Recipe: Eccles Cakes
This week continues the plan to make the recipes from Mise - yesterday I made the Afghan pilau. The problem with pilau (also known as plov in some parts of the world) is that every region in Central Asia has their own version. There's Afghan, Pakistani, Uzbek, Tajik, etc and so forth. I've got a recipe for Uzbek plov that we really like, and there's a Chechen recipe in one of the cookbooks in storage. But for the purposes of Mise, it has to be Afghan, so I found a recipe online. It's the same basic concept: rice, meat, carrots. But the preparation is different from every other version I've had before.
What's odd is that the preparation is actually really well suited for a restaurant kitchen - you make everything separately, and I have a very good idea that much of it could be made ahead of time, with the vegetables made once the order comes in. So in that respect, it's just about perfect.
On the other hand...for a home kitchen...oh my frickin' lord, that used just about every pot I own. And I'm not entirely sure anyone needs three cups of rice to feed four people.
Anyway, I'm going to play with the recipe at least one more time before I share - including the type and amount of rice. (I don't care if Basmati is more authentic; it's too delicate for the amount of cooking it's going to get.)
*
Today, because I'm baking the goodies for writer's group tomorrow, I decided to try one of the desserts. I found a recipe for Eccles cakes, and while I'm not entirely sure they're appropriate for a dessert, they looked interesting and yummy and I figured I'd give them a go and then make up my mind.
Result? Yum.
But better yet - I'm forming the little cakes with the puff pastry and the filling, and suddenly knew exactly how these cakes are going to work in the story, and who is making them, and why, and the conversation they're going to have while they do. And it's a scene I've had in mind, but I didn't know how I was going to do it, and now I do. And it's all centered on these little cakes.
(I'm probably placing far too much importance on the cakes.)
Eccles Cakes
based on this recipe
Ingredients:
75g unsalted butter
150g soft brown sugar
150g currants or raisins
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 orange, juice and zest
1 tsp lemon zest
2 boxes ready-made puff pastry, mostly defrosted*
flour for dusting
2-3 tbsp milk
granulated or superfine (caster) sugar for dusting
powdered (icing) sugar for dusting
Instructions:
1. Melt the butter in a medium-sized pot. Once melted, combine the sugar, currants, spices, juice and zest. Set aside to cool.
2. Preheat the oven to 425F. Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
3. Roll out the pastry dough on a lightly-floured surface. Using a 2-1/2" round cookie cutter, cut out as many circles as possible.*
4. Holding a circle in one hand, put about a teaspoon of the currants in the center of each circle. You want more of the fruit, and less of the filling, otherwise it gets seriously messy. Crimp the edges together to encase the filing inside, forming a little half-circle pouch. Now take the two corners of the pouch and bring them together and crimp. Place the cake back down on your work surface, seam-side down, and gently pat it down until it's about as flat as you can get it without raisins bursting through.
5. Place the filled rounds on the tray, about two inches apart. They won't really grow out, but because they'll probably leak some of the filling, you don't want them too close together, either.
6. Slash the tops of each cake three times with the tip of a sharp knife, and then brush them with the milk. Sprinkle with the superfine sugar. (If you own a fruit-flavored sugar, this would probably work really well, too - and I actualy have orange sugar, and sadly didn't think to use it!)
7. Bake the cakes for 15 minutes. Immediately transfer to a wire rack to cool.
8. Before serving, dust the cakes with powdered sugar.
* I used the Pepperidge Farm puff pastry - one sheet gave me 12 squares. You'll have enough filling to make about 40 of the cakes - more if you want to add more currants.
Notes:
Okay, so let me address the measurements. The recipe is from the BBC's Food site, which is pretty good, but I think their convertion calculator needs help. The original recipe included both grams and cups for the butter, sugar, and raisins, which I thought was very nice of them - until I realized that 75 grams of butter does not equal 3 ounces - it's actually almost a half ounce less. And 150 grams of sugar is a bit more than 5 ounces - which would result in a seriously wacked-out recipe. I decided to stick to what I imagine are the original British measurements (yay for owning a kitchen scale).
I also found that I apparently own some seriously juicy oranges, because wow, that was a lot of juice - around 100ml. The resulting filling was very, very liquidy - your mileage may vary.
I haven't worked with puff pastry all that often, but it wasn't too hard working with it here. I used two different kinds - the Pepperidge Farm I bought at the commissary, and then some whole-wheat stuff I managed to find on the economy. They were both easy to use, but the whole wheat didn't rise as much in the oven, which was a bit disappointing. Ah well, lesson learned.
For the story:
I'm not sure these would stand up on their own as a dessert - they're very small, for one thing, so you'd want to send several out in a single order. And they're seriously time-consuming - I spent two hours working on these suckers, and while I imagine it'd go faster after a while, that's still a long time for only 40-some cakes.
But I can see these being on the menu as a special thing - maybe to send out one per guest with the dinner check at the end of the night? You know, like the British version of a fortune cookie. Then again...that's still a lot of time put in for a treat. I'm not sure it's exactly feasible, the way I've got the restaurant set up.
That said...I have a very specific idea for these cakes, and I think as a one-off, it'll work. Especially if no one thinks about it too hard!
Regarding the plating:
So we all agree that I'm crap at plating, yes yes? Right. If you have a brilliant plating idea, and you want to make them and photograph it yourselves, PLEASE let me know first, because there is some very specific information I want to give you before you make them that may be pertinent to the story, and will affect what you're doing. Not a big deal, but it's one of those "nice to know" things.
Edited to add:
I forgot to mention! So I'm at one of the local stores today which stocks a lot of foreign stuff - I'm running low on caster sugar and they usually carry it, and the commissary doesn't carry superfine so they're not an option. Well, the store didn't have caster sugar - but they did have tins of golden syrup. SO I BOUGHT ONE. I have absolutely NO idea what one does with golden syrup, but there has to be a recipe that requires it that I can make. SUGGESTIONS, PLEASE.
What's odd is that the preparation is actually really well suited for a restaurant kitchen - you make everything separately, and I have a very good idea that much of it could be made ahead of time, with the vegetables made once the order comes in. So in that respect, it's just about perfect.
On the other hand...for a home kitchen...oh my frickin' lord, that used just about every pot I own. And I'm not entirely sure anyone needs three cups of rice to feed four people.
Anyway, I'm going to play with the recipe at least one more time before I share - including the type and amount of rice. (I don't care if Basmati is more authentic; it's too delicate for the amount of cooking it's going to get.)
*
Today, because I'm baking the goodies for writer's group tomorrow, I decided to try one of the desserts. I found a recipe for Eccles cakes, and while I'm not entirely sure they're appropriate for a dessert, they looked interesting and yummy and I figured I'd give them a go and then make up my mind.
Result? Yum.
But better yet - I'm forming the little cakes with the puff pastry and the filling, and suddenly knew exactly how these cakes are going to work in the story, and who is making them, and why, and the conversation they're going to have while they do. And it's a scene I've had in mind, but I didn't know how I was going to do it, and now I do. And it's all centered on these little cakes.
(I'm probably placing far too much importance on the cakes.)
Eccles Cakes
based on this recipe
Ingredients:
75g unsalted butter
150g soft brown sugar
150g currants or raisins
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 orange, juice and zest
1 tsp lemon zest
2 boxes ready-made puff pastry, mostly defrosted*
flour for dusting
2-3 tbsp milk
granulated or superfine (caster) sugar for dusting
powdered (icing) sugar for dusting
Instructions:
1. Melt the butter in a medium-sized pot. Once melted, combine the sugar, currants, spices, juice and zest. Set aside to cool.
2. Preheat the oven to 425F. Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
3. Roll out the pastry dough on a lightly-floured surface. Using a 2-1/2" round cookie cutter, cut out as many circles as possible.*
4. Holding a circle in one hand, put about a teaspoon of the currants in the center of each circle. You want more of the fruit, and less of the filling, otherwise it gets seriously messy. Crimp the edges together to encase the filing inside, forming a little half-circle pouch. Now take the two corners of the pouch and bring them together and crimp. Place the cake back down on your work surface, seam-side down, and gently pat it down until it's about as flat as you can get it without raisins bursting through.
5. Place the filled rounds on the tray, about two inches apart. They won't really grow out, but because they'll probably leak some of the filling, you don't want them too close together, either.
6. Slash the tops of each cake three times with the tip of a sharp knife, and then brush them with the milk. Sprinkle with the superfine sugar. (If you own a fruit-flavored sugar, this would probably work really well, too - and I actualy have orange sugar, and sadly didn't think to use it!)
7. Bake the cakes for 15 minutes. Immediately transfer to a wire rack to cool.
8. Before serving, dust the cakes with powdered sugar.
* I used the Pepperidge Farm puff pastry - one sheet gave me 12 squares. You'll have enough filling to make about 40 of the cakes - more if you want to add more currants.
Notes:
Okay, so let me address the measurements. The recipe is from the BBC's Food site, which is pretty good, but I think their convertion calculator needs help. The original recipe included both grams and cups for the butter, sugar, and raisins, which I thought was very nice of them - until I realized that 75 grams of butter does not equal 3 ounces - it's actually almost a half ounce less. And 150 grams of sugar is a bit more than 5 ounces - which would result in a seriously wacked-out recipe. I decided to stick to what I imagine are the original British measurements (yay for owning a kitchen scale).
I also found that I apparently own some seriously juicy oranges, because wow, that was a lot of juice - around 100ml. The resulting filling was very, very liquidy - your mileage may vary.
I haven't worked with puff pastry all that often, but it wasn't too hard working with it here. I used two different kinds - the Pepperidge Farm I bought at the commissary, and then some whole-wheat stuff I managed to find on the economy. They were both easy to use, but the whole wheat didn't rise as much in the oven, which was a bit disappointing. Ah well, lesson learned.
For the story:
I'm not sure these would stand up on their own as a dessert - they're very small, for one thing, so you'd want to send several out in a single order. And they're seriously time-consuming - I spent two hours working on these suckers, and while I imagine it'd go faster after a while, that's still a long time for only 40-some cakes.
But I can see these being on the menu as a special thing - maybe to send out one per guest with the dinner check at the end of the night? You know, like the British version of a fortune cookie. Then again...that's still a lot of time put in for a treat. I'm not sure it's exactly feasible, the way I've got the restaurant set up.
That said...I have a very specific idea for these cakes, and I think as a one-off, it'll work. Especially if no one thinks about it too hard!
Regarding the plating:
So we all agree that I'm crap at plating, yes yes? Right. If you have a brilliant plating idea, and you want to make them and photograph it yourselves, PLEASE let me know first, because there is some very specific information I want to give you before you make them that may be pertinent to the story, and will affect what you're doing. Not a big deal, but it's one of those "nice to know" things.
Edited to add:
I forgot to mention! So I'm at one of the local stores today which stocks a lot of foreign stuff - I'm running low on caster sugar and they usually carry it, and the commissary doesn't carry superfine so they're not an option. Well, the store didn't have caster sugar - but they did have tins of golden syrup. SO I BOUGHT ONE. I have absolutely NO idea what one does with golden syrup, but there has to be a recipe that requires it that I can make. SUGGESTIONS, PLEASE.