Tag Archives: Sugar

Energy bars

13 Jul

Energy bars.  Just the new name for flapjacks really, if slightly uppity flapjacks.

Uppity flapjacks

So, I’m on a low carb diet and I’m busy trying to get rid of all the bad stuff from my cupboard.  Thomas got a box of Kraft Cheesey Pasta today.  And everyone else will get uppity flapjacks tomorrow.

These are based on a recipe ripped out of a weekend paper, I think it was the Scotland on Sunday, and it was Tom Kitchin. I know the recipe was designed for women who had just done the Moonwalk through the night in Edinburgh.  And a wet night it was too.

Anyway, I’ve adapted the recipe, to fit what I had in the cupboard.

Energy bars

100g butter

120g dark brown sugar

2 TBsp honey (I used maple syrup last time)

150g porridge oats

100g of ‘extras’ made up of a mixture of the following:

sunflower seeds

pumpkin seeds

sesame seeds

dried cranberries

dried blueberries

raisins

dried banana

chopped pecan nuts (any nut would do)

  • Using a heavy bottomed pan melt the butter with the sugar and honey
  • Add all the other ingredients and mix thoroughly together
  • Tip into a lined square baking tin (about 9″ square)
  • Bake for 30 – 40 mins at 150C or Gas Mark 2.

Full of energetic goodness (if you like your carbs)

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Strawberry sugar

11 Jul

I’d bought a large punnet of strawberries at my local farm shop this weekend.  When I say punnet, I really mean a basket.

I’d already started on a low carb diet, which means limiting fruit such as strawberries, but I couldn’t resist.

Strawberry jam was the fate for most of the strawberries.  And strawberry puree for the freezer.  But I hankered after making strawberry sugar.  I’m sure I’ve seen strawberry sugar in a book or on a blog recently, but couldn’t find it.

So, I winged it.

I poured a whole load of sugar into a bowl, about 5oz.  Then I squeezed a single strawberry through a sieve onto the sugar.  I mixed it all up with a fork, until the strawberry squishiness was distributed evenly through all the sugar.  I added some extra sugar to absorb all the juice.

The sugar was quite moist (of course) so I left it out in the warm sun to dry.  Luckily we didn’t have the monsoon downpour that Edinburgh had, we were bathing in glorious sunshine.  After an hour or so, I stirred the sugar again – it had all stuck together and needed breaking up a bit.  And again after another hour.

And there it was.  Softly pink strawberry sugar, sweetly smelling and delicately flavoured.

I used it to make a sponge cake for Thomas’s birthday.  And it was tasty tasty.

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Tablet

5 Jun

My brother wants a tablet recipe to bag up and sell at a fair… and so I have been tasked with giving him the best tablet recipe I know.

Hmmmmm… I used to have a good plain tablet recipe, but not sure where it is right now, possibly in the flat in Edinburgh.  But never mind, I have an array of Sue Lawrence cook books here, and she is the most reliable recipe writer I know.

So, I give you White chocolate and cardamom tablet

Sue Lawrence instructs you to follow these instructions to the letter.  I would urge you to do the same.  There’s nothing worse than attempting to make tablet and ending up with soft goo.  Or something that sets too hard and too quick and is impossible to cut into cute wee squares.  OK, there are actually some things worse, but you know what I mean.

125g / 4 1/2 oz unsalted butter

1kg / 2 1/4 lb golden granulated sugar

300ml / 1/2 pint full fat milk

a pinch of salt

200ml / 7fl oz condensed milk (this is half a regular can)

100g/ 3 1/2 oz  quality white chocolate, grated

7-8 cardamom pods, snipped open and seeds crushed (about 1tsp)

Butter a 23cm x 33cm Swiss-roll tin

  1. Place the butter in a large heavy based saucepan and melt slowly.
  2. Add the sugar, milk and salt and stir until the sugar is dissolved, still over a low-ish heat. Don’t be tempted to turn the heat too high, you don’t want it to boil before the sugar is dissolved.
  3. Bring to the boil and simmer over a fairly high heat for 8-10 minutes, stirring often, getting into all the corners.
  4. Add the condensed milk, chocolate and cardamom and simmer for 8-10 minutes over a medium high heat, stirring constantly.  Turn off your phone, or if you don’t , ignore it if it rings.
  5. After 8 minutes, remove the pan from the heat and test the contents for readiness: it should be at the ‘soft ball’ stage which means that when you drop a little of the mixture into a cup of very cold water, it will form a soft ball that you can pick up between your fingers.  If you are using a sugar thermometer, it should register 115C / 240F.
  6. Remove the mixture from the heat at once and beat with an electric beater (set at medium speed) for 4-5 minutes (or by hand for 10 minutes) until the mixture begins to stiffen a little and become ever so slightly grainy.
  7. Immediately pour it into the prepared tin and leave to cool.
  8. Mark the tablet into wee squares when it is almost cold.
  9. When it is completely cold, remove it from the tin and store in an airtight container or wrap in waxed paper.

I haven’t made this for years, but I love it.  The white chocolate and cardamom isn’t overwhelming but adds a slight sophistication to this ultimate Scottish home made treat.  Whoever saw a bag of tablet for sale that wasn’t ‘Homemade’?

 

 

 

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