Food & Drink

Food & Drink Queen of the cakes...

Sadie Smith

Sadie Smith is an award winning cake designer and baker from Cake by Sadie Smith, Wimborne

‘Old School’ Cake

Take a trip down memory lane with my old school cake served on its own or with warm custard. School dinners conjure up all sorts of lovely memories from turkey dinosaurs and chips, fishfingers, turkey twizzlers, meat pie with lumpy mash potato. There were smiley faces, rice pudding and jam, semolina pudding, pink custard, tinned fruit with dream topping and– every –child’s favourite Old School Cake with sprinkles. Thankfully, school dinners have improved so much since I was at school and offer more than the array of beige food which I had at school, but ‘old school’ cake will remain a favourite with children and adults alike.

Ingredients: 285g margarine 285g caster Sugar 5 free range eggs 285g self-raising flour 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 285g icing sugar Water Sprinkles

Method: Preheat the oven to 170C Line a rectangular tin with baking paper Beat the margarine and caster sugar together until pale and fluffy Gradually add the eggs, one at a time, beating well between each one Gently fold in the flour until fully incorporated Stir in the vanilla extract Bake for approximately 30 minutes but ovens vary. To test, press your fingertip very gently into the top of the sponge, if it bounces back it is cooked, if it leaves an indent leave to bake for a few more minutes Allow to cool. To make the icing add water a little at a time to the icing sugar, until it is spreadable but not too runny Spread over the top of the cake and finish with sprinkles Once set, cut into squares.

Scary yummy-mummy chocolate lollies

By Lorraine Gibson

Frightfully busy this half-term? Here’s a simple and fun Hallowe’en recipe for yummymummy chocolate lollies that require no trick and are a cute treat for kids! Makes 12, but you can do as many as your little monsters can eat! Ingredients: 12 Vienna biscuits (shop bought, or make your own in minutes using plain flour, butter, icing sugar and vanilla essence and a 15 min bake in a medium oven) 2 bars of plain or milk cooking chocolate and 1 bar of white

Cooking...

with Martha Legg

Quick Supper Pasta

When I first moved in with my husband, we tried out lots of different recipes on each other. I have to say that Martin is a very good cook, unlike my previous husband who barely knew how to boil a kettle of water! Martin always laughs, as I used to make my ex-husband sandwiches every day before I went to work if he was home. I also always put his coffee filter machine on. I could tell how many cups of coffee he had, as he never used the same teaspoon twice and used to leave them lined up on the draining board!! The day I left him for good, I had cooked his dinner and then washed up before I walked out the door!! He was very much a meat and two veg kind of guy and didn’t like pasta apart from spaghetti bolognaise. His mother served it the first time I went there for a meal and it was very difficult to answer questions and look composed, when you are eating spaghetti!! This quick pasta supper is one of Martin’s meals that he taught me to cook. The main reason I have taken over making it, is that Martin lacks patience and never gets the bacon crispy enough! I can’t abide flabby bacon, so I always make it very crispy. Its so easy to put this meal together and only takes as long to make as the Tagliatelle takes to cook. It’s filling and relatively good for you, especially if you use low fat cream cheese. I often eat food cold, so if you cook too much, put it in your lunch box!! Ingredients: Lardons or bacon, cooked until they are very crispy (about 4 rashers of bacon) Tagliatelle – I use 7 ‘nests’ for two of us. 1 onion, finely chopped Handful of mushrooms chopped 2 or 3 slices of roasted peppers keep the oil with them if possible Cream cheese, about ½ a tub, more or less depending on taste, (you can use light cream cheese, if you want to feel healthy!!) Oil for frying

Method: Heat a frying pan and cook the lardons or chopped bacon, until they are really crispy While they are cooking, place the tagliatelle into boiling water and cook until al dente Add the onion to the frying pan and fry until soft. Add the mushrooms, and finally add the roasted peppers Hopefully, by now, the tagliatelle should be cooked. Drain and add to the frying pan. I usually turn the heat off at this point. Add the cream cheese and stir it into the tagliatelle mix, making sure that the pasta is well covered. Then serve.

Enford Farm Shop

for Hallowe’en hi-jinx!

cooking chocolate A pack of edible googly eyes

Equipment: Baking tray or sheet Baking parchment 12 lolly sticks

Method: Take (or make) the biscuits and line them up in a row on parchment paper on a board or baking tray. Melt a few squares of the white chocolate in a bowl. Place a lolly stick down the middle of each one by ‘gluing’ it on using a small amount of the melted white chocolate. Repeat until all biscuits have sticks attached. Chill in the fridge for about 10 mins to set. When set, melt the dark or milk chocolate in a bowl deep enough to dip the entire biscuit (on its stick) in. When ready, gently dip and place back on the paper and add a pair of googly eyes. When all are done, return to the fridge for about 15 mins to set. When set, melt the remaining white chocolate and zig-zag it thinly back and forth to create the ‘bandages’, avoiding the eyes where possible. Pop them back in the fridge to set and you’re done! Scarily easy, don’t you think?

Durweston DT11 0QW Home reared and locally produced meats, game, deli, fruit, veg, free range eggs and lots more. Follow us on Facebook for all our latest meat pack deals and what’s in fresh that week. Fresh 昀sh van in the car park Wednesdays 9.30am-2pm Half a pig approx £100 Chicken feeds etc available Open Wednesdays to Saturday 8.30am-4pm. Outside shop with self service for essentials 8am-8pm open daily 01258 450050

Producers getting a Taste for awards

Several Stour & Avon area producers are celebrating triumphs in this year’s Great Taste Awards. Winners were announced on September 21 and out of the 5,383 products worldwide to receive a Great Taste One, Two or Three-star accolade in the world’s foremost food and drink honours scheme, 497 are based in the South West. Woodlands Dairy in Higher Shaftesbury Rd, Blandford, won two stars for its Melbury Cheese – a semihard organic variety made from yoghurt with milk from the organic sheep farm. Dorchester-based Capreolus Fine Foods won a coveted Three-star award with their Venison and Pork Chorizo, a medium heat Dorset chorizo, handmade with wild venison, free-range pork and Spanish purple garlic. Coombe Farm Organics also bagged three stars for their leg of lamb on the bone, produced from grass-fed organic Lleyn sheep in Crewkerne. And the Book and Bucket Cheese Company, based at Manor Farm, Cranborne, won a trio of stars for their lovingly-crafted cheeses, including a Ricotta Salata made with sheep’s milk. The recipe featured is by B&B’s cheese-maker, Peter Morgan. For Peter and his team, these awards were a happy ending after a difficult year and a half. “We are thrilled to win three more Great Taste awards this year, to add to our five from last year,” he says. “These past 18 months have been incredibly tough but we have used that time to almost double our range of cheeses, helping out local farmers who had excess milk due to lockdowns and working with local chefs to create bespoke cheeses.” He added, “It has been amazing to see some of those new cheeses begin to win awards and to see that hard work pay off.” Other winners included Harry Street Meats of Stable Lodge, Sixpenny Handley, awarded a star for its freerange bronze Christmas Turkey, a 26-weeks-old, hand-plucked bird, hung for 10 day minimum and Meggy Moo’s Dairy, Park Farm, Shroton, awarded a star for its Meggy Moo’s Unhomogenised Whole Milk. The awards follow 86 days of socially-distanced and exacting judging where, regardless of branding or packaging, products were assessed on a level playing field, according to texture, appearance, composition and, of course, taste. Now the successful Dorset producers can display the distinctive Great Taste blackand-gold logo as a stamp of excellence on their awardwinning products and the Three-star winners will be judged again on October 17 to find the regional Golden Fork Trophy winners and the Great Taste Supreme Champion 2021.

Potter Pasta...

This dish takes just 15 minutes and is simple but delicious. You can also add some Pratchett or Hardy’s just before serving.

Ingredients (Serves two) 200g Book and Bucket Potter 4 rashers streaky bacon 1 clove of garlic, chopped Handful of button mushrooms, sliced 5 spring onions, sliced 1 tbsp butter a little oil Linguine (or any pasta)

Method Cook your pasta in salted water following packet instructions until done and when draining, reserve some of the pasta water. Pop the drained pasta back into its cooking pot. Whilst the pasta is cooking, fry off the streaky bacon in a pan with a little oil so that the bacon is crisp. Keep it on a plate for later. In the same bacony pan, in that lovely bacon fat, add the butter and the mushrooms. Once frying and the mushrooms beginning to change colour, add the garlic and spring onions. Season well with pepper and salt if needed (although the bacon will have already added saltiness). Once the mushrooms have turned a lovely, golden brown, cut up the crispy bacon and add to the pan and then add in the Potter and stir in so that it melts. Keep this mixture on a low heat until the pasta is ready. Put the pot with the pasta back onto a gentle heat and

by Peter Morgan of Book and Bucket Cheese Co.

POTTER PASTA

Picture: HEATHER BROWN

add in a little of the pasta water followed by the cheesy Potter sauce and mix well until the pasta is glossy with sauce. You can add more pasta water if you need to until you get the desired sauce consistency. Serve and enjoy! n Shop for ingredients at thebookandbucketcheese company.co.uk