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!

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.