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.

TOMATO AND RED PEPPER SOUP (soup maker recipe)

This recipe comes from an idea I spotted in a blog called "Liana's Kitchen".

I had a couple of red peppers in the fridge and roasting them with fresh tomatoes would have been a great idea.  However, I didn't have any fresh tomatoes and this was a lot quicker!  I used a tin of whole peeled tomatoes and added half a teaspoon of sweet smoked paprika which gave the soup an interesting smoky flavour.  

I had never tried using unsoaked red lentils in the soup maker before and my instincts told me it might lead to trouble (burnt bits in the machine and undercooked lentils) - but it worked!  It was a delicious soup, ready in less than thirty minutes from looking in the fridge to see what we could have for lunch today!  We ate it outdoors in the early spring/late winter sunshine - a rare treat with the very up and down weather we have had so far this year.

Ingredients

100g red lentils, well rinsed

2 red peppers, washed, seeds removed and chopped

1 onion, peeled and chopped

1 clove of garlic, peeled and chopped 

1 tin whole peeled tomatoes including the juice

1 tsp sweet smoked paprika

1 garlic and thyme or vegetable stock pot

salt and pepper

Method

Put all the above ingredients into the soup maker.  Add enough water to fill to the top line and give it a good stir.

Cook on smooth setting.

Makes 4 generous portions (or six small bowls as a starter).

ANOTHER SUNDAY DINNER SOUP (soup maker recipe)

We are fans of leftovers in this house and there were quite a few after having friends round for Sunday lunch.  The menu was coronation chicken cocktail (a mini coronation chicken salad served as you would serve prawn cocktail), roast pork with home made sage and onion stuffing and apple sauce, cauliflower cheese, broccoli and mashed potatoes.

The table set for Sunday lunch for ten people.

You can see my earlier Sunday Dinner Soup here.  The principle is the same but this time there were enough leftover veg without adding anything else at all so no preparation of extra onion and carrot.  The quickest and easiest soup yet!

I had made the coronation chicken to an easy BBC Good Food recipe you can see here and I poached the chicken for it as per the recipe I used here.  I kept the liquid used for the poaching as stock, along with the bits of carrot and celery, with the possibility that there might be soup in mind.

Everything went into the soup maker and it was delicious, just like Sunday dinner in a bowl!  I added an extra spoonful of warmed apple sauce just before serving.  Yum!

Ingredients 

Two thin slices of roast pork, chopped

Cooked mashed potato and broccoli

A spoonful of cauliflower cheese

A small spoonful of stuffing (there was not much left)

The carrot and celery from poaching the chicken (or use a stick of celery and a carrot, chopped)

A spoonful of gravy

A blob of apple sauce

The poaching liquid from the chicken (or use a chicken stock pot or cube and water)

Method 

Add enough meat, cooked veg and stuffing to fill the machine to the bottom line.  Add the gravy, applesauce and enough of the poaching liquid (or the chicken stock pot/cube and water) to fill to the top line.  Stir well.

Cook on smooth.

Add a spoonful of warmed apple sauce before serving.

Makes 4 generous portions.

CHERRY AND COCONUT CAKE

Whilst doing my occasional purge of ancient condiments and out of date foods in the fridge I found a part used jar of bottled cherries.  These things are very sweet but delicious on ice cream or with chocolate cake.   This time my thoughts turned to "cherry cake" swiftly followed by "coconut"! 

I used one of my favourite coconut recipes from the Waitrose website which you can see here. I've previously adapted it to make a delicious coconut and lemon cake which you can see here.

I rinsed, dried and quartered the cherries, a process which I find a bit tedious which is why I've given the cake two stars for the faffing about.  It’s not hard to do, just always takes longer than you think!

The mixture turned out stiffer than I remember so I had to add a splash of milk if I was ever going to get it into the tin.  The good bit about that is that the cherries didn't all sink to the bottom of the cake!

Anyway, it turned out really well, was a lovely cake, with a good coconut flavour, a crisp crust, moist with a Madeira-like texture and little hits of the very sweet cherries.  Perfect for a "not quite Spring yet" cup of tea in the warm afternoon sunshine.  

It was very much appreciated in my watercolour class where we were painting snowdrops and everyone had a second slice!

Ingredients

175g unsalted butter, softened

175g golden caster sugar

3 eggs

1/4 tsp coconut flavouring (optional)

175g self raising flour

100g dessiccated coconut

100g bottled or glacé cherries

a splash of milk if needed

 

Method

 

Butter and line a 900g (2lb) loaf tin or use a paper liner.  Preheat the oven to 180°C /160°Fan / gas mk 4.

Rinse the cherries well and pat dry with kitchen paper.  Cut into quarters.  Put about a tablespoon of the measured flour into a small bowl and tip the cherries in.  Roll them around in the flour with a spoon so that they are well coated in flour.  This should help to avoid them all sinking to the bottom of the cake (although sometimes they do even though I have done this step!).

 

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar using a hand mixer, until light and fluffy.  

In a jug, beat the eggs with the coconut flavouring and then add a dribble at a time to the creamed mixture along with a little flour, beating well with each addition.

 

Fold in the remaining flour, then the coconut and cherries.  If the mixture seems very stiff, mix in a splash of milk to loosen it.  Spoon into the tin and level the top.

 

Bake for 50-60 minutes, covering with foil after 30 minutes, until done.  

 

Leave the cake to cool in the tin for 10 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

 

Cuts into 8-10 generous slices.  

(Leftover slices are nice served warm as a pudding with custard!)

CHOCOLATE AND RASPBERRY CAKES for Valentine’s Day

With my OH back in the UK for a week I had arranged a Valentine’s Day meet up with some other ladies who are on their own and without a hot date for the evening.  Feeling at a loose end, I abandoned all the chores I had planned and decided to do something frivolous instead.  I made them all a little Valentine’s gift.

My first idea was to make some fairy cakes, or butterfly buns.  I used my basic all-in-one chocolate cake recipe which you can see here and poked a frozen raspberry into each one.  They turned out a bit craggy* which proved tricky for making the butterfly wings so having struggled with a few I gave up on that idea.  For the rest I just flattened the tops and swirled on some buttercream then sprinkled them with freeze dried raspberry chips.

I wrapped them up in food gift bags, putting a round coaster in the bottom of each one to keep them from falling over.  They looked very pretty and were much appreciated.  Luckily the bar we had chosen to meet was not full of twosomes staring lovingly into each other’s eyes so we didn’t feel too out of place!

*There are several possible reasons for the cragginess, including oven temperature, tin size (small paper cases) but it might be because I used a bag of sponge SR flour which was slightly out of date.  I added a half teaspoon of baking powder to compensate for the possibility that the raising agent might not be as effective but clearly it wasn’t needed and they rose a bit too much!

Ingredients

For the cakes

150g self raising flour

3 eggs

150g softened butter or baking spread

150g caster sugar

1 tbslp cocoa powder

1 tblsp warm water

12 fresh or frozen raspberries

For the icing

50g softened butter

100g icing sugar

1 tblsp cocoa powder

1 tblsp water

To decorate

freeze dried raspberry chips to sprinkle over or other red sprinkles

Method

Preheat the oven to 160°C / 140° fan.  Put 12 paper muffin or cupcake cases into a muffin tin.

In a small bowl, jug or cup mix the cocoa powder and water together to make a paste then put all the cake ingredients except for the raspberries into a large bowl and beat well until combined or use a hand held electric whisk.

Divide the mixture evenly between the paper cases (using an ice cream scoop will make this easier).  Push a single raspberry into the top of each cake.

Bake for 20 minutes until done.  Leave in the tin for a few minutes then remove to a wire rack to cool.

To make the icing, mix the cocoa powder and water together to make a paste.  Beat the butter until smooth, sift in the icing sugar and beat well.  Add the cocoa mix and beat in.

To make the butterfly buns, scoop out  a disc of cake from the top of each bun using a sharp knife.  Cut the disc into two halves.  Fill the hollow with a spoonful of chocolate icing and push the halved discs into the top to resemble butterfly or angel wings.  Sprinkle raspberry chips over the icing between the wings.

Alternatively, spread the top of each cake with a swirl of buttercream and sprinkle with the raspberry chips.

Makes 11-12 cakes