Rhubarb and Custard Cake

British rhubarb grows prolifically and is available to buy from March through to October. As we have a good garden supply I have accumulated a number of rhubarb recipes over the years. This rhubarb and custard cake is one of my favourites from The Good Food Magazine. It is a delicious teatime treat served with a cuppa.

                       

Ingredients

250g pack butter, softened, plus extra for greasing

150g pot ready-made custard (not the chilled kind; I used Ambrosia)

250g self-raising flour

½ tsp baking powder

4 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

250g golden caster sugar

Icing sugar, for dusting

Method

1. Make the roasted rhubarb first. Heat oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6. Rinse 400g rhubarb and shake off excess water. Trim the ends, then cut into little finger size pieces. Put in a shallow dish or a baking tray, tip over 50g caster sugar, toss together, and then shuffle rhubarb so it's in a single layer. Cover with foil, then roast for 15 mins. Remove and drain off the juices and then allow to cool.

2. Butter and line a 23cm loose-bottomed or springform cake tin. Heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4.

3. Reserve 3 tbsp of the custard in a bowl. Beat the rest of the custard together with the butter, flour, baking powder, eggs, vanilla and sugar until creamy and smooth.

4. Spoon one-third of the mix into the tin, add some of the rhubarb, then dot with one-third more cake mix and spread it out as well as you can. Top with some more rhubarb, then spoon over the remaining cake mix, leaving it in rough mounds and dips rather than being too neat about it. Scatter the rest of the rhubarb over the batter, and then dot the remaining custard over.

5. Bake for 40 mins until risen and golden, then cover with foil and bake for 15-20 mins more. It's ready when a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool in the tin. Remove the cake from the tin when cool and then dredge with icing sugar.

Savoury Brioche Coronne

I love it when a recipe works. Last week (or there abouts) I watched Paul Hollywood’s final programme in his BBC baking series. The savoury brioche couronne (that’s a crown to you and me), looked really great. My children umm’d and ah’d as he brought out the bread from his TV oven stuffed with mozzarella and parma ham. So, yesterday I felt that I must rise to the challenge and see if I could add this recipe to my repertoire. It was a total success and is definitely worth baking for teatime or for the children’s lunchboxes.

Ingredients

30 mins to put together

2 hours to make

500g/1lb 2oz strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting

10g salt

10g instant yeast

170ml/6fl oz warm full-fat milk

4 free-range eggs

250g/9oz unsalted butter, in small pieces, at room temperature

4 x 125g/4óoz balls buffalo mozzarella

8-10 slices prosciutto

6 handful fresh chopped basil

1 free-range egg, beaten

pinch salt

handful grated parmesan

Preparation method

1. If you have a food mixer with a paddle fitting, make the dough as

follows: into the bowl put the flour, salt, yeast, milk and eggs and mix

until the dough becomes smooth and shiny. Add the butter piece by

piece as you mix well for a further five minutes, until all the butter has

been incorporated into the dough. It’s important to add the butter

very gradually.

2. If you do not have a machine, make the base dough by bringing the

flour, salt, yeast, milk and eggs together in a bowl. Tip the dough

onto a floured surface and knead for about ten minutes, or until the

dough becomes smooth and shiny. Gradually incorporate the butter

piece by piece into the dough, kneading as you go.

3. Tip the dough into an oiled 1 litre/1 ¾ pint plastic container with a lid as it 

it needs plenty of room to rise. Leave the dough to rise until at least

doubled in (at least an hour, or overnight in the fridge).

4. Line a baking tray with baking parchment. Tip the dough out onto a

lightly floured surface, without knocking the air out of it. Roll it out to

a thickness of just under 1½ cm/ ¾ in, in a rectangle that’s about 

40-50cm/16-20in long. Have the long side facing you.

5. Cover the dough with a loose layer of ham. Break off large pieces of

mozzarella and distribute them all over the ham. Scatter the basil

over the top.

6. Roll up the dough from the long side furthest from you, into a long

sausage shape. Cut the roll of dough in half down the length to

expose the filling, leaving you with two long strips side by side.

7. Twist the two strips together, holding both ends of the dough and

twisting your hands in opposite directions, to make a long rope that’s

quite tightly twisted. Form the rope into a circle and join the ends

together so that the dough becomes a ring – a ‘couronne’ or crown.

8. Put the crown onto the lined baking tray, and put the tray in a large

plastic bag, big enough so that the risen dough won’t touch the

sides. Leave the crown to rise for 1-1ó hours, or until it has at least

doubled in size.

9. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6. For this recipe you ideally

don’t want a fan oven.

10. Whisk an egg with a pinch of salt and brush the egg over the crown.

Finally top the couronne with grated parmesan.

11. Bake the couronne in the preheated oven for 25 minutes, or until

golden-brown. Leave to cool slightly. Serve warm or cold.

Two chefs cooking Japanese bento. One lady and her dog: Cooking with dog.

In my twenties I lived in Japan for a few years. I love Japanese food, I also love this series of "Cooking with dog" on youtube. There is quite a lot of footage covering a range of Japanese recipes with a dog called Francis dutifully observing its owner and chef as she throws together a range of easy to follow dishes with an almost robotic English voice over translation. The clips made me laugh out loud. Check out Francis in this one.