Busy... baking

[curiouswombat]

I've been quite busy so far this weekend. Some Fridays I just want to come home and flop - others I have an urge to be productive! This was one of the latter.

So - I did the trolley shopping on the way home from work, put on a load of washing and drying whilst I put it away, mixed up dark fruit loaves whilst dinner was in the oven, and put them into the warm oven after dinner. Then, whilst they were in the oven I produced the prayer leaflets for church.

All this before S2C got up at 8pm to get ready for work! When he went out I changed our bedding, emptied the washer/dryer and put a load more in on timer so that it would be ready to sort and hang things to dry at breakfast time... and finally wrote 400 words of the next chapter of The Valinor Trail.

I rather think all the previous activities were a form of procrastination - it is surprising what you can fill your time with when you should be organising the ideas into sentences and paragraphs!

Actually I really did need to bake - we are having a Mariners' Service at church next week...

The Mariners' choir was formed in 1974 by a group of serving and retired seamen and their friends, primarily to sing the old hymns they all enjoyed. Many of the members are very old now, but a few younger voices have joined them, and they rotate between the island’s Methodist churches, with occasional exceptions like our church, which they visit every 2 or 3 years.

The service begins with an hour of hymns from the choir and a sermon, before supper is served, followed by a sing-along session. And not only do the gentlemen all seem to have prodigious appetites, but they have a crowd of travelling 'groupies' - most of whom seem to be elderly ladies, and all of whom seem to consume enough food for a week over supper, whilst regularly complaining that it isn't as good as the one they got last week at a different church or chapel!

So we are feeding about 120 people, although it can feel rather as if we are feeding a flock of seagulls. (And no, not the 1980s group - they'd eat less!)

Why do we host them? Well the hymn singing is really rather fun and the collection money comes to us...



Anyway - whilst others will make sandwiches, cook chicken drumsticks, and so on, I will make fruit loaves and gingerbread, possibly a cherry & banana cake too. The best thing about the particular fruit loaves, and gingerbread, is that they will improve in the cake-tins until next weekend - so I can bake now, whilst I'm in the mood.

chaotic_binky and I were discussing cakes, and bread & butter pudding, not to mention bread pudding which is a totally different thing, in another place - and it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to post the fruitloaf and gingerbread recipes here. Both are very easy and pretty much fool proof - and very tasty.

So I have put the recipes

Fruit Loaf Recipe;

150ml cold tea (or put the water in the pan and add a tea bag as it warms!)
100g mixed dried fruit
150g soft brown sugar
100g butter or margarine
1 level teaspoon bicarb of soda
1 egg, beaten (med or large)
175g plain flour
1 level teaspoon baking powder

Put tea, fruit sugar butter and bicarb in saucepan and heat gently until butter is melted and sugar dissolved, then boil gently for 10 mins or so, stirring occasionally.

Remove from heat, leave to cool.

Stir remaining ingredients into it, mix thoroughly, turn into lined loaf tin, bake at 160C fan, 180C non-fan, or Gas 4 for about an hour, or until it is firm to touch.

Cool in the tin, storing it in your cake tin for a day or two improves it, if you can bear to wait, and then eat spread with butter.

You can vary the flavour depending on what sort of tea you use - I usually use Earl Grey, or Lady Grey, but ordinary tea would be fine. We have also made it with a variety of fruit teas over the years, too - ginger and vanilla was good, I remember!

And the recipe for Gingerbread. This is on a grand scale - it came from a cookery book called 'Wor Lass's Yem Cookin' which was bought for me in the early 1970s as the relative who gave it me knew I was planning on going to the NE of England to university - it was a handbook of Geordie cooking - and this is still the best gingerbread recipe I know.

Gingerbread

8 oz margarine
8 oz soft brown sugar
8 oz golden syrup
12 oz plain flour
2 beaten eggs
2 rounded dessertspoons ground ginger
3 rounded teaspoons cinnamon
½ pint milk
2 rounded teaspoons bicarb of soda

Melt butter, sugar and syrup together. Sift flour & spices together. Stir into the melted ingredients and add the beaten eggs. Warm the milk to lukewarm, then add the bicarb to it, stir together, then add to the main mixture and stir well.

It will be quite a runny batter – don’t panic!

Pour into a well greased roasting tin, or 2x2lb loaf tins. Bake for an hour at 140CFan, or 150C non-fan, Gas mark 3. Loaf tin ones will probably be done by then – one in a roasting tin may need to be covered with a sheet of greaseproof to stop it scorching and given another 15 -30 minutes. It should be firm and springy to touch. Cool in the tin.



It is, of course, very easy to half that second recipe and just make a normal sized cake!

Also - depending on what is in the store cupboard, it has been made with all syrup, half syrup & half treacle, all treacle instead of the syrup, and even about 2/3 syrup to 1/3 honey when I had no treacle to pad the remains of the syrup up! All taste good, just a little different each time.

You can see that the two have a common root, in the method used to make them. The other thing you will notice is that one recipe is older than the other - one is in ounces and the other in grams - I have scales that weigh in both, and can think pretty well in either, so I don't bother converting recipes, just use whatever it's in!

Anyone interested in the difference between bread and butter pudding and bread pudding - or their mysterious, richer, relative the Wet Nelly - just say - and I might post about those too.

Actually, I will probably post pictures of the baking tomorrow, too.

Comments

[chaotic-binky.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the recipes :D

I like the idea of making the boiled fruit cake with Earl Grey, though I will probably use black chai because I have an abundance of it. I have a jar of treacle, (which apparently is out of date!) so I can make the gingerbread with that and some ordinary syrup.

I would love to see your baking pictures.

My banana loaf turned out very well and I have eaten a third of it. I really should let it sit and eat it tomorrow but it is very hard to resist. Here is the recipe I used:

Banana bread

3 or 4 ripe bananas, mashed roughly
1/3 cup melted butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten (I didn't bother beating the egg - added it whole)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda (I substituted with baking powder)
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour (I used S/R flour)


Method
No need for a mixer for this recipe. Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

I used a greased and floured silicon loaf pan, which worked really well and did not stick. I also used Lurpak Light butter and did not bother to melt it - I mashed it into the bananas with a potato masher.

It is not my recipe - you can probably tell. I was able to use my measuring cup set for the first time - so that was good.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

(I didn't bother beating the egg - added it whole)

A woman after my own heart!

I think that is quite similar to mine - I will try in next time. I have a set of measuring cups too - I got them because there seem to be so many American recipes around.

As for chai - sounds good to me. I make the fruit loaf whenever there is the need for something fairly simple, and made from what is in - so it depends what sort of tea we have - I rather like Earl Grey - whereas, when D-d is around, there are all sorts of 'infusions' around - and the original version of the recipe actually said you could just use water!

[cairistiona7.livejournal.com]

You have been busy! My mouth is watering, and I'm chuckling at the image of a bunch of little old ladies sniffing at the current food offerings and deeming them not as fit as the last church's!

I'm assuming "trolley shopping" is what we call grocery shopping in the US?

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Yes - in our family you go trolley shopping for the main week's groceries, and might need to do a 'basket shop' a couple of times to get fresh stuff.

The little old ladies lift up the tops of sandwiches to complain about how much filling there is, mutter about how much butter there is on the fruit loaf, and so on - but they still eat like hobbits!

[zanthinegirl.livejournal.com]

I'm very tempted by your gingerbread recipe! I'd don't think I've ever bought margarine though; do you think this recipe would work with butter? And I've never even seen golden syrup. I'm thinking molasses would probably be a fine substitute!

one of these days I'm going to have break down and get a kitchen scale!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Butter would be fine. The gingerbread recipe is a basic one meant to keep a family well fed in a poor area - hence the margarine. In fact, when I was a child, we almost always baked with margarine - both Summer County and Stork were especially marketed as good for baking. I still use Stork for a lot of baking (or 'I Can't Believe it's not Butter!') - and still only use butter occasionally.

I have to say I've never even seen molasses in our shops - but as it is a sugar-cane product like treacle or syrup I would think it would work - all it needs is to be sticky and sweetish!

[zanthinegirl.livejournal.com]

I'm not totally clear on the difference between molasses and treacle or syrup. I know molasses is one step in refining sugar cane to sugar, and that it used to be the major sweetener used in the US-- though that was a 19th century thing! I really only use it for gingerbread and/ or baked beans.

My grandparents had a dairy farm; my dad grew up with butter. It was something he had strong feeling about! And my mom was opposed to processed foods, so my sister and I grew up with butter. I had a roommate who used to sometimes buy margarine, but I never cared for it. And these days there isn't much of a cost difference!

[zanthinegirl.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I'm curious about the difference between bread and butter pudding and bread pudding. I thought they were the same thing!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

In basic terms bread and butter pudding is made with slices of bread baked in an egg custard, whereas bread pudding is made by soaking stale bread in water or milk, squeezing it, adding spices, and dried fruit if you had the money(!) and baking it.

Again, both are 'poor man's food' - but the bread pudding was for those not rich enough to spare the eggs! It is very filling - and could be eaten in slice like a cake, rather than with a spoon in the way you'd eat bread and butter pudding. But, as a child, I loved it if granny made either.

[zanthinegirl.livejournal.com]

Interesting! It sounds like your bread & butter pudding is what I've always called "bread pudding". And it sounds really good to me today. I have some stale bread, and a bunch of milk...

[lady-branwyn.livejournal.com]

Your bread and butter pudding is what my mother (a Bostonian) called bread pudding. She would add raisins to it; I have made it with chopped dried apricots instead. In the unlikely event that there is ever left over cinnamon bread, that makes the world's best bread pudding.
Lord Branwyn and I agree that we are peasants at heart because we love all those old-fashioned, cheap eats.
Regarding poor man's food, lobster used to be considered "trash" fish that just fouled the nets. *grin*
I would love to hear the mariners' choir!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Yes - some sort of dried fruit is traditional in bread and butter pudding - I like mincemeat best, but raisins and sultanas work well - and dried apricots sound like a very good idea.

I've also been known to spread the bread and butter with marmalade to give the fruit content.

There is a good deal to be said for 'peasant food' - if you have the best cuts and richest ingredients you don't have to be quite as imaginative. As for lobsters - oysters, too, were regarded as a poor man's protein - used to pad out the beef in pies!

[lady-branwyn.livejournal.com]

After I read about your delicous-sounding cakes, I had to bake something even if just some muffins. Every time you post about baking, ovens are heated across Tolkien fandom. :)

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Hee! I'm sure the Prof would have approved - so would Edith I'm sure!

[keiliss.livejournal.com]

Down here we traditionally use raisins and spread the buttered bread with apricot jam.

[lady-branwyn.livejournal.com]

Yum!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Oh - that sounds good!

[keiliss.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, thanks for the recipes (my husband especially thanks you as he loves fruit cake of any kind). They look so easy, and best of all, there are no exotic ingredients :D

The Mariners Service sounds a lot of fun.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

The fruit loaf is one that would be eaten in slices buttered - in English parlance that is the difference between a fruit cake and a fruit loaf. But it is a really amenable recipe - any dried fruit would work, and if you don't have any tea in the house it will work with plain water!

[keiliss.livejournal.com]

...not have tea? Oh no, we're a former colony. There is always tea :D

And okay, buttered, like the little loaves they sell in the supermarket bakery section. He will love this :) Might even finally forgive me for losing my mom's date loaf recipe.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Actually - if your husband loves fruit cakes and fruit loaves - you might find this one (http://curiouswombat.livejournal.com/277630.html) useful - and there is another fruit cake recipe in the comments as well. The recipe for Mary Berry's mincemeat brownies is in the comments to this post (http://curiouswombat.livejournal.com/213630.html#comments), and I was sure I'd posted my mum's recipe fro rich fruit cake somewhere too - but I can't find it.

[keiliss.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I wonder if they still have mincemeat in the shops? Those brownies sound wonderful. Thanks so much for these - I now have a file called c_wombat :D Just need to pick up some crushed pineapple, cider, mincemeat and fruit mix and I'm set.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

I hoard mincemeat as my daughter loves it - I have been known to make mincemeat cupcakes and/or mincemeat scones at odd times of the year when she needs comfort food - or something to celebrate.

Sounds as if you plan a bake-in!

[keiliss.livejournal.com]

The weather's meant to be cooler next week, so when the temperature drops, I'll be ready.

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

I love days like that!

Definitely going to have to give your gingerbread a try... I don't think I've ever had gingerbread without molasses in it!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

There is a certain satisfaction in going to bed after a productive day! Especially to a clean bed.

I don't think I've ever seen molasses in our shops - although it is probably there. Treacle was the basic in the era the recipe originally came from - the syrup is more recent - and either work fine.

I've also 'poshed it up' by icing it with water icing and scattering chopped crystallised ginger on top.

[mrowe.livejournal.com]

*wipes drool from keyboard*

*saves recipes*

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Both are useful things to bake a couple of days in advance - and both really easy. And more-ish....

[shirebound]

I'm sooooo hungry now! All that sounds delicious.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

You will have to treat you and Pippin to something nice!

[kazzy-cee.livejournal.com]

Oh lovely - thanks for the recipes! I don't bother converting as my scales do both too. I love making tea loaves - I made a banana and honey loaf this week to use up the bananas that were getting past their best. Really improves with maturing as well.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

I have a banana bread recipe that includes cherries - which is rather good, too. I think any banana bread recipe is pretty adaptable - nuts, cherries, dried cranberries, whatever...

This fruit loaf was originally a Mary Berry recipe - but she just used hot water, and I think it is better with tea. And this one really is better kept a couple of days too - useful as long as you are able to keep your hands off it!

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

I am very grateful also that recipes in both metric and non-metric are no mystery to me. Of course we do use our cups and teaspoon-tablespoon measurements in the US and for that I have a set of each (cups and spoons) for measuring.

My husband loves gingerbread anything. Is there anything I could substitute for the golden syrup as we can't get that here?

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Being able to bake in three different 'languages' is really useful, isn't it?

Can you get treacle? That works fine - I think my original version, from all those years ago, might have said treacle anyway - it gives an even darker, slightly less sweet, gingerbread. Otherwise anything sticky and sweet, I reckon - so molasses, my North American friends think, or even runny honey, which was probably traditional before we had syrup!

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

No treacle here either. I do have some American maple syrup but that might not be the right flavour for gingerbread. What do you think?

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure whether it would overwhelm the ginger, or compliment it, and if it is 'sticky' enough. I think it might work, why not do the half-recipe size with it to find out?

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

It's sticky enough, I think, though thinner in consistency than the other stuff. I just may try that half batch!

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

I want bread pudding! I haven't had that in years. My grandmother made it all the time and it is also (big surprise to me!) a standard in Mexico. Looking forward to pictures! Love food pictures.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Now it would be very good comfort food for you... and something new for Alex to try!

It is really interesting that just the same way of using up stale bread developed in Mexico; LJ - bringing the world together in unexpected ways!

[ayinhara.livejournal.com]

I scored some golden syrup from amazon with free shipping. Some years ago I found it on amazon, but the shipping was more than the syrup. Now I can try a whole bunch of your baking recipes.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

It was one of the unexpected discoveries for us Brits when we began to share recipes here and discovered that you didn't have what we simply call 'syrup'. It is such a staple in baking for us. I think, for most things, molasses works - but has that slightly bitter taste - whereas syrup doesn't it is sweet, sweet, sweet all the way through!

Have fun experimenting with it.

[x19narya90x.livejournal.com]

Ah, what a shame - I only spotted this gingerbread recipe after my trip to the shops, and I'm out of cinnamon :( never mind, it can go on next weekend's to-do list!

And...what is a Wet Nelly?

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

At full quantities it is a real cut and come again gingerbread!

Wet Nelly was made by taking stale cake, preferably fruit cake, breaking it up and damping it down with milk, adding spice and more dried fruit if available, to make a sort of thick paste - then sandwich this between two slices of shortcrust pastry and baked. We sprinkled the top with sugar, or even a drizzle of icing - and it was a whole new cake!

[keswindhover.livejournal.com]

Love bread pudding. I used to buy it in heavy dripping squares from Cardiff market. It kept my penniless student self going many a weekend.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

It is absolutely THE thing to put a lining on the stomach, as my granny used to say. There is a small cafe in Laxey, open only in the summer, who sell it still - in hunks about 4" square and 3" deep - and one of those will certainly see you from mid-morning to mid-evening!

[estelcontar1.livejournal.com]

Wow! I'm exhausted just from reading all you did on Friday and after coming home from work too.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

it was just one of those 'burst of energy' days - I may not have another one for a month!

[bojojoti.livejournal.com]

"...they have a crowd of travelling 'groupies' - most of whom seem to be elderly ladies, and all of whom seem to consume enough food for a week over supper, whilst regularly complaining that it isn't as good as the one they got last week at a different church or chapel!"

I love this. I can so imagine it!

What is a dessertspoon? Smaller than a teaspoon?

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

They really are just like that!

A dessertspoon is a 10ml spoon - between a teaspoon (5ml), and a tablespoon (15ml).