Within our little farm shop (not a glamorous one with lots of gingham and straw, though I can wish) I sell a number of crafts, baked goods and preserves. So I thought I would share some recipes of my best sellers, so you can try them yourselves or if you fancy ordering any through me once you see the ingredients list.
I try and use local produce in all of my cooking and if it can't be grown by the farm/in the garden/or down the road at another local producer I will always buy from local suppliers (I try to avoid supermarkets and support the independants i.e. greengrocers).
Fail Proof Scones
Always a winner and I make personal orders at least once a fortnight for these.
Whether they be savoury, sweet or plain I always stick to one standard recipe. Trust me on this I have worked through alot of different scone recipes in my time but I swear by Paul Hollywood (the artisan bakers recipe) - which can be found on the bbc website under The Great British Bakeoff recipe list.
I never have any issues and his handling of the dough technique is superb (they even have a little video for you to follow).
I find all Paul Hollywood's recipes and tips useful and really look forward to the new series he is filming at the moment.
St Clement Marmalade
Whenever I make a batch of jars we sell out within a week (actually I have a batch of back orders for jars of this at the moment but the baby doesn't seem to understand that making preserves needs alot of attention).
Its called St Clements because it is a mix of oranges and lemons (remember the rhyme 'ornages and lemons say the bells of St Clements'?). This is a lovely sweet marmalade with a lovely refreshing tang to it that I prefer to the standard seville orange marmalade which is tart and sometimes bitter.
I find this recipe will make 4-5 standard size jars. Make sure before you start that your jars are clean and sterilised and that you are using equipment that can take citric juices (in my younger days had a plastic grater/madolin which melting when I used a lemon on it ...bad cheap plastic).
Ingredients
2lb Sweet Oranges
4 Large Lemons
1.5 litres/2 1/2 pints filtered water
3lb granulated sugar
Wash your fruit and then grate the peel of all oranges and lemons (make sure you dont grate the plith, which is the white stuff underneath the peel just before you get to the flesh) and put this into your preserving pan.
Half the fruit and juice. The juice goes into the preserving pan with the grated peel and tie the remaining flesh and pips in a large mulsin bag.
Add the water and muslin bag to the pan and bring to the boil.
Once it reaches the boil turn down to a simmer and leave for two hours.
Put your sugar into a baking tray and put in the oven on a low heat to warm ten minutes before your citrus fruits are ready.
Remove the muslin bag from the pan after the two hours and drain. Put the liquid back into the preserving pan and discard the contents of the bag.
Add the warm sugar to the pan and stir till the suagr is dissolved then bring to the boil.
You need to get the marmalade to a 'bubbling boil' or if you have a preseves thermometer the setting temp is between 220 and 225.
Once you reach this heat constant stiring and checking the mixture is required until your ready to pot up.
My trick of telling when my preserves are ready is the saucer technique - put a clean saucer in the fridge for a few minutes until cold to the touch then drip the marmalade onto the saucer. If after a few minutes the marmlade blob is a jellylike texture or has a skin to it then your ready to jar up!
Decant into your jars and seal with lids ( no need for wax seals) and leave to cool.
There you have your St Clements Marmade ..yum!
Now I have to put a disclaimer on here that the stuff is hot, you are responsible for hurting yourselves not me ( though I burn myself all the time, hot jam on hands is not a good idea!)
Anyway I hope you enjoy and I should be getting off to bed as I am egg grading tomorrow morning if I can get the baby off to sleep at the farm.
Take care,
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