Danish Cheese Loaf

This charming item was a gift from someone who knows my favourite kind of  vintage cookbook are those which contain both horrors for me to laugh at and things that might be OK to actually try and cook.

I’m not an expert in Danish dairy, but luckily that canyon has been bridged, by this handy-dandy guide to the cheeses of Denmark. What more could a girl want?

And I wasn’t joking about the range of recipes, either:

This is normal

This is not.

So what to choose?  When I realised ingredient list was basically a salad held together with dough (Walnuts! Blue cheese! Celery!), I knew I had to try it.

 

 

As I didn’t have any self-raising flour at home, I used plain and added some extra baking powder, but then fretted that I hadn’t added quite enough, also the dough felt rather heavy. I decided not to risk creating a flour-fat-seed brick and formed it into a round, flat loaf on a baking tray.

I also forgot about the celery – probably for the best.

Results
I enjoyed the amount of bits in this loaf greatly and would consider the proportions suitable for experimenting with any type of nut and crumble-able cheese. The black sesame seeds were overkill however, rendering the whole thing a bit fibrous and worthy.

If, like me, you have a mild fear of yeast, this is a fine recipe to keep in your arsenal.

Loafed by Elly

Apple and Cinnamon Muffins

We are delighted to wake this blog from a few restorative weeks of hibernation with a guest post from Salada. Her other posts can be enjoyed here and here.

No muffin recipes appear in the VCBT list. Honestly, I checked.  Patricia H White is, assuming she’s still with us, an American who moved to England in the 1960’s.  This book was first published in 1975, and encourages the tradition of taking a bit of trouble with your gifts, or DIY as it’s known.  The recipes are divided into eight categories such as preserves, potted foods, sweetmeats and baked goods.  Ms White gives advice on packaging and storage, and how long the produce will last.

This recipe looks like a standard muffin mixture.  Commercial muffins nowadays have expanded to massive proportions, but these seem to come from a more frugal era.  Apple and cinnamon is a classic flavour match.

Rhubarb or Gooseberry Cake

This book was a present (cheers Anna!) and is fitting for these straitened times, being divided into three sections according to budget – cheap, not so cheap and simply extravagant, each being sub-divided by starters, mains and puddings. There is a short section of salads and vegetable side dishes at the end.

Published by in 1979 by the New English Library, the introduction states that this is not intended to be a foundation for new cooks, but something to extend the repetoire of people who already know their way round a ladle. She begins ‘When I last wrote a book on the subject of ‘entertaining’, things were very different. It was still reasonable to recommend a bottle of Chateau Margaux with the grouse (it was still reasonsble to recommend grouse!)  and I could assume that on special occasionals a helper could be hired or bullied into back stage duties‘.

Clootie Dumpling

Happy St Stephen’s Day! Actually, I imagine most of you will be reading this in a couple of day’s time when you need a break from your Christmas present books or stumbling here in a couple of months when you are looking for a suitable recipe for ballast-food.

I spent Christmas day with friends this year, a delightful experience, with just a few pangs for family rituals. I brought a contribution to the main course, offered to make custard and in a flurry of last-minute organisation, volunteered to cook clootie dumpling which several of us had missed the opportunity to have when on holiday in Scotland in the summer. On that trip, I had bought Traditional Scotttish Cookery by Margaret Fairlie, first published in 1972 by Hale Books, in Inverness Museum. I’ve tried to find out more about Ms Fairlie, but the internet is only giving me information on the identically named eminent gynaecologist and first woman to hold a professorial chair in Scotland. So if you know any more about Margaret Fairlie, cookbook writer, do comment and let me know.

Cream Crackers

When Alix informed me that she would be making Liptauer cheese for our Eurovision party, I decided to make some Norwegian lefse crackers to go with it. Unfortunately I realised late on Friday night that I should have made the dough earlier that evening so the it could rest for the required 10 hours before baking. Thus it was that I decided to make an truly English contribution  – cream crackers. To achieve this, I turned to The Good Housekeeping Cookery Compendium, part 3, Cake Making (The Waverley Book Company, 1956).

Almond Ginger Cookies

After the simplicity of the butter cakes, I swung in the opposite direction with some biscuits where the  quantities of spice listed were borderline worrying – how much clove?!

Recipe
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
½ cup molasses
1 tablespoon ginger
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons cloves
1 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup blanched almonds, chopped
3 ½ cups sifted enriched flour

Butter cakes

One of the many things I love about Florence Greenberg’s Jewish Cookery Book (first published in the 1940s, although I have the 6th edition from 1958), is the number of excellent baking recipes which require only simple ingredients, combined in appropriate proportions. I like a shmancy cupcake, as much as the next person who likes shmancy cupcakes, but it’s very satisfying to bake something good and easy and cheap, which relies on wit and not flash. Unfortunately this recipe isn’t quite that.

Butterscotch cookies

There has been a small amount of golden syrup crystallising in a jar at the back of my carb drawer for about a year now and this recipe seemed like a great way to use it up.   I’ve actually had the jar for so long that the ‘best before date’ has rubbed off the lid.  This recipe is from Florence Greenberg’s Jewish Cookery Book (6th edition, 1958).

Chocolate-Cheese Fudge Cake

Back in April, you might remember Alix and I hijacked Chris and Vicky’s bbq with a vintage bake-off. I took along this lemon butter cake which turned out going down well. However, I didn’t feel confident whilst the cake was cooling so I made a second cake – three columns along from the other one so another from “Female Cookbook 1978”.

INGREDIENTS
125g (4oz) butter
125g (4oz) processed cream cheese
1 cup castor sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 cup chopped walnuts
85g (2.5oz) Van Houten cocoa
300g self raising flour
0.25 tsp bicarbonate of sofa
0.25 tsp salt
1 cup sour milk
whipped cream

Potato Cakes

This recipe comes from the Breakfasts and High Teas section of the November chapter of the Reader’s Digest Cookery Year (1976). It includes some dishes which I will wait for the return of autumn before trying (Dublin Coddle, Anglesey eggs). Speaking personally, however, there is almost no occasion when flour and potatoes are unwelcome.  This short section was compiled by Theodora Fitz-Gibbon and reflects her interest in food from the north of Britain.