Jamie Oliver is a food god. A king of the culinary. I was hesitant about this recipe but it turned out better than expected, the perfect combination of crunchy walnut, sweet butternut pumpkin and little bursts of brown sugar lumps. Resist eating this straight out of the oven, it tastes better after the flavours get to mingle and know each other for a day or two.
ingredients:
- 400g butternut pumpkin with the skin on, it seems odd but it works
- 350g light soft brown sugar
- 4 large free-range eggs
- sea salt
- 300g plain flour
- 2 heaped teaspoons baking powder
- handful of walnuts
- 1 heaped teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 175ml extra virgin oil
for the frosting: (I love that word, frosting, so much better than icing)
- zest of 1 clementine, I used an orange instead
- zest of 1 lemon
- juice of 1/2 a lemon
- 140ml sour cream
- 2 heaped teaspoons sifted icing sugar
- 1 vanilla pod, split length ways and seeds scraped out
- Preheat oven to 180 C/350 F. Line muffin tin with paper cases, or grease cake tin.
- Whiz the squash in a food processor until finally chopped. Whiz for 30 seconds with the walnuts. If your food processor is big enough, add the sugar, salt, eggs, flour, cinnamon, virgin olive oil and baking powder. If it’s not, mix all of these in a big bowl until everything is combined and moist. Don’t over-mix, you don’t want this to look like cake batter.
- Fill the muffin tin or cake tray with the mixture. Bake for 20-25 mins. If a wooden skewer comes out clean, it’s cooked. Remove from the oven and leave to cool on a wire rack.
- Make the runny frosted topping by mixing the clementine zest, all the lemon zest and the lemon juice into a bowl. Add the sour cream, icing sugar and vanilla seeds. Mix well and taste. If you think you want more sour, add more lemon juice, if you want more sweet, add icing sugar. It’s a personal taste. Put it into the fridge. You want to put the toppings on just as the cakes are served, otherwise it doesn’t keep that well. Jamie recommends decorating with rose petals and dried lavender flowers, but I didn’t have any around.
- Eat and know that you’ve done your healthy deed for the day. Yum!
The recipe was taken from the wonderful book Jamie at home.
This is super easy to make and looks extra fancy. It’s ingredients are cheap but still gourmet. You just need a couple of vegetable and some pantry staples. Apart from baking the pumpkin, which gives it a lovely caramel flavour over a time period of 45 minutes, the rest takes 20 minutes tops and it’s well worth the effort.
Ingredients:
- 1 butternut pumpkin
- Salt, pepper and olive oil.
- 1/4 cup flour
- 2 tb unsalted butter and another 1/4 cup butter
- Milk
- Any cheese you have on hand. I use Parmesan but anything goes.
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1/2 cup fresh or frozen shredded spinach
- 1/2 lemon
- Fresh or dried pasta
- Semi-dried tomatoes and pine nuts to garnish
Preheat your oven to 180 degree Celsius (350 Fahrenheit). Cut your pumpkin into even pieces.
Toss the pumpkin in a baking tray with salt, pepper and olive oil.
Check on your pumpkin in 45 mins. If you can easily pierce it with a fork, it’s done. Set aside.
Mince three cloves of garlic. Melt butter over medium heat in a saucepan. Add garlic, sizzle and stir for half a minute.
Add the frozen or fresh spinach and stir until wilted. Add a couple of squeezes of lemon. Set aside, separate from the pumpkin.
Bring at least a liter of water to the boil. Add a pinch of salt and the pasta. I used my big pot the night before to make chicken soup and it was still in the fridge, hosting the leftovers. Whoops. So, I cooked my pasta in a wok. Should have been a Girls’ Scout with resourcefulness like that.
Measure out your 1/4 cup flour and 1/4 cup butter. You need to be real specific about this. We’re making a roux, which is harder to pronounce than do.
Completely melt your butter then add the flour and mix furiously with a wooden spoon.
Keep mixing until it turns slightly brown and smells like nutmeg. Check on the pasta, making sure it’s just done, drain when it’s cooked.
Add roughly a cup of milk to the roux and using a whisk, stir furiously until lumps are gone. Add the spinach mixture and a handful of cheese. You should have a slightly runny consistency, like thick cream. If not, add more milk and whisk, baby, whisk. Take the white sauce off the heat.
Gently mix the spinach white sauce and pasta in a pan. Bung it into a bowl, sprinkle pumpkin and pine nuts on top. Be careful when mixing the pumpkin because it can break easily. Season with salt and pepper.
Yummy and even a little bit healthy. Enjoy!
What do you put into your pasta?
