Tiffin for coeliacs

Ingredients

8 oz bought gluten free biscuits (doesn't much matter how horrible or tasteless they are; they can be ginger or lemon flavoured or just plain).
4 oz best salted butter
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 tablespoons golden syrup
1 tbsp cocoa powder
Some raisins/cherries/nuts/marshmallows/dates/mixed peel or whatever you fancy (not maltesers: they have wheat in them): about a handful of these things or more if you like.
8 oz bar of good chocolate, plain is best.

Method

1. Put the biscuits into a strong plastic bag and bash them into small pieces with a mallet.
2. Put the butter, sugar and syrup into a pan and warm them together until melted. 
3. Add the cocoa and throw in the biscuit pieces and the other bits and pieces.
4. Mix to a stiff mixture.
5. Grease a square or oblong tin (small swiss roll tin) or plastic box with good butter, and press the mixture into it. Flatten the top.
6. Break the chocolate into pieces and put in a small basin. Warm the basin of chocolate in a pan of water, until nicely melted. 
7. When the chocolate is nice and runny pour it over the warm mixture in the tin, and let it set.
8. Cool in the fridge. Cut into pieces with a knife.

Simple home remedies... Total Magic No. 2: mosquito bites

To treat a mosquito bite:

rub the bite with the inside of a banana skin.

Household hints... Total Magic, No. 1. Cleaning copper

For copper pans, kettles and other copper items that become tarnished or lose their coppery look.

Pour a little salt into a small ramekin. Take a quarter of a lemon (it can be the lemon you grated the rind off, for instance) and dip the cut side into the salt.

Rub it gently over the copper pan.

Wash it up, and dry with a cloth if required.

Catherine's best baked eggs

For starter or light meal, serve one egg for each person. For a main meal for hungry and hardworking folk, you can put two large eggs in some or all of the pots.
Preheat the oven to 180º/350º/Gas 4.

You will need:

Ramekins or other small oven-proof dishes, one for each person.

Ingredients:

• Eggs: one or two per person, as explained above.
• Tzatziki: about a teaspoon per person.
• Double cream: about two tsp per person.
• Seasalt

Method

1. Break one or two eggs into each small oven-proof dish.
2. Blob a small spoonful of tzatziki into the egg white (anywhere: no need to spread it).
3. Grind a little salt over the egg.
4. Pour enough double cream over the top to more or less cover the surface. (Do this slowly: the cream will rise to the surface after a moment. Don't put more than you need).
5. Stand the dishes on a baking tray. Some people say you should put some hot water in the tray but that will slow the cooking down and makes little difference to how much they stick. 
6. Bake in the oven until the top rises and browns a little. About 10 to 15 minutes I guess.
7. Serve the eggs in the dishes, on a larger plate with toast fingers and garnish for a starter, or on a larger plate with vegetables and side dishes for a main meal.

Note: The cream is to prevent the top of the eggs going leathery: it can't be omitted. A little grated cheese can be used instead if you have no cream.

Preparing blackcurrants, redcurrants and white currants.

The currants arrive on branching stalks. The most efficient way (in theory at least) to detach them from their threads is to take hold of the top of a thread of them, and dangle it over a large bowl or colander. Then with the other hand you run a fork down the thread from top to bottom and it pops the currants off the stalks.
Some will still have their tiny stalks attached, having popped off the main stem more easily than off their own stalk. These need to be fished out again and have the process repeated, either by fingers or with the fork.
Then run the colander under a tap to wash off dust and dirt and you're all set for the pan.

JAM: Blackcurrant, Damson or Gooseberry

Ingredients

2 1/4- 2 1/2 lbs prepared fruit

3 lbs granulated sugar 

1-2 pints of water

Method

1. Warm enough clean jars for about 5 lbs of jam (put them in a low heat oven).
2. Put the fruit and water in the large preserving pan and simmer gently until the fruit is soft (about 30 minutes). Add a little water to prevent the fruit from burning if necessary.
3. Stir in the sugar.
4. When the sugar has dissolved, boil the jam hard, but not so hard that it boils over.
5. Test for setting after about ten minutes of fast boiling, and/or use a jam thermometer.
6. When setting point is reached, draw it off the heat to a safe place for pouring into jars.
7. Use a warm jug to scoop jam out of the pan and pour into the pots. Screw on the lids firmly before the jam is cold.
8. Clean the sticky off the outside of the jars with a hot wet cloth, and then label the jars when cool and dry.

Medovnik (Honey Cake)

• 450 grams Flour
• 180 grams Icing Sugar
• 180 grams Unsalted Butter
• 1 Egg
• 1 ½ teaspoons Baking Soda
• 6 tablespoons Honey
• 4 tablespoons Cream
• 1 teaspoon Cocoa Powder

Beat the butter, sugar, egg, honey and cream over a low heat (or bain marie) for about 5 minutes.  In a separate bowl mix the flour, baking soda and cocoa powder.  Then mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and let the mixture sit for about 10 minutes covered in cling film. It should be a nice soft dough consistency and you should be able to roll it out without it sticking.  If it’s too sticky then let it sit another 5-10 minutes or use a little bit of flour.
On greaseproof paper draw an 8 inch circle (or square) and roll out approximately 160 grams (one eighth) of the dough to fit the circle. It should be about 2-3 mm thick (i.e. thin!)  Roll out 8 of the circles and bake each one for 4-7 minutes at 180C.
Once they are baked, cool them on wire rack, leaving the paper on (until you come to put the cake together).  The cake layers can be baked beforehand and kept in the fridge for up to a week, or frozen for up to a month.
(If you have any dough left, bake the extra too and later grind it up with the nuts to coat the outside of the cake)

Filling and topping

• 1 Can Sweetened Condensed Milk
• 200 grams of Unsalted Butter
• 70 grams roughly chopped walnuts
• 50 ml of Rum or coffee or both
• 1 ½ Tablespoons of Sugar
• 150 ml of Water

You can first boil the can of sweetened condensed milk for 3 hours, unopened, in a pan of water. This makes it tastier, but is not essential. If you do, do this the day before, and do not open the can until several hours later when it has cooled sufficiently. 

To make the filling, blend the sweetened condensed milk with the butter until creamy.

Separately, mix the rum/coffee, sugar and water in a bowl and set aside.

Putting the cake together
Cut the edges off the 8 cake layers, so that they have a nice cleanly round shape (or square, if you used a square shape...) and don't have hard edges. The bits you've cut off can be ground into crumbs and used to spread over the cake at the end.
Put the first cake layer on a plate, and brush the rum/coffee mixture all over the top of it, then cover with the buttercream and sprinkle with a few chopped nuts.  Proceed like this, brushing both sides of the second and subsequent cake layers with the rum/coffee mixture, placing the layer on top of the last one, and spreading buttercream and nuts over it.
When you've put the last layer of cake on, cover the whole cake with the remaining buttercream and then with the cake crumbs and nuts.  Chill the whole cake in the fridge for at least 4 hours, but overnight is better - the longer you leave it, the more the cream soaks in and it becomes better. The cake can be kept in the fridge for up to a week.