Baking Archives - I THINK THEREFORE I JAM

Sticky chocolate orange cake

have your cake….

This simple little cake is big on pleasure and has the texture of a French “moelleux au chocolat” but instead of butter ricotta creates the smoothness. I took my lead from an Italian nonna classic: “torta di ricotta e cioccolato senza farina” and tweaked it just a little.

The enjoyment starts with the childish pleasure of melting chocolate in a bowl over hot water, the conjuring up of the magic that is meringue, the pop of pungent orange oil on the grater, the crunch of the toasted pistachios and then the kitchen filled with the overpowering aroma of chocolate and orange, so strong that for a few moments the world is softer, brighter, happier.

This little cake is winter comfort eaten warm with vanilla custard, a pick-me-up breakfast with a cappuccino or an elegant dessert with some fruit and mascarpone. Choose your favourite and make this clever treat a firm (but squidgy) kitchen friend!

“Pekmez” Gingerbread

Naturally sweetened warmly spiced vegan gingerbread

Sticky. Squidgy. Shiny. A perfect gingerbread made with some Balkan pantry staples that give it a local-ingredient twist. It draws on the historic use of “vinegar and bicarb fizz” in traditional British vinegar cakes (“Vinegarism?”) which were popular in the second World War and with thrifty cooks, when eggs were scarce. The fizz-making will channel your inner schoolgirl chemistry lab shennanigan maker; so satisfying!

“Pekmez” is a delicious Turkish fruit molasses most usually made from grapes but also mulberry (“dut”) and carob (“harnup”) too. Being rich in minerals and iron it is given to children and nursing mothers. Mixed in equal part with tahini it becomes the breakfast spread “tahin pekmez” akin to caramel sauce and just as moreish.

Whole orange, coconut and saffron cake

I have made Claudia Roden’s whole orange and almond cake in various guises and with many tweakings for years and years since I first eagerly bought her encyclopedic book “A new book of Middle Eastern Cookery” while at university – somehow the co0kery book section at “Dillons” was always more interesting than the engineering one! Glancing at the book now, I see my handwritten notes about adding in some polenta in Romania and some fine cornmeal with musky mastic while visiting the Greek island of Kefalonia for a reunion.

The recipe is a Sephardic Jewish recipe which they took from Spain and Portugal when they fled the peninsula in the Inquisition and were welcomed to Turkey and other countries of the region including Egypt, Claudia Roden’s country of birth. This inspired me to add some saffron which deepens the colour and imbues the cake with that subtle smoky sweet saffron type taste.