Restaurant Review: Cashmore Inn, Cashmore, Dorset

It's amazing how many little things there are to think about when you're planning a wedding. Two months before the big day my fiancé and I went down to our wedding venue (near my parents' house in Wiltshire) for a three-hour meeting with the event coordinator. We covered everything from final menu choice to what time we were slicing the cake to the fact that we needed a PA system so everyone could hear the vows.

 

 

By the time we were finished it was nearly 1pm and we were ready for lunch. I’d had a look online in advance to find a nearby pub that did light lunches, sandwiches and so on, and decided the Cashmore Inn looked good – it’s actually a B&B and some of our family and friends are staying there for our wedding.

 

 

When we arrived, I noted how pretty it looked – a nice little country pub. I’d only looked at the menu on their website a few days before so was surprised to be told when we entered that it had changed and they were now an Italian restaurant!

 

I wasn’t sure what to expect and while I’d gone in wanting a light lunch, I decided against the filled ciabattas (nice as they sounded, served with chips and a salad as well) and since my fiancé wanted a pizza I thought I’d have the same. He also wanted the cheesy garlic bread – he’s very predictable, and I knew he was going to order a margarita pizza as well, and I was right.

 

 

I chose the polpettini pizza, with steak mince meatballs, caramelized onion, tomato, mozzarella and basil, and it was absolutely amazing, with the onion bringing a delicious sweetness. The base was particularly good - the chef came out while I was in the bathroom and my fiancé told me afterwards that the chef is from Italy and makes the pizza bases himself with flour imported from Italy. I can imagine people come to the Cashmore Inn from miles around for the food - and if you are heading down to the West Country via the A354 it's definitely somewhere to stop!

 

 

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Amazing Jaffa Cake Cupcakes

 

These cupcakes taste just like eating a giant jaffa cake – they are amazing! I took them into work for my birthday and they were extremely well received, even prompting a few comments about how I should open a bakery! I think I’ll stick with the day job and I can’t take very much credit at all as these are based on a recipe from the amazing Hummingbird Bakery (their Home Sweet Home book) but I did make one key change, which I really liked – I added a whole jaffa cake to the base of the cupcake before baking. I also used self-raising flour instead of plain flour and baking powder.

 

So my cupcakes had:

A jaffa cake at the bottom

Vanilla sponge cake

An orange marmalade filling

Chocolate frosting

A mini jaffa cake on top

 

They were so good I will have to make these again!

 

I got 18 cupcakes from this recipe as I used a mixture of large and small cake cases and with the jaffa cake at the bottom, I needed less cake mix for each cupcake.

 

You need:

70g butter, softened

210g self-raising flour

250g caster sugar

210ml whole milk

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

18 Jaffa Cakes

 

For the icing

450g icing sugar

150g butter, softened

60ml milk

60g cocoa powder

18 mini Jaffa Cakes (available from supermarkets – some people commented they had never seen these before!)

 

 

Preheat oven to 170C and line muffin tins with paper cases – I used gold ones.

 

Cream the butter with the sugar and flour at the same time – this was different to my usual approach but I followed the recipe.

 

In a jug, mix the eggs, milk and vanilla extract. Gradually pour half the liquid onto the cake mixture with the mixer running if you are using a freestanding food mixer. Beat in then add the remaining liquid, mixing until smooth.

 

 

 

Place a jaffa cake, chocolate side up, in the bottom of each cake case and spoon in the cake batter on top until the cake cases are almost full.

 

 

Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes then leave to cool. Remove to a wire rack to finish cooling.

 

When the cupcakes are cold, use a teaspoon to remove a little from the centre of each cupcake, leaving a small hole. Add a spoonful of marmalade into the hole and replace the cut out piece of sponge. Press down a little so the top is roughly level with the top of the cake.

 

 

 

 

In a bowl, carefully mix the butter with the icing sugar- I always do this by hand as I find using an electric mixer makes it go everywhere! Add the cocoa powder, and gradually add the milk, beating well.

 

Using a piping bag and a star nozzle, pipe swirls of icing onto the cupcakes, and top with a mini jaffa cake. Delicious!

  

 

I love how the Jaffa cake sits really neatly in the base - I think these are some of the best cupcakes I've ever made!

 

 

I'm sharing these with Treat Petite, hosted by Kat the Baking Explorer and Stuart aka Cakeyboi.

 

 

 

 

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Butternut Squash Quinoa Risotto

 

My pre-wedding diet has consisted of cutting out sugars, including the hidden sugars in everyday processed foods (like sliced bread) and even the starch in potatoes which converts to glucose when it's digested. The advisor I saw recommended 5 days of no sugar and 2 days allowing myself a small amount of sugar - in other words, not scoffing a bar of Dairy Milk in front of the TV but being allowed to eat carbs with something sweet if I do really want it.

 

So I've been experimenting with all sorts of new recipes and eating a fair bit of quinoa (pronounced keen-wa). The health benefits of quinoa are explained thoroughly on this BBC Good Food site

; it’s full of protein, wheat free, a good source of vitamins and fibre – the list goes on.

 

I decided to make a risotto using quinoa as the base instead of rice. You need to rinse quinoa (unless you buy it as part of a ready-made product), to remove something called saponin which can make the quinoa taste bitter. I wasn’t sure how I was going to do this as the seeds were so small they would go through my sieve, so I put the quinoa in bowl, filled it with water and swished it around. I carefully poured the water out of the bowl and found the density of the quinoa meant it stayed at the back of the bowl while I poured the water out so I didn’t lose any – but the water had turned very cloudy! So I did this a couple of times until I was happy the water was clear.

 

To cook quinoa the basic ratio is 1 cup of uncooked quinoa to two cups of liquid, so I used vegetable stock. Bring to a boil then simmer for 15-20 minutes until the liquid has been absorbed and fluff up with a fork.

 

I roasted some cubes of butternut squash in the oven, to use partly in this and partly in a salad the next day, so added the squash, some sliced spring onion and some fresh herbs on top. Finally I added some cubes of feta cheese. It made a filling, tasty and healthy meal which would also be good served cold as a salad.

 

 

 

I’m sharing this with Meat Free Mondays, hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes

 

And with No croutons required, a challenge for vegetarian soups or salads, hosted this month by Lisa's Kitchen as well as Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes.

 

 

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Slimming World Creamy Coriander and Minted Chicken

This recipe comes from the Slimming World All In One cookbook. To me it tasted a lot like a curry, but perhaps a little bit different; I really liked the addition of fresh mint but my fiancé said afterwards it was nice but would have been better without the mint!

The recipe is Free on Extra Easy or Original and 9.5 syns on Green.

It does look like you need a lot of ingredients but a lot of them are store cupboard staples - if you like to cook from scratch you probably already have, or will easily use up, things like coriander, cumin, turmeric and chilli powder.

To serve 4, you need:
low calorie cooking spray, eg Fry Light
2 onions, peeled, halved and thinly sliced
2 cloves (I left these out)
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed (I used garlic puree)
2 cardamom pods
2cm piece root ginger, peeled and grated (I used ground ginger for convenience)
1 cinnamon stick (I snapped mine into two pieces)
1 bay leaf
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp chilli powder
700g skinless and boneless chicken breasts, cut into 2cm pieces
salt, pepper
4 ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped (neither of us eats whole tomatoes and I didn't think it was worth opening a tin of tomatoes so I left this out, which I'm sure did change the flavour of the finished dish but I preferred it this way)
200ml chicken stock
large handful of fresh coriander, chopped
small handful of fresh mint, chopped
100g fat free natural fromage frais

Spray a wok or large frying pan with the oil and add the onion, cloves, garlic and cardamom to the pan, stir-frying for a few minutes. Then add the other spices including the cinnamon stick and bay leaf and cook for a few minutes.

Add the chicken and cook for about 10 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes stock and simmer for 5-7 mins until the chicken is cooked through.

To serve, stir in the fromage frais, fresh coriander and mint.

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Review: Premier Inn, Edinburgh Park

There was once a time when my business trips consisted of India, Vietnam, Hong Kong and San Francisco - now the only place I get to go is Edinburgh. I've changed careers so overseas trips are pretty unlikely these days, which I'm OK with as there are lots of other good things about my job.

I was in Edinburgh again recently and while I normally stay on site at my company's premises, lack of space meant I had to find somewhere else. Being conscious of costs I chose the Premier Inn at Edinburgh Park, not far from my company's head office.

The hotel was much like any other Premier Inn - in fact I think they pride themselves on being a very consistent chain. The room was surprisingly big and though the amenities are fairly basic (a soap dispenser rather than miniature bottles for instance), it's what I expected and good value for money.

It was the first time (ever? certainly in a long time) that I've had dinner at a Premier Inn. The menu is vast with things to suit all tastes - it reminded me a little of a Wetherspoons in that respect. They were offering a meal deal for £23.99 including a two-course dinner, drink and breakfast - I decided that was good value for money - normally their cooked breakfast is £8.99 or continental breakfast £6.99. In the end the main course I had was £11.99, the starter (which I could have done without) was £5.45 so effectively my drink was free - it saved a few pounds at least.

I chose the tempura prawns to start which came with a sweet chilli sauce for dipping, but I found the batter too greasy and overpowered the flavour of the prawns - this isn't something I would bother ordering again.

The main course on the other hand was much better. I fancied a pizza and saw they had three main varieties and a 'choose your own' section. I'm very picky about pizza toppings and prefer to make my own combination if possible. I love seafood pizza so chose the prawns and hot smoked salmon flakes (which I've never had on a pizza before -it's usually prawns with tuna) and some red onion. There was a choice of cheese and I went for camembert - a bit weird on pizza perhaps and I wasn't sure what it would be like but I thought Id try it. It was absolutely delicious - more pizzas should come with camembert!

Service was friendly and not that fast - I was starting to wonder what had happened to my pizza at one point -but I'd taken my Kindle since I was dining alone and was quite happy waiting, as all I had to go back to was my laptop upstairs with some work to do in the evening!

Breakfast the next morning offered a reasonable selection of hot and cold foods and 'smoothies' though they tasted a bit watery (which is fine as unlimited jugs of pure fruit smoothies would cost Premier Inn a fortune!). I much prefer a sausage sandwich to a full English (or Scottish) breakfast so that's what I had, with two hash browns on the side and a cup of tea. Check out was almost instantaneous and overall the stay was quite a pleasant experience. This isn't the most central Premier Inn in Edinburgh but good for the airport or a lot of companies that are based on this side of town.

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Ferrero Rocher Cupcakes

A neighbour gave us a box of Ferrero Rocher for Christmas, but my fiancé doesn't like them, and I'm trying to lose weight. Which is not to say I won't eat chocolate but I'm not going to open a box of chocolates and munch my way through them -even over a longer period. Friends and family have known that for a long time so never give me boxes of chocolates any more!

It was a very nice gesture by our neighbour though and I didn't want the goodies to go to waste, so hit upon the idea of using them in cupcakes. I wish I could say the idea was my own but I have come across them on the internet a few times and my good friend Ros has made them and posted the recipe on her site, The More Than Occasional Baker.

It was this recipe that I used when I went to see my family a few days before my birthday.

Ferrero Rocher, for anyone who hasn't had one before, consist of a whole hazelnut surrounded by wafer, a 'velvety filling', smooth milk chocolate and finely chopped hazelnut pieces. The box also included three Ferrero Rondnoir, "a delicious combination of tastes and textures from fine wafer and rich velvety cocoa filling to a dark chocolate covered hazelnut at its heart", and three Raffaello - "delicate layers of wafer, an elegant velvety centre and a toasted almond, all finished with a sprinkling of coconut".

To recreate the Ferrero Rocher taste the cupcakes have a whole Ferrero Rocher baked inside! They consist of a chocolate cake, with Nutella frosting, topped with chopped nuts and drizzled with chocolate. Ros did two types of frosting on top of hers and topped them with a whole Ferrero Rocher but I didn't have enough of the chocolates to do this and decided a whole Ferrero Rocher was a big so instead I piped a swirl of buttercream, which I made from just icing sugar, butter and Nutella, sprinkled the chopped nuts over the top and then drizzled over some Choc Shot - this is a liquid chocolate that is designed to be used as a hot chocolate drink and has 85% less fat than leading brands of solid chocolate - but what I also like about it is that it's great to drizzle on cakes and desserts.

Check out the link above for the recipe itself which I followed other than the tweaks described above. Here's how I made the cakes:

 

Mixing up the batter

Here I've spooned a little of the cake mixture into each cake case then popped a Ferrero Rocher into the bottom of each cupcake case - I used gold cases to mimic the chocolate wrappers.

 

After filling up the cake cases and baking in the oven

 

Piping the Nutella buttercream on top in swirls with a star nozzle

Chopped nuts and Choc Shot

 

The cupcakes in all their glory

 

 

 I'm sharing this with Alphabakes, the blog challenge hosted by myself and Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker - we have come to the end of the alphabet for the second time and our final letter is F.

 

 I'm also sharing this with Treat Petite, hosted by Stuart at Cakeyboi and Kat the Baking Explorer. They probably would have fit better with last month's theme which was favourite sweets and chocolate but this month their theme is picnics. I took these down to my parents' house and they travel fine in a tin so while they might mean you need a wet wipe for your fingers I don't think there's any reason why you couldn't take these on a picnic!

Finally I'm sending these to Love Cake, hosted by Ness at JibberJabberUK. Her theme is 'signature bakes' and while I don't have one particular cake that I'm known for as I make something different every time, that's actually my signature - I'm known for unusual cakes, showstoppers and turning everyday sweets, chocolate and snacks into cake, which is what I've done here!

 

 

 

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Meal Planning Monday 2016 Week 19

Last weekend was a bit of a blow-out - it was my birthday on Friday and my hen weekend on Saturday and Sunday! With about 6 weeks to go until the wedding I really need to get back on the diet, which has been working, though I'm still going to be about twice the size of my very slim bridesmaids! Which is pretty good motivation to eat healthily....

Monday - bank holiday
Lunch: salad
Dinner: spiralized veg with broccoli pesto for me, sausage and mash for him

Tuesday - working from home as I'm at the doctor
Lunch: chickpea and salmon salad similar to this recipe
Dinner: vegetable stir-fry with chicken or prawns for me, something from the freezer for him

Wednesday
Lunch: chicken salad
Dinner: vegetable stir-fry with chicken or prawns for me, the other half is round at his mum's

Thursday
Lunch: as Tuesday
Dinner: out with one of the groomsmen to get to know him before the wedding

Friday
Lunch: chicken salad
Dinner: Thai chicken tacos from this recipe with tortillas for him and lettuce for me

Saturday - my fiancé has to work today but my bridesmaids are coming for their dress fittings
Lunch: at least one bridesmaid is staying to lunch, I think I will take them to a nearby café in Carshalton.
Dinner: not sure if one bridesmaid who lives further away is staying overnight or not; also not sure what time my fiancé will be home from work (it will probably be late). I'll do tequila-marinated chicken wings from my Mexican cookery book with homemade wedges. For dessert I'll do Bunelo Stars with ice cream from the same book.

Sunday
Lunch: Ploughman's lunch hopefully sitting out in the garden
Dinner: hopefully if the weather is nice, our first barbecue of the year so I won't do anything fancy - I'm just looking forward to a burger and sausage!

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