#home notes

Other Welsh Dishes

Carraway Cakes (Huish Cakes).

Beat 2 oz. margarine with 4 oz. castor sugar. Add 2 yolks of eggs, mixing well. Stir in 2 oz. each ground rice and flour. 

When all is thoroughly blended, sprinkle with carraway seeds, then stir in stiffly whisked whites of eggs. Put into a greased, fairly shallow baking tin and bake in moderate over until firm to the touch--about 30 to 40 minutes. (Self-raising flour makes a bigger cake.)

Welsh Pancakes.

Make a pancake batter and cook in the usual way. Instead of flavouring with lemon, sprinkle cleaned currants over each pancake, whilst the first side is browning. Toss or turn the pancake and cook the other side, and roll up as usual, if liked--or stack one on top of the other with a sprinkling of brown sugar between each layer. Cut in wedges to serve. 

Welsh Rarebit.

This can be a simple dish of buttered toast spread with thin slices of Cheddar cheese--or spread with Caerphilly cheese--and toasted under a hot grill. Or you can put altogether into a saucepan: 1 oz. butter or margarine, 1 eggspoonful made mustard, 3 to 4 oz. grated cheese and 2 tablespoonsful beer, and heat gently until smooth. 

Next, season to taste with pepper and salt, then spread over slices of toast and brown until grill. (To make this go further, you can add a dessertspoonful (level) flour and a little extra beer or milk.)

Cheese Pudding.

Toast and butter some thin slices of bread and place in the bottom of a fireproof shallow dish. Cover with thin slices of cheese and dredge with pepper and salt. Fill up the dish with alternate slices of toast and cheese, ending with cheese. Pour in milk (roughly a pint) to soften and soak in, and cover with cheese and baked breadcrumbs. Cook in moderate oven for 20-25 minutes or until well done. 

1.27.2019 | day 27 - notes: class vs home

Right: class (1.11.2019)

Left: home (1.14.2019)

1 lb. chestnuts

1 very small shallot

1 1/2 pints white stock

1 dessertspoonful conflour or flour

1/2 pint milk

1 oz. butter or margarine

1 dessertspoonful finely chopped celery tops

pepper and salt

Make a slit in the shall of each chestnut and cook in boiling water for half an hour. Remove shells and skin. Chop chestnuts fairly coarsely, then put them in a saucepan with the chopped shallot and the heated stock.

Cover pan and simmer gently until nuts are quite soft, then put contents of pan through sieve. Return puree to saucepan and add thickening agent blended with milk. Then drop in fat and cook and stir until soup boils. Adjust seasoning to taste and continue cooking for about ten minutes. Sprinkle with chopped celery tops or parsley and serve. 

Accompaniments--chipped potatoes, or a bowl of mixed diced vegetables. 

Sweet to follow--steamed sponge pudding with a jam or lemon curd sauce spread over the top.

Chocolate Nut Cake

8 ozs. self-raising flour

4 1/2 ozs. sugar

4 ozs. margarine

1 oz. cocoa

pinch salt

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoonful vanilla essence

1 oz. desiccated coconut

2 ozs. chopped walnuts

milk, as required

1 oz. sliced or chopped blanched almonds

Sift flour, cocoa and salt together. Cream sugar and fat together until soft and fluffy. Stir in well-beaten eggs gradually. When mixture is smoothly blended, stir in sifted dry ingredients without actually beating. Add just sufficient milk to make a soft dropping consistency, then sprinkle in coconut and chopped walnuts. Put mixture into oblong loaf tin (greased and lined) and sprinkle with sliced or chopped almonds. Bake in moderate oven for first half an hour, then reduce heat a little for remainder of cooking time--about 1 1/4 hours in all, or until firm to the touch in the middle. 

Victoria Fancies

6 ozs. self-raising flour

3 ozs. margarine

3 ozs. castor sugar

2 eggs (or 1 egg and 1/2 teaspoonful golden raising powder)

few drops vanilla essence

little milk

decorations (coconut, chopped walnuts, jam, glacé cherries, walnut halves)

Sift flour. Cream fat thoroughly, add sugar and beat together until light. Add well-beaten eggs gradually with flavouring essence. Stir in flour without beating, adding just sufficient milk to make a dropping consistency. Pour into grased and lined oblong sandwich tin. Bake in moderate oven for about 25-30 minutes, depending on depth of tin. Cool on wire tray, then cut into squares. 

Brush each cake with warmed seedless jam. Coat some with chopped walnuts on four sides, leaving top with jam only, in centre of which place half walnut. Others can be coated with desiccated coconut on all sides and decorated with half glacé cherry on top.

If liked, before decorating, split cake and sandwich together with jam.

Russian Slices

6 ozs. plain flour

1 1/2 teaspoonsful baking powder

pinch salt

4 ozs. margarine

4 ozs. castor sugar

2 eggs

grated rind of orange or lemon, as preferred

little milk

colouring

apricot jam

few drops rum essence

Sift flour, baking powder, and salt. Cream margarine and sugar together until light. Separate yolks from whites of eggs. Stir yolks into creamed fat and sugar together with flavouring and again beat well. Stir in sifted dry ingredients alternately with a little milk to make a smooth mixture. Whisk egg whites until stiff, then stir into mixture. 

Divide and tint one half with cochineal. Pour mixtures into two separate square greased and floured sandwich tins. Bake in moderately hot oven for 20-30 minutes or until nicely risen and firm to the touch. Cool on wire tray. 

When cold, cut two slices to fit inside an oblong bread tin. Put one slice at the bottom of the tin, first spreading the top surface of the cake with jam. 

Break up the cakes, of different colours--not too small--and put them on top of the cake-lining in tim, until almost full. Put about 2 tablespoonsful jam into a saucepan and make warm and liquid. Flavour with rum essence to taste. Pour sufficient jam over the cake pieces to moisten and bind them together, without making them too moist. Jam one surface of remaining slice of cake and press this down on top of cake mixture in tin, flattening evenly. Leave for an hour or two, then turn out. Dust cake top with powdered sugar and cut it down into slices. 

Damson Coconut Pudding

3 oz. margarine

2 oz. Dessicated Coconut

1 bottle or can Damsons

8 oz. Flour

2 level teasps. Bird’s Baking Powder

1/2-level teasp. Salt

Milk or water to mix

Sift flour, salt and baking powder. Rub in margarine, add coconut, then add enough water to make an elastic dough. Roll out, use two-thirds of the dough to line a 2-pint well-greased pudding basin. Fill with damsons, adding 2 to 3 tablespoons sugar and a little juice. 

Roll out remainder of dough to size of the basin top, moisten edges with milk or water and use to over the pudding. Place greased paper over pudding and steam 1 1/2 hours. Turn out and serve hot with rich, creamy Bird’s Custard.

Cabbage and Sausage Soup

1 medium-sized cabbage

3 ozs. fat bacon

1 tablespoonful flour

stock or water as required

1 lb. sausages

2 or 3 cloves

pepper and salt

Wash and shred the cabbage. Snip the bacon into strips and fry in pan until fat runs freely. Lift out bacon pieces with draining slice and set on one side. Now fry the shredded cabbage until soft but uncoloured. (If liked, a small onion can be fried with the cabbage.) 

Sprinkle in the flour, cloves, mixing well. Stir and cook until the flour darkens. Add boiling stock (from bacon bones or bacon rinds) or water, to cover well. Add bacon pieces and adjust seasoning to taste. Cover pan and cook for half an hour. Meanwhile, fry sausages until browned, then cut each in three and add to soup. Cook at simmering pace for a further half an hour before serving. 

Accompaniments-- crusty rolls or toast fingers.

Sweet to follow--apple charlotte with custard. 

Bird’s Custard Banana Candles

4 bananas

1 pint of Bird’s Custard

Glacé cherries

8 squares of sponge cake

1 Bird’s Jelly

First, choose 8 saucers or fruit dishes as near as possible to candlestick shapes... the ones with handles are perfect.

Then make up Bird’s Jelly using 3/4-pint water. Place a sponge square on each saucer and spoon jelly over it. Leave to set.

Fix half a banana in each sponge. Prepare 1 pint Bird’s Custard, cool slightly and pour over each sponge, round the banana. See how smooth and creamy the custard is, and just taste its delicate flavour.

Place a piece of cherry on top of each banana for the ‘flame’... and there’s a sweet to brighten any party.

Cook four breakfastcups mixed chopped vegetables (onions, potatoes, carrots, celery, a piece of swede, one or two shredded Brussels sprouts, small parsnip and small green pepper, if possible) in water to covuer until tender.

Melt a tablespoonful margarine in a small saucepan and stir in a heaped tablespoonful flour to make a roux. 

Cook for a minute or two, and then add gradually 1/4 pint milk, then liquor from cooked vegetables; stir and cook all the time until sauce is smooth and creamy. Season well with pepper and salt, adding any of the following:

1 tablespoonful chopped parsley

1 small tin baked beans in tomato sauce (or spaghetti in tomato sauce)

1 breakfastcupful of very roughly chopped and skinned raw tomatoes

Make piping hot and pour over cooked vegetables; then serve with golden brown toast.