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Granny Betty my Pavlova inspiration

I loved Betty dearly, and really miss her. Betty was my dad’s step mum, she was Gran to me and Great Granny Betty to my son, Euan. I used to affectionally call Betty my second hand granny and she called me Allioop.

Betty wasn’t a fussy cook but what she made was always very delicious. I have Betty to thank for me mastering Pavlova. Betty also made a cracking apple pie, but sadly Betty never wrote her recipe down so I will have to experiment to see if I can replicate it. Such torture I know but some one has to do it.

But this weekend I will have to make her Pavlova as my husband has been making custard to go with individual apple pies. So the is plenty of egg whites leftover. I’d hate for them to go to waste.

It is interesting to note that Betty didn’t have a recipe book of her own and it is most likely that she relied on a cook book for the basis of her cooking. In fact the cookery book my dad had from Betty’s house was ‘The Glasgow Cook Book’ a well know recipe book of era. It is still famous in Glasgow. The book was a no nonsense approach to cooking. It was originally devised from the text book of the cooking course work taught in the classrooms of the Glasgow School of Cookery and The West End School of Cookery. The Glasgow School of Cookery was established with the aim to help families to alleviate the problems of running home in the harsh economic situation at play at the time, in the early part of the 19th century. Courses continue to run into the late fifties. They even ran a brides course for wives to be. The two schools were joined together and eventually were incorporated into Scotland’s newest university, the Caledonian University in Glasgow. The university holds the cookery schools archive and still publishes ‘The Glasgow Cookery Book’. It is a super reference book for many of the recipes that I have found in my Gran’s and Aunties recipe books.

I used ‘The Glasgow Cookery Book’ as inspiration for my gran Betty’s Pavlova. However I doubled the quantities as I had a pot of 6 egg whites .

Pavlova Recipe

Ingredients
6 Egg Whites
300g Sugar
20g Cornflour
4 Small tablespoons of Vinegar
Peaches
250ml Whipping Cream.

Method

Set the oven to 140°C to heat up.
Draw a 20 cm circle on a piece of greaseproof paper an put on to a baking sheet. Dab a little vegetable oil on underside of the four corners of the greaseproof paper to secure to the baking sheet. Grease the circle with a little vegetable oil.
Whisk the egg whites till they form stiff peaks.
Mix the sugar and cornflour together, and mix half of this into the egg whites.
Fold in the remaining sugar and cornflour adding the vinegar at this point also.
Spread the mixture evenly onto the circle
Bake for 1 hour. After the hour turn off the oven leaving the meringue to gently cool down in the oven as it cools.
When the pavlova is completely cooled remove from the oven. Gently peel off the greaseproof paper, place on a serving plate. Then cover the top of the meringue with whipped cream adding the sliced peaches on top.

I shared this Pavlova with my official taste testers at school. It seems it went down well.

Part 2

Well I still had egg whites, so I decided to make my favorite pavlova recipe, which is based on Jamie Oliver’s Summer Berry Pavlova http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/fruit-recipes/summer-berry-pavlova/

As it is not summer and Strawberries are not in season, I came up with a apple purée that I made using a couple of apples, some brown sugar, vanilla extract and cinnamon.

Pavlova with apple purée

Ingredients

6 Egg Whites
300g Sugar

Method

Preheat the oven to 140°C Put your egg whites into a clean bowl and whisk them until they start to form firm peaks.
Gradually add the sugar. With the mixer on the highest setting, whisk for 7 to 8 minutes until the meringue is white, glossy and smooth.
Line two baking trays with baking paper. Grease the paper. Divide the meringue mixture evenly between them and shape each into a circle about 20cm in diameter.
Put both trays into the oven and bake for 1 hour until the meringues look very slightly golden.

As in the above recipe once the hour is up turn the oven off and leave the meringue to cool down with the oven, and again remove spread the cream adding the apple purée to finish.

I must admit the second pavlova is the best I’ve cooked to date. It was beautifully pale. Where as I felt the first meringue was a little too golden.

Granny Wylie’s Gingerbread

When my dad came over to stay this summer we talked about his mother’s recipe book and the recipes he remembered her cooking when he was a child. He remembered the cheese pudding and scones. My dad told me that his mum was part of a sewing bee, she would meet with her friends in the house and the was always lots of baking done, but not necessarily much sewing done. He also said that his mum would swap recipes with her friends and family members. This rings true as I have my old aunties recipe books and the are many of the same recipes. Some have their own additions to the basic recipe. I have memories from when I was quite young of visiting my old maiden aunties for high tea. These aunties were my granny’s sisters the only surviving members of my dad’s family at that time. They have passed away quite a while ago now. We would som go on a Sunday and there would always be a groaning table of delicious delights. There were always sweet and savory treats for us to eat. However there was a strict etiquette to the meal and the aunties believed that children should be seen and not heard. My brother and I had to be on our best behaviour.

I suggested he choose a recipe and we could bake it together, but we never got round to it while he was here. I decided to try this one and bought the ingredients and made it after he left.

I don’t have any memories of my mum making this recipe. I do remember having Tate and Lyle Gingerbread for a dessert usually served with Birds custard. It was always a special treat. My mum was a very good cook and especially an excellent baker. Which is why this memory stuck with me as mum probably would have baked a very good gingerbread if she had put her mind to it.

Gingerbread

125g self raising flour
156g brown sugar
56g unsalted butter
143g raisins
143g sultanas
1tsp salt
1tsp baking powder
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
1tsp golden syrup
1 egg
120ml water

In a saucepan put the butter, sugar and golden syrup and allow to melt together, once melted add the dried fruit and spices. The this cool down. Meanwhile mix the dry ingredients together. Beat the egg and add it and the water into the dry ingredients the finally add the cooled fruit and sugar mixture and combine. In a greased and lined 1kg loaf tin pour the mixture. Bake for an hour at 150 degrees in the middle of the oven.
Very nice with a cup of tea!

Brunswick Cake

I’ve asked around but no one has heard of a Brunswick Cake before, the only suggestion was that there was a Brunswick Street, (Brunswick Street, opened 1790, named in honour of the House of Hanover. This street was formed on the garden attached to the house of a well-known sporting man, Mr. Baird of Craigton. Ref: wikisource.org). My internet search gleaned not a thing either.

Quite a simple cake as a lot of the old recipes in my grans cookbook are.

So I started by gathering the ingredients:

240g plain flour
90g unsalted butter
180g sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
150 ml milk

My grans recipe instructed the beating the butter and sugar together but I found that made a very dense cake, so I choose to whisk the eggs and sugar together which gave a much lighter sponge. It is quite a heavy cake anyway so this was my way of improving the texture.

So after that adjustment, it meant I had to melt the butter and add gently to the egg and sugar mixture. Then add the dry ingredients and fold until combined. After combining all the ingredients add the batter into the greased and lined 18 cm cake tin and put on the middle shelf of the oven set to 180 degrees fan oven.

The cake take approximately 40 minutes to cook. Check with a skewer if it comes out clean then it’s cooked through.

And the result was

Feather Cake, Page 3

So I’m thinking light sponge cake, so let’s see shall we! By the way no page 2 just a newspaper clipping. I’ll share later.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon of butter
1 cup of sugar
2 eggs
Half a cup of milk
1 and a half cups of flour
Vanilla
1 teaspoon of baking powder

Method

Cream butter and sugar, add eggs and milk well beaten. Missing is the instructions for the flour, I suggest sieve flour and baking powder and fold into mixture until combined. Grease and line a cake tin. Bake in a hot oven for 10 – 15 minutes.

I set the oven to 180 degrees and cooked for 25 minutes. The cake was firm on top and soft inside. I iced my cake with a little lemon curd icing. Delicious!

Lemon Cheese

Reference to my lemon curd recipe, https://youreaturaunties.food.blog/2022/02/03/lemon-curd/

I have decided to work my way though my grandmother’s recipes this year. Starting at the beginning of the book. So recipe number one is Lemon Cheese. I like to make Lemon Curd and it always goes down well. But what is the difference between lemon curd and lemon cheese?

I turned to my preferred preserving cook book for the answer. Bottling, Pickling & Preserving by DK Living. The butter recipes only include fruit, water and sugar. So my grandmother’s lemon cheese recipe is actually a curds. That cleared up I move on to making the curd.

Ingredients

3 Lemons
3 Eggs
3 tablespoons of sugar
3 pieces of butter each the size of a walnut

Method

Grate rinds and juice of the lemons. Whisk eggs and combine with lemon juice and rind. Add the butter and sugar.

My grans recipe then states the ingredients are put in a jar and the jar is placed in a pot boiling water. I chicken out and cooked the curd the way I would normally, placing the ingredients in a bowl above a pan of boiling water (Bain Marie) and stirred until thick.

Thicken it did! It turned out beautifully. Comparing my grandmother’s recipe to my usual recipe the are some marked differences. However if you take into consideration that my grandmother’s recipe is probably a war time recipe, when ingredients were on ration, that could be the reason for the differences. It could also be said that taste may have changed of the 70 or so years since my grandmother’s time.

On tasting it is sharp and very lemony. Not unpleasant at all. It would would cut though a sweet dessert adding layers to heighten flavors.

Shortbread

Quintessentially Scottish, is something I associate with Christmas and New Year. Around that time there was usually someone giving a tin of Walkers shortbread to us as a little reminder of our Scottish heritage. But homemade shortbread is so much better than anything shop bought. Plus it has taken someone’s time and care to create. Also a gift for first footing at new year, a tradition after the bells in Scotland of visiting your nearest neighbours, but you can’t arrive empty handed. Tradition dictates that a gift of food, drink or coal must be offered to the house holder for the New Years good luck. Last Christmas, Lyn my coordinator at School ask me to make shortbread for her (historic) advent calendar. Quite a challenge to make enough shortbread for the whole department. I was up for the challenge.

I learned how to make shortbread at secondary school, Mearns Castle high school, in home economics class. I made, what’s called petticoat tails, it’s circular in shape much bigger than a biscuit or cookie. I remember baking it on a upturned cake tin. Whit a crimped edge and marking it so that when cooked it could be broken into triangles. It is by far the daintiest shortbread.

Sources say it was first created in the 12th Century. Shortbread is traditionally formed into one of three shapes: one large circle divided into segments (“Petticoat Tails”); individual round biscuits (“Shortbread Rounds”); or a thick rectangular slab cut into “fingers.” (Source: https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofScotland/Scottish-Shortbread/).

Recipe

Simple right! Well not as simple as my gran has written. I take it from her recipe that she made shortbread regularly and didn’t need to write the method down. Back when my gran made shortbread it was normal to cook with margarine. Today I prefer to bake using butter, more calorific but much better taste, in my opinion.

Shortbread generally has only a few ingredients, I use just flour, sugar and butter. For the task in hand I was making shortbread fingers. Baked in a square baking tin. The turned out beautifully and went down well with my colleagues at school. If fact they were requested for this years calendar again.

Recipe clipping from an unknown newspaper.

All consuming baking

I haven’t been writing, but I have been baking. Here is what I’ve been up to.

Lemon Curd

Lemon curd is one of those sweet memories I have. Simply spread on freshly baked bread with my mum in her kitchen as a quick snack of an afternoon along with a cup of tea. It was not homemade lemon curd, but Robertsons make a good one. When I moved to Spain there a lot of my favorite things that were not available. It just meant I had to make them instead. I hope you enjoy my version. I also make a mango curd, which is just simply amazing. Maybe I’ll share that soon.

Ingredients

8 large juicy lemons
300g unsalted butter
600g caster sugar
7 large eggs

Makes about 1.5 kg.

Grate the zest of the lemons on the fine side of the grater. Squeeze the juice from the lemons. You want 500ml of juice.
Cut the butter into small cubes. Place into a glass bowl with the sugar, lemon zest and juice. Set over a pan of gently simmering water. Make sure the simmering water does not touch the base of the glass bowl. The water should not boil either as it will scramble the mixture. Stir the mixture until the butter and the sugar have both dissolved.
Light beat the eggs in a bowl, but don’t whisk. Strain the eggs through a plastic sieve into the lemon mixture. Simmer over a low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. It will take 20-25 minutes for the mixture to thicken. It is ready when it coats the back of the wooden spoon. As soon as this happens remove the glass bowl from the pan of water.
Pour into sterilized warmed jars, placing a waxed disc on the top. When cool, seal with a lid or cellophane cover and elastic band.

The curd will only keep for a month and must be kept in the refrigerator.

Baked Vanilla Cheesecake with Lemon Curd Topping

My friend Praline at school where I work, suggested starting up the Cake Club. It used to run before I started working at the school. Anyway it was my turn and I made my baked vanilla cheesecake with homemade lemon curd. This isn’t a recipe from my gran or my aunties this is my own.

Ingredients

For the base

250g digestive biscuits
80g butter

For the filling

400g full fat cream cheese
500g Mascarpone cheese
200g caster sugar
75g plain flour
5 large eggs
1 1/2 dessert spoon vanilla extract

Method

Grease and line a 20cm /8” loose bottom cake tin with grease proof paper. Pre-heat the oven to 150°C, 300°F, gas mark 2. Place a baking sheet on the bottom shelf of the oven while it is heating up.

First add the biscuits to a food processor and wizz into crumbs, then add the melted butter and give it a thorough mix. Next press the crumbs evenly into the base of the lined tin using something flat, I use my metal measuring cup to give it a smooth surface. Put this in the fridge to chill while you make the filling.

In a bowl add all the filling ingredients, use a hand held electric whisk and blend until everything is combined and smooth. Take out the crumb base from the fridge and add the filling. Smooth and level the filling. For added protection I add a layer of foil round the base of the tin. This stops any coloring of the edge of the filling. Bring out the baking sheet from the oven. Place the tin in the Centre and place on the bottom shelf of the oven. Bake for 55 minutes, by which time the cheesecake will be barely coloured; it should be just set firm on the edge but still slightly wobbly in the centre. Now turn the oven off and leave the cheesecake in the oven to cool completely, before placing in the fridge for several hours to firm up. Once chilled, the cheesecake can be taken out of the tin and placed on the serving dish of your desire.

I either top this with homemade lemon curd or a caramel sauce. These are posted separately.

Lemon Meringue Pie

I have fond memories of going with my parents to visit my great aunt Jean and Nellie’s in their flat, Morley street, Langside near Battlefield south of Glasgow when I was quite small, maybe 8 or 9 years old. It must be my first foodie memory. It had that quintessential smell of a time gone by. My aunties lived in a classic Glasgow tenement flat, with a tiny kitchen at the back from which the most heavenly confectionery arrived. It was always a formal high tea that was laid out with the good white linen table cloth and napkins to match and the table was spread with all sort of wonderful things. Well that was my memory anyway. I’m sure my parents memory might vary from mine. I just remember it being like I was a kid in a candy shop not knowing what to have next.

My great aunties outlived my granny, their sister. So although the Lemon Meringue recipe is my granny’s it was my great aunt Jean that baked it. So the Lemon Meringue first appears in my grans recipe book. I have 3 beautiful hand written recipe books that they wrote. When I compared them it is obvious that they shared recipes. It seems that this recipe was borrowed from someone called M. Ritchie. Unfortunately I have no idea who M. Ritchie is in relation to my gran.

This recipe has now been baked by at least 3 generations that I know of. Starting with my great aunties and my gran, my mum and my sister in law Gillian have all baked it. Now I can add my name to the list.

So to the baking itself. If you have a sweet tooth then this is Lemon Meringue is for you. Everyone that has had it, adores it.

As you can see it is a well used recipe, but it was also needing a some detective skills to work out how fill in the gaps. The first writing in blue are my dad’s handwriting and then my mums under that. Now I’m giving it a shot. So here goes.

Lemon Meringue Pie

Ingredients

For the pastry

225g/8oz plain four
175g/6oz unsalted butter
45g/1¾oz icing sugar
1 large egg beaten

I use Mary Berry’s sweet pastry, I changed the temperature settings and the blind baking timings.

For the lemon filling

3 lemons zest and juice
397g/14oz condensed milk
1 tbsp caster sugar
3 egg yolks

For the meringue topping

4 egg whites
225g/8oz caster sugar

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 190C/355F/Gas 5. Put a baking sheet on the baking sheet to heat up.
First make the pastry. Measure the flour and butter into a food processor and blend together until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the icing sugar, egg and one tablespoon of water and whizz again until combined to a ball.
Tip the pastry onto a work surface and roll out to a 3mm thickness. Use the rolling pin to lift the pastry up and transfer it to line a 23cm/9in loose-bottomed flan tin. Be careful not to stretch the pastry as you tuck it into the corners. Cover in cling film and place in the refrigerator to chill for 30 minutes.
Take the pastry-lined tin out of the fridge and trim the excess pastry. Press the top edge of the pastry so that it stands slightly higher than the top of the tin.
Line the pastry case with parchment and fill with baking beans. Place the pastry lined flan tin onto the baking sheet in the oven. Bake for about 20 minutes then remove the beans and parchment and return to the oven for a further 8 minutes.
Remove from the oven and reduce the temperature to 180C/350F/Gas 4.
Grate the rind of 2 lemons, add to the condensed milk in a medium sized bowl, gradually add the juice of 3 lemons. Now add the tablespoon of sugar and the egg yolks. Mix well to combine all the ingredients. Spoon into the flan case.
Whisk the egg whites using a hand held electric whisk until they form soft peaks then while continuously whisking gradually add the sugar a tablespoon at a time.
Spoon on top starting from the edges this anchors the meringue to the filled pastry case and spread the meringue to completely cover the lemon filling. Then create a swirl on the top of the meringue.
Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes until the filling is set and the meringue is lightly golden and crisp. Allow to cool completely before cutting or serve very slightly warm.