Sunday baking is back

Well for one Sunday at least Sunday baking is in full swing. I got caught out by the snow this weekend, my journey home that normally takes 15 minutes took 2 hours - not because the snow was particularly bad but because traffic was. The world and his dog apparently decided to leave work at the same early time - and got precisely nowhere very, very, slowly. The snow wasn't the problem, ice and far to much traffic were the cause, and the result is that I abandoned initial plans for the weekend, and as today has bought lots more snow I've spent it indoors and in the kitchen.

Checking the cupboards and fridge for comforting winter food ingredients revealed a lot of half used odds and ends left over from Christmas baking so a fruit cake was inevitable. We finished my Christmas cake this week and I've been missing it, truthfully I would have liked to bake another just like it and have it plain but I didn't have any cream, or any inclination to venture out for some. Happily Dan Lepard is not a one fruit cake kind of a man, and half a jar of slightly grainy honey suggested his cinnamon honey fruit cake. Previously my favourite chunky fruit cake was this one from 'River Cottage Everyday' but the honey cinnamon one beats it by a mile (and the River Cottage one is pretty good). 

It was also a chance to use the 5 inch cake tins I got a while back and have only looked at since which has given me 2 cakes instead of 1. It's nice to know that the recipe splits perfectly, the smaller size suited my oven too which tends to take it's own sweet time to cook things so they get a bit crispy on top, so I'm sure with a bit of thought I can come up with some good reason why 2 cakes are better than 1 (apart from the obvious).

The Honey and Cinnamon Fruit Cake recipe is here. I used whisky instead of brandy or cold tea (though I had plenty of cold tea I had more whisky) which I'm inclined to regard as an improvement. The flavour really comes through and is wonderful. I also made lots of wine mulling syrup, a lamb honey and prune tagine, and an apricot upside down cake... It may be cold outside, I may have to venture out to work first thing tomorrow, I may (and most likely will) end up with wet feet before I get home - but when I do get home there will be no shortage of comfort food.      

Cups of tea and slices of cake

When I get to work on Monday morning Christmas will have officially begun, I would say it's to early but the stock has been an unwelcome reality for a few weeks now and it's going to be such a relief to have it out on the shelf rather than in a solid wall between me and anything I want to get to, also I've seen pfeffernusse. Still it's hard work and I'm sitting here at the end of the week wondering if I can put off dealing with laundry until tomorrow, and what would be more relaxing - bed with Mae West (on film) or a bath with Mae West (book). Most likely is falling asleep on the sofa until I get woken by cramp or cold half way through the night...

A bright spot in all this is cake. I had been on a bit of a self imposed baking ban over the summer but after I found some very elderly cans and jars at the back of a cupboard there was a bit of a tidy up and a ready made excuse to use up some of the many half full bags of sugar, nuts, dried fruits, and all the rest of the stuff with best before dates looming. A superabundance of elderly nicely matured marmalade and dessicated coconut has made Dan Lepard's 'Short and Sweet' the inspiration for most of my recent baking - Lepard seems to like both and it's been fun working through quite a bit more of this book.

From being a book I wasn't going to bother with 'Short and Sweet' has become almost indispensable, it's even close to usurping Nigella's 'How To Be A Domestic Goddess' as the go to cake book - close but not quite there, not until I find the equivalent of Nigella's Brownies which have been providing an unequalled sugar and chocolate hit for more than a decade now.

Cakes baked have been the brown sugar chocolate loaf cake - this one was a disaster after most of it escaped from the tin and landed on a baking tray that I'd thoughtfully placed under it against just such a possibility - I don't have a lot of luck with loaf cakes. More successful was a marmalade and vanilla cream layer cake but it all got eaten before I could take a picture - there were guests, it wasn't just me and a fork. Had I actually used the fine cut marmalade specified rather than the chunky home made sort it would have been even better.

Most successful however was an Orange Macaroon cake, this is the one I'd make again. Nice texture, good flavour, and just the right amount of coconut. Now all I need is another cup of tea. 

Domestic disaster improved by cake

Because there's some sort of intermittent leak coming from the flat above my airing cupboard looks like this. It used to be full of linens, towels, warming socks, and everything else I wasn't sure what to do with. The leaks been a problem since the new year when I first noticed it but it's been sneaky and most of the time the ceiling has been dry to touch. The last few days however I've caught it out (can you tell how much this is getting on my nerves...). For no reason either I, or my upstairs neighbour, or apparently the plumber employed by his letting agency, can fathom - it's only the last one that worries me - water's coming from somewhere, and only seems to be doing so around about lunchtime. It might help if the plumber was prepared to have a proper look.

This is why, after dispatching a suitcase full of blankets and spare duvet to my mother's thankfully dry house, I spent hours clearing my wardrobe to put the rest of the bits in there. By about midnight everything was neatly stowed away and I thought I might get almost a nights sleep. then I went to set the alarm on my mobile. I couldn't find my mobile. The last time I saw my mobile was on the bed with all the things to go in the wardrobe, 20 minutes hopeful searching revealed nothing. There was nothing for it but to haul everything back out of the wardrobe where finally the phone revealed itself in the depths of a pillowcase, needless to say approaching 1am  nothing went back in neatly. Which is why my wardrobe now looks like this. 

Fortunately it was a half day for me at work and only 5 hours sleep perhaps helped me make the man who has to tell the plumber to pull up somebody else's floorboards believe it's something he Will Have To Do. I hope so anyway not least because I'd hate to think the fraught conversation I had whilst balanced on a stepladder inside the airing cupboard listening to water dripping from Somewhere was a waste of time.

After all that I made cake, Dan Lepard's (I should be on commission) semolina cake from The Guardian a couple of weeks ago. Sadly it's not in 'Short and Sweet' which is fast filling up with cuttings from his column, but this one is a winner. I was looking around for a good recipe for Revani last year and finally this is basically it. the texture is perfect - light and sticky and delicious. It does sound like a lot of syrup but the semolina soaks it up perfectly and it was very simple to throw together. Totally recommended.

 

Cake expectations – or a tale of two cakes*

I have never made a Christmas cake before, or for that matter baked a proper fruit cake. This is partly because fruit cake isn’t my favourite and partly because I go to my mum for Christmas and my dad for New Year – mum is an excellent cook who makes a brilliant cake. Dad once won a prize for Best Fruit Cake Baked By A Gentleman in the village show (he likes fruit cake) he also married a professional chef second time round and his youngest daughter has been well trained in baking matters – they always have good cake too, making another has seemed like cake overkill.

However making your own Christmas Cake feels like a rite of passage that a person should go through (if so inclined) before they’re 40 (a dreadful sounding anniversary that’s now only a couple of years away) so I think this will be the year. Actually I also though last year would be the year when I cut out a Dan Lepard recipe from The Guardian - but I still have the clipping and I want to make the cake more than ever. Truthfully I’ve never been that much of a Lepard fan but that’s just changed, Verity told me I must get ‘Short and Sweet’ but I momentarily thought I had enough cook books and should save money for dull things like bills and bus fares (it may be that I was wrong).

What my tatty clipping didn’t make clear was how long the cake could keep or if it needed to be made long in advance so I asked Verity via twitter what she thought (she is after all a seasoned fruit cake baker) she suggested I tweet Dan himself which I was about to do when I found he’d already sent me an answer. I was deeply impressed; I mean how many people would be that efficient and helpful? I’m now filled to the brim with goodwill and ‘Short and Sweet’ has gone on my wish list. It’s not even that I’m thinking ‘aha here’s someone who can be bothered with questions whenever I have a cake query’ (although that’s a temptation albeit one I’ll quash) but that this man cares enough about his work to clarify a point gives me tremendous confidence in him. Incidentally the cake will keep well wrapped up in a cool place and can be fed with hard liquor if desired.

Cake number two is a Two Fat Ladies Chocolate Whisky Cake. It was a Jennifer Paterson contribution and is the first thing I’ve cooked out of a book I see was a birthday present in 1997. Every book has its day. This cake calls for 3oz of sultanas soaked overnight in 4 tablespoons of whisky, 6oz of plain chocolate melted with 4oz of butter and put aside to cool whilst 3 eggs are separated, the yolks to be whipped with 4oz light soft brown sugar and the whites to be whipped separately and set aside. Meanwhile a grated orange rind, the whisky and sultanas, the cooled chocolate mixture, and 2½oz of chopped walnuts can be folded into the yolk mixture followed by ¼ of a teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg, and 2oz self raising flour. Finally gently fold in the egg whites and pour the whole lot into a prepared 20cm cake tin. Pop it in an oven at 180°C/gas 4 for an hour or until a skewer comes out clean then leave in the tin for a further 15 mins before turning out. JP suggested a buttercream and whisky icing to top with but I didn’t bother this time.

I wish I’d taken a picture before we ate it, but didn’t so you’ll have to imagine how good this cake looked (actually my tin was a bit big so it looked a bit flat, but tasted great). I have lots of similar recipes but they all cook in about half the time – it seems these days we like our cakes a good bit fudgier – but this way is excellent, rich but surprisingly light in texture. I also really like the addition of fruit nuts and flavourings; they worked fantastically well together making this cake feel like something really special.

*Because it’s a while since I’ve had a pun never mind two really terrible puns in a blog title and I’ve missed them.