Their Method, My Madness - Ginger Honey Cake

The purpose of these ramblings, rants, blogs or embarrassing insights into our daily life as Mrs. Vino calls them, through gritted teeth, is to share my love for cooking and baking.

Any of you who follow me on twitter will see I hate this and hate that, I bake this and bake that and most of all drink this and drink all of that.

On Instagram you’ll be bored senseless with endless photos of what I’ve made and now on Vine you can see six-second videos of the cooking process.

It really is awfully dull and I can’t believe any of you actually look at or read any of it. To be honest I bore the arse off myself with it.

So this week to celebrate my passion for the culinary art I’ve decided to turn my attention back to recipes namely those of our celebrity chef friends.

I make no apologies for this, after all these people are meant to entertain, inspire and educate us.

However as Frank Costanza my favourite comic character says, "I've got a lot of problems with you people, and now you're going to hear about it!"

A recent report in The Metro stated "TV chefs 'adding to obesity crisis by encouraging us to eat fatty dishes'," with similar stories blaming celebrity chefs for our bulging waistlines in much of the media.

I kind of wished the story had been in The Mail, I’m sure they would have taken it to the nth degree characterising Worrall Thompson as a carcinogenic gnome.

This is not the issue I have though. Anyone that has watched a cookery programme or owns a recipe book can’t be surprised to find out that when on a Saturday our James, oozing manliness, adds 14 packets of butter to a pan of double cream to make a sauce to pour over his extra Belly Belly Pork, it isn’t particularly good for you.

With Nigella, yes I'm once again fixating on her, it’s more a case of being slightly concerned as to where her hands have been. Watching her seductively dip a finger in to taste the food rather than using a spoon may stir ‘those’ feelings but I’m surprised the council haven’t been round to shut her down or at least given her kitchen a low hygiene rating. 

I’m waiting for the day she dispenses with using her fingers altogether and simply dunks her left breast in, come on we all know that’s where it’s heading.

Now if you don’t realise that eating this 'celebrity way' all the time isn’t healthy then you’re probably already 38 stone. I actually look forward to watching the future channel 5 documentary about you. I’ll sit there with baited breath waiting to see if they can remove your front window so they can airlift you to McDonalds for your breakfast while a soundtrack of Elbow’s One Day Like This plays, “throw your curtains wide and stuff 24 McMuffins down your gullet before 8:30."

Please be aware this blog isn’t sponsored by Maccy D’s and in the interest of fairness and balance there are other fast food chains available who can make you equally as fat should you eat breakfast, lunch and dinner there every day.

No my issue isn’t with chefs making me fat it’s with their bloody recipes not working. They're meant to work, I've paid a fortune for all these posh ingredients.

A perfect Tag Line would be - You’ve seen the show, you’ve bought the book, you’ve thrown the bastard cake in the bin.

I’m obviously exaggerating a touch here, lumping all chefs in to this bracket, when really I have only one man in mind, Paul ‘the Hollywood’ Hollywood - I'm sure his real name is Paulo Avanti, he just fancied something altogether more ‘glitzy’.

I’ve tried to get on with his book, thinking I’d done something wrong. Was the oven too high? Am I using the right tin? Had I misread the recipe?

Yes I’m man enough to admit making a mistake or cooking something distinctly average. Case in point was this week I tried a new curry recipe out on the family. 

N marked it 4 out of 10 and then made me promise I would never ever make ‘that’ again. Everything in our house is bloody marked and judged out of ten these days, I blame Strictly, N loves it. I just find it a little off putting that Mrs. Vino has adopted this scoring system. I'm not telling you what I was given a 3 for the other day.

So with Paulo I have tried the same recipes numerous times and I’m glad to report that it’s definitely not me it’s him.

He makes it so bloody hard to dislike him though, sauntering on to our screens with his piercing eyes, chiseled good looks and well coiffured silver hair. Looking down the camera lens setting many a middle-aged woman’s knees a trembling. He might as well just open his shows with this line - “Before we get started I apologise for making you moist.”

Well Hollywood I’m glad something is because your bloody cakes aren’t.

One person I’d like to admonish from this piece and all future pieces I may write is Mother Delia. The woman can do no wrong. The funny thing is I have no ulterior motive with Delia, she’s one of the few women on TV that I don’t want to do unmentionables to. Maybe it’s because she’s a bit too Mumsy or Saintly. Now Mary Berry on the other hand, I’d give my left nut for a couple of minutes with her.

In my book Delia has indeed inspired a generation of people to cook and her recipes are foolproof. If she says it’s 100g of flour it’s exactly that, no more no less. As her tirade on the pitch at Carrow Road proved, you don’t fuck with Delia.

I toyed with the idea of using a Hollywood recipe and seeing if it worked for any of you. However I know one person who has no problem with them and I couldn’t bare the *smug face* comment that would undoubtedly follow.

So I’m going to go for a recipe from my current favourite baker – Dan Lepard. His recipes are usually in the Guardian each week. The fact that he’s replied to me on twitter, commenting that my cakes made with his recipes look good, may also have a little to do with this favouritism. What can I say, I’m fickle.

Ginger Honey Cake

This is quite a fiery little number with 3 types of ginger but not so much so that N & M didn’t enjoy it. To be honest though I’m yet to find a cake M doesn’t like.

Ingredients

300g Honey – runny

75g Unsalted Butter - Melted

50ml Sunflower oil

3 Medium size eggs

400g Stem Ginger – Chopped (the jar I bought was 350g and this had no ill effects on the cake)

2 cm Piece of Fresh Ginger - peeled and finely grated (this is what I like about Dan’s recipes they’re very prescriptive- most people would say a thumb sized piece but whose thumb?)

4 Teaspoons Ground Ginger

1 Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon

250g Plain Flour

2 Teaspoons Baking Powder

Extra Butter

Extra Honey to glaze the cake

Loaf tin – anything you’ve got will do

Method

Line the tin with Baking Parchment

Set the oven to 170c or 150c on a Fan Oven

Put the Eggs, Honey, Oil and Butter in to a bowl and beat until it is smooth and everything is incorporated. I used a hand whisk.

Stir in the Stem and Grated Gingers plus the spices. Finally add the flour and baking powder.

Stir really well the spoon the mixture in to your tin.

You then want to lay a thin line of butter centrally down the length of your cake. I cut a thin strip off the end of a pack of butter then cut that in half, repeating until the length of the cake was covered. Apparently this butter technique forces the cake to crack along this line and gives you an even bake.

Put the cake in the oven for 70-80 minutes, don’t touch it before 70 minutes as this cake will collapse if you as much as look at it wrongly.

Test it with a skewer after 70 minutes and it should come out clean. Mine was done after 70 minutes and didn’t need any extra.

The cake may look a little burnt on top – mine didn’t.

While it’s still warm brush the top with some honey to glaze and soften the crust.

Enjoy.

A

A Middle Aged Sit Down - Ragu

Recently I went to a gig, now the word gig to me serves up connotations of finding a little unknown band playing in a dingy badly lit club, sweat dripping off the walls and throwing yourself into the middle of the mosh pit.

Well an old friend and me went to see James supported by Echo and The Bunnymen at the O2 in Leeds. Yes they’re hardly ground breaking but no less fantastic. We enjoyed a beer beforehand and to complete the middle aged experience arrived early enough to get a seat.

If you looked hard enough you may have seen me tap a foot, sway from side to side and even at one point sing along as I was temporarily transported back to my youth. I did wake up the next day knackered with a sore back from having to stand through some of the songs. Imagine the state I'd be in if I ventured anywhere near a bloody mosh pit.

Singing and dancing are a definite no no for me, you may have gathered I’m not one to readily let myself go. That is of course unless absolutely leathered at a wedding but the less said about that the better. It’s so bad that I don’t like people I’m with to dance either, Mrs. Vino could be jigging away happily to music in a shop, I’d walk out. I have a very low embarrassment threshold.

The venue was filled with lots of 30 and 40 somethings very similar to me reliving the heady days when they heard the songs for the first time. Everyone was dressed pretty much the same as they would have back then although everything seemed to have shrunk in the wash a little since the early 90’s. Trying to get the toothpaste back in the tube seems an apt way to describe how my fellow patrons were attired.

This experience got me thinking about getting old, well I say got me, the thought has been there for sometime but the gig kind of pushed it more to the forefront.

Don’t worry this isn’t going to be some long diatribe on the meaning of life. To me there isn’t one, you’re born and you die. The stuff in between is pretty much down to you; whatever works to get you through from a to b is ok by me.

I say that but please don’t take this as me advocating law breaking, I hardly think you could use The Vino Defence when the police find 350 stolen microwaves in your garage “but Vino said whatever works”. Sorry my friend you’re doing bird for that one and I'm not baking a cake with a file in it.

As Benjamin Franklin said there are two certainties in this life “death and taxes” not to be confused with “death and taxis”. Although for me there is a certain fatality to that as well, I’ll always get a driver who wants to talk to me for the entire journey and then bend me over to extract £30 for the fare.

No these thoughts of getting old are more to do with achievement rather than a fear of my own mortality. I find myself hurtling toward 40, which in itself doesn’t bother me, it’s more a question of what have I actually achieved in these 40 years?

Now the obvious answer is family, it’s good but it’s not right. So let’s address it.

Mrs. Vino is fantastic and I concede I wouldn’t have had the life experiences, such as moving to the US, without her. But an achievement? 

Granted I’ve definitely punched above my weight with her, short fat miserable northerner marries tall blonde boarding school educated doctor’s daughter from the south.

The girls, N & M achievements?

I love them to death although I do find myself thinking sometimes who the fuck are you? and how did you get into my house?

I don’t think I can count the girls as an achievement, in reality I had very little (stop making your own jokes up) to do with their creation. I was back downstairs before the kettle had time to boil on both occasions.

My main problem is that I’ve never had a clue what I’m doing with my life either at home or work, I generally just bumble along with a laissez faire attitude. Hoping that things turn out for the best  but generally fearing they won't.  If as predicted they don’t I deal with them with all the aptitude of King Canute.

I’ve always had a sense that I’m meant to be doing something of purpose with my life, almost like Clark Kent before the realisation he was actually Superman. Yes it has a slight delusion of grandeur about it but it stems from a dislike of and disdain for the general populous.

What makes achieving things harder is the fact I’m not good at sticking at things. I come up with ideas, plans, some would say fads and then throw myself in with zealous force. This momentum probably lasts for about a month, maybe slightly less and then it’s on to something else.

Therefore if anybody would like to buy any of the following they’re all available at a knock down price: -

5 String Banjo – given up after learning the opening to dueling banjos

Ukulele – given up after not learning any discernable tune

Kite – couldn’t get it to loop the loop

Telescope – couldn’t see in to no.33’s bedroom

In a few years there may be a Canal Boat available – don’t ask

The phrase jack-of-all-trades master of none springs to mind, I can get by in most situations. I do ok at work and can hold a conversation on a number of subjects, being a mine of absolutely mind numbingly useless trivia helps with that. Sport wise I don’t make a complete balls up playing football, tennis or golf, generally I can handle myself.

Actually come to think of it handling myself is something I do excel at, not to blow my own trumpet (you can’t I’ve tried, how do you think I slipped two discs?) Apologies this is probably a digression too far, I don’t want to put my 3 readers off (sorry Mum).

So I suppose the one thing that keeps me from a complete midlife meaning of life meltdown is cooking. I love it and given the choice would spend days on end in the kitchen. Cooking for people and having them enjoy what I make gives me that sense of achievement. Maybe this is my purpose? The kitchen could be my fortress of solitude, wooden spoon in hand, listening to music making a difference one recipe at a time.

This week’s recipe is probably the first thing I ever learnt to cook watching my Dad make it. It’s not radical but it’s good. It isn’t quick either, giving me an excuse to spend more time in the kitchen.

Ragu, Bolognaise, Meat Sauce, Whatever you want to bloody call it.

There are hundreds of recipes for ragu all of which will do the job. I’ve settled on this one, it’s an amalgamation of many and the little twists to it can be attributed to my Genoese sister in law.

Ingredients

500g Beef Mince

500g Pork Mince – for my readers with certain dietary requirements use all beef

200g Cubed Pancetta – once again optional

2 Carrots – chopped

2 Onions – chopped

2 Sticks of Celery – chopped

500ml Stock – Chicken, Beef, Vegetable – whatever you’ve got in the cupboard

Full Fat Milk – a glug (How annoying is that?! A glug what the buggery is a glug?)

2 Tins Chopped Tomatoes

Tomato Puree – about a tablespoon

Tablespoon of Sugar

2 Bay Leaves

Salt and Pepper

Olive Oil

Method

You need a massive frying pan, biggest you’ve got.

Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in the pan.

Add the Onion, Carrot and Celery. Cook over a low to medium heat until the vegetables have softened, this could take 10-15 minutes.

Once softened put the veg on to a plate or a bowl with a slotted spoon so you don’t remove all the oil, leave to one side.

Turn up the heat adding more oil if the pan looks like it needs it.

Add the pancetta, fry for a minute or so and then add the minces.

These need to be fried over a high heat until the meat breaks down and starts to brown.

At this point I tend to pour off the fat, this is entirely up to you and the amount that builds up will depend on the quality of the beef mince you use.

Add the vegetables back to the pan and stir.

Pour in the tins of tomatoes and stir.

Now you put in the stock and milk. The amounts are a little wooly, as you want to fully immerse the mixture with liquid. So about 500ml of stock first. Give it a stir and then add approx. 200ml of milk.

Next put in the tomato puree and stir in, this will help to thicken the sauce.

Season with salt and pepper and add sugar, I always add sugar as it helps with the acidity of the tomatoes. I sprinkle an ad hoc amount, probably a couple of teaspoons. It’s up to you if you want to add the sugar or not.

Finally add the bay leaves and give it a good stir.

Turn the heat down to a really low simmer and leave it for as long as you’ve got. I usually go for 2 hours minimum but more like 3.

This allows the sauce to reduce and the meat to soften.

The recipe makes a shit load (this is actually a culinary term).

Serve it with Spaghetti as standard or whatever pasta, rice, potato accompaniment you wish.

Last week I made a béchamel and did lasagna with it. If you want the béchamel recipe leave a comment and I’ll blog it.

Enjoy.

A

Parties, Purgatory & Birthday cake

Lately there has been a glut of birthdays in both N and M’s classes. I’m not sure if this time of year marks the anniversary of any special events that led to increased coital activity but there does seem to be a lot of kids born at this time of year. I know they’re expecting a baby boom 9 months after the Olympics.

Personally Mo Farrah didn’t do it for me. It’s the Masters in 2005 that holds special significance for me, I vividly remember a well struck 8 Iron by Tiger inspiring my own performance and Christmas Eve that year N was born.

Now it has been said that I have a negative outlook on things, mainly by people who’ve spent more than ten minutes in my company. Yes I may have a slightly downbeat view of the world and on occasion I may embrace misery like an old friend. So you’re probably asking how I could possibly take no joy from a child’s birthday party?

Three words – SOFT PLAY CENTRE

Ok I’ll concede it isn’t all bad, N is old enough to be dropped off. Unless there is some major emergency, loss of limb, electrocution, you know something really extreme, it’s a couple of childfree hours. I tend to run in and run out at lightning speed doing my best Mel Gibson impression as I leave, obviously going for a Braveheart exclamation of “Freedom” rather than a drunk Anti-Semitic rant.

My problem is when it’s a party for M, at four years old she can’t be abandoned. I’ve tried but she’s like a homing pigeon.

So the invitation came home from playgroup –

“Dear M, Come and have a Wacky Time with us to celebrate Chardonnay’s 4^th Birthday at the Crazy Warehouse.”

To me it actually reads –

“Dear M, Come and see how many germs you can catch from the 500 filth mongering kids who’ve not washed their hands today at Crazy Larry’s Fucking Nuthouse.

PS we know our children have never spoken let alone played together but we want more presents.”

Naturally M wants to go, she doesn’t share her father's disposition nor understand that I don’t really want her associating with children with faux names or naughty girl/boy names.

Mrs. Vino is a teacher and has encountered many a naughty child over the years and it seems to me that there is a direct correlation between the name given and their behaviour. I use the word naughty to save from using another expletive.

The question of names became a real problem when we were choosing for ourselves. I would suggest a name I liked and Mrs. Vino would veto it having taught a little ‘darling’ with that name.

As I’m digressing I might as well tell you I liked Angus for a boy but there was the issue of someone adding “me coat up” to the end of it. Then there was Ophelia for a girl, I’m not educated enough to know she’s a tragic Shakespearean character I just liked the name. We didn’t go with it ultimately when it was pointed out that she’d probably get “Can I have a feel a ya”.

Anyway back to the party, for those of you who haven’t had the pleasure or misfortune of visiting a soft play centre let me describe them to you.

They’re vile, pure and simple. Dante would have placed them as the 6^th Circle of Hell, in between Anger and Violence, had they existed when he wrote his Inferno.

There are literally hundreds of bloody children running around screeching, crying, sneezing and farting as you sit there nursing your hang over, invariably the parties are on a Sunday morning. 

I should add that I’m not great with children, let’s face it I struggle with my own. So you can only imagine how I am with hundreds of them that I don’t know tearing around.

You pay £3 for a shite coffee and then run the gauntlet of making eye contact with other parents you may have met in the playground at pick up or drop off time. Ideally I don’t want to speak to anyone never mind getting saddled with them for two hours, two hours! I don’t speak to my closest friends that much.

The soft play area consists of a series of tunnels, slides and ball pits constructed from disused scaffolding made safe with a bit of bubble wrap and sellotape. It’s a neurotic parents nightmare constantly having to check if little Jonny has done himself a mischief. My nightmare is holding myself back from throttling the brat who’s terrorising the other kids or throwing balls at me from the pit. The parents will be stood idly by adopting an anything goes attitude. If this is you let me tell you just paying your entry fee doesn’t admonish your responsibility of teaching your child right and wrong.

The only redeeming feature in these pits of despair is the food. The children get fed something with beans and chips, generally fish fingers or sausages. I love fish fingers, beans and chips.

Generally speaking a visit to one of these places is two hours of your life you’re never getting back. I’m not looking down my nose at those who choose the option of having their parties there. (I am really, hold your heads in shame.)

You pay per attending child and everything is done for you. There’s no cooking or clearing up after, they turf you out when the time’s up with one final kick in the nuts of a party bag full of sugar just to ensure your child leaves in the most hyper state possible.

It was M’s birthday last week and you won’t be surprised to know we made our own party, although the sadistic part of me wanted to do soft play if only to inflict the pain I go through on others.

Instead we hired a children’s entertainer, an old magician who M absolutely loved and was in hysterics. Now I did write a joke about not seeing his CRB check and being slightly concerned when he started to turn out his trouser pockets to do his ‘elephant’ impression. Mrs.Vino said I couldn’t include it, oh well.

The poor old fella was last seen heading to his van mumbling “I just wish they’d sit down, why won’t they bloody sit down, 25 years I’ve been doing this and they’ve never sat down.”

Food wise I refused to make anything nice for the little buggers to throw at each other and trample into the floor, so it was sandwiches, crisps and sausage rolls. I did bake some buns (fairy cakes to you southerners) and flapjack I couldn’t help myself.

The party bags were filled with crappy sweets and a piece of cake I didn’t make. Mrs. Vinos teacher instincts took over as the obligatory toy was replaced with a book. “You WILL bloody read.”

So in honour of M turning 4 this week’s recipe is the birthday cake I made her but didn’t give to any of the children at the party.

I’ve made lots of birthday cakes and have to say this is the best, it’s simple but looks and tastes bloody good. I no longer do requests after getting caught out with an Elmer cake for M’s 3^rd. I spent hours and hours baking and decorating but it never had a prayer of looking like a multi coloured elephant.

Nigella’s Birthday Custard Sponge - (From Feast)

Ingredients – I’ve broken it down into each element

Sponges

200g Plain Flour

3 Tablespoons Custard Powder

2 Teaspoons Baking Powder

½ Teaspoon Bicarbonate of Soda

4 Eggs

225g Soft Butter

200g Caster Sugar

2-3 Tablespoons Milk

Buttercream

125g Icing Sugar

4 Teaspoons Custard Powder

75g Soft Butter

1 ½ Teaspoons Boiling Water

Chocolate Icing

60ml Water

2 Tablespoons Golden syrup

125g Caster Sugar – Only 50g needed if you use Milk Chocolate

175g Dark Chocolate – broken into pieces

Decorations

I use Stars & Hundreds and Thousands

Yes I know it looks a lot of ingredients and yes it probably is cheaper to buy a cake but I like baking and once you’ve made it the ingredients are in the cupboard to make again.

Method - Sponge

Preheat the oven to 180c and butter the bottom and sides of 2 x 20cm tins then line the bottoms with greaseproof paper.

Put everything, minus the milk, into a processor and blitz until it’s smooth – make sure the butter is soft or it’s a nightmare and you’ll end up with a lumpy batter.

Add the milk so you get a consistency that it easily drops off the spoon.

Divide the mixture between the tins and bake for 20 minutes, the cakes will have risen and be nicely golden on top. I use a wooden skewer to test if they’re ready, if it comes out clean they’re done.

Let them cool a little in the tin and then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely, remember to take off the greaseproof paper.

Method – Buttercream

Process the icing sugar and custard powder first.

Add the butter and process, it’ll start to form a ball.

With the motor still running add the boiling water to loosen the buttercream up.

Method - Chocolate Icing

Put everything in a saucepan except the chocolate and heat until the syrup and sugar have dissolved.

Take off the heat and add the chocolate, swirling it around to cover in the hot liquid.

Once it’s melted whisk to make it smooth.

Assembly

Once the sponges are completely cold place one on a plate.

Put all the buttercream in the middle and spread it out evenly.

Put the other sponge on top.

Do this before you make the chocolate icing. (Now I tell you – sorry)

Pour the now made chocolate icing over the top, it’ll run down on to the plate just spoon it back over making sure you cover the sides completely.

Decorate before the icing sets.

Enjoy.

A