Baking Archives - Page 4 of 14 - Retro Food For Modern Times

03
Feb
2022

Smoked Salmon Tarts

categories: Dishiest Dish, Smoked Salmon, Starters, Tarts

Hello and welcome to my best of January post! It was not the start to the year I was looking for – the month was fraught with illness (human and canine) and a nasty car accident for the Fussiest Eater in the World from which he is still recovering. In the midst of all the misery though, there was still time for some good food starting with these smoked salmon tarts from Alimentari by Linda Jones.

These are little morsels of deliciousness. I shared this recipe with a friend of mine and, like me, they have become one of her go to entertaining snacks. So tasty, so pretty, they transport really well for picnics and other out of home occasions and if you happen to have any left (unlikely) they are delicious the following day – I ate mine at ambient temperature but you could heat them if you wanted or have them cold from the fridge.

I also used whole tom berries and not halved cherry tomatoes.

Smoked Salmon Tarts – The Recipe

Other Favourites of The Month

Reading

One More Croissant for the Road by Felicity Cloake

I cannot tell you how much I loved this book!!! Felicity Cloake is a British food writer who is also a keen cyclist. In this book, she cycles around France, eating and drinking the signature dishes in each town (Quiche in Lorraine, Provencal Fish Soup in Marseille etc). I love all things French so reading this was an absolute delight! I loved her voice and really want Felicity to be my new best friend! (There are also recipes) 💖

I also read the most recent Lianne Moriarty, Apples Never Fall. This was an audiobook and, just like last month, the narrator’s voice irritated me. Apart from that, I enjoyed the story and what an ending!!!!! 😲

Cookbook

Someone’s voice who definitely doesn’t irritate me is Diana Henry, the British cookbook writer. I bought her cookbook, A Change Of Appetite in January and I am looking forward to cooking from it very soon!

The cover is so pretty too!

Watching

We watched the The Puppet Master on Netflix the other night which was excellent. It is about a conman who has been operating since the 1990’s posing as an MI5 Agent. It is compelling viewing!

Listening

And, if you are intrigued by that story of a conman pretending to be an MI5 agent, you will be as fascinated as I was by Sweet Bobby. This is a catfishing podcast about another sociopath pretending to be an MI5 agent.

Note to self and to everyone else. Like they say in The Puppet Master… If someone tells you they are an MI5 agent, they are generally NOT an MI5 agent!

The issue of pathological lying also crops up in Apples Never Fall, so on the whole, I have spent a month immersed in liars, cheats, conmen and sociopaths!

I am on the lookout for new things to watch and new listen to, let me know your recommendations!

Playing

Like everyone else I am obsessed with WORDLE.

It is the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning. My favourite opening words have changed from CABIN to TRAIN to IRATE.

What’s your favourite opener?

Cooking

We have our Foodies meeting this week where the theme is tv shows. I am cooking from The Cook Up with Adam Liaw. I haven’t finalised what I am making but these are most likely going to be on the menu!

Shopping

My Mum and I went antiquing and I bought these gorgeous Scotch Whiskey ceramic decanters which are now taking pride of place on my bar cart.

So, you’re all caught up on my life! Here’s hoping February is a better month!

Have a wonderful week!

03
Feb
2022

It’s the Year of the Tiger

categories: Baking, Cake, Chicken, Lunar New Year

Hello and welcome to the second instalment of my Year of The Tiger special. Today we having a Tiger Skin Chicken from Adam Liaw and some little French almond cakes called Les Tigres (the tigers) from Dorie Greenspan. But first let’s have a little look-see at what may lie ahead for us in the Year of the Tiger!

Predictions for the year of the Tiger suggest that this could be a year of political and social upheaval. It is also a year of extremes, some people will boom and some will bust. Fortune will tend to favour the brave. The water element in this year of the Water Tigre will bring emotions to the forefront.

Strap in folks, this could be a wild ride!

Tiger Skin Chicken

Let me first show you Adam Liaw’s beautifully striped Tiger Skin Chicken.

Mine was not nearly as precise.

BUT, this was so delicious! I basted the chicken every 15 minutes in those buttery juices and it stayed delightfully moist. It had a slight spicy curry flavour which I thought was lovely eaten warm and also cold in sandwiches the following day.

I just need to get my squeeze bottle technique so the lines are a little thinner and maybe control the heat during the grilling of the skin a little better. I also think I should have heated my honey before mixing it in with the yoghurt as it didn’t mix in well which is why I think some of my stripes were white, they were primarily yoghurt.

Here is the recipe from Adam’s Big Pot:

Les Tigres

To end our Year of the Tiger special we are having some little French cakes called Les Tigres. I am assuming this is because they are dipped in a ganache which gives them a dark stripe against the dark gold of the almond cake. They could also be called the leopards because the inside is dotted with choc chips!

Les Tigres Recipe

The Tigres were a lovely way to finish this celebratory meal!

Best of luck to you all in the coming 12 months – let’s hope you don’t catch too many tigers by the tail but that you wake every morning with a tiger in your tank!

25
Sep
2021

Melktert

categories: 1970's recipes, Africa, Good Housekeeping World Cookery, Pastry, World Cooking

My recipe for Melktert comes from the South African chapter of Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery and it is a baked custard tart. It is called Melktert because the day before the recipe for the OG Milk Tart went to print, someone broke into the printing press and stole all bar one of the vowels.

Some people would tell you that it is a dish that originated in Holland and it kept the Dutch spelling when it came to South Africa. However, we at RFFMT prefer not to allow truth to get in the way of a good story. Besides the visual image of a never say die printer triumphantly adding e’s to where the i and a had been, humming a prototypical version of The Shamen’s 1992 hit Ebeneezer Goode as he did so was too good not to share.

I pondered whether in homage to the melktert, I should also write this post using the letter e as my only vowel.

That idea lasted all of about 5 seconds – I got as far as “Here. Melktert. Sweet” and gave up.

The Melktert was delicious! Just the right amount of sweetness and the almonds on top gave a nice crunch. There was a lot of the filling mix leftover so I think next time I make it I will try a deeper dish which would also mean there would be more of the slightly cinnamon-y custard which could only be s a good thing! The recipe does state a deep pie dish!

Melktert :The Recipe

That’s all folks, nothing much else to say except:

Melktert – Excellent? Yes!

Enjoy your weekend!

25
Jul
2021

Cowboy Day – Pepsi Cola Cake with Broiled Peanut Butter Frosting

categories: 1960's recipes, Cake, Cook A Long, Cowboy Day

Yippee Ky Yay Cake Lovers, number 5 is alive!!!! This weekend, courtesy of the nicest man on the Internet, Greg Swenson, we are celebrating Cowboy Day with a Cookalong. I have chosen to bake a cake (because every celebration needs one) from Greg’s book, Recipes for Rebels: In The Kitchen with James Dean – and oh (cow)boy, what a cake it is. Pepsi Cola Cake with Broiled Peanut Butter Frosting.

You might be wondering what is the connection between a cake made from Pepsi and Cowboys? Well, hear me out here. It is a little like one of those puzzles you used to do at school where you change one letter at a time to turn one word into another…

But here me out:

James Dean played a cowboy in the film Giant
James Dean’s first paid acting job was in a Pepsi Commercial
Pepsi is a key ingredient in this cake.

Cowboy to cake in less steps than it will take you to go from bath to tubs!

Good lord, just look at that face!!! If that is not a textbook definition of impossibly handsome, I do not know what is.

Something that is most definitely not impossibly handsome is the Pepsi-Cola Cake. It is a massive brute of a thing (might one say a Giant?) that erupted like a volcano in my oven. It reminded me of the ads we used to have for Picnic bars – deliciously ugly.

I mean, ok, it doesn’t look quite as much like a pooh as a Picnic bar but at the point of removal from the oven, it did not look good.

But as the picnic ad states that’s what wrappers are for. And the wrapping on the Pepsi-cola cake is some divine Peanut Butter frosting.

I mean it’s still not the prettiest cake in the world. But, do not let it’s somewhat less than gorgeous faced fool you. Remember the delicious part of deliciously ugly? Well this cake has a ton of delicious! The cake itself is moist and fudgy, a little like a brownie. The slight slatiness in the peanut butter frosting is a perfect accompaniment to the sweetness of the cake. Beware though the Pepsi Cake is not just rich. It is filthy rich!!!

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I have a sweet tooth and even I would recommend cutting what you think is a normal-sized slice of cake then cutting that in two. And bada bing bada boom that’s elevenses and afternoon tea sorted!!!!

Pepsi Cola Cake – Recipe

So, the recipe for this cake made me laugh. I love the way they ask for non-sweetened cocoa powder. I mean, when you already have 2 cups of sugar and a cup of Pepsi in your cake I guess you have to draw the line somewhere.

Here’s the recipe!

This was so much fun! I loved cooking this cake and being able to take part in the world wide cookalong to celebrate Cowboy Day 2021! Thank you Greg for organising and inviting me to contribute!

Have a great week everyone!!!!

31
Jan
2021

REPOST – General Satisfaction

categories: Baking, Berries, Custard, Desserts, England, Lemon, Limoncello, Meringue, Pudding

Pop quiz hotshots…

General Satisfaction is:

a) A minor character in the Stanley Kubrik classic Doctor Strangelove,

b) A new character in the game Clue / Cluedo. ” It was General Satisfaction in the billiard room. With the Candlestick” or,

c) A Victorian nursery pudding with the most awesome name ever?

I made this to take to my family on Christmas day and let me tell you…general satisfaction became major happiness as people tucked in. And who would not be happy with this mix of lemony berries, topped with sponge finger biscuits liberally soaked in limoncello, topped with a lovely lemony custard and then baked with a meringue topping?

Yep. It’s like you’ve died and gone to heaven….

One of the side effects of the Paleo diet is that I seem to have become hyper-sensitive to sugar. The first version I made of this was so sweet I actually couldn’t eat it, Someone else in the house had no such qualms. He’s lying in a diabetic coma as we speak.

My first introduction to General Satisfaction came from recipe came from Tamasin Day-Lewis’ Supper for A Song . There is also this version online:

General Satisfaction

I “unsweetened” this by swapping out the jam for a slightly more tart lemon curd and adding some fresh (frozen) berries into the base mix. I also added some limoncello to the custard mix. Just because…name me one thing that isn’t made better by a liberal splash o’ booze. And you know, it is the season….

It was still pretty sweet though.

This is at it’s best straight out of the oven with the custard runny and the meringue all crispy. However the last few pieces were also pretty good at room temperature a few days later as part of an afternoon tea.

And if you make this, true to it’s name, I promise you will not be disappointed!!!

I am also interested to know what are most kookiest food names you have come across? General Satisfaction must be right up there but I would love to know yours!!!

Wishing you and yours not only general satisfaction but super happy fun times for 2015. May it also be the year you learn to stop worrying…

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General Satisfaction

Print Recipe

A lovely tangy take on a Victorian nursery pudding.

Author: Taryn Fryer

Ingredients

Scale

1 level tbsp cornflour
425g full cream milk
1 vanilla pod, split, seeds scraped (or 1 tbsp vanilla essence)
3 large eggs, separated
5 tbsp caster sugar
170g lemon curd
1 cup mixed berries, thawed if using frozen
1 tbsp warm water
1/4 cup limoncello, maybe a bit more….
10–12 savoiardi or sponge finger biscuits

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Preheat oven to 180c.

For The Custard

Mix the cornflour with 1 tbsp milk.
Pour the milk into a small, heavy saucepan. Add the vanilla seeds, empty pod and cornflour mix.
Bring to the boil, stirring then drop the heat and simmer, still stirring for a coupe of minutes. Remove from the heat.
Whisk the egg yolks in a bowl then whisk in a tablespoonful of the milk mixture. Repeat three times then pout the combined egg and milk mixture into the warmed milk.
Set the pan back over low heat, and whisk until the custard thickens and is perfectly smooth. Don’t let it boil. Remove from the heat, and whisk in 2 tablespoon of the sugar and half of the limoncello. Set aside to cool.

For The Lemon Berry Sauce

Mix the lemon curd with 1 tbsp of just boiled water until runny and pour into the base of a medium baking dish.
Scatter the berries over the curd then press them down with a potato masher to flatten them down a bit and get their juices running.
Lay the savoiardi on top of the curd and berry mix and sprinkle with the remaining limoncello.
Poor the cooled custard over the biscuits, straining if it is lumpy.

For The Meringue

Whisk the egg whites until stiff, then whisk in the remaining sugar, little by little until you have a firm shiny meringue.
Spoon the meringue over the custard.
Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for about 20 minutes until the meringue is pale golden and crisp when you tap it.

Notes

Adding a little bit of the milk to the egg, prevents the egg from cooking.

Category: Baking

Smoked Salmon Tarts – The Recipe

Other Favourites of The Month

Reading

One More Croissant for the Road by Felicity Cloake

Cookbook

Watching

Listening

Playing

Cooking

Shopping

Tiger Skin Chicken

Les Tigres

Les Tigres Recipe

Melktert :The Recipe

Pepsi Cola Cake – Recipe

General Satisfaction

Ingredients

Instructions

For The Custard

For The Lemon Berry Sauce

For The Meringue

Notes