Companion

30 Tuesday Mar 2021

Posted by Sophie James in Bread, Uncategorized

Tags

Baking, Bread, Lockdown, Sourdough, Stories

“A companion is literally ‘a person who you eat bread with’. The word comes from Old French compaignon.” The Oxford Dictionary of Origin Words, Julia Cresswell

This is not where I live. The light is different. This light comes from a north-facing window, with the edge of a neglected plant poking into the frame. Can you tell it’s by the sea? I know by the shape of the loaf that it is some loaves back, when I was using lots of seeds, soaking them for hours; sesame, both black and white and pumpkin seeds. There will be some stoneground flour in there but it is before my Ancient Grains period. It looks like a good-enough loaf; a batard. I make two at a time – a boule and then this one. I have to decide who would benefit from which shape. I have decided my mum prefers the batard for ease of cutting.

I make them to give away. Our kitchen has become a tiny bakery, producing two loaves every couple of days or so. Sometimes, we have a loaf left over or an urge to hold on to one overtakes me and it hangs in a (cotton!) bag at the back of the kitchen door. I have become wedded to the smell of rising dough, hot but not quite baked, and the turn around when the lid is removed from the oven 20 minutes in. The fact that it is a process measured out in minutes, a stop watch handy so I can get on with something else in the meantime. I have moved beyond just sitting there staring at the blackened window of the oven.

I like the clank of clay, the different vessels I use for the purpose. The oily fist of flour (einkorn does this best – gathers itself into silky clumps). The best bit is when the bread is baked and it makes minute sounds, bubbling and popping in the ear, like a tiny river of lava. Also, there are the bronzed sesame seeds on the loaf itself and how the bread has torn in the oven, torn and risen and the ‘ear’ has scorched.

But mostly it is the smell. I always wish my mum could receive the bread still hot; the feel of warm bread in her hands, turned out of its pot, parchment paper ripped off, the bottom rapped to check for a healthy hollowness. As a potter she will know the feeling. I sometimes can’t bear that it will go cold – will ‘die’ in some way – and in those moments I might give it to a startled neighbour. I sometimes cycle it over to a friend’s house and leave it among the pots outside or sitting on the mat.

But it has been mostly bundled into a jiffy bag along with a book (Elisabeth Luard at the moment), and sent down to Sussex to my mum, where it might arrive the next day or it might not. From the beginning of lockdown, I took the parcel to my local post office, and before dropping it into the mail sack, the postmaster would cradle the package in his arms. He would lift it to his face, and rock the bread back and forth, smiling. He did this every time; stand in silence with the fragrant parcel held in his arms like a baby, smelling the warmth while I tried to smile through my mask. I imagined the bread slowly cooling until it arrived stone cold on my mum’s doorstep. He got the best part.

There are some good einkorn bread recipes here at The Perfect Loaf as well as really good beginner loaves. I have yet to feel sufficiently ‘proper’ in the sourdough stakes to include my own formula here. Maybe one day.

Thank you, Pippa, for the info about the origins of the word ‘companion’.

The growing season

07 Sunday Jun 2015

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

Allotment, Baking, England, Fruit, Gardening, Summer

I have an allotment. It’s ‘five rod’ which is 125 square metres and it has known better days. Waving weeds, a broken greenhouse, a shed, three pairs of Wellington boots that are sprouting wild flowers or hold stagnant pools of rainwater. The wellies start from small, a three year old I’d say, to adult. And there is something sad about them, the way they are standing to attention against the shed wall. As if something happened that I’d rather not know about. Whoever she is, she left me some tomato fertilizer, a book on allotments, a watering can and a small parcel of the blackest soil replete with worms. There is also a gooseberry bush, raspberry canes, a mass of rhubarb and one of those barbecues you buy at the garage. It’s almost a friendship. And some bolting tomatoes.

Nothing more is known. Of course I said yes. We’ve been here eight months! I had put my name down, and then forgotten all about it; no one now gets an allotment. But here I am shaking hands with a tall, white-haired man in support stockings, and he’s telling me about cherry trees. About the trio of fruit trees behind the plot I’ve chosen which has similarly been left to grow wild.

There’s something incredibly exciting about a fruit tree. It implies permanence in a way that a line of onions or potatoes can’t. Also a tree is beautiful, its blossom giving way to the fruit. Every year it will come back. Fruit that can be pilfered and pocketed or guzzled round the back of the shed. You can sit under a fruit tree and drink tea and read a book.

I threw some netting over part of the cherry tree I could reach, so that there might be some left after the birds and started pulling up weeds with my hands. I can’t yet draw up a plan. If I had a plan, then it would be a job, a task. And already with allotments, there is that whiff of tyranny. You have to maintain ‘your’ path which is always to the right of your plot. You need to decide whether to go down the route of mesh and bark chippings, or cutting it like a lawn. This made me sweat a bit, and so did their pack of instructions for planting from north to south, to dig or not to dig, rotovating, the price of manure. I was to look out for prehistoric flint tools. I was advised to plant spuds the first year. There is a man near me whose plot is all potatoes.

I was thinking more along the lines of thyme and lavender and nasturtium because it reminds me of those slopes in LA rampant with their dusty colour and floppy leaves. Sorrel. What else: fruit that can be picked when ripe (blackcurrants!), a swathe of colourful Califormian poppies for ease and because they like neglect and a dusty ditch. Tomatoes that can feel the sun. Basically I’d like a mulberry tree.

But first it’s a place to come. At the moment there is a wicker chair which when you sit on it gradually subsides so you are actually just sitting on the earth – from here I can be quite invisible and watch the woman mowing her path, the couple bending over their plants. The train rattles by. The man who said something disparaging about my grass is hiding behind a wigwam of sweet peas. I am using a child’s digging fork at the moment. I may or may not get back to work.

Roasted rhubarb

This is from Mark Diacono’s book A Taste of the Unexpected. He’s the one who tells you to plant Szechuan Pepper and quince and something called Oca. His books are glorious and so are his recipes. He also says ‘you can be a neglectful, even abusive, carer of rhubarb. It is quite hard to kill off.’ Result.

500g rhubarb (trimmed & cut into 5cm pieces)
65g caster sugar
Zest and juice of a small orange

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6. Put the trimmed and chopped rhubarb into a roasting tin, toss with the caster sugar and the finely grated zest of the orange. Arrange in a single layer and then pour over the orange juice. Cover the dish with foil and roast in the oven for 15-20 minutes. Then remove the foil, give it all a good stir and put back in the oven (sans foil) for another 15 ish minutes until tender and syrupy and starting to disintegrate. Lovely with Greek yoghurt or cream or ice cream and an ‘independent crumble’ – see Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall for this.

Pudding with goosegogs

28 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 19 Comments

Tags

Baking, Cake, Dessert, Fruit, Ingredients, Recipes, Stories, Sussex

These are red gooseberries, in case you were wondering. I didn’t realize that gooseberries could be anything but green, but here, as in many areas of my life, I am wrong. Red, yellow and white can be the goosegog, though Jane Grigson argues that none are as good in cooking as the green. These red ones were also on the small side, but I was too excited by the colour to do anything but shovel them up in my palsied hands and throw them into the nearest paper bag.

If you are English and have once seen a hedge or climbed a tree, you have also probably eaten a green gooseberry raw. It comes with a certain feral spirit and being too young not to be able to discern what is and isn’t ‘palate appropriate’. I do remember picking gooseberries (along with elderflowers, their natural bedfellows) and sampling the hairy little pod, being slightly put off by the veins, but somehow knowing I couldn’t not eat it. I was bemused by the elderflower picking, as it was for the making of wine, bottles of which would be stacked outside my bedroom window to ferment and mature etc but be still off limits to me.

However, the gooseberries would at some point make their way under a crumble or pie crust and then be served with cream or possibly ice cream. I even liked the sourness, that puckering beyond-lemon tartness, and the errant seeds that could be shot out like a catapult.

All of this under an intermittently blazing and then thunderous English sky. Because I am now back in England, back in time for the thunder and lightning and wild seas and bursts of heat and ladybirds. It’s all gone a bit Brazil here, with long languorous days at times humid and close then cloudy then bucketing down then warm, blank skies of blue. People swim with an abandon I find worrying. Far far out to sea I can see a lone swimmer doing front crawl out beyond the buoy. Children dive in and sometimes they’re naked; another signifier I’m no longer in LA. I’m walking again and so is everyone else.

We are all striding out, wading through fields of old rape and thick stiff wheat. Everyone is eating ice cream – big swathes of white – and everywhere there are bodies in various stages of rotundity; tattooed, jolly, in love, or sullen with a fag on, and I find I’m watching them with the tutored eye of an Angeleno. I’ve become aware of size and shape and it makes me feel uncomfortable. Suddenly I’m shallow. I’ve come back just in time.

But in the meantime there’s cake, or more specifically baked gooseberry pudding using a genoise sponge. All I previously knew about the genoise was that it was ‘difficult’ and a finalist from The Great British Bake Off dropped his all over the floor and was forced to scrape it back on to the plate, presenting it as a strange cloud of something dark with cream.

I made the gooseberry pudding to bring to a party, which served as an object lesson in what you shouldn’t do if you can avoid it: make something you’ve never made before for people you barely know. It looked fine, beautifully brown in that natural way of burnt fields and it smelled voluptuously puddingy. The gooseberries had risen up in revolt at being smothered and had formed a rim of sweet tacky juice. We walked along the seafront in Seaford to the party and the Pyrex dish kept itself cleverly hot all the way. And then the top collapsed, not in the way a flourless cake slumps, but it caved in the way meringue does. It simply all disappeared down a hole.

I grabbed what was down there and it was lovely and hot and gungy, and, I thought, terrifyingly uncooked. I then started to pick at it until there was an undeniable gaping hole in the centre of the pudding which was now unpresentable. ‘It’s the gesture that matters,’ my mother said reassuringly which translated into British English means, “This is a complete disaster and no one will say anything”.

By the time we got there people were peeling off to swim, taking advantage of the sudden heat and sun and all around us were half-demolished cakes, a gammon ripped to shreds, bowls of depleted food and children dancing in that deranged way that happens just before an emotional collapse. My empty cake did not look out of place and by the time everyone had trailed back from the sea under a blanket of rain it appeared to be cooked. It’s rather like meringue in that way, I realize; a crisp outer crust, followed by a hole and then a deep drift of softness below. Actually it’s pudding – that is what it is.

Everyone said ‘Wow!’ a lot but they were also quite drunk. They talked at length about the sweetness, the miraculous crust and the tartness of the gooseberries. And that I had made a cake at all and who was I again? And would I like to come to Faversham? Did I want curry? More Steely Dan! the children cried and they danced red and sweating under the raindrops.

Baked Gooseberry Pudding

Adapted from Jane Grigson’s Fruit Book

I didn’t find the genoise sponge particularly tricky to make, though this might have something to do with my mother’s ancient Chefette free-standing mixer which whisked the eggs and sugar to buggery while I got on with reading the recipe. However, how difficult can it be to stand for seven minutes holding some beaters? This has quickly become my stand-by pudding and is also wonderful with rhubarb – in both cases the fruit can be chucked in raw with the barest tumble in brown sugar. You could use any sharp fruit here – cranberries also work well.

For the sponge

125g butter, plus a bit extra for buttering the bowl

1 large egg and 1 egg yolk (room temp)

175g unrefined caster sugar

100g plain flour, sifted (or rice flour)

½ teaspoon of mace and/or allspice

½ tsp sea salt

For the gooseberries

250-300g gooseberries (they do cook down)

25g-50g demerara sugar or any soft brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 160-170C/325F. Generously butter a Pyrex dish of about 1 litre capacity and 3-4 cm depth. Put in a tight-fitting layer of topped and tailed gooseberries and throw the sugar over them, tumbling them about to get full coverage. Gently melt the butter in a pan and leave to cool slightly.

Now for the sponge – the ‘trick’ is to aerate the eggs and sugar mixture, which means to whisk them together until they are very pale and light, almost white. At first they’ll be gloopy but after about 7-8 minutes the mixture will reach what is known as the ‘ribbon’ stage where it will leave a trail when the beaters are lifted out. Mix the flour, mace/allspice (actually whatever spice you fancy – ginger would be nice) and salt together in a separate bowl and then sift about half over the eggs and sugar, folding very gently using a metal spoon and working in a figure of eight. Fold in the rest of the flour very carefully, so as not to knock out any air.

Now drizzle the melted butter down the sides of the bowl, again gently but quickly working the batter. Now spoon this mixture over the gooseberries, smoothing it out to be level, and then bake for about 45-50 minutes. It will rise and then crack probably. Lovely warm but also gorgeous cold. It is not – though it will appear to be – uncooked inside.

Empty legs

20 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Almonds, Baking, Food, Jane Grigson, Lemons, London, Los Angeles, Stories

I had my first shiatsu session the other day (along the same lines as acupuncture but using physical pressure instead of needles), and the man told me I had ’empty legs’. I had empty legs and empty feet, particularly my arches. This is nothing new – when I was a drama school student, the teachers’ main beef with me was that I had ‘dead legs and frozen eyes’. Someone else was described as having ‘no back’. It’s something to do with parts of our bodies being absent to us. The answer these days is to swim more, but I have not ventured into the English Channel since November and certainly don’t intend to now, with the huge brown swell, the sudden big lurching tide that would vanish me in a second. All I do is look at it from the balcony; a passenger on a boat that never docks.

But I know what he means about swimming. In LA I swam every day in an open-air pool. The area was fringed with merry red Bougainvillea, insubstantial as paper and smelling of nothing. My wet footsteps evaporated behind me making me handily invisible. It was all man-made and relatively new; units instead of flats, everything built for the purpose, everything clean. At first glance there is nowhere to hide, no nooks or crannies so you are exposed to the neighbours wanting to chat/complain about the perfect temperature of the water, the ‘chill’ in the air when there is none, the only thing fluttering being the leaf of a book or a butterfly. It feels an empty landscape.

Until you take yourself off; behind the tennis court is a narrow pathway where there is a pendulous lemon tree; Eureka lemons that are thick and pock-marked and heavy in the hand and need a hoe to get a purchase. Sprouting like mad hair is wild fennel and the smell is strong and medicinal and follows you to the orange trees, their diseased leaves and strongly floral blossoms heady like some kind of deathly elixir. A wild peach tree stands anonymously with blossoms like any other and tough herbs lead the way round the complex. Yards from the pool is this alchemy of smell coming up from the dust.

For me the pull to this landscape is stronger, particularly now that I know about our own Meyer lemon tree and its rash of blossom and the ‘eight or nine’ hummingbirds that visit it every day. And Joe is there doing the B&B in my stead, greeting the guests, not making the lemon shortbread or jam or ironing the sheets (‘I’m not going to do it like you’), but feeding the stray cat and getting rave reviews and being lovely as only he can be. Here in England there is rhubarb and snowdrops and long cold doused days and the obscene trickle of rainwater as it finds the nape of the neck. Bay trees stand to attention outside glossy eateries but it rarely occurs to me to take a leaf and scrunch it up, and smell its warm spiky clove-ness.

Occasionally it feels like fun; the new roomy Circle Line and the hoards of children on half term holiday on the tubes and the buses up in London (‘hold on to the yellow, Imogen!’). A small boy in a bike helmet traces his F Words To Work On next to me with his finger: frightened, fallow, fall, fat. And suddenly I feel bereft that there’ll be no Imogen in LA, none of these terribly English moments. So I make myself think of the sun, like a huge melting pat of butter in the sky. The blue will be the most unEnglish blue. The herbs will be virulent, wild and prolific and the air will smell of them. I’ll stride out, lunge into water and then feel it evaporate on my skin. I’ll have my own bowl of lemons, the car, the pool, that constant sun again (always the same), a brilliant dry cleaner, empty streets. Hopefully no more empty legs.

The B&B lemon shortbread began life as Jane Grigson’s shortbread knobs in her Fruit Book though I have doctored them with lemon zest and almonds. They are incredibly simple to make: melt 175g unsalted butter over a medium heat and add the finely grated zest of two lemons. Allow this to infuse and cool. Then add to the butter 200g of plain flour, 25g of ground almonds, 125g of sugar and a pinch of sea salt (all mixed together beforehand in a bowl). Make a sandy paste and then roll the mixture into little teaspoon-sized balls which you then press slightly to flatten. Bake on trays with parchment paper at 150C/300F for about 25 minutes. They’re done when they’re golden brown. Sometimes I drop a couple of torn bay leaves into the melted butter to infuse – is this wrong? I don’t know but I like the smell and fish them out before adding the flour.

Power of two

27 Monday Jan 2014

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 22 Comments

Tags

Baking, Biscuits, Chocolate, Food, Hospital, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Ingredients, Nonfiction, Recipes, Stories, Sussex

I can’t get excited about root vegetables. Pressure-cooked parsnips and celeriac and the flaccid broths I am now closely acquainted with have started to distance me from their virtues. Yes, warm, inviting, steamy, filling, healthy, earthy, beefy and sustaining etc. Worthy.

If I want something wet and warm it is to be tea; strong, lactic and the colour of a cheap suntan. The cup is important: wide, thin-lipped and bone china, something that warms the hands through. And then there is the all important dunking element: the biscuit. Not cookies, which are too soft and yielding and will flop into the tea and turn it to mush. It must be a digestive. Sandy, burnished brown, the texture of rubble. A slight saltiness. Plain as plain can be. My childhood friend, Tuppy, would layer her digestives with butter and salt, an act I found impressive – she was the first as a child to make the connection between sweet biscuit and salted dairy. Digestives and cheddar are also a winner.

Digestives are also the fulcrum of the NHS – after a short stay you will be offered a dainty red packet of two and a cup of tea. It gets your blood sugar up, gives you something to gnaw on, brings you back to life. Sitting the other day with the curtain round me in a hospital ward, after a routine though still rather rugged procedure, I ripped open the red wrapper; the two fitted into my palm like medals. I made them last as long as I could.

“Are you alright in there?” the nurse asked, suspicious at my lingering. My answer was muffled with starch and sugar. I couldn’t just have one. “Fine!” I called out. She whipped the curtain back, but I’d already eaten most of the evidence. 24 hours of not eating and nothing can prepare you for the high. Digestives are genius. And she gave me another packet to go home with. She balanced them on a tray and walked beside me like a butler.

My cousin was waiting for me looking normal and smiling with the colour of a windswept sea walk still on her cheeks. I showed her my little red packet and she was impressed. It reminded me in that moment to be grateful – to be there in the first place and to be going home. With her, with digestives.

You can dip the digestives – once cooled – in melted chocolate, and then leave them to harden on non-stick baking paper. Here I used dark chocolate but milk would also work. As you can see, they are not particularly pretty to look at, but very nice to eat, and will enrich your tea dunking activities. The unchocolated ones mimic shop-bought digestives in their sheer plainness. They are also nicely crisp and not overly sweet – you can serve them with cheese or pâté. They are very good eaten on the day but can be stored in an airtight container and enjoyed a few days later.

The term ‘digestive’ was reportedly derived from the belief that the biscuits had antacid properties due to the use of bicarbonate of soda. They were originally made with exclusively ‘brown meal’ – composed of fine bran and white flour. Because brown meal includes the germ, the flour was sweet, and perhaps because of this, digestives have also been called ‘sweetmeal’ biscuits.

Ginger and chocolate digestive biscuits

Adapted from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, The Guardian

No, he’s not paying me. I just happen to like his column. These are based on the classic River Cottage digestive, but made with the addition of ginger and dark chocolate. Both are optional, but if you do go down the ginger route, be generous with the little squares of stem ginger or the flavour and texture can get a bit lost. I used light muscovado here for the soft brown sugar. Makes 20-25.

125g wholemeal spelt flour (or plain wholemeal flour), plus extra to dust
125g medium oatmeal
75g soft brown sugar
½ tsp ground ginger
Big pinch of fine sea salt
1 tsp baking powder
125g cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
5 – 6 largish squares of stem ginger, finely chopped
A little milk (I didn’t find this necessary)
200g dark chocolate (or good milk chocolate), broken into small pieces

Heat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4 and line two baking trays with nonstick baking parchment. Put the flour, oatmeal, sugar, ginger, salt and baking powder in a food processor and pulse. Add the butter and pulse again until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. (Alternatively, combine the dry ingredients in a bowl, then rub in the butter with your fingertips.)

Add the stem ginger and, with the processor running, trickle in just enough milk (about 30ml) to bring the mix together into clumps. I didn’t need to add any milk in my batch, my dough was already fairly sticky, but see how you go.

Lightly dust a work surface with flour, tip out the dough and knead gently into a ball. Press into a fat disc, wrap in clingfilm and chill for 30 minutes.

Cut the dough in half. Dust one half with flour and roll it out to 3-4mm thick, dusting regularly with flour to stop it sticking. The dough is slightly sticky and crumbly, so don’t worry if it breaks up a bit; just squash it back together and re-roll. Use a 7.5cm cutter, or a glass or cup, to stamp out biscuits, and transfer these to the baking sheets with a palette knife; re-roll the offcuts to make more. Repeat with the second piece of dough (or chill for use later), then bake for 10 – 12 minutes, until golden brown at the edges and lightly coloured on top.

Remove from the oven and leave the biscuits to cool and firm up on the baking sheets, then transfer them to an airtight container or eat them all.

If you want to: melt the chocolate in a basin over a pan of simmering water. Dip in one half of each biscuit, and leave to set on a silicone mat or a sheet of nonstick baking parchment, before serving.

Always winter

04 Wednesday Dec 2013

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 25 Comments

Tags

Almonds, Baking, Cake, Childhood, Chocolate, Dessert, Devon, Ingredients, Nonfiction, Recipes, Stories

Perhaps it’s because I have been spending a lot of time in the mud, but I’m drawn very much to muscovado sugar. Dark as earth, moist, crumbly and rich with minerals, it has sizeable heft. It is always winter with muscovado. And it reminds me of the eternal cold of Devon, before central heating, and the way our small fingers stuck to the inside of the windows and having to get dressed with our foggy breath snorting out of our mouths like buffalo.

As children we only ever had muscovado and we put it in our tea, which was like drinking turf. We sprinkled it over our porridge in the mornings and the strong malt-like aniseed depth of it was not always easy to take, though it helped if there was a moat of cold milk which the muscovado sweetened to butterscotch. If muscovado is turf then molasses is tar. It was sometimes given to us ‘for nerves’ in the same way that cod liver oil was administered ‘for bones’. And I can still remember the thick gluey strings of molasses making my jaw ache, the smell strangely reminiscent of tobacco and the colour which was like Victorian yacht varnish.

I was aware that other households didn’t have such things. My school friends had white sugar that was often mistaken for salt, and a wet dab of the finger was needed to ascertain which was which. I also remember that theirs were houses filled with neatness and pullovers and tank tops knitted in luminous artificial colours.

011

My friends didn’t have to be wrapped in sheets stiff with heat from the storage heater just before bedtime. They didn’t know what they were missing, because being swaddled like this so you could barely move and feeling the starchy steam rise into the room was actually very satisfying. And then we were lowered into our beds like mummies. But apart from this one thing, I really wanted to be banal and suburban and have nothing unique about me at all.

This might be why I called myself Marian, which I did for a while, thinking it was a nice, quiet name. But the black sugar was too much of a give away. It marked us out as odd and therefore vulnerable to attack. And it wasn’t used for things people understood, like chutneys, marinades and fruit cake. It spoke of the chaos underpinning everything, that we used muscovado outside of its real purpose, that we didn’t differentiate. Eventually we left, dad to Exmouth and the rest of us to Exeter and later onwards to London. It has left me with a lifelong nervousness of parochial life, of so-called ‘country living’. Those small places can be tough. But muscovado put iron in the soul and molasses helped to calm our fraying nerves.

The lowdown on muscovado

Muscovado (from the Portuguese açúcar mascavado meaning ‘separated sugar’) is also known as Barbados sugar, and is made differently to other brown sugars: instead of being white sugar to which molasses is added, it is boiled down from sugar cane juice, purified with lime juice, but then not refined any further. Muscovado is made in Barbados, in Mauritius, and in the Antique province in the Philippines, where it was one of the most prominent export commodities, from the 19th century until the late 1970s. It is nutritionally richer than other brown sugars, and retains most of the natural minerals – such as calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium and iron – inherent in sugarcane juice.

Muscovado brownies with almonds

Adapted from Claire Thomson, The Guardian, Cook, 13/2/2016

You can use whatever nut takes your fancy, but almonds always work with this recipe and you can keep the skins on. Walnuts are also lovely as are prunes. This is on the ‘weeping’ end of the brownie spectrum – crisp on the outside and damp within. My earlier brownie recipe is even more luxe. I’m terrified now looking back at those ingredients; you will probably need a defibrillator standing by, just in case. This recipe is a bit more demure. Make it gluten-free by using rice flour or a gluten-free mix instead of the standard plain. You can go the whole hog here and only use dark muscovado or light muscovado if you want to forgo the caster sugar.

125g almonds (or walnuts/softened prunes, drained and roughly chopped)

150g dark cooking chocolate (60-70% cocoa solids)

150g unsalted butter

3 eggs

100g dark muscovado sugar

100g caster sugar

100g plain flour

15g cocoa powder

1/2 tsp salt (plus a pinch to sprinkle over the baked brownie)

Lightly grease a non-stick baking tin 6 x 10 inch (15 x 24 cm) and line with baking parchment. Allow the paper to come 1 inch (2.5 cm) above the tin. Heat the oven to 350F/180C, then chop the almonds roughly, put them on a baking sheet and toast in the oven for about 5-8 minutes, keeping an eye on them as they burn easily. Use skin-on or blanched, both are fine.

While the almonds are doing their work, put chocolate and butter together in a heatproof bowl fitted over a pan of barely simmering water. Allow the chocolate to melt without stirring it, then remove from the heat and gently stir to smoothness.

In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and sugars together until the mixture is creamy and thick. Mix the melted chocolate and butter into the egg and sugar mixture.

Sift the flour and cocoa powder and salt into the chocolate mixture. Beat together until smooth. Fold in the almonds.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake on the centre shelf for 20 -25 minutes. Don’t overcook the brownie – you want it to be just firm to the touch (not scorched at all) and still gooey inside. Leave to cool for ten minutes, and then put on a sheet of parchment on a wire rack. Cut squint, so you can eat the stray bits while no one’s looking.

Damp & Soulful

21 Monday Oct 2013

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 23 Comments

Tags

Autumn, Baking, Cake, Chocolate, England, Gluten-free, Ingredients, Nuts, Recipes, Stories, Sussex

This is an autumn cake – damp and soulful and lovely with a few late mulberries or some cooked and treacly damsons, as small as olives now. This might also be the time to get out some prunes and soak them in Armagnac (you could lob some into the cake itself). Nuts instead of flour here, which makes it gluten-free. I made the mistake the first time round of putting two tablespoons of spelt in, which was unnecessary and also catastrophic. The 2 tbs were my undoing. I made it for a party and no one would touch it. It was as if I’d announced that there was cat food in it. Instead of flour I now add cocoa powder, and everyone can breathe a sigh of relief. Except of course there’s sugar and butter and nuts and chocolate.

“Do you do anything gluten-free?” the lady asked. She was the carer for a much older lady who she’d just seated with difficulty at a nearby table. Rain drummed on the windows. I was sitting right by the till. It was a lovely cafe, full of rare teas and little glass milk bottles and ironic tea cosies. My head was next to the tips jar. My head was ‘tips jar adjacent’ as they say, and I could have lain it down directly on the counter and had a nap were it not for the pneumatic espresso machine and screaming milk being banged out on to waiting coffees nearby. When did milk become so loud?

The waitress had to shout above the roar of the foam, “Plum and polenta!” She pointed to some sandy mounds under a glass dome. The lady looked at them blankly and then back at the waitress. “You don’t do anything like a baked potato?” There was a moment between them where they both seemed at a loss. “Coq au Vin?” the waitress said eventually. “Is that gluten-free?” “Yes.”

It struck me that the term ‘gluten-free’ had got in the way of this exchange. As if this was what you had to say these days, in these sorts of places. I don’t know why this made me feel sad. I felt sorry for the baked potato. And I’m not sure I want to live in a gluten-free world. I love flourless cakes – cakes made with nuts, for example – because their flourlessness is often germane to the cake’s identity: they were born flourless. But a baked potato isn’t any more gluten-free than my trousers. It was a baked potato first. This is a cake first (or torte…). Enjoy it. I hope there will always be a place for it in our post gluten world.

Chocolate and hazelnut torte

Adapted from and inspired by Emma Gardner’s beautiful blog, Poires au Chocolat

This cake is rather drum-like in appearance, and has less of the fallen soufflé effect common in the flourless. However, its surface does eventually crack reassuringly. I have no idea how the cold-eggs-straight-from-the-fridge idea works, but the proof is in the eating. Keep the cake wrapped in greaseproof paper for up to three days, if you can, to let the flavours develop and deepen. It gets better.

75g whole hazelnuts

2 tbs cocoa powder

170g good dark chocolate (60 – 70% cocoa solids) broken into chunks

140g unsalted butter, slightly softened

150g light brown sugar

Big pinch of fine sea salt

4 large cold eggs (from the fridge)

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Lightly butter an 8″ springform or loose-based tin and line with baking parchment.

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Lightly butter an 8″ springform or loose-based tin. Place the hazelnuts on a small tray in the oven and toast for a few minutes until they start to smell and darken slightly. If they have skins, rub as much as you can off with a tea towel. Put into a food processor with the flour and blast until they are finely ground. – See more at: http://www.poiresauchocolat.net/2012/11/chocolate-hazelnut-torte-with-smoked.html#sthash.3zwFHVRy.dpuf Place the hazelnuts on a baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes or until nuts are brown and fragrant and the skins are starting to peel away from the nuts. Remove from oven and place the nuts in a clean dish towel. Roll up the towel and let the nuts ‘steam’ for about five minutes and then rub the nuts to remove the skins. Let cool.

Put the hazelnuts on a baking sheet and bake for about 10-15 minutes or until the nuts are brown and fragrant and the skins are starting to peel away. Keep an eye on them – they burn easily. Remove from the oven and put the nuts in a clean tea towel. Roll up the towel and let the nuts ‘steam’ for about five minutes and then rub the nuts to remove the skins. Think of someone you hate. Let them cool.

To make the ground hazelnuts: once the hazelnuts have completely cooled, throw them in a food processor, along with the cocoa, and process until they are finely ground. Alternatively, put them in a coffee grinder and do them in batches.

Put a heatproof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water. Add the chocolate pieces and let them melt without stirring. When they look as though they’re almost there, take the bowl off the heat, stir, and add the hopefully rather soft butter, the sugar and salt. Whisk until it’s all of uniform smoothness. It will have lightened a little.

Add the first egg, beat until incorporated, then add the next, and keep going until all four eggs are in and then add the vanilla extract. Whip the mixture on high for 1-2 minutes until it’s stiff and becoming paler. Add the ground hazelnuts and cocoa powder and fold in. Scoop into the pan and level out. Bake for 28-35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the centre of the cake brings out a few sticky crumbs.

Cool completely in the pan on a wire rack. It will rise and then fall gradually, leaving a higher rim of cake around the sides and there will also be some cracking. Wrap in foil or greaseproof paper for up to three days before eating. The flavours become more wickedly intense with time.

70g whole hazelnuts
30g plain flour
170g dark chocolate (I used 85%)
140g unsalted butter, slightly softened
150g light brown sugar
big pinch of fine sea salt
4 large cold eggs (from the fridge)
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of smoked sea salt flakesPreheat the oven to 180C/350F. Lightly butter an 8″ springform or loose-based tin. Place the hazelnuts on a small tray in the oven and toast for a few minutes until they start to smell and darken slightly. If they have skins, rub as much as you can off with a tea towel. Put into a food processor with the flour and blast until they are finely ground.Place a mixer bowl (or another bowl if using a hand mixer) over a pan of barely simmering water. Chop the chocolate up and tip into the bowl. Stir occasionally as it melts. Meanwhile weigh out the brown sugar and salt and cut the butter into cubes – it should be starting to soften, not squishy. When the chocolate has nearly melted, take it off the heat and stir until it’s smooth. Place on the mixer (with the whisk attached) and add the sugar, salt and butter. Whisk on medium until the ingredients have fully combined and the mixture has lightened a little. Scrape the sides down then add the first egg. Whip until combined, then add the next egg. Repeat until they’re all combined then add the vanilla and whip for 1-2 minutes on high until stiff and pale.Add the ground hazelnuts and fold in. Scoop into the pan and level out. Sprinkle the smoked sea salt over the top. Bake for 28-35 minutes – a tester should still bring up a few sticky crumbs. Place on a wire rack and leave to cool fully in the tin. Wrap in kitchen foil and leave for at least one day and up to three before serving. Lovely with a big spoonful of whipped cream or crème fraîche.
– See more at: http://www.poiresauchocolat.net/2012/11/chocolate-hazelnut-torte-with-smoked.html#sthash.nKxGe4qV.dpuf

70g whole hazelnuts
30g plain flour
170g dark chocolate (I used 85%)
140g unsalted butter, slightly softened
150g light brown sugar
big pinch of fine sea salt
4 large cold eggs (from the fridge)
1 tsp vanilla extract – See more at: http://www.poiresauchocolat.net/2012/11/chocolate-hazelnut-torte-with-smoked.html#sthash.nKxGe4qV.dpuf

Chocolate Hazelnut Torte with Smoked Salt
(adapted from Alice Medrich’s Sinfully Easy Delicious Desserts)70g whole hazelnuts
30g plain flour
170g dark chocolate (I used 85%)
140g unsalted butter, slightly softened
150g light brown sugar
big pinch of fine sea salt
4 large cold eggs (from the fridge)
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of smoked sea salt flakesPreheat the oven to 180C/350F. Lightly butter an 8″ springform or loose-based tin. Place the hazelnuts on a small tray in the oven and toast for a few minutes until they start to smell and darken slightly. If they have skins, rub as much as you can off with a tea towel. Put into a food processor with the flour and blast until they are finely ground.Place a mixer bowl (or another bowl if using a hand mixer) over a pan of barely simmering water. Chop the chocolate up and tip into the bowl. Stir occasionally as it melts. Meanwhile weigh out the brown sugar and salt and cut the butter into cubes – it should be starting to soften, not squishy. When the chocolate has nearly melted, take it off the heat and stir until it’s smooth. Place on the mixer (with the whisk attached) and add the sugar, salt and butter. Whisk on medium until the ingredients have fully combined and the mixture has lightened a little. Scrape the sides down then add the first egg. Whip until combined, then add the next egg. Repeat until they’re all combined then add the vanilla and whip for 1-2 minutes on high until stiff and pale.Add the ground hazelnuts and fold in. Scoop into the pan and level out. Sprinkle the smoked sea salt over the top. Bake for 28-35 minutes – a tester should still bring up a few sticky crumbs. Place on a wire rack and leave to cool fully in the tin. Wrap in kitchen foil and leave for at least one day and up to three before serving. Lovely with a big spoonful of whipped cream or crème fraîche.(Serves 10-12) – See more at: http://www.poiresauchocolat.net/2012/11/chocolate-hazelnut-torte-with-smoked.html#sthash.nKxGe4qV.dpuf

The cake about to be baked

A bowl of mulberries

Some other flourless cakes in my repertoire

Lemon and almond cake

Bitter chocolate olive oil cake

Chocolate marmalade slump cake

Chocolate Hazelnut Torte with Smoked Salt
(adapted from Alice Medrich’s Sinfully Easy Delicious Desserts)70g whole hazelnuts
30g plain flour
170g dark chocolate (I used 85%)
140g unsalted butter, slightly softened
150g light brown sugar
big pinch of fine sea salt
4 large cold eggs (from the fridge)
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of smoked sea salt flakesPreheat the oven to 180C/350F. Lightly butter an 8″ springform or loose-based tin. Place the hazelnuts on a small tray in the oven and toast for a few minutes until they start to smell and darken slightly. If they have skins, rub as much as you can off with a tea towel. Put into a food processor with the flour and blast until they are finely ground.Place a mixer bowl (or another bowl if using a hand mixer) over a pan of barely simmering water. Chop the chocolate up and tip into the bowl. Stir occasionally as it melts. Meanwhile weigh out the brown sugar and salt and cut the butter into cubes – it should be starting to soften, not squishy. When the chocolate has nearly melted, take it off the heat and stir until it’s smooth. Place on the mixer (with the whisk attached) and add the sugar, salt and butter. Whisk on medium until the ingredients have fully combined and the mixture has lightened a little. Scrape the sides down then add the first egg. Whip until combined, then add the next egg. Repeat until they’re all combined then add the vanilla and whip for 1-2 minutes on high until stiff and pale.Add the ground hazelnuts and fold in. Scoop into the pan and level out. Sprinkle the smoked sea salt over the top. Bake for 28-35 minutes – a tester should still bring up a few sticky crumbs. Place on a wire rack and leave to cool fully in the tin. Wrap in kitchen foil and leave for at least one day and up to three before serving. Lovely with a big spoonful of whipped cream or crème fraîche.(Serves 10-12)
– See more at: http://www.poiresauchocolat.net/2012/11/chocolate-hazelnut-torte-with-smoked.html#sthash.CDp8X22X.dpuf

Topsy turvy

09 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 20 Comments

Tags

Almonds, Baking, Cake, Fruit, Ingredients, Los Angeles, Recipes, Stone fruit, Stories

Plums are everywhere and it seems futile to resist. Although I managed it. Something about the skins that pulls one off balance. You should eat them bare, gnaw around the stone and savour the juice as it cascades down your arm. In the end, I cooked with apriums. Yes, I know it sounds more like an edible food-like substance (paraphrazing Michael Pollen) but it is the real thing. They have the rich wateriness of plums, the sour, clingy skin, but then there is apricot. They taste like the sibling of nectarines without the solidness of the flesh. Are we all clear then?

I was hellbent on making an upside down cake, so here I am. And it’s been an upside down few weeks. If I was part of the Mister Men series I would probably be upside down (they would put me in trousers, obviously) as I went about my business. I lost my camera. This was a camera I had found about two years ago. I put up posters in the area advertizing its whereabouts and when no one claimed it, I adopted it. It was a happy union. I took all the pictures for the blog with it. It accompanied me everywhere. And then suddenly it was gone – it was absolutely nowhere. I returned to gaps and crevices hoping to feel its bulky angles. It’s true what the comedian Lee Evans said: when you lose something you keep going back to the same place to look for it, the mind refusing to acknowledge you’ve just been there. Hands run over surfaces, feeling blindly behind books, fingers slide into nooks, and slide out again. I retraced my steps like an amateur sleuth.

I went to the doctor’s and sidled up to the receptionist with my query – I had all the details ready: I may have left my camera in the bathroom on my last visit. But someone was having a panic attack. This news was relayed to the assembled company with the words “You f******g assholes, she’s passed out!” According to the receptionist, now on the phone to emergency services, this man’s girlfriend had been having a panic attack, had left and was now sitting in the car outside, unconscious. Doctors and nurses spilled through the doors with wheelchairs and stethoscopes; they ran as if out of a burning building. It was mayhem. Had any of them seen my camera? It seemed not a good time to ask.

The girl who refrigerates the stool samples ran past me. Nobody was left. A few days later I encountered a man who was dispensing free hugs outside the farmers’ market. That is not me with the cute butt and sawn-off trousers, by the way. It was me later. He grasped me like a lumberjack. He didn’t speak but I felt as if he knew everything. What a difference it would make, I thought, if they had people like that around, parked on street corners, standing by subway tunnels, in the waiting room at the doctor’s. Around for when everything turns upside down.

Upside Down Cake with Stone Fruit

Adapted (everso slightly) from Pastry Studio

There is such a dizzying array of plums about in LA at the moment that it makes sense to use them here, or you could go for the hybridized pluots or apriums (as I did). However, this recipe was originally intended for apricots, and I suspect it would work equally well with other stone fruit too; anything that gives up its juice in a charitable manner. Nectarines, peaches and the like. The use of honey in the caramel makes quite a difference to the overall taste, and brings out the piquancy of the fruit.

Serves 8

For the fruit caramel

3 tablespoons honey

1 tablespoon butter

½ teaspoon cinnamon

4 – 6 plums (depending on size)

2 – 3 tablespoons toasted flaked almonds

For the cake

140g (1 cup) flour ( this could be rice flour etc)

40g (½ cup) toasted flaked almonds

1½ teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

115g (8 tbs) butter at room temperature

150g (¾ cup) caster sugar

2 large eggs at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon almond extract (optional)

120 ml (1/2 cup) milk at room temperature

2 tablespoons honey, to glaze

Preheat oven to 350F/190C. Lightly grease a 10 inch (25cm) cake tin.

For the fruit caramel layer, put the honey, butter and cinnamon in a saucepan and heat until melted. Pour into the bottom of the cake pan, then lift the pan and swirl to distribute evenly.

Slice the plums in half, remove the stones, and then cut the fruit into slices (or quarters), and fan them out on top of the honey butter mixture. Make sure that whatever fruit you use covers the bottom in a substantial layer, since it will cook down while baking. Fill in the gaps with a sprinkle of toasted almonds.

For the cake batter, place the flour, almonds, baking powder and salt in the bowl of a food processor or blender. Whizz until the almonds are ground but with some texture still. Pour into a bowl and set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add vanilla and almond extracts if using and blend. Beat in the eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl and mixing thoroughly after each addition.

Add a third of the flour mixture alternately with half the milk, beginning and ending with the flour. Don’t overmix. Spread the batter evenly over the fruit.

Bake until a toothpick tests clean, about 42 – 45 minutes. The sides of the cake will have started to shrink away from the sides of the pan and it will feel soft and springy to the touch. Place on a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes. Run a knife around the edge of the pan to loosen the cake. Invert the cake carefully using a plate – beware of any cascading hot juices.

Warm 2 tablespoons of the honey and brush on to the surface of the cake to glaze. Cool completely or serve at room temperature, as you would a pudding, with some cream of course.

Three other recipes that involve stone fruit:

Chocolate and apricot tart

Peach and amaretti tarte tatin

Sauteed plums and chocolate pudding

Another use for honey:

Quince paste and Manchego

Lemon, almond, olive oil cake

14 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

Almonds, Baking, Cake, Dessert, Food, Gluten-free, Ingredients, Lemons, Meyer lemons, Recipes

These are no ordinary lemons. They are Meyer lemons, big and blowsy, a deep yellowy-orange, the colour of fresh egg yolk. The smell and feel are both quite different to the pocked and gnarly Eureka, say: smoother, sweeter, riper, heavier in the hand. They are poreless, and at times almost round, and their leaves are dark and glossy. And they came from our friends’ garden. Before we got to the lemon tree, I was taken on a tour by their eight-year-old daughter, who picked me a posy of clover to eat (peppery) and we examined the orange tree we had given them as a present, which was actually two trees grafted on to one root. Their avocado tree was huge with leaves like big, green jazz hands. There were no more avocados though, so we stood and admired the foliage.

The lemon tree was matted with cobwebs. There was a birdhouse that hung from one of the branches which looked as though it had its own hammock, so cleverly had the house been divided by the spider’s yarn. When we brought the lemons home and lifted them out, spiders skittered over the surfaces of the fruit, unmoored. I liked the way that parts of the tree were still attached; bits of branch, leaves sprouting, as if the fruit was still in the throes of living.

We are back to the stagnant heat again. All this week there will be nothing to break the seal. The air is utterly still where we are, and at night one feels cloaked in it. The only place to be is the coast where there is a sea mist and a breeze. Inland we are engulfed; like characters from a Tennessee Williams play, we are bathed in a halo of glowing sweat. It seems the next logical step is a silk negligee and a bottle of scotch.

Although it may seem strange, being in the kitchen at times like this is actually a reprieve. Inside is cooler. Of course, if you have a glut of lemons, making lemonade would be perfect on days like these: a jug filled with ice and mint, frothing with syrupy lemon fizz. But this is a light cake and goes well with fresh seasonal fruit (the first apricots are in). I wanted to do something sufficiently involving and I liked the processes involved. I have made this flourless; it gives it a lovely dampness and it goes down beautifully. (In fact I wanted to call this post Rising Damp because the memory made me smile but I couldn’t fit it all in).

I blanched, roasted and ground the almonds myself – it makes a difference if you like uneven nuttiness in a cake, which I profess I do. It doesn’t rise and fall quite as dramatically as other ‘broken’ cakes I have featured, such as the chocolate marmalade slump cake and the bitter chocolate olive oil cake but it has the same softly flattened character.

Lemon, almond, olive oil cake

Adapted (almost beyond recognition) from Pastry Studio

I am quite hardcore here about the almond preparation but using a packet of already ground almonds is totally acceptable. Give them a gentle toast in a frying pan beforehand to release flavour. If you are using regular lemons, the cake will generally be sharper and taste more lemony.

Serves 8

5 free range eggs, separated

150g (5½ oz) sugar, divided

175ml (6 fl oz) extra virgin olive oil

Juice of 1 lemon

Finely grated zest of 2 lemons

175g (6 oz) blanched, toasted and ground almonds

½ tsp salt

1 tbs sugar, for the top of the cake

Preheat the oven to 350F/180C. Lightly grease a 23cm (9in) cake tin with olive oil and line with parchment.

Beat the yolks and just under half of the sugar until thick and pale. Reduce the whisk to medium speed and drizzle in the olive oil. Then add the lemon juice and zest. The mixture may look a bit sloppy. Sift half the ground almonds into the batter and fold in gently. Sift in the remaining almonds until combined, making sure to lift up the batter from the bottom and sides of the bowl. Beat the egg whites with the salt until foamy. Slowly rain in the rest of the sugar until they hold a soft, satiny peak. Fold a third of the whites into the yolk mixture to lighten the batter, then fold in the remaining whites.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and gently tap the bottom on to a work surface to release any air bubbles. Sprinkle the 1 tbs of sugar on to the top of the cake (don’t omit this as it gives the cake a nice crunch). Bake until the cake is puffed and golden – about 30 minutes. Place on a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes. Release the cake and let it cool completely. Gently invert the cake and remove the paper. Serve with some crème fraîche and some poached apricots or other seasonal fruit.

Coconut, macadamias & a hammer

01 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Baking, Food, Ingredients, Nuts, Recipes, Stories, Travel

I found the macadamia nuts in their shells at the Santa Monica farmers’ market. I was surprised to see them at all. In fact, I was looking for hazelnuts, of which there has not been a snifter. I’m not a fan of exotica in food generally, nor do I warm to the tropical, except for Bounty bars. I once went to the Philippines, which was full of places that looked like the ideal location for a Bounty advert: milk-soft ocean, leggy coconut palms, acres of white sand. At one point a very Americanized Filipino leaned over to me and said “Isn’t this the best decision you, like, ever made?” How to say no, without seeming ungrateful? I probably just nodded and hoped my eyebrows were holding back some of the sweat that I could feel pouring out of my hair.

The one thing I will remember fondly was the man who sang Tears in Heaven every evening yards from my beach hut. He had a rather limited repertoire, but a really nice voice. All the restaurants had their own singer, and the songs were mellow and often accompanied by a single guitar. I remember feeling completely miserable, alone and in paradise. Actually, I wasn’t alone because fishermen used to sleep in my hammock.

Macadamias were introduced to southern California in the late 19th century from Australia, their native soil. They have similar demands to avocados, and are scattered throughout avocado groves and sometimes citrus here for that reason. I was shocked at how they looked once shelled (they are almost impossible to crack – hence the hammer). They are so perfect and pristine it’s unnerving – exact yet miniature, like Japanese netsuke. They are buttery, in the way of a Brazil nut, but sweeter and creamier; they need the dry heat of the oven to do them justice. Alternatively – and I can’t blame you – buy a bag of them shelled and save yourself the agro. I apologize in advance for the expense. They are known as the brat of the nut world, probably for this reason.

I have long held a love for the coconut. The damp matted stuff, fragrant, sweet and nutty has an affinity with macadamia nuts. Coconuts are available year-round but peak in the autumn and winter. I am happy to bring you macaroons, because I think they are lovely in size, easy to make and timeless. They should be eaten on the day they are made though as they stale up easily. The macaroon recipe calls for shredded coconut, which is a common ingredient in the US. The UK version, called desiccated coconut, is very similar. Alternatively, buy a fresh coconut – pierce it, drain off the juice (and drink it, it’s very good for you), crack open the shell with a hammer (yes, again) around the ‘fault’ line, and separate the flesh. Peel off the brown skin with a knife and grate the flesh in a processor. If you think this is too much faff and expense for one recipe, I suggest making the coconut-macadamia shortbread too (see recipe below).

Coconut-macadamia macaroons

Adapted from Lindsay Shere, Chez Panisse Desserts

& Nigella Lawson, How to be a Domestic Goddess

2 large egg whites

¼ tsp of cream of tartar

⅓ cup (25g) of sugar

Pinch of sea salt

1½ cups (150g) of shredded coconut

½ cup (75g) unsalted macadamia nuts

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 160C/325F. Toast the macadamias until just beginning to colour – about ten minutes max. Then cool and chop fine by hand. Beat the egg whites until frothy – no more – then add the cream of tartar and salt and carry on beating until soft peaks are formed. Beat in the sugar until the whites hold stiff, shiny peaks. Fold in the nuts and coconut. The mixture is sticky but should hold its shape, just. Form into small domes – say 2 to 3 inches in diameter. Cook for 15-20 minutes or until they are turning a golden brown. Makes 8 large-ish macaroons.

Coconut-macadamia shortbread

Adapted from Nick Malgieri, The Modern Baker

For the shortbread

½ cup (100g) sugar (Use coconut palm sugar if you can get it)

1½ ounces (50g) unsalted macadamias, crushed with the bottom of a pan

2 cups (250g) all purpose flour*

¼ cup (25g) shredded coconut

½ tsp baking powder

12 tbs (1½ sticks/175g) cold, unsalted butter cut into small pieces

Pinch of sea salt

For the top

¾ cup (about 3oz/75g) unsalted macadamias, crushed and finely chopped, not ground

⅓ cup (75g) coconut palm sugar (or any soft, brown sugar)

Generous sprinkling of flaky salt (such as Maldon)

Line a baking sheet with buttered parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 160C/325F. Combine the sugar and macadamias in the bowl of a food processor or blender and grind finely. Add the flour and baking powder and pulse several times to mix. Add the butter and pulse until it is finely mixed in. The mixture should be powdery. You could do this with your hands if you work fast.

Distribute the mixture evenly all over the lined and buttered pan. Use the palm of one hand to press it in. Sprinkle the dough with water and scatter the chopped nuts and sugar evenly on the dough and use the palm of your hand again to press them in. Sprinkle with the flaky salt. Bake the shortbread until it is golden and firm – about 25 minutes. As soon as you remove the pan from the oven, grip the opposite ends of the paper and lift the slab of baked dough onto a cutting board. While the dough is still hot, cut into 2 inch (5cm) squares. Let the shortbread cool and crisp up. If you want it crisper, you can return it to the oven at 300F/150C for a further 10 minutes, then cool the pan on a rack. The sugar and salt are a really lovely combination and enhance the rich nuttiness of the shortbread. Makes about 24 2-inch (5cm) squares.

*Use ground almonds if you want to go flourless – it will be much softer and sandier but still very good. Reduce the butter to 6 tbs and melt it beforehand.