coffee fruit 'n nut cake

My mothers were good cooks in a hearty, early vegetarianism way. We had solid staples: curry, vege shepherds pie, pizza, pasta with tomato sauce, soup, nutroast... In the 90s we discovered the stir fry and by my late teens they were getting all fancy like and making cajun tofu with mango salsa 'n shit.

But an area where they were particularly skilled (in my opinion) was the hearty cake. Before they had moved to Haberfield and been inspired to make italian ricotta cake (or found ethics and hit on the vegan cupcakes), they made Barm Brack: a super hearty fruit cake with just fruit, tea, sugar, eggs and flower in it. I loved it and never understood why Louise ruined the formula each Christmas by adding alcohol, peel, spices and icing.

I've been meaning to make Barm Brack for years and finally hit up Teresa for the recip yesterday. But I couldn't bring myself not to get inventive so my altered recipe is below. To make the original, ditch the nuts and spices and swap the coffee for tea! Nice and English.

Ingredients:
1.5 cups dried fruit (I used raisins, currants, turkish apricots and chopped figs)
1 cup brown sugar
1.75 cups coffee (I used cafetiere coffee, not too strong)
1 egg
1.25 cups self-raising flour
1 cup chopped nuts (I use almonds and hazelnuts)
1 teaspoon ginger powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon

DAY 1
1. Make coffee and then let it cool.
2. Pour coffee over fruit, stir in sugar and leave to soak overnight.
Incidentally I forgot to let the coffee cool and I forgot to add the sugar til the next day, but it worked just fine all the same.

DAY 2
preheat oven to 175 celcius
3. Beat the egg and stir into mixture.
4. Sift flour and stir in.
5. Beat well - by hand is sufficient.
6. Add nuts and spices.
7. Pour into pre-greased loaf tin and place in oven.
8. Bake for 1hr 45 mins or until cooked - keep an eye on it. When you can insert a knife and it comes out clean it's done.

The results are divine. Divine I say!

Great warm with butter!

Next time I'm adding chocolate chips!!!!!

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sweet potato and blue cheese muffins

so these delicious muffins have been adapted from a recipe Annabelle gave me...though I have, as is my habit, changed them substantially and added a bunch of extra ingredients...The original recipe had pumpkin, blue cheese, flour and egg...mine has -

Ingredients (makes 12):
400g chopped sweet potato
160g self raising flour
juice of a lemon
4 eggs
2 cloves garlic
half an onion
splash balsamic vinegar
splash tabasco
80g blue cheese
a handle of spinach leaves chopped
handful chopped parsley
tablespoon chopped rosemary
handful crushed walnuts
handful toasted pinenuts (fry in a dry pan or pop under the grill til browning)
olive oil for frying
salt & pepper

preheat oven to 200 celcius

1. boil the chopped sweet potato

2. meanwhile, fry the finely chopped onion and garlic in olive oil til softened then splash in tabasco and balsamic

3. when sweet potato is soft, mash it and mix it with the onion and garlic and lemon juice

4. leave the potato mixure to cool - it's important it isn't hot or it will cook the eggs when you add them!

5. once the mixture is cool, stir in the eggs (beaten before you add them) and the flour

6. add the nuts and herbs and spinach and stir to combine

7. season with salt & pepper

8. spoon half the mixture into muffin trays, place a nob of blue cheese in the centre of each muffin and then spoon mixture over the top to cover the cheese

9. bake in oven til starting to brown a little (took me about 25 minutes!)

these are great warm or cold. the blue cheese is pretty rich. if you don't like blue try a goat or feta. omnomnomnom!!!

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