Cornflower

Persephone books and cakes - 2

    "I had a bit of a bake this morning," explained Mrs. Briggs. "... I was determined to give you a proper tea, because I don't suppose you get overmuch to eat where you are. Mrs. Chadwick looks as if she'd skimp you a bit."

In entertaining Jane Carter, the heroine of Dorothy Whipple's High Wages, Mrs. Briggs certainly has had a bit of a bake - as part of a huge spread she's made rock buns, jumbles, parkin and "oven-bottom cake".

     Fans of Mrs. Whipple will rejoice that Persephone Books have reprinted her 1930 novel about "a shop-girl-made-good", and for more on the book pop over to Dovegreyreader Scribbles and see what Lynne has to say. But don't go without having one of these rock buns first, because Jane Brocket has written the book's preface and it is Jane's recipe I've used here, and they are without doubt the best rock buns I've ever tasted!

     In her preface Jane points out that when Jane Carter goes to work in Chadwick's draper's shop as a junior assistant in haberdashery she is "living-in" staff, given bed and board but quite inadequate amounts of food, so she is permanently hungry. That accounts for the book's very frequent references to meals, from kippers (I hope they were Manx!) to Bury Simnel cake.

    But with Mrs. Briggs settled comfortably behind the teapot and Jane C. tucking in, all that remains is for me to say that if you have not yet read any Dorothy Whipple please remedy that without delay because she's far too good to overlook, and do try Jane B.'s rock buns at the first opportunity!

Books and cakes - 22

    We've been reading A. E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad for the Book Group this month (our thoughts on the poems are here), and with a marked absence of culinary references within the lines themselves, I had to take a geographical link for the baking for the book.

    I could, I suppose, have gone with "hop-yards" and "Ludlow beer" and made some kind of ale-infused cake, but instead I discovered Shrewsbury Cakes or Biscuits and had a go at them.

     As you'll see from the recipe (I used the one given at the top of that link) they are flavoured with caraway seed, nutmeg and rosewater. I have a cold and can't taste or smell anything just now, but I'm told that these ingredients are apparent in the finished biscuits!

 

If you scroll further down that article you'll see that there's another version of the recipe given which coincidentally comes from A New System of Domestic Cookery by A Lady, the 1816 edition of which has just been reprinted by Persephone Books.

Autumn pruning

     A lovely autumnal cake from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, not one for everyday, as it's pretty rich, but a dark, delicious treat for now and again.

It's from the October section of The River Cottage Diary 2010 and it's the Chocolate, Prune and Brandy Cake: soft prunes soaked in brandy folded into a wonderfully chocolatey mixture. It looks indulgent and it is (so two of us shared that piece!).

 

The diary's recipe pages are conveniently perforated so you can pull them out and keep them for future reference, and this one will most certainly be used again, but lest you think they are all for high days and holidays, January begins with the delicious-sounding but restrained (ascetic, even) Kale with Soy, Chilli and Garlic, and I've just spotted a homely Marmalade Bread and Butter Pudding for keeping out the February chill.

On the Aga: pancakes, etc

      Donna asked about Scotch pancakes the other day and some Aga fans asked for Aga-related posts, so I'll combine the two with a link to a very early post which includes the pancake recipe - our method being to cook them directly on the simmering plate, and a picture of 'the beating heart of the home'!

     By the way, the chopping boards on the left don't live there, but it's an excellent place to dry things like that, and for clothes it's brilliant too because it even 'irons' as well as drying!!

Pudding cake

   I love pudding cakes and puddingy cakes - dense and moist and slightly squidgy, good warm with cream or custard or cold with coffee or tea. They are the sort of cakes I make most often and they tend not to linger long as everyone seems to share my taste for them.

    Here's another: Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Apple and Almond Pudding Cake from River Cottage Everyday (I'm enjoying this book very much having so far tried the brownies and the sausage and root vegetable casserole - just the thing for this time of year). But back to the cake. You gently soften the dessert apples in butter, sugar and cinnamon, then make a sponge mixture enriched with ground almonds.

 

   Arranging the apples on top of the sponge, drizzle over them all the buttery pan juices and bake for around 45 minutes (it took only 30 low down in the Aga's baking oven, but mine is pretty fast).

 

Serve in thick slices!

Persephone books and cakes

     Regular readers will know that every month around Book Group time I bake for our 'virtual afternoon tea', making something lifted straight from whatever we've been reading or inspired by it in some way.

     Today, I'm doing what we hope will be a regular feature along the same lines, another bit of 'outside catering' for Dovegreyreader, and for anyone who'd love to take part in the Teatime Reading Group at Persephone Books' Lamb's Conduit Street shop in London but can't make it in person. DGR is talking about the book over on her site, while I've donned my pinny and have the kettle on the Aga all ready for you here.

     The book in question is the Classic edition of Good Evening, Mrs. Craven, The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes; it is one of my favourite Persephone titles and I recommend it unreservedly. I've chosen the story The Hunger of Miss Burton (first published in January 1943) as my prompt for the 'cake': the eponymous Miss Burton, whose meagre diet makes her think constantly of food, looks forward to her Saturday afternoon trips out of the school at which she teaches to " a bogus Elizabethan café in the High Street".

 

   "...she crossed the road quickly to the orange-shaded warmth of Ye Olde Tudor Café. She sat there for an hour or more, spinning out her order of hot chocolate and scones, glancing ironically at the pictures of well-fed people in the Tatler. 'The Lady Marigold Taggart-Bly leads an austere life at her cottage in the country.' A week at St. Ermin's, my girl, and you'd know all about austerity.....She asked for a second order of scones and ate them to the last crumb with deliberate, enjoyable greed."

 

No hot chocolate for us today, just a cup of Earl Grey, 'Lily's Scones' from Nigella (and they are very good indeed!) and some mulberry preserve. I think Miss Burton would have felt quite satisfied.

  

Mulberry - (and not a handbag in sight)

    No sooner had I said that there's not a mulberry to be had around here for love or money, when out of the blue came a special delivery man-in-a-van bringing me a large box which contained a jar of carefully packaged Mulberry Preserve.

Next thing you know, there'll be a handsome type abseiling out of a window, skiing down moonlit slopes, braving shark-infested waters to bring me a box of chocolates, "and all because the lady loves Milk Tray" - well, this is the real-life equivalent, and pretty good at that, don't you think!

   But seriously, the jar of preserve was the gift of a very kind friend who secured this rare stuff by - I imagine - a click of the mouse rather than any more strenuous physical activity. However, it's the thought that counts and is much appreciated, and I can promise that 'the jam' will be savoured and shared with the donor in due course.

Books and cakes - 21

     "Blanche Silcox did not show any mortification at [Evelyn's] cavalier reception of a dish which, on another occasion he would have enthusiastically welcomed. But nor had she shown any obvious gratification when he praised the duck and the mulberry pudding. In their deep domestic intimacy silence before other people was the appropriate thing."

     Mulberry pudding was what was called for by the book, but getting hold of mulberries was impossible, and even mulberry conserve proved beyond the scope of local shops. What I had in mind was Sarah Raven's recipe for Mulberry Bakewell Tart, but lacking the crucial ingredient I decided to substitute blackberries. 

I tried the suggested method of grating the pastry into the tin and that does appear to have given a good result (I've tasted just a mouthful of the finished tart so far so I shall have to do a proper consumer test at supper!). I omitted the lemon and added instead a good measure of Crème de Mûres, and having no time to go and forage for blackberries I used some from the supermarket to supplement what we have in the garden !

The man who has eaten a slice says it is very good.

Cake crumbs

    There's nothing left to show you of the cake I made for Simon, but it has appeared here before (so feast your eyes there if you will).

Yes, it's the blackcurrant and almond cake from Sarah Raven's Garden Cookbook, and I keep on returning to it as it is so good.

Lilly asked recently for the recipe, and here it is:

Preheat the oven to 180/gas 4. Grease and line a 25cm loose-bottomed tin.

Cream together 200g. butter and 200g. caster sugar. Add 3 large eggs, beating well, and fold in ground almonds (200g.) and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Put the mixture in the tin and scatter over 200g, blackcurrants, topped and tailed, or a punnet of frozen summer fruits.

Bake for 30-40 minutes until just firm and golden. Dust with icing sugar before serving warm or cold. Enjoy - with or without bookish chat!

Hugh's brownies are ...

  

    ... scrumptious!

    I've been faithful to my Rosemary Moon brownie recipe for many years, but I've tried Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's version (from River Cottage Everyday) and it is utterly delicious!  

    Similar quantities of butter and chocolate, a little more sugar (the RM one uses golden syrup too), self-raising flour, vanilla extract as before, and baking them until they are only just done for that extra-squidgy texture. I could have added ground almonds but went by the letter this time, and here is the delicious result.

Can you see 'the dark side' (bottom right)? That rich, black interior, luscious molten chocolate just escaping from its barely set, delicate crust?

Am I tempting you?

Coffee with Cornflower

    In the birthday post the other day (and thankyou to everyone for the lovely comments) I was touched that several people say they have their morning coffee with Cornflower. Not that a visit here is likely to take more than a few seconds, or a sip or two and a nibble of a biscuit, but still, it's nice to think that this site forms some sort of brief break in the day.

    Having coffee with Cornflower herself yesterday morning were the members of the Mindroom board, and for them I baked another version of  The Nice and the Good cake, this time using plums instead of raspberries. Just as nice and every bit as good as the original, and very welcome in a warm kitchen on a day of relentless rain and louring skies.

    Today I'll be having coffee at my desk, getting on with some work, and eating this (which I love - thanks, Sophie!), but 'in another life' when I worked in an office, my all-female colleagues and I always bought cakes to have with our Friday morning coffee, often getting extra to give to a junior partner who lived alone and looked as though he could do with a good feed. Fridays were usually pretty hectic days for us so a stop for something sticky and sweet was welcome and provided the fuel for much frantic work. Later, when I spent a lot of time at court, I had my coffee in the crypt of St. Giles' Cathedral, conveniently next door to Parliament House where the courts are housed. Perhaps we lawyers absorbed some spiritual balm from above as we ate our scones and took a break from nerve-wracking litigation.

   Nowadays, it's most likely to be coffee in the kitchen - which is fine by me - but wherever you are and whatever you're doing, enjoy your coffee!

  

Books and cakes - 20

    This month I've made a cake which is, I think, rather better than the book it accompanies - at least, I know which one I've enjoyed more!

    There's a scene in Iris Murdoch's The Nice and the Good in which walnuts have a certain significance; elsewhere in the book "The dark shut-in velvety smell of the raspberries hung over the kitchen table", so I've found a cake which combines the two and does so to great effect.

 

    This is Sophie Grigson's American-style Raspberry Cake. As you'll see from the recipe there, an unusual sponge mixture enriched with Greek yogurt is topped with fresh raspberries and then a cinnamon-flavoured walnut crumble. It's really delicious! As to modifications, I'd say you'd need more rasps than specified (I used 225g), and I found it was perfectly cooked in only 30 minutes as opposed to the 45/50 the recipe says, but that's partly a matter of knowing your oven, and mine is fast.

 

Do try this cake - it's a big hit in this house - and the walnut crumble would be great with other fruits, too, such as plums or apples. (As to the book, thoughts on it here).

Mystery chocolate cake - revealed!

    What interesting suggestions for the mystery ingredient in the chocolate cake - some I must try -, but those who put forward beetroot were right!

The recipe comes from the Green & Black's book, though I replaced the drinking chocolate powder specified with cocoa and baked it for a much shorter time than they recommend as I like puddingy cakes. Even Mr. C., who refers to beetroot as "the devil's vegetable" and will never normally eat it loved this cake. As I said before, it's the depth of flavour and the moistness the beetroot gives which make it worth using.

2 tblsps. cocoa powder, 8oz. self-raising flour, 7oz. caster sugar, 3.5oz. dark chocolate (minimum 60% cocoa solids), 4.5 oz. unsalted butter, 9oz. cooked beetroot, 3 large eggs

Preheat oven to 180C/350F/gas 4/bottom of Aga baking oven. Butter and flour an 8" tin. Sift together the cocoa and flour and mix in the sugar. Melt the chocolate and butter together in a double boiler. Puree the beetroot and stir in the beaten eggs. Add the beetroot and chocolate mixtures to the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Bake in the prepared tin for 30-40 mins. until a skewer comes out clean or you have the desired degree of squidginess. Leave to cool for 10 mins. before turning out. Serve, dusted with icing sugar and with some crème fraîche.

Mystery chocolate cake

   I have a picture of a cake for you, but I also have a technical hitch and I can't upload it. We ate a similar cake last week in Lewis, and it was so good that I wanted to try it for myself a.s.a.p., so with a friend here to act as guinea pig, I made it.  It contains an unusual ingredient (9oz. of it), not one normally found in cakes, whose flavour you can't detect in the finished product but which adds much overall in the way of depth and moistness. Can you guess what it is?

Answer and recipe later - and hopefully picture, too.

Variations on a theme

    It's great having Harriet on school holidays because she's keeping us all in baked goods! She's a dab hand in the kitchen, and what's more she clears up after herself, too. What we love also are the little notes she attaches to the trays of delights she takes from the oven: "Please ask before taking a biscuit" - she tries to ensure everyone gets their fair share.

 Anyway, ever since Rebecca featured these scrumptious peanut butter/chocolate chip cookies ages ago they have become firm favourites in our house. But a good recipe is surely one you can play with a bit, varying it slightly while retaining its intrinsic integrity (!!), and for this batch Harri omitted the oats - quite deliberately, as she wanted a less earnest, smoother result. So here is the recipe with her variations:

2oz. butter, 1.5 oz. light soft brown sugar, 2oz. dark soft brown sugar, 4oz. smooth peanut butter, 4oz. self-raising flour, 3oz. dark chocolate chopped into chunks.

Cream the butter, sugars and peanut butter. Add the flour and chocolate and mix to a soft dough. Form into balls, flatten them slightly and arrange on a lined baking sheet. Bake for 12-15 mins. (bottom of Aga baking oven, or gas 3/4, 160/180 deg.). Share - even with your greedy brother!