diane's buns of joy

This weekend's baking treat comes from Eleanor's mum, Diane. Diane also wrote us a recipe for a lemon curd and fromage frais smoothie which features on p.176 of our recipe book.

According to Eleanor, there is always a copy of the book on Diane's coffee table at home, casually left open on p.176.

Diane’s apple and cinnamon buns Makes 12 large buns

Ingredients

2 medium cooking apples

225g self raising wholemeal flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

175g butter

50g brown sugar

1 large beaten free range egg

What you need to do

1. Preheat oven to Gas Mark 5(375F/190C).

2. Peel, core and dice the apples then put to one side.

3. Sift the flour, baking powder and cinnamon into a bowl.

4. Rub the butter into the dry ingredients until it resembles breadcrumbs.

5. Add the apple, sugar and beaten egg to the bowl and mix combine well with a fork (if the mixture seems a bit dry, you can add a few drops on milk)

6. Place heaped spoonfuls of the mixture onto a greased/non-stick baking tray.

7. Bake for 20-25 mins until golden.

 

Perfect for a sit down and cup of tea.

crumbly goodness

Thanks to everyone who posted their excellent baking recipes on last Friday's post.

This week's Sunday baking recipe comes from JT's mum, Pat, with her recipe for a good old fashioned crumble. 

   

Pat’s apple and blackberry crumble
Serves 6

Ingredients:

4oz plain flour
4oz porridge oats
3oz butter
3-4oz soft brown sugar
1lb Bramley apples, peeled and sliced
8oz blackberries washed
3oz granulated sugar

What you need to do:

1. Preheat oven to Gas Mark 4 (350F/180C)

2. Place apples, blackberries and granulated sugar in a saucepan with little water and cook gently till apples are soft.

3. Spoon mixture into pie dish or a 9-10inch shallow gratin dish.

4. Place flour, butter and oats in a mixing bowl and rub together till crumbly. Then add the brown sugar and mix a bit more.

5. Sprinkle crumble mixture over the fruit and use a fork to even it out (Pat likes to press down with the fork and then sprinkle a little amount of granulated sugar on top as this makes it all crunchy when cooked.)

6. Place in oven and cook for 30-40 minutes until golden brown.

Best enjoyed after a long, brisk walk, with lashings of custard, sat in front of The Antiques Roadshow.

Roll on Sunday.

like mum used to make

Sundays are all about baking.

Especially when it's peeing it down outside, you can't be faffed to go to the shops and there's someone you want to impress coming to tea.

Seeing as it's the perfect time of year for steaming puds and a hearty slice of something tasty to go with your cuppa, each Friday, we'll post a recipe courtesy of the best bakers we know (our mums).

Then all you need to do is pick up the ingredients on your way home and then come Sunday, you'll be all set for baking bliss.

First up is Kat H's mum, Anne, with her infamous recipe for tealoaf.

Its best enjoyed with a generous helping of butter, a big mug of tea and keeps well if you wrap it in greaseproof paper.

Anne's Tea Loaf

Ingredients:

170ml (1/2 pint) cold tea
300g dried mixed fruit
125g muscovado sugar
300g self raising flour
1 large egg - beaten
½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp nutmeg

What you need to do:

1. Pour the cold tea (minus tea-leaves) over the mixed fruit and sugar and leave to soak overnight (or a minimum of 4 hours).

2. Preheat oven to Gas Mark 3 (325F/170C)

3. Mix in the beaten egg and add sieved flour and spices. If the mixture seems a bit dry, you can always add orange juice. And if you're feeling fancy, you can also chuck in some apricots (dried or tinned), glace cherries or nuts of your choice to the mixture before cooking.

4. When you're done mixing, spoon the mixture in a greased loaf tin and cook for about 1 hour. You’ll know it’s ready when you pop a skewer into centre of loaf and it comes out clean.

5. Leave to cool on a wire rack and then eat sliced by itself or with butter.

So come Sunday, not only will your kitchen smell wonderful but your all important tea guest will think you're a natural domestic god/goddess.

More Sunday baking gems next Friday.

out and about

Bedding plants. Gardening gloves. A sunny afternoon. A trowel. And a flask of hot tea.

Just the perfect components for a spot of bi-annual bedding action.

Earlier this week, some of the ladies (and Oli) from Fruit Towers popped down to Holland Park to volunteer their green fingers to help plant the thousands of plants and bulbs that need planting now so as to be ready for spring.

Everyone got stuck in with their trowels though planting in a straight line is apparently not as easy as it looks.

Despite a few wiggly rows of golden yellows, things looked much neater when they left.

The team at Holland Park are always keen for a hand with gardening, so if you fancy getting involved, just drop Head Gardener Marcus a line here

william the conkerer

On Sunday, our Will J stepped out alongside 600 other conker hopefuls to fight for the coveted title of World Conker Champion 2008.

After weeks of practicing, his team, The St. Tanktonian Olympiad, rose early, dressed for combat and discussed tactics in the carpark.

They then waged many a battle

Against some strong competition

But were eventually beaten by a man who used kinetic energy theory to bash all his opponents out the conker ring and a lady from Essex who had a cracking aim.

Not that this stopped Will getting in some practice for taking the winners podium next year.

Next year, Will.

Next year.

a trifling afternoon

Following the bounty of our harvest festival yesterday, a few of us took the parcels, some veg pots and a few smoothies down to our local community centre, The Grove Neighbourhood Centre, today.

Every Friday, Anna and her team of local volunteers cook lunch for the older members of the community at the centre.

Today was roast lamb, potatoes and all the trimmings.

Anna very kindly invited us to stay for lunch and after everyone had had their fill, we gave out the boxes of goodies.

And then tucked into a generous helping of Gladys' very boozy trifle.

Luckily for us, Gladys (on the right in the pink cardy) had made so much trifle that we got to bring some back to Fruit Towers.

Much to the delight of Ed.

harvest festival

Harvest festival was easily the best assembly at school. You got to bring stuff in, sing songs about ploughing the fields and helping the farmer and your mum got to clear the cupboards of all those tins with no labels.

So to celebrate the arrival of our autumnal smoothie of the month, we had our own mini harvest festival in Fruit Towers today.

Everyone brought in something from home and then spent their lunch hour wrapping boxes and doing fancy stuff with cellophane.

There were some harvest festival classics

As well as some posh tea

A biscuit bus

Some pie mix

And lots of tins.

Everyone got stuck in with the wrapping (and knitting when the scissors were being used)

We covered empty veg pot boxes in pink wrapping paper, filled them with harvest bounty and then cellophaned them up.

 

And in true harvest festival style, tomorrow we're off down the road to our local community centre, The Grove, to deliver the boxes to the lunch club they hold for the older people every Friday.

world conker championships

 

The 44th World Conker Championships are taking part in Ashton, Northamptonshire this weekend and along with chaps like this, our Will J is going to be taking part.

Will has been practicing very hard in preparation for this event.

In the past few weeks, he's never been far from his trusty nuts.

He's also had people throwing conkers at his knuckles to toughen them up and learnt how to drill holes in said nuts with his bare teeth inbetween meetings.

 

On the day, all conkers and laces will be supplied by Ashton Conker Club, so no epoxy resin filled jobbies. The Chief Umpire has final say on all games and the Ringmaster is there to make sure no streakers run into the ring during play.

All the money raised from entrance fees goes to helping the blind and visually impaired so all that conker bashing is for a good cause. And if you get bored of conkers, you can always go and watch the morris dancers and jugglers or have a go on the bouncy castle.

Will's team are called the St. Tanktonian Olympiad so if you're popping down, make sure you cheer them on.

If you're not going to be going along but still want to support the St. Tanktonians, they need costume suggestions as you have to dress up for the games. They had planned to go dressed as conkers but were afraid of looking like big poos.

So if you have any genius ideas of what conker champion clothing they can wear this Sunday, post your comments here and who knows, come Monday you might have styled the World Conker Champions 2008.

Maybe.

we jamming

Seeing as the hedgerows are full of good stuff right now, there couldn't be a better time to make yourself a few pots of homemade jam.

However, if you're a jam novice, our very own jam expert, Erica, has some simple tips for making the perfect blackberry jam.

First things first.

Wrap up warm and find something to put your berries in before you leave the house (like a fetching wicker baskest or a clean tupperware box)

Then locate your nearest local hedgerow, complete with an abundant supply of blackberries (no pilfering off your neighbours' allotment, mind)

Watching out for thorns, carefully select the finest berries for your basket/box.

The ripest, juiciest fruit will be the berries that come off easily. If you have to tug or twist too hard, they're probably not quite ready so you'll need to leave them for another day.

Berry related injuries and stained hands are all par for the jam making course and will make your jam taste that extra bit sweeter. Apparently.

Once you've picked a decent bounty (roughly about 2lbs or 4 extremely generous handfuls), take your fruit home and give it a good wash in a colander.

Weigh your berries and then weigh out exactly the same amount of caster sugar.

Pop the berries and sugar into a large saucepan and add a good squeeze of lemon juice.

It's really important you remember to do this bit as it's the natural pectin in the lemon that makes your jam jammy. Otherwise you'll just end up with runny blackberry juice and rather soggy toast.

Bring everything to the boil, stirring constantly, and continue to boil for about 10 minutes.

To check if your jam is ready, just add a small blob of the mixture onto a cold plate. It should look like jam straight away.

 

When you're happy with your jam consistency, spoon it into sterilised jam jars, seal with a sterilised lid and remember to write the date you made it on a fancy label.

To get the maximum toast coverage out of your jam once it's opened, make sure to keep it in the fridge.

And for those of you who don't like pips in your jam, just heat the blackberries up on their own with a teaspoon of water till they're mushy. Then pop the fruit through a sieve to remove the seeds and just follow the steps above.

it's autumn

It's now officially autumn in our books, sunny but cooler days, conkers, peckish squirrels, golden leaves and our new damsons, blackberries & apples smoothies for autumn.

To celebrate their limited return we're going to be embracing autumn and all that it represents with a special autumnal bit of our blog. So get ready for sepia hues, foraging, freshly baked fruit pies, conker tips and Sunday afternoon walks galore.

Huzzah.