Miss Foodwise

Celebrating British food and Culture

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Persimmon roll cake

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Turns out I’ve never experienced a persimmon in its prime. Doubtful about the overly ripe state of my bunch I was assured that this is how a persimmon should be eaten. Carefully cutting into the skin and scooping out the jammy flesh. A whole new world of persimmon opened… how on earth have I never tasted a ripe specimen before? I like them quite hard, eaten pared like a peach but this is something else. It opens up so many possibilities. The flesh scooped on thick yoghurt or even a creamy dessert or ice cream.
A thick jam to spread on toast, eat with a good blue cheese or use as a filling for a light sponge cake.
American readers have told me their mothers used to make persimmon pudding and persimmon biscuits. Possibilities with persimmon are plenty, that is if you have the patience to let the orange baubles ripen enough for them to almost burst.

Having received a bunch of persimmon as a gift, the fruit still beautifully attached to their wilted branches, I wanted to make the most of this little crop….

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Galette Des Rois and other food celebrations

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galettes-des-rois-regula-ysewijn-8998I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas if you celebrated it, and I wish you a smashing new year! There are lots of exciting things to come of which I will tell you more very soon but until then…

Since in the previous years I told you about English Epiphany or Twelfth Day celebrations, I thought I’d share the tradition of my side of the English channel with you today.
Like the Twelfth cake of which I wrote two years ago (see the post here), in my region we also have a cake, or tart with a hidden bean, coin or trinket.

It is called a ‘Three Kings Tart’ or ‘Driekoningentaart’, a puff pastry pie filled with the most satisfying almond filling which is when made well – addictive. If you find the bean or trinket in your piece of tart you are king for the day and the crown is all yours. To my regret I never found a bean in my piece of tart until two years ago. Oh the disappointment when I was a little girl, the frustration that it was always one of the adults who got the crown! I mean, they should have hidden it in my piece, shouldn’t they?? Traditionally the children would go out to sing from door to door for sweets and money, dressed up like the three kings.

We sadly haven’t got a traditional drink like the Lambswool (see that post here) which comes with the beautiful tradition of ‘wassailing’ which means to feast and run around the orchards to chase away evil spirits and wake up the trees.

I can’t tell you how much I adore this tart and the sight of bakery shop windows filled with ‘Galette Des Rois’ all topped with a festive golden paper crown. It reminds me of the stories I read about children gathering outside the bakery’s shop window to see the magnificent Twelfth Cakes over a century ago. The seasonal bakes that appear in bakeries always make my heart skip a beat. I walk passed Antwerp’s oldest bakery just to see the window display: the large speculoos figurines around Saint Nickolas, the chocolate eggs around Easter, the prune tarts when it’s Ash Wednesday and these terrific ‘Three Kings Tarts’ which the French and our French speaking Belgians call ‘Galette Des Rois’. In France the tarts are also known as Pithiviers, named after the town in the Loiret in the south of Paris, where they allegedly originated from….

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Queen cakes – 18th century dainty bakes

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queen-cakes-missfoodwise-regula-ysewijn-7237

It is not a coincidence that I chose to write about Queen cakes today. If you’ve read the papers and watched the news, or if you are a royalist, then you know today the Queen of England celebrates her 90th birthday.  This makes her the world’s oldest-reigning monarch and the longest reigning monarch in English history. Queen Victoria was the previous record holder with her 63 years and seven months. So Queenie has every reason to be smug and have a big party – which is a giant street picnic on the Mall (the strap of wide street in front of Buckingham palace) in june. Getting a ticket for it was near impossible to my regret, because this was a celebration I would have been happy to buy a new hat for, bunting I already have aplenty. So if you’re reading this Your Majesty… is there room for one more? I’ll throw in a book!

But let’s talk about these Queen cakes. They are little cakes, and they started popping up in English cookery books in the 18th century. When reading the several recipes from the 18th to the 20th century I have in original cookery books, they remind me of a little cake I grew up with in Belgium. However, the recipe was slightly different as the Belgian cakes were flavoured with a little vanilla or almond essence, while Queen cakes are flavoured with mace, orange flower water, rose water and lemon depending on the date of the recipe. The Belgian cakes also look more like Madeleines, but they both have currants in them and the use of vanilla or almond essence is of course a slightly more ‘modern’ way to flavour bakes.

As with many English dishes, the Queen cakes come with their own dedicated cake pans. These were produced  in the 19th century and depictions of them can be found in at least two books that I know of, one I own. 18th century recipes remain silent about the tins they should be baked in, but it is very possible that the then fashionable mince pie tins would have been used, leaving them without a need to create new tins….

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Of Simon, Nell and Simnel cakes

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I haven’t been a pious Christian since I was 6, Lent only means one thing to me, I will have a birthday soon. Easter wasn’t something I particularly looked forward to, and I was surprisingly unimpressed with the overly sweet milk chocolate eggs the easter bunny brought me. Nor did I enjoy the big family gatherings as they always resulted into political debates, and dispute. It is most certainly the reason for my aversion to politics and politicians.

This year I’m celebrating the day of my birth, the day before mothering sunday. It is a day not connected to any other mothers day traditions in Europe or America. Mothering sunday was the day that the girls working as domestic servants or apprentices were given the day off to visit their mother, bringing her gifts, like perhaps a Simnel cake. Why it was a custom at mid-lent is not clear, maybe because at easter the servants couldn’t be missed in the large manor houses who would most probably have large Downton Abbey style parties. Another theory is that of coming home to visit the mother church, which appeared to be believed an important custom in pre-Reformation England.
On Mothering Sunday, the fasting rules were put on hold for the day resulting in the day also being known as a Refreshment Sunday, the other one being celebrated during Advent.
The earliest of references to a Simnel cake I was able to find and verify was in a poem of Robert Herrick (1591-1674)
To Dianeme.  
A Ceremonie in Glocester.
I’le to thee a Simnell bring,
Gainst thou go’st a mothering,
So that, when she blesseth thee,
Half that blessing thou’lt give me. 
Here states the tradition that the cake was given when people went Mothering, what is now assumed as going to visit their mother for mothering sunday but what well could have been a reference to the pre-Reformation tradition of visiting the mother church.

At some time along the way of time the legend of Simon and Nell appeared. A story most people have heard from their grandparents.

This legend tells the tale of an old Shropshire couple Simon and Nell. Nell had some leftover unleavened dough for bread making during Lent. Simon reminded her of the last of the christmas plum pudding as the Lenten dough would make a tasteless treat. Nell as a frugal woman didn’t want to waste a thing in the kitchen so it was decided to create a cake for when their children would return home for mothering.
Then a dispute arose about the method of baking the cake which Simon wanted to mould and bake while Nell was convinced it should be boiled. Though some versions tell the tale the other way around and claim that Simon wanted it to be boiled since it was a pudding, and puddings should be boiled.
To solve the disagreement which resulted in throwing a baking stool at Simon, it was decided that the cake should first be boiled, and then baked. And from then on the cake was named SimNell.
A beautiful piece of English Folk lore but it is not sure when the legend was first told.
The Book of Days tells us that the cake would have a tasteless tough white crust, coloured with saffron and the inside would hold a rich plum cake with plenty of candied peel, fruits and ‘other good things’. It is stated that it was an expensive cake, which it would have been using spices like saffron.
These Simnel cakes were mostly popular in Bury, Devises and Shrewsbury where they would be created in different sizes and arranged in shop windows for all to see. This definitely at this point wouldn’t have been a cake a servant would be able to afford or bake with the expensive ingredients.
The Book of Days

The Simnel cake today is a fruit cake that is slightly lighter than a Christmas tide fruitcake. It is covered in marzipan these days instead of a tough white crust and a layer of marzipan is baked into the middle of the cake. On top of the cake are placed 11 balls to represent the true apostles, leaving off Judas Iscariot the traitor. When exactly the 11 balls came into practice isn’t clear but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were the Victorians

My Simnel cake omits the spices and only holds candied peel and dried fruits which give the cake a very sweet taste.

What do you need

  • 300 g mixed fruit (currants, sultanas, raisins)
  • 100 ml sherry
  • 250 g butter, unsalted and at room temperature
  • 230 g raw cane sugar
  • 4 free range eggs
  • 320 g plain white flour
  • pinch of salt
  • 40 g candied lemon peel, chopped
  • about 750 g of marzipan
  • orange marmalade, a few spoonfuls
  • optional: 1 egg to egg wash the top

Method 
The day before, soak the mixed fruit in the sherry

Preheat your oven to 160°c
Prepare a round spring form by lining it with baking parchment
Roll out 1/3 of the marzipan and use the spring form as a guide to cut out a circle of the same size.
Cream the butter and the sugar and add the eggs one at a time.
Add the flour and combine well
Now fold in the mixed fruit and candied peel
Scoop one half of the dough in the spring form and place the marzipan on top
Now scoop in the remaining dough and place in the oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Leave to cool in the baking tin.

Now roll out half of the remaining marzipan and cut out another round the same size as your cake. Roll 11 balls from the leftover marzipan.
If you want to cover the sides of the cake, roll out the last of the marzipan creating a long ribbon.

When the cake is cooled, turn on the oven grill at 160°c and smear on the orange marmalade on top to place your marzipan on the cake followed by the balls.
Egg wash your balls and place under the grill until the balls have a golden or brownish color.

Serve with tea, lots of it.

Not a fan of so much marzipan, this is an option too!

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Plum pudding
Hot Cross buns
Hot Cross bun and butter puddingPlease leave a comment, I love reading them x

Cardamom and yoghurt spelt cake and the number 13

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 My grandmother always wore a number 13 on a golden chain around her neck. She had a tough life, raising 4 children on her own after grandfather didn’t come home from sea. She worked from dawn till dusk. Nanna died from old age many years ago because her body was just completely worn down. I remember her stern nature and I’m sure my father didn’t have an easy childhood. I know he wanted to go to school to become a carpenter, dreaming to work with wood and create his own furniture, but he had to work instead.

My father is a man with ambition, a fighter, a daredevil and a great teacher in life. He worked hard to become a paramedic when I was born, and got the degrees needed to save lives. His precious weekends off he spent them as a volunteer with the Red Cross and the Flemish Cross, aiding people in need of care on events, disasters and accompanying disabled children and adults on trips.

I used to joke that the reason he always went to be on the Flemish Cross care unit on big Raves was that he knew I was safe at home but that other parents didn’t have that luxury fearing their children were somewhere possibly doing drugs or drinking way to much. He had many teenagers on his gurney and I know he was secretly happy about me being a New Waver and a romantic rather than a raver wearing neon trainers.

My dad taught me – not by telling me this but by example that when I wanted something, I should just go out there and do it.

2013 has been anything but unlucky and it reminds me of my grandmothers golden number 13 which I inherited after her death and is one of the only things I have to remind her by. For her, and as for many other cultures, number 13 was a lucky number. 
I got to do fantastic stuff last year but most importantly, I found a way to live with an autoimmune condition. When I got diagnosed in the summer of 2012 I found myself on a roller coaster of emotions. I got worse before I got better in 2013. I know found that living a balanced life, especially with your food is the best way to stay stable and healthy. I am fortunate to be at a stage with my condition that it can stay stable if I rest enough and stay healthy. For someone who is used to running through life rather than walking, it hasn’t been easy to slow down. But I did it.

Enjoy my round-up of favourite happenings of last year.

I went on a pig keeping course and it was one of the most splendid days of my life, I have a -not so- secret dream of having a little pig farm one day. You can read the full story here.

You see, I ain’t afraid of getting down in the mud with a pig!

In april I visited a watercress farm in Hampshire and met Steve from Steve’s leaves. Not only is this pretty green leaf my favourite salad, it is also super healthy. You can read about my visit here and more here.

In may I organised a Food Revolution Day event cooking ‘last night’s leftover’s’ lunches for those who ordered one. The idea was to focus not only on what we eat for lunch but also on food wastage. Leftover dinners make the best lunches!

After my Food Revolution Day event I went to Torino in Italy where I was invited to visit the Food Rev events going on in the city. You can read about both of my Food Revolution Day adventures on the Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution website here

Betta from L’Aula Magna, Torino.

Also that week I was in Aosta, only a short drive from the Mont Blanc I was invited to come and stay at the Village Hotel and Swedish brasserie Bjork who are inspired by Scandinavian design. I learned to make Gravad lax, smoke meats, bake Swedish cookies and enjoyed their wonderful beers. The hotel is something completely different, you sleep in log cabins on the domain and the food is sublime. The Swedish brasserie menu is a celebration of Scandinavian culinary delights and you will always have some Knäckebröd at hand for a nibble. During dinner we had a loaf of bread in a wooden box and a glass cover so we could see the bread rise as the evening went on.

We also had the chance to visit an apple orchard that produces a very special Italian cider,  the Maley Mont Blanc. As wine has always been the national drink of Italy, this village struggled to bring back this cider which nearly completely died out during fascism. The ancient trees grow in the valley on a very idyllic spot between the mountains. 

Another
highlight was the honor of being a judge in the Great Taste Awards.
Every year thousands of food products are judged, from rapeseed oils to
cookies and from beef pies to delicate chocolate treats. The awards was
set up by Bob Farrand of the Guild of Fine Foods in 1994 in an effort to
celebrate and award the quality of Britain’s best small and artisan
producers.
For
weeks judges are gathered in Dorset judging every product with the utmost care, when not
sure, another bite is taken, no decision is taken lightly. The judges
range from food buyers for Harrods and Fortnum & Mason to small
speciality Deli owners, seasoned food writers, critiques and then me. I
must say, this years winner Marybelle Greek style yoghurt is an absolute
delight, look out for it!

Then summer finally came and I got to spend some time with lovely people at Jamie’s Food Tube and Jamie’s Feastival. 

 

I made my first ever food video with the charming Loyd Grossman and ate some fabulous puddings with Heston Blumenthal for his new TV series.

 Oh gosh, so many things! I think I better stop here in fear of boring you! 
Let’s go back to this cake shall we? I’m having a piece right now!

Cardamom and yoghurt spelt cake

What do you need

250 g spelt flour
3 large free-range eggs – separated
250 g unsalted butter, soft not melted
220 g raw cane sugar
3 tbsp of greek style yoghurt
1 tsp of freshly crushed cardamom seeds
1 tsp of organic lemon extract (if you have decent lemons, use fresh juice)
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

icing
220 g icing sugar
1tsp lemon extract
30 ml greek style yoghurt 

decoration (optional)
dried cranberries 
candied orange peel

Method

  • Prepare a 18 cm – 20 cm round cake tin with greaseproof paper and set aside
  • Preheat your oven to 180° C
  • Cream the soft butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl and use an electric mixer to beat the mixture until light and fluffy
  • Add the egg yolks one by one, beating well 
  • Add the cardamom, lemon extract and the yoghurt and stir well
  • Sift the flour and the bicarb
  • Whisk your egg whites until stiff
  • Gently fold the ingredients together and combine well
  • Transfer the dough into the prepared cake tin and put in the preheated oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour
  • Combine all the ingredients for the icing and transfer into a piping bag or use a spoon later.
  • Decorate with the icing, dried cranberries and candied orange peel

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The intriguing Twelfth cake

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The Twelfth cake is to me one of the most intriguing of cakes in the British cuisine. The cake is traditionally baked for the feast of epiphany or as the name already reveals – the twelfth night of christmas. But baking a cake for epiphany isn’t a custom in Britain alone, in other European countries and in my home country Belgium we have the ‘3 kings cake’ (driekoningen taart) or the ‘Galette du Rois’ which is a frangipane tart with puff pastry concealing a much coveted bean which will make you king for the day. The 3 kings cake is sold with a paper crown so all is in order for the coronation of the lucky finder of the bean. At some time however it was the fashion of concealing tiny porcelain babies and nativity figures in the cake, a custom my mother in law tells me is still practiced by the bakery in my neighbourhood. I remember as a child, I’ve never had the pleasure of finding the bean which would make me king, this annoyed me very much as a little girl.
In Britain the tradition was to hide a bean and a pea in a plum cake, the bean would crown the king and the pea would crown the queen. The Twelfth cake would contain spices like cloves, mace, nutmeg and cinnamon along with dried fruits like raisins and candied orange or lemon peel.

Antique 3 king cake figurines, imagine biting into one of those!

The earliest printed recipe for a Twelfth cake dates from 1803 and can be found in John Mollard’s the Art of Cookery. However, references to the custom of the Twelfth cake and the celebrations surrounding it can be found as far back in history as the 16th century and it is very possible that the tradition has been around for much longer. In a early Tudor manuscript which is kept at the Bodleian Library we find a passage about wassail cakes, which are believed to be heathen Twelfth cakes. Wassail comes from the Old English ‘Waes hale’ which most likely means ‘be whole’ or be healthy, like a kind of frase you say while making a toast. We can also find recipes for Wassail which is a type of mulled cider traditionally drunk while Wassailing, meaning a tradition of awakening the cider apple trees while singing and drinking.


In 1648, Robert Herrick’s poem ‘Twelft Night: Or King and Queen describes the celebrations of the Twelfth night beautifully. Here he speaks of a cake full of plums (plums meaning raisins rather than actual plums, see plum pudding) And goes on to describe the election of a king and queen after discovering a bean and a pea. And he mentions a gentle Lamb’s wool and the spices that should go into it to give to the king and queen for wassailing. The Lambswool is a Wassail drink made of ale or cider.
A
few years later in 1659/1660 Samuel Pepys writes in his diary on januari the 6th
of a ‘Brave cake brought us, and in the choosing, Pall was Queen and Mr.
Stradwick was King.’ Which shows that there were celebrations in the city as well as in the country, though there is no word of wassailing in Pepys lines.

During the mid 1700 up until the late 1800 Twelfth cakes were very fashionable and often decadently decorated showing elaborate scenes and figurines crafted out of sugar or wax. Crowns seem to have been the most popular decoration and usually white icing would have been used which back then was a sugar paste called gum paste which was shaped into wooden molds. We can find illustrations of large Twelfth cakes set in a scene of feasting in the Satires Collection of the British Museum, and we also find Victorian Twelfth night cards with humorous illustrations of characters. The day the Twelfth cakes, large and small would appear in the pastry shop’s windows in London a large number of people would gather in front of them to capture a glance of these most fashionable cakes. The Victorians enjoyed the Twelfth night celebrations to the full and the pastry shops sold the Twelfth night character cards with the cakes. Each guest of the party would then have to choose a card which had a verse describing the character underneath. One had to read the verse aloud and pretend to be that character until midnight. We can find an excellent description of these events and many more surrounding Twelfth day and Wassailing in ‘The Every-Day Book’ by William Hone. In the country the celebrations surrounding the twelfth night would still be the more heathen Wassailing, the twelfth night celebrations in London were considered rather vulgar by outsiders.

Although we will not easily find Twelfth cakes in the shops today, the tradition of wassailing is still very much alive with country feasts all over Britain. People come together to sing, drink wassail, eat plum cake and be merry. Once again it is the ancient and probably pre-christian tradition which has withstood the test of time. In my opinion because these traditions are more entwined with nature, the change of the seasons and the marking moments in the farming year that come with it.

What about you? Did you go wassailing or did you bake a Twelfth cake or another cake from your corner of the world?

 

This recipe is basically Mollard‘s recipe translated to modern day, Mollard doesn’t give measurements of the yeast and milk, which I had to test to give to you. Also the recipe of Mollard is three times the measurements given here, which means that this would have been a massive Twelfth cake!

What do you need

  • organic white wheat flour, 500 g
  • dried yeast, 2 teaspoons
  • lukewarm milk, half a cup
  • unsalted butter, softened, 75 g
  • raw cane sugar, 100 g
  • currants or sultanas, 340 g
  • Candied orange peel or lemon, to taste
  • Cinnamon, 2 teaspoons
  • Cloves, pounded, 1 teaspoon
  • a generous pinch of mace
  • a pinch of nutmeg
  • cold milk, 1,5 cups

Method

Add all the flour to a bowl and make a well in the middle, add the sugar in the well followed by half a cup of warmed milk.
Add the yeast to the milk and stir so the yeast, milk and sugar are mixed. After a few minutes the yeast will start bubbling and will look frothy.
Now add the butter and spices followed by 1 cup of milk, mix well and then add another cup of milk before adding the dried and candied fruit.
While adding the currants and peel you might need to add an additional half a cup of milk, especially if you’ve started out without soaking the currants.
Once the mixture has come together in a slightly wet dough, cover and let rest for 2 hours or more if you have the time.
Line a spring form or wooden baking hoop with baking paper and add the dough.
Put in a preheated oven at 200° C for 1 hour.
If you see that the top is browning too much, cover it with tinfoil to prevent a burnt crust.
Leave to cool in the tin or hoop and ice and top with the most decadent decorations you can manage to create. I used fondant and marzipan to create these decorations, I only need some pointers in evening out my icing!
This cake is more like a bread and reminds me of the German Stollen, but dryer.

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Gunpowder, treason and bonfire parkin

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The fifth of november, remember?

One of the most intriguing of English traditions to me is Bonfire night. Otherwise known as Guy Fawkes night it is a feast that commemorates the failing of a plot by Roman Catholic conspirators to blow up the House of Parliament in London killing the Protestant King James in the process.

Although Guy Fawkes is mostly remembered on this occasion, it was Robert Catesby who was chief instigator of the Gunpowder Plot. Catesby turned against the government of Elizabeth I when his father along with so many others Catholics, was prosecuted for refusing to conform to the Church of England. When Elizabeth I died, James – son of the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots – came to the throne which gave the Roman Catholics new hope for greater religious freedom. When this hope turned pear shaped the English Catholics plotted to put Arbella Stuart on the throne, she was Catholic, James’ cousin and a major claimant to the throne of England having both Tudor and Stuart bloodlines. Arbella always stayed close to the throne but never became queen, by blood she had a larger claim to succession and she became known as the ‘Queen that never was’.

The seed to the Gunpowder plot however was planted nearly a century earlier by another Tudor, Henry VIII. When he issued the Act of Supremacy which declared him head of the Church of England to be able to divorce the first of his six wives, he started a century of violent religious turmoil. Henry’s Church of England wasn’t initially Protestant but his son Edward VI instituted more Protestant reforms. Mary I, being Henry’s daughter with his Catholic wife whom he divorced to marry Elizabeth’s mother Anne, was a Catholic and tried to restore the Catholic faith. She started her five year bloody reign by reviving the laws against heresy and was hated for it. The result was the persecution of Protestant rebels and the execution of some 300 heretics. Elizabeth’s accession to the throne on Mary’s death was greeted with enormous jubilation from the people. Yet again the Roman Catholics were facing persecution and the plotting to replace Elizabeth I with Mary Queen of Scots began.

 

This brings us back to Mary’s son James and the infamous Gunpowder treason and plot.
On the 5th of november 1605 Guy Fawkes was apprehended while guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder in the cellar under the house of Parliament. How they found out about the gunpowder in the cellar leads to speculation but it is presumed that someone from within the circle of conspirators of the plot warned someone to stay away from parliament on the 5ft. After his apprehension Fawkes was tortured to give up the names of his accomplices.
The signature on his confession after who knows how many hours – days – of torture is somewhat shaky but you can clearly make out his name. This confession however is said not to show all the names of those involved. The confession believed to be signed one day later shows all the names and the signature is that of a broken, beaten and suffering man. The letters are barely coming together, you can faintly see the name Guido but I guess the surname was too much. It is some what disturbing to see his handwriting change in such a manner but it is quite remarkable that these documents were saved.
Guy (or Guido) Fawkes was executed along with several of his conspirators after being tried for high treason januari 1606. the sentence was hanging, drawing and quartering.
Parliament passed and act that called for the 5th of november to be celebrated as a joyful day of deliverance. There are a lot of rhymes associated with this day and although the earliest is said to date back to 1742, I have not found the source and therefore can not believe it to be accurate. The rhyme ‘Remember Remember the 5th of november’ adapted by for movie V for Vendetta has however been in practice for decades.

Pennies for the Guy

To this day the Houses of Parliament are still traditionally searched by the Yeomen of the Guard just before the State Opening which was the day on which the plot was discovered. Straw or cloth effigies of Fawkes called ‘Guys’ are often made by youngsters and carried around displaying them to passers-by asking for ‘A penny for the Guy’ and often they are burned in the bonfire celebrations. Food is a big part of the tradition today with bonfire toffee, toffee apples and spicy parkin cakes. A parkin is a sticky ginger cake from the north of England and because Guy Fawkes was a Yorkshireman it has since been associated with bonfire night.

My research into bonfire night continues and I am sure next year I will have plenty more to share with you. I want to look deeper into the links with pagan rites and folklore.

But for now this will have to do and I leave you with a parkin.
After quite a few recipes tested, some over a 100 years old and some new, I came to this one and think it makes an enjoyable cake. In the parkin you see in the pictures of this post I used porridge oats, they were too rough so I changed the recipe to medium oatmeal. How this recipe turned out you can see the picture that comes after the recipe, this one I took just before dark so excuse the messy picture, I had to be quick about it.
If you are lucky enough to be in England next weekend when the large bonfires will be lid, I wish you loads of fun and plenty of food and booze to keep you going.

Toffee apples


If you want to make the toffee apples, check out this recipe here >
I just replaced the lollypop sticks with branches from a tree in my garden, looks ever so pretty.

Bonfire parkin

What do you need

For 9 squares

  • 100 g (3ó oz) rolled oats (see page 16)
  • 200 g (7 oz) golden syrup or maple syrup
  • 45 g (1ó oz) Lyle’s black treacle or molasses
  • 200 g (7 oz) butter
  • 200 g (7 oz) oat flour
  • 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
  • 2 tsp ground ginger
  • 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
  • 1 egg
  • 2 tbsp whisky or milk
  • pinch of sea salt

Method

For a 20 cm (8 inch) square cake tin

Preheat your oven to 160°C (320°F) and prepare the cake tin (see page 21).

Briefly pulse the oats in a food processor fitted with the blade attachment.

Heat the golden syrup, black treacle and butter in a saucepan until melted and combined. Set aside to cool for a few minutes, then add the chopped oats and the

remaining ingredients. Combine well with a wooden spoon or spatula. Spread the mixture into the cake tin.

Bake for 50–60 minutes and then cool in the tin. When the cake is cold, cut it into squares and pack it in an airtight container to rest for at least a day before serving.

The cake gets stickier and more moist every day and can last for 2 weeks if you can hide it for that long.

Enjoy!

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Bonfire, Bangers and riots >

Cherry and almond cake and a walk on Gold Hill in Dorset

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As the weather suddenly changed from gloriously sunny to dreadfully grey again, I ventured out to beautiful yet misty Dorset to be a judge on the Great Taste Awards.
After seven hours on several trains I finally arrived in Shaftesbury, one of the highest and oldest towns in England. Shaftesbury, also known as Scaepterbyrg in the Domesday book was either built or rebuilt by Alfred the Great in the 9th century when he also founded the abbey where his daughter Ethelgiva would be the abbess. Although a Saxon settlement, there is reason to believe that a much older Celtic village named Caer Palladur used to exist on this hilltop.

I walked up and down Gold Hill three times and sat on the cobbled street at the top of the hill to watch the evening spread it’s cloak over the valley. After a walk I ended my day with a much needed pint of Chocolate Stout at a local pub and a plate of excellent Devon crab – with Hovis bread of course, as you do when in Shaftesbury. The town and especially Gold Hill has become famous for the evocative Hovis advertisement film in the seventies. The film was directed by Riddley Scott, whom you might know from films like Gladiator and featured a small lad pushing a bike with a basket laden with a loaves of bread up the steep cobbled street of Gold Hill on the tunes of Dvorak’s ‘New World’ Symphony. The advert has been voted Britain’s most popular advertisement of all time and shows the power of a good advertising campaign. It’s a deceiving plot to convince the consumer that Hovis bread is something more artisan than just a factory made bread. It feeds on nostalgia, showing images of times gone by, suggesting the bread is still being made by the traditional method. It is not. It is made by the fast ‘no-time dough’ Chorleywood method using not only wheat flour but also a larger amount of yeast, emulsifier, stabiliser and Soya flour. Things that are hardly traditional.

 

This brings me back to the Great Taste awards and how important the Guild of Fine Food is in supporting artisan and ‘real food’ producers. We’re turning back towards foods that are once more traditionally made with the best possible ingredients out there. Pasture fed beef is now a regular term as well as rare breed pork and raw milk yoghurt. We want quality for our pennies again, and we want to make a difference when we do our food shopping.

After my ponder gazing down over Gold Hill I decided an early night is what was needed as the next morning some serious judging had to be done. Not only is winning a Great Taste Award for your product an excellent way of promoting it, it’s also an unique opportunity to receive feedback about that product from the ‘crème de la crème’ of the British and Irish food scene. The panel of experts is perfectly balanced and consisting of food buyers for the leading speciality stores, seasoned food writers, critics, chefs and other people who have earned their mark in food.
Every grade we gave was weighed up and discussed, these decisions have not been taken lightly as so much depends on it for the producer. In the afternoon it was up to a selection of the judges to choose the overall winner from the 15 products that were chosen to receive the 3 star rating. I can’t be sure which of the products won the overall winner of the awards, I have my fair idea as one of the products left me silent and wanting for more… We will have to wait until september when all the winnings are announced.
I feel truly privileged to have been a part of this and to taste so much beautiful food.


So here I give you a slice of the cake I took with me on my long travel to Dorset this week. A super easy gluten-free, low GI, super delicious and nourishing Cherry and Almond cake.
While other years the yield of my tree was about five cherries, this year it must have been twenty. I had my eye on them as the birds had too, and I was set on picking the little red jewels before the birds would steal them. Although I do feel a bit guilty for taking this delicious cherry treat away from Mr and Ms Blackbird, the family Great tit and the little Wrens, this would be the first year I would actually get to enjoy my own crop.
At first I was thinking of preserving the cherries by making my cherry brandy, but then I suddenly craved a cake with almonds and thought the cherries would make a lovely addition to the bake.
I really was too hot to turn on the oven to be honest, but when a girl wants cake you can’t argue with her. So I baked.
To get as much out of the oven temperature as possible I also added a jar of prunes to the oven, I like to do that because then you are using your oven for more than just your cake and end up with a lovely slow cooked prune puree that works like magic as a filling in a prune tart like this one here.

What do you need

  • 200 g good quality unsalted butter soft, not runny
  • 100 g sugar
  • 3 organic eggs
  • 50 g buckwheat meal or another gluten-free flour
  • 125 g almond meal made of blanched almonds
  • cherries, a handful, pitted and halved

Method

  • Prepare a 22 cm round cake tin – spring form is best -with greaseproof paper and set aside
  • Preheat your oven to 160° C
  • Cream the soft butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl and use an electric mixer to beat the mixture until light and fluffy
  • Add the eggs one by one, beating well
  • Add the almond meal and the other chosen gluten-free flour bit by bit and combine well
  • Transfer the dough into the prepared cake tin, press down the halved cherries into the dough and put in the preheated oven for 60 minutes or until golden.

Tip: Why not use the cherries from last years Cherry brandy ?

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Chocolate beetroot and walnut cake
Cherry brandy

Strawberry Spelt Shortcake, the history of Shortcake in Britain

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A Strawberry shortcake can take on many forms, it can be a scone-like cake, a sponge or a thin biscuit but two things remain the same throughout any recipe: fresh strawberries and lots of pretty whipped cream. Strawberries were first cultivated by the Romans in 200 BC but what about the origin of a Strawberry Shortcake?

In Medieval times newly-weds would be presented with a soup made of strawberries and sour cream topped with borage and sugar. They believed strawberries to be an aphrodisiac, yet no biscuit or cake of any kind accompanied the dish.
Short meaning crumbly from the Old English ‘cruma’ is a term that came to be in the 15th century, adding a large amount of fat or ‘shortening’ to flour results in a crumbly or ‘short’ texture.

 

In the Elizabethan cookbook The good Huswifes Handmaide 
for the Kitchin. (1594 -1597) one can find the earliest record of the term ‘short cake’. Unfortunately none of the manuscripts that survived of this book are complete.

Take wheate flower, of the fayrest ye can get, and put it in an earthern pot, and stop it close, and set it in an Ouen and bake it, and when it is baken, it will be full of clods, and therefore ye must searse it through a search: the flower will haue as long baking as a pastie of Uenison. When you haue done this, take clowted Creame, or els sweet Butter, but Creame is better, then take Sugar, Cloues, Mace, and Saffron, and the yolke of an Egge for one doozen of Cakes one yolke is ynough: then put all these foresaid things together into the cream, & temper them al together, then put them to your flower and so make your Cakes, your paste wil be very short, therefore yee must make your Cakes very litle: when yee bake your cakes, yee must bake them vpon papers, after the drawing of a batch of bread.

A mention of a shortcake appears in one of Shakespeare’s plays ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’ in 1602:
“Book of Riddles! why, did you not lend it to Alice Shortcake upon All-hallowmas last, a fortnight afore Michaelmas?”
After some research into these words and the help of some people who studied Shakespeare I found out that Alice was possibly the Countess of Derby who lived at that time and would have dispensed lard cakes referred to as short cakes to the poor. It is very possible that Shakespeare used Alice Shortcake as a nickname for Alice spencer the Countess of Derby but of course we are not entirely sure to say it is a fact.

What
fact is that the British have been enjoying Strawberry short cakes with
great pleasure for as long as anyone can remember and everyone seems to
have his or her own version of the dish. So here I shall bring you
mine, a ‘short’ thin wholemeal spelt biscuit that really lets the
strawberries and cream be the queen of the pudding.
This dish brings a bit of sunshine to your table, and dear oh dear do we need some sunshine is this dullest and coldest of springs.

I’m getting ready to travel to London for Food Blogger Connect, a conference where I will be one of the speakers this year. To those I will meet there, see you soon and to all the other lovely people, next time there will be yet another book from a friend on the blog!

from bloom to fruit
My local strawberry farm

Strawberry spelt shortcake

What do you need

Pastry

  • 225 g cold butter
  • 225 g wholemeal spelt flour
  • 1 organic egg, beaten
  • 100 g raw cane sugar
  • vanilla, half a teaspoon
  • salt, a pinch

For the filling and topping

  • 300 – 500 g of strawberries, halved or quartered
  • whipping cream 250 g
  • 1 teaspoon of sugar to sweeten the cream

Method

  • Place the butter and the flour in a bowl rub together until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
  • Add sugar, salt and vanilla and work the dough until it comes together as a smooth pastry
  • Roll out the dough until it is half a centimeter thick on a clean floured work surface
  • Cut out circles of about 9 cm or two larger if you like to bake a large short cake
  • Transfer the pastry circles onto greaseproof paper and chill for 30-50 minutes.
  • Preheat your oven to 170° C
  • Arrange the shortcakes on a baking tray – using the greaseproof paper to bake them on
  • Put in the middle of the oven an bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden
  • The mixture will spread while baking, don’t be alarmed by this, you can neaten the edges while warm.
  • Transfer the cakes carefully to a wire rack to cool
  • Cut your strawberries but leave some whole for decoration. Whip your cream.
  • When the short cakes are completely cooled, arrange one shortcake on a plate or cake stand and cover it with the sliced strawberries, place another shortcake on top and top it with the whipped cream and the whole strawberries you saved for decoration.
  • Serve straight away!

Note that some recipes require you to cut the strawberries, arrange them over your shortcake and let it sit for an hour before adding the top short cake and cream, I do not prefer to do so as the shortcake will get soggy and we won’t want a soggy bottom won’t we!

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Madeira cake to get you through the busy days

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For years I thought Madeira cake was made with the fortified wine Madeira, I thought it was the English equivalent to an Italian Vin Santo cake, which is in fact made adding the Vin Santo.
Madeira cake is a closed textured cake that was designed in the 19th century to accompany a glass of Madeira and other sweet wines. It was a cake for the upper class, people who could afford to bake a dry crumbly cake that doesn’t keep well and had to be enjoyed with a drink of some kind and best within two days before it would get too dry.
Precision and plenty of beating is required to achieve that close crumbly texture. You have to be a patient cook and the ingredients used must be of the best possible quality.


I searched all over for some more history facts behind this iconic cake, unfortunately there was little more information to be found. The cake only starts to appear in my cookery books from the 50s or 60s onwards.

I baked this Madeira cake on a sunday knowing the week ahead would be a busy one. For some reason I find it more pleasant to deal with hectic weekdays when I know I have a home made piece of cake to look forward too. B will have it for breakfast with his coffee, I will have one half at 11 and the other half at 4 with my Ear Grey tea. At moments when time is of an essence, all too often it is easier to go and get yourself an unhealthy processed snack. Although you shouldn’t eat cake all day every day, I believe a home made bake is much healthier than a store bought. At least now you know the quality of the flour and eggs used, and you have the choice in choosing the best farmhouse butter instead of tasteless margarine that is too often used in store-bought cakes.

Although Madeira cake is made with wheat flour, I opted to use the more nutritious Spelt instead. I started from the oldest recipes I could find in my collection of vintage cookery books from Jane Grigson. This recipe appeared to me as the more traditional version as often lots of extra things are added to the cake like almond flour or candied mixed fruits. I think it very possible that in the 19th century each household would have had their own recipe for Madeira cake depending on the cooks choice.

Madeira Cake
Adapted from a recipe by Jane Grigson’s ‘English Food’

What do you need

  • 175 g good quality unsalted butter, soft not runny
  • 175 g caster sugar
  • 275 g spelt flour
  • 2 heaped teaspoons of baking powder (use only one when using wheat four)
  • 4 large free range eggs
  • grated zest of half an organic lemon
  • thin peels of zest of half an organic lemon for decoration

Method

  • Prepare a 18 cm – 20 cm round cake tin with greaseproof paper and set aside
  • Preheat your oven to 180° C
  • Cream the soft butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl and use an electric mixer to beat the mixture until light and fluffy
  • Add the eggs one by one, beating well
  • Add the lemon zest, stir well
  • Sift the flour and the baking powder so the baking powder is divided nicely
  • Gently fold the ingredients together and combine well
  • Transfer the dough into the prepared cake tin and put in the preheated oven for 45 minutes
  • After 45 minutes ass the lemon peel to the top of the cake, bake for a further 15 minutes
  • Decorate with a soft dusting of icing sugar

This cake keeps for 3-4 days in an airtight container.


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