Welsh Cakes

I have been planning for a while to make some Welsh cakes, ever since I went on a date a couple of months back with a very nice Welshman (we now no longer speak but that is a different story).  He told me that Wales only have three national foodstuffs; rarebit which is basically just cheese on toast, lava bread which is definitely an acquired taste (i.e. not very nice) and Welsh cakes and that, of these, only the latter was something he was proud of.  With such a recommendation as this how could I help wanting to make some of my own?  And what better day to make them on than St David's day, the national day of Wales?  I am not actually Welsh and therefore don't really have much right to be celebrating St David's day, though I did live there for a while as a child and I remember every year having to put on a little frilly bonnet and a daffodil to go to school - that at least gives me a reason for remembering the day.  Plus I just love recognising days with food; if someone told me that in an obscure religious cult the worshipers celebrated the 9th of August as a holy day by making lemon meringue pie then I would probably do it, even if I had never heard of them (though I may look it up first just for curiosity's sake.)

I had never actually eaten Welsh cakes before I made them today.  I always imagined them to be somewhere between a scone and a scotch pancake and this was not far off, though they don't have the texture of a scotch pancake, they are made in a similar way in a griddle rather than baked like scones.  They are very similar to scones in terms of taste and texture, though I think that I actually may prefer them because they are a bit sweeter and have spices in them.  The recipe I used for these is from Mary Berry's baking bible which I was given as a Christmas present but haven't actually cooked anything from until now.  Here is an abbreviated version of the recipe:

Ingredients:
350g Self raising flour
2 tsps baking powder
175g butter
115g caster sugar
100g currants
3/4 tsp ground mixed spice
1 large egg
2 tbs milk
extra caster sugar for sprinkling

Method:

1. Lightly grease and heat a frying pan or griddle
2. Measure out the flour and baking powder into a large bowl then rub in the butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.  Add the sugar, currants and spice.
3. Beat the egg with the milk and add it to the mixture and mix to form a firm dough, add more milk if necessary.
4. Roll out the dough onto a lightly floured surface to about 5mm thick and cut into rounds with a 7.5 cm round cutter
5. Cook the Welsh cakes on the pre-heated pan on a low heat for about 3 minutes on each side or until golden brown (don't cook them too fast or the centres will not be fully cooked)
6. Cool on a wire rack and sprinkle with caster sugar.

They are really quite quick and easy to make if you can put in the effort and I would definitely recommend them.  Happy St David's day everyone.

Vegetarian Chili

This mostly vegetarian diet that I am on is starting to grow on me.  I could never be fully vegetarian because I love meat and food in general far too much to cut it out completely but I can see that healthwise and in terms of our carbon footprint that it is a good thing to limit the amount of meat we eat, perhaps only having it once or twice a week.  None of my vegetarian recipes use meat substitutes since I don't approve of meat substitutes like quorn because I think that, if you are going to eat something that looks and tastes like meat then just eat meat.  Therefore, in this meal, to make up for the lack of meat I have added extra beans and mushrooms.

Ingredients:
1tbs vegetable oil
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
150g mushrooms
1 bell pepper
1 tin kidney beans
1 tin borlotti beans
1 stick celery
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1tbs tomato puree
2tsp chili flakes (or more if you like it spicy)
1tsp cumin
1tsp paprika
salt and pepper

Method:

1. Finely chop the onion, mushroom, pepper and celery and crush the garlic
2. Put a large frying pan on a medium-high heat with the oil and fry the onion and garlic until soft
3. Add the mushrooms, pepper and celery and fry for another few minutes
4. Add all of the beans, the chopped tomatoes, tomato puree and all of the seasoning
5. Turn the heat down low and simmer until most of the liquid is gone

I served it with rice and sour cream but you could also do it with nachos or in tortilla wraps.  If you don't like mushrooms then you don't have to put them in, I just love them and put them in everything

Ratatouille with Parmesan and Herb Dumplings

I have been out of the kitchen with the January blues recently and this is the first proper meal I have cooked since the dinner on Christmas day.  Me and my mother have decided that, in order to eat more healthily, we are going to go on a mostly vegetarian diet for a while and this is the first meal I have cooked as part of that scheme.  My friend Claire, who is a vegetarian, was very happy to hear about this and said that I should do a feature on my blog with the vegetarian meals that I am cooking so I intend to do this to give me something to focus on.

Ratatouille is something which I have made quite a lot because it is fairly easy and delicious, it is also one of the few vegetarian meals which I know exactly how to make.  For the past few months I have been making it with herb dumplings - dumplings have been a new favourite for me, I had never made them before November of last year - but we bought a big block of parmesan when food shopping so I thought that making parmesan and herb dumplings might work quite well.

Ingredients:
for the ratatouille:
2tbs olive oil
1 onion
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 large courgette
1 aubergine
1 orange pepper
2 tins chopped tomatoes
1tsp marmite
1tsp honey
1tsp vegetable stock powder
salt and pepper
for the dumplings:
125g self raising flour
50g butter/ lard
60g grated parmesan
water
1tsp dried thyme
1tbs dried parsley
salt and pepper
1 beaten egg for glazing

Method:

1. Chop the onion into small pieces and fry with the olive oil and garlic in a cast iron casserole dish, if you have one, if not then do it in a large pan and transfer to a lidded oven proof dish later on.
2. Chop the courgette into slices, the aubergine into quartered slices and the pepper into smallish pieces then add to the frying onion and garlic.
3. Add the salt and pepper and fry for a few minutes until all of the veg is slightly softened
4. Add the chopped tomatoes, honey, marmite and stock powder
5. Put the casserole dish in the oven at 150 degrees for about 45 minutes
6. Meanwhile prepare the dumplings, put the flour in a bowl and grate the butter and 3/4 of the parmesan into it, then rub briefly to make it into a breadcrumb like consistency.  Add the herbs and seasoning, then add small amounts of water at a time, mixing it together with a knife, until it all sticks together
7. Roll the dumpling mixture into six balls, then when the ratatouille is ready put the dumplings on the top of it, glaze them with the egg and put the rest of the parmesan on top of them
8. Turn the oven up to 200 degrees and place the casserole dish back in with the lid off for 15 minutes or until the dumplings are golden brown.

You can just have this as a meal on its own, in which case it will serve 3 people, or you could serve it with potatoes, then it would probably serve 6, depending on how much you want to eat of it.  Personally I think it is delicious, I love ratatouille with dumplings, and it is so healthy, definitely a good meal for a healthy, vegetarian diet.

Yule Log

The Winter Solstice, also known as Yule, is the shortest day of the year with only about 8 hours of light out of the 24.  I like to acknowledge Yule every year, partly because it is nice to think that after that day it will start being lighter for longer, but also because it has it's own special cake and I will celebrate just about anything if I can make a nice cake for it.  The cake for Winter Solstice is known as a Yule log and I'm sure most people will have heard of it.

Traditionally Yule logs were actual logs which you brought into the house and decorated, then saved until the following year to burn on the fire.  Not many people have log fires any more so it would not make much sense for people to bring real logs into the house.  At some point people started making a chocolate cake in the shape of a log instead of bringing in a real one and this practice has continued.  Chocolate Yule logs are commonly found in shops around Christmas time, though most people do not know their significance and don't even know that Yule is a day in it's own right.  I am the kind of person who does not like to just blindly follow traditions, I like to know the meanings behind the traditions first, otherwise how would I know what I am celebrating?

A Yule log is made in a similar way to a swiss roll, very apt for a representative log since it has the circles inside it which look like the rings in trees.  I don't have a recipe which I use every year, I probably should come up with one, so I just look up one on the internet each time.  This year I used a recipe from the Good Food website, though I did not follow their icing recipe.  Here is a summarised version of the recipe:

Ingredients:
5 eggs
140g light brown sugar
100g S.R. flour
25g cocoa

Equipment:
Swiss roll tin
Baking Parchment
Electric whisk (you can use a normal whisk but it will take much longer)
Chopping board covered in foil

Method:

1. Put the oven on at 190 degrees or gas mark 5 and line your swiss roll tin
2. Separate the eggs, add the sugar and 2tbs of water to the yolks and whisk with the electric whisk until thick and pale.  Then sift in the flour and cocoa and fold it in.
3. Clean the whisk and use it to whip up the egg whites until they are stiff, then fold them into the other mixture, making sure to beat a spoonful in first to loosen it up.
4. Pour the mixture into the tin, spreading it very carefully to the edges, lift the tin up and tilt it to each side so that the mixture is even.
5. Bake in the oven for 10-12 mins or until firm to the touch.
6. Lay out a large piece of baking parchment on the work surface and sprinkle with caster sugar - this will stop the cake from sticking.  When the cake is out of the oven tip it over onto this paper and peel off the lining, cover with a clean tea towel and leave to cool completely.
7. Trim a little cake from each edge and score along one of the long edges, then roll up the cake with the paper, don't take the paper off yet, this is just to keep the cake in shape while you make the icing.

Instead of making ganache which the recipe says to make, I made chocolate buttercream icing, I am not saying that it is better, I just didn't have the ingredients or time to make ganache so I did what was easier for me.  I'm afraid I also don't have a recipe for it since the way I make buttercream is to just add ingredients together until it tastes nice.  I used a few tablespoons of margarine then added icing sugar, cocoa powder and a bit of melted chocolate and just kept adding the icing sugar and cocoa until it was the right flavour, colour and consistency.  After making it I unrolled the cake, spread some icing on it, then rolled it up again, making sure to peel the paper off as I went.  Then I cut some of the cake off and placed the two pieces on a board in the shape I wanted, then spread the rest of the icing over it all.  After this I got a fork and scraped lines into the icing to give it a more log-like look, put a bit of holly on it for decoration and then sprinkled it all with icing sugar.

Et voila, my very own chocolate Yule log.

Cider - Home brewed

This is the story of my adventure into the realm of cider making. Before I start on this post, however, I want to press the fact that I absolutely would not recommend doing any of what I have done in completing this task. It was a long, hard process which, despite all the effort I put into it, didn't have a very successful outcome.  I am writing this post however because it is something which I did which I would not like to go acknowledged.  I also hope perhaps to pass on some useful information to other people, and my friend Mark has been bugging me to post about it since I first started the whole process. So Mark I hope you are happy now.

I don't know why I decided to try and brew my own cider this year. Perhaps because I am living at home with not a lot to do, perhaps because we have an apple tree which grew a bumper crop this year and, no matter how many apple pies or crumbles I made, it would not be enough to use up all of the apples we had.  Anyway, whatever the reason was, I decided, perhaps rashly, to go ahead and do it.

Two of the apples on our tree

I started by buying all of the most essential equipment which I would need: a food standard 10 litre bucket, a length of flexible tube, a plastic demijohn with an air valve, some camden sterilising tablets and a pot of brewers yeast. I'm sure that most people embarking on a home cider brewing adventure would also invest in an apple press but I didn't have the money or space to waste on one of these so I had to come up with another way of getting the juice out of my apples. I researched many ways to press apples at home without a fruit press but they all seemed much too technical and manly for me, involving creating your own press out of bits of wood and a vice. I thought that, since I wasn't going to be making very much cider I would not need to juice that many apples to get the amount I wanted. Oh how wrong I was.

My genius idea was first of all to blend the apples in a blender then squeeze the juice out of the pulp by hand. This idea didn't get very far when I tried to use the blender and it would not start, technology, grr. Anyway so I decided on a more old fashioned method. I had found in the cupboard an old mincer which I remember from my childhood we used to use for mincing up leftover meat from roast dinners which we had stopped using when we realised that it was damaging the table. I thought that this mincer would make a good alternative to a blender to pulp the apples and I was right, in theory. In practice however, though the mincer worked very well for pulping apples, it took quite a long time to even do one. And with cutting, coring, pulping and squeezing to get through, it was quite a long process. I sat for 8 solid hours (making sure I had set myself up in front of the tv to keep me interested) and only got enough juice to fill half of my bucket. Half the bucket is 5 litres however and I was quite pleased with that, we didn't need any more than that. So I stopped.  And I am very glad that I did, when I woke up the next morning my shoulders and arms were not happy with me and were making sure to remind me of the exertion they had gone to on the previous day.

My home apple juicing arrangement

After the arduous task of juicing the apples, by far the hardest part of the process, I then added yeast and sterilising tablets to the juice and put the lid on, leaving it to one side to foam up for a few days. Then, when the bubbling had eased off, I transferred the liquid from bucket to demijohn, attaching a bung with a built in air valve to let the air out as the cider bubbled. At this stage I was quite happy with my cider, it was doing everything it was supposed to, and even though it smelled a bit yeasty, it definitely also smelled cidery, so I was hoping for the best.

When the cider had been in the demijohn for a few weeks it was time to transfer it to bottles and taste it. As you can imagine, after spending that much time and energy in making it, I was quite nervous about how it would turn out, not wanting to have wasted my effort and end up having to pour it all away. I can't say that I succeeded in this, the first taste that I took of the cider was absolutely wretched, totally undrinkable. I gave some also to my father, mother and brother to try; the men said that it definitely tasted like apples and like cider though it was quite bitter, my mum took a tiny sip and made a face of such absolute disgust that it would have hurt my feelings had I not been sure that I had made the same face when I had tasted it. I am not a quitter, however, and though things were not going my way at this point I was determined not to let that phase me just yet. I thought maybe the apples had just been a bit too sour for cider making so, what do you do when apples are too sour to eat? Add sugar, and that is what I did, I added a spoon of brown sugar to my glass of cider. The change was remarkable, it went from an undrinkable, toxic tasting liquid to a drink which actually tasted of cider. This made me very happy and I am sure that I read somewhere that some people add sugar to their cider so I did not feel like a failure and I decided that, since it is the winter and my cider is not as nice as it could be, I will make it into some delicious hot spiced cider and fill it with sugar and spices.