Bacon and Cheddar Scrolls

I've started doing my shopping in Sainsbury's a lot more - there's a large store only a few minutes' drive from my house, but as I'm still a relative novice when it comes to driving, I only go first thing or I struggle to get into the spaces in their car park! I recently picked up a copy of Sainsbury's magazine at the till and found lots of recipes inside that I wanted to make. As my fiancé loves bacon and would eat a bacon sandwich for lunch every Saturday and Sunday every week if he could, I get rather bored of it (so he gets a bacon sandwich every few weeks). As soon as I saw this recipe for 'bacon and cheddar scrolls' I knew it would be a winner with both of us as it was something different but still within the bacon category!

This recipe makes quite a few (I can't remember exactly how many) so to serve two people I would halve the quantity.

400g wholemeal bread flour
100g white bread flour
7g yeast
1 1/2 tsp salt
50g melted butter
1 tbsp light brown sugar
300 ml lukewarm water

For the filling:
4tbso grainy mustard
8 cooked rashers streaky bacon, crumbled or sliced
100g grated mature Cheddar cheese
3 spring onions, trimmed and sliced

In a large bowl, mix the flour and yeast. In another bowl,  mix the melted butter, water and sugar. Fold in the flour.

Knead for ten minutes if doing by hand; otherwise about five minutes in a stand-mixer (I was very glad of my Kitchenaid at this point!). Grease a large bowl and put the ball of dough inside. Cover with clingfilm and leave in a warm place for about two hours to prove until doubled in size.

Roll out the dough into a rectangle on a lightly-floured surface and spread with the filling.

Roll up from the long edge like a Swiss roll and slice into rounds.

Lay each slice on its side on a greased and lined baking tray, cover with a clean tea towel and leave in a warm place to prove until doubled in size. Meanwhile preheat the oven to 200 C and bake the rolls for 20-25 minutes. Best served warm as part of a breakfast or brunch, but you could also leave these to go cold and take them on a picnic.

I'm sending this to Bready Steady Go, hosted by Lucy at BakingQueen74.

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Coconut Dacquoise with Chocolate Ganache Filling

I attempted to make my own mayonnaise recently and it was a disaster - I tried once before and both times I haven't been able to get the mixture to thicken. Does anyone have any advice?

Since I'd used egg yolks for this recipe - three, as the recipe said two and it wouldn't thicken so I added another, which helped a little but not enough - I also had three egg whites to use up. I thought about making meringue but didn't want anything that sugary, and I'd just seen something on television where a chef was making a dacquoise - a cake made with layers of almond and hazelnut meringue.

I had some dessicated coconut I'd bought for another recipe and wondered if I could make the same sort of nutty meringue bake. Turns out you can!

I based my recipe on the coconut dacquoise element of this recipe, but changed it slightly to use coconut flour instead of almond meal (I assume by 'meal' you could use ground almonds). I also halved the quantities, and found it made seven.

Coconut flour is produced from dried coconuts; it's gluten-free and a protein-rich alternative to ordinary flour. Coconut flour also has fibre and fat (as coconuts contain fat) which makes it very filling - I bought it for a recipe I was making from a book called I Quit Sugar. I found lots of other interesting facts about coconut flour on the Nourished Kitchen website including a warning that you can't just substitute it for plain flour in baking. It can also go a bit clumpy which I discovered making this recipe, but it worked well otherwise in this mixture - I just might think twice before using it in a cake.

I toasted the coconut in the oven for a few minutes to start, and allowed it to cool.

Then for the dacquoise I whisked the egg whites and added the sugar, then folded in the dessicated coconut, coconut flour and icing sugar.

I piped circles out onto an oven tray -I realised I'd run out of baking paper so had to line it with foil.

Bake for 8-10 minutes then allow to cool.

For the filling I brought some cream to a simmer then added some chocolate and stirred until melted, then put into the fridge until set. I sandwiched the dacquoise together with the chocolate - even though my fiancé doesn't like coconut he did enjoy these!

I'm sharing this with Perfecting Patisserie, hosted by Lucy at BakingQueen74.

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Flower Stamped Birthday Card

I went a bit crazy with the rubber stamping on this card! I had a flower stamp that reminded me a bit of a geometric shape at the same time, and decided to stamp it all over a pink card to create a background. I used black ink, letting the pink of the card show through, and deliberately stamped in a fairly haphazard fashion. I had a pre-cut circle of pink card in my craft stash and stamped the flower again onto that, and secured the circle to the card with adhesive pads so it would stand out.

Finally I stamped the words 'happy birthday' onto a piece of pink card, cut the ends to make it more like a banner, and stuck that on the bottom of the card.

I'm sharing this with the Simon Says Stamp challenge as their theme is 'make it girly'.

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Restaurant Review: The Montagu at the Hyatt Regency London

Bakingaddict is really good at finding places for dinner that offer set menus for pretty reasonable prices, allowing us to eat in some very nice restaurants. I'm also really good at getting lost on the way (yes, despite a print out from Streetmap in my hand and Google Maps on my phone) so invariably keep her waiting!

We recently ate at the Montagu at the Hyatt Regency. The Hyatt Regency is a 5-star hotel on Portman Square in London hosting a famous Italian restaurant, Locanda Locatelli, as well as the Montagu.

Lobster and Devon Crab Bisque

At the Montagu you can book the chef's table - a special table where you can see everything that goes on in the open plan kitchen (restaurants generally charge quite a lot for the privilege). Our table was actually quite close to the kitchen anyway and while I couldn't see everything that was happening, it was quite interesting to be able to see and hear. We remarked to the waitress that the chefs were particularly quiet and polite (no Gordon Ramsay style shouting and swearing here!).

Pan Seared Chicken Breast and Crispy Chicken Thighs, Butternut Squash Puree, Quince, Almonds and Madeira Sauce

At the moment the Montagu is offering a high tea - or "haute tea" inspired by fashion icons so there were some beautiful dresses on display while we ate. We really felt like we were in a high-end restaurant and somewhere special, even though we had come straight from work.

Our set menu cost £35 for three courses including a glass of champagne and coffee, which isn't actually that cheap, and I worked out afterwards the food we'd had cost £35 (or £34.50 anyway) from the a la carte menu, so effectively the drinks were free. Which sounds like a bargain but without the set menu we may not have had three courses, so probably would have spent the same amount anyway!

Apple Sticky Toffee Pudding with Vanilla Ice Cream

The food was very good: I had Lobster and Devon Crab Bisque to start which was delicious, followed by Pan Seared Chicken Breast and Crispy Chicken Thighs, with Butternut Squash Puree, Quince and Almonds and Madeira Sauce. The butternut squash puree was a smear across the plate (would have been nice to have more!) and the pieces of chicken were small, as is often the way with fine dining - so perhaps we would have wanted three courses anyway!

For dessert I chose Apple Sticky Toffee Pudding with Vanilla Ice Cream - it was nicely filling and the apple flavour was subtle but recognisable. It came with a delicate piece of sugarwork on top, dn chocolate nibs on the side of the bowl that melted into the warm toffee sauce as I ate - delicious. My dining companion had the Praline Dark Chocolate Choux and I did wonder if I had chosen the wrong dessert!

Food, service and company were excellent - though next time we meet we are going somewhere my fiancé can have a burger!

Praline Dark Chocolate Choux

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Review: Keep Me Strong Cereal

Last year I reviewed a new cereal called Keep Me Going; the makers, Freedom Cereals, have now sent me their second product, Keep Me Strong.

This is a far cry from the sugary cereals I used to like as a child and I think is more likely to be eaten by a health-conscious adult. This product is a high-protein, low fat multi-grain cereal which is also low in salt and has 'reduced' sugar (overall it's 10% sugar - many cereals contain three times that, they say).

The cereal uses whole grain brown rice rather than wheat gluten which is commonly used in other cereals, but which Freedom Cereals say is one of the hardest types of protein to absorb, with a low digestibility. Whole grain brown rice is much better absorbed by the body as a protein source though it is more expensive. Freedom is quite upfront about this and say they have experimented with a dozen protein sources and found this one was much better and tasted good. It does mean the Keep Me Strong cereal is £2.65 a box (at Ocado); they say a box contains 11 servings so that is only 24p a serving.

I found this cereal tasted quite nice and I thought it was better than the Keep Me Going product that I previously tried. I also liked the bright colours of the packaging while not resorting to cartoon characters to tempt kids. Most of all though I like the health benefits, as my personal trainer has been drumming into me for years that the most important thing to eat at breakfast is protein!

Thanks to Freedom Cereals for the product to review. All opinions are my own.

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Meal Planning Monday Week 17

Monday
butternut squash quinoa risotto

Tuesday
Out at a work quiz

Wednesday
Out at a Waitrose event

Thursday
fish and vegetables for me, chicken and mashed potatoes for him

Friday
pasta with broccoli pesto for me (using spiralized vegetables instead of pasta) and pasta carbonara for him

Saturday
Lunch: quinoa cheese tartlets from this recipe
Dinner: Slimming World buffalo chicken from this recipe with homemade potato wedges

Sunday
at my parents' for my birthday visit

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Mini Kentish Pudding Pies

Back in the winter I was looking for a dessert that my fiancé would like that didn't involve chocolate, but where I could make individual puddings rather than something big like a sticky toffee pudding. I have a book called Desserts by James Martin and found in it a recipe for a Kentish pudding pie - an old fashioned  English dish consisting of a shortcrust pastry base, filled with a set custard made of ground rice and often citrus flavoured and topped with dried fruit and ground nutmeg. It's served cold, often at Easter.

The recipe is available online here.

Here I've brought the cream and milk to the boil and added the whisked eggs and sugar. It looks a little lumpy but it got better as it thickened!

Lining the tarts with the pastry to bake them blind. I got some great little loose-bottomed tart tins from Amazon.

Adding the ground rice, nutmeg and lemon zest and juice to the filling mixture

Ready to go in the oven: the cooled pastry cases filled with the lemon and cream mixture, topped with currants

They only take a few minutes to bake and can be served hot or cold - I preferred them hot

I didn't find these particularly sweet and they certainly weren't my favourite dessert, but an interesting change and a good English classic.

I'm sharing these with Tea Time Treats, hosted by Karen at Lavender and Lovage and Janie from Hedgecombers. Their theme this month is local and regional recipes - and these originate from Kent, the "garden of England" (and not very far from Surrey where I live).

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