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

Chocolate and fig cake

As I have said before, figs are the Marmite of the fruit world; people either love them or hate them.  We fall in to the love camp, the two haters here being the junior Nethertons, now enjoying (semi) independent lives in fig free environments.
Never immune to a bargain, I bought a stash of figs when they were on offer at less than 10p each in our local Tesco earlier this week.
Two dozen of the purple beauties were gently poached in a syrup flavoured with orange sugar. 
Some were eaten for breakfast with yogurt, a couple were eaten with rye bread and blue cheese and eight of them have been added to a chocolate and rosemary cake.

Start by gently poaching eight figs in a little water, with a couple of teaspoons of honey or sugar.

Pre-heat the oven to 180ºC

Grease a 9" savarin ring.  You could make this in a cake tin, but you may need to use your skill and judgement to adjust the cooking time.

70g 60% dark chocolate

60ml olive oil

60g natural yogurt ( I used Greek)

120g sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp finely chopped fresh rosemary

120g self raising flour

Melt the chocolate, either in a microwave (sorry, absolutely no idea, we haven't got one!) or in a bowl over hot, not boiling water.

Whisk together the oil, yogurt, sugar and eggs.  Add the melted chocolate and rosemary and mix thoroughly. Stir in the flour and pour the mixture into the prepared tin.

Arrange the figs evenly around the cake and place in the oven.

Cook for approximately 35 minutes until it passes the skewer test.

Leave to stand for 10 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack.  Place a plate under the rack to catch any dripping fig juices.

Whilst still warm (but not hot), invert on to a serving plate, decorate with rosemary sprigs and serve with cream of yogurt.

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2019 ©

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

An update on school dinners

Not all of you will be as old as us and may not recall the sort of school dinners dished up in our youth. Lots of mince, lumpy mashed potato and for "afters" luke warm custard, made with custard powder and hot water.
Among our memories of these horrors are 2 pineapple dishes - the first is pineapple rice pudding, the juice from the tinned pineapple doing unnerving things to the milk of the rice pudding. An altogether more appetising version of this can be found on our blog: http://netherton-foundry.blogspot.co.uk/…/pondering-pineapp…

The other is pineapple upside down cake; stodgy sponge, topped with tinned pineapple rings and glacé cherries smothered in the aforementioned luminous yellow custard.
I hope you find the following recipe altogether more appetising.

Caramel sauce
50g butter
100g sugar
100ml double cream
Grated zest of an orange

Put the butter into a saucepan and place over a low heat. As soon as the butter has melted, add the sugar and continue cooking until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture has turned a deep golden brown. Add the orange zest and cream - be careful, the mixture will bubble up alarmingly - stir vigorously until it all comes together into a smooth sauce.
Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

Sponge
120g butter
120g sugar
2 eggs
120g self raising flour
Juice of an orange

Pre-heat the oven to 170ºC
Beat the butter and sugar until light in colour and fluffy - by hand (great for the arm muscles), with a hand mixer or in a food mixer/processor. Add the eggs and orange juice and mix well. Sift in the flour and gently bring the mixture together.

You will need half a pineapple, peeled, hard core removed and chopped into chunks.
If you are feeling creative, use the other half and the skin to make pineapple tepache - just Google it.

Lightly grease a savarin ring or a cake tin.
Spread a layer of caramel sauce over the base - you may not need it all, just put the rest in the fridge where it will keep for at least a week.....apparently!
Pile the pineapple chunks evenly over the sauce.

 and then spread the cake mix on top.

Bake for approximately 30 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the mix comes out clean.

Leave to stand until the tin is cool enough to handle and then invert on to a serving plate.

EAT!!

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2017 ©

Apple and ginger cake

There is already a recipe for Ginger Apple Topsy, way back when, on this blog, so my love of this particular combination is already on record.
This recipe however, will work just as well without the ginger, if you are not a fan.
                                         

When Storm Brian had blasted his way through our apple trees, I collected all the windfalls and, as many of them were somewhat bruised by their encounter with bully Brian, I needed to use them up quite quickly.
A significant number of them were simply washed and chopped and thrown into my largest pan, covered with water and simmered until really soft.
I then passed the whole sloppy panful through a cheesecloth and we enjoyed some deliciously fresh and fruity juice, leaving  behind a bowl full of apple pulp, along with some disconnected skins.
Normally, I would push this through a sieve, collecting any pips, cores and skins and creating the smoothest of smooth apple smoothiness... ie purée, not unlike Heinz baby food to be honest.
On this occasion, I didn't bother. I simply discarded any pips and blitzed the skin during the cake mixing process.  HOWEVER, if you are planning on making this cake by hand, rather than in a processor, I strongly recommend some sieve action or a quick blitz with a stick blender before you use the fruit pulp.

120g butter
120g brown sugar
120g apple pulp or purée
25g crystallised ginger, optional
1 dessertspoon golden syrup
2 eggs
120g rye flour

Pre-heat the oven to 175ºC
Chop the crystallised ginger into pretty small pieces and put into a food processor with the butter, brown sugar and syrup.  Mix until much lighter in colour and thoroughly well blended.
Add the eggs and apple pulp and mix well.
Add the flour and process until just incorporated into the mix - do not over beat at this stage.
Grease a 9" Savarin ring and dust with flour.  Tip out any excess.
Spoon the mixture into the ring and spread out evenly.

Bake for approximately 25 minutes.  The cake is ready when it springs back to the touch or a skewer inserted into the centre of the mix comes out clean.
Remove from the oven and leave to stand for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a cooling rack.
We ate this "au naturel", but I reckon that a drizzle of lemon glacé icing might make a nice finishing touch, if you're showing off.

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2017 ©