It's the Etsy Maine Team 2nd Annual Cash Mob on November 8th!

I am part of the wonderful Etsy Maine Team - a community of over 700 online shops with over 13,000 items that supports and helps one another promote their shops through the wonderful auspices of Etsy, obviously, Facebook, Twitter and most recently Pinterest.

We are having our 2nd Annual Online Cash Mob (from Wikipedia "A cash mob is a group of people who assemble at a local business to make purchases. The purpose of these mobs is to support both the local businesses and the overall community.") - unlike a physical cash mob ours will be all online to support our team in Maine and hopefully bring an infusion of cash into our local economies. 

So mark your calendars please and on November 8th go to www.etsy.com then in the search box type 'maineteam' - all of the items tagged with this word will show up and from there you can narrow your search with the categories listed on the left of the page.

How wonderful to be able to support so many small online businesses from the comfort of your own home with a nice cuppa and still in your PJ's!! No holiday crowds, no driving - just you and your computer, or maybe your mobile - ahhhh!!!

Please help spread the word and thank you in advance for your support of our big day!

Patricia - who, just FYI, designed the poster, illustrated the chickadee (nicknamed Chicka Dee), and created the blueberry background to boot. 

Here's a link to my own Etsy shop: www.etsy.com/PatriciaSheaDesigns

I'm member of the month at Etsy Maine Team!!

Thank you to whomsoever put this lovely collage together of my Etsy items!

I am very chuffed (pleased in Blighty/British English) to have been chosen as August's Member of the Month by my wondrous peers on the Etsy Maine Team - an astonishingly supportive and kind group of Mainahs who own Etsy shops and help one another spread the word about their online shops through the auspices of Etsy Maine Team.

I feel a little odd posting this badge as I designed it for the team - but there again I never was a shy person!

Thanks Teamies!!

Let them eat PIECAKE on April 29th!

Here is a pencil sketch I recently did for a very good client of mine...we ended up going in a different direction than this and I suddenly realized this would be a good image for this particular post!! FYI I usually do all my lettering by hand but as this was a quickie for this post I did break down and go the clonky Photoshop route...please forgive me!

Just in case you hadn't heard there will be a Royal Wedding in good old Blighty on Friday April 29th 2011...and if you'd like to celebrate then I have found and tweaked the

perfect recipe just for you!

It's PIECAKE...a cake baked in a pastry shell with pecans (or walnuts if you prefer) and toffee sauce, I made mine with maple syrup as a tribute to Maine and it is GOOD!!! Definitely worthy of Royalty and a recipe I have adapted from British Country Living...most apropos don't cha think?

Here she is in all her Piecake glory...YUM!!!!!

 

EASY PEASY SWEET TART CRUST:

Enough for one tart case about 9” diameter…nice and thin,

I am not a chunky crust personage so if you like a thicker pie crust make this for a smaller diameter pan:

Have your oven heated to 350F

1 1/2 cups/6ozs of unbleached white flour

1/2 cup/2ozs confectioners/icing sugar

1 stick + 1 tablespoon/ 4 1/2ozs butter VERY COLD

1 large egg yolk

a tad of milk or cream if your dough doesn't stick together

1. Sift dry ingredients together into a medium sized bowl.

2. Grate the butter into the dry ingreds., and rub in until like breadcrumbs.

3. Add egg yolk and blend carefully until the dough sticks together

4. Mine didn't stick together with just the egg yolk so I added baby drop by baby drop some cream until it did start to come together...be careful once it does start to come together it does so quite quickly...don't let it get sticky!!

5.Tear dough into big chunks…..place strategically in pie pan and start squushing to a create a smooth even covering of the entire pan…pop back into the pridge or freezer for 1/2 hour or so and let it get nice and cold..

The beauty of this crust is that it does NOT shrink…(although I will admit it shrank a little when baked blind as in this case...but not much!!) it stays put…good crust!!...and it tastes like a really good shortbread…yum!!

6. Pre-bake the crust for 10 minutes and then allow to cool.

The crust smushed into the pie dish

Piecake ready to go in the oven...do you see in the background someone in the house is goldleafing

THE FILLING:
4oz pecans or walnuts gently toasted for about 10 minutes at 150-200F

3 large eggs

5oz sugar (I translated this recipe from grams and the amount is odd and doesn't then translate into cups easily...sorry!!)

5oz sifted white flour unbleached

1 stick/4oz salted butter melted

10 whole walnut or pecan halves for the top of the cake.

1/2 cup maple syrup

2oz/ 1/2 stick salted butter

1. Crumble nuts into smaller pieces and sprinkle evenly over the slightly pre-baked pie crust.

2. Melt 2oz of butter with maple syrup and gently boil until the syrup foams up...allow to cool and then evenly pour over the nuts in the piecrust.

3. Beat the eggs until fluffy then add the sugar a spoonful at a time until all is added and mix is thick and pale.

4. Gently fold in the sifted flour.

5. Gently fold in the melted butter.

6. Spread this batter over the nuts and 'toffee' and then place the whole halves on the top - as above.

7. Bake in 350F oven for about 20-25 minutes until evenly browned on the surface.

8. Allow to cool before cutting...this is a great treat with a good steaming cup of tea AND it greatly improves with a couple of days keeping IF you can keep it around for that long...James and I didn't manage it...YUM!!!

Here's to a long and successful marriage for William and Kate....

A British recipe from an Australia magazine with an Irish Custard for Maine Maple Sunday!

 And there we were thinking Spring really had arrived and all the snow would go away and the birds would be singing and the sun shining...silly us!!

Next thing you know the snow is falling with a vengeance and my little (and yes they are little) pails are full of snow along with sap. This year so far has been very good and the sap has been flowing apace...I already have one quart 'sugared down' and I used this for a recipe to celebrate this coming Maine Maple Sunday March 27th

The recipe is for Maple Steamed Pudding from Australian Vogue Food magazine many a moon ago but I have always been intrigued by the sounds of it...I have doctored it a little by adding breadcrumbs which give the steamed pudding a springy/bouncy texture and I added in grated carrot for a bit more moisture...it came out well I am glad to say.

MAPLE STEAMED PUDDING

Ingredients:

5oz / 5/8 cup white flour

2oz / 1/2 cup fine white breadcrumbs (I choose a slightly moist loaf and left the crust on...pulsed it in a coffee grinder to get nice crumbs)

1 good teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg or more if you like nutmeg the way I do

1 teaspoon baking powder

3/8 cup / 3 fl ozs cup milk

3oz / 3/8 cup sugar (brown or white depends which you prefer)

2 large eggs whisked together

2oz /1 medium sized carrot finely grated ...I use a microplane to get it really fine

2oz of either butter (4 tablespoons) or suet (1/2 cup)...I use suet because I had it available and it makes the pudding less greasy

1/4 cup / 4 fl ozs maple syrup

Good pinch of salt

RECIPE:

1. Cream the butter or suet and sugar together...this doesn't work so well with the suet but make a brave effort as I did...you will probably still have a few lumps but that's OK.

2. Slowly beat in the eggs in about 4 goes.

3. Sift the dry ingredients together.

4. Dissolve the baking powder in the milk.

5. Add the dry ingredients and the milk in alternating batches until it is all well combined....blend in the pureed carrots...and you will end up with a not very appetizing batter like that below.

6. For this amount I used a larger bowl than normal as I have found these puddings do expand quite a lot...I used a 4 cup/6 1/2" diameter bowl. So grease the bowl well with butter...

7. Pour the maple syrup in the bottom and then gingerly add the batter to the bowl so the batter is basically in a puddle of syrup as below:

Then we cut a round of greaseproof paper to cover the bowl generously....cover the bowl, fold paper over down the sides and secure with an elastic band, or for purists with some nice string.

Now cut a circle of aluminium foil and do the same until you end up with what you see below

Now pop your little pudding into the top of the boiler...put the lid back 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.

And thus you end up with a little hat shaped pudding that is sticky on the top and probably quite rounded on the bottom...you can level that off for presentation purposes so it sits level on the plate...don't be surprised if there's some pudding left in the bowl when you turn it out and do wait to turn it our for about 10 minutes which will make that process a little easier...you may have to tease the pudding away from the bowl a little in order to encourage it to drop out willingly when you cover the bowl with a plate and tip it upside down...good luck with that!

My poor little pudding is naked here but was soon dressed with lashings of straight maple syrup and a goodly puddle of Creme Anglaise or English Custard from an Irish book...I have added the recipe for that herewith:

CUSTARD SAUCE, ANLANN CUSTAIRD
from "Irish Traditional Food" by Theodora FitzGibbon, a goodly trusty cookbook
1 heaped tablespoon white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 duck egg and 1 duck egg yolk whisked together, large regular eggs work just as well
10 fl oz/ 1 1/4 cups whole milk

1. Beat together the egg, egg yolk, vanilla and sugar in a bowl.
2. Have another double boiler on the go.
3. Heat the milk to almost boiling in the top part of the double boiler but on the stove top to make it go faster.
4. Stir a little of the hot milk into the egg mix and then a bit more to temper the temperature.
5. Then put the top part of the double boiler back over the bottom and the boiling water and whisk the egg and milk mix into the rest of the milk
6. Do not leave the custard alone now until it is finished or it will curdle whilst you are not looking and you will have to start again. SO stir and stir and stir with a wooden spoon until it starts to thicken and coats the back of the spoon as in the picture below...you take the spoon out of the custard, turn the spoon over, run your finger through the custard and if the line doesn't fill back in it is ready, don't let it cook too long or get too hot as the eggs will start to turn into scrambled eggs and the sauce will be grainy.....take off the heat immediately and continue to stir.

Please check out my friends', Alico and Castelle, blog, pastry chefs in Toronto, for more delicious maple recipes Chronic Master Baker (naughty things!!)
HAPPY MAINE MAPLE SUNDAY EVERYONE!! 

Happy Saint Patrick's Day! Lá Fhéile Pádraig

Happy Saint Patrick's Day - Lá Fhéile Pádraig (Gaelic with the name pronounced Pawrick...one of my brother's has the name) one and all...above is a logo I designed a couple of years ago which celebrates the deep friendship between Eire and The United States of America. I circled the flagpoles with a Claddagh ring in honour of my parents who were born in Galway. The Claddagh ring is the adopted symbol of that town and is given as a token of love.

Kentish Pudding for National Pie Day!!....huh??

This is Kentish Pudding...and yes it is a pie or tart, it's one of those English colloquial anomalies that continue to confuse us all but rest assured it is quiet, simply elegant and most delicious!

This recipe is from Yorkshire TV's "Farmhouse Kitchen 2" and is attributed to Mrs. M. White and Mrs. Sue Marshall of St. Michale's, Tenterden, Kent...thank you ladies!!

My formatting is being VERY strange today so I apologize for the odd spacing...blogger doesn't want to let me change it, I have tried a couple of times and have now accepted my odd layout...apologies readers.
 

EASY PEASY SWEET TART CRUST:

Enough for one tart case about 9” diameter…nice and thin,

I am not a chunky crust personage so if you like a thicker pie crust make this for a smaller diameter pan:

1 1/2 cups/6ozs of unbleached white flour

1/2 cup/2ozs confectioners/icing sugar

1 stick + 1 tablespoon/ 4 1/2ozs butter VERY COLD

1 large egg yolk

a tad of milk or cream if your dough doesn't stick together

1. Sift dry ingredients together into a medium sized bowl.

2. Grate the butter into the dry ingreds., and rub in until like breadcrumbs.

3. Add egg yolk and blend carefully until the dough sticks together

4. Mine didn't stick together with just the egg yolk so I added baby drop by baby drop some cream until it did start to come together...be careful once it does start to come together it does so quite quickly...don't let it get sticky!!

5.Tear dough into big chunks…..place strategically in pie pan and start squushing to a create a smooth even covering of the entire pan…

The beauty of this crust is that it does NOT shrink at all…it stays put…good crust!!...and it tastes like a really good shortbread…yum!!

I did not pre-bake the crust but you can use a pre-baked crust if you are short on time...in which case the baking time will probably be quite a bit less maybe 20 minutes
so keep your eyes peeled on the pie.

Have your oven heated to 350F

FILLING:

1oz/scant ¼ cup ground rice…I found Fiddlers Green Brown Rice flour in bulk

at the Belfast Coop so I got a bit more fibre in there…just a bit

1/2pt/10US fluid ozs + I tablespoon milk or half and half (I used the latter as it

was the only thing in the fridge!)

11/2oz/ very scant 1/4 cup sugar

1/2oz/1 tablespoon butter

1 well beaten large whole egg

A grating of nutmeg (I like a lot of nutmeg)

About 2oz/ ½ cup currants

Pinch of salt


RECIPE:

1. Put ground rice in a bowl and slake with a couple of tablespoons of milk i.e.

mix it to a smooth paste.

2. Put remainder of milk (or ½ and ½), sugar and salt in a saucepan

and heat to boiling.

3. Pour a little of the boiling milk onto the rice paste, cream well and make

sure it is smooth, add a bit more and cream again and repeat until

finished and very smooth… I usually use a whisk for this instead of a spoon

which helps break up any attendant lumpage.

4. Return mix to pan and simmer gently for about 5 minutes..it will get

very thick and you need to stir it constantly again to prevent

lumpage and catchy burnage on the bottom.

5. Take off the heat and stir to cool for a couple of minutes,

then add the butter and blend well, then add the egg and nutmeg

and blend well.

6. Allow to cool to room temperature.

7. Strew the currants all over the base of the pie case (the recipe said to

strew them on the top of the pie but I have found if the currants

aren’t covered by the mix they can burn and that’s a taste I am not fond

of so I put them in the bottom instead…

not traditional but more to my own personal liking..…use as many or as few

as you like, I love currants and raisins so I covered the whole bottom

and actually would have liked more on reflection after eating the pie.

8. Pour the cooled rice mix over the currants.

9. Pop the pie pan onto a tray and off it goes into the oven.

10. I cooked the pie for about 35 minutes…it needs to be set and

slightly risen to be ready…it colours very little except on the air bubbles.

11. Remove from the oven and cool and EAT!!

Happy Pie Day everyone!!!

This Kentish Pudding is part of the Lavender and Lovage and Hedgecombers Tea Time Treats bloghop

Happy Baking - if you try this recipe please let me know how it turns out and feel free to post pictures of such on my FACEBOOK PAGE - thanks, Patricia

Flapjacks, British Country Living and a cup of tea!!

 British Flapjacks, an oaty biscuit/cookie….not pancakes which are sometimes called flapjacks in the US and Canada….you'll love them!!

I don’t remember eating too many Flapjacks in Blighty…AND WHY NOT I now ask myself…they are really delectable!! They are crunchy, chewy, buttery, sugary and oaty…they are very caramelly and I have added an extra bit of salt to give them that wonderful counterpoint against the rounded sweetness of sugar and butter.

This is about the easiest cookie/biscuit you will ever make, this recipe doubles easily, if not quadruples...you may want to go that far!!

From “Farmhouse Kitchen 2” Yorkshire Television

INGREDIENTS:

3oz/6Tbsp butter...I use salted

1 Tbsp of  honey

1Tbsp of molasses/treacle/maple syrup

(you can do 2 Tbsp of either honey or molasses or golden syrup or maple syrup whatever combination of those you like…I liked the honey with the molasses to give a depth of flavour BUT if you have Golden Syrup on hand that would be excellent too…it is a little harder to find…actually you’ll be making these more than once I almost guarantee so try it a different

way each time!)

3oz/a very scant ½ cup sugar…I used a blond organic sugar because I used molasses but if you don’t use molasses then use brown sugar of some form.

5oz/1½ cups oats…I used quick cooking organic oats…you can use regular, rolled - the result will be more chewy AND more traditional, just don’t use instant.

A goodly pinch of salt

METHOD:Pre-heat oven to 350F

1. Lightly grease a round baking tin…this recipe is good for a 9” diameter one
2. Melt butter, salt, sugar and liquid sweeteners gently until sugar has melted.
3. Stir melted butteriness into oats and coat evenly.
4.  Spread mixture evenly into tin.
5. Bake in centre of oven ‘til nicely golden browned and a little dark at the edges and slightly bubbling all over, see photo, this should be about 20 minutes at 350.
6. Remove from oven even though the mix looks too loose if you jiggle it…it will quickly set up as it cools.
7. After about 10 minutes run a knife around the edge of the tin to loosen the flapjacks.
8. Leave in the tin to cool, if you take it out before it is completely cool it could be really sticky in the pan - before you remove from the pan cut into four sections with a sharp knife - then gently pry one quarter out and put on a board and then cut in two or three with a seesaw motion of the knife - I have found this is by far the best way to get them cut into nice clean edged pieces - some recipes say to cut whilst still warm but that leaves ugly squushed edges - cutting when they are almost cold is more effort but the flapjacks look so much better..
9. It does seem/look a bit greasy before it is cooled completely.
10. Eat and smile…I defy you to eat just the one…

Happy Baking!!

 I LOVE British Country Living magazine, it is my favourite mag in the world and I recommend you take a look if you see it for sale anywhere. My January copy arrived today and the flapjack along with a cuppa was the perfect complement to my reading.

Please follow these links to some other wonderful Tea Time Treats :)

Lavender and Lovage

What Kate Baked