Healthy Baking: Broccoli and Pea Tart

It’s only been two weeks since we saw in the new year and I’m sure a hefty percent of the world’s population vowed to eat better and jump on the treadmill more often, I know I did. However, having a passion for baking and staying in bed doing nothing all day I’ve been finding it quite difficult to keep to my new year’s resolution.

I wanted to bake something that was tasty but not overly bad for my diet so I decided to make a savoury tart. Of course, when you’re on a diet pastry isn’t the best idea but I wanted to try to make one using low fat spread rather than butter. The tart worked out pretty well and I didn’t feel quite so guilty as I would have done if I’d had a pot noodle or a pizza!

Broccoli and Pea Tart

For the pastry:

200g plain flour

100g low fat spread or margarine

Pinch of salt

2 tbsp water

For the filling:

3 eggs

50 ml skimmed milk

1 head of broccoli (cooked)

50 g frozen peas (cooked)

Heat the oven to 200 degreed centigrade.

Rub the salt, flour and spread together with your fingers until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Add the water a little bit at a time stirring with a wooden spoon until the dough begins to come together. Wrap the dough tightly in clingfilm and put in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.

After the dough has chilled roll it out using two pennies on top of each other as a thickness guide, this ensures the pastry is nice and thin and even. carefully place the dough into a greased flan dish and prick the bottom all over with a fork. crumple some baking paper and place on top of the pastry, then fill with baking beads, dried rice or loose change. Blind bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

While the pastry is baking cook the vegetables, whisk the eggs and milk in a bowl and season.

Once the pastry is done turn down the oven to 150 degrees centigrade, remove the baking paper filled with beads and place the vegetables around the pastry case. Pour over the egg mixture until it just reaches the top of the case but don’t let it over flow as this may make the pastry soggy. Carefully place back in the oven and bake for another 20 minutes.

This tart is good as you can change what you fill it with. You can also grate cheese on top if you feel like being a little bit naughty!

I had a slice of mine warm with my home-made low fat coleslaw and a big salad.

Happy baking.

Christmas Biscotti

Being a student, money is always a bit tight around Christmas. It’s nice to give your friends and family presents but not if it’s going to get you evicted or leave you without electricity (I may be exaggerating slightly).

I know my grandparents really enjoy receiving gifts which I’ve made myself so I decided to make them some biscotti. You can add whatever you like to it and it lasts for up to a month so it’s perfect as a present.

I followed the recipe for Christmas Biscotti on the BBC Good Food website but altered it slightly with different nuts and fruits using up what I had left over from the Christmas cake and pudding!

The recipe made loads more that I needed but that was hardly an issue as they were so delicious they were easy to share around. I think my Dad actually said they were the best thing I’d ever baked!

Christmas Biscotti Gift

Lemon Macarons

I fell in love with macarons on the day my mum took me for afternoon tea at The Langham Hotel in London. It was a mini mouthful of creamy, crunchy, almond and pistachio. I can’t describe how beautiful it was. I’d never tasted anything that was both delicate and bold. It was incredible, truly.

Since then I’ve had a few naff ones but they’ve still been better than any cake or pudding I’ve ever tasted.

So, I decided to take on the challenge of making my own. I had been warned that macarons are beyond tricky to make but I didn’t care. I wanted to know that I could have little explosions of loveliness in my mouth any time I wanted.

The recipe I used was fairly simple. I’ve seen a few that called for Italian Meringue and hours of painstaking whisking so I was expecting this bake to be one of the most challenging experiences of my life. It wasn’t.

I made a basic meringue with egg whites and caster sugar and then added icing sugar, ground almonds and yellow food colouring. The mixture was thicker than I was expecting but was really easy to pipe into little circles which I’d previously drawn onto some greaseproof paper. While they were cooking (25 minutes at 120c) I whisked some double cream until it was thick and swirled in a couple of spoons of lemon curd.

Now, I don’t want to blow my own trumpet but I think I’m going to have to. They were INCREDIBLE!!! And as a pretty hard nosed macaroon critic I think that’s saying something. And look how pretty they are!!

Lemon Macarons

Carrot Cup Cakes

My very good friend Nicki requested that I make individual carrot cup cakes a la BBC Good Food.

These ones here.

So I made them and they’re really really yummy.

I decorated them with red sugar crystals and they looked like this…

Carrot Cup Cakes

Weight Watchers’ Mini Lemon Cup Cakes

Now before I start this story I should probably list my essentials for baking:

• mixing bowl
• wooden spoon
• whisk
• cake tin
• scales

Now I’ll list the contents of my boyfriend, Joe’s kitchen:

• pint glass
• teaspoon
• baking tray

There may be a few other bits and pieces lying around but that’s about it.

So, spending last week with Joe and his house mates I decided to try out a very basic baking kit which just required water and a quick stir. I found this with Weight Watchers’ Mini Lemon Cupcake Mix.

Mini Lemon Cupcake Mix

The preparation and bake were really, really easy. I literally just added water to the cake mix and stirred. The box included cake cases so I just put them on a flat baking tray once filled and they only needed 8 minutes in the oven. The icing was exactly the same, just a dab of water and a stir.

The cakes themselves were tiny, which I guess is why you can eat one while dieting, and the lemon icing was extremely sharp. They were quite heavy and altogether quite disappointing.

They were probably the best I could do with such minimal effort but I was left feeling unsatisfied. If you’re on a diet just don’t eat cake and if you want a quick easy solution to your cake needs buy a different brand.

Weight Watchers Mini Lemon Cupcake Mix: 3/10

Caramel and Sesame Seed Lollipops

Quick, Simple and Scrummy

So this wasn’t actually baking but these treats for my house mates and me were so delicious and easy to make that I thought I’d share them. I just chucked some sugar into a saucepan with a little splash of water and waited for it to boil. When it had bubbled for a bit I popped in some sesame seeds. Don’t put a spoon in the caramel mix just push the saucepan around to mix it all together. When that’s done take it off the heat and spoon out dollops of the mixture onto some greaseproof paper. While they’re still hot place lollipop sticks half-way up. Leave for about 15 minutes to cool and then enjoy.

Chocolate Cake with Scrumptious Chocolate Icing

So, being a true woman, my first baking endeavour had to be a chocolate cake. Now I’m not saying I’m chocolate crazy, I don’t have to have it everyday, in fact since my recent health kick I’ve barely touched it, but sometimes you just need it.

First off I wanted to prove that baking is simple and you don’t need fancy ingredients to make a cake, so I decided to use whatever I could find in the house. Being a baking household already we did have the basic ingredients in but there were a few missing essentials.

For the cake I mixed together 120g of caster sugar and 120g of butter until it was nice and smooth and creamy. In a separate bowl I mixed up 60g of plain flour (we didn’t have self-raising) and 60g of cocoa powder, sifted and set aside. Then, bit by bit, I mixed the flour and cocoa powder into the creamy butter mix until it was all combined. Lastly I whisked in two eggs. I smeared some butter around a cake tin and popped in the oven. After it had been in for about 10 minutes I realised I’d forgotten baking powder – to make it rise – but figured the cake would taste good whatever.

Now, my oven is very temperamental so I can’t give you a specific baking time but I just kept checking it and when it looked like it was done poked it with a knife to make sure there were no raw bits. This is what it looked like:

Just Out of the Oven

Because I’d forgotten to put in the baking powder the cake hadn’t risen but it smelt nice. While it cooled down I made the icing.

I mixed together 85g of icing sugar and 85g of cocoa powder and then beat it into 85g of butter. The beating took quite a while but I was watching celebrity masterchef at the same time so just concentrated on that rather than my achey arm! When I’d finished the icing was quite thick so I added a splash of milk, gave it a good stir and popped it in the fridge.

When the cake had finished cooling I cut the cake in half like this:

Halves

Now, I’m not sure whether it’s because the mix was so heavy, or because the cake so flat, or any other reason, but when I cut it in half it crumbled a bit. Not to worry though, I used the icing to stick it all together and make it prettier!

This is what it looked like when I was done:

Chocolate Cake

So, this wasn’t a perfect cake but it tasted and looked great! My housemate Ellie loved it and kept asking if she could have another slice! It was quick to make and really really simple!