A Moosewood recipe, originally entitled Anna's Country Spice Cake. I have metricated the (American) recipe and added my own topping - orange-cinnamon icing with caramelised walnuts. You could sub carrots for the parsnips.
It's possible to make this vegan by subbing the eggs with aquafaba.
Mix together 120ml (=100g) vegetable oil, 165g brown sugar, 2 eggs [6 tbsp aquafaba] and the zest of a large orange. When well combined, stir in 300g grated parsnip (equated to one large one, minus the toughest bit of core) and 120g chopped/crushed tinned pineapple (half a tin of chunks, drained then chopped roughly).
Sift together 225g self raising flour, extra 1tsp baking powder, a pinch of salt, and then cinnamon, ginger and cloves to taste (suggest 1.5tsp cinnamon, 1tsp ginger, 0.5tsp cloves). Stir into wet mix, then fold in dried fruit and nuts to your preference (cranberries work really well, also sultanas, and walnuts).
Bake in a 20cm square tin (greased & lined) for approx 1 hour at 160°C (fan) or until risen and springy.
To decorate: make up icing sugar to the desired consistency with orange juice, and add orange zest and cinnamon. This could be just a drizzle or enough for a full-on topping, as you like. Optionally, sprinkle with chopped walnuts, and for an extra touch use caramelised ones (55g sugar, 15g butter, melt and coat (chopped) nuts, then separate on a silicone mat before they solidify, or deliberately allow to set together then bash/chop into pieces of brittle).
I made this again for a bake sale and topped it with a pack of Violife 'cream cheese' blended with icing sugar and orange zest to taste. I caramelised some pecans using sunflower spread and caster sugar - they're a bit grainy but it works!
Showing posts with label cranberries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cranberries. Show all posts
Wednesday, 14 March 2018
Tuesday, 29 December 2015
Stollen spirals and other festive gift goodies
Stollen spirals - really just festive Chelsea buns I guess...
BBC Good Food recipe
Take 1 (test run, not a gift):
All went fine except I crammed too many in the tin and the middle ones were too doughy. Next time space them out better/use more tins. Also use more fruit, and slice the marzipan rather than using a big wodge in the middle.
Take 2:
Made these dairy free by subbing in coconut oil for butter, and soya milk for the milk. Not a deliberate choice, just what I had in the house to make them for a dairy-intolerant recipient. Also made the changes as above, and happened to use more sultanas and cranberries, no mixed peel, no nuts, and no icing, purely for time reasons. They fit perfectly, with room to expand, at 12 to my big roasting tin, with the remainder (I hesitate to say rejects) in a smaller tin. The 12 were frozen as soon as they were cool, defrosted in the car while travelling, reheated in a low oven for half an hour or so, and hoovered up in no time, so this recipe is definitely a keeper!
Take 3:
Easterised as follows: soak the fruit (a sultana/cranberry/cherry mix) in a mix of tea and amaretto; sprinkle it in the buns along with grated marzipan and dark chocolate chips. Serve warm so the marzipan and chocolate are a bit gooey.
German cinnamon star biscuits
Outdoor Chics recipe
These went OK but cooked too quickly in my oven at 200°C, so were a bit toasty. They have a chewy macaroony texture. I put allspice in the icing, as I'd run out of cinnamon, and some lemon zest. The icing was very sticky to apply, and I also found the mixture a bit crumbly and liable to get stuck in the points of the star cutter,
Nigella's bar nuts
Recipe
Sweet, salty, spicy, herby roasted nuts. Yum. Again, made with coconut oil not butter - no difference.
Ginger cupcakes
A Jamie Oliver recipe
I was a bit worried by the amount of oil in these but they didn't come out greasy at all. Would be good with some sort of spicy dark chocolate topping.
BBC Good Food recipe
Take 1 (test run, not a gift):
All went fine except I crammed too many in the tin and the middle ones were too doughy. Next time space them out better/use more tins. Also use more fruit, and slice the marzipan rather than using a big wodge in the middle.
Take 2:
Made these dairy free by subbing in coconut oil for butter, and soya milk for the milk. Not a deliberate choice, just what I had in the house to make them for a dairy-intolerant recipient. Also made the changes as above, and happened to use more sultanas and cranberries, no mixed peel, no nuts, and no icing, purely for time reasons. They fit perfectly, with room to expand, at 12 to my big roasting tin, with the remainder (I hesitate to say rejects) in a smaller tin. The 12 were frozen as soon as they were cool, defrosted in the car while travelling, reheated in a low oven for half an hour or so, and hoovered up in no time, so this recipe is definitely a keeper!
Take 3:
Easterised as follows: soak the fruit (a sultana/cranberry/cherry mix) in a mix of tea and amaretto; sprinkle it in the buns along with grated marzipan and dark chocolate chips. Serve warm so the marzipan and chocolate are a bit gooey.
German cinnamon star biscuits
Outdoor Chics recipe
These went OK but cooked too quickly in my oven at 200°C, so were a bit toasty. They have a chewy macaroony texture. I put allspice in the icing, as I'd run out of cinnamon, and some lemon zest. The icing was very sticky to apply, and I also found the mixture a bit crumbly and liable to get stuck in the points of the star cutter,
Nigella's bar nuts
Recipe
Sweet, salty, spicy, herby roasted nuts. Yum. Again, made with coconut oil not butter - no difference.
Ginger cupcakes
A Jamie Oliver recipe
I was a bit worried by the amount of oil in these but they didn't come out greasy at all. Would be good with some sort of spicy dark chocolate topping.
Saturday, 11 September 2010
Oat cookies and cranberry bread
I've been watching the Great British Bake-Off, and am feeling inspired to do something a bit more than the same old breakfast bars (although I still love them!). Might have to try some classics this week!
Spiced syrup oat cookies from Hannah Miles' Big Book of Cakes and Cookies. It's a pretty easy to remember:
Ingredients
Cream the butter and sugar, and beat in the egg and syrup. Sift in the dry ingredients and add the oats. Fold in, mixing well.
Divide into 18-25 balls, spread between 2 baking trays, leaving spreading room. Press down a little if you want - my mixture was quite soft and didn't need this.
Bake 12-15 mins at 180C/350F. Larger cookies will be domed and more cakey in the middle, smaller ones will be flatter and crispier.
These are tasty cookies but I'm not sure I would identify them as having syrup in if I didn't know. I wonder whether melting the butter would allow you to use more syrup and less sugar (maybe with a touch more baking powder to compensate for the lack of air from creaming).
Update 18th Sept: A different method:
Melt the butter with 60g of sugar and 6tbsp syrup. Allow to cool. Sift dry ingredients (except oats) together, pour in cooled butter/sugar/syrup and mix well. Add oats and egg and mix again. Cool further in fridge to firm up. Dollop onto baking sheets (I used silicon liners so no greasing) and bake. After 12 minutes mine were a bit too brown on the edges, and they had spread more than the other method, but taste more syrupy. I suppose they are flapjack biscuits!
On to the cranberries...
I've had bargain fresh cranberries in my freezer since the new year. Time to do something with them. I went for cranberry bread from Jared Folkmann - I think I have made it before, but I didn't blog it (tut tut!). I've converted the amounts into metric (cups of butter - not useful!).
I deviated from the original recipe because I wasn't sure about "cutting" the butter/sugar together. I creamed the butter and sugar as best I could (as with a lot of North American recipes, there is quite a lot of sugar), adding the eggs to loosen it and beating well. I sifted in a cup of the flour with the other dry ingredients, mixed it, then added in the other 2 cups alternating with the orange juice to keep the mixture workable. When it was mixed I stirred in the cranberries, and added some candied mixed peel I had lurking in the pantry. The cranberries were frozen and made the mixture really stiffen up, but it actually made it easier to portion out - I was able to get 15 muffins and a loaf out of the mixture.
The recipe says to bake for 1 hour (or so) at 180C/350F. I had an idiot moment and set my oven to grill... (duh) but the muffins were on the shelf below and they had 25 mins on grill and another 20 in the oven "proper". The cake had the 25 mins of grilling, got a bit toasted on top, and was then covered in foil and ovened for another 45 minutes - It's OK, a bit dense, but tasty enough and I'd do it again with the oven set properly :)
Spiced syrup oat cookies from Hannah Miles' Big Book of Cakes and Cookies. It's a pretty easy to remember:
Ingredients
- 115g each of butter, caster sugar, plain flour and oats
- 1 tsp each of baking powder, mixed spice and cinnamon
- 1 egg
- 2 tbsb golden syrup
Cream the butter and sugar, and beat in the egg and syrup. Sift in the dry ingredients and add the oats. Fold in, mixing well.
Divide into 18-25 balls, spread between 2 baking trays, leaving spreading room. Press down a little if you want - my mixture was quite soft and didn't need this.
Bake 12-15 mins at 180C/350F. Larger cookies will be domed and more cakey in the middle, smaller ones will be flatter and crispier.
These are tasty cookies but I'm not sure I would identify them as having syrup in if I didn't know. I wonder whether melting the butter would allow you to use more syrup and less sugar (maybe with a touch more baking powder to compensate for the lack of air from creaming).
Update 18th Sept: A different method:
Melt the butter with 60g of sugar and 6tbsp syrup. Allow to cool. Sift dry ingredients (except oats) together, pour in cooled butter/sugar/syrup and mix well. Add oats and egg and mix again. Cool further in fridge to firm up. Dollop onto baking sheets (I used silicon liners so no greasing) and bake. After 12 minutes mine were a bit too brown on the edges, and they had spread more than the other method, but taste more syrupy. I suppose they are flapjack biscuits!
On to the cranberries...
I've had bargain fresh cranberries in my freezer since the new year. Time to do something with them. I went for cranberry bread from Jared Folkmann - I think I have made it before, but I didn't blog it (tut tut!). I've converted the amounts into metric (cups of butter - not useful!).
Ingredients
- 360g (3 cups) plain wholemeal flour
- 300g (1.5 cups) sugar ( ised half golden caster, half light muscovado)
- 2.25 teaspoons baking powder
- 1.5 teaspoon salt
- 0.75 teaspoon baking soda
- 170g (0.75 cup) butter
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 1.5 teaspoons orange peel, grated
- 270ml (1.125) cups orange juice
- 300g (3 cups) fresh cranberries, chopped
Method
I deviated from the original recipe because I wasn't sure about "cutting" the butter/sugar together. I creamed the butter and sugar as best I could (as with a lot of North American recipes, there is quite a lot of sugar), adding the eggs to loosen it and beating well. I sifted in a cup of the flour with the other dry ingredients, mixed it, then added in the other 2 cups alternating with the orange juice to keep the mixture workable. When it was mixed I stirred in the cranberries, and added some candied mixed peel I had lurking in the pantry. The cranberries were frozen and made the mixture really stiffen up, but it actually made it easier to portion out - I was able to get 15 muffins and a loaf out of the mixture.
The recipe says to bake for 1 hour (or so) at 180C/350F. I had an idiot moment and set my oven to grill... (duh) but the muffins were on the shelf below and they had 25 mins on grill and another 20 in the oven "proper". The cake had the 25 mins of grilling, got a bit toasted on top, and was then covered in foil and ovened for another 45 minutes - It's OK, a bit dense, but tasty enough and I'd do it again with the oven set properly :)
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