I very much enjoyed entering the Bake-Off for the first time, and winning an award is, shall we say, the icing on the cake.
Well done to Mel and Gary for organising and hosting such a fun event, and Jeanne for judging. Massive praise to all our Bake-Off entrants: you demonstrated the creativity and innovation of the online baking and foodblogging community, with such a consistently high standard of bakes.
So here’s a well done message to all involved in customary ADK style: Fatboy Slim with Praise You.
This time of year finds apples growing on the trees – fresh, crisp and a joy to bite into. Below is a photo of some I picked this week from the trees in our garden.
Having recently returned from a stay in the county of Dorset (see Dorset Calling) I had the idea of incorporating some of our apples in a classic British bake – the Dorset Apple Cake. You can see it in my main photo at the top of this post. It went down well with the family – there were already a few slices cut from it before I could take the photo!
Serve it on its own with a cup of tea, or with a few spoonfuls of Greek Yoghurt.
Servings
Around 16 slices.
Timings
15 mins to prepare, 1h 25 mins to bake.
You Will Need
225g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
pinch of sea salt
1 tsp mixed spice
140g light brown sugar
150g spread or margarine
2 eggs
3 medium sized crisp eating apples
demerara sugar to sprinkle over
flaked almonds to sprinkle
Method
Switch the oven on to 160C and grease/line a 20 cm diameter baking tin.
Put the flour, baking powder, salt, and mixed spice in a bowl and stir with a spoon. Add the apple, chopped, and stir again so that all the apple pieces are coated in the floury mix. Add in the sugar, spread and eggs, and use an electric mixer to combine.
Tip into the prepared tin and level with a spatula so it reaches the sides. Sprinkle the demerara over.
Place in the oven for 1 hour.
Remove and sprinkle the flaked almonds over. Put back in the oven, still at 160C, for 20 mins.
Remove and leave to cool off in the tin, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Cut into slices (see photo below) to serve.
Customise It!
If you wish to cut down on the sugar content, feel free to omit the demerara topping. I left the peel on the apple so that the cake included a little more fibre, but you can remove it with a peeler if you prefer.
Many countries and cultures have their own recipes for apple bakes, including this one for Austrian Apple Cake posted previously on ADK.
Time to add another track to the ADK Playlist. I saw this band a few weeks back when they were supporting the Arctic Monkeys, and they were great. I did say I would feature them, so here they are: this is The Hives with Hate to Say I Told You So.
What to do on a summer’s day by the beach when the sun doesn’t shine? Why, bake cookies, of course!
Regular readers will know that I do like being by the beach (searching ‘beach’ via my site search bar throws up no less than 10 different posts).
This week I am staying by the beach on the English south coast, and have already been for a dip in the sea. However, today it’s rather overcast and a little drizzly – hey, it is the British summer after all! Sun is forecast for the rest of the week so, for this one grey day, I decided to pursue other activities.
Which naturally involves some baking. Not wanting to stock up unnecessarily on ingredients, I had the brainwave of shopping at the local refillery – Almond & Co in Westbourne. They have a terrific range of staple foods and will sell as much or as little of each as needed, to take away in your own refillable container.
I decided to make a batch of cookie dough, using their organic dried cranberries and organic shelled pistachios. Here is the haul from my visit, all items individually weighed, priced and bar-coded.
I bought just the right amount of organic plain flour, and to make things a little different, added organic buckwheat flour at a ratio of 1:3 to the plain. My dough also contains the zest of one of their organic, unwaxed lemons.
Notice any trend here? Yes, everything sold is organic. As a refillery, they are also free of plastic packaging. I think it’s good to support a shop that is trying to help us all live and eat more sustainably.
I’m pleased with the results – see my main photo at the top of the post. It just shows that being away from home does not have to mean missing out on home baking, as long as there is a good refillery nearby.
Servings
Makes about 18 cookies.
Timings
15 mins to prepare, 15 – 20 mins to bake (shorter if you like your cookies soft and chewy, longer for crisper and more biscuity).
You Will Need
175g spread or margarine
85g caster sugar
170g plain flour
55g buckwheat flour
zest of 1 lemon
75g dried cranberries
75g shelled pistachio nuts
Method
Heat the oven to 180C.
Put the spread and sugar in a bowl and beat together, using a wooden spoon or electric mixer if you have one.
Sieve in the flours, add the lemon zest and mix again.
Chop the pistachios in 2 and add to the bowl with the cranberries.
At this point you need to get your hands in there and squidge all the ingredients together into a ball of dough. Remove the dough from the bowl, wrap in cling film, and leave in the fridge till the oven is up to temperature.
Line a baking tray with some kitchen parchment. Tear chunks off the dough and shape into a ball between the palms of your hands. Flatten to a disc the width of about 1cm and place on the tray. Place in the oven for 15 – 20 mins until done.
It isn’t necessary to cook all the dough at once. I used half and made 9 cookies, leaving the other half in the fridge to make up another batch later.
Customise It!
This baking idea involves using the resources available while away from your usual kitchen. It is easily adaptable to include other kinds of dried fruit or chopped nuts that you may be able to get your hands on. I swapped in buckwheat flour for a quarter of the plain flour, because the refillery I was shopping in had an excellent range of flours that I wanted to take advantage of. However, you can stick with all plain flour if you wish. I found the buckwheat gives the cookie a slightly darker colour and makes it crisper.
All being well, by this weekend’s post I will be able to report the return of the sun. Maybe I’ll take some cookies to enjoy at the beach. The next track added to the ADK Playlist needs no explanation – Kate Bush with Cloudbusting!
If you venture down to our local woods at the moment, you may get something of a surprise. No, not those pesky bears picnicking again – the hedgerows are laden with blackberries, and most of them are ripe for picking.
Why is that a surprise? Well, around here, picking blackberries is usually an end of August/early September activity. However, many of these plump beauties have been ripe and ready since mid-July, with plenty more yet to ripen – see my photo below. I should be harvesting these for a few weeks to come.
I mentioned in my recent Plum & Almond Slices post that our plums are also ready much earlier than usual. We hear a lot these days about how our climate is changing, so I guess this is just one more example.
Ever the opportunist, I sprang down to the woods with my bowl and came back with a good 300g, see below.
Within a matter of hours they had been incorporated in a traybake with desiccated coconut, the berries bursting as they bake to release all that lovely jammy juice into the cake. It is topped with a crumble mix and sprinkled with nuts and seeds (see my main photo at the top of this post).
I based this substantially on a recipe I found in BBC Good Food, although it’s been adapted to my tastes in the usual ADK way.
Servings
This makes 20 squares.
Timings
25 mins to pick the berries, 15 mins to prepare and 30 mins to bake at 180C.
You Will Need
300g fresh blackberries
250g self-raising flour
25g oats
140g soft brown sugar
200g baking spread or margarine
75g desiccated coconut
2 eggs
a few handfuls of sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and chopped nuts
Method
Wash the blackberries in a sieve under running water, and drain.
Turn the oven on to 180C. Grease and line a baking tray. Mine is 22cm square.
Sieve the flour into a bowl and add the oats, sugar and spread. Mix it all up with the fingers of both hands till it forms little clumps of crumble mixture. Remove about enough to fill a mug or small cup, and set aside.
Add the coconut to the bowl and stir in to mix, then add in the eggs. Stir to combine.
Scrape the mixture into the tray and spread out with a spatula so it meets all four sides. Spread the berries in a layer on top.
Next pick up the pieces of crumble that you set aside and dot them over the berries. Finally, sprinkle over a few handfuls of sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and chopped nuts. Aim for an even and consistent spread of crumble and sprinkles across the whole of the traybake.
Bake for 30 mins or until done i.e. when a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean with no wet mixture attached. Remove and allow to cool substantially in the warm tray, before moving to a wire rack to cool completely.
When cool, cut into squares. Eat while fresh – they will all be gone within a day or two!
Customise It!
A large part of the fun of this dish is picking the blackberries, and then baking and eating them while they are so fresh. If you don’t have blackberry bushes to hand, however, you could still use other soft fruit, like raspberries or blueberries.
You can also vary the sprinkled topping to incorporate any particular faves. Next time I make this (and there will be more blackberries to come) I am tempted to add some broken up squares of white chocolate.
What music has been playing in the ADK Kitchen this week? Fear of Music, the great album by Talking Heads has been having a few plays, as I hadn’t heard it for a while. It really is a classic and I could choose many tracks to add to the Playlist. I’ll settle on this one, which I especially like for Tina Weymouth’s bassline – Cities by Talking Heads.
This post sees seasonal summer berries, such as strawberries, raspberries and blueberries, generously packed into a cake muffin. The berries burst with joy as they bake, giving each muffin a unique, jammy appearance (as shown in my photo above) and a delicious, juicy, fruity taste.
It truly is food to put a smile on your face!
Servings
12 muffins.
Timings
15 mins to prepare, 25 mins to bake at 180C.
You Will Need
220g plain flour
3 tsp baking powder
half tsp salt
110g caster sugar
1 egg
240ml milk
90ml vegetable oil
60g oats
150g fresh berries (such as strawberries, raspberries, blueberries or blackberries)
Method
Heat the oven to 180C. Prepare a muffin tin or mould for baking.
Sieve the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar into a bowl. Stir in the berries and ensure all are covered in the floury mix.
Break the egg into a second bowl and add the milk, veg oil and oats. Give it a good stir.
Combine wet and dry ingredients and stir till combined, with no dry ingredients showing. Spoon the batter into your mould or tin, and bake for 25 mins at 180C.
Allow to cool for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.
Customise it!
Other berries or soft fruit can be substituted – but please keep it fresh and local, going with what is in season in your area.
I did say this was food to put a smile on your face, so let’s keep that theme going with our latest musical choice. A Rush of Blood to the Head is still my favourite album by Coldplay. They have done some terrific stuff since, but in my view they have never bettered it. Here’s one of the many great tracks from the album – God Put A Smile Upon Your Face.
It’s the time of year for quiche, eaten warm or cold while sitting on the patio in the summer sun. Perhaps enjoying a glass of fresh Elderflower over ice, or maybe even something stronger.
For me, leek, bacon and Stilton cheese is always a winning blend in a dish. The deep oniony taste of the silky, buttery leeks complements the saltiness of the bacon and the creaminess of the cheese. As my photo above (taken in the back garden sun) shows, the greeny blue hues of the toasted topped flan just make you want to tuck into a slice.
The whole process takes around an hour: 10 mins to make the pastry, 10 mins to chill, another 10 mins to blind bake the pastry base, and then 25 mins to bake the flan.
You Will Need
225g plain flour
pinch of salt
100g spread or margarine
2 – 3 tbsp cold water
2 leeks
a knob of butter
3 slices of bacon
100g Stilton cheese
2 eggs
50g milk
a few twists of black pepper
Method
Turn the oven to 180C. Grease and line a flan dish – the one I used (in the photo) is 22cm diameter.
Sieve the flour and salt into a food processor with blade fitted, and add in the spread. Blitz until it resembles the texture of breadcrumbs. Add a few drops of the water until it binds into a lump of soft pastry.
Tip out and wrap in cling film. Place in the fridge to chill for 10 mins.
Meanwhile, wash the leeks and chop into a saucepan with the butter. Place over a gentle heat so that they soften in the melted butter.
Chop the bacon into pieces and fry till browned and crispy.
Take the pastry from the fridge and roll out on a floured surface to a size that fits your flan dish. Fit it into the dish and trim off any overhanging excess. Place a crumpled piece of baking paper inside and fill with ceramic baking beans. Place in the oven for 10 mins.
Remove from the oven and discard the paper/ beans, taking care as they will be hot. Spread the softened leeks and bacon over the base, then crumble over the Stilton cheese.
Mix the beaten eggs, milk and pepper in a jug, and pour carefully into the flan. Place in the oven for 25mins until cooked.
Remove and serve hot, if you wish, or let it go cold. Serve it al fresco, with salads and cold drinks.
Customise it!
As I’ve said, I regard leek, bacon and Stilton as a classic taste combo, so wouldn’t change it. However, you could add other green veg for the leeks if you wish – broccoli would go well. You could also add grated cheddar or another favourite cheese, in place of the Stilton.
Music time. Here’s a song I really like from a new artist for the Playlist – Ladyhawke, with Black White and Blue. Maybe not quite the colours of my Leek, Bacon and Stilton Flan, but still a great track nonetheless!
This week I received a harvest of the first plums of the summer. They are plump, juicy and a magnificent purplish colour (see below). Isn’t nature wonderful – Artificial Intelligence (AI) can do more and more things nowadays, but it can’t produce these (yet).
I will return to the subject of AI in a few moments.
I decided to combine the plums with ground and flaked almonds in a traybake, cut into slices to have with a cup of tea or coffee, as shown in my main photo at the top of this post.
The slightly tart taste of these early plums complements the rich, velvety, amaretto-ish, marzipanny taste of the egg and almonds. Delish!
Servings
16 slices.
Timings
15 mins to prepare, 30 mins to bake at 180C.
You Will Need
125g self-raising flour
half tsp salt
80g ground almonds
170g baking spread or margarine
150g caster sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp almond essence
300g plums, de-stoned and chopped into rough pieces
a few handfuls of flaked almonds
Method
Grease a baking tray and line it with baking paper. The one I used is 22cm square. Turn the oven on to warm up to 180C.
Sieve the flour and salt into a bowl, and stir in the ground almonds.
Combine the spread and sugar in a second bowl and whisk with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy. Add in the eggs and whisk, one at a time, and then the almond essence.
Combine the contents of the two bowls and fold in.
Spread a few spoonfuls of the cake mixture over the bottom of the baking dish and spread out so it is flat.
Pour the plum pieces into the rest of the cake mixture in the bowl, and fold in. Add the plummy cake mix to the baking tray. Level it out with a spatula, then sprinkle the flaked almonds over. Press the flaked almonds down gently with the back of a fork, so that they adhere to the mixture.
Bake for 30 mins at 180C. Then remove and allow to cool a little in the tin, before transferring to a wire rack.
When completely cooled, cut into slices.
Customise It!
If you don’t have plums to hand, try other soft fruit, like cherries or berries.
Like me, you may have noticed that we are hearing more and more these days about the growth of Artificial Intelligence, or AI, and that it will be taking over more and more jobs and tasks that are carried out by humans.
Mmmm. I’ve been wondering whether AI could come up with a recipe such as Plum & Almond Slices, and then bake it? Would it seriously be bothered carefully trimming around the stones in a pile of plums with a sharp knife? And if so, would it lick the batter left on the spatula and in the bowl once its put the traybake in the oven? If not, it would be missing out on a special treat, and that certainly isn’t my definition of progress.
Turning to the ADK Playlist, I was intrigued to find out recently that I have a new, AI personalised DJ on Spotify. His name is Xavier and he presents a continuous stream of music curated from my listening over previous years, with new tracks that he thinks I may also like. If I want to skip a track, I just ask him and he moves on to introduce the next song.
He hasn’t completely mastered my tastes so far, but I am sure it is only a matter of time. Interestingly, I didn’t ask for him to start doing this – he just appeared one day on my app.
It reminded me of this track by Leftfield, called MachinesLike Me, which contains the line Machines, they’re taking over. Maybe I’ll ask Xavier if he knows it.
Give the humble carrot a whole new taste twist in this delicious traybake!
Coarsely grated, carrot helps the cake mixture to stay moist, and adds texture. Together with soft brown sugar and a dusting of cinnamon, the cake is firmly on the brown/orange/cream colour spectrum, which I find very pleasing, and very 1970s.
What’s more, flavouring the soft cheese frosting with orange gives me a basis for adding one of my favourite ever bands to the ADK Playlist.
More of the music in a moment. First of all, here’s how to make Carrot & Orange Traybake.
Servings
How many individual portions this makes depends on how small (or large!) you decide to cut the slices. Mine made around 20 slices, each about 6cm x 4cm, to fill two tins, one of which is shown below.
Timings
10 – 15 mins to prepare the mixture, and 25 mins to bake in the oven at 180C. Add 10 mins for the orange frosting.
You Will Need
225g butter or spread
225g soft brown sugar
4 eggs
225g self-raising flour
half tsp salt
3 tsps mixed spice
300g carrots
For the orange frosting:
100g butter, softened
100g icing sugar
200g soft cream cheese
1 tsp orange extract
cinnamon for dusting
Method
Turn the oven on at 180C. Grease and line a baking tin (the one I used is 23cm square).
Put the softened butter and sugar together in a bowl and mix with an electric whisk until light and fluffy.
Add in the eggs, one at a time, with a spoonful of the flour after each one. Mix in each time, using the whisk.
Add in the rest of the flour, the salt and mixed spice, and fold in with a spatula to incorporate.
Grate the carrots – I used an electric food processor with grating tool fitted. Add the grated carrot into the mix and fold in again with the spatula. Make sure that all the grated carrot is wet with a coating of the mixture.
Scrape the mixture into the baking tin and level the surface. Put in the oven for around 25 mins, until it is golden all over and a skewer put into the middle of the cake comes out dry.
Let it cool in the tin for about 30 mins, then transfer to a wire rack to complete the cooling.
Make the orange frosting by putting all the ingredients in a bowl and mixing together with an electric whisk.
When the cake has completely cooled, transfer to a chopping board. Spread the frosting evenly over the top, and dust with a little cinnamon. Cut into slices and keep in a box or tin till they’re all eaten. That won’t be long, however.
Customise it!
If you wish, you could use chopped walnuts to sprinkle over, in place of the cinnamon. I used orange extract as it gives an intense flavour, but if you like you could use a little orange juice, and/or zest in the frosting, instead.
Did someone say Orange Juice? Here’s Edwyn and the lads with Felicity.
Today’s post completes a hat-trick of savoury vegetarian Strudels, with my third and final filling mix.
This one is beautifully rich in colour and taste, with the bright orange and red of roasted sweet potato and red pepper peeping through the arms of the puff pastry lattice work. Cubes of feta cheese add contrast and a little saltiness. There’ll be enough here for a midweek meal for two.
As with my previous Strudel recipes, the filling is pretty easy to put together. Put 2 – 3 medium size sweet potatoes on a roasting tray. Chop half a red pepper into 4 – 5 large pieces and place alongside the sweet potatoes. Drizzle the red pepper pieces with a little oil, and roast in the oven at 180C for 25 mins.
Once roasted, split the sweet potatoes with a knife and scrape the soft orange flesh into a bowl. Chop the red pepper (which should now be soft and a little charred at the edges) into smaller pieces and add to the sweet potato. Give it a stir to mix it up, and leave to cool. When cooled, add in 100g feta cheese, cubed or crumbled, and stir again to mix.
Prepare 250g of ready made puff pastry as shown in the photos in Spicy Veg Strudel, this time using the sweet potato, pepper and feta mix to fill. Roll up the lattice as shown in those photos and, as with the other Strudels, baste with milk and sprinkle over some nigella seeds. Bake for 25 mins at 180C.
Cut into slices of your chosen size, and serve. The Strudel can be eaten warm or cold, perhaps with a green salad or your favourite green veg.
All these references to lattice in my last few posts has been reminding me of the line ” ..crawling the tightrope along the lattice work..” from a track I’ve always admired. It’s a song about a woman who tends a mysterious garden where the sun doesn’t fall, yet the plants flourish, and where the animals are afraid to go. The chorus is “magic in her hands, she could make anything grow, magic in her hands, she had green fingers”.
In another curious twist of poetic symmetry, the artist herself has recently returned to playing live after some 15 years away from the stage, which is a joy to see.
It could only be from one person, really, so here’s a track for the ADK Playlist for any goths out there. This is Siouxsie and the Banshees with Green Fingers.
Here’s another savoury, vegetarian Strudel filling, using the technique featured in my previous post to make a latticed wrap with puff pastry.
The 3 star ingredients – buttered leek, blue stilton cheese and chopped walnuts – are a classic combo that go really well together. You should get a creamy, satisfying taste with a hint of saltiness from the cheese.
Chop and soften a leek in a saucepan, with a knob of butter. After about 10 mins, chuck in 100g of crumbled blue stilton cheese and 50g of chopped walnuts. Give it a good stir so the cheese melts in the warm buttery leek and the walnuts are spread throughout the mix. Set aside to cool for another 10 mins or so.
Roll out and prepare 250g of a pack of puff pastry as shown in the series of photos in Spicy Veg Strudel, this time filling it with the leek, stilton and walnut mix. Fold it up as shown in the photos, baste with a little milk and top with a sprinkling of nigella seeds. Cook in an oven at 180C for 25 mins, till golden and looking like the main photo above.
Serve warm, in generous slices. Enjoy.
There’s one more strudel filling idea to come, so check it out in the next midweek post.
Here’s a track I heard by chance on the car radio recently, and really liked, so I thought I would share it here. It’s by German DJ/producer Timo Maas – To Get Down.
A Different Kitchen 