Doesn’t time fly when you have a Nutter to look forward to every Friday? Well, it does for me, and my excitement was only slightly diminished to see that today’s episode will be all about teabreads, since really, it will be all about the Nutter (and, hopefully, the flaming shirt). Perhaps a Nutter twist will help take teabreads from pedestrian to orgasmic?
Nutter’s shirt today has no flames, unfortunately (if you are still reading, Dawn, it’s the lemon shirt that launched your creation all those weeks ago!). We start with a brief introduction to the concept of teabreads (which, I suspect, are what we might know of as “tea cakes”). We will be getting three recipes today: two sweet, one savoury, and unfortunately ALL healthy. Of course, my interest is piqued by the concept of the “millennium” version, which will apparently contain “all those delicious new flavours that are coming around at the moment”. What will they be? I’m unsuccessfully casting my mind back ten years to try to identify the flavour revolution, so am very keen on what we’ll see.
The recipes, after the jump…
Banana and Pecan Loaf
110g unsalted butter
110g caster sugar
2 eggs
110g plain flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 touch bicarb soda
55g whole-wheat flour
2 large (or three medium) bananas
55g pecans
lemon juice
1-2 tsps vanilla essence
Preheat oven to 180.
Mix the butter until it’s light and creamy and then mix in the caster sugar. You can use a food processor (or, presumably, a stand or hand-held electric mixer) but Nutter is going great guns – and will have great guns at this rate – with a wooden spoon. Interestingly, he prefers the lo-fi way of doing things, because he thinks there’s more washing up with electric gadgets. Really? Anyway, once that’s all creamy and loovely (that’s not a direct quote, but the Nutterisms are catchy) add your eggs, one at a time, to ensure the mixture doesn’t curdle. Of course, if you like your cake mixes to look like scrambled eggs, you can ignore this advice. Once you’ve wazzed in your last egg, add the dry ingredients, except for the whole-wheat flour, via a sieve. Once they’re nicely incorporated, add the whole-wheat flour. If you’ve ever tried to sift this, Nutter thinks you’re a moron, as his little crazy gesture reveals.
Sometime in the next few weeks, Nutter will teach us how to test our eggs for freshness. Not now, mind, but in an unspecified upcoming episode. He sure knows how to keep his audience loyal.
Once all the dry ingredients are mixed in, it’s time to “transform” this into a banana and pecan teabread with – you guessed it – the addition of bananas! And pecans! Mash the bananas in a bowl and add the lemon juice to prevent discolouration. Add the mash to the mix, then add your chopped nuts, punning lazily on “nuts”. Add the vanilla essence.
Pour the mix into a lined loaf tin, levelling the top off, and then pop into the oven for 50 to 60 minutes. Nutter is not holding all the baking tips back for a future episode – he goes over the skewer test for done-ness for the uninitiated.
Once the loaf is cooked, don’t forget to garnish with a couple of banana slices, some sugar syrup – no, really! – and the inevitable dusting of icing sugar.
Carrot and Apple Buns
This is even better than the banana and pecan loaf, Nutter assures us, so bad luck if you’ve jumped too early and committed yourself to the first recipe. That’ll teach you!
170g unsalted butter
100g soft brown sugar
1 egg
1 tbsp water
140g carrots, grated on the “rough” side of the grater. You people with your fancy microplanes can work it out for yourselves
1 granny smith apple, skin on, grated
140g plain flour
1/2 tsp bi-carb soda
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp baking powder
Pre-heat oven to 180
Mix the butter until it’s aerated and creamy and then add the loovely molassas-y sugar and mix well. Beat the egg lightly with the water, and then add bit by bit to your butter and sugar. While you’re grating, modify the initial instruction slightly so that people can feel free to use whatever apples they might have growing on their carrot trees at home. Laugh more than is probably strictly necessary at this slight bungle, and then suggest that you might start a gardening show next. Add the grated stuff to your mix and remark on how delicious it looks, despite the fact that it does look quite vomitous. “It’s a taste explosion!”.
Sift your dry ingredients into the mix and stir in thoroughly. You can now put the mix into a large tin, or into some patty pan cases, which is what Nutter is doing today. Pop into the oven for about 15 minutes, or until they pass the skewer and/or springiness test.
Serve with a selection of fresh fruit, which in the utopia in which Nutter exists, will be scoffed by the kids who will be seduced into healthy behaviour by the delicious apple and carrot buns. Or they’ll be blinded by the dusting of icing sugar. One or the other.
Millennium teabread (aka Spicy Cornbread)
Those wacky new flavours you’ve been on the edge of your seat for? “Thai” coriander and maize meal polenta!
2 eggs
450 ml buttermilk
55g melted butter
55g plain flour
1 tsp bi-carb soda
2 tsps salt
170g (trendy) polenta
350g tinned sweet corn kernels
4 tbsps chopped coriander
3 birdseye chillies, deseeded and finely chopped
Preheat oven to 200
Start beating your eggs lightly, then get distracted by the buttermilk, suggesting a delicious healthy drink of fruit juice and buttermilk mixed together. Does it sound delicious? Not really, but I won’t knock it until I’ve tried it. Add the buttermilk to the eggs, rather than your morning OJ, and then add the butter. Sift the dry ingredients into a separate bowl, and then add the “substance” called maize meal. Reassure people that, even though you’re using polenta, it’s not going to be nasty and bland while you mix it into the other dry ingredients. Fold carefully into the wet ingredients.
Now it’s time for the Nutter transformation (unfortunately this does not involve him tearing off the yellow shirt to reveal… the Sandman shirt). Apparently you can do whatever you want here, but my recommendation is to have a crack at what he does before going completely, ahem, nuts. Mix in the corn, commenting in a surprised way that it smells quite good. Add the shredded coriander and the chillies and mix in. It now makes an almost perfect colour match for the shirt, which is great – I was despairing of a match today.
Pour into a round tin lined with teflon paper. I’m a bit surprised by the choice of tin here – I’d be more inclined to go with a loaf, but that’s probably why I don’t have my own show. Level the mix off and bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Leave it in the tin for about 10 minutes to cool and serve slightly warm.
Serve with a delicious salsa of diced tomato, de-seeded cucumber, coriander, chilli and red onion mixed with a tablespoon of white wine vinegar and another of olive oil. Season to taste, dollop onto a wedge of the corny teabread, and avoid dusting with icing sugar if you possibly can.
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