Pioneer Woman British Style

Tonight I made a recipe from a cookbook we received as a wedding present.

Thanks Lucinda!

I've not made many of the recipes in it because- delicious as they sound- they aren't necessarily things that Ross can/will eat.  I've made a few things (the cobbler & the egg in the hole), but not ventured into other recipes much.  

Well a few days ago, I decided that I was going to make Iny's Prune Cake.  I won't publish the recipe here, but you can certainly click the link to see it on the PW site.

I ran into a few problems trying to cook PW style in England.  

1.  No buttermilk-  Easy fix.  The cookbook actually tells you how to address this with a combo of regular milk and distilled white vinegar.

2.  No light corn syrup-  The recipe calls for 1 tbsp. of light corn syrup for the icing.  I found a website that said you could make a substitute by melting sugar and water on the stove.  I was going to do this, but then decided to improvise and just used set honey instead.  When I tasted the icing, I didn't have any complaints.

3.  No canola oil- A quick google search provided an easy answer to this.  On one of our first road trips in England, Ross and I passed a field of gorgeous bright yellow.  

Like this

When I asked Ross what it was, he replied that it was rape.  Um.... what?  He was surprised that I'd never heard of it.  He asked if I'd ever heard of rapeseed oil.  I had not.  These fields are all over England, so this rape must be a big deal.  (That just sounds so wrong...)  Anyway- all this is to say that I finally found out what rape is.  Rapeseed oil is the British equivalent of canola oil.  Problem solved!

4.  I didn't have a rectangular cake pan.  Apparently British people don't make rectangular cakes.  They only had cake pans in round, square and loaf.  (How do they make brownies?!?)  I scanned the cooking aisle of Asda and found a "roasting tin" that was pretty much the same thing as a rectangular cake pan.  Problem solved for £5.

The cake in it's roasting tin.

Mmmmm.  Spicy and moist!

I just tried and piece and it was very nice!  Ross said it was fine, but would be better with apple in it.  ARgh!  He's a tough customer! :)