Miss Foodwise

Celebrating British food and Culture

sweets

Cabinet Pudding – Or what to do with stale cake and booze

by 4 Comments

cabinet-pudding-ice-regula-ysewijn-missfoodwise-9918

Let me share with you a recipe from Pride and Pudding, my debut book that was festively launched in London’s Borough Market two weeks ago. There is also good news if you haven’t ordered the book yet! The Amazon editorial team has not only included Pride and Pudding in their ‘Books of the Month’ – this week it is also part of their ‘Deal of the Week’ which comes with a 50% discount only this week. (Get it here >) Meaning it will only set you back a tenner! It looks like sales are going splendid as I haven’t seemed to have lost my spot in the first 10 of the top 100 Bestsellers. As an author you do fear no one will buy your book. As do you fear bad reviews and negativity. So if you have a moment and you like the book, Amazon reviews do make a difference.

Now back to the actual order of the day. Cabinet pudding was a favourite on Victorian tables, the first recipes for it appeared in the early 19th century, though similar puddings had been made long before then. It is also sometimes called Newcastle pudding, diplomat pudding or Chancellor’s pudding, though the connection with politics isn’t clear. Recipes also vary. There are theories about the name but none seemed to hold much truth to them….

Read More »

Passion fruit, Persimmon and Pepper Pavlova – I had a love/hate relationship with merengue

by 8 Comments

For a history geek like me it is interesting to see how the Valentine’s traditions came to be. There are a lot of theories surrounding its origins but it seems that the first time Valentine’s day was linked to love can be traced back to the 14th century.It was the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer, mostly known for The Canterbury tales who mentioned Valentine’s day in his The parlement of foules C 1381.

For this was on seynt Volantynys day Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make. 

In modern English: For this was Saint Valentine’s day, when every bird of every kind comes to this place to choose his mate.


It is not known why the date 14 february was chosen, but of course there are a lot of assumptions. There wasn’t even one Christian Valentine, there were several martyrs with this name. It is however only since Chaucer’s mention in the Middle Ages that Valentine’s poems start popping up in history. The first ever love poem linked to Valentine’s day is believed to be by the hand of Charles Duker of Orleans who was captured in 1415 by Henry V because he was in line for the French throne. During his imprisonment he wrote a poem to his wife which links the day directly to a declaration of love. In his first few words he wrote:

Je suis desja d’amour tanné

Ma tres doulce Valentinée

Translated: I am already sick of love, My very gentle Valentine.

Since then, there have been innumerable other Valentine’s poems and the Valentine’s business is now rather about money than it is about love.
It seems that people need a date for things, Valentine’s for lovebirds, Stir-up Sunday to prepare the Christmas pudding and Black friday to spend your hard earned money on sales. And no matter how much ‘fun’ celebrating Valentine’s day can be, we should show our love and appreciation – respect – for each other on every day of the year. Because the every day – is what counts. The little things.
My lovely Bruno made me a bun with cheese to eat in the car before a workshop a few weeks ago – that is love my friends and it says a million more words than a Valentine’s card can say.

Have a good Valentine’s everyone! I’m sending you my love!
For you on this day this Passion fruit, persimmon pavlova with a hint of pepper to spice things up!
Find my recipe on the Great British Chef’s blog here >  
And read about how I have had a love/hate relationship with merengue since I was a little girl.

 

Kentish cherry batter pudding

by 17 Comments

Batter puddings have been around for centuries. Originally they were named ‘dripping puddings’ because they were placed in trays underneath large spit-roasts to catch the dripping of the meat. In the 1747 book The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy, Hannah Glasse renamed the dripping pudding to the now more generally known Yorkshire pudding.
‘Yorkies’ were provided to stretch the meat a little longer, soaked in gravy they are very child’s favourite and traditionally served as a filling dish before the main meat dish came to the table rather than accompanying it.

But batter puddings haven’t always been the perfect partner in crime to a good sunday roast, they have also been savored as a sweet treats as well. Mostly the rich puddings were just drizzled with a dusting of fine sugar but in the summer season and early autumn when there was a glut of fruit to use up, a sauce of cherries or plums would have been made to accompany the batter pudding.

Although there is no proof of age for the recipe of the Kentish cherry batter pudding, before the second world war there were about 40 000 acres of cherry orchards in Britain and most of them were situated in Kent. This does tell us that there were a lot of cherries about and not all of those cherries would have been exported to other parts of the country. Sadly only 90 percent of these orchards remain today but luckily the last few years Kentish cherries have seen a revival with new orchards being planted.
Cherry trees are kept much shorter now, making it easier to harvest. In the old days, mostly women would pick the cherries standing on high ladders with wicker baskets tied to their waists.


I reaslise this recipe comes at the very end of the cherry season, but you can also use the cherry brandy you have in your cupboard if you made some last year. Or like me if you made some every year for the past 5 years. I age them in years, only just opened up my 10 year old, after which I didn’t make any for 5 years. Some people who I like very much have received a tiny jar of those cherries so if you have, open the jar wisely.

This post also comes at the very end of the season because I have been so very busy, I already mentioned in my last my last post I’m writing a book but I’m also taking on an extra course in culinary school.

But on to the Kentish cherry batter pudding

What do you need

For the batter – makes 12 muffing size puddings

  • 120 g plain or white spelt flour
  • 2 large free-range eggs
  • 240 ml full-fat milk
  • a pinch of sea salt
  • rapeseed, sunflower or lard for baking

For the cherry sauce

  • 300g cherries
  • 150 ml unsweetened apple juice or water
  • 40 g raw cane sugar
  • 2 teaspoons of cornstarch if you wish to thicken the sauce

Method

  • Preheat your oven to 200° C
  • To make the batter, sift the flour – very important here – and add the eggs, add the milk slowly while whisking the batter to create a mixture resembling a slightly thicker pancake batter.
  • To make the cherry sauce, remove the stones from the cherries by halving them or use a fancy tool to get the stone out. Place in a small pan and bring to a simmer with the water or apple juice.
  • Add the sugar and let it dissolve, simmer until you get a dark colored sauce.  I like not to cook it too long so the cherries aren’t reduced to jam.
  • If you like a thicker sauce add the cornstarch to packet instructions and when done put aside
  • Place a generously greased muffin tin in the preheated oven.
  • When the oil is hot, be quick as it should stay hot. Get the tin out of the oven safely, don’t spill the hot grease!
  • Scoop batter into each muffing shape and then add a cherry or two from your braised cherries, or from your cherry brandy.
  • Place into the oven and don’t touch the oven door until the batter puddings have risen and are golden brown, this should be about 25-30 minutes.
  • Serve with some of the braised cherries, a spoonful of clotted cream or strained yoghurt (Greek style)

Tip: Just use leftover Yorkshire puds if you have them, and also these puds freeze well!

I’ll share with you which beer I would have with this pudding, to stay in the cherry mood: a traditional Belgian sour cherry beer, not a sweet one like the more commercial brands. A sour one which has a hint of the kernels and vanilla like a Liefmans Kriek, or a provision beer like a Liefmans Goudenband. For more international beers I think a sweet ans mooth porter would do the trick. Or, if you have cherry brandy, a little glass of cherry brandy of course!

Enjoy!

You might also like
Cherry and almond cake
Cherry brandy

 

Jolly Jelly, you know what? I’m writing a book!

by 33 Comments

One would think the dark ages were a dark time… Reading books like Umberto Eco’s ‘In the name of the Rose’ certainly leads us to believe that it was.
But the fact is that there was a love for bright colors that can be witnessed in the illuminated manuscripts from that time. On the table brightly colored layered jellies were made by boiling pig’s or cow’s feet into gelatin. It must have taken the cook hours to prepare, deriving the colors from blood, berries, vegetables and Essex saffron, the jellies were decorated and scented as magnificent displays of the cooks talent.
Jellies weren’t the desserts as we know them now, they would be savoury rather than sweet most of the time, sometimes even encasing whole fish for a dramatic effect.
Gelee of fleshe -meat jelly- was a traditional Medieval dish and made by cooking pigs trotters and ears, calf’s feet and chicken in white wine. The jus and fat would then be reduced until it formed a jelly and the meat served with it.
We still have meat jellies today in the form of ‘aspics’, covering pieces of meat, vegetables and sometimes eggs with gelatine made from beef bones.
In culinary school, where we are taught the classic French cuisine we had to prepare a seafood jelly which was a terrible waste of perfect seafood and we also used jelly to decorate meat and fish with delicately sliced vegetables to then lightly cover it in gelatine to protect it from the air. Perfect for when you are preparing a buffet but a little old fashioned if you ask me.
But it is very fascinating to think of it, that a medieval practice of encasing foods in jelly is still widely used today, centuries later. Now the sweet jellies are most popular, in bold colors and fun flavours and shapes, it is still a showstopper on your table as much as it was in the Middle ages.

 

That showstopper effect was exactly what I had in mind when I bought a vintage jelly mould in a charity shop in Sherborne, a Dorset village that has remained unspoiled by time.
The mould quickly got a life of its own being baptised ‘The Sherborne Mould’ by two charming ladies of the village, enquiries about its use are being made and pictures of the finished product requested. I was glad to see I’m not the only one getting excited about a jelly mould, happiness can be found in the small things you discover in charity shops.

When I write this I’m getting ready to drive off to the – hopefully sunny – south of England. I will be on the hunt for stories and at the same time giving my husband the quality time he deserves. I’ve been a bit absent of late because of the exciting things happening in my life because of this blog. I’m so thankful we are both creative minds and always pursuing our dreams through our creative work. We understand those moments when your inspiration comes and all you can really do is create. Time starts flying as hours become minutes and suddenly you find yourself having to turn on a light because you’re trying to write, or draw in the dusk.

I’ve been working on a project for months and now I feel I should tell you about what I’ve taken on, a project that will take me ages to complete to the level I want it to reach. Yes it is a book, my book, my life’s work.
A celebration of British culinary history, lovingly painted by my warm feelings for Britain.

For this jelly I am using the vegetarian version of gelatine namely Agar agar, it is made from a kind of seaweed.

What do you need

  • 400 ml water
  • 2 packs of Agar-agar (vegetarian gelatine)
  • 2 tablespoons of caster sugar
  • 150 ml Dandelion and Burdock, if you can’t find it, why not use Pimms!
  • 1 teaspoon of beetroot juice (for color)
  • Mixed berries, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries

Method

  • Rinse your jelly mould under water and put it in the freezer, this will make the jelly set faster and make it easier to remove from the mould.
  • Warm the water in a saucepan and add the Agar-agar, stir well so the powder is completely dissolved. Bring to a gentle boil then add the Dandelion and burdock and beetroot juice and let the mixture bubble for a further minute. Leave to stand for a few minutes before pouring the mixture into the mould
  • Take your jelly mould out of the freezer, add fruit if you like and pour the jelly mixture into the mould.
  • Leave it to set, in the fridge if you like but it can just as easily set out of the fridge.
  • To get the jelly out of the mould, prepare a basin with hot water and dip the mould in it to release the bottom part.
  • Turn out over a plate and decorate as you like.

You might also enjoy
Raspberry vinegar
Blaeberry pie
Raspberry and strawberry fool

Strawberry Spelt Shortcake, the history of Shortcake in Britain

by 19 Comments

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!

You might also like
apple and blackberry pie
Cornish splits

The Prune Tarts at Tudor Court

by 24 Comments

In 1615 English poet Gervase Markham mentioned ‘a prune tart’ in his book “The English Huswife, Containing the Inward and Outward Virtues Which Ought to Be in a Complete Woman“.
In his beautiful way of writing he states:
“Take of the fairest damask prunes you can get, and put them in a clean pipkin with fair water, sugar, unbruised cinnamon, and a branch or two of rosemary; and if you have bread to bake, stew them in the oven with your bread…”

He goes on to explain in detail how to finish the prune puree and how to assemble the little tarts he likes to shape into little birds and flowers by first cutting out a pattern in paper to trace on the pastry. The tart cases or ‘coffins’ as they were called in times gone by, were raised by hand.
During Tudor times pastry had evolved from the Medieval inedible crust -that was there only to hold a filling- to sweet and savoury pastry to enjoy as a part of a dish. Eggs and butter or suet were beginning to be used making the pastry more refined and giving the cook the opportunity to be inventive with fillings as well as with decoration. If you look at Renaissance paintings especially by the Flemish and Dutch masters, you will notice the pies who are depicted on the tables as dramatic centerpieces, sometimes wildly decorated with stuffed swans or geese resting on top.

 

But it isn’t the only change, the Tudor court wanted to show their worldliness employing Florentine sculptors and painters for great artistic commissions, decorating royal palaces and most likely even influencing the kitchen. I can’t but help to see the striking recemblance between an Italian ‘Crostata di marmellata‘. In 1570 Bartolomeo Scappi, an Italian cook mentioned the different recipes for pastry in his book, it would take 30 years before a guide like that was published in Britain. ‘Delightes for Ladies‘ was published in 1602 but Gervase Markham’s book a decade later would provide a much easier to follow set of recipes.
It always pleases me to find links between Italian and British cookery, these are my two favourite cuisines and I feel there are a lot of things linking the two together, not only in dishes but also in philosophy.

Prune tarts bring back memories of my childhood. Normally only eaten on Ash Wednesday in my home town Antwerp, prune tart would be on our sunday breakfast table quite regularly. Our local bakery used to have the best prune tarts in sizes big and small and my mother used to buy a small one for me because she knew it is one of the few sweet things I truly enjoy.

For these prune tarts I tried to recreate a tart I had tasted years ago. As it is my favourite of tarts I can be very specific in how it should taste, the pastry can’t be too sweet and has to be very thin making the prunes the star of the show filling your mouth with a soft puree full of subtle almondy flavour and coloring your tongue black. The pastry would merely be there to encase the prune puree and to give an extra texture and buttery bite to the tart but it is very important to get it right. You can’t have the prune puree without the crust, they are entwined.

I called upon an old friend I used to visit in her bakery when I should be out partying. Now living a sunny life in Thailand running her own shop in baking equipment she gave me her recipe for the pastry, remembering her prune tart I gave it a go.
Although I prefer Gervase Markham’s method of slowly cooking the prunes in the oven while you are baking a bread or stewing a tough cut of meat, one can easily -like he states as in his book – cook them on a moderate fire. However when stewed slowly in the oven, you do get a more intense flavour so next time you are cooking a Sussex Stewed steak, pop some prunes in the oven as well.

What do you need (makes 4, 15 cm wide tarts)

For the pastry (I halved the recipe, for 1kg of flour use 5 eggs)

  • 500g organic plain white flour
  • 250g raw cane sugar
  • 250 g cold butter, unsalted and cubed
  • 3 organic eggs
  • vanilla, half a teaspoon
  • 1g baking powder

For the filling

  • 750 g dried prunes
  • 1 teaspoon lemon juice
  • 2 tablespoons of Muscovado sugar or Molasses

Equipment

  • 4, 15 cm tart tins
  • rolling pin
  • greaseproof paper

Method

  • Combine the butter and the sugars using a wooden spatula or spoon until the butter is covered in sugar
  • Now start to add the flour cup by cup carefully combining the mixture with a blunt knife, cutting the butter into smaller bits to combine. The mixture looks like breadcrumbs now.
  • Add the eggs and the baking powder, and use one of your hands to work it in. At this point it is easy to turn the dough out on a clean working surface.
  • Knead until you get a smooth dough, but be careful not to overwork the dough so as soon as all combined well shape it into a brick and wrap it it cling film.
  • Chill the pastry overnight
  • Soak the prunes overnight in water, just covering them

The next day…

  • If your prunes have stones, remove them and try to remove some of the kernels using a nut cracker. The stones are hard to crack so never mind if you can’t get them out. It doesn’t make the tart any less delicious.
  • If you do get a couple (4 or 5) out, add them to the prunes to stew, they will give a wonderful almond flavour.
  • Bring the prunes to the boil with the soaking water, the two tablespoons of muscovado or molasse sugar, the lemon juice and let simmer for about 30 minutes or until the water is reduced on a medium flame.
  • Discart the water, let it cool, remove the kernels if you had them, and when cooled puree with a blender.
  • If the puree is too runny at this point, put it back on the hob to reduce a bit further. If you had to do this, let it cool again before further use. It will become more solid when cooled.

When the prunes have cooled

  • Butter your tart tins and dust with flour
  • Cut of a piece of your cold pastry, roughly the size of your tart tin. It will be very solid so start by pressing it down with a rolling pin on a generously floured work surface.
  • Transfer your pastry to a piece of greaseproof paper
  • Sprinkle some flour over the pastry and start rolling it until it is about 3 mm thick, when the pastry sticks to the rolling pin, add flour, keep adding it so the pastry stays dry.
  • Check if your pastry isn’t sticking to your greaseproof paper, cut off the extra pastry so you remain with a circle that is just a few cm larger than your tart tin.
  • Gently turn the pastry over the tart tin and let it sink into the shape.
  • Now use your fingers to set the pastry into the tart tin and crimp the edges.
  • Don’t overwork the pastry as it should remain cool.
  • Transfer the tart pastry to the fridge while you do the other 3

Preheat your oven to 160° C

For the lattice top*

  • Roll out your pastry to 3 mm as stated above
  • Cut 1 cm wide strips, dust them well with flour.
  • On a sheet of greaseproof paper -dusted with flour- create the lattice as shown below
  • Fill your pastry with the prune filling
  • Gently but quickly turn over the lattice top to fit on top of the tart
  • Now you will most likely need to adjust the straps of pastry so it is straight. Don’t worry, if it is your first time it will either look horrible or you will be in luck and it will be quite straight from the first attempt.
  • Crimp the edges of the straps, cool in the fridge and proceed the same way with the other 3 tarts
  • Put in the middle of the preheated oven for 1 hour and 20 minutes, or until nicely brown, no less than an hour for sure.
  • Leave the tarts to cool in their tins completely before serving

* If creating the strapwork seems daunting, why not cut out shapes with a cookie cutter to place on top of the prune puree, it can look just as nice!

You will most likely have leftover pastry, wrap it in clingfilm, bag it and freeze it for when you need it. Always keep prunes in your larder for when you are using your oven for a long time, you can bake the tarts at the same time and get more out of your energy usage.

Enjoy!


You might also like
Cobnut and apple tart
Blaeberry pie

Hot Cross Bun and Butter Pudding – Happy birthday to me …

by 29 Comments

Here we are again, the day I look forward to the most during the year … my birthday.
It’s the day when I am queen, when I am allowed to wear a crown of flowers and walk around in my widest petticoat no matter where I’m going even if it is a farm or going on a clifftop walk on my favourite Sussex coastal path.
Today – I bloom – like fiery red flower in a colorless world.

 

It’s a big birthday this year -29- for the second time. Some part of me wanted to do a big party, another part just wanted it to blow over. I decided on a last minute posh afternoon tea at Kensington palace with my friends Sassy and Jo when we were gathered in London for Bruno‘s exhibition.
I had a special dress, made by my friend Jo, you might remember her from her Hotpot recipe a few months ago. Jo designs and produces beautiful bespoke wedding and special occasion gowns and after months of working on the design together it was ready to flaunt when we went for our Afternoon tea.

I call it my England dress, it shows the story behind my love for this country and its ways in an illustration Bruno designed and Jo embroidered onto the dress. I felt tears coming to my eyes when she revealed the dress… Aren’t I a lucky lady …
Jo’s craft-wo-manship is exquisite, the detail is amazing. Her brodeuse captured Bruno’s every line, flower and every tiny apple. The dress is all kinds of perfect and if you know me -being a perfectionist- I hardly ever find things perfect…
It is a special feeling when a friend makes you a dress, it will never feel completely mine, it will always be hers as well.
Thank you darling Jo, for making me the most special dress in the world x Thank you my dear friend Sassy for taking these pictures as a keepsake to remember  x

A few of you were eager to see my dress so if you aren’t interested
in a girl running around in a red dress feeding swans and getting
attacked by squirrels – scroll all the way down for a good pudding!

Earlier this week I posted my recipe for Hot Cross Buns, while testing the recipe I had mountains of buns leftover and I didn’t want to waste them so I froze them. Now I use the buns to make my Hot Cross Bun and Butter Pudding. I guaranty you that a Bread and Butter Pudding has never tasted better! As the Hot Cross Buns contains spices and currants already, there is no need to add more.
Enjoy lovely people x

 

Now for a sweet treat …

Hot Cross Bun and Butter Pudding

 

What do you need
2 enamel 20cm pie dishes
2-3 stale hot cross buns sliced in 1 cm wide slices
butter
350ml/12fl oz whole milk
50ml/2fl oz double cream
2 free-range eggs
2 teaspoons of light brown demerara sugar
2 teaspoons of raw cane sudar to sprinkle on top
Nutmeg, grated to taste

Method

  • Butter 1 side of the hot cross bun slices
  • Arrange a layer of bun slices, buttered-side up, in the bottom of the dish.
  • Gently warm the milk and cream in a pan over a low heat to scalding point, be careful not to let it boil.
  • Crack the eggs into a bowl, add three the sugar and lightly whisk until pale
  • Add the warm milk and cream mixture to the eggs and stir well
  • Pour the custard over the prepared hot cross bun layers and sprinkle with nutmeg and the remaining sugar
  • Preheat the oven to 180C
  • Place the dish into the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the custard has set and the top is nicely golden-brown

Enjoy while warm!

You might also like
Hot Cross Buns –  paganism, christianity and superstition >
My vegan chocolate and beetroot birthday cake >

All pictures except for the ones with the Hot Cross Bun & Butter Pudding are copyright by the talented Sassy of Assassynation photography.
Gown handmade in Britain by The Couture Company in Birmingham.

Hot Cross Buns through Paganism, Christianity and Superstition.

by 22 Comments

The tradition of baking bread marked with a cross is linked to paganism as well as Christianity. The pagan Saxons would bake cross buns at the beginning of spring in honour of the goddess Eostre – most likely being the origin of the name Easter. The cross represented the rebirth of the world after winter and the four quarters of the moon, as well as the four seasons and the wheel of life.

The Christians saw the Crucifixion in the cross bun and, as with many other pre-Christian traditions, replaced their pagan meaning with a Christian one – the resurrection of Christ at Easter.

According to Elizabeth David, it wasn’t until Tudor times that it was permanently linked to Christian celebrations. During the reign of Elizabeth I, the London Clerk of Markets issued a decree forbidding the sale of spiced buns except at burials, at Christmas or on Good Friday.

The first recorded reference to ‘hot’ cross buns was in ‘Poor Robin’s Almanac’ in the early 1700s:
‘Good Friday come this month, the old woman runs. With one or two a penny hot cross buns.’

This satirical rhyme was also probably the inspiration of the commonly known street vendors cry:
‘Hot cross buns, hot cross buns!
One ha’penny, two ha’penny, hot cross buns!
If you have no daughters, give them to your sons,
One ha’penny, two ha’penny, hot cross buns!’

The Widows Son. Copyright Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archive – posted with permission

A century later the belief behind the hot cross bun starts to get a superstitious rather than a religious meaning.
In London’s East End you can find a pub called The Widows Son, named after a widow who lived in a cottage at the site in the 1820s. The widow baked hot cross buns for her sailor son who was supposed to come home from the sea on Good Friday. He must have died at sea as he never returned home, but the widow refused to give up hope for his return and continued to bake a hot cross bun for him every year, hanging it in her kitchen with the buns from previous years.

When the widow died, the buns were found hanging from a beam in the cottage and the story has been kept alive by the pub landlords ever since a pub was built on the site in 1848.

To this day, every Good Friday, the ceremony of the Widow’s Bun is celebrated and members of the Royal Navy come to The Widows Son pub to place a new hot cross bun into a net hung above the bar. Legend has it that the buns baked on Good Friday will not spoil.

For whatever reason or belief you choose to bake a batch of hot cross buns on this Good Friday, it will most likely be to enjoy them with your loved ones. May it be for Eostre, Easter, the beginning of a much awaited spring or as a superstitious amulet for when you set sail, bake them with love!

 

 

If you want to bake ahead, you can easily bake these buns in advance and freeze them. Slowly defrost in a teatowel and then place in a hot oven for 5-10 minutes with a small ramekin of water to give some moisture to the warm air in the oven.
And finally … you can also find my story about Hot Cross Buns in the latest edition of Pretty Nostalgic Magazine!
If you don’t know the magazine, it’s fairly new and all about British Nostalgia, love for all things Vintage and quirky.

More on Hot Cross Buns on friday!

 

Oat and spelt biscuits – a daydream

by 16 Comments

Looking out of my office window and gazing over that white carpet of snow makes me wonder how much I would enjoy being snowed in for a few days.
It is minus 8 degrees outside but the sun is shining like she’s declaring her will to fill the world with golden beams of light.

I close my eyes, daydreaming of waking up in my small chocolate box cottage in rural England, my whole body warmly tucked under a mountain of gingham and flowery blankets. The sun shining through my frost flower stained windows, the glaring light showing off the fact that I haven’t cleaned the windows in weeks – months – Who has time to clean the outside of windows?
With the blankets still wrapped around me I make my way to that window to look outside and see the snow halfway up the door of the cottage on the other side of the road.

Could we be snowed in?

I quickly change into my downstairs pijamas -yes there is such a thing- and try to find out what the situation is. The old red door of the cottage is jammed by the snow, it will need some pushing. I’ve managed to get it open just far enough to leap outside in my red hunter boots and my big red cape. I realize I must look quite silly wearing my downstairs pijamas with the wellies and the cape but the village folk know me by now… it’s Regula, she walks her favorite ginger pig on a lead …

I make my way back to the cottage, open my red door and head back inside. The cats – however a bit suspicious of the snow –  try and run out in the garden – No no no, we are snowed in! Lets put a hearty stew in the oven and snug up on the armchair by the inglenook fireplace. I grab the book I’ve been meaning to read for ages, a woolen blanket,  a large mug Earl Grey tea and biscuits … treasuring the silence in my imaginary cottage.

These biscuits are wonderfully crumbly, they are not overly sweet and the oats and spelt make them slightly healthier than your average shortbread or a chocolate chip cookie.
Oats have a higher concentration of well-balanced protein than other cereals, they are a great source of carbohydrate, which
is an important source of energy for the body. All carbohydrates
are converted to, and absorbed into the blood in the
form of glucose, which is the brain’s preferred source of fuel.

 

What do you need
120 g soft butter, unsalted
110 g raw cane sugar
170 g rolled oats
170 g spelt flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
4 tablespoons of milkMethod

  • Preheat your oven to 250° Celsius
  • Line two baking trays with baking paper
  • Cream the butter and the sugar in a bowl
  • Mix in the oats thoroughly
  • Add the flour (sifted) and the bicarbonate in batches while you work the dough with your hands
  • Start adding the milk until you get a stiff dough, you might need more or a little less of milk.
  • Turn the dough out on a floured surface and roll out the dough until it’s about 0,5 cm thick
  • Use a +- 7 cm ring to cut out round shapes
  • Transfer the cookies to the baking trays and place in the oven for 10 -15 minutes.
  • Cool on the trays before eating them.
Enjoy while you gaze out of your window, watching the birds…You might also like:
Cranberry & apple spelt crumble >

 

Vegan chocolate, beetroot and walnut cake

by 16 Comments

Today is my birthday, the day I look forward to all year…

I’m a child when it comes to my birthday, I start counting the days from August.
You would think I have it all planned out, but indecisive as I am about this -on the day- no reservations for dinner have been made and no outfit is chosen.
The only certain thing is that I will most likely be in a little village in East Sussex.
Today is my day, the day that I am allowed to be a child again, sing very loud, blow out candles and dance in the street.
I don’t care what people think, I hold on to this joyful occasion and cherish it.
Because you have to hold on to your inner child and keep that little fire burning. That’s where creativity thrives and tales are invented.
Today anything is possible, I have wings to fly to magical places, where the grass is greener, the flowers enormous and the food, of course the food delicious and plenty.
Today I fall into a hole in the ground and have tea with talking rabbits.
Today is truly mine.

So on this day I bring you a birthday cake.

The past
year a lot of things changed, I started this blog, got married and got to
know who my friends are. I feel I grew up just a tiny bit more.

One of the new things in my life is experimenting with vegan cooking, especially for cakes and cookies. I love to make sweet things slightly more healthy and as I don’t really have a sweet tooth, I don’t make them overly sweet.
As you might have guessed from my Parsnip and apple breakfast cake, I have a thing for putting vegetables into sweets. The classic carrot cake used to be my all time favourite tea time treat, until this cake came along…
This mouth full of yummyness is moist, full of the darkest chocolate and contains one of my favourite veg: beetroot.
Beetroot is incredibly healthy as it is a rich source of antioxidants, nutrients including sodium, magnesium and vitamin C.

I love the way beetroot colors your hands…

What do you need
Wholemeal spelt flour: 3 cups
cooked beetroot: 2 cups
dark chocolate: 1 cup
maple syrup: 0,5 cup
honey: 0,5 cup (you can use 1 cup of maple syrup if you object to honey)
baking powder: 2 heaped tsp
baking soda: 2 heaped tsp
walnuts: 1 cup chopped
cocoa: 4 heaped tsp
1 cup of soy yoghurt
sunflower or hennep oil: 0,5 cup
a pinch of seasalt
Icing
1cup of dark chocolate
2 heaped tsp icing sugar
1 tsp maple syrup
2 tsp of soy milk
• Peel the beetroots and slice into 1 cm cubes, cook until soft and mash.
• Preheat your oven to 160°
• Get your dry ingredients in one bowl and your wet ingredients in another.
• Add the baking powder and soda last as it has to get in contact with the wet ingredients straight away to give the best result.
• Melt the chocolate and add to the wet ingredients, mix the ingredients.
• Add the wet to the dry ingredients and mix, let it rest for 10 minutes.
• While the dough is resting, line a spring form with baking paper and dust with some cacao.
• Pour the batter into the springform and put in the oven for 55 minutes.
• Be very careful when you take it out of the oven, let it cool in the tray.
Decorate with the icing and some chocolate shavings.
Enjoy with a glass of oat milk or Earl grey tea!

Also check out this vegan chocolate cake by my friend Zita, a fabulous vegetarian and vegan blog. She inspired me to give this vegan thing a go.

29 on the 29th of march

Please leave a comment, I love reading them!