Tuesday 30 April 2013

My verdict on the 5 2 diet two weeks on

I've been following the 5 2 diet for two weeks on and thought that I'd write a little post about how I'm doing on it.  Well so far I have lost 8 lb's!  Not bad considering that I only diet 2 days a week.  I've found the diet easier to follow than I thought it would be; I've been eating three meals a day but have drastically cut down on the amount of snacks I eat through the day.  Following the diet has made me realise just how many snacks I eat over the course of a day and that there's times that I'll just grab a little something because I'm bored or out of habit when I'm having a cup of tea.  Unfortunately those little something's tend to be of the sweet variety and have no doubt added to my weight slowly creeping up and up.

The meal that I've struggled with the most is lunch.  I'm used to just grabbing a sandwich but because white bread is high in calories I'm having to find tasty alternatives.  Miso soup with lots of veggies in is good (I tried it with tofu in but have decided that it's a total waste of calories)  Vegetable sticks with low fat soft cheese were also a good lunch but so far my favourite has been this home made tomato soup.  According to myfitnesspal.com/ it comes in at just 53 calories per serving.

Tomato and oven roasted red pepper soup - serves 4

1 red pepper, quartered
1 stick of celery, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 tin chopped tomatoes
350ml vegetable stock
60g extra low fat soft cheese

1) Roast the red pepper at 200C for 20-25 minutes.

2) Fry the onion and celery until softened then add the tin of tomatoes and stock.  Simmer for 20 minutes.

3) When the pepper's done blitz in a blender or with a stick blender.  Once pulped add half the soup and blitz.  If you prefer a smoother soup then blitz all the soup.

4) Add the soft cheese and re-heat.  Adjust seasoning to taste and serve.


Friday 26 April 2013

Iron Man inspired billionaire's shortbread cupcakes



Steve Rogers: Big man in a suit of armour. Take that off, what are you?
Tony Stark: Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.
(The Avengers, 2012)

Today sees the return of Iron Man to our screens and I've been inspired to bake!  Now what could be more perfect for everyones favourite genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist than millionaires shortbread inspired cupcakes?  

To make these just that little bit special I'm playing around with the usual millionaires shortbread layers of shortbread, caramel and chocolate and reversing them - I've baked a rich chocolate cupcake, filled it a with sticky salted caramel centre and topped with vanilla butter cream liberally studied with pieces of shortbread.  There's quite a few elements to these cakes so it's a recipe to do when you've plenty of time!

Billionaires Shortbread Cupcakes

The cupcake (recipe taken from The Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days available here)

80g softened, unsalted butter
280g caster sugar
400g plain flour
40g cocoa
pinch of salt
1 tbsp baking powder
2 eggs
240ml milk


1) Cream together the butter, sugar, flour, cocoa, salt and baking powder.  
2) In a jug lightly whisk together the eggs and the milk then add 2/3's to the dry mix.  Once incorporated add the rest.
3) Put into cases and bake in a pre-heated oven at 180C for 15-20 minutes.


Salted Caramel Sauce

150g caster sugar

120ml double cream
1tsp salt

1) In a non-stick pan gently heat the sugar until melted.  You need to keep an eye on it as it can easily burn and become quite bitter.  You need to be a bit careful when melting sugar as it gets incredibly hot and personally it's not something I do while Babybear is about as I wouldn't like to leave it alone too long if he needs my attention.


2) Once the sugar has all melted and gone a golden colour add the cream.  I find that if I take the cream out of the fridge about 15 minutes before I start the sauce it doesn't spit as much.  Give the stir a sauce to make sure that the cream is all incorporated.


3) Start adding the salt; it's best to do this in small amounts as it's easier to add more than it is to take away too much.  You can test how the caramel tastes by dropping a small amount in cold water and then tasting it.


4) When it's ready take off the heat and set to one side.  (Top Tip - Fill the sauce pan with very hot water immediately after using the sauce, this will make it far easier to clean.  If you do find yourself with a pan with bits of rock hard caramel caramel stuck to it just pour in very hot water and bring to the boil; the caramel will dissolve in the water making it far easier to clean)


Shortbread

60g caster sugar
110g soft, unsalted butter
110g plain flour


1) Cream together the butter and sugar.  Add the plain flour and mix until it forms a dough - I find it easiest to use my hands here.
2) As it doesn't need to be any particular shape I didn't bother rolling it out, just put it on a baking tray and flattened it with my hand.
3) Place in a pre-heated oven at 200C for 15 minutes.


Butter cream

250g Icing sugar
80g Butter
25ml Milk

1) Place all the ingredients in a bowl and mix together until light and fluffy.


Assembling the cakes


1) Once the cupcakes are cooled you need to slice the top off and scoop out some of the inside to create a hole for the caramel sauce to go in. (The tops aren't needed again so go ahead and eat them!)

2) Put a teaspoon of the caramel sauce into each cupcake.





3) While the shortbread is still slightly warm cut half of it into 1.5cm X 1.5 (ish) squares.  These will go on top of your cupcakes.  Crumble the rest into smallish pieces and gently fold into the butter cream.

4) Spoon the butter cream on the cupcakes and make them pretty! (This is the bit I normally struggle with)  Top each with a piece of shortbread and enjoy!

So have any of you been to see Iron Man 3 yet?  What did you think of it? 

Wednesday 24 April 2013

Hmmmm, pie

Today is one of the warmest days of the years so far so naturally I'm baking a pie.  Maybe I should start looking at the weather forecast more when planning my meals?  Today is one of our semi-regular Dungeons and Dragons sessions with friends so I'm trying out something new.  Rather than just using stewing steak as I'd usually do I thought I'd include some oxtail to give a different sort of flavour to the pie.  The basic recipe for the pie mix was the one I used for the stew I made to celebrate the return of Game of Thrones so I probably won't be including it here.
Like the masochist I am I decided to make things even harder for me - as well as using a completely new ingredient (well, new to me anyway) I decided to have another go at making puff pastry.  I've had limited success in the past, I've made it twice before and while it tasted lovely and buttery it didn't puff up in that distinctive way it's supposed to.  Fingers crossed that it'll be third time lucky!
Puff pastry has a reputation for being difficult to make and I won't lie, it is time consuming.  The key is to keep all the ingredients as cold as possible; I think part of the problem I've had before was that even in winter our kitchen is quite warm.  We've been known to have our kitchen and living room windows open when it's been snowing outside!  Another thing I've done wrong before is handling the dough too much which again warms it up.  So this time I took extra precautions to keep the ingredients as cold as possible.

Puff Pastry

225g plain flour
1tsp salt
250g cold, unsalted butter
150ml very cold water (I put mine in the fridge ahead of time)

1) Mix together the flour and the salt.  Once thoroughly mixed place the bowl in the fridge for a few minutes to cool down.

2) While the bowl is getting cold cut the butter into cubes.  Once done take the flour out of the fridge and being careful not to be too vigorous with it add the butter.  Using a knife gently roll the butter in the flour so that it's coated.  Return the bowl to the fridge for 10 minutes.





3) After 10 minutes take the bowl and the water out of the fridge.  Add the water to the mix and stir with a round ended knife until it forms a rough dough.  You might need to use your hands to get it to all stick together but ideally you want to handle the dough as little as possible.  Take a large piece of clingfilm and put it on your counter.  Place the dough on the cling film and squish it together to form a ball.  There should still be big chunks of butter showing through the dough.  Wrap it in clingfilm and return it to the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
nice big chunks of butter still visible in the dough


4) once the dough has been thoroughly chilled it's time to begin the rolling out and layering.  Take the dough out of the fridge and while it's still in the clingfilm shape it into a rough square.  Now there are those who say to roll the dough out between two sheets of clingfilm but to be honest I'm not convinced that this is any easier than just rolling it out on a flour dusted counter.  My personal preference is to not use the clingfilm method but it might work for some.  I dust my counter and rolling pin with flour and do it the old fashioned way.  Roll out your pastry til it's about a 15cm by 45cm rectangle.  You should be able to see streaks for butter in the dough still.  Lift up the bottom of the pastry and fold about 1/3 up then do the same with the top third.  Turn the dough 90 degrees and roll out again.  Repeat the folding then return to the fridge for 30 minutes.


5) Repeat the rolling, folding, chilling sequence another 3 times.  When you're doing this you're creating the layers that will (hopefully) give the pastry its puffiness.  Once done with the folding chill for at least a couple of hours or preferably over night.

The pastry is now ready to use in whatever recipe you want.  Good luck!

Friday 19 April 2013

How to make a pink princess castle



As I said in an earlier post I recently paid a visit to my family up in Cheshire.  Part of the reason for going up was because it was my niece's fourth birthday.  I originally volunteered myself to make a Batman cake while her older sister wanted to make a princess cake but due to a family emergency my older niece wasn't able to make her sister a cake so I was asked to make the princess castle cake rather than the Batman one.

It was originally suggested that I use shop bought Swiss rolls to make the spires but I was less than happy with that idea.  If I'm making a cake I want to make all of it goram it!  I toyed with making my own Swiss rolls but having never made one before I didn't want to add to the stress of making it by adding an unknown element to the baking.  I instead decided that as well as baking a round cake for the  castle I would bake a sheet cake and cut out rounds from it, stack them together and use them as the spires.  I was very happy with how this worked and it was far less faff that it sounds.

The recipe I used originally appeared in Good Food magazine and is a very nice vanilla cake.  It can be made ahead of time and frozen until needed and will keep well for a week or so.  This makes a lot of cake mix so be sure to use a big enough bowl!

Vanilla cake

375g unsalted butter, softened
375g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla paste
7 large eggs
130g plain flour
150g Greek yogurt
375g self raising flour
5 tbsp milk

Sugar syrup

75g sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla paste
75ml water

Butter cream

250g icing sugar, sieved
80g unsalted butter at room temperature
25ml milk
1/2 tsp vanilla paste.

1) Pre-heat the oven to 160C/140C fan/gas mark 3.  Grease and line a 20 cm round tin and a roughly 30cm by 15cm rectangular tin.  I needed to be able to get 12 mini cakes out of the sheet cake so that I could stack them together and make the towers.  I used a 5cm cutter but obviously if you use a smaller cutter then you'll be able to get more mini cakes and so taller, skinnier towers.

2) Cream together the cream and the sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the vanilla paste and eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Once all the eggs are incorporated add the yogurt.

3) In a large bowl mix together the two flours then add them to the wet ingredients, mixing well.  Add the milk.  Pour half the mix into the round tin and the other half into the rectangular.  Put in the oven for an hour.

4) To make the sugar syrup dissolve the sugar in the water in a pan on the hob.  Add the vanilla paste and pour over the cooled cakes.  This will help keep the cake moist.

5) while the cakes are cooling prepare the butter cream.  I find that the easiest thing to do is cream together the icing sugar and butter by hand at first - this should hopefully stop all the icing sugar puffing up out of the bowl and covering you and every surface around as it tends to do if you use a mixer straight away!  Once the butter and icing have been incorporated add the milk and vanilla paste and reach for the hand mixer.  Keep mixing for at lease 5 minutes to give a lovely light and fluffy butter cream.

Decorating the cake

1 ) Once the cakes are cooled it's time to start constructing.  I used a 5cm round cutter to cut circles out of the sheet cake to turn into spires.  I then used the same cutter to cut four chunks out of the round cake for the towers to sit in (this was one of the first mistakes I made - I should have used a slightly larger cutter on the big cake as I forgot that once iced the cakes would be bigger)  Once finished the round cake should look kind of like a Maltese cross.







2) Cut the round cake in half horizontally.  Fill this with butter cream then place the top half back on the cake.  Cover this entirely in a thin layer of butter cream - this is known as a crumb coating and it'll help the fondant stick to the cake.

3) For the towers you'll need some wooden skewers.  My sheet cake gave me 12 little cakes for using as the tower and as I wanted 4 of them each tower would need three cakes.   I measured them, cut a skewer to size and then carefully inserted it into the middle of the tower (make sure you let people know there's a skewer in there or they might get a surprise!)  Cover the towers with butter cream.


4) Now it's time for the fondant.  You can either buy pre-coloured fondant or buy white fondant and colour it yourself with gel colours.  The pre-coloured fondant is slightly more expensive and depending on whether or not you have any local cake shops you might have to order it online.  White fondant is available in any good supermarket and has the advantage that you can dye it whatever colour you want.  Of course you have to make sure you colour enough - getting half way through icing and finding out that you've run out would be a nightmare.  Also the colouring can stain hands and kitchen surfaces.

5) Prepare your fondant.  Fondant can be fairly hard at first, particularly if it's been stored in a cold place but once warmed will become pliable.  I find the easiest way to do this is to play around with it a bit while it's still in the packet.  If you're colouring your own be sure to add a little colour at a time until you reach the desired result and be sure to knead it in well.  I used a 1kg block of fondant with 2/3 going on the round cake and towers (the pink icing) and the rest on the spires (the purple)

6)  Roll out half of the pink fondant on a surface dusted with icing sugar.  It should be about 5 mm thick.  Pick it up carefully and drape it over the round cake.  Using your hands mould it to the cake, making sure that it sticks to the butter cream.



7) Now comes the tricky part.  I admit that I made life hard for myself by not measuring the towers and icing them in a very ad-hoc way which meant that they were far messier than I'd have liked them to be.  So this is the technique I'd use if I were to make them again!  First work out the circumference of your towers -  there are two ways to do this, either using a tape measure to measure around the cutter you used, or the maths way which is 2piR (hmmmmm, pi)  Which translated is (3.14x2)x the radius of the cutter.  This figure gives you the length that you want your fondant to be.  So for my towers this would be (3.14x2)x 25 = 157mm length.  Next measure the height of the tower.  Using these two measurements make a template and use this as a guide for cutting out your fondant.  Place your tower on one end of the fondant and roll it up.  The fondant should stick to the icing and as long as your measurements are right should be a perfect fit.


8) Ok, I lied, that wasn't the really tricky bit.  No, the total pain in the arse was making the spires.  If I'd had more time then I would have made a test cake to see what the finished article would look like and to practise icing the towers and turrets.  Unfortunately due to a combination of it being sprung on me last minute and BabyBear being off school for Easter meant that didn't have time to do this.  We bought ice cream cones to ice but unfortunately they were not straight edged so had to be trimmed to fit.  If I do it again I'd probably make cones out of thin card and mould them round them instead.  I coloured the fondant a light purple and covered the cones with it.  I then left them to dry out slightly over night before putting them on the cake.

9) Add whatever other decorations you want, in this case I used edible glitter, sugar paste flowers, a princess figure my younger sister had bought for it and dinosaur candles (at the moment my niece loves two things, Rapunzel and dinosaurs!)




There are a couple of things I would change about the cake if I had a second chance to make it; instead of making one large tier I'd do two smaller ones and stack them.  I'd also make the spires bigger.  Also when icing the cake I forgot to take into account the fact that the fondant icing would make the cake bigger which lead to a couple of problems - the holes I cut into the cake for the spires weren't big enough and as a result it no longer fit the cake board!  But overall I'm quite proud of the way it turned out and most importantly the birthday princess loved it!

Wednesday 17 April 2013

Well, I wasn't expecting that!

So I had my first day following the 5 2 diet yesterday and while it wasn't always easy I did manage to (mostly) stick to the 500 calories the diet allows.  I found myself flagging in the mid-afternoon but as tempting as it was to dig into the left over birthday chocolate I instead reached for an apple and continued being good.
Rather than attempting to track all the calories myself I let myfitnesspal.com do all the hard work for me.  It couldn't be simpler to use - simply put in the name of the food you're eating and it'll find the calorie value for you and add it to your daily food tracker.  Handily it also lets you add your own recipes for those meals that you plan on making on a regular basis.
Having completed my fast I decided to weigh myself this morning and to my shock found that I had lost 2lb's!  I had been hoping to maybe lose a little weight but had not for a second thought that I'd lose that much that quickly.  Seeing such a fast weight loss has encouraged me to fast again tomorrow.

Tuesday 16 April 2013

Trying something new

Well, I'm back from visiting my family up in Cheshire and while I had a lovely time I'm afraid that as usual when I pay a visit up there I rather over indulged.  There was a belated Easter chocolate orange from my parents, an all you can eat Chinese to celebrate my birthday, a party for my niece's birthday a few days later.... The list goes on and on.  As a result I've been left feeling more than a little fat.

Over the last few years I've started and abandoned the Weight Watchers diet more times than I can remember - it has worked really well for me in the past but for some reason I just haven't been able to stick with it recently.  It seems way too restrictive to fit into my life style and I've found myself feeling incredibly guilty when I'm not able to follow it and almost resenting the diet because of this.  So I've been looking for a new way to lose weight.

I first heard about the 5 2 diet a couple of months ago and I have to admit that I was sceptical of it.  It seemed like just another faddy diet.  But I did some research and after buying this book I've decided to give it a go.  The basic premise is that you eat normally for 5 days out of the 7 and have restrictive calories (500 for women, 600 for men) for the other two.  My plan is to restrict my calories today and Friday
Today is my first fasting day and this is my meal plan for the day

Porridge
Miso soup with tofu
Roast chicken and ratatouille

I plan on drinking lots of water and the occasional cup of tea (there's no way I could stay off caffeine as well as cutting down on calories) and will update the blog this evening with how I got on.

More info about the 5 2 diet can be found here thefastdiet.co.uk/

Wednesday 10 April 2013

A (rather belated) Mother's Day Present

This year for one reason and another (mainly due to Baby Bear having the flu, since he started school last September he seems to have picked up every germ going) I ended up being rather rubbish and not getting my mum a Mother's Day present back in March.  As we live 200 miles away from my family most presents I get for them come courtesy of Amazon and while they're convenient they're not exactly personal.  Which is why I decided to make up for the present being late by making a box full of sweet treats.

After umming and ahhing for a few weeks I came up with what I think is a good selection of treats - coconut ice, home made fudge, lemon and poppy seed shortbread and millionaire's shortbread chocolate bark.  I thought about doing peppermint creams but the last time I tried them they did not travel well and I knew that the goodie box would have to stand up to a 4 hour car journey when we visit Cheshire this week.

Coconut ice is a really good recipe to do with children as it's quick, easy and involves no cooking (it also involves getting your hands dirty which kids generally love!)

Coconut ice

1 can of condensed milk
300g dessicated coconut
300g icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla paste
red food colouring

1) In a large bowl mix together the coconut and the icing sugar.  Add the condensed milk and vanilla and mash together with a spoon.  It should form a sticky, messy ball when ready.

2) Divide the mixture between two bowls.  Add a couple of drops of the food colouring to one lot of the ice and mix well.  Press into a 20 inch cake tin lined with cling film.  Spoon the white mixture over the top and chill for at least 4 hours.

One of my fondest memories of visiting my grandparents was watching my Nanna making toffee sauce for popcorn.  She might have failed miserably at trying to teach me how to knit but she taught me how to check for the soft ball stage of toffee making!  This skill comes in surprisingly useful when making other things such as honeycomb, jam and of course fudge.

I was pleasantly surprised by how easy this recipe for fudge was (having never actually tried to make it before) and it is genuinely far better than anything you'll buy in a shop.

Vanilla fudge

1 can of condensed milk
150ml milk
450g sugar
115g butter
1/2 tsp vanilla paste

1) Put all the ingredients in a large nonstick pan and heat gently on the hob.  Once the sugar has dissolved turn up the heat the bring to the boil.

2) Allow to simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to make sure it doesn't stick.  When it starts to thicken it's time to do the soft ball test.  Using a glass with about an inch or so of cold water in it drop a small amount of the mixture into the water.  If the fudge is ready it will form a ball in the glass.  If the fudge hasn't reached this stage yet let it boil some more, re-testing it after a couple of minutes.  If you have a sugar thermometer then the temperature should be about 118C

3) Once the mix has reached the soft ball stage take off the heat and beat vigorously for at least 5 minutes - it's this beating that will give the fudge its characteristically grainy temperature.  Once thick and creamy pour the fudge into a grease proof paper lined 20cm tin.  Allow to cool completely and set before cutting.


Shortbread is a beautifully simple biscuit to make, using only 3 ingredients.  Because of it's simplicity it needs to be made with the best ingredients you can afford as the quality of them really does make a difference to the finished product.

Shortbread

125g butter
55g sugar
180g flour
Zest of one lemon
1 tbsp of poppy seeds

1) Beat together the sugar and butter until creamed.  Add the flour, zest and poppy seeds and mix to form a firm dough, I found the easiest way to do this was by using my hands. Transfer on to a floured surface and roll out to about 1cm thick.

2) Cut into whatever shapes you want and then chill for 20 minutes.

3) Put in a pre-heated oven for 15-20 minutes at 190C/375F/Gas Mark 5, until golden brown.


I've seen chocolate bark on a couple of American websites, usually by melting chocolate and then studding it with broken up candy canes.  I took inspiration from millionaires shortbread and dotted 100g of melted chocolate with with tiny chunks of fudge and bits of broken up shortbread.

I'm sad to say that the bark wasn't a complete success - the chocolate I used was too dark for my mums taste and because I didn't have time to temper it properly it didn't have that distinctive chocolate 'snap' when broken.  Happily the rest of goodies seemed to go down quite well and more than made up for their lateness!





Monday 1 April 2013

Happy Game of Thrones day!

Today sees the return of Game of Thrones to our screens (if you haven't seen it you really should, it's awesome) and to celebrate this I'm creating main course and dessert inspired by one of the noble houses, House Stark.

The Starks come from the North of the country of Westeros which is described as being an isolated, desolate place, especially when winter hits the realm.  The Starks words or motto is 'Winter is Coming' a reminder that no matter how long and how good the summer is winter is inevitably not far behind.  As I said the meal is inspired by the book/series, not an attempt to re-create the dishes mentioned - for that you should check out the blog Inn at the Crossroads.

The main course is a hearty beef stew served on a bread trencher.  The trencher was a traditional part of the medieval meal and since A Game of Thrones is set in a fantastical medieval world seems fit with the theme nicely.  I use a good basic bread recipe for the trencher - the recipe makes enough for 6 people but if you're feeding less the uncooked dough can be frozen and used for bread rolls or even pizza bases. I've cooked my beef stew in a slow cooker but it's just as easily cooked on the hob.  If done on the hob it might need more liquid.

Beef Stew - serves 6

900g stewing steak, cubed
1 onion, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 swede, chopped
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 beef stock cube

1) fry off the steak in a little oil.  Once browned transfer to a slow cooker.

2) Using the same pan fry off the onions, carrot and swede.  Add these to the slow cooker then pour in the tomatoes and crumble in the stock cube.  Top up with enough water to cover everything. Season with pepper (stock cubes can be quite salty so   it won't need any more) Put the lid on the slow cooker and leave for 5 hours on high, 8 on low.

Trencher

350g strong whole wheat flour
150g strong white flour
1 packet fast acting yeast
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
300 ml warm water

1) Tip the flours into a large bowl and mix together.  Add the yeast, sugar and salt being careful not to let the salt and yeast touch.

2) Add 3/4 of the water and mix.  I find the easiest way to do this is to let your hand mimic the shape of a dough hook.  Add the rest of the water.

3) Tip the dough out on to a lightly oiled surface.  I find using oil rather than flour makes the bread much easier to knead and cuts down on the amount of mess made by the dough.  Knead for at least 10 minutes until it forms a smooth ball.  Put in an oiled bowl and allow to rise in a warm place for at least an hour.

4) After the dough has doubled to twice its size it needs to be knocked back.  Give the dough a good poke and it should all deflate.  Take it out of the bowl and knead again.  It's now ready for shaping.  Split the dough into four and shape into rough squares.  Roll them out and then use your fingers to create dimples in the surface.  Prick the middle with a fork and leave to prove for an hour.

5) Bake in a pre-heated oven at 220C/fan 200C/gas mark 7 for 30 minutes

6) To assemble put the bread on a plate and pile high with the stew.

(This recipe got 20 thumbs up from Baby Bear!)


For dessert I'm taking inspiration from Sansa's love of lemon cakes.  I thought about making mini lemon drizzle cakes but decided in the end to go instead for a warm lemon pudding.  I'd never cooked anything like this before and was surprised by how easy and delicious it was.  The mixture was very liquid before cooking and I wasn't sure if I'd done something wrong but it turned out beautifully.  The sponge creates its own lemon curd like sauce underneath and it was lovely on an unexpectedly cold evening (seriously weather, it's April, stop being so rubbish!)


Warm lemon pudding - serves 6

50g butter
200g caster sugar
zest of 1 lemon
juice of 2 lemons
3 eggs, separated
50g plain flour
250ml milk

1) Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the zest, lemon, egg yolks, flour and milk and beat well.

2) In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites until they stiffen.  Stir into the other bowl being careful not to beat all the air out of the mix.

3) Spoon the mix into ramekins and put the ramekins into a deep baking dish.  Boil the kettle and fill the baking half full with water (I find the easiest way to do this is to pull out the oven shelf, put the baking dish on the shelf then pour in the water)  Put in a pre-heated oven at 180C/160C fan/gas mark 4 for 25 minutes.



Enjoy!  And always remember, Winter is Coming.