Prize Winning Carrot Cake

This recipe has actually been entered in the Langholm Show. It sat in the home industry tent being judged while I walked around the show grounds admiring the best of the local livestock and talking to stall holders about the merits various of oil tanks. When the tent was re-opened after the judging, my cake had placed third! It turns out that I was only supposed to ice the top of the cake (why?) and I had iced the whole darned thing. Do you think my little cake would have placed better, had I known the rules for presentation?? I'll let you know next September when the Langholm Show comes around again.

Pre-heat your oven to 350 F or about 180 C

2 cups plain flour
2 cups sugar - If you think this is too much sugar, use a bit less. I do.
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 cups of finely shredded carrots
1 cup cooking oil
4 eggs
Cream Cheese Frosting (recipe listed below)

Grease and lightly flour two cake tins or pans and set them aside (for years I only had one cake pan so I had to bake the cake batter in two goes)

In a large mixing bowl, blend the flour, sugar, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon. Then add the carrots, oil and eggs. Beat with an electric mixe until all is combined. Be careful as some of the flour will hide in the bottom of your mixing bowl. You'll only find this unblended flour as you are pouring the cake mix into the pans.

Divide the cake mix into your cake tins and pop them into the oven. Bake them for about 35 to 40 minutes. Keep an eye on them. If they're starting to brown on the top, they're done.

Remove the cakes from their tins onto wire racks and let them cool completely. While they're cooling you can tackle the frosting.

3 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup unsalted butter or margarine, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 1/2 cups of powdered sugar or confectioners sugar

In a mixing bowl and an electric mixer, blend the cream cheese and butter together. Add in the vanilla and mix until light and fluffy. Gradually sift in 2 cups of the powdered sugar, beating well. Then keep sifting in the rest of the powdered sugar while beating until you've reached spreading consistency.

Now you can frost your cake.

Mediterranean Vegetable Pasties

This is a great recipe if you've got vegetarians coming over for dinner. I checked the label on the puff pastry I buy for this and it is made from vegetable fat so this recipe is fine for those difficult to cook for vegans as well. You do have to purchase one odd item, capers. Its the sort of odd item you get for one recipe and then don't use again for ages. Thankfully they'll keep for a long time. I make this recipe so often, that capers have been upgraded from weird one-off item that is purchased for a single recipe to item that I actually run out of. I have to make sure that I have some in before starting because it is the sort of thing my neighbours will never have in for me to borrow.

Pre heat your oven to 180 C or 350 F - a medium oven

Ingredients:

2 small courgettes or zucchini, washed and sliced
2 bell peppers, diced (I use two different colours for prettiness)
1 aubergine or eggplant, diced
1 British tablespoon or 2 US tablespoons of minced capers
1/2 teaspoon of dried oregano (more or less to taste)
two blocks of ready-to-use puff pastry

Saute all the vegetables in a little olive oil until they begin to be soft - 15 to 20 minutes. Season with oregano, salt and pepper and turn the heat off and let cool on the back of the stove while you get the pastry ready.

Roll out the puff pastry on a clean, lightly floured surface. Cut large circles, about the size of a tea cup saucer. Make certain you have an even number of circles - one for the top and one for the base. If you find it quicker, you can just cut the pastry into rectangles.

Lay your puff pastry bases out onto baking sheets or trays. Place a small mound of the cooked vegetables in the centre of each base. Ensure that the vegetable filling doesn't touch the edges, but if it does, don't freak out, just push it back. Lay the top puff pastry shape over the top and press the edges with the tines of a fork. They are now ready for the oven.

You can embellish a bit here and give the pasties a light brush of beaten egg (don't use an egg if there are vegans about) or brush with some water and a sprinkle with some sesame seeds.

Bake these in the oven for about 40 minutes OR until the pastry is puffed up and light brown. Please use your common sense with the baking times. No two ovens have the same cooking times. My oven runs a little hot and I have to compensate by keeping the thermostat a bit lower than is normal. Just make certain the puff pastry isn't too pale or too brown and you can't go wrong.

Serve hot. Please be careful when serving them, especially serving them straight out of the oven. The middles will be very steamy and might burn.

Winter Vegetable Cobbler

Having vegetarians for dinner? Don't panic.

I actually married a vegetarian. When we first got married I had about five things I could cook for dinner that didn't include meat. Most of these things were pasta dishes with the meat left out.

This is a great one and can be modified if your dinner guests are vegan by leaving out the cheese and changing normal milk for soy milk.

1 small swede - (rutabaga if you're from the US)
2 parsnips
2 leeks
2 carrots
broccoli bunch - broken up into florettes
1 cup of whole cranberries - fresh or frozen (I almost always forget to add these and nobody misses them)
1.5 litres vegetable stock - you can make this up from vegetable stock cubes
1/4 teaspoon of all spice - very important!
butter or margarine
plain flour

Peel and dice the swede and parsnips.
Peel and slice the carrots and leeks.

In a large stock pot, make a roux out of approximately 2 oz of margarine and 3 tablespoons of plain flour. (The thing is, I never measure when I'm not baking so a lot of this recipe I've had to go back and measure out or weigh the amounts that I normally put into this recipe.) Cook the roux for 2 minutes but don't let it brown. Beat in the vegetable stock until it has all been added and add in the all spice. You've now got a pretty good runny gravy. Leaving the broccoli to one side (you'll need that for later), place the prepared vegetables into this vegetable gravy. Cover the stock pot and let it simmer away on LOW heat while you prepare the scones. Don't forget to stir this from time to time so that it doesn't stick and burn. (I let this happen once, but it wasn't badly burned and was salvagable)

The Cheese Scone or baking powder biscuit topping.

8 oz or 2 cups plain flour
2 big teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 oz or 1/2 cup grated sharp cheddar
5 oz or 1/2 cup margarine
5 oz or 2/3 cup milk (soy milk for vegans)

Mix the flour, salt, baking powder in a bowl, add in the margarine and blend together until you have it looking like breadcrumbs. Add in the grated cheese and the milk. Make a dough that is not too soft to roll out. If it has become too sticky, just carefully add a bit more flour. Don't worry about the lumps of cheese. Roll out the dough and cut out the round scone or biscuit shapes.

Place the broccoli florettes in a pan of boiling water for half a minute to blanche them. They'll look funny when you bake them otherwise. Then drain the broccoli.

Now go back to your vegetables that have been simmering away and remove the pot from the heat. Please be careful with the next step because it's hot.

Dump it all into a very large casserole dish and arrange the uncooked scone shapes on top of it all. Place the broccoli florettes between the scone shapes, stem side down. You can choose to grate a bit more cheese over the top at this point if you desire.

Pop this into a medium oven (approximately 180 C or 350 F) for about 40 minutes or so. The scones will have risen and become golden brown.

Remove from the oven, let it set for a few minutes to cool down and then serve!

Tiramisu! Ricetta della mia nonna

This is the first recipe in this section of my blog. You will find a mixture of US, UK and Metric measurements. Please forgive this. Some things require entire tubs of things and if they are sold in the UK, then they're sold in metric weights and measures. I have loads of US measuring things in my kitchen as I am an American. Because I have been living in the UK now since 1992, I have started using their weights and measures. I may try to include more than one equivalent measure when I have it, but if I don't, you're just going to have to muddle along yourself. I'm not a great one for measuring, I mostly approximate. Thankfully eggs is eggs and they don't need conversion.


My husband Henry works with a woman of Italian descent. The following is this woman's grandmother's recipe.

It is so gorgeous. Tasting this proper Italian desert is like being kissed by one of Botiicelli's angels. It is especially nice to serve as your "show off" desert for dinner guests. But with all things that you serve to guests, make sure you have prepared it for your family at least once before - if not to make sure that they will like it, it also helps to work out any adjustments you may want to make.

Tiramisu

2 eggs
25o grams Marscapone (10oz UK)
284 ml double cream (10fl oz UK)
3 British Tablespoons sugar
Vino Santo OR Marsala OR Tia Maria
Very strong coffee
lady fingers or sponge fingers or trifle sponges - smaller are better - enough to cover the bottom of . . . .
a nice big rectangular serving dish
chocolate powder to sprinkle on top

Separate the eggs. Beat the egg whites until stiff and set aside

In another bowl whip the cream. Make sure it itsn't whipped too stiffly.

In yet another bowl, add the sugar to the egg yolks and whip them until it looks pale yellow and a bit thickened.

Add in the marscapone to the egg yolks and sugar and mix it until all the lumps of marscapone have dissolved. Then mix in the partially beaten double cream.

At this point blend in 2 big tablespoons of Vino Santo. Lastly fold in the beaten egg whites.

Set all this fluffy loveliness to one side and concentrate on the bottom layer.

Get yourself that strong coffee. If using espresso, so much the better. If you're using ordinary filter coffee, go ahead and stick a teaspoon of instant coffee in it to give it a better kick. You'll need to have about 2 good cups (if you're using the thicker trifle sponge cakes, you'll need more coffee/booze mixture because they soak up more liquid) and add about 60 ml (1/4 cup) of Vino Santo or whatever you're using. You'll use this to dip your sponge fingers in. I find that if I soak them well, they fall apart in the handling, so dip quickly and get them into the bottom of your serving dish and then drip a bit more mixture onto them when they are in place. Please enure that the sponge fingers or trifle sponges are completely sodden, they can be oozing a bit. Then spoon on your fluffy layer. If you're feeling fruity and you have enough stuff, you can make a second layer. When you have finished building this desert, sprinkle it with the chocolate powder. You're done!

I am assured that this desert is better served the day after it is made, but I have never been able to wait that long. The longest I could be asked to wait was 4 hours in the fridge. Frankly, I think I deserve some sort of willpower medal for that. The other thing about this desert is that kids usually don't like coffee or the taste of alcohol in a desert and might not even want any AND if there is any left over, it will be untouched in the fridge until you can get at it.