My Best of "Picnic Food" recipes

Spring has started in full speed in London, and it is supposed to last for a while. Fingers crossed!
Time has come for picnics and party food, that you drop in a carrier bag with a bottle of Pimm's and a punnet of strawberries. 
So here you go, a little selection of my favourite picnic food recipes!

Potato and rosemary giant scone

Tomato, mozarella and olive pizza rolls

Scotch eggs

Citrus and poppy seeds cake

Caramelized pretzel brownies

Sweet muffins (base recipe and variations)

Peanut butter and chocolate chookies

Millionaire shortbread

Pretzel, French Glacé Cherry, Cranberry, Tea cake and Marshmallow Rocky Roads

Happy Easter everyone!
I'm not going home to hunt eggs with my family this year, but I'll still indulge in some chocolate (or go to my wonderful local baker and buy one of his Easter bakes).
For now, I leave you on a this recipe perfect to bake with kids during this long weekend, and wish you a great break!

Pretzel, French Glacé Cherry, Cranberry, 

Tea Cake and Marshmallow Rocky Roads  

These are rocky roads taken to the next step. I loved the mix of textures from the fondant glacé cherries, dense cranberries, crumbly tea cakes and crunchy pretzels, the chewy marshmallows, which makes it bite a surprise.

Ingredients 

125 grams soft butter 
300 grams best-quality dark chocolate (I used Valrhona chocolate) broken into pieces 
3 tablespoons golden syrup 
230 g or mix tea biscuits, chopped French Glacé Cherries, dried cranberries, broken pretzels
100 g mini marshmallows 

Method to prepare the rocky roads

1/ Melt the butter, chocolate and golden syrup in a heavy-based saucepan. Scoop out about 125ml / ½ cup of this melted mixture and put to one side.

2/ Put the biscuits into a freezer bag and then bash them with a rolling pin. You are aiming for both crumbs and pieces of biscuits.

3/ Fold the biscuit pieces and crumbs into the melted chocolate mixture in the saucepan, and then add the marshmallows.

4/ Tip into a foil tray (24cm / 9 inch square); flatten as best you can with a spatula. Pour the reserved 125ml / ½ cup of melted chocolate mixture over the marshmallow mixture and smooth the top.

5/ Refrigerate for about 2 hours or overnight.

6/ Cut into 24 fingers and dust with icing sugar by pushing it gently through a tea strainer or small sieve.

Recipe adapted from Nigella Lawson's rocky road recipe

My haggis, leek and potato pasties

I've been riding a high speed emotional roller coaster for two months now. 
I feel like a pregnant lady who has no idea when her due date is going to be.
I keep on signing very important documents that I only vaguely understand.
I think "Christ, things would be so much easier in France" at least once a day. 
I've started spending time on furniture and design websites, when I've always hated everything remotely related to interior design. I even have an opinion about such things now!
I have become an expert in random topics like American fridges, heating systems, burglar alarms, Japanese knotweed,...
I'm buying a house in the UK, get me out of here!

My Haggis Pasties

(Haggis is not just for Burns Night!)

As you probably already know, I absolutely love haggis. I kept on wishing I could eat haggis all year long rather than just on Burns Night, when I realised that I could! And nothing prevents me either from enjoying haggis with something else than neeps and tatties.

When the lovely people at Macsween offered me samples of wild boar haggis and veggie haggis, I was thrilled and didn't miss a beat before experimenting with them.
The results are superb! I'm still to test more recipes, but apparently one can use haggis like mince meat, so I guess the possibilities are endless. Yummy!


Ingredients: 

For the flaky pastry 
450g strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
½ tsp salt
200g unsalted butter
Aprox 200ml ice-cold water
1 tsp turmeric powder

For the filling
2 leeks, finely chopped
100g potato, peeled, chopped in small cubes
1 onion, finely chopped
1 small haggis (I used Macsween wild boar haggis), uncooked
3tbsp plain flour
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Make the pastry:  
1/ Put the butter and water in the freezer for 15 min beforehand.

2/ In a big bowl, sift the flour, turmeric and salt. Grate the almost frozen butter into the flour. Wash your hands with very cold water so that they are as cold as possible. With your fingertips, rub the butter into the flour until it ressembles fine crumbs. Try not to work it too much so the butter doesn't melt or become soft

3/ Add gradually the cold water and knead the dough very briefly until it forms a rough ball. Wrap in cling film and put in the fridge for at least 30 min (this is important to respect this time as it will enable the gluten to developp and prevent the pastry from shrinking when cooking of being greasy)

Make the filling:
1/ Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4

2/ Cut the potato, leek, onion finely. On one side, mix the vegetables together and season with salt and pepper. In another bowl, open the haggis and rub it into the flour, season only with pepper. Gather everything in the same bowl and mix well.

3/ Roll the chilled pastry out onto a clean, floured work surface to a thickness of approx 5mm. Cut a large disc from the pastry using a small plate as a template. 

4/ Place the vegetables and haggis mixture in a line down the middle of the pastry disc.

5/ Brush the edge of the pastry disc with some of the beaten egg. Draw the edges of the pastry together and crimp them with your fingers to seal (it's important that the pastry is well sealed all around as this will allow the vegetables to steam in the pastry case). Brush all over with the remaining beaten egg.

6/ Start over with the pastry and filling left over until all used up.

7/ Place the pasties onto a baking tray and bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes, or until golden-brown. Eat warm or cold, with a salad. 

 

Recipe adapted from a Hairy Bikers's Cornish Pasty recipe.
I was offered free samples of Macsween haggis but wasn't asked or paid to review them. I do it because I like their products!

Sticky flapjack recipe

Decorating a house as a couple is not so much about making compromise than knowing which battles you are unlikely to ever win and putting your energy into battles that are not completely hopeless.

After having tried for months to get The Man to agree in buying a red sofa for our future house (I may have an obsessive passion for the colour red), I've finally understood that it's never going to happen and that I might get luckier in working him on us adopting a kitten. 
If that doesn't work, I even have a secret weapon; getting his dream beast of smoker-barbecue that costs almost as much as a car (I'm serious, the thing exists and is called a Big Green Egg)

Actually, thinking about it, if I play it well, the crazy barbecue might actually get me a kitten sharpening his claws on a beautiful red sofa...!

Florence's Sticky Golden Syrup Flapjacks

Forget about healthy oat bars, these flapjacks are sticky, naughty, and that's the reason why I like them so much. 
There are crunchier than your usual flapjacks. 
This simple, foolproof recipe was given to me by Florence, my Marmelade boss (who takes her nickname from the fact that she makes the meanest orange marmelade and taught me how to make it myself). 
Make a big batch, they keep well, and there are so good they won't last long anyway!

Ingredients

110g Rolled Oats
150g muesli or granola
A small handful of any dried fruit and or nuts that you like, roughly chopped (I used 100% natural French glacé cherries, raisins, almonds and peanuts)
2 tbsp golden syrup
225g light muscovado or demerara sugar
225g butter

Method for the sticky flapjacks

Preheat the oven at 185deg C

1/ In a saucepan, melt the sugar, butter and golden syrup and mix with a wooden spoon until well combined. 

2/ Add the oats, granola and nuts and fruits and mix well until fully coated in sugar and butter syrup. Turn off the heat.

3/ Transfer to a buttered brownie or metal pie dish, press firmly onto the base and cook in the centre of the oven for about 35 min until golden on top and on the edges. Leave to cool completely before cutting into squares with a sharp knife. Store in an airtight container or cookie jar/box in the fridge for up to 3 or 4 days.

Dulce de leche and peanut cookies

Patience has never been one of my virtues and that's an understatement. 
To give you an example, the day I decided I wanted to start cycling to work, I just had to buy a bicycle on that same day. 
When it actually took me two weeks to find the right bicycle, I felt like every day separating me from my goal was sheer torture. And that was just a bike.

So you can imagine that buying a house has been a long journey of initiation into the heart of patience and that The Man has had to put up with a few meltdowns from me. 

From finding the place, to doing surveys, researches and negotiating every single detail, buying a house is a long marathon that requires patience and detachment, which I seriously lack. As I was losing it with frustration every other day, The Man was handling both the paperwork and me, his crazy girlfriend, with his usual British phlegm. Yes, he's a saint.

But, may the house god (and Southwark council) be with us, we should get there soon. Stay tuned, you'll know everything about it, I promise!

Dulce de leche and peanut Cookies

Close your eyes, and picture yourself biting into a warm chewy cookie with a melt in the mouth dulce de leche centre...
Smile, you are a recipe away from making that dream come true!


Ingredients

makes approx 15 large cookies 
225g packed brown sugar
120g granulated sugar
250g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 eggs
300g flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
270g old-fashioned rolled oats
75g blanched peanuts, unsalted and very roughly chopped
2 heaped tbsp dulce de leche + a teaspoon per cookie for the centre 

Method

1/ Pre heat oven to 190c

2/ Cream the sugars and butter, and then add the vanilla extract and the dulce de leche

3/ Beat in the eggs, one at a time

4/ Sieve the flour, salt and baking powder and gently add to the mix. Do not over mix

5/ Stir in the oats and peanuts

6/ Line a baking tray with baking parchment

7/ Divide mix into thick disks between 40 and 80g depending on size preference, place a spoon full of dulce de leche in the middle of each disk and fold them so the dulce gets hidden in the centre of each cooke. Space out the cookies on a prepared tray leaving 2 cm between each one, pressing down slightly 

8/ Bake for about 15 mins until golden around the edge. Leave to cool for 10 mins before transferring to cooling wire and leave to cool completely before storing in a cookie jar.

Tips: 
Why weighing each cookie individually before baking? to ensure they all are the same size and will therefor cook at the same speed. This will ensure consistent cookies!
Why waiting for the cookies to cool completely before storing them in a jar? Because otherwise they will release steam in the jar and become soft.

Different sizes for different cookies: the bigger the cookies, the more soft in the middle. Small cookies might be crunchy all way through.  


Recipe adapted from the French Glacé Cherry and pecan cookies recipe by Anthony Kindred

Tom Kerridge's London Particular (Pea and bacon soup recipe)

This is not a soup. This is a bedtime story. 
A recipe with a history, like I love them so.
A dish that takes you to another time, another life. It's like a good book, but that you can savour with a spoon....

A the end of the XIXth and the beginning of the XXth centuries, most big British cities and London were often covered in a yellow-green dense fog, mixing the fog coming up from the Thames and the city's chimneys' fumes. 
This fog, often qualified of a "pea-soup fog" was called The London Fog, or The London Particular. 
It's this fog that gave its name to this thick yellow-green pea and bacon soup. 

Tom Kerridge's London Particular

Pea, bacon and mint soup

This soup is delicious. 
The bacon, the vegetables reduced in malt vinegar and sugar and the mint give it a real depth of flavour and so many layers of aromas.

Ingredients

50g butter
250g bacon lardons
1 onion, diced
2 sticks celery, diced
1 carrot, diced
50g caster sugar
100ml malt vinegar
200g dry split peas
1.25-1.5 litres chicken/ham stock
1 bunch rosemary tied together
2 bay leaves
2 handfuls mint leaves, save some to garnish
2 tbsp creme fraiche
Croutons, to garnish

Method

1/ Heat up a large saucepan and melt the butter. Add the bacon and fry until browned and crispy, then remove from the pan and drain on kitchen paper.

2/ Add the diced vegetables to the saucepan and cook in the bacon fat and butter until soft. Add the caster sugar, then the malt vinegar. Bring to the boil and reduce until the vinegar has completely evaporated.

3/ Add the split peas, then cover with the ham or chicken stock. Bring to the boil. Turn it down to a simmer, then add the rosemary and bay leaves. Cook gently for 45-50 minutes, until the peas are soft and cooked. Remove from the heat and take out the rosemary and bay leaves.

4/ Blend the soup in a jug blender with the mint leaves and creme fraiche until smooth. Season and pass through a fine sieve. Serve with the crispy bacon, croutons and a few mint leaves. 

Recipe adapted from Tom Kerridge's London Particular

The Outrageous Chocolate Cake: chocolate & meringue mousse, brownies

Superfood, raw food, GI rating, detox...I' m not going to talk to you about any of these today. 
This recipe is one of these which ambition is to break all the rules of reason, and pack as much indulgence and flavour as possible in one single cake. 
To all chocolate lovers in the world, I want to say : this one is a winner. 
It's naughty. Worse, it's outrageous.

But my dear, it's so good.

My ultimate Chocolate Cake: 

A chocolate & meringue mousse on top of a brownie base

Chocolate brownie base

Ingredients

250g good quality cocoa chocolate (I used Valrhona)
250g unsalted butter
300g golden caster sugar
3 large eggs, plus 1 extra egg yolk, lightly beaten
60g plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
60g good quality cocoa powder 

Method: 

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180deg C, and line the bottom of a loose base cake tin with baking parchment and butter up the parchment and tin.

2. Set a bowl over, but not touching, a pan of simmering water, and add 200g of the chocolate, broken into pieces. Allow to melt, stirring occasionally, and then remove from the heat immediately.

3. Meanwhile, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, and break the rest of the chocolate into chips.

4. With the mixer still running, gradually add the eggs, beating well between each addition to ensure it's thoroughly incorporated before pouring in any more. Leave mixing on a high speed for five minutes until the batter has a silky sheen, and has increased in volume.

5. Remove the bowl from the mixer, and gently fold in the melted chocolate and chocolate chips with a metal spoon, followed by the sifted flour, baking powder, salt, cocoa powder.

6. Spoon the mixture into the tin, and bake for 30 minutes. Test with a skewer; it should come out sticky, but not coated with raw mixture. If it does, put it back into the oven for another 3 minutes, then test again.

7. When the brownies are ready, remove the tin from the oven and place it in a cool place (I put mine out in the garden) to cool completely. Once cold, cover the sides left free of the tin with a large string of cling film all around (optional, but it will prevent the mousse from sticking to the sides of the tin)

Chocolate and meringue mousse

Ingredients

250g good quality cocoa chocolate 

6 eggs

1 or 2 supermarket bought meringue nests (optional), broken into coarse pieces + 1 for decoration

a pinch of salt

Method: 

1/ Set a medium bowl over, but not touching, a pan of simmering water, and add the chocolate, broken into pieces. Allow to melt, stirring occasionally, and then remove from the heat. Leave to cool while you do the next step.

2/ Separate the eggs and place the whites and a pinch of salt in a big bowl (or in the clean bowl of a baking mixer). With an electric whisk,  whisk the white until firm. 

3/ Add the egg yolks to the melted chocolate one at a time and mix well between each addition with a wooden spoon.

4/ Fold very gently and carefully the whisked egg whites a little at a time in the chocolate mixture, making sure you don't break the white not to loose the air within the whites and get a light mousse texture. Once all the whites have been folded, fold in the meringue pieces carefully. Pour and level the mousse over the cooled down brownie base, and transfer to the fridge to set for at least 3 hours. 

5/ Loosen the cake tin sides and bottom, carefully peel the cling film from the sides. Loosen the brownie from the cake tin base with a pallet knife and transfer to a cake stand.

Decorate the top of the cake with broken meringue nest pieces.

Chocolate brownie recipe from Felicity Cloake