APPLE CAKE and the case of the wrong tin.

A bit of an ugly duckling.

I would have to agree that this is not the most good looking cake I have included in the blog, but I plead mitigating circumstances.

In early September we moved house and only three days later fled back to France to enjoy what was left of the nice weather.  Three weeks after that we returned to the UK to begin organising the process of doing up our new house, which is a 1960’s bungalow in dire need of modernisation and a bit of TLC.  The kitchen is probably not very old and although it looked good in the agent’s photos in reality it most definitely is not, being cheap and badly fitted.

The boiler was so old that the plumber laughed and took pictures to show his mates.  The first job was to replace it and all the radiators, which ended up being a major upheaval and the plumbing equivalent of a re-wiring.  This has left us with a workable but not very pretty kitchen which is difficult to keep clean.

It does at least function, although I miss my dishwasher and have renewed respect for my mum who cooked for four of us and washed up by hand every single day.  I now have the sandpaper hands that she had at my age.  A new dishwasher will come with a new kitchen in late November – not a moment too soon!

The double oven/grill was pretty mucky with a layer of grease in the bottom of the grill compartment.  I was all for leaving it exactly as it was and using just the hob and our camping stove until our new kitchen was installed, but after a week or so I realised that I could not survive without an oven for at least two months so decided to tackle it.

I used a product called “Oven Mate” which is a fairly evil and vicious gel that you paint on the cold oven surfaces and shelves and wipe off three hours later.  It did a fantastic job of cleaning the oven but I’m afraid I chickened out of doing the top oven/grill.  Whilst it pains me to leave it like that – it’s like having an ogre lurking in the kitchen, waiting to bite me if I accidentally open the wrong door – I simply can’t bear the prospect of cleaning it. 

Because we are waiting for a new kitchen most of our kitchen stuff is still in boxes piled up in the dining room.  There seems little point in unpacking it all and putting it away only to have to empty the cupboards again in a few weeks’ time.

Just to digress slightly, I am thrilled to have a dining room, having not had one since living in the old Edwardian flat I rented in Headingley, Leeds, in 1971.  That had a proper dining room, with parquet floor, picture rails and a fine fireplace.  After that I had either a “through lounge” arrangement or a dining kitchen.  This new dining room would originally have been the front bedroom until the upstairs was added to the bungalow, but it’s a good size and we have great plans for it.

And so I come to the reason for having a rather untidy looking cake.  It was my dad’s and Nick’s birthdays on consecutive days and a cake of some sort was called for.  After weeks of rummaging through packing boxes to find essential items, I was fed up with the chaos and on opening a box marked “cake tins”  picked up the first tin I found inside and thought it would do fine for the apple cake recipe.  If I had used a regular tin it would have been fine, as you can see, but with this tin the cake is meant to be turned upside down to reveal the fancy shape on top and that’s where things went pear shaped.

I possibly could have turned it back the other way up but thought there was a risk that it might fall apart completely so decided to slather it in a good sprinkling of icing sugar instead.

As well as not using the right tin, I also didn’t use the right ingredients.  The recipe called for almond essence but I had no idea where mine might be.  In rummaging I spotted the jar of mixed spice so used that instead along with the zest of an orange, which I had seen in another recipe and sounded like a nice idea.

It was delicious.  Definitely my favourite apple cake so far.  The original recipe comes from Jo Wheatley, a GBBO winner of a few years ago and is called “Auntie Helen’s Apple Cake”.  You can see it here.

It was packed full of apples and I thought the spice and orange variation worked really well.  Next time I might use one less apple (maybe mine were a little too big) to make the cake more stable but it was lovely.  Definitely one to do again – but using the right tin next time!

Digressing ever so slightly again, I served it on my new cake stand which was a bargain purchase recently from Tesco.  I have a huge collection of cake stands (I simply dare not confess exactly how many but suffice it to say more than any person can ever need) and really didn’t need another.  However, I liked the slogan on this one, things in the world being so wrong at the moment, so when they were reduced eventually to £3, I swooped.

Ingredients

125g caster sugar

125g soft margarine or spreadable butter

185g self raising flour

4 small eating apples, peeled and sliced (I would use three next time)

3 eggs, beaten

40ml double cream

1 tsp mixed spice

zest of 1 orange

Method

Preheat the oven to 170°C / 150°fan.  Grease and line the bottom of a 23cm round springform tin.

Cream together the fat and sugar using an electric whisk, until light and fluffy.  Beat in the eggs one at a time.

Sift and fold in the flour and spice, along with the orange zest and cream.

Stir through the apple slices until well coated in the batter.  Transfer to the tin and bake for 40-50 minutes until golden brown and done.

Cool in the tin for a few minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to cool.  Sprinkle liberally with icing sugar and serve warm with cream or ice cream, or cold.

Cuts into 8 – 10 delicious slices.

PEAR AND CHOCOLATE BROWNIE CAKE - and two steps forward, one step back on the new kitchen.

 

Recently we stayed in a friend’s house in France while our kitchen floor in our own French home was being retiled.  Retiling has meant removing the old kitchen and the staircase, rendering the house uninhabitable. 

A ladder was in the place of the staircase for a while, until it came to the actual laying of the new floor, then that had to go as well.  Because we had no kitchen and couldn’t get upstairs, we decided to move out, and our friends Tim and Gaynor kindly offered us the use of their house while they were away on holiday.

Cooking in someone else’s house is a challenge.  Not an unpleasant one, I may add, but getting to grips with an unfamiliar oven and finding the right equipment makes for quite and adventure.

I found this very pretty plate in the cupboard with the dinner plates.

We were treading water for a while, with time on our hands, waiting for the building work to be finished, so I had the time to bake something nice.  I found a copy of Good Housekeeping “Great Cakes” on Gaynor’s bookshelf and as I have the same book myself I decided to bake something I had had my eye on for a while - “Sticky pear and chocolate brownie cake”.

The cake turned out slightly less squidgy and brownie like than I expected, possibly because I forgot to set the timer and guessed!  It was still delicious and definitely one I would make again.

The icing is simply made using icing sugar and coffee.  The picture in the book shows it as a thick drizzle over the cake but for reasons that now escape me, I decided to brush it over the cake in an even layer, which didn’t look quite so good.   In fact by the time the cake was cut it had crystallised slightly and looked even less attractive than when I took its picture above.  I think that next time I will pour the icing over the cake just before it is served.

As soon as the kitchen floor was finished we moved back in amongst the dust and chaos to begin the next phase, which was to board over the remaining walls and fit plumbing, gas and an electricity supply, ready for the imminent arrival of the kitchen units from the UK.  As soon as the lorry driver started unloading the pallets containing our beautiful brand new Magnet units I could see that something was wrong and my heart sank.

After everything we have done to the house so far – a new fosse septique, a new drive, a new kitchen floor, new walls, new doorway and, not least of all the choosing, designing and paying for a lovely new Magnet kitchen – you would think that simply getting the units shipped over here would be the easiest part.  All they had to do was to secure them on pallets, put them onto a van and drive them here.

Unfortunately whoever loaded the pallets did a thoroughly incompetent job which meant that several of the units arrived broken.  Cartons marked “fragile” and “this way up” had been laid on their side with other stuff piled on top of them.  Someone had clearly driven the forks of a fork lift into two of the base units, smashing them.  Then they rewrapped them in cling film so the damage was not apparent until the whole pallet was unpacked.  What kind of person would do that? 

Replacements have been ordered but I wouldn’t trust Europa Worldwide to arrange the delivery of anything I ever want to see in one piece again, so we are fetching them ourselves.  Which unfortunately means yet another unscheduled and costly twelve hour each way journey across the channel (fourteen hours in fact with a trailer) that we really didn’t want to have to make.  Thank you, Europa Worldwide.

Our temporary new kitchen.  The gaps are where the damaged units should have gone, thanks to the idiot with the fork lift.

We have fitted the items salvaged from the wreckage of the delivery, added some temporary cheap worktops to perch the sink and hob on top of, so that at least we can function for a week or two until the new items arrive.  Meanwhile we are claiming for the damage on Europa’s insurance.  In my opinion insurance should be against accidents, not negligence or incompetence, which is what caused the damage to our kitchen units.  No accident occurred other than being in the hands of some bonehead intent on wrecking our valuable property and then hiding the evidence.

C’est la vie. I’m linking this post to this month’s Tea Time Treats Challenge, run by Karen at Lavender and Lovage, where the theme this month is, of course, chocolate!

It also qualifies for Dom’s Simply Eggcellent challenge at Bellau Kitchen, where the theme this month is eggs and chocolate.

To complete the trio of challenges this month, I’m also entering it into the Alphabakes Challenge where the theme this month is the letter B, organised by Caroline of Caroline Makes.

Ingredients.

275g plain chocolate

75g pecan nuts (or walnuts)

125g unsalted butter

2 eggs

75g caster sugar

½tsp vanilla extract

1tblsp strong black coffee

75g self raising flour

3 large ripe pears

For the icing

75g icing sugar

2tblsp strong black coffee

Method

Make yourself a cup of strong black coffee.  Don’t drink it – allow it to go cold.

Preheat the oven to 190°C / 170°fan / gas mk 5.  Grease and line the base of a 23cm round baking tin or dish with baking paper.

Chop the nuts and 75g of the chocolate and set aside.

Put the remaining 200g of chocolate with the butter into a large heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water.  Heat gently until melted, stirring occasionally and set aside to cool slightly.

In a separate bowl, beat together the eggs, sugar, vanilla extract and 1tblsp of the coffee.  Add the melted chocolate and beat again.  Fold in the flour, chopped nuts and chopped chocolate.

Peel, core and quarter the pears and arrange in the prepared dish or tin, laying the pears with the narrow end towards the centre.  Pour over the chocolate mixture.

Bake for 60 minutes, covering lightly with foil half way through.

Cool in the tin for a few minutes then invert onto a cake plate.  Remove the baking paper and leave to cool completely.

Before serving, sift the icing sugar into a bowl, add 2tblsp coffee and beat until smooth.  Add a little more coffee or water if necessary.  Drizzle over the cake.

Cuts into 8-10 slices.

BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER – AND A COTTAGE PIE

Right in the middle of our house hunting adventures in France we had to dash back to the UK to take delivery of our beautiful new hob and oven.  Beautiful they are indeed.

The oven is the same as the ones currently being used in the Bake Off tent and the hob is an induction model.  We were thinking of having a gas hob, which  is what we have always been used to, but although the gas supply is fairly near to the oven end of the kitchen getting it fitted would have meant a lot of disruption and expense, not to mention the destruction of part of my lovely new kitchen, so we opted for induction.  We are very pleased with it so far, having had it for a total of one day!

I was thinking there would be no time for baking again this month, the final stage of our two-nation house moving exercise being very near to its conclusion, then I picked up the little recipe book that came with the new oven and flipped the pages.  The book opened at a recipe for cottage pie – as if anyone needs a recipe for cottage pie – and with my dad coming round for his dinner on the middle evening of our brief three-day stay in the UK, I thought “why not?”.  I realise of course that the purpose of the recipe book is more about getting the owner of a new oven used to using all its knobs and buttons than actually presenting original recipes, so I dutifully followed the recipe to the letter.  This included adding some tomato purée, something which I have never put into a cottage pie before.

 

The main difference between a cottage pie and a shepherd’s pie is that the first is made with beef and the second with lamb.  I didn’t know that until fairly recently and have been making both for decades thinking they were both a shepherd’s pie and wondering why some people called it a cottage pie! 

Either way, they’re simple to make and quite adaptable and the good thing is that you can wash up the pans while it’s in the oven so that by the time it comes to the table the kitchen is looking less like a war zone – something I’m trying to be conscious of now that we have a dining kitchen – eating dinner while staring at the washing up is something I don’t love about our new house.

The casualties.

There are of course, casualties with my new hob and oven.  Well not so much the oven, but most of my pans will not work with the induction hob so I have had to get a new set.  The old ones will go to France to supplement or replace the mismatched selection of mainly cheap ones we have there – bought when we thought all we wanted was a holiday home and we wouldn’t be doing very much cooking……..how things have changed!

I dislike pictures of leftovers but I completely forgot to take a picture of the finished cottage pie.  So I put in another of the oven as well – much more attractive!

The pie was delicious and because the recipe was sort of chosen at random I’m being cheeky and submitting it to this month’s Random Recipe Challenge, organised by the lovely Dom at Bellau Kitchen.  You can read all about it here.

If you want to catch up on the final stage of our house hunting adventures in France and take a peek at the new house – and its lovely kitchen – you can do that here.

Cottage pie – the ingredients

450g potatoes, peeled and quartered

225g carrots, peeled and diced

1 tbslp oil for frying

450g minced beef

1 onion, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 tbslp plain flour

250ml beef stock

1 tblsp tomato purée

2 tblsp Worcestershire sauce

250g pack of mushrooms, sliced

1 tblsp grated cheddar cheese

Method

Boil the potatoes and carrots until cooked.  Drain and mash them together.

Fry the onions, garlic and mince in a large frying pan until the meat is browned.  Stir in the flour and cook for 2 minutes.  Add the stock, tomato and Worcestershire sauce and stir well.  Mix in the mushrooms and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Preheat the oven to 170°fan.

Spoon the meat mixture into a suitable baking dish.  Spoon the potato and carrot mash on top of that and spread out evenly with a fork.  Sprinkle with the grated cheese and dot with butter if you like.

Put the dish on a baking sheet if you want to be sure the pie will not boil over onto your lovely brand new oven floor!  Bake for 25-30 minutes until browned and bubbling.

Serves 4.  Serve with greens of some kind.

PARSNIP AND LEMON CAKE

This could easily be the last cake I ever make in my old oven in my old kitchen.  I spotted the recipe in a blog and it was one of those recipes that I felt compelled to make as soon as I had the opportunity.

My kitchen, spruced up for the estate agent’s photos.

We’re hoping that it won’t be long now before we move.  It’s eleven weeks since we accepted the offer on our house and with any luck we should move in early June.  I have mixed feelings about leaving the house where I have lived for nearly thirty years, especially about leaving my old kitchen.  Apart from anything else, it’s huge. 

The cabinets are old fashioned now but the doors are made of solid oak so we have never had the heart to change or paint them.  They have successfully survived several new worktops, ovens, appliances, revamps and numerous parties, not to mention cooking disasters and triumphs.  But the main issue I have with my kitchen is actually its size.  The space between the two sides is so great that we travel several miles a year just fetching stuff out of the cupboards to cook with!  If we were to stay here we would be thinking about changing it for a more modern design and a tighter layout.

  Our new kitchen.  The smile on Nick’s face gave it his seal of approval on the day we viewed the house.

My new kitchen is tiny by comparison.  There are lots of cabinets, but the space is small.  It has a half size dishwasher and a single bowl sink.

The house is a recently renovated between-the-wars semi and the kitchen, like everything else in the house is brand new.  And I have to say, I’m really looking forward to it.  I was born and brought up in a house like this so it felt like a comfy old slipper as soon as I walked through the front door.  To have that familiarity but with a brand new kitchen, bathroom, electrics, plumbing, carpets and everything else is going to be a total joy.  The people who have renovated it have even managed to squeeze a downstairs loo into what was the broom cupboard under the stairs – they deserve a medal for that!

 

So for my last cake in my old kitchen, I made the parsnip and lemon cake which was delicious.  There are a lot of parsnips in it and, being in a hurry as usual, I made the mistake of grating them in my food processor.  As I tipped them into the cake mixture I realised that they were more shredded than grated.  I looked at the long strands of parsnip in the cake tin and wondered if it would work but it did.

As well as parsnips and lemon the cake contains sultanas, spices and a small amount of cold tea.  That’s something I’m always a bit nervous of putting in a cake but it added a nice slight hint of flavour to this one.

The texture was lovely and it kept well.  If anything it was even better on day two and beyond.  A cake I will definitely be adding to my repertoire and look forward to making again and again.  Even Nick, who doesn’t really like cake that much, enjoyed it so maybe I will make it the first time I bake in my new kitchen!

Thanks go to “The Gentleman Baker” in whose blog I discovered the cake, and you can read all about it and see the recipe here:

Parsnip and lemon cake.