Snickerdoodle Apple cake

I love the flavours of snickerdoodles - a classic American cookie which I first discovered thanks to Nigella Lawson's How to Be a Domestic Goddess. For the non-US readers in the house, these have nothing to do with Snickers bars, there is not a peanut or chocolate in sight. Instead a simple, rather old fashioned mix of some of my favourite spices: vanilla, nutmeg and cinnamon. And they're all flavours that go superbly well with apples... so a new recipe idea was formed!

We are really lucky that my father in law is an incredible grower of produce... but often that means that at this time of year we have a bags of produce that we can't eat, that need turning into something when they're a little past their best. Apples are one of those - our kids love crisp juicy apples, but after a couple of weeks home grown apples are soft and a little fluffy. Or are starting to get brown bits here and there. 

This recipe is great for using up eating apples that have gone this way in, and almost everyone in the family loves it. My kids don't like cinnamon, so this is a way I can make a cake that both adults and kids love - you can just slice the spice top off for fussy eaters.

Ingredients

150g soft butter
170g caster sugar 
200g plain flour
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla
3 lg eggs
2 tbsp full fat milk
3 med eating apples, peeled, cored, brown bits cut out, and sliced into 1 inch chunks.

Preheat oven to 180C (170 fan)

Cream the butter and sugar with an electric whisk. Add the rest of the ingredients (except the apple) whisk till light and well combined. Stir through the apple with a spatula or wooden spoon.

Line a large loaf pan or 9 inch, deep cake tin. Tip in the mixture, Smooth it off. 

Cook for 15 mins, then cover with foil, and cook for an extra 20-30 mins - check after the second 20 mins with a skewer - to see if it's done, if not return with foil still on. Any wobbly or wet mix coming out on the skewer and it's not done.

When cooked remove from tin and sprinkle with 2 tbsp demerara or caster sugar or a mix. 5 gratings nutmeg and 1/2 - 1 tsp ground cinnamon depending on how much you like it.

Eat warm with ice cream. Or cold. Keeps 3-4 days well.

(Gluten Free Note: I have made this with my gluten free flour mix - see here - it's fine... but much nicer not GF, as it needs quite a long bake, which doesn't work so well for GF flours.)

Hot Cross Buns... with a side of Food Blogging Events

I have no time for baking I'm afraid, real life is FAR too busy... Oh except for Hot Cross Buns! How I love that seasonal treat - it's so special to make something just once a year in these times when nothing is that sacred. I couldn't find my normal recipe (from Margaret Costa's Four Seasons Cookbook, so decided to try) - and of course adapt - I just can't help myself! - Nigella's from her Feast book, that I had photocopied many years ago. You'll have to wait till next year for me to share them!! But here's a pic to whet your appetite!

I am just finishing off my third book, The Rainbow Way: Cultivating Creativity in the Midst of Motherhood  and will be sending it off to the publishers at the end of the month (you can see an extract from it this week over on my personal blog, Dreaming Aloud) so you'll have to excuse my relative quiet here at the mo.

But that's not all, oh no!

I have been helping Darina Allen with her blog prior to the Ballymaloe LitFest of Food and Wine which is almost upon us.

I will be on a panel on Food Writing for the Digital Generation at the LitFest, alongside Caroline Hennessy, co-founder of the Irish Food Bloggers, Michael Kelly, founder of Grow Your Own Ireland, and Aoife Carrigey of Holy Mackerel. I will also be answering questions in the next session which is all about self publishing, sonething which I've been immersed in for nearly two years now!

Then, on 18th May I will be teaching Food Blogging at Ballymaloe Cookery School - this half day course is perfect for those wanting to start out, and those who have recently started but are wanting to grow their blog.

And finally I am delighted to share that a piece of my food writing, The Taste of Cherry Blossom, has been accepted for BlogHer's new anthology entitled Roots: Where Food Comes from and Where it Takes Us, which this time focuses on Food and Traditions. It will be launched at their June conference in Chicago!

Busy times!

White choc and raspberry blondies (the only butter in them is butternut squash)

I've tried a number of recipes from the super incredible Red Velvet and Chocolate Heartache cookbook which specialises in vegetable cakes: parsnip vanilla fudge, chocolate aubergine cake and two sorts of butternut squash cupcakes- one flavoured with orange and the other with ginger. All have gone down swimmingly well with adults and kids alike. No one can believe they are butter free and packed with veggies.  Oh, and gluten free too!!

There has only been one not great recipe - an orange, almond and saffron sand cake. It was very, very gritty.

But today's blondies (think squidgy brownie texture but no blonde, not dark!) were out of this world. I am not even going to try to share them with my kids! They are mine, all mine. Think a blondie, mated with bakewell tart, with a heady whiff of cinnamon.

I know, I couldn't quite get my head round them and nearly left out the cinnamon - it's not a natural bedfellow with raspberries and white chocolate. But please, just trust it!

The recipe is Harry Eastwood's but I have upped the chocolate and flaked almonds, and slightly downed the raspberries as round here they come in punnets of 125g.

Preheat oven to 180C (fan).
Line and lightly grease a 22cm square brownie tin.

3 medium eggs
120g caster sugar
250g peeled, finely grated butternut squash, no seeds!!
50g rice flour
100g ground almonds
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
150g white chocolate chopped into chunks.
125g punnet of fresh raspberries
40g flaked almonds


Whisk the sugar and eggs until quadrupled in volume and pale. Add in the finely grated squash, flour, ground almonds, cinnamon, salt and baking powder. Whisk briefly to combine. Pour 2/3 of the mixture into the tin. Sprinkle over the white chocolate and raspberries. Pour the rest of the batter over, push down any raspberries and choc chunks so they are submerged and don't burn. Sprinkle ove rthe flaked almonds.

Bake for 25 mins until risen and golden brown. Keep an eye on it to make sure the nuts don't burn.

Cool in the tin for about 15 mins before cutting into 16. Delicious served warm with vanilla ice cream!

Christmas Traditions: Our Simple Gingerbread House

One of our Christmas traditions is making a gingerbread house. We never had gingerbread houses in my childhood, but I loved the magic of them in stories of Hansel and Gretel: an edible house, covered in sweets - the food of every child's dreams.

This is a quick, simple melt-it-down, one pan method for yummy gingerbread, which I originally got from a kids' TV show! I have adapted it a little, but it's still super simple.

My children range from 2-7 and all helped in all the processes bar one. Sticking the house together with molten toffee is an adult's only job. Please be careful! I manage to burn myself every year!

We decorate it all together, so it is homely rather than super-fancy, but if it was too pretty we wouldn't want to eat it, and that's half the fun! My children love making it as much as eating it. It gets softer and chewier the longer it is left out. We usually admire ours for a couple of days before demolishing it with friends for a festive tea party.

See my personal blog for the mayhem that ensued when we made ours this year: Those Infamous Words: Let's Make a Gingerbread House


Preheat oven to 180C

Gingerbread

100g butter
50g white sugar
50g soft brown sugar
200g golden syrup
400g self raising flour
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon

Toffee
150 g caster sugar

Icing
1 pack of royal icing mix or 300g icing sugar sieved and mixed to a thick icing with a little water (and a couple of drops of lemon extract)

To decorate - chocolate buttons, Smarties, dolly mixtures...

First make the gingerbread. Melt sugars, syrup and butter gently in a pan. Remove from the heat. Stir in flour and spices. Stir until combined.

Pour onto a non stick sheet of parchment. Roll out to about 2mm thick. Cut out.

You will need:
2 long walls 10 cm x 25 cm - you can cut doors and windows out of it now, or ice them on later.
2 end walls 10 cm wide with a triangle on top.
Two roof pieces 25cm x 8cm.
Chimney:four pieces 2cmx 4cm, cut a triangle out of the base of two so it  attaches to the roof.

Cook for 10-15 mins, keep a careful eye on them so they don't go too dark around the edges. Cool on a wire rack before icing. Un-iced they keep well for a couple of weeks in an airtight tin, and are crisp. Iced they keep fine but are soft.

Whilst they are cooling, melt the sugar for the toffee in a pan until it is light conker colour. (remember no kiddies involved here!) Do not stir! Take off heat as it will continue cooking. Plunge into a bowl or sink of cool water. Then quickly, but carefully, use a spoon and run a line of toffee down the inner edge of one of the long wall, super fast, attach a short wall to it. Do the same with the other two walls. Then the rooves, and then stick the chimney together in one piece before attaching it to the roof. If the toffee starts to cool and get too hard, just pop it on the heat for a couple of minutes to soften.

Then mix up the royal or water icing. Use a piping bag, or spoons to cover the roof, make snowy windows etc. Cover with sweets as you go. Chocolate buttons cut in half or overlapped make great roof tiles!

Pear and cardamom cake

A lightly spiced autumnal treat of a cake, in the tarte tatin tradition. I cook this in a deep 9 inch frying pan which has a removable handle so that I can caramelise the pears, pop the cake batter over the top and put it straight in to the oven. If you don't have one, caramelise the pears and then arrange them on the bottom of a normal cake tin (8-9 inch)

Cake
150 g  butter
150 g caster sugar
150 g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
3 eggs
seeds from 1/2 vanilla pod
2 tbsp milk

Topping
crushed seeds from 10 cardamom pods
1 cinnamon stick
2-3 ripe pears (depending on size)
30 g butter
30 g  soft brown sugar

Cake for Breakfast: Popple Cake

This is a breakfast cake! Well, I ate it for breakfast, still warm from the oven. But it's delicious at coffee break or tea time too. I know, I tried it then too!!

What is a breakfast cake? Well it's higher in nutrients, contains fruit and, is lower in butter, and is not iced. It contains all the ingredients people might eat for breakfast: wheat flour, oats, fruit, eggs, buttermilk... but in cake form. It is about as worthy as cake gets. Except it doesn't taste worthy It is moist and spiced, bejewelled with plump cranberries and oh so more-ish.

I made it to use up a large jar of apple puree that I had bought for the baby. But homemade stewed apple would be perfect too, just make sure it's not too sweet.

And the name? Porridge + apple. See I told you it was healthy! It is adapted from Beth Hensperger's lovely Bread for Breakfast, another great American baking resource. So cup measures at the ready!! (I know it looks like quite a list of ingredients, but the method is simplicity itself.)