Oestara 2021

Last Saturday it was Oestara, (more commonly known as Ostara) aka the Spring Equinox. As I mentioned in the Happy Oestara! post, my main celebration was baking. This year I actually did some "no-baking", since I made a Birdies Perch Malteser slice, which is one of my favourite things to make. The recipe is from Sam Stern. Read more about it and find a link to the recipe here: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2013/09/birdies-perch-malteser-slice.html

I last made it for Oestara in 2016. That year I made it a bit differently, but this Oestara I stuck to my usual recipe. I put Cadbury Mini Eggs on top to fit the theme! Here's a picture:

Baking for Madron + Extra Ideas!

Madron (also known as Mabon and the Autumn Equinox) is coming up which means it's almost autumn! This year it will be on Tuesday 22nd September. 

For the past few years, I've written celebration ideas and inspiration posts for this sabbat. You can see them below: 

Madron/Autumn Equinox Celebration Ideas: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2017/09/madronautumn-equinox-celebration-ideas.html

Celebrating Madron + Autumn: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2018/09/celebrating-madron-autumn.html

Madron Inspiration: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/09/madron-inspiration.html 

  

Note: If you're in the Southern Hemisphere it's nearly time for Oestara aka Ostara/the Spring Equinox. You may like these posts with ideas for celebrating:

Oestara/Spring Equinox Celebration Ideas: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2017/03/oestaraspring-equinox-celebration-ideas.html

Celebrating Oestara + Spring: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2018/03/celebrating-oestara-spring.html

Oestara Celebration Inspiration: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/03/oestara-celebration-inspiration.html

Oestara + Spring Inspiration: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2020/03/oestara-spring-inspiration.html

 

For Lammas last month I wrote a post with baking inspiration, since baking is my main activity for that sabbat. You can see that post here: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2020/07/baking-for-lammas-extra-ideas.html

Lammas is a harvest festival, so baking fits the theme. Madron is also a harvest festival and as I mentioned in the Lammas post, Lammas to Samhain is like "baking season" for me. (I do enjoy baking year-round though!) So, this year for Madron I'm also sharing some baking ideas. With cases of the coronavirus going up again and rules changing, we're still advised to stay at home a lot, so baking is a good thing to do in the house. I will also include some alternative ideas at the end of the post. :) First here is some background on Madron.

Baking- Cheese Scones + Brownies

I've been doing some baking recently, so it's time for another baking post. :)


Cheese Scones

First of all I made cheese scones a couple of weekends ago. They were for my mum's birthday because she likes them. :) I personally prefer sweet scones but cheese are nice too.

The recipe is from Sam Stern's Cheese Scone Tea in his Student Cookbook.

Cheese Scone tea

Ingredients

225g/8oz plain white flour
4 level tsps baking powder
Good pinch salt
Pinch dry mustard and/or cayenne pepper
50g/20z finely grated Cheddar (I used half Red Leicester, half Canadian cheddar)
50g/2oz butter
1 large egg, beaten
4 tbsps cold water

Note: I've only copied the ingredients out because I believe that's all I'm allowed to do legally. The recipe isn't on Sam's website but you can find a similar one from All Recipes here: http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/36349/rich-cheese-scones.aspx

 There is one online for Sam's sweet scones in a Yorkshire Cream Tea: http://www.samstern.co.uk/recipe/yorkshire-cream-tea/


And here's another one from BBC Food: https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/cheesescones_1287

The BBC Food one uses self raising flour rather than plain white flour and baking powder, which are in the Sam recipe.

Paul Hollywood also has a recipe for wholemeal cheese scones that uses plain flour and baking powder: https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/wholemeal_cheese_scones_12017


The recipe I made has Cheddar cheese in but I used half Red Leicester and half Canadian Cheddar. They came out quite nice. Here's a picture:

Foil got a bit burnt but never mind!

Madron 2017

Last Friday I celebrated Madron aka Mabon/the Autumn Equinox. (It was on 22nd September this year). As I mentioned in my Madron Celebration Ideas post I chose to make a ginger apple tealoaf. It's a recipe from Sam Stern's Student Cookbook. I was originally thinking of making Bara Brith but decided I'd prefer to make this. This is basically the same recipe, although it's not credited to Sam: https://www.gourmandize.co.uk/recipe-47280-ginger-apple-tealoaf.htm

It was quite nice. I've baked gingerbread cakes for Madron before but they've come out too heavy with the treacle (molasses) in. The one I made in 2015 was better once you got used to it though. Last year I made a ginger beer cake and that was nicer. The tealoaf has dates and apple in but I think I should have cut the apple slices smaller. The lemon icing is made with lemon juice, a bit of rind and icing sugar, and was really nice. Here's a picture of the tealoaf before it was iced:

Chocolate Drinks

Last month I made a couple of chocolate drinks using recipes from Sam Stern's Student Cookbook. I made a chocolate milkshake and hot chocolate. I thought now was a good time to post about them both, since the weather has still been warm but it's getting colder at night, so you might feel like both kinds of drinks. :)

I made the chocolate milkshake first but I was disappointed with it, so I decided to make the hot chocolate a few days later, lol. I'll still include both on here though.


First here is the chocolate milkshake:

Chocolate Milk Shake (Power Drink for 1)


Ingredients

A few chunks good dark chocolate
250ml/9fl oz cold milk
2 scoops best chocolate ice cream or 1 choc and 1 vanilla


I don't have the recipe to link to but here's a similar recipe: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/143456/chocolate-chocolate-milkshake/ (Updated link as of Sept '25)

And another one with melted chocolate in: https://www.abeautifulmess.com/2012/09/askinosie-chocolate-malt-milkshake.html

The problem with this was that because you're just putting hot melted chocolate straight into milk, it goes hard straight away. So I ended up with hard bits of chocolate instead of it blending in properly! (That's a bit of chocolate on the top in the picture). I don't know if I was doing it wrong or what, lol. (My mum didn't know how to stop it doing that either). Maybe it works better if you have an actual blender but I don't, so I just mixed it in a bowl. Maybe it was because I didn't mix it in quick enough by hand? Never mind! You also can do this with drinking chocolate and I expect that works much better.

I used Tesco Plain Chocolate and I think both chocolate and vanilla ice cream.



And here's the hot chocolate:

Hot Chocolate Treat for 2


Ingredients

110g/4oz 70% cocoa solids chocolate
425ml/15fl oz any milk


This recipe isn't online here but here's a link to a similar one that involves melting chocolate: https://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/308/Hot-Chocolate


The hot chocolate came out a lot better because it was melted chocolate going into hot milk. I used some chocolate I had left.


Hope you enjoy them if you make them and that if you make the milkshake it comes out better for you! :)

Nutella and Peanut Butter Flapjacks

A couple of weeks ago I felt like baking something so I made some flapjacks. They're based on Sam Stern's recipe for Chocolate Peanut Butter Flapjacks but I put Nutella in with the peanut butter and didn't put milk chocolate on the top. They came out quite nice although they got a bit burnt when cooking!

Before they were cut

The recipe was from Sam's Student Cookbook. Here's a link to a recipe for Jammy Flapjacks on his site which includes the chocolate peanut butter version: http://www.samstern.co.uk/recipe/jammy-flapjacks/

So if you want to make them with Nutella, just put it in with the main mix. :) (Think I put about a tablespoon in). I won't make the jam ones because I don't like jam but I know a lot of people do, lol. Hope you like whatever version you choose to make! :)

Potato and Onion Soup

I sometimes make potato and onion soup for lunch. I started making it about a year ago and while I did have it in the summer too, I thought it was appropriate to post the recipe now because soup is nice to have in autumn and winter. :) I made it for lunch today. It's good if you don't have much money because there are only a couple of main ingredients (potatoes and onion). I don't have bacon on it that often, although I did today. It's also quite healthy (minus the bacon!).

This recipe is called Skint Potato & Onion Soup and it's from Sam Stern's Student Cookbook. He doesn't have that exact recipe online, so I've written it out here. He does have a similar recipe though, for Potato, Onion & Herb Soup, which you can see here: https://www.samstern.co.uk/recipe/potato-onion-herb-soup/

Skint Potato & Onion Soup
(with Optional Crumbled Bacon)


Ingredients

450g/1lb floury potatoes 
110g/4oz onions
50g/20z butter
850ml/1 1/2 pints water, mixed with 1/2 tsp Marigold veg stock
or own veggie/chicken stock or water
Few sprigs fresh parsley
3 tbsps milk
Salt and black pepper
2 rashers grilled streaky back bacon (optional)


This is similar to Sam's recipe for Potato, Onion & Herb Soup (minus the herbs), which you can find here: https://www.samstern.co.uk/recipe/potato-onion-herb-soup/

I use Chicken gravy granules or Oxo for the stock. I don't use that much milk because I don't like it too milky, so just pour in a bit. (I think that's why mine is darker than the one in the book picture). If you don't have a handblender (I don't have one anymore), you can mash or sieve it. I use a potato masher. I don't tend to use parsley.


Hope you like the recipe if you try it. :) I'll have to have a go at making the potato, onion and herb one as well.

Check out more recipes I've made here: https://uk.pinterest.com/moonsparkle84/recipes-ive-made/

Birdies Perch Malteser Slice

I recently made a recipe called Birdies Perch Malteser slice for my belly dance group BD4U's event. I made it before; almost a year ago (didn't know it had been so long!). I decided to post the recipe on here.

The Malteser slice is a Malteser/cake slice with Maltesers, golden syrup, digestive biscuits and milk chocolate in and white chocolate on the top. It's a recipe from Sam Stern's Student Cookbook and he got it from a teashop he goes to in Yorkshire called Birdies Perch.

                                                     Pic from first time I made it


Update 26/5/14- I realised that I shouldn't have copied the whole recipe because of copyright laws, so I'm going to change what I wrote. I came across this article about sharing recipes: http://www.thegraciouspantry.com/how-to-share-a-recipe/
                    

Update 21/3/16: This is a type of cake that's known as a "fridge cake" or tray bake in the UK and I've found similar recipes online which I thought I'd link to here (since I can't post the recipe in full and it's harder to read in the picture in Sam's book):

http://www.atypicalenglishhome.com/2012/10/malteser-tray-bake.html?m=1

 http://kitchenmonsters.co.uk/2013/05/15/no-bake-malteser-tray-bake/


Here is the recipe:

Birdies Perch Malteser Slice


Ingredients

100g/3 1/2oz margarine/butter
100g/3 1/2oz golden syrup
150g/5oz milk chocolate
225g/8oz digestive biscuits
175g/6oz  bag Maltesers

Topping

2x 150g/5oz bars white chocolate
Grating of milk chocolate



I found a link to the recipe page in the book (Page 259). It's small but you can still read it: http://www.samstern.co.uk/book/student-cookbook/?inside



Note: You bash the Maltesers bag 3 times but I bashed them a bit extra to crumble them up more.


There you go! Hope you like it, if you make it. :)

If you want to try more Sam Stern recipes, visit his site: www.samstern.co.uk