Toffee Marshmallow Crispies #ReadCookEat

School is back tomorrow. To sweeten the bitter pill, Eddie and I made a big batch of Toffee Marshmallow Crispies yesterday.
Having read Jane Linfoot's The Little Cornish Kitchen (<--- click for my book review) I've bookmarked a few food descriptions as an inspiration. If you are a foodie and enjoy baking, you will be drooling over numerous desserts featured in the book, from the pastel-coloured macaroons to a decadent chocolate roulade, from lemon meringues to berry sorbets, from the most delicious Eton Mess with lemon curd to a chocolate mousse cake with strawberries...

As Clemmie, the main heroine of the novel, masters the art of patisserie, the food descriptions become more and more sinful. I swear my waistline was expanding, just reading them.

I fancied making lemon cupcakes with blackberry frosting, but my piping skills are rather lame. I might try the idea one day when I'm feeling brave.

But it's the easy Toffee Marshmallow Crispies that I knew would be a big hit with my guys.
I've googled for a recipe, and found one for Toffeee and Marshmallow Rice Crispies on BBC Good Food.

These sweet treats appear in one of the later scenes in the book:

Jenny's beaming at us. "If you'd like to drink to that with tea back at the house, I've made some of Laura's special toffee crispie".
"You have?" Rob and I both turn together.
I'm thinking of the recipe cards. "With the marshmallows in?"
Another of my childhood favourites.
Jenny nods. "That's the one. It must be fifty years since she gave me that recipe..."
Rob's smiling. "I always licked out the saucepan for that."
"Me too." My mouth is watering as I recall the taste. There was nothing quite like that sticky sweetness.

Who could resist such a treat?!

For the full recipe please use the link above, on BBC Good Food site. I followed their recipe exactly as stated.

I didn't have soft butter toffees, and actually couldn't find soft toffees anywhere. Are soft toffees and fudge the same thing? Anyway, I bought a packet of butter toffees (Waitrose own), which are pretty hard and sticky-brittle, the type that when you bite into one, your teeth get cemented to it.

I wasn't sure if these toffees were going to melt, but they did melt.
Use a big  heavy duty pan for this job, and one that you don't worry about scratching later, when you need to clean it.
Melt 50g butter with 200g toffees, then throw in the marshmallows and keep stirring until you have a gloopy sticky mess.

Then add the rice crispies and mix thoroughly. The melted toffee starts to set pretty fast, so you need to act quickly.
Line a square brownie tin with foil or parchment paper and oil a little bit. Scoop the rice crispie into the tin and pat with a wooden spatula to flatten it.

It will be ready to cut in less than half an hour. It will be a bit soft at this point.

My boys loved it, and would have gobbled up the whole lot, if I didn't ration it.

Thank you to Laura and Clemmie for the inspiration - and of course, Jane Linfoot! - for writing such irresistible food descriptions!

Have you read a book recently which inspired you to run to the kitchen and cook to your heart's content?

I hope you are inspired by books to join in the #ReadCookEat challenge.

The idea is to choose a book, either a world classic or modern fiction, or even memoirs and pick up a dish mentioned or described in that book and then recreate it in a recipe. Please say a few lines about your chosen book, and maybe even do a quote from the book.

If you decide to take part, please add the badge to your post and link up back to me, and either use a link-up tool or add the url of your post as a comment. Alternatively, email me with the link to your post (my email is sasha1703 at yahoo dot com).

I will Pin all blog posts taking part in this challenge, as well as RT and Google+

Shchi for Marinka (The House with Chicken Legs #ReadCookEat )

Russian cabbage soup Shchi takes a place of pride in the national cuisine. According to the historians, this dish was known in Rus long before the Christianity was introduced there (source: Russian Cuisine: Traditions and Customs by V.Kovalev and N.Mogilnyi, 1990). Apparently, Ivan the Terrible was a big fan of shchi (not that it's a great endorsement).
To begin with, most of the soups were called shchi, but later mainly the cabbage-based soups were left with the name.
There are some varieties of shchi without cabbage as well in the Russian cuisine - shchi with sorrel, and with nettles.
There are many versions of this soup, they could be cooked with meat, fish, mushrooms, with fresh cabbage or sauerkraut.
Alexander Dumas loved the Russian shchi so much, that he included a recipe in his culinary book.

I don't often cook Russian food, as my family prefer Italian dishes.
Last week I was reading The House with Chicken Legs by Sophie Anderson, and got all nostalgic about the Russian dishes which appear on the pages of the novel.
Baba Yaga is a great cook, and as the Guardian of the portal to the other world, it is her duty to guide the spirits of the dead. She celebrates their lives by providing them with the last feast.

Baba pokes her head out and smiles. "Lunch is ready. I've made a feast of shchi and black bagels. Enough for Jack too",
My stomach rumbles as the smell of cabbage soup and freshly baked bread hits my nose...

Baba is stirring a great cauldron of borsch over a roaring fire. She turns and smiles as I enter the room, an excited twinkle in her eyes. "You look lovely, my pchelka. Are you ready?"
...Baba talks to him softly in the language of the dead, as I fill the table. Bowls and spoons, thick black bread, a basket of dill, pots of sour cream and horseradish, mushroom dumplings, as assortment of tiny glasses and a large bottle of spirit trost - a fiery drink for the dead.

Baba has made ukha from tinned catfish and vegetables...
Tonight we'll treat the desert dead to a fish supper". Baba nods at the table and smiles. It's already laid with kvass and glasses, and bowls of food with a decidedly fishy theme: pickled herring with soured cream from the cold pantry, blinis with smoked salmon and dill, salted dried vobla, and mini fish dumplings...

These are just a few foodie quotes from the book.

I don't know which recipe Baba Yaga used to cook shchi for her granddaughter, but I think she would approve of my vegetarian/vegan mushroom-based soup. I prefer to serve it with a big dollop of soured cream. You can use a vegan variety, but somehow a coconut or soy yogurt would not give you an authentic taste.

Shchi with dried mushrooms
Ingredients:
a pack of dried porcini mushrooms (20g)
white cabbage 500g
1 smaller size onion or 1/2 of a big one
4tbsp vegetable oil
1 carrot, grated
1 parsnip
2 cloves of garlic
1-2 tomatoes
1 bay leaf
1 big potato, peeled and cubed

Break dried mushrooms into smaller pieces.
Place them in a pan, pour hot boiling water over them (about a pint or 1/2 litre). Let them soak for 15 minutes. You'll get dark liquid, this will be the base stock for soup.
Finely chop half an onion and grate the carrot, fry them with the vegetable oil until the onion gets translucent. Add 2 cloves of garlic and chopped parsnip. Remove the mushrooms from the pan with a slotted spoon and place them in the frying pan, fry for about 5 minutes, stirring.

Put the mushrooms and veg mix back in the pan with stock and bay leaf, add more water, bring to the boil, add the finely chopped cabbage, cook for a few minutes on boiling, then reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Add the cubed potato in the last 10 minutes of cooking.
Season with sea salt.
Serve hot, with a good spoonful of soured cream or Greek style yogurt, but this is optional.

In this recipe I used dried Boletus Edulis Borowik Szlachetny also known as porcini. I buy these dried mushrooms in the Polish deli, and they are usually a half of what you'd expect to pay for porcini in supermarkets.

If you liked the sound of the Russian soup shchi, you might like to see the other recipe posts on Russian soups, mentioned in the novel.

Mama's Borscht (meat-based)

Vegetarian borscht

Ukha on a budget (made with a salmon head)

Ukha (fish soup made with tinned fish)

Marinated (pickled) herring

Regency-style lemon almond tart + #ReadCookEat May linky

Reconstructing dishes mentioned in fiction is one of my passions.
I've recently finished reading The ghost of Glendale by Natalie Kleinman (read my review). It is a Romance with a ghost story twist, set in Regency times. There are not many mentions of food, except when the main protagonists Phoebe, her cousin Lydia, their beaus Duncan and Rupert as well as the other neighbours go on a picnic.

"It was all in good fun and, with an appetite that only the young seem to have, the various meets, cheeses, pies and other delicacies were consumed with eagerness which, had the kitchen staff of the various establishments been able to see, would have given them much pleasure."

I was curious to discover what dishes might have been served at picnics during the Regency and consulted a couple of food history books. Picnics were often quite a grand affair, with baskets upon baskets of food and chilled champagne in buckets with ice, carried by numerous servants.

I also consulted a cook book "Dinner with Mr Darcy" by Pen Vogler. In a chapter dedicated to picnic food she offers a recipe for Lemon cheesecakes (Georgian cheesecakes actually did not contain cheese). She cooks individual lemon cheesecakes.
I decided to bake one easy lemon almond tart, and it happened to be a delightful bake, easy and quick, and oh so good. I hope Phoebe and company would approve of it.

Regency-style lemon almond tart
Ingredients:
1 pack of shortcrust pastry
zest of 2 lemons
2tbsp lemon juice
100g caster sugar
1tbsp limoncello (optional)
2 medium eggs
2tbsp single cream
100g ground almonds
60g butter, melted
a big handful of flaked almonds

For the ease of cooking, use a ready-made shortcrust pastry. If you have time and inclination, prepare your own pastry by all means.
Preheat the oven to 180C.
Unroll the pastry and cut out a big circle to fit in your tart dish or tin. Bake for 10 minutes.
In a medium mixing bowl zest 2 lemons. Add the lemon juice, caster sugar, limoncello, beat in two eggs. Add single cream, ground almonds and melted and cooled butter, and mix well.
Pour the almond lemon mix into the pre-baked pastry case, scatter flaked almonds on top.
Place the baking dish in the oven and bake for 20+ minutes until golden brown.
Take out and let it cool a bit before slicing and serving.

This tasty tart is quite similar to Bakewell tart, minus jam, and with lemon flavours.

This is not an authentic Regency recipe, as obviously they would not have a pre-made shortcrust pastry, and I'm not sure whether limoncello or any other lemon liqueur was popular in England in those days. But lemons and ground almonds appear happily in many 19C recipes.

Have you read a book recently which inspired you to run to the kitchen and cook to your heart's content?

I hope you are inspired by books to join in the #ReadCookEat challenge.

The idea is to choose a book, either a world classic or modern fiction, or even memoirs and pick up a dish mentioned or described in that book and then recreate it in a recipe. Please say a few lines about your chosen book, and maybe even do a quote from the book.

If you decide to take part, please add the badge to your post and link up back to me, and either use a link-up tool or add the url of your post as a comment. Alternatively, email me with the link to your post (my email is sasha1703 at yahoo dot com).

I will Pin all blog posts taking part in this challenge, as well as RT and Google+

The Teacher's Secret by Suzanne Leal & Raisin, walnut and orange cake

We all make mistakes, and some of our blunders come to haunt us years later.
Terry Pritchard who is affectionately known at Brindle Public school as Mr P, is a warm-hearted teacher who loves his job. He has been teaching several generations of children - some of his current students are children of his former students. He is a well-known and much-loved figure in town.

Then a new principal arrives to school, and school life changes dramatically. Immediately her and Terry's personalities clash, and Ms Matthews takes it upon herself to make Terry comply with her new rules or perish. She is a very unpleasant, uncompromising (in a negative way) character, without redeeming features. She seems to be power-obsessed.

This brought back memories of working in school many years ago. While some of my colleagues were genuinely wonderful and kind people, there were also some colleagues who would be ready to stab you in the back and walk over dead bodies just to achieve their ambitions. Ms Matthews epitomises the abhorrent zeal and schemes of certain teaching professionals. I imagine we've all met "a Ms Matthews" in our lives, whether as a colleague or as a teacher of our children. This is the kind of person you mentally want to strangle.

Mr P is not as faultless as he appears at the beginning of the novel, and once Ms Matthews uncovers his past secret and decides that his behaviour is inappropriate, he is dismissed from the job he loves so passionately. Terry is forced into an early retirement, and the whole school community is shocked and devastated.

A new teacher, Nina, comes to replace him. Obviously, as Terry's replacement, she is not the flavour of the month. And she truly struggles to fit in and find her place. The pupils confront her and resent her for taking Terry's place. You feel sorry for Nina, as anyone in her position would struggle.

There are several smaller personal stories and subplots going on. The story is a bit scattered, and there are too many characters. The feel of a small town is rendered truthfully and authentically.
It is a thought-provoking book which tackles modern day issues.

Thank you to Legend Press for sending me an e-copy of the book for reviewing.

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As it often happens, when I read novels, I take notice of what the characters cook and eat.

One of the characters, Joan, is very curious about a new family next door, She decides to bake a cake to welcome them to the neighbourhood. She hesitates, and imagines her late mother talking to her:
"Or, she hears her mother whisper, you could make them a cake, Joanie.
A tray of biscuits she can manage, but baking cakes has never been her forte and Joan shakes her head at the idea.
Come on, Joanie, her mother insists. Nothing fancy, just a little something.
As she washes up the breakfast dishes, she manages to talk herself into it. A sultana cake, she decides, that's what she will make. So she takes out her mother's cookbook and gets started. She measures out the sultanas, whips up the butter and the sugar, adds the eggs and the flour and she's done. Carefully, she pours the mixture into a loaf pan.
To her surprise and delight, when she pulls it out of the oven it looks absolutely beautiful.
Just a little something to welcome you to the street. That's what she'll say".

This short passage just makes your heart melt, doesn't it?! It brings back some lovely memories of the times when we moved to a college house in Williamstown, MA, when our elder son was just a few months old. We had most wonderful neighbours, and still keep in touch. They left a big basket of food (including some baked goodies) for us on the porch with a card, and it was such an unexpected warm gesture.

I love browsing bookshelves in charity shops, and I've recently spotted an old edition of The Australian Women's Weekly Cakes & Slices Cookbook. I just had to buy it. I looked up if there are any sultana cake recipes in the book, and indeed there is a brandied sultana cake recipe. But I was more inspired by Raisin, Walnut and Orange Syrup Cake recipe. It's quite easy, and I think even Joan who's not a confident cake baker would master it.

And here it is, a recipe for Raisin, walnut and orange syrup cake, which I have adapted to suit our tastes. I have reduced the sugar content and have changed some of the steps too.

Raisin, walnut and orange cake
Ingredients:
zest of 1 orange
180g caster sugar
2 medium eggs
60g walnuts, finely chopped
180g self-raising flour
1tsp baking powder
100g chopped raisins
125g butter, melted
50ml orange juice
for topping:
3-4 heaped tbsp icing sugar mixed with orange juice to make thick icing.
sliced orange (optional)

In a big mixing bowl mix caster sugar with orange zest. Beat in the eggs. Add chopped walnuts and most of the flour (minus 1tbsp) and baking powder. Chop raisins, then sprinkle them with 1tbsp of flour to coat them, this will help raisins to be spread inside the cake evenly rather than go to the bottom.
Add melted and cooled butter and orange juice, and mix well.
Spoon the cake dough in a well-oiled loaf tin. Put the tin in the oven preheated to 180C.
Bake for about 35+ minutes. Check readiness with a wooden toothpick.
Once cooked, let the cake cool a bit before taking it out of the tin.
Slice the orange into crescents, and cook for a couple of minutes in a mix of sugar and orange juice.
Decorate the cake first with the icing made from the icing sugar and orange juice, then put the slices of orange on top, and pour the remains of the syrup over.

The cake will keep for up to 3 days.

It's a tasty, moist cake, quite dark in colour. It will most likely be lighter in colour, if you swap raisins for sultanas.

Victoria Sponge (The Woman in the Wood) and March #ReadCookEat linky

The Woman in the Wood by Lesley Pearse is a compelling family saga set in the early 1960s. Fifteen-year-old twins Maisy and Duncan are sent to live with their cantankerous grandmother, Mrs Mitcham, in the manor house in the countryside. She doesn't have many redeeming features. Cold as fish, ill-tempered and crusty, she has managed to antagonise most of the villagers. She's also a terrible snob.
The twins enjoy the freedom of living in the New Forest countryside, acquire new friends and fall in love. Until one day Duncan disappears without a trace, and the police seem to do nothing to find out what has happened to the boy. Only Maisy doesn't believe that Duncan would just simply leave her and run away without a word.
The Woman in the Wood - she of the title - is a sad, lonely character who tries to avoid contact with people, and who lives deep in the woods. The twins manage to find the way to her heart.

Maisy and Duncan get spoilt by Janice, their grandmother's cook and housemaid, who enjoys baking for children. Her Victoria sponge is mentioned several times through the book, including one of the last scenes, after a dramatic denouement (not telling you, so as not to post any spoilers).

Victoria sponge or Victoria sandwich, a much loved classic and probably the most iconic British cake, was named after Queen Victoria.
Farmhouse Cookery/ Recipes from the Country Kitchen (1980 edition) has a small article on the history of Victoria sponge:
"After the death of her husband, Prince Albert, in 1861, Queen Victoria spent four months of every year in retreat at Osborne, her house on the Isle of Wight. It was left to her husband's former secretary, General Grey, to try to coax her out of retirement.
As well as suggesting that she reappear in public, he urged her to give tea-parties to which various friends, relatives and celebrities were invited. On these occasions, Victoria Sandwich cake was served".

I didn't use the recipe from that book, as it asks for quite a small amount of flour, and I thought it would make a small sized cake. Delia's cake recipe from Delia's Cakes is also on the small size.
I consulted a few of cook books in my stash, and opted for the recipe found in DK Family Kitchen cookbook by Caroline Bretherton.
I've slightly reduced the amount of sugar, and adapted it, but overall, it is close enough to the recipe from Family Kitchen.

I've read that the classic cake is made with raspberry jam. In the days of Queen Victoria it was also sometimes made with lemon curd. I didn't have any raspberry jam, and didn't want to trudge through the snowed town for grocery shopping.
I made it with a good old strawberry jam, and it was delicious.

Victoria Sponge
Ingredients:
3 medium eggs
150g caster sugar
1tsp of ground vanilla or vanilla essence
175g self-raising flour
1tsp bicarbonate of soda and a generous squeeze of lemon
175g unsalted butter, melted
for the filling:
50g softened butter to 100g icing sugar
half a jar of strawberry jam (or seedless raspberry jam)

In a big mixing bowl beat together eggs and sugar, grind the vanilla pod (or add vanilla essence), sift in the flour and mix. Squeeze lemon juice enough to cover all the bicarb of soda in a teaspoon, until it all goes bubbly, and add it to the mixing bowl. Add the melted butter and mix well.

(The original recipe tells you to whisk the butter and sugar, but it's too cold in the kitchen today for the butter to soften enough to be whisked, I've melted it in a pan, let it cool down a bit, then added to the cake batter).

Bake the cake in a 20cm spring cake tin or two sandwich tins. I baked one cake, then sliced it in two.
Place the cake tin in the oven preheated to 180C and bake for about 35+ minutes, until the wooden toothpick comes clean.
Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool on a wire rack before slicing into halves.

Make the icing by beating the butter and icing sugar with a bit of vanilla. Spread the frosting over the lower half of the cake, then spread the jam over the second half, and gently sandwich the cake together.

Serve as soon as possible. In my case, it was literally as soon as the cake was sandwiched together and dusted with icing sugar, as my kids were pacing impatiently in the kitchen.

I'm resurrecting the #ReadCookEat linky this year. I haven't done it for several months, but have bookmarked recipes mentioned in books, and hopefully will find more enthusiasm to post books-inspired recipes this year.

Have you read a book recently which encouraged you to run to the kitchen and cook to your heart's content?

I hope you are inspired by books to join in the #ReadCookEat challenge.

The idea is to choose a book, either a world classic or modern fiction, or even memoirs and pick up a dish mentioned or described in that book and then recreate it in a recipe. Please say a few lines about your chosen book, and maybe even do a quote from the book.

If you decide to take part, please add the badge to your post and link up back to me, and either use a link-up tool or add the url of your post as a comment. Alternatively, email me with the link to your post (my email is sasha1703 at yahoo dot com).

I will Pin all blogs posts taking part in this challenge, as well as RT and Google+

Almond cake for Verity

Having watched the spectacular Poldark saga, I bought the first two Poldark novels by Winston Graham in The Book People, and then stumbled across the whole set of novels in the charity shop. I got another couple of books from the set, with the previous Poldark TV adaptation characters on the covers.
I've only read the first novel so far, and it is much darker and deeper than the TV adaptation.

In Book I Verity comes to visit Ross at Nampara: "I had to see you, Ross. You understand better than the others. I had to see you about Andrew".
"Sit down, " he said. "I'll get you some ale and a slice of almond cake".

I couldn't find any particular Cornish almond cake recipe in any of my books or online, so my creation is not an authentic old recipe. The author doesn't specify if the cake was baked by Prudie, or whether by then Demelza was able to bake a cake.

In the past I have baked almond cakes, and they tend to be on the dry side. This time I'm adding a grated apple for moister texture.

Almond apple cake
Ingredients:
1 big apple, peeled, cored and grated
4 medium eggs
100g ground almonds
150g caster sugar
150g self-raising flour
1tsp baking powder
185g butter, melted
a handful of whole blanched almonds

In a medium mixing bowl grate a big peeled apple, Beat in the eggs and add ground almonds, mix well, add sugar, sift in flour and baking powder, and stir in melted and slightly cooled butter.
Mix well together.
Pour the cake batter into a spring cake tin, which has been oiled (add a circle of parchment paper to the bottom of the tin). Decorate the top of the cake with whole almonds.
Bake for about an hour at 180C. Check if it's ready with a wooden toothpick. If the cake starts to brown too quickly, cover it with a foil loosely.
Dust with icing sugar before serving.

I was also very curious to try an ale and cake combination, just like Ross offered to Verity. It was not something I've tried before. Tea, coffee or hot chocolate, yes, ale with cake? Not before yesterday.
It is an interesting combination of flavours, but drinking a glass of ale in the afternoon made me very sleepy. Tea or coffee for me please any time.

I hope you are inspired by books to join in the #ReadCookEat challenge.

The idea is to choose a book, either a world classic or modern fiction, or even memoirs and pick up a dish mentioned or described in that book and then recreate it in a recipe. Please say a few lines about your chosen book, and maybe even do a quote from the book.

If you decide to take part, please add the badge to your post and link up back to me, and either use a link-up tool or add the url of your post as a comment. Alternatively, email me with the link to your post (my email is sasha1703 at yahoo dot com).

I promise to Pin all blogs posts taking part in this challenge, as well as RT and Google+

Torta della Nonna

Torta della Nonna or Granny's Tart is one of classic Italian recipes which has as many versions as there are Nonnas in Italy. I've been looking at my Italian recipe books as well as browsing recipes online, and the amount of egg yolks for the custard varies from four to eight. Some cooks add vanilla seeds, some add lemon zest, and the amount of pine nuts is also different from recipe to recipe.
I've been planning to bake this simple custard tart with pine nuts ever since I finished reading The Thousand Lights Hotel by Emylia Hall.
This delectable dessert has been mentioned more than once among the numerous food descriptions and menus (one of the protagonists and a love interest is a chef in the eponymous hotel, so food features heavily in the book which I found very enjoyable).
"A wide slice of torta della nonna - she recognised it straight away - sugar-dusted, scattered with pine nuts... She took a forkful of tart, and felt her chest heave. She'd forgotten the flavour of the sweet custard, the toasted pine nuts. Torta della nonna, she said out loud, Granny's tart, it meant, but as a child she'd always called it torta della mamma, because it was her mum who'd made it for her, just as she had done everything else".

Torta della Nonna
Ingredients
For the pastry
150g cold butter, from the fridge
300g 00 flour
100g caster sugar
4 egg yolks
pinch of salt
2-3tbsp icy cold water
for custard:
1 pt of milk
125g caster sugar
4 egg yolks
3tsp cornflour
2tbsp milk, cold
vanilla, grated or paste
100g pine nuts

Sift the flour and salt into a big mixing bowl and add cold cubed butter. Cut the butter into flour into smaller pieces, so that they are coated with flour. Using hands, rub the flour and butter together until the mixture looks like fine crumbs.
Beat in 4 egg yolks. Add a bit of water to make the dough more pliable. Knead it until smooth and elastic, form into a ball and put the bowl in the fridge for half an hour.

Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured work surface into a big circle about 5-6mm thin. Cut out a circle bigger than a round pie/baking dish, so that you have enough to have the sides. Drape the dough disc over the rolling pin and place it inside the pie dish. Gently press down.
Bake for 10 minutes at 180C.
While the pastry case is baking, scatter the pine nuts on a baking tray and place inside the oven on the lower shelf to toast for about 5 minutes. Remove and set aside.

In the meantime make the custard filling. Heat up the milk with caster sugar, then remove from the heat and let it cool a bit. Beat in the egg yolks in a pan or bowl, add a bit of hot milk and whisk, keep adding all milk and whisking. Add vanilla (I used a vanilla grater) and cornflour which has been mixed with a dash of cold milk separately.
Cook custard over the low heat, stirring constantly, or put a pan with custard over another pan with boiling water, and keep stirring. Once custard starts to thicken, set it aside and let it cool slightly.

Scatter half of the pine nuts over a pastry case and pour custard over them, scatter more pine nuts over custard. Place the pie into the oven preheated to 180C for about 20-25 minutes.

If you don't fancy making your own pastry (and I very rarely do that, it's usually Jus-Rol) or custard, I think any bought good quality dessert pastry and custard would be just fine.

This Italian custard tart is lovely warm or cold. My guys loved it. For a more authentic touch dust it with icing sugar before serving. I didn't add more sugar, as the tart is quite sweet as it is.

Have you tried Torta della Nonna on your travels to Italy, or perhaps in an Italian restaurant?

Ginger molasses cake

I recently discovered Shetland series on Netflix, and totally fell in love with the location and detective Jimmy Perez. I headed to The Book People and bought a bunch of Ann Cleeves' books. Raven Black has a strong narrative, a great setting and an intricate plot. The personalities and close-knit community are well crafted. And though I know exactly how it all ends, having just watched the series on TV, I am enjoying the book.

One cold January morning a teenager is found dead on the frozen beach. All suspicions fall on an old loner Magnus Tait, who has been a local pariah for many years (he was implicated in the disappearance of a child eight years earlier, though nothing has been proved). Did he kill Catherine Ross?
Detective Jimmy Perez is investigating the case, which will lead him into the past.

Lonely Magnus is sitting in his house on the new year's eve, hoping that someone would come and wish him a new year. He has bought a ginger cake, and is ready for any visitors.
A few days later he thinks of inviting new neighbours - a mother and her daughter - in for a cup of tea with biscuits, "there was a slice of ginger cake in the tin. He wondered briefly if she baked for her daughter. Probably not, he decided. That would be another thing to have changed. Why would anyone go to all that trouble now? The beating of sugar and marge in the big bowl, turning the spoon as it came out of the tin of black treacle. Why would you bother with that, when there's Safeway's in Lerwick, selling pastries with apricot and almond and ginger cake every bit as good as the one his mother had baked?"

I read that, and suddenly had a craving for a slice of ginger cake. I don't bake it often, as my kids are not very keen on ginger, but a friend was stopping by on Friday for a cup of coffee, and I decided to bake the ginger cake. Not with black treacle like mother of Magnus, but with molasses.

GINGER MOLASSES CAKE
Ingredients:
100g molasses sugar
175g margarine (I used Flora Light)
3 medium eggs
1tbsp molasses (liquid)
1tsp baking powder
3 big pieces of preserved stem ginger, grated
2tbsp ginger syrup (from preserves)
a pinch of salt
1/3tsp ground cloves
1tsp ground ginger
1/2tsp ground cinnamon
1tbsp ground almonds
230g self-raising flour
2tbsp milk (optional)

for the icing: mix icing sugar with a teaspoon of ginger syrup and lemon juice to make a medium runny consistency icing
2 pieces of stem ginger, sliced thinly for decoration

Beat the molasses sugar with margarine in a deep mixing bowl. Beat in eggs, one at a time, and add molasses, baking powder, grated ginger and ginger syrup, salt, almonds and spices. Mix well.
Sift the flour in the bowl. If the batter is too thick, add a bit of milk.
Take a brownie tin and line it with a foil. Oil it lightly, and spoon the cake batter in. Even the surface, and place the tin in the oven preheated to 180C.
Bake for 30+ minutes. Check if it's ready with a wooden toothpick, if it comes out clean, remove the tin from the oven. Carefully lift the cake from the tin, and let it cool a bit on the rack before adding the icing.
Mix icing sugar with lemon juice and ginger syrup and pour over the cake. Decorate the cake with thinly sliced stem ginger.

It is an utterly delicious cake, not too sweet and perfect with a cup of tea or coffee. Shame my kids wouldn't eat it. Eddie peeled off a slice of ginger from the cake, ate it, shuddered, made a face and said "Thanks, but No".

If you don't have molasses, by all means swap it for treacle and brown sugar, but molasses add a distinct rich flavour which works so well in baking.

Have you read a book recently which made you run to the kitchen and cook to your heart's content?

I hope you are inspired by books to join in the #ReadCookEat challenge.

The idea is to choose a book, either a world classic or modern fiction, or even memoirs and pick up a dish mentioned or described in that book and then recreate it in a recipe. Please say a few lines about your chosen book, and maybe even do a quote from the book.

If you decide to take part, please add the badge to your post and link up back to me, and either use a link-up tool or add the url of your post as a comment. Alternatively, email me with the link to your post (my email is sasha1703 at yahoo dot com).

I promise to Pin all blogs posts taking part in this challenge, as well as RT and Google+