Pine nut and choc chip honey cake

We woke up this morning to a miserly smattering of snow. On the way to school, I grabbed my camera, hoping to find a bit of snow, but the amount of frost was minuscule.
Sash is feeling poorly these couple of days and staying at home with high temperature and cough, and I am not feeling my best either. He is hardly eating anything, and I decided to bake a cake to tempt him to eat a little bit. He loves pine nuts and chocolate chips, so these would go in the cake for Sasha.

A couple of years ago I bought a WI Big Book of Baking for less than £3, and have bookmarked a few recipes to try. One of my non-resolutions for this year is to use my cook books a bit more.

This is my adapted version of a recipe for Honey and Pine Nut Cake.

Pine nut and choc chip honey cake
Ingredients:
zest of 1 orange
2 medium eggs
100g caster sugar
50g honey (I used chestnut honey for flavour)
50g polenta (I use Polenta Valsugana)
175g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
4tbsp pine nuts (2 for batter and 2 for topping)
3tbsp chocolate chips
2tbsp natural yogurt
120g butter, melted

In a deep mixing bowl zest an orange, and beat two eggs with sugar and honey. Add polenta, sift in flour and baking powder.

Scatter 2tbsp of pine nuts and chocolate chips, and mix in well. Add yogurt and melted butter, and mix again.
Line a round spring cake tin with a parchment paper and slightly oil. Scoop in the cake batter.

Scatter the remaining pine nuts.
Place the cake tin in the oven preheated to 180C. Cook for about 40-45 minutes. The cake is ready, when a wooden toothpick comes clean. To prevent the pine nuts on the top of the cake from burning, cover the cake with a foil half way though cooking.

Eat warm or cold, with tea or coffee. It is very tasty,

As I used the Italian chestnut honey, the aroma was absolutely amazing. Chestnut honey has a distinct flavour and smell, so if you're using plain honey, or mildly flavoured, like acacia honey, then you might want to add a tablespoon of cinnamon, or vanilla paste.

Yogurt was used to loosen the cake dough, but milk would be another option. I've seen a new Early Man competition on Yeo Valley products, so most likely will be buying their promotional products a lot, and will be using yogurt as much as possible too.

Butternut squash and feta salad

Whenever these days I ask what he would like for dinner, my husband is requesting something meat-free. Fine with me, I am happy to oblige, though it does mean an advance planning. I find it easier to cook dinner with meat or fish, unless it's a soup or a salad.

I don't have many purely vegetarian cook books in my collection, as I prefer to buy books on either baking, or on national cuisines (and avidly avoid any celebrities from outside the culinary world like Pippa & co).

One of the books which caught my attention is "More from the accidental vegetarian" by Simon Rimmer. It was on offer from The Book People a while ago. I confess I didn't quite know who he was, until I bought the book. I've never watched Something for the Weekend.
It is an inspiring book, full of delicious recipes. I like Simon's attitude, he doesn't evangelise vegetarianism, he just offers a selection of tasty recipes which happen to be vegetarian.
Not sure why there is a chapter on desserts. Most desserts are vegetarian by nature (meat and fish-free) anyway. Not many of us cook puddings with lard or suet these days, so unless specified I would presume a dessert to be a vegetarian dish (even jellies these days are made with vegetarian gelatine).

One of the recipes I bookmarked was for a pumpkin salad with cheese. I didn't have any fresh pumpkin or Yorkshire fettle cheese, so had to improvise.
Butternut squash is a good substitute for pumpkin, and feta is another staple for salads which is easily available.

Butternut squash and feta salad
Ingredients:
a packet of butternut squash wedges (385g)
3tbsp olive oil for roasting + 2tbsp for dressing
125g feta cheese, cubed
about 3tbso pine nuts, toasted
a handful of rocket and spinach salad
a handful of olives (I used feta-stuffed olives)
3 radishes, thinly sliced
100g peas, cooked from frozen
Fennel and garlic crostini (optional)
dressing:
1tbsp maple syrup
2tbsp olive oil
1tbsp cider vinegar
1tbsp fresh lime juice
1tbsp fresh parsley, chopped


Cube the butternut squash wedges and place them on a big baking tray. Drizzle olive oil over them and season with sea salt. Shake the tray so that the cubes are coated with oil evenly. Bake at 180C for about 20+ minutes until the squash is soft, but still holds its shape.
Roast the pine nuts for 5 minutes on a separate tray.
Cook peas in boiling water for about 3-4 minutes, then drain.
Assemble the salad: first put the salad leaves, then add the squash cubes, feta cheese, olives, radishes, peas and scatter pine nuts over. Add crostini or croutons if you like.
Make the dressing and drizzle over the salad.

In this recipe I used Filippo Berio Fennel & Garlic Crostini, baked with extra virgin olive oil, which were delivered in the latest food box from Degustabox. The crostini are crunchy and flavourful, and will work well in a variety of salads or soups.
You can obviously swap them for any croutons you have, bought or homemade, or skip altogether, if you count calories or are on a gluten-free diet.

Last Christmas I won a huge hamper of Filippo Berio goodies, including several jars of olives. I just realised that I still had a jar of olives stuffed with feta at the back of the larder shelf, and it nearly expired.
For this reason - clearing the kitchen and using nearly expired olives + the end of the pine nuts' bag - I am adding this recipe to #KitchenClearout linky run by Cheryl from Madhouse Family Reviews.

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?

Fruit & nut chocolate shards with popping candy

This week is all about His Majesty Chocolate (or should that be Her Majesty?!). Chocolate Week is definitely a cause for celebration, whether you cook a lush chocolate cake, bake brownies with the kids or just treat yourself with a box of truffles.

The original recipe for chocolate shards appeared in Sainsbury's magazine in October 2014 issue. I have adapted it a bit, but the major inspiration comes from that recipe created by food director Sarah Randall.

Fruit & nut chocolate shards with popping candy
Ingredients:
3 bars of chocolate - two dark and one milk
100g raisins
50g dried mango
a good glug of apricot brandy
30g pistachios
60g pine nuts
2tbsp honey
100g unsalted butter
2tbsp or more of chocolate covered popping candy (optional)

Soak the raisins and chopped mango pieces in apricot brandy (or rum, like in the original recipe).
Preheat the oven to 180C, put the nuts on the baking tray and toast for about 10 minutes.

I soaked raisins and sliced mango pieces in apricot brandy for a couple of hours
The original plan was to substitute macadamia for walnuts, as we are not fans of macadamia. I put 100g of chopped walnuts on a baking tray and in the oven for 10 minutes. I was watching Poldark on BBC iPlayer, and got distracted by basic anatomy. By the time I remembered about the walnuts, they were a beautiful ebony colour. Quick change of plan then. What do I have in the kitchen? About 30g of shelled pistachios and 60g pine nuts, that would do.
I didn't have any coconut cookies, instead I used one of the dark chocolate coconut bars. Waitrose has recently introduced a selection of dark chocolate bars to its 1 range. In this recipe I used Waitrose 1 Indian Ocean dark chocolate with coconut, Dominican Republic Dark chocolate and milk chocolate.

Place the butter, broken chocolate bars and honey in a bowl set over simmering water and keep stirring until the mix melts. Add in the fruit and nuts and mix well.
Pour into the oiled square tray. I have added a layer of foil first in the tray for the ease of taking the chocolate block later. Sprinkle the popping candy over the chocolate mix.

Once cooled, cover the tray with foil and put in the fridge overnight.
Using a large knife, cut the block into shards.

The shards are very creamy and moreish. Just lovely with a cup of tea or coffee.

Adding my recipe to #KitchenClearout linky run by Cheryl from Madhouse Family Reviews, as I used some odd ends of the nuts' packets.

And it being a chocolate recipe, it fits well with We Should Cocoa linky run by Choclette from Tin and Thyme.

Sarde a beccafico

The Snack Thief starts with the following paragraph "He woke up in a bad way. The sheets, during the sweaty restless sleep that had followed his wolfing down three pounds of sardines a beccafico the previous evening, had would themselves tightly round his body, making him feel like a mummy..."
Being a foodie, you read the novels the "wrong" way, as you pay too much attention to details which probably distract from the narrative. The Snack Thief is after all a detective novel. But then maybe not so "wrong", as Inspector Montalbano is the greatest foodie of all. His love of food is so great that he cannot abide having a conversation while he's eating.
Andrea Camilleri's series of Inspector Montalbano books features many recipes and mentions a lot of local Sicilian dishes. It is in a way a culinary encyclopedia of Sicily. It has inspired culinary tours, something that I would love to do one day.
There is also a book called Nivuro de siccia - a cook book of recipes inspired by the adventures of the most astute Commissario.
Just last week my husband was giving a talk in one of the Italian towns, and he mentioned that he has eaten sarde a beccafico. I haven't tried this dish before, and was very curious.
Sarde a beccafico is a Sicilian speciality named after beccafico or garden warbler in English. Apparently it is very partial to figs, hence the name which literally means a fig-pecker. The sardine fillets are stuffed, rolled and roasted or baked in the oven. I cannot say that my rolled stuffed sardines looked like any bird, but having a good look at the images online, I didn't think any of them did.

I have found the recipe for Sarde a beccafico in Nivuro di Siccia book, and also checked out a few recipes online. There are quite a few variations, both ingredients- and presentation-wise. My version is something in between.

Sarde a beccafico
Ingredients:
4 sardines, heads removed and filleted
3 whole anchovies
2tbsp olive oil
55g breadcrumbs
1 heaped tbsp capers, rinsed from salt
30g pine nuts
40g raisins
zest and juice of 1 orange
1 lemon
flat leaf parsley, about 2tbsp, chopped
And for the authentic recipe use fresh bay leaves. I forgot to buy any fresh bay leaves, so used a dried variety.
Start by filleting the sardines, or if you are lucky to find sardine fillets, just wash them and pat dry with the paper kitchen towels.
Fry the anchovies in the olive oil until almost melted, add the breadcrumbs, raisins and capers as well as pine nuts, cook until the breadcrumbs are golden brown. Zest the lemon and orange and add the zest to the breadcrumb mix.
Roll each fillet with about 1tbsp of stuffing inside. Place all the rolled sardines in a dish or tray slightly oiled, with the bay leaves on the bottom (or put them between the sardine rolls). Slice the zested lemon into discs, then each disc in halves, and put the lemon slices all between and around the fish. Squeeze the orange juice over. Sprinkle the remaining breadcrumbs over the fish. Place the tray in the oven preheated to 180C and cook for about 15 minutes.
Sprinkle some finely chopped flat leaf parsley before serving.

This was a very enjoyable fish dish. I was not sure how raisins will work with the fish, but they complemented each other nicely. I can see why Montalbano ate a kilo and a half, though I don't think I could compete with him. I had three rolls and felt stuffed like sarde a beccafico myself.

Apple and pine nuts cupcakes

This year one of our apple trees is having a break and doesn't have a single apple (last year it was laden with fruit) but two old apple trees are bowing gracefully under the weight of the tasty load. They are both eaters but quite sour at the moment, they will be much sweeter by the end of September. Every day Eddie and I go to the garden and pick the windfalls for crumbles and jelly.

September is a beautiful month, a perfect time for apples, pears and other fruit. And the blackberries are at their sweetest now. It's so much more fun to eat freshly picked berries than the supermarket varieties, and the bought berries never taste the same anyway.

OXO Tot UK has asked the bloggers to share a recipe using the September bounty. They asked:
"Fresh off the tree and perfectly ripe, September is the perfect month for apples, pears and blackberries, and we’d love to know how you prepare yours for the family. Crumble or pie; piled high in a bowl or hidden in a recipe, tell us what gets your little ones taste buds in a twist."

Today Eddie and I baked a batch of Apple and pine nuts cupcakes.

Apple and pine nuts cupcakes
Ingredients (makes 10 cupcakes)
2 medium apples
2 medium eggs
150g caster sugar
125ml semi-skimmed milk
80g butter, melted
250g self-raising flour
2tbsp (23g) ground almonds
20g white chocolate chips
40g pine nuts (approximate, I used less than half a pack of 100g)

Start by grating two apples (use coarse surface). Don't peel the apples, it will only add to the texture of the cupcakes. In a big bowl mix the grated apples, caster sugar and two eggs. Add the flour, ground almonds, milk, melted butter and chocolate chips (optional). Mix well.
The addition of the chocolate chips was my son's idea. As I was searching for the pine nuts, he grabbed the small bag with the remains of the white chocolate chips and begged me "Could we add those too, please, mama, please?" So, I added them.
Spoon the cake mix into the paper cupcake cases and sprinkle the pine nuts on top.
Place the muffin tin (I put the cupcake cases in the muffin tin so that they keep the shape rather than go flat) in the oven preheated to 180C and bake for about 20-25 minutes. The cupcakes should be golden brown in colour and well-risen.

They are very fluffy in texture, moist and sweet. We've already scoffed a few between the two of us. Soon my older son will be back at home, and I suspect these cupcakes won't be there for very long.

For this cooking challenge OXO lent me a helping hand by sending an OXO Good Grips Box Grater.

This kitchen gadget comes with four grating surfaces, which are perfect for grating the vegetables, fruit, cheese or even chocolate. The super-fine surface is just right for nutmeg and ginger, and the slicing surface is good for slicing cucumbers, courgettes etc (I haven't tried the slicing surface yet). The box grater stands on a box while you grate, so that it catches the grated food inside the container. There is a lid that you can use to close the container and store your grated ingredients.

Now, I am a messy cook, so as I was grating the apples, the grated bits ended up outside of the grater as well as inside (most of it was inside). If you are anything like me, grate on a very clean surface so that you can just pick up the bits and put them back in the container or put the box grater on a big plate.


Going back to our cupcakes, they are lush warm with a freshly brewed cup of tea. Enjoy!

Disclosure: I received an OXO Good Grips Box Grater to take part in this cooking challenge. All opinions and recipe ideas are mine.

Endive boats

For a colourful meat-free snack or a great appetiser to go with drinks make these tasty little boats of endive, Dolcelatte and pine nuts.

Endives have boat-shaped leaves that are perfect for teeny-tiny bits of cheese and other fillings. As endive could be quite bitter, I suggest leaving the endive leaves in the container with the cold water for at least an hour, which helps to take off the bitter edge.
For 2-3 endives you will need
100g Dolcelatte, Gorgonzola or any other creamy blue cheese (I also tried this recipe with the Cornish blue)
50g pine nuts
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp runny honey
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

Arrange the endive leaves on the platter, scatter crumbled cheese into the boats, add pine nuts.
Mix the olive oil, honey and vinegar in a clean small size jam jar, add a lid and shake well. Drizzle over the boats.
You might want to experiment with different cheeses and nuts. You might also toast the pine nuts before adding them to the boats.

Another variation on the theme: use feta cheese and walnuts.

Torta con albiccoche e pinoli/Apricot and pine nut cake

Recipe is taken from Taste Italia/issue June 2011
serves 6 ( I would say, rather greedy 6 people, as it is a big size cake)
prep 30 minutes
cooking 1 hour 30 mins
100g pine nuts
250 g unsalted butter, softened
250g caster sugar
grated zest of 2 unwaxed oranges
3 free range eggs, lightly beaten
310 g plain flour
3 tsp baking powder
200 g dried apricots, chopped
250 ml orange juice
for the chocolate sauce: 150g plain chocolate and 150 ml double cream (very optional, I think, as it is a very rich cake, it uses a whole pack of butter. Not exactly for Weight Watchers.)

Preheat the oven to 175C/gas mark 4. Grease a 23cm cake tin, then line with baking paper. Toast pine nuts in the oven for a few minutes, then chop them coarsely. Beat the softened butter with the sugar and orange zest. Continue beating as you add the eggs a little at a time. Sift the flour and baking powder together, then use a mixing spatula or wooden spoon to stir the flour into the eggs and butter.
Add the pine nuts, apricots and orange juice to the mix. Transfer to the cake tin and level the surface of the cake mixture. Bake in the oven for 1 hour 20 min until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
Remove the cake from the oven and leave to cool for 15 mins before turning out of the tin.
Melt the chocolate in a bowl with the cream to create a rich chocolate sauce, then pour a little of this sauce over each piece of cake to serve.
Tip: to prevent the apricots sinking to the bottom of the cake as it cooks, toss them in flour and shake them in a sieve before adding to the mixture. (Done exacty that, but the apricots were still evenly distributed in the lower half of the cake. Which is also fine).

A good recipe, works well. The cake is lovely straight from the oven, I didn't wait for 15 minute and cut the slices while it was still hot. My old friend Anne was coming for tea in the morning, and we enjoyed the cake very much.
I love pine nuts, so it is just the right cake for me. Will try to bake it again with a bit less butter.
Years ago, when we visited my husband's grandma in Viareggio, she bought a cake from the local pastry shop called Matilda, it was a local speciality, a lovely pine nut cake, very moist. I cannot find the recipe anywhere. There are many pine nut cake recipes online, but not for Matilda. If only I could find it.....