Darina Allen: Remembering Auntie Florence with love and her famous orange cake
Auntie Florence
My Auntie Florence was quite the character: tiny in stature but a huge presence. We used to call her Mrs Tiggy Winkle after the famous character in Beatrix Potter’s tales from the Lake District.
In her later years, she seemed to have shrunk in stature but certainly not in personality.
When she passed away recently at the age of 88, tributes poured in from all over the world from people whose paths had crossed with her in life and particularly from the students for whom she was a familiar presence at the Cookery School.
Numerous mentions of ‘a warm welcome from this colourful character’, ‘always ready to party’, ‘always up to mischief with a glint in her eye’. ‘A much-loved social butterfly’.
Always beautifully dressed in her imitable quirky style, she loved bright colours — pink, orange, rose, colourful beads, stripy socks, jaunty scarves, sun hats in Summer, furry hats in Winter.
All her life she had a passion for horses and the races — even in her last days, a mention of Cheltenham brought a smile to her face. Her interests were wide and varied. She loved to entertain, play bridge, the archaeological society, the Georgian society, watching the stormy seas…
She travelled all over the world rekindling treasured friendships, making new friends everywhere she went and always genuinely interested in people. She had an uncanny way, particularly in later life, of managing to get people to do things for her. In one of the many memorable messages on Instagram, a past student wrote she even ‘had him and his friend washing her Yaris outside the school on the last day of exams’!. My response was ‘Just as well I didn’t catch her’!
Auntie Florence will be remembered for many things, but we’ll also remember her through her recipes — she loved to cook. Auntie Florence’s Orange cake is the stuff of legends: it was chosen to celebrate the anniversary of the European Parliament and is a favourite birthday cake for many.
I can still see her standing by the Aga, flipping her famous crumpets, the standby treat for any unexpected guests. She even made the occasional loaf of Soda Bread up to a few weeks before she passed away.
Back in the 1950s, before electricity had arrived in the village of Cullohill in County Laois where I was born, she would pedal her little bike all the way from Johnstown (8 miles) with a brick of HB Ice-cream carefully wrapped in layers of newspaper and a pack of wafers. You can’t imagine the joy and excitement when we saw her coming over the hill. Later we’d made raspberry buns from together at the kitchen table, a perfect first cooking lesson for a child eager to cook. There are so many memories connected to food.
I remember helping to clean the wild field mushrooms we collected together and then watching her stewing them in milk on the old ESSE cooker — I can still taste the flavour….
Another random thought: she loved lambs’ kidneys and would sidle up to the students during butchery class here at the school and say, ‘I’ll have those please’! She loved them dipped simply in seasoned flour, seasoned with salt, a few blobs of butter, a little water and cooked in the oven between two Pyrex plates. Try it — delicious!
And of course broth, Auntie Florence loved broth and certainly knew the value of it, she made a few attempts to die in recent years but each time, we brought her back from ‘near dead’ with organic chicken broth. Sadly it didn’t work this time, but, when we see the stock pots bubbling, they will always remind us of Auntie Florence as will these recipes which I joyfully share with you.
Aunty Florence's orange cake
Here it is, the recipe for the legendary orange cake.
Servings
10Preparation Time
60 minsCooking Time
35 minsTotal Time
1 hours 35 minsCourse
BakingCuisine
IrishIngredients
225g (8oz) butter
200g (7oz) caster sugar
finely grated zest of 1 organic orange
4 organic eggs
225g (8oz) plain white flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed orange juice
Orange Butter Cream
110g (4oz) butter
225g (8oz) icing sugar
finely grated zest of 1 organic orange
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed orange juice
Orange Glacé Icing
juice of 1 orange
300g (10oz) icing sugar
1 or 2 pieces of homemade orange candied peel, optional
2 x 20cm (8 inch) round cake tins or 1 x 28cm (11 inch) in diameter and 5cm (2 inch)
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4.
Grease and flour the cake tins. Line the base of each with silicone paper.
Cream the soft butter and gradually add the caster sugar. Whisk until soft and light and quite pale. Add the orange zest followed by the eggs one at a time, whisking well between each addition.
Sieve the flour and baking powder together and stir in gradually. Mix lightly, then stir in the orange juice.
Divide the mixture evenly between the tins, hollowing it slightly in the centre. Bake for 35 minutes or until cooked. Turn out onto a wire tray and leave to cool.
Meanwhile, make the orange cream. Cream the soft butter; add the sieved icing sugar and orange zest. Whisk in the orange juice little by little.
To make the icing, simply add enough orange juice to the icing sugar to make a spreadable icing.
When the cakes are cold, use a serrated bread knife to split each one in two halves. Spread with a little filling and then sandwich the two bases together.
Spread the icing over the top and sides and decorate the top with little diamonds or heart shaped pieces of orange candied peel.
Aunty Florence's crumpets
are made in minutes with ingredients you'd probably have in your pantry. A perfect solution if you've got nothing ‘in the tin’ when a friend drops in for tea. The problem is one always eats too many! If you can’t find Bextartar, substitute self-raising fl
Servings
12Preparation Time
10 minsCooking Time
10 minsTotal Time
20 minsCourse
BakingIngredients
225g white flour
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp breadsoda
1 tsp Bextartar (cream of tartar)
2 eggs
250ml milk
55g caster sugar
30g butter
Method
Sieve the dry ingredients into a bowl and rub in the butter.
Drop the eggs into the centre, add a little of the milk and stir rapidly with a whisk, allowing the flour to drop gradually in from the sides. When half the milk is added, beat until air bubbles rise. Add the remainder of the milk and allow to stand for one hour, if possible.
Drop a good dessertspoonful into a hottish pan and cook until bubbles appear on the top. It usually takes a bit of trial and error to get the temperature right. Flip over and cook until golden on the other side.
Serve immediately with butter and homemade jam or, better still, apple jelly.
Another terrific initiative born out of desperation when the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Farmsy sources local, seasonal, sustainable food from West Cork and county which people can order online directly via their website. There’s a wide variety of products to choose from including free-range eggs, nutrient-packed veggies, organic meat and delicious artisan foods. They deliver weekly to areas in West Cork, Cork City and East Cork.
The Ballymaloe May Fair takes place at the Grainstore at Ballymaloe in East Cork from May 20-22. Ballymaloe’s newest festival is an ode to good food, gardening, green-living, home, health, fashion and Summer fun. Lá Bealtaine is one of Ireland’s ancient Celtic festivals celebrating the beginning of Summer.
Tickets are now on sale via the Grainstore website. ballymaloegrainstore.com
We’ve been enjoying wild garlic for several weeks now. Gather some before it goes out of season — it loves dappled shady areas. We add it to salads, flavoured butters and of course pesto, so head to the woods this weekend.
There are two varieties Allium ursinum or ramps a broad-leaved bulbous plant which grows in moist woodland and Allium triquetrum, also known as three-cornered leeks, which often grows along the roadside verges. The latter has a flower that resembles ‘white’ bluebells, and narrow leaves. I find that the leaves of Allium ursinum are best for wild garlic pesto.
Read More
