Posts Tagged ‘Favourite Recipes’
Bread Making at Real Pâtisserie
Posted by editor on Tuesday, 12 March 2013
While not exactly gourmet gardening, making your own bread touches on many of the things we love about our outdoor spaces – smell, touch, hard work, wonderful results and something you can share with friends and family!
A couple of Saturdays ago a group of Garden House friends visited the bakery at Brighton’s Real Pâtisserie for another of our highly successful bread-making workshops.
We donned blue hairnets and aprons and under the patient and very informed guidance of head baker Tom enjoyed a unique baking experience, learning about the ingredients and the traditional skills that go into creating wonderful fresh breads for our own family kitchens.
Real Pâtisserie is an independent bakery specialising in traditional French bread and cakes, and renowned for their extensive range of artisan breads – making sourdoughs in the time-honoured way, hand moulding every loaf and creating a range of speciality breads picked from the traditionally popular loaves of France, Spain and Italy.
We made four different bread types - focaccia, traditional French cob, multi-cereal loaf and sour dough – with the opportunity to take some ‘starter’ sour dough home with us.
Hard work, but really satisfying – and on a cold February day, actually rather more fun than gardening!
Cool Yule: Taking Orders Now
Posted by editor on Sunday, 2 December 2012
Our favourite festive bakers Cool Yule (the wonderful Steve Bustin and John Williams) are again baking like crazy to fulfill orders for their totally delicious Cool Yule Christmas Cakes, Bread, Jams and Chutneys. Homemade and richly delicious, all the items come beautifully packaged and make wonderful presents.
Cool Yule will have a stand at our Winter Solstice Fair on Friday 21 December. Plan ahead – as always we expect their delicious fare to disappear very quickly so we strongly advise pre-ordering to avoid disappointment! See list below.
To order your Cool Yule Christmas Cakes, Bread, Jams and Chutneys please complete this FORM OR email your order to steve@vadamedia.co.uk.
Baking bread in chilly January…
Posted by editor on Monday, 30 January 2012
While not exactly gourmet gardening, making your own bread touches on many of the things we love about our outdoor spaces – smell, touch, hard work, wonderful results and something you can share with friends and family!
Last Saturday a group of Garden House friends visited the bakery at Brighton’s Real Pâtisserie for a bread-making workshop. Click on Pictures (top navigation bar) and take a look at all the photos of the day! 
We donned our blue hairnets and aprons and under the patient and very informed guidance of head baker Tom enjoyed a unique baking experience, learning about the ingredients and the traditional skills that go into creating wonderful fresh breads for our own family kitchens.
Real Pâtisserie is an independent bakery specialising in traditional French bread and cakes, and renowned for their extensive range of artisan breads – making sourdoughs in the time-honoured way, hand moulding every loaf and creating a range of speciality breads picked from the traditionally popular loaves of France, Spain and Italy.
We made four different bread types - focaccia, traditional French cob, multi-cereal loaf and sour dough – with the opportunity to take some ‘starter’ sour dough home with us.
Hard work, but really satisfying – and in the freezing middle of January, actually rather more fun than gardening!
Now’s the time to forage and preserve!
Posted by editor on Sunday, 18 September 2011
There is so much to be foraged in the hedgerows at the moment, including sloes, crab apples, haws, rowan berries, wild apples, plums and damsons and of course, black berries.
My favourite thing to do with my ‘forages’ is to make hedgerow jelly. You can use all of the fruits above and just chop them up, stalks and all (wash them first) – use more apples than anything else, about 50% crab apples or cooking apples and 50% of sloes, blackberries, haws, rosehips, rowan berries etc.
The crab apple, (Malus sylvestris) often found by the roadside is sometimes rather scabby but has a very high pectin content, (that’s the stuff that helps things set). Lots of the berries are low in pectin and so using this method will help it set well.
The reason I like to make jelly is that it’s so easy!
- You just boil up all the fruit, use 1kg of mixed berries and 1kg of crab apples.
- Then you can leave if over night to drip through a jelly bag or a piece of muslin and the next day add around 900g granulated sugar to the juice and slowly, (so you don’t burn it) bring to the boil, stirring until the sugar has dissolved.
- Then boil rapidly, without stirring, until setting point has reached, this should take about fifteen minutes. I put a saucer in the fridge and take out a teaspoonful of the jelly, put it on the saucer and if it wrinkles when pushed with your finger it is done.
You can also do this with blackberry and apples – it is absolutely lovely! A real autumn treat.
If you would like to discover the delights of how to make jams, chutneys and jellies then come along to our Preserving Workshop – on Friday 28th October – see our website for more details.
A favourite poem: Wormwood Jam by Tim Cresswell
Before the devil pisses on berries.
Late September Blackberrying down the
scrubs – by high high helixes of razor
wire. Filling peanut butter pots
with black red fruit. Brimful. Soursharp – Inky,
Imploding sweet – squashed by over- eager
Fingers – gashing hands on brambles that could
pull the wool from sheep. Gambling on low fruit
slashed by Shepherds and Rottweilers.
The kitchen filled with blackberry. Cauldrons
Of red black boiling glop. I tried to catch
the setting point – risking burns and blisters –
my fingers forming surface crinkles through
bloodthick syrup on a frozen saucer.
Our favourite Apple Chutney
Posted by editor on Friday, 9 September 2011
With thanks to Garden House friend Chris Batt for giving us his recipe for Apple Chutney – a delicious way to use up your glut of autumn fruits, and to give away as gifts for Christmas…
Ingredients:
- 2lb onions, peeled and sliced
- 1 ¾ pints vinegar
- 1lb dates or sultanas
- 4lb apples, peeled, cored and sliced
- 1tbls ground ginger
- 1tbls ground cinnamon
- 1teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1tbls salt
- 2lb sugar
Method:
- Place onions in pan with 2tbls vinegar. Cook gently until soft.
- Stone and chop, if used.
- Add the apples, dates or sultanas, the spices and half the remaining vinegar to the pan.
- Cook slowly, stirring occasionally, until soft.
- Add the salt, sugar and remaining vinegar, stir until sugar is dissolved and continue cooking until thick, stirring occasionally.
- Pour into warm, sterilized jars and seal. Makes about 5 ½ lb.
Variation:
Apple and Apricot Chutney: Use the same recipe as for Apple Chutney, but replace the dates or sultanas with 8oz dried apricots. Soak the apricots overnight in enough water to cover, and chop before adding to mixture.
Margaret’s Easter Cake (Frangipane/Almond tart)
Posted by editor on Tuesday, 19 April 2011
We love Margaret’s delicious version of the traditional Simnel cake; a cake typically eaten during the Easter period in Great Britain, Ireland and some other countries.
For the base:
- 8oz rich shortcrust pastry (use ready-made Jus-Rol sweet shortcrust)
- Apricot jam or conserve
For the cake mixture:
- 4oz ground almonds
- 4oz caster sugar
- 4oz unsalted butter
- 1 tbls plain flour
- 2 medium eggs
- Orange flower essence (optional)
For the almond paste topping:
- 8oz ground almonds
- 8oz caster sugar and icing sugar (roughly half/half each)
- 1 medium egg
- 1tsp lemon juice
Method:
- Cake:
- Medium oven 150c or gas mark 4
- Roll out pastry and line an 8” tart tin (no need to pre-bake)
- Coat bottom of tart with apricot jam or conserve (about 1 tbls)
- To make cake mixture, beat the sugar into the softened butter
- Fold in almonds and flour, then gradually add in eggs beating as you add
- Add a few drops orange flower essence (optional)
- Pour mixture into tart and cook for approx 40-45 mins
- Set aside to cool
- Almond paste topping:
- Sift icing sugar into a bowl, add caster sugar and ground almonds, mix together
- Stir in the beaten egg and 1 tsp lemon juice to make a fairly stiff lump
- Cut off a piece and make 12 small balls of paste (eleven marzipan balls represent the true disciples of Jesus; Judas is omitted – in some variations Christ is also represented, by a ball placed at the centre. We suggest, to make cutting easier, use twelve balls around the edge)
- Smooth the remaining paste over the cooled cake
- To finish, giving that slightly ‘toasted’ colour, put under the grill or back in the oven for 2/3 minutes until lightly browned.
Margaret has been gardening at The Garden House for many years as one of the regular ‘Friday group’ of women who keep this wonderful garden looking at its best. Margaret’s particular gardening loves are roses, knot gardens and garden history.