Sunrise at Sutton on Sea

A beautiful sunrise is much more accessible at this time of year.....a civilised 08:00 start meant that even I was tempted out of bed (and outside) on a chilly dewy morning before breakfast. 

The beach hut decoration is pretty good this year. I love this one with the 3d solid wood sailing boat. Some huts just have amusing names like number 40 which is called Winks. Geddit?

Back at home and it's family tea Sunday. I'm actually able to potter about baking without the awful encumbrance of a crutch so have had a baking splurge. Some easy sourdough cheese scones and a new Orange and Almond cake recipe. The interesting thing about this cake is that you poach a whole orange for about 30 mins in a pan of boiling water and then blitz it in a food processor until you have a puree. The eggs and sugar are whipped until light and frothy and then the flour (I used spelt) and ground almonds and baking powder are folded into the eggy mix, followed by the orange puree. So easy to do. It's then baked for about 40 mins at 160C until the top is golden and springy. After cooling for a while I mixed some icing sugar with clementine juice and drizzled over the top.
1 orange
3 eggs
140g castor sugar
85g flour (plus 1tsp  baking powder if plain flour)
150g ground almonds

#SourdoughSeptember

Chocolate and banana muffins are another (delicious) way to use up sourdough starter, along with ripe banana's that no-one wants to eat. The sourdough starter needs to be fed regularly otherwise it will get too sour and probably a bit mouldy (or even die), so I try and use some every week and refresh the remains with some flour and water to keep it a happy. You may have noticed that I have a very relaxed *read 'lazy'* attitude to maintaining my sourdough starter!  

family tea

I combined my two starters together (Derbyshire starter and a San Francisco starter from Christmas) because I hadn't labelled them and was getting them mixed up. Interestingly, they definitely had a different smell, although I couldn't tell any difference on baking. Now I have a single starter that could be described as multi cultural. Anyway, back to the story. I wanted to make some different bread for family tea instead of a sourdough, so looked for inspiration at the recipes on the BakeryBits blog. These are generally devised by Vanessa Kimbell and I love that she comes up with new recipes for sourdough bread, and also some interesting cakes and muffins using sourdough starter. She also uses a 'la cloche' baking dome so it fits my style of baking perfectly.

I digress......back to family tea..... I found two recipes that fit the bill for today's family tea; Chocolate and Banana Sourdough Muffins, and Cumin and Sultana rolls.

The muffins are incredibly easy to make. It really is a case of mix the crumble topping ingredients and set aside , mix the dry ingredients together, mix the wet ingredients together and then combine the wet and dry together. Plop the mixture into the muffin cases and then pile topping  on the er.... top. Bung in the oven for about 20-25 minutes and there you have it, delicious chocolatey muffins

Muffins ready to mix

chocolate and banana sourdough muffins

The bread rolls are an unusual combination of cumin and sultana, but it really works as a taste combination. The fragrance of the lightly toasted cumin seeds and the baking bread  permeates the whole house making you instantly hungry. The rolls are shaped and then proved in the baking dome base and then popped in the oven with a pre-heated lid. It's so easy. In fact I made another batch this morning, since the last lot didn't make it past teatime.

cumin and sultana bread rolls

I have to mention the amazing purple smoothie I made last week. It started with a spot of blackberry picking from the back of the car park at the flat. They are the most succulent, huge blackberries ever. I just couldn't resist and it only took about 20 minutes to pick nearly a kilo! I didn't fancy making jam using the pretty useless cooker that's in the flat, so decided to freeze the blackberries for smoothie-ing and juicing. What a purple delight a blackberry, yoghurt and banana smoothie is! And so very delicious with sourdough cheese scones for lunch.

Couch to 5k and baking

You wouldn't normally expect to have baking and jogging in the same post, but that is how I've been spending my spare time, although not baking and jogging simultaneously in an 'extreme jogging' sort of way. A more accurate description of my jogging would be 'shuffling', but everyone has to start somewhere and I've been persuaded to try the NHS 'couch to 5k' podcast program with my daughter and her friends (though she said it was the 'couch potato to 5k' scheme and I believed her).   I survived week one, and that is not an exaggeration as I only managed 2 out of the 3 runs for week, and I can categorically confirm that it is not a good idea to miss any. DO THEM ALL......or be VERY sorry. This week I'm determined to do them all which meant doing a run on my own today. I went up to the barns because it was so beautifully sunny and it is such a lovely area to shuffle in. I went down one of the footpaths and then around the big field to pick up another footpath, going round 3 times in total. I then went round another time with my camera so that you can see how lovely it is, but without any of the pain and panting. Oh, and I saw a helicopter landing at Ripley International Airfield (the grassy landing strip below the barns).

The starting point

View down the fields

Looking back to the stile and the barns

Helicopter coming in to land at Ripley International Airfield

Landing safely

Hilltop Mink Farm and Barns

Back up the hill to the barns

I love the way the clouds are lit up by the sun and are set in the backdrop of a beautiful blue sky

Cherry blossom with the hope of many cherries in the summer!!!

Onto the baking. Last week I  (possibly) somewhat foolishly suggested that the kids could choose the cake for family tea. The choice for last week was white chocolate brownies, otherwise known as 'blondies'. I found a great recipe from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, which can be found here. I didn't add the cardamon pods, but everything else went in and they were pretty delicious. I also made a few cheese scones for the week, which were eaten on an impromptu picnic at the barns one evening.

This weeks cake of choice was a chocolate cake, as it happens for my birthday....and it was not made by me, but my partner in crime! It was really delicious though, and this is all that is left......

Sourdough Cheese Scones

Instead of making a sourdough loaf this week I decided to make sourdough cheese scones. I have two sourdough starters on the go and I like to give them some attention, at least fortnightly, so that they don't die on me. This is based on a great recipe from the bakery bits blog. I've made the scones before and they always turn out light and moist, and they don't have the baking powder taste you get sometimes with bought scones, you know, where your teeth feel as if they are being coated with something nasty. I've adapted the recipe to make cheese scones because they are my favourite. Bakers preference applies in nearly all cases! I usually make double quantities in the hope that there will be some to freeze. Having a big family means that this rarely happens, but what is life without hope?  I used Shiptons Mill white bread flour (on this occasion, but it really depends on what is to hand or if I want to make wholesome wholemeal scones). Instead of buttermilk I used a mixture of homemade plain yoghurt made with raw (unpasteurised) full fat milk thinned down a bit with some more milk. I buy raw milk every week from a farm near to where I work. The milk is absolutely delicious, all creamy and tasty, although I know unpasteurised milk might seem a bit controversial. Normal pasteurised milk and yoghurt will also make delicious yoghurt (or scones). The sourdough starter works better if it is hungry (ie unrefresehd) as the remaining starter is a fed afterwards. I've stated 50g parmesan cheese, although I only used about 30g, because that is all that I had. It was a veeerrry ripe and strong parmesan anyway as it was a reduced price bargain due to short "use  by" date. I like to add a little mustard to my cheese scones as it adds an extra depth of flavour. I prefer to use Colemans English mustard powder as I think that "wet" mustards are a bit too vinegary. I think a good quality salt is also very important. I really like Cornish Sea Salt and found some garlic flavoured salt when we visited family in Cornwall and went to the Padstow farm shop. We bought a little pot for all the kids as a holiday present - makes a change from a stick of rock or box of sticky fudge!

Sourdough Cheese Scones Recipe

• 450g flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 150g butter, chilled and cut into small pieces
• 1/2 tsp Cornish Sea Salt (I used garlic sea salt)
• 250ml plain yoghurt and whole milk mixed (full fat milk or buttermilk would also be fine)
• 200ml unrefreshed sourdough starter
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp mustard powder
• 50g grated parmesan or other strong hard cheese
•  grated cheddar for the top of the scones

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4
    
2. Mix all the dry ingredients with the butter to a bread crumb consistency. I used my Kenwood Chef. 
    
3. Make a well in the centre of your bowl. In a large jug whisk the unrefreshed sourdough starter and the yoghurt and milk  and lemon juice then pour into the centre of your dry mix. Bring the mixture together to form a sticky dough. I used my hands for this so that the dough is not overworked which will make it tough. If the dough seems a bit too dry, add a drop more milk slowly just a few drops at a time. Likewise if the dough is too sticky then add a dusting of flour to handle it more easily.
    
4. Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and use your hands to press the dough form a round about 2.5cm in depth, but try to avoid overworking. Cut out shapes from this using your cutter and put them on a baking tray. I used a medium sized cutter which made 15 scones.
    
5. Sprinkle grated cheese on the top of the scones. You can glaze them first with some milk, but I was too lazy and didn't bother. Bake for 18–20 minutes until lightly brown on top and firm to the touch. I needed an extra 5 minutes for mine because the temperature gauge on the oven is a bit temperaturemental.
    
6. The scones can be frozen as soon as they are cool, which might be the only way I'll ever get some in the freezer, but will also taste nice the following day if they are wrapped in a cotton or linen cloth.

The final step is to feed the sourdough starter. This week I used my 'Derbyshire' starter which is mostly wholemeal, although it does tend to be fed with whatever is handy. This time it was white flour so I added equal quantities of flour and water (100g) to the remaining starter, stir it well and put it back in the fridge.

The freshly baked scones were perfectly timed for an impromptu family lunch at daughter J's house where some Dad DIY is underway.

My culinary efforts didn't end at the cheese scones, let me tell you. DIY Dad was going to need something tasty and preferably done by someone else after a hard day grafting so I put my thinking cap on and rustled up some store cupboard dinner (I couldn't be bothered to shop). So, based on only what was to hand I came up with a butternut squash and sweet potato risotto. I've got loads of brown risotto rice which takes an absolute age to cook so I set that cooking with some chicken stock. Not home made chicken stock because I checked and we didn't have any in the freezer, and not vegetarian because I had only had meaty stock pots thingies. I added some wild rice as well for a bit of variety and this also takes an age to cook. While this was bubbling away I fried some spices. I decided that cumin seeds and cardamom seeds were the way to go so I bashed them about a bit with the end of my rolling pin in a bowl (mortar and pestle is boxed up somewhere) and then added them to some heated oil in a frying pan. I added some paprika for a bit of heat and colour and let them toast for a little while. In the meantime I peeled and cubed some butternut squash and sweet pepper and stirred them about in the spice mix. When the rice had been bubbling for a while, I added the vegetables and spice. It did look like there was too much stock, but by the time it had simmered gently for about 50 minutes it had soaked in and reduced down. A little seasoning added and a tasty (and very easy) risotto was ready.

runny risotto

Mmmmmmm risotto