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Toasted Ginger Cake

11 Tuesday Dec 2012

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Baking, Cake, Cookbook, Dessert, Food, Ingredients, Nonfiction, Recipes, Spices, Stories

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Something dark is needed, and I feel it can’t be chocolate. Something dense, oblong and with ginger nubbins. Some sort of nub is required. I have spent the whole week researching chocolate pecan torte. I still know nothing about tortes. And I realize this is not the time for light and airy cakes with a dusting of something smokily ethereal. If ever there was a time for density it is now. And the heart wants what it wants, as Woody Allen once said (as well as “I’ll have the alfalfa sprouts and a plate of mashed yeast” – LA restaurant, Annie Hall).

I don’t know why this has to be toasted, but it does. I first tried it about two years ago in a cafe in Sussex. I asked if I could get the recipe and the cook refused. He didn’t refuse to my face, which was in some ways more embarrassing because he was about a yard away from me in his open kitchen, and the rejection was delivered via a waitress. I don’t know whether I was being a bit pushy, presumptuous in asking. I thought it was the best ginger cake ever, and was sending my compliments along with the question. I didn’t want a print-out or anything. Just the basics. Anyway, two years on and many ginger cake recipes later, and by George I think I’ve got it.

I always think of this time of year as a period in which chocolate is passed over in favour of nuts and spices. We are entering the season of thin, biscuity pastry, lemony innards, honeyed syrup, stewed fruit, toasted nuts. The Elizabethan sweetmeat reigns. I am gearing up for mince pies. I feel I’ve thrown everything into this cake. Because it’s such a straightforward recipe, I felt it could be fattened up a bit. I wanted peel so I threw in some of my thick-cut marmalade. I had maple syrup so in it went. I also tried maple sugar, because I like its darker ‘dried toffee’ taste. But most importantly, I candied some ginger. This took a while, but the results were far more interesting than the stuff you buy. The syrup alone is worth the effort; peppery and pungent and a deep thick amber. It keeps for months.

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To return to the source of the wound for a moment, the cake whose recipe I coveted was a ginger parkin, a staple from the northeast of England. ‘Fresh’ parkin is frowned upon; a slightly aged parkin is the acceptable form, so try to withstand the temptation to eat it straight away. It improves if you leave it at least a couple of days. On its own, unadorned, the cake is lovely with a cup of tea. The toffee sauce takes it to an almost obscene level of indulgence; we are now in pudding territory. Eat it on Boxing day watching a crap film.

Toasted Ginger Cake 

Adapted from Andrew Pern, Black Pudding and Foie Gras

100g self-raising flour (or use plain flour and add 1 tsp of baking powder)

75g oatmeal (or porridge oats whizzed in a blender)

A pinch of sea salt

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 heaped tsp ground ginger

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp freshly ground nutmeg

2 tbs shred from marmalade (optional)

2 heaped tbs preserved/candied ginger, finely diced

175g golden syrup* (utilize some of the ginger syrup if you have it)

50g black treacle*

100g butter

100g soft brown sugar

1 egg, beaten

2 heaped tbs milk

For the toffee sauce

115g unsalted butter

115g light brown sugar

140ml double/heavy cream

Sea salt

Preheat the oven to 140C/285F/gas mark 1. Sieve the flour, bicarb, salt, ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon into a bowl, then stir in the oatmeal and the candied ginger and peel (if using). Gently melt down the syrup, treacle, butter and sugar, keeping it just below a simmer – do not let it boil. Stir in the dry mix until amalgamated, then add the egg and milk, so it’s a soft, semi-pouring consistency. Pour into a greased, 20cm square cake tin and bake for an hour and a half, or until firm in the centre. Leave to stand for half an hour, then turn out. The parkin’s now ready to be served. Like good wine, it improves with age; store in an airtight container. For the best flavour, keep for three weeks.

Make the sauce by putting all the ingredients into a pan. Heat slowly until the butter has melted, then turn up the heat and bring to the boil. Boil for about 3 minutes, or until the sauce has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon. If you want a more gutsy flavour (and you don’t want insipid toffee sauce) go until the colour has deepened slightly to a warm nut-brown. Poke some holes in the cake and slather the sauce over the top, letting it drip down the sides. Toast under the grill before serving. This recipe is based on the same principle as the Sticky Toffee Pudding.

* In the US, use corn syrup in place of golden syrup if you can’t find it, and molasses in place of black treacle. I went to India Sweets and Spices here in LA where they have a British section.

Crystallised/candied ginger

Adapted from David Lebovitz, Ready for Dessert

1 pound (500g) fresh ginger, peeled

4 cups (800g) sugar, plus additional sugar for coating the ginger slices, if desired

4 cups (1l) water

Pinch of salt

Slice the ginger as thinly as possible. It can’t be too thin, so use a sharp knife. Get the youngest ginger you can find, as it’ll be less fibrous. Put the ginger slices in a non-reactive saucepan, add enough water to cover the ginger, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and let the ginger simmer for ten minutes. Drain, and repeat, simmering the ginger slices one more time. Mix the sugar and 4 cups (1l) water in the pan, along with a generous pinch of sea salt and the ginger slices, and cook until the temperature reaches 225F (106C.) If you don’t have a candy thermometer, the consistency will be similar to runny honey. It will have reduced quite considerably, and will leave a generous coating on the back of a wooden spoon.

Remove from heat and let stand for at least an hour – overnight is ideal. Or if you want to coat the slices with sugar, drain very well while the ginger is hot and toss the slices in granulated sugar. Shake off the excess and spread the ginger slices on a cooling rack overnight, until they are tacky-dry. Alternatively, the ginger, packed in its syrup, can be stored in the refrigerator for up to one year. If tossed in sugar, the pieces can be stored at room temperature for a few months.

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Warm cherry & chocolate cakes

20 Tuesday Nov 2012

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Baking, Cake, Dessert, Food, Fruit, Homesickness, Ingredients, Recipes, Stories

Cherries in November, I hear you ask? No, I have only the dried versions – wizened little blisters plumped up by liquor – but I love the look of these deep, dark orbs. And oddly they seem more suited to winter in my mind. This story is a pulling together of the different threads of my England trip, and the genus comes from a visit to Brighton, the streets slaked that day with dirty rain. It was also cold and people were standing in doorways looking out, not at anyone in particular, but simply looking on with flattened, peeved expressions. My mum and I had the idea to see the Biba exhibition at the Brighton museum, but instead went to Primark. The rain washed away any ingenuity that day, but at least I came away with a good packet of pants.

We ran out of the rain into a cafe. It was warm inside and there were some lovely looking cakes on the counter, although with my mother the assumption is always that we will have soup. Soup and tea. The girl behind the counter was bewitchingly friendly. She was Polish, and it was her mother, Ella, who did all the baking. Her mother was downstairs. There was a Black Forest cake, with all its turrets and glossy layers, a plum crumble tart, and whirling pastries. We ordered soup, which was beef and leek – delicate and creamy. My mum ate the plum crumble tart. A chocolate cake arrived, carried by Ella.

By this point, I knew that my mum would be engaging in conversation with Ella, and that this would happen as soon as the cake was released. It began as it always does – with a few compliments, and a request for ingredients. A slow and delicate deconstruction of the soup followed, and then onto the plum crumble tart. Without this dandling, this gentle back and forth, I know Ella would not have brought out a jar of her homemade black cherry jam for us.

When it came to packing for the return trip to LA, I decided to leave the jar of jam behind. It was too heavy, and it was glass. Besides, my mum would enjoy it. I put it in the cupboard but it found its way back into my bag. I returned it, hid it behind some tea, but there it was again, sitting at a jaunty angle in amongst my clothes. It eventually stayed with her. I assumed you could get black cherry jam in LA. I was being rather cavalier about it; it was fine, it was only jam, she should have it. But on my return here, it gnawed at me. I missed it. I thought often of the contents, and the patterned lid, and the way Ella had presented it, her face flushed with promise and oven heat. It’s funny the things we regret.

I would like to think these cakes are based on the Ischler torte, the Viennese chocolate cake with cherry and almond filling, and not the smothering Black Forest. But ultimately, there is something very British about these little chocolate fondants. We are so in love with the oozing and glaucous pudding, with dark and brooding chocolate. And cream, of course. If you can’t find dried cherries, you could try prunes soaked in brandy, raisins soaked in whisky or dried cranberries in vodka. And, of course, if you have some homemade cherry jam, use that.

Warm cherry and chocolate cakes

Adapted from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Three Good Things on a Plate

Makes 6

100g dried cherries

40ml Calvados

A little cocoa powder for dusting

150g dark chocolate, broken into small pieces

150g unsalted butter, diced, plus extra for greasing

3 large eggs

75g caster/superfine sugar

35g plain flour

Soak the cherries in the Calvados in a small bowl for at least 2 hours (or overnight), to absorb most of the liquid.

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F and put a baking tray inside to heat up. Butter 6 dariole moulds or ramekins well and dust with the cocoa. Melt the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water. Stir gently at the end to blend and leave to cool a little. Beat the eggs and sugar together for a good 5 minutes until the mixture is thick and creamy and ‘holds a trail’ (when a little is dropped from the whisk it sits on the top of the mixture before slowly sinking back in).

Fold the melted chocolate and butter lightly into the egg mousse. Sift the flour over the mixture, then fold it in carefully. It should be throughly incorporated, but don’t overwork the mixture. Fold in the cherries and Calvados.

Divide the mixture between the ramekins. You can prepare these cakes ahead to this point, if you like, and refrigerate them for up to 2 hours. Bake the puds on the hot tray in the oven for 10-12 minutes. Turn out immediately into shallow bowls and serve with thin, chilled cream.

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Apple and sultana cake

18 Tuesday Sep 2012

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Almonds, Cake, Childhood, Dessert, Devon, Food, Ingredients, Lucas Hollweg, Stories

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And now back to cake. This recipe belongs to my cousin, Lucas Hollweg, and you can find it in his book Good Things to Eat, which I think should be re-titled Fricken Amazin Things to Eat. Buttery and brisk, this cake is, and full of sharp and sweet delights. The apples are soft and fluffy and there is a lovely lemony sourness running throughout. The spices and sultanas make me think of Christmas and long, cold nights. Lucas calls the flavours “strudelish,” which I tried out on our recent German guests. Thinking they wouldn’t understand the “ish” I simply said “strudel” and spent the rest of the conversation backtracking. “It’s cake!” I said, finally, and we were all happy with that.

So to apples. My very first apple I do remember, because my dad knocked it out of the tree with a hoe. I think I told people we had “an orchard,” when actually it was two trees in the corner of our garden. It was also around this time that I invented a sister called Melanie which, you can imagine, took a lot more effort to conceal. Melanie was away a lot. Or she was sleeping. Then she died, which was a relief. But my love of apples only increased.

This first apple was my downfall. It was pale green, almost dun in appearance, and smooth and dry to the touch. This was what made the biting of it so exciting, because inside, once my teeth pierced the skin and those first droplets formed on my lips, was the sweet ivory flesh, full of crunch and juice. The bitter mahogany pips, the toughened core was something to work around, gnaw at until almost nothing remained; a little twig dangling from my stubby fingers. I discovered apple shampoo while on a French campsite a year or two later, and I marvelled at how they could have captured the fragrance so perfectly. There was probably not a single natural ingredient in the bottle, but to me it was like having a frothing orchard in my hair. So, apples remind me of being young, and of ‘firsts.’ And how I launched myself at things like a missile.

This cake takes me back to that first, and best ever, apple. It’s incredibly easy to make, yet rich and plump and gorgeous. It’s a happy cake. I left it out for the German girls for breakfast and asked afterwards if they liked it. One nodded a lot, and made a gasping sound. Her eyes also widened, which I took to be a good sign. The other one spoke for her. “We’re in heaven,” she said.

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Just so you know, I have also made this cake with quince compote, left over from the quince paste I made, and it was wonderfully aromatic. I have also used plumped-up (soaked) raisins in place of sultanas, which are trickier to find in LA. As to Bramleys – there is no real substitute. Look for sour and tart apples that cook down well.

Apple and Sultana Cake

Lucas Hollweg, Good Things to Eat

For 4-6

125g (4½ oz) butter, plus extra for greasing

125g (4½ oz) light brown or light muscovado sugar

125g (4½ oz) self-raising flour

1 medium egg

200g (7 oz) Bramley apples (1-2 depending on size)

2 handfuls of sultanas

Finely grated zest of 1 small lemon

½ tsp ground cinnamon

Fresh nutmeg

A handful of flaked almonds

“Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4. Grease an 18cm (7in) cake tin and line the bottom with a circle of baking parchment. Put the butter and 100g (3½ oz) sugar in a saucepan and stir over a gentle heat until the butter has melted and the sugar dissolved. Quickly stir in the flour and beat in the egg. You’ll end up with something that looks like what it is – flour mixed with melted butter – rather than normal cake mixture. Don’t worry, it’s meant to look like that.

Spread half the mixture over the bottom of the cake tin, then arrange the apple slices on top. Scatter with 3 tablespoons sugar, then add the sultanas, lemon zest and spices (you want to grate in about one-eighth of a whole nutmeg). Spread the remaining cake mixture over the top, smoothing it out as best you can. Scatter with the flaked almonds and put the tin in the oven for 35-40 minutes, or until it’s a deep gold and firm to the touch.

Have a look after 30 minutes and cover the top with a bit of foil if it’s browning too quickly. Remove from the oven, and leave to stand in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn out and cool on a rack for at least quarter of an hour. It’s best while still just warm.”

 

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Banana & raisin bread

15 Wednesday Aug 2012

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

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

This is a lovely cake to make if you are at a loss. A few blackening bananas are all that is required, along with the standard store cupboard ingredients. I made it constantly when I first arrived in LA. It was both escape and focus. I gave almost all of it away to neighbours, who seemed to take longer and longer to get to the door. Perhaps they read into the gesture some of the desperation I was feeling. I didn’t drive and I couldn’t walk anywhere – the sidewalk around where we live peters out after five minutes. And walking has always been my lifeline. I sort out my thoughts that way, or I discover what my thoughts actually are. So the cake was my version of lowering knotted bed sheets out of the window – one of these neighbours would be my escape route, they would be my friend, hopefully give me a lift somewhere, and I could walk.

It never happened – they had jobs. And besides, I’m not a huge fan of the LA genre of walking, which is to spend most of your time in your car looking for somewhere to park. A corner shop, that’s what I wanted. A street, some grass, a view or two. Eventually I was forced behind the wheel, passing my test with white knuckles, my face a sheet of terror and disbelief. I hoped it was a one-off – the driving thing. I wanted to keep on taking the bus, scrambling over medians and edging my way along roads. But to say you don’t drive in LA is like saying ‘I don’t really breathe’.

It’s nothing like walking, but occasionally when the road is emptying out and I see long, luxurious gaps up ahead, or I turn a corner and see a blank space for me to play with, accelerate into, I get a similar feeling in the car – a presence of mind, strangely empty of thought. Sometimes I like to cruise downhill, my foot hovering over the brake pedal, the breeze under my hair, and it’s like sailing and in those moments, I get it. I get California, and the invention of the car and why I’m here. I get the rush. And on the days that I don’t, I bake banana bread.

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Banana and Raisin Bread

Adapted from Nigella Lawson, How To Be a Domestic Goddess

100g raisins (or sultanas)

75ml dark rum, bourbon or PX sherry

175g plain flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

½ teaspoon salt

125g unsalted butter (melted)

150g caster sugar

2 large eggs

4 small very ripe bananas (mashed)

60g chopped walnuts (or pieces of dark chocolate)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Put the raisins and rum/bourbon (or Pedro Ximenez sherry) in a smallish saucepan and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat, cover and leave for an hour if you can, or until the raisins have absorbed most of the liquid, then drain.

Preheat the oven to 170ºC/gas mark 3/325ºF and get started on the rest. Put the flour, baking powder, bicarb and salt in a medium-sized bowl and, using your hands or a wooden spoon, combine well. If you don’t like the taste of bicarb then leave it out.

In a large bowl, mix the melted butter and sugar and beat until blended. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the mashed bananas. Then, with your wooden spoon, stir in the walnuts and/or chocolate, drained raisins and vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture, a third at a time, stirring well after each bit.

Scrape into a loaf tin (23 x 13 x 7cm / 9 x 5 x 3 inches) and bake in the middle of the oven for 1-1¼ hours. When it’s ready, an inserted toothpick or fine skewer should come out cleanish. Leave in the tin on a rack to cool, and eat thickly cut with a cup of strongly brewed builders’ tea.

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Peach cake

10 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Almonds, Baking, Cake, Fruit, Ingredients, Nigel Slater, Recipes, Spices, Stories

Continuing the cake inventory I started last week, I think this may be The Best Cake I’ve Ever Made. This expression gets bandied about a lot, I admit, and often I make pronouncements that later have to be revised, such as my adolescent belief that Five Star (a pop combo from Romford who all looked like versions of Michael Jackson) were “brilliant.”

That said, I think this is one of the best cakes I’ve made so far, and I take no credit for it at all. It’s all Nigel Slater, except for the almond extract and a redeployment of the blueberries. I’ve always been a fan of almonds – the only drawback being that an excess of ground almonds in a cake can make all the ingredients collapse into a kind of almond-induced stupor. I love moist, but I don’t really want a cake to drip. The almond’s strength is that it mitigates against the dryness of flour. Whenever I’ve made an all-flour cake, a few hours after it’s cooled it’s like eating hunks of stale bread. And dry cake is always disappointing, no matter how much you try to bury it beneath an avalanche of icing. Too much ground almond though, and it’s wet sand, so balance is all. This recipe captures the perfect ratio of crumbly and cakey with an almond-rich warmth.

Now to the idea of peaches and sponge – it feels as if the textures would be at war with one another. However, the peaches hang in the cake, discrete, plump and surprising. And because stone fruit and almonds are related (they belong to the Drupe family), the flavours speak sympathetically to each other. Of course, most of the fruit falls to the bottom of the cake – I would love to know how to prevent this: maybe make the pieces smaller – but apart from this one aesthetic gripe, it is a thing of gentle, rustic beauty and our guests ate it in silence. Always a good sign. The smell is wondrous, it is the pale golden-brown of a wheat field and icebergs of peach are still visible through the sponge.

In Nigel Slater’s version, the blueberries and peaches are all jumbled up together, but the blueberry needs its own stage, I feel. It is the colour of midnight, a sombre, ink-blue (Robert Frost said “I taste in them sometimes the flavour of soot”), and I don’t want it to have to share the limelight. Its true home is the American cobbler, and it seems happiest when it can seep and bubble, turning a deep, hot, liquid pink. I’ve used it here as a compote to douse the ice cream. Many feel it lacks the acidic surge, the sheer clout of other berries, and it can underwhelm. I have added lemon juice and bay leaves to the compote to counter this. It is very fine.

Peach Cake

Adapted from Nigel Slater, Summer Cake Recipes, The Observer

Serves 8-10

175g butter, softened

175g golden caster sugar

225g ripe peaches

2 large eggs at room temperature

175g self-raising flour (or 1 tsp baking powder for every 125g of plain flour)

100g ground almonds

1 tsp grated orange zest

a few drops of almond extract

150g blueberries (optional)

Method

Butter and line the base of a 20cm (8 in) loose-bottomed cake tin with baking paper. Set the oven at 170C/350F.

Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Peel, halve, stone and roughly chop the peaches. If the peaches are very ripe, the skin will peel off easily. Otherwise, scald them in boiling water, lift out using a slotted spoon, and peel off the skin when it has cooled slightly. Beat the eggs lightly then add, a little at a time, to the creamed butter and sugar. If there is any sign of curdling, stir in a tablespoon of the flour.

Mix the flour and almonds together and fold into the mixture, in two or three separate lots. Add the orange zest and almond extract, and once they are incorporated add the chopped peaches and blueberries (if using).

Scrape the mixture into the cake tin and bake for about 1 hour. Test with a skewer – if it comes out relatively clean, then the cake is done. Leave the cake to cool for 10 minutes or so in the tin, run a palette knife around the edge, then slide out on to a plate, decorating as the fancy takes you; fresh berries, fruit compote, ice cream, thin single cream, the possibilities are endless. This is also lovely for breakfast.

Blueberry Compote

Adapted from Jane’s Grigson’s Fruit Book

1lb blueberries

Grated zest and juice of a lemon

¼ tsp ground cinnamon or 1 cinnamon stick

¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg

Pinch of salt

60g/2oz/¼ cup cane sugar or maple sugar

2 bay leaves

1 tsp cornstarch or arrowroot

Method

Put sugar, spices, cornstarch, salt and bay leaves into a heavy saucepan, and mix together with 150ml (5 fl oz/⅔ cup) water. When smooth, put in the blueberries and set over a moderate heat. Stir until the liquid clears and thickens. Add extra water if you want a runnier consistency. Stir in the zest and lemon juice gradually to taste. Let it cool. Keep chilled. The flavours will intensify over time.

Addendum added 20/7/12

This blueberry compote also makes a glorious jam. Place it over a medium high heat and reduce until the liquid is about half. A couple of splashes of balsamic vinegar and a sprig of basil or tarragon also lifts the flavours and makes the blueberry sparkle. Pot it up and keep in the fridge.

 

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Floury fingers – in memory of cake

03 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Almonds, Baking, Cake, Childhood, Devon, Fruit, Ingredients, Nonfiction, Recipes, Stories

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I recently read about a three year old French child who bakes her own cupcakes. I imagine she needs help putting them in the oven, but apart from that she’s her own pastry chef. Much has been written recently about the difference between French and American children, and the way the French like to ignore their offspring.

I remember teaching English to a Parisian lady (and mother) who told me outright that she found ‘pre-language’ children uninteresting. They were simply beneath her until they could find the right words to keep her in the room. So the idea of a small child not just able to feed herself, but preparing baked goods was interesting to me. The French idea is that children should learn to be self-sufficient from a young age, resourceful and able to deal with periods of boredom and frustration – periods of aloneness, without setting fire to themselves or the house.

I too have memories of long, starchy afternoons, when time would linger and there was nothing much to do and no one around. This was before the days of constant adult supervision –  or in the words of the late, great Nora Ephron, before parenting became “a participle.” My refuge was reading, and making concoctions from scrag ends of food and my mother’s baking chocolate, which was like snacking on tar. It wasn’t just unsweet, but rock hard, greasy and impossible to either bite into or break off. I think she got it from a wholesaler called Norman’s in Budleigh Salterton. I don’t remember it ever being employed in a cake, but perversely for something inedible, she always hid it so it could only ever be accessed by balancing on a stool, hoisting myself up onto the counter and rummaging through packets of dessicated coconut and paprika until my hand landed on a wrapped lump the texture and weight of a horse-shoe. I cut my gums on it.

My nana from Australia sent me my first cook books. Floury Fingers by Celia Hinde did interesting things with fondant, but left me with a lifelong suspicion of cup sizes. The second book, though, became my friend, babysitter and an endless source of material both for my cooking life and beyond.

It was called the Kids’ Own Book of Stories and Things to Do. It was an absolute treasure trove. I think it was seasonal because one section was all about ice lollies and then another one had pictures of snow and mittens. There were stories of betrayal, wallabies, children of different ethnic backgrounds, slides, kites and all sorts. I loved the recipes the best and returned year after year to try them out. I rarely had the right ingredients. Sugar was banned in our house, except for muscovado that turned tea to treacle, though it was nice on porridge. We kept goats, whose warm (and occasionally hairy) milk softened our cornflakes in a way that I can only describe as off-putting. Raspberries were picked fresh from the bush for breakfast. There was ratatoullie and lambs’ brains. I wasn’t particularly appreciative.

What I wanted was cake. Preferably with thick slopes of icing and cut into giant-sized wedges. I do remember being terribly sick but still managing to swallow a few slabs of chocolate cake at another child’s birthday party, the sweat beading across my brow, twin flares of fiery red on each cheek. So slabs it must be here – as an homage to what I would have baked had I had the requisite ingredients. I did my best. I made chocolate logs that my dad said looked like dog turds, and rock cakes that lived up to their name. Had I not had huge swathes of time to explore, I probably would not have made them at all, so I’m grateful I was allowed to get on with the business of childhood without too many interruptions.

I am still in search of the perfect cake, even now. Something you can eat for breakfast (toasted, with butter), for elevenses, or brunch, for afternoon tea, and of course, for pudding. Beginning with this cherry-almond loaf cake, the cataloguing has officially begun.

Now’s the time for cherries – the Bing variety has that deep, glossy coat, almost mahogany in hue, but any cherry can be made into a decent compote. The trick is no water, only a little sugar and a splash of balsamic vinegar. The cherries should keep their shape and not be overcooked. If you already have a jar of such things, or you have some (preferably undyed) glacé cherries, you can skip this bit.

Cherry compote

Adapted from Lindsey Shere, Chez Panisse Desserts

1lb ripe cherries

2 tbs sugar

2 tsp balsamic vinegar

Method

Put the cherries, stems and all, in a colander, pick out any bad ones, rinse and pat dry. Put them in one layer in a pan. Sprinkle the fruit with sugar and shake over a medium high heat for about 5-10 minutes. The sugar will melt and the cherries will feel soft to the touch. Don’t go to mush.  Sprinkle with the balsamic vinegar, and shake for a minute or so more. Scrape the cherries, together with their juice, into a container and let them cool before chilling. You can serve them as they are (they love ice cream), or stone and stem them for use in the cake.

Cherry-almond loaf cake

Adapted from Nigella Lawson, How To Be a Domestic Goddess

Here, I’ve reverted to grams; going back to my roots.

200g cherries (stoned, stemmed and halved)

250g self-raising flour

(or add 1tsp of baking powder to every 125g/4oz of plain flour)

225g softened butter

175g cane sugar

3 large eggs, beaten

2-3 drops of almond extract

100g ground almonds

6tbs milk

9x5ins or 23x13x7cm loaf tin, lined and buttered

Method

Preheat the oven to 325F/170C. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Gradually add the beaten eggs and almond extract, alternating with the flour and ground almonds until it’s all one. Fold in the cherries, and then the milk and spoon the thick mixture into the loaf tin. Bake for ¾ – 1 hour, or until a skewer comes out clean. Leave in the pan on a wire rack until completely cooled. Makes 8-10 slabs.

p.s I read about the cupcake-baking three year old in The New Yorker. Here’s the whole article if you want to read on.

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Purple-heart

22 Tuesday May 2012

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Baking, Cake, Cooking, Food, Ingredients, Nigel Slater, Recipes, root vegetables

It’s the colour: that deep, baked-in pink. Magenta, leaning to purple, almost black at its heart. When you cut it, it bleeds, staining like a mulberry. Lusty, earthy, sublime, it’s the most medieval of vegetables. Juiced raw, it’s fresh and lemony. Roasted, it becomes silkily black. Left in the oven overnight and eaten in the morning, tenderly wizened, it’s perfect with broken bacon and some goat’s cheese. Of course it’s brilliant in chocolate cake. Damp and glottal.

It’s a bit of a brute, though, at first glance. The shaggy skin slips off like a coat once boiled or baked, and then it’s much prettier in the altogether –  glossy and vibrant. It shares its pigment, betalain, with bougainvillea, those papery flowers that froth over walls everywhere in LA. And the sweetness, noticeable in all root vegetables and unmistakable here, comes from its cousin, the sugar beet.

It’s interesting to me that even when I’m writing about vegetables, I’m still writing about sugar. Apparently, we have evolved to like sweet things, to seek them out, and our quest has aided our evolution and survival. I wonder how Jaffa Cakes fit into this paradigm. I remember my brother hiding them under the bed and behind the sofa, the tell-tale crackle of cellophane, that slippery sleeve of cakes, all the more delectable for being contraband. I too was a hoarder, a squirreler of chocolate and sweets. Cadbury’s Creme Eggs at dawn, that kind of thing. Now, when it comes to sugar, I’m like a bloodhound – a sugarhound, if you will. I’m forever attuned.

The sweetness and texture of beets – a sort of ‘wet bite’ – comes from the combination of starch and sugar. Moist heat – boiling or steaming – quickly softens the starches and keeps the colour pure, and the taste direct and clean. Dry heat – roasting – creates a darker, fuller, more complex flavour. This is where the beet’s sugars start to caramelize and you get that burnished, bronzed sweetness. This is the Maillard reaction, and apparently accounts for why we are all addicted to French fries.

Incidentally, it may feel a bit late to be talking about beets (beetroot to you in Blighty), and they’ve certainly peaked, but they’re still everywhere in farmers’ markets in LA. Check for freshness by buying them with their tops attached, and leave about an inch of the top and stem on for cooking so the colour doesn’t leach out. Look at the greens as well, and avoid anything limp or drab.

Chocolate Beet Cake

Inspired by Nigel Slater, Tender

The beets translate here into glorious dankness. Moist but not cloying. Good quality chocolate is important, as is the cocoa powder. The accompanying crème fraîche is a nod to the sour cream used alongside Eastern European beetroot dishes, and is definitely not an afterthought.

8oz (250g) beets, unpeeled

7oz (200g) dark chocolate (60-70 percent cocoa solids)

4tbs/60ml hot espresso (or water)

7oz (200g) room temperature butter, cubed

1 cup (135g) plain flour

3tbs very good quality cocoa powder

1 heaped tsp baking powder

5 eggs, at room temperature

1 cup (200g) golden caster sugar/superfine sugar

(or give ‘normal’ sugar a quick whizz in the coffee grinder)

Pinch of sea salt

Method

Lightly butter an 8in (20cm) cake tin and line the base with baking parchment. Put the beets in cold water in a deep pan and bring to the boil. They will be ‘knifepoint’ tender in about 45 minutes, depending on the size. The smaller the better – look for ones the shape of lightbulbs. Drain and let them cool under running water. Peel them using a kitchen towel, or your fingers if they’re made of asbestos. Blitz in a blender to a rough puree.

Preheat the oven to 350F (180C). Break the chocolate into bits the size of gravel. Melt the chocolate pieces in a small bowl resting over a pan of barely simmering water. Don’t stir. When it looks almost melted, turn off the heat, but leave the bowl over the hot water and pour over the espresso. Stir it once. Add the cubed butter to the melted chocolate, and leave to soften, pushing it down under the chocolate if need be.

Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking powder in a separate bowl. Remove the bowl of chocolate now from the heat and let it cool for a few minutes. Whisk the egg yolks together briskly and then add to the melted chocolate. Mix in the beet puree. Whip the egg whites until stiff, then gradually rain in the sugar. Fold the egg white mixture into the melted chocolate. Do not overmix, but go deep into the goo with a large metal spoon, using a figure-of-eight movement. Fold in the dry ingredients. Scrape the batter into the prepared cake tin, smoothing the top, and reduce the heat of the oven to 325C (160C) and bake for about 40 minutes, or until the sides are firm and set, but the centre still has a little wobble to it. Let the cake cool completely, then remove it from the tin. Serve with crème fraîche.

Roasted beets with balsamic vinegar  

From Nigel Slater, Real Food

Good to kill two birds with one stone and boil a load of beets for the cake and this dish too. Once you start this, it will quickly become a necessary part of your cooking life during beet season. Initially it will feel like too much work. This gripe quickly fades on eating.

Serves 2

6 small beetroot, with stems and tops on, if possible

A dash of olive oil

2 medium-sized onions, peeled

A sprinkling of balsamic vinegar

Method

Follow the instructions for boiling the beets above. Peel away the skins – using a kitchen towel if you have some – and cut each beet into wedges and toss them in a roasting tin with a little olive oil. Cut the onions into segments from root to tip. Add them to the beets and cover the roasting tin with foil. Roast in a hot oven (200C/400F) for thirty minutes. Remove the foil, add a dash of balsamic vinegar – not too much, just enough to add some depth and character – and a little salt. Return to the oven for a further thirty minutes, this time without the foil, until the beets are starting to brown and curl up. Serve with roast meat. Also, goat’s cheese is very nice. I have a feeling Roquefort would be pretty good too.


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Brownies

03 Thursday May 2012

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Baking, Cake, Chocolate, Claudia Roden, Dessert, Food, Ingredients, Recipes, Stories

I’m sure there’s a Brownie Consortium somewhere that meets regularly to debate such topics as Cakey vs Fudgy, The Role of Cocoa, and Walnuts: A Fresh Perspective. I also recently learned the brownie isn’t technically a cake at all, but a cookie. Fanny Farmer listed it as such in the 1906 edition of her Boston Cooking-School Cook Book and in some ways that’s what a brownie really strives to be. Think of the best chocolate chip cookie you’ve ever tasted – the memory of the oven still lingering over it, a shatteringly tender shell, a warm, melting middle, rich but light and gone in seconds. I have used a brownie recipe from a children’s cookery book for the last few years and it’s served me well. It’s child’s play (as all baking should be, in my opinion) and not remotely fiddly and the results delight all humans. My allegiance is definitely to the fudgy camp. Why have cake when you can have a dark, dense bar, baked to a sugary crackle on the outside, with gently weeping chocolate within?

The brownie (named after its original ingredient, molasses) took off in the early 1900s in Chicago when it was made as a dessert item for ladies attending the fair. It needed to be flat and square, hence the absence of raising agents, so they could eat it easily from a ‘boxed lunch’. Touchingly, our most recent guests carried them around in a foil parcel in much the same manner.

I know it’s almost heresy to say this, but I don’t like walnuts in brownies. I prefer to keep to similar textures, something that releases its flavour in a liquid burst, rather than a hard, grainy morsel. Sour cherries, prunes, chocolate chips, cooked beetroot would all work. I don’t mind the bitterness of a cocoa nib, or the sunken, darker hit of alcohol. I just don’t want to be picking things out of my teeth.

Chocolate Orange Brownies

This recipe uses whole oranges boiled and pureed – skin and all. As it takes a couple of hours for them to be cooked through, add the zest of a large orange, and maybe try an orange-infused chocolate, such as Green and Black’s Maya Gold if you are pushed for time. However, there are dividends in using the whole orange approach – if you chuck another two on to boil, you can try Claudia Roden’s lovely almond and orange cake from her Book of Middle Eastern Food. The puree can also be added to muffins and quick bread, used as a base for custard or ice cream, as well as spread over baking salmon or mashed into a herby butter.

The orange is fresh and sharp here – ‘on the lip’ you could say – which is what a brownie needs. The chocolate is deep and steady, and the cocoa keeps things earthbound. Incidentally, the fudgy, chewy texture of these brownies comes from melting the butter with the chocolate, which prevents any air from being trapped. If you want something cakier and crumblier, go for the creaming method. And, of course, you can have a straightforward, orange-less brownie, by simply leaving out the orange component entirely.

Chocolate Orange Brownies

Inspired by Sweet Treats, Williams-Sonoma

175g (6oz) *good quality chocolate (60-70% cocoa solids)

25g (¼ cup) cocoa powder (such as Green and Blacks)

250g (2 sticks/1 cup) unsalted butter, cut into chunks

300g (1½ cups) organic cane sugar

3 eggs at room temperature

70g (½ cup) plain flour

1 tsp vanilla extract

Pinch of salt

2 organic, unsprayed oranges

Method

Put the whole oranges into a pan and cover with water. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for two hours or until soft. Drain and leave to cool, then cut them in half and remove the pips and any stalks. Put the oranges, including the skin, into a blender and puree until smooth. Set aside. This can be made in advance and kept in the fridge for two days.

Preheat the oven to 350F/180C. Butter and line a 9 inch/23cm x 23cm baking pan with parchment paper. Break the chocolate into smallish pieces and put in a pan with the butter. Melt both over a very low heat, stirring occasionally with a spatula. Pour the melted chocolate and butter into a bowl and whisk in the cocoa powder until smooth. Stir in the sugar and the vanilla extract. Whisk in the eggs, one by one, beating well after each addition. Now add the orange pulp. Whisking the mixture vigorously at this point will create a crisp outer layer to the brownie.

Gently fold in the flour and salt. Stir well to make sure there are no streaks. Scrape the batter into the baking pan and smooth the top. Bake for 35 – 40 minutes or until a skewer comes out with a few crumbs attached but no raw stuff. Let the brownies cool a little before cutting them into squares. Serve warm with some ice cream or a dollop of crème fraîche. If you don’t want instant gratification, these actually improve with time; store in an airtight container and enjoy picking.

*The orange-infused chocolate will have less cocoa content, so you will need to slightly increase the cocoa powder.

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Chocolate marmalade slump

27 Tuesday Mar 2012

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

Baking, Cake, Chocolate, Cookbook, Cooking, Dessert, Ingredients, Lucas Hollweg, Pudding

This is a shameless steal from my cousin Lucas Hollweg’s book Good Things to Eat, a collection of quietly ravishing recipes and stories with beautiful photos of real food, made with love, and that (as we say in the West Country).

This cake has been variously called “boss” (as in “this cake is boss”) “rad” (radical) “wowser” (in the absence of a suitable adjective) and “phenomenal.” Our recent German guests thought nothing of tucking into this first thing despite Joe’s concern that, according to his understanding, “Germans don’t like sweet.” But they do and besides, this is not sugar-sweet, but rather darkly fruity, earthy and voluptuous with the marmalade adding depth and spice. Basically, it’s the Eartha Kitt of chocolate cake.

IMG_6734Our English guests had it around mid morning with a cup of tea and then kept creaming off sections until it looked like this. It is both cake and mousse, with a rich-as-a-truffle interior and a seriousness that stops it feeling too indulgent. It’s not a “naughty” cake. It’s too volcanically strong and direct for that. This is my answer to all those American cupcakes I’ve sampled over the years that are the equivalent to eating sparkly Pollyfilla. If I’m going down, I’m taking a damp, tannic wedge of chocolate marmalade slump cake with me, and you can keep your red velvet sprinkled doodahs for another day.

As for chocolate, I used Valrhona Noir Amer, which has 71% cocoa solids in it. Too far over 70% and it starts to feel dry in the mouth; you want dark silk, not chalk. Green and Black’s Organic Dark 70% and Scharffen Berger 70% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate would be my other faves. Most recently, I used lime marmalade in the mixture and this came through well; clean, bright and sharp, it lifted the cloak of chocolate and gave it zip. The addition of bergamot and orange marmalade on another outing was lovely, too – warm and floral. I’ve also used a jar of shop-bought Seville orange marmalade and it was spankingly good, which goes to show: a good cake is a good cake regardless.

The ‘slump’ occurs right after removing it from the oven, and as well as being quite dramatic to watch, thankfully takes the cake far away from sponge territory. Lucas suggests cream as an accompaniment – I love crème fraîche here, with its clotted appearance and tang, and though sometimes its sourness can be bullying, this cake can take it.

Chocolate Marmalade Slump Cake

Lucas Hollweg, Good Things to Eat

I’m lifting this recipe ‘clean’ from the book, so ounces and grams will feature, and not cups. Apparently, professional bakers always measure by weight, not by volume (i.e. cup size), so a digital scale would probably be a wise purchase in the long run, if you’re on a serious baking jag.

 Makes a 23cm (9in) round cake

100g (3½oz) Seville orange marmalade, with lots of chunky peel

finely grated zest of 1 large orange

125g (4½oz) caster sugar

150g (5½oz) unsalted butter

150g (5½oz) good dark chocolate (60 – 70% cocoa solids), broken into bits

4 medium eggs, separated

a pinch of salt

50g (1¾oz) cocoa powder

icing sugar, for dusting

 “Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas Mark 5. Line the bottom of a round, loose-bottomed 23cm (9in) tin with a circle of baking parchment, and cut a long strip about 4cm (1½in) wide to make a collar around the inside. Put the marmalade and zest in a food processor and blitz to a slush.  Add the sugar and whizz in. Put the butter into a small saucepan and melt over a gentle heat.  Remove from the hob and leave to stand for a couple of minutes, then throw in the chocolate, pushing it under so it’s just submerged. Leave to melt without stirring for about 3 minutes, then mix until smooth and glossy. Stir in the marmalade and orange zest slush and tip into a bowl.

 Beat the egg yolks vigorously into the chocolate mixture, then sift the cocoa powder over the top and beat that in as well. Put the whites in a clean metal mixing bowl with a pinch of salt and, using a scrupulously clean whisk, whip until they form soft peaks – they should flop over at the top when you lift the whisk. Beat a third of the whisked egg whites into the chocolate mixture to loosen it a little, then carefully fold in the rest, scooping the chocolatey goo from the bottom of the bowl as you go, until it’s a uniform brown.

 Pour the mixture into the lined tin, smooth the top and bake in the oven for 30 minutes, or until the centre has risen to form a set and slightly undulating plateau. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for at least 15 minutes, then carefully take it out of the tin on its base and peel the paper from around the sides (I deal with the paper on the bottom when I come to slice it). Leave to cool until just warm – about 30 minutes out of the oven – or room temperature. Just before serving, sift a bit of icing sugar over the top. Serve in slices with double cream, creme fraiche, ice cream or mascarpone.”

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Lemon drizzly

06 Tuesday Mar 2012

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Almonds, Baking, Cake, Dessert, Food, Herbs, Ingredients, Lemons, Recipes

IMG_1525

I’m aware I might be going overdrawn on my ‘lemon’ account with this recipe, but this really is sublime. It also works equally well with limes, if you want something more piercing. In either case, the loaf cake is made doubly moist, first with the addition of ground almonds and then with the soaking it gets from the lemon/lime syrup. It keeps for ages.

I used thyme here too; it is one of those shrubby herbs you can be quite flagrant with, unlike sage or rosemary. Whenever I’ve been tentative, it looks as though a couple of green flies have fallen into the mixture and need fishing out. It should look deliberate, so be generous. Thyme adds a resinous, woodland warmth, and tempers the sweetness. It goes particularly well with lemon; both are part of the Mediterranean palate, and with some light roughing up over heat, the smell can quickly conjure up memories of scorched earth, sea air and the sigh of singed, crackling wood over flame. Needless to say, you can leave it out.

This cake is based on a Nigel Slater recipe, a food writer with the soul of a gardener in my view. I decided on the thinnest layer of lemon icing on top; it has never felt too much and it makes the cake less gooey to handle. Anyway, that’s my excuse. Candied lemons are a good standby.

IMG_1519

Lemon loaf cake

Adapted from Nigel Slater, Crumbs of Comfort, The Observer

At the risk of appearing slightly hysterical, this is the best lemon loaf cake I’ve ever eaten/made. It is simplicity itself and yet tastes quite amazing. People will think you’re professionally trained. 

For the cake:

200g butter, softened

200g caster sugar

3 large free range eggs at room temperature

80g plain flour (rice flour works well here too)

100g ground almonds

2 teaspoons of thyme leaves (optional)

Grated zest of 1 whole lemon (reserve the juice for the syrup)

Half a teaspoon of baking powder

Pinch of salt

1 loaf tin (8″ x 5″)

For the syrup:

4 tbsp sugar

Juice of 1 large lemon (see above)

For the candied lemons (optional)

3 lemons, thinly sliced

100g caster sugar

100ml water

Pre-heat the oven to 350F/175C. Butter and line the loaf tin with baking parchment. Sift the baking powder, salt and flour together. Cream the butter and sugar till they are pale and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs, alternating with the flour mixture to stop it curdling. Grate the lemon zest and mash it with the thyme leaves, if using, in a pestle and mortar or with the base of a jar; tearing the leaves helps release their essential oils. Or just add the lemon zest to the cake mixture, along with the ground almonds. Fold the mixture into the lined tin and bake for approximately 40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

While the cake is baking, dissolve the sugar in the lemon juice over a low heat – taste as you go and add more sugar if need be. Remove from the heat and steep for 20 minutes. When the cake comes out of the oven, pierce it all over with a skewer and pour over the syrup. Allow to cool.

If you want to go a bit ‘Elvis’ with it, as I did, add a thin shell of lemon icing on top of the tacky-dry syrup; wet 6 heaped tablespoons of sifted icing sugar with 2 generous tablespoons of lemon juice and spread over the cake, letting it drip down the sides. Keep the cake wrapped tightly in foil for a few days to moisten if you can.

For the candied lemons, bring a pan of water to the boil and blanch the sliced lemons by putting them in the boiling water for five minutes. Drain and set aside. In another pan, bring the sugar and water to the boil, add the lemons and simmer for about 10-15 minutes, or until the white pith turns translucent. The lemon slices will go sticky and shiny. Allow them to cool on greaseproof paper. Store in an airtight container, or place on top of the cake for a pleasant finish. They’re quite chewy.

Optional extra: Add crushed cardamom from 1½ tbsp green cardamom pods (put the seeds in a pestle and mortar and crush to a coarse powder) to the butter/sugar before creaming. I think it gives the cake a slightly mystical, smoky flavour. Shout out to Good Things to Eat by (my cousin) Lucas Hollweg for this lovely addition to a lemon cake.

 

34.052234 -118.243685

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