#79 Carrot and Hazelnut Cake

Right. I promise that October shall be much more eventful in the world of The Grigson than September. It was my turn to do the cake for Evolution Group at University, so I’ve been given a good kick up the arse.

A favourite of the group is carrot cake, and there is a recipe in English Food – though it’s very different to the American carrot cake. It’s made without using fat, like a Genoese spoge to make it light and has the added bonus of having hazelnuts in it. Couldn’t resist not sandwiching it with American-style cream cheese filling.

FYI: Carrots have been used for desserts quite a lot in England. Mrs. Beeton had a sweet, chewy carrot tart in her book; it was revived as mock apricot tart during rationing in the Second World War, if I remember rightly (not that I was in WWII, you understand).

Separate four eggs and add to the yolks to the bowl of a food mixer along with 4 ounces of caster sugar. Whisk them together until pale and frothy. This takes a while so meanwhile finely grate 4 ounces of carrots and blitz 2 ounces of toasted hazelnuts in a food processor (or, heaven-forbid, chop them by hand!). Fold these into the eggy mixture along with 4 ounces of sifted, plain flour. Next, whisk the egg whites until stiff. Slaken the mixture by stirring in a third of the whites and then fold in the rest. Spoon the mixture into two greased and papered 9 inch cake tins and bake at 190ºC for anywhere between 15 and 25 minutes. They’re ready when the sponge springs back pressed lightly. Cool on wire racks.

To make the filling, beat together 8 ounces of full-fat soft cheese with 5 ounces of softened unsalted butter, once incorporated, beat in 4 tablespoons of icing sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Use this to sandwich the cakes together. Dust the whole thing with icing sugar, if you please.

#79 Carrot and Hazelnut Cake – 8/10. A success. Every seemed to like it. Much less dense than a typical carrot cake. I could only have a tiny wee sliver since I’m meant to be on a carb-free week this week, but I had to taste it for the blog, didn’t I!?

#72 Madeira Cake

I made a Madeira cake because it seemed refined – one should drink a glass of Madeira wine with it as one reclines for a mid-morning treat, apparently. It’s basically a slightly lemony sponge cake and is pretty D.R.Y., hence the excuse of drinking wine with, I expect. I’d only had it with a cup of tea, but either is pretty good. Drinking cake with wine is very much a nineteenth century idea, partaken by middle-class ladies, the cake itself has nothing directly to do with the island.

Cream 6 ounces of butter and the same of sugar until light and fluffy. Sift 9 ounces of flour and half a teaspoon of baking powder into a separate bowl. Next, stir in 4 large eggs one at time, adding a small amount of flour between each egg to avoid them splitting the mixture. Once incorporated, stir in the rest of the flour and the grated rind of half a lemon. Pour the mixture into a lined or greased 8 inch cake tin. Bake at 180°C for anywhere between 50 minutes and 1 ½ hours, depending on your oven’s idiosyncrasies (I’m still getting used to mine). Half-way through the cooking time, place two strips of lemon zest on the centre of the cake. To test if it’s cooked, stab it with a skewer. When it’s ready let it cool for about 10 minutes before tuning out onto a wire rack.

#72 Madeira Cake – 7/10. I really liked this cake. I usually prefer something with a bit of cream or icing, but in combination with the sweet Madeira wine, it is really lovely. How refined!

I know what you are thinking, but it’s a glandular problem.

I can see you there, judging me. I my have piled on the pounds but it’s my glands, you see, my glands. There’s nothing I can do. It has nothing to with the huge selection of meat and cake I’ve scoffed both in France and coming back, or that I’ve not been to the gym for nearly a month. Ok, I sort of is. Ok it is! It will all change however now that I’m back at the gym and on a low-calorie diet for a bit. I must get back to the svelte chap I was before the field trip. Therefore all Grigsons are to be low-or-no-fat, contain loads of fresh fruit and veg, and/or be high protein. If she can’t provide, then I will have to temporarily look elsewhere. I’m sure I won’t though. Flicking through the book there’s light salads, fish dishes and summery soups.

I shall be thin, I shall!

#63 Fruit Tea Loaf

The third bit of stodge I made for the little gathering at mine for my birthday. Tea loaves are great and very Yorkshire, but I’d not made one before – it’s extremely easy, in fact, if you’ve never baked or have some terrible affliction, like feet for hands or something, then you should try this. People don’t eat this kind of stuff any more, so many don’t like dried fruit for some reason. They are better left in an air tight container for a few days before scoffing (if you can last that long – I couldn’t). Always serve your tea loaf with butter spread generously over it, or as they do in Yorkshire – though non-Yorkshire folk never seem to believe me – a slice of cheese. Sorry for the shit picture, folks.

To produce a squidgy ingot of loveliness of your own, start off by mixing 12 ounces of mixed fruit with 4 ounces of dark brown sugar. I like the soft, moist molasses sugar that you get in boxes best. Pour over half a pint of strained, well-stewed Indian tea, I used Assam. Leave this mixture overnight, so that the syrupy tea is absorbed by the fruit. Next day, mix in 8 ounces of self-raising flour and an egg. Pour the mixture into a lined 9 inch loaf tin and bake for one hour at 180°C, then down the temperature down to 160°C for a final half hour. Like all baking check with a larding needle or a knife toward the end of cooking, in case of funny temperatures in weird ovens like my fan one.

#63 Fruit Tea Loaf – 9/10. Cheap and easy and delicious! I also seem to have converted people who don’t like raisins with this one. The molasses sugar and the tea make the cake moist and rich. A perfect little gem of a cake.

#62 Mrs Sleightholme’s Seed Cake

Seed cake, it seems, goes way way way back. Jane mentions books from the 1700 with several recipes. A classic English cake if ever there was one; except I’ve never heard of it. In fact there’s two seed cake recipes in English Food itself. The seeds are provided in the form of caraway, a most English of spices. The cake itself is an unusual one – half way between a traditional recipe, where you cream butter and sugar and a sabayon, where eggs are whisked up until thick and frothy.

To make the cake, cream 6 ounces each of butter and sugar and stir in a rounded dessertspoon of caraway seeds. Separate three eggs and whisk the whites until stiff, but still creamy. Beat the yolks and carefully fold these into the whites with a metal spoon, then fold the eggs into the creamed butter. Next, stir in a tablespoon of ground almonds and eight ounces of sifted self-raising flour. I find it easier to mix the flour in three or four stages to avoid getting a lumpy batter. The mixture should be slack enough to ‘fall off the spoon when you shake it with a firm flick of the wrist’, and we must do as we are told. If too thick, add a little milk; a tablespoon or two should do it.

Pour the mixture into a lined 9 inch loaf tin and smooth it down with the back of a spoon. Decorate with blanched, slivered almonds if you fancy. Bake for up to an hour (but check on it with a larding needle as it may be less) at 180 degrees Celsius. Let the cake cook for 15 minutes before taking out of the tin to cool on a wire rack.

FYI: In Henry IV Part II, Falstaff is invited by Shallow to have a snack on some of ‘last year’s pippin [apples] of mine own graffing, with a dish of caraways’. So if Mr. Shakespeare liked them, they can’t be bad.

FYI 2: Mrs Dorothy Sleightholme was a cook on Yorkshire Television. Growing up in Yorkshire and being an avid telly watcher naturally means I have no recollection of her whatsoever.

# 62 Mrs Sleightholme’s Seed Cake: 4/10. A low scorer, though not foul tasting. It was like a dry Madeira cake. It certainly needed tea to go with it as it was on the claggy side. The caraway seeds save it to some degree. There is, of course, the slightest chance that I over baked it, but I find that very hard to believe…

High Tea, #52, 53

I got me mates Kirsty, Keith and Thom over for a quintessentially English high tea for Bank Holiday Monday, and made some nice cakes. I did ( #52) Sponge Cake I (of two) and (#53) Ginger Cake, as well as some biscuits – I still had some dough left in the freezer from when I made (#29) Elegant Sugar Thins way back in February. We had an ace laugh., but fell pretty sick. I’ve still got some of the ginger cake, and probably will do for a few more days! Kirsty and Keith got me some ace pressies – the best being the Chinese tea set with green gunpowder tea. There’s some recipes that have gunpowder tea in it too – I had no idea what it was (and still don’t – is it the same as normal green tea?) but will find out in due course.

Sponge Cake I was pretty easy and Greg and I enjoyed making it – I’m trying to get him baking, but there is some resistance. Simply whisk together 3 ounces of caster sugar and eggs until they are all whipped up and pale in colour; this takes a while even using an electric mixer. While you’re waiting sieve 3 ounces of plain flour along with a pinch of salt, and fold it into the eggy mixture carefully using a metal spoon. (Apparently the friction of the wooden spoon pops the bubbles). Divide the mixture between two 7 inch sandwich tins that have been greased and sugared and bake for – 12 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius. Keep an eye on it if you’ve got a fan oven like me though, it does keep the oven dry (I shall use the water in the bottom of the oven trick next time). Turn them onto a wire rack, sprinkle with sugar, and allow to cool. Fill with whipped cream and raspberry jam.

The ginger cake was easy too. It’s one of those dense treacly ones that sink in the centre and weigh a ton – at least in comparison to the sponge cake. Start by creaming 4 ounces of butter, then add 4 ounces of Demerara sugar and beat that in too. Next, mix in 2 eggs and 10 ounces of black treacle (it sounds like a lot of treacle, and it is!). Sieve together 8 ounces of flour and a generous teaspoon of ground ginger and mix into the butter and treacle. Then, weigh out 2 ounces each of sultanas and chopped preserved stem ginger and mix them in too. Finally warm ½ a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda and 2 tbs of milk in the microwave and stir them in. Pour the mixture into a 7or 8 inch cake tin that has been lined with greaseproof paper and bake for an hour and a quarter or more depending on the size of the tin at 160 degrees Celsius. Grigson reckons it gets better if you leave it. We shall see…

FYI: ginger is both a stimulant and a muscle relaxant due to it’s antispasmodic properties. It also does you wonders if you’ve got the shits. Plus, it is an essential seasoning for whale meat, according to Larousse Gastromonique!

#52 Sponge Cake I – 6/10. A nice sponge cake, but I’m used to a Victoria sponge with butter in it, and I’m not used to this super-spongy, like actual sponge, texture. This may be down to my new oven of course drying the bugger out. However any cake is nice by me, especially when it’s filled with cream and jam. We shall have to see what sponge cake II is like!!

#53 Ginger Cake – 7/10. I preferred this cake, although it was more of a treacle cake, than a ginger one. It reminds me of a stickier version of Yorkshire parkin, which is usually dry and crumbly. It’s definitely a wintertime heavy stodge cake, rather than a summery light teatime cake. The addition of the ginger pieces and sultanas made it very moreish. I reckon I would be nice warmed up and served with vanilla or ginger ice cream.

With great wisdoms comes great agony (and #49)

First off all I should apologise for my total blog tardiness of late; I have been very busy at University recently and so I’ve been working and cooking tried and tested recipes from (sharp intake of breath) OTHER cookbooks. I feel like I’ve been unfaithful to our Jane…

Today found out that I will be having my wisdom teeth out on the 15th May, which is the day Greg goes on his cruise and is also my Mum’s birthday, so I don’t know if I’ll have anyone to go with me! Not being able to eat however, will somewhat hamper my cooking, so expect a reduction in blog action! I am calling for help from you, the beloved blog reader – I need recipes for food that requires no chewing. I will obviously be making good use of my ice cream maker next week.

Any road, I did do some cooking – or, in fact, baking – again at the weekend. I am all enthusiastic about bringing back the old tradition of high tea. There was a spot on the BBC’s Breakfast programme with Prue Leith talking about how people don’t know what Eccles Cakes or parkin and other British fayre are, never mind not baking them themselves! I am on a one-man mission to bring it back. I shall open up a lovely tea shop…

I did (#49) Orange cake and invited Joff round again. I had an orange in and wanted to try the pound cake again from last week; the recipe is exactly the same, except the grated zest of an orange and the juice of half is added to the mixture. This time I baked it for only 30 minutes and it came out perfect. I suppose no one – not even Jane Grigson – is perfect. The best bit of the cake-making was the butter cream. 4 ounces of sugar and the juice of the other half of the orange were boiled until the sugar had reached the soft-ball stage. I didn’t have a sugar thermometer, but managed to do it by dropping small amounts into cold water and feeling it between my fingers. Easy. Thank goodness for my ever useful Larousse Gastronomique. This was whisked into 2 whipped egg yolks until thick and fluffy. When warm, 4 ounces of very soft butter was whipped in until even more thick and fluffy. Yum. Hopefully Greg and Joff think I have improved on the previous ones – hopefully they’ll mark it highly!

#49 Orange cake – 8/10. A fine cake indeed! I’m not going to mark it higher, because, although very good, more extravagant cakes, like the parsnip cake or divine treats like sticky toffee pudding beat cake hands down! I think I’ve nailed the pound cake now!

#47 Pound Cake and #48 Buttercream II

As well as the lovely orangeade, I thought I’d make a cake. As much as I love cooking and cake, I don’t often make them. So I thought I’d go for the basic plain sponge cake – a pound cake being the easiest because so you put all the ingredients in a mixer in one go. What could possibly go wrong with that!? The parsnip cake was very good, but seemed very easy; I reckon the only way to tell if one is a good baker is to make a basic cake very well. My favorite filling for sponge cake is butter cream, and I’ve always used my Mum’s recipe, which is simply icing sugar and butter (in fact, being a child of rationing in the UK, she uses margarine). There are two butter cream recipes in English Food, but the first requires a sugar thermometer and since I don’t have one of those (but if anyone fancies buying me one…), I went for (#48) Butter cream II.

The whole idea behind the original pound cake is that the ingredients all weigh a pound EACH! This is of course overdoing things in the modern home, I think the original recipe must have been for housekeepers making cakes for households. Therefore, nowadays all the ingredients weight a pound altogether: 4 ounces each of softened butter (if you keep it in the fridge, put it in the microwave on a medium setting for 45 seconds), sieved self-raising flour and vanilla sugar (see previous entry), along with 2 medium eggs (which should be 4 ounces). Add a pinch of salt and a tablespoon of ground almonds, which apparently make the final cake more moist, plus a level teaspoon of baking powder. Put all the ingredients in a food mixer and beat until a smooth mixture forms. An early recipe from Hannah Glasse in 1747, says that beating the mixture by hand takes an hour! No thank you, lady. Add to a lined 23cm long loaf tin and – here is where I may disagree with Grigson – bake at 180 oC for one hour and 5 minutes. When I baked mine I checked after 45 and it was overdone! I think that 30 minutes may be enough, though my loaf tin, although 23cm long, does seem quite wide.

The butter cream is a custard-based one, which sounded very nice. It was quite easy too, now that I’m sufficiently experienced in the art if custard-making. My amounts differ to Jane’s because I didn’t have enough butter, or the right sized eggs, but it made enough for a middle and top layer to the cake:

In a food mixer, whisk 2 egg yolks and 2 1/2 ounces of sugar until it becomes fluffy and very pale. Meanwhile boil 90 mls (a generous 2 fluid ounces). When it comes to a boil, beat it into the egg mixture. Quickly return to the pan and stir on a low heat of a couple of minutes – it should thicken very rapidly. It was hard to judge as the was so much foam; however, as it cooled and the foamy bubbles began to pop, it became noticeably thicker. When the whole thing begins to get cooler, but it still warm, gradually whisk in 5 ounces of very soft butter cut into small cubes. I then added a few drops of vanilla extract. When it is properly cold, use as required!

I simply cut the cake lengthwise in half and added a thin layer of raspberry jam and a thick layer of the butter cream and sandwiched the two halves together, then I spread the rest of the gooey cream on the top.

#47 Pound cake – 6/10. Little disappointed in the cake. It was very tasty, but rather dry. However, this may be my own fault as I haven’t got used to my new oven yet. The vanilla sugar that I’d made a cuople of weeks earlier, also gave the sponge a nice, sweet scent.

#48 Butter cream II – 8/10. A lovely creamy, but not overly sickly alternative to normal butter cream. I loved it, and shall be definitely doing it again!

#43 Parsnip Cake

According to the Grigson, she tried putting parsnips rather than carrots in a carrot cake, and according to her, parsnip cake totally shits on carrot cake. We’ll see…carrot cake is my favorite of all cakes, so I’ll be a harsh critic.

The cake itself was easy – a carrot cake recipe with the carrots replaced weight-for-weight with the parsnips. Proper American frosting made from cream cheese, icing sugar and butter is the filling. Hopefully the oven’s worked ok because I’ve made it for cake day this afternoon; where a member of the Evolution group at the University take it in turns to make a cake. It’s the first one we’ve done in a while, so don’t let me down Grigson!

Mix together 12 ounces of peeled and grated parsnip with four ounces of chopped hazelnuts in a bowl. Next make a cake mixture using an electric beater from 13 ounces of caster sugar, 8 ounces of flour, 2 teaspoons each of baking powder and ground cinnamon, a teaspoon of salt and 8 fluid ounces of oil (use a mixture of walnut or hazelnut and sunflower). Beat in 4 eggs individually and stir in the parsnips and nuts plus a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Divide between two buttered and floured 9 inch cake tins and bake for 40 minutes at 180⁰C. Allow to cool on a rack. Make a filling by beating together 8 ounces of full fat soft cheese, 4-6 ounces of softened unsalted butter, 4 tablespoons of icing sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla essence.

FYI: The parsnip was our main carbohydrate staple before the potato was brought over from the Americas. Also, it was thought that it was an aphrodisiac – careful if you try to pick a wild parsnip though, as it’s almost exactly the same as hemlock!

#43 Parsnip Cake – 8/10. Phew! Neither The Grigson or the oven let me down. A lovely moist cake, though I’m not sure if Jane’s Claim of it being better than carrot cake. There is however a recipe for her carrot cake – so there’s only one way to find out!!

Greg says…

“Mostly I made the parsnip cake actually. I pressed all the buttons and everything. It went round and round and out came a cake! Well done me. I gave Pugling a bit of the filling and he made this noise: bleep! I wasn’t allowed a slice until next day but it was worth the wait. Helen tried it too. We made this noise: mmm, ooohhh, mm, ng! Really really good. You would never guess it has parsnips in though. 9/10.”

Sunday Dinner – # 30 and 31

After a Friday night out on the razz and a hangover all Saturday, me and Greg thought we’d do a nice Sunday lunch and get Joff round. We decided to make pretty normal one – pies, gravy, peas, veg , Yorkshire puddings. But we thought the Grigson must have something we could do. Of course, she always delivers; (#30) Carrot and Potato Cake seemed straight-forward and unfussy. Simply fry an onion in butter and stir in 2 or 3 grated carrots along with plenty of salt. Spread half in a cake tin, followed by a pound of thinly-sliced potatoes and then the remaining carrot mixture. Bake in the oven until all has become soft – about 25 minutes. We had a slice of it with our meal and it was a much welcomed addition. The juice from the carrots and the butter made a lovely orange-coloured sweet sauce.

The pudding was an Eighteenth Century-style (#31) Baked Custard Tart. Usually the kind I have is made from eggs, milk, sugar and nutmeg, but this was made from 3/4 pint of single cream boiled with a cinnamon stick and 2 blades of mace. The cream was sieved and added to 2 eggs and 2 egg yolks along with 2 tablespoons of sugar. This was whisked thoroughly and quickly so that it didn’t scramble. Then 2 teaspoons of orange flower water was added, and it was all poured into a blind-baked sweet shortcrust pastry base, a flourish of grated nutmeg added to the surface, and baked on a low/medium heat for about 30 minutes until just set. Can’t wait to get my new kitchen in – hopefully will be starting it at the weekend. Watch this space!

#30 Carrot and Potato Cake – 7/10. An interesting and fuss-free way of making your typical Sunday veg a bit more interesting (and fattening, natch).

#31 Baked Custard Tart – 8/10. Lovely! Very creamy and fragrant. The orange flower water was a perfumed delight! However, I think I do prefer the recipe I know of – there is several recipes similar to this in English Food, so I won’t worry that I’m missing out!

Greg says:

“#31 Baked Custard Tart: 8/10. Woop! Bona to vada your dolly old tart. Me and Joffrey were dry humping over this one. I even gave Pugling a little bit and he made his scratty schnarfing gulp-sound which means ‘I like’. Despite Neil’s misremembering I’m sure this is the only pie of this kind he’s made me and thus is my fave of the breed so far.”