The Wedding (cake)

After a whole week of brilliant sunshine and high temperatures, the heavens opened on Genna’s wedding day.  It rained and thundered throughout the entire wedding!  But no-one cared a jot.  The day could not have been more beautiful. 

Way too tired to give details.  The pictures say everything. 

 

 

 

An enormous thank you to the owner and staff of Aswanley for making Gen and Keith’s day so incredibly special. 

Pg. 123

 

It’s the wedding weekend.  I’ve pressed my dress, painted my nails and charged the batteries in my camera.  Most importantly, I’ve made the cake.  It’s sitting on the kitchen work surface as I type, anxiously awaiting  Saturday afternoon and its fifteen minutes of fame and glory. 

I will, of course, post photos of the finished cake once the day is over.  For today’s post, though, I’ve accepted a tag from  Holler and Pat.   They asked me to pick up the nearest book, open to page 123, count five sentences down and then write down the following three sentences.

Ok doke.

I’m re-reading Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon at the moment.  It’s a book that is often studied in Scottish high schools but I never have nor never will teach it.  I love it too much.  Selfish?  Maybe.  I just don’t think I could bare anyone scoffing at Chris or Euan or Rob of the Mill or any of the other characters I know so well. 

Anyhoo, here are the lines.  They say a lot about the heroine, I think.

—————-

 ”Then he rose and shook hands, Well, well, it’s Miss Guthrie come up; you’ve been thinking of the will no doubt?

She told him, Yes, just that; and that she was going to live on at Blawearie a while, not roup the gear out at once, could he see to that with the factor?

He stared at her with his mouth fallen open, But you can’t live there alone!”

Wild Garlic and Lemon Pesto

This week I’ve been playing with my new discovery, wild garlic. My findings are as follows:

• Once picked it very quickly wilts unless kept in a glass of water.
• One shouldn’t eat the leaves after the plant has flowered.
• The flowers, however, can be eaten but are stronger than the leaves.  They could be used to scent dishes rather than actually eaten.
• The leaves go slimy and grey if sautéd. 
• Though it tastes very mild, wild garlic gives the eater wicked, wicked wicked garlic breath.

 My plans to make Pille’s wild garlic pesto were scuppered when I realised I was without pinenuts.  Not one to be deterred, I hunted through my cupboards and made do with what I could find.  The resulting pesto was grassy, garlicky and great. 

 

 

Wild Garlic and Lemon Pesto

50g wild garlic leaves

30g nuts (I used cashew nuts but walnuts and almonds wpuld work well too)

50ml olive oil

30g parmesan, grated finely

1/2 lemon

Salt and pepper

• Whizz the wild garlic and nuts until a coarse paste is formed.  Add the olive oil and whizz for a few more seconds.
• Stir through the parmesan and lemon juice.  Season carefully.

We ate this stirred through wholemeal pasta and topped with rocket and torn prosciutto.

 

Wild Garlic

Joy!  After much searching, I have found a patch of wild garlic.  Delighted.

  

 

This morning I stirred it through my scrambled eggs; this evening I’m looking forward to trying out Pille’s recipe for wild garlic pesto. 

 

 

The Wedding Cake - The Recipe

Last night I made the final practice cake.  The wedding is only eight days away - eeeeeeek! - and, though the last sponge was a resounding success, I felt one more trial was necessary for peace of mind.  Again, the cake turned out very well.  So well in fact that when I returned to the staffroom at lunch time to take a photo of the leftover slices of cake this crumb was all that remained!

 

 

I will post a photo of the final cake after next Saturday’s wedding.  Until then, here, after much calculations,  experimentation and failure, is the recipe for a 10″ square moist vanilla sponge cake. 

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The Wedding Cake (based on Rose Levy Beranbaum’s white butter cake)

 650g Tipo 00 flour (my choice of flour caused much discussion.  The recipe called for North American “cake flour” which is finer than UK plain flour and bleached.  Solved the problem by using the ultra fine 00 flour and self bleaching it by blasting it in the microwave for 3 minutes.  Many thanks to this blog for providing the solution)

650g golden unrefined caster sugar

10 teaspoons baking powder

1.5 teaspoons salt

10 large organic egg whites, room temperature

560g whole milk, room temperature

5 teaspoons vanilla essence

360g organic butter, room temperature

Extra butter and flour for baking tins

800g pre-made fondant icing

Butter icing - perfect recipe here

Corn flour

Good quality strawberry jam

• Preheat a non-fan-heated oven to 180oC exactly. 
• Rub two 10″ cake tins with butter.  Dust with flour and line the bases with baking paper.
• Lightly mix the egg whites with the vanilla essence and 200ml of the milk.  Set aside.
• Sieve all the dry ingredients into a large bowl.
• Cream the butter and add to the dry ingredients along with the milk.  Mix until most of the flour is dampened then transfer the mixture to an electric mixer (there is a lot of mixture - adding the flour and other ingredients straight into the electric mixer’s bowl results in a flour storm).  Mix on medium speed for 1.30 mins.
• Add 1/3 of the egg mixture to the batter and mix for 20 seconds.  Repeat until all of the egg mixture is combined.
• Scrape the sides of the bowl and mix for 10 more seconds.
• Pour equal amounts of the batter into the two pre-prepared baking tins and smooth over.
• If you have a huge oven, bake both cakes in the middle of the oven for 45 minutes.  If you have a normal sized oven, bake the cakes separately for 40 minutes each.
• Remove baked cakes from the oven and cool thoroughly.
• Carefully tip one cake onto a plate/cake holding thing.  Liberally spread with butter icing then strawberry jam.
• Carefully  tip the second cake upside down on top of the base cake.  Placing this layer upside down ensures a very flat cake top.
• Dust a work top with cornflour and roll the fondant out to 5mm thickness.  Carefully lay over the cake and trim. 

 

Impromtu Cannelloni

 

Turn on the Scottish news at the moment and the main story is all about the impending fuel shortage in the country.  Workers at our main refinery have been striking recently over pension plans and as a result petrol, diesel, heating oil, etc are not being shipped to outlets as per usual.  What the public do not seem to realise is that Scotland is suffering from another shortage: pasta machines.

Seriously, I have been to three shops in the last week trying to buy one and each time have been told that they are currenly unavailable and to check back in June.  June!  Those of you in large cities may be thinking: try another shop.  This is Inverness though.  That three places supply pasta machines at all is pretty good going.  ;) 

Anyway, enough whinging for my lack of pasta machine was rather fortuitous in the end, resulting in a cracking impromtu cannelloni.  Let me explain…

On Sunday I decided to admit pasta machine defeat and to try hand-rolling instead.  I was not successful.  My plan had been to make spinach and ricotta stuffed ravioli and the filling had already been prepared.  After realising that I was failing to roll the pasta to the required thinness I gave up on the idea, put the stuffing in the fridge and had pasta alla puttanesca for dinner instead (more about that next week).  Then this evening I came home from a spinnning class (as in the exercise bike fitness class rather than wool making) and spied the green and white fluffy mixture.  It screamed CANNELLONI at me!!  And so that’s what I made.

 

 

 

The end result was suprisingly delicious. Though I adore bechamel sauce and though it is essential in classic cannelloni, I omitted it from this dish as I wanted it to be light.  

The following amounts are imprecise.  This is the first time I made this and, frankly, I wasn’t paying that much attention. 

Spinach and Ricotta Cannelloni

(for four)

250g ricotta

500g spinach

Pinch of nutmeg

Seasoning

8 sheets of lasagne

500g cherry tomatoes (halved)

300ml passata

Handful of basil leaves, torn

Parmesan shavings to serve

• In a large covered pan wilt the spinach with just a sprinkling of water.  Drain.  Once cool squeeze out all the moisture and chop the spinach finely.
• Add the spinach, nutmeg and seasoning to the ricotta.  Combine and season well.
• Spoon the ricotta mixture onto the sheets of lasagne and roll up like a cigar. 
• Place into a snug fitting shallow casserole dish with some seasoned cherry tomatoes and basil lining the bottom.
• Add the rest of the cherry tomatoes and the passata on top of the rolled pasta and bake in a 190oC preheated oven for 30 mins.
• Serve with parmesan shavings.

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I have just realised that this calcium rich dish is a perfect entry for Susan’s Beautiful Bones event, alerting women to the risks of osteoperosis.  All entries to the event are to be calcium rich to help protect our beautiful bones. 

 

Weekend Bird Blogging

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Onion Bhaji

 

I’m experimenting with gram flour at the moment.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with this ingredient, gram flour is made from ground chickpeas, it’s a beautiful pale yellow, fine in texture and is predominantly used in Indian dishes.  That said, my first experiment involved a Sicilian dish: panelle.  Won’t be blogging about that though.  It tasted much like polenta and I don’t like polenta very much.

My second experiment were the following onion bhaji and in these gram flour redeemed itself.  These spiced Indian fritters are one of my favourite restaurant starters and I’m absolutely delighted that they are so simple to make at home.

Onion Bhaji

(makes 8 small bhajis)

1 cup gram flour

1 tspn turmeric

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp coriander

1 tsp garam masala

Pinch of cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp salt

1 onion, sliced

1 garlic clove, chopped

Ground nut oil, ghee or other “neutral” oil

• Mix together the spices and salt.  Add 2/3 of the mixture to the gram flour and sieve into a bowl.
• Add a little water to the spiced flour and mix with a fork.  Add a little more, stirring continually until the mixture forms a stiff, smooth batter.
• In a non-stick frying pan, heat a tablespoon of oil over a med-high heat.  Add the onion and fry briskly for one minute.  Reduce the heat slightly.  Add the garlic and fry for 30 seconds.  Add the rest of the spices and stir well.  Continue frying for a couple of minutes until the onion has softened but not browned.
• Add the fried onions to the chickpea batter and stir well.
• Pour enough oil into the non stick pan to just cover the base.  Heat over a med-high flame.  Spoon blobs of the onion batter into the pan, leaving at least a couple of centimetres between each bhaji. 
• Fry for a couple of minutes before turning and pressing the bhajis down to flatten to 1.5-2 cm thickness.  Fry for a further 3-4 minutes or until bhajis are golden brown and cooked through.
• Remove from pan and blot excess oil. 
• Serve with raita.

Micro-leaves

 

For the last few weeks I have been growing peas and rocket on the window sill of my spare room.  My intention has never been to let these lovely plants reach full maturity, though.  I’ve been growing them to eat as seedlings or microleaves, as they are known in foodie circles.

D doesn’t approve.  He thinks it’s mean to harvest plants in their infancy.  He also thinks that it’s not financially or spacially economical.  And I can’t really argue with any of these points.  I do have to take a deep breath before snipping at the base of the young leaves and many costly seeds have to be sprouted in many containers to provide a salad for four people. 

But, crisp and sweet and tender, micro-leaves are utterly delicious and for that reason, I’m going to keep on growing those little babies. 

Grow Your Own Micro-leaves

All you need is:

• A big sunny window sill - Of course, if you live somewhere warmer than here, a sunny spot in a sheltered area of your garden would be great too.
• Plastic containers and trays - E.g. yogurt pots, punnets, seed trays.
• Vermiculite or other seed friendly soil (check garden centre).
• Seeds  - rocket and pea seeds are my favourites but there are plenty of options.  See here and here for a list of possibilities.

Simple scatter seeds onto the filled containers and water daily from the bottom, letting the moisture soak up into the soil rather than rain down on the delicate seeds.  Your micro-leaves will be ready to eat in 6 - 21 days time.  Sow new seeds each week to ensure a constant suppy.

The Chickpea Answer

 

There were an astounding 1901 chickpeas in the jar!

Congratulations to Claire of Claire’s Cake Bake who guessed 1881. 

And watch out for future competitions.  This was great fun.