Lemon mascarpone cake (with wheat free option)

 Ingredients:

For the cake

• 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 cup plain flour OR 2/3 cup rye flour
• 1/2 cup cornflour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 4 ounces (1/2 cup) mascarpone cheese
• 3 eggs
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest
• 1 1/2 tbsp. lemon juice (make sure you keep 1 teaspoon of juice for the frosting!)

 For the frosting

• 4 ounces (1/2 cup) mascarpone cheese
• 1 tablespoon icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice

Preheat oven to 180ºC. Grease an 8 inch round tin. Line if you can be bothered and lightly dust with flour (wheat-free if you're doing that version!)

Beat together oil, sugar, mascarpone cheese, eggs, lemon zest, and lemon juice until completely smooth. Next, beat in the flour, cornflour, baking powder, bicarb and salt and stir until no lumps remain.

Pour mixture into tin and bake in preheated oven for about 30 minutes until golden, risen, and just starting to pull away from the edge of the tin. Check if it's done with cake tester - should come out clean! Cool in the tin at first, then transfer to a rack to cool completely.

For the frosting, whip together mascarpone, icing sugar and lemon juice until smooth and thick. Spread over the cold cake.

Catherine's best oatmeal pancakes

Make the batter a bit in advance if possible, to allow the oatmeal to soak up the liquid. If you are serving the pancakes with bacon and syrup for breakfast, cook the bacon in the pan first and then keep it warm while you fry the pancakes in the bacon fat that remains in the pan. You can also mix in chopped apple, apple rings or slices of banana to make fritters (very good with bacon and maple syrup!).

Ingredients

1 oz fine oatmeal
1 egg
Pinch of salt
A little milk

Method

1. Weigh up the oatmeal and put it in a large soup cup or small bowl
2. Break the egg into it, and stir to make a thick batter
3. Add a small slosh of milk (about 2tsp) and the pinch of salt.
4. Leave the batter to stand for as long as poss (five minutes is good, an hour is better, overnight is fine).
5. Add more milk to achieve the right consistency. The batter can be thickish for small griddle cake/scotch pancakes, or a bit thinner for large crepes.
6. Heat an oiled griddle or crepe pan or frying pan (or the pan left after frying bacon), and cook the pancakes. 

Serve them with bacon, fruit, yogurt and syrup for breakfast. Serve them with lemon and sugar for pancake day. Save the extras and use them as sandwich wraps. Spread them with jam, or cheese...

Sesame and oat cookies

Ingredients

4 oz rolled oats
4 oz demerara/brown sugar
4 oz butter
2 oz (1/4 cup) sesame seeds
3 oz (3/4 cup) desiccated coconut
1 tsp salt

Method

1. Melt butter, stir in other ingredients.
2. Press into greased floured tin.
3. Bake at gas 5-6 for 30 mins.
4. Cut when nearly cold.

Winnie the Pooh's chocolate pudding (=blancmange)

(For chocolate sauce for puddings, reduce the amount of cornflour to one tbsp per half pint. You may prefer that proportion for the blancmange too.)

Serves 4

Ingredients:

3 rounded tablespoons of cornflour (One tbsp = 1/2 oz)
2 rounded tbsp cocoa powder (One tbsp = 1/2 oz)
3 rounded tbsp granulated sugar (One tbsp = 1/2 oz)
1 pt (or half a litre) of milk
A few drops of real vanilla essence (or use vanilla sugar)
Chopped walnuts etc for decoration (optional)

Method:

1. Put the cornflour and cocoa in the bottom of a measuring jug.
2. Add a little of the milk and create a thick paste. Stir till the dry ingredients are smooth and thick, with no dry bits.
3. Add a bit more of the milk and stir again till there are no lumps.
4. Add about half the milk, so that you have a good wet mixture to pour.
5. Pour the mixture into a 2 pt non-stick saucepan. 
6. Add the rest of the milk.
7. Put over a low to moderate heat and start heating it up.
8. Add all the sugar.
9. Stir carefully to keep it from sticking on the bottom. If it's sticking or turning too quickly for you to keep up, turn down the heat. If it's doing nothing turn up the heat.
10. It will thicken and then boil. Allow it to boil for about three minutes or so.
11. Draw the pan off the heat and stir in the vanilla essence.
12. Pour the mixture into a large bowl, or small glass dishes, or a lightly oiled jelly mould.
13. If serving in dishes, decorate the top with walnuts or other sprinkles.
14. If using a jelly mould, allow to cool until it is firm. Then gently pull the edges away from the mould with your fingers at the top surface; place a large plate upside down over the mould; invert the whole thing, without dropping either the plate or the pudding. Put the plate down on a table. If the pudding doesn't drop out of the mould, lift the mould a bit and coax the pudding out with your fingers, by letting the air in at one side till it flops out.

Ice cream

(Traditional Rowett childhood recipe)

Ingredients

Juice of 1 orange
Juice of half a lemon
1 mashed banana
1 cup of sugar
1 cup of cream (unspecified)
Colouring (unspecified) optional

Method

1. Put all the ingredients in a bowl
2. Whisk with a rotary whisk
3. Pour into a plastic tub
4. Freeze in the freezer or freezie bit of your fridge
5. Optional, remove during freezing a whisk again (this is not in the recipe, but then nothing is except step 2).
6. Eat on a hot day :)

Wheat-free hot cross buns

(Small quantity, to produce circa 4 buns).

Mix 2 tsp of dried yeast with 1/8 pint of warm water and a tsp of sugar. Set aside in a warm place until it is well frothy.

For the buns:
8oz flour composed of some combination of rye, barley and cornflour. I used 3 oz rye, 3 oz barley, 2 oz cornflour.
1 egg
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp mixed spice (or cinnamon, cloves, ginger)
1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
1 oz melted butter
2 oz currants
1 oz mixed peel
1 oz white sugar

warm milk/water

Put the dry ingredients in a large warm bowl. Break the egg into it and stir.
Add the melted butter and stir.
Make up the yeast liquid to just under 1/4 pint, preferably with warm milk if available, or warm water.
Add the yeast liquid to the mixture.
Add the currants.
Mix well. It will have the consistency of a cake mixture: not kneadable but scoopable.

Put the bowl in a plastic bag and leave it in a warm place for about an hour.

Not sure how to do crosses without wheat flour, but you could try a paste of barley flour and water from a piping bag.

When the mixture had had time to prove, grease four yorkshire pudding tins and scoop a large spoonful of the spongy mixture into each of them. Bake for 10-15 minutes at 425ºF or gas mark 7.

Glaze as for normal hot cross bun recipe.

Oatcakes (wheat-free)

20 20

Servings Size

• oatcakes
  

Yield: 20-24 oatcakes

Ingredients:

250 g medium oatmeal or 250 g rolled oats
1 pinch salt
1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 tablespoon lard or bacon fat, melted
hot water from the kettle (about 75 mi for oatmeal, about 200 ml for rolled oats)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 200C/400°F.
2. Put the oats, salt and baking soda in a bowl.
3. Make a well, pour in the lard and stirring with a wooden spoon, add in enough of the hot water to make a stiff dough.
4. Knead it for a while to make it come smoothly together, then roll out as thinly as you can.
5. Cut into triangles or rounds.
6. Bake on an ungreased baking sheet for 15-20 minutes, or until the edges are turning golden-brown and the oatcakes themselves are firm (they'll crisp up on cooling).
7. Remove to a wire rack to cool.