Malty goodness...

In a moment of sheer madness, I have decided to go cold turkey on the chocolate and peanut-butter combo. Well, OK, I will make an exception for a spot of Nutella and PB on toast every so often, but in terms of cake- and treat-making, I am abstaining. If there was a badge for this sort of thing (the kind that teetotallers wear perhaps?), I could pin in to my collar as a constant reminder to be good.

'But why?' I hear you cry. Why indeed. The fog of madness has yet to clear, but I am sure there's a good reason in there somewhere. Maybe it's a fear that one day, if I'm not careful, I might grow tired of it (surely not). Certainly, there's no harm in having a little break (last week's post made me realise I was somewhat obsessed); absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that. In the meantime, I can enjoy baking something new (yes, that is the fabulous malt loaf you see in the picture) and get re-acquainted with some old favourites (Christmas baking here I come).

So on to more important things - the malt loaf. A very tasty treat indeed. If I had to describe it somehow, it's like tea-brack on speed. All the satisfyingly dense fruitiness of the tea-brack, with a kick of malty goodness thrown in to bring an element of comfort to the whole experience. There's something about the flavour of malt that makes me feel like I'm wrapped in a duvet, sitting in a big cosy armchair in front of a roaring fire. A cup of Ovaltine has the same effect, but is (obviously) limited in its application. The malt loaf on the other hand, keeps well for ages and is (most importantly) portable. It tasted just as good sitting in my car on a break from field-walking last week, as it did when I ate it in the more civilised surrounds of Mam's kitchen, with a cup of coffee to hand.

It's also incredibly easy to make - pretty much melt, stir and bake. I found the original recipe online, on the BBC Good Food website (a brilliant resource for recipes of all sorts by the way), but tweaked it a little, reducing the sugar and enriching it with a little butter (how can that be bad, as the Barefoot Contessa might say). For those of you who like to use Spelt flour - I tried it and it works wonderfully, though it produces a slightly more dense loaf. Mam and No.3 Sister preferred the Spelt version, though myself and No.1 Sister were fans of the regular flour loaf. If you want to try the Spelt flour option, simply replace the plain flour in the recipe with the same weight in Spelt. I've written the recipe out below, so fellow bakers, it's over to you.


Now just one teensy little confession before I go: I ate some M&Ms of the peanut variety today (I'm weak) and in a rather exciting moment, I found a doubler - a super-sized, siamese-twin peanut M&M. It's moments like this that make a day perfect.

My baking bucket list...

The more my time is squeezed by the daily grind, the longer my baking bucket list grows, with tempting pictures and recipes everywhere I turn. There must be a version of Murphy's Law for cakes - the less time I have for baking, the more new recipes I find to try. I'm playing a game of catch-up, to try to squeeze in as many trials as I can before the preparations for Christmas baking start to take over. So here are some of the rather irresistible treats I want to make before things get all festive and I find myself immersed in a fog of cinnamon, nutmeg and mixed spice:

1. Peanut-Butter Crispy Bars. I've come across these in a few places over the last few months. If Millionaire Shortbread and Chocolate Krispie Bars got together and had little baby bars, this would be them. The tempting picture comes from the Smitten Kitchen blog - I'm immediately thinking, a much thicker layer of krispie and a shallower peanut-butter caramel layer... 
2. Peanut-Butter Crispy Roll. A slight cheat this one, as it's essenitally a version of No.1. Instead of careful layers and neat squares, everything is mushed together, then allowed to set in a tray before being rolled up like a Swiss Roll and sliced (sometimes with a thin layer of choc spread over it before rolling, which looks very pretty when sliced). My sister tasted this at a party recently and loved it.
3. Chocolate Oatmeal Peanut-Butter Bars (picture above courtesy of Bakingdom blog). If I'm honest, it was the look of the topping on this that got me and the idea of the three main components together, which sounds fabulous. I've yet to be convinced by the biscuit-type base, but I'm sure if I put my Baking Cap on, I can find a way to make this work. 
4. I've realised as I compile this list, that I have a serious peanut-butter addiction - the top three items on the list being a variation on the choc & pb theme. (Perhaps I should re-name the blog 'Tales from a girl who loves peanut butter' - I have been known to snack on Crunchy P-B straight from the jar.) But there is one item that I've been longing to make for ages now and I finally got round to finding a recipe - it's not chocolate or peanut-butter (amazingly enough). It's a very simple malted loaf.

To explain - I love Maltana (yes, the one that you buy in the supermarket, that is so incredibly more-ish that I have to ban it from my shopping trolley), but I wanted to find a non-yeast, quick version that was just as satisfying. This is partly because my sister (who loves Maltana as much as I do) currently has a ban on yeast and also because the yeast version is, naturally, more time-consuming. Delayed gratification? Not when it comes to me and malty-goodness. 

The recipe I found (on BBC Good Food - pictured above) appears for all the world to be a tea-brack that has been given an injection of malt (and of course, tea-brack is fabulously quick and easy to make). It comes with a 'good for you' tag, because of the lack of butter or other fat in the recipe, though the amount of sugar (of the refined and dried fruit variety) certainly makes up for that. I can't wait to see if this loaf can compare to a fabulous Maltana. I might just eschew the chocolate and peanut butter for a week or two and put this one to the top of the bucket list. Weekend baking here I come.

Dairy goodness

Meringue roulade with strawberries and lovely cream 

My feelings towards cattle are conflicted (not the opening statement you were expecting I'm sure).On the one hand, I very much dislike them (Oh let me count the ways). If you've never stood nose to nose with a cow or bullock (never mind an actual bull - yikes!), I have to tell you that they are bigger, smellier and more menacing than you would imagine (yes, menacing - I've definitely had some give me the evil eye). Farmers are always telling me 'not to worry, sure they won't touch you'. But what does that mean exactly? What do they mean by 'touch'?  It certainly doesn't mean that they won't rock right on up to you at an awkward gallop, jostling with their bovine buddies and climbing up on each other to see who can get closest to you (no, I didn't know they could do that either). Generally, at this point (if possible) I head for the nearest cattle wire and hop quickly over it before the herd arrive (all very calmly as you can imagine; not a moment of panic). Meanwhile, the herd gather as close as is bovinely possibly, snorting and drooling and doing other things that I won't mention on a baking blog. Lovely. 

So why am I conflicted? Well, I do love a nice steak every now and then, or a spicy chilli con carne or a warming beef stew in the winter (hello cow meat). Most important, though, are the fabulous and versatile dairy products. I adore milk, butter, yoghurt and cheese in their natural state and of course, they are used in an infinite number of cakes, desserts and confectionary to delicious effect. Irish dairy products are rightly considered some of the best in the world, which is of course, down to cattle grazing their days away in our lovely green fields. Most people think that the recent growth of artisan cheese in this country is something new, remembering the choice of either cheddar or the 'cheese' spreads and slices of our youth (Easi-Singles anyone?). The Irish annals (records kept by monks from the early medieval period onwards), however, mention over 400 different types of cheese and milk products in Ireland. Cattle were the currency of the day and the bigger your herd, the greater your wealth and position. Clearly, we lost our way sometime over the last 1600 years, descending from such dizzy, dairy heights to become purveyors of processed cheese and margarine. 

Having said that, one of my most treasured food memories from childhood was being first to pop open the foil disc on top of the milk bottle, so that I could have the creamy top on my cornflakes. (Melted butter on toast was another favourite.) So processed cheese and margarine aside, the potential for greatness was always there in the raw product. And aren't we lucky? Fudge would not be quite so fabulous without milk and butter. Chocolate fudge (butter) icing, cheesecake, shortbread, rice pudding, anything containing cream... more sweet things than my poor little brain could list and all of them rely on really good quality dairy products to be at their best (like the lovely strawberry meringue roulade made by No.1 Sister that features in today's photos). I guess this means that I should be grateful for the countless cattle that glare and snort at me in the fields when I'm out and about. Sigh. I'll just need to be quicker on my feet to avoid getting too close!