A life in lists

When life doesn't give you lemons, make orange cake.

I fancied making something a little different to my usual sponge/buttercream combo a couple of weeks ago, and I'd been eyeing up a lemon and dark chocolate cake in an old recipe book of mine for a while.

Naturally, when I came to make the cake, we had no lemons. We did, however, have a couple of rather sad looking oranges lurking at the bottom of the fruit bowl. And so, after a bit of twitter reassurance that it wouldn't taste foul, the choc orange cake was born.

It was such a success that not only did I make another version of it a week later, but I have lost all interest in ever making the lemon version. My only top tip when using oranges rather than lemons would be not to use too dark a chocolate - I used 60% dark chocolate the first time and 70 or 80% dark chocolate the second time, and the bitterness rather overwhelmed the slightly more delicate orange flavour. I imagine that darker would be better with lemon cake though.

I've altered the original recipe enough that I no longer feel bad about posting it here.

Choc orange cake

 6oz butter
6oz caster sugar
2 large eggs (3 if they're small)
Finely grated rind if two oranges
Juice of one orange (you can use the other orange to make salad dressing)
1tsp (a generous one) of baking powder
Pinch of salt if your butter is unsalted
6oz self raising flour
1tbsp milk
2oz granulated sugar

4oz  dark chocolate (55-65% cocoa solids, ideally)
1oz butter (unsalted, ideally)

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C (350 F) and grease/line a 20cm square baking tin
2. Cream butter and caster sugar until fluffy
3. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until mixture is smooth (add a spoon of flour if it's lumpy)
4. Add the grated rind and mix
5. Fold in the flour and baking powder
6. Stir in the milk to loosen up the mix slightly if necessary (it should be a bit looser than a normal sponge mix)
7. Bake for 40-45 mins until cooked through (insert a skewer into the middle, it should come out clean)
8. Turn out the cake, then turn it again only a clean board, so it is right side up. Prick all over with a fine skewer
9. In a pan, mix the granulated sugar and orange juice. Heat over a low heat until sugar is dissolved, then bring to the boil and bubble for a minute or so.
10. Pour the syrup over the cake, leave to cool for at least 30-40 mins
11. Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of hot water (or double boiler). Careful not to burn it! When the chocolate is melted, add the 1oz butter and stir till dissolved.
12. Once the chocolate mixture is cool enough to spread without running everywhere, spread it evenly over the top of the cake
13. Make tea
14. Enjoy!

If it has oats and fruit in, it's healthy, right? Even if it's a cookie recipe.

I rather like cookies, but don't usually have a ready supply of chocolate chips or any of those other things that make for an indulgent cookie. However, oats (of the porridge variety) and raisins (or sultanas. To stir into aforementioned porridge oats for breakfast) are things we usually have in the house. Also we are cinnamon/nutmeg/ginger addicts in this house, so some variation of spices is usually to be found in the cupboard.

In a major baking emergency a couple of weeks ago (read: we almost ran out of baked goods. In my kitchen that counts as an emergency) during which no one fancied cake, I found a couple of oat and raisin cookie recipes to try. Two weeks and three batches later, the recipes have morphed into my perfect cookie recipe (well. My perfect I-have-no-chocolate-chips-no-ready-made-cookie-dough-and-no-smarties cookie recipe, anyway). This isn't the strictest recipe in the world, and substitutions can be made at will without much of a detrimental effect on the cookies.

The recipe below makes one big batch (at least two dozen good sized cookies). I did try making half and freezing half the dough to bake a few days later, but we ate all the dough before managing that. On balance, probably better to bake the lot.

Baking Emergency Cookies

225g butter (I suppose you could replace this with something cheaper like margarine, but I do rather love butter)
225g soft brown sugar
100g caster sugar
2 eggs
1 good teaspoon vanilla extract
200g plain (all purpose) flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (we love cinnamon, so you could reduce this. We have also substituted various combinations of ground mixed spice, ground ginger and ground nutmeg)
1/2 teaspoon salt (don't bother with this if you used salted butter)
250g porridge oats (any kind of rolled, whole, whatever oats you have)
150g raisins/sultanas

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees C (350 F)
2. Cream together butter, sugars eggs and vanilla extract until smooth
3. Add the flour, bicarbonate of soda, ground cinnamon and salt and stir until combined
4. Mix in the oats and raisins (use a spoon if you've been using your food processor so far, as the processor will probably mush them up)
5. Drop generously rounded teaspoonfuls on a greased/non-stick baking tray and cook for 10-12 mins until just golden. Be aware these cookies don't spread as quickly as some other cookie recipes, so if your mix is quite stiff squash the blob of dough a little flatter before cooking.
6. Lick bowl
7. Eat cookies
8. Eat more cookies

Worth the effort

We made a quick curry from leftover chicken the other night (based loosely on the recipe from Jamie's 30-Minute Meals , but I suspect almost any recipe would do the job). It was yummy - and Teddy agreed, now he is finally coming around to the idea of spices. The highlight of the show when we have curry, be it takeaway or homemade, however, is always the naan bread - we are a bit addicted round these parts. The recipe I use is from Rachel Allen's Bake book, but this recipe looks similar. There are also various yeast free recipes online, which might be fun to try.

Recipe box swap: Boston baked beans

OK, so I've posted this recipe before, but I'm always up for an opportunity to convert more people to it, and I noticed that Randi over at I Have to Say (she also runs online fabric store Freshly Squeezed Fabrics) is having a recipe box swap of stew and soup recipes.

This one is seriously simple and absolutely delicious - we normally make the most enormous batch of it, freeze part and live off it for what feels like weeks.

Boston Baked Beans

1lb dried haricot beans
1lb pork belly
1oz sugar
1tbsp black treacle
2tsp salt
1/4tsp black pepper
1 1/2 pts boiling water
3 large onions
2tsp cumin powder/ground cumin seeds
1 tin tomatoes (approx 1/2lb)

1. Soak dried beans overnight in cold water
2. Drain beans and boil in plenty of fresh water until beginning to soften. This can take anything from 30 minutes to two hours depending on how old and dry they are
3. Roughly chop onions and fry in a little oil on a low heat in a big pan
4. Meanwhile, chop the pork into bitesize chunks and toss into the pan after a few minutes
5. Mix sugar, treacle, salt, pepper and cumin with boiling water and pour on top, toss in the tomatoes here too (you can omit the tomatoes, according to my mother, but I think they're a nice addition). Oh, and the beans
6. Cook for 3-5 hours on a low heat. I stir it when I happen to walk past, but really it can pretty much be left to its own devices. it forms a bit of a skin, but this stirs in and dissolves very easily. You want it to be thick and stew-like, rather than soup-like. Add more water if it seems to be getting scarily thick and the spoon won't move.
7. Serve with just about anything - fresh bread and greens always makes for a nice farmhouse meal.

I normally make double this simply because the man at the farmer's market cuts his pork belly into roughly 2lb pieces. I also sometimes add a few more beans to bulk it out even more and make it even more of a budget dinner if we're feeling poor.

Ginger biscuits for someone you like

 One of my Twitter friends asked for this recipe a few days ago and since she's always so nice to me it seemed a shame not to post it (and make a batch of biscuits for myself, naturally). Why not make a batch for someone you like? 

The recipe was pinched from one that my mother pinched from a friend, so I have no idea where it originally came from, and I've made one or two changes along the way as well, mainly to make them just a shade less sweet and ultra gingery. This recipe makes quite a lot - about two dozen biscuits, as I always mean to make the remainder into cheesecake or something once they're stale, but we've never yet had any left long enough to go stale...

Perfect ginger biscuits:

7oz unsalted butter
1lb self raising flour
5oz caster sugar
3 rounded tbsp ground ginger (yes, tablespoons. This is a seriously gingery recipe)
1 1/2 tbsp bicarbonate of soda
8oz golden syrup
2oz black treacle

1. Heat the oven to 160 degrees centigrade, and cover a baking tray in parchment paper (or use a non-stick tray if you have one lying around)
2. Mix all the dry ingredients and stir in the butter until combined - my misture usually looks a bit breadcrumby at this point
3. Warm the treacle and golden syrup in the microwave or on the hob until runny (but not boiling, or you'll really hurt yourself if you spill it!)
4. Mix treacle and syrup in with the butter/dry ingredients and stir until well mixed
5. Break of lumps and form 1 1/2" balls and place well apart (at least 3" I reckon) on baking tray. I usually have to cook my biscuits in several batches as I can only fit 6 on my tiny little baking tray
6. Bake for 10 minutes. the biscuits should rise, then fall a little, and be a light golden brown colour. If they turn a darker toffee colour then they've gone a bit over, but they're still pretty good dipped in tea!
7. Leave to rest for a few minutes on baking tray before moving to a wire rack to cool fully - they first come out of the oven they're really soft, so will break up if you try to move them.

Easy peasy beany squeezy

One of our favourite meals is Boston baked beans. Served with fresh baked bread (seriously, I couldn't feel any more domestic when this meal is served) and whatever greens are lying around, it really is the perfect homemade-home meal. It has the added benefit of being insanely cheap - there's about £6 (a little under $9) worth of pork in there, about £2.50 (under $3) of other ingredients (mainly beans, to be honest) and it does about eight or nine adult servings and six kids servings (Teddy eats a lot for his age, but remember his age is only 20 months, so that's not a ton more, perhaps two or three adult servings). The recipe below is for half this quantity, as the amount I usually make requires something like a maslin (preserving) pan or a catering sized saucepan to fit it all in.

Boston Baked Beans

1lb dried haricot beans
1lb pork belly
1oz sugar
1tbsp black treacle
2tsp salt
1/4tsp black pepper
1 1/2 pts boiling water
3 large onions
2tsp cumin powder/ground cumin seeds
1 tin tomatoes (approx 1/2lb)

1. Soak dried beans overnight in cold water
2. Drain beans and boil in plenty of fresh water until beginning to soften. This can take anything from 30 minutes to 2 hours depending on how old and dry they are
3. Roughly chop onions and fry in a little oil on a low heat in a big pan
4. Meanwhile, chop the pork into bitesize chunks, toss into the pan after a few minutes
5. Mix sugar, treacle, salt, pepper and cumin with boiling water and pour on top, toss in the tomatoes here too (you can omit the tomatoes, according to my mother, but I think they're a nice addition).
6. Cook for 3-5 hours on a low heat. I stir it when I happen to walk past, but really it can pretty much be left to its own devices. it forms a bit of a skin, but this stirs in and dissolves very easily. You want it to be thick and stew-like, rather than soup-like. Add more water if it seems to be getting scarily thick and the spoon won't move.
7. Serve with just about anything - fresh bread and greens always makes for a nice farmhouse meal.

I normally make double this simply because the man at the farmer's market cuts his pork belly into roughly 2lb pieces. I also sometimes add a few more beans to bulk it out even more and make it even more of a cheapskate dinner if we're feeling a bit poor.

Emergency bread

I meant to post this on Saturday, but got distracted by something more interesting, so here it is...

  I forgot to put any bread on to rise on Friday, and since I'd already done one trip to the supermarket, I definitely wasn't going back just for bread, so I bashed out some soda bread in 30 minutes flat while Teddy grabbed a post-toddler-group nap.

Most recipes call for buttermilk, but I didn't have any (does anyone actually keep buttermilk in their fridge as a staple?), so I just used normal milk, and the end result was delicious. Probably a shade denser than a buttermilk one would be (I'm guessing this on the basis that buttermilk pancakes are lighter than normal ones), but excellent and, crucially, quick!

Emergency bread:

400g plain white flour
1 tsp caster sugar
 1/2 tsp salt
 275ml milk (or buttermilk, if you're the kind of domestic goddess that has buttermilk kicking around your fridge)

1. Heat the oven to 230 degrees Centigrade. Weight out the dry ingredients, make a well in the centre, pour in the milk
2. Using your hand like a claw (or a fork or something, if you're clean and tidy by nature and don't like doughy hands), combine the ingredients until you have something resembling bread dough. I think you're meant to not over-knead it, so I stopped mixing/kneading/clawing  pretty much as soon as everything was combined. If your dough is very dry, feel free to toss in a bit more milk - most recipes seem to call for more than the amount I used, but i found that it was plenty.
3. Flour a 7" cake tin, or other cooking receptacle (a cake tin was what I had on hand, and I figured it would stop the bread spreading in case it was soggy). Dollop your dough into the tin and cut a cross in the centre using a sharp knife (this is meant to keep evil spirits out or somesuch)
4. Cook for 15 minutes, then turn the heat down to 200 and cook for a further 20-30 mins. The bread is cooked when it sounds hollow if you tap it on the base.
5. Slice, load with butter, and scoff with the super speedy jerusalem artichoke soup that you knocked up while waiting for the bread to cook (the recipe for which can be found in the fantabulous Tender, by Nigel Slater). 
6. Feel slightly smug.
7. Wish you had a nicer apron to feel all domestic-goddessy in.

Edited to add: I have no idea why the bread is such a freaky colour in this picture. it was definitely yellow tinged, but not quite so fluorescent! I really want a new camera.

24 hour marmalade

I'm so sorry, I completely forgot that I promised you a marmalade recipe! I am totally blaming it on getting ill, despite the fact I've been recovered for almost a week now. The 24 hour marmalade turned out to be lovely. I don't mess with a classic, but I like the fact that it's just a fraction less bitter and a fraction softer (as in, the peel bits are softer) than normal marmalade.

Making marmalade takes me ages - every time I am surprised by how much longer it takes than jam. The fruit takes about an hour to prepare and it has to cook for much longer than soft fruits before hitting setting point.

24 hour marmalade

NB: I make big batches when I preserve, as I only do it when the fruit is in season. You may want to reduce the quantities.

• 12 seville oranges
• 2 normal oranges (I didn't have any normal oranges when I made the second batch and it doesn't make a world of difference)
• 4 lemons
• 12 pints water
• 8lb sugar (I don't like my preserves too sweet. You may want to add a bit more sugar)

1. Pare off the rind from all the fruit, taking as little white pith as possible, then chop into lengths, as fine or coarse as you please. I use a peeler for this, then chop the lengths of peel into little strips. Pop the strips into your preserving pan.
2. If your fruit is quite tender and doesn't have too much pith or seeds, you can cut off the excess pith (don't throw it away!) and just cut the flesh of the fruit into small chunks. If, like me, you usually find that the oranges you buy are a bit aged and stringy, just juice them, saving the pith and seeds. Add the juice or flesh to the preserving pan and cover with eight pints of the water.
3. Put the pith and seeds into a separate bowl and cover with the remaining four pints of water.
4. Leave both bowls to soak at least overnight, preferably for 24 hours
5. Strain the water from the pith bowl into the preserving pan and tie the pith and pips into a piece of muslin. Theoretically you're meant to tie the muslin 'bag' onto the handle of the preserving pan, but I usually just drop it in and fish it out later.
6. Pop a small plate into the freezer (to test the setting point. There are other methods of testing it, but I find the cold plate works perfectly well for me). Wash your jars and sterilise them. I do this by popping them into the oven at about 120C for at least 10 minutes, then turning the oven off and leaving the jars in there till I'm ready to bottle up. If I'm feeling really clever I also sterilise either a jam funnel, jug or ladle, but quite often I forget and find myself boiling one up hastily when the time comes to decant.
7. Bring the contents of the pan to the boil and keep at a rolling boil for at least an hour. The liquid needs to have reduced by about half and the strips of fruit skin should be nice and soft. Stir regularly while boiling.
8. If there is much scum on the surface of the pan, skim it off, then add the sugar and simmer for 20-30 minutes, stirring regularly.
9. Remove the pip and pith bag. Cookery books always tell you to squeeze it out, but I've never figured out how to do that without inflicting severe burns, so I tend to just let it drip over the pan for a minute or so.
10. Bring the marmalade back to a vigorous boil. Quantity will reduce by about half again before setting point is reached, but I tend to test regularly from a couple of minutes after the marmalade comes to the boil, as I don't like my preserves to be too hard set.
11. To test whether the marmalade is ready, drop a teaspoonful onto your cold plate and pop back into the freezer for a minute or two. When you push the cold marmalade with your finger, there should be a visible skin forming on the top. If not, boil for a couple of minutes more and try again, ad infinitum. Sometimes I never seem to hit a 'true' setting point with marmalde, but I tend to get bored after a while, bottle it up anyway, and it always seems to set after a fashion.
12. Take the marmalade off the heat, skim off any scum (save it and eat it when it's cold, it's delicious!). If you want to make sure that the peel is evenly distributed through the marmalade, leave it in the pan until it has started to skin over, then decant into jars, leaving until completely cool before sealing securely (jars should only be sealed when the produce is near boiling or completely cold, to prevent locking in nasty bacteria at perfect growing temperature, I was always told).
13. Enjoy!

Snapshots of a Sunday morning

 

 

  

 

 
  

Just an ordinary morning. I love it when a really ordinary day ends up as a series of lovely things - enjoying the sunshine, a peacefully sleeping boy, drop scones (are they an exclusively British thing? I have no idea. They're basically thinnish pancakes) with syrup, the beginnings of a new quilt.

By the way, that's Adam trying to look thin.

Drop scones:

• 8oz self raising flour
• 1oz caster sugar
• Pinch salt
• 1 medium egg
• 1/2 pt milk

Weigh the dry ingredients out into a bowl, making a well in the centre. Add the wet ingredients to the well and whisk to combine, until you have a smooth batter. Heat a little oil or butter in a frying pan (or a cast iron griddle if you're really lucky. I aspire to own one) and dollop in three (or more, depending on the size of your pan) blobs of batter, a little over a tablespoon each. Cook for around 60 seconds, until the scones can be easily flipped, then cook for 30 seconds or so on the other side. Serve with butter, jam and/or syrup, as you please.

Got a pound or two of elderberries clogging up your freezer? No? Just me then...

But if you happen to have gone elderberrying (why yes, that is a word, thank you) and now have a tupperware filled with little black gems taking up valuable space in your teeny weeny freezer (remember, you turned the big freezer off ages ago), I can recommend making some elderberry rob.

Remember a couple of weeks ago I posted about going to the Weald and Downland autumn fair and admiring the medicinal stuff from the garden? Well I've been meaning to make elderberry rob since then, so yesterday I searched a few recipes, and then ignored them all and made it up as I went along formed a careful amalgamation of all the information I found. By the way, elderberry rob is basically a spiced elderberry syrup that can be taken to prevent/help cure colds, coughs and other minor ailments.

Incidentally, elderberries are bloody good for you. According the various sites I found, they:
1. Have immune boosting properties
2. Are antioxidants
3. Improve heart health
4. Lower cholestoral
5. Improve vision
6. Have lots of vitamin C in
7. Contain potassium (I think this is a good thing, although I seem to recall a potassium experiment at school that resulted in scary flames...)

So, it's basically marvellous. Here's my recipe:

Elderberry rob with a ginger kick
Ingredients:
Elderberries
Granulated sugar (or whatever sugar is kicking around)
Ground ginger (you could probably use whole ginger and whole cinnamon)
Ground cinnamon
Cloves

Method:
1. Put your elderberries in a big pan, just cover with water, put the lid on (saves energy!) and simmer for 30 mins, stirring occasionally.
2. Strain the liquid through a muslin. I expect that if you were very committed you could strain it overnight through a jelly seive, but I was too impatient
3. Bin the berries, measure the remaining liquid and pour it into a clean pan. Give the jug a quick wash and sterilise it (or a funnel) and some bottles. See here for more information on sterilising.
4. To every pint of liquid add 8oz of sugar, 2 tsp of ground ginger, 1tsp of ground cinnamon and about 20 cloves.
5. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for 20 mins or so, until the mixture has thickened into a syrup.
6. Fish out the cloves (or strain it, if you're feeling clever) and pour into bottles, using the sterilised jug/funnel.

Ta da!

To drink, either have a tablespoonful straight from the bottle or dilute in a little warm water and sip. It's nice and gingery! I don't think this would keep for aaaages - probably a month. On my internet trawls I read various things about using alcohol as a preservative to make it last longer, but to be honest if you have a sensible sized freezer you could make up a batch every now and again.