Halloween biscuits

I have spent two days this week standing in shops, scratching my head as I wander up and down the sweet aisle. As sweets only enter my children's diet when they appear in party bags, I'm not really up on today's sweets. However, I needed some for a recipe. All I wanted was some plain boiled sweets. You would think that would be simple, the sort of thing you could pick in any corner shop. But no... instead you can buy swidgy jellies, fruity chewies, sour thingamees, enormous gobstops and unknown sweets hidden behind wrappers containing TV characters. Boiled sweets are terrible for the teeth, maybe that's why they aren't very popular anymore. Ho-hum... eventually I tracked them down in a large supermarket under a silly name something like "sparkling gems".

Today was the last fundraising cake stall before Halloween so the children were encouraged to bring in Halloween theme cakes and biscuits. So last night I made a batch of gingerbread dough and cut out 10 pumpkin shaped biscuits from it. My daughters then cut out pumpkin lantern type faces from the biscuits and filled in the spaces with pieces of crushed boiled sweets. When cooked the boiled sweets melt and fill in the spaces like a stained glass window. Simple... apart from finding somewhere to buy the boiled sweets!

Halloween Biscuits

4 oz (110 g) dark brown sugar
4 oz (110 g) golden syrup
2 oz (50 g) butter
8 oz (225 g) plain flour
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 heaped teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
Boiled sweets

Heat the butter, sugar and syrup in a pan until just melted. Set aside to cool. Sift the flour, spices, salt and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl. Add the melted mix to the dry mix and stir until combined into a soft dough. Spoon the dough into Clingfilm and refrigerate for half an hour. Preheat an oven to 190 °C, 375 °F, gas mark 5. Cover a baking tray with greased greaseproof or parchment paper. Taking small pieces of dough at a time, roll it out and cut out pumpkin shapes either with a special cutter or by trimming pieces of a circular biscuit.

Use a sharp knife to cut out faces in the biscuits. Transfer the biscuit to the baking tray then place a boiled sweet in the holes in the face. Cook in the oven for 10 minutes until the biscuits have browned and the sweets melted. Remove from the oven and allow the biscuits to cool completely before removing them from the tray.

Making things with plums

When we bought our house back in 1998 it already had a well established plum tree in the back garden. It has continued to crop well every year, so much so that one year the weight of fruit broke some of the branches. We have learnt from this and thin out the fruit in early July but we still get pounds and pounds of fruit from it. Most of this I earmark for jam and chutney making but I also like to use some of it in cakes and bakes.

This week I invited a friend over to help herself to several pounds of plums from my tree and when she arrived she had a magazine under her arm containing a recipe for plum flapjacks. I hurriedly scribbled it down and later that afternoon I modified it and made my own version of them. And what a hit they turned out to be! Gooey, sticky and a cross between a flapjack and a cake. I think you could even serve it hot with custard!

Plum flapjacks

1 lb (454g) plums
½ teaspoon mixed spice
Pinch of salt
8 oz (225g) light muscovado sugar
8 oz (225g) butter
3 tablespoons golden syrup
10 oz (275g) oats
5 oz (145g) plain flour

Wash the plums then cut them in half and remove the stones. Chop into small pieces and place in a bowl. Sprinkle over the spice, salt and 2 oz (55g) of the sugar. Stir and set a side. Preheat oven to 200°C, gas 6 and grease a 20 by 20cm tin. Put the remaining sugar, butter and syrup in a saucepan and melt together. Put the oats and flour into another bowl and mix in the melted ingredients. Spoon half this mixture into the base of the tin and use wetted fingers to press it down as an even layer. Spoon the plums over this as another layer then finish with the remaining oat mixture and press down lightly. Bake for 40-45 minutes until bubbling and golden. Remove from the oven and use a spatula to run around the edge of the flapjack. Leave to cool completely in the tin then cut into suitable sized pieces.

The flapjacks didn't last a week - they were gobbled up by Thursday, so this afternoon I adapted a fruit cake recipe to make plum and orange fruit cake and this too proved to be yummy. I think I need to strip the tree and freeze the remaining plums so I can make more of these plum recipes throughout the year.

Plum and Orange Fruit Cake

8 oz (225g) self-raising flour
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon mixed spice

8 oz plums

5 fl oz (150ml) water
Zest and juice of 2 oranges
14 oz (400g) mixed dried fruit

4 oz (115g) butter or margarine
4 oz (115g) soft light brown sugar
2 tablespoons sherry
2 eggs, beaten

Preheat oven to 170°C, gas mark 3 and line a cake tin. Sift the flour, salt and spice into a bowl. Stone and chop the plums then place in a large pan with the orange zest and juice and the water. Bring to the boil and cook for about 10 minutes then add the dried fruit, butter and sugar. Stir until the butter has melted then bring back to the boil and simmer for another 10 minutes. Set aside and allow to cool. Add the sherry to the mix then pour the mix onto the dry ingredients and stir well. Stir in the egg then pour into the cake tin. Cook for one and a half hours. Test with a skewer and cool in the tin.

Having filled the cake tin again I didn't really need to make anything else for dessert but there were still plenty of plums so I decided to preserve some as plum crumble. A while ago I had bought 12 mini foil containers with lids from Poundland and these proved to be the perfect for making individual portion sized crumbles. It was satisfying to stack them up in the freezer, ready for another day when I have neither a ready supply of plums nor the time to make dessert.

Plum and Orange Crumble (makes 4 portions)

8-12 plums

1 orange

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

100g light muscovado sugar

125g butter

75g plain flour

75g wholemeal flour

25g oats

Stone and halve the plums and place them in a bowl with the zest and juice of the orange, the cinnamon and 50g of the sugar. Stir well then spoon into the crumble container.s Cut the butter up into small cubes and add 3 cubes to each of the 4 crumble containers. Put the remaining butter in a bowl with the flour and rub to breadcrumb texture. Add the sugar and oats to the crumble mix then scatter this over the plum mix. Seal the crumble containers and freeze if desired. To cook, thaw completely and bake for 15-20 minutes at 180°C, gas 4 until the juices start to bubble through the crumble. Serve hot with cream, custard or ice-cream.

Pancakes... in September...?!

As you may already know I'm a huge fan of duck. Very tasty! My very favourite way to eat it is Chinese style with pancakes, hoi sin sauce and cucumber and spring onions. Unfortunately, buying a kit for this meal is quite expensive and something we only have on special occasions. It is also unfortunate that my daughters love this meal too because it means there are never enough pancakes to go around. I have searched the shops for the pancakes on their own but alas they don't exist. I have also puzzled over the ingredients and wondered how to make them myself. A few attempts have resulted in pancakes but not the right type.

A few months ago I decided to write to the people who put together the excellent food magazine OLIVE. To my surprise shortly after sending my email I received a reply for Lulu Grimes with a recipe. I was very impressed! Then as I sat at breakfast in a static caravan in south Yorkshire in the last week of the school holidays I turned over the page of my September OLIVE magazine and there on the letters page was my name and the recipe for Chinese pancakes. Not only was I chuffed but I was also motivated to give the recipe a go.

At the moment Lidls are selling whole frozen duck for about £5 each which is much cheaper than any other way to buy duck so whilst I put one on the draining board to thaw I set about making pancakes. It is amazing what boiling water and flour can do. I have a feeling that to make pancakes as fine and delicate as the ones in the kits you either need some kind of mysterious factory machinery or to have been brought up in a Chinese household. Nevertheless once I'd figured out that they really needed to be rolled very thin and the oil needed to be properly hot before putting the pancake in the pan I managed to make some Chinese pancakes. They were a little more like a wrap than a proper Chinese pancake but still pretty good. I left them stacked between two plates until dinner time then once everything else was dished up I heated them in the microwave for 30 seconds. At least this way there were plenty to go round.

I figure with a little more practise they will become thinner and finer so I shall be trying them again but it also occurred to me that this is a really handy pancake recipe for anyone with allergies to milk or egg because they were pretty descent pancakes and made only of flour and water. Amazing!

Chinese pancakes (makes 16)

250g plain flour
1 teaspoon caster sugar
Sesame oil

Put the flour and sugar in a large bowl with 190ml of boiling water and stir to a soft, sticky dough. Knead it until it is very smooth. Rest for 30 minutes. Roll it into a sausage then divide it into 16 pieces. Roll each piece into a little ball. Taking two balls at a time, flatten both, brush one surface with oil then press them together with the oil between. Roll out into a 8-10cm pancake with two layers. Heat the oil in a frying pan then cook the pancake for 1 minute on each side until they are puffed up and just beginning to colour. Whilst still very hot, peel the two layers apart to make 2 pancakes. Repeat.

Pulling it out of the bag

I've had a ridiculously hectic two weeks! It started with putting in some hours at my daughters' school to help organise and run the summer fete and that co-incided with a sudden increase of sales in my shop. It's also a busy time in the veg garden and all this in the run up to the end of term and going on holiday. So whilst my head was full of imaginary suitcases that I packed and unpacked several times a day, other things were pushed aside. When I took the girls to school yesterday morning another mother was handing over a present to the teacher and at that point I shoved a suitcase out of my head and remembered the custom of giving the teacher a gift at the end of the year. With the shopping done for the week and no time nor intention to visit the shops again I had to think of some way to create two presents for my girls' teachers, plus, of course, smaller gifts for four teaching assistants.

Fortunately, our home is awash with craft items so I mentally pencilled in finding half an hour after school to help the girls make a gift for their teachers. And then for the teaching assistants... biscuits! Perfect... and something with an egg in so I can use up the last egg in the fridge before I go on holiday.

By four o'clock that evening we had made two secret boxes (they look like books but are really little boxes to put treasures in) for each class teacher. Then we spent another hour making chocolate chip cookies. These turned out really well and once they were cooled we placed 3 each in cellophane bags and wrapped them with curling ribbon. So from having nothing that morning, we had created some beautiful and personal gifts.

When we went into school this morning I enjoyed watching my two hand over their little gifts to their teachers. And they were gratefully received too. In my mind gifts like that are worth more than a bottle of wine or box of chocolates.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

4½ oz (125g) unsalted butter
6 oz (175g) light brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3½ oz (100g) plain flour
¼ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
¼ teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
6 oz (175g) oats
2 oz (55g) chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 180°C, gas 4 and grease 2 baking trays. Cream together the butter and sugar then stir in the egg and vanilla. Sift in the flour and raising agents then add all the other ingredients and combine until a dough forms. Pull off pieces of dough and roll into a ball then flatten. Place the biscuits, well spaced out, on a baking sheety and bake for 15-20 minutes. Cool on a rack.

Tatty old apples

At this time of year I often have an empty fruit bowl. This may sound somewhat alarming but it is because it is soft fruit season and soft fruit doesn't store well in a fruit bowl. My family gorge themselves on the raspberries and strawberries often before they even reach the kitchen so they have little need for a banana shipped halfway across the world. Having an empty fruit bowl does have its downside, however, as when I'm in the middle of something and my girls pester me with a request for food my standard answers "Have a banana" or "Have something from the fruit bowl," cannot be used.

This happened last week and out tripped the world "Have something from the fruit bowl," without my brain even being involved in the task. A moment later they were back again, "There is nothing in the fruit bowl expect 3 horrible apples," my youngest complained. I dragged myself away from whatever I had been doing and in just a few moments had whipped up an impressive soft fruit fruit salad with a dollop of ice-cream. Then I inspected the apples in the fruit bowl and could understand why they had been rejected - wrinkly, is the word for it.

I hate food waste with a passion and although I could have dropped the apples into the compost bin with a clear conscience I decided instead to use them in a cake. So the next day when they informed me they were hungry I cut them each a slice of vanilla apple sponge and neither of them complained that the apples were horrible this time!

Vanilla Apple Sponge

9 oz (250g) unsalted butter, softened
8 oz (225g) caster sugar
4 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
9 oz (250g) self-raising flour
3 apples, peeled, cored and sliced
1 tablespoon demerara sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 180°C, gas 4. Line a round cake tin. Cream together the butter and sugar then stir in the egg and vanilla. Sift in the flour and mix until a thick batter forms. Dollop into the lined cake tin then push the slices of apple into the mixture. Sprinkle with the demerara and cinnamon. Bake for 1 hour 5 minutes and test with a skewer. Leave to cool in the tin for a few minutes then cool on a wire rack.

Spread a little happiness - make flapjacks!

When I went shopping on Tuesday I came home with a big stack of stuff, mainly meat, that had been either on offer or reduced but which really needed processing in some way before freezing. That meant that most of Wednesday was spent on my feet in the kitchen making pies, sausage rolls and cooking various other dishes. However, the previous night the cake box had become empty so I also needed to refill this. As you will know, I try to keep the cake box stocked so my husband can easily find himself something for afters. To add to the need, my husband was due to be working a long day Thursday (today) and needed to take with him all the food he would need to keep him going. This meant that whatever I made for the cake box also needed to be robust enough to go in a packed lunch/tea the following day.

So, to recap, I needed to make something quick, requiring very little effort and that could go in a lunch box. There really was only one answer - Honey and Vanilla Flapjacks. Dead simple to make, very tasty, always popular and hold together well. So I whipped up a batch of these in between meat processing.

That night, as we watched TV my husband didn't battle hard with will power and ate through 6 flapjacks! So agogged was I that I commented on this feat on my Facebook page. Instantly, several friends commented back wanting to know when they would get a taste! No luck for them, Steve took the remaining 6 flapjacks with him in his lunch box the next morning.

So with the cake box empty and friends disappointed I quickly made another batch of flapjacks and when I went to collect my girls from school later in the day I handed foil wrapped parcels of flapjacks to my friends. And you know what... it really brightened up their day, as did it mine!

Honey and Vanilla Flapjacks

4 oz (110g) butter
4 oz (110g) soft light brown sugar
1 dessert spoon of honey
A few drops of vanilla extract
6 oz (170g) oats

Preheat oven to 150°C (gas 3). In a large saucepan, gently melt the butter with the sugar, honey and vanilla. Add the oats and stir thoroughly until evenly coated. Grease a small baking tray and spoon the mixture onto it. Spread out and press down with wetted fingers. Bake for 25 minutes until gold. Cut into flapjacks whilst still hot then allow it to cool in the tin.

Grandma's Buttons

When I was a child my brother and I used to spend every school holiday at our grandparents' house, either my dad's parents or my mum's parents. Both were happy to have us and used to spend a lot of quality time with us. They would take us out to various places and we would also spend a good deal of time indoors making things. Funnily enough, one of our favourite activities was sorting out my grandma's button collection. She was from the wartime make do and mend generation so not only did she make a lot of her own clothes (and ours!) but she would reuse bits of old clothes wherever possible. This recylcing nature would be highly admired in today's culture. It meant that buttons, zips and other fastenings were snipped off old clothes and stored in an appropriate old margarine or ice-cream tub. As a result of years of this she had accumulated several hundred buttons, some individual, other in matching sets, and all jumbled together in a yellowing ice-cream tub. I don't know how she ever found the button(s) she needed for the clothes she was making!

So, every now and then, my brother and I would sort the buttons out - usually by colour - inspecting and admiring each of them as we did. We had our favourites, of course. And when the job was done we would put them all back into the ice-cream tub in a big muddle, ready for the next rainy day. After years of doing this, and with the wisdom of age, we decided that once we had sorted them out we ought to keep them sorted. So we tied matching sets together on pieces of thread and we put buttons of each colour into separate plastic bags. And that was that. Never again did the button collection need sorting.

When I was 18 years old my grandma died and one of the things I inherited for her house was a drawer. In the drawer was a lifetime of sewing thread and her button collection, still individually bagged by colour. Since having my own house this drawer has lived on a shelf in my garage and occasionally I use some thread out of it. Then, this weekend I decided to make some sock glove puppets with my children and I knew that I would find the perfect buttons for the job in my grandma's button collection. At first I only brought out one bag of buttons but so intrigued was my eldest daughter by the buttons that she asked me to bring in the whole collection.

She studied the buttons with fascination, just as I had done, holding up some to show me... the same ones that had been my favourites. The smell of my grandma's house still clung to the buttons and added to my memories. As she sorted I emailed my brother to tell him what she was doing. "Awesome," came the reply, "what fun that was!". Then, over the next half hour, the button gradually become more and more muddled up as she opened bag after bag. And then by bedtime the buttons were in a big heap, the plastic bags (mostly with holes in due to age) discarded to one side. I fetched an empty metal biscuit tin from the kitchen and we scooped them all into it. And there they shall remain, in a big muddle, until the next rainy day when two little girls will ask if they can sort out my button collection!