QUICK AND EASY LEMON MERINGUE PIE

Lemon meringue pie was a real treat when I was a child and my mum usually made it using a Green's pie filling mix.  I was reminded of this when reading a recent post in "Lavender and Lovage" about the Be-Ro recipe for it (see here).

Hence, on my recent trip to the UK I bought some of the packet mixes and I was keen to relive the memories.  Using ready made pastry it was done in no time at all and was exactly as I remembered it, especially as I made it in my ancient Pyrex pie dish, just like Mum would have done.

Of course, she always made her own pastry as I'm not sure there was any other option in the 50’s and 60’s and in any case, shop bought would have seemed far too extravagant!

It’s a delicious, quick and easy dessert and there was that glorious crunch when I cut the first slice - something that I always think of as a "Mary Berry moment"!

Ingredients 

1 pack of ready made, ready rolled shortcrust pastry

one sachet of Green's lemon pie filling (each pack contains two sachets)

2 medium eggs, separated

280ml (half a pint) cold water 

110g caster sugar

Method 

Remove the pastry from the fridge about 15 minutes before you start to bring it up to room temperature.

Preheat the oven to 200°C / 180° fan / gas mk 6.  Grease a 20cm pie dish and line it with the unrolled pastry.  Trim and crimp the edges then prick the base with a fork.  Line it with the baking parchment that comes with the pastry, fill with baking beans and blind bake for 15 minutes.

Reduce the oven temperature to 160°C / 140° fan / gas mk 3.

While the pastry case is baking, make the filling according to the packet instructions:  

Tip the sachet contents into a small saucepan and stir in the water until it's smooth.  Add the egg yolks and heat gently until it comes to the boil.  Cook for one more minute and allow to cool slightly.

Remove the pie dish from the oven, remove the baking paper and beans and pour in the lemon filling.

To make the meringue, put the egg whites into a clean bowl and whisk until stiff.  Add the sugar one spoon at a time and whisk again until stiff and glossy.

Spoon the meringue mixture over the lemon filling beginning at the edges.  Spread the meringue out to fill in the gaps and swirl to level and make a few peaks.

Bake for 25 minutes until the meringue is golden brown.  Allow to rest for 15 minutes before serving.

Serves 5-6 portions.

AN ULTRA QUICK PUMPKIN CAKE FOR HALLOWE'EN

I was unsure whether to post about this cake or not - because I was in two minds about it.

I spotted the recipe in a lovely blog called "the English kitchen" by Marie Rayner and just had to try it.  It's called "two ingredient pumpkin cake" and my first reaction was "never!".  

Apparently the recipe was turning up all over the internet a few years ago and the two ingredients are just a Dr Oetker carrot cake mix and a tin of pumpkin purée.   (I don't use a cake mix very often but have noticed that they appear frequently in recipes from the other side of the Atlantic.)

I rummaged in my cupboard and dug out the last tin of pumpkin purée from my stash saved for my usual pumpkin spice cake or a pumpkin pie.  (See here and here.)  I picked up a carrot cake mix on my next supermarket shop and on glancing at the instructions was puzzled.  If you are supposed to add eggs, oil and water to the carrot cake mix, how could it work with just a tin of pumpkin purée instead? I even left a comment on Marie's blog to check and she came back to say yes, that's all you do!

Well it did work after a fashion! The mixture was very stiff and it didn't rise much in the tin.  The cake itself was a fabulous colour, lovely and moist with a nice even crumb and a rich, spicy flavour. However…..each mouthful kind of dissolved into something very…..it’s hard to find the right word…..gluey in the mouth.  Very odd.  I'm not sure I would make it again - unless I was very pressed for time as it certainly was a rapid bake and very tasty.  No measuring out and the longest process required was lining the tin!  

As it happened I didn’t get around to icing it with the cider glaze.  I hadn't any cider in the house and had planned to use apple and mango juice instead, but visitors arrived just as I was taking it out of the oven.  Their opinion on the cake was "the ginger saved it!"  You can see the original recipe here.  I would be interested to hear how you got on if you decide to try it!

It did occur to me that it was the ideal cake for Hallowe'en!  Very quick to make, would take all the spooky decorations you could throw at it and that odd texture in the mouth has a decidedly uncanny feel to it!

Ingredients

A 425g tin of pumpkin purée.  I have seen this for sale in Waitrose on the tinned fruit and veg shelf, also in Tesco with the jams and spreads.  Otherwise you can get it online via Waitrose, Ocado or Amazon.

A box of Dr Oetker carrot cake mix.

For the glaze

140g icing sugar, mixed with a pinch of mixed spice and enough cider or apple juice to make it drizzlable.

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C / 160° fan.  Butter and line a 22cm square cake tin.

Beat the ingredients together using an electric whisk until well combined. This will take at least two minutes!  Spoon into the tin and level the top. 

Bake for 25-30 minutes until done.  Cool in the tin for ten minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.  Cool completely before drizzling the icing over.

Cuts into 12-16 squares.

FESTIVE FRUIT CRUMBLE

We are fans of the Great British Crumble in this house.  As a child I had crumble for pudding after Sunday Dinner most weeks and my mum would make it by hand from self raising flour and margarine.  She never used butter in baking as it would have been far too extravagant, using lard for pastry and margarine in puddings and cakes.

Once I was old enough – or tall enough – to help with the baking, the rubbing in was often my job – a good way to keep a child occupied and quiet as we listened to “Two Way Family Favourites” on the wireless and she got the rest of the dinner ready.

We were later than ever in icing our Christmas cake this year and it didn’t get done until the day after Boxing Day.  Nick said he felt up to it so I let him get on with it.  Unfortunately he was tired afterwards and didn’t feel up to doing the clearing up…..hmmm….

Looking at some apricot jam leftover in the saucepan and some scraps of marzipan an idea came to mind about not wasting them.

I have been a fan of using bits of marzipan in pies, crumbles and cobblers ever since I watched Ruby Tandoh do it on “Bake Off” a few years ago.  She was the young contestant that had a habit of becoming tearful and emotional at regular intervals but she was a very good baker and made it as far as the final I think.  I can’t remember what it was that she made but she put chopped marzipan into whatever it was and it sounded like a good idea and I have been doing it occasionally ever since.  It melts and adds an almondy sweetness which is never a bad thing.

So, to make this crumble there isn’t really a recipe, just a concept.

I smeared the melted apricot jam in the bottom of a buttered baking dish, just to use it up.  The crumble would have been just as good without it but any jam that needs using up would probably do.

I peeled and sliced some dessert apples into the dish, using enough apples to come about two thirds of the way up.  I always add the apples the way my mum did.  She never cored them or used a chopping board but she would cut slices from the apple straight into the dish, leaving the core behind in her hand.

I then dotted some bits of chopped marzipan amongst the apples and blobbed some spoonfuls of mincemeat on top.  I didn’t add any more sugar as I thought the mincemeat would make the crumble plenty sweet enough and it did.

I then sprinkled some crumble mix over the top and baked for about 25 minutes until the crumb was golden brown and the filling bubbling around the edges.

As for crumble mix, I often make much more than I need and keep leftover mix in a bag in the freezer.  It’s ready for instant use without any need to defrost it.  I’m also not averse to using ready made packet crumble mix when I’m pressed for time. 

We had our festive crumble with custard but cream, ice cream and leftover brandy butter would would also have been good.  There is still some mincemeat left in the jar so I’m sure there will be more festive crumbles to be enjoyed this winter. 

Looking at these photos, I realise that the camera I bought to replace my stolen one (it was in the handbag that some toerag took in Barcelona last October) is nowhere near as good as I had thought it would be.  I bought it because the price was about the same and I thought it was enough to pay, but, thinking about it later, the original one was half price in a sale about ten years ago which could make it about four times the cost of the one I bought to replace it.  I always believed that you get what you pay for and this proves it.  Hey ho.

DATE AND TOFFEE SWEETHEART CAKES

I made these little cakes using a Wright’s Toffee Cake Mix.  A bit of a cheat I know, but sometimes there just isn’t the time to start from scratch, or all the ingredients to hand.

I simply added about 75g chopped dates to the packet mix, allowing them to soak in boiling water whilst I got the cake tins ready and mixed up the cake mix, so for about ten minutes.  I then drained them and stirred them into the cake mixture and baked at 180° fan for 18 minutes.

The interesting bit is that I had no luck with this cake tin last year – all the cakes stuck fast, see here – so this time I tried a different product, “PME  Release-a-cake”.  It worked a treat and all the cakes turned out perfectly.  It’s expensive stuff – my bottle has a label on it saying £4 – but it looks like a little goes a long way.  I used a small blob in each hole and brushed it into all the little nooks and crannies.  I shall definitely be using this stuff again.  And the Wright’s cake mixes are excellent – I think you would be hard pressed to know that they weren’t made from scratch if I hadn’t said.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

CHOCOLATE AND GINGER SWEETHEART CAKES (cheat’s version)

Some time ago Nick announced that he doesn’t really like cake all that much and the only cakes he does like are chocolate, ginger and fruit cake.  So for Valentine’s Day I decided I would treat him to some chocolate and ginger cakes, using my pretty new heart shaped tin.
Then things went pear shaped time wise – and baking was off the agenda.
Our kitchen in France used to look like this.  It looks pretty good from a distance but there are lots of things wrong with it so we decided to lash out on a new one.

The kitchen now looks like this.  Notice the nice big empty space under the beam where we found a humungous mouse nest.

This is the artist’s impression of our new kitchen.  Nice and clean, no mouse nests, an oven whose door doesn’t fall off and nice tiles on the floor that don’t break up when you stand on them.  Plus a sink that drains properly and good lighting.
The new installation is about a month off but there is a lot of preparation work to do first, namely to remove the old kitchen, dig up the old kitchen floor and put down a new one.  The floor is being done by a professional builder and Nick had to dash across the channel to start the removal of the old kitchen before the said builder can start.  Hence the reason that I didn’t get my little cakes made.

Before I set off for France myself I picked up a packet of chocolate cake mix just in case.  I had no idea at that point whether I was going to have the facilities to bake anything so I thought I would make it easy for myself.  In fact we have managed to set up a reasonably functional temporary kitchen in the dining room.  Sadly the water supply is at the other end of the building but you can’t have everything.  It’s significantly better than camping at least.

Wright’s Chocolate Fudge Cake Mix was recommended in a blog I read as a handy item to have in the store cupboard so that’s the one I bought.  On the back of the pack there are instructions for using it for a loaf cake, muffins, cupcakes or a traybake so that inspired me with confidence. 

I added to the mix some ground ginger and chopped preserved ginger and used my new heart shaped bun tin.  There was a lot of mixture left over, enough to make four mini bundt cakes as well.
 Unfortunately I couldn’t find my can of cake release spray so I buttered the tins well but the cakes still stuck, which was annoying.  Having had a few sticking bundt disasters in the past I find that the spray is the only way to more or less guarantee that the cake will come out.
Sadly this meant that all but one of the little cakes lost the nice pretty pattern on top that should have been imparted by the tin.  So I decorated them with a little ginger flavoured icing and they looked fine.  They tasted nice too.

I can’t say that they tasted as good as a real home made cake would have done but they were fine.  Better than no cake at all, which, under the circumstances, was the other option.  I will get another packet of the cake mix in for emergencies and even try some of the other flavours available.

Now I am really cheating and being rather cheeky in submitting these little cakes to the Aphabakes Challenge, organised by Ros of The more than occasional baker and Caroline of Caroline Makes, which this month is for the letter S. 
I fully intended to enter them last month when the letter was V – as chocolate and ginger Valentine’s cakes.  I blame mitigating circumstances for my cheek in changing the name to sweetheart cakes instead to comply with this month’s theme.  You can see the details here.
(If you’re interested you can read more about our new kitchen adventure here.)
Cheat’s Chocolate and Ginger Sweetheart Cakes
Ingredients
1 pack of Wright’s Chocolate Fudge Cake Mix
200ml water and 60ml vegetable oil (as specified on the packet)
1tsp ground ginger
2 balls preserved ginger, chopped
2tblsp icing sugar
2 tsp syrup from the jar of ginger
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C / 160° fan.  Spray two bun tins with cake release spray (or butter well and cross your fingers).
Make up the cake mix according to the instructions on the packet, adding in the ginger.
Divide the mixture between the tins and bake for 20-25 minutes or until done.
Allow to cool in the tin for 5-10 minutes then ease out gently and cool on a wire rack.
Make up the icing using a little extra liquid (water or syrup) if necessary to make runny.  Drizzle over the cakes when completely cold.
Makes approx 24 small cakes or buns.