Tag Archives: baking

Baking with Raspberries

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I don’t see myself as much of a maker of puddings or desserts; I’m nervous about pastry and anyway, during the week there simply isn’t time to make a dessert.  In all honesty I’d rather bake a cake to have with a cup of tea in the afternoon and then just eat some chocolate to satisfy my sweet tooth at the end of a meal.  But, as I wrote here, I’m not eating chocolate anymore.

On Sundays, as I think I’ve mentioned before, my mother-in-law usually makes a pudding for us all.  I’ll make one if we have friends round or to take to friends if we’re invited to lunch or supper.  I’ll also make a dessert when it’s my turn to host book club or film club.

Raspberry and Cinnamon Torte

The raspberry and cinnamon torte I wrote about in my tumblr days is one of our favourites:

https://www.tumblr.com/annettehardy/124165468337/raspberry-and-cinnamon-torte-i-made-two-of-these

Bakewell Cake

This bakewell cake by Fay Ripley, which my Twitter friend @lesleyj28 alerted me to recently, could serve as a dessert or a teatime cake.  I pounced on the recipe because it contains everything that’s delicious and good about a bakewell tart (almonds, raspberry jam!) but no pastry.  I love pastry but (see above) don’t love making it.  Without the need to make pastry, this cake is mixed and baked in no time.  I used to watch Fay Ripley in Cold Feet on the telly (LOVED it) and had heard about her recipes but had not tried them before.  As I began to make this, I realised how similar it is to my torte.  It is a little more “cake-y” (two eggs instead of one), has jam in it and doesn’t contain cinnamon but apart from that it’s the same.  In fact, if I made it again, I’d probably replace the vanilla extract with cinnamon, but that’s just my personal preference.  Also – a small point – I didn’t have any flaked almonds in the cupboard so scattered over chopped almonds instead: a poor compromise on Fay’s recipe, we later all agreed.

Ingredients

  • 150g butter, softened
  • 150g golden caster sugar
  • 150g SR flour
  • 150g ground almonds
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 6 tsp raspberry jam
  • 150g raspberries (I used frozen because it was all I had)
  • 50g flaked almonds

Method

  • Grease a 22cm springform tin and base-line with bake-o-glide or baking parchment
  • In a mixer, food processor or with an electric hand whisk combine the butter, sugar, flour, almonds, eggs and vanilla extract (oh how I love the all-in-one method!)
  • Place half the mixture in the cake tin, smoothing it out, and dot the raspberry jam over, half a teaspoon at a time.  Scatter the raspberries over
  • Drop spoonfuls of the remaining mixture over the fruit but don’t worry if there are gaps; it will spread in the oven
  • Scatter over the flaked almonds
  • Bake for about 40 minutes in the Aga baking oven (or a little longer in a conventional oven at 180ºc).  Not easy to test this cake with a skewer because the raspberries make it a little wet in the middle.  It should be golden brown and springy to touch when done

Couldn’t be simpler.

 

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Raspberry Muffins

I love making raspberry muffins too, although I see them as more of a coffee or teatime thing than a dessert.  I also wrote about these on my tumblr:

https://www.tumblr.com/annettehardy/119691034322/muffins-not-cupcakes-this-time-but-im-rather

Simnel Cake

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Simnel Cake

Why not make this delicious fruit cake for Easter? As you probably know, simnel cake was originally baked for Mothering Sunday in the middle of Lent; girls in service would make one to take home to their mothers. I love it because it’s a fruit cake and lends itself to being baked slowly in the Aga, which makes for a very moist cake. Then there’s the marzipan which I adore almost as much as chocolate, and that’s saying something.

Last year my son’s lovely girlfriend made us a simnel cake, so we had two. No-one was complaining. The only problem for me was that she raised the bar and made her own marzipan, and now my youngest son says he doesn’t like shop-bought marzipan at all and suggested I make mine too. It really isn’t difficult and actually doesn’t take very long if you have a food processor.

Marzipan

This will make more than you need for the cake but I adore marzipan and was happy to have some left over. Disclosure: marzipan quantities given here are approximate. The balls on top can be as big or small as you like. The top circle can be as thick as you like. If you don’t want to make your own, I suggest you buy a 450g packet of marzipan.

  • 450g icing sugar
  • 450g ground almonds
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 1/2 tsps brandy
  • Juice of a lemon
  • 1/2 tsp almond extract
  • Simply  blitz all the ingredients in a food processor until it’s come together nicely
  • Tip this out onto a dusting of icing sugar on your worktop and knead it for a bit
  • Flatten it slightly, wrap it in clingfilm and put it in the fridge until you’re ready to use it

Simnel Cake

I used a Mary Berry recipe except that instead of placing a circle of marzipan in the middle of the cake, I folded small pieces of it into the mixture, à la Delia’s recipe.

Ingredients

  • 100g natural glacé cherries
  • 225g softened butter
  • 225g light muscovado sugar
  • 4 large eggs
  • 225g self-raising flour
  • 225g sultanas
  • 100g currants
  • 50g chopped candied peel
  • Zest of a lemon (MB says 2 lemons, but I didn’t want it too lemony)
  • 2 level tsps mixed spice
  • 200g marzipan, cut into small squares or rolled into balls and tossed in a little flour

Topping

  • 225g marzipan
  • 2 tablespoons of apricot jam
  • 1 large egg, beaten, to glaze

Method

  • Pre-heat a conventional oven to150ºC/Fan 130ºC/Gas 2
  • Grease a 20cm deep round cake tin, then line the base and sides with baking parchment or bake-o-glide
  • Put the cherries in a sieve, rinse under running water, drain and dry on kitchen paper. Cut into quarters
  • Measure all the cake ingredients into a large mixing bowl, except for the fruit and marzipan, and beat well until thoroughly blended. (I used my KitchenAid)
  • Fold the fruit into this mixture and then finally the pieces of marzipan
  • Spoon the mixture into your prepared tin and level the surface
  • Bake in a conventional oven for about 2.5 hours or the Aga simmering oven for 4-5 hours. This really depends on your Aga. The important thing is the cake is coming away from the sides a little, is well risen, evenly brown and firm to the touch
  • Leave to cool in the tin for 15-30 minutes
  • When the cake is completely cool, brush the top with a little warmed apricot jam and roll out marzipan to make a circle to fit the top. Press firmly on the top and crimp the edges to decorate. (You will see from my photos I made a bad job of this. You will do better.)
  • Mark a criss-cross pattern on the marzipan with a sharp knife. Form the remaining marzipan into 11 balls (representing the apostles minus Judas)
  • Brush the almond paste with beaten egg and arrange the balls around the edge of the cake
  • Brush the tops of the balls with beaten egg and then place the cake in the roasting oven (or under the grill) for 3 or 4 minutes, near the top, to turn the marzipan golden

 

 

 

 

 

Weekend Cooking

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It’s probably very dull and predictable that I almost always go food shopping on a Friday to get what we need for the weekend.  I know I’m not alone in this because I invariably bump into friends doing the same thing.  In fact, Waitrose can be a very sociable place on a Friday morning!

Sometimes meals have been planned and I’ve drawn up a shopping list of ingredients (on my phone – I add to it throughout the week), but some weeks I hope I’ll be inspired by something I see at the butcher’s or in the supermarket.  Last Friday was one of those times.  I bought duck breasts, half a shoulder of lamb and a kilo of minced beef in case I changed my mind about the duck breasts.  When in doubt, make a bolognese or a chilli, is my motto.  The mince is now in the freezer and I slow-roasted the lamb on Sunday.

Duck Breasts 

Because we were going to be watching the Six Nations rugby on Saturday afternoon, I wanted to keep my duck breast recipe simple.  I used two duck breasts for three of us.  If your duck breasts are as large as ours were, you need less than a whole one per person.

Score the fat of your duck breasts and season.  Peel and cut into cubes one medium potato per person and place in a roasting tin in a single layer.  Place the breasts in a cold, non-stick frying pan on the Aga simmering plate (conventional: medium heat) skin side down.  Cook for 8 minutes, pouring the fat as you go along into the roasting tin into which you’ve placed the potatoes.  It would be sensible to line the tin with bake-o-glide (I forgot) because the potatoes might stick a little (as mine did).

After the 8 minutes, place the now golden breasts skin side up on a rack over the potatoes in the roasting tin and cook in the roasting oven (conventional 220ºc) for a further 15 minutes for a pink centre.  If you prefer them well done, increase this time by 5 minutes or so.  Make sure all the delicious fat from the frying pan has gone into the roasting tin.

While this is happening put the frying pan back on the simmering plate and add about a glass of red wine and a little stock (whatever you have to hand; I used Marigold Swiss vegetable bouillon powder).  Let that bubble and thicken a little and then stir in some redcurrant jelly until melted.  I’m not giving you quantities here.  Just think of how many people you are serving; all you need is a little jus to pour over.

Pour the jus into a jug and keep this at the back of the Aga, take the duck breasts out of the oven and continue to cook the potatoes until they are golden brown, tender and crisp.  Keep the breasts warm; they need to rest for 5-10 minutes anyway before being sliced thickly and served.  We ate ours with buttered cabbage.

Best to slice it on a board before serving.
Served with buttered cabbage to serve.

 

If you like duck, I can also recommend this Chinese-style duck leg recipe by the excellent food blogger “Eat like a girl”.  It’s where I got the idea for the potatoes in the above dish.  I have made it many times, often for guests and a couple of times for 12 people: I just used two large Aga roasting tins in the roasting oven, one on the second set of rungs and one on the fourth, and swapped them over half way through cooking.  As I’ve probably mentioned before, I love dishes that can be cooked in one dish/pot/tin.  All you need to accompany this one is some pak choi stir-fried in a little oil with some soy sauce.

Tart

This weekend I also made this “Eat like a girl” Blueberry and Cardamom Frangipane Tart.  (More cardamom, I hear you say.  I’m not even going to apologise.)  She only posted the recipe this week so probably hasn’t had much feedback yet.  I can tell you we loved it.  It’s very Scandinavian and would work as a dessert, with morning coffee or afternoon tea.  I thoroughly recommend it.

 

 

 

Carrot Cake

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I thought it might be fun to do a “weekend bake” post every Friday, but then I remembered I’ve never got into the habit of baking a cake specifically for the weekend. I just bake when I feel like it, when I’ve got a bit of time and (very important this) when I know there are enough people around to eat my offering before it goes stale. There was a time when I’d bake something at least twice a week for when the children returned home from school.

Yesterday I saw a window and, having checked that I had all the ingredients in the pantry (I haven’t got a pantry but you know what I mean), I put my apron on and went for it.

I made Geraldene Holt’s carrot cake, which featured on Woman’s Hour two or three years ago. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear to be online anymore and I haven’t got her cake book, so I am very glad I had saved the recipe to Evernote. I’m no carrot cake expert but I do know that today’s incarnations are American in origin. Holt’s recipe veers a little from that by using melted butter instead of oil, but otherwise it seems to me to be authentic, all the way to the cream cheese frosting.

Ingredients

  • 150g butter
  • 200g light muscovado sugar
  • 175g carrots, grated as finely as you can (I don’t bother to peel them but feel free to do so if you prefer)
  • Finely grated zest of half an orange
  • 2 eggs
  • 200g self-raising flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp ground coriander
  • 1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 120g seedless raisins
  • 60g pecans, chopped (or walnuts)
  • 3 tbsp milk

For the frosting

  • 45g cream cheese
  • 175g icing sugar
  • 1-2 drops vanilla extract

Method

  • Butter and base-line (I use bake-o-glide) a 9 inch/23cm square tin
  • Melt the butter in a small bowl on the back of the Aga, or in a mixing bowl in the microwave
  • Beat the sugar, carrots, orange zest and eggs together with the melted butter
  • Fold in the flour sieved with the baking powder, spices and salt
  • Add the raisins, pecans and milk and mix until well combined
  • Tip the mixture into the prepared cake tin and level with the back of a spoon
  • Bake in the baking oven, with the rack on the floor of the oven, (or at 180ºC in a conventional oven) until the cake is springy in the middle and a skewer comes out clean. It takes just 30-35 minutes in my Aga. Holt gives a baking time of 60 minutes
  • Cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool
  • To make the frosting, beat the cream cheese until smooth, then gradually blend in the icing sugar until it’s spreadable. Add vanilla extract and spread over the cake. This makes a thin layer of icing, which is plenty, but this time, I used up the cream cheese I had left in the pot which turned out to be 75g. I just kept adding icing sugar until I felt the frosting was the right consistency. I know it’s naughty and unhealthy, but I enjoyed the cake even more with the thicker layer of frosting. As you can see, I “decorated” mine with pecan nuts.

This can be eaten straight away or left for a couple of hours to let the frosting set. To serve, cut it into squares.

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Ginger Cake

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Ginger Cake

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a fan of Felicity Cloake’s “How to cook perfect…” series in the Guardian. This afternoon I’ve had a lovely time trying out her ginger cake. The recipe appeals to me because it doesn’t contain any black treacle. I’m eating a slice with my cup of tea as I write this.

I followed Felicity’s recipe precisely and I’m very pleased with it, but I think one could get away with using the all-in-one method for this; I’d mix all the ingredients together in my KitchenAid except for the fresh and crystallised ginger which I’d fold in at the end. I baked it in the baking oven with the rack on the floor. After 30 minutes I put a piece of baking parchment on top and also slid in the cold plain shelf to cool the oven down a little.  Total baking time: 50 minutes.

Felicity Cloake’s “Perfect” Ginger Cake

Ingredients

  • 100g butter, plus extra to grease
  • 100g dark muscovado sugar
  • 175g self-raising flour
  • 4 tsp ground ginger
  • 175g golden syrup
  • 3 tbsp ginger wine
  • 2 large eggs, beaten
  • Walnut-sized piece of fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated
  • 150g candied (crystallised) ginger, finely chopped
  • 75g icing sugar
  • 1 piece of stem ginger, to decorate

Method

  • Grease and line a 23cm loaf tin
  • Cream together the butter and sugar with a pinch of salt until fluffy
  • Sift together the flour and ground ginger
  • Pour in the golden syrup and 1 tbsp ginger wine and mix to combine
  • Beat in the eggs, a little at a time, then gradually mix in the flour
  • Stir through the fresh and crystallised ginger and spoon into the prepared tin
  • Level the top and bake in the baking oven for about 50 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean
  • Allow to cool in the tin
  • When it’s completely cool make the icing by mixing together the icing sugar and remaining ginger wine and drizzle over the top of the cake. Slice the stem ginger thinly and arrange down the centre of the cake

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Apple Cake

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Just out of the oven and cooling before winging its way to the birthday boy in London.

I have made A LOT of apple cakes in my time.  Personally, I’d rather eat apple cake than crumble or pie.  It’s more versatile for a start, because it works well as a pudding and as a teatime cake.  My sons tease me about how I make a distinction between cakes that work as puddings and those that don’t.

The apple cake I made this morning is for my son W, who turns 26 tomorrow.  I remember lying on the maternity ward after he was born on 11 February 1990, watching Nelson Mandela walk to freedom on my neighbour’s tiny televison set.  But I digress.

Sadly, I will not be seeing W on his birthday this time.  I’m staying in Bristol to keep an eye on Granny.  But it’s fine, because we’re all getting together very soon.  His dad took the cake up to London with him this afternoon.

I discussed what cake W might like with his brother G, and we agreed apple cake was probably his favourite, and it didn’t matter that it’s perhaps not very birthday cake-y.  I decided to make this one.

We also love my Norwegian grandmother’s apple cake, which we eat all year round but ALWAYS on Christmas Eve; it’s tradition.  Perhaps I’ll let you have that recipe another time.

W has just been in touch to say they had some cake tonight because they’ll be at work tomorrow and eating out in the evening.  Any excuse!  Anyway, I hadn’t realised W hadn’t tried this particular apple cake before.  He says he loved it, especially the cardamom.  I’m glad they ate some today when it was at its freshest.  No-one wants to eat stale cake.

Mamma Moore’s Apple Cake

Grease and line the bottom of a 23cm/9″ springform cake tin

Ingredients

  • 225g self-raising flour
  • ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • Pinch of sea salt
  • Pinch of ground cardamom seeds (I grind them in a pestle and mortar)
  • A grating of fresh ginger or 1 tsp ground ginger
  • 100g cold butter, cut into small cubes
  • 450g cooking apples
  • a little lemon juice
  • 100g caster sugar
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 50g demerara sugar
  • 1 tsp cinnamon

Method

  • Sift flour, bicarb, salt and spices into a mixing bowl and mix thoroughly
  • Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs
  • Peel the apples and cut into small, thin pieces. Toss them in lemon juice as you go, to keep them from browning
  • Mix the apples, caster sugar and eggs into the butter/flour mixture and gently fold through until everything is thoroughly mixed
  • Turn into your cake tin and level off the top
  • Mix the Demerara and cinnamon and sprinkle over the batter
  • With the rack on the third set of rungs, bake in the baking oven for about 35 minutes. Test with a skewer
  • Leave in the tin to cool a little before turning out
  • Delicious served hot or warm with whipped or clotted cream

Cardamom and Lemon Cookies

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I know it’s not very modern but I had a quiet couple of days this week.  Yes, that’s right, I wasn’t rushing around like a mad thing; I pottered about, mainly at home, and it was lovely.  Such days are rare, although admittedly a little less rare now only one of my sons lives here permanently.

That’s not to say I was idle.  My activities included the following; cleaning bathrooms; laundry; ironing shirts; meeting a friend for coffee (one of my favourite pursuits); having a friend over for coffee (different friend, different day); tweeting (Twitter was rather compelling on Wednesday, following Mr Cameron’s “bunch of migrants” remark); walking the dog; vacuuming my mother-in-law’s flat (despite being nearly 91 she insists on doing housework but I help out occasionally); cooking (Middle Eastern lentils and rice was delicious); watching the celebrity Great British Bake-Off (I thought Samantha Cameron was lovely and – spoiler alert – a deserving winner); baking cookies.  I fear it all sounds terribly dull to you, but I enjoy days like that: they are a chance to catch one’s breath.

The cookies I baked were these:

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Cardamom and Lemon Cookies

The recipe is on the BBC website * and is by the Hairy Bikers, but it was my mother who drew it to my attention.  She is Norwegian and always makes Norwegian biscuits in the run-up to Christmas, which she then brings to us when she comes on Christmas Eve.  Some recipes she inherited from my grandmother (or “Mommo” as I called her) and have been around for many years, so the Hairy Bikers should be flattered that their recipe met with my mother’s approval.  She enjoyed watching the programmes they made in Northern Europe (I must admit I only caught one or two of them).  There is something special about baking things from recipes that have been passed down the generations.  My eldest son adores his great grandmother’s Lebkuchen (a Christmas treat originally from Germany) recipe and he and his girlfriend make them together.  In fact, they made a batch while they were with us over Christmas but I’m not ready to write about them yet because it was difficult to work out which Aga oven(s) to use and how long to bake them for.

You might be surprised to learn that cardamom is not just a spice for curries but is widely used in Scandinavian baking.  On the other hand, with the huge interest nowadays in all things Nordic, whether it be food or Noir TV series, you might not be in the least surprised!

As you can see from my Instagram photo above, I did not use a cookie stamp as described in the recipe; I simply pressed a fork onto the balls of dough to flatten them slightly before they went in the oven.

Hairy Bikers’ Cardamom and Lemon Cookies

Ingredients

  • 225g butter, softened
  • 150g caster sugar
  • 1 lemon, zest only
  • 250g plain flour
  • 100g ground almonds
  • 3 tsp ground cardamom or 1 heaped tsp cardamom seeds, ground in a pestle and mortar

Method

  • Preheat conventional oven to 190ºC
  • Line 2 baking trays with bake-o-glide** or baking parchment
  • Using an electric hand-whisk or food mixer (I used my KitchenAid), beat the butter, sugar and lemon zest together until pale and fluffy
  • Beat in the flour, almonds and cardamom until the mixture is well combined and comes together to form a stiff dough
  • Roll the dough into 24 balls and place 12 on each baking tray, making sure you leave space between each one
  • Press a fork onto the balls of dough to flatten them slightly
  • Bake, one tray at a time, in the middle of the Aga baking oven, for 14 minutes until the cookies are pale and golden.
  • Leave them to cool on the tray for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack

* I updated this post today, 17 May 2016, following the news that the BBC was going to close its food website.  It’s therefore likely that the above link will soon no longer work.

**I always use bake-o-glide on my baking trays.  It’s brilliant stuff: non-stick and can go in the dishwasher.  I buy it via the Aga Cookshop website.

When my youngest son returned from his run yesterday afternoon he was very pleased to find something home-baked and sweet to aid his recovery.

 

The Cake That Went Wrong

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We finished our Christmas cake a few days ago and since we’re not doing a clean/dry/healthy January or whatever it is we’re supposed to do, I decided to bake a cake yesterday, the first baking I’ve done since before the festive season.  When I asked my youngest what he’d like, he didn’t hesitate: the ginger cake from the Nordic Bakery Cookbook, a gift to me from his big brother.  I’m half Norwegian, which makes the boys a quarter Norwegian, and we all love the recipes in this book.  Actually, our youngest has baked more from it than I have, and very successfully.

Since I last made the ginger cake (in an 8″ tin), I’ve bought the correct sized (7″) tin, which is the one I used yesterday.  I knew the cake would therefore be deeper and I’d need to make sure it was cooked in the middle.  At the end of the allotted time, the skewer came out clean, so I knew it was cooked through, but as you can see in the photos, I was WRONG.  As I turned it over the middle began to ooze out, creating, to much wailing by me, a massive sink hole.  How could this be?   One explanation is that I inserted the skewer at an angle and somehow missed the middle, but I don’t really believe this.  Nor do I think it has anything to do with the timing adjustments one has to make for Aga cooking because I’ve got used to that now and nothing like this has happened before.  Mind you, that’ll teach me to think smugly that I might write a blog in which I pass on cooking tips and recipes to fellow Aga owners.  Rest assured though, I will not rest until the mystery is solved and I WILL be having another go at this one.

Apart from the middle, which I scooped into the bin, the cake was absolutely fine, so when my son came home from school, I put the kettle on and we laughed at my mishap.   Oh, and ate some cake.