All the Colours and no Additives

I have been watching the Great British Bake Off avidly for the last couple of years.  I just settle down and for an hour - I am in heaven!  Last year I jumped up a couple of times when it was over and started baking at 9pm.  It has probably inspired a huge number of people to take up baking.

This season they made a colour-themed showstopper as they called it.  Some of the attempts were really spectacular.  However, they mostly seemed to involve artificial food colouring.  Now I no longer have small children but a substantial number of the ingredients in food colouring have been implicated in adverse reactions in children including hyper-activity.  Tartrazine thankfully has now been banned but there are other nasties used in it's place.

I decided to have a go at making a cake using all natural colourings.  I chose chocolate (cocoa powder), coffee (coffee extract), purple (blackcurrant purée) and vanilla.  I sandwiched the chocolate and coffee layers with a chocolate and coffee buttercream.  I used a vanilla buttercream between the coffee and blackcurrant and a blackcurrant buttercream between the blackcurrant and vanilla layers.

For the blackcurrant purée I picked 150g of very ripe and juicy blackcurrants (the last of this years crop) and added 50g sugar.  I simmered it until it was syrupy and then pushed through a sieve.  Discard what will not push through a sieve and retain the rest in an airtight container in the fridge.  This method could be used for any strong-coloured fruit including beetroot but you need to add sugar to taste. 

Cake Recipe (Natural Rainbow Cake)

450g butter
450g sugar
6 eggs
350g flour
2 teaspoons baking powder

Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, add in one egg at a time and beat well into mix.  Fold in sieved flour and baking powder. This mix yields just over 1.6kg or 1600g so divide into 400g portions.

I only have two sandwich tins so I had to bake in two batches.  To the first I added a tablespoon of blackcurrant purée (30g).  To the next I added just a teaspoon of vanilla extract. I baked both at gas mark 4/176 deg C for about 30 minutes until the sponge sprang back to a gentle touch.

Blackcurrant and vanilla

 For the next two layers I added 30g of dark cocoa powder to make the chocolate layer and a tablespoon of coffee extract for the coffee layer. Both were baked after the first two layers were removed from the tins.


For the pink icing (1 layer and topping)
150g icing sugar and 50g soft butter
I added three teaspoons of the purée and loosened with a little milk.  If you want a deeper pink add more purée. 

After baking

For the Vanilla icing 75g icing sugar and 25g soft butter, add a teaspoon of vanilla extract and a tablespoon of milk (approx).

For the chocolate and coffee icing 75g icing sugar and 25g soft butter, add 2 teaspoons of cocoa and 1 teaspoon of coffee extract and mix.  A little milk can be added here as well to adjust the consistency.

If you want to make the cake look more professional slice the top peak off each sponge layer to get them to sit together better.  I didn't as it was just for us to eat here.  If you don't the cake will be slightly "bockety".

Cut a big slice, kick off your shoes, sit back and enjoy!

Why Soy?

During my trips up and down to feed my pigs things go through my mind.  I suppose in some respect I am evaluating my relationship with food and beginning to question more and more where it comes from and how it's produced.

I made a decision a long time ago to stop buying eggs.  I have my own hens and ducks and if they don't lay then I do without.  I then decided to stop buying layers mash (meal for laying hens) as it is produced using GM ingredients.  What was the point having delicious free range eggs polluted with GMs?

I am raising pigs for my own GM-free pork and bacon.

Limousin herd on lane

But as I walk down the lane to feed the pigs I am surrounded by beef, dairy and sheep farmers.  I got to thinking about meat and milk.  What GM feed is given to cattle and sheep?  Okay we are lucky here in Ireland to have quality grass for a good proportion of the year and then sileage for the rest.  But what about supplemental feed?  During winter when "nuts" are fed, chances are they are full of genetically modified maize and soy.  So for at least a proportion of the year unless you are buying certified organic you are consuming beef, lamb, milk and milk products produced from genetically modified feed ingredients.

Then a friend put a notice up on Facebook that she had an unused tin of Wysoy infant formula if anyone wanted it.  Out of interest I asked her to check the tin and see if it specified produced from GM-free soy.  No mention of it.  Now surely if it was, the manufacturer would plaster it all over the tin?? Out of curiosity I e-mailed SMA Nutrition to ask them. To be fair they answered the next day saying that the soy beans are in fact non-GM.

Then I wondered was the "normal" baby milk formula produced from cows fed a non-GM diet.  I e-mailed again and received an answer that all their ingredients were GM-free.  This was not the question I had asked, so I asked it again and received the following response "We receive skim milk in powder form. This milk is tested as part of the Supplier Contaminants programme and testing has confirmed that this is non-GM".  

 As far as I am concerned this is not a satisfactory answer as I do not have any idea what the Supplier Contaminants programme is and also what they are actually testing for?  At no point have they confirmed that the milk they use is from cows fed a GM-free diet so I can't see how they can say the milk is GM-free. 


So why are we so reliant on soy?  Why do we need so many tonnes of it to feed animals?  We can grow fields of barley, wheat, oats, rape seed all more than adequate for feeding any animal.  Before the sugar industry in this country was shut down, beet pulp was produced cheaply as a by-product for animal feed.  Why are we importing soy and maize from the US which is virtually all GM?

Why do so few consumers care about what they eat or what they feed their children?  Organic and GM-free is more expensive and people are struggling to balance budgets but there are many who complain about the cost of food and then go out and buy their kids the latest game console.  The same consumers who get a take away as they can't be bothered cooking.  The parents who give their kids money to buy junk at lunchtime instead of sandwiches.  If all of the people who could actually afford to upgrade to better quality food did so, then the increase in demand would decrease the price - benefiting all.

Why soy?

Wysoy  GM Soy  Free Range Pigs  GM Free Food  Free Range Eggs

Foraging in my Day

Ripe blackberries in hedgerow

When we were kids my father used to drive us up into fields near the Dublin Mountains to pick blackberries.  We did it every year and my memory is once we had stuffed our faces and our hands were black we started moaning we were bored and wanted to go home.  Of course we were never let and we had to at the very least fill the bowl we had been given.  When we got home my mother made jam and apple and blackberry tarts.  She used to freeze them as well and I remember trays in the freezer with fruit spread out until it could be picked off and bagged.

I continued on the tradition when my kids were small.  We used to head off with my son on his bike and my daughter in her buggy and Simba the dog in tow.  The kids had buckets and did all the usual moaning while Simba had a great time sniffing out rabbits.

I always remember getting the "funny looks" from passing cars.  At least I thought they were looking at me strangely but maybe they were just curious as to what we were doing.  You always got the odd one who stopped, rolled down the window and gave some sort of advice re: maggots, bugs, pollution etc.

Blackberry jam is up there with the greats and by the greats I mean raspberry and apricot - my favourites.

Blackberry and apple crumble is sublime served with big dollops of whipped cream.  Pure comfort food.

Blackberries also freeze really well and you don't have to go to the trouble my mother did trying to freeze the berries separately.  Unlike softer fruit they don't go into a mush when they defrost and they keep their flavour. 

Plus and it's a very big plus - they are free; they are full of vitamins and anti-oxidants and they have not been flown half way around the globe having been sprayed with pesticides en route. 

Blackberry and apple tart and blackberry muffin

So get back to your roots and go blackberry picking.  Make a day out. Pack a picnic.  Take the dog and the kids.  Then when you get home make a big blackberry and apple tart and enjoy!

Muffin recipe here
Basic tart recipe here