Ginger Quince Upside-down Cake

Let's return to our regular blogging schedule now, shall we? Regular readers may remember that quinces are one of my favourite fruits, so I couldn't resist an opportunity to add them to a cake when I found a couple of huge specimens at the General Store. 

This particular recipe was inspired by Yossy Arefi's version, and combines some of my other favourite flavours including ginger and molasses. It's especially comforting on a rainy winter day, with a steaming cup of tea, but if quinces aren't in season (or you simply can't find them where you are), they can always be replaced by apples or pears. 

Ginger Quince Upside-down Cake (adapted from Apt. 2B Baking Co.)

Poached Quince 

1 large quince (or 2 small/medium quince)

3 cups water

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup honey

1/2 lemon

few strands of saffron

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Directions

- Mix all the ingredients (minus quince) in a saucepan, and bring to a simmer.

- Cut, peel and core the quince, and plop them into the simmering pot. Put a lid over the top, covering about half the pot. 

- Simmer until tender (at least an hour). Leave quinces to cool in the syrup* until ready to use. This step can be done the day before.

Ginger Cake (adapted from Apt. 2B Baking Co.)

Topping

1 1/2 tbsp butter (room temperature)

1/4 cup brown sugar

poached quince, cut into wedges

Cake

115gm unsalted butter

6 tbsp light brown sugar

2 large eggs

1/3 cup molasses (or black treacle)

2 tsp ground ginger

1 1/2 cups plain flour

3/4 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

3/4 cups milk

Directions

- Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Grease a high-sided 7" cake tin, and line the bottom with baking paper. 

- Topping: In a saucepan, mix butter and brown sugar, and cook over medium heat for about 1 min. Pour mixture into bottom of cake tin, and cover bottom of the tin with quince slices. Put aside with preparing cake mixture.

- Cake: In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add ground ginger, mix for 1 more min. Add eggs one at a time, then pour in molasses.

- In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. 

- Alternately, add dry flour mixture and milk to the batter in first bowl, being careful not to overmix. Pour batter into cake tin and smooth the top.

- Bake for 45 mins or until golden brown (a skewer inserted into the middle should come out clean). Let cake cool in tin for about 10 mins, then invert onto a plate and peel away baking paper. 

Enjoy warm, with clotted cream or vanilla ice cream.

*The leftover poaching liquid is delicious as cordial - pour a bit into a glass, and top up with sparkling water.

Herman zee German Friendship Cake

It may go by the sweet, innocuous name of 'German Friendship Cake', but anyone who receives a containerful of pale brown, fermented slop is likely to question their commitment to carrying on that friendship. Trust me, I was one of those who received said containerful of slop last weekend, and was this-close to breaking off a nearly two decade old friendship.

Wait, what the hell am I on about? Let's start from the beginning, shall we? At the Bake Club meeting last weekend, we were told by Haryo, that week's host, that he had a little something for us to take home. That turned out to be Herman, the sourdough starter essential for baking the Friendship Cake. We were given instructions to stir Herman daily, feed him at a specified time, divide him into four and pass him on to 3 other unfortunate souls, and then finally, to bake him up according to the instructions.

It's the cakey equivalent of those email chain letters from the 90s. Haryo had received it from his friend, who had probably received it from his friend...Needless to say, we were none too please to be burdened with caring for what was, essentially, a living thing. I mean, it had a name and everything! And there it was, bubbling and frothing away beside us...

A quick search on the interwebs will tell you that Herman seems to be pretty trendy these days (well, trendy for bakers, that is). My mum-in-law remembers it being a big fad back in 1980s Poland - she made and passed around a few Hermans herself back then. Maybe us Baker Clubbers are just a bunch of unfriendly anti-social grumps? Anyway, we decided not to risk our friendships, and duly brought Herman back, cared for him and then baked him. 

The full set of instructions are available here. There are also instructions for creating your own monster Herman in that link, if you're so inclined. I must confess to deviating slightly from the recipe - mainly using less sugar, but also a number of other ingredients. Here it is, in case you wish to bake something similar.

Herman The Friendship Cake (adapted from here)

Ingredients

225gm plain flour

120gm caster sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 heaped tsp ground cinnamon

2 heaped tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

160ml vegetable/sunflower oil

2 cooking apples, peeled, cored and cubed

50gm walnuts

50gm almonds

50gm prunes, cut into cubes

For topping

50gm brown sugar

50gm butter

Directions

- Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. Mix everything together and place into a large lined baking tin (mine was 9 inches by 11.5 inches)

- Sprinkle with 50 g brown sugar and 50 g melted butter.

- Put into the oven and check cake after 25mins, using a skewer. If the skewer is clean when removed from cake, then Herman is ready!  It may take 45 mins to an hour to bake through, although mine only took 25 mins due to the larger size of my tin. 

- Allow him to cool and then enjoy!

Christmas!

It's taken a while, but I'm finally getting round to posting photos of my Christmas feast. We decided to have it at home this time, and celebrated it on Christmas Eve with the delightful Miss Kitty Valentine, my cushion-making partner in crime Aldona and her family.

In true over-the-top Polish tradition, our dinner consisted of at least 12 dishes (since I'm not actually Polish, I don't know if it is true that a Polish Christmas dinner has to include 12 dishes, it's just what I've been told.) 

The coffee table had an array of sweets - (from top), homemade panforte, a quince, ginger and walnut cake based on this recipe, and some untraditionally shaped gingerbread biscuits (gingerbread T-rex, anyone?). Aldona also brought along some makowiec (poppyseed cake) and more biscuits.

The star of the night, a perfectly roasted goose! Manbacon (who can be partially seen behind the bird) cooked the goose himself, following a great recipe by the Hairy Bikers. He also managed to rustle up succulent salt beef, as well as plenty of delicious apple and pork stuffing. 

£10 notes to wipe our greasy hands and lips on, because we're hedonists and filthy rich. You can't see it, but we also had a stack of £20 and £50 note-napkins. 

Wild mushroom dumplings in beetroot soup (above), as well as some bigos, plenty of cured pork products, some marinated herrings, and possibly some other stuff as well. 

The aftermath - empty vodka bottles, half-finished bowls of soups and stews, burnt-out candles, crumpled napkins and wrapping paper, plenty of half-eaten food, and one stained tablecloth. Our guests were sent away with boxes stuffed full of food. 

Eating Europe Part 4 - Poland

Ate soooo much in Poland - this is just from the first couple of days. 

Manbacon's mother presented us with this wonderful meal as soon as we arrived home in Stalowa Wola - freshly made breaded pork and warm, buttered new potatoes with dill, as well as the obligatory plate of pickles. The perfect meal for two tired travelers on a rainy afternoon.

I got hungry during a walk around the neighbourhood, so we headed in to Ekspres Bistro for a pick-me-up meal of pierogi, served with a garnish of crispy fried lard.

Delicious homebaked goodies (again, made by Manbacon's mum) - raspberry cake with a jelly layer on top, as well as Polish-style apple cake-pie.

Oh, and bread from a street stall in Krakow - it was so deliciously chewy I forgot to document it until very nearly the last bite. You'll see little old ladies selling these behind blue metal and glass carts all over Krakow. Did I mention I went to Krakow too? Well, I did.

More to come soon...

Upside Down Condensed Milk Cake

The idea for this cake came from this post for a sweetened condensed milk cake. You know you're onto a good thing when a recipe calls for you to put everything into a bowl and mix it up. It goes without saying that I like to bake. I'm happy to spend hours mixing and stirring and frosting and standing in front of a hot oven, but sometimes I just want to have my cake and eat it without too much fuss. I promptly bookmarked the recipe, and used it as the base for this cake after finding a lonely quince sitting on my shelf. 

Upside Down Quince and Condensed Milk Cake (adapted from Technicolour Kitchen)

Ingredients
1 quince*
1 tin (397 gm) condensed milk
4 eggs
200 gm self-raising flour
50 gm unsalted butter

Directions

- Preheat oven to 175 C. Melt butter in a pan and set it aside.

- Core and slice up quince (or whatever fruit you're using). Cover the base of a circular 9 inch baking pan with the sliced fruit**.

- Place all the other ingredients together in a large bowl, and mix well. Pour the batter into the baking pan, over the layer of sliced fruit.

- Bake for about 40 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. 

- Leave to cool on a rack, then turn it out and enjoy! 

* Or use apples and pears if you prefer. 

** Use a layer of greaseproof paper in the pan if you're using a non-stick pan, as the metal can sometimes taint the fruit and cause it to have a slight metallic tang. 

Quince and Apple Treacle Muffins

Muffins with quinces and apples, not muffins made with apple treacle. I don't even think there is such a thing as apple-flavoured treacle, but that does sound devastatingly delicious now that I'm think (and fixating) on it. The muffins can be made with just apples too, but since quinces can were still in season, I thought it would be great to add some to the batter too. 

Quince and Apple Treacle Muffins

makes 10 - 12

Ingredients

1 quince, 2 apples (or use 3 apples if quinces aren't in season)

2 eggs ( whites and yolks separated)

200 gm self-raising flour

100 gm sugar

100 gm butter

2 tbsp treacle

1 tbsp ground cinnamon

1 tbsp ground nutmeg

Directions

- Chop apples and quinces into bite-sized pieces and cook until soft*, adding in the ground cinnamon and nutmeg at the same time. (This can be done up to a day before and kept refrigerated until you want to use it.)**

- Preheat oven to 175c. 

- Beat egg whites until they get to the stiff peak stage, then set aside for later.

- In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until fluffy, then add treacle and egg yolks and beat till combined. 

- Add flour and about 2 tablespoons of the cooked apple/quince to the bowl and mix it again. Fold in the egg whites and stir lightly until the egg whites are combined with the rest of the batter.

- Using a tablespoon, drop 1 tablespoon of batter into the base of each muffin cup, then add about a teaspoon of cooked apple/quince to it. Cover up with another tablespoon of batter.

- Bake for about 13-15 minutes, then let them cool, or eat straightaway. They're also great with cream or vanilla ice-cream!

*You don't have to cook the fruits down to a puree, it's nice to have a bit of bite left to them.

** You may find yourself with some leftovers after you've baked the muffins. Try adding some to yoghurt for breakfast, or reheating it and adding it to some plain ice cream.

Dreaming Of Apples

Woke up with an inexplicably strong need to have an apple, but I thought it would be too weird to eat an apple at 4.30am, so rolled around wide awake until the alarm rang at 6.30am, when I rushed right into the kitchen and bit into a gloriously crunchy, juicy Braeburn. 

And the pear - my breakfast, together with a second apple. 

A Year of P's and Q's

Quinces are rather neglected fruits, don't you think? Sure, pomegranates are pretty, and pretty fashionable these days, and apples and pears make for stalwart kitchen companions, while durians always get their moment in the spotlight whenever some middle-aged, middle-class TV host decides to film a 'daredevil eating adventure'. But what about the humble, oft-forgotten quince?

Looking (and tasting) somewhat like a lumpy, yellow cross between an apple and a pear, the quince can be eaten raw, although it's slightly  sour,  crunchy bite may not be to everyone's taste. However, should you spend some time cooking it gently, you'll be rewarded with a tasty dish laced with a delicate, rosy perfume.

The quinces had started appearing at the grumpy grocer's down the hill about a month ago, sparking off my current quince obsession. Honestly, I don't even know why I keep thinking about quinces, since all I've ever really had of them has been in the form of quince cheese - those deep red blocks of stewed, jelly-like quince paste that go so well with cheese. Because I haven't had much experience with quinces before, I restrained myself from buying up a box of them, until I could think of a suitable reason excuse to start stockpiling. The excuse came last week, when a friend suggested we have a Christmas meal together, and share the cooking. To which I replied 'Well, I'll just HAVE to make a quince pie!'.

Dissatisfied with most of the recipes I came across, I decided to come up with a simple one of my own over the weekend. As it was an experiment, I used store-bought shortcrust pastry, which I deeply regret -insomnia, unhelpful baking beads and stupid broken pastry all contributed to a dramatic bout of tears in the kitchen. The Mancreature may be off in his own little post-apocalyptic digital world most of the time, but he does have his uses, and saved the day by saving my pie.

I'll be refining the recipe and posting it soon, but here's a short run-down of what I did. I got 3 large quinces (which came to just over a kilo) and 4 little Braeburn apples (I'm not an apple expert at all, I only knew they were Braeburns coz the sticker told me so), and poached them for about two hours in a slowly simmering pot of water, with rosewater, cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar all thrown in for flavour.

Once I took the fruits out of the poaching liquid, I was left with a beautifully cloudy, soft pink liquid, which I thought was too pretty to throw away. It tasted of the quinces and apples that had been soaking in it for the last couple of hours, so I decided to make some jelly with it on the spur of the moment. All I had to do was add two packets of gelatin, stir it through, then pour the mixture into little containers. I put them on the balcony because there was no space in the fridge, and when I checked on them a few hours later, they had set! I have a balcony-sized fridge!

Also, it's exactly a year ago today that I started up this blog. I chose to forgo a proper introduction and simply rambled on about my unfinished Moebius cowl (which I still wear). It's been a year, and nearly 100 posts of me ranting and rambling on about eating and making! I hope I've been at least a little entertaining, if not very useful, and to those of you who've been checking in every so often to find out what's been happening in this little world, thank you so much! My 100th post in coming up very shortly, and I'm going to do a giveaway soon to celebrate this whole 'blogiversary' business, so check back in a little bit!