Pancakes for Shrove Tuesday

Have your frying pans ready - it's Pancake Day!

This is the traditional pancake for Shrove Tuesday, the annual pre-Lenten treat, which is almost the size of a dinner plate, heavy enough to sink a battleship if made too thick, and tastes best if fried in lard.  Make sure you use a clean frying pan that has not previously been used for frying onions or garlic.  Children will taste a rogue flavour in a trice and complain loudly.

Ingredients (sufficient for at least 6 pancakes)

4oz (125 gr) plain flour

A pinch of salt

Half a pint (300 ml) whole milk

2 eggs

Lard or sunflower oil for frying

Lemon slices and sugar to serve

Sieve the flour into a large mixing bowl, add a pinch of salt, and make a well in the middle.

Beat the eggs...

... and add them to the milk.

Fill the well with some of the milk and egg mixture, and start mixing in the flour to make the batter.  To prevent lumps forming, keep the whisk in the centre of the well. 

Add the rest of the milk and egg mixture gradually as the flour becomes incorporated into the batter.

Once the batter is mixed it should be left to stand for at least an hour before frying the pancakes.

Approximately a ladleful of batter will cover the base of 10 inch frying pan.

When it comes to turning the pancake, softies use a spatula, the blasé give a quick flick of the wrist and toss it a good foot into the air, and the truly barmy tie their pinny strings tight and elbow the opposition out of the way for a quick smacker from the verger.

Meanwhile, I am at home scoffing hot pancakes dripping with lemon juice and sugar.

Linking up to Connie's blog Freemotion by the River for Linky Tuesday

Jam Muffins

Over the New Year I had a fun-packed baking session with my great-niece (proud owner of the MP3 cosy).  She is 10, and a star baker, so I have passed on this quick and easy recipe to her.  Her younger sister and two baby brothers helped too, so it was bit of a riot in the kitchen.

The basic sponge recipe is much easier than the classic Victoria sponge, and the cakes keep better because the oil in them prevents them from drying out.  A lovely lady called Marina gave me this recipe a few tears ago when we were in Northern Spain.

The great advantage of this recipe is that you don't have to weigh anything.  Marina used a little yoghurt pot as a measure, whereas I use this glass, which holds a quarter of a pint.  It would be just as easy to use a measuring jug.  The reason I have shown the ingredients in the order shown on the photos is that this way you don't need to wash the glass before you have finished.

The quantities I have given will make 12 muffins.

First, measure out three glasses of self raising flour.

Put the flower aside in a separate bowl.

Next, you need two glasses of sugar.  Ordinary white granulated sugar is fine.

Put the sugar into a large mixing bowl.

Then add 1 measure of sunflower oil to the sugar...

... and 1 measure of full fat natural yoghurt - Greek yoghurt is ideal.  If the yoghurt has slightly separated, drain off the excess liquid.

Lastly, add three eggs.

Mix the sugar, yoghurt and eggs together.  I use a rotary hand whisk.

The mixture will end up a pale creamy colour.

The flour is then sieved and folded in with a broad knife a bit at a time...

... giving a pale thick mixture once it is all added.

Because it is a runny mixture it is impossible to spoon into the muffin cases without making an almighty mess, so I spoon it into a gravy boat first...

... and then pour it into the muffin cases.

Each case needs to be approximately two thirds full...

... then it is time to put a blob of jam, about half a teaspoonful, in the middle of each.  I have used three different colours for the muffin cases because I am using three different types of jam.  Just one more jam to go, some home-made apple and blackberry.

Once every cake has its blob of jam, cover the jam with a bit of cake mixture, and put them in a preheated oven.

Here they are, freshly baked.  My oven is a pretty fierce fan oven.  It took about 15 minutes, starting on 150, and turning the tray round halfway through cooking and turning the heat down a bit.

Another reason I love this recipe - I have never had a cake collapse in the middle, even though I open the oven door halfway through cooking.

Delicious with tea.  

Linking up with Connie's blog Freemotion by the River for Linky Tuesday

A Jam Session with Peaches

At the moment there are doll quilts winging their way across the Atlantic between England and Utah. Pattilou and I posted the quilts within a day of each other.  And because I can't visit Pattilou in real life, I have visited her blog, and seen that she has had a bumper crop of peaches. Coming from a country where you would need a walled garden, an expert gardener and an extraordinarily good year to grow your own peaches (a long winded way of saying it is virtually impossible), I have to confess to a slight wave of envy.  

When we were in Poland this summer the peach trees in my husband's cousin's garden were laden with fruit, whereas last year they rotted on the tree.  So this summer was the first time I had ever eaten home grown peaches, and very tasty they were too.

Pattilou has made lots of peach jam... which got me thinking...  so I took a trip to the greengrocer's and came home with peaches from Italy and nectarines from Spain, which combined with English apples and lemons from I can't remember where...

... gave me the ingredients to start experimenting.  Hooray it worked!  Here is the video if you want to have a go.

Welcome to Loree Ellis, the latest follower - thank you for joining!

Blackberries from the Hedgerow

One of the true great joys of late summer and autumn - blackberries!  It is worth all the scratches from the brambles to get at the fruit.  Last week I went out hacking back the nettles and checking the hedges around a couple of fields near home, getting well and truly scratched and stung so I could have enough for a nice big bowl of perfect blackberries.

When we were in Poland in August the blackberries were just finishing, and their brambles are a different variety to ours - not so widespread and rampant, and not half so tough and prickly. Our brambles are complete thugs compared to theirs, and the fruit starts to ripen about a month after theirs have finished.  The fruit here will keep on going for a few weeks.  I could stock the freezer if it weren't already full.

And because the freezer was full, I had to make jam straight away.  So here's the video if you want to give it a try.

Linking up today with Liz's blog Brambleberry Cottage (how appropriate) for Time Travel Thursday so you can see lots of other projects, including recipes..

A Crusader in the Kitchen

This was the sewing I was busy with last Friday, a Crusader's tabard for my friend Kate's son.  I went to their house in South Wales with the intention of making two tabards, another one for an older brother too, but in the end only finished this one.  Too much talking and not enough sewing, but I can make the second one at home.  I used Kate's 1916 Singer 28K hand machine to knock this little item together, and by tea time we had one very happy young lad.  He is ready to do serious battle with the home made wooden sword and shield.  This isn't the complete outfit - he didn't have time to get on his chain mail.

Talking of kitchens...

...if anyone is interested in trying out apple and sloe jam, the video is up on Youtube.  Very tasty.

A Jam Session

This is where I have been spending hours over the last week or so, with my head stuck in the blackcurrant bushes.  It is a bumper crop this year, and one of the bushes has currants so big that the branches are weighed down to the ground.  

I am already running out of freezer space, so it was fortunate that I had enough jars in the house to make the first batch of jam.  Every batch of fruit has to be washed and have the stalks removed, then put in the freezer on the same day, otherwise it won't keep.  

Making jam in hot weather is pretty daunting, but I've done it.  I couldn't face the prospect of doing it all in one day, so I stewed the fruit on Monday, left it in the pan overnight, and added the sugar and finished the job off on Tuesday.

And here's the video.  I only kicked the tripod once. 

Making Elderflower Cordial

Because we seem to be having a summer this year I have been doing pleasant summery things - none of which I did last year because of all that rain.

This week I made elderflower cordial.  The elder tree in our back garden is laden with flowers and smells like heaven.  I took a large pan outside and spent a good half hour inspecting flowerheads for insects and building up a deep layer of flowers.  On top of the flowers went two sliced lemons and two oranges, and the whole lot steeped in water overnight.  The next day I drained off the liquid and sweetened it with melted honey.  The end result is not so sweet as cordials I have made before, and without adding citric acid it will not keep so long, but it has a lovely sharp tang.  It needs to be diluted to taste, but the flavour of this one makes me think I should be adding gin rather than water.

Before I made it I checked the recipe in Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's book.  The instructions are a bit of a laugh... "Shake any insects off the elderflowers..."  as if there may conceivably be none, and the hundreds that are there can hang on in a strong wind, so a quick shake can't budge them. Anyway, if you are surrounded by elders, his elderflower cordial recipe is here if you want to try it.

Roast Lamb for Easter Dinner

Sometimes I am shocked by what I read on the internet - for instance a recent survey that found that 40% of Americans have never tasted lamb.  There are over 30 million sheep in this country, whereas in the USA there are a mere 6 or 7 million.  All I can say is that all those poor Americans are deprived of the most delicious meat of them all.

The French have cuisine.  The English have cooking.  So here goes...

Here is my foolproof method for keeping a joint moist when roasting it.  This way you get the best of both worlds - a nice tasty crunchy top, and soft moist meat underneath swimming in its own juices. You can thicken the sauce to make gravy, but I don't bother.

Here are the vegetables that will be underneath the joint in the oven - a sliced onion, celeriac cut into cubes, and two large cloves of garlic.  I like to use onion or leek combined with a root vegetable. Freshly picked from the garden are two or three bay leaves and a couple of sprigs of rosemary.  You will also need vegetable oil, white wine and salt and pepper.  

The garlic is on the right.  I just slice it thinly.  I've never been converted to garlic crushers.

The meat tin has two layers of foil to line it.  The splodge of vegetable oil is to prevent the vegetables from sticking during cooking.

All the chopped vegetables go into the foil, with the bay leaves and plenty of salt and pepper.  I have taken the rosemary off the woody stalks.

The joint of lamb sits on top of the vegetables.  This is a joint of boned leg.  I have sprinkled pepper and salt on top.

Next, scrunch the foil around the sides to cover the meat, but leave the fat on top exposed. 
Be careful not to puncture or split the foil.

Now pour white wine down into the foil.  I never measure it, but about a couple of glasses' worth will do.

This is how the joint will look when cooked, with the roast parts on top looking nice and browned and the underneath totally succulent.

It was served up with roast spuds with chunks of roast swede chucked in.  No, they weren't burnt, just well cooked.  I'm not a food stylist, I just cook and eat the stuff.

And carrots, cauliflower and broccoli.

Finally, the meat is cut into thick slices.

I'm looking forward to next Easter already.

Been Baking Biscuits Today...

... but it's a good three years since I made these and I've ever so slightly lost the knack.  They should be prettier than this.  Not that anyone here cares, they'll soon get scoffed.

The recipe for cinnamon and butter pinwheels will have to wait until another day.

Welcome to the latest followers, P (yes, just P) and Britt G.  Thank you for joining!

Seville Oranges in the Shops Now!

If you are in Britain, the season has arrived.  Make the most of the Seville oranges while they are in the shops... they will only be there for a month to six weeks...

This evening I was delighted reading the lovely comment left on Youtube by a lady in Venezuela. British culinary tradition lives on in South America!  The wonders of the internet.

Many thanks to Nola in Australia for identifying the lace on yesterday's doily as netting.
Today I dug out my copy of Mrs. Beeton's Book of Needlework (a reproduction copy), and sure enough, there were the illustrations showing netting.  The illustrations were a bit tiny, so without Nola's help I'm not sure I would have arrived at the right answer.