Autumn fruit cupcakes

My my, where does the time go? 2nd December already...and I have that Christmas feeling! Yesterday morning there was a white frost on everything, outlining every tiny leaf and pine needle, and snow on the Hillfoots. I bought 3 bags of cranberries from the local deli to cook up Nigella Lawson's cranberry mincepies, and lit a cinnamon scented candle.

But today is back to the soggy, muddy, 'this is Scotland and don't you forget it' form of winter weather, so baking these little cupcakes has created a pleasantly spicy fug for me to hide myself away in. A last taste of autumn before the Christmas excesses really begin.

The cupcakes will keep for 2 days in an airtight tin - after that they become a little sticky.

Ingredients

• 115g unsalted butter, softened
• 115g golden caster sugar
• 115g self-raising flour
• 2 large eggs
• 115g stewed apple (about 1 large desert apple, peeled and cored and cooked down)
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 125g ripe pear, peeled and cubed

Method

• Preheat the oven to 175C/350F. Line a 12-bun muffin tray with cupcake papers.
• Cream the butter, sugar, flour and eggs together with an electric beater until very smooth.
• Beat in the apple sauce.
• Carefully fold the pear cubes through the batter with a metal spoon.
• Spoon the batter into the cases - about 2 desertspoons for each cupcake.
• Bake for 25 minutes until golden and cooked. They will be very soft initially so let them stand in the tin for 5 minutes before carefully moving them to a wire rack to cool.

For the icing -

• Sieve 1/2 cup icing sugar to remove any lumps.
• Add 2 teaspoons maple syrup, 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, and a dribble of recently boiled water. Beat well until a thick, smooth icing forms - add a little more water if it is too thick to drizzle, or more sugar if it is too runny to sit on the cake and set.
• Using a teaspoon, drizzle the icing over each cupcake, and allow to set.
  

Pumpkin and goats cheese lasagne

We have builders in at the moment, restoring our bathroom after a deluge from a faulty shower in the 'Willy Wallace Backpackers' above us.  Thankfully it is all being paid by the insurance, which is quite a blessing!  However, I'm good with neither disorder nor dust, so this week is a real opportunity to develop some patience and good humour through a bit of 'stretching'...

I think this supper may help to restore my emotional equilibrium though: it is a bit of a crib from Nigella Lawson's Christmas book, released last year.  Her recipe consists of three sauces - a smooth tomato passata, pumpkin cooked in tomato, and a goats cheese and ricotta topping.  It also feeds about 20 people!  My version is greatly scaled down, it feeds 2 generously, and is rather more abstemious in the ingredients.  However, don't be put off!  It is perfect for a frosty autumn night.

A note on the pasta - I used dried lasagne sheets and was disappointed by the resulting clagginess.  Nigella uses fresh sheets in her recipe and I would recommend you do the same, as I will next time - they don't have to be hand made, check the chiller cabinet at the supermarket.

Ingredients

• 1/2 teaspoon dried sage leaves, or a few fresh
  
• 1 onion, finely chopped
  
• 2 plump cloves of garlic, squashed
• 400g pumpkin (peeled and deseeded weight), chopped into 1 inch squares
  
• Tin good quality chopped tomatoes
  
• Pinch sugar
  
• 1/2 bag prepared spinach
• 2 teaspoons unsalted butter
  
• 1 tablespoon plain flour
  
• 400ml full fat milk
  
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan
  
• Fresh nutmeg
• Sheets fresh lasagne ( how many you will use will depend on the dimensions of your dish)
• 1 goats cheese (I used a fairly soft rindless one from Somerset)

Method

• Heat a little olive oil with the sage leaves in a large saucepan.  Once the heat and scent rise up, add the garlic and onion with a pinch of salt, and cook gently for about 5 minutes until the onion is translucent and soft.
• Add the cubed pumpkin and stir to coat with oil, then throw in the chopped tomatoes.  
• Season the tomatoes with a little sugar, and some salt and pepper.  Depending on the brand of tomatoes you may want to add about 1/4 cup water.
• Bring the pumpkin to a hearty simmer, and allow to cook for about 30 minutes, until the pumpkin is soft to the point of a knife but not collapsing, and the tomatoes have reduced a little to form a thickish sauce.  Once it is ready, add the spinach leaves, gently stirring and tamping them down with your spoon until they wilt into the sauce.
• Meanwhile, heat the milk gently to body temperature.
• Melt the butter in a small saucepan.  Stir in the flour until a smooth paste forms, then cook, stirring, for a couple of minutes until the colour darkens slightly.
• Start to add the milk, stirring well after each addition so that no lumps form, until all the milk has been incorporated.
• Keep the heat steady and stir continuously for around 10 minutes until a thick bechamel has formed.  The white sauce will form a coat on the back of a wooden spoon when it is ready.
• Remove the sauce from the heat and quickly beat in all the parmesan, with nutmeg and salt to taste.
• Pre-heat the oven to 200C/400F.
• In your favorite lasagne dish (we all have one) start to layer the pasta - start with a good slosh of the pumpkin, top with pasta sheets, then smooth on some bechamel and crumbled goats cheese, top with some more pumpkin and lasagne.  Keep layering - how many layers you make will depend on whether your baking dish is wide and shallow or narrow and tall.  Finish with a good covering of the last of the pumkin.
• Finally, break up the remaining goats cheese all over the surface and pop into the oven.
• Cook for 20 minutes or until the tomato and bechamel sauces are bubbling up the sides and the goats cheese is brown.

Plum crumble cake for pudding

Autumn is here. Clear blue skies and frigid mornings, a blanket on the bed at night, and warming, stodgy food. We seem to instinctively crave the food which will support us through the seasons. I have been dreaming of rice pudding - sweet and creamy with a generous dusting of nutmeg.

But this week I had 4 wrinkly purple plums blaming me from the fruit bowl for their sad state. Baking fruit has always been a favorite trick of mine to restore less than perfect specimens. These were cooked slowly with honey and cranberry juice until soft and fragrant but holding their shape.

Unfortunately three days in bed feeling very sorry for myself found the plums still in the fridge, uneaten. What an opportunity to create a lovely pudding cake - and I'm genuinely very pleased with this one, with the sweet but tart fruit cutting through the vanilla sponge and nubbly almond topping. Enjoy with cream, or for the real Autumn experience, custard.



Ingredients

• 4 plums, halved and stones removed, and baked until soft.
• 125g unsalted butter
• 125g unrefined caster sugar
• 125g self-raising flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon real vanilla essence
• For the topping: 1 cup plain flour, 1/2 cup ground almonds, 3 tablespoons caster sugar, pinch salt, large slice (c. 40g) unsalted butter.

Note: I give the topping ingredients in very rough proportions as that is the best way to make crumble in my opinion - some like more butter, others a very fine crumble, and it really has a lot to do both with personal taste, and the qualities of the flour you are using. Use your instinct.

Method

• Pre-heat your oven to 180C/350F. Line the base of a square baking tin with parchment.
• In a processor or by hand, cream the butter and sugar until fluffy.
  
• Sift the flour together with the baking powder. In a separate bowl beat the eggs together loosely.
• Add alternating increments of the flour and eggs to the butter sugar cream, beating well after each addition. With the last of the egg add the vanilla extract.
• Pour the cake batter into the tin, spreading evenly into the corners. Place the plum halves, cut side up, into the cake.
• Make the crumble topping: mix together plain flour, almonds, sugar and salt; rub in the cold butter with the pads of your fingers until all the flour mix is incorporated and you have a texture you like. Scatter the crumble evenly over the surface of the cake.
• Bake the cake for around an hour, until the crumble is golden and the sponge is cooked through.