CHAPTER TWO
•
The Home Baker
BAKING IS AS MUCH ABOUT the smell as it is the taste: that gorgeous aroma of hot bread that makes your tummy roll over and plead emptiness, that come-hither smell of a chocolate cake cooling on a rack and that yeasty, sugary smell of hot-cross buns just waiting to be split and buttered. Supermarkets know all about this, which is why they make sure that the smell of their shop-baked bread is wafted over their customers as they walk past. Beautiful warm loaves are then scooped up and given pride of place in the trolley, so that they don’t get squashed, and young children are placated with a torn-off corner of warm crust to chew on when they grizzle in the checkout queue. Such is the power of the smell of hot, freshly baked bread.
Home baking can be undertaken at various different levels: some people might make the occasional loaf of bread or a cake, others will indulge in some baking whenever the opportunity arises, whilst others still will take it to a different dimension: grinding their own flour and baking everything the family needs. Whichever type of baker you think you are, this chapter is for you. Simple, fun and with a self-sufficient twist wherever possible (hence the grinding of your own flour), this chapter also allows for the fact that life can be hectic and not everyone has the time or the inclination to mill their own wheat. For that reason, you will find speedy versions of some recipes, such as the 5-minute chocolate cake cooked in a mug in the microwave, which is currently to be found, in various forms, on over 9 million websites, which shows that, for many people, an almost instant chocolate cake is very appealing!
The recipes in this chapter are designed to be mixed and matched depending on how comfortable you feel with self-sufficiency, and how much time you have available. Whether you are cooking for dinner parties or everyday meals, and whether you are an experienced baker or have never been near bread dough in your life, this chapter will show you how to turn out delicious homemade baking with a smell that will rumble every tummy and a taste that makes you smile, and might even allow you to walk right by the hot-bread section in the supermarket without a second glance.
WHEAT
Bread, cakes and biscuits, pastry and pies, pasta and batter – the common ingredient to all of these is flour, and flour is wheat. Despite the fact that wheat is the third most-cultivated grain (after corn and rice), our knowledge of it hardly expands beyond the packet of flour sitting in our kitchen cupboards. But from a wheat point of view, that’s only a third of the story, because each wheat kernel has three parts to it:
• the bran forms the outer layer and contains fibre, B vitamins and trace minerals
• the endosperm forms the largest part of the centre and contains carbohydrates, gluten and protein
• the germ forms a tiny part of the centre, yet it contains antioxidants, vitamin E, B vitamins, unsaturated fat and protein, making it the healthiest part of the kernel
Yet the only part that is used to make white flour is the endosperm, which is the part full of starch and gluten. The other two-thirds – all that goodness, all those vitamins and minerals and roughage – never make it into the bags of flour on the shop shelves, except for those of wholemeal flour.
Certainly baking your own bread, cakes and biscuits is far better for you than buying them off the shelf, but if you really want to be getting all the goodness that wheat has to offer, then milling your own wheat is the way to go. A grain mill is a small, neat machine that looks a little like a hand-cranked coffee grinder, and will grind enough flour for a family-size loaf of bread in under 2 minutes. And don’t let the cost of the machine put you off either, as the average family would spend more on bread alone in just 6 months. Whether you are dedicated to a self-sufficient lifestyle or simply looking for quick and easy ideas to enrich your family’s life and health, get a home grain mill. On the grounds of taste, cost, health, speed and fun, you won’t regret it.
YEAST
Used in everything from beer to cheese and yoghurt to bread, yeast is the vital ingredient that makes dough rise. Yeast can be bought in packets as dried yeast or fast-action yeast for bread machines, or for a far better, lighter finish, fresh yeast.
Then there are natural yeasts, such as beer. In times gone by, women would knock on the doors of the breweries begging for a little beer from which they could make bread. In those austere times, using sub-standard flour and a slop of weak beer, you can imagine the loaves wouldn’t rise much and could often double up as a hammer to bash in nails. Now we have really good flour and outstanding beer, and it’s fun to experiment with heavy or light beers for different flavours (fab beer bread recipe on page 58).
MAKING BREAD
Anyone can make bread. You don’t even need a kitchen – you could make some just sitting around an open fire in the woods. Neolithic man did it this way for millennia and the descendants of this early bread are still enjoyed today as tortillas, chapattis, naans, pittas, oat-cakes and johnnycakes. But give a person a kitchen, some flour, water, yeast, and a little salt, and the result will be a stunning loaf of bread.
Using a bread machine
If you have a bread machine, you don’t even need to stand there kneading the dough, because it does it all for you. But bread machines, although fantastic devices, can have the tendency to turn out uniform bricks – tasty bricks, but bricks nonetheless. For a superior homemade taste, the trick is to get the bread machine to do all the hard work for you, and at the proving stage turn out the dough and shape it yourself into a country loaf (loose on the tray and dusted with flour), a flat tear-and-share bread or nice round rolls. Cooking the bread in the oven like this will improve both the flavour and the texture and give it much more of a homemade feel.
Basic bread-machine bread
1 tbsp oil
650g/1lb 7oz/5 cups strong white bread flour (or home-ground
flour), plus extra for dusting
1 tsp sea salt
2 tsp sugar or honey
7g/¼oz sachet fast-action yeast
Pour 400ml/14fl oz/1¾ cups warm water and the oil into the bread-machine pan, then add all the dry ingredients. Set it to ‘dough’ mode. As soon as the dough has been mixed and kneaded, but before it starts to prove, turn the machine off. Remove the pan and turn the dough out on to a floured work surface, then shape as required. Prove, then cook in a preheated oven set at 200°C/400°F/gas 6, allowing 20–30 minutes for a standard loaf and 12–15 minutes for rolls. If you want a crusty loaf, place a dish of hot water in the bottom of the oven when baking.
Variations
For an Italian-style loaf or pizza base, add tomato purée (paste) and herbs to the dough. For a French-style loaf, simply omit the oil.
For a sweet bread, replace 150g/5½oz of the white flour with wholemeal flour, and add 1 tbsp cinnamon and 150g/5½oz sultanas as well as an additional 1 tbsp sugar. Cook as a loaf or shape the dough into rolls and bake, then brush over a honey glaze for the best sticky buns ever.
Handmade bread
Whilst the bread machine is a great time and energy saver, nothing quite beats the love and the passion involved in making bread the traditional way; love, passion, and something of a violent side, because making bread by hand is incredibly physical and involves hitting, slapping, punching and squeezing, as well as the more sensual side of kneading and caressing. Kneading involves stretching the dough by pushing it away from you using the heel of your hands, then folding it back towards you with your fingers, repeating over and over and over again, rotating the ball of dough as you do so, for at least 10 minutes until the dough is springy and elastic and doesn’t stick to your hands or the surface. (You will know when it’s done because your arms will feel as though they are about to fall off.) It’s a great workout, a great stress reliever, and, of course, the more effort you put into it, the more calories you burn, and so the less guilty you will feel when you rip off a huge hot hunk when it’s done and smother it in something horrendously fattening and eat the lot.
Basic handmade bread
7g/¼oz dried yeast (or 14g/½oz fresh yeast)
1½ tsp honey or sugar
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp sea salt
650g/1lb 7oz/5 cups strong white bread flour (or home-ground flour), plus extra for dusting (for wholemeal replace one-quarter of the flour with wholemeal flour)
Okay, first off, don’t be precious. This recipe is very forgiving. In a nice clean mixing bowl, put the salt in first. Then on top of the salt, tip in the flour. On top of that, yeast (this is so that the yeast and salt don’t come into contact at this stage). Now pour on some water – warm or cold, doesn’t matter. Start with 350ml/12fl oz/1½ cups, adding a little more if needed. Pour with one hand and mix with the other until all the ingredients clump together in a ball. If it feels very wet, add a little more flour. If it feels very dry, add a bit more water – the consistency you’re looking for is tacky, not sticky. When you’re happy, tip it out onto a surface to knead. Now kneading is another way of saying stretching. You’re stretching the gluten. With the fingers of your dominant hand hold the half of the dough closest to you, while the heel of the other hand pushes the top half of the dough away, then roll it back into a clump, give it a quarterish turn, and do again. Stretching, not squashing. Do that for 10 minutes or until your arm feels like it’s about to fall off. Then put the kneaded dough back in the bowl, cover it, and leave for an hour or two until it doubles in size. Once doubled, tip the dough back out onto the work surface. Most of the air will have been knocked out of it by doing this, which is exactly what you want, and the next stage will get rid of whatever air is left. This is called ‘knocking back’, and is done by gently squashing the rest of the air out by pressing down on it with your palm. And that’s it. With this one simple recipe, so much is now possible. Now it’s all down to shaping.
Note: all the following are from that one simple recipe, They’re just shaped differently.
Shaping: whatever you’ve decided to bake, we always start off the same way. With floury hands, gently make the dough into the shape of a ball.
Quick tip: gluten likes to relax, so from this point on, between each action, give the dough a minute or two to chill out.
For a bloomer
Again with floury hands, and making sure your work surface is lightly dusted with flour, squash the ball-shaped dough down into a disc. Now pull out the sides to make an oval, squashing the middle down so that it’s all a reasonably similar thickness. Then simply roll the whole thing into a cigar, with the seam underneath. Flour it, pat it and stroke it until it looks even, and tuck the ends under so it looks neat. Lift and move it onto an oiled baking sheet or drop it into a tin, cover and leave it to prove again until doubled in size. Then bake in an oven preheated to 200°C/400°F/gas 6 for 40 minutes. To test if it’s done, take it out and tap the bottom – if it sounds hollow, it’s done; if it sounds a bit thuddy, pop it back in the oven for another 5 minutes.
What is proving?
Proving is the term for adding air: it’s when the yeast does its thing, puffing up your dough.
For bread rolls
At the cigar stage (see above), cut the dough into equally sized portions (small rolls approximately 80g/3oz each, or large rolls 120g/4¼oz), folding the sides down under to make a neat and tidy ball. Put to one side while you do the same to each, then when you’ve got them all lined up, start again with the first, gently placing your palm on the top, and rolling the dough underneath until it makes a perfect sphere. Do the same for each one, before placing them on a pre-oiled baking sheet – leaving a gap of about half a roll’s width between each, which will mean as they prove and bake they’ll expand and touch, known as kissing. Now flour and cover them with cling film to prove until they have doubled in size. Bake in an oven preheated to 200°C/400°F/ gas 6 for 25 minutes. To test if they’re done, take one out and tap the bottom – if it sounds hollow, it’s done; if it sounds a bit thuddy, pop it back in the oven for another 5 minutes.
For a tear-and-share flat bread
Oil a baking sheet and place it to one side. With your ball of dough (approximately 350g/12½oz for a 30 × 15cm/12 × 6in bread), squash it down into a disc. Leave it for a minute. Squash it down some more. Again leave it a minute and repeat. Now pick it up and carefully tease it out some more – imagine you’re in a fabric shop and you’ve just picked up the end of a really nice piece of material and you’re holding it up and stretching it out to see what it looks like. Once it’s about two-thirds of the size you want your finished bread, place it in the middle of your lightly oiled baking sheet. Now with your fingers, press and squidge it out a little more, leave it for a short while, and then continue, until it reaches the size you want it. Now dig your fingers in the dough all over to make divots, and fill these divots with olive oil, sprinkle over some nice salt, maybe some basil, ripped-up sun dried tomatoes, or oven-baked garlic all soft and gooey and smeared over the top. Cover and leave to prove until it has just started to puff up, maybe half an hour or so. Then bake in an oven preheated to 200°C/400°F/ gas 6 for 25 minutes. To test if it’s done, take it out, slide it off the tray and tap the bottom – if it sounds hollow, it’s done; if it sounds a bit thuddy, pop it back in the oven for another 5 minutes.
Pizza base
Unless you’re a whizz and can flip and flick and spin the base in the air, use a rolling pin for this one. Plenty of flour this time – squash your ball of dough (a 23cm/9in pizza needs about 180g/6½oz of dough, 30cm/12in needs 300g/10½oz dough, and 35cm/14in needs 400g/14oz) into a disc. Flour and roll it out, then place on a lightly floured sheet. For pizzas there is no need to prove, just layer on your toppings and bake in an oven as hot as you can make it.
Beer pizza base
If you think this is a novelty, wait until you try it! For the recipe, simply use your favorite beer in place of water.
Pizza knots
Not a scrap of dough is wasted, so, if you have any over, cut it into approximately 30g/1oz pieces and roll each into a ball. Squash them, and make into a cigar like mini bloomers (page 56). With the palm of your hand, roll them on the work surface into ‘worms’ about 15cm/6in long. Lightly flour, and pick each up and tie a loose knot in the middle, folding the ends in neatly top and bottom. Do this with as many as you like, or have dough for, then drizzle olive oil/herbs/garlic butter/heaps of cheese over them, and cover and leave to prove until doubled in size. Bake in an oven preheated to 200°C/400°F/gas 6 for 25 minutes. To test if they’re done, take one out and tap the bottom – if it sounds hollow, it’s done; if it sounds a bit thuddy, pop it back in the oven for another 5 minutes.
Beer bread
We like to think we’ve refined our baking from the days of old where barefoot grubby women straight out of central casting for Oliver Twist would trudge along to the doors of a brewery for a splash of beer (‘Please sir, can I have some more?’) to add to their flour to use in place of yeast, but have we? Because when we pour frothy beer into the mix and smell that yeasty, beery gorgeousness as you stir it all together, just be warned you may feel the urge to go out, doff your hat and pick a pocket or two (please note, neither the author, publisher or any of their associates endorse pick-pocketing, or doffing of hats for that matter).
7g/¼oz dried yeast (or 14g/½oz fresh yeast)
1 tsp honey or sugar
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp sea salt
650g/1lb 7oz/5 cups strong white bread flour (or home-ground flour), plus extra for dusting
beer
Treat exactly the same as making bread on page 54.
Sourdough bread
Thought to have come into its own around the time of ancient Egypt, sourdough is believed to be the oldest form of leavened bread and was considered so important even some of the pharaohs were buried with loaves, because, well, it’s a long way to the afterlife without a sandwich to keep you going.
The descendants of that ancient bread have changed very little as there was very little in it to start with – just flour, water and naturally occurring yeasts. Today’s sourdough bread is slightly heavier than a loaf made with baker’s yeast and has a distinct, pleasant sour flavour. And it all begins with a starter.
Sourdough bread starter
For the self-sufficient kitchen this ticks all the boxes, and when you de-faff it, stripping everything down to its fundamentals – while remembering that they sussed it in ancient Egypt, at a time when they still believed a chariot met the setting sun and drove it around the edge of the world in time for morning for it to rise up again – it’s more than doable. In fact it’s a joyous self-sufficient necessity.
Creating a sourdough starter from scratch begins with a really good cleaning of a glass or plastic bowl (not metal), and what you’re removing are chemicals, as residues of washing-up liquid or cleaner may inhibit your starter, so rinse well. Once washed and dried, measure out 200g/7oz/1½ cups strong white bread flour and 200ml/7fl oz/1 scant cup bottled or filtered water (not tap water as it contains chlorine), and beat together with a wooden spoon until smooth, then loosely cover and leave to one side.
At this stage, the starter is like us: it doesn’t like to be too hot or too cold, so put it somewhere you would feel comfortable in a T-shirt. After 24 hours it should show signs of action: a little puffiness, some bubbles and a yeasty smell. Add a further 100g/3½oz/¾ cup of strong white bread flour and another 100ml/3½fl oz/scant ½ cup bottled water, stir together, loosely cover and return to its happy place. Do this every day for five consecutive days, at the end of which you should have a very happy, very puffy, bubbly, yeasty-smelling starter – if not, if it’s flat and dull, bin it and start again.
On the sixth day, split the starter in two – a cheap plastic dough scraper is a pretty essential tool for this – as there will be too much of it to cope with unless you’re going to open up a bakery. One half will become your sourdough bread starter, and the other half you can either give away, discard or make into thin crumpets, known as pikelets, see page 62.
Feeding and storing your sourdough starter
Store in the fridge and once a week give it a little feed of 50g/2oz/ 6 tbsp of flour – try and keep to the same flour each time – and 50ml/2fl oz/3½ tbsp of water, mixing well to incorporate. If you want a holiday from your starter, you can freeze it or, better still, dry your sourdough in a low-temperature oven, bag it and rehydrate when you’re ready to bring it back to life.
Using sourdough
As a sourdough loaf will take longer to prove than one made with baker’s yeast, make sure the recipe you use works around your schedule; for instance, if you’re busy during the day and only have mornings and evenings, start the first prove in the evening, then leave in the fridge overnight, bring it back out in the morning and shape it, returning it to the fridge for the final prove before baking that evening.
Recipe
The following will give you a stripped-down, simple yet sensational sourdough bread. As you become more adept and adventurous at using your sourdough, you can play with other flours such as wholemeal and rye to give different flavours and textures, but for now we’re going to go no-nonsense.
25g/1oz sourdough starter
1 tsp salt
450g/1lb/3¼ cups strong white bread flour
Dissolve the sourdough starter in half a mug of lukewarm water. In a separate bowl, add the salt and flour and tip in your starter mix, using the tips of your fingers to bring it together. Slowly add more water until it forms a dough that feels tacky, not sticky. Knead for 10 minutes before returning to the bowl, cover and leave to prove for the first time (2–3 hours at room temperature, or 12 hours in the fridge).
Lightly flour your work surface and tip out the dough, deflating it by gently squashing out the air. Shape and place either on a lightly oiled baking sheet or tin. Cover and leave to prove again (2–3 hours at room temperature, or 12 hours in the fridge).
If you have proved in the fridge, bring it out and give it 20 minutes to come a little up to room temperature. Otherwise, preheat your oven to 200°C/400°F/gas 6; when ready, slash the top of your sourdough loaf with a sharp knife and bake it for 40 minutes or until golden brown. To test it’s done, take it out, turn it over and tap the underneath – if it sounds hollow, it’s done; if it sounds thuddy, return it to the oven for a further 5 minutes and test again.
Cool on a wire rack, yell to the family that it’s done, while breaking out the butter and cheese – homemade obviously – and then tuck in.
Cheat’s sourdough
This is kind of a halfway house between sourdough and regular bread, so the sour taste is more of a background hint. It works well for loaves, and especially pizza bases.
Simply save around 10 per cent of your raw bread dough from the week before, covered and stored in the fridge. It is best to keep it for 6–8 days. When you open it, there will be a very distinct smell: sour and yeasty, but sharp, almost to the point of smelling like fresh paint – don’t be put off, this is good! Add it to your dough mix.
Sourdough crumpets/pikelets
A perfect solution to your sourdough starter split, or simply to use up excess starter. To 220g/7¾oz of sourdough starter add 1 tsp of sugar, ¼ tsp salt and ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda), mixing well together. Heat a pat of butter in a frying pan over a low to medium heat, and spoon a tablespoon of the batter into the pan. Cook for a couple of minutes until the top is set and full of holes. Flip it over and continue cooking until the bottom is golden brown.
FUN, WILD, FORRAGED BREADS
For a self-sufficient twist that will not only wow, but be guaranteed to become a springtime favorite, add foraged stinging nettles (Urtica dioica) or wild garlic (Allium ursinum) to your dough. The resulting bread will have an amazing pistachio-green colour, along with incredible flavour and health benefits to boot.
For both, pick the young, healthy tips of the plants, wash well in salt water to remove any nasties and steam over boiling water to wilt (as you might cook spinach). Squeeze dry, finely chop and add to your dough at the stage before kneading. Aim for around 20 per cent by volume plants to dough.
Unleavened breads
The difference with unleavened breads is the absence of any lightening, so although they can still include yeast, they’re not left to prove and rise, which means they are flat rather than rounded. The most basic recipe for unleavened bread does not include yeast at all and is simply flour, water and salt mixed into balls, rolled out flat and dry-fried quickly in a frying pan over a high heat, like a savoury crêpe. Pitta bread is the same recipe but with yeast added, so it does have a certain puffiness. Naan breads are made by using live yoghurt to help the rising agent and add flavour, and chapattis and tortillas use baking powder for the same reasons. All are quickly made and quickly cooked.
Fab naan bread
If you are going to go to the effort of making a curry, plonking a hastily heated-up shop-bought cardboard naan on the side is just wrong, especially in a self-sufficient kitchen. And they’re so easy to make.
300g/10½oz/2¼ cups strong white bread flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp honey or sugar
7g/¼oz dried yeast (or 14g/½oz fresh yeast)
1 tsp oil
1 tbsp fresh live yoghurt
sprinkle of nigella seeds
Mix and knead as bread (see page 54), adding about 125ml/4fl oz/ ½ cup water to start, then a little more if needed Put the dough to one side to rest. When you’re ready to bake, turn out the dough onto a floured surface and cut into four equal parts. Make each part into a ball before squashing flat into a disc. Meanwhile, heat a heavy-bottomed iron skillet or frying pan on the hob and bring up to temperature. Back to the naan – prod, poke, pull and tease each into a teardrop shape approximately 20cm/8in in diameter, don’t worry if it’s a bit lumpy-bumpy and uneven as this will add to the authenticity. Cook for about a minute on each side or until done. Wrap in a clean tea towel until ready to serve; they are best eaten warm.
Pitta bread
If you can make a really good pitta bread and whizz up a houmous (recipes on pages 18–19) – and, boy, it’s easy to do – then you’ll never be lost for lunch again and are likely to have friends queuing up to join you. Makes six pittas:
300g/10½oz/2¼ cups strong white bread flour
1 tsp salt
7g/¼oz dried yeast (or 14g/½oz fresh yeast)
¼ tsp onion seeds
Place the salt into a bowl first, then the flour, onion seeds, and finally the yeast. Add 125–150ml/4–5fl oz/½–scant 2/3 cup water, a little at a time, until it all comes together nicely, feeling tacky, not sticky. Knead it, return it to the bowl and let it rest for a couple of minutes, or you can leave it up to an hour if you’re multitasking. Just before you’re ready to bake, preheat your oven as hot as you can get it, with a baking tray in the warmest part of the oven. Tip out your dough onto a lightly floured surface and cut it into six equal portions, rolling each into a neat ball shape. Then, using a rolling pin, roll them out until they’re about 2–3mm/⅛in thick. Bake in twos, side by side, for 5–8 minutes or until they puff up and start to colour. Take them out and place them in a clean tea towel to keep them soft.
Banana bread
Although this book is all about self-sufficiency and bananas are not exactly indigenous to the UK, this recipe is included because banana bread is made from over-ripe bananas, the ones that have gone black and the supermarkets or greengrocers cannot sell, and you can pick them up for next to nothing. Sometimes that’s what self-sufficiency is about: spotting bargains and then finding nice ways to use them up. This bread is beautiful hot with butter or toasted the following day.
60g/2¼oz/¼ cup chilled butter, diced, plus extra for greasing
250g/9oz/heaped 1¾ cups self-raising flour
1 tbsp baking powder
pinch of salt
60g/2¼oz/5 tbsp caster sugar
1 egg, beaten
grated rind of 1 lemon
2 good-sized over-ripe bananas, mashed
splash of milk
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4 and grease a 900g/2lb loaf tin. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a mixing bowl. Add the butter and rub in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the sugar, egg, lemon rind, bananas and milk and stir well to combine, then pour the mixture into the greased tin. Bake in the preheated oven for 45–65 minutes until a skewer inserted into the middle of the loaf comes out clean. Remove from the oven and serve warm or cold.
Malt loaf
Although you might think that malt loaf is more cake than bread, the fact that we spread it with butter qualifies it as bread. The beauty of this recipe is that it doesn’t give the horrible glued-to-your-teeth sensation that is the major downside to the bought varieties.
40g/1½oz/3 tbsp butter, plus extra for greasing
110g/3½oz/¾ cup sultanas (golden raisins)
110g/3½oz/¾ cup raisins
170g/6oz/1¼ cups self-raising flour
tip of a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
pinch of salt
110g/3½oz/heaped ½ cup soft brown sugar
1 large egg, beaten
1 tbsp malt extract
Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/gas 5 and grease a 900g/2lb loaf tin. Put the butter, sultanas, raisins and 150ml/5fl oz/scant 2/3 cup water in a saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring to combine. Reduce the heat and simmer for a few minutes, then remove from the heat and set aside to cool. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt into a mixing bowl, add the sugar and stir well. Tip in the cooled fruit mixture, egg and malt extract and stir again. Pour the mixture into the greased tin. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes on the top shelf of the oven and then another 30 minutes on the bottom shelf (reducing the temperature by 20°C/50°F for the second half of the cooking if you have a fan oven). Remove from the oven and turn out on to a wire rack to cool.
Gluten-free breads
More and more people are discovering that they are intolerant to gluten, which means that they cannot eat wheat (with all the many implications this has). Records show that up to 1 per cent of the population has coeliac disease, though because the current test for gluten intolerance means you have to eat wheat for 6 weeks prior to the test, many people never get tested and so don’t become part of the statistics, which means the percentage could be much higher.
Bought gluten-free bread is expensive and can be unpleasant – most needs to be toasted to get even a reasonable result. It is therefore an excellent idea for coeliacs to make their own breads. Soda bread made with buttermilk works fantastically well with gluten-free flour and gives it a really good flavour, but it is not a bread to keep and does need to be eaten hot (any leftovers make fantastic breadcrumbs). Other suggestions are the rice, potato and tapioca flour recipe below (which uses xanthan gum to provide the stretchiness that is provided in normal bread by the gluten in bread flour) and the American corn bread recipe on page 69.
Gluten-free bread
Warming the dry ingredients at the start of the recipe helps to kick-start the ingredients into action, whilst placing a bowl over the dough while it is proving increases the humidity, so stopping the dough drying out and forming a skin over the top. This recipe also works well for pizza.
250g/9oz/1⅔ cups rice flour
150g/5½oz/scant 1 cup potato flour
100g/3½oz/⅔ cup tapioca flour
1 heaped tsp xanthan gum
1 heaped tsp sea salt
1 heaped tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
2 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for greasing
7g/¼oz sachet dried yeast
1 heaped tsp soft brown sugar
Preheat the oven to 110ºC/220°F/gas ¼, then switch it off. Put the flours, xanthan gum, sea salt and bicarbonate of soda in an ovenproof mixing bowl and stir together, then place in the preheated oven to warm through, stirring after 5 minutes. Also place an oiled baking sheet in the oven to warm. Meanwhile, put the yeast, sugar and oil in a bowl, pour in 400ml/14fl oz/1¾ cups hand-hot water and mix well, then cover and put to one side in a warm place for 10–15 minutes until the yeast is frothy.
Remove the mixing bowl from the oven and pour the yeast mixture into it, then stir the ingredients just enough to bring the mixture together to form a soft dough. Shape into a ball, dust with flour and put on the warmed baking tray with the ovenproof bowl over the top. Put in the oven to rise for 30–90 minutes until doubled in size.
Remove the dough from the oven and increase the temperature to 220ºC/425°F/gas 7. Keep the dough warm by laying a thick doubled towel over the bowl (if necessary). Remove the bowl and bake the dough in the preheated oven for about 1 hour until golden brown. Remove from the oven and eat while still warm.
American corn bread
Typical American corn bread is made from cornmeal (not to be confused with cornflour), which means it is gluten free. However, most baking powder contains wheat, so if you are coeliac, you’ll need to buy the gluten-free version. If you don’t have buttermilk, you can add 2 tsp lemon juice to 300ml/10fl oz/1¼ cups milk to sour it.
1 egg
300ml/10fl oz/1¼ cups buttermilk
1 tsp baking powder (gluten-free for coeliacs)
4–5 heaped tbsp cornmeal
oil, for frying
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4. Beat the egg with the buttermilk and baking powder in a bowl, then stir in sufficient cornmeal so that the mixture has the consistency of double (heavy) cream. Pour a little oil into a 25cm/10in heavy, ovenproof frying pan and heat until it is spitting hot, then pour the mixture in until it comes nearly to the top of the pan. Cook for 2 minutes, then transfer the pan to the preheated oven for 20 minutes until the cornbread is firm but still springy in the middle when pressed. Remove from the oven and eat still warm from the pan or transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool.
CAKES AND BISCUITS
The whole lifestyle of self-sufficiency is about producing the luxuries as well as satisfying everyday needs and wants. Cakes and biscuits are a luxury, but when you make them yourself they are a luxury you can afford. Apart from the obvious saving that making at home allows, the beauty of this is that it connects with so many other aspects of self-sufficiency, so cheese you have made yourself can be turned into a cheesecake, jam into fillings and garden vegetables into cakes, all made by using up the eggs from your own chickens. But if you have not made cheese or jam or grown your own vegetables, then it’s no problem to pick up the ingredients from a supermarket.
Families always used to bake their own cakes until someone put out a rumour that it was difficult and time-consuming to do, and people drifted over to packet buying. There is some truth that the recipes did go through a stage of getting rather complicated. A typical example is the sponge cake. Sure you can do each individual section bit by laborious bit, but you can also do the all-in-one method using a food mixer and have it done and in the oven in less than 10 minutes, bake for 20, make the butter icing while it cools and have it assembled and ready for eating in under an hour.
This is cake and biscuit baking the self-sufficient way: big on time-saving shortcuts, big on truly delicious flavours and big on using up whatever is to hand, wasting nothing and keeping down the cost.
Basic sponge cake
You can use the traditional Victoria sponge method if you want, but the all-in-one food-mixer way gives a result that’s just as good in a fraction of the time. You can also make a cake in a food processor, but less air will get incorporated, even if you remove the food pusher from the lid, and so the results are never as light.
225g/8oz/1 cup butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
225g/8oz/1¾ cups self-raising flour, sifted
225g/8oz/1 heaped cup caster (superfine) sugar
4 eggs
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4 and grease two 20cm/8in sandwich cake tins. Put all the ingredients in the food mixer bowl, turn it on (starting slowly if the flour is likely to coat your kitchen) and leave it mixing for a good few minutes. You will know when it’s done because the mixture will turn light and fluffy. Scrape the mixture into the cake tins and cook in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cakes comes out clean. Do not open the door for the first 15 minutes or the cakes will sink. Remove from the oven and leave the cakes to cool for few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Alternatively, you can cook the mixture in one deep tin, in which case it will take about 30 minutes, and then split it, or you can use the mixture for fairy cakes, which will take about 15 minutes.
Variations
Adapt this basic recipe by adding 1 tbsp cocoa powder for a chocolate cake, the juice and zest of 1 lemon for a lemon cake or ½ tsp instant coffee granules dissolved in 1 tbsp boiling water for a coffee cake – with chopped walnuts if wanted. Fill with jam or butter icing, plain or flavoured to suit, and top with sifted icing (confectioner’s) sugar, butter icing or a drizzled syrup. This recipe also works well for a steamed sponge cooked with fruit.
5-minute chocolate sponge
If speed and hot chocolate sponge are your thing (and, let’s face it, for whom would they not be?), then this 5-minute microwave mug cake takes a lot of beating! The timing is for a 750W microwave oven.
4 tbsp self-raising flour
4 tbsp granulated sugar
2 tsp cocoa powder
1 egg
3 tbsp vegetable oil
3 tbsp milk
sprinkling of chocolate chips (optional)
1 tsp vanilla extract
Put the flour, sugar and cocoa powder into a large coffee mug (roughly 400ml/14fl oz) and stir. Add the egg and beat the mixture together with a fork, then tip in the oil, milk, chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla extract and mix the whole thing together. If you don’t have a large enough mug, divide the mixture between two mugs at this stage. Cook in a microwave for 3 minutes on high, then leave to stand for 2 minutes. Run a knife around the edge of the mug and turn the cake out on to a plate and have it with cream or ice-cream. Or, if you’d rather not make more washing-up, just take out a spoon (or two if you can bear to share it) and find a quiet spot to enjoy. Do not let the cake go cold, as it turns hard when it does so.
Cheesecake
This is a perfect summer’s afternoon self-sufficient cheesecake, where every part of it can be made (including both cheeses), reared and foraged for – except for the sugar. Use a medley of any berries or other fruits you have grown or been able to forage. Alternatively, of course, it’s no problem to buy what you need.
125g/4½oz digestive biscuits (graham crackers)
60g/2½oz/¼ cup butter, melted, plus extra for greasing
FOR THE TOPPING
250g/9oz/heaped 1 cup ricotta cheese
250g/9oz/heaped 1 cup mascarpone cheese
115g/4oz/heaped ½ cup light soft brown sugar
a few drops of vanilla extract
2 eggs, beaten
115–175g/4–6oz mixed berries
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4 and grease a 25cm/10in spring-form cake tin. Put the biscuits in a plastic bag and crush with a rolling pin. Melt the butter in a small saucepan, then remove from the heat. Pour in the biscuit crumbs and mix well. Tip the mixture into the tin and press firmly over the base. Put the ricotta, mascarpone, sugar and vanilla extract in a mixing bowl and beat together with a hand-held electric mixer or a wooden spoon until smooth. Add the eggs and beat well again, then tip in the fruits and fold gently into the mixture with a metal spoon until they are evenly dispersed. Pour the mixture over the base and spread out evenly. Bake in the preheated oven for 20–25 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to cool, then put in the fridge for 1–2 hours to chill before removing the cheesecake carefully from the tin.
Garden vegetable cakes
The two garden vegetables that jump out as lending sweetness and a moist, succulent texture to a cake are carrots and beetroot. This again is where so much of self-sufficiency interlinks, because not only are you baking a fantastic cake using vegetables from the garden, but if you have chickens you can use their eggs, you can use homemade butter and homemade cream cheese for the carrot-cake topping, and even grind your own flour.
Carrot cake
This classic cake, which is sweet and moist and has a luscious creamy icing, is always a favourite.
butter, for greasing
4 eggs
400g/14oz/2 cups caster sugar
300ml/10fl oz/1¼ cups vegetable oil
250g/9oz/1¾ cups plain (all-purpose) flour
¾ tsp baking powder
¾ tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
325g/11oz carrots, grated
FOR THE ICING
115g/4oz/½ cup butter
225g/8oz/1 cup cream cheese
500g/1lb 2oz/3¾ cups icing (confectioner’s) sugar, sifted
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4 and grease a 900g/2lb loaf tin or a deep 20cm/8in cake tin. Put the eggs, sugar and oil in a mixing bowl and beat together with a hand-held electric mixer or a wooden spoon. Sift in the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt and cinnamon, and add the grated carrots, then stir the mixture together. Pour into the tin and bake in the preheated oven for 40–50 minutes until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for 15 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Meanwhile, put the icing ingredients in a mixing bowl and beat with a hand-held electric mixer or a wooden spoon until smooth. When the cake is cool, smooth the icing over the top with a palette knife.
Variation
For a beetroot cake, substitute the carrot with grated beetroot and use 2 tsp cocoa powder instead of the cinnamon. This cake is too sweet to need any icing, so serve plain.
Hazelnut and honey cookies
If you do not want to cook all these cookies at once, wrap the dough and keep in the fridge for a few days, or freeze for longer.
75g/3oz hazelnuts/heaped ½ cup, plus 30–36 to decorate (optional)
75g/3oz/5 tbsp butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
75g/3oz/¼ cup honey
140g/5oz/heaped 1 cup plain (all-purpose) flour, plus extra for dusting
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4. Spread all the hazelnuts out on a baking tray and cook in the preheated oven for 10 minutes, checking every couple of minutes after the first 5 minutes, as they burn easily. Remove from the oven and turn the oven off. Tip 75g/3oz into a blender or food processor and blend to a rough powder. Alternatively, use a pestle and mortar. Reserve the remaining nuts for decoration.
Put the butter and honey in a mixing bowl and beat with a wooden spoon until light and creamy. Add the flour and ground roasted hazel-nuts and mix well together. Tip the mixture on to a floured surface and knead it gently, then roll it into a 15cm/6in-long cylinder. Wrap the cylinder in greaseproof paper and put in the fridge for 2 hours to firm.
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4 and lightly grease three baking sheets. Remove the cookie dough roll from the fridge and slice into 30–36 rounds about 5mm/¼in thick. Place on the baking sheets and decorate with the whole roasted hazelnuts, if using. Bake in the preheated oven for 6–8 minutes until golden brown. Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool.
Shortbread
So fast and cheap to make, this should be in everyone’s emergency repertoire. If you want a more rustic look, form the dough by hand on a lightly greased baking tray.
140g/5oz/heaped 1 cup plain (all-purpose) flour
25g/1oz/3 tbsp rice flour
50g/2oz/¼ cup caster (superfine) sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
115g/4oz/½ cup butter, softened
Preheat the oven to 160°C/325°F/gas 3 and grease two 18cm/7in sandwich tins. Put all the ingredients into a mixing bowl and mix by hand until they come together into a ball. Place the dough in the tins and press down all around, then prick even-sized wedge shapes with a fork on the top. Bake in the preheated oven for about 45 minutes until golden brown on top. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tins, then sprinkle with caster sugar.
Variations
For a jazzed-up version, dip half of each shortbread into some melted chocolate and leave to dry on a wire rack.
For a gluten-free version, replace the plain (all-purpose) flour with 50g/2oz/½ cup cornflour (cornstarch) and increase the rice flour to 115g/4oz/¾ cup.
BISCUITY FAKES
While the self-sufficient kitchen concentrates on wholesome, good-for-you, cooked-from-scratch-and-the-heart food, sometimes the craving for a real blast-from-the-past biscuit is too much to ignore. Just because you’re self-sufficient does not mean you can’t have luxuries – far from it. But it does mean you have to make them yourself. Here are my take on three of the best biscuits ever to be dunked in a mug of tea, which perhaps you’re more used to seeing in branded packets – though it’s my hunch that once you’ve made them yourself you’ll never buy a packet biscuit again.
Chocolate digestives
The Ford Focus of biscuits, the chocolate digestive is reliable for any mood or any situation, whether you’re on your own or surrounded by friends and family, and when they’re homemade they’re doubly delicious. The following recipe makes approximately a dozen beauties.
230g/8oz/1¾ cups wholemeal flour, plus extra for dusting
80g/2¾oz/⅔ cup pinhead oatmeal
50g/2oz/¼ cup soft brown sugar
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
¼ tsp salt
100g/3½oz/7 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
splash of milk
FOR THE TOPPING
200g/7oz plain or milk chocolate
Add all the dry ingredients to a bowl, plus the butter. Using your hands, mix and scrunch it together until it’s well mixed and has the appearance of fine breadcrumbs. Splash in the milk a little at a time, squidging the dough as you do until it forms a ball – the consistency you’re looking for is tacky, not sticky. Chill in the fridge for 1 hour.
Place the chilled dough on a lightly floured surface and, using a rolling pin, roll it out until it’s approximately 1cm/½in thick. Using a biscuit cutter (or the rim of a highball glass) cut out as many rounds as possible, placing them on a baking sheet lined with greaseproof paper. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 170°C/325°F/gas 3 for 10–12 minutes, or until they just start to turn golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.
Melt your chocolate in a bain-marie – a glass bowl over a saucepan of water. When your biscuits are cool, spoon over the melted chocolate, spreading it evenly over the whole biscuit.
Bourbon biscuits
Even after all these years, something in my heart does a little leap at the thought of homemade Bourbon biscuits. Makes approximately a dozen.
100g/3½oz/½ cup caster sugar
100g/3½oz/7 tbsp unsalted butter
1 egg
170g/6oz/1¼ cups plain (all-purpose) flour
50g/2oz/½ cup custard powder
30g/1oz/¼ cup cocoa powder
FOR THE FILLING
100g/3½oz/¾ cup icing (confectioner’s) sugar
30g/1oz/¼ cup cocoa powder
30g/1oz/2 tbsp unsalted butter
splash of milk if needed
In one bowl, cream the sugar and butter together and stir in the egg, while in another bowl sift the flour, custard powder and cocoa. Tip one into the other, combine and bring together into a ball. Wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for half an hour.
On a lightly floured surface, roll out the biscuit dough until it’s about 3–5mm/⅙in thick and cut into fingers (there are some amazing Bourbon biscuit presses you can buy on the Internet. Alternatively, use a shop-bought biscuit as a template). Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper and place your biscuits on it. Bake at 180°C/350°F/ gas 4 in a pre-heated oven for 6–8 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.
For the filling, mix all the ingredients except the milk together in a bowl – if it feels too stiff, add the splash of milk but use sparingly, you don’t want the filling too soft. With a flat knife, smooth over half the biscuits, laying the other halves on top to complete the biscuit.
Custard creams
It is a fact, universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a dozen homemade custard creams must be in want of a wife (and a good fortune doesn’t go amiss, either).
120g/4¼oz/1 scant cup plain (all-purpose) flour
80g/2¾oz/⅓ cup unsalted butter
30g/1oz/2½ tbsp caster sugar
30g/1oz/⅓ cup custard powder
½ tsp vanilla extract
FOR THE FILLING
60g/2oz/½ cup icing (confectioner’s) sugar
40g/1½oz/3 tbsp unsalted butter
30g/1oz/⅓ cup custard powder
splash of milk, if needed
Add flour and butter to a bowl and rub together until evenly mixed. Pour in the rest of the ingredients and bring together into a ball. Wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for half an hour.
On a lightly floured surface, roll out the biscuit dough until it’s about 3–5mm/⅙in thick and cut either into oblongs or for simplicity press out circles with a biscuit cutter or the rim of a highball glass. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper and place your biscuits on it. Bake at 180°C/350°F/gas 4 in a pre-heated oven for 6–8 minutes or until they just start to go brown round the edges. Cool on a wire rack.
For the filling, mix all the ingredients except the milk together in a bowl – if it feels too stiff, add the splash of milk, but use sparingly, you don’t want the filling too soft. With a flat knife smooth the icing over half the biscuits, laying the other halves on top to complete the biscuit.
PASTRY
The pastry of a pie was once known as the ‘coffin’, because meat was cooked in a pastry case to keep it moist, and then the pastry was discarded before the food inside was eaten. The reason could have been that the craft took a long time to hone, and it wasn’t until the Middle Ages that the basic pastry of fat and flour was perfected. Before that people used oil, which left the pastry soggy, soft and distinctly unappetizing.
Pastry today is made with half fat to flour. The fat can be all butter with a touch of icing (confectioner’s) sugar for sweet pastry, half and half lard and butter for a good shortcrust pastry or all lard for a hot-water crust pastry used for pork pies. The trick with all pastry making is to keep everything cold and to use your hands as little as possible.
Lard
Any day is a good day for a pie. But to make pastry, you need lard, which is pig fat. The best lard is always made by trimming the fat from your own free-range pigs and rendering it down, but you can also get it from your local butcher. Specify that it does have to come from a free-range pig, because barn-reared commercial pigs can produce a pappy, soft fat, while outdoor pigs have a much firmer, tighter fat. Ethically – and for flavour and texture – free range is always preferable.
PIES AND PASTIES, TARTS AND FLANS
Pies can be sweet or savoury, and, looking back at the original pasties, they were often both in one. In a book on self-sufficiency, it would be a travesty not to include pasties, as they were the original labourer’s packed lunch, made by placing meat and vegetables (or anything else to hand, most often the leftovers from the previous night’s meal) on one side of a circle of pastry, and a sweet filling of apples or plums on the other, and folding the pastry over the top of the lot and crimping it down on the other side in a half-circle case. It was ideal because it was a complete, filling, all-in-one meal, and the thick ridge that sealed it acted as a handle, so that the worker’s dirty hands didn’t touch the food. This sweet and savoury all-in-one version has dropped from fashion and really only comes into its own for the longest days out working, such as lambing or haymaking.
Nothing says self-sufficiency in quite the same way as a pie, because the filling for a pie is all about using up any leftover meat. Take a chicken you have reared yourself or bought (hopefully a free-range chicken), or a haunch of venison you have traded some other produce for, roast it one day, then strip it of every speck of meat for a pie the next (a pie is very easy to pad out, so a little meat can go a long, long way). The pies included here can be made with any white or red meat you want, though you’ll note that the flavourings for the red-meat version are more robust. To help make either of the pies go further, use the really old-fashioned method of false meat balls by using herbs, breadcrumbs and finely chopped (cooked) offal bound with an egg to make little balls about the size of a golf ball, and pop them on top of the meat mixture before the lid goes on. This gives the extra advantage of lifting the pastry top away from the meat, so keeping it crisp and dry.
White-meat pie
Use cooked chicken, pheasant, rabbit or turkey meat (or a combination of some or all of these) for the filling for this pie. If you are pushed for time, forget the pastry, spoon the filling into a dish and top with mashed potato for a quick and easy pie.
50g/2oz/3½ tbsp butter
175g/6oz button mushrooms, quartered
1 carrot, diced
115g/4oz fresh or frozen peas
350–400g/12–14oz cooked chicken, pheasant, rabbit or turkey meat (or a mixture), stripped from the bones a nd diced or shredded
FOR THE PASTRY
350g/12oz/2⅔ cups plain (all-purpose) flour, plus extra for dusting
175g/6oz/¾ cup chilled butter, diced
FOR THE SAUCE
50g/2oz/3½ tbsp butter
50g/2oz/6 tbsp plain (all-purpose) flour
150ml/5fl oz/scant ⅔ cup milk
150ml/5fl oz/scant ⅔ cup chicken stock
sea salt and black pepper
To make the pastry, sift the flour and a pinch of salt into a mixing bowl and add the butter. Using your fingertips, rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add about 4 tbsp water, stirring the mixture to form a firm dough. Turn it out on to a floured surface and knead lightly, then wrap in cling film and rest in the fridge for 15 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4. To make the sauce, melt the butter in a large heavy-based saucepan over a low heat, then stir in the flour and mix to a paste. Cook for 1–2 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and gradually pour in the milk and stock, stirring continuously to prevent lumps forming. Once all the liquid has been incorporated, return the pan to the heat and bring slowly to the boil, still stirring, until the sauce is smooth and has thickened, then reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Season to taste.
Meanwhile, melt the butter in a frying pan over a low heat and fry the mushrooms and carrots until softened. Tip the mixture into the thickened sauce, along with the peas and diced or shredded meat and mix to combine.
Remove the pastry from the fridge and roll out on a floured work surface. Place a 25cm/10in flan tin or pie plate on top of the pastry and cut around it twice. Reroll the trimmings and cut out leaf shapes from them. Put one of the pastry circles in the tin. Pour the mixture into the pastry case, lay the lid over the top and crimp the edges. Decorate the top with the pastry leaves (sorry, all savoury pies have to have these), then stand the tin on a baking sheet. Bake in the preheated oven for about 1 hour, or until the pastry is golden.
Variation
For a red meat (or game) pie, replace the white meat with the same weight of off-cuts of raw meat, browned in some oil in a frying pan until cooked. Add 150ml/5fl oz/scant ⅔ cup water or stock and 150ml/5fl oz/scant ⅔ cup red wine or beer, plus a squeeze of tomato purée (paste), to the meat, along with a chopped onion and a bay leaf. Simmer the mixture to remove the harshness of the alcohol and until the meat is tender, then thicken the sauce using a paste made from the flour and butter Add the mushrooms, carrots and peas and pour into the pastry case.
Open pastry flans are an ideal way to use up produce. If you have fruit trees or you can get permission to pick apples, plums, pears or apricots, then they can all be used for tarte tatin. Onion or leek tarts are beautiful served warm with soft homemade cheese, and nothing can beat a quiche made from free-range eggs and home-cured ham, or, even better, home-smoked ham.
QUICK PASTRY SNACKS
These make a perfect breakfast on the go. A tip when making any recipe using rough puff pastry, such as turnovers or sausage rolls, is to dampen the baking tray instead of greasing it, which creates steam and gives a much lighter finish. This pastry is a sort of cheat’s rough puff pastry. It’s quick and easy to make, and while it won’t be as flaky as real rough puff, it will be much lighter than shortcrust. Makes 4.
225g/8oz/1¾ cups plain (all-purpose) flour, plus extra for dusting
175g/6oz/¾ cup chilled butter
a little ice-cold water
4 bacon rashers
4 slithers of cheese
2 tomatoes (optional)
Sift the flour into a mixing bowl. Grate the butter into the flour and stir with a knife so as not to break up the butter gratings. Gently stir enough ice-cold water into the mixture to form a firm dough. Cover with cling film and leave to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas 6. Remove the pastry from the fridge and roll out on a floured surface. Cut into four 15cm/6in squares. Lay a rasher of bacon corner to corner on each one, with a slither of cheese in the centre and maybe a slice of tomato at each end, then bring the outer corners to meet over the top of the cheese at the centre. Place on a baking tray and bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes.
Gluten-free pastry
The common complaint about most gluten-free pastry is that it tends to be crumbly and pretty tasteless. This recipe overcomes that problem to the point that couples where one partner has a wheat allergy and the other does not, as is so often the case, can both enjoy the same meal, which, if you are coeliac, you will understand is something of a rarity!
115g/4oz/⅔ cup cornmeal
115g/4oz/¾ cup rice flour
115g/4oz/¾ cup potato flour
1½ tsp xanthan gum
pinch of salt
185g/6½oz/¾ cup plus 1 tbsp chilled butter, diced
1 egg
Sift the cornmeal, rice flour, potato flour, xanthan gum and salt into a mixing bowl. Add the butter and rub it in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Beat the egg with about 200ml/7fl oz water and add gradually to the mixture, stirring to make a firm dough. You may not need all the liquid. Bring the dough together with your hands, then wrap in cling film and rest in the fridge for 15 minutes before using.
PASTA
A quick word about pasta, because the ability to make your own pasta in the self-sufficient kitchen is a must. Once you’ve got the basic recipe perfected, try making ravioli using homemade ricotta-style soft cheese (see page 98 for cheese-making ideas) and blanched chopped spinach with a grating of fresh nutmeg, and serve it with crusty bread and a homemade rustic tomato pasta sauce. Children adore rolling their own pasta, and even pasta haters among them will enjoy the fact that they have made it themselves.
Handmade pasta
Homemade fresh pasta cooks in seconds: just drop it into boiling water and, as soon as the water comes back to the boil with the pasta floating to the surface, it is cooked. It also dries fantastically well and keeps for ages if sealed. Use garden produce to flavour and colour the pasta – spinach for the brightest green, beetroot for red and fresh herbs for speckled – reducing the number of eggs used to take into account the increased moisture the vegetables bring.
100g/3½oz pasta (type 00) flour, plus extra for dusting
2 medium size eggs, beaten
Tip the flour on to a clean work surface and make a well in the centre. Add the beaten eggs and mix with your fingertips. As the dough begins to come together, knead it as for bread until an elastic dough is formed. Cover with cling film and rest in the fridge for 10 minutes, then take the dough ball and roll it out using a pasta machine or a rolling pin. The pasta should be dusted with flour after rolling or shaping and left to dry for half an hour before being cooked in plenty of boiling salted water.
Variation
For bread-machine pasta, put the ingredients in the machine on ‘dough’ mode and let the machine do the work, but remove the dough before proving starts. Rest in the fridge before rolling, as for handmade pasta.
Flavoured, radiant pasta
If you’re looking for sneaky ways to get some vegetables onto the table that they’ll all eat, this is a fab, vibrant, almost psychedelic option – and when made into tagliatelle and mixed in a bowl, it looks incredible.
• Beetroot: roast raw beets until tender. Remove from the oven and slip off the skins. Dice and blend until smooth. Replace 1 egg per 100g/3½oz/¾ cup flour with 50g/2oz of prepared beets.
• Spinach or stinging nettles: wash and steam until wilted. Remove from heat and wring out as much liquid as possible. Blend until smooth. Replace 1 egg per 100g/3½oz/¾ cup flour with 50g/2oz of the prepared vegetable.
• Saffron or turmeric: take a few strands of saffron and infuse them in 2 tsp of hot water. Allow to cool and add to the egg mix. For turmeric, simply add ¼ tsp to every 100g/3½oz/¾ cup of flour.
• Tomato: add 1 tbsp of tomato purée (paste) per 100g/3½oz/ ¾ cup of flour – if you find the mix too sticky, adjust by adding a little more flour.
• Chervil, basil, dill, parsley: chop very finely and add 1 heaped tbsp per 100g/3½oz flour/¾ cup.