Blackcurrant loaf

I'm desperately trying to use up the contents of the freezer before we move. Just before we came here, I ended up running down the road to my friend with an enormous plastic bag full of food from the freezer! I want to do a better job this time, so it's 'use up some blackcurrants' day!

I love teabreads and loafcakes, so was very pleased to find this recipe in a little book I bought ages ago from a NT shop. There's no author's name, and the book is called 'Favourite family teabreads and other delights'.

Here's the recipe which I've adapted.

100g fresh blackcurrants
275g sr flour [plus a bit for tossing the blackcurrants]
100g butter or margarine
100g caster sugar [and a bit for sprinkling on the top]
2 large eggs, beaten
a little milk

Preheat oven 160 fan/180C/350F/gas4

Grease a 900g [2lb] loaf tin

Rub the fat into the flour. Add the sugar then the eggs and stir together. The mixture should be fairly dry, but if it won't come together easily, add a little milk.
Put the blackcurrants in another bowl and toss them in a little flour [to stop them sinking to the bottom of the cake] then mix them into the dough.

This shows that tossing them in flour does work - no I didn't eat 2 pieces!

Put into the tin, sprinkle the top with some sugar and bake for about 45-50 mins till golden.

I used light brown caster sugar and added a little cinnamon to the dough, as I love it!

We still have several bags of blackcurrants left, so watch this space!!

Tomatoes

I don't plant tomatoes from seed as I only need 6 plants, so this year we bought a tray of 6 mixed varieties. These were - cherry tomatoes, vine cherry tomatoes, beef tomatoes, plum tomatoes, vine plum tomatoes and a round tomato I've forgotten the name of!

As we've had so much hot weather, they've been prolific and they've had a wonderful flavour. They've lacked water, and we've got a hosepipe ban, so I've been using the 3 water butts, now they've run out!

Bob picked yet more today, so I decided to make some soup with some and I made a starter with a few more.

These are some lovely plum tomatoes going into the oven to be roasted, just drizzled with olive oil. These will be for the soup.

This is the starter. It's not a good picture as it's from a French magazine.

It's mozzarella tomato gratin.

for 4 people you need:

6 tomatoes, 1 ball of mozzarella [125g],

4 tbns grated parmesan, 1 clove of garlic

4 stems of parsley, 4 stems of basil, 1 tspn thyme

evo, s&p

Preheat oven 160C/gas6/325F

Cut the tomatoes in 2 horizontally and put them on a greased baking sheet. Sprinkle them with the thyme, s&p and a glug of evo. Cook them for about 40 mins.

Grate the mozzarella coarsely. Chop the basil and parsley. peel and chop the garlic.

Mix these with the grated and parmesan and about 10cl evo. Spread this on the cooked tomaotes.

Put under a grill for about 5 mins. Serve warm. Great with grilled chops or steak.

Whoopie pies

I've seen a lot in magazines and online about whoopie pies so as I had some marshmallows in the cupboard, I thought I'd have a go at some.
This recipe comes from the June edition of Sainsbury magazine and is by Dan Lepard, one of my favourite bakers.
You'll find the recipe on Dan's forum here .
The recipe makes a lot of pies so I halved it. I think the pie is a cross between a biscuit and a cake. As there's no raising agent in the recipe, they don't rise very much. I just spooned the mixture on, but if you want a really good shape, you need to pipe them. Oh, and I added some grated lemon rind to the mixture.

The mixture for the pies is quite thick, thicker than the normal cake mixture.

The marshmallow were big ones, but they melted easily.     

                     

This is the melted mixture.

One very important thing, you must let this mixture go cold before adding the soft butter or it doesn't work! I was impatient and added the butter while it was still warmish and it didn't become a nice fluffy filling, just a runny one!

Only had pink marshmallows left,so my second attempt at the filling is yellow rather than white! But at least it worked this time.

I didn't put any icing on top, as the original ones don't have it and I thought they'd be too sweet.

They taste fine, but to be honest, I don't think I'd make them again. They certainly aren't the 'new cupcake' imho. Maybe a chocolate version would be better?

Saucy lemon pudding

My Mum used to make this when I was young, but I'd forgotten about it till I was looking in her recipe book the other day.
I thought it was magic because the mixture goes in mixed together and comes out as a sponge top and a lovely lemon sauce underneath. As I had a few lemons to use up it was the perfect pudd. for today. My husband  thought it was too sweet, and it does have a lot of sugar in it. Maybe I would use less another time.

3oz/90g soft margarine or softened butter
9oz/275g caster sugar
3 eggs, separated
3oz/90g sr flour
grated rind and juice of 2 lemons
3/4pt/425ml milk

Preheat oven 180C/gas4/350F

Grease a 2 pt/just over a litre pie dish.

In a big bowl beat together the margarine or butter, sugar, egg yolks, flour, rind and juice and the milk.

It might look curdled, but don't worry, all will be well. Mine wasn't curdled and I wondered what I'd done wrong!

Whisk the egg whites till they form soft peaks and fold this gently into the lemon mixture.

It looks a bit lumpy, but that's OK.

Pour this into the dish and put the dish in a roasting tin . Then pour enough hot water into the roasting tin to come half way up the sides of your dish.

Bake for about 45mins to 1 hour till golden.

Enjoy!

Apple and cinnamon scone round

Yet another apple recipe!  Am making the most of the Bramleys before we leave.

This is a nice easy recipe that you can make in a few minutes, if you need a cake in a hurry. It's another one from Mum's old handwritten book.

4oz/125g sr flour and 4oz/125g sr wholemeal flour
1 tspn baking powder
2oz/60g soft brown or demerara sugar
11/2 oz/45g diced butter or margarine
1 tspn cinnamon
1 medium Bramley apple [about 10oz/300g before peeling] peeled, cored and chopped
3-4 tbspn milk
extra demerara sugar for the top

Preheat oven 200C/gas6/400F

Grease a baking sheet.
Sift the flours into a bowl and rub in the fat.
Stir in the sugar and cinnamon and then add the chopped apple. You can, if you like, grate the apple, but I prefer it in chunks.
Mix it all together then stir in enough milk to make a soft dough.
Turn onto a floured board and shape into a 7"/ about 18cm round.
Mark it into 8 and then sprinkle the top with denerara sugar.
Bake it for about 25-30 mins.

Spicy topped apple cake

Yes, another apple cake! The apples are falling off the Bramley trees as there are so many of them, and it's been so hot.
I found this recipe in one of my Mum's old cookbooks. It was called a 'crunchy' topped cake, but it's not at all crunchy on top. It's not a spongecake base this time - more of a sweet pastry.

75g butter or margarine
175g sr flour
50g caster sugar
1 egg
75ml water
3 apples, peeled, cored and cut into wedges

topping

75g dark brown sugar
2 tspn cinnamon
25g butter of margarine

Preheat oven to 180C/gas4/350F
Grease and line a 20cm cake tin.

Rub fat into flour till it looks like breadcrumbs.
Stir in the sugar and mix in the egg and water to make a soft dough.
Spread this dough into the base of the tin.

Press the apple wedges into the dough and sprinkle with the sugar and cinnamon. Dot with pieces of butter of margarine.

Bake for about 30 mins till firm.

It's difficult to decide of the base is cooked as the top is soft from the melted butter. I cooked it for 40 minutes and it was cooked perfectly.

It wouldn't win any awards for 'best looking cake', but it tastes really good.

We ate it with some cream, but ice cream would be delicious too.

On the move!

We've sold the house again and hope to move back to the UK at the end of September.
Have just come back from a visit to family and friends and to see our new granddaughter - Emily Kristen.
She was 10 lbs at birth and has long feet and hands. Going to take after her Grandad I think, who's 6'6"!

We also went to look at some houses, and on our return, put in an offer on a house we'd seen twice, and it was accepted. We hope to complete on both houses at nearly the same time, so we can move back and get into the new house to redecorate. We'll rent a holiday cottage nearby until we've done what we want to do.

There's a lovely big kitchen in the new house so am looking forward to cooking in it. It has a gas cooker, and I've not used one for many years. Have had gas hobs in the last 3 houses and this house, but have had electric ovens.

Don't know this area very well, so am looking forward to a new chapter in our lives.

Lemon courgette cake

It's that time of year again - courgettes. They're so prolific that if you blink, you miss one, and it's become a marrow! We decided to only plant one plant, but it's still prolific. Reminds me of 'The day of the Triffids'!

I've tried a chocolate courgette cake, so wanted to find something different.

I found this recipe on the excellent site - http://www.allrecipes.co.uk/ and I tweaked it a bit.

200g grated courgettes
150g caster sugar
1 egg
125ml veg.oil
200g plain flour
1/2 tspn salt
1/2 tspn bicarb.
1/4 tspn baking powder
1 heaped tspn cinnamon
2 tspns lemon zest

Icing sugar and lemon juice if you want to ice it.

Preheat oven 160C/gas3
Grease a loaf tin.
In a bowl beat together the courgettes, egg, sugar and oil.
Sieve the flour with the baking powder and bicarb. then add the cinnamon and lemon zest. Stir this into the courgette mixture and gently mix together till just blended.
Pour into the tin and bake for about 40 mins.
Leave in the tin till cool, then turn onto a wire rack.

I made some lemon icing by mixing icing sugar and lemon juice, and poured it over.

You can peel the courgettes before grating, but I like the green specks in the cake.

Banana cake

I had 2 very ripe bananas to use up so decided to make a cake. It's very easy and delicious [I sound like Ina!].

2 ripe bananas [about 400g]
150g butter at room temperature
150g soft brown sugar
100g sultanas
300g plain flour
2 tspn baking powder
1/2tspn bicarbonate of soda
1 tspn cinnamon
2 medium beaten eggs
100ml vegetable oil

Preheat oven 180C/gas4/350F

Grease a 2lb/900g loaf tin
Peel and mash the bananas.
Put the butter and sugar in a bowl and beat together till fluffy. Stir in the bananas and the sultanas.
Sieve together the flour, baking powder and soda.
Add the flour mixture and the eggs to the banan mixture, adding about a third at a time of each.
Mix together well. Then stir in the oil.
Put into the loaf tin and bake for about 40 mins. Leave in the tin to cool and then put onto a wire rack.

I didn't have the 400g of bananas so used more sultanas. I also didn't use any oil this time and it's still a moist cake.

Blackcurrant pavlova

I've made lots of small meringues and meringue toppings, but this is the first time I've made a pav.

As it was Father's Day, and Bob's favourite fruit are blackcurrants, I decided to make him a treat.

The cream didn't whip as thickly as double cream, but it turned out fine.

This is the recipe I used, but I didn't swirl the blackcurrants throught the cream. Think I used more fruit too!

http://www.blackcurrantfoundation.co.uk/recipes_pavlova.html

Chocolate cake

 chocolate I fancied doing some baking this afternoon and having found a bar of 70% chocolate in the cupboard, decided to make a chocolate cake.
I tried a recipe from a book I've had for many years, but never used. It's Jane Pettigrew's 'Teatime - a complete collection of traditional recipes'. This is her 'Moist chocolate cake', but to be honest, I prefer my old Victoria sandwich recipe. We both found this cake rather dry, despite its buttercream filling.
If I try it again, I'll use less flour.

                                         

Didn't decide to blog about it till I'd cut us each a slice, and I'd had another one!

The recipe:

100g plain chocolate

150g butter of soft margarine

150g caster sugar

3 medium eggs

15ml [1 tbspn] milk

225g sr flour

Preheat oven 350F/180C/gas 4

Grease and line 2 x18cm [7"] sandwich tins.

Melt the chocolate over water or in a microwave.

Cream the fat and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

Stir the milk into the melted chocolate then add it to the mixture. Beat togther.

Fold in the flour. Mix well.

Pour into tins and bake for about 30 mins [my oven is hot and they were ready in 25mins] Leave to cool in tins and then turn onto a wire rack.

Make the filling:

15g softened butter

50g icing sugar + some for sifting on top

5ml [1 tspn] milk

1 tbspn cocoa powder

Cream the butter and icing sugar together then add the milk and cocoa powder. Beat well.

This amount is fine to sandwich the cakes together. It's half the amount given in the recipe.

You can sieve some icing sugar over the top to finish off the cake.

Dinnertime

Having packed all my cookery books into boxes ready for the move, I'm having to improvise my cooking. Decided to only unpack one box which has my favourite books in it.

Bought some turkey escalopes today, so decided to serve them with roasted veg. Breaded them with some of my home-made bread crumbs.

Have missed out on veg. eating whilst on our UK visit, so made up for it tonight. Used carrots, courgettes, shallots and sweet potatoes and some rosemary from the garden. We really enjoyed it.

Looks rather blurred! Haven't had any alcohol, honest!