10 Essential Cooking Tricks

Marco our chef, getting creative in the kitchen

1.       Peel ginger with a spoon, it’s much quicker and wastes a lot less!

2.    Smash garlic hard with the side of a knife first and it will be much easier to peel.

3.       Place a piece of parchment paper over the small grater holes before zesting fruit. When you have finished, remove and all the gratings will be collected on the paper.

4.       Save Parmesan rinds and already squeezed lemon halves and add to soups, stews and stocks to intensify their flavour.

5.       Save the water from chickpea cans and whisk up like you would egg whites. This can be used as a cheap and healthy egg substitute in meringues and bakery products.

6.       Extend the lifespan of your fresh herbs by placing them in a container with a damp paper towel.

7.       Use an acid such as lemon juice or vinegar to give life to fried vegetables, rich stews and sauces.

8.   Pouch eggs in vinegar water and simmer lightly to keep them together.

9.       Busy week ahead? Make large batches of soups, stews or curries at the weekend and freeze them in smaller tubs to be heated through when you get home.

10.   Only cook pasta in vigorously boiling water to stop it sticking together!

Father's Day Competition 2016

Today we are launching a fantastic COMPETITION in the lead up to Father’s Day that will hopefully get everyone smiling!

How you can win

We would LOVE to hear your very worst ‘dad’ joke! (Dad jokes: very bad jokes created predominately by Dads)

OR for the foodies out there...

We would LOVE you to send in your favourite recipe that reminds you of, or is created by your Dad or an inspirational man in your life! :)

You may apply for both categories but only once for each! Please apply by sending us a message on Facebook or Twitter or replying to the Facebook message about the competition. 

The winner of each category will receive one of our incredible BROWNIE BOXES posted to your desk or door!

So get your thinking caps on, you don’t want to miss this!

Check out the rules here

There are several lovely flavours to choose from including beetroot and white chocolate and raspberry! 

Relationships and the Virtues of an Egg - Mental Health Awareness Week 16 - Jamil Ahmed

We believe that baking and structured support can both help to improve people's wellbeing. That's why all of our bakery trainees undergo a set 12 week training programme plus the option to work with our Employability, Substance Misuse, and Wellbeing Co-ordinators and to attend their weekly series' of workshops.

This week's blog comes from Jamil - our Wellbeing Co-ordinator at Providence Row

I have been told that eggs are one of the most important, indispensable ingredients in baking. Recipes not calling for eggs are few and far between, and for good reason. Eggs do a multitude of tasks such as bind, emulsify, thicken and help towards setting. They can be used as the base, fillings, and also for adding flavour and colour.

Very few ingredients, if any - can do so much in baking. The egg’s amazing ability to do a multitude of tasks is not the only reason we use them; it’s their propensity to do them all at once.

What’s with all this egg-talk you say? Well…

Mental health has a lot to do with other people as it does with the individual and one of the ways to promote a better mental being is through relationships. It isn’t difficult to see why relationships matter for mental health recovery. They provide support, validation, trust, a nurturing environment and a sense of empowerment. The main ingredient that holds everything together are relationships.

The concept of the family

“Our staff are great at creating an environment where clients can come together, develop social and emotional ties with the view in helping them to begin their process of recovery.”

One of the things that I was acutely aware of was the concept of family and how it is promoted within Rise & Providence Row (our parent charity). It’s done mostly without realising – which demonstrates the sensibilities of the staff as well as the clients that access the services.

There are traditional functions such as food, shelter, security as well as structural features which recognises age, gender, culture, gender, sexual orientation, and spirituality. More importantly the staff are great at creating an environment where clients can come together, develop social and emotional ties with the view in helping them to begin their process of recovery.

You only have to take a trip to the kitchen to see the family at work. Clients coming together, preparing food for others as well learning important life skills – that a problem halved really is a problem shared. And just like families – we understand that sometimes clients outgrow their roles and need something more. So we promote our clients becoming peer-mentors, so that they can give back to others who maybe at the beginning stages of their recovery and wellbeing.

Social context

At providence row we run groups and activities that engage clients to try new things as well rediscover old interests. However, implicit reason is very much about social intelligence. Part of wellbeing and recovery is being comfortable to navigate the complexities of social landscape and that’s what our groups offer. A diverse mix of people come together every day, for five days a week from the morning till close of business – sharing experiences, positive and negative. Much like a microcosm of society. These latent skills developed by the clients have had a profound influence on behaviour and their progression.

As I started with eggs, I shall end with eggs.

Eggs have been used in the past to develop vaccines for chicken and small pox. They are grown in fertile eggs of chickens and then developed into an intervention fit for human use leading to great social benefits. What we do in Providence Row is to provide a nurturing environment through our supportive relationships so that clients begin to lead meaningful lives - with or without eggs.

Take a look at our online store to see the amazing products our homeless trainees help make. Every penny goes towards continuing the top notch support we offer.

“Happy Birthday to us, Happy Birthday to us...”

By Hannah Saverymuttu

Ok, so it might not be our actual Birthday, but that doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate the fact it’s been a whole month since Rise's official launch! Here’s a look at what we’ve been up to…

Our roof garden is coming along nicely, and we’re proud to have already used our home grown fruit and veg in our baking. You can’t beat local ingredients, especially when our trainees can pop upstairs to harvest them themselves.

Our roof garden, open for tours on Saturday June 18th

In other news, we’ve picked up a few fans, with this rather flattering blog post, a review in the Guardian, oh, and did we mention Nigella is a fan...?

The lovely Mary, Ant, and the rest of the team have been selling cakes (and giving out tasters to a lucky few) at Spitalfields & Brick Lane markets, just down the road from our kitchen in E1.

Here we are donning Rise Aprons and wo-manning the stall last week.

Aprons on, ready to hit the market

LAST MONTH IN NUMBERS...

• 6 incredibly talented ex-homeless trainees learnt to bake

• Over 700 people liked our Facebook page or followed us on Twitter (thanks, we appreciate your support!)

• And Marco and the team have lost count of how many brownies they've made...

Thanks for all your support so far - here's to the next amazing month.

Speed Volunteering via Team London - by Rheanna Griffin

Recently I had the pleasure of volunteering with Rise Bakery to help promote their delicious brownies outside Spitalfields market. We had a little stall set up (decorated with balloons of course) and from there we gave out some brownie tasters to the extremely eager public (no one turns down free brownies!) along with information about the amazing work that Rise do!

Luckily the sun was out so lots of people from the offices came out side for their lunch break, some from near-by offices even said that they had seen us from the office window and so had come down to check out what we were up to!

One of my favourite recurring situations was when groups of very serious looking, suited-work folk would pass and one or two of the group would look so longingly at the brownies but under peer pressure, would pass us by with the rest of their group. Oh the pain in their eyes.

I had multiple chats with passing Londoners throughout the day and it was so lovely to experience the amazing level of interest which many of them had towards Rise. Some even described situations in their own life or of someone they knew, where a social enterprise like Rise would have made a really positive impact on them. I think it’s fair to say that I had a pretty inspiring day and would recommend volunteering with Rise or Providence Row to anyone else!  

Right now Rise Bakery is looking for delivery assistants, get involved!  

Recipes from our Corporate partners

Some staff at the wonderful Andaz Hotel Liverpool Street have sent us some of their favourite recipes to share with you guys. We conducted a little interview with them to find out where they got their inspiration from! 

Churros by Alber

Ingredients:

250ml water

2 1/2 tablespoons caster sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

125g plain flour

2 litres oil for frying

100g caster sugar, or to taste

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Method:

1.    In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine water, 2 1/2 tablespoons sugar, salt and 2 tablespoons vegetable oil. Bring to the boil and remove from heat. Stir in flour until mixture forms a ball.

2.    Heat oil for frying in deep-fryer or deep frying pan to 190 C. Pipe strips of dough into hot oil using a pastry bag. Fry until golden; drain on kitchen paper.

3.    Combine 100g sugar and cinnamon. Roll warm churros in cinnamon and sugar mixture.

Is there a story behind the recipe?

It comes from my grandmother. We used to do it together when I was a child. I have really good memories about those moments!

Why do you like the recipe?

It reminds me of being back in my home in winter next to the fire place after finishing my school.

What are your favourite foods?

I don’t really have a favourite food, I like to try different kinds of food and London is amazing for that!

Any tips you can offer in relation to this recipe, cooking or food in general?

You have to take “churros” with a cup of good chocolate but the dense one!

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Lemon Polenta Cake Recipe - Simon Willcox

I've been trying for ages to find a great gluten free recipe that we can use in our Friday bakery workshops for people who have experienced homelessness. What I really like about it is the opportunity to teach the group how to make a cake without using flour (even without gf flour!)

We made this today and had a lot of fun. We used mini silicon loaf moulds, but this recipe is for a larger loaf tin. Enjoy!

Simon’s Citrus Polenta  

• 350g butter
• 350g caster sugar
• 5 large eggs
• 200g coarse polenta
• 425g ground polenta
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 3 finely grated zest and juice of a large orange

For the syrup:

• Juice and zest of 2 lemons
• Juice and zest of 2 oranges
• 200g granulated caster sugar
• 100ml of water  

Some trainees at today's workshop

Oven temperature - 160C

1.      Use a loaf tin 30cm long and 11cm wide (or thereabouts), grease with butter and line with baking paper.

2.      Beat the butter and sugar in a food mixer until light and fluffy.

3.      Add one egg at a time and keep beating until the mixture is of one consistency.

4.      Mix the coarse polenta, ground almonds and baking powder together, before adding to the butter mix.

5.      Add the orange zest and juice.

6.      Pour the mix into the loaf tin. Bake it in the middle of the oven for about an hour and 20 minutes.

7.      To make the syrup, put all the ingredients in a pan and warm gently on the hob for 10 min.

8.      Then bring it to the boil (and then watch closely). When the bubbles on the top have doubled in size, take of the heat and leave on the side.

9.      When the cake comes out of the oven, poke holes in it using a toothpick or similar object.

10.  Warm up the syrup and pore over the cake.

11.  Leave the cake to cool overnight before serving.

Our Start-Up Social Enterprise Adventure by Anthony Pitt

Wow. We’re finally here!

We have been on what has been an incredibly fun and rewarding journey in the past eight-or-so months. The lovely folks at the City Bridge Trust, part of the City of London awarded us Stepping Stones funding in September 2015 to ensure that Providence Row could build a robust, sustainable, and thriving social enterprise.

Providence Row's Enterprise & Training Team

We at the Enterprise & Training team took responsibility for Providence Row Bakery, a wholesale operation that had been running for the past two years, at this point. We thought that it was a great setup; selling cakes wholesale to local cafes. There have been some amazing results with the trainees we involved too; we worked with 30 clients, supporting many of these into work and training.

This programme provided us with great foundations on which to build. We knew that the concept of a social enterprise bakery was sound, and had a few brilliant weeks of thinking of all the directions which we could take it.

Our team has had incredible results in the past few years. As well as coming second in the London Homelessness Awards (and collecting it from the Houses of Parliament in the process), we have won a Social Justice Award from the Centre for Social Justice and a Lord Mayor’s Dragon Award for the support and training we offer people who have experienced homelessness. Last year alone we worked with 121 clients, working with them to achieve 29 job starts and training outcomes.

Collecting Our Award from the Houses of Parliament

Another really important part of our work is to make sure that our people get their confidence back. We have a 10 week programme of motivational employability workshops, Working On It, designed to give people the soft skills they need to succeed in the workplace. We have worked with some amazing companies here, including Freshfields LLP, Kuoni, and more, getting office tours, staff meet and greets, and excellent training.

But anyway, back to business!

During planning there were three key themes. We wanted to make sure that our products were client-friendly – something that we could teach, but also something that developed rounded baking skills. We also wanted something amazingly tasty, as well as that we could feature produce from our amazing roof garden in later on.

A Trainee At One Of Our Workshops

We were leaning towards focusing on one key product, while still offering a broad wholesale range. What really sealed it was said during one of our early meetings with Unreal UK, an amazing company that supported us to develop our branding and concept on a pro bono basis. They were grumbling about the poor standard of sweet treats available in the stores near them and the logistical difficulties of ordering from a supplier.

We had already noticed that there were really limited options for getting great cakes delivered quickly which could also be easily ordered but this meeting helped spur things on. We set about building this amazing website, as well as developing a product that could easily fit through a letterbox, or that could be sent via courier without getting damaged.

We chose brownies, because they tick every single box. And also because our Head Baker Simon developed the MOST amazing brownie recipe going. We’ve still kept our wholesale presence though – we love our customers, and we can offer them a broader range, which means that our trainees get to learn to make a wide variety of produce – cakes, quiches, mini fruit loaves… you can see the full list here.

Our White Chocolate & Raspberry Brownie

Alongside this, we have really overhauled the client training we offer. Trainees can now access a 12 week programme, a curriculum of baking workshops interspersed with accredited learning (Level 2 Awards in Food Hygiene and more). They also undergo an induction process where a personalised support plan is developed with a dedicated advisor, who supports them to address any mental health, substance misuse, or employment barriers that they face.

I think it’s fair to say that at Rise we’re about two things. Excellent support. And Excellent brownies. And we’re lucky that we work with excellent people to ensure that they have an excellent future. Here’s to us continuing to Rise…