Stash Avalanche

Happy noo year!

Lordy, 7am on new year's day and I'm blogging. I was going to say I hope this doesn't set a precedence but with 6 weeks to go til I pop, this may turn out to be the new trend of 2011 (hello, 4am feeds!).

So, happy new year everyone.

There have been lots of bloggers far more orgnaised than myself who have been posting lovely illustrated resumes of 2010 but what with Stash Towers haveing been completely consumed by the leurgy over the holidays (Mr G coughing his lungs out and me losing all sense of taste and smell) nothing much has been done in that direction.

Yesterday was spent grilling a poor sales assistant in Mothercare for 3 hours, and eating fondue with Mr C. This (the fondue not the grilling) has become our traditional new year's eve meal, and I wanted to take lots of photos but totally forgot in the bustle of it all, so you will have to imagine 140 different kinds of pickle, a near boiling pot of broth with lots of bits of squewered meat, and 5 baguettes (thanks to poor communications). Oh, and special mention to Mr C's home-made garlic sauce which contained nearly 2 bulbs of garlic - so we will probably need to keep a safe distance from the sales assistant when we go back to Mothercare this afternoon. Poor Debbie will certainly have earned her commission by the time she's finished with us!

So my contribution to the new year blog-o-sphere is two very quick and disorganised lists - possibly with photos if I can find them - as a quick round up of what's been and what's yet to come.

In 2010, I...

• got pipped at the post for 4  jobs (grumble)
• started blogging (woo hoo!)
• had my mum to stay
• had at least one sewing frenzy

• wasn't allowed to do any exercise (double grumble)
• made an unfeasible number of cakes (yay!)

 

• lost 10 kg...
• ... then watched my waist line grow to 46" (gulp)
• improved my bread-making skills

• and didn't improve my tunic-making skills

And in 2011, I'll be...

• learning how to be a mother (gulp)
• having lots of sleepless nights (already in practice for this thanks to aching pregnancy legs)
• finishing my flippin' course (no, of course I didn't do any work last week, hrumph)
  
• getting a job (this really has to happen)
• going running again (OMG. I. Can't. Wait.)
• moving house (this really has to happen too)
• making even more cakes (double yay!)
  
• eating more spinach (spanokopita, how I love you)
  
• trying not to mention the baby in every post
• rediscovering the joys of tea (goodbye, pregnancy hormones)
• trying to tick off some of the things on my knitting list
  

There. That's the gist of things. Let's hope 2011 is not as random as these lists.

Happy Saturday!

The weekend

From waking up to a good inch of hail (which stayed all day) and no internet connection on Saturday...

... to heavy overnight snow on Sunday... 

... we have had a chilly weekend (minus 7C this morning), not something the east side of Ireland is used to. Our central heating had a good work out over the weekend, and I even turned it up higher than my usual frugal setting.

I had been planning to finish the Lila Tueller quilt and I'm almost there. I just need to cut the binding and sew it on, and I'll be done. I'll try to organise my self in to taking a photo of it this afternoon.

I have been working on a couple of other things though -  quick baby knits with some leftover Rowan Wool Cotton. A little hat which I found at blueskyalpacas.com (via Ravelry) and comes as a free downloadable pdf.

(I added the little i-corded knot on the top)

You're supposed to knit it on 12" circular needles but I didn't have any so I did it with double ended ones instead. However, I found that you need to rotate the stitches round the needles, otherwise every time you change from one needle to the next, you create a wider gap between the stitches which (if you don't rotate) ends up lookling a bit like you dropped a stitch. So I learnt something new there.

I started a little pair of mittens, also in leftover Wool Cotton...

I'm blocking them because they came out different sizes even though there are the same number of rows. I'll fold each one over and sew it up then add a little crochet edge to put a bit of elastic or some yarn through. These are a bit of an experiment size-wise, I made them up as I went along, but I'm pretty sure they'll be ok on a newborn.

I also (finally) got round to blocking my onesie.

The original pattern is very old so I used Patons Cotton instead of the acrylic called for, and the guage is a bit out so I'm not entirely sure how it will fit on the baby. There doesn't seem to be enough room to get a nappy-ed bottom in to me. I also had to widen the sleeves at the armhole edge, as the armholes turned out bigger than they should have, so all in all a bit of a hodgepodge knitting-wise, but I will reserve final judgement until it has a baby in it!

And remember my idea for a nutella cake? I was going to make a ring version but in the end I made a smaller one in a loaf tin. Turns out the idea is theoretically sound, but doesn't really work in practice.

I put all the cake mixture in the tin, made a kind of valley in the middle, and spooned warmed nutella along it. Then I sprinkled chopped toasted almonds on the top and covered the whole thing over with the excavated cake mix. But as you can see, the nutella sank. It also developed a slightly crispy bottom, although this probably wouldn't have happened if I'd taken the cake out 5 minutes earlier.

It tastes fine enough, but my idea of a central splodge of nutella surrounded by cake didn't pan out at all.  You can do this wth jam and it usually works so I suspect that the nutella was probablly too heavy for the cake mix.

Anyway, that was the weekend. I'm off out now to see how many times I can fall over on the way to the bus stop (it's a winter speciality of mine!) and go to what is laughingly known as the monthly visit to the semi-private antenatal consultant.

Happy Monday!

 

Quilting + bump = progress

Last week's baking seemed to go down as well with you as with us. Mr G and I shared the jam pizza, and the rest didn't last very long.

I was going to bake again today but there's not enough time. So my clever idea will have to wait until next week. The clever idea is this - make a cake in a ring tin, and put a mixture of nutella and toasted chopped almonds in the centre of the sponge, so that every slice has a gooey chocolate centre. What do you think?

I was partially inspired by The Food Librarian (found via DeliciousDeliciousDelicious) who has just spent her second year celebrating National Bundt Day (only in the USA...) by making a bundt cake (that's a cake cooked in a ring tin if you're not being fancy) every day for 30 days (ok, well I think one was a meat loaf and one was a jelly but even so...). I think that requires more baking stamina than even I have!

Meanwhile, back at the Lila Tueller quilt....

I whaled around on the floor again, this time with my (allegedly) blocked and properly rectangular quilt top and pinned it to the wadding and backing again. Then I discovered that although the width was a lovely uniform 36" all the way along, the damned thing was an inch longer on one side than the other. I gave up! There's only so much hanging in mid-air that my bump can take, and I don't think anyone will notice unless they get a measuring tape out.

So to quilting.  I was semi-tempted to hand quilt it but decided I would probably lose the will to live half way through, so machine quilting it is. And I feel that I'm making surprisingly good progress. I started quilting the centre last night, did a bit more this morning and suddenly it was done. So all I need to do now is the long band around the outside.

I'm doing double parallel lines about 1cm on either side ot the seams. Can you see what I mean...?

I didn't draw on any guide lines. I just shifted the needle to the far left and followed the seam with the edge of the presser foot. And then shifted the needle to the far right and did the other side.

So the back looks like this:

Now I need to finish off all the lose threads - probably one of the most tedious jobs in the world - and then I can quilt the border and bind the edge.

So (famous last words) by next weekend, it should be done. And then I can celebrate with cake!

Baking madness

I first learnt to bake bread when I was a child. It was a really basic recipe and I probably didn't even use strong bread flour. In recent years, I got into making Grant loaves because they don't require any kneading but lately I've become rather fed up with them.

Mr G always craves German bread and finds my wholemeal Grant loaves (with plenty of seeds) a reasonable substitute, but for me they have just become more and more solid. Sad as I can remember practically eating the first one I made in one go, it was so good (although that one was made with white flour).

Anyway,  Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's current tv series on Channel 4 recently did a bread making episode which made me think that I should a. go back to kneaded bread and b. try his method, so that's what I've been doing today.

I went out and bought the River Cottage Bread Handbook earlier in the week which spends a lot of pages going through the bread making process in detail. I love these handbooks - I also have the one on preserves - and I slowly intend to collect all of them. I really think they will become collectors' items in the future.

I'm not going to go into the bread-making process in detail because it would take so long I might as well reproduce the book in this post and then I'd probably get arrested for plagiarism! Suffice to say, there are three methods to start the dough. You can either shove everything together and get on with the kneading immediately, or you can mix the flour and water, leave it for a while and then add the yeast, or you can make a batter with all the water and all the yeast but only half the flour, then leave it over night before you add the rest of the flour and get kneading.

This last method (aka the sponge method) is the one that I chose to do, because it is supposed to cut down on kneading time, and kneading was the bit I wasn't looking forward to. So I actually started the batter last night.

It's not that I hate kneading, but the River Cottage method involves very sticky dough which sticks to everything. I was going to take a photo of the dough mid-knead this morning but by the time I thought of it, I was completely caked in dough myself. Note to self: perhaps a little less water next time might help.

My bread didn't rise a great deal when it was proving (I think that was due to it being a bit too wet), but it did rise rather spectacularly in the oven.

These rolls were about half an inch thick and looked more like mini pancakes before they went in.

I used a kilo of flour as suggested and got six big rolls and a tin loaf. But I think next time I'll only make 4 rolls and add a bit more dough to the tin for a taller loaf. (No photos of the loaf because it was still in the oven when I took these).

But six rolls and one loaf do not baking madness make.

I am really unconvinced that this pregnancy has created food cravings but for a week now, I've been thinking about jam tarts (in a Homer Simpson kind of way), so while the bread was proving, I made some in my muffin tin (which was far too deep but never mind) and a kind of jam-disaster-pizza with the left over pastry.

and yes, I know there aren't 12 jam tarts there. I had to do some sampling just to make sure they were ok. Judge me if you like - I don't care!

And, for about three weeks now I've been thinking about pineapple upside-down cake so I made one of those too for our post-squash Saturday tea and cake session with Mr G's friend, C (they play squash, I sensibly stay at home). But strangely, although it turned out very nicely, I had two mouthfuls and had to get Mr G to finish the rest. Perhaps that was hormones.

And then because there was no room in the fridge (don't get me started on the size of the fridge!) I made a bowl of coleslaw too.

Alright. I don't think you really want a photo of that.

So I feel like I've spent the whole day in the kitchen (cue over-dramatic hand to forehead). But I felt very efficient, and (bonus) supper will be bratwurst, River Cottage rolls and Stash Towers coleslaw, with jam tarts for pud, so it hasn't been all bad!

 

Di's date and nut cake with brandy syrup

Oh dear, my stats are looking droopy. Not so many page views recently , but I can hardly be surprised when I spend all week with my nose in my study notes and have nothing to tell you (unless you're interested in European Directives?) and nothing to show you.

Well, the good news is that I am slowly trying to get a routine of work in the week and craft at the weekends going, and I managed to revitalise my crafting mojo on Friday, so there will soon be something interesting back on this blog.

But even I need a break occasionally from relentless studying so only 8 days late, here's a cake for you!

This is a recipe I got from a South African colleague years and years ago, and although I don't make it very often,  it is a favourite of mine because it's simple to make, you eat it with cream and has brandy in it (always a winner for me, if I can say that without sounding like I'm permanently sozzled!). 

(this was the last piece and I couldn't be bothered to whip the cream, pah! call me Nigella!)

One quick pre-recipe note here: as you will see, the original recipe is measured in cups. I have metric equivalents scribbled on my copy of the recipe for some of the ingredients but not all. I was going to try to completely metric-ify the amounts for you, but I discovered that firstly there seem to be at least 6 different definitions of what a 'cup' holds (thank you, Wikipedia, groan), and secondly the bits of the recipe I did previous metric-ify don't seem to correspond to any of them! So I'm afraid you'll either have to work in cups (which I am kind of fundamentally opposed to) or decide which version of a cup you like best and work it out yourself. Sorry!

*******

Di's date and nut cake with brandy syrup

the cake

1 cup dates

2/3 cup boiling water

1 tsp bicarb of soda

2 tbs butter

1 cup sugar (I use brown sugar)

1 egg

1 1/2 cups plain flour (I use wholemeal)

4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup chopped nuts (I think something strongly flavoured like walnuts or pecans works best)

the syrup

1 cup sugar (I used granulated)

1/2 cup water

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbs butter

1/4 cup brandy

Preheat the oven to 185 C/ 375F.

Chop up the dates and mix with the water and bicarb of soda. Leave to cool.

Cream the butter with the sugar. Add the egg and beat well. Mix in the dry ingredients and then add the date mixture and chopped nuts.

Butter an 8"/21cm tin (or put a circle of baking paper in the bottom and just butter the sides - I find this a more reliable way of getting a cake to come out of it's tin), and pour in the mixture. Bake for 20-25 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool - you can freeze it at this point if you like.

Before you make the syrup, give the cake a good poke all over with a skewer - this helps the syrup soak in.

To make the syrup, boil the water and sugar together for 5 minutes, then take off the heat and add the butter, vanilla extract and brandy. Pour the hot syrup evenly over the cake and leave to cool before eating with lots of whipped cream. You could also sprinkle some more chopped nuts on the top of the cake if you're feeling fancy.

*******

There is no point working out Weight Watchers Points for this cake. It is far too bad. So either don't eat it, don't diet, or sin and be carefree.

The cake is a doddle to make but I would add a few words of caution about the syrup. It may well bubble up enthusiastically when you add the vanilla and brandy, so just bare this in mind. Also, the syrup can burn very suddenly so don't let yourself be distracted (as I did by Mr G and something 'important' he just had to tell me).

If it burns, start again. You don't want the cake to taste of burnt sugar. Although the recipe says boil for 5 minutes, I'd use some common sense here - you want a clear syrup so if it starts to look like it's colouring, take it off the heat immediately and add the rest of the ingredients.

Solidified caramel is hard to get out of a pan so the easiest thing to do is add some hot water, put the pan back on the hob and bring it to the boil whilst stirring. This will remelt the solid bits and dissolve them in the water, and presto! your pan is saved.

I can't help feeling that as the brandy goes into very hot syrup most of the alcohol evaporates and therefore makes the cake suitable for kids (if you have views on this sort of thing). Alternatively you could just forego the syrup and spike the cake with neat brandy. I ended up making half quantity syrup (because I didn't want the cake to be too sweet) and sloshing in probably more than the  1/4 cup of brandy called for.

And typing this out made me wonder, can you still get thos bricks of compressed dates? I've never seen them in Ireland but surely a proper British supermarket still stocks them?

 

 

Pecan Squares

Where Mr G works, they have a weekly team meeting every Thursday and a cake rota to go with it. And every so often, Mr G puts his name down for it. Not that he bakes for it, of course.

The first time this happened, he said "oh, I'll just go to the supermarket and buy something". Go to the supermarket and buy something?!?! We couldn't be having with that! You know me and baking. So ever since then, if he puts his name on the rota (or I feel like making an unfeasibly large cake that we'd never finish ourselves), I bake the work cake.

So today Mr G went off to work with a sponge cake filled with homemade lemon curd and mascapone (but I think it is going to all squish out when he cuts it - eeek!) and these pecan squares, which I have been wanting to try for ages.

And when I say ages, I mean since 1983.

They're from Food for Presents by Patricia Lousada, which is a little A5 book published by Sainsburys, and probably only available now in jumble sales or the like. The poor thing doesn't even have an ISBN number!

As it was my first attempt, I tried (mostly) to stick faithfully to the recipe in the book, but I think there could be a number of variations so long as the nuts had a reasonably distinctive flavour.

The result was pretty good considering that my tin was too shallow so I had a) too much caramel and b) a serious overflow problem when the squares went back in the oven (but fortunately I thought this might happen so I put a baking tray on the next shelf down to catch the spill - phew! thanks goodness I did!).

My other (on-going) problem is a not very co-operative fan oven (ah, the joys of renting) which is hotter on one side than the other, and generally too hot (I do have an oven thermometer but I frequently forget to use it!), so one end of the tray came out a bit burnt looking, but we tried one and it just about passed the taste test.

And they taste very good. The pastry comes out like a shortbread and then you have the lovely toffee nutty topping. You could even go crazy and drizzle chocolate over the top (white chocolate would look pretty). They're quite rich though; my tin was 9"x13" and I got 24 rectangles out of it, and thought that one piece was quite enough.

Anyway, enough about me...

*******

Pecan Squares from Food for Presents by Patricia Lousada (published by Sainsburys, 1983)

the base

10oz/275g plain flour

pinch of salt

2oz/50g caster sugar

6oz/175g cold butter

1 small egg (I used a medium egg and thought it was only just enough)

grated rind of 1 lemon

the topping

4oz/100g butter

4tbsp runny honey

1oz/25g sugar

3oz/soft light brown sugar (I used muscavado)

3 tbsp double cream

6oz/175g shelled pecans (I used 8oz and 6 would have been fine)

Butter a tin approx 8x12x1" (20x30x2.5cm). Preheat oven to gas 5/375F/190C (I had my fan oven at about 175C).

To make the pastry, soft the flour with the salt into a mixing bowl. Stir in the caster sugar. Cut the butter into small pieces (I grated mine) and rub into the flour with your fingertips. Add the egg and lemon rind until the mixture just holds together. Distribute the pastry by the spoonful overt the bottom of the tin. With floured fingertips, press it into the bottom of the tin. Prick all over with a fork and refrigerate for 10 minutes. Then bake for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven but keep the oven on.

Melt the butter for the topping with the honey in a heavy saucepan. Add both sugars and stir to dissolve. Bring to the boil and boil without stirring for 1 minute. Take off the heat and stir in the cream and pecans. Immediately pour over the crust and return to the oven for 25 minutes.

Allow to cool before cutting around the edges and inverting on to a baking sheet. Cover with another baking sheet and invert again so that the right side is up. Dip a sharp knife into very hot water and cut into squares. Pack in pretty boxes or bags (for giving as a present).

*******

A couple more things now that I think of them.

Lots of recipes suggest grating fat when pastry making but I'd never tried it before. I'm pretty rubbish at pastry (too hot hands) but I found this method really speeds up getting to the 'breadcrumb' stage, so I recommend it as it really cuts down handling time. And the butter grates like soft cheddar even when it's only just come out of the freezer.

As I said, I had too much caramel. This was a combination of too shallow a tin and too much cream (I wanted to use it up). I really thought that I ws going to have problems getting the squares out of the tin due to the concrete layer of overflow, but the combination of all that butter and a non-stick tin made it a doddle. So no big washing up hoohaa.

Also, because you effectively bake it twice, the finished squares come out pretty hard. I found that sliding a knife under one edge and levering it a bit, I didn't need to do the invert it onto two baking sheets routine - it just slid out.

(added 01-10-10)  Store them in an air tight container otherwise they go very sticky!

I think I'll be making it again, but with a deeper tin for certain!

(added 05-10-10) Check out Petit Filoux's blog for some photos of a much more successful (read unburnt!) version of the pecan squares!

First Impressions: Mary Berry's Baking Bible

title: Mary Berry's Baking Bible

author: Mary Berry

ISBN: 978-1-846-07785-2

A hardback (seems it only comes in hardback) recipe book featuring "over 250 classic recipes" for cakes and other baked things taken from a range of Mary Berry's previous myriad of publications.

The book is divided into 4 sections consisting of conversion tables, an introduction and techniques section, 19 chapters of the recipes themselves (which I'll list in a minute), and a section on cake decorations.

Conversion tables are provided for weights, measurements, volume and oven temperatures.

Introduction and techniques

Mary provides advice on baking equipment (including a pretty comprehensive list of "cake tins for keen bakers"), lining tins, baking terminology, ingredients and baking tips.

The recipes

Chapters on classic cakes like this cappuccino cake...

 

and this battenburg...

... fruit and nut cakes, spiced cakes, chocolate cakes, cupcakes and other small bakes, celebration cakes, special cakes like these chocolatines...

 

... traybakes and flapjacks, biscuits and cookies, fancy biscuits, shortbreads and bars, baking for children, tarts and pastries, breads like this Foccacia with onion and balsamic topping...

... fruit breads, buns and scones, hot puddings and pies like this bread and butter pudding...

... souffles and meringues, and cheesecakes.

All the standards are included like carrot cake, coffee and walnut, brandy snaps, swiss rolls, brownies, LMP, banoffi pie, cheese straws, and christmas cake. Photographs are provided for about a quarter of the recipes.

Cake decorations

A relatively brief section covering different types of icings, almond paste and various chocolate decorations.

My first impression

Well, this is probably more like a second impression as it's the second time I've had this book out of the library now, but I've only made 3 things from it so perhaps it's more like first-and-a-half.

Anyway!

The text on the back of the book says "The only baking book you will ever need" and really it's not that wrong. The range of recipes is very comprehensive, and they are clearly explained and organised. The photographs are full page and not over-styled (as you can see above) but the book is clearly designed to be used rather than sit on a coffee table, so the photos provide occasional interest rather than overwhelm the text.

Things I particularly like:

• the oven temperature conversion chart includes fan oven settings
• the christmas cake recipe provides a table of ingredients weights for 8 different tin sizes
• a lot of the recipes have additional information such as variations and how not to worry when the mixture looks a bit dodgy(!)
• breads and puddings are included (this could have so easily become a just-cakes book)
  

Things I didn't like:

• Mary puts mixed peel in her seed cake (heresy!)
• she doesn't tell me why my scones never rise as much as they should
• there's no recipe for christmas pudding (I'm rather surprised that it got left out)

So basically, hardly anything to get really annoyed about.

I've made three recipes from the book. I've already posted about the Lemon Meringue Pie, but I've also made the cupcakes, and the Austrian curd cheesecake.

I found that the cupcakes came out rather small (but that might have been due to paper cases that were too big) and there was too much icing for me (but I only like a smear's worth); if you wanted the sort of cupcake where there was as much icing as cake you'd have little to complain about.

The cheesecake, I made with ricotta because I couldn't find any flippin' curd cheese (double grumble!) and I wasn't very happy with it, but I must say that it was solely due to the ricotta, which I like neither the texture or the flavour of (which therefore begs the question why did I make the thing in the first place? Probably answer: sheer desperation to bake (I get like that sometimes)). Everyone else liked it, so clearly it was just me.

I think my next cake will be the cappuccino cake - it looks exactly my kind of thing. And the traybakes call to me as well (but that is probably because I spent too much time reading hand-me-down Women's Own magazines when I was little).

Anyway, the long and the short of it is this: buy this book, you won't regret it. I find books in bookshops over here are severely over-priced so it's on my Amazon list for when I have enough to qualify for free postage. Until then I will hang on to this library copy for as long as I can.

Happy Tuesday!

Lemon meringue pie

Or Ferengi Pie as Mr G has christened it. Or Delicious Traffic Accident which is what it turned out to be in practical terms. Let's call it LMP for short.

I got Mary Berry's Baking Bible out of the library last week and have had an itch to make LMP ever since. I have no idea why - I think I've eaten LMP perhaps 3 times in my entire life (including now) - but I had an urge to bake, and the method was intriguing, and y'know, some times you just have to do these things...

*******

Lemon Meringue Pie from Mary Berry's Baking Bible

the base:

175g/6oz digestive biscuits

75g/3oz butter

the filling:

397g/14oz can of condensed milk

3 large egg yolks (I used 4 medium)

finely grated rind and juice of 3 lemons

the topping:

3 large egg whites (I used 4 medium)

175g/6oz caster sugar

also:

20cm/8"deep fluted flan tin

Pre-heat the oven to 190C/170Cfan/gas 5.

Put the biscuits into a plastic bag and crush with a rolling pin. Melt the butter in a medium-sized pan. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the biscuit crumbs. Press into the flan dish and leave to set.

Pour the condensed mile into a bowl, then beat in the egg yolks, lemon rind and strained lemon juice. The mixture will seem to thicken on standing, then loosen again as soon as it is stirred. This is caused by the combination of condensed milk and lemon juice and is nothing to worry about. Pour the mixture into the biscuit-lined dish.

Whisk the egg whites until stiff but not dry. Gradually add the sugar, a teaspoon at a time, whisking will between each addition. Whisk until very stiff and all the sugar has been added.

Put separate spoonfuls of meringue over the surface of the filling then spread gently to cover the filing to the biscuit edge, lightly swirling the meringue.

Bake in the pre-heated oven for 15-20 minutes or until the meringue is light brown. leave to cool for about 30 minutes before serving warm.

*******

Well, for starters, I have to say double yum! It comes out tasting like a really good lemon cheesecake and not half as sickly sweet as the condensed milk might lead you to believe. But (and there are always 'buts' with me as you've probably come to realise by now)...

I left it in for 20 minutes and the filling wasn't set in the middle. Mr G, being a part-time greedy guts, had a slice anyway and put it in the microwave (no (sigh), there was no telling him) which made it come out looking like soup but proclaimed it delicious despite. I think it was a combination of having the oven a wee bit too hot (so the meringue was definitely brown when I took it out), the insulative effects of the meringue and not long enough in the oven (but how was I to know? It's not the sort of thing you can stick a skewer into!). So I put it back in the oven (at 50C for an hour, but only because we were engrossed in NCIS dvds) and that solved the filling problem.

The unsolvable problem was the biscuit base. I've made these plenty of times for cheesecake bases but I don't think I've ever baked one before. The taste was fine but it came out really soggy and was really difficult to cut cleanly or get off the flan tin, hence the traffic accident description. Was that me? was it the biscuits? the oven? I dunno. The only thing I can think of that might have improved it was to have put the flan tin on a pre-heated metal sheet when it first went into the oven - that might have encouraged a crisper base. But other than that, I don't know how it could have been improved.

All in all though, it was highly edible. So much so that I had two slices after lunch, which probably means I've had my entire calorific intake for the rest of the month now. Haven't had the courage to work out the WW Points yet either - I bet it will be at least 3 zillion Points a portion*.

So even if I never make LMP again, I think I would definitely use the filling recipe, perhaps on top of a sponge base. It was really tangy and delicious; it made me think of a good home-made lemon curd. And LMP will forever be referred to as Ferengi Pie here at Stash Mansions, but it will probably taste a whole lot better than your average Ferengi.

Happy Sunday!

ps. Just wanted to mention: when I give you  a recipe from someone's recipe book, I always reproduce the instructions as they are in the book (hence the sometimes annoying phraseology) but of course, when it's from my own recipe book, you get me (hence the probably sparse instructions or annoying phraseology (depending on how you look at things)).

* (added 20-09-10) ohmigod! I just calculated the WW Points and for a 1/6th portion, there are 13½ points. THIRTEEN AND A HALF!!! It'll be lettuce and water for me for the rest of the week then.

Celebrating yellow with Made

Remember the yellow Burda dress?

Well, Dana is having a Celebrate Yellow event on her blog Made so I thought I'd join in and get myself a nice new fancy button too (although try as I might, I can't get the damned thing to centre, grumble grumble).

Other yellow things I've blogged about are Lemon Syrup and Lemon and Strawberry Yogurt Cake.

Dana has created a Celebrate Yellow group on Flickr so I shall be adding all three of my contributions there shortly.

I do like yellow so perhaps there will be a few more yellow posts in the near future...

Happy Tuesday!

Honey cake

I've been making this cake for years. So long in fact that a) I can't remember where it came from and b) I don't know why I didn't share it with you earlier.

It has no fat in it, so you can eat it and feel reasonably virtuous, but only reasonably because there's quite a lot of sugar in there. The honey makes it feel a bit rubbery when you cut it, but don't worry, it has the consistency of fruit cake (and no rubberiness!) once you bite into it. If you can manage, keep it for a few days before you cut into it; a bit of maturing helps with the texture. It also keeps brilliantly in an air-tight container or sealed plastic bag.

Two cooking alerts - it doesn't rise much, so don't be surprised, and it browns very easily, so be ready with the butter paper or a bit of greaseproof, and check it after half an hour or so.

I'll give you two versions, because over the years the recipe has evolved somewhat. The first one works fine but I prefer more fruit and less sweetness so these days I make the second version.

Version 1

This is the original recipe, as scribbled down in green fountain pen when I was a student (but read down for a better version):

1 lb honey

6 oz soft brown sugar

4 eggs

¼ tsp mixed spice

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp baking powder

2 oz sultanas

2 oz blanched almonds

2 oz chopped peel

I found this version too sweet and not fruity enough, so over the years the mix has evolved to have less sugar and more fruit. The one in the photos was made with the following recipe (and is a much better version for it).

Version 2

350g honey

100g muscovado sugar (or soft brown if you prefer)

4 eggs

1½ tsp mixed spice

350g wholemeal flour

1 tsp baking powder

200g sultanas (you could also use raisins, dates, whatever you like - how about chopped dried apricots?)

200g mixed candied peel (leave this out if you don't like peel)

200g walnuts (or almonds, hazelnuts, pecans, again, whatever you feel like or have in the pantry)

Preheat oven to 400F/200C/175C fan assisted.

Put the honey and sugar in a saucepan and heat gently until you can combine the two and the honey is liquid. Don't allow it to get too hot.

Off the heat, beat in the eggs, then mix in the flour, spice and baking powder, then the fruit and nuts.

Tip into a lined (with baking parchment) 22cm/9" tin and smooth over. Bake for about an hour, checking to see if it needs covering with a butter paper after about 20 minutes. The cake is cooked when a skewer comes out clean.

For the WW-ers, a 1/16th piece is 4.5 points, but should satisfy a sugar craving.

Gill - try this one too!