And proof that the beloved tomato tart works just as well with normal-sized tomatoes

Not pictured: Toad in the hole. Mmm.

I wasn’t entirely sure, but having seen Hugh F-W make this bread on TV, I followed the recipe pretty exactly, though the sachets of yeast I had were only 7 grams, not the 10g that the recipe states.
After a false start, which was followed by me dashing out to buy salt, it all came together quite well.

And a lovely summer-y supper resulted. We didn’t wait for the loaves to cool. At the time of writing, it’s been slicing nicely for lunches and the Penguin took some for his own lunch preparations rather than buying bread from a shop. I rather fear that this may have to become a weekly activity….

This recipe was taken straight from the egg-box lid that lives in the Family Recipe Folder. Interestingly, it turns out that I copied it into my own recipe book when I first went to university. Apparently I considered it vital to my university career. Five years later, the Penguin wanted fruitcake, so I dug out the recipe.


I didn’t make the almond paste from scratch though…. I had 80% of a packet of marzipan to use up. A full packet would be better. But the icing was loooovely (extra icing sugar was needed to get it to the right consistency though).
And how else would a Christmas cake for a penguin be decorated? Turns out that it’s very difficult to buy penguin Christmas cake decorations. But a Penguin Bowling kit makes all the difference.

This is all that’s left:

1 butternut squash, chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed
(175ml white wine)
1 tin butterbeans, drained
400ml vegetable stock
2tbsp tomato puree

For the dumplings:
200g self- raising flour
100g vegetable suet
2tsp dried mixed herbs
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
5-8tbsp cold water

Chop the butternut squash and swede and steam until soft.
Make the dumplings:
Place the flour in a mixing bowl.
Grate the cold butter coarsely into the flour.

Preheat your oven to 190°C/375°F/gas 5
Season with salt, pepper. herbs.
Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Add a splash enough cold water to bind it into dough.
Divide the dough into eight and roll into round dumplings.
Heat the oven to 180C.
Place the vegetables into a casserole dish.
Add the butter beans, tomato puree, garlic and enough vegetable stock to cover the vegetables (400ml).
Stir well, bring to the boil on the hob, then cover and cook in the oven for 30 minutes.
Carefully float the dumplings on the surface, then cook uncovered for 20 minutes until the dumplings are crispy and fluffy.

Mmmmmm.

Peel the sausages/crush up the veggie hotdogs. Season.
Roll out the puff pastry into a large rectangle, then divide this in half, longways.
Place sausage meat along the middle of the pastry, then roll up, sticking with beaten egg.
Brush with beaten egg.
Cut into sections and bake for around 20 minutes until golden brown. The penguin likes larger sausage rolls (pictured), I went for mini ones.

Slice the potatoes, drizzle with olive oil and bake for 30-40 minutes.

1 very large butternut squash
2 packets fresh spinach
1.5 pints cheese sauce
1 packet fresh lasagna (contained 6 sheets, I believe)

Peel the squash, chop into smallish pieces and microwave-steam for 8 minutes. I did this in two batches as I couldn’t fit all the squash into my steamer.

Mash the steamed squash with 100 ml milk, a pinch of cinnamon, some nutmeg and a little pepper.

Cook the spinach.

Make 1.5 pints sauce (3oz flour, 3oz butter, 1.5 pints milk, cheeeeeese).

Construct the lasagne, layering sauce, pasta, squash, spinach in a baking dish. Repeat, cover the top layer of pasta with sauce, sprinkle with grated cheese and bake for around 30 minutes in a 200C oven.

I had 3 sheets of pasta, some squash and a tiny bit of spinach left over, so made a repeat lasagne in a smaller oval dish with 1/2 pint of sauce.

150g flour
90g brown sugar
100g butter (room temperature. I left my cubes of butter to warm up whilst eating first course)
~6 dessert apples
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 handful raisins
cinnamon

Cut the butter into small cubes.
Chop the apples and place in a pan over a low heat with 1 tbsp water and 1 tbsp sugar for 5-10 minutes until soft.
Mix together the sugar and flour.
Rub the butter into the sugar/flour mixture.
Place the apples in a baking dish (my smallish oval one was perfect), add raisins and cinnamon and stir.
Add the topping (I had a fair amount left over).
Bake at 190C for 20 minutes.

Adapted from the BBC Good Food Best Ever Brownie Recipe.

185g butter/margarine
100g dark chocolate
185g milk chocolate
85g plain flour
3 large eggs
275g granulated sugar

Place the butter in a medium bowl with 100g dark chocolate and 85g milk chocolate broken into small pieces. Microwave for 2 minutes on High. Leave to cool to room temperature (or as near as you have time for).

Preheat the oven to Fan 160C / 180C / Gas 4. Line a roasting tin with tin foil or non-stick baking parchment.

Place the flour in a medium-sized bowl. Sieve if you’re feeling virtuous and unhurried.

Chop the remaining 100g milk chocolate into small pieces, around 1 cm square.

Whisk the eggs and sugar until thick and creamy “like a milkshake”, which will take 3-8 minutes.

Pour the cooled chocolate mixture over the eggs and fold together gently with a rubber spatula in a figure of eight motion. Don’t knock out the air you’ve just whisked in.

Sift the flour over the mixture and fold this in too.

Stir in the chunks of chocolate, then pour into the tin.

Bake for 25 minutes. If the brownie wobbles in the middle, give it a further 5 minutes until the crust is shiny and papery, and the sides are beginning to come away from the tin.

Leave in the tin until completely cool, then cut into squares.

1 pkt puff pastry
1/2 bag frozen spinach
2 potatoes
1 pkt feta
About 1/8 pot of Philadelphia
Nutmeg
Salt and pepper
Olive oil

Microwave the slit potatoes for 3 1/2 mins, turn, and microwave for a further 3 1/2 minutes. Chop into small pieces.
Defrost the spinach in a pan. Add the Philadelphia and chopped feta.
Stir in the nutmeg and season to taste.
Grease the baking dish with olive oil.
Roll out 2/3 of the pastry and add the filling. Cover with the remaining 1/3 of the pastry, lightly stroke with olive oil and bake at 200C for about 30 minutes.

Make the caramel
Caramel seems to be unbuyable at present, but the method of boiling for 3 1/2 hours was a little too much effort. So we tries using the oven instead, which worked very well.
Preheat the oven to 220C.
Pour the condensed milk into a glass pie plate or shallow baking dish (I used a tall souffle one).
Set the dish in a roasting pan and add hot water until it comes halfway up the side of the dish.
Cover the dish tightly with foil and bake for 1 to 1 1/4 hours. Check during baking and add more water if needed.
Remove and leave to cool.
Whisk until smooth.

Make the biscuit base
1 packet hobnobs (350g)
150g butter

Melt the butter and add the crushed biscuits.
Press into a flan dish and refrigerate.

Spread caramel over the biscuit base.
Slice the bananas and spread over the caramel.
Whip the cream, adding 1 tsp crushed instant coffee. Spread over the bananas.
Sprinkled with a little more powdered coffee.

Make the mini-pies in the same way in silicone muffin cases or ramekins.

Addendum
Variations from 2 years ago, to avoid their being lost.
Banoffee Cake
I made 2 sandwich sponge cakes and sliced each in half horizontally. I then prepared some whipped cream with coffee and layered toffee, bananas, and cream on each slice. Mmm.

Banoffee-fudge cupcakes
I also made sponge cupcakes, with the addition of small chopped up chunks of fudge. I think another time I’ll try flouring them before mixing them into the batter, or use a butter-based cake recipe, as they sank to the bottom of my cupcake liners (and melted and tasted delicious). I then topped each cupcake with toffee, a slice of banana and piped on a swirl of coffee-whipped cream.
Decadence in a bite!

And my comment from back then bears repeating:
Of course the nicest part is that you can just put your spoon into the tin of toffee and eat up a spoonful – all by itself!