Garden Mint Ice Cream

 

What you need

• 1 pint (600ml) full fat milk
• fresh garden mint
• 6 medium egg yolks
• 6 oz (175g) caster sugar
• 1/2 pint (285ml) double cream

 

To make

1. Place the milk and four good sprigs of mint in a pan.  Heat until almost boiling.  Then remove from the heat, cover and leave to infuse for 45 minutes.
2. Whisk together egg yolks and sugar until light and fluffy.  Strain milk onto egg yolk mixture.  Return to a clean pan and heat gently, stirring until the mixture thickens slightly (enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon).  Strain into a bowl and cool.
3. Whisk cream until just thickened, fold into cooled custard with 1 tablespoon (15ml) finely chopped fresh mint.
4. Transfer to an ice cream maker if you have one and churn as normal.  IF YOU DON’T HAVE AN ICE CREAM MAKER: Pour into a deep freezer-proof baking dish and place in the freezer.  After about 20 minutes check the mixture.  When it starts to freeze at the edges take it out and stir it vigorously until all the ice crystals are broken up.  Do this every 30 minutes, until the mixture becomes ice cream.  This could take 2 to 3 hours.

 

 

 

Lavender and Almond Biscuits

Don’t be put off by my dreadful photograph.  These are delicious!

 

What you need

• 5 oz (125g) butter
• 2 oz (50g) golden caster sugar
• 4 oz (100g) plain flour
• 4 oz (100g) ground almonds
• 2 level teaspoons lavender buds

To Make

1. Preheat the oven to 150^oC / 300^oF / gas mark 2.
2. Mix all the ingredients in a food processor until they resemble fine breadcrumbs.  Tip the crumbs into a bowl (reserving a few tablespoons for topping the biscuits) and gently squash together to form a dough.  Cover and leave the dough in the fridge for at least 4 hours.
3. Break off pieces of dough about the size of a walnut shell, then press out each one with your hand into thin rounds.  The size is up to you: the smaller they are the more elegant.  Or try squashing each one just slightly, so you have dome shaped biscuits.  Transfer to buttered or parchment-lined baking sheets and refrigerate for an hour.
4. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until the biscuits are pale gold in colour.  Remove from their baking sheet with a palette knife.  They will be very short and crumbly, so handle with care.  Leave them to cool on a wire rack.

To Store

The biscuits will keep in an airtight jar or tin for a few days.

Plum Cake (Pflaumenkuchen)

We are lucky to have two plum trees in our garden which every year in late August / early September supply us with an abundance of Victoria plums.  After publishing this photograph on Postcards from Wildwood I was asked for the recipe, so here it is.

I adore Eastern European cakes that incorporate fresh fruit.  This Pflaumenkuchen – German plum cake – is just one of the recipes I use again and again.  Baked in a shallow tin (pan), it’s really more of a tart than a cake.  You can substitute any fresh stoned fruits in season for the plums.

What you need

• 8 oz (225 g) Self-Raising flour plus 1 level tspn baking powder
• OR 8 oz (225 g) Plain flour (All Purpose flour) plus 3 level tspns baking powder and a pinch of salt
• 3 oz (75 g) butter
• 5 oz (125 g) golden caster sugar
• 1 tspn cinnamon
• 1 egg
• 1/4 pint (125 ml) milk

For the topping:

• 2 lb (1 kg) plums – that’s the weight before stoning
• more golden caster sugar for sprinkling

To make

1. Preheat oven to 190C / 375F / Gas mark 5.
2. Oil a tin measuring roughly 12 x 9 x 2 inches (30 x 23 x 5 cm).
3. Put all the ingredients except the plums and the additional sugar for sprinkling into a bowl or food processor and beat until you have a thick, smooth batter.
4. Stone and halve the plums and arrange them, cut side up, all over the surface of the batter.
5. Sprinkle the surface with sugar.
6. Bake for 40 minutes, until well risen.  If desired, sprinkle a little more sugar on top.  Allow to cool in the tin.

We usually eat the first slices warm, but the cold leftovers taste just as good.

Making Herbal Bath Oils part 2: Heat Infusion

In my first post about making herbal bath oils I was learning about solar infusion, or the cold method.  This post focuses on heat infusion, also known as the hot method.  I realised heat infusion was possible because one of my early efforts was James Wong’s Orange, Clove and Myrrh Body Oil.  Here, I’m looking more generally at why and how to do this.

The question of which method to use depends on the qualities of the specific herb to be infused.  Fresh plants can rot during the time required for solar infusion (this may be what happened to my original ill-fated sunflower and calendula oil), while certain barks and roots will also give up their properties more easily using the hot method.  Getting to know what works best for each herb is probably best thought of as a trial and error period, using small quantities of sunflower oil to keep the costs to a minimum.

Once you know a method works well for your herb, you can experiment with a variety of oils to find the one you like best.  As with solar infusion, any good quality oil that is pourable at room temperature can be used.  I have used sunflower, olive and sweet almond oils.  The photo above shows my first two efforts: fragrant pink rose infused in sweet almond oil (I was hoping this would take on a little of the pink colour of the three rose blooms used, but this didn’t happen) and calendula infused in sunflower oil.  In addition, heat infusion also allows you to use butters and oils which are hard at room temperature, such as shea butter and coconut oil.  On the other hand, this method does require more hands-on attention than solar infusion.

Here’s how to do it

1. Herbs to be used should be picked first thing in the morning, after the dew has dried but before the heat of the sun has time to evaporate the essential oils from the plant.  Clean and shake them to ensure there are no insects or dirt.  If necessary wash them gently and leave to dry on kitchen paper.
2. Chop the herb finely.  Dried herbs should be crushed but not powdered.
3. Pour the oil into a heatproof bowl and add the prepared herbs.  Place the bowl over a pan of water simmering on the stove.  Use a thermometer to ensure you achieve a temperature of around 38C (100F).
4. Continue to warm the oil and to stir it for 2 to 4 hours or more.  The oil should take on the colour and scent of the herbs.
5. Remove the bowl from the pan and leave to cool.  (Butters and solid oils should not at this stage be left to cool to the extent that they solidify.)
6. Strain the oil into a clean jar.  I use a funnel with a coffee filter paper to do this.  At the time of writing I have not yet infused using solid oils – it may be that these would require muslin / cheesecloth for straining.  Leave the oil to settle.  It’s important to allow any sediment to settle to the bottom of the jar.  If you don’t do this your oil will be cloudy, or the sediment may even cause it to become mouldy over time.  You may need to leave it overnight.
7. Pour the oil into clean bottles ready for use.  I have found the best way to clean them is in the dishwasher, because the cycle also dries inside the bottles.  Boiling them in a large pan of hot water leaves moisture that takes for ever to clear.
8. Finally, label the bottle.  I include the oil and herb used and the date.  If I were giving the oil as a gift – which I haven’t done yet – I would also include a removable tag with directions for use, along with the beneficial properties of the herb.  I have found my hand-written labels don’t withstand splashes!

Although I have focused here on using herbal oils for the bath, these same oils can also be used for massage, and some can be used in cooking.

Soothing don’t-sniff-it-just-bung-it-in-the-bath-and-think-of-England Calendula Oil

So what do you think? Will it will catch on....?

You may remember my less-than-satisfactory Calendula Oil solar infusion experience.  At the time I said I was going off to research essential oils that would complement calendula, both in terms of skin-soothing properties and also geographical origin.

I found a very useful article about making your own essential oil-based skincare remedies, including a list of suitably soothing oils, and already had a couple of the oils listed: lavender (which I knew was suitable for this but wanted to avoid using as I was preparing other lavender-infused oils) and German chamomile, also known as blue chamomile.

Blue chamomile has a very strong, earthy scent, and I was hopeful that it may be just the thing to mask the pungency of the calendula infusion.  Unfortunately it was no match.  The addition of several drops of lavender similarly did little to help.

This left me with two options:

1. Throw the oil away;
2. Try it in the bath, taking particular note of the effects of dilution on the odour, as well as any beneficial effects of using the preparation.

The results were quite surprising.  Not only was the unpleasant smell much reduced (not completely eliminated, you note!) but also the oil had a remarkably soothing and yet invigorating effect that I liked very much.

Now, lest you be thinking this is going to be some ‘rags-to-riches’ tale of the humble calendula triumphing over adversity, I have to tell you that the next tests I ran past the oil were two of the rules from my own Quality Charter.  Could I, hand on heart, say that:

• The end product is pleasing to use – e.g. fragrant, smooth, as appropriate?, or that
• The end product is as good as shop bought or better?

No.  I could not. Not only that, but I didn’t like to see it alongside the beautifully fragranced home made oils and soaps, beside my bath.

And so I decided to go with Tammie’s suggestion.  ‘Perhaps it is best,’ she said, ‘to think of it as a healing potion, not a nice smelling thing.’  On the basis that if its use becomes necessary I shall instinctively know, the oil is now safely tucked away on a shelf in the refrigerator.

In the meantime I’ve been motivated to learn an alternative way of making herbal oils, and this one seems to be more successful for calendula.  I’ll tell you about it in my next post.

Orange Ginger Beer (Lesley Kenton)

This recipe is taken from Lesley Kenton’s 2001 publication: Cook Energy, which is still available.  The book receives mixed reviews from customers on Amazon: it seems that you will either love it (5 Stars) or hate it (1 Star).  There is, apparently, no middle ground.

I love it.  I agree with Amazon’s own review that the book ‘is a guide to the life-enhancing power of food’, delivering ‘a seductive approach to good food, which is more about attitude than cooking skills’.  As such I find it far more accessible than Ms Kenton’s earlier works focusing on raw foods.  It was here, for example, that I first learned of the increasing chemical contamination of coffee from herbicides and pesticides; then made the connection that if drinking regular coffee is potentially dangerous to me, how much more perilous must it be for coffee plantation workers?  As a direct result I switched to buying organic, Fair Trade coffee, which I continue to do to this day.  I remember sitting out in the garden when I first got my copy, reading the well-researched text, looking at the gorgeous photographs of colourful, life-enhancing foods, and thinking for the first time: ‘This is how I want to eat: a fresh, healthy, colourful and principled diet.’  I will say that I don’t always achieve this, but it remains my aim.

I have a jug full of this Orange Ginger Beer in the fridge right now.  It tastes how it sounds: a background of regular ginger beer, with cooling refreshing orange up front.

You have to start the day before you want to drink it.

Ingredients

• 50 – 100g (2 – 4 oz) piece of fresh ginger, roughly chopped
• 1 litre (1.75  pints) spring water
• 250 ml (8 fl oz) acacia honey
• 250 ml (8 fl oz) freshly squeezed orange juice
• 1 tbsp finely shredded orange zest
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

To make

1. Place the roughly chopped ginger and the water in a food processor.  Add the acacia, honey, orange juice, orange zest and the cinnamon and blend.  Stir well and put in the refrigerator for 24 hours.
2. After 24 hours, strain then chill for another hour.
3. Pour over ice to serve.

Storage

Will keep in the fridge for 4 to 5 days.

Homemade Lip Gloss

There are so many important things I could be updating you on: progress reports on the pungent Sunflower and Calendula Oil and on other recent herbal oil and soapmaking attempts, thoughts on where I’d like to go next with the soapmaking…

But instead I’m going to tell you how I made these lip glosses.

You know when you’ve almost used up a lip stick and there’s just a tiny stub left?  Well, these have been made by scraping out the last remnants of two different lip sticks, and mixing with petroleum jelly.  The pink one retained its original strawberry flavour.  The brown gloss didn’t taste as good so I added a few drops of a rich vanilla extract, which gave a deeper colour as well as a nicer flavour.

The pots, by the way, originally came filled with jam as part of afternoon tea at a local café.

Sunflower, calendula and … parmesan???

Would you take a bath in water to which you’ve added cheese-scented oil?

I appreciate that this is probably not a question you came here expecting to find, but it is one that has been exercising my brain over the last few hours.

You see, I’ve had these marigolds (calendula) soaking in sunflower oil for several weeks.  Calendula is known for its soothing properties.  Just the thing, then, for the end of a summer’s day if you’ve accidentally spent a little too long in the sun.

But upon opening the jar to decant the oil into a pretty bottle for the bathroom, I found it had a less than pleasing fragrance.  Hmmm.  Undeterred, I started to research essential oils, hoping to find one that combined pleasant fragrance with skin-soothing properties, and preferably of European origin to keep with the homely calendula feel.  So far I haven’t come across anything, but figured I’d better decant anyway and worry about the fragrance later.  It was while the oil was gently decanting that my son came in, saying ‘Mum, did you know this stuff smells like parmesan?’

So I ask you: is ‘Italian cheese’ something you look for when choosing a bath fragrance…?

No, I thought not.

Looking on the bright side – that is if there can be a bright side to cheesy smelling bath oils – I’ve discovered that coffee filter papers are excellent for decanting herbal oils and getting rid of the little bits of plant matter.  As you can see from the two photos below, the oil is beautifully clear after passing through it…

But that doesn’t make it smell any better!

Now, can it be masked or should it be thrown…?

Soapmaking Safety

Sometimes making potions is a dangerous activity.

Three weeks ago I made two batches of soap.  I haven’t mentioned it here before now because there’s really nothing to see yet.  Soap has to be left to cure for 4 to 6 weeks before it can be used.  I’m not a soapmaking expert: these two batches bring my total to only four – and batch 2 had to be thrown away.   But through practice and experimentation I hope to develop a better understanding of what will and what won’t make a good soap.  At the time of writing indications are that one batch is doing fine.  The jury’s still out on the other.

Most recipes for making soap at home use the cold-process method.  Essentially this involves combining fats or oils with sodium hydroxide (also called caustic soda, or lye when dissolved in water) and water.  I have four specialist soapmaking books, and every single one of them emphasises the need to understand the very real dangers of working with sodium hydroxide, and to treat it with the utmost respect.  Lest you be in any doubt about this, read on:

‘Sodium hydroxide is highly reactive in its dry form or within solution.  One bead of lye can burn right through layers of skin in the presence of just a hint of sweat.  A splash of solution can burn, blind or at least eat through a butcher’s block table.’

Susan Miller Cavitch: The Natural Soap Book

I am fanatical about safety.  My essential safety kit includes:

• rubber gloves
• goggles
• apron
• newspaper to protest the work surface
• an empty house whilst the ingredients are being combined
• a safe place to keep my tub of sodium hydroxide

Should an accident occur, it’s essential to know:

• If you get lye in your eyes you should go straight to Accident & Emergency
• If you spill lye on the skin, you should flush immediately with copious amounts of water

My concern is that books with a broader subject matter – say, herbs – that include a recipe for soap as one of the many ways to use your home grown produce, do not always emphasise this.

So it seems to me essential, at the start of any soapmaking journey, to rely heavily on a recipe aimed at complete beginners, devised by a soapmaking specialist; and to follow that recipe to the letter.

The first of my two recent batches was made using this recipe from UK specialist soapmaking suppliers The Soap Kitchen.   My previous successful batch was also made using this recipe.  It produced the most beautiful, rich soap, and looks to have done so again.

There are also some great online tutorials, such as this one from Soap Making Essentials.

*******

To the person who threatened me with legal action because I linked here to a second website that had breached a trademark: SHAME ON YOU! Do you seriously expect bloggers to carry out international trademark searches every time they create hyperlinks?  A polite email informing of the situation would suffice.  Get a sense of perspective.

*******

My photographs for this post show two stages of the soapmaking process.

Above, when all the ingredients have combined, the saponification process (which will take 4 to 6 weeks) has just begun, and the soap mixture has been poured into moulds.  At this stage the soap needs to be wrapped in blankets and kept still for 24 hours.  As you can see, I take no hostages in enforcing my health and safety measures!

Below, at the end of 24 hours the soap will have set, but will continue to harden over the next few weeks.  Now is the time to remove it from the moulds.  But the soap is still very caustic at this stage: hands must be protected with rubber gloves.  I’ve invested in this silicon soap mould but I also use plastic containers that originally came filled with Chinese take-away food.  If using these larger containers, now is the time to cut the soap to smaller bars.

Making Herbal Bath Oils part 1: Solar Infusion

There are a few ways of making herbal bath oils.  I still have more to learn about the other methods, but this one is very straightforward.  Since this method makes use of the heat of the sun it is known as solar infusion.  It is also referred to as the cold method, as opposed to the hot method which will be covered in part 2.  [Note: Part 2 is now published, and also includes additional useful information on preparation and filtering of the infusion.]

To make a scented oil from any flowering herb such as rosemary and lavender, simply place the herbs in a jar and cover with your chosen oil.  See the photo below.  It’s very important that the herbs are completely covered by the oil.  Any not kept covered could turn mouldy.  Leave on a sunny windowsill, shaking the jars daily and ensuring each time that the herbs remain covered. After 2 to 4 weeks remove the herbs, strain, and pour into clean bottles.

Suitable oils include sunflower, olive and sweet almond oil.  I started with sunflower and olive because they are cheaper than other options.  I wanted to test the method – that is, I wanted to be sure I wouldn’t end up with a jar full of mouldy plant matter that couldn’t be used!  But I also wanted to compare the two oils.

Results

I expected my preference would be for the richer olive oil, and was surprised to find I prefer the cheaper, thinner, less aromatic sunflower oil.  Both oils are equally effective, though, in softening the water and moisturising the skin.  They work beautifully.  It’s just a matter of personal preference.

As for the rosemary – although it has quite a strong scent in the bottle (this is masked by the peppery olive smell in the olive & rosemary oil) once mixed with the bathwater the scent is barely noticeable.  The uplifting effects of the rosemary, however, are wonderful and instantaneous!

I’m delighted with these two home made bath oils, which cost very little to make and I know contain nothing harmful.

I’m now experimenting further with this method, using different herb and oil combinations.