Salted Caramel Whoopie Pies

Who remembers whoopie pies? They were all the rage five or six years ago; a friend gave me a whoopie pie baking tin and recipe book and I made  walnut whip and chocolate ones decorated to look like Christmas puddings.

I loved the taste and texture, somewhere between cake and a soft cookie, so when I went down to see my family one weekend in August I decided to make some to take with me. I wanted to cater for a dad who doesn't eat chocolate and a husband who doesn't eat much cake unless it is chocolate - there are a few other things he likes so I quickly settled on toffee.

There is a recipe in The Whoopie Pie Book by Claire Ptak for salty caramel whoopies; she suggests you serve it with her caramel Swiss buttercream, but that uses raw egg whites and my sister is pregnant. I actually had some salted caramel icing sugar from Sugar and Crumbs so decided to use that.

I got about 9 large whoopie pies out of the mixture - even when I try to make them smaller, they seem to turn out huge!

You need:
300g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
125g butter
120ml whole milk
200g light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

 

Melt the butter in a saucepan with the milk, then remove from the heat.

Beat the sugar, eggs and vanilla in a bowl then mix in the flour, baking powder and salt. Pour in the milk mixture and stir until combined. Chill in the fridge for 30 mins. Meanwhile preheat oven to 180C.

Line two baking trays with greaseproof paper and drop equal-sized spoonfuls of the batter onto the paper, spaced well apart.

Bake for 10-12 minutes until risen but still slightly soft. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

For the filling, I beat the pre-flavoured salted caramel icing sugar with some margarine and used it to sandwich the whoopie pies together.

They may not be the prettiest to look at, but tasted great!

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Pink Shoes Birthday Card

While I was sorting out my craft cupboard I came across some sheets of A4 paper that I'd printed from a website with free printables, to be used as backing paper. I had several sheets left of different designs, and decided to use one with pink shoes and the words 'happy birthday' as the basis for a card. The shoes in the middle are small die cuts from a packet I bought containing shoes and handbags. I mounted these on a square of pink paper and used a silver 'happy birthday' outline sticker on another piece of pink paper. I think it looks quite nice, aside from the fact that the words aren't straight!

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Slimming World Cauliflower Rosti Pie

This recipe makes a nice side dish but is also something you could have as a main course. It's a Slimming World recipe that is syn free; it is quite starchy from the potatoes but not as bland as you might think, thanks to the addition of tomatoes, cheese, herbs and spices. You can find the recipe here.

To serve 4, you need:
for the base:
700g potatoes, peeled and grated
pinch of salt
2 egg whites
1 onion, grated
low-calorie cooking spray
for the filling:
1 onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves chopped
800g cauliflower florets
150ml vegetable stock
1 tsp dried mixed herbs
handful of parsley
120g Red Leicester, grated
200g cherry tomatoes, halved
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp sweet smoked paprika

 

Preheat the oven to 200C. First, grate the potato using a cheese grater and squeeze out any excess moisture. Mix in the salt, egg white and grated onion. Use to line the bottom of a pie or casserole dish
and spray with oil.

Bake in the pre-heated oven for 15-20 mins, uncovered, then cover with foil and bake for another 20 minutes.

Meanwhile spray a frying pan with oil, and fry the cauliflower, onion and garlic and add the stock. Cook for 10-12 minutes. Allow to cool, then in herbs, half the cheese, and the beaten egg.

Spoon into the pie crust, top with the rest of the cheese and the paprika, and bake for 30 minutes. Best served with green veg; if you wanted this as a side dish instead of a main course (which is how I had it) I think it would go well with sausages or vegetarian sausages if you want to keep the meal veggie.

 

I'm sharing this with Meat Free Monday, hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes.

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Restaurant review: Barraka, Artillery Lane, London

I usually – by which I mean always, unless I’m meeting a friend or out really late the night before – bring my own lunch to work. I’ve taken to eating salads and like making my own as I can put in exactly what I want. But I’d heard colleagues at work raving about a new place they bought lunch that did the most amazing and filling salads, so one day I decided to go along with them.

 

Barraka describes itself as serving Mediterranean street food. ‘Barraka’ means ‘blessing’ in Moroccan and the owner wanted to carry on a family tradition of blessing people with ‘good energies and food’. It’s located down a little side street opposite Liverpool Street Station and doesn’t have much room inside – there are a few stand-up tables where you can stop and eat, but it gets quite busy at lunchtime and people are sometimes queuing out the door.

 

 

 

When I went, staff were offering tastes of different items on a platter so I tried a piece of chicken schnitzel and a piece of Mediterranean chicken. One of my colleagues had tried the halloumi salad and thought it was wonderful but I decided to have chicken schnitzel. The staff take a large plastic bowl and spread some houmous on the bottom – something I’ve never had before in a salad but it combines really well with the salad leaves on top.

 

There was a choice of four or five types of salad, from mixed leaves to chopped tomato and cucumber; then it’s topped with a generous portion of hot chicken schnitzel, which was freshly cooked while we were there, and drizzled with a choice of dressing. They also do the same filling in a baguette or wrap. It was delicious, really filling, and nice to have a salad with hot breadcrumbed chicken on top – if you can find this place down the alley (Artillery Lane) I highly recommend it!

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Meal Planning Monday Week 39 - Sugar Free September

Sugar Free September was going pretty well - I'd lost almost 6 pounds - but then a friend who is a healthcare professional took a look at a food diary I'd done for her, and told me I wasn't eating enough. She said my body would only break down rather than store fat if it knew it was getting fuelled regularly - by skipping breakfast and going a long time between meals, my body would hang on to its fat reserves as it didn't know when the next meal was coming. I think she probably has a point so I trusted her when she told me to eat a healthy snack in the mornings and the afternoons, but she did warn that I would probably put on a little bit of weight first. So my 6 pound weight loss has diminished but hopefully will get back on track once my metabolism has been kick-started!

Having said that I did fall off the sugar-free wagon a couple of times - but on the whole I have eaten much healthier than I would normally!

Here's my meal plan for this week - the last week of September.

For lunches I'm going to have chicken salad as I often do, and also try making the pink quinoa from the new Leon salad book.

 

Monday

stir fry for me, chicken and bacon pancakes for him 

 

Tuesday

My husband is working from home and we have to rush out to our residents' association AGM not long after I'm due to get home, so the easiest thing by far is to ask him to put something in the oven for dinner. Since I don't often have that sort of food any more I'm going to treat myself to some scampi.

 

Wednesday

something quick as I need to make cakes for a bake sale at work: rest of stir fry for me, chicken goujons for him

 

Thursday

I'll do the coconut fish curry from this recipe I was going to make last week but didn't, plus chicken curry for him. OR, potentially out at a friend's

 

Friday

I'm working from home today. I'll have cheesy broccoli bake with Quorn sausages and he can have toad in the hole.

 

Saturday

Brunch: sausage sandwich or similar as I have to get a train around midday to get to my sister's baby shower

Dinner: at my parents

 

Sunday

Lunch: at my parents' for my dad's birthday

Dinner: something quick back home

 

 

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Sailing Family Scrabble Name Picture

 

There’s something special about handmade gifts as you know that extra attention has gone into them – all the more so if it was handmade by the person giving the gift.

 

Several years ago I made a scrabble name picture for my now-husband’s brother and his family. I think it’s a lovely thing to have, and when it was my friend’s birthday this summer and I was struggling to think of a gift, I remembered this and thought she would like it. (Luckily, she did!)

 

 

I found it much easier to purchase a frame this time, that was both a better size and price; Hobbycraft had these white box frames for £8 – which are currently only £4 in the sale, in fact I think I might buy a few more.

 

 

I bought the scrabble letters from Amazon; they are not real scrabble pieces with the little legs on the back to fit into the holes on a scrabble board, but instead are flat, which makes them much easier to glue.

 

 

 

My friend and her husband are really into sailing so I bought some sailing patterned paper from Ebay to use as the backing paper and used my Silhouette die cutter to cut out a sailing boat.

 

 

I used the letters to spell out their names and that of their son, and the words ‘family’ and ‘love’ and placed the sailing boat at the bottom. I was really pleased with this and my friend said she loved it.

 

 

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Restaurant review: South Place Chop House, London

The name of the South Place Chop House alone suggests that they know their meat - but also that it might be something of an old-fashioned, stuffy establishment. However, nothing could be further from the truth.

Chop houses in Britain have been around for hundred of years and were places businessmen met to strike deals over hearty meals. The South Place Chop House is in a hotel in the heart of the City, and is probably frequented by bankers - at least, I work in a bank and I ate there! It was a smart crowd when I met a friend there one weeknight evening, and the wood and leather banquette seats did strike me as something aimed at an older, slightly stuffier clientele,

The food is also what I'd call fairly traditional; starters include smoked salmon, steak tartare, prawn cocktail and onion and cider soup. We opted for a platter of cold cuts between us; it wasn't listed as a sharing starter and we asked the waiter how big it was. He said it would be a large starter for one person or a small starter for two - and when it came we were glad we had decided to share. I probably could have had this as a main course! It consisted of pork pies, ham, Scotch egg, pickles and cheese and wasn't cheap at around £15.

The main courses again were quite traditional, from steak and lamb chop and old spot pork chop with apple sauce to a Dover sole. They were doing a special offer of a lobster, fries and glass of prosecco for £20 which we both ordered. Lobster is never very filling so the large starter turned out to have been a good idea!

The food was good and well presented and the service very good and I think the restaurant would be great for a business dinner, not so much for an intimate date or a cosy evening with friends.

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