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Monthly Archives: October 2021

Halloween Soul Cakes

Posted on October 29, 2021 by The quirk and the cool

This year I baked my Soul Cakes early to be ready for Halloween, All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day. They were traditionally made to be handed out on these special days.

“The cakes, often simply referred to as souls, are given out to soulers who go from door to door, singing and saying prayers for the souls of the givers and their friends.”

The musician Sting has a version of the traditional song “Soul Cake” on his album “If on a Winter’s Night”. Here are some lyrics.

“A soul cake, a soul cake, 

Please, good missus, a soul cake.

An apple, a pear, a plum or a cherry, 

Any good thing to make us all merry,

A soul cake, a soul cake, 

Please, good missus, a soul cake.

One for Peter, two for Paul, 

And three for Him that made us all.”

The little cakes are actually more like biscuits, and are delicious as they are full of spice and sultanas. They have a cross marked on the top too.

This batch of Soul Cakes are a little rough and ready! But taste great because of the spices.

Ingredients

100 g butter, softened 

100g caster sugar 

2 free-range egg yolks 

250g plain flour

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 

1/4 teaspoon ginger

1/4 -1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon saffron (or more if necessary)

Zest of an orange

2 tbs milk 

100g sultanas

Method

Put the softened butter, caster sugar and egg yolks in the bowl of a food processor and blitz until everything is combined and the mixture is creamy.

Sift the flour and spices, including the saffron. Put the mixture with the orange zest into the processor, blitzing for a couple of seconds only, then blitz in the milk a little at a time until the dough just comes together. Don’t over-mix! If the dough isn’t yellow enough, add a pinch more of saffron.

Stir in the sultanas by hand.

Form the dough into a rough ball, them roll into a sausage shape, with a rough diameter of about 50cm or 2 inches, or whatever size you want your soul cakes to be.

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C fan forced or 180 degrees C non fan forced.

Wrap in grease proof paper and chill in the fridge for a couple of hours or until you want to bake the cakes.

Bake for 15 minutes or until firm and just brown. Cool on a wire rack.

Line a baking tray with baking paper. Take the sausage from the fridge and cut into thick wedges. Place each wedge on the baking tray. At this stage you should cut a cross on the top of each soul cake.

Great eaten warm straight from the oven. The soul cakes can be frozen too, but eat on the traditional days if possible!

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Posted in Biscuits and Slices, Cakes, Family and Historical Recipes, Small Baked Things, Sweet Food and tagged , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Crumpets!

Posted on October 24, 2021 by The quirk and the cool

I have been making crumpets this week. They are such a great breakfast staple and a lovely afternoon tea treat.

I used my buttermilk crumpets recipe as I had some beautiful buttermilk from Pepe Saya, the Australian experts on all things dairy cultured! The link to their website is here.

So I thought I would revisit that recipe as well as my sourdough crumpets recipe. The buttermilk recipe is very easy to do as it uses commercial yeast. The sourdough recipe is fantastic, but you do need a sourdough starter on hand.

So here are the links to both recipes.

Buttermilk crumpets: https://thequirkandthecool.com/2018/11/17/buttermilk-crumpets-for-breakfast/

Sourdough crumpets: https://thequirkandthecool.com/2020/01/16/sourdough-starter-crumpets/

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Posted in Breakfast, Pancakes, Crumpets and Waffles, Small Baked Things, Vegetarian and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Hot Smoked Salmon Club Sandwich

Posted on October 18, 2021 by The quirk and the cool

This hot smoked salmon sandwich is Jamie Oliver inspired. The recipe is infinitely variable to make all kinds of different, delicious sandwiches.

Try it with leg ham or roast beef. Make it veggie by using halloumi instead of the salmon. Add a few pickles to the sandwich, or add condiments like chutney, onion or chilli jam, or even try it with pesto or hummus!

Ingredients

4 slices of streaky bacon

4 slices of sourdough bread

1 ripe tomato

1 ripe avocado

2 tablespoons home made or whole egg bought mayonnaise

1 tablespoon of basil or coriander leaves, bashed, stirred through the mayonnaise (optional)

200g hot smoked salmon (available from the deli section of supermarkets)

A handful of lettuce leaves or rocket

A few squeezes of lemon juice

Sea salt and black pepper

Method

Place the bacon in a cold frying pan, turn on the heat to medium and fry the bacon until crispy and cooked through, then remove from the pan. Turn off the heat.

Immediately put the bread slices into the still warm pan in the bacon fat to soak up the bacon flavour.

Cut the tomato into slices. Cut the avocado in half, take out the stone and peel each half. Cut the avocado into slices.

Now assemble the sandwich.

Spread the toasted sourdough slices with the mayonnaise.

Put two slices of toasted bread side by side and layer with the bacon rashers, tomato, avocado, chunks of the salmon and the lettuce or rocket. Squeeze lemon juice over the whole lot and add a grind or two of sea salt and black pepper.

Top each one with the remaining slices of toast. Eat and enjoy!

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Orange Friands

Posted on October 15, 2021 by The quirk and the cool

Spring in Sydney means an abundance of oranges. Of course I love blood oranges, and use them whenever possible. But the humble navel orange is juicy, sweet and seedless. The wonderful Orange Grove Market sells local oranges that are just divine and I am buying them in abundance!

So I made my usual recipe for friands, some with blood oranges and some featuring navels. These little cakes are made with eggs whites only and ground almonds and are very similar to the French financier.

I made 2 batches, using a blood orange in one batch and a navel orange in the other.

Ingredients

6 egg whites, beaten lightly

75g plain flour

240g icing sugar, sifted

125g almond meal

150g melted butter, cooled

Grated zest and juice of an orange

150g icing sugar or enough to make a thick glaze.

6 orange slices, to candy

50g caster sugar

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C or 160 degrees C fan-forced. Lightly grease 12 friand molds.

Beat the egg whites until frothy with fork in a large mixing bowl.

Sift the flour and icing sugar into the bowl, stir in almond meal and then add the melted butter. Stir in the zest of the orange, and the juice of one half of the orange.

Spoon the mixture (approximately ¼ cup) into each of the molds.

Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes until cooked through and golden brown or until a skewer is inserted into centre comes out clean. Sometimes the friands need a few more minutes in the oven to be nice and brown.

To make the glaze, mix the juice of the other half of the orange with the icing sugar. You may need to add more or less juice or more or less icing sugar to get the glaze to the right consistency to ice the friands. Ice the friands with just enough glaze to coat the tops and perhaps to run down the sides a little.

To candy the orange slices, put them into a small saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes until slightly soft. Drain, and place the slices on a plate and coat well with the sugar. The slices will be sweet and slightly sticky.

Put the slices on top of the iced friands for serving.

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Blueberry and Blackberry Almond Tea Cakes

Posted on October 8, 2021 by The quirk and the cool

Spring has sprung in Sydney and I’m dusting off my recipes for little cakes perfect for afternoon tea. Berries are plentiful and cheap, so perfect to pop into a small cake and top with a lemon icing.

The recipe is an all in one food processor recipe too. Easy!

One of the issues I have experienced with my little cakes is the problem of cakes sticking to the molds and coming out in pieces.

I picked up some advice that buttering the molds and flouring them, freezing for half an hour then buttering again, gives you a pretty good chance of the cakes coming out whole. So that’s what I would advise that you do.

Here are two recipes, both based on the same basic cake mixture, one for blueberry, lemon and almond cakes, and one for raspberry and almond cakes.

Blueberry, Lemon and Almond Cakes

Ingredients

65g self-raising flour

60 ground almonds

125g caster sugar

125g butter

2 large free-range eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tblsp milk

125g fresh blueberries 

Lemon Icing

2 tbsp lemon juice

Enough sifted icing sugar to make a thick but spreadable icing

3 blueberries for little cake for decorating

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C fan forced. Butter, flour, freeze and butter again your chosen molds. I used popover molds, but muffin molds would be fine. You will get 6 cakes from the popover molds, probably 8 from the muffin molds.

Put all the ingredients except the milk  and the blueberries in a food processor and blitz till smooth. Add the milk while pulsing the food processor to get a mixture that is not to stiff and of dropping consistency.

Carefully fold the blueberries into the mixture with a spoon.

Spoon the mixture into the molds, making sure you don’t fill more than  3/4 of the mold.

Place the molds in the oven and bake for 15 minutes or until the cakes are cooked and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Once the cakes have cooled for about 15 minutes, carefully up end the molds and ease the cakes out of the molds.  Cool on a wire rack.

For the icing, mix the lemon juice with enough icing sugar to make an icing that will drip over the cakes. Ice the little cakes, adding 3 blueberries on the top of each cake for decoration.

Raspberry and Almond Cakes

Ingredients

65g self-raising flour

60 ground almonds

125g caster sugar

125g butter

2 large free-range eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tblsp milk

3 raspberries for each cake mold

Lemon Icing

1 tbsp lemon juice

2 or 3 pureed raspberries

Enough sifted icing sugar to make a thick but spreadable icing

1 raspberry for little cake for decorating

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Butter, flour, freeze and butter again your chosen molds as for blueberry cakes.

Put all the ingredients except the milk  and the raspberries in a food processor and blitz till smooth. Add the milk while pulsing the food processor to get a mixture that is not to stiff and of dropping consistency.

Spoon the mixture into the molds, making sure you don’t fill more than  3/4 of the mold. Carefully pop 3 raspberries into each cake mold.

Place the molds in the oven and bake for 15 minutes or until the cakes are cooked and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Once the cakes have cooled for about 15 minutes, carefully up end the molds and ease the cakes out of the molds.  Cool on a wire rack.

For the icing, mix the lemon juice and pureed raspberries with enough icing sugar to make an icing that will drip over the cakes. Ice the little cakes, adding 1 raspberry on the top of each cake for decoration.

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Posted in Cakes, Small Baked Things, Sweet Food and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Jammy Orange Cake

Posted on October 1, 2021 by The quirk and the cool

I love orange and lemon cakes! Which will be no surprise to readers of this blog, as I have posted a few. Recently I posted Claudia Roden’s famous orange almond cake, made by cooking whole oranges.

This cake also includes a whole orange, this time used without cooking. It also has marmalade in the cake batter as well as in the glaze, giving the cake a lovely “jammy” flavour, hence the name!

It’s also super easy and quick! It’s made entirely in the food processor. Saves on washing up too!

The resulting cake tastes great and looks pretty enough to grace any afternoon tea table.

Ingredients

Cake

180g butter

1 large orange

180g caster sugar

3 free range eggs,  at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

200g self raising flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon good quality marmalade

Orange Glaze

150g icing sugar

Juice of half an orange

1 tablespoon marmalade (optional)

Method

Preheat oven to 170 degrees C.

Grease a 20cm or (bigger) springform pan. If you use a bigger pan, your cake will be wider and not as high.

Line the base of the pan with baking paper.

Melt the butter in the microwave or in a saucepan on the stovetop.

Cut off the stem section of the orange. Chop the orange into large chunks, including the skin.

Put the chunks into a food processor and blitz until pureed, about a minute.

Add the melted butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla to the processor and process till combined. Add the SR flour, baking powder, salt and marmalade and blitz until just combined.

Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

Remove from the oven, and leave to cool for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the pan ring to loosen the cake from the pan.

After another 10 minutes remove the ring and take the cake off the base, placing it onto a serving plate.

To make the glaze, add enough icing sugar to the orange juice to make a drippable icing. Stir through the marmalade if using.

With a palette knife or spoon, spread the glaze over the cake, letting it drip down the sides.

Serve as is or decorate with whatever you fancy – I love fresh flowers, or glacé or dried orange!

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Posted in Cakes, Dessert, Jams, Marmalades, Conserves and Chutneys, Preserves, Sweet Food and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.
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