Salted Caramel and Ginger Cake

When I find a food I like, I tend to temporarily lose all willpower over it. The most recent case, as previously discussed, was mini eggs – an addiction only stopped because they stopped being sold at the end of the Easter season. Previous fads have been varied – bourbons, greek salads for lunch, toasted pittas. I’ll eat it every day for a week, my Mum will stock up on supplies, and then suddenly I’ll be over it and on to the next thing. I’m always impressed by people who can hold back over something they clearly love – my Granny is one of these people. We always have great afternoon teas with several cakes (the most recent felt like a fun wedding cake tasting as we worked our way through 3 different cakes) but whilst I’ll happily accept seconds, she always has more restraint. Therefore, it was a sign of just how good this cake was when she not only asked for the recipe, but had a second piece!To be honest, it was a slight miracle that this cake worked. That most simple piece of advice given to anyone starting cooking – read the recipe carefully before you start – continues to occasionally evade me. Hence why this cake had double the amount of caramel inside that it was meant to. Whoops! Turns out I was supposed to put half my caramel sauce in the cake and save half for the top, whereas I just merrily stirred it all straight into the cake. I was really surprised that the extra 100ml of sauce didn’t disrupt the cakes texture but the result was soft and delicious, with a texture similar to gingerbread. If I made this cake again I would repeat my mistake! The spicy ginger pieces ensure it isn’t too sweet I hadn’t used crystallised ginger before (only ever the candied ginger in jars) and I loved it and had to stop myself snacking on it out straight out of the tub. You can find the recipe here so you can try it both caramel ways – enjoy!

Rhubarb and Stem Ginger Pie

I never make pies. In total I’ve only made 6 pies on here in nearly 6 years of blogging – terrible odds considering I normally love anything involving pastry. The last full size pie I made on here was way back in 2011 – the classic apple pie. I’m not sure why I’ve been avoiding them but it was clearly time to change. This may be cheating a little, as it is only a single crust, but it was so delicious I don’t think anyone was complaining. Rhubarb is one of my favourite fruits, and rhubarb and ginger are a classic combination so I knew this would be good. Opinions were divided in my house over the stem ginger in the pastry. I liked the spice it added to the pie, but the texture was maybe a bit strange, so to compromise you could easily just stick with ground ginger to provide a bit of heat. With a splash of crème anglaise (always practicing for school) I was sold and the pie did not last very long in my house. It was also easily adaptable – I had slightly less rhubarb and so made a smaller pie and used the spare pastry to make little ginger biscuits to keep us going while the pie baked. You can find the recipe here – enjoy!

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…

Sticky Rhubarb and Ginger Cake

I may have left this post and recipe a little late in the rhubarb season now (not helped by Blogger’s breakdown the last few days), but this cake was so good and rhubarb itself is one of my favourite fruits so I could not let the whole season go by without a rhubarb post. Last year, it was this totally irresistible tart, this year it’s a totally irresistible cake.The cake came from the little book Jamie Oliver released to raise money for Red Nose Day and this recipe caught my eye immediately. Although we are now used to having raspberries, mangoes and strawberries available pretty much all year round as they are imported from abroad, rhubarb remains a fruit available just during its fairly short season – and even then it can be tricky to find. Personally, I love rhubarb. It’s got a gorgeous bright pink colour, it’s tart, its different and above all, it’s delicious!When we’re in Suffolk, the garden has a large rhubarb patch and so I was able to use our very own fruit for this cake. I wanted to make as much use of it as possible and so doubled the given amount in the recipe. I also stirred some through the cake mixture instead of just laying it over the top – and whilst these changes were good, I felt that the cake could still hold even more rhubarb! The cake turned out interesting though – I was not a fan straight out of the oven, but the day after baking it I loved it. Meanwhile, my Mum was the exact opposite – preferring it warm out the oven and not the next day. I’m not sure why this was, but basically if you don’t like this the first day then be patient.The cake contains dark brown sugar and golden syrup, so the sponge is deep and caramelly in flavour. The little specks of ginger dotted throughout add a welcome touch of heat ad change of texture to the cake without being overpowering. The rhubarb syrup saved from cooking the rhubarb is divine but worth pouring all over the cake to stock it full of flavour. All in all, a very interesting, tasty and perfect spring time bake. You can find the recipe (with the original amount of rhubarb) here.

Marmalade Ginger Cream Cookies

I love sandwich cookies. My sister states that they are useless but I strongly disagree. Instead of taking one cookie, you get two at once. It gives you a cheeky chance to eat far more cookies than it looks like plus you get the bonus of a silky sweet filling the middle. What’s not to love?I recently made some disappointing ginger cookies using a sub-standard recipe. They turned out strangely smooth and powdery, lacking in flavour. But I hate it when something goes wrong so was determined to improve on the situation. Thankfully, these cookies provided the perfect solution. They’re chewy and textured from the oats and chunky marmalade, softened only slightly from the creamy filling speckled with stem ginger. A proper mouthful, a proper cookie, properly delicious. If I were to make these again, I would further enhance their chunky, chewy goodness – adding sultanas or coconut. However they were scrumptious as they were, and the absence of those other flavours let the ginger shine through. The buttercream was unusual to me, as it had cream added to the regular butter and icing sugar. This definitely showed in the end result and was good for added silky smoothness to finish off all that crunch of cookie. I love stem ginger, and the spiciness of the ginger chunks in the icing were perfect sparks of flavour. The final good thing about these cookies – a totally simple recipe. Enjoy!

Marmalade and Ginger Cream Cookies, from Sainsbury’s Magazine

Makes about 14

Ingredients: 50g soft unsalted butter
50g caster sugar
50g light brown soft sugar
finely grated zest of one orange
1 large egg yolk
50g thick-cut marmalade
50g plain flour
1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
150g rolled oats
For the ginger cream filling: 250g icing sugar, sifted
75ml double cream
50g soft unsalted butter
75g stem ginger in syrup, drained and shredded

1. Preheat the oven to 170’C/fan 150’C, gas 3. Beat the butter, caster sugar, brown sugar, orange zest and egg yolk until smooth then beat in the marmalade. Mix in the flour and bicarbonate of soda, then stir in the oats.

2. Place rounded teaspoon-sized balls of dough onto three lined baking sheets, spaced 5cm apart, then flatten slightly. Bake for 12-15minutes until just coloured at the edges. Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack until cold.

3. Beat the icing sugar, cream and butter until smooth then stir in the stem ginger. With a knife, spread a generous amount on the base of a biscuit then stick the bottom half of another biscuit to form a sandwich. Repeat with all biscuits.

Gingerbread House

For a good couple of years now, my family has intended to make a gingerbread house. We have seen the kits and finished products, the pretty snow-icing and sweetie decorations. Every year, “we should really make one of those”. Every year, we somehow don’t get round to it. Not anymore!
This is my little gingerbread house! I was nervous about making it, hearing recipe stories about collapses and breakages but thankfully none were had with my gingerbread baby! My sister and I built and decorated it carefully, and the sturdy biscuit survived a trip from London to Suffolk and back again. These houses are so much fun to decorate as you can truly let your imagination run because every house is an individual creation.
This turned out to be a very fun Christmas bake. My own house was filled with gorgeous gingerbread scents and then in the corner sat this cheery and colourful gingerbread cottage. So cute!

Next year I will be definitely making a gingerbread house again, and would like to experiment with it more. I’d like to try melting boiled sweets for windows, cutting out doors, making a different shape (tall and thin or a long gingerbread bungalow), stringing fairy lights in the inside – so much! Perhaps this will take a couple of Christmasses…
The Daring Bakers December challenge was a gingerbread house so no doubt you have seen many many creations these last few weeks! But if you still want to see more (they are all so beautiful!) click here. I used this gingerbread house recipe, which is apparently best for shaping and creating not eating – but it didn’t stop me and it tasted delicious! Also, with this recipe you get a LOT of leftover dough. I think you could freeze it for cookies another time, but I just created a whole forest of snowy trees and a family of groovy people to surround the house. Hope you all had a wonderful New Year – Venice photos coming soon. X

Sticky Ginger Cake

One of my teachers, Miss B, knows I love cooking and was proud to tell me that over the summer she had won six prizes for her baking. One of those award winning recipes, was this ginger cake.

After tasting a slice of her loaf, I knew I wanted to bake it, so I asked “is this your secret recipe?” Thankfully she replied no, it was from the Tesco website. And so, it was made and enjoyed. Twice :)

This cake is quite simple to bake, you’d think, all though the first time I made it, it was slightly undercooked. Whilst this didn’t stop us from liking and eating it, it was certainly better the second time! This loaf cake is the sort of bake that gets better (ie stickier!) after a week or so: but in our family this is unlikely to happen! It turned out moist and sticky, with a lovely warmth from the spices (I upped the amount of ginger and added cinnamon for more depth). Its also the sort of cake which you cut, eat and walk away from, just to want to go back for more. Its sturdiness makes it brilliant for picnics too! Now, after that effusive list of positives I’m just left to say: its pretty much an all rounder cake – enjoyed by everyone, its deservedly award winning, and just generally delicious :)

Gingerbread Women

Hmmph. It seems my scheduled posting didn’t happen, so my Easter post did not post itself whilst I was away. Ah well, lets just say I hope everyone had a lovely Easter and I enjoyed seeing everyone else’s Easter bakes. Moving on..
So often we end up baking or even eating things which don’t give us that thrill or make you smile when you pick it up from the plate. You may cook for your family, making their favourite dishes, and not for you. Or work at a restaurant producing so many of the same dish the fun eventually fades from it, or you are cooking multi-component but soul less desserts from the same menu day in, day out. Baking, for me, should ALWAYS be about relaxing and having fun in the kitchen making all our favourite treats. Sure, sometimes a big experiment with fancy new techniques and billions of dishes and ingredients make you feel extremely proud and satisfied at the end, but not always. Sometimes we want something a bit simpler, something just to make us happy or evoke happy memories in your mind! So next time you are in the kitchen why not make a bunch of cookies that smile back at you from the baking sheet…

Or hold hands together….
Or even reach out and wave at you..
Some gorgeous gingerbread women for instance!(Yes, its a feminine bunch: I couldn’t find my man cutter). Ok, so gingerbread is mainly thought of as a Christmas flavour but I was flicking through a cookbook trying to find something quick to bake and these just jumped out at me :) Soft gingery biscuit and the chewy raisins and sultanas make for a blissful munch !
A few years ago, it was a Saturday morning and my parents were trying to persuade me to get the weekend papers for them and I was steadfastly refusing! The shop is only at the top of the road so I’m not too sure why but thats 11year olds for you :) In the end I got them to agree to a compromise: I would go as long as I got an extra 50p for a breakfast treat from the bakery. Deal! And so began my love for the gingerbread women.
The recipe I used comes from the sole cookbook my Daddy is proud to call his own: The Good Housekeeping Cookery Book. He probably cooked all his meals from it before he met my Mummy! Its actually very good and I have never cooked from it before these. So, if your kitchen baking needs a smile: here’s the recipe!
Gingerbread Men (/Women) from the Good Housekeeping Cookery Book.
Ingredients: 350g (12oz) plain flour
5ml (1 level tsp) bicarbonate of soda
10ml (2 level tsp) ground ginger
100g (4oz) butter
175g (6oz) soft light brown sugar
60ml (4level tbsp) golden syrup
1 egg, beaten
currants, to decorate
1. Grease three baking sheets. Preheat the oven to 190’C (375’F).
2. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ginger into a bowl. Rub the butter into this until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar.
3. Beat the syrup into the egg and stir into the bowl. Mix to form a dough and knead until smooth.
4. Divide into two and roll out on a lightly floured surface to about 0.5cm (1/4inch) thick. Using a gingerbread man cutter cut out figures and place them gingerly (HA!) on the baking sheet. Decorate with currants.
5. Bake in the oven for 6-12 minutes until golden. Cool slightly then place on a wire rack.

Gypsy Creams

“I drizzled dark chocolate from a height so it set into crisp lines over the craggy surface. Behold, a biscuit of great, great joy!”
Nigel Slater

Ahh, the fabulous words of Nigel Slater! Since my post where I mentioned how I seemed to be baking through the biscuit tin, it has become my mini mission! I was going away for the weekend last weekend, and I wanted something simple which I could bake there as the kitchen is much smaller there. These little biscuits were in the latest Sainsbury's Magazine (so go along and get it!) and seemed just the ticket.
Before sandwiching, these are the humble gingernut. Afterwards, they are glorious crispy gypsy creams! The ginger biscuit itself has a lovely sandy texture, but still with a good crunch on the outside. Combined with the chocolate and coffee buttercream filling these were super! Sometimes buttercream is too sickly, but I think the coffee countered it well. In his article, Nigel Slater mentions how he tried dipping the whole biscuit in melted chocolate but that “good cooking is about knowing when to stop” and “it turned out to be too much of a good thing”. I can see why that would be, but totally agree that the sharp drizzle of dark chocolate over the top adds an extra something special (and it really should be dark chocolate, milk would be too sickly). One note: I chose not to level off the ginger, knowing I would want a stronger taste. However if you were going to do them minus the filling (which you could as they would be equally delicious) I would stump it up even more. Now, what next…chocolate bourbons? Enjoy!
Chocolate gypsy creams
Makes 12-14
For the Biscuits:
125g butter
125g golden caster sugar
1tbsp golden syrup
1 large egg yolk
175g plain flour
1tsp ground ginger
50g dark chocolate
Filling:

75g butter
100g icing sugar
1tbsp cocoa powder
1tbsp strong coffee
1. Preheat the oven to 160’C/Gas Mark 3. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in the syrup and egg yolk.
2. Sift the flour, baking powder and ginger together and stir gently into the butter and sugar. Bring together to form a dough.
3. Remove heaped teaspoons of the dough, roll them lightly into balls then put them on nonstick baking sheets. Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden. Leave to cool slightly before transferring to a wire rack.
4. To make the filling, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the cocoa and coffee before using to sandwich the biscuits together.
5. Break the chocolate into small pieces and melt in a small bowl over a pan of simmering water. When the chocolate has melted, push all the filled biscuits up close together on the wire rack, then, using a teaspoon, drizzle the chocolate over them in thin lines. Leave until the chocolate has set.

Lemon Ice Cream Tart

So today is the 26th December – otherwise known as Boxing Day, in my view the sad day after Christmas when all the excitement and waiting is over. But, it is definitely not all bad – now I have lots of nice new things to enjoy and lots of delicious food to finish off..what a hardship.. :) . Yesterday I had the great pleasure in receiving some things which will no doubt be featuring on here very soon…doughnuts anyone??

I hope everyone had a thoroughly enjoyable day yesterday and spent it just how you like to. For me it was church, followed by my Granny and Uncle David coming round, getting the lunch ready, present time!!! and then the most important meal of the year – Christmas lunch! We had a fantastically delicious traditional meal – thankyou Mummy :) For pudding, we served Christmas pudding and (finally I mention it!) this gorgeous tart.

We served it a few night before Christmas to some other friends and it went down very well, but we still had half left. Some of the people at lunch yesterday (me included) are not such fans of Christmas pud, so we had this instead. It goes a long way! It does have quite a bit of alcohol in but hey, its Christmas and it tastes yummy. It does make a lot, as I say, so it is perfect at big celebrations. It is also good for Christmas because it does not go in the oven, which is good as the oven will probably be busy with all the rest of the Christmas lunch. Also, it can be made far in advance so doesn't need to be hurriedly done on the day of the celebration. I think our lemons were quite small, as in the end we added the juice and zest of four rather than two, and perhaps it could have had even more lemony taste. Or if you prefer, you could I suppose reduce some of the alcohol. I really liked the ginger nut crust and think it is much more interesting (for this tart) then a plain digestive one, because it adds a sharp extra element.

Lemon ice cream tart with ginger nut crust, from Kitchen Diaries by Nigel Slater

120g butter

400g ginger biscuits

For the filling:

150ml white wine

2tbsp marsala

grated zest and juice of 2 lemons

grated zest of an orange

4tbsp caster sugar

500ml double cream

1. You will need a loose bottomed tart tin with a diameter of about 21cm. Line the base of the tart tin with a single piece of greaseproof paper.
2. Melt the butter in a small pan. Crush the biscuits in a food processor or bash them in a plastic bag. You want them to be a coarse powder.
3. Stir the biscuits into the butter. Line the base of the tin with the buttered crumbs, pushing far up the edges. Put the crumb lined tin in the freezer.
4. Pour the wine into the bowl of a food mixer. Add the Marsala and the grated zest of the lemons and orange. Squeeze the lemons and add the juice.
5. Add the sugar and cream to the wine and zest mixture, then beat slowly until thick. The consistency needs to be soft and thick, so that it lies in voluptuous folds rather than standing in stiff peaks.
6. Scrape the mixture into the crumb lined tin and freeze for at least four hours. Remove from the freezer 15-20 mins before you intend to serve it.

Of course, now that Christmas is over, it means so is my Advent Series. It was not.. ahem…successful, and I, for all manner of reasons, did not quite manage to post every day.. hehe. But I did enjoy doing it and I think I posted more than I normally do, which was fun. Perhaps posting everyday was a little ambitious for me – and I have renewed admiration for those that do this, such as Marie! I hope you enjoyed what I did do!

x

Its never to early..

To be festive!

I saw this cake in the Observer Food Monthly magazine (it is a Nigel Slater recipe) and made it because I am feeling extremely excited about Christmas and this looked like a perfect early festive cake!

The cake smelt amazing whilst cooking because of the cinnamon and ginger, and looks lovely once its done. It only took 25 minutes to cook and I had the oven on quite low. Finally I spread the large amount of big pillowy Clementine icing on top and it was perfect! Once I had the icing on I popped it all in the fridge so the icing could set a bit and make it a bit easier to cut.

(My cake ingredients waiting to be turned into something delicious!)

A note about this icing: in the recipe it said 300ml of cream cheese, and of course on the cream cheese tub it is measured in grams. I put the whole tub of 200g of Philadelphia in and I was happy, but you might need more if you want it even thicker or less if you prefer it thinner.

I made quite a few substitutions in this recipe, not because I didn't think they would work but simply because I didn’t have the ingredients in. The main one was not including the diced ginger or ginger syrup. This made the cinnamon more prominent – not a bad thing in my eyes (or taste buds!) Then I used plain brown sugar instead of muscovado, which meant the cake wasn’t such a dark treacly colour. Finally, I used raisins instead of sultanas!

Maybe in future I would try with the ginger syrup etc. to get a much stronger ginger taste, or even go the other way and add extra clementine to the cake itself to make it extra fruity. Parts of the method for making this cake were similar to my last recipe. One last complaint is it uses lots of bowls, mixers, saucepans and spoons! Here is the link to the recipe for the cake! :)

(The finished cake, with the zest of one more clementine on top!)