This is another popular cake that I’ve added to my choir rehearsal repertoire. It’s based on a sultana and orange cake I originally found on the Traditional Home Baking blog, but I gave it my own twist by changing it from a round cake to a tray bake, as well as improving the ingredients — cranberries always trump sultanas for me! I double the recipe to make a larger quantity; that given here will suit either a round 23 cm cake tin, or a square one of around 22 cm. If you have a stand mixer it’s very quick to make, and it keeps well for several days in a tin.
Category: Baking
Apricot tatin
I saw this recipe in Let’s Eat the World‘s newsletter. Many moons ago, when we were still working, we helped to develop Cook’n with Class‘s website and I even attended a bread course taught by Eric. They’ve now branched out to culinary tours in more far-flung places, while still running their cookery school in Paris.
This recipe though is very French. I was hooked as soon as I saw the combination of apricots and rosemary — I already know it’s a match made in heaven. Plus I love a tatin, and it’s apricot season. I’ve adjusted it slightly, and while their recipe calls for it to be served with whipped cream with pistachio paste folded in, I just served it with crème fraîche. Absolutely delicious and so easy to make.
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No-knead focaccia
I wanted to make some focaccia for an apéritif dinatoire the same day, and my sourdough starter was dozing in the fridge. What to do? A spot of research, and I found a no-knead recipe on the blog Un déjeuner de soleil — in French, but written by an Italian. It looked just the ticket — quick and easy, with little hands-on time. I was very impressed by the result too — crisp on the outside, with a chewy, open crumb. It went down very well.
So here’s my English version. Note, it makes a very large focaccia. You could easily halve the recipe if there are only a couple of you. I have about a third of it left over, so I’ve frozen it and we’ll see how well it survives reheating.
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Bosworth jumbles done wrong
I was browsing through my Evernote notebook of clipped recipes looking for suitable cakes for my Christmas charity cake stall, and came across a very brief recipe for Bosworth jumbles. No idea where I got it from. It sounded very easy, and I had all the ingredients, so I went for it.
I baked them in mini muffin moulds and I think they will be perfect. Just the right size to go with a cup of espresso, and a lovely texture midway between cake and shortbread. Before I started this blog post I decided to google them, hoping to find the source. I found several recipes, but unlike the one I had (“whack the mixture into a muffin tray”), they all said to shape them into an S-shape, with one outlier going for a figure 8. You can read about their history here.
Anyway, I will stick with my mini muffins. They are so easy — just be careful not to overbake or they will be hard rather than slightly crumbly. You could drizzle icing over them if you like — a simple icing of lemon juice and icing sugar would be good, and will use some of the juice of the lemons you zested. Other flavours will work too — orange zest, or simply vanilla for example.
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Ukrainian Paska bread
After a long break from baking due to no oven, I was going to make some Hot Cross Buns, but then I stumbled across a recipe for Ukrainian Paska (Easter) bread, and it seemed a good moment to make this. I’m not at all familiar with Ukrainian cuisine, but it’s easy to see this is a typical enriched, brioche-style bread flavoured with citrus. This is a relatively plain one — apparently it’s common to include raisins, making it similar to a panettone (let’s not go there — I still haven’t succeeded with that).
I made a few changes. The quantity of dough in the original recipe is massive, so I halved it — apparently I don’t have as many friends as Marie does 🙂 The quantity below filled a standard loaf tin plus a tall 15-cm springform tin I bought to make panettone (still unused for that purpose!). I converted the cups to metric measurements. I added saffron because it didn’t seem right to do an Easter bread without that. I reduced the sugar because I’ve never encountered an American cake or sweet bread recipe that wasn’t far too sweet for me. And I had to adjust the amount of flour as I was using French T45 patisserie flour which I expect absorbs less liquid than US all-purpose does — the specified quantity gave me a very sloppy dough.
The end result looks great, and the crumb is very light. I was expecting the flavour to be a bit more punchy though — I couldn’t really taste the saffron, although it did make a nice golden crumb. If I make it again I’ll add more citrus zest and also some diced candied orange and lemon peel.
The bread keeps quite well in a plastic bag to keep it from drying out, and it also freezes well. I can confirm it makes good toast, and it will also be excellent as pain perdu or bread and butter pudding.
And finally, allow plenty of time for making and proving. Best to use a stand mixer, but of course you can do it by hand. It really needs to prove in a warm place, standard room temperature won’t do — I used the dough proof setting on my microwave and it worked brilliantly.
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Perfect millionaire’s shortbread
I have only made millionaire’s shortbread a couple of times previously, and not been satisfied. I want to make some for a charity cake stall, so this time I googled and took the best bits of several recipes, so I feel like this is my recipe now. And the jury of two agreed that it really was perfect.
The key points:
- I used the ever-reliable Felicity Cloake’s shortbread base. Including rice flour or fine semolina makes it really crunchy, a good contrast with the topping.
- I used a thermometer to check the temperature of the caramel. It’s really important to get it exactly to softball stage (112C) so that it’s neither too runny nor too chewy, and it’s hard to judge any other way. See a recent Bake Off attempt at Twix bars!
- Remember the name, and use really good quality chocolate. Cheap chocolate will ruin it. I used Lindt milk chocolate, which is not too expensive and streets ahead of the bog standard supermarket type.Use either milk, dark, or a mixture, according to taste.
- Give yourself plenty of time; it needs to chill thoroughly before cutting.
- Cut it into small squares … it’s very rich!
Summer fruit gratin
I stumbled across this recipe on the web somewhere as I was looking at a large punnet of nectarines that needed using. Perfect. It’s very substantial, bread and butter pudding like at the bottom, fruity in the middle, with a creamy top layer that’s slightly crispy on top. I used nectarines but it would work with almost any type of fruit — plums, apricots, peaches, maybe apples or pears too.
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La tarte à l’oignon de Caroline
Another recipe courtesy of a cooking lesson from a neighbour. I have previously known this as Alsatian onion tart, a concoction of slowly cooked onions, cream, an egg, and grated cheese. Caroline’s version is vastly superior; she skips the egg, saying that adding egg means it’s “just a quiche”. And she caramelises the onions slightly and spices it with cayenne and paprika, which make all the difference. Easy to do, and really delicious served lukewarm with a glass of chilled rosé.
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Tatin d’aubergines de Sandrine
A neighbour who is renowned for her superb aubergine tart kindly submitted to pressure to reveal her secrets in an informal cookery lesson, held outdoors on a sunny day. We produced five magnificent tarts, which were shared along with glasses of chilled rosé. I will happily make these for guests, as a substantial starter or light main course.
Beyond the aubergines and tomato sauce, you can vary the other ingredients according to taste and whether you need it to be vegetarian. We used combinations of chopped black olives, chorizo, and anchovies. I think blobs of onion confit or pesto could be good as well. For the cheese, we used slices of a log of goat’s cheese. But you could substitute other soft cheeses: feta, mozzarella, sheep’s cheese …
Other ingredient notes: Sandrine recommends white aubergines; she thinks they are sweeter and more tender. She normally uses her own home-made passata for the tomato sauce, but you can use bought passata or pasta sauce instead. Likewise, for the pastry, either make shortcrust or buy it ready-made. Don’t use puff pastry though, it is too fatty for this recipe.
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Mirlitons de Rouen
Little almond cakes, the word mirliton described by Jane Grigson as suggesting “a cheerful twirling of skirts and light feet”. The filling is very similar to the classic filling for a Bakewell tart (as opposed to pudding). I used a recipe from Audrey Le Goff’s Rustic French Cooking Made Easy, which is a nice collection of traditional regional dishes, changing it somewhat to suit me. The original uses ready-made puff pastry, but the reason I made these is because I had some leftover sweet shortcrust. Either will work, although I’m not keen on puff pastry as a tart base personally. If you want to make pastry for them, I can recommend the recipe here. I chose to use some wild cherry jam as that goes well with almonds, but any good jam will work — raspberry, strawberry, apricot …
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