Afternoon Tea at Bramble Café E-Book

Mat Follas

• Herausgeber: Ryland Peters & Small
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 144

Beschreibung

Combining comforting recipes, local ingredients and a bit of baking magic, Mat Follas presents an irresistible collection of scrumptious tea time treats. Let yourself be transported to a table adorned with crisp linen, fine china and a cup of your favourite tea for the ultimate afternoon tea experience with BBC MasterChef UK winner Mat Follas. In this enticing collection of recipes for the finest bakes and most irresistible pastries Mat has honed his unique experience as a chef and indulged his passion for home baking. In the first chapter, Cakes & Scones, you will find Mat's perfect recipes for Lemon Drizzle Cake and a Classic Victoria. Slices & Tarts include the magical combination of rhubarb and custard in Mat's take on a classic custard slice. Failsafe Biscuits & Cookies will keep in your pantry for days, ready to whip out for guests for an impromptu afternoon tea. For a more refined occasion try one of the delights from the Dainties & Patisserie chapter; individual Sherry Trifle Verrines or pretty Raspberry Meringue Kisses are the ultimate treat. With ideas for savouries and sandwiches along with recipes for refreshing homemade cordials, memorable jams and jellies and reviving gins and sparkling cocktails you have all the ingredients you need to host the perfect afternoon tea.

Leseprobe

Afternoon teaat Bramble Cafe

Afternoon teaat Bramble Cafe

MASTERCHEF UK WINNER 2009

MAT FOLLAS

photography by Steve Painter

Senior designer Toni Kay

Editors Kate Reeves-Brown and Miriam Catley

Production controller David Hearn

Art director Leslie Harrington

Editorial director Julia Charles

Publisher Cindy Richards

Photography and prop styling Steve Painter

Food stylists Lucy McKelvie and Katy Gilhooly

Indexer Vanessa Bird

First published in 2018 by

Ryland Peters & Small

20–21 Jockey’s Fields, London WC1R 4BW

and 341 E 116th St, New York NY 10029

www.rylandpeters.com

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Text copyright © Mat Follas 2018

Design and photographs copyright

© Ryland Peters & Small 2018

ISBN: 978-1-84975-937-3

eISBN: 978-1-78879-131-1

Printed in China

The author’s moral rights have been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library. US Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

Notes:

• Both British (Metric) and American (Imperial plus US cups) measurements are included in these recipes for your convenience, however it is important to work with one set of measurements only and not alternate between the two within a recipe.

• All spoon measurements are level unless otherwise specified. A teaspoon is 5 ml, a tablespoon is 15 ml.

• All eggs are medium (UK) or large (US), unless specified as large, in which case US extra-large should be used. Uncooked or partially cooked eggs should not be served to the very old, frail, young children, pregnant women or those with compromised immune systems.

• Ovens should be preheated to the specified temperatures. We recommend using an oven thermometer. If using a fan-assisted oven, adjust temperatures according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Contents

Introduction

Cakes & Scones

Slices & Tarts

Biscuits & Cookies

Dainties & Patisserie

Savouries & Sandwiches

Preserves & Cordials

Index

Acknowledgments

Introduction

I grew up in New Zealand, with all of its wonderful Pan-Asian influences, and yet, the food I love and come back to time and time again, is traditional, English fare.

I guess it’s the influence of key personalities in my childhood that runs the deepest. I remember going for afternoon tea with my grandmother in the cafe in Cornwall Park, Auckland. As a child, it felt like entering another world; one where the pace was slower, the tea was served in teapots, and the cakes looked like little works of art. Afternoon tea is a childhood memory I treasure. These days, I’m lucky enough to live in the heart of the English countryside and have a traditional English cafe in the county town where Thomas Hardy lived; Gran would have loved it.

There is, normally, a fantastic sense of satisfaction that comes from baking something delicious; whether it’s a simple biscuit, or something a bit more complicated. Nothing beats the aroma as your baking comes out of the oven, or the smiles you get when it’s eaten.

The recipes in this book include some of the most well-known cafe classics. When I was thinking about opening Bramble Cafe, these ‘firm favourites’ were the recipes I wrote first and they’ve gradually evolved over the last few years into easy, foolproof, well-tested recipes.

Many of the cake recipes are as simple as measuring the ingredients and mixing until combined. In most cases there’s no creaming, or adding one egg at a time, I don’t have the patience for all that, or the attention span, so everything is designed to be as quick and easy as possible.

Bramble Cafe opened in 2016 and was a massive departure from the fine dining restaurant I had run previously. I wanted to cook comfort food and provide an atmosphere of calm familiarity to enjoy it in. I wanted a very customer-friendly alternative to the counter service queuing of modern coffee shops. A small lunchtime menu of traditional delights that you’ll come back for time after time. In the afternoons, we love to serve an afternoon tea, with selections of cakes, scones, treats, savouries, a light cocktail or tea and coffee; it doesn’t matter what your choices are but it does matter that it’s all delicious and fun to eat.

At the cafe we serve simple food, made with great quality ingredients. Much of our food is handmade in-house using ingredients from local producers and we make most of our own jams, chutneys, pickles and sauces. Just like in the pages of this book, there are little influences of my New Zealand upbringing throughout the menu but the predominant theme is delightful, simple, English dishes.

Some of the recipes included here are my versions of classics, Anzac Biscuits and a Victoria Sandwich, for example, but I’ve tried to give you tweaks that make the ingredients easier to measure and the baking more reliable. I’ve updated recipes to metric measurements to help when using digital kitchen scales.

I can’t stress enough the need for fresh ingredients. Eggs that are super fresh will make your cakes rise and hold incredibly well. If you’re using eggs from a supermarket, use an extra pinch of baking powder in the cake recipes.

Baking is a form of chemistry, so scales and accurate temperatures are very important for perfect bakes. Simple digital scales will give you reliable results every time and a probe thermometer will tell you when things are properly baked, whereas using a skewer only checks a small part of the cake. My advice would also be to spend a few pounds/dollars and get an oven thermometer.

I’ve used self-raising/self-rising flour for many recipes. If you don’t have any, you can use regular flour and sift in a level teaspoon of baking powder for every 150 g/1 cup plain/all-purpose flour, as an alternative. If you do this, remember to only use plain/all-purpose flour, as flours for bread-making will make your cakes tough and not rise as well. To tell the difference, look at the percentage of protein in the flour; for baking it should be below 10%.

We make many of our cakes for Bramble Cafe using gluten-free ingredients. So, while this book has not set out to be a gluten-free recipe book, most of the slices, biscuits and denser cakes, like my carrot cake, can be made using the better gluten-free flour mixes and are almost indistinguishable from those made using regular flour. I add one level teaspoon of xanthan gum powder to every 250 g/1¾ cups gluten-free self-raising/self-rising flour and I often add a few dessertspoons of natural/plain yogurt to the cakes and slices to add extra flavour.

I hope you enjoy this book and nothing would give me more pleasure than to be sent a picture of your dog-eared, flour splattered, used regularly, copy. Cookbooks are meant to be used, not kept pristine, so please put this beside your blender, choose a recipe and start cooking!

How to make the perfect cup of afternoon tea

How to make the perfect cup of tea, for all varieties of tea, is not something I can realistically cover in a few words here. Whole books are dedicated to tea making. What I can talk about is my view of how to make the perfect cup of afternoon tea.

A pot of afternoon tea should always be a blend of Assam Indian tea leaves; one teaspoon per person and one for the teapot is a good rule of thumb. You might like it a little stronger, if so, add another teaspoon.

The tea is made with just-boiled water and left for about 3 minutes before serving. Tradition demands that, for luck, the teapot is turned around three times in a clockwise direction during this time, I remember my Grandmother always doing this.

Assam tea is served with a dash of milk in the teacup before the tea is poured. Sugar is optional but really should be used only in the morning, as afternoon tea should always be served with sweet treats.

A pot of Earl Grey tea is also ideal for drinking with afternoon tea; the bergamot zest in the tea leaves gives the tea a lovely zesty and floral flavour. It should be served with similar amounts of tea per teapot to the Assam tea, but with a tiny slice of lemon in the teacup, not milk.

All of the above said, do make your tea how you like it. Add milk to your Earl Grey, pour the milk after the tea or add sugar… it’s your cup of tea after all.

How to make the perfect cup of coffee

To make the perfect coffee is similarly complex in its techniques and varieties as tea. Each culture has a different method of making coffee from traditional thick, gritty, sweet Turkish coffee to the modern cold extraction methods of trendy coffee shops, all delicious but so very different. Assuming you have access to a decent espresso maker, here is my suggested method of making coffee.

The coffee shot should be made from about 20 g/¼ cup finely ground coffee beans to produce about 40–45 g/1½ oz. of espresso coffee. It should take about 25 seconds to make. It’s worth spending some time to ‘tune’ your coffee maker. Adjust your grind until you are achieving this time and weight and you will have a smooth, full-flavoured, double espresso shot of coffee. It goes without saying that you should only use a good-quality roasted coffee; I prefer a medium roast.

The espresso shot can be drunk on its own, but I would drink it like this only in the morning. For afternoon tea, I would pour over 50 ml/3½ tablespoons of just-boiled water to make a ‘long black’, or make a latte or flat white coffee.

To make a latte or flat white, hot milk is added to the cup after the espresso. A latte uses about 250 ml/1 cup steamed milk and a flat white uses about 150 ml/⅔ cup. The milk is steamed using a steam wand in a metal jug/pitcher. Cup the jug/pitcher in your hand and steam the milk in a swirling motion until it is just too hot to touch; about 55˚C/130˚F.

This temperature will create micro bubbles in the milk giving it a smooth, almost silky, texture. Pour the steamed milk over the espresso shot. With practice, you’ll be able to make patterns with the milk like your local coffee shop does.

As with the tea, feel free to ignore most of what I have written and make coffee in your preferred way, but please do try it my way and adapt from there to suit your taste.

Hot chocolate

When we first opened Bramble Cafe, we used to buy very expensive hot chocolate mixes, but have since discovered that we can easily make it ourselves using a good-quality chocolate. With a good chocolate, it won’t need any sugar. I prefer using dark/bittersweet chocolate in my hot chocolate, but the majority of our customers prefer milk chocolate. The chocolate powder keeps well in a cool place, stored in an airtight container.

PREPARE 5 MINUTES / COOK 5 MINUTES

CHOCOLATE POWDER

200 g/7 oz. chilled milk or dark/bittersweet chocolate

VARIATIONS

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons hot chilli/chili powder

50 g/2 oz. extra strong peppermints

grated zest of 2 oranges

TO SERVE (PER CUP)

200 ml/generous ¾ cup milk

30 ml/2 tablespoons double/heavy cream

unsweetened cocoa powder (optional)

mini marshmallows (optional)

whipped cream (optional)

To make the chocolate powder, use a food processor with a grating/shredding attachment. Put the chocolate through the grater in small pieces, so it doesn’t melt or stick together from the friction. It should become the consistency of finely grated/shredded hard cheese.

If you want to try a variation, then use one of the suggestions and combine with the ground chocolate. For the mint hot chocolate, run the peppermints through the grating/shredding attachment, too, to turn them into powder.

Keep the chocolate mix cool and sealed until ready to use.

To make a hot chocolate

If you have access to a steam wand on a coffee machine, pour the milk and 4 teaspoons of the chocolate mixture into a mug. Steam to dissolve the chocolate. Add the cream and stir to finish.

If you don’t have access to a steam wand, pour the cream and 4 teaspoons of the chocolate mixture into a mug. Heat for about 20 seconds in a microwave until the chocolate dissolves. Stir to combine, before adding the milk and again heating in a microwave until it reaches drinking temperature.

Serve as it is, sprinkle with a little cocoa powder, or dress it up with marshmallows and whipped cream for a real treat!

Cakes & scones

Lemon drizzle cake

I made no less than 12 different lemon drizzle cakes when we were thinking about opening the cafe. It’s my first choice of cake with a morning cuppa, so I wanted to get it just right. This recipe is bulletproof and requires very little work as long as you weigh accurately and use fresh eggs. This recipe is also dairy free for any lactose intolerant guests.

PREPARE 10 MINUTES / COOK 60–70 MINUTES

CAKE

5 eggs

approx. 250 g/scant 2 cups self-raising/self-rising flour

approx. 250 ml/1 cup plus 1 tablespoon vegetable oil

approx. 250 g/1¼ cups caster/granulated sugar

grated zest of 2 lemons

DRIZZLE

freshly squeezed juice of 2 lemons

50 g/¼ cup caster/granulated sugar, plus extra for sprinkling

non-stick 900-g/2-lb. loaf pan, lightly oiled and lined with baking parchment

SERVES 8

Preheat the oven to 140˚C (280˚F) Gas 1.

Place your mixing bowl onto your scales and zero the scales. Into the bowl, crack the eggs and make a note of the weight. Add the same weight of flour, oil and sugar, then add the lemon zest.

Mix for a few minutes with a hand-held electric whisk or in a stand mixer until it forms a smooth batter. Pour into the lined loaf pan, then place in the preheated oven for 60 minutes, until a skewer poked into the centre comes out clean and the internal temperature reaches 90˚C/195˚F.

Leave the cake to cool for 20 minutes.

For the drizzle, heat the lemon juice and sugar in a saucepan until the sugar is dissolved.

To finish, use a skewer to make holes in the top of the cake. Drizzle the lemon syrup into the holes and over the top of the cake to infuse the cake with lemon. Remove the cake from the loaf pan and sprinkle a little caster/granulated sugar over the top of the cake to form a lemon crust.

Coffee & walnut cake

The key to making a good coffee and walnut cake is the size of the walnuts. If they are too small, they disappear and the cake tastes bitter; too large and they will sink to the bottom of the cake during baking. About 3 mm/⅛ inch is the perfect size. If you can find Camp Coffee, it makes a wonderful baking flavour; if not, use instant coffee to impart the correct cake flavour.

PREPARE 15 MINUTES / COOK 20–25 MINUTES

CAKE

4 eggs

approx. 200 ml/1 cup vegetable oil

approx. 200 g/1 cup caster/granulated sugar

approx. 200 g/1½cups self-raising/self-rising flour

40 ml/scant 3 tablespoons Camp Coffee or strong instant coffee

100 g/scant 1 cup crushed walnuts (pieces no bigger than 3 mm/⅛ inch in size)

FROSTING

100 g/7 tablespoons butter, softened

250 g/1¾ cups icing/confectioners’ sugar

40 ml/scant 3 tablespoons Camp Coffee or strong instant coffee

pinch of salt

DECORATION

10 walnuts

2 x non-stick 30 x 20-cm/12 x 8-inch brownie pans, lightly oiled and lined with baking parchment

SERVES 10

Preheat the oven to 140˚C (280˚F) Gas 1.

Place a mixing bowl onto scales and set the scales to zero. Into the bowl, crack the eggs and make a note of the weight. Add the same weight of oil, caster/granulated sugar and flour, then add another 50 g/6 tablespoons of flour and the coffee.

Mix for a few minutes with a hand-held electric whisk or in a stand mixer until it forms a smooth batter. Add the crushed walnuts, then mix for another minute until the mixture is fully combined. Pour half into each of the lined brownie pans, then place them in the preheated oven for 20–25 minutes, until a skewer poked into the centre comes out clean and the internal temperature reaches 90˚C/195˚F. Remove from the oven immediately once this temperature is reached, so the cakes don’t dry out.

Leave the cakes to cool for 10 minutes before removing from the pans and finish cooling on a wire rack. Leave until cooled to room temperature for at least 30 minutes before frosting.

Make the frosting by mixing the butter and icing/confectioners’ sugar until smooth and combined. Slowly add the coffee while continuing to mix. Finally, add a pinch of salt and ensure the mixture is fully combined.

Use a bread knife to level the top of the cake if necessary. Using half of the frosting, ice the top of one of the cakes. Now place the second cake on top and coat the top with the remaining frosting. Trim all four sides, then portion into 10 pieces before placing a walnut half on top of each piece.

Carrot cake