Coffee and Walnut Cake

This is for all of us who have a tough time in the morning ;)

What you will need to make the coffee & walnut cake:
- 175g/6oz unsalted butter, a bit extra for greasing up
- 175g/6oz light muscovado sugar (I used regular brown sugar before)
- 3 large eggs, beaten
- 3 tbsp strong black coffee
- 175g/6oz
- 1.5 tsp baking powder
- 115g/4oz walnut pieces
- Optional: some walnut halves for decorating
- 115g/4oz unsalted butter
- 200g/7oz icing sugar
- 1 tbsp strong black coffee
- .5 tsp vanilla essence

How to make the coffee & walnut cake:
- Preheat the oven to 180*c/350*f/Gas Mark 4. Get your cake pans ready by greasing and lining two 20cm/8in cake pans.
- Cream together the muscovado sugar and the butter until it is all pale and fluffy. Slowly add the eggs, beating well after each addition and finally beat in the coffee.
- Mix the flour and the baking powder into the butter and muscovado sugar mixture, then fold in lightly and evenly with a metal spoon. Mix in the walnut pieces.
- Split the mixture between the two prepared cake tins and smooth the tops so they are level.
- Bake in the preheated oven for about 20 to 25 minutes or until it is golden brown.
- To make the frosting beat together butter and icing sugar, coffee and vanilla until it is all smooth and creamy.
- Use half of the frosting between the two sponge cakes and the rest on top or along the sides if you wish.
- Now if you opted for walnut halves you can decorate the top with them.

Photo Credit: http://www.reallynicerecipes.com/

Fried Sandwich Rolls

I am feeling sick as a dog and craving some dirt nasty foods! Has anyone here tried making fried sandwich rolls before? 

What you will need to make fried sandwich rolls (multiply by the amount of rolls you want to make):
- A slice of bread
- A slice of ham, smoked or cooked your preference, you could dabble in other meats
- A slice of cheese, again your choice of which cheese you want but stick with fatty ones because they melt good 
- An egg, scrambled well
- Bread crumbs 
- Oil to fry in

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How to make fried sandwich rolls (multiply by the amount of rolls you want to make):
- Take a rolling pin, glass, bottle or a jar (be creative if you don't have a rolling pin) and flatten the piece of bread
- Put the ham and cheese onto the flattened slice of bread and carefully roll up.
- Dip the rolls first into egg then bread crumbs, then repeat the process.
- Fry the rolls in hot oil, making sure you get all the sides, until they are golden brown.

Soooooooo who wants to volunteer to make these for me today??? 

Photo Credits: www.coolinarika.com/klub/sanjalica81/

Natural homemade fruit jelly: Raspberry jelly

What you will need to make natural homemade raspberry jelly:
- 4 kg of raspberries.
- Sugar, amount depends on the amount of juice you get from the raspberries.
- A strainer, make sure it is not metal.

How to make natural homemade Raspberry jelly:
-First cook all four kg of the raspberries, without any water, for about eight minutes. 
- Keep stirring so it doesn't start to burn or stick to the bottom.
- After eight minutes put it into a fine strainer and let the juice drain into a bowl.
- When its all drained weigh the juice and add the same amount of sugar.
- Put the mixture into a pan and cook on low heat while stirring occasionally.
- When it comes to a boil stop stirring and just take the foam off the top while cooking for another 3 minutes.
- While still warm pour the jelly into cleaned dry jars, do not close them until it is completely cooled off.

Before following any of the natural homemade jelly recipes make sure you read the following post which acts as a quick intro to natural jelly making:
Natural homemade fruit jelly: the intro to jelly making 

Natural homemade fruit jelly: Mint jelly

By Midori (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC BY-SA 2.1 jp (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.1/jp/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons

What you will need to make natural homemade mint jelly:
- 1/4 kg mint leaves
- 1 kg of sugar
- 1 apple
- 4 dl of water
- A strainer, make sure it is not metal

How to make natural homemade Mint jelly:
- Clean the mint leaves with a damp cloth and remove the stems
- Peel, and dice the apple.
- Heat up the mint leaves with the 4 dl of water
- Add the sugar and the diced apple to the cooking mint leaves
- Once it has been brought to a boiling point turn the heat down and keep cooking until the mass stiffens
- Strain the mass and store in well cleaned and completely dry glass jars.

Before following any of the natural homemade Jelly recipes make sure you read the following post which acts as a quick intro to natural jelly making:

Natural homemade fruit jelly: the intro to jelly making

Natural homemade fruit jelly: the intro to jelly making

Jelly should be firm, see through, and should retain the color and fragrance of the fruit. 
It is prepared with fruit juice, and you should only use fruit which has enough acidity and pectin (essentially the thing that makes it turn into jelly). I realize that nowadays you can buy all sorts of additives and pectin that will act as firming agents but this is meant for natural jellies without those. 
The fruits that contain pectin are sour apples, nearly ripe raspberries and grapes and they are the easiest ones to make jelly with, you can mix them with other fruits too.
It is generally good to add some lemon juice to any fruit when making jelly because of its acidic properties.
If you want your jelly to look really nice don't peel your fruit or take out the core because they contain the most pectin.
Instead wash the fruit and cook it either whole or just cut up, with just enough water to cover it.

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Cook it on high heat so it would get soft, but be careful not to have it fall apart. 
You should line your strainer with two layers of gauze and leave the fruit in it to drain on its own. Do not press it just let it sit there for a few hours and do its thing.
The juice drained from the fruit should be weight and then added the same amount of sugar, then cooked on low heat. 
In general the jelly is done if you put a drop of it on a plate and it hardens straight away.

There is also raw jelly which can be attained from cherries and from red and black currants.
The fruit should be washed and seeds removed then the juice pressed out. 
The juice should then be warmed up, but not to the boiling point. 
once warmed up turn the heat off an add the same weight in sugar to it. 
Keep stirring it well until the whole thing starts to cool and harden. 
The raw jelly should be done in small quantities.