Three Chimneys: Rhubarb Crumble Tart

I thought I'd start with a Sunday dessert that didn't look too daunting, the Rhubarb Crumble Tart. This is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. You start off with a sweet shortcrust pastry case, fill it with some cooked rhubarb, cover it with crumble topping, and bake.
Right. Portion sizes? There's only two of us. If I make the full tart, we're going to be eating it for ages. So I'll make two small ones.
First step in the recipe: line the tart time with sweet shortcrust pastry and bake blind. Ok....sweet shortcrust pastry? Don't want to buy it. No recipe for it in this book. So turn to the bookshelf, and come up with a recipe from Chocolate and Zucchini. Scale it down appropriately, and it's just what I need.
While the lined tart tins are chilling before their first baking, do the rhubarb. Freshly pulled, from the crowns in the back garden. Well they were here anyway, so i may as well use them. The rhubarb is sliced and baked with some orange juice, light brown sugar, and a couple of pieces of ginger. I'm a bit worried that there's too much sugar going in, but follow the recipe anyway.
With the rhubarb out of the oven, the tart cases go in. While these are baking, I make the crumble topping. I don't think my butter is as chilled as it should be, or else my hands are quite warm, but things don't quite rub together to the texture of sand as they should - the butter gets very sift and sticks together in some large bits, with some smaller sandy bits. So I go ahead and add the sugar, nuts and oats in, and rub it all together as best I can. It looks a bit more like very fine gravel than coarse sand, but I think it'll do the job. It goes back in the fridge until I'm ready for it.
The tart cases have come out of the oven and been left to cool for a bit before final assembly. A bit of the crumble topping gets sprinkled over the bases, just enough to cover them. Next, the rhubarb is divided between the cases. Finally, the rhubarb is covered with more of the crumble topping. Then it's back into the oven for a final baking.
The verdict? A success. I needn't have worried about the amount of sugar in the rhubarb, it wasn't too sweet (but it wasn't quite as sharp as I sometimes like it). The pastry worked well, and I'll be using that crumble topping again.

Joining In

Well, after some discussion, the decision was made: I'm going to try to cook as many recipes as possible from The Three Chimneys.

Join in?

Hmm, there seem to be quite a few people out there doing the 'cook every recipe in a cookbook' thing. I wonder whether I should join in, and if so, what cookbook should I choose? Something not too large, perhaps. It should probably be something vaguely local-themed, so my Sue Lawrence Cook's Tour of Scotland, or Alan Bichan Orkney Feast? Or something new - a Three Chimneys or a Claire Macdonald? Maybe one of her seasonal cooking books. I foresee a cookbook-browsing session in my future...

Clootie Dumpling

Clootie dumpling is a traditional Scottish dish, something similar to how you'd probably imagine an old traditional Christmas pudding to be. It gets its name from the cloth or 'cloot' that it's boiled in. I say it's similar to Christmas pudding, but actually it's a bit lighter - not quite so packed with fruit, and no alcohol in it.
In my family at least (and from the web searches I've done, we're not the only ones), this dish is customarily served at birthday celebrations. I remember as a child, wrapping up 20p pieces (and the occasional £1 coin) in tinfoil, to be added to the mixture before it went in the cloth. As we all got older, the coins were no longer added, but we still had the dumpling.
D had never encountered a dumpling before he met my family, and has never had one of his own. So this year, for his birthday, I thought I'd make him one.
I have my Gran's recipe for it, but it seems to be quite different from the other ones I found while doing the web searches, in that it doesn't contain the suet that almost all of the other recipes do.

So how did my first attempt at making a dumpling on my own turn out? Well, the comments from D were very favourable, and I thought it tasted OK. Will I make it again? Definitely.

Recipe
The measurements here are given in cups. The cup I use for this isn't the standard American cup, but an actual teacup. They're almost the same, but the teacup is a little bit smaller. You could probably get away with using the American cup.

2 cups plain flour, plus extra for the cloth.
1 cup breadcrumbs
3oz (85g) sugar
3oz (85g) block margarine (I used butter and it didn't seem to do any harm)
1 tsp mixed spice
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp treacle
1 cup sultanas
1 cup currants (I didn't have any, so I used raisins instead)
1 apple, grated
Pinch of salt
1 cup milk
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 clean largish cotton/linen cloth, fairly tight weave.
String.
A helper is also useful.

Rub the margarine into the flour.
Add the breadcrumbs, sugar, spices and salt. Mix thoroughly.
Add the dried fruit, and stir through.
At this point, get a large pan of water boiling. Put a heatproof plate upside down in the bottom of the pan. Also boil a kettle of water.
Dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in the milk. Pour this over the dry ingredients, then add the treacle and the grated apple. mix thoroughly until well combined.
Now you need to scald the cloth - I did this by putting it in the sink and pouring the boiling water from the kettle over it. It then needs to be wrung out so that it's wet/damp but not soaking. Be careful, it's still full of boiling water. Wear at least one pair of rubber gloves - two if they'll fit.
Spread the cloth out on a surface (if the mixture isn't too runny) or in a bowl (if it is). Sprinkle the cloth with flour.
Now, spoon the dumpling mixture into the middle of the floured cloth. Here comes the bit where a helper might be useful. You need to gather up the cloth and tie it with string. Leave a bit of room for the mixture to expand, but make sure that the string is tied tightly.
Now, place the dumpling into your large pan of boiling water. Let it simmer/boil for three hours.
Before the three hours are up, preheat your oven to about 150C. It needs to be heated by the time the dumpling is ready. You'll also need to have an ovenproof plate ready, preferably slightly warmed up.
When the 3 hours are up, remove the dumpling from the pot. I dipped it in cold water at this point, but I'm not sure if you need to do this. Untie the string and start to peel the cloth away. when you have enough of the top (which will become the bottom) exposed, put the plate on top and turn the whole lot upside down. Peel away the rest of the cloth.
It doesn't look very appetizing at this point. Now, put the plate and dumpling into the oven an leave it for anything between 15 and 30 minutes. This is when the skin dries off and darkens.

Serve with custard, cream, or both.

Pumpkin Lemon and Poppy Seed Muffins

It's been a long time since I updated this blog. I have been cooking, it's just that I just never seemed to manage to post it.
With Hallowe'en just passed, I realised that I've never cooked with pumpkin. I haven't even used one to make a pumpkin lantern. Well, here is Scotland, when i was a girl, we didn't use pumpking for lanterns, we used turnips. Anyway, in the supermarked last week, when I saw a lonely little edible pumpkin, I thought I should take it home and make something out of it.
So I did. I browsed my cookbooks, a number of blogs, and a couple of fod magazine sites, before settling on this recipe for a pumpkin, poppy seed and lemon loaf from Delicious magazine.

I didn't actually bake it as a loaf, I made individual muffins. The full recipe made 12. I cut down the sugar a tiny bit - 125g instead of 150g, and they were still sweet enough for me. I didn't need all of the milk - only 2 tablespoons instead of the 4 called for. This may have been because the pumpkin was quite watery. If I do this again (and as there's three-quarters of the pumpkin left, there will be at least one more sweet and one savoury recipe made) I'd probably cook the pureed pumpkin down a bit to get rid of the liquid.