The Big Fair Bake

Fairtrade Sugar

Today is the Vanilla gift swap  .. we are all taking part in The Big Fair Bake  and I am nervous  .. about 40 bloggers are taking part.   I was on  LBC Radio at 7am this morning to talk about it and a survey from the Fairtrade foundation that came up with some fascinating information about Cookbooks having their place and the start of The Big Fair Bake. There wan't much chance to talk about it in any details so I've added in some of the information here. 

The statistics show that when it comes to baking, mum is still the best teacher. The results are from a survey commissioned by the Fairtrade Foundation in partnership with AllRecipes.com, and it says that more than half of us say that we learnt our baking skills from our mothers, with 33% claiming that their favourite tried-and- tested baking recipes were handed down from their mother or grandmother .. so I am wondering today which of the recipe will be family recipes?

The Survey shows that more than half of people stick exactly to their mum’s recipe, especially in the North (67%), and they are generally proud to tell people that it is a family recipe (Scotland 70%) although there are also many adventurous cooks who adapt old recipes and give them a modern twist. People in the South, Midlands and Wales are the happiest to adapt.

It seems that using Fairtrade ingredients when they bake is also really important to many people. Some 62% say they choose Fairtrade products sometimes, and 14% say they choose Fairtrade products whenever they can.  Both men and women are as likely to always try to buy Fairtrade, with people at the younger and older ends of the age scale more likely to choose Fairtrade than those in the middle.

There is such allot of baking ingredients that can be used in baking sugar, cocoa, vanilla, cardamom, raisins, brazil nuts, almonds and many more. I’ve seen first hand how Fairtrade offers farmers a minimum price .. and a sustainable livelihood,  and how that additional Fairtrade Premium for investment in community adds to education, clean water, healthcare and housing .. it’s an amazing thing too see first hand..

So if you want to make a delicious difference join in The Big Fair Bake today click here and maybe cook one of your family favorites.

The Contented Cook

Xanthe Clay's Spanish Canas.  
Photograph by Tara Fisher from The Contented Cook, Kyle Books

I spent yesterday packaging vanilla powder for the vanilla gift swap.  The smell takes me straight back to Uganda and the Ndali processing house. I realised that I couldn't take everyone I knew to Uganda .. but I could bring something back here instead.  I am so excited about the vanilla gift swap and I love bringing twitter and blogging into real life.  Seeing people laughing and suddenly meeting someone who they've been chatting with for months in person is just such fun and I have been busy making sweet yellow plums into french soft set jam with just a whisper of that seductive vanilla in it. 

It is my favorite time of year. There is bright September sunshine outside and the glory of summer has faded.  Occasionally I almost forget that we haven’t really had a summer. The only things that did well in my garden this year have been the herbs, the strawberries and the salad.  The rest has suffered with the whether.  Now the vegetable garden needs tending to and my house needs a good tidy after the summer holidays.  I suppose an untidy house is to be expected with three children vs one working mother. Never doubt that behind the scenes of domestic bliss I am peddling like mad to keep afloat.

Last night my husband lit the first fire. Walking across the garden wafts of pine wood smoke drifted. It is autumn and an evening indulging in new cookery books promised.  With the chickens shut away, and the days freshly laid eggs collected I curled up on the sofa to read some of the books that have landed on my doormat in the past few weeks. I have to admit that I feel a little guilty at indulging when there is so much to do, nevertheless I read on, listening to the fire crackle.  

Food writer and Telegraph journalist Xanthe Clay's new book The Contented Cook is exactly the kind of book I can just lose myself in.  The photographs are just beautiful, and the recipes are practical. For someone who has many cookbooks I find often find myself lost in deciding what to cook, but not with this one.  I wanted to cook everything.  You see the recipes in the book are practical in every sense of the word.  They are as you would expect from Xanthe well thought out and in a sensible order, but there is more than that.  It’s classily perfectly written to make me feel I can and will cook from it. I earmark the Hot and Sour Noodle Soup, the Squishy Almond cake and the Pan-fried Onglet with Fennel Seed Roast Potatoes.

As I read I am romanced.  Recipes have an almost therapeutic effect on me and I find myself  thinking that I need to remember that my children will not look back on their childhood and marvel at how clean the kitchen floor used to be… or how tidy the sitting room was.  They will remember the smells of baking, the laughter as we sit at the table and the feeling of warmth as they come home from school with their pockets full of conkers and the treats they ate whilst swapping stories about their day.  So I  shall make the  Spanish Canas for the children this evening and I’ve invited friends for supper later in the week so I’ve ordered the Onglet from my local butcher. 

As the fire glows I wonder how perfect moments happen.  They are like dreams hard to pin down and impossible  rarely but somehow whenever they do there always seems to be food about and there is contentment wherever there is food, and so the title Xanthes book rings so true.  

Here is the recipe for Xanthe’s Cañas

Cañas

The Spanish chef and restaurateur José Pizarro’s parents, whom I was lucky enough to meet, are both in their seventies and still tend a smallholding of 20 hectares. Señora Pizarro fed me on her homemade cañas, crisp curls of flaky cinnamon-scented pastry, which melt richly in the mouth. Gorgeous with coffee or the hot chocolate on page 207.

Makes about 20

125ml olive oil, plus extra for deep-frying

Zest of ½ orange

375g plain flour

125ml white wine

125g caster sugar mixed with 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

Heat the oil and the orange zest gently in a small pan for 5 minutes.

Put the flour in a large bowl and make a well in the middle. Pour in the hot oil and stir to mix. Add the white wine and mix again. Knead the dough lightly to make a soft, silky, but not sticky dough.

Roll out the dough to a thickness of about 3mm. Cut it in strips 15cm long and 4cm wide.

Heat oil in a pan or wok to a depth of about 5cm (ensure the pan is no more than half full) to 185°C or until a scrap of the dough browns in about 1½ minutes.

Take a cream horn mould or a 12cm length of stainless steel tube, about 3cm in diameter and wrap a strip of dough around it in a spiral. Put the whole wrapped mould into the hot oil and allow to sizzle for 10 seconds, or until the dough has stiffened and turned pale. With tongs, carefully pull out the metal mould, allowing the spiral of dough to slide back into the oil. Cook for a further minute or so until deep golden.

Carefully lift the spiral out of the oil and drain on kitchen paper. While still warm, dust with the sugar and cinnamon mixture. Repeat with the rest of the dough.

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Please note that the both  recipe and photograph shown have been reproduced with full permission from the publisher.

The Ndali Vanilla Gift Swap

A little girl sitting with her Grandmother at the Kasemire Organic Farmers Association Uganda

On Sunday lunchtime my family stood quietly in the kitchen for once as I was waiting to listen to the BBC Radio four Food and Drink program with Sheila Dillon.  I’ve worked for my local BBC on Sundays on the BBC Radio Northampton Kitchen Garden show for about 18 months.  I love the radio its like painting pictures with sound and for longer than I can remember I have indulged in The Food Program in a quiet moment. 

But this show was different. The report from Uganda in vanilla was mine. I have no idea how the producer Dilly managed to condense the hours of recordings I sent to her into the amazing concise program I listened to but she did it and as Shelia’s familiar voice opened and William Sitwell set the scene and I was mesmerised listening to the people I interviewed and remembering the incredible difference a fair price made to their lives.

Twitter and my phone went crazy after the program. I had no idea how many people I knew were listening, and my children were so very proud of me.

Listening to the program was in someway surreal, however it certainly brought back the realization that our choices, our decisions our habits have impact far beyond cupcakes, and we have to change the way we think about food. 

On my return from Uganda I felt so different.  It’s a hard feeling to describe but I am somehow haunted and the feeling just won’t go away. It wasn't the poverty; it wasn't the desperate need of basics.  It was the unfairness.  The unfairness as decent hard working farmers who stood in front of me, looked me in the eye and said we don't want charity, we just want a fair price for what we have grown. It doesn't seem like an outrageous request. 

 "We don't want charity, we just want a fair price for what we have grown"

Lulu Sturdy, who owns Ndali estate, is the most incredible woman. She can be pretty cut off from the rest of the world at times, sometimes her electricity is out and other times there is no internet connection for days.  It's not a life of luxury ! ... she lives very simply and throws her entire energy and effort into her estate the community and the people, and she already has 20% of the vanilla farmers are on a fairtrade deal.  That is a truly amazing achievement .. but if we bakers ( and yes I mean you when I say we)  demanded more Fair Trade Vanilla then more of the people I met could benefit from a decent price for their crop.

If I am honest I've never really been radical about much.  I was pretty apathetic about most issues that people got worked up about at university and until now I've actually spent most of my life thinking about myself .. but something almost took me over as I stood and listened to these proud people asking for a just price. I’ve always had a very strong sense of fairness. As a child if something wasn't fair I'd then never give up. It's a basic almost childish instinct and so I decided that I must do something. 

The thing that really shocked me was learning that vanilla is a cash crop.  It's really easy to steal and I met farmers who had been robbed.  One poor farmer had even been tied up whilst a gang stripped his harvest in front of him, and damaged the orchids so the next crop was done for too ...  and there are no state benefits in Uganda. 

The worried farmers are then approached by unscrupulous buyers ..  and the vanilla is sold unripe, often for less than it cost to grown out of fear.  This cheap vanilla isn't good though. It has not had the time to mature into the beautiful plump dark rich vanilla that makes our cakes taste so amazing.   

As I chatted to the farmers it became clear that Fair Trade has been helping the farmers to form associations to close down the places stolen vanilla can be sold.  As well as teaching the farmers to grow sustainably Lulu and new team also work really hard to persuade the farmers to keep their crop on the vines to ripen naturally ..  which is why the vanilla is so flavoursome. 

I realise that I can't cart off the entire baking population to Uganda...  but I can bring Ndali Vanilla to my own community  ... other food bloggers .. and so I have arranged The Ndali Vanilla Gift Swap on Monday 24th September and I am delighted that it will be held at Fortnum and Mason.  

It is also the start of The Big Fair Bake Campaign which seemed so appropriate. 

So  .. on the afternoon of Monday the 24th September at 3pm I am inviting Bloggers to take part in the Ndali Vanilla Fair Trade Gift Swap.   I have just 50 spaces and lots of Vanilla to send out.

On the day 

You will need to bring along your gifts to Fortnum & Mason's 4th floor at 3pm (your forms must be attached securely in an envelope.)  Your gift needs to be entered into the swap by 3.45pm. Your gift get’s a number and a category.  At the end of the event you get to pick out the tickets (According to how many gifts you brought with you) out of the bowl and leave with the gifts correlating to the number that you have picked from the bowl it's like a raffle and you will leave with someone else’s gifts.  I wanted to add a bit of gentle competition to it all ...  so I am delighted that author and Sunday Times food writter Lucas Hollweg has kindly offered the very difficult job of judging the best the gifts. 

 The timetable is as follows: 

4 - 6pm Lucas & team will judge the entries and pick the winning gifts.

6.15 pm you pick a ticket out of all the entries and you leave with a gift.  

The gift categories are:

1 Biscuits

2  Cake  / cupcake

3 Sweets
4 Preserve .... * NEW catagory 

*LOOK *

The Prizes are as follows

1 Best Biscuit - New color Kenwood K-Mix

2 Best Cake / cupcake - New color Kenwood K-Mix

3 Best Sweet - New color Kenwood K-Mix
4 Best Preserve ... * - Fortnum and Maison Hamper 

and runner up prizes New color Kenwood Hand Mixers and Blenders 

Prizes are from the leading brand of kitchen appliances Kenwood.  (hurrah for British design!) 

The Rules

You must first email me with your postal address so I can send you some Ndali Vanilla.   Recipes@vanessakimbell.com

You must then share your  Fair Trade Ndali Vanilla recipe and blog about your gift using the Fortnum & Mason Ndali Vanilla / Fortnum logo used here in your blog post.

You may enter up to 3 categories. Minimum entry is 1 category. 

Any combination of ingredients can be used .. e.g. strawberry and vanilla or chocolate and vanilla .. or just plain vanilla. ..  the choice is yours.  

You must provide an envelope with your forms (that I will email)  inside and your name and email address. Ingredients must be clearly marked to accommodate any food allergies.

All gifts must be packaged in a way that is appropriate for someone to open them to judge easily and for someone else to transport home. 

Prizes will be sent directly to the winners.  If you win you will need to leave your address with me at the end of the day. 

All decisions by the judge are final and there are no cash or product alternatives. 

All the gifts must be handmade using Ndali Vanilla and any other Fair Trade ingredients wherever possible.   

You must be over 18 to participate. 

Some of the recipes will be published and therefore if you participate then you also agreeing that your recipe may be published (and credited to you) at a later date.

Please note that it is free to participate.  I am delighted that the Fair Trade Foundation will be coming along and they are providing gift bag with some more Fair Trade & Kenwood goodies in to take home with you.

My sincerest thanks to Fortnum and Mason and Kenwood for their generosity and to Lucas Hollweg from the Sunday Times for helping show that we can change things for the better one bite at time.

Green vanilla pods that have been left on the vine to mature are plump and full of vanillin

A Week in Uganda Visiting Ndali Vanilla

It was so good to see happy children who's parents get a fair & decent price for their vanilla crop!

I have to be honest I was nervous about going to Uganda.  The night before I left I was quiet.  My husband held my hands and quietly asked if I was ok?  "No..  I'm not" I said.  I was feeling the full wobble of travelling alone " I'm just a British middle-class housewife who writes and talks about food,"  I said "What was I thinking?  An adventure for me is going to London for a day ..  and the closest I've ever been to Africa is buying a pineapple in Waitrose!" It amused my husband to see me out of my comfort zone. 

I needn't have been nervous, I was made so welcome and Uganda is just beautiful.  Seeing the vanilla process from the vine all the way through the processing to being packages was just a revelation of love, care and pure artisanal food craftsmanship from start to finish.  The Ndali Vanilla is exquisite.   

I have brought home a stack of Vanilla to share, but I have also come home a different person.  I feel changed in my very core. I've been back home three days and I’m struggling with the inevitable comparisons I am drawing between the world I left just a couple of days ago and life here.  

You see whilst I was in Uganda I found out just how a decent rate of pay from Fairtrade vanilla grower and producer Ndali Vanilla really affects the families and communities whilst recording interviews with the Vanilla producers and farmers for a forthcoming BBC Radio 4 Food Program.  

Now I am home I have certainly found it hard to be sympathetic listening to grumbling from people about how hard they have it. How terrible the local schools are, or how bad the service is from the NHS and about only being able to afford one holiday this year or not being able to buy the latest gadget.  These things are not poverty. Actually, it took all my will power not to point out the reality of the world to a woman on the market who was complaining about her lot yesterday.  Of course getting frustrated with people is not positive  .. but don’t get me started …  because we all (I include myself in this) expect that we get a fair days pay for a fair days work. Keeping people in poverty for the sake of a relatively small amount of money seems utterly selfish to me and I believed that we all have the opportunity to make a difference when we see Fairtrade products on the shelves.  I've decided that this feeling… this absolute seismic shift in the way I understand what fair trade price means on real terms has to be put to use.

I know that on all too many occasions we are guilty of looking at the fair trade logo and just seeing a marketing logo.  I’ve had people cynically informing me with conviction in the weeks leading up to my trip that it’s all a sales gimmick!  

Lulu Sturdy, MD of Ndali Vanilla buying at Fair trade prices 

Yes this logo that means the product costs a wee bit more and I am somewhat ashamed and embarrassed to say that there have been occasions that I have saves a few pence and bought a non-fairtrade product.  So I am taking a deep breath and saying now .. never again.  This is not a hippy happy clappy feel good logo.  This is literally a life for the farmers and their families behind the product. To see first hand the impact that a decent wage has on real families and real people is sobering.  It’s a far cry from cupcakes I can tell you. Where life is hard, not to pay a fair price is wicked. You see, a decent price literally means the world to the people I met last week.

The work Lulu and the Ndali team are doing is just incredible, and to listen first hand the stories of the farmers and vanilla producers whose lives have improved was extraordinary.  Lulu is one of the most inspiring women I have ever met. She will blush when I tell you that she is beautiful, and brave and that she lives in harmony with the land she has inherited and the people who live their whilst growing the headiest deep sweet intense sleek black vanilla imaginable.

Ndali organic vanilla being packed at the processing plant 

I can’t write too much more about my trip right now as I am waiting on news about an article I may.. or may not be commissioned to write  -  perhaps I will have the opportunity to tell Lulu's story to many and put these feelings and experiences to use.

For now what I will say is that my trip has been a life changing experience, and if you will bear with me I will share much more in a week or so.

In the mean time I have a stash of vanilla to share with my blogging community..  so if you have a  food blog and  would like some samples of the utterly delicious Ndali Vanilla please comment below and tweet this article and I will pick randomly 15 bloggers by the 13th July 2012 to send out packs of my stash to!

PS  I will be organising a Vanilla baking swap in London in September ... if you'd like more details then please add your blog below and I'll get in touch about this gift swap event.

Vanilla Sugar

If there is on thing I just don't think I could be without in my kitchen cupboard it would be vanilla sugar.

The top notes sing above the ingredients. A delight. Now although I'm not adverse to using essence, and I admit that I am being particular when I say that the depth of flavours in a recipe are improved significantly when infused sugar is used rather than essence.

The sugar is a treat in coffee and hot chocolate, or sprinkled over strawberries and cream

For me it has to be Ndali. Nothing else comes close in my opinion. Fair trade, organic it's dark, deep sticky sweetness vanilla accentuates the sweetness of it's counterpart ingredients.

However it's not cheap to go out and buy lots of vanilla in one go, so my tip is to gift vanilla pods instead of chocolate, wine or flowers to friends who cook.

Then if your close friends or family bring you gifts when you invite them for supper then perhaps suggest that you'd be utterly delighted with some vanilla instead as you are building your stash.

List is as one of those things you'd love to receive and you'll soon have a seriously packed jar of utterly delicious sweet vanilla sugar before you know it.

Linked Recipes

Strawberry, Vanilla and Rose Ice-cream

Chocolate Vanilla and Cardamon Biscotti

Plum and Cardamon Crumble with Vanilla Custard

Blackberry and Vanilla Jam

Whoopie Pies with Vanilla Cream

Blackcurrent and Vanilla Jam

For my recipe this week I have turned to tart dark blackcurrants. They make the most fabulous intense jam and the vanilla pod add top notes without making it too sweet, with a wonderful knobbly texture this is a delight to smother over hot buttered toast. Right now I feel the urge to make jam and headed to Mrs Smith Farm shop near Boughton to recover some of the farms previous summers fruit stash. Making jam making itself is simple an requires minimal effort for maximum results, but I do I have one piece of advice when making blackcurrant jam and that is to ensure that your fruit is cooked well before adding the sugar. If you add the sugar too early on it makes the blackcurrants hard. I prefer dollop of Blackcurrant jam to raspberry in my rice pudding. It makes a wonderful topping for cheesecake, is sublime stirred into porridge with a whisper of cream, and goes a treat with fresh baked scones.

Makes 5 x 450g jars

Prep time 35 minutes

Cooking time 18 - 20 minutes

1.5kg Blackcurrants,

1 vanilla pod

100ml water

1 kg jam sugar or 1kg of vanilla sugar and pectin ( No need for the vanilla pod)

Juice of 1 fresh lemon

1 Preheat the oven to 160˚C/gas mark 3 and pop the jars (but not the lids) into the oven.

2 Put a small saucer in the fridge to chill.

3 Place the blackcurrants, vanilla pod and water in a large saucepan pan, cover and heat gently for about 10 - 12 minutes. Stir occasionally and gently stir and keep the pan covered.

4 Once the blackcurrants are cooked and the consistency is half juice and half currents, add the sugar and the lemon juice. Stir well. When the sugar is dissolved, bring the jam to the boil for about 4 - 5 minutes on a good bubble. Take the jam jars out of the oven.

5 While the jam boils, use a metal spoon to skim off any froth appearing on the top. Take care not to remove too much jam, though.

6 Once the jam reaches setting point it should be viscous enough to coat the back of a metal spoon. To test for setting point, remove the pot from the heat and drop a teaspoon of jam onto the cold saucer from the fridge. Leave it for about a minute; if it is ready, then the jam will wrinkle as you run a spoon through the centre. If it doesn’t wrinkle, return the pan to the boil and repeat this process about 2 minutes later. Do take care not to over-boil your jam. This setting point should really take no longer than 10 minutes at most to achieve.

7 Ladle the jam into the jars using a jam funnel. After a minute, screw the lids on. The heat from the jam will ensure the lids are sterilised. Don’t worry if the jar lid isn’t done up tightly; you can tighten them later once the jars have cooled.

To listen to more idea’s on how to use Blackcurrant Jam tune in to BBC Radio Northampton 10am on Sunday Morning 104.2FM

Vanilla and Mango Pork & Social Networking

Today. The day is over and I am sitting at my desk with an unimaginable amount of new information to digest. Christian, otherwise known as Documentally came for lunch and to brief me on social networking.

Hold up. I feel the need to start by saying that I was up at 5:30am and rewrote 2 recipes. Packed lunch for Al, children were carted to school and nursery, and I fitted a trip to the local butcher to buy pork.

Today's recipe was Vanilla, Mango & Chili Pork. This recipe was multitasking as a recipe for the book. It is also for this week'sChronicle and Echo column and it was lunch.

The making of it was part of my introduction to Audioboo, and the subject of @Documentally filming me making it. our live example of social networking. There's nothing like a bit of pressure to hone your culinary wizardry. The truth is I've known for weeks how I want it to taste.. it just took me 3 goes to get there. Thankfully this was the final version. the pork caramalised, the mango sweetened, the vanilla placed itself in the mid tones and the finish was the chili hit. It was all bound together with a generous dollop of cream. It sat beautifully on a bed of cardamom rice, and the leftovers? They are Al's packed lunch for tomorrow - if I don't raid the fridge before midnight that is. Kirsty, one of the chronicles photographers popped over and took some shots.

I tweeted, blogged, audiobooed and learned how to use my iphone to get the to teh poeople that want to hear about this kind of food and ultimately get the book out there. We decided that we are going to have a Geeks Lunch ( I am told this is a complimentary term - I assure you !) So in a week or two I shall host a geeks lunch for the best local twitterers who want to come and eat. It just won't have to be finger food! There will be just 6 places ..so I am going to have to come up with a criteria for people to win a place a the table. In the mean time .. do have a listen to the audio below. I had lots of fun and it had over 200 hits this afternoon already.

Tomorrow I shall write up the recipe, cook chili and chocolate cakes and pumpkin pie and soup for the John Griff show on Friday just after 2pm .. tune in .. it's bound to be fun and I might sneak and extra bit of chili in John's cake.... it is live after all.

Salvaged Fallen Mirabelle

I salvaged a basket of fallen Mirabelle yesterday at the side of a quiet country lane. As I arrived home I set to on the computer and totted up the numbers. I realised that there are still 96 more recipes to write up and 50 more to photograph. So there is still a long way to go. The deadline is December.

I am excited today, because I am going to Rococo in Weedon Northamptonshire, where Stephanie and her husband (I have yet to meet him) have a salvage yard. I’d like to have some pictures of one of the salad recipes on white washed aged floor boards. I know exactly what I want the photo to look like. I, or rather Bunny and I, will need to chop and saw and drill to get a small working floorboard prop for my mocked up studio in the lounge. I am however wondering how I am to get a reclaimed floor board back home in my car. There is a comedy moment looming. What treasure I will find .. and what fun.

In the mean time - I am about to cook a Mirabelle pie, as a thank you to Stephanie for allowing me to use her yard as a shoot location. These Mirabelle, rescued from the roadside,are so beautiful, bright, plump and shiny.. it almost..almost a shame to cook them.

Whoopie .. pies and Vanilla

Chocolate and Vanilla in any combination is terrific, but when it is combined in a biscuity cake sandwiching soft folds of whipped vanilla cream it is heavenly. Any good quality vanilla paste would do for this Whoopie Pie recipe; however, I do have a preference for Ndali vanilla, which my sister introduced me to several years ago. It is a little more expensive than other vanilla, but not much .. and to be truthful ,any really great cook will tell you that half the taste experience is in the quality of the ingredients, so the little bit extra is well worth it. Given a choice I prefer fair-trade and organic products, but I am also realistic in that some ingredients are not always available or affordable. With one of the chapters in the book dedicated to vanilla I wanted to get the very best from the flavour so I contacted Lulu, the owner of the Ndali Vanilla estate in Africa to see if she would help me out. I was absolutely delighted when she agreed. Originally from nearby Oxford she has an amazing story to tell, inheriting the vanilla plantation out of the blue about seven years ago. Whichever vanilla you buy it’s worth checking out her site.
As a box of darkest, sweetest delicious vanilla pods arrived straight from Uganda, arrived it was just in time to play with the taste combinations for the latest must have Whoopie Pie phenomenon from America. Originating from the Amish people in Pennsylvania, women made these chocolate mounds with butter icing sandwiched between them from their husbands. The husbands would be so pleased to find it in their lunch box they would shout whoopie .. which was exactly what I shouted as I was opening the beautiful box packed with Ndali vanilla pods. Whoopie!

Chocolate and Vanilla Whoopie Pie Recipe

Ingredients


120g of butter
200g of vanilla sugar or caster sugar & 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

2 medium eggs
280grams of SR flour 4 large heaped tbsp of cocoa powder
Pinch of salt
250ml of buttermilk

Filling
1 Level teaspoon of vanilla paste
3 tablespoons of icing sugar
300 ml of double cream

Method

Preheat heat the oven to Gas 4/350 F/ 180C
Grease two baking trays.
In a bowl combine the dry ingredients.
In a separate bowl beat the sugar and butter until pale and fluffy and then add the eggs. Add the dry ingredients and the Buttermilk and combine the ingredients. You should be left with a relatively stiff mixture ready to spoon onto the baking tray in round bite size blobs. To get 16 pies you will need 32 of these.
Bake in the oven for 10 – 12 minutes. They are a cross between a biscuit and a sponge, however there is a fine line between biscuit and burnt because of the high sugar content, so don’t leave them in too long. I found a much better bite to them if I left them in the oven to cool, but if you haven’t time transfer cool on a wire rack.
Add in the teaspoon of vanilla paste and icing sugar to the cream and whip. Make sure the cream is a nice thick consistency before sandwiching a dollop between the chocolate cakes. There you have a taste of America - 16 chocolate and vanilla Whoopie Pies.