Category: Baking

Bosworth jumbles done wrong

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Bosworth jumbles
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

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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

Veronica 9 Comments

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!

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Summer fruit gratin

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Nectarine 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

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Onion tart

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

Veronica 4 Comments

Aubergine tatin

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 …

White aubergines

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

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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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Tarte rustique à la tomate

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“Rustic” being code for “looks a bit thrown together”. A summery tart that I served as part of a copious apero. You could serve it as a starter or a light lunch dish as well.

If you don’t already know this, tomatoes and mustard are a wonderful combination. This recipe requires properly ripe fresh tomatoes. I made the pastry using surplus sourdough starter, but of course you can use a standard shortcrust recipe. Serve it just warm rather than hot. The bottom may be soggy, but it’s delicious anyway.

Update: You can make this with standard shortcrust, but I recently discovered a Nigel Slater recipe for olive oil pastry which is easy to make and works well with the Mediterranean nature of the tart. So I’ve added that as an alternative.
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Sourdough fruit scones

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Needing yet another means of using up starter, I hit upon this idea. The starter doesn’t need to be active (although it’s also fine if it is) — it’s the baking powder that does the work. I wasn’t entirely satisfied with my first effort in terms of texture, but otherwise they were fine if rather rustic. A little more liquid next time should sort it.

Use whatever dried fruit you fancy: cranberries, cherries, sultanas, chopped dried apricots … the dried fruit guy at our local market does chunks of semi-dried apple tossed in cinnamon sugar, and these worked really well, chopped into small dice. I mixed them with sultanas and cranberries.
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Sabine’s sourdough apple and cinnamon babka

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Great British Bake Off fans may remember the chocolate babka from one of the technical challenges a couple of years back. Prue Leith got into trouble for saying Paul’s was better than the ones she’d tasted in New York. It’s a braided brioche loaf that originated in Eastern Europe.

I wasn’t particularly tempted by it, as I’m not a massive fan of chocolate in bread or pastries. But I recently joined a French sourdough group on Facebook which has been an absolute eye-opener in terms of the amazing things you can do with a jar of starter. Someone posted a babka they’d made with a cinnamon-flavoured frangipane as a filling. I was definitely up for that.

Warning: you will need to arm yourself with patience for this recipe. It’s a minimum two-day process if you start with a lively starter. An enriched dough like this will take time to rise, and you definitely don’t want to undermine all your work by being too hasty. Give it all the time it needs. After the first rise, you can fit it to your schedule by putting it in the fridge for as long as necessary, up to 24 hours. Also, if you don’t have a stand mixer be prepared to wear yourself out kneading by hand! It needs to be very thoroughly kneaded and the butter worked in bit by bit.

This is my translation and slight variation on the recipe: I added some finely diced apple and a few sultanas to the filling. Of course the filling can be whatever you fancy: chocolate, Nutella, praline, mincemeat, even cheese … one person did a version with a prune purée which I rather fancy, especially if you were to soak the prunes in brandy first.
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