Sedgemoor Easter Cakes and Many Good Books

Mary Norwak's Farmhouse Kitchen, which is becoming a book I turn to again and again, has a whole chapter on what she calls Festival Food. The recipes in the chapter include Pately Fritters, eaten in Yorkshire on Ash Wednesday, Creed Wheat and Frumenty, eaten in Wiltshire on Mothering Sunday or in Lincolnshire to celebrate sheep clipping, to Bedfordshire Wigs, traditionally eaten on St Katherine's Day. Today the children and I made Sedgemoor Easter Cakes, using a recipe I adapted from Mary Norwak combined with a HFW recipe first published in the Guardian.

Here's Norwak's recipe, with my adaptions in brackets.
8 oz plain flour (I committed a baking sin and used SR)
4 oz butter
4 oz caster sugar (another baking sin committed, I used granulated)
4 oz currants (yes, I used sulatanas!)
1/2 tsp mixed spice (didn't have any in the cupboard)
1/2 tsp of cinnamon (used 1/4 instead)
1 egg
2 tablespoons of brandy (I used rum!)

Rub the butter into the flour and stir in the sugar, currants, spice and cinnamon. Beat the egg with the brandy and mix with the dry ingredients. Roll out half-an-inch thick, cut into rounds and bake at 305F, 180C, gas mark 4 for twenty minutes.

We cut our biscuits into egg-shaped rounds, just as a bit of Easter fun! Also, we did as HFW advised and glazed them whilst still warm, which makes them quite sweet, but nice looking. It seems to me that traditional regional cookery differs by simple ingredients - the difference between Parkin and Yorkshire Parkin being extra oatmeal here, less ginger there. I suppose the ingredients were what came to hand and many folks improvised, just like I have today. Perhaps I should re-name the cakes Warwickshire Easter Cakes. Anyway, they are very, very moreish and taste like a rich, flat scone or an extra light shortbread, but in a boozy, spicey way. It says on the Guardian site that traditionally they were given away in threes, to symbolise the Trinity, which is a jolly nice baking tradition we seem to have in many parts of Britain.

So onto books. I've read some great books just recently that I really want to recommend before I go back to the world of paid employment. First, Marjory Sharp's The Nutmeg Tree. I bought this book because of fits cover: a lovely piece of 1930s design, not deco, but gloriously womanly and frivolous. And it turns out that you can judge a book by its cover. If you were a fan of Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, then you'll love this book - it's both light-hearted and warm-hearted. Marjory Sharp is perhaps more famous for her Rescuers children's books and Cluny Brown, and she deserves to be republished...I should write to Persephone Books, they'd love her.

I've also been reading Georgette Heyer, both the mysteries and the romances. I'm not quite sure what to make of her. The mysteries always rollick along quite nicely until the abrupt and disappointing endings and although the romances are superbly detailed, they are a little over-written and irritatingly snobbish. I am a real fan of 1930s literature and am well aware of how the working classes and "foreign types" were portrayed in many of these books, but Heyer's outright antipathy to the "lower orders" is at best irksome and at worst repulsive. She is very much of her time: her Georgian heroines are flappers and her rakish fops are Bright Young Things: and this is what fascinates me so.

I have returned, yet again, to Elizabeth Taylor. I think she may be the most underrated British novelist of the twentieth century. I've just finished reading A Game of Hide and Seek, it is finely nuanced and she shows remarkable clarity in her characterisation and a generous empathy for the people she creates. A wonderful, sad book about love and highly recommended.

Next up, Barbara Pym's first novel Crampton Hodnett. I like curates, Lions Tea Rooms and Fuller's walnut cakes in my novels. I also like spinsters, romantically thwarted dons and High Church snobbery. I shan't give away anything of the plot of Crampton Hodnett, but suffice to say it is typical early Pym and an absolute joy. Here's an extract.

"Hullo, Mr Latimer, going to take evensong?"
The bright, almost chirpy, tones startled him, and Mr Latimer turned round to see Mrs Wardell standing by the vicarage gate, with a trowel in one hand and a young plant in the other.
"Yes, I am," he said shortly. It was surely obvious that he was going to take evensong. Where else could he be going, with a cassock slung over his arm and a face as long as a fiddle...

When he got to the church he found the usual weekday congregation there. Miss Doggett and Miss Morrow, old Lady Halkin, the Misses Grote, Mrs Allonby, Miss Nollard and Miss Foxe, Mrs Jason-Lomax and Jim Storry, a feeble-minded youth who did odd jobs in the church such as fetching vases and putting up wire frames for the ladies when they did the flowers.

Yes, this was the Church of England, his flock, thought Mr Latimer, a collection of old women, widows and spinsters, and one young man not quite right in the head. These were the people among whom he was destined to spend his life. He hunched his shoulders in his surplice and shivered.

I am hoping there are a fair amount of walnut cakes, curates and spinsters in Mrs Tim of the Regiment. I haven't started it yet, but it looks very good. It's one of those Bloomsbury re-issues, and amongst The Brontes Go to Woolworth's as a bit of a bloggers' favourite. I shall post on it when I next get the time.

Well, you've probably realised that I am now fully rested and well fed and well read and am extremely unlikely to go embarrassing myself in front of Ed Balls (who was that masked woman...?) I hope you all have had a happy and peaceful Easter. Until Anon!

PS. For a Simnel Cake recipe go here and here.
For Hot Cross Buns go here.

The Long and Rambling Post - Warning This Post May Fill You with a Strange Sense of Ennui

It has just occurred to me that I have not posted for a very long time. Well, what constitutes a very long time in the world of blog anyway. I am assuming that most of you are explaining away my absence by imagining that I finally cracked and garroted the DH with a guy rope is some fit of camping related mania and have been justly sent down for a twenty year stretch. This is not the case. I've just been a bit busy, which is a poor excuse for not blogging, but it's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

The DH has had a lot of time off, which was great, and we've been all over the place, visiting friends and having fun. We've been to the Cotswolds, Stonehenge, Salisbury, Warwick, Worcester, Peterborough (very underrated Cathedral) and been on various second-hand book buying sprees and teas out and yes, even picnics. Now, I do have a few pictures of all of this gallivanting, but I haven't quite got around to attaching the camera cable and software to my new (second hand) PC so I can't post them. Yes, I'm finally blogging on a proper PC and not that bizarre laptop which had half of the keys missing. It's a smashing PC, actually, really fast, it was the DH's old work PC, given to him when his workplace was refurbished. Blimey, I'm rambling. Badly.

It's also been a bit full on with the girls. They've had a lot of friends around to play, and the eldest has had a sleepover. Freya has been Miss Maker all holiday, which is lovely, but those activities need plenty of supervision and we've all got into this rather cosy routine of morning busy-ness, but afternoon slob out movie watching, and this has been great. Favourite movie so far. Hmm, the kids will say Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, I will say A Night to Remember (not the orignial Titanic movie - but a bit of 1940s screwball fluff, excellent). Also, Freya has had a course of speech and language therapy over the past week, and this has meant thatI've had to walk her to the clinic every day and wait whilst she sorts out the difference between saying "k" and "t". The good news is that her therapist thinks she's responded so well to treatment that if the work is consolidated she probably won't need any more formal work. I think Freya and her speech problem may deserve a post on all its own. Not that I think many people would be interested in it, but that if our experience helps another worried family out there, then it's worth talking about.

Oh, what else have I been up to? Hmm, I've been knitting like a crazy women (I've gone shrug/bolero crazy and the girls have a shrug for every summer dress they own, but the joys of the "shrug", again, may deserve a post all of its own), I've read many good books (I really, really will do a few book reviews soon), and I've been baking just a little. Here are two good recipes. The first is for Marmalade Cake, as mentioned in the previous post, the second is for Ginger Shortbread - a superb vintage shortbread, a doddle to make and horribly, horribly moreish.

Marmalade Cake

6oz butter, 6oz caster sugar, 3 eggs, 10 oz self-raising flour, 3 level tablespoons of chunky marmalade, 2 oz mixed peel (chopped), grated rind of one orange, 5 tablespoons of water.

Line and grease a seven inch round cake tin. Beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in egg yolks one at a time., the one tablespoon of flour. Stir in marmalade, peel, orange rind and water. Fold in the remaining flour. Whisk egg whites until just stiff and fold into the cake mixture. Turn into a prepared tin and bake at 350 F, gas mark 4 for one and a quarter hours until risen and firm to the touch. Icing (if wanted): Blend 4 oz of icing sugar with sufficient orange juice to give a stiff consistency. Pour over cake and allow to trickle down sides. Leave to set. Cut slices of crystallised orange in half and use it to decorate the top.

This recipe was taken from The Farmhouse Kitchen by Mary Norwak. A 1970s book which can still be bought for pennies in second hand bookshops and on Abe Books. It's highly recommended and contains many authentic regional country dishes. Here's an extract from the introduction to the book

Whether the windows of her kitchen overlook a green, growing field in Yorkshire of the tall golden wheat of Kansas, the country woman has a bond with her counterparts all over the world. She knows the bounty of the land, but also the fickleness of the weather and its effect on crops and income...The country woman is perhaps the most creative of all good cooks. She works from a pantry supplied by nature as well as the supermarket...

Now for Ginger Shortbread, a recipe taken from Farmhouse Fare, a fantastic little book from 1947, highly recommended to anyone self-sufficient-ish, or green living or simple living.

2 breakfastcupfuls of flour, 1 breakfastcupful of moist brown sugar, 1/2 lb butter, 2 teaspoonfuls of ground ginger, 1 scant teaspoonful of bicarb, pinch of salt.

Mix all the dry ingredients together, work in the butter until it becomes crumbly. Spread into and well-greased dripping-tin and bake in a moderate oven of 3/4 hour. Cut into finger whilst still warm and lift gently from tin with knife blade. This is an economical shortbread which is quickly made, and is a good stand-by as it keeps well in tins.

Now, I used American cup measures rather than breakfast cups, I baked it in a 20cm brownie tin, and I set the oven to about 150c, I also baked it for about 50 minutes. I didn't cut the fingers until the shortbread was nearly cool, and it cut well. It tasted lovely, like a cross between a ginger nut and left over crumble topping. Don't worry about the fact that you don't bind the shortbread, just press it gently into your tin, the moist brown sugar does the binding in the oven, just like it would a flapjack - for this reason you must not use white sugar.

At this point I'm going to award you a medal for getting this far in my post and not snoozing off. But you'll be glad to know that this disorganised ramble is about to finish as I must iron and pack for a trip to Spain! Yes, we're off to Spain for ten days to see my parents. Quelle joi! But before I go I want to tell you, gentle reader, that you're my little coo chi face, my oochi, coo chi face...no better still I'll let Gert Frobe and Anna Quale tell you for me. Enjoy this extreme piece of silliness, my friends and, until anon!

101 Things to do with a Stale Hot Cross Bun

You must forgive the somewhat grandiose title of this post, gentle reader, as really I am only giving you an idea for one thing to do with stale hot cross buns, but I know that you are all women of considerable ingenuity and imagination so I hope I get some suggestions for the other 100 things you can do with a stale bun after Good Friday!

For my own part I give you Hot Cross Bun Pudding. This is a recipe I've adapted from my Elizabeth Craig Cookery Illustrated, a 1930s tome which can be picked up quite easily for less than a fiver. For those interested in what the average Joe(anne) ate way back when you can't go far wrong than to read this book, and the illustrations feature lovely deco tea trays and table settings, all in all, a jolly nice buy. Anyway, on with the grub. Here's the recipe, and I apologise for my crummy photography.

Hot Cross Bun Pudding

4-6 hot cross buns (stale), quartered and buttered generously

1 pint milk

1/2 pint single cream

grated rind of an orange

2 oz sugar

3 eggs, well beaten

Butter a large casserole or pie dish. Place quartered, butter buns in dish so that they overlap with each other ever so slightly. Sprinkle each layer with a little of the sugar until you use up the 2 oz. Mix the milk with the cream and then add the beaten eggs, and mix well. Pour on top of the buttered, sugared buns and leave for at least 15 minutes until the mixtures has been absorbed. Bake in a low oven (in a bain marie if inclined) until the custard is set, this will take between 40 and 60 minutes. If it looks palid when you take it from the oven, sprinkle a little sugar on the top and put under a hot grill for a few minutes until browned. Serve with clotted cream (I mean it)!

Oh, here are a few Hot Cross Bun facts, with which you may astound your friends and family!

• Before the Reformation many baked goods carried the sign of the cross. Hot Cross Buns are the sole culinary survivors of this ancient tradition.
• Many country women would bake buns and bread on Good Friday because they believed their baking would contain miraculous powers of healing. They would hang them in the rafters of their kitchens and give to those who were ailing.
• In 1987 I won a Hot Cross Bun eating competition, downing 8 in 15 minutes. ( This last one is a fib, but I had you going for a minute)!

Well, if you do use up your stale holy day buns in this way, please let me know if you enjoyed the pudding. Anon, fellow huswives, anon!

Mrs Beeton's Beetroot Soup (not) and My Own Beautiful Dust

This bit's for you, Sarah.

I've been mourning the loss of poor old Doris the Dead Dyson for a good few weeks now. I've missed her lightweight chassis, her lovely long hose, I've missed the way she used to glide around the house, but mostly I've missed the sheer power of her suck. You see, after she went to vacuum cleaner Valhalla (Doris was great, but I'm not sure she was Christian), we economised and bought a terrible, heavy, lumbering beast of a Morphy Richards thing. This vacuum cleaner was such a duffer, I think it has been entirely responsible for my bad back of late. I try to feel sorry for this machine, it's not his fault he's not Doris, but really enough is enough, so I contacted a firm which sold reconditioned Dysons and low and behold, and £30 later, Dino the Dyson arrived on my doorstep. Now, Dino is called Dino because he's such an ancient make of Dyson I'm sure they quarried him out of a rock face in Arizona (or perhaps the Isle of White), he's a dinosaur, a fossil, but he is a Dyson, and just to prove it this is what he sucked up the other day AFTER the Morphy Richards back-breaker had finished doing it's job. Dust, ladies, beautiful dust!

Next up a couple of recipes. First, Nigella Lawson's Potato Bread, a great bread, crisp and chewy, but not too dense and it doesn't taste a bit potato-y. It rises like a dream, so well in fact that when it rises I can imagine it died green and chasing a young Steve McQueen out of the cinema, just like "The Blob". Anyway, if you want this venerable receipt please email me, as it's a bit long to put on the blog.
Now, for Mrs Beeton's Beetroot Soup (not). Now, when it comes to beetroot, my cup runneth over. It's that time of year, isn't it, when we all get a bit sick of root vegetables, especially,if, like me, you grow your own or get an organic box. So I decided to soup the glut. I also hit upon the idea of looking for a beetroot soup recipe in Mrs Beeton (combination of assonance and alliteration in a recipe title appeals to something deep within my soul) however, when I looked, no such recipe could be found: there were recipes for sprout top soups; carrot soups; turnip soups,: cow's cheek soup; and a charmingly named, benevolent soup; but no beetroot soup. So, I made up my own. Here it is, oh, I'll leave quantities up to you, but I've put in brackets what I used, just to guide you.

Mrs Beeton's Beetroot Soup (not)

A quantity of onion (1)

A quantity of leek (1)

A quantity of potato(3)

A quantity of beetroot(5)

Butter, cream, milk and stock.

Peel and chop the veg, sweat for a good while in the butter, as ten minutes of sweating will ensure a good soup. Pour hot stock over veg , just enough to cover. Simmer for 40 minutes or so, or until your beetroot is tender. Thin down with cream and milk and season to taste.

Serve to poorly little girls with a mania for pink.

Enjoy, gentle reader, and anon!

Rib-Sticking Fare and Hand-Made Dollies

I thought I'd show one or two of the dolls I've been busy with over the past month or so. I didn't manage to take photos of all of them, as I had to whisk them off to their owners pretty sharpish (working to a deadline is not one of my natural strengths). I'm very much enjoying making them and when they're finished I pat them and fuss with them and sometimes give them a little cuddle. (Good grief, what an admission to make! I am probably certifiable, but generally harmless). I've had some great feedback from my friends though, one said her niece was taking the dolly to bed, which I think is the finest compliment I can get.

I've noticed I'm developing a definite doll-making style. I can't help but make a little knitted corsage for most of the doll, and always feel it necessary to give the doll "big hair". I have made a straight haired blonde doll, but for me it just wasn't the same as making a curly-girly! The next doll I shall make will have different feet though, Jenny's new ones have feet you could slip a shoe on, this would be a definite improvement to the dolls I make.

Anyway, the brown haired girl went to my friend's granddaughter this weekend, and I'm not sure what the little girl has named her, but the one below was given to my youngest one, as she fell in love with the red hair when I was making her. We've called her Aishling, after the lovely Christy Moore song.

Also this January I've set myself the task of learning a few new recipes. Seeing as I have a certain avoir du poids ce moment I haven't been baking as much as usual. Well, apart from that carrot cake I made the other Sunday, oh, and that cheesecake I made when Sarah came a-visiting. Well, okay then, I have been doing a fair amount of baking, but some of this baking has been sickeningly virtuous.

The cake that looks a little like malt loaf or tea bread below is actually made from All-Bran and contains no egg or fat. No, don't say "yuck" it's actually jolly nice, does taste somewhat like an old-fashioned malt loaf, is a doddle to make. I like it spread thickly with butter. There really is no hope for me. Oh, and if you eat the cake neat, there are no more calories per slice than a bowl of cereal with raisins. Here's the recipe.

4 oz All-Bran

5 oz caster sugar

10 oz dried fruit

1/2 pint milk

4 oz self-raising flour

Put All-bran, sugar and dried fruit into a bowl and mix well together

Stir in milk and leave for at least 30 minutes

Sieve in flour, mixing well and pour mixture into a well greased 2 lb loaf tin.

Bake in oven at 180c for about 1 hour.

Next up I've been trying out new recipes for various stews and casseroles. I don't know about you, but I developed a stew recipe years ago and I've pretty much stuck to it. I do so many slow braises and stews in the winter-time and it was all becoming a bit same-y so I thought I'd have a go at something a little different. I can highly recommend the Blessed Delia of the Mispronunciation's Beef in Designer Beer, and also Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's Savoury Beef Cobbler and Chicken in Cider with Rosemary Dumplings. I shall link to a page where the nation's favourite gentleman farmer has waxed lyrical about stews and pies, a nice read, good recipes, with the added bonus of a picture of the man himself...I find him personally quite charming.



Oh, and talking of photos, here's a picture of the aforementioned Beef Cobbler, looks quite similar to the one on Hugh's page. Am I the only person in the world whose food looks rarely like the picture in the cookbook? I imagine this is because I am a bit of a sloppy worker. Well I think that's enough for today! Anon, gentle reader and happy housewifery to you!

Godcakes, Soulcakes, Sacristans...Oh, and Mince Pies

...but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life. And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.
Ecclesiastes 3:12

Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works. Let thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack no ointment.
Ecclesiastes 9:7

In the medieval period English food became rich in spice and dried fruit, largely because English merchants were profitably trading with the East. Sugar, spice and exotic fruits were incredibly expensive to buy, and even in wealthy households these ingredients were only used for feast food; the food consumed for high days and holidays. I suppose also, the fashion for heavily spiced food may have come as a reaction to the various fast-days the medieval people had to endure...wasn't more than 50% of the liturgical calender given over to fasts or days of holy obligation? I suppose you would be very grateful for something as exciting as fruit cake or mince pie after weeks of river fish and butter-less bread!

It used to be that every region in England had their own versions of the feast day treats. I remember, when we still had several independent bakers in our town, a mincemeat turnover called a Godcake...or Coventry Godcake. I haven't seen one in years, but I haven't seen an independent bakery in years either! Godcakes were traditionally given to godchildren on Twelfth Night, by the doting godparents of the Coventry area. I kind of remember old folks calling those funny triangles of grass you get at junctions on country roads "Godcakes", but this may be my brain playing tricks on me! Making Godcakes couldn't be more simple. Take a square of very short, or flaky, pastry, fill half of it with mincemeat and make it into a triangular shaped turnover. Brush with beaten egg and sprinkle on a little brown sugar. Bake in a hot oven for 10-15 minutes. Serve hot, with pouring cream, or leave to go cold, lift up the pastry top and fill with whipped cream. If you want a vintage recipe for Coventry Godcakes, see the excellent Good Things in England, by Florence White.

Also, from across the border in Leicestershire, there's a little cake called a Whetstone Cake. I had no idea these things existed until I read an article on regional food in a 1930s edition of Good Housekeeping magazine. The cake was just listed amongst a series of other regional foods, and it attracted me, not just because I live very close to Whetstone, but because (get this!) Whetstone is my maiden name. There's very little information on them out there in the ether, but from what I can gather they are little pies, made of flaky pastry and filled with dried fruits and rosewater. Sounds very Tudor to me...no wonder Nigella Lawson, in How to be a Domestic Goddess, recommended that Baklava be counted as Christmas food, the links between the food of the Eastern Meditterranean and traditional English feast-fare are remarkable.

Another Baklava-style treat is the Sacristan. I have no idea how this pastry gained its name, but like Baklava it is filled with nuts, sugar, honey and spice. Unlike Baklava, Sacristans are bites-sized pastries twisted into little shapes; circles, knots and fish being popular...each shape perhaps having a religious or traditional meaning?

In Suffolk God's Kitchels were eaten for the twelve days of Christmas, and just like the Godcakes of Coventry, were meant to be given to visiting godchildren. Apparently, there used to be a Suffolk saying: "ask me a blessing and I'll give you a kitchel." Kitchels were triangular and filled with dried fruit, spice and nuts, just like my local Godcake! Perhaps these things were triangular to represent the Trinity?

And finally, Shropshire had their Soulcakes. This time the cakes were meant to be eaten on All Souls' Day, and perhaps the American tradition of Trick or Treating stems from the Shopshire emmigrants who in the "old country" went souling... children singing from house to house collecting money in late October to buy the ingredients for Soulcakes .

Of course, these folk foods have largely died out. However, what we do have left is the mince pie. Which is good. It's the feast-food we still have today, which is baked regularly, enjoyed regularly and is intrinsically linked with the liturgical calender. A mince pie is entwined with the holidays of the past, it's a historic morsel of celebration! Although mince pies contained beef until the early Victorian period, Mrs Beaton has two recipes; one containing meat and one which does not. Indeed, the fashion for putting meat in them did die out completely by the latter part of the 19th century. But meat or no meat what we have left is a pie which has been part and parcel of the traditional feast-foods just like the Kitchels and Godcakes that have now sadly gone.

I don't tend to faff about with mince pies, I make too many. You can add orange rind and almonds to the pastry, or make your mince meat with blueberries and cranberries, which is nice. However, I think one of the reasons why the pies continue to be baked regularly during Advent and the Christmas season is because they are so very easy to do. Instead of typing out my own recipe for pies I shall link to the blessed Delia, my pies are just an adaption of hers, and you can never really go wrong her recipes. If you want a more detailed recipe for Godcakes, or would like a recipe for Kitchels, Soulcakes or Sacristans, please email me and I'll send you a recipe as soon as I can.

God bless and happy baking!

The Famous Five Eat a Big Tea!

Now, I could write a long post saying why I think Enid Blyton is such a good children's writer. But I won't. I will say however, that she is one of the very few authors that children turn to voluntarily (and without parental pressure) to read over and over again. I know the old girl churned them out, and the quality of her writing is a bit suspect, and she didn't care for foreign types, and so on and so on. But children get a great deal of pleasure from reading her work, and this, I think, is the way to create a successful reader...give 'em a book they'll enjoy! Anyway, my eldest came to me last night and said she'd marked the page of a book she'd been reading because she thought the readers of this blog would like it. I do like it, perhaps you will too!

They came to Great Giddings at about ten past five. Although it was called Great is was really very small. There was a little tea-place that said 'Home-made cakes and jams', so they went in there for tea.

The woman who kept it was a plump, cheerful soul, fond of children. She guessed she would make very little out of the tea she served to five healthy children - but that didn't matter! She set to work to cut three big plates of well-buttered slices of bread, put out apricot jam, raspberry, and strawberry, and a selection of home-made buns that made the children's mouths water.

She knew Richard quite well, because he had sometimes been to her cottage with his aunt.

'I suppose you'll be going to stay with her tonight?' she said to Richard, and he nodded, his mouth full of ginger cake. It was a lovely tea. Anne felt as if she wouldn't be able to eat any supper at all that night! Even Timmy seemed to have satisfied his enormous appetite.

'I think we ought to pay double price for our gorgeous tea,' said Julian, but the woman wouldn't hear of it. No, no - it was lovely to see them all enjoying her cakes; she didn't want double price!

'Some people are so awfully nice and generous,' said Anne, as they mounted their bicycles to ride off again. 'You just can't help liking them. I hope I can cook like that when I grow up.'

'If you do, Julian and I will always live with you and not dream of getting married!' said Dick, promptly they all laughed.

Now, I'm a plump woman, who being fond of children, likes to see them enjoy eating the cakes I bake. So I better get cracking, clean this mess of a house, and pop a cake in the oven! But before I go here is a link to another online Enid Blyton Society and a link to a Radio 4 programme about her writing. Enjoy!

Posh Food

A while ago I read an article, in a 1930s edition of Good Housekeeping Magazine, by Florence White. Florence White was Britain's first professional food writer and her most famous book (and indeed one of my favourite cookbooks) Good Things in England, which was first published by the English Folk Cookery Association, is now reprinted by Persephone Books. Anyway, in this article Florence White interviews the servants of the great and the good of 1930s Britain to find out what kind of food the rulers of the Empire liked to eat. She found that there was a resounding inclination towards simple, good food; plain English cookery well made from excellent local produce and nicely cooked. Prime Ministers, Lords, Bishops, MPs and captains of industry all preferred roast beef, steak, chops, roast potatoes, a good vegetables to any Escoffier-like confection. At tea they enjoyed ham sandwiches, plain fruit cake and good quality tea, they eschewed the fancy. She came to the conclusion that they enjoyed this kind of food because they were brought up on vast, self-sufficient country estates, where the food was plain because it was the very best and needed no cream sauce or aspic to make it any better.

Interestingly, Maria Floris, in her wonderfully comprehensive book on baking, Bakery, states that when she provided the baked goods for 10 Downing Street, Winston Churchill's secretary told her that his favourite pastry was the humble jam tart.

"She told me that it was his favourite pastry. It was a very plain pastry but it had to be perfect."

Now, this doesn't really surprise me. First, I suppose there is something comforting for a person under extreme pressure to eat food from their nursery childhoods. Chops, fruit cake, egg custard and jam tarts, speak of a roaring fire and the comfort of nanny. Secondly, the rich and the powerful have the opportunity to eat any kind of elaborate food, perhaps they choose the simple as a reaction to their jaded palates (reflecting jaded lifestyles)? However, my inclination is to agree with Florence White, these men chose plain food because it was always good. Jam tarts are good, in fact I agree with Winnie, they're much nicer that éclairs, in fact they're nicer than any creamy concoction, if the pastry is good, if the jam is excellent (home-made) and of course for Churchill jam tarts would always have been first rate. There is a lovely democracy to all of this. We can all eat an excellent jam tart, fruit cake or pork chop, if we take the time to choose good produce and cook it well, this takes skill and not money, and I am of the opinion that good cooks are not born, they are made; through patience and practise.

It is also interesting to note that in the 1920s the aristocracy learnt to cook. The combination of the "servant crisis", wealthy women rejecting the pampered lifestyles of their mothers, and aristocratic girls moving away from home and getting jobs in cities meant that for the first time in generations (perhaps not since the 17th-mid 18th century) the very rich took an interest in what went on in their kitchens. In 1922 Lady Agnes Jekyll published Kitchen Essays, taken from a series of cookery articles she wrote for The Times. I have a 1960s copy of this book, with extra recipes and a nice introduction by Lady Jekylls' daughter, Lady Freyberg, however, and as ever, the wonderful Persephone Books have reprinted this classic. The book does contain the kind of recipes suitable for elegant entertaining, there's a lovely recipe for a white chocolate mousse which I will try when the next special occasion crops up, but amidst the menu French are the country house classics so beloved of Churchill, Lloyd George and Baldwin. Here's Jekyll's recipe for fruit cake, I haven't made it, but I think the sour cream (a very unusual addition to an English cake) would make it quite a moist fruit cake.

Guards Cake
1 pound plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
pinch of salt
8 ounces of butter
8 ounces of sugar
1 pound of stoned rasins
8 ounces of candied peel
2 eggs
1/4 pint sour cream

Sieve flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt into a large bowl. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar, raisins and candied peel. Make a well in the centre and add beaten eggs. Add sufficient sour cream to form a dropping consistency. Mix well and pour into a greased and lined 9-10 inch square or round cake tin. Bake in a moderate oven, 350 or Gas Mark 4, until firm to the touch - about 1 1/2 -2 hours.

Do you know that some social historians think that the increasing democratisation/modernisation of the English aristocracy may have been due to the large number of wealthy American socialites marrying into old (and perhaps slightly impoverished Lordly families) during the late Victorian/early Edwardian period? On that note, and to finish, here is an extract from The American Hostess Cookbook, which provides a fascinating insight into the table-fare of the rich and powerful of post-war America. Each recipe/menu in the book is preceded with a small biography of its author. Enjoy!

Mrs. Dorothy Byron Lane, Ocean City, Maryland, wife of Governor William Preston Lane, Jr., of Maryland was educated at Hannah More Academy, Dana Hall, Wellesley, Massachusetts, and is active in various Women's Clubs and organizations. Her hobbies embrace gardening, music and golf. She has two daughters - Dorothy Byron Lane, Vassar '46, and Jean Cartwright Lane, Vassar '49. Mrs. Lane is an Episcopalian and a Democrat.

Mrs. Lane's
FORMAL DINNER

Oyster Cocktail
Celery Olives
Diamond Black Terrapin - Maryland Beaten Biscuits
Wild Duck - Currant Jelly
French String Beans
Wild Rice
Hearts of Lettuce - French Dressing - Thin Slice of Maryland Ham
Frozen Decorated Meringues filled with Bisque Ice Cream
Nuts and Mints
Coffee

Nina (but not Nicholas), A Recipe I Made Up with My Very Own Brain, and Various Thoughts on How Women Love

I'm in one of those bizarre positions where I've got such a lot to blog about and not enough time to SPEAK MY BRAINS in html format! So I'm going to try to cram a few bits and bobs in one single, and probably very disjointed, post. First, I came back from Spain determined to buy a book on Spanish food, particularly Spanish baking. However, funds are a little low ce moment and even though I am slightly enamored of this weighty tome, I have yet again vowed to go on a book-buying embargo (yes, I know you've heard this all before). So I politely asked my brain to come up with an Iberian-style tea-time treat and this is what my brain came up with. Not bad brain! In future I will look after you by keeping off the gin and doing more Suduku!

Dulce Domum's Orange and Almond Cake
3 oz butter
4 oz caster sugar
4 oz self-raising flour
4 oz ground almonds
2 large eggs
1/4 tsp almond extract
grated orange rind (from one medium orange)
juice from 1/2 a medium orange.

Cream together butter and sugar, add beaten eggs gradually. Add orange rind, almond extract and then fold in the ground almonds and the flour. At this point you will need to loosen the mixture with the orange juice (you may not need all of it, just loosen to dropping consistency). Grease a loaf tin (a 1 lb loaf tin is best but I had to use a bigger one), place mixture in tin (sprinkle on a few flaked almonds if you have them) and bake at 150 degrees for around half an hour, or until the cake is firm to the touch. Like all cakes with ground almonds in this cake is an excellent keeper. Oh, you could make an orange glaze or syrup to go on top of the cake, I didn't do this but I bet it would be delicious.

Well, Nina the Waldorf doll is finally finished. I didn't do any crafting at all whilst I was on my hols. So I finished her off this week. She's a bit of a labour of love actually. I've changed her clothes goodness knows how many times, and I think this is because I know the little girl the doll's going to and wanted it to be just right. Anyway, I really must stuff Saint Nicholas (and it's not everyday you get to type a sentence like that) and get cracking on the wool shop order (she wants as many as I can make ...that will be one then) and make a new doll for the girls (a little red-head I think). Also, my friend Zillah sent me a fabulous book on knitting historical figures, believe me, there are some doozies of dolls in this book, but I shall blog about it next week, I think.

Next up, I've been thinking about love, and how the way we love changes and adapts as we gain in maturity. When I was in my late teens I was pretty desperate for love and romance, to put it bluntly I wanted a man to love me. I'm not particularly embarrassed by this, I reckon it's usual for most girls. I was fortunate in the fact that I did fall in love with a man who loved me back, and reader, I married him. Of course, then most of us go on to have children, and our children love us. A small child's love is almost miraculous in the fact that it is purely unconditional, they seem to be hardwired to love their mothers. Oh and aren't these different types of love we women receive great gifts? The love of a good man and the love of children isn't really something we should take for granted, it's something to be nurtured and respected. To be honest with you, as a young woman I tended to define myself by who loved me; boyfriend, husband, babies. But now, as my children grow older and my marriage is more mature it seems as though I've gone through a subtle shift in thinking, I've come to believe that my womanhood will be defined not simply by who loves me but how I love them. That the nature and quality of the love I give serves to define my developing sense of womanhood, that the giving of love may be my reason for being. I don't want this to seem particularly morally grandiose, I get a great deal of pleasure from loving, my family and my husband are lovable, it's just that I've found that age has brought an increased pleasure in the performance of small acts of love, there's a joy in it, and I was just wondering if any of you feel the same way?

The Frugal Baker

To be honest I am NOT a frugal baker. If a recipe calls for dark chocolate, sour cream, ground almonds, I do not flinch, but simply hot-foot it to the shops and buy what I need. However, Christmas is upon us, our mortgage payment has gone up, food prices are, well, pricey and I can't really afford to be so generous with my baking. However, I do know that baking is an essential part of my week. It is both pleasurable and gives pleasure and I'd rather my family eat something homemade and natural than shop-bought and riddled with chemicals. Also, when I bake for my family I feel that I am giving them a little gift of love. I know that dietitians and psychologists tell us we must never equate food with love, but I think this is piffle (and I'm pretty sure millions of French people would agree with me)! When we make something delicious, to be eaten after a hard day at work or school, we are giving a moment of soothing comfort and homecoming to those who've been out and about in the world, and this I think is pretty precious. Blimey, I think I'm about to start on one of my wild digressions again, so before I further wax lyrical, let me get to the point. Here are my suggestions for simple and frugal baked good which provide a treat on a cold November evening but will not break the food budget. I shan't give recipes as I'm doll-making, but if you care to email me I can send you any recipe as soon as I can.

1. Use cocoa for chocolate cake and brownies. The chocolate cake in the picture is made with cocoa and as long as you don't use too much it will be moist. Just replace an ounce of flour with an ounce of cocoa in your usual sponge mixture and bake as usual. Nice!

2. Become one of those wonderful scone-baking housewives from times of yore! Scones are mostly flour based and need very little butter and sugar, they're really just a convenient vehicle for jam and cream. However, they don't keep well. So freeze the dough in rounds, then you can take them out of the freezer and pop them in the oven just before the hungry hoards arrive. Delicious! Oh, and men somehow think you're a walking miracle if you can make a decent scone. Don't ask me why but it's true.

3. Oh, and talking of men. I've noticed they're rather keen on pies, well English men at least. Whenever I bake a pie the DH declares me to be Prudence Goodwyfe. I am such a fan of pies. They stretch the food budget and give real culinary pleasure, they are all round winners and a piece of cake (pie??) to make. Keep it simple, and just try an apple pie made with a plain short crust to begin with. Cost out the ingredients in your head right now, and you'll see that I'm right. Cheap as chips, n'est pas?

4. Use your loaf. If you are not a regular bread-baker, keep bread baking days for times when you've made a very simple evening meal. Any frugal stew becomes a wonderful meal with the addition of fresh, homemade bread. Be canny and make simple things a treat.

6. Use your loaf, part two. A bread dough base can be the beginnings of a real filling treat of a meal. For example, pizza, pisalidaire and any filled bread will create happy tummies with few only a few inexpensive, but healthy ingredients (especially if you go easy on the cheese).

7. Biscuits (cookies) may look expensive to make but the recipes often makes an awful lot. My top tip is to freeze your dough in a sausage like round and slice off cookies as and when you need them, that way your biscuits will always be fresh and nothing is wasted.

8. Do as the Americans do and have pancakes for breakfast. The kids will love you and they're cheap to make...I know it's a faff to do first thing in the morning, but you could save it for a weekend treat!

Well, there you have it, gentle reader. I know that many of you are keen cooks, so if you have any further suggestions leave a comment!

This is a Public Service Announcement

More of this

means more of this!

Okay, let me elucidate. Whilst polishing off the last piece of Bakewell Tart/Pudding, for my BREAKFAST this morning (yes, I know I'm a bad girl) I let out a rather undignified yelp. "Why?" I hear you ask. Well, I read in the newspaper that when a woman wears a floral scent, not only does she appear more attractive to the opposite sex, but she is perceived as one stone (that's 14 pounds) slimmer. This is great news. I'm off to the Body Shop now to purchase some of that floral miracle juice, but before I go I'll post the recipe for said tart. We ate it straight out of the oven for pudding last night, but it's just as nice eaten as a tart for a tea-time (or even breakfast-time) treat! Enjoy!

1 quantity of shortcrust pastry made with 6 oz flour and 3 oz of fat (use lard, or lard and butter)
1 8 inch deep pie tin
3 oz caster sugar
3 oz butter
2 medium eggs
A few drops of almond extract
1 oz self-raising flour
2 oz ground almonds
Two or three tablespoons of jam
A few flaked almonds or some icing sugar to decorate (optional)

Roll out pastry and line the greased pie dish. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, then add the almond extract and beaten eggs (gradually). The fold in the ground almonds and the flour. Spread jam onto the base of the pastry, then add the almondy mixture. Sprinkle a thin layer of flaked almonds on top of the tart (optional) and then bake for 30-35 at 190/375 or gas Mark5. Leave to cool in the tin, or eat hot. If you want to prettify it you may dust it with icing sugar. Serve with cream (you know you want to!)

New Recipes, New Pictures

Well, we all had such a good weekend: a nice walk in the woods; a picnic; a mooch around an antique centre and then a visit to a village show. But now it's all back to normal, the DH is at work, my kids are in the garden with half of the neighbourhood's under twelves and I've done some mammoth baking. First, I had a go at making a blackberry crumble cake, mainly to get rid of last year's blackberries lurking in the back of the freezer, but also because the DH loves crumble, but crumble is hardly a portable treat, and this cake can be easily carried to work in a lunch box...it worked out well, but is highly calorific!! It's just a Victoria Sandwich base, with frozen blackberries sprinkled on top of the batter and then crumble mixture and almonds sprinkled on top of the blackberries. You have to cook the cake at a slightly lower temperature than normal, to allow for the extra topping and also a little longer than usual, but it is worth it!

Also, I made my blogchum Marie's Kuchen. You'll find the recipe on her new Pick Up Pen and Needles blog. If you've made the yeast risen Kuchen before and found it a bit of a complicated process, try this. It's delicious and the base mixture is more of a muffin-y mix. We'll be having ours for pudding tonight and I think I'll serve it with cream...I've sneaked a little bit already....irresistible!

I've also been doing a bit of reading (but what's new about that?!?) and I've started Cousin Rosamund by Rebecca West, I suppose West is more famous for her relationship with H G Wells than her novels, but I think she is a good and sensitive writer and Cousin Rosamund offers some honest and beautiful insights into the world of marriage and domesticity. The second-hand Virago copy I have features a cover painting by an American artist, William McGregor Paxton. The painting is beautiful, so I googled it, but there is not a copy of it on the internet. I did however, find some other portraits by the same artist...some of quite grand ladies, but others showing more normal scenes of women's everyday lives.

I love his attention to detail, the concentrated, absorbed look on his subjects faces. He worked primarily in the early part of the twentieth century, a period of time I find fascinating, both historically and aesthetically, and although I think he was influenced by John Singer Sergeant, I think his work a little more honest than Sergeant's.

Well, I must go as the oven timer is beeping at me (I made bread today too) and the children are panicking over the spiders in the playhouse. If you want a detailed recipe for the blackberry crumble cake, please email me and I'll get it right to you!

North and South

So, you are a breast-feeding mother of an egg-intolerant baby, the summer is here and you are looking for something on which to pile clotted cream and jam, in the time-honoured tradition of the British summer holiday. Scones are out, simply because they contain egg, so what can you do? Well, when I have a problem I always seem to solve it by turning to regional English recipes! So for Zillah and her bakin' hubby I give you Cornish Splits, Singing Hinnies (from Northumberland) and Fat Rascals (from Yorkshire). Let us start in the beautiful south.

Cornish Splits
1 lb of plain flour
1 oz fresh yeast (or 1 tbs of dried yeast, but not fast acting)
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 oz of lard
1/2 pint warm milk
Set oven to 400F or Mark 6. Mix the yeast and sugar to a liquid, add warm milk or set aside to sponge. (If using dried yeast follow instructions on the packet). Meantime, sieve the flour and salt into a bowl and rub in the fat. Add the yeast mixture and the rest of the milk and knead well. Replace in the bowl, cover, put in a warm place and leave to rise until doubled in size. Knead again and shape the dough into small round buns. Put on a floured baking sheet, leave to prove again, then bake for 15 to 20 minutes until browned on top. It is tradition to serve these with black treacle and clotted cream "thunder and lightning"!

Now onto the gorgeous North East...
Sining Hinnies
These griddle are traditional in the North East and appear in Jane Grigson's English Food. Sophie Grigson made them on the telly the other day, and I've found the recipe online. Here's the link.

And finally, God's own county...
Fat Rascals
1 lb plain flour, 1/2 lb butter, 1 oz sugar, 1/4 lb currants, 1/4 tsp salt. a little milk and water, a little caster sugar.
Set oven to 400F or gas make 6. Rub butter into flour. Mix in the currants, sugar and salt. Mix well together. Mix inot a firm dough with a little milk and water. Roll out 1/2 inch thick. Cut into rounds with the top of a tumbler. Dust with white sugar, and bake for 10 minutes or so until golden brown. Serve with cream, jam butter or any combination of these!

Scones, Ancient and Modern

So the debate raged around the tea-table on Saturday evening. Which scones were best; my usual "vintage" scones, recipe taken from Home Cookery Illustrated OR the new-fangled receipt, "Lily's Scones" from How to be a Domestic Goddess? It was a split vote and passions were high. The DH and the eldest preferred the vintage variety, saying they had a better "scone-y" taste, even though they were not as light as the modern scones. The FIL declared their preference to be stupid in the extreme, citing "Lily's Scones" to be of supreme and undeniable lightness, which is what you want from a scone. The youngest girl just piled on the jam and, as usual, agreed with her grandpa. As "chief cook and bottle washer" I just sat on the fence, not wanting to be too partial lest I blew my own trumpet...although I am inclined to agree with the FIL, I was impressed by the lightness of the modern scones. Anyway, here are the recipes gentle reader, just in case you fancy joining in with the great scone debate! Scones Ancient
1/2 lb flour
1 tsp baking powder
3 oz butter
2 oz caster sugar
2 oz currants
1/4 tsp mixed spice
1 egg
3/3 tea cup full of milk.

Pre-heat oven to 220 degrees and grease a baking tray.
Mix baking powder, flour and spice and sift them. Rub in the butter until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs and there is no flour left. Stir in the currants and sugar. Mix to a dough with a well-beaten egg and the milk (reserve a little of this). Roll out to 1 inch thick and cut scones out with a biscuit cutter. Brush over with milk and egg and sprinkle with caster sugar when almost done. Bake for 10-15 minutes.

Scones Modern (Sorry No Picture!)
500g flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp bicarb
4 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
50g cold butter, diced
25 g Trex (I used lard)
300 ml milk
1 large egg, beaten, for egg wash.
Preheat the oven to 220 degrees/gas mark 7

Sift the flour, salt, bicarb and cream of tartar into a large bowl. Rub in fats til it goes like damp sand. Add milk all at once, mix briefly - brifely being the operative word - then turn out onto a floured surface and knead lightly to form a dough.

Roll out to about 3 cm thickness. Dip the cutter into some flour, then stamp out at least ten scones. You get 12 in all from this, but may need to reroll for the last 2. Place on a baking tray very close together - the ideas is they bulge and stick together on cooking - then brush the tops with the egg-wash. Put in the oven and cook for ten minutes or until risen and golden.

Notes
You should always eat scones fresh from the oven as they don't keep well. However, you can freeze them and re-heat them for ten minutes once defrosted in a medium oven.
Serve with butter, jam or clotted cream or any combination of these three!
Enjoy!

Honeyed, Poached Peaches and Petticoat Tails

Well, I bought this shortbread baking dish from Lakeland a few weeks ago and I've been itching to try it; it's ceramic and a thing of beauty and makes proper petticoat tails! I also have the vintage Scottish Women's Rural Institute Cook Book, chock full of recipes for shortbread, so I thought I'd give one a try. As I was serving the shortbread with the honeyed peaches I chose a recipe that didn't appear to be too sweet. The resulting shortbread was light, crumbly and buttery, but not sweet and good for serving with fruit. However, my chief taster (DH) thinks a sweeter version would be better as a tea-time treat (children didn't seem to mind lack of sweetness though, but I am inclined to agree with the DH) so I shall try a few more recipes in the book and publish one which will be good for eating with a nice cup of tea. Anyway, on with the recipe! For the peaches

Take one peach per person; wash them and stone them and place them in a baking dish with a teaspoon of honey per peach drizzled over the fruit. Bake in a medium oven for 30 minutes.

For the Petticoat Tails

Whilst humming Flower of Scotland to yourself, cream 4 oz of butter with 2 oz of caster sugar. Add 8 oz of flour and 2 oz of cornflour sifted together, lightly bringing the whole lot together to for a soft dough. Gently press the dough into the petticoat tail dish and prick dough with a fork OR roll dough out to a 1.5 cm thickness, place on a baking sheet, prick with a fork and mark out 8 portions with a knife, being careful not to cut through the dough. Bake for 30 minutes at 170 degrees until golden brown. When completely cool, turn out the shortbread and sprinkle with caster sugar.

I served the peaches and shortbread with home-made yogurt as I have a minor obsession with good digestive bacteria! But enough of my quirks! Enjoy your baking my wee chookie eggs!

Frozen Fruit Muffins - The Eco-Muffin!

I have a bit of a confession to make. I have a passion for blueberry muffins. Not those over-blown fairy cakes with added horrid, blue bits you find on supermarket shelves, but the proper homemade variety; warm from the oven, studded with bursting blue fruits. Heavenly! We all like them...they're a good on-the-run breakfast for the DH and a good after school treat for the kids! However, although I grow my own blueberries, they are not yet fully ripe, and I find myself buying them from the supermarket. "No big deal," I hear you say, but for a person of my convictions supermarket blueberries are a bit of a no-no. In the UK, they are often imported from as far aways as Chili and America...later on in the season they are flown in from Poland or Spain. A pretty "high carbon" purchase, high cost too...I often pay £2 or so for 100g...my purse says "ouch!"

However, flicking through one of my favourite books, Muffins, Fast and Fantastic, by Susan Reimer, I found a recipe which uses the frozen English summer fruits you find in bags from the supermarket. Now, my local "pick-you-own" freezes their extra fruit at the end of the season and sells it, quite cheaply, in their farm shop. Also, you can find cheap English raspberries and mixed fruit bags for around £2 for a 500g bag in places like Iceland and Farm Food. So, although the fruit has gone through the freezing and packaging process, it is English and is a fraction of the cost, both in pound notes and in carbon. The muffins are lovely too, and have that nice bursting fruit quality you find in the blueberry ones. I've made them for my FIL and he thinks they'd make a good fruit pudding (in the old-fashioned English sense of the word) with the added addition of custard or cream. Anyway, I'm probably the only person in blogland who sees it fit to wax lyrical on muffins for ages, so I'm going to cut to the chase and publish the recipe. Enjoy!

10 oz plain flour*
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3-4 oz white sugar
1 egg
8 fl oz milk/buttermilk
3 fl oz butter melted
5 oz frozen summer berries (mixed or whatever)

1. Prepare muffin tins and preheat oven to 190-200C.
2. In a large bowl, sift together (or stir with a fork): flour, baking powder and salt. Stir in sugar and set aside.
3. In another bowl, beat egg, stir in milk followed by the melted butter.
4. Pour all of wet ingredients into dry. Stir just until combined. Gently fold in berries at the end, using only 2-3 strokes to avoid toughening the muffins.
5. Spoon mixture into cups. Bake for 25 minutes.

*With self-raising flour, reduce baking powder to 1 teaspoon.

Hand-Made Bread and Breadmaker Bread: The Great Debate

My chum "Linnet" asked me a few questions about bread making which I have been pondering during my bout of bronchitis. It really got me thinking about the practical side of bread making, how to make it easier on the beginner and how to make it a viable activity for the modern homemaker. First, let me say that I bake because I enjoy it, in fact I'm one of those people who doesn't feel quite right unless I've got some project or other on the go! So I bake, knit and garden just as much for my own pleasure (if not more) than as an act of service for my family...it's just a happy synthesis that I can combine pleasure with service, but I do understand that not everybody has the inclination to faff about in the kitchen to the extent that I do!lol! So instead of waxing lyrical about the complexities of the noble art of baking I'm going to give a few handy tips to speed up the process of hand baking *or* get the best out of your breadmaker.

Breadmaker Baking
Breadmakers are wonderful because they really do take the faff and uncertainty out of producing a cheap and healthy family loaf. You pop in your ingredients and press a button and hey presto, an hour (or four) later you have a good, homemade loaf. However, you do often end up with a whacking great hole in the middle of the bread, and more importantly for me, the bread is always, always too sweet. I have experimented with getting my breadmaker bread to rise without all of that sugar and I have found that you can easily reduce the amount recommended by a third, but unfortunately the bread still tastes too sweet.

However, I do have something of a solution. Many times I have used my breadmaker to knead and rise a "normal" loaf but not bake it. That is to say, I've used the recipe for normal, hand-baked bread, set the breadmaker to it's setting for pizza dough or bread rolls, waited for the beep, removed the risen dough, punched it down, popped it in a bread tin, given it its second rise and baked it conventionally. This has worked well for me, but you must remember to put the ingredients in the breadmaker in the order that the manufacturer of the machine recommends *and* double up on the amount of yeast needed in the hand baking recipe.

Hand Made Bread

I like making my bread by hand...generally! Sometimes I love to knead it for ten minutes and sometimes I think that kneading is a complete bind. Anyway, I have developed some useful tips for successful hand baking...and here they are!

• If you warm the flour through on the lowest setting of your oven for ten minutes before you start to make your bread, you will only have to knead the bread for three minutes rather than ten or fifteen.
• There *is* a difference between easy blend yeast and normal dried yeast so read the instructions on the packet really carefully. One you can mix as a powder into the flour and one will have to be dissolved in warm liquid. I have found this out personally, much to my cost!
• Always cover your dough with either a damp tea towel or some oiled cling film whilst it's rising. If you don't your dough will form a crust and not rise as well as it should.
• For a quick rise you can place your dough in an oven which is still cooling down after use, keep the door open though as very strong heat will kill the yeast. Or place it in an airing cupboard or in a sink full of warm water...or just by a radiator. Be patient though as it will take at least an hour.
• My friend Simmy, from Echoes of a Dream bakes her bread under a large ceramic bowl. This is a tip she got from Elizabeth David and it does in fact, make for a better rise.

What is your experience of bread making? Do you have any tips that you'd like to share?