Blood oranges are not the only fruit… but boy, are they good

I may have mentioned before that blood oranges are one of my favourite seasonal treats. They remind me of family skiing holidays in the Italian Alps, where they always seemed available earlier than in the UK. In colours ranging from deepest ruby to a delicate blush-red tinge, they are tarter than their standard orange relatives, yet deliciously tangy, sweet and juicy at the same time. I love them for my wake-up breakfast juice and eaten segment by segment, just as they are – grab a tissue as they are definitely more likely to drip down your arm than a normal orange!

In recent years, shops seem to have shied away from the old term “blood orange”, opting instead for blush oranges or ruby orange when used in juice, or even Sanguinello, from their Sicilian name. Why anyone could possibly be offended by the connection with blood, I’m really not sure. Perhaps for the same reason that you never hear talk of oxblood red shoes these days, although they were always my favourites as a little girl growing up in the 1960s… Blood oranges are rich in anthocyanins, which accounts for their dark colouration and superfood status – as if we needed any further excuse to eat them during their oh-so-short season.

Baking/cooking with blood oranges is as rewarding as you might think. Blood orange sorbet is divine, and a cake made with blood oranges, polenta and ground almonds just perfect. I recently threw together a colourful winter salad with blood orange, red cabbage, fennel, rocket, apple and parsley, all set off by a sharply citrussy vinaigrette. Last weekend I even experimented with a delectable recipe for blood orange & coconut panna cotta. They also add another dimension to tray-baked chicken dishes. Heaven on a plate…

My first recipe is one of Jamie Oliver’s, a deliciously succulent orange & polenta cake, perfect for gluten-intolerant visitors (in normal times, of course), as it contains no flour. I’ve tweaked the glaze as blood oranges are often smaller than standard oranges. It was the perfect consistency even though I used less liquid than he recommends.

Blood Orange & Polenta Cake – serves 12

200g butter
200g demerara sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
200g ground almonds
100g polenta
zest of 2 blood oranges (keep the juice for the syrup)
1 tsp orange blossom water
1 tsp baking powder (gluten-free if necessary)

SYRUP

5 cardamom pods, peeled and crushed
zest of 2 blood oranges
200 ml blood orange juice (I used the juice of 5 blood oranges)
2 tsp orange blossom water
125 g vanilla sugar

Toasted coconut flakes (or flaked almonds) to garnish

Preheat the oven to 150°C (fan)/gas mark 3, then grease and base line a 24cm springform cake tin.

Beat the butter and sugar in a large bowl until light and creamy. It will look gritty as demerara sugar is very coarse, but it will dissolve when baked! Gradually beat in the eggs, then stir in the vanilla essence, orange zest and orange blossom water. Fold in the ground almonds, polenta and baking powder.

Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 45 to 50 minutes, or until the surface is golden brown, just firm to the touch, and the cake is coming away slightly from the sides of the tin. Remove the tin from the oven and leave to cool for 10 minutes or so.

Meanwhile, make the syrup: put the crushed cardamom pods, orange zest, juice, vanilla sugar and orange blossom water into a small pan. Simmer over a medium-low heat for about 10 minutes, or until reduced and thickened to a syrupy consistency. Set aside to cool slightly.

Prick the cake all over with a skewer while still in the tin. Place on a plate to catch any juice, then drizzle the syrup evenly all over. Remove from the tin and serve just warm with crème fraiche, whipped cream, or just as it is with a cup of tea and a contented sigh. Keeps well in a cool place for up to a week and is equally good cold.

I’m very partial to panna cotta and when this Sarah Raven recipe came up in my e-mail inbox last week, I just had to try it. I ended up tweaking it quite a bit, as I felt there was far too much gelatine in the original, but I was very happy with the end result. The tray-baked chicken recipe I mentioned is in the same article, should you want to try that too. I also used the lighter coconut milk as that’s what came in my online shopping order (sigh), instead of the full-fat milk I’d ordered. I adjusted the fat content by adding some cream to the yogurt in the original, but you can play around as you like, using all yogurt, or a mix of the two.

Blood Orange & Coconut Panna Cotta – serves 6

Caramel:

140g granulated sugar

Panna cotta:

4 gelatine leaves
400ml tin coconut milk (ideally full fat, not the light version)
2 tbsp vanilla sugar
1 tsp vanilla paste
1 tsp orange blossom water
zest of two blood oranges
150ml natural yogurt
200ml double cream

To serve:

4 blood oranges, peeled, halved and thinly sliced
1 tsp orange blossom water

Start by making the caramel: lightly grease six ramekin dishes and place on a tray or baking sheet. Put the sugar and 5 tbsp water into a small pan over a low heat. Stir slowly until the sugar has dissolved, then allow the syrup to boil without stirring. Take off the heat when the syrup starts to turn brown, taking care not to burn it. Pour into the prepared ramekins and set aside.

Now make the panna cotta: soak the gelatine sheets in a bowl of cold water. While they are soaking, scrape/pour the coconut milk into a pan over a low heat, adding the sugar, vanilla paste, orange blossom water and orange zest. Stir until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is gently simmering. Squeeze the water out of the gelatine, add to the pan and stir until dissolved. Take off the heat and allow to cool slightly, then stir in the cream and yogurt.

Pass the mixture through a sieve into a jug to make sure it is silky smooth, then pour carefully into the ramekins. When cool, transfer to the fridge to set overnight.

To serve, loosen the sides of each panna cotta with a small knife. Pour boiling water into a small shallow bowl and sit each ramekin into the hot water for a few seconds to help loosen the caramel. Put a small serving dish on top of each one, turn upside down and turn out. Serve with the blood orange slices.

Finally for today, my sorbet recipe is loosely based (sugar content halved!) on the original recipe book that came with my first ice cream maker, a Magimix with a freeze-ahead bowl. It served me well for 25 years or so until I finally succumbed a few years ago and treated myself to a fully automatic Cuisinart ice cream maker. No more finding space for the bowl in my well-stocked upright freezer, especially given that frost-free freezers may look just as large, but have a smaller internal capacity due to the frost-free workings and extra insulation. You can still make the sorbet in a container by taking out every hour or so and mixing in the ice crystals as the juice sets, of course.

Blood Orange Sorbet

125 g granulated sugar
450 ml water
Zest of two blood oranges
300 ml freshly squeezed blood orange juice (I needed 7 oranges)
Juice of one lime (or lemon)
1 egg white, whisked to soft peaks

Place the sugar, water and orange zest into a pan over a gentle heat and stir until the sugar dissolves. Then turn up the heat and boil for 10-12 minutes, or until it reduces and you have a syrupy mixture. Allow to cool.

When cool, stir in the orange and lime juice, and chill the mixture for a couple of hours in the fridge. Then pour into your ice cream maker and set the timer for 30-40 mins. Check every so often to check whether it is starting to set. Add the whisked egg white at this point and continue churning for another 10 minutes. You may need to mix in any residual egg white by hand when turning into a freezer container. Alternatively, freeze in a container, breaking up the ice crystals every hour or so until it starts to firm up, and fold in the egg white with the final mixing.

Enjoy!

Sweet somethings

It’s that time of year when everything suddenly starts to take off, especially after the torrential rain we’ve had over the last few days. You turn your back for a minute, and tiny shoots one day are full-blown weeds the next. Or gooseberries that were mere dots are suddenly jostling for position in twos or threes, clamouring to be thinned so the smallest of the bunch can swell in their turn. My asparagus bed, weeded meticulously not a couple of weeks ago, is now chock-a-block full of dill and poppy seedlings and any number of thuggish weeds. Today wasn’t a day for weeding, that’s for sure, with non-stop rain, but it’s definitely on my To Do list for the not-too-distant future, along with sowing my French beans (so late this year!), planting out my squash, and finishing off my new cut flower bed.

Where does time go on this cusp of spring to summer? One minute you’re bemoaning the lack of water and muttering about how slow things are to take off, then whoosh – all hell let loose! Added to which I’ve had a hectic workload in recent weeks, a translation conference up in Sheffield, and grandmotherly duties to boot. Yesterday, when I should have been tending to my jobs on the allotment in a break from the rain, was our Open Gardens Day in the village. I couldn’t resist going to visit a couple of new gardens, including a couple with views to die for and the most impeccable kitchen garden you’ve ever seen, along with a fruit cage designed as a bird cage – so beautiful. Gardens of dreams indeed – not for us lesser mortals with a pocket handkerchief garden and no staff to tend that immaculate greensward…

While the rain comes down, I thought I’d take this opportunity to share some recipes, including one I made a few weeks ago to use up the rhubarb glut. In actual fact, the rhubarb has slowed down considerably in recent weeks, although the rain may give it a second boost! Gooseberries are my second port of call, as I picked my first kilo out of nowhere one evening last week. Let’s gloss over the fact that I still have some in the freezer from last year – the new season’s crop are always very welcome and these two new recipes went down very well.

First the rhubarb: I wanted to make a rhubarb cake to take on a family visit and a friend’s mention of the Gugelhupf cake she’d made for her daughter’s birthday inspired me to search the web for a rhubarb Gugelhupf. A colleague on the Foodie Translators’ group had mentioned a rhubarb and chocolate version she’d made the previous year and that’s what I had in mind. I eventually came up with a couple of German offerings, one of which I adapted to fit the ingredients I had. The original recipe is here for those of you who read German.

Rhubarb & White Chocolate Gugelhupf – serves 8-10

250g butter
200g caster sugar
50g vanilla sugar (if you have it, otherwise just use all caster sugar)
1 tsp vanilla paste (or extract)
pinch of salt
3 eggs, beaten
300g self-raising flour (I used Dove’s Farm gluten-free)
1 tsp baking powder (GF if necessary)
1 tsp cinnamon
120ml natural yogurt (or buttermilk according to the original recipe)
300g rhubarb, chopped into small pieces, but not peeled (unless really tough!)
150g white chocolate

Grease a deep Gugelhupf or ring mould – I used a silicone mould from Lidl, of all places, and sprayed it lightly with an olive oil spray, then used a pastry brush to make sure every crevice was greased, and sprinkled in some sieved flour for good measure. Much better than the metal ring moulds I’ve used in the past!

Preheat the oven to 160°C fan (Gas 4).

Mix the butter, sugar (both kinds) and vanilla extract in a large bowl (or stand mixer) until light and fluffy. Add the beaten eggs gradually and mix well (adding a tbsp or so of sifted flour if it shows signs of curdling). Sift over the baking powder, cinnamon, pinch of salt and the rest of the flour and fold into the mixture, alternating with the buttermilk or yogurt. Finally fold in the chopped rhubarb. Transfer the mixture to the mould and level the top. Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 50 mins to 1 hour, testing with a skewer to check whether it’s done.

Allow to cool completely in the mould before gently inverting and removing the mould, If you try and remove the mould while it’s still hot, you are liable to leave bits of the sponge behind! Melt the white chocolate in 30 minute bursts in the microwave, or over a pan of simmering water if you prefer, then pour artistically over the cooled cake.

Decorate as you wish – I used rosemary, but edible flowers would have been good too.

My gooseberry recipes were inspired, as my recipes often are, by ideas in the Waitose Kitchen magazine, although this time from a couple of years ago. For some reason, I’d seen the flapjack recipe, but never made it as it looked quite unprepossessing, beige and claggy in the original magazine (here if you want to check it out!). With such delicious ingredients, I decided to give it a go anyway and was extremely happy with the results – beautifully tangy with a jammy gooseberry filling, but oaty and nutty at the same time. Mmmmm. I opted for a larger tin than the recommended size, so that might account for the different texture. I used the tart early-season cooking gooseberries (my variety is Invicta, very prolific – and resistant to gooseberry mildew). If you make it with dessert gooseberries, or later in the season, you might like to reduce the sugar content in the gooseberry filling.

Gooseberry & Pecan Flapjacks – makes 16

200g butter
400g gooseberries
175g light soft brown sugar
200g spelt flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
150g oats
100g pecans, chopped
pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 180°C fan (Gas 5) and grease and line a rectangular baking tin – mine measures 28cm x 18cm x 3.5cm, but the original recipe uses a 20cm square tin.

Top and tail the gooseberries, then place in a pan with 75g of the sugar and cook over a low heat until the sugar melts and the juice starts to flow. Turn up the heat and continue cooking, stirring regularly, for 10-15 minutes until you have a thickish, jam-like mixture. Take off the heat and set aside.

Mix the flour, cinnamon, oats, salt and chopped pecans in a large bowl. In another pan, melt the butter and remaining 100g sugar, then pour over the flour mixture. Mix together until you have a rough dough.

Press half of the dough over the bottom of the baking tin, then spread the gooseberry mixture on top. Sprinkle the remaining dough on top – I found it easier to crumble it with my fingers, so it didn’t cover the jam layer entirely and was quite chunky.

Place in the pre-heated oven and cook for 25-30 minutes until nicely browned. Cool in the tin, then cut into 16 bars and enjoy with a nice cup of tea or coffee. So good.

My final recipe is a simple lemon posset served with a roast gooseberry & orange compote, which is an adaptation of the roasted rhubarb compote I’ve shared many times before. Possets are so quick and simple to make, I can’t think why we don’t make them more often! The Waitrose recipe that gave me the idea made elderflower creams by adding elderflower cordial to the cream, but I opted for a lemon posset, as I haven’t made any elderflower cordial yet this year: also on my To Do list, but definitely not in wet weather. That’s a sure way to end up with mouldy cordial…

Lemon Posset with Gooseberry & Orange Compote – serves 4

500g gooseberries
Juice and grated zest of one orange
3-4 tbsp brown sugar (or to taste)
300ml double cream
75g caster sugar
Grated zest and juice of 1 large lemon (or 2 small)

First make the compote by topping and tailing the gooseberries and putting in a rectangular shallow baking dish with the juice and zest of the orange and sprinkling over the brown sugar. Cook in a pre-heated oven at 160°C fan (Gas 4) until tender, but still whole, for about 30-40 minutes. Leave to cool. You can add 1 tbsp elderflower cordial at this stage if you feel so inclined – or even elderflower liqueur if you have it!

For the posset, place the double cream, lemon zest and sugar in a small pan and gently bring to the boil, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Then boil for 3 minutes before removing from the heat. Stir in the lemon juice and sieve the cream mixture to remove any large pieces of lemon zest. Pour into small glass dishes, leaving room at the top for the compote, and put in the fridge to chill for 3-4 hours or overnight. It’s quite rich so don’t be fooled by the relatively small amounts!

To serve, gently spoon some of the compote onto each set dessert. These are also good served on their own, or they’re delicious with sliced strawberries instead of compote. Any fruit would work, in fact – and a dash of elderflower cordial would make a nice addition to the posset too, before the setting stage, if you felt so inclined.

 

Autumn – decadence and decay

Autumn can be a time of abundance, decadent overgrowth and plentiful harvests, but it’s also a time when plants start to decay and die back as the first frosts of autumn hit or the winds come howling in. I came back from nearly two weeks in the US celebrating my son and daughter-in-law’s wedding with her American friends and family to find my allotment full of weeds, dahlias still flowering in gay abandon and my bean frame horizontal – I’m guessing we’ve had some strong winds in my absence! The calabrese plants appear to be flowering, despite not showing any signs of heads before I went away, and there are lots of windfall apples on the floor. On the plus side, the spinach and chard I’d sown in early September are looking really good, as is the kale and purple-sprouting broccoli, and even the bulb fennel hasn’t gone to seed – a first! The courgette plants are looking very sorry for themselves, not quite frosted, but definitely browning, although I still managed to harvest a few decent courgettes – I’d picked all incipient fruit before I left to avoid coming back to marrow armageddon….

That reminds me of a couple of new courgette recipes I experimented with this year, but haven’t had time to jot down with all the wedding goings-on this summer. I’m always on the lookout for new ways with courgettes, especially in such a hot year when new courgettes were forming on a daily basis at the height of the season.

The first recipe was inspired by a recipe in the July edition of the Sainsbury’s magazine, tweaked as ever to suit what I had available. It’s gluten-free and even low carb, if that’s what you’re looking for, although not particularly why I made it – it just sounded good! The original recipe used turkey, whereas I used pork mince, but use whatever you have/fancy. Sorry, no photo – I did have one, but it’s taken me so long to write up the recipe that I must have deleted it by mistake…

Moroccan Courgette & Pork Bake – serves 4

2-3 large courgettes (about 750g)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 large red onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 red peppers, sliced (optional, but nice!)
500g pork mince
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato purée
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp harissa
handful of chopped coriander or parsley
250g natural yogurt
1 large egg
50-100g freshly grated Parmesan (or use Cheddar if that’s what you have!)
Seasoning

Heat the oven to 200°C / Gas 6. Top and tail the courgettes, then slice lengthwise into thin slices about 5 mm thick. Place on a foil-lined baking tray, brush with olive oil and roast in the hot oven for 15-20 minutes or until just golden and soft, but not mushy.

In the meantime, fry the onion and garlic in olive oil until soft, then add the sliced red peppers, followed by the minced pork (or turkey) and cook for a further 5 minutes until browned. Add the spices and harissa and cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly, then add the tomato purée and the chopped tomatoes with their juice. Stir in the chopped herbs and season to taste.

Place a layer of sauce in the bottom of a rectangular dish (20 x 25 cm), then a layer of courgettes and continue until all used up, ending with a courgette layer. Blend the yogurt, beaten egg and seasoning in a small bowl, then pour over the courgettes and top with grated cheese.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown. Serve hot with a green salad. Freezes beautifully too.

Another courgette recipe I’ve trialled recently, based on how delicious courgette is in bread and cakes, is courgette & cheese scones. Perfect if you haven’t time to bake bread, but need something urgently to accompany your latest soup creation! Served here with roasted tomato soup with the last of the season’s homegrown tomatoes…

Cheesy Courgette Scones – makes 10-12

450g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
350g grated courgettes
salt
125g butter
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
approx. 150ml milk
125g grated Cheddar cheese
seasoning

Pre-heat the oven to 200°C / Gas 6.

Put the grated courgettes in a colander over the sink and sprinkle with salt. Allow to drain to remove excess liquid for about 15 minutes. Then rinse with cold water, tip the courgettes into a clean tea towel and squeeze out as much juice as possible

In another bowl rub the butter into the flour, baking powder and a pinch of salt until it looks like breadcrumbs. Stir in the fresh thyme leaves. Add most of the grated cheese and courgette and mix thoroughly. Add enough milk to make a soft dough that’s not too sticky (add more flour if necessary). Gently roll out the dough to 2cm thick and cut into rounds with a pastry cutter. Place the scones on a greased baking tray and bake for 10-15 minutes.  They should be a nice golden brown and well risen.

Serve with butter and a bowl of steaming homemade soup. Once again, these freeze well and are ideal to have in the freezer for emergency lunches or unexpected visitors.

Still on the baking theme, I also found a delicious recipe for chocolate & courgette brownies  a great way of getting rid of excess courgettes AND adding extra vegetables to boost the 5-a-day count of unwilling veg eaters! I found it here, but have adapted it slightly and record my version here for reference. Once again, these freeze well, which is great if you live alone and don’t want to eat them all at once! The problem with vegetable-based cakes in warm weather is that they can go off within a matter of days in the tin, so freezing is definitely the way to go.

Chocolate & Courgette Brownies – makes 16

300g courgettes / zucchini
salt
200g dark chocolate, chopped
150g butter
3 eggs, beaten
200g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
150g self-raising flour
2 tsp espresso powder
100 g chopped hazelnuts (or walnuts or pecans if you prefer), toasted on a baking tray in the oven for 5 minutes

Traybake tin measuring approx 28cm x 20cm x 4cm deep, greased and lined with baking paper

Pre-heat oven to 160℃ fan / Gas 4.

Grate the courgettes and place in a colander over the sink, then sprinkle with salt. Leave to drain for 15 minutes or so, while you get on with the brownies.

Place the chocolate and butter in a microwaveable bowl and microwave on high for 1 to 2 minutes in 30-second bursts until melted. Stir until chocolate is nice and smooth and leave to cool. Alternatively melt the old-fashioned way in a glass bowl over a small pan of simmering water. Leave to cool.

In a large bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar together using an electric mixer until doubled in volume (about 5 to 8 minutes depending on your mixer). Add the vanilla extract. Carefully pour the cooled chocolate into your egg mix and gently fold together with a metal spoon.

Rinse the courgettes to wash off the salt, then transfer to a clean tea towel and squeeze firmly to remove excess liquid. Fold the courgettes and toasted chopped nuts into the brownie mix. Sieve the dry ingredients into the mixture and fold in carefully.

Pour mixture into the prepared tin and cook for 30 minutes. Check to see if there is a paper-like crust on top – there should still be some movement in the centre of the tin. Bake for another 5 minutes if you don’t think it’s cooked enough, then take out and leave to cool. They will firm up on cooling. Cut into 16 individual portions when cool.

My final suggestion is barely a recipe, more a reminder of my favourite and simplest way of serving courgettes as a side dish. Again no photo – I’m getting lax! I cleaned up my photos before going to the US so I’d have space to take lots of new pictures, and have clearly been overzealous.

Courgette & Tomato Bake – serves 3-4

1 large onion, chopped
450g courgettes, thickly sliced
glug of olive oil
4 large tomatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
Handful fresh herbs (I use basil, parsley and thyme)
seasoning
100g mature Cheddar cheese, grated
50g white breadcrumbs

Cook the onions and garlic in a frying pan with the olive oil for about 5-10 minutes until starting to soften. Add the courgettes and cook for a further 5 minutes, then add the chopped tomatoes, herbs and seasoning and cook until a thickish mixture forms.

Transfer to an ovenproof dish, mix the grated cheese and breadcrumbs together and sprinkle over the courgette mixture. Cook in a hot oven at 180°C/gas 5 until the cheese is starting to brown (25-30 minutes).

Serve with sausages, chops or on its own as a delicious vegetarian main.

Spring celebrations

One thing I am still able to do now I’m a little more mobile is bake – and, as it happened, we’d planned to do some more wedding cake experimentation last weekend by way of a joint birthday cake to celebrate three family birthdays at a picnic down at my friends’ smallholding on Saturday. We’d discussed making another two-tier cake even before I had my accident, but I didn’t see why I shouldn’t be able to go ahead with the bottom tier, especially with the assistance of my trusty KitchenAid. My daughter-in-law took control of the 8″ top layer, as she will for the wedding in July. This time we opted for a simple Victoria sponge with vanilla buttercream and homemade black & redcurrant jam. We had intended to cover the whole thing with buttercream as last time, but we ran out of time on the Saturday morning and opted for a very simple naked cake instead – actually really pretty!

After much research into increasing the quantities of cake mix to fit larger tins, I resorted to calculating the area of a 10″ tin compared to my usual 7″ sponge and multiplying by half as much again to get a three-layer cake rather than the standard 2-layer Victoria cake. Good old πr² – those maths lessons do have their uses after all! My standard 2-layer cake uses 3 large eggs and 6oz of self-raising flour, caster sugar and butter (I use the spreadable kind as it whisks up better in an all-in-one cake), plus one teaspoon of vanilla extract and one teaspoon of baking powder. I used Dove’s Farm gluten-free self-raising flour to great effect this time – no-one could believe it was actually gluten-free! For a larger 10″ cake with three layers, I used 9 eggs, and scaled up the other ingredients accordingly, while my daughter-in-law used 5 eggs and 10oz each of the other ingredients for her 8″ cake.

Spring Celebration Cake

8″ sponge (3 layers):
5 large eggs
10oz caster sugar
10oz self-raising flour (GF works well)
10oz spreadable butter
1.5 heaped tsp baking powder
1.5 tsp vanilla extract

10″ sponge (3 layers):
9 large eggs
1lb 2oz caster sugar
1lb 2oz self-raising flour (GF works well)
1lb 2oz spreadable butter
3 heaped tsp baking powder
3 tsp vanilla extract

I large jar (at least 1lb) red jam – homemade or good quality jam of your choice. Mine was a very large jar, so make sure you have more in reserve just in case!

Vanilla buttercream:
1lb spreadable butter
2lb icing sugar, sifted
1.5 tsp vanilla extract

Dowelling
1x thin 7″ cake board
Garden flowers to decorate

First make the cakes separately. If you have a KitchenAid or freestanding mixer, this makes the whole process a lot easier! I resisted for years, but can’t imagine baking without it now – and for these large celebration cakes they are a real boon.

Weigh out and place all the ingredients for each cake in the mixer and blend until light and fluffy. Make sure you go round the sides with a spatula and scrape right down to the bottom several times in this process to make sure all the dry materials are incorporated properly. Then divide the mixture between three greased and base-lined cake tins. You can do this by eye or for perfect results weigh the mixture and divide by three. Cook in a pre-heated oven at 160°C for 25 to 30 minutes, then allow to cool in the tins before removing to a wire rack.

Repeat for the second cake. I had two deep 10″ tins as opposed to three sandwich tins so ended up dividing the mixture into two, cooking the deeper cakes for 45 minutes  and then halving the resulting cakes with my clever cake slicer. This made a 4-layer cake for the bottom (which of course would have been covered by icing had we proceeded as planned!). It really didn’t matter in the event. but I will get another tin and make three separate layers for the wedding cake proper.

When the cakes are cool, sandwich them with jam and buttercream. I did alternating jam and buttercream layers, but you could equally well use thinner layers of jam and buttercream between each cake layer. Bear in mind that you might need more jam and buttercream if you’re doing this though!

Once you’ve assembled each individual three-layer sponge, cut pieces of dowelling to size so they are just smaller than the overall height of the bottom cake and insert 4 pieces into the cake in a square pattern around the centre. Carefully place the top cake onto the cake board (or assemble on the cake board in the first place) and position on top of the larger cake.

Finally, decorate with garden flowers of your choice. I put more buttercream on the top and placed camellias and primroses in that as a centrepiece, dotting more primroses in the layers around, but the choice is yours – any flowers would work, depending on the seasons. Dust with sifted icing sugar to finish.

I had lots of buttercream left over too, so ended up making old-school butterfly cakes the next day: same basic proportions for a 3-egg sponge, cooked in bun cases, then filled with jam and buttercream – delicious! And actually so much nicer than the ubiquitous and sickly cupcakes…

We had to transport our celebration cake down winding country lanes to the party venue, which really wasn’t ideal, but it survived more or less intact and was very well received: the nicest Victoria sponge ever according to one enthusiastic guest! People really couldn’t believe that it was gluten-free either. We liked the naked cake effect so much that we may well keep to that idea for the wedding – it will certainly be less stressful preparing it on the day! Watch this space…

 

Decadent cakes

The cakes I make in winter tend to be different from the lighter, airier confections of summer. Winter (and spring equinox or not, the current weather still feels very much like winter!) cakes need the warming, stick-to-your-ribs qualities of chocolate, toffee and caramel. Ginger and treacle do it for me too, whereas ethereal Victoria sponges belong much more to the spring and summer months. Think chocolate brownies, sticky ginger or marmalade cake, and marbled energy bars to name just a few…

So when, a few months back, my younger son and his fiancée twisted my arm to make the wedding cake for their July wedding this year, it was no surprise when they mooted the idea of a sticky toffee layer. Despite feeling that it might be too heavy for a summer wedding, I agreed to give it a go for a trial two-tier birthday cake for two family birthdays in February. I already make a sons’ favourite sticky toffee pudding, which is cooked as a square cake, served warm with lashings of sticky toffee sauce, but it wasn’t quite the effect I had in my mind for a celebration cake. My daughter-in-law has offered to make the top layer of the wedding cake and decided to make a gluten-free lemon sponge for the top of this birthday cake, all to be topped with butter cream, so I just needed to track down a suitable toffee version.

Searches online brought up a few contenders, but it was this recipe, by Miranda Gore-Browne, for a gloriously sticky toffee cake, that caught my eye and formed the basis for the bottom layer of my tiered creation. I basically followed Miranda’s recipe for the sponge, but made it in a deep 25cm cake tin, cooked for longer and at a lower heat of course, and sliced it in two after cooking and cooling. I found I had to adapt the frosting, though, adding much more icing sugar than suggested! I was very worried that it would be far too sweet, but actually it tasted divine with the sweet, treacly earthiness of the date cake. My advice is to keep tasting as you make it, and stop adding the icing sugar when it’s sweet enough for you, but the consistency is thick enough to spread, yet not too gloopy. I also added orange zest, which cut through the sweetness beautifully – but you could use orange blossom water/pure orange extract if you don’t want to see the bits of zest in the finished frosting.

Sticky Toffee Cake – serves 12-16

375g dates
250ml water
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
4 large eggs
250g light muscovado sugar
2 tbsp golden syrup
200g butter, melted
2 tsp vanilla extract
350g self-raising flour
pinch of salt

Sticky Toffee Frosting

250g butter
up to 1kg icing sugar (!)
4 tbsp Nestlé Caramel (or use dulce di leche)
grated rind of 1 orange (or use 1 tsp orange blossom water/pure orange extract)

Grease and base line a large 25cm cake tin and pre-heat the oven to 150°C / Gas 3.

Place the chopped dates in a pan, cover with the water and bring to the boil. Add the bicarbonate of soda, stir, remove from the heat and leave to cool, then whizz in a food processor until smooth.

Whisk the eggs, sugar and syrup in a large bowl until pale and fluffy, then whisk in the melted butter, vanilla extract and cooled date mixture. Fold in the sieved flour and salt until combined, then transfer to the prepared tin. Cook in the pre-heated oven for 1 hr to 1 hr 5 mins: it should feel just springy to the touch and a skewer inserted in the centre should come out clean. Leave in the tin to cool.

To make the icing, whisk the butter until soft and fluffy, then gradually whisk in the sifted icing sugar – this is where I am very happy to have a pouring shield on my Kitchen Aid as it keeps the clouds of icing sugar to a minimum. (I was surprised to learn that these don’t come as standard with all Kitchen Aids, so do check if you’re tempted to invest in one of these kitchen classics.) Add the caramel and grated orange rind or orange extract. Keep tasting as you add the final quantities of icing sugar and stop when you’re happy with the taste/consistency. This can be prepared ahead and left in the fridge before using.

When you’re ready to assemble the cake, slice carefully into two. I used this fantastic device from Amazon that a colleague had shared on the Foodie Translators group on Facebook – it makes wonky cutting a thing of the past!

Sandwich the cake together with some of the frosting, then spread a thin “crumb” layer over the rest and leave to set so that you don’t get crumbs in the top layer afterwards.

If you’re making a tiered cake, this is where you carefully measure and cut the dowels to size, before placing the top tier carefully on top, on a cake board exactly the same size as the top tier. Cover the entire cake with a generous layer of frosting and decorate as you wish. Breathe a huge sigh of relief and enjoy!

Much as we enjoyed the sticky toffee cake, we were all agreed that this was probably not ideal for a summer wedding, and will revert to variations on the Victoria sponge theme – watch this space!

However, for Mother’s Day last week, I continued with the decadent approach, using the remains of my last huge Crown Prince squash to make a divine chocolate & squash cake: squidgy, dark and delicious! The original recipe is by Billy and Jack in a recent edition of Sainsbury’s magazine. I’ve adapted it slightly as usual, using far less baking powder than they suggested. The chocolate frosting with squash purée is a revelation! It’s also gluten-free to boot, so perfect when you’re trying to ring the changes for gluten-intolerant or coeliac guests.

Chocolate & Squash Cake – serves 12

about 400g peeled and chopped squash – I used a large slice of a huge Crown Prince squash, but I imagine you’d need at least one decent-sized butternut squash
75g dark chocolate, chopped
100g butter
200g caster sugar
3 large eggs, beaten
1 heaped tsp gluten-free baking powder
300g ground almonds
1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch of salt

For the salted chocolate and squash frosting:
150g dark chocolate
100g butter
250g icing sugar, sifted
pinch sea salt
(reserved squash purée – see above)

First make the squash purée. Place the prepared squash, chopped into 2 cm cubes, in a pan of boiling water and cook for 20-25 minutes until tender. Drain off the liquid (I save this for vegetable stock – too good to waste!) and mash the squash with a potato masher until smooth. You should have at least 300g. Set to one side to cool. Melt the chocolate in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water and leave to cool slightly.

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C / Gas 5. Grease and base-line 2 x 20cm sandwich tins. Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy, then gradually whisk in the beaten eggs. Gently stir in 250g of the squash purée. In a separate bowl, mix together the ground almonds, baking powder, salt and spices, then fold into the wet mixture. Finally fold in the cooled melted chocolate and make sure it is all combined. Transfer into the prepared tins and bake for 25-30 minutes until just firm to the touch and a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tins.

For the frosting, melt the second lot of chocolate as above and set aside to cool. Beat the butter until creamy, then add 50g of the squash purée and continue beating. Gradually add the sifted icing sugar until blended, then finally add the melted chocolate and a pinch of salt, and beat until light and fluffy.

Turn out the cakes when cool and sandwich together with a good third of the frosting. Use the rest to decorate the top in luxurious swirls, then grate over some white chocolate and decorate with blueberries or whatever you have to hand! I can imagine chocolate mini eggs going down a treat at Easter….

Keeps really well in a tin. The height of decadence – while surely providing at least one of your five a day 😉 Enjoy!

Quick bakes

A busy bank holiday weekend with family home and my elder son moving house to just up the road (comparatively speaking!) meant I didn’t have much time for baking, but I didn’t want to let the side down with empty cake tins! Cue my very quick and easy rocky road flapjack: dead simple to throw together one evening after cleaning the house and makes enough to take half as a welcome offering. Also gluten-free, which is always a good thing as my son’s fiancée and her mum are both gluten-intolerant.

Saturday was forecast to be the nicest day of the weekend weatherwise, so we headed down to the coast to Pett Level, a fabulous stretch of pebbly beach backed by cliffs, and completely sheltered from the wind on this particular day. Followed up by tea with friends, it was the most perfect afternoon, but left very little time for baking/cooking when we finally got back home, so dinner was quickly assembled freshest Rye scallops on a spinach purée with crispy bacon, salmon fillets with homemade hollandaise sauce, roast asparagus and new potatoes, and a traditional rhubarb pie to finish. It may have been quick, and a joint effort between my younger son and me, but it was also absolutely delicious – and the perfect showcase for seasonal produce.

I barely need to offer a recipe for the pie: just (homemade) buttery shortcrust pastry, rolled out to fit an old-fashioned enamel pie plate, filled with chopped (uncooked) rhubarb – at least 500g, depending how high you want to mound it. It always loses volume when cooked. Don’t forget to sprinkle with 4-5 tbsp sugar, then top with the remaining pastry, seal and trim the edges, glaze with milk (or egg) and a sprinkling of granulated sugar and cook at 200°C (fan) / Gas 6 for 20-25 minutes. It’s certainly not elegant, but it remains one of my favourite desserts for all that; especially the soggy bottom (sorry, Mary) – rhubarb pie wouldn’t be the same without all that delicious syrupy juice at the bottom.

Next day we were all off to my elder son’s to see the new house, and I knew there would be a house full of family and a need for cake as well as a picnic lunch for the workforce! With little time to prepare, lunch was going to be lovely cheese from my local deli, olive sourdough bread and sourdough crackers, and salad with fresh leaves and pea shoots from the allotment. Cake had to be quick, gluten-free and transportable, so with a couple of egg whites in the fridge, left over from last night’s hollandaise sauce, I hit upon these coconut macaroons, a taste from my youth – and ready to go in next to no time.

Coconut & Almond Macaroons – makes 20 or so

2 egg whites
200g caster sugar
100g ground almonds
100g dessicated coconut
75 – 100g good dark chocolate to drizzle

Line 3 baking sheets with baking parchment (I used to use edible rice paper for these when I first made them in the 70s – but they’re much nicer without their papery backing). Set the oven to 160°C (fan) / Gas 4.

Whisk the egg whites until stiff, then gradually whisk in the caster sugar, followed by the ground almonds and coconut. Place heaped teaspoonfuls onto baking trays, spaced well apart to allow for spreading and bake for 15-20 minutes until a light golden colour. Allow to cool.

Meanwhile, melt the chocolate (I use a microwave in short bursts), then drizzle over the macaroons when cooled sufficiently.

Mission accomplished – quick and delicious!

The bank holiday itself was a gloomy day weatherwise, as they so often are, but an excellent opportunity to catch up on potting up and sowing seeds, chilling with the weekend newspapers and generally chatting. We all need days like that. It also gave me a chance to experiment with a recipe I’d been keen to try for a while, since buying  some bone and paw-shaped biscuit cutters in Jeremy’s, Tunbridge Wells’ Aladdin’s cave of a kitchen shop. And yes, I know, who bakes their own dog biscuits?! In my defence, I had some gram flour that was past its sell-by date and needed using, son’s dog, the adorable Ollie, has a sensitive constitution and also does better without gluten, so why not see what I could produce?

Cheddar & Rosemary Dog Treats

225g gram flour
50g grated Cheddar cheese
120ml milk
few sprigs rosemary, chopped leaves

Mix together all the ingredients in a large bowl until they form a soft dough. Adjust liquid or flour until it can be rolled out on a floured surface. Roll out to 1/2cm thick and cut out with your choice of cutter – I’m sure the dogs won’t mind if you haven’t gone a bone cutter!

Bake in the oven at 160°C (fan) / Gas 4, cool, then store in an airtight tin. My dogs seemed impressed – but then anything with cheese in was always going to go down well….

My final baking of the weekend was a snap decision to bake some almond tuiles to accompany our Monday dessert of luscious rhubarb fool (obviously been watching too much Masterchef!). I used plain flour rather than the rice flour I used last time I wrote about this recipe, but both work well.

A citrussy sort of week…

Citrus fruit have featured heavily in my cooking this week; I’m not quite sure why. They seem to go with the delicious produce I’m bringing home from the allotment at the moment: fresh spears of asparagus in particular. It’s still extremely dry everywhere, worryingly so for early springtime, so the asparagus harvest isn’t huge yet, but quite enough for a solo diner to feast every couple of days – decadence indeed.

I brought a handful of spears home on Wednesday and just fancied something really simple to accompany them. From out of the blue, I had a notion to make hollandaise sauce, although I’ve never made it before. Could you make it for one, though – I only had one egg, so I very much hoped so! Cue a quick online search, which brought up the recipe below, from a blog called And Here We Are – worked a treat, and definitely child’s play to make. I was lucky enough to have organic eggs from my friend’s hens – hence the lovely, golden colour. I served it with roast asparagus, linguine and chopped flat leaf parsley – just divine.

Linguine with Roast Asparagus & Hollandaise Sauce – for one
(but multiply upwards to feed more!)

For the hollandaise sauce:

1 egg yolk
1 tbsp hot water
salt
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp butter
freshly ground pepper

Put the egg yolk in a small bowl and whisk with a small hand whisk – I like these, but you could use a small balloon whisk too. Then whisk in 1 tbsp hot water and a pinch of salt. Finally add 1 tsp fresh lemon juice and 1 tbsp or thereabouts of butter.

Place the bowl in a steamer insert over a pan of gently simmering water and keep on whisking until it thickens to a lovely creamy consistency.

Remove from the heat, but you can leave the sauce standing over the hot water to keep warm while you prepare whatever you’re serving it with.

In my case, I’d been roasting asparagus in olive oil (10 minutes in a hot oven at 200°C fan, Gas 6), and had the linguine on to cook at the same time. I simply served the drained pasta with the roast asparagus, topped with hollandaise and garnished with chopped parsley. Absolute heaven….

More lemons came into play this weekend when I was pondering what sweet treats I could make relatively quickly before my parents came over for an early lunch on Saturday. My mother and I were heading out shopping for wedding outfits for my son’s July wedding, leaving my father at home, dog-sitting and sports viewing. A quick lunch of homemade granary bread, Delia’s leek & potato soup (puréed, rather than the chunky version I usually make) and Italian lemon & almond cookies fitted the bill perfectly. We may not have found an outfit, but lunch was delicious 🙂

No lemons in the soup, of course, but the leeks at the allotment are fast pushing up their statuesque seed heads, which means I’m trying to use them up. I also need to free up the bed for the next rotation, although courgettes and sweetcorn/squash are next in line and I’ve only just planted the seeds in the propagator, so I do have a few weeks yet….

Velvety Leek & Potato Soup – serves 6

4-5 leeks, finely chopped and well rinsed
2 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 sticks celery, chopped
50g butter
1 litre chicken stock (or use vegetable stock if you prefer)
275ml milk
1 bay leaf
Salt & pepper

Melt the butter in a large pan and add the chopped onions, potatoes, leeks and celery. stir well to mix, add the bay leaf and then leave the vegetables to sweat over a low heat, covered, for about 15 minutes. Add the stock and milk. bring to the boil, cover and cook for 20 minutes until the vegetables are soft. Leave to cool, then whizz in batches in a liquidiser until smooth. Reheat to serve with good bread.

Back to the lemons, and specifically these ricciarelli, soft lemon & almond cookies. I had four egg whites in the fridge, left over from last weekend’s tiramisu, and though I toyed with the idea of macaroons, I didn’t have time to make them, leave them to stand and allow to cool before filling. This recipe had caught my eye in Sainsbury’s April magazine, so I doubled the quantities (it uses just two egg whites) and gave it a go – impressively light and citrussy, oh and gluten-free, of course, which is always good to know. I shall be making these again….

Soft Lemon & Almond Ricciarelli – makes 20-24

250g caster sugar
Grated zest of 2 large lemons
250g ground almonds
2 tbsp flaked almonds (plus a few more to sprinkle – optional)
4 large egg whites
150g icing sugar, sifted
4 tsp lemon juice

Line 3 baking trays with baking parchment.

Place the caster sugar in a food processor with the grated lemon zest and pulse until well mixed. Tip into a large mixing bowl and add the ground almonds.

In another bowl, whisk the egg whites with 50g icing sugar until they form stiff peaks. Fold the sugar and almond mixture gradually into the egg whites, adding the lemon juice as you go, until evenly combined, then finally fold in the flaked almonds.

Place the remaining 100g icing sugar on a large plate and drop heaped tablespoons of the mixture onto the sugar, one by one, rolling them around with your fingertips until coated all over. Be warned: this is a messy process, but it does work – you may need to add more icing sugar towards the end if you run out of dry powder.

Transfer them to the lined baking trays with a spatula and space well apart; the original recipe suggested 6 on each, but they didn’t spread as much as I thought, so you could definitely get away with 8 or 9 on each tray. Sprinkle with more flaked almonds if you like. (These weren’t in the Sainsbury’s version, but I like the added crunch.) Sprinkle with any remaining icing sugar, then bake at 140°C fan, Gas 3 for 15-20 minutes until a very light golden brown, with a slightly cracked surface. Leave to cool on the tray, then enjoy with a cup of tea and a happy smile.

Tulip Sapporo against the gorgeous Philadelphus coronarius aureus (golden mock orange)

Spring has sprung!

What a glorious spell of early spring weather we’re having – it probably won’t last, but I for one am making the most of it while it does. I even went down to the tennis courts for my first game of the season this afternoon – unheard of before Easter usually! The warm sunshine is bringing on the bulbs and the spring blossom fast and furious: I did opt for early-flowering tulips this year, but still, to see them in full bloom in early April is quite something. These are Vanilla Cream and Design Impression, both from Sarah Raven – if I’d known they would flower at exactly the same time, I might have risked mixing them together in their planters, but I’ve done that before, even with collections intended to flower together, and had them blooming out of sync. As it is, they provide a fabulous shot of colour either side of the arch at the entrance to the garden – gorgeous!

Last weekend, after my vegan guests had gone on their way, I managed to fit in a couple of hours down at the allotment. Eminently satisfying. The purple-sprouting broccoli, and even last year’s calabrese are still going strong, as is the spinach and parsley. I dug up the rest of the parsnips so I could plant my seed potatoes in their designated rotation: like last year, I’ve just gone for two varieties, ten of each: Jazzy, a highly recommended new T&M variety for white, waxy early potatoes, and Anya, a nutty salad potato related to Pink Fir Apple that I’ve grown before and does well on my soil.

This month’s Garden magazine included an interesting article maintaining that the notion of “terroir” applies to humble vegetables just as much to grapes and I quite agree: the potatoes I grew in Scotland or in my native Cheshire seemed to have much more taste than the ones I grow down here in my Sussex clay, but some certainly do better than others. If you can find the ones that do grow well in your soil, it pays to stick with them. Unfortunately, the first early I really liked when grown down here, Ulster Sceptre, has proved rather elusive ever since, so I’m still searching – maybe Jazzy will be the one?

The sweet peas I sowed on the conservatory windowsill are germinating slowly and look to be as erratic as the others I’ve tried inside in previous years. I used to be able to start sweet peas off indoors with no problems, so I really don’t understand what’s changed in recent years. I’ll plant more straight outside in the next week or so and no doubt they’ll romp away – but hopefully not be quite as late as last year!

I added parsley and basil seeds to the propagator this week and I finally got round to distributing the contents of the compost around the garden at home – always a nice feeling.

Just two recipes today, both to use up leftovers from the previous weekend. The first was the soup I made to use up the chick peas after last week’s chick pea liquid meringues. I first had this, or an approximation of this, at the Eden Project in Cornwall over 12 years ago, and have been on the hunt for a similar recipe ever since. This, adapted from an ancient Sainsbury’s vegetarian cookbook by Sarah Brown, comes pretty close.

Spiced Chick Pea & Tomato Soup – serves 5-6

2 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 sticks celery, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 red or green chilli, finely chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp fresh root ginger, grated
1 tbsp tomato purée
1 tin tomatoes, chopped
1 tin chick peas, drained
1 litre vegetable stock
1 tbsp ground almonds
Seasoning
Fresh parsley, chopped

Heat the oil in a large soup pan and gently fry the onion, garlic and celery until soft – about 10 minutes. Add the chopped chilli and cook for another minute or so, then stir in all the spices and the ground almonds. Then add the tomatoes, chick peas and stock – you might want to just add 3/4 of the stock to start with and add more later depending on the consistency. Bring to the boil and cook for 45 minutes. Season to taste and sprinkle with chopped fresh parsley.

Mine was actually quite hot, because my stock of dried chillis from last autumn had gone mouldy and I used a bought chilli – always an unknown quantity! I like it hot, but you can always use less to start with if you’re not sure.

My final recipe was to use up the excess milk I had in the fridge after my vegan visitors. They had almond milk with their breakfast, but dairy-free cooking on my part meant the milk stocks didn’t go down as much as usual! What better, or easier dessert to make in a busy week than a crème caramel au café – simplicity itself to make and delicious to eat.

Crème Caramel au Café – serves 5

100g granulated sugar
150ml water
450ml milk
3 eggs
25g vanilla sugar (or caster sugar if that’s what you have)
1 tbsp espresso coffee powder (or 25g coffee beans if you prefer)
2 tbsp dark rum

Make a caramel using the granulated sugar and water, cooking gently until the sugar has dissolved, then turning the heat up (and NOT stirring at all) until a deep golden brown colour. Remove from the heat and pour quickly into 5 greased ramekin dishes, which should be standing in a roasting tin.

Warm the milk and add 1 tbsp instant espresso powder. Stir until dissolved (you can also warm the milk with 25g roast coffee beans and leave to stand for 1 hour if you prefer, then strain). Whisk the  eggs with the vanilla sugar and 2 tbsp dark rum, then slowly whisk in the hot milk. Strain into a jug and pour gently over the caramel in the ramekin dishes. Pour hot water into the roasting tin until it comes 2.5 cm up the sides of the ramekins, cover the lot with foil and bake at 150°C (fan), gas 3 until just set. Leave to cool and chill well before turning out. Et voilà!

Spring is in the air…

I can’t believe it’s over a month since I last wrote – so much for my good intentions! What with pressures of work, a skiing holiday, decorators in painting the kitchen /utility room after having a new oak floor fitted at the end of last year, a wedding food tasting and lots of family visits, blog-writing has definitely taken a back seat of late. This weekend was Mother’s Day, with one son and his fiancée home, then a trip over to my parents’ to see all the family on Sunday – and beautiful spring weather for once too!

The recent springlike weather has tempted me out into the garden to mow my lawn (just the once!), cut back my buddleias and the giant lavatera, prune the roses, dead-head last year’s hydrangea flowers and chop back any remaining perennials that I’d left through the winter to provide shelter and food for birds and insects. There was still a cold wind when I ventured out on Saturday afternoon, but I was determined to pot up my new dahlia tubers from Sarah Raven and the overwintered monster begonias. I also sowed the first batch of seeds, always an exciting moment: sweet peas in pots on the conservatory windowsill (I’ve reverted to trying some inside this year after such a late crop last year, but I will plant more straight into the ground later too, when the soil warms up). Tomatoes (my favourite Sungold and the old-fashioned Ailsa Craig), chillis (Summer Heat and Padron), Romano sweet peppers, aubergine Bonica, lobelia Crystal Palace, and the three leek varieties Bandit, Pandora and Nipper for a succession of leeks all through the autumn/winter – all now tucked up in the propagator. Let the season commence!

I’ve still to distribute last year’s compost around the garden, but there’s always next weekend… In the meantime, let me finish with a springtime lemon & ricotta cake I adapted from a River Café recipe. I had some ricotta in the fridge and fancied a light, lemony and gluten-free cake. This was the result – exactly what I was looking for. The original quantities make a huge cake – I didn’t have a tin big enough and there were only five of us for dinner, so I cut the quantities back by a third – perfect. I found the original recipe here if you’re catering for a crowd!

River Café Lemon, Ricotta, Almond & Polenta Cake – serves 10

150g butter, softened
170g ground almonds (you could also use almond flour)
65g fine polenta (whizz in the food processor if you can’t buy fine)
finely grated zest of 4 lemons
170g caster sugar
4 large eggs, separated
200g ricotta
juice of 2 lemons
icing sugar, for dusting

Pre-heat the oven to 150°C.  Grease a 24cm round springform cake tin and line the base with greaseproof paper.

Combine the almonds and polenta (whizzed in the food processor for extra fineness if necessary) and add the lemon zest. Beat the butter and sugar together using an electric mixer until pale and light.  Add the egg yolks one by one, then add the almond mixture and fold together. Put the ricotta into a bowl and beat lightly with a fork, then add the lemon juice. Stir the ricotta into the cake mixture. Whisk the egg whites in a clean bowl until they form soft peaks.  Finally fold the egg whites into the almond mixture.

Transfer the mixture into the prepared tin and bake in the oven for 40 – 50 minutes, until set.  Test by inserting a skewer, which should come out clean.  Leave in the tin to cool for at least 10 minutes before turning out. Dust liberally with sifted icing sugar before serving, and garnish with fine strips of lemon rind if desired.

I served it with a jostaberry purée from the freezer, but any red fruit coulis would be good – and it was delicious on its own too. Enjoy!

Beautiful Standen near East Grinstead – perfect Mother’s Day outing

 

January greens

January is such a grey and dismal month: nothing doing in the garden, even less on the allotment, bar those stalwart crops that keep on growing come rain, frost, wind or snow, like leeks and parsnips. Where would we be without them? News of a UK courgette shortage this week made me laugh; I wouldn’t dream of eating courgettes at this time of year (apart from in frozen ratatouille from the heady days of summer courgette gluts), especially the tasteless and fleshy imported ones that are the only kind available. Apparently bad weather in Spain has reduced supplies, so the clean eaters of these isles, with their spiralisers and juicers, are having to forego their vegetable of the moment. Whatever happened to seasonal eating? With broccoli, kale and spinach in abundance now, I rarely buy vegetables at any time of year – and I’m convinced you get better taste and vitamins the sooner after picking you eat, to say nothing of the environmental benefits of those reduced food miles…

Still, man cannot live on veg alone, and I had three egg whites in the fridge recently, left over from the New Year bakeathon. I fancied a change from my usual macaroons, so decided to experiment with Nigella’s pistachio macaroons. She uses two egg whites, but I adapted the quantities to three, and rather than the pistachio buttercream, which rather struck me as nut overload, I thought I’d sandwich them together with lime curd – heaven! Next time, I think I’d be tempted to add some lime rind to the macaroons themselves, though they really were delicious as described.

Pistachio & Lime Macaroons

110g shelled pistachios
185g icing sugar
3 large egg whites
25g caster sugar
Grated zest of 1 lime (optional)

Lime Curd

120g caster sugar
30g butter, cut into small pieces
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
juice and grated zest of 2 limes

Grind the pistachios in a food processor with the icing sugar (to stop the nuts turning into an oily paste) until very fine. Whisk the egg whites until fairly stiff, then whisk in the caster sugar until very stiff. Fold the pistachio mixture into the whites until combined. Pipe small rounds using an icing bag with a 1cm plain nozzle onto a silicone macaroon sheet if you have one or onto a baking tray lined with baking parchment. Should make 40-50 individual macaroons.

Leave to dry for 20-30 minutes, then place in an oven preheated to 160°C, Gas 4. Cook for 12-14 minutes or until set. If you gently peel one off the base, it should lift off without leaving any sticky residue. Remove from oven and allow to cool on the baking sheets.

Meanwhile make the lime curd by placing the sugar, butter, eggs, lime juice and grated zest in a pan over a moderately low heat. Whisk frequently for 10-12 minutes, until it is thick enough to hold the marks of the whisk. Immediately remove from the heat and sieve into a bowl. Allow to cool, then use to sandwich the macaroons together. Any leftover curd can be kept in the fridge for a couple of weeks.

Enjoy! Just the thing to brighten up a gloomy January day….