Promoting local produce

Promoting local produce is nothing new as I discovered when I was looking up a recipe in "The Farmers Wife Cook Book".
Printed in 1972 it is a collection of recipes gathered together from farmers wives throughout the British Isles with the forword written by Marguerite Patten.

 In it she says..."farm cooking in this country has always been exceptionally good.......one of the reasons being they have access to some of the best produce in the world - high quality milk, cream, eggs, poultry, bacon etc. The produce is natural and comes to us straight from the country; it is delivered direct to you by the milkman" ( - well maybe not that part anymore)

Another piece of advice - "Be brave and experiment with your cooking, but remember one simple rule: your meals can only be as good as the food that goes into them. So always use the freshest and best country produce it is possible to find."

The chapter on Cakes starts with a quote from Robert Burns  'Scotland - land o' cakes.' and 200 years later Scotland is still the land of cakes!

"Baking a cake is the test of any cook's skill. The most important ingredient in any recipe is time, you just can't afford to take shortcuts. then you'll need a good supply of fresh local produce; new laid eggs and creamy butter can do a lot to raise a cake from the mediocre to the superb."


Now for the healthy bit!! -

"There is one final word of warning - good cakes are addictive, and just occasionally they can be a little bit fattening. So whatever the temptations watch your weight! "

I am having to go back in time here as I haven't been able to blog over the past 2 weeks. Herman has now been and gone -much enjoyed.
So to backtrack -

Once 2 different lots of ingredients were added at intervals, the friendship cake mixture kept on growing, you could see the yeast bubbling away. After the second addition of flour, sugar etc. I had to divide the mixture into 4 portions, 3 of which I have given to friends to start their own cakes.

With the 4th portion I added apples, spices and various other ingredients, mixed it all together and baked it - Here is the result.....

A lovely moist and satisfying cake. So if a friend hands you a portion, don't turn it down it is worth baking.

Herman's progress

Friday 22nd March - This is 'Herman' today. We should have something worth eating by this time next week.

The Ginger Beer Plant

Following on from the blog about the German Friendship Cake, years ago we were given a Ginger Beer Plant. This was looked after as outlined below and you ended up with a slightly alcoholic ginger beer which tasted quite different from the ones we know today.

These are the instructions I was handed at the time but of course I don't have a starter ginger beer plant now,  to try it again.

Ginger Beer Plant
Feed jar daily for 7 days with 1 teaspoon ground ginger and 1 teaspoon sugar.
On 8th day - strain liquid through muslin. Dissolve 1 lb sugar in 1 pint boiling water, add another
4 1/2 pints cold water and add strained liquid.
Add juice of 2 lemons
Bottle in screw top bottles to within 2 " of the top
Leave at least 2 weeks before using.
Now scrape the residue fro the muslin into a jar. Add 3/4 pint of cold water and mix well.
Divide into 2 jars
Start feeding these the next day as before.
Plant must be halved each week or it will become too concentrated - Plant has to be divided

I can't remember whether it was the ginger beer or homemade wine that became too vigorous and exploded all over the ceiling!!

This Blog by the Guardian explains more about the ginger beer 'plant'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2011/jun/29/how-make-real-ginger-beer





I never thought about it much at the time but I have discovered it wasn't actually a plant.

Friendship cake

Herman the friendship cake

I was never a fan of chain letters especially those that asked you to send a favourite  recipe to 10 other people, the object being that you in turn would receive new recipes from them. It never happened and I certainly wouldn't take part in any chain which involved money as the only winner was the person who started the chain in the first place!

However what I would describe as the food version of the chain letter - Herman the Friendship Cake is  well followed and passed on for the right reasons and a lot more satisfactory.

The White-ish Glug.....beginnings of Herman...

A month or two ago a friend gave me a jar of white 'glug' - the beginnings of a German Friendship cake. I followed the instructions and made my cake which was enjoyed by the whole family then I passed the starter mixture on to 2 friends and froze some, this is the batch  I am starting off today.
I don't intend going into detail about the process in this blog but for those unfamiliar with 'Herman' there is a mass of information about it on Google follow the link below:
http://www.hermanthegermanfriendshipcake.com/

Follow my blog over the next few weeks and see the end 'Herman' once it has been baked.

Next week I will be talking about Ginger Beer Plants!!

Afternoon Tea for Vegans

I hosted  a very successful Afternoon Tea in the stunning dining room at Lennoxlove, Haddington at the weekend but  for the first time High Societeas had to cater for a vegan.
Now coming from a farming background being brought up with sheep, cattle and poultry I can't imagine living any other way. However as a professional caterer my interest was stirred so I started with the Vegan Society website which says-

Vegans choose not to eat anything which is taken from animals, for example:

• No meat, fish nor other substances that come directly from killing an animal, such as animal fats and gelatine
• No dairy products such as cows milk, cheese and yogurt; nor goats milk
• No eggs nor foods containing eggs such as Quorn
• No honey

So that covers pretty much all of the main ingredients for baking!! -eggs- how will I make cakes rise and add bulk ? without dairy products what will I use to bind ingredients? What will replace butter and margarine?and of course, the burning question..... what will the overall flavour be like?

From years of baking I know exactly what I expect my baking to taste like, how I expect the texture to be and what it should look like, so I have found that I have to look at the end product differently. I can't expect everything to be exactly the same but my aim is to produce  baking for vegans, gluten-free and dairy-free to the same high standard using whatever ingredients are available to suit the dietary needs of my guests - and I enjoy a challenge!!

Sandwiches and Savouries? well thats a whole different issue!
My vegan sandwich for last weekend was...

White bread spread with Vitalite, avocado, humus and cashew nuts

It went down well but I have a lot more research and experimenting to do.

New Rhubarb

When I was down the garden the yesterday, I looked under the upturned pail which I use to force the rhubarb - here is what I found- nice young rhubarb. Not much but enough to make a plate tart.

 

 

Straight from the garden into the kitchen to have it ready for tea.

 



Lovely tender, pink rhubarb but don't be fooled even my dessert rhubarb requires plenty sugar for my sweet tooth.

Just look at that wonderful sweet pink juice and short, crumbly pastry! This is the best time of the year to get that fresh flavour.

When we were children, we used to get a cold pudding which was sweet stewed rhubarb set with tapioca, sago( I think it must have been a throwback from the war years! ) I can't imagine young people eating that today.

Has anyone else heard of this? If so, please leave a comment on my Blog