Italian Moka cake: a crunchy coffee and almond dessert

It's been a while since I baked a cake, and as I got an icing turntable and palette knives for Christmas, it seemed like a good time to rebel against kale crisps and eat cake. In celebration of Fake New Year (a belated party with all our friends who were away over the festive period), I decided to bake two, both from Italian Pastries and Desserts (1974). The Moka cake caught my eye because a) there was a photo of it and b) the decoration looked classy but achievable. The second cake was a Sacher Torte and I'll post it later this week. Spoiler alert: not as good as this cake.

Aside from the decoration, the cake itself, a genoese sponge, was a new challenge for me, although it makes regular appearances on the Great British Bake Off. The ingredients don't include any raising agents, such as baking powder or self raising flour, so you need to incorporate plenty of air as you whip together the eggs and sugar, then make sure to keep the air as you fold in the butter and flour. This should result in a light but firm sponge, and is used as the basis for many patisserie creations. I can't find any reason why this method is better than using chemical raising agents, so maybe it's just a fun way to stress out home bakers.

Ingredients

For the Genoese sponge:

250g caster sugar

8 eggs

250g plain flour

100g unsalted butter 

A shot of kalua and a shot of amaretto (optional, and unpictured as decided to add halfway through...)

For the coffee cream icing:

1/2 pint milk

3 drops vanilla extract

130g caster sugar

4 egg yolks

150g unsalted butter

2 tbsp instant coffee 

3 handfuls flaked almonds

Method

Make the sponge a day or two before decorating (and eating) the cake.

1. Beat together the sugar and eggs vigorously (with an electric mixer if you have one) over a pan of water, heating gently. Keep mixing until it has doubled in volume and the whisk leaves ribbons in the mix - it will take a good few minutes.

 2. Take off the heat and whisk in the liqueur if using. Fold in the flour using a figure of eight movement to avoid knocking out the air. Warm the butter and dribble down the side of the bowl and fold in gently.

3. Lightly grease and line a deep 20cm cake tin with baking paper, and sprinkle with flour. Pour in the cake mixture.

4.  Bake in a preheated oven at 180C for 50 minutes, or until the whole cake is golden brown. This leaves plenty of time to go to work on licking the bowl...

5. Leave to cool, remove from the tin and cool completely on a wire rack. Store in an airtight container until ready to decorate.

For the icing and decorating:

1. Make a crême anglaise by heating the milk gently to boiling point, adding the vanilla and taking off the heat.  Beat the eggs and sugar together then add the cooled milk.

2. Return to the heat until the cream has thickened enough to coat the back if a spoon. Cool, then pour onto the butter in a bowl and combine, add the coffee and mix well. 

3. Toast the flaked almonds in a dry frying pan, shaking regularly.

 4. Cut the cake in half horizontally and spread some coffee cream over the bottom layer, smoothing with wet palette knife.

5. Add the top half of the cake and cover completely with the cream. When set, decorate with the toasted almonds and a sprinkling of icing sugar.

The final cake has a moist sponge with a hint of coffee and almond from the liqueurs, and a rich creamy coffee topping balanced with the crunchy almonds.

Serve with prosecco and complimentary friends for a very happy new year!

Slow-cooked Hungarian Goulash for a cosy night in

Cold, damp January evenings call for comforting stews and warm bread for dunking, eaten by candlelight with thick woolly socks on - or a 'Hygge' night in as its now commonly known. If you were lucky enough to get a slow cooker for Christmas, this is a straightforward dish to try out your new toy, and slow cooking is ideal for using cheaper cuts of meat if the purse strings are a little tight this month. Just don't go mad and slow cook everyday, as stews can get a bit "samey" and may lead to remarks such as "is there a war on?"...

Goulash recipes have remained fairly unchanged over the years, with beef, tomatoes, red pepper, paprika and caraway seeds as the staple ingredients. I used a recipe from Crockery Pot Cooking published in 1978, with some adaptations from Miss South's Slow Cooked, one of my favourite present day cookbooks. One difference was the addition of carrot in the 1978 recipe, which I kept in the spirit of hitting 5-a-day, but on reflection didn't add to the final dish. I also left out the wine and just used stock, which may seem surprising but Felicity Cloake reported in her Perfect column that it was wasted in this stew, and that's the last thing I want to do with wine!

To brown or not to brown: slow cooker recipes offer conflicting advice on this. Some claim browning the meat before slow cooking seals in the flavour, while others feel that you leave behind the best bits in the browning pan. My slow cooker comes with a removable crock pot that can be use on the hob, so I brown the meat and get to keep all the best bits too. 

The Bearded Argentinian suggested serving the goulash with spätzle, a German/Austrian gnocchi-like pasta - this is a very common combination in Patagonia, so much so that the Bearded Argentinian isn't quite sure which bit is goulash and which is spätzle... I've included a brief bonus recipe for the spätzle within the method as I just got it off t'internet. Mashed potato also goes very well.

Ingredients

(Serves 4)

600g braising steak, in large chunks

2 tbsp plain flour, seasoned with salt and pepper

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, chopped finely

2 carrots, chopped into medium sized chunks 

1 red pepper, chopped

1 tin chopped tomatoes

2 tbsp paprika (sweet smoked is best)

1tsp caraway seeds

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tin plum tomatoes

500ml beef stock

Sour cream and chives to serve

Method

1. Coat the meat with flour, season and brown all over in a little oil 

2. Add the onion, garlic and carrot and cook for a few minutes until softened (spot the deliberate mistake - forgot to add the carrot!). 

If you don't want to brown the meat and veg, just add everything raw from steps 1 and 2 to the slow cooker and go straight to the next step.

3. Blitz the can of chopped tomatoes with the red pepper and spices to make a purée.

4. Add the purée to the meat and veg and stir to coat everything.

5. Add the plum tomatoes and stock, put on the lid and cook on low for 8-10 hours.

Don't peek! However tempting it is, lifting the lid can add up to 20 minutes to the cooking time, so be patient and just enjoy the lovely warm smell...

Bonus spätzle recipe (from AllRecipes.co.uk): mix 125g plain flour with a grating of nutmeg and a pinch of salt and pepper. Beat 2 eggs with 4 tbsp milk then stir into the flour and leave for 15 minutes. To cook the spätzle, push the batter through the holes in a colander or steamer into a pan of boiling water to make their characteristic noodle shape, and cook for 5 minutes. Before serving, brown the drained spätzle in butter.

When the goulash is ready, the meat will fall apart, the carrots will be soft and the sauce will have thickened slightly.  Serve with a generous dollop of sour cream and a sprinkling of chives.

Happy Hygge!

2-4-1 Christmas edition: glazed ham and pease pudding

Ham and pease pudding were, in our house, essential ingredients of a "choosy tea" - a kind of buffet where you get to choose what you want, not the brand of cat food. My Granny always made the pease pudding and although I never saw her do it, I had the distinct impression it had something to do with the water from a boiled ham...

For some reason I've never cooked a ham before, possibly because Appleton's butchers in Ripon do such tasty sliced ham (see also: Hatty's tea shop). So for this week's bumper Christmas issue, I've made a festive glazed ham studded with cloves, and a batch of pease pudding to go with the cold leftovers.

The recipe for the baked ham was easy enough to find: I used a 1977 St Michael All Colour cookery book, a joyous riot of 70s colours sourced from a secondhand shop on Brick Lane. The pease pudding recipe was a bit trickier to find, but as southerners always look at me blankly when I mention it, I tried Elizabeth Craig's Scottish Cookery book from 1965, a kind donation from a fellow Barbicanite. Her recipe is straightforward but doesn't mention the involvement of any ham. Mrs Beeton's All About Cookery (awarded to Edna Dash for third place a cake-making competition in 1933) has two versions, one of which involves boiling the peas in a muslin pouch alongside the ham. As it turned out, my pan wasn't big enough for both, so I cooked the peas separately and topped up the cooking water with a little ham stock.

Ingredients

Glazed Ham: 

(Serves at least 4 with plenty of leftovers for a choosy tea)

1 smoked gammon* joint (about 1.5 - 2 kg), either soaked overnight in cold water or boiled in water for 10 minutes.

For the stock

6 peppercorns

6 juniper berries

2 carrots, scrubbed and cut into large chunks

2 small onions, peeled, halved and studded with a few cloves

2 stocks of celery, cut into large chunks 

3 bay leaves

For the glaze 

2 tbsp runny honey

2 tbsp English mustard

About 12 cloves

*if you're wondering, as I did, what the difference is between gammon and ham, they're the same cut of meat but gammon is the raw joint and ham is the cooked result. 

Pease pudding

(Serves enough - not many people like it!)

250ml dried split peas

1 egg

1 tbsp butter

Salt and pepper 

Glazed ham method

1. Drain the joint and discard the water. Cover with fresh cold water and add the stock ingredients. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes per 500g until tender.

2. Remove from the pan and allow to cool slightly (the cooking liquid can be strained to make a lovely ham stock). Heat the oven to 200C, and make the glaze by mixing together the mustard and honey.

3. Remove the rind for the joint (it will peel away quite easily), leaving as much fat as possible. Score the fat in a diamond pattern and press a clove into the middle of each diamond. Brush the whole joint with half the glaze.

4.  Bake on a roasting tray in the oven for 10 minutes then add the rest of the glaze and bake for another 10 minutes until brown and crisp. Rest the joint for 15 minutes before carving and serving.

The sweetness of the joint is well balanced with creamy potatoes (dauphinoise or mash) and some punchy green veg such as sprouts.

Pease pudding method 

1. Soak the peas in water for a couple of hours then drain and tie up in a piece of muslin or pudding cloth.

2. Place the bag of peas in a pan of boiling water (or alongside the ham if you've got a pan big enough) and simmer for 1.5 hours until very soft.

3. Drain the peas then rub them through a wire sieve to make a purée - almost all of the peas will go through.

4. Add the beaten egg and butter, season with salt and butter and add a little sugar to taste if needed.

5. Tie up tightly in the muslin again and simmer for another 20 minutes.

The end result is a rather unappetising yellowy-green purée but for me it tastes just as it should with the leftover ham and some cheese and pickle.

Has anyone else even heard of it? Anyone like it?!

Smoking hot chilli con carne

This classic "Mexican" dish is not from a recipe book or the Bearded Argentinian as you might suspect, but from my Dad, Barry. Here's a photo of my Dad in the 70s to set some context (#nofilter, colours were just like that in the 70s).

This is a truly warming winter meal and tastes even better the following day or out of the freezer - good job as my Dad always makes a vat of it. So, like Cate's shepherd's pie, another great option for a 'make ahead and freeze' meal for over the holding period (although granted, it's probably a bit late for this holiday period...).

Top tips from Barry that I've picked up over the years include: using plum tinned tomatoes rather than chopped as they are more intense; adding a combination of mild and hot chilli powders, as the mild has more flavour whereas the hot has the kick; and simmering the chilli for as long as you can. I've also added my own twist, adapted from a pulled pork dish by Felicity Cloake in Perfect Host: adding a shot of espresso coffee for a lovely rich smokiness.

Ingredients

(Serves 4)

1 onion

500g beef mince

2 teaspoons mild chilli powder

2 teaspoons hot chilli powder (for medium-hot; adjust ratio depending on spice tolerance)

2 whole fresh chillis (optional)

1 beef stock cube

1 tin plum tomatoes in juice

1 shot fresh espresso coffee

1 tin red kidney beans

Method

1.  Chop the onion and cook gently in a tablespoon of olive oil for a few minutes. Add the mince and brown.

2. Add the spices and fresh chillis (if using), crumble in the stock cube, tip in the tomatoes, refill the tin with water and add that too, then add the coffee and season.

3. Cover and sImmer for at least 45 minutes, longer if possible, adding more water if it becomes to dry.

4. Break up the plum tomatoes and add the kidney beans; cook for another 10 minutes. The sauce should be thick and not at all watery.

Serve with rice or a jacket potato, maybe a dollop of yoghurt to cool the spices, for a warming (and filling) meal.

Chicken soup for "invalids"

"Wife, mother, sister, whoever does the Christmas catering must be able to enjoy herself with the others..." begins the Christmas chapter of my 1964 edition of Woman's Own cookbook. This latest addition to my collection of retro recipe books (thanks Dad!) is a true housewife's handbook that's not only massively sexist but also packed with colour photographs and recipes for all occasions.

The occasion I was cooking for this week was 'having a cold'... the Bearded Argentinian and I have both been suffering this month. Luckily this cookbook has an entire chapter entitled "Invalid cookery", featuring (allegedly) inviting food to tempt flagging appetites. The chicken broth recipe, however, is a bit sparse, using just the liquor from a boiled fowl, simmered for 2 hours with chicken bones, then strained. That's it. Still, rather that than Brain Scallop, the next recipe in the chapter...

So I decided we weren't that poorly and we could probably manage something a bit more substantial. And even better, to get to a chicken carcass, you've got to have a roast chicken first, haven't you? 

(Just showing off...)

Ingredients:

Serves 2-3

1 chicken carcass and any leftover meat

1 small carrot

1 small onion

1 stick of celery

1 bay leaf

1 bouquet garni

50g rice or pearl barley

Chopped fresh parsley

Method:

1. Peel and slice the vegetables

2. Put all the ingredients in a large pan and cover with water. Bring to the boil, season with salt and pepper, and simmer for 2 hours. Skim regularly to remove any scum.

3. To serve, either strain the soup and just serve the broth, or remove the carcass, bay leaf and bouquet garni and serve with all the bits in. Garnish with fresh parsley and a side of lemsip.

Get well soon!

Back to tradition with a batch of cheese scones

After last week's exotic excursion to South America, this week I felt like baking something simple (jet lag) and traditionally English. And what's more English than scones? My youngest sister Hatty makes the best scones in Yorkshire - maybe the best scones in England but it's hard to tell because they never last long enough to make it out of Yorkshire. If you want one/three, you can get them in her cafe, the Jam Jar in Ripon. I think cheese scones make a regular appearance on Thursdays, which is market day.

People often ask Hatty for her scone recipe, expecting it to be some long held family secret. In fact, it's from the free recipe book that comes with Be-Ro flour, although no one ever believes it. And as you'll see from my attempt, there's clearly some other magic involved...

Mum's had a well-thumbed copy of this book for as long as I can remember (i.e. the 70s!); my copy is a bit newer but the recipes are exactly the same.

Ingredients

(makes about 8)

175g self-raising flour

1/2 tsp mustard powder

Pinch of salt and pepper

25g butter or margarine

75g grated cheese

1 egg

2 tbsp milk

Method

- Mix the flour and seasonings together, then rub in the cold fat

- Stir in the cheese, keeping a bit to sprinkle over the top

- Mix together the egg and milk, then add to the dry mix to make a soft dough

- Roll out and cut out, either triangles or using a fluted cutter (but see the Tips section later on this). Brush with a little milk or egg and sprinkle with the leftover cheese

- Bake at 220C for 10 to 15 minutes until golden brown.

Now embarrassingly, you'll notice that despite the camera angle, these scones are biscuit flat! 

The Bearded Argentinian assures me that they taste delicious, but if I want to practice with a few more batches, he'll do his best to test them all. There I was thinking that scone-making was in my genes, and out come these failures... So I did a bit of research:

Tips for not making flat scones:

- Firstly, I had no idea there was such variety in recipes: raising agents, flour types, eggs vs no eggs, lard vs butter vs margarine...

- Most likely, the butter had something to do with it, as I only had spreadable butter to hand, and cold hard block butter is probably better

- Consulting the scone oracle Hatty, you don't need to roll them out either, just pat the dough down and leave them much thicker (can't believe this is against what the BeRo book says!). Then they might turn out more like these beauties:

(https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g209973-d3906140-Reviews-The_Jam_Jar-Ripon_North_Yorkshire_England.html?m=19904)