Double chocolate cake: for birthdays, or not birthdays

I used to make this cake very regularly growing up and can practically make it with my eyes closed, although I expect that would be even messier than my usual baking exploits.  We had a magimix-style mixer that I used for the sponge and a Kenwood Chef (like the ones on GBBO but older than me) for the buttercream, shrouded with a tea towel to try and contain the clouds of icing sugar. 

I could tell you that I made two cakes so I could test the effect of adding baking powder - this wasn't in my original recipe but I had read many "perfect" sponge articles lauding the fluffiness of sponges with a teaspoon of extra help so I wanted to give it a try. But the real reason I made two is that I was having a birthday party, so I made one to share and one to eat all by myself 🐷

As luck would have it, a genius of witchcraft and wizardry made a rainbow cake for the party, so now I have BOTH cakes all to myself. Well, I did until I ate one.

I still enjoy licking the bowl (at each stage) as much as the finished product, which is why I use the step-by-step approach rather than the popular all-in-one method for the sponge. It's very easy - literally child's play...

Ingredients 

For the sponges:

170g unsalted butter

170g caster sugar

3 medium eggs (should weigh around 170g in their shells)

170g self-raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

4 tabsp cocoa powder

For the buttercream icing:

500g icing sugar

4 tabsp Cocoa powder

250g unsalted butter

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 160C, and grease and line two sandwich cake tins with baking paper.

2. Cream together the sugar and butter until pale and fluffy, using a stand mixer or electric beaters if you have them

3. Beat in the eggs

4. Sift in the flour, baking powder and cocoa and fold in gently using a metal spoon

5. Distribute the mixture evenly between the two cake tins and level the top with a palette knife

6. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until the sponge is springy to the touch and a skewer comes out clean. Carefully remove the cakes from the tins and leave to cool on a wire rack

7. Make the buttercream by sifting the icing sugar and cocoa powder over the butter and mixing well. It will make a cloud of icing sugar, and take a while to come together. If the cream is too stiff, try adding a little bit of warm milk until the mixture is spreadable but not sloppy

8. Scoop half the buttercream onto one cooled cake and spread out evenly. Repeat with the other half of the icing and the second cake. Put one cake on top of the other. Decorate at will.

I like my double chocolate cake in the style of 80s restaurant favourite, hot chocolate fudge cake. Microwave a slice for 30 seconds and serve with a big dollop of Greek yoghurt. Cake heaven!

Blackberry and apple crumble: more cosy comfort food

Legend has it that on my first birthday I demanded blackberries and sausages for breakfast; tired of arguing with me about my food choices (I might have been a bit of a fussy eater - I know, you'd never believe it now) my parents gave in and that's what I had. Almost (exactly) 39 years on, I still think this is a perfectly valid breakfast option; in fact I believe it's an early version of the now trendy "paleo" diet. Anyway, the point is I love blackberries, and their appearance all over the place, from countryside hedgerows to IKEA car parks, means it's nearly my birthday - yay me.

People often refer to berry picking as a fun childhood activity. I'm not so sure. Our Granny used to take us to Brimham Rocks to pick bilberries, and we'd kneel in the thorny brush for hours, filling ice cream tub after ice cream tub with tiny little purple berries. We certainly had a sense of achievement, and a happy Grandma, but I'm not sure it was "fun". Try it now as an adult and it's entertaining for about half an hour. So if you can find one, take a small child and tell them it's fun - it should keep them quiet for a while anyway.

I was lamenting the fact that it's a bit tricky to find brambles in the city, and it seems an outrage to pay for plastic packaged ones in the supermarket, when we were walking a section of the capital ring a couple weeks ago. As we huffed and puffed up a small hill with a pond at the top, I realised we were surrounded by brambles loaded with ripe blackberries. Unlike popular walking spots like Hamspead Heath, this trail was quiet and the bushes barely touched by London foragers. If only I'd brought a container with me! But no, we had to walk past mile after mile (I may be exaggerating a tiny bit) of brambles, taunting me with their giant juicy fruit.

Back in the Barbican, I hunted around for any hidden wilderness, community orchards or neglected car parks, but any potential bushes had been stripped bare before I got there. I did, however, stumble upon the Barbcian residents' allotments, located around the back of Shakespeare tower. Chatting to one of the allotmenteers for this month's BarbicanLife magazine, I discovered the range of unusual fruit and veg being cultivated right here in the concrete, despite the dry and windswept conditions (and occasional thief). I even picked up a few tips for our balcony gardening exploits, such as sheltering more delicate plants with larger more sturdy ones to protect them from the wind. 

So if you're lucky enough to have countryside and child labour to hand, this crumble is a delicious way to enjoy your foraged fruit. If not, local farmers markets are the best place to pick up reasonably priced fresh seasonal fruit. Either way, the chill of autumn in the air calls for hot, comforting puddings, and this fits the bill perfectly.

Ingredients

(Serves 4)

For the crumble

75g cold unsalted butter, cubed

100g plain flour

25g ground almonds

50g sugar

2 tbsp finely chopped nuts (optional)

For the filling

1 cooking Apple

400g blackberries

2 tbsp sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon 

Method

1. To make the crumble, rub the butter into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs, then stir in the ground almonds and sugar. Sprinkle with a little cold water, mix briefly and chill.

2. Peel and core the apple and cut into chunks. Add to a pan with a tablespoon of water and another of sugar, and soften over a low heat for 5 minutes.

3. Add the apple, blackberries, cinnamon and a tablespoon of sugar to a pie dish. Top with the crumble mixture and sprinkle over the chopped nuts, if using.

4. Bake at 180C for 45 minutes until the top is golden

Serve with hot custard and eat on the sofa in front of the latest BBC drama. 

Baked rice pudding: cosy comfort food

Well that happened rather suddenly, didn't it?! One minute we're enjoying cheesecake and summer berries in the sunshine and the next minute IT'S AUTUMN and you have to leave the house prepared for all possible weather situations... so not much different from summer then.

The nights drawing in had me craving for some comfort food, specifically in the form of hot puddings. First on the list - and yes, there's more to come on this theme - a traditional baked rice pudding. Maybe it's the "back to school" vibe having an influence as this made a regular appearance on the school dinner repertoire. I've never made rice pudding before, partly because I'm quite fond of the Ambrosia tinned version and partly because the Bearded Argenitnian doesn't like it - something we're unable to test now as I ate the entire bowl "for research purposes" before he got home.

Once again I was surprised by the variety of recipes for what I had though was a simple and straightforward pudding. Recipes from the Dairy has a rich version daring from 1817, containing dried fruit and peel, brandy and eggs; Woman's Own Cookbook (1964) has got it completely wrong with a cold, gelatinised concoction; and Delia's Evening Standard cookbook from 1974 doesn't have a recipe for it at all! Thankfully, the Poor Cook and the Good Housekeeping Cookery Book concur with the back of the rice packet instructions and I don't see the point of meddling with perfection. Heating the milk before mixing with the rice doesn't make much difference except adding to the washing up, and other ingredients such as eggs, cream and butter make an already stodgy pudding even richer. 

Ingredients

(Serves 2 greedy people)

50g short grain rice

2 tbsp sugar

600ml whole milk

Nutmeg

Butter for greasing

Single cream and jam for serving

Method

1. Grease a pie dish with the butter, then add the rice, sugar and milk. Mix well and grate over the nutmeg.

2. Bake in the oven at 150C for 1.5 hours, stirring every 30 minutes. If it's still runny, bake for another 20-30 minutes until firm but not solid, and it has a golden skin.

Serve with a splash of cream and a dollop of strawberry jam - perfect for a chilly autumn evening, and a million miles away from school dinners.

Gooseberry fool: a simple summer pudding

Gooseberry fool, along with Apple snow, was one of my favourite childhood puddings. I must have had a thing for purée. I was reminded of it whilst flipping through The Garden Grows Cookbook by Eva and Tony Lambert, from 1978; they describe three gooseberry recipes although none of them were exactly a fool, so I texted my mum to check how she made it.

This dessert is a simple combination of cooked, sweetened gooseberries with creamy custard - a light summer pudding that should be sharp enough to make one eye squint from the tartness. I used standard ready made custard - don't use a low fat version as you need the creaminess to counteract the sharpness of the fruit, and the posh "Madagascan vanilla" types will compete with the flavour of the gooseberries. I've included a variation for a lighter version at the end.

Ingredients

(Serves 4)

250g fresh gooseberries

2 tbsp sugar

150g custard

Method

1. Top and tail the gooseberries, add to an oven dish and sprinkle with sugar and a splash of water. Bake at 180C for 20-30 minutes, until the berries are soft and about to burst.

2. Mash the berries with a fork or blitz briefly to a pulp and cool.

3. Stir in the custard and taste; add a little honey if it's too sour. 

Serve in cute little dishes with a sweet biscuit, like shortbread or amaretti, on the side. There's absolutely no need to stick it in a flower pot, I just got carried away with the garden theme...

Lighten up, you guys! For a lighter version, substitute elderflower cordial for the sugar and Greek yoghurt for the custard. 

 

Strawberry cream flans: for Wimbledon watching

This year, I'm watching every single minute of Wimbledon... all day every day for two weeks, with no obligations to work, play or interact with society in any way whatsoever. It's bliss. I didn't get tickets in the ballot to get into the courts (and nor did any of the people I "helped" by sending them forms for it, on the understanding that I would be their plus one!) so I've mastered the Red Button, printed off the draws and gone full geek from the sofa.

So how have I managed to cook and blog, I hear you say... Well, fortunately, I can angle the telly towards the kitchen, so this wimbledon-themed recipe was researched, cooked and eaten whilst watching the tennis though the hatch (which is why every kitchen needs a hatch). Strawberries were an obvious choice, and Audrey Ellis's Cookery for All Seasons from 1977 has a full page spread of strawberry flans: a sweet sponge base topped with thick crême patissiere and luscious ripe strawberries - perfect! And 1977 was the last time we won a ladies singles title - a good omen?

I've always wondered how to make crême patissiere, or "creme pat" as they call it on the Great British Bake Off. All the contestants seem to be able to whip up a batch from memory, something which I can only do for chocolate cake and pancakes (from years of near constant practice). The recipe in this book was very heavy on the sugar compared to some other versions, so I reduced it by about a third. It also only uses plain flour where others use a mix of plain flour and cornflour; using cornflour will make a thicker creme pat if you want to pipe it somewhere or it needs to hold its shape, like in the middle of a vanilla slice. And the optional butter adds a a little gloss to the final cream - I've suggested some other optional extras at the end of e recipe for when you've nailed the basics. It's not hard to make a good creme pat, but there is a technique to it.

Many strawberry tart/flan/pie recipes use either a ready-made flan base or a pastry base (ready-made or otherwise). I chose this recipe because I wanted to make my own sponge base, although I did fill the spare holes in the muffin tray with a couple of shortcrust pastry cases. The original recipe makes double the amount below and suggests cutting the sponge in half to make two flans. I can never make that work, and also, who am I going to feed two flans to?! So I just halved the ingredients and made individual flans by baking them in a muffin (or Yorkshire pudding) tin rather than a fluted flan tin.

Ingredients

(Makes 10-12 individual flans)

250-300g strawberries 

Flan base

2 large egg yolks

65g icing sugar, sifted

125g self raising flour

65g butter, melted

1 large egg white

Pastry cream / crême patissiere

2 egg yolks

25g plain flour (or half and half plain flour and cornflour)

50g caster sugar

250ml whole milk

2-3 drops vanilla extract

A knob of butter (optional)

Method

1. To make the flan bases, beat the 2 egg yolks with the sifted icing sugar until pale and thick, then fold in the flour and melted butter. Beat the egg white until stiff and fold into the mixture.

2. Add a tablespoon of the mix to each hole of a greased, 12-hole muffin tin and flatten the surface with a palette knife. If there are any spare holes you could fill them with pastry cases (add baking beans and blind bake).

3. Bake at 160C (fan) for 15 minutes until they spring back when pressed. Cool in the tin, then on a wire rack.

4. To make the creme pat, beat the egg yolks, sugar and flour together. Heat the milk and vanilla extract until starting to boil, then slowly pour over the mixture with the whisk going. Continue beating until combined then return the mixture to the pan. 

5. Heat gently and stir constantly - it will thicken quickly. Don't worry if you get lumps, just keep whisking and they'll soon go. When the cream is smooth and as thick as custard, remove from the heat and whisk in the butter if using. Dust with icing sugar to prevent a skin forming and cool.

6. To assemble the flans, slice the top off a sponge base and press down the soft middle with the back of a spoon. Add a tablespoon of creme pat and top with hulled, halved strawberries.

Enjoy with a cup of tea (pre 6pm) or glass of prosecco (post 6pm). Come on Tim! I mean Go Andy/Jo/Kyle/Heather/Aljaz/Katie! 

Crem pat optional extras:

- add some orange or lemon zest and a squirt of juice to sharpen the taste

- add a tablespoon of cocoa powder with the flour, or melt chocolate into the milk, for chocolate creme pat

- add a teaspoon of instant coffee powder to the hot milk

- add a shot of liqueur such as Amaretto, Cointreau, rum or brandy for a sophisticated dinner party twist.

Pork and pistachio terrine

It's never really "perfect picnic weather" in the UK, but when the wind dies down and the rain buggers off for half a day, I love to pack up some foil-wrapped parcels and head to a sunny patch of grass for some al fresco drinking. I mean dining. Following on from last month's mushroom pâté recipe (http://bit.ly/2rLw7qr), here's another hamper filler showcasing my highly intagrammable Le Creuset terrine.

I made this traditional farmhouse style pork terrine for our quarterly Barbican Life magazine - hello if you've made it here from there. Acquiring some new (secondhand) pots and pans recently sent me down a fascinating rabbit hole into the history of kitchenware style, where I learnt all about the Le Creuset manufacturing process, and made some shocking discoveries, like Catherine Holm is not an actual person... Anyway, I wrote it all down for the magazine article, which you can get here when it's posted online in mid-June: http://www.barbicanlifeonline.com/barbican-life-magazine/magazine-issues/

A few of my favourite kitchen items posing on the balcony (Don't panic, I took everything back inside straight after so they're not blocking the fire escape - Barbican resident private joke)

This recipe is inspired by one in Elizabeth David's French Provincial Cooking, first published in 1960. It's a classic pork and veal pairing, subtly flavoured with allspice, port and juniper berries, and I added chopped pistachios for some extra crunch.

Ingredients

6-8 shallots, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

500g pork shoulder, finely chopped 

450g sausage meat

400g minced veal

12 juniper berries, crushed

12 back peppercorns, crushed

1/2 tsp cloves, crushed

1/2 tsp ground allspice

1 tbsp fresh parsley and/or thyme

100g shelled pistachios, chopped

2 tbsp port or brandy

16 rashers of streaky smoked bacon

As with the mushroom pâté, if you don't have a terrine dish, rethink your life priorities and/or use a loaf tin instead.

Method

1. Gently fry the chopped shallots in a little oil until starting to colour. Add the garlic and cook for another few minutes, then leave to cool.

2. In a large bowl, combine the cooled shallots and garlic with all the remaining ingredients except the bacon. Mix well, then fry a small lump of the mixture to taste and adjust the seasoning as necessary.

3. Stretch the bacon rashers over the back of a knife so they are long enough to line the terrine or loaf tin with the ends overhanging (about 28cm) - as demostarted by tmy little helper in the pic-strip below:

4. Add the meat mixture to the bacon-lined dish, press down firmly and wrap the overhanging rashers over the top of the meat.

5. Place the terrine in a roasting tin with an inch of water and cook uncovered at 160C for 75 to 90 minutes, until the pâté is starting to come away from the sides of the dish.

6. Remove from the oven, cover with foil and add some weight to the top of the terrine. Most recipes recommend tinned food, but I found that the digital radio was a perfect fit - feel free to be inventive with whatever you have to hand in your kitchen...

7. Cool at room temperature, then pour off any excess fat before chilling until ready to serve; it should come out of the terrine mould quite easily.

To serve, wrap up tightly for transport to the picnic site then slice thickly - it's pretty firm in texture and shouldn't disintegrate when you chomp into it. It also keeps in the fridge for up to a week and freezes well; just thaw completely at room termperature. 

Happy picnicking!

Baked Alaska: my first Fanny classic

This week's recipe has a slightly different origin to my usual charity shop finds; it's from a pile of magazines sent to me by a very generous Twitter follower, and fellow vintage cookbook addict, Cosmic Apple Pips. The hours I've wasted on social media suddenly seem completely worth it! The magazines in question are part of Fanny Cradock's 1970 Cookery Programme, a weekly publication stuffed full of colour photos and "pic-strips", Fanny's rather severe advice and garlic pushing (we didn't like it in the 70s) and a wine column written by her husband, monocle-wearing Johnnie. 

There are so many things I love about the programme, but I think my favourite aspect is the food styling and use of crockery and props, both old and new, which Fanny name checks in the caption - "we think it looks rather nice sting on its 1/ junk shop plate!". If you like the sound of it, there's another blog entirely devoted to the programme called Keep Calm and Fanny On :)

Baked Alaska appears in issue 7, which is all about omelettes... because Fanny says it's called Omelette Novegienne and the Americans have nicknamed it Baked Alaska. And rather than being a technical challenge as evidenced by the Great British Bake Off and the infamous "Bingate" incident, Fanny assures us that it's "far, far easier to make than Yorkshire pudding". So a bit tricky then.

As usual, I've followed the basic rules, as she's very strict about that sort of thing, but added a few of my own variations. I made a fatless sponge for the base according to Fanny's recipe, but rather than using tinned pineapple under the ice cream dome, I made one of our favourite frozen puds, mango sorbet, which is unbelievably simple if you have an ice cream machine, and layered it into the ice cream. And as I've successfully conquered meringues before (http://bit.ly/2sHCZFw) I used the same recipe and technique here.

Ingredients 

For the filling

1 tin mango slices in juice

500ml vanilla ice cream, softened at room temperature

For the sponge

110g caster sugar

3 eggs

70g self-raising flour

For the meringue

6 egg whites

300g caster sugar

Handful chopped pistachios

Method

1. Make the mango sorbet by blitzing the mango slices and juice, then churn in an ice cream maker for 30 minutes until almost completely frozen

2. Line a pudding basin or similar shaped (domed) bowl with cling film. Add half the softened vanilla ice cream and press down. Add the mango sorbet to make a thick layer then freeze for about 10-15 minutes. Add the remainder of the ice cream to fill the bowl, level and wrap in the overhanging cling film. Freeze for at least 2 hours.

3. To make the sponge, heat the sugar in a hot oven for 6 minutes, then tip onto the eggs cracked into a mixing bowl. Beat until light and fluffy and almost double in size, then gently fold in the flour. Pour into a lined circular cake tin, a little larger than your ice cream filled pudding basin, and bake at 180C for 15 minutes. Cool slightly, remove from the tin and, once completely cold, wrap and chill until assembly time.

4. Heat the sugar for the meringue in a hot oven until starting to melt at the edges (this bit is optional but adds a little caramel taste). Whisk the egg whites in a very clean bowl until foamy then throw in the sugar and continue to whisk energetically until the mixture is very stiff. If you're not going to use immediately, chill in the fridge.

5. Assemble quickly: unwrap the chilled sponge and place on a baking tray; unmould the ice cream (a few seconds in hot water will help if it's stuck), remove the film and place the ice cream in the centre of the sponge base; spoon or pipe the meringue all over the ice cream down to the sponge base (I don't have photos of this as thee wasn't time!) then pop in a hot oven at 220C for 5 minutes to brown the meringue. As its too tricky to take photos and assemble a Baked Alaska, here's Fanny's pic-strip featuring the delectable Peter:

The following circumstances do not facilitate the assembly procedure:

- a blocked piping nozzle

- an audience

- very fresh eggs that don't whip as well

- not starting until 10.30pm

and since I made all of these rookie errors, I ended up throwing the meringue onto the ice cream and sponge, while it proceeded to slip down the sides as everything was getting too warm. But it made it into the oven rather than the bin and the final result didn't look too bad:

The sorbet and ice cream were still frozen and the meringue was cooked and gooey. Cutting slices was a bit messy but a handful of toasted pistachios made a good disguise! The sweet meringue and ice cream is perfectly offset by the fresh mango sorbet, and the light sponge holds it all together. Next time, I'd try making individual ones to avoid the messy serving bit, and Mary Berry says you can freeze them for an hour before cooking which might help the presentation. And I'm getting a bigger piping nozzle!