Scandi Christmas stall at Covent Garden: Part II

Niamh aka Eat Like A Girl and I larking around at Covent Garden on Thursday - photo courtesy of Lucy Pope






Re-arranging cinnamon buns with Lucy Pope - photo courtesy of A Forkful of Spaghetti



The Scandi Christmas baking spread...photo courtesy of A Forkful of Spaghetti

So market day at Covent Garden came and went, and what fun it was. The gods provided with sunshine and a balmy 10 degrees celsius throughout the afternoon, and I was lucky to share a stall with the lovely Niamh - also known affectionately as the "pork mistress" for her mighty pork sandwiches with lashings of the BEST crunchy crackling in all of WC1! Niamh's a dab hand at this market melarkee as she's been manning a stall twice a week since the summer and her pork sandwiches fast became a staple lunchtime treat for those who work nearby Covent Garden this autumn and I can see why - having sampled her fare I'm now a pork sandwich addict

We had lots of visitors throughout the day, both punters looking around the market on a Thursday afternoon and friends and food bloggers who came down to support us by saying hello, and of course to sample the food! Niamh very kindly proffered a glass of prosecco mid-afternoon and we chatted throughout the afternoon, marvelling at the friendly visitors and the occasional cheeky passesrby - you see the extremes of human nature at a market Niamh said and I completely agree, fascinating stuff to an anthropologist. Believe it or not, someone asked Niamh if she did 2 for 1 on her sandwiches, and when I put out samples of cakes mid-afternoon two modellesque girls came round not once or twice but five times to nibble on samples. The cheek! Having two crazy aunts in Norway who used to model let me repeat my maxim in life here:

"Never trust a model as beauty corrupts the brain"

Anyway, it was a brilliant day and I wish I could do it again next week as Niamh was such fun to pal around with. From Tuesday though I'm off to Lanzarote for yuletide holiday frolics with my Ma and Pa so any reprises down at Covent Garden will have to wait til 2010

Below are recipes from the most popular cakes and biscuits of the day, if you have any specific queries about them drop me an email or leave a comment

Happy holidays to you all :-)



Let's start with the three chocolatey cakes:

tropisk aroma or spiced chocolate marble cake with nutmeg and cinnamon. The nutmeg dominates and with a coffee-chocolate icing I this is a firm family favourite which keeps up to a week and can be frozen if need be for future cake scoffing

Recipe:

Cake:

250g refined spelt flour
250g golden caster sugar
150g butter, softened
2 medium eggs
120 ml whole milk with 2 tbsp plain yoghurt
2 tsp grated nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
3 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp strong coffee or espresso
pinch salt

Filling and icing:

200g icing sugar
200g butter, softened
4 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1-2 tsp coffee powder (depends how much coffee you like)
pinch salt

Method:

Preheat oven to 180C. Lightly oil 23cm round cake tin and fit the bottom with baking parchment

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar til pale and fluffy (circa 5-8 minutes). Add the eggs one at a time along with a spoonful of flour to stop the mixture splitting, whisking after each egg to incorporate it into the mixture. Add the spices, remainder of flour and alternate this with the milk and coffee to create a thick cake batter

Take 1/3 of the cake mixture and place in a smaller bowl, add the cocoa powder and stir through until the mixture looks even

Place half the plain mixture at the bottom of the cake tin, then layer the chocolate mixture on top. Cover with the remaining half of plain mixture and using a fork, swirl through the two mixtures to create a marbled effect. Bake on the middle shelf for 35-40 minutes. The cake is done when a skewer is inserted and no wet mixture remains on the skewer

While the cake cools on a wire rack, make the filling: cream the butter whilst adding the icing sugar, coffee and cocoa powders, and vanilla extract, taste as you go along as icing is subjective - some like it very buttery, others intensely sweet. I like a balance of butter, sugar and chocolate/coffee myself

When the cake is completely cool, spread the icing all over. Sprinkle extra cocoa powder on top if you like a cocoa hit or simply leave it plain. Savour with a cup of tea or coffee

Cardamom-Chocolate Cake

There was a run on this cake, definitely a hit with both punters on the day and food bloggers who came down to visit Niamh and I. Cardamom and chocolate is a match made in heaven - grind the cardamom pods yourself if you have the time and inclination, I like to coarsely grind them so you get a few small seeds of cardamom rather than fine powder. The occasional cardamom crunch when eating this cake is an unexpected treat I find. This recipe is an adaptation of Nigella's dense chocolate loaf in 'How to be a domestic goddess' but I've substituted plain flour for spelt and reduced the sugar and syrup quantities and upped the chocolate

Ingredients:

250g softened butter
350g dark muscovado sugar (light will do fine)
250g refined spelt flour
150g dark chocolate, melted
2 heaping tbsp cocoa powder
2 medium eggs
200ml boiling water
1 shot espresso or strong coffee
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1-2 tsp cardamom
1/2 tsp salt

Method:

Preheat oven to 190 C. Lightly oil a 23 x 13 x 7 cm loaf tin

Cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time along with a spoonful of flour to stop the mixture splitting. Add the melted chocolate and incorporate fully before adding coffee, cocoa powder, flour, the boiling water, cardamom, bicarb and salt. It should be a thick liquid batter

Pour this into the prepared loaf tin and bake on the middle oven shelf at 190 C for the first 1/2 hour, then reduce the oven temp to 170 C and bake the cake for a further 15 minutes. The cake will rise, but once you remove it from the oven it will shrink slightly and look like it collapses. This is normal.

Cool on a wire rack. Needless to say this is great on its own but also good with a dollop of creme fraiche on the side. As Nigella says, this is like gingerbread in that it improves as it ages so worth making up in double batches if you can


Gingerbread with lemon icing

another Nigella classic. What can I say, the woman can bake

It's worth making this in double batches, it's VERY popular!

Ingredients:

300g spelt flour
150g butter
125g dark muscovado sugar
200g golden syrup
200g black treacle
2 teaspoons fresh ginger
1 tsp cinnamon (and I add 1/2 tsp clove, 1/2 nutmeg)
250ml milk
2 eggs
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda mixed with 2 tbsp warm water
1/2 tsp salt

Icing:

200g icing sugar
zest of 1 lemon
2-3 tbsp lemon juice

Method:

Preheat oven to 170 C. Lightly oil a 30 x 20 x 5 cm rectangular cake tin

In a large saucepan melt the butter, sugar, syrup, treacle, spices, ginger. Add the milk, eggs, bicarb off the heat.

Add the liquid to the flour in a large bowl and beat well until the mixture looks even.

Pour into cake tin and bake 45 minutes to 1 hour

As the cake is cooling, make the icing:

sift icing sugar in a bowl, whisking in the lemon juice and zest. The icing should be thick not runny so don't add too much liquid...

spread over cooled gingerbread with a palette knife and leave to set before cutting slices. Keeps for a good couple of weeks if you can resist eating it in one go

Kokosmakroner or coconut macaroons

these mallowy macaroons are dead-easy to make and the coconut acts as a humectant so they stay soft for ages. Dip in melted dark chocolate for that 'bounty' effect or eat plain as they're moreish on their own

Ingredients:

4 egg whites
180g caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
250g shredded coconut

Method:

Meringue the egg whites and sugar til stiff peak, then fold in the coconut. Bake at 170 degrees celsius for 10-15 minutes and allow to dry on a wire rack before eating

Almond Raisin Cake with Manzanilla Sherry

Manzanilla may seem an odd choice for cake as it's bone dry, but I love that ozone savouryness to Manzanilla and had half a bottle languishing in the fridge so I thought I'd bake a sherry-fied cake with it. Thanks to A Forkful of Spaghetti for tweeting me a recipe! This is my version:

Ingredients:

200g raisins
200g manzanilla sherry
150ml plain yoghurt
150ml melted butter
150g light muscovado sugar
3 medium eggs
150g spelt flour
100g ground almonds
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/4 tsp salt

Method:

preheat oven to 180 C. Lightly oil a 20cm round cake tin. Whisk the eggs and sugar til pale and fluffy. Add the melted butter, the yoghurt, flour, almonds, salt and raising agents to the mixture and combine til evenly incorporated. Fold in the raisins, adding some of the sherry too if you fancy :-)

Spoon the cake mixture into the cake tin and bake on the middle oven shelf for 35-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Drizzle with icing sugar, or skewer the cake a few times and use up the remaining sherry liquid to pickle the cake...

Needless to say, great with a glass of sherry



lefse or potato pancake - cheat's version available at Scandinavian Kitchen

This is usually served with a cup of coffee in Norway and a childhood favourite of mine. I love lefse, which is a soft potato-wheat pancake filled with cinnamon buttercream and folded like a book.

For 10 lefse you'll need 5 sheets of the pre-fab stuff you get at the Scandinavian Kitchen plus:

150g butter
100g creme fraiche
150g icing sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt

Cream the butter til pale then add the creme fraiche, whisking til its incorporated and add cinnamon, sugar, salt. Taste to see if it's right for you - remember the potato-wheat lefse is quite bland. Place a dollop of mixture on a sheet of lefse, spread evenly and then fold in the sides. Keep in an airtight container

Krumkaker with blackcurrant ice cream

krumkaker, or cornets/cones

blackcurrant ice cream

the 30-year old Norwegian krumkake iron

recipe from 'Norway's delight' and cone cooling...

freshly churned blackcurrant ice cream

It's June, the sun's shining and Wimbledon's in full swing. So far it's been a blissful English summer - not too warm and only a shower or three to keep us on our toes. Picnics in the park, walks along the South Bank soaking up rays on a Sunday afternoon and a smattering of Pimm's with ginger ale...such is the stuff of summer ;) I know I'm romanticizing but who needs to go away when London's shimmering on days like today.

Of course nothing quite says 'summer' like an ice cream cone, with the ice cream dribbling down your chin, on your clothes, or in my case, somehow ending up in my hair. Last weekend I dusted off two relics from the Johansen kitchen cupboard - a Gaggia ice cream machine and a Krumkake iron to make cornets, or as my American cousins call them, cones. Krumkake is a Norwegian version of the cone, translating as 'crumbly cake', an apt description of this crispy cone. Both machines were pilfered from Ma & Pa Johansen, and after nearly three decades of use still work - though admittedly just as I'm about to plug in these prized posessions there's a moment when I worry whether I might be electrocuted or the machine will simply have ceased to function. Thankfully, both are still going strong.

As mentioned on a recent post on the Beyond Baked Beans facebook page, I'm an ice cream snob. Nothing quite raises the Johansen ire like commercial ice cream or mediocre 'homemade' ice cream in restaurants or ice cream parlours. The best stuff in London is certainly dark chocolate ice cream from Chocstar and pretty much anything from Odonno. Even supermarket offerings that are purported to be good, such as Haagen Dazs and Ben & Jerry's, are cloying, chewy and over-priced for what is effectively just a humble mix of milk/cream, eggs and sugar. So if you have the time and inclination, I really encourage you to try making your own ices this summer. For a basic fruit ice cream recipe, go to the abovementioned facebook page and play around with flavours and ingredients - I'm lucky enough to have a gadget for ice cream churning, but you can make perfectly good ice cream without one.

And as for the cones - try baking the mixture on a sheet in the oven as you would with brandy snaps. The key to getting the 'cone' shape is to work quickly once the cones are baked - recruit a few mates with asbestos fingers to help you with this task, and roll them up before cooling in a cup. You can of course vary the flavours, adding cinnamon or cardamom for a change, or replacing lemon zest with orange zest, or some vanilla extract/seeds. A sprinkling of cocoa or chocolate wouldn't go amiss either, but the classic lemon zest and nutmeg combo is a match made in heaven, so I confess to never deviating from this 'Norway's delight' recipe...

Krumkake Ingredients:

• 110g plain flour (or 4 oz for imperially-minded friends)
• 110g butter, melted
• 110g sugar
• 3 tbsp water
• 1 medium egg
• zest of 1 lemon
• 1/2 tsp of nutmeg
• pinch salt

Method:

Plug in your krumkake iron, or preheat the oven to 190 C and prepare a baking sheet with greaseproof paper. In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the flour, butter, water in increments. Grate in zest and nutmeg. Beat together til there are no lumps - it should be quite a thick batter, the consistency of gloopy toothpaste.

Butter the krumkake iron and place a dollop of the mixture on the bottom of the iron, close the lid and cook for 3-4 minutes depending on how hot the iron gets. You want a pale brown colour, not too brown or they'll scorch. If baking in the oven, place on the upper shelf and leave for 5-7 minutes.

Remove the krumkake cornet when it's ready and - this is the tricky bit - shape into a cornet while still warm. You'll quickly develop asbestos fingers from doing this if you're not already in possession of a heatproof pair of hands. I find quickly shaping, then placing the cornets in a glass (my mother suggested a champagne flute!) or a cup so they hold their shape is the best method.

If making cornets proves exasperating - after all toasted fingers are no fun - simply make baskets instead by shaping the krumkake around the bottom of a glass, ramekin or rolling pin and folding up the edges like a brandy snap. Makes for a pretty basket, though more vulnerable to breakage when storing. The cornets are definitely easier to stack in a sealed cookie jar, and will keep for a week or two. These are ideal for serving friends at a dinner party, as indeed is the homemade ice cream. Simple really.

Lemon Drizzzzzle cake

After spending the better part of this sunny Monday marooned in the library I absconded myself from the mountain of anthropology reading and spent a happy couple of hours baking.

Lemon drizzle cake is a real treat - I don't make it enough, though I love that lemony tanginess and the crunch from the inclusion of poppyseeds. This recipe's from Jamie Oliver's 'Red Nose Recipes' booklet available at Sainsbury's supermarkets. The booklet's in aid of Comic Relief, an annual tradition in this country when money is raised for charitable causes during a day of pranks, high jinks and tomfoolery - hence the 'comic' element ;-) The idea behind Jamie's booklet is to bake or cook something for Comic Relief Day, which takes place - rather inauspiciously - this Friday the 13th March.

So in the spirit of Comic Relief I decided to try one of Jamie's recipes and this lemon sponge cake caught my eye. Who doesn't love citrus-flavoured cakes and citrus fruit? A happy marriage methinks, and in this particular case I've adapted the recipe to make it gluten-free. Frankly the result is better than a sponge made

 with wheat flour, but that's entirely up to you. Use what you have in your cupboard.

Jamie's recipe calls for self-raising flour, and all I did was substitute this with nearly the same quantity gluten-free self-raising flour (if using the latter, drop the quantity by approx. 10% compared to regular wheat flour as gluten-free has a tendency to dry out more than wheat flour). Admittedly gluten-free flour doesn't always produce amazing results when baking, but this recipe called for a large quantity of ground almonds so the flour really is there to act as a binding agent, thus isn't the integral element of the cake. I wouldn't make scones, bread or pastry with this flour as the texture might be mealy or chalky. Anyway, I figured it was worth risking chalkiness in the name of experimentation, and thankfully the result's a success.

Don't be put off by the list of ingredients below - you need a lot of lemons, that's all. The cake's super-easy to make and so tangy it's worth the little bit of effort, and with all that syrup it should keep for a few days. 

Ingredients:

Sponge

• 115g softened butter
• 115g caster sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 180g ground almonds
• 30g poppy seeds
• zest and juice of 2 lemons
• 115g self-raising gluten-free flour, sifted (original recipe called for 125g)
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• pinch salt

Lemon syrup

• 60g fructose (fruit sugar) instead of Jamie's original 100g caster sugar
• 60g lemon juice (basically juice of 1 lemon)

Lemon Icing

• 175g icing sugar (originally 225g icing sugar...far too much!)
• zest and juice of 1 lemon

Preheat oven to 180C. Lightly oil a 20cm diameter round cake tin.

Using an electric whisk, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating to incorporate after each one. 

Fold in all the remaining ingredients and mix til even. Spoon the mixture into your cake tin and place in middle shelf of the oven and bake 40 minutes:

Check the cake's ready by inserting a skewer or toothpick - if it comes out clean, with no wet mixture on it then the cake's done. Allow to cool while making the syrup. All you do is place the lemon juice and fructose in a small saucepan and on a low-moderate heat allow the fructose to dissolve, then turn up the heat for a minute or two until the liquid reaches a light syrup consistency (you don't want a gloopy syrup...)

While the cake's warm, pierce it lots of times with the skewer and then drizzle the syrup over, allowing to soak into the cake. I kept the cake in the tin while I did this as otherwise you'll have syrup all over your kitchen. Keep pouring, be patient. Don't let the cake stay in the tin for too long though, otherwise the syrup will form a sticky glue to the tin!

Finally, sift the icing sugar in a bowl, add the lemon zest and juice and mix thoroughly until the mixture resembles a paste (or a loose face mask), then spoon this on the cake. If it's really a loose consistency, add a few tablespoons of icing sugar to thicken the icing, but I found I just needed to spoon it slowly over and over again the same spots on the cake and then finally the icing set - am loathe to add any more icing sugar than absolutely necessary, it's the lemon flavour I'm after!

And that's it, the lemon drizzle cake is ready for scoffing ;-) Now go and make one this Friday and raise some money for a good cause...

Lemon Poppyseed Cake...with a dollop of Quark and "rips" (norwegian for redcurrants)

Sundays are meant to be relaxing. A time to recalibrate, catch up with family or friends, walk the dog, go to the cinema, an exhibition, or even shopping (my least-favourite activity in the world - seriously). These are things perfectly sane people do on a Sunday, however I decided to do a stock-take of my kitchen cupboard as various items such as jars of pesto and bags of sugar kept falling on my head every time the cupboard door was ajar. Infuriating to say the least, and I'm easily ired, so I spent a couple of serene hours listening to Magic FM, whilst scrubbing the inside of the cupboard, re-organising all the jars of pesto and bags of sugar and then suddenly it occurred to me that I am in possession of far too much food. The mission for Sunday? Use up the remnants of the following: poppyseeds, ground almonds, polenta (uncooked), couple of lemons, etc. There's so much brown sugar in my cupboard that later this week will see a cornucopia of cookies, ginger cake and brown sugar oat & apricot muffins in the scandilicious kitchen...Oh, and I wrote down all the items in the cupboard which will go up as the official cupbopard stock-list on the inside of the door. Clearly I need to get out more. 

This lemony cake is akin to an American-style cornbread, which needs something like quark, or greek yoghurt to go with it (or lashings of butter if you're so inclined). If by chance you're feeling peckish on a Sunday, this is an extremely easy wheat-free cake to throw together - gluten-free, though not dairy-free as you'll see, especially with the extra dollop of quark on the side as evinced in the photo, one step at a time folks... 

Ingredients

• 180g polenta (cornmeal)
• 100g ground almonds
• 140g caster sugar
• 100g melted butter
• 100g Quark
• 2 eggs
• zest & juice of 1 lemon
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/8 tsp salt

You'll need to lightly oil a 20cm round cake tin. Preheat oven to 180ºC

Place all the dry ingredients into a medium bowl and blend together to distribute the raising agents 

In a small bowl, using a fork mix the eggs with the quark and zest & juice of lemon. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and add this to the well, blending in with the melted butter, until the mix is even. Spoon into cake tin and bake on the centre shelf for 45 minutes...

Serve with a dollop of either quark or fromage frais. For a more indulgent treat serve with creme fraiche or vanilla-whipped cream...I also squeezed the juice of one more lemon on top of the cake for a bit of zinginess!

Easy-peezy Bermuda Ginger Lemon Cake

Bermudians probably won't agree with me - their speciality is actually Bermuda rum cake, but the reason I've named this a Bermuda cake is because I've just spent a week visiting my man on this picturesque island in the Atlantic - and in a fit of baking restlessness I concocted this cake one sunny afternoon. It's super easy, no need for metric measurements in this recipe - my other half lives like a bachelor, it's amazing I even found a cake tin! - instead a good old coffee mug provided the measurements below: 

• 2 1/4 cups sifted self-raising flour
• 1 cup plain, unsweetened yoghurt (for a richer cake, use sour cream)
• 1 1/2 sticks butter, melted (this was ca. 150g)
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 2 eggs beaten
• 3cm freshly grated ginger
• zest & juice of 2 lemons
• 1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 180ºC, lightly oil a 22cm round cake tin, or line with greaseproof paper/baking parchment

In a medium bowl, combine all the wet ingredients. Add lemon zest and ginger, then the sugar and finally the flour. Using a large metal spoon, bring the mixture together, being careful not to over-fold it or the cake will be tough

Bake on the middle shelf for 35-45 minutes. Enjoy with a cup of tea, possibly with a splash of Bermuda rum in it!

Lemon Curd and Blueberry Muffins

This is a super-duper recipe for finishing half-empty jars of lemon curd. If you have blueberries, chuck them in, if not, try grating some fresh ginger into the mixture for extra punchy flavour. These muffins are perfect for picnics, kids' lunchboxes and for scoffing in the afternoon - as I just did!

Makes 18 regular muffins or 8-9 jumbo muffins

Preheat oven to 180ºCelsius

Line muffin tins with paper muffin cups or cut out squares of greaseproof paper and scrunch them into the tins

• 225g plain flour
• 50g porridge oats
• 75g caster sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 180ml milk
• 75ml fresh lemon juice (ca.juice from 1- 1/2 lemons)
• zest of 2 lemons
• splash of vanilla
• 125g butter, melted
• 1 egg
• 100g lemon curd
• 150g fresh or frozen blueberries

Sift all dry ingredients into a large bowl, stir through to distribute raising agents and lemon zest

Beat the egg in a small cup. Pour the melted butter, lemon curd, lemon juice and vanilla into a measuring jug or bowl, stir through - the liquid will start to curdle due to the lemon juice clashing with the milk, don't worry this is normal!

Add the egg to the liquid mixture, make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and add the liquids. Fold through with a large metal spoon 4-5 times, then add your blueberries. Fold through another 4-5 times until the mixture looks even (a few pockets of flour are fine). The mixture should be fairly wet and dense - resist the temptation to over-fold the mixture at this stage, otherwise the muffins will be tough

Using an ice-cream scoop, distribute the mixture between the muffin tins and bake 25-30 minutes, depending on your oven 

Eat while warm or allow to cool. These muffins freeze well - provided you resist the temptation to scoff them as soon as they're out of the oven!