Regression Therapy - Malt Loaf

God, I love Soreen so much.  While I wouldn't go so far as to claim it as a universal-to-UK experience, having either a couple of crumpets or a couple of slices of squidgey, dark malt loaf spread with salted butter on the return from school, sofa pulled up to the fire and Jonny Briggs on the tv would certainly be something that would ring a lot of bells with my generation.

When we were challenged to make a sweet or savoury loaf for this month's Bake Club, malt loaf leapt unbidden into my mind, and once it was there, there was no shifting it.  Soreen can't be bought here and so, if I wanted malt loaf, I was going to have to make malt loaf.

It required a fair bit of detective work but eventually I discovered malt extract was available for sale here in NZ and, what's more, it inspires the same kind of nostalgia that I have over malt loaf.  I'm not sure exactly what it is about malt - sweet yet wholesome at the same time, the throat-nudging granularity of barley taking the edge off the sugar hit - but combine that with juicy sultanas and you have an after-school, after work, or just after anything, feast fit for a king.

This recipe makes two loaves and, trust me, if you can leave it a few days after making it, well wrapped up, it will reward your patience a hundredfold as the stickiness and maltiness increase, day on day.

This has to be served with salted butter; actually, more specifically, it has to be served with Lurpak.

Malt Loaf
from BBC Good Food

150ml hot black tea (1 tea bag will be enough)
175g malt extract, plus extra for glazing
85g muscovado sugar
50g raisins
250g sultanas
2 large eggs, beaten
250g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
0.5 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Preheat your oven to 150c.  Grease and line two 1lb loaf tins with baking paper.

Mix the tea, malt, sugar and fruit until fully combined and the fruit has started to swell a little in the liquid.  Stir in the eggs.

Mix in the flour, baking powder and bicarb.  Divide the mixture evenly between the two tins.  Bake for 50 minutes.

When they are just out of the oven, dip a pastry brush (silicone if possible, for cleaning reasons) into your tin of malt extract and use it to glaze the top of the loaves, which will become gloriously sticky.

When they're completely cool, wrap well in foil and leave for 2-5 days until at sticky perfection.

Makes 2 loaves

Nostalgia Baking: Bakewell Tart

For this month's Bake Club, we were challenged to make something nostalgic. "Maybe the first thing you baked? A favourite from childhood? Whatever it is, bake it and bring it and tell us the story." The trouble was, I had too much choice and I am chronically indecisive. Not the best combination. So I turned to Mum for help.

I've mentioned before on here what a great cook Mum is - she really was my first teacher, inspiration, and mentor in the kitchen. But where she really, really shines is baking. She is one of those wonderfully gifted intuitive bakers. As much as it is drummed into us that baking is a science; follow the rules, you'll be ok - and indeed, this is how I bake - Mum goes by instinct. Her tablespoons are older than me, and I don't doubt certainly aren't the strict 15ml measure that I use these days. She can look at a mix that I'm messing up and instinctively know what I've done wrong, and how to fix it. She can knock up the best batch of scones that you've ever tasted as soon as look at you. In fact, one of the strongest, most prevalent memories of my childhood is coming home and seeing a batch of scones cooling on the kitchen counter, with Mum saying "Oh, this milk was going off so I wanted to use it up" (did you know that sour milk makes the best scones?). We were wonderfully, wonderfully spoiled on the baking front. There is a family story that happened after I went off to University and was living on cheese toasties (super cheap, you see) - our neighbour gave Mum some bags overflowing with windfall apples, so Mum set to, making apple crumbles and apple pies and apple sauce. My brother, still at school and unaware of the joys of student cooking that lay in front of him, one night said "sorry Mum, I'm just really fed up with homemade apple pie". This story was relayed to me in my weekly phone call, and I wept into my cheese toastie at the thought of that apple pie.

So you may understand that, with such a wealth of baking memories behind me, it was more than a little difficult to pick just one that represented nostalgia. I turned, as so many times before when faced with a kitchen dilemma, to the one person who knows best. Mum's reply:

"Definitely the honey cake was a popular one, as was apple pie or apple crumble. Also Bakewell Tart and things like Rice Krispie squares. I also used to make chocolate éclairs quite often and coffee cream cake (with walnuts if I had any in the cupboard). There was also a fruit loaf that was made by soaking the dried fruit in a cup of tea!"

(It might tell you a lot about both Mum and me that my next message from her simply read "Bread and Butter Pudding xxx")

Now all of these stood out, but one that had very strong nostalgia factor was Bakewell Tart. It was associated with tea times with visitors. Special times. We had a French exchange student staying with us once when I was quite young, a shy girl called Delphine, and this was the one thing that we found that she absolutely loved to eat, so I think Mum made it just about every day for her. The recipe comes from the same place as the Hot Cross Buns - the McDougall Flour cook book, that, like the tablespoons, has been round longer than I have. I had to multiply the recipe a couple of times to fit my pie dish, and the weights are in ounces, so this is as close to the original as I could get. It is truly a thing of wonder - the almond sponge is light and airy, the pastry crisp, and the combination of jam and lemon curd is a match made in heaven. Please, please try this.

I made this in a hurry so my pastry skills were patchy and not up to Mum's standards. Nevertheless, it tasted of happiness and childhood.

This is for Mum. 

Bakewell Tart

Adapted from McDougall's Basic Baking 

For the pastry:

6oz flour

3oz cold butter

1 teaspoon caster sugar

1 egg yolk

Orange juice

For the filling:

2-3 tablespoons jam

2-3 tablespoons lemon curd (optional - but it does taste wonderful)

1oz self raising flour

2 eggs

2oz ground almonds

4oz caster sugar

4oz butter

Make the pastry.  If you are a gifted baker like Mum, rub the butter and sugar into the flour, mix in the egg yolk, and add just enough orange juice to bind.  If, like me, you need some help, blitz the flour and butter in a processor then, with the motor running, drop in the egg yolk and just enough orange juice to bind.

Theoretically you should leave it to rest in the fridge for an hour.  I suspect Mum wouldn't do this and would still get great results.  I was time-bound and impatient so just carried on and the pastry was fine.  Needed a bit of patchwork, but it's a filled tart, so no biggie.

Preheat your oven to 190C.

Grease an 8" pie plate.  Line it with the rolled-out pastry.  Trim the pastry so no excess hangs over the edges.  Spread the jam on the base of the pastry, to cover it generously.

Then do the same with the lemon curd.

The recipe now reads "Prepare the rest of the ingredients by Method 2 (see page 17)", to which Mum adds, 

"Page 17 is missing - probably fell down the back of my kitchen drawer years ago (my booklet goes from page 12 to page 29 but fortunately for us the Hot Cross Buns are on page 32)."

However, Mum assures me, the method referred to is to cream the butter and sugar, beat in the egg, then beat in the flour and ground almonds.  Spread this mixture over the jam and lemon curd.

Bake for 40 minutes - check after 30 to see if the top is getting too brown - if so, cover it with greaseproof paper.

When cool, you can either leave it plain or, as I did, ice it with a simple mix of icing sugar made into a thick paste with water, then spread on top.  I also trimmed off the excess pastry again from the top - mainly because it had browned a bit too much.

It needed something on the top but as I'm not a fan of glacé cherries, I used some of my edible rosebuds as décor.

Serves 6 ("Or one if you are French and your name is Delphine")

Lardy Cake (please don't hate me)

So, having waxed lyrical and at great length a week ago about a recipe that didn't work because it tasted of lard, what do I do but hit you with another.  Except this one actually works.  You just have to take a leap of faith - so it is appropriate that I tell you about this on Easter Weekend.

Thinking about it, it really would be a great recipe to add into an Easter repertoire, if you are the sort of person who has such a thing.  The flavours are reminiscent of Hot Cross Buns and the ingredients - well.  The purpose of Shrove Tuesday, we are told, was to use up all the good stuff before the denial of Lent kicked in.  This recipe would certainly be a celebration of a return of hedonism and an end to self-denial.

I made this recipe for our Bake Club.  The theme that was picked for us this month was Use Your Loaf - a challenge to us all to bake some bread.  

Here was Andy's offering - looking at that braiding he is my new nominated hair-doer:

Teaspoon for scale

My sourdough didn't work out and so, at the last minute, I was hanging off the fridge door trying to spy something that could successfully be turned into a delicious treat for my friends.  I spotted half a tub of lard that was lurking there in shame after the last use and somewhere, far away in the back of my mind, rang a bell.  A bell that sounded like flaky, yeasted dough, sugar, dried fruit and the warming spices that I love, and a cake that was in fact a bread.

Lardy cake (clue's in the title, folks) originates in the South West of England - not my area, and yet I have a definite memory of these from when I was young.  The lard - even though there really is a stonking amount - creates a light, melting, flaky, somehow sweet and savoury at the same time, yeasted bread.  

What can I say to convince you that this is really, really good, and worth the leap of faith?  It won Bake Club.  And later, the spoils were torn apart and eaten in seconds.  It's that good.  But don't take my word for it.  Can you make that leap?

Lardy Cake
An amalgamation of the millions of recipes out there

Dough:
200g plain flour
250g strong bread flour
10g lard
1 teaspoon caster sugar
1 packet instant dried yeast
300ml warm water

Filling:
150g lard
110g brown sugar
0.5 teaspoon mixed spice
75g sultanas
75g raisins

Glaze:
1 tablespoon caster sugar, dissolved in 1 tablespoon water

In a large bowl (I use the Kitchen Aid but this is certainly do-able by hand), mix the two flours, lard, sugar and yeast.  Stir in the water.  If you are using a mixer, switch to the dough hook and knead for about 8 minutes.  Otherwise, tip onto a floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes, until smooth and silky.

Put in a bowl, cover with cling film, and put in a warm place for 1-2 hours, until doubled in size.

Meanwhile, mix together the brown sugar, spice and fruits.

When the dough is risen, start by knocking out all the air with a punch (this is strangely enjoyable).  Give it a brisk, scant kneading - 30 seconds or so - then roll it out on a floured surface to make a long rectangle, approximately (don't get your ruler out or anything) three times as long as it is wide.  Sprinkle a third of the sugar mix over, followed by a third of the lard.

Starting at a short end, roll up the dough like a roulade/jam roll/any other analogy that takes your fancy.  Press down hard at the ends, to seal in the sugar and fruit.

Now give it a quarter turn, and roll it out again to a similar size as before.  Sprinkle over your sugar and fruit, sprinkle over your lard. roll it up.

Repeat this one final time.

Roll out the dough so it will fit into a square baking pan, about 23 or 24cm.

Cover and leave in a warm place for about 40 minutes until well risen. 

Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 200C.

Bake the cake for about 30 minutes (although start to check just before this to prevent burning).  When it is out of the oven, brush with the glaze.

When it has cooled for 10 minutes, turn it out upside down onto a cooling rack and leave it this way, so all the fat runs back through the cake.

Slice/tear and share the bread - believe me, this is not one to devour by yourself and not just for lard reasons.  Your friends will love you, as long as you don't tell them just how much lard has gone into this amazing bread.  And even if you do, they'll get over it.

St David's Day Baking

Something that nobody tells you before you take up with a Welshman is how passionate, consuming and welcoming the Welsh community is, anywhere in the world.  Because of various connections we have out here, Welsh people now make up the majority of my expat friends out here.  As an Englishwoman this does mean developing a relatively thick skin at times, especially where rugby is concerned, but for the days of the year when mighty England aren't playing the boyos in red, it's a fun community to be part of.

St David is the patron saint of Wales, and today, March 1st, is his day, and therefore the Welsh in my life go all out to celebrate.  And who am I to miss out on a celebration, even one I'm clinging to tenaciously by the coat-tails?

Last year, as part of the Wellington On A Plate events, we started a bake club at the Welsh Dragon Bar, where Andy is the manager.  You don't have to be Welsh to join, you just have to love baking.  We all loved it so much that we carried on after the official events finished; now we meet once a month and take turns to pick a theme.  Lots of different nationalities, a range of ages and baking experience - the only thing that we all have in common is the firm belief that Baking Makes Things Better.  This month, Andy has asked us all to produce Welsh baking to sample and try.  Somewhat of a challenge for us non-Cymru-born bakers, but if there's one thing we love, it's a challenge.  I fancied something savoury, and so settled on these pies.  I left out the jelly from the original recipe for a few reasons - it was a step too far in the midst of a busy week, but mostly because I'm ambivalent and most people seem to be averse.

My list of favourite Welshmen is long and comprehensive and includes, amongst others, Colin Jackson, Gethin Jones, Steve Jones and Aled Jones (the latter we were involved in a Fawlty-Towers-esque farce with the night after our wedding when we accidentally tried to break into his hotel room.  Yes, it is a long story) but my most favourite Welshman of all is my lovely Andy.

These are for him.

Pork, Leek and Cumin Welsh Dragon Pie*
*Contains no dragon but does breathe a bit of fire
Adapted from Andy Bates

500g pork mince
1 large leek, washed and sliced
50g butter
2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Salt and pepper to season
450g plain flour
170g butter
200ml water
Pinch salt
1 egg, beaten

Preheat the oven to 180C.

In a large, nonstick frying pan melt the butter over a medium heat.  Gently fry the leeks until soft but not browned, about 5 minutes.  Add the cumin and cayenne, cook for a further 5 minutes.  Spread out on a plat to cool.

In a large bowl, mix the cooled leeks with the pork, and season well.  Divide into four equal balls.  Put in the fridge until needed.

To make the pastry, measure the flour and salt into a large bowl.  In a small pan, bring the water and butter to a boil, pour into the flour and mix until combined into a smooth dough.  Divide this dough into four balls.

Take the first ball and split off two-thirds.  Roll this out into a circle wide enough to fit a small pie tin and overlap the edges.  Carefully fit the dough into the tin, pressing it into the edges.  Roll the remaining one-third into a size large enough to make a lid.  Repeat with the other four balls.

Place one pork ball into each tin.  Brush beaten egg around the edge of each tin and fit a pastry lid on, pressing and pinching to make sure the pastry seals.  Trim off the excess pastry and neaten up the edges.
Make a hole in the top of each lid and brush with egg.

Place on a baking tray and bake for 1 hour.  Leave to cool and refrigerate before serving.

Makes 4 generous-sized individual pork pies.