Oaty cookies

June sunshine gave way to July rain, which I am not complaining about at all; better to be soggy than trying to survive temperatures of 40c+ like last year. It also makes allotmenting life that much easier if we’re not having to water several times a week.

I’m heads down on a complicated project up in Liverpool at the moment, but due to the vagaries of modern life it’s all conducted on Zoom, phone and email, and I’ve therefore never met most of the people I am working with. In some ways this is a wonder, but project management by proxy can be a challenge. What better way to de-frazzle than an escape to the hidden garden at Wilde Goose, up near Ludlow. A gorgeous and under-stated walled garden, at this time of year it is packed with late summer perennial colour, like a true Secret Garden. Even on a rainy afternoon the air was humming with bees, hoverflies and butterflies.

The restored glasshouse at Wilde Goose nursery
As we tip into late summer, reds, yellows and oranges take to the fore

There’s colour on the allotment too, albeit in a more scruffy and haphazard way. The dahlias are coming into their own now and this week I had the first gladioli stem of the year, a sparkling magenta-red. The amaranth is flowering too, shocking in its vibrancy; for me this is one for drying as in the vase it’s just a little too much.

Dahlias, lupins, cosmos and amaranth
Hiding at the back – red gooseberries and cerinthe

Fruit and veg are offering a slow and steady harvest, which is just as it should be. We’ve had a good picking from the red dessert gooseberries, and there’s several pickings a week of beans (broad, runner and French). All this makes for a full fridge and vases dotted around the house. There could be so much more, if I had the time to preen and prune and harvest to the plot’s full potential, but as we all know, enough is as good as a feast.

Getting a few colanders of beans and chard a week now
Froth in the vase

This recipe is a really useful bake to have up one’s sleeve for days when the cake tin is empty, time and inclination is poor, but the kids need something vaguely-not-terrible for lunchboxes or after-school snacks. It’s a cookie that uses oats and (if you want to) wholemeal flour, and can be stirred together in five minutes, baked in ten. I like to add dried cranberries or raisins to mine but if making it for Harry then chunks of chocolate get mixed in. Actually it’s that versatile a base recipe that you could add any kind of dried fruit, nut, seed or, if you wanted to, spice.

This isn’t my recipe at all of course, but comes from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s endlessly useful book, Good Comfort.

Oaty cookies, a very handy five minute bake to have up your sleeve

Oaty cookies
Adapted from Good Comfort by Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall

125g butter
50g soft light brown sugar
125g flour – You can use either all wholemeal, or a mixture of equal parts plain white and wholemeal or spelt
75g porridge oats
1/2 tsp baking powder
A handful of chopped dark chocolate chunks or dried raisins/sultanas/cranberries

Preheat the oven to 180c and line a baking sheet with non-stick parchment. In a saucepan, gently melt the butter and sugar, stirring often. Leave to cool slightly. Add in the flour, porridge and baking powder and mix to a smooth dough. If you’re using them, stir in the chocolate chunks or fruit.

Place dessertspoon-fulls of the mixture onto the baking tray, patting them down slightly so they are smooth on top. Bake for 12 minutes or so, until they are turning golden. They will still be soft at this stage, but leave them to cool and they will harden up.

This recipe makes about 6-8 cookies, depending on how big your spoons are!

Also this week:

Harvesting: Runner beans, French beans, last broad beans, chard, new potatoes, kale, first courgette, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, gooseberries, first dahlias, first gladioli, amaranth, cosmos, lupins, echinops, snapdragons.

Also: Last of the midsummer blooms in the garden, tidied up the debris ready for Act 2 (late summer): Pots of perennial foxgloves, sanguisorba, helenium are waiting in the wings ready to go in. Rain has brought a chaos of weeds to the plot but I have not had time to deal with them, as was ever true.

Cooking and eating: Enormous pizza at Rudy’s to celebrate end of term. Roasting carrots and beets with cumin (Mum’s garden). Notable steak and ale pie from Ludlow Farm Shop.

Reading: Wilding by Isabella Tree, the story of the rewilding project at the Knepp Estate.

Yoghurt pot cake

We are back from a week on the Cornish riviera, with improbably good weather, cliffs of wild flowers, endless sands and clear blue sea. It’s the first time we’ve managed a whole week away as a trio for about three years; I barely looked at my phone (joy!) and soaked in the sunshine. It’s the first time that we’ve attempted a proper holiday during half-term week and the crowds were a shock; I’ve realised that the answer to this is to head where people are not, whether it’s our favourite beach at 8pm, a hidden creek on the Camel estuary, or a prehistoric quoit on Bodmin moor.

Sunlit day on the Camel estuary
Sunset at Mawgan Porth
Bedruthan Steps but water so clear it could be the Aegean
Trethevy quoit

The days on unbroken sunshine set off the wildflowers beautifully. The colours are richer than at home – pinks, yellows, purples – with banks of grasses, spikes and umbellifers drawing in the insects. The tree echiums are particularly magnificent in June with their 10 foot spikes; a sight that will never become old to me.

The glorious midsummer wildflowers
Wild gladioli
Tree echiums, which I will never tire of

In Cornwall, the wild flowers are so magnificent, it’s almost as if there is no need to garden – you simply need to head outside and be instantly surrounded by life and wildness and beauty. Here in Birmingham it’s a slightly different matter of course, and effort is required. Given the hot dry spell, I was concerned that the allotment beans, peas and greens would be all but dead through a week with no watering. Well, they’re not exactly thriving, but there is definite signs of growth and a few promising pods on the broad beans.

Came home to a grassy, weedy allotment but potatoes and broad beans doing OK

Veg is still thin on the ground at this time of year, but the cut flowers work to a different calendar. Tulips are over now, replaced by foxgloves and allium who take their crown as the showiest of blooms for the vase. The purple globes and pink and white spires are joined by the ‘pretties’: early sweet Williams, sweet rocket and a solitary lupin. The autumn-sown cornflowers and calendula have finally come into their own, and any doubt I had about the wisdom of growing on a windowsill over the winter have been cast away. The cornflowers in particular are magnificent, with long, straight stems and an abundance of buds.

The autumn-sown cornflowers and calendula are now coming into their prime
Favourite vase of foxgloves, allium, sweet william, cornflower and sweet rocket, plus calendula

Having said all that, the April-sown annuals are still really struggling to get going. Cosmos, scabious, more cornflower and calendula, plus other cut flowers, were all sown into peat-free compost, and whilst gemination was fine, the seedlings are still teeny-tiny. I’ve now moved them out of the sun room and onto the paving in the side-garden, where they will get more light but are at risk of slug attack. I am not 100% sure what the problem is but my instinct is the compost, which is a coir and bark-based mix (other seeds planted earlier did OK, using the Birmingham City Council compost that Matt was given last year). Perhaps I should stop all this seed-sowing angst and just buy everything as a plug plant next year; it’s more expensive, but lots more reliable.

Onto a recipe perfect for June, yoghurt pot cake. This cake is perfect foil for the abundance of strawberries and raspberries that are about to head into full production. A slice, with fruit and a dollop of cream, makes for a fine pudding, though you could do as the Italians do and eat it for breakfast. It’s a simple plain cake, scented with lemon and vanilla, and a shortness to the crumb that you find in Italian and French baking (that’s due to the cornflour). The name comes from the fact that everything can be measured using a small yoghurt pot. I am sure that I read somewhere that this is the first cake that French children are taught to make, a fact I find amusing, because although the measuring is easy, it is slightly involved to actually make – there’s egg whites to whisk and folding to be done. Either bake into a small round cake or ring, or it works well as small palm-sized fairy cakes.

Palm-size yoghurt pot cake
Or dust with icing sugar and go large

Yoghurt pot cake
adapted from Nigella.com

150g plain yoghurt
150ml vegetable oil
3 large eggs
250g caster sugar
Dash vanilla extract
zest of half a lemon
175g plain flour
75g cornflour
icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 180c. Prep your cake tin – this mixture makes a 9inch round tin, a 9 inch mould or a 6inch tin with 4 fairy cakes on the side. You could also just make 12 fairy cakes.

First separate the eggs, yolks into one bowl and whites into the other. With an electric whisk, beat the whites into submission, until firm. Set them aside.

Add the yoghurt, vanilla, lemon and sugar to the egg yolks and use the electric whisk to combine them together – they will be light but not thick. With the whisk still going, trickle in the oil until thoroughly combined. Sieve in the flour and cornflour, and whisk to combine. Finally, fold the egg whites in gently but firmly, until the mixture is completely mixed and surprisingly voluminous.

Transfer gently to your tin and/or fairy cake cases, and bake until done. A large cake takes about 35 minutes, fairy cakes about 20 minutes. When done, the cake will pull in around the edges and look cracked on the top; a skewer inserted in the middle will come out clean.

Leave the cake(s) to cool and dust with icing sugar to serve. I have not tried it, but I suspect that a handful of chocolate chips and maybe orange zest would both make fine additions.

Also this week:
Harvesting: Foxgloves, alliums, first sweet williams, sweet rocket, first cornflower, first calendula, last PSB, last winter-sown rocket and spinach. One singular, magnificent strawberry.
Jobs: Took out last of last year’s kale and PSB. Strimmed, not that it makes much difference, the grass is so virile. Planted out snapdragons, cerinthe, quaking grass and amaranth. Slugs have been nibbling both allotment and house dahlias but still I am not using pellets. Moved everything out of the sun room to see if added light will make the seedlings finally grow. In the garden, the allium, roses and foxgloves are coming into their crescendo.
Cooking and eating: Porthilly mussels, crab sandwiches, Cornish yeast cake, fudge, strawberry and blackcurrant compoty-jam, English sparkling wine, nuts-and-seeds as apparently it’s good for my hormone health.
Also: Reading A Year at the Chateau by the Strawbridges, pure escapist fun.

Apple cinnamon pancakes

We’ve slipped into the dark now, it’s black before 6pm. It’s not cold – far from it – but damp, dank. The warmness of the last few weeks is unnerving. It’s one thing having record-breaking hot days in July, quite another to be pushing 20c when the Halloween decorations are up. When the rain holds off there is consolation in the glorious colours of the season. The air smells of leaves and moss.

It was half-term last week, and there was barely time to take a breath, what with daytrips, parties and playdates. Plus for some reason I’ve been struck with the need for autumn-cleaning, scrubbing every surface, shining windows and shampooing carpets. Which is difficult when much of the floor is covered with lego, marble run and train tracks.

Half term looked mainly like this

The warm and the rain and the school holiday means there’s been not much allotmenting. I started the mass clear out back on 9th October, stripping down sunflower stalks, bean supports and the enormous courgette plants. But the soil is just not ready to be fully covered yet – the cosmos are still magnificent, and the chrysanthemums are finally coming into their own.

Starting the yearly clear up – 9 October
Look at the detritus of grass and weeds that was hiding beneath the beans and courgette plants

On Sunday I picked an armful of Chrysanthemum ‘starburst’ plus – unbelievably – several dahlias, which are still coming and show no sign of giving up yet. In a few weeks we’ve gone from colours of summer to colours of autumn.

Squash, dahlias, chrysanths – colours of autumn
A magnificent harvest of starburst chrysanthemums this year

Speaking of autumn, it’s the perfect time to stock up on English apples, and these pancakes a very agreeable way of using them up. It’s a simple pancake batter, augmented with a grated apple or two, and warmed with cinnamon. I like this kind of simple, economical baking – plus the whole family will eat them, which is a bonus. Whisk them up in seconds, scoff on a Sunday morning, then any leftovers are very nice as a Monday snack with your morning coffee.

Apple and cinnamon pancakes

Apple and cinnamon pancakes
Serves 3-4 people

Place 200g plain flour, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1 tbsp caster sugar and 1 heaped tsp ground cinnamon in a bowl. Using a box grater, grate in 1 or 2 small eating apples (there’s no need to peel them). Crack 2 eggs into the bowl, splash in 150ml milk, then whisk the lot together with a balloon whisk. It will start off looking lumpy and unpromising, but after a few seconds will come together nicely. Stop when the batter looks smooth.

In a non-stick frying or crepe pan, melt a good knob of salted butter, then stir this into your batter. Then it’s just a question of cooking the pancakes – dollop tablespoons of batter into the hot pan, cook until browned on the bottom, flip, cook a little more, then whip them out. Keep going until all the batter is used up, then just gobble them up. I think these are best with golden syrup.

Also this month:
Harvesting: Cavolo nero, chard, chrysanthemums, dahlias. Could be harvesting cosmos but I’m bored of it now.
Also: Began clearing allotment. Pruned shrubs in garden (yes I know it’s the wrong time of year). The forced paperwhite narcissus and amaryllis are poking heads through the compost.
Cooking & eating: Apple pancakes. Gingerbread. Black bean and chorizo chilli. Baked squash. Cauliflower and chorizo cheese. Enjoying a glass of red wine for first time in about six years.
Also: A visit to Ludlow to stock the freezer up with pheasants, veal, beef ribs, sausage, bacon and duck. Space Centre in Leicester. Batsford Arboretum. Cleaning every surface and ordered a new sofa to replace the one that Gertrude has destroyed. Attempting to not allow the permanent political and economic crisis to bring us down: ordered my Christmas turkey, which is 15% more expensive than last year, but at least we can afford to get a turkey in the first place.

Melon & strawberry granita

What a month we’ve had. Hottest day ever, and the driest summer in what certainly feels like forever. We’ve had the builders in for the last four weeks, so this hot spell has coincided with us having no shower, no bath and only limited access to a loo – I’ve been begging access to friends’ bathrooms at every opportunity. We’ve both eased down now that the Commonwealth Games have happened (both of us benefited from A LOT of work rooted in the B2022 cultural programme) and there’s been actual days out, actual holiday feelings. My friend moved to Vietnam (which I consider to be most rude) and one-by-one the kids are ending their time at nursery ahead of starting school in September. And then, of course, Birmingham turned into a party town for two weeks whilst the Games were on. This city has been hungry for so long – for recognition, for investment, for fun, for coming together – and we grabbed our opportunity with two hands. What a brilliant time to be in Birmingham.

A brief trip to London for the CBeebies Prom at the Royal Albert Hall
The Alexander Stadium looking resplendent
Our latest tourist attraction – Centenary Square has been rammed for days as people visit this fella
Perry has become an established member of every household with children in the city

All of this means that the plants have been somewhat abandoned lately. I’ve done the odd bit of weeding, mainly to remove three foot tall fat hen plants – but am only watering the allotment once a week. And of course everything does perfectly well with a little neglect: the nasturtiums run rampant, the cerinthe and ammi are miraculously still going, the squash are fattening. The switch to late summer colour is coming in now, so alongside the pale, delicate cornflowers, achillea and wild carrot comes the dinner-plate dahlias and blood-red amaranth. Sunflowers are waiting in the wings. The wild brambles, which I long ago gave up on, are now repaying me with punnet upon punnet of sweet black fruit.

The squash have taken off in the heat, and doing fine with only one water a week
Two seasons in one true: delicate cornflowers, ammi, wild carrot and phlox alongside the shouty dahlias, tansy and amaranth. What you can’t see underneath is the pile of courgettes, beans, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries.

If there were more time I would take out the three slug-eaten dahlias and pot them up in hope of a second coming, and all the flowers (and veg for that matter) on the allotment would be getting a weekly feed and daily water. But there isn’t more time, so I live with what’s possible. Incidentally I’m purposefully not cutting the dahlias too much this year, as most of them are new plants and I don’t want to put them under undue pressure, so it’s just the odd bloom, here and there.

This week’s pickings end up in jam jars and charity-shop finds – this all happens on the worktop by the kettle, which isn’t pretty, but is real life.

Today’s recipe is shamelessly stolen from Instagram, from the wonderful Prue Leith. It’s a granita, perfect for these hot sticky days, but instead of using a stock syrup it’s made using whole, over-ripe fruit that’s simply blitzed in the food processor then frozen. You give it a stir with a fork every hour or so to break up the ice crystals. I love the idea of whole fruit being hidden into ices, and Harry and I make banana-chocolate-milk lollies often; this is simply a more sophisticated version of that. Add a splash of booze if you want to up the flavour.

Melon and strawberry granita
In a blender or food processor, blitz up one over-ripe melon (I use cantaloupe) with a handful of strawberries until smooth. Add a splash of booze if liked – I think damson gin or blackberry vodka would be good here. Then move the whole lot to a tupperware container and pop in the freezer. Set your timer to go off every hour and when it does, stir the mixture with a fork to rough up the ice crystals. When it’s all frozen, but still slushy, it’s good to go.

Freeze the squished fruit but remember to stir with a fork every hour or so to break up the crystals
When frozen but slushy, it’s ready to serve

Also this week (month):

Harvesting: First raspberries, last blueberries (not a great year for them, the plants are tired and they need more water), blackberries, dahlias, last gladioli, amaranth, cerinthe, ammi, calendula, wild carrot, first scabious, snapdragon (coloured mix only, whites still not in flower), achillea, cornflower, phlox, a very few early cosmos, tansy, stick beans, dwarf beans, last broad beans, courgettes, chard, last potatoes. Could be picking carrots, cavolo nero and russian red kale but can’t bring myself to do it yet. Borlottis and squash doing well. Also getting beets, carrots, beans, peppers, tomatoes and blueberries from my folks.

At home: Dug up all the dahlias from the garden due to slug apocalypse and potted them up. Bought selection of slug-proof plants from Wildegoose Nursery to trial in replacement. Can’t see the garden anyway due to building waste and the fact the lawn is constantly covered by a tent or a paddling pool.

Cooking and eating: Blueberry muffins; a lot of whole fruit (cherries, nectarines, strawberries still); Purple prickle pancakes from the Gruffalo Cookbook; Blackcurrant ice cream; Sautéed courgettes with everything; Roasted beet and carrot salad with feta; A daily coffee, which is still such a novelty that I have to record it here.

Out and about: Dress rehearsal for B2022 Opening Ceremony, plus athletics, rhythmic gymnastics, a few B2022 Festival sites and numerous meetings with Perry the mascot; the kids are all obsessed with him. CBeebies Prom. Wildegoose nursery. Numerous Bearwood bathrooms.

Chocolate almond macaroons

Sun shining, a day out to the nearest edge of the Cotswolds for a first posh lunch out as a trio since 2019, then an ice cream in the shadow of Broadway Tower. Cow parsley, buttercups, long long grass, hawthorn blossom and stinging nettles.

Broadway Tower

Back home, the foxgloves are in flower, majestic spikes of pink, peach and white, marked with spots of purple and orange. Foxgloves are absolutely in my top 5 flowers – so architectural and plain weird – and even better, these all self-sowed so cost not a penny. Here I’ve placed them with alliums and sweet william for an interesting mix of height and form.

Foxgloves, sweet william and allium now cropping

I made a big batch of chocolate gelato at the weekend, overcome by the hot weather. It was good – very good – but even better are these chocolate almond macaroons that use up the left-over egg whites. They’re now my go-to recipe whenever we have egg whites hanging around, say after a carbonara or custard, and – unlike meringues, which never get eaten – they’re a firm favourite for both pre-schoolers and early-middle-agers. I found the recipe from a blog about living in a vicarage, so this is recipe is also known as Church Biscuit No.70.

Chocolate almond macaroons

Chocolate almond macaroons

2 egg whites
200g ground almonds
30g cocoa powder
175g icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 180c and line a baking sheet with parchment. Sift the almonds, cocoa and icing sugar into a bowl and using a wooden spoon, mix in the unbeaten egg whites to a firm dough. Simple.

With wet hands, roll out walnut-size balls of mixture and place on the baking sheet, flattening each one slightly as you go. Bake for 11-15 minutes, until dry on top and slightly cracked. You want to keep a certain squishiness in the middle. Cool before serving.

These last several days in the tin and are good on their own or as an accompaniment to ice-cream.

Also this week:
Harvesting: sweet william, foxgloves, last of the spring rocket, last of the chervil.
Allotment and garden: Watering twice a week (it’s not enough, no rain for two weeks now) but the veg are still small despite the warm weather. Admiring the roses, now at their peak. Delphiniums just coming out whilst the aquilegia go over.
Eating and cooking: Lunch at The Fish of asparagus with brown shrimp followed by Fowey mussels. Rhubarb ice cream at Broadway Tower. Cost a fortune but a joy to be out at last. Made chocolate gelato from the Rick Stein Venice to Istanbul book. Eating more Greek salads than most Greeks at present.
Also: Reading Under a Mackerel Sky, Rick Stein’s memoir.

Chocolate-mint semi-freddo

The sun has re-emerged and out we come, like worker bees. In the past week, overtaken by this new solar energy, I have forked over half the vegetable and flower beds, whilst Matt has hacked away at the brambles in the wilderness. The thick manure mulch that I put down back in November has hardened into a sepia-toned cake, flecked with straw, but once the fork goes in the soil beneath is light, open and moist. I am pleased by the investment of both effort and cash. As we work we are accompanied by a symphony of bird song.

Slowly shifting the earth of the veg patch; peas and broad beans have been planted at the rear
Removing the creeping buttercup in the cut flower bed; see the difference once the top cake of mulch is worked in

It’s slim pickings now, of course, and will be for several more weeks. Had I been more organised I could have been picking tulips and sweet fennel at this time; as it is, I have only just got around to planting out the biennial honesty and sweet fennel that I sowed last spring. Last year’s sweet william are showing no sign of flower; for some reason, biennials behave like triennials in this ground – they take two years to get established and then in year three, we are overtaken by blooms. And speaking of biennials – I am leaving a few parsnips in the ground this year, to see what their flower looks like; as part of the carrot family I have high hopes for a whooper umbellifer.

Last of the 2020 parsnips plus a few surprise baby leeks

I come home with dry hands, grubby nails and a head full of plans. The planting map from a few weeks back has been revised, drawn pedantically to scale by Matt using Google maps as a guide. As ever, I am wondering how I will fit it all in – but we will, as we always do.

Revised plan for 2021 allotment – pedantically drawn to scale by Matt using Google maps

The sudden warmth has transformed our kitchen. Asparagus is on the table a few times a week; there’s the salt-kick of anchovy and olive against the sweet onion of a pissaladiere; proper burgers and pink wine. I’m also thinking about ice cream. Is it too early in the year? Not a bit of it.

This recipe for chocolate mint semi-freddo comes from Rachel Roddy’s wonderful book Two Kitchens, which my friend Annette raved about until I felt duty bound to get a copy of my own. Ordinarily I would be excessively snobby about mint ice cream but this has been a revelation; using really good fresh mint is the key. What you get is a bar of frozen mint cream, chocolate and air: predictably enough, we have come to call this Fake Vienetta, which both over- and under-plays its worth.

Even if you don’t like mint make this anyway, because the semi-freddo base is sensational; just leave out the herbs and flavour with citrus zest, or vanilla, or you could leave the mixture plain but stir in chopped nougat before freezing. It can be served straight from the freezer and manages to be rich, light and creamy at the same time.

This makes a massive bar of semi-freddo, enough to fill a 1kg loaf tin; you could halve the recipe to make it more manageable.

Chocolate-mint semi-freddo
From Two Kitchens by Rachel Roddy

The night before, warm up 500ml double cream with five stems of fresh mint, then transfer the lot to the fridge to steep overnight.

The next day, chop 60g good dark chocolate into a rubble along with a few extra leaves of mint.

Finely chop mint, and reduce the dark chocolate to rubble

Now gather three bowls and an electric whisk.

Separate 4 large eggs, yolks into one bowl and whites into another.

Whisk the egg whites until thick. (If you whisk the whites first you don’t need to wash your beaters as you go along, but work quickly so there’s no risk of egg white collapse).

Strain the flavoured cream into a bowl, remove and discard the herbs. Whisk until thickened.

Add 100g caster sugar to the yolks then whisk until pale and thick – the ribbon stage.

Whisk the egg whites, then the flavoured cream and lastly the egg yolks and sugar

Fold the cream into the egg yolk mixture gently but firmly, then fold in the egg whites – it’s best to do this in two or three stages. Lastly, fold in the chocolate and chopped mint.

Fold into an airy mass then add the chocolate and mint

Line a large (1kg) loaf tin with cling film, ensuring that plenty is left to hang over the sides. Gently tip the semi-freddo into the tin, then fold the clingfilm one the top so that it is entirely covered. Freeze for a good 12 hours until firm.

Freeze in a lined loaf tin until firm, about 12 hours

To serve, slice straight from the freezer. No other accompaniment needed.

Eats straight from the freezer

Also this week:
Sowing and allotment: More broad beans, more peas, sunflowers, and I’ll start the climbing and dwarf beans in the next few days. Direct sowed carrots, parsnips and dill on allotment, and carrots and lettuce at home. Also planting up pots for summer. Dug over much of the flower and veg patches. Planted out broad beans and peas. The first lot of broad beans that we direct sowed a month ago have not come up.
Cooking and eating: Asparagus. Proper burgers. Pissaladiere. Rock cakes and banana flapjack – nursery food, which of course Harry completely rejects. Joy of joy – rose wine!

Chelsea buns

When the world shut down, a year ago this week, I remember going into a retreat of my own making. Home and garden became a sanctuary; I avoided news and social media in an act of self-preservation and focused instead on sowing seeds, being with my family, finding stillness and contentment in the unfolding wonder of spring. Twelve months on I find myself having to do the same thing. Recent events are so deeply distressing, I feel raw. And angry. So do many of my friends.

I do what I can to have a positive impact on the world, both in my professional work and my personal life (for goodness sakes I have even been moved to join the Women’s Equality Party this week), but sometimes it can feel immovable. So this poem, by the writer and thinker L. R. Knost, feels appropriate:

Do not be hardened by the pain and cruelty of this world
Be strong enough to be gentle
To be soft and supple like running water
Gracefully bending around sudden turns
Lithely waving in strong winds
Freely flowing over sharp rocks
All the while quietly sculpting this hard world
Into ever deeper beauty
Gently eroding ridged rock into silken sound
Tenderly transforming human cruelty into human kindness
Remember true strength is found not in the stone 
But in the water that shapes the stone

Meanwhile there is slow progress with the seeds. The sweet peas and broad beans are shoving up their lime green shoots, and I have started sowing the hardy annuals – cornflower, toadflax, honeywort – and a few bush-type tomatoes for the veg trug. It’s all slow and steady, which suits the current mood. I am told by friends in Worcestershire that the blossom there is not only out but almost going over, whilst here, an hour north, the trees are bare. We still wait for daffodils in shady areas. A late spring can feel both a hindrance and a blessing – for although the long winter is hard, when the warmth finally arrives, its presence is doubly appreciated. I distract myself with line drawings of this year’s allotment plan, good intentions of blocks and rows that will inevitably become a jumble when we actually come to plant in May.

The first very rough planting plan for 2021

Onto buns. I was going to write that Lockdown has seen our household become mad about buns but actually, I don’t think the pandemic has anything to do with it….yeasted dough has been a slight obsession since youth. Every few weeks I will make a batch of something or other, Harry and I will snaffle a few, then the rest get bagged in the freezer ready for another day. Once frozen, individual buns can be put straight into our rickety counter-top oven at 150c for a few minutes until they are hot and crisp. Cinnamon buns are my usual, but they can also be simple round fruited buns, Scandi-type twists, apple buns…really I am not fussy.

I first attempted Chelsea buns years ago, only to experience crashing disappointment when they emerged from the oven as solid as rocks. This time around, encouraged by the wonderful fellow bun-obsessive writer Regula Ysewijn, I have success. But there are things to mention.

First, over the years I have realised that the judging criteria of a home-made bun has to be different from the shop bought ones: mine will inevitably be wonkier, stickier and probably a bit heavier (no steam injection ovens in these parts). No matter.

Second, I use the Bertinet method of mixing, working and proving dough. It’s not my place to repeat it all here, but you can look it up at www.thebertinetkitchen.com. In short, the dough begins far wetter than you think it should be. Work it by hand in the right way, and the mess miraculously transforms into dough as pert as a baby’s bottom. I suppose you could use a mixer, but I don’t have one, and in any case I actively enjoy the tactile squelchiness of getting my fingers into dough. Remember to remove any nail varnish first, though, as it will inevitably be ripped off by the dough, which is stickier than a swamp to begin with.

Thirdly, Chelsea buns should never (in my view) be messed about with. There has been a tradition of making Chelsea buns in this country since at least 1711, and as such this is no place for yuzu or chocolate or chilli any of that kind of thing. I want a classic Chelsea of the kind that I sold in Cooks Bakery in the 1990s: they should be square, tightly coiled, studded with more fruit than is perhaps wise, crunchy on top and soft beneath. The trick is to roll the dough as thinly as you can manage, and to ensure the filling is very soft before attempting to spread it on your dough. Finally, be sure to use the correct size tin so that the buns squash together as they rise.

Chelsea buns rolled and proving
Baked, golden and burnished, but also wonky. Such is life.

Chelsea buns
Adapted from Oats in the North Wheat from the South by Regula Ysewijn

Makes 12 buns, using a 39x27cm tin

For the buns:
500g strong white flour
5g fine salt
15g dried yeast
60g caster sugar
300ml milk
70g unsalted butter
1 egg

For the filling:
225g unsalted butter, very soft
145g caster sugar
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
175g currants or raisins

For the sugar syrup:
30g granulated sugar
3 tbsp water
caster sugar, for sprinkling

For the buns, gently warm the butter with the milk until it is melted. Cool a little – it should feel simply wet when you touch it, not hot or cold. Place the salt in the bottom of a large bowl, then put the flour and sugar on top, then yeast in last. Stir to combine using a plastic scraper. Whisk the egg into the milk, add to the flour, then combine using your scraper to a sticky mess. Tip the lot onto a work surface, then work with your hands until it comes together into a springy, worked dough – about 5 to 10 minutes. Do not add extra flour. This video explains the Bertinet technique of working dough. When it is ready, put the dough back into a bowl, cover with a tea towel, then leave to prove in a warm place for at least one hour, until puffed and roughly doubled in size.

In the meantime, prepare the filling by mixing together the butter, sugar and cinnamon until it is very soft and whipped.

When the dough is ready, preheat the oven to 200c and line a roasting tray or baking tin with greaseproof paper.

When the dough is ready, lightly flour your work surface. Gently encourage the dough out of its bowl, and ease it out onto the surface using your finger tips. Do not punch it; treat it firmly but gently. Roll out the dough to a rectangle that is about 2mm thick – basically, as thin as possible. It should be facing you horizontally, with the long edge facing you.

Smear the top half of the dough with a third of the filling, then fold the bottom half over the filling. Roll it again to flatten it out.

Smear the remaining filling over the dough, dot with the dried fruit, then roll up lengthways to make a long roll. Ease and firm it together with your hands so that it is roughly the same size all the way along.

Cut evenly into 12 slices, then place cut-size up in your tray. There should be a small space between each bun. Leave to prove for another 15 minutes or so.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown and fully cooked through.

Whilst the buns are baking, make a syrup by gently melting the sugar into the water then bubbling until this and sticky (do not stir else it will crystallise). When the buns are cooked, immediately brush with the syrup and sprinkle lightly with caster sugar.

Cool before eating. Best eaten on the day they are made, so freeze any leftovers then reheat in a warm oven before eating.

The joy is in ripping apart each sticky caramelised layer

Also this week:
Sowing: Starting the hardy annuals, so toadflax, honeywort, cerinthe, cornflowers, plus tomatoes.
Harvesting, cooking and eating: Last of the cavolo nero and pentland brig kale, salads from the veg trug. Cooking Viennese fingers; Italian sausage rolls spiked with chilli, fennel and oregano; egg fried rice with fat prawns bought in bulk from the Chinese supermarket.

Rock cakes

Week four of Lockdown 3 brought snow, sleet and several sleepless nights, a rich mix of gloom if ever there was one. Though I have to admit that the garden, frosted with ice, is a thing of beauty.

The forsythia edged with snow
An ice sheet formed on the blueberry bush

By the weekend I even succumbed to some classic kids’ cookery, made purely for my own enjoyment – I have never used mini eggs this early in the year before, but currently we have to do whatever gets us through the day.

I have never made these so early in the year before – but whatever gets you through the day…

But then, on Saturday, Harry slept through the night again – and then he did it again – and slowly I begin to feel less like a husk and more like a real, thinking, living, person. Not fully replete with vim but with life enough to think about baking something beige. And so I come to Regula Ysewijn‘s latest book, Oats in the North, Wheat from the South: A History of British Baking. It is, as the name suggests, a love letter to the great baking traditions of Britain, singing the joys of iced buns, lardy cake and simple plain toast.

The History of British Baking by Regula Ysewijn

I have written about Regula before and I have to state up front that a) she’s a wonder, b) I am deeply jealous (she gets paid to write about buns!) and c) I often think we could be good friends. This is a woman who waxes lyrical about giant pies from Yorkshire, who is deadly serious about the Kentish Huffkin and who insists that Chelsea buns should only ever be square (quite right). An Anglophile Belgian, she has a romantic view of our baking tradition that is fun for the Brit to read: as she rightly points out, our baking may be simple, but we are one of the few European nations to have a tradition of making cakes, buns and biscuits in our own kitchens, with our own hands; in France they wouldn’t dream of making their own patisserie, but buy it instead.

I was also pleased to see this statement at the start of her beautiful book and it makes me wonder why author’s notes like this are not more common?

Why are statements like this still so rare?

Whilst I do intend to have a go at the aforementioned lardy cakes, in my fragile state I thought it best to start with something quick. Regula has a double page spread devoted to Brighton Rock Cakes and their brother, the Fat Rascal. On close examination the recipes are precisely the same except that Rock Cakes are dusted with sugar and perhaps a cherry or two, and Fat Rascals given an egg wash.

Now, I used to live on Rock Cakes as a teenager, as I considered them the only thing in the school canteen worth the calories. The Fat Rascal, however, whilst I have heard of them, was never something that we ate. According to Regula they are an old Yorkshire tradition, but in recent years the famous Betty’s Tea Room in Harrogate have taken out a trademark which prevents other businesses from selling them. (Point of note: this is clearly outrageous and I struggle to believe that it is even legal. Would the Italians only allow one company to make spaghetti?!)

I then enquired my Professionally Yorkshire friend Helen to ask she knows anything about Fat Rascals and she replied in the negative, but does remember that Rock Buns (note – buns not cakes – this is Yorkshire afterall) were a regular event in her house. She duly WhatsApped me her Mum’s hand-written recipe, which calls for marg and mixed fruit. Helen’s Grandad Stokes was a baker and he didn’t sell Fat Rascals or Rock Cakes/Buns and now that I reflect on it, we didn’t have them at Cooks Bakery in Upton On Severn either. Perhaps they are home-cooking in the truest sense of the word.

Helen’s mum’s recipe for rock buns

Regula’s recipe for Rock Cakes uses plain flour rather than self-raising, and currants rather than mixed fruit. This is probably true to the oldest recipes; I think that sometime during the 1970s supermarkets began to sell bags of mixed fruit and that become the housewife’s choice, rather than individual packets of raisins, currants and the rest. My mum certainly never dreamed of having anything other than mixed fruit in her baking cupboard. Regula also adds a touch of mixed spice, which is new to me for this kind of simple bake, but a nice touch.

It occurs to me now that the Rock Cake is akin to the American scone, for they add eggs to their scone mix and sometimes also cream, making for a more cakey texture. I presume the early settlers took their recipes with them – but more research is needed. The movement of food cultures around the globe will never cease to be fascinating.

Rock buns fresh out of the oven – you can see that they are fat, and could be thought of as rascals
Dusting with pearl sugar lends a pleasant crunch

Rock Cakes
An amalgamation of Regula’s recipe, Mrs Annett’s recipe, and my own instinct. Makes 6.

225g self raising flour
100g caster sugar
1 tsp mixed spice
pinch of fine sea salt
75g unsalted butter, cold, diced
1 egg
up to 3 tbsp full fat milk
50g raisins or currants
pearl sugar, for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 200c. Line a tray with baking parchment.

Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and spice in a bowl. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine bread crumbs – you can use a food processor for this but I always use fingers to save on the washing up.

Beat the egg with 1 tbsp milk, then tip into the flour mixture. Use a blunt knife or dough scraper to mix the liquid to a loose shaggy dough – add more milk if necessary. Once the dough starts to come together, add the fruit. Very lightly knead then turn onto a floured surface.

Cut into 6 pieces using a knife, then gently ease them into a rounded shape – they don’t need to be perfect. Transfer to the baking tray, brush with milk and sprinkle on a little pearl sugar (or granulated sugar if that’s all you have).

Bake for about 15 minutes, checking after 10 to see that they are baking evenly. They are done with risen, golden and no longer moist on the top. Cool slightly before tucking in – these are best eaten on the day they’re made.

All things beige and beautiful – rock cakes are only lightly studded with fruit

Also this week:
Garden: Cut back the front garden hydrangea – it will either never recover, or will come back a monster. The ground has been covered with snow and hard with ice, but now we have gentle rain and a sleepy sun.
Eating and cooking: Anything beige due to sleep deprivation and the January blues. These are the days of toast that drips with butter. Chocolate easter nests (in January!). Also making the most of seasonal citrus: Forced rhubarb simmered with orange zest then turned into crumble. Roast chicken flavoured with seville oranges and thyme. Orange jelly.
Also: Spotted parakeets in both Warley Woods and Highbury Park. Listening to Lockdown Parenting Hell with Josh Widdecombe and Rob Beckett, for much needed relief.

Gingerbread biscuits

Well hello! It’s been a month or so since I last blogged, and that time has been spent in a state of winter quietude. The days of Christmas busy-ness and upset plans were followed by a household bout of coronavirus (thankfully mild), and given that the outside world has a tendency to noisiness – that’s a pandemic for you – I have been left with the inescapable need to simply be still. The natural world goes into rest and quiet renewal at this time; I follow this urge.

There are a few things to share from Christmas and New Year, such as this garland which used up the last of the summer 2020 harvest of flowers from allotment and hedgerow. I took bunches of strawflower, hydrangea, hops, cornflower, amaranthus and poppy heads, plus a few twigs of haws and hips, and tied them together with string to make a display approximately 4 feet long. It was by no means perfect – I had to stick in several extra bunches once in situ to cover up the string and fill it out – but I absolutely loved it: crafting of this nature is a physical process, created on the floor, on knees, surrounded by the strong scent of hops, the papery textures of dried petals and dangerous pricking thorns. There was something very fitting about having remnants of summer in the house for the darkest days of the year.

Dried flower garland in my living room, made with strawflower, hydrangea, hops, amaranth, cornflower, hawthorn, rosehips and poppy heads.
All tied together with string, which takes trial and error to look good!

The weather turned cold – there’s been a few flurries of snow in these parts and deep hard frosts, which will be good for the fruit trees who need time below 0c.

New Year has been chilly – there was snow on the ground on 2nd January
A hard frost accentuates delicate features on dormant plants, as in this hydrangea

Most pleasingly, the seeds for 2021 are here. I got in slightly earlier than normal with my order, mindful of the increased popularity of gardening amidst the pandemic, and I was right to as many things have already sold out. Is there a joy more content or complete than searching seed catalogues for this year’s collection of flowers and vegetables? In many ways it is better than the growing, for one lives entirely within a place of promise and hope, not yet scarred or deterred by failed harvests and slug damage. This year I plan to try a few new varieties, including kohlrabi, flower sprouts, honeywort and toadflax. I’ll report on these in due course.

This year’s new veg seeds from Seeds of Italy
Plus a few new varieties courtesy of Sarah Raven

On to today’s recipe. Harry and I have been reading The Gingerbread Man with alarming regularity (why are kids’ books so dark??) leading to a few baking sessions where we create – you’ve guessed it – gingerbread men. Or I should say gingerbread people, for our cutters are more of an amorphous human-shaped blob rather than gender-specific. We also have a cutter shaped like a moose, which is a personal favourite.

Cutting out gingerbread men (or moose) is child’s play

This is the best recipe for gingerbread that I have ever come across, cut out years (and I mean YEARS) ago from a magazine. No matter what a pre-schooler can throw at it, and how many times it is re-rolled, it refuses to get tough. The dough, when first made, is incredibly wet so it does need a few hours in the fridge to firm up before rolling out. You can of course adjust the amount of ginger depending on how spicy you want your biscuits, and there is the option to make them pretty with icing, but we prefer the slapped on approach. Gingerbread softens in the tin, so if you want to retain a bit of ‘bite’ to your biscuit then I’d err on the side of over-baking, not to the point of burnt, obviously, but certainly browned around the edges.

Harry can eat three of these in one sitting.

There is the option to decorate beautifully – or just slather your biscuits with water icing, melted chocolate and sprinkles

Gingerbread biscuits

125g unsalted butter
100g soft brown sugar
4 tablespoons golden syrup
325g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1-2 teaspoons ground ginger (use more or less according to your taste)
To decorate: water icing, melted chocolate and sprinkles

Melt together the butter, sugar and syrup, then leave to cool slightly. Mix together the dry ingredients, add the butter mixture, then stir to combine. You will create a very soft dough. Tip onto clingfilm, wrap it firmly then place in the fridge for an hour or two to firm up.

Pre-heat the oven to 170c. Line several baking trays with parchment.

Roll out the dough onto a lightly floured surface, to the thickness of about 1.5cm. Cut out your biscuits and place them on the baking trays – they do spread so keep them several centimetres apart. You’ll probably need to bake in batches.

Bake until golden around the edges. The time depends on the size of your biscuits but my gingerbread men take about 10 minutes, and the large moose biscuits take about 12. Leave to harden on the trays for five minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Decorate with water icing, melted chocolate and sprinkles, if liked. These store for several days in a tin.

Also this week (month):
Harvesting: Mustard red frills, baby chard and rocket from the veg trug. First daffodils are in the supermarkets – I marvel at their cheapness, it somehow seems not right to be able to buy 8 stems for £1.
Eating and cooking: Did very well with the turkey leftovers this year: there was turkey hash, loads of sandwiches, 4 freezer boxes of soup, 2 pies, 3 boxes of chilli and 4 boxes of stock. Also made Jamie Oliver’s Jerk ham which was delicious, though my method needs improving as it does tend to dryness. Buying boxes of clementines and looking for the first seville oranges.
Reading: The book you wish your parents had read by Philippa Perry, who I like very much as a human being, but I think that’s enough psychotherapy for now, thank you very much. Also the new British baking book by Regula Ysewijn, which I will talk about at a later date, and a book about Qi Gong.

Marshmallows

The lawn is littered with yellow-brown leaves, the stems of fennel have faded to crispy bronze and the remaining sunflower heads are drooped and withered. The world feels saturated with colour. Afternoons are spent outside, kicking leaves and squelching in mud.

Autumnal outings

The fruit bowl is rammed with those green tomatoes from the other week – now turned red – plus seasonal apples, pears, figs and the first pomegranates. I’m on the alert for quince too and am going out of my way to drive past the halal shop every few days, checking out their veg display for the first signs of these autumnal treasures.

The newly-invented pear pancake

There is still a weekly vase of strawflower and chrysanthemum to gather, plus the kale and parsnips, but forays into the garden or allotment are few and require boots, gloves and a serious coat. Instead I’ve turned my attention indoors, with decorations of squash and pumpkin for halloween, and evenings learning macrame (which feels simultaneously a middle aged and incredibly hipster pursuit, not that I am drawn to either of these labels).

Autumn – and in particular this Lockdown Autumn – is a great time to get on with recreational cookery – the kind of cooking that is neither essential nor time-pressured, but exists purely for fun or to learn a new technique. The other day I had a few egg whites in the fridge leftover from a carbonara, and shuddered at the thought of meringue (no-one eats in). Then a brainwave struck: marshmallows!

Reader, they’re easier than you think. A marshmallow is simply an Italian meringue, set with gelatine. That’s it. They’re nutritionally pointless but massive fun, plus boiling sugar is involved so there’s a whisper of potential calamity, which is always enjoyable.

Take a syrup to hard-ball stage before mixing in melted gelatine

First, make a stock syrup and boil it up to hard ball stage, 125c. Meanwhile, soak sheet gelatine in cold water until it goes soft and squelchy, then dissolve it over a gentle heat. Once the syrup has come to temperature turn off the heat, add the gelatine then give it a stir to combine.

Whisk the bejesus out of two egg whites

Whisk two egg whites until it becomes firm and stiff, then gradually pour the syrup onto the egg whites, whisking all the time. Keep whisking for a good 5 minutes, perhaps longer, until you have a rich thick meringue that holds its shape. You can now add a flavouring if you like, such as vanilla or rose water, and maybe swirl in some colouring – I used pomegranate juice but for a stronger colour use red food dye or even a spot of beetroot juice.

Gradually add the syrup to the eggs with your chosen flavouring whilst whisking all the time – eventually you’ll get fluffy meringue

Tip the mixture into a tin that you’ve sifted cornflour and icing sugar onto, then leave to set for a few hours.

Marble through food colouring (or pomegranate juice)

Once set, sift a load more cornflour and icing sugar onto a board, tip the marshmallow into it then chop into chunks. Toss around in the icing sugar mixture, (to stop them sticking) and gobble them up.

Toss in cornflour and icing sugar to finish

These would be great for a lockdown family cookery session. Obviously take care as there’s boiling sugar involved, but there’s nothing like learning dangerous new skills to give youngsters confidence in the kitchen. Experiment with the colours and flavours…think peppermint, rose water, orange flower water, vanilla…and have fun.

Marshmallows
Recipe adapted from the River Cottage Family Cookbook. You need a large and small saucepan, sugar thermometer, rubber spatula or wooden spoon, food mixer or hand whisk, mixing bowls, brownie pan or square shallow cake tin (about 20cm) and sieve.

1 tbsp icing sugar
1 tbsp cornflour
vegetable oil for greasing
8 sheets gelatine
water
2 egg whites
500g granulated sugar
Flavouring and/or colour of your choice – I used 1 tsp rose water, but vanilla extract, peppermint essence, orange flower water would also be good. For colour, I used a squeeze of pomegranate juice. Beetroot juice or regular food colouring would give a more vibrant result.

Very lightly grease the bottom and sides of your brownie pan or cake tin. Mix together the cornflour and icing sugar, then sift a spoonful into the bottom and edges of the tin, and set aside.

Measure the sugar with 250ml water into a large saucepan, and heat gently to dissolve the sugar. Meanwhile, put the gelatine with 125ml water into a small saucepan and leave to stand until the gelatine becomes soft and squelchy. Heat the gelatine and water over a very gentle heat, stirring occasionally until dissolved.

Increase the heat on the sugar syrup and boil hard until you reach 125c, hard-ball stage. Keep an eye on it as it heats up very quickly, especially once it gets close to temperature. Turn the heat off, remove the thermometer, then add the gelatine mixture to the syrup. Give it a stir with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon to combine; it will bubble up slightly.

Whisk the egg whites in a large bowl, using either the hand whisk or free-standing food mixer. Once they are stiff, gently pour in the syrup/gelatine mixture in a slow stream – it will become creamy, and then will thicken into a big meringue-y mass. Keep beating for another five minutes or so until the mixture is thick and supports its own shape when dolloped from the beaters. Now stir in your flavouring, and swirl in your colouring.

Pour the marshmallow mixture into the prepared pan and leave to set. This will take about 2 hours.

When you’re ready to cut it up, sieve the remaining cornflour/icing sugar mixture onto a board. Tip the marshmallow block onto it, then using a sharp knife, cut it into squares – it may help to lightly grease the knife. Toss each square in the cornflour/icing sugar to stop them sticking, and serve.

Also this week:
Garden and allotment: Harvesting chrysanthemum, cosmos, strawflower, kale, parsnips. Sowing sweet peas. Back garden still has roses, cosmos, salvia, chrysanthemum etc in bloom so still far to early to do any clearing jobs.
Cooking and eating: Chicken with fennel, lemon and chilli; chicken pie; blueberry porridge; chocolate brownies; several picnics as we can no longer meet people in cafes/indoors (Lockdown life)
Also: Evenings spent learning macrame as I make a wall-hanging for the house.