Scottish shortbread

Just lately I have started to be curious about my heritage – perhaps sparked by TV programmes such as ‘Who do you think you are?’ – and all those ‘way back’ predecessors with odd sounding names that I have never met. I have discovered, on my grandmother’s side, that the Clark family hailed from Scotland. In fact, I have an old black and white photo of me dressed in tartan for a family wedding, which I previously thought very strange attire for a 5 year old. Now, of course, I understand that the fabric was an integral part of a clan union.

Now, I wonder, do I have any Scottish traits that I haven’t been aware of or explored? I cannot dance the Highland fling, play the pipes, or toss a large tree in a field of play but, my grandmother’s legacy to me is, I believe, my love of cooking, especially baking. I don’t know why I have never attempted this recipe before but this weekend I fondly thought of her (preparing all those bowls club afternoon teas) and I resolved to make some north of the border shortbread.

These crumbly textured biscuits have very few ingredients, just butter, flour and sugar. In my recipe I used 4oz plain flour, 2oz rice flour (or you could use semolina or cornflour), 4 oz salted butter and 2 oz sugar. I creamed the butter and sugar together until it was light and fluffy, then incorporated the flour. Finally, I kneaded the dough very lightly to bring it together, then rolled it out between two sheets of baking parchment, before cutting into rounds. The oven was set at 180C and they were cooked and golden after 20 mins. When out of the oven and still warm, I dusted the shortbread with caster sugar, before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. They were delicious.

I wonder what other Scottish delicacies I can cook - maybe a Dundee cake the next time I hear my ancestors calling?

Days out in London

To celebrate our wedding anniversary, we recently spent a pre-Olympic long weekend in London. We soaked up the atmosphere. Every famous landmark thronged with crowds of all nations and I’m sure no one realised what a wealth of excitement was to follow. I had meant to write a few lines about our break before now but, much to our amazement, we have been enthralled by the games ever since the opening and have spent many a happy hour glued to the TV. How proud we are of our country and how proud we are of our sportsmen and women.

Before taking our trip, one of my friends posted on Facebook “Have a lovely day.....not too many cakes though” and with those words ringing in my ears I was determined not to succumb to my passion of all things baking ........but how wrong could I be!

On arrival, we found that our hotel near Victoria was almost next door to a wonderful patisserie whose windows displayed the most tempting of cakes and this proved to be my very first London photograph! Could I give in to my current healthy eating plan.....well, I succumbed a little and hubby and I shared a sandwich and a slice of chocolate gateaux - having only half portions appeased my guilty conscience just a little!

A full programme of ‘London things to do’ was planned by me prior to our visit and so, on arrival, we set off and walked to the National Gallery, where I stumbled and fell at the entrance - what a picture that would have made! For pre-theatre dinner I had booked a table in the National Portrait Gallery’s restaurant and we were not disappointed. The restaurant has a birds-eye view over the rear of Trafalgar Square and the majority of London’s iconic buildings. The service was great and the food good – a hidden gem and one which I would recommend. Finally, we enjoyed a performance of ‘Sweeney Todd’. Phew, what a day!

On our second day we walked from Victoria to Green Park to see the Bomber Command Memorial – my uncle Alec, a Flight Engineer, was killed in WWII whilst on a Lancaster bombing raid to Germany. The memorial is awesome and it was a very moving experience to read the numerous notes that relatives had left about loved ones lost.

Our next ticketed event was a tour of Kensington Palace and, since it was another mild sunny day, we decided to continue our walk – Green Park to Kensington High Street. I haven’t visited this part of London for years and I was surprised to find that the department store Barkers had changed to a Whole Food Market. It’s a huge store, covering several floors, with the most mouth-watering displays of every type of edible delight – all organic, many items from small farms, and everything looking so fresh and tasty. Guess what I homed in on? You guessed it, the bakery.....

We enjoyed our leisurely and unhurried stroll though Kensington Palace and Gardens - full of enchanting exhibitions – before taking the Underground back to our hotel. We had walked miles and miles!

On Day 3 we took a pleasure boat from Westminster Pier to Greenwich – happily joining our fellow tourists waving to others on the bank-side and various bridges that we sailed under - and eventually soaked up the atmosphere of a very crowded pre-Olympic Equestrian area. Security was high and we were ‘frisked’ by the Army (a not unpleasant experience) before entering the National Maritime Museum, which proved to be another interesting and fascinating few hours.

The final stop before coming home was to sit – well, I was on holiday – outside Patisserie Valerie eating a tea-time treat and watching the locals go by. What a trip, what an experience, and what wonderful cakes – it’s a good job we don’t have temptations like this in Northamptonshire!

Baking for Amber

There are times, when I’m in the kitchen baking, that I am aware of a pair of large black eyes boring into me and feel the presence of a body ready to pounce onto any scrap of food that hits the floor. Today was such a day and, as I sincerely believe that our pet is just as special, in her own way, as us humans in our family, it reminded me that I hadn’t baked in a while for our elderly but still agile Beagle named Amber.

This dog biscuit recipe is a simple one and ingredients can be changed to whatever you have handy, just so long as the weighed dry amounts tally to the amount of liquid. In today’s instance, I decided to leave out the carrots (they were needed for a casserole later in the day) and substituted it with some cheese and a quantity of muesli - which needed to be used up - in place of porridge oats.

250g wholemeal flour

125g oatmeal

125g porridge oats

150ml rapeseed oil

2 eggs lightly beaten

200g carrots trimmed and grated

2 tsp caraway seeds

2 tbsp chopped parsley (optional)

Preheat oven to 170c. Place all dry ingredients into a bowl and then make a well in the centre and pour in the oil, eggs, caraway, carrots (or cheese) and parsley if using.  Mix with a wooden spoon until it is a sticky dough. Work the dough on a floured work-surface and knead to bring together. Place the dough between two sheets of baking parchment and roll out to about 5mm thick. Cut with a bone-shaped cutter if you have one. Bake for about 45-50 minutes until crisp and golden. Cool on a wire rack. Biscuits will keep for up to 2 months in an airtight container – but not in this house!!!

Of course, I can now tell you, Amber was truly appreciative of my baking efforts especially for her today and I have often thought these tasty morsels would make an ideal Christmas gift for any other dog lover.

Meanwhile, I’m sure my own pooch will let me know, in her own special way, when her very own biscuit tin is empty once more!  

Clandestine Cake Club in July

What could be better than a garden in high summer full of warm sunshine, flora, fauna, wine and friends – old and new - together with the sounds of laughter, animated chat, whoops of delight, and the chinking of glasses? What could raise the bar and make this evening outstanding? How about 20 or more large cakes to share and delight in!

Our local member, Vanessa Kimbell - together with her family - hosted the Northampton & District Clandestine Cake Club’s July event in the lovely garden of their Northamptonshire village house. Well over 30 guests attended and we were also treated to a wine-tasting given by Vanessa’s mother from close-by Fleur Fields vineyard.

Thank you member bakers for bringing the ‘stars of the show’ – cakes in all their summery guises. We had a wonderful variety of flavours and shapes, as you can see from the photographs. The aroma of summer berries - strawberries, cherries, blueberries and raspberries - pervaded the air, together with the scents of elderflower, rose, lemon and chocolate. The cake display looked and tasted like a complete celebration of this season in baking.

A longer report and further photographs can be viewed here: http://clandestinecakeclub.co.uk/2012/07/29/northampton-district/

Open Farm Sunday

A few weeks ago I was listening to The Archers on Radio 4 and my ears pricked up  when one of the characters spoke about Open Farm Sunday organised by LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming) on June 17th. Looking on the internet, I discovered that hundreds of farms throughout the country open their doors to everyone each year, to meet the farmers who grow our food and care for the countryside.

To my delight, when checking the farms in our area, I found that Bottom Farm, the home of Farrington Oils in Hargrave, Northamptonshire was indeed open and, as I very much like to buy local food whenever possible, I thought this would be my opportunity to see where rapeseed oil is grown and bottled.

I recently blogged a little about my use of rapeseed oil in my baking, and the excellent results I had been achieving when substituting this amber liquid in place of fat-rich butter. The flavour doesn’t seem to diminish with this swap and I have followed the tip on Farrington Oils website by including in my cake recipes a little less – say 80% - of the total weight of butter required and adding a little milk, if necessary, to obtain the right consistency.

Anyway, hubby and I donned our wellies - on yet another dull and sadly rainy day - and headed off to Bottom Farm, just 10 minutes down the road. During our visit, we walked the farm tracks and observed the fields of oilseed rape whilst enjoying the knowledgeable and informative talk given to us about the growing of rapeseed, including the use of high-tech computer generated charts showing each field and the areas that may require treatment or fertilizer, as well as the high environmental standards that the farm employs. We also visited the plant where the cold-pressing of the seeds takes place, as well as the bottling area. Finally, we found a display of Farrington’s Mellow Yellow product ranges – I had no idea that there is such a variety!

If you have the chance next year to make a visit on Open Farm Sunday, I would certainly recommend it. Meanwhile, I will continue to bake and cook with this healthy alternative – I’m so pleased that it’s almost grown on my doorstep!

Saturday crumpets

I wonder how many people actually make their own crumpets? These holey, yeasty, rounds have always been a favourite breakfast or tea-time treat in our household, toasted - double-toasted in my case as I like the edges to be crispy and crunchy - slathered with butter and a good dollop of marmalade or jam. Mmmmm....I am salivating at the thought of all that deliciousness.  Shop bought specimens can sometimes be disappointing and so, when our good friends rang and suggested a day of “crumpet experimentation”, I just couldn’t resist!

We followed a fairly simple Hairy Bikers recipe, which was easily found on the BBC website and we discovered that the majority of ingredients were store cupboard essentials – strong (bread) flour, plain flour, dried yeast, salt, sugar, milk, bicarbonate of soda and some water – oh yes, butter (or similar) for greasing the ‘rings’. Chefs' rings, or cooking rings, can be found in many high street or internet shops.

The strong flour, plain flour, dried yeast, salt, sugar and milk were mixed to a stiff batter and then left to rise in a cling-filmed bowl until doubled in size. Bicarbonate of soda and water were then added and the mixture again left for the bubbles to make their magic appearance. This wasn’t a fast process but the resulting gloopy, erupting, mass was now ready for the final stage.

Our rings were buttered and placed to warm in a frying pan and then, when ready, we spooned in the pulsating mixture. As crumpet-making-novices, none of us knew whether the alchemy would work but after browning on one side, the rings were removed, the crumpets turned over and, yes, a small miracle had occurred – they actually looked and tasted like the real thing!

After several batches were griddled, buttered, topped and eaten with relish, we all readily agreed that further “crumpet experimentation” would be required at some time in the future....I can’t wait.

Sweet potato

We lived on the Iberian mainland, near Gibraltar, for 7 years and came to appreciate the local Spanish cuisine. It did, however, take some time to get used to different meal times, different methods of cooking, different ingredients, etcetera but the freshness of staple items like seasonal fish, fruit and vegetables resulted in a simple, but healthy, Mediterranean diet. 

We could see the sea from our front door and we would often have lunch at a seafood restaurant overlooking the beach. It was on one of those occasions that we saw the table next to ours (a Spanish family) eating a strange-looking dessert. It smelled delicious and one of our friends – whose language skills were better than ours – asked what were they eating? “Try some” they said, and the plate was handed over to our table. The dish was actually chunks of orange-fleshed sweet potato (batatas in Spanish), charred at the edges, with crispy skin and smothered in honey. Why had it never occurred to us that it could be used as a pudding?

I think, in the colder countries of Europe, this vegetable has, in the main, been imported due to its need of higher temperatures to grow successfully and, I am advised, doesn’t tolerate frost. But I think it is only in recent years that it has become a common sight in supermarkets but only on the vegetable section, and certainly not classed as a sweet fruit.

It is far more common in Central and South America and perhaps that is how it was brought over and adopted into the Spanish culture. Sweet potatoes have certainly been an important part of the diet in the United States for most of its history. Candied sweet potatoes are prepared with brown sugar, marshmallows, maple syrup, molasses, orange juice, or other sweet ingredients – oh my goodness!

I recently made a cake, adapted from an American recipe, using sweet potato instead of butter and it turned out beautifully. Its moist, sweet texture made it a winner with friends and family and was a revelation. This is a vegetable that is just as delicious when used as its sweet name implies but equally satisfying when used in a savoury guise. How clever!