CHRISTMAS CAKE

Yet another Christmas cake! Here are my cakes from the last two years of postings.

I would like to wish you all a Happy Christmas and New Year. I will be back in the new year with lots more recipes and photographs.

Thank you to the scores of thousands of people from around the world, who have stopped by and looked at my blog. Also a huge thank you for leaving such generous comments.

Last weekend we went to our local coffee shop, to see if we could pick up any hints and tips in our continuing endeavour to make the perfect cup of coffee. This photograph was taken at Sadliers Coffee Lounge, which has been voted the UK's Best Coffee Shop. As a coffee lover this was the perfect start to Christmas!

ALMOND CAKE WITH SPARKLING CLEMENTINES

The sparkling clementines bathing in the Cointreau syrup look so pretty they can be served piled high in a glass bowl, without even considering making the cake. This is how I served them last year, and they are a very welcome dessert after all the rich food we had devoured!

The clementines are submerged in the Cointreau syrup for 24 hours before using and are simply turned now and again. The sparkling clementines in their syrup can be made in advance and popped into the freezer.

The cake was made with ready-to-eat apricots that had been simmered gently in clementine juice. A tender crumbed, moist cake that either keeps well or can be frozen. This cake is an all-in-one mixture and so no labour intensive cake making here!

This recipe is by Mary Cadogan who is now a food consultant for BBCGoodFood Magazine.

GOOD FOOD CHRISTMAS MADE EASY

ISBN 056352149X - Page 122

Serves: 6

You will need: A buttered and base lined 20cm round cake tin.

For the cake: 100g ready-to-eat finely chopped dried apricots, 175ml clementine juice (6-8 clementines), 100g softened butter, 100g golden caster sugar, 2 eggs, 50g self-raising flour, 175g ground almonds, ½ tsp vanilla extract, 2 tbs slivered almonds, icing sugar for dusting.

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas 4/Fan 160°C. Place the apricots in a pan with the clementine juice. Bring to the boil, then gently simmer for 5 minutes. Leave to cool.
2. Beat the butter, sugar, eggs and flour in a bowl for 2 minutes until light and fluffy, then fold in the ground almonds, vanilla and apricots along with their juices.
3. Put the mixture into the prepared tin and smooth the top. Scatter over the slivered almonds. Bake in the oven for approximately 40-50 minutes until firm to the touch. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then turn out and cool on a wire rack. (Can be made up to 2 days ahead and stored in an airtight container).

For the Sparkling Clementines:

8 clementines, 175g golden caster sugar, 5 tablespoons Cointreau or Grand Marnier.

1. Squeeze the juice from 2 clementines and put to one side. Peel the remaining clementines and remove all the pith, place them in a heatproof bowl.
2. Put the sugar in a saucepan with 6 tablespoons cold water. Gently heat, stirring gently until the sugar has dissolved, then increase the heat, stop stirring and rapidly boil until the syrup turns light caramel, about 2-4 minutes.
3. Remove the pan from the heat and add the clementine juice and Cointreau. Return to the heat and stir until the caramel is smooth, then pour it over the whole clementines. Turn them in the syrup, then cover with a saucer to submerge them and leave in the fridge for up to 24 hours.

To Serve: Dust the cake with icing sugar. Slice the cake and put a wedge on each plate with a clementine. Spoon the syrup over the cake and fruit. Serve with Greek yogurt.

RACHEL ALLEN'S CRUNCHY NUTTY GRANOLA

I thought how striking the colours were in my Apricot, Almond and Cranberry cake and with some of the leftover fruits made this granola.

The granola is full of wonderful dried fruits, nuts and seeds, also it gave me an opportunity to use some of my freshly grated coconut I have squirreled away in the freezer.

The recipe makes a huge 1.5kg, but I simply halved the original recipe and stored the granola in a large kilner jar.

This seasonal granola would be wonderful as a gift, especially if you are to be a house guest over Christmas, and I couldn't think of a better way to start Christmas day than with a bowl of jewelled granola.

The recipe also comes under another title Crunchy Nutty Muesli and is in Rachel's Favourite Food ISBN 0717138984 this can be found on page 89.


Sometime ago I made granola and this too was a runaway success. As an added bonus for all of you Nigel Slater fans, I have given the recipe for his Two-Oat Muesli in the comment box!

Well, I seem to be on a roll now using up the cranberries and apricots. Pop back in a weeks time to see what else I've made!

After many reqests here is the recipe for Crunchy Nutty Granola.

Makes 1.5kg

125g butter, 150ml runny honey, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 500g rolled oats, 50g roughly chopped pecan nuts, 150g roughly chopped hazelnuts, 75g pumpkin seeds, 75g sunflower seeds, 50g golden linseeds, 100g desiccated coconut, 300g mixed dried fruit such as dates, figs, apricots, raisins, sultanas, cranberries (the larger fruit chopped)

1. Preheat the oven to 170C/325F/Gas3.
2. Place the butter, honey and vanilla extract in a small saucepan on a low heat and gently melt together. Mix the oats, nuts, seeds and desiccated coconut together in a large bowl. Pour over the melted butter and honey mixture and stir really well to ensure all the dry ingredients are evenly coated.
3. Divide the mixture between two large baking trays and spread in an even layer. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes, tossing every 5 minutes, until golden brown. Remove from the oven and leave to cool on the trays, stirring every now and then. (If you transfer it into a deep bowl at this stage, while it is still warm, it will go soggy.)
4. Once completely cool, transfer to a large bowl and stir in your choice of dried fruits. Pour into an airtight container and store at room temperature for up to two months.

Coffee Anyone?

I mentioned we had a new coffee machine earlier this year. Our old coffee machine died and we decided to do some research for a few weeks and investigate our options.

There are some amazing forums for coffee lovers where you can get advice overload! They are a very useful source of information, especially if you are about to make a leap up the coffee machine ladder.

We learnt very fast from the forums, the coffee grinder is the most important piece of equipment, and we purchased a Rancilio Rocky Coffee Grinder. My husband really, really wanted to be the proud owner of a Rancilio Silvio coffee machine but as I explained to him, the machine has to be moved to the front of the work surface to be used and the Rancillio weighs approximately 14kg. We eventually decided to buy a Gaggia Classic coffee machine weighing in at 8kg.


A jug is needed to foam the milk, a Gaggia thermometer for checking the milk and last but not least, top quality freshly roasted coffee beans which we purchase from Hasbean .


You can see by the foam on the milk that we are getting better, but not yet to Barista standard!

We are very happy with our choices and occasionally go to our local coffee shop, which happily for us has been voted the UK's best coffee house! Here you get treated to excellent coffee, topped with latte art.

This week I went to the Good Food Show in Birmingham, and out of curiosity, asked for a demo on a top of the range fully automatic coffee machine. I can only say how disappointed I was, the milk was made up of huge bubbles and the coffee was dire. To make a good cup of coffee, passion and enthusiasm is needed, pressing a button simply just won't do!

APRICOT, ALMOND AND CRANBERRY CAKE

This cake could easily be made now, and frozen without it's icing, ready for Christmas. It is full of all things Christmassy, dried cranberries, apricots, ground almonds and orange. Making a Christmas cake isn't for everyone and we all know it's quite a time consuming task.

I decorated the cake with glace icing and then simply brushed the bay leaves and green grapes with egg white, dusted them with caster sugar and left them to dry. Even if you don't make the cake, frosted grapes are delicious!

I nearly forgot to say, if you do make this cake, don't put the mixture into a paper cake liner as I did, otherwise you will end up with cake liner marks on your cake and it really isn't a good look for a special occasion cake.

You can either make this cake in a 2lb loaf tin or halve the mixture and use two 1lb loaf tins. Either way, they need to be greased and lined.


For the cake:

175g butter, 175g caster sugar, 4 eggs, 300g self-raising flour, 100g dried cranberries, 200g chopped ready-to-eat apricots, 50g ground almonds, grated zest 1 orange.

1. Heat the oven to Gas 3, 160°C, 325°F.
2. Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs adding a little of the flour if the mixture curdles. Stir in the flour with the cranberries, apricots, almonds and orange zest.
4. Dollop into the tin, smooth the top and bake for approximately 1½ hours(the 1lb loaf tins will take less time to cook), until golden, risen and firm to the touch. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before removing from the tin.

For the decoration:

1 orange, 100g caster sugar, 4-5 green grapes, 6 bay leaves, 2 tablespoons orange juice. Or alternatively, you can use a glace icing.

1. Put 2 tablespoons of orange juice and 2 tablespoons of the sugar into a small pan, boil for 2 minutes until syrupy. Add the remaining sugar, stir well then drizzle over the cake.
2. Decorate with the frosted grapes, bay leaves and curls of orange peel (this can be made by using a potato peeler and paring off one long strip of orange rind, cut the strip of orange rind into 3 or 4 strips and wind up tightly).

LEMON TART BRULEE

'You Challenge Gordon Ramsay' is a new series in Olive Magazine where a reader challenges Gordon Ramsay to see if their recipe against his, in a blind test by three members of the Olive Magazine reader panel, matches up to Gordon's. Of course Gordon won, but only by one point!

The lemon tart has melted dark chocolate brushed over the cooked pastry case and this is then allowed to cool before adding the lemon filling. I chose not to use the chocolate because I wasn't too sure about messing about with a classic recipe. The purpose of the chocolate, although not written about in the recipe, is I presume to keep the pastry base from going soft. Next time I make the tart though, it will definitely be with the chocolate base!

The pastry can be made in the food processor, a quick whizz and it's done. The pastry is quite sticky and I decided to roll the pastry out between two sheets of cling film to make life easier.

If you decide to have a go at making this tart try not to over cook the filling, but leave it at the wobble stage in the centre.


When the tart had cooled I dusted it with icing sugar and then my husband ran an industrial blowtorch over the surface to give a brulee effect! You don't think I'm going to use that thing, do you?!!! If you scan down to the end of this posting you will see him having some brulee fun.

The filling had lots of lemon flavour and not too sweet, the pastry was very similar to shortbread. I'll definitely be making this again - but not this side of Christmas!

OLIVE MAGAZINE - October 2008 Page 61 The tart serves 8.