Tips on pie making

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processing fresh mint with the sugar before tossing it with the fruit, you can permeate the whole filling with a fresh, herbal flavor

peaches and cherries can be especially juicy when they’re ripe, you’ll want to collect it.boil it .add it back

For a blueberry pie spread creme fraiche across the par baked crust

add a generous amount of lemon zest in the filling and as garnish

Add fresh herbs. Chop them up and mix them with the fruit; pulse them into the sugar

Add tarrogon scented butter to peach pie

try rubbing citrus zest—lemon, orange, lime, even grapefruit—into your sugar before mixing it with the fruit

For a concentrated flavor, add a drop (go slowly) of lemon, peppermint, or almond extract

For another layer of toasty richness,brown a few tablespoons of butterbefore mixing it into the filling

Sprinkle a layer of cookie crumbs over the dough before piling in the fruit.

Baking tips–soda bread

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use unbleached, fresh, locally milled flour of the soft wheat or pastry flour variety

Avoid using self-rising flour, which already contains baking powder and salt,

cutting a cross on top of the bread began to help the bread bake evenly.

use a fresh box of baking soda to prevent unnecessarily dense bread.

Preferably use buttermilk

If you dont have it make your own by adding one tablespoon of lemon juice to two cups of low-fat milk.

Bake in a preheated oven at 200C/400F/Gas 6 for the first 10 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 180C and bake for a further 30-40 minutes

Cool on a wire rack, traditionally the loaf was cooled standing on its side

Enjoy you can follow the baking tips on twitter #cupcakehour every tuesday night @croitralee

Davids dairy free ice cream

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Diary Free Chocolate Ice Cream
So for this recipe I’m using my son for inspiration he is 2 years old and is lactose intolerant (can’t have dairy products). And with the sudden heat wave we’ve been getting it’s difficult not to have ice cream in the house, so I taught to myself the main ingredient in ice cream is milk, what if I used almond which he is used to and drinks daily.
So here’s the recipe I put together
• 750ml almond milk
• 125ml honey
• 100g dark choc (I used 74% cacao) * again not diary in the chocolate*
Method
Melt the choc over a Bain Marie or in a microwave personally I used a microwave to save time. Mix the milk and honey and choc together in a mixer or by hand with a whisk. Pour into a container and freeze for a few over night.
Cost
• Almond milk €1.69
• Honey €1.27
• Chocolate €0.95
Total = €3.91 = 1litre
A serving = €0.76

The price of making stays in line with some of these
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/consumer/it-s-ice-cream-season-so-which-brand-offers-the-tastiest-scoop-1.3126861
Flavour/Outcome
So after leaving it in the freezer over night the ice cream had become firm, almost like sorbet but the creamy texture of ice cream still holds true. The flavour is good even thou it was a high percentage cacao the result is nice and mild.