The Official Downton Abbey Cookbook

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NOTE If you are pressed for time, the ladyfingers, as suggested in the headnote, can be replaced by store-bought ladyfingers. Any leftover ladyfingers are excellent on their own and also make a good base for trifle. The Downton kitchen is equipped with copper egg bowls, which are not only great for whisking eggs but are also ideal for heating eggs and sugar over water, as here. If you don’t have a copper bowl handy, any metal bowl will do, or even a heatproof glass one (though it will take longer to heat up).You can easily vary the flavourings in this charlotte, using a different fruit jelly or flavoured cream or changing the spice in the ladyfingers. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, ginger, baking soda, and salt. Whisk gently to blend.Put the butter into a large bowl and beat until pale and creamy. Add the brown sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add theeggs and continue to mix vigorously until incorporated. Add the treacle gradually and carefully (as it is rather messy) and beat until incorporated. Add the flour mixture in three batches alternately with the milk in two batches, beginning and ending with the flour mixture and mixing well after each addition. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan. No breakfast at Downton would be complete without a dish of kedgeree, kept warm on a burner on the sideboard. Do not cross Violet, matriarch of the Crawley family, whose skill at disarming opponents and getting what she wants is supreme. Food historian Dr Annie Gray is familiar to British audiences as a regular on the BBC Radio 4 panel show ‘ The Kitchen Cabinet.’ She is also the author of several historically inspired cookbooks, including English Heritage’s How to Cook the Victorian Way with Mrs Crocombe.

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The name and concept come from an Indian recipe called khichri, a mixture of dahl and rice that was adopted and altered to suit the British palate. NOTEYou can pep up the filling with Worcestershire sauce, or make the pastries even more savoury with a little anchovy paste. Any leftover filling is also good baked in a buttered ovenproof dish, in which case you could callit a cheese ramekin, another type of Edwardian savoury. Chocolate and vanilla striped blancmange Both the meringues and the fool can be made a day in advance. Store the meringues in an airtight container at room temperature and the fool tightly covered in the fridge. When you are ready to serve, fill the meringue nests with the fool and top with the small meringues. Serve with raspberries alongside.NOTEThis cake can also be baked in a rectangular pan. The round cake would be carried to the table whole and sliced into wedges for serving. The rectangular cake can be cut into small squares and the top of each square decorated with a little icing and a glacéed cherry or a piece of crystallized ginger, as shown left. The batter can also be baked in a muffin pan and decorated with piped cream or frosting. Cheese bouchées Toad-in-the-hole was typical of servants’ fare in the early 20th century, as it was cheap, easy, and versatile. To make the batter, whisk together the milk, flour, salt, and eggs in a bowl until thoroughly mixed.

The Official Downton Abbey Cookbook (Hardback) - Waterstones

In the early twentieth century, blancmange gained an unfair reputation as stodgy nursery food, pushing it down the social scale. Before that, however, and in various guises, it was regarded as a light and easily digestible entremets. Dinners at Downton frequently include some form of molded cream, and this version, which is set with cornstarch rather than gelatin, is a very easy way to replicate one. Preheat the oven to 325°F (165°C). Butter the bottom and sides of a 9-inch (23-cm) round springform pan. Line the bottom with parchment paper and generously butter the paper. Dust the bottom and sides of the pan with equal parts of flour and superfine sugar, tapping out the excess. The servants’ hall table at Downton is usually laden with batter puddings, potatoes, stews, and vegetables that are cheap and filling. To make the pastry, put the flour in a bowl, scatter the butter cubes over the top, and work the butter into the flour with a pastry blender or your fingertips just until the mixture is the consistency of bread crumbs. Add just enough of the water, stirring and tossing it with the flour mixture as you do, until the dough comes together in a rough mass. Shape into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 20–30 minutes.Well, the obvious person who won't return is Maggie Smith, since the Dowager died at the end of the sequel, something teased since the end of the first movie.