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I have had a request for a scaled up version of my madeira cake recipe for a wedding cake. The texture of madeira cake is firm enough to cope with ornate icing which makes it a good choice for wedding cakes. However, you do have to remember that it does not keep like a fruit cake. You cannot make the cakes a long way in advance and don’t expect to be able to keep a tier for the christening in the old tradition: it will not keep.
Since wedding cakes tend to come in tiers, I’ve put together a set of figures for a whole range of tin sizes. I haven’t made anything as huge as the big ones myself, so I can’t swear to their failsafe-ness but the figures are accurately scaled up. If you are making a cake for anything important I would always urge you to have a dry run to make sure that everything works properly.
Choose either the metric or the imperial measurements, but don’t mix them up. For measuring small quantities in mls, use metric measuring spoons: 1 tsp = 5 mls. A random teaspoon out of the cutlery drawer may well not be anywhere near this.
The first set of measurements are in metric:
|
8”/20cm round |
7” square |
9”/23cm round |
8”/20cm square |
10”/ 25.5cm round |
9”/23cm square |
11”/28cm round |
10”/25.5cm square |
12”/30cm round |
11”/28cm square |
| Tomor (softened) g |
175 |
175 |
225 |
230 |
280 |
290 |
340 |
355 |
395 |
430 |
| caster sugar g |
175 |
175 |
225 |
230 |
280 |
290 |
340 |
355 |
395 |
430 |
| eggs |
3 |
3 |
4 |
4 |
4 large |
5 |
5 large |
6 |
6 large |
7 large |
| plain flour (sifted) g |
225 |
225 |
290 |
295 |
350 |
375 |
440 |
460 |
510 |
550 |
| soya milk ml |
30 |
30 |
35 |
40 |
45 |
50 |
60 |
65 |
70 |
75 |
| baking powder ml |
7.5 |
7.5 |
10 |
10 |
12.5 |
12.5 |
15 |
15 |
17.5 |
17.5 |
| grated rind of lemon |
1 |
1 |
1 large |
1 large |
1.5 |
1.5 |
2 |
2 |
2.25 |
2.5 |
| vanilla essence ml |
10 |
10 |
12.5 |
12.5 |
15 |
15 |
17.5 |
20 |
22.5 |
22.5 |
And in Imperial:
|
8”/20cm round |
7” square |
9”/23cm round |
8”/20cm square |
10”/ 25.5cm round |
9”/23cm square |
11”/28cm round |
10”/25.5cm square |
12”/30cm round |
11”/28cm square |
| Tomor (softened) oz |
6 |
6 |
7.5 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11.5 |
12 |
13.5 |
15 |
| caster sugar oz |
6 |
6 |
7.5 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11.5 |
12 |
13.5 |
15 |
| eggs |
3 |
3 |
4 |
4 |
4 large |
5 |
5 large |
6 |
6 large |
7 large |
| plain flour (sifted) oz |
8 |
8 |
10 |
10.5 |
12.5 |
13.5 |
15.5 |
16 |
1lb 2oz |
1lb 4oz |
| soya milk tbsp |
2 |
2 |
2.5 |
2.75 |
3 |
3.5 |
3.75 |
4 |
4.5 |
5 |
| baking powder tsp |
1.5 |
1.5 |
2 |
2 |
2.5 |
2.5 |
3 |
3 |
3.5 |
3.5 |
| grated rind of lemon |
1 |
1 |
1 large |
1 large |
1.5 |
1.5 |
1.5 large |
2 |
2 |
2.5 |
| vanilla essence tsp |
2 |
2 |
2.5 |
2.5 |
3 |
3 |
3.5 |
4 |
4.5 |
5 |
All the instructions are in the main madeira cake post. With the larger ones you may have to extend the baking time a little, but it’s not by as much as you might think as the depth of the cake is the same so the heat reaches the middle in pretty much the same time. As usual, use the gentle pressure of fingers to test the cake and you can always use a skewer to test the centre if you wish.
This a recipe provided by someone who’s been working on it for a while. She uses it on carrot cake. The ingredients and method are hers and you’re welcome to contact her with any queries by leaving a comment on this post. It sounds good to me.
For this recipe you will need an electric hand held mixer, a sieve and a large mixing bowl.
Recipe: Helen’s Cream Cheese Topping
Ingredients
- 15g Stork hard margarine for pastry (NOT spread: that has milk in it)
- 60g Tofutti Original Creamy Smooth
- 15g Vitalite
- ½tsp vanilla extract
- 1 ½tsp lemon juice
- 200g icing sugar, plus extra as required
Instructions
- Beat the Stork until smooth.
- Add the Vitalite and the Tofutti Creamy Smooth and beat again.
- Add the vanilla extract and the lemon juice and mix thoroughly.
- Sift in the icing sugar and beat.
- Add more icing sugar to achieve the desired consistency (if you add even the tiniest bit too much liquid you will need more icing sugar).
Quick Notes
Good for carrot cake topping.
Preparation time (duration): 10 minutes
Diet type: Dairy-free
Meal type: dessert
Culinary tradition: English
Microformatting by hRecipe.
MILK POWDER ALERT!!
Waitrose have gone and deprived us of one of our staples for making cheesecakes!
The biscuit shelves in one of the Waitrose stores which I use now carries a label stating that their own digestive biscuits now contain milk!! They’ve changed the recipe. Apparently all new batches have new labels which have whey powder as an ingredient and include milk in the allergens list.
This is a disaster! Now we have no digestive biscuits at all that I can find without milk in them. (Other than food-free gluten-free ones baked with added cement dust.) We’re reduced to either Rich Tea or baking our own again. Why can’t they just leave a good recipe alone? Presumably milk powder is now cheap again, since it all tends to come back to overheads.
BE VERY CAREFUL!
If you have bought any Waitrose Essentials Digestive Biscuits in the last week or two, check the list ingredients very carefully. The label didn’t give a date when the recipe changed, nor did it say how long it had been there so I don’t know when exactly they became toxic. If you are in any doubt, it is always safer not to risk it.
I am currently playing around with an unbaked cheesecake recipe and to this end I have been investigating the availability of dairy free biscuits for the base. While I like baking biscuits very much, I find I’m much less enthusiastic if I know I’m baking them simply in order to crush them up for crumbs. So… here you have a few finds from a trip to Waitrose. Some are suitable for cheesecakes, some are just good biscuits.
NOT OK
McVitie’s Digestive Biscuits
These used to be fine, but were adulterated with skimmed milk powder a year or so ago. Motto: always read the label!
OK
Waitrose Essentials
Morning Coffee
These taste good and are small and nibblish. They are completely useless in a cheesecake base. They just don’t hold together. You’re left with a cheesecake which you can’t get off the plate except in dollops: not very attractive.
Ginger Nut
Bog standard ginger biscuit. Good and firm. Can be used to make a very tasty base for a baked cheesecake, but they can be very difficult to beat into submission to make crumbs! Beware, if you put fresh ginger biscuits into a food processor to crumb them from scratch, you’ll blunt your blade! Bash them hard first is my advice.
Fruit Shortcake
These are a family favourite. They do fill the back of the car with crumbs like few other biscuits I’ve come across, but they also taste really good!
Almond Biscuits
Bourbon Creams
Another fave. One of the very few “cream” biscuits which is dairy-free. Very more-ish.
Nice Biscuits
Digestive Biscuits
These remain the number one choice for cheesecake bases, whether baked or unbaked. They crush up finely and evenly and they absorb the melted spread/Tomor well, so they stick together properly.
Rich Tea
These can make a successful cheesecake base, but they do tend to go into very fine crumbs and make a slightly softer base than digestives. They work better in a baked cheesecake than an unbaked one.
Shortcake Biscuits
As usual, I shall add these to our reviews page for easy reference.
This is a great meal to make with leftovers from the weekend’s lamb joint. As it uses cooked lamb, the cooking time is fairly short, so it’s a good choice when you fancy something tasty (that isn’t just cold lamb and veg.), but you don’t have much time.
We cook Indian food in a flat-bottomed wok with a lid, which makes a good approximation for a karai. You could also use a flame-proof casserole.
Recipe: Balti-style Lamb
Ingredients
Marinade
- 12 oz / 350g cooked lamb, chopped into rough 1″/2.5cm lumps
- 3½ oz/ 100g sojade natural yoghurt
- 2 tsps ground cumin
- 2 tsps ground coriander
- 2 tsps frozen garlic, chopped finely
- 2 tsps frozen ginger, choped up or ½” / 1cm ginger, grated
Main ingredients
- 1 medium onion, finely sliced
- ½ - 1 tsp crushed, dried chillies
- 1 tbsp ground coriander
- 1 tsp ground turmeric
- 1 tin chopped tomatoes
- ½ pt / 275 ml water
- 2 tsps dried fenugreek leaves
- 1 tsp garam masala
- a good handful of chopped coriander
Instructions
- Mix all the marinade ingredients, stir in the lamb and leave for at least ½ an hour.
- Fry the onion hard for about 5 minutes, stirring it around constantly.
- Add the chillies and fry for 1 minute.
- Add the ground coriander and ground turmeric.
- Stir for about 30 seconds.
- Add the tin of tomatoes and cook fairly hard,so that it bubbles until the liquid has gone.
- Add the lamb in its marinade and cook over a medium heat for 3 – 4 minutes.
- Add the water and simmer for about 10 minutes.
- Add the fenugreek leaves and the garam masala and stir through.
- Stir in a generous handful of chopped coriander, keeping a little to sprinkle on top when serving.
Quick Notes
Serve immediately when ready, the pre-cooked meat will disintegrate if you overcook this.
Preparation time (duration): 30 – 60 minutes
Cooking time (duration): 20 minutes
Diet type: Dairy-free
Number of servings (yield): 4
Meal type: dinner
Microformatting by hRecipe.
This is a fabulously fruity and amazingly easy fruit loaf. It’s a great recipe to make with children. I made this with mine when they were not much more than 18 months old. Once they can stand on a chair, they can help to choose the proportions of the dried fruit and put handfuls onto the weighing scales.
For this recipe you will need a food processor and a 1lb loaf tin (lined with silicone paper or a loaf tin liner).
Recipe: Fast and Fabulous Fruit Loaf
Ingredients
- 7oz / 200g self-raising flour
- 4oz / 110g dairy-free spread, softened
- 2 tbsps orange juice / water / soya milk
- grated zest of 1 orange
- 6oz / 175g mixed dried fruit
- 5oz / 150g caster sugar
- 2 eggs
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4 / 350C / 180C
- Put the flour, sugar, spread and eggs in the food processor.
- Whizz for 5 seconds.
- Add the orange juice / water / soya milk.
- Whizz for 3 – 5 seconds.
- Add the dried fruit.
- Pulse to blend the fruit evenly.
- Pour the mixture into the loaf tin.
- Bake for about 1 hour. I check it after 55 minutes by gently pressing the top of the cake with my fingertips. If it is golden and springs back well, it’s done. It may need 5 – 10 minutes longer.
- Turn out the cake onto a cooling rack.
Quick Notes
The dried fruit can be a mixture of all your favourites, as long as it adds up to the right total. I chop fruit into the scales until I have the right amount. I use a mixture of sultanas, dates, apricots, cranberries and prunes and sometimes I vary this with glacé cherries or glacé ginger.
Preparation time (duration): 10 minutes
Cooking time (duration): 55 minutes – 65 minutes
Diet type: Dairy-free
Number of servings (yield): 12
Meal type: dessert
Culinary tradition: English
Microformatting by hRecipe.
I have another batch of tasty, dairy free sausages from Waitrose. These are honestly labelled as being outdoor bred and barn reared. These are sausages for eating just as sausages, rather than in casseroles which would be a waste of their special, individual flavours.
OK
English Pork and Sweet Chilli Sausages
These are 81% pork with 1.66g salt in 2 sausages. They are £6.48/kg.
6 Oak-smoked Sausages with Italian Herbs
These are 83% pork with 1.39g salt in 2 sausages. They are £6.48/kg.
6 Gourmet Pork Sausages
These are 83% pork with 1.73g salt in 2 sausages. They are £6.48/kg. I can see nothing particularly gourmet about these. The only thing which makes them slightly different from the ordinary pork sausages is that they have rather more salt in them to make them seem more tasty. I find this rather dubious as a qualification for the term gourmet.
6 English Pork and Caramelised Red Onion Sausages
These are 80% pork with 1.7g salt in 2 sausages. They are £6.48/kg.
6 English Pork and Bramley Apple and Apple Sauce
These are 74% pork with 1.53g salt in 2 sausages. They are £6.48/kg.
6 Toulouse Style Sausages
These are 86% with 1.22g salt in 2 sausages. They are £6.48/kg.
8 Honey and Rosemary Pork Chipolatas wrapped in Bacon.
These are 1.48g salt in 2 sausages. They are £6.48/kg.
10 Aberdeen Angus Beef and Cracked Pepper Chipolatas.
These are 80% beef with 0.78g salt in 2 sausages.
10 Pork and Herb Chipolatas.
These are 88% pork with 0.88g salt in 2 sausages.
NOT OK
Be careful! The following sausages in the same range have milk in them.
6 English Pork, Plum Tomatoes and Fresh Basil Sausages.
6 English Pork, Wholegrain Mustard and Buttered Onion Sausages.
As usual, I shall add these reviews to the rest on the reviews page so that you can compare them all and find what suits you.
The last few weeks have been a bit thin on posts here and this is because I have become obsessed with salt! I was asked to collect some figures of the sugar and salt content of bought food for my children’s lower school. They’re in the process of putting together a healthy eating policy that will cover the packed lunches and I went off to see just what was in some of the things which turn up in children’s lunchboxes. It took quite a while to get a comprehensive picture, but the results were interesting, to say the least. In fact I was so horrified by the salt content of the food which is on the shelves of our supermarkets and the frankly devious lengths to which food companies are going to conceal this, that I HAVE to pass on some of the facts and figures. Some of the worst offenders are not going to be on any dairy free shopping list as they are processed cheese products and we are spared the task of avoiding them. I have reams of figures and, unless people want me to, I’m not proposing to put them all up. However, some things are dairy free and those things I shall put up. There are also major labelling issues and many people don’t realise what they are and therefore don’t know what they are getting when they buy some foods.
Labelling issues
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rdas
We are all bombarded with “recommended daily allowances” (rda) of things these days. They turn up on most food packaging. However, we don’t hear very much about the fact that there are different rdas for children. This is particularly crucial when it come to salt. Plastered all over crisp packets and processed cheese stuff is the adult rda for salt, but what are the child’s figures? Well here they are:
Babies = none
Child 5-7yr old = 3g
Child 7-10yr old = 4g
Child 10-14yrs = 5g
Adult = 6g
This makes a huge difference when looking at the % of daily allowance figures on packaging. Far too many companies put the adult % of rda on products clearly aimed at the children’s lunchbox market. For instance, look at these:
Oreo Snack Packs
Each pack has 4 biscuits, but it says in very small print that the figures are per biscuit.
Salt = 0.1g per biscuit = 2% rda
That doesn’t look too bad, until you realise that this translates into:-
Salt = 0.4g per pack = 13% child’s rda!!!
IN 4 BISCUITS !
These happen to have milk in them (as well as lots of sugar and salt!) so they’re not in the shopping list, they’re just here as an example of sneaky labelling.
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Did You Know?
Not all companies label salt as salt.
Sounds odd, but it’s true. Some give you the sodium content and some even hide this by using the chemical symbol for the element sodium, Na.
Why do they do this?
Well, it just so happens that sodium only makes up part of salt, which is sodium chloride. So, of course, the figures look very much smaller for the sodium content than they would for the salt content. Responsible companies give you both the sodium content and what that means as salt, which is more than twice as much.
Salt = Na (sodium) x 2.5
Some Top Salt Offenders
Morrison’s Twists
1.02g salt per portion
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Dorito’s Cool Original
0.8g salt per portion
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Tesco Value Sausage Roll
0.6g salt per portion
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Real McCoy’s Salt and Vinegar
1.02g salt per portion
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The last one would give a 5-7 yr old child a staggering 44% of its daily salt allowance in one small bag of crisps!!
It’s the sodium in salt which does the damage, but to make comparisons easily, you need all the labelling to be the same. It’s not helpful to have some companies giving the sodium content and some giving the salt content. For everybody to have a chance of drawing proper comparisons, the figures have to make sense and since rdas are given for salt rather than sodium, you have to wonder why food companies would choose to put the sodium content without the salt conversion…unless they don’t want us to know just how much salt is really in things…? To stand a chance of keeping track of the real salt content of many foods, you have to be prepared to stand in the supermarket multiplying things by 2.5 in your head. That’s after you’ve had the patience to find where on the pack they’ve chosen to hide the little box with the figures in the first place!
There will be more on this theme! Once you start looking you have to be concerned. Having become very concerned myself, I have to pass this on.
This week’s batch of reviews is cereal bars. These have a very mixed press at the moment. The school dieticians seem to regard them as pretty much second to the spawn of Satan. I’ve become involved with the whole Healthy Eating Policy thing in my kids’ lower school and it’s a minefield! More of all this later… there’s so much that it deserves a whole post of its own. (Or two, or three, or maybe more!!) However, back to cereal bars. There is no doubt, looking at the ingredients, that they have a lot of sugars in them. Some have a large amount of fruit in them, and this inevitably means that there will be large amounts of naturally occurring fruit sugars present. Some, however, have large amounts of added sugars too in all sorts of forms. Therefore, as with the mueslis, you have to balance the health benefits of the fruit content with the sugar content.
There is also the fact that you have to think about how you use these things. They are great for that car trip from school to an after school activity requiring energy such as swimming, football or dance. The sugars in these bars will give an instant lift to perk up a child who is fading a bit after a day in school, but the best also provide some longer burning fuel in the form of oats or rice. What you have to watch for are those which stack the odds in favour of sugar at the expense of cereal. These simply won’t provide the energy for a long enough period for the benefit to outweigh the cost. What these bars are not, is a good, healthy, guilt-free snack food which you can feel virtuous about eating as often as you like. The sugar content will start to translate into body fat the moment your energy needs are lower than your sugar intake.
Remember, children have much higher carbohydrate (starchy stuff) needs than adults do. They are very active and they’re growing. You just have to decide where you’re going to draw a sensible line.
To help, I’ve collected the sugar details for the milk-free cereal bars, as I did for the mueslis and granolas. Then you can look at the figures and make up your own minds which you want to use.
OK
All these are Fairtrade, organic and vegan. They contain no wheat, no soya and no hydrogenated fat.
Chocolate and crispy rice bars
5 x 35g bars. These are 40.8% sugars by weight, with 14.3g per bar. Obviously there’s sugar in the chocolate. They are £1.99 a box, which works out as £11.40/kg.
Fruity oat cereal bars
5 x 40g bars. These are 42.3% sugars by weight, with 16.9g per bar. Isn’t it interesting that the chocolate one has less sugar? Just goes to show, you shouldn’t always go on what you think you already know. They are £1.99 a box, which works out as £9.95/kg.
Tropical fruit and nut cereal bars
5 x 40g bars. These are 38.7% sugars by weight, with 15.5g per bar. These look good, but my kids don’t like them at all. I’ve ended up using up the box myself. I think they’re OK, but they really aren’t as special as they look. They are £2.19 a box, which works out as £11/kg.
Canadian Maple Syrup Crunchy Granola Bars
These may be called “Nature Valley”, but there’s a lot of added sweet stuff in all of them.
6 x 2 bar packs. These are 25.2 % sugars, with 10.6g per 2 bar pack. They have added sugar, honey, maple syrup and molasses. They also have 0.3g salt per 2 bar pack. They are £2.30 a box, which works out as £9.13/kg.
Roasted Almonds Crunchy Granola Bars
6 x 2 bar packs. These are 25.1% sugars, with 10.5g per 2 bar pack. They have added sugar, honey and molasses. They also have 0.4g salt per 2 bar pack. Notice that as you lose 0.1g of sugar, (compared with the maple syrup ones) you gain 0.1g of salt to keep it as “tasty”. They are £2.30 a box, which works out as £9.13/kg.
Apple Crunch Crunchy Granola Bars
6 x 2 bar packs. These are 27.9% sugars, with 11.7g per 2 bar pack. They have added sugar, honey and molasses. They also have 0.1g salt per 2 bar pack. More sugar in these, so they’ve cut down the salt. They are £2.30 a box, which works out as £9.13/kg.
These have no wheat, no gm ingredients and are vegan. They contain peanuts. They have no added sugar or salt and my kids think they’re great. However, the figures are vague. The carbohydrate figure is not broken down into sugars and starches. It’s just 56% carbohydrate. Some of that will be from the oats in them, but you can’t tell how much. Given the bars are 49% fruit and 9% apple juice, most of the carb figure is probably sugar. Natural sugar, but still sugar. The box says they are “guilt-free goodness”. I would dispute that. Nothing which is full of fruit and nuts can ever be eaten without thinking sensibly about the amount of energy you’re taking in and how much you actually use in a day.
Cocoa loco
The bars are 49% fruit and 9% apple juice. 56% carbohydrate. They are £1.99 a box, which works out as £16.60/kg!
Berry cheeky
All the same figures as above, though the actual ingredients are slightly different. They are £1.99 a box, which works out as £16.60/kg!
MAYBE
Nature Valley Fruit and Nut Chewy Trail Mix Bars
These have the “may contain” label, which is surprising, given the granola bars don’t have it. It’s hard to know how seriously to take these things, since they’re often just the corporate lawyers covering themselves. However, if you’re seriously allergic it’s always safest to avoid them. When you look at the list of added sugars, you might not want to eat them in any case (glucose syrup, sugar, caramel syrup, honey, sugar, fructose, maltodextrin & caramelized sugar)!!
Jordans
This company makes a wide range of bars. I found the same variety of bar in two different styles of wrapper, one of which said “may contain…” and the other of which didn’t. Again, part of the range was clearly labelled with the usual disclaimer and part of it wasn’t. I have no idea what Jordans are up to. All their mueslis are labelled “may contain…”, so they obviously have zealous corporate lawyers. When the labelling settles one way or the other, I’ll let you know. Until then, safer to avoid these.
NOT OK
Geobar
There are lots of these, but they all have skimmed milk powder in them.
Tracker
Several of these. All have condensed milk.
go ahead
All of these have milk ingredients too.
Apricot and Guava
This is a good one! I found it in my local health food shop this week and can honestly say it’s lovely. It isn’t cheap at 75p for a little 25g pot, but it does taste very good. The texture is slightly odd, in that it has tiny gritty bits in it. I assume they’re bits of fruit, but they’re so tiny that they don’t have recognisable flavour in themselves.
Raspberry and Passionfruit
The texture of this one is slightly better than the other one. There are still bits in it which don’t seem to be fruit. Tiny white bits. I can only assume that they are soya bits. The flavour is very good, just as it used to be so long ago when it appeared in little glass pots. The pots may now be plastic with cardboard covers, but are still too small. It’s still expensive. This one, in a different health food shop, was 59p for a pot. When I want a treat, I shall be buying it from Fairhaven Wholefoods in future!
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