BROCCOLI CAKE

This is great for a weekend lunch. You need:

- 250 g flour
- one teaspoon of baking powder
- 150 ml sunflower oil
- 4 eggs
- 150 ml buttermilk (or 100 ml milk with 4 spoonfuls of yogurt)
- 5 medium size florets of broccoli (cut the base in a straight line)
- 150 g of cubes or small stripes of bacon
- 100 g feta cheese
- salt (not much as you have both bacon and feta)

Preheat the oven at 185 degrees and grease a loaf cake tin. Mix the flour, salt and baking powder. Separately mix the oil, eggs and buttermilk. Then mix the dry and wet ingredients. Fry the bacon, get rid of the fat and add it to the mixture. Put half of the mixture in the greased pound cake tin, then line up the florets of broccoli in the center. Cover with the rest of the mixture and sprinkle the feta on top. Bake for 40 minutes - it is nicer when it is served warm.

COCONUT FLAPJACKS

This recipe is for Dane, who had not eaten flapjacks before I made them. For those of you who are not British, flapjacks are a staple treat in the UK. For some reason they have a reputation of being on the healthy side, which is insane if you look at the amount of butter and syrup they have. But certainly better than a frosted cake. 

You need: 

- 200 g butter

- 6 tablespoons golden syrup. If you cannot get golden syrup just try a combination of corn syrup and brown sugar.

- 320 g oats

- 3 tablespoons shredded coconut

- 2 tablespoons dried cranberries (chopped thinly)

- 2 tablespoons linseed 

Preheat the oven at 180 degrees (350 F). Combine all the ingredients but the butter and syrup in a bowl. Separately put the butter and syrup in a pan and heat it until the butter melts (best way to do this is greasing the spoon a little bit with a flavourless vegetable oil first). Add the butter and syrup to the dry ingredients, mix, and put it all in a tray lined with baking paper. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until golden. 

When you take the tray off the oven, score them into squares with a sharp knife. As soon as they get cold you can cut them along the knife marks.  

You can substitute the coconut and cranberries but any other dried fruit you fancy. But you may want to keep the linseed, as it gives the flapjacks a really nice crunch.

PICKLED RED ONIONS

I am addicted to these, love them in salads, with smoked salmon, fresh salmon, lentils, cured meats... I even like them with burgers. And could not be simpler to make. You need:

- a red onion (sliced very thinly)
-  a bay leaf
- 10 black peppercorns
- half a teaspoon of salt
- 100 ml vinegar
- 200 ml water

Heat the water, vinegar, salt, bay leaf and peppercorns in a pan. Put the onions in a jar. When the liquid starts to boil, pour it over the onions, close the lid of the jar and wait for at least one hour. They last for a week and a half or so in the fridge.

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

These are always a winner, even amongst Americans who, let's face it, are so much better than us (N.B.- this is a 'European inclusive us' not a 'British nationalistic us') at chocolate chip cookies. The original recipe is from Mary Berry for cookies three ways, but the chocolate ones are by far the most popular 'chez nous' - and we have altered the recipe a tiny bit to make them less sweet over time.

You need:
175 soft butter
175 plain flour
55 g of sugar (the original recipe calls for more, but they come out too sweet for my taste)
75 semolina
70 g dark chocolate chips (or less if you follow the original recipe and do not like the bitter taste of dark chocolate)

Preheat the oven at 180 degrees, Mix all the ingredients but the chocolate in a food processor (pulse it). Then mix the chocolate chips by hand. Make little balls with the dough, put them on a lined baking tray, press them down with your fingers to flatten them and bake for 12 minutes.

If you want softer cookies replace the semolina with plain flour and add a teaspoon of corn starch.

LEMON BISCUITS

Still having too many lemons - so here goes another simple and really delicious recipe with them. It takes no time at all  - I made these for some guests who were coming for coffee just forty minutes before they arrived and I still had spare time.

Preheat the oven at 175 degrees.

You need:

-210 g plain flour

- 115 g butter (room temperature)

- one egg

- zest of a lemon

- juice of half a lemon

- half a teaspoon of baking powder

- half a teaspoon of salt 

- one egg

- a teaspoon of vanilla essence

Mix the flour, baking powder and salt. Separately mix the butter and sugar, beat well, then add the egg, and then add the lemon zest, lemon juice and vanilla essence. Add the flour mixture, mixing it all well. Put spoonfuls of the mixture on an oven tray covered with baking paper. Bake for 13-15 minutes.

If you want to make these even nicer make a simple glaze with 100 g of powdered sugar and around five tablespoons of lemon juice, just mixing it all well (it helps if you sift the powdered sugar, but don't bother if you are in a rush). Just pour the glazing with a spoon over the biscuits when they are cold (I cannot stand glazing, which is after all pure sugar, so I put as little as possible and don't bother about making them pretty - in fact the more uneven they are the more home-made they look) 

ECLAIRS - PETISUS

In my village these are called 'petisus' with an accent in the 'u'. I suppose this comes from the french 'petit-choux' as they are little bits of choux pastry filled with cream, but where I come from we are not good at languages, so 'petisus' it is. Our local bakery sells them with three types of icing: dark chocolate, white chocolate and caramel. And pretty much any celebration in the village happens with a big tray of these, so they epitomise happiness to me.

You need:
For the pastry:
- 65 ml milk
- 70 g plain flour
- 70 g butter
- 3 eggs
- a pinch of salt

For the cream: 
- 540 ml milk
- 60 ml cream
- 4 egg yokes
- 50 gr corn flour
- 120 sugar
- a teaspoon of vanilla extract

For the icing:
- 150 ml double crem
- 200 g dark chocolate

Start with the cream. Heat 400 ml of milk, the cream and vanilla extract until it is about to boil. Separately mix the rest of the milk with the corn flour and disolve it well. Mix the egg yokes and sugar beating well until they get frothy. Mix the egg mixture with the cornflour mixture, still mixing it well. Finally, add the warm milk to the eggs and cornflour mixture. Put it all back in a pan over low heat (while you keep stirring it) until becomes thick. Take it off the heat, put it in a piping bag and put it in the fridge until it gets cold (you can do this the night before you are going to make the petisus) 

Heat the oven at 180 degrees. Put a tray with water in the lowest part of the oven so that the oven produces steam.

Put the butter and the milk in a pan over low heat until the butter is melted. Add the flour and salt (all in one go) and beat well with a wooden spoon for 3 minutes. Take the pan off the heat and wait for 10 minutes so that the mixture cools down. Beat 2 eggs and add them in little bits (you may not need all of it) Put the mixture into a pipping bag.

Pipe little strips of the mixture on a tray covered with silicone. Push down any peaks by patting them carefully with a wet finger. Beat the remaining egg and paint each blob with the egg wash. Bake for 22 minutes. make a little cut at the side of each strip as you take them out of the oven.

Finally make the icing by putting the chocolate and cream in a pan over low heat until the chocolate dissolves and you get a glossy mixture (around three minutes)

Pipe the cream into each strip of choux pastry and coat each one with the chocolate. 

Wait for 20 minutes or so until the chocolate gets hard and eat. 

GOUGERES

Once you learn how to make choux pastry, you can make lots of different recipes. These are gougeres, i.e salty choux pastry. By far my favourite recipe with choux pastry, as I like anything with cheese. My children also prefer these over chouquettes. Though profiteroles are of course something else...

You need:
- 65 ml milk
- 70 g plain flour
- 70 g butter
- 3 eggs
- 125 g strong grated cheese
- a pinch of grated nutmeg
- a pinch of ground pepper
- a pinch of salt

Heat the oven at 180 degrees. Put a tray with water in the lowest part of the oven so that the oven produces steam.

Put the butter and the milk  in a pan over low heat until the butter is melted. Add the flour and salt (all in one go) and beat well with a wooden spoon for 3 minutes. Take the pan off the heat and wait for 10 minutes so that the mixture cools down. Beat 2 eggs and add them in  little bits (you may not need all of it, but the only way to find this out is trial and error. The good news is that when you make choux pastry 4 or 5 times you will never forget what consistency you need). Finally add the pepper, nutmeg and cheese. Put the mixture into a pipping bag.

Pipe little blobs of the mixture on a tray covered with silicone. Push down any peaks by patting them carefully with a wet finger. Beat the remaining egg and paint each blob with the egg wash. Bake for 22 minutes.  

CHOUQUETTES

While this year I am working this week, for many years I used to spend a few days at the beginning of August in France. Nothing reminds me more of La Republique than going to a bakery early in the morning to buy croissants and chouquettes - vive La France! While making croissants in a pain in... the neck, making chouquettes is very easy indeed.
You need:
- 65 ml milk
- 70 g plain flour
- 70 g butter
- 3 eggs
- 150 g pearl sugar 

Heat the oven at 180 degrees. Put a tray with water in the lowest part of the oven so that the oven produces steam.

Put the butter and the milk  in a pan over low heat until the butter is melted. Add the flour (all in one go) and beat well with a wooden spoon for 3 minutes. Take the pan off the heat and wait for 10 minutes so that the mixture cools down. Beat 2 eggs in  little bits) and put the mixture into a pipping bag.

Pipe little blobs of the mixture on a tray covered with silicone. Push down any peaks by patting them carefully with a wet finger. 

Beat the remaining egg and paint each blob with the egg wash. Sprinkle the blobs with plenty of pearl sugar. Put the tray with the chouquettes into the oven and bake for 20 minutes. Delicieux. 

MARINATED CARROTS - ZANAHORIAS ALIÑADAS

This is called 'zanahorias aliñadas' or 'aliñás' if you happen to be in Andalucia, which is where this dish comes from. A bite of this on a sunny day and you will feel as if you are in Sevilla, my favourite town in Spain and a truly happy place. 

You need:
- 3 carrots
- a teaspoon salt
- a teaspoon of sweet paprika or pimenton
- a clove of garlic
- a teaspoon of ground cumin
- half a glass of olive oil
- a glass of water

Boil the carrots until they are 'al dente'. Cut them into thick slices and let them cool down. Ground the garlic with the salt in a pester and mortar. Add the pimenton, cumin and oregano, then the olive oil and finally the water. Put the carrots into a plastic container (with a lid), cover them with the marinade and keep them in the fridge over night. Serve this cold (if you want to do this authentically serve them as a snack, with  toothpics on the side and a glass of cold 'fino' sherry) . I normally dry the carrots with kitchen paper before serving them as the marinade can be too strong, but that really depends on your taste... 

CHEESE AND PUMPKIN SEED BISCUITS

… and these are some cheese biscuits that you can eat with the broccoli mayo (see our recipe) or any other dip, though my children and their friends eat them (devour them to be precise) on their own.

You need:
- 135 gr plain flour
- 120 gr grated cheddar
- 80 ml sunflower oil
- 30 ml milk
- a pinch of salt
- a pinch of paprika
- a handful of sunflower seeds

Mix all the ingredients but the sunflower seeds. Make a roll with the dough and put it in the fridge (covered by cling film or foil) for one hour. Then preheat the oven at 200 degrees. Cut slices of the roll, put them on a baking tray covered with baking paper. Press a few sunflower seeds on top of each biscuit and bake for 8 minutes (or until golden).  It is very difficult to stop eating these.

...

ROSCON

This is a recipe for Roscon, which is a cake that we eat in Spain with hot (very thick) chocolate on the evening of 5 January. Year after year the whole country goes out to the streets to watch the Three Kings (Reyes) parading through each town and village. Then we get together with families and friends to eat the Roscon, which always comes with a 'surprise' (a bean or a coin) inside it. Whoever finds the surprise has to pay for the Roscon. Then before going to bed we leave our shoes by the window, together with some left-over Roscon for the Kings and a bucket of water for their camels. If you have behaved well you get presents in your shoes by the following morning. And if you have behaved badly you get only coal (the Three Kings are much stricter than Father Christmas!)

On Epiphany (Reyes day on 6 January) you are meant to make some wishes for the rest of the year. Mine is that we all (all reasonable people that means - of which there are many, millions of us...we are actually the majority of people, so sure you are one of them!) speak out way more. In my dream world we would all (and especially all young people) decide to be involved in politics in whatever shape or form. We would be actually proud of being citizens of the world. We would try to convince all boys and girls to treasure excellence, and to aspire to being not ordinary, but elite, in whatever they want to do. We would speak up so loudly that nobody would care about what the trolls and populists say because we would be answering back, with reasoned arguments, to them. And we would defend with passion and conviction the need for more, yes more, enlightenment, rationalism, multilateralism and international engagement... I promise I was really good last year, so hope that the Reyes bring me at least a little bit of all this!

This is what you need for the recipe of the Roscon (it feeds 15 with a cup of hot chocolate for each):

- 850 gr plain flour
- 3 eggs
- 500 ml milk
-  pinch of salt
- 60 ml of orange blossom essence (yes, a whole bottle)
- 150 gr butter (room temperature)
- 150 gr sugar
- grated zest of a lemon
- grated zest of an orange
- 14 gr of dried yeast

For decoration (most of this is optional):
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons milk
- a handful of flaked almonds
- a handful of perled sugar (if you do not have this, then a handful and a half of normal sugar)
- candied peel
- candied cherries

Mix the yeast, two tablespoons of flour and 80 ml of milk. Let it rest for half an hour until it becomes foamy.Then mix the rest of the flour, salt, milk, orange blouson essence, butter and eggs and mix it all well. Add the yeasty mixture and mix it well, kneading it a bit until the mixture does not stick any longer (this may take you 10 minutes or so). Then put it all in a big bowl, cover with cling film and let it rest for 2.30-3.00 hours. It should double in size.

Shape the mixture as a ring (leave a big hole as it will close down as the mixture raises) and let it rest again for another 2.30-3 hours.

After that, paint the Roscon with the egg and milk. Decorate with the perled sugar (if you do not have perled sugar then mix  the normal sugar with half a teaspoon of water and decorate the Roscon with it), candied peel and cherries. Preheat the oven at 175 degrees. Bake for 20 minutes. Then paint some spots with a bit the egg mixture and add a few flaked almonds on it. Bake for a further 10 minutes.

This is best if it is a bit warm. But since the chocolate is hot it does not matter if you have prepared it some hours in advance (I always struggle for time, so I prepare it in the evening and let it rise overnight...and it is still good!) Just dunk the cake into the chocolate and enjoy.    

CHRISTMAS TREE BISCUITS

We make these every year to decorate the Christmas tree. If you are in a 'being a good person' phase, just follow the recipe and use nicely flavoured sweets to make the transparent glass. The risk is that  your children will eat the biscuits as soon as you look the other side, just as my 3 years old niece did last week (the results of which you can see in my instagram account miriamgonzalezdurantez) If you are in a 'fed up of being a good person' phase, then add four generous teaspoons of ground black pepper to the mixture and use strong mint flavoured sweets - you can be sure the children will not mess around with your tree.

You need:
- 1 egg
- 100 gr sugar
- 100 gr butter at room temperature
- 275 plain flower
- half a teaspoon of powdered cinnamon
-  half a teaspoon of vanilla essence
For the decoration
- and egg white
- 225 gr icing sugar
- 6 boiled sugar sweets (any colour you like)

Preheat the oven at 190 degrees.
Beat the sugar and butter in a food processor. Add the egg, then the cinnamon and vanilla and finally the flour. Wrap it all with cling film and let it rest for 30-45 minutes in the fridge. Then roll it out to the thickness of a pound  (or a euro - almost the same thickness and on the way to being the same value!) and cut the biscuits in whatever shape you wish.

Put the biscuits on a tray lined with being paper. Remember to make a hole at the top of each biscuit. And if you want to get a transparent effect then cut a shape inside each biscuit and put a sweet (or half a sweet) inside each shape. Bake the biscuits for 15 minutes ( we got 24 biscuits, but it depends on how big your cutter is)

Let the biscuits cool down completely. Then prepare the icing by just whisking the egg white and icing sugar for 5 minutes. You need a pipping bag with a very small nozzle to decorate it with whatever shapes you wish. Though they also look good if you just cover the biscuits in icing with a teaspoon.

'CHOC DRINK POWDER' CAKE

This cake has been branded the 'best-est' cake by my kids. It is neither wet, not dry, neither bitter, nor too sweet. Simply superb. And truly one of the easiest caked to make, to the point that when we were about to put the cake in the oven they asked 'is that it!?'.

The recipe comes from Samantha Vallejo-Najera, a very well known chef/caterer/business woman in Spain, who -together with eleven wonderful women at the top of their fields and many many more guests - helped us launch Inspiring Girls in Madrid last week. Samantha is a woman I have always admired, with a positive and fun attitude in life, a woman 'with style'. If you happen to speak Spanish, read one of her books, they are great.

In addition to the pictures of the cake you can see couple of pictures and a video Inspiring Girls event. Thanks so much to all the people, companies and media who helped us on the day and also to the hundreds of them who have got in touch to offer support since then. The response has been so overwhelming that, though there was a bank holiday weekend in Spain, our team had to cancel their holiday plans to be able to answer to all those who want to join in.  We could not be any happier! You can get more pictures at www.inspiring-girls.com  or on my instagram (miriamgonzalezdurantez). And if you want to get in touch (especially if you are a woman, but we now have many men who are helping as well!) do email us. We are always looking for more volunteers and ideas for this international campaign.

For the cake you need:
- 4 eggs
- one and a half glass of sugar
- a glass of 'hot chocolate' powder: Nesquik, Cadbury's… though if you are in Spain use Cola-Cao, of course!
- half a glass of milk
- half a glass of sunflower oil
- one and a half glass of plain flour
- a teaspoon of baking powder
- a tiny bit of butter and flour to prepare the tin (we used a round one)

Preheat the oven at 180 degrees.  In a bowl mix the sugar and eggs with a whisker (we use an electric one) While you keep whisking add the milk, oil, hot chocolate powder, flour, and baking powder. Grease the tin with butter, dust it with flour and bake for 60 minutes (or until a skewer comes out clean) Oustanding!

 

And if you clock here you can find is a video of the event prepared by Yo Dona (http://videos.elmundo.es/v/0_5eij9yq8-inspiring-girls-se-presenta-en-espana?uetv_pl=yodona&count=1)

FAKE FERRERO-ROCHERS

I have been thinking of making this recipe ever since I saw Nigel Farage celebrating a party at the glitzy Ritz hotel in London with a huge tray of Ferrero-Rochers. The party was full of multi-millionaire media owners, powerful journalists and people whose fortunes amount (individually) to around 800 millions pounds…800 million pounds!! God knows how a privately educated man, ex City trader, who enjoys an MEP salary and is backed by the very wealthiest part of the establishment has managed to trick so many people into making them think he is 'anti-establishment'. It beggars belief...

So here you have the recipe for fake Ferrero-Rocher. As fake as the anti-establishment credentials of Farage.

You need:
- 10 hazelnuts
- a small tub of Nutella
- 2 ice-cream cones or wafer biscuits (you can find these in any supermarket in the baking section)
- 100 gr milk chocolate
- 100 gr dark chocolate
- two handfuls of chopped hazelnuts (you can buy them already chopped)
- a small tray covered with baking paper
- golden candy paper ( you can buy this in Amazon very cheaply: 100 of them for less than a pound!)

We got the idea for the recipe from various Spanish blogs (including 'atrapada en mi cocina' which is great) but have used our own measurements and changed a little the method.

 Put the Nutella in the fridge. When it is very cold, take little spoonfuls of nutella, put a hazelnut inside each spoonful and give them a round shape with your hands ensuring that the hazelnut is fully covered by nutella. Put them on the tray and get them into the fridge for around twenty minutes.

Crush the ice cream cones and roll the nutella-covered hazelnuts in it. You may need to press a bit the crushed biscuits against the nutella balls so that they adhere to it. Put it back into the fridge for 45 minutes.

In the microwave, melt the chocolate (around a minute on full power). Add the chopped hazelnuts and mix well. Take the nutella balls and cover them with the melted chocolate. Put them back on the tray and let them cool down for one hour.

Cover the chocolates with the golden candy paper (or if you do not have these, you can do a silver version of these with normal kitchen foil)

If you manage to forget about the Farage connotations, these are actually really-really nice.

SERBIAN RED PEPPER RELISH - AJVAR

I was in Serbia this week to start the Inspiring Girls campaign there.  Seriously impressive (and strong!) women and girls. Great discussion with MPs, leading civil society groups, top business women, actresses, former ministers, diplomats… You can see some pictures in the campaign’s website www.inspiring-girls.com

By the way, apparently Boris Johnson was in Serbia that day too (though not at the Inspiring Girls event!) despite it was the day after Trump was elected, when the new US President was failing to call the UK Prime Minister first and with Brexit falling down the list of EU priorities by the minute. An outstanding display of wisdom on foreign policy priorities... 

This is a traditional Serbian recipe. You need:

- 3 red peppers
- an aubergine

- 1 large onion

- a clove of garlic(grated)

- 2 tablespoons of olive oil

- salt

- half a chilli pepper
- a tablespoon of red vinegar
- a pinch of paprika 

Preheat the oven at 200 degrees. Put the peppers and aubergine on a roasting tray and roast them for 30-40 minutes, until they are charred. Take them off the oven and when they are cold, peel the peppers and take out the pulp of the aubergine. Put it all in a food processor with the chilli pepper and pulse it a few times.

In a pan heat the olive oil. Add the vegetables mixture,  the garlic, paprika, vinegar and salt and let it all simmer under very low heat for 20 minutes (stir it every now and then)

We ate it with bread but you can have it as  a sauce with meat or with chicken too. The children approved.