Aubergine Parmigiana

The summer holidays are upon us once more. Once I got rid of the idea that I could be at all productive in my own studies during this period, I started to thoroughly enjoy myself. I do not have to currently rush my children out the door every morning, nor do I have to spend at least 3 hours of the day getting them to and from school and playgroup.

No, instead we have been on day trips to 3 different local beaches, to the zoo, to the Kelpies and the Helix, and, somewhat less excitingly, we have had a leisurely trip to Costco and Ikea where we were fairly self restrained in our purchases, investing instead in parenting smugness.

My husband works from home in our small flat, so the pressure is always on to get everyone outside, but today things outside did not look good. The forecast was rain, rain, and more rain. Not wanting to visit the museum AGAIN, and dealing with three kids who were still tired from outings earlier this week, we decided to have a day mostly at home, leaving the flat only to go to the shops for rations.

After spending three hours playing monopoly (where I was not, I confess, able to hold myself back, even with a five year old pouting) I set to work on this baby, a rainy day meal to be sure:



The vegetarian meal that doesn't feel vegetarian, and is available in every respectable good Italian restaurant: Aubergine/eggplant Parmigiana. A meal, as Mr River Cottage dude says, is somehow greater than the sum of all its parts. And it is simple, if it does take ages. Don't kid yourself, grilling those aubergines/eggplants always takes a while, and is a big pain the the backside, but it is worth it if you have the time.

I sliced 5 small ones and gave them a dose of olive oil with my pastry brush then put them on to grill.

They came out in various shades of doneness; this was part of the first batch to come out:

It took 3 batches to finish them, taking quite a while to cook through.

The sauce was put on while they cooked - just a simple affair of tinned tomatoes, garlic, onion, salt, pepper, and some fresh basil thrown in once it had sufficiently thickened.

Then three layers went into a baking dish: aubergines, then sauce, then fresh mozzarella and parmesan, and this was repeated three times over.

After forty minutes in the oven, it came out looking like this:

And smelled amazing. I served it with garlic bread. Look at that precision, how carefully the lines were cut, how beautifully the bread was shaped.

Yeah, that's because I bought it ready-made from Lidl. 

I can't give you their recipe for it, but I can give you the Aubergine one:

INGREDIENTS5 small eggplants (about 2 pounds)
4-5 tablespoons olive oil
2 balls buffalo mozzarella (about 4ounces each), torn into pieces
About 1.25 ounces parmesan, hard goat cheese, or other well-flavored hard cheese, grated
For the tomato sauce:2 tablespoons olive oil
2 onions, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 (14-ounce) cans plum toamtoes, coarsely chopped, any stalky ends and skin removed
Good handfull of fresh basil
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
a little sugar

METHOD

Trim aubergines and cut into thin slices lengthwise. Heat your grill/broiler to high heat, then brush each slice with olive oil and grill on each side until browned. Remove to paper towels and continue until all are cooked.

Meanwhile, make the tomato sauce. Heat the 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a very large, wide pan over medium heat.
Add the onions and garlic and saute gently for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally until soft. Add the tomatoes with their juice. Bring to a simmer, then simmer briskly, stirring often, for about half an hour, or until the sauce is thick and rich. Season well with salt and pepper and a little sugar to taste, then add basil and leave to infuse.

Preheat the oven to 180C. Lay a third of the eggplant slices in the bottom of an ovenproof dish, 8 by 10 inches and at least 2 inches deep. Cover with a third of the tomato sauce. Dot a third of the mozzarella over the sauce, then scatter a thin layer of grated cheese over that. Repeat with the remaining ingredients so you have three layers in the dish.

Bake for about 30-40 minutes, until bubbling and golden on top. Serve with lots of fresh green salad – and bread, if you like.

Fraisier

"So what kind of cake do you want for your birthday?" I asked my son.

"I want the same kind you had!!" he quickly replied.

"A fraisier? Are you sure? You don't want a chocolate cake? Or just a lemon drizzle cake? Or a victoria sponge?"

"No, I want the kind you had!"

He's lucky he's worth it...you'll see why...



First you put some eggs, sugar, and lemon zest in a bowl over a pan of simmering water.

Then you ask your husband to plug in the electric mixer because the outlet still isn't screwed in properly even though the boiler was changed (and the panel behind the outlet dismantled) 6 months ago.

And after a few minutes it is light and fluffy like this, the "ribbon" stage where if you can see a ribbon of batter stay on the top for a bit if you dribble some across.

In went some of the self raising flour to be folded in.

Then in went the rest.

And what makes everything better?  BUTTER OF COURSE!!! Melted, so no need to worry about "room temperature" consistency, thank goodness.

Then it went into a lined springform pan. I didn't trim it enough, hence the jagged edge.

While that went in the oven, I started on the creme pastisserie by heating some milk and vanilla paste (I rarely can be bothered with using actual vanilla beans).

In a separate bowl went eggs, egg yolks, corn flour, and sugar.

Once the milk was hot it was poured into the bowl and whisked.

Then returned to the pan.

Once it had thickened, in went butter.

Lots of whisking was necessary here.

Then into a freezer bag it went, to be put in the fridge to be ready for piping later.

Then I moved onto the syrup that keeps the sponge MOIST. Lemon juice and sugar.

It was heated until boiling and until all the sugar was dissolved.

By this time I had to go and get the kids from school, so Michael printed off some stensils and piped melted chocolate onto greaseproof paper for me to transfer later.

Now for assembly. I rolled out some marzipan using icing sugar to prevent it from sticking

And then traced a circle onto paper, then cut out the paper and put it on top like so.

Look, I can make a circle! Sort of.

Not having acetate to hand, some clingfilm went around the side of the now empty springform pan.

The sponge was sliced in half with a big bread knife.

And half the syrup was put on the bottom half after I'd wedged it into the tin. Robert helped.

Sliced strawberries went around the sides.

And the filling was squirted between them.

Then I squirted big creme pat turds all through the middle.

On went quartered strawberries. I sometimes put raspberries in instead, but have strawberries around the sides as it's prettier that way.

More creme pat turds.

Then I squashed on the other syrup soaked layer of sponge.

Then the marzipan...

Then the writing and garnish.

We had wanted to have it on the night of his birthday, but Catherine had fallen asleep by the time Christopher got home from cricket, so we decided to have it for, er, breakfast instead.

I mean, it had fruit and nuts in it, didn't it? And lots of eggs too...10 I think in total.

Waitrose's finest candles.

My son made his birthday wish

And smiled on his parents' great efforts.

He was delighted to get all the candles on the first attempt.

And even happier to get cake for breakfast.

And I was happy not to have to do any more baking for a bit.

The GBBO technical challenge recipe is here, or in copy & paste form below. All 34 friggin steps of it:

Ingredients

• 125g/4½oz caster sugar
• 4 free-range eggs
• 2 lemons, zest only, finely grated
• 125g/4½oz self-raising flour, plus extra for flouring
• 50g/1¾oz unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly, plus extra for greasing

For the crème pâtissière

• 600ml/20fl oz milk
• vanilla pod
• 4 free-range eggs, plus 2 free-range egg yolks
• 180g/6¼oz caster sugar
• 1 tbsp kirsch
• 100g/3½oz cornflour
• 150g/5½oz butter, cut into cubes and kept at room temperature

For the lemon syrup

• 75g/2¾oz caster sugar
• 2 lemons, juice only

To finish the cake

• 200g/7oz marzipan
• 200g/7oz dark chocolate, for decoration
• 600g/1lb 5oz medium sized strawberries

Preparation method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.
2. Grease, flour and line the base of a 23cm/9in spring-form or round loose bottom cake tin.
3. Place the sugar, eggs and lemon zest in a large bowl set over a pan of simmering water.
4. Using an electric hand whisk, whisk the mixture over a medium heat until doubled in volume and pale in colour. The mixture is at the right stage when it forms a ribbon trail when the whisk is lifted out of the mixture. Remove from the heat.
5. Sift in two-thirds of the flour and gently fold into the whisked mixture with a metal spoon or spatula. Add the remaining flour and fold again. Try to keep in as much of the air as possible. Make sure all the flour is incorporated into the mixture.
6. Gently fold in the melted butter.
7. Pour the mixture into the cake tin and bake for 25-30 minutes or until the sides of the cake begin to come away from the tin and it is pale golden-brown.
8. When cooked, allow the sponge to cool a little bit in the tin, then turn out onto a cooling rack. Be careful as this sponge is quite delicate. It should be just under 5cm/2in in height.
9. To make the crème pâtissière, pour the milk into a wide based pan, split the vanilla pod along its length using a sharp knife, and add it to the milk along with the vanilla seeds. Bring the milk up to the boil, then take it off the heat.
10. Whisk together the eggs, sugar, kirsch and cornflour in a medium sized bowl until blended.
11. Remove the vanilla pod from the milk and pour the hot milk through a sieve into the egg mixture. Whisk to combine.
12. Pour the custard back into a clean saucepan and set over a medium heat.
13. Stir the custard constantly until the mixture thickens. The mixture will take about four minutes to thicken, but when it does it happens very quickly, so you need to really keep stirring to prevent lumps. Whisk until smooth.
14. Cook the mixture until the crème is very thick, so that it can be piped and it will hold its shape. Stir in the butter until thoroughly melted and combined.
15. Allow to cool slightly, pour into a shallow dish and chill in the fridge for about an hour until really cold and set firm. This chills it faster as it cools over a larger surface area – alternatively you could fill the piping bags with it at this stage and leave overnight to chill.
16. Place the ingredients for the lemon syrup in a small saucepan with 70ml/4½ tbsp water. Heat gently until the sugar dissolves, then boil rapidly for two minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool.
17. Meanwhile, roll out a thin disc of marzipan to fit a 23cm/9in circumference circle. It is best if you draw around the 23cm/9in base of another loose bottomed tin for the perfect circle. For best results and a perfectly flat surface, chill it in the fridge until it is needed.
18. Slice the sponge in half horizontally, creating two slim discs of cake. The cut must be as level as possible as it will be visible in the finished cake.
19. Place a strip of acetate plastic around the inside of the springform tin. Or line the base and sides with cling film or parchment lined foil.
20. Place one layer of sponge cake in the bottom of the cake tin. Then liberally brush the sponge with half the syrup. With the back of a spoon, gently squash the edges of the cake down so that they are pushed directly against the sides of the tin, creating the defined edges necessary for the Fraisier cake.
21. Rinse, hull and halve about 12 strawberries, try and make sure they are all the same height.
22. Place the cut sides of the strawberries against the plastic on the inside of the tin. The strawberry halves should be sitting snugly beside each other, so it looks like a little crown inside the tin.
23. Take the chilled crème pâtissière out of the fridge and spoon two thirds of the crème into a piping bag, fitted with a 1cm/½in nozzle.
24. Pipe a swirl covering the exposed sponge completely in the bottom of the tin.
25. Then pipe between each of the strawberries so the gaps are filled right to the top with the crème pâtissière.
26. Set about 3-5 strawberries to one side for decoration, then hull and quarter the rest of them and place on top of the crème, so it raises the inside of the cake by about an inch.
27. Pipe another swirl of crème pâtissière on top of the cut strawberries to cover the whole surface. Then smooth with a palette knife.
28. Place the other disc of sponge on top of this, with the cut side uppermost, so it has a completely flat top. Brush with the remaining syrup.
29. Gently press the top down quite firmly, so that the cake and filling push against the acetate to create the distinctive smooth and defined sides of the Fraisier cake.
30. Lay the chilled marzipan circle on top of the cake and put the whole thing back in the fridge to set.
31. Make some pretty decorations of your choice with melted dark chocolate.
    Technique: How to pipe chocolate decorations
    Watch technique1:06 mins
32. When ready to serve, remove the cake from fridge.
33. Very carefully release the spring tin/loose bottom and remove the cake from the tin and from the acetate or cling film.
34. Place onto a serving plate and decorate with reserved strawberries, chocolate decoration and a dusting of icing sugar. Serve chilled.

Passionfruit Cheesecake

I have loved passionfruit from an early age. This is not exactly shocking information, as I have met few who aren't impressed by its intense acidic, almost perfumed flavour. My own love affair began in my grandmother's garden, for there she grew a sizeable passionfruit vine, a luxury that seems too incredible to fathom. Each year she would carefully wait until the fruit had wrinkled enough to show it was at its peak flavour, then she would scoop out the inside, adding ample sugar to further enhance the flavour, and then can it in small glass jars. These we would wrap carefully and pack into our suitcases to come back across the Pacific Ocean, so that when we were looking for a taste of heaven we could add a spoonful to a scoop of simple vanilla ice cream and thus transform it into something worthy of royalty.

I still get excited whenever I see anything with passionfruit flavour, and I have noticed that Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood always give thumbs up to any dessert given to them that contains this marvellous fruit. The only real drawback is its expense - you can't exactly grow it in Scotland, and it is quite pricey if you need the dozen or so fruit required for any recipe.

Sometimes, you just have to treat yourself. My eye had always been caught by a Nigella Lawson recipe in How to be a Domestic Goddess for Passionfruit Cheesecake. I can't say I'm a huge fan of cheesecakes that veer away from the traditional New York variety, but this one seemed to be a guaranteed win: Nigella, cheesecake, passionfruit - three strong points in its favour. So finally I added 10 passionfruit to my online shopping order and waited for them to arrive so I could try it out.

I was all ready except for one thing: the springform tin. I had accidentally left mine at work, so I decided to improvise with a tart tin with a removable base. On went the fake Pam to ensure success in the cheesecake's removal:

And into a bag went some digestives. No graham crackers here, peeps.

After I'd taken out my aggression, they looked like this.

Then in went butter. The recipe didn't call for any sugar, but I usually use some and in retrospect think I should have thrown a tablespoon or so in. Live and learn.

The crumbled mix looked like so.

And into the tin it went, pressed down with the bottom of the glass.

Now, I HAD ordered 10 passionfruits, but my husband saw the bag and thought "oooh, I should have some of my 5 a day!" and stole a couple. He claims I should have told him they were for a recipe. I think he should have actually put away the shopping when it came and should have known that a bag of 10 passionfruit, a quantity I have never come close to purchasing before, would naturally be for a special recipe. Thankfully I only needed 7 for the filling itself, so his hide was saved.

So, so pretty. So, so tasty.

And into the big processor they went. I would have used the smaller bowl, but I can't find its blade right now in my chaotic kitchen of doom.

A quick whirrr and they were looking more juicy and less pulpy.

So I whipped up some cream cheese.

Added some sugar.

Mixed some more.

Then added 3 yolks (one at a time, stressing myself with the separating of eggs)

They made it a bit golden.

Then 3 whole eggs went in too.

And were stirred in at this point as it was getting a bit too bubbly for my liking.

The fruit was strained in with some lime juice.

I realise now I could have just added some bottled passionfruit juice here, as it's not too hard to find here and would have been cheaper and easier (and just as flavourful, I think). Next time.

Now just dive in and drink it all...

NO! Wait, I was kidding! GET OUT OF THERE!

Instead it went into the tart case...and there was waaaaay too much, as it is way shallower than a springform tin, so I made some ramekins and a teacup as well. Once they were in the oven I added boiling water to the pan to make a "bain marie". Who was this Marie, and why did she like baths of boiling water?

After a while, the small ones came out. They wiggled like jelly in the middle at the time of removal - this ensures they don't overcook. And oh, yeah, I kind of messed one up when I took it out. Still tasted fine.

Then their mother came out to cool.

They went in the fridge while my husband went out to buy me more passionfruit and thus prevent our divorce. Once he got back, I carefully removed the cheesecake from the tin, ensuring a perfect finish on the cake.

Err...when in doubt, just throw lots of fresh fruit on top.

No, those aren't frog spawn, they are little pieces of heaven, kids.

AND IT'S MINE!!!!!!!!!!!! ALLL MINE!!!!

I'll add the recipe later, when I can move again.