Woke up, it was a Cardigan morning and the first thing that I heard was the rain outside my window and the traffic splashed the words (with apologies to Joni Mitchel and anyone who doesn’t get the reference).
Looking out the kitchen window I saw I had left the rug from the cabin out to air in preparation for the new guests and it appeared to be soaked. Donning my best floaty dressing gown and old slippers I ventured forth into the rain, slip sliding down the slate steps because inappropriate footwear (a familiar feature in my life). I rescued the rug but my eye was caught by a large slug which was happily feasting on my new, rather blousy dahlia. Incensed I went into the house to get some tongs and some salt (the next bit is not for the faint hearted - skip to sunshine scone recipe if you are one of those) and proceeded to pick off said slug and its family and friends and dunk them in a bucket of salted water. I am not by nature violent, I am in fact quite squeamish, hence tongs, but the sight of these creatures yet again decimating my new plants was too much. Not only are we living with the greyest summer on record so everything is struggling to grow anyway, but these slimy ne’r do wells have positively flourished. I know they are good food for hedgehogs and birds but I live beneath a rookery and they are not remotely interested in this slow moving banquet below them and hedgehogs are sadly nowhere to be seen.
Back to the grey summer. I bore even myself by this endless banging on about it. I know it’s climate change and now we must expect the unexpected. But I am old and remember endless days of sunshine and rose tinted sunglasses.
I woke early this morning, to the sound of a car door slamming (there’s another Joni song there I’m sure) and my husband leaving for work. He leaves at 6.30am which is unfathomable to me. Then I heard the rain and the car wheels splashing through the puddles and thought this morning needs some sunshine, and because the sky refused to offer any I decided to bake some.
Here again is an opportunity to skip ahead to the recipe as I head off on a tangent.
Not long ago I went a little road trip. I went on a big one in North America once, from Victoria in BC, Canada to Las Vegas and back again on different and circuitous routes. This was in the days when you could still rock up to a motel and book a room right then and there, with a human, at a desk, maybe haggle a little, ask where the ice machine is, specify a non smoking room which we knew would smell of smoke anyway. We drove by the Devil’s Golf Course in Death Valley and found an actual golf ball.
This recent one was a little less out there, taking in Surrey and Sussex mostly - there are millions of golf courses there too of course, but not like the Devil’s own. One of the places I visited was the town of Lewes, near Brighton, to see a very dear friend. She lives in a little house with a door that opens on to the street. You enter and are immediately assaulted by the absolute certainty that a character of interest lives here, a character with a life, a history, an individual eye for beauty and a total lack of pretension or any fucks to give about anyone else’s ideas of style or taste.
Lewes is very tame, quietly classy-ish, people wear socks with their Birkenstocks (a la Cardigan types also), a little too knowing and sure of itself with it’s proximity to both Brighton and London making it a very sweet spot indeed. My friend knows all the more underground and funky places and people so we avoided the uber self conscious bits and had a lovely visit, as the Americans like to call these get togethers, and lunch in a very fine cafe called the Cafe du Jardin, which was just that, a cafe in a garden, or perhaps more accurately in a courtyard, with sunshine, so much sunshine in fact that I needed some shade - heaven. We both had croque monsieur and I’d go back to Lewes just for that.
Anyway - back to today, and food. Like sunshine food nourishes us, both body and soul. We can survive in the endless grey days just as we can survive on porridge if we must, but we would decline, like a Regency heroine who succumbs to ennui or tuberculosis and finally fades away, coughing quietly. In my life food is my work, my therapy, and my physical nourishment so porridge is not for me (except when made by my Mum with cream and salt - I hated it, but loved her so it’s wormed its terrible way into my affections).
We are ridiculously spoiled in this rich western world, so much choice, so much temptation, so much advice on what to eat, how, when and why. Sometimes I get caught up in a health kick, packing in as much fermented food as possible, laying off the butter and sugar, seeing my eyes actually brighten as result, but the stomach roll never seems to shift. Other days I give in, throw caution to wind and eat wheat based products all day, with extra sugar, which is why, presumably, the stomach roll never seems to shift. Here is a recipe for that kind of day.
Orange Sunshine Scones
or
Crunchy Orange Butter Swirls
or
Oh My Gods!
adapted from the fabulous Darina Allen’s recipe form the New Ballymaloe Bread Book - mine did not turn out quite like hers did at the demo I watched but still, bio bad for a first attempt and so so good. I have wanted to make them for a while and if they act as a sun dance at the same time, boom, job done.
Makes between 8-12
Ingredients:
450g plain flour
25g golden castor sugar
30g baking powder
zest of one orange
80g butter, cut into cubes and chilled
225ml milk
2 eggs, beaten
30g Demerara sugar
Orange butter
80g butter, softened
2 tsp orange zest
100g sifted icing sugar
How to make them:
Whizz up the ingredients for the orange butter and put aside. You can use a food processor or a wooden spoon and elbow grease of this.
Pre heat the oven to 220oC / 200oC fan / gas 9 / 475F (the book calls for 250oC but that is either a typo or I don’t know what all else)
Sieve the flour into a big bowl, add the sugar, baking powder and orange zest, mix and lifting with your hands to bring air into the mix. Add the butter cubes and rub into the flour mix with your finger tips to create a loose flakey mixture.
Make a well in this and add the milk and about 3/4 of the egg mix (keep some back for egg wash). Stir this altogether with your hand to create a loose dough.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and pat into a long rectangle shape about 2cm high, 30cm long.
Spread about ⅔ of the orange butter onto the surface of the rectangle and roll it up from the long side.
Cut into as many slices as you like - probably 8 is best but Idid more and make them a bit small and squishy.
Dip each one into the egg wash (or paint it on with a pastry brush) and then into the Demerara sugar and place sugar side up on a lined baking tray.
Bake for between 10 and 17 minutes depending on the size you cut them into and the efficiency of your oven.
Serve warm if you can, with a smidge of extra orange butter for extra inner sunshine.
BONUS! a glass of delicious freshly squeezed orange juice and a timid, blue-ish sky.
Very nice to eat on our deck on what was a beautiful morning.. for October! Amen to the weather despair but the orange scones (Americans pronounce it like 'moan' which seems appropriate) are superb. Nice one honey.
Lovely series of unexpected contrasts in this, Liz, thank you!