Festive specials

[Snoop Puss]

A place to share what you're making - sweet and savoury - for the festive season: photos and recipes, links and tips, questions and plans, successes and flops (not that we're going to have many of those, of course ).

[greenishfing]

Christmas cake from me.



Only notes are if you rub the butter in by machine, be careful not to do it for too long or you'll end up with pastry due to the high butter to flour ratio. It says 3½ eggs. I just bung 4 in.

The timings and temperatures are very flexible. 2 to 3 hours at gas 1 to 2, them turn the oven down really low for another 2 to 3 hours. A skewer should come out clean and/or the temperature in the centre of the cake should be 95 to 97°C. A 6, 7 or 8 inch tin is good. The mix just fits in my deep 6 inch tin.

This is a very forgiving, flexible recipe. I tend to add extra cherries and reduce the fruit. My sister cooks it overnight in her Aga.

[greenishfing]

Another tried and tested favourite.


It makes one large or up to four small puddings. I like to eat it with brandy cream. My sister insists on rum sauce.

[greenishfing]

Another recipe, savoury this time. We always call it stuffing and it is wonderful with chicken,turkey, duck or pork. It doesn't actually stuff anything and is wonderfully sloppy, nothing remotely like paxo.

My mother used to make large amounts of this. I used to love stuffing sandwiches as a child later in the week. It only took me a couple of attempts to achieve what I considered perfection when I made it myself years later. I only make a small amount now for two or three of us.

Ingredients:
Two or three large onions (or the equivelant in small onions)
Two or three handfuls of fresh breadcrumbs (any sort).
A handful of dried sage.
Salt and pepper (plenty salt)

Method:
Peel and quarter the onions if large. Leave small onions whole.
Boil until tender, not long.
Drain, then chop roughly. If I've drained into a colander I just run a sharp knife through it in situ.
Add the other ingredients and mix well.
After the meat has been roasting for a while and there is some fat and meat juices in the bottom of the roasting tin spoon in the stuffing. If hardly any fat in the tin add extra. Turn the stuffing every 20 minutes or so so that all of it gets a turn at the bottom absorbing the meat juices. After an hour or so it should be ready. It will have shrunk and be quite sloppy. Taste it, adjust the seasoning. Remove from the roasting tin to an ovenproof dish and keep warm. It tastes far better than it sounds.

[Snoop Puss]

^I love stuffing and have never made it. Will give that a try. Thanks, GF.

[lottie dolly]

my mam used to make her own stuffing at christmas
cut up onions fine and cook till tender,bread crumbs and herbs of choice,a little butter and seasonings,the herbs can be either cooked with the onions or added after,she often put sausage meat in it it,



Tongue

if i recall it was done in the preasure cooker,then put in a round tin with weights on the top,

[lottie dolly]

Coffee and walnut cake

2 deeper 8in sandwich tins,ell greased and floured

8 oz demorara sugar 8 oz marg mix well together

add eggs one at a time 4 or if small 5 if it curdles no bother carry on

4 oz white SR flour and 4oz of brown SR flour i can only find it made by alinsons in a beigy colour pkt

add along next with coffee either the branded smooth a powder,or mix the instant granuals with a little water to form a thick strong past ,

add along with the flours,whisk well i do mine in the kenwood,and beat it hell for leather

add the walnuts and conbine ,you need at least 8 oz of nuts,broken not crushed into the mix


put into the 2 tins i use a fan oven aprox 40 mins at 160,keep checking to make sure is cooked,spriny not hard on the top,


when done put to cool on a wrack


i put mine together with a coffee butter cream,

cut each one in half,and put the 4 layers together with butter cream

you can turn in into a lovely guatou (posh cake) by covering the whole cake with the butter cream,cut walnuts in half to decorate,also,mix a little icing sugar water and coffee to make a darker shade than the cream, drizzle bits over the top and tweek with a knife,the design is your choice,it is very rich,it's what i have come up with over the years,and peeps go mad on it,always a favourit,if made the day before,it is even better as the flavours mingle and the butter cream sofens into the cake, enjoy ,the brown SR flour makes the taste and texture of the cake,if you use all white flour,it is just a baisic smooth sponge,and id NOT the same

[Snoop Puss]

^Fantastic, LD. And a bit of brown flour makes me think it must be healthy, well, healthier with all white!

[lottie dolly]

Snoop,if you do not use the 2 flours,it will be totaly different,i have done it not thinking and completely spoiling the out come,still edible but a diffent texture

[mothhawk]

I don't like dark, heavy Xmas pud, so I've made Nigel Slater's recipe today for the first time. It's delicious!

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeands...1/foodanddrink

I quartered the recipe (makes 2 x 350 g) and used what I had:

dried fruit total 285g – I used currants, raisins, and about 50g Whitworths luxury dried fruit, which has yellow cherries and cranberries as well as golden raisins and sultanas.
Brandy – 37ml
½ apple grated
½ orange, zest and juice
Eggs – 1
Suet – 62g (I only had 47g so used butter for the rest)
Muscovado sugar – 85g
Breadcrumbs – 62g
SR flour – 44g
Pinch ground cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg

I used two small microwave basins, topped with greaseproof, and zapped each pudding separately for 4 minutes. (Steaming something for 3 hours is not my thing)

[Snoop Puss]

mothhawk, do you reckon it would be possible to use all butter? I can't get suet here.

Meanwhile our first festive delight: Dan Lepard's raisin and cinnamon loaf. No online recipe and I believe his publishers try to deter sharing his recipes online, so no link, apologies. To give you an idea: rye levain, white bread flour, water, dried fruit, honey, yeast, salt and cinnamon. Smells lovely, but only just out of the oven so we'll have to wait before sampling it.

[mothhawk]

That looks delish, Snoop!

mothhawk, do you reckon it would be possible to use all butter? I can't get suet here.

Don't see why not. I always use all butter when I make mincemeat. I believe the suet is the only reason Christmas puds have to be steamed so long,because suet takes so long to melt when it is the real thing (i.e. grated from a lump, not bought processed in packets). My suet was vegetable suet anyway, so butter equivalent really.

[Snoop Puss]

Thanks, mothhawk. That's an awful lot of steaming if you have to do it twice! I'm embarrassed to say I've never made Christmas pud, but I really should try it. It's the steaming that puts me off (we don't have a microwave). I should probably try and find out how to make it using a pressure cooker but with your recipe.

And yes, the bread is a winner. Not too much like hot cross buns in flavour and definitely bread textured.

[Nicos]

That looks really yummy Snoop!