Ham and Courgette Slice

This savoury bake is ideal for summer, especially when the forecast is for weather so hot that you wouldn't want the oven on, and you have enough warning and time to bake ahead. It's also good for when the courgettes are producing fruit faster than you can harvest them, or there's a glut on the market. We're not quite at the over-production stage, but I'm determined not to allow things to get out of hand this year - I don't want any marrows!

My inspiration comes from this recipe on Fig Jam and Lime Cordial, which I've written about before. This time I used two thick slices of smoked ham instead of the bacon, and added a sliced chilli and some shredded sage leaves for extra flavour.

This is what I used, but it seems a very versatile recipe, so a little more or less of any of the flavouring ingredients probably won't make a lot of difference, as long as you keep the batter the same (the eggs, flour and oil). I guess it would also be OK to add things like leftover cooked vegetables to the mixture too, as part of the total weight of vegetables.

300g coarsely grated vegetables (I used roughly 220g courgettes with 80g carrots for colour contrast)
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 red chilli, de-seeded and finely sliced
about a dozen sage leaves, finely shredded
100g grated cheese (I used 60g strong cheddar and 40g parmesan)
100-150g smoked ham, cut into small strips
5 large eggs
125mls light olive oil
130g SR flour
salt and pepper to taste

Just mix everything together, pour into a parchment-lined baking dish (I used a 23cm (9") cast iron pan) and bake in a pre-heated oven at 175C (fan) for around 50 minutes until firm and golden brown. The baking time depends on the depth of mixture which is determined by the size of the dish you use. A 20 x 20cm (8 x 8") square dish would be a similar size - anything smaller will give a deeper mixture which takes longer to cook.

This is best eaten warm or at room temperature. It's probably OK hot too, but I haven't tried that - I'd still let it rest for about 15 minutes after coming out of the oven.

Although this is very similar to a quiche filling, or a frittata, the SR flour makes it a little sturdier, whilst still keeping it light because of the raising agent, and the oil keeps the texture moist. The added bonus over a quiche (besides not making pastry, thus avoiding a soggy bottom) is that the onion doesn't need pre-cooking - any moisture given out during cooking is absorbed by the batter, which doesn't happen with a quiche filling.

I'm sending this to Belleau Kitchen's Simply Eggcellent bloggers' link-up. Dom is allowing us free reign this month saying that 'anything goes'! This dish makes a quick and easy main course, could easily be made vegetarian  and is robust enough to hold up in a lunch box or picnic basket, making it a useful recipe during the holiday season.

Cauliflower, Blue Cheese and Walnut Cake

Last week, the weather suddenly changed from the usual non-descript British summer to a heatwave. A real heatwave too - the temperatures here in East Anglia got over 32C on the hottest day, and there were several days in succession when the temperature was in the high 20s. This played havoc with my eating plans, as we only wanted salad for most of the week, and left me with, amongst other things, a huge cauliflower which wasn't going to last much longer. I needed to make something which would be suitable for hot or cold meals, depending on how the weather changed.

This cauliflower cake was inspired by Yottam Ottolenghi's recipe from Plenty More, which I enjoyed a lot when I made it last year. This time, about the only thing I took from his recipe was the ratio of eggs to flour, and the cooking temperature, but I would never have thought of making this without trying his recipe first.

Ingredients
1 large cauliflower, cut into even sized florets, about 5cm across
120g plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
7 eggs, preferably free-range
3 tablespoons sunflower oil
150g blue cheese (I used Roquefort)
3 spring onions, including green parts - finely chopped
a handful of parsley - finely chopped
50g walnuts - coarsely chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
black pepper to taste
25g parmesan cheese - finely grated

Method
Cook the cauliflower in boiling salted water, for about 8 minutes, until just tender. Drain well and cool.
Preheat the oven to 180C (160C fan), and line a 20cm diameter springform tin with baking parchment (to save heartache later, line the sides as well as the base, even if your tin is non-stick).
Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl, add three of the eggs and mix to a smooth paste, then mix in the other 4 eggs and the sunflower oil. Crumble in the blue cheese, then stir in the walnuts, spring onions, parsley, salt and pepper.
Gently fold in the cooked cauliflower, being careful not to break up the florets too much.
Tip the mixture into the prepared baking tin, trying to get the cauliflower evenly distributed and level in the tin.
Sprinkle the parmesan over the surface, then bake for about 55 minutes, until golden and firm. (If you use a larger tin, as in Ottolenghi's recipe, it takes about 45 minutes to cook, but I liked the idea of a deeper cake)
Best eaten at room temperature, or just a little warmer, but however you intend to eat it, leave it in the tin to cool.

This is more like a tortilla or frittata in texture, than a cake, but the addition of flour and baking powder makes it both lighter and more robust - ideal for food you might want to stand up to the rigours of transporting to a picnic, for example. The addition of blue cheese and walnuts added two strong flavours to the cauliflower, and the walnuts gave a welcome crunch to the texture, The finely chopped spring onions and parsley added attractive flecks of colour to an otherwise plain looking dish.

Over at Belleau Kitchen, this month's theme for Dom's Simply Eggcellent challenge is 'Eggs in the Morning'. While this cauliflower cake might not be most people's idea of a tasty breakfast, it would certainly be good on a brunch menu.

.

Goat's Cheese, Apricot and Walnut Savoury Cake

Now that sugar has been recognised as a bigger threat to health than saturated fats, I'm wondering what implications this will have on the recent surge in home baking. Will we all switch to savoury baking? Make bread, quiches and meat pasties instead of sugar-heavy brownies and cookies? I doubt that sweet baking will be abandoned entirely though - at least with home baking, as with all types of cooking, it's easier to control the amount of sugar that you add. Perhaps the way forward is to re-run our favourite recipes and see how much the sugar can be reduced without spoiling the finished product.

Something I like once in a while are savoury cakes, although they will never replace sweet cakes entirely. There are times when a slice of savoury cake goes down well - early evening, with a glass of wine or with a lunchtime salad, but what you need with your mid-morning cup of tea or evening coffee is normal sweet cake.

I chose this versatile recipe from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (second recipe down), and following his suggestions, changed the raisins and hazelnuts for dried apricots and walnuts, as that was what I had in stock. I also used parmesan instead of hard goat's cheese.

This was a pleasant savoury cake, but I think I would have preferred it to be totally savoury. The dried fruit in this recipe was sweet enough to overwhelm the savoury elements, even the parmesan cheese, resulting in something which didn't fall satisfactorily into either the sweet or savoury camp. In this respect, the other two recipes on the link look more interesting - the ham and olive one in particular, although another recent TV programme has warned of the dangers of processed meats!