Use your loaf (a selection of sweet & savoury loaf cakes!)

I've been having a little bit of a loaf cake obsession lately.

A good chunk of cake is such a welcoming sight for me. Loaf cakes are pretty fail safe too - rarely suffering from the sinking middle of a more sensitive sponge - and really flexible on the ingredient front. Simply take a base recipe, throw in your favourite ingredients and off you go! If your additions sink a little too much to the bottom of the cake, it merely adds to the forgivable, rustic charm. The additions I'm sharing with you here are:

• Savoury pesto, pine nut and goats cheese
• Chocolate, vanilla and pear
• Date and walnut

Clearly, loaf cakes are more appropriate to serve at a lunchtime or informal gathering (perfect picnic cake) and will never engender the "oohs" and "ahhs" of a more sophisticated, efforty creation. But, when you want the house to smell of baking heaven and a slice of comforting sweetness on a plate in 60 minutes, loaf cake is the way to go.

It's also a good back-up freezer cake too. Bake it, let it cool, slice and freeze and you'll always have standby cake for when you really don't have the time to be the model of domesticity!

I'm moving house soon and have frozen some lemon loaf cake, so the first thing my partner and I can eat, amidst boxes, mess and delirium is a wedge of soft sponge and a mug of warming tea....perfect!

Loaf Cake Base Recipe

• 2tsps baking powder
• 150g plain flour
• 100g soft butter
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 150g caster sugar

Savory Pesto, Pine Nut & Goats Cheese

For this recipe, reduce the sugar to 50g and add the follow ingredients:

• 2 tbsp pesto (green)
• 100g goats cheese (a smooth, crumbly one works best)
• 100g pine nuts
• seasoning

Step 1: Preheat oven to 160c

Step 2: Mix all base ingredients together

Step 2: Crumble in goats cheese and seasoning. Stir through pesto gently to create swirls

Step 3: Pour into a medium sized, greased loaf tin and pour over the pine nuts to cover the top

Step 4: Bake in the oven for 50 - 60 minutes (place a knife or skewer through the centre, if it comes out with mix sticking to it, leave for another 10 minutes. Repeat until knife/skewer comes out clean)

Step 5: Leave to cool for 30 minutes and then tip out, slice and serve!


Chocolate, Pear & Vanilla

For this recipe, add the following to the base ingredients:

• 200g canned pears, drained and chopped (I had a rather posh jar someone had bought for me, but canned pears are just as good!)
• 2 tbsp best cocoa powder
• 2 tsp vanilla essence
• 20g plain flour

Step 1: Preheat oven to 160c

Step 2: Add the extra flour, cocoa powder and vanilla essence to you base mix and stir until all are combined and a smooth batter forms

Step 3: Stir through your pears

Step 4: Pour into a greased, medium sized loaf tin and bake for 50-60 minutes (follow above instructions regarding how to check when it's properly cooked)

Step 5: Leave to cool for 30 minutes, slice and serve!

Date & Walnut

Add the following to your base recipe:

• 150g chopped walnuts
• 150g chopped dates

Step 1: Preheat oven to 160c

Step 2: Mix together base ingredients and stir through nuts and walnuts

Step 3: Pour into greased, medium sized loaf tin

Step 4: Bake in oven for 50-60 minutes (follow above instructions to check when fully cooked)

Step 5: Remove from oven, cool, slice and serve!

Hope you enjoy!
Helen x

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My new favourite risotto...(beetroot, broad bean, goats cheese and lemon!)

Risotto often features in the house of feedahappylife.

A long day at work, is soon forgotten with 20 minutes of slow stirring and wine quaffing. I enter some kind relaxing trance, while grains glisten and bubble and herby scents rise up and sooth (reading that back, it sounds like a description of a Radox bath - forgive me...).

Until now I have favoured two risottos; a delightful chorizo concoction, with silky, smoky paprika oil running through the creamy bed of rice and a sweet potato, Gorgonzola and pancetta risotto (inspired by Piccolino's version, which has now been taken off the menu - it's a crime!).

However, there is quite a lot of risotto snobbery around. The grains have to be just right, not sticky and not too al dente. The sauce has to be smooth and rich but not gloopy and cloying. The flavours have to be multiple and complementary etc.. etc... Most of the time I ignore this, but sometimes I see a recipe where I think the effort will pay off....

I can't lay claim to this recipe -  it's from Delicious. I also can't tell you it's quick - there is a good 90 minutes of effort required here. However, I can tell you that this is the nicest risotto I've ever had! Providing you like the flavours of sweet earthy beetroot, paired with the piquancy of goats cheese and the tartness of lemon, I promise that you'll love this!

Beetroot risotto with broad beans, goats cheese and lemon thyme oil

Serves 4

• 100ml olive oil
• 1/2 lemon (zest and juice)
• thyme sprigs
• 500g beetroot (buy vacuum packs)
• 1.3 ltrs vegetable stock
• 5 small shallots (finely chopped)
• 3 garlic cloves (crushed or use puree)
• 300g risotto rice
• 120ml red wine
• 200g broad beans
• 120g goats cheese
• Seasoning

Step 1: Make your dressing my mixing 3/4 of your oil, with the thyme sprigs and lemon juice and zest. Stir it all together and put to one side

Step 2: Dice your beetroot into 1 cm cubes, toss with 1tbsp of your remaining oil, season and roast in an over (160c/GM4) for 15 minutes.

Step 3: Remove half of the roasted beetroot and puree it with 400ml of your stock. Pass your beetroot liquid through a sieve and then add to the remaining stock in a saucepan. Boil then simmer for a few minutes, before turning off the heat and putting to one side

Step 4: Return the remaining cubed beetroot to the oven and roast until caramelised (about another 15 minutes)

Step 5: Heat remaining oil in a pan and add the chopped shallots. Saute with the garlic for 5 minutes before adding the rice. Coat and cook the rice for about 2 minutes before adding the wine. Allow the wine to simmer and for the rice to absorb.

Step 6: Add a ladle full of beetroot broth at a time, stirring until it has been absorbed before adding the next. It'll take about 20 minutes of doing this before your broth is used and your rice perfectly cooked.

Step 7: Stir through the remaining roasted beetroot

Step 8: Boil your shelled broad beans for 3 minutes (ensure tough skins are removed - you can use frozen for ease!)

Step 9: Place a serving of risotto on a warmed plate. Scatter over the broad beans and crumble the goats cheese. Carefully pour the lemon thyme oil over the top and serve.

I know it's quite a lot of effort, but it's really worth it! Some pan fried pancetta would also work nicely in this too........

Hope you enjoy!
Helen x

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Sexy Sides!

Some may say that writing an entry tenuously linking food and, ahem, sex is a blatant attempt to get more people to find my page in google....you may be right but go with me a little.....

I think the way people react to food is a very personal thing. Some people get giddy over chocolate, some weep for cheese and some hanker for a nice, juicy steak over all else. I think I'm still finding my true food love but there are certainly some things that fill my head, heart and tummy with happiness.

There are foods that make me smile (soft piles of marshmallows), some that provide comforting warmth (silky, smooth risottos) and some that make me want to feel the sun on my skin, reach for the wine glass and laugh uncontrollably with loved ones. It's this food that I think of as sexy food.

My requirements for sexy food are quite specific:

1. It must promise pleasure on the plate
2. It's flavours must surprise
3. It's textures must interest
4. It must be light in the mouth and light in the tummy
5. It must inspire thoughts of summer
6. It must take very little effort and not detract from all the fun that will ensue

A hard task! However, I'm not prescriptive on what course this applies to. It could as easily be an elderflower granita for dessert as a whole, roasted sea bream for main. So, here I share a few of the side dishes I consider to meet the bill:

• Roasted red pepper, goats cheese, walnut and honey
• Baked fennel, stuffed with orange and feta breadcrumbs

It was only after a little research that I realised there may be a little bit more in the appeal of these dishes than meets the eye! Both fennel and honey are natural aphrodisiacs, popularised by the Egyptians. Well.... if it was good enough for Cleopatra.....

Red Pepper, Goats Cheese Walnut and Honey Salad (serves 2)

2 long red peppers

2 handfuls of large walnuts

100g soft, crumbly goats cheese

2 tablespoons best honery

seasoning

salad leaves (to serve)

Step 1: Halve and deseed peppers

Step 2: Place peppers on a lightly oiled baking tray and bake in the oven (160c) for 10-15 minutes until softening

Step 3: Sprinkle goats cheese and walnuts over the peppers and roast for 10 minutes (careful the walnuts don't burn)

Step 4: Remove from the oven, season lightly and serve warm drizzled with honey

Baked fennel, stuffed with orange and feta breadcrumbs (serves 2)

 
2 fennel bulbs
olive oil
1 orange
50g feta
100g dried breadcrumbs
seasoning
orange slices (to serve - optional)
 
Step 1: Halve the bulbs and remove the core to create a sort of fennel bowl

 

 
Step 2: Drizzle over oil, season, cover with foil and roast for 15 mins (160c)
 
Step 3: Whislt roasting, zest and juice the orange. Mix zest, half the juice, feta, glug of oil and breadcrumbs together to make a fragrant, mouldable stuffing (if it's too dry, add more juice/oil). Season to taste.
 
Step 4: Remove the foil from the fennel and press the stuffing into the bulb cavity. Roast for 15 minutes until the stuffing is golden and crispy.
 
Step 5: Serve with slices of orange
 
I've reverting to type with my next post.... the waist-expanding delights of Pavlova Supernova!
Helen x

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