Nigella Lawson's Supper Onion Pie

When I read in the Daily Telegraph that this recipe was considered one of Nigella's best 10 recipes of all time, I had to give it a try. This Supper Onion Pie is similar to a red onion tarte tatin, except that a cheese scone dough is used instead of pastry.

The recipe was quick and simple to put together - the longest procedure is slowly caramelising the onions until they are soft and nicely coloured. The onion layer is flavoured with thyme and the cheese scone dough also has mustard in it for a bit more flavour. I cooked the onions in the same skillet that I used to bake the pie in, which made things even simpler - less washing up!

I found this a pleasant dish to eat, but nothing more outstanding than that. The scone dough was quite thick compared to pastry, and I thought it needed more flavouring - more mustard or some herbs maybe, or even some dried chilli flakes. My husband was even more critical - I was told in no uncertain terms not to make it again unless I could make it more flavoursome - he suggested leaving out the cheese and using garlic and coriander leaves in the base and some suitable spices in the onions.

I don't have a lot of Nigella's recipes in my regular repertoire, but I don't think this is getting into our top 10!

Apologies for the photo of the whole pie - it had to be taken in artificial light. The last couple of months has been so dismal and dark that it's been really difficult to get enough natural light photograph anything well, even in daylight - roll on Spring, and longer days!

Cheese Scones with Za'atar

The AlphaBakes baking challenge has reached one of the more difficult letters of the alphabet this month - the letter Z! I could have gone the easy route, with a zebra cake, or used a zucchini, but I wanted something a bit more unusual. I often get inspiration from my spice cupboard, when looking for unusual flavour combinations, so was happy to come across a jar of Za'atar spice mix hiding at the back.

Za'ater is a variable mix of herbs, spices and sesame seeds (mine contains wild majoram, sumac and sesame seeds - some varieties use thyme and/or oregano) and is quite bitter, so isn't really suitable for sweet baking. After some experimentation, which is best forgotten, I finally decided on the savoury option of cheese scones filled with a swirl of the za'atar mix.

I made a standard scone mix of 50g of butter rubbed into 200g SR flour, to which I added 50g of grated cheese - a mixture of mature dry cheddar and parmesan. I mixed in half a teaspoon each of dry mustard powder, white pepper and cayenne powder for flavour, then added half a beaten egg and enough milk to make a soft dough. After a brief knead, I patted out the dough, on a floured board, to make a square about 1cm deep. I sprinkled about 2 tablespoons of za'atar over the dough, leaving a cm margin along one edge, which was wetted with milk. The dough was then rolled up tightly from the edge opposite the wet edge, so that the wet edge stuck and held the roll in place. The roll of dough was cut into pieces 2.5cm long and the pieces were placed on a baking tray with the swirl of za'atar facing upwards. The top of each scone was brushed with beaten egg and sprinkled with sesame seeds before baking at 220C for about 15 minutes, until risen and golden brown.

The bitter flavour of za'atar means it needs to be used with caution - I think these scones might have been better with a bit less za'atar mix, as the flavour quite overwhelmed that of the cheese and other spices used. I also think a scone might not be the best vehicle for the za'atar - small cocktail biscuits or puff pastry whirls which could be eaten in just a mouthful might have been more suitable. However it was an interesting way of getting to use the za'atar, which had been lingering unused in my cupboard for far too long.

AlphaBakes (rules here) is a challenge based on a randomly chosen letter of the alphabet. The dish made must feature something beginning with that letter as one of the main ingredients or part of the name. It is hosted jointly by Ros at The More Than Occasional Baker and Caroline at Caroline Makes. Caroline is this month's host, with the letter Z, and will feature a round-up of entries at the end of the month.

Mincemeat Wedges

There's not much still waiting to be used up after Christmas. Anything perishable has been frozen ages ago, so there are just a few pieces of cheese left in the fridge, alongside some longer lasting chutneys and relishes, and an open jar of mincemeat. I know mincemeat is sold all year round, and I know it's wonderful in many ways other than mincepies, but if I don't finish the jar quickly, I also know it will still be there next Christmas.

These Mincemeat Wedges used 115g (4oz) and just about emptied the jar. The remaining spoonful can go into the next apple crumble, with some sultanas and cinnamon. The dough mix for these wedges is very similar to a rich scone dough made with wholemeal flour, and the finished result was scone-like in texture too. The dough is baked in a sponge tin, rather than being free-formed like a scone round, as it is slightly wetter than a scone and needs to be held in shape. It's then cooled in the tin before being cut into wedges.

The mincemeat gave just a subtle hint of fruit and spice to these scone wedges, but certainly made the kitchen smell like Christmas again!

The recipe comes from the Ultimate Cookie Book.
Ingredients
225g wholemeal flour + 2 teaspoons baking powder (or use SR wholemeal flour if available)

75g unsalted butter

75g light muscovado sugar (the recipe used demerara)
1 egg, beaten
115g mincemeat
about 4 tablespoons milk
crushed brown or white sugar cubes for topping

Method
Preheat oven to 200C. Base line a 20cm(8") sandwich tin with baking paper and grease the sides.

Rub the butter into the flour, then stir in all the other ingredients, using just enough milk to give a dough which is soft enough to spread.

Spread the dough evenly into the prepared tin and sprinkle the top with the crushed sugar.

Bake for about 20 minutes, until risen and golden and firm to the touch. Cool in the tin, then cut into twelve wedges.

Parsley Cheese Scones - a Tea Time Treat

I've nothing against a good scone, but they are not something that I bake regularly. For one thing, I like to bake things that can be eaten over several days, and most scones are best fresh out of the oven, or at the very least, eaten the same day. For another, a fresh plain scone is a delight, but only when smothered with butter or jam and clotted cream - not really everyday eating. Lastly, and even more important, even if jam and cream were liberally available every day, scones aren't really the sort of thing the rest of the family like to eat.

So when Karen at Lavender and Lovage set the challenge of producing sweet or savoury scones for this month's Tea Time Treats, I decided to look for something different. Savoury scones appealed to me, although I wasn't sure how well they would fit into a traditional afternoon tea. I also feel that the monthly baking events which I take part in should be a spur for me to make it a real challenge and try something different - a new flavour or technique - so after a lot of searching, I decided to try this recipe for Parsley Cheese Scones from Dan Lepard, not least because it started by making porridge!

Dan promises the recipe is lower in fat and bigger in flavour, fibre and moistness than standard recipes. I'm not sure about the fat, as there was more cheese than I've seen in most recipes, but he used some oil and buttermilk, rather than butter, to reduce the fat a little, and the recipe lived up to the other promises. One of the good things about them was that they kept fresh for at least three days!

Unusually for one of Dan's recipes, I found that by the time I got to the last stage of mixing, I still had a bowlful of cheesey crumbs. Something wrong, somewhere! I had to add 6 tablespoons of milk to bring the ingredients together into a soft dough, which is quite a lot of liquid missing from the original recipe! I think I overdid the milk a little, because the dough was slightly too soft to cut well - the cutter left the scones slightly domed on top which meant they didn't bake to a good shape.

In the scheme of things, the shape didn't really matter as the great flavour more than made up for any shortcomings in the looks department. These scones were rich and moist with a strong flavour of the main ingredients - cheese and parsley. They were delicious still warm from the oven, lucious with melting butter, but they were also good eaten at room temperature. One way of eating them, which would be good at Tea Time, was with smoked salmon, but at other times of the day they would be good as an accompaniment to soup.

Tea Time Treats is a monthly baking challenge co-hosted by Karen at Lavender and Lovage, and Kate at What Kate Baked. The full rules can be found here, if you are interested in taking part.