Eccles Cakes perfected - my they're good!

...

 Ahhhh - a picture of my perfected Eccles Cakes which went through a variety of stages before ending up like this crumbly luscious raisin studded delight you see glowing happily above. My first attempt was on a way too hot and humid day where I added just a tad too much water to the dough, for indeed one needs so much less water in one's pastry on such a day, and I didn't keep my pastry cool so it was a very soft texture thus instead of attaining said Eccles Cakes, and no they are not actually what one would think of as a cake but more of a self contained mince pie - but I digress - I ended up with Eccles Biscuits/Cookies:

...which tasted great but were not what I had in mind. SO I thought I have all these amazing strawberries....

 ...with many more to come from our neighbour - I should make strawberry biscuits/cookies like my failed Eccles Cakes - and so I made them on a less humid and hot day and guess what - I ended up with Strawberry Eccles Cakes - ha ha!!!

James loves "water icing" drizzle so I doused them with said delight and they were very, very good. The recipe for them is the same as that below for the actual Eccles Cakes but instead of the raisiny mix you macerate strawberries in sugar until soft and having given up a lot of their juices strain them - use the resultant juice for a nice refreshing drink, perhaps watered down some, and also use the juice to rub on the 'cakes' thus before baking before the necessary sprinkling of sugar!

SO - to the recipe - I have not made pastry with spelt flour until very recently and now I am a convert - it crumblified and toothified the pastry to a divine extent and I am not sure I will ever make all white flour pastry again:

 THE FANTASTIC PASTRY:

3ozs white flour and 3 ozs regular spelt flour (the brown not the white) mixed together - 3/4 cup each
(the addition of brown spelt flour makes the pastry more sandy/crumbly delicious but you can use all white to very good effect also)

1oz/ 1/8 cup sugar

4 oz/ 1 stick very cold salted butter

1/8 to 1/4 cup - a few liquid ounces of very cold water

1. Put flours in a mixing bowl and grate very cold butter on top - I am not a technical baker but have read the grating is integral to achieving a wondrous texture in your pastry)  - if you keep dipping the chunks of cold butter into the flour to coat it will be easier to grate

2. Rub butter into flours until it looks like breadcrumbs (you can do this in a cuisinart but I like to do everything by hand)

3. Add some of the water and start squushing the pastry and keep adding bit by bit of water until it can be formed into a non-sticky ball - less water is better so squush hard until it comes together: 

5. Put into the fridge to rest for at least one hour - or as long as you like. 

Now to the yummy filling:

First make some hot tea to soak the raisin and currants in - you'll need about 8 fl ozs/one cup - good and strong and soak them for about 2 hours

1 1/2 ozs/about 1/4 cup each of currants and raisins

soaked in hot tea for 2 hours and drained

2oz Golden Syrup

if you can't get GS do 3 ounces total of sugar but GS makes the cakes sing!!

1oz/ 1/8 cup sugar 

1 1/2 ozs/ 3 tablespoons salted butter 

1/2 teaspoon each of nutmeg and cardamom

NB Many recipes add lemon zest or candied lemon peel but I preferred mine without - of course you may add it to yours!

1. Put all these ingredients in a pan and melt til bubbly and stir frequently until juices/butter has thickened. 

2. Allow to cool. 

3. Strain the above and save the sauce - which also tastes great on it's own!!

YOU CAN PUT YOUR OVEN ON NOW TO 400F

4. Roll out the dough nice and thin and cut into 4 inch rounds - I got 9 out of mine after rerolling the scraps a couple of times.

5. Dollop about a good teaspoon of currant goodness in the middle, it doesn't sound like much but it works and if you do more you can't close the cakes, and dot saved sauce around the edges to help stick the cakes together.

6. Fold the dough over the filling thus - all the way round and then squush and squish as necessary to make sure there are no holes on the bottom for the juices to leak out, this pictures a less juicy example but you may experience the juices running out - don't worry everything will be fine, you just get sticky hands!! - beauty is not an important aspect of the cakes at this point - or any really!!

7. When it's all battened down the bottom of the cake should look like this:

8. Turn it over and flatten a little and very gently between your palms then place on a parchment sheet on your baking tray.

The slits on these Eccles Cakes are too long - make sure yours are shorter!

9. Now cut two SHORT slits in the top of each Eccles Cake - I realized too late my cuts were mostly too long and they made the cakes open up too much so maybe only about 1 inch long.

10. Spread some of the leftover sauce on the tops - this will help achieve the lovely browning on the tops - and then sprinkle with sugar before bobbing into the oven for about 20 minutes until golden brown and lovely:

These slits on the top of these 3 were perfect!

OH MY GOODNESS - these are so good - I poured any leftover sauce in the slits when the cakes were still hot to make them even more juicy.

Allow to cool before you enjoy them with your feet up, a nice cuppa in hand and a good read of the latest British Country Living in your near future!!

 

I do hope you make these and if you do please post pics and comments on my Facebook page HERE - thanks!

Next up on the blog is a whole bunch o' new designs at my Spoonflower and Society6 online shops so please stay tuned!!

Happy Baking from Patricia

Continental Apple Slice, Sable Biscuits and making my own Apple Cider Vinegar!!

I made this from these windfalls:

And what you may well ask is THIS...it's a Continental Apple Slice full of gooey sour cream deliciousness, windfall apples and raisins atop a biscuit/cookie crust, a recipe gleaned from "Entertaining with Cranks" cookbook - the recipe requires Digestive Biscuits but as I didn't have any on hand I made the great Sable recipe from Martha Stewart HERE - lovely, simple, easy crisp biscuits that explode with buttery sugary happiness in each crumbly bite, they are a regular in this household - great sandwiched with a bit of butter and dunked in a good hot cup of tea - but I digress!! - I noticed Martha's recipe says it makes 110 biscuits - I think that really must be an error as I get about 24 out of it. I actually made half this recipe for my small 7" round dessert. 

Look how neat and tidy these biscuits/cookies are:

Do I see a little leftover cookie dough up there - and how long do you think that lasted in this house...ha ha ha!!!

So to start the actual apple recipe I made a biscuit/cookie crust - you can easily substitute graham crackers for this crust if you'd like OR in retrospect I think the recipe would work just as well with a nice pate brisee dough as the base - HERE is that recipe also from Martha (I add double the sugar just fyi - and a half measure of this recipe would work for the recipe I'm making here)

For the cookie/biscuit base:

6ozs crushed sables, Digestives or graham crackers

2oz melted salted butter (the salt really works in a cookie crust)

1. Mix the crumbs and melted butter together well.

2. Line a 7" loose bottom pie pan with parchment/greaseproof paper and push biscuit/butter mix evenly onto the base - the parchment will help a LOT in getting the dessert out and stop leakage via the loose bottomed pan.

3. Pop in the fridge to cool and get firm.

While the crust is firming up start assembling the pie/slice filling:

INGREDIENTS:

2 medium sized juicy, sweet and a bit tart apples - mine come as they are off the trees out the back - bruises and all, of course I just cut out the bruises: peel, core and slice thinly

2 oz/ 1/3 cup packed raisins

10 fl ozs/1 cup of sour cream

2 egg yolks

2oz/ 1/3 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon/1/2 teaspoon nutmeg or any combination of this you like

1/2oz/1 tablespoon butter

METHOD: Preheat oven to 400f

1. Put sliced apples and raisins in a pan with the 1/2oz of butter and cook gently until slightly soft but retaining their shape, be careful the apples don't stick as there won't be much moisture in the pan.

2. Remove base from fridge and cover with apples/raisins:

3. Beat together the sour cream, half of the sugar, egg yolks and spices and pour over the apples/raisins:

4. Put pie pan on a tray and into 400f oven for 15 minutes.

5. Remove from oven and sprinkle remaining sugar over the surface (with more nutmeg and or cinnamon if you like - I did) and return to the oven for about 20 minutes until the filling is puffed up, set and gloriously creme brullee looking like this:

6. Allow to cool for about 10 minutes before removing from the pan then wait until a lot cooler before trying to slide off the parchment - I couldn't manage this so I left it on the parchment and pan bottom until the next day when it had firmed up enough to move.

The recipe says you can eat warm or cold - I tried it warm and removing a slice from the whole was a mess and it did taste good BUT today, one day later, the dessert has really set and was more DELICIOUS so if you can wait a day I would highly recommend it.

Yessirreeebobsyeruncle - that creme brulee-y type top is awfully nice!!! 

Are you ready to do the Continental?
 

FYI here is an excellent master weight - cups to ounces - chart from the fabulous KING ARTHUR website.

Here are some more pics of my apples, it's been a very good season - last year we didn't get ONE not one apple because there was a late frost that killed all the blossoms. I think this year has made up for it - yea!!! I love being able to walk a few yards from my house and find this bounty...so cool!!!

The deer will be happy this Autumn:

I've also been making my own apple cider vinegar from the cores and peels of the apples I've used for dessert making:

Who as a child used to play the game of trying to peel an apple in one go? I still do so with nearly every apple I peel - I drive myself nuts!

Just in case you're interested this is my fabric design and it's available here at Spoonflower

It's tasting pretty good so far - not as acidic as the bought variety but very much like a dry cider in flavour. Here's how you do it! It's ridiculously easy.

Well happy baking all - I have some more apple recipes I want to try soon - I had two epic fails last week but nevertheless I am not daunted - I will sally forth to unchartered apple delights.

And to finish a picture of sweet Eleanor asleep on the porch amidst the pink chrysanthemums - ah the joys of late summer!!! 

A simply elegant Wild Maine Blueberry Spongecake with Sticky Toffee Pudding Sauce!

You can see why I'm calling this sponge cake! I have adapted and added to a very simple recipe called "Huguenot Torte" from the book "Sundays at Moosewood restaurant" - I made the recipe to the letter first time around and then second time I amended it with the addition of one more egg white for volume, twice the amount of blueberries and nixed the pecans as I felt the pecans overwhelmed the taste and texture of the cake, with just blueberries the flavour really shone through - then I added the piece de resistance of Sticky Toffee Pudding Sauce, for what couldn't be improved with it's addition??

Herewith I give you my version with the alternative of pecans if you'd like to try it that way too:

Before you start the recipe do avail yourself of a small - 6" round - baking tin, butter it and then line it with parchment which you butter again - the first time I made the recipe I didn't do this (the book did not mention doing it so I thought it was not necessary) and it was very hard to manipulate the cake out of the pan - with the parchment it was easy peasy!!

HAVE ALL YOUR INGREDIENTS AT ROOM TEMPERATURE this helps infinitely with the volume achieved when whisking the eggs!

Preheat oven to 325F

INGREDIENTS: Makes 4 small servings

1 whole egg

1 egg white

4oz/1 cup of blueberries

(or if you want to try as the original recipe 2oz/ 1/2 cup blueberries and 2oz/ 1/2 cup toasted pecans broken into pieces)

2 1/2oz/scant 1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon of baking powder

2oz/1/2 cup white flour

a goodly grating of nutmeg

a pinch of salt

1. Whisk, whisk, whisk the whole egg and egg white together with great aplomb until it achieves great volume - I found this was helped by popping the bowl with the eggs into another larger bowl with a couple of inches of warm water in it....

2. Add the sugar bit by bit and whisk in between additions until when you lift the whisk out of the mix it leaves a marked trail thus:

 3. Sift baking powder, a pinch of salt, grated nutmeg and the flour together and then fold into the egg mix in three batches - be gentle and don't mix too much or you'll deflate the volume - don't worry if not all the dry ingredients aren't perfectly mixed through - it will work out fine!

4. Add the blueberries in one go and gently fold through.

5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan:

6. Bob into the oven and bake for about 40 minutes until it smells good and the top is nicely browned and set to the touch:

7. Leave in the pan for about 10 minutes then remove with the aid of the parchment, remove the parchment and leave on a cooling rack until completely cooled.

In the meantime make the 

STICKY TOFFEE SAUCE:

2 1/2oz/ heaped 1/4 cup brown sugar

 1 1/2 oz / 3 tablespoons salted butter

2 tablespoons cream or half and half

1. Put all three ingredients in a pan to melt together, mix and keep mixing whilst letting it bubble a couple of minutes until it gets a bit thick - allow to cool and then pour on top of the cake:

Now whip up a good 1/2 cup/4 fluid ounces of heavy/double cream sweetened with a tablespoon or so of sugar and dollop on top of your cake in a random but pretty mound:

Here's a picture of the nice crumbly surface of the cake which has the texture of a macaron:

This is the one I had a hard time removing from the pan when I didn't use parchment so it cracked a lot and below is a pic of the original pecan and blueberry version showing the inside texture, it was a gloomy day so I took the cake outside to photograph:

..and the better, in my humble opinion, version with more blueberries and no pecans:

and a close up of the lovely light texture:

I do hope you try this cake - it's ever so easy - there's so little in it for the size of cake it makes and it's really very lovely. I also tried it again yesterday and this time I used raisins - it wasn't as good as with the blueberries but it was still VERY good.

BTW the blue pattern you see in these photographs, my "Blue Rhapsody" can be purchased on any number of items at my CafePress shop HERE and also on fabric, wrapping paper, decals and wallpaper at my Spoonflower shop HERE - thanks!! 

HAPPY BAKING!! Let me know if you make it - Patricia

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