Home: Tulpesh & Mae

04 March 2010

This page contains our favourite recipes, and is being added to frequently as we try to reach new culinary heights!

Please feel free to submit your own favourite recipes at the bottom of the page.

Flourless chocolate cake NEW! – submitted by Salma
Banana & hazelnut muffins NEW!
Coconut cookies
Cupcakes
Lemon cheesecake
Chilli bean open lasagne
Scones

Flourless chocolate cake NEW! – submitted by Salma

This cake is rich, soft and moist with a meringue-like crust.

Serves about 8.

1 teaspoon instant coffee powder
1 teaspoon hot water
100g butter
150g dark chocolate
4 large eggs at room temperature
170g (3/4 cup) caster sugar
200g almond meal (ground almonds)

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (160 degrees Celsius fan-assisted).

Grease the side and base of a 20cm diameter round cake pan. We use a springform pan for easy removal of the cake. Line base and side of the pan with non-stick baking paper.

Dissolve coffee in one teaspoon of hot water.

Place butter, chocolate, and dissolved coffee in a medium saucepan over low heat, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat when chocolate and butter have melted and mixture is smooth. Set aside to cool to room temperature.

Separate the egg whites from the egg yolks, taking care not to break the yolks. If any of the yolk gets into the whites, the yolk will prevent the egg whites from whipping properly.

Using electric hand-held beaters or an electric mixer, beat egg whites with about half the sugar in a large, clean bowl. Beat until soft peak stage (when the beater is lifted, a peak will form and then droop over).

In a separate bowl, beat yolks with remaining sugar using electric hand-held beaters or an electric mixer. Beat until mixture is light, thick and creamy.

Gently fold cooled chocolate mixture into yolk mixture.

Break up any lumps of almond meal before gently stirring it into the chocolate mixture.

Spoon about one third of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and use a spatula or large spoon to gently fold the egg whites through the mixture until just combined. Fold in remaining egg whites until just combined.

Pour mixture into prepared pan and bake for 40 minutes.

Remove cake from oven and cover with a clean tea towel. Allow to cool in pan.

Serve slices of the cake with whipped cream, berries, ice cream, chocolate sauce or simply dusted with icing sugar.

Banana & hazelnut muffins NEW!

Makes 10-12 muffins

125 g / 5 oz self-raising flour
3 tbsp caster sugar
85 g / 3oz roughly chopped hazelnuts
1 egg, beaten
50 ml milk
50 ml melted butter, room temperature
2 bananas, roughly chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees / gas mark 6.
2. Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl.
3. Spoon into the muffin forms.
4. Bake for 25-30 minutes.

Coconut cookies

Makes 12 large cookies

115 g / 4 oz butter, softened
70 g / 2.5 oz caster sugar
½ egg yolk
½ tsp vanilla flavouring (optional)
140 g / 5 oz plain flour
50 g / 1.5 oz dessicated coconut
salt

1. Heat the oven to 190 °C / 375 °F / Gas Mark 5. Line a big baking sheet with baking paper.
2. Mix the butter and sugar together. Mix in the egg yolk and vanilla flavouring. Sift in the flour and salt and add the coconut. Mix thoroughly.
3. Divide into 12 lumps and place them on the baking sheet. Flatten them and try to make them round.
4. Bake for 12 minutes. Let them cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack.
5. Optional: Melt some chocolate and dip the cookies half into the chocolate, then let set.

Cupcakes

Makes 8 large cupcakes

2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
125 g / 4 oz caster sugar
125 g / 4 oz soft margarine
125 g / 4 oz self-raising flour

1. Heat the oven to 180 °C / 350 °F / Gas Mark 4.
2. Put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix together.
3. Place paper muffin forms or cake forms into a bun tin, cupcake tin or muffin tin and half-fill each form with mixture.
4. Cook for 18-20 minutes. You can tell the cupcakes are done when they have risen up, are golden in colour, and spring back into shape when lightly pressed.
5. Decorate the cupcakes with icing sugar, Cadbury buttons and hundreds & thousands, or anything else you want!

Lemon cheesecake

BASE
300g biscuits (one packet, roughly)
120g butter

FILLING
225 g Philadelphia
130g icing sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla sugar
250 ml sour cream
250 ml cream
1 packet of lemon jelly powder

1. Crumble the biscuits and mix with the melted butter. Push into bottom of cake form and leave in fridge for a couple of hours, or in the freezer for 20 minutes if in a hurry.

2. Make lemon jelly as per the instructions on the packet. Put in the fridge to cool, but do not let it settle! I did and got lemon chip cheesecake…

3. Knead the Philadelphia until it has no lumps. Mix in icing sugar, vanilla sugar and sour cream. Whip the cream and mix it in. Then add the cooled jelly. Mix carefully to avoid lumps.

4. Pour mixture over the base and put in fridge.

Chilli bean open lasagne

1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 red chilli, finely sliced
1 small aubergine, chopped
1 large courgette, chopped
410 g can borlotti beans, drained
400 g can chopped tomatoes
2 tbsp tomato pur�e
250 g pack fresh lasagne sheets
handful of basil, torn
100 g / 4 oz vegetarian cheddar, grated
green salad, to serve

Takes 30 minutes
Serves 4

1. Heat the oil in a large frying pan. Fry the onion (2-3 minutes) until softened. Add the garlic, chilli, aubergine and courgette and cook for a further 2 minutes. Stir in the beans, tomatoes and tomato pur�e. Season and allow the mix to simmer for 5 minutes.

2. Cook the lasagne sheets – cook the sheets separately to prevent them from sticking together. Drain, then halve each sheet diagonally.

3. Stir all but four of the basil sprigs into the bean mixture.

4. Place a large spoonful of the mixture onto each plate and top with layers of the lasagne triangles. Top with another spoonful of the bean mix, add some grated cheese and a basil leaf. Serve with green salad.

Scones

Recipe makes 16 average sized scones (or 8 large scones)

16 oz self-raising flour
4 oz butter, room temperature
3 oz sugar
Sultanas (or other dried fruit as preferred)
Buttermilk (or just egg & milk to bind the mixture)

1. Sift the flour into a large bowl and rub in the butter.

2. Stir in the sugar, mixing well.

3. Add the dried fruit – as much as you like.

4. Little-by-little add the buttermilk and bind until the dough is soft and dough-like – but not too wet.

5. Pre-heat the oven to 170 °C (Gas mark 3.5) and lightly grease a baking sheet.

6. Form 16 round balls of dough with your hands and place each one on the baking sheet (about an inch apart).

7. Brush the tops with a little buttermilk (or egg & milk) for a shiny coating.

8. Cook in the oven on the middle shelf until the scones begin to colour slightly (around 15 minutes – but keep checking after about 12 minutes as it all depends on your oven and the size of the scone).

Tip: To test whether the scone is cooked: lift from the tray and tap the bottom of the scone, it should sound hollow.

9. Place cooked scones on a cooling tray and start brewing the tea.

10. Sit down with a nice hot cup of tea and a freshly baked scone eaten in one of the following ways:

1) As it is – perfect and simple!
2) With jam – lovely!
3) With butter and jam – treat yourself!
4) With clotted cream and jam – pure indulgence – go for it!!

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28 February 2010

Books , Tulpesh Patel , Comment

My reviews

The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

by Sam Harris

In the End of Faith Sam Harries argues that we are reaching a point where essentially religion will be the end of us all, unless secular atheists stand up to fundamentalist and moderate religionists alike.

This book, literally, starts with bang, and Harris doesn’t really let up for the rest of the book in an almost relentless barrage of arguments and ideas laying pretty much all the world’s ills at the doorstep of religion, and in a post 9/11 world, Islam in particular – an entire chapter is devoted to The Problem with Islam, and 4 pages to quotes from the Koran advocating violence against unbelievers.

There is definitely a need for this kind of book, which is not afraid to skirt around difficult issues, and ignores the trend for diffidence in the majority of books dealing with the problems faced in a world where religious proponents hold a great deal of sway over the lives of many.

Harris certainly has the courage of his convictions; the book is very strongly worded and definitely falls into the ‘militant atheist’ camp (although I really hate that phrase). Whilst, largely, well argued, some of the book will not sit well with some, particularly the advocacy of torture, futility of pacifism and essentially fighting fire with fire.

I enjoyed the section on the empiricism of Mysticism and the need and justification for claiming spirituality as something which is compatible with a rational, atheistic outlook, but found the majority of the book a little scatter-gun in its approach.

The End of Faith is full of great pithy, quotable one liners, but I found it lacking as a cohesive argument, however forcefully it was argued.

Pygmy

by Chuck Palahniuk

In a sense this is very much what you would expect of a Chuck Palahniuk novel: inventive narration (more of which later), outlandish characterisation, gratuitous sex and violence and biting, if a little heavy handed, satire.

The story is told in the Pidgin English of a child terrorist agent from an unknown communist state, who has been dispatched to America to infiltrate an all American family and commit an act of terrorism designed to bring the country to it’s knees.

First things first: the narrative. Using broken English allows Palahniuk to ignore any form of subtlety (which has never been too much of a concern for him anyway) and be nothing less than brutal in sending up Western consumerism and American culture. The language does take a while to get use to; the tone is a little uneven, and I found it took longer to read than most novels because I was constantly re-reading passages in order to make sense of them. I didn’t mind this too much however as on the whole I thought it worked very well and was quite cleverly used.

However, revealing the story as a series of reports back to the homeland doesn’t really work when we have to recap events the precede the visit to America in order to get some back story on the character – it was an unnecessary distraction from the story, and as I’ve written in other reviews of Palahniuk’s books, just one idea too many.

It says a lot for the book it is the language rather than the story itself that has driven much of this review, which is shame a because I actually really enjoyed it. Pygmy makes for a pretty complex character despite the mechanised personality drummed into him, and there is a palpable sense of tension and Operation Havoc draws near. The trials and tribulations of the adoptive family make for great, if at times cartoonish, reading.

Spoiler alert!

Some of the violence is just half a step away from being too far; the encounter between Pygmy and the clear-yellow bully makes for brutal reading, but then, through the eyes of Pygmy, the massacre in the gym takes on an almost comical tone.

Spoiler ends

The jacket describes the book as a comedy, which might be a bit of a stretch, although it did score a pretty high wry-smile count. An excellent take on Western imperialism and his finest book since Fight Club, but that’s not the ringing endorsement it should be, given some of the uneven dross in between.

The Gum Thief

by Douglas Coupland

Written as a series of letters between two employees at a Staples stationary outlet (and later various members of their friends and families), this is a story of one man’s battle with himself and his mid-life crisis and a young goth finding out who she is under all her make up.

It’s touching and clever as the beginning of the book unfolds as letters between the two main characters, but the novel falls apart as more and more letters are flying around in order to incorporate more characters in to the mix; it all becomes a little unbelievable.

I normally hate stories within a story as they’re usually too knowing for their own good but I really enjoyed them here, Glove Pond and Toast are fantastic swipes at the pretensions that drown writers.

The book is full of neat observations; one of the character’s musings on what it means to be you and what part of ‘you’ is alive are brilliant, but it’s also littered with unnecessary ‘zeitgeisty’ references to google and youtube, which feel a little contrived and like Coupland is clutching for something that made Generation X so good.

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