Suet-crust Pie and Christmas Cakes

Sunday lunch this week was a proper hearty lamb pie. Hearty because it was packed full of slow-cooked meat, root vegetables, potatoes and pearl barley (if you haven't yet caught the buzz of this medieval grain, you're missing out). To top it all off (quite literally), a suet-pastry crust that was just the right balance of crispy and crumbly; so good, we now want to suet-crust everything we eat- suet-crusted pasties, suet-crusted apples, suet-crusted turkey on Christmas day...(joke).

Speaking of Christmas- excitement, excitement- festive food preparation has kicked off in our kitchen, involving lots of lovely ingredients that come together to create those unmistakable December smells. Already this week I've come home to a batch of stewed red cabbage, fragrant with apples, raisins and mixed spice; this will be stored away in the freezer to be reheated for Christmas dinner (if not before). Today, a bowl stood on the kitchen-top filled with the magical mixture of dried fruit, orange zest and spices all steeped in rum...I'm afraid I couldn't resist a healthy spoonful straight away! What was left has since been made into mother-and-child-esque Christmas cakes (above right), which shall be wrapped up and fed regularly with further rum, ready to be served in fat slices alongside hot cups of tea.

Ah, the Christmas spirit is upon me, and I won't resist it any longer!

Domestic Daddy

My fabulous father took to the kitchen yesterday evening, proving to us ladies of the house that he is more than just a handsome face. No sooner had he finished being up a ladder, painting windowsills, than he set about kneading dough (see above), frying minced lamb and mashing potatoes. The finished products: a stella batch of bread and a proper Shepherd's Pie. His culinary capacity didn't quite stretch to making a pudding on top of this, though, so I put together some mini pear crumbles to shove in the oven whilst the bread finished baking. Very tasty the pie was, too, and we ate his wholemeal rolls with jam and a big jug of coffee for breakfast this morning. I wouldn't go so far as to deem my father to be a domestic god, but he's certainly proved that something good can come of his being in the kitchen!

Lonely Fruit

There seems to be a strange trend in this household at the moment, whereby we find single fruits lying around on the dining-room table or in the fridge which need finishing up before their flesh goes all shrivelled and furry-green. I used up a wayward pear in the crumbles last night and 'found a home' for a lonely, zestless orange in today's lunchtime pudding. Perhaps this phrase creates too caring a connotation, for in reality I sliced up the poor thing and lay it on top of an almond sponge. Still, it had to be used up somehow and the sponge did make a lovely desert; so delicious, in fact, that I'll give you the recipe in case you, too, have a solitary citrus fruit to 'give a home'.

Lonely-Orange and Almond Sponge:

4 oz./ 115 g unsalted butter, softened

4 oz./ 115 g caster sugar

2 eggs

3 oz./ 85 g ground almonds

1 oz./ 30 g plain flour

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 orange, zested then peeled, with the flesh sliced into thin rounds

1 tsp. almond essence (optional)

1 tbsp. flaked almonds (optional)

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees C/ Gas Mark 3.

Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat well; stir in the almond essence, if using, and orange zest. Fold in the ground almonds, sifted flour and baking powder. Tip the mixture into a greased tin/pie dish (20-25cm in diameter) and lay the orange rounds on top, scattering over the flaked almonds also, if using.

Bake the sponge for 20 minutes; because the orange slices will leak their juice, the sponge will need to be baked for another 10-15 mins covered with tin foil, to stop it from burning. Serve warm, with crème fraîche or cold, with a cup of tea.

One for the Weekend

Winter gives me a sweet tooth, and if you too are looking for something simple, speedy and sugary to devour in chunks (at intervals, or in one sitting) over the weekend, here's the thing to cure your craving. Nigella's (need I mention her second name? We all know exactly who I'm talking about? Good....) recipe for Rocky Road involves no real cooking, uses just five ingredients and includes no nasty surprises (i.e. raisins or nuts- always controversial subjects). I made a tray of this for my biology class last week (which partakes in the educational revolution that is Cake Friday) and it went down a treat; add the following to tomorrow's shopping list:

125g unsalted butter (i.e. half a packet)
300g dark chocolate
3 tbsp golden syrup
200g rich tea biscuits
100g mini marshmallows

Melt the butter, chocolate and the golden syrup over a moderate heat on the hob. Bash the biscuits up in a sturdy plastic bag until some are crumbs, but a few bigger bits remain. Once the melted mixture is all stirred together nicely, add the biscuits and marshmallows. Tip into a lightly greased tin and leave in the fridge for at least two hours, before cutting up into as-big-as-you-like slices. Dust with icing sugar if you want to be fancy, although it usually just annoys me to have powder all over my fingers...

Have a nice weekend, everyone!

Pumpkin Treats

Sorry it's been a while- I've had the small matter of starting A Levels to contend with...this may well become a bi-annual blog...

It's been Hallowe'en this weekend and, although I don't celebrate the occasion itself, I have a particular fondness for its culinary symbol: the colourful, pungent, plump-yet-sturdy pumpkin. Even the name cannot be said without a jolly little bounce, and for all the joy it brings it turns out to be pretty versatile cookery ingredient, as well. We had delievered to our door on Friday night a hefty bucket-load of pumpkin flesh (a great convenience for us cooks is the tradition of pumpkin-carving- leave it to someone creative to do the prep. work!) and spent all day Saturday baking pumpkin cupcakes and cheesy pumpkin scones.

Such was the mountain of pumpkin that our two pairs of hands were not enough to shift it in its entirety; nevertheless, the fruits of our labour made a nice spread for the following day, when my church set up a market-stall and gave out to passers-by our pumpkin treats (no tricks, unless our creations weren't as delicious as we'd thought!...) Our scones and cupcakes were accompanied by pumpkin tartlets (maple syrup in the filling with a glazed pecan on top) and hot pumpkin soup- the latter a particular hit with the public as they stood shivering in the rain.

Thanks to my friend Debbie for the photos- our only decent camera is away at the moment with my father in India...it should be back for my next post, for which I hope not to leave you waiting another month!