Pain d'Epices au Miel - Honey Gingerbread.

I was inspired by a recent post on the excellent Strong as Soup blog          http://asstrongassoup.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/black-sticky-gingerbread-random-recipe.html  to look for a recipe my neighbour gave me for a gingerbread made with honey. This is a very different gingerbread from the dark moist one on Phil's blog.
The method is unusual in that you put the dry ingredients into a bowl, then heat the honey and pour it over.
It's got a good spicy flavour and as Phil said in his post, gingerbread is great for taking on an Autumn walk, or with your afternoon cuppa, or even as a dessert with some custard.
The original French recipe used 'quatre epices' but I don't think there's much difference between that and our mixed spice, and I found some ground aniseed in a local deli, but you could leave it out if you don't like it.

250g runny honey
250g plain flour
100g caster sugar
1 tspn baking powder
1 tbspn vanilla sugar
1 tspn ground aniseed
1 tspn grated nutmeg
1 tspn cinnamon
1 tspn ginger
1 tspn mixed spice
2 eggs
10cl of warm milk

Preheat oven.160C/gas3

Put the flour, baking powder,sugars and spices in a bowl.
Heat the honey in a microwave or in a saucepan then pour the hot honey over the flour mixture.
Mix together with a wooden spoon then add the eggs a little at a time, then the warm milk and mix together.
Grease and flour a 900g loaf tin then pour the mixture in and bake for 1 to 1hr 15mins till golden.
Leave to cool in the tin and wait 24 hours before eating.

This cake keeps well, up to a week, if you wrap it in foil, so a useful standby for Christmas. Maybe a little cinnamon or ginger icing would make it look more festive? But with this cake, it's all about the flavour - spicy with a lovely honey flavour too.

Welsh Harvest Cake

I went to a farmer's market yesterday and couldn't resist buying yet more apples. It's the time of the year for them, for pies, cakes, chutney, jam. What could I do with them that would be something different? I remembered some apple recipes I'd cut out of a magazines ages ago, so I looked through them and found this one. I'm sure there are many recipes for regional Harvest Cakes, but my being Welsh, this recipe seemed very appropriate, and it's not long since we had Harvest.The countryside around us has been buzzing with combines and tractors.
It's an unusual cake because the fruit is put in in middle like a sandwich filling, and it seems as if there's much too much fruit for the batter. But have faith, all will be well!

Preheat oven 180C/gas4 and grease and line a 18cm cake tin

Melt 175g butter with 175g soft brown sugar - don't worry if it's not all dissolved, but stir it. Cool for a bit then add 2 beaten eggs. Sift 225g sr flour together with 1 tspn mixed spice and 1 tspn cinnamon then add the melted ingredients and mix together.
Put 450g apples [this is the weight after coring and chopping] with 100 g of dried fruit [sultanas and currants] and 50g flaked almonds in a bowl and mix together.
Spoon half of the cake batter into the tin then add the fruit and nuts then spoon the rest of the batter on top. It looks an awful lot of fruit to mixture, but don't worry.
Smooth the top of the cake batter and bake for about an hour.
Leave it in the tin for about half an hour to cool then turn out onto a wire rack.

I served this as a pudding today with a little cream; the fruit was nice and juicy and the cake had a good hit of spices. A good cake to have in my folder. We'll try it cold tomorrow, and see which we prefer.

Indian Banana Yoghurt Cake

I wanted to make something different and this recipe fitted the bill. It was given to one of our friends when they were staying in an hotel in Mumbai and is supposed to be a good ending to a spicy meal.
I've made yoghurt cake before, such as the one using a yoghurt pot as a measure, but this is completely different; for one thing it uses ghee, clarified butter. There's a big Indian community locally so I was able to find it in one of the Indian shops, but I think I've also seen it in the supermarket.You can make your own - heat double the amount of butter you need and pour it into a dish. Allow it to cool for 15mins then carefully pour off the clear golden liquid on top - this is the ghee. You don't need the milk solids underneath.
The cake has an icing made with sour cream and icing sugar. I made a few changes to the recipe as I don't like dessicated coconut, which was used to coat the sides of the cake tin after they'd been greased. The leftovers were added to the cake mixture -I didn't do this, but I did toast some shredded coconut, which I also found in the Indian shop, and used it to decorate the top of the cake.
Here's the recipe - I don't know the name of the hotel B got it from, but thank you to them!

125g ghee
160g caster sugar
40g brown sugar
2 large eggs
3 medium bananas, very ripe
200g thick plain yoghurt
250g sr flour
1 tspn cinnamon
1/2 tspn mixed spice
Icing:
200g sour cream or creme fraiche
100g icing sugar
50g toasted shredded coconut to decorate [opt]

preheat oven 190C/gas5
23cm springform cake tin - greased and base lined

Beat the ghee and sugars together till creamy then add the eggs one at a time, beating well.
Mash the bananas and add to the mixture with the yoghurt, flour and spices. Stir well to mix together.
Spoon into the tin and level the top.
Bake for 45-55 mins till firm and springy.
leave to cool in the tin for 15mins then turn out onto a wire rack.
For the icing - mix the sour cream and icing sugar together till it's thick and spreadable, then spread over the top of the cake and sprinkle on the shredded coconut.

This is a very dense and rich cake, so cut it into small slices. It keeps well in an airtight tin.
I loved the texture, but found it rather sweet; I think Indian desserts are often very sweet, so would use less sugar if I made it again. The banana makes the cake moist, as does the yoghurt. The shredded coconut was a good addition, and gave it another texture. A cake with a difference to try, but maybe only for a special occasion.
To make the cake exactly as the recipe said, you also need 80g of toasted dessicated coconut. When you've greased the cake tin you pour in the coconut and tip the tin around to coat the sides. Tip out the what's left and add it to the cake batter.

Kitchen

We're having a new kitchen installed starting on the 28th, so today is my last day for using my oven.

Tomorrow, OH and friend are taking out the last part of the old kitchen which I've been hanging on to, the sink unit, dishwasher, cooker and washing machine.

From tomorrow, I'll have a microwave and a slow cooker in the dining room for 2 and a bit weeks.  What fun!

So I decided to have a bit of a Bake In today, last time in my gas cooker, as it will be looking for a new home on Freecyle. I'm having a new electric oven and gas hob. The gas cooker was in the house when we bought it, so we decided not to change it till we changed the kitchen.
The Bake In - I made some chocolate chip muffins, a banana loaf, cheese scones and a very easy Bara Brith - not using Gran's recipe, but one a new friend gave me.


  I made the cheese scones from the Good Food site; here's the recipe:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/cheesescones_1287

The banana bread recipe is on  here:

http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5128909220207442213#editor/target=post;postID=322625739046901167

The choc. chip muffins recipe is also on here, as a variation of the blueberry muffin one:

http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5128909220207442213#editor/target=post;postID=4498877915182098045

I'm not going to post photos of these.

You might like to try the easy Bara Brith loaf. It's an 'all in the pan together' sort of recipe.

300g mixed dry fruit
150g light muscovadi sugar
150g butter
200ml strong cold tea
50ml orange juice
275g sr flour
2 tspns mixed spice

preheat oven 180C/gas 4 and grease a 900g loaf tin.

Put all the ingredients except the flour and mixed spice into a big saucepan and heat gently till the sugar's dissolved and the butter has melted. Mix the flour and spice together and mix this into the saucepan. Make sure you mix it thoroughly.
Spoon into the tin and bake for about an hour till golden. Cool in the tin. This teabread will keep for a week if you wrap it in foil. I think it's best eaten a day after it's made, to give the flavours time to mingle, and it's easier to slice too! Serve it buttered, of course.





 It's so quick and easy to make, and it has a good firm texture and a nice lot of dried fruit. I used a tablespoon of mixed spice as we really like it.

So I won't be posting for a couple of weeks, unless I find a great recipe to make in the microwave or the slow cooker!  Promise I won't post microwave meringues or chocolate cake made in a mug!

Norfolk apple cake

I love apple cakes and am always very happy to find a new recipe. It's a very country looking cake with little chunks of apple and dried fruit. Nothing refined about it, but the taste is good. I love spices and this one has cinnamon and mixed spice.
It's made using the rubbing in method, and I found it difficult to get all the ingredients together. I didn't think I'd mixed it properly, but it came out fine. There's a lot of mixture for 1 egg!

400g apple chopped into dice
125g mixed fruit
125g brown sugar
125g butter
1 large egg
1 tspn cinnamon and 1 tspn mixed spice

Preheat oven 180C/gas4

Grease and line a 20cm springform tin.

Rub together the butter and flour till it looks like breadcrumbs.
Add the egg, sugar and spices and mix together.
Then add the apple and mixed fruit.
Bake for about 35 mins till the middle feels firm when you touch it.

I didn't have any mixed fruit so used raisins. You can see that the apple stayed in little chunks; it's very moist from the apples. It's more of a dessert cake than one to have with a cuppa; we had some with creme fraiche. I like it's chunky look and spicy flavour, and it's a cake I'll make again.