Food Quest: Eccles Cakes

Do you ever get really excited to try a new recipe or cooking technique? I don't consider myself a certified "foodie", but over the years I have discovered that everything tastes better when it's home-made, and I love a good challenge or food hack. If you really think about it, cooking is a form of alchemy. (Go ahead and laugh now; I truly wanted to be an alchemist when I was a kid. Or, at the very least, an apothecary.) Think of bread-making. It's magical, isn't it? Flour, water, salt, and yeast, combined in just the right order, with certain methods, becomes a loaf of bread when heat is applied. It could also become crackers. Or you could leave out the yeast, use different ratios, and make pasta. Magic! Science!

This post is about a quest: the Quest for Eccles Cakes. In the end, it involved more hunting & gathering than magic, but it was a lot of fun and I wanted to share it with you.

The Spark

Recently, designer Kate Davies posted an Instagram picture of a pastry she was enjoying with a cup of tea. It looked delicious. And I had never, ever heard of it before. Not being a resident of the UK, I doubted I could find one already-baked anywhere close by. If I wanted to know what this pretty little pastry tasted like, I would have to make one myself.

Eccles Cakes are a small, flaky pastry filled with fruit and spices. According to folklore, they were invented in the late 1700's in the small town of Eccles (which is near Manchester). Folklore also claims that the original recipe is lost to history, guarded as a secret by the families that knew how to produce them. As a result, I found a lot of different recipes, but the basic idea is the same: puff pastry, either store-bought or homemade, filled with a blend of currants, butter, sugar, spices, and "mixed chopped peel". Clearly, the first challenge would be figuring out those ingredients in my American kitchen.

Ingredients

There are two out-of-the-ordinary ingredients called for in this recipe: currants and the "mixed chopped peel" mentioned above.

Currants

Currants are a small fruit, usually sold dried in a manner similar to raisins. They are related to grapes, but not the same. Information on the internet speaks to a history of controversy: In the early 1900's, production of currants in the US was banned by Congress. The Wikipedia disambiguation page lists 8 distinct plants that go by the name. According to About.com, fresh currants and dried currants come from different plants. They aren't raisins. Or maybe they are - Merriam-Webster includes both definitions. It's all very confusing.

Britishfood.about.com has a handy article with a picture that shows several dried fruits side-by-side and explains the difference. I decided to trust it. In British cooking, "currants" always refers to dried, unsweetened Zante Currents. OK. I can search for those.

Now, where to find these dried fruits? My first thought was to go to a few specialty food stores (such as Whole Foods or Trader Joe's). These were a bust. The salesperson I talked to at Trader Joe's wasn't even sure what currants were, and assured me I would not find them elsewhere. To my great surprise, I finally did find them at my 'normal' local grocery store. As it turns out, Sun Maid makes them.

After all of this hullaballoo, I expected these things to taste exciting.

I have some bad news for you.

They taste almost exactly the same as raisins.

In the end this is good news. If you can't find them, I highly suggest putting it all behind you and substituting raisins in this recipe. Chop them up first, so they're the right size and easier to mix. It won't be 'authentic', but in this blogger's humble opinion, you won't be missing much. On to the citrus peels!

Mixed Chopped Peel

This ingredient is used in a lot of British dessert recipes. It refers to a blend of various citrus peels, which have been candied, chopped into bits, and randomly mixed so that a scoop contains bits of several citrus varieties. I couldn't find it anywhere (but I didn't look terribly hard), and decided to go ahead and make it. It is very easy to make, although it does take a good chunk of time. The finished product is also very impressive. I've heard of people making several varieties, possibly dipping them in chocolate, and packaging them up neatly as Christmas gifts. This would not be a bad idea.

I searched through a lot of recipes, and picked and chose from each. The method is fairly basic, but you can make it as fancy as you like: peel some citrus fruit, slice the peels into 1/4" sections, blanch them (in a pot with cold water, bring to a boil & drain) two or three times to remove some bitterness, simmer until 'done' (45 minutes to an hour or two) in a heavy sugar syrup of equal parts water & sugar, drain and allow to dry for a few hours, roll in sugar, let dry overnight. You may decide to cut out some of the pith to further reduce any bitterness, but it's not strictly necessary (especially if you're going to bake with these) and I skipped it to save time. You can check out the recipes I used here, here, and here. 

Quick caveat: the last step of this recipe involves letting sugary, sticky things sit out on your counter (uncovered) for 24 hours. If it's summer and you have an ant problem, or if you have limited space and curious children or pets, maybe ask a friend to make some for you :-)

The Recipe

Without further ado, here we go! Adapted from recipes here and here. 

Ingredients

For the pastry:

• 2.5 C all-purpose flour
• pinch of salt
• 1 cup cold butter (2 sticks)
• 2.5 T lemon juice (bottled is OK)
• scant 1/2 C ice water 

For the filling:

• 1.8 T butter 
• 3 T orange juice
• 1 heaping cup currants (or raisins, see above)
• heaping 1/4 C mixed chopped peel
• 1/2 C brown sugar
• 1 tsp each cinnamon, ginger, allspice
• 1 tsp lemon & orange zest, fresh or dried (I buy McCormick at my local grocer, and was all out of citrus with their rinds still on by this point)

For the topping:

• 1 egg white, beaten
• course sugar

Make the dough

Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl. Make sure your butter is cold - freeze for a few minutes if necessary. Using a box grater, grate the butter into the bowl, dipping the end of the butter in flour occasionally to keep it from sticking to the grater. You may need to stir the butter gratings into the flour once or twice during this process, to keep it from clumping together. Stir the butter into the flour until combined. (This may also be done in a food processor if you have one.) Stir in the water and lemon juice and knead lightly until a soft dough forms. Let the dough rest, covered, for 30 minutes in the fridge.

To create flaky layers, roll out the dough into a large rectangle and fold in thirds and then in half. Let rest 10 minutes, then repeat 2 more times (for a total of 3 rolling & folding rounds). The dough will be much easier to roll a few minutes after it's left the fridge - but make sure the dough doesn't ever get warm enough to melt the butter. 

Make the filling

Melt the butter, and combine with remaining ingredients.

Make the pastries

Roll the dough to about 1/8th inch thickness. Cut rounds about 4.5 inches across. Fill each round with a rounded tablespoon of filling. Wet the edge of the pastry with water, pinch to seal, and flatten with your hand or a rolling pin until the filling just starts to show through the top of the dough. Place on a baking sheet, seam-side-down. Brush with the egg-white and sprinkle with sugar, then make two small slits in the top of the pastry to allow steam to escape. I cut mine a bit too wide and as a result some of the pastries got a little messy in the oven. The slits don't need to be very large. 

I got about 18 pastries out of this recipe; the original said you'd get 8. If you have extra pastry and run out of filling, chocolate chips make a great substitute for the remaining dough :-)

Bake at 425*F for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown and sticky. 

Remove to a rack to cool. Delicious if served warm or cold. 

Enjoy! These didn't last long in my house :-)

A week without knitting

(well, mostly without knitting - let's not get crazy now)

Last week's marathon knitting was not sustainable. I know my limits, and it's fun to test them sometimes, but I also know when to stop. So this week, I knit a few rows on my sock-in-progress each day,

I swear they're getting longer...

but otherwise cast the knitting aside for some other pursuits.

Instead, I:

worked on my jean quilt

The quilt requires 80 of these 8"x8" squares. I'm stacking groups of 8 and binder-clipping them to keep track; so far I have 6 stacks down and only 4 to go. The black fabric in the first picture is for the backing. It's polar fleece from Joann's Fabric, and my plan is to hand-tie the quilt-top to the backing using white thread once it's assembled. Since the backing is fleece and the denim top is already heaving, I'm skipping batting. The edging/binding is under debate - I'm a bit concerned that if I went a full quilt-binding route, my little sewing machine wouldn't be able to handle stitching through all of the layers. My other thought was to sew the edges wrong-side-together and turn inside out, and then do a wide (mostly decorative) running stitch around the border with the same thread used for tying.


organized my jewelry

No before picture, but just imagine all of that strewn on a dresser and you'll get the idea. Eventually I'd like to make something pretty to hang my necklaces and earrings on. For now, I figured repurposing this unused filing system would do the trick. 

bought flowers, baked, and baked 

Spring is coming, but it can't get here soon enough! I found some freesia at the grocery store, and I just love how it fills up the house with its scent.

The little pastries are Eccles Cakes. I got the idea from Kate Davies, who recently Instagrammed a picture of an authentic one. It is such a very British desert, and was quite an adventure to prepare! I want to document my experience with the recipe, so I'll try to get another post in this week with the full details. In short, they were quite tasty and I would definitely make them again (but it's not worth your time to hunt for currants if you can't find any locally).

The cake is my absolute favorite chocolate cake, which happens to be flourless and thus gluten-free. It is dead simple to make, rich, and oh-so decadent. If you want to make some, I highly suggest inviting some friends over to share. It is excellent on its own and also pairs quite nicely with whipped cream & berries. yum!

performed more Wilton's dyeing experiments, aimed towards finally making a Color Affection

Before - dyeing the blue & tan to coordinate with the yellow

After

The blue and tan yarns are both Vally Yarns Charlemont, a Merino-Silk-Nylon blend. The tan took the dye wonderfully, but the blue stayed very close to its original color. I may find something else to dye to get the burgandy-purple color I was aiming for...it'll be a while before I start knitting this project, so I have time.

The yellow yarn was my first Wilton's experiment, stashed here.

and spun up an ounce or so of fiber on my drop spindle. 

I'm getting faster and more consistent, but it would help if I didn't spin for a week and put it away for a month. I have too many hobbies. In related news, Craftsy just had a flash sale and I scooped up two spinning classes - From Fluff to Stuff (basic spindling) and Spinning Dyed Fibers. I'm very excited and will let you know how they go once I get a chance to dig in.

All in all, it was a very productive week! This week, it'll be back to knitting-as-usual :-)

--Amanda

Recipe: Fried Black Beans

Hello again! 

Two posts in two days; craziness. Yesterday I promised you a recipe, and here it is. This is very simple and is loosely based on this Simple Recipes entry. Refried beans are very difficult to photograph - they're not a very pretty food item. However, I can assure you that these taste delicious. If I were doing it over again, I would chop my onions much smaller than what you see in the pictures. You'll have a smoother texture that way. Enjoy!

A note on the title: "refried" beans are really only fried once, ever; they're not really "re-fried". So I've titled this without the "re-".

Fried Black Beans 

Ingredients:

• 1 large can black beans, drained & rinsed
• 1 medium onion, chopped fine
• 4 cloves of garlic, chopped fine
• 2 T olive oil
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 1 scant tsp cinnamon 
• 1 tsp oregano 
• 1.5 T lime juice
• 1/2 tsp salt, or to taste

Directions:

Place the oil, cumin, chili powder, and cinnamon in a skillet and heat until the spices start bubbling. Add the onion and cook until soft, 3-5 minutes, then add the garlic and stir for a minute before adding the black beans. Fry for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. The beans will start to split and break apart. Mash with the back of your stirring utensil, or break out the potato masher, until the beans are a consistency you like. Add water if it looks too dry (I added maybe 1/4 cup). Remove the beans from the pan and add the lime juice, oregano, and salt.

NB: Fresh herbs could be used in place of the oregano. Cilantro or parsley would be natural fits, and I'm sure other herbs could be used as well. Experiment and make it your own!

Recipe: Best Baked Oatmeal

Breakfast.

What comes to mind when you think of that word? My first thought is "ugggghhhh.....I don't even want to think about what I'm going to eat in the morning!" I just want to get out of the door as quickly as possible, and most mornings my stomach is not in the mood for anything fancy (like eggs). However, my metabolism won't let me skip breakfast, so I have to deal with it somehow.

The solution?

Baked Oatmeal

A pan of baked oatmeal contains anywhere from 8-14 servings, depending on how big you need a serving to be. It can be baked once at any time of the day, cooks for only 30 minutes, and after that can live in the fridge for at least a week, unharmed. It reheats beautifully ('cause I don't know about you, but I'm definitely not going to BAKE something for breakfast every morning). It can also be incredibly unhealthy - most of the baked oatmeal recipes I've seen have so much butter and sugar in them that they'd hardly count as a balanced breakfast. In an attempt to have it all I started adjusting recipes until I finally settled on the following, which seems to hit all the marks. 

Recipe

Makes 1 full 13x9 pan, for between 8-14 servings.

Ingredients:

Dry:

• 6 C old-fashioned (not quick) oats
• 1/2-1 C brown sugar
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp cinnamon or blend 
• 2 tsp salt

Wet:

• 2 C milk, or soymilk (which is what I use) to make this dairy-free
• 3/4 C water
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 eggs
• 1/4 C (1/2 stick) butter

Method:

Place the butter in a 13x9 baking pan, slide it in a cold oven and turn it to 350* while you assemble the rest of the ingredients. The butter will melt while you prepare the recipe. Once the oven is heated, the butter should be just about melted. 

In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients together. Add the water, milk/soymilk, and vanilla and stir to combine. Add the eggs and stir again. I like to crack each egg into my measuring cup before pouring into the bowl, so I can fish out any shell pieces if necessary. 

Take the hot pan out of the oven, and pour the oatmeal mixture into the pan. Hold the pan with a pot-holder and stir the butter into the rest of the ingredients.

Bake for 30 minutes, or until golden brown on the top and around the edges. 

Eat hot, or let cool and place in the refrigerator for up to 1 week for storage. 

If you cut into the oatmeal while it's still hot, it will be crumbly and loose, but after a night in the fridge it will cut easily into neat squares - great for grabbing and eating on the run if needed!

I like to cut out a square, heat it up in the microwave, and pour some extra soymilk and maybe a little maple syrup on top. 

Enjoy!