Spelt and rice flour Victoria Sponge

There really is nothing nicer when friends come to visit than a Victoria sponge. It might be traditional but it’s yummy none the less, and in this family at least one of the teens will eat it for breakfast if there are no brioches around too!

Ingredients:

175 gms olive oil spread

175 gms sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

100 gms spelt flour

75 gms rice flour

1 tsp baking powder

Strawberry jam to fill

1.       Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees fan, 190 degrees conventional

2.       Cream the fat and sugar together thoroughly in a large mixing bowl.

3.       Break three eggs into a small jug, add the vanilla essence and whisk until the mixture will pour easily.

4.       Mix the egg into the creamed sugar and fat a tiny bit at a time. This is important and the reason why I use a jug. If you add too much the mixture curdles. By using a jug you can dribble the egg mixture into the bowl as slowly as you want.

5.       Mix the flours and baking powder and fold gently into the mixture a little at a time. The trick here is to keep the mixture light and not destroy any of the bubbles that have formed.

6.       Line two 15cm sponge tins with baking parchment – I use pre-formed liners as it makes this bit less fiddly and divide the sponge mixture roughly equally between them.

7.       Place in the pre-heated oven and cook for 25 minutes until the tops are golden and the sponge bounces back if pressed gently on the top.

8.       Turn out of the tins and place on a rack to cool. Then sandwich together with liberal amounts of strawberry jam. 

Of course, the problem comes when you just can’t wait for the sponge to cool properly. Then you spread the jam, pop on the top and wait while the jam gently oozes down the sides of the sponge. It might not be WI perfect but it looks scrumptious.

Spelt and Kamut Loaf

On a snowy day like today what could be better than waves of fresh bread fragrance radiating from a hot oven? This is a spin on spelt bread as I’ve added kamut. It gives a slightly nuttier flavour and a golden glow to the cut loaf.

 

Ingredients:

300gms white spelt flour

250gms kamut flour

2 tsp Vitamin C powder

2 tsp dry yeast

1 tsp sugar

150 ml warm water to activate the yeast and a further 200 ml to mix

Pinch of salt

2 tbsp olive oil

1.       Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees fan, 225 degrees conventional.

2.       Activate the dry yeast. Add the yeast and sugar to 150ml warm water and cover. Leave for about fifteen minutes until it is frothy and then stir.

3.       Mix the flours, citric acid and salt in a large bowl. (Add quick yeast at this point if you are using that instead of dry yeast.)

4.       Add the yeast mixture and 200ml more of warm water. Mix and knead into a rough dough.

5.       Add 2 tbsps of olive oil. Incorporate this into the dough and keep kneading until the dough is smooth and elastic.

6.       Roll the dough into a ball, cover the bowl with a cloth and leave in a draft-free place for an hour or until it has doubled in volume.

7.       Punch back the dough, and knead again. This is the important knead. The dough should end up smooth and spongey. Be careful not to keep folding the dough during this knead as air will become trapped between the folds and create holes in the bread. If you do find yourself folding the dough make sure you knead it well afterwards to remove any trapped air.

8.       Grease a 1 pound baking tin.

9.       Mould the dough into the right shape for the tin and pop it in.

10.   Cover with a cloth and leave in a warm place for 30 minutes.

11.   Bake until golden, about 35-40 minutes, turn out  and allow to cool on a rack.

This will produce a good sized loaf that is perfect for sandwiches. The texture is more substantial than shop bought bread, but lighter than many wholewheat loves in spite of the fact that the kamut flour, which is almost half of the total is wholewheat.

Bacon, leek and mushroom quiche

It seemed to me it was about time we had another savoury here. And as I was off to writer's workshop where I had to take my own food, I thought what would be better than a quiche. 

Ingredients:

100gms mushrooms, sliced

1 leek (about 75gms) sliced

100g bacon

A little butter for frying

150gms olive oil based spread

200gms spelt flour

100gms einkorn flour

4 eggs

Splash of milk

50gms mature cheddar, coarsely grated

Ice cold water

Strawberry jam

1.      Preheat the oven to 200C (fan) or 220C conventional.

2.      Place a knob of butter in a small frying pan or skillet and melt over a medium heat.

3.      Slice the bacon into strips about half a centimetre wide and add to the pan. Start to fry, stirring intermittently to ensure the bacon strips don’t stick.

4.      Add the leeks and mushrooms a little at a time. They will reduce in volume as they cook and you want everything to fit in the pan snugly so that the vegetables sweat rather than fry.

5.      While this is cooking, break 4 eggs into a bowl and whisk together with a splash of milk.

6.      Once the bacon-veggies mix is cooked, remove the pan from the heat and set aside to cool a little.

7.      Now tackle the pastry base. Rub the fat into the flour with fingers until there is no loose flour or globs of spread left.

8.      Dribble in ice cold water and knead with your free hand until you have a soft pliable but non-sticky paste.

9.      Knead the dough into a ball and then flatten between your hands..

10.  Roll out on a floured surface - I use spelt flour for this - until it is large enough to cover a 25cm diameter quiche dish.

11.  Lay the dough over the dish and so that it is not stretched and trim around the edges. Set aside to rest for a few minutes.

12.  This is where the strawberry jam comes in! Roll out the left over dough and using pastry-cutters cut out a number of jam tart sized rounds. Continue gathering up left over dough, rolling out and cutting until you have used up as much of the dough as you can. After all, waste not, want not!

13.  Place the pastry round in a fairy cake tray and put a teaspoon of jam in each tart. Pop these in the over for ten to fifteen minutes until the pastry is a golden brown.

14.  Now have a short break while the tarts cook before assembling the quiche.

15.  Place the now cooled bacon and vegetable mix onto the pastry base in the quiche dish, being careful not to damage the soft pastry and to spread the filling out evenly.

16.  Give the egg a last little whisk and pour over the filling.

17.  Sprinkle grate cheese over the top.

18.  Pop in the oven and cook for about 30 minutes, until the pastry is pale gold and the filling has risen in a dome.

19.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

This quiche looks spectacular when it first comes out of the oven – a bit like a soufflé – but the centre sags a bit as it cools, which gives the surface a lovely textured look.  The filling itself is relatively thin, but it’s very rich and if it were thicker you wouldn’t be able to taste the nutty flavour the einkorn flour gives the pastry.

And to prove that I do get out of the kitchen occasionally and do writerly things. Here’s a shot of Virginia Wolf’s famous writing shed in the garden of Monk’s House in Rodmell, East Sussex. That writers workshop I mentioned was there, though in the village hall rather than the shed....