Souvenirs from my Day at #140Conf - London

I am sure many Elevensestime regulars were wondering where I got to yesterday. Well, contrary to rumours that I was being introduced at the "House of Lords" (thanks @IamAmro !) I was in fact at #140Conf - Exploring the State of Now
This was a gathering of Twitter enthusiasts and business people organised by @JefPulver there is list of delegates a put together by @RobOCallaghan and a list of speakers Jeff Pulver's List of Speakers. Have a look at these lists - there are some great people to follow on them.
I you want to get a good feel for what it looked like @Britt_W has taken some really good photos - see if you can spot me in the crowd!
I will add some more to this later but one of the highlights of the conference for me and for many others I suspect, was the talk given by Stephen Fry - (captured on video by
@B33God ) which is well worth viewing. The message here and throughout the conference was that Twitter is about people and engagement, it is about enjoying contact with people and that business can benefit greatly from interacting with real people.
As we all know at #elevensestime!

Courgette Cake

This has been adapted from an old Nigel Slater recipe. It sounds odd, but believe me, vegetables in cakes work! I have tweaked quantities here, and also vary ingredients such as the type of nuts and dried fruit used. I also use extra cinnamon, and always use golden caster sugar (although any light brown sugar works well). It's also worth trying with wholemeal flour. I use the round yellow type of courgette because it's what I have to hand, but any will do.

200g butter
200g caster sugar
200g plain flour
2 eggs
1 apple
Roughly 150 - 200g courgettes
80g nuts (walnuts or pecans work well)
80g dried fruit
Generous pinch of salt
Half a teaspoon of baking powder
Cinammon to taste (I use half to one teaspoon)

Butter and base line a large loaf tin, and preheat your oven to 180 C. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then beat the eggs and add them one at a time making sure you mix each one in thoroughly. Coarsely grate the apple and courgette, squeeze out all the excess moisture and add them to the mixture. Combine the flour, salt, baking powder and cinnamon and gently fold into the mixture, then stir in the nuts and dried fruit. Transfer to the loaf tin, and then bake for roughly an hour (until golden and firm). Cool in the tin before turning out.

Shropshire Honey Cake from Hopton House B&B

This is probably one of the simplest cakes in the world and one of the most delicious. I make mine with Shropshire honey & eggs from my own hens. Their yolks are such a vibrant yellow that the cake is beautiful and golden.
I would strongly recommend you make your cake with your own local honey & local free range eggs, you may then rename it to your local area - so far, since I first posted the recipe on Twitter, it has transmuted successfully into both Perthshire Honey Cake & Somerset Honey Cake and Texas Honey Cake is imminent!
It really does need to be eaten on the day it is made, preferably still warm from the oven.

Cake Ingredients
180g Shropshire Honey
140g butter
80g soft brown sugar
2 beaten eggs
200g self raising flour
1tsp cinnamon
water

Icing Ingredients
60g icing sugar
1 tbsp honey

1. Preheat oven to 180C and butter and line the bottom of a 18cm cake tin with bake-o-glide
2.Heat the honey, butter and sugar with a tablespoon of water in a large pan until melted.
3. Remove from the heat and mix in the eggs, flour & cinnamon, then put into the cake tin
4. Bake for 40-45 minutes until the cake is springy to the touch and shrinking slightly from the sides of the tin.
5. Cool in the tin for 20 minutes before turning onto a wire rack.
6. While the cake is still warm, make the icing. Mix icing sugar & honey with 2-3 teaspoons of hot water and then drizzle over the cake.

Hopton House, Shropshire - A Perfect Place to stay

Pink Gooseberry Jam

Posted by hg_graceimaging but recipe from Doris Minter

Buy gooseberries and wash them. Cut of stalks and ends.

Cook in little water for about 10 minutes, the gooseberries themselves release lots of juice and let them simmer in it.

Take off the heat and mash or puree to desired consistency.

Remove from the pot and weigh the mass of fruit. Pour back into pot and stir in the same quantity of jam-making sugar.

Once the sugar desolves, add small lump of butter, all on low to medium heat.

Stir and bring to the boil. Boil for 4 minutes exactly.

Fill into clean jars. Cool and store.

Think it also needs to be kept in fridge after opening, due to dairy content.

Thanks to my German housemate, Doris, for supplying this recipe.

Blackberry, Honey and Polenta Cake

By Skye Gyngell

4 tbsp honey
200g/7oz blackberries

For the cake mixture

275g/9oz softened, unsalted butter
250g/8oz sugar
200g/7oz plain flour
A pinch of salt
2 tsp baking powder
200g/7oz yellow polenta
3 organic eggs, lightly beaten
100ml/31/2fl oz milk

Place the honey into a small saucepan and gently warm through. When just warm, remove from the stove and pour over the blackberries. Set aside while you make the cake mixture.

Heat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas4. Lightly grease and flour a 28cm cake tin. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, then mix in the flour, salt, baking powder and polenta.

Add the eggs and milk and stir gently to form a soft dough – the mixture should easily drop from a spoon.

Spoon the batter into the cake tin and gently stud the blackberries into the top. Pour over whatever honey is left in the pan and bake on the middle shelf of the oven for an hour and a quarter.

To test whether the cake is cooked, insert a skewer into the centre; it should come out clean. Leave to cool and serve.*

(I find this delicious with cream poured over a slice...)

chocolate ginger snaps

from "still life with menu" by mollie katzen

1 stick of butter (8 tbsp)
1 square unsweetened chocolate, melted
3/4 c sugar
6 tbsp brown sugar
3 tbsp molasses
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 c unbleached white flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp salt

preheat oven to 350F. grease a cookie sheet.

cream the butter in a large mixing bowl. drizzle in melted chocolate and beat well. (ideally use an electric mixer at high speed). add sugars, molasses and egg. beat several more minutes. stir in vanilla.

in a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, ginger and salt. stir this into the first mixture. mix thoroughly but briefly (just enough to combine wet and dry ingredients). do not beat.

lightly flour your hands and form 1-inch balls. roll the balls in granulated sugar. place them about 2 inches apart on the greased cookie sheet. bake for 12 min at 350F. they will be soft but the surface will be cracked. cool on a rack.

Italian Blueberry Cake

Jamie Oliver collected this recipe from a lady in Tuscany called Nada, and I've tweaked the quantities slightly.

It's moist, not too sweet and it's an interesting-looking addition to the tea table thanks to the burst blueberries all over the surface.

Ingredients

2 eggs

135 g caster sugar

90 g butter

58 ml extra virgin olive oil

78 ml milk

half teaspoon vanilla extract

200g plain flour

three quarters teaspoon baking powder

pinch of salt

zest of 2 lemons

zest of 2 oranges

150g blueberries (more or less to taste)

Method

Beat the eggs and sugar for a couple of minutes until they're yellow and thick.

Whilst you're doing this, melt the butter over a low heat, then stir it into the eggs/sugar mixture.

Stir in the olive oil, milk and vanilla. It'll bubble pleasantly.

Sift in your flour, baking powder and salt, stirring thoroughly without paying attention to any lumps or bubbles, as these will disappear.

Put a tea-towel over the bowl and set aside for 10 minutes whilst you zest the lemons & oranges. (The flour needs time to absorb the liquid.)

Stir in the zest, then half of the blueberries.

Turn into a lined & buttered tin. You have a couple of options - for a traditional-looking English cake, served as hefty triangular wedges, put in a 6 inch (or thereabouts) round tin - a springform one is most helpful. Or for a slightly more modest-looking offering, put in a much wider tin, perhaps a square one, to get thinner, flatter slices.

Bake at 175 degrees C (that's 350 F or gas 4 or wherever your Aga does cakes best) for 15 minutes.

Take out, then gently push the remaining blueberries into the top of the cake - you may have to break the surface around the edges where the cake has begun to set.

Bake for another 30 - 40 minutes.

Leave to cool on a rack for 10 minutes before turning out.

Yum!