Baked Compote of Apples
Originally you would start with twice-baked apples – whole, unpeeled apples left over two or three nights in a bakers cooking brick apples oven would until they were the form of small cakes of less than an inch thick. This recipe can be made with a normal domestic oven.
Ingredients
6-8 McIntosh or Cox’s orange pippin apples
6-8 small pieces of thin lemon zest
2 tbsp soft light brown sugar
1. Core the apples.
2. Pack them closely together in a casserole dish, and sprinkle with the sugar and lemon zest.
3 Cover tightly and leave them at 250F/120C/Gas Mark 1/2 or in the bottom of an Aga for 5-7 hours.
Can be served hot or cold with custard.
Everlasting Syllabub
Ingredients
2/3 cup/150ml medium sherry of medium sweet white wine.
1 1/4 cups/150g confectioners’ icing sugar
2 1/4 cups/560ml thick cream
Juice of 1 orange
Zest of 1 lemon
1tsp natural orange flower water(with no added alcohol)
1. Put the sherry, orange juice, lemon zest, and confectioners’ sugar together in a bowl, and stir well until the sugar dissolves.
2. In another bowl, beat the cream until it is stiff (about half an hour!), and then fold in the prepared liquid and the orange flower water.
To serve
This could be used as a topping for the Calf’s Foot Jelly or served by itself in pretty wine glasses with a sprig of rosemary or a curl of lemon zest to decorate.
Jane’s Sponge
The Oxford English Dictionary notes that the first use of the word “sponge-cake” is by Jane Austen when writing to Cassandra in June 1805.
Ingredients
2 sticks/225g butter
Heaping 1/2 cup/110g superfine (caster) sugar
4 eggs
1 3/4 cups/225g all-purpose (plain)flour
1 tsp baking powder (optional-not in original but it gives a lighter result)
Pinch of salt (optional-not in original but it helps bring out the flavors)
1/4 cup/25g caraway seeds
A sponge cake may be flavoured “with lemon rind, or bitter almonds vanilla, or confected orange blossoms reduced to powder,” so you could omit the caraway and use one of the flavourings below:
Zest of 1 lemon
1/2 tsp natural almond extract
1/2 tsp natural vanilla extract or use vanilla sugar instead of the superfine sugar
Zest of 1 orange, plus 1 tsp natural orange flower water (with no added alcohol).
1. Preheat the oven to 325F/160C/Gas Mark 3.
2. Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Whisk the eggs well and add them a littl eat a time to the butter. If the mixture starts to curdle, add a spoonful of flour.
3. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together, and fold into the butter and egg mixture with the caraway seeds or other flavouring.
4. Grease and line an 8-inch/20cm round cake pan and spoon the mixture in. Tap the pan sharply on the work surface a couple of time to release the bubbles.
5. Bake for 50-60 minutes until a toothpick (skewer) inserted in the centre comes out clean.
Lemon Cheesecake
Georgian recipes for cheese cakes often contained no cheese; these are little egg custards enriched with almonds.
Makes about 12 cakes
2 whole eggs, plus 1 yolk
1 batch of shortcrust pastry or sweet rich shortcrust pastry
2 tsp natural orange flower water(without alcohol)
1/2 stick/50g butter
1 tbsp cream
1/2 cup/100g superfine (caster) sugar
1 cup/100g ground almonds
Zest of 1 large or 2 small lemons
1. Preheat the oven to 375F/190C/Gas Mark 5.
2. Roll out the pastry, and cut it into circles to line tartlet pans of about 3/4 inch/2cm depth.
3. Cream the butter and sugar with most of the lemon zest until pale and fluffy
4. Whisk the eggs with the orange flower water and cream until frothy, then add them bit by bit to the butter and sugar mixture; if it starts to separate, add a few ground almonds. Stir in the ground almonds at the end.
5. Spoon the mixture into the pastry cases, leaving a little space at the top for it to rise slightly. Bake for 10-15 minutes until golden and firm on top.
6 Decorate the cakes with the remaining lemon zest.
Strawberry Tartlets
Makes 4 small tarts or 1 large tart
1 batch of shortcrust pastry or sweet rich shortcrust pastry
3 egg yolks
1 egg, beaten
1 pint/200g soft or damaged strawberries, hulled
1/4 cup/50g superfine (caster) sugar
Heaping 1/4 cup/40g all-purpose (plain) flour
1 1/4 cups/300 ml milk
Extra berries to decorate
1. You will need 4 x 4-inch/10cm tartlet pans or one 9-inch/22cm pie pan.
2. Preheat the oven to 400F/200C/Gas Mark 6.
3. Roll out your shortcrust pastry to about 1/4 inch/5mm thickness and use it to line four well greased pans (or single pan, if using), leaving about 1/4 inch/5mm pastry above the edge of the pans to allow for shrinkage. Paint the bottom of each with beaten egg, prick with a fork and bake blind for 10-12 minutes for the tartlets or 15-18 minutes for the large tart. Reduce the temperature to 375F/190C/Gas Mark 5.
4. Crush the strawberries in a dish, and set aside as the juice runs out.
5. Beat the egg yolks and sugar in a heavy bowl until the mixture is pale yellow, and the sugar has dissolved. Sift in the flour, a third at a time, beating vigorously after each addition. Boil the milk, then pour it gradually onto the flour mixture, beating it in as you go. Return the custard to the pan, and reheat it gently to boiling point, beating thoroughly, until it holds its shape. Take off the heat, stir in the crushed strawberries and pour into the pastry cases. Bake for 10-
15 minutes.
6. When Cool decorate with half strawberries
Buttered Apple Tart
Ingredients
4-5 cooking apples
Juice and zest of 1 orange
2 tbsp/30g butter
1 batch of Sweet Rich Shortcrust Pastry
2-4 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
3 eggs, separated
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (optional – not in original recipe)
Confectioners’ (icing) sugar, to serve
1 Skin, core, and slice the apples and cook them in a tablespoon of water until just soft.
2 While the apples are hot, stir in the butter, sugar to taste, the nutmeg, and cinnamon if using, and the orange zest and juice.
3. While the mixture cools, preheat the oven to 375F/190C/Gas Mark 5, and line a 10-inch/25cm pie dish with the pastry.
4. Beat the egg yolks and stir them into the apple. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold them into the mixture. Pour the mixture into the pastry case and bake for approximately 30 minutes until the eggs are set.
5. Serve with a dusting of confectioners’ sugar over it.
A Hedgehog
This delicate marzipan is made into a hedgehog with almonds for the spines and dried currants for eyes. Although we might make it for a child’s birthday, it would have been made to amuse adult guests, served on a pool of flavored cream or jelly.
Ingredients
2 1/2 cups/250g ground almonds
Half almonds or slivered (flaked) almonds
3/4-1 cup/120-140g confectioner’s (icing) sugar
Currants for the eyes (and nose, if you like)
A little natural orange flower or rosewater (with no added alcohol) or orange juice
1. Preheat the oven to 350?F/180?C/Gas Mark 4.
2. Mix the ground almonds and sugar well together; add the liquid, a teaspoonful at a time, until you have a thick, moldable paste that doesn’t crack (like marzipan).
3. Hannah makes this paste into one big hedgehog, using almonds for the spines, and currants for the eyes. I think it is nicer to make it into little ones (or one bigger one and a few little ones,) and bake them for 10 minutes or so until the outsides are golden brown. This is the sweetmeat called “marchpane” in Tudor times; it has a lovely, chewy texture and is nicer than raw marzipan.
4. Serve with a fine Hartshorn Jelly (not recommended) or a mixture of cream, wine, and orange juice. To make a green jelly in the traditional way, colour the jelly with a little spinach juice. Don’t worry-you can’t taste the spinach through the lemon and sugar in the recipe!