I Love Lemons

Ballyprior Castle, Co. Carlow

I'm on a whistle-stop tour of most of the midlands / southeast for work - lots of driving to and fro (my colleague) and frantic navigating (me), interspersed with visits to some of the most spectacular archaeological sites that Ireland has to offer. After a clear day on Monday, the weather yesterday was fairly grim - grey skies with clouds that seem to merge with the bands of wind-blown rain, creating a blanket of mist that hides the hills and sits low over the fields - but even that couldn't detract from the amazing sight of Ballymoon Castle in Co. Carlow. More used to the singular column of a tower house or the compact fortified house, many of which are dotted about the countryside, this was a surprise. It was a proper castle (albeit ruined) - not enclosed in a town, as so many of our large stone castles are, but standing proud on a rise in a pasture field at the side of the road. As we walked across the field towards it, birds were circling the walls and with the dark clouds and misty rain, there was a sense of stepping back in time (I want to tell you the birds were crows or ravens, as that would add even more atmosphere, but truth be told, I'm rubbish at bird-spotting). 

I had great hopes for this jaunt through Irish archaeology, having been told of fabulously good scones and coffee down by the river at St Mullins monastic site (also Co. Carlow). To be honest, I got a bit carried away in my mind, imagining that this could also be The Great Scone Tour of Ireland. There was one lovely scone on Monday in Kilcullen and after a rather hurried and busy day yesterday, we finally reached St Mullins at about 3pm (no lunch) and were running on empty, ready for the promised scone. Oh dear. It seems the nice man down by the river doesn't open his little cafe until February 1st (yes, that means we missed out by barely a week!). The site was stunning (with a very impressive motte-and-bailey beside it), but sadly my memory of St Mullins will always be coloured by the absence of a scone. 

Castlelyons Abbey

In contrast today - a beautiful, clear-sky winter's day - there was a promising start, with a fruit scone in the hotel for breakfast but this proved to be a disappointment. There was a decent plain scone offering later in the day in a bakery in Cappoquin (not bad at all) and apart from the odd shower, the weather held and we had blue skies as we drove southwest towards Cork. We ended the day with a look at the pretty little abbey ruins at Castlelyons, just as the sun was beginning its descent. It was as good a way to end a long day's work as I can imagine.

Lemon Madeira Cake, Take 1

So what does the rest of the week hold? I'm not too hopeful on the scone-front. Finding the right cafe at the right time is proving tricky, especially as we criss-cross the countryside all day, only occasionally dipping into a town. Thankfully I have an emergency stash of lemon madeira cake in the glove compartment. Baked on Sunday as the first in a trial of madeira recipes (I'm looking for the perfect lemon madeira recipe for a wedding), it was still delicious today. Although I was so tired that I inadvertently set the oven too high, this recipe was a winner. A mix of flour and ground almonds, it stays moist and more-ish for days (we'll be giving it a proper road-test and will still be nibbling on it come Friday). So perhaps I should forget scones altogether and save myself from further disappointment. From here on out it's all about the lovely madeira and its lemony goodness. 

January blues resolved

The last of the Christmas Cake...

I gave up giving up years ago. To my mind, facing the remainder of the cold, dark winter with nary a piece of chocolate or cake to brighten up a dull day is a depressing thought indeed. Life can be hard enough sometimes, so no need to make things even more difficult I say. A spot of self-flagellation or a hair-shirt anyone? Nope, me neither, thank you very much. Generally speaking then, I usually resolve to add rather than subtract - to do something nice for myself instead of enduring months of self-inflicted deprivation. Because when I'm feeling happy, I tend to take better care of myself. That's not to say I don't recognise the need for a return to a more sensible approach to life after the excesses of Christmas. Continuing down the road of over-indulgence would soon turn me into a grumpy, over-fed couch-potato (or a porkling, as they would have called me in medieval England - guess who got a new word book for Christmas?). 

Christmas Tart Amandine

I take a two-pronged approach post-Christmas: If variety is the spice of life - the sparkly, outgoing soul of the party - then moderation is the more sensible sister, keeping everything and everyone on an even keel. One of the reasons I love the first mince-pie of the festive season and hanker after a sausage roll or two to go with a glass of hot port, is that I don't have mince-pies or sausage rolls at any other time of the year. Ditto Christmas cake, turkey, cranberry sauce, gingerbread stuffing... the list goes on. All of this is deliciously moreish at the start of the season, but there is no doubt that come January first, I'm always ready for something new. 

Before moving on to the 'something new', a quick word to say that if you have any mincemeat left over in your fridge, Mary Berry has a wonderful recipe for a Christmas Tart Amandine - essentially a twist on the Bakewell tart, using mincemeat instead of jam. It is incredibly good. Mam baked this twice in the run up to Christmas and it was demolished each time. The recipe is printed below if you need a little January Blues Treat and would like to try it. But I digress - back to the 'something new' (or in this case, something different). 

And so to inject some variety into the traditional festive feasting, I started the year with an Italian feast for four on New Year's Day, with freshly baked bread-sticks, olives and other yummy nibbles, all washed down by the last of the Christmas cocktail devised by Sister No.1 (a rather tasty but dangerous combination of home-made cranberry gin mixed with prosecco). In spite of the slight cocktail-induced wobble in my step, I managed to keep my hostess hat on straight and succeeded in cooking a lovely risotto with roasted butternut squash and crispy bacon, served up with a fresh green salad. Thankfully, I had dessert prepped and ready to go from the day before - I say thankfully, as we had wine with the risotto, which left me incapable of doing anything more than dishing up scoops of the vanilla gelato (sticking with the Italian theme here) and letting everyone help themselves to the warm chocolate fudge sauce and toasted coconut shards, hazelnuts and chocolate brownie pieces (DIY ice-cream sundaes all round). Suitably stuffed, we drank espresso and amused ourselves with tiny saucer crackers that Sister No.2 had given me for Christmas (quite the cutest thing I've ever seen). It was a brilliant start to the new year - fabulous food, fabulous company, laughter and bubbles. What more could a girl ask for?

Having kicked off 2014 with a feast of equal proportion to the Christmas fare but vastly different in taste, I think now is the time for some of that sensible moderation. I've ordered a couple of new baking books and eagerly await their arrival. My plan for the next few weeks is to get back to the yoga mat for some much needed stretching, plenty of beach-walking and fresh air, time spent contemplating the baking year ahead and perhaps a chocolate or two (that tin of Roses is like the magic porridge pot - I swear they're multiplying every time I put the lid back on). I'm going to dive into my cake books as soon as they arrive and find something new and delicious to bake. With a little bit of delayed gratification, I think I'm going to really enjoy my next piece of cake. 

The Great Christmas Bake-Off

Boy am I glad to be within touching distance of Christmas Eve. One cake left to bake and deliver and then it'll be time for Christmas Cocktails, sausage rolls and mince-pies with the family. Unbeknownst to the producers at the BBC, the Great Christmas Bake-Off has been taking place in my kitchen for the last few weeks. As the days progressed, the challenges grew, well, more challenging. I was contestant and judge all rolled into one. Depending on the day (or the hour frankly) I was either the calm, steady contestant, unflappable in the face of disaster, or the one who gets that slightly crazed look before rapidly descending into a frenzied panic as the tasks mount up. When in judging-mode, I was more Paul Hollywood than Mary Berry - a tough task-master and harsh critic. 

First came the legion of angels (yep, that's them lined up for their photo-op above) - iced gingerbread angel biscuits, with hand-painted golden halos. Angels made a return appearance the following weekend (more a host than a legion this time), along with a copse of Christmas Trees and a small flurry of Snowflakes. These featured the Christmas-Spiced Chocolate biscuits (i.e. chocolate gingerbread) that I had tried-out last month and proved very popular. 

In between, I've been busy rustling up batches of puddini, chocolate and peanut-butter cups, fudge and Christmas Tree Decoration biscuits. As someone who loves language (I am a word nerd and have been known to read the dictionary for fun), I started thinking about collective nouns. Looking at a table full of puddini truffles and cooling racks lined with biscuits, I wanted a word other than 'batch' to describe them (my mind is indeed a strange and wondrous place). Most of the collective nouns in the English language relate to animals or birds and some are fairly well-known (a herd of cattle for instance or a flock of seagulls) but some are brilliantly obscure and descriptive, often conjuring up amusing images - a congregation of alligators (all neatly dressed for mass), a gang of elk and a mob of emus (villains of the animal kingdom?), a bloat of hippopotamuses and a waddling of ducks (how apt). There are even some for us humans - a blush of boys, a draught of butlers, a hastiness of cooks and a superfluity of nuns - while right at the top of the heap is the pantheon of gods.

A twinkle of Tiny Christmas Cakes

So what then to call my myriad little Christmas confections? Perhaps a jolly of puddini truffles, a jingle of Christmas Tree decoration biscuits and a chime of chocolate and peanut-butter cups? I could bake a scent of gingerbread men and decorate a twinkle of Tiny Christmas Cakes. Much better than boring old 'batch' every time. The next time the phone rings, I can answer and say 'Sorry, can't talk, I'm in the middle of stirring up a bauble of fudge'. Festive collective nouns? Language is constantly evolving, so why not? 

On the subject of language, and more specifically words, I was playing with a new toy the other day - tiny little letter stamps that can be arranged on a rack to make whatever word you choose, which you then impress onto a biscuit before it's baked. In my defence, I was quite tired and brain-addled at the time, so working out which way the letters had to go was probably more of a challenge than it should have been (they're all back-to-front so that when impressed, they come out the right way). As a result, my planned Christmas star biscuit with 'star' written on it, became 'rats' ('Oh rats!' she cried when she realised what she had done). Not quite the traditional nativity scene eh? 'So the three wise men followed the Christmas rats to Bethlehem, where they found the Baby Jesus in the manger'. And on that note, I wish you a very merry, twinkly Christmas, rats and all.

Mrs Santa Claus

Groom & Bride iced biscuits

They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, which I can only hope, since I have indeed been absent for a few weeks now. My world of crazy got even crazier, with baking and archaeology colliding, leaving me in a sad little heap on the floor (No.2 Sister talked me safely down off the ledge). I had an early order of puddini and gingerbread men to get ready last weekend, a large order of iced-biscuit wedding favours to make during the week and spreadsheets of archaeological sites and monuments to sort. I was firing on all cylinders until finally, my brain hurting from the academic work and my hands cramping from all the piped-icing detail, I reached this weekend. Oh the relief!

Not that all work here ceased. I wanted to get ahead with some of the Christmas order prep, but thankfully No.1 Sister appeared like an angel at my door to lend a much-needed hand. We made sugar-paste stars and crowns (now dry and ready to be sprayed with edible gold paint) and cut out lots of little Christmas tags. What with the extremely busy couple of weeks and the early batch of puddini-making bringing me firmly into festive mode, I am considering a name change to Mrs Santa Claus (without the physical festive upgrade to plump, grey-haired and red-cheeked please). I even had the able-assistance of a little elf in my workshop yesterday (a.k.a. my sister). But even Mrs Clause needs a break every now and again and while my plan for today is to relax, read the Sunday papers and recharge my batteries for the week ahead, already I can feel the cogs in my mind starting to turn, listing all of the things I really should be doing instead...the Christmas cakes need feeding ... biscuit dough to make ... Gingerbread men to get ready... next batch of puddini to prepare...

Just in the nick of time of I spoke to No.3 Sister, who has ordered me to expel all such thoughts from my mind and camp out on the sofa for the rest of the day. So the Tiny Christmas cakes can wait (that's them in the photo, fresh from the oven last month - it feels slightly wrong to be displaying them naked, without even their marzipan underwear on, but I promise, the next time you see them, they will be fully dressed) and so too can all of the other chores I could or should be doing. Given that it's the first of December and XmasFM is broadcasting live once more, I think it's time to stop and smell the roses (or the cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg). In the spirit of all things festive, I thought I'd also post a picture I took of the last piece of that chocolate gingerbread biscuit batch (now more aptly named the Christmas-Spiced Chocolate Biscuit). It's a Christmas tree shape and I was playing around with some icing to plan out a design for this year's Christmas biscuits. I hope it infects you with some of my Christmas spirit. Yes folks, it is indeed beginning to look alot like Christmas!

Big Biscuit Love

For a girl who, as a rule, doesn't really love biscuits, this weekend was an eye-opener. Yes, you are right in thinking that I bake and ice an awful lot of biscuits for someone who isn't too fond of them. I am an equal opportunity baker though and while I will take a cake or piece of chocolate over a biscuit any day, I am well aware that there are veritable hordes of biscuit lovers out there, for whom nothing else will do. I do love baking them, mind you - biscuit and cookie dough is quick to make and of course, being small means that they bake in no time at all.

You might think that the use of 'biscuit' vs. 'cookie' is simple word-play - and to an extent it is, in that an American would use cookie to describe our biscuits and vice versa - but there is a generally accepted technical difference (not always adhered to). Usually, biscuits are short and crisp (using no raising agent), compared with the softer, chewier texture of a cookie (which uses either baking powder or egg in the recipe). This is why a biscuit dough is often easier to roll and cut into shapes, which hold well during baking. A cookie dough, on the other hand, will usually spread and rise once it hits the heat of the oven - some of the doughs are quite soft and sticky, so you simply drop a ball or scoop of dough onto the baking tray and either press it lightly or just leave it to form its own shape as it bakes. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule and occasions when biscuit and cookie collide, so I'm never too pernickety about which word is used.

Getting back to my biscuity weekend, the cookie in the photo is one the few exceptions to my 'I don't love biscuits' stance. It's a recipe I have been baking for years (now that I think of it, I do believe this was the recipe that eased my coming-out to work colleagues - a box of these chocolate and peanut-butter cookies quickly outed my closet baker). They are really easy to make and a satisfying combination of crispy edge, slightly soft / chewy middle, salty peanut-butter, melting dark chocolate chips and the crunch of roughly chopped peanuts. I would be no friend at all if I didn't share this particular recipe, so I have typed it out below. And before you accuse me of a swift about-turn on my Choc/PB baking ban, these were a treat baked by No.1 Sister and presented with a cup of coffee when I went to visit on Saturday. Frankly, it would have been rude to say no and I am nothing if not a stickler for etiquette. Delicious.

From cookie to biscuit in less than 24 hours - yesterday I made a batch of gingerbread men and camels in preparation for the Christmas run (they now sit happily in the freezer, waiting patiently until it's time to be baked to order). Naturally, I baked a couple of off-cuts to taste-test the batch (one of the terrible trials of a baker's life). Again, delicious. But there was something even better. As an experiment, I decided to do a small, trial batch of chocolate gingerbread biscuits (substituting a small amount of cocoa for flour). I wasn't entirely sure how this would work - Would the cocoa overwhelm the gingerbread? Improve it? Chocolatey enough or just a background note in a regular gingerbread biscuit? No.3 Sister, who adores a ginger biscuit, would tell me not to mess with a good thing. She would see this as Dr Frankenstein making mischief in the lab and creating a monster hybrid - she's not a fan of Evil Chocolate (her words, not mine obviously). But as for me, I just had to give it go. The concept was too fabulous not to try (recipe below if you'd like a go too).

Oh Lord. The smell of Christmas and chocolate wafting from the oven was almost enough to make me swoon. As for the taste - words fail me, but 'Yum!' will do for now. This one is a keeper. It's not just the pairing of two of nature's firm friends - chocolate and ginger. The orange zest in the recipe (another fabulous flavour partner for chocolate) and the warmth of the background spices (cinnamon and a hint of nutmeg and cloves) all join together in happy matrimony with the cocoa and ginger. Whether it's an official polygamous marriage or just a big ol' hippy love-in, this biscuit is here to stay.
 

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!

Foodie heaven

I was watching a documentary recently about the life of Myrtle Allen, the doyenne of fabulous Irish food and the matriarch of Ballymaloe House. It was a fascinating story of one woman's determination to source and cook good, wholesome, seasonal Irish food, be it for family, friends or paying customers in her restaurant. Myrtle Allen - and the Ballymaloe restaurant and cookery school - has had an incredible effect on the food scene in Ireland over the last 50 years. There is certainly much to be grateful for, with the increasing availability of Irish artisanal foods, farmer's markets and wonderful places to eat and browse (hello Avoca!). I ate in a cafe / deli last weekend in Killarney (Wholesome Fayre), after a long walk in the National Park, which was wonderful from its delicious food (a chocolate cake to rival my own), right down to its Irish craft beer menu. It makes me so happy to find places like that, but then of course, it only increases the gloom that descends when you come across a bad eatery.

In spite of the progress that's been made, it can still be incredibly hard to get really fabulous food in the various towns and villages around the country. As an archaeologist who has wandered the length and breadth of Ireland for work, I can safely say that Foodie Heaven it is not. Granted, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool city girl who loves her coffee and I get very grumpy when I can't get a decent cup of the stuff everywhere I go (apologies to all you tea-drinkers out there, but tea is no good - makes me nauseous). I'm also, admittedly, rather fussy about my food (in case you hadn't noticed). Now don't get me wrong, when I say 'fabulous food', I don't mean haute cuisine or anything too clever or fussy, I simply mean good, seasonal ingredients that are cooked well. I'd be quite happy with a toasted sandwich for lunch, if it's on fresh, non-factory-made bread, with some Irish cheese and maybe some baked ham and chutney (without an 'anything that was in the fridge' salad and the ubiquitous raw red onion on the side, thank you very much). Fabulous doesn't have to mean complicated and using local, seasonal and Irish artisanal products can only be a good thing for everyone involved.


It was with these thoughts that I sat down with all of my baking books to search for something lovely to make for Mam's birthday a couple of weeks ago. I knew that luscious and decadent cakes or desserts would not be on the menu - Mam might nibble on the odd piece of chocolate cake if it's offered (albeit after scraping most of the icing off - I know!!), but as I've mentioned before, it's really not her cup of tea (so to speak - though she does like tea, by the way). So I went back to basics and thought about something seasonal, using fruit - yummy crumble, warm from the oven? - that you could also serve on a pretty platter and stick in a candle or two for the birthday celebration (not fruit crumble then). Happily, I came across a promising recipe for a fruit crumble cake, from a book called 'Weekend Baking' by Sarah Randall (if you'd like to try it, the recipe is below). It was only after I'd made the cake (perfect recipe and result) that I read her bio at the back and discovered that she has worked with Delia Smith for years, developing recipes for her books and TV programmes.

It's a very moreish cake, with a sponge base, topped with blackcurrant jam, raspberries and a lovely, nutty crumble. The sponge base stays very moist and light, thanks to the mix of flour and polenta and the addition of Greek yoghurt, and although both sponge and crumble are sweet, this is off-set by the tart jam and berries. In fact, the cake proved such a success that I had a phone call from her yesterday, looking for the recipe so that she could make it (she had a rare yearning for something sweet). Fortunately for me, I'm heading up there this evening and (hopefully) there should be some left-over. If all goes to plan, I'll be working off a big slice of crumble cake tomorrow, when I'm out field-walking once more (with perhaps a slice to nibble on as I go!).

Peanut-Butter Fudge, Take 2

I have spent the last 10 days mulling over the failed peanut-butter fudge attempt and planning another go. My archaeological world has continued apace and so my fudge-related musings have been squeezed into days filled with old maps and historical research at my desk. Occasionally, I was called upon to do some field-walking, so I pondered as I trudged across pastures, climbing field-gates and fending off curious cattle. (For those of you now wondering what on earth 'field-walking' is, it is exactly what it sounds like, but all the while keeping an eagle-eye out for archaeological sites or monuments. Not quite the treasure hunts of Indiana Jones I'll grant you, but boy can those cattle give you a run for your money - give me Nazis or head-hunting cannibals any day.) Anyway, back to the more important hunt for a successful peanut-butter fudge recipe! 

Peanut-butter fudge, Take 2

Most of the recipes that I came across were American (it seems to have been a popular fudge flavour there for a long time - plenty of 'Grandma's PB Fudge' and the like) and they all used an awful lot of sugar (American recipes for cakes, desserts and confectionery are often far sweeter than their equivalent on this side of the ocean). I knew from my first attempt that I would need to start from scratch, perhaps using my own vanilla fudge recipe (which is quite different), adding a similar amount of peanut-butter as used in the American recipe and taking it from there, adjusting if necessary. And so it went. I made the vanilla fudge as usual, but with a scoop of peanut-butter added in at the start (all of the recipes I've seen add it at the end but I hoped to squeeze extra flavour out of it). I also decided to increase my sugar content slightly - against my better judgement - since every other recipe I've seen (including one or two British ones) used at least twice my quantity of sugar. At the end of the process, I added in some chopped, salted peanuts, to add extra crunch, a bit more saltiness and a fresher peanut flavour.

I am happy to report that this batch of fudge was not only edible (vast improvement on the first attempt) but also pretty delicious, if still a bit sweet (I should have trusted my instinct and not increased the sugar content at all). I think it could do with one more trial without the extra sugar, just to be sure, but No.1 Sister who bought the original peanut-butter fudge in Doolin (and unwittingly started this whole trial), tells me that mine is nicer than the original (aren't sisters great?). I'm off out for some more field-walking tomorrow, so the remainder of the fudge will come in handy to pep us up when our legs are weary. Once that's gone, I can justify making a new batch to do a final recipe test - the perfect peanut-butter fudge is almost within tasting distance...