Marmalade Tea Bread with Duerr's Seville Orange Marmalade

I can't wait for the school term to be over. We're all tired and grumpy. Mornings are a bit of a struggle, and when a school run is over, it's like a mini-battle being won over.
Quite often my husband accompanies our younger son and me to school, and later we have a 20-25 minutes-long coffee break in one of the cafes nearby. We don't hold hands over the table, but I have a feeling that one of the young girls in one of the cafes suspects us of having an affair, as she sort of winks at me, when she serves our lattes. I wonder, what does she think, that we are "old" lovers meeting over a cup of coffee to then part our ways?!
If not having a coffee with my husband, I do enjoy having a cup of latte at home, preferably with a slice of tea bread or some chocolates.
Marmalade tea bread is very easy to make, and it keeps well in a tin for several days.

Duerr's Seville Orange Marmalade Tea Bread
Ingredients:
zest of 1 orange
2 medium eggs
75g muscovado sugar
1tsp cinnamon, ground
200 self-raising flour
juice of 1/2 orange (for the dough)
3 heaped tbsp Seville Orange marmalade
100g butter, melted
for icing: 4tbsp of icing sugar + orange juice

Grease a loaf tin, preheat oven to 180C.
Grate the zest of 1 orange into a medium sized mixing bowl. Beat in the eggs with muscovado sugar and cinnamon. Sieve in the flour, and stir well. Add the orange juice and marmalade into a smaller bowl, using a fork, mash the marmalade into the juice and mix together. Pour the maramalde mix into the cake dough. add the melted butter.
Spoon the cake mixture into the loaf tin. Bake for an hour+ at 180C until golden brown in colour. It's cooked when the wooden toothpick comes clean.
Allow the cake to cool for 10 minutes before removing from the tin. Mix the icing sugar with some orange juice until you get a runny consistency, and drizzle it all over the tea bread.

In this recipe I used Duerr's Seville Orange Marmalade. This fine cut marmalade is sweet, zingy, rich and deeply flavoured. Wonderful on hot toast or in a freshly baked croissant (I buy frozen croissants for our Sunday breakfast), it also works very well as an ingredient for baking cakes.

Disclosure: I received a couple of jars of Duerr's marmalade for the purposes of testing and reviewing. All opinions are my own.

Belgian Apple Tart (#ReadCookEat)

"Becoming Jane Eyre" by Sheila Kohler had raving reviews and very decent testimonials on the cover, yet having just finished it, I remain in the minority of the un-converted. Joyce Carol Oates even called it "a tour de force of style, vision and imagination..." For me it was more of an unfulfilled promise and a lost potential.
First, I had issues with the title. "Becoming Jane Eyre" was almost identical to "Becoming Jane", a film which came on the big screen a couple of years before Sheila Kohler's book was published. It also dealt with the predicament of a pre-fame author.

The first pages of the book take you to 1846, the days when the Bronte father has just had an eye operation and is bed-ridden in a small Manchester room, with his dutiful daughter Charlotte keeping him company. This is where embittered by the rejection from the publishers and set on revenge, she starts creating "Jane Eyre". The narrative flickers between countries and years.
The whole plot reminded me of high school essays or a dissertation, when you try to put forward your theory by finding small relevant details to prove your point.
The three sisters are portrayed as quite garrulous, selfish, thriving on petty grievances between themselves and to be frank, quite unpleasant women. The magic of the Brontes' style of writing has been lost. Of course, there was a rivalry between the three sisters, that must have been inevitable, living and writing together and being so different as personalities.
I am often shocked at the cavalier approach some authors take with the imagined conversations and inner thoughts of their real life characters. Take the marital bed scenes between the older Brontes: the poor exhausted mother muttering prayers "please God help me" when performing her marital duty, or the Bronte father remembering "the strong odour of her body after sex". A gratuitous sex detail anyone?
Sheila Kohler was neither generous nor kind to the Brontes.
Was Charlotte really so condescending towards anyone below her in social status? I believe her books tell differently.
Some pages were tediously long in describing very minor occurences, yet the end of the book was very rushed, and the author almost skipped the deaths of Branwell, Emily and Anne with ungainly haste. The same goes for Charlotte's relationship with her husband. He appeared almost out of nowhere with his passionate pleas of love, but why wasn't he worthy of being talked about in greater detail, is a mystery.
I wanted to like this book, because Jane Eyre has been one of the novels which has influenced me greatly as a child and teenager (I must have read it at least twenty times), but to me it proved to be disappointing.
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Food doesn't feature prominently in this book, and those meals which are mentioned are rather unappealing like the watery porridge or greasy mutton. While Charlotte sits next to her blind father in a small room in Manchester, she recollects her trip to Belgium and her further infatuation with a man she calls the Professor. Her memories go back to her first day in Brussels, where "they ate something heavy bu delicious in a brown sauce with fresh bread followed by an apple tart..."
This was the point of my foraging in the woods of blogs and sites in search of a Belgian-style apple tart. I have found a delightful recipe for an Apple Pie on Baking in Belgium blog (see her post Quick Apple Pie).
I have adapted the recipe slightly, and the resulting tart is so tasty, I will be certainly baking it again.
As it uses ground almonds, it is almost marzipan-y.

Belgian Apple Tart
Ingredients:
1 block of sweet pastry (I used Tesco Finest Dessert Pastry Ready Rolled)
3 apples
2 medium eggs
125g caster sugar
70g ground almonds
1tsp vanilla essence

As mentioned above, I used Tesco Finest Dessert Pastry, and very nice it proved to be as well. I often use Jus-Rol, and happy to report that Tesco pastry was excellent, and I will be buying it again.
Spray the tart dish with spray oil. Roll out the pastry and cut the corners to make it fit the round dish.
Prepare the filling: Peel one apple and grate it on coarse. Mix with the ground almonds, eggs, caster sugar and vanilla essence.
I was a bit concerned that the pastry might get soggy, as the recipe suggested pouring the filling straight on the raw pastry (I usually pre-bake the pastry before adding the filling), but I shouldn't have worried. It cooked perfectly well. Slice two apples thinly and put the slices around the edges, leaving the middle open.
Place the dish in the oven preheated to 180C. bake for 25 minutes.

As this recipe is inspired by a novel, I am adding to #ReadCookEat linky, which Chris from Cooking Around the World and I run together.

As it is a Belgian recipe, I am also adding it to the World Cup culinary challenge to represent Belgium playing tomorrow, on the 26th of June.
Chris from Cooking Around the World has challenged the foodies to take part in a culinary-football-themed game this month. Read all about the rules of the game in his linky Bloggers Around the World.

Spaghetti Primavera

A plate of pasta with freshly made pesto is one of life's pleasures.
There are some decent jar varieties around, but if you made your own pesto once, you know the taste is so much more vibrant. Also a lot of brands do cheap substitutes: parmesan for some unspecified hard cheese, pine nuts for peanuts, olive oil for the sunflower oil.

Spaghetti Primavera
Ingredients:
spaghetti
200g baby courgettes
500g broad beans in pods (weight of beans is much less, of course)
2tsp olive oil
For pesto:
a bunch of basil leaves (I used all the leaves from a grow pot bought in Waitrose)
50ml olive oil
50g parmesan, grated
1-2 clove of garlic, crushed
40g pine nuts
a handful of edible flowers like daisies and clover (optional)

First make pesto: blitz the basil leaves with the olive oil, add the grated cheese and crushed garlic (1 or 2, depending on how much you like garlic). Mix well. You could blitz the pine nuts together with the pesto sauce, or just add them and mix with a spoon. I prefer whole pine nuts for an extra crunch and texture.

Cook spaghetti in the salted boiling water. I cooked the broad beans separately and also fried the sliced courgettes with the olive oil for  couple of minutes (slightly seasoned). Drain the pasta, add the pesto and vegetables. Scatter some flowers if using (only advisable if you have an enclosed garden and no animals around).

As I write this recipe, I know that Italy has lost today, which means it's a Goodbye from Italy. They were a bit of a disappointment in this World Cup.

Chris from Cooking Around the World has challenged the foodies to take part in a culinary-football-themed game this month. Read all about the rules of the game in his linky Bloggers Around the World.

As my pesto sauce is made from scratch, adding this recipe to Javelin Warrior's linky Made with Love Mondays.

Ensalada Mediterranea

It's too hot for stews and soups unless it is a cold soup. As Spain is playing today, I toyed with an idea of making some gaspacho. But my failure to make a gaspacho many-many moons ago has entered the family lore, so I decided I would be safer with a salad. Having googled for Spanish salad recipes, I liked the sound of Ensalada Mediterranea or Mediterranean Salad. I found the recipe on La Tienda The Best of Spain site (see their recipe here). As for the list of ingredients, I followed the recipe close enough, but I am not good at ounces and cups, so the measurements are all different, I guess.

Mediterranean Salad (serves 4)
Ingredients:
2 spring onions, finely chopped
2 tins of John West Infusions tuna (lemon & thyme), 80g each
1 tin of haricot beans (240g in drained weight)
24 mixed green and black olives
1 jar of red pepper (I used Fragata Pimiento Piquilo)
zest of 1 lemon
chopped parsley
2 tbsp olive oil
juice of 1/2 lemon
1tsp vinegar
sea salt, pepper

Finely chop the spring onions and slice the pepper thinly. Drain the haricot beans and rinse them with cold water, as their water is quite slimey. Mix well all the ingredients in a big bowl. Season well.
Serve with a nice slice of bread. A glass of wine wouldn't go amiss.
This salad could be a lovely starter or even a main course, depending on the size of your portions.

Fragata Pimiento Piquilo are sweet Spanish peppers, lovely in salads or dips with cream cheese. They are very moreish.

Chris from Cooking Around the World has challenged the foodies to take part in a culinary-football-themed game this month. Read all about the rules of the game in his linky Bloggers Around the World.

Mushroom Julienne

This is a Russian recipe but of French origin. I believe the Mushroom Julienne became popular in Russia in the old days when the Russian aristocracy liked to employ the French chefs. I have fond memories of eating it in the old cafe in Moscow, where it has traditionally been served in metal mini dishes with a ladle-like handle.

Mushroom Julienne (serves 3-4, depending on the size of ramekins0
Ingredients:
300g chestnut mushrooms
2tbsp butter, preferably clarified
a pinch of nutmeg
a pinch of dried or fresh thyme
4 heaped tbsp of thick Greek style yogurt or soured cream
3 tbsp mayonnaise
fresh flat leaf parsley, torn
Slice the mushrooms thinly (hence the name - julienne). Fry them quickly in the clarified butter, season with salt and nutmeg. Add the soured cream or thick yogurt, mayonnaise and thyme and mix well. Cook for about 5 minutes. Spoon the mix into the ramekins and place them in the oven preheated to 180C. Cook for another 5-7 minutes. Garnish with fresh parsley leaves.
Serve with a nice chunk of bread to dip in and mop up all the lovely sauce.
This dish is very satisfying, a real comfort food.
There are quite a few variations of this dish, some cooks like to add a bit of grated cheese, some add the onion or garlic. I prefer a simple version.

The original recipe asks for ceps or fresh porcini mushrooms. Since these are not widely available, I used chestnut mushrooms, as they have more flavour than bland white mushrooms.

Chris from Cooking Around the World has challenged the foodies to take part in a culinary-football-themed game this month. Read all about the rules of the game in his linky Bloggers Around the World.

Eiersalat, German egg salad

I got my World Cup days mixed up, and realised in the afternoon that I don't have any recipes ready for the culinary challenge. Drat, what can I make today that would be quick to prepare and use the ingredients I already have, as I didn't fancy crawling out to the shops in the heat. My guys and I went to Cogges manor farm earlier today, and that was enough of the hot weather for me for one day. As last week, I came back home with a box of duck eggs from the ducks at the farm.
Then I remembered a very simple German salad Eiersalat. There are many versions of this egg salad, some have added potatoes, mushrooms and even ham.

Eiersalat
Ingredients:
3 duck eggs, hard-boiled
3 spring onions, finely chopped
a few garlic leaves (optional)
3tbsp thick Greek style yogurt
2tbsp mayonaise
a pinch of paprika
a good squeeze of lemon juice

Chop the hard-boiled eggs and finely chop spring onions and garlic leaves. Mix together in a medium sized bowl. Add the yogurt or soured cream, mayonnaise, paprika and lemon juice, and mix well.

It is a lovely side salad to go with baby new potatoes and green beans. It will also be fab in plain egg sandwiches.

I am growing garlic this year, both in planters and in the strawberry patch. The green leaves are still young now. Can't wait to harvest it later this year.

Chris from Cooking Around the World has challenged the foodies to take part in a culinary-football-themed game this month. Read all about the rules of the game in his linky Bloggers Around the World.

Insalata Caprese for eating al fresco

I told my guys I'm going on a strike, and don't want to cook anything for dinner. Then I relented a bit and put a pizza margherita in the oven and made a simple Insalata Caprese. I wouldn't really call it cooking, as the salad is so easy to make. It has so few ingredients that they have to be very fresh.

Insalata Caprese 
Ingredients:
tomatoes (depends on the size, I used one huge tomato)
mozzarella
basil leaves, a handful
olive oil
sea salt, pepper
Slice the tomatoes and mozzarella, alternate them on a big plate. Scatter the torn basil leaves, drizzle with the olive oil, season with salt and freshly ground pepper. And that's it.

I like to use Galbani maxi mozzarella, which comes as a long log rather than a ball, but by all means use a big ball or even a tub of mini mozzarella balls.

I'm looking forward to harvesting my own tomatoes, and in the meantime there are lots of tasty tomatoes from the Isle of Wight and other British localities.

We had our dinner in the garden, and this simple meal is excellent for eating al fresco.

Chris from Cooking Around the World has challenged the foodies to take part in a culinary-football-themed game this month. Read all about the rules of the game in his linky Bloggers Around the World.

Rose petal & orange shortbread

England's in for a fight today, and I was wondering what should I cook for today's World Cup culinary challenge. My first thought was to make a batch of Welsh cakes with Cheddar and chives, then I suddenly realised the name kind of says it all: they are not English, and I don't want a wrath of my blog readers descending on me for mixing up the two entities. What then: Eton Mess or Chelsea buns? Shepherd's pie or bangers & mash? Jam roly-poly or a Victoria sandwich? What about some lovely shortbread? Now that for me is quintessentially English and quaint. Very ladylike. Unlike football.
My garden is beautiful right now, with the old fashioned roses cascading down on branches. So be it, I'll add some rose petals to the dough, and maybe the orange zest. While oranges are not native to England, they have been imported here for ages, think of the orange girls in Drury Lane or going even further in history, candied oranges at the court of Henry VIII.

Rose petal & orange shortbread
Ingredients:
1 orange, zest only
50g caster sugar
150g plain flour
100g butter, softened
2tsp finely chopped rose petals, dried

In a mixing bowl mix the orange zest with caster sugar and finely chopped rose petals (snip with scissors), add the flour and butter and start mixing, using your hands. It will first look like crumble, but keep working the dough until it binds together.
Press the dough into the base of a tart tin. Actually I couldn't find where I put my tart tin, so I just used a Pyrex dish lid, slightly sprayed with the oil spray. Using the back of a spoon, smooth the top.
Bake in the oven at 180C for 20 minutes until golden.
Take the tin out, and carefully cut into triangles, while still warm.

Let it cool in the tin, then take out of the tin.

It is lovely with fresh strawberries on top, or just sprinkled with a bit of icing sugar.

Chris from Cooking Around the World has challenged the foodies to take part in a culinary-football-themed game this month. Read all about the rules of the game in his linky Bloggers Around the World.

• Adding my recipe to Teatime Treats, hosted this month by Karen at Lavender and Lovage and co-hosted by Janie at The Hedgecombers.

Advocaat cake for World Cup

I am not sure if an Advocaat cake is an authentic Dutch recipe, but as it is made with the Dutch egg liqueur, I will stick to my guns. For World Cup culinary challenge of the day this will be my homage to the Netherlands and its football team.

I have already posted an Advocaat cake recipe on my blog. Since baking it then for the first time, I have been making it pretty regularly, maybe a couple of times a month. I have slightly adapted the original recipe found on Jo Blogs, Jo Bakes blog by cutting down the amount of sugar, butter and Advocaat, and adding some orange zest but otherwise it is Jo's recipe (which she gave me permission to reproduce on my blog when I published it in October 2012).

Advocaat cake
Ingredients:
4 medium eggs
180g caster sugar
125g plain flour
125g cornflour
2tsp baking powder
1tsp vanilla essence
225ml Advocaat
180g butter, melted
zest of 1 orange or lemon (optional)
icing sugar for sprinkling on top

Beat the eggs with the sugar, add the flour, baking powder, cornflour, keep mixing. Add the vanilla essence, Advocaat, zest of orange and melted butter. Mix well.
Oil the cake ring tin with the spray oil (I like to use Dr Oetker). Pour the cake batter, it is quite liquid, but oh my, so tasty as it is, I could probably eat it with a spoon.
Place the cake tin in the oven preheated to 180C. Bake for 40-45 minutes. Check with a wooden skewer if it's ready.
This cake is lush. Moist, very well-risen, spongey. It doesn't need any cream on top, maybe just a sprinkle of icing sugar.

Whenever I bake it, it doesn't last long. It is now a firm family favourite.
I buy Tesco's own Advocaat which costs £8, a good saving on the original Dutch liqueur which costs £11-13, depending on the retailer. It tastes pretty much the same, at least I cannot tell the difference. I don't particularly like it as a drink, but in baking it is a great ingredient. One bottle is enough for 3 cakes.

Chris from Cooking Around the World has challenged the foodies to take part in a culinary-football-themed game this month. Read all about the rules of the game in his linky Bloggers Around the World.

Pirozhki with rice, eggs and spring onions

Russian pirozhki encompass a whole range of pies, from baked to fried, from meat-stuffed to vegetarian, from a bite-sized pie to a pie as big as your hand. They are made from different kinds of dough and pastry as well. I prefer to bake them, as this is a healthier option.
They are very handy to carry to picnics, convenient to eat and pass around. Last year I have posted a recipe for pirozhki with potatoes and wild mushrooms. Today I am sharing another Russian recipe for pirozhki with rice, eggs and spring onions.

You might remember me mentioning earlier this year that I have been selected as one of Shortcut Eggsperts programme with BritMums and British Lion eggs. This month's challenge is to create an eggs-based recipe for a summer outdoor dining. The task was to move away from the traditional Quiche Lorraine and egg-mayo sandwiches. So, today I am cheering the Russian team at World Cup with the Russian pirozhki.

Pirozhki with rice, eggs and spring onions (makes 25+)
Ingredients;
Jus-Rol shortcrust pastry (rolled)
100g cooked rice
2 hard-boiled eggs, finely chopped
2 spring onions, chopped
a handful of fresh parsley
1tbsp olive oil
thick Greek style yogurt, to serve with

You can make your own shortcrust pastry, of course, but I prefer to use the Jus-Rol, it is certainly better than my own handmade version (mine is too short to stretch well, and not as elastic)

In a mixing bowl mix the cooked rice with the chopped hard-boiled eggs, finely chopped parsley and spring onions. Unroll the shortcrust pastry and using a cookie cutter, cut out the circles. Slightly stretch each one before putting a teaspoon of stuffing in it. Fold in two, pinch in the middle and then keep going round the edges, pinching as you go, to seal it as a mini-envelope.
Place the pirozhki on two trays covered with the oiled foil, and cook in the oven at 180C for about 15-20 minutes, until the pastry is golden.
Serve with the soured cream or thick Greek style yogurt.
They are lovely hot, but are also nice cold with a flask of hot tea.

For more egg facts and information, visit Egginfo.

Chris from Cooking Around the World has challenged the foodies to take part in a culinary-football-themed game this month. Read all about the rules of the game in his linky Bloggers Around the World.

Cooks Joy hosts a lovely vegetarian recipe linky Bake Fest, and I'm adding my recipe to it this month.

Disclosure: I received vouchers to spend on food for the purposes of developing a recipe for Summer Challenge with #ShortcutEggsperts