Chocolate vinegar cake

National Chocolate week, how come I managed to nearly miss this ? obviously as someone who loves chocolate I would have thought that it would have been on my radar for weeks but some how it almost passed me by. (Hence the lateness of this post)
In celebration I have reworked a vinegar cake using a stunning Ellseys fruit vinegar and cocoa powder. Vinegar cakes are fairly allergy friendly as they don't feature eggs and use alternative measures to raise and set the cake.

After a busy day at blog camp on Saturday, where I learned loads, my baking needed to be the fairly fast and dirty kind, as the cake only takes about 40 minutes to cook it fitted the bill perfectly.Apologies to anyone who doesn't like recipes in cups but I love them and my original vinegar recipe is an american one, so cups it is.

Ingredients

• 3 cups of plain flour
• 2 cups of granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
• 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 cup warm water
• 1tbsp vanilla
• 2 tbsp vinegar ( any type but malt, I used a fruit vinegar)

Method

• Prepare a baking tin of approx 13 by 9 inches - grease and line
• Pre heat oven to 180c / 350F
• Mix all ingredients together tin a bowl, sieve all the dry ingredients in first, then add the wet ingredients last
• Ensure mixed throughly and then pour into your prepared tin
• Bake for approx 40 minutes until tested cooked with a skewer
• Allow to cool in tin

If you fancy ringing the changes why not add spices too ! this is a lovely easy bake , nicely squidgy after only 24 hours and well flavoured and no hint of vinegar at all. You could ice it if you so wished.

Fiddlers Lancashire Crisps

"Lovely and local" they  most certainly are, Fiddlers Lancashire Crisps are grown and produced by a family concern on the famous Lancashire mosslands near Ormskirk, THE centre of fine potato growing in Lancashire.

The rich black soil is famous for producing superb potatoes and the Fiddler family have simply taken this great local  product and enhanced it, by taking it back to their farm and washing,peeling, slicing and frying them by hand to produce a crisp to be proud of. 

They then use the best of local flavourings to enhance their product such as Ellseys Vinegar, Lancashire Cheese(proper) and Lancashire Sauce, all great local products too. The bag even tells you who cooked your crisps for you in my case Robert, Judith, John and Big Bob as I had a selection of flavours to try, the crisps themselves are delicious, thickly sliced, crispy , fresh tasting and not all greasy , the selection of flavours is inspired, just a fabulous local product.

My favourite is the salt and Ellseys malt vinegar, closely followed by Lancashire Cheese and onion, but each to your own as there is something for everyone in the range.

Fiddlers Lancashire Crisps are available from quality outlets across the county and Fiddlers also do mail order for those of you who don't live that locally. You can find their facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Fiddlers-lancashire-crisps/189810807753074?fref=ts

or there website http://www.fiddlerslancashirecrisps.co.uk/

Ellseys 80th Birthday !

As you all know I love all things Lancashire, especially if it involves food, so Lancashire Food was delighted to receive an invitation  to a born and bred  Lancashire company's 80th birthday celebration. Now I know you are all thinking whats glamorous about vinegar ? well vinegar is a very versatile thing and is a very ancient product. The other great thing about Ellsey's vinegar is that this particular vinegar is used in loads of amazing local products too, so that they are true Lancashire produce.

A True Lancashire Lunch 

Ellseys is based in Wigan and is still a family owned company, started by a Mr Walter Ellsey initially to brew malt vinegar in 1932 , the company now focuses on supplying a wide variety of vinegars to wholesalers and producers around the world.

I have only recently discovered that my late maternal Grand-dads favourite pickles aand picalilli are produced by Ellsey's oldest customer, what's funny is that the company is Bartons pickles from St Helens (where my Grand-dad was from) yet the vinegar that goes into all their products is from Wigan, the rivalry between Wigan and St Helens is legendary ! mainly due to the local rugby teams I think but may be just a little from the pickles too.

In celebration of their birthday, Ellsey's had contacted a local artisan brewery to brew up a celebration beer, Prospect brewery ( as featured in several tv shows with Oz Clark, et al ) based  the beer on their already famous "big john" dark stout , the addition of vinegar has lightened the brew and provides a fruity end to the glass.

The party at the brewery also featured nibbles from some great local producers, many who use Ellseys vinegar in their products, and vinegar shrub cocktails (alcoholic and non alcoholic)  were also served. Lancashire Food enjoyed having some very interesting food and also vinegar chats with some of the staff from Ellseys and was excited to hear their ideas for the future and their passion for all things vinegar.

We also met Luke Marsden ( ex big brother housemate and radio presenter) and proud Wiganer at the time I didn't know who he was, just that he was on Rock Fm (local radio station) , we had some great discussions about food, vinegar and cake. We also managed to get him addicted to Lancashire cheese and Lancashire crisps in the process whilst sampling the cocktails.

In celebration of Ellsey's birthday I will be re-working my vinegar cake posting and having a go at vinegar pie too ! So watch out for these forthcoming posts.

Our goodie bag featured samples of

Ellseys birthday brew from Prospect Brewery

Ellseys fruit vinegars in various flavours

Bartons pickles in various varieties

Mrs Darlingtons chutney

Dewlay Lancashire Cheese

Lancashire crisps -salt and Ellseys vinegar flavour

Elleseys also supply

Wormersley

Fatjax

Wing Yip

and Del Monte too.

The amazing food photography on this post is by the very talented Mr Lancashire Food aka as Synergy Monochrome , he has also posted on his blog of what he has been upto with regard to post