Fruity Flapjacks

This recipe is late.  It was requested a long time ago by one of my loyal Blog followers (ahem actually my Bro!)  This is currently my favourite Flapjack recipe as it has a bit of a twist on the more traditional Flapjack recipe. I am lucky enough to have a brilliant work buddy and even better both of her parents like to bake so we get goodies to munch our way through the days.  This recipe comes from them.  I have tried a delicious 'Apple and Sultana Flapjack'.  I have also tried a 'Banana and Chocolate Chip Flapjack' which was a little bit naughty.  The above Flapjacks are 'Apple and Apricot'.  You can make many combinations of dried fruit, fresh fruit and chocolate chips.  I would love to hear your combinations.  The Summer means my brood are busy, all off in different directions at different times.  It is good to have a supply of healthy, economical snacks readily available.  Flapjacks are so sustaining too, they make a great breakfast snack, picnic snack or school/work snack and if they last long enough they keep well.  They are almost a meal replacement.

Ingredients
285g/10oz of wholemeal flour
150g/6oz of porridge oats
1/2 tsp salt
2tbls Water
200g/7oz butter
100g/4oz sugar
2tbls of Golden Syrup
4 fresh Apricots, take out the stone and chop them up.
4 Peeled and grated apples

Method
Melt the butter in a saucepan with the sugar, salt and syrup.  Mix in a large bowl with the oats, flour and water.  Mix well.  In a large buttered tin spread half of the mixture.  Spread the apple and apricot over the oat mixture.  Put the other half of the mixture on top.  Bake in a medium to hot oven until the mixture is golden brown.  20-30 minutes.  I used a Pizza Cutter to divide mine into squares when it was still warm.  It made twelve large squares.

Some Blog readers may find this conversion site useful   http://www.convert-me.com

Cheese and Marmite Pastry Pinwheels

I enjoy making these using left over shortcrust pastry, I enjoy eating them even more.  I roll the pastry into a thin rectangle, spread in quite thickly with Marmite, then sprinke strong grated cheese over the Marmite.  I roll up the rectangle and cut it into pinwheels.  Place the pinwheels on a baking tin and sprinkle with more grated cheese.  You can also add seeds of your choice at this stage too, I like pumpkin and sunflower seeds.  Bake in a medium oven for 15 - 20 minutes.  They don't hang about for long.

Cinnamon Rolls and Maggie Sefton Knitting Mysteries

I may aswell come completely out of the closet!  I do enjoy reading 'Knitting Fiction'.
 There I have said it!  My favourites are the Maggie Sefton 'Knitting Mysteries'.  In the winter I went through a spell of getting cosey and reading until I nodded off.  The titles of the books themselves are great.

To go to sleep with a head full of knitting, Yarn stores, Alpaca farms, sheep shearing and fleece, spinning etc is the thing that dreams are made of.  I don't like anything scary or gruesome so these mysteries are about as hardcore as I get.  I think there are eight in the series.  Each book contains recipes and knitting patterns at the back too.  The main character 'Kelly' spends a great deal of her time either in the Yarn Store or the Coffee shop, when she isn't solving mysteries.  In one book she was drinking 'Gingerbread Coffee' and in every book she eats 'Cinnamon Rolls'.  I tracked down a place in town that served 'Gingerbread' flavoured coffee so I did a 'Kelly' and treated myself.  It was delicious.  Then last week I found this recipe...At Sheep Spinach and Strawberries  a blog about

"Food, Farm and Fiber -raising, growing, cooking, sharing".  I love this blog and today tried my version of this recipe.  I didn't have Craisins but I used sultanas and Walnuts.  Both of my Son's sampled when the rolls were still warm and when I asked for marks out of ten, the youngest said '100 out of infinity' I think that means he liked it.

I won't be solving any mysteries but I do like Cinnamon Rolls, coffee and 'Yarn Stores'.

Saint David's Day - Welsh Cakes (Teatime Treat)

Happy Saint David's Day.
March 1st 2011 

Another chance to show you my Daffodil Yarn!

The first flowers in my garden this year

Welsh Cakes

Ingredients

• 225g/8oz self-raising flour, sieved
• 110g/4oz (preferably Welsh) salted butter
• 1 large egg or two medium eggs
• handful of currants
• milk, if needed
• 85g/3oz caster sugar
• extra butter, for greasing

Method

1. Rub the fat into the sieved flour to make breadcrumbs. Add the sugar, dried fruit and then the egg. Mix to combine, then form a ball of dough, using a splash of milk if needed.
2. Roll out the pastry until it is a 5mm/¼in thick and cut into rounds with a 7.5-10cm/3-4in fluted cutter.
3. You now need a bakestone or a heavy iron griddle.  (I used a good frying pan) Rub it with butter and wipe the excess away. Put it on to a direct heat and wait until it heats up, place the Welsh cakes on the griddle, turning once. They need about 2-3 minutes each side. Each side needs to be caramel brown before turning although some people I know like them almost burnt.
4. Remove from the pan and dust with caster sugar while still warm. Some people leave out the dried fruit, and split them when cool and sandwich them together with jam.

Lemonade Scones (Teatime Treat)

I was intrigued when I saw this recipe.  Scones, made with Lemonade and no rubbing in butter to flour!
How easy can this be?  Another great recipe for children of all ages.  You can't beat scones with a cup of tea...well you can actually.  Scones, cream and jam with a cup of tea. 

This very quick and easy recipe produces lovely light scones. They are best served hot from the oven.

Makes about 12-14 scones.

325g self-raising flour
170ml cold lemonade (use the carbonated type)
170ml Double cream (It needs to be a heavy cream as no other fat is going into these scones.)

Preheat oven to 225 degrees Celsius (205 degrees Celsius fan-forced). Line a baking tray with baking paper.

Sift flour into a large bowl. Combine lemonade and cream in a medium bowl. Add lemonade and cream mixture to flour and gently fold ingredients together until just combined (don't over mix the dough as this will make tough scones). The dough should be fairly soft and sticky.

Place dough on a lightly floured work surface, form into a round and press out to about 3.5cm thickness. Cut scones using a floured 5cm diameter cutter.   Use a quick, firm motion to cut the scones to gives them a better shape and it makes them less likely to stick to the cutter. Form the offcuts into another round and cut some more scones.

Place scones close together on the tray, so they are just touching. Bake for about 12-15 minutes, or until pale golden and cooked through.

If you like your scones to have a soft crust, cover them with a clean tea towel for one minute after removing from the oven. Serve hot with jam and whipped cream.

I am somewhat of a connoisseur of the regional Delicacy 'A Cream Tea' and I have the waistline to prove it!  This is a little tea ritual in itself, tea, definitley served from a pot, into a cup and saucer with milk and sugar to add if required, scones, strawberry jam and clotted cream, not whipped cream, not double cream, not squirty cream but Clotted cream for an authentic 'West Country' Cream Tea.

The English 'Riviera' Holds an Annual Cream Tea Festival in April



A Traditional English Cream Tea
(Best consumed outdoors on a sunny day)

Another Teatime Treat - Home made Bread and Bread Pudding

I have been making all of my own bread for over a year now.  It was the mouse found in a loaf of Hovis that did it for me!  I did consider posting the pictures, but you can search them for yourself.  It is also much more cost effective in the long run to bake your own bread.  I did invest in a trusty Bread Maker, which always feels like cheating, but it is very convenient and I love mine.

You can not beat the smell of bread baking.

The problem is gauging how much bread you will use. Without all of the preservatives the bread can go stale if it is not used within three to four days.  If I run out everyone in the house complains to the management!  The birds in the back garden are so used to eating the crusts my youngest leaves that they sit on the fence waiting.  If I don't feed them they wait and wait and eye me up in disgust, Hitchcocks 'Birds' have nothing on mine.  There is only so much stale bread you can feed the birds as again it is not cost effective.  I try to use the stale bread for breadcrumbs for making stuffings, or coating food.  I also use breadcrumbs to make Meatloaf.   You can make Bread and Butter pudding, or the old favourite 'Bread Pudding'.  This stuff sticks to your ribs and you could go and plough a field after you have had a piece.  It is very easy to make and keeps well. 

Ingredients

1/2 a loaf of stale bread, soaked in water (just enough to cover it)

250g of mixed dried fruit

100g shredded vegetable suet

100g sugar

2tsp of Mixed Ground Spice

3 eggs

When the bread is well soaked fork it over until it is the consistency of porridge.  Add all of the other ingredients and mix well.  Turn into a baking tin and cook in a medium oven for 40 mins to an hour, until it is nicely browned and starts to smell done.  (Sorry for the lack of precision).   It will feel soft to the touch but will firm up as it cools.  Leave the pudding to go cool, or you will not slice it very successfully.

Just had to share today's Teatime Treat - Turnovers

These were really easy.

I used ready made 'Flakey Pastry'.  I did make it a couple of times at school but it is really quite labour intensive.  I rolled out a large thin rectangle and cut it into 12 squares.  I filled them with a teaspoon of homemade preserves.  6 with a 'Spiced Apple Butter' filling and 6 with 'Blackcurrant and Raspberry Jelly'.  I brushed the edges with a mixture of beaten egg and milk to glue them in to triangles.  Then brushed the top with egg and milk and sprinkled them with granulated sugar.  They baked in a hot oven with the Sunday roast chicken.  They took around 15-20 minutes.  WARNING!  The filling is ridiculously hot if you sneak one, as my partner found out today!  Of course delicious with a cup of tea. :)