Cranks date & walnut loaf

adorned with honeyed yoghurt and fruit salad

Cranks was the first vegetarian restaurant in London, on Carnaby Street in 1961. I used to go to the one next to the Craftsman Potters shop, with my mum in the 70s, getting the full strength 70s dose of varnished pine, wholemeal everything and salt glazed earthenware. The food was laid out under the heating lamps you now mostly only see in motorway service stations. But then I don’t go to hotels much, or all-you-can-eat buffets. Oh, and they had a salad bar. It was jolly tasty stuff, and introduced me to the joys of red cabbage coleslaw. Now, in a moment of clarity, I have purchased the Cranks Recipe book via the estimable ebay. It is a gem.

I love a walnut loaf, and, to revisit an old subject, I have eggs to use, thanks to our very own chickens. So I gave the Date and Walnut loaf a try. I’ve just eaten the last slice. I wrapped it up and let it sit for three days before tasting it, or, if you want the truth, I hid it. Cake doesn’t last long around here, and I wanted to see what it was like when it sat for a while. The answer is: delicious.

three trying to lay at once

This cake is made entirely with wholemeal ingredients, and although the name is date and walnut loaf, it tastes wonderfully of orange. I can’t recommend it enough. Some of the walnuts are included in the mix, and some are scattered on top. You get a lovely orangey crumb, with bits of fudgey date the occasional crunch walnut fragment inside the cake and lovely toasty walnut on top. The Cranks recipe recommends it with butter, but for me it is heaven without accompanied by a nice strong cup of tea.

You’ll see that the ingredients are all based around the 3 eggs,  50g of fat, per egg and the same of dates and sugar 100g of flour and 25g of walnuts. So if you want to make a teeny loaf just add that to a third of the juice and zest of an orange. Or make a very very orangey version.

I use an electric whisk.

Recipe: Date and Walnut loaf

Set oven to 170C/325F/Gas Mark 3

Line a 500g/1lb loaf tin

Ingredients

·         150g/5oz Butter or Margarine

·         150g/5ozDark brown sugar (muscovado)

·         3 Eggs, beaten

·         1 Small orange, grated rind and juice

·         150g/50z Dates, chopped and stoned

·         75g/3oz Walnuts, chopped

·         300g/10oz Wholemeal  self-raising flour

Method

Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy

Beat in the eggs one by one, then stir in the orange rind

Fold in the dates, and half the walnuts and the flour

Add the orange juice last

Spoon the mixture out of into a lined 900g/1lb loaf tin

Level the surface of the mixture and scatter the rest of the walnuts over the top

Bake for 1 to 1 ¼ hours, until risen and golden brown in a coolish oven 170C/325F/Gas Mark 3

If you can, leave for a few days before eating

how to use thirteen eggs

despite a coffee spillage, still looks good

The chickens have been laying very well, four eggs a day since the days started getting longer. One day it was five, however the next day only three, so that balanced out. Despite a soft shell issue, which means two eggs have been lost this week, that still makes a hell of a lot of eggs. 7x4=28 after all. So, 26 eggs in one week. I haven't managed to flog any (didn't really try), so today saw me baking. Carrot cake which needs 3 eggs, tart a l'oignon also three, plus two for the pastry, and tortilla which used five. Here are some pics.

If I fill the pan full it takes ten eggs and at least eight potatoes, and then I can't turn the tortilla over, as it's too heavy.

slightly low, but I can't lift the pan if I fill it full

carrot cake, with a hole from which a walnut got nibbled

I used a long loaf tin for the carrot cake. It would have been better to leave it to sit for a day.....

cake-meets-trifle

Traditional sponge cake is light and fluffy, with a fine texture, small bubbles. Tales abound about the best method to get the right result. Fillings in WI style versions include jam, or jam and cream. I recently savoured a family version made by Layla which had chocolate buttercream as well as cream teamed with strawberries in the sandwich, with cream and strawberries on top, together with shavings of white chocolate. That was very acceptable... I'll check if she took any pix before the ravening hoards disposed of it.

Cake-meets-trifle is a lemon sponge sandwich, filled with raspberry jam, whipped cream and strawberries. I sometimes use raspberries inside too, but they are very juicy and squash easily. The lemon sponge has lemon zest and lemon juice in it, which gives a wonderful tang that contrasts wonderfully with the soft and sweet filling. Sometimes I just dust the top with icing sugar, and sometimes I put more cream on top with some more fruit. If the cake is chilled it holds together better when it is cut. All in all, this is my most requested cake.

The original recipe I used was an all in one sponge, ideal for a food processor. I don't use one at the moment, so I have gone back to following the traditional approach, creaming the butter and sugar together, then adding the eggs and beating them in one by one, followed by the flour. I used self-raising flour, and add a little more baking powder to add a bit more lift. The zest is added to the butter, and the lemon juice is added right at the end.

Ingredients

zest of 1 lemon
200g  sr flour
200g fat (butter or margarine)
200g sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
juice of 1 lemon

raspberry jam
double or whipping cream
punnet of strawberries

Method

Heat oven to 160 degrees

grease and line 2x8" cake tins 

• cream sugar and fat with zest
• add eggs blending one by one (add spoonful of flour if mixture splits)
• add sifted sr flour blend, adding lemon juice as you go
• spoon mixture dividing evenly between two lined tins 
• bake for 20m and check by inserting a skewer, cake is ready when skewer comes out cleanly and the cake is drawing away from the sides
• whip cream, cut strawberries in half, removing leaves
• when the cakes are cool, remove from tin, peel off lining paper, spread jam over base sponge, spoon cream on and lay cut strawberries on top, lay top sponge on top
• sprinkle with icing sugar if you fancy it

this quantity makes a good size cake, if you want a monster cake use 8" tins and double the quantities

delicious, and soon gone

not so elegant, but tasty, easy to make and can be cooked from frozen, here's the recipe

Horses Dovers

Starters, hors d’eouvres, or horses dovers as somebody used to say. It’s a nice start to a meal, not too heavy, if you’re planning three courses, you don’t want anything too heavy. I like mixed salads. I don’t usually have meat, but some salami, or saucisson sec, is also nice.

So here are a couple of pictures of some salads I served up recently. Champignons a la greque, aubergines with parsley, tomato and carrot salad. And beetroot salad, with a mustard dressing.

Roast Chicken, hot and fast

We moved Sunday lunch to suppertime a while ago. I have to reinstate it in the early afternoon if we have people over. It means that the kids mostly make it home for their Sunday meal, However if they arrive and it isn’t roast chicken, complaints fly, even if it’s the fifth week in a row, or the 9^th. I’d like to say it’s boring, but since Steve is the roast meister, I can’t. I did teach him… but a long time ago now, and truth be told, he’s better at roasting chicken than me now.

The way I learnt  to roast chicken was to cook it hot and fast. The basic calculation is 15 minutes per pound, plus 15 minutes, so a 3lb chicken takes one hour. The only thing that you put in the bird is seasoning, half a lemon, a bunch of parsley, a bouquet garni and/or some garlic, the outside is usually covered with a trickle of olive oil, pepper and salt. The bird needs basting every 15 minutes, and we usually turn it onto its back at some point, to make sure the cooking is even and the breast doesn’t dry out. The oven needs preheating to the hottest it can go, the chicken goes in for 15 minutes at the top heat, and then you turn the oven down a third, for the rest of the cooking. Once it’s cooked for that length of time, you sit it on a board, cover it with foil and let it sit for at least five minutes, to relax and to let the juices flow.  Then carve.

If you think your oven might not be heating properly, check how well it is cooked, by pushing something sharp (skewer is the best thing) and if the juice comes out clear, the chicken is cooked.

It’s Monday, so pictures will have to wait until next week.

Hot chocolate pudding with a fondant centre

This is a rewrite of Gordon Ramsey’s recipe for Chocolate Fondant Pudding, from the Channel 4 programme The F word. I followed this recipe and they were perfect. The chocolate flavour was seriously intense, the gooey centre was seriously gooey and the only problem was that they were a bit too big! Perhaps it would have been better to have just one course before. Hey ho. It took dedication, and a fair bit of greed to finish off those puds.

I’ve done a rewrite, making it slightly less bossy, and, I hope, easier to follow.

Gordon says this amount is enough for 9 puddings, either ramekins or foil cases, but I think the size that would suit the eater best is somewhere a little bigger than a small coffee cup, which would make more. Otherwise the puddings are more suitable for sharing, which is nice. They are delicious with ice cream or crème fraiche, and a short strong coffee.

Preparing the moulds is the fussiest bit of this recipe, but don’t stint on it, otherwise your puddings probably won’t turn out.

A rough calculation, per two pots is 50g each of dark chocolate, butter, sugar and flour, one egg and one egg yolk plus butter and cocoa to line the pots.

To make Hot Chocolate Fondant Puddings

Ingredients

·          50g melted butter, for brushing

·          cocoa powder , for dusting

·          200g good-quality dark chocolate , chopped into small pieces

·          200g butter , in small pieces

·          200g golden caster sugar

·          4 eggs and 4 yolks

·          200g plain flour

Method

o    Prepare the moulds, brushing them with melted butter and chilling them, once cold do it again,  shaking off excess and rolling cocoa powder around to coat them

o    Melt the butter and broken up chocolate together over a pan of barely simmering water – the bowl must not touch the water, stir the melted chocolate and butter together until it is well mixed, then set it aside

o    Whisk the eggs and egg yolks briskly (I use an electric whisk) adding the sugar in a slow stream. The mixture will thicken, turn pale and bulk up with bubbles, and you’ll see a trail left as you drag the whisk through the mixture

o    Sift the flour onto the eggs and stir it into the mixture quickly

o    Pour the melted chocolate mix into the eggy mixture a little at a time, beating well as you go, until you have a dark chocolatey batter

o    Transfer into a big jug and pour into the pots, almost to the top and chill or freeze the pots

To cook, preheat the oven to 160C – remember cooking times vary according to the size and shape of the container you are using. The puddings are ready when they have a crust that bounces back when you give it a gentle nudge

From frozen – cook for 17 minutes

From chilled – cook for 12 minutes

oven cooked breaded chicken

Schnitzel, southern fried chicken, fish fingers. All breaded food. I thought I'd have a go at a kind-of fried chicken thing. I marinaded chicken pieces, all leg pieces, in milk, lemon juice, paprika, pepper and salt, having boned all but one of the pieces: I got bored. Only the unboned drum stick had skin on it.

So what did I do? I grated two pieces of wholemeal bread and stirred in some garlic pounded with herbs, pepper and salt, and a little bit of mixed spice, mixed herbs, paprika and turmeric.
I beat two eggs.
I prepared some flour with turmeric and paprika as well.
I put the flour mixture, eggs and breadcrumbs in three shallow bowls in a row.
Shaking off the marinade, I rolled each piece of chicken in the flour, then rolled it in the beaten egg, followed by rolling it in breadcrumbs, then laid each piece on some baking parchment. Once all the pieces were double dipped I put them in a hot oven for ten minutes, took them out and turned them over, and put them back into the oven, lowering the heat to a medium heat for another ten minutes.

Result? Pretty good. Nothing left. No comments from picky eater Kitty, although she noticed the yellow from the turmeric. I'll try it again and write it up properly with pictures.

carrot quantities corrected for carrot cake... eek!

Thank you very much to Jenny, who spotted I'd over carrotted the cake in the recipe! the correct quantity of carrots is 3 cups when coarsely grated, or 220g. That is 3 mugfuls, using an average mug.

stock from double chicken roast + chicken

At the end of a wet Sunday we shared supper with Alex and Derek. We walked our food round to theirs, and had two roast chickens. Alex had made roasties to the usual high quality, I had thrown some cooked new potatoes around in pounded garlic with paprika, lemon and olive oil and let them cook for 15m on the shelf above my chicken. I had carefully removed the drumsticks and set them aside with another set of legs, remaining from the chicken we'd bought to eat just the breast meat. After all, the breast meat being sold on its own cost the same price as a whole chicken. So I roasted a chicken without its drumsticks, adding the chicken wings from the other bird. It was a mismatched puzzle of a roast chicken... because Derek really likes chicken wings, and that way there were six to choose from (remember, they were also roasting a chicken. Fascinating.

The upshot, after the meal was eaten and we waddled home, was that I ended up with three chicken carcasses. There were a couple of legs missing, and a couple of drumsticks (being made into stew soon), but it was still a whole heap of bones. So into the large pot went the bones with a bayleaf, a small bunch of parsley, an onion studded with four whole cloves, a leek, several cloves of garlic, peppercorns, a carrot and some mixed herbs. On top of that went about three litres of water, and then it was all boiled together for around an hour. The result? Stock, lovely gelatinous stock.

Soup follows