Lady Aga

My all time favourite EVER blog (Recipe Rifle by Esther Coren in 2nd place, the Dolly Mail by Dolly Alderton in 3rd)

I still refer to it constantly, although its peak popularity was way back in 2012 – 2015.  It is timeless and the owner Lady Aga has agreed to resurrect it exclusively for Huddle.

The Bio

A blog dedicated to recipes, cakes, baking, restaurants and booze.

Yorkshire born. London based. Labrador greed.

Lemon polenta loaf cake with olive oil and rosemary

If you’re after a rich, sticky and zesty cake with plenty of texture and depth, this unusual sweet loaf is the recipe for you.  For those who prefer a little less bite with their cake, feel free to substitute the polenta for plain flour or whichever gluten free flour substitute you’re choosing to use.  This recipe features gluten free homemade oat flour for no other reason than pure experimentation and a distinct lack of enthusiasm to leave the house and re-fuel the plain flour stock – you know those Sundays…

As far as loaf cakes go, this one floats my boat in a major way; I munched two slices in quick succession with ridiculous ease.  I tried it out on my boss – he suspiciously took a single bite and then abandoned it for a spreadsheet. That was until I told him the recipe is based on one given to me by his wife, at which point he wolfed the remainder, declaring it to be nothing short of amazing.  Who says romance is dead?!

A word on my sunken loaf – I did a bit of research and it seems that, purely by virtue of it being yellow, it stands a less good chance of rising (that’s according to Nigella).  This one was baked at 165 degrees C and should perhaps have gone in at 180 C.  I’ve not tried at the latter temperature so keep an eye on your bake and lower the oven or cover with a cold tray if necessary.  Lastly, once the mix is in the tin, your cake needs to go straight into the oven – rather than messing about with photography and camera settings.  Occupational hazard.

For a loaf cake that yields around 10 slices you’ll need:

For the cake:

6 sprigs rosemary, 3 kept completely intact and the leaves picked from the remaining 3

¾ cup gluten free oats (or plain flour)

¾ cup polenta

zest 2 lemons

2 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

¾ cups caster sugar

½ cup olive oil

4 large eggs

Juice of 1 lemon

For the glaze:

Juice of 2 lemons

180g caster sugar

Grease and line a loaf tin (mine measured 20cm/ 8″ x 13cm/ 5″at its widest point) and pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees C.

Tip your oats and picked rosemary sprigs into a grinder or strong blender and blitz until you have a flour-like consistency.  If you’re using plain flour, finely chop the rosemary and mix with the flour.

In a large bowl mix your flavoured flour (oat or plain) with the polenta, lemon zest, baking powder and salt – set these dry ingredients to one side until needed.

In a free standing mixer, beat together your olive oil and sugar.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating in between each addition.

Pour in the juice of 1 lemon and stir through the dry ingredients.

Mix quickly until just combined and then pour the batter into your loaf tin, arranging the 3 remaining rosemary sprigs over the top of the cake.

Bake until completely cooked – around 45 minutes.

Whilst the cake is baking, make your lemon glaze by heating together the juice of 2 lemons and 180g caster sugar until thick and syrupy and reduced in quantity by around a third.

When your cake is cooked, remove from the oven and set the tin onto a wire rack to cool.

Then pour over the lemon glaze, wait for it to cool, slice and serve!

Salmon with a guacamole quinoa

The end product

Place your vine tomatoes on a baking tray, season well and drizzle with olive oil

Roast for 15 minutes and then turn the heat down to 150 degrees and continue to cook for around half an hour or so, or until the tomatoes are wilted and caramelised and looking like this.  Remove from the oven.

Pour your water and quinoa into a large lidded saucepan and bring to the boil, simmer gently for around 12-15 minutes, or until all the water is absorbed.  You shouldn’t take the lid off and stir but I sometimes shake mine about to make sure all the grains are submerged and doing their thang.

When it’s looking cooked (ie. when those weird sprouty things have appeared), remove the pan from the heat and place a sheet of kitchen paper between the pan and the pan lid (I imagine a clean tea towel would also do the trick).  Leave for five minutes and then fluff-up the quinoa with a fork.

During the quinoa cooking time you can soak your onion with the juice of one lime

Take half the tomatoes, pluck them from their stalks (maybe use rubber gloves if they’re still scalding hot) and add them to the quinoa pan.  Combine with the chopped coriander, garlic, chilli, remaining lime juice and onions

Mix up your quinoa and season well, add a few more glugs of olive oil and mix in the tomato juices from the roasting pan

Peel, de-stone your avocado

Chop and add to the quinoa mixMix well and top with the remaining cherry tomato sprigs, decant into a serving dish if you’re feeling fancy

Heat some oil in a frying pan (I was feeling all Miranda Kerr virtuous so went down the coconut oil route), when the oil is smoking lay down your salmon fillets (skin side first if using salmon fillets with skin on).  Fry for around 2 minutes or until golden, flip and fry for a further minute.

Plate up with the guacamole quinoa

Dutch Baby with Salted Caramel Apples

From the very moment the Dutch Baby crossed my radar, I knew it would be love at first bite.  Despite this immediate insight, it’s still taken me years to get around to baking one of these fluffy pancake/ Yorkshire pudding hybrids –  wasted, empty and meaningless years, I tell you.  Why I waited so long is a mystery, I had the skillet and the appetite so who knows.  With pancake day upon us, it’s an ideal solution for those who – like me –  can’t be faffed with the flipping.  Sorry, but sometimes there are just not enough hours in the day, and this is where the Dutch Baby -with its low maintenance ‘just leave me in the oven and I’ll do my own sweet thing’, laissez faire attitude – comes into its own.  Paired with tender caramelised apples and a generous glug of double cream, you’ve got the perfect pudding, be it Shrove Tuesday or any other day of the year.

For 1 greedy serving, you’ll need:

1 cast iron skillet, or an oven-proof pan (mine measures 5″ diameter, larger pans will obviously accommodate more batter)

40g butter (25g for your apples and 15g for the Dutch Baby)

25g light soft brown sugar

1 apple (Braeburn or Cox would work well, alternatively use half a cooking apple), peeled, cored and cut into thick slices

1 pinch Maldon sea salt

3 tbsp plain flour

3 tbsp whole milk

1 tsp sugar

1 large egg

Double cream, for serving

Icing sugar, for dusting

Pre-heat your oven to 220 Degrees C and then make a start on your salted caramel apples;

In a small saucepan over a medium heat, melt 25g butter and add the light soft brown sugar.  Stir until mixed.

Tip in your apples and stir until well coated with the butter sugar syrup, sprinkle over the sea salt.

Cook over a medium heat for around 7 minutes – the caramel will bubble and thicken slightly and the apples should be cooked through and tender, but still holding their shape.

Turn off the heat, but leave the saucepan on the hob.

Now make your batter by whisking together the flour, milk, sugar and egg in a jug.

Put the remaining 15g butter into your skillet and place the skillet in the oven.

Once the butter is fully melted, pour your batter into the skillet and quickly return to the oven so that you don’t lose too much heat.

Bake your Dutch Baby for around 18 minutes or until puffed-up and golden; the rule of cakes applies here, if you can smell it then it’s likely cooked through.

Remove the Dutch Baby from the oven, top with the salted caramel apples, pour over double cream and dust with icing sugar.

Serve straight away.