Ian’s Aunt – Jane – cleared out her attic. I have, therefore, inherited her entire series of Cordon Bleu cookery magazines from the 70s.

So, I’m flicking through them, expecting to laugh, snort and chortle at the antiquity of the style, presentation and structure of the recipes, but no. Oh no, no, no.

Yes, there are some recipes that are utterly outdated and some that look downright unpleasant (not that that’s the sole domain of older cookery publications – plenty of contemporary recipe books have made me turn my lip in the classic ‘bleeeech’ pose). There are some frankly, unnecessary things to do with gelatine and some equally odd uses of rabbit blood, but there is also good, solid cookery information and clever, thoughtful responses to desperate correspondence.
As I’m reading through them, my Mum informs me that she too had these publications, but when they were bound together as themed books. Reading through the recipes brought memories flooding back for her.
She even found the pigeon recipe she made the night that, on bringing the plates to the table, she tripped over the cat, threw the dinner all over the floor, put her back out and then made us all eat hairy, tepid bird. That was a fantastic night as you can imagine. Full of light-hearted, glass-half-full conversation. Not.

There are some very, very inspiring recipes too.

This is one of them. Bizarrely, it’s titled ‘pains de seigle’. Now that’s just silly, because that means ‘rye bread’ and this recipe no more resembles rye bread than a jug of rabbit’s blood, but I’m thinking they thought it needed a French name and Friday afternoon came so quickly that someone signed it off so they could rush home to whip up an Apple Charlotte.

I too have been struggling with an English name for it, so I’m beginning to get why they just went with the generic smear of French…
Anyway, these are like a chewy macaroon – a delicious, sweet, nutty, crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside (Armadillo!) cookie, moreish to the point of obsession and wonderful with anything. Make them. This recipe deserves to be made, because it works. I’m tiring of recipes that are crap – despite their protestations that they have been tested for a domestic setting – they are crap and they don’t work.

This one isn’t like that. It’s a darling; a darling joy to make.

First, the brittle. Over a low heat, melt 1½oz caster sugar in a saucepan with 1½oz almonds.

Once melted and browning nicely, keep moving it around with a metal spoon until but they get a bit darker for a good flavour

That’s better.

Pour out on to an oiled baking sheet and leave to cool and harden. (I lifted it up to show the solidity and to break a piece off to taste – I’m thoughtful like that)

Once cold, crush into a course powder. I used my mini chopper, but a rolling pin, grinder, mincer, whatever will suffice.

There.

Now to the cookies. Heat the oven to GM4/350F/180C.

Put 4oz ground almonds, 4oz caster sugar and a mean 1oz plain flour into a bowl.

Lightly beat two egg whites with a fork, then add about ¾ of them to the mix and work in. (I say ‘work’, but it clumped in with a fork – nothing stressful) Keep the remaining ¼ of the egg whites – we’ll get to them in a minute.

Add 2oz of the praline and work that in too.

Take teaspoons of the mixture

and roll into little balls – this one was a bit too big. The smaller, the more chewy they are.

Dip first into the remaining egg white

then roll in some icing sugar

then place on a lined baking sheet – - they are quite sticky, so do line the baking sheet with something; silpat, baking parchment or rice paper.

I used my Silpat but that was only because I couldn’t find my rice paper. I don’t know how I’ve managed to lose it.
Ian bought it for me.
“Pick me up some rice paper would you, please darling?” I asked.
“Yes, darling” he said.
He returned later in the day with about 3000 sheets of the stuff. I mean, how much rice paper can one human use – and more to the point, how does one lose that quantity?

Anyway. Bake for around 15 minutes, then cool them on a wire rack. I used my dear little spatula to release them

Once cooled, store them in an airtight tin. Chewy on the outer bit – a bit fudgy in the middle. It’s all good.

——

Chewy Almond Brittle Cookies

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Praline powder
1½ oz caster sugar
1½oz almonds

Melt together in a saucepan over a low heat. Once turning light brown, stir with a metal spoon until nut-brown.
Turn out onto an oiled plate or baking sheet and allow to cool and harden.
Crush into course powder with a grinder, processor or rolling pin.
You need 2oz.

Cookie recipe

4oz ground almonds
4oz caster sugar
scant 1oz plain flour
2 egg whites, lightly beaten with a fork
2oz praline powder
icing sugar

Line a baking sheet with rice paper, baking parchment or silpat.
Preheat oven to GM4/180C/350F

Mix the ground almonds, caster and flour in a bowl.
Moisten with ¾ of the egg whites and work in.

Add the praline to the clumps and work that in evenly to a paste.

Take small teaspoons of the mixture and roll into balls.
Dip each ball in the remaining egg white, then roll in icing sugar.
Place each one on the lined baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes.
Remove to a wire rack to cool.

It seems a shame not to take advantage of the abundance of peaches still in the shops – they’re cheap too and I have discovered why; they’re pretty hard. Like, ‘you could play cricket with them’ hard.
Not to worry! Roast ‘em. Add some custard and bake them as little pies. Perfick.

Preheat the oven to GM6/200C/400F

Take 2 peaches, cut them in half, remove the stones and lay, cut side up, in a baking tray. Sprinkle each half with a tsp of light brown sugar.

Yes, you are right; there are more than 2 peaches there, but I had so much left over, it seemed unfair to impose that on you. Do as many as you like, of course, but you will have leftovers – tasty leftovers.

Bake for 30-40mins or until they are tender to the tip of a knife. Turn them over and lookie

Yum!! Eat them all right now if you want! Make the pies another time!

Allow them to cool enough that you can handle them, remove the skins and chop them up into dainty chunks. DAINTY, please.

*ahem* Right. Where were we we? Yes. The pastry.

Put 6oz plain flour, a pinch of salt and 1 tsp sugar into a medium bowl.

Add 1½oz Trex (vegetable shortening) and  1½oz unsalted butter – both cold, both cut into chunks.

Using a pastry blender or a round-ended knife, cut the fats into the flour until it looks like breadcrumbs.

Add 4tsp ice cold water and begin to stir round with the knife. Add another couple of tsp of water, one at a time, until it starts to want to come together.

Using one hand, gather into a ball

Form into a disc and wrap in clingfilm. Put into the fridge for at least 15 mins to rest. Increase the oven temperature to GM7.

Roll the pastry out to a thickness of about 1/8 inch and stamp out 12 rounds to fit the holes of a 12-hole patty tin. If that sentence isn’t a potential Primary School song, frankly, I don’t know what is. I’m off to compose a tune to fit it right now.

Put a tsp of custard (NB. use the good stuff from the fridge – I bought the stuff in a carton from the ambient section and what a pity. It wasn’t sweet or tasty enough once it had been cooked. Then put a little dollop of peaches on top of that.

If you want, re-roll the pastry (once only) and cut out some stars to cover the top with. Brush them with a little milk.

Bake in the oven for 15-20 mins until the pastry is golden brown. Transfer them to a wire rack and dust with icing sugar. Delish.

Roasted Peach and Custard Pies

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2 peaches
4 tsp light brown sugar

6oz plain flour
1.5oz Trex (vegetable shortening)
1.5oz unsalted butter
pinch salt
1 tsp sugar
6 tsp iced water (approx)

small carton good quality custard (I tried supermarket custard and it was not flavourful or sweet enough)

To roast the peaches:
Preheat the oven to GM6/200C/400F

Cut the peaches in half and remove the stone.
Place in a baking tray, cut side up and sprinkle each half with 1 tsp of light brown sugar.
Roast for 30-40 mins or until they are tender to the tip of a knife.

Allow to cool enough that you can handle them, remove the skin and chop the peaches up into smallish bits. Taste the peaches and add more sugar if they are too tart.

To make the pastry:
Put the flour, sugar and salt into a medium bowl.
Cut the cold fats into smallish cubes.
Using a pastry blender or a rounded knife, cut the fats into the flour until it looks like breadcrumbs.
Add 4 tsp of ice cold water and stir with the rounded knife. Add more water, tsp by tsp until it starts to come together.
Using one cold, but not dead, hand, gather into a ball.
Press lightly into a disk, wrap in clingfilm and rest in the fridge for at least 15 mins.
Increase oven heat to GM7

To assemble:
Get a 12-hole patty tin ready and lightly butter the holes.
Lightly flour the worksurface and roll the pastry carefully and without stretching/forcing it.
Roll to about an 1/8 inch thickness.
Stamp out 12 rounds to fit the tin. Re-roll only once for the star lids, if you can. I’m not sure that there would be anough pastry to lid all of them – aim for 6 open and 6 star-lidded.
Add a tsp of custard, a few pieces of peach and either leave like that, or cut out a star shape to act as a lid.

Put into the oven for 15-20 mins or until the pastry is golden brown.
Remove the pies to a wire rack, dust with icing sugar and leave to cool.

www.creamuntilfluffy.co.uk

Now this IS a traditional British recipe – the cold tea loaf; a good keeper, moist, fruity, delicious and very low fat. What’s not to like?

This is in 2 parts simply because before you fling together the ingredients, you first have to soak your dried fruit in cold tea.

Make 1 cup (250 ml) of strong tea – I use 2 teabags. Let it stew and then remove the teabags and allow to cool.

Meanwhile, measure a lightly packed cup of light brown sugar. I use Waitrose’s own light brown sugar because it is much darker and more treacle-y than other brands. If you can’t get it, consider using ¾ light brown and ¼ dark brown sugar. Add that to the bowl and quickly stir together.

Measure 1 lb of dried fruit. This can be raisins or sultanas or a mixture of both. I like to use about 7 oz of raisins, 7 oz of sultanas and 2 oz dates. Cut the dates up so they are nearer the size of the raisins and sultanas. Put into a medium bowl.

Once the tea is cold, pour it over the fruit and sugar and stir briefly again

Cover with clingfilm and leave out overnight.

Night night.

By the way, to make the loaf tomorrow, we need 2 cups self-raising flour, 1 egg and 1 tbsp oil. And a 2lb loaf tin to cook it in.

The rest tomorrow!

Here’s part two

Brainwave. Sheer brainwave.

We all loved the dough for Michelle’s cinnamon buns and Mum and I were discussing how it was reminiscent of the lemony buns we can get from the bakers.

So I decided to have a go. It worked!

First, I put a scant ½ cup sultanas in a small bowl and covered them with just-off-the-boil water and a tbsp triple sec liquer.

Once they had plumped and softened, I drained them and added the zest of 1 lemon to them.

Make the cinnamon bun recipe up to the point of painting the rolled out dough with butter, ready to fill.

(NB. I had to cut the rolled dough in half to do a batch of lemon and one of cinnamon; if I was doing the whole batch as lemon, I would add the zest of another lemon to the cream cheese.)

Instead of the brown sugar and cinnamon, spread the buttered dough with 4-5 tbsp lemon curd. Sprinkle evenly with the sultanas and roll up as before.

Cut the cylinder into slices as before

Leave to rise overnight and bake for 30 mins as per the cinnamon buns.

I made the icing up with lemon juice, just to reinforce the flavour. Yummo to the max, baby.

Here’s the recipe in full with the lemony changes:

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Cinnamon buns are a gift from the yeasted pastry Gods and this recipe, with cream cheese laminating the dough, is outstanding.
I first stumbled across this recipe whilst perusing Michelle’s blog.  She had, in turn, got the recipe from Joy the Baker – just goes to show that a good recipe gathers a large fan base.
These cinnamon buns are remarkable, a tender utterly delicious dough swirled with dark sugar, pecans and plenty of cinnamon. I have been searching for THE recipe and this one is it. I thought I loved the sticky bun version of cinnamon rolls, but this is much nearer the kind of famous cinnamon buns that we, sadly, cannot get in the UK.

First, proof the yeast. I used Allinson’s Dried Active Yeast (comes in a 125g small orange tin).
Combine  2 ¼ tsp of the yeast, ½ tsp caster sugar and ¼ cup water heated to 115F in the bowl of a mixer. Stir to combine and let it sit for about 10 mins until foamy.

To that, add ¼ cup caster sugar, 2 tbsp light brown sugar, ½ cup milk (at room temperature), ½ tsp vanilla extract, 1 egg and 1 egg yolk. Mix with a hand whisk to combine this well.
Put the bowl onto the mixer – fit the dough hook.
Add 2 ¾ cup plain flour and a sprinkle of salt and mix on medium speed until it just comes together.
Increase the speed to medium-high and knead for 4 minutes.

Add 4oz unsalted butter (at room temperature), chopped into tblsp sized pieces, and continue to knead for about 6 minutes. Whilst in the mixer, the dough is like a half-mad possessed slop; banging and slapping the sides. Most entertaining to watch. It is sticky and wet.

Flour your work surface very well and scrape the dough onto it.

Knead a good ⅓ cup plain flour into this – I had to knead it initially by using a scraper to lift the dough over and around. The more I think about it, the more I think I kneaded more like ½ cup flour into it – maybe more. Grease a large bowl well and put the dough in to the bowl for its rise.

Cover the bowl with clingfilm and leave somewhere warm and draught-free for 1 ½ – 2 hrs to double in size.
Meanwhile, prepare the filling – in a bowl, combine ½ cup caster sugar, ¼ packed cup dark brown sugar, ½ cup finely chopped pecans, 1 tblsp ground cinnamon, ½ tsp salt and ⅛ tsp mixed spice. Once you’ve mixed that lot together, add 2 tbsp maple syrup.

So, once the 1 ½ – 2 hrs has elapsed and the dough has doubled, I had this:

Heavily flour the worksurface again and turn the risen dough out onto it.

Gently knead the dough until it is no longer sticky – add more flour as you need it.

Once you have that, cover it with a tea towel for 5 minutes and let it have a rest.
Flour your rolling pin and roll it out to a 10″ square. In a small bowl, mix 4 oz cream cheese (at room temperature) to smooth it. Gently spread it over the dough square.

Fold the square,like a business letter, into thirds

Then take the open ends and fold them into thirds again to make a small square of dough

Turn the dough over so that it is seam side down, then gently – firmly but gently, roll it out. A 10″ by 20″ rectangle yielded 8 very large buns, so I rolled it out to a length of 20″ and a width of around 15″.
Brush the dough with 2oz melted unsalted butter

Then evenly scatter the filling over it – pressing it into the dough lightly. Leave one of the short ends with a naked border so that it can be sealed when rolled up.

Roll the dough up firmly but gently from the short end – ending with the naked border. You want this to be a tight cylinder so spend a bit of time getting the first turn even. Don’t rush it.

Put it seam side down in readiness for cutting. Trim off the ends as they will inevitably be uneven. You don’t have to chuck them out though – find a gap for them somewhere!

Using a sharp thin-ish knife and a firm downwards motion, cut the roll into equal slices. As I said, the original 10×20″ rectangle yielded 8 huge buns.
My 15×20″ rectangle yielded 14.

Place the slices into a greased 9×13″ pan. I put 10 in that pan and the rest (including the ends) in another smaller pan.
(The pic shows 12 in the pan, but I though better of it and re-sited 2 of them – I wanted more room for them to expand.)

This picture shows where the cream cheese is in the dough – no wonder these are so tender

Cover the pan with clingfilm and then you have a choice.
a) set them in a warm place to rise for 2 hours
b) put them in the fridge overnight.

I made these the night before our get together, because I wanted to bake them fresh that morning, so into the fridge they went. Night night.

Next morning, take the rolls out of the fridge and stand them at room temperature for about 30 mins. (Or preheat your oven whilst they do the 2 hr rise)
Preheat the oven to GM5/190C/375F
Bake until golden brown – about 30 mins.

Put the pan(s) onto a wire rack and brush with 2oz melted butter.

Let them cool for 5 mins or so.
Make up the icing. Whisk 1½ cups icing sugar (I used fondant icing sugar because I think the coverage is better) with about 3 tbsp water. Go cautiously, but make it whatever consistency you prefer. I like it thick.
Swirl, spread or drizzle the icing over the buns.

Serve warm or at room temperature – they kept well too; warm them in the oven for 5 mins if you want that just-baked taste. Unbeatable.

-

Cream cheese Cinnamon Buns

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adapted from Brown Eyed Baker
adapted from Joy The Baker

dough:
2 ¼ tsp Dried Active Yeast (I used Allinson)
½ tsp caster sugar
¼ cup water heated to 115F

¼ cup caster sugar
2 tbsp light brown sugar
½ cup milk (at room temperature)
½ tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk

2 ¾ cups plain flour
½ tsp salt
4oz unsalted butter, room temperature

filling:
½ cup caster sugar
¼ packed cup dark brown sugar
½ cup finely chopped pecans
1 tblsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp salt
⅛ tsp mixed spice
2 tbsp maple syrup.

to laminate the dough:
4 oz cream cheese (at room temperature)
4oz unsalted butter, melted

to complete:
2 oz unsalted butter, melted (to brush over the buns)
1 ½ cups fondant icing sugar
3 tbsp water

Method:

In the bowl of a mixer, combine the yeast, ½ tsp caster sugar and warm water. Stir to combine and let it sit for about 10 mins until foamy.

To that, add the caster sugar, light brown sugar, milk, vanilla extract, 1 egg and 1 egg yolk. Mix with a hand whisk to combine this well.

Put the bowl onto the mixer – fit the dough hook.
Add 2 3/4 cup plain flour and salt and mix on medium speed until it just comes together.

Increase the speed to medium-high and knead for 4 minutes.

Add the softened butter, chopped into tblsp sized pieces, and continue to knead for about 6 minutes. It is sticky and wet.

Flour your work surface well and scrape the dough onto it.
Knead a good 1/3 cup plain flour into this – I had to knead it initially by using a scraper to lift the dough over and around. The more I think about it, the more I think I kneaded more like 1/2 cup flour into it- maybe more.

Grease a large bowl and put the dough in to the bowl for its rise.
Cover the bowl with clingfilm and leave somewhere warm and draught-free for 1 1/2 – 2 hrs to double in size.

-

Meanwhile, prepare the filling – in a bowl, combine the caster sugar, dark brown sugar, pecans,cinnamon, salt and mixed spice. Once you’ve mixed that lot together, add the maple syrup. Combine well.

-

Once the 1 1/2 – 2 hrs has elapsed and the dough has doubled, heavily flour the worksurface again and turn the risen dough out onto it.

Gently knead the dough until it is no longer sticky – add more flour as you need it.

Once you have that, cover it with a tea towel for 5 minutes and let it have a rest.

-

Flour your rolling pin and roll it out to a 10″ square.

In a small bowl, mix the cream cheese (at room temperature) to smooth it. Gently and evenly spread it over the dough square.

Fold the square, like a business letter into thirds, then take the open ends and fold them in in thirds to make a small square of dough.

Turn the dough over so that it is seam side down, then gently – firmly but gently, roll it out.
A 10″ by 20″ rectangle will yield 8 very large buns, a length of 20″ and a width of around 15″ will yield 14.

-

Brush the dough with 2oz melted unsalted butter, then evenly scatter the filling over it – pressing it into the dough lightly. Leave one of the short ends with a naked border of around 1″ so that it can be sealed when rolled up.

Roll the dough up firmly but gently from the short end – ending with the naked border. You want this to be a tight cylinder so spend a bit of time getting the first roll even. Don’t rush it.

Put it seam side down in readiness for cutting. Trim off the ends as they will inevitably be uneven. You don’t have to chuck them out though – find a gap for them somewhere in the pan!

Using a sharp thin-ish knife and a firm downwards motion, cut the roll into equal slices.
As I said, the original 10×20″ rectangle yielded 8 huge buns. My 15×20″ rectangle yielded 14.
Place the slices into a greased pan(s). I put 10 in a 9×13″ pan and the rest (including the ends) in another smaller pan.
If making the 8 large buns – they fitted nicely in the 9×13″ pan.

Cover the pan with clingfilm and then you have a choice.
a) set them in a warm place to rise for 2 hours or
b) put them in the fridge overnight.

-

Next morning, take the rolls out of the fridge and stand them at room temperature for about 30 mins. (Or preheat your oven whilst they do the 2 hr rise)

Preheat the oven to GM5/190C/375F

Bake until golden brown – about 30 mins.

-

Put the pan(s) onto a wire rack and brush with 2oz melted butter.

Let them cool for 5 mins or so.
Make up the icing. Whisk 1 1/2 cups fondant  icing sugar with about 3 tbsp water. Go cautiously, but make it whatever consistency you prefer. I like it thick.
Swirl, spread or drizzle the icing over the buns.

Serve warm or at room temperature – they kept well too; warm them in the oven for 5 mins if you want that just-baked taste. Unbeatable.

I hate games that involve things like ‘what is your favourite flavour’ because how are you supposed to choose? I reason with myself at times like that…what does it matter? No-one’s saying I can only ever eat that one thing, no-one will beat me with a kipper if I fail to mention something that I think of later, but still I fret.

So. ONE of my favourite flavours is maple.

I would like maple on everything please – that and cinnamon. See?! I’m doing it already! I’ll discuss cinnamon obsession another time.

A family member of a family friend has sent me maple sugar at Christmas time. This sugar is revered in this house – I split it with my Mum and we all have to ceremonially sniff the maple sugar and bemoan our loss at not being able to get it here. How my heart soared when I saw it in the supermarket, but alas it was maple flavoured sugar and frankly, I spit on that. Not in supermarkets – the judge said I mustn’t do that any more. Ha.

If you cannot get maple sugar, then don’t worry, just use all light brown sugar – there’s maple syrup in it anyway, it’s just that the maple sugar ups it to another level.

So you need this lot ( I used the Sainsbury’s maple syrup because I had run out of my Waitrose stash. Waitrose’s #2 strength is far better):

Put 200g (1 3/4 sticks) unsalted butter in a saucepan over a low-ish heat and melt it.

Add 100g (80ml, 1/3 cup) maple syrup, 100g (1/2 cup, firmly packed) light brown sugar and 50g (mean 1/3 cup) maple sugar. Or just add 150g light brown sugar.

Simmer and stir that to get it to come together like a sauce and get the sugar pretty much melted. Don’t fret – you can’t do anything wrong with this. Just don’t boil its pants off, it only takes a few minutes.

Add the porridge oats to this

and stir well to combine.

Tip into a paper-lined 8″ square pan and smooth out. Scatter some extra maple sugar over the top.

Bake for 25 mins until golden, then put onto a wire rack and, keeping it in the tin, allow to cool.

Once cooled, lift out by its paper and cut into slices, squares, whatever.

This keeps really well in an airtight container

Should last the working week easily.

In theory. Yeah. Best of luck with that. Put it this way, it will KEEP for a week; whether it lasts that long is a different matter.

Maple Flapjacks

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200g (1 3/4 sticks) butter
100g (1/3 cup) maple syrup – try to get Waitrose’s #2 strength if you can
100g (1/2 cup, firmly packed) light brown sugar
50g  (1/3 cup, meanly filled) maple sugar – if you don’t have or can’t get this, just use 150g light brown sugar
325g (4 cups) porridge oats

extra maple sugar to sprinkle on top (optional)

Preheat oven to GM4/180C/350F
Line an 8″ square tin with greaseproof paper

In a large saucepan,on a low-medium heat, melt the butter.
Add the syrup and sugars, simmer and stir until the mixture is coming together and the sugars have more or less melted. Only takes a few minutes.
Remove from the heat and stir in the porridge oats.

Tip into the tin, smooth down and scatter with more maple sugar if using.
Bake for 25 mins until golden.
Cool in the tin on a wire rack, then slice into bars or squares.

Keeps well in an airtight container – probably lasts the working week.

I wanted a quick, easy recipe that used blueberries; something that wasn’t groaning with icings or glazes and wasn’t bettered with a dollop of cream. A real old fashioned afternoon tea bite for kids and adults alike.

This is it. Fling your ingredients in a bowl, clatter round it with an electric hand whisk, stir in the fruit then dollop into a muffin tin and remove, bronzed and perky (the buns too) to be inhaled and devoured gleefully. Soft, vanilla-y, blueberried and sweet. Yum.

5 mins to weigh the ingredients, 5 mins to mix and portion out and 20 mins in the oven. Perfick.

Let me show you my caster sugar:

Keep your caster in a canister and bung dried old vanilla pods into it. Smells and tastes good. Nigella’s idea.  Do you know I once saw a jar of vanilla sugar for something like £4?  I nearly fainted.

Anyway, use this if you do it, if not, use normal caster sugar – no biggie.

Put your ingredients (except the blueberries) into a large bowl

then using an electric hand whisk (or a normal hand whisk if you feel like it), combine all the ingredients until they’ve come together – took less than 10 seconds. It’ll look like this:

See there’s some residual flour at the bottom? I am always mindful of not over handling flour, so don’t try and get every molecule added – it’ll get swept in with the blueberries.

Add your blueberries and fold them in

Grease a 12 hole muffin tin either with butter, or line with papers or use this stuff ( I got it at a shop in Brighton, but you don’t want to know how much I paid for it; that said it is brilliant)

Divide the mixture among the tin

and top with the remaining berries (don’t think I’d bother with that again – just bung the lot in)

Bake for 20 minutes

leave in the tin for 5 mins, then loosen and remove to a wire rack to cool

Mmmm.

I’ve cooled them and put them in the freezer – I think I’ll be glad of those come early September when we’re entering the world of regular lunchboxing.

Or, I might be glad of them one evening when someone has gone fishing.

Shhhh.

October 2009 – We are still having the odd frozen bun for the lunchbox and I had to update to say they freeze brilliantly. I wrap one frozen bun in a piece of kitchen roll and put it straight into the lunchbox – they defrost evenly and are really moist.

Here’s the recipe

Quick Fast Blueberry Buns
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100g unsalted butter, softened
100g vanila sugar (I keep vanilla pods in my canister of sugar – don’t worry if you don’t; just use normal caster)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
150g self raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
100g blueberries

Preheat oven to GM4/180C/350F.
Spray 12 hole muffin tin with greasing spray or butter or line with muffin cases.

Put the butter, sugar, vanilla, eggs, flour and baking powder into a large bowl and using an electric hand whisk, whisk until together and creamy – this took about 10 seconds.
Add 75g of the blueberries – or all of them, no worries -  and stir in with a spatula (you’ll also fold in any residual flour, so don’t whisk it to death to start with).

Divide the mixture among the muffin holes and top with the remaining blueberries if you wish.
Bake for 20 mins or until risen nicely and golden brown.

Leave in the tin for 5 minutes, then loosen with a spatula and remove to a wire rack to cool.

When life throws you milk, make rice pudding.

Browsing through the supermarket, I happened upon a single bottle of milk.
Rah-rah, you think. But it wasn’t just a bottle of milk… oh no, it was Gold Top; that is the creamiest milk you can get your hands on. A blend of milk from Jersey and Guernsey cows, it is little more than cream dressed up in a milk dress.

And it was reduced (it’s posing with its friend, the pudding rice).

I don’t buy it as a rule, because with the amount of coffee we drink, we would surely be propelled to alarming proportions if we went through that stuff the way we go through semi-skimmed, but one lonely bottle. I couldn’t bear to contemplate its fate if someone else bought it.
It was worth more than a gluttonous sloshing over some cornflakes.
So I had a chat with it, give it a name and brought it home.
The boy on the checkout started talking about philosophy and the economy, so all in all, quite a weird shopping experience.

So I got out my beloved ovenproof le Creuset and gave it a good buttering.

Into that I flung 3.5oz pudding rice and 3.5 tblsp caster sugar.

Then the milk. Glug, glug, glugged that over.
Then to the nutmeg. I love nutmeg and I love its little grater with the storage bit in the top for the nutmeg.

It was my Grandad’s. I’m thinking either nutmegs have increased dramatically in size since this was created, or they found out after the first lot came off the presses that there was no nutmeg in the world that would fit in there until half its face had been shaved off, but they thought ‘bugger it’ and churned them out anyway.
Tsk.
So I gave that a good rasping over the top, just to try and get it into its little holder on top.

Still tutting, I put it into the oven (GM3/160C/325F) for an hour. Then I went upstairs and doused the bathroom in limelite and Ian came upstairs to ask me a) why the kitchen was so hot and b) why the timer was beeping.
So I patiently explained that it was hot because the top oven was on and that I was cooking a rice pudding.
Alex then asked what ‘that delicious smell was?’ and its a miracle I actually got past this Spanish inquisition to stir the rice pudding. No-one expects the Spanish Inquisition.
I stirred it, then reduced the heat to GM2/150C/300F and put it in for another hour.
Look. Bronzed and billowing,

but underneath, creamy, glistening and unctuous.

About as traditional a British pudding as you get. Treat yourself. The milk is worth it.

———

Rice Pudding

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1 litre gold top milk (or whole milk)
3.5 oz pudding rice
3.5 tblsp caster sugar
nutmeg, to scrape over the pudding

Preheat the oven to GM3/160C/325F
Butter an ovenproof dish (mine measures 10″x7″ and is 2″ deep)
Put the pudding rice and sugar into it and pour the milk over. Lightly stir to combine a little.
Scrape a nutmeg over the top to give a good covering.

Put into the oven for 1 hr. Stir.
Reduce the heat to GM2/150C/300F and cook for another hour.

Remove from oven, allow to cool a little before serving. Can also be enjoyed cold.

For a smaller amount (why?), the quantities are:
1 pint (20 fl oz) milk
2oz pudding rice
2 tblsp sugar

NB. The UK pint = 20 fl oz
The US pint = 16 floz

So after making the orange cake, I was perplexed as to what to do with the scraped, zestless oranges. Yes, I could slice them up and eat them, but that’s not exactly riveting.

Make jelly, my Mum suggested. (Jello to you gals across the pond)

So I did.

Using a sharp knife, cut long strips of zest from one orange and put it in a medium saucepan with 150g caster sugar and 400ml cold water.

Find your gelatine leaves

and take out 6 of them.

Soak them in a dish of cold water so that they can soften. Leave them for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring the pan up to a simmer to dissolve all the sugar into the water. Once this has happened, take the saucepan off the heat and remove the strips of zest.

Scoop the now floppy gelatine leaves from the water …

and squeeze the water out.

Stir into the liquid in the saucepan – it will dissolve almost instantly.

Leave to one side to carry on cooling down, then start squeezing your oranges, madam. You want 300ml of juice.

I got 300ml exactly from 4 oranges – what are the chances?! I used the juice attachment on my mixer though – I don’t think I could have achieved that amount using a normal ‘turn it round and round on the funny shaped glass thingy’ type.

Add the juice to the saucepan, stirring as you do so

Then put a sieve over a pretty glass dish and strain the jelly into the dish

If you wanted individual servings, strain the jelly into a jug and pour it into the smaller dishes, but we like a lake of jelly

You can see the small floating bits of real orange in this real jelly

Leave in the fridge for at least 5-6 hours, but leaving it overnight is the only way I feel confident that it’s set.

And it had; beautifully. It’s hard to describe its texture – wobbly like a jelly, obviously, but because it was real juice, there was body and substance to it. It was sweet – and the juice from the oranges was the sweetest I’ve ever tasted- but there was a fuller, tart back note to it.

Ian summed it up nicely – it was eating real food as opposed to rubbery fruit squash. There was no nasty chemical smell, nor was there the bitter aftertaste synonymous with saccharin. We put a drizzle of cream on it, but can you believe it was actually better without the cream? The flavour was so complex that the cream stifled it a bit.

You won’t find many of us in our families saying that something doesn’t need cream.

I made it because we all love jelly, but now that we’ve eaten this, I will never look forward to run of the mill jelly again. It’s not often this happens.

Alex said we shall have it every day. That is unlikely, but Ian has requested a lime version, so we’ll see where that takes us.

Not a bad way to use up scraped fruit and get your vitamin C quota all in one hit.

—————-

Orange Jelly

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6 leaves gelatine
4 oranges (mine were only medium sized, but I’d be tempted to have another on standby, just incase you don’t get enough juice)
150g caster sugar
400ml cold water

Soak the gelatine leaves in cold water for 5 minutes to soften.
Use a vegetable peeler or a small sharp knife and a steady hand to remove the zest of one orange in long strips.
Put into a medium saucepan with the water and sugar and bring to a simmer, stirring now and again, until the sugar is dissolved.
Remove the pan from the heat and remove the zest.
Scoop the now floppy gelatine leaves from the water and squeeze the water out. Stir into the liquid in the saucepan – it will dissolve almost instantly.
Leave the saucepan off the heat and allow the contents to cool a while.

Squeeze the oranges until you have 300ml of juice. I got this from exactly 4 oranges using the juice attachment on my mixer. If you are squeezing the oranges with a normal glass/ceramic juicer, you may not get this amount of juice – I know I never managed to get a huge amount when I did it by hand.

Stir the juice into the saucepan.
Strain the jelly through a fine sieve either into a jug so that you can pour individual servings into glasses/dishes, or sieve it straight into one large serving dish.

Refrigerate for a minimum of 5 hours – overnight would be a safer bet.

This is a great recipe to have up your sleeve when a recipe calls for lots of zest, but little or no juice. Also a great way to take advantage of a glut of citrus fruits from your greenhouse (!) or a great deal in the shops.
I suppose there’s nothing stopping you from using a commercially prepared juice, but I think the sweetness might be an issue. Having said that, I am not a fan of freshly squeezed orange juice, but the juice from these oranges was the sweetest I have ever tasted.

Cereal. It has its place, but sometimes it’s not even a chore, not even unpleasant, it just IS.

Time to pep it up a bit. Ian has been pouring yogurt over the top, but that all got a bit milky and shudder inducing half-way through and there’s a limit to the quantity of dried fruit you can strew over it all before you get over-developed jaw muscles.

If only greek yogurt wasn’t generally so high fat and more to the point, expensive… Then we heard about straining yogurt and allowing it to sit overnight. The texture is transformed. It’s a miracle – a miracle, I tell ye!

Spoon over some sweet, poached fruit and bliss follows.

Here’s what I do.  Do this tonight and you too could eat this in the morning.

Place a sieve over a bowl and line it with 2 sheets of kitchen roll.

Pour a carton of plain yogurt into it.

Turn the corners in on the 3rd sheet of kitchen roll and place on top of the yogurt.
Put into the fridge overnight, or at least for a few hours.

Next morning, get impressive contraption out of fridge.

Peel back top layer of kitchen roll – really, it will peel off! See how firm… but shrunken it is? (Such a shame to have both those words in one phrase.)

Have another bowl waiting and flop the now solid yogurt into the bowl and peel off the bottom two sheets of paper.

Admire the amount of liquid in the bottom of the sieve bowl, then pour it away. If you’re my Mother, you can repeatedly complain about the smell of the liquid. It doesn’t bother me, but I have a husband who goes fishing, a 4 yr old son and 2 cats, so unpleasant smells aren’t exactly a rarity in my life.
Anyway.

Witchcraft. It is now the consistency of cream cheese. Low fat tastes high fat. Runny becomes velvety-firm. Spooky.

Spoon a portion into a small (big?) bowl and drizzle with honey and maybe some nuts and succulent dates or… spoon on top of some cereal and bathe with …poached plums!

Want to poach your plums? Here we go then.

Acquire a punnet of fruit. I’ve used peaches, nectarines and as pictured here, plums. Cut them in half and remove the stones.

Pour 6-7 tbsp sugar and 250ml/1 cup cold water into a large saucepan (mine is about 8″/20cm across)on a low heat.

Swirl around to dissolve the sugar into the water. Increase the heat to medium and simmer for 2 minutes.

Add the halved, stoned fruit to the saucepan – skin side down. Simmer gently for another 2-3 minutes or until they are beginning to soften around the edges (this can take much, much longer for larger or under-ripe fruit).

Turn them over and simmer for about 4/5 minutes (see above caveat for different fruit).

Once they are softened, not to mush, but so that there is no unexpected chomping to be done, spoon each fruit out into the waiting bowl.

If, like these little burlesque numbers, the skin is falling off their shoulders (look at them! Hussies!), go ahead and remove them. Likewise if you, like my husband, are sniffy about skin on poached fruit, equip yourself with a fork and a knife and remove as much skin as you can (be bothered to).

Increase the heat under the saucepan and enthusiastically simmer (as opposed to boil) the remaining liquid for a couple of minutes. I used to boil the remainder without mercy, but it goes too syrupy and I feel like we’re after more of a hint of syrup to it. Pour the beautiful juice over the plums.
Cool, then refridgerate. These keep in the fridge for several days. I put the bowl in the fridge, my husband eats them, I re-fill…etc.

Serve as they are, with ice cream, rice pudding or for breakfast with cereal and spooky yogurt.

Like this:

Gooooooooooood morning spooky yogurt and plums!

Here are the recipes once more, with feeling:

Spooky yogurt

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1 carton of plain yogurt – low fat, full fat – doesn’t matter – in fact, as many cartons as you can fit into your sieve.
1 sieve
3 squares of good kitchen roll ( I use Plenty – Bounty, as was)

Place a sieve over a bowl.
Line your sieve with 2 sheets of kitchen roll.
Pour the carton of plain yogurt into it.
Turn the corners in on the 3rd sheet of kitchen roll and place on top of the yogurt.
Put into the fridge overnight, or at least for a few hours.

Next morning, get impressive contraption out of fridge.
Peel back top layer of kitchen roll – really, it will peel off!
Have another bowl waiting and flop the now solid yogurt into the bowl and peel off the bottom two sheets of paper.
Admire the amount of liquid in the bottom of the sieve bowl, then pour it away.

It is now the consistency of cream cheese. Spoon a portion into a small (big?) bowl and drizzle with honey and maybe some nuts and succulent dates or… spoon on top of some cereal and bathe with poached plums!

(BTW, my Mum tried it with flavoured yogurt without any satisfaction. It seems like the flavouring and sweetness all drips away with the liquid, so save yourself some heartache and money and just buy the low fat cheap stuff – this carton only cost 46p!).

Poaching Plums

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400g Punnet of plums, halved and stone removed (or peaches, nectarines, damsons – although you might want to seriously up the sugar for damsons)
6-7 tbsp sugar
250ml/ 1 cup cold water

Pour the sugar and water into a large saucepan (mine is about 8″/20cm across)on a low heat. Swirl around to dissolve the sugar into the water. Increase the heat to medium and simmer for 2 minutes.
Add the halved, stoned fruit to the saucepan – skin side down. Simmer gently for another 2-3 minutes or until they are beginning to soften around the edges (this can take much, much longer for larger or under-ripe fruit).
Turn them over and simmer for about 4/5 minutes (see above caveat for different fruit).
Once they are softened, not to mush, but so that there is no unexpected chomping to be done, spoon each fruit out into the waiting bowl.

If the skin is falling off their shoulders, go ahead and remove them. Likewise, if you, like my husband, are sniffy about skin on poached fruit, equip yourself with a fork and a knife and remove as much skin as you can (be bothered to).
If, like my Mother, you consider your entrails with each bite of food you take, then leave them on. It’s between you and your preferences. And internal organs.

Anyway. Increase the heat under the saucepan and enthusiastically simmer (as opposed to boil) the remaining liquid for a couple of minutes. I used to boil the remainder without mercy, but it goes too syrupy and I feel like we’re after more of a hint of syrup to it.
Cool, then refridgerate. These keep in the fridge for several days.

Serve as they are, with ice cream, rice pudding or for breakfast with cereal and spooky yogurt.