The Kitchen Diaries II. Nigel Slater

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      FEBRUARY 18

      Little cakes – getting a good start

      It is the creaming together of the butter and sugar that tends to get overlooked by those new to cake making. Yes, the raising agent – baking powder or self-raising flour – plays an essential part in the texture of your cake, but the amount of time you give to the initial creaming should never be underestimated.

      The right beater helps. A wooden spoon and elbow grease will work, but things have moved on, and a machine of some sort will give a quicker and frankly better result. A hand-held electric beater or an electric mixer has the power to produce a vastly superior mixture, where the sugar and butter are whipped up into something resembling soft ice cream, like an old-fashioned Mr Whippy.

      Little cakes are a good place to start. Individual cakes are usually better-natured than a larger, family-sized sponge, and any shortcomings can be more easily masked. Not for nothing the success of the ubiquitous buttercream-crowned cupcake.

      I’m guessing here, but I suspect the world doesn’t need another cupcake recipe, which is why I set about making something with a little more heart and soul. A cake with a backbone, not to mention an interesting texture, which comes from rolled oats and dried apricots. It’s as near as I can get to giving you a cupcake recipe.

Little apricot and oat cakes

      You will need about 16 paper muffin cases and a couple of muffin trays or tart tins to hold them.

      butter, at room temperature: 225g

      golden caster sugar: 225g

      eggs: 3

      dried apricots: 160g

      self-raising flour: 225g

      chopped mixed candied peel: a tablespoon

      the grated zest of an orange

      rolled oats: 3 tablespoons

      a little demerara sugar

      Set the oven at 180°C/Gas 4. Put the butter into a food mixer with the sugar and beat together until light and fluffy. The mixture should be pale, almost the colour of double cream. Break the eggs and beat them lightly, just to break them up, then beat them into the butter and sugar mixture a little at a time. Chop the apricots in a food processor till they resemble fine orange grit.

      Add the flour to the cake mixture, through a sieve if you wish, stirring gently with a large metal spoon until no flour is visible. Stir in the chopped apricots, peel and orange zest.

      Divide between the paper muffin cases, scatter with the oats and a good pinch of demerara sugar and bake in the preheated oven for twenty to thirty minutes, until risen (they may sink slightly in the centre) and golden brown.

      Makes about 16

      FEBRUARY 19

      The beauty of kale

      When it is touched with frost, it is hard to picture a leaf so beautiful as kale, even more than a nasturtium with morning dew caught in its veins. But there is more to it than that. The frost will sweeten the strident notes of the brassica, just as it does with sprouts and parsnips.

      Cabbage and pork is an age-old marriage that I am still finding new versions of. Brussels sprouts, fried and tossed with bacon and cream, was a recent one; white cabbage with crumbled black pudding; a salad of sprouted broccoli and shredded coppa. All variations on a theme that works brilliantly. Chorizo has a spiciness that goes nicely with kale but, more importantly, it has great pearls of fat that will work the same magic with the dark, bitter leaves as sausages do for sauerkraut and streaky bacon does for Brussels sprouts.

      Kale with chorizo and almonds

      Good-quality cooking chorizo is not the cheapest of meats but I find a little goes a long way. When this recipe was first published in my column I was asked why I suggested discarding the oil, especially as it contains so much chorizo flavour. A good point, but I felt there was enough fat in the dish already. So the suggestion is just that. Leave the spicy, orange, liquid fat in, if you wish.

      curly kale: 250g

      soft cooking chorizo: 250g

      skinned whole almonds: 50g

      a little groundnut or sunflower oil

      a clove of garlic, peeled and crushed

      Wash the kale thoroughly – the leaves can hold grit in their curls. Put several of the leaves on top of one another and shred them coarsely, discarding the really thick ends of the stalks as you go.

      Cut the chorizo into thick slices. Warm a non-stick frying pan over a moderate heat, add the slices of chorizo and fry until golden. Lift them out with a draining spoon on to a dish lined with СКАЧАТЬ