PARSNIP AND GINGER SOUP

For at least the first forty years of my life I never made soup, not a single bowl of it.  I always thought that it was somehow complicated and mysterious and you would need lots of special pans and equipment.  It was only when I first read the recipe for vegetable soup in Nigella Lawson’s book “How to Eat” that I realised that in fact it was outrageously simple and I had been missing out all that time.

The only special equipment you need is a large saucepan or stockpot and a stick blender.  A food processor is also handy for chopping large quantities of vegetables but in reality a knife and board will get them chopped or sliced well enough as they cook down just as quickly.  Most recipes suggest transferring the cooked soup to a jug style of blender or food processor but I never do and always use my trusty old stick blender straight in the pan.

I was checking the contents of my veg drawer and realised that I had been over enthusiastic when buying parsnips for Christmas and I still had some that were more than ready for using up.  A quick browse of my cook books and five minutes later I was slicing them for parsnip and ginger soup.  Thirty minutes after that we were tucking in.  The recipe required fresh ginger which I did have but it was in the freezer.  That’s when I discovered that you can peel and slice it straight from the freezer.  I also added a few small pieces of butternut squash that were hanging around, hence the slightly deeper colour than if I had only used parsnips. 

One of the things I learned from Nigella’s recipe is that many soups benefit from a good splash of dry sherry before serving.  Consequently I usually add it to all my soups, referring to it as “the mystery ingredient”!

This soup was easy and quick to make, absolutely delicious and wonderfully warming for a cold winter’s day. 

For more ideas on making soup, see Dom’s post here.

Ingredients

25g or a large knob of butter

30g of fresh or frozen ginger, peeled and sliced

1 small red onion, peeled and chopped

500g parsnips, peeled and sliced

1 litre of vegetable stock (I made mine using Marigold powder)

A good splash (or a small glass) of dry sherry.

Method

Melt the butter in a large saucepan or stock pot.  Add the ginger and cook for a couple of minutes, stirring.

Add the onion and parsnips to the pan, season with salt and pepper and cook for another couple of minutes.

Add the stock and bring to the boil.  Simmer for about 15 minutes by which time the vegetables should be soft and tender.

Remove from the heat and process with a stick blender until as smooth or lumpy as you like.  Stir in a good splash of dry sherry before serving.  Add a dollop of crème fraîche or swirl of cream to each serving if you like.

Serves 4.

SANDRINGHAM FRUIT CAKE or a tale of two fruit cakes #2

I don’t make a fruit cake very often, in fact most years I only make one and that’s the Christmas cake.  However, very recently I have made two, to different recipes, and been very pleased with them.  This is actually the second one and although it seems daft to post about #2 before #1 I wanted to get this one out because of the connection with Christmas.

The reason for making this cake began with a visit to our nearest (in fact very local) National Trust property, Hardwick Hall, to see the Christmas decorations.

I love having Hardwick Hall on our doorstep and we visit it regularly, just because we can.  The Christmas decorations did not disappoint – they were gorgeous.  We combined the outing with a pub lunch and when we got home we discovered that our puppy had been up to no good in our absence.

When I say puppy I actually mean our strapping 16 month old standard poodle Hugo.  He’s so big that it’s sometimes hard to remember that strictly speaking he still is a puppy but anyway he had decided to chew to bits the cover and first few pages of my little Good Food cake recipe book that I had left on the coffee table.  Little devil!

I rapidly ordered a replacement copy from Ebay and it arrived only two days later.  It’s in good condition, secondhand and with some page corners turned over.  I find that slightly annoying but it’s fascinating to see what recipes the previous owner has used.  Even more fascinating was the magazine clipping that fell out of the book!

This has happened before and on that occasion, as now, I felt compelled to make the recipe.  You can read about Sharon’s Hotpot here.

The recipe was for Sandringham Fruit Cake which obviously has royal connections so I fired up the old laptop to see what it was all about.  I came up with nothing very much except for several references to date and walnut cake being the Queen Mother’s favourite and a light fruit cake being popular for afternoon tea.  I looked in my recipe books and couldn’t find it anywhere there either. 

So I decided to have a go anyway and I’m really glad I did.  It was lovely.  Dead easy to make, not heavy on the fruit or spice and therefore easy to eat.

I served it on my lovely new Christmas Robin cake stand, too.

The recipe is written in ounces first with grams in brackets suggesting that it could be quite old but there were no other clues as to where it had come from.  It also gave no size of tin to use.  I guessed an 8” from the quantity of the ingredients but it was cooked half an hour before the time stated. 

Ingredients

4oz / 100g sugar (I used golden caster)

4oz / 100g margarine (I used Stork for Cakes)

8oz / 225g self raising flour

2 eggs

12oz / 350g mixed dried fruit

½ cup (4 fl oz or 125ml) milk

½ tsp mixed spice

Method

“Using a wooden spoon, mix sugar and margarine together until creamy and stir in the rest of the ingredients to make a firm, stodgy mixture.”

(I creamed the sugar and Stork with my hand held mixer, then beat in the eggs and folded in the rest of the ingredients.)

Turn into prepared tin and bake for about two hours at 160C / 315F / gas mk3.

Bake for 2 hours – mine was ready in 1½ hours.

Cool in the tin before turning out.

Cuts into 10 – 12 slices.

APPLE AND MINCEMEAT CAKE (could be a good alternative Christmas cake)

If your house is anything like mine there always seems to be leftover mincemeat lurking at the back of the fridge or the cupboard after Christmas and this is a good way to use it in a delicious cake.  If you’re very lucky there will also be a cooking apple in the veg drawer, although I dare say a couple of small dessert apples (my mum used to call them “eating apples”) would work just as well.

The recipe comes from this book by Liz Herbert, one of my favourite books for old fashioned, no nonsense cakes and recipes that always work.

This is very much an everyday cake to go with a cup of tea in the afternoon, no frills or fancy icing and in fact as it says in the book “beautifully moist and needs no icing”.  It’s quick and easy to make and perfect for when you’ve eaten all the Christmas cake and mince pies but fancy a little something not too fancy.

On the other hand, it would make an excellent lighter alternative to the traditional rich fruit Christmas cake.

~~~~~~~~~

For another good mincemeat cake recipe (without apples) see this recipe here.

Ingredients

115g spreadable butter or baking spread

115g soft light brown sugar

grated zest of 1 lemon

2 eggs, beaten

200g self raising flour

½ tsp baking powder

175g mincemeat

1 medium Bramley apple, peeled, cored and chopped into small chunks.

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C / 160° fan / gas mk 4.  Butter and line the base of a 20cm round cake tin.

Cream together the butter, sugar and lemon zest until fluffy.  Gradually beat in the eggs a little at a time.

Sift the flour and baking powder into the bowl.  Add the mincemeat and apple and fold in.

Spoon the mixture into the tin and level the top, then make a slight dip in the middle.  (This helps to make the finished cake flat on top instead of domed.)

Bake for 45 minutes or until done.  Cool in the tin for 10 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Cuts into 8-10 slices.

TIRAMISU

For our alternative to Christmas pudding this year I made a tiramisu.  To be clear, there was still a Christmas pudding but this was also on offer for those who don’t like it.  In the end most people had a bit of both!

I had my very first taste of this indulgent dessert in the 1980’s, whilst visiting a friend who was living in Germany.  She found a recipe for it in a German woman’s magazine and translated it into English.  I was there in the kitchen when she made it and after just one mouthful I was hooked and asked for a copy of the recipe.  I still have it, written by hand on a page from an exercise book.

I have eaten many a tiramisu since but always use this recipe when making it myself.  (Except of course when I made the lemon or strawberry versions which I have written about before.)

Some I find too solid and cake-like, some too floppy or runny.  This one seems to have just the right proportion of cake to cream cheese, definitely best made the day before you want to serve it so that the cake absorbs the lovely flavours and the whole thing sets so that you can serve it in slices instead of spoonfuls.

I have tinkered with the recipe a bit over the years and find that the size of the dish is important for it to turn out just right.  Mine is a Pyrex dish measuring 22 x 17 x 6cm and this particular one is probably meant to be a small lasagne dish (found in a charity shop).   I have tried making it in round trifle bowls and in individual glasses for a more sophisticated look, but for this recipe, the lasagne dish may not look the most glamorous but seems to work the best.  All eyes light up when it appears on the table!

There are zillions of tiramisu recipes out there and I’ve tried a few but always come back to this one.  And forget the low fat cheese.  Full fat gives the best results!

Ingredients *

175g (1 pack) sponge fingers, also known as Boudoir fingers

1 standard espresso cup of espresso coffee, cooled 

4 egg yolks

3 egg whites

250g mascarpone cheese

3 heaped tblsp caster sugar

2 tblsp Amaretto liqueur

cocoa powder

Method

Whisk the egg whites until stiff and set aside.

In a larger bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the sugar using an electric whisk for several minutes until light and creamy.  Add the mascarpone and whisk in.  Fold in the egg whites gently until well combined.

In a spare dish, tray or plate, lay half of the sponge fingers in a single layer.  Mix together the coffee and Amaretto and pour half of it over the fingers so that it soaks in.

Put roughly one third of the egg mixture in an even layer in the bottom of your serving dish.  Transfer the soaked sponge fingers, arranging evenly in a single layer on top of the egg mixture and sift over cocoa powder generously.

Spread a second layer of egg mixture evenly over the top, making sure you leave a good half of it behind in the bowl for the final, top layer.

Soak the other half of the sponge fingers with the remaining coffee mixture and lay on top of the second layer of egg mixture, dusting with cocoa as before.

Spoon the remaining egg mixture over the top and level carefully.  Chill in the fridge for several hours, preferably overnight or for a whole day, and dust with more cocoa before serving.

Serves 6-8.  Small portions are best as the dessert is very rich.

* Lately I have found the quantity of cheese mixture insufficient to make three layers, usually ending up with not enough to put on the top layer.  So I have used all of the egg whites from the four eggs to increase the volume.  An alternative would be to make a smaller dessert in a smaller dish and by not using the whole packet of fingers.

Having just made a huge tiramisu for a party where I doubled the quantities of ingredients I ended up making more cheese mixture and  so using twelve eggs.  That covered the top layer fine.  

PUMPKIN, BANANA AND WALNUT BUNDT CAKE

A little while ago I popped into our local T K Max discount store to see if they had anything interesting in the kitchen ware section.  They often have real bargains, quality stuff at half price or less.

It was my lucky day and I swooped on a genuine Nordic Ware Bavaria Bundt tin which was priced at less than £20 – well below half price. 

When I bought my first Nordic Ware tin I christened it by making a pumpkin spice cake. With a tin of Libby’s pumpkin purée lurking in the kitchen cupboard I decided to do the same again but then, as I breezed past the fruit bowl, I spotted the lovely ripe bananas and thought “ I wonder…….”.

It also occurred to me that it would look rather good on my new cake stand. 

I know, I know, I already have more cake stands than you can shake a stick at, but I have been hankering after a black one for a while.  I have never seen one for sale in the shops and there is always something I don’t like about the ones I’ve seen online, so I decided to make one for myself out of a black plate and a candlestick.   A good dollop of No Nails in the middle and some Gorilla Glue around the edge seemed to do the job of fixing the two securely together.

If you like banana cakes you will love this one.

I used the same basic recipe as before which you can see here.  I just reduced the amount of pumpkin purée to allow for the addition of the bananas and added a few chopped walnuts instead of the brazils.  It had a nice, even crumb and one of the good things about Bundt cakes is that they are easy to cut into nice tidy slices that are as thick or thin as you like.  In fact for large gatherings (or cake stalls) you can get a lot of slices from one cake.  However, if you don’t have a Bundt tin you can use a 23cm round tin.

Definitely a cake I shall be making again.

Ingredients

200g plain flour

4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

a good pinch of salt

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground nutmeg

250g light muscovado sugar

3 eggs, lightly beaten

190ml vegetable oil (I used rapeseed oil)

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 medium bananas, peeled and mashed

300g pumpkin purée (from a tin or home made)

50g chopped walnuts

Method

Butter and flour the Bundt tin or butter and base line a 23cm round cake tin.  Preheat the oven to 175°C / 155° fan / gas mk 3-4.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, bicarb, bp, salt and spices. 

In a larger bowl, beat the eggs with the pumpkin, oil, vanilla and sugar.  Add the bananas and nuts and stir through.

Fold in the flour mixture and mix well to ensure there are no pockets of dry flour. 

Spoon the mixture into the tin, filling to a maximum of three quarters full.  Tap the tin sharply a couple of times on the worktop to remove any air pockets and bake for 40-50 minutes until done.  There should be no wobble in the middle of the cake and it should be just coming away from the tin at the edges.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes.  Turn out carefully (with fingers and toes crossed) to finish cooling on a wire rack.  Dust with icing sugar before serving if you like.

Cuts into 12-15 slices.

APPLE, CARROT AND WALNUT LOAF

Nick made this cake for our last cake club.  The recipe comes from a lovely little book called “Cooking with apples and pears” by Laura Washburn.

It’s a lightly spiced loaf cake with, as you would imagine, apples, carrots and walnuts.  Nick followed the recipe to the letter as usual, apart from adding a few extra chopped walnuts scattered on the top before baking and an apricot glaze, for extra glam.  Both the apples and the walnuts were windfalls.  Fresh walnuts are so wonderful, tender and sweet and nothing like the dry and bitter ones often available to buy.

It was delicious in the way that a no nonsense date and walnut loaf is delicious – homely and not too sweet and therefore sometimes preferred spread with a little butter.  I liked it plain. 

There was a good chunk of cake left over after the meeting and as we were heading back to the UK a couple of days later, I put it in the freezer.  Three weeks later we returned to France so out of the freezer it came and then it really came into its own – toasted and buttered.  Absolutely delicious and definitely a cake I will be making myself again – unless I can get Nick to do it for me!

Ingredients

250g plain flour

150g light muscovado sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

pinch of salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground nutmeg

¼ tsp ground ginger

¼ tsp allspice

100ml apple juice

75g unsalted butter, melted

2 lge eggs, beaten

1 large cooking apple, peeled, cored and grated

100g carrots, grated

65g walnuts, coarsely chopped

a few extra chopped walnuts for the topping (optional)

1 tblsp apricot jam to glaze (optional)

Method

Line a 2lb / 900g loaf tin with baking paper or use a paper liner.  Preheat the oven to 180°C / 160° fan / gas mk 4.

Put the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl and mix together.

Put the apple juice, melted butter and eggs into another bowl and mix together.  Add this to the dry mixture and mix to combine.

Squeeze as much moisture as possible out of the carrots and apples then add to the mixture with the walnuts and stir until just combined.

Transfer to the tin, level the top and add the extra chopped walnuts if you are using them.  Bake for 1-1¼ hours.

Leave to cool in the tin for a few minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.  Warm the apricot jam in a small pan and brush over the cake to glaze it if you like.

Cuts into 8-10 slices and will keep well in an airtight tin for 4-5 days.

POACHED PEAR AND GINGER CAKE

I made this cake for the cake club meeting in October.  The theme was “autumn” and for me that always means ginger - and lots of it.  My mum had a very small repertoire of cakes and her ginger cake was my favourite.  The recipe probably came from her ancient, battered copy of the Be-Ro book and I remember the joy of coming home from school to the smell of a ginger cake in the oven.

For this cake club meeting I was hoping to do much better than the last two where my offerings were, sadly, disappointing to say the least.  This is the risk you take when you use a recipe for the first time – you have no idea how it’s going to turn out until it’s done.  This time I was keen to prove (if only to myself) that I can make a good cake and I chose a recipe that I had had my eye on for a long time, just waiting for the right occasion to make it.  It comes from a book called “tea with Bea”.

We like pears poached in red wine, cooking them for hours so that they become ruby red all the way through.  For this recipe you poach them just until they are tender which means the wine has coloured just the outer part of the pears, making them look very pretty when they’re sliced.

The cake was not difficult to make but had more steps than I can usually be bothered with.  The recipe suggests baking one 23cm cake and cutting it into three layers.  I’m not fond of cutting a cake into layers once it’s done – it’s far too nerve wracking for my liking.  And all the three layer cakes I have made have ended up a bit wonky, unwieldly and hard to slice.  So I decided to make two 23cm cakes and sandwich them together.  Consequently I amended the original recipe to allow for the reduced amount of filling required, also for the ingredients I had available.

I have to say it looked fabulous and was well worth the effort.  You can read about the rest of the bakes at the meeting here.

Ingredients

For the ginger cake

250ml Guinness

250g black treacle

1½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

280g plain flour

1½ tsp baking powder

3 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

¼ tsp ground allspice

¼ tsp grated nutmeg

¼ tsp ground cardamom

¼ tsp ground cloves

3 eggs

100g caster sugar

100g soft dark brown sugar

3 balls of preserved ginger

200ml sunflower oil

For the poached pears

4 firm pears, peeled

½ bottle Merlot or other red wine

350ml water (approx)

350g caster sugar

zest of 1 orange

1 star anise

1 vanilla pod, split

1 clove

1 cinnamon stick

2 crushed cardamom pods

For the cream cheese icing

70g unsalted butter

95g icing sugar

1 tblsp golden syrup

300g cream cheese (full fat)

½ tsp vanilla extract

2 tblsp apricot or ginger preserve to glaze

chopped crystallised ginger to decorate.

Method

The first task is to poach the pears and this can be done the day before if that helps.

Put all the ingredients except for the pears into a large saucepan, bring to the boil and when the sugar has dissolved add the pears.  Put a circle of baking parchment on top, weighted down with a plate or saucer, and simmer for about 30 minutes until the pears are tender.

Remove the pears and allow to cool.

To make the cake, first put the Guinness and treacle into a tall saucepan and bring to the boil over high heat.  Remove from the heat and add the bicarb – which will make the liquid fizz and bubble up, hence the need for a tall pan.  Set aside to cool completely – which takes quite some time.

Preheat the oven to 170° C / 150° fan / gas mk 5.  Butter two 23cm round springform tins and line the bases with baking paper.

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and spices.

In a separate bowl, beat together the eggs, sugars and chopped ginger, beat in the oil, add the Guinness liquid and combine thoroughly.

Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.  Divide between the two prepared tins and bake for about 40 minutes or until done.  After a few minutes remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the cream cheese icing, using an electric whisk beat the butter, icing sugar and golden syrup together until light and fluffy.  Add the cream cheese and vanilla and beat well.

To assemble the cake, cut the pears in half, remove the cores and cut each half into four wedges.

Put one cake on a plate or cake stand and spread thickly with the cream cheese icing.  Arrange half of the pear wedges on top and add the second cake. 

Brush the top of the cake with the warmed apricot or ginger preserve and arrange the remaining pear wedges over it.  Decorate with the chunks of crystallised ginger.

Cuts into 8-10 slices.  Keep in the fridge.