Cinnamon Dreams

I woke up the other morning with the desire to bake and no idea what to do.  While the boyfriend snoozed, I mooched around pinterest looking at lemon cookies and blue velvet cakes and goats cheese and spinach pastries.  Eventually I decided on cinnamon rolls, but all the recipes I could find were american.  After a bit of googling I came up with a UK recipe, but the measures were all wrong.

After a bit of fiddling I've come up with the following - it's a combination of several recipes and ideas and it's brilliant.

For the dough

• 800g plain flour
• 300 ml warm water
• 7 tablespoon caster sugar
• 7g yeast
• pinch of salt
• two eggs
• 5 tblspn oil

Separate out half the flour.  Take the yeast and sugar and mix into the warm water.  Mix the yeast water into the flour until completely combined.  Add the eggs and the oil and then mix in the rest of the flour little by little until totally mixed.

Knead the dough for at least 5 minutes and then cover and leave to rise until it's doubled in size, which will take around an hour and a half.

For the filling

• 125g butter
• 100g soft brown sugar
• 1.5 tspn cinnamon

Mix the softened butter with the sugar and the cinnamon.  Then take the dough and knock it back, before rolling out the dough so it's a flat square.  Take the butter/sugar/cinnamon combination and spread across the dough using a knife.  Take an extra pinch of sugar and scatter across the butter.  At this stage you can fling on a handful of raisins if you like.

Roll the dough up into a long sausage, like a Swiss roll then slice into twelve pieces.  Lay out onto a baking sheet and cover and leave to rise again.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for 25 - 30 minutes.

Make up lemon icing (water, lemon juice and icing sugar) and drizzle liberally over the top.

A tale of two pies

I like Autumn lots.  Mainly because it's a season which facilitates the making (and eating) of stews and pies.  I've been a bit pie obsessed recently and here are two of my favourites

Lamb Shank Pie.

This is genuinely an amazing pie.  You will need the following.

• 6 lamb shanks
• plain flour
• 4 red onions
• 8 cloves of garlic
• 1 bottle of red wine - I do love a recipe that calls for a WHOLE bottle of wine.
• 1/2 pint beef stock
• rosemary finely chopped
• 3 tbsp redcurrant jelly (I used cranberry jelly because it was what I had in the fridge)
• Salt and pepper
• Puff Pastry -  let's face it, no one really makes their own.

Roll the lamb shanks in seasoned flour and brown in hot oil in a heavy bottomed pan.  Quarter the onions and add to the pan with the garlic. Saute lightly, then add the rest of the ingredients.

Leave to simmer for two hours, or until the meat turns tender and falls off the bone.  Remove the bones and cover  with the pastry.  Take three of the lamb shank bones and use them to as pie funnels.

Brush the pastry with egg yolk and slice in a diamond pattern.  Bake for 35 minutes in a preheated oven at 180.

Unfortunately I only have a picture of this before it went in the oven, as I had some friends over for dinner and it was wolfed down the second it came out.  It was delicious though and I can highly recommend it.

Which is slightly better than the second pie, where I didn't take a picture at all.  But it is one of my favourite pies and therefore worth talking about.

It's a vegetarian dish, which is highly unusual for me.

Heidi Pie

To make this, you will require the following

• Butternut squash
• rosemary
• olive oil
• 400g tinned tomatoes
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 finger chillies
• 150g soft goats cheese
• bag of washed spinach
• puff pastry - see earlier comments about making your own

Peel and core the squash and cut into chunks, coat with oil and scatter with rosemary.  Roast until soft.

Chop the garlic and fry in heated oil, add the chopped seeded chillies and fry until golden; add the tomatoes and bring to the boil then reduce the heat.

Blanche the spinach in boiling water and then shake off the excess water.  Slice the spinach.

Combine the tomatoes, spinach, butternut squash and goats cheese in a pie dish.  Cover with pastry, brush with egg yolk and cut a diamond pattern on.  Then bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for 35 minutes.

The result is a beautifully vibrant, colourful, tasty pie.