Autumn is in the air

Autumn is here or so the garden tells me. Our pumpkins have been harvested and are proving in the sun. I feel rather proud of our artistic display of pumpkins and squashes this year. Its amazing what our lovely garden can produce.

Whilst on the topic of garden produce. We made a delicious Pear, Hazelnut and Chocolate cake with the last few pears. It was rather moreish. and very easy to make. We had it warm with ice-cream and custard and also cold too.

Pear, hazelnut and chocolate cake
(www.bbcgoodfood.com)

Ingredients
100g blanched hazelnuts
140g self-raising flour
175g butter , cut into small pieces
140g golden caster sugar
2 large eggs , beaten
5 small, ripe pears
50g dark chocolate , chopped into small chunks
2 tbsp apricot jam

Preheat the oven to fan 140C/ conventional 160C/gas 3. 

Butter and line the base of a 20cm round cake tin. 

Grind the hazelnuts in a food processor until fairly fine. 

Add the flour and mix briefly. Add the butter and pulse until it forms crumbs. Add the sugar and eggs and mix briefly. 

Peel, core and chop two of the pears. Stir the pears and chocolate lightly into the cake mixture.
Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and smooth the top. Peel, core and slice the remaining pears and scatter over the top of the cake. Press down lightly and bake for 50-60 minutes, until firm to the touch. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn out and cool on wire rack. Warm the jam and brush over the top. Serve warm or cold.

The weather then decided to confuse us all with a heatwave in October. The temperatures reached 29.9 degrees celsius and broke the records for the highest temperature recorded. Normally here in the UK we would be digging out the winter coats etc but no we had a last chance to get in a barbeque and don our shorts and t-shirts. As it was so hot I got a chance to test out a recipe I've been dying to try.

Lychee ice-cream:

Ingredients:

500ml natural yogurt

150ml single cream

75g caster sugar

425g can lychees 

Blend all together with 200ml of juice from lychee can.

Freeze for 1 hour

Whizz in a food processor til smooth

Freeze for 2 hours

Process again in food processor

Freeze until firm.

And finally for this weeks news I made a start on the childrens Christmas Elf hats. Here is a picture of what they look like - just need to add some bells ! ( only 2 more to go ).