Viewing entries tagged
afternoon tea
It’s suffused with herbs and umami spring onions, and laced with tongue-tingling sour barberries, sharp and salty feta, and warming toasted walnuts which add necessary texture. I add chilli, too, which means that every bite is an avalanche of flavour.
Kuku is high in protein, and basically carb-free (if that’s your thing), and really filling, too. I’ve adapted this one from a more traditional Persian recipe (where this dish originates).
These exist in that tender interior, crunchy exterior, no-man’s-land between a scone, and a biscuit. I tried something similar at a hotel in Turkey, where at daily afternoon tea they produced thick, golden and extremely savoury kashar cheese cookies. As kashar cheese is a little harder to get here in the UK, I subbed in a mix of mozzarella, pecorino and feta, and they turned out beautifully. They’re umami, and slightly salty, and the cheese caramelises on the outside in a way that’s reminiscent of a toasted cheese sandwich.
They’re extremely easy to whip up, and work perfectly as a savoury treat at afternoon tea, accompanying a bowl of soup, or with cheeses, membrillo paste and a handful of fresh baby tomatoes.
150g butter, very cold/frozen
75g fresh mozzarella
75g semi-stagionato pecorino (or parmesan, if you can’t get hold of pecorino)
60g feta
1 ½ tsp double cream (or milk if you don’t have any double cream to hand)
250g plain flour
10g nigella seeds
½ tsp salt
½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp caster sugar
large baking tray, lined with baking parchment
6cm diameter cookie cutter (feel free to use a different size if you want larger/smaller cookies, but bear in mind the baking time will reduce for smaller cookies)
1) Preheat oven to 200°C.
2) Take the mozzarella and press it between two pieces of paper towel to squeeze out as much liquid as possible.
3) Using the coarse side of a cheese grater, grate the cold/frozen butter, mozzarella, pecorino and feta into the bowl of an electric stand mixer or a large bowl if making by hand. The cheeses may crumble a little unevenly but don’t worry too much about striving for perfection, they just need to be broken down into small pieces. Add in the double cream and stir together.
4) In a separate medium sized bowl, whisk together the flour, nigella seeds, salt, baking powder and caster sugar until evenly mixed.
5) Pour the dry ingredients into the bowl containing the cheeses. If using an electric stand mixer, fit it with the paddle and mix on a low-medium speed until the mixture just comes together. If making it by hand, stir with a wooden spoon until a crumbly dough is formed. Take care not to over mix as this will stimulate the gluten in the flour, and break down the butter too much, making the cookie tougher and less tender. If the mixture is too dry (climate/room temperature can affect this), add in a tiny bit more double cream but be careful not to add too much – the dough should be slightly crumbly.
6) Lightly dust a clean surface/board with flour. Tip the cookie dough on to the surface and pat it together until it forms a disc. Roll it out to an even thickness of 1.5cm. Then use the cookie cutter to stamp out the circles. Place them on the baking tray at least 4cm apart (they won’t spread much).
7) Place in the oven and bake for 12-15 mins, until the top and base are golden and crunchy. You can serve these warm or cool. NB, they keep for up to 3 days stored in an airtight container at room temperature. Or you can freeze them for up to 6 months in an airtight container.
This cake is heady with the spirit of Tuscany. The grapes combined with the harmonious perfumed trio of orange, almond and vanilla is particularly luscious, and peculiar to Italian baking. The use of olive oil instead of butter, and the addition of ground almonds make it so moist and sumptuous. The flavour tends to develop after a day, so I’d advise making this a day or two in advance of eating (storing it an airtight container or covering the top of the cake tin until ready to serve).
It’s the perfect cake for vegans and non-vegans alike: no weird gums or chemicals or frogspawn-y aquafaba, and it doesn't even need them. It’s moist, sticky and absurdly moreish. It can stand proudly beside any egg-containing cake, and win over any vegan cake-hating sceptic. When I say it’s easy to make, I mean it is exceptionally easy. It can be whipped up in under 10 minutes and, if you're making mini loaves, it bakes within 10 minutes too.
I don’t understand why there’s a “season” for pumpkin spice themed dishes when delicious pumpkin puree is available (from a can) all year round. In honour of this recent discovery, I decided to make these cookies. I was influenced by a recipe on Bon Appetitwhich incorporated pumpkin and various spices into a cookie. However - I was very disappointed by the result: the cookies were mean and thin, with root canal problem-inducing sweetness, overly egg-y, and totally lacking in the promised pumpkin flavour.
So, I made my own to tick the 3 commandments of cookies:
- Chewy
- Molten
- Thick
I radically amped up the amount of pumpkin, and reduced the sugar. I also added both white and milk chocolate, so that, upon baking, they caramelized, creating a sophisticated toffee flavour. The added crunch and maple-flavour of the pecans add some complexity, too.
NB If you would like a more savoury cookie, you could switch the milk and white chocolate for dark chocolate. And if you’d like to have a supply of cookies for emergencies, you can freeze the scoops of uncooked cookie dough and bake them when desired.
150 unsalted butter, softened
80g light brown sugar
70g caster sugar
1 egg
40g pumpkin puree
1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp cinnamon
1 ½ tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp mixed spice
220g plain flour
heaped ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
100g white chocolate + 30 g white chocolate for topping (I use buttons but you can chop up a bar or use chips instead)
50g milk chocolate, roughly chopped
50g chopped pecans, + 20g for topping
2 large baking trays, lined with baking parchment
1) Put the unsalted butter, light brown sugar and caster sugar into the bowl of an electric mixer, fitted with the paddle, and beat until light and fluffy (about 5 minutes). If doing by hand, beat ingredients together with a spoon. Add the egg, pumpkin puree and vanilla extract, and beat until full combined.
2) Add the spices (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, mixed spice), flour, baking powder and salt to the wet ingredients, and very gently fold together until almost combined, leaving some flour still visible. Add the chopped milk chocolate, white chocolate and pecans, and very gently fold them into the cookie dough until combined.
3) Cover the bowl and refrigerate for minimum 1 hour and up to 24 hours (until you’re ready to bake the cookies).
4) Preheat the oven to 180°C. Then. either using an ice cream scoop, or a tablespoon, scoop the cookie dough into 40g dollops. I weigh each one to make sure they cook evenly, but if you can’t be bothered just estimate. Roll each into a sphere between your palms to ensure that they bake into near-perfect rounds. Place on the tray leaving about 4cm between each so that they have room to spread when they bake. Then, into each sphere, press a piece of white chocolate and a piece of pecan.
5) Place in oven to bake for 7-10 minutes, or until they are golden at the edges but still soft to the touch. Once they are removed from the oven, they will continue to cook on the baking tray so leave them to sit for a couple of minutes. Serve warm if you can’t wait, or keep them for up to 4 days in an airtight container. You can also freeze them in an airtight container for up to 3 months.
I am reluctant to call them custard creams as they are everything traditional ones are not. Instead of being brittle and flavourless, the biscuit is light, vanilla-scented, and so tender it almost dissolves on your tongue. And the filling is smooth, and generous, with a subtle lemon tang to add astringent relief.
These cookies are thick; they’re chewy; and they have a a molten Nutella centre with oozy chocolate and crunchy toasted hazelnuts. I’m not even going to feign modesty: these cookies are the apotheoses of cookies. Make sure you have at least two reserved per person because eating one is never going to be enough – be warned.
This the perfect non-picnic picnic cake. It’s light with a cloudy vanilla sponge, and laced with fresh cherries which burst in your mouth and whose astringency perfectly cut through the smooth rich vanilla-cream. I keep the cherries fresh and unadulterated so as to keep the cake not too sweet, with a hint of cherry jam just to counter too much acidity.
It throws 5:2, Keto, raw food, Mediterranean and intermittent fasting out of the window. If you’re disillusioned with all those malware-laden pop up adverts on illegal streaming sites that you secretly clicked on promising flat belly magic trick, let me right that for you.
All those Instagram/YouTube stars chronicling the secrets to peachy bums, thigh gaps, hotdog legs and concave stomachs have been holding back their industry secrets. It’s not food groups that need to be cut out, but letters. All the foods (and often drinks) that stand in the way of a lean, rippling bikini bod have something in common: biscuits, cookies, bread, chocolate, cake, bagels, beer, cocktails, champagne, and brownies. Yes. That’s right – you’ve wasted money and/or time logging on to My Fitness Pal, consulting dieticians, and calorie counting when I have just given you the secret to fat loss. Cut out the Bs and Cs and you are on your way to fitfluencer stardom.
Turns out feasting on gulab jamun, breakfast, lunch and dinner dosas, curry upon curry, daily afternoon tea and even straight up jaggery does that to you. This drastic increase from two to five months’ gestation in the space of two weeks, plus a stomach of steel allowing evasion of the revolting bug that had churned up the rest of my family’s insides, meant that a new diet and regime was mandatory. And when my dad commits to something, he is an all-or-nothing person. And let me tell you, cutting out B and C foods is far easier than you might think. In fact, it’s practically seamless. Don’t worry about cheat meals or relapses because this is a diet that works perfectly with whatever lifestyle you were already leading.
He heroically turned down the molten chocolate brownies that I brought into work. He didn’t even respond to me when the exotic perfume of these thick, soft and chewy spice cookies wafted round the house (commendable).
His resolve has been so strong that cookies are now banned from our house, as are bagels, biscuits, chocolate and brownies.
My dad has had five of these spice ookies today and he’s still fully committed to the diet - and so can you. Just like that one calorie that gets left floating in the can when you have diet coke, so all the muffin-top inducing calories are left behind when the B and C’s are seamlessly spliced from your favourite treat.
There’s no freezing, chilling or resting meaning that they can go from flour packet to final product-in–mouth in about half an hour (pausing en route for some of that dough). I know cookies can be a very subjective, personal and emotional topic, but these are undeniably the top tier: slightly crisp on the outside and soft thic(cc)k and chewy. If you fear that the batch may disappear before you get a look in, feel free to double it – the results will be the same. They can also be stored in an airtight container in a freezer for up to three months which is ideal if you want to whip them out for unexpected occasions (emergencies).
220g white spelt flour (or plain white flour, if you prefer)
2 ½ tsp baking powder
60g caster sugar
1 tsp ground ginger
½ tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 ½ tsp baking soda
100g unsalted butter, at room temperature, roughly cut into cubes
100g golden syrup
20g treacle
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp mixed spice
large baking tray lined with baking parchment
1) Preheat oven to 160°C.
2) If using a food processor (super quick), pour in all the dry ingredients and whizz to combine. Then add in the butter and pulse until the mixture becomes like damp sand. If making by hand, in a large bowl stir together dry ingredients. Then add in the butter and rub into the dry mixture with your fingertips until it reaches a damp sand-like consistency.
3) In a small pan over a low heat, pour in the syrup and treacle, and stir until combined and warm. Pour into the sand-like mixture, and pulse until it just about comes together into a dough, taking care not to over mix. If making by hand, pour the treacle into the sand-like mixture, and stir together until it forms a dough.
4) Make the cookies by breaking off pieces of the dough with your hands and rolling them into a sphere. I make each one 35g to ensure that they bake consistently. Then space the spheres on a baking tray at least 5cm apart. Place in the preheated oven to bake for 8-12 minutes until golden but soft to the touch. They will continue to bake once removed from the oven so taking them out slightly underdone ensures that they have a chewy centre.
5) Allow to cool before eating (they will be too friable when straight out of the oven), then devour. Once cool, they can be kept in a sealed airtight box in a freezer for up to 3 months.
Specifically, it is a celebration of stretched earlobes, whether those of an 85-year-old glamazon who refuses to compromise on opulence in pursuit of practicality or pain avoidance, and has transformed the once-small piercing pin pricks into gaping chasms by the weight of her bejewelled, solid gold hoops. Or the nonchalant indie who has plugged and gouged and strained their lobes to form human wind tunnels.
They are a rare sight in the UK, only occasionally vaguely mimicked by the odd fougasse dangling in the windows of French bakeries. Though related to those that are more common sighted, Jerusalem bagels are elegantly elongated, less chewy, more fluffy, yet with a crusty exterior (I’m on the topic of bread now, not lobes). And the Jerusalem bagel is in no way a lesser version – being a rarer breed and a much more fun shape to nibble (yes, still on bagels), I actually prefer them. They are also easier to bake: the absence of the boiling stage means less room for error, and no witch-hunting of wet doughy rounds, bobbing up and down and falling apart in vats of boiling water.
These are extremely simple, and though the process from flour to end-product takes a while, they are very undemanding in terms of action – the sesame seed dipping is, in fact, rather satisfying from a pre-school art class perspective. Feel free to halve the mixture if you want fewer bagels, though they are so delicious and addictive it’s probably not worth it.... Also, do have a play around with ingredients: you could try poppy, flax, sunflower, or nigella seeds, as well as sprinkling the bagels with cheddar cheese or parmesan if you aren’t vegan.
Makes 20
Ingredients
750ml warmed, unsweetened almond milk (can substitute with oat, or another neutral-flavoured, unsweetened plant-based milk)
21g active dry instant yeast (3 sachets)
60g caster sugar
500g strong white flour (+ extra flour for dusting surfaces)
500g white spelt flour
4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp olive oil
100g white sesame seeds
15g black sesame seeds
4 tbsp boiling water
2 tbsp pomegranate molasses
1 tbsp agave syrup (or honey if you’re not vegan)
3 baking trays lined with baking parchment
Method
1) In the bowl of a mixer fitted with a dough hook, or in a large stand-alone bowl, stir together warmed milk, yeast and sugar. Pour in all the flour (apart from that to be used for dusting the surface), salt and baking powder and stir to combine into dough.
2) If using a mixer, knead the dough for about five minutes on a low speed with a dough hook. If making by hand, pour the dough onto a lightly floured surface, and knead by hand until soft, smooth and springy. It may be slightly sticky, but try to avoid adding too much flour as this will make the bagels dry and tough. Even if I use the dough hook, I take the dough out to knead by hand for the last minute.
3) Coat the inside of a bowl with the olive oil, place the dough inside and cover with cling film or a tea towel. Allow to rise in a warm place for about an hour, or until it has doubled in size.
4) When the dough has risen, punch it down and turn it on to a lightly floured surface. Divide the dough into 20 pieces. You can approximate this by quartering the dough and dividing each quarter into five pieces. Or you can weigh it: each piece should be about 85g. Then gently roll each into a ball. To make the Jerusalem bagel shape, take each ball of dough and press your thumb through the centre to create a hole. Whilst keeping the dough even in diameter, gently stretch the hole into an oval so the bagel is about 11 cm long. Place each back on the floured surface and allow to rest and rise for 15 minutes.
5) Preheat the oven to 200C. Make the topping by mixing the water, pomegranate molasses and agave/honey in a bowl. Then pour the mixture into a small tray or large flat-based bowl. On another tray, mix together the black and white sesame seeds (or whichever other seeds you are using). Taking each bagel lobe, dip it first (on one side only) into the water molasses mix, then into the sesame, so that one side is coated in sesame seeds. Then place it on the tray lined with baking parchment. If the bagel stretches a bit, that is fine. Repeat with the rest of the bagels, spacing them at least 3 or 4cm apart, and allow them to rest again for a further 10 minutes.
6) Place them in the oven to bake for 10-15 minutes until they are deep golden and crusty on the outside. Once baked, transfer the bagels to a baking rack to cool. They are best eaten on the day of baking (and it will be a miracle if they last beyond a day). However, if you want to save them for another time, you can freeze them as soon as they have cooled for up to three months in an airtight container.
If I told you that a vegan, refined sugar-free, protein-rich, wheat-free, ancient-grain (and if you so desire, gluten-free) cookie existed, you’d think it was the stuff of myth and legend or, alternatively, something so disgusting that it couldn’t be deemed edible.
Well, it does exist.
After an overindulgent stay in NYC, I made these for my birthday. They aren’t overpoweringly sweet, and they aren’t going to be equivalent to the 500 calories a pop thick, fudgy cookies you see in bakeries. However, they are delicious in their own right, soft and just sweet enough. Plus, being vaguely healthy automatically entitles one to devour 5x the quantity. In fact, for a snack to be officially deemed a source of protein, it needs to contain 6g protein. Well, 3 of these cookies contain just that.
They are extremely quick to conjure up and would be good for that weak-point, late afternoon slump when you crave something sweet, and delicious, too, paired with a (vegan) ice cream for dessert, or even with a wedge of stilton and a dollop of pear compote if you’re going down the non-vegan route. If you want a slightly more savoury option, substitute the dates with figs as in the photos.
Ingredients (makes 20 medium cookies)
160g pitted medjool dates, roughly chopped (about 10) (if you want a more savoury cookie, substitute dates with figs, as per the photos)
4 tbsp orange juice
4 tbsp water
1 tsp vanilla
½ tsp finely grated orange zest
80g smooth peanut butter
200g spelt flour (or gluten free flour)
½ tsp mixed spice
¼ tsp salt
baking tray lined with baking parchment
4-5cm round cookie cutter
Method
1) Pre-heat oven to 180°C
2) Place the chopped dates, orange juice, water, vanilla extract and orange zest in a small pan over a medium/high heat and allow to come to a boil. Stir continuously for about 4/5 minutes until all the liquid has evaporated and the dates have turned into a thick, sticky pulp.
3) Place the date mixture together with the peanut butter in a blender and pulse until smooth. Pour in the spelt flour, mixed spice, and salt and pulse until it comes together to form a slightly sticky dough.
4) Lightly flour a board and roll out the dough to a 0.5cm thickness. Stamp out cookies with the cutter and place on the baking tray. Bake in the oven for 7-10 minutes until firm and slightly golden. Allow to cool, then devour.
- Drowning in a vat of sticky bread dough would probably be the worst way to die.
- When you sieve icing sugar and it puffs into the air in clouds, how many calories are there in one mouthful of air?
- Why do so many obscure meats taste like chicken and not beef?
- What is the significance of sometimes craving baby food - especially rusks, and pureed apple and banana?
- Why do we delude ourselves that avocado on toast has been ‘smashed’? I’ve never seen anyone smash an avocado. I suppose ‘smeared’ doesn’t have the same ring to it.
- If I could subsist on one food for the rest of my life it would most likely be oats.
- Nandos’ ‘hot’ sauce is anachronistic. It was created about 20 years ago and people’s (i.e.my brother’s and my) tolerance for heat has gone up. They should downgrade it to ‘medium’.
- What was the exact moment when someone decided to put sugar, milk, butter and flour together to make the very first cake?
- How do you know nigella seeds are nigella seeds and not mouse droppings?
- If 2017 was the year of slime porn, why can’t 2018 be the year of dough porn?
- Earlier this year some pig farmers tried to halt the use of pig terminology as connotative of greed. Imagine if other farmers were to do the same: we couldn’t exclaim something was cheesy, or call people ugly cows, or ask people with whom we’re angry if they want beef, or complain that bland people are vanilla, or exclaim that someone is mutton dressed up as lamb, or taunt cowards as being chicken…
- How many times in my life has a waiter spat in my food on purpose?
- Why do I have six jars of preserved lemons in my cupboard when I only use a small shaving of one once a year?
- The smell of freshly baked bread should be a perfume.
That’s enough musing for one day.
Here’s the recipe for an exceedingly luscious cake. It is succulent, and filled with roasted strawberries so that there is at least one deliquescing in every bite. The berries on the surface turn almost jam-like in the oven. Absurdly quick and easy to make, it is totally moreish.
NB. This cake can be made gluten-free by substituting the flour for gluten free.
Serves 6-8 (depending on level of greed)
85g unsalted butter, at room temperature
160g caster sugar + 2 tbsp for the topping
1 large egg
120ml milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
190g white spelt flour (or gluten-free equivalent)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
400g strawberries, after having been hulled and halved
20cm diameter round springform cake tin, either totally lined with baking parchment (if you’re feeling lazy and you don’t mind crinkly cake sides), or thoroughly greased with butter and the base lined with a circle of baking parchment
1) Preheat the oven to 180°C.
2) Either by hand or in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle, beat the butter and sugar together until soft, light and fluffy (which should take about three minutes). Then pour in the egg, milk and vanilla extract and beat to combine. It may look slightly curdled but that is not a problem.
3) Into the wet ingredients sieve the flour, baking powder and salt. Gently fold the dry ingredients through until the batter is smooth and fully combined. Pour into the prepared cake tin.
4) Arrange the strawberries cut side down in the batter. You make need to overlap some or push some down to fit them all in. Sprinkle the 2 tbsp of caster sugar over the top and place in the oven.
5) Bake for 45-55 minutes (depending on oven), checking after 30 minutes. You may need to cover the top with aluminium foil if the surface looks at risk of becoming too dark. When ready, the top should be a deep gold and a cake tester should come out batterless (moisture from the strawberries will prevent it from coming out totally clean).
6) Allow to cool on a wire rack and devour on the day, or within two days, of baking.
(Adapted from Smitten Kitchen)
A trip to Toronto when I was seven years’ old is anchored for me by one thing: not the CN tower, or Niagara Falls or my cousin’s wedding, but a visit to the farmers’ market, and in particular, a potentially life-changing stall. A tall, russet-cheeked man was in command, his floured apron stretched taught over his protuberant belly.
And on his table lay not the garish, sprinkle- speckled swirls that would have drawn a normal child. Instead, tray after tray of rubbly slabs of oat and date crumble bars were arrayed.
The date layer of the bars was jaw-clenchingly sticky, and thick – not like the mean, shop-bought equivalent. The oaty outer layers were both crunchy and then soft, golden and not overly sweet, allowing the natural date sweetness to shine through.
. For the last seventeen years I’ve been raiding bakeries and markets, seeking to relive the experience, but the date and oat crumble bars always disappoint – too saccharine, too solid, too floury. In between raids, I’ve been working on my own: these are the closest I have come to Toronto’s best kept secret. I added the crushed amaretti to give them a little twist. Feel free to leave the sugar out of the crumble if your palate is adjusted to the less-sweet.
It’s incredibly hard to resist them when they emerge from the oven golden and crisp, but I think they taste even better when they have cooled and the flavours are more distinct (or maybe try them both ways, just to be sure…).
NB. They can be made gluten-free by substituting gluten-free flour for spelt.
Ingredients
Date filling
400g medjool dates, pitted & roughly chopped (about 20)
3 tbsp fresh orange juice
120ml water
2 tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp mixed spice
½ tsp finely grated orange zest
Crumble
250g oats
120g butter
100g wholemeal spelt flour
50g dry amaretti biscuits
40g light brown muscovado sugar
¼ tsp mixed spice
½ tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp salt
A square 20cm baking tin (or tin of equivalent area), lined with baking parchment, with sides and base fully covered.
Method
1) Preheat oven to 180°C
2) Place all ingredients for the date filling in a pot and place on a medium heat. Stir as the mixture begins to simmer. After about 5 minutes, when the dates have broken down into more of a paste and all the water has evaporated, remove from the heat and set aside.
3) Pour all the crumble ingredients into a blender and pulse until the mixture still has some texture and is slightly coarser than sand.
4) Pour 2/3 of the crumble mixture into the base of the tin, and, with your fingers or the back of a spoon, press the mixture down evenly across the base of the tin until firm and compact. Pour the date filling over and spread evenly across the base. Then pour over the remaining crumble mixture and press down until even and as compact as possible.
5) Place in oven to bake for 15-20 minutes until golden and firm to the touch.
6) Slice and allow to cool before devouring. Keeps well in an air tight container in fridge for up to 5 days, or in freezer for 2 months (also tastes delicious when frozen).
I feel immense joy when I see canapés floating along the horizon of a wine-soaked room. Salty, crunchy, flavour-filled bites to pop into your mouth and stave off hunger. But in reality, the canapés path is far more obstacle- laden. Here are a few of the typical scenarios that I have endured, or have watched others enduring:
The following will help you steer clear of the above pitfalls: small, savoury and succulent, these are the perfect canapés. Indeed, they are suitable for consumption at any time. They are crisp on the outside and soft and light inside, flecked with molted feta and cheddar, and with a hint of the more exotic nigella seeds. This recipe makes 18 but I would urge you to double it as they are so addictive. They are also ridiculously easy and quick to conjure up.
NB. these can be made gluten-free by simply substituting spelt flour with gluten-free)
Ingredients
100g sour cream
2 tbsp milk
80g mature cheddar cheese, grated
80g feta, roughly diced into 0.5cm cubes
50g unsalted butter, cold and roughly diced into ¾ cm cubes
200g white spelt flour (can substitute with plain flour or gluten-free)
¼ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp nigella seeds
[optional: ½ tsp cayenne pepper]
1 egg, beaten, to glaze
1 large baking tray lined with greaseproof paper
Method
1) Preheat oven to 200°C. In a large bowl by hand, or in a food mixer fitted with a paddle, briefly mix together the sour cream, milk, cheddar, feta and butter. Pour in the flour, baking powder, salt and nigella seeds (and cayenne if using), and mix until just combined into a dough. You may need to knead the dough by hand very slightly for it to come together.
2) Place dough onto a floured surface, pat into a square and roll it out to roughly 2.5cm thickness. Slice the dough into nine squares, like a noughts and crosses board, and then slice the squares diagonally to form 18 triangles.
3) Arrange the triangles on the baking tray, leaving at least 3cm between them. Brush them lightly with the beaten egg and place in the oven to bake for 15-20 minutes until golden on the outside. They are best devoured immediately or on the day of baking.
Adapted from Honey & Co's "Food From the Middle East" recipe for Bouikos
Maybe they think that all the gluttony and swollen stomachs affect our ability to digest information, that all the turkey/mince/fruit/chocolate/stuffing becomes blinding and we are no longer able to read paragraphs of text. Instead, we have to have things numbered so as to reassure us that whatever we are reading won’t detract too long from the Christmas stasis.
Every newspaper or magazine clearly has some greedy journalist on its team who takes it upon him or herself to rate every mince pie out there to save us all the hard work. Then the subjective lists are compiled and played back to us year after year, despite the foods remaining the same, in the identical, consumable, numbered format.
In response to this, and inspired by an affront to my eyes when opening the newspaper magazine this weekend, I thought I would do a light review of the food adverts themselves:
Apparently, it’s for fruit lovers: congealed, glistening and with blood/jam trickling through its rivulets. But what is it? Depends how you like your desserts, but I’ll pass.
1/5
I know Christmas is supposedly about family and coming together, but the picture of “grandma” with a prawn coming out of her head doesn’t conjure up any feelings of warmth for me
1/5
I’ve caught members of my family spooning Boursin directly into their mouths. I was cynical at first about their Christmas rebrand with the addition of the “merry” epithet. But somehow, heady with garlicky creaminess, it has caught on in my household – we are now asking each other whether we’d like some “Merry Boursin” on our toast.
4/5
Lidl has gone down the particularly salivating route in showing us the turkeys pre-slaughter. They are relaxing free range by a bale of hay with the sun shining to stained glass effect through the translucent wattles. Delicious.
0/5
Anyway, with all this Christmas “magic” abounding (and as a remedy for all this gaudiness), we might as well move on to an actual “magic” cake. Making a cake is magical enough, but there is a childlike joy when you put a homogeneous mix into the oven and it emerges, burnished, in perfectly ordered layers. This particular magic cake is like a perfectly formed French entremet, but without the effort. All it requires is eggs to be separated and whisked and somehow it all falls into place. When making the speculoos topping, I would advise making a bit extra to allow some innocent “sampling” during the process (it’s ambrosial).
Ingredients
Speculoos layer
300g Speculoos cookies + 100g for decoration
220ml unsweetened condensed milk
¼ tsp salt
Cake
3 eggs, separated
75g caster sugar
90g unsalted butter
50g plain flour
¼ tsp salt
300ml milk
4 small pears, peeled, cored and diced into 1cm cubes
21cm square cake tin (or round tin with similar area) fully lined with baking parchment. It doesn’t matter if the tin is marginally larger or smaller
Method
1) Preheat the oven to 150°C
2) Put all the ingredients for the speculoos layer into a blender and blitz until smooth, and set aside.
3) Melt the butter and set aside to cool. In a bowl (if doing by hand) or electric mixer beat the sugar with the egg yolks until thick and pale. Pour in the butter and 150g of the Speculoos layer and gently combine. Then sieve in the flour and salt and fold to combine. Pour in the milk and combine.
4) In the bone-dry bowl of an electric mixer or by hand, whisk the egg whites vigorously until they thicken and hold their shape in stiff peaks. Very gently fold them into the batter, taking care to preserve the aeration.
5) Scatter the diced pear evenly on the bottom of the cake tin, then gently pour the batter on top. Smooth the surface with a knife and place in the oven to cake for 35 minutes. The cake will still be soft when you remove it from the oven but this is how it is meant to be. Put it onto a rack to cool to room temperature, then place in the fridge for an hour to set.
6) To serve, lift the cake out of the tin on the serving plate using the baking parchment and remove baking parchment. I choose to slice off the cake edges in order to better expose the layers. Spread the remaining speculoos layer on top and over it crumble the decorative speculoos cookies.
Recipe adapted from "Magic Cakes" by Christelle Huet-Gomez
Adorned with dew drops of glaucous fruits, the damson tree was innocent in its fairy tale perfection. Plump and firm, tart and succulent they were ideal contenders for picking. There seemed at first glance to be very few, but as the minutes rolled by, our bags heavier and the ladder creaking, the tree continued to proffer its bounty. The result: 6kg of damsons and a swollen stomach from ones that never quite made it into the bag.
Our supply of sugar rather pitiful in the wake of the unsurpassed abundance, I heaved an Olympian quantity back from the supermarket. The one bag that decided to split has left a coating of sticky grit on any coins that I dig out of the corners of my bag.
Then on to the stove went the damsons, the heated sugar and a touch of water. They blistered, bubbled and broke out of their skins. The stones rose to the surface like witches on trial and had to be picked out one by one. Meanwhile the mixture boiled and thickened, giving off a foamy pink effervescence that I carved off as it supposedly tastes slightly bitter (although I rather enjoyed spooning it directly into my mouth). Then as it reached its rich amethyst depths and a satisfying viscose texture, I took it off and poured it into the sterilised jars: therapeutic and deeply satisfying…the first-time round.
But as I tried to leave the kitchen I was bludgeoned with another 3kg worth of damsons. I was pelted, too, with threats of waste and rotting fruit if I didn’t make jam immediately. The kitchen became heated with the upset from my father who had cultivated and nurtured the tree for years.
So, I gave in and became a slave to the damson tree once more, boiling, straining, stirring pouring. And now we have half a fridge thronging with jar upon jar of jam. And what does one do when he or she has a year’s supply of jam? Well, I find eating it straight from the jar perfectly acceptable, but others need a medium as an excuse. So I made scones. These are not the dry, stale and overly sweet ones that leave you desperately seeking a currant to relieve you from the accumulating doughy mass at the top of your palate. These are soft, light, moist and crumbly. Rustic in shape, they are best eaten immediately or on the same day (though it is unlikely they will survive longer).
500g white spelt flour (can be substituted with plain)
4 ½ tsp cream of tartar
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
(optional: 2 tbsp sugar if would like them sweet)
1/2 tsp salt
125g cold unsalted butter, diced
300ml milk
1 egg, beaten, for egg wash
6cm round cookie cutter
Large baking sheet, lined with baking parchment
Method
1) Preheat the oven to 220°C.
2) Into a large bowl sift all the dry ingredients. Add in the butter and with fingertips rub it into the dry ingredients until like damp sand. Pour in the milk and very gently fold in until just combined (there may still be pockets of flour).
3) Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead it lightly for about 10 seconds. Roll out to a 3cm thickness and then cut out as many scones as possible. Lightly re-knead the scraps of dough and roll out once more to cut out the last remaining scones. Space them out on the tray and blush with the beat egg. Place in oven to bake for 8-10 minutes until they are shiny and golden.
Damson Jam Recipe (makes about 3kg, 9 jars)
NB. This recipe can be adapted for any number of damsons by maintaining the ratio
2kg damsons (slightly under-ripe and not too soft)
2kg sugar
200ml water
9 jam jars, sterilised
Method
1) Pour sugar into an over proof dish and place in oven heated to a low temperature (around 120°C) while the damsons are prepared. Place a couple of small plates into a fridge to cool – these will be used to check the jam’s consistency later.
2) Grease a large stainless-steel pot with butter to prevent the fruit from sticking. Then pour in the damsons and water and stew over a medium-low heat, stirring gently until the damsons’ skins break. Pour in the warmed sugar and stir over medium-low heat until the sugar has dissolved.
3) Increase the heat to medium-high and allow to boil (controllably), stirring occasionally to prevent the fruit from sticking. After a few minutes, as the fruits break down, a pink foam will rise to the surface. Using a slotted spoon, siphon this off into a bowl. If some remains it won’t ruin the jam, it just doesn’t taste as pure as the rest. Then, as the stones begin to rise up, siphon off those too.
4) After about 15 minutes of boiling, when all the stones have been removed, pour a teaspoon of the liquid onto a cold plate. Let it sit for about a minute then tilt the plate, if the liquid is no longer watery, with a viscosity between a sauce and a jam, and wrinkles when pushed with the finger, it is set. For the more scientifically-minded, it should be 105°C on a sugar thermometer. Pour the jam into the sterilised jars and allow to come to room temperature before sealing them with lids.
This is the cinnamon apple crumble pie 2.0. Tried, tested, and enhanced...
Soft, crunchy, crumbly, fresh, sweet, and on the cusp of sour – the Gail’s Bakery apple crumble cake is what I crave. It’s the ultimate winter treat, although I gaze longingly through the bakery window at them year-round.
I bought the Gail’s Artisan Bakery Cookbook a few months ago in the hope that they had divulged the secret of their signature apple crumble cake. They hadn’t.
As a result I’ve just had to develop my own recipe – more wholesome, with more cinnamon and less sugar, I’ve heard they may even be superior…
Ingredients
(Makes 15)
Pastry
320g (11.3 oz) wholegrain spelt flour
110g (3.9oz) icing sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp salt
165g (5.8oz) butter, roughly chopped into cubes
1 large egg, beaten
Apple Filling
700 (1lb 5oz) grams of peeled, cored and coarsely grated Bramley apples (about 3 large apples)
70g (2.5oz) caster sugar
Crumble topping
80g (2.8oz) wholegrain spelt flour
45g (1.6oz) oats
45g (1.6oz) caster sugar
50g (1.7oz) butter
2 tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp salt
15 hole muffin/cupcake tin, greased (usually they come in 12s, in which case you will need 2 x muffin trays
Method
Pastry
Apple Filling
Crumble
Assembly
Afternoon tea. What do you think of when someone says those words? Tiers of fluffy isosceles sandwiches, miniature entremets layered with fruit, caramel, and chocolate, and maybe a scone glistening with strawberries. Crisp napkins, high ceilings, the tinkling of fine bone china…
Near where I live there is an Austrian tea room. The window is filled with garish glace cherry- adorned, deflated pastries, crusted squiggles of festering cream, and opera cake melding into a brown sludge. It opened 60 years ago, and the décor and pastries appear not to have been refreshed since.
Inside, it is dark and cramped, and the airless atmosphere is thickened with hot breath and the oversweet smell of fat and sugar.
Their Linzer biscuits, however, remind me of Jammie Dodgers – those jam-filled, shortbread biscuits of my childhood that only other people’s mothers allowed – and inspired me to re- interpret them.
These have a slight Moroccan edge: spiced, delicate with a slight chewiness, filled with the tangy conserve of your choice.
I like marmalade for the tart/bitter contrast against the sweetness of the pastry, but strawberry also works well. Of course, you can go for any shape, but I am rather taken by the cog-like –quirky take on a Jammie Dodger look.
Ingredients
290g (10.125 ounces) white spelt flour (or plain flour if unavailable)
140g (5 ounces) ground almonds
100g (3.5 ounces) caster sugar
¼ tsp salt
2 ½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp ground cloves
¼ tsp almond extract
1 tsp grated lemon zest (about ½ lemon)
1 tsp grated orange zest (about ½ medium orange)
225g (8 ounces) unsalted butter
200g (7 ounces) marmalade or jam of choice (I used marmalade and strawberry)
30g (1 ounce) icing sugar
Large and small cookie cutters (I used 7cm and 3.5cm diameter rings)
2 large baking sheets, lined with baking parhcment
Method
What’s your crumble-to-fruit ratio? If you’re the kind who favours a preponderance of stewed fruit with an insubstantial fairy dusting of oaty-flour, turn away now. If you lean towards the lavish when it comes to crumble proportion - good. Read on…
I have experienced many a crumble: from damson to mulberry to cherry to apple, from autumn to winter to spring to summer. But regardless of the lusciousness of the interior, the crumbles that garner the most attention, that leave people scratching way at the remaining crumbs that have become forged to the side of the pan in yearning for more, are the ones with a superabundance of crumble topping.
Crunchy, nutty, warming and eminently comforting – this is what a good crumble should be. Enough so that you don’t worry about rationing the crumble in your bowl to suit the amount of fruit – enough so that every mouthful has a good proportion of both.
A good crumble, as with so many things, should leave you wanting more.
But what if you don’t want to have to face the risk of eating the whole pot by mistake – or at least you if do want to be able to eat the whole lot, do so in a more measured way?
What if you want to extend the experience beyond the comfort of your kitchen i.e. a portable crumble?
Try these – fruity, nutty, fresh, and summery, with a subtle tang and not overly-sweet. They are extremely quick and easy to make and, more importantly, the crumble–to-fruit ratio is verging on perfect…
Ingredients
Base
115g sugar
½ tsp baking powder
210g white spelt flour (substitute any flour of your choice: plain, gluten-free or otherwise)
115g unsalted butter, roughly chopped
½ egg
¼ tsp salt
Finely grated zest of 1/2 orange
Juice of ½ orange
2 generous cups of strawberries, quartered
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp vanilla bean paste (substitute with 1 tsp of vanilla bean extract if unavailable)
Crumble topping
20g unsalted butter
40g sugar
70g oats
30g finely chopped walnuts (remove if allergic)
50g white spelt flour (substitute with any flour of your choice, plain, gluten-free or otherwise)
Pinch of salt
20cm x 20cm tin lined with baking parchment (or a pan of similar area)
Method
How to bake and stay (reasonably) in shape.
I am often asked how it is that I am not obese. I am by no means super skinny, but people wonder how I avoid rolling around the place when I am seemingly baking the whole time and have little resistance to delicious things. So, here’s my secret. Have a go.
What I need: a running machine; a radio; an oven; a timer
What I do:
Pour the batter into the cake tin, lovingly smooth the surface over with a spatula. One lick of the spatula before it goes in the sink (just a little indulgence). Carefully open the oven door, and bend down slowly so that the batter remains level. Place the cake tin tenderly on the rack. Set the oven timer. 22 minutes. Then GO.
Run up the stairs, two at a time. That’s one minute either side to rush back down. Turn up the radio. Leap on to the treadmill, and run. 10 mph minimum. 20 mins to go. Sweat, pound, sweat. 15 mins. Beyoncé’s screaming. Oven beeps. Run back down (Beyoncé’s mumbling). Open oven door, skewer the cake. Damn - not cooked. Rip out a sheet of tin foil. Cover the cake. Burn hand. Set timer: 7 mins more. Repeat process until skewer comes out clean. Place cake on rack and allow to cool.
Stretch and shower.
Hover over the cake with a knife.
You can make the cake sans-icing by simply halving the recipe and, before serving, dusting with a little icing sugar.
Ingredients
Cake
200g butter, at room temperature
170g caster sugar
30g light brown muscovado sugar
2 tbsp ground coffee
¼ tsp salt
70g toasted walnuts, ground to a fine sand
4 large eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 ½ tsp instant coffee, dissolved in as little hot water as possible to make a smooth paste
240g self-rising flour, sieved
2 x 8 inch cake tins, greased and with bases lined with a circle of baking parchment
Coffee Syrup
40g golden syrup
50g caster sugar
2 tbsp instant coffee
100ml boiling water
Coffee Icing
300g butter, at room temperature
450g icing sugar
1 ½ tsp vanilla
2 tbsp instant coffee dissolved in as little hot water as possible to make a smooth paste
¼ tsp salt
Caramelised walnuts
60g walnuts
2 tbsp caster sugar
3 tbsp water
Method
Icing
Caramelised Walnuts
