Lemon curd + Suffolk rusks = Delizioso

Ok, I admit that I may have become a bit obsessed with the limoncello lemon curd.  As well as having it on toast for breakfast, I’ve also been using it as a topping for cheesecakes and ‘desserts in a jar’, swirling it into butter icing for cupcakes and, of course, eating it straight from the jar.  But I remembered that I like it best when thickly spread on top of these crumbly rusks.

Rusks are a cross between a scone and a biscuit, originally cooked for storage or transportation.   They are a traditional dish from Suffolk so a little tricky to get hold of in Rome.  My mother-in-law, Suffolk born and bred, tells me that you should gently break the rusks apart when you split them (instead of using a knife) as this gives a nice rough, rustic finish when dried in the oven.

Ingredients – makes 16 rusks:

225g self-raising flour

1 egg, beaten

85g butter

25ml milk

Pinch of salt

Method:

Preheat oven to 230C / Gas 8.  Sift the flour and salt together into a bowl and rub in the butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.  Stir in the beaten egg and the milk to make a smooth dough.

Roll out on a lightly floured surface to about 2.5cm (1 inch) then cut into 6cm  (2.5 inch) rounds.  Line a greased baking sheet with baking paper and place the rounds on the paper.

Cook for 10 minutes.  Remove from the oven, split in half and place back on the baking sheet, cut side upwards.  Reduce the oven temperature to 190C / Gas 5.  Return the rusks to the oven and cook for another 10-15 minutes until they are crisp and golden brown.   Cool on a wire rack.

Store in an airtight tin for up to two weeks.   The rusks also taste amazing as a teatime treat with butter and jam or as a savoury choice with cheese or paté.

Reading Ban = Limoncello Curd

        

So I’m following The Artist’s Way: a 12-week course to discover and free your creativity.  Obviously, that sounds like a right load of New Age tosh but it’s an interesting read and has lots of exercises to get you started on writing, painting or whatever floats your creative boat.  But last week’s task was almost impossible: to not read anything for a week.  A WHOLE WEEK.  As someone who is never more than two feet away from a book, the task was always going to be tricky.  And The Artist’s Way was written in 1993, long before we all became used to reading for most of our waking hours – receiving emails and texts on our phones, checking Facebook hourly and looking information up on Google so we don’t have to bother remembering anything.

The rationale behind the task is that we spend so much time and energy reading the words of others that we don’t have any time left over to create our own.   I can see that.  But it still didn’t help me get through the week.

In the end, I made a compromise where I didn’t read any books (successful!) and attempted to minimise Facebook, email and Internet time to 30 minutes a day (ok, not totally successful!)  I had hoped that the task would force me to open up the document entitled ‘Novel’ and actually add some word count to it…but sadly that didn’t happen.

Instead I used some of the free time to make Limoncello Lemon Curd, which fits in nicely with my mission to fuse English and Italian cooking.  In my opinion any recipe can be improved with the addition of alcohol and this is no exception.  I’m a big lemon curd fan, especially when made with lemons picked from our own little tree, and I can honestly say that this is the best lemon curd in the world ever!!

Limoncello Lemon Curd

 Ingredients – fills 2 small jam jars:

2 eggs

2 egg yolks

125g caster sugar

25 ml limoncello liqueur

The juice of 3 lemons (approx. 100 ml lemon juice)

Grated zest of 1 lemon

85 g diced butter

Method:

Sterilise the jam jars – wash the jars in soapy water and rinse in clean warm water.  Preheat the oven to 140C/275F/Gas 1. Dry the jars, upside down, on a rack for 30 minutes.  Leave to cool down a bit before removing them from the oven!

Whisk the eggs and egg yolks in a large heatproof bowl.  Stir in the sugar, limoncello, lemon zest and juice.  Add the butter and set the bowl over a saucepan of very gently simmering water, making sure the bowl doesn’t touch the water.

Stir the mixture with a wooden spoon for 5 minutes until the butter melts, then use a whisk to continuously stir the ingredients and cook for about 10 minutes.   Do not let the mixture boil.  The lemon curd should have the consistency of custard.  The curd will thicken as it cools.

Pour the hot lemon curd into the sterilised jars and leave to cool. When completely cool, cover the curd with a disc of baking paper and seal with a lid.  Keep in the fridge and use within two weeks.  But believe me, it won’t last that long!

Marmite Spaghetti – perfect comfort food

We had a huge thunderstorm here a couple of nights ago with the loudest thunder I’ve ever heard crashing over our heads for what felt like hours.   I’ve been surprised at just how many thunderstorms we get in Rome – more in the last six months than I experienced in the last six years in England.   The clouds have almost all gone now and the sun will soon be beating down upon us again (this is a small clue to the fact that I’m not a lover of the heat.  More to come on that subject as the temperature here starts to rise!)

So whilst it’s still relatively cool, I thought today would be a good day for some comfort food.  This is a new recipe in my English-Italian blended range that I eventually hope to persuade Waitrose to stock, thus making my fortune… What could be a better mix than traditional spaghetti with a creamy Marmite Butter sauce?  Marmite is one of those ‘must have’ products from England that we force ask all our visitors to bring over for us.  Along with the other ex-pat essentials: PG Tips, Bird’s Custard powder and Shredded Wheat.

Spaghetti with Marmite Butter

 Ingredients – serves 1: 

80g spaghetti

20g softened butter

5g Marmite (according to taste)

Grated parmesan, black pepper and chopped thyme to garnish (all optional)

Method:

Cook spaghetti as per instructions on packet.  Mix butter and Marmite together in a small bowl.   When spaghetti is cooked, coat thoroughly with the sauce.  Garnish, serve and enjoy – buonissimo!

By the way, I also highly recommend keeping a little tub of the Marmite Butter in the fridge as it is amazing on toast: a perfectly distributed blend with no unexpected overly Marmite areas.   However, in the interest of full disclosure, I will mention that my husband refuses to have Marmite Butter on his toast, insisting that applying them separately is the only acceptable method.  But take my word for it – Marmite Butter is delizioso!  (Yes, that is a real Italian word!)

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Fragolo Cupcakes

I managed to lock myself out of the apartment yesterday, taking my carefully sorted recycling down to the bins.  Major panic as I’d left a pan of home-made carrot soup bubbling on the hob.  It was molto fun trying to ask for help from the old nonna downstairs, who doesn’t speak a word of English (luckily not the same nonna I previously fell out with over a pair of wellies).  It’s harder than you’d think to mime ‘I’ve locked myself out, my husband is at work and there is imminent danger of the apartment burning down’!

Fortunately, it turns out that the landlord’s mother lives in the block next door and has a spare key.  By the time I got into the apartment, I could barely see through the thick smoke and the soup had turned into a blackened solid lump at the bottom of the pan.   After all that, this morning we saw the bin men chuck the recycling in the back of the truck with all the rubbish…

So I decided to cheer myself up making some strawberry cupcakes but with an Italian twist: the addition of Fragolo, the strawberry liqueur from Nemi.   At 30% proof, I think these had better be adult only treats!

Fragolo Cupcakes

Ingredients – makes 12 cupcakes:

8 large fresh strawberries                           2 eggs

200g caster sugar                                      75ml vegetable oil

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract                       200g plain flour

2 teaspoons baking powder                        1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons custard powder                    20ml strawberry liqueur

Icing:

175g mascarpone or cream cheese            30g unsalted butter, softened

80g icing sugar                                           1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

10ml strawberry liqueur                               Pink food colouring (optional)

To decorate:

White chocolate hearts or slices of fresh strawberry

Method:

Preheat oven to 170 C / Gas 3.  Line cupcake tin with cupcake cases.

Place strawberries into a blender and blend until smooth. Pour the puree through a sieve to remove seeds. Puree should equal about 175ml.

In a large bowl beat together the eggs, caster sugar, vegetable oil, vanilla extract, strawberry puree and strawberry liqueur until well combined. Stir in the flour, baking powder, salt and custard powder. Spoon the cake mixture into the prepared cupcake tin, filling each about 2/3 full.

Bake in the preheated oven until the cupcakes have risen and a skewer inserted into the centre of a cupcake comes out clean, about 15 minutes. Allow the cupcakes to cool for at least 10 minutes before icing.

To make the icing, beat the mascarpone and butter together in a mixing bowl with an electric mixer until smooth.  Add vanilla extract, strawberry liqueur and food colouring, then mix in icing sugar to make a lump-free icing.  Ice each cupcake and add decoration of your choice.

Enjoy with a cup of tea and good book.  Or maybe more liqueur…