Apple and Cinnamon Cake

We have a ton of apples again this year at the allotment, part of one of our trees has collapsed due to the weight of apples and our trees sag across the path blocking people's way with apples. I am pretty sure everyone at the allotment thinks we are useless, we haven't been as much as I'd like this year, but I still love it.

Our allotment is 'wild' in style. I'm very tidy in the rest of my life, constantly picking things up, cleaning, reordering, stacking, straightening... I think you need to be like that to run an efficient kitchen... but it's nice to have a place in my life that is just a bit messy and free and still beautiful at the same time. I don't care if you can't get down some of the paths, or that you have to crawl under the apple trees to get in. It is overgrown with apple boughs, flowers, vines, blackberries, honeysuckle, creeping nasturtiums, huge fennel plants that have gone to seed, but I personally think that that is the beauty of it. It's not like it's a big patch of nettles; but I'll await my next warning email because I don't think the allotment committee agree...

I think I've been asked for this recipe more than any other recently, pretty much everyone who has ordered it at Cook House wants to know how to make it so I thought I'd better get on with writing it up.

Incidentally it is the cake that a woman once described on Facebook as 'so dry it was impossible to swallow'. She laid into me in front of lots of customers at Cook House when I had just opened, I'll never forget it. She said she would never be back, thankfully. I'd also like to add that she ate every last (dry) crumb of her cake. Thankfully everyone else seems to like it a lot. I suggest you try it and see for yourself...

Get your cake tin ready and lined and preheat the oven to 160˚C.

Peel one large cooking apple... I'm going to have to make a lot of cakes to get through all the allotment apples! and cut it into thick slices.

Melt 150g of butter in a pan on a gentle heat. Then add 225g of self raising flour to a bowl, followed by 225g of caster sugar, a teaspoon of baking powder and 3/4 teaspoon of cinnamon. Give all the dry stuff a good mix and make sure there are no clumps. Beat 2 eggs in another bowl and add a dash of almond essence, about 1/4 teaspoon.

Then add the eggs and the melted butter to the dry mix and quickly bring it together using a spatula, it is almost like a batter when it is fully mixed.

Add 3/4 of the mix to a lined cake tin and spread it out. It might seem like there's not much of the mixture to you, but don't worry, that's how it is meant to be. Then add a layer of apples to the top of the mix, covering the whole lot. Then add the remaining 1/4 of the mix to the middle, on top of the apples. Then quickly pop it in the oven and bake for 50 minutes.

Sprinkle the top with a tiny bit of sugar when it comes out, it will smell amazing, all being well. The batter like mix means you almost get a buttery crust to the edges of the cake, with the middle staying warm and crumbly with soft layers of sweet apple. It is very good still warm from the oven with a dollop of cream, and will keep well for a couple of days in an airtight tin if you're feeling restrained and don't eat it all at once...

Hawthorn Berry Chutney

I'm full of cold today, I've just taken a 'night-time' cold and flu tablet, I don't need much encouragement to sleep at the best of time, so I'm fully expecting to be comatose within about 20 minutes, I'll type fast... So autumn brings colds and flu, but also the best of the seasonal food in my view...

In my kitchen at the moment I have a mix of amazing looking squashes, bags of hawthorn berries, pickles in jars of all shades and colours dotted around, it really feels like a bounty compared to any other time of year. It is a pleasure having the time at Cook House to pickle, pot and preserve as the autumn sun streams in the windows. The nooks and crannies of the Ouseburn are also filled with blackberries, rosehips and elderberries, massive spiders and thorns, but I have still managed to fill up punnets with various hedgerow bounties... add to that the start of the shooting season and I couldn’t be happier to be back in the throes of autumnal dining... 

I'm pretty pleased with this chutney, I have always imagined hawthorn to be poisonous, but it turns out you can eat all of it, leaves, blossom and berries... The trees in the Lake District last weekend were heavy with hawthorn berries, I filled a bag full. The little hawthorn berries are plentiful at this time of year and they make a delicious chutney, good with cold meats, game and cheese, a tasty sweet-spicy sauce... 

  

 
Snip the berries from their stalks, about 1kg of them, wash them then simmer in 500ml of cider vinegar and a teaspoon of salt. Simmer for an hour then press through a sieve into a clean saucepan, keeping the syrup you extract. Add to it, 125g of raisins and 300g of brown sugar, 1 teaspoon of ground ginger, 1 teaspoon of ground nutmeg, ¼ teaspoon of ground cloves, ¼ teaspoon of ground allspice and a grind of black pepper. Then simmer uncovered for 15 minutes until quite thick and pour into clean jars and seal. It is delicious with a slice of game terrine, rich spicy and quite different from any chutney I've ever had...

Margot Henderson's Turkish Coffee Cake for a 3rd Birthday

I only noticed at the last minute that my blog is three years old today, but fittingly I had a cake ready to tell you about, and what is a birthday without cake... It doesnt even seem that long ago that I first sat down and chatted about squid but here we are 179 posts later... And we have cake, and Margot Henderson cake at that...

Margot Henderson has become a bit of a role model slash hero of mine over the past year or so. I don’t quite know how it began really; I have always been a huge St. John fan, restaurants, books, recipes... and I had read snippets about Margot, Fergus Henderson's wife. Then I went to a wedding last summer where she did the food, and it was perfect. JUST what I wanted, exactly how wedding food should be, terrines and salads to start, and then chicken pies to share, the pastry was just heaven, golden and suety, I can still remember it quite clearly, even through the haze of endless negroni’s. Really simple but incredibly well done. It brought everyone together in a lovely way that only pie sharing can do, the whole table got on like a house on fire. Hands down the best wedding food ever, there was fois gras in the terrine, how could it not be the best wedding food ever.

And then I read more about Margot and realised that she pretty much does everything I aspire to do... She puts together beautiful looking suppers, caters and has a little place called Rochelle Canteen where you can go for breakfast or lunch during the week, a base for all her catering. And it is all un-fussy, simple, delicious, very well thought out food that I want to eat every day, and hope to emulate in some way as time goes on. I’m going there for lunch on Friday and I couldn’t be more delighted. Her book is my most recent favourite; I am gradually getting through her stories and recipes; lovely beetroot soup with porcini, calming celeriac soup, bloody amazing sticky ginger cake and this Turkish Coffee Cake, which is just a revelation.

Preheat the oven to 180°C and mix 100g of wholemeal flour, 100g of plain flour, 250g of soft brown sugar, 2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon of ground coriander and 1/2 teaspoon of ground nutmeg in a large bowl. Then add 175g of butter cut into little cubes and rub it through the mix until you have a large breadcrumb mix; this always gives me really sore crampy hands, which doesn’t bare well for the future, I may be arthritic and unable to bake one day I fear... Then take half of this mix and press it into the base of your cake tin. This gives a lovely crunchy base to the cake.

Then add to the remaining mixture 2 teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda, 250ml of sour cream, 2 beaten eggs, 60g of chopped walnuts and 4 tablespoons of espresso coffee and beat it all together. Pour this into the tin over the base mixture, and bake for 30 minutes. It is ready when it feels firm and springy to the touch, I perhaps slightly under baked mine, my oven is being a bit temperamental at the moment. I’ll just have to suffer the hardship of making it again; and eating it again... it’s tough. It is so tasty, very moist from the sour cream, caramelly and full of cinnamon, with a lovely crunchy base, very unusual...

Mini Butternut Spice Muffins

These little muffins have been popping up all over in the past few weeks. I think I can make them with my eyes closed now. I have served them at both Supperclub nights, with an array of other little puddings alongside them such as tiny boozy Campari jellies and Chocolate and Chestnut pots... Then when The Journal got in touch to say they would like me to put together some Christmas canapés for their next edition of Taste I thought they would be perfect as a tiny sweet canapé.

 
I created four different canapés for the article, a chicory leaf cup with Stilton, toasted walnuts and honey, a mackerel and horseradish pate, a parma ham and chestnut pastry roll and these little fellas. So even though it was early November I was up in the loft looking out the Christmas decorations and setting my dining table with a Christmas party scene, ready for the photographer on a Sunday afternoon, it all felt a little bit surreal! The photos all looked lovely, much better than mine, and you can see the full article and all the recipes here.

I fed the photographer as many as I could, but then owing to the fact that it wasn't Christmas and there was no actual party happening TLI and were left staring at about 80 tiny bite size pieces of food... We made a little dent in them, but ended up taking the rest to work, as much as I love canapés it was just too much, even for me...

 
So to start preheat the oven to 200°C degrees and grease your mini muffin tin with a little butter. Then peel and chop half a butternut squash into chunks and put it in to roast for about 15 minutes or until its soft, it doesn’t need any oil or anything on it. You can also use pumpkin or sweet potato too, I've used an onion squash also which was lovely...
  
This makes about 24 mini muffins or 12 large ones, I prefer the tiny cute ones. Next mix together 125g of plain flour, 110g of sugar, 2 teaspoons of baking powder, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, ½ a teaspoon of ginger, ½ a teaspoon of nutmeg and ½ a teaspoon of salt. Cut 50g of room temperature butter into small pieces then mix it through the flour and spice mix with your fingers until it's like breadcrumbs.

 
When the butternut squash is done mash it with a fork and allow it to cool. Then in a separate bowl, mix together the squash, 120ml of evaporated milk and 1 beaten egg. Pour the squash mixture into the flour mixture and add a handful of raisins, then fold gently until mixture is just combined. Pour the mix into the greased muffin tins, about half 2/3 full into each. Then sprinkle the tops with a mix of cinnamon, sugar and nutmeg. Then bake for about 15 minutes, until golden.
The spices are delicious in the warm little butternut buns, sweet bites of raisins and a crunchy sugary spice top make them my favourite little pudding at the moment.

Red Peppers stuffed with Rice, Raisins and Pine Nuts

We had some lovely friends visiting from London this weekend so a little get together was in order, some friends, some food, some wine... I even printed out little menus for everyone. It took a while to settle on a menu as the little blonde is a vegetarian and the Twinings hunk doesn't eat dairy... but Claudia Roden had the answers, as she often does...

A Moroccan Chicken Tagine with Caramelised Onions and Chestnuts, some Turkish Stuffed Peppers full of herby spiced rice, pine nuts and raisins and some buttery couscous with toasted almonds. Something for everyone I hoped, they looked like they enjoyed it anyway...

We started with little Leek Fritters with a herby yoghurt dip and some Cannellini Bean Hummus with Toasted Cumin and pittas to dip. It was lovely to catch up, chatting in the kitchen while I threw toasted almonds around and served food later than planned as ever...

We finished with an Apple and Cardamom Tart, which I will have to tell you about soon, because although it may be gauche to say, as I made it myself, was totally amazing. The aromatic, dusky flavours of the cardamom were lovely with the sweet sugary apple and warm buttery pastry. Delicious.

The peppers were pretty simple to make, but so full of flavour and not 70s dinner party at all... This will make 6 stuffed peppers. Start with the filling by slowly frying a large chopped onion in 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, until it is soft. Then add 250g of risotto rice, I used arborio, and stir until it is coated with oil and turning translucent. Add 450ml of water, some salt and pepper and 2 teaspoons of sugar. Stir this well and then simmer for about 15 minutes, or until the water has been absorbed, but the rice is still slightly undercooked.

When it is ready stir in 3 tablespoons of pine nuts, 3 tablespoons of raisins, 1 large tomato chopped into pieces, a handful of chopped mint, a handful of chopped dill, a handful of chopped parsley, a teaspoon of ground cinnamon, half a teaspoon of ground allspice, the juice of a lemon and 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. You can see where all the flavour comes from with this lot all hanging out together...

Now take 6 red peppers and cut a circle round the top to remove the lid and scoop out any seeds from inside. Fill the insides of the peppers with the rice mixture and pop the lids back on. Arrange them in a baking tray side by side, I had to slice a little bit off the bottom of some of the peppers to keep them steady. Pour about 1cm of water into the bottom of the tray and bake in the oven at 190°C for 50 minutes. Be careful when you take them out that the peppers don't fall apart, be very gentle...

They are lovely warm, allow them to cool a little before serving, they are also good cold with a salad and some yoghurt. The warm spices and fresh herbs are delicious with little bursts of sweet raisins and creamy pine nuts all in a sweet roasted red pepper. I've just had a little one for lunch that was leftover... I'm glad I made too many...

Chicken Tagine with Caramelised Baby Onions and Honey

The Lake District was beautiful and sunny on Friday evening, sitting in the quiet of the valley watching the deer with their new bambi's was a lovely end to the week. It did rain pretty much continuously from then on in, but it was still a lovely weekend. It stopped long enough to light the bbq for supper, but also managed to soak us thoroughly while out for a walk. The mist was rolling down the hills dramatically as we left but even in bad weather it is still such a beautiful and relaxing place.

So it may be August, British Summer Time, in case you had forgotten, but I think this rainy windy day calls for something a little bit warming... I have mentioned Claudia Roden before, her book Arabesque is never far from hand in my kitchen. A taste of Morocco, Turkey and Lebanon, full of spice and flavour. My favourite section is full of Moroccon tagines, spiced with ginger and cinnamon, sweet with honey and perfumed with saffron...

Claudia uses a whole jointed chicken for her version of this tagine, but as I was only cooking for two I used boned chicken thighs. I find chicken thighs much tastier than breast meat, and for longer cooking times like this tagine, thigh meat is much less likely to dry out.

Start with 150g of shallots or baby onions. Pour hot water over them, in a bowl, and leave for five minutes to blanch. This makes removing the skin whilst keeping the onions or shallots whole much easier. While they are bobbing around in hot water finely chop a small onion and then cook slowly in a tablespoons of olive oil. Cook until soft, for about 5 minutes, and then add half a teaspoon of ginger, half a teaspoon of cinnamon and a pinch of saffron. Continue to cook the onion and spices for a few minutes longer.

Chop about 300g of boned and skinned chicken thighs into bite size pieces, perhaps a bit more if you're really hungry. Add the chicken to the pan with the onions and spices, and when it is sealed all over add 150ml of water, the blanched onions with their skins removed and a pinch of salt and pepper. Leave the tagine to cook, on a medium heat, uncovered for about 20 minutes.

While the tagine is cooking you can prepare the couscous. It needs to be in a pan that can go in the oven. Use 100g per person, pour it into the pan and add the same amount of salted water to the couscous, cover and leave for 10 minutes. I used 200g of couscous to 200ml of boiling water with a teaspoon of salt in it. Fluff up the couscous after it has absorbed all of the water, it may have become quite a hard mass, but just break it apart with a fork until it is light and fluffy. Add a glug of olive oil and work it all through the couscous with your hands, getting lots of air into it as you do. Finally put the dish into a pre heated oven at 200°C for 15 minutes. Before serving stir a knob of butter through the piping hot couscous and fluff it up again. Claudia uses 20g of butter, but I think you can get away with a lot less, but just to your own tastes.

To finish the final stage of the tagine remove the chicken pieces from the sauce and set them aside, leave the onions in the pan to continue to soften. The sauce now needs to reduce and thicken up a bit. Add 2 tablespoons of honey and lots more black pepper, you need quite a lot to balance the sweetness of the honey. Just keep tasting it until it suits your taste. Turn the heat up a little and allow the sauce to bubble away and reduce by about half. Finally return the chicken to the pan to heat through for a few minutes.

Fill a bowl with a large scoop of buttery couscous and top with the chicken, sauce and onions. I sprinkled the top with some toasted sesame seeds, you could also use some toasted almonds roughly chopped. The gingery, cinnamon spice is lovely with sweet honey, spicy black pepper and soft onions. It is making me want to cook it again just writing this, I might have to wait until tomorrow...