History Corner – Richmond Cakes

This is the start of a new, regular(ish) feature – History Corner. I have a tremendous fondness for original, old cookbooks. There are two very clear stances on such books – if, like me, you are seduced by the history and beauty of old recipes and view them as a window on the world in which they were written, you will think of them as “vintage” or “antique” books. If you don’t share that view you are likely to term them “smelly old second hand books”.

The recipe today is taken from “Cakes” part of the domestic arts series and written by Florence B. Jack, who also authored the thrillingly titled “The Art of Laundry Work” and was principal of the school of the domestic arts, Edinburgh. A quick googling suggests this school no longer exists.

The book, costing 1 shilling (about 5p in today’s money) was published in 1907 but my copy contains a wonderful handwritten inscription of “With the author’s love, xmas 1906” which makes me wonder if this was an early or preview edition. The handwriting is beautiful and I’ve tried to photograph it but it’s rather faded.

What I often notice about old recipes is the lack of detail – rarely are methods given nor is a cake tin size mentioned. Florence gives us some useful tips in the book’s introduction such as “see that your fire is in good condition” or “inferior or tainted butter should never be used for cakes”. I’m mildly repulsed by her claim that for “plainer cakes good beef dripping may be used instead of butter” but who knows? Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it (NB. I have zero intention of trying it)

This book was, seemingly, written before ovens came with any way of setting a temperature. Florence recommends scattering flour in a cake tin and if it turns brown within 5 minutes there is likely to be enough heat to bake a cake. She also suggests putting white paper in the oven and if it has turned yellow after 5 minutes the heat is “suitable for most cakes”. I like the caveat of “most”. She does however suggest ideal temperatures for baking should one be lucky enough to own an oven thermometer although she warns that “these are somewhat fragile articles” thus not always satisfactory.

The recipe I have chosen, Richmond Cakes, caught my eye because it seems to be baked in small tins that could be viewed as forerunners of our modern day cupcake tins. Richmond is a rather leafy, well to do part of London right on the Thames and I assume the cakes are named after it. Florence doesn’t give any chat about her recipes so I’m guessing.

When these cakes were cooking the smell was amazing; think of the heady spices in a Christmas cake but with treacly/syrupy notes instead of the sweetness of dried fruit. They were delicious to eat – a soft, crumbly sponge packed with flavour and given an extra layer of texture thanks to the coconut.

The quantities are pre-metric and therefore in pounds and ounces. I include these but also offer modern measurements. I have set out her original quantities below but they look rather mean so I trebled the quantities and got 24 plump little cakes! According to Florence the probable cost of making these cakes is 9d (according to the CCM this is approximate to 4p in today’s money!)

Ingredients

3oz/85g unsalted butter, at room temperature

2oz/57g brown sugar

2oz/57g treacle (I used golden syrup)

½ teaspoon ground ginger

½ teaspoon mixed spice

4oz/113g plain flour

A little grated lemon rind (I omitted this)

1oz/28g rice flour

2 eggs

2 tablespoons desiccated coconut

1 teaspoon baking powder

Method

- Preheat the oven to a moderate temperature. This is given as approximately 300˚F which converts to 150˚c/fan oven 130˚c/gas mark 2. This seemed rather too low so I used the more common definition of moderate oven of 180˚c/fan oven 160˚c/350˚F /gas mark 4.

- Grease a cupcake baking tray with butter. You could use paper cases if you wish but I have tried to stick to the spirit of the recipe as far as possible. NB. This recipe makes 8 generously sized cupcakes. I trebled the mix without any problem.

- Beat the butter and sugar together until soft and creamy.

- Add the treacle, spices and – if using – the lemon rind and mix well.

- Sieve the flours together and add them to the batter alternating with the eggs.

- Beat the mixture until air bubbles start to appear, then stir in the coconut and baking powder.

- Fill the cupcake tins between half and three quarters full.

- Bake in the oven for between 15-20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cakes comes out clean. Mine took 20 minutes.

- Place the tins to cool on a wire rack and remove the cakes when the tin is cool enough to handle comfortably.

- Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have made.

- Eat

Mother’s day treat tower from Interflora

Lucky, lucky me – look what Interflora sent me to try! This is how it arrives:

Interflora have a section of their site dedicated to Mother's Day (quite right too!) - check out Mothers day flowers and Mothers day gifts for more details. This tower of goodies has everything you need to pamper your mother on Mother’s Day. The two gorgeous baskets include:

Lorina Pink Lemonade

Hessian Gift Bag of All Butter Lemon Biscuits

Droste Chocolate Pastilles

New English Camomile Tea

Mrs Bridges Peach & Apricot Preserve

Gift Box of Cocoabean Handmade Chocolate Marshmallows

Hider Chocolate Coated Peanuts

Divine Fairtrade White Chocolate with Strawberries

Kshocolat Milk Chocolate Blackcurrants

We so often think of flowers for Mother’s Day (and if you want flowers where better than Interflora?) but surely sometimes your mum would prefer a selection of tasty treats?

Rhubarb and custard cake

When you walk along the street carrying rhubarb it gets a reaction like no other fruit or vegetable – most people look and smile (because, let’s be honest, a stick of rhubarb is a funny looking thing and it never fits in the bag you’re carrying it in leaving Triffid-like stalks and leaves sticking out!) while anyone even vaguely ‘foodie’ nods respectfully.

My rhubarb is forced as it’s too early in the year for garden rhubarb to make an appearance. The stalks are thin and a gorgeous flamingo pink colour. If there’s a more beautiful colour to be found in the world of food I can’t think what it is. For more rhubarb ideas click here

The rhubarb is roasted; here is it about to go into the oven (don’t worry that it looks too much – I made two cakes at the same time):

Here it is post-roasting and draining in a sieve. Note that it retains it’s beautiful colour:

Rhubarb and custard is a classic combination and this cake incorporates them both resulting in a sponge dotted with colours not dissimilar to that other great food partnership, bacon and eggs.

I wouldn’t advise using any fancy custard here, don’t browse the chiller cabinet in the supermarket – you actually want a thick yellow custard as it holds its shape better during baking. I used a ready made Ambrosia custard and that worked perfectly.

The obligatory serving suggestion:

If you are a British child of the 70s the theme tune to Roobarb and Custard will most likely have been playing through your head the whole time you’ve been reading this post. For those of you who are scratching your head in puzzlement this should explain:

Ingredients

For the rhubarb:
400g rhubarb, washed and cut into chunks
50g caster sugar

For the cake:
250g unsalted butter, at room temperature
150g ready made custard (the thicker and more yellow, the better! I used Ambrosia)
250g self raising flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
250g golden caster sugar

Method

- Start by making the rhubarb element: Preheat the oven to 200˚c/fan oven 180˚c/400˚F / gas mark 6.

- Wash and trim the rhubarb and dry on kitchen paper. Cut into largish chunks, approx 2-3cm long.

- Place in a shallow baking tray and sprinkle the caster sugar over it as evenly as possible. Toss together.

- Spread the rhubarb in a single layer if possible then cover with foil and roast for 15 minutes.

- Remove the foil and shake the tray a little. Roast for a further 5 minutes or until the rhubarb is tender and the juices are syrupy.

- Drain off the juices before you let the rhubarb cool – this stops the rhubarb getting too wet and making the cake soggy.

- Lower the oven temperature to 180˚c/fan oven 160˚c/350˚F / gas mark 4.

- Line a 2ocm round springform cake tin with baking paper.

- Put 3 tablespoons of custard to one side for later.

- Beat the butter, remaining custard, flour, baking powder, eggs, vanilla and golden caster sugar in a large bowl until smooth and creamy.

- Spoon a third of the batter into the prepared tin and level.

- Spoon a third of the rhubarb onto the batter and ensure it is evenly distributed.

- Spoon a further third of the batter onto the rhubarb and spread out as best you can. Be gentle and it will be ok.

- Spoon a further third of rhubarb and top with the remaining cake batter.

- Scatter the remaining rhubarb on top and then dot the 3 tablespoons of reserved custard on top as well.

- Bake for approximately 40 minutes or until risen and golden, then cover with foil and bake for a further 15-20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Mine took nearer to 1 hour 30 minutes in total.

- Cool in the tin on a wire rack.

- If you wish you can sieve some icing sugar over the top before serving. Serve with some thick cream.

- Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have made.

- Eat

Iron Cupcake London – Challenge IX: The Perfect Pair

The theme: THE PERFECT PAIR! Enter any cupcake you wish, the sole restriction being that it must contain only TWO flavours i.e. no more than two flavours in the whole thing - sponge and frosting. Will you go for a classic combination or something more outrageous? Dazzle our taste buds! Wow us with your flavour-combining skills! Good luck!

Requirements: Make a minimum of 18 cupcakes that meet the theme of THE PERFECT PAIR – if you can make more please do…the more you make, the more people can taste your delicious creation (and vote for you!) Please feel free to enter as many types of cupcake as you wish, I only ask that you have at least 18 of each.

Please cut at least 6 of your cupcakes in half, so that smaller tables can still sample everything.

Prizes: The winners of the professional and amateur contests will each receive one of these gorgeous three tiered mirrored cake stands:

Voting: Bakers and Judges will vote individually, each table of eaters will also have a vote too.

Bakers - As usual, please let me know if you plan to enter either of the competitions so we can gauge numbers.

There are now two competitions – one category for professionals*, one for amateurs**. Please indicate which competition you are entering.

*You are a professional entrant if you have a cupcake business, if you regularly sell cupcakes or any other cakes for profit (i.e. not charitable events or fetes) or you are a professionally trained chef/baker.
**You are an amateur entrant if you have, once or twice, taken a small commission from friends or family for a wedding etc and have received a fee to cover your costs or are a home/recreational baker.

Event details:

Monday 1st March 2010
6.00pm – 9.00pm
Venue – The Cuban Bar, Citypoint, One Ropemaker Street, EC2Y 9AYFor a map click here

Although the address is Ropemaker Street it’s actually on the Citypoint plaza. Just behind the Moorgate tube station entrance that’s in the row of shops including HMV, Hotel Chocolat, Eat and Clinton Cards, you’ll see a very tall building. That’s the Citypoint Tower. Head towards it and you’ll see a paved plaza-type area. Near the base of the tower you will see a small newsagent kiosk and a Costa, to the left of these (if looking at the tower) are The Rack & Tenter, then Prets. Head towards Prets into a covered walkway at the base of City point. This is where the Cuban bar is. We’ll be in the basement.

Entry fee for eaters: £5 (Entry fee includes tea or coffee). Bakers enter for FREE!

Timetable of events:

6.00-6.45pm – Entries are labelled and plated up
6.45 onwards – Eating and voting commences

Incidentally, The Caked Crusader and, consequently, ICL are now on Facebook and Twitter. Why not befriend Samantha Cake on Facebook – it’s me!!!! And then become a fan of the Caked Crusader page. We will be using this to post news of upcoming events, have discussions, in fact anything fun involving cake. To make it even easier here’s a link. On Twitter you can find me as CakedCrusader. So there’s no excuse not to stay in touch.

As the event expands it has become necessary for us to set out some disclaimers relating to the event namely that, as we are hosts of the event and don’t actually oversee any of the baking, we take people at their word as to the ingredients of the cupcakes and the environment in which they are prepared. It is unlikely that any entries are prepared in nut-free kitchens and anyone with allergies or intolerances should bear that in mind. Similarly, if an entrant tells us that an entry is vegan-friendly we believe them – feel free to chat to them on the night before sampling if you have any concerns. Your entry fee entitles you to free tea and coffee. Of course you can also sample all the cupcakes, for which we accept no liability.

Valentine’s biscuits

I must confess that everything about Valentine’s Day makes me recoil from it with great speed – it’s so cynically marketed and, if you love someone, why do you need to be told to demonstrate it on a particular day? Why not every day?

Anyway, rant over (it’s fairly hypocritical anyway as I bought a card, gifts etc for Mr CC), this is my attempt at some Valentine’s baking. You can of course make these biccies at any time of year and ‘seasonalise’ (I’ve invented a word) them by using a different shaped cutter. And well worth making they are too as they are short and buttery and crispy but also crumbly. Just about my perfect biscuit.

When you bite into these you might well think they are shortbread – they aren’t, but they have a similar texture. If you cut a little shape out of the middle of some of the biscuits you can sandwich them with a whole one and create a pretty little window effect.

I sandwiched some with nutella, some with raspberry jam and left some plain. Don’t add the filling until the day of eating otherwise you might lose some of the crispness of the biscuit.

You can reroll any cut outs but I baked them – you are rewarded with delicious little crisp mouthfuls of biscuity heaven!

Ingredients:

For the biscuits:
225g unsalted butter, diced and at room temperature
100g caster sugar
200g plain flour, plus extra for rolling
100g ground almonds

To sandwich (optional): nutella or raspberry jam. I suspect any jam or curd would work well.

How to make:

- Place all the ingredients in a food processor and blitz until a dough just starts to form.

- Knead the dough into a ball and then wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for 2 hours minimum (it’s a very soft dough so needs this long).

- Preheat the oven to 140°C/fan oven 120°C/275°F/Gas mark 1.

- Line two large baking sheets with baking or greaseproof paper.

- Remove the dough from the fridge and knead until it has softened. If it is still sticky add some more flour and knead this in. I added about a further 2-3 tablespoons.

- Cut the dough in half and roll one half out between two sheets of generously floured baking paper. Normally I wouldn’t flour baking paper but this dough needed it – use your judgement.

- Roll it out to 1/2cm thick and then cut out using your chosen cutter. If you’re planning to sandwich the biscuits take a smaller cutter and cut the centre out of half the biscuits.

- Place the biscuits and the cut out middles onto a baking sheet leaving about 1-2cm gap between them as they expand on baking.

- Repeat with the second ball of dough.

- Bake in the oven for approximately 40 minutes or until the biscuits are a pale golden brown. I was sceptical at a long bake at a low temperature but loved the effect – the biscuit had a much more delicate texture to it. Mine actually took a little over 40 minutes but it’s worth it. Check after 20 minutes in case the trays need turning to ensure an even bake.

- Place the trays on a cooling rack and let the biscuits cool. Don’t even think about moving them until they are cold as they are too fragile and will break.

- Store in an airtight container until you wish to serve, then sandwich with nutella or jam. Of course, you can leave them plain and enjoy the buttery almond taste on its own!

- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.

- Eat.

Trifle

Trifle is something that people seem to have got a little snobby about over the past few years. I’m not sure why as it’s heavenly! As long as you follow the basic components it also gives you great freedom of choice as to what you actually put in it.

Consequently, I’m not going to provide a recipe because it depends on what fruit is in season and what size bowl you’re going to use. I will however, tell you what my trifle included! I made lots and put some in my lovely crystal bowl (my January mega-bargain, if you recall) and made some in individual glasses:

Every trifle must have a spongy bottom (I think I must be a trifle!) Many people use swiss roll for this but I find that can make the overall dish too sweet so I made a Victoria sponge – the one I used for my Giant Madeleine – and cut that up. When served it almost gives it a summer pudding look, but with the bonus of custard and cream!

For the fruit layer I bought one box each of strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries. As the berries were tart I sprinkled a teaspoon of caster sugar over them to sweeten them up. Scatter these over the sponge layer and it already starts to look good!

Now we come to the ‘hot potato’ issue of trifle making: to jelly or not to jelly? I wouldn’t myself, but I was making this trifle for Mr CC, and the CCM and CCD all of whom like a bit of jelly. I used Rowntrees jelly cubes and made it up according to the packet instructions before pouring it over the fruit. It is quite satisfying to watch it seep into the sponge.

At this point refrigerate the bowl until the jelly has set. Now the custard layer. Use whichever custard you prefer – some like a thick yellow Bird’s custard but I find this a little plastic so bought good quality premade custard and beat some mascarpone cheese into it to thicken it. This is my top tip - custard and mascarpone is divine!

On top of this you only need some whipped cream and you’re done! Decorate with flaked almonds or chocolate or fruit – it’s up to you. As a nod to Valentine’s day I used some tiny sugar hearts.

Make sure you listen out for that terrific squelch noise that the first spoonful – and only the first spoonful – makes out of the serving bowl, then tuck into to English food at its finest!

Pear and cinnamon bake

I’ve been hit with a gastric flu-type bug for the latter half of this week, so no baking for me. However, I’ve raided my ‘secret unpublished archive’ (a girl should always hold something back!) and have this delight for you!

After an awful winter it does seem that spring might be in the offing – the nights are definitely drawing out. While this is good on practically every level, there is one level where I wish it was always winter: puddings. A good solid pud with custard or ice cream is never more comforting than during the miserable winter months, therefore I had to sneak this recipe in before my thoughts turned to lighter fare.

I thought the pear slices, gently frying in butter, looked beautiful:

This pudding doesn’t look all that in the bowl but when you turn it out and see all the gorgeous pear slices with thick treacly sauce glistening over and around them, you start to see the beauty!

I can’t really think of a fruit that cinnamon doesn’t compliment; this pudding could be made with apples or, simply by leaving out the frying stage, peaches, apricots, blackberries or nectarines.

The sponge turns deliciously squidgy as the treacle sauce sinks into it:

Ingredients:
For the pears:
2-3 pears, peeled, cored and quartered
Knob of butter

For the treacle:
25g unsalted butter
90g Demerara sugar
2 tablespoons golden syrup

For the batter:
125g unsalted butter
120g caster sugar
2 eggs
150g self raising flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons milk (whole or semi skimmed)

How to make:

- Preheat the oven to 200°C/fan oven 180°C/400°F/Gas mark 6.

- Generously grease a 1.2l pudding basin with butter. Make sure that the basin is ovenproof. I used an ovenproof glass basin.

- Cut the pear quarters through again in length so each pair is now cut into 8 chunky slices.

- Heat the knob of butter in a frying pan and fry the pears over a gentle heat just until they soften. Put to one side to cool.

- Now make the treacle: Place all the ingredients in a saucepan and cook over a medium heat until the sugar crystals have dissolved.

- Pour the treacle syrup into the prepared basin and then arrange the pear slices on top.

- Now make the batter: Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.

- Gradually beat in the eggs. If the mix looks like it might curdle add a little of the flour.

- Fold in the flour and cinnamon.

- Stir in the milk.

- Spoon the batter carefully over the pears. It won’t look like you have that much batter but it will be ample to cover the pears.

- Bake for 40-50 minutes until the cake appears to be cooked.

- Turn out the pudding onto a plate and serve hot with either custard or ice cream

- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.

- Eat.