Gastroanthropology

Victoria Sponge

I've been absent for a while...my nine month baking project is finally out of the oven! Kyle Wilder Mitchell arrived in London, on his due date, at 8lbs 10oz.

With the birth of our baby in London, the gorgeous spring weather and the upcoming Royal nuptials I thought I might make something very English for my first baking project post-baby...Victoria Sponge. Named after Queen Victoria, it is basically jam and whipped cream sandwiched between two layers of vanilla cake. It's not frosted or decorated in any way so it's super simple to make. Since we now have a little one, everything is baby sized, as are my Victoria Sponges. Of course you can make this in the traditional cake version or into regular sized cupcakes if you like.

VICTORIA SPONGE (Vanilla cake recipe adapted from Hummingbird Bakery)

• 120 g all-purpose flour
• 140 g sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 40 g unsalted butter, room temp
• 120 ml whole milk, divided in two
• 1 egg
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract

METHOD

Using a paddle attachment or hand mixer, beat flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and butter until the mixture looks like sand. Add half the milk and continue to beat until just combined. Add the remaining milk, egg and vanilla extract and beat till mixture is smooth, taking care not to overbeat.

Divide batter into lined cupcake tin. I used a mini-muffin tin and this recipe makes 24 of them (would make a dozen cupcakes). Bake at 325ºF/ 160ºC for 20 - 22 min (15 - 18 min for mini) or until cake tester comes out clean.

Cool completely, then slice the tops off and spread with strawberry jam (or raspberry) and freshly whipped cream. I used about 1 cup cream and 1/3 cup of jam for this recipe. 

Kyle was in a sling slumbering away without a peep during this entire baking project!

Cloudberry Rye Crumble Bar

A few things come to mind when you think of Scandinavia... snow...

Norway in March 2010

fishing "villages"...

Bergen, Norway

salmon, herring, shrimp...

and, of course, more snow...

There is something so intriguing to me about Scandinavia in wintertime. Everything seems to be covered in a fresh blanket of snow for as far as the eye can see. When flying in it's almost impossible to tell where water meets land as everything is untouched, frozen and dusted in snow. 

In summertime, the southern parts of Scandinavia begin to thaw and the most amazing things emerge. 

One would be the arctic cloudberry. It's almost as elusive as the ice queens and trolls that live in Norway. By the way, I don't believe they don't exist! Cloudberries can survive extreme arctic temperatures and in summertime ripen under the Midnight Sun. When ripe they look almost like yellow raspberries. Their flavor is hard to pin down - they definitely taste a bit like a berry, but add hints of pineapple. Like a wild mountain strawberry you can taste the "wilderness" in a cloudberry. They are hard to find and nearly impossible to cultivate. Their fruit bearing time is so short lived that apart from countries close to the arctic circle you are probably looking at experiencing cloudberries via jam. 

Various places sell it online and in London you can always get a jar at the Scandinavian Kitchen. It's delicious warm over ice cream or as an addition to a cheese plate. I thought I would pair it with another Nordic staple - rye.

CLOUDBERRY RYE CRUMBLE BAR

This recipe is adapted from Good to the Grain by Kim Boyce. Boyce's book does not disappoint. Each thing I try becomes my new favorite. As she suggests the recipe is versatile and any fruit spread would work. The rye and cloudberry jam is an irresistible combination. Please read through as this recipe is multi-step. This recipe makes 12 servings.

For the Shortbread Rye Crust -

• 1/2 cup rye flour
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 4 ounces unsalted butter, melted and cooled (plus extra for buttering the pan)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Butter a 9-inch springform pan. Sift all dry ingredients together, adding any bits of grain left in the sifter. Add melted butter and vanilla extract. Mix till combined and press into the pan with your hands. Chill in freezer for 30 minutes. Meanwhile preheat oven to 275F. Once chilled, bake for 50-55 minutes till golden brown and firm. While baking, prepare crumble topping (see below). Remove from oven and increase oven temperature to 350F.

For the Rye Crumble Topping -

• 1 cup whole rolled oats
• 3 Tablespoons dark brown sugar
• 1/4 cup + 2 Tablespoons rye flour
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 Tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (original calls for 1 teaspoon, but found it to be a bit too much)
• 3 ounces unsalted butter, melted and cooled

• 1 1/2 cups cloudberry jam

Combine all the dry ingredients, including the sugars and salt. Pulse a few times in a food processor till oats are partially ground. Put in a mixing bowl and add the melted butter and combine by hand. Squeeze dough to make crumbly bits. Set aside.

Spread the jam over the shortbread crust when it comes out of the oven for the first time. Sprinkle the crumble mixture over top. Bake in oven for another 50-55 minutes or until the crumble topping gently browns.

When the pan has cooled just enough to handle run a sharp knife along the edge to loosen any cloudberry jam that may have stuck to the side of the pan. Remove the ring of the springform pan. Once cooled dust with powdered sugar and cut into 12 wedges or your desired shape.

Serve plain or with a bit of loosely whipped, unsweetened cream. If you have trouble finding cloudberry jam, any berry or stone fruit jam would be delicious with the nutty rye. 

 

Fig + Orange + Cinnamon Jam

Remember when you got a goodie bag for attending a friend's birthday party? Now that we are older you bring the host a gift, but rarely do you get a goodie to take home. Not when you come to my parties. Guests must always leave with something. Packaged home-baked cookies, candied nuts, baby loaves of quick breads are often my goodies to give.

With these gorgeous figs I saw in the market, and holiday season just around the corner, I thought jars of jam would be perfect to give this time of year.

I wanted a jam that echoed winter time, so I added orange and cinnamon to the mix. I cut way back on the sugar in my jams now because when I eat jam I want to taste the fruit, not have it be sickly sweet. This recipe makes about three 6 oz. jars of jam.

FIG + ORANGE + CINNAMON JAM 

• Juice and zest of 1 large orange, or 2 small
• 1/2 c sugar
• 1 pound figs (10-12), cut into eights or quartered if small
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 vanilla bean

METHOD

I cook my jams on very low heat and try to avoid to much bubbling of the fruit. I've even started to make my berry jams in a bain-marie because I like the fruit to stay chunky and retain some of its original shape. For this fig jam start with the juice and zest of 1 orange in a pan. Add sugar and dissolve. Add cut figs, cinnamon and vanilla bean. Cook with the pod and then remove before canning. Let the jam simmer on the stove for at least 1 hour, till fruit begins to break down. There is not much liquid and the fruit should remain thick and chunky so there is no need to worry about runny jam. Click here for method for canning. Feel free to add more sugar if you like your jams a bit sweet!

Serve with grilled bread and butter and a healthy serving of not-too-sweet, super fig-y jam.

England Preserves + A Give Away!

This contest is now closed. The randomly chosen winner is #4 - Tangled Noodle.

My favorite jams are chunky, fruity, and never sickly sweet. Jam should taste like the sun-ripened fruit, not sugar with fruit. One of my first weekends in London last summer was spent exploring Borough Market. It was there that I discovered England Preserves at Neal's Yard Dairy. I bought a jar of Blackcurrant Blighty (sounded so English!), Strawberry Days, and London Marmalade. At any given time I've got 8 or 9 jams in the fridge. These three were in and out of the rotation so quick I knew I had found something so special. 

Fast forward a few months to January of this year. In one of my food policy classes this semester there was a woman who humbly introduced herself as Sky - a small food producer. A few weeks later I noticed through an exchange of class emails that she was co-owner, and co-founder, of England Preserves. Small food producer, my foot!   

Sky and her husband, Kai, began the business over eight years ago in their home kitchen. Both came from families that made jams and chutneys at home. What Sky says started as an experiment has now turned into a successful family business. Sky finds that her jams seem to resonate with her customers as people seem to have an emotional connection to jam - especially here in England. 

Besides the marmalade (if you've ever tasted a Seville orange you'll know why), England Preserves only uses only 40% sugar. Most commercial jams use upwards of 60% sugar. While Sky can't reveal all her secrets, her fruit never goes over 90 degrees Celsius. This means the fruit is not boiled so the sugar content does not rise throughout the cooking process. More importantly, the integrity of the fruit is not lost.

Brioche and Kentish Bramble for Breakfast

All of Sky's produce comes from England, with two exceptions. The first is the Seville oranges for the marmalade. You can't really run a successful English jam company without making marmalade, and it happens to be one of Sky's best-sellers. The second exception is apricots, as they don't grow in England. All of her soft fruits come from Essex where the fruit is flash frozen at the peak of ripeness and made into jam at two week intervals at Sky's jam operation in South London. The pears and apples are from Chegworth Valley, and the vegetables for chutneys from Lincolnshire.    

Sky and Kai supply hotels all over London - a city where jams and marmalade are serious business, especially for tea time. These larger jars are for them.

The smaller jars are available all over London. You can find them at Whole Foods in Kensington, Unpackaged in Islington, Borough Market, and at various farmers markets in London. 

A little over a year ago, Sky gave birth to the youngest jam-maker in England. This is Sky's daughter - Bloom!

If your interested in trying Sky's jams, post a comment and make sure to leave a valid email address in the email field. One winner will be chosen at random in a few weeks and will receive two of Sky's jams. I couldn't really decide which to send, because each new flavor I try becomes my favorite. Last week was Redcurrant+Rhubarb+Vanilla and there was real pieces of vanilla bean in the jam - since when did a jam have that? This week my favorite is Kentish Bramble. For the give away I've picked two classics and the first that I tried. Blackcurrant Blighty and Strawberry Days. 

Brown Butter Bars

View at dusk from my parents rooftop deck at their home in Carmel.

The little coastal town of Carmel has a love-hate relationship with the many tourists that frequent it. Sandwiched between Pebble Beach Golf Course and Big Sur, its certainly no secret. For the locals who live in Carmel there's a few places we'd love to rave about, but have to stop ourselves from being too excited for then more tourists might come. But then there are those places that you just have to share because you physically are unable to keep it secret. 

 

In California, we have Highway 1 - its a road that hugs the entire coast of California, and quite possibly one of the most amazing coastal drives in the world. It starts south of Los Angeles in Orange County where the locals call it PCH. That's Pacific Coast Highway for short. It weaves along the coast north, through Big Sur and Carmel. Here there is a mandatory stop that must be made - I'll tell you where in a second. Continuing on, Highway 1 goes through San Francisco and over the Golden Gate Bridge. 

 

Nate always said we would only ever leave San Francisco when driving over the Golden Gate Bridge didn't amaze him anymore. Tempted by the romance of Europe we left San Francisco, but not at all because the bridge crossing lost any luster. This is how I know we will be going back. Highway 1 continues north past Marin, Tomales Bay, and Sonoma County - places amazing all on their own. 

Back to the mandatory stop on Highway 1. Big Sur Bakery. Address: Big Sur Bakery, Highway One, California. They have the best jelly donuts, burgers, pizzas, cookies, wood-fired bread, pancakes... Everything is the world's best but these are extra special. Brown. Butter. Bars.

The original Brown Butter Bars are made with homemade fresh peach jam. Here is where I have to make a huge modification - in London, there is no way I'm going to get my produce greedy hands on fresh peaches, so I'm using the next best thing. The next best thing is jam made by my fellow classmate, Sky Cracknell, who is the co-founder (with her husband) of England Preserves. A post on Sky's jam is coming soon where I'll be giving away a few jars. This is hands down the best jam EVER. More on England Preserves in a few days because right now it's all about Brown Butter Bars. Read through the recipe before making - its simple, but there are a few steps which require chilling time.

BROWN BUTTER BARS,** adapted from Big Sur Bakery 

For the crust:

• 8 oz unsalted butter 
• 1/2 c powdered sugar, sifted 
• 1 1/2 c all-purpose flour 

For the filling:

• 3 large eggs 
• 1 c sugar 
• 3/4 c + 2 Tbs all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp salt 
• 1/2 vanilla pod, halved and seeds scraped  
• 5 oz unsalted butter 
• 1 c your favorite jam 

METHOD

For the crust: Melt the butter in a pan at medium-high heat till the butter starts to brown. When it turns a deep golden color and smells nutty strain through a fine sieve into a heat-proof container. Freeze till its solid - about one half-hour. Put the powdered sugar and flour in a large bowl. Cut bits of the cold brown butter into the sugar + flour. Using a pastry cutter or your hands mix together till you get a crumbly, sandy mixture. Press into a 9x13 inch baking dish. Chill for one half-hour. Preheat oven to 375F / 190C. Bake at that temperature for 18-20 minutes, or until golden in color. Set aside to cool.

For the filling: Whisk together eggs, sugar, salt and flour in a large bowl. Place the vanilla bean and seeds with the butter in a pan and heat till the butter starts to brown. When the butter turns a deep golden color and smells nutty, strain through a fine sieve. Careful! The butter will be really hot. Pour butter into the egg mixture, whisking as you do so.  Remove the vanilla bean.

Assemble the bars: Spread half the filling over the baked crust. Spoon large dollops of the jam over the filling, reserving a quarter. Then spread the rest of the filling over the jam. Use the remaining jam and small dollop over the top. The 1 cup of jam in the ingredients list is approximate, you may need more, depending on the consistency of the jam and how liberal you are with the dollops. Bake until the filling is golden brown in color, about 25 to 30 minutes, at 375F/ 190C. 

Let cool. Cut into squares and share if you can bear it. Perfect wrapped up in paper for a spring picnic. 

**The original recipe, found here, includes the zest of two oranges for the filling. It also includes the recipe and directions for the homemade peach jam. I omitted the orange zest because of the jam flavors I chose. I used two England Preserves flavors: Strawberry Days and Ruby's Redcurrant+Rhubarb+Vanilla. Take a look at Sky's Strawberry Days Jam. 

Come back next week for more on Sky's jams and a chance to win some!

If you happen to be lucky enough to drive past Big Sur Bakery, make sure to stop. It's hard to say what time of day is best. Early means you might get a jelly donut before they sell out. But lunchtime means wood-fired Greek pizza, or dinner might mean real clam chowder with an oak grilled Ribeye. Looks like you may have to hang out all day. I won't reveal the best Italian restaurant outside of Italy that happens to be in Carmel in this post, but if you are visiting the town, email me and I will share with you my secret.