Pumpkin Bacon Quiche

BBC broadcasts that Halloween is the third festival in the UK. Every shops sell lots of things related to Halloween, from costume to food. Everything!!

For me, I’m too old to knock my neighbor’s door asking for some sweets. But, I still purchased some chocolate. Maybe, some kids will come and knock my door?! Maybe?!

 

Temperature Oven Setting: 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6
Baking Time: Around 20~25 minutes
Recipe: A 9” round baking dish

Shortcrust Pastry Link

 

 

 

Steps of Pumpkin Bacon Quiche

(1) Prepare a fried pan. Add some oil in and switch medium heat on. Add sliced pumpkin in. Flavor pumpkin with a little salt. Fry around 5 minutes until it turns soft. Then, place over the top of pastry

(2) Use same pan to fry chopped bacon until it is cooked.

(3) Prepare creamy sauce: Place egg, Crème Fraîche, milk, dry basil, and salt in a bowl. Whisk all ingredients all. Then, pour into the quiche.

(4) Place grazed cheese over the top. Send it into a pre-heat oven at 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6 around 20 ~ 25 minutes until it is set.

 

Another pumpkin feast! Or, I should say another Halloween feast?! Actually, pumpkin is full of nutrition so that eating lots of pumpkins!! Should We? Enjoy it!!

Pumpkin Cheese Pie

Halloween is coming!! Happy Halloween!! Traditionally, people don’t celebrate in the UK. But now, more and more people do it so that every shop sells lots of pumpkin. Giant pumpkin, monster pumpkin, carving pumpkin… Too many kinds of pumpkins are sold there.

Anyway, my friend and I purchased one. We are not going to do some carving. We plan to do lots of food and desserts. So, the first one we are doing is Pumpkin Mascarpone Pie.

Oven Temperature Setting: 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4

Baking Time: Around 30 minutes

Recipe : A 9” Pumpkin Cheese Pie

Shortcrust Pastry Link

 

 

Steps of Pumpkin Filling
(1) Boil chopped pumpkin around 15 minutes. Then, dry it. Use a masher to mash pumpkin.

(2) Then, add sugar, nutmeg, egg, butter, and milk with pumpkin. Mix all ingredients well.

(3) Pour the pumpkin batter over the top of the pastry. Send it into the pre-heat oven at 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4. Bake around 30 minutes.

 

Steps of Mascarpone Cheese Filling

(1) Separate egg white and egg yolk into different bowls. Whisk egg white. Egg white should be beaten until it is light and stiff enough. Then, set aside.
(Selena’s Kitchen Talk: The bowl with egg white needs to be clean and dried totally.  Otherwise, the egg white can’t be whisked to light and stiff.)

(2) Add egg yolks, Mascarpone Cheese ad sugar into a big bowl. Mix them well.

(3) Fold-in egg white into the cheese butter gradually and lightly.

 

Steps of Assembly

(1) Wait the pumpkin fill is cooled around 20 minutes.
(2) Pour the Mascarpone Cheese Filling over the top of pumpkin filling. Leave in the fridge at least 4 hours before servicing it.

 

Pumpkin and Mascarpone Cheese are a very good match. Smooth mascarpone cheese enriches spicy pumpkin flavor. Eating with crust pastry offers you different texture in your mouth. It is definitely the top choice to bake when purchasing pumpkin! Enjoy it!!

Shortcrust Pastry

Shortcrust is a basic pastry for cooking and baking. If you would like to have some savory foods, you can use it on Quiche, Tart, or Meat Pie. Or, if you want to have some sweet things, it can be used on different kinds of fruit tarts, egg custard pie, apple pie. Homemade shortcrust pastry is very easy and simple. And it is definitely more delicious than frozen one.

 

Oven Temperature Setting: 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4

Baking Time: Around 20 minutes
Recipe

 

 

Steps of Shortcrust Pastry

(1) Place flour, sugar, and salt in a big bowl. Mix all ingredients well

(2) Add butter into the bowl. Rub butter into the flour. It will be crumble-like

(3) Add water into the mixture. Lightly knead it into a ball.

(4) Put it into a food storage and leave in the fridge for around 30 minutes.

(5) Move the dough to a working table with light flour. Roll it into a round shape, around 0.5 cm.

(6) Place it over the top of the baking tray. Line it with the baking pray. Use a fork to poke some holes on the pastry. And then brush some whisked egg over the top of pastry.

(7) Cover pastry with baking stone and send it to the pre-heat oven at 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 around 10 minutes. Then, get rid of baking stones and bake another 10 minutes until the top turns golden.

(Selena’s Kitchen Talk: I am lazy so that I will leave it in the freezer around 20 minutes. Then, you don’t need to cover the pastry with baking stone. And it takes around 20 minutes to turn the top into golden.)

Beef Stroganof

When having a walk this afternoon, my friend asked me what I would like to choose to eat at restaurants. I think beef is one of my choices. Because I have anemia, my doctor suggests me to watch out my eating habits and should eat more red meat. Beef has very high protein and is a great source of heme iron. I like to cook different kinds of beef stew. Though it takes hours, beef is so tender and delicious. And you can cook a lot once, and then save it in the fridge. Eat any time when you want it. It is very convenient, isn’t it?

Recipe: Serve 4 people

 

 

Steps of Beef Stroganof

(1) Prepare a saucepan. Add some oil in. Switch the medium heat on. Add the beef in. Fried the beef until the surfaces turn golden. Then, pour the beef into a bowl. Set aside.

(2) Use the same pan to fry onion and mushroom for around 5 minutes. Add some oil if needed.

(3) Add beef back to the pan. Add water and beef stock in the pan. Bring it to boil.

(4) Add mustard sauce, tomato purée, and chopped rosemary. Incorporate all ingredients well. Boil it around 5 minutes. And then switch the heat off.

(5) Pour Beef Stroganof to slow cooker. Turn it to the low heat and cook around 3 hours until beef turns tender. Add Crème Fraîche into the slower cooker 30 minutes before it is ready.

(6) Season with salt if it is necessary.

The weather is getting colder and colder that we definitely need more hot food to eat. The tender beef and mushroom with creamy sauce is perfect for you in the cold weather. Beef Stoganof is suitable for pasta, rice, or bread. Keep warm and eat more comfort food.

Lemon Curd Soufflé

What is your feeling about Soufflé? Very soft? Yes. And Just melt in your mouth? Yes. Of course. It is how people like it or love it! I knew what Soufflé is from the movie called, “Because I said so.” In this movie, Milly likes baking and she loves to bake Soufflé. Even more she thinks her Soufflé burnt represents a bad sign of her love. From that moment, I have no idea, but I feel like Soufflé is seen as the symbol of love. Am I silly? Haha… Maybe…

Oven Temperature Setting: 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4

Baking Time: Around 15 minutes
Recipe: 2 2.5 inch cups, around 5 cm height

Link of Lemon Curd

 

Steps of Lemon Curd Soufflé

(1) Separate egg white and egg yolk into two different bowls. Whisk egg white until it is stiff.

(2) Place egg yolk and lemon zest and lemon juice into a bowl. Mix them well.

(3) Add 15 ml milk into the mixture. Well-mixed them.

(4) Add flour, cornstarch, and sugar into the mixture. Incorporate tem well.

(5) Fold 1/3 of egg white into the mixture. Then, fold in more egg white slow and lightly.

(6) Firstly, place 1 table spoon of lemon curd into each cup. Then, pour the mixture into the cup. Send it to the pre-heated oven at 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4. Bake it around 15 minutes until the top of Soufflé turns golden.

This double lemon flavor Soufflé is soooooo YUM. The Soufflé is covered with lemon curd that the extreme sweet-sour flavor is your mouth. Oh…you will find out you want more. Be carefully, it is very HOT, but you cannot resist to have another bite. Enjoy it.

Cheese Bread

There are thousands of cheeses in the world. Cheddar is the most common one, isn’t it? After coming to the UK, I think I am in the cheese heaven that I can buy lots of different chesses in the shops. In Taiwan, we don’t have so many types to choose. As a fan of cheese, I went to the shop and purchased different types of cheese every week when I firstly came here. I know someone might say I am crazy. But, if you like one thing a lot and there are limited choices in your country, you will probably do this thing as well.

So, what I do this time is to combine cheese and bread together. I just call it cheese bread.

Oven Temperature Setting: 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6

Baking Time: Around 20~25 minutes
Recipe: One loaf

 

Steps of Cheese Bread

(1) Add flour, salt and sugar into a big bowl. Mix a little.

(2) Add 200 ml milk with instant yeast and egg into the bowl. Knead it into the chunk
(Selena’s Kitchen Talk: My instant yeast’s instruction is to add yeast in the liquid around 5 minutes. Check the instruction before using it.)
(3) Then, knead olive oil into the dough.

(4) Knead the rest of milk into the dough gradually until it turns softer and more elastic.

(5) Shape the dough into a ball and put back to the bowl. Leave the dough in a warm place to double its size. It takes around 90 ~ 120 minutes

(6) Move the dough to the working table with light flour. When the dough is ready, shape it into a big loaf. Set aside at a warm place and wait for it double the size again. It takes around 40 ~ 60 minutes.

(7) Brush water over the top of bread. Sprinkle grated cheese over the top. Send the cheese bread into the pre-heat oven at 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6. It takes around 20~25 minutes until it turns golden on the top.

 

Simply speaking, it just sprinkles some grated cheese over the top of the usual dough. But, it enriches the bread full of cheese flavor. My friend and I, we are just two people, ate out within 2 days. So, come on and try it.

Apple Cake

This recipe of Apple Cake is the best one I ever baked. This is Mary Bery’s recipe. On her website, it is called “The Very Best Apple Dessert Cake.” And it is true. I have used this recipe to bake several times. And everyone always tells me to share this recipe. And so far, I still feel it is the best I ever have.

I still remember the first time my friend and I baked this one. When we took the cake out of the baking tin, there were some crumbs dropped to the table. We were planning to try the flavor, but it was too yum that we just used our hand to grab the cake and ate it directly. So, you can see how tasty it is. If you are a big fan of any type of apple dessert, you must try this one.

Oven Temperature Setting: 160C/325F/Gas Mark 3

Baking Time: 70 ~ 90 minutes
Recipe: A 7” round baking tray

 

Steps of Apple Cake

(1) Melt all butter. And set aside

(2) Peel, core, and slice the apple. When slicing the apple, if you put half of the apple in horizontal way and slice. You will find it out it is easier to slice it in similar size.

(3) Add egg, almond extract and melted butter in a bowl. Mix all ingredients well.

(4) Add flour, baking powder, sugar gradually into the bowl. Well-incorporate all of them.

(5) Pour half of the batter into the baking tray.

(6) Lay the sliced apple in the batter.
(Selena’s Kitchen Talk: It is not necessary to place like what I did.)
(7) Spoon the rest of dough into the slot between two sliced apples. It is very hard to do it. If some mixture is over the top of apple, it doesn’t matter. It will melt into the slot when baking it.

(8) Send it the cake into the pre-heat oven at 160C/325F/Gas Mark 3. It takes around 70~90 minutes.

 

Oh… It is so delicious. Again, the crust top is the best among the cake. Serving in hot is the best way to eat this apple cake. And eating with vanilla custard or ice cream just lets it better. I have baked it several times and I will keep baking this recipe.

Vanilla Custard

 

Vanilla Custard is a very popular sauce in the UK. People can buy it either fresh one or tinned one at every shop. It is very suitable for lots of desserts, like Apple Crumble Cake, Blackberry cake. Or, my friend will chop some fruits into a bowl and pour custard sauce over it. Then, EAT it.

Those sold ones in shops are very sweet. So, why not just do it? It is very easy and takes less than 10 minutes.   

 

Recipe

Steps of Vanilla Custard

(1) Whisk egg and milk in a cup first. And add vanilla extract into the batter.

(2) Pour it into a saucepan. Switch the small heat on.

(3) Add flour, corn scratch, and sugar into the pan gradually. Stir it well before adding more.

(4) Keep stirring until it turns thicker.

(Selena’s Kitchen Talk: When it starts to turn thicker, switch the heat off. Because it will thicken very quickly once it starts.)