English – Cook and Drink

Royal Carrot Cake

27 April 2026

Today, April 27th, we celebrate the birthday ol King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands. Hip hip hurray!
The Dutch royal family is also known as ‘de Oranjes’, which is reflected in the use of the colour orange when referring to Dutch royalty. There is no link between the royal family and the colour. The ‘orange’ in their name refers to the French city of Orange, a Principality one of his ancestors inherited in 1544.
Over the years we prepared Orange Sabayon, Queen’s Soup, Orange and Almond Cake, Bouchée à la Reine, Orange Flan, Canard à l’Orange, Baba au Mandarine Napoléon and Orange Parfait on this day.

This year we prepare a Carrot Cake. Given its English origin we thought it would be best to use an English recipe as a starting point. What better cookbook to use than Harrods Book of Traditional English Cookery by Hilaire Walden! It includes recipes for dishes such Jugged Kippers, Rabbit in the Dairy and Dorset Apple Cake. Buy this wonderful book via the usual channels for a few euros or dollars.

Bake the cake 2 days before serving. Add the topping, transfer to the refrigerator and serve cold.

The recipe is for a 19 cm (7,5 inch) baking tin and the cake will serve 8 people.

What You Need

Cake
- 125 grams of Butter
- 150 grams of light Brown Sugar
- 3 Organic Eggs
- 3 teaspoons of Orange Rind
- 15 ml of Lemon Juice
- 175 grams of Flour
- 8 grams of Baking Powder
- 35 grams of ground White Almonds
- 75 grams of chopped Walnuts
- 50 grams of White Raisins
- 250 grams of grated Carrot
Topping
- 200 grams of Soft Cheese
- 1 teaspoon of Honey
- 1 tablespoon of Lemon Juice
- 25 grams of chopped Walnuts
- 45 grams of white Marzipan for the carrots
- 10 grams of white Marzipan for the green part
- Food colouring: Red, Yellow and Green

What You Do (Cake)

Preheat your oven to 180 °C or 350 °F, traditional
Coat a round cake tin with butter
Coarsely grind the almonds
Coarsely grind the walnuts
Sift flour and baking powder and combine
Soak the raisins for 10 minutes; discard the water
Grate the carrot
Grate the orange rind
Melt the butter until soft
Combine butter and sugar until relatively fluffy
Combine flour, baking powder, chopped walnuts and almonds
Separate the eggs
Whisk the egg whites until stiff
Add the egg yolks to the butter and sugar mixture, combine
Add orange rind, raisins and lemon juice to the mixture, combine using a spoon
Add the combination of flour, baking powder and nuts to the mixture
Add carrots to the mixture and combine
Fold in the egg white
Transfer to the oven for 50 minutes
Leave to cool on a wire rack
Keeps well on room temperature for at least 2 days

What You Do (Topping)

Make 3 small orange balls
Press these into the shape of a carrot
Use a knife to make a few superficial slices
Roll out the green marzipan, cut out 3 circles and create the green part
Beat cheese, honey and lemon juice
Taste and adjust; we added extra lemon juice
Spread evenly over the cake
Sprinkle with walnuts
Decorate with three carrots
Once you’ve added the topping, store in the refrigerator

Carrot Cake ©cadwu made with almonds, walnuts, white raisins, organic eggs and grated carrot, topped with soft cheese with honey and lemon juice

Three Carrots ©cadwu made with white marzipan and food colouring

Scones

22 June 2023

A few weeks ago, our local supermarket promoted original, traditional English clotted cream, scones and strawberry jam, obviously. We bought a jar but couldn’t find the scones. The clotted cream ended up in the refrigerator and we forgot about the scones. Fortunately, clotted cream keeps very well so when we spotted the jar some two weeks later, we decided to open it and taste the cream. Yummy! So, all we needed for our Cream Tea were scones. And since we couldn’t find them, we baked them ourselves.

What You Need

250 grams of Self Raising Flour
2/3 teaspoon Baking Powder
75 grams of Butter (room temperature)
30 grams of Sugar
120 grams of fresh Whole Milk
125 grams of Raisins
One egg
Pinch of Salt

What You Do

Start by soaking the raisins for 10 minutes in hot water. Drain and squeeze gently. This way the raisins will be tasty and moist. Lightly beat the egg, just enough to combine the white and the yolk. Now combine self raising flour, baking powder, butter and sugar until you have a crumbly pastry. Best is to use a hand mixer with kneading hooks. This may take some time. When well mixed, add half the egg and the milk. Make a smooth dough. Fold in the raisins and store the result in the refrigerator for one hour. Preheat your oven to 210 °C or 410 °F. Roll out the dough. We used a 7-centimetre (cookie) cutter. Coat the top of the scones with beaten egg. Allow to rest for 15 minutes. Coat the scones for the second time. Bake the scones for some 10 minutes. Keep an eye on your oven because the scones will bake very quickly!

Serve with a generous amount of English clotted cream and strawberry jam. The best way is to split the scone in two, cover each half with clotted cream and put the strawberry jam on top.

PS

If you want to see how our favourite Dutch Pâtissier Cees Holtkamp makes scones (in his home kitchen, supported by his granddaughter), then this video will help. It’s in Dutch (with YouTube provided subtitles). Please note that his list of ingredients is slightly different.

Coronation Quiche

6 May 2023

The coronation of King Charles is a wonderful combination of tradition, religion and mystery, a ceremony loved by many, for its pageantry, the celebrations, the concerts and of course the coronation food. Just think about a lovely Victorian Sponge Cake with raspberry jam and buttercream or a Coronation Chicken (Poulet Reine Elizabeth) with carrots, green peas, rice and a creamy curry sauce.

King Charles’s coronation quiche is supposed to somehow reflect his vision regarding the monarchy and its role in modern society. The quiche is tasty, healthy, nutritious, not expensive and relatively easy to make. Plus, when you replace the lard in the original recipe with butter (as we do), then it’s a nice vegetarian dish. Great to share with friends.

The quiche combines spinach with broad beans, tarragon and cheddar cheese. We suggest baking it one day ahead and serving it at room temperature.

We read the recipe, watched a few videos (this one is good fun, it also shows how to make a Victorian Sponge cake) and decided to prepare a Coronation Quiche, topped with a Crown!

What You Need (for a 15 cm tin)

For the Pastry
- 125 grams All Purpose Flour
- Pinch of Salt
- 50 grams Cold Butter
- 2 tablespoons Water
For the Filling
- 200 ml Double Cream
- 2 Eggs
- 1 tablespoon chopped Fresh Tarragon
- 100 grams grated Cheddar Cheese
- 400 grams fresh Spinach
- 450 grams fresh Broad Beans (or Fava Beans)

What You Do

Start by making the shortcrust pastry. Dice the butter. Sieve the flour, add a pinch of salt and combine. Add the butter and mix using your fingertips until is has a crumble-like texture. Add the water and turn the mixture into a dough. Cover and allow to rest in the refrigerator for one hour.

Now it’s time to prepare the vegetables. Wash and cook the spinach. Let cool. Drain and squeeze to remove as much liquid as possible. Chop finely. Remove the beans from the shell. Cook for 2 minutes. Let cool and double pod.
Flour your work surface and roll out the pastry to a circle a little larger than the top of the form. The dough should be approximately 4 mm thick. Coat the form with butter. Line the form with the pastry. Use a knife to remove the excess dough. Cover and let rest for 30 minutes in the refrigerator.

Preheat the oven to 190 °C or 375 °F. Use a fork to make small holes in the pastry. Line the pastry with greaseproof paper, add baking beans and bake blind for 15 minutes. Remove the paper and the baking beans. If you think the pastry is a bit wet, then transfer back to the oven for 2 or 3 minutes.
Reduce the oven temperature to 160 °C or 320 °F.
Beat the eggs and keep some of the egg apart. You need it later to give some extra colour to the crown. Beat together cream, eggs, herbs and fresh black pepper. Scatter half of the grated cheese in the blind-baked base, top with the chopped spinach and then the beans, and finally pour over the mixture with cream, eggs, herbs and pepper. Finish by sprinkling the remaining cheese.

Use the remainder of the dough to make a crown. Coat with the egg mixture. You could apply an extra coating halfway the baking process.

Place the quiche and the crown into the oven and bake for 30 – 35 minutes until set and lightly golden. The crown is ready after some 10 – 15 minutes.