Norwegian apple cake - nom!

Hello Friends,
What a fab autumn day it's been today. A lovely walk at Creswell Crags, now back to light our pumpkin, fill a glass & settle in to celebrate Samhain night. 

I wanted to bake something for today which used some of our own fruit, so I chose Norwegian Apple Cake. I've been baking this cake since I was about 14 years old. Everyone who tries it says how nice it is, so I thought I'd share the recipe. It's from an ancient cookery book, now very much defunct, which I no longer own, but I pretty much know this recipe by heart. If you've got a few nice sharp-tasting apples handy, give it a go. You do need a reasonably deep rectangular tin. The very shallow ones used for tray-bakes are not deep enough. You need the sort of tin you might make a Yorkshire pudding in.

This was the view from our kitchen window as I was baking mine. A lot of leaf-raking to be done this week, particularly as Albert Whiskers is starting to trail them in on route to the fridge. Anyway, on to the cakeypoo:

Norwegian Apple Cake

2 eggs
9oz caster sugar
4 oz butter
1/4 pint milk
6.5 oz plain flour
3 tsp baking powder
4 nice sharp-tasting apples (3 will be enough if they are the big Bramleys)

Grease & lightly flour a deep rectangular baking or roasting tin (approx. 20 x 30cms). Pre-heat oven to Gas 6. Put 1 oz of the sugar aside on a saucer. 
Put the milk & butter into a small pan & gently melt, then start bringing it to the boil.
While it's heating, crack the eggs into a bowl, add 8 oz of the sugar & whisk together till pale & thick. The mixture needs to be thick enough to leave a trail when you lift the whisk. 
Keep the whisk handy & finish bringing the milk & butter mixture to the boil. 
Now get the electric whisk going with one hand & with the other, add the buttery milk STILL BOILING HOT in a careful steady stream into the sugar & eggs, while you whisk it in. 
Sieve the flour & baking powder swiftly into the mixture & carefully but thoroughly fold it in with a spatula. 
Pour it into your greased & floured tin. 
Now, working quickly, peel & core the apples, quarter them, then slice quite thinly. 
Arrange the apple slices in rows across the top of the mixture. You should have plenty, so overlap them a little if you want, to fit them all on.
Sprinkle the surface with the reserved 1 oz of caster sugar.
Bake in a pre-heated oven for about 25 mins until well-risen & golden brown. The sugary top shouldn't 'catch', but if it looks like it's going too dark, cover it with a piece of baking parchment for the last little bit of cooking time. (This is a moist cake because of all the apple, but do give it a little poke in the centre, just to check the batter is not still liquid. If this happens, just give it another 5 mins). 
Leave it to cool in the tin before cutting into slices (makes about 10 'normal' size or 8 if one of the eaters is my husband). Before serving, sift a little icing sugar on top or a sprinkle of caster sugar. 
It's nice on its own, but its niceness is elevated further by a blob of clotted cream.

This is an easy cake to make. It's a runny mixture, so don't start worrying & thinking you've done it wrong. It's more like the consistency of pancake batter than normal cake mixture. Just stick with it & you'll soon be tucking into a lush warm slice of Autumn. Enjoy!

Well,  it will soon be time to sit down with a little bowl of these spicy roasted pumpkin seeds at my side, candles lit, ready to watch The Wicker Man  - the original, of course!

Autumn blessings to you all from The People & Cats Republic,
C x

Pear Chutney (This is seriously yum!)

Hello Friends,
Anyone who has spoken to me recently will know that after my loathing of the Tory government, the next topic of conversation is currently our inundation here at 'Hagstones' with pears! Our old Conference pear tree produces fine crops, despite the foliage being affected with pear rust & the buds trashed every Spring by the local sparrow mafia. I've made blackberry & pear jam, pear chutney, 2 pear cakes, oodles of pear & cinnamon compote, which I like on top of porridge & I've given 2 stones in weight of them to Labour Party comrades in a trade for some of their lovely allotment summer berries. However, I'm still picking up this sort of quantity every couple of days.......

.....& I can see there are more than as many again under the tree for gathering today. I've been asked to share my pear chutney recipe this morning, so here it is. I'm really proud of this one, because it isn't someone else's recipe which I make or have tinkered with, it actually is my own recipe. Anyone remember this fab foodie/cookery mag?

Sadly, it ceased to exist around 4 years ago, much missed by me, & I've kept all my old copies. Anyway, before they went bust, they chose my Pear Chutney recipe for their 'Reader's Seasonal Recipe' page.

I make this chutney every year. It keeps well & makes a nice gift, particularly at Christmas, as it goes so well with ham & different cheeses. Unlike most chutneys, it doesn't require maturing time, so you can start slathering it on your sarnies pretty much immediately. Makes around 8 large jars, but sterilize some extra ones just in case, as chutney-making, like most things in my life, isn't an exact science.

Pear Chutney

Ingredients

2.7 kg pears

1.6 kg white granulated sugar

900 ml white wine vinegar (cider or malt vinegar are fine)

1 kg onions

1 kg sultanas

5 red chillies, de-seeded (dried are also fine)

2.5 tsp salt

2.5 cm cube root ginger, grated

1 level tsp ground mixed spice

Chop the onions & chillies. Put in a preserving pan. 

Peel, core & chop the pears. Add to the pan.

Add the rest of the ingredients. Heat slowly, stirring well until the sugar has dissolved.

Bring to the boil, turn down heat & simmer until the chutney is thick & sticky. 

It's ready for bottling when most BUT NOT ALL of the liquid on the top has gone. The chutney will continue to thicken as it stores, so you don't want it to get too dry.

While the chutney is cooking, wash the jars & lids in very hot soapy water, arrange in a roasting tray & sterilize in the oven at Gas 2, turning temperature down to lowest setting until you're ready to use them. Make sure that the lids are the ones which are coated inside, as vinegar can react with metal lids & taint the chutney.

Carefully ladle the chutney into the hot sterilized jars, wipe the jars with a hot very clean cloth & seal with the lids.

As you can see, this is a rich, sticky chutney. It's very easy to make & would be a good recipe for someone who is new to chutney-making. The only thing to watch out for is that the chutney doesn't 'catch' on the bottom of the pan as it starts to thicken, as this can result in blackened sultanas & a slight burnt flavour. Just get plenty of good music going in the kitchen, & make sure you are on hand to give the pan a good stir fairly regularly as it cooks.

I hope I haven't made this sound complicated, because it really is an easy recipe, & well worth making to liven up the winter larder. If anyone out there is as armpit deep in pears as we are, do give it a go!

Until next time, which will be feline fun & games.

C x

Phew! Sitting down with cup of coffee at last......

Hello Friends,
I'm making headway now with all the tasks I'd fallen behind with. Today I put the greenhouse to bed for the winter. That's always a bit of a seasonal marker. First, I collected up all the remaining food,

including red peppers (Variety = 'Thor'. Very good. Much better than the iffy petulant sulkers I grew last year!), chillies & a bunch of basil. I've frozen the jalapenos & green 'Heatwave' chillies & strung the ripe 'Heatwaves' up for drying, & turned the basil into a batch of fresh pesto for some pasta.

An hour of sweeping & clearing made sufficient space for tender plants to come under cover before the first hard frosts - agapanthus, lavender mint & grapefruit mint here, enjoying some rays.

Grapevine suffered a severe pruning. I'm not a natural pruner. I start off with a plan & it turns into a more of a frenzied hacking, but however bad it looks (& it will die back to little more than a collection of twigs over winter), it does always burst into grape-promising buds in spring. 

That's the thing with us gardeners, really. Garden tasks are so seasonal, but there's always this looking forward to the next season too. I brought this dahlia (Variety = Lolo Love) under glass this morning to protect it from freezing, so that felt kind of quite wintery, but also these two trays of strawberry runners which I potted up to increase our fruit supplies next summer. I always feel sad when our awesome swifts depart for Africa midway through August, but I know that this has to happen for me to enjoy their noisy return at the beginning of May.

So with spring sunshine in mind, I sowed our sweet peas. Two varieties - A mixture of hot colours called 'Floral Tribute' & a cooler 'Blue lagoon'.

I always find I get better plants from an October sowing. I've tried sowing sweet peas in March but they have invariably been spindly ungrateful little things, refusing to thrive. They are pretty hardy plants on the whole. I will probably be able to plant these outside at the end of March. If you want to sow some, it's well worth saving the tall 'disposable' coffee cups & large yoghurt pots, as sweet peas (like all peas & beans) seem to like a deep root run. No need to buy special root-trainer pots - there's already quite enough plastic waste knocking around!

And before coming indoors to do some baking (only bread, in case anyone was just getting on the bus in anticipation of a large interesting cake!), I had what I can only describe as an idea of near genius. Oh, ok, that's stretching it, but as someone who lives in permanent fear of eight-legged beasts fiendishly concealing themselves before deliberately leaping out on people, this is a low-tech innovation of note.

......A large plastic freezer clip fastened firmly across the tops of my gardening gloves. Ha! No baddies getting in those! Just need some bigger ones now to clip across the tops of all my boots!
That, friends, has been today's activity.
Till next time,
C x

Autumn herb-gathering

Hello Friends,
As you might expect, I'm not a lover of Tory Conference season. In fact, I'm currently avoiding the media, as every time I switch on the TV, I am assailed by David Cameron's hammy face telling me how the Conservative Party is a friend to the poor. Yes, making poor people a whole lot poorer apparently teaches them self-respect. I would like to shut Cameron, Hunt & IDS in a small, damp, one-bedroomed privately rented flat with a three-day food bank parcel & a copy of 'The Ragged-trousered philanthropists'. This would culminate in a test on the causes of inequality. The real ones. Not the pretend ones, promoted by their media friends, which ensure that people turn on each other, instead of the real enemy.

So there's not much news consumption going on here. Instead, I'm throwing myself into catching up in the garden. I'm rather behind, but at least nothing this time of year (apart from bringing in frost-tender plants) is urgent. 

Today, I've gathered the last of the cherry tomatoes in every shade from the brightest red to the dodgiest green & tackled the herb garden. What a pleasant couple of hours - warm October sunshine, a robin singing in the greengage tree & surprisingly, good things there for the taking! I normally would have done my final herb harvest of the year a couple of months ago, but the warm weather has kept everything going, so I was able to cut & tie plenty of bunches for drying.

These are sage, oregano, bay, marjoram, rosemary, thyme & winter savoury. All now hanging from the beam in the kitchen to dry. I was annoyed to find that the tarragon had been entirely eaten. The chief suspect had taken up residence near the sole remaining twig & was duly sent space-wards - us gardeners soon develop an impressive slug-launching arm! 
I recommend growing winter savoury. It's an inexpensive plant to buy, easy to grow & it survives snowy winters. The aroma is quite like thyme, but the leaves are tougher, which makes it an excellent ingredient in slow cooker stews, which give it the time it needs to soften & give up its flavours.  I use it finely chopped in my home-made burgers too. If you enjoy cooking & don't grow it, it's well worth having.

Now, the word 'beam' may give the impression that we live in an ancient 'chocolate box-style' cottage.........whereas the truth is that our beam is the result of some past idiot owner knocking a supporting kitchen wall out of our extremely ordinary 1930s house! It's very useful for drying herbs though, & festooning with Yuletide greenery later in the year. 

I don't bother drying mint or basil, as neither herb dries well. I've chopped basil & frozen it in ice-cube trays for use during winter, & put a bunch of mint stems to stand in water ready to make apple & mint jelly at the weekend.

Albert Whiskers has been of no help whatsoever, but has at least calmed down from yesterday's rain, when he was on permanent 'Wet playtime'. Attacking doormats, jumping around in all the cabling behind the TV, helping himself to stuff from my knitting basket, chomping my hair & nibbling my tights at every opportunity.

Today is thankfully looking a lot more like this. 
Hope everyone is managing to get at least a bit of time outside in the autumn sunshine.
Till next time......unless I have turned into a giant pear, which is quite possible with the amount of them we are currently having to eat!
C x