Cassie's blueberry tea cake

This is an absolutely delicious cake - one that we enjoyed for dessert yesterday lunchtime! Cassie is a bloggie friend and mother of nine from down under. She posted it on her blog a while ago. I have subsequently tweaked it a little to suit product availability and I've also renamed the cake in her honour.

O.K. so I could have made sure the cake was in the centre of the plate before taking the photo...

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
1 cup  sugar
1 lemon, juice and grated rind
125 g butter or margarine
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla essence
1/4 cup dessicated coconut
1 2/3 cups self raising flour, sifted
1 punnet fresh blueberries (or canned blueberries, well drained)

Method:
1. Mix sugar and lemon rind in a bowl.
2. Add butter, eggs, lemon juice, coconut and vanilla essence. Mix well.
3. Add flour and fold into mixture.
4. Pour batter into a greased oven dish, cake molde or similar.
5. Sprinkle blueberries over the top of the batter.
6. Bake at 170º C for 35 minutes or until wooden toothpick comes out clean.
7. Sprinkle sugar over the top of the cake and leave to cool. When cold, remove  from dish and serve with cream (optional!)

      
Notes

# I prefer to use plain or all-purpose flour and add a chemical raising agent or natural yeast.
# I use a sachet of vanilla flavoured sugar instead of the essence, which I
cannot find as a regular product as yet.

Munchy Monday #49: No-cook chocolate squares

Very simply delicious!

You will need:
275 dark chocolate
175 butter
4 tblsp. golden syrup
175 Maria biscuits
25 g Rice Krispies
50 g walnuts, chopped
100 g red glacé cherries, chopped

Method:
Place the chocolate with the butter and syrup in a bowl over hot water. Place on a low heat and stir frequently until all ingredients have melted.
Break up the biscuits and add them to the syrup mixture together with the cereal, nuts and cherries. Stir well.
Line an 18 cm squared mold with parchment paper and fill with the chocolate mixture.
Smooth the mixture evenly and leave in fridge for at least two hours.

Munchy Monday #48: Yogurt sponge cake

This is the first 'foreign' cake I learnt to make after I was married and moved to Catalonia. The ingredients are very basic, the recipe simple and the results are guaranteed. It is also done in a jiffy, so if you have nothing for breakfast tomorrow, pop one of these in the oven whilst making supper and you have yet another problem solved. I serve this for breakfast on a Sunday morning with a fresh fruit salad or an orange juice each and squares of chocolate. Everybody eats breakfast on a Sunday morning!

Instructions:
1 plain or lemon yogurt. Empty yogurt into a mixing bowl and wash container.

Then measure and add to the yogurt, 1 container of white sugar, 1/2 container of sunflower oil and 2 eggs. Mix with a hand blender. Add 3 containers of plain flour and 1 sachet of baking powder (approx. 15 g).

Blend until smooth and pour batter into a 30 cm x 15 cm cake mold (or equivalent). Bake in a medium oven for 20 - 25 minutes. When golden in colour and cooked right through, remove from oven and lightly sprinkle with white sugar. Hide cake and leave to cool.

A variation of the original recipe - apple yogurt cake

Because this recipe is so basic it allows for many variations. Here are a few suggestions which have been tried and tested over the years:

# Just add slices of apple to the top of the cake
# Use a coconut yogurt and add a container of desiccated coconut to the recipe, before adding the flour
# Sprinkle pine nuts over the top
# Pour most of batter into cake mold, add a level tablespoon full of sifted cocoa powder to remaining batter, stir well then pour over original batter to give a marbling effect

Enjoy!

Another family quote and a Batty Books joke

It was my birthday last Saturday and I made a crazy chocolate cake for myself. Unfortunately, I had a series of interruptions whilst I was preparing the batter and the vinegar started working too soon with the raising agent. When I finally took the cake from the oven, the surface was very bumpy, not smooth like it should be.
"Don't worry" said my dear husband. "I'm sure it tastes as good as ever. Just issue us all with 4x4 forks to eat it with!"

If you were around in Britain at the beginning of the 80's you must be familiar with a set of jokes called Batty Books. These 'books' had a title and an author and while some were unrepeatable, many others were hugely ingenious and often very funny.

Here are a few that I can remember:

@ Babysitting   by Justin Casey Howls
@ Never give up   by Percy Vere
@ The fall of the watermelon   by S. Platt
@ The long walk   by Miss D. Bus
@ A post script   by Adeline Extra    ...and so on.


Well, as you know it's summer here and many days end tomorrow and, as I scrunched up the stairs to bed late last Wednesday night, I made up another Batty Books joke which went like this:

Successful beach parties  by Sandy House

Get the DRIFT? There's just a GRAIN of truth there. O.K. I'll stop, please don't DESERT me!

Busy, busy, busy

We've been:

reaping what we have sown, our first radishes,

studying (and eating) our lettuce which shows the typical Fibonacci spirals,

making chickpea bread...

...and apple crumble muffins,

making bridesmaid dresses for three ladies...

organizing, classifying,

and boxing up,

and rescuing weird little men from Cucumber Palm Island!

Thingummies for organizing

During the past few weeks I have been able to buy a few thingummies to help in the organization and daily running of our home.

The first is a plastic bag organizer. Thus:

The plastic bags were always a problem. I had them all kept in a bag and I couldn't tell which one was which and then I took one out and half a dozen more jumped out in eagerness to be likewise chosen. Well, no longer. They are all stuffed in here, and I can see at a glance which one I need, I pull it out through one of the holes and Bob's yer uncle, as it were.

The next thingummy I bought was a neck scarf organizer for my wardrobe. Now, I am rather partial to scarves, I even wear them in the height of summer. My problem, as you can see in the photo, was how to keep them.

Then I found this thingummy in Ikea and I thought "Yes, that's it".

This also gives me a little more storage space now, for handbags and other  accessories.

The third thingummy is a cute little bag I found in the kitchen department of the hardware shop in town. Now, I knew of their existence but had never actually found one until now.

This little bag, made from fine cotton, is used to pop up to a kilo of pulses - usually chickpeas - in the stock to boil together with the other ingredients when you make soup. It gives the soup an extra special taste and adds protein to your meal. Cute isn't it : ) Can't wait to try it out, I LOVE chickpeas.

Another thingummy has been a little basket to put the orphaned socks in until its pair is found. My husband mentioned one day that a pile of socks on the dresser on the landing looked untidy and this little lined basket with a lid makes things  much neater.

The last thingummy is in plural form. Lots of thingummies all in the same little container!

I have been looking around for some cutters for years, literally. It just so happens that muffins and cupcakes are growing evermore popular here and cake decorating as a whole is 'in'. Shops that sell everything you need from pastry cutters to little tools and molds, cooling racks and fondant icing, food dyes and flavourings, trays, teapots and serving plates... You name it, you'll find it in these shops, which are popping up like mushrooms in the most unlikely places!

This side is fluted...

...and this side isn't!

These cutters make cooking pretty! Now I can make some decent sized mince pies or even my dear hubby's favourite - lemon curd tarts.

Munchy Monday #36: Rock buns

This is one of those recipes which has been passed down through the ages. My Mum used to make them, so did her Mum and most likely Great Grandma, too. The ingredients are simple and few and the quantities given will make 24 little buns (I usually make two batches because they don't last five minutes!)

You will need:
300 g self-raising flour (OR 300 g plain flour + 15 g baking powder)
100 g margarine
100 g sugar
100 g chocolate chips*
2 medium eggs, beaten
1/3 water or milk

Two 3 x 4 patty/cupcake tins, greased

Method:
Rub the margarine into the flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add sugar and chocolate chips and stir. Add beaten egg and enough water or milk to make a stiff batter.

A stiff batter - a spoon can stand in it

Spoon the batter into greased patty tins. Cook in a medium oven (170º C) for 20 minutes or until buns are slightly golden in colour. (Check after 15 minutes, as each oven cooks differently).

Chocolate chip and candied orange buns

Cherry and walnut buns

* As you can see, 100 g of just about anything that reasonably enters your head can be added to the recipe. The other day I made some with candied lemon and lime peel (new product from Lidl) and they disappeared in a moment. My Mum made them with raisins... I wonder if they would be nice with unsalted peanuts? Maybe add a small spoonful of creamy peanut butter? Hmmmm...

Our week

This is a recap of a very busy week. Not so busy so as to prevent some photos being taken, though!

Preparing the earth for spuds

Apple yoghurt cake

Clean and tidy kitchen - a rarity indeed!

Nice clean hob top

Lotsa laundry to fold

1st and 2nd grade English phonetics lessons

My grand-daughter came to see us with her Mum and Dad! And everyone loves Toryn the Teddy!

We are all enjoying the sun, the turtles more than anyone!

We also celebrated S.'s research project's marks. Yeah, they gave him a 10, the highest mark given. This is his favourite meal - Cuban rice, without the fried banana.

Of course these are not the only things I have done this week. I have also tried to reduce the ironing pile by ironing 10 items a day. We had an interview at school, extra lessons to give because it's exam time, I made banana bread and we celebrated our Xoc's 7th birthday with a delicious chocolate cake (see below), I have managed to keep to the cleaning routine and I also went out one day to take photos of almond trees in blossom. (More about this in a separate blog post.)

Ready, steady, blow

AAANNND I've been playing around a bit with my blog design. Haven't finished yet...

Munchy Monday #31: Rice Krispie cake

This neat little tart/cake is made in a jiffy. You could say it's "easy-peasy, lemon squeezy!" Can serve up to ten people, but this is not the case in our family!

You will need:

50 g margarine or butter
50 g sugar
2 tblsp. golden syrup
15 to 18 tblsp. Kellogg's rice krispies
Chocolate vermicelli, shavings or similar, to decorate

Method:

Slowly melt margarine, sugar and golden syrup in a large saucepan. Bring to boil, then remove from heat. Quickly stir in the krispies making sure that all of them are covered in "goo". Transfer to a pie plate or similar flat dish and even over using the back of a metal spoon.  Decorate with the chocolate vermicelli or shavings. Leave to cool in fridge until needed. Cut as for a cake and eat.

Note: I have tried using store brand krispies but the result was a little mushy, so I would recommend Kellogg's.

Munchy Monday #28: Lemon cherry rice cake

Now the lemons are abundant and not too expensive, what better way than to use them in a delicious and very filling cake. So as not to alter the measures I will write them down in ounces as specified in the recipe. I took this recipe years ago from a weekly magazine my mum used to get.

You will need:

6 oz margarine (milk free)
9 oz caster sugar
Grated rind of 3 lemons
4 eggs, size 3, beaten
6 oz glacé cherries, halved
9 oz rice flour
3 oz self - raising flour
Juice of 1 1/2 lemons

Method:

Cream margarine with sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in lemon rind. Gradually add eggs, beating well after every addition. Stir in cherries. Sift ground rice and flour together and fold them into the cream mixture, adding a little lemon juice at the same time. Add more lemon juice, if required, to give the batter a dropping consistency. Set oven to warm, gas mark 3 or 160º C (375º F). Grease a 20 cm diameter tin and spoon in the batter. Bake for an hour or so, until the cake is firm and springy to the touch. Leave the cake in the tin to cool.

Mince pies

As I said in a post a few days ago, I do like mince pies. I made some at the weekend, not without problems! My fluted pastry cutter had gone rusty so I had to use a glass to cut the shapes out. The glass was the biggest I have but still a little too small for the purpose and the cut pastry stuck in the glass each time!

Still, they taste delicious, it seems. I haven't tried one yet but there is always a self - appointed official taster on hand to make sure the goodies I cook are O.K. before they are served!

Actually, these are mince tarts, not pies, as they don't have a lid!

Munchy Monday #20: Pumpkin cake

This is a very filling cake made with pumpkin and dark chocolate polka dots. It contains no eggs and no dairy and so is ideal for people with these diet restrictions.

You will need:

Dry ingredients
3 3/4 cups plain (all purpose) flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger

1/2 cup of dark chocolate polka dots

Wet ingredients

2/3 cup sunflower oil
2 tsp. vinegar
1 cup cooked pumpkin*
3/4 cup water
1 tblsp. golden syrup

Method:

Sieve together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and ground ginger into a bowl and then add salt and sugar. Set oven to warm up (180º C). Mix all the wet ingredients together with a stick blender and add the mix to the dry ingredients. Stir well, add chocolate polka dots and stir until well mixed. Grease an oven dish or similar and spoon batter in, making sure that it is of an even thickness all over. Cook in a medium oven for about 30-35 minutes, maybe a little longer. (The oven does not need to be pre-heated, just warming up. The cooking time will vary according to the type of oven you are using.) The cake is cooked once you can poke a toothpick in it and bring it out clean. Leave the cake to cool in the oven dish.

* The easiest way to obtain cooked pumpkin is this way I learned a long time ago from my Canadian sister-in-law. Cut your pumpkin into three or four pieces and steam them for about 30 mins. in a pressure cooker. Leave the pieces to cool and then peel. Then measure out the exact quantity you need for your recipes and freeze it in bags or plastic containers.

Munchy Monday #14: Banana bread

This is my version of a very well known sweet bread. It was passed on to me by a friend from Bolivia and I replace the egg with apple sauce. It uses no dairy, so is ideal for people with diet restrictions.

You will need:

1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons margarine
3 - 4 ripe bananas, mashed
2 tablespoons apple sauce
3 cups plain flour + 15 g chemical raising agent (or 3 cups S.R. flour)


Method:

Cream together margarine and sugar in a bowl. In another plate add apple sauce to mashed banana and mix. Add banana mixture to margarine cream and stir. Carefully fold in flour. Spoon resulting batter into a greased oven mould and cook in a medium oven (180º C) for about 25 - 30 mins.

To test for 'done-ness', stick a skewer or wooden toothpick into the bread and if it comes out clean the bread is done. If not, leave in oven for a few minutes more.

What we've been up to

Well, as you may have realized, I took a small blogging holiday during the whole month of July. Here is an account of some of the things we got busy with:

# We harvested the potato crop

  

 # We made crumbles and jam from the apricots

# We went shopping for clothes in the sales in Tarragona
# We went up to Barcelona by train to buy fabric to make skirts, blouses and aprons

# We have been countless times to have supper down at the beach and play with our inflatable boat
# We had a friend to stay from Romania
# We celebrated my birthday and visited a bird of prey training centre (future post on this) and I received presents from near and far.

# We went to a concert given by the flute orchestra from the University of Nagoya, Japan
# We visited the outdoor market in Calafell, which was quite an experience, to be sure (future blog post on this, too)
# We have been freezing courgettes, beans and onions like there was no tomorrow

 

# We made a hot pan stand from clothes pegs (future post on this)

# We visited the newly weds at their home
# We took hubby's Mum for a look around IKEA and bought a few things for the home

# We have also been very busy deep cleaning and tidying up the house and garden, sorting things out, with plenty of reorganizing and throwing out
# I have also been working for 4 hours practically every afternoon as a nanny
# We have also been trying to keep up with some kind of homeschooling, finishing off projects and workbooks etc.
# We've also had many suppers outside
# Baking special chocolate cup cakes (no egg or dairy)

# We have also been getting up to date with all the more normal jobs around the house like cleaning, ironing, laundry, hair cuts, etc
# I have been playing the piano and reading
# Last but not least, we have been planning August, what to do and where to go.
I will be posting when I get the time.

Rainy day biscuits

Today it has rained for most of the day so, after doing piano practice, Bible studies and the daily housework, math and language studies, we set to and made our traditional Rainy Day biscuits.

Here is a photo showing the results of our handy work. Don't they look good enough to eat?!

If anybody would like the recipe I can post it, but for now it will be sufficient to just make your mouth water.

Munchy Monday #5: Orange sponge cake

This is one of our family favourites, made normally for breakfast or afternoon snack. Very easy to prepare and gone in a matter of minutes.

You will need:

1 orange
250 g sugar
250 g self-raising flour ( or plain flour + 2 tsp. chemical raising agent )
3 medium eggs
100 ml  sunflower oil

Method:

Top and tail the orange. Discard top and tail! Cut the rest of the orange up into smallish pieces, add the  sugar and blend with a hand blender till smooth. Add all other ingredients and blend well. Pour batter into a greased cake tin ( 30cms by 20cms or similar ) and cook on 180ºC for 20 - 25 minutes.

Note: To make the cake a little special, when cooled you can dribble melted black chocolate over the top in a zig-zag pattern.

Bescuit de taronja

Es necessita:

1 taronja.
250 g sucre.
250 g farina.
2 cullerades de postre de llevat químic.
3 ous mitjans.
100 ml oli girasol.

Instruccions:

Se'ls treu les dues puntes a la taronja i es talla la resta de la taronja a trossos petits. S'hi afeigeix el sucre i es trituren els dos ingredients amb una batedora elèctrica fins obtenir una crema espessa. S'hi afeigeix la resta dels ingredients i es barreja tot bé. S'aboca en un motlle de forn, previament engreixat, i es forneja uns 20 - 25 minuts a 180ºC.


Nota: Per fer més especial el pastís, un cop fred es pot decorar amb xocolata fosa.