Take a normal sponge cake recipe: equal weights of butter/margarine, flour, sugar and eggs and a tad extra baking powder if required - and add a handful of washed, chopped lavender. A ring tin is the best!
Do the same for coffee cake, leaving out the lavender and adding a tablespoon or two of boiling hot water with at least a teaspoon of instant coffee dissolved in it. Fill layers and ice the top with butter icing, coffee flavoured in the same way....
And then there is a coconut cake: the same mixture with a handful/half cup of desiccated coconut mixed in, iced with butter icing flavoured with desiccated coconut too...
Monday, 5 September 2011
Tuesday, 16 August 2011
Soggy Bottom Pudding
Out for lunch with Alison and Richard Wildsmith, old friends from Nairobi who have been staying with us for a week, on holiday. I love it in the summer when friends come...
Choosing dessert from a selection of pastries made by the Austrian cook was a CHORE. There was a wonderful selection - raspberry cheesecake, lemon tart, sachertorte, apple strudel...and mixed berry pie. Not mixed berry tart, but PIE.
"No, we can't have that," proclaimed Richard P with great authority. "It'll have a soggy bottom."
This provoked much hilarity from Richard W, whose sense of humour verges on the scatalogical. And rude. That's why the two Richards get on so well. But it was especially amusing to them as their wives found themselves sitting on chairs that had obviously been left outside overnight, as the seat cushions were rather damp - soggy, almost. Eventually, when we realised where our own particular dampness had come from, we changed chairs.
But soggy bottom was the phrase of the day.
So, for pudding that evening, I just HAD to make Soggy Bottom Pie...
SOGGY BOTTOM PIE
Pastry: 8 oz plain flour, 2 oz self-raising flour, 3 oz vegetable fat, 2 oz margarine, 3 oz sugar, cold water.
Roll out to line a 10" flan dish.
Cover the base of the pastry with a layer of thinly sliced peeled and cored cooking apples: minimum 2 apples, up to 4. Cover apples with a layer of fresh blackberries, washed and drained well, to come level with the top of the pastry.
Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon sugar.
Cover with remaining pastry (slit top to stretch into a lattice if the pastry doesn't quite fit), brush with water and sprinkle with 1 - 2 tablespoons sugar.
Bake for 30 minutes at 200 degrees.
Cream? Ice cream? Yummy custard? !
Choosing dessert from a selection of pastries made by the Austrian cook was a CHORE. There was a wonderful selection - raspberry cheesecake, lemon tart, sachertorte, apple strudel...and mixed berry pie. Not mixed berry tart, but PIE.
"No, we can't have that," proclaimed Richard P with great authority. "It'll have a soggy bottom."
This provoked much hilarity from Richard W, whose sense of humour verges on the scatalogical. And rude. That's why the two Richards get on so well. But it was especially amusing to them as their wives found themselves sitting on chairs that had obviously been left outside overnight, as the seat cushions were rather damp - soggy, almost. Eventually, when we realised where our own particular dampness had come from, we changed chairs.
But soggy bottom was the phrase of the day.
So, for pudding that evening, I just HAD to make Soggy Bottom Pie...
SOGGY BOTTOM PIE
Pastry: 8 oz plain flour, 2 oz self-raising flour, 3 oz vegetable fat, 2 oz margarine, 3 oz sugar, cold water.
Roll out to line a 10" flan dish.
Cover the base of the pastry with a layer of thinly sliced peeled and cored cooking apples: minimum 2 apples, up to 4. Cover apples with a layer of fresh blackberries, washed and drained well, to come level with the top of the pastry.
Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon sugar.
Cover with remaining pastry (slit top to stretch into a lattice if the pastry doesn't quite fit), brush with water and sprinkle with 1 - 2 tablespoons sugar.
Bake for 30 minutes at 200 degrees.
Cream? Ice cream? Yummy custard? !
Saturday, 6 August 2011
Cheesecakes
I was looking for a no-bake cheesecake recipe when I came across these tips for achieving a good BAKED cheesecake.
And then there is a variant on Joan's cheesecake/key lime pie:
crust: grind 400g ginger biscuits and mix in 150g melted margarine or butter, press into a loose-bottomed flan tin - 10 inches plus across. chill
whip half a pint double cream
whip together for 1 minute 1 tin condensed milk and 200g cream cheese - low fat still works - with the juice of 4 limes and 1 lemon.
stir all together with the zest of the citrus as well
pour onto crust and chill for at least 2 hours
And then there is a variant on Joan's cheesecake/key lime pie:
crust: grind 400g ginger biscuits and mix in 150g melted margarine or butter, press into a loose-bottomed flan tin - 10 inches plus across. chill
whip half a pint double cream
whip together for 1 minute 1 tin condensed milk and 200g cream cheese - low fat still works - with the juice of 4 limes and 1 lemon.
stir all together with the zest of the citrus as well
pour onto crust and chill for at least 2 hours
Wednesday, 27 July 2011
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
Saturday, 18 June 2011
Lavender cake
- 125g (4oz) caster sugar
- 125g (4oz) self-raising flour
- 2tbsp lavender flowers, fresh or dried
- 125g (4oz) butter, softened
- 2 medium eggs
- 2tbsp milk
For the topping:
- 350g (12oz) fondant icing sugar
- Purple, violet or lilac liquid or paste food colouring
- 12 sprigs of lavender
- 12-hole bun tray, lined with paper bun cases
Method
- Set the oven to gas mark 5 or 190°C. Tip the sugar and flour into the bowl of a food processor, add the lavender flowers and whizz to grind the flowers a little. Sift the mixture into a mixing bowl, then discard the pieces of flower left in the sieve.
- Add the butter, eggs and milk to the bowl and beat the mixture until smooth then spoon it into the paper cases in the bun tray. Bake the cakes in the centre of the oven for 15-18 mins, or until they have risen and are just firm to the touch. Remove the cakes from the oven and transfer them to a wire rack to cool.
- To make the topping, sift the fondant icing sugar into a bowl and then beat in 4-6tbsp cold water to give a thick, glossy icing. Add some food colouring to the icing to give it a lilac colour, mixing well so that it's not streaky. Use a small palette knife to spread some icing over the top of each cake and, before the icing sets, place a sprig of lavender on top of each cake. Leave the icing to set before serving.
Thursday, 16 June 2011
Vetebrod...Swedish cardamom buns
I have been making this bread for 30 years. Every time I make it, I wonder about the Swedish name for it, which translates as ‘Wheat bread, also known in English as sweet yeasted bread. What a boring name for these delicious little treats. It has only just occurred to me that wheat was perhaps a delicacy in Sweden which, until the middle of the twentieth century, was a very poor country. I wonder if the staple grain is rye: certainly unleavened rye breads and crackers feature in Swedish baking...?
1 quantity of bread dough. In the breadmaker, I put 1 cup of water, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 splash of oil or melted butter – approximately 1 tablespoon, 2 ¾ cups of plain flour, 1 scant teaspoon quick-acting dried yeast
After the dough has mixed and risen – 1 ½ hours in my breadmaker – slap the dough onto a large floured surface (up to 1 metre by 50cm if you need a definition of ‘large’). Roll it out as thinly as possible into the largest rectangle you can make: it will probably be approximately 60cm by 30cm.
Working as quickly as possible spread with 1 – 2 generous tablespoons of melted butter (10 seconds on medium high in the microwave – best not to let it ‘spit’, it makes a mess). Scatter with a handful of sugar – white or brown, it doesn’t matter. That’s probably about 3 – 4 tablespoons. The dough should be covered but not thickly.
Sprinkle with 1 – 2 teaspoons of ground cardamom – the more, the better. I crush 20 seeds in my Swedish brass mortar and pestle, because it’s hard to buy ground cardamom here.
Roll up along the short side into a long ‘sausage’. I feel the need for a diagram here, but will try to explain: the ‘long’ side is up to 60cm long, so the ‘sausage’ should be approximately the same length.
Flatten the sausage, smash the rolling pin on it a bit, fold it up like a pillowcase and then roll it out again as much as you can – it will be ‘springy’ by this stage as the dough will have started to rise again.
Dedicated bakers will roll and fold several times, brushing each layer with more butter as they do so and putting the dough in the fridge or freezer for a few minutes to calm it down and make it easier to roll out.
I don’t do that.
When you have a rectangle of approximately 20cm by 10cm, or larger, depending on what the dough feels like letting you do to it, pick up a SHARP knife.
Cut the dough into fingerwidth strips, one at a time. After each strip is cut, pick it up, twist it like a rope, knot it together (or mess it around in some other way) and put it on a lightly greased baking tray. Cut another strip and repeat the messing around, continuing until you have approximately 16 – 20 little knotted buns.
Let rise. EITHER, if you are well-organised enough, for at least an hour in a warm place OR for 20 minutes ditto, then put in the cold (electric) oven and let the pastries rise as the oven warms up. I don’t know what to do for gas, sorry.
Bake at 200 degrees Celsius for 10 – 14 minutes, depending on the oven. The buns should be lightly browned on the top and bottom. If you have to choose, I think slightly undercooked is better – not so hard and dry.
Remove from the trays IMMEDIATELY. If you don’t , the lovely caramelly butter and sugar leakage on the oven tray will GLUE THE BUNS ONTO THE TRAY AND YOU DEFINITELY DON’T WANT THAT TO HAPPEN. Cool on a wire rack.
If you want, you can drizzle icing over them: either water icing (icing sugar and hot water) or white icing (1 tablespoon butter, 1 cup icing sugar and boiling water to mix). You could even sprinkle chopped or flaked almonds on top, too.
I never bother: too much faff, and I’d have to wait another five minutes. I never want to do that.
1 quantity of bread dough. In the breadmaker, I put 1 cup of water, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 splash of oil or melted butter – approximately 1 tablespoon, 2 ¾ cups of plain flour, 1 scant teaspoon quick-acting dried yeast
After the dough has mixed and risen – 1 ½ hours in my breadmaker – slap the dough onto a large floured surface (up to 1 metre by 50cm if you need a definition of ‘large’). Roll it out as thinly as possible into the largest rectangle you can make: it will probably be approximately 60cm by 30cm.
Working as quickly as possible spread with 1 – 2 generous tablespoons of melted butter (10 seconds on medium high in the microwave – best not to let it ‘spit’, it makes a mess). Scatter with a handful of sugar – white or brown, it doesn’t matter. That’s probably about 3 – 4 tablespoons. The dough should be covered but not thickly.
Sprinkle with 1 – 2 teaspoons of ground cardamom – the more, the better. I crush 20 seeds in my Swedish brass mortar and pestle, because it’s hard to buy ground cardamom here.
Roll up along the short side into a long ‘sausage’. I feel the need for a diagram here, but will try to explain: the ‘long’ side is up to 60cm long, so the ‘sausage’ should be approximately the same length.
Flatten the sausage, smash the rolling pin on it a bit, fold it up like a pillowcase and then roll it out again as much as you can – it will be ‘springy’ by this stage as the dough will have started to rise again.
Dedicated bakers will roll and fold several times, brushing each layer with more butter as they do so and putting the dough in the fridge or freezer for a few minutes to calm it down and make it easier to roll out.
I don’t do that.
When you have a rectangle of approximately 20cm by 10cm, or larger, depending on what the dough feels like letting you do to it, pick up a SHARP knife.
Cut the dough into fingerwidth strips, one at a time. After each strip is cut, pick it up, twist it like a rope, knot it together (or mess it around in some other way) and put it on a lightly greased baking tray. Cut another strip and repeat the messing around, continuing until you have approximately 16 – 20 little knotted buns.
Let rise. EITHER, if you are well-organised enough, for at least an hour in a warm place OR for 20 minutes ditto, then put in the cold (electric) oven and let the pastries rise as the oven warms up. I don’t know what to do for gas, sorry.
Bake at 200 degrees Celsius for 10 – 14 minutes, depending on the oven. The buns should be lightly browned on the top and bottom. If you have to choose, I think slightly undercooked is better – not so hard and dry.
Remove from the trays IMMEDIATELY. If you don’t , the lovely caramelly butter and sugar leakage on the oven tray will GLUE THE BUNS ONTO THE TRAY AND YOU DEFINITELY DON’T WANT THAT TO HAPPEN. Cool on a wire rack.
If you want, you can drizzle icing over them: either water icing (icing sugar and hot water) or white icing (1 tablespoon butter, 1 cup icing sugar and boiling water to mix). You could even sprinkle chopped or flaked almonds on top, too.
I never bother: too much faff, and I’d have to wait another five minutes. I never want to do that.
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