Wednesday 31 October 2018

Raspberry Trifle

This recipe shows up in Edmonds as "Sherry Trifle". I followed that recipe but omitted the sherry. It still came out plenty moist and delicious with the added benefit of being kid-friendly.

I also didn't really weigh or measure anything for this one. I made one batch of three minute sponge (in a 9" square pan), split it and filled it with raspberry jam, and cut it into cubes. I then just tossed jammy cake cubes into the bottom of a glass bowl 'til they'd formed a nice layer and then poured a good bit of custard over top with a layer of frozen raspberries on top of it. Covered that with the rest of the cake cubes and even more custard and raspberries.

I think I must've either had more cake than the recipe called for, or a different shaped bowl because the 2 c. of custard they get you to make didn't end up being nearly enough! I ended up running out and making a second (2-c.) batch of custard. The allotted 300mL of heavy cream also wasn't nearly enough. I think used closer to 600mL -- it was half a litre + whatever was left in the other carton -- to cover the whole top of the trifle. I did whip it in the blender rather than using beaters though. And I know that generally results in a lower volume whip. But I wanted it to be stable in the fridge for several days while we ate it, so it seemed like a worthwhile trade-off.

Based on how much cream and custard I went through I'm guessing that I probably had ~400g of sponge rather than the recommended 200g. And I have no idea how much jam I used. I just spread jam on the cake until it was nicely filled. The recipe calls for 1/4 c. And, looking at the jar, I don't think 1/2 c. would be an unreasonable estimate of how much I used.

For the sake of simplicity I'm just going to copy the amounts and proportions directly from Edmonds even though I used more of basically everything. If you want a large trifle though, definitely don't hesitate to double everything!

Raspberry Trifle

Slightly adapted from Edmonds Cookery Book

Ingredients

200g three minute sponge
1/4 c. raspberry jam
2 c. fresh (or frozen) raspberries
1/4 c. custard powder
3 Tbsp. (vanilla) sugar
2 c. whole milk
300mL heavy (35%) cream
2 Tbsp. icing sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 Tbsp. slivered almonds, toasted (optional)

Directions

Split the sponge and fill it with the raspberry jam.
Cut the filled sponge into cubes.
Place the sponge cubes in the bottom of a glass bowl (or trifle dish).
Add the fruit to the bowl on top of the cake.
Combine the custard powder with the sugar.
Pour in a small amount of milk and whisk until smooth.
Add the remaining milk while whisking to form a uniform mixture.
Bring to a boil over medium heat, whisking often, until thickened.
Pour custard over cake cubes.
Chill until custard is cold or overnight.
Add icing sugar and vanilla to cream.
Whip cream using beaters for a more voluminous, but less stable topping. Whip cream using a blender or food processor for a stiffer, more stable topping.
Serve as is or garnish with slivered almonds and/or more raspberries.

Tuesday 30 October 2018

Three Minute Sponge

Edmonds actually has an entire (small) chapter dedicated to sponge. I opted for the "three minute sponge" because it seemed the quickest and easiest option. It seems to have come out pretty well. Quite plain, but I didn't mind that since I just wanted it to go into a trifle anyway. If I was making it to have on its own I might add vanilla or some other flavourings.

Three Minute Sponge

From Edmonds Cookery Book

Ingredients

1 1/2 c. soft (cake/plain/standard) flour
1 c. sugar
3 large eggs
50g butter, melted
2 Tbsp. milk
2 tsp. baking powder

Directions

Combine flour and sugar.
Break in the eggs, followed by the melted butter and milk.
Beat hard for 3 minutes.
Fold in baking powder.
Grease and flour your tin(s)¹.
Gently pour the batter into the tin(s). If baking in two smaller tins, bake at 350°F (180°C) for 15-20 minutes. If baking in one larger tin, bake for 20-25 minutes.
Leave to cool in tin for 5 minutes before turning out onto wire rack to cool.

Variations

Lemon Sponge

I had some lemon zest and juice left over from another recipe, so I decided to give this lemon variation a go. When baked in two 20cm round tins as directed, the layers come out quite thin, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, just something to be aware of. Given that I was baking it in the two smaller tins, I went with the original oven temperature of 190°C. This was fine, but my sponge did come out a bit dry. I think I'd try baking it at 180° instead next time.

Once the cakes had cooled, I whipped some cream with a bit of vanilla, icing sugar, and some more of the left over lemon zest and put that and some jam between the layers. I'm honestly not entirely sure what kind of jam it was. At first we thought maybe it was red currant jelly from my dad becuase it was clearly homemade and seemed to be fairly tart. But it doesn't look red enough to be red currants. It's got more of a purplish cast to it. So... I'm not sure what it was, but it sure was tasty!

Ingredients

1 1/2 c. soft (cake/plain/standard) flour
1 c. sugar
2 tsp. lemon zest
3 large eggs
50g butter, melted
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 tsp. baking powder

Filling

1 c. heavy (35%) cream
1/2 tsp. lemon zest
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
7 tsp. icing (powdered/confectioners') sugar
1/4 c. jam (currant, raspberry, or whatever else you think would go nicely)

Orange Sponge

I haven't tried this variation yet, but I figured I might as well add it to the post. I think I'd be tempted to try adding a little frangelico or something similar to the whipped cream for this one and then omit the jam and replace the icing sugar on top of the cake with a dark chocolate drizzle. Cranberry preserves could also be an interesting option for the filling.

Ingredients

1 1/2 c. soft (cake/plain/standard) flour
1 c. sugar
2 tsp. orange zest
3 large eggs
50g butter, melted
2 Tbsp. orange juice
2 tsp. baking powder

Filling

1 c. heavy (35%) cream
1 Tbsp. frangelico
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 Tbsp. icing (powdered/confectioners') sugar
75g dark chocolate, melted

¹ Edmonds calls for this recipe to be baked in two 8" (20cm) round tins. I opted to bake mine in one 9" (23cm) square tin. This was fine but, if I were to do it again, I'd reduce the oven temperature slightly as the edges came out slightly overdone. ^Back

Monday 29 October 2018

Chocolate Almond Mud Cake (Flourless Chocolate Cake)

I've had flourless chocolate cakes before. I'm used to them being extremely dense and rich. This cake was an entirely different experience: the whipped egg whites make this cake surprisingly light and airy. It's a very nice effect. I like it quite a lot.

Chocolate Almond Flourless Cake

From Edmonds Cookery Book

Ingredients

175g unsalted butter, softened
3/4 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
6 eggs, separated
150g dark chocolate, melted
140g ground almonds
icing sugar, whipped cream, and/or berries, to serve

Directions

Cream the butter, sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy.
Beat in egg yolks.
Fold in the melted chocolate and ground almonds.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.
Stir 1/3 of the egg whites into the batter. Don't worry about being gentle at this stage, just mix it in as thoroughly as possible to loosen the batter.
Gently fold in the remaining egg whites trying to keep as much of the volume as possible.
Grease a 8" (20cm) springform pan and dust with cocoa powder.
Holding the bowl close to the tin, carefully pour the batter into the prepared tin.
Bake at 375°F (190°C) for 20 minutes, then reduce heat to 300°F (150°C) for an additional 15 minutes.
Leave in the tin to cool.
Once cool, release from tin and transfer to serving plate.
Dust with icing sugar and serve with cream and berries.

Sunday 28 October 2018

Gingerbread Loaf

The idea of gingerbread as its own thing and not an adjective describing a flavour of cookie kind of blew my mind. Edmonds has not one, but two gingerbread recipes. One for a sticky gingerbread cake and one for a simpler, less sweet gingerbread loaf. I haven't tried the sticky gingerbread yet, but the gingerbread loaf turned out quite nice (if somewhat drier that I would've ideally liked). Edmonds calls for 55 minutes in the oven, but I think I'd reduce it to 40 minutes next time.

Gingerbread Loaf

From Edmonds Cookery Book

Ingredients

1 c. soft (cake/plain/standard) flour
1 Tbsp. ground ginger
1 Tbsp. cinnamon
1 c. rolled oats
2 large eggs
1/2 c. sugar
50g (salted) butter
2 Tbsp. golden syrup¹
1/2 Tbsp. baking soda
3/4 c. plain yogurt
1/2 c. sultanas

Directions

Sift together the flour, ginger, and cinnamon.
Stir in the rolled oats.
In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar until thick and fluffy.
Melt the butter and golden syrup (or molasses) together and then add to the egg mixture.
Fold in the dry ingredients.
Dissolve the baking soda in the yogurt.
Stir the yogurt mixture and the sultanas into the batter and mix well.
Pour into a greased and floured loaf tin.
Bake at 350°F (180°C) for 40 minutes.
Remove from oven and leave to cool in tin for 10 minutes.

¹ Normally I'd substitute pancake syrup or maybe corn syrup for golden syrup, but I ended up using a bit of molasses instead on the basis that Iusually use molasses in my gingerbread cookies. ^Back

Wholemeal Bread (aka Whole Wheat Bread)

We ran out of bread yesterday. I had a bunch of shifts to work but I decided to try my hand at fitting bread making into the schedule between shifts. In theory I was going to make the dough and set it to rise in the fridge overnight. In practice, I came back after my second shift and found the dough already trying to climb out of the bowl so I decided that maybe I'd knock it back right away and try to accelerate the second rise slightly so that it could go in the oven before I left for my overnight.

I followed the Edmonds recipe pretty closely. I had no idea what "Edmonds Surebake yeast" was, so I looked it up. It looks like it's some sort of mix of instant yeast, sugar, gluten, oil, and a few other odds and ends. The Edmonds website claims that you can substitute 1 Tbsp. of active dry yeast for 2 Tbsp. of Surebake yeast though, so I decided to try that. Given that we're now using a non-instant yeast though, I figured that I should probably switch things up a bit so that the yeast soaks in some sugar water before getting added to the flour rather than just dumping everything into a bowl and stirring the way you would if you were using instant yeast.

I dough was also very dry. I mixed it until it had mostly come together but didn't worry about trying to incorporate all of the flour. And I didn't flour the counter top at all. The dough was already much too tight and dry as it was. I actually ended up working in some extra water as I was kneading it. I think I added about 50mL of water. It probably could've done with even more though. Next time I'll just put more water in from the get-go. The recipe calls for 540mL. But, based on how things went this time, I'd be tempted to bump it all the way up to 650mL.

The other change I made was to add a bit of gluten flour (aka "vital wheat flour"). My understanding is that North American all-purpose flour is relatively hard, but still slightly softer than bread flour. And I'm not sure weather Edmonds wholemeal flour is made from hard or soft wheat. Given that I was potentially using softer flour than the recipe was expecting -- and given that I'm guessing a bit of extra gluten probably isn't a bad thing when it comes to bread -- I opted to replace 50g of the wholemeal/whole wheat flour with 50g of gluten flour. This probably isn't strictly necessary, but given that I had the gluten handy, I figured why not?

Wholemeal Bread

Slightly adapted from Edmonds Cookery Book (with a few pointers from the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book)

Ingredients

250mL warm water
1 tsp. (5g) sugar
1 Tbsp. active dry yeast
550g whole wheat/wholemeal flour
50g gluten/vital wheat flour (optional)
250g all-purpose flour (or bread/hard/"high grade" flour)
17g salt
35mL canola (or other neutral) oil
400mL cool water

Directions

Combine the sugar and warm water and stir to dissolve.
Sprinkle yeast over the warm water mixture and set aside for 10 minutes.
While yeast is soaking, combine flours and salt and mix well.
Pour in yeast mixture, oil, and remaining water and mix until it comes together into a dough.
Turn out and knead vigorously for 10-15 minutes (depending on your kneading technique). Add as little flour as possible during kneading. Even if the dough seems a little sticky, just keep working it and it will likely become less sticky and more silky as the gluten develops.
Shape the dough into a ball, grease a large bowl, and press the dough into it. Then flip it over so the greased side is up.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap (or place inside a large plastic bag) and set aside to rise. If proving at room temperature, it will probably take an hour or so. Alternatively, it can be placed in the fridge overnight¹.
Once dough is well-risen (usually about doubled in size), knock it back and divide it in half. Shape each half into a ball and smooth the top. (You're looking to stretch the gluten across the surface of the ball to give it a nice smooth top. Pull the slack to the bottom of the ball. It doesn't matter if the bottom ends up a bit puckered or wrinkled.) Set aside for 10 minutes.
After dough has rested, flatten each ball into a round (smooth side down). Fold each round into thirds to make a rectangle. Grab a short side and roll up the rectangle. Place each roll seam side down in a greased loaf tin.
Cover with a damp cloth and leave to rise for 45 minutes or so.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

¹ I had initially intended to leave my dough to rise in the fridge overnight, but I used all warm water rather than a mixture of warm and cool. I think that caused it to rise very fast in that first hour or so in the fridge because when I checked on it a little bit later, it had sprung up and looked like it was trying to climb out of the bowl! ^Back

Crumpets!

I made crumpets today! I am feeling pretty proud of myself. They came out great! The batter was truly bizarre: gloopy, glutinous mass that wasn't sure whether it wanted to be a liquid or a solid and definitely didn't want to be subdivided. Edmonds talks about pouring the batter, but it doesn't so much pour as... glorp. You can sort of scoop the batter up in a measuring cup, but it's kind of like trying to serve spaghetti with a ladle. You can get the ladle under the noodles and start to lift them up, but most of them will sort of slide/fall out because the bulk of the noodle is still in the bowl below. Now imagine that but with noodles that are much longer, thinner, heavier and all connected to each other like a sort of mesh. I eventually got the hang of working with it, but it's definitely not like anything I've ever made before. Can't argue with the results though!

Crumpets

From Edmonds Cookery Book

Ingredients

250mL milk
300mL hot water
2 tsp. sugar
2 tsp. active dry yeast¹
450g soft (cake or "plain") flour
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
100mL warm water

Directions

Combine the milk and hot water.
Stir in sugar until completely dissolved.
Sprinkle yeast over tepid mixture and set aside for 10 minutes. (Mixture should become frothy and produce bubbles.)
Meanwhile, sift² flour and salt together in a large bowl.
Once the yeast has had 10 minutes to soak and reconstitute, pour the yeast mixture over the flour mixture and stir to combine and form a smooth(ish) batter.
Beat hard for 5 minutes³. The batter will start to become strange and gloopy as the gluten develops. It'll still have enough water in it that it'll settle out into a placid-looking liquid when left alone. But, when beating, the gluten will mean that it will hold together, forming a ball almost like when making a more typical yeasted dough. It may climb the beaters. And when you finish beating it, there will likely be thick, glutinous sheets of batter stretched across the beaters. This is a good sign. Although it can be a bit of a task to coax it off the beaters and back into the bowl.
Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and leave in a warm place⁴ until batter has doubled in volume (~1 hour).
Dissolve baking soda in warm water and beat into risen batter.
Cover and rest for 10 minutes.
Heat a large cast iron pan (or other heavy-bottomed pan/griddle) over medium heat and lightly butter it.
Butter the inside of the egg rings (or whatever you're using to shape your crumpets) and set them in the pan.
Pour a few tablespoons of batter into a ring and let it cook. If it runs out under the edge of the ring, the batter is too thin and needs more flour. If no (or insufficient) holes form and the batter doesn't bubble enough (or the bubbles don't burst during cooking), the batter is too thick and needs more water. My batter was too thick on the first attempt and needed more water. I think I added nearly an extra 100mL to get the right consistency.
Once you've found a good consistency for the batter that produces good results with lots of holes, you can start filling up all the rings. 3-4 tablespoons each should be about right for most egg rings. The batter should come about halfway up the sides of the ring and will rise the rest of the way during cooking.
Cook crumpets until risen and bubbles form (and burst) on top. The top should look almost dry before you flip it.
Flip them over (still in their rings) and cook for another 2-3 minutes.
Remove to cooling rack, regrease rings, and repeat with remaining batter.
Serve warm with lots of butter! (And optionally jam, honey, and/or maple syrup.)

¹ You could probably also use instant yeast, simply adding it directly to the flour (rather than soaking first). Seeing as I had active dry yeast on hand though, I opted to use that and follow the recipe as written. ^Back
² I totally forgot to sift the flour. Probably would've been easier to get a smooth batter if I had. Doesn't seem to have had any adverse effects overall though. ^Back
³ I highly recommend using some sort of electric mixer for this. You can do it by hand with a wooden spoon, but your arm might fall off by the end of five minutes of hard beating. I just used a little handheld electric mixer on low and that seemed to do the trick nicely. ^Back
⁴ I usually just leave my dough to rise at room temperature. In this case though, I did make a "warm place" by filling a bowl with hot tap water, placing a wire rack over the bowl of water, and then setting to bowl of batter on top of the rack. You can then cover the whole assembly with a damp cloth, creating a warm humid environment for your yeasted dough/batter. ^Back

Thursday 18 October 2018

Vegetarian Fish Sauce Substitute

I've just been using regular old non-vegetarian fish sauce in all my cooking so far. (I got a bit bottle ages ago and I'm still working on using it up.) The folks at America's Test Kitchen recommend Bragg Liquid Aminos as a good vegetarian option when you need to substitute fish sauce. They also suggest this recipe as a good homemade alternative.

Vegetarian Fish Sauce Substitute

From The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook by America's Test Kitchen

Ingredients

3 c. water
3 Tbsp. salt
2 Tbsp. soy sauce
7g dried sliced shiitake mushrooms

Directions

Combine all of the ingredients over medium heat and simmer until mixture is reduced by half. (~30 minutes)
Strain and cool completely.
Store in fridge for up to 2 months.

Thai Red Curry with Cauliflower

The original recipe is just for cauliflower. I was a little short on cauliflower the first time I made it so I decided to add a bit of tempeh to bulk it out. That turned out so nice that I decided to just keep the tempeh in as a regular part of the recipe.

Thai Red Curry with Cauliflower (and Tempeh)

Slightly adapted from the Complete Vegetarian Cookbook by America's Test Kitchen

Ingredients

1 (400mL) can lite coconut milk
3 Tbsp. fish sauce
1 tsp. grated lime zest
1 Tbsp. lime juice
1 Tbsp. packed brown sugar
2 tsp. Thai red curry paste
1/2 tsp. red chile flakes
2 Tbsp. + 1 tsp. peanut oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. ginger paste
1 head cauliflower, cored and cut into 3/4" florets
200-250g tempeh, roughly chopped
1/4 c. water
1/8 tsp. coarse sea salt
1/4 c. fresh basil, torn into rough pieces

Directions

Whisk coconut milk, fish sauce, lime zest, lime juice, sugar, curry paste, and pepper flakes together in a bowl.
In a separate bowl, combine 1 tsp. oil, garlic, and ginger paste.
Heat remaining 2 Tbsp. oil over high heat until shimmering.
Add cauliflower, water, and salt. Cover and cook until cauliflower is just tender and translucent. (~5 minutes)
Uncover, add tempeh, and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until liquid is evaporated and cauliflower is tender and well browned. (~10 minutes)
Clear centre of skillet, add garlic mixture, and cook, mashing mixture into skillet until fragrant. (~30 seconds)
Stir garlic mixture into cauliflower and reduce heat to medium-high.
Whisk coconut milk mixture to recombine. Add to skillet and simmer until slightly thickened. (~4 minutes)
Remove from heat and stir in basil.

Variations

Vegetarian

Ingredients

1 (400mL) can lite coconut milk
3 Tbsp. Bragg Liquid Aminos or vegetarian fish sauce substitute
1 tsp. grated lime zest
1 Tbsp. lime juice
1 Tbsp. packed brown sugar
2 tsp. Thai red curry paste
1/2 tsp. red chile flakes
2 Tbsp. + 1 tsp. peanut oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. ginger paste
1 head cauliflower, cored and cut into 3/4" florets
200-250g tempeh, roughly chopped
1/4 c. water
1/8 tsp. coarse sea salt
1/4 c. fresh basil, torn into rough pieces

Vegan

Same as vegetarian version, just make sure your sugar is vegan.

Curried Cauliflower Soup

The last couple of times we've gotten cauliflower in our produce basket, we've ended up making a cauliflower and tofu Thai red curry. And, while delicious, I was craving something a little different. This curried cauliflower soup is a variation on the "creamy cauliflower soup" from my latest go-to, The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook. (I thought the addition of lime juice and curry powder sounded more interesting than the basic soup. I mean, I'm sure it would be tasty with just the chives, but the Thai curry paste worked so well, I figured an Indian curry powder would be lovely.)

Curried Cauliflower Soup

From the Complete Vegetarian Cookbook

Ingredients

1 head cauliflower
8 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1 leek, sliced thin
1 onion, halved and sliced
3/4 tsp. coarse sea salt
1 1/2 Tbsp. ginger paste
1 Tbsp. curry powder
4 1/2 c. water
1 Tbsp. + 1/2 tsp. lime juice, divided
1/2 c. lite coconut milk
2 scallions, sliced thin
pepper, to taste

Directions

Remove and thinly slice the core of the cauliflower.
Cut 1 heaping cup of 1/2" florets from head of cauliflower.
Cut remaining cauliflower into 1/2"-thick slices.
Melt 3 Tbsp. butter over medium-low heat.
Add leek, onion, and 3/4 tsp. coarse sea salt. Cook until leek and onion are softened but not browned.
Add ginger paste and curry powder and cook for another minute or so, being careful not to burn the spices.
Add 4 1/2 c. water, sliced core, and half of the sliced cauliflower. Increase heat to medium-high and bring to a simmer.
Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer gently for 15 minutes.
Add remaining sliced cauliflower and simmer until cauliflower is tender and crumbles easily. (~15 minutes)
Melt the remaining 5 Tbsp. butter over medium heat.
Add reserved cauliflower florets and cook, stirring often, until florets are golden brown and butter is browned and nutty.
Remove skillet from heat and use slotted spoon to transfer florets to small bowl.
Toss browned florets with 1/2 tsp. lime juice and season with salt to taste.
Pour browned butter into a separate bowl and reserve for garnishing.
Puree soup until smooth.
Stir in coconut milk and 1 Tbsp. lime juice.
Garnish with scallions, browned florets, browned butter, and pepper.

The garnish looks pretty and all. That said, I think next time I'd stick with scallions and pepper for garnish and not bother with the whole browned butter thing. It would drastically reduce the fat content and takes out a few steps to boot!

Variations

Vegan

Ingredients

1 head cauliflower
3 Tbsp. canola oil
1 leek, sliced thin
1 onion, halved and sliced
3/4 tsp. coarse sea salt
1 1/2 Tbsp. ginger paste
1 Tbsp. curry powder
4 1/2 c. water
1 Tbsp. + 1/2 tsp. lime juice, divided
1/2 c. lite coconut milk
2 scallions, sliced thin
pepper, to taste

Stir-Fried Tofu and Bok Choi

I made this a few days ago and all three of us absolutely loved it. It took an hour and a half (!) to make, but I think it was worth it. When making it in the future, though, I think I'd make a double or even triple batch; that'll take longer to make, but the time increase should be sublinear and the single batch I made vanished shockingly fast.

Most of the time spent making it was in preparation. I started disassembling, washing, dividing, and slicing the bok choi while the tofu was draining, and I had finished those and was about halfway through the carrots when the tofu was done cooking. Definitely give this one a lot of lead time unless you have sliced bok choi and julienned carrots already lying around.

Ingredients (Sauce)

128mL vegetable broth
64mL soy sauce
32mL Chinese rice wine
16mL sugar
5mL sesame oil
10mL corn starch

Ingredients (Stir-Fry)

500g extra firm tofu, cut into 2cm cubes
85mL cornstarch
3 green onions or half of a white onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
15mL ginger paste
45mL canola oil
500g bok choi, cleaned, stalks and greens separated, greens cut into 2cm strips and stalks thinly sliced
2 large carrots, peeled, cut into 5cm lengths, and julienned

Procedure

Spread tofu out over paper towels and let drain for 20 minutes; pat dry.
While tofu is drying:
- Combine all sauce ingredients in a bowl, slowly whisking in the corn starch; set aside.
- Combine onions, garlic, ginger, and 5mL of oil in a bowl; set aside.
- This is also a good time to finish slicing the bok choi and carrots.
Toss tofu with cornstarch until well coated.
Heat 30mL oil in a deep skillet or dutch oven over medium high heat. Add the tofu and cook until crisp and well browned on all sides, ~15 minutes. Remove the tofu with a slotted spoon.
Add the remaining oil, the bok choi stems, and the carrots and cook over high heat, stirring constantly, until vegetables are crisp-tender, ~4 minutes.
Clear the center of the skillet and add the onion-garlic mix. Cook, stirring, until fragrant, 30-60 seconds, then stir together with vegetables.
Stir in tofu and bok choi greens.
Whisk sauce to recombine, then stir into skillet. Cook, stirring constantly, until the sauce thickens, 1-2 minutes.

Vanilla Chai Baked Oatmeal (Steel Cut)

I've been in a real breakfast rut lately. Most days I've been leaving TF and the Kidlet to their own devices for breakfast and just skipping my morning meal altogether. And most days that's been fine. But I'm starting to crave breakfast again. Just not feeling super enthused about getting up early to make it nor am I very enamored of a lot of the go-to quick breakfasts: cereal, toast, bagels, etc.

I made up a batch of cog last week and that was good. I don't really want cog for breakfast every day though. Fry-ups are tasty, but they tend to be neither healthy nor quick when I make them. Overnight oats are easy, but I'm not really feeling them lately. And I tried smoothies for breakfast for a while and found that they just didn't seem to agree with me. (Turns out I prefer my smoothies and shakes in the evening.)

So, after flailing around a bit and being generally indecisive, I figured that maybe it was time to give baked oatmeal another shot. I do have a couple good baked oatmeal recipes already, but I wanted something new. Originally I was going to try this cinnamon bun baked oatmeal, but I wasn't sure about substituting steel cut oats for the rolled. And, in looking for answers to my substitution question, I stumbled across a recipe for vanilla chai baked oatmeal. Now that sounds up my alley! And it already uses steel cut oats, so no worries about substitutions.

It came out pretty nice all-in-all. I did make a few tweaks, and I think I'd probably make a few more minor adjustments the next time I make it, but it's perfectly edible as is. I think I'd just use slightly less cardamom next time and maybe add a little coriander and star anise. And maybe scale the nuts back to 1/3 c. ~~Other than that, it was pretty much perfect though.~~

Now that I think about it, maybe I'd try changing the cooking procedure around a little bit too. Adding melted butter to cold milk results in frozen chunks of butter. Heating the milk would keep the butter fluid and would allow for the opportunity to steep the spices and raisins a bit before they get added to everything else. And adding the cinnamon sugar topping before it goes into the oven does result in a nice dark top, but it sinks in and gets soft rather than crispy. I think baking it for a little while and then adding the cinnamon sugar would result in a crisp, rather than soft top.

So, I guess, when all's said and done, I'd probably change the recipe quite a bit. The flavours are lovely, I'd just like to tweak them a tiny bit. And the procedure as written in the original does produce a nice breakfast, I'd just like to see if I could work out a few kinks.

Vanilla Chai Baked Oatmeal

Adapted from Tastes of Lizzy T

Ingredients

2 c. milk
1/4 c. raisins
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. cardamom seeds (from green pods), ground
1/4 tsp. coriander seeds, ground
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
1 star anise
1 c. steel cut oats
1/3 c. chopped pecans
pinch of salt
2 eggs
2 Tbsp. maple syrup
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 Tbsp. (unsalted) butter, melted
2 Tbsp. cinnamon sugar

Directions

Combine milk, raisins, and spices in a pot and heat gently until milk is just steaming. Remove from heat and set aside.
Stir pecans, salt eggs, maple syrup, vanilla, and melted butter into oats and mix well.
Pour milk mixture over oat mixture and stir to combine.
Pour mixture into a greased 9" deep dish pie plate (or similar baking dish).
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.
Remove from oven and sprinkle cinnamon sugar over the surface.
Return to oven and continue baking for another 30 minutes.
Serve warm and drizzled with cream.

Friday 12 October 2018

Sultana & Lemon Fruit Cake

I had most of a lemon left over after making my gigantic Christmas cake and this recipe looked intriguing. I love lemon cake. And this one's heavy on the raisins and light on the candied peel which also bodes well. I also found the idea of boiling the raisins appealing. Historically most of my issues with fruit cake have been textural, rather than a flavour thing. So getting the raisins nice and soft and going relatively light on the candied peel all seemed rather promising. Next time I'd just run the raisins under some cold water or something to make sure they're cooled off properly before adding them to the batter. They were still quite warm when I put them in and that seemed to melt the butter in the batter and deflate it a bit. The cake still turned out fine, but I'd be interested to see if cold raisins would yield an even better result.

Sultana & Lemon Cake

From Edmonds Cookery Book

Ingredients

3 c. sultanas
250g (salted) butter, softened
1 c. sugar
3 large (or 4 medium) eggs
1 tsp. lemon zest
2 c. cake flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 c. candied lemon peel¹
1/4 c. lemon juice
1/4 c. milk

Directions

Add water to the sultanas to cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes. Drain and set aside to cool.
Cream the butter with the sugar until light and fluffy.
Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Mixing well after each addition.
Mix in lemon zest.
Sift flour and baking powder together and fold into egg mixture.
If the raisins are still warm, run them under some cold water to cool them down.
Once the raisins are cool, stir them into the batter along with the candied peel.
Stir in milk and lemon juice.
Pour batter into a buttered and floured 8" round cake tin.
Bake at 325°F (160°C) for 90 minutes.
Remove from oven, cover with a clean cloth, and leave to cool in tin.

Edmonds left the recipe off there. Having tried it, I think a simple lemon glaze would go very well with this cake. It's fine as it is, but I do think just a bit of glaze on top would improve it. My grandma always used a clear glaze (of granulated sugar and lemon juice) on her lemon bread and it works beautifully there. For this particular cake, however, I feel like a white glaze (using icing sugar) would be more appropriate.

Lemon Glaze

Ingredients

2 c. icing sugar
1/4 c. lemon juice

Directions

Whisk sugar and juice together until smooth.
Pour over cooled cake and enjoy.

^{I ended up using candied citron peel for mine because my only options were mixed peel or citron. Given the options, I figured citron would be the closest option. If I'd had more time and energy, I would've done up a batch of homemade candied lemon peel and used that. The citron peel seems to have worked out reasonably well, although it does add little green spots to the otherwise yellow cake². ^Back

^{I might be tempted to try making it with golden raisins (or a mix of golden raisins and sultanas) next time just to play up the yellow tones even more. ^Back}}

Gingerbread Protein Shake

A while back, I found a recipe for "gingersnap sippers" that involved chai concentrate, milk, bananas, and spices. I liked the idea, but didn't have any chai concentrate easily to hand and, while I could make some, wasn't sure I wanted the tea in there anyway. So I decided to do my own version of a gingerbread-flavour protein shake. I started out with a full teaspoon of ginger, but I think that may have been a bit too much. The recipe below reflects this. (Although I haven't had a chance to test the reduced ginger version yet.)

Gingerbread Protein Shake

Ingredients

1 c. milk
2 scoops vanilla protein powder
1/2 frozen banana
1 Tbsp. molasses
1/2 tsp. ginger powder
1/2 tsp. mixed spice
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
2-4 ice cubes

Directions

Combine everything in a blender, mix thoroughly, and enjoy.

Thursday 11 October 2018

Potato Vindaloo

It's a curry recipe, but shockingly it's not from 660 Curries but rather from The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook. That said, this is quite similar in construction and flavour profile to the meat vindaloos in the former; it just uses sweet and russet potatoes rather than pork or beef as the centerpiece.

The original recipe calls for peeling the sweet potatoes; we didn't bother and it turned out just fine.

Ingredients

30mL canola or peanut oil
2 onions, chopped fine
500g russet potatoes, cut into 1cm pieces
500g sweet potatoes, cut into 1cm pieces
2.5mL coarse salt
10 garlic cloves, minced
20mL paprika
5mL ground cumin
4mL ground cardamom
2.5mL cayenne
2.5mL ground cloves
625mL water
2 bay leaves
15mL mustard seeds
1 (~800mL) tin of diced tomatoes
37.5mL red wine vinegar
64mL fresh cilantro, minced

Procedure

Heat the oil in a dutch oven over medium heat.
Add onions, both potatoes, and salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are soft and potatoes begin to soften at the edges, ~10 minutes.
Stir in garlic, paprika, cumin, cardamom, cayenne, and cloves; cook until fragrant and the potatoes are well coated in spices, ~2 minutes.
Gradually stir in water, deglazing the bottom of the pot as you do.
Bring to a simmer, cover, reduce heat to medium low, and cook until potatoes are tender, 15-20 minutes.
Stir in tomatoes with their juice and vinegar and continue to simmer, uncovered, until the sauce thickens slightly, ~15 minutes.
Stir in cilantro and serve.

Monday 8 October 2018

Plum Betty

I've been making a lot of crust-less sandwiches for the kidlet lately. It seemed really wastefully to just throw the crusts out, so I've been collecting them in a bag in the freezer instead. My original thought had been that I might be able to use them to make some sort of bread pudding. And then we got plums in our produce basket two weeks in a row. And no one's been that keen on eating them. So that naturally suggested that maybe I should try making a plum betty.

You can use pretty much any fruit in this betty. Edmonds suggests things like apples, plums, or apricots. I'm sure that things like berries or rhubarb would probably work very well too. I imagine that, if you wanted a quick fix, a tin of fruit pie filling would probably work reasonably well. Although I'd worry about a pre-made pie filling being overly sweet.

Plum Betty

Slightly adapted from Edmonds Cookery Book

Ingredients

100g unsalted butter¹
2 c. soft breadcrumbs
1/2 c. vanilla sugar²
2 c. stewed plums
2 Tbsp. brown sugar

Directions

Fry the breadcrumbs in the butter until brown and crispy.
Remove from heat and toss with (vanilla) sugar.
Butter an ovenproof dish and fill with layers of stewed fruit scattered with brown sugar and breadcrumbs. Finish with breadcrumbs.
Bake at 375°F (190°C) for 30 minutes.
Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

¹ Edmonds just calls for "butter" and, as far as I know, the default butter in NZ is salted, so feel free to use that if it's what you have on hand. I decided to use unsalted as I felt like that might work better with the other sweet ingredients. ^Back
² The original recipe just calls for (granulated) sugar here. I just used vanilla sugar because I went a bit scant on the vanilla in the stewed plums, so I figured the extra vanilla notes in the breadcrumbs wouldn't go amiss. ^Back

Sunday 7 October 2018

Vegetable Pot Pie

This recipe has been somewhat modified from The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook. The mushrooms were doubled, swiss chard was replaced with kale (which I find less bitter, and which we have in abundance), and the turnip -- difficult to find here -- was replaced with a rutabaga. The latter required some adjustment to the cooking time, since it turns out that rutabagas cook much more slowly than turnips do; we ended up having to disassemble the first pie, remove the rutabaga chunks for more cooking, and then return them and reassemble it.

The original recipe calls for a deep-dish pie plate, and is not kidding about it. If you don't have one (as we don't), buy or make two top-crusts and bake two shallow pies. If you only have one pie plate, you can keep half the pie filling in the fridge for a day or two while you eat the first pie.

Ingredients

1 pie top crust
60mL unsalted butter
1 onion, chopped fine
500g cremini mushrooms, quartered (or halved if small)
salt and pepper
350g sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1cm cubes
250g rutabaga, peeled and cut into 1cm cubes
4 garlic cloves, minced
3mL grated lemon zest
15mL lemon juice
250g black kale, stemmed and sliced into 2cm pieces
30mL all-purpose flour
500mL vegetable broth
125mL freshly grated parmesan
30mL fresh parsley, grated
1 large egg (or two small ones)
water

Procedure

Melt 30mL butter in a dutch oven over medium heat.
Add onions, mushrooms, and a pinch of salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until mushrooms release their liquid, ~5 minutes.
Add sweet potato and rutabaga. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally, until fork tender, 1-2 hours. (The original recipe calls for cooking "until potato and turnips begin to soften around the edges", but if you do this with rutabaga it will still be "soft around the edges" and rock hard in the middle when it comes out of the oven. Doing it this way runs the risk of slightly overcooking the rutabaga and sweet potato, but both are highly tolerant of overcooking and completely unforgiving of undercooking.)
Meanwhile, roll out the crust and cut four vent slits in it. As the filling approaches tenderness, preheat the oven to 400°F.
Once the sweet potato and rutabaga are fork tender, stir in the garlic and lemon zest and cook until fragrant, ~30 seconds.
Stir in kale and cook until wilted, ~2 minutes; remove and buffer in a bowl.
Melt remaining 30mL butter in the now-empty pot over medium-high heat.
Stir in flour and cook for one minute to make a roux.
Gradually whisk in broth, deglaze, and simmer until it thickens slightly, 1-2 minutes.
Remove from heat and whisk in parmesan, parsley, and lemon juice.
Stir in cooked vegetables and any accumulated juices, and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Pour filling into a deep dish 9" pie plate, top with crust, and bake for 30 minutes, until crust is golden brown and filling is bubbling.

Stewed Plums

We keep getting plums in our produce baskets and not eating them. (A perfectly ripe black plum is a thing of beauty, but if it's even slightly under- or over-ripe it's nothing but sadness and disappointment. I find plums tend to disappoint me more often than not, so I don't eat them that often.) This has resulted in nearly half a kilo of prune plums languishing in our fruit bowl. Given that we weren't eating them, I decided that this would be a good time to make a plum betty. But this, of course, requires stewed fruit.

I figured stewing plums would just be a simple matter of cooking them with some sugar and maybe a bit of water or lemon juice, but I decided to consult a couple recipes anyway. I found a basic recipe on the BBC Good Food website and followed their general procedure, but scaled the sugar and water way back; 200g of sugar for 500g of fruit sounded like way too much to me. And I figured that if I was putting less sugar, I should probably reduce the amount of water as well since the recipe appears to start by making a simple syrup. I probably should've cut the water back a bit more, but the half cup I used seems to have worked out alright. If you want less saucy fruit though, it's probably not a bad idea to dial the water back to 90-100mL.

Stewed Plums

Adapted from BBC Good Food

Ingredients

1/2 c. (~100g) vanilla sugar + an empty pod from the sugar jar
1/2 c. water
1 (3") cinnamon stick
500g plums, pitted and quartered

Directions

Combine sugar, water, vanilla pod, and cinnamon stick in a small pot and heat, stirring, until sugar is completely dissolved.
Add plums and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat and simmer for 5-8 minutes until fruit has reached desired tenderness.
Allow to cool slightly and served topped with vanilla ice cream or use as the base for a fruit crumble or betty.

Saturday 6 October 2018

Twice-Baked Potatoes with Broccoli

These came out quite tasty (despite skipping a couple steps). I do feel like they could've done with a bit of extra protein though. For a non-vegetarian version, I'd probably just add a bit of bacon or ham. For vegetarian protein... I'm not sure what my top choice would be. I don't feel like tempeh or tofu would work particularly well for this. Maybe vegetarian bologna?

Twice-Baked Potatoes with Broccoli

The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook by America's Test Kitchen

Ingredients

4 large russet (or other floury) potatoes
1 head of broccoli, cut into smallish florets
4 Tbsp. unsalted butter, divided
3/4 tsp. coarse sea salt, divided
2 Tbsp. water
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 1/2 c. grated Cheddar, divided
1/2 c. sour cream
1/4 c. half-and-half (10% cream)
1/4 tsp. dry mustard powder
3 scallions, sliced
pepper, to taste

Directions

Optionally rub potatoes with oil¹. Bake potatoes at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour. Allow to cool for 10 minutes.
Combine broccoli, 1/4 tsp. salt, and 2 Tbsp. butter over medium-high heat for 2-3 minutes.
Add 2 Tbsp. water, cover, and cook for 1 minute.
Remove lid and cook for an additional minute until water is gone and broccoli is bright and tender-crisp.
Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice.
Cut potatoes in half lengthwise and scoop out the flesh, leaving a half cm border along the edge.
Return the skins to the oven for 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, add the remaining 2 Tbsp. butter and 1/2 tsp. salt to the potato flesh and mash with a fork until butter is melted and mixed in well.
Stir in 1 c. Cheddar, sour cream, half-and-half, mustard, and scallions.
Add pepper to taste and fold in broccoli.
Spoon filling back into skins and top with remaining Cheddar.
Put under broiler for 5-10 minutes until cheese is melted and beginning to brown on top.
Let cool for 5 minutes before serving.

^{1^{The oil will get your skins to bake up a bit crispier. I didn't bother because we ended up getting some baking potatoes that had been wrapped in foil, so I just baked them in the foil without any oil. ^Back}}

Banana Cake

My go-to recipe for using up old, spotty bananas is generally banana bread. I've made that quite a few times over the last few months though and, while delicious, I wanted to try something a little different. I've also been on a bit of an Edmonds kick lately. This meant that it was definitely time to give the Edmonds "banana cake" recipe a try!

The cake came out lovely overall. And I even split and filled it. (A first for me!) The flavour is alright, but a little sweet for my taste. It's a fairly sweet cake to begin with and then it gets a sugary chocolate glacé icing on top of it. In addition, since I didn't want to deal with trying to make stabilized whipped cream, I ended up filling it with dulce de leche. The end result was not a bad combination of flavours, but a bit cloying. The chocolate also didn't come through as much as I would've liked.

I think next time I'd reduce the sugar slightly and swap out the white sugar for brown. And, to cut the sweetness a bit and make sure the chocolate really comes through, I think I'd top it with a dark chocolate ganache rather than the saccharine glacé icing. I might also consider adding a splash of vanilla to the cake batter. I don't want to go too crazy with the spices and just end up making banana bread in a round tin, but I think a bit of vanilla would complement things nicely without overshadowing any of the other components.

Banana Cake

Adapted from Edmonds Cookery Book

Ingredients

125g (salted) butter, softened
1/2 c. firmly packed brown sugar¹
2 large (or 3 medium) eggs
4 ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract (optional)
2 Tbsp. hot milk
1 tsp. baking soda
2 c. soft (cake) flour
1 tsp. baking powder
~200mL dulce de leche
1-2 bananas, sliced
~400mL dark chocolate ganache (or chocolate glacé icing)
1/4 c. chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Mix in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Stir in the mashed bananas and vanilla.
Combine the hot milk and baking soda and stir into the egg mixture.
Sift together the flour and baking powder and fold into egg mixture.
Pour into greased and floured 9" (23cm) round cake tin (or springform pan)² and bake at 350°F (180°C) for 40 minutes³.
Allow cake to cool in tin for 10 minutes before turning out onto wire rack to cool.
Split the cake horizontally by whatever method you prefer. (I always thought my mother's trick of using a piece of thread tied 'round the cake worked particularly well.)
Separate the layers and spread both cut sides with dulce de leche.
Place sliced bananas over bottom layer⁴ and then replace the top layer so the bananas are sandwiched between cake and dulce de leche.
Pour chocolate ganache over the top of the cake. It's fine if it drips down the sides a little, but they don't need to be completely covered.
If desired, sprinkle chopped walnuts around the top edge of the cake.

¹ I followed the original recipe for this bake and made it with 3/4 c. granulated sugar, but found it too sweet. Next time I'll try 1/2 c. brown sugar instead. If you use brown sugar, the cake will come out darker than pictured here. ^Back
² Edmonds calls for using an 8" (20cm) round pan and baking for 50 minutes, but I don't have one, so I opted for a 9" round pan and baked the resulting wider, thinner cake for 35 minutes instead. ^Back
³ I know I just said I baked my cake for 35 minutes in the last footnote, but I also accidentally set the oven temperature a bit too high (370°F rather than 350°F). It seems to have turned out fine despite the higher temperature. That said, if you're cooking it at the proper temperature, you might need the extra five minutes to make sure it's cooked all the way through. ^Back
⁴ If you used an 8" (20cm) pan then 1 banana will likely be enough. If you've used a 9" pan, then 2 would be better. I found 1 banana to be a bit skimpy for a 9" cake. I would've liked to have been able to slice it a bit thicker and not leave gaps between the slices when adding them to the cake. ^Back

Chocolate Glacé Icing

A simple icing of butter, icing sugar, and water. It can be flavoured and coloured as desired, is easy to make, and sets up fairly firm. I made this chocolate version to go with the banana cake I made earlier today.

Chocolate Glacé Icing

From Edmonds Cookery Book

Ingredients

2 c. icing sugar
2 Tbsp. cocoa powder
25g (scant 2 Tbsp.) butter, softened
2-4 Tbsp. hot water¹
1/4 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions

Sift together icing sugar and cocoa powder.
Stir in butter an hot water until icing becomes smooth and spreadable.
Mix in vanilla.

¹ I found I needed ~1/4 c. of water to get a smooth spreadable consistency. However, there's also a slight possibility that I accidentally added an extra 1/4 c. of icing sugar when I lost count of my scoops. ^Back

The Mother of All Fruitcakes!

I've never been terribly partial to fruitcakes. That said, I haven't even tried a fruitcake in something like fifteen years, so I have no idea whether my fruitcake tastes and opinions have changed since then. And catalyst is a huge fan of fruitcake. On top of that I have a fondness for old traditional recipes and a fascination with baked good that need to age before eating.

Edmonds has an entire section dedicated solely to fruitcakes. Admittedly, it's a small section, but still! It has a fruitcake chapter! This includes a whole range of cakes. Everything from a light, blonde lemony cake with sultanas and candied lemon peel as the only fruit... all the way up to the "rich Christmas cake" which includes seven kinds of fruit + almonds, orange juice, rum (or brandy or sherry), and two types of citrus zest. This cake takes two days to make, four hours in the oven, and is meant to sit for a full two months before serving. It also weighs just shy of five kilos! This cake does NOT mess around.

Rich Christmas Cake

Very slightly adapted from Edmonds Cookery Book

Ingredients

1 3/4 c. orange juice
3/4 c. dark rum¹ or brandy + an extra 2 Tbsp. for soaking
2 Tbsp. grated orange zest
500g dried currants
500g raisins
2 c. sultanas
2 c. chopped dates
150g crystallized ginger, chopped
150g mixed peel
150g glacé cherries, halved
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. almond extract
2 tsp. grated lemon zest
1 c. slivered almonds²
2 1/2 c. strong flour ("high grade", bread, or all-purpose)
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. mixed spice
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
250g (salted) butter, softened
1 1/2 c. brown sugar
2 Tbsp. treacle³
5 large eggs (or 6 medium eggs)

Directions

Combine orange juice, 3/4 c. rum, and orange zest in a pot and bring to a boil.
Combine dried fruit in a large bowl and pour juice mixture over it. Cover and leave to soak overnight.
The next day, add the vanilla, almond extract, lemon zest, and almonds to the fruit mix.
In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, and spices.
Prepare your baking tin and tie a double layer of brown paper around the outside. Edmonds suggests lining a deep 23cm (9") square pan with baking paper. I greased and lined the bottom of a 10" springform pan.
In a third (very large) bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and treacle/molasses.
Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Fold in the dry ingredients alternately with the fruit mixture.
Scoop the batter (which should be more like a bowl of dried fruit with a thin coat of cake batter on it) into the prepared tin.
Smooth the top with wet hands and bake at 300°F (150°C) for 4 hours.
Remove from oven and let cake cool overnight.
Poke a few holes in the top of the cake with a skewer or toothpick.
Pour 2 Tbsp. of rum (or brandy or sherry) over the top of the cake and let it soak in.
At this point, Edmonds says to wrap the cake in tinfoil and a cloth and store in a cool place. I didn't like the idea of the tinfoil being right up against the cake, so I wrapped it in baking paper first (I just reused the paper from the outside of the tin) and then wrapped it in tinfoil followed by a tea towel.
Cake should be baked by late October in order for flavours to have fully developed by Christmas.

¹ I used spiced rum because that's what I had on hand. ^Back
² Edmonds calls for blanched (presumably whole) almonds. I used slivered both because I felt like that might allow for a more even distribution and because, as with the rum, I already had some on hand. ^Back
³ Treacle isn't really a Thing in Canada, so I tend to just substitute molasses whenever I come across a recipe that calls for treacle. They're pretty close. And I've had good results doing this so far. ^Back

Mixed Spice

Turns out that "mixed spice" is fairly ubiquitous in New Zealand and the UK. It seems to be somewhat similar to North American "pumpkin pie spice" in that it contains cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, etc. The one notable difference is that most mixed spice blends seem to contain a bit of coriander, while I've never heard of this being included in pumpkin pie spice. I think that, in a pinch, you could substitute the one for the other without much issue. That said, I don't tend to keep pumpkin pie spice on hand as I just use the spices individually, rather than pre-mixed. And I didn't really want to go out and buy a spice blend that a) wasn't going to be quite right anyway and b) I already had all the individual components for on hand already.

There is, of course, some variance in the exact ingredients and proportions of spices used from one brand/household to the next. I just grabbed a plausible-looking recipe off of the "BBC Good Food" website and went with that. The BBC recipe only gave measurements for ground spices. I've included whole spice equivalents as that's what I generally have on hand.

Mixed Spice

From BBC Good Food

Ingredients

1 Tbsp. allspice, ground or whole berries
1 Tbsp. ground cinnamon or 2 (3") cinnamon sticks
1 Tbsp. ground nutmeg or 1 1/2 whole nutmegs
2 tsp. ground mace or 2 tsp. lightly crushed blades of mace
1 tsp. cloves, ground or whole
1 tsp. coriander, ground or whole
1 tsp. ground ginger

Directions

Grind any whole spices to a fine powder.
Combine all ingredients, mix well, and store in an airtight container until needed.

Tuesday 2 October 2018

Fruit Sponge

I've been in a baking mood lately. The problem comes with finding the time to actually do it. I'm hoping to get to making a Christmas cake over the weekend, but in the meantime, I decided to take a crack at something else from Edmonds Cookery Book: fruit sponge. And it came out pretty well, if I do say so myself! Not exactly to plan, certainly, but perfectly tasty and edible.

I don't really have much in the way of baking dishes, so I ended up baking it in a pie plate, which actually seemed to work out rather well. The recipe calls for stewed fruit, so I decided that this would be a good opportunity to use some of the tinned boysenberries gifted to us from New Zealand. The berries had quite a bit of syrup with them. I drained a lot of it off -- nearly 400mL! -- but they were still pretty soupy. And the sponge batter turned out fairly thick, so when I tried to spoon it on top it just sank straight to the bottom in a big lump. When I put it in the oven, it looked like I was going to have an island of sponge poached in a sea of boysenberries. By the time it came out of the oven though, the cake had spread out across the surface of the berries to cover most of the top. It's still not quite what it's supposed to look like, but it's honestly better than I was expecting. I'd aim for a little less moisture in the fruit next time and I'd probably pull it out of the oven five minutes earlier, but other than that, I'm pretty happy with it!

Fruit Sponge

Edmonds Cookery Book

Ingredients

2 c. stewed fruit (eg. apples, boysenberries, apricot, etc.), sweetened to taste
125g butter¹, softened
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 large (or 3 medium) eggs
1 c. pastry flour
2 tsp. baking powder
2 Tbsp. milk

Directions

Pour fruit into baking dish (or pie plate) and place in oven at 375°F (190°C)².
Cream butter, sugar, and vanilla together until light and fluffy.
Beat in eggs one at a time.
Sift in flour and baking powder.
Stir in milk.
Spoon batter over hot fruit and bake for 35-40 minutes.

¹ Normally I use salted butter in my baking, but my understanding is that salted butter is the default in NZ, so I used salted for this. It seems to have worked out well. ^Back
² It's important to get the fruit good and hot before adding the sponge batter. If the fruit is too cool, the sponge won't cook properly. So sayeth Edmonds. ^Back