Wholefood Mincemeat Slices

With Christmas coming up, I want to offer you a recipe for a good alternative to mince pies.

The quantities given are good for 12 slices.

150 g margarine

110 g porridge oats

75 g soft brown sugar

225 g mincemeat

225 g wholewheat flour

Butter a shallow baking tin 28×18 cm (or use a round pie tin). Preheat oven to 200º Celcius.

Melt the margarine gently in a large saucepan, together with the brown sugar. Meanwhile, mix the flour and porridge oats in a mixing bowl.

When the margarine and sugar mixture has turned liquid, remove the pan from the heat and add the flour and oats, stirring well with each addition.

When it is all thoroughly blended, spoon half the mixture into the prepared tin. Using the flat of your hand, press the mixture down firmly all over, making sure it gets into all the corners. The firmer you press, the less crumbly the slices will be once they are cooked.

Next, spread the mincemeat evenly all over the tin, pressing it out with the back of the spoon. Then spread the remaining oat mixture over the top, again pressing down firmly.

Now bake in the centre of the oven for about 20 mins. or until the top is tinged brown. Remove from the oven and, using a sharp knife, cut into 12 squares, but then leave in tin until all is quite cold.

Once cooled, lift the slices out of the tin, one by one. They can be stored in an air tight tin.

Enjoy.

Quarente Quatre

Oranges are coming up for their harvest. Time to consider a recipe that the French have given us: quarente quatre. Why not try to make your own orange liqueur?

Choose three or four untreated oranges, firm in flesh, and juicy. Make a dozen small and deep insertions. Stuff good quality coffee beans deeply into these cuts, about one dozen per orange.

Put the oranges into a large glass jar. Put 44 sugar cubes of the large French sort on top of the oranges, or 88 sugar cubes of the smaller British kind.

Buy a bottle of Marc, or Grappa, or Eau de Vivre. Pour the spirit over the oranges and sugar.

Seal tight, and store the glass jar in a dark and dry corner of the house. Wait for quarente quatre jours (44 days).

After that you can have a first sip. If satisfied, you can serve your own orange liqueur after dinner, especially after a festive dinner like one of those coming up soon.

Merci beaucoup to our friend, Herbert Udo, for the inspiration.

Mrs Pettigrew’s Famous Lemon Cake

When we lived in England, we lived in Clapham, in South London. On the edge of Clapham Common, there was our favourite tea place, called Tea Time. It was owned by Mrs Pettigrew who did marvelous cakes and tarts. My favourite cake was her lemon cake, the recipe of which she published in a book, called Jane Pettigrew’s Tea Time.

I must have baked the Tea Time lemon cake at least a hundred times, and it gets better all the time.

This cake should be really lemony and moist, so if the lemons you buy are not very juicy use an extra one.

3 untreated lemons

45 ml caster sugar for the topping

100 g margarine or butter, softened

175 g caster sugar2 large eggs, beaten

175 g self raising flour

90 ml milk

Heat the oven to 170º C and grease and line an 18 cm round tin or a 900 g loaf tin.Grate 2 of the lemons and juice all 3. Put the lemon juice in a bowl with the 45 ml sugar for the topping and stand in a warm place until needed. The top of the oven is ideal. The sugar should dissolve and form a syrup with the juice.Cream the fat and sugar together until very light and fluffy. Add the eggs, a little at a time, beating thoroughly between each addition. Add the grated lemon rind and the flour and beat hard. Finally, add the milk and beat again.

Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 1 hour until golden and well risen. Remove from the oven and immediately prick the top in 3 to 4 places. Pour the lemon juice and sugar syrup at once all over the hot cake so that the entire top is covered.Leave the cake in the tin until quite cold, so that all the juice will be absorbed by the sponge. Then, turn out and wrap the cake in foil until needed, to keep it fresh.

Enjoy.