Hazelnut, Yoghurt and Blackberry Cake

This is a simple adaptation of one of the first recipes on my blog, a hazelnut loaf cake. All I have done is stir 200g blackberries and some the juice of a small orange into the cake batter, to make a less plain cake. I like it both plain and with the fruit. When it is plain, I think it is nicest with some stewed fruit or jam or curd (I suggested this spiced damson curd), and with the fruit in the cake, it's good just by itself.

I have made the name a little fancier- the original recipe always had yogurt in it. Two reasons- I like the way it sounds, and you can taste the tang of the yogurt in the cake, so I think it is worth mentioning.

Skinning the hazelnuts is a bit of a faff, so I don't do it very thoroughly, but I definitely think it is worth the extra effort to use whole hazelnuts that you grind yourself. The flavour you get is much more intense than anything you could get with ready-ground nuts.

Slow Cooked Beef Short Ribs with Chorizo and Borlotti Beans

I came up with this recipe last week, when I was craving something warming, but wanted to avoid the stodginess that winter food can often have. I used some flavourings that I associate more with late summer, such as orange, chilli and fennel, which lifted the dish from potential blandness.

The butcher near me had beef short ribs on offer, but any cut suitable for slow cooking would work. I enjoyed cooking with them though, using a bone-in cut meant the dish had a real body to it.

 For the beans, I had been given some home-grown borlotti beans, so I used them, but they don't have to be borlotti beans, and they certainly don't have to be fresh- dried or tinned would work fine too. If you are using dried, soak and cook them separately first. For tinned beans, I would add them to the dish about 1 hour before it is ready, so they don't disintegrate into the cooking liquid.

We just ate this with lots of bread and butter.

750g-1kg beef short ribs
200g chorizo- I used a pack of Brindisa mini chorizos
200ml red wine
1-2 tbsp plain flour
Beef stock, to cover- approx 500ml
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 large carrot, peeled and diced
1 stick celery, diced
2 red onions, peeled and sliced
1 bay leaf
approx 6 cloves garlic, peeled but left whole
small bunch thyme leaves
sprig rosemary
Juice of 1 small orange, plus a strip of zest (ideally use an unwaxed orange)
1-2 dried chillis
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 handful fresh/ dried, soaked and cooked borlotti beans (or one tin)

Roughly chop the chorizo into chunks, or, if you happen to be using the same type as I did, just cut them into individual sausages. Brown the chorizo in a heavy bottomed saucepan. Remove with a slotted spoon to a casserole dish, leaving behind the paprika-y oil. Put the flour on a plate, and season, then lightly coat the beef ribs with the seasoned flour. Brown in the same pan used to cook the chorizo, over a high heat, so the surface gets nicely caramelized. Whilst this is cooking, add all the other ingredients to the casserole dish except for the beef stock, and stir to combine. Add the beef once full browned, and add enough beef stock to cover. Bring to a simmer on the hob, then turn the heat down, cover, and cook for approximately 3 hours, or until the beef is very tender. I chose to remove the rib bones from the beef, cut it into chunks, and stir it back into the stew before serving.

Roast Pork Belly with Quince

I get a bit overexcited when I see quince in the greengrocer- they are one of the few things that you can't get all year round, so I like to make sure I buy them when I can. Some end up flavouring vodka, and some for pudding- last year I poached quinces in mulled wine and honey, with pleasing results. I've also used grated quince as instead of apple in mincemeat, which was nice but not necessarily better. I'm most interested in using them in savoury dishes, either to add needed sweetness to things like tajines, or as a foil to something fatty, like duck or pork belly. I had seen a recipe a while ago that had stuck in my head for roast pork belly with quince. I couldn't find the original recipe, or remember everything that went in it, so this is my spin on it. I loved the results- fatty, sticky pork belly with sour, fragrant quince.

1 piece pork belly, skin scored

2 quinces

3 onions

2-3 cloves garlic

½- 1 teaspoon fennel seeds

About 1 tbsp thyme leaves

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

A little olive oil

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Peel the garlic cloves, and put in a pestle and morter with the thyme leaves, and pound to a paste. Add the fennel seeds, and lightly crush. Add a little olive oil to loosen the consistency, and some salt and pepper. Rub all over the sides and bottom of the pork belly- don’t put any of the garlic paste on the skin, but do give it a good sprinkling of sea salt.  Place the pork in a roasting tray. With a sharp, heavy knife, cut the quince into slim segments, cutting out any core/pips you get on your slices. Peel and slice the onions, and scatter around the pork belly with the quince. Lightly slick the onion and quince slices with some olive oil, and season. Roast for 25 minutes, then turn the heat down to 160 degrees and roast for another 1 and half-2 hours. Turn the heat up towards the end of cooking time if the skin is not completely crispy and blistered.

Leave the meat to rest under some foil for at least 10 minutes before serving.

I deglazed the roasting tin with some dry cider for a quick gravy, and ate with some mashed potato, and just-tender kale with chestnuts and lardons.

Plum Gingerbread Swirled with Cheesecake

A quick food shop last week turned into a splurge on autumnal produce-I came back with rough-skinned russet apples, root vegetables to turn into a comforting, cream enriched soup and two big punnets of plums. Most of the apples are gone, the majority just eaten on their own, or with some sharp cheddar. A few were used as a topping for a pecan cake, sprinkled with lots of cinnamon and nutmeg. The vegetables have been peeled, cooked, pureed and eaten; I had forgotten how nice a simple vegetable soup could be, especially when you've caught the dreaded cold, like I had. I still have a lot of plums though, even though I like them a lot I was lacking inspiration. Thank goodness for the internet, especially at the moment when I am living without most of my cookery book collection. The first thing that caught my attention was plum gingerbread, then this plum traybake with cheesecake and finally these gingerbread cheesecake bars.

The cake I made came closest to the gingerbread cheesecake bars. The recipe was essentially the same, but with a few additions. Plums, obviously, but also some stem ginger to the gingerbread mix, and some lemon zest and juice to the cheesecake. I omitted the ground ginger from the cheesecake batter, as I wanted complete contrast of the two mixes. Also, instead of pouring the gingerbread batter in the cake tin, covering it with the cheesecake mix, then marbling the two, I put alternating spoonfuls of the batters in the tin and then swirled them up with a knife. I think my method would be easier, as the gingerbread batter is much heavier and denser than the cheesecake, so to try and swirl the gingerbread above and into the cheesecake seems rather difficult.

I have just a cold piece with a cup of tea , and I was very pleased- I really like the contrast between dark, heavy gingerbread and light, tangy cheesecake. I wouldn't go as far to say that the plums 'make' the dish, but they are a really nice addition and suit the flavours of the cake.

If you want to make this recipe, I used this one as a base, from the Oven Adventures blog, which looks great- I'll be pouring over it later. Add the zest of one lemon and one teaspoon of the juice to the cheesecake batter, and one ball of stem ginger, grated, plus a little of the syrup from the jar to the gingerbread. Omit the ground ginger from the cheesecake mix. See my notes above for mixing the two batters in the cake tin. Finally top with some sliced plums. I used 4 plums, each cut into four thick slices.

Apple, Blackberry and Almond Crumble

Instantly comforting and rewarding, especially now the weather has turned. I made this to follow a delicious goulash made by the lovely Daz, perfect winter food. I always forget how much I like crumble until I eat it, and then wonder why I don't make it more often, it's so easy to make and everyone loves it.

For the crumble topping:
225 grams plain flour
125 grams unsalted butter, diced
100 grams caster sugar
125 grams soft brown sugar
50 grams flaked almonds
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon

For the fruit:
1kg Bramley apples
250 grams blackberries
150 grams caster sugar

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade.
In a mixing bowl, rub the butter in the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs. You don't want to use all your fingers here, just your fingertips to bring the flour and fat together.  Stir in the sugar, spices and flaked almonds and set aside whilst you deal with the fruit.
Butter the crumble dish.  Peel, core and chop the apples, place in the bowl. Tumble in the blackberries, and stir in the sugar. Evenly sprinkle over the crumble mixture, and bake until golden and the fruit is soft, about 30 minutes.