It's not Terry's... it's Delia's

Chocolate and orange has long been a tasty combination, and never more so than in this recipe of Delia's. You may be surprised to learn that 'Terry's of York' actually brought out a Chocolate Apple in 1926, five years before the Chocolate Orange was invented. The apple version was discontinued in the 1950s when Terry's realised it was all about the orange... and still is.

Delia's Chocolate Orange Biscuit recipe can be found on page 146 of her book. It calls for the zest of two oranges to give the orange flavour to the biscuit, and dark chocolate chips for the chocolate element. Julie found the biggest juiciest naval oranges she could find, and you could really taste it. When we make chocolate orange cakes here at Chitty's, it's using cocoa powder and orange zest rather than juice, so it was nice to have a bit of a different spin on the chocolate orange combination and they were absolutely gorgeous.

Julie reported that they were a joy to make because as they baked they made the entire flat smell like a Terry's chocolate orange. She used a bigger cutter than Delia recommended so they did come out quite giant in size (not a problem for Laura and I when we tasted them!) and so didn't make the suggested 22, only 15, and the chocolate chips made the circles a bit tricky to cut out, but they turned out perfectly. They tasted absolutely divine, and were really beautifully crunchy. If you like a Terry's chocolate orange, you will love these biscuits.

Flapjacks - to crunch or not to crunch?

In spite of it being one of our busiest weeks for wedding cakes here at Chitty's Cakes, Julie has somehow found the time to make not one but two of Delia's recipes this week! The first, Flapjacks (on page 77 of Delia's Cakes and here), were a huge success. Delia offers two slightly different variations in the recipe depending on your tastes - either 225g or 275g of butter to cater for those who like them drier with a bit more crunch and those who like them rich and buttery respectively. Julie's not a big butter fan (in fact, when she remade Semolina Shortbread earlier in the week with butter, she took a bite and spat it out! I should add at this point that the rest of her family and those who tasted them thought they were beautiful) so she opted for the crunchy version.

The recipe all went smoothly - Julie didn't have quite the same shaped tin that Delia suggested, but they worked perfectly in the square one she had. The ingredients are all ones that people often keep in the cupboard (butter, brown sugar, golden syrup and oats) so they are a great treat to throw together without having to go out and buy any fancy ingredients.

As a big butter fan myself, I was a bit disappointed to hear it was the crunchy version I would be trying, but when I tasted my first (of many!) I was converted. At some point, one of us might try out the recipe with more butter to taste the difference, but they were really delicious. I make flapjacks, or something similar, all the time as my other half is a self-confessed granola bar addict. The ones I make for David always have lots of 'stuff' in them - fruit, seeds, nuts - whatever happens to be found after a rummage in the cupboard to be quite honest, (sorry love) so it was a refreshing change to have a good simple honest flapjack with nothing added, just a little dip in some milk chocolate. And I think they would have been just as delicious without the chocolate. Another recipe we would highly recommend!

Welsh Cakes, in Wales!

Mae'r rysait nesaf penderfynais I roi cynnig oedd cacennau Cymreig. For those of you not fluent in Welsh (or at least Google's attempt at a Welsh translation!) that was supposed to tell you that the next recipe I decided to try was Welsh cakes. There was a very good reason for this. Last weekend was the Cardiff Bay Food Festival, where a very good friend of mine was tirelessly selling chocolate brownies to hungry customers for three days. I went down for a quick visit, involving close to my own body weight in chocolate brownies and a few drinks (or was it the other way round...?) and decided to take some of Delia's Welsh cakes with me to really put one of her recipes to the test.

For me, Welsh cakes should always be presented in an old margarine tub.

 

Personally, I hadn't ever heard of Welsh cakes until the first time Lowri (Morgan Dennis... could you get a more Welsh name?) returned to (the recently flattened) Chamberlain Hall at Birmingham Uni from a trip home with a tub of Stork. This was, however, no ordinary Stork tub. It was a Stork tub filled with Welsh cakes made for us by Lowri's gran. I was suspicious at first - who wouldn't be suspicious of something that looked like a fruit scone someone had sat on? - but had to admit there was something moreish about them, and I was soon a convert. In all my years of baking, I'd never tried to make my own until this week. Delia's recipe can be found on page 100 of her book, and although (as far as I know) she has no Welsh heritage, they turned out pretty great.

 

For those who haven't had the pleasure of trying one, squashed scone is a fairly accurate description, and the method for making them is pretty similar. The main difference is that they are made on top of the stove in a large flat frying pan. This does have the downside of not being able to put your feet up with a brew feeling smug for a blissful 10 minutes while you convince yourself you are the best baker ever as your creation bakes (that is, until they come out of the oven not looking quite like the picture in the book and your bubble is forever burst - or is that just me?).  That said, they only take 3 minutes on each side (Siri was put to some serious work on my iPhone for this one!) so it isn't too much of a hassle and it's quite satisfying to watch them quickly turn a golden brown. They really do taste fantastic when they're still warm - you can add a bit of butter or jam (or Welsh honey as Delia suggests), but they are just as good on their own.


They made the journey to Cardiff with me, and out to the food festival at Cardiff Bay (which was brilliant if you ever get a chance to go) where I spotted a few Welsh cakes on sale, although not as many as I expected. I left my Welsh cakes nervously with the Dennis family who all had a taste, and in spite of the hilarious photo shoot of Lowri's dad pulling various disgusted faces, I was told that they were liked! If you want to make a Welsh guest feel at home, or you fancy trying a bit of a twist on a scone, I would definitely recommend these. They are quick and easy to make and they keep quite well for a few days in an airtight container (such as an old Stork tub...).

A big 'diolch' to all the Welsh tasters that helped out with this one!

 

Squashed Fly Biscuits

OK, so they're not actually called 'squashed fly' biscuits, but it is how they were universally known in our house growing up - and it's clear to see why. Strangely, it never put me off eating them, and still doesn't. Garibaldi biscuits (on page 158 of Delia's Cakes) are named after Giuseppe Garibaldi, an Italian general who played a key part in the history of the country, although despite my best efforts at Wikipedia research, I can't fathom why exactly the squashed fly biscuit bears his name. Answers on a postcard please.

On to the recipe itself. A pretty simple one with not many ingredients. In fact, I made these for no reason other than fancying a biscuit and having none in the house. With plenty of currants leftover from last week's Dundee Cake, I sought out a recipe to use them up. The recipe basically involves making a simple biscuit dough, then rolling it out into a big rectangle, sprinkling half of it with currants, then folding it over and rolling it out again, thus capturing the currants inside. The most difficult part was trying to keep the dough in a rectangle, but I just about managed it.

Delia suggested cutting the biscuits into rectangles 7cm x 3cm. I had to get my ruler out for this, but I followed the measurements pretty strictly to find that I only managed to get 15 biscuits where I was supposed to get 24. My rolling clearly needs some work.

They baked in just the time she said - only 12 minutes, and 5 minutes later I was kicking back with a cup of tea admiring my handiwork. All in all, a pretty successful bake, although next time would roll much thinner. The sprinkling of sugar on top gives them a nice crunch, although they are pretty crunchy anyway with the nice chewy bonus of the currants. I didn't have any eggs in, so used a bit of milk on top before sprinkling the sugar, and have to say it worked absolutely fine. Squashed fly - worth a try.

Dundee Cake... in Bradford on Avon

A day trip to Bradford-on-Avon (a beautiful little town near Bath where some friends live) gave me a good excuse to try another recipe this weekend. As one and a half of the friends I was visiting (Dave, and his 3 month old son Ben) were Scottish, I thought a Dundee cake would be fitting. It's found on page 85 of Delia's Cakes - a page now suffering from several grease stains on my copy!


Putting it together was pretty straightforward as Delia went for an all-in-one method - the only faff was washing the glace cherries. It does take a fair old time to bake (one and three quarter hours was suggested) but this was no problem on Saturday night as Wimbledon kept me occupied. In the time the cake took to bake, Murray won two sets, lost one, and won one (phew!).

After an hour and a half (the Murray match was over, and I'd moved on to a fictional version of Wimbledon starting Paul Bettany and Kirsten Dunst) I checked on the cake and it looked very nearly done. I always find it tricky to know exactly when a fruit cake is ready - Delia said it should be firm and springy to touch (which sounded like something of a contradiction, and didn't help a whole lot!). I decided to give it 5 more minutes and made a cup of tea. 20 minutes later I sprang up from the sofa and ran to the oven. We've all been there. It wasn't burnt, but it was certainly a bit darker than I would have liked, and I cursed myself for not taking it out 20 minutes earlier.

We enjoyed a slice of cake with a cup of tea while all six adults present oohed and aahed at the incredibly cute baby (who, at three months, really was . In spite of the slightly overdone exterior, the cake was a hit - at least, it didn't put Jon & Gemma off ordering their wedding cake from us for next summer! I don't want to give anything away, but it sounds like it could be one of our most fun designs yet!

I digress. Dundee Cake is, for a fruit cake, pretty straightforward (no pre-soaking of fruit, or fiddly feeding) and it has a lovely crumbly texture and a fresh citrusy taste - not as rich as some of the other fruit cakes we will have to tackle nearer Christmas, and all the nicer for it in my opinion. It keeps well in a tin too, so once made you can have a slice

Friday scones!

Summer is definitely here this week - it's 30 degrees outside, the sun is out, Wimbledon is well underway and it's time for a team meeting... what better recipe to try than scones?

Even by 9.30pm on Thursday, it was still a scorcher outside so firing up the over to make these was a little bit painful, but one of the most fantastic thing about scones is how quick they bake. Delia has two scone recipe offerings in her latest book - these are the straightforward 'Plain Scones' found on page 104 (I'll be making the Rich Fruit Scones before long for sure - it's a tradition in my house to have homemade afternoon tea with the Wimbledon final, so they will probably make an appearance this Sunday alongside a cucumber sandwich).



Under Delia's instructions, I purchased some Lurpak spreadable to make these. I probably would normally have opted for real butter, and although this worked out slightly more expensive (in spite of the special offer in the supermarket!) it did work really well. Delia does suggest a few ways to jazz up the standard recipe with buttermilk or natural yoghurt, but I stuck to the original recipe. She said it would make about 8 and I only managed to get 7 (I promise I didn't sneakily eat one!) but other than that they really did work out beautifully. They all got a nice rise, although not quite as perfectly as those pictured in the book, I was pleased with them.

They went down a treat at the team meeting with some homemade raspberry jam and some freshly whipped cream. They knocked any shop-bought scones I've ever had out the park, and the recipe couldn't be easier - they were in the oven within 10 minutes of deciding to make them, and out of the oven 10 minutes later. And oh so delicious.