Fig and almond cake

 Ingredients

6oz salted butter

6 oz sugar

2 large eggs

4 oz ground almonds

3 oz flour (plain/gluten-free)

⅓ tsp salt

a smattering of ground vanilla beans

a pinch or two of ground star anise

3 oz Greek yogurt

6-9 figs

Method 

1.  Soften the butter. 
2. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Weigh up the almonds, flour, salt, vanilla, spice together.
4. Crack the eggs into a cup and beat them a bit (or just add them one at a time to the mixture if you can't be bothered with this).
5. Alternately add a bit of egg and some of the flour/almonds dry mix to the bowl, until it's all well mixed in. 
6. Mix in the yogurt.
7. Put on the oven, at gas mark 6, 200C
8. Find an 8 inch sandwich tin or flan tin, grease it and line it with greaseproof baking paper
9. Spoon the cake mixture into the lined tin.
10. Slice the figs down the middle to make halves or wedges
11. Arrange the fig pieces on top of the cake
12. Bake in the hot oven for 15 minutes and then reduce the temperature to Mark 3, 170C, and continue baking for 30-35 minutes. Test it with a skewer to see if it comes out clean. 
13. Serve hot or cold with yogurt or cream for pudding, or cold for tea.

Nursery wheels (aka pinwheel biscuits, whirlygig biscuits)

 Ingredients:

6 oz plain flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

pinch of salt

3 oz butter

3 oz sugar

vanilla essence (a few drops)

milk (a little)

2-3 teaspoons cocoa powder

Method: 

• Cream butter and sugar 
• Add flour, baking powder, salt, vanilla essence and enough milk to mix to a stiff paste.
• Divide mixture in half
• Blend cocoa powder thoroughly into one half of the mixture
• Roll out each mixture thinly to the same size and shape (a longish rectangle)
• Place the chocolate piece on top of the plain one and roll up tightly (rolling from the longer side)
• Leave the roll 1/2 hour in a cool place
• Cut into slices 1/4 inch thick
• Place slices on a greased baking tray and bake in a moderate oven for 15-20 mins
• Dust with caster sugar (optional) and cool on a wire rack.
  

Jerusalem artichokes, roasted with mushrooms and onions

 I used to believe that Jerusalem artichokes were out of bounds because they cause terrible flatulence, but I got some from waitrose recently and they were no trouble at all (and delicious). This recipe worked very well, but see the modifications below!

Serves 4. Prep 10 minutes. Cook 45 minutes in the oven.

Ingredients

1 ½ lb (700 g) Jerusalem artichokes

2 onions

A few sprigs of fresh thyme

4 ½ tbsp olive oil

1 lb (450g) chestnut mushrooms (less will do)

1 oz (20g) butter

Salt and pepper etc 

 

Method (see below for advice on simplifying this)

1. Heat the oven to 230º C or gas mark 8.
2. Cut the artichokes into even sized pieces (large). Cut the onions into wedges. Put all these in a large roasting tin, in a single layer. 
3. Toss in 2 ½ tbsp of the oil. Season with salt and black pepper as you wish.
4. Roast these for 35 minutes, turning occasionally.
5. Cut the mushrooms in half. 
6. Put the mushrooms in another roasting pan with half the butter and 2 tbsp of oil. Roast for 30 minutes till golden, turning occasionally.
7. For the last ten minutes add the rest of the butter to the artichokes,
8. Throw the contents of both pans together and serve.

Alternative method.

Follow steps 1-3 as shown. 

4. Roast them for 15 minutes.

5. Add the mushrooms and all the rest of the butter and oil and roast for the remaining 30 minutes.

Serve.

Paraguayan chipa

 Recipe from Antonela

Chipá 

Ingredients:

500g of cassava flour

1 egg

300 grams of cheddar (the one actually used is Pategrás but i haven't found it in England)

150g of mozzarella

100 g of butter

A spoonful of salt

A mug of milk

Chop the mozzarella and half of the hard cheese into small cubes and grate the rest. Mix the cassava flour with the cheese and salt. Add melted butter and stir. Mix the egg and milk and add it, use your hands until you get a dough (it won't be a smooth one). Preheat the oven at 180° while you make the balls. Put the balls onto a tray with baking paper and bake for 25 minutes at 6. Depending on the oven it'll take between 20 and 30 minutes, so you might want to check them when it's been 20 minutes. Let them cool down for about 10 minutes and enjoy =)

Lemon drizzle cake

6oz soft margarine
6oz caster sugar + 4 tablespoons
2 eggs
6oz self raising flour
level teaspoon baking powder
1 lemon
a little milk

Grease and line either a 2lb loaf tin or 7in deep cake tin. Preheat oven to 160 C.

Beat together 6oz soft margarine, 6oz caster sugar, 2 eggs, 6oz self raising flour, level teaspoon of baking powder, grated rind of 1 lemon and enough milk to make a fairly soft consistency.

Put into tin and bake for about 50/60 mins until well risen and springy to touch.

Mix together 4 level tablespoons caster sugar and 3 tablespoons lemon juice in a pan over very low heat.

As soon as cake comes out of oven prick top of cake with needle and pour syrup over it. Leave to cool in tin for 10 minutes then transfer to rack to finish cooling.

If you like icing you can also mix lemon juice and sifted icing sugar to make a thin icing and drizzle it in a zigzag pattern over the top of cooled cake.

Sourdough hot cross buns

This is a sourdough version of the Hot Cross Bun recipe from Bread Matters by Andrew Whitley, slightly adapted.

Makes 16 buns.

12-24 hours before you want to make the Hot Cross Bun dough, soak a Fruit mixture and refresh your sourdough starter.

Production Sourdough (12-16 hours)

Plain or Wholemeal flour	120g
Rye flour	60g
Sourdough starter	130g
Water (room temperature)	110g
Total	420g

Refresh your old starter with flour and water as above. Don’t use only white wheat flour for this part because it’s lacking in the bioactive elements (natural yeasts and beneficial bacteria) that make a sourdough work well. Mix everything together into a smooth dough, then cover (a lidded tub is good) and leave in a cool place (not the fridge) to ferment.

[You can do a faster four-hour refreshment if you have a reasonably active starter. In this case, use 35°C water and leave the mix to ferment in a warm place.]

Fruit Mix

Raisins	100g
Sultanas	100g
Stem or crystallised ginger, or candied peel, or flaked almonds	70g
Fruit juice, water or spirit (e.g.rum)	40g
Total	310g

Put everything into a bowl with a well-fitting lid or a strong polythene bag, tie its neck and swirl it around a bit so that the liquid comes into contact with all the dry ingredients. Do this a couple of times over the soaking period if possible.

 Once the production sourdough has doubled in size: 

The Main Dough

Production sourdough (from above)	400g
Plain flour	100g
Wholemeal flour (or bread flour, or whatever flour you want)	200g
Butter (or olive oil)	50g
Brown sugar	50g
Mixed spice	10g
Sea salt (reduce to 2 g if using salted butter)	5g
Egg (two medium eggs)	100g
Water	100g
Fruit Mix (from above)	300g
Total	1315g

Add the flour, spice, salt, egg, sugar, butter & water (but not the fruit) to the production sourdough and mix until everything is combined well. Knead (or mix in a machine) gently for as long as it takes to develop a soft, fairly smooth dough (the smoothness will depend on the proportion of wholemeal flour in the mix). Scotland The Bread flour has a softer gluten that doesn’t require much kneading. Add a little extra water if the dough becomes too stiff. It must be very soft at this stage. The dough will be tacky on the surface because of the sugar and egg in the mix, so use water on your hands and the worktop to stop it sticking too much. If your dough feels too soft and sticky to handle, it is probably about right! Put the kneaded dough in a bowl, cover well and leave it for 30 minutes or so. It won’t show many signs of rising in this time, but the gluten will relax which makes folding the fruit in much easier. Stretch the dough gently out on a lightly floured surface into a rectangle about 25 cm (10”) x 20 cm (8”). Spread the soaked fruit mix over almost all the surface. Roll the dough up carefully, turn it through 90 degrees and roll it gently up again, taking care not to force the fruit through the surface (easier said than done). Divide into pieces weighing about 80 grams each and, using a little flour on your hands and if necessary on the worktop, mould them into fairly tight, round buns and place them in accurate rows on a baking tray with a 2.5 cm (1”) gap between each bun. Remove any fruit exposed on the top of the rolls and tuck it underneath so that it doesn’t burn and become bitter. Prove until the buns are almost touching. This may take four or five hours, depending on the vigour of your sourdough. Be patient and remember that the natural sourdough yeasts are struggling with elements (butter, egg, spice, even the extra sugar) in the mix that make life difficult for them. Make the cross mix as it needs about the same amount of time to start bubbling:  The Crossing Mix White flour (or sifted wholemeal) 50g Olive oil 5g Sourdough starter 10g Water (warm) 50g Total 115g Mix all together and ferment for about four hours. The mixture should be bubbling a little and should be fairly runny. Then when the buns have proved:     Place the fermenting crossing mix in a piping bag with a fairly fine nozzle, or cut a very small triangle (the opening should be no more than 3 mm across) from the corner of a stiff polythene bag and improvise your own piping bag.  Then pipe the crosses onto the buns as neatly as you can. Put the buns in the oven immediately after piping the crosses.  Bake at about 180°C/350°F for 10-15 minutes depending on your oven. Glaze generously as soon as the buns are out of the oven with a mixture of two parts warmed honey to one part whipping cream, thoroughly stirred.

Quince jelly and quince paste

Ingredients

About 2 lbs quinces or japonica apples

Around 3 pints of water for every 2 lbs of fruit 

Sugar (probably two bags of it)

A little vanilla essence if desired. 

Method:

For the jelly:

1. Cut the quinces in quarters and get the pips out and any black dusty bits. No need to peel them or remove the cores. The peel and cores are where the pectin is.
2. Put them in a large pan and add lots of cold water: around 3 pts for 2 lbs of fruit. If you don't have enough water there's not enough jelly and it's too strong.
3. Bring to the boil and simmer until the fruit's tender (this seems to take very little time if they are ripe: maybe 15 to 30 minutes should do).
4. Lay a large square of muslin in a large mixing bowl and spoon the fruit into it. Gather up the corners, tie it with string and hang the jelly bag over the bowl. Leave it to drip over night.
5. Next day, set the bag of fruit aside (we use it for the quince paste).
6. Measure the juice into a measuring jug. 
7. Weigh up sugar at the rate of 1 lb for each pint of juice.
8. Put some jars to warm in the oven.
9. Put the sugar and the juice into a pan, and boil it.
10. Test it to see when it reaches the setting point, by the old fashioned methods or using a thermometer. In my experience it sometimes sets below the jam temperature.
11. When it reaches setting point, remove it from the heat. Skim off the scum if any and save it for bread and jam for tea. 
12. Pot the jelly into the warm jars, and label it up.

For the paste (or quince comfits):

1. Remove the fruit pulp from the muslin bag.
2. Rub it through a steel sieve, in small batches, using a wooden spoon, until it is all rubbed. Wipe the pulp off the bottom of the sieve with a scraper. 
3. Discard the fibrous residue left in the sieve after each batch of rubbing.
4. Weigh the resulting pulp. You should have around 1 lb or so.
5. Weigh up 1lb of sugar for every 1 lb of pulp.
6. Put the pulp and the sugar in a pan. 
7. Heat very gently to dissolve the sugar, and then simmer on very low heat for an hour and a half, until it is deep orange and thick. Add vanilla at the end of cooking if desired.
8. Line the base of a small swiss roll tin with greaseproof paper. Spread the paste into the tin.
9. Place in a warm dust-free place to dry, for about a week or two.
10. Cut into pieces, to serve small slices with cheese or cold meat (as membrillo), or serve in small squares as sweets (medieval comfits) with coffee etc.