This is a favourite of mine that I’ve been making for 3 years now ever since seeing Nigella make it on TV.  I love the idea that you can make it just as tasty but less sinful.  The amount of apples in this give it the moistness it needs – because it has no suet in it allegedly has a shorter shelf life and is not recommended to be kept for more than 6 months, mind you I recently found a jar from last year and it was still good 12 months on.  I adapt the basic Nigella recipe to fit what I have in the cupboard – I like to include cranberries and less cherries and I like a bit more spice too but here is the original recipe.

Recipe

• 250g soft dark sugar
• 250 ml medium-dry cider
• 1kg apples
• 1/2 teaspoon mixed spice
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 250g currangs
• 250g raisins
• 75g glace cherries, chopped
• 75g blanched almonds, finely chopped
• Rind and juice of 1/2 lemon
• 90ml brandy or run

You need some jars to bottle in and a large heavy based saucepan to make it in.  In the pictures here I’ve made a double batch.

Core, peel and chop the apples

On a low heat dissolve the sugar in the cider

Add the apples and bring the temperature up

Add the rest of the ingredients and bring up to the boil

Simmer for 30 minutes with the lid on

I take it out at this point and give it a quick go with the potato masher as I like my apple in smaller pieces but I’m far too lazy to chop it up small to start with!

Simmer for another 15 minutes with the lid off

It should look thick and fruity

Add the brandy and stir in well

Spoon into sterilised jars and seal

Ingredients:
1 baked cake
1 250g tub of low fat cream cheese
1 pack chocolate cake covering
Lolly sticks
1 polystyrene block
Sprinkles etc to decorate

Method:
First bake your cake – you can use a mix but why would you? A simple sponge cake can be made by weight and thats how I always make them because having chickens means my eggs are not standard sizes. For one batch of cake pops I use a 2 egg cake. Weigh the eggs then add the same weight of butter, caster sugar and self raising flour, for a chocolate cake I substitute about 1/5 of the flour for cocoa powder and add half a teaspoon of baking powder. Sift the flour and throw in all the ingredients before mixing well.

I made 2 today, as I’m making a big batch for a sale next week.

Once the cake has cooled break it up and add in the whole pack of cream cheese

Mix it up well until it is sticking together.

Make walnut sized balls out of the mix and put on greaseproof paper.

Pop the balls in the freezer until you are ready to coat them (they can be frozen for a couple of weeks – open freeze them before popping them in a bag together – separate them before thawing). Take them out of the freezer an hour before coating and once thawed keep in the fridge.

Melt your chocolate cake coating using a double boiler or by standing on the back of the Aga in a mug.

Dip a lolly stick into the chocolate before inserting into the cake ball (about halfway)

Dip the cake ball into the chocolate coating then decorate and stand in the polystyrene to set.

Store in greaseproof paper in a cool place.

Having a dog means we get to take more time out to have lovely country walks.  Such a shame that our 2 favorite places to walk are no dogs!  I love a good walk around Hanningfield reservoir but it’s a nature reserve and no dogs.  I also like to see the Hyde Hall gardens at different times of year but again it’s no dogs. 

Mark, James & Haymond

We did go to Hyde Hall on Sunday though as James and I needed to visit our scarecrow which we made earlier in the year, Haymond.  We had already been to see him once but it was freezing cold up on the hill and lashing with rain so it was a positive pleasure to walk up and introduce Mark to him on Sunday morning.  Already plans are afoot for next years one – Mark came up with an interesting idea.  Lots of people do themed scarecrows, this year there was The Stig, a couple of builders, a ghostbuster and various other ones.  We plan next year to build an actual scare crow – yes a bird!  The scarecrow building is a January activity and you pay seven pounds per scarecrow to go and build it using your clothes and their materials – it’s a great family event with three generations from some families working on their scarecrow.

Hyde Hall Garden

We also took the time to look at the veggie gardens and see what this years plans are then we came across the lower pond and the bed in front of us looked splendid!  I showed this picture to some of my students today and they said it looked just like a picture!  LOL.  I’m going to get some more colourful reds and oranges into my garden for next spring although those plants were pretty pricey at Hyde Hall, the Spring Garden show is on soon so hopefully I’ll be able to pick up something more suited to my purse.

Of course we managed to do nothing in our own garden – really must get cracking on that soon.

Fiery Bengal Chutney

I did make some chutney though – Fiery Bengal Chutney, Mark likes it hot!  It will take 2 months to mature though but it reminded me just how happy I am standing over the jam pan and that I really should get cracking emptying all that fruit I have stored in the freezer.  Will be ramping up the sales of jams, chutneys and cakes this year. 

Having Mark around has given me far more excuses to cook and I'm loving it!  I've just got a ravioli maker for my birthday and I made a lovely goats chees and caramalised onion ravioli for my dinner the other night, served on a bed of grilled portobello mushrooms with roasted tomatoes and topped with truffle oil and fresh parmisan.  It turned out pretty well for my first attempt – next time I will keep the pasta rolled out a little thicker as it was breaking out a little.  I love the concept of fresh pasta – such a simple thing to make and so many people buying that nasty dried stuff in the supermarkets!

From this….

To this!

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My what a long time since I posted.  Well of course the garden hasn't been much of a place to be in the past few months but now it seems like spring has finally sprung.  Albeit too late for our village spring show which has been cancelled due to lack of daffodils.  They are poking up now but not blooming yet!

June

There was sad news on the chicken front, we lost June, our oldest hen a little while back.  She had peritonitis for a while and looked much better when she went off lay but when she came back into lay she began to look sad and uncomfortable so with sadness she made the one way trip to the vets.

Mark

James

I've had less time for baking and jam making lately due to the addition of a new man in my life.  We are very happy and we have seemed to be on a crazy rollercoaster ride into love.  Seems like most caution has been thrown to the wind and he is a permanant fixture in our crazy household.  Even putting his hand to tasks in the worst of weathers – a month ago whist I ran a hen party in the freezing cold wind and driving rain he spent the morning stacking wood into our woodshed!  Very much a change from his former quiet life in suburbia.  He was quite astonished to find himself spending a Saturday digging the new garden at James' school – his own garden has been done by someone else!

Eggy cake

Cake

I did manage to whip up a cake for my birthday – chocolate sponge with 5 eggs and both white and dark chocolate ganache.  Was so exceptionally lovely that I plan on going further with my cake making and probably featuring this easy to make ganache.  Yes it did taste as amazing as it looked.  And yes I am still the slimline version of myself!

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To help the RDTC the number is 0871 626 8846 and the lines are open 9am till Midnight. Each vote will cost you 10p and you can vote 10 times!

This is a ONE DAY competition.

Thank you.

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old band pic

A little off topic here so bear with me.  For a large part of my youth I played saxophone in the Romford Drum & Trumpet Corps.  I had a great time, made lots of friends, visited lots of places and generally enjoyed myself.  I still retain links with the band through my friends who now run it and I help out in a smal way by loking after the website for them.

The band has been going for 52 years now and has never had a home!  They are trying to get lottery funding to refurbish a hall to make their base and have been put up to win £50,000 of the "Peoples Millions" – See the website here!

Tomorrow there is a one day vote off between the band and another youth group.  It's a telephone vote and open from 9am to midnight and the band needs to get enough votes to beat off the competitor.  Calls will cost 10p each from a landline, anyone can vote 10 times from the same number so PLEASE donate 10p or even £1 in votes to help to give the band a home.

Having dug through piles of old photos I really could generally only find myself hiding at the back of a 70 strong band.  I know I'll regret posting any old pics in a public place – I'm sure to see them plastered onto a school wall by some idiot kid who thinks it's amusing to try and ridicule others.  But what the heck, it's in a good cause.

CCF18092007_00000

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I just had a yen to knock up some cupcakes, I fanced fruity ones and the only fruit suitable was blackberries so presto, blackberries and cream cupcakes.  They are a beautiful purple too although they don't look it in the picture.

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Blackberries and Cream Cupcakes

• 180g Self raising flour
• 150g caster sugar
• 150g pureed blackberries
• 140g butter
• 120g eggs (2 large free range!)

Combine all the ingredients and give a good whizz up with the mixer.  Divide into muffin cases (will leave you lots of room for a deep topping!).  Cook for 20 mins in middle of baking oven (Approx 180).

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Topping

• 125g cream cheese
• 90g butter
• 250g icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla bean essence

Whizz it all together and pipe on.

The eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed that the pictures are not taken in my kitchen – it was too hot in there for the topping so I transferred to Mums kitchen as her heating was off.

The soup was made from those plum tomatoes last week – I had frozen it after liquidising in 1 litre bags.  I added a litre of stock, made from my home made vegitable stock and a handful of chopped basil leaves.  Thats my lunches for the week sorted.

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Well yesterday was such a terrible washout – the poor dog only got one ten minute run around the field oppostie and she and I virtually swam back home and then dripped huge puddles over the floor.  She wasn't even keen on going in the garden in the "monsoon".  So today James and I took her for a long walk in Norsey Wood.  Its a favorite walk of ours since getting Mille as our previous two places to walk don't allow dogs (Hyde Hall and Hanningfield Reservoir) and we had long planned to walk here but never got round to it.  I'm very glad we did as nobody had ever told me it was a Chestnut wood – here is todays haul!

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I have some roasting in the Aga right now and the rest have been cooked, peeled and frozen for later use – the supermarkets charge good money for them and a short walk into the wood gives you access to as many as you want!

I often wish I knew more about Fungi when I'm walking and today was no exception – I saw a few nice looking ones which I half thought I recognised as edible and then I saw this chap (actually afterwards I saw a few more of these!).  I thought it was spectacular and that the red probably indicated it wasn't safe to eat – although I've heard that most fungi in the UK are pretty OK.  Since then I've had a bit of a search and found out it is considered poisonous although dried it sounds interesting! .  I'd really like to go on a course or something to learn more about fungi as I fear my foraging is missing out by not including them.

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Of course after the downpours yesterday the wood was very muddy – James and I were OK in our wellies but Mille came back a very dirty girl, just look at the colour of her paws!

After a bath she smells lovely and she looks so pretty as a curly girly, it was a shame to brush her.

James as ever likes to do things his way – he went round the wood in his police outfit and told me this tree was his "church"  So he stood and prayed as well as touching his poppy and saying he remembered.

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Redcup

Because Starbucks have the REDCUPS!  I know it's sad but that's when I know it's Christmas.  Enjoyed my first Christmas beverage today!

Funny thing was I popped into town to visit the new Lakeland.  Which seemed a bit cramped compared to their normal stores.  I was astonished however at some of their prices, £15 for 3 jars of preserves?  I think I may be underpricing my homemade christmas hampers!

Town was mental too – it has to be near Christmas when that many people are out shopping.  As we drove home we saw a huge queue of traffic going into the Tesco home store – get a life people it's not worth queuing for!

Pasta Sauce

suet free mincemeat

I made the mistake of "popping" into the farm shop today for a few things.  They had boxes of baby plum tomatoes for £1.99 – one box, a 50p bag of onions and a 50p bag of peppers and I have enough pasta sauce to see me through winter – that really is a LARGE stock pot – it fills the Aga oven. 

Meanwhile in the baking oven I had another batch of suet free mincemeat on the go – for my christmas hampers, I'll be taking orders this year folks!  Whilst the roasting oven had a roast dinner in too – I really was using it to it's fullest for once today.

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