Lemon curd

I have been making this lemon curd for over thirty years. The recipe is still on the same tatty bit of notepaper I used to write it down when my Swedish friend Margareta Espling came to stay with me in Kenya, when I was teaching in a village school.

It is my 'go to' comfort food.

The grated rind and juice of 4 large lemons.
1lb - 2 cups - of sugar
5 eggs, well beaten  - a mix of medium and large is probably best.
4oz - half a cup - of butter. Preferably Guernsey butter, because that is where I am now.

Mix all together in a large saucepan and heat gently, stirring constantly or the eggs coalesce.  The mixture will be runny for a long time, but when it thickens, pour it into jars and seal.

So simple.

I made some last night as a 'thank you' gift for colleagues - and have some left over, which is always a blessing. It took a couple of hours as I doubled the recipe, listened to a Bill Johnson talk online and generally pottered about, but oh!  So therapeutic after a very busy and stressful week.

Deliciousness in a jar....

Elderflower cordial

Elderflower cordial. Deliciousness in a bottle. The fragrant smell of the flowers permeated the kitchen, lingered on my fingers and in the bag I had collected the umbrels in.

Not just any elderflower, either. PINK elderflower.

I halved the BBC Good Food recipe amounts except for the elderflower heads, effectively doubling the strength.

2½ kg white sugar, either granulated or caster
2 unwaxed lemons
20 fresh elderflower heads, stalks trimmed
85g citric acid (from chemists)

1.5 litres/2¾ pints water

Put the sugar into a large saucepan and add the water (boiling, if possible), Gently heat a little more, without boiling, until the sugar has dissolved. Give it a stir every now and again. Pare the zest from the lemons using a potato peeler, then slice the lemons into rounds.

Once the sugar has dissolved, bring the pan of syrup to the boil, then turn off the heat. Fill a washing up bowl with cold water. Give the flowers a gentle swish around to loosen any dirt or bugs. Lift flowers out, gently shake and transfer to the syrup along with the lemons, zest and citric acid, then stir well. Cover the pan and leave to infuse for 24 hrs. I stirred it occasionally to help it along. That may not have been the right thing to do, but the end result was ok.

Line a colander with a clean tea towel or jelly muslin, then sit it over a large bowl or pan. Ladle in the syrup – let it drip slowly through.

Discard the bits left in the towel. Use a funnel and a ladle to fill sterilised bottles (run glass bottles through the dishwasher, or wash well with soapy water. Rinse, then leave to dry in a low oven). The cordial is ready to drink straight away and will keep in the fridge for up to 6 weeks. Or freeze it in plastic containers or ice cube trays and defrost as needed.

Soda crackers

Favourite salty soda crackers - melt in the mouth, crisp, delicious. Roll out as thinly as possible.

3 cups flour (white and wholemeal)
1 teaspoon salt
1 flat teaspoon soda
3 tablespoons margarine
1 cup sour milk/yogurt.

Cut into squares or rectangles, prick with a fork, sprinkle with salt.
Bake 375 degrees for 10 - 12 minutes until dry.
Cool on a wire rack.

Makes about 3 - 4 trays.

Easterdeliciousness

I have written before about Simnel cakes, my mother's special recipe which she loved to give to others, often in tiny cake tins. The recipe used less fat and sugar, more eggs and flour, and mixed spice - it also involved lining the tin with three layers of greaseproof paper.

Today, I made Simnel Cupcakes.  12 of them. Half 'normal', half with gluten-free flour (75g flour mixed with a scant teaspoon of baking powder)

150g each of butter, golden brown sugar (or a  mix of white and browns) and self-raising flour, creamed in the usual manner with 2 eggs and 125g of mixed dried fruit and a handful of extra candied orange and lemon peel to add flavour, with a tablespoon or so of lemon juice to loosen the mixture a little.

I piled half the mixture into muffin cases, (a teaspoon or so each case), added a circle of marzipan (pinched off a ball, flattened it in my hands before, 12 times) then piled the remainder on top acirnd baked them for 20 minutes until golden.

When cool, I removed the paper cases (they peeled off SO easily), topped them with circles of marzipan cut out with a medium cookie cutter and 'stuck' onto the cake with a smear of #supposedtobeapricotbutallIhadwasmarmelade, then a small ball in the centre made from the leftovers.

Roughed the marzipan slightly with a fork, then toasted under a hot grill for half a minute.

A bit of a faff...but worth it.

African cooking

Recipes for mandazis here. I haven't thought about these yummy deep fried treats for years...

Gluten-free seed crackers

Mix together:

100g each sunflower, pumpkin and sesame seeds
60g linseed (flax)
3 tablespoons psyllium husks (or gluten-free flour)
400 ml water
1 tsp salt.

Soak for 15 minutes.

Spread out on 2 silicone baking sheets as thinly as possible.  Bake for approximately 1 hour 20 minutes at 150 degrees C, perhaps turning over for the last 10.  Cool, break into pieces.

Gluten free cakes

Searching for cake recipes, I came across this one from Nigella. I didn't make the full quantity, adjusting the amounts by weighing the eggs and calculating from there: it seemed to work:

Lemon Polenta Cake

"200 grams soft unsalted butter (plus some for greasing)

200 grams caster sugar
200 grams ground almonds
100 grams fine polenta (or cornmeal)
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder (see note below)
3 large eggs
zest of 2 lemons (save juice for syrup)
for the syrup
juice of 2 lemons
125 grams icing sugar


More recipe inspirationEASTER SPRING ITALIAN GLUTEN-FREE CAKE

Method
Line the base of a 23cm / 9inch springform cake tin with baking parchment and grease its sides lightly with butter.
Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4/ 350°F.
Beat the butter and sugar till pale and whipped, either by hand in a bowl with a wooden spoon, or using a freestanding mixer.
Mix together the almonds, polenta and baking powder, and beat some of this into the butter-sugar mixture, followed by 1 egg, then alternate dry ingredients and eggs, beating all the while.
Finally, beat in the lemon zest and pour, spoon or scrape the mixture into your prepared tin and bake in the oven for about 40 minutes.
It may seem wibbly but, if the cake is cooked, a cake tester should come out cleanish and, most significantly, the edges of the cake will have begun to shrink away from the sides of the tin. remove from the oven to a wire cooling rack, but leave in its tin.
Make the syrup by boiling together the lemon juice and icing sugar in a smallish saucepan.
Once the icing sugar’s dissolved into the juice, you’re done.
Prick the top of the cake all over with a cake tester (a skewer would be too destructive), pour the warm syrup over the cake, and leave to cool before taking it out of its tin."

There was also a lovely apple puree cake to try and this chocolate truffle cake:

Ingredients:

1 cup whipping cream
2 1/2 cups high quality semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips*
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter
2 tablespoons bourbon vanilla extract* or see notes
7 organic free-range eggs
1 cup light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
Organic cacao powder with maca, for dusting

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Line the inside bottom of a 9-inch Springform cake pan with a circle of parchment paper. Wrap a large piece of foil around the outside of the pan, covering the bottom and sides, to catch any leaking drips. Set aside. 

In a medium sauce pan, gently heat the cream over low heat. When the cream is fairly hot, melt the chocolate chips by adding them slowly to the pan as you whisk. Add the butter, in pieces. Whisk until the chocolate and butter are melted. Add the vanilla extract. As soon as the mixture is melted, smooth, and glossy remove it from the heat.

Using a wire whisk attachment, beat the eggs, light brown sugar and sea salt until the eggs are foamy and doubled in volume, roughly 3-4 minutes. (This is where a KitchenAid stand mixer comes in handy.)

Slowly add the cooling chocolate mixture to the eggs, and beat gently until combined.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan.

Bake in the center of a pre-heated oven for one hour, until the cake is set and cracked. It will still appear a bit loose in the center, underneath. This is fine.

Place the cake pan on a wire rack to cool. When the cake is close to room temperature, lightly cover and chill the cake overnight.

Before serving, gently loosen the cake from the sides of the pan using a thin flexible spatula. Release the Springform clasp and remove the ring. Place the cake on a cake plate.

Dust the cake with a sifting of cacao powder with maca. 

Cook time: 1 hour

Yield: 18 thin slices- this cake is super rich!  Recipe Source: glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com

And, finally, a vanilla cake using gluten-free flour. Very simple:

2 cups sugar
1 cup butter, melted
4  eggs
4 teaspoons gluten-free vanilla
3 cups Gluten-Free Flour Blend (see below)
2 teaspoons gluten-free baking powder
1 cup milk


Heat oven to 350°F. Grease 12-cup Bundt or 10-inch angel food cake (tube) pan; sprinkle with gluten-free flour blend. Set aside.

Combine sugar and melted butter in bowl. Beat at medium speed, scraping bowl often, until creamy. Add 1 egg at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla; beat until well mixed.

Stir together gluten-free flour blend and baking powder in bowl. Gradually add flour blend mixture alternately with milk to butter mixture, beating at low speed until well mixed.

Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 50-60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pan.