A plentiful supply of fresh plums has been arriving off the trees and into the ADK kitchen recently – I guess it’s that time of year. Here’s a very quick and easy way of cooking them up for use either as a breakfast topper, on oats or muesli, or as a dessert, with milk or natural yoghurt (see above). There are only 4 ingredients and the whole exercise will take about 10 mins.
And it’s delicious.
Servings
At least 6 servings.
Timings
10 mins.
You Will Need
9 – 10 fresh plums
1 tbsp demerara sugar
1 tsp Chinese 5 spice powder
juice of 1 lemon
Method
Chop the plums and discard the stones. Place in a saucepan with the other ingredients.
Bring to a boil and stir, then reduce to a simmer for 5 – 10 mins. Switch off.
Allow to cool, and serve over oats, nuts and seeds or muesli, with milk or natural yoghurt, as a breakfast or dessert dish.
Customise It!
If you don’t have 5 spice, then mixed spice, cinnamon or nutmeg will be fine. Another idea is to chuck a cinnamon stick into the saucepan as the compote is cooking, if you wish.
Today’s addition to the Playlist is a track that came on a few days ago while I was driving. I’d forgotten how great it was, especially with the unmistakable jangling sound of Johnny Marr on guitar. Add in Bernard Sumner from New Order on vocals and you have one mighty Mancunian supergroup. This is Electronic with Get the Message.
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.
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.
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.
Now here’s a vibrantly coloured salad to liven up your patio table and get your summer lunch guests talking.
Slices of fresh orange are combined with wafer thin slivers of raw beetroot, in a sweet and sour dressing, topped with roasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds infused with the taste of fennel.
The inspiration came from a chef I admire a lot, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. That deep shade of purpley-red that the fruit takes on from the beetroot juices (see my photo above) reminded me of blood oranges. As the music of Brighton duo, Royal Blood, was playing a lot in the ADK Kitchen when I was making this, I decided to call it my Royal Blood Orange Salad.
Still with me? Here’s how it’s made.
Servings
This is a side salad, rather than a main. Along with other salads as part of a summer lunch table, it will serve 4 people.
Timings
10 mins to chop and prepare, before leaving to marinate for 2 hours before serving. 15 mins to make the roasted seed topping, which is added just before serving.
You Will Need
2 small beetroot, raw
2 medium sized fresh oranges
3 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tsp soft brown sugar
seasalt and freshly ground black pepper
For the roasted seed topping:
2 tbsp fennel seeds
half tsp seasalt
1 and a half tsp caster sugar
40g pumpkin seeds
40g sunflower seeds
1 tbsp rapeseed or olive oil
Method
Peel the outer skin from the beetroot. Using a vegetable peeler, cut the beetroot into wafer thin slivers.
Trim the top and bottom off each orange. Then, standing each orange on a chopping board, trim off the skin and pith, leaving a fleshy orange ball. Cut horizontally into slices about 1cm thick.
Put the beetroot and orange in a bowl and add the white wine vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper. Toss to combine, and place in the fridge to marinate for a couple of hours.
Meanwhile, prepare the seed topping. Begin by pre-heating the oven to 180C.
Using a pestle and mortar, grind the fennel seeds, salt and sugar to a fine powder. Then place the powder in a bowl with the pumpkin and sunflower seeds, oil and 1 tbsp water, and stir to combine.
Line an oven tray with baking paper, and spread the seed mix out upon it. Place in the oven for about 8 mins.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool.
Remove the marinated orange and beetroot from the fridge, giving it a gentle stir. Sprinkle the cooled seed mix over and serve.
Customise It!
Mmm, an interesting one! There’s quite a delicate mix of flavours and colours in here, so I’m wary of messing too much with it. There is something faintly oriental about the sweet and sour dressing, so the next time I make this I think I will try Chinese 5 spice in place of the fennel seeds and see how that goes.
The roasted seed mix I really liked, so much so that I kept some for snacking on (see my photo below). It was also great as a topping sprinkled over muesli at breakfast time.
I was experimenting with this salad in the days before seeing Muse at Milton Keynes Bowl (see Hysteria for more). Royal Blood were supporting Muse at the concert, and I was playing their music in the ADK Kitchen in preparation for seeing them live.
They were great to see, and went down very well with the 65,000 crowd. I was particularly interested to see if and how Mike Kerr could reproduce that distinctive sound when playing live. If you haven’t heard them, he manages to draw a very expansive range from one bass guitar, making it sound like he is playing two or more guitars. I noticed he was making a lot of use of foot pedals to achieve distortion. Incredibly, he could produce chords by simply banging the frame of the guitar with his fist, without touching any of the strings.
Royal Blood are popular, well regarded and critically acclaimed. It is very much deserved. Here they are with Boilermaker.
This time of year, paying a visit to a Pick Your Own (PYO) Strawberry Farm can be a lot of fun for all the family. Just look at this character greeting us on arrival this week at our local PYO – how could one resist?
The previous occasion when I visited a PYO Farm was Christmas Eve. We were in Victoria State, Australia, and had decided to make fresh strawberries the pudding course in the dinner for 9 that we were hosting on Christmas Day. Strawberries for Christmas? It sounds a bit weird to we northern hemisphere types. Even more so when the PYO Farm’s festive musical accompaniment to the strawberry picking includes Shakin’ Stevens belting out Snow is falling, All around us… (What? There was a bright blue sky and it was 30C).
Just to put any concerns at rest, let me make clear that this post will not conclude with me adding Shaky to the ADK Playlist. Phew!
This week’s trip was to Pickwell Farm in Southampton. The coastal area stretching east from the city’s outskirts towards the village of Hamble has been a soft fruit growing area for decades.
As my photos below show, the strawberry plants are plentiful, and the fruit ripe and rich in colour.
Here is the haul from our visit – a kilo and a half of fresh strawberries.
The kilo has been made into jam, by boiling the fruit in water with preserving sugar. The half has been made into fresh ice cream – I used the recipe I posted last summer which you can check out here. Alternatively, you could make Eton Rifles Mess!
Do you have a Pick Your Own Farm near you? If so, why not check it out. With the fruit still on the stalks, you can be assured of optimum freshness, and be your own boss of quality control. You will be doing your bit to support local businesses and reducing food miles. What’s more, the prices should be much less than you’ll pay in the supermarket (hey, there must be some trade-off for providing all that manual labour!) Best of all, it is a really fun activity.
I toyed with adding Strawberry Fields Forever to the ADK Playlist with this post. However, good though the Beatles are, they aren’t really my era, so I’m going instead for a fave Scottish band, Franz Ferdinand. This is Fresh Strawberries.
“Sup up your beer and collect your fags, There’s a pick your own farm down near Slough….“
Ok, well maybe those aren’t quite the opening lyrics of the classic song written by Paul Weller, The Eton Rifles. However, this time of year means strawberries in the fields, summer days spent picking the juiciest and ripest to fill your punnet, and making them into that seasonal classic dessert, Eton Mess.
This dish originated at Eton College in the 1930s, and consists of broken meringue pieces, chopped strawberries and whipped cream. However you combine them, in my experience, they always end up looking a bit of a mess, hence the name (my main photo above is a case in point, though please note the sprig of fresh mint strategically positioned for artistic effect).
“Get out your mat and pray to the west, I’ll be in the kitchen making Eton Mess…
That also may not be a totally accurate quote from the song. However, for me, this dish always brings to mind The Jam’s classic track about class hierarchy perpetuated by old public schools.
Ready to tear down the House of Commons in your brand new shoes? No? Settle for making some nice meringues?
Here’s how to make Eton Mess.
Servings
This should give you dessert for 4 people.
Timings
The meringues take 1 hr 30 mins to bake, during which time you can prepare the cream and strawberries. Once the meringues cool, it will then take seconds to combine.
You Will Need
3 egg whites
175g caster sugar
100ml double cream
a 250g punnet of fresh strawberries
Method
Heat the oven to 150C.
In a clean bowl, whisk up the egg whites with an electric mixer till they form silky, white peaks.
Add the sugar in spoonfuls at a time, whisking again after each one until all the sugar has been combined.
Line a baking tray with baking paper, and drop the meringue mix on to it in dollops. You should get around 10 meringues.
Place in the warmed oven for around 1 hr 30 mins, till golden. Leave to cool. They will be crispy on the outside, and slightly chewy at the centre.
In a separate bowl, whisk the double cream until thick.
Chop the strawberries.
Crush the meringues into pieces, and mix with the strawberries and cream to make a right old mess.
Place in the fridge until serving.
Customise it!
It is possible to add other summer berries, like blueberries, if you wish. You could also try mixing mascarpone in place of the double cream.
No surprises as to choice of track for the ADK Playlist. This is The Jam with The Eton Rifles.
Summer weather has arrived! One of the pleasures of this time of year is sitting in the garden on a sunny afternoon with a cold, refreshing drink of elderflower and sparkling water with ice.
Even better when the elderflower cordial is fresh and home made from the blossoms on local trees. I can’t claim any credit for this as it is my wife Lesley who makes it for us. Over to Lesley for a guest post, on how to forage for and make fresh elderflower cordial:
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I enjoy watching what is in season in the hedgerow at different times of the year. This was particularly true during lockdown, when the only thing to do was cycle or walk around local footpaths.
In May, Elderflower trees burst into blossom, looking very pretty and with quite a distinctive smell. The scent is the sure-fire way of telling that you have got the correct creamy white umbilifers. It’s a little bit musty and lemony and definitely light and summery.
Collect the ones that are just bursting out into flower. A tree or hedgerow on a quiet lane, with no passing vehicle traffic, is ideal. I snip the heads with scissors and put them into a canvas bag inside my backpack. The scent when you open it up is incredible!
Take about 20 flower heads, inspect them first and reject any with little beasties. Heat about a litre of water with 400g of any type of sugar in a pan till it dissolves. Grate the rind of 3 or so lemons or limes, and add to the pan with the squeezed juice. Dunk the elderflower heads into the water and leave to infuse overnight.
It’s a really sticky mixture, so take care when pouring it. Strain the liquid into a suitable container (I use a tea towel lining a funnel) and store in the fridge. You should have just over a litre of clear, honey coloured cordial.
To make up a drink, dilute with water approx 1:2 or to your taste, and add a few ice cubes (see main photo above). I love to use carbonated water.
You can also pour some of the cordial into ice cube trays to store and freeze for later.
As a guest contributor to A Different Kitchen, I get to add a favourite track to Kevin’s Playlist. We go to gigs these days with teams of producers co-ordinating amazing light shows and technical rigs for sound and effects. I have been looking back at 1960’s bands performing live, when things were very different. An amazing example is the Rolling Stones performing Sympathy for the Devil, live for over 8 minutes with John Lennon amongst others watching on – raw and so obviously talented.
The idea for this week’s dish has been sent in to me by keen follower of A Different Kitchen, Pamela (thank you, Pamela). It is a kind of bread and butter pudding made with hot cross buns and fruit. The original recipe that it is based on came from Waitrose, and included rhubarb, which Pamela says prompted her husband to comment that this is one of the nicest puddings you have ever made.
High praise indeed!
In my version, I’ve changed it up a bit to include raspberries and blueberries as another option.
Hot cross buns are plentiful in the shops this time of year, and this is a good way of using up ones that may still be at the back of your cupboard, a day or two old. Their dried fruit, spices and glaze go well in a custard-style pudding.
You may also be able to pick them up in the shops at the moment at reduced price. This happened to me completely by chance – I didn’t get round to shopping for this till a few days after Easter Sunday, by which time Sainsbury’s were selling off yellow stickered packs of six for the princely sum of 15p (which equates to 20 US cents) each. As they say in a cost of living crisis, every little helps!
Timings
10 mins to combine, then 30 mins to chill. Another 30 mins to bake at 180C.
Servings
At least four generous portions.
You Will Need
4 hot cross buns, which can be a day or two old
Butter or spread for the buns
50 g caster sugar
3 medium eggs
300ml single cream
100ml milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
15 – 20 raspberries and 15 – 20 blueberries
Method
Slice each bun horizontally into 3, and spread each slice on one side with butter or your choice of spread.
Arrange them in a baking dish so that they overlap at 45 degree angles. This will mean the submerged parts of the buns soak in the custard, while the peaks crisp up and caramelise.
Stud the berries in between the bun slices, to get good coverage all over.
Combine the sugar, eggs, cream, milk and vanilla extract in a bowl with a mixer. Pour all over the buns, and place in the fridge to chill for 30 mins.
Heat an oven to 180C, and put in the dish for around 30 mins. Keep an eye on it for the last 10 mins or so to make sure the tops are crisped, but not burnt.
Serve warm. It is also great cold.
Customise It!
As suggested, you can vary up the fruit to include whatever you like or have to hand. As we know from Pamela, rhubarb will work very well – stew about 400g in 80g sugar with a little orange juice, and spread amongst the buns.
Do you have an idea for a dish that can be featured on A Different Kitchen? And if so, would you like to choose the next track for the Playlist? Drop me a note in the comments below, if so.
This week’s track for the Playlist is one that I know Pamela will appreciate. Here’s Rod with You Wear it Well.
A Different Kitchen 