May 13, 2008

Old china

One of the things I love about living in an old cottage is the excuse to furnish it in alternative ways. When I lived in New Zealand, I was an habitué of the op shops (charity shops) in Christchurch, always picking up old cake tins or nutcrackers, battered but usable cutlery, my old dining table and an odd assortment of small stools, used about the house as bedside tables, wee seats and useful steps. Space being limited in Ireland, I've avoided my worst NZ excesses, much to the Husband's relief: there was once Words by the side of the street when one of my op shop chairs didn't fit into the car. One thing I do watch out for, however, is old china. No trip to New Zealand is complete without a few items being secreted in the luggage for the journey home; last time I even managed to fit a collection of old fashioned spoons (to match the bone-handled knives and forks that I had picked up at the Bantry market last summer).

As time goes on, my modern matched crockery and cutlery keep getting pushed further and further back in the press, as I use and re-use my favourite supper plates and particular forks. The dishes that would once been used as shallow soup plates make perfect pasta bowls and an assortment of mismatched side plates and saucers work to serve up deserts or sweet treats to have with tea. The photo is of the remaining pieces of a once-numerous set from Arklow Irish Pottery that I picked up recently. With rims of pale daffodil yellow, painted with twisted curlicues of gold, it is the perfect delft to use when eating early summer meals: platefuls and platefuls of steamed and dressed PSB (Purple Sprouting Broccoli - yes, it did turn both P and S, eventually), millet and bulgar salads with roasted vegetables, roasted buckwheat tossed with flageolet beans in a chilli citrus dressing. Everything seems to taste much better when eaten off the perfect plate - especially if that's done outside in the sunshine.

Posted by Caroline at 3:05 PM | Comments (0)

Site upgrade - hopefully

Working on a site upgrade at the moment - please bear with me while I wander around the back end of things and figure out what goes where.

Posted by Caroline at 12:35 PM | Comments (0)

May 10, 2008

Just in season...

There was great excitement in Urru, Mallow on Wednesday when the first of the Irish-grown strawberries arrived from Rosscarbery amidst glorious sunshine. We stacked boxes of ruddy fruit on the shelves of the fridge, inhaling their fragrance all the while, until it was decided that we needed to open one - just for quality testing, of course. That punnet wasn't long in being devoured, and - before they all disappeared with customers - I grabbed one for myself, to sit in the evening sunshine and eat, all tumbled on great scoops of Murphy's Vanilla Ice Cream. The first real taste of summer.

Posted by Caroline at 4:11 PM | Comments (0)

May 6, 2008

The Glebe Gardens, Baltimore

Just heard from a reader that the café at The Glebe Gardens in Baltimore is well worth a visit. Liz writes:

"Just wanted to let you know of a café I happened upon last weekend. It is the Glebe Café, in Baltimore, West Cork, and it is one to rave about. The produce comes straight from their garden on to the plate and it is just spectacular. The website is www.glebegardens.com. I think they are only open at weekends right now but I think they start a weekly thing in the summer. I had Organic Beef Stew....yummy simple great food, it just excited me so much that I had to tell someone."

Last June, while the new Husband and I were honeymooning in West Cork (along with eight of his family, six English Engineers and an Irish terrier called Bridie) we visited the Glebe Gardens and loved it. Unfortunately the café wasn't opened while we were there - although the Husband did meet the owner of the house and almost secured me a job while talking to him about me doing the course at Ballymaloe - but all the ingredients were present in the garden, just waiting to be used. Great to hear that it's doing well - I'll have to plan a trip back to the West this summer!

Posted by Caroline at 12:47 PM | Comments (0)

May 1, 2008

James Beard Foundation Awards nominees

Just been checking out the James Beard Foundation Awards nominees and I see that congratulations are in order for Heidi Swanson for her nomination in the Healthy Focus category. Her book - Super Natural Cooking: Five Ways to Incorporate Whole & Natural Ingredients into Your Cooking - is a constant source of ideas and inspiration these days as I try out her ideas and experiment with new ingredients.

Nominated in the Asian Cooking section is Fuchsia Dunlop for Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook - I'm just reading Shark's Fin & Sichuan Pepper, her enthralling memoir of cooking and eating in China. Fuchsia is also up for a Newspaper Feature Writing award, as is David Leite of Leite's Culinaria. Other of my favourite authors up for awards are Mark Bittman aka the New York Times writer that brought No-Knead bread to the world (How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food), Alice Medrich for Pure Desert (we're big fans of her Chocolate Buckwheat Cookies around here), Anne Willan (The Country Cooking of France), 2005 Savour NZ presenter Patricia Wells (Vegetable Harvest) and - one of the most entertaining food books from last year - Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver (I still have plans to try out her recipe for homemade mozzarella!). The awards will be announced on Sunday 8 June.

Posted by Caroline at 9:28 PM | Comments (0)

April 29, 2008

Grilled Pizzas & Piadinas by Craig Priebe

I love experimenting with and learning different cooking techniques, especially if they involve playing with yeast. No Knead Bread? Yes please! Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Made that. Sourdough from my own starter? Still bubbling quietly away in the fridge. But grilled or barbequed pizza? Not yet - that was until I got my hands on a copy of Craig Priebe's Grilled Pizzas & Piadinas. Craig developed his grilling technique, using a barbeque, when he ran his own pizza restaurant in Atlanta and this book explains it in detail. When we did the pizza day in Ballymaloe, Darina cooked one of her creations on the barbeque outside the demo theatre door but, more fascinated by the wood-fired oven, I didn't hang around in the rain, instead directing my attentions indoors so I never got to investigate the barbequed pizza properly.

Wanting to put this cookbook to the test (sometimes, when piles of cookbooks start stacking on the stairs, next to the bed, all over the kitchen counter and on the dining table, the Husband asks why I don't spend less time reading cookbooks and more time actually using them) I decided to make some dough on Sunday morning for a Sunday night pizza fest. It took minutes in the KitchenAid, although I had to add a lot of extra flour - perhaps something to do flour stored in American kitchens being much drier than in Irish cottages at the end of a long, damp winter. After a couple of hours on a warm window sill, the dough was landed into the fridge and sat there all afternoon, firming up enough to handle.

When we got home that evening it was raining too much to pull out the barbeque so I dragged out my big, heavy cast-iron frying pan and heated it up while the Husband mixed some of Craig's Herbed Grill Oil. The pan is not quite big enough to cook 12-inch pizzas so, instead of two 12-inch pizzas we made three 10-ish-inch rounds out of the dough - next time I'd make four thinner ones. As everything came together faster than expected - Craig did warn me, I just hadn't read that piece! - there was a bit of juggling with temperatures on the pan, topping ingredients on the counter and finishing off under the grill but, much faster than expected, we finally had a selection of decent pizzas to sit down to.

I discovered that basil pesto and marinated feta, combined with Craig's Herb Oil, makes for an overly greasy pizza but goat's cheese, roasted red pepper and Caramelised Onions are a winning combination. Hegarty's Cheddar, with thinly sliced salami (Gubbeen, for preference) and Tomato Chilli Jam also worked out well. Next time I may even be organised enough to try a few of Greg's own ideas for toppings - spinach, pesto, mushrooms and feta sounds good, as does sausage, pepperoni, artichoke hearts and peppers. The book also includes a selection of salads (I've already got my eye on Baby Lettuce with a Citrus Peppercorn Dressing) and deserts (Cinnamon Churros, grilled pizza style) to accompany the pizzas, alongside recipes for the Italian-style flatbreads called piadinas - something to try out for next Sunday, perhaps.

Grilled Pizzas & Piadinas by Craig Priebe is published by DK Publishing

Posted by Caroline at 8:24 AM | Comments (0)

April 28, 2008

Anzac Biscuits

Totally forgot Anzac Day - which was on Saturday - this year. In case anyone else is also in the same boat, but still wanting to mark the date with some baking, here is my tried-tested-and-true Anzac Biscuit recipe.

Posted by Caroline at 11:22 PM | Comments (0)

April 22, 2008

Sprouts ahoy!

Although there has been lots of salad planted in the garden on recent weekends, including mustard greens, rocket and mizuna (at least I'll be able to distinguish between the plants after cramming in Ballymaloe for the salad leaves and herbs exams!), it's going to be a while before any of the leaves are big enough to eat. Then, of course, because our planting in succession routine is not entirely developed - despite best intentions - we'll have another glut to work through. But that's all ahead of us and, until then, I've been growing my own salad on the windowsill.

I bought a small, three-level seed sprouter last summer but it was much too warm in our Dublin flat so my first attempts weren't very successful. Now, on a bright windowsill in my unheated cottage, it's really coming into its own. It's on the window behind the sink which makes it easier to remember to rinse the sprouts twice a day - it's not so good when you forget although the smell will help you remember.

I started off using the seeds that I bought at the same time as the sprouter - broccoli (a bit weedy), fenugreek (spicy addition to salads), mustard (peppery, really good in sandwiches) and red clover, which is all a bit anonymous. Getting more adventurous, I recently moved on to the contents of the store cupboard. Mung beans - the bean sprouts we all know - have been a success, especially in their crunchy and juicy early stages but the quinoa never really grew properly and the wheatberries were much too much like grass to be palatable. I suppose that's why wheatgrass is normally used for producing juice. My absolute favourite - so far - are the sprouted lentils. I've been switching between the simple brown and crunchier Puy lentils, both which are great mixed with the stronger-flavoured mustard and fenugreek sprouts in salads and stuffed into sandwiches, pitta breads and wraps. With this tiny garden, I'm much better with successive planting - hopefully we can make it work better outdoors this year!

If you're interested in reading more, there's some very useful information about sprouting in the recent Guardian Grow-Your-Own Guide and the ever-useful Nigel Slater gives a few ideas about how to use them here.

Posted by Caroline at 5:30 PM | Comments (0)

April 21, 2008

Sweet treats for work: Chocolate Buckwheat Cookies

Lacking my once-easy access to a variety of shops, providing me with a large assortment of ingredients to play with, these days I tend to concentrate on the products available in Urru and have also become a habitué of my local health food shops. After finding some cacao nibs in The Granary (Mallow) and picking up a bag of buckwheat flour from Horan's Health Store in Fermoy, I decided to make a batch of Alice Medrich's Nibby Buckwheat Butter Cookies that had come to my attention through 101 Cookbooks.

I've written about Heidi, her site and her cookbook, Super Natural Cooking, here before. Both the blog and the book are things I keep turning to, again and again, for sweet and savoury inspiration, especially after I pick up something new from the health shop. With the addition of some dark chocolate chips - I wanted to balance the bitterness of the cacao nibs - these turned into Chocolate Buckwheat Cookies, rich and nutty from the buckwheat, crunchy with cacao nibs and sweetened by the chocolate. The flavour of the buckwheat is particularly pronounced on the day that you bake the cookies, mellowing nicely in the days that follow - making these great to fill the going-to-work tin.

I have a suspicion that these cookies will also be great sandwiched with vanilla ice cream, and I've a tub of Murphy's awaiting attention in the freezer at this very moment. I didn't get a score this week from the Polish Colleague but the Mallow Workmate said that they were her favourite of all the things I've brought to work so far (8/10).

Chocolate Buckwheat Cookies
Plain flour - 6oz
Buckwheat flour - 4oz
Butter - 8oz, at room temperature
Light Muscovado sugar - 6oz
Pinch of salt
Cacao nibs - 1oz
Good quality dark chocolate chips - 1oz, I used one containing 60% cocoa solids
Vanilla extract - 1½ teaspoon

Mix the plain and buckwheat flours together in a large bowl. In the bowl of a stand mixer - I used the paddle attachment on my KitchenAid - cream the butter, sugar and salt together for about a minute until well combined. Mix in the cacao nibs, chocolate chips and vanilla extract. Add the flours and beat on a low speed until just combined, using your hands to knead the mixture together if necessary to make a smooth dough.
Shape into a log, about 12 inches long and 2 inches in diameter, on baking paper. Wrap and put into the fridge for at least 2 hours or, to make it easier, overnight.
Preheat the oven to 350˚F (180˚C/170˚C for a fan oven) and cover two baking trays with sheets of baking paper. Slice the cookie log into pieces approximately ¼ inch thick, spacing them about 1½ inches apart on the baking paper. Bake in the preheated oven for 12-14 minutes, until the cookies start to brown around the edges. Check them half way thorough as you may have to switch the trays around. Cool the cookies on a wire rack and store in an airtight tin.
Makes about 48 cookies.

Posted by Caroline at 9:43 AM | Comments (0)

April 20, 2008

Bibliocook in The Irish Times

Woo hoo! Bibliocook got a brief mention in Marie-Claire Digby's Webwatch in the food section of yesterday's Irish Times Magazine. Unless you have a subscription, you can't view it online so here it is (told you it was brief!):

Webwatch
www.bibliocook.com
Read about the culinary adventures of former entertainment journalist turned Ballymaloe-trained cook and food writer, Caroline Hennessy.
Published: Sat 19 April 2008 - The Irish Times - Magazine

Posted by Caroline at 10:33 AM | Comments (4)

April 16, 2008

Sweet treats for work: Apricot Date Cake

Always read the recipe before starting, always read the recipe. That's an instruction that's been drummed into me for years, whether in Home Ec class, while studying in Ballymaloe, or just from experience on many occasions of getting half-way through baking something only to discover that an essential item was missing.

Now, it seems, I read the ingredient list - but forget to look at the method. When I looked at this recipe (originally for a Date and Peach Slice) I figured that I'd just use apricots instead of peaches but I neglected to notice the direction to prepare a 9 inch square tin. Do I have a 9 inch square tin? Not at all. That's why this week's slice ended up turning into a cake (I did have an 8 inch round tin) which, try as you may, is rather difficult to cut into enough evenly shaped pieces for morning coffee to get you through the week!

That said, it was a fantastically moist and well-flavoured cake, flecked with a mixture of reconstituted and dried fruit and well worth the trouble. Next time, I think I'll try to double the mixture to fit in my swiss-roll tin. The score from the Polish Colleague? 7/10 this time.

Apricot Date Cake
Dried apricots - 200g, roughly chopped
Butter - 125g, melted
Self-raising flour - 125g
Plain flour - 125g
Light Muscovado sugar - 200g
Ground cinnamon - 1½ teaspoons
Shredded coconut - 45g
Dates - 125g, roughly chopped

Put the apricots into a heatproof bowl and cover with boiling water. Allow to soak for 30 minutes.

Butter a 22cm (8 inch) round spring form tin and preheat the oven to 180˚C. Drain the apricots and reserve 125ml of the soaking liquid.

Mix the apricots, reserved liquid and butter in a medium bowl. Put the flours, sugar, cinnamon, coconut and dates in a large bowl, pour over the liquid ingredients and stir gently until just combined. Do not over mix.

Scrape into the prepared tin, smoothing the surface, and cook for 35-40 minutes until set, golden brown, and a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

Cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out and cooling on a wire rack. Makes 1 x 22cm cake.

Posted by Caroline at 7:27 PM | Comments (0)

April 15, 2008

Slow Food Cork: An Crúibín

Slow Food Cork has an event coming up this Thursday, 17 April, at a new bar called An Crúibín on Union Quay. Before it was revamped and made over, the venue was known as the Lobby Bar, site of many a night of musical madness and commemorated by inimitable Cork musician John Spillane in his nostalgic Magic Nights in the Lobby Bar. Now a tapas bar, An Crúibín will play host to, we are promised, a traditional evening of pigs trotters, tails, ribs and cheek, accompanied by bread from the Arbutus Bakery and pints of Beamish, my stout of choice. The event starts at 8pm, it costs €10 for Slow Food members (€15 for non-members) and bookings can be made at 021 4505819.

Posted by Caroline at 9:33 AM | Comments (0)

April 14, 2008

Pig as performance piece

Hog roast from Gubbeen was on the menu at the Waterford Food Fair farmers' market in Dungarvan yesterday. Cooking started on Grattan Square at 5.30am so appetites were well-stimulated by the time Fingal Ferguson and his staff started serving blaas stuffed with roast pork to a hungry crowd around 1pm. It wasn't the only food on offer at the market - think Chocolate Brownies from Tara's Cookies, Baldwin's farmhouse ice cream, O'Flynn's Gourmet Sausages that I often pick up in the English Market, apple juice from Killowen Orchard and the Crinnaughtaun Juice Company - but, with waves of pork-infused smoke wafting through the square as it cooked, it was definitely the most spectacular.
When we arrived, as the market opened, I grabbed a half-dozen duck and hen eggs from the Dungarvan and Waterford Irish country markets stall. Buying eggs first thing in the morning may not have been my most intelligent idea but, despite other purchases (hunks of local Knockanore and Knockalara cheeses, jars of Seville Marmalade and Fíor-Mil summer honey, fresh-baked rye and seed bread from the Ormond Café), along with the Sunday newspapers, various scarves and layers that were shed as the day heated up, we still managed to get them home in one piece. That was until they were introduced to some mushrooms and butter in the omelette pan that evening...

Posted by Caroline at 12:09 PM | Comments (2)

April 11, 2008

Mallow Farmers' Market on TG4

There's a video report on the first Mallow Farmers' Market on TG4 - go to Cúrsaí Reatha - Cartlann, scroll down to Nuacht TG4 - 05/04/08 and the piece is third on the Nuacht, 6.38 into the clip.

Posted by Caroline at 9:23 PM | Comments (0)

April 10, 2008

Waterford dates for your diary

Waterford Festival of Food - this weekend! 11 to 13 April in Dungarvan, Co Waterford. Food trails, cookery demonstrations and a Sunday farmers' market that I'm planning on visiting. I hope they're going to be serving those delicious soft floury white bread baps, unique to Waterford, called Blaas. No weekend away in Tramore was complete without a breakfast Blaa, stuffed with bacon and omelette...mmmm....

Terra Madre Ireland 2008 - 4 to 7 September, in Waterford City. Slow food workshops, debates, tours and tastings, all based around the theme of sustainable food production. Sign up on the website for a news letter that will keep you up-to-date with all the goings-on.

Posted by Caroline at 9:09 PM | Comments (2)

April 8, 2008

Sweet treats for work: Nutty Chocolate Squares

Some weeks things work, at other times my attempts to fill the tins with sweet treats for work falls flat. This time I have a not very successful variation on Almond Honey Squares from a neat little Woman's Weekly Simple Slices book that the Husband ordered for me recently. I think he's trying to ensure his supply of different nice things to take to work - before I started making these weekly variations, it was a consistent diet of Chocolate Sesame Flapjacks and variations thereof.

Although I didn't really follow the recipe, I have to admit that it was not entirely my fault - this time. I had the honey - but the Husband had stuck a buttery knife, complete with toast crumbs, into the jar (luckily that transgression was balanced by the gift of the book!) - so that was substituted with maple syrup, which I couldn't even taste in the eventual result. One of my recently-purchased packets of flaked almonds went a-missing so instead I used a not-too-bad combination of flaked almonds and toasted pistachios. The eventual result - Nutty Chocolate Squares - didn't go to waste, they had their fans, especially when there was nothing else on offer, but only scored 6/10 from the Polish Colleague. His scale is, apparently based on flapjacks at 10/10. Here is the original recipe - I think this may be one to try again, but with honey this time.

Almond Honey Squares
Plain flour - 150g
Freshly ground nutmeg - ½ teaspoon
Ground almonds - 60g
Light brown Muscovado sugar - 110g
Butter - 90g, melted

Topping
Eggs - 3, beaten together
Light brown Muscovado sugar - 55g
Honey - 90g
Milk chocolate - 100g, melted
Slivered almonds - 210g

Preheat oven to 180˚C and grease a 20 x 30cm tin.

Mix the flour, nutmeg, ground almonds, sugar and melted butter in a large bowl. Press evenly over base of prepared tin and bake in the preheated oven for 10-12 minutes until lightly browned. Allow to cool and reduce oven to 160˚C.

Combine the eggs, sugar, honey and melted chocolate for the topping. Pour over cooled base and sprinkle with the slivered almonds. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until topping is set. Cool in the tin and refrigerate for several hours before cutting into about 20 squares.

Posted by Caroline at 8:36 PM | Comments (0)

April 7, 2008

Trish Deseine online

For those of you who are, like me, without television - or simply without Irish television - you can watch Trish Deseine's first programme, Trish's Paris Kitchen, online from the RTÉ website. Although the first show includes lunchtime cooking classes at L'Atelier des Chefs, a visit to Clotilde's favourite cookware store, E. Dehillerin, and several recipes, it never quite lifts off and is curiously flat. In the meantime - I've been resisting temptation for way too long! - I've Trish's chocolate cookbook on order. I think it was the thought of these Oatmeal and Dark Chocolate Cookies...or maybe it was the Gâteau au chocolat fondant de Nathalie?

Posted by Caroline at 12:35 PM | Comments (2)

April 6, 2008

Taste of Cork

With Irish cheeses and handmade terrines, fresh-shucked oysters, champagne and plenty of spiced beef, the launch of the Taste of Cork festival took place last Thursday in the English Market and it's shaping up to be something well worth checking out.

Although I was rather underwhelmed with my experience at the first Taste of Dublin, the teething problems - portion size, rain shelter, muck underfoot - seem to have been ironed out and, for the event's Cork debut, the organisers have chosen the historic surroundings of the Cork City Gaol (or Jail, depending on where you grew up!) for the weekend of Friday 27 to Sunday 29 June. The restaurant line up includes Jacobs on the Mall, Seamus O'Connell's Ivory Tower, the very familiar Ballymaloe House, and Mallow's representative - Longueville House. We're planning on a family day out - time to book those tickets!

Posted by Caroline at 12:09 PM | Comments (0)

April 3, 2008

The revolution will not be pasteurised

Gradually getting through the Observer Food Monthly - it's like very good chocolate for me, not something to be gobbled down but, rather, to be slowly savoured - and just came across a feature on Bill Hogan and Sean Ferry of the West Cork Natural Cheese Company, makers of the superlative Desmond and Gabriel cheeses. The cheese-making partners have been in conflict with the department of agriculture since 2002, when their cheeses, all made from raw, non-pasteurised milk, were impounded. They eventually won their case - but it was not without much difficulty and hardship. Read the whole story - The revolution will not be pasteurised - here and then take yourself down to your nearest cheesemonger and buy a large slice of Desmond and Gabriel in tribute to a couple of cheesemakers who fought back.

Posted by Caroline at 8:32 PM | Comments (7)

April 2, 2008

Trish's Paris Kitchen

Trish Deseine is a familiar name in the food blogosphere - particularly to anyone who reads Chocolate and Zucchini - and this Ulster-born food writer is also very well known in her adoptive France. Last year's publication of Nobody Does it Better: Why French Home Cooking Is Still the Best in the World, was her first major foray into the English-speaking world - her Boudin Noir aux Deux Pommes (Black Pudding with Apples and Potatoes) is one of those useful ideas that is cooked regularly in my house.

Her debut television series, Trish's Paris Kitchen, starts on RTÉ One tonight at 7.30pm. I don't know if the programme is going to be broadcast online just yet, although 4oD has completely spoiled me for watching TV on the web (thanks Suzy!), but you can catch Trish being interviewed on Corrigan Knows Food from last June and she was also being interviewed on Monday's Today With Pat Kenny - scroll down and click on Shows from the past week on the right hand side.

Posted by Caroline at 7:57 AM | Comments (0)

April 1, 2008

Sweet treats for work: Chocolate Hazelnut Squares

Sometimes you start with one particular recipe and end up going off on a slightly different tangent. That's what happened with these Chocolate Hazelnut Squares. After a comment by Sarah on my Lemon Traybake, I wandered over to Val's Kitchen and took a look at the Hazelnut Caramel Slice that she made from a Rachel Allen recipe, dug out the book and started baking.

But the day was getting late, I was also making dinner at the same time (may as well do all the day's washing up together!) and tastings of the raw base mixture - a brownie-style batter - were great so I decided to stop there. Rather than adding the caramel and chocolate layers, I roasted and chopped 125g of hazelnuts (being of a naturally lazy bent, I don’t bother de-skinning them), pressed them into the chocolate base and left it at that.

Val's look amazing but when you're taking something to work, you don't want to be facing something so rich every day! I've started making these Sweet Treats a week before I post the recipe so I can get an idea of how they last. This recipe is very quick, can be made in one medium-sized saucepan and sits quite happily in a tin - Husband permitting - for the week. My Polish Colleague gave them eight out of ten!

Chocolate Hazelnut Squares
Butter - 200g
Cocoa powder - 50g
Muscovado or dark brown sugar - 300g
Vanilla extract - 1 teaspoon
Eggs - 2, beaten together
Plain flour - 225g
Hazelnuts - 125g

Preheat the oven to 160˚C/325˚F and grease the base and sides of a 20 x 30cm (8 x 12inch) Swiss roll tin.

Spread the hazelnuts on a baking sheet with edges - you don't want to lose them in the oven! - and roast in the hot oven until you can smell them. Cool and roughly chop.

In a medium-sized saucepan, melt the butter over a low heat. While still on the heat, add the cocoa and sugar and stir until dissolved. Remove from the heat and allow to cool for a few minutes before beating in the vanilla extract and eggs. Sieve the plain flour over and mix well. Spread into the prepared tin and sprinkle with the chopped hazelnuts. Using your hand, press them into the chocolate base.

Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes until firm. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack. Cut into squares when cold.

Posted by Caroline at 2:12 PM | Comments (1)

Mallow Farmers' Market

If you're anywhere in the Mallow area this coming Saturday, 5 April, you can catch the first Mallow Farmers' Market in the wee courtyard outside URRU - the culinary store, deli and café where I work - from 10.30am to 1pm. Stalls that will be there include my favourite Fermoy Natural Cheeses, smoked fish from Geraldine Bass' Old Millbank Smokehouse and herbs from West Cork's Gairdín Eden, which supply the fantastic salad leaves that we sell in URRU. Hopefully the weather will stay fine!

Posted by Caroline at 11:25 AM | Comments (0)

March 31, 2008

By Request: Irish Tea Brack

Since I first wrote about the McDonnell's Good Food Cookbooks I have had several emails asking for recipes that people remember from their childhood or enjoyed years ago but have since lost. The latest request, from Renee who wants to make the cake for a family occasion, is for the Tea Brack recipe from the first cookbook. This is one of our family favourites, a much used recipe, but - as I well remember from frustrated occasions searching for it - annoyingly filed under the name Irish Tea Brack in the Irish Tea Time Favourites chapter, just across the page from Gingerbread.

It is a very simple cake to make. Just soak your fruit the night before you want to bake it - you could always replace some of the tea with whiskey for added interest - and it multiplies up very well. I well remember soaking vast bowls of dried fruit to make four or six loaves at a time as it keeps very well in the old biscuit tin that was always filled with some kind of fruitcake for the after school cup of tea. It is particularly good, cut into thin slices and spread with lots of salty butter. Back in the days when I didn't like fruitcake, I did love this and Boiled Fruit Cake from the same book as the liquid used in both recipes ensured that the dried fruit was properly re-hydrated, the slices crammed full of plump and luscious sultanas, raisins and currants, with maybe the occasional cherry thrown in for good measure.

Along with substituting butter for the marg used in the original recipe, I will give both the imperial and metric measurements as they appear in the cookbook. I haven't cooked this in a fan oven so would be interested to know what kind of temperature/cooking times other people use.

Irish Tea Brack
Strong black tea - 12 tablespoons/180ml
Mixed dried fruit - 1lb/450g
Brown sugar - 6oz/175g
Egg - 1, lightly beaten
Butter - 1oz/25g, melted
Plain flour - 10oz/275g
Bread soda - ½ level teaspoon

Mix the black tea, dried fruit and brown sugar in a large bowl, cover with a tea towel and leave to soak overnight.

The next day, preheat the oven to 350˚F/180˚C. Butter and line a 2lb/800g loaf tin.

Stir the egg and melted butter into the soaked fruit mixture. Sieve the plain flour and bread soda together and fold in to the rest of the ingredients. Scrape the cake mixture into the prepared tin and bake for approximately 90 minutes.

Cool in tin for 10 minutes before turning out. Cool on a wire rack.

Makes 1 loaf.

Posted by Caroline at 12:22 PM | Comments (6)

March 26, 2008

Dublin food and wine events

In the "I wish I was still living in Dublin" category, check out the forthcoming evening of Italian food, wine and song organised by Greatfood.ie and the Italian School of Cooking for this Saturday night (29 March). Tickets for that are on sale at Greatfood2buy.com. Independent wine blog Sour Grapes - well worth taking a look at for some decent wine reviews - is organising a wine tasting event at Fallon & Byrne for 15 April. Sign up at Sour Grapes here.

Posted by Caroline at 7:06 AM | Comments (3)