David in the kitchen.

Sharing bread with my father.

As part of the creative writing course I’m currently doing we were asked yesterday to come up with two lists relating to the current situation. One showing the positives we think are coming out of it and the other listing the negatives. After much thought and head scratching I was half way down the page with negatives, while struggling to get beyond the third line with the positives.

There was one which came instantly to mind though and that was the benefits it’s having on some long distance relationships. I’m thinking primarily of my father who lives about sixty miles away from where I am. I don’t think there has ever been a period where we’ve gone so long without seeing each other, but at the same time I don’t think there has been a period where we have talked so much. Of course we’ve always spoken and called each other, particularly in the years since my mother died, but somehow now there feels to be a more serious interest in each others lives. A desire to exchange news, anecdotes and sometimes gossip that wasn’t there beforehand. It’s even reached the point where we’ve started to discuss cooking and what he’s planning to do with all of the produce he currently has growing on his allotment.

My father is the age band who’ve have been told to self isolate but luckily he’s surrounded by supportive younger neighbours who regularly check up on him and have been getting supplies for him on their supermarket trips. If I tell you that top of his list the last time the couple next door asked if he needed anything was three bottles of red wine and some madjewel dates, it’s clear he’s not doing too bad.

The last time we spoke he was planning to make some bread. Like most of us he’d run out of flour for a while but then within a couple of days two of his support network left a bag of it on his doorstep. This led us on to another food discussion which ended with us swapping recipes. A first that definitely wouldn’t have happened but for coronavirus isolation.

The recipe I gave my dad is my bread ‘go to’, the one I’ve been baking at least twice a week for the last couple of months. When I first started to use this I was very precise about the fact that the flour had to be a mixture of spelt and rye, now it doesn’t matter though. I’ve made it with whatever flour is available and it works. A quick, easy to make home made bread.

Ingredients

10g Dried yeast
350g warm water
3tbsp runny honey
250g dark rye flour
250g white spelt flour
1tsp sea salt
50g mixed seeds -these are a nice to have but the bread works fine if you don’t have any or just want to leave them out.

Method

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water and add the honey
Combine the flours, salt and seeds in a bowl. Mix together.
Pour the wet yeast mixture into the flour mix. Combine with a fork and your hands until you have a sticky dough.
Tip the dough onto a floured surface and kneed for 5 minutes. If you have a mixer with a dough hook you can use that.
Return the dough to the bowl, cover it with a tea towel and leave in a warm place to prove for an hour.
After an hour briefly kneed the dough again then form it into a flat oval, place it on a floured baking tray, cover with a tea towel and leave to prove for another 30 minutes.
Pre heat the oven to gas mark 8 and place an empty baking tray in the bottom of the oven
After the second prove is complete half fill the baking tray with cold water. This will create steam in the oven and help to form a good crust on the bread.
Bake the bread 30 minutes. When the bread is ready it will sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.

To get the rings on the bread as I have in the picture you will need a proving basket If you prove your dough in one of these it expands into the rattan the basket is made of and creates the circles that you can see on the crust after baking.

Lemon semolina cake

One of the things I’m enjoying about writing this blog is how much I’m finding out as I do it. Not only am I learning from the research I do prior to writing but also from the feedback and questions people ask me after I’ve posted. Yesterdays example of this was when I learned that there are different grades of semolina. I’d shared a picture on Twitter of a lemon cake I’d baked and very quickly found myself in an exchange which finished up with me being asked what grade the semolina in the recipe was. I checked the packet and other than saying it was wholemeal there was no grade listed, the best I could offer was that it looked quite fine and powdery. It transpired the person who contacted me had made a semolina cake recently which they’d been very disappointed with and they were trying to work out why. All I can assume is some semolina is courser than other and and I can see how that could lead to a heavy and dry cake. Thankfully that definitely isn’t the case with this one as it manages to be light, sticky and tangy all in one mouthful.

If you do have semolina in your store cupboard at the moment this is a great cake to make as there is very little flour in it. Like many people my flour supplies are rapidly diminishing and the baking supply shelves in the supermarkets are still pretty barren. I did see a report on TV last week which said the mills were working flat out at the moment but my guess is that the baking trade is taking priority, with stocks for the domestic cook not their immediate concern. Until things change it’s going to be a case of looking for recipes like this one from Ruby Tandoh that help us eke out what we have.

Ingredients for the cake

125g Unsalted butter – softened
125g caster sugar
2 eggs – lightly beaten
Zest & juice of 2 large or 3 smaller lemons*
100g semolina
60g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
20g Icing sugar

Ingredients for the syrup

60g caster sugar
Lemon juice

Method

Pre heat the oven to gas mark 4. Grease and line a 20cm loose bottomed cake tin
Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, lemon zest, semolina and a table spoon of the lemon juice and stir them in.
In a separate bowl combine the flour baking powder and salt. Add the flour mix to the wet ingredients and stir to combine.
Pour the mixture into the lined cake tin and bake for 25 minutes. A skewer inserted into the middle of the cake should come out clean when it is ready.
While the cake is baking make the syrup by combining the sugar and lemon juice in a saucepan over a low heat. Let it bubble for a couple of minutes until the mixture thickens a little.
A soon as the cake is ready use a fork or skewer to pierce the top before spooning the syrup over it. Let the cake cool in the tin for about 10 minutes before transferring it to a wire rack.
To off set the lemon tang of the cake finish off with a light dusting of icing sugar over the top.

* This may look like more lemon juice than you need but trust me the cake can take it. The semolina soaks up the juice and the taste is wonderful.

Lockdown luxury

The last few weeks have made me feel as if I need to be a bit abstemious in my baking. I’m not saying that it’s made me feel I need to bake any less, quite the opposite in fact, but what it has done is made me feel I need to be careful with what I’m using. As a result there’s been lots of sensible, practical baking but not a great deal of luxury and indulgence. That was until a couple of days ago when I finally gave in to my sweet tooth and baked what I like to think of as a weekend cake.

The plan started to form on Friday. I’d gone on a shopping expedition to our local supermarket, armed with a list of all the essentials we needed. It was when I was at the chiller cabinet reaching for a bottle of milk that I saw cartons of double cream on the shelf below. There can be no clearer indication of the changes that lockdown has bought than the fact I actually stood there prevaricating as to whether I should put some in my basket or not. I’ll admit that I didn’t prevaricate for long but it did feel strange that something I was buying more weeks than not up until only a month ago suddenly seemed illicit and a little bit naughty. I almost felt as if I had to smuggle it back into the house.

The plan of what exactly to use the cream for fell into place that night. I was sorting through our freezer just to check what we had when I found a bag of cherries. They dated from a time last summer when we had more than we knew what to do with and now they were going to be the perfect cream accompaniment on my cake.

The third piece of the plan was the cake itself and there was only ever one recipe I was going to use. It’s a sponge that might be a little denser than those you are used to, but in using muscovado sugar and spelt flour rather than the normal caster sugar and self raising flour it packs so much more flavour.

Ingredients

150g softened butter
80g dark muscovado sugar
1tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs
Grated zest of half an orange
3.5 tbsp milk
150g wholemeal spelt flour
1tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt

Method

Pre heat the oven to gas mark 4. Grease and line two 20cm round cake tins
Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla in a bowl until the mixture is pale. I used a hand held electric whisk for this.
Stir in the eggs one at a time. Then stir in the orange zest and milk.
In a separate bowl combine the flour, baking powder and salt.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet in three stages. After each stage stir until the mixture is just combined.
Divide the mixture between the two tins and smooth it out.
Bake for 20 minutes. The cakes should be risen and a golden brown colour, a skewer pressed into the centre should come out clean.
Release the cakes from the tins and leave to cool for at least 30 minutes before you add any cream to them.

To assemble the cake I simply whipped the cream with a whisk until it was thick, you could add a little sugar but I prefer not to, and chopped the thawed cherries. I then sandwiched most of each between the two cakes and decorated the top with the rest. The result was some much needed lockdown luxury.

It’s the little things

I’m finding it’s the little things that matter most at the moment. As the days merge together and none of us have a clue how much longer this will be going on for it’s the little moments that stand out and set days apart.

Last weekend I noticed that The Book Hive , our excellent local independent bookshop here in Norwich, are running a lucky dip on their website. For £10 they will pick one of the staff’s favourite paperbacks off the shelf and send it to you and for £20 they will send a hardback. In many cases the books cost more than the lucky dip price and there is no additional cost for postage. In addition to these two they are also running a cookbook lucky dip and that’s the one that I went for. Given the size of my cookbook library there was always the risk of receiving a duplicate but I needn’t have worried. Only two days after ordering, remarkably quick in the current circumstances, a copy of Syria – Recipes From Home dropped through my letterbox and I’ve been hooked from the moment I opened it. It’s beautifully photographed, full of fascinating recipes and I don’t think that I’ve ever relished having a new cookbook quite so much. I’ll admit that many of the recipes are going to require a post lockdown shopping expedition but somehow that doesn’t matter. It’s something to plan and look forward to. When I do get to cook from it I’ll definitely be sharing here.

Another recent day changing moment was when a birthday card and present turned up three months late. It was from my friend AlisonTyler who’s been going through some horrendous times since her husband had a stroke late last year. He is now home with her but as I know Alison is so busy looking after him I was moved that she’d found time to send something. A gesture that meant a great deal.

Banana bread

I’m sure that at the moment we all have stories we can tell about people who are doing something to help in these difficult times. Whether it’s looking out for neighbours who need extra support, putting themselves in front of the public everyday as they keep a food store open or just in general working to keep peoples spirits up. Whatever it is it’s important and I’d like to think that whenever we do reach the point of what the new normal is going to be that we can carry some of this spirit into it.

One of the people doing something extra that I’m most grateful for is the landlady of our local pub. Within 24 hours of the lockdown bringing her normal business to an end she’d opened a fruit and veg stall on the carpark and it’s been there everyday since. There’s a great range on offer and with social distancing being observed it’s wonderful to be able to shop outside rather than have to venture into a store. It’s almost as if you can imagine farmers markets were still open.

I’ve been going a couple of times a week and on yesterdays trip one of my purchases was a big bag of bananas. It was only when I got home that I realised just how big, as I counted out ten into the fruit bowl. That’s far more than we’re ever going to eat just as fruit, but never fear Ive already baked banana bread with some and tomorrow we’re indulging in my childhood favourite of bananas and custard.

If life gives you a glut of bananas incorporating some into bread is a great way to use them up. This one is particularly good as the seeds and demerara give it a crunchy topping. The recipe makes one large loaf or can be split to make two smaller ones.

Ingredients for the cake

100g soft butter
150g muscovado sugar *
200g self raising flour
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 eggs
2 bananas – mashed

Ingredients for the topping

25g pumkin seeds
25g sunflower seeds
1tbsp demerara sugar *

Method

Grease and line either one 900g tin or two 450g. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4
Measure the butter, muscovado sugar flour and bicarb into a bowl, add the eggs and banana and whisk with a hand held food mixer until combined. Pour the mixture into the tin and sprinkle the seeds and demerara sugar across the top.
Bake for 35 to 40 minutes. It should be risen and golden and a skewer inserted into the middle should come out clean.
Allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes that tip onto a wire rack.

* Any sugars will work in this recipe. I just picked these two as I believe they add the most flavour.

Cardamom tea cakes with cinnamon sugar topping.

I was going to start this post with a reference to how long we’ve been in lockdown, but as I keep losing track of time and never seem to know what day of the week it is I’d probably get it wrong if I tried. So I’ll just make do with saying that I hope everyone is ok and still hanging in there.

When this strange period started I thought that it might herald a time of being super productive. The hope was that being forced to stay in would leave me with no option but to get on with all those tasks I’d been putting off, making inroads on my ‘to read’ book list, writing and posting on here more often. Unfortunately none of that seems to be happening as the longer this goes on the harder I seem to find it to concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes. Books get picked up and put down after just a few pages and writing for this blog doesn’t seem to be happening very easily at the moment.

All I can say is thank goodness for baking. There aren’t many days that don’t find me in the kitchen producing something and that is proving a much needed central point to my lockdown routine. Thankfully I was well stocked with flour when this started and as long as supplies last I’ll be making most of the bread that we eat in this house. I’m also making cakes on a regular basis as somehow a sweet treat at some point during the day feels more important than ever right now.

Normally at Easter I like to make the traditional Simnel_cake but a lack of marzipan in the house put paid to that idea. We did have a glut of apples though and that gave me the chance to make a wonderful apple upside down. It may sound relatively plain, but with the sliced apples that formed the top of the cake sitting in homemade caramel it proved suitably indulgent for the long weekend and I’ll share the recipe in a later post.

The recipe I want to share here today is for the baking I did earlier this afternoon. Baking which has left the wonderful scents of cardamom and cinnamon in my kitchen. Like many of the recipes I’ve shared recently it’s quite a quick bake and also one that makes limited demands on the store cupboard.

The recipe makes a dozen generous sized cakes so half it if you don’t want that many at one go.

Ingredients for the cakes

150g unsalted butter..melted
255g plain flour
135g sugar
2.5 tsp baking powder
0.5 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cardamom
0.5 tsp salt
1 egg
240ml milk

Ingredients for the topping

65g sugar
1tsp ground cinnamon
0.25 tsp ground cardamom
Pinch of salt
30g unsalted butter.. melted

Method

Preheat the oven to gas mark 4 and grease a 12 hole muffin tin. Just grease the bottom of each hole.
In a bowl mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cardamom and salt
In another bowl mix the egg, milk and melted butter.
Pour the wet mixture into the dry and stir until mixed.
Scoop the mixture into the muffin tin and bake for 25 minutes.
While the tea cakes are baking mix the topping ingredients together.
Once the tea cakes are out of the oven leave them to cool in the tin for about five minutes. Then take them out and brush each with the topping mixture.

These cakes keep for a few days in an air tight container but it’s a bake that tastes even better if you have one while they are still warm

Chilli cornbread pie

I’ve mentioned in a couple of my recent posts that flexible recipes are what we need at the moment. Recipes which can be tweaked and amended to take into account what you have, or more importantly don’t have, in your store cupboard. With the one I’m sharing today I think I’ve found a near perfect example. In it’s full glory and if you have all of the ingredients its a chilli cornbread pie, but if you need to change things about it’s wonderfully adaptable.

I’ve been making this for a while now and it’s become a firm favourite in our house. A sign of how a version can be made to suit all tastes is that even my partners 89 year old mother enjoys it. I’m not being disrespectful , it’s just when I’m cooking for her I have to remove all hints of chilli. I quickly found the answer is to add some additional sweet red peppers and everyone is happy.

The pie topping is very nearly a meal in itself. It doesn’t look to be much when you mix the ingredients and spread them across the pie just before you put it in the oven. However by the time it come out its risen to something between bread and a soft dumpling.

The list of ingredients may look daunting but don’t let this put you off. Just use it as a starting point to make your own version

The pie serves 6

Ingredients for the filling

Beef mince 500g – I’ve made versions using veg mince and last week used chopped sausages.
Onion – 1 large chopped
Green pepper – diced
Red pepper – diced
Garlic – 2 cloves crushed
Dried Oregano – 2tsp
DriedCumin – 2tsp
Ground cumin – 2tsp
Chilli powder – 1tbsp
Tomato puree -1 tbsp
Chopped tomatoes – 400g tin
Chicken stock – 300ml – any stock will work and if you don’t have any use water
Brown sugar – 2tsp
Jalapeños – 2 tbsp of chopped fresh or pickled

Ingredients for the topping

Instant polenta – 100g
Plain flour – 200g
Baking powder – 2tsp
Eggs – 2
Whole milk – 250ml
Plain yoghurt – 100ml
Butter – 50g melted
Cheddar – 150g grated

Method

Heat a large pan and crumble in the mince. Cook until browned all over.
Add the onions, pepper and garlic. Cover and cook on a low to medium heat for 10 minutes, add the spices and cook for a further 2 minutes, then stir in the tomato puree, tomatoes, stock and brown sugar. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 20 minutes until the mixture has thickened to a sauce consistency. If using the jalapeños add half at this point. Tip the mixture into a large one proof dish.
Heat the oven to gas mark 5
Put all of the topping ingredients, including the other half of the jalapeños, in a bowl and whisk them until the mixture comes together. Spoon on to the top of the pie dish and spread it across the filling mixture.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until the topping is golden and risen.

If you’re like me your cupboards are probably starting to look a little bare. I found this article in todays Guardian and thought I’d share it as it has good suggestions on substitutes to use if you are out of some of the basics.

no-flour-pasta-or-eggs-the-perfect-substitutes-for-20-common-ingredients

Soft spiced apple cake..Monday comfort baking

I don’t think I’ve ever thought about food quite as much as I’m doing at the moment. I’m sure we’re all a bit like that, what with the combination of more time on our hands and limited opportunities for stocking up, but as someone who’s been known to list food as a hobby before now I didn’t think it could ever feature much larger in my life. If I’m not thinking about what to make for tonights dinner, I’m already onto planning tomorrows. If I’m not not checking store cupboards and shelves, I’m mentally writing the next shopping list.

Hunting through cookbooks for recipes was always an integral part of Sunday morning and the current situation hasn’t changed that. Yesterday I found a cake that is perfect for these times. It’s quick and undemanding on the store cupboard shelves and most importantly it can be quite easily switched around to make use of what you have to hand.

The recipe is from Ruby Tandoh’s Flavour-Eat-What-You-Love .If Ruby’s name sounds familiar it’s because she was a Bake Off finalist back in 2013 and also a Guardian food columnist for a few years. If you’ve never tried her recipes before there’s a selection here and they’re well worth investigating best-baking-recipes-from-ruby-tandoh. I’ve baked most of these at some point or other and particularly recommend the rye, vanilla & poppy seed bread.

Mention of Bake Off has just made me realise that it will probably be another of the coronavirus victims. It doesn’t air on TV until later in the year but the recordings normally start around now. I predict a lot of bakers will have withdrawal symptoms come the autumn if it doesn’t happen. I suppose we could always have our own competition and share bakes here.

If you’re in need of of some comfort baking today the recipe for Ruby’s soft spiced apple cake is below. The ingredients list may look long but think of it as a best case scenario for if you had all of the spices available. As Ruby says in her book you can cut the spices down to just 3 teaspoons of mixed spice and miss everything else out if you want. The end result will still be a good cake.

Ingredients

150g unsalted butter
150g soft light brown sugar
2 eggs
75g plain flour
75g wholemeal flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
1tsp ground cinnamon
1tsp ground ginger
3 cardamom pods, seeds only, crushed
0.5tsp ground coriander
0.25tsp ground white pepper
0.25tsp ground nutmeg
0.25tsp ground allspice
pinch of salt
2 apples peeled, cored and diced. Ideally Braeburn or Cox but anything you have to hand should work.
1tbsp demerara sugar

Method

Heat the oven to gas mark 4 and line a 20cm round cake tin.
Beat together the butter and light brown sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, continue beating after each egg until fully combined.
Add all of the dry ingredients except for the diced apple and stir until smooth.
Fold 75% of the diced apple into the batter.
Spoon the batter into the tin and smooth it out. Scatter the remaining 25% of diced apple on top and gently press it in. Sprinkle the demerara sugar over the top.
Bake the cake for 35 to 45 minutes. If the cake is ready a knife or skewer poked into the middle of it should come out clean.

It’s only when you can’t you realise how much you want to.

When I called my father last weekend to see how he’s coping with coronavirus self isolation he told me he’s taking the opportunity to learn new skills. At that point the achievements were making pastry for the first time and setting up Skype on his tablet so that he can keep in touch with his granddaughters. Granddaughters who now think they have a very cool grandad. When we spoke again a couple of days later he’d started playing online Bridge and no doubt there will be another string to his bow by the next time I call. In addition to the skills gathering he’s making plans for things he wants to do when all this is over and we can get outside again.

His positive attitude at 85 years old felt as if it was putting me to shame a bit and got me to thinking about all that I’ve prevaricated over in recent years. The thing that I don’t want to finish up regretting never having done. At a time like this when so much is out of our control it feels like a good idea to write down some things that are.

I might be making myself a hostage to fortune but I’ve been thinking about:

Grabbing opportunities if they arise..rather than being slightly scared by them.
Stepping outside of my comfort zone..looking for new avenues to expand my baking.
Travelling..it’s only when you can’t you realise how much you want to.
Writing more..I’ve enjoyed this blog so much since I started.
Maybe even learning to drive..I’ve survive this long without but they say it’s never too late.

I could go on and probably will. We’re going to be inside for a while yet so I’m sure my list will grow.

In the meantime stay safe and I’ll let you know if dad learns anymore new skills.

If you can’t get to the coffeeshop let the coffeeshop come to you.

I’ll never take a coffeeshop visit for granted again. I used that sentence as a one liner on Twitter last week and the responses showed me I’m clearly not the only one going through withdrawal symptoms, as we all sit at home wandering how long social isolation will have to go on for.

If you follow my Twitter feed you’ll know I’m a regular frequenter of the many excellent coffeeshops Norwich has to offer and that I tend to bombard social media with the coffee themed photo’s I take in them.

To me a good coffeeshop feels as if it’s more than just the sum of it’s parts. Obviously there’s the quality of the coffee and the food to take into consideration, but then there’s the music they play, the comfiness of the seats, the hours they’re open, how happy they are to let you linger over your cup and for the lone drinker how good the lighting is. The last one might sound a bit odd but if I’m on my own I do want to be able to read a book and also to make sure the coffee looks good when I take the inevitable photo.

I suppose I could have rolled all those requirements up and said it’s all about the ambience. That wonderful, slightly indefinable word, which just makes you know a place is right.

Last weekend the pangs were getting so strong that we decided to have a coffeeshop at home. We picked an interesting but unobtrusive playlist, found some back copies of Kinfolk for the table and made sure there was a sweet treat to go with the caffeine. It’s not that we haven’t been drinking coffee in these isolation times, it’s the other parts of the ritual we’ve been missing. It was a great way to spend a lazy couple of hours on a Saturday morning and we’ll be opening for business again this week.

So my suggestion is if you can’t get to the coffeeshop let the coffeeshop come to you.