Baking tools:

• 3 baking trays, 40x 35 cm,
• lined with non-stick baking paper

 

Dough, makes about 30 biscuits:

• 125 g plain flour
• 100 g quick cooking rolled oats
• 100 g fine granulated sugar
• 75 g desiccated grated coconut
• 125 g butter
• 2 full tbsp golden syrup
• 7 g bicarbonate of soda
• (baking soda)
• 2 tbsp boiling water

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These biscuits you can buy in any Australian and New Zealand super market. They are popular with backpackers travelling in the bush due to their lightweight and long storage life. This kind of biscuits is an English invention and probably not designed just for the taste but like hardtack for nourishment that keeps well.

Exactly for this reason the Anzac biscuits were devised around 1914. By worried mothers, wives and fiancées of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps in Australia. Or was it New Zealand? There it is stated that they are ‘stolen’ from them. The fact of the matter is that these biscuits resemble very much the oatmeal cakes which are baked by the numerous immigrants from Scotland. Of course you find Scots in Australia too. All women made their cakes from ingredients which were always on hand: a  bale of flour and rolled oats for breakfast. They delivered them on board of the ships sailing to Gallipoli, where the Corps participated in the First World War. That took several months, because the ships made only 18,5 km an hour. Those biscuits could endure that easily.

The second half of April schoolchildren take the recipe home to bake the national cakes  for April 25, the Australian memorial day: ANZAC Day.

You have to taste them to realize that their long lasting popularity is definitely not only due to their shelf life.

Baking tool:

• ovenproof baking dish 30x22x3 cm,
• greased

 

Syrup:

• 450 ml water
• 450 g fine granulated sugar
• 3 tbsp lemon juice
• 3 tbsp lime juice
• thin zest of 1 unwaxed lemon

 

Batter:

• 300 g fine durum wheat semolina
• 1 tsp baking powder (4 g)
• pinch salt
• 100 g butter, softened
• 125 g fine granulated sugar
• 2 very fresh eggs
• 1 tsp grated unwaxed orange zest
• pinch vanilla seed
• 150 ml Greek yoghurt
• 24  blanched almond halves

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‘An Arab who does not love sweets is like a Muslim who does not believe in Paradise’. A bold assertion, but the fact is that the fondness for sweet things in the Arab world leaps to the eye everywhere. Sweet cakes and candies are offered at every festivity, religious or not, even at funerals. Already in the Middle Ages sugar was an ordinary ingredient in Arab countries and not as expensive as in Western world where it was called ‘the white gold’.

A nice example of the original processing of sugar is this Egyptian version of the semolina cake Basbusa: soaked with syrup without making it cloying.

As to ‘semolina’, this should be the smied from Middle Eastern shops, which gives a beautiful yellow pastry. Soft wheat semolina does not have that effect. Sometimes the cake is made even more yellow by adding a spoonful of turmeric or a pinch of saffron. Instead of with almonds it can be garnished with pine nuts. That is up to you. But keep this rule of thumb: the cold syrup has to be poured over the warm pastry.

Baking tool:

• greased round deep pie-dish,
• diameter top 22 cm,
• contents about 1 ½ l

 

Dough:

• 50 g butter, chilled
• 50 vegetable fat for deep-frying
• 200 g plain flour
• a pinch of salt
• about 60 ml ice cold water

 

Fruit:

• 500 g apples (Bramley, Elstar),
• peeled and cored
• 250 g blackberries
• 100 g granulated sugar
• 2 tsp potato flour

 

On top:

• milk
• white castor sugar

 

To serve:

• whipped sweet cream

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We are picking blackberries from several meters high bushes in the hills above Nottingham with a view of Wollaton Park. For standing still we only have time when the bucket becomes too heavy to carry. A gentleman, also frantically busy, calls to us: ‘That will be Blackberry and apple pie tonight’. We had to look this up. For this  pie you need juicy blackberries, which can be picked only to the end of summer. It has an upper crust that seems to float above the fruit. That we learned from the famous gardener Christopher Lloyd in his book Gardener Cook. The recipe below is made following his instructions. It has to be baked in a real pie-dish with a flat rim. Such a vessel you cannot obtain everywhere. In that case you can use the trick mentioned in the recipe below.

Baking tools:

• two 40×35 cm baking trays,
• lined with non stick baking paper

 

Dough (makes about 46) :

• 100 g dark chocolate
• 125 g soft butter
• 125 g caster sugar
• 1 egg (L)
• 200 g plain flour
• 1 level teaspoon baking powder
• pinch of ground cinnamon
• pinch of ground cloves
• pinch of salt
• 25 g coarsely chopped blanched almonds

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These cookies I found in Choice recipes, a lovely booklet I received as a present from a friend. It is an advertising brochure from the beginning of the twentieth century for the firm Walter Baker, the oldest chocolate factory of America, in Massachusetts

founded in 1780. The name still garantees dark chocolate of  high quality. The booklet offers besides recipes by Miss Parloa and other ‘noted teachers’, regional pastry from all states. No doubt very authentic. For we know that the cookies of the Dutch colonists in the 17^th century were such a succes in the New World that the word koekje itself still lives on. And to this day many of the triljons of cookies, that are consumed in the States yearly, are baked at home. Of course chocolate, one of the blessings of the discovery of the continent, plays an important part as a flavouring. This too has something to do with the Netherlands for it was Coenraad Johannes van Houten who invented dutching, which expanded the use of chocolate to more than a beverage.

The booklet shows us eventually how good it is to eat chocolate. A hundred years old man was riding a horse as a youngster because he lived on only chocolate and some broth … an orphan baby shot up as cabbage thanks to chocolate milk .. According to Brillat Savarin, the French gourmet, chocolate dissolved in water was even allowed during Lent… A miraculous delicacy, and yet no miracle, because chocolate has more than 800 taste components!

Baking tool:

• (pyrex) savarin cake pan,
• diameter top 22,5,
• contents 1,1 l.,
• greased with butter

 

Batter:

• 200 g dried dates, stoned
• 175 g self raising flour
• 50 g plain flour
• pinch of salt
• 175 g soft butter
• 150 g caster sugar
• 3 eggs, large and very fresh
• 50 ml orange juice 

Garnish:

• 250 g icing sugar
• 4-6 tablespoons orange juice
• orange peel

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Ka’k al-burtuqal wa’l- tamar, brought from Oman. There the date, just as everywhere in Muslim countries, plays a very important role in the gastronomic culture from times immemorial. In Niswah, a ravishing small town in one of the largest date plantations of the country, I was welcomed with date paste and coffee by the owner of restaurant Al-Aqur. And during Ramadan a date with butter is eaten at the beginning of the evening meal, a fruit that was very much appreciated by the prophet Mohammed according to the tradition. He would have said: ‘a household without dates is a hungry household’. It is not simply a coincidence that the cultivation of dates is blooming in the Arab world.

Scientists at the Sultan Qaboos University have investigated new applications of the date, warm-heartedly supported by the enlightened despot. From these efforts this cake is a cheerful side effect. Not very Arabic? Well, as Western as the currant bread and the English wedding cake, you could buy at the baker’s in Al-Chuwair. This is very easy explained. It was the British-Dutch Shell that discovered oil in Oman in 1962, with as a result compounds full of not indigenous people. And so two English ladies (Parfitt and Valentine) could write an informative Omani date-book, sponsored by the firm Dateflake and dedicated to Sultan Qaboos bin Said (MCBS, Mina Al-Fahal, 1995).

Baking tool:

• greased non-stick springform pan, 28 cm

 

Filling:

• 1 kg tart apples (Goudrenet*)
• juice of 1 lemon
• 4 tablespoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

 

Dough:

• 1 teaspoon crushed aniseed
• 175 g all purpose flour
• 175 g self raising flour
• 175 g white castor sugar
• 175 g soft butter
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon grated lemon rind
• pinch of salt

 

Garnish of the dough bottom:

• 2 tablespoons  breadcrumbs
• 1 teaspoon  crushed aniseed

 

Garnish of the top:

• 4 tablespoons apricot jam,
• mixed with 2 tablespoons rum or lemon juice

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The national sweet pastry of the Netherlands is applepie, for which recipes have been found from the Middle Ages on. You had to sprinkle a lot of spices such as cardamom, ginger, cloves, mace and cinnamon on  ‘golden apples’ and the time for baking was given with the number of paternosters you had to say. Apparently the outcome was unpredictable. The invention of the oven with heat control in the 18^th century solved this problem, but may have contributed to secularisation. Today appeltaart is exhibited in show-cases on bars in cafeterias, waiting-rooms and coffeeshops. The first cake a Dutch child learns to bake is an apple pie, still best with goudrenet (‘Golden Rennet’).

Baking tools:

 

• baking parchment
• baking tray (40 x35 cm),

 

Dough:

(makes about 32 pieces,

size about 4-7 cm)

 

• 250 g al- purpose flour
• 75 g white castor sugar
• 75 g Muscovado sugar
• ½ tsp tartaric acid (2 g)*
• ¼ tsp baking soda (1 g)
• ½ tsp vanilla seeds or -extract
• ½ tsp aniseed
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• 1 large egg
• 150 g cold butter

To decorate:

• 3 tbsp almond flakes
• 3 tbsp small pearl sugar**

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Originally this cookie was a kind of flat, leathery, chewy treat, consisting of small drops of dough baked together. Janhagel was an expression for ‘ragtag and bobtail’ and the market speciality owed its name to the fact that it was mostly sold to people who could not afford more sophisticated bakery.

However, in the 19^th century the name inspired an inventive baker to provide the cookie with a layer resembling hagel (‘hail’). The ‘Jan’ – a very common Dutch forename – remained and the result was a sweet cannibalistic joke that, like the daring names of so many other delicacies, has survived to our days.

Equipment:

• 30 cm flan tin (pan),
• greased with butter

 

Dough:

• 300 g all purpose flour
• ½ sachet easy-blend/easy-bake dried yeast
• 1 tsp sugar
• 100 ml lukewarm milk (approx.)
• 25 g soft butter
• 25 g white castor sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 3 g salt

 

‘Vla’ filling:

• 250 ml milk
• ¼ vanilla pod
• 2 egg yolks
• 50 caster sugar
• 25 g cornflour
• 50 ml milk

 

Topping:

• 800 g bottled, canned or prepared fresh fruit,
• such as sliced apples, halved plums, halved apricots or cherries
• (do not use berries)
• 50 g sugar (for fresh fruit)

 

To decorate:

• 150 ml juice,
• 8 g potato flour
• or sugar

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This sweet pizza of the south of the Netherlands may boast a long history. The name is a corruption of Latin platus, ‘flat’, and the word Vladbecker (‘baker of vlaai-tarts’) is attested in Limburg as early as 1338. But its history goes back much further. The British Museum owns a 3000 years old prototype from an Egyptian grave: a mini ‘vlaai’, complete with some fruits on it, as a gift for the journey in the hereafter.

In Limburg the vlaai was originally a special treat during a church-fair, held twice a year. Now you can buy it anywhere in The Netherlands. Factories punch out ten thousands of ‘vlaaien‘ every day.

Baking material:

• heavily greased mini muffin baking tray
• with 12 holes, approx. 2 cm deep, diameter holes 6 cm

 

Batter:

• 100 g finely ground millet grains
• 100 g plain flour
• 100 g fine granulated sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder (4 g)
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 75 g soft margarine (or butter)
• 1 egg (L), beaten
• 100 ml milk or water

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In May 2012 the first Cake Festival ever was held in Kampala. With works of art as described in the delicious book Baking cakes in Kigali (Rwanda) by Gaile Parkin (2009). Something totally new in Uganda? Looking for an answer I consulted Taste of Uganda, recipes for traditional dishes (2002), in which the traditional preparation of bananas and legumes, in addition to chicken, roasted white ants and grasshoppers. The list of meat also includes elephant and giraffe, but author Jolly Gonahasa wisely does not provide precise recipes for this. But she does for a large number of cakes, originated in the English era, but in a Ugandan version, namely with millet, cassava or corn. These are the three main food crops in Africa, of which to this day especially porridge (ugali) is cooked, which serves as bread. For the millet cake, the grains must be ground. Fortunately, that goes well in a coffee grinder, because millet flour is sometimes hard to come by.

Man started growing gluten-free millet (panicum miliaceum), rich in protein and iron, in 6500 BC. In Northern China and Mesopotamia, remains have been found dating from 3000 BC. Greeks and Romans knew it, but knew little to do with it. Good for the canary and to fill juggling balls we find in The Netherlands nowadays. Not so in the past. ‘The Perfect Dutch Kitchen Maid’ (De Volmaakte Hollandse Keuken Meid, 1761) gives a recipe for Gierste Struiven, a sweet oven dish of millet porridge with lots of eggs and rusk, which she concludes with: ‘is very good’.

Baking tool:

• round cake tin,
• diameter underside 25 cm,
• top 26 cm, rim 4 cm

 

On the bottom of the tin:

• 40 g butter
• 80 g light brown sugar
• 7-10 pineapple slices (fresh or canned)
• 2 tablespoons Maraschino cherries

Batter:

• 225 g plain flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 75 g soft butter
• 150 g caster sugar
• seeds from 1 vanilla pod*
• 2 eggs, large
• 50 ml rum
• 50 ml pineapple juice

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This Bizcocho de Piña is a typical example of the cozina criolla, the creole cuisine, that developed from the traditions of the Taino Indians and later on also Africans in the 500 years after the arrival of  the Spaniards. It is made from ingredients that determine the character of the free state Puerto Rico. Pineapple, endemic in Brazil and Paraguay, had been spread by Indians over the whole of South and Central America long before the European invasion. They put pineapples over the entrance of their houses as a token of  hospitality, later on imitated in clay by Spain and England. The Dutch name ananas is a loan from the language of  the Tupi Indians. Anana means: exellent fruit.

Besides pineapple the island exports also a lot of vanilla, original Mexican and called

tlilxochitl ‘black flower’ by the Aztecs. Too difficult for Spaniards so they turned it into vainilla, small pod. The sugar plantations, laid out by them, were the birthplace of the rum that flavours this cake.