Upon Request

Well, I can safely say that my recipe-a-day for National Baking Week went completely to plan...it really didn't. I'd apologise, but honestly, I was dying of a cold for most of the week and nobody wants a cake baked by somebody coughing every three seconds into the crook of their arm!

But, on my honour, and also by request, I have been asked to cover the subject of chocolate cake. I'm not even going to pretend the recipe I use is the quickest recipe out there, it does take quite a bit of time to make, but it's not monstrously difficult, you just need to pay a bit of attention that's all. If you're put off already, shame! This is quite a big cake, and can easily 16-20 servings out of it. Now, i'm usually a very haphazard cook with most things, exchanging ingredients I don't have in the cupboard or things I can't afford and what not.

 I've mentioned before that if you're cooking vanilla cupcakes or birthday cake, to use a good vanilla extract (not essence), and the same applies to all other types of cake, chocolate or otherwise. I absolute hate cook's chocolate, it's waxy, and disgusting, and there's no need to use it unless you want perfectly round chocolate chips in cookies. If I could eradicate it, I would. If you want to make a really lovely chocolate cake (for a birthday or party), you do need to invest in decent chocolate. 

Do you even need to ask what I choose?

There's a temptation when baking to just bung it all in together and forget about the individual effects that each ingredient has on the another, but it's not a great idea with baking. As i'm sure many will know, the logistics of baking is very much a science, and if you don't consider all the bits and pieces you'll end up with a whole plethora of problems, like cakes not rising or being too dry. Both of which I have experience many a time.

But, I won't go too much into it right now, as this post is all about the cake.

Chocolate Layer Cake

16-20 slabs

300g light muscovado sugar

250g butter

100g plain flour

100g self raising flour

5 eggs

300g dark chocolate

- Preheat the oven to 160C/gas mark 3 and grease and line 3 sandwich tins
- Melt the chocolate over a double boiler and leave to cool slightly at the side.
- Combine the sugar & butter until fluffy.
- Add eggs one by one, if the mixture goes too eggy add a tablespoon of the flour mixture and beat in to prevent it from splitting it too much.
- Add the cooled chocolate mixture to the egg and sugar mixture and beat in slowly.

- Fold in the flour, try not to knock it around too much!
- Spoon into the three sandwich tins and bake for about 30 minutes. Keep an eye on it though, it should only have a light crust, but it shouldn't wobble in the middle!

The finished product!

This is the recipe for the bulk of the cake, you can choose your own style of icing, if you'd rather go down the sweeter aisle, you can choose a milk chocolate ganache (such as the recipe that will follow) or you can choose a dark chocolate ganache (which I will include a recipe for too) depending upon your tastes. If you fancy a bit of both use milk chocolate to sandwich the layers together and dark chocolate to cover the outside. Ganache is a wonderous marriage of cream and chocolate and makes a beautiful glossy icing that's not as sweet as buttercream, and is easily sculptable to make your cake look all fancy and pretty.  The basic concept is to boil cream and pour it when it's boiling over chopped chocolate and let it melt in, cool it a little and then spread it over the sponge you've baked. If you don't have the time to do it all in one go, I would recommend you make the sponges and stick them in the fridge, because ganache doesn't keep particularly well. I found this out once when I stuck it in the fridge to make it cool with a little more pace, forgot about it and had to chisel it out of the bowl . So yes, sponges first, and make the icing fresh, and if you do leave it in the fridge to thicken up, don't forget about it!

Milk Chocolate Ganache

Enough to sandwich 3 cakes together
300g milk chocolate
60ml double cream
30g unsalted butter

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

- Put the butter and cream on a low heat, stirring continuously.

- Add the chocolate and stir until completely melted, it won't take a few minutes and add the vanilla.
- Spread in the cake right away!
In my recipe book i've noted quite eloquently at the bottom of this recipe:

"Do not over mix milk chocolate icing or it buggers up! Also, don't return to the heat or the butter does something weird"

I'm not entirely sure what that means, but i'm going to assume it means use it as soon as you make it.

Dark Chocolate Ganache
Enough to cover a 3 layer cake
300g chocolate

300ml double cream

- Bring the cream to the boil.

- Pour over chocolate and stir until melted.
- Spread on cake.

- Smush your own and a friend's face into cake.

- Lick friend's face.

And you'll end up with something that looks a little like this beast.

That's pretty much it. It's honestly as simple as that. If you want it thicken, let it cool more by putting it in the fridge (but don't forget about it). Other than that that's all you really need to know.
Enjoy!

Peace.
JR

Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail

I was recently looking through my relatively large collection of DVDs and books, sorting which ones to sell and which ones to keep to make some extra space. Some of them flew out of my hand into the bin bag, ready for the charity shop, 'A Very Long and Tedious History of Pebbles" included...I may have paraphrased. Whereas others were practically magnetised to my floor, too stubborn to leave, and were determined to clog up my room. If anybody asks that's totally what happened, my books came to life. This included a 1970's book of fairy tales, my entire Roald Dahl collection, all of my Tolkien and this beautiful pale blue Beatrix Potter book, with all the Peter Rabbit stories. Now I know it's not exactly a niche to me, it sold millions of copies, but I have very fond memories of this book growing up. And this morning, my heart actually sped up. It did I swear, at the result my search engine gave me. There's a cook book. There is! I found it this morning, and somebody is selling it for 1p, no lie. Peter Rabbit's Cookery Book. Needless to say I clicked 'add to basket' faster than a fast thing and I'm now eagerly waiting it's arrival. 

I wish I could live my life like this, in a wood, with a little basket.

I did a little research on this book's existence whilst waiting and found a few names that have made me even more excited. Samuel Whiskers' Roly Poly Pancakes, how amazing. Doesn't the name just make you smile? Oh Samuel Whiskers and your wile ways, whatever will you get up to next? Whilst thinking about this, my mind couldn't help but wonder to other possibilities, other pairings of recipes, and then the irony passed over me of whether or not they would include recipes for rabbit stew or pie in this book. Would that be too mean? Or would the connection of where meat comes from and the lovable characters not register in the minds of the young 'uns. Happily skipping home from the library - in the 80's may I add, nobody goes to libraries anymore - looking forward to making pancakes, not yet aware of the impending doom of Peter Rabbit and Squirrel Nutkins. Peter Rabbit and the Butcher Slab. Squirrel Nutkins and the Pie Dish, they think they're going to have a silly mishap, Mr McGregor covers Nutkins in pastry, realises just before he puts him the oven and sets him free. What actually happens is that he really does puts him in the oven and everybody gets some pie and mash. Poor kids, never saw it coming. Now they're traumatised for life.

This anthropomorphic drama is kind of relevant I promise. Apart from the inevitable influence my childhood has upon my everyday life as an adult (or thereabouts); fairy tales, fantasy and history are all apparent in the way I cook, from the use of old recipes to the mindset in which I bake. It's all kind of there. This book is 30 years old, so it does have a lot of old school recipes and cooking methods, and though Pigling and Pigwig didn't actually make a 'Hot Rice Breakfast Treat' for me and Alderman Ptolemy Tortoise didn't rustle me up a good spinach salad, it's nice to have that sense of innocence and fun with food. Why always so serious? It doesn't matter that it's loosely based around the fantastical characters to appeal to children. I love it already, and it's not even been posted yet!

One of the most poignant pictures of my childhood, mainly because I wanted to live in a little rabbit hole and have my little pot of tea over the fire like Mother rabbit!

The wise, if not a little heartless, words of Mrs Rabbit:

" 'Now, my dears,' said old Mrs. Rabbit one morning, 'you may go into the fields or down the lane, but don't go into Mr. McGregor's garden: your Father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor"

I am somewhat transported back to my trips to Germany, as a child, when me, my sister and my dad would go walking in the country. I would stand, innocent as ever with a handful of raisins in my hand, my dad too nice to tell me I was holding a massive handful of rabbit poo. He said that if we caught a rabbit while we were out we could take it home as a pet, oh the teasing cruelty, I know what he was thinking, if we ever did catch one it'd be straight in the pot for dinner, free food!

However, in the spirit of this lovely fantasy fuelled cookery book session, i'd like to mention another series of children's books that has it's own cook book, the wonderous, the spectacular, Moomins. Now I've been a fan of Tove Jansson for years and years, especially Moomins, and I was overjoyed when my best friend bought me the cookbook for my birthday last year. I won't go too into the Moomins because I honestly could chatter on for hours and I want to dedicate another post purely to them very soon, so very simply, here is another recipe for National Baking Week. A tip before beginning though, take heed of my warning from my A Little Slice of the Black Country post, buy ground cardamom, it won't be quite so potent as the freshly ground, but it will make your life so much easier. So, here's to something a little different from Scones and Biscuits.

Moominmamma's Lingonberry and Cardamom Cake
Enough for 8 big or 12 small pieces
2 tsp baking soda
250g wheat flour
250g brown sugar
2 tsp dried ginger
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ground cloves
2 tsp cardamom
80g pureed lingonberries (or lingonberry jam)
2 eggs

200ml cream

90g melted butter

NB - You might not find lingonberries in your local supermarket, but if you ever take a trip to Ikea (if you're from the UK!), I know they sell both lingonberry and cloudberry jam there. You can choose either as they're both amazing!

- Preheat the oven to 175C and grease and breadcrumb a ceramic pie dish or a quiche dish.
- Mix the baking soda into the flour, then mix with the sugar and all of the spices.
- Add the lingonberries (or cloudberries), eggs, cream and the cooled butter. Quickly mix them all together thoroughly.
- Pour into the prepared dish and bake for about 60 - 70 minutes.
- Leave overnight to let all the flavours mingle.
Enjoy!


I hope you do decide to make this wonderful recipe, it is lovely and warmly spiced and perfect for this time of year, well I think so at least. But that's it for now, until another day my nostalgic friends.
Watch yourself Squirrel Nutkins, you never know who may be round the corner.


Peace.
JR

Death and Taxes

Never have these two concepts been so prominent in my life. I think I should mention right now that I do not understand money, in the slightest, neither do I understand taxes. And in all fairness, I have no desire to learn any more than how to prevent myself getting ripped off by the tax man, and effectively budgeting for my week's worth of food and general life expenditures. Apart from acknowledging this week's general money happenings over the pond (and the past few days' happenings in London), this post is not about the whole Occupy Wall Street scenario, though I do very much stand with the 99%...obviously. I am quite surprised, however, that it has taken this long for people to get this passionate about the income divide in the US, but I am glad that it has happened, maybe it'll spark some world wide coverage of the horrific divides in many other countries around the world too.

Thanks Vader/V

I won't go too much into it right now because frankly, I don't really want to burden my blog with so much seriousness, it is a place of sanctuary and love. So I send love to all the people who are supporting social and economic equality and the eradication of large corporations' excessive greed; but that's all for here...and back on to food!

Even though I have been incredibly lazy with my planning of late, I happened to have been unintentionally good with my money. After realising that my food extravagance needed to be reigned in while i'm saving up, I decided to think about how far my ingredients were going, more so than usual anyway. Whilst my cravings for baking have had to begin hibernating for the Winter like a small, crazy bear, I thought to myself how this time of year is the perfect time to start budgeting. The obvious reason is that Christmas is beginning to drop into people's minds and the inevitable budgeting problems that arise from it are making people take a significant step back. Those sensible people amongst us can sit and smugly think of how organised they've been and all the money they've saved throughout the year. And those who aren't so sensible, me definitely included, can sit in the corner and worry how they will afford Christmas presents, food and trying to achieve something charitable and spread the love around the holidays.

So today I pitch the idea to you of making a home-made Christmas, or at least consider a partial one. I know this has been done to death but it'll save you a tonne of money on expensive gift boxes for people you barely know, and everybody appreciates something home made. This time of year is a good time to start thinking about and making your stuff, chutney is awesome because you can use all the excess of apples that are still hanging around thanks to the decent weather we've had. Fruit cake is never to early making, stew it in orange juice, brandy, Cointreau, Disaronno, ginger ale, tea, whatever you fancy really. It's just a thought, if you fancy it, and don't mind the little bit of extra effort go for it! I'm lucky enough to have an extremely talented artist for a sister (her eBay and Folksy shop) who is pairing up with me to help make some gift baskets for presents this year. Me making Christmassy food and Corrina making the beautiful garlands and baubles.

I hope she doesn't mind me using this picture, I sneaked a picture on my way to work because they looked so pretty!

But anyway. The thought is there for now for you to mull over. And here is my proposition for doing something charitable for the holidays. I will send cake to any who want some for Christmas, as a charitable gesture. This kind of only applies to those in the UK because of customs in other countries. If you leave a name and email address in a comment at the bottom of this  post, I shall send you a piece of spiced ginger Christmas cake, just to say thank you for reading and a Merry Christmas.


For those who are groaning at the thought of Christmas in October, I apologise. I know there's much to come before then. For instance this week, beginning today, is baking week. Hurrah! I feel like I post a lot of sweet recipes on here, and although I would quite like to live on nought but cake, it's probably not a reasonable way to live, and would probably be quite boring after a while. So, in light of this fact, i'm going to post a savoury bake-related recipe.

Irish Wheaten Bread
1 reasonable sized round loaf, or 10-20 rolls, depending on the size you fancy.
350g wholemeal flour
100g strong white flour
350ml buttermilk (OR 350ml whole milk and the juice of 1 lemon)
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
50g - 100g oats, plus more for sprinkling

- Preheat the oven to 220C and grease a baking sheet.
- Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda, sugar and salt. Then add the oats. If you love oaty bread, add 100g, if you just want a little bit add 50g, but remember that you might need to add a little more or a little less buttermilk.
- If you can get buttermilk, add it in now, if you have milk and lemon juice, put about 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and stir it into the milk, and leave for a few seconds for it to sour a little.
- Add it in stages until the mixture is bound together, you might not need to use all of it, dependent on how many oats you included.
- Form into a round ball or cut and form into rolls, cut a cross on top and sprinkle with oats.
- If you're baking a big loaf, 30-40 minutes is a good guideline, depending on how crusty you like it (I like mine super crusty!), if you're making rolls, 15-20 minutes should be more than enough.
- Serve with a good bit of Irish stew or some Autumn soup. And it makes your house smell awesome!

Oaty goodness
Easy peasy, it takes very little effort, they taste lovely and very filling. It's quite a dense bread, because there's no kneading, thus no gluten strands are stretched creating the bounciness of normal bread. But this sort of bread is wonderfully comforting on an Autumn eve with a warm bowl of soup and a good spread of butter. 
I wouldn't want to disappoint those who do enjoy a sweet something at the end of the day, so here's a lovely recipe courtesy of the National Baking Week website which pairs nicely with the earthy bread, and a cup o' tea of course. There is a reason there are certain types of sugar, you really can't skip on the muscavado sugar, it's what makes your cookies chewy!


Chewy Macadamia Nut Cookies
About 16 cookies, depending on size.
170g soft butter
340g dark muscavado sugar
1tsp good quality vanilla extract (not essence!)
2 medium free range eggs
375g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
100g chopped macadamia nuts.

- Preheat to 180C/Gas mark 4 and lightly oil a baking sheet. 
- Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla together. And when they're light and fluffy, add the eggs one by one until a batter is formed.
- Add the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon together and mix until smooth. Stir in the macademia nuts.
- Wrap in cling film and put in the fridge to firm up.
- Shape the dough into 1" balls and place well spaced apart on a baking sheet. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until golden brown. 
- Take off the baking sheet and cool on a wire rack. 

Enjoy with a brew.

For this week, I will post five more recipes to celebrate the seven days of Baking Week. So keep an eye out for more loveliness.


Peace.
JR

Baking For Victory

I bet there are a number of people reading this (look at me getting all cocky that people actually read this!) that have been watching "The Great British Bake Off" on BBC 2. If you haven't, you really should. Mary Berry is an absolute legend. But every Tuesday night it makes me want to try something new, the week before last it was pork pies that floated before my eyes like pastry sheep, counting my way to sleep, last week it was cheesecake, and this week I sat dribbling into my tea, watching these random contestants make some pretty epic croissants.

Parisienne Croissants

To say the amount of times me and my family have driven to France, and the amount of croissants I have consumed over the years, I really do not know very much about them. Other than it means 'crescent' in French and that if it made it from the bakery back to my tent with more than just a few crumbs and a buttery sheen on my upper lip, it was a minor miracle. So I went about researching, naturally. I found the basics from the British Bake off - thankyou very much - that the pastries were actually based upon kipferls, created in Vienna in the 1680's to spite the naughty invading Turks. There was an infiltration, of sorts, upon the city late one evening in Vienna; a group of Turkish soldiers were trying to dig under the walls trying to invade the city, when a group of bakers heard the whole kerfuffle and went to the Austrian defenders. Ain't that just peachy? To add insult to injury, they decided to attack the Turks in their own little way by creating a lovely little pastry in the shape of the Ottoman flag, just to gloat. I think I quite like their bare-faced audacity.

Some funky Ottoman flags; the first is the official flag of the Ottoman empire  from 1453 - 1844, the second is the flag of an Ottoman admiral from 1453 - 1793, the third is the flag of the Ottoman navy from 1453 - 1793.

It's nice that the French bakers that adapted it decided to invent a whole new name, you know, translating the same word, crescent, from the German kipferl, to the French croissant, inventive, guys. That is a mere brush of the surface of the history but it's nice to know the basics. It's also worth mentioning that Pierre Hermé makes absolutely amazing croissants, he is just a bit of a pastry legend really. I mentioned his awesomeness briefly in Celadon Sweets, as well as being a macaron genius, he is equally as capable on the pastry front. How jealous I am! I did think though, after seeing that the ratio of yeast dough to butter when making croissants is 1:1, I think i'd feel a little sick by the time they'd actually cooked. 1 lb of butter to 1 lb of dough. And that doesn't count the significant globs of butter I used to whack on afterwards, I dread to think how much in ingested, oh the delicious artery clogging goodness!

One day I will get around to making them, but the very idea of folding, and waiting while it proofs, and more folding and waiting, then folding and waiting some more, it makes me a little tired just thinking about it. Oh how laborious the art of laminating pastry! I know it would be worth it and all, but I just keep thinking how disjointed I would feel knowing that it'll never be as good as the ones you get from a French bakery at 6am on a beautiful Summer morn. But knowing me i'll do it anyway, so watch this space for some sort of attempt of croissants, you guys can either laugh at my feeble attempts and my eventual emotional crisis (crises more like), or to find a decent recipe, win win I suppose.

On a side note whilst on the topic of baking, British Baking Week is coming up in a few weeks and though I missed it last year due to a significant lack of funding, I urge those of you who enjoy cake to try and make your own, and I will make along with you. It doesn't have to be complicated, and it can be really fun even to those who are most opposed to cooking. 17th - 23rd October. Remember!

Thankyou very much NBW website for your cheesy representational picture

On to the next mini portion. This week in the UK has been unseasonably warm (17C this evening!) which is quite unheard of here. It is quite difficult to think of changing Summer-style food onto Autumnal comfort food in this heat I must admit. But I know as soon as the rain begins and quenches the 'heatwave' - I leave it in quote marks because it probably seems insignificant to anyone reading from a country closer to the equator - I will want soups and stews in a heartbeat, oh how fickle I am. So to prepare myself, I have found the first thing I am going to make when the weather decides to get it's chill on.

Fassoulada
Greek Haricot Bean Soup

500g Haricot Beans
1 large brown onion, roughly chopped
3 carrots, sliced thinly
3 sticks of celery, peeled and chopped
3 tomatoes (or a can of peeled chopped tomatoes)
2 tblsp tomato puree
2 bay leaves
1 tblsp dried oregano (or 2 handfuls of fresh)
1 tsp dried parsley (or a handful of fresh)


This is super easy to make!


- Drain the beans and wash, put in a saucepan, cover with water and bring to the boil, skimming off any froth.
- Add everything else and simmer for an hour and a half (if using fresh herbs by the way leave them until about ten minutes before the end of cooking)
- Cool is slightly, season lots with some proper salt and pepper and serve up.

Nice and simple, nice and healthy and everything too. If you fancy something a little more substantial, serve with cheese toasts (any strong cheese will do, cheddar, parmesan or even blue cheeses will do), keep 'em crispy lads and ladettes.

Right, for now my lovelies, I am to bed. There is a program about dinosaur films on BBC 4, and I have a serious weakness for Jurassic Park and a bit o' 'zilla. Onwards to the social worries mirrored through the medium of film!

Peace
JR