It certainly tastes as beautiful as it looks, if you see it somewhere make sure you grab a bottle.

Rose Lemonade

Oh, you think, maybe mince is better than ground beef? Not so fast! Hamburger experiments show that ground beef is much better for burger making. The ingredients mix more effectively, the patties are easier to form, hold their shape better, even the onion inside cooks better. It’s yet another example of how ingredients change a dish once its exported overseas.

This summer, I came across Junior’s cheesecake book in Borders, and felt inspired to try again. There was one huge problem with the recipe – Graham crackers. They’re available from a few places, but outrageously expensive at c. $8 a box. I decided to hunt for an alternative. Firstly, the usual substitute Digestive biscuits were out, they’re not crispy enough. After some research, I came up with the idea of using Speculoos or those little German/Dutch/Belgian spiced, caramelised biscuits that come with coffee. They’re readily available and 99p a packet. I set off for the supermarket armed with an iPhone for weight conversions, and then set about testing the recipe.

Result, one big, tasty cheesecake with no soggy base! There was still fluid leaking out the bottom, but there was no problem with soggy biccies this time. The biscuit base was excellent, just enough spice and a bit of crunch to make the base interesting but not obtrusive.

Brilliant, but that still doesn’t explain why US cheesecakes aren’t soggy at all? I investigated Neuchatel cream cheese, and the difference between Neuchatel and English cream cheese was huge. Neuchatel is almost solid, with no liquid oozing out of the cheese at all. Aha, so the thickening agents in cream cheese create dry cheesecakes! Mystery solved! Junior’s recipe included cornflour, which absorbed a lot of the liquid.

So here are my conclusions from the great cheesecake mystery:

• If you need a Graham cracker substitute in Europe, then use Lotus biscuits instead http://www.lotusbakeries.com/ (Or try them in the US, but be warned they’re not cheap.)
• American cream cheese is a totally different texture to the UK variety, much much thicker, which brings me onto point 3
• Junior’s cheesecake recipe includes 1/4 cup of cornflour, important for making cheesecakes in the UK. I haven’t experimented with this further yet, it’ll have to wait till I’m home next. http://www.amazon.com/Juniors-Cheesecake-Cookbook-Die-York-Style/dp/1561588806

Clotted Cream commandments:

1. Do NOT under any circumstances make it from cheeses such as marscapone.
2. Do NOT add vanilla.
3. Do NOT add sugar.
4. Do NOT add lemon or another flavouring.

Just use a nice brand of heavy cream, preferably from your local food co-op or diary. Just whip it and use it.

Ah, a perfect English summer. Sitting outside a lovely country tearoom with a cornflower blue sky and the lovely hot sun shining down on us. Or a trip to the National Gallery tearoom for a cream tea with two American friends…. but more of that later.

So a cream tea has a pot of tea, and a couple of scones (home-made, big, still warm) with clotted cream (don’t be skimpy)  and jam, preferably home-made.  (NOT and NEVER will be Mock Devonshire Cream, OK so I didn’t say that bit.). The ingredients have to be perfect or it just isn’t a proper cream tea.

Wait for the tea to brew, pour a little milk into the cups followed by the tea after about 3 minutes or so. Next take a scone and halve it, setting one half aside. Take your half and slap an indecent amount of jam on it. Don’t be minimalist about it, this is a full fat experience! Next, add a great big dollop of clotted cream. This should just about balance on top precariously. OK, ready? Good. Now take a bite, a decent sized one because we’re going for the full fat experience remember? What do you think? Heaven on a plate? I hope so, I’ll be very disappointed if it isn’t.

Here is an attempt at a short typology of tea.

• Tea – cup of, pot of usually black tea of the English Breakfast, Earl Grey variety NOT
• Tea – working class evening meal of meat and two veg variety. Dinner is at lunchtime.
• Cream tea (native to Devon or Cornwall) – pot of tea served with 2 warm home-made scones, a good dollop of clotted cream and lots of home-made jam.
• Afternoon tea – as above with small cakes and mini sandwiches.
• High tea – fish and potatoes, bread and butter with small cakes.
• Welsh tea – tea, bara brith, and welsh cakes. Possibly other things I don’t remember now.

A fine example of Afternoon Tea at the National Gallery

So I get asked all the time what “English muffins” are called in England, to which I reply, “muffins.”

“But”, says the puzzled interlocuter, “What do you call muffins (meaning American sweet muffins)?”

“Those”, I explain, “Are a relatively recent import from the U.S, for us muffins are savoury things that you toast and butter. We don’t call them English muffins, because we’re in England and we know what they are. We would call an American muffin, a chocolate muffin, a blueberry muffin or a low fat, high fibre, cranberry breakfast double-choc muffin, but never just a muffin. “

“?” “But….?”

“If the word muffin is preceded by a flavour then it’s a cake and it will be an American muffin. If it’s just described as a muffin, then it’s a yeasted bread product and not a cake.”

“?”

After a couple of eons, someone came out to show us to a table, it was difficult to find a place to sit with all the empty tables in the place.  We chose to sit outside, the came out to greet us personally, and to explain the menu to us. We learned about the history of the cafe, how she created the dishes, and all about the crumpets. Crumpets so huge that she recommended sharing. We were pretty indecisive about choosing from the overpriced menu, so the waiter went away while we made up our minds. Time dragged on, we started to get miffed, and just as we were getting ready to make our escapes, he came back. Rats.

Looking at the scary prices, we opted for two different teas to drink (no sharing allowed), a huge crumpet (sharing recommended) and a cup of soup each. The food arrived, not particularly quickly for what we’d ordered. Well the soup was nice, but for that price I’d like a little bit more than a single tiny ladle full, especially if there’s no bread with the soup! No bread! In all my years of catering and eat out, I have never been without bread. Next came the huge crumpet which turned out to be about one and a half times as big as a proper crumpet, it was fried, served halved with butter, jam and some weird white concoction called “Mock Devonshire Cream). What the….?

Hmmm,  so we split the not-so-huge-after-all crumpet in two and I added some jam (which was good) and avoided the butter (the crumpet was fried already for god’s sake) and the Mock Devonshire Cream (I don’t eat Mock things at the best of times). My companion was suffering from disbelief from the cream in all its weird whiteness and asked my opinion of it. I agreed with her opinion, whatever Mock Devonshire Cream is (you made it, really? what with?) I won’t be eating it again! It was whiter than any dairy product I’ve ever seen, I suspect it wasn’t a dairy product at all, weirdly thick with air holes from whipping or perhaps even beating into submission, the cream had that greasy mouth feel you get from artificial fats and Bird’s Dream Topping. Bleurgh.

However, the Earl Grey tea was good, served in reasonably large pots complete with tea strainers. We could actually have shared, between the pots were large enough. I drank it all on the basis that it was paid for and I wasn’t going to leave it! 

So we left, still hungry, a little bit poorer, feeling like it was a very expensive fuss about nothing and just what the hell was that cream anyway! I’m still bemused that the tea room sold books about English and American tea rooms with recipes in them, but didn’t seem to have read a single one. I wish I’d had my camera, we could have taken a photo so you could all see the ‘cream’ and the ‘crumpet’.

Crumpets – toast them and then put butter on them. Jam if you like.

Devonshire Cream  is supposed to be Clotted Cream made from cream from real cows that live in a field and go moo. Jersey cows, real ones not mock ones. They live in Idaho and Oregon, I’ve seen them! Yes, and they don’t even moo with an accent. (OK so that bit probably isn’t true.)

This is a crumpet accept no immitations.

If you have really really good peaches from trees that you can go and visit then try it.

Slice the peaches, it doesn’t matter how and place them in a dish. Don’t bother sweetening them, just cover with a crumble and bake at about 400 F or 200 C if you’re metric.

If anyone needs to know how to make the topping leave me a message in the comments box!

• Sausage or bacon sandwiches
• Bangers and mash
• Pies
• Soft fruits such as strawberries, raspberries, redcurrants and blackberries grown in a real life field and one of those appalling poly tunnel jobbies.
• Kentish Victoria plums
• Big fat Kentish cherries!!
• Peas in the pod
• Tea, cakes, biscuits, decent chocolate
• Homemade burgers
• Free range rare breeds pork
• and BEER!!

with plenty of trips along the river (Thames) taking photos.

Oh and gherkins and real pickle as in cheese and pickle!