- For the panna cotta, put the gelatine in a bowl of cold water and leave to soak for 5 minutes.
- Place the double cream, milk, sugar and vanilla seeds into a small pan and heat though gently, just enough for the sugar to dissolve, stirring from time to time,
- Put the yoghurt in a large jug, stirring to loosen it up and set aside. Remove the creamy mixture from the heat once ready.
- The gelatine should be soft by now, so lift it out of the water ad squeeze the excess water out. Drop the gelatine into the creamy mixture and stir until dissolved. Leave to cool to body temperature for about 10-15 minutes.
- Prepare the glasses, You will need 6 x 200ml pretty glasses for serving.
- For the Mixed Berry Coulis, place the berries and sugar into a pan and heat until all the sugar has dissolved.
- Then use a hand blender to liquidise the mixture.
- Sieve the coulis to make sure no pips fall into the coulis.
- Pour in the panna cotta mixture into your 6 glasses until about 3/4 full. Leave to set in the fridge for a few hours.
- Just before serving, put a spoonful of coulis on the top followed by a few berries to decorate.
- Preheat oven at 180oc, or Gas Mark 4.
- Place the chocolate, brandy and coffee essence in a pan and heat gently until the chocolate has melted.
- Beat the egg yolks with the caster sugar until thick and creamy, then fold in the warm chocolate mixture.
- Whisk the egg whites until stiff and fold into the chocolate mixture.
- Turn mixture into a lined and greased 20 x 30cm Swiss Roll tin.
- Bake in a preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes until firm.
- Leave in the tin for 5 minutes, then cover with a clean damp cloth and leave in the fridge overnight.
- Carefully remove the cloth and turn the roulade out onto a sheet of greaseproof paper, sprinkle thickly with icing sugar. Peel off lining paper.
- Dissolve the coffee in the water, cool, then fold into the cream with the sugar. Spread evenly over the roulade and roll up like you would a Swiss roll.
- Lynn like to decorate hers with whipped cream, raspberries and strawberries. You can decorate yours however you like.
- Transfer to a serving dish. Enjoy
- 50g Unsalted butter
- 1 Packet of Biscuits such as Digestives (we use chocolate digestives). Crushed.
- 600g Cream cheese such as Philadelphia (you can use a supermarket brand)
- 1 slug of Merlyn Welsh Whiskey Liqueur (to taste)
- 100g Icing sugar
- 300ml Double cream
- 100g Chocolate (dairy or plain, as you prefer). Chopped.
- Stone the Plums and Dates (if using fresh dates) and peel the onions put these ingredients through a mincer or Magimix.
- Put all the above into large Jam Pan or similar pan, mix well.
- Simmer over a low heat until thick.
- If you pull the spoon across the pan when it leaves a good rut it is ready.
- Cool a little and Pot.
Vanilla & Yoghurt Panna Cotta with Mixed Fruit Coulis
Another one of Lynn’s favourite recipes!
Ingredients
For Panna Cotta:
3 Gelatine Leaves
100ml Double Cream
100ml Full-Fat Milk
100g Caster Sugar
1 Vanilla Pod, Seeds only
300g Greek Yoghurt
For Mixed Fruit Coulis:
500g Mixed Berries i.e. Strawberries, Blueberries, Raspberries and Blackberries
100g Granulated Sugar
Method
Chocolate Roulade
This is one of Lynn’s recipes, she has been making this for years and years. She as kindly let me share it with you!
Ingredients
For Roulade:
175g Plain Chocolate
3 tbsp Brandy
1 tbsp Coffee & Chicory Essence
5 Eggs, Separated
250g Caster Sugar
For Filling:
1 tbsp Instant coffee powder
1 tbsp Boiling Water
284ml Double Cream, Whipped
1 tbsp Icing Sugar
To Finish:
Sifted icing sugar
Method
Car Club Season Comes to an End!
Well that’s it!
Car club season is well and truly finished. We look forward to hosting many more next year. We have 19 clubs already booked in for next year. We love to see people coming back again and again plus new faces too. Its suffice to say that this year has been our busiest yet and we hope for an even busier one next year. We love to see all the different cars that guests bring along whether it being an old or modern car.
Some of the clubs already booked in include: MG Nomads, Preston & District Vintage Car Club, Tamar Valley MG Owners Club, Coventry & Warwickshire MG Owners Club, VW Cabriolet Club, MG Y Register to name a few.
Please do note that we can organise tours for Car Clubs all year round but many like to book between Spring and Autumn as the weather is generally better (we don’t promise anything) and the evenings are lighter.
If you are interested in booking for a club or would like some more information please get in touch. We really do advise that you make a reservation as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.
It’s been a busy one!
It’s been super hectic here the last few weeks, we haven’t stopped. Although, we’re not complaining. We can’t believe that we are at the end of June already! Would you believe that we’ve had 10 Car Clubs stay so far with more to come. The next one being our own tour which is on 30th June. If you are interested in coming on a tour either with a club or joining on to one of our tours then please get in touch.
As I write this post, 20 recorder players have just departed to head home after a 3 night recorder course based here at the farm, which are organised by Steve and Ann Marshall (top dogs in their field). Steve and Ann make recorder playing fun and use a mixture of music, its nice to see the guests having so much fun playing. Any of you out there that were forced to play the recorder in school and thought playing it was as boring/dull? Then you would be surprised what the guests learn to play. Did you know that you can play jazz using a recorder? I could barely get to grips with playing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. Anyway, we hope they had a lovely stay with us and we look forward to welcoming them again soon!
If your looking for a break during the summer holidays please check our website for availability there have been a couple of cancellations recently and you may just be lucky and find the dates your looking for.
Thanks for reading and if you haven’t already please subscribe to our blog updates!
Merlyn Cheesecake Recipe
As many of you may know we like to call Lynn ‘the knock off Mary Berry’!
I nailed her down to get the recipe of one of her desserts.
Ingredients
Method
Melt the butter in the microwave for 1 minute. When melted, add the crushed biscuits (use a magimix or a plastic bag and rolling pin to crush the biscuits) and mix until the butter has been absorbed.
Press the biscuits (using the back of a metal spoon) into the bottom of a lined 23cm/9inch springform or flan tin. Leave to set in the fridge.
While the base is chilling, chop the chocolate.
In a bowl, whip the cream, cream cheese and icing sugar until it forms stiff peaks.
After adding the Merlyn you might notice the mixture will go a bit sloppy. Just whip it for a minute or two with the hand whisk to a stiff mixture. Fold in chopped chocolate.
Refrigerate and allow to set for at least two hours.
To serve, remove from the tin and decorate. Lynn likes to go all out on her desserts and decorates them fancy with piped cream and chocolate curls but you don’t have to. You can decorate however you like.
Here is a photo of some individual Merlyn cheesecakes that we have made!
Philippe Vandewalle – Old Knobblies
We recently had a visit from a regular customer of ours called Philippe Vandewalle who organises Off Road trips using Vintage Bikes- from the late 1970’s & 80’s.
On this visit Philippe travelled some of the best green lanes that wales has to offer including:-
Strata Florida
Brechfa Forest
Hundred House
Accompanying him was the editor of Classic Dirt Bike Magazine – Tim Britton. In this quarter’s magazine there should be a write up of Philippe’s trip. We are also advertising in there too!!
Philippe has a website if you’re interested please check it out- http://oldknobblies.com/. So does Tim Britton- http://www.classicdirtbike.co.uk/.
Photos courtesy of Tim Britton.
If you are interested in staying with us and using the local green lanes then please do get in touch with us!
The Garden Room is now complete!
The floor is now done in the new garden room!!
All that’s left to sort out now is tidying up the patio. We are really pleased with the end results. A big thank you to all the guys from Towy Projects who have worked on the project with us. Also thanks goes to Gavin Blofield, Aled Lewis, Welsh Heritage Construction and Richard Evans Electrical Contractor.
If you interested in coming to see the finished garden room then please do not hesitate to get in touch for availability.
New Extension
March 2017- New Extension
As many of our guests already know we are currently using our new dining space although its not yet finished. We are waiting for the screed to dry before we can put the flooring down. Hopefully after Easter Bank Holiday it will be fully completed.
We are very happy with the building works so far and its hard to believe how quick the building went up. Our main ambition was to create more social space so we can develop Llanerchindda Farm further in the future.
Below are some pictures for several stages of the works:
The builders getting started by taking the existing conservatory down, removing the quarry tiles from the floor and putting up a scaffolding roof.
The scaffolding roof up ready for the concrete slab to be put down.
The concrete slab down.
As you can see the extension is now taking shape.
The joist going up.
The first part of the roof is going on.
The under flooring been laid and then screed poured over that.
The final part of the roof being assembled.
Windows and sky lantern in! Also getting the outside ready for the Cedar cladding.
The Cedar cladding being put on the outside of the building.
Nearly Done!
We are now able to use the room but still to come are the flooring and some final touches.
What an amazing view!
Keep an eye out for our next posts as we will be posting pictures of the flooring and the completed project!
If you would like to see what we have done with the place for yourself please do not hesitate to contact us for availability!!
Plum & Date Chutney
If you have eaten your evening meal with us then you will know that all our cooking is homemade. Our Chutneys are also homemade. It probably isn’t news to you that chutneys originated in India and are known as chatni in Hindu. There are typically made of fruits and spices to help preserve their quality. They were brought to the UK during the colonial era. As us British do, we place our own spin on the typical Indian versions of what chutneys are supposed to be.
So have you ever wondered how we make our chutneys then wonder no further? The recipe is given below.
Plum & Date Chutney
2 lb Dark Plums
2 lb Dates Fresh or the ones chopped with sugar on
1lb Onions peeled and roughly chopped
2 oz Sea Salt
1 tsp Ground Ginger
1 Tblsp heaped Allspice
2 lb Soft Brown Sugar
Half pint malt vinegar
Method
Please get in contact if you would like more recipes!!
North Leicester MG Club
The weekend of 20th of May we saw the arrival of the North Leicester MG Car Club who have visited us three years running for our tour. On the Friday afternoon/ evening they enjoyed afternoon tea, Pimms reception and a welcome talk closely followed by the evening meal.
Day one saw the cars heading across the Epynt Ranges towards Brecon where they could have a coffee stop at the Cathedral. Following on from Brecon they visited Tal y Bont Reservoir. They then pass Merthyr Tydfil to Garnant Forestry Centre for a Lunch stop. After lunch they have the option to take a trip to Pendryn Distillery which makes a number of spirits onsite. We actually use their Whiskey Liqueur in our Merlyn cheesecake! Then they headed back to Llanerchindda Farm via Sennybridge.
Day Two saw them head to the National Botanic Gardens of Wales where they could tour the grounds which we personally think has a lot to offer.
We would like to give a big thank you to Ian Cox for making us laugh every night with his jokes, we really thought that we had our own stand-up comedian.
The North Leicester MG Car Club must have loved their stay so much that they have already booked for next year which will be their fourth year in a row.
If anyone would like anymore information about our Classic Car Tours or any of our packages please get in touch!
