Over the Salt

Mindful choices for healthy and low sodium cooking

Category Archives: cakes


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Honey Jumbles – tea cookies

HoneyJumbles.pngThis is a variant of a shortbread recipe that adds lightness and spice. There’s a childhood version with molasses, but we get our flavor intensity from the ginger and a dark honey. It’s terrific as a tea cookie. The citrus glaze is delicious.

Variants:
Skip the ginger and honey
and add lemon zest to make
lemony tea cookies

Ingredients

1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup of baking sugar (fine)
1 stick of butter (4oz)
1 teaspoon of ginger
1 egg
(2 teaspoons ginger if powdered)
2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon baking powder

Equipment

Clean hands
Mixing bowl
2 desert spoons to shape the mix
baking tray with parchment
Make a wax paper piping bag
Oven preheated to 350 degrees F

Making

Cream butter and sugar by hand in a bowl
(the heat of your hand will melt the butter)
Add the ginger and mix well
Mix in the honey and egg
Add the baking soda and gradually add flour
Form lozenges using the desert spoons
Bake for 12 minutes

Glaze

1 cup of confectioners sugar
1 lemon
Beat until slightly stiff
When the cookies are cool, put 3-4 stripes of glaze on each
(push the cookies together and you can glaze a row at a time)

 

 


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Tipsy Tarts

TipsyTartsRiaLoader2014

Tipsy Tarts – Photo by Ria Loader 2014

 

Tipsy tarts are a treat for the holidays. Laced with rum and brandy and sweetened with honey, the fruit steeps for a week in the refrigerator.

I tend to avoid cherries and nuts in my holiday fruit mix and instead use a more European combination of raisins, apricots and dates. I start with soaking chopped dates in boiling water with molasses overnight and then add the other fruit until the bowl is half full. Add half a cup each of a decent brandy and a dark rum. This time I included dark agave syrup, and a jar of local honey. Covered with plastic and put it in the fridge, stirring every day for a week. The fruit soaked up the grog and became sticky and delicious.

Spooned the resulting mix into tiny pie tarts (you can make your own or buy them pre-made – there are even gluten free varieties available).

I added a cup of the mix to a date cake and made delicious holiday cake as well.

Enjoy!


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Golden nectar fruit cake

GoldenNectar-RiaLoader

I have been learning to bake, one step at a time. My approach is to master a single recipe, then try variations on that one with other ingredients, calling my sister in Australia for midnight inspiration as often as not. For the holidays, I wanted to make a fruitcake like I remembered from childhood, but without the bits I didn’t like, such as peel, cherries and nuts. Of course, I called my sister to get a recipe, and some suggestions on how to experiment, as she’s my inspiration for such things. She suggested I start with the Divine Date Loaf recipe, soak a bunch of raisins, sultanas, currants and diced apricots in alcohol, and add them until the batter couldn’t coat any more fruit. This sounded good to me, and I proceeded to experiment from there.

Variations on Divine Date Loaf

  • Substitute gluten free flour for plain flour
  • Use barley malt syrup instead of molasses
  • Add a cup of honey for sweetness
  • Soak about 3 cups chopped sultanas, raisins, apricots,
    currants in 1 cup rum + 1 cup brandy for 3 days, stirring each day.
    Add cup of honey, lemon crystals or zest to this mix.
  • Cook at lower temperature (300 instead of 375 degrees) for 40 minutes
  • Stand small loaf pans in water bath to prevent burning
  • At the 30 minute mark, turn off heat and put aluminum foil on top of pans (prevents burning)

I made 4 mini loafs and a bunch of muffins in large silicon muffin moulds. It was golden, delicious and like nectar. Mmmmmm.