Lemon Tea Cake - this + a pot of fair trade coffee @ home make for a marvellous informal coffee shop experience.

 

Are you like me and have quite a few orphans lurking in your recipe books? 

A recent comb through my personal collection of hand written recipes found an A4 sheet of paper with this recipe on it. Heaven knows where I got it from. Nothing to indicate where, when, or whom. However, it sounded pretty much OK to me and I made it up. 

Wonderful! Delicious! 

If you are thinking of opening a coffee shop, this is a must for the menu.

A warning: It can be more-ish!

LEMON TEA CAKE

Ingredients

Base

1 cup SR Flour

1/2 cup caster sugar (I love that raw caster sugar)

60 gr butter

1 egg

Combine flour and sugar and rub in butter with fingertips until mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

Add egg and mix well.

Press 2/3 of mixture in base of 20cm springform tin or flan dish.  (Mine was 26cm) Reserve 1/3 for topping.

Filling

1/2 cup caster sugar

1/4 cup lemon juice (adding a bit of grated rind turned out to be nice)

60gr butter

1 egg

Place sugar, lemon juice and butter in saucepan and heat until butter in saucepan is melted and sugar dissolved.  Lightly beat egg.  Add lemon mixture to egg and mix well and return to stove to thicken.  Cool slightly before pouring over pastry and sprinkle remaining base mix on top.  (I would advise making sure you crumble the base mix that remains into small clumps with your fingers.)

Bake for 30 minutes at 180 degrees C.

Serve hot or cold. (Cold next day turned out to be even better).  Really yummy!

Amberley hospitality - with a lemon flavour

Last weekend, was Quaker Mid-winter Gathering. Every year it happens - this year, there were 65 of us including children. It was at a wonderful establishment called Amberley in the northern suburbs of Melbourne.

Once a stately home it is now the Edmund Rice Centre, a venue for conferences and seminars; prayer experiences and personal development. There is just so much room and with our particular needs Amberley provided the sort of flexibility that contributed to the enjoyment of our weekend.

The kids and their involvement in their own activities as well as inclusion in adult activities is always foremost in our minds. Amberley excelled. The children had a huge downstairs space all to themselves - h-u-g-e activity room PLUS h-u-g-e indoor games area with ping pong and billiard tables. And they could not be heard by us upstairs even during our silent Meetings for Worship.

Meals were in a wonderful olde-worlde dining room with entry out to a balcony looking across to the steep bush-clad hillside with the Yarra winding lazily below and across the river, Westerfolds Park. The romantic staircase, interior balconies overlooking the dining room, chandelier and grand piano caused one to daydream about other uses for the room.

But let me tell you about the food.

Coffee and tea all the time and access to the never-diminishing fruit basket. The food was lovely and the most wonderful scones appeared on Saturday afternoon, piping hot. We were all just so impressed - and we felt really, really spoilt.

But the piece de resistance was the Lemon Slice - and the happy women who provided all our food hospitality have given me the recipe especially for the blog. In addition, they have also provided their Lemon Tea Cake Recipe. Later in the year, they plan to produce a recipe book - proceeds of which will go to a project in Africa. 'Onya girls! Like your spirit, every which way.

LEMON SLICE

• 100 grams butter, softened
• 1/4 cup icing sugar
• 1 cup plain flour
• Extra icing sugar

Topping

• 2 eggs lightly beaten
• 2 teaspoons lemon rind
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 2 tablespoons plain flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Method

Base

• Grease 19x29cm rectangular slice pan
• Line base and sides with baking paper
• Beat butter and icing sugar until light and fluffy.
• Stir in flour and mix well.
• Press evenly into base.
• Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes or until lightly golden.

Topping

• Beat eggs in a bowl until combined.
• Stir in ingredients
• Pour topping over base and bake for a further 25 minutes or until top is crisp.
• Slice and dust with extra icing sugar.
• Put feet up with cup of coffee and enjoy Lemon Slice served with happy memories of Amberley.

LEMON TEA CAKE

Base

• 1 cup self-raising flour
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 60 grams butter
• 1 egg

Method

• Combine flour and sugar and rub in butter with fingertips until mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
• Add egg and mix well.
• Press two-thirds of the mixture in the base of 20c spring-form tin or flan dish.
• Reserve one-third for topping.

Filling

• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1 egg
• 60 grams butter

Method

• Place sugar, lemon juice and butter in saucepan
• Heat until butter is melted and sugar dissolved.
• Lightly beat egg.
• Add lemon mixture to egg and mix well.
• Return to stove to thicken.
• Cool slightly before pouring over pastry and sprinkle remaining base mix on top.
• Bake for 30 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius
• Serve hot or cold.

Really yummy is The Verdict!

Happy New Year - and please rejig the menu

Photo: The Age

I have long felt that Phillippa Grogan was a woman after my own heart. I regard as one of the great luxuries of life the ability to walk into my local supermarket at Upper Gully and purchase Phillippa's breads and other assorted goodies. Now, I feel like she has been looking over my shoulder as I blog.

In M Magazine which accompanies The Sunday Age here in Melbourne, there was an article yesterday titled The Plates of 2008. The article holds predictions from "people who should know" about what lies ahead. Here's what Phillipa had to say: In 2008, retro sweets will come to the party, too. Look out for hedgehog, rumballs, lamingtons and bread-and-butter pudding, either made traditionally or spun with a contemporary twist. Older cakes will surge, too. "I think you'll see tea cakes with cinnamon and apple slices on top, that kind of thing," says Phillipa Grogan of Phillippa's Bakery. She has also been making carrot jam - "it's a post-war thing, born out of a lack of ingredients" - and chocolate ripple cake. Grogan thinks nibbling on old-school treats reminds people of childhood. "It takes them back into that place when they didn't have worries or responsibilities," she says. "You can smell a cake cooking you're right back when you're nine years old. It's amazingly seductive." And why would Miss Eagle think, for even a minute, that Phillippa has been looking over her shoulder. Here's the evidence:

1. Over here at The Trad Pad, Miss Eagle bemoaned the predictability of what is on offer in Melbourne at cake and coffee time and called for some good brains to rejig the menu.
2. Back in June I was waxing lyrical about Australian teacakes here and here .

One doesn't have too look too far on this blog to find a variety of bread-and-butter type puddings. As for the lamington, this blog specialises in making it known far and wide because of its dedication to the work of the inventor of the lamington, Miss Amy Schauer. Now where are my recipes for hedgehog and rumballs. Coming up!

Cooking catch-up

November has dawned - well, three days ago - and we'll see if Miss Eagle can do any better at posting than she has done in recent times. August was illness, September was recovery, and October was - well, dear Reader, you can see for yourself what I've been up to if you pop over here.

So, let's do some food catch up. Above, was my contribution to the blogging lunch described here.

Those rolls on the left are a vegetarian substitute for sausage rolls and they go just as well dipped in tomato sauce.

Vegetarian Rolls

Dear Reader, you can sort yourself out on quantities. I used:

• 1x425 g tin of chick peas, drained
• 2 potatoes
• 1 onion
• Grated cheese
• Fresh herbs
• 1 egg
• 2 sheets of puff pastry
• Sesame seeds

I blended the first five ingredients in the food processor. I put spoonfuls of the mixture in a strip along the length of the pastry sheet. Rolled it over, brushed the edges with milk to stick them together, cut down the sheet, cut up the roll and placed on a baking dish and continued like this until the two sheets were used up. Then I brushed all the little rolls with milk and sprinkled sesame seed on top. I did have some of the mixture left over. That was beautiful for breakfast the next day tossed in the pan with a fried egg.

Fruit and Cheese Skewers

You, dear Reader, don't require a recipe for these. You can see what goes into them, how they are done. I used a Colby Cheese. Colby is a mild cheese that suits a broad range of tastes. Coming as it does in a block, it is easy to cube for the skewers. As for the fruit, it is your choice. I used water, rock and honeydew melons and pineapple. But strawberries would be a great inclusion.

We are now getting into the rhythm of the deliveries from Aussie Farmers Direct. Our milk comes from the Western District and is processed and packed by the historic Warrnambool Cheese and Butter Factory, which sits on the Great Ocean Road at Allansford. Our fruit and veges (see pictures above) arrive every Wednesday.

They are first class and, because they are so fresh and of such high quality, they keep very well. This is an important factor in a household comprising two single people. Herself optimistically signed up for the Family Pack and not the Two Person Pack. So each Thursday, I am getting into the habit of sorting, storing and planning. If we can manage to get through a Family Pack of fruit and veges a week rather than pick up the odd piece as we go, then there'll be roses in the cheeks of this household!

Our free range eggs come early in the week - and, in case we are not using them up quickly enough, a quiche goes on the menu along with a fresh salad. However, what you see pictured above is the Lazy Cook's Quiche. I figured if one can have small bread cases for savouries, why not large ones? So here is the Lazy Cook's Quiche:

Lazy Cook's Quiche

Bread Case: dip sufficient slices of bread in milk to line your pie dish. (My dish is large.) Ensure that slices abut and/or overlap so that the plate is covered. You will need to trim slices for the edge and, if necessary, to cover abutting corners. When placing the bread around the edges put the crust uppermost because this gives a nice crunchy crust when it is baked.

Filling: I used fresh asparagus, onions, diced potato, peas, fresh herbs, 4 eggs beaten with Carnation Evaporated Milk, salt. Quantities will vary according to the size of the pie plate and the vegetables you have available.

Bake in a slow oven (somewhere around 150 degrees to 170 degrees) on a low shelf. When the filling is set cover with grated cheese. Continue to bake until the cheese is golden brown. I usually turn off the oven when the cheese is melted right across the quiche but is not yet brown. I then leave the quiche in the oven. It continues to cook and can be left until it is the right temperature for serving. Allowing about 45 minutes to an hour for cooking is best so that the egg mixture is set and the vegetables are cooked through but not overdone. Quite more-ish!

I have taken the laziness and bread casing a step further with an Apple and Pear Tart. The bread casing was done as described for the quiche, apples and pears were cored and sliced thinly (four pears and five small Granny Smith's), the juice of an orange sprinkled over them, along with three dessertspoons of brown sugar. Again baked at 150-170 degrees. A low temperature is needed to allow the fruit to cook through. The fruit is piled on because as the fruit cooks and loses its liquid, it sinks down. This was a vote-winner.

As I write this, Melbourne has received soaking rain for the past eighteen hours. It is wonderful and most welcome. I worked very hard to get the vege garden in and planted because there is a local wisdom which says that, to have tomatoes for Christmas, they have to be planted by Melbourne Cup Day. My plants have been in for just over a week and now, with the rain, all that is needed is some moderate weather for them to take off - I hope and pray. Tomatoes for Christmas? We'll see.

And now for the piece-de-resistance.

Cappuccino Cake

Ingredients:

• 250 g pack of butter, softened
• 250 g light soft brown sugar plus 2-3 tablespoons
• 300 g self-raising flour
• 4 eggs beaten
• 50 g walnuts, toasted and finely chopped (food processor is easiest), optional
• 200 ml very strong coffee (made fresh or with instant), cooled. (You are using Fair Trade coffee, aren't you, dear Reader?)

Frosting:

• 500 g tub mascarpone
• 2 tablespoons light soft brown sugar
• Cocoa powder or drinking chocolate, to decorate

Method:

• Heat oven to 180 degrees Centigrade/ 160 degrees convection
• Butter 2x20cm sandwich tins
• Line the bottoms with greaseproof paper.
• Beat butter and sugar together with electric beaters until pale and creamy.
• Add the flour and eggs in one go
• Keep beating until evenly mixed.
• Fold in the walnuts (if used) and half of the coffee.
• Spoon the mix into the prepared tins and bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden and well risen.
• Leave the cakes in their tins for 5 mins before turning onto a wire rack.
• Sweeten the remaining coffee with the extra sugar and sprinkle 4 tablespoons over the sponges.
• Leave to cool completely.
• While the cakes cool, make the frosting.
• Tip the mascarpone into a large bowl and beat in the sugar and remaining coffee until smooth and creamy.
• Use about half of the frosting to sandwich the sponges together then, using a palette or cutlery knife, spread the rest of the frosting over the top of the cake.
• Decorate with a dusting of cocoa powder or drinking chocolate.

This recipe is from Jane Hornby and is published in the BBC's Good Food magazine of May 2006.

From Devil's Food to Trifle Heaven

Miss Eagle is mad at her oven. Now I know when you hear this, dear Reader, the old adage that a poor workwoman blames her tools will come to your mind. But this oven is not the best one. That prize went to a convection gas oven in the home in the shadow of the World Heritage Rainforest which I sold a couple of years ago when I moved to Melbourne. Herself says my dud chocolate cake was all my own fault because I did make a side trip to the computer while the baking process was on. Anyway, I set out to make the above - Devil's Food Cake - which I have been making for more than three decades with great success each and every time. I have a tiny collection of Carnation Milk recipes in three-fold brochure form in my recipe book. They were picked up for free from the supermarket. The Devil's Food Cake recipe is in this collection. When Gina heard about this, she said she possessed a Carnation Cookbook and she has lent it to me for research purposes. On Page 136, there is the recipe from my brochure. Unfortunately, they didn't take a picture so you will have to make do with mine.

This is the best chocolate cake ever in the whole history of the whole world. It is a moist cake. It is rich but not as rich and heavy as a mud cake.

Here is the recipe.

DEVIL'S FOOD CAKE

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon of vinegar
• 1 cup Carnation Evaporated Milk
• 1 1/2 cups Plain Flour
• Pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup of cocoa
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda
• 1 1/4 cups of castor sugar
• 140 grams of butter or margarine, melted
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Method

1. Grease 2 deep 20cm cake pans and line the base with paper.
2. Add vinegar to evaporated milk to sour it.
3. Sift flour, salt, cocoa, soda and sugar together.
4. Pour in melted butter or margarine and 1/2 cup of soured evaporated milk
5. Beat well for 2 minutes
6. Add remaining ingredients and beat a further 2 minutes
7. Pour into prepared pans and bake in a moderate oven 180 degrees Celsius for 35 minutes
8. Allow cakes to cool slightly before removing from pans.
9. Spread frosting or whipped cream between, and frosting on top.

So here I was with a dud - but it became something luxurious and wonderful. Miss Eagle calles it Trifle Heaven. I chopped up the cakes into 2.5cm (1 inch) chunks. I mixed in chocolate custard. And then I chopped up the chocolate pictured below - Heaven: white raspberry creme. This is/was absolutely gorgeous. Herself and I have disgustingly tucked into this with a relish. I figure that if you want a quick luxury desert this assemblage is for you. You could buy any ordinary old chocolate cake - but the better the cake, the better the dessert and the best will be this moist Devil's Food Cake. The different chocolate flavours and the raspberry creme make this trifle every so heavenly.

Teacake Australis: #2

When Miss Eagle discussed teacakes here, Val sent me her recipe which she, in turn, got from the lovely Kali. Miss E can highly commend it. It is a little different in that one separates the white of the egg from the yolk and whips the white. The sagacious Miss Schauer has only one tea came in which yolk and white is separated. She calls it a Special Teacake. Miss E will give recipes for both. Miss E baked the cake in a 20cm(8") springform pan. The pan specified for Val and Kali's recipe was smaller - 18cm (7"). There was one deviation from the recipe. Miss E had in the pantry a blend from the McCormick range of Orange, Cardamom and Vanilla so she sprinkled this over the cinnamon/nutmeg teacake. It was lovely - providing a lovely contrast to the cinnamon and nutmeg in the cake.

CINNAMON TEACAKE

Ingredients

• 1 cup self-raising flour
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 egg, separated
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup milk
• vanilla essence (about a capful)
• 1 ½ tablespoons butter, melted
• extra melted butter
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon sugar

Method

Sift the flour with the 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon and the nutmeg. Beat the egg white until stiff. Add the egg yolk and mix in. Gradually beat in the 1/2 cup of sugar. Slowly stir in the milk and vanilla essence. Stir in the sifted dry ingredients, with the melted butter.

Spoon into a greased 18cm (7 in) round sandwich tin and bake in a moderate oven for 30 minutes. While still hot, brush the top with extra melted butter and sprinkle with the teaspoon of cinnamon mixed with the tablespoon of sugar. Serve warm or cold, with butter.

MISS SCHAUER'S SPECIAL TEACAKE

Separate yolks from whites of 2 eggs. Beat egg whites stiffly, add a pinch of salt, beat in the egg yolks, beating for about 5 minutes. Then slowly add 1/2 cup sugar and beat till dissolved. Add slowly 1/2 cup of milk. Sieve in a cup of self-raising flour. Add 1 tablespoon of melted margarine. Pour into a greased 8 in. sandwich tin. Bake in a moderate oven 25 to 30 minutes. While hot, spread with a little butter sprinkled with brown sugar and cinnamon.

Teacake Australis: #1

Teacakes are a genre all their own with many subspecies. In fact, someone has even decided to make it the topic of debate. The quote below indicates a particularly British perspective: The Teacake is a flat, roughly circular item with a diameter of about 15cm made out of bread, with a smooth brown upper surface and a somewhat lighter underside. If the item contains currants then it is a Currant Teacake. When sliced roughly in half and filled with chips (french fries for our American friends) then it becomes a Chip Buttie.

Miss Eagle is discussing here Teacake Australis - the variety that has traditionally graced morning and afternoon tea tables for generations of Australians. These days they are not seen too often. There are few morning and afternoon teas with visitors or workers' smokoes as in years gone by. Restaurants serve luxury cakes with tea or coffee but the humble and satisfying teacake is seldom seen.

Teacake Australis is a plain but sweet cake. It usually involves a topping of cinnamon and sugar and frequently includes apples. It can be served plain but is often buttered. Of course, if one wanted to live dangerously one could always pour over some cream - but that requires a spoon and moves the cake away from its plain, sweet, and utilitarian purpose. Teacake Australis is also, as a rule, a small cake. This again is an oddity in this age of supersizing everything. But this refers to its use for morning teas - quick to make, best eaten straightaway and warm with butter melting on it, and preferrably none left afterwards.

Miss Eagle's Apple & Orange Teacake has its origin in an oversight and is based on the traditional Madeira Mixture. The oversight? Miss Eagle had run out of Pure Vanilla Extract and forgotten to replace it. So in came the orange juice. Miss Eagle used a 6oz basic measurement (usually there is a 2oz basic measurement) because she didn't have a small tin. She used a 22cm springform pan.

APPLE & ORANGE TEACAKE

Ingredients:

• 180 grams/6oz butter
• 180 grams/6oz sugar
• 2 eggs
• Juice and grated rind of 1 orange
• 1 tablespoon of powdered milk
• 180 grams/6oz self-raising flower
• 2 Granny Smith apples: peeled, quartered and sliced
• 1 tablespoon butter, melted
• Cinnamon
• Brown sugar

Method

• Cream butter and sugar
• Add eggs
• Add juice and rind
• Add powdered milk
• Fold in flour
• Place mixture evenly in a greased and floured 22 cm springform pan
• Place apple slices decoratively across the top of the mixture so that the top is entirely covered with apple.
• Brush the apple slices with melted butter.
• Sprinkle brown sugar over the apple slices.
• Sprinkle cinnamon over the brown sugar
• Bake in a very moderate oven about 180 degrees Celsius for approximately 40 minutes.

Allow to cool slightly but not completely. Serve plain but bring out the butter too for those who prefer this option. Enjoy!

A blogging friendship comes to lunch at The Trad Pad

Miss Eagle has never tried to get a decent self portrait.

Imperfect though this shot in the mirror is, Miss E thinks it is the best of the bunch.

Yester, Val came to lunch at The Trad Pad. It was a wonderful time of conversation, handmade books, and food.

The food was simple but appropriate for a chilly, welcome-rainy day. The slow cooker has come out of the bottom cupboard this week as the weather has achieved a certain bite to the breeze and, officially, winter has arrived to-day. It was pressed into service for the first course. On the menu was a thick vegetable broth and, to satisfy the sweet tooth, Polenta Orage Syrup Cake served with cream. The vegetable (with everything in it) broth came complete with the kluskies from Vicious Ange's Kluski Soup. The cake came from Billington's site. POLENTA ORANGE SYRUP CAKE

Ingredients - Cake

• 3 eggs
• 110g/4oz Caster sugar
• 110g/4oz butter - melted and cooled
• Juice of half an orange
• 225g/8oz polenta
• 1 dessertspoon baking powder
• Finely grated zest of 1 orange
• Pinch salt
• 1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract

Ingredients - Syrup

• 2 oranges
• Juice of half a lemon
• 140g/5oz Caster sugar

Method

• Preheat oven to 170 degrees celsius/325 degrees fahrenheit.
• Line a 20cm/8inch round cake tin with non-stick baking paper.
• Whisk the eggs and sugar until thick and mousse-like.
• Beat in the melted and cooled butter and orange juice.
• Add polenta and baking powder, followed by the orange zest, salt and vanilla, beating well.
• Pour into prepared tin.
• Bake for 30-40 minutes until golden.
• Test with a skewer. Skewer should come out clean if the cake is done.

While the cake is cooking make the syrup: put all the ingredients into a pan and heat gently until the sugar has dissolved completely. Bring to the boil and simmer for five minutes.

• Remove cake from the oven and make holes in it with a skewer.
• Pour over the hot syrup
• Leave to cool
• Turn out onto a serving plate
• Serve with creme fraiche or whipped cream

THE CONVERSATION

Food is best when accompanied by good and lively conversation and the food was well accompanied. Val is marvellous company. As well as a former librarian at the Goethe Institute, her background is in German language and lit. studied in the mythological sixties at that great mythological institution, University of California at Berkeley. Pardon, Miss Eagle. She is a child of the sixties and Berkeley was a place one read about with amazement - at a time when merely sitting in a park in conservative Toowoomba to protest the Vietnam war was enough to bring down on one's head the epithet of "Communist!".

And there were Val's handmade books which she brought to show. Beautiful! Inspiring! And Miss Eagle was given a teensy-weensy beautiful one! Thank you, Val. Then we finished up with a visit to Craft Fair where Val purchased nothing but Miss Eagle found these papers irresistible. A sale on at the moment!

All in all, a beautiful blogging buddy day.

Is Miss Eagle psychic? Surely, it would be good to be a psychic blogger: to know what people were wanting to read and blog it. How good would that be for those concerned to drive traffic to their blog?

Now what has led to Miss Eagle querying her psychic capacity? The fact that she recently blogged her sponge recipe, complete with picture. Then this week, in Epicure in The Age, there are not one, but two articles mourning the demise of the sponge.

Article #2 has some history to it. Miss Eagle thinks beating her eggs with rotary beaters and folding in her flour with a trowel-shaped spatula is quite traditional. But traditional soul as Miss E is, she will not be attempting this way of whipping egg-whites:

The State Library's yellowing copy of Australian Cookery, Canned Fruits, Summer Drinks, Preserves, Jellies, Jams as Given at The Fruit Carnival of The Royal & Brighton Horticultural Societies Exhibition, Exhibition Building, Melbourne 1890 by Margaret J. Pearson, has - despite the lengthy title - a brief and efficient description on how to beat eggs by hand. The trick is to beat the yolks and whites separately. "The yolks in a large bowl and the whites on a shallow dish until the whites are solid."

At this time knives were used to beat egg whites. The flat of the blade was lifted and swirled through the albumen to incorporate as much air as possible.

It took me more than 20 minutes to beat four separate egg whites until stiff, trying to recreate this method. A first attempt with slightly older egg whites proved the sponge-cake mantra to "use the freshest eggs possible". The albumen of the two-week-old eggs did not hold together and simply rolled off the knife. Fresh egg whites have an almost soft jelly-like appearance and stay bound in a loop as they are whipped.

This method of whipping was replaced when cheap mass-produced hand beaters - patented in the 1860s - at last became available after the 1900s.

But, seriously, dear Reader, this blog is about traditional Australian family cooking and keeping the tradition alive by sharing with readers in Australia and around the globe. So-o-o... perhaps, I'll give the CWA a ring.

What do you think, dear Reader?

Sponge cake - aerated with the new spatula

To celebrate having a spatula once more (see post below), Miss Eagle made this traditional sponge cake.

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 6 ounces or 3/4 cup caster sugar
• 5 1/4 ounces or 1 1/4 cups of SR Flour
• 4 tablespoons hot water in which is melted 1 teaspoon butter

Method:

• Beat eggs until thick and creamy
• Add caster sugar gradually, 1 dessertspoon at a time, until sugar is dissolved
• Fold in flour. A flexible spatula is great for doing this because it folds in the air easily which is important in aerating the sponge so it will rise nicely.
• Lastly, fold in the hot water in which the butter has been melted.
• Bake in a moderately hot oven (about 200 degrees) until done.
• The sponge is done when a light finger touch to the cake has the cake bouncing back
• Cool before sandwiching and decorating with Vienna Cream

Vienna Cream

Ingredients:

• 250 grams butter, soft Icing mixture. (Do not use Pure Icing Sugar)
• Vanilla essence
• Milk

Method:

• Cream butter
• Gradually add icing mixture. This is a matter of judgment but you will need at least 250 grams
• Add a capful of vanilla essence
• Gradually and sparingly add a little milk
• The whole should be white, creamy, thick yet spreadable
• Judgment needs to be used. If it is too buttery, add more sugar. If you have added too much icing mixture, add more butter. If you have added a little too much milk, add more icing mixture
• Sandwich cakes together with cream.
• Your favourite jam can be spread before sandwiching with Vienna Cream.
• Spread Vienna Cream on top and decorate as desired.

Essaying into the kitchen: or Jekyll and fried?

The endpapers show a 1922 design by the painter George Sheringham called 'Clusters of stylised fruits, flowers and shell motifs', a domestic design with a hint both of the pastoral and the abstract.

As you understand, dear Reader, your Miss Eagle loves traditional food - traditional food done well. This is why she has to direct you to read to-day's article in The Age by Australia's wonderful and well-regarded, Stephanie Alexander.

Our Steph is talking about a book by Lady Jekyll, published in 1922, titled Kitchen Essays. Some of you will be familiar with the work of her sister-in-law, the great gardener Gertrude Jekyll. Agnes Jekyll's father, William Graham, was a patron of the Pre-Raphaelites of whom Miss Eagle is very fond. Stephanie has published for us some of the recipes. So, if you are looking for recipes for Orange Jumbles; Sand Cake; and Winter Cake please go here.

The Soldier's Cake

This is a family favourite inherited from my Nana O'Carroll. We have always called it The Soldiers Cake. This is because Nana discovered it during World War II when cake tins were made available in which to bake, pack, and send fruit cakes to soldiers. This recipe was on the tin ...

THE SOLDIER'S CAKE

Ingredients - 6oz butter; 6oz sugar; 3 eggs; 8oz sultanas; 8oz raisins; 2oz mixed peel; 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon; 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg; 1/4 teaspoons mixed spice; 1/2 tablespoon golden syrup; 3oz self-raising flour; 6oz plain flour; 1/4 teaspoon salt; 1/4 teaspoon baking soda dissolved in 1 tablespoon water; brandy. Method - Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time and beat well. Beat in golden syrup. Add sultanas, raisins, and mixed peel. Fold in flour to which has been added cinnamon, nutmeg, mixed spice, and salt. Lastly add brandy and baking powder mixed in a tablespoon of water. Bake in a very moderate oven for two hours.