TURRON ICE - CREAM

This is a very easy ice cream for Christmas time, though you can eat it throughout the whole year. Turron is an almond and honey nougat that we eat in Spain during Christmas. 'In the beginning' there was only turron duro (hard as a stone) and turron bland (sweet as honey). Then came the 'egg yolk' turron (which I detest) and the chocolate one (which I love-love-love) And then many other fancy ones (mostly terrible) that you can now find in most spanish shops.

For this recipe you need:
- one 'tableta' of turron blando (300 gr)
- 400 ml cream -  preferably double cream. I sometimes use single cream, which is frankly stupid, as the turron has so many calories (don't even look at the label or you will have a shock!)  that saving a few calories on the cream is just pointless. And yet I still do this…madness I know. )
- a tablespoon of honey
- two egg yokes.

Cut the turron into little pieces. Heat the cream with the turron over very low heat until it dissolves (do not let it boil). Separately whisk the egg yokes and the honey until you get a pale fluffy mixture. Then add the turron and cream mixture to it, little by little, while you are still whisking so that you get a thick cream consistency. Freeze it in an ice-maker machine or just in a container in the freezer (stirring it a couple of times so that you do not get any crystals in the ice cream) Take it out of the freezer 15 minutes before you are going to serve it.

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.

LITTLE BACON OF HEAVEN

This dessert is called Tocinillo de Cielo, which literally means 'Little Bacon of Heaven' and it is heavenly indeed. It is one of the desserts invented by the Clarisa nuns with the many eggs they receive from brides,  as in Spain it is usual for brides to bring eggs - dozens of eggs-  to nuns on a wedding day so that they pray for good weather.

You need:
-for the caramel: 8 gr of sugar and a teaspoon of water
- for the 'little bacon':  250 gr sugar, 125 ml water, 6 egg yokes and an egg (keep the shells).

It is a very filling dessert, so this makes a little 'tocinillo' as you can see in the picture. The proportions of the ingredients are very straight forward so you can make a bigger tocinillo easily by doubling the amounts.

Preheat the oven at 180 degrees.
Mix the 125 ml of water with the 250 gr of sugar and let it boil until it reaches 105 degrees (around 15 minutes). Then let it cool down for 10 minutes.
Meanwhile prepare the caramel by putting the 70 g of sugar and the water in a pan under medium heat until it becomes golden without stirring it (swirling is fine). Pour the caramel on the mould where you are going to bake the tocinillio ( any cake mould or pyrex plate) and coat the bottom of the mould with it.
Beat very lightly the egg yokes and the egg and keep stirring while you pour slowly the sugar and water mixture into it. Pour the mixture into the caramelised mould. Then put the mould into a bigger (deep) oven tray. Put the egg shells on the bigger tray and fill it with boiling water until it comes to about three quarters of the hight of the tocinillo mould. Let it bake for half an hour and then let it cool down (in the fridge) overnight.

To de-mould the tocinillo just run the point of a knife through the sides of the mould. In a corner push the tocinillo up a little bit with the knife from underneath so that you get a little bit of air under the tocinillo. It should then come out easily.

SWEET WINE JELLY

This is a nice home made present for Xmas. It goes well with ham, any cheese (though in my view it is better with cream, cheddar and manchego-type cheeses than Stilton or blue ones). It also goes well with pates and foie.

You need:

-1100 ml sweet wine

- 800 gr sugar

- one bottle of liquid pectin (177 ml)

- juice of a lemon

Put the wine and sugar in a pan and heat it until the sugar is dissolved and it starts to boil. Add the pectin and lemon jounce and boil again until the mixture raises 105 degrees (it takes around 20 minutes). Pour into sterilised jars (see our jam recipes for the sterilisation method - we normally turn them upside down as they are cooling down). 

Be very careful if the children help with this as they can easily burn themselves. The alcohol of the wine evaporates with the boiling so there is no problem for them to eat this. 

SCOTTISH TABLET

I promised the Sunday Post earlier this week that I would try a Scottish recipe before I am back there on Friday, so this is it. It is an easy one, I know, and the picture is rather simple, but in all fairness we did not have much time...

Tablet is absolutely scrumptious and it is difficult to stop eating it - but I warn you, it is the kind of food that lasts one minute in your mouth and one year in your hips!

The recipe is from the Guardian (Jan 2014). You need:
- 125 g butter
- 350 gr condensed milk
- a pinch of salt
- 250 ml whole milk (we only had semi-skimmed milk so we used 225 ml milk and 25 ml of single cream)
- 1Kg caster sugar (yes, really)
- half a tsp of vanilla essence.

Melt the butter in a pan. Add the sugar, milk and salt and heat it all (stirring now and then) until the sugar has dissolved. This takes around 20 minutes. Then add the condensed milk and let it simmer (stirring also from time to time) for another 20 minutes (if you have a food thermometer this should reach 115 degrees).  Take it off the heat, add the vanilla essence and beat with an electric whisker ( 2-3- minutes) or by hand (much better so that you start burning all those calories!) for 5-6 minutes. It should get the consistency of thick cream. Pour it into a shallow tin previously greased with butter. Let it cool down in the fridge for 30 minutes and cut it into squares when it has cooled down.

It is tricky to get the children to help with this as the mixture gets very hot. In any case, do not let them help you when you beat the mixture at the end as, though it looks like brown cream, it is boiling sugar (soft ball point) so they can burn themselves very easily.

DULCE DE LECHE

It is interesting for the children to see the changes of texture in the condensed milk, but if you cook this in a express cooker be very careful with the tin, as the tin can explode if you do not handle it carefully.

You only need a tin of condensed milk and water.

Put the tin into an express cooker (or a normal pan). Cover it with water and cook for 35 minutes on really low heat (or longer if you want a thicker dulce de leche). If you cook this in a normal pan (again on very low heat) you will need to simmer it for 3 hours.

Open the tin and there is the dulce de leche.

You can it this as a spread on bread or with ice-cream.

It is seriously sweet so a small tin goes a long way...

RASPBERRY SHERBET

One of my sons has been studying acids and alkalis, so we decided to make sherbet, which is a good way to practice how to neutralise an acid substance. All you need is:

- 2 teaspoons of citric acid (you can get this in your local chemist)
- 2 teaspoon of of bicarbonate of soda
- half a sachet of raspberry jelly powder
- 4 teaspoons of icing sugar

Mix all ingredients well (if you get lumps pass it all through a sieve). When the sherbet mixes with saliva (a neutral substance) it produces a tickling effect. You can also put a spoonful of the sherbet into a glass of water so the kids see how it becomes a fizzy drink.

You can change colours and flavours of the sherbet by using orange, lemon or strawberry jelly powder.

CARAMEL POPCORN

We did this for the Christmas school party and it was very successful.

You need:
- 1 packets of microwave popcorn (all supermarkets sell this)
- 125 gr of butter
- 250 gr light brown sugar
- 2 table spoons of corn syrup or golden syrup

Prepare the plain popcorn in the microwave. Separately melt the butter, sugar and golden syrup until they reach 130 degrees (if you do not have a thermometer let it boil for 10 minutes more or less). Add this caramel to the popcorns and mix well. Put the popcorns on a tray lined with baking parchment and bake it in a reheated 150 degrees oven for 45 minutes.  When you take the popcorn out of them oven let them cool down a little and break them into small bits.

Be careful when the children help you to do this as they can easily burn themselves with the caramel.

CHRISTMAS MARSHMALLOWS

This recipe is identical to the marshmallows one that we added earlier this year,but we were very pleased with the colours and it is not every day that we do something as fiddly as this so we thought we would show off and add the picture anyway.

To prepare this just follow the marshmallows recipe. As soon as you put the marshmallows mixture on the tray put a few drops of red colouring on the top and extend them around in patterns with a toothpick. It is strangely rewarding.

CHOCOLATE COOKIES

We have now published 100 posts and have had more than 10,000 clicks. However, we have not managed to generate any money at all. While we have had fun with the cooking I am failing to teach the children about the economics of the internet. I have tried to explain that it is all based on marketing and ultimately on trust, but even I am not sure how this is meant to work. Our sweet recipes seem to be much more popular than savoury ones, so in an attempt to encourage you to click more on the blog we will publish more sweet recipes for a few weeks. If you visit the blog please-please click on the adds on the right hand column! all we need is to reach the £40 threshold so that they can receive a cheque and then this blog can be over...

This recipe was adapted form the Usborne Beginners Cookbook. You need:

100 g soft butter
100 g sugar
175 g plain flower
1 egg
150 chocolate chips (we did this with Hagelslag, which are Dutch chocolate sprinkles)

In a food processor mix all the ingredients except for the chocolate chips. Add the chips at the end and mix them with a spoon. On a greased baking tray ( or even better on a silicone mat) put tablespoons of this mixture and flatten them down a bit. Cook for 12-15 minutes.

MARSHMALLOWS

Do not be fooled by the fact that these are home made as they are still full of unrefined sugar. They are really not good for children (teeth, obesity, sugar-rush, you name it) so do not do them often. Still, they will make you a really popular mum for a while.  The recipe comes from James Martin.

You need
- 9 sheets of gelatine
- 450 gr sugar
- 1 tablespoon liquid glucose (or golden syrup)
- 200 ml water (plus a bit more to soak the gelatine)
- two egg whites
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- lots of icing sugar ad cornflour
- sunflower oil
and a candy thermometer

Oil a shallow baking tray and dust it well with icing sugar and cornflour.
Soak the gelatine in a little bit of cold water. 
While the gelatine is getting soft, boil the sugar, glucose and water until it reaches 127 degrees. If you do not have a candy thermometer, this should take around 15 minutes. As soon as the mixture reaches the right temperature add the gelatine leaves and the soaking water. 
While the sugar is boiling, whisk the egg whites and then add the sugar mixture slowly while you keep whisking ( you may want to put the syrup into a jug for this). When the eggs mixture thickens add the vanilla extract. And if you want to add some colouring do it now ( 2 -3 drops should be enough)
Put the thick mixture into the oiled and dusted tray and let it all rest overnight.
Use a knife to loosen the edges and put it all on a surface dusted with lots of cornflour and sugar. Cut the marshmallows into squares and roll them in (even more!) cornflour and sugar.

The children were not allowed to approach the syrup as it is far too easy to get burnt, but they enjoyed cutting the marshmallows and dusting them (and burning and eating them with friends)

CANDY LOLLIPOPS

We found this recipe in a Martha Stewart podcast (we did not use the accurate US cup measurement but provided you keep the proportions rights it should work)
You need:
2 cups sugar
2/3 cups corn syrup
1/4 cup water
food colouring (we used red)
a few drops of lemon or orange oil (optional)
lollipop sticks
sprinkles or candies to decorate

Put the sugar, corn syrup and water in a pan over medium heat. Stir it until the sugar is dissolved and it boils. Then stop stirring but let the mixture on the heat for 7-8 minutes (if you use a jam thermometer it should reach 150 degrees. If you do not have a jam thermomether then drop a little bit of the caramel in a glass of water - if it hardens immediately then it is ready)
Now you need to work fast: put the mixture in a measuring jug. Add the colouring and oil and  mix it all without stirring too much. Pour dollops of the mixture over a silicon sheet or a greased baking sheet (greased with sun flour oil in advance). Press the sticks  and the sprinkles or decorations in. Wait until the lollipops get hard and cool down (just a few minutes)

The children found the caramel making process most interesting, as it looked to them as a physics experiment. The caramel is super-hot so please be extremely careful (it is a good idea to have ice cubes nearby in case you spill some caramel on your skin by accident). The main problem with this recipe is that it is impossible to stop the kids from eating the lollies...which are pure sugar of course...

FRUIT GUMS

Kids love these and it is fun for them to make them. They take no time at all and look great too. They have tonnes of sugar though, so do not let the kids make them too often.
You need:
23 gr flavoured jelly (we used raspberry)
 25 gr neutral jelly
150 ml fruit juice (we used apple juice)
75 gr sugar
Put all the ingredients in a small pan and heat the mixture for 10 minutes, removing it from time to time with a spoon. Do not let it boil. While the mixture is getting hot, oil well silicon moulds with sunflower oil (we used moulds to make ice cubes). You really need to oil the moulds well or the gums will not come out smooth. Pour the mixture over the oiled moulds, wait for 3-4 hours ( no need to put this in the fridge) and unmould. You can roll the gums in caster sugar but they are very nice on their own too.