A taste of summer: Five Valleys Cordials

There are tiny snowflakes dancing in the open air, and I'm talking of summer. Right. It's not exactly the wishful thinking. I am trying to magic the summer in by exploring the zingy summery tastes of Five Valleys Cordials.

Five Valleys Cordials is an up and coming soft drinks company, based in Stroud, Gloucestershire which was set up by husband and wife team, Chris and Becky, who between them have 25 years shared experience in the drinks industry. 
The company uses the Cotswold countryside as their inspiration for their cordials. Their imaginative range offers uniquely different flavour combinations that aim to tantalise the taste buds & mind!
If you're bored with the standard blackberry & apple, elderflower or ginger cordials, look no further.

Five Valleys Cordials boasts five products in its tempting range - Lemon & Mint, Pomegranate & Rose, Apricot & Ginger, Sloe & Raspberry and Coconut & Kaffir Lime.

All the cordials are made from natural ingredients and are free from artificial flavours, sweeteners, colourings or preservatives.


 

Pomegranate & Rose is an exotic blend mingled with the heady aroma of rose petals. Think of the seductive Scheherazade and her fairy tales The Arabian Nights.

I love the flavour of rose petals (rose tea is one of my old favourites). If you have followed my blog for a while, you might remember my recipes using the rose petal syrup.
So, I was very excited to try a new cordial, and I wasn't disappointed.

Put a few raspberries in a small glass, add a dash of Pomegranate & Rose cordial and top up with the sparkling water. Simple and lovely.

I can easily see both cordials used in the white wine and lemonade spritzer.
Or poured over a good quality vanilla ice cream, mmmm.

I was also curious to try the cordial in baking.
For the Orange cupcakes you will need
100g butter, melted
2 medium eggs
a mug of self-raising flour
a mug of granulated sugar
2 tsp of Pomegranate & Rose cordial
zest and juice of 1 orange
1 tsp baking powder
icing sugar

Zest and juice an orange. Add the sugar to the zest in a medium-sized mixing bowl, then beat in the eggs. Add the flour, juice, baking powder, cordial and melted butter, pour into the cupcake cases and bake in the oven preheated to 180C for about 15 minutes.
Add the icing on top if you like (mix the orange juice with the icing sugar). My standard icing sugar finished, so I used the vanilla icing sugar, which made the icing quite brownish when mixed with the juice.
It was the first time I used the silicone cupcake cases, which was a freebie from Anchor Rewards Club.

Lemon & Mint is a combination of zingy lemons and summery garden mint. The simple drink made of a dash of Lemon & Mint cordial with the lemonade and ice cubes is an absolute delight, very refreshing and reinvigorating.
I think this will be my favourite tipple in summer after spending time in the garden.

For colder days like we have this week, try a hot drink:
The Lemon & Mint Hottie (recipe courtesy of Five Valleys Cordials)
25ml Five Valleys Lemon & Mint Cordial
225ml orange juice
2 tsp honey
Add orange juice & cordial, microwave until hot, then add honey.

Another refreshing drink:
Green tea mocktail
1 teabag of Twinings Jasmine Pearls (green tea)
a dash of Five Valleys Lemon & Mint Cordial
2 strawberries, halved
ice cubes
a slice of blood orange

Make a cup of green tea, let it cool completely. Once cold, pour in a tall glass, add a dash of the Lemon & Mint cordial, ice cubes and strawberry halves. Decorate with a slice of the blood orange.
Close your eyes and imagine yourself lazing in a hammock in the garden. Bliss.

The two flavours I have tried are fantastic, really pleased to discover them. Will be definitely looking for the other flavours to try. A very enthusiastic recommendation from me.

The Five Valleys Cordials are exclusively stocked in Waitrose.

To find more about Five Valleys Cordials and discover more recipe ideas please visit the Five Valleys Cordials website.

I received two bottles of cordials for the purposes of reviewing. All opinions are mine.

A tipsy buddy cake (Advocaat cake recipe for Anchor cooking challenge: part 2)

Last Saturday I had my Philips Fresh Cooks party and I wanted to impress my guests. One of my choices was a honey cake, but for the second choice I wanted something that I haven't baked before.

I'm not sure how I came across the blog Jo Blogs Jo Bakes, I must have been googling images for cakes when I came across her beautifully presented Advocaat bundt cake. That was it, I was going to follow her recipe. To read Jo's blog post in full and admire the photos of her gorgeous sweet creation, please follow this link.

I haven't changed any ingredients or quantities, but after mixing the cake batter, I realised that my bundt tin was way too small for it. I decided the ring cake tin would suit well and will look as pretty.
I also added an icing made from the icing sugar and orange juice on top of the cake.

Advocaat Cake – Recipe

Ingredients:

220g butter, melted (I used Anchor butter -G.V)
200g caster sugar
4 large eggs
250ml Advocaat
125g plain flour
125g cornflour
2 tsps of baking powder
Seeds from 1 vanilla pod
1 tbsp icing sugar for sprinkling

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 170C.
2. Grease your bundt tin very thoroughly – I spray mine with oil then sprinkle with flour twice, tapping out excessive flour carefully
3. Whisk your eggs, sugar and vanilla seeds until at least doubled in volume – i.e. very pale and fluffy in texture
4. Pour in the melted butter carefully down the side of the bowl, whisk in thoroughly
5. Pour in the Advocaat, whisk that in gently too
6. Next sieve over the flour, cornflour and baking powder and fold in with a large spatula or spoon (I think it’s worth sieving once or twice before sifting onto the mixture – cornflour likes forming clumps!)
7. Pour into the tin and bake in a preheated 70-80 minutes (check after an hour) – it will be browned and a cake taster will come out dry from the centre of a tree when ready
8. Cool in tin until its cool enough to hold, flip it upside down, loosening gently around the edges with a plastic knife or spatula first if necessary
9. When fully cool, dust with icing sugar or decorate as you wish (royal icing peaks would be gorgeous!)


As this cake uses a decent amount of butter, I am adding this recipe to Anchor cooking challenge (part 2). If you want to read what the Anchor cooking challenge is, please go to my previous post where you will find all the information on how to start collecting Anchor points to swap for this cute butter dish and spoon and many other kitchen goodies.

I have started collecting Anchor points for the cake tin. Have you joined the scheme? What are you collecting the Anchor points for?

P.S. I received the butter dish and the wooden spoon for the photo shoot, but this doesn't mean my opinion is biased. I often buy the Anchor butter for baking.

Anchor cooking challenge (part 1)

I often wonder why there are so few brand loyalty rewards around. When we visit my in-laws in Italy, I wistfully look at my mother-in-law carefully cutting the little tokens from milk cartons and dairy products, which she collects and exchanges for beautiful kitchen items. I wish we had more schemes like this in the UK.

I think Anchor has read my mind. They have introduced a new Anchor Rewards Club (link removed as non-existent). You can collect points to exchange for must-have kitchenware items (cake tins, butter dishes, tea towels) and dining out discount vouchers. You collect points by entering codes found on special packs of Anchor Butter, Anchor Spreadable and Anchor Lighter Spreadable.


My boys love pancakes, and I make them at the weekend. While my husband prefers a bigger size pancake with sweet fillings & toppings, my sons prefer the Russian style pancakes known as blini (I deliberately omit the S from the end of the word, as Blini in Russian means pancakes (in plural). I know many people use the word "blinis" but for the Russian ear it sounds definitely odd, it would be like adding an extra S to scissors).

For the basic blini recipe you will need

4 heaped tbsp of standard self-raising flour
2 medium eggs
1 tsp of granulated sugar
1/2 tsp of salt
80 ml milk
2 tbsp of soured cream or plain yogurt (optional)
butter for oiling the pan and for the blini themselves

There will be enough batter to make 12 blini and one big pancake.

Add all the ingredients into a mixing bowl and use a blender until you have a smooth batter. Use a pancake pan, you need to add some butter to it first. Once very hot, using a ladle, add the batter to the pan, or use a tablespoon if you like, about 2 tbsp per one pancake. You can make them big-sized too. Spread a bit of butter on top of the hot blini as you make them.

They are best eaten hot. Serve them with a dollop of soured cream and a sprinkle of sugar for the authentic Russian flavours, or with a generous drizzle of honey.
If you prefer savoury blini, then omit the sugar from the batter, and once cooked, serve them with a thin slice of the smoked salmon, a dollop of the soured cream and some chopped dill, totally amazing. Or if you feel like splashing money about, top up your blini with a spoonful of caviar.

That's how I serve pancakes to my husband who has a sweet tooth: he likes the pancakes with the chopped banana (half a banana per pancake) and lots of Anchor Real Dairy cream.

You might have noticed a pretty Anchor butter dish and a wooden spoon in my photos. You can get hold of the same lovely kitchen item, once you collect enough Anchor points. I was among the first to receive these items from Anchor and have already started collecting points for a cake tin.

Have you started collecting Anchor points? Well, what are you waiting for?

P.S. I received two Anchor collectable items for the purposes of writing this post, all opinions are mine.