Lemon Meringue Pie

Perfect for the juhannus hangover (take that Delia Smith)

Audrey's favourite pie is Lemon Meringue Pie. Usually her meringue needs are catered for by Kakku Galleria on Bulevardi, Helsinki. However, I decided to treat her to her very own, personal pie.

Lemon curd is dangerously easy to make. Chuck lemon juice, zest, eggs and sugar, beat, add butter and melt in a bowl over simmering water (technical term- 'bain-marie', Thanks France...)

It usually takes around 20 minutes to thicken, during which time you can roll out the pastry. Mr Jus-Roll, (well, the Finnish equivalent) helped me out here.

Bake the pastry case til 'golden' (we love a vague cooking term or two...)

Pour the curd into the pastry case and then make the meringue.

Whisk 3 egg whites until they form stiff peaks and then gradually add enough sugar to rot a kindergarten of teeth.

Spread on top of the curd that is on top of the pastry case. If you're feeling particularly poncey and pretentious you can even make little whisps with the meringue.

Chuck in the oven at a low temperature (150c) for 40 minutes or so...or until the meringue is 'beige'. Beige, biscuit, ecru, buff, camel, cream,  fawn, oatmeal, khaki, mushroom, café au lait,  sand, tan, taupe... whatever you like. This edition of LMP was a cooked a little too long for my liking. I prefer the meringue to be a little less 'done', so I lean more toward the 'this-tshirt-used-to-be-white-but-I've-washed-it-and-worn-it-too-many-times' shade as opposed to any of the above.

Houmous & Pita = heaven

Houmous + bread + avocado = amazing. 

And made all the more enjoyable when they are the fruits of your own labour.

♪♫ Tea a drink with jam and bread....♪♫

I dislike supermarket bread with a passion. At home, Mummy always made bread and it's something that I really miss. She even sent me the perfect bread tin for encouragement (like I needed it!)
There's nothing better than the smell of freshly baked bread, nothing better than tearing it up, and nothing better than eating it too hot (whoever says you get stomach ache is just lying so that there's more hot bread for them to eat themselves...)
 "Oh but making dough and baking bread is so time consuming..*whine* blah-blah-blah"
Pipe down! Stop prevaricating, stop being so bloody impatient and do your laundry/hoovering/homework/cross-stitch/watch Eastenders... while waiting for the dough to rise.

I have now mastered the art of incorporating bread making into my everyday routine, it usually goes something like this:

1. Finish work, make the dough.
2. During its first rising I do some cleaning/tidying/boring 'grown-up' tasks. 
3. Then I use the dough as a punch bag for releasing stress (due to the concept of housework ever being created)
4. Then I start to prepare supper or go for a run whilst it proves a second time.
5. Into the oven it goes
6. Obviously the weekends are a different story altogether. A luxury of waking up, making dough, getting ready for the day and enjoying freshly baked bread for breakfast. Winner.

 

Wholemeal, sunflower, pumpkin, sesame and linseeds loaf after 1st rise

In Finland it is common to be able to buy fresh yeast in the supermarket, even the tiny 'local' sized ones. A stark contrast to how difficult it can be to source in the UK.

Allegedly there is little or no difference between dried/instant and fresh yeast, however, having used both numerous times, I definitely prefer the rising qualities of fresh yeast and the far superior taste and texture.

NB: A 20g cube of cake yeast is roughly equivalent to 2 tsp. instant yeast or 2¼ tsp. active dry yeast.

Yeast: what you might want to know

Carrot Cake

One year ago this week, a dear friend moved from Helsinki, back to her native Deutschland. We had a weekend winter tradition of wearing pyjamas to the supermarket, baking a cake and snuggling under the duvet eating the said cake and watching atrocious television.

Our favourite was undoubtedly a wholemeal carrot cake with cream cheese icing.

Falafel does it better

My English piglet left Helsinki today. To ensure that she didn't require the services of easyJet's catering facilities (vom!) I packed her off with a hearty meal in her tummy.

Homemade falafel and pita bread.

I didn't get home til gone 17:00 and the airport required her presence from 20:30, so it was a whip-up-in-a-jiffy meal.

•  tin of drained chickpeas,
• large dollop of red curry paste
• sprinkling of cumin
• few cloves of garlic
• small red onion
• 2 red chilies
• sprinkling of flour

then...whizz, whizz (blender) bang! bang!

I formed them into little balls (coating my hands with flour made it less messy/sticky) and baked them for 15 minutes or so, shoved them inside homemade pita (see earlier post) with mayo and rocket.
FIT.

Thai soup

For some reason I woke up with a craving for Thai soup. It was there at breakfast. It was there at lunch...and I knew it was really becoming a problem once I started having to concentrate on not answering every question with "Thai soup". So, with the work day over, on went the saucepan, in went the chicken stock, the red curry paste, the juice of two limes, the lemongrass, the chunk of grated ginger, the three cloves of garlic, the pinch of cayenne pepper, the two chopped red chilies, the sliced mushrooms, the spring onions, the glug of soy sauce, the few glugs of thai fish sauce and some shredded chicken. And away it simmered until my flat mate arrived home. Then, in went a handful of prawns, a bunch of coriander and the tops of the spring onions and onto the table it all went.


Craving satisfied? Not exactly. It was so good, now I just want more...

Banoffi, Banoffee

Last weekend my best friend from England came to stay. Chancing upon a tin of condensed milk in the cupboard it was decided that a Banoffi Pie was in order.
Banoffi (or Banoffee) Pie was invented at the Hungry Monk restaurant in Jevington, Sussex, near where I grew up, but despite owning a copy of 'The Deeper Secrets of the Hungry Monk' recipe book, I did as I always do and made it my own.