Recipe: Caramel Meringue – Edmonds Cookbook

This recipe is copied directly from my 1962 edition of the Edmonds Cookbook, as requested by Carol on 26 August in a comment on my Anzac biscuits recipe. Carol, I trust this is the recipe you’re referring to!

Caramel Meringue

• 3 ozs butter
• 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 breakfast cup flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt

Cream butter and sugar, add egg and beat well. Add sifted flour, baking powder and salt. Roll out on greased paper (about quarter-inch thick). Bake 10 to 15 minutes at 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

FILLING:

• 1/2 tin sweetened condensed milk
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon golden syrup
• 2/3 teacup brown sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 1 1/2 tablespoons flour

Put condensed milk into a saucepan with butter, golden syrup, sugar, egg yolks and vanilla. Warm the mixture, then add the flour. Pour over the bsicuit mixture. Cover with meringue made with 2 egg whites beaten stiffly, then add 4 tablespoons sugar. Bake about 40 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Cut while hot.

link: yoghurt/yogurt tartlets

On Friday I made a potato curry with tomato and coconut milk, and decided that a nice dairy dessert would be appropriate for afters. I have lots of yoghurt in the fridge, so I decided to try the 101cookbooks recipe for yoghurt tarlets. Next time I’ll probably use ground flax and sunflower seeds instead of some of the flour and butter, and maybe I’ll put some of the oats in the food processor, instead of leaving them whole … but basically, it’s a great recipe, with very little sweetener. I didn’t use any sugar, but used silan (date syrup) in the crust, and maple syrup (as per the recipe) in the filling. Highly recommended!

Unfortunately, I wasn’t convinced that they were going to be successful, so I ended up making a pavlova as well. I’m out of white sugar (semi-intentionally), so used brown sugar instead. The end-result was a pretty colour and one of the nicest, highest pavs that I have made. Next stop – creme caramel, to use up my five egg yolks!

recipe: semolina cake

This is a delicious cake, and very easy to make. The last time I made it, I blanched the almonds the night before so that making the cake would seem even more effortless. Everything is mixed into one bowl, and the syrup hardly even needs stirring. It’s a sweet one, and is a very good accompaniment to tea or coffee.

Semolina Cake

 

Cake:

• 2 cups semolina
• 1 cup sugar
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup yoghurt
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
• ½ cup rosewater (or several drops of rose essence in ½ cup water)
• ¼ cup almonds

Syrup:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• seeds from 3 cardamom pods

 Method:

• Blanch almonds and remove skins. 
• Heat oven to 180º C and butter (or oil) a rectangular baking dish. 
• Mix semolina and oil in a bowl. Add all other cake ingredients, except almonds.
• Spread mixture into baking dish, top with rows of almonds.
• Bake for 45 minutes to an hour – the cake will become brown at the edges and shrink slightly at the sides.
• Towards the end of baking, put all syrup ingredients into a medium-sized saucepan, and cook for 10 minutes on low heat.
• Remove cake from oven, cut into squares or diamonds.
• Pour syrup over cake while cake is still hot. Serve when cake is cool and the syrup has been absorbed.

Recipe for Pavlova (Schaum Torte)

This is my father’s recipe, inherited from his mother, written down for me in 1995 by Peter Haines, the man privileged to have received it in writing from my father. I grew up watching dad make this without the recipe and always assumed that none existed. My fondest memories of this pav are licking the beaters – a memory that I re-enact every time I make it. As far as I’m concerned, no-one has an excuse to complain about pesach cooking - the treat that is pavlova is as kosher for pesach as macaroons … and far more delicious. 

 

pavlova

• 4 egg whites
• 8 oz castor sugar
• 2 level teaspoons cornflour
• 1 teaspoon vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• pinch of salt

1. Beat egg whites until very stiff (your arms that is: make sure the whites are stiff also).
2. Mix sugar, cornflour and salt.
3.  Add above to egg whites one spoonful at a time, beating vigorously after each addition.
4. Add vinegar and vanilla and beat again.
5. Spoon onto baking tray.
6. Cook in oven preheated to 300 F and turned down to 140 F, for 45 minutes.

simmer down notes:

• Anyone who tells you that pavlova requires whipped cream and fruit before earning the title “Pavlova” is lying.
• HOWEVER … the classic rendition of pavlova topped with whipped cream and strawberries is a winner.
• To use up the leftover egg yolks, I recommend making a mock-carbonara sauce for pasta. That post is to follow … although it’s not really in the spirit of the upcoming pesach festival.
• An alternative and probably very unpopular use for leftover egg yokes – add them to an omelette! Who wants an egg white omelette when lovely, rich egg yolks are to be had??

things fall apart

Can I please buy a brush that lasts me more than two years before falling apart? The spikes drop out, the colour or veneer wears out, the non-slip rubber bits atrophy and drop off, the pointless decoration becomes ugly … I know we live in a disposable society, but this is getting annoying!

While you’re sending me suggestions as to where to find a Mason Pearson hairbrush in Israel, can you also find me a sturdy milk frother?

Recently the Bialetti milk frother that I bought in Italy two years ago fell apart – the handle cracked. Technically, it is still possible to heat and froth milk using this device, but pouring is pretty hazardous. After a while of taking the burn risk, we decided to buy a new frother – also Bialetti. This one has a non-stick layer inside for easy cleaning, and is more compact that the last one. But two days ago, I realised that there is also a crack in the handle of THIS frother. What to do?? My Bialetti coffee maker has lasted about four years so far with no signs of giving up the ghost. Now I just need a frother that’s as realiable as that … or go back to drinking black coffee, I guess.

little things in great quantities

At a recent (and my first in Israel) visit to a homeopath, a question was posed to me that made me realise that there’s an unfortunate theme in my life right now. The question was “what do you dream about?”. I knew the question was coming, because I’ve been to a homeopath before. So I’d been thinking about it already for a couple of days, and I’ve been thinking about it since … and I really couldn’t say.

What is clear is the type of dream, if not the subject-matter. I consistently dream about small problems that I can’t solve. The fact is, when I’m lying in bed trying to fall asleep at night – whether at bedtime, or in the middle of the night after waking up – I’m plagued by the same thoughts. Some of the problems that I dream about turn out not to be real, but as I’m in the twilight between sleeping and waking, I find myself still struggling with the dream-problems as if they are real problems.

As I tried to explain this to the homeopath, I realised that actually, this is my life right now: minor problems, without end, with elusive or non-existent solutions.  Some of these are baby-related problems that disappear with time, others are problems – many also baby-related – that simply reoccur day after day, or minute after minute. But all of the problems share the quality of being - for me, in my current state, location, job, place in the world – unsolvable. I wonder if three drops, twice a day, for the next three weeks will fix any of this …

recipe: cake

Lemon-iced Poppy Seed Cake

cake

• 250g butter
• 250g castor sugar
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 250g self-raising flour
• grated zest and juice of one lemon
• 100g poppy seeds

icing

• 250g icing sugar
• grated zest and juice of two small lemons

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, a little at a time, stirring in between each addition, until mixture is smooth and all the eggs have been incorporated. Sitr in the flour, and then beat in the lemon juice, zest, and poppy seeds.

Spoon mixture into a buttered and lined 8-cup capacity loaf pan or cake tin and bake for about 1 hour, or until golden and springy to the touch.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool for about 20 minutes in the pan. Turn onto a wire rack and leave until completely cold.

To make the icing, sift the icing sugar into a large bowl, add lemon zest and enough juice to give icing the texture of thick pouring cream. Spread icing over the cold loaf using a palette knife and leave until set.

simmer down notes:

• I took the cake out of the oven at about 45 minutes and it was a bit over-done. That could be the fault of my oven, I think it isn’t calibrated correctly, I have to get a gadget to measure the temperature in there.
• The juice of two lemons in the icing was a bit too much – one would have done the trick, but maybe I had a juicy lemon (and I have an excellent lemon squeezer).
• Other highly recommended lemon poppy seed cakes:

recipe: semolina cake

Semolina Cake 

Originally uploaded by sonnnia

Heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius 

Cake:

• 2 cups semolina flour
• 1 cup sugar
• ½ cup oil (corn, canola, or vegetable)
• 1 cup yoghurt
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
• ½ cup rose water (or half a cup of water with drops of rose essence added)
• ¼ cup blanched almonds (and halved if you can be bothered)

Syrup:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• juice and zest of half a lemon
• ½ teaspoon ground cardamom 

Combine semolina and oil. Add remaining ingredients except almonds. Grease baking dish, pour mixture in and smooth with a spatula. Arrange almonds in rows. 

Bake for about 1 hour.

Prepare syrup towards end of cooking time. Cook for 10 minutes on low heat. Remove cake from oven and cut into squares. Pour syrup on top of cut cake while both are still hot.

dreaming of sleep

Château Vary
Originally uploaded by faygate

Where our baby once woke up cooing and murmuring, he now moves quickly from fidgeting and shuffling to major crying. The breakdown started in the Loire Valley when he was six months old, and we haven’t really recovered yet.

From a strictly objective observation, it appears that the week or so that he spent trying to get some sleep in a black netting rectangular hole of baby hell (that is otherwise known as a traveller portable crib) did some serious damage to his previously positively dreamy routine of up to 12 straight hours of nightly sleep. That, along with parental nerves stretched paper-thin, twilight until 10pm, and being surrounded by strangers left him a bit of a wreck.

Now 11 months old, the lovely baby who was a lovely sleeper by six months now cries in the middle of the night more often goes down for naps with greater difficulty, and frequently wakes between 4 and 5am, although husbandly intervention in the mornings has given us the occasional 5:30-6 waking.

other new things

Recently, both our baby and I have been doing new things – he’s been doing more than me. My new things are few so I’ll tell them first – I cooked wheat berries (why berries? I’m confused by that – isn’t it just … wheat?). I’m sure there was something else new but can’t remember what.

The baby has been rocking on his hands and knees, and jumping forward, and scooting all over the place. He has also, for the last month, been sleeping, in a way that enables me finally to realise why people refer to a certain kind of sleep as sleeping like a baby. At nights he sleeps between 10 and 12 hours – so ladies, don’t let anyone tell you that the boob won’t give him enough sustenance to last the night: since four months, he’s been sleeping all night.

He has also been grabbing both feet and putting them into his mouth, which he seems to find pretty satisfying.