Mrs.Beeton's Bread 'n' Butter Pudding

Last weekend I planned to bake a cake or maybe a batch of cupcakes, but my plans had to be altered as I heard “when will you make me a bread and butter pudding?” just as I was reaching for the flour… I must admit it wasn’t the first time I heard the phrase this year. This constant nagging had to be stopped, so I gave in. (For Christmas, just like a little hint, I’ve been given a book called “The Best of Mrs.Beeton’s British Cooking”, so I couldn’t even use the “I haven’t got a recipe” excuse...)

It certainly isn’t difficult to make the bread and butter pudding and it tastes good, so if you ever decide to have a go, here’s what you need:

9 thin slices of bread and butter, crusts cut off

75g currants or raisins

grated rind of 1 lemon

grated nutmeg

40-50g caster sugar + extra for sifting

4 eggs

900ml milk (can be substituted by cream, if you want your pudding to be richer)

Butter a large oven proof dish. Cut the slices of bread and butter in half or into quarters, layer them in the dish. Sprinkle each layer with a bit of currants, lemon rind, grated nutmeg and caster sugar.

Beat the eggs with the milk. Strain the mixture through a sieve over the pudding. For best results leave it to stand for about 2 hours, so that the bread is well-soaked (you need at least 30 minutes for that).

Set the oven to 180C (350F or gas 4) and bake the pudding for 1 hour, until it has risen and is golden and set. Sift some caster sugar over the top and serve freshly baked.

Lovely Biscuits

Just before Christmas I bought one more baking book – “Baking Magic” by Kate Shirazi (with Susannah Blake). I’ve been picking it up and flicking through pages ever since, but couldn’t decide what to start with: cupcakes, cakes or biscuits? In the end it turned out that Valentine’s is the right day for magic, even if it’s only baking magic.

I fell in love with a simple recipe for lovely biscuits aka lemon snaps. These are unbelievablly easy to make and very tasty!


You will need:

125g butter; softened
125g caster sugar (fine sugar)
3 egg whites
Finely grated zest of 2 lemons
125g flour

Preheat the oven to 200C (400F) and line two baking trays with baking paper.

Beat the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites until very stiff then fold them into the butter-sugar mixture. Add the lemon zest and mix until combined. Sift the flour over the bowl and fold into the mixture.

Take small teaspoons of the mixture and blob them onto the lined baking trays, leaving plenty of space between them. Flatten the blobs with the back of the spoon and spread them around in a circular-type manner.

Bake 5-6 minutes until the biscuits are golden around the edges. Leave on the trays for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool.
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And... "Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and a richness to life that nothing else can bring." Oscar Wilde

Cold Weather Alterations

We’ve had our first frosts. The neighbours’ roof turned white and the ground for the first time, after the rain we’ve had, felt hard. I could almost see a smile on the dogs face – huskies would always choose winter over summer.

We’ve also had our first cold victims in the family. Their runny noses and sore throats remind me that it’s time to start putting on warmer clothes (even gloves!). Occasionally we might get the sun out, but this doesn’t mean that the wind’s not cold. I don’t like all this, but at the same time I know that it will get worse…

The last of the crops is being dragged into the house, everything neatly put into the freezer or jars. We might as well be giant squirrels, getting ready for the cold period! It certainly feels that way, especially when I’m picking walnuts :)

Even the cuisine is being altered and adjusted to the weather outside. We drink more hot tea and cook more thick soups. And while the other part of the world is saving their pumpkins for Halloween, I gladly chop them up and bang them into a pan.

This one came from our garden. I love the colours and the sweet scent of melons that filled the kitchen when I cut it open. Back in spring I got a few little plants from a friend of mine, who told me that the seeds were ridiculously expensive. I wonder why, as even the little pumpkin was full of them! (I would gladly share them with a keen gardener.)

Anyway, the soup might not be as fancy as the one cooked by Jamie Oliver, but it tastes really nice. All you need is some meat, for making stock, the usual soup spices (I put pepper corns, bay leaves and salt), carrots, pumpkin, potatoes and a stem of celery. Cook vegetables till they’re soft and then, using a blender, turn everything into a puree. Of course don’t forget to take out pepper corns and bay leaves before you do that.

Right. The sun is out! It's one of these rare moments, so I'd better jump into my wellies and do something useful outside.

The Easiest Apple Pie – Dutch Apple Pie

When the apple tree branches are nearly breaking from their load and it’s impossible to keep up with the new ripening varieties, an apple pie always seems like a good idea. It’s just that sometimes the preparation of the pie might kill the enthusiasm – all the complicated ways of mixing sugar, flour, butter and then adding the separately whipped egg whites, oh, and if you also have to use a rolling pin… No, no, no! That’s not for me.

A few weeks ago I found and easy recipe of an incredible apple pie. 15 minutes and you shove it into the oven. Job done. And after 50 minutes of baking, you’ll definitely receive loads of compliments! (Guaranteed.) Anyway, here’s the recipe – an interpretation of a Dutch style apple pie.

Ingredients:

For the filling:
6 or 7 middle sized apples
Cinnamon
A few tb spoons sugar
Raisins (only if you like them)

For the dough:
400g flour
250g butter
250g sugar
1 t spoon baking powder

Preheat your oven to 200C. Melt the 250g of butter. Put the melted butter and sugar into your food processor. Add the baking powder to the flour, mix well. Put this mix, spoon at a time, into the food processor together with the butter and sugar. After a few minutes of mixing your dough should be soft, but fall into pieces easily.

After greasing a round tin sprinkle it with flour. 2/3 of the dough spread on the bottom of your tin - work with your fingers, pressing the dough down and covering, more or less evenly, the whole surface.

Prepare the filling. Get rid of the cores of the apples and slice them into little pieces. Add a bit of sugar, cinnamon and raisins. Mix well and spread everything on top of the dough in your baking tin.

Cover the filling with the remaining 1/3 of the dough. Just form crumbs, that wouldn't completely cover the apples. Bake for about 50 minutes. Keep an eye on your pie - if the top starts browning too much, lower the temperature in the oven.

And here are some facts for increasing your culinary knowledge:

Dutch apple pie (appeltaart or appelgebak) recipes are distinct in that they typically call for flavorings such as cinnamon and lemon juice to be added. Dutch apple pies are usually decorated in a lattice style. Dutch apple pies may include ingredients such as raisins and icing, in addition to ingredients such as apples and sugar, which they have in common with other recipes.

Recipes for Dutch apple pie go back centuries. There exists a painting from the Dutch Golden Age, dated 1626, featuring such a pie.

The basis of Dutch apple pie is a crust on the bottom and around the edges. This is then filled with pieces or slices of apple, usually a crisp and mildly tart variety such as Goudreinet or Elstar. Cinnamon and sugar are generally mixed in with the apple filling. The filling can be sprinkled with liqueur for taste although this is very uncommon. Atop the filling, strands of dough cover the pie in a lattice, holding the filling in place but keeping it visible. Though it can be eaten cold, warmed is more common, with a dash of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. In the Netherlands it is usually eaten cold, sometimes with whipped cream on top. *

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* Information found on Wikipedia.

Very Berry

Did you know that cupcakes can be very addictive!? I certainly do, as I can’t go on long without baking some (suspicious disorder…). I love their shape, their smell in my kitchen and of course their taste!

As this summer is coming to an end (I can’t believe this!) and the garden is full of delicious things, it would be a shame to waste a single berry. To tell the truth I got fed up with trying to fit them all into jars, so some went straight into the batter...

Black Currant Cupcakes

(It’s an altered recipe; the original one was for blueberry cupcakes, so if you prefer some other berries, use them instead.)

Ingredients for 12 standard size cupcakes:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
2 large eggs
2 cups fresh black currants, rinsed and dried
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest, (from 1 lemon)
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk

Directions

Preheat oven to 180C (160C fan). Line a standard (12-cup) cupcake tin with paper cups. With an electric mixer, cream butter and 3/4 cup sugar on medium-high speed until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time; beat until combined.

Liquefy black currants (I’m using cocktail blender) and get rid of the skins/pips by running them through a sieve. Add to butter mixture, along with lemon zest; beat to incorporate (mixture will appear separated).

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Gradually add flour mixture and milk to the butter mixture in alternating batches, beginning and ending with the flour.

Spoon or scoop batter into cups, and sprinkle tops with remaining tablespoon sugar.

Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Cool in pan 20 minutes, then turn out cupcakes onto a wire rack to cool 10 minutes more before serving.

I love their colour! They are so unusual - came out a bit sour, so they'd be ideal for those who enjoy sweet and sour flavoured dishes.

Gambas Pil Pil

The temperature has reached nearly 40C - it's impossible to stay in the sun during the day and really hard to fall asleep in the night, but we still dream of holidays in some far away and probably even hotter country! We must be mad? Or probably just know the rule - stay at home and there will always be jobs to do - too well. I must admit I can relax fully only when I am away: I prefere worrying if I have seen all of the most interesting tourist attractions and not if it's time to water the garden, wash the dishes up or clean the bedroom. I'm sure you get the picture...

While we still haven't left our cosy-lots-to-do-aroud house we dreamt we were somewhere else... lets say in Spain! Do you know a way how to make a dream seem at least a bit real? We decided our way would be to cook Spanish food. Tapas!*

I love sea food, but don't get to have it very often, so every time we have shrimps, muscles or squid it turns into a bit of an occasion! And if someone else is cooking and you don't have to worry about a thing... just look at the clock every five minutes and ask - is time yet? - the only thing I can do is exclaim - SPLENDID - in a strong posh English accent. (Thank you, Andrew!)

This is our famous prawn and avocado salad with a secret ingredient, that makes the sauce so special.

Muscles in tomatoe and ginger sauce. Believe me, in this sauce they are gorgeous.

This is something we didn't prepare from scratch, I think it's cod pretending to be crab, but was nice nevertheless.

Anyway, if you want to smell and taste Spain follow these simple instructions:

Put some oil (100ml) into a pan and make it real hot, so that when you add prawns (350g), finely chopped 4 garlic cloves and 1 chilli pepper (without the seeds if you don't like spicy food) they'd sizle. Wait till the garlic turns golden (this should take about 1 or 2min.) and pour everything into a bowl. Serve your gambas pil pil with white bread and lemon wedges.

Now close your eyes and imagine you are somewhere on the cost of the Mediterranean...

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*Tapas is the name of a wide variety of appetizers, or snacks, in Spanish cuisine. They may be cold (such as mixed olives and cheese) or warm (such as chopitos, which are battered, fried baby squid). In select bars in Spain and maybe in North America or the United Kingdom, tapas has evolved into an entire, and sometimes sophisticated, cuisine. In Spain, patrons of Tapas can order many different tapas and combine them to make a full meal.

Cupcakes for Valentine's

Valentine’s Day isn’t popular here, as for a long time we didn’t know it existed (being occupied we didn’t know about a lot of things that the rest of the world happily consumed, celebrated or savored). It also is too close to another important date – 16th of February, the day we became independent for the first time, this happened in 1918. So I guess it will never be very important for an ordinary Lithuanian, maybe just for the young school kids, who see it as an opportunity to secretly express their love, or for the businessmen, who want to sell more flowers, champagne and little tacky things.

Well, I got a card from my admirer and, to make this day at least a bit special, decided to bake some cupcakes. This recipe can be found in a book by Martha Swift and Lisa Thomas “Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery”, where it is presented as a perfect winter dessert!

Chocolate-Orange Cupcakes

You will need:

115g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids)
90g butter at room temperature
175g caster sugar
Grated zest and juice of one orange
2 large eggs
185g plain flour
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
½ teaspoon of baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon of skimmed milk at room temperature


Preheat the oven to 160ºC (fan).

Break the chocolate into pieces and melt it. This can be done in two ways: 1) in a microwave – on a medium setting in 30s bursts, stirring between each session; 2) in a bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering water.

In a large bowl cream the butter, sugar and orange zest until the mixture is pale and smooth. Add the eggs and beat again briefly.

Combine the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Mix the milk and orange juice in a jug.

Add the chocolate to the cream mixture and beat on a low speed until the mixture is just combined. Add one third of the flour mix and beat until it all comes together. Add half of the juice/milk mix and beat again. Repeat these steps until all of the ingredients are in.

Spoon the mixture into cupcake cases. Make sure you fill just two-thirds. Bake in the oven for about 28-30 minutes.


They can be decorated with some chocolate buttercream, but I think they are really nice even without it!

German Honey Spice Cookies

This is the last recipe this year. I found it in a book called “Easy Christmas. Classic recipes for the Perfect Christmas”.

I must admit I haven’t tried any of the other recipes listed in that book, but these cookies are really EASY to make!


Ingredients:

150g plain flour
1 table spoon ground cinnamon
¼ table spoon ground ginger
¼ table spoon ground mixed spice
85g unsalted butter, chilled and diced
3 table spoons clear honey (mine wasn’t clear though)
Something for decorating (use your imagination)

All you need to do is mix all of the ingredients together and form soft dough. After you’ve done it chill it in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

Roll out the dough to about 5mm thick. Cut out shapes using biscuit cutters and put them on a baking tray (spread them apart a bit). Bake in a preheated oven at 180C (350F) for about ten minutes. Remove from the oven and let them cool. Decorate.


Done!

Orange Biscuits

With Christmas getting closer and closer I decided to devote my weekends for baking homemade biscuits. I’ve got a German book (Weihnachtsplatzchen alle Jahre wieder) with lots of nice recipes, so I hope to try and taste at least a few.

Yesterday I chose the ones that are easy to make.

Ingredients:

250g flour
1 spoon of cacao
1 tea spoon of baking powder
60g sugar
1 egg
1 orange
125g soft butter
30g finely chopped or grated almonds
200g castor sugar (for decoration)

Make dough from flour, cacao, baking powder, egg, sugar, butter, orange zest and almonds (I’m sure you can use some other nuts and orange can be replaced with lemon). Once it’s done wrap it into tin foil and put it into your fridge for at least half an hour.

Preheat oven to about 180C. Using a rolling pin roll your dough till it’s about 1/2cm thick. Cut out your biscuits and place them on a baking tray, on some baking paper. Bake your biscuits for about 8-10 minutes. Let them cool.

For decoration use 3 spoons of orange juice mixed with caster sugar. Apply this mix on your biscuits. (I used some strawberry jelly and dried grapefruit – they might not look very professional, but are very tasty!)

Next Sunday I’ll try to go for something more adventurous…

Rustic Apple Pie

I can’t believe that it’s October! Already!?

Well, if I look out of the window… I suppose it really is. The wind is very strong and it keeps raining non stop. I raked all the leaves yesterday, but the grass is covered in them again today… Don’t want to go out! And I don’t think I will, although I’m tempted to see the waves in the Baltic… Anyway, till it stops raining I will sit in our warm house, read my book and enjoy the so called rustic apple pie that I made last night.

If your or your friends’ orchard is full of apples, don’t be lazy and make one as well!

Rustic Apple Pie

125g melted butter
125g sugar
2 big eggs
375g flour
2 tea spoons of baking powder
¼ tea spoon of salt
70ml milk
4 biggish apples
2 spoons of any jam

Use food processor to mix sugar and eggs, add butter and mix till sugar dissolves completely. Flour, baking powder and salt should be mixed separately and then this mix should be gradually added to the sugar, eggs and butter mix. Keep pouring milk, so that your dough wouldn’t go hard.

Prepare a round baking tin – cover it in butter and then coat it with flour. Once your dough is solid place it in the baking tin. The top of your dough should be then covered in sliced apple without the skin.

Bake your pie for about 40-50 minutes, your oven should be preheated to 180C.

When you take your pie out of the oven cover the top in jam. Eat it while it’s hot! as autumn is all about colours and hot food :)

Almond Flavoured Pretzel

Whenever I crave for something sweet and there’s nothing that could save me immediately (a bar of chocolate, some sweets or biscuits) I decide to make a cake. Yes, the process might be long and tiring, but you benefit at least twice – 1. you get to lick the bowl and 2. later on you can enjoy hot homemade dainty!

I’ve got a huge book for such occasions: imagine a thick colourful catalogue of cakes and tarts… Of course I would always go for the ones that look most spectacular, but usually my choice is limited to what ingredients can be found at home. So here’s a list of what I needed and actually found:

375g flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
125g butter
185g sugar
3 eggs
vanilla flavour
125ml milk
125 raspeberry jam
125g coconut shavings
almond flavour

At first you need to take just 125g of sugar and mix it well with the egg yolks; later on add the melted butter. Mix flour, baking powder and salt; then start adding it to the previous mix. Keep pouring milk, so that the mix wouldn’t be too hard. Add some vanilla flavour. Your dough should be solid and a bit gummy (trust me it will be hard to get it out of the bowl - but more is left on the walls!).

A round baking tin should be covered in butter and sprinkled with flour. Then lay your dough. On top of it place the raspberry jam.

Now you can prepare the almond flavoured top for your cake: whisk the egg whites with the remaining sugar (you should have 60g left) and almond flavour. Once the whites are hard add the coconut shavings. Stir them in carefully. Put the whites on top of the jam.

The cake should be baked for about 40-50 minutes, the oven should be preheated to 180 degrees.

I’m sure you’ll like it!

Curd Pudding

This is the recipe that I’ve been trying to obtain for a very long time… Once I got it from a friend, but as all of the instructions were sent in an e-mail, of course they were accidentally deleted – electronic information doesn’t last long, I prefer words on paper!

I wonder how long it will take me this time to loose the tiny newspaper clipping with a version of the Curd Pudding recipe… My mum cut it out for me; she knows how much I like it!

You will need:

500g of curd
3 eggs
3 spoons of sugar
Half a glass of raisins
A glass of rice
A tea spoon of baking powder

Boil the rice. Stir the egg yolks with the sugar. Mix in the curd, baking powder, boiled rice and raisins, which have been washed and drained. Whip the egg whites and add them to the mix. Stir carefully.

Place everything into a preheated baking tray and bake your pudding for about 30 minutes, till it gets lightly brown.

Enjoy while it's hot!

Saturday Entertainment – Baking a Cake!

I was craving for something sweet, but homemade and at the same time didn’t want to engage in too much work – I hate cooking when the recipe involves using hundreds of pans that have to be scraped afterwards… So the decision was made – it would have to be a cake that could be prepared very quickly. Do you know what cakes are prepared quickly? Usually the ones where one of the ingredients is jam!

I searched for inspiration in a book called “Cakes. 1001 Classical Recipes from Around the World” (if you ask me 1001 is far too many as I doubt that I will ever try all of them… as most of the time I get stuck with the recipes that I like and keep using them again and again…) and found what I was looking for.

Italian Shortcrust Cake with Jam

Ingredients

375g flour
1 tea spoon of baking powder
¼ tea spoon salt
70g melted butter
125g fine sugar
2 room temperature eggs
1 tea spoon vanilla sugar
250g jam

Preheat your oven to 180 C. Mix up flour, salt and baking powder. Use a food processor to whisk the butter and sugar well (use medium speed for stirring until the sugar melts and you get an even liquid). Then add an egg at a time whisking everything well again. After that start slowly adding your flour, salt and baking powder mix.

Place your dough on the bottom and sides of a baking tray (they recommend to use one with a 25cm diameter, but I guess it really doesn’t matter as long as you don’t decide to use a tray that would be too big for the amount of dough you have). Put jam on top of the dough and bake your cake for about 30-40 minutes, until it gets light brown. Let it cool after taking it out of the oven.

I added a finely sliced fresh apple and raspberry jam to mine, but the beauty of this cake is that you can use anything you want as your filling. So use your imagination. Off you go… and bake!