Carrot and Orange Muffins for a Sunny Day

It's been rather glorious weather here in Norwich and even when it's hot, I feel like baking. There's something so incredibly relaxing about whipping up some easy with the kitchen door flung open, the scent of the roses in the garden breezing through the house and Billie Holiday on the stereo. It makes life slow down a little (anyone else astonished that the longest day has already been and gone??). However, I never want to bake anything too difficult when it's hot; that just sucks the fun out of it and when it's hot I can't bear anything too sweet, which is why the idea of carrot and orange muffins appealed.

Muffins are a baker's dream of ease. Throw the dry ingredients in the bowl, add the wet and then you don't even have to make sure it's mixed properly as muffins are much better when the batter is lumpy. These carrot and orange muffins look and smell like a little bit of summer in a paper case. Eat warm straight from the oven and once they go cold, gently break in half and dab a little bit of butter on each half - heaven.

Carrot and Orange Muffins

Makes 12

75g butter, melted

Juice and zest of 2 oranges

1 egg

100g carrots, peeled and grated

300g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

100g caster sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Heat the oven to 190C/fan 170C/gas 5. Line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper muffin cases. Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl with a pinch of salt. Whisk together the wet ingredients with the carrots then stir this into the dry ingredients, but don't overmix.

Spoon into the paper cases and then bake for 20-25 minutes until risen and golden.

Gingerbread for Father's Day

Sadly Mrs Tarts dad lives in a care home due to being paralysed down one side of his body (consequence of a stroke), and while most fathers are difficult to buy for, it's even harder to buy for a man who wants for little in terms of material gifts. Even buying cards can be a trial, as the typical images of footballs, golf, fishing, cars, trains and all the other things that seem, strangely enough, to be associated with fatherhood are far from fitting. Anyways, I know my dad has limited storage and can buy (and has bought) most music to his taste, so long story short, I decided to bake something instead. My favourite shop bought cake when I was a child was this:

That soft, sticky cake that was always moist with a slightly liquid gooey centre combined with its warm spice was a slice of shop bought heaven to me, and whilst I never buy cake anymore, ginger cake is a food dear to my heart, and I know my dad was fond of it too. I'm also aware that my dad needs to watch his diet carefully, so I wanted a cake that either keeps well, or gets better being kept for a few days, and gingerbread, along with parkin falls into both catagories. It's also easy to eat, no fork needed.

I'm sure I own a lot of recipes for gingerbread, but the first one I found in the bookcase was the recipe from Nigella Lawson's 'How to be a Domestic Goddess', and like most of Lawson's baking recipes, it was very indulgent, with alot of treacle and golden syrup. The way to cope with this is to cut the final cake into more portions than recommended. The recipe used fresh ginger as a twist, but as I was baking this late at night after work (so I had time to ice the cake in the morning and post it off in time for saturday delivery) and I didn't have any fresh ginger in the fridge, I used some preserved stem ginger from a jar. The recipe also included lemon icing, but I wasn't really interested in that, so I made my own ginger icing by using a little of the preserving syrup from the jar of ginger and some icing sugar.

Gingerbread with Ginger icing - makes 20 squares

For the gingerbread:

150g unsalted butter

125g dark muscovado sugar

200g golden syrup

200g black treacle

2 tsp grated stem (or fresh) ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

250ml milk

2 large eggs beaten

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda, dissolved in 2 tbsp warm water

300g plain flour

For the icing-

Use a small amount of the gingery syrup from the jar of stem ginger, and enough icing sugar to make a thick but still drizz-able icing.

Preheat the oven to 170 degree and grease and line a brownie pan at least 5cm deep (or a cake tin if you want wedges)

In a saucepan, melt the butter and add the sugar, golden syrup, treacle, grated ginger and cinnamon. Take off the heat and then add the milk, beaten eggs and bicarbonate of soda in its water.

Place the flour in a bowl and pour in the the liquid from the saucepan. Beat well with a whisk until well mixed. The batter is very liquid, but don't be alarmed.

Carefully pour into the tin and bake from 45min-1 hour, but keep an eye on it towards the end so you don't overcook it, otherwise you'll lose the stickiness, and keep in mind it will carry on cooking as it cools.

For the icing mix a little of the syrup with icing sugar until you have a thickish but drizzly icing and either using a spoon or a piping bag, drizzle over the top of the cake. Leave to set and then slice.


I kept a slice to try it and it was amazingly yummy. Sweet, spicy and very comforting.

As it turned out, my dad thought he shouldn't have all of it, and I can understand why, it is very sweet, so he had the cook cut it up into 31 portions and he shared it with all of elderly people in the care home and it went down a treat apparently. So I'm pleased it brought a little bit of happy to a lot of people. 31 is the most people I've baked for!

Lime Bars

I think I've restrained my need to bake for too long as this week has been a flurry of baking activity, especially considering I haven't baked anything notable for months. Indeed I don't think I've baked more than twice in one week since Christmas. My living room is once again littered with many of my recipe books, which last year was a permanent fixture; a soothing sight for eyes that feel sore from looking at food labels, calorie counts and woefully staring down at a glass of protein shake.

Anyways, for reasons unknown, I had several limes stuck in the back of one of the vegetable drawers of the fridge so I decided to make lime bars. This is a buttery, melting biscuit base, not unlike shortbread, topped with a squidgy, but set, sharp and citrus-y curd. If you search for 'lime bars', you're likely to get recipes for key lime pie, and even then they'll be in american measures. I've always found it curious that for a nation of limeys, the lime seems to be largely the culinary property of the U.S, at least when it comes to cakes etc. Anyways, the point of this is, I just found a recipe for lemon bars from The Humming Bird Bakery Cookbook and switched the lemon for lime.

Lime Bars

For the base:

290g plain flour

70g icing sugar

pinch of salt

230g unsalted butter

2 tsp grated lime (or lemon) zest

For the lemon/lime curd top:

210g caster sugar

3 eggs

100ml lime/lemon juice

3 tsp grated lime/lemon zest

Preheat the over and line a brownie pan (that's at least 5 cm deep) with greaseproof paper

To make the base-

Put the all of the ingredients for the base in a processor/mixer (or do it the old fashioned way if you skipped the gym in the morning) and mix until it resembles breadcrumbs. Press the dough together in your hands and then press into the lined tin. (If you're lucky the unpressed mix will have a random cat head shape, such as below)

Once pressed, you'll have this:

Bake the base for 20 minutes or so until lightly golden and then remove from the oven (leave the oven on) and allow to cool slightly.

Put all of the ingredients in a bowl and mix well with a balloon whisk. Pour this mix over the biscuit base and then (carefully) return to the oven for another 20 minutes, until the topping has set.

Once baked, remove, allow to cool in the tin and then place in the fridge overnight so it sets completely (will make slicing easier). Dust with icing sugar if the whim takes you.

I haven't baked this for me, but I couldn't send an untested pan of zesty yum to any of my acquaintances in good conscience, which is why an end of this is missing.

Quality control approved.

I forgot to tap the pan on the countertop before I put it in the oven, which is why I think there are bubble marks on the surface. Still doesn't distract from the taste and nothing that a little icing sugar won't distract from.

Monday 'Morning' Baking

I use the term 'morning' loosely as I didn't wake up until 1pm. Sometimes you really have to love working part time; ok you're poor, no one will give you a credit card and weekends are largely meaningless, but I love being woken at 8am by my neighbours' doors slamming and cars starting up, just to roll over an go to sleep for another 5 hours.

And if you don't have to spend your monday morning tapping mindlessly away on a computer for your £18K-£20k a year, what better way to spend it than lazily baking some granola?

I've recently been given Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights (thank you, H) and it has swiftly and gracefully moved to the top spot on my list of favourite cookbooks. Usually when I receive a cookbook, I flick straight through to the cakes and desserts and go through the rest later, but this drew me in immediately. I even bothered to read the narrative between the recipes, virtually unheard of for me. It is a wonderful book, beautifully written and I've already cooked 5 recipes out of it, two of which are below. The premise is one of healthy food that isn't immediately obvious as healthy/diet like, which couldn't have come at a more perfect time for myself as my commitment to my diet and it's rather bland offering in terms of foods has waned dramatically. I must say that I've been following the recipes for a week or so and have already lost 2lbs. Anyway, enough of singing my praises for this book.

Granola

I love granola. I'm not overly fond of cereal, mainly because I hate cereal that's even vaguely soggy and I don't particularly enjoy bolting down a bowl of cornflakes in 30 seconds flat because after that it's too soft for my taste. For the same reason, I don't enjoy granola with milk, but crunchy, sweet granola with a bowl of sharp, creamy greek yoghurt is an edible pleasure rarely matched.

In comparison to other granolas I've made, the ingredient list is relatively short, which is no bad thing. As it baked the house was, as promised in the recipe, filled with the homely scent of cinnamon and nutmeg and when I stuck my face into the bowl, if I hadn't known better I'd be certain I was mixing up christmas pudding.

Tawny Granola

Makes enough to nearly fill a large airtight jar (or serves 4-6 people)

You'll need:

Oil for greasing
200g rolled oats
70g pumpkin seeds
50g flaked almonds
50g dessicated coconut
2 tsp vanilla extract
160g agave syrup/honey
2 tbsp apple juice
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground allspice
pinch freshly grated nutmeg
100g dried apricots, chopped

-Preheat the oven to 180C and lightly oil a large baking tray/cookie sheet

-In one bowl combine all of the dry ingredients (except the apricots) and the spices and in another the wet ingredients, then mix the wet into the dry.
Spread the mixture out on the baking sheet and use a spatula to smooth it down. Bake for around 40 minutes, turning the mix over halfway through cooking, until golden brown.

When baked, allow to cool and then mix in the chopped apricots and store in an airtight container.

By the time this was baked I'd already eaten breakfast (also a recipe from the book- portobello mushroom with a slice of goat's cheese and a poached egg on top) so I can't wait until tomorrow morning.

Edit: Here's the finished granola in all it's morning glory:

Garden Update

I hadn't been out in the garden much over the past week but to my surprise and delight when I went to go and tend to it yesterday this was waiting for me:

Yes, after much waiting the aptly named 'Gardener's Delight' cherry tomatoes are finally beginning to ripen. Perhaps it's a bit sad, but it was cause for much excitement. Although not ripe by a long way yet, the mystery tomato plants donated to me by a friend at work are a mystery no longer, betrayed by their rounded bell shape, they are apparently plum tomatoes. Lucky, as this means that I have a lovely mix of salad and cooking tomatoes. I can't wait to make a rich ragu with chunks of beef and vine ripened tomatoes picked just minutes before they're in the pot.

The beetroot tops are so colourful that despite the fact that they're a lovely salad leaf, I can't bear to cut even a few off.

The beetroot and radish are next to each other but unfortunately the radish tops (below) became a nursery to hundreds, and I mean hundreds of cabbage white caterpillars. Being the soft hearted type I left most of them to it.

It's no great loss. The humble radish isn't one of my favourites, and at any rate the caterpillars have restricted themselves to the tops, leaving the lurid purple roots untouched. This picture really doesn't do justice to the colour of these radishes. It nicely illustrates another reason to grow your own veg, ie. you can grow stuff that a supermarket would never stock.

Finally, I managed to find a slightly better picture of the wedding cake I made before we packed it up. Still can't quite believe I made that.

Wedding Cake!

It took two weeks, 1.5 kilos of flour and sugar, 3 kilos of butter 5 kilos of icing sugar and 8 kilos sugar paste but this was the finished wedding cake I made for my friend's wedding which was last Saturday. Myself and Mr. Tarts carried it down Norwich to Maidenhead in what I can only describe as the most tense train journey I have even been on, but it got there in one piece, with both of us slightly worse for wear. Unfortunately we had to leave to catch the train back before either of us got to taste it which was slightly disappointing, but I've been promised some slices by the bride.

I'm rather pleased with myself, having never made anything like it. I even learnt how to make the sugar roses which are on the top.

Now that it's completed, I'm not quite sure how to fill my days now.

Want to lose weight and eat healthily? Then grow your own vegetable garden!

Our garden has recently undergone a radical transformation. When we bought the house it had a small patch of well tended lawn and rose bushes in its borders and it was therefore doomed from the start. In the six years the Tarts have been together we have killed no less than 3 lawns. We're unwilling killers, but it always happens. We like how it looks but we've no interest in paying it any attention. I like to think that this stems from a buried need for substance over aesthetics. Sometimes its more than neglect, its manslaughter, as in the case of lawn victim #3. We went about clearing out the brick outhouse (its a Victorian terrace so there is a room stuck on to the kitchen which is only accessible by going outdoors. It still has a drain hole where a toilet would once have been) which had been filled with not only our castoffs but the previous owners too. We did this in the winter, moving all the rubbish from the outhouse into the garden, piling it on the lawn, intending to get a skip within days to put all this stuff in. But the months dragged on and it wasn't until last month when we finally cleared it all, filling a builder's sized skip to the brim. Alas, the lawn that had been underneath it was dead, leaving just rock hard mud in its place. Neither of us had any shred of enthusiasm for buying and laying new turf. So instead, we decided to bring life and hope where there had once only been doom and despair, by growing vegetables!

I remember my dad growing fruit and veg in a small patch in the back garden. My earliest memory is of a bed of strawberries, which then changed to strawberries, beetroot and carrots and I remember my mum boiling up the beetroot to eat in salads, something which I now view as a criminal way to treat beetroot. Beetroot is at its absolute loveliest when gently roasted for an hour or so with a little bit of water, balsamic vinegar and salt. It should then be eaten warm with soft melting goats cheese and a little more balsamic vinegar. Boiling and pickling beetroot is equivalent to the treatment of my lawn, neglectful and uncaring. The final years that I remember my dad growing anything there were tomatoes in grow bags and endless amounts of runner beans. All summer there were runner beans to not only be eaten, but topped, tailed, stringed and sliced until my fingers were white, wrinkled and sore, before they were duly boiled to a soft mush to suit the tastes of the majority of my family. The only joy I ever really had in runner beans was observing the change from bright red flower to tiny crescent bean and finally to its fully formed state. That and eating the actual seed part of the bean raw, first admiring its mottled burgundy and cream skin and then its smooth sweet flavour (the only perk of being head bean preparer). Our garden will be different.

It took us over a week to dig up the remaining turf, break up the hard compacted soil and most labour intensive of all, sieve out the many, many, many stones in the top soil with riddles. Whilst it sounds a chore, we actually found it quite therapeutic and enjoyable, to sit in the garden sifting out the stones, watching the pile of soft, fine earth pile up over our feet and then finally levelling it out. If you stepped on this soft soil you sank about a foot deep into it. The sense of satisfaction when it was done was lovely, but we felt a little redundant the next day as we had no more sieving to do.

I'd been growing some tomato plants from a pack of seeds I got free with a Good Food magazine and they were thriving but crowded in their pots, so they were the first to be planted into our newly prepared soil. So now there are 18 tomato plants flourishing, tied to large sticks I cut from the trees at the back of the garden. Four of the plants have just flowered, and it is all very exciting.

Even more laden with excitement are the seeds I sowed just under a week ago. Three rows of carrots, 3 rows of beetroot, 2 rows of purple radish and two rows of romaine lettuce. According to the seed packets, the carrots take 3 weeks to show a seedling and all the others take a week. So we were astonished to see seedling from all of them already. The radish are the fastest with their rows clearly visible. The beetroot are second behind them, with dark magenta stems now protruding, some with dark purple veined leaves. The lettuces are third with small seedlings ow becoming visible and as expected, carrots are last with what appears to be a few overly enthusiastic seeds already germinating. Every morning we now have to go out and check on the progress of them.

Whilst talking to a guy at work I remarked about my recent labours in passing and found out that he too grows his own veg, a lot of it, and he very kindly donated to me a bit of his surplus. Two tomato plants and a courgette and aubergine plant. Sadly the snails got to the aubergine before it even reached the soil and died, but the other three are planted and doing well. The previous owners also left us some strawberry plants in a blue plastic storage tub which I've now transplanted into the hanging baskets they also left to us. Both are far more useful than the broken lawn mower, broken lamp, rusting mountain bike and giant dog house they also bequeathed to us.

Unfortunately we've come to this late in the growing season, so despite having some leek seeds, I would be able to sow them until next spring. Just more to look forward to really.

Anyway, here's a couple of photos from the garden after we'd just completed it. When the seedling are a bit more visible, I'll post some more.

PS. In other news I have officially been asked by my friend to make her wedding cake. 75 guests, 3 tiers, 3 different cakes and only 3 weeks to make it in. Now there's blogging material.