Marmalade Roll...Third Time Lucky.

If I were a real proper food blogger, like all those good ones that write actual books and Tweet all day and the likes, I would test all the recipes I show you again and again and then I would write it and get someone else to test it to make sure I wasn't talking a lot of twaddle.

I don't really doooooooo that. I think of this as more of a window looking in on to the journeys I undertake in my little kitchen and things tend, on the whole, to work out well and then I tell you about it, and if I think I could make them work out even better, I tell you how I think YOU should do things instead of how I actually did them.

This time I did though, oooow this time...three whole times. First try = diAAAAAASTer daaaaarling...didn't even bother getting it in the oven. And I'm not about to give you a recipe that makes me sad. Second try = perfectly edible, nice and tasty in fact but definitely not a looker and a recipe not worthy of repeating. Third try = pheeeeeew, made it. I learned my lessons and I can tell you about them....this is surely the main appeal of bloggys; the whole 'I make mistakes so you don't have to' thing, in a real life kitchen with real life, non-professional mistakes. Plus my genius prose of course.

So, lessons. You deffo need suet here, butter will not do. If you are making your own marmalade, DO NOT use it to make the roll on the same day, it will be TOO HOT. And don't be a div and make the wrong (actually really easy) calculations. Hope that helps. With Love and Cake.

Marmalade Roll.

Recipe from the wonderful Jane Brocket's book; Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer.

A few notes:

• DO NOT use hot marmalade fresh out of the pan and DO NOT substitute butter for the suet. I have made the mistakes so you don't have to.
• You could, of course, replace the marmalade with you fav jam or conserve or compote or nut spread or whatever you fancy really.

Serves 6

You will need

1 baking sheet, lined

250g self raising flour

pinch salt

125g shredded suit (beef or vegetarian)

50g light brown sugar

1 jar or your favourite marmalade

milk, for brushing

1 tbsp demerara

• Preheat your oven to 200°c.
• In a nice big bowl combine the flour, salt, suet and sugar.
• Add 100ml of water and start to bring everything together with your hands. Add more water if you need to, I used around 200ml in all; you're looking for a fairly stiff dough with no stickiness.
• Gather the dough into a tight ball and turn out onto a clean, floured surface.
• Roll it out into a rectangle, about 30 x 15 cm with a depth of 1cm.
• Spread your lovely marmalade over the dough, leaving a border of 1cm.
• Brush water over the border.
• Roll up the dough from one long side to the other; don't worry about a bit of leakage.
• Transfer the roll to your baking sheet and tuck the ends under to create as much as a seal as poss.
• Brush all over with milk and sprinkle with demerara sugar.
• Bake for 30 to 40 minutes until golden and firm. Don't worry about it splitting a bit or leaking, it's hooomely. Do, however, try and carefully remove the roll from the baking sheet before too long, you don't want any leaked marmalade to cool and stick the paper to the roll.
• Serve hot, in slices, with custard or double or clotted cream.

Chocolate and Orange Makes Bread and Butter Pudding.

Bread and Butter Pudding. Not something, I’m afraid, that usually gets my juices flowing. It’s stupid really, because I think bread is brilliant and butter, even better. But b&b pud just isn’t usually the one for me. I’d take sticky toffee any day. But when you have a bread making disaster and therefore a loaf going spare....needs must.

And how do you make a boring pudding a ‘juices flowing’ one? Throw chocolate and orange at it of cooooourse.

OO, just as I wrote that I realised that I have the exact same thoughts towards French toast. It must be an eggy bready thing. And what cured my distaste of that particular breakfast treat? Why chocolate and orange obv. Maybe I should try it with chickpeas too, my food nemesis. Then I’d be totally cured.

Because here, what’s not to like? Squishy and chewy bread, sweet, chocolate-ey custard and little nuggets of sunshiney orange. Not exactly a light and airy dessert option but perfect for those days when only the carby-est of concoctions will do. Like, um, all the May days that tantalise with sun and trick with hail and gails. Soooo right now then. With Love and Cake.

Chocolate and Orange Bread and Butter Pudding.

A few notes:

• To be honest, if I made this again I'd double up on the quantity of custard for the same amount of bread- just for a little bit of extra goo, but I'll give you the quantities I actually used.
• This is a great way to use up bread that's past it's best, in fact the dryer the better, for soaking up the chocolatey, eggy goodness.
• As always, feel free to freestyle a bit. Dark chocolate would be divine, and you could absolutely leave out the orange...how about replacing it with a shot or two of rummmm......

Serves 6ish

You will need

a large oven proof dish, lightly greased

around 3/4 loaf of good quality white bread, cut into 2 cm cubes

Juice of 2 oranges

300ml double cream

2 egg yolks

180g milk chocolate, finely chopped

150g candied orange peel, finely chopped

1 tbsp chocolate chips

icing sugar for dusting

• So first job is to get the oven on to preheat at 180°c.
• Then tumble the cubes of bread into your oven dish and pour over the orange juice so the bread gets a chance to soak it all up.
• Next job...pop the cream into a saucepan and heat slowly until just simmering.
• Meanwhile whisk the egg yolks in a bowl until lighter in colour and thickened.
• When the cream is ready, pour it in a slow, steady stream over the egg yolks, whisking all the time.
• Add the chocolate and peel into the custard and stir so that the chocolate melts.
• Transfer the chocolate custard back into the saucepan and heat slllooooowly for a few minutes, stirring all the time, so the custard thickens a teeny bit.
• Pour the custard over the bread. Mix everything around a bit and poke 'sticking out bits' of bread back in so everything gets a good soak.
• Pop the dish in the oven and bake for 25 minutes until firm and bubbling round the edges.
• When the pud has cooled a bit, sprinkle over the chocolate chips and dust with icing sugar through a sieve.
• Viola...it's carb o clock.

Mocha Self-Saucing Pudding.

Oh hiiii, thanks for visiting. I like it when people give me recipes, or direct me to them. Sometimes I like it because it saves me a decision; decision making is not my strong point, in fact I could probably win an award for being bad at it. Sometimes I like it because it means I make something I probably wouldn't have otherwise; contributing to the achievement of my ultimate goal...to have made eeeeveeeerything.

And sometimes I like it because of how it makes me feel like someone knows me a bit and has thought of me, in my favourite context, when I'm not even there. More than that they go to the effort of remembering the thought and passing it on to me.

This pud is a product of the latter. A lovely lady that I work with tore out a page of The Sunday Times supplement. Briiiiiiiiill, both for the recipe and the fact that I'm not quite high brow enough to buy such words every week, but LOVE reading the supplements (aaaaaand it meant that I got to indulge my Giles Coren fetish by reading half of his review- it was enough). 

This sort of pud is often called a self-saucing one, because, well eeer, it self-sauces.  But when my friend was telling me about the recipe she kept forgetting the phrase and went with 'self-healing, self-loving, self-whatever.....'. So here we are. Self-healing, self-saucing Mocha Pudding, pretty accurate I'd say. With Love and Cake.

Mocha Self-Saucing Pudding

Adapted from a Donna Hay recipe in The Sunday Times

A few notes:

• This recipe seems aaaaaall wrong...doing it in a pan, pouring batter onto liquid. You will think "really??", but just do it as I tell you, and it will come good.
• I used instant espresso powder which has a finer texture and stronger taste that regular instant coffee, but if that's what you have you could push it through a sieve or bash it up in a pestle and mortar to make it finer.

Serves 4-6 

You will need

a 15-18cm ovenproof sauce/frying pan

125ml milk

35g butter, melted

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

150g plain flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp instant espresso powder

30g ground almonds

45g + 90g soft brown sugar

1 1/2 tbsp cocoa

250ml water

• First job, preheat your oven to 180°c.
• Now whisk together the milk, melted butter, egg and vanilla extract in a medium bowl or measuring jug.
• Then stir together the flour, baking powder, espresso powder, ground almonds and 45g brown sugar in a large bowl.
• Pour the milky mix over the flour mix and whisk to nicely combine. Set aside for a mo.
• Put the 90g of sugar, cocoa and water in your sauce/frying pan and stir over a medium heat so the sugar dissolves, then slowly bring to the boil.
• Then take the pan off the heat and pour the coffee-ee batter over the top.
• Pop the pan in the oven for 20ish minutes, until the sponge is firm in the centre.
• Mmmmm serve with cream.