Even a child could make it

These recipes are child's play to make and could inspire young cooks to get involved in the kitchen, writes DOMINI KEMP

A DEAR FRIEND VERY kindly bought me a first edition copy of Maura Laverty’s Kind Cooking which dates back to the 1950s and is full of old-fashioned recipes, and wise words about the joys of home cooking. Maura Laverty’s writing reminds me a bit of Elizabeth David, but it’s less flamboyant and more grounded. In her introduction, she makes the point that “every little girl born into this world loves to help in the kitchen.” Although we would no doubt shout that boys and dads are included nowadays, it’s important not to get distracted from the pearls of wisdom she’s keen to share.

The point she makes is that unless children are encouraged to cook, they will struggle to find it interesting – it’s up to us as parents to nurture this interest. While making the banana and cardamom loaf recipe, I was being hounded by my toddler asking to get involved. She kept climbing onto every chair and stool to get a look. Terrified of the blades and nearby kettle, I kept shooing her out of the way, to “safety”. Maura’s words summed up perfectly how I felt.

“I know how exasperating it can be to have a child getting in the way when meals are being prepared . . . with ingredients scarce and dear it takes all one’s forbearance and patience not to deny such pleas as, ‘Can’t I cream the butter and sugar?’

“On such occasions, a harassed woman’s only chance of remaining sane as well as generous is to look backwards and forwards – back to her own childhood and the thrill that came from being allowed to help, forward to the day when her daughter will be grown up and when cooking will be as much a duty as a pleasure.”

With these wise words ringing in my ears, I gave in and let the toddler press all the buttons on the food processor, and in one fell swoop, reduced the four stages of making this cake into one swift pummelling of cake mix in machine. I held out hope that the loaf would end up okay and that the toddler would have invented the new, two-minute cake recipe. Alas, the loaf came out of the oven, doughy, flat and stodgy, albeit with a nice enough flavour. But she was absolutely thrilled with the notion that she had made a cake. And it made me feel like I was doing my job as a parent.

But my other job is to test and write recipes: so I gave the cake another go, making it properly this time and the lesson was that yes, butter and sugar have to be creamed and flour should be sieved along with other dried ingredients. Fold wet mixtures into dry ingredients and bake in a greased tin. You will end up with a delicious loaf that may well inspire young cooks.

Banana and cardamom loaf

Loosely based on the recipe from The Nordic Bakery Cookbook

150g butter, soft

220g caster sugar

2 eggs

2 tsps baking powder

1 tsp ground ginger

2 tsps cardamom pods

2 tsps ground cinnamon

300g plain flour

5 ripe and mushy bananas

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees/gas 4. Grease a 30cm x 11cm loaf tin (approximate size). With an electric beater, cream the butter and sugar. This really is pointless unless the butter is truly soft. Otherwise, you end up with sugary breadcrumbs and they never really get light and fluffy. Add the bananas and eggs and whisk until well combined. Remove the inner seeds from the cardamom pods, which is easy if they’re all dried out, and crush with a pestle and mortar. You don’t need to keep the shell. The seeds resemble slightly drier vanilla seeds and have a great, pungent flavour. I love it, but I appreciate some kids may not, so use at your own discretion. Sieve together all of the dried ingredients. Add the wet egg mixture and fold in until well combined. Pour this mix – which will be quite thick – into a greased loaf tin and bake for about an hour. Stick a skewer in it after about 50 minutes. The original recipe suggested an hour and 20 minutes, but I found it far too dry. The skewer after an hour was pretty clean, maybe a little gooey in the middle, but I let it cool down and it was perfectly cooked.

Baked pancakes with ham, Gruyère and mustard and Parmesan cream

Serves 4

This is a hybrid of three different recipes. The pancake recipe is credited to Raymond Blanc. It’s my new favourite pancake batter. Once it’s made, all you need is a non-stick 20-22cm frying pan, a paper towel and small amount of sunflower oil. Oh, and a little wrist action for flipping those crêpes.

Pancake batter

50g butter

2 eggs

200ml whole milk

100g plain flour

Few chives, flat leaf parsley, very finely chopped

Sunflower oil

Filling and topping

200g Gruyère or other hard cheese, finely sliced

8-10 slices of decent ham

200ml crème fraiche (approx)

100ml cream

2 tbsps Dijon mustard

100g Parmesan

Melt the butter and heat it until it “browns”. This can be hard to see, especially if the butter is foaming, so stay with it and you’ll notice a nutty smell. Swirl the butter so you can see under the foam and if you notice it’s starting to turn a light caramel colour, it’s ready. If you go too far, throw it out and start again. Let the butter cool down a little while you get the other ingredients ready and measured out. In a food processor or with an electric whisk, mix the eggs, milk and flour together with a little pinch of salt. Add the herbs and your melted butter. It produces a wonderfully elastic batter. Use straight away or else leave it to stand at room temperature and covered with cling film for up to an hour.

You can make the crepes ahead of time or even the night before. Heat up a small amount of sunflower oil in a suitable non-stick frying pan. Use the paper towel to wipe away excess and ensure an even coating of oil. This mixture makes exactly eight pancakes. Spoon a ladle into the pan, swirling it around so that you get one fluid, even layer of batter. Then let it heat gently. After a minute on a gentle to medium heat, when bubbles start to appear, give it a shuffle and if nothing is budging, loosen the rim of the pancake. Once the edges are loosened and the bulk of the pancake is cooked, give it a more vigorous shuffle. If it feels heavy and lazy, cook it out for a bit longer. Once the base is dry, go ahead and “flip” it or else, invert on to a plate and then slide the raw side back in face down to cook.

When both sides are cooked, slide the pancake onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Have a few extra sheets ready to go so you can stack the pancakes. Wipe the frying pan out with some sunflower oil-dampened paper, and resume frying your pancakes until the entire mixture is used up. Top half a pancake with slices of cheese and ham, and then fold into a quarter. Each circle becomes quarter and then gets layered up, slightly overlapping, in a well buttered gratin dish. Mix the crème fraiche, cream, Dijon mustard and Parmesan together and season lightly. Spoon this over the pancakes and then bake for 20 minutes until it’s bubbling and the cheese has melted. Top with snipped chives.