Jack's Mum's Library Book Marmalade Cake

Yep, that's the recipe for today, folks!  (Said she, sounding like the Jimmy Young radio show - which takes me back.  You young folks won't recognise the reference there, so skip straight over it and don't worry a bit).

First, though, let's talk you through the end of last week.

I left you at the Keema Mutter in all its gorgeousness.

We did indeed have the shop-bought pie complete with garden veg., and very nice it was too.

Next came the Bacon & Leek Pasta, which I can't seem to find featured on the blog here.  I feel sure I must have, because it's one of those recipes you fall back upon when nothing else is coming to mind, yet you need a quick and easy dinner.  Do tell if you know it's here somewhere!  (All of which tells me, it's about time I did an index of recipes!).

Saturday's special feature was the Nasi Goreng of much deliciousness.  For some reason, I couldn't fancy the chicken in it - and donated all of mine to hubby (who wasn't arguing!).  I couldn't get enough of the prawns, mind you, so maybe I was just having a seafood day.

As before, the flavour instantly woke up memories of eating it in more authentic situations in the past, so I know I'd got it about as right as my memory will allow.

There was even a bowlful of it left for lunch the next day, which I ate with a dollop of mango chutney beside.  I swear, the flavours were even better the following day - which makes me wonder if perhaps I shouldn't make it a day in advance in future!

Now Sunday's dinner all fell apart, after we got fed up being indoors and went out for a drive around the Blackmore Vale.  It truly is beautiful out there.  We found Hambledon Hill - the site of a Neolithic (Iron Age) Hill Fort - which is pretty darned awesome when viewed from the road and considerably below the rise of the hill.

We stopped off at a Supermarket on the way home and bought some salad and a couple of bags of Scampi in breadcrumbs.  As an easy dinner you can't really beat it.  Just add lemon wedges and you're away.  A scrummy end to a lovely day.

Now then, I must explain about Jack's Mum's Library Book Marmalade Cake.

On Thursday, we had a visit from my lovely friend Jenny Chubb.  Jenny and I go back to the "old days" of working at Hampton Court Palace, before it was taken over by Historic Royal Palaces and before they became a charity.  In the "old days", the Palace was run by a handful of managers, rather than the huge organisation that runs it (and the other unoccupied Royal Palaces) today.

However, in those days, Jenny and I worked in the same office - which got a tad confusing, being both named Jenny.  Because Jenny was there before I got there, she became Jenny 1 and I became Jenny 2 - which worked.  We would enjoy some deep discussions on theology, belief and psychology, interspersed with lots of silliness and quite a bit of giggling.  So much so, we were quite often chastised by the Palace Director, who worked two offices down the hall, for making too much noise.  Good times!

All this was around 20-odd years ago.  I worked at the Palace for 9 years, eventually leaving there before Jenny did.  We have seen each other briefly over the ensuing years but have mostly kept in touch via birthday cards and latterly email and Facebook.  So, when I heard she would be popping in, I just had to make her a cake.  After all, you can't write a food blog and another blog column in your local newspaper and claim "I haven't anything in the cupboard!".


Now, by coincidence, I'd just been having a discussion via Twitter with @JackKnightCooks about his family cook books that have been handed down to him.  In one of these tomes was the recipe for his Mum's Marmalade Cake which she, in turn, had found the recipe for in the back of a library book.  Successive members of his family have since made the cake and it forms part of his childhood.  He writes about it on his blog The Knight of the Round Table and you'd undoubtedly find it interesting to read, so why not look him up?

I sat down to make the cake and, having got half-way through discovered that the jar of marmalade that I remembered being in the cupboard wasn't there any more!  However, there was a jar of Rose's Lemon & Lime marmalade which got subbed pretty darned quick.  To boost the lemony flavour, I also included the zest from a lemon - as I felt the orange zest wouldn't do a great deal without any orange marmalade to boost it.  I then crossed my fingers firmly and put it in the oven.


The cake that came out was completely gorgeous.  Buttery, fruity and with a close crumb yet it was light and airy with it.  The top baked to a lovely brown finish and the sugar that I'd sprinkled over helped with a welcome crunch.  Perfect with a cup of tea, it also served to make Jenny feel a little bit special - which was nice!


I've detailed the recipe below, not because I want to claim it as mine, but because it differs somewhat from Jack's recipe and it's always worth keeping a recipe that works!

JACK’S MUM’S LIBRARY BOOK MARMALADE CAKE

Ingredients :

225g plain flour
pinch of salt
3 teaspoons baking powder
110g butter
50g caster sugar
finely grated zest of 1 orange

finely grated zest of 1 lemon
2 eggs beaten
3 tablespoons lemon & lime marmalade

3 tablespoons milk.

Method :

1.  Preheat the oven to gas 4, 180c, 160c fan. Grease and line a 900g/2lb loaf tin, or use a loaf tin liner.

2.  Sift the flour, salt and baking powder into a bowl.  Rub in the butter or use a food processor to do it for you, as I did.

3.  Add the sugar and rind and stir to combine.

4.  Mix in the beaten eggs, marmalade and milk, to a soft batter.

5.  Pour into the tin, and bake for 1 hour and fifteen minutes to 1 hour and thirty minutes on the centre shelf. 

6.  Leave in the tin for fifteen minutes and turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

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A little bit of a lamby week, this week! Meal plan w/b 4.10.11

As ever, before I get onto this week (which has turned out to be a little bit lamby), let me just tell you about last Sunday's dinner.  Well, it was very exciting, you see!

I had bought a piece of roasting bacon (as opposed to a rasher of bacon, which wouldn't roast at all well) which I put into the slow cooker with some lovely stock vegetables and a covering of water.  Some 4-5 hours later, it was beautifully tender, sweet and juicy.  Now you may remember that I was hedging my bets where the accompanying vegetables were concerned, owing to the weather.  Ultimately, we went with a seasonal compromise.  We had some new potatoes in the cupboard and so had these steamed with ... drum roll ... green beans and brussels sprouts ... from the garden!  Ta daaaa!  (Oh, and some carrots and swede from the supermarket).  Match that lot up with a lovely parsley sauce made with fresh parsley and you've got a very successful Sunday dinner.

I was so excited to be eating our first brussels sprouts!  They were gorgeous, because they're so new - just babies really - they hadn't grown into those big old hoary sprouts that you sometimes find in the supermarket.  They were crisp from being just picked, mild and crunchy.  Now that sort of excitement is why so many people grow their own veg., I'm sure of it.

We're hoping that the Romanescu cauliflowers come to something too - but they're looking a bit random at the moment.  Not sure what they're supposed to look like at this stage - does anybody know?

I won't worry if all we get are these little fellows - I'm sure they still taste nice, even if they're not quite what they're supposed to be!


So, that excitement over, let's turn our attention to what you might find appearing in Rhubarb & Ginger this week.

Tues : Pizza all round

Weds : Keema Mutter, Vegetable Curry & white rice

Thurs : Shop-bought steak & kidney pie with home grown veg.

Fri : Bacon & Leek Pasta

Sat : Nasi Goreng

Sun : Lamb & boulangere potatoes, home grown veg.

Mon : Tortellini in sauce, with garlic bread.

Hubby and I didn't get to have anything special on Tuesday, because I had an appointment right at the time I should have been cooking.  Hence we opted for the easy avenue and hubby took care of dinner, which was pizza-shaped.  Mind you, I was pleased to find a "sensibly sized" (i.e. smaller than an entire dinner plate) pizza in the supermarket.  I find these gigantic pizzas that overflow your plate just too much food.  Hubby always took care of the leftovers for breakfast the following day, but that's not recommended practice on a regular basis.

Now, Wednesday's dinner I was really looking forward to making.  I'd found a recipe for Keema Mutter (which translates as lamb mince with peas) which looked not only easy to make, but really tasty.  I intended to serve it just with white rice, but then had a bright idea.  Looking at the recipe, I thought that it sounded like it could be a bit lively in the chilli department - in which case, we'd probably (well, those of us who don't go by the nickname of ChilliBob, that is) be requiring something to balance that with.  So I decided to make a plain old vegetable curry, which I hoped would do that job, along with the white rice.

I won't witter on about it now, as I've promised it its own blog posting - it was that good.  If you like curries, make sure to come back and take a look!

Hubby's in charge of dinner on Thursday evening, when we're indulging in a shop-bought Steak & Kidney pie, for ease.  Fingers crossed, we'll be able to have some more of those home-grown veggies with the pie!

We had an unexpected visitor today (Thursday), in that my lovely friend and ex-colleague Jenny (yes, another Jenny!) was in the area and popped in for a cuppa and to say hello.  Well, I couldn't let her go away without a bite of something - so made Jack Knight's Mum's Library Book Marmalade Cake.

Again, this was such an unbridled success that I shall be blogging the results.  However, if you're curious about the recipe, why not go along to Jack's Blog and see!

We've an extra mouth to feed on Friday, as one of son & heir's friends from school will be in for dinner that day.  They are working on a homework project to build a mini moonbuggy (in my day, it was a papier mache volcano - how times have changed!) so will be consulting with hubby over the electronics for same.

It's just as well, therefore, that I was already planning a simple dish like Bacon & Leek Pasta.  The friend is notoriously difficult to feed (his Mum sent a message that "he only likes sausages"), but I'm hoping that the extreme yumminess of this pasta dish will win him over.  It's bacon - what could go wrong?  Everyone likes bacon!

I've had a sudden fancy for Nasi Goreng.  It's funny how it happens like that.  The last sudden fancy I had, was for "something in a cheese sauce" - and so the Cauliflower Cheese happened.

I've loved Nasi Goreng for as long as I've known about it, I think.  I suspect that my earliest memories of it are when my parents would buy it in huge tins from the NAAFI shop in Germany (when my Dad was stationed there with the Army).  We'd have it for tea - I suspect it was just a simple heating up job, probably in a frying pan, and I absolutely loved it.  I wonder if you can get it nowadays?  Considering that was around forty-mumble years ago, I doubt it!

Sunday's Lamb & boulangere potatoes is another new dish.  I love lamb, but it's just that bit too pricey to buy anything other than mince at the moment.  However, lamb mince is better than no lamb at all, so it's just a matter of working out different ways of cooking it.

I made a very successful dish of Boulangere potatoes in the recent past and considering that the potatoes that go on the top of a hot pot are along those lines, I figured that if I made some lovely savoury lamb mince and topped it with boulangere-style potatoes, it might work.  I'll let you know - but I can tell you that just the idea of it is making my tummy rumble, right now!

So that brings us to Monday, when hubby is back in charge in the kitchen and has decided to be brave and definitely try the ole filled pasta.  He's not had a very good time with filled pasta in the past, but on my recommendation (I sometimes have some for lunch) on the basis that as time has gone by the quality has improved, said he would give it a go.

This was on a menu plan previously, but he swerved it by enticing me with a Chinese Takeaway - always a good avoidance technique - so we'll see whether we make it this time!  I'm quite looking forward to it, even if it is shop bought.  Hey - it'll give me a night off - and after three nights of cooking, that will be very welcome.

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