Roast + Conch (Leeds)

Today Amy and I headed to the new Hotel Chocolat cafe/restaurant Roast + Conch which is part of the news (ish) Trinity Leeds shopping centre. Serving delicious drinks in a relaxed setting, this is the perfect place for a relaxing drink on a Sunday afternoon. At £3-4 for a cup of hot chocolate it's quite pricey, but totally worth it as a treat. 

We found a nice corner with nice leather booths and candles - on going to the bar to order our drinks the bar man was very helpful and made lots of suggestions of which drinks and chocolates we should go for. In the end I went for a chilli and rum hot chocolate and Amy went for a salted caramel hot chocolate. There is a great chocolate bar (£1 each) with a range of luxury chocolates available depending on how adventurous you're feeling. They showed me the chocolate making process from the conch through to the tempering, all of which goes on in sight of the bar - a nice added extra and it makes the place smell wonderful. We went for a rosemary and thyme truffle (delicious, if not a little odd!), a white chocolate and jasmine truffle (very sweet and tasty) and a rum truffle. 

All in all worth a visit for the chocolates and the atmosphere- the hot chocolate was nice but I've had better. My favourite part of the whole visit was the spoon of chocolate called a 'dipper' you can add for an extra £1 to your drink. I went for the hazelnut and chilli one - which was really nice but a bit too hot. They also had praline and salted caramel which I will definitely be going back to try! 

Cloudy Lemonade

Following on from yesterday's Limoncello recipe, I wanted to share a really easy cloudy still lemonade recipe I found on the BBC website. This lemonade is bitter and very sweet at the same time and it tastes lovely - plus, it only takes about 10 minutes! 

Ingredients
3 lemons
140g caster sugar
1l cold water

Using 3 of the left over lemons, remove the rest of the pith and roughly chop up the lemon flesh from inside. Pop this into a food mixer and blend the lemons till they are very finely chopped. 

Add 500ml of the water and all of the sugar to the mixer and whizz them together. 

Using a sieve and a bowl, push the lemon mixture through the sieve to leave behind a juice with no bits. Add the remaining 500ml of water and, using a funnel, pour into a sterilised bottle. Pop this in the fridge for at least a few hours as this drink is best served ice cold. 

Ideas to try with this recipe include adding vodka and making lemonade ice-cubes in the summer. Any others I could try?

Limoncello

Moving house has got in the way of blogging this past year but in 2014 I intend to do a lot more! I wanted to start by taking you through a Limoncello recipe that has been great to give as Christmas presents this year. 

A word of warning - whilst this is super easy to make, it doesn't fall into the 'cheap homemade' present category with vodka being quite pricey. To make 4 x 0.5l bottles you'll need 1l bottle of vodka (£15 ish), a bag of 7 lemons (£1), a large Kilner jar (£3.50) and 4 x 0.5l Kilner bottles (£2.50 ish each). All in all I spent about £30 to make four bottles- making each bottle £7.50 each. 

You'll need a week for the lemons to soak in the vodka and the following ingredients:

The zest of 6/7 lemons (unnwaxed)
1 litre of vodka
1250ml water 
700g sugar
1 large Kilner jar - 1.5l or larger
4 x 0.5l Kilner bottles

Peel the zest from the lemons with a vegetable peeler - avoid the white bitter pith under the skin as best you can. Place the zest in the large jar and pour the vodka over the top - shut the jar and leave in a cool place for a week. 

The day before you're ready to drain the lemon zest create the sugar and water mixture. To create this, boil the water and add the sugar. Stir the mixture until the sugar is fully dissolved. I left it quite watery at this point - to make less liquid but to make the mixture sweeter boil the water down further to make the syrup thicker. Leave this liquid overnight to cool (or for a few hours in a cool spot if you're making it on the same day).

After a week, drain the zest from the vodka and discard the zest. Pour the syrup in the jar with the vodka and mix in well. 

Using a funnel pour the limoncello into sterilised bottles. Unopened bottles can be kept up to a year. 

Limoncello is best served ice cold to drink, or drizzled over icecream! I'd love to adapt this recipe to make an orange flavoured vodka- that's my next try! The left over lemons can be used to make a really simple lemonade- I'll put this recipe up soon.