Tag Archives: Christmas

Jerusalem Artichokes with Fennel and Peas

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Jerusalem Artichokes with Fennel and Peas

Having consumed during the Christmas period one massive turkey, a Norwegian spiced pork belly, a baked ham and a venison casserole, we are craving vegetables in this house. Sprouts, red cabbage, salads and lots of fruit also featured heavily on the menu but meat predominated. I’m not saying we’re going in for Veganuaray or any other New Year trend; it’s about needing to reset our dietary priorities. This month I’m going to cook without meat during the week but we’ll continue to have a roast or other meat dish on Sundays.

With this in mind I was delighted to pore over one of my Christmas presents from my sons: Joe Trivelli’s book, The Modern Italian Cook. I confess I was not familiar with Trivelli, who is head chef of the River Café, but I am glad to have been introduced. And Diana Henry, whose recipes you know I love, gave it a mention in her Telegraph column. If that’s not a recommendation, I don’t know what is.

It’s a beautiful book and I want to make everything in it but so far I’ve only got as far as making one of the dishes twice, first as a starter on New Year’s Eve and then last night we had it as our main meal with some fresh bread to mop up the juices. The recipe works well in the Aga.

Jerusalem artichokes with fennel and peas

Serves 4 (or 6 as a starter)

Ingredients

  • 500g Jerusalem artichokes
  • 2 fennel bulbs, trimmed
  • ½ large or 1 small red onion, sliced
  • 2 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 500g frozen peas
  • 10 mint leaves
  • 2 parsley sprigs or a handful of chopped parsley
  • 1 lemon
  • Sea salt, black pepper and extra virgin olive oil

Method

  • Peel the artichokes and cut into wedges. Keep under water to stop them discolouring.
  • Remove any stringy-looking outer parts of the fennel and cut into thin wedges. Toss in some lemon juice to prevent them discolouring
  • Heat a tablespoon of oil in a heavy-based, wide pan with a lid and sweat the onion with a pinch of salt. You could place the pan in the simmering oven at this point
  • Once the onion is soft add the garlic and a minute or two later the fennel. Stew with the lid on for five minutes (or longer if you put it in the simmering oven)
  • Add the Jerusalem artichokes, peas and some black pepper and continue to stew. Trivelli says to do this for 10 minutes over a low heat but my artichokes needed a lot longer than this (in the simmering oven) before they were soft. In fact, to try to speed things up I put the pan in the baking oven for a while. And Trivelli is right to say that Jerusalem artichokes cook unevenly: I found that when some wedges were soft and tender, others were still hard. But your patience will be rewarded, I promise you
  • Once your artichokes are cooked, check the seasoning, add your herbs and stir them through with some extra virgin olive oil
  • Serve with wedges of lemon to squeeze over

 

 

Christmas Recipes: Norwegian Spiced Pork Belly

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Christmas Recipes: Norwegian Spiced Pork Belly

For me Christmas is not the time for trying out new recipes so our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day meals don’t change much from year to year. When I was growing up (in England) with my Norwegian mother and English father we celebrated Christmas the Norwegian way on Christmas Eve and the English way on Christmas Day. This meant my brother and I could open our presents on Christmas Eve and our friends were rather jealous. The evening would begin with dinner and then we’d sit round the Christmas tree for the present opening. I’ve never opened presents on Christmas Day so I don’t know what it’s like but I can tell you there is something magical about doing it by candlelight when it’s dark outside.

When I married my husband I was fully expecting to leave the Norwegian Christmas Eve behind but he loved this way of doing it with all the cosiness and candles and insisted we kept the tradition going. I’m so glad we did because our children have always loved it, partly because it makes their Christmas a little bit different from their friends’. 

Christmas Eve: Herrings

Our Christmas Eve meal always starts with Norwegian pickled herrings. We buy them from the Christmas Bazaar held every November in the The Norwegian Seamen’s Church in Rotherhithe, London. When she was younger, my mother used to spend a couple of days with friends in London helping to prepare these for sale at the bazaar. She doesn’t do that anymore so my sons have accepted the mission of going along on the Saturday of the bazaar and purchasing a few jars of this most delicious food. I haven’t managed to join them yet but intend to go along one year, if only for the waffles, cake and coffee on offer inside the church! We eat the herrings on rye bread accompanied by ice cold Linie Aquavit straight from the freezer and cold lager. So delicious.

Herrings
Our Norwegian Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve: Spiced Pork Belly

There is more than one traditional Christmas Eve meal in Norway. On the West coast they have cod cooked in a special way.  It is bought very fresh, cut into steaks, put in salted water overnight to tighten the flesh and then poached. It is served with melted butter and lots of chopped parsley and plain boiled carrots and potatoes. Perhaps surprisingly, Norwegians always drink red wine and not white with this dish. My mother’s family always had reindeer for their Christmas Eve meal but spiced pork belly, popular as a Christmas dish on the south coast of Norway where my grandfather was from, would also form part of their festive fare. We have made pork belly our traditional Hardy family Christmas Eve dish. I make it according to my grandmother’s recipe, passed to me by my mother, who has given me permission to share it with you here.

You will need:

  • Pork belly (you decide how much, depending on how many people you are feeding, but remember, it tastes just as good cold so any leftovers will not go to waste) with the skin removed (I get my butcher to do this) but the fat – very important this – left on
  • Ground ginger, salt, mustard powder and white pepper. I’m not giving you quantities except to say: be generous

Method

  • The day before you want to serve the belly score the layer of fat with a sharp knife and rub lots of white pepper, ground ginger, mustard powder and salt into it on both sides and wrap it in clingfilm IMG_4150
  • Place it in the fridge fat side down for at least 24 hours
  • On Christmas Eve in the morning take the belly out of the fridge and let it come up to room temperature
  • Sprinkle on some more salt
  • Choose a roasting tin (I always use the large Aga roasting tin because I tend to cook a whole belly), remove the clingfilm and place the meat in the tin, fat side down
  • Add about a cupful of water and cover with foil
  • Hang the tin on the second or third set of runners of the roasting oven, taking care that the foil doesn’t tear as you slide it in
  • After twenty minutes take it out, remove the foil, turn the pork over and add a little more water if it looks dry
  • Slide the tin onto the floor of the simmering oven and leave it there for the rest of the day, checking the water level every now and then. It will be cooked and delicious after five hours but even better and falling off the bone after eight or nine

I serve it with spiced red cabbage and roast potatoes, having made a divinely spicy and gingery gravy by adding some wine and sour cream to the meat juices.

For pudding we usually have this Norwegian apple cake which my mother makes for us according to my grandmother’s recipe.  

 

 

 

 

 

Lamb Shawarma

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Lamb Shawarma

Turkey, ham, Norwegian spiced pork belly, bacon, cold leftover turkey, turkey soup, ham sandwiches, Jamie’s Asian-style turkey salad, cold pork, more ham, beef fillet, Thai green turkey curry…and so it went on over the Christmas period, to the point where we said we never wanted to eat meat again. Except that we didn’t mean it. We love it of course and after a couple of days of eating mainly vegetables and pasta, we were ready to be carnivores again and I made lamb shawarma for the first time.

Since there were only going to be three of us, I bought a half shoulder of lamb instead of a whole one. At the last minute we invited a friend to join us but there was still plenty for four people. The recipe is one by Honey & Co like the pomegranate molasses chicken I did a while ago. I adapted it for slow Aga cooking for a change (joke) and I was very pleased with the result.

We ate ours in wraps with the white cabbage and pomegranate salad suggested in the Honey & Co. book, and a dollop of yoghurt. Delicious.

Lamb Shawarma

Ingredients

  • 4 onions, peeled
  • 1 shoulder of lamb, on the bone
  • 3 tbsps ras el hanout
  • 2 tsps salt

For the salad:

  • ½ white cabbage, shredded
  • ½ tsp salt
  • juice of 1 lemon
  • Small bunch parsley, chopped
  • 2 tbsp vegetable oil (I used olive oil)
  • Seeds from 1 pomegranate

Method

  • Purée two of the onions with the ras el hanout, salt and pepper in a food processor
  • Slice the other two onions and place them in a roasting tin
  • Pat the purée all over the lamb and lay it on the bed of onions
  • Place the roasting tin uncovered in the roasting oven for 20 minutes, by which time it will have started to colour and brown
  • Pour in a glass of water and cover the tin with foil
  • Place in the simmering oven for several hours; I’d say a minimum of four but after seven or eight it will be even more meltingly gorgeous. You should baste it every so often and maybe add some more water, but only if it’s drying out
  • It’s done when the meat falls easily off the bone
  • (Conventional oven owners: start it in a very hot oven for 30 minutes and then turn it down, after adding water and covering the tin, to 200ºC/180ºC fan, and roast for a further hour. Repeat the process and turn the oven down to 180ºC/160ºC fan for a couple more hours, basting halfway)
  • For the salad, sprinkle salt on the shredded cabbage in a bowl, mix and allow to sit for 15 minutes until it starts to soften. Add the lemon juice, parsley and vegetable oil and mix well. Sprinkle with the pomegranate seeds, reserving a few to sprinkle over the lamb

 

 

Gigot Boulangère

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Gigot Boulangère

I made a few mince pies this week. They’re now in the freezer but I might get them out this weekend as my youngest son is returning home from university and I think he’ll appreciate them. Apart from that and the Christmas cake, I haven’t done a huge amount of Christmas preparation but now that it’s December I will be getting my act together. I have had to postpone my plan to write up some of my Christmas recipes because I don’t have any decent photos to accompany them. I will aim to take lots of photos during this Christmas period so that I can write up the recipes in good time for Christmas 2018.

fullsizeoutput_2bacMeanwhile the Sunday roast continues to happen in our house and last Sunday it was gigot boulangère. If ever there was a dish that lends itself perfectly to Aga cooking, this is the one. If you love lamb and love boulangère potatoes, then this is one for you. On Sunday morning, after a cup of tea in bed with the papers on my iPad, I got up at 8 to prepare this dish. My neighbours may have caught a glimpse of me fetching some rosemary and nearly catching my death in my garden in my dressing gown.  In less than an hour though lunch was in the oven, to be more or less ignored until we were ready to eat it at 2pm.

Recipe

Serves 6

  • 1 leg of lamb weighing about 2.4kg
  • 1.8kg potatoes
  • 2 onions, peeled and sliced
  • Rosemary
  • 2 garlic cloves
  • Olive oil
  • Salt and pepper
  • 100ml white wine

Method

  • Pound the peeled garlic with 1 tsp salt flakes (I use Maldon sea salt) in a pestle and mortar until you have a rough paste
  • Add 1 tbsp olive oil and about 1 tbsp chopped rosemary to this
  • Give it a stir and season
  • Set aside
  • Drizzle some olive oil into the bottom of your large Aga roasting tin, which you have lined with bake-o-glide
  • Peel and thinly slice the potatoes. At this point many cooks would tell you to use a mandolin, but I don’t possess one so I use a nice sharp knife
  • Cover the base of the tin with a layer of potatoes followed by the onion slices, chopped rosemary and some seasoning and then the remaining potato slices
  • Pour over the white wine
  • Stab the leg of lamb all over with the point of a sharp knife and then rub in the garlic and rosemary paste you made at the start, massaging it into the slits you’ve made
  • Lay the lamb on top of the potatoes and hang the roasting tin on the third set of runners in the roasting oven and cook for 45 minutes
  • Transfer to the simmering oven for at least 4 hours but, as always, longer is fine, if not better
  • To serve, place the lamb on a large dish or board for carving, and the potatoes in a dish with all the juices. I put a bowl of redcurrant jelly on the table. Some mint sauce would have been nice too

Pound garlic with salt and add chopped rosemary, olive oil and pepper to make a rough paste
Layer slide potatoes with sliced onions, chopped rosemary and seasoning
Rub the paste into the lamb and place it on top of the potatoes
The cooked boulangère potatoes
The gigot

Notes:

  • Conventional cooking: pre-heat the oven to 200ºC and cook the potatoes for about an hour before placing the lamb on top and roasting it for about 15 minutes per 500g depending on how you like it done.
  • There were only three of us for lunch on Sunday so I asked my butcher, Ruby and White, to give me just half a leg of lamb, as you will see in the above photos. I halved the quantities of the other ingredients and used the small Aga roasting tin.

 

 

 

Christmas Recipe: Red Cabbage

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Christmas Recipe: Red Cabbage

Before you all shout “it’s much too early to think about Christmas”, I agree with you. Except when it comes to cooking. There are things you can prepare to get ahead and things you simply must make weeks, or even months, beforehand.

For me the Christmas/New Year period is not really a time for trying out new recipes. It gets so busy with the house full and lots of comings and goings that I prefer to stick to tried and tested recipes. We all have our traditions and my family is no exception; our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day meals do not vary much from year to year. Then for a few days after that most meals comprise leftovers in some form or other. During the whole Christmas period last year there were never fewer than 5 of us in the house and most days we were 7 or 8 with a maximum of 12 of us sitting round the table for the Christmas turkey. In recent years we’ve also stayed at home on New Year’s Eve instead of going to a party and I’ve cooked a special dinner. One year I splashed out on a whole beef fillet which was so popular it has now become our traditional New Year’s Eve meal.

Last year I told you about my Christmas cake and Christmas pudding and I wrote a post about the Norwegian apple cake we always have on Christmas Eve. In the coming weeks I plan to write up a few more of my Christmas recipes and tell you how I’ve adapted them for Aga cooking. I’m starting with braised red cabbage because it’s a delicious accompaniment to many winter dishes and there’s no reason you shouldn’t cook and enjoy it right now. It also freezes brilliantly: I nearly always do this and then defrost it and zap it in the microwave on the day I plan to serve it. This recipe is based on one by Delia Smith.

Braised Red Cabbage

(Pre-heat conventional oven to 150ºC)

Ingredients

  • 1 red cabbage
  • 1 cooking apple, peeled, cored and chopped
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 1 clove garlic, peeled and finely chopped
  • About ¼ of a whole nutmeg, grated
  • About ¼ tsp ground cinnammon (optional)
  • About ¼ tsp ground cloves (optional)
  • 3 tbsp brown sugar
  • 3 tbsp red wine vinegar
  • 10 g butter
  • Salt and pepper

Method

  • Remove the outer leaves from the cabbage, quarter it and remove the hard stalk
  • Shred each quarter but not too finely
  • Place the cabbage in a casserole and mix in the apple, onion, garlic, sugar, salt, pepper, nutmeg and other spices if using.
  • Pour over the wine vinegar and dot with the butter
  • Cover with a lid and place it in the simmering oven for at least four hours; as ever though, it will come to no harm in your Aga if left for longer than that. (Conventional oven: 1½ to 2 hours.)
  • Take it out and give it a stir every now and then. It is done when it is tender

 

 

Take one red cabbage
And a cooking apple, garlic, onion, nutmeg…
Cut in half then quarter
Then slice
Add spices, seasoning, apple, onion, garlic, sugar, red wine vinegar
Dot with butter
Four hours later…

 

 

 

Aubergine and Pea Curry

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singin-in-the-rain-7438_1

So that’s it for another year and we can get back to normal, whatever “normal” is. The tree has been taken down and is currently awaiting collection in our front garden; all the decorations have been stored away in the spare room cupboard; and Sons 1 and 2 have returned to work, in Cambridge and London respectively. It was so lovely to have them at home, sometimes with and sometimes without the girlfriend of one and  the fiancée of the other, and although I should be used to it, I always feel a little sad when they’ve gone; not too sad, mind, because, as my mother says, if your children are happy to leave home, then you have probably done a good job as a parent. Son 3 stayed on for an extra couple of days which softened the blow, as much for his younger brother as for their parents. We all love films but Son 3 is the proper film buff of the family and at his suggestion we sat down on Monday evening to watch Singin’ in the Rain. I hadn’t seen it for years and had forgotten just how marvellous it is and what a wonderful actress the late Debbie Reynolds was: RIP. He returned to London with his dad yesterday, leaving youngest son and me, and Granny in her flat downstairs, in a very quiet house until the weekend.

Before he left I borrowed one of his Christmas presents to make supper: the book Fresh India by Meera Sodha, which is on the bestseller lists. Having eaten so much meat over Christmas we were all craving meat-free dishes and the aubergine and pea curry fitted the bill. The last thing I need is another cookbook but if this recipe is anything to go by, I might be adding this book to my birthday wish list.

Aubergine and Pea Curry

  • 5 tbps rapeseed oil
  • 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
  • 2 large onions finely chopped
  • 6 cloves of garlic, crushed
  • 4 large ripe tomatoes, chopped
  • 1 1/2 tbsps tomato purée
  • 1 1/2 level tsps salt
  • 1 1/4 tsps chilli powder (unless like mine, yours is very hot, in which case use less)
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 4 medium aubergines 1.2kg, chopped into 3cm cubes
  • 100g (I used 200g) peas (fresh or defrosted)
  • Put the oil in a wide-bottomed lidded pan on the simmering plate (conventional hob: medium heat). Once hot, add the cumin seeds and stir for 30 seconds. Add the onions and stir to coat in the oil. Cook (in the simmering oven) for 15-30 minutes until translucent but not brown.  Add the garlic and stir-fry for a couple of minutes
  • Add the tomatoes and purée and cover with a lid. Leave to cook for 5 minutes (or longer in the simmering oven), then add the salt, chilli powder, turmeric and sugar and cook for a further couple of minutes
  • Now add the aubergines, coating the pieces with the masala, pop the lid back on the pan and cook for around 10 minutes (or longer in the simmering oven). You want the aubergines to be tender and soft with little or no water running from them. If they’re watery or not yet tender, they may need another few minutes’ cooking
  • When they’re cooked, add the peas and cook for a couple of minutes
  • Serve with hot chapattis or plain boiled Basmati rice

NB:

  • I used one of those large round aubergines from Natoora. It weighed 620g and I was worried it would not be enough but it was plenty. Am therefore a little baffled by the aubergine quantity recommended in the book. Would it not have led to a very dry curry?
  • Also: I only used 5 cloves of garlic and 1 large onion.

 

Apologies that I don’t have a photo of this dish (but then nor does the book!). Instead here are a few photos of our Christmas.

Advent crown
Baubles
Our tree
Herrings
Our Norwegian Christmas Eve
Delia’s cranberry and orange relish
Gingerbread

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mince Pies

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This post is not about telling you how to make mince pies.  To be perfectly honest, as I may have mentioned before, I don’t rate my pastry-making skills and would not presume to pass on any tips, because you are probably all much better at it than me.

That is not to say that I don’t enjoy having a go.  What is more, there’s nothing like making mince pies for getting into the festive spirit and family and friends do appreciate homemade ones.  One of the reasons I’ve made a few in the last week is that I found a big jar of Waitrose mincemeat in my cupboard with a “best before” date of December 2016.  You see?  I don’t even make my own mincemeat!

For the pastry I use this excellent Xanthe Clay recipe.  Sometimes I make “closed” pies (see above) and sometimes I cut out pastry stars to place on top (see below).  I always brush with egg and sprinkle with caster sugar.  I fancy making some with an almond crumble topping one day.  I bought some like that at Bristol’s wonderful Hart’s Bakery yesterday and would love to try to emulate them.  But that’s for another day.

In the Aga

Mince pies bake very quickly in the Aga roasting oven.  Place your tray of pies on the grid shelf on the fourth rung of the oven.  They will be done in 15 minutes at the most.  The oven is hotter at the back and on the side nearest the centre, so I turn the tray round halfway through the cooking time.

 

Cut out stars to place on top
Brush with beaten egg and sprinkle with caster sugar
Bake until golden brown

Aga Christmas Cake

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Aga Christmas Cake

 

It’s that time of year again. I always resist the commercial pressure to start Christmas shopping in September. It infuriates me that Christmas cards and decorations start appearing in the shops in August, throwing everyone into panic, and the more I’m urged to prepare, the less inclined I am to do so. Oh, and no mince pies are allowed in my house until December. But there are some things which it has always been necessary to do a few weeks or months ahead of the event and one of those is baking the Christmas cake. The same goes for the pudding but I must be honest and say I do not always make my own pudding. I’ve found there are excellent ones you can buy. For the last two years I’ve bought a pudding from Bertinet’s in Bath and they’ve gone down well with my family. I haven’t yet decided what I’m going to do about pudding this year; I might try Richard Bertinet’s recipe which is to be found online here. But the Christmas cake has to be homemade and I am always happy to set aside the time to make it.

Since owning my Aga I’ve used the Mary Berry Christmas cake recipe in The Aga Book. It’s delicious and I see no reason to change. She gives quantities for many different cake sizes, square and round. My usual size is the 10″/25cm round cake and that is what I have made this year. As with all fruit cakes, it is best when baked slowly in the simmering oven. I made mine in the afternoon and it was happy to wait in the tin and be placed in the oven at bedtime. This year it took nine hours and last year ten. Am not sure why the timings were different but it’s nothing to worry about.

Here’s the recipe for those of you who haven’t got The Aga Book.

Mary Berry’s Aga Christmas Cake (with a few modifications by me)

You will need a 10″/25cm loose bottomed or springform sturdy cake tin, greased and the base and sides lined (I used bake-o-glide)

Ingredients

  • 675g currants
  • 450g sultanas
  • 225g raisins
  • 450g glacé cherries
  • Grated zest of 2 oranges
  • 300ml sherry (I used Harvey’s Bristol Cream)
  • 350g butter, softened
  • 350g dark brown sugar
  • 6 eggs
  • 100g self-raising flour
  • 225 plain flour
  • 100g blanched, chopped almonds
  • 2 tbsp black treacle
  • 2 tsp ground mixed spice

Method

  • Rinse, dry and quarter the cherries
  • Put all the fruit and orange zest in a container, pour over the sherry and give it a stir
  • Cover with a lid or a couple of layers of tightly sealed clingfilm and leave to soak for 3 days, stirring daily
  • Measure the butter, sugar, eggs, treacle and chopped almonds into a mixing bowl (I used my KitchenAid) and beat well
  • Add the flours and spice and mix thoroughly until blended
  • Stir in the soaked fruit and sherry
  • Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and level out evenly
  • Bake in the simmering oven for about 9 hours, but keep an eye on it at the 8 hour point. It is done when a warm skewer comes out clean
  • Leave to cool in the tin then turn it out, feed it (see below) and wrap it. I like using parchment lined foil for this (from Lakeland)

Feeding

On a weekly basis from now on you are going to need to feed your cake: take a darning needle and pierce the cake all over, top and bottom; drizzle over a couple of teaspoons of sherry, let it sink in and then turn the cake over and do the same on the other side. Then wrap the cake and place it inside a (large!) airtight container.

Icing

About a week before Christmas I ice my cake with marzipan. I usually buy it but have been known to make my own; homemade is definitely better but sometimes I go for the quicker option. Once the almond icing has dried out, after a few days, I place the final layer of icing on my cake; invariably on Christmas Eve. For this I use ready-to-roll fondant icing. I do not make my own.

My husband took photos and I added captions to some to indicate the different stages.

First soak your fruit for three days
Grease and line your tin
Like so
In your bowl put butter…
sugar…
eggs…
Add flours, mixed spice and mix
and black treacle
Mix
until it looks like this
Fold in the fruit…
Turn mixture into your prepared tin
It’s done. Leave to cool
Turn it out and place on foil like this
Pierce all over
Feed then wrap
And finally the finished cake, which we first sliced into on 28 December:

 

 

Spinach Soup

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img_3971

Just a quick post today to tell you about my scrumptious spinach soup.  I have an autumnal cold and while I’m not feeling particularly unwell, it is nevertheless uncomfortable and annoying.  At 1 o’clock yesterday afternoon I realised I was hungry but had not planned anything for lunch.  Some hot, soothing soup was all I could think about but did not have any in the house.  Anyway, I really don’t like shop-bought soups: I find they’re over-flavoured, mainly of onion, and that this flavour lingers at the back of the mouth for hours afterwards.

So I made spinach soup.  First, I took a medium-sized potato, peeled and diced it and sweated it in butter for about 15 minutes (simmering oven).  Then I added 450g frozen spinach (I didn’t happen to have any fresh spinach in the house; this soup was not planned) and lots of salt and pepper and let this cook for another 10 minutes or so before adding 500ml of chicken stock.  It was fortuitous that I’d made lots of stock the previous day, but I expect a stock cube or some Marigold Swiss vegetable bouillon powder would have done the job too.  I grated in some nutmeg, brought it all to simmering point and let it cook (in the simmering oven) for another 15 minutes.  I took it out and let it cool for a few minutes before blending it in the pan using my handheld blender.  I then checked the seasoning and temperature and ladled some into a mug, drizzled on a little cream and voilà.

One of the reasons I haven’t blogged much lately is that I’m unhappy with the photos I’ve taken of what I’ve cooked.  I read so many beautiful blogs and food websites that I’m sometimes embarrassed to include my pathetic iPhone camera efforts.  Since I’m not particularly interested in photography (unless someone else is taking the photos), I might just have to overcome the shame and carry on regardless.

My next post will probably be about Christmas cake.  Too early, you might say, but you’d be wrong.

Norwegian Apple Cake

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Norwegian Apple Cake

 

In this post a year ago I mentioned my Norwegian grandmother’s apple cake. It has become a Hardy family tradition to have it on Christmas Eve, but that doesn’t stop us having it at other times of the year. I have vivid memories of evening coffee time at my grandparents’ house in Oslo when cake would often be served.

I made the Norwegian apple cake this weekend for second son’s birthday. It’s not a typical birthday cake but I don’t think that matters. We managed to get his brothers to come along and gathered in London for tea and cake which we consumed while watching the England v Wales Six Nations rugby match. img_6492

I don’t think my grandmother, who is no longer with us, would mind if I gave you the recipe.  It’s extremely easy to make. You can keep it just as it is, or add cinnamon to the apples or sprinkle some flaked almonds over it, or both.

Norwegian Apple Cake

You will need a 20cm/8″ springform cake tin, greased and base-lined with greaseproof paper or bake-o-glide.

Conventional oven: pre-heat to 160º-170ºC

Ingredients

  • 4 Bramley apples
  • 125g plus 1 tbsp caster sugar
  • 125g butter, softened
  • 240g self-raising flour
  • 1 large egg

Method

  • Peel, core and slice the apples and place the slices in a bowl with the juice of a lemon to stop them going brown. Add the tablespoon of sugar
  • Place the apples in a saucepan with a little water, let’s say 3mm deep. Cook them for a minutes on the Aga simmering plate or your hob, giving them the occasional stir with a wooden spoon. When they’re all soft, remove from the heat and leave to cool
  • Make your cake batter by placing the sugar, butter, flour and egg in a bowl and beating the mixture. I use my electric mixer
  • Press two thirds of this mixture into the base of your prepared tinimg_4305
  • Then spoon the stewed apples over this but not right up to the edge. If you feel you have too much apple mixture (after all, Bramleys vary in size) save some (freeze it if necessary) to have with roast pork at a later date
  • On a floured surface very gently roll out the remaining third of the batter and then cut it into strips about 1.5cms wide
  • Arrange these strips in a lattice pattern over your cake. You don’t have to make a complicated over and under pattern. The dough is very soft and the strips might break as you pick them up. img_4306Don’t worry: you can just patch them together as you place them. As you can see from the photos, mine does not look remotely professional
  • Bake your cake until golden brown. You can’t test it because of the apples.  I find it usually takes between 35 and 45 minutes.  I start checking it at about 25.
  • You can serve it warm (but not piping hot) or at room temperature, dusted with icing sugar and cinnamon. I’m not a cream person but this cake really is best served with a dollop of lightly whipped cream.img_4319