Melted cheese and braised leek

There’s a pine tree in the corner of my living room, shiny with silver baubles. My ceiling has a string of orange lights hanging from it. There’s something on the television called “A Christmas Carol”. Why, it must be Christmas.

The reason I am sure that it is, indeed, Christmas-time (you never know, the gaudy decorations could be a style-statement and the tv-programme a re-run gone haywire) is that my dinner consisted of an oven-baked Vacherin Mont d’Or cheese with garlic.

The first time I had oven-baked Vacherin I was about sixteen or seventeen. I had a Saturday job in a cheese store and every week after the store closed, we would stay on and try one of the goodies we sold. One night, as a thank-you for working our butts off in the Christmas mayhem, we got a special treat: warm Vacherin Mont d’Or with garlic and kirsch. It was love at first sight. In fact, I might have shot dirty looks at colleagues who took more than two bites. It was creamy, pungent, warming and I was sad when we finished it. (Also, a little relieved; weekend-before-Christmas shopping in a posh cheese store gets ugly. Have you ever seen anyone with a Rolex quarrel for a full five minutes over a supposed over-charging of five cents? I have. After a day like that, bed-time is mighty appealing.)

I haven’t often had Vacherin since. Somehow, I never think of it until Wham comes on the radio. But then the craving starts to build and by 22 or 23 December it is time. I might have skipped a year since that first year, but I doubt it. Tonight, I paired it with a few slices of sourdough bread and Molly’s tarragon leeks and my Christmas holidays officially started. Here’s to hoping yours will be as soft, smelly and delightful.

Oven-baked Vacherin Mont d'Or

Serves 4 as a snack, 2 as dinner

1 small, whole Vacherin Mont d'Or (about 450 gr)
1 clove of garlic, minced
a splash of kirsch (optional)

Leave cheese in wooden container and place in a baking dish (to catch any spills that may occur.)Prick top all over with fork, to break up the rind. Spread minced garlic over the top and press into soft cheese with fork. Sprinkle with kirsch, if using. Place in oven at about 200C. Bake for approximately ten minutes or until cheese bubbles and smells incredibly good.

Serve immediately with slices of sturdy, crusty bread.

Current cravings

Sleepy time tea with milk and honey (thanks go to DaMomma for inspiring that craving, although the cause is not- I repeat NOT- the same)

Margherita pizza slices from the pizza place across the road from my office

Butter-fried onions

Apple cake: Weird but Wonderful

Note to self: even a weird recipe can yield something mighty tasty. I wanted to bake for a birthday party and was planning on making chocolate cupcakes. However, I’d forgotten to buy chocolate (or, to be more precise, I’d eaten the chocolate I’d bought for baking and didn’t buy new- details, schmetails) and it was so cold outside that a trip to the store was not an option. So I collected the bakeables I did have and figured out I had just about enough for Sarah Raven’s Kentish Apple Cake. (Yes, another Sarah Raven recipe. I tried to stay away, but the siren-call was too strong.)

Sure, the recipe looked a bit weird, what with not creaming the butter and adding the fruit before the eggs. And sure, it did end up giving me a sore arm because the final product is more like sticky clay than like cake batter. But who cares when you end up with a cake that is crispy on the outside, moist on the inside and studded with bits of apple and raisin? I think it almost made the merrymakers forget all about the leather-like meat I served them as a main course, weird recipe or no.

Kentish Apple Cake

Adapted from Sarah Raven’s Kitchen Cookbook

Serves 8-10

225 gr unsalted butter (cold), plus a little for the tin
350 gr self-raising flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch of salt
110 gr of sultanas or raisins, soaked for an hour or two in water or fruit juice
175 gr caster sugar
75 gr toasted hazelnuts, roughly chopped or halved (optional)
450 gr cooking apples, peeled, cored and chopped roughly
grated zest of 1 lemon
3 large eggs

Preheat oven to 180 C. Grease or line a 20cm loose-bottomed cake tin.

Sift flour into large bowl, add cinnamon and salt and mix. Cube butter and add to flour. Use cold fingers to crumble butter and mix with flour until it looks like bread crumbs. Stir in the sultanas, sugar and nuts. Add apple and lemon zest and mix. Lightly beat the eggs and stir them in.

Spoon the mixture into the tin and bake for about an hour or until firm to the touch. Let cool before removing from tin.