Coconut Haystacks

As a child coconut haystacks were a luxury. My Aunty Marma made the best haystack maker in the whole wide world, well in my world as a 3 year old. Marma's real name was Florence Marjorie and she had been a nurse at one time at the isolation fever hospital in York, which is now Fairfield Manor. On her days off she used to come back to stay at the family home and make treats of coconut haystacks. I would only be around three years of age and allowed to sit on the kitchen table and help mix in the sugar and eggs to the coconut. That was the easy bit stirring up the mixture. The next stage was harder as the shape was formed by wetting the inside of an egg cup and then pressing the mixture in tightly. Shaking it out on to a baking tray was far too skillful for a 3 year old. Any attempted usually ended up with what they would these days call a 'deconstructed haystack' in other words a disaster. The next testing time was having to wait for them to bake and to come out of Granny Preston's oven. Why on earth, when she was only about 4ft 10, was the cooker stacked up on 3 bricks in height. She couldnt even look on the pans to see how the contents were cooking. Deep frying was a potential danger, but on Fridays, Mrs Maw the housekeeper would take her role on as cook with great gusto. Beating the batter with the strength of a heavy weight boxer to coat the fish. It made the best fish and chips. My Grandfather insisted on mushy peas been home made. They were disgusting and to this day I still turn my nose up at them . He used to dry his old peas out that he had grown in the garden. These were passed their best and if they had been cooked like that would have been like trying to eat bullets. They were then stored in a old Horlicks jar and kept on the top shelf in the pantry. When they were needed they would be put in a bowl and with a teaspoonful of bicarbonate of soda and soaked in water overnight. Anyway now the coconut haystack are ready to be taken out of the oven. Thank you Mary Berry for the recipe as I could actually remember the ratio of ingrediants. The haystacks should be crisp on the outside and soft in the middle. Slightly brown at the top of the hay stack. Mary made hers' pink but Marma used to put a quarter of a glazed cherry on top if there was any spare in the pantry before they were baked.

All in Order .

Just to let you know that when we feel the time is right to open our doors to welcome guests through our doors we are already ready .We understand the rules and regulations. We understand the precautions we need to take to make your stay as safe as we possibly can.

We are not opening for the time being as we feel that as lockdown eases that the virus will rear its ugly head again. With my dad been 97 and Jack and I the wrong side of 60  we feel for us it is not the right time. 

We do miss having guests here and I love to cook, so I miss the breakfasts ..the smell of cooking bacon. I miss cracking the eggs with their deep yellow yolks. I miss the smell of toast.  I miss your ohs and ahs when I set your plate down in from of you and I miss your cleared plates when you have finished. I miss the satisfaction I get form giving you pleasure of unexpected treats, of sharing our knowledge of the area. 

 

 

Friday is #NationalBiscuitDay

Have you ever heard of #NationalBiscuitDay  I know they have all these#Days but one for biscuits.  So what am I doing at 11pm on a Thursday night making biscuits for tomorrow. 

I could have done without it but as I had 3 and a half very ripe bananas which I need to either throw out or use I started googling banana biscuit and low and behold there was a recipe .

So I read it once, read it twice, and then made up my own recipe as the recipe I read only used 2 bananas and had cinnamon in it . I think of cinnamon as a winter seasonings. I still work in ounces and pounds rather than grams but this was in cupfuls  that is too fiddly for me .So we have cups of varying sizes. So here is my recipe 

3/4 tub of Lurpak so approx 400 grams 

sugar to match and a bit more

 a large egg

a bit of bicarbonate of soda  a dig in with a teaspoon and then a bit shaken off

a pinch of salt as my mother used says it brings out flavours.

I substituted the cinnamon with two handful of white chocolate buttons which I broke up .

I started off with one handful and thought lets go mad and put 2 handfuls in .

 and as it is  this "Biscuit Day' 

They are still in the Aga so will have to show you the finished results later but can tell you I will probably be up till daybreak as those quantities will make enough to feed a regiment.

Also Blogger has updated its format so hopefully this comes out right  and the biscuits do too. 

Saturday night baking .. Sad cake

It used to be when we had guests staying we gave them cakes and they had settled down to eat it and have a cup of tea ..it was always a ''little bit of something' to keep them going 'until they went out later
 So now we are closed for the time being I have a bit more time to try different cake recipes. I have made courgette cake in the past when we had a glut of courgettes. It never seemed to look the same as the photo showed taking on a mucky green colour and been "sad". ..sad as in heavy is not sad cake, which was a staple when I was young and I still love now. In fact that is what I will make next .. Sad cake and treacle which is actually the cut off pieces of pastry kneaded together and then rolled out again . Ideally it isn't too thick and you get more pieces which means more butter and treacle on it . If it is too thick it a bit on the dry side and not a treat. . When you roll the pastry out it needs to be marked all over with a fork so it doesn't have a chance to rise otherwise it may have been called happy cake and not sad cake. I bet there is not a lot of children that have never had sad cake. When I say treacle I dont mean molasses black treacle I mean Golden syrup but when I was a child only posh people called it golden syrup.

Golden Syrup is made by Lyles and when the tins had been emptied my Dad used to make holes in the side of the tin and string was attached so when we, as children, stood on the tin we could hold on to the strings and used them as stilts .  As I grew up on a farm, string was replaced by billy band which you will know as baler twine,  just like in this photo

The R in ideas

They talk about the Coronavirus R how it spreads . Well I think R happens in a lot of forms. And today for me it was thanks to Rosemary Shrager.
I saw a post she had on Facebook .. of some very scrumptious looking almond palmier biscuits which Rosemary makes with left over pastry bits.
So I thought as there was no recipe for them that I would have to google them..well you know how one page leads to another so I ended up with ... well I needed 350 grams of ground almonds ,200 g of icing sugar ,the zest of 2 lemons and 2 eggs ..What could be easier. As some whole almonds were nearer to their use by dates I ended up putting them in the food mixer ...and milling them down.  It was a doddle as I was only half concentrating as I was talking to my cousin at the same time on the phone.I didn't read the end of the recipe as when you have made the dough you then get each ball and roll it in some more icing sugar.
As it was they tasted very good maybe didn't visual appeal have the  and you can see by one empty oven tray they are very addictive they are. Maybe this could be classed as a R too . The bottom ones are Rosemarys the top  ones Carr House Specials.

Easter Wishes

No Easter eggs this year I wasn't organised enough .Apart from milk and a quick trip to Mr Waind the butcher in Kirkbymoorside when I went to the vets the other week. `We have managed with one delivery from Hebdon

the green grocer  in Easingwold.

  For lunch today had some very nice lamb from our farm . Thanks to Nicholas. They sell it in the Wass Farm Shop and would thoroughly recommend you get some . They do local deliveries too with meat boxes being very popular .There is a website and also a Facebook page you can contact Annabelle to place your orders.

The cookery books keep coming out and talk about inventiveness. Jack has never had so many different meals although some have been good some I wont be making any more. As those of you who know Jack , he is fussy and every meal has to be a feast less he thinks he has been put on a diet. His cooking skills are more or less zilch and he doesn't like baked beans,  so baked beans on toast would be a proper no no . For me when I was in my 30s I survived on bacon sandwiches, pork pies and chocolate. Other than having vegetables on a Sunday at my mothers I think I racked up 3 jacket potatoes which was the whole of my vegetables intake in 10 years. And I weighed 3 stone less than I weigh now. I still find that habit hard to break.
Sometimes Jack enjoys a steak pie from Auntie Anne's Bakery in Helmsley which gets me out of cooking . We dont really have chips at home either as our Aga never seems to hold the heat long enough to cook them properly. So with this beautiful weather we are having, I sit in the garden and ponder through my cook books to see what we can have next .

I used this spelt flour the other day which was kindly given to me to try by the producers, Craggs and Co. where they say it is lovingly grown, harvested and milled in the beautiful North East of England . It is based at East Close Farm ,Sedgefield if you would like to try it ..  . Maybe it isn't really for making pizzas but I thought I would have a go -Jack doesn't really do pizzas either only the ones from the Grapes in Slingsby. We dont like to do the mileage to pick one up at the moment so he had to make do with a Carr House special instead.  The weather was so nice it even raised in the sunshine .We are very sheltered  and it quite a little sun trap here. It is nice just to sit in the garden and view the world from your garden seat .I dont expect you to have to knead the bread when you come to stay.

Adam Jackson and his amazing Chocolate Brownies

With thanks to Adam Jackson who is executive head chef at the Feversham Arms in Helmsley . As it is the weekend .. it is time for a little treat and the only advantage of self isolating by yourself is you can eat them all. But isnt it nice to share so please save this recipe for when we can all be out and about again. I am happy to visit you when this is all over if you make some of these. 

Please still heed #StayInStaySafe as hard as it is.  To put it bluntly it is only ignorant ,selfish people who flaunt the rules.

  Chocolate brownies . Can we gluten and dairy free . 4 med eggs beaten

200g green and blacks 70% choc it’s got no dairy no soya and only a tiny bit of sugar .
250 g pure spread or other dairy soya free spread
130 cocoa powder make sure it’s dairy free some are not .
300g
Caster sugar
60 g of s r flour or gluten free s r flour .
Weigh out all ingredients with the kids sift the flour and cocoa .
Pre heat oven 180 deg f
1 melt spread and chocolate in a bowl over simmering water . Leave yo cool enough that the kids can touch bowl .

2 add beaten egg mix well

3 . Add sifted flour and cocoa
Mix in
Put in to lined sandwich tins and cook for 10 mins at 180 drop temp to 165 and cook for a further 10-15 mins . Not an exact science but you looking for a risen mixture crusted and slightly cracked on top gooey In the middle . If it rises and soufflé up and cracks it’s too cooked .

Leave to cool and eat 😋😋😋 this makes 2 x 8 inch cake tins . Make with kids easy 

Keeping Baking.... lets beat this Coronavirus

Thanks to Treacle's Cakes for this biscuit recipe. I see so many of my friends baking and cooking .Doing baking, a lot of them wont have done ..some never and some not for a long time. 

 Baking can be quite therapeutic if you are like me  Others think yoga  ticks the boxes - each to their own. Yoga to me I think of  frogs...remember the Green Goddess . And I haven't time to close your eyes, breathe and rellllllllax. I do that when I go to bed. 

Years ago when I was at college, we had this yoga teacher come in and give a class ,even back them I couldn't stay still and wriggled about . She said I was being a disruptive influence ..me .... . She didn't bar me but needless to say I used to skive off that lesson and to this day  if anyone say yoga I think of frogs 

Anyway back to the biscuits.. So if you aren't going to a yoga class you will have time to make these. 

120g self raising flour, 75g brown sugar, 75g porridge oats, 100g butter, 1tbsp golden syrup, 1/2tsp bicarbonate of soda.
Preheat oven to 170°C and line 2 baking trays. Put all dry ingredients in a bowl. Melt butter and syrup gently in a pan. Once melted add dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon. Form balls the size of walnuts and place well spaced on your baking trays, flatten slightly or squish as Josh did! Bake for 10 minutes then swap trays in oven and bake for 5 more minutes or until golden. Leave to cool on the trays for 10 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. These are also great if you add in 50g of choc chips or very finely chopped apricots. Happy Sunday xx🍪