Comfort food

Yesterday was a grey, cool day, and I was feeling rather low thanks to my chronic illness, which flared up again recently. Mid-afternoon I found myself craving old-fashioned British style comfort food from my childhood. The craving was so strong I could almost smell and taste my grandmother’s wonderful treacle tart, which seemed to hover just the other side of my window glass.

Coming from British background, and with a Scottish grandmother who cooked most of our meals and was a dab hand at perfect light pastry, our food was solid, hearty meat and vegetable dishes, followed by the most delicious cakes and puddings, pies and tarts imaginable.

Shaking myself awake, I considered what comfort food I could have, given that I can’t have treacle tart, for a myriad of reasons connected with the dietary restrictions of my illness. Plus the fact  that a whole treacle tart is way too big for one person!

So I went browsing through my recipes, and knowing that I’d be finishing the last of the delicious garlic and rosemary roast lamb - a comfort food I wrote about before – I decided on basic baked egg custard, creamy but not bland, making good use of the oven, which could reheat the lamb and roast vegs under the custards.

Baked egg custard was staple pudding of my late 1950s childhood, and I learnt to cook it by the time I was 10. It’s high in calcium and protein, plus vitamins A, B, C and D, phosphorus and zinc from the eggs. When I had my children, it was a regular pudding, being nourishing and easy for small children to eat, while remaining delicious enough for adults to enjoy. It also went well with home-bottled or canned fruit. Of course that was a pudding for four of us, so in recent years I’ve adapted it to make two single servings.

Here’s my version of the classic Baked Egg Custard

For 4 people:

4 eggs
2 cups milk*
½ cup cream**
3 tablespoons sugar,
1 teaspoon vanilla essence***
nutmeg for sprinkling

Notes
*Any milk you prefer; I use soy, it’s a matter of taste, although almond or oat milk might be rather thin-tasting.
** If omitting cream, replace with another ½ cup milk
*** Since we didn’t have vanilla beans back then, I’m happy to keep using proper vanilla extract. If you prefer the pod/seed trick, infuse them in the slightly warmed milk for 10 minutes before adding to the beaten eggs and sugar.

Grease a 4-cup size dish and stand it in a larger baking dish. 
Beat together the eggs, sugar, cream and vanilla essence, until they are well beaten.  Warm the milk to blood heat, and pour into the egg mixture, whisking them all together.

Pour the custard mixture into your dish and top with ground or grated nutmeg. Fresh nutmeg smells divine as you’re grating it, and the ‘megs’ keep in an air-tight jar forever. Carefully pour cold water into the larger baking dish, to bring it halfway up the sides of the inner dish.

Bake in the middle of a 150C (300F) oven for about 40 minutes, or until just set. It’s easy to overcook – take the custard out while still a little wobbly, as it will firm up.  If your oven is fan-forced, set the temperature 20 degrees cooler. 

To make individual servings, divide the custard mixture between 4 1-cup ramekins, stand in cold water as before, and bake for 25-30 minutes until just set.

Boiled Chocolate Cake

Still on comfort food, here’s a rich, most, almost fudgey chocolate cake, still using the basic ingredients of the 1950s and early 1960s, before cake mixes and chocolate chips. It’s a tweaking of one put out decades ago by Cadbury cocoa. Like all my baking, this can be made with gluten-free flour.  Just take care when mixing the flour in, as it’s harder to mix through completely than wheat flour.

1 cup water
1 cup sugar, white or raw
¼ cup soft brown sugar
125 gm (4 oz/½ cup) butter
½ cup cocoa
½ teasp bicarb (baking soda)

1½ cups SR flour, or plain (all purpose) flour and 3 teasp baking powder.
2 eggs lightly beaten.

In a large saucepan, place the water, sugars, butter and cocoa. Heat this mixture gently, stirring until the butter and sugar have melted and the whole mixture comes together as a glossy dark brown liquid. Then bring to the boil and simmer for two minutes.  Take it off the heat and immediately stir in the bicarb (baking soda). The mixture will froth up, which is why you need a large saucepan to contain the volume. Leave to cool for 20-30 minutes.

 Meanwhile, heat the oven and grease a 20cm (8 inch) cake tin. Sift together the flour into a large bowl, beat the eggs.
When the cocoa mixture is cool, alternately stir in the sifted flour and eggs and mix together until blended, but do not beat.
Pour into your greased cake tin, and bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a skewer poked in the centre comes out clean.*
Leave cake to cool for 10 minutes in the tin, before turning out onto a cake rack.

* I bake this in a square Pyrex casserole, so I reduce the oven temperature by 10 degrees, to prevent the cake overcooking. It will also go on cooking in the Pyrex for a little  longer after it’s taken out of the oven.
  

Buon appetito!

She'll Be Apples!

We don’t hear it said much now, but when I was a child, “she’ll be apples!” was a common comment. It means “everything will be fine; it’ll be OK”. My home state, Tasmania, was known as the Apple Isle, as we grew the best apples in Australia, and regularly exported them to Britain, Europe and Japan. No wonder I love apples so much!

Way back in January I promised you more apple recipes, and now the winter solstice is almost upon us, here are some warming apple recipes. For these you’ll need cooking apples – Grannie Smiths or whatever the equivalent is in your neck of the woods. I’ll start with the easiest – basic stewed apple, as stewed apples or applesauce form the basis for many cake recipes, as well as going really well with pork, bacon and vegetables like kale or cabbage.

Basic Stewed Apples

4 large cooking apples, peeled, cored and roughly sliced

Enough water to cover slices in a medium sized pan

2 tablesp sugar, or the equivalent in honey (to taste)

1 inch” piece of ginger, peeled and julienned (thin strips) (optional)

4-6 whole cloves (optional)

1 stick cinnamon broken roughly into pieces (optional)

Peel of half a lemon, cut roughly (optional)

Squeeze of lemon juice (optional)

A lot of these ingredients are optional, depending on what spiciness you want for your stewed apple. At it’s most basic, I put a few bits of lemon rind (pith & all) from a recently squeezed ½ lemon, in with the apple slices.

Pour in just enough water to cover apples, bring to the boil & turn down immediately to a very slow simmer. Don’t go far from the stove, stewed apple cooks very quickly! When the slices are soft enough to mash with a spoon or fork, remove from heat and take out all spices and lemon peel. Allow to cool slightly, then stir in sugar or honey. Adjust sweetness to taste, and add lemon juice for a better flavour.

To make applesauce, simply mash or puree your stewed apple.

Baked Apples

A winter treat from my childhood, these are almost as simple to make as stewed apple, and are perfect with cream, icecream, or as my Scottish grandmother used to serve them, with bright yellow custard made with custard powder.

4 large cooking apples (makes 4 serves, or 2 for 2 greedy people)

1/3 cup of chopped dates, sultanas or any dried fruit

2 tablesp brown sugar

½ teasp ground cloves or cinnamon (optional)

Butter

A shallow baking dish large enough to hold all four packed close together.

Thoroughly butter the dish for the apples. With an apple corer (a nifty gadget available from most kitchenware stores), carefully remove the core from each apple. Cut off a little from the base of each core to make a plug; fit the plug into the apple it came from for the best fit. Then with the point of a sharp knife, carefully score all round the equator of the apple. This stops the skin bursting as the apple cooks.

Stand the apples in the baking dish. In a small bowl, mix together the sugar, spices, and dried fruit. Spoon carefully into the apple hollows. Top with a small knob of butter. Pour about an inch (2.5cm) of hot water around the apples. Cover dish with a sheet of baking paper or foil

Bake in preheated oven (180C/350F) for 15-20 minutes. Remove cover and bake another 10-15 minutes until the apples are soft. Don’t worry of some of the filling runs out the apples; the hot water makes a light syrup with the sugar, butter etc.

Note: If you have something else cooking in your oven, such as a roast or a casserole, put the apples on a lower shelf and cook for a while longer.

Apple & Sultana Loaf

An old-fashioned ‘teacake’, Apple & Sultana Loaf is perfect for afternoon tea, toasted or warmed and spread with butter and accompanied by a pot of your favourite tea. It’s also a good standby for packed lunches or between meal snacks. This loaf can be made in two ways – with diced raw apple or with stewed apple/applesauce.

1½ cups self-raising flour or plain (all purpose) flour & baking powder to make SR

1 cup sugar

1 teasp ground cinnamon

½ teasp ground cloves

2 eggs, lightly beaten

125 gm (4 ounces) butter, melted

2 large cooking apples, peeled, cored & diced

I cup of sultanas.

About a tablesp of milk or water, if needed

Sift the dry ingredients into a large bowl, toss in the apple cubes and sultanas, and stir to coat fruit with flour. Add the cooled melted butter to the beaten eggs, then stir this liquid into the dry ingredients. Add the extra liquid if the mixture is too stiff. Do not overbeat, just mix well.

Spoon into a greased and lined loaf pan (23x13.5x7xcm; 9x5½ x2 3/4 inches) and smooth the top. Bake at 180C (350F) for 40-45 minutes, or until skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool for at least 10 minutes before removing from pan. Leave to cool completely before cutting. Sadly,fluten-free flour will not rise as beautifully as wheat flour!

Note: You could try using eating apples instead of cooking ones for the raw apple version, but they don't always cook as well.

Variation: replace raw apple with 1 cup unsweetened stewed apple (or reduce your sugar) . Mix the melted butter and the beaten eggs into the stewed apple, then proceed as before. This variation may take a little longer to cook.

Buon Appetito!