In my quest to downsize my favourite recipes today I have downsized an old recipe for what was called Ten Cup Cookies. They were given that name because they were composed with 10 (1 cup in size) ingredients.
Butter, creamy peanut butter, sugar, brown sugar, flour, chocolate chips, quick cooking oats, shredded sweetened coconut, chopped pecans and raisins. Ten simple ingredients. Ingredients most of us have on hand most of the time.
Oh yes, there are a few other things that you will need to put into a cookie to make it palatable as well. Soda, baking powder, salt, vanilla and eggs. (In the original recipe 2 large eggs, 1 tsp soda and 1/2 tsp of baking powder.
Needless to say the original recipe made a LOT of cookies. Seven dozen to be precise. We do not need that many cookies in this house. No, no, no. They have the awful habit of getting into my mouth and I just don't need that much temptation near me.
I am a person who has very little willpower. Especially when it comes to things like cookies. Especially when those cookies contain things like chocolate chips and peanut butter.
And don't get me started on my love of coconut, toasted nuts, raisins and oats Especially when contained in a delicious buttery crisp edged chewy middled cookie!
These were very popular in my home when I was raising my children. I didn't mind baking them then as I had so many other mouths to help polish them off. Now we are only two.
That many cookies would be dangerous to have around. Oh, I know, you can easily freeze these cookies. I have proven to myself through the years that I like eating frozen cookies just as much as I like eating room temperature cookies. Two words. A LOT
Yes, I am completely incorrigible, and a total and utter glutton. If it was a club I would be the president, as well as the secretary and treasurer!
I do think that I would be joined with more than a few members however. I know I am not alone in my love of all things delicious! This is a club with many, many members.
In any case, I have successfully managed to downsize this recipe so that it makes only 13 cookies. Each one is crisp edged. Each one is buttery. Each one is delicious.
And I hate to tell you this . . . every one is every bit as delicious as the cookies in the original recipe. So they are just as dangerous and just as addictive. The only difference is that there is not as many of them.
Every mouthful brings you a taste of your favourite flavours. You get the savoury edge of peanut butter. The caramel-like sweetness of brown sugar. The rich chocolate chips. The sticky sweetness of raisins.
Combine that with the wholesome nuttiness of oats and coconut, along with the crunch of toasted pecans, and you have a very moreish combination. And its there. In every tasty mouthful.
You could leave out things like the raisins if you don't like raisins. Feel free to substute something you do enjoy. Perhaps dried cranberries or dried sour cherries. (Now that would be good!)
There is no substitution for the oats I don't think, or the coconut. Unless you add additional flour to take up their space, but then I'm afraid you are just messing with science and they won't turn out. So best to just leave them out altogether and see what happens.
You could substute toasted walnuts for the pecans if you wanted to, or even macadamia nuts. You don't have to toast any of the nuts. It is just something I like to do when I am baking with nuts.
Toasting serves to help enhance their nutty flavours and really bring them out. A few minutes on a baking sheet in a hot oven does the trick. Make sure you let them cook before you use them.
Look at how beautiful they are! My trick for perfect round and beautifully sized cookies is to roll them into walnut sized (heaped TBS) balls. I just roll them between my hands.
I have been doing this for years and years. They come out perfectly round every time. No need to squash them down onto the baking sheet. They will spread as they bake.
You do end up with perfectly round cookies, or as close to round as you can get without fiddling with them. I have heard of some bloggers using round cookie cutters as soon as their cookies come out of the oven to knock their cookies into shape.
I don't think it matters if your cookied are perfectly round or not. Perfect roundness does nothing to affect or enhance the real taste of any cookie. In fact I think wonky cookies taste the same as perfectly round cookies.
I suspect this is done more for the sake of the camera than for anything else. And if you are so inclined, then by all means knock your hot cookies into shape.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and we do eat first with our eyes. Maybe there is something to that. Having perfectly round cookies. In any case, I have always rolled my drop cookies into balls and I have always ended up with nice looking cookies, no manipulation needed.
These cookies are incredibly delicious. You get exactly 13 cookies. A baker's dozen as that is often referred to. That hails back to the days when bakers often included one extra item in with your dozen of anything.
I don't think that happens much any more. Perhaps in smaller, family run, bake shops. If I had a bake shop I would always make sure every dozen included one extra, a Baker's Dozen. Its little touches like that which matter most.
Quarter Cup Cookies
Ingredients:
- 1/4 cup (60g) butter, softened
- 1/4 cup (45g) of creamy peanut butter
- 1/4 cup (50g) granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup (50g) soft light brown sugar, packed
- 1 large free range egg yolks
- 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
- pinch of salt
- 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1/8 tsp of baking powder
- 1/4 cup (35g) plain flour
- 1/4 cup (45g) chocolate chips
- 1/4 cup (20g) quick cooking oats
- 1/4 cup (20g) sweetened shredded coconut
- 1/4 cup (25g) chopped toasted pecan nuts
- 1/4 cup (40g) raisins
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Line a large baking sheet with baking paper. Set aside.
- Cream together the butter, peanut butter and both sugars until well blended. Beat in the egg yolk and vanilla. Stir in the salt. Sift together the flour, baking soda and baking powder. Stir this into the creamed mixture, combining all well together.
- Stir in the chocolate chips, oatmeal, raisins, nuts and coconut.
- Scoop out heaped tablespoonsful and roll into balls. Place 3 inches apart on baking sheet.
- Bake until golden brown and set. (12 to 15 minutes.) Leave to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Store in an airtight container.
I just have to show you these newest dishes of mine that I am using, and no I have not been paid to say that. I had to buy these just like anyone else. It is a part of my quest to up my food photography props. They come from Scandanavian Pantry. I just adore the simplicity of Scandanavian design. If I had the money my whole house would be done Scandanavian Style. Its been like that since I was a child and fell in love with the art of Carl Larson.
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The
English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are
reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you
may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com
Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!
Last
year at this time I was writing on another website as well as here. One of the recipes that I posted over there, but not over here was this delectable Apple & Cardamom Custard Tart.
I have always regretted not posting it here. It surely belonged here and so today I am righting that wrong. Today I am sharing it here so that my English Kitchen readers can enjoy it as well.
Its a beautiful tart and I remember being very proud of how it turned out. I thought it was perhaps one of the most beautiful things I had ever created!
Its actually quite a simple tart to make. The base is ready-made puff pastry. I like to use an all butter puff pastry if I can get it. Regular puff pastry can sometimes have a bit of a chemical taste to it.
All butter puff pastry is the way to go. Everything natural, nothing artificial.
The filling for the tart is a mix of ready made custard, egg yolks and mascarpone cheese. You mix this together and add some vanilla and ground cardamom before chilling it in the refrigerator.
While that is chilling (along with the tart base) you get on with the business of slicing the apple. That is probably the fiddliest part of the recipe. Slicing the apples.
You need so slice them thin enough that you can easily manipulate them. Even then it will be a bit hard. I found it easiest to work with very thin half slices of apple.
They were much more malleable. You need to be able to roll them into rosettes, so thin and malleable is the way to go.
Once your base and filling have chilled you are ready to start building the tart. You will need to spread the custard/mascarpone filling into the pastry base.
Then you just start rolling the apple slices into rosettes, sticking them down into the cream filling. The cream filling holds them in place. You don't need to be overly pedantic about this.
Just make as many whole rosettes as you can and then fill in the spaces around them with smaller rosettes. You can even fill the spaces in with curls.
Trust me when I say, it will come out beautiful no matter what. You don't need perfection here. It will look beautiful no matter what.
I can remember being so worried that it would come out looking messy or ugly if I didn't get every single rosette perfect. I probably spent far more time on this than I should have.
In the end it looked beautiful, despite its imperfections. It really did. I felt really proud of what I had accomplished and a bit silly for having worried about it.
See what I mean? That doesn't look bad at all. Its quite pretty actually. You get some really pretty perfect looking rosettes ad some not so pretty wonky looking rosettes. Truth be told, they shift a bit in the oven while baking.
You really do need to make sure that your apple is sliced thin enough that they will cook in the prescribed length of cooking time. You may think even so it doesn't look like much, but wait.
A light dusting of icing sugar brings this tart fully to life. It changes something interesting looking into something quite magical and beautiful.
But looks isn't everything. What does it taste like? I can tell you, it is delicious! You get the buttery flaky puff pastry on the bottom
That custard filling is beautiful. Its rich and indulgent. It tastes like vanilla with just a hint of cardamom. I think the richness is largely due to the mascarpone cheese.
It ends up being a cross between a custard and a cheesecake. Rich and velvety. Incredibly delicious. I could eat that filling all on its own with nothing else at all.
The apple is a bit of tart and a bit of sweet. It gets a tiny bit caramelized because of the fruit sugar soak that you put the slices in before you start rolling them.
It has a dual purpose, both for flavour and a bit of sweetness as well as maintaining the lovely white colour of the apple flesh. You could also add a bit of cinnamon or even more ground cardamom to give them a bit more flavour.
But really they are quite delicious all on their own. Just as they are. I seldom do fancy things like this really. I am quite lazy most of the time. That's why I wanted to bring this tart over here.
Apple & Cardamom Custard Tart
Ingredients:
- 1 pound of all butter puff pastry
- 1 1/3 cups (330g) ready made custard
- 3/4 cup (180g) mascarpone cheese
- 2 large free range egg yolks
- 1 tsp vanilla paste
- 1/4 tsp ground cardamom
- 4 medium red skinned sweet eating apples
- 1 TBS fine sugar
- 1 TBS fresh Lemon Juice
- Icing sugar to dust
- pouring or whipped cream
Instructions:
- Butter a 9 ½ inch round loose-based fluted tart-tin. Roll the pastry between two sheet of baking paper into a round large enough to line the bottom of the tin and up the sides.
- Whisk the custard, mascarpone, egg yolks, vanilla paste, and cardamom together in a bowl until well combined. Cover and place in the refrigerator until well chilled.
- Core and half the apples lengthwise. Cut into thin half-moons. Toss together in a bowl with the fruit sugar and lemon juice.
- Spread the custard mixture in the pastry base. Arrange the apple slices on top of the custard, slightly overlapping them into attractive rosette shapes. Drizzle with any juices left in the bowl.
- Preheat the oven to 325°F.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 50 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown and the apples cooked. Cool and then refrigerate for 1 hour prior to serving.
- It may seem a bit fiddly, but you will soon get the hang of it, and trust me when I say that the impressed look on your guest’s faces when you serve it to them will be well worth any extra efforts utilized.
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The
English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are
reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you
may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com
Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!
These particular biscuits are very particular to the Maritime Provinces of Canada. Those beautiful provinces anchored on the East Coast of my beautiful homeland, consisting of four provinces.
Newfoundland, an Island where my parents got married, also loving know as "The Rock." Nova Scotia, where I say I am from. A peninsula anchored by the Isthmus of Chebucto to mainland Canada.
New Brunwswick, the part of Canada tha Nova Scotia is anchored to, and Prince Edward Island. Island of my birth and home to Lucy Maude Montgomery and Anne of Green Gables.
That is the Maritimes in a nutshell and what I consider to be my home. No matter how far away from them I travel, or how long I am away, I consider myself a Maritimer at heart.
These Biscuits may be known by a variety of names. Angel Biscuits is one. French Biscuits is another.
My ex In-Laws lived on Prince Edward Island and we spent several weeks there in the summer months. The community they lived in, Saint Eleanors, at that time was largely populated with retired Military folk.
My FIL had been a cook in the airforce. Both he and my MIL had been born and bred on the Island so it was quite natural for them to want to return there upon retirement, to spend their golden years.
There was an old guy and his wife that lived directly across from them. The Kenny's, also an armforced retiree couple. They had Acadia ancestry, or at least Mrs. Kenny did.
Every summer when we arrived we could almost rely that within the first 24 hours Mrs Kenny would be sending over a bag of freshly baked French Biscuits as she called them, or Maritime Biscuits as is their proper name.
Skunks used to be a huge problem on the Island. They probably still are. I remember one year Mr Kenny had made a skunk trap for his front yard, with every intention of putting waste to whatever skunk he captured.
It became somewhat of a joke amongst the male retirees, this skunk trap. Every morning Mr Kenny would inspect his trap and come up empty.
One day I came across this recipe in a community cookbook for Maritime Biscuits. They sounded like to be exactly the same as the ones Mrs Kenny made.
I had to write the recipe down. It went into my Big Blue Binder, like all the good recipes do. And I have been enjoying them ever since.
They have a beautiful flaky texture, like any good biscuit, and a nice rise. But they rise a bit like a dinner roll would.
Not precisely up, and somewhat out. They are lovely and light as air. As light as an angel's wings some might say!
The dough can be somewhat sticky. Try hard not to knead too much flour back into them when you are patting them out ready to cut. Just be generous with the flour on the bottom and somewhat generous with the flour on top.
I dip my cutter into flour with every biscuit I cut so that it doesn't stick. I use a 3 inch round sharp cutter,straight edged.
Like any biscuit, do not twist them as you are cutting them. A strong, straight up and down cut will do the trick. You will need a spatula to lift them onto the baking sheet.
Do leave plenty of space between them for them to spread and rise. Unless you are not bothered by soft sided biscuits. We like our sides crisp, like our bacon.
If there is one downside to these biscuits it would have to be that they really are best eaten on the day. It is the same with any bread that contains yeast.
You can however, nicely refresh them the next day in a slow oven. You can also freeze them, properly wrapped for several months if need be.
These are wonderful served warm, not long out of the oven. Lovely with cold butter and preserves, or even peanut butter.
They are fantastic served with soups or salads. They are also fantastic served with thick stews that have plenty of gravy to be mopped up. These biscuits are perfect at mopping up.
To be honest, I enjoy them with anything and everything. Yes, I am a carboholic. Through and through.
Don't be tempted to use butter in place of the shortening. I have never seen or tasted these made with anything else, except perhaps lard, which is what they would have used in the early pioneer days.
Maritime Biscuits
Ingredients:
- 1/4 cup (60ml) warm water
- 1 TBS sugar
- 1 TBS regular yeast
- 2 1/2 cups flour (350g) plain all purpose flour
- 1 TBS sugar
- 1/2 tsp soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup (110g) vegetable shortening
- 1 cup (240ml) buttermilk
Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 200*C/400*F/ gas mark 6. Line a couple of baking sheets with baking paper. Set aside.
- Mix the sugar, warm water and yeast together in a cup and leave to dissolve until foamy and double in size.
- Warm the buttermilk slightly to lukewarm.
- Sift the flour into a bowl along with the soda and baking powder. Stir in the salt and sugar. Drop in the shortening and cut it in using a pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs, with some larger bits and more smaller bits.
- Add the yeast mixture to the warm buttermilk and then add this all at once to the flour mixture. Mix well and turn out onto a generously floured board. Knead lightly for a couple of turns. Pat out to a round about 1 inch in thickness.
- Using a sharp 3 inch cutter, stamp out rounds and place them well spaced apart on the baking sheets. Re pat and cut the scraps until you have used all the dough, again placing them well spaced on the baking sheets.
- Leave to rise for about 10 minutes.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minute to 20 minutes until golden brown on tops and bottoms and well risen. Lift off to cool on a wire cooling rack.
- Delicious served warm with cold butter and honey or jam.
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com
There are a few food things that come to mind when you say the word Canada. That is if you know Canadians at all. One is Poutine, that delicious dish of crisp chips and squeaky cheese curds, smothered in hot gravy. Another is Maple Syrup. I swear our veins run with maple syrup, not blood.
Peameal Bacon, lean, juicy and rolled in cornmeal. Montreal Smoked Meat sandwiches. Quebec Pea Soup, made with whole yellow peas. Molasses cookies. Beaver Tails. Lobster Rolls from the Maritimes and their infamous fish chowder. Nanaimo Bars, three layers of non-baked heaven, and the Piece de la Resistance . . . Butter Tarts.
It is impossible to be a Canadian and not love most if not all of those things. And we do them very well. And there are others. Saskatoon Berry Pie. Pierogi. Pouding Chomeur also comes to mind as do Bannock and Tortiere.
I think our Canadian flag should be marked into segments with each one representing one of these traditional and delicious dishes, with the maple leaf (on a bottle of maple syrup) holding court in the centre of the flag.
We invented Tim Hortons! Americans used to come up to Canada just for the Tim Hortons Coffee. The drive-throughs of Tim Horton's all across the country are jam packed every morning with Canadians in their cars wanting their double doubles on their way to work.
They do have Tim Hortons here in the UK now, but I have not been to it. I have heard however that it is not as good as back home, and actually, I have heard that back home Tim Hortons is not as good as it used to be either.
Change is not always good. They used to have a resident baker on the premises every night. He would work all night making cakes, donuts, etc. for the next day. Now I hear, they bring everything in from a central warehouse, frozen. I fear it has lost the personal touch.
Butter Tarts are very similar to the Scottish Ecchlefechan tarts. I strongly suspect this recipe was brought over to Canada with the Scottish settlers when they immigrated.
We had Ecchlefechan tarts when we were in Scotland on holiday a few years ago. I have to say that they were very similar
So just what is a butter tart? Let me see if I can find adequate words to describe this decadent, moreishly delicious Canadian treat that is impossible to resist.
Tarts made with flaky buttery pastry and filled with an ooey gooey brown sugar and maple filling, stogged full of toasted walnuts and sticky raisins.
You can find other kinds with chocolate chips and all sorts stuffed into them. But the original and the best is just four things. Flaky pastry. Rich and sweet maple filling. Toasted walnuts. Sticky raisins. That's it. Simple.
When I was a child the first thing my sister and I did when we got our allowance was to high-tail it to the Canex store and go halves on a package of ready made butter tarts. They came two to a pack.
I don't think we would even wait until we got home to eat them.
We would crack them open while we sat on the grass right at the top of the hill leading down to the Canex. Every mouthful was ecstasy and we wanted the pleasure to last as long as we could make it last.
Those butter tarts had nothing on this recipe. This recipe I am sharing with you today is the best recipe (in my opinion) for buttertarts ever invented. I copied it many years ago into my Big Blue Binder.
The Big Blue Binder is a binder I have carried with me all over the world. Anyone who has been reading me for a while knows that it is filled with my tried and true recipes, gleaned from years of travel. Recipes shared with me from family and friends.
When people share their recipes with you, you just know that they are good. Nobody shares their worst. Its a fact. You can bank on it.
This recipe for Butter Tarts is the first recipe in my pies and pastry section. It is the best in my opinion. I cannot tell you how many times I have baked these over the years.
It copied right there in black ink in my what-used to-be beautiful handwriting. (Key boarding has ruined that for me I have to say!) The page has been splotched on and is becoming tattered and yellow from age.
I thought it was about time I got it down here so it didn't get lost forever. I can't tell you where it came from. I haven't bothered to note the source in this instance.
I had the habit of only noting sources when the recipe came from family or friends. Recipes copied from books, magazines, newspapers, etc. were not source-noted.
Who knew that one day we would be able to share these delicious things with people and readers from all over the world! This was pre-computer days.
The only thing I can tell you with impunity is that it came from either a magazine or a book and I am thinking if it was a magazine it was Canadian Living.
I miss Canadian Living Magazine. I used to buy it every month. It was filled with everything Canadian, from fashion to decorating, crafts and of course cooking.
My other favourite magazine used to be Chatelaine. I bought that religiously as well. They were my textbooks on my journey towards becoming a good and solid cook.
The rest came from my mother and Home Ec at school. Home Ec taught me basics that I have never forgotten. It was my favourite subject and not just the cooking term. I loved the sewing and the houskeeping terms as well.
I think perhaps I should have been a Home Economist. That is a career I could have quite happily embraced. Never mind . . . I did love being a stay at home mum, and I loved being a Chef in my later years.
This recipe has a gorgeous rich filling that is gooey and decadent. It is flavoured highly with pure Maple syrup and brown sugar. Do NOT be tempted to use pancake syrup. It might work and it might not, but I can tell you one thing, they will not be like or taste the same as a real Canadian Butter Tart.
Do not be tempted to overfill your pastry cases with the filling. It does expand in the oven and you will end up with pastry/tarts that are stuck to your tin and a sticky baked on mess to clean off. Trust me. Cement.
I use my butter and lard pastry. You can find that recipe here. It is a lovely pastry. Nice and flaky. I use it for all my pies and tarts. It always turns out.
Canadian Butter Tarts
Ingredients:
- Pastry to line 18 patty pans ( I like my butter/lard pastry)
- 2 large free range eggs
- 1 cup (200g) soft light brown sugar, packed
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 2 tsp white vinegar
- 1/2 cup (120ml) maple syrup, pure not artificial
- 6 TBS (86g) butter, melted
- 2/3 cup (80g) chopped toasted walnuts
- 1/2 cup (75g) raisins
Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 230*C/450*F/ gas mark 7. Line your patty tins with the pastry. Divide the chopped nuts and raisins between each pastry lined tart.
- Beat the eggs. Add the sugar, salt, vinegar and syrup. Blend well together. Beat in the melted butter until all is well emulsified.
- Fill you pastry lined tins 2/3 full with the egg mixture, pouring it over top of the fruit and nuts.
- Bake in the oven for 10 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Bake a further 20 minutes.
- Allow to cool for about 10 minutes then remove to a wire rack to finish cooling.
- Enjoy!
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com
Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!
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