Love for Mince Pies.

I do feel somewhat compelled to adhere to food etiquette, on occasion. After Eight mints after 8pm (...ish), nought but raisins in my scones and mince pies only at Christmas. The latter being of interest for today. I absolutely adore mince pies, so much. I'm not sure whether it's because I know I can only have them, by conscience, in December, or whether they're actually just that amazing. I love that many very talented chefs have reinvented this old classic, whether it's to adapt for people with certain food intolerances, or because they grew up on badly made mince pies or whatever their reason may be. However, I have no major food intolerances, I grew up on awesome mince pies and I am set in my ways, so I still love them. I was perusing the BBC Good Food website and found only three recipes, that weren't mince pie slices, cakes, muffins or other general paraphenalia. It might not sound so slanderous, but if you take into account the vastness of the website and the recipes it holds, it is. 

I know they're everywhere at Christmas, but I don't really know anyone who makes them at home anymore, I think it's a bit of a shame. They're not difficult, they don't take up much of time, even if you buy ready made pastry they're still cheaper to make then they are to buy, and they taste better. So when we reach December, I will be able to re-test out my recipe and post it on here, so you guys don't have to use experimental recipes and such like. Such dedication to my etiquette.

Around this time of year is a good time to be making your mincemeat (if you plan to make your own mince pies that is). Obviously it depends entirely on personal taste as to what sort of mincemeat you can make, if you want a real traditional style mincemeat you can use suet. This is obviously bad news for vegetarians (and vegans) and people who care about their waistline, so you don't have to put it in, as there's plenty of fat in the pastry you make. Personally, i'm not a purist in this region so I leave out the suet. There's some things that you unfortunately just cant leave out of mincemeat, such as raisins, sultanas and currants. There is a difference between raisins, sultanas and currants too, and they do differ in taste, so find one you like and stick a load of it in your recipe. You don't necessarily have to use all the types of dried grape, but you've gotta use one, it's just not the same! Personally I use half raisin (dried red grapes) and half sultanas (dried green grapes) in mine, currants are dried Black Corinth grapes and they are too shriveled and hard, no matter how long you soak them.

A little note to those who aren't fans of sultanas or currants:If you want to use all raisins, you need to lessen the amount of sugar you put into your mixture. Red grapes are naturally sweeter than green so when the sweetness is intensified by the drying process it'll end up far too sweet when you add even more sugar during the cooking process!

Because I know all are not the same i'm providing you with two differing recipes, huzzah! One is for the traditionalists, and one for more modern taste buds. They are both from the legendary Constance Spry cookery book, and I've used them both for many a Christmas. The measurements are converted from pounds and ounces into grams so it's all rough. But it's all fine, that's the wonder of mincemeat it doesn't really have to be perfect. You can also leave bits out too, if you don't want to use (or can't find) Brandy, use a different liqueur or orange juice if you fancy.


Traditional Constance Spry Mincemeat
Makes enough for 20-30 good sized mince pies.
500g raisins
400g sultanas
350g chopped apple (any variety works well, cooking Bramleys are good for thickening the mixture, and Golden Delicious is good to add lightness and sweetness)
350g brown sugar
225g beef suet
250g mixed peel
120g almonds, chopped finely
Grated rind and juice of 2 unwaxed lemons
Tblsp mixed spice
2 medium glasses of brandy.

- Shred the suet as finely as you can and mix all of the ingredients together. If you're worried about it being too boozy you can add the brandy bit by bit until it's just moistened.
- Keep for a few weeks in the fridge before using to let all of the flavours intermingle!

This one is lovely and filling, because of the suet used, but if the thought of having beef fat in your mincemeat makes you cringe you can leave it out and it'll still taste awesome (and stay away from supermarket bought mincemeat too!).

Mincemeat: Take 2
Makes enough for 40-50 mince pies, or to last you through a big family Christmas.
900g chopped apples
1.5kg chopped raisins
1.5kg sultanas
700g grapes (seedless to make your life easier)
Rind and juice of 3 or 4 unwaxed lemons
400g almonds
250g mixed peel
900g brown sugar
1 gill of Brandy or Rum (about 150ml)

- Pulse the peel, almonds and apples in a blender to help your along, otherwise chop them as finely as your hands can carry you! Mix everything together and stir it every now and again.
The second one is a lot fresher, so keep it in the fridge and stir it quite regularly and it'll be golden! By the time it gets to mid December it'll be beautiful and ready to use. A little project to keep you occupied for the cold winters drawing in perhaps?

Peace
JR

Chocolate Candles

Advent calendar's are obviously a big part of Christmas, it's not quite the same if you have a Christmas when you're young (or young at heart) and not opening the little door every morning, piercing the thin foil with your thumb and eating a little piece of dog chocolate inside. There are quite a few traditions that are seared into our brains now, such as the fact that no matter how unpleasant the chocolate, you are forced, by unofficial law to get up every morning and eat chocolate for breakfast for most of December. Of course when you're little you don't really think like that, you're too busy smearing it round your face and running round the house like a lunatic. There are still some 'traditional' styled advent calendars knocking around, the advent candles, where a candle is lit for every day leading up to Christmas. 

I always thought in my naivety that the oldest advent calendars were the fabric ones filled with gifts, just because of the significant absence of chocolate. The first printed calendars came about in 1908 by a man named Gerhard Lang after his mother used to make him them as a child. It was simply named "Christmas-Calendar" or "Munich-Christmas-Calendar" (how inventive, Mr Lang) and was for all of the Lutheran Christians in the area. He went on to create little doored advent calendars, filled with Biblical references. The association isn't so abstract to grasp, it's entirely logical that the first printed ones were religiously based, as is the entirely holiday, obviously. There used to have the snowy nativity scenes with doors that could be opened to reveal selected bible verses for each day. I would love to see a modern (and, obviously, an Athiest) child get one for this December, just to see the look on their face and the slow realisation that there's nothing to eat in it. I would guess it's something not too dissimilar to this...

I'm surprised it's taken this long to feature a cat picture on my blog in all honesty.

But it's true, living in the UK, well in the area I live in at least, there is not a huge saturation of Christianity and most of the children here would be horrified at the lack of sweeties on a chilly December morn. But I digress, I was mentioning the dog chocolate that comes in most of the advent calendars, even in - i'm sorry in advance - Cadbury's.  I have a love-hate relationship with Cadbury's chocolate; love because I have such fond memories of eating chocolate buttons as a child, but hate because I don't like the taste of it anymore, it makes my teeth hurt. So I decided to test a proper one this year. I mentioned in my Theobroma Cocoa post about my love for good chocolate, and after a few months of working hard to save money, I decided to treat me and my other half to a good advent calendar this year.

It's pretty amazing, it's probably as thick as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (a good reference point?) and you get two little truffles in each one to either share with your significant other. I'm no going to lie, it is as of today, the 9th of November, and nearly every chocolate in this calendar has been eaten. Such a lack of dedication to my etiquette

When I started eating them I completely didn't care that is was November, they were too nice. There are a few different types, so you don't get bored, which is a nice thought; mulled wine, gingerbread, cinnamon, milk chocolate, dark chocolate and salted caramel. They're all pretty sexy, but the gingerbread truffle is absolutely immense, followed closely by milk chocolate. It's nice to indulge yourself once in a while with really amazing chocolate, I don't eat Cadbury's anymore, so I like to buy a little bit of something amazing. I tried a direct comparison to Cadbury's equivalent house milk (Dairy Milk), dark (Bournville) and white (Dream) to Hotel Chocolat's, and it signed my soul onto it forever. Never will a piece of Bournville grace my lips or cooking ever again. The actual cocoa mass content is horrific (with Hotel Chocolat's milk chocolate containing more than Bournville, which is meant to be dark), they instead fill it with vegetable fat which not only makes the texture horrible, but makes it completely tasteless. I understand why they did it, they wanted to spread chocolate to as many people as they could, so they held back on the cocoa content, because, it's unavoidable, cocoa is very expensive at around £1700 a tonne. But it's been at the significant cost of the taste of it, ironically making it taste less and less like chocolate as their greed got the better of them.

I digress, if you fancy actually treating yourself this year instead of eating cardboard chocolate, or just want something a little more sophisticated, have a look at here, they're probably the best actual chocolate advent calendars out there, without remortgaging your house. They've also got a pretty wicked Christmas selection at the moment as well, the awesome gingerbread truffles that I have in my advent calendar come in the little boxes of eight on the right hand side of the page. If you feel like it's too much to spend on yourself, why not treat someone else to one? Maybe they'll repay the favour and you'll have a tonne of good karma at the same time.

Just on a final note, I thought i'd post a short summary of some adventures i've been up to recently. I was propositioned into making a small set of cakes for a friend's party so I thought i'd share the love.

A lovely little lemon cupcake with cream cheese icing, with added cute sugar daisy!

Along with a massive chocolate layer cake - the recipe of which is in my last post - with a half dark (for the adults) and half milk (for the kiddies) chocolate ganache on the outside. I hope everyone enjoyed them, and I had a really fun time making everything and playing with edible glitter with my sister! It prompted me to seriously debate the idea of setting up my own little independent cake shop.

I suppose that's it for now my lovelies. The mince pie experimentation will have to wait for a few weeks but i'm sure i'll think of something to fill my time with until then. I'm having some pretty epic cravings for Moroccan food at the moment, I suspect a tagine is in order. Soon.

Peace.
JR

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