Gerry Long's mashed potatoes - purée to some

Very yummy Long family mash - grace à mon père

The family mash is ever popular, and I am making a first go writing up the recipe here. Mostly it's done by feel, while you beat the potatoes hard with a fork, trying to fluff and crush at the same time, you start to feel when it's ready. I somehow managed to get the outline instructions from my father - mash was one of the few dishes he made from beginning to end.

The ingredients that combine to make the magic are:

potatoes
butter or margarine
pepper and salt
nutmeg

Some people favour particular varieties of potato, but I won't pretend that I do, because mostly I just use what is hanging around. In our house you need about three potatoes about the size of a computer mouse per person, unless Kitty and Olivia are in, in which case you need four per person.

Once you get a taste for this mash you may find you want a larger quantity. Have a pint of milk ready and make sure you've got at least a serving spoonful of butter or marg.

Instructions

• Peel the potatoes.
• Cook them in salted water until very well done - a fork stuck into one will make it fall apart easily.
• Drain the potatoes and add the butter and some of the milk, a hearty pinch of salt and some ground black pepper. 
• Mash with a large fork. Beat those potatoes and keep beating.
• Add a pinch of nutmeg - I use freshly grated. Don't overdo it.
• Beat a bit more, taste and adjust the seasoning if you need to.
• Add more milk if the potatoes are stiff - it should be smooth but not at all runny. 

I've been given a potato masher that's a bit like a miniature pogo stick, with springs and everything. I do use it, but I always end up using a fork afterwards. Just to make sure - and also because I feel a bit like I'm being unfaithful to the source implement. The fork is the magic wand of mash.

I don't really get those rice masher things either.

I like to pile the mash into a bowl and use the fork to give it lots of texture, my favourite is a volcano shape. Assuming you've used an oven proof dish you can put it in the oven to get a crust,

That's it.

The proof of the pudding, as the saying goes, is in the eating. And the proof of the recipe is in the cooking. Two proofs at once in this case, as Kitty followed the recipe and shared it with friends. She is the barometer for authentic Gerry Long mash, her friends are the barometer for v yummy, apparently.

Mary Norwak's Basic Cake Recipe

Aunt Clare lived in a number of picturesque villages through her lifetime, ending up in Cley next the Sea, on the North Norfolk coast. It is a lovely village, and is known by some as Cambridge by Sea, due to the fact that it is so popular eith people retiring from Cambridge. Mary Norwak was a long-term resident and friend of aunt clare, and besides writing many cookery books was happy to share her recipes and her baked goods at many village events.

This recipe is the traditional pound cake, or quatre quarts as they call it in France. Equal amounts of fat, flour, sugar and eggs, and with a strong arm or its electric equivalent, you can make this cake all in one.

I notice that my mum made a note in her lovely writing on the recipe written out by her sister, on the back of an envelope, in the traditional manner. Clare also added a note saying add vanilla and a little water. Mums note says add orange juice and zest for an orange version, and that is my favourite



butter and line 2x7"/18cm tin

set the oven to 170C or equivalent

4oz/110g sr flour
4oz/110g caster sugar
2 eggs
4oz/110g soft margarine
drop of vanilla

Put all together and beat well with electric beater. Put in two tins and bake in the centre of the oven for 20-30m
cool on rack in the tin - remove when cool

variations:
chocolate 1/3oz cocoa/flour (20/90g)/
orange add grated rind/juice of large orange

choc and hazelnut biscuits, or cookies if you like

Hazelnut and Chocolate Cookies

I've been looking for a good cookie/biscuit recipe for some time, and then I came across this one. Rave reviews all round, along with much overeating on the biscuit front. The secret ingredient, because I don't usually keep it in the house, is condensed milk.

Depending on how long you cook these biscuits they can either be crunchy on the outside with a chewy centre or crunchy all the way through. If you can't wait for them to cool you'll get gooey chocolate too.

This recipe makes about 40 biscuits, if you make the roll about two inches/5cm in diameter. If you don't want 40 biscuits, keep a roll of the dough in the fridge, and eat within a week.

Ingredients

225g butter or margarine

not very round dough...

225g caster sugar

6 tbsp condensed milk

350g self-raising flour

100g dark chocolate

100g hazelnuts

Prep

Chop the roast hazelnuts and chocolate to a size that suits you. If you leave them too large, they will make cutting the dough into slices harder.

Beat together the fat, sugar and condensed milk, until well mixed and pale

Add in the flour and mix thoroughly

Stir through the nuts and chocolate

Divide the dough in two, and make two rolls about 5cm in diameter – using baking parchment will make this easier – and chill for around an hour

Cooking

20m before you are going to cook the cookies, heat your oven to 180C

Cut into slices slightly less than 1cm, say .6cm (joke)

Lay onto baking sheet lined with baking parchment, leave some space between them for spreading

Cook for around 15m or until golden brown

Cake meets trifle, smiling

Many people think cake making is a mysterious art. This seems to be driven by an unhappy equation: desire for cake over failure in baking. I have experienced this, in the distant past, when I forgot essential ingredients like baking powder or sugar, and more recently when a cake failed to meet my expectations. Fortunately on these latter occasions, the enthusiasm of those eating the cake reduced my disappointment.

Making cake requires a degree of concentration, and the core ingredients, usually these are fat, flour, butter, sugar and eggs, with flavourings. The basic sponge recipe is for every egg you should use 60g each of flour, sugar and butter. For a 20cm/8" cake (top and bottom) I use six eggs. That is a handsome cake, enough for 8 greedy people who really like cake.