OUT AND ABOUT | BALTZERSENS

After hearing great things about Baltzersens and sampling some of their food at a recent coffee event (see my post here), I knew I had to make a visit to the cafe when I was in Harrogate on the weekend.

A Scandinavian meets Yorkshire cafe based on the foundations of Nordic values - family, food, health, simple functional design and a laid back effortless cool.

Using locally sourced Yorkshire ingredients where possible, their menu is prepared with Scandinavian influence and offered in a relaxed and unpretentious environment.

Upon entering we waited about five minutes for a table as the lunch time rush was finishing. Once seated, I went up to the counter to take our order and managed to get my mits on the LAST cinnamon bun (still feeling very jammy about this!).

A cappucino with a dusting of cinnamon and a cinnamon bun to match were brought to our table and we tucked in. A moist and delicately sweet dough, laced with a cinnamon swirl and drizzled with icing - this was a delight to eat and at a bargain of only £1.50. 

After seeing the cafe menu and the food being served around me I could not hold back from trying one of their sandwiches. With hot and cold open-faced sandwiches to choose from, available in half portions too, my friend and I opted to share a half of the smoked mackerel, sliced potato, capers and fresh horseradish sandwich on dark rye, complete with Nordic inspired salads in the side.

The plate arrived and was a lot bigger than I had expected for a half portion. A generous serving of toppings to compliment the dark rye bread impressed me too.

The smoked mackerel was firm and not too flaky, it had a good smoky taste and was nice and peppery. Potato's and bread might seem a bit of an odd combination to some but with the delicate refreshing flavours of the salad and the heat of the horseradish it worked very well.

To finish we enjoyed a pot of their loose leaf Earl Grey Lady Blue tea which was a nice palate cleanser to our meal.

I highly recommend visiting Baltzersens - the atmosphere and food were so inviting and welcoming and at an extremely reasonable and affordable price.

Two drinks, a cinnamon bun and a half open-faced sandwich came to a total of just over £10. It is definitely a cafe where I feel I could frequent regularly by myself and spend two or three hours there at a time without feeling burdened to leave.

A heads up also to their new Scandinavian dining concept Nord which will be launching on the 4th April and serving on a Tuesday to Saturday night every week. It will be based inside Baltzersens and provide a new addition to the Harrogate restaurant scene.

I will be attending a preview taster session next week so watch this space!

RECIPE | RHUBARB CRUMBLE CAKE

It's September! Yes. For me that means Autumn is officially on it's way.

Even though we're only into day two there is definitely a cooler wind breezing about in Leeds and I love it.

On Saturday I was lucky enough to be given a veg box from the lovely local Whiteley's Farm in Pudsey. Thank you to Millies in town for providing me with the box and asking me to test out some wonderful local produce to experiment with in the kitchen. Amongst my box of wonders, including smoked garlic, romanesco broccoli, kale and flat-leaf parsley were three magnificent sticks of rhubarb.

I jumped at the chance to try out a crumble cake. A three layer wonder... something I see quite often on blogs and has always caught my eye. It's perfect for this overlap period between the last Summer days and early Autumn. In a month or so it will be proper crumbles all the way but for now in cake form it does the trick!

Rhubarb Crumble Cake

Ingredients:

Sponge:

175g Butter

175g Caster Sugar

3 Eggs

1tsp Vanilla Essence

175g Self-Raising Flour

1tsp Baking Powder

1-2tbsps Milk (Only if needed to loosen the batter)

Rhubarb:

2 large sticks of Rhubarb

4tbsp Granulated Sugar

Crumble:

130g Butter

100g Plain Flour

30g Oatbran

3tbsp Demerera Sugar

1tsp Mixed Spice

1tsp Cinnamon

1tsp Baking Powder

Instructions:

1. Preheat your oven to 180 and line a 24" loose bottomed cake tin with butter and baking parchment.

2. Chop the rhubarb into inch thick slices and coat in the granulated sugar and leave to one side.

3. Now for the sponge. Cream together the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light, fluffy and pale in colour. Add the eggs and vanilla essence and continue to mix together. Fold in the flour and baking powder until all ingredients are combined into a smooth batter. If your batter is too thick then you can add some milk to loosen the mixture.

4. Spoon the cake batter into the cake tin making a nice even layer. Assemble the sugar coated rhubarb in another layer on top.

5. For the crumble topping, place all ingredients in a bowl and rub together the dry ingredients with the butter until you have a mixture that resembles bread crumbs. Place this mixture on top of the cake.

6. Bake in the middle shelf of the oven for 40-50 minutes or until baked (you can test this by inserting a skewer into the cake - if it comes out clean then the cake is baked).

7.  Lovely served warm with lashings of custard, or just on it's own cold with a good cup of Yorkshire tea!

RECIPE | THE CHILLI JAM MAN 'BHUT JOLOKIA' INFUSED SODA BREAD

Last month I received an email from MILLIES in Leeds last month asking me if I would be interested in a new project. Millies are a fab shop in the city centre which describes itself as a "fine food and local produce store". They sell locally sourced Yorkshire products and offer a wide range of interesting and delectable food stuffs (...just try their yogurt covered honeycomb  pieces and you'll see what I mean!).

Anyway - this project was to review or create recipes with some products that they were promoting or selling. First up a pot of sweet heat from the one and only THE CHILLI JAM MAN.

The Chilli Jam Man is a great little Yorkshire-based business, which has "spent years developing chilli jam recipes to tantalise and sate the tate buds". I chose to try out the extra hot (9.1% heat rating!) Bhut Jolokia Chilli Jam, which also happens to be one of the three vegetarian jams available within this range.

Upon the first little finger dip I was extremely surprised to finally find a "chilli" product that actually even I found very hot! It even gave me friend hiccups but this could have just been due to over excitement. Ha.

I instantly knew it would pair perfectly with a nice loaf of bread and an array of cheese, meats and pickles. So maverick me over here decided to put the Chilli Jam into one of my favourite bread recipes... the soda bread!

So here we have it...

THE CHILLI JAM MAN 'BHUT JOLOKIA' INFUSED SODA BREAD

Ingredients:

200g Plain Flour

200g Wholemeal Flour

1 1/2 tsp of Bicarbonate of Soda

1/2 tsp of Salt

2-3 tbsps of Mixed Seeds (Optional)

280-300g of Buttermilk

As much of a jar of your favourite Chilli Jam that you can handle!

* Click HERE for the whole range of Jam's available from The Chilli Jam Man.

Instructions:

1.  Heat your oven to 200ºC and line a baking tray with baking paper.

2.  Mix together the flour, bicarbonate of soda and the salt. At this point you can chuck in a few tablespoons of some mixed seeds, chopped nuts or any other dry ingredients of your preference.

3.  In a separate jug, mix the buttermilk with the Chilli Jam (I used about 2/3s of a pot) and then add this mixture to the dry ingredients to form a dough and knead gently, forming the dough into a ball.

3.  Place the ball of dough onto the baking paper and then with a sharp knife, cut a cross in the top of the dough about an inch deep. Sprinkle with flour and bake in the oven for 40-45 minutes.

 

The outcome is a lovely doughy bread, quite hefty in consistency but one that can act as a suitable foundation for piling up with your favourite toppings. It packs just enough punch to give you that Chilli kick of the fiery Bhut Jolokia chilli and if it's not to your tasting you can add more or less of the pot of jam - but be warned, it's VERY hot!!

...and last but not least a MASSIVE THANK YOU to Millies and The Chilli Jam Man!