Sticky pear gingerbread recipe card

Nice cake, shame about the terrifying dolls.

Victoria Sponge Cake and Spiced Victoria Sponge Cake

No birthday party is complete without a cake. I gamely volunteered to make one and by volunteered, I mean insisted. It seemed only right and proper that I should choose one from the Sandwich Cakes chapter of Good Housekeeping’s Picture Cake Making (Waverley, 1955) but as I realised I hadn’t baked a sponge cake for atleast a year, something simple would be advisable.

As we had a range of guests attending. I decided to make a two sorts of cake based around the same recipe – a classic Victoria sponge and a spiced Victoria sponge.

Notes

• Good lord, the icing took a lot of heating before it thickened – I would estimate an hour, no joke. When it had thickened however, it was very easy to spread. I used mostly basic dark chocolate and a little bit of Green & Blacks Maya Gold. (Thanks for the birthday present of the sugar letters. You know who you are.)
• Small disaster – my spring-sided cake tin leaked slightly so the bottom layer was slightly thinner than I intended (and I had to remove a  crispy layer of cake from the bottom of my oven. Thank God my oven is self-cleaning, it just peeled away.)

Results

For reasons I can’t quite fathom, the spice cake was lighter than the vanilla layer, although both were complimented for their moistness. Following the recipe exactly meant not doing any of the tricks I would normally use to make the sponge as  light as possible  (such as swapping a dessert spoon of the sugar for golden syrup or a heaped teaspoon of  the wheat flour for corn flour). It wasn’t a bad effort though and certainly, a fair amount was eaten on the spot despite how well we had all laid into the other dishes. The icing had an amazing  texture and flavour – definitely worth the time.

Caked by Elly

And-so-to-bed recipe card

Please mummy, don’t make me drink this concoction of warm egg, milk and sugar.

Chicken Maryland

Why did I decided to make this? Pure nostlagia. As a wee thing, my mother would (sometimes) bread small pieces of chicken for our birthday party teas, a sortof non-toxic (and, ofcourse, very tasty) chicken nugget, to the approbation of our school friends. I remember one of the remarking ‘I’ve asked my mum to do some chicken, like yours’. My sympathies now lie with the mother – the little darling in question was one of four siblings (or possibly five). I then went through all my cookbooks looking for a suitable recipe in an attempt to find a suitable recipe and decided that a pared-down* version of Chicken Maryland perfectly fitted the bill.

*The full dish, according to my recipe book, involves breaded chicken, grilled banana, bacon rolls and sweetcorn fritters. (See below.)  Consequently, the bacon and bananas listed on this recipe should be ignored

Notes

• As long as you’re not a total idiot with a frying pan, this is basically foolproof. I was half-cut when actually putting it together and really, as long as you chop all the chicken beforehand, line up the bowls of egg, crumbs, etc sensibly, you’re laughing.

Results

Oh, the passing of the years… these were tasty but… a little bland. The chicken certainly benefitted from the addition of some barbecue sauce. I would definitely make again – my enjoyment of breaded chicken is undiminished, even if I normally cloak it in a more adult disguise, but I would season the  breadcrumbs more – with chilli and mustard powder at the very least.

Marylanded by Elly

Sweet Corn Bread

Ah, sweetcorn. A controversial choice to some regular readers but a very popular one in my house, as those very readers will know. This recipe is from Lousene Rousseau Brunner’s New Casserole Treasury (1970, The Cookery Book Club for Harper and Row). A book in which a great deal of care and attention has been paid to the layout of recipes  – a lovely, calm sans-serif font and  recipes arranged so that the pages need never be turned during cooking. Thanks, Ms R-B, you bring order to a troubled universe and your use of booze is epic. (Seriously, one of these days I will make Parisian Chicken and then you will see – but this will necessitate a serious trip to the offy. Until then, you’re stuck reading about ‘Things I have made with things I have found in my fridge’.)

Notes

• I made half quantities, using 2 small eggs.
• I have never added wholemeal flour to hot milk before, rest assured that it does indeed instantly turn to mush.
• I have never bought creamed corn and didn’t have any at home, but according to my understanding, it’s sweetcorn in thin white sauce. So I slaked a little white flour with milk and added this to some ordinary tinned sweetcorn.

Results

This needed almost an hour to cook. It didn’t not begin to get browned and puffy until around 45 minutes. It was still rather damp in the middle and after cutting off a wedge to eat with sausages and peas, I put the rest back in the cooling oven to dry off. It was surprisingly light, more like a thick pancake than a scone or yeast bread. A half quantity made a circular bread of 9 inches diameter and 1.5 inches deep – how much this feeds is dependent on what you serve with it (and how hungry your guests). It reheated well in a dry frying pan or warm oven and went well with everything, but especially spicy foods and anything containing onions.

Bread by Elly

Pretzels

I love pretzels of all kinds (bread-y ones, crispy ones, OK, I like both kinds of pretzels) and was keen to make some more savoury snacks for our blog-day party. I bought ‘Scandinavian Cooking’ by Beryl Frank, (published by Evans Brothers, 1978) recently but have yet to cook anything from it – the bread section looks particularly good and I had high hopes for these based on the illustration.

Notes

• These were a lot of work – I had to calculate how long it would take me to make them, what with all the rising.
• I was very confused by the direction that the dough should be left in the fridge to rise. Shorely yeast needs heat to rise? Anyway, I don’t cook with yeast very often and on the  occasions (two) when I a) have and b)have gone un peu off-recipe, it has always been a disaster. So I decided to follow all instructions absolutely and completely.
• The dough did not appear to be rising much throughout the process but I carried on, blindly!

Results

They didn’t rise. They puffed up a bit in the heat but basically, they were just slightly salted pastry-like biscuits. Pleasant but boring and not worth the time and effort at all. I will have another go at these in future and let them rise at room temp and see if this is more successful.  For shame, Scandinavian Cookery, don’t let me down when 13th December rolls around and I have a go at  St Lucia’s bread!

Pretzeled by Elly

Käsetorte recipe card

This looks delicious, but why the prostrate doll partially in shot? Is she stuck under the plate?

The Hostess Book of Entertaining on ‘Putting it Right’ (part 3)

More sage counsel from Marguerite Patten – tackling the main course. This is the last part of her ‘Putting it right’ section, although there is much benign didacticism in other parts of the book, which will be added at a later date.

Fish dishes

Fish slightly over-cooked and dry, also inclined to break
Use extra melted butter in the sauce or topping to counteract the dry texture. Lift the fish on to individual heated plates, so there is no fear of the fish breaking again. Garnish attractively to disguise slight tendency of portions to break

Meat or Poultry dishes

Rest of meal cooked but joint or roast poultry under-cooked
Dish up the remainder of the meal into a Hostess trolley or cabinet and allow the joint or poultry to continue cooking. If time is short, carve the poultry or joint, arrange on a flame-proof dish and cook under the grill for a short time

Pastry dishes

Pastry slightly over-cooked and burned at the edges
Take a grater and rub the fine side gently and carefully over the burned portion until removed. Dust sweet pastry with sieved icing sugar or brush the pastry on a savoury dish with a little beaten egg yolk and return to the oven for a short time to give a pleasant shine to the roughened pastry.

Pastry topping on a pie loses its shape
Gently cut the pastry into portions, then arrange on the fruit or savoury mixture. This makes an interesting-looking dish and one that is easy to serve.

Colonial Goose and Bacon with marinade sauce, duchesse potatoes and chocolate mousse.

Text and Image from  The Hostess Book of Entertaining by Marguerite Patten. (Charles and David, 1980.)

Igloo recipe card

The igloo is made of a sponge cake covered in meringue.  Are the snowmen meant to live in the igloo? Why does the snowman need an umbrella? That reindeer’s a bit small. Like the use of Smarties though. Very realistic.

CHOCOLATE MOUSSE

was idly flipping through “beginner’s cookery” (Betty Falk, revised Penguin edition ‘73, original ‘64 – can any people tell me the appropriate citation when a publication has repeat editions? I should know this…), after a rough day at work and feeling like something simple… when I found… chocolate mousse! mousse?! no-one can make mousse at home! what is this doing in ‘beginner’s cookery’! How ridiculous! Yes, that’s what I thought too – but there’s only two essential ingredients and one optional one – and the optional one is BOOZE? And I do happen to have a bar of 70% Green and Blacks in the cupboard… how hard can it be!

I blame Terroirs. Terroirs is a wonderful wine bar near Charing Cross station with an extremely extensive wine list that I do not understand, a charcuterie selection and some extremely amazing anchovies, shaped into a an octopus. Incredible. I’ve had it twice. The salt… the salt. Anyway… for afters, they do a bitter chocolate pot, which is fantastic. I wanted to make something just like it. So how did that work out?

INGREDIENTS
3oz good cooking chocolate (I used 70% G&B and this is about 3/4 a bar)
3 eggs (I used 2 large eggs – because I only had 2 eggs, for goodness sake)
1 tbsp RHUM (optional)

HOWTO
1. break chocolate into small bits. melt chocolate in a bain marie. (= a basin over a saucepan of boiling water. the original instructions say you can also use a double saucepan. I have never SEEN a double saucepan EVER in my LIFE and assume you haven’t either. I saw an American recipe book which called for a double BROILER. Even more ridiculous! I digress…)

2. Break the eggs into two bowls, separating whites from yolks.

3. whisk whites of egg stiffly. they should be still enough to hold any shape you push them into. (or use the traditional, yet scarier, bowl upside down over head test. fun!)

IMPORTANT #3b – if you want to add some RHUM, add it here!!

4. remove chocolate from heat and stir in yolks with wooden spoon

5. gently FOLD whites into chocolate mixture until it is well mixed.

6. pour into dishes and serve as cold as possible.

NOTES

- the recipe doesn’t involve my extra 3b. hence my addition. grr! i hate recipes that do this.
- as i missed the rum, i decided to ‘pair’ the mousse with a mug of frangelico.
- a… mistake?
- i didn’t fold the egg whites in very well. they weren’t blending together, and it’s a small amount in a shallow pan so all quite difficult.
- lots of lumps of chocolate left. perhaps i didn’t melt it enough, or it started coalescing during the mixing. still delicious though – actually quite nice to have the airy bits and the chocolate lumpy bits together.
- chocolate mousse pictured with chocolate dogs (!) on the cover of ‘ami ami dogs’ by mitsuki hoshi <3

WORTH THE WASHING UP?

dishes used: 1x pyrex bain marie, 1x bowl in which to mix egg whites, 2x ramekins for serving.
worth it? ABSOLUTELY! it's not even washing up when you get to lick the bowl.
marks out of ten: 10/10!

I will absolutely be making this again – using a smaller dish and perhaps the pink spatula thingie and try this folding in in a more *~delicate~* manner and see if I can get it any lighter. I wonder what it would be like with G&B 85%. Oh my…