Little Eden
Page 34
200g white plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 teaspoons ground ginger
¼ teaspoon sea salt
100g soft light brown sugar
2-3 medium sized eggs (beaten)
200ml sunflower (or vegetable oil of your choice)
200g peeled and grated carrots (approx. 2 small carrots)
100g chopped walnuts
170g ginger biscuits crumbled up into small pieces.
Method:
Sieve the flour, baking powder, bicarb’, ginger and salt into a bowl.
In a separate bowl put the sugar, eggs and oil and stir with a wooden spoon until all combined.
Add the mixed wet ingredients to the flour mix and combine them well. Stir in the grated carrot, walnuts and crumbled biscuits but do not over mix.
Spoon into muffin cases, filling nearly to the top. Bake at 170 degrees for 25 minutes. Check with a skewer or knitting needle; if it comes out clean they are done.
Put onto a cooling rack for 10 minutes.
Serve whilst still warm with crème fraiche (the slight tartness compliments these muffins perfectly) or any topping of your choice. You can enjoy them cold as well, my loves, and they make a nice breakfast muffin.
They will keep for at least a week in an air tight container, and in the freezer for at least a month.
Brownies
India’s ‘slightly healthy, but still very squidgy’ Brownies
India gave me her recipe a few years ago and we all love them; especially Alice and in Chapter 19 India makes them for her to help cheer her up. They are delicious warm with ice-cream and strawberries, but you can use any fruit on the side that you like! They are quite rich, my loves, but you can cut them smaller if you prefer and have them as brownie bites.
Oven: 160 C (fan) gas
Time: 35 minutes
Tin: 8 inch square cake tin (lined with baking parchment)
Quantity: 9 medium sized, 12 smaller
Ingredients:
150g dark chocolate, melted in a bain-marie
4 tablespoons natural cacao or cocoa powder
6 tablespoons of hot water
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
120ml sunflower oil (or vegetable oil of your choice)
2 tablespoons date syrup
2 eggs beaten
100g light muscavado sugar
50g coconut sugar
65 - 100g walnuts chopped into small pieces (these are optional, chose your amount to taste)
50g - 100g milk chocolate chunks (these are optional, chose your amount to taste)
65g white self-raising flour
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
Method:
Melt the dark chocolate in a bain-marie.
Mix the cacao powder with the hot water to make a smooth loose paste.
Put all the wet ingredients, sugar, nuts and chocolate chunks into a bowl and mix together.
Sift the flour and bicarb’ into the other ingredients and gently fold together until all the flour has disappeared.
Pour the batter into lined tin (it will be silky and fairly loose) and bake at 160 degrees for 25-30 minutes.
You might have to experiment with your timings, my loves, depending on your oven. You don’t want to over bake them as it takes away the fudgy gooeyness. Your skewer should come out with fudgy bits on but not liquid. If it comes out totally clean you may have over cooked them a bit but they will still taste lovely!
Cool in the tin for 10 minutes, so that they continue to cook, then place them on a cooling rack. Serve hot or cold.
They will last about 5 days in an airtight container (if you can resist them that long!). You can freeze them and they’ll be fine for a month. You can re-heat them as well.
Ginger Snap Cookies
Lucy’s Ginger Snap Cookies
Lucy loves ginger cookies and she likes them crunchy! In Chapter 19 they help settle her stomach; ginger being good for digestion and nausea.
This recipe was given to me by my old friend and chef, Mr Michael Brattan. When I was younger, a group of us used to go, each year, to see the Trooping of the Colour, and we’d take a picnic to St James Park. One year Mike brought these delicious biscuits with him. Everyone was sorry he had not brought twice as many, and he had to make them every year after that!
Oven: 160 C (fan) gas
Time: 14 minutes
Tin: flat baking tray lined with baking parchment
Quantity:12 medium sized
Ingredients:
115g unsalted butter
3 tablespoons of golden syrup
425g white self-raising flour
115g dark brown sugar
115g light brown muscovado sugar
2 tablespoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 large egg (beaten)
100g crystalized ginger (chopped into small pieces)
Optional ingredients:
100g dark chocolate, melted, to coat or drizzle over cookies or as chips to add into mix.
Method:
Melt the butter in a pan and add the syrup. Set aside to cool.
Mix together dry ingredients and make sure to sieve the flour and bicarb’ and break up any lumps of sugar.
Add the vanilla essence to the beaten egg.
Then, add the egg/vanilla and butter/syrup to the dry ingredients and thoroughly mix together. Add the crystalized ginger (and the chocolate drops if you are using any).
The mixture will seem very dry and crumbly, but don’t panic, my loves. It will come together as a dough in your hand.
Take small amounts at a time (about the size of a golf ball for medium sized biscuits) and roll into a ball. Place onto baking parchment on the baking tray.
Squash down each ball to about 1cm thick. You may find the biscuits look crumbly around the edges but this is fine.
Bake at 160 degrees for 14 minutes. Your biscuits will look golden brown on the surface when done.
Take out and put onto a cooling rack.
The biscuits will remain soft for a few hours and then harden. You can drizzle melted chocolate over them or dip them in melted chocolate at this point.
They will last about 5 days in an airtight container. You can freeze them and they’ll be fine for a month. I like to make a batch and freeze them, then Lucy can take some out of the freezer when she wants them.
Just a word of caution, my loves, if you have problems with your teeth - be careful, these are very crunchy indeed. You can dunk them in your tea to soften them if you need to!
The mixture also makes a great crumble topping!
For Sophie’s Softies (ginger cookies with half the cane sugar, using coconut sugar and date syrup), just visit our blog at www.ktkingbooks.wordpress.com
Scones
Mrs B’s scrumptious Scones
We serve scones every day at the Café with our afternoon teas. I do love a good scone! I make plain scones because traditionally fruit scones are not served with cream. My recipe uses icing sugar and a little lard. This makes for a lighter, slightly shorter bake which sets off the jam and cream to a T.
Scones are best eaten fresh out of the oven so that the cream melts as it ‘kisses’ the scone. When the girls were little, they always use to say that the cream, or the butter, ‘kisses’ the scones and it ‘melts with love’.
I try to get everything ready before I start, including my parchment and baking tray. Also, I try to keep my hands and the ingredients as cold as possible throughout. Have some flour to dip your hands into for when they get sticky, and scatter flour on the worktop to put the dough onto when cutting out.
My s
cones only take 5 minutes to make and 9 minutes to bake, so you can whip up a small batch anytime you like!
Oven: 220 degrees C (fan)
Time: 9 minutes
Tin: a flat bottomed baking tray, lined with baking parchment
Quantity: 6 medium sized - 6.5cm round cutter, 10 small - 5.5cm round cutter (use a fluted edge cutter - if possible).
Ingredients:
200g white self-raising flour
1 heaped teaspoon baking powder
1 pinch of finely ground sea salt
40g unsalted butter or margarine (cold and chopped into very small pieces)
10g lard or shortening (cold and chopped into very small pieces)
20g white caster sugar
5g white icing sugar (powdered sugar)
140ml full fat milk (cold)
A splash of milk (cold) - to use as a glaze
Method:
Double or triple sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl.
Add the chopped fats. Rub them into the flour, with your hands, to make a breadcrumb like consistency. If you tap the bowl a few times, it brings any bigger pieces to the top and you can rub them in again. Give the whole lot a good stir when all crumbs are roughly the same size to make sure any free flour is fully mixed in.
Sift in the sugars. (Icing sugar is often lumpy, when it’s been in storage, and needs sifting).
Add half the milk and use a dull bladed knife to help you combine the ingredients together. It’ll look very dry but not to worry. Add the rest of the milk and combine again.
You should now have a sticky dough - you’ll need to flour your hands and the worktop.
With your hands, bring the dough into one big ball. Try to handle the dough as little as possible, my loves, just gently bring it together and treat it with care.
Put it on the worktop and pat it down (do not roll with a rolling pin) to the depth of about 3cm (The scones will almost double in height when baked).
Take your cutter and dip it in some flour.
Do not twist the cutter as you push it through the dough, as this will seal the edges of the scone and you want to have a crispy outside. Dip your cutter in flour after each scone. Cut out as many as you can from the dough.
Bring together the remaining dough and pat down again and cut out more circles. Do this till there is nothing left to cut from.
Place them on your lined tray with spaces in-between (your scones won’t spread outwards very much but you want to get the hot air all around them).
Using a pastry brush, lightly sweep some milk over the top of each scone.
Bake at 220 degrees for 9 minutes.
If you have an oven that is hotter at the back, you may need to turn your tray half way through, and if you have an AGA you will know what to do!
When ready, they should be slightly golden and have a crust on the top. Remove the scones from the sheet immediately and put on a cooling rack so that the bottoms don’t go soggy.
Serve as soon as possible (preferably within 30 minutes) with your choice of toppings.
You can freeze your scones once cooled. Let them defrost first, then you can refresh them in a low oven for a few minutes or in the microwave for a few seconds.
For more about Afternoon Teas come and visit us at the blog: ktkingbooks.wordpress.com
Join us in Little Eden
Dear Readers,
Thank you for reading Little Eden Book One, I hope you enjoyed it and are wondering what happens next!
There are so many questions still to be answered…
Will Robert be found guilty of manslaughter and thrown into prison? Will the friends raise enough money to pay off Collins and Lucas? Will Uncle Frith be found dead or alive? Will Lancelot and Adela take it to the next level? What will be revealed in Book Two? Keep an eye out on social media for the next instalment…
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Thank yous
Huge and enormous thanks go to:
•My parents and loyal friends for helping me stay alive long enough to write this.
•Megan and the team at Troubador Publishing for making it real.
•Sue Chase at Simple Solutions (Cambs) Ltd and Kate Richardson at Proven Word for their corrections.
•Andrea Keen for her constant support; especially with the cakes!
•Louise Markham at Louise Markham Beauty Therapy, for her creative support.
•Andrea Perry for her poetry and her light.
•Tim Rice and David at the Really Useful Company for the lyrics.
•Julie Gold, Luca at Bucks Music, and Fahima at Hal Leonard, for the lyrics.
•Trevor at Bounford.com for the map graphic.
•All those in spirit who have got me through my life so far and to those who passed me the new keys of enlightenment to pass onto you.
•And last but not certainly not least, to you, dear readers, thank you for supporting me; and for spending your hard earned money and your precious time with me.
Footnotes
Chapter 1
RESCUE REMEDY®, A Nelson and Co Limited
Chapter 2
*KT King 21st Century Prayers, KT King, 2015, KT King
*Jerusalem, words by William Blake 1804, music by, Hubert Parry, 1916
*KT King 21st Century Prayers, KT King, 2015, KT King
*Get Happy, Ted Koehler & Harold Arlen, Circa 1930
*Swing Low Sweet Chariot, Wallace Willis, Circa 1860
Chapter 4
*Hamlet, (1.5.167-8), Shakespeare, Circa 1607
*Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher, Jackie Wilson, 1967, Columbia Records
*Love Train, O’Jays, 1972 Philadelphia International
*One Love, Bob Marley & The Wailers, 1977, Exodus, Tuff Gong
*Morte D’Arthur, (The Passing of Arthur), Idylls of the King, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1856
Chapter 5
*CLOSE EVERY DOOR from JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT, Lyrics by Tim Rice, Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, 1970
*Happy Feet, Milton Ager & Jack Yellen, 1930
*Celestine Prophecy, James Redfield, 1993, Warner Books
Chapter 7
* KT King 21st Century Prayers, KT King 2016, KT King
*If, V2 L6, Rudyard Kipling, 1910, Doubleday, Page & Company
Chapter 8
*The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S Lewis, 1949, Harper Collins
Chapter 10
*I’m Every Woman, Chaka Khan, Ashford & Simpson, 1978, Warner Bros
Chapter 11
*Dr Who, Sydney Newman, C.E. Webster, Donald Wilson, 1963 onwards, BBC
*The Rise 2, Rise, Andrea Perry, 2016, Vocamus Press
Chapter 12
*Lean on Me, Bill Withers, 1972, Sussex
Chapter 13
* KT King 21st Century Prayers, KT King, 2015, KT King
*Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep, attributed to Mary Elizabeth Frye, 1932
Chapter 14
*Bleak House, Charles Dickens, 1852-3, Bradbury & Evans
Chapter 15
*If I can Dream, Walter Earl Brown, 1968, RCA Records
Chapter 16
*KT King 21st Century Prayers, KT King, 2015, KT King
Chapter 18
*The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde, 1895
*Disco Inferno, The Trammps, Leroy Green & Ron Kersey, 1976, Atlantic
Chapter 19
*When the Saints go Marching In, date and origins unkown
Chapter 22
*KT King 21st Century Prayers, KT King, 2015, KT King.
Chapter 23
*You’re Not Alone, Meredith Andrews, 2005, Word Records
*KT King 21st Century Prayers, KT King, 2016, KT King
Chapter 25
*The Matrix, The Wachowski Brothers, 1999, Warner Bros & Roadshow Entertainment
Chapter 26
*It’s a Wonderful Life, Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, Frank Capra, 1946, RKO Radio Pictures
Chapter 27
* Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, 1865
Chapter 28
*A Thousand Years, Christina Perri, David Hodges, 2011, Atlantic Records
*From a Distance, Julie Gold, 1987, Rondor International, Universal and Bucks Music.