Afternoon Tease

I made arrangements to borrow the use of the shower at my friends house last night (it’s a bit of a long story that involves my house and the unfortunate coupling of vast amounts of water and a light fitting eek!). As a good house guest I didn’t want to turn up empty handed so I rushed home from work and knocked up a batch of chewy chocolate biscuits, which my cousin recently gave me the recipe for. They came with a warning of extreme moreish-ness!

I managed to get in at 6.05pm, bake and run back out the door with a box of freshly baked chocolate biscuits by 7pm. They were amazingly simple and I can vouch for the fact that they are delicious and as moreish beyond belief!!

Chewy Chocolate Biscuits

4 egg whites

285g icing sugar

115g cocoa powder

2tbsp plain flour

1tsp instant coffee

1tbsp water

115g finely chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with greaseproof paper in preparation.

Beat the egg whites until frothy. Sift the sugar, cocoa, flour and coffee into the whites, add the water and continue beating on a low speed to blend, then on a high speed for a few minutes until the mixture thickens. Fold in the walnuts with a spatula. Place generous spoonfuls 1 inch apart of the baking sheets.

Bake until firm and cracked on top but soft on the inside (approx 12-15 minutes). I decided the only way to check the inside was to sample one early – it’s a tough life 🙂

Transfer to a rack to cool and then try not to eat them all at once!

I’ve been thinking a lot about my Babcia (Polish Granny) who died last year, this weekend as at Easter we uphold a lot of Polish traditions. Babcia always used to make us the most divine cheesecake, which we called Sernik, it’s official name is apparently Sernik na Kruchym Spodzie (cheesecake on a shortcake base).

Me and my Mum took on a bit of a trial and error adventure making the cake as first of all we had to decode Babcia’s handwritten recipe card, covered in years of baking debris, using a mixture of metric, decimal and made up measurements and a hybrid of Polish and English language. Our first attempt was a complete disaster and was assigned to the compost bin. But the second attempt produced a cheesecake to rival even Babcia’s….

It is, as the title suggests a baked cheesecake on a shortcake pastry base and is amazingly moist.

I thought I’d better provide the punchline for yesterdays joke. It’s an oldy but a goody 🙂 I can also confirm that the hot cross buns are equally as good the day after baking, toasted and dripping with butter. I’ve never tried them with marmite as recommended by my latest trick but as a lover not a hater, maybe it’s worth a try….

My mum is the best pastry maker I know, so I thought I should learn from the best and asked her to talk me through how to make one of her infamous quiche lorraines….inspired by the good old Be-Ro recipe book.

Quiche Lorraine (Makes a 12 inch quiche)

Shortcrust Pastry –

225g plain flour

pinch of salt

50g lard

50g butter

Put the flour and salt in a mixing bowl with the lard and butter (remember to take out of the fridge plenty of time beforehand so that it’s room temperature) and rub together with your finger tips until it resembles breadcrumbs.

Add cold water gradually, stirring with a knife until the dough comes together in a ball. Less is definitely more, be careful not to add too much water all at once.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and try not to handle it too much.

Roll out with a rolling pin, backwards and forwards, turn it 90 degrees and roll backwards and forwards again, repeat until the pastry is a bit less than half a centimetre thick.

Use the rolling pin the drag the pastry over the pie dish, push into the edges and then trim off the edges with a knife.

For the filling –

225g streaky bacon chopped

2 small onions diced

150g grated cheese or more if you like it cheesy

6 large eggs

3/4 pint milk

Freshly ground pepper

Fry the bacon and onions and set aside to cool slightly. Beat together the eggs and milk and add the pepper to taste. You won’t need to add salt as the bacon and cheese are pretty salty. Sprinkle the bacon, onion and cheese into the prepared pastry case and pour over the egg mixture.

Bake at 190 degrees for 40 minutes until it looks like my picture below 🙂