Toad in the Hole

For my fifth recipe in my collection of recipes-with-interesting names series, I have returned to more familiar cuisine and made Toad in the Hole. I don't ever think about the strangeness of its name, but I guess to a person who didn't grow up with British cooking, it would sound as odd as ants climbing the tree did to me the first time I heard of it.

Like many of the dishes with more unusual names, there is not a definite answer on where the name came from. The most common theory I have seen is that the dish is meant to look like a toad sticking its head out of a hole. Personally I can't see it. However, toad in the hole didn't always have to have sausages, and sometimes was used as a way of stretching out leftover cooked meat- perhaps there was more of a resemblance then.

In the past I have nearly always used Delia's recipe for Toad in the Hole. But when I decided to make it for my blog, I was more conscious when eating it that Delia's recipe didn't contain enough pudding for me. I am admittedly a fan of stodge and carbs, but even so, the amount of batter seemed a bit mean. Perhaps a bit silly, as the idea behind toad in the hole is that it is a way to stretch out meat, and a high sausage-to-pudding ration should be seen as a good, more lavish thing- but in the case of this recipe I would have rather had less sausage in return for more pudding. If you were serving it with mashed potato, which I wasn't, than maybe it would be enough carbohydrate.

So, I turned to what has always proven successful in the past- Felicity Cloakes' 'How to Cook the Perfect...' recipe column.  Her recipe is interesting- the batter includes wholegrain mustard and some ale, and instead of browning the sausages in the oven, you brown them in a frying pan. Her suggestion of adding the batter to the hot roasting dish before the sausages was new to me too, but it really made a difference- the bottom of the Yorkshire pudding part stays crisp. The additions to the batter don't overpower, but do add a more savoury note.

As always, it was a great recipe, and I wanted to share it here. I did, however, make a change and increase the batter quantity by half. This made a very pudding heavy toad in the hole, which to me is perfection, but is probably not for others. Felicity's recipe does use more batter than Delia, if you are worried the original recipe doesn't have enough.

I like to serve my toad in the hole with some kind of green, and a cidery onion gravy.

Hot Cross Buns

I made these using the same recipe last easter, and left it too late to post a recipe- hot cross buns in June just aren't right. I didn't want to make my own hot cross buns before Easter, but I hope posting the recipe on Good Friday gives any potential HCB bakers the chance to make them over the long weekend.

Again, I turn to Felicity Cloake's 'How to Cook the Perfect...' series. It does make me so much lazier at experimenting with cooking, on the other hand it allows me to bypass mistakes and go straight to perfect recipes- I am torn between whether I love it, or whether I resent having the exploration already done for me. I do know I really enjoy the articles, and I am hugely envious of her job.

I was glad Felicity has written a HCB recipe- before I relied on Felicity, I relied on Nigella; and I wasn't too impressed with her hot cross buns recipe- they were not sweet enough, and were too much like plain bread rolls. Felicity's feel more of a treat, richer and sweeter.

I did still make some adjustments to the recipe:

• I soaked the currants in Lady Grey tea. Dan Lepard soaks the fruit in his recipe in tea- a touch which creates, in Felicity's words an 'unnervingly juicy result'. I took this as a good thing, although Felicity doesn't do this in her final recipe. Perfection is, of course, subjective. I chose Lady Grey for it's citrussy flavours, which I really like in my Easter bun.
• I left out the 50g mixed peel, and made up the weight with extra currants. (I hate mixed peel).
• I added a strip of lemon peel and a strip of orange peel to the milk when I was infusing it with the spices.
• A controversial choice- I used strips of marzipan to make the crosses. I didn't like the alternatives for making the crosses that Felicity came across- icing, and cream cheese frosting. They both seem an very unwelcome addition. But marzipan doesn't seem unfitting here- and it makes the cross part actually interesting to eat. Also, you can make cut out strips of marzipan that make very neat crosses, whereas piping out a flour and water paste can be a very messy affair.

Soaking raisins in tea and infusing milk with citrus zest and spices.

Dough after the first prove

Shaped and unbaked buns

Unbaked buns with marzipan crosses