YULE LOVE IT

Recipe: Festive Yule Log

Time taken: 2 hours maybe (including the hour break in the middle)

Ingredients: 4 free range eggs, 100g caster sugar, 60 g self-raising flour, 40g cocoa, 600ml (a pint) of double cream), 300g dark/plain chocolate (same thing), a little icing sugar, a little butter and festive decorations.

Hi readers,

If I’m honest I’m losing track of which day of the week it is. I just had to check using the pop-up calendar in the corner of my computer screen. How ridiculous! It’s Wednesday. OBVIOUSLY it’s Wednesday. Get a grip. Somebody slap me in the face.

I think it’s so hard to even tell the day of the week because I’m so entirely surrounded by Christmas. Little else has any meaning these days. Two days ago? Geography Society Christmas Meal (which was a total blast – wine by the bottle and outrageous dancing in Flares!). Yesterday? Flat Christmas (again a blast – we carried off the cooking and had a major quiz-off). Tonight? Christmas Meal with a bunch of the geography girls to include those who couldn’t come to the official meal (at Fat Hippo – I can’t WAIT). The day after? Christmas manicure and a gig with my friend, Woody. The day after that? DRIVING HOME FOR CHRISTMAS.

So really, when measuring the days this way, it’s not shocking that I don’t know the actual day of the week. But it is still ridiculous. Anyway, yesterday I found time to make it back into the kitchen, readers! As a vegetarian, I didn’t play a major role in the Flat Christmas dinner prep. Largely, I was in charge of chopping veg here and there. And I set the table and crafted handmade placemats. AND BAKED THE YULE LOG!

That’s right! One of my flatmates took charge of Dessert Option A (bread n butter pudding) and Dessert Option B was all for me to take care of!! What a responsibility! I actually got really concerned about this. But it the end it went shockingly to plan and I managed to muddle together a pretty decent yule log, readers. I followed a Mary Berry recipe the whole way and it did me proud.

Here’s the one just for you (slightly simplified for student readers)…

1.       Heat your oven to 200˚C.

2.       Using some kitchen roll, grease a rectangular cake tine with butter.

3.       Line the tin with baking paper.

 

ChefBeHere Top Tip: I’d run out of baking paper so I used tin foil instead and, luckily, this worked fine! Maybe don’t use clingfilm though, as I imagine this melts in the oven.

4.       Crack your eggs and measure your sugar into a mixing bowl.

5.       Use an electric hand whisk to whisk these together, until the mixture is pale, light and frothy.

6.       Measure your flour and cocoa into a sieve together.

7.       Shake so that these delicately fall over your egg mix.

8.       Use a spatula to fold the flour mix into the egg mix, until they’re full incorporated and you have a chocolatey goo.

 

ChefBeHere Top Tip: Be careful when folding not to knock the air out of your mix. If you do this, it won’t rise very much in the oven. A terrible shame.

9.       Carefully pour the cake mix into your lined tin. Tip the tin around so that the mix spreads evenly to every corner.

10.   Carefully transport your tin into the oven and leave to bake for 8-10 minutes.
 

ChefBeHere Top Tip: Keep checking on your sponge and maybe switch the tin around after 5 minutes so it faces the other way, you don’t want any part of your sponge to burn!

11.   Meanwhile, lay a piece of baking paper on your work surface that is bigger than the size of the cake tin. Rather than baking paper I used foil again. And it worked again. I also hear you can use a clean tea towel.

 

12.   Use your sieve to dust icing sugar over your baking paper/replacement-item.

13.   When your cake is well risen, firm to touch, it springs back when you poke it and it’s shrinking away from the edges of the tin, take it out of the oven.

14.   Run a sharp knife around its edges, to make sure the cake isn’t stuck to the tin.

15.   Tip your tin upside down over your baking paper, so that the cake falls out onto the icing sugar below.

16.   Remove the baking paper stuck to your cake, which had been lining the cake tin.

17.   Along a long edge of your cake, use a sharp knife to core a little line along the length of the cake, an inch away from its edge.
 

ChefBeHere Top Tip: Don’t cut this bit of the cake off, just draw a line with your knife. Try not to go too deep into the cake with the knife. It should still be attached.

18.   Starting at this edge, tightly roll up the sponge with the paper inside it.

19.   Sit the roll on its outside edge and leave to cool completely (mine took an hour or so).

20.   Meanwhile, heat half of your cream in a pan.

21.   Break your chocolate up into squares.

22.   When the cream is reasonably warm, remove it from the heat and add your chocolate. Stir it all in until the chocolate is melted and you have a chocolate-coloured goo.

23.   Pour this into a bowl and leave in the fridge to cool and firm up. This will be the outer coating of your yule log.

24.   Pour the other half of the cream into a mixing bowl. Use an electric hand whisk to whip the cream.
 

ChefBeHere Top Tip: The aim here is to make your cream a solid, like squirty cream. It takes about ten minutes. You know it’s ready when the cream stands of its own accord in stiff peaks. Don’t over-whip. Keep an eye on it.

25.   Pop this in the fridge to keep cool. Go chill for a while.

26.   When your swiss roll feels TOTALLY COOL you can uncurl it and spread the whipped cream evenly over the top.

 

ChefBeHere Top Tip: I didn’t use all the cream. Some was felt over. I kept this in the fridge for eating with the yule log when it was served later in the evening. Handy.

27.   Re-roll your swiss role tightly, this time without the paper.

28.   Cover it entirely, really thickly, with the chocolate ganache topping that you have in the fridge. Coat the whole log with it.

29.   Run a fork along your yule log to make lines in the ganache, so it looks like proper bark.

30.   Cut a quarter of the length of the yule log off, diagonally not straight.

31.   Transfer your bigger piece of cake onto a serving plate or presentation board.

 

ChefBehere Top Tip: I made my own by covering a chopping board in foil.

32.   Angle your small piece next to the bigger one, so that it looks like a branch.

33.   Decorate your cake! This can mean just dusting some icing sugar on it like snow. Or I had holly and berry sprinkles to use. Or you can adorn it with fresh holly or a little plastic robin, maybe. Get creative.

And that’s it! In just 33 steps (it’s a mammoth recipe, I know) you’ve made yourself a yule log!! Well done! Here’s my baby from yesterday… part branch, part revolver...

 

Isn’t it amazing?? What do you think? I was pretty proud of my work, I have to say. And my flatmates were so lovely when they tasted it! Lots of compliments about my baking. :) It was a lovely end to a very special Flat Christmas. Eating our yule log. I wholly recommend this recipe. Mary Berry never lets me down and her yule log definitely has the X factor! Go give it a try this December. And let me know how yours come out! You’ll be fine I promise. Ready, set, BAKE!

Roll safely kids,

Hayley

A treat for snowy times to come!

Recipe: Nutella n Nana Wrapz

Time taken: Quarter of an hour

Ingredients: 2 tortillas, 2 bananas and a large amount of Nutella

Hi Readers,

THEY’VE FORECAST SNOW! Snowwwwww! S. N. O. W.  Snow! Christ knows when, but baby it’s cold outside and it’s going to snowwwwwwww! This makes me so happy.

 

Readers, today is a good day. It’s a day of small achievements. What have you been achieving today? Give it a think. I bet you’ve achieved more than you think. My small achievements have been: I cleaned the bathroom, I went for an icy jog, I washed and dried my hair WITHOUT setting off the smoke alarm, I ventured out to buy the house festive some loo roll, I spoke to my mum, and I made a spectacular lunch.

 

What ho? Spectacular lunch, did she say? That’s right, readers! Today I had a top effort in the kitchen at lunchtime and produced something ace for once! Like most students, I’m on a mission to use up lots of ingredients I have left in my cupboard, before I head home at the end of the week. So today I was using up some tortilla wraps.

Here’s how they met their end…

1. I took a couple of bananas and sliced them up into little pieces.

 

2. I laid a tortilla on a plate and spread Nutella over it.

 

3. I arranged some banana slices at the edge of the tortilla then rolled the tortilla over them.

 

4. I repeated this a couple more times, until my tortilla was all rolled up into a wrap.

5. I did this all again with my second tortilla.

6. I made sure my banana was tightly and securely wrapped inside each tortilla and laid them on our George Foreman grill.

 

ChefBeHere Top Tip: Use your regular grill if you don’t have a wondrous George Foreman.

7. I put the lid down and turned our grill on, and left it for 5 minutes.

8. I did the dishes. Dancing is essential.

9. I dunked the leftover banana pieces in Nutella and ate them up (greedy move).

 

10. I plated up my warm wraps and tucked in!

Here’s how they came out!

 

They tasted… goooooood. Mightily good readers. I might suggest that 2 wraps for one person is A LITTLE MUCH. And potentially migraine-inducing. But I was so busy enjoying these that it was hard to tell. This is a SUPER INDULGENT lunch. Literally, any month other than December and you’d be too disgusted with yourself to finish. So get going and make some while it’s still December! If you’ve had a go at making these, whadaya think? A choctastic taste sensation?? Erm… AGREED.

Wrap it up readerz,

Hayley

FED, DEAD AND READY FOR BED

Recipe: Plum pud

Time taken: 25 mins

Ingredients: 2 plums, 3 fig rolls, half a tin of custard, a teaspoon of honey n a smidge of butter

Hi there,

Readers, It’s the weekend! Hurrayyy! Mexican wave! Everybody standing! Shake that thing! The weeeeeekend! It’s the weekend! Ahhh. How’s your weekend? I bet it’s good. SO GOOD.

Sadly, readers, today was the day that I had an essay to write. Ugh. On a Saturday, I know. This morning I steeled myself, mustered together some determine, AND GOT OUT OF BED AT 8AM! I got out! Really, it was 8am readers and I was not in my bed. No quilt. No happiness. Before I knew it, I was en route to the library. Crunching frost again. I was in the library. Nobody in sight – where were the people? I was seated. Shoes off. Len was out (a non-affectionate term for my laptop). And 9 HOURS OF MY LIFE WERE GONE! GONE.

Literally, it was 6pm. I’d written an essay and an extra unnecessary thousand words – problem for another day. I was dazed. It was dark. Sub-zero? Probably sub-zero. I shuffled off into the night.

And I was home. Hooooome! Readers, I may never have been so happy to be back in my student house so I could sit in and do nothing on a Saturday night. And that’s what I’m doing right now. Strictly is on! The Christmas tree lights are on! I’m wearing THREE LAYERS of jumpers. THREE.

And my brain is fucked. I’m done, readers. Certainly for today; possibly for the weekend. Potentially for 2014. I visualise it this way: The PRESSURE of the amount of work that needs to be done in third year… and the SERIOUSNESS of how much it matters for my ENTIRE FUTURE is just, it’s just, it’s PRESSING DOWN on my brain. Reeeeally heavily. PRESSING. And my brain is just getting lower and lower in my head, and it’s just flat and it’s limp and my brain CAN’T GO ON MUCH LONGER.

But, readers, when life gets you down… you look towards pudding. Always pudding. Literally, pudding can cure ANYTHING. I wholly believe this to be true. I love a good pudding. And, today, I was too tired to bake anything lovely but I used my initiative and botched something together. ChefBeHere style!

Here’s what went down in crazy town…

1. I heated the oven to 200˚C.

2. I took 2 plums and chopped them in half, removing the stones and chucking those away.

3. I greased a little ovenproof dish with some butter and sat my plums inside it.

4. I drizzled a little honey over them.

ChefBeHere Top Tip: If you have cinnamon, sprinkle this on too! It pains me that I’ve run out.

5. I safely transported my plums into the oven to bake for 20 minutes.

6. I took ten minutes to myself. Lit some candles. Danced along to strictly. Sang it out.

7. I took a couple of fig rolls out of my cupboard and cut them into little chunks.

8. I took a tin of custard. Opened it. Poured half into a bowl and half into a Tupperware. Put the Tupperware of custard in the fridge to use another day.

9. I covered the bowl of custard with a plate and put it in the microwave to heat for 2 minutes. Took it out. Super stirred. Re-covered. Put it back for another minute.

10. Finally, I took my plums out of the oven and chopped each plum-half into quarters, then tipped my plum chunks and fig roll chunks into my piping hot custard… and stirred it up!

Here’s my little fruity Frankenstein

And I loved it! After the day I’ve had, this made for a bowlful of joy, readers. Want a bowlful of joy, too? Get on it! Shoo. Go try it out. Don’t have plums? Sub in a banana, maybe. I’m a firm believer in the classic banana and custard combination. Don’t have fig rolls? Not many young people do, I realise. Just a cake bar of any kind should do the job. Or a couple of them, if you like.

And how’s it taste readers? Godly? Like heaven in a bowl? The pudding of angels? A blessing in custard? Saturday night salvation? I’m pretty sure, in my eyes, you could make any kind of biblical reference and it wouldn’t do justice to the wonder that is this pudding. High praise!

What’s your take on the Plum Pud? Raving? Enraged? Hit me with it! I want to hear your thoughts on this, because if everyone’s raving, I may have just invented my million-dollar recipe. And I can stop writing essays.

Study safely kids,

Hayley

OH MY OATS

Good evening!

Is it a good evening? Of course it’s good evening! I hope you’re having a wonderful, relaxed, chilled out time. Well deserved after a hard day’s work, I’m sure. You’re worth it. Today’s been a funny one for me. Having had a night out last night, I woke up in a pretty poor state today.

A definite hangover gremlin.

I decided to take the morning for recovery. This turned into ‘working from home’. Then a blatant acknowledgement that me surviving the day would be achievement enough. Today was not the day for moving mountains. Shifting my headache would do.  Its day’s like these, of self-inflicted gloom, that I wish for certain things.

Like family…

… A dog …

… Just a hug! ...

… And (weirdly today) curtains.

 

Student houses don’t have them. I’d really like to draw together some heavy, velvet, floor-sweeping drapes. Oh satisfaction. But home days are also good. They don’t ask too much of you and you can take the time to appreciate little things.

Like socks…

… Tealights…

… Cuppas…

… And a good book :)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand I realised that CHRISTMAS IS A MONTH TODAYYYY! Wahooo!

I also realised that I was mooching about a house filled with baked goods!! So, yesterday, I thought that I was going to be helping to host a charity bake sale today. It got called off, I’m afraid, but not before I did my baking for the sale!! Yesterday I was being a busy bee but I still found the time to get my bake on. And baked on a big scale.

Here are some twenty four girly cupcakes I baked!

I ALSO baked up one of my two signature recipes. Now, these recipes are my ULTIMATE best things to bake. They’re the recipes that I know off my heart without a book. And this is good because the book pages are long since stuck together with mix! My flatmates usually get to enjoy one or the other of these recipes at least once a month. I love to spend time baking these, they aren’t hard to bake, and they taste really good! No fancy ingredients needed and no high-tech equipment. None of that. My two signature recipes are… Banana bread! …. And Oat Crunchies! And yesterday I baked some Oat Crunchies. :) This is a recipe I originally found in the ‘Vegetarian Nosh for Students’ cookbook and it TASTES SO GOOD.

Want to bake some Crunchies yourself? Here’s how, in ten easy steps…

Recipe: Oat Crunchies

Time taken: Half an hour

Ingredients: Porridge oats, desiccated coconut, self-raising flour, sugar, butter & golden syrup

1. Preheat your oven to 180˚C.

2. Find a mug. Measure a mug of oats, a mug of coconut and a mug of flour into a mixing bowl.

3. Add half a mug of sugar and stir this all together with a wooden spoon.

4. Melt 100g of butter in a saucepan on a low heat.

5. When this is all melted, add a tablespoon of golden syrup and three tablespoons of water.

6. Stir until this all combines together, then add it to the bowl of dry ingredients and give it a good stir until the mix comes together into one modge.

7. Use a little bit of butter to grease a pair of baking trays.

8. Take a small handful of the mix at a time and squeeze it into a ball in your hands. Place this on the baking tray and squash it down gently.

9. Keep repeating this and spacing your Crunchies a little apart on the baking trays, since they tend to spread when they cook. I usually make about 8-12, depending how big they are.

10. Carefully escort your baking trays into the oven and bake your Crunchies for 10-12 minutes until they’re golden brown and you can safely take them out. You can enjoy these warm, or leave them to cool and decorate them any way you like!

ChefBeHere Top Top: When your Crunchies are in the oven, it’s a good idea to swap the trays around after five minutes. I know in our oven things on the top shelf bake more quickly than things underneath them on the bottom shelf. You don’t want to over bake one tray and end up with Crispies rather than Crunchies!

And there you have it, a batch of sweet, oaty, mouth-welding treats! I’ve yet to find a person who doesn’t approve of my Crunchies. I certainly enjoy them and our house is filled to the brim with them! Not for long….

Here are the Oat Crunchies I made yesterday

And some I made a different day

Aaaaand a close up shot  from another day to drool over

Tempted yet? Go bake! What are you waiting for?? You need these in your life. And these earn you some BIG LOVE from friends and family. Suddenly they like you again. They want to know when to expect the next batch. You have a purpose in life.

In my case, my faith in my baking has been restored following the Peach-Related Meltdown I had last week (see my blog post from Sunday, go on). I’ve still got it! And Oat Crunchies have been a much-need remedy today to one hell of a hangover.

This has been me alllll day…

What do you think of Oat Crunchies?? Are you in love? Can you unstick your jaw enough yet to speak?? I want to hear what you think. Shout it out!

And crunch safely,

Hayley

 

 

PORRIDGE POWER

Recipe: Peanut butter and jam porridge

Time taken: 5 minutes

Ingredients: Half a LEGO cup of porridge oats, a big splash of milk, some blobs of jam and some blobs of peanut butter

 Hiya chefs!

How are you all today? I imagine you’re kicking back and enjoying your weekends. That’s what we’re all up to here! Newcastle’s looking a little cloudy I’d say and we’re still a whole 33 days away from Christmas, but today’s a Saturday so no one can complain. Last night I got 8 hours sleep!! For a stressed out student this is a big, big achievement! I feel like this warrants a display of fireworks and rapturous applause, my parents crying on the sideline. A small awards ceremony.

I’m feeling really well rested and today I feel the theme of my blog post today should be TIME. My absolute favourite thing about the weekend is that time is very different to the week. Suddenly, you have more of it. And you’re not measuring things by an hour until the next lecture… or five minutes before the next metro… or fifty minutes taken to transcribe ten minutes of interview. Gah. You can measure things by when your favourite shows are going to be on TV… and how far through your book you are… and whether it’s light enough to take a walk.

 

And you definitely have the time on the weekend to cook something unreal. You’re not tired, you’re not rushing out the door, and hopefully you’re not too stressed to enjoy tasting your food for once! I think that half the time we cook things which sensibly use up ingredients that are near to expiring, and we eat them so that we stop feeling hungry, and we tick the meal off in our head as another thing done on our to-do list, and we forget to enjoy the food!! This is such a shame.

So today, I woke up of my own accord with NO ALARM, I padded about getting ready, and I decided to get creative with my breakfast! I’m often a breakfast bore. I like warm, belly-filling porridge. I know exactly how to make it and it always does the job. It gives me a glow like the boy in the ReadyBrek advert and I spring out the door on my imaginary glowing trampoline, like he does. A morning person, ready to face the day.

And porridge is SO CHEAP. Really, I worked out this morning that I use 60g of oats each time and, as a 1 kg bag costs 75p from Asda, that’s 16 servings per bag and it costs me less than 5p per serving. Then the only other ingredient is milk. A 2 litre carton of milk costs £1 and lasts the week so, on top of a lot of cups of the coffee, it makes me 7 breakfasts. So maybe 14p for milk each time I make porridge. SO A BOWL OF PORRIDGE COSTS LESS THAN 20P TO MAKE. Students, listen up.

I make my porridge and stir in a tablespoon of honey and, since my health kick I’ve been chopping up a banana on top. This is a taste sensation. My Instagram is filled with loving shots of my beloved daily, oaty delight.

But, until I’m allowed next week’s food shop money on Monday, I’ve got no bananas and no honey. It’s terrible! This morning I needed a new porridge topping. My flatmates have been telling me for a loooong time that it’s crazy that as a certified nut-loving squirrel I haven’t tried peanut butter. They can’t believe it! So I’ve had a jar in my cupboard waiting for an occasion to try it. And I thought… PB & J porridge?? It was on!

Here’s how you can make yours in ten simple steps:

1. Pour oats into a cup until it’s half-full. I use a plastic cup with LEGO holograms on that I believe came with a McDonald’s Happy Meal. You need about 60 of oats.

2. Pour your oats into a bowl.

 

3. Add milk to this bowl until the bowl is about half full and your oats are swimming.

 

4. Give the porridge mix a good stir and pop in the microwave.

5. Heat on full power, uncovered, for two minutes. You may notice that as it cooks the porridge will start to swell around the edges and it’s like a vortex because a big dip begins to form in the middle. Don’t be alarmed; this is ok.

 

6. Take it out. Stir it up. Put it back in again and heat on full power for another minute.

ChefBeHere Top Tip: Keep an eye on it this time, because your porridge might start to swell so much that it reaches right to the top of bowl. If so, stop the microwave early.

7. Using a tea towel to cover your hands, lift the porridge out of the microwave to safety.

8. As it deflates, dot the top with your peanut butter and jam.

 

9. Stir like crazy! Make sure your PB&J reach the porridge right at the bottom of the bowl.

10. Serve piping hot and, if you like, with a refreshing glass of orange juice.

 

And tuck into something that looks a little like this! Well done!

What do you think of your porridge? Is it filling you with a warm glow? Do you feel full? Do you feel fuelled for the day? Did the recipe work in your microwave without it exploding?

I hope you are truly in love with porridge now. Because it’s healthy, it’s easy, it’s cheap and it’s SO GOOD. And I can’t abide people who buy silly, expensive porridge sachets that make you about four sad spoonfuls of thin, rubbishy non-porridge. Just make the real deal, people! It isn’t hard!

And I loved PB&J as a topping! I didn’t really put enough jam on. I definitely under-jammed, sadly. It sort of was lost when I swirled it all together at the end. MORE JAM NEXT TIME. And oh there will be a next time! For indulgent days, this is surely my new porridge topping of choice. It’s lick lipping good. Very mmm. Rather more-ish. Go give it a try!

Start the day safely,

Hayley