5 Minute Microwave Honey Drops

I saw a version of this recipe and felt sceptical. No way would it work. And no way would it take five minutes! So to make sure of this I cut the ingredient list to just two items. Sugar and Honey. No corn syrup here! But miraculously this was a quick and easy recipe for something almost impossible to buy. Plain honey drops. No lemon. No medicine. Just honey.

I first came across these long before I became a beekeeper when I lived in Japan and caught the most appalling cold. I was struggling badly so I took myself off to the pharmacy and threw myself on their mercy with my limited vocabulary. (I’m pretty sure their cold medicine still contains amphetamines or something but by god it worked!) They also gave me these most wonderful honey drops and I’ve never forgotten how soothing they were!

Makes approx 24 drops

200g granulated sugar

100g honey

⁃ Microwave together in a large Pyrex jug, covered, for 3 minutes.

⁃ Carefully remove the cover and stir well. (It will have bubbled up and release steam as the cover comes off. Be careful!)

⁃ Replace cover and microwave for another two minutes.

⁃ Carefully remove the cover and stir again.

⁃ Pour into greased silicone moulds in trays of cold water.

⁃ Leave to set for 5-10 minutes then pop out.

⁃ Dust with icing sugar for storage. Store in an AIRTIGHT*

⁃ Consume within one week.

*This is important. Honey is hydroscopic and will absorb moisture and your drops will go sticky.

Advertisement

Cheat’s Lobster Macaroni Cheese

500 g macaroni

25 g butter, plus extra to grease

25 g cornflour

125 ml semi-skimmed milk

100 ml white wine

400 g tin lobster bisque

1/2tsp salt

200g grated mozzarella and cheddar mix

125 g cooked king prawns, roughly chopped

⁃ Cook your pasta according to instructions.

⁃ In a saucepan melt your butter, add the cornflour and whisk to remove lumps.

⁃ Add the milk and whisk to combine.

⁃ Add the wine and lobster bisque, stir and then heat until the sauce starts to thicken.

⁃ Add the salt and half of the cheese. Stir until the cheese is melted through and the sauce smooth.

⁃ Heat the oven to ~ 180°C (or use your grill if you prefer)

⁃ Combine the cooked pasta with the sauce.

⁃ Pour into a greased oven dish.

⁃ Scatter the remaining cheese and the chopped prawns on top.

⁃ Heat in the oven until the cheese is melted and bubbling on top.

⁃ Serve.

Beef Brisket Slow Cooker Stew

This is one of those vague “feel it in your heart” type recipes. Just dump it all in, go to work and come back to magic!

• Beef brisket (whatever size will fit in your slow cooker/be appropriate portions)

• Baby new potatoes, quartered

• Carrots, cut into chunks

• 1/2 tsp coarse sea salt

• 2-3 cloves garlic, minced

• 1 tsp smoked paprika

• 1 tsp coarse ground black pepper

• 1 tsp dried thyme

• 1 tsp dried oregano

• 1 beef stock cube

• 500ml hot water

• 1/4 cup ketchup

• 1/4 cup dark brown sugar

• 1 tablespoon tomato paste

• 1/2 cup red wine

– Put everything in your slow cooker. Cook for 6-8 hours on low.

– Add dumplings (see parmesan dumplings previous recipe) 2 hours before serving.

– Shred the beef before serving. It may be easiest for you to lift it out, shred it and put it back in for serving.

Parmesan Dumplings

Parmesan dumplings are my new favourite comfort carb. They go well with anything, tomato based or traditional stock based stew. They work great in the slow cooker or in the oven. They’re fantastic!

Makes 8 dumplings

80g unsalted butter

150g self raising flour

1/2tsp salt

50g parmesan + extra for sprinkling

2 tsp parsley

50ml milk

– Rub together the butter, flour and salt.

– Add the parmesan and parsley and mix.

– Add the milk and bring together to form a soft dough.

– Divide into 8 and add to the top of your stew.

– Cook for 2 hours if in the slow cooker, 30 minutes if in the oven.

Pumpkin Spice Muffins/ Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Buttercream

I always save the pumpkin flesh from my pumpkins when I’m carving them for Halloween. This is the advantage of growing your own pumpkins as a shop bought pumpkin usually has little flavour but if you can choose your variety you can get the best of both worlds. Although, to be honest, the spice in this mix means this would taste great even with a less flavoursome pumpkin!

These can be treated as either cupcakes or muffins, with icing it’s a cupcake, without it’s a nice, moist spicy muffin. The icing takes it to another level but it’s still delicious without.

This recipe makes an awkward 18 so what I did was make 12 cupcakes and 6 mini brioche shapes, which are great for a nice grab and go breakfast option.

Makes 18 cupcakes (or un-iced it’s a muffin!)

• 2 large eggs

• ¼ cup (59ml) milk

• 1 cup (236ml) vegetable oil

• 50g  butter, melted

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 270g pumpkin puree*

• 200g dark brown sugar

• 90g granulated sugar

• 350g plain flour

• 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

• 1 tsp salt

• 2 tsp ground cinnamon

• 1 tsp mixed spice

• ¼ tsp nutmeg

⁃ Heat the oven to 170°C and line a 12 hole muffin tray with paper liners and an extra 6 either cupcakes or a silicone tray if that’s easier.

⁃ Beat together the eggs, oil, melted butter milk and vanilla essence.

⁃ Add your pumpkin and sugars and mix well.

⁃ Add the flour, bicarb, salt and spices and fold in until totally incorporated. Try to to over mix but get all the flour broken down.

⁃ Pour into lined or silicone muffin holes.

⁃ Bake for 20 minutes until the cake is set and a skewer inserted comes out clean.

⁃ Leave to cool before icing.

*Steamed Pumpkin

– Cut your pumpkin flesh into rough chunks the same size and steam them in a vegetable steamer for 15 minutes until a knife inserted goes in smoothly.

– Mash the soft pumpkin flesh with a fork or a potato masher until smooth.

Salted caramel buttercream

• 100g unsalted butter (softened)

• 200g icing sugar

• 1 tbsp milk

• 4 tbsp salted caramel

⁃ Beat together all of the ingredients in a large mixing bowl until smooth.

Hot Water Crust Apple Pies

80ml hot water

75g butter

200g plain flour

1/2tsp salt

2 cooking apples

5 tbsp caster sugar

2 tbsp cornflour

1/2tsp cinnamon

Egg for egg wash

2-3tbsp Demerara sugar to top

⁃ Heat your water and butter in a pan until melted but don’t let it boil.

⁃ Mix with your flour and salt until a smooth dough forms and knead lightly.

⁃ Squidge the dough into 8 muffin tins using either a mould or your fingers.

⁃ Roll out the remaining dough and make 8 lids just larger than your muffin tin tops.

⁃ Mix your apple, sugar, cornflour and cinnamon together and spoon generously into the muffin tin. (If using cooking apples this will shrink considerably.)

⁃ Press down the lids around each pie and make a small hole in the top with a sharp knife.

⁃ Egg wash over the top of each pie and sprinkle with a little Demerara sugar.

⁃ Bake at 180°C for 25-30 minutes until the tops are a golden brown.

⁃ Leave to cool in the tin then run a sharp knife round each pie to loosen, they should easily life straight out.

Very Berry Breakfast Muffins

These Very Berry Breakfast Muffins are nothing less than an experiment in how much summer fruit it is possible to cram into a muffin and still maintain structural integrity! (About 300g as it turns out.)

The summer fruits are cropping heavily with cherries, raspberries, strawberries all ready now and the blueberries soon to ripen (confession: some bought blueberries went in here too!)

I am the furthest thing away from a morning person it is possible to be so easy, quick to ‘grab and go’ breakfasts are a must for me. These are packed full of homegrown fruit and the oats add a nice breakfasty touch too! You can whip them up in about 30 minutes start to finish too, which is always nice!

Makes 8

50g dark muscoavdo sugar
125ml milk
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
40g butter, melted and cooled
150g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
~300g mixed summer fruits (can use frozen if fresh not available!)

8tsp porridge oats

8tsp Demerara sugar

– Heat the oven to gas mark 6/200°C and prepare 8 holes of a muffin tin with paper cases. 
– Beat together the sugar, milk, egg and vanilla essence then add the butter and beat again. 
– Add the flour, baking powder and salt into the mixture.
– Fold in gently. 
– Add the fruits and stir in to the mixture to evenly distribute.  
– Divide the mixture evenly between the cases. 

⁃ Sprinkle the top of each muffin with a teaspoon each of oats and Demerara sugar.
– Bake for 25 minutes. (Check after 20)
– Remove from the oven and leave to cool a little in the tin then place on a wire rack to cool completely or serve warm. These will be much less stable when warm but the berries taste amazing!

Wild Garlic Salt

I love wild garlic! It’s such a lovely, seasonal, easy to forage ingredient. But it has a relatively short season so I’m all about ways to preserve this fabulous flavour. This year I’ve made wild garlic salt and oh my goodness it is a game changer! Making this couldn’t be simpler, it just takes time to dehydrate the salt once the garlic is combined.

500g rock salt

Large bunch wild garlic

– First off, clean your garlic of any bugs or non garlicky bits.

– Put half of your salt and all of your garlic in a food processor and blitz until the garlic is finely ground into a paste with the salt.

– Add the rest of the salt and pulse until all evenly combined and browns down to your favoured consistency for salt.

– Spread evenly over dehydrator sheets.

– Leave to dehydrate overnight.

– Crumble up and store in airtight jars until needed.

Wild Garlic Spring Soup

This quick and simple spring soup makes use of the wild garlic found in plentiful supply around the uk. You can easily identify a patch from the smell! I keep a small patch in my own garden for ease of harvesting.

The vibrant green is perfect for early spring and Easter themed meals. The creaminess comes from the courgette and as ever a good slip is built on a good stock! A stock cube is just fine but make sure it’s a good one!

1 large bunch wild garlic leaves, roughly torn

1 courgette, roughly chopped

1 small leek, sliced

1 cup frozen petit pois

1 vegetable stock cube

1 clove garlic, crushed

Salt and pepper to taste

– Heat a table spoon of olive oil in a large pan.

– Add the courgette, leek, garlic leaves and peas and cook over a medium heat for 3-5 minutes until the courgette is soft.

– Add half a litre of boiling water.

– Add your stock cube and garlic.

– Remove from the heat and blend with a stick blender until all the chunks are gone.

– Return to the heat and bring to a simmer. Season to taste.

– If you want to adjust the thickness you can add more water if necessary or simmer on a low heat to reduce further.

– Serve with a garnish of thinly sliced wild garlic leaves and a dollop of sour cream.

Glazed Maple Pecan Shortbread Recipe

Shortbread:

40g pecans, finely chopped

125g unsalted butter, softened

60g caster sugar

1 tbsp maple syrup

150g plain flour

30g corn flour

Topping:

40g pecans, finely chopped

1tbsp maple syrup

Pinch sea salt

Glaze:

1 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

110g icing sugar

Up to 100ml maple syrup

– First, prepare your pecans either by finely chopping by hand or by pulsing gently in a food processor. (My stick blender came with a small chopper attachment, which is perfect for these kind of jobs when you just need a small amount of something.)

– In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter sugar and maple syrup.

– Add the flour and pecans and mix to combine. At first it will not come together but you can bring it together easily with your hands at the end.

– Shape the dough into a flat disk and wrap and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to chill.

– Prepare the pecans by roughly chopping them, leave a few bits that are chunkier.

– put the pecans in an oven proof dish and mix with the maple syrup.

– Sprinkle the sea salt on top.

– Bake in the oven for 10 minutes at 170°. (You can do this at the same time as your first batch of biscuits.)

– Roll out your chilled dough to a thickness of 5 mm between two silicon sheets. (By using the silicon sheets instead of extra flour your dough will not get too dry. But if you don’t have these just sprinkle the worksurface and rolling pin with flour and work quickly to stop it sticking).

– Cut out your shapes, I prefer a maple leaf but they can be any shape you like, and place on a lined baking tray.

– Put the tray in the fridge to chill for at least 10 minutes. This will stop the biscuits from spreading when you bake them so if you’re not using a delicate shape and don’t mind this then you can skip that step.

– Re-roll your dough, but if it gets too sticky you may have to put it back in the fridge for a few minutes to solidify again.

– Heat the oven to 170°C and bake each tray for 10 minutes until just starting to turn golden brown then remove the tray From the oven and leave the biscuits to cool on the tray.

– To prepare the glaze mix together the icing sugar and melted butter in a small bowl. Gradually out of the maple syrup until you get a fairly thick but runny consistency. You may have to add a little more icing sugar or maple syrup to get the consistency you want. It wants to be somewhat like Greek yoghurt, not too thick but not so runny that it slides off your biscuit.

– Once your biscuits are cool, dip each one top down into the glaze then gently shake it back and forth so that the excess glaze falls back into the bowl. Then place back onto the baking tray and sprinkle with your pecan topping mix.

– Repeat for all of your biscuits then leave the glaze to set before serving or putting in an airtight box to store.