English Tea Party: Tea Bread

I love the British.  They’re so interesting with their odd names for things.  For instance, this is called tea bread:

Not a very good shot, sorry.

...which more has the consistency of cake.  

Which is not to be confused with teacakes...

...that have the consistency of cookies.  

  

And cookies, in the UK, are called biscuits.  Whereas biscuits in America look like this:

Which are much more similar to muffins in England...

...which are nothing like our muffins. 

It’s all delightfully confusing.  And that's without bothering to bring up any mix-ups with bacon, chips, or jelly (and don’t worry, we’ll address those things in a couple of weeks). 

Of course, we can’t go getting annoyed at the British for their odd names.  After all, we named our food long after they named theirs.  And for the most part, we renamed stuff just for the sake of being different from the British.  I blame Noah Webster, who wrote the first set of American dictionaries, the most notable one published in 1828, and changed the spelling of a bunch of stuff in order to celebrate American nationalism.  It was a nice enough idea, I suppose, and it is convenient to not have to worry about superfluous U’s in words like “color” or “favorite.”  But it’s good to remember that, while some aspects of British culture seem odd to us, we were the ones who actually changed stuff.

Tangent over.  Back to tea bread.  Julie chose this recipe because it has chocolate in it.  I approved.  It was my second favorite treat we made after the teacakes.  It’s delicious, and super easy.  You should try it, too!

Conversions for weird British recipes (And I feel justified in saying "weird" since they're the ones who switched to metric on us.  We still use the English system!): 225 grams = 8 ounces = 1 cup = 16 tablespoons.  Therefore, 2 tbsp = 1 oz and 3 oz = 6 tbsp, or ¼ cup + 2 tbsp.

Follow the links for caster sugar and self-raising flour if you need substitutes for those ingredients.  For caster sugar, you have to scroll down a bit.

Marbled Chocolate Teabread

(Source: AllBritishFood.com)

Servings: about 10 slices

225 g (8 oz) butter – 2 sticks/1 cup

225 g (8 oz) caster sugar

4 eggs, beaten

225 g (8 oz) self-raising flour

finely grated rind of 1 large orange

15 ml (1 tbsp) orange juice

few drops orange flower water (optional)

75 g (3 oz) plain chocolate

15 ml (1 tbsp) cocoa powder

1. Grease a 900 ml (2 pint) loaf tin and line the base and sides with greaseproof paper.
2. Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy, then gradually beat in the eggs, beating well after each addition. Fold in the flour.
3. Transfer half of the mixture to another bowl and beat in the orange rind, juice and orange flower water, if using.
4. Break the chocolate into pieces, put into a small bowl and place over a pan of simmering water . Stir until the chocolate melts. (Or heat up for 2o seconds in the microwave, stir, and repeat until chocolate is melted.  Careful not to burn it!)  Stir into the remaining cake mixture with the cocoa powder.
5. Put alternate spoonfuls of the two mixtures into the prepared tin. Use a knife to swirl through the mixture to make a marbled effect, then level the surface.
6. Bake at 180°C (350°F) mark 4 for 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 hours, until well risen and firm to the touch. Turn out on to a wire rack to cool. Serve cut in slices.

Nutrition Facts: http://tinyurl.com/chocmarteabreadnutritionfacts

Zesting is such a pain.

Aww... I miss Julie.

Mixing chocolate into chocolate portion

Wow, my bangs were outta control.  It looks like I have a small mammal on my forehead!

Yay us!  Adding alternating spoonfuls of each portion.

Look at that beauty!

It’s so easy, and so yummy!  I love that chocolate orange flavor.  If you love that flavor combo, too, try this and let me know what you think!  You'll come to understand why Gwendolen preferred bread over cake, because this stuff is pretty darn yummy!

An Exploration of Pudding

Today is my oldest niece’s birthday!  She’s turning 12.  Happy birthday, Elizabeth!

Coincidentally, it’s also Queen Elizabeth II’s birthday.  She’s turning 85.  If she makes it 5 more years, she’ll be the longest reigning English monarch ever.  Pretty cool, huh?

I think it’s appropriate to celebrate Her Majesty the Queen’s birthday with a post about traditional English pudding.

Most of us Americans believe that pudding looks like this:

Homemade chocolate pudding.  One of my favorites!

However, England has a more liberal definition of pudding.  For instance, this is pudding:

Black pudding, aka blood sausage

As is this:

Remember this?  Yorkshire pudding!

It’s all very confusing if you’re not familiar with English tradition.  But basically, a pudding in England is traditionally baked, and it can be anything from black pudding (a black colored sausage) to rice pudding.  And rice pudding is what we’re going to cover today. 

I pulled rice pudding from The Secret Garden.  The movie was always a favorite of mine as a child, because the main character’s name was Mary and she hated “Mary Mary Quite Contrary” being sung at her just as much as I did.  But it’s also a great story.  The author, Frances Hodgson Burnett describes Mary Lennox after she comes in from playing in the garden:

[Mary] had such red cheeks and such bright eyes and ate such a dinner that Martha was delighted.

“Two pieces o’ meat and two helps o’ rice puddin’!" she said. "Eh!  Mother will be pleased when I tell her what th’ skippin’-rope’s done for thee.” (Hodgson Burnett 102-3)

I have seen rice pudding referenced in a lot of other British literature, so I decided to try it.  To my recollection, I have never had rice pudding before this week.  My sisters or mom might tell me otherwise, but trying it on Monday was like trying it for the first time to me.

Most Americans think they have tried rice pudding.  They have probably eaten something like this:

 Or, even better, this:

*shudders* I’m sorry, but if you think you’ve tried homemade pudding, any flavor, by making it from a Jello packet, you are woefully mistaken.  Pudding (the American kind) isn’t even worth the effort unless it’s truly homemade – with milk, eggs, cornstarch and sugar.  Oh man, my mouth is watering thinking of it.

Sorry, that was a tangent.  My point is, rice pudding came from England, and is traditionally baked.   It isn’t much like “Americana” pudding at all.  I got my recipe from food.com, but I did a little research first.  A couple other recipes include eggs, which I liked, but they also include weird ingredients that didn’t seem very traditional, like lemon sauce or raisins.  So I chose this one, because it is not too complex, with subtle flavors that could almost classify it as bland.  It wouldn’t be British otherwise.  :)

Notes: The original recipe called for a vanilla bean.  I replaced it with vanilla extract.  Also, this recipe calls for “caster sugar,” which is a really fine sugar, much like powdered sugar, except that powdered sugar has cornstarch in it to keep it from getting lumpy.  I put granulated sugar in a blender and blended it for about 30 seconds.  Voila!  Caster sugar.  You could probably get away with using powdered sugar, though.

Blending the sugar

Left: Blended, Right: granulated.  The blended one looks lumpy because it lacks corn starch, unlike powdered sugar.

Traditional Baked English Rice Pudding

·  2 ½ cup whole milk

·  1 ½ tsp vanilla

·  ½ cup short-grain rice

·  3 tablespoons caster sugar

·  2 tablespoons butter

·  1 teaspoon cinnamon

·  1 teaspoon nutmeg

1. Preheat the oven to 300°F.
2. Put the rice and sugar in an ovenproof dish. Pour the milk over the rice. Stir in Add the spices and vanilla and stir to mix, then dot the surface with butter.
3. Bake uncovered for 2 hours. After about 40 minutes, stir the surface skin into the pudding, and repeat this after a further 40 minutes.
4. Allow the pudding to finish cooking for the final 40 minutes without stirring.

After 1st 40 min.  It was pretty much still liquid.

After 2nd 40 min. Hardened skin on top, but liquidy underneath.

After last 40 min.  All done!

Follow the directions exactly, and you’ll get traditional rice pudding!  It’s a yummy treat.  Cut it into squares and serve.  I like it better cold than hot, but you can serve it both ways.

Enjoy!

P.S. If you're interested in learning more about black pudding, click here or here. Be prepared to be grossed out!