Another show

I am all excited.  A friend has just brought round and entry form for a small local show at Egremont for next Saturday.  I knew there was a show at some point was was not sure when it was. 

After my first ever attempts at entering items in the produce section of a show earlier in the month,  getting a 2nd and two 3rds, I am very keen to have another go.  Whilst we are on the subject, I will also be entering my pink grapefruit marmalade into the World Marmalade Championships in March 2014.

I think will enter the following items for Saturdays show:

• Strawberry, raspberry and blueberry jams
• Lemon curd
• plain and cheese scones
• And if I have time some gingerbread and possibly some shortbread.

The scones of course have to be cooked on the morning of the show, so that will be an early start for me....... No Saturday morning lay in.  Since I have never made gingerbread I'd better start hunting out some recipes, seeing what is involved, practising and getting my valiant crew of taste testers at work on the case.

No time to be chatting here.............. I have recipes to find.

A little bit of Heston - lemon cream biscuits

 

I decided to go all Heston Blumenthal experimental this evening.  From my disaster the other day I still had some lemon juice and the zest of one lemon to use up.  I thought I’d make some lemon biscuits.  Though having checked the recipe I was going to amend it only called for ½ tsp of liquid and I did not feel that was enough to flavour the biscuits to make them taste really lemony.  So my problem was how to get more lemon flavour into the biscuits.

I hunted round the internet and found nothing that was of any help.  So making a vain attempt to think logically about this I decided I needed a lemon concentrate.  But how could I make a concentrate?  I decided a concentrate was something that had the water taken out.  How could I do this to lemon juice?  By boiling it.

Makes about 70 individual biscuits or 35 if sandwiched together  

Equipment – Biscuit press

Ingredients:

1 lemon

8 oz butter soft butter

2 1/4 oz icing sugar

7 oz plain flour

2 ¼ oz cornflour

Filling:
3 tbsp cream cheese

8 oz icing sugar

1 – 2 tbsp Lemon curd

1 tbsp lemon juice

Temp 175 degrees C

Tips: 

• Put baking tray in fridge to cool before mix dough 
• Between batches wash and dry baking tray and place in freezer for about 5 minutes. 
• Any biscuits that do not press correctly pick up and add back into spare dough 
• After each loading of the press do a couple of practice presses straight into bowl with dough in and then scrap excess dough from bottom of press with spatula. 
• Recommended you watch a couple of the 'How to use a cookie press' videos on Youtube

Directions: 

Here’s the Heston bit………Home-made lemon concentrate

1. Zest the lemon and put the zest to one side
2. Cut the lemon in half and extract the juice.
3. Put 10 tsps of lemon juice into a small non-stick saucepan and bring to a fast boil.
4. Keep gently tilting the juice until you have about 1 tsp of liquid left – this will only take a minute or 2.
5. Remove from heat – keeping pan slightly tilted so all the juice goes down to one corner
6. Use silicone spatula to scrap all reside down to the juice.
7. Put the pan with the juice in to one side – keeping it tilted. 

Note: Do not be concerned if it is a sticky mess when you go to put it in the biscuits – all the lumps and stickiness disappear.

The biscuits

1.      Using electric hand held mixer cream butter until smooth and paler in colour. 

2.      Add sugar and lemon concentrate and mix until smooth. 

3.      Sift together flour and cornflour, add to mix and mix well. 

4.      Add lemon zest and combine again.

5.      Put some dough in biscuit press, choose design. 

6.      Press biscuits directly onto cooled baking tray. 

7.      Bake for 7-8 minutes. 

8.      Cool fully on cooling rack before putting the biscuits together. 

So, the biscuits have been cooked and cooled I have had a couple of cups of coffee to cleanse my palate from all the biscuit dough I ate.  I am ready to try a biscuit to see if my experimentation has worked.

I am very pleased they have a delightful fresh, but subtle lemony flavour.

So now what?  Well I still have the cream cheese left over from the other nights disaster.  Let’s experiment with the filling.

Filling

1. Add all the ingredients together and mix until smooth. 

Putting together.

1. Place half of the biscuits on a large tray upside down. 
2. Holding one of the biscuits upside down put on some of the filling repeat with all the biscuits on the tray.  Then sandwich all the biscuits together using the other half of the biscuits.

I tried them out on the food delivery van man to night.  I gave him one, which he promptly ate and asked for a couple more to take away with him.  So I say these are a success.

Individual winter lemon puddings or 'I hate courgettes'

A friend at work had given me some of her free range eggs and home grown courgette, so I decided to try something new.

 Yes I know it looks like a small marrow, but honestly it started life as a courgette

Lemon and courgette cupcakes.

I have been working hard this evening after I got home from work to bring you something delicious.  All I can say is 'Sorry'

First things first I had to do a dash to the nearest shops.  I happen to live in the middle of nowhere so it is not as though I can just walk to the corner shop to pick up what I need.  An hour, some unsalted butter, plain wholemeal flour and cream cheese later I was ready to start.

I re-wrote the recipe and broke it down into areas to make it easier for me to follow.  Luckily my computer is just through the doorway from the kitchen so I do not have too far to dash to check that I am doing things right.

I have the worlds tiniest kitchen so I always read through the recipe and pre-weigh, grat, zest, beat etc everything I need to so I can put all the packets away to give me what little space I can get.

I zest and juice 2 lemons, add the vanilla essence to the eggs and beat them.  I soften the butter, add both the flours, baking powder and salt together and pre-sift them.  I weigh out the sugar and then it is time to attack to giant courgette.

10 oz of courgette flesh is required.  I roll the courgette around the worktop a few times pondering how to achieve this.  I decided to use the potato peeler on it.  I grab the small end of the courgette and run the peeler down the courgette.  Whoo hoo! This is easy.  Although it does need two runs down.  One to remove the peel and the second to remove the underlying green stuff.  I cut off the thick end, grab my grater and roughly grate out 10 oz of flesh.

Now on I'm fire.  I cream the butter, add in the sugar and cream again until it is light and fluffy.  The next step is to add the eggs and vanilla extract mix, the lemon zest and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and the courgettes.

Oh

Oh dear

Oh ewww

The mix looks very curdled.  Well I can't stop now and quickly chuck in the flours and give it a good fast stir.

As you can see, my mud loving Shih Tzu would be quite happy to swim in this.  But I am game to carry on regardless and spoon the mix into 6 large cupcake cases in a silicone muffin tray and throw them gaily into the oven.

They didn't rise and look a bit odd.  If you look closely at the one I have picked at you can see the middle is a soggy mess.  So now what do I do?  I don't want to waste the rest of the mixture.

I add the same amount of flour to the mix plus half the original amount of sugar and 2 extra tablespoons of lemon juice and give it a good mix round.

Now this is looking and feeling more like cake batter.  I line up another six cupcake cases and fill them almost to the top this time.  Throw them in the oven, quickly shut the oven door and run away.  After an estimated time of death I check and they do not look done.  So I leave them in there for another 5 minutes.

Hmmmm.  I'm not sure about these.

They do taste lovely.  However, the texture is a bit stodgy and you can see from the look inside that something is just not right.

So I am very sorry that I have been unable to bring you another lovely recipe.

You may ask what next?  I will be baking the rest of the batter and will freeze the results.  I will bring them out during the colder months, reheat them and serve them with custard as "Individual winter lemon puddings".

The lesson I have learnt tonight is to do more research when cooking with something new.  Apparently if your courgette is very watery, once grated, you should wrap it in a clean cloth and wring some of the water out, before baking with it.  I wish I'd known that before I started baking tonight.

Fruit cake - boiled

I have arthritus which means making some items rather difficult, grating the zest for lemon curd and in this instance mixing a good fruit cake by hand.  I have not made a christmas cake from scratch for a few years, as living on my own and not owning a Kenwood Chef or other such appliance, I just do not have the ability to mix a full on fruit cake.

Therefore I was delighted when I cam across boiled fruit cake recipes - who knew???  I can now easily make fruit cakes again.

Equipment:

• 1 x 9 inch springform cake tin or 2 x 2lb loaf tins -Grease and four the tin(s).  Cut strips of greasproof paper, fold so that it covers all of the tin and is about 2 inches higher than top of tin.  Then wrap around the tin(s) and tie off with string. 
• Stock/stew pot

Note:  It is important to make sure you prep up all the ingredients in advance.

Ingredients
4 oz soft brown sugar
8 oz butter
1lb mixed fruit - if you do not like mixed peel make up your own mix
3 tsp mixed spice
3/4 pint milk
6 oz glace cherries - chopped and rolled in flour
4 eggs - beaten
12 oz self-raising flour (pre-sifted with bicarb soda)
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Demerara sugar to decorate

Temperature 160C
Timings:
9 inch tin - check after about 1 hr 30 minutes test and cook for longer if not cooked through
2 x loaf tins - check after 40 minutes
          

• Put the first 5 ingredients into the stock pot and slowly bring to the boil - stirring occasionally.  
• Simmer for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally and remove from heat, leaving to cool for about 30 minutes.  
• After the 30 minutes add cherries to mix and stir. 
• Add egg to mix and stir in fast and well.  
• Add pre-sifted flour and bicarb and fold in carefully but fast.  
• Pour or spoon immediately into tin(s), sprinkle with demerara sugar and bake in the oven for the timings given above..

Biscuits with no nuts

These are melt in the mouth 

225g (8oz) soft butter or margarine
140g (5oz) caster sugar
280g (10oz) plain flour
1 egg yolk
pinch of salt
2tsp vanilla extract, or the juice and rind of 1 lemon

Optional extras - Add about 50g of extra ingredients
chopped mixed peel

Chopped mixed nuts
finely chopped dried fruit
chocolate chips or grated chocolate

Cream the butter until light and fluffy.   

Add sugar and beat together until they're light and fluffy.    

Add the egg yolk and mix well. 

Then sift in the flour and salt, and vanilla extract or lemon.   

Mix the flour and your added extras until it all comes together to form a sticky cookie dough.   

Put the dough onto a floured work surface, and work into a thick sausage shape. 

Wrap the cookie dough in clingfilm and leave in the fridge for at least 1 hour. 

While it's in there, preheat the oven to 190C. 

Take the sausage of cookie dough out of the freezer: it should be firmer and easier to cut. 

Use a sharp knife to slice it, as thick as you like, and put the cookie slices onto a baking sheet, spaced quite far apart. 

If you need to bake them in more than one batch, wrap the excess dough and put it back into the fridge so it doesn't go soft.  Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes, then cool on a rack.

Warning: Try not to eat the cookie dough before cooking

Cheese scones or Tea time on a bank holiday

As today is a bank holiday and I am not at work I thought I would treat myself to some cheese scones.  I am just about to curl up on the sofa with hot buttered scones, a cup of tea, a book and Ludo (my Shih Tzu) - a perfectly delightful way to end an afternoon.


Cheese Scones

9 oz self-raising flour
3 tsp baking powder
a large pinch of salt
2 tsp mustard powder
3 oz extra mature cheddar cheese - grated
4 tsp cooking oil
2 1/2 floz milk
2 1/2 floz water

Oven temperature 180 degrees.

1. Mix oil, milk, water and egg together and put to one side.
2. Sift flour, baking powder, salt and mustard powder into a mixing bowl.
3. Add and mix in cheddar.
4. Add milk mixture and combine to form a light dough.
5. Roll out on floured work surface to about 3/4" thick.
6. Cut into rounds.
7. Place on greaseproof paper on baking tray and cook on highest shelf in oven for about 17 minutes.
8. Cool on a rack and serve whilst still warm.

Strawberry Jam

Makes  6x 8 floz jars – always sterilise more jars than the recipe requires

1 kg strawberries rinsed and hulled

Juice of 1 large lemon

½ kg jam sugar

½ kg granulated sugar

Equipment:

See Preserve making equipment page for full list - Plus a potato masher

1. See how to page to sterilise jars and lids - turn the heat on at this stage
2. Put lemon juice and strawberries in maslin pan and slowly bring up to a gentle boil – takes about 10 – 15 minutes – stirring constantly.   
3. Remove from heat and mash strawberries to a rough puree with the potato masher
4. Add both sugars.   
5. Return to  hob and continue to stir constantly over a low heat until all the sugar has dissolved.   
6. If you are not sure if it has dissolved then continue to stir for another couple of minutes.   
7. Turn up the heat to a rolling boil (fast boil) – continue to stir constantly.   
8. Once you have the rolling boil set timer for 5 minutes.   
9. If you are using a thermometer the jam needs to be at 220 degrees and/or See how to page to test for a set.  
10. After 5 minutes remove from  heat, leave for a couple of minutes – use this time to drain the lids and get the jars out of the oven.   
11. Using jam funnel and ladle pour into sterilised jars and put on lids.   
12. Wait until fully cooled before putting on labels with name of contents and date of making.

Fat rascals

Fat rascals are first recorded as being baked in Elizabethan times.  You can find many different versions of the recipe, but I like to keep it simple.  I have seen one recipe with 23 different ingredients - eeek

They are a cross between a scone and a rock bun, very light and simply delicious - very popular with my taste testers at work.

Makes about 12

Temperature 190

Note:  The reason for boiling the raisins is that it plums them up really nicely and makes them juicy.  it also helps to stop them over cooking when in the oven.

Equipment:
Mixing Bowl
Small bowl
Spatula
Hand held mixer
Spoon
Pastry cutter - optional
Saucepan

Ingredients:
4oz butter
8 oz Self-raising flour
a pinch of salt
2 oz castor sugar
2 oz raisins
4 - 6 tbsp milk
6 sugar cubes

1. Place the raisins in the saucpan and cover with water.  
2. Bring to the boil and boil for about 5 minutes and then drain.  
3. Whilst the raisins are cooking place the sugar cubes into a small bowl and using the end of a rolling pin or a clean hammer bash them them until you have lots of broken lumps, then put to one side. 
4. Sift the flour and salt into the bowl.  
5. Rub or cut in the butter.  
6. Add the sugar and drained raisins.  
7. Add 4 tbsp of the milk and form to a soft dough - add more milk if required.  
8. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto a baking tray.  
9. Sprinkle the broken sugar cubes over the top of the fat rascals and place on 2nd shelf from the top in the oven.  
10. Cook for about 12 - 15 minutes and cool on wire rack.

Raspberry Jam

Makes  6x 8 floz jars – always sterilise more jars than the recipe requires

1 kg raspberries rinsed and hulled

Juice of 1 large lemon

½ kg jam sugar

½ kg granulated sugar

Equipment:

See Preserve making equipment page for full list

1. Put lids in a saucepan cover with about 3 – 4 inches of water and put on to a low heat and bring up to boil.  
2. Put jars onto a baking tray and place in oven at 180 degrees.   
3. Put lemon juice and raspberries in maslin pan and slowly bring up to a gentle boil – takes about 10 – 15 minutes – stirring constantly.   
4. Remove from heat and add both sugars.   
5. Continue to stir constantly over a low heat until all the sugar has dissolved.   
6. If you are not sure if it has dissolved then continue to stir for another couple of minutes.   
7. Turn up the heat to a rolling boil (fast boil) – continue to stir constantly.   
8. Once you have the rolling boil time for 5 minutes.   
9. If you are using a thermometer the jam needs to be at 220 degrees and or test for a set by putting some onto a cooled saucer, leaving for a minute and testing for a set.  
10. Remove from  heat, leave for a couple of minutes – use this time to drain the lids and get the jars out of the oven.   
11. Using jam funnel and ladle pour into sterilised jars and put on lids.   
12. Wait until fully cooled before putting on labels with name of contents and date of making.