Apricot, walnut and honey loaf cake

I love a tea loaf. And anything that involves honey and walnuts tends to catch my eye - since I began dabbling in beekeeping I've always failed to keep up with the honey supplies (I read in a beekeeping book that beekeepers tend to start because of the bees and stop because of the honey - it struck a chord); and we have an epic quantity of walnuts dropping every autumn, that it is hard to keep up with. So I liked the look of this one - also because I liked the idea of cake as a vehicle for cheese...

I convinced s to help me make it this windy sunday afternoon.

150 g honey
100 g light brown sugar
250 g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
50 g oats

150 g dried apricots

2 eggs
125 ml black tea, cooled if possible

150 g golden sultanas (used mix of these and raisins)
50 g walnuts

Heat oven to 160C. Grease and line loaf tin. Gently warm the honey and sugar in a small saucepan, without stirring, until the sugar has dissolved. Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and oats in a large bowl. Cut the apricots into small pieces and stir them in. Break the eggs into a small bowl, beat lightly with a fork.

Pour the warm honey and sugar mixture into the flour together with the tea and the beaten eggs. Then fold the golden sultanas and walnuts into the batter. Scoop the mixture, which will be soft and runny, like a gingerbread batter, into the lined tin.

Bake for 60-75 min until risen and lightly springy (mine seemed perfect at 60 min). Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin.

 

It fit perfectly in my regular sized loaf tin.

Chocolate biscuit cake

I have made chocolate biscuit cake before, it's a classic. This one is slightly different - not necessarily vegan, and didn't add milk/cream. Approximately followed this recipe.

This turns out to be an excellent use-up recipe - it came to mind because I had a pack of biscuits I knew I wouldn't eat before they got old, and then some chocolate that was either too milky or I wasn't that into for another reason, and then some ends of packets of dried fruit and nuts got in there, the end of a pack of butter and a bit of coconut oil, even a few green tea biscuits (these last not entirely recommended)...

250 g / 8 oz biscuits (used mostly havrekiks = oat biscuits, recommended; and threw in a few green tea biscuits, not so recommended)
300 g / 10 oz chocolate (mix of milk and dark is OK, I favour the dark)
100 g / 3 1/2 oz butter (or margarine, or coconut oil)
150 g / 5 oz golden syrup
175 g / 6 oz dried fruit (used a mix of cranberries, chopped crystallized ginger, chopped apricots and raisins; all recommended)
60 g / 2 oz roughly chopped nuts (used a mix of pecans and hazelnuts; both recommended)

Line a 20 cm / 8 in square tin with cling film, leaving extra hanging over the edges. Put the biscuits in a bag and bash to pieces with a rolling pin.

Melt chocolate, butter and golden syrup together in a medium bowl (large enough for all ingredients) over a pan of hot water. When all is liquid and smooth, take the bowl off the heat and mix in the bashed biscuits, dried fruit and nuts. Spoon into the prepared tin and press down / level off. Let cool to room temperature, then put in the fridge for at least 1-2 hours. Then turn them out, peel off the cling film and cut into squares. Store in the fridge.


It is very rich so small pieces are sufficient. This makes a lot - a half quantity would be a good amount for our household. But I am thinking it should freeze well, so put about half in the freezer - let's see how that goes.

If I make this again, I think I'd try reducing the golden syrup, and using coconut oil instead of butter and less of that too - it is maybe a little too sweet for my taste; and starts to get a wee bit melty quite quickly when it comes to room temp.

Baking with Honey II: Cinnamon honey fruitcake

This was the second of my two cakes last weekend featuring honey (I wanted to have one to keep at home as well as one to take to C's). It uses a lot of dried fruit - we had quite a lot around, I don't think I've been eating as much of it as usual. The recipe was one I'd cut out of the Guardian years ago, and caught my eye when I was browsing my ancient recipe folder. I'd never made it, but why not now? It's one of Dan Lepard's - I used to really like his recipe column.
 
200 g raisins
200 g dried apricots, chopped
200 g dried figs or prunes, chopped
75 g light soft brown sugar
75 g unsalted butter, softened
75 g honey
50 g treacle
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 large eggs
75 ml brandy or cold tea (used a mixture of honey rum and cold Earl Grey)
200 g plain flour
1½ tsp baking powder

Line the base and sides of a 20 cm round cake tin with baking parchment. Weigh out the fruit. Substitute depending what you like / what you have in the cupboard - and include 100 g whole almonds if you like (I used a mixture of dates, apricots, raisins, sultanas and figs).

Heat the oven to 170C/325F/gas mark 3. Beat together the sugar, butter, honey, treacle, cinnamon and one of the eggs until creamy and smooth. Add the other egg, along with the brandy or tea, and beat well. The mixture will look dark and curdled, but for this fruit cake that's quite all right.

Mix the flour and baking powder with a fork, then fold the flour mixture into the fruit and nut mixture until evenly combined. Spoon into the tin, smooth the top, and bake for about an hour and a half.

Apple, apricot and walnut loaf cake

This is a Delia classic, as well as being a Sher classic and the first cake S ever made for me. I can't quite believe I didn't write it out on here but it looks like I haven't... It is simple, although it does take a little time to prepare the ingredients (nut toasting, chopping fruit etc), and a fairly long time in the oven (up to 2 hours). But it's very versatile (lots of fruit, nut, flour, sugar variations possible), and a great way of using one or two old apples. This time I actually used some marzipan instead of about 2/3 of the nuts (did not toast, obv), and that was well tasty. I also added marzipan to apple crumble topping last week (I had a whole marzipan pig begging to be eaten), which caught a little but I think is in principle an excellent and delicious idea.

For the cake:
175 g pecan nuts (used walnuts)
110 g wholemeal flour
110 g plain flour
pinch of salt
1½ tsp baking powder
2 rounded tsp ground cinnamon
110 g spreadable butter
175 g light brown soft sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
3 tbsp milk (plus a little extra if needed)
175 g ready-to-eat dried apricots, each chopped in half
175 g Bramley apples, cored and cut into 1 cm chunks with the skin on

For the topping:
2 tbsp demerara sugar
¼ tsp ground cinnamon

Heat the oven to 180C. Grease and line a 2 lb loaf tin. When the oven is ready, spread the nuts on a baking sheet and toast for about 8 min. Remove them to a chopping board, let cool a bit, then chop roughly.

Meanwhile sift the flours, salt, baking powder and cinnamon into a large mixing bowl. Then add the rest of the ingredients except the fruit and nuts. Using an electric hand whisk, beat slowly then increase the speed to mix everything thoroughly til smooth. Fold in the apricots, apples and pecans. When everything’s folded in, add a drop more milk if necessary to give a mixture that drops easily off the spoon when you give it a sharp tap. Pile the mixture into the lined tin and level the top. Combine the cinnamon and sugar together in a small bowl, then sprinkle over the cake.

Bake the loaf in the centre of the oven for about an hour, then cover loosely with a piece of foil and leave to bake for a further 15–30 min or until the cake feels springy in the centre and a skewer comes out clean. Remove from the oven and let cool for about 15 min before turning out onto a wire cooling rack.

Acorn squash with pecans and birch syrup

Ever since I bought birch syrup I had been meaning to make something with it that really let it shine. As autumn rolled around squash appeared, and reminded me of a recipe I'd seen in a leaflet that came with the birch syrup. This is an approximation, filtered through my memory, S's ideas, and what we had in the kitchen.

2 small acorn squash, cut in half and seeds removed
~ 2 tbsp chopped pecans
1 apple, cored and finely chopped (or use dried apricots, soaked for 10 min in hot water)
1/2 tbsp olive oil
~ 2 tbsp birch syrup
salt+pepper

Heat the oven to 400F. Lightly grease a baking sheet then put the squash halves on it, cut side up. Mix the rest of the ingredients together in a bowl, then scoop into the hollows left by removing the squash seeds, distributing between the four halves. Put in the oven and bake for 30-45 min, until the squash is soft right through and lightly browned. Take it out and devour.


It's somewhere between real food and a pudding, sweetly lovely.

Hamantaschen (vegan and gluten-free)

L-R: normal dough with prune-poppyseed filling, GF dough with apricot-almond filling, GF dough with spiced fig-cocoa filling

Before I came to the US I knew little about Jewish culture. Then we moved into a historically Jewish neighbourhood (our nearest shops are a Jewish bakery and a Jewish butchery; most of the businesses around here close on Saturdays). And I discovered that really quite many of the people I'd befriended here are Jewish. However much they do or don't practice the rest of the year, they've done a good job of educating me about important festivals (and the food involved). My friend A in particular (my partner in baking for awesome cakes) has invited us for her version of Passover and Rosh Hashanah celebrations every year, and also fed me my first Hamantaschen.

Ever since I tried Hamantaschen I wanted to make them, and to make them vegan (and GF so my friends A+H can eat them). They are basically a free-standing jam tart, folded into a triangular shape, with some sort of fruity or seedy filling in the middle. They are traditionally eaten for Purim.  Loosely, Purim: is 'like the Jewish Halloween' ie people get dressed up; you're supposed to get so drunk you forget the difference between good and evil (or something like that); Haman is a villain involved somewhere; Hamantaschen are supposed to represent Haman's hat (?). Purim is always around this time of year, although it varies and this year it was actually late February, when I was very much distracted by Pancake Day and S's birthday, so I didn't get around to Hamantaschen until I was reminded by this post - it seemed like exactly the recipe I had been dreaming of. I decided to follow the recipe to ensure success for some, and make a series of deviations for others.

Normal dough
(makes 20-25 - taken from this recipe)
1/3 cup coconut oil (solid state)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup almond milk
1/2 tsp lemon zest
2 tsp vanilla essence
1 7/8 cups flour
1 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Gluten-free dough
(makes 20-25)
1/3 cup coconut oil (solid state)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup almond milk
1 3/4 tsp vanilla essence
1/8 tsp almond essence
1/2 cup almond meal
3/4 cup gluten-free oat flour
1/2 cup rice flour
1/4 cup glutinous rice flour
1 tbsp chickpea flour
3 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp xanthan gum

Prune and poppyseed filling*:
4 oz dried prunes, chopped
1/8 cup poppyseeds
1/8 cup sugar
1 tbsp rum
1 tbsp orange juice
water

Apricot and almond filling*:
4 oz dried apricots, chopped
1/8 cup almonds, finely chopped
1/8 cup sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp rum
water

Spiced fig and cocoa filling*:
(inspired by the delicious Fichi Girotti (stuffed fig sweetmeats) we ate in the town of Amelia in Italy)
4 oz dried figs, chopped
1/8 cup walnuts, finely chopped
1/8 cup sugar
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp mahlab
2 tbsp candied orange peel
1/2 tsp orange zest
1/8 tsp almond essence
1 tbsp rum
water

* Each filling recipe given here makes enough to fill approx 1/3 of the total from the combined GF + normal dough quantities above. Other alternative fillings are any kind of jam, thick stewed fruit, nutella, anything you like really.

To make dough, beat the coconut oil and sugar together in a mixing bowl with a fork until well combined (will still be a bit crumbly). Warm the milk to about hand hot and add it to the bowl gradually, beating to incorporate. Add in the essence(s) and zest (if using). Separately, mix together the flour(s), cornstarch, baking powder and salt (and xanthan gum if using) with a fork. Add about half of the flour mix to the oil mix and beat until combined. Then add the rest of the flour and mix until a stiff dough is formed. It will still be a little soft. Wrap the ball(s) (make two if doing a double quantity of either dough) in clingfilm and put in the fridge for 30-60 min.

In the meantime, make the filling(s). Put the dried fruit in a small pan with the nuts or seeds, sugar and any dried spices. Measure the liquid ingredients into a measuring cup and make the quantity of liquid up to 1/4 cup by adding water, then add the liquid to the pan. Cover and simmer until the dried fruit are soft and squishy. Add more water if it seems to be getting too thick - it should end up like a thick jam.

Preheat the oven to 350F. Line two or more baking sheets with baking paper. Flour a clean surface, then take a ball of dough out of the fridge, remove clingfilm and roll out to about 3mm thick. Cut into circles about 3 inches diameter (I used a Coke glass). Put a tsp of filling in the centre of a dough circle, then fold up three sides to create a shape like a tricorn hat, pinching the corners together tightly. Repeat for all the circles, moving the completed tricorns to the baking sheet when done. Gather the excess dough and roll out again to make more circles and continue with the process until all the tricorns are filled. Bake the biscuits for 18-20 minutes, checking and rotating the sheets after 10 min. The bases will colour golden, but the tops will remain quite pale. Cool on a wire rack.


My favourites of all these variants were the GF dough with apricot filling - if you were going to make one kind of dough and one kind of filling that's what I would recommend. The GF dough held its shape much better than the normal one - I think mainly because it puffed up less. Half to two thirds of the normal dough ones came undone at the corners while cooking, and where I'd used a runnier filling especially they ended up as circular cookies covered in jam. In those cases, plenty of jam slid off onto the baking sheet and I was very glad I'd lined the sheets with paper - would have been a huge pain to clean otherwise.

All in all, I thought these were great (they took me a while to make, but that would be much reduced if you stuck to one kind of dough and one kind of filling). And all the ones I took to a seed swap this morning disappeared (a particular hit with one little girl), so they seemed to be a success. There's loads of scope for varying the recipe (even more than I did already) - was thinking a savoury version might make a great canape. I love the cleverness of the simple folding - you can make an open tart without needing any kind of a baking mold.

Orange-coloured food (giant couscous with apricots + rose harissa)

Turns out I am in the mood for orange-coloured food: lunch today is this apricot couscous, plus pumpkin salad, plus a raw carrot (have run out of fruit).  Perhaps I will turn orange.
This recipe is basically Nigel Slater's from here.  Was very keen to use some of the rose harissa I bought the other day.  With apricots sounded good - used dried not fresh - quite fancied the dried fruit : couscous combination.


150g giant couscous
300ml hot water / veg stock
olive oil
2 onions, finely chopped
5 green cardamom pods, lightly crushed
1 clove garlic, finely sliced
10-15 dried apricots, roughly chopped
2 tsp rose harissa
1/2 a lemon, juice and zest
~3 tbsp parsley, chopped
salt

Bring water to the boil in a saucepan, then add the couscous and boil for ~10 min.  Drain and refresh, then put in a bowl and toss with a little olive oil.

Meanwhile, heat some olive oil in a frying pan and cook the onions, garlic and cardamom  pods until the onions are soft and pale.  Add the lemon zest and the apricots and cook for a few minutes more.

Add the apricot mixture to the couscous.  Mix the lemon juice in a bowl with the harissa, then add to the couscous.  Finally, add the parsley, mix well and taste for seasoning.


Mmhmm.  That worked.  Not spectacular but pleasant and interesting and subtle.  Not blown away by  my fancy rose harissa - can't really taste the rose.  Perhaps I overpowered it, will have to try again.