Jenny Kane: Coffee, cupcakes, chocolate and contemporary fiction / Jennifer Ash: Medieval crime with hints of Ellis Peters and Robin Hood

Category: recipe

Jenny Kane’s Cheese Scones: A Taste of Mill Grange

As regular readers to this blog will know, my  #MillGrange novels, feature a serious amount of scone consumption.

I’ve recently been asked to re-share my own cheese scone recipe – Sybil approved, of course!

If you’d like to bake some Sybil style cheese scones, here’s what you’ll need:

  • 225g self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting
  • pinch of salt
  • pinch cayenne pepper
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 55g chilled butter, cut into cubes
  • 100g mature cheddar –  grated (reserve some for sprinkling on top prior to baking)
  • 100-110ml milk – plus 1 tbsp for glazing

And here’s what you do:

  1. Heat the oven to 200C/180C fan/Gas mark 6
  2. Place the flour, salt, cayenne pepper and baking powder into a bowl, and stir together. (You can sift it if you like- but I can never be bothered!)
  3. Add the butter to the bowl and rub with your fingertips to make breadcrumbs.
  4. Sprinkle almost all the cheese into the breadcrumb mixture and stir in.
  5. Make a well in the centre of the mixture and pour in the milk, a little at a time, until you have a firm dough. (Do not be afraid to add a fraction more milk if required)
  6. Lightly flour a surface and push/fold the dough a few times, until it is approximately 2cm thick. Cut out the scones with a medium (about 8cm) cutter.
  7. Lightly flour a baking sheet, and place the scones on top. Glaze scones with a little milk and sprinkle with the remaining cheese.
  8. Bake in the oven for 15-ish mins or until cooked through.
  9. Eat with way too much butter  and enjoy without guilt.

I hope Sybil’s scones put a smile on your face!

If you’d like to read Midsummer Dreams at Mill Grange, Autumn Leaves at Mill Grange,  Spring Blossoms at Mill Grange or Winter Fires at Mill Grange, to see what else the workers at Mill Grange like to eat, you can find all the buy links here.

Have a lovely weekend.

Jenny x

 

Nan’s Apple Cake

Last week, after a great deal of hunting, my mum and I found my nan’s recipe for apple cake.

I wanted to make it, not just because – after years of not being able to eat apples, I can now eat them if they are cooked first – but because cooking this particular cake reminds me of childhood baking sessions with Nan in her small kitchen in Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire.

Having posted some photographs of the finished cake on social media last weekend, I promised to share the recipe here.

The original recipe idea came from Good Housekeeping – but was then adapted by Nan into a cake that was very much her own. Thinking back, I don’t think she ever stuck to a cooking book recipe in her life. In fact, I don’t actually remember her weighing anything out. Nan always seemed to know how much things weighted by sight!

I’m not so adventurous – so all weights of ingredients are mentioned below.

Ingredients

2 medium/large eggs

9 oz caster sugar or light brown sugar

4 oz butter

1/4 pint milk

6 1/2 oz plain flour (six and a half ounces)

3 teaspoons baking powder

1-2 teaspoons cinnamon (to personal taste)

2-3 cooking apples (Bramley)

2- 3 oz sultanas (optional)

Cook at 200.C  of Gas mark 6 for 25 mins.

Use a 20×30 cm roasting tin/brownie tin. (Greased. Line base with baking paper)

Method

Whisk the eggs and 8oz of the sugar. Stop whisking once the mixture is creamy and the whisk leaves a trail when lifted from the liquid. Leave to one side.

Weigh out the flour. Add the baking powder and half the cinnamon.  Sieve the powdered mixture into a bowl. Leave to one side.

Put the butter and milk into a saucepan. Bring it to the boil. Take it off the heat. Immediately stir in the egg and sugar mixture.  Add in the powder mix – folding it slowly into the liquid making a batter. Fold carefully until there are no lumps.

Fold in the sultanas if using them.

Pour the mixture into the tin.

Peel and core the apples. Slice them into thin slices. Arrange these slices across the top of the batter, until the top is covered. You can double layer the apple.

Sprinkle the remaining sugar over the apples. (Sprinkle the remaining cinnamon over the top if required.)

Bake in the oven.

***

The cake will be cooked when it is well risen and golden. A skewer/slim knife should come out clean when inserted into cake, to see if it’s baked right through.

Let the cake cool within the tin before removing it.

Cut into squares.

Enjoy as it is or with cream/ice cream/custard.

***

Happy cooking, eating.

Jenny x

 

Jenny Kane’s Cheese Scones: Sybil approved!

As regular readers to this blog will know, my latest collection of novels, the #MillGrange #series, features a serious amount of scone consumption.

As it’s a #bankholiday weekend, and you might just have time for a touch of baking, I thought I’d re-share my own cheese scone recipe – Sybil approved, of course!

If you’d like to bake some Sybil style cheese scones, here’s what you’ll need:

  • 225g self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting
  • pinch of salt
  • pinch cayenne pepper
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 55g chilled butter, cut into cubes
  • 100g mature cheddar –  grated (reserve some for sprinkling on top prior to baking)
  • 100-110ml milk – plus 1 tbsp for glazing

And here’s what you do:

  1. Heat the oven to 200C/180C fan/Gas mark 6
  2. Place the flour, salt, cayenne pepper and baking powder into a bowl, and stir together. (You can sift it if you like- but I can never be bothered!)
  3. Add the butter to the bowl and rub with your fingertips to make breadcrumbs.
  4. Sprinkle almost all the cheese into the breadcrumb mixture and stir in.
  5. Make a well in the centre of the mixture and pour in the milk, a little at a time, until you have a firm dough. (Do not be afraid to add a fraction more milk if required)
  6. Lightly flour a surface and push/fold the dough a few times, until it is approximately 2cm thick. Cut out the scones with a medium (about 8cm) cutter.
  7. Lightly flour a baking sheet, and place the scones on top. Glaze scones with a little milk and sprinkle with the remaining cheese.
  8. Bake in the oven for 15-ish mins or until cooked through.
  9. Eat with way too much butter  and enjoy without guilt.

I hope Sybil’s scones put a smile on your face!

If you’d like to read Midsummer Dreams at Mill Grange, Autumn Leaves at Mill Grange or Spring Blossoms at Mill Grange, to see what else the workers at Mill Grange like to eat, you can find all the buy links here.

Have a lovely weekend.

Jenny x

 

Mars Bar Sponge Anyone?

After the popularity of my Mars Bar scone recipe, I thought I’d share another family favourite with you  – the Mars Bar sponge (Other caramel chocolate bars are available).

This straight forward recipe makes a delicious cake that has fuelled (alongside cups of black coffee), many of my recent novels – in particular, the Mill Grange series.  An awful lot of baking goes on at Mill Grange. There is something about writing scenes where Tina bakes her lemon cakes and Sybil cooks her scones, that makes me want to cook – and eat – more comfort food.

INGREDIENTS

6oz self raising flour

1 teaspoon of baking powder

6oz caster sugar

6oz butter/spread

3 eggs

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence/flavouring

2 full sized or 3 finger Mars Bars – chopped into small pieces.

METHOD

Warm your oven to 200C or 180C if using a fan oven.

Grease and line two 8 inch sponge tins.

Put the butter and sugar into a bowl. Mix with an electric whisk/mixer until creamy.

Add in the flour, baking powder, vanilla essence and eggs and mix for at least three minutes with the electric whisk/mixer.

Stir in the chopped Mars Bar with a spoon.

Pour half of the mixture into each lined cake tin.

Bake in the middle of the oven for 20-25 mins, until risen. The sponge should be beginning to come away from the edges of the tin.

Once cool, sandwich the cake together using chocolate spread. (Nutella works best for me)

Delicious alone or with a scoop of ice cream. (Especially good with caramel and vanilla)

Enjoy with your favourite beverage and your favourite book!

Happy baking everyone,

Jenny x

 

 

 

 

 

Jenny Kane’s Cheese Scones: Sybil approved!

As regular readers to this blog will know, my latest novel, Midsummer Dreams at Mill Grange, has just been published.

You’ll also know that I LOVE a scone – all scones!

Midsummer Dreams at Mill Grange

Should you read Midsummer Dreams at Mill Grange, you will soon discover that my love of scones is shared by the characters. In particular they are partial to the cheese scones on offer at Sybil’s Tea Rooms in Upwich. a place which bears a remarkable resemblance to the Copper Kettle in Dulverton, Somerset!

I thought that, this weekend, you might like to bake some Sybil style cheese scones.

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • 225g self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting
  • pinch of salt
  • pinch cayenne pepper
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 55g chilled butter, cut into cubes
  • 100g mature cheddar –  grated (reserve some for sprinkling on top prior to baking)
  • 100-110ml milk – plus 1 tbsp for glazing

And here’s what you do:

  1. Heat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6
  2. Place the flour, salt, cayenne pepper and baking powder into a bowl, and stir together. (You can sift it if you like- but I can never be bothered!)
  3. Add the butter to the bowl and rub with your fingertips to make breadcrumbs.
  4. Sprinkle almost all the cheese into the breadcrumb mixture and stir in.
  5. Make a well in the centre of the mixture and pour in the milk, a little at a time, until you have a firm dough. (Do not be afraid to add a fraction more milk if required)
  6. Lightly flour a surface and push/fold the dough a few times, until it is approximately 2cm thick. Cut out the scones with a medium (about 8cm) cutter.
  7. Lightly flour a baking sheet, and place the scones on top. Glaze scones with a little milk and sprinkle with the remaining cheese.
  8. Bake in the oven for 15-ish mins or until cooked through.
  9. Eat with way too much butter  and enjoy without guilt.

I hope Sybil’s scones put a smile on your face!

If you’d like to read Midsummer Dreams at Mill Grange, and see what else the workers at Mill Grange like to eat, you can find all the buy links here.

Have a lovely weekend.

Jenny x

 

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