Blackberries

It's feeling distincly autumnal here at the moment and there's no complaints from me. I wasn't awake to experience it but apparently last night we had a storm of biblical proportions that caused some flooding in places. Hooray for living at the top of a hill! For me, one of the best things about autumn, aside from cooler weather, is blackberries which I love, and as my sister and me discovered last week, less than a 1 minute walk from my house is a huge patch of brambles! We picked 3 plastic tubs worth of beautiful berries, some big and small, some sweet, some sour, but all delicious and completely free!

For a Sunday teatime treat I made blackberry and coconut squares which were super easy to make and absolutely delicious. The base becomes a soft, moist cake, topped with juicy blackberries and a lovely crunchy top plus you only need one bowl to make it, which for me is a great pleasure as I don't own a dishwasher. They seem to keep pretty well too.

Blackberry and Coconut Squares

250g self-raising flour
25g oats
280g soft brown sugar
200g cold butter , cut into pieces
75g desiccated coconut
2 medium eggs, beaten
350g frozen or fresh blackberries

-Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Tip the flour, oats and sugar into a large bowl. Rub the butter into the flour mixture using your fingertips until only small pea-size pieces remain. Stir through the coconut, then fill a teacup with the mixture and set this aside.

-Stir the eggs into the bowl of mixture, then spread over the bottom of a lined baking tin (31 x 17cm), or a 21cm square tin. Smooth the surface with the back of a spoon, then scatter over the blackberries. Scatter over the reserved teacup mixture and bake for 1 hr-1 hr 15 mins until golden and cooked through (if you poke a skewer in, it should come out with moist crumbs but no wet mixture). Leave to cool, then remove from the tin and cut into squares.

You could probably throw in some diced apple for a twist and raspberries would make a more summey version. And for all of those among you who have an irrational hatred of coconut...

Shame on you.

TSR Bakers August Bake - Chocolate Chip Pretzel Cookie Bars

This is a little bit late, but you'll have to forgive me as I was working all weekend (boo to working weekends!) and it takes me a good two days to recover from it. Yes, I hate my job that much. Anyway, this month's bake was Chocolate Chip Pretzel Cookie Bars as chosen by The White Cat Baker. I love pretzels, both the crunchy kind and the soft doughy kind, but had never thought of baking with the former, but these are a lovely treat indeed. Whilst still warm from the oven, they are almost cake like, soft and slightly crunchy and chewy roun the edges. Once cold and after spending a day stored in a cake tin, they are denser, chewier and more like a square inch thick cookie, with the chopped up pretzels within having more the texture of shortbread biscuit. Truly lovely.

Recipe can be found here.


I couldn't find good quality chocolate chips or mini pretzels (that didn't have sour cream and chive flavouring on them) so I substituted them with these lovely chocolate buttons I found in a deli and giant pretzels and they worked just fine too. Still, would be nice to get my hands on some good quality chocolate chips, so if anyone has any recommendations, I'd love to hear them. And I've no idea what all this bittersweet/semisweet stuff is all about, so I used the dark chocolate buttons for the majority and a handful or so of the milk and that seemed to give the right balance.

Right, back to applying for jobs. Meh.

Baking instead of applying for jobs

I hate going through the rigmarole of applying for graduate jobs. Bloody baby boomers had it easy and now they're intent on making their children's generation as difficult and miserable as possible. So what better way to make yourself feel that you're doing something productive whilst simultaneously putting off what you should actually be doing than a spot of baking?

Case in point- Snowy Mountain Cupcakes, which are chocolate sour cream cake topped with pillowy, silky marshmallowy icing.

These are from Cupcakes! By Elinor Klivans which is a book I've had for ages but I've yet to bake from, until today. It's an american book so everything is measured in cups and sticks which is probably why the cake didn't turn out quite how I expected (I don't trust cups and sticks of things, I need grams!!), the cakes sunk quite dramatically once out of the oven. Fortunately I had a lot of batter left over, so I put some more in the oven this time filling the paper cases to the very top and baking them for more than the 20 minutes recommended. It didn't matter too much, as icing hides all sins and they do look quite heavenly.

I'll share the recipe later as it's quite lengthy (and lengthy, complex recipes are the best when you're putting off something you dread doing). In the meantime, make like myself and drift away from the worries of the world by gazing at the silken points of the icing on these cakes.

Sunday Brunch in the garden with Jack

Ahh Sunday morning, get up, do nothing for 3 hours then decide you're hungry and in the mood for pancakes. Leisurely whip up pancakes-drench in maple syrup, caramelise some apple slices to go with the pancakes, boil up a pot of a coffee and then transport yourself into the sunshine in the garden to be joined by Jack.

Jack

Jack is a cat we've been semi-looking after for a while now. We noticed him hanging around more in the autumn last year. He looked in a bit of a sorry state as his long fur was quite matted and he was rather thin, but he seemed bright and friendly enough. We tried to give him some of the food that our own cat eats but no matter what it was he didn't seem interested. We kept an eye on him, we weren't, and still aren't sure if he belongs to anyone. We called the RSPCA to ask for advice who told us there wasn't any room for him at the local shelter where we adopted our cat (Poppy) so they couldn't help us, but if he appeared and we could keep him in we could call out a collection officer and if one was available they could come out. Unfortunately by this time Jack was only appearing in the small hours of the morning, so frustrated by the RSPCA we've tried to look after him. We took him to a vet that didn't need an appointment and got most of his matted fur shaved off and got him checked over. The vet wasn't able to give any medication/vaccination as we had stated that he wasn't our cat, merely a stray we were concerned about. Anyway, that's roughly Jack's story. Some days he'll turn up serveral times and some days we won't see him at all. I worry that he's either a stray that's just about coping with being semi-feral, or if he's some old person's cat who can't look after him properly, or worse he's just neglected. He's decided he likes Go-Cat so that's what he's fed on mainly, and he now lets himself in at 4/5am through the catflap to help himself. We can't get him to stay of his own accord so I think we're going to have to keep him in a room until he realises that he can live here. Our own cat Poppy is an anti-social little bugger and hisses at him if he gets too close, but she's learning to accept him and we love him to bits. I just pray I'm not robbing someone of their pet, but if I am they should take better care of him.

Jack's sad story aside, if you would like to make your own American style pancakes and eat them lazily with a fork in a sunny garden or in front of a window, then here's the recipe:

225g plain flour

1 tbsp baking powder

pinch of salt

1 tsp sugar

2 large eggs, beaten

30g butter, melted and cooled (I leave this out when I can't be bothered with it)

250-300ml milk

butter, for frying

Put all the dry ingredients into a bowl, mix the wet ingredients in a separate bowl and then combine the two with a whisk.

Drop ladlefuls into a hot, buttery frying pan, turn and when golden brown and serve with whatever you want.

A short post about the veg plot

Down at the bottom of the garden, among the birds and the bees...

...there's a lot of dried out peas, because the silly temperatures whilst we were away killed them! Nevermind, I shall save them for seeds for next year.

The garden did go a bit bananas whilst we were on holiday and I'm sure it was twice the size when we came back. I love growing my own veg, not because I revel in escaping into my 'Good Life' life, although that is part of it, more I find growing veg wonderfully aesthetically pleasing. A lawn is so boring by comparison. We pulled up a few of the carrots, a turnip and picked a courgette which I gently cooked in some butter for a couple of minutes. Beautifully sweet and tender, it tasted like summer on a plate.

Anyway, the garden was so beautiful in the afternoon sunshine I had to take some photos and share them. I'm mulling over the idea of doing some baking today. I really shouldn't because I'm trying to lose weight, but I've got some gooseberries in the fridge that really are crying out to be baked.

Scarlet flowers on the runner beans

The veg plot in all its glory.

Courgette flowers curled up in the shade of their own leaves.

Back to the grind

Well, we're back after 6.5 glorious days holidaying on the Isle of Man; spent too much, ate too much, drank too much and just generally had a wonderful time relaxing and enjoying the Island. Enjoyed some very expensive and very lovely wine with Mr. Tarts' mother and ate some very wonderful meals. I don't photograph meals in restaurants as I think that's a bit bum to say the least, so you'll just have to take my word for it. This year's Manx restaurant winner for me was easily The Highlander Steakhouse in Greeba, probably the best steak I've ever had in a restaurant, with smokey BBQ ribs for a starter that could be eaten with a knife and fork as the meat just fell off the bones, and all rounded off with a wonderful sticky toffee pudding.

After a bit of hunting, we managed to track down the very popular manx Loaghtan (pronounced loch-tonne) lamb at Radcliffe Butchers in Castletown, and bought half a fillet so that we could sample it. I slow roasted it for about 3/4 hours, necessary as loaghtan is very lean, with some rosemary. We ate it with some crusty bread and it was incredibly tasty. It's very strong tasting, verging on gamey and was a delight. As soon as my bank balance recovers I intend to order a whole leg to roast and have a proper feast on this breed of lamb that nearly became extinct. Radcliffe butchers also stock an amazing range of their own handmade sausages in interesting flavours of which we tried three: cheese and oregano, honey and wholegrain mustard and apple and smoked bacon, all very delicious. Word to the wise, the sausages were HUGE, and you only need one. We were greedy and ate two each and felt like pigs after. I really wish I'd taken a pic of the butcher's window.

A field of Loaghtans at Cregneash

A Loaghtan giving me the ol' evil eye

A pair of very cute Loaghtan lambs in Cregneash.

As usual, we've come back with a hoard of things, which this year includes a selection of paintings/framed maps/engravings, 2 fridge magnets, 1 ashtray, a large bundt tin, a pretty pie dish, 2 mugs, a bag of manx soda bread flour, manx rapeseed oil, a vintage jelly mould, a jar of quince and rosemary jelly and yes, a cuddly toy. A Brucey Bonus is yours if you can guess which animal said cuddly toy is of. Please send your entries to the comments section.

Other than that, there was a lot of taking in lovely sights, driving around the island and enjoying the divine Davisons ice cream in Peel harbour (below).

Other assorted holiday pics:

Greedy donkeys at the island's Home of Rest for Old Horses

The view out of the cafe at Niarbyl

Dramatic scenery down at the Sound.

And finally a pic of Cregneash, a beautful little hamlet that's lost in time, really.

Of course the worst part of a lovely holiday is returning from it. Patience is key, as eventually Mr Tarts and myself will be buying a one way ticket.

Away for a week

Off on holiday for a few days, back to Mr. Tart's homeland, where the cat's have no need for tails and the drivers have no need of a speed limit.

Well, there's ongoing debate about the latter. But the former is a sure thing.

Exhibit A-
The Isle of Man is becoming a bit of a food lover's paradise. For one thing, for all food produced on the island, it is illegal to add anything artificial to it. The island is also famous for Queenies- small scallops local to the sea around the island, prized for their sweet flavour and Loaghtan (meaning Brown Mr. Tart's has just informed me) lamb, which is naturally very lean and delicious, even if the breed does look like the devil incarnate.

They scare the bejeezus out of me...

Anyway, back in a few days, and I shall share all adventures had on the island and the tale of the double cherry semifreddo that's currently setting in my freezer.