Bake of the Month - July - Lavender Biscuits

Finally! Summer’s here. We can use our overgrown gardens and take stock of our losses to the slugs (a whole row of celeriac which I nurtured from seed and were eaten within days of planting out). The lavender flowers in my garden have almost gone already so I had to get in quick to bake a batch of my favourite biscuits. This recipe comes from Alys Fowlers ‘The Edible Garden’ a truly inspiring book which is easy to read and follow for novice gardeners like myself. The back of the book contains several recipes showing you how to make the most of your labours (including sloe gin – Christmas sorted) and this is the most used recipe in the book. The lavender flavour comes from the leaves and so is very delicate.  You can also keep half the mixture in the fridge for a few days, this way your biscuits are always fresh. Makes 10-12 biscuits.

Ingredients:

5oz butter

3 ½ oz caster sugar

8oz plain flour

1 eggs yolk

1 tablespoon of fresh lavender leaves, chopped

Some lavender flowers (about three per biscuit)

Method:

Preheat oven to 160C / Gas mark 3

Cream the butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Sift in the flour, then put in egg yolk and lavender leaves. Mix well.

If you’re using a large bowl you can mix together in the bowl with your hands. If not turn it out onto a floured surface and knead into a smooth ball. Shape into a cylinder about 3-4 inches in diameter and cut into 10-12 sections.

Lay these out onto greased baking trays (remember to leave enough space between them as biscuits spread) and press about three lavender flowers into each.

Bake for 15-18 minutes, they should be firm but not brown. Leave on the tray once they come out of the oven for about 5 mins. If you try to move them straight away they’ll crumble. Transfer to a baking tray to cool completely. Eat in the garden with a cup of tea in between tackling the weeds.

Shop till you Pop

 I’ve been banging on about this for months now, but in just over two weeks time I’ll be opening a pop up shop. A great space filled with locally made and sourced goods, and you can have yourself some tea and cake whilst you browse!  A full list of what’s available is on the website. http://www.teancake.co.uk/index.php/events/pop-up-paul-st/ If you’re thinking of popping over to Frome for a look then please, spend the day here. There are a whole load of first - class, independent shops in this quirky little town and a plethora of places to eat. 


Let me walk you through it. When you arrive in Frome start at the Cheese and Grain (if you’re driving then you can park here). If it’s Wednesday, pop in and check out the Antique and Collectors market and the peoples market in the car park. The cheese stall, as you’d expect for a Somerset town, is excellent. If it’s Thursday, get here early and visit the country market for the cheapest and best quality cut flowers around.  The Black Swan close by has a great cafe, which is worth coming back to for lunch (they do a mean burger!) and some artists’ workshops including Little Studio Red and Rachel Anne Bird’s jewellery workshop. 


Walking through town you cannot miss Cheap St. This little lane has a stream running down the middle of it. Up here you will find a deli, a health food shop, a traditional bookshop, Raves from the Grave selling lots of vinyl, an old style sweet shop, a tea room and right at the top is Cafe La Strada. If you like ice cream you have to stop here. They get in different flavours all the time. If you’re lucky they might just have the gin and tonic one. 


Back down Cheap St and across the road is where the St Catherine’s area starts, on Stony St. From here all the way up the hill you’ll find amazing shops. Truly Sopel makes and sells her fabulous clothing range here, not to mention Truly Knickers which are handmade, British and beautiful. Assembly does a great range of men’s clothing and accessories that you won’t find on every High St. Make and Mend, Poot and Nova are great vintage boutiques selling everything from furniture to handbags. Not to mention our little pop up shop, a short trip up the steps across from Make and Mend. If you fancy a cup of tea and slice of cake at this point we can offer you that too! After visiting us, keep going up the Hill and be inspired by Millie Moon. The most dazzling and delightful haberdashery you’ve ever seen. They not only sell the fabric they run a whole myriad of courses to help you decide and learn what to do with it all. See http://milliemoonshop.co.uk  for more info. Soon after this you’ll reach Bramble and Wild, the ‘Alice in Wonderland ‘of Florists. But there’s more, keep going for the best coffee in Frome at the Little Red Cafe. If you’re looking for super glam then keep going till you find Deadly is the Female. Their scarily high heels and vintage inspired dresses are drop dead gorgeous! If by this time you’re not full of tea, cake and ice cream and fancy a spot of lunch then do try the Garden Cafe (all vegetarian and organic) or the Archangel (great gourmet food. Actually, there’s so much on offer, you may as well stay for dinner too!

Favourite Bakes - Nigel Slater

After asking people what their favourite bakes were I’ve had more than one request for coffee and walnut cake. I couldn’t understand the fuss. Every time I’ve ordered this cake in a tea room or cafe it has tasted of absolutely nothing. Coffee and walnut aren’t exactly the most tasteless of foods so how could the combination in a cake be so boring? Needless to say I wasn’t feeling too inspired. But when looking at different recipes for this I found that this is also the favourite cake of one of my foodie heros Nigel Slater. He is quite simply, the best food writer. So, I decided not to mess with his recipe (well, not too much). When Nigel says instant coffee is best for this cake I am not going to argue. He does however, stress the importance of good quality ingredients which I have found makes a huge difference in baking. Always use the best flour and the freshest eggs. So here is Nigel Slater’s coffee and walnut cake, a cake he has stated he would choose for his ‘last supper’.

Ingredients:

6oz butter (left out of the fridge till soft)

6oz unrefined golden caster sugar

65g walnut pieces

3 large eggs

6oz self raising flour

1tsp baking powder

2tsp coffee granules

For the filling:

150g butter

300g icing sugar

2 tsp coffee granules

50g walnut pieces

 You will also need two loose bottom case tins, lined.

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180C / gas mark 4

Beat the butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Use an electric mixer  if you have one.

Crack the eggs into a bowl, break them up and add a little at a time into the butter and sugar, beating well.

Sift the flour and baking powder together and then add into sugar gently, Nigel says to use the electric mixer on a slow speed.

Dissolve the coffee granules with a tablespoon of boiling water and stir into the cake mixture along with the chopped walnuts

Pour into the two tins and bake for 20-25 mins. Take out and cool on a rack.

To make the butter cream beat butter till soft and pale, then add sugar a little at a time till smooth and creamy. Again, stir in a tablespoon of hot water to dissolve the coffee and stir into the butter cream with the walnut pieces.

You can either put half in between the cakes and half on top or whack it all in between. Nigel’s recipe has more butter cream and he slathers it all over the cake as well, but that’s too much for me. So I put the cream in the middle (in fact there was still some left over, I couldn’t handle all that butter!) and dusted the top with icing sugar. Other than that I stuck to Nigel’s recipe throughout. He is the cookery God after all.

I am now a coffee and walnut convert.  If you haven’t made this before, do it, it’s seriously good.

Favourite Bakes – Pippa Goldfinger

Frome recently got itself a new WI, the sort that has a Facebook page and an average member age that is about half of the usual 70. I went along to a meeting to see if I’d be interested and somehow found myself on the committee.  As part of my duties I volunteered to interview our new mayor, Pippa Goldfinger, for the WI blog: http://fromewi.blogspot.co.uk/ . She’s a friend and lives next door but one, so it wasn’t exactly a chore. The questions asked by our members were mostly political but we are the WI after all, so I had to ask her about her favourite cake. Her answer was a Tarte De Naraja, a Spanish Almond and Orange Cake. I’d never heard of it before but it sounded good and it got me thinking. What are other people’s favourite cakes? I put this question to my twitter and facebook followers and got some great answers. I am going to choose a few to include on the blog over the next few weeks and am starting of course with the Tarte De Naranja. Expect to also see Coffee and Walnut Cake and Banana Cupcakes with Peanut butter frosting in the near future. If you want to see your favourite on the blog, please email me with your cake (and recipe if it’s a really specific one!) info@teancake.co.uk

This cake is another easy one. It has very few ingredients and is gluten free and so makes even more people happy! You could even call it healthy. Almonds are VERY good for you and it contains one of you five a day.

Ingredients

For the cake:

Four eggs, separated

5 ½ oz ground almonds

5 ½ oz caster sugar

Zest of two oranges

For the syrup:

Four oranges, juiced

½ lemon, juiced

½ cinnamon stick

Caster sugar - to taste

You will also need a springform tin, lined with a circle of greaseproof paper.

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas Mark 4
• Put one tablespoon of the sugar in with the egg whites and tip the rest in with the yolks. Beat the yolks and sugar until pale.
• Add the almonds and zest, mix together
• Beat the egg whites (with the sugar in) until stiff, then fold into the cake mixture very gently, keeping as much air as possible
• Gently pour into the tin and bake on middle shelf of the oven for about an hour (give another ten minutes if your oven isn’t too powerful). The cake is ready when it is golden and feels firm
• Whilst the cake is baking make your syrup. Tip all ingredients into a pan and bring to the boil. Simmer for about five minutes and pour into a jug. Leave to cool and then put in the fridge.
• When the cake is done, leave on the side in the tin until totally cooled. Take out of the tin and place onto serving plate, pierce with a skewer several times then pour over as much of the syrup as you like (you can save some for serving with). Don’t pour all on at once, do it a little at a time.
• Mayor Goldfinger likes to eat hers with crème fraiche.