Irn Bru Ice Cream

I first properly fell in love with Irn Bru about 8 years ago on a trip to Scotland in which I had run out of tonic for gin and needed a suitable substitute. In walked Irn Bru, strutting its Barley water, sugary goodness saying "I contain quinine". It worked perfectly with gin and I've been in love ever since.

But when Irn Bru announced it was making an ice cream, I knew I had to get my hands on it. Sadly, it's only currently on sale in Glasgow and Scottish friends were unwilling to bring me some back from their ventures north of the border.

Necessity breeds ingenuity and I decided to make my own Irn Bru ice cream.

You will need:
 - 1 litre of Irn Bru
 - 300ml full-fat milk
 - 300ml double cream
 - 4 egg yolks
 - 2 teaspoons of cornflour

 - 1 litre freezable container. I used an old ice cream tub

This recipe comes in two parts. The first is the creation of the Irn Bru syrup.

For this stage you want to use a pan which you wouldn't miss if it got ruined, just in case. Pour your litre of Irn Bru into the pan and bring to the boil and reduce until half.

Combine the cornflour with a small amount of water to create a paste and add to the Irn Bru. Reduce further until half of the remaining liquid has gone. You should now be left with a quarter of what you began with and a thin syrup.

The second part of this recipe is the ice cream itself.

In a large bowl, whisk the egg yolks together for a few minutes.

Place the cream and milk into a milk pan on a medium heat and bring just to the boil. Remove from the heat and pour the dairy mix into the eggs, whisky until completely mixed.

Add the Irn Bru syrup at the stage and watch your custard go orange.

Return the Irn Bru custard mix back to a pan and place on the lowest heat possible, continuously stirring until the mix has thickened. You can check this by drawing your finger over the back of the spoon to create a line. If the line remains stable the custard is ready.

Strain the custard into the bowl and leave to cool to room temperature. Transfer into the container and put it into the freezer.

Every few hours you will have to remove it from the freezer and whisk, or stir, so that you break up the crystals and get a smoother ice cream.

When finished you should have something that looks a bit like this

PANCAKES

I would lovingly write pancake recipes for you but Duggers has already done that and I intend to use her recipes because they look awesome and I can't actually flip pancakes (the horror)!

So far there are THREE recipes on her blog.
My favourite: Galette Saucisse (complete with sing-along) http://sarahduggers.com/2014/03/03/galette-saucisse/ will satisfy your inner Frenchman any day of the year.

Those with a sweeter tooth can try her sweet pancake recipe http://sarahduggers.com/2014/03/01/pancake-day/

For those of you who prefer things American you can try these http://sarahduggers.com/2014/01/05/new-year-pancakes/

I will be trying all three and I encourage you all to follow by example.

By the way, this is what happened last time I tried to flip a pancake...

South African Cuisine: Bobotie

I'm been craving South African food for a long time and having unsuccessfully searched high and low in London for a place to get my fix I had to resort to my own natural talents.

Bobotie is a dish from the Cape and it is essentially spiced mince with a custard topping.

You will need:
1 thick slice of white bread (crusts removed)
250ml milk
1 finely chopped onion
1 finely chopped garlic clove
750g of mince (doesn't matter what variety but Quorn mince absorbs the custard)
2 tbsp curry powder (as mild or spicy as you like)
2 tbsp of vinegar
2 tbsp of chopped almonds
2 tbsp of chutney (I used Gratton & Oldridge's Spicy Tomato chutney as it's very, very nice. See: http://www.grattonandoldridge.co.uk/)
1 tbsp grated ginger
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp ground pepper
3 eggs

Soak the bread in the milk and then squeeze dry. Combine the squeezed bread with the mince, onion, garlic, curry powder, vinegar, almonds, chutney, ginger, turmeric and pepper and mix well.

Lightly brown the mince mix in a pan before transferring to a casserole dish.

Beat the eggs and milk together and pour over the mince.

Bake in an oven at 180 degrees Celsius for ~50 minutes. Serve with rice

Please excuse me for interchanging imperial and metric measures, tablespoons are much easier to measure than 17.75 ml

Galette des rois

On the 12th day of Christmas my true love gave to me a cake to celebrate the arrival of the Magi.

The galette des rois is a popular tradition in Francophone parts of the world to mark the end of Christmas and to draw the kings to the Epiphany. A figurine or, in this case, a bean is placed inside the cake and the person who finds the bean becomes king for the day and has to provide the cake for the next year. It's also common for the cake to be decorated with a crown for the finder of the bean to wear.

Anyway, to the most important bit - the recipe... One of my more demanding friends requested this recipe. However, the original recipe, of which this is an adaptation, came from the Telegraph .

You will need:
 - 2 packets of puff pastry, totalling around 700g.
                                       You can make your own but shop bought pastry is much easier to use and the smugness of making your own pastry might be short lived...

 - 200g of ground almonds
 - 150g of sugar
 - 100g of softened butter. Don't use margarine, it doesn't taste quite right
 - 2 eggs

Whack the oven onto 210 degrees Celsius.
Line the bottom and sides of a pie dish or flan case with one packet of the puff pastry and trim the excess.

Mix the almonds, sugar, butter and eggs together to make a paste. You could probably use marzipan in its place if you're lazy as it will have a similar result.

Spread the almond paste evenly across the puff pastried dish. Cover with the other puff pastry packet, trim the excess and crimp the edges using a fork. Score with a criss-cross pattern and glaze with an egg wash.

Pop in the oven for 30 mins or until golden and puffed.

Voila! Galette des rois