Lois Daish’s Raisin Bread

Fruit bread holds a certain healing power in my mind. It must be heavily spiced and laden with fruit. These sorts of breads, whether buns or loaves, speak of comfort and cups of tea, a sunday afternoon wrapped in a blanket watching movies. A few weeks ago I received two text messages in less than a hour from friends telling me how their days had been improved, or could be improved, with fruit toast. Not even chocolate has the same capacity to bring such homely comfort.

It may seem I have missed my opportunity for spiced fruit bread immediately after Easter when I am sure many of us have eaten our fill of hot cross buns. Though, in saying that, I could live on spiced fruit bread. Every Easter I gorge myself on hot cross buns. I can’t get enough. Cut in half and toasted, slathered with butter and jam. Or heated in the microwave with thin slices of butter already inside the bun so the slightly salted butter melts within the bread. I like the hot cross buns that are so loaded with fruit and candied peel they appear almost undercooked and soggy.

Hot cross buns come and go so quickly, like other autumnal delights – feijoas, quince, radish. When Easter is over I wonder why hot cross buns aren’t available year round, knowing full well that hot cross buns hold such magic only because of their brief appearance. But dried fruit embedded in heavily spiced bread can be eaten any time of year. Think of this raisin bread as a hair of the dog type treatment to get us over Easter, and if you are this way inclined, this bread may keep you going until next year’s buns roll around.

Lois Daish’s raisin bread is from her beautiful book A Good Year. This is a book I have written about before; a book that appears rather plain until you start flicking through and realise you could quite easily make every recipe. It is a book I turn to often, sometimes just to read, because not only are the recipes wonderful, so are the words which describe them.

Daish makes this raisin bread in April which is rather fitting, not only for its Easter connotations but we are also just beginning to get cold here. The leaves are starting to change and the wind has a bite to it. The next time it rains the gutters will flood, the water bursting its dried-leaf banks. It is a nice time of year to make bread.

There is something quite special about making bread, coaxing the dough along, keeping it safe and warm, only then to knead and pummel it, lovingly so, but pummel it nonetheless. Bread making is a soothing process and the home-maker in me revels in it.

There is also something in the taste of home made bread, something quite different to store-bought or bakery bread. The yeast taste is a bit like the malty, hoppy after taste of home brewed ginger beer. The yeast has some weight to it, it seems to anchor all the other flavours of the bread, sort of rounding them out. I imagine yeast to be like the little baker within the bread, kneading and pushing all the actors together, the flour, spices, currants and sultanas, rallying the troups so to speak. I guess that’s the role of yeast in any baking but the flavour of the home baked variety is lovely.

I took two thick slices to eat on my way to work the other day. They barely fit in the toaster but crisped up wonderfully. It was the perfrect start to my day. I thought about texting my friends about my bread, but it was not yet 7am. Even in the name of fruit bread, that might have been too much.

Thank you dear Georgie for the lovely photographs.

Lois Daish’s Raisin Bread
Adapted from A Good Year

The original recipe made two loaves so I halved the quantities but added more spices and more dried fruit. Next time I will add even more, perhaps some candied peel too. Daish made her bread in an electric mixer, using dough hooks and beaters but I do love hand kneading.

2 tablespoons Surebake yeast
1/4 cup warm water
1 cup milk
85 grams butter, cut into thin slices
1 egg
2 tablespoons soft brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
425 grams high grade white flour
1 to 1.5 cups raisins, currants or sultanas (or a mixture of these)

To Glaze:
1 tablespoon milk
1 tablespoon sugar

Sprinkle the yeast over the warm water in a small bowl and set aside for about 10 minutes. Put the milk in a pot and heat unitl lukewarm. Pour the milk into a large bowl, add the chopped butter. When the butter has almost melted add the egg, sugar, salt, spices and yeast mixture. Whisk to combine. Add about half of the flour and continue to whisk until a smooth batter forms. Add the remaining flour and the dried fruit, mix until just combined then turn onto a lightly floured bench. Knead until smooth. Cover the dough with a damp towel and place somewhere warm to rise for 3 hours, or until doubled in bulk.

Turn the risen dough onto a lightly floured bench and lightly knead. Form dough into an oblong shape and place in a large buttered loaf tin. Cover the loaf tin with the damp cloth and leave to rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk. While the dough rises preheat the oven to 220°C. Put the risen loaf in the oven. After 15 minutes, lower the heat to 190°C and bake for a further 25 minutes or until the loaf is deeply browned. (I covered my loaf in tin foil for the last 5 minutes.)

While the bread is baking make the glaze by heating the milk then stir through the sugar until dissolved. Remove the bread from the oven, tip onto a cooling rack and brush on the glaze.

Eat fresh or toasted. This loaf freezes well and can be toasted straight from the freezer.

Chocolate Spiral for the All Blacks

The World Cup is over. The tourists will leave. The Cup will stay. We will have to find something else to talk about.

I feel the Rugby World Cup has opened an entirely new door to rugby appreciation for me. (Beyond the players’ physiques…) For the opening weekend, quarter finals, semi finals and finals weekends I have been working at Eden Park in Auckland. The atmosphere has been quite electric and everyone is so passionate. We have been able to watch snippets of the games while polishing glasses and making coffee. It does get a bit exciting. Although, we do worry about the effect of the game on our guests. Are they too nervous to eat? Will they leave in disgust and embarrassment as soon as the final whistle has blown? Will they drink to their success or to their sorrow?

Before the semi finals game between the All Blacks and the Wallabies we were busy folding napkins discussing the various merits of Dan Carter and Richie McCaw.

We decided Richie was the one. He seems equally comfortable in both city and country. He is dashing in a suit but undoubtedly ruggedly handsome in a Swandri and gumboots. He can drink a beer with the boys or a cup of tea with your Nana. A bit of a lumberjack but he could probably whip up a sponge cake should he so desire. Gracious in defeat and in victory. And, that jaw line! Our male colleagues were not particularly impressed by this discussion.

This chocolate spiral is from Lois Daish’s fantastic book A Good Year. According to Daish, chocolate spiral is the sort of thing to make in October. Personally, I feel anytime of year would be ideal chocolate spiral eating time.

As I made this spiral cake, re-reading the recipe a thousand times (one can not serve Richie a messy chocolate spiral), I thought this recipe could not possibly work. I poured the chocolate mixture on to the baking tray. It seemed far too runny; it was surely going to bubble off the edges. I was expecting a burnt and blackened mess in the bottom of my stove. I pulled up a chair and took stove-side vigil.

But, instead it came out rather nicely with a light spring to the touch and a smooth finish. I filled the roll with sweet vanilla cream, chocolate may have been nice, but with the black and white it seemed rather fitting at the moment. Like a delicate fern frond, twirled in black and white. Or an All Black shirt, tightly wrapped and white collared.

Signing off like a lovesick teenager, Richie, this is for you.

Chocolate Sponge Spiral
From Lois Daish, A Good Year

3 eggs
75grams icing sugar, plus 2 teaspoons extra
15grams cocoa
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
pinch salt
pinch cream of tartar
10grams cornflour
25grams plain flour

Preheat oven to 210°C. Place a piece of baking paper on a baking tray.

Separate the eggs – yolks into a large bowl, whites into a slightly smaller bowl.

To the yolks add the 75grams icing sugar, cocoa, vanilla essence and salt.

To the whites add the cream of tartar. Beat the whites until just foamy then add the 2tsp icing sugar. Continue to beat until firm and droopy peaks form. (Not hard peaks, you don’t want the mixture to be too dry.)

Without washing the beaters, beat the egg yolk mixture until well combined. Detach the beaters and leave one beater in the bowl.

Mix the cornflour and flour together. Sieve half the mixture into the chocolate egg yolk mix, then add a heaped scoop of the egg whites. Fold gently but thoroughly together with the detached beater.

Sift the remaining flour and cornflour and add the remaining egg whites. Fold together with the detached beater. Lastly, use a plastic spatula to sweep the sides and bottom of the bowl.

Scoop the mixture onto the prepared baking tray and use the spatula to spread into a rectangle about 30cm x 15cm and 1cm thick.

Place in the oven for 8-10 minutes until the cake feels bouncy when gently pressed. Do not overcook or the cake will break when it is rolled.

When the cake is removed from the oven spread a clean tea towel on the bench. Lift the cake and the banking paper and place baking paper side up on the tea towel. Peel off the baking paper. If the paper sticks to the cake brush lightly with warm water and leave to sit for a few minutes.

While the cake is still warm, roll it up loosely and leave to cool on the tea towel on a cake rack. Once completely cooled, unroll and spread a sweetened cream filling. Roll up more tightly.

Sprinkle with icing sugar. This spiral cake is ideal for afternoon tea or dessert.

Oat Cakes

Sometimes, often in the most ordinary of places, or doing the most ordinary of tasks, a food idea pops into my head. While cleaning my teeth, or sitting on a bus, I will quite suddenly be day dreaming of chai syrup cake, or cinnamon raisin muffins, or chilli caramel corn. Maybe they are prompted by a memory, maybe a forgotten item in the pantry, maybe my sub-conscious is simply a melting pot of culinary thoughts.

Last week’s idea was oat cakes. I envisaged quite a substantial cracker, with a slightly flaky crumb held together by the creamy taste and texture of oats. Maybe with a mug of weak black tea and a chopped up apple or piece of dried fruit after dinner. Or paired with a sharp cheddar, a tangy blue and a glass of red wine.

I’ve made oat cakes once before, in year 7. We were studying Scotland and I chose to look at Scottish food. When it came to sharing day, the floury, dry, tasteless oat cakes sat untouched next to the infinitely more popular Kiwi onion dip, Mexican tortilla chips, French baguette and German spice cookies. Eleven year olds were more willing to try sushi over my oat cakes.

I haven’t made oat cakes since but the slightly romantic notion of a rustic cheese platter and a desire for home made crackers has only grown. After my foodie thought of last week, I felt sure I had a recipe for oat cakes in one of my favourite, but somehow forgotten, cook books, A Good Year by Lois Daish. This is a wonderful cookbook. It is a tiny book with a simple cover of a small bowl of cherries. There is no slightly padded coffee table cover with a self promotional picture of a celebrity chef. This book is simple and elegant. Each time I open it I feel I could quite happily work my way through the book, recipe after recipe.

Daish is a New Zealand food writer and the recipes are a compilation from her food column in the Listener magazine. This book follows a calendar year with a lovely introduction for each month focusing on one ingredient. For July, “Intensely sweet, sour and spicy, dark red tamarillos are a perfect tonic for a New Zealand winter.” And for November, “Strawberries, which are the first berries to ripen, are a sweet harbinger of all the berries to come – gooseberries, raspberries, loganberries, boysenberries, blueberries, blackberries, and currents – black and red.” The writing is beautiful.

A Good Year does indeed include a recipe for oat cakes. Daish credits this recipe for oat cakes to Roy Duncan, which he gave to her after she complained her oat cakes tasted a bit like mine from year 7, dried porridge cardboard.

These oat cakes were just as I imagined. Eaten with a crumbly, sharp blue and the last little bit of plum jam, they had a pleasant crunch and a mellow taste.

Roy’s Oatcakes

from Lois Daish, A Good Year

1 cup standard flour
1 cup oatmeal or rolled oats pulsed in a processor
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
50g butter melted in 1/2 cup boiling water

Preheat the oven to 170°C. Mix the dry ingredients together and pour in the butter and hot water. Knead in the bowl until the mixture holds together. Tip onto a lightly floured bench and knead a little more before rolling out thinly. Cut into large squares and use a spatula to transfer to a baking tray lined with baking paper. Bake for 10-15 minutes until light brown and crisp.