American pancakes recipe

Here you are another interesting recipe from videojug: American pancakes.

Banoffee Pie Recipe

Once again I write a post on a typical British recipe: BANOFFEE PIE. The link is from videojug, a great website with videos on many and varied things.

Dessert Pies:
How To Make Banoffee Pie

My first marshmallow fondant cake!

I want to show you my first marshmallow fondant cake. Making the fondant is not difficult given that the ingredients are really easy to get, you just need marshmallows, powdered sugar and some water. You will also need some shortening (vegetable butter or grease) because the melted marshmallows are very sticky. For the different colours, you will use food coloring. And that's it!

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This site (About.com) contains a detailed explanation on how to make marshmallow fondant.

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You can also watch a tutorial on how to make marshmallow fondant.

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Finally, I want to thank my friend Alice for helping me with the decoration! She's an artist!

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How to make chocolate brownies

As I am a chocaholic, I will give you a recipe for chocolate brownies. I hope you like it!


Chocolate:
How To Make Chocolate Brownies

Rudolph Cookies

Ingredients:
50 gr walnuts or peanuts
100 gr sugar
100 gr butter
1 egg
250 gr flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vainilla flavoured sugar
Small pretzel twists
Red and brown m&m's

Method:
Pre-heat oven to 180 celsius. Grate watnuts in the Thermomix, speed 5 for a few seconds. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix, speed 4-5, until the mixture is blended. Place the mixture on the table and make circles, I used a glass to make the circles. Press two pretzels into the top of each circle to form Rudolph's antlers. Make sure that 1/2 of the pretzel is into the cookie to ensure that it will stay put when cooked. Press two chocolate chips into the cookie for the eyes, and press one red M&M into the cookie for the nose. Bake about 15-20 minutes, or until browned around the edges. Let cool, and enjoy! These are wonderful for class or Christmas parties, and great in a tin as a gift!

I did the mixture with the Thermomix, but you can also do it without it.
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HALLOWEEN 2009

• Halloween games: Word Game, Spelloween, Transylmania II, Hangman
• Halloween recipes
• Halloween vocabulary
• Halloween quiz
• Halloween reading comprehension: Halloween, Jack O'Lantern
• Grammar: The London Dungeon

HAPPY HALLOWEEN 2009!!!

Shepherd's Pie Recipe

Hello everybody! I'm back and ready to go on posting on English is all around!
I hope you've had a wonderful summer and you've recharged your batteries to start working again.

Today I want to tell you how to make Shepherd's Pie, one of the most traditional British dishes. Also known as Cottage Pie, it consists of a meat pie with a crust made from smashed potato and beef.


British:
How To Make Shepherd's Pie

How To Make Spanish Tortilla

I have just found a very interesting site: http://www.videojug.com/. But what is this website about? I'll tell you, well, they'll tell you, this is their own description of the site:

"Whatever you want to get good at, Videojug can help. From cooking a curry or learning to dance to health, wealth, happiness and finding love. We’ve found the best advice out there and turned it into over 60,000 professionally-made video and article guides. We’ve also got a lot of great content made by our users, and still more from our many partner sites. Wherever you go on the site you’ll find a community of people just like you, with the same aims and interests, learning new things and sharing their skills and experiences. Getting good at life."

The following video shows how to make the delicious Spanish Tortilla. Follow the instructions and try and make one, you'll like it!


Breakfast: How To Make Spanish Tortilla
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Traditional British Recipes

Although the main aim of this blog is to help people to learn English, we cannot forget that culture is also a very important aspect to take into account when studying a foreign language. So, this post is intended for you to know some traditional British recipes.

British recipes:

Britainexpress

Goto.glocalnet

Hidden-England

Shopenglandonline

Toweroflondontour

CUSTARD

Custard is a range of preparations based on milk and eggs. Most commonly, custard refers to a dessert or dessert sauce, but custard bases are also used for quiche and other savoury foods. As a dessert, it is made from a combination of milk or cream, egg yolks, sugar, and vanilla. Sometimes flour, corn starch, or gelatin are also added. (Source: Wikipedia)

Ready made custard is usually excellent but this recipe is based on how it used to be made a long time ago. It is easy to make and the only thing that could go wrong is that it might become too hot and curdle. If it does? Don't worry. Just whisk in an egg and it will return to normal. This can be served hot or allowed to chill in the fridge. For an 'extra special' custard stir in about 150ml or 5 fl oz of double cream at the very end of the heating process.

Ingredients:

25g or 1 oz caster sugar

300ml or 10 fl oz of boiling milk

3 drops of vanilla essence

2 large egg yolks

Method:

1. Beat the egg yolks

2. In a large bowl place the sugar, vanilla essence and the beaten egg yolks and mix together.

3. Now pour in the boiling milk, whisking as you pour.

4. Put the custard into a saucepan and, over a LOW heat, stir until the right constituency is obtained. Test by putting a wooden spoon in the mixture - it should cover the back of the spoon when the spoon is lifted out. DO NOT let the mixture boil or you will end up with sweet scrambled eggs.

5. If you want to add the double cream then this is the time to do it.

6. Remove from the heat and either serve immediately or allow to cool. Once cooled it should be covered and kept in the fridge for 2 days. Do not reheat once chilled.

Source: http://hidden-england.netfirms.com/custard.htm

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I hope you enjoy cooking traditional British food, if you try any of the recipes, please tell me.

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Carrot cake recipe

Ingredients:
Sponge cake

300 grs carrots
2 eggs
50 ml butter
125 gr flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 and 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
150 gr sugar
30 gr walnuts
30 gr raisins
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
nutmeg
aniseed
1/2 grated lemon rind + 1/2 grated orange rind

Cream Cheese Frosting

200 gr cream cheese

50 gr butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 teaspoon confectioners’ sugar

200 gr cream

1/2 grated lemon rind + 1/2 grated orange rind

1/4 orange juice

Cinnamon

Method

Preheat oven to 180 celsius. Grate carrots in your Thermomix, speed 4. Add walnuts and raisins and grate a few seconds, speed 4. Place eggs, butter and grated lemon and orange rind and mix using speed 3 1/2.

In a bowl, place flour, salt, baking powder, sugar, cinnamon, vanilla extract, nutmeg and aniseed and beat them for a few minutes. Then, place this mixture to the Thermomix glass and mix a few seconds, speed 6.

Pour into a greased recipient and bake for over 40-45 mins. Once you've got the sponge cake, cut it into two pieces and fill it with cream cheese frosting. Cover it and spread your cake with cream cheese frosting.

Cream cheese frosting:

Whip the cream, then add the rest of the ingredients and mix a few seconds using speed 4.

I did it with the Thermomix, but you can also do it without it. It is delicious, I promise. Do you want to try it?