Delicious Comfort Food For A Cold Summer

Rainy rose

          It’s June, the joyous midsummer month!

          In my garden, roses bloom– their petals scattered by lashing winds, their buds rotted by ceaseless rain.  It’s the English monsoon season.

          The last forecast I saw said it will be slightly warmer and brighter this weekend, for which I suppose we should be grateful, and then return to chilly rain next week.

          Earlier this week, I had friends over.  I gave them duvets to huddle in, as the wind blatted rain against the windows, but thought I ought to do something more to cheer them up and remind them that, hey, it’s summer!  So I cooked blondies.

          As you probably know, blondies are brownies, only with white chocolate.  If you’d like to make some, gather the following ingredients: 

250g white chocolate

200g unsalted butter, diced

3 large eggs

150g caster sugar

Half teaspoon vanilla extract

200g plain flour

Half teaspoon baking powder

150g fresh raspberries

Makes about nine.

          Break up 150g of the white chocolate and place in a heat-proof bowl with the 200g of butter.

          You almost certainly know the drill here – have a saucepan of boiling, simmering water, and place the bowl in the saucepan, making sure the bottom of the bowl doesn’t touch the water.  Then set a timer for 6 minutes and just leave it to melt, while you get on with other things.

          Which means breaking the three eggs into a bowl, and whisking them madly until they froth.  Easy if you have an electric whisk.  You’re going to have a tired arm if you don’t.

          Add the sugar and vanilla extract to the eggs and whisk again, until the mixture thickens but is full of air.

          The timer should have rung by now.  Give the melted chocolate and butter a quick stir, and take off the heat to cool a little.  (If it’s too hot it will cook the eggs when added to them.)

          Give the egg-sugar mix another whisk.  When the chocolate has cooled, add it to the eggs and sugar, and whisk again.  (It being white chocolate, I found it much less fluid than melted chocolate and quite difficult to get out of the bowl.)

          Now sieve the flour and baking powder over the mixture.  Carefully fold in.

          Take another 100g of white chocolate, and coarsely chop.  Fold into the mix.  (If you chop coarsely, the blondies have delicious lumps of white chocolate hidden in them.)

          Pour into a well-greased baking dish.  If you use a fairly deep dish, then you will have fudgy, gooey-centred blondies.  Use a shallower one, and they are crisper and more biscuit like – whichever you prefer.

          Take the 150g of fresh raspberries and scatter over the top of the mixture.

          Now to cook…  I found this recipe on a website, and saw that many people had complained about the cooking instructions being wrong – and they were right.  The instructions were to bake for 25 minutes at 180 degrees C, 350 F, or Gas Mark 4.

          But after 25 minutes, the cake was nowhere near cooked – was almost still liquid.  Even after 40m, it wasn’t cooked in the centre, and was starting to brown too much around the edges.  I covered it with foil and left it in for another ten minutes – so that’s 50m in all – and then it was about right, but was looking overdone around the edges.

          So, if I made these again, I would try 35m at Gas Mark 5, and then check, and perhaps cover with foil longer was needed.

          However, despite the difficulty over the cooking-time, the finished blondies were delicious: moist, sweet and slightly fudgy in the centre, with the taste of white chocolate and the tang of raspberry.  Even the slightly too brown edges weren’t a disaster, as one guest asked for those parts, liking the crunchiness (I don’t think she was merely being polite.)

          We ate the blondies cold, but I imagine they’d be even better warm, with the chocolate lumps slightly gooey.

          As I bought the chocolate in 300g blocks, I had 50g left over.  I melted it and dabbled it all over the finished cake, before I cut it into squares.  As I hadn’t added any butter to soften it, the white chocolate set hard on the blondies’ tops, like very delicious concrete, which added a certain bite, about which no one complained.

          The cook, however, could eat that 50g of white chocolate… cook’s perks!

DELICIOUS COMFORT FOOD

          It’s been a long time since I blogged a recipe, but this week, since I feel in need of comfort, here’s one for good, simple, comfort food.

          My friends say I’m hardy and never catch colds or ‘flu – but the truth is, I work mostly from home, so I’m simply not exposed to lurgies as much as others.  This term I’ve been going regularly not only into De Montfort University, but also a primary school – and as a result I have the swollen glands, sore throat, thick head, streaming nose and feverishness that I’ve dodged in the past.

          So, feeling miserable, I’ve turned to one of my mother’s comfort-foods.  She called them ‘Scotch Pancakes’, not knowing (and not caring) that ‘scotch’ is a drink.  They’re also called Drop Scones (and, okay, Scots’ Pancakes.)

Here’s what you need to make them:

5oz, 150g or 1 and a quarter cups plain flour

2oz, 60g or quarter cup caster sugar

5ml or 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda,

Pinch salt

1 large egg, beaten

6 fl. Oz, 170ml, or three-quarters of a cup milk (or plain yoghurt)

Dried fruit (optional)

Almond extract, cinnamon, or whiskey as flavouring (optional)

Oil for frying.

          My mother weighed everything, but I’ve started using cup measurements recently – and not only found it less fuss and easier, but I think the results were better.  I’ve also found that I like the pancakes better made with plain yoghurt; but Mom always made them with milk - and we enjoyed them!

          Anyroad up, chucks, put the flour, sugar, bicarb and salt in a bowl and mix.

          Put the yoghurt, or milk, in a jug; add the egg, and beat together.

          Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients, and mix.  The batter should be thick, but fluid.  If it’s too stiff, add more yoghurt, milk or water.  (I added whisky and water this morning).

          You can whisk it together by hand – Mom always did – but I’ve found that using an electric whisk helps to make the pancakes lighter.

          At this stage, add flavourings, if you wish.  Mom always added dried fruit (though most recipes I’ve seen in books don’t).  I’ve added drops of vanilla or almond essence, with very yummy results.  This morning I added cinnamon, sultanas and whisky.  I’ll tell you how that worked out when I’ve eaten them.

          As I write, the mixture is in the fridge.  You can fry and eat them immediately, as Mom did.  Well, she fried them and we ate them.  We stood in a row in the kitchen and ate them as fast as she put them on the plate.

          However, leaving the mix a few hours gives the bicarb time to work, and the fruit to plump up.

          To cook them, heat oil or butter, or a mix of thereof (which burns less easily) in a frying pan.  When hot, drop tablespoonfuls of the mix into the pan, so that you have a few small pancakes .  When the surface is covered in little bubbles, flip them and cook the other side. Place them on a warm plate.

          If you don’t want to use all the mix at once, cover and replace in the fridge for later.

           They can be eaten plain, with fresh fruit, or spread with butter and jam –depending on how much comfort you’re in need of! 

Blot lovesAwards

          THE LEIBSTER AWARD.  Blot, as you can see, is very proud of his Leibster Award.

          And I am about to award my second one.  It goes to – Lucy Coats. 

          Lucy knows a lot about writing – she’s worked as an editor in London and New York, besides having written more than 25 books of her own; and she’s been short-listed for the Blue Peter Book Award.

Lucy Coats

          I know Lucy best as the person who led a fascinating workshop at the last SAS conference, taking several of us on ‘a guided shamanic spirit journey’.  I’m pretty sceptical, but was deeply impressed by the vividness of the landscapes I ‘saw’ during this journey.  It may simply be a difference of terminology: where Lucy talks about spirit journeys, I talk about the subconscious – but I will readily admit that ‘the subconscious’ is as mysterious as any spirit-journey, and possibly less well explored, since shamans have been spirit-travelling for hundreds of years.

          In any case, I would certainly like to learn more from Lucy, and I think her blog deserves far more followers.

          If you know of a blog with fewer than 200 followers, which deserves a Leibster – let me know!

          LATE BREAKING NEWS.  I can report that Scots Pancakes flavoured with cinnamon and whisky are very good!