dust, set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar together, until soft and fluffy. Then add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Now add the polenta, baking powder and orange zest and juice, stir well. Finally add the whizzed almond/cashew mix, together with the crème fresh and half the blueberries. Pour into the loaf tin and add the remaining blueberries on the top.

Bake for 45-50 min, or until a skewer comes out clean.

Serve cool, as it better keeps its shape, with some extra crème fresh.

Poached Duck Eggs with Avovado and Spinach

Published by Anna @ Camera & Clementine

Poached Duck Eggs with Avocado and Spinach

I love poached eggs and my darling boyfriend always makes them for me as a wee treat. So until I decided to poach a duck egg, I hadn’t actually done it before. (I’ve made every other kind of eggs, I just want to say)

And as expected, it was delicious, with just a little bit more flavour than a chickens egg and bigger, of course!

This is a smashing dish to serve for brunch, or as a light lunch. I used my spelt bread recipe for a wholesome side kick to the tasty egg. Spelt recipe here

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Serves two people:

2 duck eggs

1 avocado, sliced

a couple of slices of good bread

a handful of mushrooms

a handful of spinach

1 tbsp olive oil plus extra for frying

salt, paprika and pepper to taste

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Bring a large pan of water to the boil.

Meanwhile fry the mushrooms in olive oil. Assemble the spinach leaves, avocado and mushrooms on the bread and drizzle with the olive oil. Bring the water to a gentle simmer and using a spoon, stir the water round and round, creating a mini whirlpool. Crack the duck eggs, one at a time into the middle of the swirling water and simmer for 3.30 min for a soft poached and 4 min for a medium poached egg.

Lift the eggs out of the pan and gently dry on a piece of kitchen roll.

Place on top of the avocado, sprinkle a little hot paprika and serve with salsa.

Spelt Bread

Published by Anna @ Camera & Clementine

Spelt Bread

This year for my birthday I received a beautiful artisan rising basket, and a kilo of small batch milled spelt. The basket is made out of one long piece of wicker that is coiled together to make a round bowl shape. After preparing the dough, it is put into the basket for a slow rise of 6 hours. And just like magic, when you turn out the dough and stick it in the oven, it keeps the lovely pattern from the rising basket. Not only does it look fantastically impressive, it tastes amazing too!

If you dont have a rising basket (get one!) you can just prove the bread as normal in a regular bowl.

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550-600g organic spelt flour

150ml cold water

250ml organic yoghurt

1 sachet easy bake yeast (or 7g)

pinch of salt

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Tip your flour, yeast and salt into a large bowl and make a well in the middle. Pour the water and yoghurt into the hole. Combine the ingredients by gathering more and more flour from the sides as you work in a circular motion. Once a ball has formed, tip out onto a floured surface and kneed for 10 min, until the dough is smooth and elastic.

Coat the inside of the rising basket with a good amount of plain flour, this stops the dough form sticking and also makes a pretty effect once baked.

Place the dough ball into the basket and firmly press down, to create the pattern. Leave to rise in the fridge, or a place of similar temperature for 4-6 hours.

This bread dough will not rise excessively due to the cold rise, so don’t be put off. The bread is meant to be flattish.

It is fantastic served with soup or a wholesome salad.

Jerusalem Artichoke and Goats Cheese Tart with Pine Nuts and Homemade Pesto

Published by Anna @ Camera & Clementine

Jerusalem Artichoke and Goats Cheese Tart with Pine Nuts and Homemade Pesto

Jerusalem Artichokes, a relative of the Sunflower, are in season during the winter months from October to March and are therefore a great vegetable to enjoy right now. They are rich in vitamin C and K and originate from Mexico, but thrives in the British garden. In this recipe I have combined a sharp counterpart in form of the Goats Cheese, to the mild tasting Jerusalem Artichokes. And adding homemade pesto gives the whole dish a rich feel. I also used my ‘birthday present eggs’! They were a gift from my good friends’ chickens!

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Short Crust Pastry

200g plain flour
100g butter, cubed
2-3 tbsp cold water
pinch of salt

Filling

400g jerusalem artichokes, peeled
3 large handfuls of spinach
2 eggs
150g goats cheese
250ml single cream
tsp ground nutmeg
half a lemon, juiced
3 tbsp homemade pesto, recipe here
pinch of salt and pepper

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In a large bowl, use your fingertips to rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Try to work quickly so that the butter does not melt.

Add the water and form a stiff dough. Turn out onto a floured surface and kneed briefly.

Roll out the pastry to 1 cm’s thickness and either place in two greased 15 cm flan tins, or one 25-30cm flan tin. There is no need to trim off the excess pastry edges at this stage, they can be trimmed later.

Refrigerate for 30 min.

Line the pastry with greaseproof paper and fill with baking beans. Blind bake the pastry cases for 15 mins, then remove the paper and beans, continue cooking until crisp and light golden. Using a small, sharp knife, carefully trim off the excess pastry.

Meanwhile make the filling. Peel the Jerusalem Artichokes and boil in salted water for 10-15 min, until al dente. Cool and thinly slice into rounds. Next chop up the spinach and place in a large pan with the lemon juice, ground nutmeg, salt and pepper until wilted, then add 100ml of cream. Lightly whisk the eggs, then whisk in the remaining cream together with a pinch of salt and pepper.

Spread a tbsp of pesto onto the pastry bases, then arrange the jerusalem artichokes followed by the spinach. Pour the egg mixture on top and finish by adding the sliced goats cheese, pesto and a scattering of pine nuts.

Bake for 30-35 min in a preheated oven at 170 °c /fan 160 °c .

Serve with a green salad.

Latest Posts

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Wild, Hot Smoked Salmon with Egg, Potato and Apple.

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Be my Valentine Macaroon

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Blueberry and Orange Polenta Cake

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Spelt Bread

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Jerusalem Artichoke and Goats Cheese Tart with Pine Nuts and Homemade Pesto

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