Rösti - a Swiss hash brown

As you may have realised by now, bruch is one of my favourite meals and Rösti is up there with asparagus and eggs as one of my favourites.  For those of you who don't know, rösti is a swiss version of a hash brown, eaten for breakfast and often served with a fried egg and spinach.  I kept it simple and just went for the rösti and some roasted cherry tomatoes to add a bit of colour (it means you can at least pretend you're being healthy).

Rösti with roasted cherry tomatoes

This was a super simple recipe which makes a perfect brunch for two.  All you need to do is parboil 400g of potatoes (Maris Piper or King Edward potatoes work best), fry half an onion and a crushed garlic clove until soft, followed by a handful of pancetta until it is crispy.  After about 15 minutes strain the potatoes and allow them to steam dry.  Once they're cool enough to handle dice them and mix them in a bowl with a large handful of grated cheese (I would definitely recommend splashing out on some gruyere), a large beaten egg, the onion, garlic and pancetta.  Season at this point and add some parsley too if you fancy.

Frozen herbs are a great way to avoid wasting lots of fresh herbs if you want to use them but can't get through a whole bunch before they go off, as they keep for ages and you can defrost as much or as little as you need.  Heat about a tablespoon of oil in a medium frying pan and tip in the potato mixture before pressing it down with a spatula.  Fy over a medium heat for 15 minutes (the bottom should be golden brown, although be careful not to break the rösti when checking).  Tip the rösti onto a plate then slide it back into the frying pan, cooked side up.  Fry for another 15 minutes and serve with some roasted cherry tomatoes (just drizzle some oil over the tomatoes in a baking dish and roast them in an oven pre-heated to a medium heat while you're cooking the rösti).

Perfect for sharing

Now isn't that just the tastiest thing you've seen all day?  Go on, you know you want to try it!

Brunch time!

It's time for another brunch post!  With the weekend not far off it's the perfect time to start thinking about what you'll be eating.

I love this time of year, the weather is improving, spring is in the air and asparagus is in season!  So I made a deliciously simple brunch made from asparagus, pancetta and eggs.

Asparagus, pancetta and eggs - simply delightful!

First of all fry the pancetta.  You don't need to use any oil - the pancetta is fatty enough on its own.  Once it is brown and starting to go crispy put the asparagus stems into the pan.  Fry them, making sure to turn them regularly so that they don't burn.  Finally crack the two eggs over the asparagus, then cover the pan and leave to cook for a couple of minutes until the white is cooked but the yolks are still runny.

The beauty of this dish is its simplicity.  If you don't eat pancetta then you can miss this step, heat some olive oil in the pan and fry the asparagus.  While the eggs are cooking you can sprinkle on some cheese to give it a little more flavour, I would recommend parmesan.

You could even add some Hollandaise

Asparagus also goes well with poached eggs and bacon or with a simple Hollandaise sauce and it is for that reason that it is one of my favourite brunch ingredients.

Brunch also happens to be my favourite meal.  It's perfect for those lazy weekends when you've slept in past breakfast but want something to eat before midday.  Brunch doesn't have to be just a boring fry up and I'm always looking for new ideas to try out, so if there's something that you love cooking for brunch please comment below, I'd love to hear about it!

Hot Cross Brunch

I hope you're all having a good Friday and that you haven't already eaten too many hot cross buns, as they feature prominently in today's post and trust me, this is a recipe you're going to want to try for yourself!  I love this time of year and today was perfect.  I woke up to beautiful sunshine and blue skies, the Wisteria in college is in full bloom and spring is definitely in the air!

Hot cross brunch

The Wisteria

Hot cross buns are a staple in my diet around easter but I wanted to make today's extra special, so I present to you french toasted hot cross buns with maple syrup, bacon and scrambled egg.

Unfortunately I don't have an oven in college so I had to use shop-bought hot cross buns.  However, a couple of weeks ago while I was at home I did take the opportunity to make some, so here's a bit about how that went.  Every month in my GoodFood magazine there's a section called 'Maisie makes' the idea being that these recipes are child-friendly.  As I had never made hot cross buns before, this seemed like a good place to start!

Home-made hot cross buns

In theory the buns are pretty to make: mix flour, dried yeast, sugar, mixed spice, cinnamon, milk, egg, butter and currants/sultanas, knead and leave the dough to rise.  However, the process became a little tricky around the knead section.  I had an incredibly sticky dough and had to add some more flour, except it didn't really help and I was worried about adding too much extra.  So I left the dough as it was and instead of kneading it on a work surface I cheated and used a mixer with a dough hook!  The dough rose well, however, as it was still very sticky I wasn't quite able to roll it into the lovely round buns shown in the recipe.  Instead mine ended up being somewhat misshapen blobs.

Ready for the oven!

Undeterred I left them to rise for a second time while making the paste for the crosses which is just a simple mix of flour, sugar and water.  Once risen I piped the crosses onto the buns and popped them in the oven.  Once baked I glazed them with some apricot jam to give them that lovely sheen.

Just out the oven, ready to glaze

All things considered the buns came out very well.  Aside from the slightly unusual shapes they smelled and tasted exactly like hot cross buns should.  The buns are best eaten warm, not long after they've come out of the oven, with just butter, perfect.

The finished buns nicely glazed

The roundest one of the batch!

Now on to my hot cross brunch.  As I said, I was unable to make my own buns for the occasion, so instead I decided to treat myself to M&S's luxury hot cross buns - definitely worth it!

The ingredients

As I only have one hob I prepared the scrambled egg first.  For two portions I beat 3 eggs with a splash of milk.  I then melted some butter in a frying pan over a very low heat.  I then added my eggs and stirred them continuously as they cooked.  If I'm in a hurry I cook scrambled eggs quickly in a hot saucepan, however they are far better cooked slowly over a low heat.  I've heard that if you season scrambled eggs before cooking them then they can go a little dry because of the salt, so I tend to season mine when they're nearly cooked.  I transferred the eggs from the pan to a bowl just before they'd finished cooking and covered them with a plate.  Since I had to cook the hot cross buns and bacon they were going to sit for a few minutes so the plate was to stop them getting cold and by taking them out of the pan a little early they finished cooking in the bowl from the residual heat and were perfect by the time I got them onto the plate.

Butter the buns and sprinkle with cinnamon

I then made my eggy mixture for the french toast part of my brunch.  I beat two more eggs in a bowl along with 100ml milk (this produced enough mixture for 4-6 hot cross buns).  I cut my hot cross buns in half, lightly buttered each half and sprinkled them with ground cinnamon before putting the halves back together again.  I then dipped the 4 hot cross buns into the egg mixture, making sure they were fully coated and that they had soaked up plenty of the mixture.

After dipping I melted some butter in my frying pan over a medium heat and waited until it was nice and hot before adding the hot cross buns.  They need to be fried for a couple of minutes on each side to heat them through and  to allow the outside to brown nicely.  Once they're done, place them on a plate and quickly return the pan to the heat.

Fry the eggy hot cross buns

I then added the ban immediately and quickly cooked it in the leftover fat from the hot cross buns.  Bacon usually releases a lot of fat when it cooks so you should be fine, if the pan does seem to be getting a little dry just add a bit more butter.  For the last 30 seconds add about a tablespoon of maple syrup to the pan - this will give the bacon a great taste and colour.

Once you've got your hot cross buns, eggs and bacon on a plate pour over some more maple syrup and if you want to try and pretend to be healthy then blueberries go amazingly with the hot cross buns.

And Serve

Needless to say brunch was incredible even if I won't need to eat anything else for a while!  I hope you all have a lovely Easter!  There will be another Easter themed post coming up soon in which I will tell you about my escapades trying to make Easter-themed cheesecakes.

Brunch featuring Eggs Benedict

I have to admit, that the muffins you see in the final picture are not the ones I attempted to make.  I wanted to try the Baker Brothers' spinach muffins because you don't need an oven to cook them, just a frying pan.  However, I couldn't find semolina so I substituted it with breadcrumbs, which meant that the outside of the muffins burnt rather than browned.  However, the hollandaise was successful and tasted great with the shop-bought replacement muffins, poached eggs and smoked salmon.  I will update this post when I next try the muffins, hopefully I will be able to find semolina and they will turn out better than the first attempt!

The hollandaise:

3tbsp white wine vinegar

6 peppercorns

1 dried bay leaf

2 eggs - yolks only

125g butter

lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste

I found that the taste of vinegar in this recipe was a little too strong so my advice would be to reduce it less.  The recipe says to put the vinegar in a small pan with the peppercorns and bay leaf and to reduce it over a high heat until there is only 1 tbsp left, the to remove the bay leaf and peppercorns from the reduction.  Personally I wouldn't reduce it as much.

You can make hollandaise by hand but it's far easier and quicker to use a food processor.

1. Put the egg yolks in a food processor with the vinegar reduction.
2. Gently melt the butter so that the solids separate from the liquid.  I then spooned off the solids, trying to take as little of the liquid as possible.
3. Turn the food processor on slowly and pour the liquid butter on to the egg yolks (my food processor has a nifty attachment on the lid which is designed for making sauces like mayonnaise or this hollandaise.  It means the butter trickles into the food processor slowly and gives you far more control.  At this point the sauce should thicken.  If it is too thick then add a little hot water.
4. Season with the salt, pepper and lemon juice to taste.

The muffins:
I followed the Baker Brothers' spinach English muffins recipe, mixing together butter, sugar milk, dried yeast, nutmeg, fresh spinach and flour, before kneading and leaving to rise.  After they have risen you're meant to tip the sticky dough out onto a work surface, cover with cornmeal or semolina and gently stretch it out before cutting out discs.

The dough

English muffins are cooked in a very hot, dry frying pan for about 5 minutes on each side.

The muffin before it burned

Unfortunately this was the point where it all went wrong and I ended up with a rather burnt muffin.  I did scrape off the burnt  part and try the muffin, which tasted quite good so I will definitely be trying this recipe again and hopefully then I will be able to enjoy the whole muffin!

The poached eggs:
Poaching eggs is one of those skills which every cook should learn at some point.  I've tried poaching eggs without an egg poacher before but the attempt wasn't particularly successful.  However, this time I managed it!  My best advice is to use really fresh eggs as the white is a lot less watery and forms a better poached egg.  Some people say you should add vinegar to the water, others say you should swirl it as you put the eggs in, I didn't do either of these things as I've found it hasn't particularly helped in the past.  I heated a pan of water until it was only just simmering.  I cracked my egg into a cup first as I found it was then easier to pour it into the water, I also tried to use a spoon to make sure the egg white stayed together and coated the yolk.  I then let the egg cook for a few minutes until the white was cooked, but be careful not to leave it in too long otherwise the yolk won't be nice and runny.  I then removed the egg from the pan with a slotted spoon.  I poached two eggs at a time but the number you can make in one go is really only limited by the size of your saucepan.

To serve I buttered the muffins, placed a poached egg on one half, some smoked salmon on the other and drizzled them with the hollandaise.  Eggs Benedict or eggs royale as the dish is often called when served with smoked salmon is great to have as a treat for brunch when you want something a little bit more special.

Afternoon Tease - review

Returning to Cambridge after Christmas I was delighted to discover that a lovely little café had opened up on King Street behind my college.  It is a lovely little place called Afternoon Tease which serves delicious homemade and freshly-baked cakes, brunch and lunch along with Kandula teas and coffee (featuring Cambridge's very own Hot Numbers Coffee).

 Everything is served on beautiful mis-matched china and if you're lucky the milk comes in one of these adorable little milk bottles.  I've tried several of the teas now from the English Breakfast tea to the slightly more unusual Ceylon Black and next on my list to try is the Ceylon pink!

Tea served in beautiful china

I always wait for my tea with excited anticipation as you never know which of their many teapots you are going to be given.  When I last went I was delighted when we were given the cow teapot, which I love, and the more unusual pineapple teapot which I hadn't seen before.

I love their range of teapots

I apologise that the pictures above do not do the cake served at Afternoon Tease justice (it may have something to do with the fact that I could hardly wait to start eating them and so took less time over the pictures!)  The picture on the left is of the chocolate cake - possibly the richest I have ever eaten - needless to say I will definitely have this again the next time it is on offer.  I am not usually a fan of carrot cake, but Afternoon Tease has converted me!  It was lovely and moist and the cream cheese icing gave it just the right amount of sweetness.  The next time I visit I really want to the try chocolate Guinness cake which has looked very tempting when I've visited previously.

The very first time I visited I tried the crumpets from Cambridge's Dovecote Bakery, served with your choice of jam, honey, marmalade (I honestly can't remember all the options).  They, like everything else, were incredibly tasty, light and fluffy and were a perfect breakfast, rivalled only by the bacon bap I had there the other day!  They also serve chunky sourdough toast which once again are served with your choice of topping - great if you want something simple but still tasty and filling.  Next on my list is the banana loaf which you can have with butter and cinnamon or griddled and served with streaky bacon and maple syrup - I had a bite of a friend's when I was there last and I will definitely be going back for it.

Ceylon Black tea

After 12 Afternoon Tease serves a lunch menu which from what I've seen on Facebook usually includes a sandwich or toastie and soup.  Unfortunately I've not managed to try anything off the lunch menu yet as I'm generally busier with lectures and supervisions in the afternoons but I hope I'll find time soon to pop in for lunch.

Afternoon Tease is the perfect place to go, whether you want to catch up with friends over a pot of tea, or while away some time reading with a nice piece of cake to keep you going.  I would definitely recommend this place to anyone and will be returning frequently.

You can follow Jo Kruczynska (owner of Afternoon Tease) on Twitter or Facebook, alternatively check out her website and blog here.  I love seeing her daily menu updates with appetising pictures of the food she'll be serving.

Afternoon Tease can be found at 13 King Street, Cambridge, CB1 1LH - Enjoy!

French Toast

French toast is possibly one of the simplest, yet tastiest, brunches I can think of!  It's perfect for a lazy morning when you want something a little more special for not a lot more effort.

French toast with mixed fruit

For 2 people you will need:
2 eggs
Splash of milk
(vanilla essence)
Bread (this was enough for 4 slices)
butter for frying
1tsp brown sugar
Your choice of toppings - for the first slice I used fruit (bananas, strawberries, blueberries and raspberries) and for the second I made caramelised apples with cinnamon.  You could also add a dollop of Greek yoghurt, or golden syrup if you fancy something sweeter.

Whisk the eggs in a bowl (the wider the better - to make it easier to dip the bread in) with a splash of milk and a drop of vanilla essence (optional).  Melt some butter in a frying pan (enough to coat the bottom of the pan), dip both sides of a slice of bread in the egg mixture and fry it in the pan.  It should only need a couple of minutes on each side.  Once browned remove from the pan and sprinkle over the fruit and sugar or syrup.

If you have a little more time you could peel and slice an apple and sauté (fry quickly in a hot pan) the slices in 1tsp brown sugar, 1tbsp butter and 1tsp cinnamon.

French toast with caramelised cinnamon apples

Simply the Best

Today is my first truly free day in a couple of months.  I had my last supervisions yesterday and term is not officially over.  I decided to celebrate my (temporary freedom) by cooking brunch, something simple, but delicious.  Bacon-wrapped asparagus, fried with a couple of soft-boiled eggs and toasted soldiers.

Bacon-wrapped asparagus with soft-boiled eggs

I wrapped each stick of asparagus in a rasher of streaky bacon before frying until the bacon was cooked and the asparagus was softened (but still retained some of its crunchiness).  I then brought a pan of water to the boil and soft-boiled my eggs by leaving them in there for about 3mins and I toasted some bread at the same time.  When the eggs were done I put them into cold water (to stop them from cooking too much more so that they remained soft-boiled) and I quickly reheated the frying pan and tossed the sticks of asparagus and bacon again over the heat just to warm them up again (this meal is easier if you have two hobs as you can cook the eggs and asparagus simultaneously).  I buttered the toast, cut it into soldiers and sat down to enjoy this really simple but delicious brunch.

You may have notice from the picture that my egg is in an espresso mug.  I don't have egg cups, so I made do with what I do have, these cups were small and therefore idea for propping up my soft-boiled egg, however, any mug/cup would do.

Bon appetit!