Fruit mince pie ice cream

I was starting to think my fridge and freezer would never be rid of Christmas leftovers, but by the start of this week I had managed to use everything but half a fruit cake and 6 fruit mince pies.

Inspired by K's Xmas Pudding Ice Cream from In the Mood for Noodles and figuring that mice pies are really not too dissimilar to using biscuits and a fruit mix, I turned the leftover fruit mince pies into fruit mince pie ice cream. Given that I cheated and used leftover vanilla ice cream rather than making my own ice cream base I was fully prepared for it to be a total failure in food experimentation but it worked really well.

Ingredients

• 4 cups ice cream, softened
• 1/4 cup Brandy
• 6 fruit mince pies
• 1/2 teaspoon mixed spice 

Method

1. Mix brandy into the softened ice cream
2. Chop or crumble the fruit mince pies and mix through the ice cream
3. Freeze
4. Eat
5. Realise how much better fruit mince pies are when encased in ice cream!

I'm not much of a fan of fruit mince pies but in ice cream I actually enjoyed them. Everything is better with ice cream.

Christmas pudding vodka and eggless eggnog

Wow, it's been a really long time since my last post! It's been an insanely busy year at work, coupled with wedding planning, unwell dogs and the general family rollercoaster having more extreme ups and downs than usual. It's nice to finally have some free time again. For a couple of weeks at least... While I am enjoying my much awaited annual leave, I'll try to put up a few posts with some recipes I've had sitting waiting till I had the time available to make them (between playing Skyrim which is awesome!).

Today's recipes should really have gone up before Christmas, but better late than never...

In Sweden it is common to have a small drink of spirit at Christmas time, usually vodka or akvavit. This year I had a go at making my own flavoured vodka for skål.

This recipe is modified from The Hairy Biker's 12 Days of Christmas, and it tastes brilliant! The original recipe called for 75grams of caster sugar which I omitted because I thought it would make the vodka too syrupy sweet. I'm glad I did because all that fruit made the vodka sweet enough as it was. I also dropped the nutmeg from the recipe because one of our guests has a nutmeg allergy.

Christmas pudding vodka


Ingredients

• 300g mixed dried fruit (my mix had citrus peel, sultanas, raisins and currants)
• 3 cinnamon sticks
• 2 teaspoons of ground mixed spice *
• 6 cloves
• Finely grated zest of 1 orange
• Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
• 750ml bottle decent quality vodka

Method

1. Mix in a large jug or other container.
2. Cover tightly with a lid or clingwrap.
3. Leave the mix in the fridge for 3 days, stirring once or twice daily.
4. Strain the liquid into a jug through a fine seive lined with muslin. ** 
5. Pour the liquid into a bottle and keep in the fridge or freezer till ready to serve.

*I used my friends home blended mixed spice that has no nutmeg but contains cinnamon, allspice, cloves and ginger.
**Since I didn't have muslin, I improvised, straining it through a coffee plunger which did the job.

The result was a beautifully deep amber coloured vodka that did actually taste like a Christmas pudding. 

Served in a whiskey glass since I couldn't find my shot glasses... 

Since the dried fruit soaked up a decent amount of vodka you don't get back a full bottle. The leftover vodka fruit is great for making fruit cakes or having with icecream. 

I also made a batch of eggless eggnog.

Eggless eggnog

Ingredients

• 1 pack silken tofu. The pack I used was 300grams.
• 4 cups milk. I used soy. 
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla essence.
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon.
• 1/4 teaspoon mixed spice.
• 3/4 cup of brandy.
• 1/2 cup of dark rum.

Method

1. Put everything in a blender and blend till smooth.
2. Leave the nog in the fridge to chill.
3. Serve over ice with a dusting of spice over the top.  

Unfortunately by the time I remembered I needed a photo, all the nog had vanished... 

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. With all the pudding vodka and eggnog I know I did. 

Christmas cake - traditional and vegan versions.

Usually at Christmas time my mum goes into a baking frenzy, pumping fruit cake after fruit cake out of her kitchen as her traditional Christmas gift to her friends and one for the family to eat on Christmas day. This year however she has not baked a single thing because she doesn't have a kitchen. She started renovations back in July after the stumps on one side of the house went, and she had to replace them. She also decided to renovate 2 bathrooms, replace all her carpets and tiles, repaint and rip the entire kitchen out to replace with a new one. All of this was meant to be finished in October. 2 months later and she still doesn't have a kitchen...

So making the cake for Christmas day fell to me this year and I made 2 versions. A traditional one that pretty closely follows my mums recipe (I didn't have time to soak the dried fruit in brandy for 2 days, and bake the cake 2 weeks ahead and keep pouring more brandy over it like she does...) and a second cake that I tweaked to be a vegan version. 

Baking times are based on a deep cake pan. If you use a shallow pan or a loaf pan, take 30 minutes off the baking time. Both cakes will keep well for at least a week if stored in an airtight container. Longer if you pour a little brandy over them to keep them moist.

Shortcut version of Mum's fruit cake recipe

• 500g sultanas
• 300g currants
• 150g mixed peel
• 100g raisins
• 100g chopped dried figs
• 100g chopped dried or glace cherries
• 3/4 cup of marmalade
• 1 cup of brandy, rum or sherry (I have also used mead before when it was all we had in the house)
• 250g soft butter
• 2  1/2 cups of plain flour
• 1 tsp powdered nutmeg
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 5 large eggs, free range
• 200g light muscovado sugar
• 50g whole almonds to decorate (optional)

To make:

1. Combine the dried fruit, marmalade, spices and brandy in a large mixing bowl. Mix this really well to combine and leave to sit overnight (or a couple of hours at least). Most of the brandy should soak into the fruit.
2. Set the oven to 150C. Prepare your cake tin. Ideally this should be a deep 20cm square or 24cm round tin. To prepare the tins, grease the pans, then line with baking paper. Cut a piece of paper to fit the bottom of the pan, then strips to fit the sides. Try to have a bit of a paper collar sticking up above the edges of the pan.
3. Cream together the butter and sugar till the sugar is dissolved in.
4. In another bowl, beat the eggs together. Slowly add this to the butter mix about half an egg at a time and blend in each time. If you add too much egg at once, the mix will curdle (if it does curdle it is not the end of the world, it is just better not to have it happen).
5. Gently fold the flour into the butter and egg mix. Fold till combined.
6. Add in the dried fruit mix and any brandy that hasn't soaked in. Fold till the fruit is evenly distributed.
7. Pour the mix into your cake pan and flatten with the back of a spoon.
8. If you want to decorate your cake, press the almonds gently onto the top of the batter to make a pattern.
9. Bake the cake on the top shelf for 2 1/2 hours. Insert a skewer or thin knife into the cake. If it comes out clean the cake is cooked. If not keep checking the cake every 10 minutes till it is done.
10. Cool the cake in the pan.
11. Store the cake in an airtight container till you are ready to use it. You can sprinkle a couple of tablespoons of brandy over the cake each day if you want to keep the cake a little more moist.



Egg based fruit cake.



A bit drier and lighter in colour than I would like, but still tastes fine.


Vegan version of Mum's fruit cake recipe (note for this version I used gluten free flour. You may need to reduce the liquid and baking soda if using wheat flour)

• 500g sultanas
• 300g currants
• 150g mixed peel
• 100g raisins
• 100g chopped dried figs
• 100g chopped dried or glace cherries
• 3/4 cup of marmalade
• 1 cup of brandy, rum or sherry
• 250g nuttalex
• 2 cups of gluten free all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup of rice flour
• 1/2 cup of corn flour
• 1 tsp powdered nutmeg
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 200g light muscovado sugar
• 1 1/4 cups of soy milk
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 50g whole almonds to decorate (optional)

To make:

1. Combine the dried fruit, marmalade, spices and brandy in a large mixing bowl. Mix this really well to combine and leave to sit overnight (or a couple of hours at least). Most of the brandy should soak into the fruit.
2. Set the oven to 150C. Prepare your cake tin. Ideally this should be a deep 20cm square or 24cm round tin, but 2 loaf pans will do. To prepare the tins, grease the pans, then line with baking paper. Cut a piece of paper to fit the bottom of the pan, then strips to fit the sides. Try to have a bit of a paper collar sticking up above the edges of the pan.
3. Cream together the nuttalex and sugar till the sugar is dissolved in.
4. In another bowl combine the soy milk with the vinegar and leave to sit a couple of minutes to curdle.
5. Add the baking soda to the soy milk mix. This will foam so make sure the bowl is large enough for the mix to double or even triple in size.
6. Slowly add this to the nuttalex mix and combine thoroughly.
7. Gently fold the flour into the nuttalex and milk mix. Fold till combined.
8. Add in the dried fruit mix and any brandy that hasn't soaked in. Fold till the fruit is evenly distributed.
9. Pour the mix into your cake pan and flatten with the back of a spoon.
10. If you want to decorate your cake, press the almonds gently onto the top of the batter to make a pattern.
11. Bake the cake on the top shelf for 2 1/2 hours. Insert a skewer or thin knife into the cake. If it comes out clean the cake is cooked. If not keep checking the cake every 10 minutes till it is done.
12. Cool the cake in the pan.
13. Store the cake in an airtight container till you are ready to use it. You can sprinkle a couple of tablespoons of brandy over the cake each day if you want to keep the cake a little more moist.

Vegan gluten free fruit cake

Looks pretty damn good for a gluten free flour cake!

I cut a bit off the end of each cake to see how they went in side. Agneta helped me do a taste test and said that the vegan version was better and more moist than the non vegan version! You can see from the photos that it looks better too.

Next time round I think I would use a dark muscovado sugar to get a bit more colour in the cake and will stick with the vegan version from now on. It worked out much better.

We will be eating this on Christmas eve and Christmas day with brandy butter.

Brandy Butter
This can be spread as a hard sauce on cold fruit cake, or served to slowly melt over hot Christmas pudding. 

• 100g Nuttalex
• 4 cups icing sugar
• 6 tbsp Brandy

1. Blend together nuttalex and 1 cup of the icing sugar till smooth.
2. Alternate adding 2 tbsp Brandy and 1 cup of icing sugar till all is blended in and the mix is pale and creamy.
3. Set in the fridge till you are ready to use it.

Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas with good food and great company!

Home made vegan chocolates

Part 2 of my posts on home made christmas presents will be a little longer than the first. This was a lot more time consuming than the white christmas and had to be done in stages. Like with the white christmas, I made everything gluten free and vegan as I was also giving some of the chocolates to K and Toby from In the Mood for Noodles.

I got started making chocolates when I was really young. Mum found it was cheaper (and more fun) each easter to buy chocolate melts and make her own eggs each easter rather than buy the stupidly over priced foil wrapped store eggs. She would colour white chocolate in a variety of pastel colours with powdered food dye and paint her hand rolled hollow easter eggs them with beautiful designs. 

She soon expanded into making her own chocolates and has a little book she has put together over the years of her signature fillings. She was so good at it that she ended up turning it into a source of revenue and also went to the local primary school each year to help the little prep grade students make their very own painted coloured chocolate easter egg to take home. The kids at school thought I had the coolest mother ever and they were of course right :-)

To start making shaped chocolates at home, you will need to get a couple of things first.

• Chocolate moulds - You can get some great chocolate moulds from a cake supply shop in port phillip arcade in the city, called Cake Deco. This is just across the road from Flinders street station and the have HEAPS of food crafting supplies. Spotlight and Matchbox also have a good range. If you have never made chocolates before try to get clear plastic chocolate moulds rather than silicon as it is easier to judge whether the chocolate is thick enough.
• Food paint brushes - If you are planning on painting different coloured chocolates into the mould or onto the chocolates as decoration it is much easier to use a fine food grade paint brush. These can be purchased at the same place as the moulds.
• A candy thermometer. If you want to make caramel fillings you will need this to check when the caramel gets to soft ball or soft crack stage.

You will also need to decide what to fill your chocolates with. You can make solid moulded chocolates of course, but filled chocolates are so much more interesting and impressive.

I made 3 simple fillings this time - Peanut butter, Agave Caramel and Strawberry Cream Cheez.

 

Peanut butter filling:

This filling is really really simple. It also works with any other nut butter like macadamia or ABC spread, etc. If you are making gluten free chocolates, best to go buy a fresh jar of peanut butter. You don't want to use peanut butter that someone has wheat contaminated when they have double dipped the knife when spreading their toast...

• 1/2 cup of peanut butter
• 1/4 cup of pure icing sugar

1. Mix the peanut butter and icing sugar together to form a paste.
2. Store in the fridge till you are ready to use.

Strawberry Cream Cheez filling:
Like with the peanut butter, buy a fresh tofutti tub that no one has contaminated with bread...

• 20g freeze dried strawberries
• 2 tablespoons of caster sugar
• 1/4 of a cup of hot water
• 100g tofutti cream cheese

1. Chop the strawberries into small pieces.
2. Dissolve the sugar into the hot water in a bowl. Add the strawberries and leave to soak for 30 minutes. 
3. Spoon the strawberry pieces and 2 tbsp of the liquid into the tofutti and blend thoroughly.
4. Store the mix in an airtight container in the fridge till you are ready to use this. The mix should be used within a week and any chocolates made with it kept in the fridge.

Agave caramel
There are 2 methods I use with this caramel depending how thick I want it. Using agave syrup will give a honey flavoured caramel. Again, I started with a fresh tub of nuttalex.

• 3 tbsp nuttalex
• 3/4 cup of caster sugar
• 1/4 plus 1/4 cup of agave syrup
• 1/4 plus 1/4 cup of water
• 1 tspn vanilla essence

For a thicker slightly chewy caramel

1. In a heavy saucepan combine the nuttalex, sugar, all the agave syrup, all the water, and vanilla essence. Stir this over the heat till combined.
2. Using a candy thermometer, boil the mix till it reaches soft ball stage (115C). The thermometer should have a marker on it to show how much of it needs to be immersed in the caramel for an accurate reading. You can also tell if it has reached soft ball stage by dropping a little of the caramel into a glass of ice cold water. If the caramel forms a soft flexible little ball.
3. Once the sauce hits soft ball, remove it from the heat immediately. Transfer to a heat proof storage container or bowl.
4. Store in an air tight container in the fridge till ready for use.

For a runnier caramel

1. In a heavy saucepan combine the nuttalex, sugar, 1/4 cup of the agave syrup, 1/4 cup of the water, and vanilla essence. Stir this over the heat till combined.
2. Using a candy thermometer, boil the mix till it reaches soft ball stage (115C). The thermometer should have a marker on it to show how much of it needs to be immersed in the caramel for an accurate reading. You can also tell if it has reached soft ball stage by dropping a little of the caramel into a glass of ice cold water. If the caramel forms a soft flexible little ball.
3. Once the sauce hits soft ball, remove it from the heat immediately. Allow the caramel to cool a little bit and stir in the remaining agave and water. (If you stir this in when the caramel is still at 115C then the water may react violently and you may get burnt by caramel splash and that really hurts)
4. Transfer to a heat proof storage container or bowl.
5. Store in an air tight container in the fridge till ready for use.

I made the fillings a day ahead of making the chocolate and stored the fillings in the fridge. The fillings should be cold when you put them into the chocolate shells so as not to melt the chocolate.

With the fillings made it is now time to start making the chocolates. There a couple of things to note about melting chocolate.

• It does not like water. Get water in your chocolate and it will seize (go thick, solid and gluggy). Make sure your moulds are completely dry before you use them. Any water and your chocolates will look dull and furry anywhere there was water.
• It does not like direct heat. If you melt chocolate in a saucepan over direct heat it will likely seize and probably burn.
• If you do have an accident and some of the chocolate does start to seize you can save it by mixing in a little bit of copha. The copha will help the chocolate go back to a liquid and you can still use it, but it will not taste quite the same.
• You can also add a very small amount (just a couple of small shavings) of copha to any chocolate you are trying to use to decorate with if you are finding it is too thick or gluggy to paint into fine details on your mould. The copha will thin it out a little and make it easier to paint with.
• You can re-melt chocolate if it sets while you are working with it, by putting it back over a pan of boiled water.

To make the chocolates you will need:

• 1/2 a block of white chocolate to decorate (I used sweet william)
• Milk or dark chocolate. How much will depend on the number of chocolates you want to make and the size of the moulds in the tray. I find it usually takes 100g of chocolate per tray. For the volume of chocolates I made this year, I used 600g of sweet william milk chocolate, plus 170g Noble choice dark chocolate.

1. Boil a small saucepan of water. Turn the heat off after the water has reached boiling point.
2. Chop the white chocolate and place it a heat proof bowl. Place the bowl over the pan of boiled water and leave the chocolate to melt. Once most of the chocolate has melted, stir gently till the last little pieces melt away.
3. For moulds with detail - Using a food paint brush, paint white chocolate into the design on your mould in the areas you want some detail. Once all the moulds in the tray are painted with the design you want, put the trays in the fridge to set.
4. For shaped moulds where you want a marble effect - Roughly paint some white chocolate into the bottom of the mould. Once all the moulds in the tray are painted, put the tray in the fridge to set.
5. In a new heat proof bowl, melt the milk or dark chocolate using the same method as used to melt the white chocolate.
6. When the chocolate is melted, use a teaspoon to put a little chocolate into each mould in the tray. As a rule of thumb a mould will need to be about 1/3 filled with chocolate to have enough to give a good coating.
7. Using a food paint brush, paint the chocolate up the sides of the mould, making sure there is a good coating all over the whole of the shape. This is where having clear moulds is easier - if you hold the tray up to the light, you can see where the chocolate is not thick enough because light will show through. Anywhere the chocolate is too thin, paint a little more chocolate in.
8. If you are making chocolates with a marble design, gently swirl the chocolate around in the bottom of the mould. This should melt the white chocolate and start to marble the white and dark together.
9. If you have too much chocolate in the moulds don't worry. Just turn the tray upside down and pour any excess chocolate back into the bowl.
10. Put the tray in the fridge to set.
11. Once set, check each shape to make sure there are no thin spots where you can see the mould through the chocolate, or can see light coming through. Corners or any design edges will be the most likely place. Paint some more chocolate into any thin spots and return to the fridge to set.
12. Once you are happy the chocolate shells in your moulds are thick enough it is time to put your filling in. Use a small spoon to transfer a little filling into each mould. How much you will need will depend on the size of the mould you have chosen. My moulds needed about half a teaspoon. Press the filling in and get it as flat as possible. Leave a millimeter or 2 of space in the mould for a seal of chocolate to go in on top.
13. To seal the chocolate, spoon a little chocolate into the space left in each mould in the tray. For really soft fillings, start from the edges - if you pour from the middle of the chocolate your filling will ooze over the edge. Return the tray to the fridge to set for at least 30 minutes.
14. Once set, remove the tray from the fridge and gently turn the tray upside down over a plate. For plastic trays gently press on each chocolate till they fall out of their mould. For silicon trays, pull the sides of the mould around each chocolate till they fall out.
15. You're done! Try to resist the temptation to eat all your chocolate handy work at once.

Below are some pictures of the chocolates I made with samples of cut chocolates so you can see what they look like inside.



Little peanut butter men. I call them Meesa's Pieces



Runny agave caramels with marble design

Strawberry cream cheez hearts and roses. White detail on hearts was painted on after un-moulding the chocolates

I had some chocolate left over so I decided to attempt to use the brain mould tray again. This time I made the chocolate shell much thicker so they would not break when popping them out of their mould like they did last time. This mould is actually an ice cube tray and the chocolate needs to be pretty thick so as not to break when the mould is being peeled off. I filled them again with caramel and some dandies vegan marshmallows. They are sickly sweet with 2 teaspoons of caramel and 3 marshmallows in side each brains thick chocolate shell, but they worked this time!

Caramel marshmallow brains to give your brain a sugar overload!

And there you have it. With the right equipment and a little patience, anyone can make filled chocolates at home and they make great home made gifts for christmas time.

Damn that was a long post... I hope it all made sense.

White Christmas - Vegan

Since this is the first year in a long time that I have actually had some time off work at Christmas (with the exception of last year when I was in Sweden for Christmas) I have actually had the time to make some Christmas gifts this year. Not a lot of time to blog about them, but time to cook at least.

The first I will post about was the simplest. This White Christmas only took me 10 minutes to make, then only a couple of hours to set. The White Christmas I remember my Nan making when I was little was always super sickly sweet, made with copha, heaps of icing sugar, milk powder and those nasty red green and yellow fake cherry things. I figured it would taste way better using white chocolate instead of the sugar and milk, and with dried sour cherries instead to counter the sweetness in the white chocolate. A more adult version of a white christmas perhaps.

I made this using all vegan and gluten free ingredients so I could give this to my friends at In the Mood for Noodles in the christmas gift box I put together.

Ingredients:


500g Vegan White Chocolate (I used 3 blocks of Sweet William and 2 block of Bonvita rice milk white chocolate) If that seems like too much chocolate, you can substitute 200 grams of the chocolate for 200g Copha (solid coconut oil) instead.

1  1/2 cups rice bubbles 

100 grams dried sour cherries
100 grams dried apricots, chopped

100g sultanas
50 grams of dried citrus peel chopped

2 cups desiccated coconut

• Line a small slice tin with baking paper. 
• Sit a heat proof mixing bowl over a pan of boiled water. Melt the chocolate in this bowl.
• Mix in fruits, coconut and rice bubbles. Stir well to combine and ensure all dry ingredients get a good coating and the coconut is evenly distributed.
• Pour the mix into the lined pan, and press it down with the back of a spoon.
• Refrigerate till set, then cut into squares. 

Glace cherries look more traditional than the sour cherries I used, but if you want to use glace cherries just be careful of the red colouring they use. A couple of the brands I saw in the supermarket used colour 120 :(
The dried fruit you use doesn't really matter, you could use pineapple, figs, apple, what ever you like really. 
As long as it has white chocolate, coconut and rice bubbles it still looks like the White Christmas we all remember from child hood. It just tastes 387% better!