Oh Friday, Sweet Treats, Endlessly Delicious!

So, in between being a social worker, carer, surrogate parent, general oracle, miracle worker, parent to own kids, partner, data sifter etc etc, staff showed talents as bakers at Friday’s Macmillan Coffee Morning fundraiser! Where on earth did staff find time to do all this wonderful baking as well? Amazing!

This is how it starts:

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“Get a flag and label your cake!”

“Sign the gift aid declaration form!”

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Our very own Queen of Cakes kept us all organised! We were only one string of bunting from The Great British Bake Off!

Flavoured sponge cakes, meringues, cheesecakes, sweet buns, intense chocolate creations, cream cakes, Victoria sponges, cake pops, flapjacks, muffins, butter cream buns, and so much more I didn’t get close enough to, were displayed along 3 long tables. A further round table of treats were especially reserved for gluten-free munchers featuring blueberry muffins and carrot cakes amongst others.

After only two hours of work, everyone descended upon this wonderful scene! From this:

IMG_0617 to this!!IMG_0621IMG_0620  A difficult choice to make here!

 

Everyone contributed some cash for their drink and slice of cake with extras available for further donations. Everyone tried their best to sample plenty of the wonderful options.

Better at baking than eating, there were many cakes that couldn’t be eaten up! The best people to ask to hoover up the last morsels were of course, the sixth form! Ladies and gentlemen offered very generous donations and it was a joy to see them deliberating over the lovely choice of cakes remaining at lunchtime.

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I’m sure we all enjoyed fundraising for such a good cause; I’ll add how much we raised in the next edit!

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Outstanding! 😉

A slice of coffee: Is it your cup of tea?

This will not be everyone’s cup of tea I can guarantee!

As a theme for a recent Clandestine Cake Club event, I was given the letter ‘E’ to inspire me to create a cake to make our cake alphabet! One of my favourite cakes to bake is a coffee cake so a little more research about the flavour of coffee led me to browse the ‘Flavour Thesaurus‘. Not quite a recipe book, not quite an encyclopaedia, it’s a flavour wheel of combinations that will have your mouth watering. So, it would seem that coffee is a good match for plenty of other flavours besides walnuts and chocolate. The inspiration came from reading a cross reference to coffee and cloves, and another to cinnamon and cloves. The first recounted the Ethiopian tradition for coffee made with cloves, and the second stimulated me to put coffee, cloves and cinnamon together to make the Ethiopian coffee cake.

Somewhere along the line, the cloves seemed too strong so I modified the spices with less of the pure ground cloves, and more of the all spice which seemed a little more gentle. It was sweetened with the cinnamon and I offer the measurements in this recipe which is a second version. I would say that the flavours will depend on your own olfactory senses, and the age of your jars!

Also, if you open the bar of dark chocolate and miraculously find that a couple of pieces manoeuvre themselves on to the floor or elsewhere justifying them to be eaten instead of included, then don’t worry, as I think a little progressive quality assurance is fine, just don’t scoff loads of it or you’ll never manage the cleaning of the mixing bowl.

If you’re not put off yet, then here is the recipe and method. It’s a basic sponge cake with a bit more variation than usual, that’s all! What could possibly go wrong? If you want a sneak preview, then look through this and you’ll soon be racing for the kitchen.

Photos and verdict on version two to follow.

Ethiopian Coffee Cake.

Tin= 2x 8 inch/ 20cm round tins, greased and bases lined OR 1x 23cm push pan or spring form tin

Little electric whisk

Ingredients=

  • 3 large eggs (weighed- now use this same weight for the next three ingredients!)
  • soft Stork marg
  • caster sugar– I use a third dark muscovado to two thirds golden caster sugar to give a deeper and earthier flavour
  • self raising flour– I use wholemeal for the more earthy flavour but do be aware if you use this you will need to use more liquid in the bake or it could be on the dry side as the flour absorbs more!
  • 1 tspn baking powder
  • 2 dessertspoons instant coffee dissolved in just enough boiling water to dissolve it, or about 50ml if you are using the wholemeal S-R flour. Allow the coffee to cool
  • I bar dark chocolate with cocoa nibs in it-chopped– most supermarket bars are 100g so I use that and I’ve tried Elizabeth Shaw (very tasty) and Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference (I didn’t!) so I’ll let you know on the latter! If you chop it in to small pieces then dust it in a little dish in a small spoonful of the flour, it should help the choc to stay evenly distributed through the cake rather than it sinking to the base
  • Spices– your own mixture along these lines: ¾ tspn ground cinnamon+ ¼ tspn ground mixed spice+ ¼ tspn ground all spice and a scant ⅛ tspn ground cloves.  (I didn’t measure them in version 1 so I’ll let you know the outcome of this combination!)
  • If you are using two tins, consider a filling of coffee mascarpone cream
  • If you are using just one tin, then a dusting of icing sugar mixed with a bit of cinnamon will work. I added an icing drizzle made with a few spoons of icing sugar, two of cocoa, touch of cinnamon, mixed with cooled instant coffee, and made a random pattern on top!

Oven= 180 deg C or Gas Mark 5

What to do=

  1. Grease tin/s and line the base with baking parchment. I also added demerara sugar coating round the edge of the tins for crunch later!
  2. Play with your spice selection- mix the spices until you’re happy with the sniff!
  3. Weigh out the marg and sugar in to a large bowl and cream slowly by hand. Note- if you have used some dark muscovado  sugar then you will need to take extra care that the sugar doesn’t clump. Make sure any clumps are dispersed.
  4. Lightly whisk the eggs in a jug/ bowl.
  5. Have the flour, bicarb and spices all together in a bowl with a dry spoon in it.
  6. Preheat oven.
  7. Now cream the marg and sugar mix with the electric whisk until smooth and creamy- keep pushing the mix down the side with a spatula.
  8. Add small amounts of egg, (I do it in about 4 or 5 lots) together with a spoonful of flour to help stop the mix curdling. Repeat until all the egg is combined.
  9. Add in the cooled coffee mix and a bit more flour. It will probably curdle a bit but it’s ok!
  10. Fold in the rest of the flour with the metal spoon.
  11. Now fold in the chopped dark chocolate with cocoa nibs in it that you coated with a bit of flour from the bowl. Any spare flour goes in as it was from the original weight.
  12. Now the mixture is ready to go in the tin(s). Measure the quantity in each to keep them even if you can if using two tins.
  13. To the oven on Gas 4/5 or 180˚C: Bake the two tin version for 22 minutes, check for doneness, then you may need another 3 mins. If baking in one slightly larger tin, then I found that 30 mins seemed to do it, but it had less liquid in it first time, so always test for doneness in the usual way- clean skewer pulled out of the centre of the cake, or very easy spring back on the cake surface when lightly depressed.
  14. Cool the cake(s) in the tin(s) for a few minutes and then turn out on to a cooling rack. Decorate as you wish.

Enjoy!

Great little buns

I couldn’t decide which recipe to make so I made a combination of flavours with a method I knew would work and hey presto, there they were, little lime and coconut drizzle cakes, with a dash (ok, splodge!) of lemon glace icing!

I used 6oz of marg and sugar creamed together, with 3 large whisked eggs added gradually and whisked well with a little flour in between. The key here was the zest of two limes mixed with the 6oz self raising flour and a teaspoon of baking powder. At this point, I added the 50g or so of dessicated coconut was mixed with the flour and lime zest.  I folded in the last of the flour mixture in two lots and then sloshed in a bit of semi skimmed milk and loosened off the mixture.

The muffin tin was filled with the cases suitable for ‘buffins’; bigger than a fairy bun but smaller than a muffin as they’re just too big. The mixture easily filled the dozen cases so they required 20 minutes to cook properly. The juice of the two zested limes was used with 40g of sugar to make a lime drizzle which was added to the little buffins on exit from the oven!

So the lime drizzle was added to the freshly cooked lime and coconut buns and then they were cooled and one was tested by Mr Crumbs:  “Moist enough” was the verdict; and so that was it, only the lemon glace drizzle to add to them by way of titivation! It was a bit ‘spodgey’ but it would pass for ‘abstract’!

An there you have it! Canny little buns, without faff!

Limonata

So much of the enjoyment we associate with food and drink comes from the memories that go with it, some more vivid than others. Here is a ‘crumb’ of a memory which translates in to a different product decades later, and yet is still the signal of summer for me.

This is the can lid cover.

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San Pellegrino is in the north of Italy, and is the natural source of spring water that is lightly carbonated. I don’t like too much fizz. The info about the place is here. The distinctive dark green glass bottles for the plain slightly sparkling mineral water, have always been my association with Italy, and also lemons. After all, what could me more Italian than the red white and green packaging?

Whilst in Italy on a family holiday at the age of 11, I can remember asking for lemonade and being given something very different; it was sharp, very lemony but with some sweetness to it. A slightly greeny yellowy colour, I remember viewing it rather suspiciously. Today, this would be a bit like cloudy lemonade, (too sweet for me) or bitter lemon (artificially sharp) as I now realise, but in fact it was something different. It is only limonata that comes close.

Limonata is spring water with a high percentage of lemon juice in it. It does have the added sugar in it, (not as much as coke or similar) but it’s the taste of summer for me with a vibrant flavour and best enjoyed in the sun! My portable summer in a can!

[PS On offer at Sainsbury’s at the moment!]

 

“Cook little cake, cook!”

Cake club is only three days away and inspiration deserted me. Then I flicked through The Great British Bake Off recipe book  Well a loaf cake will be easy enough I thought, having already done a version of the recipe last October. I decided to revisit the Chocolate Chilli loaf cake.

This time, I would revamp the flavours, giving them more oomph and frankly, more taste! Attempting to get more chilli taste and warmth in to the chocolate loaf cake should not be too difficult as I had been tentative with flavours last time. Not so this time as the theme is ‘Fire and Ice’. Working towards the ‘fire’ idea, I added a little more (ok quite a bit more) ground ginger and Tabasco sauce than the recipe recommended.

In working through the recipe, I was glad to finish off some ingredients from the cupboard and use more of the new ground ginger from the jar and also some of the recently opened baking powder. I measured the baking powder and the bicarbonate of soda carefully. All the other ingredients were as before, and so was the 900ml loaf tin. Ok it did not have the dimensions that were helpfully given in the recipe book, but I thought it would be adequate capacity for a cake I’d cooked before with no problems.

No those of you ‘of a certain age’ or older, may appreciate the reference in the title of this little note, and therefore you can see where this story is heading. If not, I urge you to read a children’s book, (published in the year I was born!) of this name. To buy what is now regarded as ‘vintage’ then look here. [I strongly object to the story being made in to a Bl**DY POWERPOINT by an author giving the story a contemporary edge!]

Worked it out yet? I was delighted with my rich cake batter, and loaded the tin and two tasting bun cases to assess the heat of the chilli! I thought this was going to be my best cake, AND I would get to taste test it in about 15 minutes when the buns would be ready. “Cook little cake, cook!” When I approached the oven to retrieve the little buns, sitting in a low tin, this is what I saw in the oven (obviously NOT porridge!). I gasped in horror, in the manner of the woman in the picture, but without the headscarf!

I was quite shocked. This was to be the cake for the cake club evening. All my chocolate and ingredients were in there. One of the little buns could be rescued but the other was swamped by batter oozing out over the top of the loaf tin. No matter how I tried to scoop up the mixture and stop it overflowing, it still kept coming over the edge. Lots of cake was lost in the oven tray below!

“Stop little cake, stop!”, I said to the oven, and eventually, the cake stopped oozing in to the tray below and the rest of the cake cooked beautifully with a layer of biscuity edge that was quite delicious when I prized it off! Although the cake had a good trough in its centre, the whole thing was cooked and looked perfect when upside down! It’s safely packed away ready for decoration later this weekend.

ChocChilliPeppermintLoaf_June2013I couldn’t resist some dark chocolate mint sticks for on the top of the peppermint icing! The cake was well received at the cake club though I was still disappointed with the last of chilli warmth! Anyway, I like peppermint!

And all’s well that ends well- for now!

PS: The cake was finished off and a couple of spare slices were saved in the freezer. The cake plate was left covered in crumbs. It did occur to me for these crumbs to be used for something but having dried out, I couldn’t really think what they could be used for, and then…….

Crumbs_for_breakfastWell it’s a bowl of blueberries, yoghurt and muesli and the crumbs were being added. It was going to be a flavour experiment.

Cake_Improved_BreakfastThe bowl of yumminess! In fact the slight peppermint flavour came through the chocolate cake crumbs and enhanced the breakfast with the fruits and yoghurt! Unusual crumbs and stuff!

Energy bars!

Apologies upfront for the photographs-

Ok so take a look at this:It’s from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s ‘River Cottage Everyday’ cookbook, and it’s a wonderful collection of recipes. The recipe is here and is well worth the outlay!

IMG_0196Seems like quite a simple recipe for some seedy oat bars that are marginally healthier than flapjack!

IMG_0197Now the dry ingredients and the tin are ready, it seems quite easy to melt the rest of the ingredients ready to mix!

IMG_0198This is the selection of ‘wet’ ingredients. Everything is melted very very slowly and stirred occasionally. The coarseness of the peanut butter is visible here with some butter still to melt!

IMG_0200The melted mixture has just been added on top of the dry ingredients. This is when a strong arm is required for mixing!

IMG_0201With mixing started, the range of ingredients reveal themselves and it starts to smell amazing!

IMG_0202As mixing progresses, there is a gradual stiffening of the ingredients and the spoon is harder and harder to push through the oat and fruit mix!

IMG_0203In to the tin, and the mix is roughly smoothed out to the four corners. It’s not easy to spread but not too important initially!

IMG_0204With a bit more time, the mixture is pressed in to the tin and its corners, trying to flatten the surface without dragging it! It’s tricky to make it exactly even but it’s not too difficult to estimate and even out the top.

IMG_0205Only crumbs left on the board. Now where are those spare seeds that Hugh insisted we reserve for at the end?

IMG_0206The final seeds are shaken on the top of the smoothed mix before baking. This is the baked mix and it’s just golden on the top, and the edges are slightly more ‘done’ just as the instructions indicated!

IMG_0208After letting the slab cool completely, the slab is cut in to 16 but it could have gone in to more as each is quite filling and full of flavour!

IMG_0207So this is what it looks like inside. The fruits and nuts are clearly visible; there are plenty of seeds too and so it’s crunchy, chewy, fruity, spicy, and sweet……yummy!

IMG_0210Two layers in the tin, and they are supposed to keep for up to a week! They didn’t of course, because Mr Crumbs had to test them before packing them off to Scotland for his Munro bagging adventure!

Well recommended!

A regional recipe.

In the June edition of BBC Good Food Magazine, I found an advert for a recipe from my homeland, Northumberland! Now I was not aware there were too many specific cake recipes linked to the area, and no, the origin of Greggs bakery in nearby Gosforth doesn’t count!

The recipe for a Felton spiced loaf, refers to a local village up the A1 main road north from my home town of Morpeth. Having visited the Running Fox Bakery in Felton to sample the loaf cake, I was really disappointed to learn that the loaf is not always produced due to lack of demand. I am not sure why. I am not a fruit cake fanatic at all and this loaf cake is soft, buttery, comforting and tasty without being heavy at all.

Here’s the Felton spiced loaf recipe from the Baking Mad reference at the foot of the magazine page. I omitted the dusting of icing sugar at the end. Also, the detailed dimensions of the loaf tin are welcome though I used the loaf tin I had to hand. The loaf did rise and the spices were subtle but evident. Perhaps next time, I would add some lemon zest and more spices!

Photo to follow!! Is your mouth watering yet?

Here’s how it came out: FeltonSpicedLoafSlice FeltonSpicedLoaf

Well I was actually quite chuffed. It’s just like the picture I thought! The loaf made many generous slices; slices for dearest friends near home and further away, the postal service delivering the loaf in good condition to my knowledge! Great for the freezer too, I can’t imagine why the Running Fox Bakery at Felton does not receive more demand for such a versatile treat!

PS. If you get the chance to visit the Running Fox bakery, I would urge you to plan to spend some time because there is an amazing tearoom to sample and a whole range of loaves and cakes to take away!.

 

Bingley BBQ- summer at last!

A good forecast for the day meant it was time to plan to walk to some trig points in Wharfedale and ‘earn’ a tea shop stop later on… Much later on as it turned out! It was quite a long way from Grassington to the top of the moors, back to Yarnbury, then the long straight lane back in to the village. Mrs Crumbs was wilting and complaining slightly.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA This is the view back towards Grassington and the hills behind Skipton are clearly visible. Sharp Haw or ‘Skipton Pointy Hill’ was noted as a ‘must do’ walk, as was the ever present Pendle Hill (not in this view).

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThis view looks uphill towards the moor, through some partly exposed limestone pavement. There are a number of flowers (yet to be identified!) that we observed as we paused to let a number of keen runners go by. (There might be more flowers to add in here later!) There were at least 200 runners and all very fit! We carried on with only a handful of other walkers seen all day!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA There were plenty of lambs still staying close to their mums. This is quite high up the dale so spring came even later here than the low lying farms! The Littondale ridge is visible here. Great views towards our favourite areas of Littondale and Upper Wharfedale where we have enjoyed great walking.

Some time later….we arrived at our tea stop. The ginger and carrot cake proved too tempting but unfortunately, no photograph here! The tea shop specialises in vegetarian and special diet cuisine and is certainly worth another visit to explore the menu further.

A lovely warm day and we were getting carried away with the idea of sitting out in the yard with a glass of wine, enjoying summer! It was all the encouragement Mr Crumbs needed to decide on a bbq for tea. There was an old bbq at the bottom of the cupboard left over from last summer, or was it the summer before? Would it light? Would it stay lit and actually heat up sufficiently to cook the meat, whilst I make the obligatory potato salad, given that one bbq didn’t work last year?!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAWarm enough to sit outside, Mr Crumbs is settled with his wine and his fire lit! Mrs Crumbs is busy making potato salad. [Note: New recipe for potato salad included finely chopped gherkins and capers with the mayonnaise and black pepper!]

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAMr Crumbs with cooking in progress, and more wine in progress! The fire was hot, or hot enough we thought!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAFood cooked and piled up, with seconds too, and the fire reaches its peak! Look at those white coals! The twigs are rosemary Mr Crumbs pruned from the shrub to his left. Various other spices were added to the hot coals as we enjoyed the last warmth of the evening with the wine and the rosemary was certainly the most aromatic and enjoyable, especially when sitting right in the smoke!!

Hopefully one of many bbqs for this year :-)

Our first night away: Glasgow Central

It’s still Friday 5th April and we are still only part of the way in to our Scottish journey. What a wonderful treat to walk through the centre of Glasgow in sunny warmth admiring the wonderful architecture. The Co-Op, below left, is eye catching for its reflections and circular upper windows. A decorative detail from the Charles Rennie MacKintosh cabinet in the hotel reception cannot be left out here especially as it’s our anniversary trip!

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Renfield Street is one of the more imposing streets for its highly decorated multi-storey 19th century stone buildings. We might have been lugging the luggage but we spotted where we would be heading for our dinner; an important landmark!

Overlooked by the colonnaded Bank of Scotland, we enjoyed the views from our window seat in Charcoals restaurant. This was a small but popular place and we were glad we had booked! The waiters were extremely keen to please and we were soon telling them about our curry ‘heritage’ in Bradford. This was taken as a challenge to surpass our expectations and so began the feasting! Our menu choices were largely immaterial as the waiter brought out extras and alternatives for us to try. Chargrilled poppadoms, in addition to the traditional fried ones, were tasty and enhanced with earthy aromatic spices. The fish Lahori and Chana Chaat were almost a meal in themselves.

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Chicken Tandoori, naan, medium curry.

Our main courses were based on the tandoori specialities all served on a sizzling platter covered in peppers and onions and our chosen meat. Mr Crumbs chose lamb and I had chicken, and, needless to say, we swapped and discussed. The accompanying dishes of medium curry were wonderfully spiced and lacked the oiliness so common elsewhere, thank goodness. Another ‘extra’ was a slow cooked chicken with sweeter, earthier spices which was delicious, and perhaps a favourite, even though I didn’t think to ask what it was called after our over indulgence! The spinach and potato filled naan was a welcome addition though it couldn’t be finished. The restaurant certainly excelled itself in every way and I can see why it’s so popular on Trip Advisor!

It was all washed down with some chilly Cobra. A stroll around Glasgow was required to begin to settle some of the feast. No wonder it only helped a little!

Our Easter adventure to Doune, Knoydart: Good food, good living, good hills.

For our Easter holiday this year, we chose to stay at the Stone Lodge in Doune, a tiny hamlet on the west coast of the Knoydart penninsula, north west Scotland. [Go and get your map out!]

This blog will focus on the food as a little diary of the flavours, care and ingredients involved, making a happy record of our trip. Of course, there are endless stories of the views, the weather, the mountains and the company, but not here. More about Doune, in due course, but first, how did we get there?

Friday 5th April 2013. “Mopped up with a Metro

Unusually, I am travelling alone at the start of our adventure.

Mr Crumbs is to meet me en route with the first treat of the week. As promised, he delivers and arrives in the railway carriage carrying two tall cups of hot chocolate; but where’s lunch?

Tucked away in his best outdoor coat (this is significant!) are two warm Stanforth’s pork pies. This is a treat. To appreciate these pies, you must know about the butchers; Local legends with an international reputation, this is no ordinary pork pie lunch.Treat yourself to a look at least: Do scroll down on this site!  Whilst watching the wonderful Yorkshire Dales scenery pass by, with remnants of snow drifts track side,  the pies are keenly devoured, with what’s left of the rich liquor leaking out with every juicy bite, the rest residing in Mr Crumbs’ coat pocket! A spare Metro, appropriated for the purpose, catches any stray bits and pieces!

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This is the first time we have ventured on holiday by train and we are fortunate to have such a route close to home. The galleries and timetable for the Settle-Carlisle line here will tempt you further. Just in case, Mrs Crumbs provided some salads, ‘not just any salads, but…’ you get the picture. This is was also a fine opportunity to enjoy some red velvet cupcakes I’d prepared earlier! (one each I hasten to add, not the whole tray!)

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Even though they were rather sticky and inelegant to eat, the buns provided the sweet ‘afters’ we needed before sitting back and admiring the changing views. Metro mop up having been abandoned, and Mrs Crumbs having forgotten the pretty paper serviettes for the purpose, there was nothing for it but to lick all fingers carefully to remove all red food colouring too! We managed to save the last bun for the Carlisle to Glasgow journey as ‘afternoon tea’ which was a stretch of the imagination, but showed some restraint of a couple of hours nonetheless.

To be continued at dinner in Glasgow!