WoodenFork.co.uk is a blog created as part of a DofE gold cooking project.
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Mum's chicken pie 1-2 wooden forks of difficulty [easy] I thought I’d end on a high note, so for the cold winters nights I thought I’d make a nice warm chicken pie. This is a staple in our house because it’s very tasty, but also it’s rather easy to make if you cheat, like us, and use pre-made puff pastry for the topping. The pastry is cooked separately on a baking sheet, and then it tops the chicken and creamy sauce. I’m not sure pie experts would call this a ‘pie’, but have a go at making ‘my mum’s chicken pie’ this winter. Recipe No idea where this recipe is from. What you want to do, is cook off some chicken in butter. Then take out the chicken and fry the onion, carrot and sweet corn (sometimes we add mushrooms and/or celery). That’s all done. Now make the sauce. You’ll need 30 grams of butter melted in a pan add 30 grams of flour and stir until incorporated and cooked. Add a splash of white wine and a splash of chicken stock, stir until thickened and to the consistency of your choice. This is the sauce. Combine chicken and veg and sauce. Top with pastry. Done. |  |
 Recipe Here’s the recipe. Just one tip, you may want to add a little olive oil to the sauce to loosen it. Also, make sure you pour over all of those sauces when serving. | Jamie Oliver's killer jerk chicken 2 wooden forks of difficulty [easy] It’s nearly a year since I started this blog for a part of my Duke of Edinburgh award. A few months after this website went live, I started a YouTube channel. My idea was that I could film how to make a recipe, and upload it so people from this website could cook along too. Since then, my YouTube channel, woodenforkvids, has grown, and now achieves more than 100+ views a day. To celebrate the upcoming 25,000 view mark (in under a year), I decided to make a new video: Jamie Oliver’s killer jerk chicken from his 30 minute meals book. This recipe is similar to Jamie’s piri-piri chicken, which I made on this blog a while ago, so if you liked that, this’ll be right up your street. It’s really simple to make the actual dish, just a matter of whizzing up some stuff in a liquidizer, and pouring it over some chicken. |
Raspberry roulade 3 wooden forks of difficulty [medium]
So you’ve saved your egg whites from last week, and now you
can make this roulade. The carbonara and this pudding often come together, as
this way you don’t waste any eggs. In truth, the lightness of the roulade complements
the filling carbonara quite nicely, meaning making them both for one evening
meal would be a good idea. This is one of my favourite summer puddings, it’s
light and sweet, and the fresh raspberries taste super. Give it a try. Recipe & tips
This recipe is basically it. I combine the double cream with Greek yogurt to give it a bit more substance. Also, take many cares when rolling the roulade, use the baking parchment to help you roll it, as seen in that photo to your right. |  |
 Recipe (ingredients) - 500g
dried tagliatelle pasta SERVES : 4 - Olive oil - 5 egg yolks - 100ml double cream - 125g parmesan - Grated freshly ground black pepper | Tagliatelle carbonara 4 wooden forks of difficulty [medium-hard]
A filling pasta dish perfect for outside dining. I didn’t really like this meal to start with, I don’t know if it was the pasta or the garden leaves mum used to make me have it with, but it’s grown on me. Favourite part of the dish is the pancetta; it breaks up the rich creamy sauce and provides a much needed contrast. It’s quite difficult to make though, because you can’t add the sauce too early, as it would scramble if you did, and the moisture content has to be just right, otherwise it’ll turn out too thick (like mine). Recipe (method)
1) Cook the penne in salted boiling water until al dente. |
Save and freeze the 5 egg whites for next week’s recipe…
Chocolate dense cake
Think Jamaican ginger cake but chocolate. That’s what you’re getting here. Sticky, soft and very moreish. Plus it gets even better if you leave it for a day, it’s an investment! Recipe
This recipe makes more than you’ll need for a normal loaf tin. As I said, leave it for a day and it becomes denser. Don’t be worried if you get it out the oven and it sinks: this’ll only add to the flavour. |  |
 Recipe
Half this recipe amounts to make what I think is plenty.
Wooden forks of difficulty is medium-hard as these are pretty tricky to get just right. Use the tip on the right to perfect your browines.
| Brownies
The brownie was supposedly invented in Boston, USA, the first ever ‘brownie’ contained no chocolate at all! Over the pond, and a few years on, we love our brownies chocolaty and gooey in the middle. The soft centre is the tricky bit in my opinion, too long in the oven and they're over-done, too little time and the mixture is still a liquid and this makes it very difficult to eat… I guess you could drink it, a brownie drink?? No, what you need is to experiment, mine are in for 25 minutes at 180C, but some people put them in for longer at a lower temp. Just see what works for you in your type of oven. Tip
Use a piece of spaghetti to test if your brownies are cooked through. Poke the raw spaghetti into the cooking cake mix, and if it comes out with lots of mixture stuck to it, keep going, a little bit of mixture on the spaghetti and it’s done, no mixture means they might be overdone, so take them out. |
Choc chip cookies
Cookies are simple and quick to make, so if you’re looking for a sweet tooth fix, don’t delay in making these! Most people already have a cookie recipe, but this recipe produces a shop-bought texture, with chew in the middle. Most ingredients you’ll already have. Tuck in! Recipe 8 oz. Self raising flour 4 oz. butter 2 oz. soft brown sugar 4 oz. castor sugar Bag of choc chips One egg 1) Rub butter and flour into bread crumb consistency 2) Add sugars, choc chips and mix 3) Beat egg and add to mixture 4) Cook at 180c for about 10 mins |  Tip
Take them out just before you think they’ll be ready. That’ll insure a chewy centre. The recipe is so simple, just give them a go! |
 | Sticky toffee pudding
This is really a winder pudding, but seeing as the weather
has been rainy, it seemed fitting to make it. It’s served with cream or ice
cream to cut through the heavy sponge. This one is really easy to make: both
the sauce and mixture are a ‘place all ingredients in a bowl and mix’ jobs. Recipe This isnt exactly the same as my recipe, but its similar. Enjoy! Equipment
The silicone mould (in photo) is useful for this recipe and a worthwhile investment. |
Cod & spinach bake This is a very basic recipe that produces the
tastiest results. Most people probably wouldn’t eat spinach out of choice, but
in this dish it really does create a good flavour. The fish is expensive; to
cheapify it you could substitute in a cheaper fish. Recipe 1 1/2 lb fresh spinach salt and pepper
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
2oz butter
4cod steaks
for the cheese sauce
1oz butter
1oz flour
3/4 pint hot milk
4oz Chedder cheese, grated
Placed washed spinach in a large saucepan with salt to taste, heat
gently until juices flow from the spinach. Cover with a lid and cook for
5-10 minutes until spinach is tender. Drain spinach and chop. Season
the spinach with salt and pepper and the nutmeg and stir in half the
butter. Place in an oven proof dish.
Fry the cod steaks in the remaining butter for 2 to 3 minutes on each side, then place on top of the spinach in the dish...
|  ...To prepare the cheese sauce, melt the butter in a pan. Stir in the
flour and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove the pan
from the heat and add the milk, stirring vigorously. Add all the milk,
return to the heat and boil. Lower the heat add 2oz of cheese and cook
for 2 minutes until the cheese melts.
Cover the fish with the cheese sauce and sprinkle with the
remaining cheese. Bake in the oven at 190oC, Gas Mark 5 for 20 or 30
minutes or until the fish is cooked and the top of the casserole is
lightly browned and bubbling. Test the fish with a fork; the fish
should flake easily. Serve immediatetly.
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 | Egg custard tart A treat you thought you could only get from the supermarket? Nope. It’s really rather easy to make at home, with ingredients you’ll already have. It’ll take you about 1 & 1/2 hours to make in the real world, but it’s worth it.
Tips Make sure you get the pastry bit right. You need to chill it for an initial 30 mins, then what I like to do is chill it in when it’s in the pastry tin for a further 15 mins. Adding a bit more sugar into the pastry will make it a little sweeter. Don’t overwork the pastry either. |
- Make a short crust pastry (100g plain flour, 50g caster sugar, 50g butter
- Chill pastry, then roll out and place in flan tin
- Whisk 2 eggs with 25g caster sugar, and ½ pint of milk
- Pour custard mixture into chilled pastry case
- Cook at 200oC for the first 10 mins, then 180oC for the next 20-25 mins
Banoffee pie Weight watchers, look away now. If reverse psychology is anything to go by, saying that was counter intuitive... Anyway, this is tasty, but wouldn’t go down with your weight watchers program: it’s too nice to stop eating. Condensed milk, whipped cream and butter help to make this such a nice dessert… and midnight snack. I’m not going to try and convince you this is one of your five a day. Recipe
275g butter 250g ginger biscuits 375g can condensed milk 150g castor sugar 2 bananas 300ml double cream, lightly whipped 25g plain chocolate, grated
|  Recipe tips i] Don’t overdo the buttery biscuit base. Only use enough to get the biscuits to combine. ii] Its 5 forks of difficulty as the heating of the condensed milk and butter and sugar can go so horribly wrong. Keep a keen eye on it, stir constantly and don’t over heat. iii] For softer toffee serve at room temperature. |
 | Olive and rocket pasta I seem to make a lot of pasta, and although this may not be my all-time best, it’s definitely in the top five. The olives provide a rich sauce when combined with just a tin of toms, then the rocket cuts through it to provide a palate pleasing contrast. It’s an easy, meat free alternative to an easy 20 min meal. Recipe Novice? No worries with this. It’s literally as easy as 1,2,3: 1-fry off some stuff, 2-reduce the tomatoes into a sauce, 3-cook the pasta. Super simple. The recipe can be found here. |
Chocolate almond cookies Supermarkets overcharge for fancy biscuits, now it’s your turn to make a stand! Make your own cheaper (but just as tasty) biscuits and take on the bought equivalent. If they’re not better, we’ll give you your money back*. The ingredients for these cookies are most likely already in your cupboards, so if you want something snacky to make quickly, try these. Also they have chocolate on them, and we all love chocolate… *not really. Recipe
Keep and eye on them, you don't want to burn them, so take them out when the're still slighty soft. |  Family comments "They should be made on a weekly basis" "There just weren't enough of them" I paid them to say these things. |
 Recipe
Tip Wait for the bubbles to start bursting on the top of the pancake, then you know it's ready to flip. | American pancakes Pancakes. There isn’t a better way to start the day. Unless you’re allergic, or don’t like them… These pancakes are not English, they different in a great number of ways. Well actually only one, they rise. Add chocolate chips, pour over maple syrup, these are a breakfast dream. |
Corgette cannelloni We all need to eat, but why not ditch the beans on toast for something really tasty, but nearly as easy and to make? This tomato and courgette cannelloni fits the bill, as its super tasty and cheap. Serve with garlic bread and leaves, and bob’s your uncle. Method Grate 3 courgettes, a large onion and 200g mature cheddar. Add salt and pepper and mix it up. Fill the pasta tubes and lay on an oiled tray. For the sauce, it’s a case of heating a bit of olive oil, add garlic and toms, heat through then pour over the cannelloni. Cover with foil and pop it in the oven for half an hour at 180c. |  |
 Recipe tips Don’t worry about spreading the mix out too much on the top, it doesn’t matter because it evens out nice in the cooker. Also, you want to get that pastry rolled out just right: refrigerate, turn regularly when rolling, and don’t manhandle too much.
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Bakewell cake It’s a Bakewell cake. I made this one, and before the icing was set me and my family had already eaten half of it. It’s that nice. You can melt some chocolate with icing power to make those distinctive Bakewell markings. I didn’t because I had to eat it. The finished picture shows the actual cake I made, on the preparation photo I was making mini Bakewell loaves in tiny bread tins my bro got me. Want to make it yourself? Read below!
Method
Mix 100g of butter and 100g of caster sugar. Add two eggs gradually. Then fold in 100g of self-raising flour. That’s the mix. For the pastry, whip up a short crust (150g plain flour and 75g butter into a crumb, then a tablespoon of water to combine). Grease your tin, line with pasty, pop in a bit of jam, top up with the mix and cook for about 25mins at about 180c. It’s my own recipe which is why it’s a bit vague. You’ll figure it out. |
Steak sarnie et al 4 wooden forks of difficulty [hard] 30 minutes is exactly half an hour. 30 minutes is the amount
of time it takes your knuckles to recharge after you pop them so they are ready
to be popped again. 30 minutes is the same amount of time that you get your
shopping free if you wait in the queue for too long. 30 minutes is also the average
lunch hour? Also, guess how long it took me to write
just this one article? Yup. But most relevent of all, 30 minutes is the scam Jamie Oliver sold us to write
another cook book and be on TV again. Channel 4 fell for it, but should we? Well,
yes. You see, the book, in my eyes at least, has been miss-named: it should’ve
been named ‘60 minute meals’. If you look at all Jamie’s recipes in this (extended)
way, they are fantastic. That’s the theory I’ve applied to all of the 30 minute
meals, and in particular, the 30 min meal recipe I cooked this week. This steak
sarnie is fantastic in terms of flavour and the table-top wow-factor. It’s also
super if you’re cooking it from Jamie’s 60 minute meals cook book, because that’s
the amount of time it takes to make!
|  Oh picture malfunction! Do not visit your opticians, is just all these photos are out of focus. Recipe Only one tip when making this: allow lots of time. |
 Oh mother! Yep, mum will love this on mothering Sunday. |
Lemon and poppy seed cake Just made myself a cup of tea. What shall join it on my coffee table? A biscuit? No, they are too boring. What about a chocolate bar? No, it doesn’t go with tea. A house brick? No, that would break the table. I’ll jump to the chase, and tell you what you want. You want a lemon and poppy seed cake. Yes. Don’t argue with me, taste it and you’ll understand. Tea and L.A.P.S.C* are a perfect coffee table combo. Don’t take my word for it though! Who am I to make these claims? You’ll have to give it a go and see if you agree. 2 wooden forks of difficulty [low] *L.A.P.S.C = lemon and poppy seed cake
Recipe This is another recipe from a now discontinued source. I’ve beavered away for literally a minute to bring you this recipe which is pretty much identicalios to the one I used. Always follow a recipe! |
Prawn and spinach linguine 2-3 wooden forks of difficulty [low-medium]
What is pasta? I’ll tell you. Its dried dough made mostly from durum wheat with water and, sometimes eggs. Bland? But add in some prawns, toms, and spinach… and chilli and garlic, and you’ve got yourself a lovely bubbly meal. I’m cooking pasta again, and this is prawn and spinach linguine. A real nice dish crammed with lots of powerful flavours. Although the recipe calls for chilli and I add a lot of fresh chilli so that when I touch my face after preparation it burns for hours. Good thing is though, is that you can add just as much as much or little as you like. If you’re looking through this blog right here and don’t know what to do, try this because it looks good, tastes great and is rather embarrassingly easy to prepare (as long as you don’t need to go to A&E with stinging-face-asitus). Recipe
Finding this recipe was impossible. Sainsbury’s made the recipe for one of those recipe cards, and they no longer have their recipes online, because they don’t exist anymore. This is close, I’m substituting the cherry toms and peppers in this recipe for tinned tomatoes. |  Overall verdict
A nice change from the normal stoge of pasta dishes. 8/10 |
 Tip This isn’t even a real tip. But I’ve just gotta say, make more of this icing than you need. It’s mind alteringly delish. | Cappuccino cup cakes 3 wooden forks of difficulty [medium] Apologies for this short post – I’m writing just before going on hols. 17/3/12 [mini re-write] Devine. I think these’ll be the tastiest cupcakes you’ve ever had. No more fairy themed 4th birthday cup-cake fails; this is the grown-up real deal. If you don’t like coffee, don’t worry, I’ll make a batch of cranberry tea cupcakes some other time. But seriously, who doesn’t like coffee? Recipe Here is a link to the correct recipe. Enjoy! Warning Anyone who tries these will become a cappuccino cup cake addict. Probably. |
Chickpea and leek soup 3 wooden forks of difficulty [medium] This dish is ideal for both a lunchtime or a full evening meal. Relatively easy to make, nice and tasty, everyone will enjoy this soup. This Jamie Oliver recipe is ideal for a cold winters day. I’ve been struck again by the 13th curse which affects all woodenfork posts that I do on the 13th of each month. This time, I forgot to take photos, the camera settings were wrong and the soup was served cold due to unforeseeable delays. With the help of a microwave, I was at least able to put something on the table… Recipe Here is the recipe. A few tips though, firstly, if you have tinned chick peas there is no need to soak. Also don’t worry about chopping things too much: it’ll all get blitzed in the end. |  Verdict My family said they liked it. I think I was put off by the fact it want warm enough… 6/10 |
 Recipe See the link. And now for some recipe tips. Take many, many cares when prepping those pesky pine nuts. One second too long and you’ll burn them, and then they ruin the dish. Other than that, follow the recipe. | Cabbage and mozzarella pasta w/ pinenuts and pancetta 2 wooden forks of difficulty [low] This week, I use tongs to turn pasta. Right, pasta a broad topic where there are many types and varieties. As with many other things, Jamie Oliver seems to have the best recipe for pasta in my opinion, and it’s this: cabbage and mozzarella. Hold your horse, what’s that you say? Was it:“No way man! Cabbage is for my Sunday roast! Even then I don’t like it much. You’re some crazy fool!”? Well, if you said that, then I have some impressive mind reading skills, if you thought something along those lines, stick with it, as this is just about my favourite pasta dish. Info If you’ve seen this or made this before, you’ll know someone didn’t buy the right pasta for me. It’s meant to be farfalle and I’m not being pedantic when I say get the right stuff because it makes a difference. The pic clearly shows the pasta that was meant to be put inside toilet rolls to create rain shakers for 4 year old kids. Don’t use it. |
Marmalde bread and butter pudding 2 wooden forks of difficulty [low] A pudding is, for me, the be all and end all of courses. I like to feel as though I have eaten a pudding, rather than just tasted it. Welcome then, to my favourite after dinner pud: marmalade bread and butter pudding. This recipe is updated: if you didn’t like B & B pudding in the past try this, because it’s out with the sultanas and bland taste, and in with strong tangy flavours. You can also expect a crisp topping with a fluffy base, providing the right contrast between textures to impress even the finest pudding connoisseurs. What’s more… it tastes really good! How much did it cost? It’s cheap. All you need is 3 eggs, sugar, a loaf o’ bread, marmalade, milk, and cream. Basically it’s just what you need to make marmalade on toast and scrambled eggs (if you make scrambled eggs with cream). It’s all stuff you’ll have in your cupboards no doubt. My virdict If you hadn’t guessed already, I think this is a top job pudding! |  Problems? I over indulged because it’s just too tasty. If you only like dainty little puddings that arrive on a miniature plate instead of a bowl dusted with icing sugar, on a bed of delicate edible decorations, this pudding is not for you. You could probably eat it as a meal on its own. That’s actually quite functional and not a problem at all… Recipe: click here |
 Dont be put off by... The venison. Sure, it's a gammier (?) than your average pork sausage, but it adds a rich flavour to the sauce and overall tastes real good. Beware though, this takes a while to cook. It's not a half-an-hour-before-the-kids-go- out-to-some-irrelevant-after-school-club dinner. |
Venison sausages braised in red wine 3 wooden forks of difficulty [meduim] I’m back from my campaign to gain good grades. So this week I
have crafted a fine blend of hearty meaty flavours with the delicacy of many ‘erbs.
Well, it’s not that posh: Its sausage of the deer veriety (venison) in a
next-level red wine sauce. And it's not my recipe either (I cook from other people's recipes on this blog and review my own efforts). That credit
goes to Delia Smith although variations of this very same dish are available
elsewhere. Read on and I’ll tell you how to make it. Recipe Click me for the link. What did I think? Not much to say really. This is quite an easy dish. I served it with carrots, mashed pots and leaves. The leaves claim to be some sort of broccoli. But that’s rather off the point.
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Frangipane mince pies 3 wooden forks of difficulty [meduim] Merry Christmas. So these pies should be a medium difficulty, but I think I hit the bloggers wall. This is actually my 13th post, and all seemed to go wrong for me. I was shooting for my YouTube channel, cooking the things, taking pictures for woodenfork.co.uk and trying to review a cooking product all at once. According to my family (who are angry after I failed to cook up a batch of supermarket quality mince pies) I got the frangipane bit wrong. You’ve got three layers in this new take on the mince pie: pastry, mince, and frangipane. The pastry was nice and thin without braking, and the mince was homemade and courtesy of my friend in Cornwall, but I failed with the topping. I think I may have over-beat the mixture. This week the people at Joseph and Joseph sent me over a sample to try out. These guys dream up new, up-to-date and innovative products to make it easier for you to get cooking. I’ve written a full review of their product, which also turns out to be a possible Christmas present. (Which any cook would be happy to receive. Wink, wink). | 
Cutting down No I’m not going to start giving you tips on how to lose a few pounds. I’ve
just gotta mention that these posts may get a bit thin on the ground as I’ve
got A-level exams coming up (boo, hiss). Recipe Here is the recipe. The only thing I’d say is be careful when adding the egg mixture. It can be easy to add too much. Remember, stop when the dough looks like it’s about to form a ball in the mixer. Also, I used an electric whisk in the video, but I have been advised since that you can just stir the ingredients. I think my whisking may have altered the frangipane for the worse, making it more like fragi-just-a-pain. I also burnt an entire batch, but I cunningly covered this up by inventing a new Christmas ritual whereby you ‘darken’ (burn) mince pies and give them to the birds and this good deed will bring you good fortune, bladey bladey blah. Smart eh? |
Youtube recipe Now this isn’t a whole video start to finish, but I decided to show you how I create the roulade rather than try to describe it. As usual it’s got annotations on there to help you cook along. To be honest the secret ingredient is cling film. Don’t put it in the dish… obviously… but it is essential for the flattening and rolling and storing stages. It maintains the form and makes it look extra special when you put it down on the table, admiring comments may be “wow what a lovely formed meat dish you have prepared here, a jolly well done for you [and applause]”. If you don't watch the vid, comments are likely to be “so is this a new take on strudel?”. |
Roulade of turkey with stuffing wrapped in bacon 4 wooden forks of difficulty [meduim - hard] It’s the 14th. Are you exited? Soon it’ll be time to be cooking Christmas dinner, or helping cook it, or help eating it. But what if you can’t be bothered with the whole thing? Personally, I’d never sacrifice a proper Christmas dinner, but for some, it’s not worth it, or you may just want a change. Therefore, I put to you this recipe. It’s called ‘alternative Christmas dinner’, but I renamed it alternative Sunday dinner because it was so nice I didn’t want to limit myself to having it once a year. It’s stuffing mix, wrapped in turkey breast, wrapped in bacon. The perfect combination of food stuffs around I recon. (And the whole dish goes nicely with mulled wine.) Have it on Christmas day, or before as a pre-feast teaser. 100% niceness. Written recipe This one is similar. This recipe is sound. Careful with the quantities of stuffing mixtures though. You don’t want it too moist. A note from me This is such a nice meal, and without blowing my own accordion, it’s my signature dish. I’m sure if you try it, you’ll love it just as much as me. |
Next week: visit the site next week for mince pies and a cookery related late xmas gift idea!
Chicken and olive tagine 2-3 wooden forks of difficulty [low - meduim] Bring morocco into your home this winter. This dish is mouth-watering, with an array of ‘erbs and spices… easy too. The green beans add colour to your plate. Plus, the beans absorb all the flavour from the chicken and spices, so if you’re struggling to get people to eat greens, this is great. The olives cut through the strong flavours and add an element of sweetness. All in all, this is a really nice dish for you to prepare in a small-ish time. Online recipe See this here. Recipe corrections and tips
Additions: remove skin if you don’t like it. If you do, make sure you get it really nice and golden all over in the pan frying stage. You may also want to add more spices, as I’m told that the recipe amounts make it too bland. I would also say you may want to make a bit more chicken stock, say 400ml, so that you can be sure it’ll cover the chicken completely. Final point, get a large pot, the one in my photos was too small for the job. |  What did we think?
"I liked
it cous cous it was tasty." Ha. (Get it? Because I used 'cous cous' and it sounds like 'because'? Anyway...) |
 VideoWould you rather watch a slightly annoying and low quality Youtube clip about making tiramisu? Boom - click here.WarningYou put rum in this bad boy, so steer clear of giving it to kids and the pregnant. (Thought I’d just play it safe…)
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Tiramisu 3 wooden forks of difficulty [meduim] So, it’s Sunday and you want to have a pudding to finish off
that nice dinner you just had. What do you do? Buy one? Get some ice cream out
of the freezer? No. Tesco’s finest apple strudel won’t live up to this, neither
will a tub of Ben & J’s. Delia’s tiramisu recipe fits the bill because it’s
the best. It’s not as easy as some of the other stuff I’ve made due to the fact
there are so many stages, but your friends will love it after Sunday dinner, or
any dinner for that matter. Recipe information
Don’t make it any more difficult than it need be: get your
electric whisk out. If you don’t have one, don’t try and hand whisk this
because you need to whisk at pretty much every stage. On the other hand, you
could just go and buy one. Here’s the recipe. There are others out there though, so I would say “try and experiment and find the one that best suits you”, but then again, who am I to tell you that?
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Coffee and walnut cake 2-3 wooden forks of difficulty [meduim] As I write this, I’m watching the cake rise. To be
fair, it’s similar to watching paint dry. But, and it’s a big but, I know it’ll be worth it. This recipe
is child’s play. A three step process if you will; 1] Mix ingredients together
in a bowl. 2] Cook. 3] Assemble and top it with icing. Anyone can do it. This cake is surprisingly easy to make, but impresses
every time. Coffee and walnut is a classic, and this recipe is so easy you can
do it yourself. Full recipeIngredients |  TipCheck the cake with a piece of raw spaghetti. Basically, stab the thing with your spaghetti and if it comes out clean (that is without any cake mixture stuck to it) then the cake is done. If it doesn’t come out clean, give it a few more minutes. I’m sure you’ll know this trick already, but it’s really useful if you don’t, as it works with all cakes. Tip within a tip: careful not to break off a bit of the spaghetti in the cake, otherwise you’ll have created spaghetti cake, and I don’t think that works.VideoI didn’t really want to bombard you with another video embedded here, but I did make one so you can cook along. It’s got pictures and annotations. See it here. Comments "The icing is the best bit"
- Me |
 I'm not too sure... Don’t be put off by the many mustards. They are not too overpowering. They cook down with the mushrooms to provide a rich creamy sauce, rather than a quick fiery kick. Still not convinced? Try my everyday lasagne below. |
Pork stroganoff with 3 mustards 2 wooden forks of difficulty [low - meduim] It’s so easy. If you’re reading this, deliberating, shall I, shouldn’t I?… You should. It’s so easy. All you need is ingredients you’ll probably already have in the cupboard. Whack some meat into a pan, mix up a couple of mustards with some crème fraîche. Cook some rice. Done. It may even be quicker than making a cup of tea (if your kettle takes about 20 minutes to boil…) I thought about giving this 1 woodenfork of difficulty it’s that simple. You start off by browning some onions, add pork, and then the sauce. That’s pretty much it. Get the full lowdown here. Delia said to serve with ‘green leaves’ (£1 bag-o-salad to you and me). I cooked an assortment of vegetables. Both are super quick and simple, meaning this recipe is perfect if you’re in a rush and need something quick. Equally is a perfectly tasty ‘sit down meal’. 20 mins start to finish. |
Everyday lasagne 2 wooden forks of difficulty [easy] It’s an overused cookery cliché. “Anyone can make this”. But it's true when your talking about this lasagne! Here on WoodenFork, I said I’d make 'everyday meals', and this is one literally one anyone can make. It’s a two stage process to make this recipe but it's quite simple. As I did with the Piri-Piri recipe I've made a short video with all the details. Unfortunately the recipe isn’t written down, so if you want to cook along, check out that vid. Comments The
family said it was good, but I dont think it was as good as how mum
does it. Or how my friend in Wales does it. Or how you'll do it. It was good value for money too, as many of the ingredients I already had, yet it made a tasty whole some meal for literally 4 people. If you’re looking to genuinely cook something, this is perfect. Get the kids involved. If you want to look at something, look at what I did last time. Signing off. Toodle-oo. One last thing... Here is a seperate link to that video if you can't see it to the right of this message.
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 TipFreeze them then whack them straight into the oven. Then the pastry won’t rise plus you don’t need to faff about with blind baking stuff. CostThese were expensive to make with fresh raspberries. Substitute them for another fruit to cut costs. My [Nigella's] way, they cost about £10.
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Raspberry and white chocolate tarts5 wooden forks of difficulty [hard] These are tricky, however you can still make them if you're new to the kitchen. They're time consuming, taking me 3 ½ hours to make 6. Here is a similar recipe. What y'all need...My main point though is that you need these dishes (pictured below-middle). They have push out bottoms so you can pop them out real easy. If you don’t have them, avoid because it’ll break if you try and force it out. If you do have the dishes, squeeze the sizes a little to get the pastry loosened, then pop out the bottom. That way they should stay in one piece. 
Click for a bigger picture.
Left = ingredients. Middle = the dish. Right = fin. |
Piri-piri chicken3-4 wooden forks of difficulty [meduim-hard] Now this is a great meal. It’s from Jamie so you know it’s going to turn out at least half decent. Make sure you are prepared if you want to finish this in anywhere close to 30 minutes. Recipe infoRead this one. Also you could watch it below in a minute long video. I wouldn't alter this recipe, although I didn’t do the tarts because they looked like too much hassle.
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Tips1]Don’t mash your potatoes into the same consistency you have
with bangers, leave it so it still has some bite. 2]If you don’t like it too
spicy, remove the seeds from the chilies as then you get the flavour without
the fire. 3]Make doubly sure your potatoes are cooked right through (20-25
minutes is more like it), and cover them with more than one layer of cling film
as if you don’t this is likely to come off and you’ll have a watery microwave
from all the steam. 4]Leave more time than Jamie’s ambitious 30 minutes if you don’t run your kitchen like a military operation.
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 My verdictErm, well, I didn’t like it. I seasoned it well, and I swapped double cream out for crème fresh, but this thing is bland. If you’ve just made it, I’m really sorry (unless yours is delicious, in which case, really well done! Told you it would work!). It strongly resembles soup served in a hospital. If you want to give it a shot, then drizzle olive oil and add two leaves of basil to the top to make it more interesting. It may be just one wooden fork of difficulty, but it’s also 1 on a scale of 1-10 of tastiness. Thanks for reading, but avoid making. |
Pumpkin soup1-2 wooden forks of difficulty [low] Wowaaa! Stop right there. You’ve just spent at least half an hour carving your pumpkin into a crude depiction of a face, you gave him a name (bit odd), and now you’re going to scrape his insides into the bin? Don’t do that, at the very least you’ll hurt his feelings. Try this instead, and then he can be a true dual purpose pumpkin. What y'all need...
. . . Is one of those handheld blenders. I wouldn't have been able to do anything close without it. This is a cheap one and it was fine. Just be careful, because as my super technical equation shows [hot soup + anyone who is standing remotely close = scolding]. This stuff is hot so take care. Recipe infoUse this one. It's simple. A couple of corrections to the BBC recipe: 1. If you don’t have the vegetable stock or whatever it asks for, take a chicken Oxo cube and add 750ml of boiling water. 2. Don’t even try their homemade ‘croutons’. Nobody can be bothered, get some from the super Marché when you get the other ingredients. |
Profiteroles3 wooden forks of difficulty [meduim] These little beauties are great if you want to wow guests after dinner. They are quite easy to make but look and taste super!
Recipe info
I was using a very old recipe from some dog-eared book made
by marks and spencer from years ago. I did manage to find this recipe from
Delia Online though and it’s very similar to the one I used. TipDon’t have a piping bag? Need to get your cream into the middle without destroying the pastry? How about using a sandwich bag? Put the mixture into the bag and move it toward one of the corners. Then snip a bit of the corner off. And there you go, one improvised piping bag. Plus if you use the handle of your wooden spoon to make the hole, and then cover it back up again with chocolate you can’t see where the cream was piped in giving a ‘shop bought’ finish. Top job. |  Comments "Really nice. Excellent. Out of this world." - Family bias I think. |
 Comments A really nice cake when done right. I used an oblong tin as advised by Nigella Lawson's website [see opposite]. Instead of lining the tin with butter I used one of these tin liners, which is much easier in my opinion. Next time i'd probably take more care when folding the flour in, as it lost some of it's lightness when I stirred it too much for the photo! | Lemon drizzle cake2 wooden forks of difficulty [low - meduim] This one is quite easy, it's a case of adding all the ingredients into a bowl and putting it in the oven. MethodWhat you'll need to do to recreate this yourself is line a cake tin, then preheat your oven to about 180c. Soften 125g butter and cream it with 175g of caster sugar. Add two eggs and some lemon zest, then fold in 175g of self-raising flour and add 4 tablespoons of milk. Then put it in a tin, and put the tin in the oven for 45 mins. To make the 'drizzle' gently heat the juice of one lemon and 100g of icing sugar on the hob. Once the sugar is dissolved , pour it over the cake when you get it out of the oven.TipsRoll the lemon accross the work surface while pushing down a bit, then when you come to squeeze, the juice will be easier to extract. Also, make sure you watch the butter if your heating it in a microwave: you want it soft not turn into a puddle. Turn it down to medium. |
What is this? This blog was made for a DofE gold project. It features a recipe every week. I've included some details so you can cook along if you'd like. Top. |  |
