Royal Britainia!

 With the arrival of Britain's newest (and cutest) monarch, baby Prince George Alexander Louis, there's no better excuse for a British tea party!

Now, I'm not completely ga-ga over the little Prince (although he IS adorable!), but any excuse for cake, scones and tea is a good one. And so, without further ado, I present my hastily cobbled-together British High Tea recipes.

My first cake is a classic recipe, but with a bit of a twist! Feel free to substitute your own flavours here, I'm dying to try an orange butter cake next!

Rosewater Butter Cake

Feeds - Myself, Hungry Boyfriend and the Royal Family (roughly 8 slices of cake or 15 muffins)

Cooking Time: 40 minutes

Total Cost: $3.20

Ingredients:

Cake:

- 1/3 cup butter, softened ($1 - $4.70/kg)

- 1/2 cup caster sugar (20c - $1.66/kg)

- 1 1/2 cups self-raising flour (45c - $1.85/2kg)

- 2 eggs (60c)

- 3/4 cup milk (20c- $1/L)

- 1 teaspoon rosewater essence (15c - $1.80/50mL)

Icing:

- 4 tablespoons icing sugar (40c - $1.80/500g)

- 2 tablespoons milk (10c - $1/L)

- 1/2 teaspoon rosewater essence (7c - $1.80/50mL)

Method

1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

2. Beat butter, sugar and rosewater essence until the mixture is light and fluffy.

3. Beat in eggs, one at a time.

4. Gradually stir in flour and milk, stirring continuously.

5. Pour into a greased cake tin (or muffin trays) and bake for 30 minutes or until a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean.

6. For the icing, gradually add the milk to the icing sugar whilst stirring continuously. Add the rosewater essence at the end.

7. Pour icing over cake (or muffins) once cooled. 

And of course, what British High Tea would be complete without scones?

My scones(pictured) are what I like to call 'The Lazy-Woman's Drop Scones'. Before baking, you're technically supposed to knead out the scone dough and cut out little circles with a biscuit-cutter. Since I was A) too short on time/lazy to cut perfect circles out and B) short on actual biscuit-cutters (read: I don't have any), I simply scooped out a tablespoon of the mixture and plonked it onto a baking tray before baking. It's easier, but not quite as attractive, so if you're thinking of having the Royal Family over, it's probably best to invest in biscuit-cutters!

As always, I encourage you to mess around and try your own versions. Common variations are fruit scones with chopped sultanas or dates, spiced scones with cinnamon or allspice, chocolate scones or savoury scones with chopped olives, sundried tomatoes and/or Parmesan cheese.

The Lazy-Woman's Drop Scones

Feeds: Myself, Hungry Boyfriend and the Royal Family (12 scones)

Cooking Time: 5 minutes preparation time, plus 10 minutes per batch of scones.

Total Cost: $2.25

Ingredients:

- 2 1/4 cups self-raising flour (75c - $1.85/2kg)

- 2 tablespoons icing sugar (40c - $1.80/500g)

- 1 cup milk (25c - $1/L)

- 2 large tablespoons butter (80c - $4.70/kg)

- 1 teaspoon imitation vanilla essence (less than 5c)

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. 

2. Combine flour and icing sugar.

3. Rub in butter with your fingertips (make sure you wash your hands before this part!) until the mixture loosely resembles breadcrumbs.

4. Make a hole in the middle of the 'breadcrumb' mixture (or a 'well' as professionals like to call it) and pour the milk and vanilla into the hole.

5. Mix together until everything has just combined. Don't keep mixing for ages, otherwise your scones won't have that wonderful fluffiness. 

6. Using two tablespoons, drop a heaped tablespoon of mixture onto a lined baking tray, leaving plenty of room between drops (I was able to fit 4 tablespoons on mine).

7. Bake for 10 minutes, or until the scones sound hollow when tapped on top. 

8. Serve buttered with tea, or with jam and cream if you prefer. 

Best of luck with your tea party, and I'll be back very soon with some more cheap and tasty meals!

Lots of love,

(broke) Masterchef Mel 

Sunday Roast - Student Style!

I'm baaaccckkk! Sorry for the enormous delay in posting, but I've been extraordinarily busy lately with my new job (finally I'm employed again!) and exciting internship :D

But enough about me, let's talk about the classic Sunday Roast. I expect most of you remember winter-time including a few old-fashioned roasts at home, a luxury we've been forced to forgo since moving away from those money-trees we call parents (just joking Mum and Dad!). However, since securing a little cash from my new job, Hungry Boyfriend and I decided we'd splurge on a whole chicken and see if we could whip up a good old Sunday Roast.

While you'd expect roasts to be complex, with all the stuffing nonsense and trying to avoid watery gravy, I managed to cruise through my roast (and a bottle of wine) surprisingly easily. All you need is a good recipe (I merged two together) and soon enough, you'll be looking like this!

I've done a chicken roast, as they're often the cheapest and served it with potatoes, pumpkin and carrot. As with all my recipes, please feel free to mess around with it, throw in a few individualised pieces and let me know how it turns out!

Spiced Roast Chicken with Potatoes, Pumpkin and Carrot

Feeds: Myself and Hungry Boyfriend to bursting point

Cooking Time: 70 - 80 minutes (but don't let that scare you!)

Total Cost: $9.65

Ingredients:
- 1 small whole chicken, roughly 1kg ($6)
- 3 medium potatoes ($1.50)
- 1/2 small butternut pumpkin, roughly 250g (90c - $1.70/400g)
- 1 carrot (30c)


Spice Rub (pictured):
- 1 teaspoon mild chilli powder (less than 5c)
- 1 teaspoon paprika (less than 5c)
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin (less than 5c)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt (less than 5c)
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper (less than 5c)

Gravy:
- 3 teaspoons instant gravy* (roughly 65c - one tin costs $2and you'll use slightly less than a third)
- 1 cup boiling water
- Pan juices from the chicken
- Roughly 1-2 tablespoons plain flour, to thicken (less than 5c)

Method:
1. Pre-heat the oven to 210 degrees Celsius.

2. Wash and peel potatoes and pumpkin. Chop the potatoes into quarters and the pumpkin into similarly-sized chunks. Slice the carrot in half crossways, then lengthways. Set the pumpkin and carrot aside in a large mixing bowl and place the potatoes in a saucepan of water to boil**.

3. While the potatoes are boiling, combine the spices in a small bowl. Remove packaging from the chicken and pat dry with paper towel. Using your fingertips, rub the spices onto the skin (I enlisted Hungry Boyfriend to do this for me :P) You should have a little left, but don't worry if you don't.

Spice Rub

4. Place the chicken in a large roasting pan and put into the oven. Since this chicken is only 1kg, it will take about 50 - 60 minutes to cook. If you're cooking with a larger chicken, you'll want to leave it longer.

Pre-Roasted Chicken with Spice Rub

5. By now, the potatoes should be boiled enough to be slightly soft, but not cooked through. Drain, rinse with cold water and place in the mixing bowl with the other veggies.

6. Splash a little oil (roughly 1 tablespoon) over the veggies and stir through the remaining spice mix. If you didn't have any left over, just mix in some more cumin, paprika and chilli powder.

7. Place vegetables on a lined baking tray and put in the oven. The vegetables should take about 40 -50 minutes and, in this case, be ready around the same time as the chicken.

8. To tell if the chicken is ready, poke a sharp knife into the thigh joint. If the juices running out are clear, the chicken in cooked. If the juices are a little pink, the chicken will need a little longer. When your chicken is cooked, remove from the pan and place on a chopping board for carving.

Yum!

9. Combine instant gravy powder, boiling water and the juices in the bottom of the roasting pan in a small saucepan over a low heat and whisk until thickened to a desirable consistency. If you think your gravy is too watery, sprinkle in a little flour at a time until you're happy with it.

Instant Gravy Powder = Worthwhile Investment

10. By now, your potatoes should be lovely and crispy. Take them out of the oven and serve with your roast chicken with gravy poured over the top.

 Carving the Chicken

Viola! 

*Instant gravy powder is a worthwhile investment. The tin pictured above set me back $2 and it saved me ridiculous amounts of trouble. However, I do recommend adding a little extra flour for thickening, as it's quite watery by itself.

**The reason you boil the potatoes at the beginning is to get rid of that horrible starchiness. It seems like an unnecessary extra step, but it's well worth it.

So there you have it! Easy, peasy, lemon-squeezy Sunday Roast! Even the dishes don't need much of clean ;)

Hopefully I'll be back soon with some more easy, cheap and tasty eats. Best of luck in the kitchen!

Lots of Love,
(broke) Masterchef Mel