National Trust Biscuits

My Mum used to make these - they were a regular request from my sisters and me - we loved them. I guess she got the recipe from the National Trust somehow or other: they were always National Trust biscuits, never any other or more descriptive name. I started making them myself as a teenager - they were easy enough for me to manage with limited skills, and always went down well... Despite my not knowing what a 'cup' measure was - I'd just pick a cup or mug from the cupboard and use that, so every time I made them they were different, depending on the cup I'd chosen. I still need to figure out my favourite interpretation of the 'cup' volume - sometimes they were slightly bendy and chewy when cooled; sometimes they'd spread out massively and all run into one another. The version I made yesterday (because I felt like it, because I wanted biscuits for journal club, because they seemed seasonal with all that warming ginger and treacle) came out fairly crispy and didn't spread that much - perhaps not my favourite - this recipe may be updated...

Mix in a bowl:
1 cup SR flour (1 cup plain flour plus 2 tsp baking powder)
1 cup sugar
1 cup oats
1 tsp ground ginger

Heat in a pan:
4 oz margarine (or coconut oil)*
1/2 tbsp black treacle (or molasses)

Mix in a mug:
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tbsp boiling water.

Heat oven to 300F / 150C. Grease a couple of baking sheets. Add the contents of the pan and the mug together to the bowl and mix until combined into a dough. Roll into balls, flatten slightly and space out on the baking sheets. Bake for 10-15 min, until golden brown and slightly spread. Let cool for 10 min or so on the baking sheet before transferring to a rack to finish cooling (they will be floppy when you first take them out; you want to transfer them at the sweet spot when they are slightly bendy and not completely hardened and crisp yet).

*tried using 3 oz sunflower oil, felt like would need a bit more?

Apple, treacle and caraway muffins

As soon as I saw this recipe I was dying to make it: apple, treacle and caraway seeds are three of my favourite things right now, it sounded like a wonderful combination, and Dan Lepard's recipes are almost always gorgeous. I had all the ingredients (more or less) at home (including eggs as I am picking up Alvin's CSA while he is in Borneo), so all I needed was time.

(makes 12)

120ml veg oil (or 50ml oil plus 100g melted butter)
50g treacle (used blackstrap molasses)
175g soft brown sugar, any sort
3 medium eggs (used 2 large ones plus a bit of linseed-water mix)
3 tsp vanilla essence
3 tsp caraway seeds
150g plain flour
150g spelt or rye flour (used wholemeal as had no spelt)
2 tsp baking powder
3 small apples, peeled, cored and diced
Flaked almonds, to finish

Heat the oven to 190C/375F/GM5. Beat the oil, treacle and sugar until smooth, then beat in the eggs one at a time, until evenly mixed though. Add the vanilla and caraway, mix well, then add the flours and baking powder, and stir just to combine. Fold in the apples, divide the mixture between lined muffin cups, filling them almost to the top, and scatter almonds on top. Bake for 25 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Remove from the oven, and carefully lift the muffins from the tray and on to a rack, so they don't sweat as they cool.


These were every bit as great as I hoped. The caraway, vanilla and treacle all seemed like quite large quantities of quite strongly flavoured ingredients, but together they meld and make each other brilliant, backing up the soft, sweet apple perfectly. Somehow seasonal, with the treacle and apple and very British caraway - perhaps I'll make them next Bonfire Night.

This year's parkin (+Bonfire Night)

Shane's photo

It's nearly Bonfire Night, and I suddenly realised what that meant as I walked home from work in the wild winds on Monday...  Time to make parkin! I made one last year which was quite successful, this time I decided to go with an old recipe I cut out of the newspaper years ago, and which dates from even longer ago: October 1907, apparently. Interestingly, it is eggless. Other differences include addition of nutmeg, lemon zest and mixed peel. Parkin is generally recommended to be aged - up to a month is good I think - to allow the oats to soak up the treacle and syrup and so forth. I was not that organised, but this one got 5 days.

225g plain flour
3½ tsp ground ginger
¾ tsp ground nutmeg
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
a pinch of salt
125g medium oatmeal (used steel cut oats)
100g unsalted butter, softened (used fake butter)
125g light soft brown sugar
zest of ½ lemon
100g treacle (used a mixture of blackstrap molasses and carob molasses)
75g golden syrup
50ml milk (used fake milk)
50g mixed peel, finely chopped

Grease a deep, 20cm square cake tin and line the base with baking paper. Heat the oven to 180C (160C fan-assisted)/350F/gas mark 4. Sift the flour, spices, soda and salt into a bowl, then stir in the oatmeal. In another bowl beat the butter, sugar and zest until light and fluffy. Add the treacle and syrup, beat again until creamy and smooth, then add the milk and the dry ingredients, and beat quickly until smooth once more. Fold in the mixed peel, then spoon the mixture into the tin. Cover the top with foil, bake for 40 minutes, then remove the foil and bake for a further 20 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.


It came out well enough: the citrus was interesting and good. But a little dry: perhaps I left it in the oven a little too long? It was very brick-like, as ever with my parkins. We celebrated last night, with a bonfire and lots of sparklers at Andrea's, and people seemed to like it.

Thanksgiving - more pumpkin

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  Feeling a little detached - everyone is making big food plans and / or heading home across the country - S+I are privately just like: ummmm so you just want to eat lots of turkey?  not really our bag...  Although some friends from the South have invited us to help them drink beer and deep-fry turkey in their front yard.  I assumed this meant deep-frying bits of turkey in the style of KFC, but then today I saw this video and a wave of realisation swept over me - this is serious!  So yeah, right now our plan is to go to the best vegan restaurant in town and eat their 4-course thanksgiving menu, then head over to M+S's place to observe the turkey action...

One thing I love about Thanksgiving is pumpkin pie.  Well, sweet pumpkin anything is pretty much awesome.  I already cooked pumpkin for Halloween, but yeah, what's this season all about but excess?

Pumpkin Cardamom Cake

This year: Pumpkin Cardamom Cake

(from this recipe)

1/4 cup fake milk
1 tsp cider vinegar
1 cup plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
3 tbsp sunflower oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1 tsp ground cardamom

Put the soy milk into a jug and add the vinegar, leave to curdle.  Put dry ingredients into a bowl and mix well with a fork.

To the milk and vinegar mix add the oil, pumpkin puree and the vanilla and mix.  Add wet to dry and mix until just combined.

Spoon into muffin tin or cake tin(s) and cook at 350F until golden on top and a skewer comes out clean (25-30 min).


These are goood - lovely warm orange colour, good texture, bold cardamom taste - perhaps a little too much cardamom, but I love the stuff so that's fine by me.


Last year: Pumpkin Pie

(from this recipe)

For the crust:
1/2 cup unbleached flour
7 tbsp whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
3 tbsp veg oil
3 tbsp soy milk + 1/2 tsp lemon juice
3 to 4 tbsp water 

For the filling:
2 cups pumpkin purée
1 cup fake milk
3/4 cup granulated sugar cane syrup (just used sugar / maple syrup instead)
1/4 cup cornflour (used regular flour instead - didn't expect it to work but it did!)
1/2 tbsp dark molasses or to taste (didn't have so used maple syrup instead)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground allspice

To make puree:
Heat oven to 400F, cut pumpkin or squash in half and place, cut side down, on a lightly oiled baking sheet.  Bake for 30-40 min until collapsing when poked.  Scoop out the innards and mash them up.  Can freeze if more than needed.  Can use tinned if preferred.


To make crust:
In a mixing bowl, combine both flours, salt, sugar and baking powder.  In small bowl, mix oil and soy milk mixture.
Pour liquid mixture into dry ingredients and mix with a fork until it holds together in a ball.  If it is too dry, add some water, a little at a time, until dough is moist enough to roll.  (If time allows, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.)
Roll out dough onto clingfilm with a lightly floured rolling pin, forming an 11-inch circle.  Line a 9-inch pie plate with the dough.  Flute or crimp the edges with your fingers or a fork.  Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use.
Preheat oven to 425F.

To make filling:
In large bowl, mix all remaining ingredients until smooth and blended. Pour into prepared crust and smooth top.  Bake 10 minutes.
Reduce oven temperature to 350F; bake until filling is set, about 50 minutes.  Set on wire rack to cool, then refrigerate overnight.


I made this twice last year - it wasn't long after I'd gone vegan and this was my first successful vegan baking effort.  Despite not having some of the ingredients and thinking a vegan pumpkin pie wouldn't work, it came out amazingly - all the tastes were there.  I did almost manage to poison a friend with a nut allergy with hidden almond milk in the filling (she was fine, thank goodness).

Bonfire Night = parkin

It's nearly Bonfire Night.  Growing up in little villages it was always one of the big community events of the year - farmers stacking unwanted burnables in the field next to the primary school; the pile growing and growing as Nov 5th approached; learning firework safety and to check bonfires for hedgehogs; the local firemen setting off the firework display...  Excitement was probably heightened by the occasional near-bad-accidents - the burning tyre that rolled out of the bonfire once, the time Dad's leg took a mis-aimed firework so our faces didn't have to...

In my memories, food is tangled up with the sparklers and the hats+gloves and the cold feet and the thrilling fire - bonfire toffee, toffee apples, baked potatoes, parkin - all warm / gingery / treacly...

My Mum's family come from Yorkshire.  So parkin (a dense, treacly gingerbread made with oatmeal, originating from Yorkshire, and traditionally eaten on Bonfire Night) is something I feel pretty close to (once a year).  I made it once as a teenager, it came out a lot like a brick.  But still tasted decent.  Last year I went to a Boston Brits bonfire night party, this year I think it's time to introduce Americans to the good stuff (no fireworks though, they're illegal in MA - lame).

Key features of parkin, I decided, are inclusion of oatmeal (meaning the rounded, lumpy type of oatmeal, not just rolled oats), golden syrup and treacle, and ginger as the sole spice.  I went with Delia as a basic recipe, adapted to what I had available / my taste.  Then realised it needed time to mature, so I made it last night before heading out to SBTRKT - it has a couple of days to get ready (not 2 weeks, but better than nothing).


Parkin

8 oz (225 g) medium oatmeal (used a fine-ground bulghur wheat I bought by accident a while ago - figured it should be equivalent in texture)
4 oz (110 g) self-raising flour (only had plain, added 1 1/2 tsp baking powder)
a pinch of salt
5 oz (150 g) dark syrup or golden syrup (hard to find golden syrup here outside of the 'British and Irish' section of Shaws, so used a mixture of maple syrup and honey instead)
3 oz (75 g) black treacle (used molasses)
4 oz (110 g) margarine
4 oz (110 g) soft brown sugar
2 level teaspoons ground ginger
1 tbsp ground linseed, mixed with 3 tbsp boiling water
1 tablespoon fake milk

Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 1, 275°F (140°C).

Weigh a saucepan on the scales, and weigh the syrup and treacle into it.

Then add the margarine and the sugar to the saucepan and place it over a gentle heat until the margarine has melted down – don't go away and leave it unattended, because for this you don't want it to boil.

Meanwhile, measure the oatmeal, flour and ginger into a mixing bowl, add a pinch of salt, then gradually stir in the warmed syrup mixture till the mixture is all thoroughly blended.

Next add the linseed mixture, and lastly the fake milk. Now pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake on the centre shelf of the oven for 1¾-2 hours.

Then cool the parkin in the tin for 30 minutes before turning out.  The parkin may sink slightly in the middle (mine did).


It's wrapped in clingfilm now, but the bits I scraped off the lining papers were pretty darn wonderful - sticky, gingery, treacly loveliness.  May have overegged the treacle a bit - but I like it!  And yes, once again it looks just like a brick.