Recipes: Fruit Cake

Today's recipe is fruitcake ...

I make it in large batches as it keeps in a tin for weeks, and this way I can use a greater variety of fruits.

Although I made these cakes heart-shaped ... fruit cake works much better in loaf tins than in a round one (it takes forever to cook the center ... so if you must make it round, then consider a bunt tin).

My recipe is basically a moist orange pound cake whose batter is used to hold the fruit together.

In a large bowl put:

1 1/2 cups of butter at room temperature.

And 'fluff' it a little - I use a large wooden fork.



Stir in:

2 1/4 cups of sugar - I use unbleached.





Add, one at a time:

6 UK medium eggs or 5 US large eggs.

and incorporate them into the batter.



Sift into the mixture:

2 1/4 cups plain flour

2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

And stir ...

Then add your spices ...

2 tablespoons orange oil, but orange juice works just as well
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves


Some people use candied fruit, but I prefer dried fruits - though I can never resist some good candied cherries.

I added one cup roughly chopped into halves and quarters.




The the key is to buy good quality dried fruit which is still soft rather than that hard stuff which needs to be cut with a knife.
If your fruit is too dry, then soak it in brandy or iced tea beforehand, drain the liquid and then dust the fruit with flour before you add it to the batter to stop it sinking to the bottom.

One cup each of raisins and sultanas.

Half a cup of chopped candied orange peel - I was too lazy to make this myself, so I bought some organic rind.

(and if I had made it, I would have been tempted to dip it in chocolate and stick it straight into my mouth rather than in the cake ...)


One cup of plump apricots, which I chopped roughly and threw in - some over-dried apricots sold in shops are a horrible brown, and no amount of liquid can plump them us again.

I also added half a cup of chopped dried figs - again these are a disaster if too dry, so squeeze the packet before you buy them to make sure they have some 'give' ...

This is roughly the consistency of the batter once everything has been mixed in ... The great thing with fruit cake is that it can be tailored to likes and dislikes - removing figs, adding chopped nuts, and so forth. Just try to keep the proportions similar ....

If it seems too runny, add half a cup of ground almonds.


These sorts of disposable paper molds are easy, but although they are fun for more unusual shapes, their cost in my opinion outweighs their usefulness.

If you use a metal one don't forget to butter inside so that the cake slides out ...


The portions in this recipe make three loaf tins or a dozen smaller individual cakes.

Loafs take one hour at 350 F - round cakes about 1 1/2 hours.

I think round fruitcakes are not worth the effort as they tend to burn on the outsides long before they cook on the inside ...

But if you have an urge to make one, then I recommend these - they are mini skewers, like long metal toothpicks, which I liberally stick though the center of the cake to conduct heat to it.

And if the cake seems to be over-browning ... then I simply cover it with aluminum foil and carry on cooking.


And this is what a cross-section of the cake looks like. Apologies for the bad photo, but I snapped it quickly in my eagerness to have a slice ...

I don't ice fruit cakes, but icing or marzipan works well on top.



Copyright © 2009 Dorothy King

When Men Were Men ... And Wore Dresses

I love movies, but I sometimes worry that the general public gets a few odd ideas about the ancients from them.

For example in '300' the Spartans dismiss the Athenians for - and I may be paraphrasing - liking little boys. Actually ... whilst many Athenian men seem to have been bisexual, the Spartans institutionalized it as part of their military training and it played a more important role in their society. Greek 'naughty' vases with inscriptions almost all speak of the love of one man for another, and most of those great macho Greek warriors probably slept with more men than they did women given that access to women was limited.

Men sleeping with men was greatly frowned upon by Republican Romans, though it seems to have been tolerated to some extent under the Empire. People's reactions depended on other aspects of the man's life: successful generals such as Sulla could sleep with men; so could powerful emperors such as Hadrian (though his cult of Antinoos was thought of as going a little too far); failed emperors such as Caligula found that it was another black mark against their name ...

I hate people citing 'the ancients' at me when they want to find a way to justify their own views, and someone recently tried to cite them when discussing cross-dressing and the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy. As so often happens, they were wrong - Greek and Roman men did sometimes wear dresses too (chitons and peploi rather than Balenciaga, but it comes to the same thing).

In Naples this relief was just unveiled as a recent find from Herculaneum. It's one of several panels found embedded in the wall of a house (see video at bottom of this post). It's a neo-Attic work, and depicts a rite which formed part of an Attic festival of Dionysus, as David Meadows pointed out, called the Oschophoria.
Two Athenian youths of the highest birth were honored by being allowed to dress as women, and those are the two figures shown to the left in front of the statue of the god (which I assume is meant to represent the one in the temple of Dionysus where the procession started).

The relief seems to have surprised a lot of people, but it is by no means unique. To make the point, I include a small selection of the ancient images of cross-dressing by great warrior-heroes ....

The man on the right is clearly a warrior and can be identified as Odysseus. He's grabbing the wrist of the figure on the left, clad in a white dress, who is ... Achilles, the great Greek hero of Troy, about whose wrath the Iliad was written ... who, before he finally decided to fight at Troy and Achilles hid amongst the daughter of Lycomedes to avoid being enlisted, and dressed as a woman so as to be unrecognizable.
Fresco from the House of the Dioscuri, Pompeii [source].

This mosaic from Zeugma, circa AD 300, depicts the same myth, with Achilles wearing a dress. Again, Achilles' shield is prominently depicted to show the hero in case of doubt ...







This fine mosaic was found in Saint-Romain-en-Gal, but is no longer extant; fortunately a drawing was made at the time, forever preserving the full technicolor image for us of Achilles wearing blue and playing dress-up with the daughters of Lycomedes - Odysseus' more traditionally 'macho' bearded head can be seen in the top left corner.

This third century sarcophagus shows Achilles dressed as a woman hiding at the court of Lycomedes to avoid having to take part in the Trojan War [Louvre Ma 3570]. Another sarcophagus in the Louvre [Ma 2120] shows him also at that court, though not in drag.

Hercules also dressed as a woman, when he fell under the spell of Queen Omphale; in this story she also appropriate and wore his lion skin. Although most examples date to the Roman period, an Attic red-figure pelike ca. 400 BC (British Museum, E370) depicts the myth with the exchange of clothing.

The central tondo of a Julio-Claudian phiale in the BNF, Paris, from the Trésor de Berthouville - it shows Omphale asleep on Hercules' lion skin.

The Omphale myth is interesting as Augustus seems to have adopted it as part of his anti-Cleopatra propaganda, with the Egyptian cast in the role of the Eastern Queen who had enchanted - and metaphorically castrated - a man. Mark Anthony, who had claimed descent from amongst others Hercules, naturally fit the role of the fallen hero ...

This may explain the large number of Augustan and Julio-Claudian images of Omphale excavated around Vesuvius. It also seems to be the source of the image on mass-produced Arretine pottery; for example, a number and moulds in the MFA, Boston, and a mould for making the bowls in the Metropolitan Museum, NY.

This mould in the MFA clearly shows a woman with breasts cradling a club and wearing a lion skin; to the left is a man in a dress.


A panel showing Hercules and Omphale cross-dressing from a mosaic of the Labors of Hercules, circa AD 225, found in Llíria and now in the National Archaeological Museum, Madrid.

Hercules and Omphale. Fresco from the oikos of the House of Marcus Lucretius Fronto IX.3.5, Pompeii. Omphale is clearly shown wearing Hercules' lion skin. [photo]

This fresco is now in Naples Museum, which also has an ex Farnese collection sarcophagus with Hercules and Omphale; an ex Borgia collection funerary relief of Cassia Priscilla (p. 148 here), as well as a large number of other images of Hercules and Omphale, suggesting some sort of a cult in the region of Vesuvius.

Another fresco from Pompeii VII.16.17, a house linked to Marcus Castricius, shows Omphale seated above a dress-clad Hercules drunk and rolling on the ground [click here for image].

A Roman statue, possibly a portrait of a woman in the guise, of Omphale [image].

Early Hellenistic earrings from Macedonia with the head of a woman wearing a lion skin [Metropolitan Museum].

Similar heads, in profile, can be found on coins from Phokaia [MFA]; in a coin from Lampsakos Hercules wears the tiara of Omphale [MFA]. Roman coins with the myth here and here - although Augustus meant for Anthony to seem 'shameful' under the thumb of Cleopatra-Omphale to the Republican Romans, those who minted these coins clearly did not feel the same way.











A video showing how the new Herculaneum relief was found and restored:




Text only Copyright © 2009 Dorothy King

Antiquities, Archaeology and Con Men ....

There's a con to do with collecting antiquities which seems to have been going on ....
A couple of collectors have told me it's been tried on them. For legal reasons I don't want to mention the name of the dubious European 'ex-smuggler' with a tendency to make wild allegations - but which a lot of archaeologists and collectors will guess - who seems to be one of two people whose names keep coming up.

I'm writing about it for two reasons:
1) If my name is being used so, probably, are the names of other archaeologists, and:
2) I'm hoping that victims of his attempts at extortion Google my name and the key words in this post, see this and don't fall for it.

I wrote a tongue in cheek post about Looting Baghdad Museum as I don't know how else to respond to some rather wild 'conspiracy' theories which seem to originate with two self-styled 'ex-smugglers'.
Having done a little digging around, there seem to be three main versions which apparently originate with them:

Story One - I was part of a conspiracy to start the war in Iraq so that my friends and I could loot Baghdad Museum; I presume we also did 9/11 (?). All I can say is that someone has watched a few too many movies.

Story Two - I am the reliable and unimpeachable source for the con men's information that a person (he's apparently tried this con a few times, with various antiquities dealers or collectors as his claimed 'bad guys') smuggled material from Baghdad Museum out of Iraq and sold it in assorted countries. And 'my' 'proof' seems to be being used to attempt to extort them. The two stories are contradictory.

Story Three - Another journalist told me of a variant, originating from the same European 'ex smuggler' - which also seems to be the reason he has been quiet lately - where he was claiming that he could prove that the Sevso Hoard had been smuggled out of Yugoslavia. Apparently, even though I was in primary school in France in 1980 when it began to surface in London, I too was the 'source' for his information.

I consider myself lucky that the Serbian gentlemen that came after him did not also come after me. It worries me a great deal that someone will believe the wild allegations being made, and come after me or another archaeologist - since I don't imagine that antiquities smugglers are the nicest of people. Some people seem to be under the mistaken impression that archaeologists keep lots of antiquities at home, and so archaeologists are worth burgling. It would be worse if some dubious gentlemen thought that archaeologists needed to be silenced.

I do not have any proof of any smuggling by art dealers or collectors of material from Baghdad Museum or anywhere else. If I did, then I would have passed the information on to the relevant person at the correct agency to investigate the allegation - not a con man. The same applies to every reputable archaeologist I know.

If you are a collector or antiquities dealer, and if someone is trying to extort money from you by claiming that he has proof which I gave him that you smuggle archaeological material ... then please ignore him as the 'proof' does not exist. It's a con - a little more sophisticated than those Nigerian emails, but still just a con. And ideally drop me an email as I know a few lawyers who are very interested in this.

Recipes: Proust's Madeleines

Like macarons, Madeleines are a little French biscuit people make a great deal of fuss about making. And like macarons, Madeleines are in fact very easy to make ... but, sshhh!, don't tell anyone!

The little scallop shaped sponge biscuits should have a hint of lemon amongst the suggestion of vanilla, be light but slightly buttery as they melt in to mouth. I've been fiddling with my recipe, and this is the one whose proportions seem to work best.

I hate silicone Madeleine molds - they brown the shells all wrong, and always come out greasy - so I use mini Madeleine non-stick metal trays. This recipe produces about 100 one inch biscuits.

First zest a lemon or three. I used three unwaxed lemons bought from the supermarket, which produced 26 g - about one ounce - of zest. A fine grater works better for me than a 'zester' producing a fine zest and leaving a neat naked lemon.

You can use fewer lemons if you have big ones, or more if you want more zing.









Then melt a tablespoon of butter in the microwave, and very lightly butter the baking trays with a brush. There's no need to by a special brush, as any old brush will do, but one does have to go very easy on the butter or the Madeleines come out greasy.









In a mixer throw in, and whisk on high speed:

200 g eggs - that's about 4 medium UK eggs or 3 large US eggs

130 g / 2/3 cup caster sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

After a few minutes, when some air has been beaten in, lift the whisks and sieve in:

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

200g / 1 1/3 cups plain flour

Add: 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and the lemon zest

Mix in on a low speed until the flour is incorporated into the mixture.

Meanwhile, in the microwave melt: 150 g / 2/3 cup of butter.

Pour the butter into the batter, and mix on a low setting until it is incorporated.

The batter should hold its shaped when you mix it, as in the photo. Cover the bowl and put it in the fridge for about an hour to chill - longer is fine, and it can be left overnight if necessary.

The Madeleine molds should be filled about 2/3 full - less than a teaspoon per one inch 'hole' - since the mixture rises.

This size takes about 10 minutes at 360 F / 180 C.

The bottoms should be golden, the upper sides beginning to brown at the edges and their centers rising in the little mounds that are characteristic of Madeleines.

When the Madeleines are baked, take them out of their trays or they will continue to cook. Larger ones need to be cooled on a wire, but this size can go straight onto a plate.

They can be decorated with a dusting of powdered icing sugar, or glazed (icing sugar dissolved in lemon juice or rum, then brushed on) ... but I like them plain and simple.

I keep jars of mini Madeleines in the kitchen handy for a quick snack.

"She sent out for one of those short, plump little cakes called petites madeleines, which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim's shell. And soon, mechanically, weary after a dull day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than ..."

Marcel Proust (Swann's Way)

Copyright © 2009 Dorothy King

How We Ate: Medieval Gastronomy

The Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, has a nice exhibition of images to do with food, cooking and eating online: Medieval Gastronomy.

Recipes: Chocolate Macarons with Prune Ganache

Chocolate Macarons are meant to be the hardest type to make, so perhaps this was a little ambitious for my first proper attempt at Macarons ... but I made them for Mother's Day.

I've always thought that Macarons were difficult, but my great friend Elaine made beautiful Turron Macarons, assured me that they were easy as well as delicious, and inspired me to give them a go.

A few quick notes about eggs. I used half 'real' fresh egg white, and topped them up with some pasteurized egg whites I'd bought - a cartons of whites sounds like a good idea, but it's not; the whites do not rise as well as the whites from eggs you crack yourself, they were an odd texture, and I'd never buy these again. Also, this is a recipe that works better with egg whites towards the end of their shelf life, rather than super-fresh eggs. Egg sizes vary so much, so I assume that a white weighs about 40 g (they freeze well, and this is a handy way of estimating how many you've frozen).

Turn the oven on to 320 F / 160 C. The temperature of an oven is important - mine has no relation to the temperature claimed on the dial, so I use an oven thermometer. The macarons that I cooked on the lower shelves and so left in a little longer worked best for me - so I'm tempted to try cooking them at 300 F /150 C next time.

First, take baking trays and line with baking parchment: one side is smoother than the other, and will be the 'upper' side which comes into contact with the dough when baking. Draw circles on the underside to guide you later when making the macarons (if you draw them on the upper surface, they might leave a line on the cooked biscuit).

I made these in various sizes, though the smaller ones came out better - about the size of a dollar coin.

Take a cup of whole prunes - I use Prunes d'Agen - and roughly chop them. Place in a bowl with a cup of liquid; if you can do this earlier in the day, the prunes re-hydrate better. Some people use Armagnac, but half my friends are in AA so I tend to avoid alcohol when cooking. Water seems too boring, so to add an extra dimension I used a cup of iced tea made using the Troisgros recipe (I make it weak; if you make it strong then use half tea, half water).

I've always used a hand whisk, so getting a mixer (even if it was the cheapest one in the store) was an exciting new departure for me.

I put in 1 cup of egg whites, weighing 240 g - ie 6 egg whites. Plus 1/4 tsp of salt.

Then I set the machine in full speed to start whisking ....

When the whites were beginning to rise and hold their shape - you can see the lines in their surface from the whisk - I added:

1 cup / 200 g of white caster sugar.

Keep blending on a medium speed.

[I want to do my eco-hippie thing and say that bleached sugar is really bad, but ... it works better for meringues which are meant to be white.]

When it's blended, turn off mixer and let mix sit.

Take a bowl and a metal sieve (plastic mesh ones are too fine), and sift into it:

2 1/2 cups or 300 g of icing or powder sugar

1 1/2 cups or 150 g of ground almonds or almond flour (several transatlantic conversations have confirmed that it is the same thing)

1/2 cup or 60 g of cocoa powder (not drinking chocolate which is sweetened) - more if you want the macarons to be very dark.

Mix the ingredients together in the bowl, until they are well blended.

Turn the mixer onto a low setting and with a ladle add the dry mix to the egg and sugar mix.

When it's fully incorporated, and you have a brown uniform mixture ... turn the mixer off. Be careful not to over-mix or all the air comes out, but also don't worry too much about it being over-light.

Put the mixture into an icing bag, a little at a time - it depends on how you like to use the bag, but I find it works best when it's half full. I admit that this is where I went wrong - I didn't have a large nozzle (with an opening ideally about the size of a dime), so used a smaller one, and pushed too much air out of the meringue mixture ...

Squeeze mix onto baking tray, keeping within the circles, and making the biscuits as high as you can without them collapsing.

Then leave the biscuits on the tray to dry for about 30 minutes so that they form a 'shell' surface - the amount of time depends on the size of the biscuit of course, so larger ones take a little longer. The surface should have 'dropped' so that it looks smooth, but is also 'touch dry' so that it does not leave finger marks if you touch it. Don't be tempted to think 'the drier the better' and leave them for hours though ...

Small macarons will take 8 to 10 minutes; large ones 15 to 20 minutes. It's better to slightly over-cook them rather than under-cook them ... and ideally you want both a 'foot' - the little lip seen in the photo - and for the bottom to have cooked through. The bottom not cooking through ... you can bluff by covering with the ganache.

These are the larger ones I made ... pretty, but the shape was better with the smaller ones.

Whilst the macaron biscuits are cooling - which takes 10 minutes - I whisked up a paste to hold them together. A nice rose or raspberry jam would work too, but we love prunes.

The better the chocolate, the less you have to do to it ... I use dark chocolate chunks.

Take about one cup of chunks, or one bar broken into pieces, pop into a bowl and microwave until it's soft - I did one minute on medium, stirred, then one more minute.

I could go on about bain maries and other ways of melting chocolate, but life is complicated enough, and so why add complications to baking ... it's really that easy.

By this point the bowl of chopped prunes should have absorbed the liquid. Give them a good stir. If there is too much liquid, just drain a bit off.

I like the texture of the prunes to come through, but if you prefer them smooth then just whiz it through with a blender.

Add the prunes to the melted chocolate, and stir in. The mixture should have enough movement to spread easily, but if you're worried that it seems to liquid you can always melt a bit more chocolate and add it.

Turn a biscuit upside down - note that the underside is cooked - and scoop a spoon full of the prune ganache onto it. You can spread it with a spatula, or just sandwich the second biscuit to it and allow it to spread naturally - I tried both methods, and there is little to chose between them.

You can eat them straight away, but macarons are meant to be better if you can pop them in the fridge overnight as this allows the flavors to meld.

Ladurée macarons in Paris are amazing, but the ones sold in London have been frozen and defrosted. I have not tried to freeze these yet, but if it's good enough for them ...

Et voila! Macarons. Not perfect - it was a first attempt - but not as difficult as some people make them out to be.

As you can see, the proportions worked better with the smaller ones. These are easier to make, fit into the mouth in one bite without making a mess and so I'll be sticking to smaller sizes in future. I used no 'trick' - they're really very easy to make.

Update - they went down very well, and it took a little convincing before people believed that I had made them myself.


Copyright © 2009 Dorothy King