Mothers Day Treat

It's Mothers Day next Sunday so now is the time to think about how you will give your mum a treat. There are, of course, lots of possible special gestures to choose from but in my mind, breakfast in bed is a lovely way to start a day of pampering.

They say it is the thought that counts and when it comes to saying "I love you", nothing does it better than something that both shows thought and is made by your fair hand. So put a little thought into this breakfast in bed and make it yourself if you can. I'm sure a full English breakfast, followed by toast and tea would be much appreciated if your mother likes that and your skills can handle it. Or you could go with something a little simpler such as some homemade granola, followed by toast and jam.


Granola

Ingredients
350g oats
1 handful wheat germ
40g sunflower seeds
30g dessicated coconut
30g sesame seeds
2 tablespoons sunflower or corn oil
2 tablespoons runny honey

Preheat oven to 180°C. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Add the oil and the honey and combine well. Spread the mixture over one large or small smaller baking trays to form a thick layer. Bake for 10 to 20 minutes depending on how well you like it toasted. Allow the granola to cool then transfer into an airtight container to store. Serve the granola with milk and dried fruit such as raisins, sultanas, cranberries and apricots.



And as this is a special breakfast, why not try a different beverage too. Maybe some lovely freshly squeezed orange juice or a different brand of tea or coffee.

Jo from Yenna Bean, is passionate about tea and says, "I would recommend something like a spiced chai. It is a blend of tea leaves and spices such as ginger root, cinnamon bark and cardamom seeds. It is different but very invigorating and delicious. We stock some at the shop if you'd like to try it." Should you find yourself there, stop for a slice of her homemade Victoria sandwich cake, featuring Jammy Cow seedless raspberry jam, or take your mother for one of her afternoon teas and enjoy our raspberry jam in a diddy little jar.

If coffee is your mother's preferred morning wake up drink then Eric from Coffee Cavern has a suggestion for you. He says, "A lovely coffee like El Obraje, Colombia. Maybe with marmalade or a citrus jam of some sort."

Of course, you may not be able to be there in person to present these delights to your mother so why not package up a bag of your handmade granola with a jar of jam and a special selection of tea and coffee and pop it in the post as a do-it-yourself Mothers Day breakfast? It may not be ideal but if it really is the thought that counts it should be well received.

Jammy Pancakes

Shrove Tuesday has always been an important family occasion for me. Indeed, I was born on Ash Wednesday and my mum still made my dad and my brother their annual pancakes despite being in labour! Now that's dedication!



This year Shrove Tuesday falls on 21st February so I hope you have your frying pan ready and are well stocked up with lemons! I have to confess that I find it hard to beat the classic lemon and sugar combo on pancakes but there are of course lots of other options. Sliced banana drizzled with honey is good, or an apple cooked with some brown sugar and cinnamon works well too.



A while ago I bought a teeny frying pan from the Lakeland catalogue. It was designed for frying one egg at a time but I use it to make mini pancakes in. These prove particularly popular with my girls. Funny how mini sized things often appeal to children. It also makes them think they had eaten "millions!" of pancakes, when in fact 4 of them is only the same as one large crepe. On these pancakes they spread jam so the small size of the pancake also means they have the opportunity to have a variety of different flavours. Try it, it is fun!

Mini Jammy Pancakes

4 oz (110 g) flour
Pinch of salt
1 egg, beaten
10 fl oz (300 ml) milk
Jam

Sieve the flour and salt into a bowl and make a well in the centre. Add the egg and milk gradually and whisk vigorously to make a smooth batter. If possible, leave the mixture to rest for a while (or overnight). Heat a little oil in a small size frying pan or use a medium frying pan and a fried egg ring. Poor a little batter into the pan (or ring) and swirl the pan round to cover the base. Cook on one side until beginning to crisp at the edges then flip and cook again for a minute or two until done. Lay on a plate and smear with a jam of your choosing. Eat immediately.

Jam biscuits for Valentine's Day

They say that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach and there is no better way to a man's stomach than a bit of home baking. So here is a recipe I use for Valentine's Day to reach my husband's heart. Easy to make, tasty to eat and fun to involve the children in making too should you be looking for ways to keep them entertained this half term.

Jam Heart Biscuits

6 oz (175g) plain flour
1 oz (25g) oat bran
4 oz (110g) butter
2 oz (55g) caster sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1 egg, beaten
2-3 oz (55-75g) jam

Mix the flour and oat bran with the butter until it is like breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar. Add 1 tablespoon of milk then a little at a time until soft dough forms. Preheat the oven to 190°C and grease two baking trays. Roll out pieces of dough and use a heart-shaped cutter to cut out biscuits. Brush each biscuit with egg then cut strips of pastry and form a rim around each biscuit. Brush the biscuit again with egg. Spoon about 1 teaspoon of jam into the centre of each biscuit and roughly spread it to fill the shape. Bake for 15 minutes until golden then cool on a wire rack.

The Classic Victoria Sandwich Cake

On the Jammy Cow website's page, "101 things to do with jam", making a Victoria Sandwich Cake is number 11. After all, a part from spreading jam on a piece of bread in one form or another, there is little more obvious to do with jam than to make a Victoria sandwich cake.

A Victoria sandwich cake was the first big cake that my daughter made on her own. Two years ago, at the tender age of 7, she had decided she had well and truly cracked fairy cakes and biscuits and wanted to try a bigger challenge so we flicked through her Usborne recipe cards of Yummy Things To Make and Eat and she selected the Victoria Sponge Cake. And off she went, with little more than supervision and oven intervention from me. Not to take anything away from her achievement, it is in fact little more than a very big fairy cake in terms of its recipe so it a simple cake to make that looks more impressive than the effort would suggest. She was rightly very pleased with herself and I think the Victoria Sandwich Cake will always hold a fondness for her.



It was little surprise then that this morning when I asked the girls what cake they would like to help me make she suggested the Victoria Sandwich cake. And why not? It took about 20 minutes to mix, 25 minutes to cook and was sandwiched together after lunch shortly before we went out on a rather chilly walk with amble amounts of butter icing and raspberry jam. The thought of a generous slice of that when we got home spurred us on for the last part of our walk. In we came, casting off coats, hats, gloves and scarfs and within minutes we were cuddled up on the sofa with a slab of cake and a warm drink. Perfect!



Victoria Sandwich Cake

225g (8oz) butter
225g (8oz) caster sugar
4 medium eggs
225g (8oz) self-raising flour
110g (4oz) butter
225g (8oz) icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
110g (4oz) raspberry or strawberry jam

Preheat oven to 180°C, gas 4 and grease and line sandwich tins. Place the butter into a large bowl and if it is straight out of the fridge heat it in the microwave for 30 seconds. Add the sugar and cream together. Add the eggs one at a time, stirring in between additions. Sift in the flour and stir well to combine. Spoon equally into the two sandwich tins then bake for 25 minutes until springy to the touch. Leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes before turning out to cool completely on a wire rack. In the meantime, mix together the butter, icing sugar and vanilla to make the butter icing. Once the cakes are cool, spread one half with the butter icing and one half with the jam then sandwich the two fillings together.

Random Soups of Kindness

Brr... it's cold out there today. Just been out to deliver the girls to school and am now enjoying the perks of working from home and have wrapped myself up in a blanket to get warm again. I believe it is down to -3°C today. Last year it went down to -13°C here in MK and stayed that way for a fortnight. In that time the pumpkins, squash and potatoes I had in storage in my shed froze and I lost the lot. But, hey, you learn from your mistakes and earlier this week I brought my stores into the garage and tucked them up in an old coat. I have chutney plans for those pumpkin and squash and don't want to lose them.

But what about a more serious loss - what about the thousands of people who die here in the UK each winter due to the cold?

This morning I came across this blog post from "Goddess On A Budget" about this very issue. And her solution: Random Soups of Kindness - to make soup and then to take a bowl to a vulnerable person. What a fabulous idea - the idea itself is heartwarming!



So today I think I shall take some of my stored pumpkin and squashes and cook up a batch of hot, thick soup. And maybe you could do that same.

Pumpkin & Butternut Squash Soup

(serves 3)

1 lb (450g) pumpkin flesh
1 lb (450g) butternut squash flesh
Olive oil
10 fl oz vegetable stock
2 tablespoons tomato puree
4 sage leaves
Salt and pepper

Peel and chop the vegetables then fry them in some olive oil for about 5 minutes in the bottom of a large saucepan. Pour in the stock, add the tomato puree and sage leaves and simmer for 30 minutes until soft. Pour into a food processor and blend until smooth. Return to the pan. Season to taste and bring back to the boil then either serve it hot or pour into warmed jars.



Or, from more basic ingredients - Leek & Potato

Leek & Potato Soup

(serves 4-6)

1 tablespoon oil
2 leeks
1 lb (450g) potatoes
1¾ pints (1 litre) vegetable stock
½ pint (300ml) milk
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Wash and chop the leeks into thin rounds. Wash, peel and cube the potatoes. Heat the oil in a large sauce pan and fry the leeks, stirring constantly to avoid sticking until the leeks are soft but not brown. Add the potatoes and continue to fry for another 2 to 3 minutes. Add the stock and the milk and bring to the boil. Cover the pan and simmer for 30 minutes until the vegetables are soft and the potatoes are breaking down. Blend in a food processor until smooth and season to taste. Serve immediately or pour into warmed jars and seal immediately.

Jammy Brioche

My girls would much rather have some sort of bread or baked product for breakfast than a bowl of cereal. I guess with the endless supply of different flavours of jam on hand this is hardly surprising (although my eldest has been known to opt for honey!). Consequently, I often make a batch of something for breakfast on a Sunday morning, freezing half and offering the rest for breakfast for the next few days. This might be waffles, banana/pumpkin/apple pancakes or something bready like Chelsea Buns. There is, after all, no time for faffing about on a school morning so being able to reach for something that can be quickly reheated in the microwave or toaster is essential on those mornings.

Having got through the Sunday batch of waffles by Wednesday this week, I decided to top up the breakfast bakery selection with some brioche buns. Doing this sort of thing mid week is only possible when you have a bread machine. So on returning from the school run, I threw the ingredients into the machine and got on with other things for an hour and half whilst it worked through the dough setting. Next I shaped the dough into 12 buns and then decided to see if it would work if I blobbed some jam into the centre of each one before cooking. Then, come the morning, it would just be case of popping a bun on a plate, no need even to slice it and spread with jam.

Well, I'm pleased to say that my experiment worked and this fresh batch made a very welcome after school snack that day and then a quick breakfast the next day. As is always the case with homemade bread, the rolls were a little stale on the 3rd day but 15 seconds in the microwave for 2 buns revived them and made another breakfast. Yep, a definite hit and something to add to the breakfast menu.

Jammy Brioche Buns (makes 12)

2 tablespoons milk
2 eggs
8 oz (225g) strong white flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon caster sugar
2 oz (55g) butter (diced)
1 1/2 teaspoons dried yeast
Seedless raspberry jam (or another flavour if preferred)
egg or milk to glaze

Pour the milk and eggs into the bread machine pan. Sprinkle over the flour to cover the liquid. Put the salt, sugar and butter into separate corners of the bread pan. Place the yeast into a small indent in the centre. Set the bread machine on dough setting and press start. When it has finished, gently knock the dough back on a lightly floured surface. Cut into 12 equal pieces. Grease a 12 hole muffin tin. Cup each piece of dough in your hand and add half a teaspoon of jam to the centre of the dough then gently pull the dough over the jam to seal inside. Place the dough fold side down into the holes in the muffin tin. Repeat for each piece of dough. Cover with lightly oiled clingfilm and leave to rise for 30 to 40 minutes. Preheat oven to 220°C, gas 7. Brush each roll with egg or milk to glaze then bake for 15 minutes until risen and golden. Cool on a wire rack.

Things to do with jam no.32

On my Jammy Cow Website I have a page dedicated to finding 101 things to do with jam. Back in August when I only had 12 things listed on this page, I asked my Facebook page fans for suggestions to help me towards the 101. My friend John replied with a comprehensive list and ever since then I have wanted to create his 12th suggestion which was to collect enough varieties to line them up as a rainbow on my shelf.

So when I finally had chance to restock my Greengage Jam this weekend I knew my spectrum was complete. OK so it's not exactly vibrant green but that's what you get with natural products and no colourings. The next job was to select the best shades of red, orange and purple from the other varieties I had on offer. Anyway, here it is, made from Redcurrant Jelly, Crabapple Jelly, Apple & Ginger Jam, Greengage Jam, Jostaberry Jam, Gooseberry Jelly, and Apple & Blackcurrant Jam.



Thanks John for the suggestions. If anyone else has got any silly or sensible suggestions or recipes then please let me know.