Category Archives: Baking

Vintage Cooking: Chinese Chews

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When I was at primary school, I would often fill an afternoon baking something with my mum or a friend who had come over (remember, Louise?). But what to bake? We would pull out all the recipe books and pore over the baking sections. We made shortlists. We made shortlists of the shortlists. I think we spent more time choosing than we did baking.

I always, always came to rest on Chinese Chews. But for some reason, another recipe always won out. It may be because we didn’t often have walnuts, dates or crystallised ginger (or all three) in the house. It may be because the tried and true chocolate cake in Alison Holst’s “What’s Cooking” was too tempting. For whatever reason, I’ve wanted to make these for nearly 20 years.

I don’t know what I expected them to be – that’s half the fun of recipe books with no photos, you have no pre-conceived idea of what they should be or look like. Turns out their like a chewy, short cross between a cake and a slice. Sort of like a brownie but much lighter and   not made with chocolate.

They’re not actually a family recipe, as most of my vintage cooking posts. These are from the Edmonds cookbook that almost everyone has. They’re a lovely wee weekend bake. As with many of these old recipes, what makes these “Chinese”? No idea.  Could be the inclusion of exotic ingredients such as dates and ginger?

Chinese Chews
from Edmonds Cookery Book

2 eggs
1 cup brown sugar
75g butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla
1½ cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
½ cup rolled oats
¾ cup chopped dates
¾ cup chopped walnuts
¾ cup crystallised ginger

Preheat the oven to 180°(C). Line a 23cm square cake tin (or I used a brownie pan).

Beat eggs and sugar until well mixed. Add butter and vanilla. Into a large bowl sift flour, baking powder and salt. Stir in rolled oats. Pour egg mixture into the sifted dry ingredients. Add dates, walnuts and ginger. Mix well. Spread mixture into prepared tin. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until cooked. Cut into squares while still hot.

Low(er) Fat Gingerbread

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Baking is perhaps my favourite way to spend a Sunday afternoon, specially in autumn and winter. I love being able to take my time mixing, baking, filling, icing, decorating. And full baking tins somehow make starting the working week a little bit easier.

I made this gingerbread a few Sundays ago. It didn’t turn out quite as dark as I’d like (I’m still thinking about this black, sticky gingerbread from 101 Cookbooks), but the recipe is definitely a keeper. The demerara sugar gives it a kind of crunchier texture than plain old white or brown sugar, and the ginger sprinkled on top makes for a delicious crusty edge.

I lowered the fat in it by replacing butter with fruit purée and low-fat spread. It’s still high really in sugar, so you couldn’t call it exactly healthy… but it is better than a lot of gingerbread recipes out there. I baked it as a cake, but I’m also thinking about halving the recipe and making it into a loaf.

I recommend it for a grey weekend afternoon. By the way, if Mother’s Day slipped past you this year, it’s not too late! You can make this for an afternoon tea for your mum ;)

Low(er) Fat Gingerbread
Loosely based on a recipe in Food magazine

3½ cups flour
1 Tbsp ground ginger
½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp mixed spice
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1¼ cups demerara sugar
75g low fat table spread
½ cup treacle
½ cup golden syrup
100g fruit purée*
½ cup milk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
¼-½ cup crystallised ginger, finely sliced

*either bought apple sauce or pie filling, or I suggest homemade apple purée. You could also try mashed banana.

Preheat the oven to 180°(C). Line the base and sides of a square or round tin – I made this one in a 20cm square tin, but this cake was probably too big for it. I’m planning on using my 23cm round springform next time.

Sift the flour, ground ginger, spices, baking powder, baking soda and salt together. Stir in the sugar and make a well in the centre.

Microwave the spread gently until it has JUST melted (it’s fine if there are still a couple of lumps of unmeltedness), and stir in the treacle and golden syrup. Stir in the fruit purée too. Beat in the milk and eggs. Pour into the dry ingredients and stir to make a smooth batter. Pour it into the prepared cake tin and sprinkle the crystallised ginger over the top.

Bake for about 70 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. Leave it in the tin for 20 minutes before turning on to a rack to cool.

Vintage Cooking: Goldenglow Cake

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Titri was the family farm on my mother’s mother’s side. We used to go there a lot when I was little to visit my grandmother’s rather comical brothers, Ben and Max, who would tease me mercilessly. I still think of them as the Statler and Waldorf of our family.

We also used to go to Titri every spring to pick daffodils – nobody knows when or why they were planted, but an enormous field of daffies cropped up in front of the house every single year.

I don’t know when the old house at Titri was built, but this photo was taken sometime around 1900. You can see its amazing garden – a huge vege patch to the side of the house, and flowers, trees and shrubs in front. It also would have had an orchard. Just in the background at the left you can see the dairy shed where the family made their butter.

My great-grandparents, Charlie and Mary farmed here. Sadly, Charlie died suddenly in 1945, when their four children were still teenagers, and from then on, Mary ran the farm with the help of the boys. My grandmother moved to another farm in 1953 when she married my grandfather.

This is Mary (seated) in front of the old house – my grandmother is standing beside her, and the little baby is my mum!

A new farm house was built at Titri in the 1960s, but Ben and Max never really got around to pulling down the old one. This photo was taken around the late 80s or early 90s, and you can see the old house in tumble-down form.

I have a recipe from Titri for you today. You might have read my previous Vintage Cooking posts – I’ve been working on a project to make recipes from my grandmother’s and great-grandmother’s recipe books.

This was actually one of the first recipes I tried from Mary’s book – how could you go past a name like Goldenglow Cake?

It’s quite lovely – it’s really a vanilla cake, but has just a tablespoon of cocoa, which gives it quite an interesting colour and flavour. The real discovery was in the icing, which is boiled. Actually, it’s like an unset/unbeaten caramel fudge that you pour over the top of the cake. I took some liberty and sprinkled with walnuts and pistachios, of which I’m sure Mary would have approved.

Goldenglow Cake

¼ lb butter
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1½ cups flour
1½ baking powder
1 Tbsp cocoa
3 Tbsp milk

Icing:
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup white sugar
3 Tbsp milk
vanilla
pistachios and/or walnuts, to decorate (optional)

To make the cake:
Preheat the oven to 180°(C). Grease a 20 or 23cm round cake tin and/or line with baking paper.

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and beat again. Sift the dry ingredients and add them to the  butter mixture in three lots, alternating with the  milk.

Pour the batter into the cake tin and bake. Now I unfortunately didn’t write down how long mine took, but I imagine it was about 45 minutes. Unfortunately Mary has a habit of only leaving lists of ingredients, so she can’t help us, either. I’d say go for 45 minutes but check it frequently. It will be cooked when the sides start to come away from the tin, and a skewer comes out clean.

Leave the cake in its tin for a few minutes before turning out onto a rack to cool. I cut mine through the middle and spread with plum jam before icing – I think I was worried I’d slightly overcooked the cake and it would be dry without it – so that’s an option if you like jam. And who doesn’t?

To make the icing:
Put the sugars and milk in a small saucepan and place over medium heat. Bring slowly to the boil, boil for three minutes, then remove from the heat, add the vanilla and beat until creamy. Quickly pour over the cake (or it will set like fudge), and sprinkle with roughly chopped pistachios and walnuts.

Vintage Cooking: Scott’s Farewell Square

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Several weeks ago I was reading about the centenary memorials for Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his crew, who died returning from the South Pole in 1912.

Scott’s is a remarkable story. His led his second expedition to Antartica, the Terra Nova Expedition, with the express objective of being the first to reach the South Pole. The mission would be a race, with Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen also planning an expedition.

No way home: All members of Scott's expedition, from left Laurence Oates, H R Bowers, Scott, Edward Wilson and Edgar Evans perished on the return journey from the South Pole

Scott and his crew; from left: Oates, Bowers, Scott, Wilson and Evans (photo credit here)

Scott’s expedition was plagued with misfortune, but Scott and his colleagues Edward Wilson, Henry Bowers, Lawrence Oates and Edgar Evans finally reached the South Pole on 17 January 1912. Unfortunately, they arrived to the heartbreaking news that Amundsen’s team had beaten them by 33 days.

Doomed mission: Scott, right, and his team attempted to be the first to reach the South Pole but on arrival found Roald Amundsen's tent and a record showing he'd discovered the pole two months previously

photo credit here

Scott and his colleagues started the march back to base, but all five perished on the way. Edgar Evans was lost following falls on a glacier. A month later, Oates was barely able to walk, and left the tent voluntarily, famously saying “I am just going outside and may be some time.” The three remaining men marched a further 20 miles and set up camp 11 miles away from their base depot. A blizzard then prevented further progress. Supplies ran out and the men eventually succumbed to cold, starvation and exhaustion.

Why is this on my blog?

The centenary of Scott’s death reminded me of a recipe I spotted in Alexa Johnston’s book Ladies, A Plate. The recipe had originally caught my eye because Alexa had found the recipe in an old book that was produced by St Mark’s Presbyterian Church in Pine Hill, Dunedin – that happens to be the neighbourhood church where I grew up; I was christened there in fact! It would appear the recipe was invented as a farewell when Scott had departed Port Chalmers, Dunedin for the Antarctic in 1910 – Dunedin had been given a half-day’s holiday and thousands turned out to farewell the party. As Alexa says, the square has plenty to sustain a man on a long cold journey.

I must admit I didn’t have huge expectations for the slice – looking through the recipe, it has the hallmark ingredients of any common vintage NZ slice recipe – Weet Bix, coconut, dates… yawn, I thought. But I was wrong.

It turned out far more delicious than I had expected – I think the huge quantity of dates keeps the base really moist, and the chunks of interesting bits makes it perilously addictive. I was supposed to send the batch with my husband to work the next day, but not that much made it there.

I highly recommend making this square in honour of Scott and his team. It’s also my entry for this month’s Sweet NZ, hosted by Frances at Bake Club.

Scott’s Farewell Square
Recipe from St Mark’s Presbyterian Church, Pine Hill, Dunedin
Reproduced in Ladies, A Plate by Alexa Johnston

4oz butter
6 oz brown sugar
1 dsp golden syrup
1 egg
6oz flour
pinch salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 Tbsp cocoa
3oz coconut
2oz walnuts
4 Weet Bix
4oz dates
2oz raisins

Icing:
1 cup icing sugar
2 Tbsp cocoa
1 Tbsp butter
extra coconut, for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 190°C. Line a  shallow tin with baking paper.

Cream the butter and sugar until light, then mix in the golden syrup and the egg, combining everything well. Sift in the flour, salt, baking powder and cocoa and mix to combine, then add the remaining ingredients. Stir everything thoroughly together. Tip the mixture into the prepared tin, spread it out evenly, and bake for 15-20 minutes. Remove from the oven and put on a wire rack to cool.

Make a thin chocolate icing from icing sugar sifted with cocoa and mixed to a spreading consistency with melted butter and little hot water. Spread over the cake, sprinkle with coconut and cut into squares when the icing has set.

Note: if golden syrup isn’t available where you are: firstly, that’s very sad. Secondly, try using maple syrup instead.

(References for this article come from Wikipedia, and news articles here, here and here, as well as Ladies, A Plate).

Vintage Cooking: Japanese Biscuits

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My great grandmother, or Granny, was Mary. She died many years before I was born, but I have something that gives me a real connection to her – her recipe book.

Granny was born in 1902 in St Bathans in Central Otago, where she grew up with her eight brothers and sisters.
When she married my great grandfather Charlie, she moved to our family farm, Titri, near Waihola in Otago. Charlie and Mary had four children and farmed cattle and beef through the depression years. By all accounts Mary was a great housekeeper; apparently the old house at Titri always had sparkling floors and furniture, the cake tins were always full, and shelves lined with all sorts of preserves. 
When Charlie died suddenly in 1945, Mary continued working the farm with her teenage children. Her sons Ben and Max eventually took over the farm, and Mary lived with the family at Titri for the rest of her days.
I love this photo of Mary (on the left) with her sister Rebe and a family friend. They look rather formidable matrons, don’t you think?

Anyway, back to the recipes – I’ve been selecting recipes from Granny’s book at random to try, and I made these Japanese Biscuits a couple of weeks ago. Here’s Granny’s recipe:

I really don’t know what makes them Japanese. They’re like a thin almond shortbread biscuit, sandwiched together with a lemon almond icing.

They’re quite lovely – I think they make a very elegant biscuit. They could even find their way into a dinner party dessert, perhaps to accompany a coffee flavoured gelato or ice cream. What do you think?

Granny’s Japanese Biscuits

4oz flour
½ tsp baking powder
2oz butter
2oz sugar
2oz ground almonds
1 egg
½ tsp almond essence

Preheat the oven to 160°, and line a couple of baking trays.

Sift the flour and baking powder. Rub in the butter, then add the sugar and ground almonds. Lightly beat the egg and almond essence together, then add this to the flour mixture and mix well. Roll out thinly and cut using a small cutter, and place carefully on the tray. I baked these really slowly – I think for about 20 minutes at 160°. Watch them carefully as I imagine they will go from just pale and cooked to burnt very quickly.

When cold, sandwich together with icing made from icing sugar, a little lemon zest and juice, ½ tsp almond essence, and just enough hot water to mix. Granny also suggests icing the top and sprinkling with coconut but I think they’re rather elegant just sandwiched as here. Disobedient great-granddaughter.

I’ve got some other classic sounding recipes to try out, including a “goldenglow” cake, and a mysteriously titled cake for sham brides. Stay tuned for the results!

Thanks Granny! x

Easter Biscuits

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Another Easter recipe for you! This one’s a bit more old fashioned, and would make a great afternoon tea over the holiday weekend.

It comes from Alexa Johnston’s sequel to Ladies, A Plate – A Second Helping. They’re rather lovely biscuits – crisp and lemony, with crunchy sugar on top.

The dough is a delicate one to deal with – so chill it well before you roll it out so it’s good and firm. I rolled out half and left the remainder in the fridge, then started again.

Easter Biscuits

5oz butter, slightly softened
4oz caster sugar
1 tsp finely grated lemon zest
2 egg yolks
8oz flour
¼ cup currants
pinch mixed spice

for the glaze:
1 egg white
extra caster sugar

Preheat the oven to 190°C and line a couple of baking trays with baking paper.

Cream the butter and sugar with the lemon zest. Add the egg yolks and mix well. Work in the sifted flour, spice and currants until you have a fairly stiff paste. Put the dough in the fridge in a covered bowl, and leave there for 10-15 minutes.

Sprinkle the bench with cornflour to help the dough from sticking, and roll it out fairly thinly (I think 3-5mm), and cut biscuits (I used a 7-8cm fluted cutter). Place carefully on the lined baking trays, and brush with the lightly beaten egg white and sprinkle with caster sugar.

Bake for 10-15 minutes – mine only took 10, and watch them carefully, as they turn from lightly golden to crispily brown very quickly. Cool on a rack and store in an airtight container.

Apple Purée

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Today I thought I’d share something we eat nearly every day but that usually flies under the radar: apple purée.

As per usual with me, this is really not revolutionary – it’s just cooked apples that have been whizzed up. But it is SO yummy, simple, useful, versatile, healthy and cheap. How else can I sell it?

I first made this when we had loads of apples and they were just starting to go a bit soft and not so nice for eating plain. Now I buy extra apples (little ones, or ones with a couple of marks on them) just for making into purée. I make it once every couple of weeks, and the obsessive housewife in me packs 1-cup quantities into little snap lock bags (which can be used over and over and over), and freezes them. Then I take them out the night before I need them, and they’re purée again by morning.

I add the purée to my muesli, fresh fruit and yoghurt for breakfast – great way to bulk out the meal without adding extra fat or excess kJ. You can also use it in desserts,  smoothies, milkshakes etc, or I’m sure there are plenty of other ideas floating around. I think you could use it in most instances as a substitute for store-bought apple sauce – much better for you, too.

I really like using apple purée as a substitute for butter in baking recipes. I have a general rule of thumb for cakes, muffins and loaves etc, that you can swap a quantity of butter for a half and half mix of fruit purée and low-fat spread. It’s not a fail-safe rule, some recipes do need a higher quantity of fat to work, so I can’t guarantee you success! But for example, I made a beautiful gingerbread a few days ago – instead of 200g butter, I used 100g apple puree, and 100g low fat spread, and it came out perfectly (I’ll post the recipe sometime soon). You really wouldn’t know from the taste, and although the sugar content is still high, you’ve significantly lowered the fat, which is a great start! By the way, this can be a great option if you need to make a baking recipe dairy-free.

Apple Purée (or you could use pears)
Just cut apples into quarters, and remove the core and pips. Chop the apples roughly, leaving the skin on (it’s where lots of the goodness is, and it just melts into the puree during cooking and whizzing). I microwave my apples – pop say 800g of them in a microwave proof bowl with 1-2 Tbsp cold water, cover and cook on high for about 8 minutes. I don’t find you need to add any sugar, unless the apples are spectacularly tart. Alternatively, you could steam them on the stove top, just until they’re tender and will puree easily. Once they’re cooked, transfer the contents (including the liquid) to a food processor, and whiz for a couple of minutes, or until you have a smooth puree. The purée in this photo is made from lovely gala apples and they gave it this beautiful rosy pink colour.

Enjoy!

One ha’penny, Two ha’penny

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If you have no daughters, give them to your sons,
one ha’penny, two ha’penny, Hot Cross Buns!

And other nonsense.

Are you looking forward to Easter? We don’t have any plans as such but I’m looking forward to a couple of extra days off to relax.

And I really love doing a bit of baking in the lead-up to Easter! I relax my usual policies on healthy eating in favour of a wee few treats. Starting with these hot cross buns.

I know not everyone’s into spicy, fruity hot cross buns, but I think they’re delicious. Has the first person in your office warmed up a hot cross bun in the microwave at work yet? I’ve always taken that as the signal that autumn has arrived (although the weather is also giving some strong clues today).

I think I was the first one this year! I took one of these little buns to work for morning tea yesterday. Sometimes you need to cheer yourself up on Monday mornings.

This recipe comes from the lovely Dame Alison Holst and her son Simon, from their New Zealand Bread Book. This is a terrific book if you have a breadmaker. I’ve made all sorts of stuff from it, and it’s been really tasty (see posts on pizza dough, catalan tomato bread, and yoghurt rolls). Easy recipes to adjust to your own taste, and experiment with too, if that’s your thing.

I won’t reproduce another recipe from the Holsts’ book, but I’ve found a very similar one they published in the newspaper last year which I can share with you. This one differs from mine by including cocoa powder and honey, yum! I like their Xs instead of + crosses, too (by the way, you can make your own pastry for these instead of store-bought stuff by mixing 30g cold butter, 1/2 cup high grade flour and a wee splash of water).

For those that aren’t so much about the spicy, fruity hot cross buns, I might make some chocolate ones too, so stay tuned. And I’m having kind of a crazy few days so unfortunately there won’t be a Friday’s Favourite Five this week. But check back later in the week for some home made marshmallow chocolate Easter Eggs!

Afghans

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Such a classic! I love afghans, all firm, crumbly and crunchy all at once. We had friends over a few days ago and I pulled some out of the freezer, iced and decorated them and voila, home made biscuits ready to go. (Oh my gosh, re-reading this, I sound like one of the women on the Glad “Better Living” ads! Aaaaaaaaaggggggggggghhhhhhhhhh!)

This is by far the best recipe I’ve ever come across for afghans. It comes from Ladies, A Plate by Alexa Johnston. Alexa researched New Zealand baking through old handwritten family recipe books and community fundraising cooking books. She says this recipe comes from a Mrs Marian Benton of Dunedin, and that Mrs Benton’s afghans “differ from the standard recipe in having less butter, more cocoa and a small amount of baking powder to make them a little less solid.” They taste really, really chocolate-y. I highly recommend them. Thanks, Mrs Benton!

I also love the icing on these afghans – a million times nicer than the usual cocoa + icing sugar + water = grainy icing. It makes a lovely syrupy icing, which complements to the rich chocolate-y-ness of the biscuits underneath.

I like to make smaller afghans – I get 30 biscuits out of this recipe. I make them about the same size as the circle your hand makes if you touch the tip of your forefinger to your thumb. They’re far more manageable at that size, and I think it makes them look infinitely cuter. I always think people like reaching for smaller baked items in polite company, too. So I don’t use a whole half of a walnut to decorate. I buy the packets of walnut pieces (or just break up halves, if that’s what’s in the pantry), and just pop a reasonable smidge of walnut on top.

Afghans
Mrs Marian Benton of Dunedin, as published by Alexa Johnston in Ladies, A Plate

6oz butter
½ cup brown sugar
1½ cups flour
3 Tbsp cocoa
½ tsp baking powder
2 cups (60g) cornflakes

3 Tbsp water
3 Tbsp caster sugar
3 Tbsp butter
1½ cups icing sugar
3 Tbsp cocoa
walnut pieces or halves, to decorate

Before you start, preheat the oven to 180°C and line two baking trays with baking paper. Break up the cornflakes with your hands a little, and soften (but don’t melt) the butter if you need to.

Cream the butter and sugar until the mixture is pale and fluffy. Add the sifted flour, cocoa and baking powder, then knead in the cornflakes. Put in teaspoonfuls on the trays, leaving a little space around each biscuit. Flatten slightly with a flour-dipped fork (you still want them quite chunky) and bake for 12-14 minutes. Cool on a rack.

To make the icing, gently heat the water, caster sugar and butter until the butter melts, and simmer for one more minute to form a syrup. Beating all the time, pour about ¾ of the syrup onto the sifted icing sugar and cocoa. Add the remaining syrup if necessary to make a smooth, fudgy icing. Add a little hot water if it’s still too thick. Put a teaspoonful of warm icing onto each (cooled) biscuit, plant a walnut half or piece on top, sinking it into the icing a little, and leave to set firmly.

Store in an airtight tin or container. They stay good for 3-4 days.

So there you have it. 1, 2, 3, it’s quick and easy and the kids just love it. Better Living everybody!

Vintage Cooking: Canadian Date Loaf

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My mum used to make a sultana loaf when we were little. I remember finding little buttered slices of it in my lunch box at school. And she must have served it to visitors, because I have a funny memory of standing beside a coffee table, which came up to my 4 year old waist, and seeing a plate of buttered loaf slices with 3 or 4 of those brown tinted glass coffee mugs that everyone had/has. I have no idea why I would remember that! It seems otherwise insignificant. But the mind is a strange beast.

Anyway, I’m not sure what made me think of this loaf a few months ago, but I got mum to email me the recipe. I baked the loaf a few days ago, and the aroma of it cooking in the oven created one of those spooky moments. I hadn’t had this loaf since I was quite little, and the smell of it really got me! All the memories came flooding back. Do you have foods or smells that transport you?

This is a family recipe. Grandma used to make it, too, but I have no idea where it came from. I also have no idea what makes it ‘Canadian’. Furthermore, mum never made it with dates, usually sultanas, so its title really was misleading. I did make it with dates this time, though, and re-discovered how beautiful this loaf is. The boiling and macerating before baking results in a dark and caramelly loaf, with a beautiful soft texture. You’d be forgiven for thinking it had treacle or golden syrup in it.  The loaf also freezes well, and has a comparatively low fat content with only 1 Tbsp butter (it does sort of make up for that with high sugar, but… you know…). It’s truly my favourite loaf in the world.

Please give it a go! You won’t be disappointed.

Canadian Date Loaf

1 cup sugar
1½ cups water
8oz dates, sultanas, mixed fruit – whatever you like
1 Tbsp butter
1 tsp mixed spice
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda

Place the sugar, water, fruit, butter and mixed spice in a large-ish saucepan over medium heat, and stir together. Increase the heat and bring the mixture to the boil, and boil for 5 minutes. Leave it in the saucepan until cold.

Preheat the oven to 180°(C). Lightly grease a loaf tin. Sift the flour, baking powder and baking soda together, and stir into the boiled and cooled fruit mixture. Spoon the batter into the prepared loaf tin, and bake for about 45 mins to an hour, until a skewer comes out clean. Leave in its tin to cool for a few minutes, then transfer to a rack. When cold, cut into slices, and enjoy as is or with a wee spread of butter.