In week 8 of the Leiths Confident Cooking course we deboned wood pigeon and made strudel from scratch.

Apple strudel

I really enjoyed this class. It never occurred to me that we would be making the filo pastry for the apple strudel from scratch. Nor that making filo would be so much fun. Who knew?

The ingredients for filo were simple: plain flour, salt, egg, water and oil. We mixed the ingredients to make a soft dough and then had to whack it repeatedly to strengthen the proteins and make it elastic. This was awesome stress release as we could be quite vigorous and there’s really no chance of overdoing it, although occasionally the pastry flew off and hit the floor. The instructors implemented a ‘five-second rule’ to ensure the dough was not wasted.

It reached the right consistency when we could pull the dough like a long elastic band without it snapping. We then put it aside while we prepared the filling - apple, currants, sultanas, raisins, brown sugar, cinnamon, ground cloves, browned breadcrumbs, lemon zest and juice.

After 15 minutes we each rolled our pastry out flat with a rolling pin, before easing our fingers underneath and dancing them around to stretch the dough until it until it was paper thin. I’ve seen pizza makers do something similar with pizza dough but this is much thinner. We worked in pairs for this last bit as we ended up with more than a square foot of pastry. The result was thin, large sheet of filo. We trimmed the edges, brushed it with melted butter and then put the filling. Then we rolled it up using the same method as for the roulade or sushi.

It’s possible to do individual servings but as I was making one big strudel, I followed the suggestion to arrange the strudel in a traditional horseshoe shape. Then the strudel baked it in the oven for 40 minutes until golden brown. The result was mind-bogglingly good - it would have been even better with some ice cream or crème anglaise but it was great on its own.

NB This post is labelled vegetarian for the strudel - the next dish is meat based.

Wood pigeon and black pudding salad

I wouldn’t dream of eating one of those dirty pigeons from Trafalgar Square but these little birds are quite a different beast altogether. This was partly a lesson in knife skills - the birds came whole and we learnt how to slice off the breast. Our instructor commented that this would be useful if any of us have friends with husbands who shoot - although a much bigger bird, you can apparently deal with a pheasant the same way and it saves you the trouble of plucking it. This was well meant but I did find it amusing - dealing with gifts of pheasants from husbands of friends who attend country shooting weekends is not generally a part of my life. Still you never know.

I discovered I really liked the taste of pigeon - it’s very dark and gamey, a lot like venison. We fried the pigeon and also smoked bacon cut into lardons and chunks of black pudding - separately so we didn’t contaminate anything with burnt bits. The meats went into the salad with lamb lettuce, croutons and balsamic dressing.

I must admit it did taste good though I remain dubious about the black pudding. Objectively speaking the black pudding tasted great. Subjectively speaking I was never not conscious of the fact that I was eating congealed blood. I’m not particularly sure I would make this - it’s not worth the effort for one, and I wouldn’t serve it at a dinner party unless I knew my guests were fans of black pudding. However, I might explore other possibilities for pigeon and would certainly order it at a restaurant.

I am keen to try out more healthy and diet-friendly recipes and also expand my knowledge of vegetarian cookery. I also love lasagne and believe that a good vegetarian lasagne is an essential dish in any cook’s repertoire. This recipe for lentil, mushroom and ricotta lasagne comes from The Low GI Vegetarian Cookbook by Dr Jennie Brand-Miller, Kaye Foster-Powell, Kate Marsh and Philippa Sandall. As the title of the book suggests, it’s both low GI and vegetarian. It serves six and the nutrition details per serve are: 1797 kilojoules (429 calories); 14g fat (saturated fat 6g); 7g fibre; 24g protein; 50g carbohydrate.

Lentil, mushroom and ricotta lasagne
Serves 6 * Preparation time: 20 minutes * Cooking time: 1 hour * Cooling time: 5 minutes

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 brown onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, peeled, finely chopped
1 stick celery, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon freshly chopped thyme leaves
1 tablespoon tomato paste
400g (14 oz) can chopped tomatoes
400g (14 oz) can brown lentils, rinsed
400g (14 oz) button mushrooms, sliced
salt and freshly ground black pepper
500g (1 lb 2 oz) low fat ricotta
1 egg
125ml (4 fl oz / 1/2 cup) skim milk
pinch nutmeg
4 (30 x 16cm / 12 x 6 1/2 inch) fresh lasagne sheets
25g (1 oz / 1/4 cup) finely grated parmesan

1. Heat half the oil in a large, heavy-based saucepan over medium-low heat. Add the onion, carrot and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, for 6-8 minutes, or until the vegetables soften. Add the garlic and thyme and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the tomato paste and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the tomatoes and lentils and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes or until sauce thickens. Remove from heat and set aside.

2. Heat the remaining oil in a large pan, add the mushrooms and cook, stirring, for 3-4 minutes, or until slightly soft. Season and remove from heat.

3. Preheat oven to 180C (350F / Gas 4). Lightly oil a 2 litre (2 quart / 8 cup) ovenproof dish. Combine the ricotta, egg, milk and nutmeg in a bowl.

4. To assemble the lasagne, place a sheet of lasagne in the base of the prepared dish. Top with a third of the lentil mixture, scatter over a third of the mushrooms and smooth over a third of the ricotta mixture. Repeat these steps. Then top with a third lasagne sheet, the remaining lentils and mushrooms, then a fourth lasagne sheet, and finally the remaining ricotta. Sprinkle over the parmesan.

5. Bake for 30 minutes, or until top is golden and bubbling. Set aside to rest for 5 minutes before cutting.

Road test
A note on ingredients: I used vegetable oil instead of olive oil and substituted dried Italian herbs in place of fresh thyme. I also used full-fat ricotta and semi-skimmed milk rather than the low-fat ricotta and skimmed milk specified, so my calorie and fat count would be slightly higher than indicated on the recipe. I cooked French brown lentils from scratch instead of using canned lentils, omitted the tomato paste and added a teaspoon of miso paste to enhance the tomato vegetable sauce. My fresh lasagne sheets were small, so I had to use two sheets per layer instead of one.

Method: The recipe was very easy to follow and it didn’t take too long, even allowing for an extra 20 minutes to cook my dried lentils. Most of the cooking time is in the oven and doesn’t require close attention. I followed the metric measurements.

Result: This is a satisfying and tasty dish - it’s hard to believe it’s diet food. The portions were more than adequate, especially when served with a garden salad, and the leftovers were great for lunch or a quick supper throughout the week.

Verdict
It’s great to find vegetarian recipes that don’t rely on fake meat for protein but still taste really good. I have tried vegetarian lasagne recipes before and this is definitely my favourite so far. What a bonus that it’s also so healthy! I would definitely make this again. Next time I would probably still add the miso to give it a very full flavour but maybe only half a teaspoon as I found it quite strong (though my partner couldn’t taste it).

My second week at Leiths just about kept me fed for the rest of the week! I had quail with peas for dinner both Wednesday and Thursday night and then took the cake to a friend’s dinner party last night.

Chocolate and ginger roulade

In the kitchen we started with dessert - a chocolate and ginger roulade. Also called a swiss roll, this is basically a cake layered with cream and other fillings and then rolled to make a log. We used whipped cream and ginger jam for the centre but the beauty of the recipe is that you can use anything - jam, fresh berries, chestnut cream - so the varieties are endless. The other nice thing is that it doesn’t include any flour - the cake is just eggs and chocolate and sugar - so it’s suitable for people on a gluten-free diet (though not a weight-loss diet unfortunately!).

To make the roulade, we melted chocolate and water over low heat. Apparently if you use a high temperature then the chocolate can acquire a bitter flavour or worse, separate. The only thing we needed to separate was the eggs - five of them. The Leiths teachers are full of useful tricks - for example, cracking the eggs on the bench rather than the side of the bowl helps prevent leakage of yolk into the whites or vice versa. You carefully transfer the yolk back and forth between the two halves of shell, letting the white run out into the bowl. The key is to make sure you don’t get any yolk in the egg white, though a bit of egg white in the yolk is not the end of the world.

We blended the yolk and sugar and then added the chocolate to make a lovely mousse. Separately we whisked the egg whites until they had stiff peaks and then gently folded the whites into the mousse, trying not to lose all the air. We spread the mixture out on a paper-lined tray and baked it in the oven, meanwhile whipping the cream and mixing it with ginger jam. When it was done we tipped it upside down on a rack to cool and covered it with a damp tea towel to prevent cracking. The final part, which we actually did at the end when we were done with the quails, was to spread it with cream and then use another sheet of paper to roll it, similar to the method for rolling sushi and taking care not to roll the paper up in the cake! Voila! It was very tasty too.

Quails with peas

The main was quails cooked with peas and pancetta. We used thick, old-fashioned pancetta so we had to cut the rind off and then dice it, but it would probably work with other varieties or with bacon. We browned the pancetta, the onions and garlic, and the quails (all separately) and then cooked it with sage and garden peas in stock and white wine. It was a little bit fiddly but it would be great for a small dinner party as the result was quite impressive - the meat was tender and juicy and the pea and pancetta sauce was incredibly flavourful.

I’m excited about next week - we’re making a Sri Lankan red chicken curry and Indian dhal.

I am mostly a self-taught cook. I learnt the basics from my mum and dad and since then my cooking repertoire has expanded through cookbooks and magazines, sharing recipes and ideas with friends, and playing around in the kitchen inventing new dishes from random ingredients. I guess it’s been a moderately successful approach as I like to think that I am a competent cook if not a spectacular one. I have my weak spots (I’ve never made custard, for example) but I also have my strengths (salads, Italian and Asian food).

That’s all going to change because I have signed up to do a course at Leiths School of Food and Wine in west London. I wanted to do it partly because I’ve been getting into food writing (both blogging and articles) and mostly just because I thought it would be fun. I’m just doing an amateur course but even that was a 10 week commitment and a bill in the vicinity of £600.

I chose the Confident Cooking course rather than the Beginners course as I thought it was better to challenge myself than to waste the money on learning things I already knew. That’s lucky as I think it’s definitely going to be a challenge! My first class was last night and we supposedly started off easy, with choux pastry, aubergine and prosciutto gougere, and chocolate and sour cherry biscuits. I found the choux pastry quite challenging actually - we had to melt butter in water, then bring it to a rising boil, then remove it from the heat, quickly add sifited flour and, in the words of the instructor, “beat it to billy-o”. Then we had to slowly add beaten egg until it would “easily but reluctantly” fall off the spoon. Fortunately there was lots of help on hand and it turned out fine. We get to take the food home afterwards so my fridge and pantry is stocked with goodies and I’m going to fill the pastry case with the gougere tonight and bake it for my dinner.

I’ll report back every week on what we make and how I’m finding the course, so please subscribe to make sure you don’t miss future posts in the series.

If you are visiting the West Country in England, there is one thing you should know. It is compulsory to eat cream tea in Cornwall and Devon. Seriously.

Cream tea is scones with jam and clotted cream and proper black tea in a teapot. In Australia we usually call this ‘Devonshire tea’ but this is wrong on two counts. Firstly, there is great dispute between Cornwall and Devon over who first invented the artery-clogging afternoon tea, so some might argue it should be called ‘Cornish tea’. (Just as there is now dispute between the two counties over the origins of Cornish pasties, and between Australia and New Zealand over pavlova). Secondly, the key to cream tea is that it is made with clotted cream. Whipped cream is just not the same.

Clotted cream is made by cooking the cream to reduce the liquid, and it is thick and yellowy, often with crusty bits. It tastes quite different to butter and doesn’t have the same melting properties. A scoop of clotted cream looks like vanilla ice cream, but unlike ice cream or whipped cream, you can serve it with hot apple pie (for example) and it won’t melt.

When I went to Cornwall, I was told a legend about the origins of clotted cream. The story goes that a Phoenician sea king who had been blown off course taught the secret of clotted cream to a Cornish housewife. This may even contain a kernel of truth since the Lebanese and Turks still make something very similar today. But, apparently there is another legend from Devon, involving a princess who lived in an oak tree and some ‘piskies’.

Cream tea is to be found all over Cornwall and Devon. This one (eaten yesterday) is from a little tea house in a village in Dartmoor, Devon. My favourite places are farm houses that serve homemade cream teas during the summer, but the tea rooms in the towns are not bad either. I have had cream tea in other parts of the country as well but it’s not the same - in the Cotswolds it felt like a honey trap for the tour buses and American tourists. It was lovely in Yorkshire but it was a full meal with sandwiches as well.

I do believe it’s a crime to go to Cornwall or Devon and not partake of at least one cream tea. But a mini cream tea is definitely allowed - the serves tend to be generous and it’s all rather filling and fattening.

Who can resist these beautiful macaroons from Yauatcha? See how pretty they are in their box with all the different colours lined up. Even the packaging - a hard box with a ribbon and a frosted stiff plastic bag - is gorgeous.

After reading about the macaroons in Time Out and blogging about them yesterday, our fate was sealed. We had to try them out. It’s an enormously decadent treat - one box of 18 macaroons cost about £25 - but oh boy, are they good. So far we’ve tried a blue one with a blackcurrant filling, a white speckled one with a sesame paste, and a green tea-flavoured one.

At those prices, I can’t see us bringing them home terribly often, but they would make a lovely gift for someone. Meanwhile, I’m definitely going to try making them.

Yauatcha
Address: 15-17 Broadwick St, W1F 0DL
Tel: +44 (0)20 7494 8888
Tube: Oxford Circus or Piccadilly Circus

My mother sent me off to university with a folder full of her recipes, including this one for spinach pie. It’s one of my very favourite meals and always a hit in my household. I love the combination of sweet spinach with rich, salty feta, wrapped in delicious flaky pastry.

You can use the same filling for cheese and spinach triangles, which make great party food. I usually make a pie, which is less fiddly and makes a good vegetarian main course. It’s actually incredibly easy - about 20 minutes prep and then it bakes in the oven for 45 minutes to an hour.

Spinach and friends

The pie is named after Popeye’s favourite food but you can actually use a variety of leaves, not just spinach. The term “spinach” has different meanings in different countries anyway.

In Australia, there is a vegetable with white stems and shiny, rippled, dark green leaves that tastes very similar to spinach. Australians often call this “spinach” or, when they are being precise, they call it “silverbeet”. True spinach is usually called “English spinach”.

In the UK, “English spinach” is just called “spinach”. It’s fine to use this, though I would recommend you get the adult leaves if you can. The baby spinach leaves used for salad are expensive and the flavour is not as strong, which is great for eating them raw but not so suitable for cooking. I have also tried frozen spinach and this works fine but the flavour is not as good.

You can also get “silverbeet” in the UK except here it’s called “Swiss chard”. There is also a variant called “rainbow chard”, which has a bright red stem and some red colouring on the mostly green leaves. You can use either type and the taste will be similar, but obviously the rainbow version will add pretty red streaks to the white and green of the pie filling.

Last year I did a food writing course at the Arvon Foundation with Sophie Grigson and Alastair Hendy. With eight budding food writers on the course, plus our tutors and the Arvon staff, we ate fabulous meals almost every night. Since we had vegetarians on the course, I contributed this pie to one of the meals. We had a bit of a shortage of either chard or spinach but Sophie taught me that you can use the stems and leaves of beetroot. Meanwhile, John who works at Arvon, taught me that you can use the tender new leaves of stinging nettle, and we actually went out the back of the farmhouse in Devon where the Arvon courses are taught and collected nettle to add to the pie.

Sophie suggested it should really be called “green pie”, but I persist in calling it “spinach pie” since that’s what I grew up calling it, and I think it’s more meaningful to most people.

My personal preference is to use silverbeet/chard, which has a sweeter flavour than English spinach, and I use the stems as well, finely sliced to give it extra texture and flavour. Some spinach pie recipes use ricotta but I prefer my version, with feta and cottage cheese.

Pastry and friends

A friend in Austria told me that he makes his filo from scratch. This impresses me enormously but it’s a highly specialist skill so I do recommend you buy filo - this is what most professionals do anyway. Filo is generally for sale in both the refrigerated section and frozen aisle of the supermarket. I prefer the refrigerated kind as it’s ready to work with immediately. If you can only find the frozen kind, you will need to let it thaw as it is very brittle when frozen. Don’t try microwaving it as the pastry will stick together and turn into glue! It sometimes comes in two sizes - buy the bigger one if possible, but you can get pretty good results by layering smaller sheets if necessary.

It is essential to brush oil or melted butter between each sheet of pastry as this is what gives it the lovely flaky layered effect. Otherwise the pastry sticks together in clumps and is quite dull. My mother always used melted butter but I generally use oil as it’s healthier and also easier since you don’t have to melt it first. I’ve been told that egg whites are a substitute but this didn’t work for me - I just wound up with all the pastry sticking together in one ultra crunchy sheet. I’ve also been told that a mix of whole eggs and milk beaten together can also work - this worked better but was not wholly satisfactory either. I would say stick to oil and if you are trying to reduce fat, you could probably get away with only brushing every second sheet.

Recipe

Ingredients

Filo pastry, 12 sheets

Oil (olive oil is nice but any plain cooking oil is fine) or melted butter, 100g

Spinach or silverbeet/chard or other green leaves, 2 bunches or 1 generous bunch

Plain cottage cheese, 200g

Feta cheese, 200g (chopped into small cubes)

Eggs, 3 (it doesn’t really matter if they are medium or large but do buy free range or organic if you can!)

Garlic, 1 clove (crushed or finely chopped)

Salt and pepper

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C.
2. Rinse the spinach well. Plunge it into boiling water for a minute or two and then drain. Leave to cool and then ring the leaves out by hand to remove as much liquid as possible.
3. Mix the eggs, feta, cottage cheese, garlic, and salt and pepper in a bowl. Mix in the leaves.
4. Take a rectangular baking dish and layer six sheets of pastry, brushing oil or melted butter between each sheet.
5. Spoon the spinach and cheese on top of the pastry and spread evenly.
6. Add another six layers of pastry, brushing oil between each layer and on the top sheet (this will make it brown).
7. Bake in the oven until golden brown. This will take at least 45 minutes and may take up to an hour and 15 minutes depending on your oven. You can turn up the oven a little but not too much as you want the filling to cook through without burning the pastry.
8. Serves four to six people. It’s nice with a green salad or some roast pumpkin/squash.

I hope you enjoy it! This is definitely something that I would recommend trying and you can make adjustments to suit your own taste and lifestyle.

This a guest post from Rose, also known as Pixie, a New Yorker now living in the UK. Pixie blogs at You Say Tomato, I Say Tomato and A SweeTart.

I consider myself to be a fairly ‘new cook’. There are a few recipes I’ve learned from my Maltese mother and my blog is my personal journey of learning how to cook; trying new recipes and improving the few I do know. Originally, living in NY a majority of my life I love food from all cultures. My main food blog is You Say Tomato, I Say Tomato and I’ve recently discovered how much I enjoy baking and started my sweet blog, A SweeTart.

Rhubarb has been appearing everywhere and since I’d never tasted it before I thought I would attempt Nigella Lawson’s Rhubarb Tart recipe from one of her many books, How To Be a Domestic Goddess. I chose this recipe because I’ve yet to try any of her recipes from this book.

Rhubarb Tart

Ingredients
for the filling
1kg rhubarb (untrimmed weight)
300g caster sugar

for the pastry
150g plain flour
1 tablespoon caster sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
85g cold unsalted butter, diced
85g cold cream cheese, diced
2-3 tablespoons cold double cream, to bind

for the cream cheese filling
200g cream cheese
200ml double cream
2 tablespoons caster sugar
4 tablespoons muscat or rum

for the glaze
6 tablespoons rhubarb juice, reserved from stewing

Equipment
1 deep 23cm flan tin or shallow 25cm tin.

Method
Heat the oven to 190C/gas mark 5.

Trim and cut the rhubarb into 2cm pieces, place in a shallow ovenproof dish (I use a Pyrex dish of about 20cm x 30cm), pour the sugar over the rhubarb and toss it all together so that the sugar is well dispersed. Cover with foil and cook for about 45 minutes, or until tender. When you take the rhubarb out, slip in a baking sheet. When the rhubarb cools, strain it and reserve the juice.

Meanwhile, get on with making the pastry. Using a food processor, mix the dry ingredients, then add the butter and cheese and pulse to make a crumbly mixture. Bind with the cream, pulsing sparingly. Let the pastry rest in the fridge for at least 20 minutes before lining your tart tin. After you’ve rolled the pastry out and lined the tin with it, put it back in the fridge for another 20 minutes.

Remove from the fridge and line with foil. Fill the pastry case with baking beans (though you could just as well use any dried beans) and put on the sheet in the oven for 15 minutes. Gingerly remove the beans and foil and cook for a further 5 minutes or until it’s turning golden brown and is cooked through. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

When you want to assemble the tart (and you can do the steps above a good day in advance, though keep the cooked and cooled flan case in an airtight container), reduce about 6 tablespoons of the reserved juice to a syrup by boiling it robustly in a small saucepan. Don’t leave this unattended, though, as the juices will become thickly syrupy within a matter of minutes.

Now for the filling: use a whisk, soften the cream cheese, then add the cream, whipping until it has mixed well and thickened slightly. Take care not to over-beat - this must be voluptuous and undulating. Add the sugar and muscat (which is lovely to drink with the tart) or rum, stir to a soft marscapone consistency, then drizzle over your puce-pink glaze. Stand back and admire - then eat.

Makes about 8 slices.

Road Test

Ingredients
Since I didn’t have any muscat and rum was an option, I used 3 tablespoons of dark rum. I believe this was likely the main reason I didn’t care for her filling. Perhaps, white rum would have been better. Still, I feel the rum was overly powerful in the recipe. I would suggest those who attempt her rhubarb tart to get hold of the muscat.

Method
The instructions were quite easy to follow and it’s not very difficult at all. However, I feel she could add a few more sentences to explain the method of making the tart. Such as, explaining the desired firmness of the rhubarb, how thin the pastry should be rolled out, the importance of greasing your tart pan. (New bakers like myself sometimes forget to do these things!). The few changes I made to the recipe was using 3 tablespoons of dark rum, instead of 4 tablespoons and adding a bit of lemon peel to the pastry and allowing a further 10 minutes for the pastry to cook.

Results
The rhubarb was quite shredded, not making it much of a pretty sight. However, it had an interesting tart taste combined with sweetness. For me, the filling was over powerful and the pastry was a disaster. It lacked flavour and I’m still not certain if it was because it was undercooked or it was just the taste of the pastry itself. My father-in-law enjoyed it, so I gave him the rest of the tart (all ¾) of it.

Verdict

I don’t believe I would make this again. There are so many rhubarb recipes out there that I would like to try. I’m not entirely sure what to make of rhubarb yet, it had an interesting tart flavour to it but I’m not convinced of its brilliance.

I’m not completely turned off by rhubarb, but would likely be far fussier about what recipe to follow. I would want one that was previously tested and was given rave reviews. If I were to ever try this recipe again, I would surely make changes to it. I would reduce the cooking time of the rhubarb, lesson or omit the alcohol (perhaps trying muscat instead) and likely get rid of her pastry recipe altogether.

Julia over at A Slice of Cherry Pie is running this month’s In the Bag competition, which challenges us cooks and food bloggers to cook and eat more seasonal food. The ingredients for January are pears, lemon and nuts. For example, Julia has created a pear, smoked cheddar and walnut salad, while at new food blog A Forkful of Spaghetti we are treated to pear and hazelnut brioche toasts.

I decided to put my baking hat on and make some muffins, flavoured with pear, lemon zest and almond. I’m very pleased with how they turned out, especially considering that I was adapting a recipe and I wasn’t sure it would work. They were light and fluffy, with yummy crispy bits on top, and the combination of flavours went together very well. The only thing I would do differently is possibly to tone down the lemon. It tasted great but it did overshadow the pear. I used zest of one lemon; I would say zest of between half and one lemon would be perfect.

Ingredients

All measurements are metric, so 1 cup is equivalent to 250ml.

First bowl: 1 large pear, peeled, cored and diced
Zest of 1/2 to 1 lemon
1 tablespoon almond flour
24 blanched almonds, sliced in half
1 egg
100g vegetable oil
1 cup milk

Second bowl: 2 cups self raising flour
1/2 cup sugar

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 200C. Grease a 12-cake muffin tin with butter. Mix together the contents of the first bowl, then slowly add the flour and sugar, stirring as you go. When the batter is thoroughly mixed, spoon into the muffin tin, aiming for an even quantity of batter, pear and almonds in each one. Bake for 18-20 minutes, until golden-brown.

I had this for Christmas brunch but it’s also great as a dessert or as a festive brunch any time of year.

My cousin Rhia has a family tradition of making Scandinavian pancake for Christmas brunch. They are quite decadent but surprisingly easy to make so they are perfect for Christmas morning, especially if your serious eating is not to be done until later in the day. Although it is called a pancake, it is actually baked in an oven and I suspect some magic might be involved since they rise and go all fluffy and golden despite the absence of yeast.

I made this for my boyfriend and me this Christmas and it was a great hit. I had one slice with homemade cranberry and rhubarb sauce (cook cranberries and chopped rhubarb in their own juices and sweeten) and Greek yogurt and a second slice with fresh blueberries and raspberries and maple syrup. Yum!

I thought I would share the recipe, but it’s not technically a road test since I have made it before. The quantities below serve between four and eight depending on whether it is dessert or brunch and how hungry people are.

Ingredients

1/4 cup butter (equivalent to 2oz or 60g)
3 large, free-range eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
6 tbs sugar
3/4 cup plain flour
1/4 tsp fine salt

[A note on measurements: This is an American recipe so a cup equals 8 fluid ounces. This is pretty close to a metric cup measurement of 250ml. I don't have kitchen scales here in New York so I can't tell you the weights].

Method

Preheat oven to 220C or 425F. Put butter into a wide (20cm or 9 inches) oven-proof pan and melt it in the oven. Meanwhile, beat the eggs, milk, sugar, flour and salt until smooth. Remove the pan from the oven and pour the mixture into the hot pan. Bake for 30 minutes. The pancake will inflate like a balloon and the outer skin should be crisp and golden. Serve in wedges with your favourite toppings.