Cheesecake! With raspberries from our garden no less! I was hoping this one I slightly fiddled with from Olive magazine would be a very dense cheesecake, but it wasn’t quite dense enough for my liking. Everyone else said it was perfectly dense thankyouverymuch and that the problem laid not with the cheesecake but with my insistence that it should be denser. It was very, very nice though. I inhaled more than one slice and even had a little weep when Alex ate the last sliver. I was so sure that he wouldn’t want it. If you can smell burning, that’s my martyrdom ablaze. No darling, really… you enjoy it.

I will tell you this though. I have a new favourite ever in the whole world alcoholic beverage. My heart truly belongs to Muscat de Beaumes de Venice, but there is a contender for the crown. A serious contender. Chambord. Black raspberry liqueur.
I can’t rave about this enough. It is the most intensely flavoured liqueur; it’s heady with fragrance and every single person I have forced to sniff the bottle has said ‘mmmmmmmmmmmm!’. I rarely let them taste it because it is so expensive, but a fingerdip usually has them reeling. I defy you not to run out and buy an orb-shaped, golden belted bottle should you be offered a sniff.
Anyway, I added a mere 1 tablespoon of Chambord to the cheesecake and it seriously propped up and enhanced the raspberry flavour; next time I might even add two. Scandalous.

No, what really is scandalous is that when I added the tablespoon to the cheesecake and flung the spoon to one side to be washed up, there was a microscopic film of it covering the spoon so I licked it clean. Better than necking it straight from the bottle, but barely.

Buy a bottle and rave about it with me would you? Please?

The usual base of digestive biscuits and melted butter. Yum.

Pressed into the base of an 8″ springform tin and baked for 5 minutes then cooled.

Blend the cream cheese and add a couple of tablespoons of flour and the sugar

then add the eggs

*clouds part to reveal the blazing sun, the sound of a heavenly chorus and a shaft of light falls upon the bottle of Chambord*

A tablespoon of the liqueur and some soured cream

Then add 100g of raspberries (grew them I did – grew them!)

Then pour it on top of the cooled base and bake in the oven for around 40 mins

Golden around the edges and a bit jiggly in the middle. The cheesecake too.

Cooled… and cracked. I always wanted to see the Grand Canyon – don’t need to spend all that money on travelling now, luckily.

Oooooh squidgy!

By this time, the family are telling me to hurry up and pass the slices round before they snap at me like a teased dog.

Very, very nice.

—–

Raspberry baked Cheesecake
(adapted from an ‘Olive’ magazine recipe)

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8 digestive biscuits
50g melted unsalted butter

600g cream cheese
2 tbsp plain flour
175g caster sugar
2 eggs, plus 1 extra yolk
142ml pot soured cream
1-2 tbsp Chambord liqueur
100g raspberries

Preheat oven to GM 4/350F/180C
Base line an 8″/20cm springform tin.

Crush the biscuits and mix with the melted butter.
Press into the base of the tin – and just slightly upwards to create a tiny edge.
Bake for 5-10 mins until (more) golden, then remove from oven and cool to room temperature.

Beat the cream cheese until smooth, then add the flour and sugar. Combine.
Beat in the eggs.
Add the liqueur and soured cream. Combine.
Fold in the raspberries.

Bake for around 40 minutes. It should be golden around the edges and still a bit jiggly in the middle – not sloshing liquid – just jiggly.
Cool in the tin for 5 mins then carefully run a spatula around the edge. Leave in the tin to cool completely, then transfer the tin to the fridge.

Run the spatula around the edge again once chilled and ready to serve, then unspring the tin.
You can transfer it it to a plate still on the tin base, or have a go at removing it. I had very little problem getting it off the base – even managing to leave the parchment lining at the base behind, but don’t panic about it. FYI, I used a large fish slice and as I lifted it, could peel back the parchment base.
Having said that, at the first sign of doom, I wouldn’t have hesitated to lower it back on to the base.

Serve – with additional raspberries on each plate if you wish.

—-

I had most of a pot of sour cream left over, so I had to make something with it, right? Luckily, I still have a little left over, so I can sense some fajitas in the not-so-distant future.

I wanted a really cinnamon flavoured cake, but I didn’t want to put any nuts in it, so this was the answer. Moist, tender crumbed, cinnamon-y enough to satisfy – more than a nice way to use up sour cream.

Preheat oven to GM4-5/350-375F/180-190C (I know that’s annoying, but GM4 was a little too low and I think GM5 would scorch the top)
Grease and line a 9″ round tin.

The usual prep:

Sift 1 cup plain flour, a pinch of salt, 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda into a medium bowl.
Mix 1/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon in a small bowl. Set both bowls aside.

In a large bowl, put 2oz unsalted butter and 2/3 cup caster sugar. Cream until fluffy (high five!)
Add 1 tsp vanilla extract and beat that in.

Add 2 eggs, one at a time, beat them in thoroughly.
Add 1/2 cup (125ml) sour cream and beat that in well.

Add the flour mix next and either combine it with a hand whisk or a large spatula.

Spoon half the batter into the tin and smooth it out

Sprinkle the sugar-cinnamon mix evenly over that

Then spoon the remaining batter over the top and smooth that out too.

Bake for 30-40 mins.

Leave to cool in the tin for 5 mins, then remove from the tin and cool on a wire rack. See how the cinnamon has migrated around? Kind of cool.

Once completely cool, make up the icing.
In a bowl, put 1 cup icing sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon. (I had only added about 1/2 tsp in this pic and ended up adding more)

Add 1 tbsp milk and combine with a hand whisk. If it’s too stiff, add more milk. Check it’s got enough of a cinnamon taste.

Using a teaspoon, drizzle the glace icing over the top.

Allow the icing to set, then serve. Oh, it is so tender… never mind left over sour cream, it’s worth buying a tub for!

————————

Cinnamon Sour Cream Cake

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1 cup plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
pinch salt
2oz unsalted butter
2/3 cup caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/2 cup (125ml) sour cream
1/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

1 cup icing sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1-2 tbsp milk

Preheat oven to GM4-5/350-375F/180-190C (I know that’s annoying, but GM4 was a little too low and I think GM5 would scorch the top)
Grease and line a 9″ round tin

Sift together the flour, baking powder and bicarb in a medium bowl.
In a small bowl, combine the dark brown sugar and cinnamon. Set both bowls aside.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy.
Beat in the vanilla extract, then the eggs.
Add the sour cream and beat well to combine.

Gently, either by whisking or with a spatula, add the flour and combine.

Spoon half the batter into the tin and smooth it.
Scatter the cinnamon-sugar mix evenly over the batter.
Spoon the remaining batter on top and smooth.

Bake for 30-40 mins or until a toothpick comes out cleanly.
Cool in the tin for 5 mins, then remove from tin and cool on a wire rack.

Once cool, make the glace icing.
Put the icing sugar and cinnamon into a medium bowl and combine with a hand whisk.
Add 1 tbsp milk, whisk and add more if necessary.
Using a teaspoon, drizzle the icing over the cake.

Allow the icing to set, then serve.

Moist, sticky, sweet but fiery pieces of succulent chicken, nestling with languid red onion and red pepper, bathed in sour cream and wrapped in the warm blanket of a tortilla. The Fajitas. Surely one of the finest English recipes ever to take the Americas by storm.

Shakespeare and Dickens both make reference to this inventive dish. The tragedy is that no one recognises its true English origins*. Not until now, anyway.

So, fair maidens and Noblemen, this way for the receipt for Fajitas.

* None of this is true.

To prepare this much beloved, easy and heartwarming feast, acquire some chicken meat. I prefer thigh – tis cheap and tasty, much like my husband.

If you can get them, and want quickness, go for the thigh fillets. If not, get the thighs with bone and skin still attached and simply cut the meat off the bone. In this instance, I had 3 thighs and a drumstick – sounds like the opening line of a joke.

Hack and butcher them into bite-sized pieces

Get a shallow dish and put the ingredients for the marinade into it.

3 tbsp light olive oil, 2 tblsp maple syrup, 1½ tblsp wine vinegar, 2 tsp dried Oregano, 1 ½ tsp dried jalapeno (or use a fresh one), ½ tsp ground cumin, freshly milled salt and pepper and 2 cloves garlic, crushed (I hadn’t put it in yet when I took the picture)

Place your chicken into the marinade, turn it around to coat it, then cover with clingfilm and leave in the fridge for a couple of hours.

Remove the seeds from a red pepper and cut into strips. Finely slice one or two red onions.

Preheat your griddle/sizzler pan/frying pan, add a little oil and fry your onion.

Once it’s beginning to brown, add the red pepper.

When you’re happy with it’s state of doneness, add the chicken with its marinade. If, as I sometimes find, the chicken isn’t really browning because the pan is too crowded, remove the vegetables and keep them warm, allowing the chicken to cook nicely

that’s better

Add the veggies back, ready for serving

Warm your tortillas according to pack instructions (I used ye olde microwave and kept them warm in my tortilla warmer – courtesy of Aldi).

Take one tortilla, spread a little sour cream over it, scatter – neatly, please – with the tender, sticky chicken and veg, then a sprinkling of grated cheese.

Roll up and devour. You can add all sorts of weird and wonderful things to it, but as I have a pathological hatred of avocado, there’s no guacamole on the plate. You must do whatever shakes your maracas.

Your English Maracas. Ariba.

………………….

Ye Olde English Fajitas

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chicken thigh meat off the bone, cut into bite sized pieces

marinade:
3 tbsp light olive oil or a vegetable oil
2 tblsp maple syrup
1.5 tblsp wine vinegar
2 tsp dried Oregano
1.5 tsp dried jalapeno (or use a fresh one)
1/2 tsp ground cumin
freshly milled salt and pepper
2 cloves garlic, crushed

Combine the marinade ingredients in a shallow dish and add the pieces of chicken. Turn well to coat then cover and chill in the fridge for 2 hours or so – stir around occasionally.

2 red onions, peeled and cut into think wedges
1 red pepper, deseeded and cut into thin slices

Preheat your griddle/sizzler pan/frying pan, add a little oil and fry your onion. Once it’s beginning to brown, add the red pepper. When you’re happy with it’s state of doneness,add the chicken with its marinade. If the chicken isn’t really browning, remove the vegetables and keep them warm, adding them back just before serving.

Serve in warmed tortillas with a blob of sour cream and some grated cheddar or whatever other hard cheese makes you smile.

First of the offerings from our get together at the beach is a delicious chocolate fudge cake.
We had such a laugh; it was one of those days that leaves you smiling for ages afterwards, I keep giggling at the memory. Just perfect.
So, to the cake. This is very loosely ( hardly at all) adapted from a favourite book of mine – ‘Diner Desserts’ by Tish Boyle.

The usual gig. Preheat your oven to GM4/180C/350F and grease and line 2 x 8″ cake pans.

* I should add here a quick note about cups. The US cup measures 250ml – you can get them pretty much anywhere, including Sainsburys. It’s worth getting a set because the online cups to grams/oz calculators don’t always give you the correct proportions. Having said that, using cups is always going to be inaccurate compared with weighing ingredients.

When measuring dry ingredients, like flour, spoon the flour into the cup until it overflows, then scrape the excess off with a knife. Ingredients like brown sugar will be ‘lightly’ or ‘firmly packed’ – firmly packed is just that – spoon it in and press down firmly, so when you empty the cup into the bowl you have a sugar sand castle. It’s a bit like cooking with yeast, the more you use cups, the more you get used to them and can start to estimate how many grams of something you need to buy to get ‘a cup’ of it. Remember 1 cup is 250ml. that induces some impressive maths at the sour cream carton section. Just a heads up. *

More prep. You’ll feel like you rule the world with this lot prepared in front of you. You could pretend to be Ina Garten – Auntie Ina as Alex calls her. Why not do the accent too? We do. Frequently. Especially when something is unexpectedly easy.
In a medium bowl, sift together 2 2/3 cups plain flour, 1 1/2 cups caster sugar, 1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar, 1/2 cup cocoa, 2 tsp baking powder and 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda.

Melt 6oz unsalted butter and leave it to cool.

In another bowl, using a hand whisk, blend together 3 eggs, 2/3 cup sour cream (at room temperature) and 1 tblsp vanilla extract.

Now, you may begin. in the bowl of a food mixer (or do it using an electric hand mixer),blend on low speed the melted, cooled butter with 1/2 cup vegetable oil. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. No Alex, you may not have the spatula now.

Fling the dry ingredients in to the bowl in one go and mix on low speed until pretty much incorporated. Scrape down the bowl.  No Alex, you may not have the spatula now.

Pour the egg mixture in and mix until blended in.  No Alex, you may not have the spatula now.

Pour evenly into the 2 pans.  Yes Alex, you may have the spatula now.

Bake for about 50 mins or until an unused toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.  I said ‘unused’ to make you feel bilious.

Leave to cool in the tin for 15 mins, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

The icing. Sugar coma anyone? This way.

Prep first. Melt and leave to cool 6 oz dark chocolate. I have some spankingly gorgeous French stuff that’s about 50% cocoa solids. I think this is perfect – milk chocolate would be too sickly and you don’t need the bitterness of a darker chocolate here.

Put 8 oz unsalted butter (softened) in the bowl of the mixer and beat for about a minute until it’s creamy.
Add 2 cups icing sugar, that you have then sifted, to the butter and mix for a couple of minuted until it’s creamy and incorporated. Scrape the bowl down.

Pour in a tblsp of vanilla extract, beat that in and then add your melted chocolate.

Beat that for another couple of minutes until looking gorgeous.

Now, Ms Boyle (who calls ‘the Brits’ ‘not so culinary’. Seriously, I could pull her hair for that. Hard.) suggests that you cut the domed tops off the cakes and reduced the scraps to crumbs, using it to pat around the sides of the cake once iced. I didn’t have any domes, so I skipped this part…obviously.
I used about 1/4 of the icing to sandwich the two together and slapped the rest of the icing all over the cake.

You can take more time and effort than me.

But if you are also schlepping it to the beach, then frankly, I wouldn’t bother too much.

Never knowingly pass up the chance to strew chocolate stars over something.

See? It was so moist and delicious that it made Hollie squeal with laughter…as we sheltered under the Pier from the rain.
Don’t worry, it brightened up! The magic super powers of Chocolate Fudge cake can do that, you know. Try it. You’ll see.

Chocolate Fudge Cake
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(Not very adapted from Diner Desserts by Tish Boyle)

2 2/3 cup plain flour
1 1/2 cups caster sugar
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup cocoa
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 large eggs (room temp – I don’t refrigerate mine, but you might)
2/3 cup sour cream (room temp)
1 tbsp vanilla extract
6 oz unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/4 cups iced water

Icing

6 oz dark chocolate (I used 50% cocoa solids, any darker might be a bit much)
8 oz unsalted butter, softened
2 cups icing sugar, sieved
1 tbsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to GM4/180C/350F
2 x 8″ cake pans, greased and lined

Cake.
In a medium bowl, sift together the sugars, flour, cocoa, baking powder,bicarb and salt.

In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, sour cream and vanilla to blend.

In the bowl of a food mixer, or using an electric hand whisk, beat the melted butter and oil on a low speed to combine. Beat in the ice water.

Add the dry ingredients in one go and mix on low speed until just incorporated. Scrape down the bowl.
Add the egg, vanilla and sour cream mix and mix until blended.

Pour evenly into the two pans.
Bake for about 50 mins, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cakes comes out clean.
Cool in the pans for 15 mins, then remove from the pan and cool completely on a wire rack.

Icing.
Melt the chocolate and leave to cool.
Beat the butter on a medium high speed in a food mixer, until creamy.
Add the icing sugar and beat for about 2 mins, until blended and lightened. Scrape the bowl.
Add the vanilla extract and beat in.
Add the cooled, melted chocolate, beat in, then increse the speed and beat until perfectly smooth and glossy – another minute or so.

Put together.
The original recipe instructs you to cut the domed top off each cake and use the scraps as decoration for the sides of the cake by reducing them to crumbs and patting them round. I didn’t have a dome on my cake, but if you do, you could consider that.
I used about a quarter of the icing to sandwich the two together, then used the rest to ice the cake on top and around the edges. Pretty the top as you wish.

It got very melty at the beach, and it was NOT a very hot day, so I would keep it in the fridge, but return it to room temperature before serving. If it’s Winter, then that’s different. This is a nice cake. Very nice.