Stir It Up for Christmas

Stir it up in the Great Kitchen at Cusworth Hall

Wishes were in the air at Cusworth Hall Doncaster last weekend. Stir Up Sunday (the last Sunday in the church year) is the day when everyone has a go at stirring the Christmas Pudding mixture and makes a wish. June, Hazel (alias Mary and Rose) and I put on freshly laundered aprons and caps worn by the former kitchen staff in the Hall and reenacted preparations for Stir Up Sunday in the kitchens at the Hall, just as in the 1900s.

Stir it up and make a wish   

We made the Plum Pudding recipe from Grandma Abson's Traditional Baking. The Victorians called raisins 'Plums' hence the traditional name for Christmas Pudding. Grandma generally made her own Christmas Puddings a few weeks before Christmas and tied them up with clean cloths such as muslin or cotton. The recipe comes from her elder sister, Emma. It makes 3 large puddings so I’ve cut it down here to make one for a 2 pint basin.

PLUM PUDDING

275g/10 oz currants

150g/5 0z sultanas

150g/5 0z stoned raisins

75g/3 oz mixed peel

150g/5 0z (vegetarian) suet

150g/5 0z breadcrumbs

150g/5 0z self raising flour

150g/5 0z  (soft brown) sugar

 25g/1 oz flaked almonds or chopped  nuts

1 tsp mixed spice

1 tsp cinnamon

Pinch  of salt

2 eggs (beaten)

1/3 small can stout

A little milk

Mix all the dry ingredients. Add the eggs, then the stout and milk. Mix all well. Cover with greaseproof paper. Steam or boil for 4 hours. Store in a cool place until Christmas Day. Then, steam for 2 hours prior to serving on the day.”

Steaming the Plum Pudding 
(see below to microwave it)

Meryl's tips for a perfect Plum Pudding

1.     If you don’t have a steamer, you can put the pudding basin in a large pan on an inverted saucer or small plate and pour water to about ¼ of the side of the basin.

2.    Keep topping the water up in the pan so it doesn’t boil dry.

3.    Always test with skewer – if the skewer comes out clean, then it’s fully cooked. If it still sticks to the skewer then cook for a minute or so longer.

4.    And just in case … You can do all this in a microwave and make a microwave Christmas Pudding. Cover the pudding in cling film and for the first stage, cook on medium power for around 20 minutes. Then leave to cool, recover with fresh cling film (or foil) and store in cool place as before. On Christmas Day, remove the foil and cover with cling film, reheat for 6-8 minutes on a moderate heat.

5.    Whatever the method for cooking, leave the pudding to stand  for a few minutes before serving and prepare Brandy Butter, Custard or cream – whatever you like best. We always have Rum Sauce.

Paul says : 'I’ll try a piece of cake too!

Be enterprising and try something new

 Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco  

One of my favourite activities is as a volunteer Trustee and chair of the local Board for YoungEnterprise. This organisation is close to my heart as it’s all about promoting an entrepreneurial spirit amongst young people. I know Grandma would have approved of anyone rolling their sleeves up and getting involved.

Being a Yorkshire lass born and bred, ‘awesome’ is not a word which frequently forms part of my vocabulary but I would use it to describe the week I spent in San Francisco at the University of California, Berkeley Haas school of Business on behalf of Young Enterprise and as a guest of Intel. I was at the Global Entrepreneurship Leadership Symposium (GELS)    during Global Entrepreneurship week. The participants comprised over 60 academics and affiliates from all over the world. We visited Intel HQ at Santa Clara at the heart of the world’s exemplar cluster of innovation, the San Francisco Bay Area/Silicon Valley. Though coming from very different backgrounds and cultures, we all shared a common commitment to improving the world we live in by supporting and mentoring young budding entrepreneurs.

I didn't lose the chance to swap recipes too. This is from a Canadian Grandma who lives in Montreal. It's an awesome cake! 

 Honey Orange Cake

6oz  (175g) butter or margarine

6 level tbsps honey

2 tbsps castor sugar

Finely grated rind 2 oranges

3 eggs

8 oz (or 8 heaped tbsps) plain flour

3 level tsps baking powder

Pinch of salt

1 tbsp orange juice

Cream the butter, honey and sugar thoroughly together. Add the rind. Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a little sieved flour with each egg. Fold in the remaining flour and orange juice. Put into a 6 inch (16cm) cake tin lined with greaseproof paper. Bake in a moderate oven Mark 3, 325F, 160-170C for 1 ¾ hours.

Don’t forget to send me any of your favourite baking recipes from far and wide. Be enterprising and try something new!

Home on the Range

The Kitchen range at Cusworth Hall Doncaster

Grandma worked with coal, gas and electric ovens during her life. Her early years had been spent cooking on black-leaded Yorkshire ranges. Having a kitchen range was really a marvel for housewives from the nineteenth century when foundries began making good-quality cast iron. This followed on from the first design of kitchen ranges by Thomas Robinson in 1780. In Victorian times the Range was at the centre of family life, providing cooking facilities, hot water and heat to dry clothes.

As a young girl, Lizzie Cave (later Grandma Abson) lived in the small two up-two down terraced house which had a black leaded range. As second eldest in the family, she often said she had to knead half a stone of bread dough before she went to school. Later, working as Cook in charge in the kitchens at Oakleigh, a large imposing Victorian house in Wath on Dearne for her employer, Mrs Hick, gave her that mysterious knowledge of what was the “right temperature” for her baking.  As a result, she never was too explicit about cooking times and temperatures, with slow, moderate and quick as common descriptions. In Grandma Abson's Traditional Baking, I've included a cooking conversion table for different types of ovens and suggested times and oven temperatures.  Keep in mind that modern fan ovens should be at a cooler temperature than conventional ovens and may require slightly less cooking time.

Her reply to the question: “When will it be ready?”  was usually, “When it’s done”! She did, however, make regular use of a thin cake skewer or cake tester (rather like a thin knitting needle) to stick in the cake and check if the baking was thoroughly cooked. If it was cooked, there would be no trace of the mixture when the skewer was taken out, but if traces of the mixture remained on the skewer, then it needed further cooking time. I still have her skewer and use it for checking when baking cakes.

It’s great to see there are still ranges to admire around the country. There’s a range at Clifton Park Museum Rotherham, which was restored in 2005 to working order. You can go to visit and feel the warm glow of the range and reminisce about toasting teacakes by the fire. 

Many Yorkshire folk claim that Yorkshire Puddings can only be made properly in an old-fashioned kitchen range but don’t let that put you off making them in your oven at home. Just get the oven hot and the fat sizzling!

Bonfire Night Parkin

Yorkshire Parkin for a Bonfire Night treat 

I love it when I see the striking fiery reds and golds of autumn leaves. It’s like a countryside shout out for Bonfire Night where the traditional blazing bonfire, sparkling fireworks and the guy reminds us of 5 November 1605 when Guy Fawkes was arrested in the Houses of Parliament in the famous gunpowder plot.
It’s time for a favourite traditional Yorkshire recipe  

Yorkshire Parkin

225g/8oz self raising flour

450g/1lb medium oatmeal

1 tsp ginger

Pinch of salt

110g/4oz butter

225g/8 oz treacle 

(or 110g/4oz black treacle & 110g/4 oz golden syrup)

110g/4oz demerara sugar

1 egg beaten

150ml/¼pint milk  

Mix together all of the dry ingredients. Melt the butter in a pan with the treacle and demerara sugar. Mix well with the dry ingredients. Add the egg and milk. Bake in a flat tin in a warm oven for ¾ to 1 hour. (300F, Mark 3, 150 C)  

Don’t let the mixture boil

Mix well

 Yorkshire Parkin ready for the oven

Grandma’s tips for perfect Yorkshire Parkin : 
Leave the mixture overnight to let the oatmeal fully soak into the treacle. 
It should be sticky and moist so don’t let the melting treacle, butter and sugar boil.
Parkin gets better i.e. stickier if you leave it a few days before eating. That's if you can wait until it’s cooled down out of the oven!

Enjoy Bonfire Night but be safe and take care with the fireworks!

Remember, remember the 5^th of November

Scary treats for Halloween

Scary Halloween Cakes

31 October is an ideal time to get children learning how to bake. Grandma’s recipes for biscuits and cakes make a perfect base to make simple, tasty Halloween treats. At this time of year, I love baking with ginger with its warm Autumn colour. Grandma's recipe for Ginger Buns/Cakes are perfect for decorating with scary jelly or white chocolate monsters.

Ginger buns

50g/2 oz butter

2 dsps treacle

50g/2 oz sugar

4 oz plain flour

1 tsp ginger

1 tsp baking powder

1 egg

A little milk to mix

Spread 12 bun cases in a baking tray.  Melt the butter in a pan over a low heat and add the treacle and sugar until blended.   Mix together the dry ingredients - flour, ginger, baking powder.  Mix together the egg and the milk and add to the other liquid when slightly cooled. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and add the liquid. Mix well.  Fill the bun cases with the mixture. Bake in a moderate oven for 15-20 minutes. (350F, Mark 4, 180 C)

You could make these as smaller cupcakes or larger buns in muffin cases but allow another 8 to 10 minutes cooking time for the larger ones. Children can let their imagination run wild and decorate with owl eye balls, ghostly monsters or spidery webs. 

Scary Ginger Biscuits

If you are planning an evening of ghoulish delight on 31 October, get scary with Grandma's recipes and enjoy a Halloween treat! 

Bake at half term

Chocolate Coconut Tray Bake

Here's an easy recipe to bake at half term with the kids. My friend’s children, aged 7 and 9, love messing in the kitchen and will devour anything with chocolate. I tried out this recipe on them for Chocolate Coconut Tray Bake. They emailed me later to say ‘We just wanted you to know that the chocolate coconut thing was the BEST EVER!!!!!!!  Praise indeed. Here’s the recipe :

Chocolate Coconut Tray Bake

150g/5oz butter

50g/2oz demerara sugar

2 tbsps cocoa

175g/6oz self raising flour

100g/4oz (dark) chocolate

Melt the butter and sugar in saucepan over a low heat. Mix the flour, cocoa and coconut together and add the mixture to the melted butter and sugar. Spread the mixture in a shallow tin and bake in a moderate oven (Mark 4, 180C, 350F) for around 20 minutes. Leave to cool. Melt the chocolate in a bowl in a saucepan over hot water. Spread the chocolate over the top of the Chocolate Coconut Bake and leave until set. Cut into pieces as required.

Grandma has lots of ideas for ‘baking with kids’ as her recipes as so simple. Her mantra was 'Start them young and get hooked on baking!'  

Enjoy baking at half term and let me know what you bake!

It’s Apple day!

Pommes en pate

It’s Apple day on 21 October! This is a relatively new custom which began in 1990 in Covent Garden, London. You can make whatever dish you like, as long as you use apples.

Grandma's favourite apple recipes was Apple Pie but here's one of my favourite French recipes, Pommes en Pate from Normandy. It has ground almonds and a splash of Calvados to bring out the taste of the apples. Grandma loved this one too. 

I use Grandma’s recipe for Shortcrust Pastry and Bramley cooking apples as I prefer their sharper flavour. If the apples are large then you’ll want to serve a half or even a quarter of the dish as it is very filling!

Ingredients

4 apples (peeled and cored)

3 oz/75g ground almonds

2 oz/50g brown sugar (I usually omit the sugar)

1 tsp cinnamon

1oz/25g butter

2 tbsps Calvados (Optional)

Shortcrust pastry

Beaten egg (I brush the pastry to ensure a golden crust)

Peel and core the apples

Place each one in the centre of a 8 inch/20 cm round of pastry. Mix together the ground almonds, sugar (if used) and cinnamon. Fill the hole of each apple with the ground almond mixture, add a splash of Calvados and place a small knob of butter at the top of the hollowed core. 

Wrap the pastry around the apple to cover completely. Cover the join at the top with a leaf shape cut out of spare pastry. Brush the pastry with beaten egg. Place on a baking tray and bake in a pre heated oven at 180C, Mark 4, 350F for 30 minutes. A larger apple may require longer cooking time to make sure it is soft. Serve with ice cream, crème fraiche or custard (crème anglaise!) 

Delicieux!

Enjoy Apple Day! What's your favourite?

Getting the best ingredients

Tim and Jane at their stall

Grandma always made sure she sourced good products for her baking and the local Coop stocked most of the things she needed. These days we have a huge choice at local markets, supermarkets, grocery stores and online but there's a real gem of a stall on Doncaster Market called Tim and Jane’s Tasty Flavours for baking ingredients. The stall is in the famous indoor international food hall and rivals anywhere in the world. In fact, Doncaster Market has won many awards and has been the heart of the town since 1194.

Tim and Jane’s Tasty Flavours 

Tim and Jane have been working on the market for over 25 years including 18 years in the indoor market selling high quality fresh fruit and vegetables in season as well as a vast array of cooking and baking products. They have over 1100 products from edible nuts, dried fruits, teas, dried herbs and spices, gluten free pastas, dried beans and pulses. Tim predicts what people want and need at different times of the year so from September onwards, he stocks up on all the ingredients for Christmas cakes and vinegars for pickling. When it’s cooler, more dried beans and pulses are sold. He often gets requests for unusual products when people come back from holidays especially Spain or Greece or following TV cookery programmes which mention out of the ordinary ingredients. Tim encourages people to use fresh produce all year round in their cooking and baking.

Nigel on the fish stall 

What Tim likes best about Doncaster Market is the diversity of products available right across the market indoors and out. It really is a brilliant place for fruit, vegetables, fish and meat and everything that’s best for baking – we don’t know how lucky we are!

And a final word ....

P.S. This is the Wedding Cake  I made from Grandma's recipe with ingredients from Tim and Jane's stall. Many thanks also to Chris Chambers who is an amazing wedding photographer. He took these wonderful pictures of their wedding cake in all its glory!

Putting the icing on the cake!

The excitement is mounting as we’re putting the final touches to the wedding preparations for my daughter and her partner. 

Almond Paste 

My big task has been to make sure I got the cake ready. Last week, I covered the cakes with Almond Paste, and this week with fondant icing, wrapping maroon ribbon to match the colour of the bridesmaids' dresses around each of the 3 tiers. 

Kay assembling the wedding cake at Hodsock Priory

Kay at Flowers by Kay came up with some incredibly realistic cream roses and assembled the cake at Hodsock Priory  

The bride and groom have chosen a travel theme for their wedding as they've done a fair amount of travelling around the world together. The table plan is a world map, the table headers are postcards from places they have visited and the place names for the guests are luggage labels. They’ve even chosen ‘One more step along the world I go’ to sing at the wedding service.

We’re all looking forward to a fabulous day. All our fondest wishes and congratulations to our lovely couple. Grandma Abson would be very proud that her family baking legacy lives on!                              

Grandma’s spreading the word

Marmalade spice cake

I’m passionate about sharing Grandma’s skills and expertise which she passed on with the legacy of her delectable collection of 200 recipes in Grandma Abson's Traditional Baking so I’m doing talks, book signings and demonstrations about Grandma’s baking. Read about them on my Events page.

The first  of these was at Furlong Road Methodist Church in Bolton on Dearne, South Yorkshire where Grandma spent most of her life. It was brilliant to talk to the group about Grandma’s life in the village. It all set them reminiscing and quite a few of them remembered Grandma and her baking. I took along the Marmalade Spice Cake which they loved. We talked about ways of helping the next generation learn how to use simple ingredients to make good food for their families. Grandma’s baking has lots to offer as her skills were honed over the twentieth century often in times of shortage during rationing in the first and second world wars and the depression in the 1930s.  

John Foster of Fosters Bakery in Barnsley says that what he loves about Grandma’s book is that her appeal is not just about yesterday but it's for today and tomorrow. Grandma’s recipes celebrate our baking heritage and are highly relevant for us now and in the future with increases in the prices of foodstuffs and energy. He is very clear that we need to make tasty food with simple ingredients once again.

Last weekend, I was signing books and sharing cakes with the customers at Waterstones, which was great fun. Everyone tells me an anecdote about their Grandma’s baking so I'm starting Grandma’s traditional baking revolution!

A special wedding gift

A special wedding gift

 A few months ago, I made a special Wedding Cake  and gave a copy of Grandma Abson's Traditional Baking book for a family friend to take as a wedding gift for a famous couple, Justine Thornton and Ed Miliband. Ed is the local MP in Doncaster.  I decorated the cake with red ribbon and put a spray of delicate white Yorkshire roses, tied up with a horseshoe.

I was delighted to get a lovely message back from Justine with a lovely thank you card saying ‘We've started eating the cake and it is fantastic!’  I hope they are doing plenty of Grandma Abson’s baking in the Miliband household.

We’re all getting excited about my daughter’s wedding next month and yet another outing for Grandma Abson’s Celebration Fruit Cake recipe. As you need to prepare a wedding fruit cake in advance, I've baked the three tiers and these are now maturing. Once a week, I prick the tops of the cakes and pour a few teaspoonsful of brandy to help the maturing process. During the next couple of weeks, I’ll need to cover the cakes with home made almond paste/marzipan.

How to make Almond Paste

½ lb ground almonds

¾ lb caster sugar

4 tablespoonfuls of lemon juice and 2 tablespoonsful of water

Mix the almonds and sugar together. Add sufficient liquid to make a stiff  paste. You can also add a 1 tablespoon of sherry instead of 1 of the water. You can also substitute half of the caster sugar with icing sugar.

Almond paste ready to put on the cake

Grandma’s baking is a hit with the hens

Afternoon tea with the hens

I don’t remember Grandma ever saying she had been to a 'hen do'. My daughter’s bridesmaids had organised a secret weekend away to celebrate her final weeks of singledom. The destination was a farmhouse on the outskirts of Bath - an idyllic venue for a hen party!

On the first evening, we got dressed up in our best togs for dinner with a glass or two or fizz. After the meal, I got out my saxophone for the girls sang along. It was a great success and one of the girls said that this was the first hen do she been to with a family band!

I’m not quite sure what Grandma would have made of the next day, as we set off to do Burlesque Dancing. The hens got dressed up appropriately with basques, black stockings and suspenders and with teacher, Rachelle’s encouragement learnt the steps to become dazzling Dancing Divas. 

After lunch, it was back to the farmhouse and another occasion to celebrate - my niece’s birthday; we'd made a couple of traditional cakes from Grandma’s book : Victoria Sponge and Chocolate Cake and had afternoon tea around the farmhouse kitchen table. 

Blowing the birthday candles out!

I left for the drive home while the girls got ready for their evening’s partying with a cocktail making session, tapas and the Bath nightclubs. So, huge thanks to my daughter for asking me along and to all the girls for being so welcoming. I’m really looking forward to the big day soon. Now to get cracking with the wedding cake!

Let’s hear it for lemons

Tangy Lemon Loaf

Lemons are pretty underestimated in the baking world. When I was sorting through the recipes Grandma had cut out from magazines, I found one for a really tangy Lemon Loaf. I’m not sure which magazine it came from but Grandma Abson was an avid reader of Woman's Weekly. Once the Monday washing had been done, she would treat herself to a sit-down to catch up on the romantic serials as well as the more practical knitting patterns – we had a whole wardrobe of hand knitted woollen jumpers, gloves, hats and scarves.  The recipes would be cut out and saved to try out later.

Tangy Lemon Loaf

110g/4 oz butter

175g/6 oz castor sugar

Grated rind and juice 2 lemons

2 eggs (beaten)

175g/6 oz self raising flour

Milk to mix

50g/2 oz granulated sugar

Cream the butter, castor sugar and lemon rind until pale and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs. Mix in the flour and a little milk to soften the mixture so it drops off the spoon. Grease a 1kg/2lb loaf tin. Bake in a moderate oven (Mark 4, 350F, 180C) for 45 minutes until risen and firm on top. Prepare the lemon syrup by heating the lemon juice and granulated sugar until the sugar is dissolved. Once the cake is out of the oven, pierce the top with a cake skewer and pour over the lemon syrup. Leave the cake in the tin until cool.

This is a great recipe to serve with a bowl of blueberries and raspberries. The lemon syrup gives it really tangy and intense flavour - just the thing for a late summer’s afternoon. 

And here’s another great recipe for Lemon Biscuits. 

Have you got a Lemon recipe to shout out?