Ingredients: Plum and apple mixture: Crumble topping: Method: Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius. Place the apples, plums, cinnamon vanilla and 2 tablespoons of water into a pot – the water should be covering the base of the pan. Depending on how juicy the …
Ingredients Method Heat oven to 180 degrees celsius and line two 20 x 30cm baking trays with baking paper In a medium bowl, mix together masa flour, seeds and the teaspoon of sea salt. Add the olive oil and boiling water. Mix together until all …
Ingredients
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About this recipe
Comparing apples with oranges was the name of the game for my fruit bowl for a while there, thanks to Wonky Box. It got me thinking – oranges are lovely in baking, but I haven’t come across many recipes where they are simply chopped up up and added to the mix. Possibly they cause too many problems curdling things, or maybe they are too sloppy? I didn’t get to the bottom of this, but I had a hunch combining them with some sturdy ingredients such as oats and coconut could help mop up any extra juice and produce something pretty hearty and edible. There are a few recipes knocking around on the internet for ‘Morning Glory Muffins‘ that include crushed pineapple. By my reckoning, this is a similar ingredient to oranges in terms of acidity and juiciness. I fiddled around with some of these and tweaked it to produce my recipe with finely chopped orange instead – no curdling, no inordinate sloppiness. The true test however has been passed – my niece and nephews gobbled them up with no sad scraps left knocking around school lunchboxes. Hopefully that is testament enough to encourage you to give these a try!
Ingredients: Method: I’ve recently subscribed to Wonky Box – what a delight! It gives me a nice little pick-me-up throughout my week – make no mistake, I am exactly the kind of geek who finds vegetable-related updates exciting. Tuesday’s announcement of which goodies to expect …
Ingredients: Method: About this recipe My peach and almond upside down cake is dense and hearty with a buttery topping of sweet sliced fruit. Inspired by the retro delight of a pineapple upside down cake, this version is comforting and appropriate for winter, with a …
Ingredients
Method
About this recipe
Struggling to come up with vegan and gluten free baking ideas? Then let cashew butter be your friend. My lovely Fix and Fogg jar of cashew butter was a gift and gosh I love it. It’s creamy and rich and quite the treat – I may not have splurged on it for myself, but once in my possession it has provided a great opportunity for some experimental baking.
Cashews are fascinating little nuts – did you know the bit we eat as the nut is not really a nut at all, but a seed that hangs off the actual fruity bit (more correctly, an ‘accessory fruit‘)? The accessory fruit in this case is the cashew apple with an attachment that houses the seed – our beloved cashew nut. And if that weren’t quite enough cleverness all on its own, cashew tree wood is useful for practical items such as shipping crates in its own right.
I hope you enjoy these cookies – the dough is quite firm that makes it easy to work with, and they have a lovely richness due to the cashew butter. The spices can be mixed up for some variation too – mixed spice and nutmeg go well too. I will keep on experimenting with this cashew butter too so keep watch, I hear it’s good in stir fries!
Ingredients: Method: We’re really in Autumn here now and I’m enjoying the mellow days and slight cooling in the air. I enjoy Autumnal eating – warming soups and stews, sauces and pickles made from the last of the summer tomatoes, feijoas. I was lucky to …
Ingredients Method About this recipe… I’ve been playing around with this recipe since Christmas. I treated myself to a jar of Roses strawberry conserve to go with festive croissants and needed something to do with the leftovers that wasn’t simply jam on toast. Nothing wrong …
I think we all need a little sweetness at the moment. Summer holidays, and the little dash of optimism and refreshment they deliver, feel like a long time ago indeed. Luckily, I have this spiced plum shortcake recipe stored up from my own summer holiday, which was pleasantly full of fresh summer fruit, including a bounty of plums rescued from a fallen branch.
As you may have gathered, I like to know a little history behind the things I cook. Googling for “shortcake” was a pleasant treat as it lead me to this delightful little excerpt on the website for an American bakery with a name that warms my heart. Zig’s Bakery and Café not only looks like a real treat to visit but also (nearly) shares a name with my darling little ginger cat Ziggy. But I’m diverting here….as Zig’s has informed me, shortcake has an admirable history, first appearing in a recipe in 1588, and being the namesake for a character in Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor. There is even a National Strawberry Shortcake Day on 14 June in some US states to celebrate the strawberry harvest.
This plum shortcake is a little more tart than a strawberry version but is nicely sweetened up with a dusting of icing sugar…and a dollop of ice cream wouldn’t go amiss either. I hope you enjoy it if you decide to do some baking to warm your heart a little – the plums create a delightful and lifting aroma as they bubble away, and any leftovers are delicious with oats and yoghurt for breakfast. Take care out there everyone x
Ingredients:
For the spiced plums:
For the shortcake:
Method:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Grease a 25cm x 18cm baking tray and lightly dust with flour.
Place the plums, spices and sugar into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Turn the heat down and simmer for 20 minutes. If the plums are not releasing a great deal of juice, add up to 2 tablespoons of water so a thin layer of liquid just coats the bottom of the pan.
Meanwhile, make the shortcake by mixing the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt together in a medium bowl. Cut in the butter and rub it in with your fingers until the mixture is fine and crumbly. Add the whisked egg and combine. Then slowly mix in the milk until the mixture forms a stiff dough.
Roll the dough into a ball and turn out onto a floured surface. Divide into thirds. Press two thirds into the bottom of the prepared baking tin.
After 20 minutes or until the plums have softened but are holding their shape, remove from the heat and allow to cool for five minutes. Remove the vanilla and cardamon pods and cinnamon stick and spoon the plums over the shortcake in the baking tin. Use the remaining shortcake dough to dot over the top of the plums.
Bake for 25 minutes until the shortcake is golden. Remove from the oven and dust with icing sugar after five minutes.
Happy New Year! I was lucky to have a pretty decent 2021, and I know I am in the minority here. It was a shocker for many of my favourite people. Wherever January 2022 finds you (ideally somewhere relaxing and on holiday with many tasty …