Recipes
RECIPES
Sadly Miles’s recipe for croissant dough is top-secret, but a St Aidan book wouldn’t be complete without a recipe or two so I’ve chosen other bakes instead.
Betty’s Scones
As Betty found when she visited the garden gate jam shop, warm home-baked scones are wonderful to eat outside on a summer’s day, but they’re just as delicious on a winter’s afternoon by the fire, and very easy to make. Fabulous with or without sultanas, I love mine with Bonne Maman strawberry jam.
Ingredients:
1 lb plain flour
2 heaped teaspoonfuls of baking powder
2 oz caster sugar
4 oz cool butter or baking margarine cut into small pieces
2 free-range eggs
A little milk
A handful of sultanas for fruit scones
Jam and butter to serve (or clotted cream if you’re really spoiling yourself!)
Method:
Pre-heat the oven to 220oC/200oC fan/Gas 7. Lightly grease two baking trays.
Sift the flour, baking powder and sugar into a bowl and mix together. Add the butter/margarine pieces, and lightly rub into the dry ingredients with your fingertips until the mixture is the texture of fine breadcrumbs. Add the sultanas here if you’re including them.
Crack the eggs into a measuring jug and whisk lightly. Top up with milk to 10 fl oz. Gradually add the liquid to the dry ingredients and mix with a blunt knife and stop when you have made a soft sticky dough. (You may not need all the liquid.)
Lift the dough to a floured board, kneed lightly, then gently roll to a rectangle 3/4 inch thick. Cut into rounds with a fluted 2 inch cutter, reshaping and rolling the left-over dough until it’s all used up.
Place the rounds on the greased baking sheets. If you want a glossy finish, brush with the remaining egg and milk mixture, then put in the oven. Cook for twelve to fifteen minutes, when the scones should be well risen and golden brown.
Transfer to a wire cooling rack, and eat as soon after baking as you can. To serve, split each scone in half and spread with butter or clotted cream and jam.
For extra light scones use milk, eggs and butter straight from the fridge. Keep your touch light when handling the dough. For bigger scones, use a larger cutter and roll the dough slightly thicker.
* * *
Pumpkin’s Carrot Cake
This is a smaller version of the one baked by Miles’s mum Jackie for Pumpkin’s birthday celebrations – definitely for humans not ponies.
Ingredients:
For the cake:
225g self-raising flour
1 level teaspoon of baking powder
150g soft brown sugar
50g chopped walnuts
100g peeled carrots, coarsely grated
2 large eggs
150ml sunflower oil
For the topping:
50g butter (softened)
50g full fat cream cheese
150g sifted icing sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Chopped walnuts to decorate
Method:
Pre-heat oven to 180oC/160oC fan/Gas 4. Line a deep 20 cm round cake tin with grease proof paper.
Sieve flour and baking powder into a large mixing bowl. Stir in the sugar, then add the chopped nuts and grated carrots and mix lightly.
Make a well in the centre of the mixture, add the eggs and the oil to this, mix and then beat until it’s mixed thoroughly.
Pour the beaten mixture into the prepared tin, then put into the oven and cook for one and a quarter hours, or until golden brown and the cake is coming away from the sides of the tin. (The cake is baked when you push a skewer into the centre of the cake and it comes out clean.)
Once baked, turn the cake out of the tin, remove the baking paper and place on a wire rack to cool.
For the topping:
Place the topping ingredients into a bowl and beat well with a hand mixer until smooth and creamy.
Once the cake has cooled, spread the topping evenly over the cake with a palette knife and decorate with chopped walnuts. (For a truly luxurious version make extra topping and split the cake and add a layer of topping in the centre too.)
Leave the topping to harden slightly, then serve in slices.
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Betty’s Chocolate Brownies
In case all the mentions of Betty sinking her teeth into chocolate muffins has made you crave cocoa, here’s her favourite brownie recipe. As it’s a tray bake, you can make the pieces as small or as large as you like!
Betty’s tried many brownie recipes, but this St Aidan one is a favourite. She makes it in a tin that’s 13 inches by 8 inches and 2 and a half inches deep. Some days she lines the tin with parchment, but if she’s in a hurry she wings it and cooks without. Again, temperatures of different ovens may vary, and you may want to alter the cooking time to get a stickier brownie too. Remember the brownies will carry on cooking as they cool.
Ingredients:
375g butter at room temperature
375g dark chocolate if you’re feeling posh (cocoa is fine if you don’t have that)
6 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
500g caster sugar
225g plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180oC/160oC fan/Gas 4.
Grease the tin or line with parchment.
Melt the chocolate and butter together in a heavy based saucepan and put aside to cool.
In a bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar and add the vanilla extract.
Sieve the flour into another bowl and mix in the salt.
When the chocolate mixture is cool, beat in the eggs and sugar.
Stir in the flour and beat until the mixture is smooth.
Transfer to the baking tin and bake for about 25 mins. Check often at the end to make sure not to cook it for too long.
When it’s ready the top will have a paler brown crust, but the inside will still be dark and sticky.
Leave to cool and then slice into pieces.
Love, Jane xx