I’ve had a block of tamarind pulp hanging around in the fridge, from some curry or other a while back, so this seemed a perfect opportunity to use some of it up. It’s another delicious Dan Lepard recipe, from the Guardian Weekend. Here’s the recipe.

Thing is, pulp ain’t paste – it’s still got the stones in it, so I increased the quantities, then laboriously picked up the stones. In the Dan Lepard forums here, they discuss paste and he links the brand he used, which is concentrated.

This is a cake made by melting the butter, and beating everything together – yet it’s surprisingly light. It’s delicious. Mine probably wasn’t not tamarind-y enough, but it’s given a lovely extra tang by the icing – made with lemon juice and freshly-ground cardamon (one of my fave spices for sweets). Oh, and my icing was made with Billington’s Natural Golden Icing unrefined cane sugar, hence it’s brown-ish colour, which I think quite suited the wholesome style of cake.

Another Dan Lepard recipe from the Guardian. Find it here.

These are very handsome, tasty cookies. Not the usual massive monsters I make. Dan L says “place round, teaspoon-sized balls” on the baking sheets, but I just got teaspoon fulls and rolled them between my palms to the size of a small walnut in an effort to achieve some sort of regularity of size.

The dominant flavour here is from muscovado sugar and black treacle (or molasses – TBH, I’m not sure I could tell the two apart if I ate a spoonful of each in a blind test), along with a slight saltiness from the peanuts. The recipe also includes some lemon zest, which Dan L says “brightens the flavour on first bite”, but I find it also stays on the palette pleasantly.

I’m not sure about the inclusion of a tablespoon of cocoa though. He says it helps “to push the aftertaste towards chocolate”, but is it really necessary? The flavours of unrefined sugar and peanut are quite dominant,  and cocoa is arguably overcomplicating it. Plus, if I want my cookies to taste of chocolate, I’ll make chocolate cookies. But hey, that’s just me. Oh, and I knocked back the sugar a bit too.

This is the partner cake to Jo’s “Eggsperiment”, as we got stuck into both side-by-side. Thanks to Jo or Lawrence for the pic too!

It’s another Dan Lepard. The sponge itself is made in a marginally convoluted fashion (separating eggs, making a kind of meringue mix with the whites), but it’s nice – with a crumbly, even texture not unlike a Madeira (according to Jo). The best part of this recipe is the icing, which is a bit like a ganache, but using crème fraîche. This gives it an almost citrussy tang, which is rather nice.

Here’s the recipe.

I’m not particularly a fan of hot cross buns, or fruity breads in general, but I am a fan of goodies that are traditionally baked on particular feast days. Hot cross buns are associated with the Christian Good Friday – the cross symbolising the machine of Christ’s torture and execution. Good old Wikipedia also adds some information about buns with a cross symbol also being eaten in pre-Christian times to honour to goddess Eostre, who may have given the name to Easter. Fascinating!

I made my a week before the traditional Good Friday. So sue me.The blasted supermarkets stock them for about 2 months before Easter.

These were based on another splendid recipe by Mr Dan Lepard. Here’s the recipe. It uses stout; I used Wychwood Brewery’s Hobgoblin instead, as it’s a nice dark ale, and it’s what we had in the house. You mix it with the yeast, spices and some of the flour, and make a sponge, which you leave to ferment overnight. You also mix peel and raisins with black tea. Dark ale? Black tea? Spices? You can’t argue with that.

Now it’s time for a song:

“Hot cross buns!
Hot cross buns!
One ha’ penny, two ha’ penny,
Hot cross buns!
If you have no daughters,
Give them to your sons
One ha’ penny,
Two ha’ penny,
Hot Cross Buns!”

These are actually called Honey and ginger wafers in Dan Lepard’s essential book The Handmade Loaf. Mine, however, weren’t in any way wafer-ish, so let’s just stick with calling them gingerbread biscuits eh?

Very handsome biscuits these ones. As usual, I’m not satisfied with my photos, as none of them show the neat forked pattern on the top.

These biscuits use a pretty comprehensive spice mix, which I simplified marginally due to a lack of a couple of the spices (seriously, even if your spice cupboard is bursting at the seams, but you’ll always find yourself lacking a spice or two when you start to make a recipe. Sod’s law). I just used 1 t coriander seeds, 1 t ground cinnamon, 1/2 t grated nutmeg, 1/4 t black peppercorns, 2 t ground ginger, 2 cardamon pods, all ground up together (with pestle and mortar, or electric grinder).

The dough consists of:
250g runny honey
150g unsalted butter
2 T double cream
200g plain white flour
200g light rye flour
1 t bicarb of soda
100g soft brown sugar
plus the spice mix.

Preheat the oven to 210C.

You melt the butter with the honey, then cool it a little and mix in the cream.

In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients, including the spice mix.

Then blend the wet mix into the dry mix, and mix to a dough. I found it way too wet, so added a little more flour. Mr Lepard’s bread recipes often use very moist doughs, but in the case of these biscuits, it just didn’t seem like it would be possible to roll and cut the dough if it was soggy and sticky.

Rest the dough in the fridge for 2 hours, then roll it out to 5mm and cut 80mm discs. Place them on baking sheets (the recipe says “lined with non-stick baking parchment”, but my sheets are pretty well-seasoned so I just greased them lightly and it was fine).

Make a glaze using 1 egg and 1 egg yolk, whisked with 1/4 t salt. Glaze the biscuits, then mark a grid pattern on each with a fork.

Bake for 10-15 mins until golden brown.

The seem to last very well if stored in a good sealed tin or tupperware.

For a bit of a rambling free-form afternoon dinner-ish party yesterday, which doubled up as a belated birthday party, both Jo and I made extremely rich chocolately cakes. Mine was this slightly ramshackle looking offering.

It’s my first slightly iffy experience with one of Dan Lepard’s Guardian recipes. They’re usually thoroughly reliable, but I’m a bit unsure about the results of this one, his Macadamia fudge cake.

I couldn’t resist trying out the recipe – 400g of macadamia nuts, ground up; half a kilo of dark choc. What’s not to like? However, I was a bit uncertain what to do when I tested it after 50 minutes of baking and the centre seemed to be pure goo, under a crisp, crusty top. Given that Dan L has limited space for his Guardian recipes, he put “bake for 45-55 minutes”, but nothing like “until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean”, or whatever equivalent would have been suitable here. Ergo, I was very uncertain about it. I gave it another 20 mins, but it was still gooey. I realise this one is supposed to be somewhat akin to good brownie in moistness, so I took it out. His recipe does say to leave it overnight too, so I thought it might firm up a bit.

Instead, it collapsed in on itself, which is never something a baker likes to see their cakes do. I get quite upset when my baking projects go so visibly wrong.

Anyway, rather than having a tantrum and throwing it in the bin, I just filled it with whipped cream before serving and hoped for the best. It was very tasty, but still very gooey. Today, almost two days after it, and after a night in the fridge, the remains have firmed up a bit, but I’m still a little unsure.

Basically, this recipe is like the bastard offspring of a sachertorte and a meringue. Which is all well and good theoretically, but, well, I’d love to see what Dan L’s version is like in the flesh! The brief (to date) discussion on Dan L’s forums includes one chap’s comments that indicate a not dissimilar experience to mine.

So, I’ve been a bit behind with my posts, I think Dan’s been kind and not put too many on his side?! My mum was here for 10 days and I demanded she bake a treacle tart – something I used to love her making as a kid. I may have to post a picture as a guest blog – it looked wonderful. Prior to that I made another loaf from the Dan Lepard book, using a leaven for the first time. It went rather well actually! This is quite a dense rye sweet(ish) bread and is best toasted. It’s pretty involved, what with the leaven and all (starting 6 days before) so I won’t go into the recipe here, just get his lovely book!

It went wonderfully with this Dan’s jam.. what kind of jam was it again Dan? Very tasty.

Well, in my small windows of opportunity this morning I managed to make a loaf successfully with fresh yeast – yay! For some reason I’ve tried twice before and have ended up with a brick. I don’t think I got the temperature of the liquid quite right before. This is a recipe from the Dan Lepard book, the Handmade Loaf, that Dan gave me for my birthday. It’s a lovely, homely, milk loaf meant to be good for sturdy sarnies.

It smells wonderful! Can’t wait to try it. I’ve discovered that making bread is actually OK with a bambino in the house, so long as there’s not an emergency whilst I’m covered in sticky dough. The gaps between kneading and rising are quite handy.

Window’s closing.. gotta go!

I’ve made this before, more successfully I have to say. Last time I switched the water icing for butter icing and although it’s therefore much fattier (!) I preferred it. It’s another Dan Lepard, using brazil nuts instead of walnuts which are more commonly used in a coffee cake. The special occasion was Lawrence’s dad’s birthday, so many birthdays around this time of year, so many cakes!

For some reason it crumbled more this time and yet retained the moisture – perhaps there was too much air in it. You certainly don’t need your morning coffee – it contains a lot of caffeine! Obviously whilst I’m breast feeding I’m only allowed one slice ;o)

Just to compare… I had a good loaf experience this week too. I decided to make double the quantity as we always get through one loaf so quickly. The loaves rose really well and are lovely and rustic looking. I used mainly white flour this time with some wholemeal (perhaps this is why) and added some linseed.

Recipe for one loaf:

450g bread flour (recipe is for wholemeal only)
300ml warm water
1tbsp brown sugar (any)
2tsp easy yeast (I sometimes use the live stuff – then you  need to minus the amount of liquid used from the 300ml)
Half vitamin C tablet, crushed
pinch of salt
50g unsalted butter (but i often use salted)

Put warm water, sugar and yeast in bowl, stir well, (then add linseed if using). Add flour, salt and Vitamin C,  mix well to a soft dough, pour over melted butter and squish through. Knead lightly. Leave for 10 mins, knead lightly three times over half an hour. Then roll our into a rectangle and roll up tightly to fit into a loaf tin. Leave to rise for 1 to 1 1/2 hour. Dust top with flour (prevents burning) and score down the middle.
If fan assisted oven, heat to the max and bake for 20 mins then turn down for the last 5 or ten. This loaf seems to bake well in 25 minutes for me.

This is of course another Dan Lepard