One thing that I have enjoyed since moving over here to the UK, is learning about and how to cook traditional dishes from all over this wonderful land. There is a wonderful variety of recipes available and most are steeped in wonderful history and tradition.

I just love learning the traditions and histories of different food stuffs, don't you?



Over here in the UK they call cookies biscuits and there are many delicious and scrummy regional varieties.



Like these Cornish Fairings . . . a sweet and gingery biscuit commonly found in Cornwall. Their name is said to have orginated due to their having been sold at feeast and fair days down in Cornwall. A 'fairing' is basically any type of gift bought at a fair, edible or otherwise!

Most town or village fairs over here have a certain type of food attributed to them and more often than they are spicy things . . . probably going back to Medieval times when spices were greatly loved and widely used.



According to Wikepedia, this particular recipe is reputed to have originated at the "maid hiring" fair, held the week after Christmas in Launceston.

Whatever their origin, they are quite tasty! Kind of like a spicy gingernut biscuit, but with added little bits of candied mixed peel.

Very easy to make, quick to bake and really scrummy with a hot cup of tea, herbal or otherwise I am sure!



*Cornish Fairings*
Makes 20
Printable Recipe

A traditional biscuit from the West Country. Sweet and spicy, with the added surprise of chopped mixed peel. Using two sources of raising agents makes the biscuits crack. Scrummy!!

100g plain flour (about 3/4 cup)
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp mixed spice
40g of caster sugar (about 1/4 cup)
50g of unsalted butter, chilled and diced ( 3 1/2 TBS)
1 TBS very finely diced mixed peel
3 TBS golden syrup

Preheat the oven to 200*C/400*F/ gas mark 6. Butter several baking sheets and set aside.

Sift the flour into a mixing bowl along with the salt, baking powder, soda, ginger and mixed spice. Stir in the sugar. Drop in the butter and rub it in with your fingertips until it resembles fine bread crumbs. Stir in the mixed peel and then the golden syrup, mixing it all to a stiff dough.

Using your hands, roll the dough into 20 marble sized balls. Place them well apart on the prepared baking sheets. Bake for about 7 minutes until golden brown and cracked on top. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the baking sheets for several minutes before scooping off to finish cooling on a wire rack. Let cool completely and then store in an airtight container.

When we lived down in Kent we were really spoiled. We were surrounded by Orchards and in the autumn had our pick of windfalls . . . several varieties of apples, and pears . . . not to mention hedgerows filled to over flowing with sloes and blackberries



On the Estate where I worked as the cook we also had apples, pears, figs and fresh plums as well, not to mention cages filled with raspberries . . . yes, we were very lucky!



When we moved back here to Chester, in our effort to be self sustaining we put in several fruit trees. Dwarf apple, pear and plum, all self propagating. Next year we hope to put in an apricot tree and perhaps some raspberry and blackberry canes. We are lucky enough to already have strawberries and rhubarb.



I hadn't really expected to get much out of the fruit trees this first year but imagine my surprise when the plum tree produced some plums! We have been waiting patiently all summer for them to ripen, and I reckon I got a nice little basket full of them.



Oh, can anything be better than fresh fruit you have grown yourself? I think NOT!



Well . . . okay . . . so this delicious slice comes a close second!



It has a nutty buttery base almost like a pastry, and then a layer of hazelnut cake, stogged full of lovely plums. The whole thing is topped with a crunchy nutty streusel. Moreishly scrummy!!



The best part is that you use the same basic recipe to produce all three layers, with just a few alterations made for each. Easy peazy, Lemon Squeezy!!

A tasty dollop of creme fraiche or clotted cream is the perfect accompaniment, natch!!




*Plum and Hazelnut Crumble Slice*
Serves16
Printable Recipe

It's a pie! It's a cake! It's a crumble! It's all three and delicious! Perfect to share over a cup of tea or served warm as a dessert with lashings of cream or custard!

250g of butter (1 cup plus 2 TBS)
(your butter should be very cold)
225g of caster sugar (1 cup plus 2 TBS)
(Plus extra for sprinkling)
284g of ground hazelnuts (3 1/3 cup)
5 ounces plain flour (1 cup plus 2 TBS)
plus an extra 2 TBS
2 large free range eggs
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon, plus extra for sprinkling
half a dozen or so large ripe plums, stoned and sliced
2 ounces flaked almonds (1/4 cup)

Preheat the oven to 180*C/375*F/ Gas mark 4. Butter an 8 by 12 tay bake pan well. Line with parchment paper. Set aside.

Place the cold butter, 225g of sugar, and ground nuts into the bowl of your food processor. Pulse until the mixture resembles a rough crumble. Measure half of it out into another bowl. Set aside. To the remaining crumb mixture add the 5 ounces of flour and pulse just until it forms a dough. Press this into the bottom of the prepared pan. Place in the heated oven and bake for 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes.

Return the remaining crumbs (Reserve 2 heaped dessertspoons for the end) to the food processor. Tip in the extra 2 TBS of flour, eggs, cinnamon and baking powder. Pulse to a soft batter. Scrape onto the baked base and spread out evenly. Top with the sliced plums. Sprinkle with a bit of extra sugar and cinnamon. Return to the oven and bake for a further 20 to 25 minutes.

Stir the flaked almonds into the remaining measure of the crumbs, mixing in well. Remove the cake from the oven and spinkle evenly with the almond mixture. Return to the oven and bake for a further 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown. Cool completely before cutting into squares to serve.

mmm . . . mmm . . . mmm . . . This was my ABSOLUTELY favourite kind of day . . .



An "I've bought too many bananas and they are not getting eaten up before they've turned all spotty!" kind of day.



A "Let's turn the oven on and crack out the whisk and bowls!" kind of a day.



A "Let's turn up the volumn on the banana bread, and stretch what I can do with it!" kind of day.



A "Scrummy, toffee, nutty, fudgily moreish banana bread!" kind of day.



Got bananas??? This could be YOUR kind of day!



*Fudgy Banana Nut Loaf*
Cuts into 10 slices
Printable Recipe

A super moist and fudgy banana loaf chock full of pecans and chewy toffee bits. Very scrummy!

20 chewy toffees, unwrapped and cut into bits
2 ripe bananas, peeled and mashed (Approx. 8 ounces)
2 medium eggs, beaten
4 ounces of butter melted (1/2 cup)
4 ounces greek yoghurt (1/2 cup)
1/2 tsp rum extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
4 ounces light muscovado sugar (1/2 cup packed)
200g of self raising flour (a scant 2 cups)
1/2 tsp baking powder
100g of toasted pecan nuts coarsely chopped (1 cup)

Preheat the oven to 160*C/325*F/ gas mark 3. Butter and line an 8 by 3 inch loaf pan. Set aside.

Mash the bananas in a bowl. Beat in the eggs, butter, yoghurt and extracts. Mix well. Stir in the sugar. Whisk together the flour and baking powder. Fold into the liquid mixture along with the 2/3 of the pecan nuts and 1/2 of the toffee bits. Spoon into the prepared pan and level the top. Sprinkle the remaining nuts and toffees over top.

Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, until well risen and the top feels springy. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin on a wire rack. Once cool, peel off the paper and cut into slices to serve.

We've been craving it for more than a few weeks now . . . but it's not really a summer meal. Those few cold days we had late last week though gave us the perfect excuse to indulge ourselves.

Todd was one very happy camper. He is a meat and potatoes man, through and through, and all of this lighter summer food we've been eating for a couple of months now . . . salads and such . . . just doesn't cut the mustard with him for very long. He's been really longing for a tasty meal that he could really sink his choppers into!



It had been ages since I had made it, and I thought it was long overdue. I could have made the cadillac of Toad in the Hole recipes . . . it's the one that I usually make, but then . . . I found an interestingly different version in one of my many cookery books.



I found this Sausage and Bacon version in a little cookery book I own entitled, *Easy British Cooking* , put out by Ryland, Peters and Small. It's a lovely little compendium of simple, feel good, and comforting favourites.



There's everything in this cookery book from warming soups and satisfying main dishes to sweetly indulgent and scrummy puddings! I actually have several volumes in their Easy series and each one is chock full of lovely recipes. I highly recommend them! They're not that expensive and they are worth every penny spent. You can actually pick this one up on here for less than seven pounds, which is a real bargain.



I have a collection of some over 200 cookery books. Some of them quite expensive . . . but the truth is that these little economical books are cookbooks you will find yourself turning to again and again, and I'm not being paid to say that!!

Anyways back to toad in the hole . . .



This is a delicious version . . . with fat and herby pork sausages, wrapped in scrummy bacon, nestled amongst onions and then baked in a tasty batter pudding! (Note Todd patting his tummy in anticipation in the above photo!) It goes without saying that you want to use a good pork sausage, preferably a butcher's one without a lot of fillers and of course dry cure smoked bacon will give you the nicest flavour without a lot of water.

Need I say more?



*Sausage and Bacon Toad in the Hole*
Serves 4 to 6
Printable Recipe

Toad in the hole . . . cept better, coz there's bacon! Plan ahead as you need to have the milk and eggs at room temperature and the batter needs to sit for half an hour before using.

175g of flour (1 heaping cup)
2 large free range eggs, room temperature
150ml each of milk and water (3/4 cup each), room temperature
800g of good quality pork sausages (I get mine from our local butcher)
(That's about a pound and a half)
8 rashers of streaky bacon (I use dry cured, smoked and rindless)
2 red onions, peeled and cut into wedges *
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Sift the flour into a mixing bowl and make a well in the centre. Whisk the eggs, water and milk together and pour into the well. Stir with a wooden spoon until you have a smooth batter. Let rest for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 220*C/ 425*F/ gas mark 7. Grease a large roasting tin or 4 to 6 individual pie dishes and place them into the oven.

Wrap the bacon around the sausages. Place in the hot roasting tin or pie dishes and place the wedges of onion around them. Pour the batter over top and then place back into the oven to bake for 30 minutes, WITHOUT opening the door. At the end of that time the batter should be well risen and browned and the sausages and bacon should be cooked.

Serve with mash and onion gravy!

*Note - I used regular onions when I cooked this, as they were all that I had. They worked out fine . . . they just weren't as pretty as the red ones!

I saw a recipe the other day for a Gooseberry and Ginger Wine Crumble. I thought to myself, that sounds rather good . . . scrummy even . . .

I didn't have any gooseberries though . . . nor could I find any, neither fresh nor frozen . . .



What I do have though, is a very healthy and very large and very productive rhubarb patch!!



The whole time we lived down in Kent at Oak Cottage, I could never get my rhubarb to grow and amount to much of anything. Here in Chester, on the outskirts of a city . . . my rhubarb is growing happily quite madly and profusely!!!

So, anyways, I thought to myself that rhubarb and ginger wine would probably go very well together, maybe even better than gooseberries and ginger wine. Rhubarb makes a lovely crumble, the best of all the crumbles in my opinion.




So what you have here today is a delicious recipe taken from another one of those balls that I grabbed and decided to run with.


The ginger wine idea from one recipe . . . added to my own rhubarb and my own crumble topping recipe that I added a teaspoon of ground ginger to this time . . . in order to further enhance the ginger flavours, of course!



I scored a winning goal with this one! I ended up with a moreishly scrumptious dessert filled with lovely flavours . . .

A sweet yet tart fruit filling, with just the merest whisper of ginger, topped with a buttery crunch filled with the goodness of oats and butter and again a mere whisper of ginger.



All in all this is my favourite crumble ever!



Don't forget the cream or lashings of custard! They are a given!!!




*Rhubarb and Ginger Wine Crumble*
Serves 4 to 6 (depending on how greedy you are)
Printable Recipe

A delicious crumble. The Ginger Wine really helps to bring out the flavour of the rhubarb. Lashings of custard or clotted cream are a must!

1 pound of rhubarb, washed, trimmed and cut into
1 inch slices (about 10 to 12 stalks)
200g of caster sugar
3 TBS ginger wine

For the crumble topping:
150g (1 cup) plain flour
3 TBS old fashioned porridge oats
1 tsp of ground ginger
125g pf butter, chilled and cut into cubes
pinch salt
3 TBS caster sugar
4 TBS soft light brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Butter a medium sized baking or pie dish. Set aside.

Place the rhubarb into a bowl and toss together with the sugar and gingerwine. Spoon into the prepared baking dish.

Whisk together the flour, ginger and oats in a bowl Rub in the butter with your fingertips until you have a lumpy, buttery mixture. Stir in the sugars and the salt with a fork. Drop the crumble topping evenly over top of the fruit.

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes until the fruit is bubbling through and the topping is crisp and golden. Delicious!

This is a comforting dessert that you either loathe . . . or love.



We are from the love camp in this household.



Perfectly baked rice pudding . . . with creamy, milky, sweet rice beneath a scrummy golden buttery crust . . .



Can there be anything more heavenly on earth?



It all depends on which day you ask me . . .

Today, as I dig my spoon into it's sweet and creamy mass . . . I am in love with rice pudding and so I think not! (when cooked properly) The rice should be just tender . . . not floating in the liquid in separate grains . . . and not mushy and swollen into a stodgy mass.



The use of cream in this recipe gives a wonderfully rich and creamy texture that is oh so soothing and pleasing,

Comfort in a spoon indeed.



*Rice Pudding*
Serves 6 to 8
Printable recipe

This is pure and simple comfort food. Either loathed or loved. We are lovers of it in our home.

110g (4 ounces) of short grain rice (use pudding rice or arborio rice)
450ml of whole milk (1 1/2 cups)
450ml of single cream (1 1/2 cups)
1 tsp vanilla paste
1 ounce of hard butter, diced
jam or syrup for serving (optional)

Set the oven at 150*C/300*F/gas mark2. Butter a large pie dish. Put the rice, milk, cream and vanilla paste into the dish and give it a good stir. Allow to sit for half an hour. Stir again and then dot the butter on the top. Place in the heated oven and bake for 3 hours, checking periodically to make sure the top doesn't burn. If you think it is getting too dark, cover loosely with a bit of foil. At the end the rice will be soft and there should be a lovely golden crust of milk on top. Eat hot or cold, with or without jam or syrup.

One of my favourite television shows over here has to be Larkrise to Candleford. Based on a trilogy of novels written by the author, Flora Thompson about the countryside of north-east Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire at the end of the 19th Century, neither Todd nor I have ever missed an episode in all of the three series that have come out now. In fact we purchased them on DVD so that we could treat ourselves to turn-of-the-century village life anytime we wanted to!



A reader recently contacted me, and asked me if I had any knowledge of the type of food that would have been cooked in that era. An American, he and his wife are also great fans of the show, and were very curious about a cake that they had seen the old cook beating together in a bowl during one episode in series one.



Well, since the series takes place in the late Victorian era, I would have to say, without a doubt and with fair certainty, that it was probably a Victoria Sponge, or Victoria Sandwich Cake . . . a lovely buttery sponge cake that would have benefited greatly by some strong armed beating in a bowl.



It was the Victorians that invented this lovely cake by adding butter to an ordinary sponge mixture, which baked better in two flat tins rather than one deep tin. (Oh those Victorians, they were very clever at inventing things I have to say!)



The two cakes were then stuck together with a layer of tasty jam. According to Victorian manuals of the day, sponge cakes would have been made more for the nursery tea table than the drawing room, but we won't quibble the facts . . . the fact is that this cake is delicious, and I would serve it to anyone, child or adult!!



This is just the sort of cake one would imagine Dorcas and her employees at the Post Office sitting down to late in the afternoon . . . teatime . . . a china pot of steaming, freshly made tea at the ready to be served along side of lovely thick slabs of this moist and delicious sponge.



This is a real favourite around this house, and more or less tends to get treated like an ordinary every day kind of cake . . . but upon reflection, I know not why . . . coz it is fine enough to please even the most discerning of palates, and is anything but ordinary!!



I think Dorcas Lane would highly approve . . . it surely being my only weakness . . . something of which she knows full well . . . of this we would be in agreement. (Recipe adapted from the WI Cakes Cookery Book by Liz Herbert. If there is one thing the WI know alot about, it's baking cakes!)



*Traditional Victorian Sandwich Cake*
Makes one 7 inch cake
Printable Recipe

Popular during the reign of Qyeen Victoria, this cake remains popular to this day, which is a huge testament to it's taste and ease of baking! Don't be tempted to use all butter. This is one recipe that is better for the use of a mixture of butter and margarine.

3 ounces of butter, softened (6 TBS)
3 ounces soft margarine (6 TBS)
6 ounces caster sugar (1 cup)
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
3 large eggs, beaten
6 ounces self raising flour (a scant 1 1/2 cups)

To finish:
3 TBS raspberry jam
buttercream to fill (optional)
icing sugar or caster sugar to dust the top

Butter and base line two 7 inch sandwich tins. Set aside. Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4.

Cream the butter, margarine, sugar and vanilla together until light in colour and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs, a little at a time, beating well after each addition. If the mixture begins to curdle, add a spoonful of the flour.

Fold in the flour with a metal spoon, taking care to use a cutting motion so as not to knock out too much of the air that you have beaten into the batter. Divide the batter evenly between the two cake tins, leveling off the surface. Make a slight dip in the centre of each.

Bake on a centre rack of the oven for about 25 minutes, or until the sponges have risen well, are golden brown, and spring back when lightly touched. Allow to cool in the pan for five minutes before running a knife carefully around the edges and turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Once cooled, place one layer on a cake plate. Spread with raspberry jam and buttercream (if using). Place the other cake on top, pressing down lightly. Dust with icing or caster sugar and serve.

By the way Commentor #63, Sheilagh, a Random Numbers Generator has picked you as the winner of the Delightful Hamper Giveaway. Contact me with your details and I will let the HamperGift people know where to send it. Thanks so much to everyone who participated and joined in on the fun. I wish you could all be winners. Don't be too disappointed though as I will soon be hosting another giveway hosted by the lovely people at Kellogg's . . . yes the people who bring us all those delicious breakfast cereals!