Zero waste Archives - Page 2 of 3 - I THINK THEREFORE I JAM

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.

Orange and ginger marmalade (No Refined Sugar)

I make a batch of this every year for my friend Jeff. It is bright, it is sharp, it is bold, the ginger packs one hell of a punch and it is always comforting; Jeff’s special marmalade.

Marmalade making takes place in two stages – a boiling the fruit and macerating it in sugar syrup stage- and the actual boiling up into a set stage. Thus you can chop a longer process in two and make marmalade in the middle of the night, in the middle of summer and in the middle of a pandemic too.

I eat mine on toast, make upside down cakes with it and sneak it into the bottom of crème caramel moulds for a twist.

In this recipe I use fruit sugar, concentrated grape juice and more lemons to ensure a light marmalade and a perfect set. The amount of ginger is generous and roughly chopped as I generally find that there is no such thing as too much ginger but if you prefer things a little less head-on then grate the ginger and reduce the amount a little.

No knead multiseed bread

One bowl, no kneading and a heavenly, nutty, crunchy, loaf that is lighter than you expect . It packs quite the protein punch too!

Ingredients

370g (faina integrala) a mix of organic wholemeal flour and spelt flour (and in these pictured some rye too)
200g (faina normala) strong white organic bread flour
300g of seeds: 100g (Seminte de In) Flaxseeds, 100g (Seminte de Dovleac) Pumpkin seeds and 100g (Seminte de Floarea Soarelui) Sunflower seeds or 100g (susam) sesame seeds or 100g (Mac) poppy seeds
2 tsp (sare) salt
25g (drojdie) fresh yeast (or dried and use according to the packet)
3 tablespoons olive oil or flaxseed oil or or cold pressed sunflower oil or best of all hemp oil
1 tablespoon treacle, carob molasses (sirop de roscova) or pomegranate molasses (sirop de rodie) – something sweet to speed the yeast up
450 ml (apa) warm “jammy water” (the temperature of a bath)

How To

Make the “Zero Waste” jammy water. Find an almost empty jam or honey jar (in this case marmalade) where you can’t actually get at the last bits of jam and fill with water and shake. Use the jammy water for the bread.

If you are using bread tins then oil well or paper and oil. This recipe is very good for free form loaves, in which case just oil your trays or flour and polenta your trays as I often do.

Put all the flours in the bowl

Pour on the yeast and jammy water mixture and mix together with a large spoon. Add the oil. The mixture will look unappetising and uninspiring – akin to very very thick glue. Fear not.

Leave to rise until double in volume. Put a damp tea towel over the top so it just touches the dough…when I notice the tea towel rising above the bowl rim it reminds me the dough is risen! #Plasticfree
Push the dough down and add the seeds and the salt. Work in the seeds and divide into three or four depending on how big you want your loaves. Shape the dough into balls if free forming or oblongs if baking in tins. Allow to double again in volume.

Bake at 250C for 18-25 mins. Now if your domestic oven doesn’t go up to 250C put it at its maximum setting and bake a little longer. When you take them out knock them on the bottom and they must sound hollow. If its the first time and you are nervous then cut through and check – better to sacrifice aesthetics and have cooked bread. If you have space put a bowl of water at the bottom of the oven – my oven is usually too crowded with loaves jammed in!

This bread lasts a good 3 to 4 days and is great with sweet stuff and savoury. It also toasts well too – as the seeds then become all “nutty” in flavour. On the nutrition front this packs a hefty protein level of 20%.