This is fast becoming one of my favourite go-to cake recipes. I love the flavour and tender crumb that comes from the addition of sour cream in a cake batter. We can also use a little less butter as a consequence. You can play around with the quantity of ground almonds you use, so don’t panic if you don’t quite have enough – just substitute the missing almonds with more flour. Ground almonds always produce a deliciously moist cake with great keeping qualities.
 
Here, I wanted to use the very last of my greengages, but any firm fruit would do. Try to avoid very soft and ripe fruit or you will find the base of your cake may become a little soggy. If that should happen, you’ll have a very happy accident: just serve warm with some vanilla ice cream or crème fraiche and it becomes a delicious pudding!

Ingredients
Ground almonds                          100g
Plain flour                                       75g
Baking powder                              1 tsp
Bicarb of soda                              ¼ tsp
Vanilla essence                              1 tsp
Sour cream                                  60ml (= 4 tbsp)
Caster sugar                                 150g
Butter, softened                            125g
3 eggs
Approx 10-12 firm greengages or plums
Icing sugar for dusting
 
You will need one 9” (23cm) spring-form cake tin, greased and lined.
 
Preheat your oven to 180°C/160°C fan/350°F
 
 
Method
 
For ease and convenience, you can make this cake batter in your mixer, using the all-in-one method, but I prefer to make the extra effort to separate my eggs and fold in my egg whites.
 
First sieve together your flour, baking powder and bicarb of soda then add your ground almonds and set aside. Next beat together your sugar and softened butter until light and creamy. Add your vanilla essence and sour cream and beat for a few more seconds.
 
Now separate your eggs. Place the yolks in your creamed butter and combine. With a clean whisk, beat the egg whites until you have stiff peaks (ensure both whisk and bowl are completely fat/oil/yolk free).
 
Finally, you can combine the dry ingredients, the egg whites and butter cream. Do this in thirds, folding first a third of the egg whites into the butter cream mixture, then a third of the almonds/flour. Keep alternating and gently folding, trying to retain much of the light airiness provided by the egg whites as you go, until you have incorporated all the ingredients and have a well-combined, light cake batter.
 
Pour/spoon cake mixture into your lined and greased cake tin. On top, arrange your halved, de-stoned fruit (either way up – the fruit will sink lower), and place in the oven and bake for 50-60mins.

White Cottage Granola
(makes 1 large jar)
 
I’m a huge fan of granola but I'm really quite fussy. I like it to be nutty, have no fruit (I’ll add that fresh) and be not too sweet. It’s hard to find one that’s just right. The great thing about making your own is that you can hone the recipe to suit your own tastes - a little more honey or maple syrup if you have a sweet tooth and you can add your own particular favourite mix of seeds and nuts. Similarly, if you’re a fan of dried fruit, you can add 100g dried fruit such as raisins, apricots, dates or sultanas. And it just couldn't be simpler. You'll wonder why you haven't made it before.
 
Ingredients
 
Mixed rolled grains, eg oats, wheat, barley, spelt or rye*                                  250g
Mixed seeds, eg pumpkin, sunflower, sesame, flax                                            125g
Mixed nuts, eg pecan, brazil, hazelnuts, whole or flaked almonds                  125g
Light brown sugar                                                                                                         30g
Runny honey                                                                                                                  50g
Light vegetable oil,                                                                                                         30g
 
*If you only have oats, it’s fine to use just oats but try to use a jumbo or large flake version.
​

Another in our series of recipes using up old sourdough starter or 'discard'.

This sticky, traditional spiced ginger cake is a delicious teatime treat, redolent of high teas and simpler days gone by. I’ve been asked for the recipe so many times, I thought I’d share it with you. I’ve updated it with a tangy lemon and soured cream frosting to cut through the treacly stickiness of the cake. It’s also a perfect vehicle for using up old starter – plenty of depth of flavour in this cake that is only enhanced by the mild acidity of your old starter – anything from 2-5 days old is perfect. But, if you don’t have any sourdough starter on the go, you can substitute with an additional 75g plain flour and 75g of milk with a teaspoon of lemon juice.*
 
 
Traditional gingerbread with lemon sour cream frosting
(makes 1 large loaf cake in an 800g/2 lb tin, or one tray bake.
Halve recipe for 1 small loaf cake)
 
For the cake:
Plain flour                                              225g
Butter, melted                                       150g
Golden syrup                                         200g
Treacle or blackstrap molasses           200g
Old liquid starter*                                150g
Dark brown sugar                                100g
Milk                                                        175g
Medium eggs                                         2, lightly beaten
Bicarb of soda                                      1 tsp
Fine sea salt                                          ½ tsp
Cinnamon                                             1 tsp
Ginger                                                   4 tsp
Ground cloves                                      ½ tsp
5-6 pieces preserved ginger, chopped (optional)
 
 
For the lemon sour cream frosting:
Unsalted butter, softened                     150g
Icing sugar, sifted                                  300g
Thick sour cream or crème fraiche      100g
Zest of 1 lemon
 
 
Method
 
Preheat your oven to 160°C (140°C Fan)/320°F
 
Firstly, mix together your melted butter, syrup and treacle. Add your brown sugar, milk and old starter to the syrup mixture and combine thoroughly. If the starter is a few days old, the gluten will mostly be broken down and it will bring a delicious tang to this richly flavoured cake. Now you can mix in the lightly beaten egg to the rest of the wet ingredients.
 
In another bowl, sift together your flour, bicarb, spices and salt. If using chopped preserved ginger, you can add this to the dry, sifted mix and coat the little pieces well with the flour. Now pour the wet mixture into your bowl of dry ingredients, gently stirring until combined, and no pockets of flour remain. Pour the batter into your greased and lined loaf tin or tray.
 
Place your tin into the preheated oven. The wet batter mix is going to need long, slow baking - approximately 60 mins. Check the cake after 50-55 minutes. The cake will appear ‘set’ if gently jiggled, will have shrunk away from the sides and a skewer will come out clean. However, it is far easier to use a digital probe thermometer, which takes the guess work out of baking and avoids the disappointment of a soggy middle or bottom. The cake will be ideally cooked in the range of 96°C-99°C. At 100°C, the moisture in the cake will begin to evaporate, leaving your cake a little dry.
 
When cooked, leave to cool for twenty minutes or so in the tin and then turn out to cool completely on a wire rack before icing.
 
 
To prepare the icing:
 
Make sure your butter is very soft before attempting to mix your icing. Use the butter softening mode on your microwave, if necessary. Then, to the softened butter add your sifted icing sugar and gently blend in with a wooden spoon or hand mixer. Once incorporated, you can beat your buttercream until light and airy, then beat in your thick sour cream or crème fraiche and the finely grated lemon zest.
 
When the cake is completely cool, frost and decorate your cake with fine strips of lemon zest.  
 
Store somewhere cool - remember the frosting contains fresh dairy.

During the Spring and early Summer, there are so many wild herbs to be foraged from the hedgerows or our own gardens. I've made this pasta time and time again, varying the mix of greens I've used each time. I often add sorrel from the garden for its citrusy bite, but I will literally use anything green and leafy, including foraged nettle tips, wild garlic or fat hen. Later in the year, you can raid your vegetable patch for the tenderest tips of spinach, kale or rocket, and throw in some favourite leafy herbs.

Click here to watch the video tutorial, or read below!

(Makes 25-30 medium ravioli)
 
1 batch sourdough pasta dough
(see our sourdough pasta recipe here)
 
For the filling:
Fresh ricotta                   500g
Fresh greens/herbs      100g (approx.)
Pecorino, grated           20g
½ nutmeg, grated
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
 
For the sage butter:
About 24 sage leaves
Butter  (1/2 pack)         125g
 
 
Prepare your filling whilst your dough is resting:
 
Take 500g of ricotta and place in a heavy bottomed, wide pan over a medium heat for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. About ¼ of the overall weight will evaporate during this process, leaving it resembling a soft cottage cheese. Remove from heat, stir in the grated pecorino (or other hard Italian cheese) and season with a good pinch of sea salt, some freshly ground black pepper and about half a freshly grated nutmeg. Taste a little to check seasoning before adding your chopped greens and herbs. Any soft leaved greens/herbs may be used: spinach, wild garlic, sorrel, young nettle tips etc. Whatever you can forage safely from the hedgerows or your own gardens (or fridges!).

Pasta is a simple flour and liquid (either egg or water) mixture that is kneaded into a stiff dough – an ideal way to use up starter that is a few days old, rather than discarding before you next refresh. This recipe uses liquid starter. If you are keeping a stiff starter, simply adjust the quantities to accommodate (about 15g less flour and add 15g water). If you are making vegan pasta, replace the egg with 100-110g of water.
 
You can make pasta with fine semolina (from the Southern Italian hard or ‘durum’ wheat) or with fine pasta grade ‘00’ flour. I often make mine with a mix of the two.

Watch our video tutorial on Youtube here or read below.

Thank you very much to video-wiki site 'EZVID' for including us in their post on '5 resources for learning to make bread' - you can find the post here!

You'll know by now how much I hate waste! I spend a lot of time developing recipes to use up those ingredients that got overlooked for just a little too long and are seemingly past their best.

This always happens to grapes in our household. The bunches are attacked when they are plump, luscious and firm. But after a while, they wither and people start to avoid them in the fruit bowl. Past their best, they are overlooked and, invariably, find their way into the compost or bin! It's time to see these wrinkly old grapes for what they are: young raisins! Too moist still to be substituted for raisins without further dehydration, but perfect for a wet batter mix such as carrot cake!

Et voila! Our grape and carrot loaf cake! A delicious variation of an old favourite: sweet, moist and beautifully textured with seeds and nuts, and complemented by a tangy sour cream frosting.

It's an easy all-in-one-bowl batter method. Just take your time preparing all your ingredients before you start, turn your oven on and away you go...

Grape and carrot loaf
(makes 1 large loaf cake)
 
For the batter:
Self raising flour         200g
Vegetable oil               170ml
Grated carrots            200g
‘Old’ black grapes       80g
Pecans                         50g
Pumpkin seeds           30g
Sultanas                      50g
Granulated sugar       90g
Brown sugar               90g
Medium eggs              3
Vanilla extract            1 tsp 
Fine sea salt                ½ tsp
Cinnamon*                1 tsp
Cardamom*              1 tsp
Zest of 1 orange
Freshly grated nutmeg
*(if you don’t have individual spices, substitute with 2 tsp mixed spice overall)
 
For the sour cream frosting:
Unsalted butter, softened        150g
Icing sugar, sifted                     300g
Sour cream or crème fraiche  100g
 
 
Method
 
Preheat your oven to 160°C (140°C Fan)/320°F
 
Firstly sift together your SR flour, spices and salt.
Now, place your oil, sugars and eggs together in a mixing bowl and beat together. Stir in your vanilla extract and grated carrots. Depending on the size of your grapes and how wrinkled they have become, either half or quarter them and add to your bowl. Now throw in your nuts, seeds, orange zest and sultanas and combine. Mix the final batter by gradually stirring in your flour/spice mix. Don’t over beat your batter at this stage (you will develop gluten which will make your cake rubbery); the flour just needs to be evenly incorporated. Pour your batter into a greased and lined tin – I like to use a large loaf tin for this cake.
 
Place your cake into the preheated oven. The wet batter mix is going to need long, slow baking at a cooler than usual temperature - approximately 90 mins at 160°C. Check the cake after 80-85 minutes. The cake will appear ‘set’ if gently jiggled, will have shrunk away from the sides and a skewer will come out clean. However, it is far easier to use a digital probe thermometer, which takes the guess work out of baking and avoids the disappointment of a soggy middle or bottom. The cake will be ideally cooked in the range of 96°C - 98°C. At 100°C, the moisture in the cake will begin to evaporate, leaving your cake dry and overcooked.
 
When cooked, leave to cool for twenty minutes or so in the tin and then turn out to cool completely on a wire rack before icing.
 
 
To prepare the frosting:
 
Make sure your butter is very soft before attempting to mix your icing. Use the butter softening mode on your microwave, if necessary. Then, to the softened butter add your sifted icing sugar and gently blend in. Once incorporated, you can beat your buttercream until light and airy, then beat in your sour cream or crème fraiche. The slight acidity of the cream cuts through the sweetness giving a wonderfully tart edge to your frosting.
 
When the cake is completely cool, frost and decorate your cake with pecans, orange zest or edible flowers.  
 
Store somewhere cool - remember the frosting contains fresh dairy.
 

So you've made your starter, and you're rightly proud of this bubbling, fermenting pot of life that you've grown and nurtured. Here is our basic country sourdough recipe. This uses a kneading method. Some days, it just helps to bash out your frustrations on an inanimate lump of dough! Remember, this is sloooooowwww dough. All good things are worth the wait!

Country White Sourdough
(makes 1 medium loaf)
 
Plan ahead. Sourdough will always be at least 2 days in the making. Feed your starter about 8 hours (overnight is perfect) before you are ready to make your sourdough, so that it is lively and active before you begin.
 
300g strong white flour
80g wholemeal flour
120g active starter (liquid, 100% hydration)
250g water
8g fine sea salt
 
Measure your dry ingredients into a large bowl. Place your starter and water in a separate bowl and mix roughly together. Now pour these into the dry ingredients. Mix with your scraper until all the ingredients are combined and a rough dough has formed. Turn out onto your clean work surface and knead for 15-20 minutes until you have an elastic dough which doesn’t stick to your fingers or to the work surface. Alternatively, place in your mixer with the dough hook attachment and mix on medium for about 7 minutes until the dough comes cleanly away from the sides of the bowl. Form the dough into a ball and place back into your lightly floured bowl. Cover with a large plastic bag or a baking cloth and leave to prove.
 
After 30 minutes, fold and stretch your dough: using your scraper, turn the dough carefully out onto a lightly floured surface – with the ‘top’ of the dough now underneath. Taking the 4 points of the compass in turn, pull the dough gently to one side then bring over to the middle point of your dough (as if you were making a paper windmill). When all 4 ‘corners’ have been brought into the middle, turn your dough back over and place back in the bowl, so that the top of the dough remains uppermost. Repeat folding action every half an hour. This is the ‘bulk proof’ stage and should take 3 or more hours. Stretch and fold your dough about 6 times during this stage. Each time you will be building the strength of your dough and improving the final loaf.
 
After 3-4 hours (depending upon ambient temperature) you are ready to shape your dough. Don’t expect it to have doubled in size like a yeasted dough. It will not need de-gassing. Using the round side of your scraper, carefully tip out the dough onto a lightly floured surface, so that the ‘top’ of the dough is now lying underneath on your floured countertop.  Shape your loaf by stretching the edge of the dough and bringing onto the middle, like when stretching and folding your dough during the first prove. Go around the entire circle of dough, then flip and place it seem side down on your counter, ensuring there is no flour underneath the seam.
 
Now you can ‘tighten’ your ball by dragging it towards you and allowing the friction of the counter to resist the movement. This should cause the ‘skin’ of your ball of dough to tighten a little. Adjust and do the same in a few different directions around your ball. Do not over-tighten. A few little stretches are all it takes. You don’t want to tear the skin that is containing your dough under tension.  When you have a tight ball, place seam side up into a pre-floured proving basket – wholemeal flour works best here, as the bran prevents sticking (do not use rye flour). However, a well-shaped loaf will not stick in your banneton. It is essential that you pay attention to the tightening of the dough at this stage. If your loaf collapses when you tip it out, ready to bake, it could well be you have not tightened sufficiently before placing in the basket. If you have no proving basket, flour a good quality linen cloth well, placed inside a round 1litre bowl (eg Pyrex bowl). This prevents your dough relaxing into a puddle whilst it proves for a second time.
 
Cover with a loose-fitting plastic bag or baking cloth for about 3-5 hours (depending upon ambient temperature) until the dough appears ready. At this stage, the dough will bounce slowly back when pressed gently with a floured finger. If it bounces rapidly back, it needs a little longer. If the indentation remains, you have over-proved your dough. Alternatively, you can place the dough in the fridge when it appears to be nearly ready, say after 3-4 hours, and leave overnight.
 
When the loaves are ready to bake, turn them out onto a lightly dusted peel. Be gentle with your loaves at this stage. Slash the loaves at an oblique angle of about 30 degrees, to allow extra expansion in the oven. Place in a very hot oven, pre-heated to 240°C. As you place the loaves in the oven, spray the walls, ceiling and floor of your oven with water, avoiding the loaves themselves.  Now turn down your oven down to 220 °C and bake for 35-45 minutes for the larger, until golden or dark brown, according to preference.  Alternatively, bake inside a pre-heated Dutch oven or cast iron casserole dish – the lid will keep in all the steam that is released by the dough during the first 15 mins, after which you can remove the lid and continue to bake and crust over. To check reliably whether your bread is baked, place a probe thermometer into the centre. A loaf will be reliably baked when the thermometer reads 95°C or more.
 
 
Notes on refreshing your starters:
 
Wheat starter: Wheat starters can be kept in a liquid state (usually 100% hydration) or a stiff state (usually 50% hydration). This recipe uses a liquid starter. To refresh your liquid starter, take 100g of starter (discarding or using the rest) and add 100g water and 100g of flour, ie equal parts flour and water. If using a new recipe, always check whether a stiff or liquid starter is required and adjust your overall water/flour quantities in the recipe, if necessary. Leave the refreshed starter at a warm room temperature for 8-12 hours before using. If it is not required straight away, simply place in the fridge after a few hours. Your starter will keep refrigerated for a couple of weeks (and can even be dehydrated or frozen!), but it is best to refresh it every 7 days even if not being used.