Food & Drink

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THE CAKE WHISPERER Val Stones

SPICED MARMALADE CAKE

This cake came into being because I love marmalade and, after so much fruit cake at Christmas, this is an ideal cake for eating in January and February; well, really any time of year. In January, I make Seville marmalade and make enough to give away as gifts, and to use in my baking as well as on toast.

The recipe is based on the banana pecan loaf in my recipe book, but I exchanged bananas and pecans for marmalade and added zest. I replaced the eggs with milk and a little vinegar to create buttermilk. There are sweet sultanas in the cake, and they balance out the sharpness of the marmalade, and a little mixed spice adds warmth to the flavours. For a cake that looks so plain, it packs a lot of flavour.

If you follow this recipe, it will be sufficient for a loaf tin and if you double the recipe, it is perfect for a large, round family cake. I usually leave this cake for a couple of days to mature, so the flavours improve, and the top becomes sticky.

Preparation time: 15 minutes Baking time: 1hr – 1hr 15 minutes What you will need: A loaf tin 7 1/2 x 3-inch (19 x 8.5cm), or a round cake tin/pan 9-inch (23 cm), greased and lined.

Ingredients Serves 8 (or serves 14 in a 9-inch round tin) 225g self-raising flour, sifted 100g butter, at room temperature 112g caster sugar A pinch of fine sea salt 1 teaspoon mixed spice 112g sultanas Zest of half an orange and lemon 175ml whole milk 1 teaspoon vinegar 1 heaped spoon of marmalade 1 tablespoon Demerara sugar

Method 1 Set the oven for 160C fan, 180-190C, 350-375F, gas 4-5 2 Rub the butter into the sifted flour until crumbly. 3 Add the sugar, salt, spice, sultanas and zests. 4 Add the vinegar to the milk, then, a little at a time, add all the ingredients until they are well combined. 5 Fold the marmalade into the mixture - it should be a good dropping consistency, where the mixture drops from the spoon easily. 6 Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and spread evenly with a spoon that has been dipped in water. 7 Sprinkle the top with Demerara sugar. 8 Bake on the middle shelf for 1hr -1hr 15 minutes.

The cake should have shrunk away from the sides a little and the top will be firm but springy. If you listen to it, there should be a few whispered pops; if too noisy, then return to the oven for a few more minutes. 9 Allow the cake to cool in the tin for 20 minutes, then turn onto a cooling rack. When completely cold, store in an airtight tin.

CHALK STREAM TROUT COULIBIAC

Sasha Matkevich, The Green

Image: Clint Randall

This old classic proved very popular recently and was one our biggest sellers on our takeaway menu. A coulibiac is a Russian dish which is traditionally made using salmon, rice, eggs, mushrooms and dill, which are encased in pastry, but here it is with trout.

Ingredients 800g trout fillet, skinless and pin-boned 500g puff pastry 1 egg 2 cloves of garlic, minced 100g unsalted butter 2 hard-boiled eggs, finely chopped 1 tablespoon of chopped dill 1 tablespoon of chopped parsley 1 tablespoon of chopped capers 2 banana shallots, julienned ½ teaspoon of caraway seeds 150g cooked brown rice 1 head of hispi cabbage, stalks removed and finely julienned 1 tablespoon of sauerkraut 1 generous teaspoon of wholegrain mustard Fresh black pepper Dorset sea salt

Method

1 Blanch cabbage in salted boiling water for no more than 30 seconds and cool it down immediately in iced water, strain it and dry on a kitchen towel. 2 In a large frying pan gently melt the butter and add

shallots, garlic and carraway seeds. Cook gently on a medium heat for seven minutes making sure the onion stays white and translucent. Add sauerkraut and cook for a further two minutes stirring continuously and transfer to a large bowl. 3 Add chopped eggs, hispi cabbage, dill, parsley, capers and brown rice to the bowl, mix well and set aside. 4 Pre-heat an oven to 180 degrees Celsius. 5 On a well-floured surface roll out the puff pastry into a sheet big enough to encase the trout fillet. Place the mixture in the centre in a neat, rectangular shape, place the trout on the top and then spread the mustard over that, seasoning with salt and freshly ground pepper. Fold the edges of the puff pastry to each other and secure neatly on top of the fish making sure it is entirely enclosed and that there are no holes. 6 Beat the raw egg with a fork and glaze the puff pastry using a pastry brush. 7 Refrigerate for 10 minutes and glaze one more time using the leftover raw egg. 8 Place the coulibiac in the pre-heated oven on baking parchment and cook for a minimum of 24 minutes. Check the coulibiac is hot in the middle (at least 52 degrees Celsius). 9 Remove from the oven and rest in a warm place for at least 10 minutes.

Nazdarovya.

A YEAR ON THE PIG FARM (PART II)

James Hull, The Story Pig

June And wait we did, with our aprons on and with a nervous excitement. The hard work had been done and we were ready but would people come? Well, yes you did – at ten on the dot the cars rolled in. Charlotte had baked up a storm and I welcomed customers to our spot of paradise. Our view was the talk of the town and we discovered that you all liked a tipi as much as we do. The weather was amazing and we got busy!!

July We hit our stride – Charlotte was now baking an incredible amount every week and word was spreading about her homemade cooking. I felt more at home in the cafe, the garden was looking amazing, although far off how I wanted, but we had less time than ever now and weekends to ourselves were a thing of the past. Any downtime between customers in the late afternoons when I might contemplate nipping into the garden was thwarted, for as soon as I took off my apron that was sure to trigger the rolling in of another car.

August The weather was basically rubbish in August; days of drizzly mornings, but of course it’s the school holidays – what could we expect! We were a bit quieter on wet days and this gave thought to next year and what we would do differently to be less weather-dependent. I haven’t mentioned the pigs in all this, but they are still here, showing themselves off to all our visitors and they have been well-behaved this summer. Our meat sales have been building steadily week on week, as people come to understand what we are doing. This is very satisfying for both of us.

September We were the stars on the front of the Sherborne Times and we had so many new visitors! It’s amazing what being on the front of a publication can do. The weather picked up and as the days and nights turned a little bit autumnal people started to ask us en masse what we would do in the winter.

October The weather was very kind, having some of the

nicest days of the year; the low light, the long shadows, our view still doing its thing. The garden slowing down, but still looking good. We, like many others, were struggling for staff to help us. Charlotte and I were doing more than we thought we could. We are still small and luckily it’s all about us here, so we manage and work harder, always my answer to most problems. Staff you can find, but good staff, where have they all gone?

November We decided we would put the tipi up inside the shed. It’s the best way to store it – up and inside – and it looks amazing, much bigger and really very cosy. We’re really pleased with our winter option and think our customers will be too!

December And then with hardly a missed heartbeat it’s December, and the end of another year. It’s raining, it’s dark, it’s gloomy. I’m muddy and dreading the next few months of pure pig drudgery. The fields are turning from green to brown. The pigs spend their time inside their cosy pig arks, waiting patiently for spring. They are so similar to us in lots of ways.

As I write the Christmas orders are pouring in and we are just about to remember how to make pigs in blankets. Our huge tree is towering over us in the winter cafe. We decorated it with lights but it was so big we didn’t have decorations for it, so we put a call out to all the children who visit us, asking them to make a decoration to hang on the tree in exchange for a gingerbread pig made by Charlotte. The children come in shyly, holding up their offerings and proudly hang them on the tree. I have to say this has been a lovely thing, very successful, and I’m sure a link back to Christmas past because it shows children are still the same really. Our tree now stands quietly laden with all sorts of beautiful homemade decorations – we are so grateful. It’s going to be a busy last week before Christmas as we prepare all our orders (well, Charlotte and Max will). We have nine new gilts that are ready to pop at any time and with four sows also going to farrow we are going to be full of piglets. We have already had 70 piglets born in the last few weeks from seven mothers – this is a good average for us. So, thank you to all of our lovely customers. We thank you for your support and lovely comments this first year, you make us feel very special. We are looking forward now to spring and moving the tipi outside again, to other exciting developments and to another breed of animal soon to join our farm. After Christmas we will re-open the cafe and farm shop on Saturday 22nd January. If you need meat in between give us a ring, if we can help we will. See you all on the other side!

CLOSURE

David Copp

In the 1960s traditional corks came under attack because some of them allowed the wine in some bottles to be ‘corked’. I was learning the trade at the time which included spending time serving wine in restaurants. It was common practice for the sommelier to open the bottle, take a sniff at it and pour a small amount into a glass for the customer to approve. Very occasionally a bad or infected cork would give off a musty or mouldy and unpleasant smell or flavour. The technical term trichloroanisole (TCA) need not bother us here other than to say it was very unpleasant, even though on most occasions it was very slight.

In 1964, Peter Wall, then director of South Australian winery Yalumba (started by the Smith family from Wareham in Dorset) became fed up with the number of tainted corks and commissioned a French company to develop an alternative closure. They came up with an aluminium cap, which has been widely used ever since and is now the closure of choice for most mass market wines across all styles and price points. They are generally called screw tops and consist of an aluminium cap lined with plastic,

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which integrates a metal skirt that hugs the top of the bottleneck, just like a traditional stopper’s foil. Their greatest advantage is that are very consistent and do not allow TCA to develop in the bottle. There is less oxygen interaction with wines in comparison to cork, and theoretically winemakers can reduce the amount of sulphur dioxide used as an antioxidant before bottling.

Because wines under screw cap reside in a relatively oxygen-free atmosphere, they’re believed to be longer lived. Long-term studies have shown very positive results, yet it remains a controversial topic within the wine industry because some oenologists argue that with limited oxygen contact, wines under screw cap don’t age at all. When in South Australia’s Clare Valley I had a conversation with Jeffrey Grosset, who makes really top-class white wines of very particular and delicate flavour and he was convinced that screw cap enclosed wines aged beautifully, just more slowly.

For most of us the real advantage of screw caps is that one doesn’t need gadgets and normally rather less muscle power. The most negative impact of screw caps is that they are made from from aluminium, most often produced from a strip-mined bauxite. Processing aluminium can be a dirty process, which has an environmental impact we could do without. Aluminium is non-biodegradable, and though it can be recycled, it’s suspected that most screw caps end up in the rubbish bin. Furthermore, their plastic liners, if not removed, can make recycling impossible.

The real advantage of using the best quality corks for distinctive, and often expensive wines, is that they allow the wine to breathe because their porous nature allows oxygen into the bottle, and other gases out. If a wine needs a long time to age – I am thinking of classy Burgundy and Claret, Rioja and Barolo (and I am sure the best Californian wines) it should be allowed small contact with the air. The tight seal on screw caps does not allow this.

For more expensive vintage wines you wish to keep and mature for ten or more years I would recommend natural corks that allow tiny amounts of air in and out. Most fine wine producers do not skimp on buying top quality corks because they know from experience what it can do for their wines.

But the truth is that there is much to say on both sides of the cork versus screw cap battle. My instinct is that cork is a remarkable natural substance; because of its cellular wall composition and structure and because it has elastic and compressible qualities which make it ideally suited to sealing wine bottles. A really good, wax-coated cork will provide a good seal on a wine bottle for 30 years or more, allowing the wine to develop and mature into something very special indeed. Moreover, taking the cork out of an old bottle of wine and decanting it has become a valued part of the tradition of wine. There is something special about uncorking an old bottle when with friends.