Strawberry Cupcakes

Last month at school we were told that we were going to be taking part in British Red Cross Week and were asked did we have any ideas for fundraising activities? Well of course whenever me and my colleague Hayley hear the the words 'fundraising', there is only one thing that pops into our minds: any excuse to bake.

We therefore decided to organise a cake sale for one break time, seeing as we've discovered there is no better way to make a load of cash quickly than by selling cakes to kids.

For my contribution I predictably turned to my Primrose Bakery Cupcakes book. I don't care what anyone says about cupcakes being passé, kids still go mad for them. Seeing as I already had several punnets of strawberries in the fridge, I decided to do some Strawberry Cupcakes topped with nice big, juicy, fresh strawberries.

I was super impressed with these cupcakes and got lots of compliments on them from everyone who ate one. They were very popular with the staff. People liked the hidden strawberry jam surprise in the middle.

However, the other thing I learned about kids is that a lot of them dislike strawberries and therefore refuse to touch cupcakes with a strawberry on top with a barge pole. Therefore, next time I will remember to stick to chocolate...

Recipe

For the cupcakes:
125g strawberries
225g butter
225g caster sugar
4 large eggs
210g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
25g cornflour

For the filling / topping:
Strawberry jam
A punnet of strawberries

For the buttercream icing:
110g butter
60ml milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
500g icing sugar
Red food colouring

To begin, preheat the oven to 180 degrees C / gas mark 4. Next, take the 125g of strawberries and place in a mixing bowl. Mash the strawberries using a potato masher.

Cream the butter and sugar together with the mashed strawberries before gradually adding the eggs one at a time and mixing well.

Then add the flour, baking powder and cornflour to the cake mix and beat well until fully combined.

Using a couple of teaspoons, spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases until just over half full.

Place in the oven for around 30 minutes or until the cakes are risen and golden. Leave the cakes to cool in the tin for around 10 minutes before removing from the tin and cooling on a wire rack.

Meanwile, whip up the icing by beating the butter, milk, vanilla and half of the icing sugar together until smooth. Gradually add the rest of the icing sugar until you have a smooth buttercream.

Add drops of red food colouring until you have the colour you'd like - I went for a nice light pink. Put your icing to one side.

Once the cupcakes are fully cooled, use a teaspoon to dig out a chunk out of the top of the cupcakes - like you would if you were making fairy cakes. I gave the cake bits to a grateful Bailey to eat but you could chuck yours or even better leave them out for the birds.

Fill the holes you've made with a blob of strawberry jam, but don't overfill them.

Now pipe the icing onto the top of the cupcakes.

Once the cakes are iced, take a whole strawberry and press into the icing on top of each cupcake.

These cupcakes look really lovely and summery so serve as part of a summer lunch or tea party!

Secret Vintage Veggie Vegan Tea Party

My birthday had been and gone. It was a Sunday afternoon and I was feeling the post-birthday blues BUT I was keeping myself going in the knowledge that there was still a 'surprise' to come. Bailey had bundled me into the car (the passenger seat thankfully, not the boot) but wouldn't tell me where we were going. A few miles down the M56 and I started to worry that he was actually just taking me to work a day early, but when we came off at the Bowdon roundabout I started to piece the clues together. Who else do we know that lives in lovely Bowdon other than the most wonderful Gwyn from Vintage Afternoon Teas? What else was going on today other than a Secret Vintage Veggie Vegan Tea Party at Gwyn's house hosted by herself and vegetarian chef extraordinaire, Wendy of Wendy's House Supperclub? The penny had dropped (which was lucky as Bailey needed directing to the house). Turns out this surprise was courtesy of my awesome friends Doyle and Jeni - thanks guys, you really made my day!

As is the case with all of Gwyn's events, the Veggie Vegan Tea Party was a splendid affair, kicking off with a delicious glass of Pink Lemonade followed by lashings of tea (I drank an entire pot in about 4 minutes flat, sorry Gwyn) and a vintage stand groaning with vegan sarnies made by Wendy. I loved all of these - Onion Bhaji with Mango Chutney, Smoked Tofu with Chilli Jam and Cashew Pesto with Sunblushed Tomatoes were all great but my all round favourite were the Avocado and Salsa open sandwiches.

Carrot, Cumin and Lentil Pasties were unbelievable - pretty impossible to believe these bad boys were vegan as the pastry tasted pretty 'buttery' to me.

As usual I hadn't left enough room for sweets but there was no way I was going to turn down one of Gwyn's famous scones with all the amazing locally produced jams she spoils us with and one of Wendy's Vegan Berry Cheesecake Bites... again, these did not taste at all vegan and were creamy and lovely.

Back in 2011 we had our first taste of Wendy's veggie food at Bistro 1847 and the thing that left the lasting impression on me was her amazing Hendrick's Gin and Tonic Cake, this was light, ginny and zesty as always.

Finally I managed to squeeze in a Small Slice of Date Cake and Salted Caramel Sauce despite starting to get the cake sweats. This was gooey and gorgeous.

Spending an afternoon at Gwyn's is a treat at the best of times but this event was a fantastic tea party with a twist especially for vegans who probably normally wouldn't be catered for when it comes to tea and cake! Not only was the food suitable for vegans, it had all been so creatively put together that even the most die-hard of meat lovers would have left happy. Thanks to Gwyn and Wendy for the delicious spread and to Doyle and Jeni for being so good at surprises!

Guerilla Eats at The Beagle

The other week we were surprised to hear one of our favourite pubs and eateries, The Beagle, announcing that there were changes afoot. We were pretty gutted to hear that their old menu was a gonner but excited to hear that this was being replaced by a constrant stream of hot, fresh street food from our favourite local producers in the form of Guerilla Eats!

The Beagle weren't giving us much time to say our goodbyes to the old menu but their launch evening was perfectly timed with the start of a wave of beautiful weather in Manchester so we didn't mind too much. As should be done on all sunny Thursdays (which as you know are the new Fridays), we met up on the terrace with fabulous friends (including the most lovely blogging twosome you will meet - Manchester Foodies) for some pints and some yummy street food! Yeah boyyy!

The Moocher

I was in a very greedy mood (dangerous, very dangerous), but being pescatarian did limit me somewhat. This was not a bad thing - as I say I was in a greedy mood and who knows how much food I could have crammed into my gluttonous mouth had I been able to eat everything? I started off with a Veggie Taco from the all round good guys in the psychedelic van - Margo and Rita's. This was a good summery snack and the perfect street food for shoving in your gob in a beer garden.

My favourite street food man of the evening with a surprisingly large number of veggie options turned out to be Mr Roaming Pinchos. It was his debut event and I was proud to be one of his first ever customers. He seemed a bit nervous at first which I could identify with as I too am bricking it about our forthcoming street food adventures so I went to chat to him again at the end and he seemed very happy at how it had all gone; this made me pleased.

I tried his Pinchos tasting plate which was my favourite snack of the evening and involved tasty little toppings on toasty bread from Épicerie Ludo - I particularly enjoyed the Tuna Tartare with Avocado Purée and thought it was very nice to have Mock Chorizo as an alternative to the Serrano Ham.

I did return later for a portion of Mock Chorizo Salad with Butterbeans and Tomatoes which was fresh and healthy, perfect for a warm evening eating outside.

Of course there was also plenty on offer for the meat eaters and my meaty friends also ate very well. Our Levy neighbours The Moocher were certainly turning a few heads with their freshly barbecued meats and huge slabs of bread. I loved the sound of the Wild Garlic Mayo on their Veal Steak sandwich and Bailey said this was spot on, although my friend Beth wished there'd been more mayo on it - I wouldn't blame her, it sounded gorgeous.

We had such an amazing time eating the Guerilla Eats grub at The Beagle that it was pretty hard to tear ourselves away at the end of the night even when all of the producers had packed up to go home. While at first I lamented the loss of The Beagle's menu, now that I've seen it all in action I do think having the Guerilla Eats lot in suits the place much better and I understand their decision completely. It's great to see places like The Beagle coming up with new ideas and I think this is one that will work for everyone involved. The good news for us punters is that we will now be able to get our mitts on the Guerilla Eats food whenever we feel like it and without having to travel to different locations every time. We also have a boozer which will have a menu that is different every time you go which is great. Now if I could just trust myself to go again and not eat every veggie option in sight...

Boquerones in Cava Vinegar from The Roaming Pinchos 

Easy Noodle Soup

I am not one of these ladies who is a fan of Gok Wan. I've never wanted his opinion on how to look good naked and to be honest, he does my head in a bit. However, when I started hearing that Gok had done a Chinese cookery show that was actually really good, I decided to have a peek, just to see what the fuss was about. And whaddayaknow, it was indeed a rather good telly show. Not only did the food look ace, I even quite liked Gok in it (apart from his constant use of the phrase "Wok on", which I chose to ignore), he seemed to actually care what he was talking about for once. I liked it so much in fact, that I might have let it slip to Santa that I fancied a copy of the book for my Christmas present.

Gok Cooks Chinese is a lovely book (bar the page where he is pictured eating noodles doing a variety of inane poses) and was the perfect Christmas present as the recipes are simple, healthy, clean and inexpensive to make. January was looking pretty bleak, we had no money and I was feeling bloated and fat, but we made it through to payday with the help of Gok.

My favourite recipe, yet the most simple, was the Easy Traditional Noodles. Gok says: "If this dish had arms it would wrap itself around you and give you a huge hug". Bloody Gok, but it's true! I started to make this dish all the time and I'd made it so many times that it did start to evolve a little bit - I decided to make it a bit more spicy, a bit more garlicky and a bit more soupy and I also prefer the spring onions to be a bit softer so give them a bit of 'steaming' time at the end but other than that it's quite faithful to the original recipe. We've also experimented with loads of different types of noodles from various Manchester Chinese supermarkets and our favourites are by far those cheap EZ-Cook ones you get in the bumper packs, but you could use any really.

So this Easy Noodle Soup is now one of our favourite cheap dinners, it takes no time at all to make, it fills you up and is quite low calorie I'd have thought, although maybe a little short on the 5-a-day but never mind. Gok, you may be a bit annoying but you know how to write a cracking cookbook!

Recipe:
Largeish chunk of ginger
3 garlic cloves
Large pinch of chilli flakes
1300 ml of chicken stock
2 packets of noodles (we like the EZ-Cook ones you get in Chinese supermarkets!)
3 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp oyster sauce
4 spring onions

Peel and finely chop the garlic and ginger. Add the chicken stock to a large Chinese soup pot and add the garlic, ginger and chilli flakes to the stock. Put the lid on the pot and bring the soup to the boil over a fairly low heat.

Once the soup has started to boil, add the noodles and put the lid back on the pot. Cook the noodles for three minutes.

Meanwhile, finely chop the spring onions. After the three minutes, add the soy and oyster sauces to the soup, stir and turn the heat off.

Sprinkle the spring onions into the soup on top of the noodles. With the heat still off, put the lid back on the soup and leave for one minutes for the spring onions to soften up a bit. Transfer the noodles and broth to bowls and serve! Easy as that.

I Am Pho

Some of you may recall the Morris family's adventures into the wonderful world of Vietnamese fodder at Pho 68 in SheffVegas which we absolutely loved. This time we were in Manchester and, although my dad was after a return visit to Sindhoor, I'd recently read Mrs Petticoat's review of I Am Pho and was really desperate to try it. I knew my parents would love it, so I Am Pho it would be. Sorry dad.

I knew I Am Pho was going to be a pretty no-frills type of place but us Morrises don't mind this one jot. It was all very clean and spick and span. I particularly liked the musical tiles in the toilets.

As us Morrises are all such fans of the Vietnamese summer roll we knew without even looking at the menu that we were going to be getting a portion of those, but there was such a good selection of interesting starters at I Am Pho that we decided to order three different ones and share. This sharing lark is a dangerous game in the Morris family as you have to be quick like a cat, but it was worth the risk - all the starters were amazing.

Nem Cuốn Tom summer rolls with beautiful prawns and crunchy veg were delicious with a dipping sauce that reminded me of a peanutty version of chip shop curry sauce (one of life's guilty pleasures).

Bánh Cuốn Chay were lovely little sticky rice paper rolls topped with crunchy little bits of spring onion and served with a sweet, vinegary sauce that was so good I thought my dad was going to drink it à la Bacon on the Beech.

Bánh Xèo Tom however was our favourite starter of the day - a beautifully crispy Vietnamese pancake filled with onions and more of those delightful prawns and more of that bloody dipping sauce. Winner.

After we'd enjoyed our large bowls, or should I say buckets, of soup at Pho 68 we all hoped to have the same awesome soupy experience on this occasion. Me and my mum both went for the Phố Chay which didn't quite hit the spot for me this time - I loved the tofu and veggies but the broth itself to me tasted a little bland. I pepped it up with a load of Thai Basil, Sriracha Sauce and whatnot (I do love the tray of condiments you get on the table) but it still wasn't quite as nice as the one we'd had before.

Having said that my mum was quick to jump in and defend the dish, suggesting I'd enjoyed my soup more last time because of the cold; I'm not so sure about that but it shows how opinions can vary even between mother and daughter!

Then again I can't have disliked it that much seeing as I managed to see the bottom of my bowl this time... Pat on the back for me!

My dad's Bún Riêu Cua on the other hand was brilliant - a most flavoursome broth filled with loads of tasty crab. Roy was super impressed and insisted that he wasn't going to add a single thing to it from the condiment tray as it was spot on.

Overall we found the meal to be an excellent experience, helped along by the enthusiastic and informative waiter who was keen to tell us about Vietnamese food. The service was swift and efficient and everything was extremely reasonably priced. My dad didn't even mind missing out on Sindhoor.

I Am Pho is proud to declare itself the only Vietnamese restaurant in China Town and they do seem to be doing a roaring trade with all sorts of people coming in to enjoy their authentic dishes. I am yet to visit Vnam Café but my parents said they preferred I Am Pho out of the two. Definitely one of the best Manchester 'Cheap Eats' meals I've had this year and worth a try for sure.