Rhubarb & Orange Cake

 

After umming and ahhing whether or not to spend 3 quid on 400g of rhubarb (that’s an outrageous £1 per stick!) I decided to give it a go. And wow, this cake is so delicious, I’m glad I did. The recipe is in the May issue of Good Food magazine. Alongside the rhubarb some of the other ingredients you need are an orange, a 100g bag of ground almonds and almost a whole block of butter – naughty! It’s rich, fragrant, buttery, moist and very fruity. The rhubarb is chopped into good sized chunks and sits in sugar for about 30mins before getting stirred into the batter mix so you keep coming across lovely sweet pillows of soft fruit.

It took about 20mins longer to cook than the recipe stated but I think that’s more to do with our rubbish oven! That’s probably why it sunk a bit too much in the middle as I kept taking it out to do the skewer test.

We’ve been eating it with a dollop of mascarpone cheese sprinkled with icing sugar and a steaming cup of black filter coffee. Delightful – definitely one to bake again. I must keep my eyes open for a better deal on the price of rhubarb though.

If you fancy giving it a try but don’t want to buy the mag there’s a very similar recipe on the Waitrose site.

Berry picking for Booze making

Today we nipped up to Donnington Castle on a search for berries. The sun came out for a bit but it was very windy, so we put wellies & coats on to protect from scratches and possible rain.

Almost immediately we found sloes

And there were plenty of brambles all over the place, although it looked like there might have been quite a few visitors before us. As is often the case with blackberries they don’t just grow in the hedgerow, they often abound around dilapidated buildings – we found quite  a lot here…

Off home to give the sloes and blackberries a soaking in Miltons sterilising fluid – mixed with plenty of water of course. I only found out recently that it could be used to sterilise food and I’m glad we used it – there were some horribble wigglers that came out of the blackberries!

I spotted an article in the October Gardeners’ World mag for using any kind of berry, sloes, damsons etc with a spirit such as gin, vodka, tequila, brandy – and caster sugar. So that’s what we’ve done! One bottle of blackberry & sloe gin, one of blackberry & sloe vodka, then one each of blackberry gin & blackberry vodka. It looks such a pretty colour already…

For the first week you shake the bottles whenever you pass them, then put them in a dark place and shake them once a week for 3 months. I was a bit disappointed to find that you have to keep it for a year before drinking though… Until I re-read the instructions and realised that after the 3 month period you strain & decant and it’s ready. It keeps for up to a year!

So by my calculations we should have our lovely pink berry gin & vodka ready to drink on Christmas Day! We couldn’t have planned it better Cheers

Homemade Lemon Curd

I had a hankering to get the ice cream maker out last weekend to make something to complement a very rich chocolate cake I planned on baking.

I came across a really easy Lemon Curd Ice Cream recipe over at No Fear Entertaining blogspot and decided I’d also have a go at making the Lemon Curd too. I’ve never tried curd or jam making before so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect but as it was called a ‘no fail recipe’ I thought I might as well give it a go. I’d definitely recommend it – it looks and tastes fabulous! It really was an easy recipe to follow and slowly stirring it  into a thick silky curd was very relaxing!

I found the Lemon Curd recipe on the Big Fat Baker website. I used 3 lemons and 1 lime in my version and it filled the 2 jars shown in the pic with a mini pot extra.

I used one whole jar for the Ice Cream and the second jar is being eaten on toast and will probably get finished with a batch of homemade scones.

I even whisked up a tray of meringues with the left over egg whites which are now in the freezer along with a pot full of blackberries from a blackberry picking trip yesterday. I found a Berry Eton Mess recipe on the Good Food Channel site so I think I’ll try that out – I liked the idea of having a combination of greek yoghurt with the cream.

The Lemon Curd Ice Cream is just the right balance of tartness and creaminess and not too sweet to be a perfect match for the rich chocolate cake. It was rich in that 3 x 100g bars of 70% cocoa dark chocolate kind of a way! Oops & Yum at the same time!

Dutch Apple Cake

When I got home from work today it was so cold in the house (we’re still resisting turning the heating on) I thought the best thing to do was put the oven on and bake something! As there are lots of apples lying on the ground in the garden I decided to make a Dutch Apple Cake from ‘Bake’ by Rachel Allen. It was very easy to follow and also had an alternate fruity suggestion of raspberries and pears.

We’ve just had a slice each straight from the oven with a pile of strawberries and whipped fresh cream flavoured with vanilla. Very delicious indeed. I don’t think it’s going to last very long – good job there are plenty more apples outside

Apple & Custard Tea Cakes

Last week had a bit of an apple theme…

Delicious home made apple and custard tea cakes – the custard was hidden away as a surprise layer in the middle. The apples were from our garden – they were sliced and arranged on top of each cake. When they came out of the oven I brushed them with melted butter and sprinkled them with cinnamon & sugar. I think the recipe was from my giant Australian Womens Weekly cookbook. I’ll definitely be making more of these!

I also made a couple of crochet apples. The recipe was from a book I borrowed out of our local library. It’s called Gourmet Crochet – a yummy yarn cookbook and has all kinds of fruit, veg, sushi and cakes.

FRESH STRAWBERRY & CREAM MUFFINS

We had a mini baking session at The Sock Garden house this weekend. Me & young Sock chose the Fresh Strawberry & Cream Muffin recipe from my trusty ’1 mix, 50 muffins’ book (which I bought from The Works for under a fiver). They tasted creamily delicious.

We were very indulgent and served them with whipped double cream laced with a spoonful of icing sugar and a splash of madagascan vanilla extract plus an extra juicy strawberry on the side. We also had a cup of Twinings Strawberry, Raspberry & Loganberry fruit tea.

If you fancy making a batch, here’s the recipe:

Ingredients

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C/400F/GM6 & line a 12 cup muffin tin with 12 paper cases

150g fresh strawberries chopped

280g plain white flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

115g caster sugar

2 medium eggs

250ml single cream

6tbsp sunflower oil OR 85g cooled melted butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

1. Sift flour, baking power & salt into a large bowl. Stir in sugar & strawberries.
2. Lightly beat eggs in separate bowl, add cream & vanilla.
3. Stir the liquid ingredients gently into the dry ingredients – don’t overmix.
4. Spoon into paper cases.
5. Bake for 20-30 mins until risen and golden.

That’s it! Try and wait 5 minutes before tucking in. Enjoy

On the other side of the kitchen Mr. Sock was weighing out ingredients to make a batch of Red Pepper & Sun Dried Tomato Bread. It’s so good – we ate most of the first loaf yesterday with boiled eggs.

He can definitely make that one again!

Cinnamon Chai, Peanut Butter, Jam & Nutella Muffins & ‘Oh Comely’

I was in the mood to make some muffins today and wanted to try and concoct a recipe that would use up some of my ‘near the end’ jars of spreads.

They turned out to be very tasty and included Crunchy Peanut Butter, Cherry Conserve and Nutella plus some extra chocolate.

I managed to take advantage of a short sunny spell this afternoon for a cup of cinnamon chai with a muffin and a read of the latest issue of ‘Oh Comely’ magazine that arrived yesterday. A little bit of Sunday bliss

RECIPE

(preheat oven to 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6 & line 12 hole tin with muffin cases)

Ingredients

1. 280 g plain flour
2. 1 tbsp baking powder
3. pinch of salt
4. 115 g soft brown sugar
5. 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
6. 2 medium eggs (room temp)
7. 200 ml buttermilk (or yoghurt)
8. 6 tbsp sunflower oil (or 85g melted & cooled butter)
9. 150 g of favourite spreads – e.g. peanut butter; jam; nutella etc
10. 100 g chopped up chocolate (I used white chocolate)

Method

• Sieve ingredients 1-5 into a large bowl
• Lightly beat the eggs and combine with ingredients 7-9
• Gently stir the egg mixture into the dry ingredients to combine – don’t over-mix
• Stir in the chocolate chunks
• Divide mixture between muffin cases
• Bake for 20 minutes

Eat and enjoy

Sticky Saucy Orange Cake

Today was one of those rare days I felt like baking a cake, mostly fuelled by a disappointing purchase of a bag of not very juicy oranges from Tesco. I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away so I hunted about for a recipe to use them up. Well worth the effort…

Ingredients for cake

3/4 cup of butter

1.5 cups caster sugar

1.5 tbsp grated orange rind (I calculated this as the rind of 1 orange)

4 eggs

1/2 cup plain yoghurt

3 tbsp orange juice

2 cups plain flour

1/2 tsp bicarb of soda

1. Preheat oven to 180c. Grease a cake tin.
2. Cream butter & sugar til fluffy, mix in orange rind.
3. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well.
4. Mix yoghurt & orange juice – add to mixture and blend well.
5. Sieve flour & bicarb into mixture and stir to combine until smooth.
6. Pour into cake tin.
7. Bake for about 40 mins. Stand in cake tin for 5 mins then turn out onto wire rack to cool slightly.

Ingredients for sauce

1 cup fresh orange juice

3 tbsp fresh lemon juice

1 tbsp grated orange or lemon rind (or a mix)

1/2 cup of sugar

…I added a big spoonful of delicious chilli orange marmalade made by my talented friend Mrs. Chutney

Mix all the sauce ingredients in a pan. Bring to the boil and boil for 5 mins. Then pour over the cake while still hot.

We tucked into a slice while it was still hot and added a dollop of honey and ginger ice cream. Gorgeous

SPICY CHORIZO MUFFINS

All this cold weather calls for a bit of comfort food baking. I love making muffins as they’re so quick and easy.  So yesterday I mixed up a batch of savoury muffins – Spicy Chorizo & Red Pepper.

We sampled the first ones about 5 minutes after they came out of the oven – very satisfyingly delicious they were too!

The recipe is from ’1 mix, 50 muffins’ and goes like this:

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C/400 degrees F/Gas 6 & put 12 muffin cases into a muffin tray.

Sift the following dry ingredients together:

280g plain flour – 1tbsp baking powder – 1/4 tsp salt – 1 tsp paprika

Finely chop & add to the above:

1 small red pepper  – 100g chorizo (without skin)

Lightly beat together:

2 eggs – 250ml buttermilk – 6 tbsp sunflower oil – 1 crushed garlic clove

Stir gently into the dry ingredients until combined – do not over-mix.

Spoon into cases, bake for about 20mins until well risen & golden.

Let cool for 5 mins then sprinkle with paprika and tuck in

Homemade Apple Pie

Look what we’ve got! Mr Sockgarden’s 14 year old daughter fancied baking a pie and this is the delicious result. Homemade pastry, apples from the garden, plus a few spoonfuls of my friends homemade berry jam.

There was enough leftover pastry to make a mini banana pie with brandy caramel topping but there wasn’t time to take a pic! And actually there are only 2 slices of pie left to eat later this evening with vanilla icecream. Yummy!