Exchange and bake

Chocolate Cake

I’ve been having saxophone lessons from my music teacher friend Maria for about 6 years now. It’s always fun and my repertoire is much extended now to include latin, soul and jazz. My best pieces are Dos Gardenias para ti, Blueberry Hill, Summer time and Unchained Melody. Maria is a very sympathetic teacher and always writes words of encouragement and praise in my lesson book, even when I give her a million excuses why I haven’t practised my scales and arpeggios. She writes ‘lovely playing’, ‘smooth musical performance’, ‘very expressive’.  The highlight of my year is when I get to play with her school band at the Christmas concert at Doncaster Minster.

And I've been passing on some of Grandma’s tips in exchange for lessons when Maria said she hadn’t much baking experience. We’ve had one to one cookery lessons and made a whole range of tasty dishes including Vegetable Soup, Shortcrust Pastry and Grandma's Chocolate Cake. 

Chocolate Cake

6 oz/175g margarine or butter

6 oz/175g sugar

6 oz/175g self-raising flour

2 tbsps cocoa

A pinch of salt

3 eggs

2 tbsps black treacle (warmed)

½ tsp vanilla essence

½ cup milk

“Cream the margarine (or butter) and sugar. Mix the cocoa and flour together with a pinch of salt. Beat the eggs. Add alternately to the mixture with the flour. Add the treacle and vanilla to taste. Add a little milk to give a soft consistency. Bake in a moderate oven for ¾ hour.”  (350F, Mark 4, 180 C)

I’ve devised a memo for Maria to jot things down to remember as she goes along. Maria says ‘I didn’t think baking would be so easy and so much fun. Meryl is a great teacher and has given me so much confidence in the kitchen.’ I am delighted she has got into baking. Now back to the saxophone practice – where were we with those scales?

Here is a picture of Maria and dance partner Steve and the rest of the participants strutting their stuff at the fabulous Not so Strictly Come Dancing event last weekend at Sheffield City Hall to support the work of the Safe at last charity with young runaways in the Yorkshire region.

Countdown to Grandma’s book launch

Grandma Abson’s original baking folder

I’m soon to launch Grandma Abson’s Traditional Baking. I’m telling the story of my Grandma’s life and baking tips and recipes. I’ve agreed the final details and we’ve pressed the print button to roll off lots of copies. This project has required lots of baking to get it off the ground. 

The York Publishing Services folk love cakes with chocolate. It must be the Rowntrees chocolate legacy in the city. Last week, I baked Grandma’s recipe for Chocolate Cake and added sour cherries to the chocolate butter cream filling. Cathi said ‘The cake was delicious! The cherries are perfect – it takes a little of the sweetness out and makes it lovely and moist’.

 

Chocolate Cake with cranberries

While the printing is being done, I’ve been busy arranging the launch in early June. Staff at Dearne Valley College have very kindly agreed to host it.  I am so delighted about this as it’s very near to where Grandma worked in service and a couple of miles from where she lived in Bolton on Dearne. Catering and Hospitality students from the College are baking recipes from Grandma’s book.  It will be fantastic to see some of the people who remember Grandma. So in answer to the question ‘Have you got a copy of your Grandma’s recipes?’ I’ll be able to proudly say ‘Yes!’

A bit of a do ......

A celebration cake for a christening

Grandma’s Celebration Fruit Cake recipe is getting well used this year. My niece Sara and her partner Graeme had their lovely baby, Niamh, christened recently. At the church, our proud family and friends gathered to support the new addition to the family circle. The minister triumphantly poured water into the font from a great height, all adding to the drama. Our group all watched intently as Niamh was the first of the three babies to be christened. She cried out lustily when the minister poured water over her forehead and we all drooled affectionately and then clapped heartily when her turn was over. Ah!!!!!!  Niamh quickly recovered her composure and after the photos we all went off to a buffet lunch at a nearby pub.

  

The focus of everyone’s attention (as well as the beautiful baby) was the cake. Sara had requested a traditional fruit cake and her mum used Grandma Abson’s traditional Celebration Fruit cake recipe - but double the quantities - to make a large square cake. Another friend did an amazing job with the icing and decoration.  

Celebration Fruit Cake (8 inch /21 cms)

8oz/225g brown sugar

8oz/225g butter

1 tbsp black treacle (warmed)

1 tbsp golden syrup (warmed)

5 eggs (beaten)

9oz/250g self raising flour

3-4oz /100g glace cherries

4oz/110g mixed peel

10oz/275g each of sultanas, raisins, currants

1tsp each of cinnamon and mixed spice

2oz/50g nut mix +1oz/25g ground almonds or 3oz/75g ground almonds

1/6 pint/100ml stout 

Cream the butter and sugar and add the treacle and golden syrup. Add the eggs and half of the flour and spices. Beat the mixture. Stir in the almonds and cherries and then the rest of the flour and dried fruit. Add the stout. Bake for 3 – 3 ½ hours. Start warm for 30 minutes and then gradually reduce and finish in slow oven. (325F, Mark 3, 170C to 250F. Mark ½ 130C)



Proud mum and dad with Niamh 

We all love ‘a bit of a do’ in Yorkshire!

Designing Grandma Abson's Traditional Baking book

Mark (and me) fine-tuning Grandma's book

I've written before about the book of Grandma Abson's Traditional recipes which I am launching this summer. This is not the first time that Grandma's recipes have been in the bookshops. Thirty years ago, I published a booklet of her popular recipes which sold like hotcakes across the North of England. I’m hoping to tell Grandma's story again with a fuller selection of her favourite recipes with the release of the new book and an ebook too and really keep that baking legacy alive. 

I’ve been working on the book cover and page layout with a local design company FCD. The Creative Director, Mark and his colleagues have come up with some fantastic ideas to visually convey Grandma's story.

We've spent the past few weeks working on the cover, the text and photos inside, and now they've sent it across to York Publishing Services who are now doing proofs. Needless to say, I have made lots of cakes and biscuits for them to try to really get a feel of what the book is all about.

I'll be pressing the print button in the next few weeks, so watch this space for updates.

A right Royal Wedding Cake

Kate and William’s amazing wedding cake  

I have to admit that I am not a fervent monarchist but, I suspect like many folk, I did spend the day watching the wedding coverage. Of course, I had a sneaking fascination to see what the bride was wearing. I was also keen to see the cake and pick up a few tips from Leicestershire baker, Fiona Cairns. Kate and William’s cake was a traditional multi tiered one with the edible flowers representing the 4 nations. It was an amazing creation.

The history of wedding cakes goes back to early medieval times and later Tudor cakes which were largely bread and dried fruit.  More recent tradition came from Queen Victoria who had the first 3 tiered wedding cake weighing over 300 lbs, described as a ‘triumph of architecture.’  Wartime wedding cakes in the 1940s relied on family and friends saving ration coupons to donate for the ingredients. Couples sometimes had a cardboard cutout cake with a tiny cake hidden beneath.

Our family always marks big events in family life by making a cake. Grandma Abson’s niece, Ivy, made the wedding cake for Grandma’s eldest great granddaughter, Rachel when she married Greg in 2004 and decorated it with some superb iced flowers.

 

Rachel and Greg’s stunning wedding cake

I’m keeping up Grandma Abson’s tradition by making the wedding cake for my daughter in October. Once they make the final decision about the design, I’ll be working to a timetable starting with making the fruit cake tier using the recipe for Bride's Cake from Grandma's recipe book. Here it is :  

Celebration Bride's Fruit Cake 

8oz/225g brown sugar

8oz/225g butter

1 tbsp black treacle (warmed)

1 tbsp golden syrup (warmed)

5 eggs (beaten)

9oz/250g self raising flour

4oz/110g glace cherries

4oz/110g mixed peel

10oz/275g each of sultanas, raisins, currants

1tsp each of cinnamon and mixed spice

2oz/50g nut mix +1oz/25g ground almonds or 3oz/75g ground almonds

1/6 pint/100ml stout 

Cream the butter and sugar and add the treacle and golden syrup. Add the eggs and half of the flour and spices. Beat the mixture. Stir in the almonds and cherries and then the rest of the flour and dried fruit. Add the stout. Bake for 3 – 3 ½ hours. Start warm for 30 minutes and then gradually reduce and finish in slow oven. (325F, Mark 3, 170C to 250F. Mark ½ 130C)

You need to make fruit cake in advance so it can mature. Then every week or so prick the top and pour a few teaspoonsful of brandy to help the process. Two weeks before it's needed, cover the cake with homemade almond paste. Here is Grandma’s recipe :

Almond Paste

8oz/225g ground almonds

12oz/340g caster sugar

 4 tablespoonfuls of lemon juice 

2 tablespoonsful of water instead of the egg 

Mix all the ingredients and bind the paste together. You can also substitute a 1 tablespoon of sherry instead of 1 of the water. You can also substitute half of the caster sugar with icing sugar.

With Grandma's recipe, I know my daughter's wedding cake will taste as good as the royal cake. Congratulations and good luck to the happy royal couple!

Just the thing for a picnic or street party food

With a cluster of bank holidays and wonderful weather, we don’t need an excuse to get out and party with friends and family. This painting by Harold Sharman Henson depicts a scene of what traditional street parties used to be like.

You don’t need a permit to serve food as long as you’re not selling it at your street party. But it’s important that the food is prepared in a safe and hygienic manner so see my tips for Baking and Hygiene.  We used to have sandwiches, scotch eggs, sausage rolls, cooked meats, home made cakes and biscuits for street parties or picnics. 

This Easter Sunday, after a lovely walk around our local parkland it was warm enough to have a picnic so I served up an Easter version of Grandma's Simnel Cake as a scrumptious treat.

Go Dutch to celebrate Easter

Easter Celebration Stick

There is a significant Dutch influence in Yorkshire cooking since Dutch engineers came across to build the dykes to drain the flood water from the fields in the Vale of York and on the banks of the Humber. My Dutch friend, Cobi, who has lived in Yorkshire for over 30 years, remembers her Grandma’s baking. She writes …

‘My Grandma was born in a small village, in the North of Holland, in a county called Friesland and lived there all her life until she died. She was married to a fisherman and they had their own fish shop. Grandma only baked on birthdays and special days like Christmas and Easter because there was very little money and baking was classed as a luxury. Grandma was always busy in the fish shop selling the fish Grandad had caught. Friesland had its own language. In Dutch the word for grandma is Oma (I'm Oma to my grandson), but the Fries word for Oma is Beppe and that is what my brother and I called her.

This is Oma’s recipe for Celebration Stick. It’s delicious!

For the marzipan (almond) filling:

125g ground almonds

125g sugar

½  egg

Finely grated rind of a lemon

Juice of a lemon (If a stronger flavour is preferred, then use more lemon zest).

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, cover and leave to stand for an hour or so.

For the decoration:

Apricot jam

Glazed cherries

Strips of orange peel

For the pastry:

Puff pastry is used in this recipe, so make your own or use readymade frozen puff pastry.

Roll out the pastry thinly, about ½ cm thick, into an oblong shape of about 35-40 cm long and 12-15 cm wide.

Roll the almond mixture (marzipan) into a long sausage shape, slightly shorter than the oblong.  Place the almond mixture on the pastry oblong and roll the pastry over the marzipan. Slightly wet the edges and stick together.  Do the same with both ends.  Place the long roll on the baking tray with the stuck side down. Brush with beaten egg and place in a hot oven, about 225C, 430F, for about 30-40 minutes or until baked.  Do not open the oven for the first 15 minutes.  Take out and allow to cool. 

When completely cold, warm 4-5 tbsps of apricot jam in a pan until very runny.  Spread the runny jam over the baked roll.  For final decoration use glazed cherries and orange peel strips. Decorate with Easter eggs or Easter chicks.

Cut into small slices

Happy Easter!

Diamonds are forever Part 2

A Diamond Wedding Party Cake   

Last week was P and C’s Diamond wedding party. They invited 25 family and friends to lunch in a restaurant near their home. We ate their Diamond Celebration cake as a dessert after the speeches.

I did two tiers with the bottom tier as a fruit cake, as I showed you in the recipe in Diamonds are Forever Part 1. The second tier was a Victoria Sandwich so everyone had a choice. I followed Grandma Abson’s recipe for a traditional Victoria Sandwich with Raspberry Jam and butter cream filling. 

I covered the fruit cake with homemade marzipan/almond paste and then covered both cakes in 'ready to roll' icing.   This way of icing cakes is a real life saver as I’ve never done intricate icing unlike Grandma and her niece Ivy, who both excelled in producing amazing sugar craft flowers. I used a cake polisher to give a smooth and shiny finish to the icing.  

Kay at Flowers by Kay made a lovely Lily of the Valley decoration for the top of the cake. The shimmery green ribbon and the sparkling ‘60’ gave a final flourish to the masterpiece! I can tell you that we all had a great time celebrating their 60 years together.

The happy couple ready to cut the cake!

Simnel Cake for Mothering Sunday

A jewel of a Cake for Mother’s Day

We all think of Simnel Cake decorated with almond balls, chocolate eggs and fluffy chicks for Easter but it’s also a tradition on Mothering Sunday or Mother’s Day. Young men and women away from home took gifts to their mothers. Traditionally, they gave them Simnel Cake and violets. An ancient rhyme tells of the old custom of ‘going a mothering’: “When at Mid-lent thou dost wake, to thy mother beat thy cake. She will prize it for thy sake”. Simnel Cake probably owes its tradition to Latin ‘siminellus’ which signifies the finest wheat flour, so the cake would be made with the finest ingredients.  

Simnel Cake

4oz/110g butter

3oz/75g sugar

1 tbsp syrup

2oz/50g ground almonds

2 large eggs (save some of egg white)

1lb/450g mixed fruit

2oz/50g chopped peel

2oz/50g glace cherries

Grated rind of one orange or lemon

8oz/225g self raising flour

¼ tsp mixed spice

2-3 tbsp milk

1lb/450g almond paste  

Mix all of the ingredients together. Turn half the mixture into a well greased tin and on it place one third of the almond paste, rolled out slightly smaller than the cake measurement. Turn the remaining mixture onto this and bake for 2 - 2 ½ hours in a slow oven. ” (300 F, Mark 2, 150 C) “Allow to cool. Then brush the top of the cake with the apricot jam. Roll out the remaining almond paste and place on top of cake. Place under a hot grill or in a very hot oven for 1- 2 minutes to allow top to brown. Then decorate as you like with Glace Cherries.  

For an Easter Simnel Cake, shape the remaining almond paste into 11 balls and arrange them around the edge of the cake and brush with egg white then grill as before.  

Whatever the occasion, Simnel Cake is a great one to enjoy!

Bake off with Chocolate Brownies

Prize winning Chocolate Brownies

This week’s Blog writer is Grandma Abson’s great granddaughter, Katherine who is keeping up the family tradition of home baking.  She writes :

With the revival of home baking, it’s becoming more popular to make rather than buy cakes. Our team at work has followed suit and we have a regular ‘bake off’. Whilst it’s all in the name of fun, the competitive ones amongst us take it very seriously. We even have a spreadsheet to track the scores each person has been awarded. Each participant is marked on taste, creativity and presentation. This week it was my turn and I decided on Chocolate Brownies (after giving up on my quest to cut out Chocolate for Lent after 2 days – whoops!). The Brownies were just the thing to curb the Monday blues. Final scores are not yet in but so far looking good! Here’s the quick and easy recipe.

Chocolate, Cherry and Walnut Brownies

200g butter

200g dark chocolate (chopped)

3 large eggs

300g granulated sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

125g plain flour

a pinch of salt

100g dried cherries

100g walnut pieces

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/fan 160ºC/gas 4. Grease and line a 20 x 30 cms rectangular baking tin with greaseproof or parchment paper. Melt the butter and chocolate either in a bowl over a pan of simmering water or gently in the microwave. With an electric hand whisk, beat together the eggs, sugar and vanilla extract until they are lovely and thick and creamy. Mix in the melted chocolate and butter. Finally stir in the flour, salt, cherries and walnuts. Pour into the baking tin and cook for about 25 minutes until the top is cracking and the centre is just set. Leave to cool in the tin for about 20 minutes before cutting into squares. Serve warm or, if you can resist leaving them, cold.    

Extra tips: 

• Substitute cranberries and pecans or apricots and almond flakes. 
• Add 2 tablespoonfuls apricot or raspberry jam to the mixture in the tin and swirl it round before putting in the oven to bake
• Add white and milk chocolate chunks to the mixture if you are a hard core chocoholic.
• If you prefer plain Brownies or are allergic to nuts, just leave out the fruit and nuts.

Meryl says : Make sure you don’t overcook them. Grandma Abson would have used a cake skewer to test if they are ready. But this time, rather than coming out clean as when testing cakes, the skewer should have a gooey mixture attached to it. Brownies should be firm to the touch but still a bit like the texture of fudge. They will set once they are cool. Chocolate Brownies will keep for about 3 or 4 days but it would be amazing if you still had any left by then! Finally ... thanks to this week’s guest writer.

Chocolate Brownies for Easter chicks

Finding time to bake

Grandma's Fruit Scones

 Although there's a widespread revival of interest in baking now, people sometimes say to me ‘I don’t have time to bake’. I always reply that the best thing about many of Grandma Abson's recipes comes from mixing basic ingredients without too much fuss. In her early life, Grandma was a ‘below stairs cook’ for an Edwardian family called Hick, who frequently entertained prominent local citizens so she became an expert in producing something quickly for unexpected guests in a short time.

 

Ingredients for Fruit Scones

Scones fit the bill perfectly and can be made from store cupboard items. Grandma’s scones always come out light and airy and win many plaudits. I like to taste different varieties of scones but my favourites are Fruit Scones as the sultanas keep them moist.

SCONES

8 oz/225g self raising flour

½ tsp salt

2oz/50g butter

2oz/50g sugar

2oz/50g sultanas

2 eggs

Milk to mix

Add the salt to the flour. Rub in the butter. Add the sugar and sultanas. Beat the eggs and milk and add to make a dough. Roll out and cut into sections with a cutter. Bake for 10-12 minutes on the third runner from the top of the oven. (450F, Mark 8, 230C)

Meryl’s tips :

• If you want an egg free recipe, leave out the eggs and just add more milk (approx 150ml) to make the dough.
• This can be a sugar free recipe too. The dried fruit gives the scones a taste of sweetness.

Bake Scones in 20 minutes

Treat yourself to some home baking this week? Who can resist the joys of a plate of scones, warm, aromatic and straight out of the oven?                                            

Pancakes Galore

Simple ingredients for perfect Pancakes

It’s coming up to Pancake Day. Making and eating pancakes is a tradition where people had a last chance to use ingredients such as butter and eggs before the period of Lent leading up to Easter. Grandma Abson always served us pancakes with freshly squeezed orange and golden syrup.  I’ve been looking through her old newspaper cuttings and found a whole range of recipes for pancakes from 1910 where the authors were sent prizes when they got published in the newspaper.  The first recipe is just like Grandma’s. 

Pancakes

‘Three ounces of flour, two eggs, half a pint of milk. Put the flour into a basin, make a well in the centre and drop in the eggs; add the milk gradually and mix with a wooden spoon. Put a small piece of butter or lard in a frying pan and let it get thoroughly hot, pour in enough batter to thinly cover the bottom of the pan and fry to a pale colour, turning or tossing the pancake when the underside is done. Throw on to paper sprinkled with lemon juice and roll up quickly, Serve with quarters of lemon and castor sugar.’

The writer of this recipe Mrs J W Verity of Coalville won a first prize of 5s 6d (= 27½ p)

Very light Melbourne Pancakes

‘Two breakfastcupfuls of flour, two breakfastcupfuls of milk, one ounce of butter (melted), two eggs, one good teaspoonful of carbonate of soda, sugar, lard, half a teaspoonful of salt. Mix the flour, milk, eggs and salt to a smooth batter and let stand for one hour and half, and then add the melted butter and the carbonate of soda, previously dissolved in a little hot water. Fry the pancakes in hot lard until a golden brown, sprinkle with castor sugar and serve.'

Miss Tennant of London won a tin of tea as a prize for this recipe.

Appetising Pancakes

Four tablespoonfuls of flour, half a pint of milk, one egg, pinch of salt and a little nutmeg. Place the flour in a basin, make a well in the centre, drop in the yolk of egg, place the white on a plate, add to the yolk of egg and flour part of the milk by degrees, beat this mixture until it begins to rise in bubbles, then stir in the remainder of the milk. Whip the white of egg to a stiff froth and mix it lightly into the other ingredients just at the last. Melt a little lard in a small frying pan, pour in about half a teacupful of batter, cook it over a moderate fire until it is pale brown on the underside; turn it quickly and when the second side is browned, turn the pancake on to a hot plate, sprinkle with sugar and roll up. Place this on a hot dish. Prepare the others in the same way.

Miss Burnett of Bristol won half dozen embroidered handkerchiefs for this recipe

Chocolate Pancakes

Three ounces of sugar, four ounces of grated chocolate, four ounces of flour, half a pint of milk, two eggs. Mix the chocolate smoothly with cold milk, boil the rest and pour onto it. Return to the pan and stir till smooth, add the sugar and let it cool. Whisk the eggs well, stir into the flour, add the chocolate and let the batter stand till cold. Then fry in fat, sprinkle with sugar, roll up and serve hot.

Miss Gregg of Liverpool won a Dainty Stationery Blotter for this recipe.

Russian Pancakes 

1 ½ oz butter

2 oz flour

2 oz sugar

2 eggs

Grease well with butter 4 large saucers. Place the butter in a basin and beat it to a cream, add the sugar then by degrees the flour, and mix all together thoroughly. Beat the eggs until very light in a separate basin. Then add to the other ingredients lightly and quickly. Half fill the saucers with the mixture and place them in a quick oven and bake for twenty minutes. When ready, turn them out of the saucers, fold them together and if desired, place a little jam or sugar in each. 
Miss Nicholl of Tayport won a Silver Enamel Pendant for this recipe.

Have fun flipping pancakes on Pancake Day!