Apricot Jam

Every time I come to blog, I'm amazed how long it has been since last time. I'm usually prompted by the big 'food events' of the year - on this occasion the arrival of apricots and summer fruits in the shops. I have been making my own jam in France for many years  now - even before we were here full time.

Having a larger kitchen and now a better work surface at a good height is probably part of the reason. Jam making requires some space for preparation and does require attention to cleanliness, good order and a neat working space. This is maybe why I enjoy it. Concentration is key. Plan your campaign in advance. You can work in a small kitchen (my Mum's kitchen was a tiny galley) but will need to organise your space. Because I am supposed to be 'taking things easy' at the moment, I don't want to be in a flustered panic, so I am careful to think out every stage of even the simplest process so I have everything on hand, ready for use.

 

If you are going to macerate your apricots (and I recommend it to prevent total mush and improve the flavour) start prepping the night before you want to make your jam. Macerating improves the texture of the fruit and melts the sugar crystals, making boiling less stressful. You MUST get the sugar melted by the time boiling starts, or you risk having sugar crystals in your jam. Don't wash your apricots - your jam doesn't need all that water. If necessary, wipe them with a damp cloth. 

 

Prepare your jars (at least two more than you think you'll need). Wash them thoroughly and sterilise them and their lids. I use a big pan and boiling water. Stand your jars in the pan, fill with cold water until completely covered, with the lids around the edge. Bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Once sterile they can be laid out on a clean tea towel until needed. Personally I don't take them out until just before use (the hot water will quickly evaporate off). You can equally sterilise in a hot oven. just set your jars & lids on a baking tray (not touching each other) at 180c for about 15 mins. You want to ladle hot jam into hot jars, so timing is important.

Clean and lay out your equipment. Nothing special is needed - but you will need a ladle, something like tongs to pick up your jars & lids when hot, and a jam funnel for filling the jars unless you are very neat handed and use a jug. I recommend getting at least a stainless steel ladle and a jam funnel because they are useful for other things and are relatively cheap.

Clean and prepare your cooking pan. If you have a stainless steel pan, this is as simple as washing it up. I use a copper pan, so wash it thoroughly and then clean inside and out with half a lemon and some ordinary salt.  If you are using copper there must be no tarnish remaining and certainly no green patches. The advantage of copper is you can cook at a slightly lower temperature, with less risk of burning the jam. 

 

Ingredients

2kg Apricots, stoned. Weigh them after stoning - you should have about 1.85kg. Some people cut their fruit into halves, I cut into quarters for a slightly less chunky finish.

Sugar, equal in weight to your prepared fruit

A lemon (I used half a lemon this year because mine were massive Spanish ones) 

A knob of butter

This recipe can be halved. Some people don't recommend cooking more than 1kg jam because of the danger of the jam boiling over. In my big copper pot this is fine - but be aware that I use a pot which is about 35cm across and 24cm deep. So if your pot is smaller, maybe start small! 

 

Put your stoned and chopped fruit into a large mixing bowl. Add the required amount of sugar and mix thoroughly. Cover with a clean tea towel and leave for 12 - 24 hours. The sugar will melt and your apricots will darken in colour slightly. Stir thoroughly from time to time, especially before pouring into your cooking pan.

On cooking day, lay out your equipment and begin sterilising your jars. Stir the fruit well, and pour it into the pan. Squeeze the juice of the lemon into the pan, then add the squeezed lemon carcass.  This provides pectin to set the jam. Heat the pan slowly, stirring from time to time whilst the sugar finishes melting, until the jam begins to boil. At this point I add a knob of butter. This dissolves any scum that forms on top. Some people skim their jam. I don't. Stir your jam whilst it is boiling to ensure nothing is catching on the bottom. It isn't a disaster if you get a bit of 'caramel' (aka 'burnt bits') in your jam, but it might spoil the appearance.

I boiled mine for ten minutes initially, then a few minutes more until I was happy with the set. After the initial boil, take your cold saucer and drop a teaspoonful of jam onto it. Give the blob a push with a spoon and if it wrinkles nicely it is done. If not  (or if a channel pushed through the blob immediately floods) carry on boiling for another 2 minutes and try again. Once you are happy that your jam has set, you can pot it up.

Ladle the jam into hot jars. Using a tea towel, screw down the lids immediately. As the jam cools, the 'popper' at the centre of most modern jars will pop down, sealing the jar securely. Allow the jars to cool, and then store in a cool, dark place until needed. 

This week I will hope to buy 2kg of strawberries for strawberry jam. The same process, but less sugar (750g per kilo). Again I will use a lemon rather than preserving sugar. I may also add a dried vanilla pod (I keep them in the sugar jar) for added flavour.

Bake-Off Belgian Buns

    Belgian Buns puzzle me. On many visits to Belgium I have never seen Belgian Buns sold, not even in our favourite bakery in Ypres, which sells every variety of bread, bun and cake you can imagine. However, they were an ever present fixture  in the bakeries of my childhood. Cadena bakery always had them. Unlike the ones presented in the bake-off technical challenge, they were always done in a pan so they needed to be torn apart and always had icing thickly smeared (not elegantly trickled) on top. I couldn't resist having a go at baking some, not least because it is a while since I've baked and I knew Alan would enjoy them. Mine are a little different in texture because I used an enriched dough made with brioche flour, which is more yellow in colour, higher in protein because of the egg yolks added and has extra gluten. You don't have to do this - bread flour (or even T70) is perfect. I also reduced the amount of sugar to 2 tablespoons instead of four. They are covered in icing, so really don't need to be overly sweet. The end result was very moreish and certainly hit the spot for late afternoon tea.

 A word about tea. My own view, and I know it's not a popular one, is that leaf tea, pale in colour and delicate in flavour, should come in a pot (never a bag) and be freshly made and very hot with just a little milk. Our preference is for Oxford Afternoon, a blend of Darjeeling and Ceylon black teas, from Cardews of Oxford. They aren't paying me to say this, but if they want to they can pay in tea. Just saying. 

So, to the buns. 

 Ingredients

450g Bread flour, or brioche flour

a pinch of salt 

1 tablespoon of dried yeast

2 tablespoons of sugar

100g melted butter

200ml of milk

1 egg

1/2 jar lemon curd

120g sultanas, or other dried fruit

Icing

300g icing sugar

3 or 4 tablespoons of water. You want a thick icing.

Glacé cherries, halved 

Put the flour and salt into a bowl. Mix the yeast, sugar and a couple of dessert spoons of warm water in a bowl and allow the yeast to activate. Warm the milk, add the melted butter and beat the egg into it. Pour the yeast mix and the milk mix into the flour and work into a smooth dough. 

 Knead the dough for 8 minutes in the mixer with a dough hook, or 10 -12 minutes by hand. This should give a soft dough. Leave the dough, covered with a tea towel, in a warm place until doubled in size. In summer I would put it out in the sun, in a Normandie winter it needs to snuggle up next to the fire. It might take as little as an hour, or a couple of hours if the house isn't warm.

Take your risen dough and on a floured surface knock the dough back and knead lightly. Roll the dough into a square about 1 - 1.5cm thick. Spread evenly, right up to the edges, with the lemon curd, and sprinkle the fruit on top. Roll the dough tightly into a sausage. Cut into 18 even slices - into half, then each half into three and each third into three again. Put onto two lined baking sheets, cover with a tea towel and leave to rise - about 30 mins should do it this time, until doubled in size. They will look puffy and feel very soft to the touch.

 If you prefer the old fashioned look of pull apart buns, use a well buttered baking pan about 4cm deep. These rolls are very good tempered and although you space them apart, they will rise into each other and even if they look a little scruffy at this stage, will look much better once they are risen and baked.

Bake the buns for 20 minutes at 200c - although on my fan oven 180c is quite enough. Keep an eye on them to avoid overbaking (sorry Guiseppe). Cool your buns on a wire rack. Make a bowl of icing by simply mixing the icing sugar with a little cold water. Add the water a spoonful at a time, because you won't need as much as you think. I found that leaving the icing for 20 minutes gave me a much better texture - smoother and more easily worked. Decorate your buns in whatever way pleases you - either trickle artistically a la Paul Hollywood, dip the buns into the icing or (as I did) spoon & swirl. Top each bun with half a cherry. 

 

 

 

A couple of suggestions. If you can't get lemon curd (or are feeling too mean, which I totally understand) spread the dough with butter, sprinkle caster sugar and grated lemon zest on, with or without a sprinkle of juice. I've then gone further and made lemon buns in the past, using candied lemon peel instead of sultana type dried fruit. You could then happily make a lemon frosting for the top. These make excellent breakfast pastries.

  If you really enjoy a cinnamon bun (and who doesn't), spread the dough with butter, sprinkle with soft brown sugar and cinnamon and a handful of chopped pecans. Again, cut into evenly sized buns. Because my pan is square, I usually cut these into 16 (4x4). Bake in a deep buttered pan and voila, cinnamon buns for tea (or breakfast). Spread them with cream cheese frosting whilst they're still warm and I promise you will become a legend in your own kitchen. 

Belgian Buns are just the start - let your imagination take over.

 

Happy baking!

 

 

Onion Bhaji

Indian food isn't part of French colonial heritage the way Vietnamese isn't a British thing. Each country, apparently, takes away a rich heritage of cooking as part of the spoils of colonial rule. For our family, curry is an inherited taste. We enjoy a good curry (usually home made) and I'm not too fussy what I'm currying. Lamb is probably my favourite, chicken more often, beef occasionally, but my recent discovery is veal. It is at its most tender when cooked long and slow in spices and I admit I prefer it curried rather than as blanquette, for instance. Also I love to experiment with spices and I have a Tupperware spice box that has taken on all the smells of exotic places. 

Yesterday I cooked the veal all afternoon on top of the woodburner, in a sauce of red & yellow peppers, onions, garlic, ginger and tomatoes, spiced with a Madras curry mix. One of the few things I miss about living outside the UK is being able to pop into Waitrose (or whatever) for a wide and exotic range of ready made accompaniaments for my curry. Naan bread, puppadums and onion bhajis in particular. Naan is simple enough once you've got the knack, puppadums must be deep fried (don't even suggest microwaving them), and onion bhaji can be home-made without much difficulty. In fact, I suggest using the same oil as for puppadums and make & fry them whilst the rice cooks. Home made are so simple and delicious that it probably wouldn't be worth buying them even if they were available. 

I'm not going to claim I've been making them for years, I just suffered without for too long and finally found Gram flour (the essential ingredient) in my local supermarket's Bio section. The first time I tried them to a traditional recipe they were lovely, but lacked crunch. Then a friend, who was out of Gram flour said he had used a combo of other flours and that they were lovely and crisp. So I had a good thinki about what it is I want from my bhajis. Firstly I love the flavour of Gram flour. Chick pea flour is what it is and it gives that earthy, nutty flavour. I want some crunch, but also a soft interior. This doesn't mean undercooked or doughy, just that the crunch shouldn't be everything. As for onions, use the ones you enjoy. I use a yellow onion for every day cooking and these worked perfectly. 

I spiced the bhajis - a teaspoon of turmeric, a teaspoon of curry powder, salt to taste, cumin, a little chilli powder for heat. Someone told me that their local restaurant adds fennel seeds and I'm looking forward to trying that.

I recommend Colza oil for fryng. The key quality of this oil is it can be heated to a high temperature without burning, I us 3-4 cms at the bottom of a deep pan

 So, to business. 

Ingredients

6 tablespoons Gram (chickpea) flour

2 tablespoons Self-raising flour

a glass of water (this isnt a precise measure - it is how much you need to have to hand)

I medium onion, cut into four and sliced thinly

seasoning

1/2 tspn salt

1 tspn turmeric

1 tspn curry powder (or garam marsala) 

1/2 tspn cumin

a pinch of hot chilli powder, to taste

other spices as you wish 

Method

Stir all the dry ingredients (flours, spices, seasoning) together.

Add sufficient water to make a fairly stiff dough, but not too dry.

Add the onions and stir in.

Fry

In hot oil for 3-4 minutes, turning half way through. I shape mine into rough patties and flatten them slightly. Turn out into a dish or basket lined with a paper napkin and serve with chutneys and sauces of your choice.

 

 

Autumn - Normandie Apple Cake

Normandy Apple Cake

You've heard of Dorset Apple cake, although a quick scan of my bookshelves reveals no unanimity regarding ingredients. However, this is one cake that I've researched thoroughly and tested for you and that we can definitely claim as our own in Normandie. It's only connection to Dorset is the germ of an idea. 

 

I wanted a recipe that would be easy to do - an all-in-one batter, no peeling of apples, and using local ingredients. Although walnut trees are common in this region I have no walnuts of my own and am deeply jealous of those who have. I regard them as absolutely essential to autumn baking. Many cakes suffer with dryness and that would never do for this, so I used Cidre Bouché Normande to ensure the batter has the softest of textures. 

 

The apples (a quintessentially Norman ingredient) are eating apples, red skinned, washed, DRIED, cored and diced. Dried because you don't want them to sink. Do it at the last minute so they don't brown and you won't then need lemon juice. (I diced mine whilst the batter was in the mixer). Don't peel them - they retain their texture (and add fibre and colour) better this way. This isn't the time for Bramleys - completely the wrong flavour and texture. I used a local eating apple, but failed to remember which variety.

 

Spices are my passion and in this case I've chosen the slightly exotic fragrance of Melange Pain d'Epices, that wonderful sweet bread so much part of Christmas festivities here and served with foie gras in particular. The brand i use (Eric Bur) includes the usual cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, but also star anise, black pepper, cardamom, coriander. and sweet paprika. A much more complex range of flavours than UK mixed spice. 

Ingredients

230 g butter (very soft)

230 g Self-raising flour (farine a gateau)

1 tspn baking powder

230g soft light brown sugar (Sucre viergoise blonde)

4 eggs

pinch of salt

1 tspn Melange pain d'epices

100 ml cidre

4 eating apples washed, dried, cored and chopped into 1cm dice.

50g chopped walnuts. How finely is up to you.

 

Method

Preheat the oven to 160c. Prepare either a bundt tin (this quantity will not quite fill a standard NordicWare pan) or a round 20cm cake tin. Grease and flour well. (I didn't, I suffered),

 

Place the butter, flour, baking powder, sugar, eggs, salt and spice mix into the bowl of your stand mixer (or use a hand mixer). Beat for at least two minutes, adding cider until you have a soft dropping consistency.  Then add the prepared apples and walnuts. Spoon into your prepared pan and bake at 160c for one hour. Test at the end of cooking time to ensure there is no uncooked batter on your skewer. Allow to rest for 10 minutes before turning the cake out onto a rack to cool. 

Serve with the tea/coffee of your choice. In the morning it will be wonderful with a café au lait and reminds me of pumpkin spiced lattes grabbed on the way into work. 

 

You will notice I haven't posted a picture of the entire cake this time. I admit I failed to prep my tin sufficiently and it came out in two pieces. Not a disaster (except to the ego), but a warning to all. If I were using a round tin, I would bottom line with parchment. As it is I prefer a bundt tin for this recipe so will grease AND flour next time. There will be a next time!

 

 

Garlic Tear & Share Bread

Garlic Tear & Share Bread

 Bread is such a wonderful thing. From a sandwich to bread & butter pudding, so much from one relatively simple recipe. I make bread weekly. I've given up sourdough because much as i love it, the other member of the household doesn't and I don't eat vast quantities of bread anyway. Now I generally make a fairly pedestrian white loaf, with rolls, garlic bread or buns as an added extra. I made some cheesy tear & share bread a couple of weeks ago and it was very popular so here's the method. I won't say recipe, because this can be made with any bread mixture you prefer.

Take about 300g flour and make a plain white bread dough however you normally do it. Give it the first rise then knock it back. Next take 125g butter and melt it in a pan. Grate one or two cloves of garlic into it (depending how garlicky you like it) and season with salt & pepper. Stir the butter on the heat - don't so much cook the garlic as flavour the butter. Brush butter into a 20cm square pan. Now make 16 small balls out of your dough. Using a slotted spoon, roll each one in the melted butter and arrange them 4 x 4 in the pan. Any remaining butter & garlic mix should be poured over the top. Don't worry if it looks seriously overbuttered, any excess will be absorbed by the baking bread. Sprinkle liberally with up to 100g grated parmesan (or strong Cheddar, Cantal or Emmenthal) cheese. At this stage your doughballs will look a bit 'socially distanced' in the pan. Don't worry, the second rise will take care of that. You can either leave the pan in the warm for about an hour before baking, or (as I did prepping for a barbecue) you can put it in the fridge until  later in the day. In this case just take it out half an hour before you want to bake it. Pre-heat your oven to 180c and bake your bread for 30 minutes. It will be well risen and golden. 

 

Any leftovers can be frozen in foil for reheating another day. I freeze them in twos to add extra interest to pasta dishes. As you can see in the pictures above, I sometimes make a smaller quantity when I'm doing a weekly bake and use a smaller dish. This is a great way of serving bread with a meal and does an excellent job of soaking up the juices. I mentioned I'd used it at a barbecue and it is a delicious addition to grilled meat & salads.

Brownies

I always want to go into raptures about American home baking, because it is something than America has always done so well. Cookies, biscuits, cakes, breads, there is a world of good baking which originates from America. Well, maybe not originates exactly because most of it has German, French, Scandinavian, Italian roots depending on where settler families set out from, but it has been perfected there. Some recipes, such as cornbread (there is nothing better with chili) owe a great debt to the lifesaving skills taught to the first settlers by Native Americans. But the quintessential American baking recipe is the brownie. 

I don't know why I haven't written this post before. Possibly because brownies are such a staple of the domestic cook's repertoire that I assumed everyone knew how to make them. It turns out they don't. Or, at least, not the way I do it. Which I'm going to be a bit snobby about because this recipe makes the best, squidgiest, chocolatiest brownies in the world. The origins of this recipe lie in the wonderful Sainsbury's recipe books of the 1980s. Written largely by Josceline Dimbleby, they featured heavily in my culinary education, being the books my mother always had to hand, along with the Dairy Book of Home Cooking and the Readers' Digest Cookery Year. I still have half a dozen on my shelves, although SOMEONE ELSE HAS THE ONE ABOUT AMERICAN BAKING, which is where this recipe originates.

The secret of this recipe isn't in the ingredients, which are simple enough, but in the method. Take the butter and melt it gently with the cocoa. it doesn't need melted chocolate of anything else, but melting the butter and cocoa together releases the chocolatiness of the cocoa in a way nothing else will match. The other secret is whisking the eggs and sugar together until they are light, fluffy and doubled in volume. This process also melts the sugar slightly (friction) so that you get that illusive crispy crust on top. Take your time. Don't hurry this recipe (although if you have to...). Allow time for the melting to happen and then to begin to cool. Then allow time for the eggs and sugar to achieve fluffy lightness. Then add flour. That is all. How much flour depends on what you're adding to your brownes. If chocolate chips and nuts, then only fifty grams to get stickiness and moisture in the finished brownie. If, however, you're going for the midsummer gloriousness of Black Forest brownies, then 100g will give more body to support the moist fruit.

Ingredients

250g unsalted butter

100g cocoa

a teaspoon of vanilla or almond essence (the good stuff) if you wish

200g caster sugar

3 eggs

50g (to 100g) Self Raising flour (or plain with your usual baking powder amount). Extra flour will make a slightly firmer brownie and this will better support fresh fruit.

50g walnuts, pecans or whatever you enjoy

50g chocolate chips which could be plain, milk, white or a mixture

or 100g chocolate chips if you're making them for my children

or

a generous mugful of washed, stoned, halved cherries

Method

Preheat your oven to 180c.  Prepare a pan, with oil & flour if needed. Mine is a 20cm silicone with a metal frame for convenience and has the advantage of not needing much prep.

Melt the butter and cocoa together in a pan, stirring until perfectly smooth. I don't use the mircrowave for this - there is too much danger of overheating and irretrievable lumpiness. Leave the mixture to one side to cool a little. You can add any flavourings you like at this stage. a teaspoon of vanilla extract, or almond if you're using cherries.

Whisk the sugar and eggs together until well risen and light.

Gently fold the chocolate mix into the eggs & sugar until completely combined. Then fold the flour in, gently but firmly until smooth. Add nuts, chocolate, or cherries.

Bake for 30 minutes until it is cooked at the edges and still a bit sticky in the centre. Then cool before cutting into squares. I find this amount makes sixteen perfectly sized brownies. My only decoration for these is a sifting of icing sugar.

You can very easily double this recipe to feed a crowd, using a larger square or oblong pan.

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Ginger HobNobs

Ginger HobNobs

Yes, I took a break from food blogging. I'm not sorry. The nightmare that is Brexit required attention. It still does, although whilst not resigned to it I am now turning attention to other things. If you voted for this mess you need to go sort it out.

So, February in Normandy can be cold and miserable. This year it is cold, but brighter and all the better for it. However February inevitably means afternoons in front of the woodburner and tea is just too wet on its own. So home made biscuits are the best solution.

I'm sure someone. somewhere (probably a biscuit manufacturer) will have a problem with my name for these biscuits. However, old habits die hard and this name describes them precisely. They have the texture, crumbliness and oatiness of the manufactured version, but with a delicious buttery flavour, wholesome ingredients, no palm oil and the extra bonus of chewy, zingy ginger loveliness. The name is the only thing this takes from the factory - the rest is memories of my mum and her lesson on biscuits. "there are two sorts of biscuits, rubbed in like shortbread and melted". These are melted biscuits, par excellence. 

At home they were most often made lightly spiced, with some dried fruit in. The basic recipe for these is your launchpad, from where you can let your imagination run riot. One day I'm going to flavour with orange zest and add cranberries and white chocolate. You can, of course, make them with chocolate chips, but you'll need to add a spoonful of milk and let the dough cool a bit first.

I try to stick to ingredients that are easy to find, especially here in France. Although the recipe calls for golden syrup, I know that can be a bit hard to get, so can be simply replaced with maple syrup. It doesn't have a strong flavour, but lends the same stickiness to the finished biscuit. Also, happily, it goes perfectly with pecans, which can either be added to the mixture, chopped or (as I have myself) added to the top of the biscuit before baking. 

The other 'hard to get' ingredient in today's version is, of course, stem ginger.  I have no suggestions if you haven't got any; make maple pecan, or a plain version. Or flavour with ground ginger and mourn the loss! Sorry. 

Either way, these are quick and satisfying to bake. The preparation is just a few minutes weighing, melting, weighing and mixing. You can fancy up the end product with a little plain chocolate drizzled on top, or serve them as they are. All that is needed is a nice cup of tea to go with them. I heartily recommend Cardew's Oxford Afternoon. Not because they are paying me (if only!), but because it is my own favourite afternoon treat. 

So, to business.

Recipe

Preheat your fan oven to 170c (180c for a static oven).

Prepare a couple of baking sheets with baking parchment.

Weigh into a pan

140g sugar (white or golden caster sugar)

140g unsalted butter

1Tblspn golden syrup

Melt these together, just until the butter is melted. Don't let it get too hot. Remove from the heat to cool.

Then weigh into a bowl

140g self raising flour

1tspn bicarbonate of soda

110g porridge oats

60g finely chopped preserved stem ginger

2tspn ground ginger (to taste)

Gently mix the dry ingredients together. Add the melted ingredients, which should have cooled a little. Mix gently until the ginger is evenly distributed and the mixture is blended. Measure your biscuits onto the baking sheet.

I find a 1tablespoon coffee scoop is perfect to measure these. Don't pack the mixture in, though, because they can move from crisp to hard quite easily. Just fill the scoop naturally.

I generally find I get 24 biscuits - 12 to a baking sheet.

Bake for around 25 minutes. Keep an eye on them for the last few minutes. The extra sugar from the preserved ginger means they brown a little more than you might expect.

Serve with your favourite cup of tea.

As I mentioned above, these biscuits can be flavoured with other spices, dried fruit, nuts, a teaspoon of vanilla, chocolate chips or whatever your heart desires. If you do choose to use chocolate chips, let the melted mixture cool a little more and add a tablespoon of milk to it, adding the chocolate chips just before you bake the biscuits. The extra liquid (only a tablespoon) will allow for any extra absorption of the melted mixture while you are waiting for the mixture to be cool enough to add the chocolate. If the mixture is too dry, the result will be a little too crumbly.