Welsh Honey Cakes, Tiessennau Mel, for St. David's Day March 1st

The simplicity of the look and recipe for these little Welsh Honey Cakes, Tiessennau Mel in Welsh, belies their deliciousness - they are absolutely wonderful and quite unique in a very subtle way. You'll have to bake them to see what I mean. I made them in honour of Saint David's Day - the feast day of Wales. I found this recipe, which I have adapted slightly, by V'nut-Beyond Redemption on Food.com. They taste very good dunked in a nice hot cuppa - if you are so inclined and would give Proust and his Madeleines a run for their money!

UPDATE: I've been tapping my maple tree, yes just the one, and made these lovely cakes with my own Maple Syrup instead of honey and they were equally as delicious and good.

 INGREDIENTS for 6 little muffin cakes:

recipes doubles perfectly

2 ounces/ 3/8 cup honey - a really flavourful honey is best,
or maple syrup if you'd like

 1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

2 ounces/ 1/2 stick butter ( I always use salted because I like that flavour in my baked goods and still I add a little more salt to brighten the flavour - goes well with honey!)

2 ounces/ 1/3 cup sugar

1 egg separated

1 tablespoons milk

4oz/ 1 cup flour

a pinch of salt

DIRECTIONS:

 
1. Preheat oven to 375F/190C

2. Grease and flour a muffin tin

3. Sieve together flour, cinnamon and bicarbonate of soda.

4. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. 

5. Separate the egg yolk from the white.

6. Beat the yolk into sugar and butter, then add the honey in three goes beating well in between.

7. Stir in the flour with a little milk as required to make the batter a little softer and mix all together gently. 

8. Whisk the egg white until stiff and fold into mixture in three goes - the mix is quite stiff so do this part very gently so as to not pop all your hard earned bubbles.

9. Half fill the 6 cups of the muffin tin and smooth the tops with the back of a wet teaspoon to stop them from crowning too much then sprinkle each with a teaspoon or so of sugar.

10. Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes. These do brown quickly and are actually browner than a similar cupcake or muffin would be but do keep your eyes on them so they don't get too brown or burnt.

11. Leave the cakes in the tin for a few minutes before turning out to cool

And there you have your little Welsh Honey Cakes or Tiessennau Mel. You could if you liked break them in two and butter but I really didn't feel like mine needed that but it wouldn't hurt to try them that way! I do hope you make these, please let me know if you do and feel free to post your pictures on my FACEBOOK PAGE. Thanks!!

Some more pictures of the yumminess:

If you are interested in my "Blue Rhapsody" design, featured as the background of these pictures, you can find it at my Spoonflower shop HERE and my CafePress shop HERE

Wales/Cymru is a spectacular country, I visited there often as a child - it is well worth the visit if you ever get the chance. Home of stunning Snowdonia:

 The Welsh flag:

The daffodil is the Welsh National flower:

My Daffodil painting available over at my Etsy shop HERE

and LEEKS are the National emblem :) Here's a LINK to some of the Welsh celebrations for their National Day.

SO....
"Dydd Gwyl Dewi hapus!" 

Other Saint David's Day recipes I have done for my blog:

Monmouth Pudding

Welsh Cakes

Snowdon Pudding

Bara Brith - Welsh raisin teabread

New Ticker Tape Parade Design and more free worldwide shipping

Welcome to my latest design "Ticker Tape Parade", so cleverly named by my Facebook friend Beryl! After asking for help naming this design Beryl came up with "Ticker Tape" which so perfectly captures not only the ebullient and festive New Year's Eve/somewhat retro spirit of the design but also the sense of traffic lights and busy sidewalks that also spring to my mind.
THANKS BERYL!!

I originally created this in design in gouache on paper before scanning, cleaning in Photoshop and then sizing and formatting for the items you see pictured here. I also made it into an allover repeating pattern for wallpaper and fabric too - doing the repeat is always fun for me as it has the aspect of puzzle piecing to fit the design side to side and top to bottom so there are no breaks or obvious joins in a length of fabric.

I love creating geometric designs like this as they are very meditative in their execution, I plan out the design in pencil line first and then enjoy the process of 'colouring in' the shapes just like a paint by numbers canvas - my illustration paintings/designs created in watercolour require constant mindfulness, and as such they can be quite satisfyingly tiring and time consuming to paint.

I have populated my online shops with Ticker Tape on all manner of items including, but certainly not limited to:

At my Society6 shop
where there is free worldwide shipping until Sunday February 23rd

As you can see I now have wall clocks available at my Society6 shop too

and from my CafePress shop:

"Ticker Tape Parade" is also available as fabric, wallpaper, wrapping paper and wall decals from my

SPOONFLOWER SHOP

...as a print on wood from my PRINTS ON WOOD SHOP

...and as signed archival prints from my ETSY SHOP

Next on the blog in terms of CAKE - my favourite thing - will be Honey Cakes for Saint David's Day March 1st and then Irish Marmalade Cake for Saint Patrick's Day - stay tuned!

Happy Australia Day with English Madeleines which are very similar to Lamingtons!!

This is an English Madeleine - yes I know French Madeleines are the famous version of this dessert but in Blighty this is what you would get if you ordered a madeliene with no specification AND it is very similar to an Australian Lamington with the exception of NO cherry on the top, square instead of castle shaped, if you have a strawberry Lamington it would be coated with strawberry jelly/jello instead of jam and it seems a lot of Lamingtons are actually chocolate covered and not strawberry. 

I'll give links to said Lamingtons at the end of the post including to a luscious looking one for Lamington Biscuits from the fabulous raspberri cupcakes blog

You will need 6 dariole moulds or as I used popover moulds – mine was a set of twelve but James cut them in half for me so I can make a small batch at a time for there are only 2 of us to eat the desserts I make and if we bake a lot we eat a lot. If you do't have this kind of mould you can use muffin/cupcake pans and the cakes will just be shorter and larger in girth.

This is a simple and charming little cake perfect for afternoon tea or a snackette with your elevenses!

Set the oven to 350F/ 180C

INGREDIENTS:
 
4oz/ one stick/100g butter, softened

 
4oz/100g/mounded 1/2 cup sugar 

2 large eggs

 
4oz/100g/1 cup white flour

 
1 level tsp 

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract/essence

For the coating:

4 tbsp strawberry jam

 
4oz/100g/1 cup desiccated coconut unsweetened is preferred - this is approximate as you just need it to coat the cakes and it will vary on how thickly you coat them. 

3 natural glacé cherries

 

1. Grease the moulds then line the base of each with non-stick baking parchment. 

  2. This step seems odd but you put all the cake ingredients into one bowl and beat until well and evenly mixed - this is why you want the butter nice and soft or you'll get lumps.

3. The batter is quite stiff - spoon a dollop into the moulds, filling them about half full and smooth the tops with a wet spatula - the water helps non stickage of the batter to the knife.

4. Bake for about 20 minutes until well risen and firm to the touch - it doesn't matter that they might rise above the level of the mould as you'll be cutting off the bottoms to even up the cakes when they stand. Leave to cool in the moulds for 5 minutes.

5. Turn out the cakes - they may need a swish around the outside with a knife to encourage them to leave the moulds, then peel off the parchment 'hats' and finish cooling on a wire rack. My advise is to keep the hats to put the cakes on after you've rolled them in their fillings as they are pretty tricky to handle once coated.

6. When the cakes are completely cool, trim the bases so that they stand firmly. Warm the strawberry jam in a small pan until quite fluid and strain through a sieve to get a nice smooth jam. Spread the coconut out on a large plate.

 6. Use a fork to spear the bases of the cakes to hold them. Spoon the warm jam over them as evenly as you can and then roll them in the coconut to coat. 

Here are my little dahlingks all ready and assembled and awaiting their little glace cherry tops.

and a close up of said dahlingks:

7. Cut the glacé cherries in half and pop one on the top of each pretty madeliene.

Now put the kettle on and get yourself a cuppa to enjoy with these delights.

HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY to my Aussie friends! Are you having a Lamington today?

Lamington recipes:

raspberri cupcakes Lamington Biscuits

Taste Australia Strawberry Lamingtons

Taste Australia Chocolate Lamingtons with white chocolate cream - want to try these!! 

Little Box Brownie chocolate lamingtons 

If you're interested in the fabric featured in this blogpost - here's a link to it "Homespun Quilt Patchwork" in my Spoonflower shop - Thanks!!

Mini Christmas Pudding Dried Fruit Balls

Awww - aren't these charming little Christmas Pudding sweeties! Chock full of dried fruity goodness, subtle, tart, almondy, tooth-achingly sweet in a good way balls of deliciousness!

This is a very simple but very sticky recipe - the original recipe which I gleaned from British Country Living's December issue said to work the dried fruit through the finest blade of a mincer - which you can do if you happen to have a mincer but as I didn't I first tried a coffee grinder and when that got quickly clogged I resorted to some serious chopping with a cleaver type knife in small batches by hand and it worked really well albeit somewhat time consuming - so let us begin!

ASSEMBLE YOUR INGREDIENTS:

You can use any combination of dried fruits that strike your fancy - you can see from the dark colours of mine that I chose organic, non-sulphured but whatever tastes good to you should work well - just follow your tastebuds!

This recipe makes 9 hearty Christmas Balls! Recipe multiplies no problem!

2oz/50g of toasted almonds

2oz/50g dried apricots

2oz/50g mixed raisins, white raisins/sultanas and currants

2oz/50g soft pitted prunes

2oz/50g crystallized ginger

1oz/25g dried cranberries - I chose really bright in flavour ones sweetened with apple juice so the end result had a nice tang!!

3 teaspoons honey

Finely grated zest of one unwaxed preferably organic lemon

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1 heaped teaspoon of freshly grated ginger

goodly pinch of freshly ground nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon or any combination there of - also you could add a big pinch of ground ginger if you don't put in the grated fresh ginger.

Plate covered in granulated sugar to roll the balls in.

1. Toast the almonds until fragrant - about 5 minutes at 375 but it varies so check regularly they are not burning.

2. Let almonds cool completely.

3. Put almonds in a small plastic bag and bang with a heavy rolling pin until they are broken into small pieces.

4. Grind in a coffee grinder in 2 batches until fine - they may get a bit oily but that's actually OK in this recipe.

5. Chop, chop, chop all the dried fruit in small batches until they get nice and sticky, the pieces are small, there are no chunks and they hold together when pressed.

 6. Mix the fruits, ground almonds, honey, grated ginger, spices and lemon juice and zest with a fork until evenly blended.

7. Take about a small tablespoon of the sweetmeat and roll into a ball, if it doesn't stick together add more honey, then roll in the sugar on the plate and pop into a sweet little paper cup. Ta dah - that's pretty much it except for...

HONEY ICING to make it look like a little Christmas Pudding:

 This is the wing it part - 

2 heaped tablespoons of icing/confectioners sugar sifted so there are no lumps.

Honey and milk - just a tad of each.

Starting with a teeny tiny amount of the honey in a small bowl slowly slowly slowly add some honey and blend until smooth, add a little milk and blend until smooth and work the whole into a dense, thick paste that won't run when you put the tiniest bit on top of one of the Christmas Balls - work it a little to drip as above and then allow to dry. This is the hard part - hard to know how thick, hard to know how SMALL of an amount to pop on the top of a ball, hard to know how little honey and or milk, that can depend on the humidity, to add to the sugar but err on the side of less and least and you'll be fine.

I should have bought some Maraschino Cherries to put on the top - the flavour would have gone well with the almond in the sweets and you can buy non-artificial ones from The Silver Palate so instead I used some raspberry infused cranberries that were redder than the ones in the recipe.

Next time I make these I think I will add a ball of marzipan in the middle and maybe switch out the apricots for dates - I LOVE marzipan and think that would be a real treat!! The flavour does develop a little with time so you can make these a day ahead if you'd like.

Let me know if you make these and feel free to post your pics on my Facebook page HERE 

We are awaiting a big snowstorm here in Maine - Electra is her name! I love blizzards and hope to get some nice photographs - in the meantime here are some pictures from a snow earlier this week.

 A little red squirrel is getting a snack ready for later!

 My favourite apple tree has plenty of apples for the deer who love to come for a midnight snack - last year we didn't get a single apple because of an early springtime frost - you can see we got plenty this year!

This blogpost is part of the December Tea Time Treats over at Lavender and Lovage and The Hedgecombers - do bob over and have a look at all the yummy sparkly delights - click in the box below! Thanks!

Apricot Holiday Steamed Pudding for Christmas or maybe even Thanksgiving...

(Those are the zested lemons cut into slices before I make them into lemonade this evening, they look a little dry so I thought I would explain!)

Here is my pudding for this year's Holiday celebrations - I think you could easily make this for Thanksgiving and just let it mature for a few days, or store it away for your Christmas Family Dinner - it is a variation on the usual densely fruit studded, very sweet and divine luscious Christmas Pudding - the likes of which you will find HERE on the beautiful Lavender and Lovage blog.

My Steamed Apricot Pudding is a slight variant on the Apricot Holiday Pudding found in "Glorious Gifts from your Kitchen" by Lisa Yockelson - it does contain SUET (luckily I could get local suet from grass fed, farm raised, humanely treated beef) which is a necessary part of a good traditional steamed pudding so it is not for vegetarians, I do have vegetarian alternatives listed at the bottom of this post - I suppose you could substitute butter for the suet but I think the pudding will be more greasy and I cannot guarantee it's keeping quality as suet is added not only to make a less greasy pudding but also improves the keeping qualities of a pudding made so long before the day it will be eaten.

As you can see I had no real holly to hand so I printed out one of my own designs and made it a little oversized for more wit - et voila, holly is on top of the pudding, an absolute necessity if it is going to be eaten on Christmas Day!! :)

So let's begin!! Have a nice big pasta pot/double boiler ready on the stove with bubbling hot water and make sure the water comes up to only about half way up the sides of your chosen bowl - butter very well a pudding bowl of 2 pint/one quart/4 cup capacity.

ASSEMBLE YOUR INGREDIENTS:

Makes a pudding sized for about 6 people with dainty appetites - this pudding is nowhere near as sweet as the usual pudding so I am assuming people might want larger portions:

6oz/1 heaped cup dried apricots ( I used Turkish apricots, organic and unsulphured thus why they are not bright orange) chopped into 1/3" pieces

4ozs/ 1/2 cup whole milk

4ozs/ 1/2 cup 1/2 and 1/2 or light cream

1 tablespoon of freshly grated gingerroot

1. Put these 4 ingredients into a pan together and simmer very gently on the stove for about 20 minutes until the apricots are nice and soft then strain the apricots and set aside the resultant cream until cool - don't leave this alone it can curdle really quickly, stay with the pan and stir whilst the apricots soften and soak up the milk/cream.

4oz/1 cup white flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda/bicarb of soda

1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

2. Sift all of the above together and reserve on a sheet of parchment/baking paper- or a plate - whatever you have to hand - the paper helps you get it into the bowl better as you can curve it to direct the flour etc.

4oz/1 heaped cup of suet - the best quality you can find, grated - best done when the suet is very cold but then allow to warm to room temp.

2oz/ 1/4 cup/ 1/2 stick of salted butter softened to room temperature

4ozs sugar/ 3/4 cup sugar 

Finely grated rind/zest of two, preferably organic, unwaxed, lemons

3. Cream the butter and suet until fluffy and well blended

4. Add sugar and beat until light in colour and even fluffier.

5. Add the lemon zest and blend until evenly distributed.

2 large eggs whisked

1 1/2 ozs/heaped 1/2 cup white bread crumbs

1 teaspoon vanilla essence/extract 

6. Add the whisked eggs in 4 goes and beat between additions.

7. Add the flour/dry ingredients in 2 goes and blend well between additions and add the drained apricot cream alternately.

8. Blend in the apricots gently but evenly.

9. Finally blend in the breadcrumbs.

Ta dah - you have your pudding batter:

Your batter may well look a little curdled but worry not - everything will be OK

10. Spoon the thick batter into the well buttered bowl - there should be quite a bit of space left at the top of the bowl - this pudding expands quite a lot so you don't want it too full:

 11. Cut two circles, one each, of parchment paper and aluminum foil a good bit bigger than your bowl top and secure with rubber bands, then tie string thusly around the bowl so you'll be able to pop it into the steamer and back out without much trouble or burned fingers!

Yes this is a different bowl from a different pudding - I forgot to get a pic of this one before it went in - oops!!

12. Bob your pudding into the steamer and let her steam for 2 hours - check occasionally that there's enough water in there and don't let the pan burn dry - not at all recommended for all sorts of reasons!

13. After 2 hours lift the pudding from the steamer and set on a cooling rack for 10 minutes, then uncover the pudding and allow it to cool completely.

14. Now wrap in waxed/parchment paper and pop into an air tight container until you are ready to reheat for it's debut at either the Thanksgiving or Christmas table - to do such put it back into the bowl it was steamed in - again well buttered and back into a steamer for about an hour until heated through.

For this pudding I made Sticky Toffee Pudding sauce and thickened it a bit with confectioners/icing sugar and slathered atop and added my 'fake' holly, again not traditional, the sauce I mean, but oh so very good:

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 add a tablespoon at a time of confectioners/icing sugar until the sauce gets quite thick then quickly spread on top of the pudding:

As you can see this is a light coloured pudding and it is very light in texture too, it cuts beautifully - a quiet pudding, James says for an American it is most similar in flavour to something like a Date and Walnut loaf - not too sweet but still quite delightful. It is best served warm as the suet makes it a bit dense when cold.

It does definitely need a few days to develop the flavour so it you are thinking of making if for Thanksgiving do so in the next couple of days!!

Happy baking, steaming and Holidays to you all - please let me know if you make this and feel free to post pics on my FACEBOOK PAGE

For the Folkloric Star fabric, also available as wrapping paper, in the pictures click HERE, for the polka dot holly and other polka dot Christmas items click HERE and for the Blue Rhapsody napkins click HERE 

Thank you!!

Vegetarian options for a Christmas Pudding:

New England Christmas Pudding

Traditional Christmas Pudding