Clove Conclusion & Christmas Treats

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas and wishing you all the best for 2011. A big thanks to those of you who are reading my blog and leaving your comments. It has been a while since I wrote on here - the festive season is always a busy one for me with getting around each family unit and celebrating some birthdays but now I'm back!

The festive season was the perfect time to have chosen cloves. We turned out a plum pudding at my family gathering, doused it in brandy and consumed with copious amounts of clotted cream. It was moist and full of rich molasses, reminiscent of all Christmases past. I recommend making your own - it's definitely worth it. I never liked shop bought Christmas puddings as they seemed to be stodgy and full of dried fruits that weren't plumped up - they were still shrivelled and not very pleasant to eat. When you make your own you can make it according to your tastes and pre-soak the fruits so they are juicy and plump. This recipe gives a surprisingly light and almost gooey pudding packed full of fruit with natural sweetness. Give it a go next year!

Cloves appear in a lot of Christmas treats - mulled wine, mince pies, Stollen, and of course Christmas cake. As it was Christmas and cloves were prominent I made these too - Dan Lepard's Black Christmas Cake as gifts. Instead of making a large cake I made five mini ones in tin cans. The only other amendments I made were soaking the fruit the night before in a generous glug of port and brandy, and the omission of treacle (and this was not a conscious decision, I just forgot!).

I experimented with the cooking times (as the recipe is for one large cake) and they came out well based on the first 20 minutes at 170C/325F/gas mark 3 and then another 20 to 30 minutes at 140C/275F/gas mark 1. You'll just need to keep testing the cakes with a skewer towards the end of the cooking time. Once the tins are cool enough to handle, turn them out and put them on a cooling rack.

Once cooled I wrapped in a couple of layers of baking parchment and put back in the cans (making sure the bottom of the cakes were also covered). For about three weeks I then fed the cakes with a tablespoon each of port and brandy every 5 to 6 days.

I then sliced each cake in half horizontally making 10 mini cakes and decorated them with buttercream and glitter.

This was my first attempt at different piping techniques (I usually use a spoon and palette knife) and plan to experiment with some more soon. YouTube has an amazing amount of videos demonstrating icing techniques. Here's the one I used for the design on these cakes...Flower/butterfly design but I would love to be able to make cakes like these...Dave's Cakes!

These little cakes were a huge success amongst friends and family, despite the lack of treacle! I did go a bit mad on the buttercream so I'd use less next time and maybe make the flavour stronger with lemon zest or almond extract as it was lost against all the strong dark flavours of the cake.

I hope you've enjoyed all the clove recipes. I've now selected my next ingredient so it's on to the next project...

COMING SOON.....Cream Tea Club

I have started a Cream Tea Club and we do exactly what the name suggests! Every month to six weeks, a group of scone lovers will get together over a cream tea in London (although there has been talk of taking this nationally and even globally!) and rate its component parts.

Each element (scone, cream, jam, tea) along with the categories of choice, venue, service and value for money will be given a score out of 5 and then averages will be taken to achieve overall scores. Results and reviews will be published here on the blog.

We're considering a lot when scoring but essentially we're looking for high quality fare (homemade scones with all the associated trimmings), attentive and knowledgeable staff, all housed in a place with ambience and a great attitude about their produce.

Our first cream tea was eaten on Saturday 11th December. We're just putting the finishing touches to our review and it will posted here in the next few days. Watch this space...

5. Cloves - Plum Pudding

Cloves and Christmas go hand in hand so thought I'd better do a festive recipe. I am aiming for something rich, fruity and boozy with this recipe (based on one of Dan Lepard's Stir Up Sunday recipes) but I won't know how it turns out until Christmas Day so I'll update this post when it's been turned out of its basin and I've had a taste.

I've made a few tweaks to the recipe - one of which is that I started mine the night before and soaked the fruit in a mixture of port and brandy.

This makes 2 puddings in 700ml pudding basins.

Ingredients

600g dried fruit (heavy on prunes and figs - I used 250g prunes, 250g figs, 150g sour cherries and 50g raisins)
A generous splosh of brandy and port
200g dark muscovado sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground allspice
Grated zest of 2 oranges and 100ml juice
150ml stout
4 free range egg yolks
100g plain flour
150g chopped walnuts
100g melted butter
100g soft breadcrumbs

Method

Start this the night before. Chop the prunes and figs into pieces and mix in a large bowl with the cherries, raisins, brandy and port. There's no need for the fruit to be swimming in the alcohol, just add a generous splash of each to moisten the mix.

The following day take your bowl of boozy fruit and add each of the other ingredients, thoroughly combining each one before adding the next.

Divide the mixture between 2 buttered pudding basins. Unfortunately I hadn't checked how much foil I had before I started this and when I came to seal the basins I didn't have much. Ideally you want a layer of baking parchment and 2 layers of foil over the top of the basin, tied around with string. I had limited foil so did one layer around each basin tied up with garden twine! Hopefully that will have done the job (won't know until Christmas Day!).

Place the puddings in one huge saucepan/two large saucepans and fill up to about 3/4 up the side of the basins with boiling water from the kettle. Simmer for 3 hours.

The puddings then get another simmering for 3 hours on Christmas Day. The recipe didn't mention this but in hindsight I wished I'd used a trivet on the bottom of each pan. My fingers are crossed that the puddings haven't been overcooked on the bottom (eventually the top). Watch this space for the results at the end of December!

4. Cloves - Pear & Apple Crumble Pie

More comfort food! This was inspired by the ladies at Domestic Sluttery. I made a few adjustments including using apples as well as pears and using my own mix of spices. Made on a chilly Saturday afternoon with Mrs Andersen, Classic Gold on the radio and lots of wine (although not essential to the recipe, they come highly recommended).

Ingredients

Sweet shortcrust pastry - I used the other half of the pastry I had leftover from making pumpkin pie (about 400g)

For the filling

3 large Bramley apples
3 large pears
Juice of 1 lemon
50g demerara sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground allspice
2 tsp good quality vanilla essence

For the crumble topping

60g plain flour
120g butter
150g demerara sugar
75g flaked almonds

Method

Preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan oven/gas mark 6. Roll out the pastry as thinly as you can and use it to line a buttered pie dish (mine was 24cm). Prick all over with a fork, place a sheet of baking parchment on top and pack with dried beans/lentils/ceramic beans and bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until it has started to turn golden brown. Remove from the oven and turn the oven down to 180C/160C fan oven/gas mark 3.

Next peel and chop the apples and pears (removing any cores and pips) and place in a bowl of water with the juice of a lemon squeezed in to stop them from turning brown.

In a small bowl mix together the demerara sugar and spices.

In another bowl make the crumble topping. Combine the sugar, flour and butter and rub together with your fingertips to the consistency of breadcrumbs (although some bigger lumps of butter are a good thing!). Then stir through the almonds.

To assemble the crumble pie, drain the fruit and stir through the sugar and spice mix making sure all the fruit is coated. Place the fruit in the pastry case and try to evenly distribute the apples and pears. Finally sprinkle over the crumble topping.

Bake in the oven for around 40 minutes but around the 30 minute mark check the top isn't turning too dark and give the fruit a prod with a skewer to see if it's cooked.

The result was a scruffy looking but completely satisfying pudding. It was untidy as I sliced off the excess pastry before baking and of course it shrank. Oops! Oh well, it tasted pretty good. Sweet, treacly, spicy flavours teamed with the crisp pastry, soft fruit and crunchy topping was very moreish. Perfect with custard.