Recipe Muscovado Fudge!

Salaam alaykum,

Yesterday I added a post called “Alternative to Gelatine”. In that post I added a recipe for caramel cheesecake (yummy). The topping for that cheesecake is 50g fudge and icing sugar. Well, now I’ve had an idea, why not place a recipe for fudge? And the best part is, the cheesecake is made with light and dark Muscovado sugar and I have a recipe for light and dark Muscovado fudge!!! 

This recipe works best if you have a sugar/jam thermometer by the way. I think that homemade fudge is better then store-bought and because both the cheesecake and the fudge are made from Muscovado sugar, you will taste the delicious flavour of the sugar even better!

As I mentioned before, the cheesecake recipe calls for 50g of fudge, well this recipe is for 80 portions and that is way more then 50g, so at the end you have a lot of fudge, nice! The best result for the cheesecake topping is when you have 25g light fudge and 25g dark fudge; simply cut the ingredients in half and put in one half the light sugar and in the other half the dark sugar.

For 80 portions of Muscovado Fudge

Ingredients

225g Butter

410 ml Evaporated milk

900g Light Muscovado sugar (For Dark Muscovado Fudge, simply replace the light sugar for dark sugar).

3 tsp Vanilla extract (Make sure that there is no alcohol in it, otherwise use vanilla essence).

Preparation

• Lightly grease a 22x 32 swiss roll tin (at least 1.5cm deep) with melted butter.

• Melt the butter in a large heavy-based saucepan over a low heat. Add the evaporated milk, 200ml water, the sugar and vanilla extract and stir with a whisk until the sugar has completely dissolved. Turn the heat up and simmer vigorously, whisking every now and then, for 50 minutes- 1 hour, until the mixture reaches 116-118C (the soft-ball stage). To test, take the pan off the heat and drop a small blob of the mixture into a bowl of cold water. It should be firm but still malleable.

• Plunge the base of the pan into cold water for a few minutes to stop the mixture cooking further, then leave to cool to 110 C (about 5 minutes). Stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture thickens, loses it shin and begins to sound almost gritty on the pan base. Quickly pour into the prepared tin and leave to go cold, then cut into squares.

(A swiss roll tin)

How to extend the storage life of your cake + recipe boerencake.

Salaam alaykum,

I found a great tip to extend the storage life of your cake. This tip is especially helpful for me because my husband doesn’t eat sweet things at all! And I LOVE sweet things! Can you imagine that you want to bake a cake, but you’re the only one who has to eat it? A whole cake, just for yourself? And people usually make cake for a special occasion and on a special occasion there are a lot of people, and we are just with the two of us! So I usually have to throw the remains away after 3 days! And we Muslims all know that we can’t waste food or drinks!

Well, to extend the storage life of your cake, simply store it with half an apple! This also works with a couple of sugar cubes.

This recipe is for a traditional and delicious Dutch cake called Boerencake, roughly translated into Farmerscake.




Ingredients

200g Soft butter
250g Self raising flour
200g Sugar
3 eggs
50 ml milk
1 Pinch of Salt
7g Vanilla sugar

Preparation

• Reheat the oven to 160 C

• Grease the cake tin and dust it with flour.

• With an electric mixer, stir the butter, sugar, salt and vanilla sugar into a smooth and creamy batter.

• Beat the eggs one by one into the batter and continue mixing for 5 minutes.

• Sift the flour through the batter and pour the milk on top of it.

• Keep mixing until a smooth paste.

• Pour the mixture into the cake tin and en and bake the cake in 75 minutes golden brown.

La Place + recipe tuna salad.

Salaam alaykum,

In Holland we have a restaurant called La Place. Actually it is a “food on the go” restaurant, but you can also sit there and eat. They sell really high quality food; everything is homemade, super fresh and organic. What I also like is that all the food is made right in front of you; for example, if you want a pizza, you can choose the ingredients you desire and they bake it for you in a real pizza oven! Hmm La Place! 

They also have really delicious Italian coffee and great pastry which you can enjoy after a long day of shopping. Ooh how do I love their brownies, they are really the best I’ve ever had!!!

Ok so why do I mention La Place? That is because they have the best tuna salad ever! When my mother and I wanted to take a break during a day of shopping, we used to go there especially for their Panini with tuna salad, combined with one of their freshly squeezed juices or smoothies. Oh how I missed those days!

Well, about a week ago I was craving for a Panini with tuna salad from La Place and no, I’m not going to travel thousands of miles just to get that Panini! Although, after a while it didn’t sound like a bad idea after all! But let’s get to the point. So as preserving as I am, I knew that someone in this world must have this recipe in his possession and I certainly knew that someone had posted it on the www. So I began my search and TADAA! There it was!

They actually use cocktail sauce and that is sometime prepared with alcohol, so to make this recipe halal, we’re just going to use mayonnaise and ketchup!

Ingredients:

2 Apples

2 Tomatoes

2 Medium onions

250 ml Mayonnaise

250 ml Ketchup

10g Salt and pepper

500g Canned tuna

Preparation:

  

• Remove the core from the apples and cut them into cubes from 3 x 3 mm. Do the same with the onions and the tomatoes.

• Drain the tuna and mix it together with the apples, onions and tomatoes in a bowl.

• Add the ketchup and mayonnaise and mix it well together with a spatula.

• Make sure that it’s not to mushy!

• Then add the salt and pepper.

Bon appétit!

Note: These pictures are from the actual products of La Place!

Alternative to Gelatine + recipe caramel cheesecake.

Salaam alaykum,

Most Muslims don't eat gelatine. Gelatine is a translucent, colourless, brittle, nearly tasteless solid substance, derived from the collagen inside animals' skin and bones. Gelatine is usually made from 27% bones, 28% bovine hides, 44% pig skin and 1% other. As you can see it contains almost half pig skin!

An natural substitute for gelatine is Agar Agar. Agar Agar is a gelatinous substance derived from seaweed. Just simply replace an equal amount of gelatine powder into Agar Agar powder. If a recipe calls for gelatine leafs, simply replace 4 gelatine leafs for 1 tbsp Agar Agar powder.

A lot of people use gelatine to make cheesecake:

Caramel Cheesecake

Ingredients:

50g unsalted butter

140g plain digestive biscuits

For the filling:

1 tbsp of gelatine powder (simply replace it for 1 tbsp of agar agar powder).

400g crème fraîche

100g light muscovado sugar

50g dark muscovado sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract (make sure that there is no alcohol in it, otherwise use vanilla essence)

400g ricotta

50g fudge , finely sliced (check out my recipe for muscovado fudge)

icing sugar , for dusting

Preparation:

• Gently melt the butter in a small pan over a low heat. Place the digestives in a plastic bag and crush to fine crumbs using a rolling pin; you can also do this in a food processor. Tip them into the pan with the melted butter, stir to coat, then transfer to a 20cm springform cake tin (9cm deep). Using the back of a spoon, press them into the base, making sure you seal the edges. Place in the fridge while you prepare the next stage.

• Sprinkle agar agar onto about 3 tbsp of boiling water in a small bowl, leave for 3-4 mins, then stir to dissolve. If the agar agar has not completely dissolved, stand the bowl in another bowl of just-boiled water for a few mins, then stir again. Alternatively, set the bowl over a pan with a little simmering water in it.

• Place the crème fraîche in a small pan with the muscovado sugars and a pinch of sea salt, then gently heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until the mixture liquefies and the sugar has dissolved. Give the mixture a quick whisk to get rid of any lumps. It should be warm, roughly the same temperature as the gelatine solution. Stir the gelatine and vanilla extract into the crème fraîche mixture, transfer to a bowl and cool.

• Place the ricotta in a food processor and whizz until smooth, then add the crème fraîche mixture and whizz again. Pour this on top of the cheesecake base. Cover with cling film and chill overnight.

• Run a knife around the sides of the tin, then undo the clip and remove it. Transfer to a plate or leave the cheesecake on the base for ease of serving. Pile the fudge flakes in the centre and dust with icing sugar. Cover and chill until required.

Alternative to Buttermilk + recipe Irish soda bread.

Salaam alaykum,

Like the most people I never have buttermilk in the house because I simply don’t like it. So when I want to make something which contains buttermilk, like for example to make Irish soda bread, I replace the weight of buttermilk with one third natural yoghurt and two thirds milk.

Soda Bread

This is a really quick and easy bread to make. There is no kneading or proving!

Ingredients

250g Wholemeal plain flour

250g Plain flour

1 tsp Salt

1 tsp Bicarbonate of soda

1½ tsp Cream of tartar

25g Butter

335 ml Buttermilk

60 ml Warm water

Preparation

• Preheat the oven to 200 C/ fan 180 C/gas mark 6. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar into a large bowl, then stir in the salt.

• Lightly rub in the butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

• Make a well in the centre and gradually add the buttermilk and enough of the water to form a soft dough

• Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead lightly, then shape into a 20cm round. Place on a baking sheet and, using a sharp knife, mark a deep cross on the top.

• Bake the loaf for 30 minutes or until risen and golden brown. Cool on a wire rack. Serve warm or cold.

Make your own pizza stone for less than £1 + recipe thick pizza dough.

Salaam alaykum,

Before I became Muslim, I worked in a quite expensive Italian restaurant called Oceano. They had the best pizza ever, really. Most of the staff including the chefs where Italian, so all of the dishes had the real distinctive Italian taste you would expect from a good Italian restaurant. And guess what, the most popular pizza (Cafoncella) was made with raw ham! And I can tell you, it tasted delicious. I always craved to make a pizza base like that.

The first time I made my own pizza I was a little disappointed, it didn’t even came close to an Italian pizza! It looked more like an American style pizza base, no offense! There was really nothing crispy about it. I taught that it was the flour I used so I started to use a high gluten bread flour from Allinson. I searched for a recipe which used the same brand of flour. 

I found a recipe for pizza dough called The Ultimate Pizza Dough with a picture of a delicious and crispy looking pizza. I tried it. Good pizza, but it tasted more like bread and it wasn’t crispy at all! The flour tasted really good by the way. So if you like thick bases, here’s the recipe. This recipe is for 3-4 medium bases.

Ingredients

500g Strong white bread flour

½ tsp Salt

1 Sachet instant yeast

2 tbsp golden caster sugar

325 ml warm water

Preparation

• Put the flour and yeast and salt in a large bowl and mix together. Make a well in the centre of the mix.

• Stir the sugar into the warm water then add to the well in the centre of the dry mix.

• Work for the outer edge and mix all the dry ingredients into the water. When the mix has come together turn out on to a lightly floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes. At this stage the dough should be soft and spring back when lightly touched.

• Flour the dough and cover with cling and leave to rest for about 15 minutes.

• If not baking immediately leave the dough wrapped in lightly oiled cling film and palce in the fridge until you are ready to shape and bake.

• Divide the dough into 3 or 4 pieces depending on how many pizza bases you want to make.

• Taking one pieces at a time and roll out on a very lightly floured surface. Ideally the base should be 5mm thick but you can be creative on the shape. Why not try, oval, or square for a change! Place on a baking tray and leave the rolled bases for 15 to 30 minutes to rest. Meanwhile preheat the oven to 200C/fan 180 C/ gas mark 6.

• When ready to bake add your desired topping and bake for 7 to 8 minutes.

So after a not so long search I figured out that I needed a pizza stone. I looked online and find out that they where quite expensive. So after a while I found a few articles talking about how you can make your own pizza stone for under $3!

Basically you just need to buy unglazed quarry tiles which you can find in your local home depot store. It is really essential that they are unglazed because the glaze may contain lead, and that is not very healthy!

Quarry tiles have a terracotta or brownish colour and look like terracotta pots, they are probably the cheapest in the store, I found an 15 x 15cm for £0,08! You can find the tiles in different sizes but they usually come in 3 sizes:

15 x 15 cm

20 x 20 cm

30 x 30 cm

I found a store which has all three sizes.

So now it’s time to measure your oven. The tile needs to fit in your oven so that there is at least 2 cm space all the way around it.

My oven is 40 x 40 cm. So basically I can by one big tile of 30 x 30 cm or 4 of 15 x 15 cm and then I have 10 cm space al the way around the tile. And the best part is that it is only £0,32!

Using Your Homemade Pizza Stone

• When you get your stone home you will want to wash it thoroughly with water. Since the stone is porous it absorbs everything and soap flavoured pizza is simply disgusting! Always just rinse your stone when needed. Make sure it has cooled down thoroughly and then use warm water to rinse.

• Allow it to dry for several hours. It must be all the way dry or you run the risk of it cracking in the oven.

• Place the stone or stones in the cold oven making sure to leave at least 1" of airspace around the stones.

• Preheat the oven to the highest degree it can get with the stone in it. Allow to heat for about an hour.

• Use a paddle or rimless cookie sheet to slide your pizza onto the stone. If you roll your dough out on cornmeal it won't stick to the paddle.

Bake until done and then remove the pizza with the paddle.

You can bake all day on stored heat because the tiles stay warm all day!

Great isn’t it? So I’m going to try this out and tell you how it worked out!

By the way, the tiles look like this: