Mandarin and hazelnut cake

For my birthday, S wanted to make me a cake. He asked for a suggestion. I asked my friend H, who is an excellent baker and shares many food interests with me. Specifically, I asked her for something easy, delicious, and that I had not tried before.

 

She suggested this one, S made it, and it ticked all the boxes. Not only that, it also felt very seasonal, with the oranges and hazelnuts - and was easy to transport, and kept well! And was perfect for a morning cake when I took a bit to work for work birthday celebration on the next workday after my birthday, which was a bit of a ghost ship day and I wanted to leave before lunch - I took some skyr to go with it and it had a lovely Christmas-brunch vibe for the few people I scraped together.

 

I would definitely make this again. I'd be tempted to try some variations as well - H suggested using ground almonds instead of hazelnuts; we have plenty of walnuts; how about swapping out the ginger for cardamom (inspired by this)? Lemons instead of oranges?

Note: S says he used cup measurements for everything except the hazelnuts - but then he would have been using US cups (240 ml = 1 cup) instead of AU cups (250 ml = 1 cup). So his version may have been slightly unique.

For the cake:
3 organic mandarins (about 95 g each), washed, unpeeled
4 eggs
270 g sugar (1 1/4 AU cups)

90 g melted butter
400 g hazelnut meal (ground hazelnuts)
75 g plain flour (1/2 AU cup)

2 tsp finely grated ginger
⅓ tsp baking powder

pinch of salt 

For the syrup:
220 g sugar (1 AU cup)

125 ml mandarin juice (1/2 AU cup)

1 tbsp julienne ginger
4 mandarins, peeled and thickly sliced crossways
Juice of ½ lemon

Heat oven to 160C and butter and flour a 12cm x 20cm loaf tin (he used our standard sized loaf tin). Place mandarins in a saucepan, cover with plenty of water, bring to the boil and cook until soft (20-25 min). 

 

Drain, cool and chop (discard seeds), then purée in a blender or food processor.

 

Whisk eggs and sugar until pale and fluffy (3-4 min in an electric mixer, which would be ideal if we had one). Fold in mandarin purée and butter, then fold in hazelnut meal, flour, ginger, baking powder and a pinch of salt. Spoon into prepared tin, smooth top and bake until golden brown and a skewer inserted withdraws clean (1-1¼ hours). Turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

 

For mandarin and ginger syrup, combine sugar, mandarin juice and 125 ml water in a saucepan over medium-high heat and bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve sugar, then add the ginger and simmer until translucent and a light syrup forms (6-8 min). Stir in mandarin slices and lemon juice, remove from heat and leave to cool.

 

Serve cake with mandarin and ginger syrup spooned on top. We did this per slice, and I think this was good, as the cake could have gone a bit soggy when stored if you did the whole thing at once - also this way you could have as much or as little syrup as you wanted, and try it without the syrup (almost as good!). I also really liked it with some skyr or greek yoghurt.

 

Cake will keep stored in an airtight container for 3 days - or longer in the fridge. Store the syrup separately.

Blackberry and apple cake

Everything is open now, and time has started to fly. We've had a beautiful patch of warm, sunny weather lately, but it feels like the prelude to autumn nonetheless - a touch of chill underneath. We made a couple of blackberry picking forays while still on holidays a few weeks ago... I realized now the season was drawing to a close already... I dreamed of blackberry and apple cake, and this one fitted my dream perfectly. So I went blackberry picking once more. 

 

I joined a new bee group, and there is a patch of brambles around the beehives, and you need a key to access where they are, so it's a good picking spot. The key wasn't where it was supposed to be, so I had to sneak in the back way - and the brambles were almost done. But I picked half a box. Turned out when I got back, I'd picked almost exactly the right amount for the cake. I'd also picked up the apples from a box outside someone's house.

 

for the cake: 

2 small dessert apples 

half a lemon 

150 g blackberries 

150 g butter 

150 g golden caster sugar (or half caster, half muscovado) 

3 eggs 

85 g plain flour 

1.5 tsp baking powder 

100 g ground hazelnuts (whole ones, ground)

 

for the crumble: 

50 g butter

50 g plain flour 

60 g golden caster sugar 

2 heaped tbsp rolled oats 

pinch of cinnamon (optional)

 

Heat the oven to 180C. Grease and line a big loaf tin. 

 

Peel and quarter the apples, core them and then slice them thinly. Squeeze lemon juice over them, and then mix with the blackberries. 

 

Beat the sugar and butter together until light and smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time. 

 

Put the flour and baking powder together in a small bowl, add the ground hazelnuts, and mix well with a fork. Stir in to the mixture in two or three lots. 

 

Transfer the batter to the tin, smooth, and scatter the apple and blackberry mixture over the top, pushing some of the fruit lightly down into it. 

 

Make the crumble by rubbing the flour and butter together, and stirring in the sugar, oats and cinnamon. 

 

Scatter the crumble on top of the cake and bake for about an hour until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out moist but fairly clean.  Check after 30 and 45 min, and if the crumble browns on top too quickly, then cover with a piece of foil while the cake finishes cooking through.

 

Remove from the oven when done and let cool completely on a baking rack before removing from the tin and taking off the paper.

Mine took about 65 min to bake. The fruit dripped a little bit over the edge (my loaf tin was rather full) - might be worth lining the oven shelf underneath to catch sugary drips.

 

It was really really good though. The hazelnuts in the base are genius - they add so much depth of flavour and texture, and go really well with the blackberry and apple. I made a similar cake not long ago without the blackberries and hazelnuts - this one is superior (and didn't overflow my loaf tin quite as much).

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.

Fresh hazelnuts / cherry bowl

The hedgerows are full of hazelnuts, and the frugt og gront shops have them too, fleetingly. I never ate a fresh hazelnut before. They are much softer and easier to crack. The texture is giving; taste mild. Might be interesting ground to a paste, but so far have done nothing but crack'n'snack... And look at them: so pretty!

Stuffed vine leaves

S+I used to make these a lot. We disagree over the origin - I remembered adapting them from a Delia recipe (where she made them similar to below, but then cooked them in tomato sauce which didn't work for us at all); he claims he's been making them since he was a kid from his German vegetarian cookbook. But then a couple of half-used packages of vine leaves languished in the fridge so long we didn't buy any more for ages. It's quite easy to find vine leaves in brine in Turkish shops. We also tried with fresh ones, and the process is similar - soaking in hot water to cook and soften a bit, rather than to rinse off salt.

We thought of these after feeling a bit like we didn't put in enough effort when we took cauliflower and breadcrumbs to the last work veggie lunch. Once a month we have a potluck lunch with other veggies in our Department. It's kind of a challenge thinking of something that is fun and tasty, travels well in a backpack on a bike, can sit in a box from the night before until lunchtime, and can easily be shared. Today's lunch was supposed to be a picnic, adding the extra challenge of eating outside, possibly without cutlery. These really rise to all those challenges! Sadly the weather didn't though - it looks like lunch will be indoors.

(makes about 30)

2 cups rice (any kind is OK), cooked in 4 cups water
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
6 mushrooms, roughly chopped
handful hazelnuts, roughly chopped
handful sunflower seeds
handful raisins
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp dried oregano
handful fresh parsley, chopped
2 tomatoes, chopped
2 tbsp tomato puree
salt+pepper
About half a jar of vine leaves in brine

Cook the rice and let it cool while you prepare the rest of the ingredients. Heat the oil in a large frying pan. Add the onion and garlic and cook until starting to soften. Add the mushrooms and cook until they are browned. Add the hazelnuts and sunflower seeds and cook to toast a little. Add the cooked cooled rice, along with the raisins, cinnamon, oregano, parsley, tomatoes and tomato puree. Mix well and cook over a medium heat to try and get a little colour and crispy patches on the rice. Season with salt and pepper to taste (remember the brine leaves are well salty if they are in brine so don't go nuts with the salt). When done, remove from the heat and let cool about half an hour or longer.

When ready to assemble, fill a large bowl or pan with nearly-boiling water (just cool enough to put your hand in). Take vine leaves from the package, check they are reasonably intact, and soak in the hot water for five minutes or so to rinse off some of the salt. Then remove, lay flat on a plate or board, with the stem end nearest you. Dollop 1-2 tbsp (depending on the size of the leaf) just next to the stem, then fold the leaves around it at the base and roll up towards the leaf tip. You should end up with a neat cylindrical package. Repeat until you run out of rice mixture or of leaves. They will keep in a box in the fridge for up to a week, and can be eaten cold or at room temperature.

Warm beluga lentil salad with tomato, parsley and feta

A bag of beluga lentils was an impulse buy at my current favourite shop in Copenhagen, a Turkish grocer's in the southerly part of Norrebro. They were the same price as the other lentils, that's why: I think I'd always thought of them as the fancy expensive kind of lentils so the level pricing clinched the deal...

When I cooked them I saw why they have a reputation. They hold their shape well, and like forbidden/black/purple rice they develop a wonderfully deep dark purplish black colour (hence beluga). Good solid earthy taste too.

My go-to for lentils of the brown-green-black varieties is to turn them into a quick salad, with some elements of spices (coriander, cumin, cinnamon, paprika, chilli, sumac are favourites), olive oil, acid (balsamic vinegar or lemon juice), herbs (coriander, chives, parsley, mint), powerful flavour pockets (sundried tomatoes, capers, caramelized onions+garlic, olives), crunch (toasted seeds or chopped nuts), and probably something a bit creamy (thick yoghurt, tahini, feta) and something fresh (chopped tomatoes, leaves, maybe cucumber). I thought I must have written out a million of these salads on here, but on checking found not that many. Endless variants possible!

The beluga lentils were so pretty and tasty I wanted to keep it relatively simple, so cut back on spices etc and made a salad with just some basic components.

1 cup beluga lentils cooked with a bay leaf and a couple of peeled cloves of garlic in 1 3/4 cups water
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1-2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
salt+pepper
2 tbsp chopped parsley
6 medium-small tomatoes, chopped (or sundried tomatoes)
2 cm lump of feta, crumbled
2 tbsp chopped hazelnuts (optional)

Cook the beluga lentils with bay leaf and garlic. They should take about 15-20 min. When done (slight bite remaining, no liquid left), mix the oil, vinegar, salt and pepper in the bottom of a serving bowl, tip the lentils in and mix together. Taste to check seasoning. Once they have cooled a little, add parsley, tomatoes and feta and toss. Add hazelnuts if using, check seasoning, and serve.


Very pretty: purple lentils, white feta, red tomatoes, green parsley. And just as tasty as its more complicated relatives.

Chocolate raspberry hazelnut muffins

All weekend I was resisting a craving to cook, all the time... We had pretty epic evening plans: Friday was dissection party followed by cabaret in the Dome of Visions. Saturday was Sonar Copenhagen (Zebra Katz!). So daytimes needed to be a bit chilled. It wasn't quite as sunny as some days recently, so cooking and chilling didn't seem like a bad use of time.

Biggest part of the craving was baking-related. I am very much hooked on anything with chocolate, hazelnut and/or raspberry at the moment. So made these muffins, with all three. Hazelnuts just on top, as I find they are wasted mixed inside a cake. Had been a while since I baked anything with egg, and these are appropriately light and fluffy. Slightly adapted this recipe.

(makes 12)

200 g / 7 oz plain flour (used about 70:30 plain and white spelt)
25 g cocoa powder
15 g / 1 tbsp baking powder
115 g / 4 oz sugar
100 g dark chocolate, chopped (used 50 g)
2 medium eggs, beaten
150 ml / ¼ pt milk (used yoghurt mixed with water 50:50)
115 g / 4 oz butter (used coconut oil), melted
200 g / 7 oz raspberries (skimped a bit)
2 tbsp chopped hazelnuts

Heat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/GM 4. Prepare a muffin tin. Sift the flour, cocoa and baking powder into a bowl. Stir in the sugar and chocolate nd make a well in the centre. Mix the eggs, milk, and melted coconut oil/butter together and pour into the well, then stir until just combined. Fold in the raspberries. Spoon the batter into the muffin cases. Sprinkle chopped hazelnuts on top of each one. Bake for about 25 min, until a skewer comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack. Best still warm from the oven, but still good when cooled.


Hit the spot, predictably. Very light and tender.

Dukkah

One of our best food finds in Copenhagen so far has been Sticks n Sushi. The name didn't sound that promising but there was one near work and I'd read that they had some good veggie stuff, so S and I decided to check it out one lunchtime, and call it research for the interviews he was hosting soon for people in his new lab (!).

It was empty that first time, but really really good once we got going. We ate a veggie selection (I think called the Greens Keeper), and it had a bit of creative veggie sushi, some unusual summer rolls, grilled corn on the cob and edamame in pods, and something really simple but delicious: sticks of sweet raw veg, with a miso dip and a sort of a dukkah of poppyseeds and something red - so you dunk the veggie stick in the miso stuff then the dukkah so the seeds etc stick. Really fresh and tasty...

(nb they had exactly my kind of puddings too: little tasty things. I tried a caramel covered in dark chocolate with sesame seeds on the outside and it was gooood)

So anyway, we went there again the other evening and ate that dip/dukkah thing again, and I started thinking about dukkah, and how M gave me some she'd made a while back and it was yummy and fennel seed-y and I put it on everythingggg. And then I made broccoli with miso sauce and seeds, and realised the world was telling me to make dukkah. So then I did. I thought Ottolenghi would probably have a good way of doing it, and I had hazelnuts left over from S's birthday cake, so I followed this recipe (subbing black pepper for green because I didn't have green and I think I like black better anyway).

70 g hazelnuts
2 tbsp sunflower seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tbsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp dry green peppercorns (or white... used black)
3 tbsp coriander seeds
1½ tbsp sesame seeds
½ tsp nigella seeds
½ tsp sea salt
1 tsp paprika

Heat the oven to 140C/285F/gas mark 1. Spread the hazelnuts on a baking tray and place in the oven for 20 minutes. Add the sunflower seeds to the tray halfway through, keeping them separate from the nuts. Remove from the oven and leave to cool while you toast the seeds.

Heat a small frying pan, then dry-roast the fennel seeds for 30 seconds. Add the cumin seeds and cook for another 30 seconds, or until they start to pop, then tip both into a little bowl. Put the pan back on the heat, toast the coriander seeds, and tip into the same bowl.

Toast the sesame and nigella seeds together until the sesame turns light brown, then tip into another small bowl.

Rub the hazelnuts to discard some of the skin. Crush coarsely with a pestle and mortar, then transfer to a medium bowl. Lightly crush the cumin and fennel seeds, and add to the hazelnuts. Repeat with the coriander seeds, then the sunflower seeds. Add these to the nut bowl, along with the ground black pepper, sesame and nigella seeds, add salt and paprika, and mix well.


I ate it with celeriac puree made like this, and it was truly delicious, either on bread, with pasta, or just the dukkah and the puree. After making this I remembered making dukkah once before, that time slightly different (I really wanted the fennel seeds this time), and eaten with baked squash.

S's birthday: chocolate hazelnut (nutella) cake

With all the moving and then the moving again, S's birthday kind of crept up on me this year. I remembered about making a cake middle of this last week and cast around for inspiration... He likes nuts... Decided on chocolate hazelnut, partly inspired by seeing this recipe - she has the same squirrel biscuit cutter as we do! Partly, I just realised, by a nutella-filled croissant I ate (and loved, when usually I can take or leave croissants) at brunch the other day.

I followed that same recipe for the cake part - we had milk and eggs left over from making pancakes so it seemed like an excellent use of them (especially wanted to use up the milk, we never get through milk, even when it is in European size cartons).

Then I spotted nutella in the supermarket (another thing I've always had a soft spot for but couldn't have when being vegan^, and decided to go rogue and nutella-based for the icing. Goodness knows I've had sooo many icing disasters, but still always seem to think I can just chuck stuff in a bowl and make it up as I go along...
DR
Our current apartment has all these mod cons, like microwave and food processor - so I could grind nuts in processor, melt choc in microwave etc. Got to admit it felt quite labour saving!

(makes a rather massive 2 layer, ~8 in round cake)

For the cake:
3/4 cup hazelnuts
1 3/4 cup sugar
2 1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
good pinch of salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup veg oil
1 heaping tsp coffee granules dissolves in 3/4 cup boiling water

For the icing / decoration:
1/4 cup hazelnuts, plus 3
~25 g butter, softened
~1/4 cup icing sugar
1/2 jar nutella
75 g 70% chocolate, melted
1/2 tsp coffee granules
~2 tbsp plain yoghurt

Heat the oven to 175C / 350F. Grease and line a high-sided 8 in cake tin with removable base*. Grind 3/4 cup hazelnuts in a food processor until quite fine, then transfer into a large mixing bowl. Put the 1/4 cup hazelnuts for the decoration on a baking sheet and toast for about 10 min in the oven as it warms up, then set aside to cool. Add sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, bicarb and salt to the ground hazelnuts and whisk together. In a separate, medium-sized bowl, beat together the eggs, milk and oil. Add this mixture to the dry ingredients and mix until well combined. Add the hot coffee and mix again. It is a pretty runny cake mixture. Pour into the prepared tin and transfer to the oven. Bake for about 60 min (start checking at 45 min)*. It is done when a skewer comes out clean. Take out of the oven and let sit for 10-15 min before turning out onto a cooling rack and leaving until completely cool.

While the cake is baking prepare the icing and decoration. Beat the butter and icing sugar together until smooth, then add the nutella. Add the melted chocolate and coffee, beat some more, add the yoghurt and beat until well combined. At room temperature it is quite soft but it goes hard in the fridge, so you can try and optimise the consistency for when you assemble the cake. Keep it in the fridge while the cake cools. Rub most of the skins off the toasted hazelnuts, then transfer them to the food processor and process just a little, until roughly chopped. Transfer to a bowl and keep until ready to assemble.

To assemble the cake, first trim and even out the top (mine was pretty craggy and high)*. Then cut through the middle parallel to the base to make two layers. Put the bottom layer on a plate, then spread half of the icing onto it (if the icing is too solid you can heat it a little in the microwave but be careful not to overheat). Put the other half of the cake on top and spread the rest of the icing over that. This is enough icing for the middle and top but not to go down the sides - I don't like too much icing and quite like to see the layers. Place the squirrel cutter gently in the middle of the cake and carefully sprinkle the chopped toasted hazelnuts all around it, so that the top of the cake is covered in chopped nuts except for the silhouette of the squirrel. Pack the nuts down around the edges of the cutter then carefully remove the cutter. You should be left with a neat squirrel silhouette. I put an appropriately sized and shaped piece of nut to be his eye, and then arranged three whole hazelnuts as if he might be holding / chasing them.

^Actually, I just noticed the Fotex brand nutella (which tastes just like the real thing to me) is actually vegan. Go Denmark! So it would be dead easy to make this icing vegan. In fact, I think it would be just fine to use straight nutella as the icing...
*Original recipe called for two tins, but I had one so that's what I used. Using two would be preferable as it would significantly reduce baking time (to more like 30 min) and give more even rising.


Actually, the icing worked really well. I wanted the yoghurt and coffee to lighten the nutella and add some sour / bitter. And the chocolate to deepen and richen, and also add some bitterness and thickness. Think it worked. And mmm nutella. It was kind of a conscious decision to cover the top with nuts as I always think chocolate icing can look a bit like poo. But also I just ended up with quite a lot of chopped nuts and felt the need to use them all. I'd kind of intended to just use them to fill in the squirrel shape originally. Or without a squirrel cutter could have made a paper template or just covered the whole top with chopped nuts. S said it's like Ferrero Rocher. This is true, although it hadn't occurred to me until he said it. Perhaps unwrapped Ferrero Rochers would make good decorations if you didn't want to go the squirrel route.

Note: I wanted to make a proper cakey cake this time, but for a flourless style nutella cake this Nigella one looks delicious.

Spring pizza

Ramps were the one I hadn't tried in the Northeast Spring trinity (the other two in the trinity being fiddleheads and morels). They are essentially wild leeks, and while they grow in other places too people seems to be particularly nuts about them around here. I'd given up hope of eating ramps this year: Spring is basically over, and I thought my last chance had come and gone in Philly. But then they were selling them in the canteen at work (about the last place I would have expected!): they weren't in the best nick but good enough and I couldn't resist, so I bought a bunch.

But then, what to do with them? I settled on pizza as a good way of extending a small quantity of a fancy ingredient. I decided they would go well with hazelnuts, but otherwise wanted to keep that one simple. But figured we would need more than one pizza, so made enough dough and a second pizza with a riot of colourful (mostly green) Spring tastes on it. I wanted to explore a few more things regarding pizza: hoping for a good, quickish dough recipe, using 00 flour (bought by accident a while ago when looking for pasta flour, but probably perfect for pizza?), pre-heating our cast-iron pan / sliding prepped pizza onto hot pan, and freezing dough for future use. Decided to try out Jamie Oliver's recipe, as it contained both 00, semolina and olive oil, all of which seemed right in pizza, and also it proves in one hour (not unreasonable).

For the dough:
(makes enough for 4 smallish or 3 bigger pizzas)
3 1/2 cups strong white bread flour / 00 flour
(or 2 1/2 cups strong white bread flour / 00 flour plus 1 cup finely ground semolina flour (pasta flour))
1/2 tbsp fine sea / desert salt
1 3/4 tbsp dried yeast
1/2 tbsp raw sugar
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 1/4 cups lukewarm water

Toppings for ramp pizza:
~4 tbsp tomato puree
1 tsp dandelion-ramp miso
1 tsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp olive oil
salt and pepper
1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 bunch (5) ramps, cleaned, trimmed, separated into bulbs and leaves and chopped
~8 hazelnuts, toasted and chopped (add after baking)

Toppings for green pizza:
1/2 cup frozen broad beans (without jackets), defrosted
1/2 cup frozen peas, defrosted
1-2 tbsp mint leaves
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 tsp lemon juice
salt+pepper
1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 small bulb fresh spring garlic, trimmed and chopped (including green parts)
bunch of spring greens: nasturtium leaves, radish leaves, rocket leaves, roughly chopped (~1 cup when chopped)
5 black olives, de-pitted and chopped
1 tbsp sunflower seeds
1 piece of dry tofu, thinly sliced
flowers from 2 chive flowerheads (add after baking)

Mix the flours (I used the mixture of 00 and semolina) and salt with a fork, then dump on a clean work surface and make a well in the middle. In a large measuring jug, mix the yeast, sugar and olive oil into the water and leave for a few minutes. Add some of the liquid mix to the well, then bring in the flour, continuing to add the liquid and bring in the flour gradually until you have used all the liquid and the dough starts to come together. Knead for about 10 min, until the dough is smooth and springy. Put the ball of dough in a large flour-dusted bowl, cover with a damp cloth and leave somewhere warm for about 1 hour until the dough has doubled in size.

Meanwhile, prepare the toppings. For the ramp pizza, mix together the tomato puree, vinegar, 1 tsp olive oil, salt+pepper and miso, then thin with a little water until a good spreading consistency. Heat 1/2 tbsp olive oil in a frying pan, then add the white parts of the ramps and fry for a few minutes until starting to soften. Add green parts, season and fry for a minute or two more until wilted. For the green pizza, put the broad beans, peas, mint, 1 tsp olive oil, salt+pepper and lemon juice in a blender cup and blend until they become a smooth, green puree. Cook the garlic and spring greens together as for the ramps, adding the garlic first and then the greens.

Punch down the dough. Divide the dough into 3-4 balls (one per pizza). You can either use it immediately, or keep it, wrapped in clingfilm, in the fridge (or freezer) until required (I used two balls for this and put two more in the freezer*). For immediate use, roll a dough ball out to a rough circle about 1/4 inch thick. Transfer to a piece of baking paper scattered with semolina on top of a large wooden board. Put a pizza stone, cast iron pizza pan or baking sheet in the oven and heat to 450F. Arrange the toppings on the dough circle: smear the puree or sauce across the surface, taking it right up close to the edges, then sprinkle with the remaining ingredients (except stuff to be added after baking). Open the oven and carefully slide the paper and pizza onto the heated stone or pan. Bake for ~20 min, until the pizza is lightly browned and puffy around the edges. Remove from the oven, allow to cool for a minute or two, then sprinkle with the final toppings (hazelnuts on ramp pizza, chive flowers on green pizza) before eating.


Both came out pretty good. The sliding onto pizza pan worked out pretty good, and the dough puffed up nicely (although there is definitely a sweet spot with thickness - it is possible to go too thin and end up with something super crispy that doesn't really puff up and browns instantly at the edges). I liked both topping combinations: ramps and hazelnuts definitely go well together, and the radish/nasturtium/rocket mix was very tasty with the green puree, sunflower seeds and pretty purple chive flowers.

*To use dough from the freezer, take frozen dough balls out to defrost ~2 hours before you want to use them (I had no problems with them sticking to the clingfilm or anything like that). When they are soft, you can roll them out as for the fresh dough and proceed from there. 

Gluten-free baking

Photo by Alvin

My friends A and K asked me to teach them what I knew about GF baking. I was unsure at first: unconvinced that I knew any more about it than they did. But they persuaded me that even what little I knew would be helpful to them, and I figured it would be fun whatever happened - I like hanging out and drinking tea and cooking, and they are good company. So we got together for a day of GF baking.

I think the main thing I have figured out about GF baking is that you often need a combination of flours - something like glutinous rice flour or tapioca flour or cornstarch or potato starch to stick it together, and then a combination to give good texture: rice flour alone is light but tastes dusty, gram flour is heavy and its taste is overpowering (although lends a pleasant eggy flavour when used in small quantities), oat flour I like, others such as quinoa or millet flour are different again, and some combination (varied depending on the taste you are looking for / what goes with the other stuff in the mix) is what will make it good. Getting a good rise is doubly challenging when doing vegan+GF (no eggs, no gluten).

I thought of three things:

1) Oat-sunflower-raisin biscuits
(I knew these would work (and they did), also thought they were interesting because of the lack of flour / most of the fat coming from the nut/seed butter)

2) Savoury corn muffins
Wanted to do a basic muffin type thing. A mentioned he got coarse cornmeal from his CSA and this idea suggested itself - though it would be nice to do something simple and savoury as most of the GF things I have baked are sweet... I also recently noticed that Trader Joe's started doing a GF flour blend (brown rice flour, potato starch, white rice flour and something else), so thought it would be fun to try something with that. This is based on my favourite basic cornbread recipe, made in a muffin form and with lots of additions.

2 tbsp ground linseed mixed with ~5 tbsp boiling water
1 TJ’s GF flour mix (see above)
½ tsp xanthan gum
1 cup cornmeal
4 tsp baking powder
¾ tsp salt
2 tsp paprika (note, spice combination is very flexible; adding dried chili or finely chopped fresh chili would also be good)
1 tsp sumac
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1-2 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted
2 tbsp honey (or sugar)
1 cup fake milk + 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
¼ cup oil (used grapeseed, any oil would work here really - even stronger flavoured ones - as these are savoury)
Handful sweetcorn kernels, defrosted
~4 spring onions, cleaned, trimmed and chopped
2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander

Heat oven to 425F*. Prepare muffin cups by lining with paper cases. Mix flour, cornmeal, xanthan gum, baking powder, salt, dry spices and seeds (and sugar if using) in a bowl. Add vinegar to the milk, then mix this with the linseed mixture, oil and honey (if using). Add the sweetcorn, coriander and spring onions to the dry ingredients and toss. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and mix until just combined. Bake for 20-25 min.

These came out well: pleasant, savoury, corny taste, with a robust texture from the cornmeal and a slight sweetness from the kernels. Quite dense, but held together well and rose enough to give a nice shape. *Could perhaps try a slightly lower temperature next time: they browned up on top quite quickly (not a problem really).


3) Little nutty cakes (an educational semi-disaster)
I'd seen these a while ago, and thought they sounded interesting: liked the nuts and the olive oil. But noticed the reliance on eggs and thought maybe they'd be too difficult to adapt. For some reason I decided it would be a good idea to try anyway - I think partly because I got into the idea of mixing nut flour and buckwheat flour.

3 tbsp linseed mixed with 7.5 tbsp boiling water (or 3 eggs)
1 cup (200g) sugar
2/3 cup (90g / 3 ¼ oz) ground almonds (or hazelnuts)
1 ½ cups flour – sub ¾ cup oat flour plus ¾ cup buckwheat flour plus ½ tsp xanthan gum
1 tbsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
¾ cup plus 2 tbsp (200 ml) mixture of extra virgin olive oil and grapeseed oil
About ¼ cup (25g) mixed chopped untoasted nuts for sprinkling (used hazelnuts)

Heat oven to 400F. Prepare muffin tins. Beat linseed (or eggs) and sugar together with a whisk, a lot – til doubled in volume. Mix ground nuts, flours, xanthan gum, baking powder and salt in a bowl with a fork. Add olive oil to the linseed-sugar mix. Add the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Fill muffin cups halfway. Sprinkle mixed chopped nuts on top. Bake for 15 min / until springy (might take a bit longer without muffin tins).

These kind of rose up massively and spilled out of the muffin cups across the surface of the tin, leaving a sunken middle - ended up looking a bit like little bird's nests. But they actually tasted delicious: the top parts were all crispy and like a nutty meringue or something, the middle/bottom was squishier but also lovely and nutty, with a hint of grassiness from the olive oil (although quite well stuck to the paper liners). Could have been fun as Easter nests with Greek yoghurt and fresh fruit (grapes to look like eggs?) in the hollows.

My guess as to what went wrong: they rose due to the baking powder and the air from the beating, but lacked enough of anything (no gluten, no eggs) to hold them up and give structure, so sank right back down again. I forgot to add the xanthan gum, so that was probably part of it, but I feel like that might not have been enough anyway. Perhaps adding some cornstarch or glutinous rice flour would have helped (or using eggs instead of linseed, if that's an option). I also found them a bit too oily and a bit too sweet (reminded me a bit of these) - try dialling down the sugar and oil if making again. And, I wondered how the mixture would have fared in a cookie form: perhaps they would have turned out as delicious, nutty, meringue-like things like the top parts tasted like...

Pancake Day Pudding: 'Nutella' pancakes

I consider it necessary, every Pancake Day, to eat an entire pancake-based meal: both savoury and sweet. This year I hit upon scallion pancakes for the savoury round, but still felt the need for a traditional / pudding pancake. I was considering Nutella, when it occurred to me that perhaps an even more delicious option would be to break Nutella apart and have pancakes with hazelnuts and chocolate sauce. So that's what we did.

Weirdly, I'd never really made chocolate sauce before. My initial thought was just to melt some chocolate mixed with a little almond milk and maybe a little sugar, but I found this recipe and was convinced enough by the description to give it a try.

For the pancakes:
-use this basic recipe - you will never miss the eggs and milk

For the chocolate sauce:
1/2 cup water
80g / 1/4 cup light corn syrup, agave or liquid glucose (used golden syrup)
50g / 1/4 cup sugar
38g / 3/8 cup cocoa powder (ideally Dutch Process)
1 oz / 30g dark (~60%) chocolate, chopped*

Additional:
~20 toasted hazelnuts, chopped
1/2 a banana, sliced (optional)

Make the chocolate sauce a little in advance as it will need time (1-2 hours at least) to cool. Mix the water, syrup, sugar and cocoa in a small pan and bring to the boil, whisking steadily. Once just boiling, remove from the heat and mix in the chopped chocolate. When the chocolate is melted, set the pan aside at room temperature and allow to cool and thicken.

While the sauce cools, you can make the pancake batter and cook up the pancakes (keep them warm on a plate covered with a folded teatowel, or in the oven on a covered plate if you need to wait longer), and chop the hazelnuts.

When you're ready to eat them, drizzle a pancake with chocolate sauce, sprinkle with hazelnuts (and chopped banana if you fancy that), roll up and eat as delicately or as uncouthly as you wish.


This combination was great, and worked really well with banana too. The sauce kind of separated as it cooled - tasted great but the texture wasn't right. Perhaps I cooled it too quickly (I put it next to an open window)? Or perhaps the golden syrup was not an appropriate substitution? It is worth another attempt! As well as these I of course had to have a classic one with lemon and sugar.

*I made this recipe again, being very careful to stick to the recipe, not cool the sauce too fast etc, and still found that it separated. A review of the comments on the original site indicated that the chocolate may be the issue - although 70% is nowhere near 100%, perhaps it is still too intense and acidic and caused the separation. I rarely have anything less than 70% in the house, so to continue with this recipe may need to work out a way of neutralising it?

Baked acorn squash with dukkah

Leafing through old recipes cut out from newspapers and so forth, from the days before this blog existed, when I still lived in the UK, bought newspapers (haven't found an American one I love like the Guardian weekend), and cut recipes out of them. Some little nostalgia. Found this recipe. Liked the sound of it. Never tried it. Three squashes in the pantry. Now is time.

1 tbsp coriander seeds
1/2 tbsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp chilli flakes
2 tbsp sesame seeds
handful hazelnuts, roughly chopped
small handful mint leaves, finely shredded
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 medium-large acorn squash (or butternut)
3 tbsp olive oil

Heat the oven to 350F. Toast the cumin and coriander in a small pan just until fragrant, then grind until broken but not powdered. Put the sesame seeds into the spice pan and warm until just golden. Toast the hazelnuts and chop them. Mix mint, spices, seeds and nuts together in a small bowl: this is 'dukka'. Peel and deseed the squash, cut into chunks or wedges. Tip into a bowl with the olive oil and 3-4 tbsp of the dukka and toss, then pour into a roasting tin and bake for ~40 min, until soft. Sprinkle over more dukka to serve.


The dukkah is pretty tasty.  There may be an argument for not bothering to add it to the squash before roasting, since the dukkah is all nicely toasted already and it might be better to get the roast on and make the dukkah while the squash is in the oven. Am out of love with acorn squash: I thought they were my favourite but my last few acorns have seemed insipid in colour and taste beside their butternut peers. Their seeds are better, but the seeds are only ever really an added bonus / afterthought.

Raw Brussels Sprouts Salad

Basically this

(hugh fearnley-whittingstall @ Guardian)

50g hazelnuts, preferably skin on (used skin-off and skipped toasting step)
150g brussels sprouts, trimmed, discoloured outer leaves removed
Zest of 1 lemon
Juice of ½ lemon
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves (didn't have thyme so substituted parsley)
Good pinch of chilli flakes
1-2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
80g young, fresh goat's cheese (substituted firm tofu)
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Heat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Scatter the hazelnuts on a baking sheet and roast in the oven until fragrant and browned – about nine to 11 minutes. Remove from the oven, wrap in a clean tea towel and leave for a minute. Rub vigorously in the tea towel – this will remove the browned skins.
Cut the prepared brussels sprouts from top to root into slices about the thickness of a 50p piece. Put these into a bowl and toss with the lemon zest and juice, thyme leaves, chilli flakes, and a tablespoon of oil, and season with salt and pepper. Taste and add more olive oil, lemon juice and/or chilli flakes as desired.
Arrange on a plate, scatter the hazelnuts over and around and crumble on the goat's cheese. Trickle over a little more olive oil and serve immediately.


Was nice and simple.  Very crunchy and quite tasty.  Liked the idea of trying something with raw sprouts, but I think I like them best pan-fried or roasted.

First Sunday in January

Using stuff up before going on holiday...

Made veg stock.

Also celeriac lentil salad:

Celeriac lentil salad @ Guardian

80g hazelnuts
200g puy lentils
700ml water
2 bay leaves
4 sprigs fresh thyme
1 small celeriac, peeled and cut into 1cm chips
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt and pepper
4 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp hazelnut oil (didn't have - used more olive instead)
3 tbsp cider vinegar
6 tbsp fresh mint, leaves picked and washed (used some dried from fridge instead)
Preheat the oven to 140C/275F/ gas mark 1. Scatter the hazelnuts over a baking tray and roast in the oven for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven, set aside to cool down, then chop roughly.
Put the lentils, water, bay leaves and thyme sprigs in a small saucepan. Simmer for 15-20 minutes, or until the lentils are al dente, then drain into a sieve. Remove and discard the bay leaves and the woody sprigs.
Meanwhile, in a large saucepan, bring plenty of water to a boil, drop in the celeriac, along with the lemon juice and some salt, and simmer for 12 minutes, or until just tender. Drain.
In a large bowl, mix the hot lentils (make sure they don't cool down - lentils soak up flavours much better when they're piping hot) with the olive oil, two tablespoons of the hazelnut oil, the vinegar, a few grinds of black pepper and plenty of salt. Add the celeriac, stir, taste and adjust the seasoning as necessary.
If you're serving this straight away, stir in half the mint and the hazelnuts, then pile in a big heap on to a suitable serving dish. Drizzle the remaining hazelnut oil over the top, then garnish with the rest of the mint and nuts.
If you're planning on serving it cold, wait for the lentil and celeriac mixture to cool down, taste again, then make a final adjustment to the seasoning. Add the rest of the hazelnut oil, the mint and the nuts just as you do when serving it hot.

Was pretty tasty.  Liked the other one I made better (with the crisp celeriac and sweet apple), but this was good too, and quite different.

Then baked a turban squash whole as it was too tough to cut uncooked.  Stabbed it quite a lot as I thought it might explode.  Baked at 350F for about an hour.

Squash puree

With nutmeg, almond milk, fake butter and s+p.

Squash, sweetcorn and ginger soup

Fried an onion, garlic and ginger in olive oil.  Added baked squash (scraped out of shell) and 900ml of veg stock.  Cooked a little to defrost stock, then added couple of handfuls frozen sweetcorn.  Cooked 5 min or so, then allow to cool a little, seasoned, and liquidised.  Added some almond milk.  Taste to check seasoning.

Christmas Baking

Christmas Cake

(based on Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's one from the Guardian website)

200g sultanas (I used golden raisins - sultanas are hard to find in the US)
200g currants (used raisins - currants also hard to find here)

150g dried apricots, chopped (used mixture of figs, peaches, raisins)
150g prunes, diced (used mixture of dates and cranberries)
150g raisins (used cranberries)
60g candied peel (see below for recipe)
60g dried cherries or cranberries (used glace cherries)
Grated zest and juice of 1 orange (used 2 clementines)
Grated zest of 1 lemon
200ml Somerset apple brandy (used 150ml Pimms)
110g hazelnuts, roasted and roughly chopped
200g unsalted butter (used vegan margarine)
100g light muscovado sugar (used golden sugar)
80g dark muscovado sugar (used dark brown sugar)
4 eggs, lightly beaten (used flax eggs)
250g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 heaped tsp mixed spice (ginger / cinnamon / allspice)
1/4 of a nutmeg, grated
1/4 tsp salt
90g stem ginger, finely chopped

Recipe said to soak first nine ingredients in a bowl, add the brandy, stir, cover and leave for 48 hours - I didn't do this and added the booze when I mixed up the ingredients instead.

Preheat the oven to 140C/275F/gas mark 1. Grease a round 22-24cm x 9cm, loose-bottomed cake tin, and line with parchment to come 4cm above the sides. Pulse half the hazelnuts until very fine. Beat the butter and sugars till fluffy, then beat in the 'eggs' one by one (if it begins to curdle, add a little flour). Sieve the flour, baking powder, spices and salt, then stir gently into the batter. Fold in the fruit, nuts, pimms and ginger, spoon into the tin, smooth and bake for two to two and a quarter hours (took more like 3 1/4 - think I would increase cooking temperature if I made it again, just to like 300F or so), until a skewer (or knitting needle) comes out clean. (If it browns before it's done, cover with parchment.) Leave to cool in the tin, then remove and wrap in a double layer of foil. Store in a cool, dry place, feeding it with a slug of brandy every two weeks.

For decorating:
300g whole dried fruits, such as figs, apricots, apple slices, cherries
120g nuts, such as hazelnuts, walnuts, Brazil nuts, almonds
150g warm apricot jam, strained

A day or so before the big day, brush with warm apricot glaze, lay the fruit and nuts on top, and glaze again. Store in an airtight container.

Took a long time to cook. Perhaps 160C / 320F would have been better? I made it 2 weeks before Christmas so that is how long it'll have to mature I guess - will have to see how it tastes then.

Edit: Fed once with more Pimms a week after making, then it was Christmas a week later so I decorated it on Christmas Eve.  Warmed a little strawberry jam (didn't have apricot) and brushed it on top, then rolled out about half a pound (maybe more) of marzipan from Polcari's in Little Italy to about 0.5cm thick and pressed it around the cake.  Brushed a little more jam on top (used about 5 tbsp jam total I guess) and then arranged sliced dried figs, walnut halves, halved glace cherries and hazelnut on top and glazed with a little more jam.  Would have tied ribbon around the outside if I had some (perfect stuff left over from happy hour is sitting at work, oh well.  It was fun to mix in the good bits of cake decoration - I don't like royal icing much, but I have a guilty love for glace cherries.  It tastes really good!  A bit sticky, perhaps because of the smoke alarm going off and me therefore curtailing the cooking time a little, but it's yummy.  The candied ginger addition really made it, I think - definitely try and use ginger in future xmas cakes.


Candied Peel

Wash and chop peel (say 1 cup - any mixture of lemon, orange, clementine, grapefruit etc). Put in pan with water. Bring to the boil for 10-15min then drain. Repeat 3 times. Then make sugar water syrup (1 cup of each) and boil with peel until evaporated. Spread on a baking sheet and put in switched-off oven overnight to dry out.


Mincemeat 
(do about several weeks in advance of use)

-adapted from a recipe I found somewhere in the internets and forgot where (sorry).

3/4 pint cider
1 lb / 450g soft dark brown sugar
1 lb cooking apple (cored and chopped finely / not peeled - any kind of apple will do if can't find cooking apples - they are hard to find in the US)
1 tsp mixed spice (cinnamon / nutmeg / allspice / ginger / cloves)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
pinch ground cloves
12 oz currants (used golden raisins)
12 oz raisins
8 oz sultanas (used cranberries)
4oz glace cherries (used dried cherries)
4oz candied peel
4 oz chopped almonds (used flaked)
1 orange, juice and zest (used 2 clementines)
1 lemon, juice and zest
1/4 pint brandy or rum (used double amount of Pimms)

1) put cider and sugar in a pan, heat til dissolved
2) add rest except alcohol and boil (stir constantly)
3) lower heat and partially cover. simmer ~45min to thicken
4) cool completely. add alcohol. put in sterile jars (pack down carefully to avoid air bubbles).
5) Add discs of greaseproof or waxed paper to tops of jars, then lid and store.

deffo fine after 2 weeks. not sure how long it'll last - no suet as preservative, is it enough booze? a less thick texture than using fat, but still tastes really good.


Mince Pies

Traditional Pastry
4oz (~100g) plain flour
2oz (~50g) vegan margarine

(for sweet pastry add 1oz sugar)

Rub fat into flour. Add a little water to combine. Rest in the fridge for 30min.


Seed / nut / pulse pastry (vegan / gluten free)
50g ground almonds
60g cooked chickpeas, mashed to a stiff paste (organic tinned are fine)
100g Doves Farm gluten-free plain flour (or 50g gram flour, 50g rice flour)
2 tbsp sesame seeds
40g sunflower margarine (or cold-pressed plain sesame or safflower oil)
sparkling water, to bind

Combine seeds, ground almonds, flour (used normal flour) and ground chickpeas. Rub in fat and mix with a fork. Add a little water to combine. Rest in the fridge 30min.

For any pastry:
Roll out and cut into rounds for pie bases (deep fill used tall plastic measure beaker / normal size used Coke glass). Put bases into bun tin (or muffin tin - that's all I had and it was OK). Fill with mincemeat or a mixture of mincemeat and cooked apple (or pear, or nashi pear - I cooked with a little sugar and a little cinnamon). Cut out stars and put them on the tops. Bake at 400F/200C for ~20min, til golden brown and crisp. Leave to cool before trying to remove from trays.

Both types of pastry came out better than I expected. We liked the seedy one - more interesting. Seedy stuff made 11 deep fill mince pies; classic stuff in total made 14 normal size ones - I guess the quantities are intended to do about 12?


Also managed to set off the fire alarm (good to test it I guess?) through overspill from xmas cake onto bottom of oven where it burned. We wafted it and it was OK.