Baked Eggs with Sauteed Mushrooms & Spinach

Baked eggs have become my new breakfast obsession. With butter, creme fraiche and cheese, these aren't the ideal healthy breakfast everyone seems obsessed with in January, but for a weekend treat they are delicious. I love garlic, so I was quite heavy handed with it, but just use the one clove if you're not as keen as I am.

Serves 2

3 chesnut mushrooms, sliced

2 garlic cloves, crushed

A big handful of spinach

2 free range eggs

2 teaspoons of half fat creme fraiche

20g Gruyere, grated

Toast to serve

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees and pop a baking sheet in to warm up
2. Gently cook the mushrooms and garlic in a little butter until softened, then add the spinach and gently cook until it has wilted
3. Divide the mixture between two ramekin dishes, crack an egg over the top and season. Add a teaspoon of the half fat creme fraiche to each ramekin and top with the Gruyere. Place the ramekins onto the pre-heated baking sheet in the oven. Bake for 12 minutes for soft egg yolks and 15 minutes for hard

Baked Eggs with Chorizo & Gruyere

Last weekend we had a mini Christmas day at the flat. We watched the Muppet Christmas Carol, ate chocolate orange and exchanged our presents. To start the day I made us these delicious baked eggs, they're really simple and utterly delicious, perfect for a special brunch.

Serves 2 people for brunch, or 4 for breakfast
80g chorizo, skinned & cut into 1cm chunks
Half a red onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
4 eggs
50g Gruyere, grated
Plenty of seasoning & buttered toast to serve

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees and pop a baking sheet in to warm up
2. Dry fry the chorizo and onion over a medium heat, the sausage will release plenty of delicious oil so there's really no need to add any extra. You want the onion to soften and the chorizo to crisp up, this should take around 10-15 minutes. Add the garlic a few minutes before the onion is cooked
3. Separate the mixture into 4 ramekin dishes, crack an egg over the top and season. Top with the Gruyere then place the ramekins onto the pre-heated baking sheet in the oven. Bake for 12 minutes for soft egg yolks and 15 minutes for hard

Vanilla Sponge with Raspberries & Cream

On Sunday Chris completed the Great South Run and helped to raise over £2,000 for the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity. If anyone would like to donate, you can do so here. I thought the best way to celebrate was with a cake, so I made this indulgent sponge.

Jam, cream & raspberries!

I'm not much of a baker, but this recipe is really quick and easy. You could use strawberries instead, but I prefer the sharpness of the raspberries with the creamy filling. I used St. Dalfour all natural jam which is super fruity and not too sweet.

Oozing with filling

For the cake:
200g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
200g caster sugar
200g softened butter
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

For the filling:
4 tbsp good quality raspberry jam
Punnet fresh raspberries
150g mascarpone
150ml double cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp caster sugar
50g flaked almonds

1. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees. Grease and line two sandwich tins. Mix together all the cake ingredients in a large bowl, until the mixture is smooth and creamy
2. Spoon the mixture evenly into the cake tins and smooth the top with a spatula. Pop in the oven for 20-25 minutes, until golden
3. Remove the cakes from their tins and leave to cool on a rack. Put the almonds in a small tin and bake in the oven, checking every few minutes until they are lightly toasted. It only takes a few minutes for them to burn, so make sure you check them regularily
4. Meanwhile whisk the cream until it has thickened, this should only take a few minutes. Add the mascarpone, vanilla extract and sugar and whisk into the cream
5. Now it's time to assemble the cake! Spread the jam on the bottom layer, then add half of the cream mixture and the raspberries. Put the second cake on top, then finish with the rest of the cream and the almonds

Topped with toasted almonds

Pea, Mint & Feta Frittata

Last nights dinner was a really easy but delicious frittata with petite pois, feta cheese and plenty of mint. I found the recipe on the Good Food website, which is always my first port of call for a speedy midweek meal. I've been cooking more vegetarian food lately in an attempt to save money, much to Chris' disappointment. But as this fritatta has cheese and eggs in it, there's plenty of protein to keep even the most ardent meat eaters happy.

I added plenty of seasoning (you can never have too much pepper with eggs) and a sprinkling of cheddar on the top as I had it in the fridge, but other than that I kept to the recipe. I served it with a balsamic dressed beetroot salad and some fries. Considering it only has 5 ingredients and took about 10 minutes to make, it really was very good.

Ingredients are ready to go:

In the pan:

After the grill:

Salad:

Chocolate Birthday Cake!

It was lovely Chris' birthday last weekend, so I made him the most chocolaty of chocolate cakes. I don't actually like icing so this cake is perfect, as the topping is basically just melted chocolate. As far as I'm concerned it's the best chocolate cake recipe EVER! I'm not sure where it was originally printed, but it's a hand me down from my madre. Anyway, I command you to make this cake:

For the cake:

165g self-raising flour

165g caster sugar

165g soft margarine

3 large eggs, beaten

1.5 level tsp baking powder

1.5 tbsp milk

2 rounded tbsp of cocoa powder

1. Butter the cake tins and line the bottom with baking parchment. Put the oven on to preheat to 170 degrees
2. In a large bowl blend all the ingredients with a hand mixer until smooth, but do not over mix
3. Divide into the prepared sandwich tins and bake for 25-30 min until a knife comes out from the middle clean

For the topping:

One small tin carnation evaporated milk

115g light muscovado sugar

115g chocolate broken into pieces

55g soft butter

Few drops vanilla essence

1. Combine the sugar and evaporated milk in a small heavy based pan and heat gently until the sugar has dissolved, stirring often
2. When dissolved bring to the boil and then turn down and simmer for 5 minutes without stirring
3. Take off the heat and add the remaining ingredients. Stir briskly until it all becomes smooth and glossy
4. Leave to cool (but not chill) before spreading on the cakes

 Cakes cooling:

Chocolate topping:

Finished cake for Creed:

Chocolate Brownies

Last weekend I went to Shropshire for the Wellington Mid-Summer Fayre. To make the 4 hour car journey more bearable I made some brownies for the trip, using a recipe by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. They were very rich and crumbly and were a welcome reminder of how delicious home-made brownies are in comparison the dry ones you can buy in the shops. I made the basic recipe, but some chocolate chunks or nuts would have been a tasty addition.

Brownie mix:

Uber brownie:

Road trip ready:

Scrambled eggs with chorizo

On Wednesday night I played my favourite game of 'let's see what I can make from the random ingredients in my fridge'. The main ingredients I had were eggs and chorizo, I was going to make an omelette but decided instead to go for some scrambled eggs. I made a chorizo topping with red onion, garlic and thyme which goes surprisingly well with eggs. This recipe is great for a light dinner or a decadent breakfast.

Chorizo is one of my favourite ingredients as the delicious oil the sausage releases makes everything taste amazing with very little effort. Chorizo is a cured Spanish sausage, with an intense smoked paprika taste. Butternut squash risotto topped with chorizo, a little added to a traditional meatball recipe, or with a simple tomato sauce for pasta are all great ways of using this spicy sausage.

For the chorizo topping:
1/2 red onion, sliced
1 garlic clove, crushed
100g chorizo, chopped
Sprig of thyme, chopped

1. Add the onion to a heated pan, with a little oil and cook for 5 minutes until slightly softened. Add the garlic, chorizo and thyme and cook for a further 15 minutes until the onion is soft and the chorizo has released its paprika scented oil
2. Serve with scrambled eggs on toast

Onions & chorizo cooking:

Ready to eat:

Toffee Apple Bread & Butter Pudding

Due to a leaking pipe, I spent 2 days of my Easter break waiting around for the plumber. This gave me plenty of time to catch up on 90210 and for cooking tasty treats! I love traditional bread & butter pudding but this version is even better, the apples are a delicious addition and the toffee custard makes it even more sweet and moreish than usual.

I only made half the recipe below and it served 5, so unless you have lots of people coming over or you want to eat bread & butter everyday for a week, just do half the recipe!

Serves 8

50g/2oz butter

6 apples, peeled, cored and cut into wedges

175g/6oz golden caster sugar

568ml pot double cream

400g brioche loaf, cut into finger thick slices then into triangles

100g/4oz raisins

4 egg yolks

1. Heat the butter in a non stick frying pan until sizzling. Add the apples and 150g of the sugar. Cook over a high heat until the apples are caramelised and juicy
2. Stir in the cream, bring to boil and cook for one minute. Strain the apples and collect the cream in a jug
3. Layer an ovenproof dish with brioche, apples and raisins. Finish off the top layer with brioche and raisins
4. Whisk the egg yolks into cream and ladle over the pudding. Sprinkle over remaining sugar and bake at 180C/fan 160C/gas 4 for 35–40 minutes until crisp and golden
5. Serve with cream or ice cream

Apples cooking:

Before it went in the oven:

Cooked bread & butter pudding - tasty:

Eggy Crumpets with Bacon

Inspired by the great easyteas recipe blog, Chris and I decided to make eggy crumpets for breakfast during our long weekend in Bath. At the weekend there’s nothing better than spending a good hour drinking coffee, reading the paper (preferably the magazine section, real news is far too stressful for the weekend) and eating something tasty. This really is a great recipe; it’s suitably unhealthy and filling to help you recover from a hangover and more importantly it tastes delicious!

You can find Matt’s original recipe here. 

Serves 2

4 crumpets

2 medium eggs

Dash of milk

Butter for frying

Plenty of seasoning

1. Break the eggs into a bowl, add the milk & seasoning and whisk
2. Heat a pan with a knob of butter in, dip the crumpets in the egg to coat thoroughly. Fry on each side for 3 minutes, until the egg is cooked through
3. Meanwhile prepare your accompaniments, we had bacon and mushroom, but this would be great with any breakfasty toppings

Nom nom: