Rock Cakes - simple, sweet and quick

 

Thus called because you mound them in craggy peaks to bake and hope they stay that way. My Mum made these a lot when I was growing up in Manchester and I think I also remember being taught how to make them in Domestic Science class at school - they are pretty much a no fail delight - very easy and nigh on impossible to mess up even for a beginner baker. They taste to me how I wished scones tasted - sweeter and more cakey and they cry out for butter and either jam, honey, lemon curd or even Golden Syrup - they are a mish mash blend of biscuit/cookie/cake/scone and are such a nice treat with a cuppa.

The ingredients are simple:

 and the recipe I used is from "A Tale of 12 Kitchens" by Jake Tilson - family cooking in 4 countries, "every aspect has been created by artist and passionate cook Jake Tilson" - a fun and image filled book.

Pre heat the oven to 375F. Have a buttered baking sheet to hand.

THE INGREDIENTS:

As usual I give the ingredients in weights as you get a more reliable result :)

This recipe makes 8 medium sized cakes/buns

8oz white flour, unbleached preferably

5oz sugar preferably white

4oz/1 stick of butter (I always use salted Kate's but you can use whichever you prefer)

4oz sultanas/white raisins - I only had regular raisins so I used those.

1 large egg whisked with 2 tablespoons milk

1/2 teaspoon baking powder.

Pinch of salt

THE RECIPE:

1. Put flour, sugar, salt and baking powder in a bowl or the bowl of a food processor - chop butter in and either whizz in the machine or as I do because I love the process of baking - gently rub the butter into the flour with your hands until you get a mixture that looks like fine breadcrumbs thus:

 2. Add the raisins and stir to distribute evenly.

3. Stir in the egg/milk mix until the dough comes together.

4. Using a fork pile into craggy heaps onto a buttered baking sheet - 8 piles should do the trick. (You'll see below I only have 4 because I try out the recipe cut in half first in case it doesn't work - plus there are only 2 of us and if I always bake the whole amount we will always eat the whole amount :)

 5. Bake for about 12-15 minutes until golden brown

Mine spread quite a lot which I was worried about at first because they weren't looking rocky enough for me but they tasted so good I didn't care and I will make them again the very same way.

Do let me know if you make them and feel free to post pics of such on my Facebook page - HERE!!

HAPPY BAKING

Snowdon Pudding - Pwdin Eryri.

Snowdon Pudding with Lemon Toffee Sauce set against a background of my own design fabric at Spoonflower

 Eliza Acton gave the ‘genuine’ recipe in 1845, asserting that it was ‘constantly served to travellers at the hotel at the foot of Snowdon -Yr Wyddfa ’ - the ‘Pen-y-groes.’ I looked but could not find any info about this hotel but there is a town called Pen-y-groes. This recipe is a version of my own taken from a recipe in the January issue of British Country Living.

British puddings are an odd category especially so as ALL desserts in the UK are called pudding as in "Whats for pudding?" but then a pudding could be for pudding and then that usually means a steamed pudding such as the one we are having here. Steamed puddings are also odd in that they were usually created at a time when ingredients were scarce and the best was made of what little there was available - as in the very hard times during the 2 world wars. Here's a link to more information and a whole array of traditional British puddings

This particular steamed pudding is mostly comprised of breadcrumbs which makes it springy and much more sponge like - it is not too sweet and it is quite hearty for a cold and blustery day - you wouldn't want to be eating this in high summer!!

SNOWDON PUDDING: enough for 4 good sized servings - this recipe can easily be doubled.

Ingredients:

3.5oz raisins

4oz butter chilled and grated on a grating box - most steamed pudding recipes use beef suet but most people don't want to use that anymore or it's not easily available so I substituted butter and it turned out fine if a tad bit greasy - suet is great for lightness and is less greasy than butter in a steamed pudding

1 tablespoon of flour

2oz sugar

4oz fresh breadcrumbs (in the magazine they used only white breadcrumbs - I had a lot of crust hanging around so I made my breadcrumbs from those thus my pudding is quite a lot darker than the one pictured in the magazine - but this is your choice - I don't think either way tastes better or worse)

3oz lemon marmalade (I didn't have any lemon marmalade so I used ginger marmalade and I think it went really well with the lemon sauce - as you can see I do tend to go with the flow in terms of ingredients unless something is an absolute must for the recipe - you could use regular orange  marmalade too)

zest of 1 lemon - preferably organic

3 large eggs whisked well together

The first order of the day is to get a nice big double boiler going so start that first and it can be heating as you make the pudding. 

1. Grease a 1 quart/2 pint pudding basin/bowl/mould very well and put about one third of the raisins in the bottom.

2. Mix butter, breadcrumbs, flour, sugar, marmalade and remaining raisins together in one bowl.

3. In another bowl whisk eggs with lemon zest.

4. Stir egg mixture into the other mixture and it will look like this - 

5. Spoon this over the raisins in the greased bowl.

6. Now we cut a round of greaseproof/ parchment baking paper to cover the bowl generously....cover the bowl, fold paper over down the sides and secure with an elastic band.

7. Now cut a circle of aluminium foil, fold over the top of the bowl, secure with another rubber band and then for ease of getting the pudding bowl in and out of the steamer basket without scalding yourself tie string around the bowl in the manner below.

Now pop your little pudding into the 'basket' of the boiler and put it back in the pan on the stove...put the lid on and get the kettle on for a cuppa while you wait for your pudding to be cooked. I steamed this one for 2 hours on our humming wood burning stove...just to add to the Maine mystique. 

 Remove the bowl from basket after the two hours and remove covers - leave uncovered in the bowl for 10 - 15 minutes - after that time put a plate on top of the bowl and with covered hands invert quickly and give a shake to help the pudding plop out of the bowl.

 And thus you end up with a little hat shaped pudding which is quite probably rounded on the bottom...you cut some of the rounded part off the bottom for presentation purposes so it sits level on the plate. Now for the sauce - no pudding is complete without a sauce.

LEMON TOFFEE SAUCE:

This is pretty much of my own concoction as I didn't like the one the magazine gave so I took the recipe from my Sticky Toffee Pudding - left out the cream and added fresh lemon juice - YUM!!!

2.5oz sugar

1.5oz butter (I always use salted - I like that flavour!)

5 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice - 2 small lemons worthish

1. Melt butter and sugar together.

2. Add lemon juice and allow to bubble until it thickens slightly - pour over your pudding and voila - get eating - I prefer my pudding slightly cooled and definitely like it the next day completely cool - both are ways are just fine!!

HAPPY STEAMING!!

Yule logs...fake and real!

This is the scene outside right now...winter has arrived with a vengeance and we here in Maine are girding ourselves for quite the snowstorm.....up to 18 inches are expected by tomorrow morning so we are not dreaming of a white Christmas, we are indeed, going to be living it! Grab your snow shovels and get the kettle on!!
Now...on to the Yule Log/Buche de Noel...here is a pic of the meringue mushrooms in their seperate parts and 'glued' together with melted chocolate...I have to be honest with you...I am very pleased with how these little darlings turned out...James said they look like the animated mushrooms in 'Fantasia' which I am taking as quite the compliment.

Ta dah!!! My first Yule Log in all it's glory...the genoise didn't turn out as thick as I hoped but I am very happy with the finished results.


THE RECIPE

Firstly you need to make those cute little meringues!

Ingredients:

2 egg whites

4oz fine sugar

1/2 teaspoon white vinegar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Make sure your egg whites are at room temperature to ensure the greatest volume when you whip and do not attempt to make meringues on a wet/humid day...they won't work at all or will be a disappointment!

1. Beat the egg whites until stiff

2. Gradually beat in the sugar

3. Mix vinegar and vanilla extract together and fold in to egg whites

4. Using a large plain tip pipe the meringue mixture into small rounds and small upright tubes...see pic above for shapes. You will probably get little peaks on both...you can smooth these out with a WET finger....if you don't wet your finger all you will do is drag the meringue around.

5. My recipe then says to cook the meringues in a 250 degree oven for 1 hour which will give you adequate meringues with chewy centres...more like a French macaroon....but I prefer a meringue that is like ceramic so I bake in a 175 degree, if your oven will go that low, for about 4 hours and then I turn off the oven and leave the meringues in there for about 5 hours...the meringues will be dry and crisp and beautiful.

6. Melt the chocolate you are going to use for the buttercream in a pan over boiling water and use to 'glue' the meringue tops to their stalks.

7. Stand back and admire your incredibly cute work....they are irresistible aren't they?

NOW FOR THE CAKE PART: Chocolate Genoise, adapted from 'The Christmas Cook book' by Marilyn Bright with lovely illustrations by Bridget Flinn

Ingredients:

3 eggs

1 extra egg white (whipped to stiff)

scant 1/2 cup superfine sugar

2 tablespoons cocoa

1. Grease and line with buttered parchment paper an 8 x 12 inch jelly roll pan

2. Whisk the 3 whole eggs and sugar in the top of a double boiler until the mixture is pale and thick and leaves a definite trail when you lift the whisk out. DO NOT stop whisking at any point for fear of curdling the mixture and ending up with scrambled eggs!

3. Remove from the heat.

4. Sift the flour and cocoa together and gently fold into the egg mixture.

5. Fold in the whicked, or whisked!, extra egg white.

6. Pour into the prepared jelly roll pan and smooth evenly with a spatula...I didn't and the cake baked unevenly...it didn't seek it's own level as other cake batters do...how very rude of it and lazy!!

7. Bake at 425 for about 10 minutes...until the cake feels firm to the touch.

8. Carefully flip over onto a wire rack and flip again onto a flat surface, trim any uneven or crusty edges and roll up with the parchment still on it....allow to cool completely.

9. Whilst cooling whip 1/2 cup of heavy/double cream with a few tablespoons of sugar to taste and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract.

10. Unroll the cake/genoise, peel off the parchment,which probably involves another flip....spread with the whipped cream and reroll.

THE CHOCOLATE BUTTERCREAM

I like really simple buttercream...no mucking around with melting butter and whipping egg whites etc...AND I like to use salted butter to give that nice counterpoint tang that is so popular with caramels right now...I always use salted butter when I bake which I have recently found out is a very European thing to do, I just thought it was because I like the tang of salt with sweet. ANYWAYS...

Ingredients:

4oz softened butter

an inordinate amount of confectioners/icing sugar...I just keep adding until it tastes the way I like....

2oz melted semi-sweet chocolate...again I do this by eyeball and tastebud so you may want more or less.....and cooled so it won't melt the butter.

1. Beat the butter..

2. Add sifted sugar to taste.....

3. Add melted chocolate to taste.

Assemble your YULE LOG/BUCHE DE NOEL

1. Cover the rolled Yule Log with chocolate buttercream...I don't cover then ends as I like to see the cake and cream...but you can do otherwise of course! When covered to your satisfaction pull the tines of a fork lenghtwise along the buttercream and wiggle as you go to make the buttercream look like the bark of a log!!! Very easy and very effective I might say!

2. Add the ridiculously cute meringues anyway you like....see my picture above.

You will get great praise for this dessert so happy baking!!!

Now for some info on real Yule Logs......WOW!, is it snowing here...it wasn't supposed to start 'til midnight but we already have about 2" accumulated and it's only 4pm!!!

The celebration of the Yule Log began in pre-Christian times as a counterpart to the midsummer celebrations those crazy guys held way back then. The fire festival they began so long ago has developed into the burning of the Yule Log either for the modest 24 hours of Christmas Day or more ambitiously the whole twelve days of Christmas from Christmas Eve to January 6th. You are supposed to kindle to the new Yule Log with a piece saved from the log the year before. In years gone by people choose their log from those fallen on their land and the log was brought into the dwelling with great ceremony...we are talking here about castles and grand houses that had hearths the size of a modest family home nowadays. The ashes of the log are scattered over the land to promote feritilty in the crops the following year and a piece of the charred wood is to be kept under the bed to protect the house from thunder and lightning. Oak is the traditional wood for a Yule Log...here is a poem, whose origin I could not determine, that tells the properties of all manner of wood.....

LOGS TO BURN

Oak logs will warm you well,

If they're old and dry.

Larch logs of pine wood smell,

But the sparks will fly,

Beech logs for Christmas Time,

Yew logs heat well,

Scotch logs it is a crime,

For any one to sell,

Birch logs will burn too fast,

Chestnut scarce at all,

Hawthorn logs are good to last,

If you cut them in the fall,

Holly logs will burn like wax,

You should burn them green,

Elm logs like smouldering wax,

No flames to be seen,

Pear logs and apple logs,

They will scent your room,

Cherry logs across the dogs,

Smell like flowers in bloom,

But ash logs all smooth and grey,

Burn them green or old,

Buy up all that come your way,

They are worth their weight in gold.

I can indeed attest to this about ash logs now that I have been using a good old wood burning stove to heat the house these last nine years...I have also discovered I am allergic to oak, love the smell of birch bark and love ash because it does burn when green and puts off amazing heat.

Happy baking and burning...Patricia

Welsh cakes...again, not cakes....so what are they??

To be honest they are the stuff of legend...honeeest...they are the 'cakes' King Alfred burned, silly man!!!...actually I burned a couple myself so maybe he wasn't so silly!!! They are cakes in the same way a pancake is a cake, to me they taste like fried cookies (biscuits to the Brits reading)...they are sweet and cakey, simple and filling. I can eat them hot with or without butter and find them just as delicious cold when they really do have the sense of cookie about them.

The recipe I used is from an old copy of British Country Living and it has served me very well over the years...it's a great way to start your Thankies Day.

INGREDIENTS:
 

8oz unbleached white flour
 

pinch of salt
 

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg ( I like just nutmeg, a highly underappreciated little spice, but traditionally one would do 1/2 tsp of mixed spice (?), is that allspice? and 1/2 teaspoon of mace)
 

4oz cold grated butter, makes it easier to blend into the flour (again in the recipe it asks for 2oz butter and 2oz of white fat but I don't have any lard and don't like hydrogenated fats...so I went for 4oz butter and they were just fine!)
 

3oz sugar...I use fine brown sugar because I like the flavour of brown but you can use white and King Alfred probably used white sugar...or did he...does anyone know what colour the sugar would have been then...maybe they didn't have white sugar in the 14Century...or whenever he lived, I am making an uneducated guess here!)
 

3oz dried currants
 

1 egg beaten...oops I left this out of the ingredients photo, with a tsp of vanilla extract stirred in

Approx. 1 tablespoon of milk.
 

THE PROCESS:
 

1. Sift flour, salt and spices together in a bowl.
 

2. Rub the grated butter in until it resembles breadcrumbs.
 

3. Stir in the sugar and dried fruit.
 

4. Add the beaten egg with a fork.. and just enough of the milk to form a soft dough...it should be a bit sticky.
 

5. Roll out the dough to 1/4" thickness and cut into rounds, or simple shapes. I got too clever for my clogs and used a star cutter and what with the currants they don't keep their shape well, although I still think they look nicely rustic. You may if you so desire omit the currants as I know so may people out there have fear of dried fruit pertaining to nightmare fruit cakes!...I think the recipe should come out just as well and then you can be more fancy with your cutters!
 

6. Heat up your frying pan, preferably a cast iron one, or griddle if you have one to medium heat. Grease with a little butter...remember they have a lot of butter already in them, and try ONE Welsh Cake to get the feel of the pan and heat, just like you would do with a pancake....the first one of which you usually throw away until your get your hand and the pan 'in'...if you know what I mean.
 

7. Cook the Welsh Cakes in small batches...don't crowd the pan, you want to make it easy to turn them over, and cook a few minutes each side until nicely browned but still soft in the middle.
 

8. Get them out of the pan, cut in half horizontally and put a nice pat of butter in there if you so desire. Maple syrup would be a nice addition if you want to gild the lily and do actually make them for Thankies.
 

9. Repeat process multiple times because once you start eating these little treasures, chances are you won't be able to stop.
 

Off you pop and warm up that big lumbering cast iron frying pan!!! Autumn is just the right time for Welsh Cakes...with, of course, a spot of tea...they do go better with tea than coffee.

Eccles Cakes!!

I grew up eating Eccles cakes which are not actually cakes but more like flattened mincemeat pies with less filling and more pastry...they are indeed a Northern English delicacy named after the town where they were first baked and their flavour is very reminiscent of a British Christmas. If you don't like dried fruit run away now! Traditionally Eccles cakes are made with flaky pastry but I was too lazy to try my hand at that and ended up using a lovely sweet shortcrust pastry recipe I found in one of my trusty old-fashioned English cookbooks. I have found a wonderful resource for conversion charts from UK to US measurements and also a list of Brit cookery names and terms used on the other side of the Pond at Sue Pallett's website, she has kindly allowed me to feature a link to the site on this blog...thank you Sue!

In the first picture above you see my balance weighing scales, without which I wouldn't be able to bake my British recipes, and the indispensible micro-plane that works like a dream for shaving the zest from lemons and oranges.

Here is the recipe:

SWEET SHORTCRUST PASTRY:

8oz unbleached flour

1/2 level teaspoon of salt

5oz butter that has been in the freezer for about 15 minutes

1 egg yolk

1oz fine/castor sugar

3 teaspoons of water

1. Mix the flour and salt in a mixing bowl...(is that why they call it a mixing bowl?)

2. Grate butter into the mix...coat the butter in flour before you grate it to make the process easy, then rub the grated butter into the flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs...have you guessed by now I do all my baking by hand and don't use machines?...what a pure flower I am.

3. Mix together egg yolk, sugar and water in a seperate bowl...also a mixing bowl perchance?

4. Make a well in the middle of the butter/flour mix, add the liquid mix and blend gently to a firm dough.

As you all know you should keep your hands as cold as possible during the pastry making as pastry dough is very fussy and doesn't like warm hands and will not behave properly if it gets warm in any way!!!

Now the dough is tired and should be left to rest in the fridge until it regains it's strength ready for the next part of the process, a good 20 minutes in the fridge should do the trick.

THE ECCLES FILLING:

1/2lb of currants, sultanas, raisins mixed

2oz finely grated orange and lemon zest (I made the mistake of using chopped peel and my teeth haven't recovered yet, it doesn't soften well in this mix so use the real thing)

1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg and allspice together

4oz any kind of sugar

2oz butter

1. Put all the above ingredients into a pan and warm through til butter melts then transfer to a bowl (a mixing bowl?) to cool.

2. Roll out pastry to less than 1/4" thick, I made mine too thick and the cakes were more pastry than filling and it should be the other way around.

3. Cut into 6', no no...6" rounds.

4. Place a good tablespoon of mix in centre, you'll know if you have put too much in 'cos the next step won't work so well...

5. Fold the excess up and over the filling...see above photo...and sqwush the edges til there are no escape holes for the filling to ooze from...this pastry is very malleable so this is easy to do.

6. Turn the 'cake' over and flatten slightly as picture above, slice three lines in the top of each cake to let the steam out whilst cooking or the little beggars will explode...explode may not be the right word but they may split...

7. Wash cakes with a little milk and sprinkle with sugar for fairy dust look.

8. Stick them in a 400F oven for about 20 minutes and Bob's your uncle...you've got yourself some Eccles cakes, also known as Banbury cakes, and Chorley cakes, and Hawkshead cakes and Coventry Godcakes...similar cakes, different shapes impostors all as the Eccles cake is the original and that's that!

As you can see above I made myself a nice spot of Kenyan Bop tea, good and strong, and the Eccles cakes were soon a thing only of pleasant memory.

Happy Baking and let me know how you faired...ta ta!