2011

I can’t believe 2011 is over already! It seems to have raced past, particularly towards the end in the run up to Christmas. It seems really not that long ago that I was writing up my 2010 round up. With 2012 just around the corner, I wanted to look back at my favourite bake from each month. I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas and I’m really looking forward to the coming year, I hope to really stretch my baking and this blog so keep reading! Happy New Year!

January – Celebratory Chocolate
This Chocolate & Salted Caramel Tart is one of my favourite things I’ve ever baked, not just in 2011. It wasn’t 100% perfect but it was such a decadent treat and the combination of textures and flavours were absolutely delicious.

February – Benedict Bars
These were a simple bake but really moreish – nutty, jammy, sticky goodness. And the best bit? The recipe makes a very large tray full. March – Mini Orange Drizzle Cakes
These zingy little cakes really cheer up a kitchen on a gloomy day – I think they’d be perfect when its been raining for several days, when you’re at a loss for inspiration or as a gift for somebody who is ill because they wake you up and make you smile. April – Passion Fruit Curd Tart
From one sunny recipe to the next, this tart was a perfect way to look forward to the not too far off summer. It was a lot of effort and not stress-free but the results were so very worth it.

May – Sticky Rhubarb and Ginger Cake
I always love baking with rhubarb – it’s such an intriguing and pretty fruit. This cake was what I made during rhubarb season this year and was a recipe I’d love to repeat.

June – Apple, Vanilla and Olive Oil Cake with Maple Cream Cheese Icing (from July…)
In June I was in the midst of twenty three (23!!) important exams and so my blog was sadly empty. However, I can’t choose a favourite July recipe so here’s the apple cake – a treat of a layer cake, with rich cream cheese icing and a moist, apple studded sponge.

  July – White Chocolate and Raspberry Cookies
I don’t know why, but whenever I make a white chocolate cookie on this blog it immediately becomes one of my top hits. This was no exception and for good reason – rich, moreish, soft but with perfect crunchy edges, tart raspberries – what’s not to like?

August – Mini Pork Pies
The first savoury appearance in this list and its well deserved. This post involved a recipe for a delicious and adorable pie that involved lots of techniques new to me but was so much fun to make with my friend E., combined with a rant about pork pie jelly.

September – Plum Frangipane Tart
I love making tarts -  hence this being the 3rd in this list – but this one was different due to not having to blind bake the pastry before adding the frangipane. It turned out perfectly and was a delicious Autumnal treat.

October – Parmesan Biscuits
These biscuits come from Simon Hopkinson and were such a hit. I say things are moreish a lot, but these really were – I had to photograph them very quickly before they were all eaten. And with the dough taking two minutes to make, I think I’ll need to repeat this recipe very soon…

  November – Love Bakery Book Review
I was lucky enough to be sent a book to review and it made the most delicious Chocolate Orange Cupcakes – moist, rich and full of flavour. The book didn’t fail on the classic recipes either, the Lemon Cupcakes were packed with citrus zing and I regretted only making half a batch! December – Cherry Chocolate Snow Cookies
Ok, so there’s not the largest choice here, but these cookies would always deserve a mention. They were full of Christmas flavours, easy to whip up and made a cute festive gift.

Cherry Chocolate Snow Cookies

I’m back! And just in time for Christmas – only two days to go! Cookies come in to their own at Christmas, I think, as part of cookie exchanges, gifts for party hostesses, decorations for the Christmas tree or simply as a last minute and simple festive bake. There are a never ending amount of recipe variations and cookies are a great way to incorporate many Christmassy flavours into one mouthful – such as in these cookies. With chocolate, sweet dried fruit, a snowy icing sugar covering and a little bit of virtue from oats, these make the perfect holiday treat. If you’ve left a present last minute, or have a unexpected visitor now coming for Christmas lunch, these cookies will make the perfect gift – everybody else will be jealous! The dough is really quick to make because you add the egg, butter and sugar all at once, saving you time in the busiest period of the year. The recipe comes from Dan Lepard who originally uses dried cranberries – obviously a very appropriate flavour for Christmas. However we didn’t have any so I used dried sour cherries instead which have the same chew and sour taste and so were just as delicious. The cherries worked nicely with the dark chocolate – all coming together to make a perfect Christmassy bite. Enjoy!

Apple Pie

Now that it’s autumn and winter weather, it’s time to start making proper puddings. Biscuits and cupcakes are fabulous, but on a dark winter evening a hot pudding is just the thing. Warming dishes like steamed sponges, crumbles, self-saucing puddings, chocolate fondants and anything that can be served with custard really come in to their own. It’s the season of comfort food! For me pies are a perfect winter dish because, whilst they are tasty made with summer fruits, I think the classic Autumn double crust apple pie is very hard to beat.This bake was perfect to help me get through the apple overload, using 10 (they’re are quite small). I made this after having some baking block and not really knowing what to make – in times like this it’s always best to return to simple favourites. Also with a classic dish I wanted to use a reliable recipe so I turned to the ever trustworthy Mary Berry. The recipe comes from her book How to Cook which we’ve had for a while but I've shamefully only used once before for tomato soup! The recipe had complete step-by-step pictures and I only altered the recipe slightly by adding a tablespoon of cinnamon to the apples (because apples and cinnamon is always a winning flavour combination) and using butter instead of margarine for the pastry.I was a little wary as the pastry doesn’t have any sugar in, but when the pie is served you don’t notice – the apple filling and obligatory serving accompaniment of custard makes it sweet enough. The pastry was crisp, the apples were soft with just enough cinnamon spice and overall the pie was very welcomed on a cold and drizzly evening. You can find the recipe here – enjoy!

Love Bakery Book Review

I was recently lucky enough to be sent another book by Ivy Press – this one was Love Bakery by Samantha Blears. Love Bakery is an actual bakery on the Kings Road, London so the book gives recipes for a few of their favourite top sellers and lots of other inventive ideas. It’s a beautifully laid out book – full page photos for each recipe, lots of colour, detail and a little background writing accompanying each recipe.  I made the ‘It’s Not Terry’s But My Chocolate’ cupcakes and the lemon cupcakes and both recipes worked well. The chocolate orange ones were a huge hit and I’d definitely make them again – they were rich, dark and a great indulgence. I halved the lemon recipe as I was interested to try it because it’s a classic but wasn’t convinced my small family needed 12 cupcakes! Again the recipe worked well (although I only got five cupcakes) and the cakes were tender and full of lemony flavour – although I always get paranoid with lemon things that they’re going to lack the necessary zing so I added some extra zest and juice. I really liked the variety of ideas in the book – the Cuptails chapter of alcoholic cupcakes is original and there are recipes for a large donut cake and whoopie pies. I also liked the Cakes for Breakfast chapter which included recipes such as Mocha Cupcakes and Greek Yoghurt & Honey Cupcakes. The recipes are really detailed and easy to follow and when I baked the cakes the timings were spot on. There is lots of detail about decorating ideas and inspiration which doesn’t interest me so much but know might please other people. My issues with this book are probably quite minor but I still noticed them each time I read this book. Like I said in my last post, I have an issue with ingredients in the title of a dish not actually being in it. For example, the Oreo cake in the book is just a chocolate cake with Oreo icing and a few other cakes were vanilla with a jam filling or flavoured icing and I found that disappointing. Overall, I don’t this book would be right if you’re a confident baker and really want to experiment or get lots of ideas for new flavoured cupcakes. However, I think this book would make a really nice present (less than two months until Christmas now!) especially if you know someone who often visits the bakery, because its very pretty and has some original ideas.

Sticky Apple, Ginger and Maple Syrup Cake

Come Autumn, I think I could easily bake apple cake every single weekend. We have three apple trees, all producing continuous fruit for several weeks. One counter in our kitchen is currently just a pile of apples in various bowls, baskets and bags – it’s like living in a farmers market. We have several types of apples – from small, sweet red ones to big green cooking apples. And this excess apple supply means getting a touch inventive with our fruit! Grated apple and yoghurt is my new favourite food. Sausage rolls with apple and onion make a perfect packed lunch. Baked apples stuffed with mincemeat or sultanas served with cream are best eaten slowly in front of Downton Abbey on a Sunday evening. But, sometimes, a good old hearty apple cake is just the thing.I’ve made apple cakes before but there seem to be so many variations out there I know this won’t be my last. This cake is different because of the two flavours that share the stage with the apple – the maple syrup and fresh ginger. The maple syrup adds a caramel flavour and richness to the cake, whilst the ginger adds spice and warmth.The recipe originally stated that the maple syrup should just be poured on top of the baked cake, but I have an issue with ingredients in the title of a dish not actually being in it. Also, the cake batter was really dry – practically a dough – so I wanted to loosen it, so I added around 2tbsp of maple syrup to the cake. This cake is versatile as it keeps well and is good warm out the oven with crème fraiche but also sturdy enough to be eaten cold in your hand the next day. Overall, I liked this cake as a sweet treat but would not say it was the best apple cake ever. Which means that I still need to bake more apple cakes to find that winner! Well, those apples won’t cook themselves…

Brandy Snaps

One of my major weaknesses as a baker is baking times. As my Mum will happily tell you, I burn things. A fair bit. Mainly cookies. I like to blame it on my oven, but I’m not too sure what the reason really is. Generally I start by putting whatever it is in the oven for 5-10 minutes less than suggested, but then I just spend the last ten minutes putting the timer on for two minutes more, then two minutes more, then two minutes more etc etc. So I knew when I attempted brandy snaps it would be a good challenge for me because they rely so much on perfect timing. And yes, I did burn the first mini batch – but who’d want to break a tradition?Before last weekend, I’d seen but never eaten a brandy snap, let alone made them, so it was definitely a learning experience all round! I was inspired to make them after seeing them on the Great British Bake Off and then thoroughly explained on a follow up programme, the Masterclass. The idea of crisp, caramelly biscuit filled with softly whipped cream definitely appealed so it wasn’t long before I started baking.I was nervous about making them but once you’ve started the process is fairly simple and repetitive so you can get a little system on the go. My mixture went very strange and not at all like what it was meant to be like – you’re meant to drop it off a teaspooon in to the baking tray whereas mine was pretty solid and had to be rolled into balls. However, I don’t think this affected the final product and was probably down to inaccurate liquid measuring because I think digital scales are really important in this recipe and I don’t have any – yet! Overall, despite the mishaps, I was pleased with how these turned out for my first time. I flavoured my whipped cream with Cointreau which worked really well with the crisp biscuit. Definitely a bit of a fancy biscuit – perhaps for a treat with coffee after a dinner party – but the taste is well worth it! You can watch the masterclass and get the recipe here – enjoy :)

10,000 Cupcakes

No, don’t worry, I haven’t been on a huge baking spree. 10,000 Cupcakes is the name of a brand new baking book by Susanna Tee that I was recently sent by Ivy Press.
The book is a flip book, with the pages split into three separate sections – a cupcake recipe, an icing recipe and an idea for how to decorate the cupcake. These pages are interchangeable so you can mix and match different flavours and eventually choose a page from each different section that you most like. There’s 23 ideas in each section ranging from the classic to a bit different. For the cupcakes it ranges from Lemon to Doughnut cupcakes, for the icing from Vanilla to Pineapple butter flavours. I chose to make the Apple and Almond Cupcakes with Penuche Frosting, decorated with Sprinkles.I chose to halve the recipe which I later half regretted as the results were so delicious we could have easily eaten a full batch very quickly! The recipes were easy to follow and created very moreish results. The cupcake was very soft and tender, almost muffin like with the involvement of the fruit. The Penuche icing was not a flavour I’d heard of before which was why I wanted to try it. I learnt that penuche is a type of fudge, so this icing just involved melting together butter and brown sugar and then beating in icing sugar. It was thick and very sweet and I thought worked nicely with the apple base – the finished products were like toffee apple flavours in cake form! I chose simple sprinkles for decoration but there were lots of ideas in the book, from lavender sprigs to crushed cookies to crystallized rose petals.I think this book would be a great gift because it is fun and light hearted but the recipes are still interesting and actually work. I also think it’s good for inspiration, mixing new flavours or ideas and creating something unique. I think the book would benefit from real pictures of the food as there’s only one at the very start, but the cartoons are still fun. Plus, as the title suggests, there are 10,000 ways to combine all the different ideas so it’ll keep you busy for a while! Ivy Press have kindly agreed to give away another copy of this lovely little book – all you have to do is comment on this post by the 7th October saying you’d like a copy and I'll pick a winner with a random number generator! Good Luck everybody!
Book credits:
10,000 Cupcakes
Susanna Tee
ISBN: 978-1-907332-85-2
Price: £9.99
The Ivy Press
www.ivypress.co.uk
Also, do go and ‘like’ the Ivy Press Facebook page here for information and fun videos on the books they publish.

Disclaimer: Ivy Press sent me this book for free but all opinions and words are my own.

Plum Frangipane Tart

I love making tarts. The whole system just seems to fit together well – the pastry making, the making of the filling whilst the pastry is in the fridge, the making of any topping whilst the first part is in the oven. Tarts take a while and often have lots of different stages and bowls needed, but I find it quite therapeutic. I also like baking pastry blind – one of the first things I learnt to make was Lemon Meringue Pie with my sister and the pastry was always my job. However, this tart was completely new to me in that it skipped that step altogether.I always presumed that you always needed to blind bake a pastry case before the filling went in. Logistically, I just figured that pouring a wet filling onto raw pastry would equal disaster and ‘soggy bottoms’. Whilst this is true for many tarts, not so with this one! The pastry is rolled out and shaped exactly to the tin (there’s also no need to leave excess pastry on in case of shrinkage with this recipe) and then on goes the frangipane filling. Top that with slices of raw plums, pop in the oven and thirty minutes later a delicious tart is cooling and awaiting plates and forks! The almond filling for this tart stays rather soft and does not fully set into a sponge. This contrasts nicely with the crisp pastry – the pastry was crisper then any I have made before, even without blind baking! Depending on which plum variety you use, the fruit can add extra sweetness or a bit of sharpness on top. The recipe is an Angela Hartnett, and she suggests making the recipe into mini tarts. Whilst I know these would look really pretty, I wanted to keep this one large tart so that I could cut a little sliver every time I went past ;) Hope you enjoy!

Cheese and Onion Tear and Share Bread

I love a good foodie television show. There’s Masterchef – tears and shouty John and Gregg (who’s restaurant I did work experience at last year!). There’s Nigella’s series – fairy lights, dressing gowns and ‘cookie crumbs tumbling like Mexican mud’…There’s Nigel Slater and his gorgeous garden, Simon Hopkinson with slow-mo falling egg graphics or Sophie Dahl’s series where she cooks and reads poetry. Currently, there is The Great British Bake Off – which the week before last featured this delicious bread.Each week of the Bake Off is themed – and so this obviously came from Bread week, a challenging one that I know I would have found really hard. One of the contestants Jason, an 18 year old baker from Croydon, made this and after watching I couldn’t get it out of my mind. Melting cheese, soft bread and a crunchy top plus the onions in the mix – what’s not to like? Happily, the recipe is featured in the new book to go along with the show, and the next day another yeast adventure was going on in my kitchen. As I’m still very much a bread and yeast novice, this took me ages to make. It was an enjoyable process, just long because rolling, stuffing (with two fillings) and folding nineteen balls of bread dough is not going to be a quick process. Add in three sets of rising times and in turned into quite a days baking but the end result was worth it, and could have been even more so had I got it perfect. The problem was I placed all the nineteen dough balls too far apart before they went in the oven so they didn’t join together to properly make a tear and share bread. This meant they were a bit drier then would have been nice and so went stale faster. I had some straight out the oven when the cheese inside was still melting and warm and it was delicious! Sadly one person cannot eat 19 rolls very quickly :( Still, I would recommend the recipe as I think this could be irresistible if done properly! There are a couple more recipes from the Bake Off book that I want to make, so hopefully I’ll get a chance to do them soon. Enjoy :)

Apple Shortcake

Sometimes the old ones are the best ones. Old friends. Old jumpers completely soft from so many washes. Old jokes and old memories. Old films. Old recipes!This apple shortcake is a recipe from my Granny, which she had printed in a WI cookery book years ago. It was one of my Dad’s favourites when he was little – he even had it instead of a birthday cake one year. It is super simple to make, and a very good way of getting rid of a glut of apples from an apple tree. The shortcake is made of two thick layers of shortbread – so they go almost cakey in the middle – with a layer of sliced apple in the middle. Easy!The cake is very moreish and perfect for afternoon tea because it isn’t really heavy or rich like a big slice of layered cake. My Mum and I considered adding a drizzle of icing on top but it really doesn’t need it because you don’t really ice shortbread and the simple caster sugar topping works just deliciously :) I’ve got the original instructions below, but for the shortbread you can just bung all the ingredients in a food processer and pulse until they begin to come together. Also, be generous with the apple because I only used one but I think it was more medium than large and I could have used more. Hope you enjoy!
Apple Shortcake, from my Granny
Ingredients: 6oz plain flour
3oz ground rice
6oz margarine
3oz caster sugar
1 large/2 medium cooking apples, peeled and cored
Method: 1. Sieve together the flour and ground rice. Rub in the margarine and add the sugar.
2. Knead and press the mixture until it forms a smooth ball leaving the bowl clean.
3. Roll out half to fit a lined 7in cake tin. Add thinly sliced apple. Add other half of the shortbread.
4. Cook for 30-40mins at 160’C. Remove from the oven and scatter generously with caster sugar when cooled.

Mini Pork Pies

I just don't get the jelly in pork pies.

The pork sausagemeat: obviously, yes, delicious. The pastry: thick, crunchy, preferably in generous amounts.The hard boiled egg: technically we're talking a Gala pie now but still very much acceptable and welcomed. The jelly? No. Not a fan. A strange added layer squeezed between the pork and pastry which I find slimy and tasteless and annoyingly time consuming to remove. Hence why I got rather excited when I saw Lorraine Pascale’s Pork Pies with Cider recipe – due to its total lack of jelly.I’m sure that to a lot of people a jelly free pork pie seems like sacrilege (and a jelly-free pork pie with a quails egg in the middle even more so) but stick with it. These are delicious. I made these with my friend E. (my fellow foodie friend and a savoury cooking genius) on a bake day. We had an immense day and have another day planned – involving duck dumplings! We didn’t have any cider for the pork pies so we used apple juice which worked very well as you could taste the sweetness this brought and made the meat mixture extra juicy. These were mini pies, so they were a bit time consuming to make, but really enjoyable and strangely relaxing! It was our first time making hot water pastry and although we found the bright white lard a bit strange, the pastry was very easy to work with. I’d also never used or even tried a quails egg before – they are so adorable!The end results were delicious. Whilst the recipe states it makes 8 pies, we ended up with 12 – a happy bonus. They would be perfect for a picnic or a delicious summer lunch with salad. The pies got our imaginations going and we are looking forward to making more variations on pork pies – spiced ones, herby ones, a large one in a loaf tin with a whole line of full eggs. So, maybe I just haven't tried a good enough jelly-included-pork pie yet. Perhaps it is a taste that grows with age. Until then, I'm more than happy eating these little guys instead. Enjoy!

Strawberry and Passion Fruit Meringue Roulade

So I’m back from my holiday! Whilst I recover from jet lag and organise my photos, here is a post I wrote earlier (Blue Peter styley). A few weeks ago, on a rare sunny London summers day, my Mum and I visited Books for Cooks in Portobello Market. Books for Cooks is – as the name just about suggests ;) – a bookshop containing pretty much every cookery book you could imagine. Sweet and savoury, old and new, American authors and English authors, books for every country’s cuisine. But not only is it a fabulous place to browse and discover new gorgeous books (whilst trying not to buy everything you see) the shop also has a tiny restaurant at the back. From Tuesday to Saturday the resident chef chooses a three course menu from different books in the shop. You don’t know what will be served until you get there and you have to turn up early in order to bag a highly coveted seat. The day I went, the menu was this… The trip really gave me a chance to try new things that from a bigger menu it is unlikely I would choose. The soup was amazing. I’d never tried prawns and still found their texture a bit strange for me, but the actual soup broth was so unbelievably full of flavour. There was garlic, lemongrass, chilli, tomato, kaffir lime leaves, all manner of different sauces – it was incredible! I’m gutted I was too busy eating to photograph it. Next came the chicken – again delicious, bursting with flavour and different to what I normally eat. Then, the puddings. There were four cakes to choose from: Chocolate Caramel Pecan Cake, Elderflower and Lemon Cake, Raspberry and Almond Cake or Mango and Passion fruit Roulade. I went for the roulade and, yet again, was not disappointed. The meringue was crisp on the outside and marshmallowy on the outside and there was plenty of bright fresh fruit tucked inside. The best lunch I have had and will have in a long time!  Once home, I knew I wanted to recreate the pudding. I also want to attempt the fabulous soup – but am nervous it just won’t live up to the Books for Cooks version! I swapped the mango for strawberries because whilst I love mango I wanted to take advantage of some fresh English produce. On the way home from Portobello Market we passed a grocer selling large bowls of 12 passion fruit for just £1 – bargain! This meant I could be much more liberal with the number of passion fruit I used in the roulade which was great as I adore their sweet scent and tropical flavour (I think in the end I used 8-9). Meringue is so easy to make that I’ve vowed never to let a spare egg white go to waste again. Whilst the actual rolling of the roulade was a little tense, the finished product was delicious. I used this recipe, but used all cream (not cream and yoghurt) and added passion fruit. Enjoy!

Gone to the beach!

I'm currently on holiday in America, hence why the blog has gone quiet. I'm having an amazing time - beautiful places, great weather, scrumptious food and lots of family time. America is so different to London - and England generally - so everything is really interesting for me here. I look forward to sharing the pictures and stories of my travels with you all when I get back! Until then - Happy summer holidays! :)

White Chocolate & Raspberry Cookies

I wrote quite a deep, honest starting paragraph for this post. Then I looked at it and figured – this post is about a cookie. An almightily delicious and irresistible cookie yes, but a cookie nonetheless. So whilst there maybe a time for deep opening up, today I’m keeping it simple (I have a very delicious post coming up towards the end of the week) and just saying: you really must make these cookies.I don’t know how I originally came across this recipe as it is, rather embarrassingly, from the Carnation website. I have had the recipe saved for ages and every time I checked my ever growing list of links stored in my Recipes to Try file I’d remember them and remind myself to make them. Then I would promptly forget. Until one very rainy day last week when I got a huge craving for these – so much so that I was willing to go out in the rain to buy condensed milk, the key ingredient for these cookies as it ensures their really soft centres.These are rich – because of the sweet melting white chocolate and the rich dough – but that doesn’t stop them being moreish. Plus, the raspberries are nicely tart and if it’s pouring with rain in the middle of July then who doesn’t deserve a delicious cookie?! Or three. The actual dough was very quick to make but the repetitive process of making all the balls of dough, flattening them and adding the halved raspberries does take a little time. Beware – these cookie spread a lot. For my first batch (luckily only four or five) I made normal sized little balls of dough and the cookies turned out huge: over saucer sized. The recipe makes a lot but that really will not be a problem because like I say, they are very addictive. There will be fights over who gets the biggest one, trust me! Enjoy :)