Citrus Biscuits (V)

Wanted to impress people in the office (May have also mentioned I baked in the interview). Came up with this new recipe which went down a storm.

Makes 22-24 Biscuits

150g Butter
100g Caster Sugar
1 Egg Yolk
Rind of 1 Orange
Rind of 1 Lemon
½ teaspoon of baking powder
200g Flour, plus extra for dusting

Icing (Optional)
175g Icing Sugar
Juice of an Orange
Juice of an Lemon

1. Preheat the oven to 200c/180 fan assisted. Take a large mixing bowl and mix the butter with sugar until combined

2. Add the egg yolk and mix. Then add the flour, baking powder and the rinds of the orange and lemon. You should be able to make a ball out of this. Leave in the fridge to cool for about an hour so it doesn't fall apart.

3. You want to flour your rolling pin and surface and place the dough on the surface. You roll out the dough until you get a thickness roughly ½cm thick.

4. Take either circle pastry cutters (if you don't have any using a 125ml wine glass works as well) and cut out the dough. Reroll and repeat from step 3 until you run out of dough.

5. Put some grease proof paper on the baking tray and place the cut out dough on the tray, making sure to leave enough space between the biscuits so they don't stick together. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes or until golden brown. Put on a wire rack and allow to cool.

6. For the icing put the icing sugar in the bowl and start off with 1 tablespoon of orange and lemon juice and mix. Then add one tablespoon of each alternating between the two fruits until you get the correct consistency. If you added too much juice then add icing sugar. Then you add a tablespoon of icing to biscuit and allow to harden. Keep biscuits in a sealed container when your not serving, otherwise the biscuits will get soft.

Lemon and Prawn Pasta

A quick midweek meal which is easy on the wallet and the stomach.

Serves 2

150g Linguine

Small Carton of Double Cream

100g Frozen Peas

Handful of Parsley

1 Lemon

200g Prawns

Parmesan, grated

1 Egg Yolk

Salt and Pepper

1. Put the pasta in a pan and boil according to the instructions.

2. In a bowl put the egg yolk, zest and juice on a lemon, cream, parmesan, salt and pepper. Mix well.

3. A few minutes before the pasta is cooked, add the prawns and peas to the pan. Drain the water and put pasta, prawns and peas back in the pan. Put the sauce in the pan and mix over a low heat for about a minutes. Serve with parmesan on top. 

Custard (V)

A lovely accompaniment to my crumble recipe, pies and a lot of puddings.

Serves 4

3 Egg yolks
25g Caster Sugar
1 Vanilla Pod
2 tsp Cornflour
1 Pint Whole Milk

1. Put a pan on the hob and add the milk to the pan with the vanilla pod. Keep the vanilla pod in the milk until the milk begins to boil.

2. In a bowl whisk the egg yolk, sugar and cornflour.

3. Add the egg mixture to the milk while stirring. Keep over the heat and stir for about 5 minutes

4.  Strain the mixture into another saucepan and keep on the heat until the custard thickens.