Thanks to the institution that is afternoon tea, few sports are as closely linked to food as cricket.
And while summer days playing the sport might be behind us, you can still get a taste of cricket tea at home – thanks to an all-new cookbook.
The Taste Of Cricket features recipes from sportspeople like Ben Stokes, Adil Rashid and Maia Bouchier, alongside cricket enthusiasts like Ainsley Harriott and Stephen Fry.
And it’s not just recipes for afternoon tea, but a whole range in there – including Stokes’ slow-cooked BBQ chicken and Harriott’s Jamaican beef patties. Put together by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), the cookbook aims to celebrate diversity in cricket, and profits will support the five charity partners: Chance to Shine, ACE (African Caribbean Engagement Programme), Lord’s Taverners, The MCC Foundation and SACA (South Asian Cricket Academy).
Broadcaster Stephen Fry has contributed a cricket tea classic to the book: his recipe for maple and cinnamon buns.
“I was a pretty ordinary bowler, an incompetent batter and a, quite simply, dreadful fielder. But there was one thing I was always good at, perhaps the best… getting a match tea inside me,” Fry says.
“The sandwiches first, of course, and then the cake. The BUNS. The performance and endurance of a champion, especially when it came to the buns. My teammates would have carried me shoulder high if I hadn’t been weighed down by so many buns. Happy, happy days.
“These maple and cinnamon buns are a slight twist on classic buns, with a wonderful spiced cinnamon flavour that works perfectly with the maple syrup”.
Maple and cinnamon buns
Ingredients:
(Serves 12)
200g unsalted butter, softened
100g soft light brown sugar
50g caster sugar
50g maple syrup
3 large eggs
200g self-raising flour
1½tsp ground cinnamon
Icing sugar, for dusting (optional)
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 160°C fan and line 12 holes of a muffin tin with paper cases.
2. Cream together the butter, soft light brown sugar, caster sugar, and maple syrup until pale and fluffy.
3. Gradually beat in the eggs, adding a little of the weighed flour if the mixture looks like it is beginning to curdle.
4. Sift in the remaining flour with the cinnamon and fold in with a spoon until combined to form a smooth batter.
5. Spoon into the prepared cases and bake for about 20-25 minutes or until golden, well risen, and just firm to touch. Cool in the tin for five minutes then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.
6. Dust with sieved icing sugar, if desired. Enjoy!
Taste Of Cricket Cookbook is available from the England and Wales Cricket Board (shop.ecb.co.uk), priced £12.99. Available now.
