Moist chocolate sponge cake recipe (gluten free)

Hi all!  

Well, firstly, thank you all so much for your kind words and thoughtful comments, I just love reading them! It's been a busy few days here at the little Welsh house.  I've been working on getting things ready for a production of Macbeth, which I'm directing ready for a performance in June.  We also met friends for a meal in Cardiff and then went to see Wicked at the Millenium Centre (which was way better than I expected, I really enjoyed it), rebuilt our hens' run in the back garden which blew down during the storms, and then the last few days I have been endeavouring to get things a bit more under control on the allotment.

Anyway, I promised a recipe for a lovely fellow blogger Joy - a gluten free rich chocolate sponge cake.  This is great for celebrations - it is solid enough to ice easily without being stodgy and it keeps well for a good few days.  It also freezes well if you like batch baking.

It's one I came up with when two of my friends were diagnosed with coeliac disease - I wanted something easy that I could bake for parties so they didn't feel excluded. I like this recipe because it doesn't require special flour or additives and you can have a bit of a play with the quantities to get your preferred texture without it going horribly wrong.  

If you don't like chocolate, you can replace the cocoa with cornstarch, just make sure to use baking powder and add whatever flavour you like - I feel it does need a little something to cut through the richness of the almonds, so I don't personally recommend it plain.  Vanilla extract or a few drops orange essence and a couple of pinches allspice are favourites of mine.  In fact I sometimes include all three of those flavours in with the cocoa as they add a certain richness.

Rich chocolate cake

Ingredients

4 medium or large eggs
250g/9 oz butter
250g/9 oz muscovado or dark brown soft sugar
150g/5 oz ground almonds
100g/31/2 oz cornflour/cornstarch
2-3 heaped teaspoons good cocoa powder (I use Green & Blacks which is Dutch processed)
level teaspoon (gluten free) bicarb of soda OR (gluten free) baking powder
teaspoon vanilla extract

Method

Preheat your oven to about 160C.  In a large bowl, cream the butter with an electric whisk until really light and fluffy.  Add the vanilla extract, then the eggs one by one, whisking each time until the mixture is well combined and looks creamy.  

In a separate bowl, mix all the remaining dry ingredients together well.  Pour on top of the egg, sugar and butter mix and fold in gently with a metal spoon until well combined.  

Grease a loose bottomed cake tin (I use about an 8 inch diameter one) and dust with either cornstarch (fine if you plan to ice the cake) or a little cocoa (if you plan to just dust with icing sugar to serve).  

Pour in the batter and spread out well, then pop in the oven for 25 - 40 minutes.  The cake is done when it is solid and a sharp knife or toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.  It isn't as quick to burn as a classic sponge but if it is browning too quickly, just tweak the temperature down a little.  It will rise but don't panic if it sinks a little after cooking. 
It tends to flatten itself down nicely but it will still have a great crumb inside.

This cake is really good warm with vanilla ice-cream or cold with a good buttercream.  For a slightly less naughty topping you could also make an orange drizzle with orange juice and a little brown sugar.  It also looks good sprinkled lightly with a little icing sugar while still warm.  I got the striped effect on the one above by sprinkling the sugar on through a cooling rack which I thought looked nice.

Happy eating!

H xxx

Foraging for food....

About a third of this year's crabapples

As a kid, my sister and brothers and I spent countless hours - often with our parents - gathering what people are suddenly, and rather glamourously, terming 'wild food'. When I was a kid, if we called it anything, it was called foraging, or, if we were looking for something specific, would be called after the item in question, with 'ing' on the end.  'Mushrooming', 'blackberrying' and 'bilberrying' loomed large in my childhood as outdoor pursuits - well, this is what my siblings and I used to say, though doubtless my parents would be horrified to see what I am doing to the English language here!  

We would also pick chestnuts in season to roast on our very eco-unfriendly coal fire, and we would look for cob nuts in the woods opposite our house, but the squirrels always seemed to get the lot. I even remember crab fishing off Skarfskerry pier near John o'Groats when we went on holiday, and taking them home in a bucket of seawater for my Nana to cook for lunch the next day.  I think this must have been a rare success, as I also distinctly recall failing to catch anything on a number of occasions!

Homemade jam and jelly

I was never a fan of mushrooms, to the absolute bewilderment of my dad and sister.  Dad was so fascinated by fungi that he would keep an eye out on every country walk, and when something interesting - or edible - was due to sprout, we would all cram into the car to find likely spots.  As I didn't really get much out of eating the spoils, I learned to get the enjoyment in spotting the mushrooms and toadstools themselves.  To this day, I still surprise (or perhaps bore!) walking companions by suddenly saying 'Look at that bracket fungus!' or 'I think this is a ceps!' to which the response is usually 'where?!'  Even now, I can't help but take photos of interesting examples I come 
 across.

This passion for picking wild fruits and nuts is still with me.  Last year, with its late spring and long hot summer, followed by a moderately wet, warm autumn as the fruits were ripening was especially good for crabapples, bilberries, and in the case of varieties that fruited before the rain came in, blackberries.  I even saw wild raspberries this year for the first time - the fruits were tiny and full of seeds, but had a delicious, fragrant and less sweet taste than I am used to.

This batch of crabapple jelly had a gorgeous ruby hue

I was lucky enough to pick several pounds of crabapples - three varieties - from round the rugby field where we like to walk the dogs, although I was glad we are both tall, as someone had the lower ones before I got there! I turned these into three types of jelly; crabapple, crabapple cider and crabapple, red wine and bramble jelly.  I think I got about six or seven pounds of jelly in the end.  If you can blag some jam jars from friends or family, this delicious, slightly sharp jelly is so, so cheap to make - it is simply the cost of the water, the electric or gas to boil out the juice and sterilise the jars, and the sugar (a 5kg bag being about £3.50).  These little apples contain so much pectin that the jelly sets beautifully.  A posh jam making book will tell you to strain the juice through a muslin cloth, but I got fab results with an old cotton teatowel which had washed a bit thin over the years.

Freshly picked sloes - tiny but tasty

I also picked some sloes (a small, bitter relative of the plum which has a spiced flavour, great for making sour jellies to have with cheese) I used them to make sloe gin; even after a just a few months of steeping, this was way better than any commercial variety I have ever had.  This year wasn't ideal for sloes - the cold start to the year seemed to prevent many fruit from setting, so I only got enough for a litre of sloe gin.

I went blackberrying twice last autumn - once near where I live, and once near my parents' place.  Both due to the weather (it rained just as the local ones ripened, so many just mouldered on the vine) and the fact that folks in Bridgend seem to be much savvier blackberry pickers than in Newport, I got a much smaller haul locally.  I also feel a little disloyal saying this, but the blackberries picked in Newport also tasted better.  They are a particularly good variety - large, firm and juicy, with a wonderful flavour for eating fresh or in pies, cakes or jams.  I made most my part of the haul into jam - again, inexpensive as it only cost the price of the sugar and the pectin - around £2-3 for 8 jars of jam.  Friends and colleagues have learned that if they save their jars, they get paid in jam, so I have a massive collection in my understair cupboard!

My favourite forage this year was on a hill my family have been going to for years, overlooking the Bristol channel.  On a clear day, as this was, you can see the whole Severn estuary, with a view of Bristol sprawling into Avonmouth and the two bridges spanning the expanse of water and mudflats between England and Wales.  From a distance, with the sky soaring, these massive man-made structures give a false impression of fragility and seem strangely delicate in the vast space that surrounds them. 

Pounds and pounds of scrumptious berries!

Most of the family went, as well as Millie, and we had the biggest haul any of us could remember. This was mainly due to the conditions being perfect for ripening the berries, but perhaps partly because my brothers and I are now adults, so we pick faster - and, of course, don't eat half as we pick!!

We were picking a kind of wild blueberry which, where my parents and I are originally from, are called bilberries, but in this part of Wales are called wimberries. (They have yet another name in West Wales, I believe!)  This local variation in names is possibly why when we first moved to Wales and excitedly talked about bilberries, everyone looked at us blankly...

Bilberry plants, known as 'wires'

Our bumper haul of bilberries or wimberries was about 3 3/4 pounds - enough for my dad to make bilberry pie AND jam - which he was simply delighted about. I am still saving some of this jam, because it can be years between batches if the weather is not suitable.  

These little berries are so loved in some circles that I am told  greengrocers in Wales used to pay local kids to bring them down from the mountains in punnets during the long summer holidays.  Given how high they need to grow to really thrive, the incentive must have been good! Of course this is no longer a possibility in our world of supermarkets - so if you want them these days, you have to go and get them yourself.

I love finding these various gems in the hedgerows and byways - it makes me feel so much closer to nature and the elements - and to my parents and grandparents and their forebears who have passed on the knowledge of these simple, natural pleasures down through my family to me. 

Wishing you all the wild strawberries, garlic, blueberries, blackberries, sloes, damsons, raspberries, chestnuts, hazelnuts and crabapples you can find this year - and whatever else you like to eat besides!

H
xxx

Lovely baking!

 One of my favourite hobbies is baking!  I especially love baking cakes and pies, and I thought I'd share a few of my most enjoyed moments in the kitchen.

One of my most precious memories is making Christmas cakes with my Nana.  Nana is my mum's mum and is very precious - she is my last living grandparent.  

Although I have many happy memories of baking with her, she is no longer able to stand in the kitchen long enough to make a cake.  She is a feisty lady who isn't shy about giving her opinion.  

Unlike most people I know, she wouldn't hesitate to tell me if she thought the Christmas cake I put in her hamper this year could be improved - so when she said how much she enjoyed it, I was really delighted!  My recipe is based on an old Mrs Beeton one, with a few additions.

Before second coat of jelly

Fully glazed

This is how I decorate my Christmas cakes - it's based on an old Welsh tradition that is believed to be linked to 'smuggler's bounty' - heaping dried and glace fruits on cakes when they were available, and glazing with jam to give a 'jewelled' look. I first tried this because I am not that fond of marzipan and white icing, and I've never looked back!  

Traditionally, the fruit and nuts would be heaped in a pile in the centre of the cake, but I like this slightly more, well, Victorian look!  I spread jam or jelly underneath, add the sliced fruits, nuts and candied ginger in rows from the centre or from the corner, then add another thin layer of jam or jelly on the top. It's best to use a light colour so you can still see the fruit's lovely colours.

This year, I also made mince pies. I made my own mincemeat, using some of the mountain of apples from my mum and dad's allotment, using Delia's recipe: Delia's mincemeat.  I have a bit of a tendency to tweak the ingredients to the ones I have available and adjust the spices to taste, but it's an absolutely great recipe and reliably results in delicious mincemeat.  It's well worth making a little in advance.   

These little fruit pies are so tasty.  This year, I made them with a crumble topping, by keeping back about a third of the breadcrumbs from making the pastry and stirring in a little muscovado sugar, and making a rich buttery pastry with the other 2/3, using egg and a dash of milk and a little icing sugar to sweeten.  The self raising flour means the pastry rises slightly and has a lovely texture.

Another of my favourite bakes is these spiced orange cake squares.  I just added a little allspice, vanilla and natural orange essence to a normal sponge batter. I then did a traybake and cut into squares and popped into individual cases.  To decorate, I just cut a rough star out of a clean plastic cocoa tin lid, rested it on the top of each square, and sprinkled icing sugar, caster sugar and a pinch of allspice mixed together while they were still warm. I thought they looked really cute!

A bake I really enjoyed was the 'Emmatines' I made for Emma's birthday.  I did two types - little squares and cupcakes.  Emma loves teal and showed me the cakes she was dreaming of - and I did my best to recreate them!  I was much happier with the cupcakes than the squares, but as it was my first attempt icing cube shaped cakes I decided not to beat myself up too much.  I must admit despite taking the day off work, I was tearing my hair out a little, because I was also trying to get her quilt finished, but thankfully I did manage it all in time to drive to Manchester for the party!  These were in little gold foil cases - which aren't very eco friendly, but it was a very special occasion...

The last bakes I want to share today are some tear and share breads.  I am sure we cake lovers all have that friend who doesn't share our love of cake and sweet things, and in fact prefers savoury - but nonetheless deserves some love and care on their birthday because they are an all round wonderful person.  So the first of these breads was a personalised bread, made of lots of little stars (because this person is a star) with the birthday girl's initials on. This was made using my parsnip tear and share recipe.

Before rising

Ready for the oven

The finished loaf

The second tear and share I loved making was a cheese and onion bread for the work Christmas party, which i made in the shape of a Christmas wreath. I was worried this wouldn't work - and was so delighted when it did. I've included these before photos so you can see the sort of proportions used to make the loaf so that it kept its shape.

Hope you've enjoyed - and I look forward to hearing about your cooking exploits too!. Happy baking, folks....

H
xxx

My favourite recipe books

Hi lovely followers!

I've been thinking a lot about cooking and recipes lately, partly because Pancake Day (or Shrove Tuesday as my mum calls it)  and St David's day are looming.  That got me thinking about - and leafing through - some of my favourite recipe books.

I love reading, and I have a lot of books - including a lot about cooking.  I really enjoy looking through all of them, but there are a few I return to again and again.  So I thought I'd write a bit about them - and why I love them so much!

Beautiful books

Chocolate heaven...

Firstly, there are a couple of cookbooks I just love to look at. I've barely cooked from them, but just love to read them and handle them. 

The first two are the lovely Green & Blacks books 'Chocolate Recipes', and 'Ultimate Chocolate Recipes' (thanks for that one Emma!)


The photographs are so beautiful and the recipes practically leave you full, because they sound so sumptuous you can practically taste them.  I tend to use them for ideas and inspiration, or just when I want to dream about chocolate for half an hour!

Scrummy cakes

Third is the wonderful 'Cupcake Magic' by Kate Shirazi which was a birthday gift from a dear friend.  I not only love her imaginative and colourful cakes, but her writing style is really fun and her recipes are easy to follow. 

The book is divided by how complicated the recipes are, but all the sections contain designs which look spectacular.  And if that's not enough, a part of the price goes to the British Hen Welfare Trust, a fantastic organisation that rehomes ex-battery hens and also campaigns for better conditions for chickens!


Learning new cuisines

This one was hard to track down!

The first of these has to be The Art of Romanian Cooking by Galia Sperber.  I went to Romania when I was in my late teens, and my, what a beautiful country with every landscape from high cool mountains, to lush valleys filled with sunflowers, to ancient cities with topsy-turvy roofs.  I met many wonderful, welcoming people and tasted food unlike anything I had ever tried before.

I returned from Romania determined to try to cook some of the heavenly dishes I had eaten while I was there - so I bought this book. It didn't disappoint. The chicken and sausage casserole (which I make with chorizo) and zrdente (noodles for soup) are special favourites of mine!

Bargain book

Next up is Japanese Cooking by Emi Kazuko - a book I got at the bargain book store. I've never been to Japan, but I got a taste for Japanese food when I lived in London (mainly at Satsuma in Wardour Street if I'm honest). This sumptuous book could just as easily go in the first section, with its gorgeous photos enough to make anyone hungry - but even better, it de-mystifies many Japanese ingredients and explains what to look for in terms of quality and freshness.  

A large section of the book describes food and ingredients, then simple recipes follow - with replacements suggested for hard-to-get ingredients.  This book allowed me to give my little brothers their first taste of sushi.   I just love it!

Surrogate Welsh Granny!

The third of these isn't really a book but a set of books.  They aren't expensive, and they don't have fancy photos or lots of details. They give me something different - simple, tasty family recipes for the Welsh cuisine I have come to love so much since moving here aged 6.  

I learned lots of North Eastern recipes as a kid, like 'Metantatterpie' (meat and potato pie), bubble and squeak and Staffordshire oatcakes; but I don't have a Welsh granny to teach me how to make Welsh cakes, cawl, bara brith, or crempog - so I am learning from these books (£1.95 each). They are perfect - easy to understand, well written and full of local - and literal - flavour.  Thanks, Bobby Freeman!

Spice is nice...

Fourthly, a book which almost certainly never won any prizes for beauty, and doesn't credit its authors on the cover, probably because there are several contributors.  This book has short, to the point recipes and is easy to use.  

If you love Indian food but have no idea how to start from scratch, this is a great choice. It's not overstating to say that this book helped fire my fledgling interest in cooking in my late teens - and moreover, there are so many recipes, you can get a good feel for how to start experimenting.  It has everything from korma and dhansak to naan breads and lassi - and while there are definitely more elegant, sophisticated and up to date books available, this one is a good place to start.

Books I grew up with

These are books that are very close to my heart - books and recipes that were a big part of my childhood. 

Sweet memories

The first of these is one I remember cooking from with my mum and my dad from an early age. We are a cakes and biscuits type of family - my mum is fantastic at baking cakes and my dad makes amazing biscuits.  

There are so many beautiful recipes in this book, many of which I have adapted over the years to make my own.  Our family have made sauces, biscuits, cakes and puddings out of this book over the years - and not one has been other than delicious.  It's out of print I believe, but if you see a copy, I really recommend you snap it up!
 

Family heirloom

The next is the fabulous Mrs Beeton's Cookery Book. Please do beware of modern imitations - I shelled out for a modern version to keep this fragile family heirloom as intact as possible (as you can see it has been loved over the years) but the recipes were NOT the same - and I saw a sneaky footnote 'based on Mrs Beeton's recipes'.  Very loosely based is all I can say.

My mum has a newer copy which I used growing up, but this was inherited from my great aunt when she sadly passed and it has an inscription to her mother 'To Mary, from Arthur 26.9.27.  This is such a treasured possession, which I handle with great care. It has hundreds of recipes - and although some are outdated, many of them are just fantastic.

Family memories

Finally, and this is cheating a bit because I didn't grow up with this actual book but rather the recipes in it, this book is my own - a hand written recipe book containing family recipes - mum's yorkshire puds and easy sponge cake recipe, a Christmas cake recipe (which I am still perfecting!) and a yummy chocolate mousse from my wonderful mum in law.  

To me, these beloved recipes will make any place feel like home, and I look forward to adding to it as the years go by.  I hope one day someone else will enjoy them as much as I have.


 What are your favourite recipe books?  I would just love to hear from you about what you like to cook and why! If you want me to share any recipes, just let me know and I will try my best to oblige.  I was thinking of Welsh cakes ready for St. David's day?

I'm off to make some practice pancakes!

H xxx