Food Minia

Rhubarb is such an odd fruit.  It's almost a twisted fact of nature that rhubarb is great at this time of year, just as we should be donning our suncream and sunglasses.  Then you have a spring like this one.  Days of dismal rain and almost tempted to switch on the central heating. So rhubarb suddenly has a strange purpose.  The joy, if you like, in the drizzled disappointment of British weather! After initial reluctance, my son loved this cake and so did I.  It lasted for 2 further days in a tin and I also froze some wedges which defrosted in the microwave beautifully. Great served warm as a pudding with silky double cream or custard or cold as a cake.  Ok, I'm not winning any prizes on health here but I figure it's still healthier than a chocolate bar, and, cream aside, it's pretty low in fat. Rhubarb Cake - makes 1 large cake Ingredients 60g, 2oz Margarine 300g, 10.5oz Sugar (I used a mix of half white and half dark soft brown sugar which...

Weetabix cake?  Am I serious?  Well I'd been trying different ways of using cereals quite a bit recently what with rice krispies with mackerel but I'd never found a way of using them in cakes like I had with bran loaf .  Shreddies seemed promising but were a bit of a failure when I gave them a go.  Who knew Weetabix would work? This tastes similar to my bran loaf , loads of fibre, sweet whilst being low in added sugar, dairy free fat free and lovely with a pot of tea! Weetabix Cake Ingredients 2 Weetabix (or own brand equivalent) 350ml, 12 fl oz Decaffeinated tea (just make with one decaf teabag) 110g, 4oz Muscovado or soft brown sugar 280g, 10oz Sultanas (golden raisins) 1 egg 225g, 8oz Self Raising Flour (or all purpose / plain flour plus 2 tsp baking powder) 1 tsp mixed spice Method Crush up the weetabix, mix with the sugar and dried fruit.  Soak in the tea for about an hour. Preheat the oven to 160oC.  Mix in the spice, flour and egg and pour into a gr...

Custard.  I never make it from scratch but I do make it from custard powder.  It occurred to me when making some custard from custard powder the other day that custard powder is simply cornflour (cornstarch) natural flavouring (vanilla) and colour (normally a natural colour like annatto).  I don't have much annatto floating around the house and there feels like something wrong about making white custard even though that's the colour it would be if not made with eggs, so my idea was to make chocolate custard. This would be great hot with chocolate cake, poured over banana (if you want to keep on my 7 a day routine), on it's own or allowed to cool in small pots and eaten cold like blancmange.  It's pretty low sugar too with only 1 tsp added sugar per portion.  There's more sugar in a fromage frais! Chocolate custard - Makes 2 small bowls Ingredients 280ml, Half Pint milk 1 rounded tbsp cornflour (cornstarch) 1 tsp Cocoa powder (unsweetened) 1/2 tsp Vanilla extrac...