Beef Empanadas

Cookbooks are a weakness. It's something about their utility that allows me to loosen my resolve and buy them even though there are millions of recipes and instructions available online. My latest purchase had already been vetted by some friends with great results: it's Michel Roux's Pastry: Savoury and Sweet. Unlike his cookbook on sauces, this volume tells you how to make the dishes to accompany his various kinds of pastry. The first attempt was beef empanadas (or empanadillas, as they are known in Spain). Definitely worth the effort...

Ben's Birthday Brownies

[I did not take this photo... ours is below. But, like stew, all brownies look the same.]

Ingredients
200 g dark chocolate
100 g butter
200 g cream cheese
360 g sugar
4 large eggs
60 g self-rising flour
Mixed spices (cinnamon and nutmeg in particular), about 1 t

Method
Preheat oven to 350˚
1. Melt chocolate, butter, and cream cheese in a bain marie.
2. Beat eggs with sugar.
3. When chocolate mixture is melted, incorporate by spoonful into the eggs. Whisk.
4. Add flour and spices, and mix just to incorporate.
5. Pour into a 10x12 baking pan, and bake for 20-25 minutes. (I made a half recipe, used a pan about half the size of this, and cooked them for 15 minutes. I am guessing at the cooking time here. The final texture should be like that of a fondant.)
6. While still warm, dust with confectioners' sugar.

Hughenden Manor Apple Cheesecake

This weekend, some friends of ours took us to Hughenden Manor, the country home of Benjamin Disraeli. The house was gorgeous, with portraits of family and friends (including a large one of Lord Byron) and a lot of the original decoration. The best part, though, was the walled garden. Full of just-ripening apples, pumpkins, chard, kale, pears, and even figs (!), it was the perfect place to take a break in the middle of the afternoon.

On the way out, I stopped to buy some apples. Fifteen for £1 meant that I went home with enough to make dessert--and more! I picked up some cream cheese, sour cream, lemon, and digestive biscuits at Sainsbury's, and that was that:



The base recipe for the cheesecake is an old one my mom gave me a couple years ago.

Crust Ingredients
1.5 cup digestive biscuit crumbs
about half a cup of sugar, more or less
4 T melted butter
Nutmeg

Crust Directions
Preheat the oven to 350˚
1. Mix the crumbs, butter, and sugar together and pat onto the bottom of a springform pan.
2. Bake at 350˚ for 10 minutes.
3. Sprinkle with nutmeg and chill.

Cake Ingredients
1 lb cream cheese
2 large eggs
1 cup sugar
Zest of 1 lemon
1-2 T lemon juice
1 T vanilla
1/2 cup self-rising flour
1 T mixed spice (nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, etc)
1 cup sour cream

Cake directions
Preheat oven to 325˚
1. Cream together cream cheese, sugar, and eggs.
2. In a separate bowl, mix lemon, lemon juice, vanilla, and flour.
3. Mix dry ingredients with wet.
4. Add the spice.
5. Fold in the sour cream.
6. Pour into springform pan and bake for about 45 minutes at 350 degrees.
7. After baking for 45 minutes, turn off oven and let sit in closed oven for another 20 minutes to half an hour.
8. After this, take the cake out of the oven and let cool on counter.

Topping Ingredients
Apples
Juice of half a lemon
A bit of sugar
Allspice

Topping Directions
I wasn't measuring anything at this point--just playing around--so the proportions are going to be vague.
1. Make applesauce with the above ingredients, keeping the skins on if you want the color, but taking them off before topping the cheesecake. Basically, boil the apples for about 25 minutes on medium with a bit of water, stirring frequently. Reduce to a thick sauce.
2. With two apples, cut into very thin slices, and place on a tin-foil covered baking sheet. Grill in the oven until slightly shriveled and browning.
3. Spread applesauce on top of the cheesecake, then some caramel sauce (see below).
4. Sprinkle apple pieces on top of the sauce, and drizzle more sauce on top.

Lavender-Lemon Fairy Cakes

After watching about ten episodes of Masterchef in the last week, I got the urge to be"Experimental Chef Macaroni", the contestant/cook who never quite appeals to the pub-hungry judges but manages to make it to the quarterfinal anyway. While narrating my trip to the grocery store in a deep and serious British accent, I decided to make these:

Ingredients for the Cakes:
3/4 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 T lemon zest
juice of 1/4 of a lemon
1/2 cup butter, softened
7 T sugar
2 eggs
2 T pine nuts, crushed
2 T lavender milk (see below)
2 t vanilla

Ingredients for the Frosting:

8 oz cream cheese (softened)
3 1/2 cu powdered sugar
1-2 T lavender milk
2 t vanilla
36 raspberries

Ingredients for the Lavender Milk:
1/2 cup whole milk
1 T lavender


Making the Cakes
First, you need to make the lavender milk, which you should do about half an hour before you start baking:

1. Put the milk and lavender in a small saucepan, and bring just to a boil, remove from heat, and cover with tin foil. Let sit for another ten minutes, then strain the milk to remove the lavender, and put aside.

The rest is quite easy once you've gotten everything prepared.
Preheat the oven to 400˚ and place cupcake linings inside 12 cupcake tins.

2. Put all of the ingredients except the milk in a bowl or food-processor and pulse until mixed.
3. Add the milk while stirring, bit by bit, until incorporated.
4. Divide the dough evenly between the cupcakes. There will not be much dough in each, but these are not American MonsterCakes!!! They are dainty. :)

While the cupcakes are baking (which should take between 15 and 20 minutes), make the frosting:

5. Soften the cream cheese in the microwave, and mix with the confectioner's sugar.
6. Add the vanilla and the milk, and incorporate.

When you take the cupcakes out of the oven, let them cool and remove the paper lining.

7. Cut the tops off of the cakes to make them flat.
8. Glaze them with the cream cheese frosting.
9. Top with raspberries, and if you'd like, dust lightly with confectioner's sugar to finish.

Tart and sweet and herb-y, these are delicious and taste like the beginning of Spring, and, in that spirit, I've left my bedroom window open...