CARROT AND GINGER SOUP (soup maker recipe)

 

This recipe arises from the simple fact of having a surfeit of carrots.

Vegetables are not cheap in France, whether in supermarkets, greengrocers or the market.  Frequently they don't keep too long either.  So when a huge bag of nice looking carrots is on offer it's hard to resist them but important to use them up.  

Although the month of May is not far away it's still very much soup weather here in France and the warmth of ginger was a welcome addition on a particularly unpleasant day.

Ingredients

2 medium potatoes

6 medium carrots

1 large onion

2 sticks celery

1 vegetable stock pot

1 small knob of fresh ginger, about 2 cm square, peeled and chopped

Method

Prepare enough veg to fill the machine to the bottom line.  Add the ginger and the stock pot.

Add enough water to fill to the top line (about 1 litre).

Cook on smooth.

Makes 4 generous servings

SIMNEL CAKE

 

The weather on Easter Sunday this year was especially foul.  Cold, grey and with persistent rain that was occasionally horizontal.  Most other options for entertainment were cancelled so it was a perfect day for baking a cake!  A rummage in the kitchen cupboards revealed that I had all the necessary ingredients to make a Simnel cake, including a pack of marzipan.

This is the first Simnel cake I have ever made in my whole life.

Usually I would make a chocolate cake for Easter (see here).

A Simnel cake is a traditional cake for Easter, a rich fruit cake.  It's not quite as rich and dense as a Christmas cake but more so than an everyday fruit cake, containing a lot of dried fruit and some mixed spice.  The secret ingredient is the layer of marzipan, or almond paste, contained inside the cake itself.  This was only just visible once the cake was baked.  

I adapted a Mary Berry recipe using the fruit I had in stock.  Shops are not open in France on Sunday afternoons and in any case the weather was so foul that I would rather not venture out!  It's an all-in-one kind of recipe, no separate creaming of butter and sugar needed, but was quite a hefty amount of ingredients.  Consequently I used my Kenwood stand mixer to beat it as I didn't quite have the muscle power to do it with a wooden spoon and I thought my little hand held mixer would struggle.

It was a delicious cake, very moist and spicy and I would definitely make it again.  It seems a shame to only have one a year - rather like the Christmas cake!  Having never made one before I had nothing to compare it with except that my friend Gaynor makes one every Easter, using a Felicity Cloake recipe, which is lovely. 

Most recipes suggest that the top marzipan layer and the eleven balls (representing the eleven  loyal disciples) should be browned slightly, either under a grill or using a cook's blowtorch.  However, I had spotted an alternative method of decoration as above - simply pressing a mini egg into each ball then dusting with icing sugar.  You can of course decorate it any way you like, with eggs, flowers, chicks, chocolate or whatever takes your fancy.  There are plenty of ideas on the internet. 

Ingredients

225g baking spread (spreadable butter) straight from the fridge

225g light muscovado (or light soft brown) sugar

225g self raising flour

 

115g glacé cherries

175g sultanas

50g raisins

115g currants

115g ready to eat dried apricots

55g candied peel (mine was just orange peel) chopped

zest of 2 lemons

4 large eggs

2 level tsp mixed spice (or quatre épices)

Also

1 pack (roughly 500g) marzipan

1-2 tblsp apricot jam

11 mini eggs

icing sugar for dusting

Method

Begin by cutting the cherries into quarters, rinse well under running water to remove the syrup, tip onto kitchen paper and pat dry.  Snip or chop the apricots into small dice.

Preheat the oven to 150C / 130 fan / gas mk 2.  Grease a 20cm deep round cake tin and line the base and sides with baking paper.

Put all the fruit and other cake ingredients into a large bowl and beat together well by hand or use a stand food mixer.

Spoon roughly half of the mixture into the tin and level the top.

Divide the marzipan into three roughly equal portions.  Roll out one of them into a 20cm circle.  It doesn't matter if the edges are a bit untidy as they won't be seen.  Lay on top of the cake mixture in the tin.

 Spoon the other half of cake mixture on top of the marzipan and level the top again.  

Bake for 2½ hours until the cake is risen, brown and firm.  Check after an hour or so and cover with a circle of foil if it's already quite brown to avoid it becoming scorched.

When cooked, remove from the oven and leave in the tin for 10 minutes.  Then turn out carefully to finish cooling on a wire rack, removing all the baking paper.

Roll out another portion of the marzipan to a 20cm circle to fit the top of the cake, making the edges more tidy this time.  If you are using a tin with a loose bottom you can use it as a template.

Brush the top of the cooled cake with apricot jam.  (You can sieve it to remove lumps of fruit if you wish, or use apricot glaze which is smooth and lump free.)  Lay the second circle of marzipan on the top.

Crimp the edges of the marzipan to create a fluted effect and arrange the balls evenly around the edge.  Dab the bottom of each one with a little apricot jam to make them stick.  Using your finger or the handle of a wooden spoon, push a dent into each ball and insert a small mini egg.  Dust with icing sugar.

Cuts into 11 generous slices or at least 15 regular slices if you remove a ball or two as you go round!  (You can compensate the unlucky recipient of a slice without a ball with another mini egg!)

COFFEE AND WALNUT TRAYBAKE

I had my eye on this recipe for the next time I needed to make a cake for a bit of a gathering and it didn't disappoint.  It’s from the original "Baking Bible" by Mary Berry.

It’s an all-in-one recipe and instead of butter I used the last of my pack of "spreadable" butter called Nordpak which came from Aldi in the UK.  (A number of very similar spreads and butters are available in France.)  After my experience with the lemon cake I did make sure it was very soft by giving it a few seconds of the "soften butter" function on my microwave, i.e. at a very low power.  I have to be careful with this as it’s easy to take it too far and end up with melted butter instead, but it's a useful function.

There are subtle differences between baking products available in France and those from the UK.  Some of my friends have trouble with the flour and the range of sugars on sale.  I'm getting used to using them and on this occasion I used a French brand of icing sugar (sucre glacé) for the buttercream topping.  Somehow this icing sugar seemed "claggy" or almost damp and it was taking ages to sift it.  In truth it had to be pushed through the sieve.  So I resorted to the food processor which made light work of it, giving the icing sugar a blitz on its own first.  Looking at the picture in the book the icing seemed quite soft so I added a few more spoonfuls to make it stiffer.

The cake was not the lightest sponge I have ever made but it tasted good and went down well.  It had risen beautifully and cut into 24 generous squares, ideal for a crowd, just the right size to handle and eat without getting too messy.  I trimmed the edges before icing and slicing to remove the crust from the sides.

Ingredients

For the cake

225g softened butter or spreadable butter product

225g light muscovado sugar (I used mostly soft light brown sugar as that's what I had)

 275g self raising flour

2 tsp baking powder

4 large eggs (I used 5 small eggs as they weighed about the same)

2 tblsp milk

2 tblsp Camp coffee essence

75g chopped walnuts

For the icing

75g softened butter

225g icing sugar 

2 tsp milk

2 tsp Camp coffee essence

walnut pieces to decorate

Method

Line a greased traybake tin, 30 x 23cm (mine was slightly bigger) with baking paper.  Preheat the oven to 180 C / 160 fan / gas mk 4.  

Put all the cake ingredients into a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer until well combined.  

Spoon into the prepared tin and level the top.  Bake for 35-40 minutes until done.  Mine was a little over at 35 minutes probably due to the slightly larger tin, so I would check at 30 minutes next time.

Cool in the tin.

To make the buttercream put the icing sugar into a food processor and blitz for a few seconds to remove any lumps.  Add the coffee, butter and milk and process until combined and smooth.

Make sure the cake is completely cold and slice off the edges.  Spread the buttercream over the top and cut into squares of the size you prefer. 

Decorate each square with half a walnut or a few bits of chopped walnuts.

Cuts into 24 squares.

ICED LEMON SQUARES FOR AFTERNOON TEA

We have a friend whose birthday falls on St Patrick's Day so we held an afternoon tea party in his honour with a couple of nods to the Irish theme.  

A chocolate Guinness cake was the star of the show and of course Guinness was served for those brave enough to drink it so early in the day.

The cake stand had dainty sandwiches including egg and cress, always very popular, on the bottom tier.  The eggs were true free range, a gift from one of the ladies in our watercolour painting class and the yolks are an astonishingly bright orange.  She has a number of hens that lay lots of eggs and she brings everyone a box of half a dozen every week! We also used some home grown cress grown on our windowsill from a packet of seeds smuggled in from our trip back to the UK at Christmas.  (I have never found either cress or packets of seeds other than watercress in France.)

There were also ham and tomato sandwiches, smoked salmon, cream cheese and cucumber sandwiches, all with the crusts removed!  I also made a plate of mini sausage rolls using cocktail frankfurters which were very tasty and well received.

The middle tier had home made scones (made by Nick) and some cream horns.  I wrote about them here.  The top layer had little iced and decorated squares of lemon cake.  I fancied doing French fancies but chickened out when I spotted this Irish recipe by Donal Skehan.  

However, they very nearly didn't happen.  The recipe is an all-in-one method and said to use butter "at room temperature". Well, I ended up with little flecks of butter in the mixture.  I knew that too much beating could make the cake tough not soft and had used up all my lemons so couldn't start again.  I looked for solutions on the internet.  Most said "just cook, it will be fine", a couple said beat harder and several said to sieve the mixture!  I tried that - what a palaver and I soon gave up and went with the "just cook" theory!

I baked it as a shallow tray bake, cut it into little squares and decorated with everything I had to make them look pretty. I made a thin icing using lemon juice and coloured half with yellow food colouring.  They looked perfect and tasted very lemony. The texture was slightly firm, a bit like a madeira cake and there were occasional little holes, presumably due to the tiny lumps of unblended butter.  

I would use this recipe again but make sure the butter was very well softened, not just "at room temperature" next time. I suppose that it very much depends on the temperature of the room!  The creaming method would have worked better to ensure the butter was properly blended on this occasion!

I could imagine my mum saying "you're never too old to make mistakes" and the swish of Mrs Stafford's broomstick as she swooped by!

Ingredients 

225g caster sugar

250g self raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

4 large eggs

225g butter at room temperature (well softened would be better)

3 tblsp milk

Zest of 3 lemons

For the icing:

200g icing sugar

Juice of 1 lemon

Sprinkles of your choice

Method

Preheat the oven to 160°C / 140° fan / gas mk 3.  Line a large rectangular baking tin, 30 x 23cm, with baking paper.

Put all the cake ingredients into a large bowl and beat with a hand held electric whisk until well blended.

Transfer the mixture to the tin and level the top.  Bake for 35 minutes until done.  Remove from the oven and after a few minutes carefully lift the cake in its paper out of the tin and onto a wire rack to cool.

To make the icing sift the icing sugar into a large bowl and beat in enough lemon juice to make it runny but not too thin.  

Divide your cake into half if you are using two colours or thirds if you are using three.  Cut into squares of the size you want, very small and dainty or larger.  Separate slightly on the paper or by removing onto the rack.

Coat one section of cake with white icing, allowing it to drip down the sides of the squares.

Transfer half of the remaining icing into a separate bowl if you are using three colours or colour the remainder with just one colour if you are using two colours.

Decorate with sprinkles.

Cuts into at least 20 squares depending on how dainty you want them!

COCTAIL SAUSAGE ROLLS

I have made dozens and dozens of mini sausage rolls over the years to this recipe here.  Then last year we were invited to a friend's house for a bbq party and amongst the nibbles for apéros a plate of tiny sausage rolls appeared on the table.  They were made using mini frankfurters, were very cute, dainty and tasty so I decided to have a go at making them myself.

The sausages come in tubs or shrink wrapped packs of various quantities.

If you can't get mini ones, use long frankfurters and cut them into shorter pieces.

They were easier to make than using sausage meat.  Very quick and one pack of the little sausages contains enough to create about thirty of them.  I made mine by dividing the rolled pack of puff pastry into half lengthwise but this gave each roll quite a thick blanket of pastry.  I think that next time I would try dividing the the pastry into three to get more sausage rolls with thinner pastry out of one sheet.

However, they were very tasty, very popular and I will definitely be using them again.

Follow the guidelines in my recipe for mini sausage rolls but arrange the little sausages in a line along one strip of pastry and cut it into the right length for each one before rolling up.

BROCCOLI, CAULIFLOWER AND BLUE CHEESE SOUP (soup maker recipe)

It's still very much soup weather here in France.  We seem to get one or two warm, sunny days, getting warmer week by week, followed by perishing cold grey, wet or drizzly days and very cold nights.  The 18°C sunshine  and clear blue sky the other day turned into a clear, starry night only a few degrees above freezing followed by a day of cold grey mizzle.  It's not time to put the soup maker to the back of the cupboard just yet and I regretted putting the electric blanket away already!

This soup was very much a "free soup" idea.  I always have to trim the leaves from a cauliflower to fit it into the fridge so had saved them and several stalks from some broccoli with the idea of turning them into soup.  My research told me it would produce a very delicate flavoured soup, which I interpreted as "not much flavour".  The usual way to add flavour to an otherwise bland soup is to add an extra stock pot or seasoning but I had decided on blue cheese, a popular flavour combo.

I discarded the floppy green bits from the cauliflower leaves and used mainly the thick white ribs.  I trimmed the ends and knobbly bits from the broccoli stems and removed the woody outer part.  I went a bit off piste and for once sautéed the leek.  

Into the cooked soup I stirred several dollops of whipped St Agur, a product I spotted here in France not long ago and it's delicious as a spread on toast or croutons.  I think that crumbling in any kind of blue cheese (to taste) would work just as well.  It added a lovely creaminess as well as the blue cheese flavour and the soup was divine.  Definitely a keeper!

Ingredients

cauliflower leaves

broccoli stems

1 leek

1 large potato, peeled and chopped

1 vegetable stock pot

creamed or whipped or crumbled blue cheese to taste

Method

Trim and wash the leek.  Slice into medium slices and fry gently in butter or oil until beginning to colour.

While the leek is cooking, discard any tired and floppy green parts of the cauliflower leaves.  Roughly chop the ribs and rinse well.

Trim the broccoli stems by removing the ends, the knobbly bits and the outer woody part.  Roughly chop and rinse well.

Add enough prepared veg to the soup maker machine to fill as far as the bottom line.  Add the stock pot and enough water to fill to the top line.

Cook on the smooth setting.

When cooked (or when reheating in a saucepan if serving later) stir in your blue cheese spread or other product to taste, until it melts and blends in.  A little can go a long way with some blue cheeses so go steady.  Season with salt and pepper to taste - remember that blue cheese can make it taste salty.

Serves 4 generous bowls of soup or 5-6 as a starter.