Cakes & Bakes: Goats cheese and nettle scones

I’ve made a few different things in the past with stinging nettles; pesto, soup and bread. This week, I made some goats cheese and nettle scones.

I’ve been eyeing up all the nettle patches in our garden and around the village here where we live. I’ve made a point of not clearing it from around the garden because I know I was going to put it to good use.

In the past week, much of it is just about to come into flower, so time is running out for foraging the tasty stinging tips. I donned a pair of gardening gloves and, with a zip-lock bag at the ready, got to work picking off the young, hairy green leaves.

If you set off on a wild nettle hunt, remember, only pick the leaves that are over two feet high; dogs passing by enjoy cocking their leg and giving them a shower! Pick them like you’d pick tea leaves, only the growing tip and top pair of leaves… and don’t forget your gloves! When you get them home, put them in a colander and give them a quick rinse under a cold tap, tossing every couple of seconds.

The only pair of kitchen gloves I have are covered in shoe polish – I didn’t want to use them to bring the scone dough together. I had to handle the stinging nettle with a couple of dough scrapers… not ideal!

If you don’t have goats cheese, most hard cheeses make good alternatives; cheddar, red Leicester, Parmesan etc. Similarly, if you don’t have any natural yoghurt, you can use buttermilk or sour cream. The recipe is very flexible.

They were really delicious; the flavours of the goats cheese and nettle work really well together. Slice in half while still warm and give each side a generous swipe of butter… lovely!

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Goats cheese and nettle scones

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Cook Time 15

Course Snack

Cuisine British

Ingredients

500 g self-raising flour
½ tsp salt
1 tsp cream of tartar
50 g cold butter cubed
300 ml natural yoghurt
125 g goats cheese cut into ½cm cubes
20 g nettle tips chopped
1 egg beaten

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 220ºC/425ºF/Gas mark 7
Grease or line a baking sheet with baking/parchment paper
In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, salt and cream of tartar
Add the butter and rub together using your fingertips until you get a fine breadcrumb consistency
Stir in the cubed goats cheese and chopped nettles
Make a well in the centre and pour in the yoghurt
Bring the dough together with your (gloved) hands, being careful not to knead or the dough will become tough
Dust a work surface with flour and press the dough out to the thickness of about 2cm/1in
Cut out the scones using a circular cutter and place onto the prepared tray
Bring the offcuts together gently, again being careful not to knead and cut out as many circles as possible until there's no dough remaining
Brush the tops with the beaten egg and bake for 15-20 minutes until the tops are golden and well risen
Allow to cool for a few minutes on a wire rack

Goat's cheese and nettle scones ingredients

Keyword goats cheese, nettles, pastry, scones

Cakes & Bakes: Almond cookies

The stretch of sunny, summery weather we’ve got used to has suddenly disappeared. I was glad to be busying myself in our oven-warm kitchen making a batch of almond cookies. Which brings me to think… how do you pronounce ‘almond’? I say, ‘arh-mond’… Justin says, ‘ol-mond’… which of us is correct?!

Anyway, back to more important matters. These cookies are easy to make, using three types of almond – I should have named them triple almond cookies – almond extract, ground almonds and flaked almonds. You just roll the cookie dough into balls, press the flaked almonds into the top and cook them for 15-20 minutes.

They’re really delicious – they’re soft and chewy in the middle and crispy around the edges. The recipe made 22 cookies for me – however, it will depend on how large or small you like your cookies. If that sounds like too many for you, the excess cookie dough can be frozen until next time; either in a single lump or ready-made into cookies. Simply defrost fully before popping them into the oven.

Click here to save my recipe to Pinterest

Almond cookies

2020-04-28 11:45:31

Yields 22

Cook Time

20 min

Cook Time

20 min

Ingredients

135g butter, melted
150g caster sugar
½ tsp almond extract
1 large egg, beaten
150g plain flour
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
35g ground almonds
35g flaked almonds

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Instructions

Combine the melted butter and caster sugar and beat until light and fluffy
Add the beaten egg and almond extract and combine well
In a separate mixing bowl, sift together the flour and bicarbonate of soda
Fold the flour mixture into the butter mixture
Fold in the ground almonds
Chill the dough in the fridge for about an hour
Grease & line a baking sheet with baking parchment
Preheat the oven to 170°C, fan 150°C/ Gas mark 3
Scoop out about a dessert spoon of dough at a time, roll it between your palms to form a ball
Put the ball on the prepared baking sheet and stud the top with the flaked almonds (only put 4 or 5 balls on the sheet at a time, leaving lots of space between each ball, as the cookies spread quite a bit during cooking)
Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until lightly golden on top and crisp at the edges
Allow to cool and firm up for 5 minutes on the tray before transferring them to a wire rack for a further 10 minutes
Repeat stages 9 through 12 until all the cookie dough has been used

H is for Home Harbinger https://hisforhomeblog.com/

Cakes & Bakes: Rhubarb and vanilla sponge pudding

We have a fairly ‘home-grown’ Cakes & Bakes recipe this week; it’s a rhubarb and vanilla sponge pudding. The rhubarb was grown on our veg patch…

…and the eggs came from our very own little hen, Shirley.

The recipe I used states 1kg of rhubarb is required – that’s the trimmed weight. I think I completely overestimated how much we had growing; I just about scraped together 500 grams. No problem, I simply halved the recipe.

The trick of coating the raw, sliced rhubarb in a mixture of vanilla-infused sugar and flour worked a treat – something that can be done for all manner of stewed fruit. It helped create a thick, sweet, flavoursome syrup.

When I was spooning it over the pre-cooked rhubarb, the sponge batter seemed a bit thick however it was the perfect consistency once the pudding was baked. The sponge top needs to stand up to the pouring over of cream or hot custard.

Of all the rhubarb recipes I’ve made over the years, Justin and I agreed that this tops the lot.

As soon as our rhubarb crown has produced another 500 grams worth of stalks, I’ll be making this again!

Click here or on the image below to save the rhubarb and vanilla sponge pudding recipe to Pinterest

Rhubarb and vanilla sponge pudding

2020-04-19 17:06:13

Serves 6

Cook Time

35 min

Cook Time

35 min

Ingredients

1 vanilla pod
300g/10½oz caster sugar
2 tbsp plain flour
1kg/2lb 3oz forced rhubarb (trimmed weight)
115g/4oz lightly salted butter, softened
2 eggs
150g/5¼oz self-raising flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt
3 tbsp milk
Icing sugar for dusting

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Instructions

Preheat your oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas mark 4
Slit the vanilla pod open lengthways and scrape out the seeds with the tip of a knife into a mixing bowl (save the pod for later)
Add 185g/6½oz of the sugar and mix them with your fingertips, then stir in the plain flour
Wipe the rhubarb stalks clean, cut into 5cm/2" pieces, then add to the bowl and toss to coat. Leave for 20 minutes, stirring now and then, until all the pieces of fruit are coated in sticky sugar/flour mix
Spoon the fruit over the base of a shallow 2-litre/3½ fl oz baking dish (the shallower the dish, the quicker the sponge will cook). It will look like quite a lot of fruit, but don't worry - it collapses during cooking
Cut the reserved vanilla pod into 4 pieces and poke them in amongst the rhubarb
Cover and bake for 15 minutes
For the sponge topping, beat the butter and remaining 115g/4oz sugar in a mixing bowl with a wooden spoon (or an electric mixer) for about 5 minutes until light and fluffy
Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a tablespoon of the self-raising flour with the second egg
Beat in the vanilla extract
Sift over the rest of the flour and a pinch of salt, then gently fold in along with the milk using a metal spoon, trying to keep the mixture as light as possible
Remove the dish of rhubarb from the oven, discard the vanilla pod pieces and drop small spoonfuls of the sponge mixture roughly over the top of the fruit. Don’t worry about a few gaps, these will fill in as the sponge rises and cooks
Bake for about 35 minutes until the sponge is cooked through and crisp and brown on top Remove the dish from the oven and leave to sit for 10 minutes
Dust the top with a little icing sugar

Notes

Serve with pouring cream, ice cream or hot custard

Adapted from Delicious Magazine

H is for Home Harbinger https://hisforhomeblog.com/

Cakes & Bakes: Almond banana cookies

We’re usually very good at not wasting food – but since the lock-down, we’re being extra vigilant! We had a couple of over-ripe bananas that, rather than discard, I turned into a batch of almond banana cookies.

The recipe I used calls for almond flour which I don’t have in my store cupboard, so I used ground almonds – otherwise known as almond meal. I simply upped the quantity until I felt the consistency of the cookie dough felt right.

The cookies were soft, moist and delicious – and should really be eaten on the day they’re made… which wasn’t a problem for us!

I’ll be making these again – perhaps when I can source some almond flour – to compare and contrast.

Save this almond banana cookies recipe to Pinterest

Almond banana cookies

2020-04-15 16:10:12

Yields 16

Prep Time

10 min

Cook Time

30 min

Total Time

40 min

Prep Time

10 min

Cook Time

30 min

Total Time

40 min

Ingredients

200g/7oz ground almonds
¼tsp baking soda
⅛tsp salt
¼tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp maple syrup
4 medium bananas

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Instructions

Preheat your oven to 175ºC/350ºF/Gas mark 4
Grease and line a baking sheet with parchment paper
In a medium mixing bowl, combine all the dry ingredients
Chop then mash the ripe bananas with a fork before adding them to the dry ingredients
Pour in the maple syrup and mix until combined
Dollop tablespoonfuls on to the lined baking sheet then flatten the tops slightly with a fork
Bake for 25-30 minutes - or until the cookies just begin to turn a golden brown
Leave on the baking tray to cool for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely

Notes

Add chocolate chips or raisins if the feeling takes you!

H is for Home Harbinger https://hisforhomeblog.com/