Mrs. Beeton's Plum Cake

“A Nice Plum Cake” adapted from Beeton's Book of Household Management by Mrs. Isabella Beeton, 1861.

3 cups flour
1 cup brown sugar
3 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. soda
½ tsp. salt
1-1/2 cups currants
1/3 cup diced candied lemon peel
1 stick butter
1-1/4 cups milk

Bake in a greased loaf pan at 350 degrees F for 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out more or less clean. It’s good! There was too much batter for one loaf pan, so I made six muffins with the rest, and they were fine, too.

Chichester Churches mentioned in Notorious Eliza

Chichester Cathedral, where the 10th Earl of Arundel and his second wife Eleanor of Lancaster, a Plantagenet (whoa, how cool is that?) lie buried.

St. Olave's Church in Chichester, a thousand years old and now a bookshop nestled between much newer buildings.

Here we go a wassailing, among the leaves so green...


1 gallon apple cider or apple juice
1/2 gallon pineapple juice
Juice of four oranges
2-4 cinnamon sticks to taste
Honey to sweeten the brew if you have a very sweet tooth
2 more oranges, prepared according to the directions below
More cinnamon sticks to use as straws (kids love this)

Mix the first five ingredients in a large saucepan and warm slowly over low heat until good and hot (but not boiling). Cut the top, bottom, and most of the rind off the remaining oranges, ending up with a roughly hexagonal shape. (In my case, a catastrophe.) Squeeze the oranges very gently over the pot to extract some of the juice, then slice them. Just before serving, float the slices in the wassail as decoration. My sloppy slices didn't qualify as decorative in any sense of the word, but the wassail tasted lovely. If you don't mind a little bitterness from the rind, you might try using thin slices with the rind on. It's much tidier and (if you're a klutz like me) prettier that way.

Wassail the trees, that they may bear
You many a plum and many a pear;
For more or less fruit they will bring,
As you do give them wassailing.

                                 --- Robert Herrick

 

Mrs. Beeton's very nice plum cake:

 

Teensy weensy Christmas ornaments

New dog, cherry slice, and the only cats who would let us take their picture.
Here is our new dog:

Isn't he sweet? Jane, the cat, is pissed off and being very unsociable right now. Fortunately, New Dog (no name so far) is a laid back sort of pooch, so I don't think there will be a long term problem. Since Jane isn't available for a photo, here are two more cooperative cats instead:

And now for the recipe, from my grandmother by way of my mother:

Cherry Slice

Crust:
½ cup soft butter and 1 cup flour.
Mix together. Spread over the bottom of an 8”x8” pan and bake at 400 degrees F. for 15-20 minutes.

Topping:
2 beaten eggs
1½ cups brown sugar
2 tablespoons flour
1 tsp. baking powder
½ cup unsweetened, shredded coconut
½ cup chopped walnuts
½ pound glace cherries, halved

Mix topping, spread over crust, and bake at 325 degrees F for 20-25 minutes. Let cool overnight if possible before cutting into squares. It's not easy to cut, so next time I'm going to put it in the fridge to get really cold before cutting it.

YUM!!

Sweet potato dressing

I like sweet potatoes, but I don't care for the recipes that make them even sweeter - such as the kind where marshmallows are melted on top, or where they're mashed with brown sugar. Just a matter of taste, obviously... Anyway, if you don't want your sweet potatoes too sweet, this recipe is just great. It can be eaten with turkey at Thanksgiving, or as a separate meal if you use enough sausage. Warning: all quantities are approximate, so adjust them according to taste.

2 or 3 large sweet potatoes

Pork or turkey sausage, anything from a half pound to a pound. I usually use breakfast sausage, but I've heard Italian sausage works well. If I can't find the sausage meat in bulk, I squeeze it out of the casings.

Butter or oil

1 onion,  3 or 4 celery stalks, 1 green and 1 red bell pepper, all diced

Parsley, chopped.

Bread crumbs, the coarse kind used for stuffings and dressings, or you can make your own with fresh or stale bread and add salt, pepper, sage and other herbs to taste.

Bake the sweet potatoes until done. Saute the onions and sausage meat, then add and saute the celery and peppers. Add butter or oil as needed. Peel and mash the sweet potatoes and mix in the meat and vegetables. Add bread crumbs to taste (the more bread crumbs, the drier the dressing). Season to taste. Add a little water if needed, or cover with foil. Bake in a 9x13 pan (or whatever size seems right) at 350 degrees (medium oven) for about half an hour.

Yum!

Butter tarts, not butter pie

Butter pie is on the back burner for now. Not that I've given it up: if the Internet fails me, I may go all the way to Lancashire and a Preston North End football game to find out what butter pie is really supposed to be like.

Butter tarts, now: they're a Canadian specialty. When I was a kid, we always had them at Christmas. I hadn't had them for years, but what made me start thinking about butter tarts again was the Surrey International Writers' Conference, held every fall in Surrey, BC. I went two years in a row. It's a great multi-genre conference, not too big, not too small. I had a great time, but the highlight of the conference both times (for me) was the butter tarts. There were trays of them on the dessert table, and since the American attendees, by and large, didn't know what they were, that left more for those in the know, such as me.

And then, on another trip out west, I found the World's Best Butter Tarts, served at a cool little bakery/café. I don't remember the name of the café, and I think it was in Lillooet, which is a small town north of the famous Whistler ski area, but I can't say for sure.

All of which led to a major case of butter-tart homesickness, so I got a recipe from my sister and tried making them myself. Miracle of miracles, they worked! I gorged myself on them for several days. Here goes:

Pans: My mother used tart pans. I couldn't find any, so I used both mini and medium muffin tins. Both worked fine.

Pastry: You can make your own, or buy pre-made tartlets or pre-rolled pie pastry which you cut to fit the tart or muffin pans. I did the lazy version of make your own. I used a recipe from my old, battered, and very reliable Joy of Cooking. It's called Quick and Easy Pie Crust. You don't have to roll it out – you just pat it into the pans. My butter tarts didn't look all that gorgeous, but they tasted great.

Ingredients:
1 egg, beaten
1/3 cup softened butter
1 cup brown sugar
2 Tablespoons milk
1/2 cup raisins
1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix the ingredients together and fill the pastry-lined muffin or tart pans about 2/3 full. Actually, they'll take a bit more than that, but if you over-fill them, the filling bubbles over and may burn. It still tastes good, though.

Bake at 450 degrees for 8 minutes, then at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes. The recipe is supposed to make 12 to 15 tarts. I got a dozen minis plus nine mediums.

As my sister advised me – enjoy, but not all of them at once!