Apple Cakes for Apple Day

My life has been somewhat apple-themed of late. Since Mr Fitz asked me to make Apple Sauce for his hog roast at the MK Food Fest, I have been surrounded by bags of apples. I have made several batches of Apple Sauce, Apple Ketchup and Brown Sauce for Mr Fitz and I have made various apple jams too - Apple & Ginger Jam, Apple & Ginger Marmalade, Toffee Apple Jam, Orchard Fruit Jam, Apple & Cider Mincemeat and Spiced Apple Curd. This is partially driven by the need to make use of the apples before they spoil and partially because October is Apple Day season and it is nice to have some apple preserves on sale for those. Last weekend I was at the Stony Stratford Apple Day and next weekend I shall be on hand to provide information about foraging at the Great Linford Apple Day.

The Stony Stratford Apple Day was a lovely day out. I have been attending this event since it started about 5 years ago and I think this year's was the best yet. My daughter always enjoys entering the cooking competition. A few years ago she got third prize for her apple crumble, last year she entered her apple charlotte and this year the competition was for apple cake. A week beforehand she selected a recipe for Dorset Apple Cake and tested it out on the family. It didn't cook according to plan and we had to leave it in the oven for much longer than it suggested but it had a lovely crunchy topping and a lovely flavour. Happy with this, she made it again for the Apple Day.

In the meantime, the idea of creating an apple cake had been ticking away at the back of my brain. I wasn't really thinking I would enter the competition too as I had enough to be doing anyway in preparation for the day but then the idea struck me that I could make an apple-shaped cake using the hemisphere tins my mum had bought me for my birthday a few years ago. You may remember that I once used these tins to create an elephant cake for my daughter's birthday. That had been a banana and maple cake inside so I began to wonder if I could make the same basic recipe but substituting mashed bananas with cooked apple. But, then, of course, there had been the pumpkin cake I had made for Halloween last year. This cake had been a Lakeland pumpkin cake recipe. So.... maybe I could make that but swap the grated pumpkin for grated apples...

That seemed the most likely option so on the Saturday before the apple day, whilst my daughter busied herself with her Dorset Apple Cake, I set about making my apple cake, grating 6 Bramley apples into the batter instead of pumpkin. Once cooled, I sandwiched the two hemispheres together using some freshly made Spiced Apple Curd. Next I cut a little divot out of the top, drizzled over some more of the Spiced Apple Curd and stuck in a cinnamon stick to resemble the stalk.

The next day my daughter and I proudly took our cakes over to the judging tent, where a fantastic selection of other cakes were already on display. Then later that afternoon the winners were announced. My daughter got herself a "Highly Commended", although the critic that came with the certificate said it had a soggy bottom. Alas this proved to be true - such is the problem with cooking cakes with chunks of apple in. Sadly, I didn't get a place and my critic said that there wasn't enough apple in it. Ho hum. Taking home the remains, I have to say that I thought it tasted fantastic and my daughter said it was like some sort of amazing birthday cake.

Apple Cake

320g plain flour
180g caster sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp bicarbonate soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 ground cinnamon
1/2 mixed spice
180g light brown sugar
4 eggs
6 bramley apples
240ml vegetable oil
150g sultanas

Preheat oven to 160°C/gas 3 and grease 2 medium hemisphere tins. Sift the flour into a bowl and add caster sugar, raising agents, salt and spices. In a measuring jug, mix together the oil, light brown sugar and eggs. Add this mix to the dry ingredients, add the grated apple and sultanas and stir together until combined. Divide to batter between the two tins and make for 1 hour 20 minutes until golden brown. Test with a skewer. Leave to cool in the tins. Once cool, sandwich together with spiced apple curd, jam or butter icing.

The idea of the banana and maple cake still nagged at the back of my mind too and I was curious to know if it would work. So, later in the week I made a batch of what should have been banana and maple muffins but I substituted the mashed banana for an equivalent quantity of my Apple Sauce. Oh my! These proved to be a winner, making golden muffins with a beautiful light texture. The Apple Day judges wouldn't have liked them as they didn't taste at all appley but that in itself has its advantages when looking to create a beautifully light plain cake in the future. Definitely one to remember.

Apple & Maple Muffins

110g softened butter
110g caster sugar
225g plain flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons maple syrup
2 eggs
110g apple sauce

Preheat oven to 190°C, gas 5 and put paper cases in a 12 hole muffin tin. Cream together the butter and sugar then add the eggs (one at a time). Stir in the syrup and then add the apple sauce. Add the flour and baking powder and stir until just combined. Spoon the batter into the muffin cases and bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown. Test with a skewer. Cool on a wire rack.

Tender Roast Beef

Every Sunday I insist that we sit down to a roast dinner. I know this is a dying tradition but it is one I am keen to hold on to and I do particularly enjoy crispy roast potatoes, seasonal vegetables, slices of roast meat and lashings of gravy. My personal favourite roast meat is lamb, my husband loves pork - particularly if the crackling has crackled properly, and my daughters love chicken.

On 18th September we went out for dinner to celebrate my parents' 45th wedding anniversary - no mean feat! They suggested the Harvester closest to their home and we went early enough to catch the last servings from the carvery. I was glad of this as Sunday without roast dinner just isn't right! Their meats of choice that night were turkey and beef. I wouldn't normally bother with turkey at home as both chicken and duck have more flavour in my opinion and we have a goose at Christmas (another tradition I'm keen to keep alive). I love the flavour of roast beef but when doing it at home it can be as tough as an old boot. Trying to cook a small bit of beef without making it tough is tricky and often results in disappointment. So on this occasion I enjoyed the novelty of turkey and beef and stacked my plate high with roast potatoes, vegetables and impressive Yorkshire puddings.

Last week whilst out shopping I found myself drawn to the beef roasting joints now that my appetite had been refreshed with the taste. I found a bit on offer but it was only about a kilogram - enough to feed the family but difficult to cook. So I asked my friend Turan from Coldsmoking Cookery School how he would cook it for best results. He suggested brining it first then slow cooking it covered for a few hours. This, he told me, would make it fall apart with the touch of a fork. This wasn't entirely what I was after as I was more looking for nice slices than "pulled brisket". So he amended his instructions to brining then cooking covered at 180°C for about an hour, then taking off the foil for the last bit and ramping the temperature up to brown.

Turan's instructions for brining couldn't have been simpler. I found a suitably small plastic container and put it on my scales and zeroed them. Then I added the meat and filled the container so that the meat was covered. Together the meat and water weighed 1500g, so I needed to add 15g of salt to create a 10% solution. I put the lid on the box and put it in the fridge for 24 hours. To cook, I placed it on a rack in a roasting tin and covered with foil then cooked at 180°C for 1 hour. Then I removed the foil and turned up the oven temperature to 200°C. I had been making some Garlic & Ale Mustard for my mate Mr Fitz earlier in the day and I had a little bit of that left over so I coated the meat with it and put it back in the oven for another twenty minutes before finally bringing it out to rest.

I'm pleased to say that the combination of brining and cooking left me with a piece of meat the sliced beautifully and was both tasty and tender to eat. I do believe that roast beef may be back on my Sunday menu from now on.

Banana and Marrow Cake

My allotment neighbour James has an amazing talent for growing marrows. This is not something he particularly works at. Indeed, he is merely trying to grow a few courgettes. I did suggest he should find himself a champion marrow contest to enter but he didn't seem impressed. He was on the verge of throwing away what he considered to be inedible courgettes (but what I could see were beautiful marrows) when I said I could make use of them if he didn't want them. This started a weekly delivery of a crate of marrows. Although overwhelming for some, I know I can make use of the marrows in chutneys as well as in every day cooking and baking. They are lovely in small amounts, chopped up and added to casseroles, stirfries and any number of savoury dishes. They also work well grated into cakes. Indeed, on one marrow delivery, I asked James if he fancied trying my chocolate courgette muffin recipe, which he was enthusiastic about. In fact, since then I've not had another marrow from him!

Anyway, I'm now in the process of working my way through a lovely pile of marrows. I guess we get through 1 or 2 marrows in everyday cooking during an average week. They are particularly good at bulking out mushroom recipes, with onions and garlic added too.

There I was thinking that I would make some chocolate courgette muffins myself when I spotted two bananas in the fruit bowl looking too far gone to survive a trip to school in a lunchbox. Two bananas are a little tricky as most banana bread recipes call for 3 but I thought, like the mushrooms, they could perhaps be bulked out with a bit of marrow. And so Banana & Marrow Cake was born.

Banana & Marrow Cake

350g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
180g light muscovado sugar
75g sultanas
150 grated marrow/courgette
2 over ripe bananas, mashed
3 large eggs
225ml sunflower oil

Preheat oven to 180°C, gas 4 and grease a 23cm deep square cake tin and line the bottom with baking parchment. Put the flour and baking powder into a large bowl and combine. Stir in the sugar. Add the sultanas. Grate in the marrow and add the mashed banana but don't stir. Beat the eggs into the oil then add this to the bowl. Stir together until combined. Pour into the prepared cake tin and bake for 1 hour, testing with a skewer. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes or so then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Individual Pork Pies

Having dabbled with making home made pork pies a few times now, I have finally decided I am happy with this recipe. Making individual pork pies is easier than one large raised pie - they take less time to cook and are more likely to be cooked all the way to the middle, and it is possible to cut one open and taste it to check it is OK before putting it out there for the audience to enjoy. To my taste, a pork pie just isn't the same without white pepper and mace but it is worth frying a little filling off to check the seasoning before assembling the pies. Remember that the jelly will add a little more salt to the overall flavour. I use bone broth to add the essential jelly component and this works really well as it is naturally set when cold. Alternatively use half a stock cube in 300 ml of boiling water and 2 small sheets of gelatine. Making the pies in a muffin tin is easy, although I am informed that hand raising the pies is straight forward too, pulling the larger circle of pastry up over a ball of meat before putting the lid on it to hold it in place. I may try that next time. Removing the pies from the tin can be a little difficult if not well greased so not having this element would be handy. Once chilled, serve as part of a buffet or lunch or as a snack with a good dollop of chutney.

For the pastry:
256g plain flour
55g strong white flour
55g unsalted butter
65g lard
1 tsp salt
135ml boiling water
1 egg

For the filling:
500g pork - mixture of pork belly and pork shoulder
2 rashers of bacon
1/2 tsp ground white pepper
Ground black pepper
A good pinch of ground mace
Salt
Bone broth (or stock and gelatine)

Using scissors, cut the pork up into small pieces and place in a bowl. Snip up the bacon and add to the pork. Add the seasoning. To check the seasoning, fry a small amount of the filling until cooked and taste. Preheat oven to 190°C and grease a 12 hole muffin tin. Next, put the flour in a bowl and add the butter. Rub the butter into the flour to form a breadcrumb texture. Put the lard in a measuring jug and microwave until melted. Add the salt to the lard and then measure in the boiling water. Pour this mixture onto the flour and stir with a spoon and then your hands to form a dough. Leave to cool until just cool enough to handle then cut into two pieces - one about two thirds of the pastry, and one about a third. Roll out the bigger piece of dough to about 3mm thick. Cut out 12 x 10cm circles of dough and line each muffin hole with the circles of pastry. Spoon the meat mixture into the muffin tin until each pastry case is well filled. Roll out the remaining piece of pastry and cut out 12 x 6cm circles. Place a circle of pastry onto each pie to form a lid and press gently to seal the pie shut. Use a skewer to make a hole in each lid about 5mm in diameter. Brush each pie with beaten egg then bake the pies for 50 minutes until golden brown. Once the pies are cooked, heat the bone broth to turn it into liquid. Use a small funnel to help you pour broth into each pie until it just overflows. Once the pies are cool, place in the fridge to chill over night or for a couple of hours. Once chilled, remove the pies from the muffin tin and chill until ready to eat.

Tasty Mediterranean stuffing

Having got back from the plot later than anticipated on Sunday evening but loaded up with seasonal vegetables, I was faced with the issue of  having to quickly decide what vegan version of a roast dinner I could cook. My vegan step-daughter has been living with us since mid-June now and I have been cooking her dinner every night so vegan cooking is not an issue in itself - just an added task. When making dinner starts with going out to gather the ingredients, it is very much slow food anyway.

I glanced around at the ingredients I had to hand, both freshly picked and supermarket bought, and quickly decided that my best bet would be a stuffed roasted butternut squash. Having cut the rounded bottom end off it and hollowed out the seed cavity, I rummaged around for something suitable to stuff it with. Being August the seasonal vegetables have a Mediterranean slant to them so I decided these were the flavours to aim for. Courgette, mushrooms, red onion, red pepper, garlic and herbs de provenance came together within a few minutes to create a delicious smelling stuffing. This I spooned into the hollow butternut, leaving a few spoonfuls that wouldn't quite fit. Smelling so tasty, it seemed a shame to waste it but it was just too much to fit in yet there wasn't enough to make another meal out of it.

With the squash in the oven, it was time to turn my attention to the meat for the rest of the family. A small rolled lamb shoulder sat in the roasting tin, neatly held together by four elastic bands. Then it occurred to me that it was just crying out to be stuffed, so I took the elastic off it, unrolled it, spooned in the last of the stuffing and reassembled it.

An hour later dinner was ready - an impressive stuffed roast butternut squash for the vegan, and roast lamb with a Mediterranean stuffing for the rest of us. A roast with the taste of summer for everyone.

Mediterranean Stuffing

1 slice wholemeal bread
About 1/3 of a courgette
1 small red onion
About 2 tablespoons Quorn mince (optional)
4-6 mushrooms
1-2 cloves of garlic
A dash of sweet chilli sauce
1 tablespoon tomato puree
Freshly ground black pepper
Garlic salt
Dried herb de provenance
1/4 red pepper
3 basil leaves

Cut the crusts off the slice of bread and put it into a small food processor and blitz to create crumbs. Put into a bowl. Peel the courgette and blitz into fine pieces. Set aside and repeat for the onion, mushroom and garlic. Heat some oil in a frying pan and put in the courgette and onion pieces and fry for a couple of minutes. Add the Quorn if using and fry for another minute to thaw out. Next add the mushrooms and after another couple of minutes add the garlic and fry for one more minute. Add the sweet chilli sauce, tomato puree, garlic salt, pepper and dried herbs and stir well to combine. Spoon the mixture into the bowl with breadcrumbs. Blitz the red pepper with the basil then add this to the bowl. Give everything a good stir then use to stuff vegetables or meat.

Mr Fitz - he knows what he is doing!

I first came across Mr Fitz as a food blogger, writing under the name of Cooking With Mr Fitz. He has, however, got his finger in many pies - quite literally! Indeed, it is hard to keep track of everything he does or to realise that he is necessarily behind a particular business name. It is obvious that he is behind The Fabulous Mr and Mrs Fitz - a hot food caterer specialising in all natural hog roasts and barbecues. He is also involved in Simply Samosas and Pie Club GB and Hog Roast GB. But that is probably the mere tip of the ice-berg as he seems to spend most of his time gallivanting around the world in exotic locations catering for VIPs and, it seems, lounging poolside in his mirrored sunglasses!

To use the word "confident" about Mr Fitz is to understate him. He is very much assured that he has food on offer that everyone would want to eat. I have read about and heard about his foodie delights for a while now but it was not until the weekend that I got my first chance to taste some. Often when I have a stall at a food event I take a packed lunch with me - partly because I don't know if I will get a moment to leave my stall to find lunch and partly to stop myself spending the profits before they are earned. But on this occasion I really wanted to see if there was bite behind his bark and if his food was really as fabulous as he would have you believe.

I started my taste experience mid-morning on a reccy-mission to see what I might fancy for lunch. Mr Fitz was enthusing at this point about the new and exclusive Hawaiian buns that he had created in collaboration with Geoff from Geoff's Real Artisan Bread. Geoff is a patient man and passionate about his bread and I know he has worked with other local hot food business, such as Good Times Cafe, to not just offer them locally sourced artisan bread for their businesses but to ensure it is the best bread for their needs. What Mr Fitz needed was a pineapple bread bun to suit his Cajun spiced pork. That morning the buns were ready for their first taste test complete with the pork and all the trimmings and it was Geoff who was to have the first taste. I, on the other hand, tentatively tried a piece of the pork on its own as I am a bit of a spice-wimp and didn't want to ruin my lunch with something overly spiced. It, of course, wasn't overly spiced but it also wasn't lunchtime so I returned to my stall to serve my customers.

When lunchtime did arrive, I found myself fancying the hog roast sausage that Mr Fitz had on offer. I felt I should have been more adventurous and maybe tried the spicy Spanish but it's the spice thing again. Regular readers of my blog will know that I love a good sausage and this was a good sausage - meaty but not overly chunky, seasoned but not overly peppered or overwhelmed with herbs. This, I think, is a sausage I want to buy to cook at home for the family.

Later, whilst wandering past the stall again I overheard Lesley from Kandola's Kitchen making the discovery that amidst this apparent meat-feast Mr Fitz was also able to offer her a vegan option. This brought Debbie from Minkiemoo Bakery out too and later I heard Lesley trying to extract the vegan burger recipe from Mr Fitz she had enjoyed it so much. Like his first name, there are just some things Mr Fitz is not willing to share.

It was 3 o'clock when the afternoon munchies set in again so I returned to Mr Fitz to sample his pulled barbecue pork. This he assembled into one of the now famous Hawaiian buns and as we exchanged banter he piled in some coleslaw made from various vegetables from his friend's allotment and then dolloped in some sort of creamy dressing followed by something green. He didn't ask, he just did. But he was right. Whatever it was, the combinations worked perfectly and it was delicious. Having consumed the bun, I went back to tell him.

"Mr Fitz," I said, "it seems you know what you are doing."

He reeled off a whole load of places and people he has catered for, being the well traveled caterer he is, but said that he was pleased to get my seal of approval too. I felt I should have given him a badge to formalise my approval but sadly I hadn't prepared one!

After a lovely day at the summer food market, enjoying the general good humored love of local food, it was time to head home. As I slowly edged my way past the collapsing stalls, Mr Fitz leaned down to my open car window and handed me a warm silver foil bundle.

"Have you got a family who would enjoy eating this?" he asked as he passed me the barbecued pulled pork. Silly question.

So, this afternoon, in the absence of Geoff and his Hawaiian buns, I made some steamed boa buns and reheated the pulled pork. This I served alongside strips of homegrown carrot and cucumber, chunks of beetroot and lettuce, cooked French beans and some sauted potatoes. Needless to say, the meal was fabulous!

Cooking Hogget

I first met Tim from Bourton Farm Food in February at the first MK Feast but I didn't exchange more than a passing nod with him then. This was one of his first events, selling pork and lamb that they had grown on the family farm.

When I was at the Food Fair at Galleon Wharf on 12th June, my table was next to his so I had chance to have a proper look at his wares. On this occasion he was again selling pork and lamb from the farm near Buckingham, some of it in the form of sausages.

I am a bit partial to a sausage so I was interested in his products: a spicy lamb sausage that he said was similar in flavour to kebab meat, a 100% pork, which had nothing other than salt and pepper added to it, and a more finely ground 80% pork with the other 20% being rusk. It is no easy task selecting a sausage that my whole family will enjoy as Steve and I prefer a properly meaty sausage and the girls prefer theirs to be more pasty and, actually, cheaper in quality. Fortunately, Tim had a little pack of four 100% pork sausages that was just the perfect size for me to take home to try.

I was also intrigued by his diced hogget as this isn't a term I come across very often. Tim explained that hogget comes from 1 year old lambs and is part way between lamb and mutton. It would require, he said, slow gentle cooking, but the flavour was amazing. Given that I love the flavour of lamb, particularly casseroled, I was keen to give this go so ! swapped a bottle of brown sauce and jar of chutney for a pack for his hogget.

Thinking about it, I realised that I had first come across the term "hogget" recently when Gordon from Urban Grilla had mentioned that he was now using Bourton Farm Food's hogget in his street food, so I decided to ask him how he cooked it.

"I start by browning the shoulder on a barbecue," he said. "This gives it a lot more flavour than browning it in the pan. After it's got a nice, brown crust, I pot roast it with rosemary and garlic, carrots, onions and celery. I season it well and add a few ingredients of my own and add a bottle of Hornes Brewery Triple Goat porter, whilst trying my hardest not to drink any of it. I then put it in the oven between 120 and 140°C, and leave it to cook slowly for between 5 to 8 hours. I know its ready when the meat literally falls off the bone. Bourton Farm hogget is some of the tastiest lamb I've ever eaten which is why they are our main suppliers."

Now doesn't that sound amazing? Something to put on my "must try" list for sure. Maybe I'll catch up with Gordon and some slow cooked hogget at the Wolverton Food & Fun day on 2nd July.

In the meantime, not having a whole shoulder of hogget to play with, I decided to stick to my original plan of casseroling it. I browned it first, in a conventional frying pan I'm afraid, and added it to some lamb stock I'd made previously from the bones of a roast leg of lamb. To this I added par boiled carrots, celery, leek and butternut squash. Then I briefly fried an onion, some mushrooms and garlic, added a splash of mushroom ketchup, soy sauce and sweet chilli sauce and added these to the dish too. This I topped with slices of par boiled potato before giving it a splash of Worcestershire sauce to finish it off. After an hour in the oven at 180°C, the potatoes were crisp and the meat tender.

I did kind of expect the first mouthful of meat to blow me away - you know, like the flavour of the first hungry bite of steak, onions and mustard - but it didn't. It was tasty and tender but not in your face. Then, gradually, over the course of the meal, the flavour seemed to somehow build, developing a depth and savouriness that younger lamb doesn't have. It was a bit like the opposite to a Chinese takeaway where the first mouthful is amazing and then half way through the meal you get fed up with it. With this casserole I enjoyed the flavours more as it went on and right to the last mouthful. I ended it feeling suitably satisfied.

It was a few days later that I cooked up the sausages to try. They were undeniably meaty and it was nice not to have them over-complicated with herbs and spices. Personally I think they could have tolerated a slightly higher fat content but others might prefer their lean qualities. But it is hard not to feel happy about eating a 100% pork sausage from a local farm for the principle alone so its delicious meaty flavour just seals the deal. Sadly, my daughter refused to even try these, preferring her lesser quality ones, but no matter as they made a delicious cold sausage and ketchup sandwich for lunch the next day.