Pumpkin and peanuts...imagine the poetry that could come out of those...
It feels like a while since I’ve whittered to you (aren’t you lucky!), but here we are – the next episode! Hurrah! And, inevitably, pumpkins are involved. Really, how could I avoid it? It comes with harvest, I’m afraid. I bought mine when my housemate and I went shopping together, something that doesn’t happen very often. You see, I am worthy of being a university student: I realised that I wouldn’t be able to do the weekly shop and pick the biggest, heaviest, roundiest, decidedly handsomest pumpkin at the same time. So I dragged Cute-Housemate with me. We had to swap burdens a few times on the way back, since in between the supermarket and home there’s an impressively steep hill, but it arrived!
And then he sat on the side for a week because both of us were too busy to do anything pretty with him. That is, until I had a dinner party last weekend. It was snazzy to the extreme – risotto, monopoly and pumpkin-carving – the best kind of dinner party! And, I would argue, much nicer than any other Halloween traditions…which is why I held it! Of course, the resultant happy pumpkin is still grinning at me cheerily. He’s sat upon the TV, beaming, starry-eyed. It’s lovely!
Perhaps the best bit though…the food! The soup! The seeds! The cake! I’ve been feeling jealous of all my lovely American cake blogging friends, all resplendent with pumpkin-puree-filled pies, cakes, breads, muffins…but now I can join in too! Hurrah!
So, here we go: Butternut Squash Muffins with a Frosty Top, a la Jamie Oliver. Oh, though I did change, well, the squash. And the topping. Aside from that, however, I did keep the proportions…except for the sugar. Trust me, at point of conception, these were going to be Butternut Squash Muffins with a Frosty Top. Now they’re Pumpkin Muffins with a Peanut Butter Topping – enjoy!
A plop of peanut butter frosting on pumpkin muffins.
Pumpkin Muffins with a Peanut Butter Topping (made approx 16 muffins)
400g pumpkin, raw
200g sugar
4 eggs
300g plain flour, sifted
2tsp baking powder, heaped
1tsp mixed spice
175ml light-flavoured oil
3tbsp butter
3tbsp peanut butter
3tsp icing/castor sugar
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4.
- Whizz the squash in a food processor, then add the sugar and eggs and blitz a little more.
- Add in the flour, baking powder, spice and oil, scraping down the sides and blitzing until just combined.
- Pour the batter into muffin cases and bake for 20 to 25 minutes.
- Mix the butter, peanut butter and sugar in a bowl, then use to spread the muffins once cooked and cooled.
My goodness, this is heavenly. Really, it’s fudgey, almost-moussey, soft and sweet. The top crisps up, whilst the middle sinks down with your fork. This Beanie Brownie Cake is possibly better than chocolate; the texture is that mouth-watering.
It also holds a secret, which I confess, was not divulged when I served this up at my weekend dinner party. Had there been any question of texture or flavour, had my guests asked, perhaps I would have owned up. However, they had no idea that there was anything magic associated with this cake, and I let them continue to believe so… Of course, the secret is that the rich nature of this cake comes from the…magic beans. Of course!
Smooth and chocolatey cake accented with home-made berry jam.
The kidney beans are our secret. Please don’t tell – they’re what makes this cake so succulent, but if my friends had known, one of them would have stopped eating. And if it were possible for this recipe to be made better, then it would be this: that you simply blitz everything into a blender and then pour into the tins. Both tasty and easy!
It’s important to rinse the beans first, to reduce the salt content. Then you just whizz them up with the chocolate, and all is dulce. Last time I tried simply mashing them – nope, not quite the desired texture. In spite of that, this was Take Two, and the whole cake came out gorgeously, as also testified to by Kate’s Chocolate Raspberry Brownie Cake.
Hope you like it too!
Happy harvest!
Beanie Brownie Cake
100g dark chocolate
225g butter
400g kidney beans
4 eggs
50ml water
100g granulated sugar
100g jam
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4 and line two round sandwich cake tins.
- Melt the chocolate and butter together. Rinse the beans a few times to get rid of excess salt. Bung them both in a blender and blitz until smooth.
- Whisk the eggs, water and sugar together, then pour into the blender too. Using a spatula, scrape in any sugar left at the bottom, and then scrape down the sides of the blender to make sure all is blitzed together well.
- Pour into the two cake tins and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until a toothpick comes out with a few wet crumbs and the sides are firm when lightly pressed.
- Cool completely in the tins, putting them in the fridge before the end. Once refrigerated, they’re firm and ready to be assembled into a cake by sandwiching together with jam.
Nevertheless (John Kirkby)
Nevertheless by John Kirkby (2003) is inspiring. If I had to choose a single word that would describe for you just one insurmountable value that comes out of this book, it would definitely be that it is ‘inspiring’. If you want to be shown what one person can do in just thirteen years, this is the book to read. Really really really – read it! (Please kindly overlook any loss of eloquence due to ensuing enthusiasm…)
Nevertheless tells the story of CAP, a charity that began in the UK when John Kirkby took his financial and entrepreneurial abilities and put them to good use. The charity was set up to provide free debt counselling, working with individuals, couples and families to guide them out of the red. Since then it has gone on to provide mediation between clients and loan companies, with bailiffs and in courts. The efficacy of their work is phenomenal with ever increasing rates of sustained success. This book goes on to record the expansion of CAP into a nationally, then internationally renowned force, using personal emails and diary entries alongside candid financial reports and explanative narratives.
I had heard of CAP’s work previously and already was persuaded that it was working for good. For me, Nevertheless went on to give further insight into the way the charity was set up and exists today, its ethics on salaries for employees and funding from institutions, and the vision that birthed the reality (and there’s still more to come!). It made me check my own motives in a few of my ways of life (though nothing I do has had so much eternal value…yet), and I would thoroughly recommend this to you.
To get you started, how about a little meander over to John Kirkby’s blog, read up on some client feedback, or just dive right in and order the book for free.
It’s that time of the month again: that time when your tummy aches, when your knees buckle, when you unintentionally emit eery croons…overwhelmed with the ether of pure baking joy. The raison d’etat? Please find attached the November edition of Sweet And Simple Bakes.
White Chocolate Orange Cookies were delightful. Normally I’m not a cookie person – I love eating them, but I don’t like making them. It’s all that faffing around with trays. You know: you can only fit half the batch in the oven at one time, then 10 minutes later you have to be back to take them out. Another 5 minutes and you can take the last ones off the tray, then you get hands all sticky again with laying out batch two, before you have to hang around for another 10 minutes. Is it just me who finds it irritating? Well, each to their own.
However, these were good to make for a change, and the various people in my life enjoyed them too. I made them just last week when life was a little less busy. I had Monday night off, so I spent it happily baking a few different things. You know you’ve had a good evening when your hair smells of biscuits and bread!
Surprisingly, most of the cookies survived to their second day – on Tuesday I took a tinful with me to a few meet-ups. Have I ever mentioned that homemade food is a good social lubricant?
As is my tendency, I halved the sugar amount. Since the sugar is as much for whipping in air as anything else, for the remaining quantity I used granulated instead of castor sugar so that the bigger granules could force in more air into their little pockets. Although I would normally consider reducing the fat as well, that’s a no-no for cookies: butter is too important for the soft texture.
These White Chocolate Orange Cookies turned out softly sweet and gorgeously fruity. The interjected chocolate chunks were welcome smudges of texture and buttery flavour. And, best of all (as these things tend to be), the cookies reminded me of some orange biscuits that my mum used to make… Sweet And Simple indeed.
A surprisingly full tin of cookies...but not for long!
White Chocolate Orange Cookies (makes 24)
0.5cups/115g butter, softened
0.75cups/100g granulated sugar
1 egg, at room temperature
1 orange’s zest
1tsp vanilla
1.5cups/200g plain flour
0.5tsp bicarbonate of soda
0.25tsp baking powder
200g white chocolate chunks
- Preheat the oven to 190C/gas mark 5/375F.
- Beat the butter and sugar together, then beat in the egg, vanilla and zest.
- Sift the dry ingredients in, then fold in along with the chocolate.
- Roll into inch-wide balls, then place on a greased tray 2 inches apart.
- Bake for 8 to 10 minutes. Cool for a few minutes on the tray before transferring to a rack.
Amy Tan’s The Opposite Of Fate (2003) was not what I expected. I had added it to my To-Reads this summer when I was loitering by the book stall of a charity summer fayre. I’d heard Tan’s name before, understanding she wrote fiction about China, so picking up a pristine hardback for the princely sum of 80p…why not? And there The Opposite Of Fate sat, in an intimidating pile that loomed at me arbitrarily from time to time. When I came back up to Uni-Ville the pile came too, but I very wisely…shunted the whole thing into a drawer. Not that this turn of affairs prevented the pile from looming. Rather, thanks to the topography of Uni-Ville’s excessive tendency to slouch, the chest of drawers feigned looming from a slightly-more horizontal position. In fact, that particular very solid drawer of To-Reads opens itself at will, very heavily. ”Achem,” it thumps, “You, what are you doing that’s more important than me?” Shutting it up is a feat that I rarely achieve.
The Opposite Of Fate (Amy Tan)
Back to the beginnings of this particular whitter: Amy Tan’s The Opposite Of Fate. Yes, now I remember: I was going to give you a review. So, this book was not what I expected…I thought it would be fiction. Once I opened the front cover I realised pretty sharpish what it actually was…and then zipped through it as fast as my eyes could flick. This is some postmodernist variant of ‘memoir’, including musings, interviews, personal emails, prefaces and speeches. It’s wonderful! Tan gives us a very candid view of life through her eyes, slipping in references to friendships and family, readings and writings, studies and breaks, fate and faith, life and death in China and America. What a wonderfully eclectic treasury!
Thanks to both her family history and career, the book confidently spans continents culturally, linguistically, politically and ideologically. Tan grew up part of a Chinese family in America, breaching the languages and faiths, and describes being part of both cultures. She also includes a telling few pages on her stance as a writer of American literature as opposed to Asian-American literature.
Some reviews have tainted the book as ‘rambling’, which I agree with. Tan repeats a few stories and phrases numerous times, sometimes due to the republishings of unedited pieces that relate similar contents, but also sometimes due to her oversight (or foresight?) in chapters that are written for this memoir. However, thanks to these iterations, upon closing the cover on the other side the reader has a very clear picture of which events have proven to be pivots in Tan’s life. Again, thanks to the repetitions, the book is very relaxing to read and each chapter could stand alone. Essentially what I’m saying is: this is great for the shelf in the toilet!
For me, the divisions of cultures and where we as individuals fit in is a fascinating subject, and that’s probably why I could not put this down. So, I’m going to conclude by saying that if you don’t know what it’s like to be in the ‘wrong’ culture, read this and gain insight on how to welcome immigrants. If you do know what it’s like to be in the ‘wrong’ culture, read this and see mixed-up life from a new perspective. Either way, you can’t lose!
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