Cooks' Corner

[Lesley Cox]

Bought a small carton of vanilla ready-to-pour last night which we had with a small bought apple pie (incredibly good actually) and bought icecream. Enjoyed them all very much but it sounds like the beginning of the end so far as home cooking is concerned, I'll revert to type soon I hope.

[Arykana]

 If somebody would like a slice of black forest cake :

[Arykana]

May I ask about your Christmas menu?

[Maggi Young]

I have not even thought about it yet, Erika!  
In Scotland Christmas is surrounded by the special festive dishes that are enjoyed in other countries.... it is traditional to have a good roast turkey, or goose perhaps, with many vegetables and rich fruit pudding  after, but we are not well endowed with Christmas special recipes.

[Lesley Cox]

What about shortbread and Black Bun?

[Maggi Young]

Those are more for New Year.... visitors at Hogmanay 

[maggiepie]

What's black bun?

[Maggi Young]

What's black bun?

It's a Scots  delicacy..... a VERY rich, dark (so dark it's black) fruit cake, enriched with alcohol for preference, which is encased in a shortcrust pastry covering. Kind of like a cake version of beef wellington!
Traditional gift when visiting at New Year or to feed to New Year's visitors.

[maggiepie]

Maggi, are there mini and bigger versions?
Have never heard of these, I bet my mother would have loved it and she was of Scottish blood.

[Arykana]

 I have interested in this black bun, if it possible to get recipe

Traditionally here the people mostly has Fisherman' soup/ http://arykana.lapunk.hu/?modul=oldal&tartalom=884956/, fried fish and poppy seed kalács for Christmas Eve or roasted goose. The turkey just in the last few years on the table, mostly some kind of turkey breast dish. Many people make staffed cabbeges /http://arykana.lapunk.hu/?modul=oldal&tartalom=886472/ on Christmas day, and wine soup /Muscat syllabub
The  yolk  of 3 eggs, 2 dl of Muscat Tokaji, 10 dkg of sugar,  vanilla beans,  grated lemon-peel
Mix  the  sugar  with  egg  yolk well in a mixing bowl,  add the grated lemon-peel, the vanilla bean and mix into the Tokaji wine.
Put the mixing bowl into a pot of boiling water  and the mix with a whisk under some minutes easy foam we beat it. Onto what once or twice gushes out, ready. We serve it in separate sauce cup, on warmth./ too. Christmas is a festive of sweets, the most popular the chestnut cake and zserbó /http://arykana.lapunk.hu/?modul=oldal&tartalom=1059778/

We would have roasted duck this year for Christmas Eve and russian cream cake, on Christmas day I will make fried walnut breaded pike-perch, wild boar stew and rosemary roast rabbit. Zserbó will be on the table as my sister's favorite, orange-chocolate cake and of course poppy seed kalács. But my husband said, should be chustnut cake also

[Anthony Darby]

I love a rich proper Christmas cake (with marzipan and royal icing - not those covered with horrible pecan nuts), but have never liked black bun or fly cemeteries.

[Lesley Cox]

My mother used to make black bun but I recall it as more of a food for adults (with whisky) than something we children liked. Too rich probably. Now I'm older and drink whisky, maybe I should try black bun again. What you call fly cemetaries Anthony is perhaps what I've always known as squashed fly square and I love it. Flaky pastry top and bottom with a filling of sultanas and any other dried fruit you like but I prefer just sultanas, grated apple, cinnamon and brown sugar. You have to work quickly and encase all the filling, sealing it well at the edges as the apples release their juice quickly and leak out. You can drink what juice is left in the bowl. Then cut it into squares when it's cooked to a golden brown. Yum. You can brush it with milk and sprinkle with sugar before cooking if you like.

[David Nicholson]

Known as "flie pie" in our house.

[Anthony Darby]

They have always been too dry for my liking. I love mince pies, especially hot with cream, but hate scones with raisins or sultanas in them. I like Christmas pudding, especially with rum sauce.

[maggiepie]

The only christmas puddings I liked were the ones that had silver coins inside.
I hated the fruit pudding but always had a serving.
After retrieving a coin or two ( if any) the pudding was smuggled out to my nana's pomeraniums.
I guess nobody uses silver coins in puddings these days.