Worstebroodjes (Dutch sausage rolls)

Early in the morning on a Saturday, in a quiet kitchen, you pick up Pavarotti and put on Nessun dorma, then I know you will cry, always with the same intensity, as you remember Josephus, he makes his way into the kitchen and I tell you it's alright and hold you and wander what it's like to cry for someone that you love. The singing ends and the audience clap loudly as you remember this life lived, your grandfather, the baker, the opera singer who wanted to go to the Dutch "conservatorium", who you remember in worstebroodjes.

I have asked my husband to write the next bit:

My Grandad died in 1987 and with him the tradition of frenetic baking around Christmas time. After his retirement my granddad baked for the love of it, always together with his love of singing. For the last 15 years his children, my dad, his brother and two sisters, have kept alive my grandad's tradition of baking worstebroodjes through meeting up every year on the Saturday nearest to the 15th of December, for a session of baking and remembrance. This activity has now become a family tradition itself, which now has its own rules and customs.

This year I asked my dad if he could come from Holland to the UK to make worstebroodjes with me, like I use to with my grandad when I was little and plant a seed to enable this tradition to flourish in the UK. He gladly accepted and travelled, equipped with the recipe and the secret meat spices (a white powder, sealed in a non-labelled plastic bag that he bravely took through customs...).

The current family tradition of making worstebroodjes pivots around three important family customs. Firstly, the day starts with a "discussion" between the siblings, during which they establish the correct recipe that my grandad used. Secondly, the whole affair has to take place with constant accompaniment of opera music, to the extent that you don't know left from right by the end of the day. And thirdly, there is the question, 'who is in charge in the kitchen?' There can only be one boss and that can only be my dad, or atleast that's what he thinks. Two out of these three customs were taken to the UK when my dad made worstebroodjes with me as he had already had the "discussion" with his brother about the recipe and written it down for me (and changed it slightly during the day after two phone calls). I was happy to follow the custom of letting my dad think he could rule my kitchen whilst enjoying Pavarotti.

The result was 36 beautiful worstebroodjes, a lot of fun and the odd tear. My dad rates them 7 out of 10, but I have not tasted one for 3 years and thought that they should be given 9 out of 10 for taste and 10 out of 10 for effort. This seemed more appropriate to me. But most importantly of all, my daughter made her first worstebroodje, the tradition is safe!

Coffee Rum

It finally happened I have made the signature dish of my blog, my mother's 'coffee rum gateau.'
I made the cake, creaming together butter and sugar, beating in the eggs and then folding in the flour. I was doing the dish I had so often watched my mother make. I then put it in the oven and watched it rise. Then, when it had finished cooking, I took it out and put it on the cooling rack but this wasn't the end. The bit that follows, the pouring of the coffee rum through the holes you make in the cake, is the bit I watched as a child so often.

I made the coffee syrup, while the cake was still hot, by dissolving sugar in water, over heat and then adding brandy and 2 heaped teaspoons of instant coffee granules. As a child I use to think that brandy was the height of adult sophistication, the smell of it evaporating in the hot sugar water reminded me of some of the faces I would see at my parents dinner parties; my next door neighbours, quite posh, the enigmatic and slightly troubled looking neighbour from across the road and my warm and kind hearted primary school supply teacher with her soft cheeks. There were also work colleagues from my dads hospital and as hospitals slightly scared me, so they scared me too, but when the Coffee Rum Gateau was served to them it would cover all ills, all troubles, the barrier of sweet against the world.

After making the syrup I then pricked the top of the cooling cake all over with a skewer. I poured the syrup through all the holes I had made, the brandy floating upwards, the liquid soaking into the cake. Pouring the liquid over and over until it was gone and the cake was drenched. The next day I whipped the cream, spread it over the cake and then took 2 Cadbury flakes, out of the yellow wrappers, put them in my hand and crumbled them over the top of the cake, pushing my palms against the chocolate flake strands. I made my mother's cake but somehow it looked so different from hers. (my mum replaced the walnuts on top of the gateau with cadbury flake and renamed it gateau instead of cake)

I made it for my friends leaving party. She has gone to Belethem with her husband. I knew this cake was one I could proudly take out to a party. I wrote at the time of making it "I'm making this recipe for J who is leaving, a gift to her from my cupboard." I also choose to make the coffee rum gateau on the weekend when I had been concerned about my father's health. I wrote:

"It helps to be in the kitchen, making a family favourite from the seventies

when you were another dad from another time,

sealed forever in your brown seventies suit,

smiling from your stripy deckchair

and I was just a girl watching you

cooking, serving,

answering the door,

choosing the wine, from your cupboard under the stairs.

This was another dad who ate the coffee rum gateau

with the different faces round your table

in their suits, their long flowing shawls

their smiles.

Now the door bell is silent,

the wine still in boxes under the stairs (it doesn't agree with you so much now).

and I am grown still watching you.