Shrove Tuesday treats

A day for indulgence before the abstinence of Lent or simply an excuse to eat more than your fair share of pancakes!

And much as we love topping a classic crepe with lemon and sugar, we like to ring the changes too.

Here we have some fluffy American style pancakes, cooked on a griddle plate and served with blueberries and yogurt to make us feel virtuous and maple syrup to undo the "good work". 😇  These are great for breakfast, ideally on a lazy weekend, but can also be enjoyed cold throughout the day, perhaps with a sliced banana or a smear of apricot jam?

The chestnut crepes are a delicious dessert; impressive but so simple to make.

For the American style pancakes:

Makes about 16 pancakes

120g self raising flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

2 eggs

50g melted butter

120ml buttermilk or milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

25g sugar

For the topping:

200g blueberries

20ml water

Sugar to taste

Start by simmering the blueberries with the water and enough sugar to suit your palate.  Cook until soft, with a slightly syrupy consistency.  Set aside.

Mix the flour, baking powder and sugar together in a large mixing bowl.

Combine the eggs, buttermilk (or milk), melted butter and vanilla extract and pur into the centre of the flour.

Whisk together to form a smooth, thick batter.

Place a lightly greased griddle plate or a frying pan over a medium heat - do not have the heat too high or you will burn the outside of the pancakes, leaving the insides raw and runny.

Drop one tablespoon of batter at a time onto the hot pan, until you have filled all the available space.  When bubbles rise to the surface and the underside is golden, carefully flip each pancake over and cook the other side.

REmove each cooked pancake to a cooling rack and keep covered with a clean tea towel until you have used up all the batter.

Stack the pancakes as high as you dare on a serving plate - we particularly like this one from Sytch Farm Studios  and crown with a waterfall of blueberry compote.  Serve with ice cream, whipped cream or Greek yogurt and a generous drizzle of maple syrup.

Chestnut pancakes

To fill four pancakes - make your own favourite recipe or pick up a pack of ready made crepes, we won't tell!

Mix together

100g chestnut purée

2 dessertspoons icing sugar

2 teaspoons cocoa

1 dessertspoon double cream

Add a dash of brandy if you are feeling fancy.

Divide the mixture evenly between the four pancakes and roll them up.

Tuck them neatly into a 2lb loaf tin or equivalent and cover with foil.

Heat in a moderate oven for 15 - 20 minutes.

Serve hot, either as they are or drizzled with melted dark chocolate.

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2021 ©

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Citrus and syrup soaked sponge

 A festive treat, aglow with citrus.  This is a light sponge, with oil and yogurt,rather than butter, gluten free and dripping with boozy, zesty orange syrup.

60g Greek yogurt
60ml rapeseed or sunflower oil
2 eggs, separated and whites whisked to stiff peaks

2 oranges, zest grated and juice, errr juiced!

120g sugar

60g ground almonds

60g rice flour

2 tblsp sugar

2 tblsp rum/Cointreau, liqueur of choice (optional)

Heat the oven to 180ºC

Grease a 9" savarin ring or an 8½" cake tin

Put the oil, yogurt, egg yolks, orange zest and 120g sugar in a mixing bowl and whisk together.

Fold in the flour and almonds, followed by the whisked egg whites.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 20 - 25 minutes, until golden and firm to the touch.

While the cake is baking, put the sugar into a saucepan and warm gently until golden brown. Carefully add the orange juice and keep stirring until the sugar has dissolved into the juice to form a thick syrup. Remove from the heat and add the booze.

Pour the syrup over the warm sponge and allow it to cool in the tin.

Carefully turn it out and serve with creme fraiche, clotted cream or ricotta, stirred through with candied peel.

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2020 ©

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

A corned beef pie

 Years ago I worked with a guy whose favourite sandwich was corned beef and pickled beetroot.  A dangerous choice when he wore a white shirt and fancy tie to work every day, but never once did I see him spill a drop of the purple juice.

And although I have no love of cold corned beef, the combination has stuck in my head and I have tried to recreate the flavours in a pie, where, to my mind, heat does such great favours to corned beef.

These quantities are for a 12" pie dish, which is a lot of pie - scale down if you are not feeding a crowd!

Shortcrust pastry made with 450g flour and 225g butter.
Chill in the fridge while you make the filling.

Heat the oven to 200ºC

Grease a 12" pie dish 

1 onion, finely chopped
400g cooked potato, cubed

150g cooked beetroot, cubed (add more if you like and reduce the volume of potato)

2 pickled gherkins, finely chopped

600g corned beef, cubed

Mix all of the filling ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.

Roll out half of the pastry to fit the base of the pie dish, then pile the filling on top.

Roll out the rest of the pastry and use to cover the filling, crimping the edges to seal.

Brush generously with beaten egg yolk for a glossy, golden finish.

Pop it in the hot oven and bake for 40 minutes.

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2020 ©

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

A pear cake for Autumn

 Pears, a most perplexing and petulant fruit; one day they are hard enough to knock someone out at 100 paces, the next they are the fruit equivalent of a tumbling toddler - soft, squidgy, bruised and in need of immediate attention.

And so it was that the 2 pears that had been ripening gradually in our fruit bowl, suddenly accelerated towards fruit fly Heaven and were caught at the very last moment.

Too soft for poaching in red wine or lemon and cinnamon scented sryrup, too little space in the freezer for a granita, so they headed into a cake.  And, quite frankly, I think this is the best cake of 2020, so far.

120g butter

120g soft brown sugar

90g marmalade - I uised home made, but if you don't have homemade, try to use one that is not overly sweet.

2 eggs

120g self raising flour

4 tsp of ground ginger (more or less to taste)

2 large ripe pears, cored and chopped (no need to peel, although you can if you wish.  Mine were beyond the point at which peeling was an option)

Heat the oven to 170ºC and grease a 1lb loaf tin

Beat together the butter, sugar and marmalade until very light, then add the eggs and beat again, as hard as you like.

Fold in the flour and ginger and finally, the chopped pears.

Spoon the mix into the loaf tin and bake for around 40 minutes, until a skewer poked into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

If the top of the cake is browning too quickly, cover with a piece of foil, baking parchment or a discarded butter wrapper.

Leave aside until the tin is cool enough to handle without an oven glove and then turn the cake out onto a cooling rack.

When cool, dust with icing sugar and tuck in.

Whilst nice on its own, I reckon this would also make a good dessert with ice cream, whipped cream or yogurt.

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2020 ©

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Blueberry, lime and coconut cake

Something sweet, but not too sweet, and simple for an afternoon tea or dolloped with a little creme fraiche for dessert.
There is nothing complicated about this cake, just a variation on a classic sponge mix, combining some of our favourite flavours and using a bargain punnet of blueberries from the reduced section in the supermarket.

120g butter
60g sugar
2 eggs
60g coconut flour
100g plain yogurt
100g self raising flour
grated zest and juice of a lime
170g blueberries
2 tsp sugar

Heat the oven to 170ºC and grease an 8½" cake tin

Beat the butter and sugar until soft and pale in colour, then whip in the yogury, mixing until it is all well combined.  Mix in the coconut flour and the lime zest.
Add the eggs and beat well.
Fold in the flour and 100g of blueberries and spoon the batter into the prepared cake tin.
Bake for 25 minutes until it passes the skewer test.

Meanwhile place the remaining blueberries into a small saucepan (a copper saucepan is not esssential, but it is deal for this) with approx 20ml wateer nad the sugar.  Heat gently until the blueberries soften and start to bleed juice into the water and the sugar dissolves.  REmove from theh eat ad add the lime juice.
Taste, you want these to be on the sour side to contrast with the sweet cake.
Take the cooked cake out of the oven and spoon over the cooked blueberries with all the juice.
Leave the cake to cool and absorb all of the juice before carefully turning out on to a serving plate.
Serve with a cup of tea or a glass of fizz.

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2020 ©

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Apricot custard flan

Who remembers holidays, travel, being elsewhere, being carefree?
Whilst we are returning to some kind of normal, some of the things we used to take for granted are not going to be back on the agenda for a while.
And whilst we DID take our holiday travels for granted, we do acknowledge that this is a privilege and one that not everyone shares.

One of my most potent memories is of a hotel in Saas-Fé in Switzerland, sadly no longer family owned, where we enjoyed fresh apricot jam for breakfast each morning.  Small batches were made on an almost daily basis, and wherever we roamed in the region there were roadside stalls selling punnets of sunset coloured fruit.
Apricots are one of our favourite fruits, but they need a bit of coaxing to bring out their best, a bit of heat and they sing, when they are so often a woolly, dry disappointment eaten raw.

Memories were evoked and imagination stirred when I picked up a couple of punnets from our local farm shop and this custard flan was demolished in a flash.

20 apricots (plums would work well too)
2 lavender heads (optional)
Sugar to taste (we used 40g)

1 egg
60g butter
60g sugar
60g self raising flour

30g cornflour
45g sugar
350ml full fat milk
50 ml double cream
2 egg yolks

Start by cooking the apricots; halve and stone them and put them in a single layer, if possible,in an ovenproof dish (I used a prospector pan). Sprinkle over the sugar and finely chopped lavender heads.  Bake in a moderate oven, around 180ºC for about 20 minutes, until soft, but still just about holding their shape - think tipsy, but still able to stand :-)

Once they are in the oven, make the cake base.  Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then incorporate the egg and beat again.  Fold in the flour and spread the mix into a cake tin (Our cake tin has a diameter of 8½" or 22cm).  Pop into the oven with the apricots nad cook for 15 minutes.

Now tackle the custard layer.
Place most of the milk and the cream into a saucepan, extravanagant, I know, but our copper pans are wonderful for custard making and heat gently to just boiling.
Mix the cornflour and sugar t a paste with the rest of the milk.  Pour the hot milk over the cornflour slurry and mix thoroughly.  Returnto the pan and cook until the sauce is nice and thick. Lower the heat and add the beaten egg yolks, stirring vigourously.
Remove from the heat and transfer the custard to a jug or bowl to cool.
Spread the cooled custard over the sponge base - it should be thick enough to uphold the fruit - the ncarefully arrange the apricot halves over the top.
Chill for a couple of hours, but remove from the fridge about half an hour before serving.

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2020 ©

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Toffee and dried fruit custard tart

Baking in lockdown has been a challenge and a balm; ingredients have not always been readily available, but the joy of immersing oneself in the tactile joy of making pastry, the olfactory bliss of toffee and the sheer concentration in note taking, blocking out interference in the brain from the clamour of coronavirus news is unrivalled.
It has also been a time for seeing what we have in the cupboard and working out ways to use up stored ingredients.
This is an elaboration, a variation, dare I say, an improvement of a recipe my mother used to make when I was a child.  It is, without a shadow of a doubt, an indulgence, but it is easy to make and right now, we all deserve a treat.

Pastry
150g plain flour
60g cold butter, cubed
Cold water

Filling
30g butter
120g brown sugar
2 eggs
200ml double cream
120g dried fruit*

Preheat the oven to 175ºC

Make the pastry; rub the butter into the flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Bind together with just enough water to make a stiff dough.
Roll out on a floured board to fit either a 10" prospector pan, which is all I had to hand in lockdown, or a 10" pie dish, I should be getting one of these back in the Netherton kitchen any day now.  
Place in the fridge while you make the filling.


* I keep a jam jar full of dried fruit; raisins, currants, sultanas, dried citrus peel, soaking in sherry in the cupboard and used some of these for this dish, but booze free fruit is quite acceptable.

Put the butter into a saucepan (our copper pans are perfect for this) or a milk pan and melt over a gentle heat.  Stir in the brown sugar and the fruit.  Beat the eggs and cream together and add to the fruit mix.  Pour all of this into the pastry case and pop it into the oven.
Cook for 30 minutes until the filling has just set - a little wibble is a good thing, it will firm up as it cools.

Cool and serve in small slices; it is pretty rich and you can easily get 8-10 slices from this size of pie.

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2020 ©

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk