Rugelach

This season has been a little hectic. Hard to find my feet the last 6 weeks, so not a lot of baking, just a lot of getting up, going through the paces, rinse and repeat. I'd forgotten the comfort of baking. But if there is comfort in baking, there is even more comfort in cream cheese and baking and so Rugelach seemed called for. Our homestay student, Bonnie, was very impressed with these as she'd never seen Rugelach before, and I've got to say they look very pretty (and my permanent kids were pretty keen as well). As they are so tiny you can scarf down quite a lot while pretending you're being very good for only eating very-small-pastries! Please don't forget to egg-wash them. I forgot with the middle batch and they just look very utilitarian, which is the last thing you want with such lovely delicate little things.

Cream Cheese Dough

1 cup of salted butter, at room temperature
one tub of cream cheese (about 250 grams)
2 cups of flour

Fillings

You can vary the fillings, anything from poppy seed to cinnamon and walnuts to raspberry jam. Inspired by Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen, I've got for a jam-chocolate-nut combo here (though for Hamantaschen, which is pretty much the same dough, I prefer apricot jam).

2/3 cup raspberry jam
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
sprinkling of chopped walnuts
about one chocolate chip per tiny triangle, or a small handful (depending on your hands! I've got small hands, so if you've got great big mits, then half a handful).

Beat the butter and cream cheese until thoroughly combined. Add the flour until just blended. Put the dough onto a big piece of cling-film and pat into 2 flat wheel shapes and refrigerate. Don't think you can skip refrigeration because the dough is impossible to work with at room temperature. Wrap the dough up tight and leave in the fridge for at least two hours.

Assembling the Rugelach

Preheat your oven to 350. Warm your jam in a little saucepan as it's easier to spread this way. Now mix the cinnamon sugar together and get out your walnuts (pre-chopped into fairly fine pieces) and chocolate chips. Put parchment paper on your cookie sheets because the jam will stick like a bugger if you don't and you will bitterly regret it. Regret should not be associate with Rugelach!

Roll your first wheel out until fairly thin. Spread with the jam, sprinkle generously with the cinnamon sugar (remember, there's no sugar in the dough), press some walnuts in and then your chocolate chips. Divide the dough (I find a pizza wheel works best but if you don't have one then use a knife) into 16 sections. (Roll the wheel across to divide into two, then another direction to divide it into four sections, now begin dividing those sections until you have 16). Roll each section from the outside in until you have an almost croissant shaped rugelach (see photo). *Paint the rugelach with a wash of one egg yolk mixed with a scant teaspoon of water* Pop the cookies into the oven for about 20 minutes.

Once they are lovely and dark-golden take them out and let cool a few minutes as the jam is piping hot and will burn.

Tweed Ride 2012

We had the best day yesterday! Gorgeous weather, a day with nothing to do but join some 300 other people all dressed in tweed to ride about the environs and end up drinking tea and eating cucumber and salmon sandwiches on the lawns of the castle. (We ended there as taking my kid to the pub where others ended is not likely). Finally the thousands of hours spent watching period dramas has paid off and I get to make a very civilised spectacle of myself! 

I had only vaguely looked at the route and so kept thinking "surely we turn here for the quickest way to the next stop". Took me ages to realise it was not about the destination, but about the journey. As in life. I have plans for next year involving refurbishing my 1963 CCM, buying a wool tie and tortoiseshell sunglasses. Am listening to Glenn Miller to sustain being In the Mood!

Lemon Yogurt Cake and Lemon Sorbet

It's still so chilly out: late, late spring. On the upside it means that when the lilacs do finally bloom there will be proper warming sun to bring out the scent. On the downside I'm bloody freezing and tired of wearing coats in the house to stay warm. Pretending it's summer by bringing out the lemons helps a little. We made fantastic lemon ice cream on the weekend and then Lemon Yogurt Cake. I've seen loads of recipes for Yogurt Cake but wasn't too intrigued till I saw Darina Allen's Yogurt Cake with Lemon. I've played around with it a little, taken out the lemon curd, substituted my own icing, but it's very, very nice. Really the nicest Lemon Cake I've had, and trumps the one with ground almonds as kids can take this one to a nut-free school.

The Lemon Sorbet which follows is considerably more lemony that the original recipe it's based on. If you are not as much of a lemon-freak as we are then just scale back a lemon or so.

Lemon Yogurt Cake

4 eggs
1 cup yogurt, no added pectin
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
grated peel of 3 lemons
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Beat the eggs, then add yogurt, sugar, lemon zest and vanilla. Beat well then add blended dry ingredients. Once thoroughly incorporated add the oil. Pour into a buttered and lightly sugared loaf pan and bake for just over an hour. Keep an eye on it: as always my mad oven likes to under-bake centres while burning edges. If you're baking with a 1947 General Motors stove (yes, you read that right, GM not GE), then you may need to tent it.

Once the cake is done take out and cool. While cooling make the icing. Squeeze your original 3 lemons and probably another 2 or so into a saucepan. Add 1/2 cup icing sugar and boil for half a minute. Now make holes all over your lemony cake with a fork and pour the icing in. The yogurt's made it moist the icing poured into the cake just heightens the meltiness of it. Serve just as it is. Very nice warm but really very nice the next day too. I doubt it's going to last long, but that may be my terrible greed talking.

Lemon Sorbet (or just about the most refreshing thing you've ever tasted: utterly thirst-quenching on a hot day. Which was not this weekend, but somehow we coped!)

zest of 4 -5 lemons
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 3/4 cups water
1 cup lemon juice (takes about 6 or 7 lemons)

Melt the sugar in half the water then put in the fridge for at least 4 hours. If it's not cool enough then the damn ice cream maker will refuse to cooperate and you have to start refreezing the storage unit all over again. Get the sugar water Coooooold. Add the lemon juice to the sugar water before putting it in the fridge ensures a good product as then the juice is also cool. Once it's seriously cold you take out your ice cream maker, add your lemon-sugar-syrup and the rest of the water, which - needless to say - is as cold as it can be. Put into the ice cream maker, turn on and voila (after a suitable intermission). Best darn lemon sorbet ever!

Lovely Scones

These scones are so lovely: for breakfast, afternoon tea, without sugar but a bit of cheese added in at lunch. If you don't do well with dairy you can substitute keffir as it is for some people more digestible than milk and cream. Heating it does kill all the good bacteria but still worth while as keffir seems to give a lovely rise. Remember with scones (and muffins) you don't want to overmix as it makes the product a little tough. Just blend to achieve a melty crumb.

Here's the basic scone recipe: to this you can add keffir or yogurt and milk in place of milk or cream; and/or 2 teaspoons grated orange plus 1/3 cup marmalade; 2 teaspoons ground ginger and 1/2 cup blueberries (frozen is fine); 1/2 cup raspberries; 1 mashed banana and a handful of chocolate chips (if doing banana chocolate scones reduce the milk by about a quarter cup then add back in by drops if necessary); 1/2 cup raisins and one grated lemon. We eat them a few times a month for breakfast: the chocolate banana ones are the favourites with the kids, I lean to the marmalade ones myself. Of course you want to serve them with lots of butter!

Scones

2 1/2 cups flour

4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 cup sugar

1/3 cup butter or margarine

1 1/4 cups milk or combination milk and cream or keffir or keffir and yogurt.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Blend dry ingredients and rub the butter in. If you're adding berries or chocolate chips or raisins add them to the dry. Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture. Then add the milk. Mix with a spoon till blended. If making the banana scones add the banana goop to the milk and don't forget to reduce the milk till you see the consistency of the batter.

Chocolate Bark

Chocolate Toffee Matzah might be the best Passover thing but Chocolate Bark is the best thing full stop! It is crazy easy and portable and keeps well (eat within a week: not that there's a chance of it lasting that long) and can be taken to school. Plus it is flour free.

4 ounces dark chocolate, best quality

handful of pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, dried cherries or dried apricots

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler. When it's fully melted stir in most of your dried fruit and nuts. Then pour slowly onto a piece of parchment paper laid on a cookie sheet. Scatter the remaining fruit and nuts on top. If your kids are fussy content yourself with hiding the fruit and nuts inside the chocolate (looks prettier on top but I found all the visible dried cherries picked out). Put in the fridge to harden for half an hour. Boy will this make you popular!

Chocolate Toffee Matzah

Oh, this is the best Passover thing. Makes kids adore you, crowds follow you, matzah disappear like water in the Red Sea. Plus it's terribly easy to put together, which is a bonus!

Chocolate Toffee Matzah

4 sheets matzah

1 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup chocolate chips

Slowly melt the butter and when melted introduce the brown sugar. Cook, stirring, for 2-3 minutes. When it's done put your matzahs on a cookie sheet (this must be lined with parchment or a silpat mat). Carefully pour the toffee over and pop it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes, till it bubbles. Take the matzahs out and immediately scatter the chocolate chips over the top. Leave a few minutes to melt then spread them carefully over the matzahs. Let cool and pass around.

Passover goodies!

Every year something different about Pesach strikes me as challenging (in the food arena: vanquishing my inner Pharaoh is always a climb up the Pyramids on a hot day). This year I think I've conquered sweeties, largely through the judicious use of chocolate, ice cream and quinoa - though not all at the same time! Today the kids went to school with chocolate toffee matza and came home to blueberry-raspberry quinoa muffins. For our Thai homestay's birthday tonight I think I'm feeling lazy and will mix up our Lieber's sponge cake and put some jam in the middle. In the meantime here's some quinoa muffins (they do use baking soda which, while it might contravene the spirit does not contravene the law of Pesach).

Berry Muffins for Passover

2 cups quinoa flour

2 eggs

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

3 tablespoons butter

1 medium banana, smushed up

3/4 cup yogurt

1/2 cup milk

1 cup berries

1/2 cup maple syrup

Preheat the oven to 350. Butter muffins tins and sprinkle in a pinch of sugar to each muffiny section (this keeps them from sticking). Blend the dry ingredients and add the berries to the dry. Melt the butter and then stir in the yogurt and milk (or use just over 1 cup of keffir). Add the eggs to the moist mix, then the maple syrup and the bananas and then add the moist to the dry. Stir till just blended. Bake for about 25 minutes. Let cool in the pan a little (I use silicon then invert and push gently from the bottom to encourage them to slip out). Serve with butter or margarine.