I was the happy competitor in a baking competition recently. Â I say ‘happy’ because how could you ever not be happy when you have a genuine excuse to make sweet delicious treats several times over? Â And the competition was for a great cause too…Good Bitches …
Savoury cheesy beery sauce on toast, that is my delicious experience with Welsh Rarebit to date. And my, this lovely little cheese-on-toast treat is scrumptious.
Hurrah, apples are in season again! Â This means I can continue my alphabetical journey through New Zealand’s kitchen bible, the Edmonds Cook Book, where I am still languishing somewhat in the apple section of the A recipes.
I’m not going to lie, the idea of making an apple pie did give me a little bit of a start. Â It’s the making-pastry-from-scratch thing, you see. Â As a teenager I would blithely tackle this task, and successfully so. Â A couple of pastry let-downs (or stuck-downs, more accurately) as a young adult, and my confidence was dented.
The apples we are instructed to use for this pie are Granny Smiths. Â Mouth-puckeringly tart, they are not my first choice for eating alone but they are lovely in this pie. Â And they have a rather awesome history; cultivated by chance by one Maria Ann (Granny) Smith from a seedling on her property in Tasmania in 1868.
To make this pie you will need:
Heat the oven to 200 degrees celsius.
I started with the pastry, referring to Edmond’s Sweet Shortcrust Pastry recipe.  This requires sifting 1 cup plain flour into a bowl and then cutting in 75 grams of butter with a knife, until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs.  To this, still following instructions, I stirred in 1/4 cup of sugar, an egg yolk and 1 tablespoon water, then mixed to a stiff dough and chilled for half an hour.
I used this time to get the filling ready – it’s really very simple, the apples, 1/2 cup of sugar, butter, flour and ground cloves are all mixed together.
And now, the pastry (cue deep breath in!).  Roll the pastry out so that it is slightly larger than the pie dish you are using.  The goal is to line the dish sides and top the pie with pastry.  So, you need to cut two long strips for the pie sides.  As depicted, this went pretty well.
Removing the pastry for the topping from the bench was slightly less successful, hence some strategically placed whipped cream in the photos. Â Press the pastry strips around the pie dish sides. Â Spoon the apple filling into the dish and then top with the rest of the pastry, trimming the sides. Â Brush with water and sprinkle with sugar.
Bake the pie for 25 minutes. Â If the apples are not quite done after this time, turn the oven down to 180 degrees celsius and bake until the apples are tender. Â For me, this took and extra five minutes.
I know, I know, vegetables and chocolate.  My reflex reaction is ‘blurgh’ too.  But bear with me, these brownies are good, contain lots of dark chocolate and are a handy way to use up beetroot if you find yourself needing to do so. Not that I often …
What to do with sage? Make buttery, cheesy sage and cheddar biscuits?  Yes please. I’ve found myself with a reasonably plentiful supply of fresh sage, which is a new thing.  I have always managed to grow parsley and been left perplexed at how to use the …
I always loved visiting Wales when I lived in the UK, and what’s not to love? Â Beautiful countryside, that lovely lilting accent and, most importantly, Welsh cakes.
To the uninitiated, these little morsels may present like just another baked good. Â I promise you, they are so much more. Â Sugary and dotted with currants, they are gently browned like fat little pancakes on a hot bake stone, which in other words is a whacking great slab of cast iron heated on top of the oven elements.
The secret to the toothsomeness of Welsh cakes lies not just in the sugar, butter and dried fruit, but in the addition of lard.  Yes, I too felt a little ill when informed of this fact.  But please believe me, it adds a little something wonderful without any taste of fat, leaving the finished product just ever so slightly crisp on the outside, in contrast to the fluffy sweetness inside.
I was very privileged this past weekend to receive one-on-one tuition from a genuine Welsh person, my lovely friend Suze. Â Not only did she share her bakestone with me, but also her Nan’s welsh cake recipe. Â Very kindly, Suze also hunted out the required lard, seemingly impossible to find outside of a butchers, which arrived in a slightly piggy-scented white tub.
To learn how to make Welsh cakes a la Suze’s nan, read on…
Ingredients:
Tip the flour, baking powder and pinch of salt into a bowl
Add the butter and lard and rub in with your fingers until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs.
Mix in the currants, then add the egg and work in together with your hands until you have a soft dough.  If it looks a little dry, add the splash of milk.
Lightly flour your bench top. Â At this point, put your bake stone (or heavy-based pan; I am reliably informed it will work just as well) over a moderate heat.
Roll out the dough to the thickness of your little finger (as demonstrated!). Â Use a 8cm cookie cutter to make the cakes.
Add a spot of lard to the bake stone and, once melted, cook the cakes in batches. Â They take about 3 minutes each side to become golden brown, crisp and cooked through – you can observe the colour changing as it cooks through along the side of the Welsh cake.
Sprinkle with caster sugar once cooked. Â I cannot emphasis enough how delicious they are served all fresh and warm with a good cup of tea. Â Â Dydd Gwyl Dewi hapus!
What a handsome red cabbage!  Or at least, that was my first thought when gifted some of the cabbage overflow from my parents’ bountiful garden.  And don’t you agree? And my second thought was coleslaw. Coleslaw, or slaw, has made quite the resurgence of late, I …
The busy run-up to Christmas is paved with good intentions, namely my intention to publish this post.  So forgive me for missing the boat a little with this one.  I think we can still consider this timely though, as many of us will have tin-foiled lumps …
You all know how much I love a good, old-fashioned cookbook. Â So I was naturally delighted when this little gem, ‘The Cookin’ Woman: Irish Country Recipes’ arrived in my letter box, thanks to my little sister (Science teacher extraordinaire and blogger at Einstein’s Kitchen).
It’s appropriate not just because I love unusual cookbooks, but also because my better half is Northern Irish.  Florence Irwin is the author, lauded as Ulster’s first travelling domestic science instructor.  She came to write this book after her expeditions throughout County Down. Her recipes include not only traditional fare and specialties such as dulse, but also suggestions for the modern-day cook such as the outlandish ‘imaginative and healthy vegetable dishes,’ and some household tips.
I myself would be interested to know quite how this little book found its way to this side of the world.  The original sales sticker on the back says it is from Four Provinces Bookshop (sadly now closed), 244 – 246 Grays Inn Road, London.  From there to Port Chalmers…who knows how that happened?
One of my favourite Irish treats is Soda Bread, or Soda Farl. Â The leavening agent is baking soda, and the bread itself is dense and wholesome with a pleasant soda twang.
Naturally, the Cookin’ Woman has a recipe for Soda Bread. Â It’s surprisingly easy to make, being rather like whipping up a batch of scones, and it resulted in a delicious little loaf. Â I am pleased to report passed the Northern Irish test – all gone rather quickly and washed down with plenty of tea.
You will need:
Preheat your oven to 375 Fahrenheit or 190 Celsius, leaving the tray you will be using for the soda bread in the oven to warm up.
Sift the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar and salt into a large bowl. Â Make a well in the centre.
At this point, Florence becomes very firm on instructions to ensure a light loaf. Â One is not to add it ‘drop by drop.’ Instead, start with adding about half the buttermilk to the well in the centre. Â Using a knife, draw the batter from the sides and add more liquid as the batter thickens.
To ensure a light loaf, you don’t want it over-worked  ‘ragged’ in the centre.  And so I stopped mixing at about the point where it was lumpy and not to dry.
Spread the warmed tray with flour. Â Tip out the dough, dredge it in flour and knead lightly, tucking in the edges to form a circle as you go, and doing so ‘very lightly indeed.’ Â When the top is smooth, turn it upside down (to distribute flour to what is now the top of the loaf) and roll it to about 1 inch thick.
Cut it into farls. Â Yes, I had to check this out too – ‘farl’ is an old Scottish word for quarter.
Florence doesn’t specify a time, but just that one bakes it until it is ‘risen, nicely brown and cooked to the centre.’ Â This took my farls 30 minutes.
Delicious hot with butter and tea!
It’s truly wonderful to be writing about asparagus. Â The appearance of these little green spears of joy means it must be spring. Â I’m sure you’ve all enjoyed my endless assault of stodge and apples as much as I have, but there are few things in …