Speculating on Speculaas Koekjes - a real Dutch Treat for Christmas

Dutch Speculaas Cookies

Today is a filthy wet Sunday and I am happily stuck indoors with my knitting and the Sunday paper which I did venture out for earlier on, and browsing Facebook and the Twitter machine. I saw an enthusiastic post about Lidl's Spekulatius cookies from Susan (who blogs at Queen of Pots), and she had bought up the shop's stock from what I could gather. So in the interest of cookies, international cultural and culinary relations, and the much-vaunted Electric Ireland Random Acts of Kindness that Sean Moncrieff was banging on about on Newstalk last week as a fundraiser for Concern, (of course I'm too late for that but I hope they won the competition, especially as he was doing the final show of the week in a onesie as a random act of humiliation).

So I posted to Susan that I had a recipe so she asked if I'd blog it. Of course I will, and better still I'll make the darn things. So the dough was chillaxing in the fridge and I've just baked the first batch. The Dutch recipe is from a book called "Dutch Cooking Today" and is very simple. I'll post it and also a pic from the page which you can read. I'll also post a page of a German book called "German Baking Today" from Dr. Oetker who's well known for baking products (somebody's very busy today writing cooking and baking books!) which is much more complicated and way too much hassle for a quiet Sunday so I'll wait till another time to try that one, but for anyone ambitious out there in the blogosphere you can click on the photo and see the recipe.

So here goes.

The Recipe I used

Ingredients for Speculaas Koekjes (Spiced Biscuits)
200g/7oz Self-raising flour
125g/4oz soft brown sugar
2 Tablespoons Mixed Spice
Pinch Salt
150g/5oz chilled butter
1 Tablespoon milk

Method
Mix flour, spices, sugar in a bowl.
Add butter, using knife chop up and rub in lightly with fingertips to breadcrumb texture. (Like short crust pastry)
Add milk and quickly knead to firm dough.
Wrap in cling film and put in fridge for 2 hrs minimum, ideally overnight to let flavours develop.
Preheat oven 175°C/375°F.
Cut dough into thin disc if it's been rolled into a sausage shape, or roll out flat and cut with cookie cutters.
Place on lined baking tray and bake for 15-20 mins until nicely browned.
Result - a nice light-as-air spicy biccy perfect for dunking - briefly! - in tea or coffee!

Sausage of cookie dough and Stars 

My Dutch Cooking Bible!

German Spekulatius recipe - on my to-do list!

Sugar and Spice and all things nice…and flour!

chopping butter in the spicy floury mix

And I thought Dr. Oetker just made baking ingredients and pizza!

yum yum!

I'm a Stylish Blogger - or so the Award says!

I was chuffed when I got this award recently - it's been a couple of weeks ago but better late than never, Stylish Blogger no less! - from Laura in California who blogs at Our Scented Cottage, well worth a visit. Thanks a lot Laura!

I will now tell you what the Award sharing entails, for those of you who will receive it from me - if you wish to share with your fellow-bloggers just follow the guidelines below. I don't think this one is too onerous; I have refused to pass on Awards in the past that were too difficult or intrusive, so it's entirely up to you what to do. It's all a bit of fun, not something to agonise over accuracy or factual verification thereof - even if you're using a bit of poetic/artistic licence to embellish it's not a hanging offence!

To Accept The Award Requirements: Thank and Link Back to the Blogger Who Awarded You With The Award and Share 7 Things About Yourself. Award 15 Recently Discovered Great Bloggers and contact the bloggers, inform them of the award.

Right - here goes - Seven things about me (that you were afraid to ask?!)

1. I love reading - I am in a real-world book club and an online Bloggers' Book Club - which is worth checking out and much thanks to Lily for setting it up. I am not always great at reading the required books as I am always short on time - but I try. I enjoy sharing the reviews and seeing other people's opinions on a favourite read.  Our house is full of books - hubby keeps wondering where we're going to fit any more and yet there's a certain elasticity in our bookshelves! I am always reading some book or other, usually multitasking it with something else like knitting (see 2 below!)

My latest socks project - ribbed wool socks

2. My current favourite hobby is knitting - small projects like socks (See photo) which can be done anywhere - in the car, the coffee shop, watching TV, waiting around for people, hospital appointments - it makes the wait tolerable and combined with No. 1 above is the perfect relaxation. I do enjoy crochet but I am not as good at it as I once was so I defer to my daughter-in-law-to-be who has become a whiz at it since I showed her how to make a pot-holder a few short months ago - now she's teaching me her wonderful projects! Check out her Facebook Group (Jany's Cozy Crochets) for her work. Also the advent of YouTube tutorials on knitting and crochet make it accessible to the masses and the plethora of wonderful crafty books now available have reawakened interest in these terrific pastimes.

Sofia's No. 1 Cake!

3. I have always loved baking since learning the craft from my late mother as a child - I also had a friend whose grandfather had a bakery and she taught me how to make yeast bread, something not very common in Ireland - home of the Soda Bread (brown bread made with buttermilk and with Bread Soda (Soda Bicarbonate) as the raising agent. No waiting around for proving or rising and knocking down, it's a simple fast mixing method - can be wet or dry as wished, depending on whether you want to bake in a loaf tin or shaped round or whatever you fancy. Now I mostly bake cakes, buns (cupcakes) and tarts and pies. And I have a Facebook Group (Cakes, Bakes and Tasty Treats) which showcases some of my favourite recipes, all of which I've blogged about. My most recent was Sofia's First Birthday Cake which you can see here - we celebrated the big day yesterday!

4. I never travelled outside of Ireland until I was 17, when I went overland on a youth pilgrimage to Lourdes in southern France, the famous Marian shrine. I was a helper to a disabled girl, as were a a number of classmates who'd signed up for a bit of adventure, which was in short supply in the Black and White TV days of the early 70s! We had a blast - something not usually associated with pilgrimages, but perhaps there's a clue if I say the pilgrimage  was led by that notorious party animal Bishop Eamon Casey. He was quite the man-about-town then, little did we know then what we knew twenty years later - that he was a father in more than the religious title, which was disclosed by the mother of his then 17 yr old son, a handsome American lad, whose mother had fallen for the popular Bishop's charms all those years earlier. Sadly, he was vilified by the church and sent into exile in the South American missions, in contrast to all those paedophile priests whose crimes came to light years later which were covered up by the institution all the way to the Vatican. If ever there was a case for married priest and an end to compulsory celibacy, Bishop Casey epitomised it. He was a coward of course, in that he ditched Annie Murphy and embezzled diocesan funds to pay maintenance for the kid, and he never acknowledged him until Annie Murphy went public. But theirs was a consenting adult relationship, and as such should have been acknowledged by the hierarchy. 

5. I never flew until I was 22, when I went to Tenerife on my first and only package holiday after I'd finished my midwifery. Nine of us went, all girls, all just-qualified midwives, and we were ready to party. I remember being more excited by the flight than the holiday destination - until I arrived. I had little experience of sub-tropical climes to then, and revelled in two weeks of glorious sunshine in a then largely unspoilt island just discovering its tourist potential. We climbed Mount Tiede, the highest volcano/peak in Europe (not the mainland of course, but the Canary Islands are part of Spain so they are European even though they lie off the coast of Morocco, near the Western Sahara end.

6. I lived without electricity or running water for over a year - in the African bush in the mid-80s when we worked withTutsi refugees from Rwanda near Lake Burigi, the most beautiful place between Lake Victoria and Rwanda. We drew water from the river and in the rainy season collected rainwater in a tank. That was our most basic living ever - we had a small generator which would run a light bulb or two but if you put on the cooker it would dim the lights. I cooked on charcoal and got very creative - anyone who knows those little charcoal jikos or stoves knows they're slow to fire up and can be temperamental, but I ended up baking bread with two African cooking pots - like a bastable oven, one had the bread, the other sat on top with more hot coals in it, and that baked perfect bread. Murder on the tin pots though, as the heat of the charcoal on a dry pot burnt it away after a couple of uses. Happy days, the kids were small and it was pretty idyllic for them, aged 4 and 1, and I was 8 months pregnant with no. 3 when we left for the relative civilisation of Wales and a study break.

7.  I was taught Irish for 13 years in school and I still don't speak it comfortably or anywhere near fluency. This is probably a damning indictment of the school system in how it teaches Irish as a compulsory subject which was foisted on us, as it still is. In fact, it was so forced that if you failed Irish in the Leaving Cert you failed the whole exam, regardless of the rest of the exam - straight As or not. That requirement is now gone, but the baggage it carries for my generation is irreparable. I work in an Irish-speaking area and did a conversation course a few years ago which showed  me how  much I could recall and it was a fun way to learn. I see kids going to Gaelscoileanna where they're taught everything through Irish and they seem fine with it, and there's a resurgence outside Gaeltacht areas. I think future generations will be okay with the language but the teaching has to change and be relevant to everyday life. I speak near-fluent Dutch, am very comfortable in Kiswahili after years in Tanzania, and could even cope with some Lao, a tortuously difficult script and tonal language (like Thai)e that would make Serbo-Croat look like a walk in the park! 

So that's some random things to share - I tried to get a different perspective than in a previous  list for the Versatile Blogger Award I got from Mimi last year, so I hope I achieved that. I will now forward it to the following bloggers I enjoy and who won't mind being tagged with an award - I will not send it to any award-free zone! 

It's been fun to do and I hope you enjoy it too, pass it on and hopefully bring a lot more readers and followers to your blog - which is always nice. Though I write this because I enjoy the process of writing an open diary - as I see a blog - and it documents my life in a way I'm happy to share in the blogosphere. 

And the Award goes to.....

1. Mimi @ MimiinDublin 
2. Rudee @ A Knitting Nurse
3. Ann @ Inkpots n'Quills
4. Alycia @ The Curious Pug
5. Susan @ Joyous Flowers
6. Brownieville Girl @ Brownieville Girl
7. Corry & Heleen @ Dutch Sisters
8. Michelle @ MichelleTeacress
9. Peggy @ Organic Growing Pains
10. ShannonAnn @ One Size Knits All
11. Lilly @ Stuff I make, bake and love
12. Barbara @ Tanzania 5.0
13. Maeve @ The Delights of Tea and Other Things 
14. Kitty Cat @ Red Lemonade
15. Barbara @ From my Kitchen Table 

Snowvember Comfort Food - Variations on a Theme of Chicken Stroganoff and Apple Cake

The view from my bedroom this morning

Yesterday we had our first snow of this winter - Snowvember as someone called it on Facebook (I'm lifting it for the post title but have no idea whose idea it is - I just like it!) - and it came out of the blue as we never expected to have such early falls. The temperatures have been sub-zero for a few days, barely rising to 1-2 degrees Centigrade by day and falling to -10 Centigrade at night - in some parts of the country at least. The UK has had a much  more severe spell of snowy weather with -17C in Wales last night. (For all the American readers - I'm sorry, I haven't a clue what these temperatures are in Fahrenheit without converting and as I only do that for recipes you'll have to bear with me and check out some widget somewhere or other that'll do the business for you!)

The garden from the sunroom at noon today

With all this in mind it was time for lockdown for the weekend. I am not even thinking about work tomorrow or how I will deal with that - we don't prepare for snow in Ireland so no snow tyres/tires, and no chains and no snowploughs - only salt and grit. That means only main roads get treated and the by-roads I travel in work will be left to Mother Nature. I hope to be around to report back later in the week!

So ratchet the central heating up to the max, get a good DVD for Saturday night and have a nice warming dinner. This offset the worst impact of our "blizzard" - in essence about three or four inches of powdery snow which didn't thaw as the temps are too low - and made us feel like Scott of the Antarctic.

Going outside prompted "I may be some time" comment from the wittier among us, and a trip to the hilly hinterland of Lismore, Ballysaggart on the foothills of the Knockmealdown Mountains, to collect teen daughter and her pal from a friend's house necessitated having hubby drive as I was too chicken to chance it.

The book - in Jamie's blokey style

It was hair-raising as there were patches of black ice and snow frozen on ice that were lethal and we were lucky not to skid into the ditch/side of the road. (Still have that argument with Dutch hubby over ditch/dyke. In Holland a ditch is full of water, here it's the hedge at the side of the road. I seem to remember writing about this last year during the "Big Freeze"!

I decided to make a new dish for dinner last night and went to Jamie Oliver's wonderfully back-to-basic home cooking book "Jamie's Ministry of Food" for inspiration. As I wanted a chicken one-pot dish with rice, I went for the Chicken Stroganoff with leeks and mushrooms and tweaked it a little. Normally I use chicken in curry, or in a tomato-based Spanish-style stew, or for fast food like Fajitas or just plain old Roast Chicken, which is one of my favourite and hard to beat for comforting winter Sunday roasts.

This chicken stroganoff was simple to make, and quite plain. I added garlic, mixed herbs and some non-MSG Season-All (a type of sprinkled BBQ seasoning from the Schwartz spice range, which are good quality with no nasty artificial stuff.) This gave it a bit of a kick and I think the original would have been just too bland for my and hubby's taste buds which have been primed by years of Asian cuisine to the upper end of the hot'n'spicy scale.

Just had a nice slice of the cake - yummy!

Today I decided to make a variation on another classic comfort food - Apple Cake. I had some pastry for a base which I baked blind (with beans weighing it down on greaseproof paper). I covered the base with sliced cooking apples, then sprinkled sugar and a light dusting of cinnamon, and then covered the lot with cake mix. I used Victoria Sponge - having made enough for buns as well, I used half to top the cake. I then decorated the top with Glacé cherries and pecan nuts, and popped it in the oven for 30-40 minutes. It is delicious with whipped cream or ice cream, as it is more a dessert than a cake, being quite moist from the apples.

Here are both recipes with some photos of each.

Chicken Stroganoff (Based on Jamie Oliver's recipe)

Creamy chicken stroganoff with leeks and mushrooms

Ingredients 

Jamie's recipe - click to enlarge pic

1. Olive oil and butter knob (25gm/1oz) to cook
2. 600gm/1.5lbs diced chicken breast
3. 1 large leek, quartered, sliced and rinsed well
4. 220 gm/half-pound sliced button mushrooms.
5. 1 tsp. dried mixed herbs.
6. 1tablesp. chopped parsley.
7. 1teaspoon seasoning sprinkled over chicken - can be BBQ, Cajun, Season-All, try the Schwartz range or any good quality natural seasonings. 
8. 1 glass white wine.
9. Half glass water.
10. 250 ml/half-pint single cream.
11. Salt and Pepper to season.
12. Half-tsp. paprika powder (optional - I wanted a bit of a kick).
13. Small squeeze of lemon juice (optional - add at end if wished).

Method (varies from Jamie's but I like to brown the chicken first).

mmmm, dinner!

1. Sprinkle seasonings and dried herbs on chicken, heat oil and butter and add chicken. 
2. Cook stirring well over high heat until browned all over. 
3. Add leeks and mushrooms and cook for a few minutes, stirring to prevent sticking.
4. Add wine and water, chopped parsley, salt and pepper to taste, cover and simmer for 10 mins. 
5. Add cream, simmer and stir, reduce if liquid is too thin, but no need to add roux or any flour thickener.
6. A delicate and tasty flavour, this is delicious served with Basmati Rice and Garlic Bread!

 Apple, Cherry and Pecan cake

Pastry for Base (Standard sweet shortcrust pastry used on numerous other recipes in this blog)

before baking - apple mix in pastry case

 Ingredients 

1. 1lb/450gm plain flour8oz/225gm chilled butter (preferable to margarine).
2. 2 oz/50gm sugar (or caster sugar or icing sugar) - optional if sweet pastry desired - otherwise omit.
3. 1 egg - optional if you want rich shortcrust pastry - otherwise omit.
4. A few tablespoons of cold water to bind.

Method:

Ready for the oven

1. Add butter to flour, chop up with knife and rub in with fingers to crumbly texture.
2. Add sugar and egg (if using) and water to bind stiffly.
3. Minimally handling, knead lightly on floured worktop/table.
4. Roll out enough pastry to line a deep pie/flan dish.
5. Bake blind - put dried beans on greaseproof paper on top of pastry base.
6. Bake for 10 mins at 200C/390F, then lower heat to 150C/300F and remove beans and paper, bake further 10 mins. Cool.

Finished Apple, Cherry and Pecan Cake

Victoria Sponge Cake Mix

Ingredients 

1. 4oz/100gm flour (self-raising or plain with 2-3 teaspoons baking powder)
2. 4oz/100gm sugar
3. 4oz/100gm butter
4. 2 eggs
5. Almond or Vanilla Essence (as preferred)

Method

1. Put all ingredients into mixing bowl and whisk together, if using electric whisk. 
2. Otherwise, using a wooden spoon, cream butter and sugar well, add essence and beaten eggs and flour and baking powder (if used) alternately until a dropping consistency is reached. 
3. Add a little boiling water to get right consistency.

Filling

2- 3 Cooking apples peeled and sliced - lay on base of cooked pastry case
Sprinkle sugar liberally on apples, then cinnamon.
Cover with Victoria Sponge cake mix
Decorate top with whole glacé cherries and whole pecan nuts as wished.

Bake in preheated oven 200C/375F for 15 mins, reduce heat to 150C/300F for another 20-30 mins or until firm and golden - watch out it doesn't burn - if edges done before centre move down a shelf and cover with greaseproof paper - loosely.
Cool on wire rack and dust with Icing Sugar.
Delicious with Ice Cream or Whipped Cream

Note the absence in this post of any mention of economic meltdown, national humiliation bailouts and selling out to the IMF/ECB, or street protests. These will have their day as I am very angry about the state of the nation and the mess our incompetent so-called leaders have left us with as we face down an early General Election in the New Year. But for now - time to be happy and eat well!

Just Desserts - having our Pineapple Upside-Down Cake and eating it

I hadn't made this in years until just over a week ago when I was heading to visit a friend in her mobile home in Clonea Caravan Park. My previous post here was on the howler road sign near the park entrance so it's fitting that the cake recipe follow.

It was a very pleasant evening with a group of friends and colleagues and we had a great laugh; it was one of those girly evenings that are just inexplicably enjoyable. Our hostess had laid on a lovely cold buffet - an assortment of delicious salads - which we enjoyed alfresco as it was a warm sunny evening. For dessert we all brought something to the table - including my Pineapple upside-down cake. It was eclipsed by a fab Pavlova laden down with fresh strawberries and raspberries nesting in the whipped cream, and a lovely Swiss Roll. I cheated a bit and bought along a tub of ready-whipped fresh cream on my way to the beach, as I didn't know if the caravan would have the wherewithal to whip cream and anyway it seemed like too much hard work for an after-work get-together.

As we were all driving home (except the hostess who was already home!) we passed on the wine which meant no sore heads the next day. Always a good thing on a weekday. The provenance of this recipe is an old Dutch magazine cutout - I have the original on a pulled-out page from a Margriet (I think 1988 or thereabouts - the date is obliterated) which is tattered and dog-eared, but as it lives inside one of my mother's old cookery books it will last another few decades. I used to make this frequently when we lived in the tropics as we had such delicious fresh pineapples - even from our own garden in some instances - and it's so simple that the ingredients were always to hand. Now I use the canned slices with the hole in the middle - you could use fresh but it's a bit of a lottery how they turn out - sometimes they are just right but often they are either underripe and hard or over-ripe and starting to rot in spots.


Hubby has a theory that I feel has some merit - that it's preferable to eat pineapple that's locally canned close to the source (i.e. the pineapple plots) at its prime ripeness than to eat dodgy "fresh" pineapple that's got huge airmiles clocked up (or shipping miles) after being picked under-ripe on the off-chance that it'll reach optimum ripeness as it arrives on the shelves or market stalls. When we lived in Tanzania the Dabaga Canning Factory was next door to the Concern office in Ipogoro where the most wonderful smells emanated throughout the year, contingent on the seasonality of the crops - this is a prime example of green organic and fairly traded food production and I have a lot of regard for it; you can check out its brochure here.

So give it a try and you won't be disappointed.

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake
(translated from the Dutch by me - hope it's accurate enough!)

Ingredients

1. 175g/6oz self-raising flour
2. 200g//7oz sugar
3. 65g/3oz soft butter/margarine
4. 1 egg
5. 1 teasp. vanilla essence or 1 sachet vanilla sugar
6. pinch salt
7. 1 can pineapple slices
8. Whipped Cream or Ice Cream to serve

Method

1. Grease a Springform Baking Tin
2. Line with drained Pineapple slices and half-slices as shown in photo
3. Mix all the other ingredients together to make a smooth semi-stiff batter, more pouring than dropping consistency
4. Pour the cake batter over the Pineapple slices
5. Bake in oven pre-heated to 150 degrees Centigrade/300 degrees Fahrenheit for about 40 mins until baked through and golden brown
6. Cool in tin, then turn out onto serving plate
7. If you want to glaze it after baking, see Handy Tip below and be sure to use ovenproof plate while browning in oven
8. Serve slices with Whipped Cream or Ice Cream

Handy Tip

Instead of greasing the Springform baking tin, you could line it with 50g/2oz melted butter with 100g brown sugar dissolved in it. This will caramelise in the baking to give a nice golden-brown glaze.

I forgot to do this at the start but at the end I improvised (in the manner of the best/most forgetful bakers!) by adding the melted butter to the finished cake and sprinkling over the brown sugar and then returning it to the top shelf of the oven for 5-10 mins until the same effect was achieved.

This is delicious with a nice cuppa tea or coffee, and it has a lovely sticky-pudding-y texture which is quite filling (so you shouldn't over-indulge), yet healthy enough to be one of your Five-a-Day (fruit'n'veg) portions if you are seriously guilt-tripping yourself!

Coffee Walnut and Sultana Madeira Cake - a new take on an old favourite

I was baking the other day and thought I'd divert half the batter from an 8oz/4 egg Victoria Sponge basic mix to make a Madeira cake, but as I had no cherries to make a fave cherry madeira I decided to make do with what was available in the store cupboard.

I had walnuts from Lidl and some sultanas, and of course coffee. So I made some yummy jam and apple bakewells with pastry I had in the fridge, and filled half with stewed apple and half with some fresh strawberry and blueberry compote - kinda like jam but not as set or as sweet.

Then I took the remaining batter and added another 2oz/50g self-raising flour and 4 tablespoons milk, and 2oz/50g each of chopped walnuts and sultanas, along with 4 tablespoons strong coffee (I made some in this nice cafetiére (which I got free with Bewley's coffee a few weeks ago along with a nice coffee book - as opposed to a coffee table book!).

I put the lot into a parchment liner in a 2lb loaf tin and dotted the top with walnuts - and into the oven for 45 minutes or so. End result - a nice nutty cake that's not too sweet, perfect with coffee or tea for elevenses.

I brought it into work for the tea-break and it went down a treat - I have recently moved office into the hospital in Dungarvan, so I have company now, with my other public health nurse colleagues and the office staff.

I hope you enjoy this - I'll summarise the recipe here. Bung everything in and mix well, and it's a doddle to make, so enjoy it.

Coffee Walnut and Sultana Madeira Cake

Ingredients

1. 6oz/175g Self-raising flour
2. 4oz/115g Butter - soft
3. 4oz/115g Vanilla sugar (or sugar with added vanilla essence)
4. 2 eggs
5. 4 Tablespoons milk
6. 4 Tablespoons strong coffee (instant or filter/cafetiere/percolator)
7. 2oz/50g chopped walnuts
8. 2oz/50g Sultanas
9. Whole walnuts to decorate

Method

1. Put everything in a bowl and mix well - until stiff dropping consistency.
2. Put in lined loaf tin (greaseproof liner or paper).
3. Bake in preheated oven at 180 degrees Centigrade for 45 minutes until a skewer/knitting needle comes out dry when stuck into the cake.

Enjoy and tell your friends to give it a go!

Oh - I have to tell you that the strawberry bonanza is finally over and we have a number of delicious pots of jam to last the next few months - maybe into the autumn and some of the winter.

It looks like this year we'll have a bumper crop of apples which is terrific after last year's disastrous non-harvest - we're having a lovely summer and are afraid to jinx it by taking it too much for granted. Hope it lasts through July and August, and beyond.

Double-take Birthday Cakes - Supersized and Minimized

I promised I'd post the recipe for the birthday cake I made for hubby Jan's big birthday celebration recently, which I wrote about here.

So here it is - it's simply a very big Victoria sponge cake with butter icing - lots of it. It went down a treat at the party, people seemed genuinely surprised that I'd made it which made me wonder if baking is really going out of style.

There are lots of specialist bakeries now which do amazing things with photos in edible icing on top of the cakes, or cartoon characters, but I guess they rely on the technology of edible teeshirt-printing equivalence.

I still prefer the home-made cakes to the shop-bought ones as the home-made variety have more substance and can have a fair bit of style as well - at least that's what I was aiming for, and I hope I achieved it to some extent.

Here goes - not for the fainthearted and have plenty of ingredients in stock - and at least a day to prepare and bake unless you have a couple of roasting tins and a large oven. I don't, so I made one cake at a time, and baked them individually in the same roasting tin, lined with baking parchment. I made three large cakes but only used two and a half - I kept the other half for a small cake on the actual birthday which was the Saturday after Thursday's party. You can see both cakes - little and large - in this post.

Prepare a sturdy cake board if you don't have one - I cut some strong cardboard from boxes that housed some garden chairs from Lidl, and stuck two big squares together with packing tape and covered them with tinfoil/aluminium foil. The cake board will have to carry a few kilos of finished cake!


Ingredients (for each cake)

1. 500gm/1lb Self-Raising Flour (or plain flour and 5 teaspoons baking powder)
2. 500gm/1lb Vanilla Sugar (I use normal white/caster sugar kept in a Kilner jar with some vanilla pods - the best flavour and beats concentrated vanilla essence hands down. If you use essence, get natural vanilla)
3. 500gm/1lb Butter, softened
4. 8 Eggs
5. 4-5 tablespoons hot water

Method

1. Pre-heat oven to 189 degrees Centigrade/350 degrees Fahrenheit
2. Place all the ingredients in a large bowl.
3. Using a hand-held electric mixer, mix all the ingredients to a soft dropping consistency.
4. (You can be purist about this and cream the butter and sugar before adding the eggs and flour slowly - I find the one-step method worked fine and didn't curdle on me. I like short cuts!)
5. Spoon the mix into a large square or rectangular tin - a roasting tin is ideal - lined with Baking Parchment (Waxed paper).
6. Bake in the centre of the pre-heated oven for 30-40 minutes until well risen and golden brown, and firm in the centre - test with a skewer or knitting needle in the middle, which should come out dry.
7. Cool in tin for 10 minutes, then carefully lift out by wax paper and leave to cool on a wire rack.
8. Bake two or three of these cakes, then when completely cool, prepare to decorate to your liking.

Butter Icing /Frosting

1. 1.5kg/3lbs Icing Sugar
2. 750gms/1.5 lbs Butter, softened
3. 1 tablespoon Lemon Juice to tone down the sweetness, if liked

Icing Variations:

• Cocoa powder - if making Chocolate Icing.
• Food Colouring - if making coloured icing
• Instant Coffee dissolved in a little hot water - if making Coffee Icing
• Orange juice and zest - if making Orange Icing

Beat the butter in large bowl, then sieve in the sugar and continue beating until smooth and creamy, and add lemon juice or any preferred flavourings/colouring.

Preparation

1. Place one cake upside down on foil cake board, and cut another cake to square if off if you like a square cake. Otherwise a rectangle is fine.
2. Spread with Strawberry Jam.
3. Spread stiff whipped cream on the jam.
4. Place the second cake on top of the cream - right side up.
5. Spread butter icing over top and sides of cake.
6. Decorate as wished - I used Chocolate icing for piping and writing, and 70% chocolate buttons/chips to decorate border.

Handy Tip

I used a piping syringe and nozzle to pipe the top decorations and then another nozzle for the continuous border around the cake sides near the board.
For the writing I didn't have a fine writing nozzle - lost in the mists of time and the kitchens of Africa or Asia - and I improvised with a freezer bag - put the icing into the bag, a few tablespoons is enough for writing a few words like I did - and snip a very small bit off the corner so you can squeeze a small trail of the icing through and guide it for writing whatever you wish.
No need for fancy sets, I know you can make greaseproof piping bags, but this was handier as I think you need nozzles for the greaseproof paper bags.

Enjoy the end product - I did enjoy making it, the guests loved it and then we had a small cream sponge cake with the leftovers for the birthday itself, which had a candle per decade!

It keeps well for a few days, once in an airtight tin or wrapped in greaseproof paper.

Scones, Square Meals and TV licences - Bargain-basement Baking for Taxing Times

I found this simple recipe for scones this week from browsing two great cookbooks. One is the Square Meals cookbook from the Money Advice and Budgeting Service (MABS) - an Irish public body which helps people in financial difficulty to manage their debts and finances. They are run off their feet these recessionary days and I know they do a great job at keeping the wolf from many a door - as well as keeping the moneylender and debtor's prison at bay.

Imagine in this day and age there is something so Dickensian and Micawberish as a debtor's prison in a so-called civilised country? Makes me wonder why so many white-collar embezzlers aren't locked up behind those bars, instead of some poor person who defaults on a hire-purchase or credit union loan, or the dreaded TV licence. Those ads on TV and radio imply there is no worse crime than not having a TV licence, which is supposed to fund Irish public broadcasting - yet we are all watching Sky and wonder why if RTÉ is commercial and gets load of dosh from its ads, we need a licence.

Even if you only use the TV for playing the Wii, you must have a licence per address, which makes it totally unfair as a hotel or business premises pay the same as a private household. I do not see why one has to have a licence to watch DVDs or play Wii or Playstation - but that's the law and it's enforced inefficiently, intrusively and at great cost through the courts of the land, and like debtor's prison victims, it disproportionately targets low-income earners. (Yes, we have one and so does our son who has no TV provider so only plays Wii on it - costly games!)

That's today's polemic rant - back to the scones. The other cookbook is Grandma's Best Recipes, one of those bargain-bin books from Eason's that turn out to be a real gem. The recipes differ in that one calls for self-raising flour and the other for plain flour with baking powder, and one has an egg and a pinch of salt, and double the butter quantity which makes for a shortbready scone rather than a doughy one - much nicer! But you choose.

I have taken the best of both and merged them. They are so quick to make that there's no excuse for not having a fresh batch made on a whim, if the mood takes you. They are delicious with butter, strawberry jam and fresh whipped cream - which totally ruins any healthy low-fat benefits of the basic scone, before you start feeling smug.

I usually make half the recipe portion unless the house is full, as I hate waste and stale scones won't do it for anyone. This recipe will make a dozen, which will last less than a day all going well, and you can make them every day you want them if you feel particularly domestic goddess-like, and are having a Rachel or Nigella moment. You can see the lovely digital kitchen scales Tandy gave Jan - another great Lidl purchase.

Scones - Basic Recipe

Ingredients

1. 8ozs/225gm Self-raising flour
2. Pinch salt
3. 1oz/25 sugar
4. 2ozs/50gm butter
5. 1 egg (beaten)
6. milk

Method

1. Chop up butter in flour and rub it in to breadcrumb texture
2. Add sugar and mix
3. Add beaten egg and mix
4. Add enough milk to make stiff dough
5. Turn onto floured surface and knead lightly
6. Roll to half-inch/1cm thickness
7. Cut with cookie cutter or cup (I used round cutter)
8. Place on floured baking tray (I used a silicone baking sheet on a baking tray)
9. Glaze with leftover egg/milk if you like a glazed top (I did half glazed and left half plain - catered for all tastes!)
10. Bake in preheated oven at 180 degrees Centigrade/350 degrees Fahrenheit for 10-15 minutes
11. Cool on a wire rack

Variations

Add any of the following to the dry ingredients after Step 2:
2 ozs/50gm raisins/sultanas/mixed dried fruit/glacé cherries (washed and halved)/blueberries.
For savoury scones add grated cheddar cheese.

...and finally...

While cooling, make the tea, and then enjoy the fresh baked scones with

• Butter (no substitutes please!)
• Strawberry Jam (preferably homemade or good quality)
• Freshly whipped cream or clotted cream.

Pure indulgence - and you can feel virtuous as they are low in fat and sugar (or were, before you pimped them with the butter and cream!)