Ren Behan - Author Wild Honey and Rye

Food Writer

Cherries

Chocolate and Cherry Bites with the new Creations Kitchen Machine

This week I was invited to take part in a challenge set by Russell Hobbs to try out their new Creations Kitchen Machine. Russell Hobbs are hosting a champagne and cake party tonight in London to launch their new range of Creations food prep products. My challenge was to make something to the theme of a ‘Girls’ Night In’ using the new machine and the main ingredient had to be chocolate. Since English cherries are now at their best and in season, I decided to combine chocolate and cherries into these tasty morsels. Not quite a cupcake (you’ll notice the distinct lack of piled high buttercream) just an extra drizzle of chocolate with a fresh cherry compote. I think these would be a very welcome addition to a Girls’ Night In!Good luck to the other bloggers taking part tonight in the bake off and thank you to Russell Hobbs for sending me the Creations Kitchen Machine to try at home. We certainly had fun trying out the stand mixer and it seemed to enjoy mixing and making these chocolate and cherry bites!

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Chocolate and Cherry Bites

Ingredients

  • 225g light brown unrefined sugar
  • 4 large, free range eggs
  • 240ml mild, light olive oil or vegetable oil
  • 1 tsp fairtrade vanilla extract/essence
  • 200g self-raising flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 40g cocoa powder
  • 200g cherry compote or soft set cherry preserve
  • 100g dark or milk chocolate (to drizzle over the top)

Instructions

  1. Pre-heat your oven to 180°C. Line a 12 hole muffin tin with paper cases.
  2. Beat the soft brown sugar and eggs together for a few minutes, until pale and creamy.
  3. Slowly pour in the oil and beat again. Add the vanilla extract and mix in well.
  4. Sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa into the mixture and carefully mix (with a metal spoon, not mixer) until it is all combined.
  5. Using a spoon or an ice-cream scoop, fill the paper cases with the chocolate cake batter to two-thirds full. Take a teaspoon and carefully drop half a teaspoon of fresh cherry compote or soft set cherry preserve into the centre of the batter in each case.
  6. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 15-18 minutes.
  7. Take the cakes out of the oven and leave them to cool.
  8. In the meantime, break up the dark chocolate and place it in a glass bowl over a pan with lightly simmering water in it to melt the chocolate. Once melted, using a teaspoon, drizzle some melted chocolate over the cakes. The more mess the better!

 

 

Please note: this post is not a review of the product nor is it an endorsement. I am still testing and trying it out and would usually give a product a longer testing run before posting my opinions about it. The Creations Kitchen Machine will be available from 21st July 2012 in Argos and has an RRP of £199. You can follow Russell HobbsUK on Twitter to keep up with the party tonight!

 

Seasonal Cherry and Almond Traybake

I love English cherries and I have just started to see some becoming available. I also have a fail-safe recipe for a traybake, given to me by my mother, which is so adaptable that it’s the only traybake recipe you’ll ever need. This recipe uses a glass of very mild oil, such as vegetable oil or a light olive oil instead of butter, which keeps the bake really moist and lots of eggs. It also just keeps on getting better each day and keeps well for up to five days, though I guarantee it won’t last that long. A little while ago I shared a recipe for an Easy Rhubarb Traybake, essentially the same recipe, but this time I used fresh, seasonal cherries (halved and pitted) and just scattered over the batter. I also wanted to flavour it with almond, so used some almond essence and added 50 grams of ground almonds, too. As mentioned before, you can pretty much scatter and stone fruit over the top or some lightly stewed apples, in which case, replace the almond essence and sprinkle in a teaspoon of cinnamon. 

I’m also very excited about the fact that some of my recipes and photographs are being used away from my blog now! This cherry and almond traybake appears in The Jewish Chronicle this week, which is available at the supermarket and online. It’s kind of funny as I actually don’t have any Jewish heritage, but my recipes do have a seasonal angel, which the food editor very much likes and also I am learning how to adapt recipes to specific dietary requirements.  I think it is fascinating to celebrate and learn about other food cultures, which I am able to do, and particularly enjoy doing, through food.

Keep an eye out too for another of my Polish inheritance recipes appearing in Delicious Magazine in the September issue…more news about that shortly!

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Seasonal Cherry and Almond Traybake by Ren Behan

Prep

Cook

Total

Ingredients

  • 225g caster sugar
  • 4 large, free range eggs
  • 240ml mild, light olive oil or vegetable oil
  • 1 tsp almond extract/essence
  • Zest of an orange or lemon
  • 200g self-raising flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 40g ground almonds
  • 250g or a punnet of fresh cherries, pitted, sliced in half
  • Icing sugar to dust and serve

Instructions

  1. Pre-heat your oven to 180°C. Line a square baking tin or tray (approx 20 x 20 x 5cm) with baking paper.
  2. Beat the caster sugar and eggs together for five minutes, until pale and creamy.
  3. Slowly pour in the oil and beat again. Add the almond extract and mix in well.
  4. Grate in the zest of one lemon or orange.
  5. Sift the flour and baking powder into the mixture and carefully mix (with a metal spoon, not mixer) until it is all combined.
  6. Add in the ground almonds and carefully mix again. Pour in the cake batter. Scatter the halved cherries over the top and push down, leaving some of the cherries visible.
  7. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 40-45 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
  8. Dust with the icing sugar and cut into squares or slices. Serve warm or cool. Keeps well in a tin for up to five days.

I’m seding this recipe across to Simple and in Season, this month hosted by Fleur over at Homemade by Fleur.

I’m also linking it up to Tea Time Treats, hosted alternately by Karen at Lavender and Lovage and Katie at What Kate Baked. This month the theme is ‘cake stall cakes’ and this one always goes down well!

What seasonal treats have you been cooking up?

Very Berry Cherry Sundaes – with a Fresh Cherry Compote

It’s time for ice cream again! We spotted some lovely cherries on offer this week and  in my book there’s nothing better or easier than making a batch of sweet cherry compote ready to spoon over some ice cream on a sunny day. You can also use the cherry compote to serve with plain yoghurt for breakfast. If you don’t like whole cherry pieces, you could blitz the compote down into a puree, too. I used strawberry ice cream, making our ice cream sundaes super fruity! If you wanted to go all out and make your own ice cream, you could stir your cherry compote through some vanilla ice cream to make a cherry ripple type of thing.

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I’m sending these Very Berry Cherry Sundaes over to Kavey for her Bloggers Scream for Ice Cream June blog event – the theme is fruit!

And also to Laura who is looking after Simple and in Season this month over at How to Cook Good Food as British cherries are just coming into season! Thank you Laura.

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Enjoy! What’s your favourite summer fruit?

National Cherry Day!

Did you know that today is National Cherry Day? A few years ago, Food Lovers Britain launched the Cherry Aid Campaign in a bid to get us all behind the British Cherry.

In the last 50 years we’ve lost 90% of our Cherry Orchards and we now import 95% of the cherries that we eat. So, today is the day that we are all supposed to be buying, cooking and eating British Cherries.
I’m pleased to say that luckily, there are plenty of British Cherries around this season. I spotted them my local Farmer’s Market, and also, it is very encouraging to see that some of our supermarkets are pledging to only stock British Cherries whilst they are in season.
If you want to support the campaign, you could try finding a Cherry Orchard to either pick-your-own fruit or even sponsor a Cherry Tree. You could even try planting a cherry tree or a miniature cherry tree in your garden too.
Cherry Blossom
Photo Credit: Waitrose Press Centre
What to do with cherries?
Well, there can be nothing more relaxing than taking a big bowl of cherries out into the garden, sitting down and eating them as is. I tend to look out for blueberry recipes and substitute cherries, for example, instead of a baked blueberry cheesecake you could make a cherry cheesecake.
Cherries do very well in baked cakes, cobblers, crumbles or you could stew them down with sugar to make a cherry syrup to pour over vanilla ice-cream.
Here are some of my favourite British cherry recipes:

Fresh Cherry Cake with a hint of cinnamon – BBC Good Food

Cherry Cheesecake Slice – BBC Good Food

Seared Duck Breast with Cherry Sauce – Gordon Ramsay for The Times Online

More about Cherries:

Tune into Nick Coffer’s Weekend Kitchen today at 12pm on BBC Three Counties Radio to hear me talking more about British cherries on the radio.

I also really enjoyed reading this article on the Cherry Aid Campaign by Silvana Soissons, the inspirational Editor of The Foodie Bugle.

So, if you are out and about today, remember to look out for British cherries and enjoy!