Kicking off the Christmas Countdown
So today is 29th November AND we’re snowed in (okay, so it’s only a couple of inches, but it froze overnight which means we’re not going anywhere). Therefore I’m pretty sure it’s about time we started being able to mention the C word. Over the next few weeks I’ll be bringing you some really gorgeous Christmassy bits and bobs. Here at English towers, we’ve been hard at work reviewing loads of really awesome stuff you’ll want to find wedged into your stocking (things I do for you, eh?). I’ll also be setting you up with all the food (and wine!) you’ll want for your festive season.
There’ll be lots of news of our own little early Christmas present, our new rescued doggy, Millie, who is recovering nicely from her injuries and, although terrified, seems to be settling well:
I’ve bribed some great experts to come and guest post their cleverness, I’ve got some wonderful recipes, a few awesome giveaways and lots and lots of silliness (well you have to, don’t you).
On my list this year (in case you’re interested *cough*) are: Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home
Oh and while we’re talking about Christmas lists, don’t forget the NSPCC’s fantastic Letter from Santa campaign. The NSPCC is teaming up with Santa to delivery personalised letters. For a suggested £5 donation, the NSPCC will arrange for a personalised letter to be delivered over the Christmas period. Click on www.nspccwishes.org.uk/ for more information and make a difference.
And while I’m talking charities and Christmas, I’m so proud of my lovely friend and fellow blogger, Rosie, who has been to Cameroon with UNICEF and now would like five minutes of your time to tell you about the awesome gifts you can buy with UNICEF for Christmas. You can find loads of information on Rosie’s blog here, or you can click on UNICEF’s online shop for more information. Even if you’re only planning on buying some charity cards and gift wrap, think about buying it from UNICEF – it all makes a big difference. Thank you xx
Let it snow
It’s just beautiful here at the moment. Freezing, admittedly, but stunning. Every morning we’re waking to a shimmery smattering of frost, glittering in low orange winter sun.
Of course, all this makes for a rather dicey trip down to the main road every morning to catch the bus. I had a minor sideways episode this morning and had a little mutter to myself about the stupidity of replacing the admittedly knackered jeep with a very impractical Volvo.
The gorgeous Lou still manages to arrive, fragrant and pristine, on the dot of 7.40am every morning, but did set the cat amongst the pigeons with de brevren by mentioning the rather large amount of days off she had last winter when the snow set in and the trip to the bus became impossible. ’Savage’, I heard The Mad Professor say to himself, no doubt thinking of long mornings in bed without me screeching ‘will you bloody well GET UP!’ from the bottom of the stairs.
I would try and look more closely at the weather forecast, but the Irish Times lists national weather by area, and with my grip of Irish geography being a bit patchy and without googling every single place (Claremorris? Ballinagore?) I have no idea which place to pick to get a forecast anywhere near me.
I miss my walks down the boat road, but somehow without a dog as company its lure on a frosty morning isn’t so appealing. Although we’re in the throes of adopting a little lurcher girl who was cruelly abandoned in the Dublin hills. We’re meeting her for the first time on Saturday and all being well and once the stitches have been removed from her multiple injuries (people are cruel, aren’t they?) she could well be ours. I have good feelings about it all, so maybe there’ll be boat road/doggy pictures in the offing very soon!
The Great Big Autumn Bakeoff winners
So without further ado, I’d like to announce the fabulous winners of the great autumn bakeoff. First, the overall winner and soon-to-be recipient of the spectacular Food from Plenty: Good Food Made from the Plentiful, the Seasonal and the Leftover with Over 300 Recipes, None of Them Extravagant
Jules! Congratulations Jules – I LOVED the beetles!
And the children’s prize goes to… (drum roll!):
Young Ted for his amazing Hallowe’en cookies! Ted will be getting a fabulous Curly Chef bear from the very generous Build-a-Bear Factory.
Thank you so much to our lovely judge, Amy Lane, for making what I can imagine was a very difficult decision! Thanks Amy xx
Christmas Pudding: step by step
Righty ho, then, so two days to Stir-up Sunday, which gives me carte blanche to get all Christmassy even though it’s still not December. Bonus.
This is a two-day kind of Christmas pudding so I’m not sure about the logistics involved – do you start on the Saturday then finish on the Stir-Up Sunday? Or do you start on the Sunday and finish on the Monday?
Anyhoo, I’m sure there’s no Stir-Up police or anything, so you should be fine whatever you decide. I thought I’d get you going today just in case you need to pop out for any supplies before you start.
As with the Christmas Cake, this recipe is a guide. Nobody’s going to hunt you down and shoot you if you don’t follow it to the letter. Substitute orange juice or cranberry juice if you don’t like alcohol, and as usual if you eat peel (you monster, you), add that in place of something else. As long as you don’t mess with the quantities too much you’ll be fine. Here goes, then:
500g dried fruit – sultanas, raisins, dried cranberries, chopped dates… whatever you like.
1 tbsp Maraschino cherries, halved (optional, but it’s nice to see a little glistening bit of red when you cut it open)
1 lemon
100ml black tea (I used Earl Grey)
100ml Morgan’s Spiced Rum (or whatever booze you like), plus extra for the cook
1 cinnamon stick, snapped in half
100g self raising flour (or rice flour for gluten free – thanks as always to the lovely Pippa for this addition)
100g fresh white breadcrumbs (or again, ground almonds if you need to keep the recipe gluten free)
150g veggie suet
150g dark muscovado sugar
25g almonds or pistachio nuts, finely chopped
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground mixed spice
3 eggs, beaten
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp black treacle
1 Bramley apple, grated
Weigh out the dried fruit, then have a good pick through and get rid of any stems, they’re yucky if you crunch on them. I let them fall through my fingers into the bowl a handful at a time. If you’re using larger dried fruit like prunes or apricots, make sure they’re stoneless and snip them into small pieces.
Finely grate the lemon zest (as usual, don’t push too hard – you want to avoid the bitter pith), then juice it as well. Add the zest and juice to the fruit then brew up the tea (one tea bag is fine for that amount of water) and pour it over the fruit, along with the rum. Add in the cherries and the cinnamon stick and stir it all up. Cover with a plate and leave the whole shooting match to steep (make sure it’s not a metal bowl) overnight, stirring occasionally if you remember.
The next day, then, weigh out all the dry ingredients and combine them in a huge bowl. The muscovado sugar can be a bit lumpy so you might need to sieve it to break up any lumps.
Take the steeped fruit and remove the cinnamon stick pieces. Add the eggs (give them a quick mix with a fork first), honey, treacle and grated apple (leave the peel on).
Stir well, then you can add all that into the dry ingredients. Give it a really good stir (get everyone to take a turn to stir and make a wish).
Now butter one of those big, lidded plastic basins (3 pint/1.7 litre) or two small ones and bung in your mixture. Put on the lid, then cover it in foil. If your basin doesn’t have a lid you’ll need to use buttered greaseproof paper, then foil, then tie it tightly with string (or you can tie it in a muslin, or use one of those special circular moulds).
To steam it, you can use a steamer if you’re posh, but I haven’t got one so I just use a huge saucepan and balance the basin inside it on a circular metal pastry cutter so it isn’t sitting on the bottom of the pan. This will also stop it burning if you inadvertently let it boil dry (as I did yesterday – oopsy). Add boiling water about halfway up the basin and put the lid on the saucepan. Steam for 5 hours, making sure you go back every so often to top up the boiling water.
And that’s it, you’re done. Let it cool then stash it away (don’t unwrap it!) for Christmas day when it’ll need to steam for about another 2.5 to 3 hours (don’t worry if it gets a bit longer, it won’t ruin it).
BTW: If you want to make these cute little mini puddings instead, remember to put a teeny piece of buttered greaseproof paper in the bottom of your ramekin, otherwise you’ll never get the buggers out. Then you can just cover them with foil, put them on a deep baking tray, add boiling water to half way up the sides of the ramekins, and bake in the oven for 30 minutes on 180/gas 4.
BTW 2: Nigella advocates vodka rather than brandy to flame a pudding – apparently the flame is better and lasts longer. Just mind your eyebrows
Off you trot then. Give everybody a stir, let them make a wish, and then make them do the washing up. You deserve a break.
For one day only, Sainsbury’s baking agony aunts will man the UK’s first dedicated helpline for first time bakers or victims of previous cake baking disasters to coincide with Stir up Sunday – 21st November.
Traditionally a day used to bake the family Christmas cake, Sainsbury’s is encouraging bakers across the UK to get baking safe in the knowledge that help is at hand to produce Christmas cakes and puddings to delight the whole family.
Phone 020 7695 6191/2 or log on to www.facebook.com/sainsburys on the 21st November to get expert advice from a select committee of baking ‘agony aunts’ who will be able to provide answers to your festive baking dilemmas, suggest shortcuts and share priceless tips used in their own kitchens.
Win Christmas presents with Tesco!
I blimmin’ LOVE Amanda Holden. I loved her in Cutting It and I love her on Britain’s Got Talent. I love the way she annoys (the surprising prudish) Simon Cowell with her slightly smutty comments and her filthy laugh is just brilliant. I can imagine going out for a few cocktails and a good snigger with her.
I was delighted, then, to see her in the new Tesco Christmas advert ( ‘Penny, your name’s not ‘Belchere‘, it’s Belcher’) alongside the fabulous Fay Ripley and Mark Addy.
Tesco are launching a fab competition this Friday to link in with these great new adverts. It’s a nice fun spot the difference competition, so even the blondes *cough* can join in.
Basically there will be two Tesco commercials playing side by side. All you have to do is spot the differences. If you get them all right you can enter to win the items mentioned in the commercial which include a camera, Guitar Hero and a Zhu Zhu hamster.
The competition is only open until next Wednesday so get moving!!
Simply click here to watch the Tesco advert and join in the competition.
And just especially for you, Tesco have one of the fabulous Zhu Zhu Hamsters to give away to a lucky English Mum reader. Just email me via the contact form at the top of the page with TESCO in the title and tell me the name of Amanda Holden’s daughter, along with your name and address. UK only entries please. This giveaway closes next Wednesday, 24th November 2010.
‘It’s ‘Belchere’ actually’.
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This competition is now closed. Congratulations to the winner, Jenny Kearney from London, who will be receiving a Zhu Zhu hamster from Tesco!
The Great Big Autumn Bakeoff: entries
Well, you didn’t let me down. You picked berries, you rolled pastry, you bubbled, you baked, you stirred, you probably perspired a little too…
And here they are. All your gorgeous entries:
And now it’s over to the lovely Amy Lane to find out our winners!
Christmas Countdown: An easy two step ‘personalised’ Christmas cake
One of the things that fascinates me about cooking is the alchemy: why you need x when you bake with y, or how one ingredient affects the others in a dish. This nosiness (teamed with an endless desire to be baking), often leads to disaster, but hey, if you don’t make mistakes you never learn.
I dislike the snobbery surrounding food, and, like Nigel Slater, believe a recipe is a guideline, not a set of rules to be blindly followed. Take Christmas cake. I’m sure a lot of people look at a Christmas cake recipe, with its lists of dried fruit in various quantities, and feel thoroughly intimidated, but hey, it’s just fruit cake, so I’m going to let you have the basic proportions and let you customise your own cake. Don’t like raisins? No problem. Hate peel (disgusting, devil’s toenails that it is), leave it out.
If you’re a Christmas cake ‘virgin’, then this is the recipe for you. If you sort all your ingredients before you start, there are basically two steps. Easy peasy. As long as you have the basic quantities right, your cake will come out perfectly and more to the point, exactly as you like it. My ultimate aim is to make a Christmas cake with stuff I’ve got lying around and not have to rush to the supermarket with a list as long as my arm for stuff I’m never going to use again. I’ve wittered on a bit here so if you want, just skip to the cake recipe.
Dried Fruit
One rule here: choose what you like. As I mentioned above, I hate peel with a vengeance so I leave it out. Other people use glacé fruits, snipped into little pieces. I used a 300g luxury pack of mixed raisins, apricots and cranberries which I saw in a nice foodie place and bought, then topped it up with random half packs of leftover cranberries, prunes (chopped into pieces), dried apricots and sultanas. Pick what suits you, bin the rest.
Butter vs Oil
Generally if you need lightness in a cake, butter helps as you can beat in air and it holds it well, but I’m finding I’m using more and more oil, (you can whisk it with the eggs and get a similar airy effect), especially Rapeseed, which adds a subtle nutty flavour and, being rich in vitamin E, high in Omega 3 and half the saturated fat of olive oil is obviously a healthy option. In this recipe you want the moistness, etc, but not the air, so use oil if you like. I made this cake with Borderfields‘ gorgeously yellow rapeseed oil, which is my absolute favourite and it turned out perfectly. There’s obviously a bit of water content in butter, so if you’re substituting oil use slightly less. Having said that, don’t kill yourself (you know me, I don’t do adding up): 100g of butter will be about 90 – 100ml oil.
Sugar
Again, use what you’ve got – the darker the sugar, the more treacly the taste. I used Muscovado. You’re melting it, so it doesn’t matter how big the granulation is.
Honey
The honey here gives moistness and sweetness, but you could substitute golden syrup if you don’t like (or are allergic to) honey. I used Rowse Supahoney with lemon, because I absolutely love its taste (I’m a bit into Manuka honey) and use it all the time so I had a pot open. You could also use black treacle which gives a lovely dark toffee taste.
The Booze
No rules here. Last year I used Morgan’s Spiced Rum which has a gorgeous vanilla flavour but not much sweetness. I’ve mentioned a bit more in the recipe below about sweetness. I used cherry brandy, which not only has that lovely sweet cherry taste, but gives an almondy hit too. Use whatever you like/whatever you have. Again, taste your mixture and adjust sweetness accordingly. If you don’t want to use alcohol, just double up on the fruit juice.
Fruit Juice
I used cranberry juice, because I thought it would go nicely with the dried cranberries, but you can use freshly squeezed orange juice (bung in the zest too for an extra zing), or juice out of a carton. It honestly doesn’t matter.
Spice
I make a lot of curries so my spice turnover is quite high. All I would say is, if the jar of ‘Mixed Spice’ in your cupboard was purchased in the 1940s it’s not going to add much to your cake. I used 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp ground ginger and a good grating of nutmeg, but use what you have: mixed spice/ginger/cinnamon/ground nutmeg (not too much, it can be overpowering). Just make sure it’s fresh.
Right, ingredients sorted? Then we’re off:
The Personalised Christmas Cake
800g dried fruit
175ml good quality rapeseed oil or 200g butter
200g dark brown sugar
4 tbsp honey
120ml alcohol
120ml fruit juice (or two oranges, juiced)
About 2tsp spice
3 eggs
200g self raising flour (or 300g flour and omit ground almonds).
100g ground almonds
Firstly: sort everything out: preheat the oven to gas 2/150 C and double line the bottom of your cake tin/tins with parchment paper (tiger stripe pattern optional). Weigh all your stuff, crack the eggs into a bowl and mix them… just get yourself completely ready.
STEP ONE: Pop the dried fruit into a large saucepan along with the butter, sugar, honey, booze, fruit juice and spices. Stir gently over a low heat until the butter is melted and the sugar is completely dissolved. You can bring it up to a gentle bubble, but don’t let it boil vigorously as your alcohol will disappear.
Now leave it to cool. If you add the eggs straight in, they’ll be scrambled. Oh, and at this stage, have a taste! If it doesn’t taste sweet enough, add something else sweet (this is often the case if you’ve used brandy or whisky which doesn’t have much natural sweetness, as opposed to, say, a liqueur – Nigella suggests a tablespoon of marmalade, which I think is a great idea). If it’s overpoweringly, cloyingly sweet, then a squeeze of lemon, maybe? It’s your cake – do it how you like it.
STEP TWO: When cooled, stir in the eggs, flour and ground almonds. Pile into your one large springform tin, or two smaller ones and bake for about an hour and a half for the two small ones, or up to two hours for the large. Test by pushing a skewer into the centre of the cake. It should come out clean (excuse the rubbish ‘in-oven’ shot here).
And that’s it! Congratulations, you’ve made a Christmas cake (or two).
When cool, wrap up the cake in parchment paper and then foil, and stash somewhere until you need it, occasionally unwrapping your gorgeous present to stab it with a cocktail stick and slosh with a couple of tablespoons of your chosen booze. Or just eat straight away.
You can do all that fancy pants marzipan and icing stuff, but for god’s sake don’t look to me for inspiration. I have the artistic ability of a small pickled onion.
Make sure you write your recipe down. You just created a family heirloom!
Review: I Love Curry by Anjum Anand
Anjum Anand’s Indian Every Day is one of my favourite cookbooks ever. It’s well-thumbed and a bit covered in bits of food which is always a good sign, I think. I was delighted, then, when Quadrille Books offered to send me Anjum’s new I Love Curry
There are 54 curry recipes in this book , from yummy nibbles, through to takeaway favourites like Chicken Tikka Masala, through to breads, rice and vegetable dishes, all with Anjum’s healthier approach to Indian food. I tried the sweet and sour squash (admittedly without the dried mango powder and asafoetida – a trip to Dublin required for those, I fear), but the result was still gorgeous and raised our roast chicken to an entirely new level.
I was also really impressed with the Bengali Yoghurt Fish, which was heavenly. I used pollock and the overall result was deliciously creamy without being sickly and scented without being overly spicy.
The pictures are really fabulous (call me old fashioned but I love a full-page pic on the opposite page to the recipe) and this beautiful book would make a great Christmas present for a curry lover who fancies having a go at home, or a foodie intent on creating an Indian feast.
Gorgeous.
I Love Curry is out now, published by Quadrille and available on Amazon priced £8.50.
Animal insults, rescue doggies, chicken slaughter and pigs.
We miss Bert. Yes, yes, I know he’s happy in his new home, and yes, he could be a growly old git and a sofa hogger, but still. The Ninja Cat of Death is much loved, don’t get me wrong, but with her penchant for climbing onto the back of the sofa and then attacking the back of one’s head with absolutely no warning, plus being blessed with the ability to explode, puffer-fish like, into a mass of needles when stroked in the wrong way, she is generally treated with the contempt she fully deserves.
I give you, for example, this little exchange from yesterday:
#1 to Ninja Cat of Death (in sing-song voice): ‘You’re such a cute kitty, yes you are. Shame you’re evil, you are, you’re evil.’
Ninja Cat: *blink* *purr*
#1: ‘And we’re going to burn you, yes we are, we’re going to burn you, yes, ‘cos you’re evil.’
And I’m not completely blameless in this. Yesterday, busy with the dinner and annoyed at her winding herself around my feet, I might possibly have told her to ‘f*ck off, you furry tosser’.
I did also once hear Hubby talking to her in the kitchen: ‘go away. Nobody likes you, you piece of sh*t’.
And yesterday, I heard: ‘get off my clean trousers you bloody animal. Shame there’s no fireworks here or I’d sent you up on a bloody rocket’.
But we love her really. Honest.
But I digress. It’s the dog thing. I work from home, see, and after waving de brevren off on the 8am bus to Cavan it’s just me, my computer and the unsociable cat. All day. I need a buddy. Plus I need to get my fat bottom out of this chair and down the boat road much more often.
So yesterday, with help from my lovely friend Liz, who has been coaching me in the ways of the rescue dog, I registered with a rescue charity. I had to fill in a long, complicated form with all sorts of random measurements like the height of my hedges, the length of my garden, the state of my front gate (ah, haven’t actually got one), and how often I shaved my legs, flossed and hoovered the lounge (okay I made a few of those up).
Today I learned that my application had been successful. Next, apparently, is the home visit. Uh oh. Note to self: make sure kids don’t call cat a tosser while home check in progress.
In other animal-related news, Mr Lovely informs me that his turkeys and broiler chickens are doing well. He’s also promised that I will be allowed to ‘lurk’ during the slaughter and preparation of said broilers (curiosity, not bloodlust, you understand). Yay.
Oh, and in other other animal-related news. I’m thinking of getting pigs. I shan’t be doing any home slaughtering though. Bleurgh.
Skiing: Scary stuff, or adrenaline-fuelled family fun?
As a family, we’ve been discussing skiing holidays.
The hubby, being a sort of sporty, devil-may-care nutter type, has been skiing once – with a group of friends that could already ski quite well. He decided the best way to learn was to throw himself in at the deep end and hurl himself down the black runs with his mates. As usual, golden boy didn’t fall or hurt himself and came back fitter, more tanned and with a very red nose.
I, on the other hand, being a cake-obsessed sofa surfer, would have had no such luck and would have spent the entire week sulking on the nursery slopes perfecting my snow plough while my mates had all the fun.
De brevren, of course, are well up for it. The Death Wish Child, inheritor of his father’s nutter-ness, would be of the same ‘fling yourself down the mountain’ school of learning. The Mad Professor would probably have to get his calculator out, do a few algorythms and work out a few equations first, but he’d love it too.
So what’s stopping me? Well, a desire not to break any limbs for one thing. And then there’s all the choice. Inghams, who Hubby went with, do skiing holidays to about 90 different places. There’s ski holidays in Canada, France, USA, Switzerland… and there’s plenty of more diverse options too: Andorra (no, I didn’t know where it was either, but check out their Andorra ski holidays here), Bulgaria, Slovenia… (I had to google that too).
I did spy this little beauty too, though:
(If you’re interested, this is Chalet Polar Star, in Lapland: ’a beautifully appointed modern pine log cabin tucked away in the snow-laden forest, with a crackling open fire and wonderful meals‘ – and yes of course I checked out the meals). Maybe I could just loaf by the fire while the sporty types went and did their skiing?
But then, why go to such a beautiful place without embracing the lifestyle? I can picture myself skiing with aplomb – I just think the reality would be a bit different.
So here’s the thing. I need advice. Are you a skiier? What do you recommend for a family that runs the entire gauntlet from pansy to headless chicken?
Answers on a postcard, please…
(PS: Big huge love to Inghams for giving me permission to pinch bits off their website)
