Weights and measures

My grandmother and her sister ran a small shop, a bit of an "Open All Hours".  They sold something of everything but especially home baked cakes and savouries.  My grandmother was the savoury specialist and her sister, Kate, the pastry cook.  Kate was a great lover of all things sweet and collected recipes almost compulsively.  She copied recipes on to every possible space in her recipe books as you can see.

I learnt what cooking skills I have from Kate and while I was battling with the measurements for the chocolate cake recipe, measuring everything out to the nearest gram, I remembered that she rarely used a weighing scales.  She used spoons to measure out, and judgement, and there I was worrying about precise grams.

I used to have an old recipe book, very old, it must have been given to me by Kate, and inside the front cover was a conversion table for spoonfuls to ounces for various ingredients.  That book is long gone so I was delighted to find, stuck inside the back cover of the recipe book above, a conversion chart for all sorts of things.

A few examples of 1 ounce measurements

3 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon jam
3 tablespoons currants
4 tablespoons rolled oats (for your porridge, no doubt)
5 tablespoons fresh breadcrumbs


And these tablespoons weren't special measuring spoons, they were normal everyday spoons we used.


Along with these, there were a number of useful amounts, such as 1lb peas is enough for 2 people but 2 lbs spinach is barely enough for three.  A pint of batter will make 16 fairly thin pancakes while half a pound of flour makes 16 fairly big rock cakes.
I could go on for quite a while but I'll spare you.  Suffice it to say, I'll not be quite so precise on my measurements in future.

PS, since I'm back to adjust the weird spacing that Blogger gives me these days, I'll add that on an inside page I found in tiny writing in a top margin:

"1 cupful measures 10 oz.  In America cupful measures 8 oz liquid. 3 teaspoons go to American tablespoon instead of 4." 

A gluten free chocolate cake

I have a friend who is has to follow a gluten free diet.  She's a good friend and so I find myself reading recipes and food labels in detail trying to find anything suitable for a meal.  It isn't always easy.

I have decided it's preferable to work with recipes that have acceptable ingredients rather than using what I call "made up" recipes with odd substitutes.  Desserts can be quite problematic but I was delighted to find that my old friend Gateau Lawrence is perfect.  It contains no flour at all, and you don't have to use anything called gum.  It isn't even complicated.

Ingredients

for the cake:
180g (6.5 ounces) good dark chocolate
175g (6 ounces) butter
125g (4.5 ounces) brown sugar
200g (7 ounces) ground almonds
4 eggs

for the topping:
50g (almost 2 ounces)milk chocolate
75g (2.5 ounces)dark chocolate
125ml (4.5 fl ounces) double cream
OR
100g (3.5 ounces) dark chocolate
50g (almost 2 ounces) butter

The sugar says unrefined sugar which could be anything from golden granulated sugar to dark muscovado.  The muscovado gives a deeper and richer taste (and takes forever to mix in) but I prefer a lighter sugar.

You're supposed to use a loose bottomed or spring-form tin but I used a silicone bakeware (I can't very well call it a tin).  It's supposed to be 25 cm but mine was 22 cm, say 9.5 down to 8.5 inches.  It should have meant a longer cooking time but it didn't seem to.  Maybe that was down to the silicone bakeware.  Even though you aren't supposed to need to, I did line the "tin" with baking parchment.

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over hot water.  It doesn't have to be boiling water, but getting close.

Beat the butter and sugar until they are light and creamy.  It's easier if the butter is soft or at least at room temperature before you start.

Separate the egg yolks from the whites and add the yolks, ground almonds and melted chocolate to the mix.  Beat again until evenly mixed.

Whisk the egg whites until stiff then carefully add to the cake mixture, mixing them in quickly and lightly with a metal spoon.

Pour into the baking tray of choice and cook in an over set to 150° C/300° F/gas 2 for 35 minutes.  It should have a crust on top but be quite squishy to the touch.

Leave to cool a while before removing from the tin.  It breaks rather easily, so care is needed.

Melt the chocolate and butter, or chocolate and cream, over hot water and spread over the cake.

If you can wait that long, I think it's better the next day.  It's meant to serve 6 but it's very rich and can very easily stretch a lot further.

The best raspberry jam!

From Flickr

I heard an item on the news this morning about workers going fruit picking on the fruit farms in Tiptree in Essex.  Some go to have a cheap holiday, the rest are mainly students from eastern European countries earning money for their studies.  The fruit farms are owned by Wilkin and Sons who make the Tiptree range of conserves and jams.

That reminded me of the raspberries I used to grow, always far too many of them, until the family was heartily sick of them.  I gave them to everyone in sight.  They became heartily sick of them.  So I started on jam-making, using the recipe given to me by my mother-in-law.  It did produce a particularly good jam which was very popular with family and friends alike.

To make 10 bs jam:

6 lbs washed rasberries
6 lbs warmed preserving sugar
Juice of 2 lemons
Sterilised jars

Place the raspberries in a pan and heat until the juices run.  Simmer gently for 5 minutes.
Add the sugar to the pan and stir until completely dissolved.
Add the lemon juice.
Bring back to the boil while stirring.
Boil rapidly without stirring for exactly 3 minutes.
Pour into hot jam jars and seal immediately.

I would add "enjoy", but that goes without saying.

Christmas pudding recipe

This gives a very moist pudding which is only just sliceable before it collapses, possibly the result of the quantity alcohol. Just how much is a bottle of stout after all?

Still in the old pre-metric weights. 1 lb = 450 grams (roughly)

1/2 lb white breadcrumbs
1/2 lb brown sugar
1/2 lb melted butter
1/2 lb each raisins, currants, sultanas, and 3/4 lb large raisins (making up 2 - 2 1/4 lb mixed fruit)
1/4 lb mixed peel (often left out in this family)
2 oz chopped almonds
a grated apple
3 eggs
pinch salt
bottle of stout
1/2 glass whiskey
1/2 oz mixed spice
1/2 grated nutmeg

Mix together the dry ingredients in a bowl, adding the melted butter. Beat eggs thoroughly and add to the bowl. Mix well. Add the grated apple. Lastly stir in whiskey and stout.

Keep the mixture in a cool place, stirring every day for a week. Put into a buttered bowl (I use two for this amount of mixture) with a round of buttered greaseproof paper in the bottom. Cover with another piece of greaseproof and then with foil over the top (used to be muslin). Boil slowly for 7 hours making sure it doesn't boil dry. On Christmas Day boil for another two hours.

I have tried cooking it in a microwave and in a pressure cooker, but slow boiling is by far the best for a deep flavour and colour.

Apple and bramble crumble

For the filling
900g/2lb tart cooking apples
350-400g/12oz-1lb blackberries
175g/6oz demerara sugar

For the topping
225g/8oz plain flour
175g/6oz butter
55g/2oz sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6.
2. Peel, core and slice the apples.
3. Layer the apples, blackberries, and sugar in a large pie dish or casserole.
4. Place the flour in a large bowl and then rub in the butter until it resembles breadcrumbs - leave a few lumps of butter so that the topping is not too fine. Add the sugar and mix through.
5. Use a spoon to sprinkle the crumble topping evenly over the fruit. Bake for 45 minutes or until the fruit is cooked and bubbling juices seep through the topping.
6. Cool for a few minutes and then serve with custard, cream or ice cream.

I tend to make far more topping than the recipe calls for. According to my family, it's the best bit.