Enthusiasm Flapjacks

Sometimes I need to clear out stuff from my baking shelves so flapjacks are an ideal way to use up ingredients. The quantities below are a guide so feel free to experiment. 

The name comes from the most wonderful Lorna who, when I lived with her, used to make Enthusiasm Soup. So called because you put everything you've got into it.   

Ingredients

250g butter

200g brown sugar (or any sugar)

Good dollop of golden syrup or honey

200-300g mixture of dried fruit, nuts, seeds
400-500g oats 

1.    Preheat the oven to 180°C/GM4.

2.    Melt the butter in a large saucepan. While melting add the sugar and syrup/honey. Mix it all together.

3.    Take off the heat and add the fruit/nut/seed mixture and stir well. Then add the oats, stirring again. You don't want a wet mixture at the end just enough to coat everything to create a sticky mess.

4.    Line a large tin and tip the mixture in, smoothing out before putting in the oven for 20 minutes.

5.    Cool and cut into desired sized pieces. Let it cool properly as the butter need to solidify a bit at bind it all together.

 

Banoffee Pie

Getting to the Central line is currently like descending into the underworld. You know as you make your way down the escalator that awaiting you is a platform where warm air being pushed out of the tunnel by the oncoming train is a welcome treat, before you cram on to a carriage of humidity and sweat. Someone has either pushed the window at the end up as the strong breeze it creates is bugging only them, or the window is fully open but the world’s tallest and broadest man is standing in front of it so nothing is getting through. Both of these have the same result in creating a desperately unpleasant atmosphere and drastically increasing the chances of someone fainting, disrupting the service and ensuring that everyone stays in the sweat box longer. 

Salvation is at hand though. As you get off the tube and start the gradual ascent to the outside world, oxygen starts to become more readily available creating a euphoric feeling. Notwithstanding the idiots who don’t know how to use the ticket machines properly, you are only seconds away from the actual outside world and, regardless of the heat there, it is nothing compared to the lair of Beelzebub you have recently exited. Sadly repeating this twice daily does somewhat put a dampener on the great weather but at least leads to the temperature outside feeling cool when compared to the horrors of the tube network. 

Hot weather and baking don’t really mix with me. My kitchen is small and manages to heat my flat up, counteracting the strategic window opening and blind positioning. Therefore this week I have made something that requires assembling rather than baking. Banoffee Pie is extremely wonderful and I have made it with a buttery biscuit base but you could make, or buy, a sweet pastry case to construct it in. It’s fairly quick to make and always looks impressive thanks to a sprinkling of chocolate on the top. Transporting in London can be an issue in hot weather and sadly a bag of frozen peas was sacrificed on the Central line to the almighty Hades to ensure the cream didn’t melt. 

Ingredients  

450g digestive biscuits (this is if you want sides, if not then 300g will do)

150g butter (or 100g if using 300g of biscuits)

2 x tins of Carnation Caramel (you could use one but I like a lot of caramel)

3 or 4 ripe bananas

600ml double cream (you could use less and use whipping but just embrace the double cream)

1 x Flake 

1.    Grease a spring form tin. I used a 23 inch one but it just means your pie is deeper if you use a smaller tin.

2.    Smash the digestive biscuits into crumbs by your preferred method. If you have a small child on hand then they can be tasked with this if you’re happy with mess. If not a food processor whizz or bunging into a plastic food bag and smashing to hell and back with a rolling pin will work.

3.    Melt the butter and add to the biscuit crumb. Mix well until it looks like damp sand and put into the tin. Smooth it on the bottom and up the sides with the back of a metal spoon to create your base. Put in the fridge for about 30 minutes. You want to make sure that when you put the caramel on that it doesn’t rip up the base so the butter needs to set.

4.    Take the base out and empty the caramel on it. Spread out until even.

5.    Now do these bits just before you want to eat it as the bananas can go weird. Slice the bananas and scatter the slices over the top of the caramel.

6.    Whip the cream until stiff and smooth over the top of the banana, finishing off with smashed Flake. Once again a small child (or enthusiastic work colleague) can help with this.

7.    If you’ve put sides on the base then use a knife the prise it away from the side of the tin, take the sides of the tin off and serve.

You can of course make this in a tart dish or create individual portions with tea cups or glasses.

Apple Crumble Cake

What would a cake version of apple crumble be like? This is the thought that struck me during a walk on Sunday. It was a bit of a random one, even for me, but was started when I smelt some cinnamon and went from there. I think because the weather was turning autumnal it made me think about winter cooking which always leads to crumble.

The Thew started it by getting excited about the fact that we’re entering the time of year when slow cooking moves up the agenda and our flat is filled with the smell of stews, pulled pork and lamb shoulder. I get quite excited about this because it means that if I have a Sunday at home I can pretty much do all the dinners for the week in one day. Some sort of slow cooked meat on the bottom of the oven and various stews on the middle and top shelves. Stews are always better after a day or two so reheating them during the week always makes them better.

The smell of these herald autumn along with those wonderful spices that start to conjure up the idea of winter. Cinnamon is one of my favourite spices and I liberally sprinkle it in every cake and dessert that I can. Therefore the jump from smelling cinnamon to crumble was not a large one. Thus started a search for recipes. This is one I found with some of my own twists.

This recipe uses a food processor to whizz the first bit together. If you don’t have one just use an electric whisk but thought I’d try out something in a food processor as I don’t normally use one. It was fine and there is a bit of speed in its use.

Ingredients

Cake

140g butter

250g self raising flour

3 tsp ground cinnamon

140g light muscovado sugar

100g sultanas

3 large eggs, beaten

2 cooking apples, peeled, cored and chopped (about 1cm square pieces but don’t panic about it)

5 tbsp whole milk

Topping

1 heaped tbsp plain flour

25g butter

25g light muscovado sugar

2 heaped tbsp hazelnuts

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1.   Heat the oven to GM4, 180 and line a loaf tin.

2.   Topping first! Whack the hazelnuts in the food processor and whizz them into small pieces. Put to one side. Then put the butter, sugar, plain flour and cinnamon in and whizz into breadcrumb type texture. Put in a bowl and mix in the hazelnuts. Leave in the fridge until you need.

3.   Now for the cake. Put the self raising flour, cinnamon and butter in the processor and whizz together. Then put in the sugar and mix.

4.   Tip the mixture into a bowl and add the raisins, eggs, apple and milk. Mix well. It will be fairly chunky as there is a lot of fruit in there.

5.   Put the cake mixture in the tin and smooth over. Sprinkle the topping evenly on top and put in the oven for about an hour – you want a skewer to come out clean.

Now, it may need to stay in longer. When I made this I had it on a lower heat and it took forever until a whacked it up to GM5. Basically because it uses cooking apples they need time to get nice and squishy. I am going to make this again as one of my work colleagues suggested that because the topping is so good it should be made in a shallower tray to allow more topping. Revised version will follow I’m sure.