Corn Dogs

As promised here's the corn dog recipe. They were surprisingly easy to make and tasted incredible. We had them as a starter and then had burger and chips! Although it was way too much food and we didn't eat half of it all...which I guess is a bonus as it means more burgers today...

Happy Eating

• Ingredients - 
  
  
  vegetable oil, for deep frying
• 150g cornmeal or polenta
• 125g plain flour
• 40g sugar
• 3 tsp baking powder
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 free-range egg
• 225ml full-fat milk
• 12-15 frankfurter sausages
• 12-15 wooden skewers, soaked
  
  
  Method - 
  
  
  1. Heat the vegetable oil in a deep-fat fryer to 160C (a bread crumb should go brown in about 30 seconds) or as I did in a shallow based pan, it worked well and you don't have to use as much oil!
  2. Mix together all of the dry ingredients in a bowl. In a separate bowl, beat the egg and milk together and gradually stir the mixture into to the dry ingredients. Whisk together to make a heavy batter.
  3. Put a skewer through each frankfurter sausage and dip it into the batter until well coated.
  4. Place the frankfurters into the oil, a few at a time, and cook for three minutes, or until golden-brown. Drain on a plate lined with kitchen paper.
  5. To serve, mix the mustard and mayonnaise together in a bowl and serve with the frankfurters.

Photography...

Shamless plug - Some of my photography is now up on The Cuckoos Nest site. Please check it out and let me know what you think at http://www.cuckoosnestclothing.com/ - The first 6 images that appear are mine. If you want to see more check over at my site at www.robertbillington.com

Here's a little preview -

Tomorrow I'm going to be making corn dogs and I'll be sure to share the recipe with you! We're going to have an American evening and eat corn dogs and burgers and watch something like American Pie (hope this doesn't offend any Americans out there...)

Apple Cake

As usual the gap between blog posts has become even bigger, big apologies but I've had a word with myself and I'm going to try and get more done as I've always got loads to say!

I've recently been busy shooting and am working on my own shoots which is great. I've been doing bits of food photography and fashion photography, weird combination? I don't think so...food is the new fashion right? Anyway if you're interested in seeing what I've been up to then check out my usual website www.robertbillington.com and if you're interested in working with me then get in touch.

The other week I ended up with some spare apples that weren't looking that great anymore but were nowhere near going off so I decided to make a cake with them. Usually you'd use baking apples but this was a case of using the old apples so they were actually Braeburn apples - they didn't crumble and actually made a beautiful cake. If you use baking apples throw a bit extra sugar over them. It's well easy to make and you've probably got all the ingredients in your cupboard!

Fact about apple cake - I travelled around Poland a few years ago and there's a cocktail they have called a szarlotka (pronounced: sharlotka) which is simply Zubrowka vodka and apple juice but szarlotka also means 'apple cake' and so many times we were served a drink when we wanted cake and visa versa. Note to self - if you ever go to Poland be sure to order both Szarlotka's!

Enjoy!

Rob

APPLE CAKE

Ingredients –

2 eggs

175 g caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

85 g butter

75 ml milk

125 g plain flour

2 1/4 tsp baking powder

2 Braeburn apples, cored and thinly sliced

Method –

-       Preheat the oven to 200C. Prepare a 9in cake tin by putting parchment on the bottom, brushing with butter and then sprinkling first with caster sugar and then with flour. (Tip any excess sugar and flour out in between each step)

-       Arrange the apple slices in a concentric circles until the bottom of the tin is covered, don’t keep stacking up loads of apples as the cake will become too wet and will take longer to bake.

-       Using an electric whisk, whisk the eggs, caster sugar and vanilla extract in a large bowl until the mixture is thick and leaves a trail for a few seconds when the whisks are lifted (obviously turn the whisk off when you do this). It should take about 5 minutes

-       Melt the butter in a saucepan with the milk, then pour onto the eggs, whisking all the time. Sift in the flour and baking powder and fold carefully into the batter so that there are no lumps of flour. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and smooth the surface.

-       Bake for 15 minutes on 200 degrees

-       Reduce heat to 180 degrees and bake for a further 20-25 minutes

Let the cake cool slightly before taking out of the tin and then while it’s still warm make sure you have the first slice as it’ll get eaten very quickly (I’d intended on taking a full cake shot but couldn’t resist eating some

Hope you're all well and I'll be sure post soon

Rob

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