The Honey & Co. Baking Book - Rose and Strawberry Jam

Today's post is going to be a Honey&Co. related post, and in that vein it should lead in with a Honey&Co. related announcement.

Sarit and Itamar read the babka post guys. And they loved it. Sarit loves the blog. She thinks I'm 'so sweet and enthusiastic and full of love'.Yes, I am still reeling from that happening. It was such an uplifting, positive, wonderful e-mail to come home to after work that I didn't stop smiling for days after. While they did ask that I not share the recipes (since they're copyrighted to Saltyard Books), they loved that I'm planning to give the book a good testing. I really can't think of any other way to thank them for such a mid-week boost. So today, we're going to talk about jam making.

I promise they were redder than that. Damn night time photography.

But first! Let me tell you about my relationship with strawberries.

Strawberries back home are on the expensive side. They cost five times more what they cost in the UK and don't taste...well...they just don't taste of anything really. They don't smell of anything either. I ate them purely because they were exotic...but secretly would crave mangoes while trying to swallow their sour red juices. In a world of papayas, mangoes and a smorgasbord of bananas, strawberries emerge as the 'exotic fruit' redolent of pale skinned, golden haired strangers in lands far away. But in comparison to the juicy longans you could get at the market for a fraction of the price, they seemed a little...blah.

This summer, things changed. The first time I tasted a summer strawberry my world exploded. Color became sound, sound became color the sky split and fireworks went off behind my eyes.  Ok, none of those things happened. But let me tell you it was pretty damn close. Finally. THIS was what all the fuss was about. I got it now. All the hype made sense.

I have spent the past two months gorging on strawberries. These big, juicy rubies have stained my lips and dribbled their juices down my chin and fingers on an almost daily basis. But ( as all good things) summer is coming to an end, and it's taking strawberries with it. In an attempt to bottle my British summer, I tried making the strawberry and rose jam from The Baking Book. Itamar did say at the book launch that if you try ANYTHING in this book, please please please make our jam.

And I can see why.

GUYS
This... I just.... I DIDN'T KNOW JAM COULD TASTE LIKE THIS.

I mean, ok. I have consumed many a jar of commercial jam (Hey Mrs. Bridges! Hello Bonne Maman! How's it going?) before. I have also consumed many home made strawberry jams, lovingly made in big pots by watchful home cooks. But see.... they always just tastes of...well...strawberries. And yes, that is what you ask for when you buy strawberry jam. But it's always just...strawberry. Good...straight up...strawberry.

This jam has ruined me. and the secret touch? Roses. They put rose petals and rose water into the jam. Just...just what? That sweet floral note just makes this jam. It gives your nose something else to concentrate on besides sugar cooked strawberries and rounds out the sweetness of the actual jam. But it's not cloying. There's just enough rose water to get things going.

 I want to bathe in this stuff. I want to smear it on my face. The perfume is unbelievable. My house smells divine. The kitchen and living room have been perfumed with strawberries and roses....this is what Valentine's Day should smell like.

That bubbled up to 3x it's original volume. It was intense.

Making jam is not for the faint of heart. That's not meant to turn you off. Do it. It'll put a little gumption in your soul. And really most of the jam making adventure is stress free, if not a little tedious. Be careful, hulling and preparing that much fruit may give you a sore wrist. Just go slow and take breaks. And read the recipe, the WHOLE recipe at least twice. I missed Sarit's jam making 101 at the beginning of the chapter and that made things a little hectic.  Imagine haphazardly stirring hot sugar and frantically reading how to test if your jam is cooked enough and then burning yourself and running to put plates in the freezer...just...just read the recipe ok? Read it twice. At least twice. You've been forewarned.

The really scary bit is when you start cooking the jam. Sarit insists on boiling at the highest heat possible which makes the mixture bubble up to over twice it's original volume. Play it safe and use the biggest, heaviest bottomed pot you have. And don't fill it to more than 1/2 full. Once you get over the fear of your jam bubbling over and catching on fire it all becomes quite fun. Nothing will make you feel more witchy than stirring a cauldron full of bubbling goo.

Bottled and ready to go!

And that's it! Divide into your sterilized bottles and let them sit on the counter overnight to make sure they seal properly. Spread over warm bread or save it for the winter months when the sun has gone down at 3p.m. and you need a reminder that it was ever there at all.

The Honey & Co. Baking Book - Chocolate and Hazlenut Krantz Loaf

I AM NOW 23

Chocolate and Hazelnut krantz loaf

When did this happen? I have no idea. I woke up and I was 23 and now I need to look up how to pay taxes and buy houses. This is terrifying. I am....ADULTING.

Naturally the only reasonable response to this is to not acknowledge it's happening. So I'm just going to retreat into the kitchen and not give any notice to this strange maturation process. Come get me when I'm 99 and in need of an old folks home where once again I won't have to make my own decisions, and will instead allow people to push me along in a wheelchair while I mumble over recipe books.

Speaking of recipe books, a HUGE shoutout to everyone who got me a cooking related item (which was basically all of you) as a birthday gift. I am now in possession of a teal soup ladle that's been modeled after Nessie, the Great British Bake-Off cook book, a cook book by Mary Berry, a multipurpose grinder to make curry pastes and powders, and a truly fantastic cleaver. You all know me so well, thank you so very much.

Anyways! Today's post is the first recipe review of the Honey&Co. Baking book. The first of many I assure you. Every single dish in that book is screaming to be made and I can barely wait to try them all. I started with this one, because I was looking for an appropriate gift to thank my neighbours for being so nice after a little unpleasant encounter I had.

Last week while I was walking home two guys driving a van pulled up in front of me and asked me to get in with them. And in a fairly skeevy manner too. I gave them a very firm "um no thank you" and walked off, and as they drove ahead the guy in the passenger's seat gave me a sleazy grin and a wave. It was all very creepy, and as I was walking home, Kate (the lady who lives next door) was out in the garden and I told her what happened. She was very disturbed on my behalf and said I was free to come over if I wanted to. I got home, called the police, settled everything...but after they left I was pretty creeped out and not in the mood to be alone. So I went next door and Kate and David (her husband) were lovely. They offered to put me up for the night so I wouldn't be sleeping alone and I accepted.

Prove prove prove!

I was extremely grateful and wanted something nice to thank them. This chocolate and hazlenut krantz loaf really fit the bill.

This loaf is one of the three babka recipes listed in the book. And guys...it's beautiful.

You don't even understand. This is Cinnabon on crack. This is grown up nutella on toast. This is moist, buttery, cinnamony, chocolatey, nutty, chewy, soft heaven. It is rich. It is lush.

It might induce a sugar headache. Be sensible. Eat small slices.

Now...a quick side note. The posts that I do on the Honey&Co. baking book will not include corresponding recipes. They'll be more of...recipe reviews. How I found making the thing... any drawbacks or kinks... and tips I found helped me. Reason being, I don't feel very comfortable posting recipes from cook books. If (by some miracle) Sarit and Itamar read this post and say "Yeah, sure, go ahead, share our recipes", then I absolutely will because this is a recipe worth sharing. But till then, it's just going to be my experience baking the thing.

We cool?
Cool.


This was an amazing recipe to follow from start to finish. However, I will say one of the drawbacks right off the cuff is that it is time consuming. But not a bad sort of time consuming. There isn't hours and hours of intense labour, just a lot of waiting time in between. For starters, after making the dough you have to let it rest for atleast 6 hours in the fridge. Bottom line, plan ahead with this one. You will have to start the day before you want to eat it.

There is a basic babka dough recipe that Sarit and Itamar use, that is then filled and molded to make the various buns. This dough is very easy to work with. Like...EXTREMELY easy. I have made a lot of bread, from a lot of different recipes. There have been times where I have kneaded a 'dough' for 3 hours to have nothing but gloop on my counter. There was one time that the 'dough' I was working on was so tough, that by the time it was properly kneaded my wrist was sprained and stayed swollen for a week after.

This isn't at all the case here. Maybe because it's so intense on the butter, this dough comes together like a dream. All you need is about 5 minutes of kneading before you get a smooth elastic ball of putty in your hands. ALSO your hands come out super soft. I am not even kidding, your skin becomes a kind of soft no moisturizer will achieve. I could wax lyrical all day, but bottom line is that this is a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful dough to work with. Don't be scared, just get in there.

Rolled out and filled

I made the dough the night before, then had a nice lie in before waking up to make the filling. More butter goes into this, along with very dark chocolate, some ground cinnamon and a fair bit of sugar. Now, because I used granulated instead of caster sugar the filling came out quite grainy. Personally I liked it, cause it added a sugary crunch along with the nuts. You then roast a handful of hazelnuts and roughly chop them up to be sprinkled on top of the filling.

Sarit and Itamar tell you to leave the dough in the fridge till the last possible minute and I can see why. While it doesn't rise much (which I'm guessing happens because the dough uses all milk and no water), it's also very soft from all the butter. I would not be able to roll this out back home. Not without putting the slab in the freezer every 2 minutes, or working in an air conditioned room. You may think you won't be able to roll out the 50cm x 30cm rectangle specified. Don't worry, you will. Just keep at it. Again it's a very easy dough to work with, but just needs a little patience to be rolled out that thin. The amount of filling specified is perfect. You then sprinkle the hazelnuts over, roll up, then put it back in the fridge for 10 minutes before shaping.

Split in half to twist

It's a little fiddly splitting the log in half and twisting it, but don't worry. YOU are the boss of this dough. Just be firm, and pat any loose filling back into place.

This is the point where you leave it to prove for two hours....and I forgot about it. :p I wandered off to do some cleaning and came back about 3 hours later. Again, don't be surprised if it hasn't proved up alot. It will still feel soft and fluffy to the touch. Bake it and I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH.
USE
THE
SUGAR
SYRUP

Guys do it. don't worry about the loaf having too much sugar in it. Again, just have a small slice. The syrup makes this so so SO moist and gives it a lovely shine...just do it, ok? Promise me you'll do it.
Do it.

So yes, I don't have to tell you anything else about this loaf, I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking. Please. Please. I'm begging you. Buy the book. Make this babka.

BOOM

Well done Honey&Co.

Dried Rose Petals... and the time I plucked all the roses in my garden.

What is in the soil here?? This rose was the size of my hand!!

So... I've been known to do some pretty out there things in the name of food. I once went to Dundee with John only to have his eyes bug out at the 1kg of fresh garlic I was bringing back from the Asian supermarket to make my own garlic paste. I haven't done that in a while, there were days when my fellow biology classmates could smell me coming from a mile away so it seemed like a good idea to stop.

Since buying the Honey & Co.Baking book I have been obsessed. I've gone through it atleast once a day,lovingly stroking the pages in a mildly disturbing yet eerily accurate Gollum-esq manner. I've been a kid in a candy store, scrambling to figure out what to try first. There aren't too many crazy ingredients featured in the book, yet living on a student budget you have to be prudent about spending on exotic ingredients. I shopped around for ages before buying some rose water and orange blossom water, scouring the internet to save as much as I could. I've just finished shelling a bag of pistachios by hand cause it worked out a little cheaper than ready shelled nuts (next time I won't bother, turns out the shells make up half the weight of the bag so you get a lot less anyways =.=;). In a mildly thrifty haze I was looking up the price of rose petals online when it suddenly hit me... YOU have roses in the garden, Mallini.

Ok...so I didn't actually plant them. But it seems a shame to waste if all they're going to do is look pretty till they fall off and die, no? Might as well put them to good use!

So I plucked 3 of the largest blooms there were, and got to drying them. I have to say it is a mildly tedious process to save £1.99, but if you have a bit of time and Mock the Week playing in the background it can be a pleasant experience.

Rose petals laid out to dry.

A couple of tips, don't use any petals that have turned/ are turning brown because that will cause your final product to be completely brown as well. If it just has one or two brown spots, it is worth just tearing those bits off. You want to submerge the petals in a tray of water, just to clean off any nasties that may be on them. Even after doing that you'll still have to pay attention and look out for the tiny mites that wander around. You don't want those ending up in your cooking. Finally, dry the petals by patting them with some kitchen towel first before laying them out to dry. If you lay them out damp, there's a good chance they won't dry out properly and will just go moldy. Lay the petals out on clingfilm covered trays so that they have some space between them, and leave them in an airy place that has plenty of indirect sunlight. I put the trays in our conservatory and turned on the dehumidifier to help dry them out faster.

My petals took about 2 days to dry completely, thanks to the dehumidifier. Don't be tempted to store them away before they're completely dried out and crispy, or else the petals will just go moldy later on.

And that's it! It really was amazing that these shrank to about 1/4 of their original size. They smell quite faint...not so much like roses but like grass. :-/ I don't know if that's because they had to dry for such a long time, or if the commercially dried ones are further perfumed as part of the process. The colour of the petals do intensify upon drying, and they're going to add lovely pops of colour to whatever you put them in. So now I've now got a small jar full of dried rose petals to play around with! Stay tuned, it won't be long till they're used!

All those petals into one wee jar...

The Honey & Co. Baking Book launch

So I went for something fantastic that I can't wait to tell you all about. 

After spending a really great week in Newcastle with Sulekha (who I am missing already :( ) I got back into the bubble yesterday just in time to freshen up and head to an event hosted by Toppings book shop on Bell street. 

Toppings has a whole host of events going on in conjunction with the Open, a massive golf tournament that's being held in St. Andrews right now. Last night, they were hosting Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich the power couple behind Honey & Co. a middle eastern inspired restaurant in London. Sarit and Itamar came up by train to hold a live cooking demo centered around their newly released cook book, 'Honey & Co. The Baking Book'

Chilled orange blossom and earl grey tea

Arriving just before the event was about to start, I was greeted at the door with a glass of chilled orange blossom and earl grey tea (which I would like to drink for the rest of my life thank you very much). The shop was already fairly full, and I would've had to take a seat at the back if one of the owners hadn't taken pity on my tiny Asian stature and ushered me up front. A massive tray filled with bites of buttered fruit tea loaf was already floating around the store, hinting at the many tidbits we were to be treated to that night. 

Sarit and Itamar were absolutely adorable. Clearly very much in love with their work, they showed us a few quick things they make in store; an herb frittata, sesame halva, and a fresh kanafeh. 

Cutie patooties Sarit and Itamar

Knafe.
Guys I got SO excited. This is a beautiful middle eastern dessert made by sandwiching a mix of cheeses (Sarit used feta, goats cheese and cream cheese) with two butter coated layers of a nest like phyllo dough called kadaif. You then soak the whole thing in orange blossom syrup and top it with pistachios and rose petals. It's an incredibly lush and fragrant dessert that presents so many wonderful tastes and textures to enjoy. Crispy, creamy, nutty, salty, sweet, perfumey...just AAAHHHH!!!!!! Having seen it being made I am now SO determined to whip it up myself at home.  Anyone know where I can get a hold of kadaif pastry in Scotland?

Clockwise from top right; herb frittata, chickpea shortbread, carrot walnut cake, knafe.

Throughout the night they kept bringing out trays of baked goodies that had been featured in the book. There was an incredibly moist carrot walnut cake, some really fudgy chocolate pistachio cookies, and my personal favourite a gluten free chickpea shortbread.

I bought the book the minute the cooking demo was over and got it signed by Sarit and Itamar. We had a little chat about what halva referred to in our respective cultures (When you say halva in Malaysia you're usually referring to a firm jelly-like sweet made with semolina, as opposed to the sesame fudge we were served last night). I know it sounds obvious, I mean they are chefs and all, but their love for good food was palpable and rolled off the couple in waves. This infectious enthusiasm glows from the pages of The Baking Book, with each recipe accompanied by it's own little anecdote.

When you leave home to start somewhere new, you very quickly identify pockets of familiarity to take refuge in when the 'newness' becomes too much to handle. While reading Sarit and Itamar's writing, I had the overwhelming feeling of being back in my grandmother's kitchen where she tried to teach me how to make my favourite vadai. This book, with it's bright yellow cover and beautiful photography beckons to you. It invites you to look inside, to thumb through the pages, to laugh at the stories and try the recipes within. I have never been anywhere in the middle east (YET) and I can't say I share the same cultural identity as Sarit and Itamar, but for some reason having this book feels like holding a part of home in my hands.

It won't be long before I have a crack at the recipes in this book, and I can't wait to visit Honey&Co. with my parents when we're down in London this year.

To see more about what Toppings bookstore has on, go to their events page here.

And while you're at it, you might as well check out Honey&Co. online ;)