Simple Cooking

Season: Late August to September. Fruit leathers are thin, pliable sheets of dried, sweetened fruit purée with a flexible consistency like leather. To be truthful, I had always avoided making them, thinking they sounded complicated. But in a spirit of experimentation, I decided to try some out. They were a revelation. I discovered how easy it is to create these strong, semitransparent sheets, and how versatile they are. They are fun to use and eat–you can cut them, roll them, fold them, and pack them away. Light and easy to carry, they’re full of fruity energy, so they’re great for lunch boxes or long walks. Snip off pieces to dissolve gently into fruit salads, or save them for the festive season when their translucent, jewel-like colors will look gorgeous on the Christmas tree.

Season: Late summer to autumn. The aromatic essences of fresh herbs and flowers can be captured beautifully in a jelly. These preserves are great to have in the kitchen, as they add a sweet piquancy to all kinds of food, simple and rich. Cooking apples and crab apples are both ideal choices for the basic jelly. Excellent sources of pectin and acid, they nevertheless have gentle flavors that will not overwhelm the herbs. Serve mint jelly with lamb, sage with fish, basil with poultry or game, parsley with ham, and rose-petal jelly (see below) with wafer-thin, buttered bread. Any herb jelly will also be delicious with soft cheeses, pâtés, and terrines.

Season: August to September. Plums make a lovely jam and are rich in pectin and easy to prepare, so this is a great recipe for beginners. Just make sure the plums are tender and their skins well softened before adding the sugar. If not, the sugar hardens the skins and they’ll be tough in the finished jam; they will also float to the top of the jar.

Season: June to October. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, whose recipe this is, thinks the secret of success is to pick the raspberries on a hot, dry day, aiming for a good mixture of ripe and almost-ripe fruit, then to make the jam immediately to capture the full flavor of the berries. The light boiling and lower-than-normal quantity of sugar produce a loose, soft-set jam with a fresh, tangy flavor. Low-sugar jams of this type are often called fridge jams (see p. 36). In fact, as long as it is capped when still above 195°F, this preserve will keep well in the pantry. However, once it is opened, you must keep it in the fridge. It won’t last long after opening – maybe 2 or 3 weeks – but as it tastes so very, very good, this is unlikely to be a problem. It’s one of those things you’ll find yourself eating straight from the jar, maybe in the middle of the night! This light, soft jam is fantastic in cakes or sherry trifles or stirred into creamy rice puddings. Best of all, layer it with toasted rolled oats, cream, Drambuie, and honey for a take on Cranachan, the traditional Scottish dessert.

Season: June to August. In my jam company days, when we would produce nearly fifteen thousand jars of preserves each week, my mum would still bring me jars of her homemade black currant jam. Sometimes I wondered if I needed another jar in the house, but I always enjoyed it immensely – black currant jam is an all-time favorite, with a flavor that is rarely rivaled. It’s also very easy to make. The key is to ensure that the black currants are softened sufficiently before the sugar is added, or the skins will toughen and be unpleasantly chewy. Use this in all the usual jammy ways with bread, toast, pancakes, yogurt, rice pudding, cakes, tarts, and, of course, scones and clotted cream.

Season: May to August. After a dismal result with my strawberry jam at the 2007 Uplyme and Lyme Regis Horticultural Show, I decided to get my act together and work out a recipe that i could rely on to get me that much-coveted first prize next time. My kitchen soon took on the appearance of a strawberry jam factory, with coded batches piled just about everywhere. I thought I’d nearly made the grade on batch three, but the tweaking for batch four caused mayhem in the jam pan. However, batch five seemed to come alive from the moment the lemon juice was added, and I knew it was going to be just right – bright in color, with some soft whole fruit and, of course, that wonderful, intense strawberry taste. Strawberries are low in pectin. Using sugar with added pectin helps to attain a lovely set and a flavor that isn’t too sickly sweet. Use freshly picked, dry fruit – not too big, or they’ll blow to bits when the jam is bubbling away. However, if you’re using very small fruit, make sure they’re not too hard and seedy.

Season: Mid-January to late March. Early or forced rhubarb has been produced in West Yorkshire since the 1870s, as growers discovered that the heavy clay soil and cold winter climate suited the plant (a native of Siberia). Sequestered in dark sheds, carefully cultivated rhubarb crowns send forth slender, bright pink stems much more delicate in flavor than the thick green shafts of outdoor-grown rhubarb that appear later in the year. This is one of my favorite ways to capture the earthy flavor of rhubarb. It’s a plant that contains very little pectin, so the jam definitely requires an extra dose. The shortish boil time helps to preserve the fabulous color of the stems. I like to add a little Seville orange juice, but juice from sweet oranges works well too. This light, soft jam is good mixed with yogurt or spooned over ice cream, or you can warm it and use to glaze a bread and butter pudding after baking.

The refreshing sweet-tart flavor of these crumbly cookies is just right after a spicy meal. Other citrus juices and zests can be substituted for the lime juice and zest.

Mandelbrot comes from the German words for “almond” (Mandel) and “bread” (Brot). Our variation contains pecans instead of almonds. As with biscotti, the dough is partially baked, sliced, and baked again.

If you’re looking for something to offer with tea or coffee, look no further—these dainty little sandwich cookies are the quintessential afternoon treat. They’re also ideal for bridal and baby showers.

The snowy sugar surface contrasts with the peppery flavor of these German spice cookies. Pfeffer means “pepper” in German; Nuss means “nut,” and refers more to the shape than to the ingredients.

Baking this shortbread in a round cake pan and then cutting it while it’s warm make it quite easy to prepare. The only trick is to make sure you don’t overbake the shortbread, so keep an eye on it as the suggested baking time draws near.

This crumbly shortbread is studded with dried currants, which are tiny raisins made from Zante grapes. The currants must be soaked overnight, so you’ll need to plan your craving a day in advance.

To toast the pecans, spread them out in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet and bake at 350°F, stirring occasionally, until fragrant, about 10 minutes. Take care not to overprocess the nuts in step 1; you want them to be finely ground, not paste-like. If desired, sift confectioners’ sugar over cookies just before serving.

This simple shortbread is first baked in a square pan and then cut into heart shapes. For variation, other dried fruits or mini chocolate chips can be substituted for the cranberries.

These melt-in-your-mouth treats are fragrant with warm spices of cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and vanilla. They are also infused with a healthy dash of dark rum. The dough can be made up to one month in advance, frozen, and sliced to bake as needed.

These were originally developed as favors in Martha Stewart Weddings magazine. Rosemary, which denotes remembrance, love, loyalty, and friendship, has long held a place of honor in wedding ceremonies.

The dusting of cocoa on these little cookies, much like that on a chocolate truffle, may seem to promise a similar velvety interior, but the illusion is fleeting. One bite reveals the unmistakable crumbly texture of shortbread. If giving as a gift, enclose about three tablespoons of cocoa powder in a small bag, along with instructions for dusting.

Shortbread is the ultimate expression of four building blocks of baking: butter, sugar, flour, and salt. In this variation, the dough is pressed into a fluted tart pan to form petticoat tails, which got their name either from their likeness to frilly underskirts or a mispronunciation of the French petites gatelles (little cakes).

Fresh fruit and tangy soft cheeses make perfect partners for these salty-sweet wheatmeal cookies. Or, try using them in place of risen biscuits for strawberry shortcake: Top a biscuit with a dollop of sweetened ricotta cheese and some macerated berries.