Orange, Cardamom & Coriander Madeleines – It's not what you've got, it's how you use it!

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For Café Europe - a cultural initiative held as part of Austria’s EU presidency in 2006 - Ireland offered scones, and France offered the Madeleine. While very different products, scones and Madeleines have some things in common – flour, sugar, butter, and social ambition. While both had relatively humble beginnings, they were adopted by high society – the scone becoming an essential part of ‘Afternoon Tea’, made fashionable by a rather peckish Anna Duchess of Bedford in the mid-nineteenth Century. The Madeleine (according to one account) was already a favourite at Versailles, adopted by the Court of Louis XV a century earlier. Both got a little lift from the invention of baking powder. There the similarity ends. Perhaps it's a lesson in "It's not what you've got, it's how you use it!"

In Remembrance of Things Past, Marcel Proust’s narrator famously has a foodgasm brought on by the Madeleine. He doesn’t mention scones.

For 24 foodgasm-inducing Madeleines you will need…

… 2 x 12-hole Madeleine tins (you’ll get away with 1, just let it cool between bakes)

150g butter

3 eggs

130g caster sugar

a teaspoon of finely grated orange zest

1 teaspoon coriander seed, finely ground

the seeds from 2 fat green cardamom pods, finely ground

¼ tsp salt

130g plain flour

¾ tsp baking powder

a little extra flour for dusting the cake tins

Icing sugar for dusting over the finished cakes

Method

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over a medium to high heat (use a light-coloured saucepan such as stainless steel if possible as it allows you to see the colour change in the butter that indicates it has reached the right point). Once melted, let it continue to foam and splutter, swirling occasionally to make sure it is heating evenly. As the foaming and spluttering dies down, the butter will continue to darken from yellow, to golden, to toasty brown. The butter will also begin to smell a little nutty. The milk solids in the butter will separate out and sink to the bottom. Remove the pan from the hob and pour into a heatproof bowl or jug to cool to room temperature, leaving as much of the milk solid residue behind as possible (If you leave the melted butter in the pan, it will continue to cook in the residual heat and may burn).

Remove 2 tablespoons of the melted butter right away – you’ll need this to brush the cake tins later – cover and keep it at room temperature so that it remains liquid.

Put the eggs in a large bowl and add the sugar. Whisk until pale, pale yellow and has thickened to the ‘ribbon’ stage – the whisk will leave a trail as you move it through the mixture and when you lift the whisk, the batter will fall in a ribbon and stay on the surface for a couple of moments before slowly disappearing back into the mixture.

From top left to right, you can see the colour change as you whisk the batter

Add the salt, orange zest and ground spices.  Trickle in the cooled butter, whisking all the while until incorporated into the batter.

Add the baking powder to the flour and sift about one-third onto the surface of the batter. Using a metal spoon such as a dessertspoon, gently fold the flour into the batter. Repeat twice more until you have folded all the flour into the mixture.

Cover with cling film, pressing down lightly so that it is in contact with the surface of the batter.

Chill in the refrigerator for at least an hour or overnight if possible.

When ready to bake, pre-heat the oven to 180°C.

Brush the Madeleine tins lightly with the reserved melted butter and sprinkle lightly with flour, tapping off the excess. Divide the batter evenly between the tins filling no more than about three-quarters full (an ice cream scoop or piping bag is good for even portioning). Don’t bother to spread the batter out to the edges - gravity will do the work for you.

Don't bother spreading the batter to the edges - gravity will do the work for you!

Transfer to the pre-heated oven and bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until risen and golden and spring back under the touch of a finger. If the God of Madeleines has been kind, they should have formed a ‘dromedary’ hump (which I always thought was a defect, but turns out to be Madeleine perfection – who knew!). 

A ‘dromedary hump’ is desirable...

Remove from the oven and leave in the tin for a minute or so before tipping gently out of their shells onto a wire rack to cool. They freeze marvelously and are restored to oven-fresh magnificence after about 12 seconds in the microwave. If you are going to freeze them do so now, without their sugar dusting.

If they are to be eaten now, once cool, dust with icing sugar and consume with a decent cup of tea or a glass of sticky dessert wine.

You could also dip them in good dark chocolate or white chocolate.

A bit of quality control… baker's privilege ...

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Chocolate Orange Mincemeat – shouts Christmas louder than a chorus of drunken carollers

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For me, chocolate and orange are the two flavours that sing out louder than a chorus of drunken carollers “Christmas is Here! Christmas is Here! “ And guess what? They absolutely love each other’s company.

This year I went through my (now dog-earred) copy of The Flavour Thesaurus and picked out other flavours that adore chocolate and like to hang out with each other as well.  

Don't be put off by the list of ingredients - it's mostly an assembly job.

See? Assembly job!

For approximately 4 jars of mincemeat, you will need...
... to pre-heat the oven to 180°C   

300g sultanas

100g ready-to-eat prunes (e.g. no stone), finely chopped

100g dried sour cherries (or dried cranberries), finely chopped

300g ready-to-eat dried apricots, finely chopped

100g mixed peel (this is finely chopped candied peel of oranges and lemons)

100g walnuts, finely chopped

220g dark brown sugar

200g grated apple (I used Granny Smiths)

125g butter, cut into cubes

finely grated zest and juice of 1 large orange

finely grated zest and juice of 1 lemon

 ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (or ground nutmeg)

5 coriander seeds, crushed (or ¼ teaspoon ground coriander)
3 allspice berries, crushed (or ground allspice, but not mixed spice)

2 whole cloves, crushed

2 teaspoons cocoa powder, sifted

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

6 tablespoons Cointreau (or other orange liqueur) + an additional 2 tablespoons to stir in at the end 

Method

Mix all the ingredients together in a large oven-proof dish with a lid. Cover and place in the preheated oven and cook gently for 3 hours, stirring every half hour or so (set a timer... )

When the cooking time has elapsed, remove from the oven and allow to cool, stirring briefly every half hour until cold. This keeps the butter evenly distributed throughout the mixture.

Finally, stir the remaining 2 tablespoons of Cointreau (or other orange liqueur) into the cooled mixture before sealing in clean, dry jars.

It will keep well for up to a year in a cool dark place or in the fridge - but I can’t really see the point in that!

With these fairy-size piece, you can eat three without a hint of guilt!

For the fairy-sized mince pies in the photos, stamp out rounds of short crust pastry using a 5cm (2 inch) scone cutter and use them to line a mini-muffin tin. Fill them to the top with the cooked, cooled mixture. Bake for about 10 minutes at 180°C. 

For regular-sized mince pies, use a 7.5cm cutter (2½ inch) for the base and a 6cm cutter (2¼ inch) for the lids. Fill, seal and bake for 20 – 25 minutes at 165°C or until a pale golden brown. Remember to poke two holes in the top of each with a sharp knife to let the steam out and stop them bursting open.

I prefer my mince pies warm from the oven (the microwave is death to pastry) with a swirl of fresh cream. A touch of Cointreau in the cream is optional.

It's snowing!

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Dark Chocolate, Orange and Almond Brownies – a foot in both camps !

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In exchange for his killer salsa recipe, I made a homesick Hawaiian short-order chef some chocolate brownies as he had talked about them with almost as much affection as his far-off home. They were deeply disappointing, all gooey and chewy. I handed them over with an apology and a promise to amend the recipe.

 “Chewy? Gooey? That’s what a brownie is supposed to be!” he exclaimed and pronounced them “Pretty! Damn! Good!”

I’ve since discovered that brownie aficionados fall into one of two camps: chewy, gooey; or cakey. My blondie recipe is somewhere in between so I have reworked it into a bitter chocolate brownie that manages to be light without being too cake-y with hits of orange peel and pockets of dark chocolate to satisfy the chewy, gooey camp too.

For approximately 16 foot-in-both-camps brownies you will need...... to base-line a 23cm square cake tin and to pre-heat your oven to 160°C

150g butter

100g muscovado sugar

100g bitter orange marmalade (with peel)

2 teaspoons grated orange zest

2 teaspoons of (good quality) instant coffee dissolved in 2 teaspoons boiling water

3 eggs, beaten

150g plain flour

50g good quality cocoa powder (I used a gorgeous Fair Trade cocoa)

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

100g good quality (70% cocoa solids) dark chocolate

50g toasted almonds, roughly chopped 

Icing sugar to dust 

1                    Place the butter and sugar in a bowl and using an electric mixer, cream together until light and fluffy. Add the marmalade and orange zest mix until combined with the butter mixture.

2                    Mix the coffee in with the beaten eggs and add this mixture to the bowl in three roughly equal amounts, beating until well combined with the butter mixture.

3                    Now, add the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda and mix until just combined.

4                    Stir in the chopped chocolate and almonds to distribute them evenly throughout the batter.

5                    Transfer the batter into the prepared cake tin and bake for 35-40 minutes until risen and a cocktail stick inserted in the centre comes out clean.

6                    Remove from the oven and leave to cool for about 5 minutes before removing from the tin. Serve warm with good ice cream or cool completely before dusting with icing sugar and cutting into squares.

They’ll keep for up to a week (in someone else’s house maybe!) if sealed in an airtight container or cling wrap.

UPDATE: They get even more chocolatey and orange-y and luscious overnight. Alchemy at work...

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Onion and Orange Marmalade – it’s time to magic up a pot

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I have three amazing sisters who I would choose as friends if they weren’t already in my world. We have completely different lives, different styles, different ways of looking at the world. However we also have a lot in common. We have the same smile; the same wicked sense of humour that sometimes operates only on our wavelength; and thankfully most of the tears that are shed between us are tears of laughter.

We share a love of food, in particular a love of decent chocolate – my youngest sister even keeps chocolate in her first aid kit. We have been known to drive to the next county for proper fat chipper chips when a collective craving hits; and the jar of Sainsbury’s onion marmalade my mother keeps in her fridge mysteriously vanishes after a visit from the girls.

I’ve been experimenting however, and my taste buds think this onion and orange marmalade improves upon the Sainsbury’s version. It is a sweet and sour relish that loves cold meats, barbeques, cheese etc and is a doddle to make. As the picnic season draws near, it is time to magic up a pot.

For 1 small pot of onion and orange marmalade you will need...

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
500g onions (prepared weight), peeled, cut in half from top to bottom and then thinly sliced into half moons

zest of an orange, (best removed using a vegetable peeler to slice off just the orange part, leaving the bitter white pith behind) finely shredded then cut into approximately 2cm lengths

160g granulated sugar

½ teaspoon fine table salt

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

100mls fresh orange juice

100mls white wine vinegar or cider vinegar

1 hot chilli (optional), left whole, but pierced through with a sharp knife

Simple ingredients...

1                  In a medium-sized heavy-based saucepan, heat the olive oil over a medium heat. Add the onions and the shredded orange zest and cook gently for about 10 minutes until the onions are translucent.

2                  Add the sugar, salt and cloves and continue cooking gently until the sugar has dissolved into the onion juices. When no sugar crystals remain, add the orange juice, white wine vinegar and chilli (if using). Turn up the heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are honey-coloured and no liquid remains. This will take about 15 minutes. (The mixture will burn the instant you step away from the hob so resign yourself to being there for the duration –treat it as therapy if necessary.)

3                  If you’ve added the chilli, remove it before carefully transfer the mixture into a sterilised jar. Seal when cooled and keep in the fridge for up to three weeks.  

Best eaten in the company of exceptional sisters (and/or brothers).

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Beetroot, Orange and Feta Salad – charmed I’m sure!

Pin It Great recipes are like great stories. To keep them fresh and alive, each recipient must keep the essential ingredients and add some embellishments of their own.

My good friend Lorraine (poet, playwright, novelist and general all round funny girl) throws together an amazing beetroot salad. Could I steal it for my blog, I asked. Sure! She in turn had robbed it from her sister, who had gotten it from someone else, and so on. For me to make a beetroot salad is a big step, given how much I absolutely loathed it for years. If you are in the "loathe" camp, I urge you to try it again. You may surprise yourself.

Simply delicious!

It couldn’t be simpler. Shake some rocket leaves (arugula) onto a plate, add beetroot, orange and goats cheese. Et voila! - a dish full of rustic charm and bursting with flavour, without the kitchen staff breaking a sweat.

Except... my rustic charm gene had turned itself off the day I decided to make this salad. When I went to assemble the ingredients, the result was tasty but looked like a dog’s dinner. The more I tried to fix it, the more it fought back.

I refused to be beaten by beetroot! If it would not be bullied into submission, then I would just have to charm it onto the plate. How to charm it? Just add flowers.

Beetroot, Orange and Feta salad - greater than the sum of its parts

For each serving you will need...

1 beetroot, cooked and peeled

5 orange segments, pith removed
25g feta cheese, roughly crumbled
a selection of salad leaves, including some flat leafed parsley

As well as these essential ingredients, I added the following embellishments:

a tablespoon of fresh rocket flowers(arugula flowers)*

a teaspoon of fresh lavender flowers, unsprayed, organic

Beetroot tends to stain!

1                 Thinly slice the beetroot (a mandolin slicer is best for this job – mind fingers!) Place the beetroot slices on absorbent kitchen paper to blot up any excess juices. I used heart shaped cutters to stamp out pretty shapes for this salad.

2                 Arrange the beetroot in the centre of the plate. Arrange the other ingredients to please your eye. It is as simple as that (most days).

This salad needs no salt as the already salty Feta acts as a seasoning. You could add some vinaigrette to the leaves for an extra layer of flavour.

* I ended up with rocket flowers because I turned my back for a moment and my rocket plants went to seed. The flowers taste just like the leaves. If you are not a careless gardener like me, and don't have an accidental supply of rocket flowers, you could use other edible flowers like nasturtium, or borage as suggested by Mona of Wise Words.

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Strawberry and Orange Cream Cheese Cupcakes – the 3-second rule applies !

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 When my sister got married, she made a special request. Would I please, please, please make “that amazing carrot cake with the cream cheese frosting” as her wedding cake. While I’d never made a wedding cake before, I was delighted to oblige.

Strawberries and Cream Cheese - the perfect marriage!

The project got off to a bad start...  As I was transferring the largest of the cakes into the oven, the base fell out of the tin, dumping batter all over the bottom of the oven... the floor... my shoes... I made up some new swear words that day.

The hours to the wedding were ticking down so I rolled up my sleeves, gritted my teeth, and started again.

By next morning, the three tiers were baked and frosted. Before the ceremony, I went to the hotel to set up the cake. I had my list: Cake boards ... ü Ribbons ... ü Dowels ... ü Pillars ... ü Roses ... ü It was like a mini-construction site, complete with landscaping.  With the multi-storey cake set up and refrigerated, I went off to the ceremony, much relieved. Job done!

At the end of a wonderful meal, the cake was wheeled out. Was it just me... perhaps the champagne... or was there an ever so slightly Leaning Tower of Pisa look about the cake? Hmmmm...  



I ♥ Strawberries

Thankfully, the cake made it through the photos. I had turned back to chat to my fellow guests when I heard a collective gasp, followed by a soft thud, as if someone had fainted. I refused to look and moments later, the groom tapped me on the shoulder. “Great cake, Hester” he said, “but the engineering skills need work!”  Ooops! The light fluffy carrot cake just wasn't up to the task of supporting several kilos of pillars, and frosting, and roses and the layers of cake above it. (Doh!) Luckily there was enough in the surviving tier for everyone in the room.

Funnily enough, there was no sign of the fallen cake when the hotel staff arrived to clear it up. I have a sneaking suspicion that the 3-second rule was employed by the hungry boy children in the room.

Lower fat cupcakes: "Does my bun look big in this?"

For the most part, I’ve stuck to single-storey cakes since then, but my love of cream cheese has grown so much that as well as using it for frosting, I now put it in various cake batters in place of butter. It adds a whole new flavour dimension as well as cutting the fat content dramatically. Butter is about 81% - cream cheese is around 23%.

The 3-second rule applies to these cakes. In my experience, that’s about how long they remain on the plate J

For 12 cupcakes you will need:

150g Philadelphia Cream Cheese

150g caster sugar

3 eggs

Grated zest of an orange

150g plain flour

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

Pre-heat your fan oven to 160°C and line a 12-hole muffin tin with cupcake papers

1          In a mixing bowl, whisk the Philadelphia together with the sugar until smoothly blended. Add in the eggs and the orange zest and continue whisking until well combined.

2          Sprinkle in the flour and baking powder and continue whisking until the flour is incorporated into the mixture.

3          Divide the mixture between the 12 cupcake papers and transfer to the preheated oven.

4          Bake for 18 – 20 minutes or until risen and evenly golden.

5          Remove from the oven and transfer to a cooling rack. Leave to cool completely before piping on the frosting.

For the cream cheese frosting you will need:

125g Philadelphia Cream Cheese

125g softened butter

325g icing sugar

1 punnet of fresh Irish strawberries

6          In a mixing bowl, whisk the Philadelphia together with the butter then slowly add in the icing sugar, whisking continuously until all the sugar has been incorporated and the mixture is smooth and thick. Transfer to a piping bag with a large star nozzle and refrigerate until needed.

7          To finish, pipe a swirl of frosting onto each cupcake and top with a fresh strawberry. Apply to face. Grin happily! 

Apply to face...

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Spiced Orange Shortbread – a celebration of festive laziness

Pin It Laziness is vastly under-rated. As far as I am concerned it is an unrecognised but significant catalyst for inspiration, motivation and resourcefulness. Laziness prompts the dawning of that great realisation: there must be an easier/faster way of doing this – whatever this is. That realisation, in turn, sparks creativity in pursuit of that easier/faster way.

Oh I wish it could be Christmas every day-ay-ay! 

I had been planning a chickpea and chorizo stew as a savoury change from all the sweet baking I’ve been featuring lately, but the chickpeas need overnight soaking and there’s lots of gathering of herbs and chopping of vegetables and slicing of meats involved. That’s not normally any hassle at all, but I have yet to trim the Christmas tree, write the Christmas cards, wrap the Christmas presents – all on my To Do list today - and I want something I can produce quickly, with minimum effort – something extremely lazy.

I ask myself what could be easier/faster? The answer that quickly springs to mind is shortbread.

Measure! Mix! Bake! (Eat!!!)

It couldn’t be lazier easier. Measure. Mix. Bake. What’s more, it is so true to my philosophy - simple ingredients, magical food – that I know it is meant to be.

Santa baby, slip some shortbread under the tree for me...

I don’t have a particularly sweet tooth, but shortbread is my downfall. I can safely say this one is the best I have ever made. With the barest touch of clove and cinnamon and studded with tiny nuggets of caramelised orange peel, it is utterly festive. I have redeemed my complete lack of effort slightly by dipping half of these little stunners in melted dark chocolate. Oh, raise a glass to laziness!

For about 30 shortbread cookies you will need...... to pre-heat the oven to 170°C

175g butter, softened

75g caster sugar

200g plain flour

50g corn flour

¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¹/₁₆ teaspoon ground cloves

a pinch of fine table salt

2 tablespoons candied orange peel, diced

2 tablespoons iced water

1.      Place the butter and sugar in a food mixer or a large bowl and mix together until fluffy and paler in colour.

2.      Mix in the plain flour, corn flour, vanilla essence, ground cinnamon, ground cloves and salt. When these are mixed into a fine sandy crumb, add in the candied peel.

3.      Finally, add in the water, mixing just until the ingredients come together in a ball.

4.      Roll out on a floured surface to a thickness of about 7mm / ¼ inch. Cut out Christmassy (or other) shapes and place on a non-stick (or lightly floured) baking sheet. Squash any off-cuts into a ball and re-roll.

5.      Bake the cookies in the pre-heated oven for 12 – 15 minutes or until evenly golden.

6.      Transfer to a cooling rack. When cold, dust with icing sugar or dip in decent quality melted chocolate – dark, milk, or white, I’ll leave it up to you. I’m feeling far too lazy to make that decision!



Aaah - the perfect antidote to Christmas shopping!

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