baking – Food That We Make

Blackberry and Apple Jam

hannahnicklin — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 13:00:20 +0000

One of my strongest memories of what ‘home’ is, it the heat of a kitchen, the sound of the Archers omnibus, and the smell of pastry baking and jam making. My mum’s responsible for all of my (what she calls) ‘survival skills’ cooking; the basic, good, hearty stuff you can do with ingredients that come straight off the land. Something about bringing kids up in the 80s, I think, she’s always showing me how to bake, grow, and preserve native things. So there was something of a ‘homecoming’ about making my very first jam of my own. My favourite dessert at the moment is soya natural yoghurt with a tsp of my mum’s jam stirred in, and when I ran out of that, I thought ‘why not make my own’. So here it is. My First Jam. Based on a recipe from

Prep Time: 30 minutes | Cook Time: 1 hour cooling | Servings: 1.5kg

Nutritional Info: Per tablespoon: 42kcals, no fat (no saturated), 0.1g protein, 11.2g carbs, 11.2g sugar, trace salt

Ingredients: (there’s also ingredients for strawberry jam pictured, which I cooked just after the blackberry and apple one. Sure you can work out which fruit belongs where)

Put the blackberries and apples into a large pan with the lemon juice and 100ml water. Place over a medium heat and simmer gently for 10-15 minutes, until tender and reduced. Basically they’ll suddenly be FULL OF JUICE around 8 minutes in, you have to wait for that to happen, and then let it reduce for 5-10.

Put a plate into the freezer to chill for later, this is how you’ll test whether or not it’s at setting point. Add the jam sugar to the pan and cook, stirring to dissolve. Bring to the boil and boil rapidly for 5 minutes.

Remove from the heat. Put a teaspoonful of jam onto a chilled saucer for 1 minute. Drag your finger lightly over the jam. If it wrinkles, it has reached setting point; if it doesn’t, boil for a couple more minutes, then turn off the heat and try again with another chilled saucer. Set aside to cool for 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to its lowest setting. You now have to sterilise the jars and lids that you’re going to be using, clean and upturn them – lids off – in very hot soapy water.

Put in them in the oven for at least 15 minutes – on a heat which leaves the glass just ok to handle, pretty much the lowest setting works fine.

Stir the jam, when cool-ish (I only left it about half an hour and it was fine) then ladle into each jar, place a wax circle (wax side down) on top to help seal the jam from any stray bacteria, seal tightly, and label. Ready to eat when cool!

Hannah’s Great Grandma’s Mince Pies

hannahnicklin — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 14:15:00 +0000

The same recipe as most mince pies, I expect, but the first time I’ve tried them, so I emailed my mum to get the recipe she has often sworn by and tried to convince me is really simple. GUESS WHAT? It’s really simple.

Words by my mum (@LANicklin) pictures by me (but lacking in pictures during the messy stages because I have a new phone which I’m keen to avoid covering in proto-pastry). Oh and I don’t have pastry cutters, so they look a bit weird (but still taste brilliant).

INGREDIENTS:

The general tip is to keep everything cool including your hands and keep the fat in the fridge, don’t microwave it to soften it. Also handle it as little as possible, the more times you roll it out the heavier it gets.

Rub the fat into the flour with a pinch of salt until it looks like breadcrumbs or crumble mix. Add enough cold water to bind it into a soft but not sticky ball.

It is quite good to rest it by putting it in the fridge for a little while (although not essential).

(Hannah’s note: my mum doesn’t mention here that she often runs her hands under the cold tap for ages to make them cold too. Any subsequent shivering swiftly solved by HOT MINCE PIE)

Flour the work surface and the rolling pin and roll it out to the thickness you require, short sharp strokes with rolling pin, lifting it and turning it 45 degrees and flouring under it if it seems to be sticking. If you get hot doing this then next time put a bit more water in to make the pastry softer.

Cut circles using two pastry cutters, a bigger one for the base and smaller one for the top.

Put the base in the tin and just over half fill with mincemeat allowing for expansion and preventing leaks.

Wet the top circle of pastry with water then put the lid on pressing the edge down so that it seals.

Snip the lid once or twice with scissors to let steam out. Glaze the top with milk or edges or a mix of both. It is quite nice to sprinkle brown sugar on top to make the glaze crunchy.

Bake in a hot oven( 180-200 degrees) until they are golden brown. Cool on a tray.

Left over pastry can be kept in the fridge. Also if you have pastry left over you can line a saucer, put mincemeat in and decorate with two strips of pastry twisted like a ribbon and stuck down on the edges with water.

You can use brown flour or white once you know how the pastry should feel as you may need more water.

My grandma always used lard, but margarine butter or a mix of both is just fine, they just affect the richness. You can also add a bit of sugar to the pastry mix as long as you keep to half fat to flour proportion.

Et voila!

Recipe! Walnut and Stilton tart.

hannahnicklin — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 22:17:00 +0000

Pastry things are complicated, right? Take TIME and stuff, right? Well, I thought so. This is one of the simplest, quickest of the tasty veggie things I’ve yet tried. And it’s made of PASTRY, yo. MIND BLOWN.

Serves 2-3

Ingredients:

PICTURE INSTRUCTIONS:

Slice the onions as thin as you can be bothered

Fry gently in some oil until soft, about 10 minutes

Splash in some balsamic vinegar, not very much, I used two capfuls, and leave on a gentle heat to caramelise (no stirring, apparently)

Crumble the Stilton and bash the walnuts a bit

When the onions are nice and sweet, take them off the heat to cool. Roll out the pastry to cover a shallow tin, I lined mine with baking paper because Tim told me to. Then add onions, Stilton and top with the walnuts.

Bake at 200’c for 15-20 minutes. IT REALLY IS THAT EASY. Use the baking time to prep the garlic bread (smoosh together lots of crushed garlic, butter, chopped parsley and a sploosh of oil [one below a splash], slice into the part baked bread and spread garlic butter, bake usually for around 8-10 mins)

Serve with awesome salad and awesomeness.

OM. NOM.

(recipe from a little 100 veggie recipes good housekeeping book. I recommend them, simple with good pictures)