Easter Currant Biscuits

I don’t have a very good track record of themed baking. Christmas I can cope with, as it’s basically stretched over a whole month and padded out by lots of days off. Other than that, I’m never good at remembering to bake for specific occasions – Halloween, St Patricks Day, Shrove Tuesday and Valentines Day (aside from the odd brownie) all come and go every year before I’ve had a chance to get the scales out. I wanted this Easter to be different so this post is the first of two fab Easter bakes!I didn’t know why currant biscuits are so tied in with Easter and the research I did gave several different suggestions – that they were given after Church on Easter Sunday in packages of 3 to represent the Holy Trinity, that the rich ingredients marked the end of Lent and fasting, that the tradition originated in the West Country – who knows! Recipes also differ with variations from county to county, so I stuck with Mary Berry. They turned out softer than I was imagining and slightly different to the crunchy Fruit Shortcakes you buy in shops but moreish and perfect with a cup of tea nonetheless. The only changes I made were to do half currants, half sultanas instead of all currants and I realised just after putting them in the oven that the zest of an orange would be a nice addition. You can find the recipe here (I only made the fruited half) – enjoy!`

Orange Lightning Cake

There seems to be a permanent trend and desire for super fast cooking. Jamie Oliver went from his 30 minute meals to just 15 minutes and magazines sell editions by emphasizing the fast and simple nature of recipes that are perfect for after work. Often, however, these recipes are hardly recipes at all, using pre cooked, chopped and garnished ingredients to get something tasty on the table fast. This cake is the best of both worlds: fits the speedy bill – hence it’s name – yet you end up with something delicious and all natural.I’ve seen lots of recipes for all-in-one whole orange cakes that involve boiling oranges for hours until soft and then whizzing to a smooth cake mixture. Today’s unusual cake goes one step further – simply quartering a whole, raw, unpeeled orange, taking out any pips and whizzing until smooth in a food processor followed by the rest of the ingredients. It feels quite strange, and a little bit wrong, but it works out so well! Whizzing up the fresh orange means the mixture and cooking cake smell amazing and the final cake has a great sunshiney orange colour.The little chunks of orange peel add a nice texture to the cake – just like candied peel but without all the added sugar! All in all I was a real fan of this cake – it’s one of those that you just keep cutting tiny slivers of until you realise rather a large proportion of the cake has now gone… You can find the recipe here (I left out the walnuts, keeping the delightfully soft and squidgy texture of the cake) – enjoy!

Spiced Apple Buns

These buns are the recipe I mentioned I was forced to put on hold due to the combination of a lack of ingredients + heavy snow = me not going outside. Normally I’d have just forgotten about the recipe and moved on to one of the many other tempting bakes in my cookbooks or recipe files, but something made me keep thinking about these. Then I was looking back through my archives and noticed that in January 2011 I posted these Stollen Swirls and in January 2010 I made Glazed Fruit Rolls – I clearly have a thing for yeasted rolls in January! It must be a combination of wanting to start the new year by challenging myself in baking including doing more work with yeast, and the more simple desire of something warm, doughy and carby to eat in the cold! Either way it was a clear sign and as soon as the pesky snow melted I was out making sure my cupboards were prepared for these.The recipe was an interesting twist from standard Cinnamon Rolls and I thought the combination of tart apple and super sweet marzipan alongside the rich bread dough would go down a treat. I was not proved wrong! When I was layering up the fillings onto my rolled out dough there seemed to be a heck of a lot of apple, marzipan and sultanas if I was planning to roll these up neatly. I decided just to add one large apple instead of two and whilst the buns were definitely quite full I think they would have benefited from the extra apple for more tartness as the apple chunks reduced in the oven quite drastically. Note to self: stick to the recipe! Having said that, I added a simple glace icing which I think added a good extra element.These are nicest warm out the oven, but even after a couple of days a few seconds in the microwave will easily restore them to this goodness. You can find the recipe here – enjoy!

Tropical Cupcakes

There is always a lot of citrus baking happening in January and February. There’s not a lot of fresh local fruit and vegetables around at this time of year, and after the excess of Christmas it’s time to turn away from chocolate (unless you’re making this, in which case I am rather envious). Also, when the weather is grey and cold the zing of citrus acts as a great pick-me-up. And when combined with rich buttercream and soft cupcake, citrus baking sounds pretty good to me.Depending on where you live, the flavours might not be tropical at all but pineapple, lime and cherries aren’t grown round London! I’ve only baked with pineapple once before but I loved the results here. The pineapple chunks are sweet and juicy and add fresh bursts of flavour as the cupcake is eaten. Lime is also not an ingredient I have regularly used but it’s sharpness stops the buttercream becoming sickly. This recipe was extremely easy to make – oil takes the place of butter in the cake so there is no creaming done and everything is simply stirred together in one bowl. The cake is also delicious without the buttercream, becoming more like a muffin and far less rich. I wanted these cupcakes to be bright and colourful so I used spotty cases and decorated them with Dr Oetker jelly beans and sprinkles, which made for a cheery kitchen! This vibrancy combined with the lime tang and juicy pineapple made these cupcakes a winner for me. Enjoy!Tropical Cupcakes
Makes 12-15, depending on your cupcake case size
Ingredients: 200g self raising flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
100g caster sugar
50g dried tropical fruit
3 medium eggs
100ml sunflower oil
75ml buttermilk (or 75ml milk and 1/2tsp white wine vinegar)
1 x 227g tin pineapple slices, chopped finely and fully drained
Buttercream: 200g icing sugar
100g butter
1 lime, the zest and juice
1. Preheat the oven to 190’C (170’C fan oven). Line a 12-hole muffin tin with cases, although you may need a few more if your cases are small like mine.
2. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda, caster sugar and dried fruit into a large bowl.
3. Put the eggs, oil and buttermilk into a jug and whisk until all combined.
4. Pour the egg mixture into the flour, and add the pineapple pieces. Stir everything together until combined and divide between the cupcakes cases – you can fill the cases quite high as the cakes do not rise hugely.
5. Bake for 15-20minutes until golden and risen slightly. Leave to cool completely on a wire rack.
6. For the buttercream: Whisk all the ingredients together until smooth and fully mixed. Either pipe or spoon the icing over the cupcakes, and decorate how you wish. :)

Back In The Kitchen

Today was my first time back baking in the kitchen since long before Christmas. It felt good to be back: creaming butter and sugar, weighing out flour, fetching the eggs and scales. Tying up my apron strings, switching on the oven. Dusting off the KitchenAid and examining the recipe. Manically charging my little pink camera so I can grab a decent photo before the light goes. I've definitely missed this. The recipe today had to be quick and easy, and sweet – because its January and a pick me up at 4pm is always necessary. This cake was definitely a good choice! It is a Date, Orange and Almond cake and combines the sweet softness of the dates with citrus zing and nutty background. Very moreish! 

The amounts of ingredients seemed worryingly large for this cake – 300g of butter anyone? – and I thought I would end up with a massive cake that my family wouldn’t be able to finish. However, whilst this cake is large, it isn’t as large as the mixture may originally seem, and stays incredibly moist for several days. The top and edges of this cake form a crunchy biscuit-style texture which makes a delicious contrast to the soft cake within. Oh, writing about this makes me feel I definitely need another slice….You can find the recipe here – enjoy!

Stollen Swirls

I made these before Christmas, and the post I’d written about them was pre-Christmas themed. That post never got posted and so new words had to be written. Except, why not keep it simple? It is New Year, a period when everybody is meant to be eating healthy salads and vegetables in order to get over festive excess (although who really does?). So, my main stollen point is: the swirls  were good, but I think could be a easily improved to make them so much better.  I’ve never attempted making the classic stollen before so I was eager to give it a go this year. This recipe was a little bit different and as I can never resist anything involving marzipan the baking began. The end result was tasty, they made the house smell gorgeous and the recipe worked perfectly. My key adaptation would be instead of forming a marzpian log down the centre of the swirls, roll it out into a thin layer on top of the dough and then add the fruit. This way, just like here, the marzipan would melt and go toffee-ish and impart its flavour across the whole swirl. Yum. I’d also up the fruit levels, and cut the rolls thinner so its less plain doughy. Failing that, I’d flavour the dough with spices like cinnamon to give this extra punch. Double Yum. You can find the recipe here, enjoy :)

Banana Cake

Bananas are a divisive fruit in my family. My Mum and I like them, my Dad and my sister don’t. When my sister was little, my Dad told her bananas were horrible and so she’s grown up not liking it. Be careful what you tell 3 year olds! Even at school, bananas get strong reactions. They seem to be like Marmite: you either love them or hate them. For this reason, we don’t have bananas much at home. With only two ‘eaters’ it seems a bit excessive to buy lots even before we get to the idea of baking with them. But, with my Mum’s friends coming round and my Dad away (and therefore unable to moan about the bananas) – an exception was made. This banana cake is sort of a jazzed up banana bread – the addition of some dried fruit and bright glace cherries makes it a little more luxurious than a bread. This cake also has a sweet honey glaze, giving your kitchen a bit of shine on a dull October afternoon. The recipe is an old favourite of my Mums, and is easy to make up. The key factor with this cake is really careful baking: my oven is quite hot and so after only 1hour out of the 1.5hours specified the cake was already slightly overdone. I’d start at 50 minutes and check it accordingly – as when it is still moist and slightly sticky. If I were to bake it again, I might use slightly riper bananas and up the sultana content to give it a punch more flavour :) Banana Cake (makes one 9x5x2inch loaf )
Ingredients: 225g (8oz) self raising flour
1tsp salt
100g (4oz) butter, cubed
175g (6oz) caster sugar
100g (4oz) sultanas/dried berries
100g (4oz) glace cherries, halved
2 large eggs
500g ripe bananas
50g honey (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 180’C/350’F/Gas Mark 4 and line your loaf tin with a strip of parchment paper.
2. Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl. Add the butter and rub into the flour until crumbly/pea-sized pieces. Add the sugar, sultanas/dried fruit and cherries and create a hollow in the centre of the mixture.
3. Crack the eggs into the hollow. In a separate bowl, mash the bananas with a fork, or whizz in a food processor, until fairly smooth. Add the banana to the flour hollow.
4. Fold the mixture all together into a smooth cake mix, and pour into the prepared tin.
5. Bake in the centre of the oven for 50mins, then check. The top should be golden and a skewer should come out mainly clean (provided you didn’t go through a sultana). It may need up to 1hour15mins, depending on your oven.
6. Melt your honey in a small bowl. Using a pastry brush, spread over the top of the cooled cake. Cut generous slices!

Carrot Cake

Everybody’s tastes are slightly different. When you Google “chocolate chip cookie” you will get hundreds of thousands of results. Everyone has their own recipe for what they call the best chocolate chip cookie or ultimate brownie, and spend a life time tweaking it to perfection. But its not only chocolate cookies and brownies – the perfect carrot cake is a recipe I’ve been searching for for a long time. I’ve previously tried ‘perfect’ recipes which turned out too eggy, too oily, cakes where the sultanas/ cinnamon/ pineapple overpower the decent carrot flavour. But now, I feel I’m maybe getting closer. The recipe came from Nigel Slater’s new vegetable book, Tender and is apparently a recipe he is constantly asked for. Even in a book based purely around vegetables I will find a sweet recipe! The layers of cake baked up quite small and crunchy round the edges, so the icing complemented it perfectly. Although Nigel Slaters’ recipe was a mix of mascarpone and cream cheese I went full cream cheese and pumped it full of orange flavour.  I’m not going to say that this is the best carrot cake you will ever find because I’m sure it can be improved. But it is soft and decadent, it is full of different flavours that benefit each other and it is a good all-round treat. Give it a go!

Kentish Apple Cake

A lot of the time these days, emphasis is put on how bad the need for speed is. There are two sides to the story: people who want things done super quickly, and those who just want everyone to slow down and relax. This cake happily bridges the gap between both ideas. This cake is a pure snap to make – just mix all the ingredients in one bowl and bake. I normally get nervous when something gets the label ‘idiot proof’ (if I muck it up, what does that make me?!) but this cake really does deserve this title. So that’s the part that makes need-for-speed people happy. Once its baked, that’s when you take your time. Slowly enjoy each bite of a generous slice served with another generous ‘dollop’ of Greek yoghurt. Sit, breathe, eat, enjoy. And that’s the slow-down-and-relax people happy. This cinnamon-apple cake will fill your house with the most tempting of smells whilst it bakes – so this is worth it for the smell alone. This cake is one of those that is perfect to make for “when people ring and announce they are coming over”. It uses general ingredients that are pretty much always at home, is quick and as above looks, smells and tastes gorgeous (and also has no butter involved). It has a very soft and moist texture, dotted with the sweet bursts of sultanas and finished with the crunchy demerara topping. Yum. Kentish Apple Cake, my Mum’s recipe (originally from The Telegraph)

Ingredients: 225g self-raising flour
pinch of salt
2tsp ground mixed spice or cinnamon
255g light brown soft sugar
4 eggs, lightly beaten
200ml sunflower oil
310g apples, cored and diced (roughly 3 apples)
100g sultanas
Demerara sugar

Method: 1. Sieve the flour, salt and spices into a bowl and then stir in the sugar.

2. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and add the eggs and the oil.

3. Mix until completely smooth and then add the apple and sultanas. Spoon into a lightly greased 30x20cm tin and sprinkle with sugar.

4. Bake at 180’C (Gas Mark 4) for 25-30 minutes until risen and golden.

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.

Lemon & Sultana Cookies

******UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE******

As I wrote my post late last night, ditsy old me forgot to mention I am submitting these to Sticky Gooey Creamy Chewy as part of her 1st Blogoversary Bash! Go there now to submit your favourite party food, and Happy 1st Blogoversary!!

******UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE******

Sorry for the lack of posts – I was busy trying to celebrate my last week of freedom before school started! But today the inevitable happened and I went back to school to Y9 (I still feel like a Y7!), to a new form, new timetable and new teachers. It is a shock to the system after 6 weeks of getting up at 9am, staying in my pyjamas until 10am then either meeting up with someone or most days just reading etc so my most active thing was a spot of baking! I will try to keep posting regularly as school calms down as I really enjoy writing this blog, receiving your comments and cooking in the brand new kitchen (more another time). Meanwhile I have still been reading all your blogs and your recipes which made me feel slightly guilty!

Today after I got home and explained to my Mum everything about school she told me she had found a recipe for me to make! The other day I did make a chocolate cake and although it was tasty it wasn’t very photogenic or interesting to post. Also, I know I mentioned I would be making something savoury but the idea was Cheese Scones because they are one of his favourite things but he is in Canada for work at the moment so I will make them when he is back! For now though, its cookie time!

At my house we get loads of food magazines – Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Olive and BBC Good Food all come through our door and are read cover to cover by me and my Mum. Sometimes, well every Olive issue, a small book comes free with the main magazine such as “30 Menus for 4” or “The Little Book of Soups” etc! Or a really good one comes through like this...

Who could resist a book called 52 Cakes, Bakes and Chocolate! It came with BBC Good Food a couple of years ago, I think around 2006 and I am surprised we haven’t baked from it more. My sister has made the chocolate and orange cookies a couple of times which were delicious but other than that I don’t think anything else has been produced. From now on (after two great cookie successes) there shall be more things coming from this book (I have my eye on some almond surprise cookies) and it is a real shame it isn’t available in the shops – although there is one called 101 Cakes and Bakes which may share some recipes but I haven’t got.

Easy to make and an absolute winner for me as I adore lemon curd – its delicious over decent vanilla ice cream, crushed meringue and sliced strawberries, a real taste of summer! – and anything lemon! The sultana’s make the cookies nice and chewy. Here’s the recipe which I shall be using again:

Lemon and Sultana Cookies, from BBC Good Food 52 Cakes, Bakes and Chocolate
Makes 30
350g/12oz plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
140g/5oz butter, cut into small squares
175g/6oz caster sugar
85g/3oz sultanas
100g/4oz lemon curd
2 eggs, beaten
ICING: 100g/4oz sifted icing sugar (or serious elbow work if not sifting!)
2tbsp fresh lemon juice ( I just used the juice of a whole lemon!)

1. Heat oven to 200’C/fan 180C/gas6.
2. Line 3 baking sheets (I used 2 trays several times). Sift the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl. Add the butter and rub in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs (I blitzed mine in the magimix then put in a bowl).
3. Stir in the sugar and sultanas, add the lemon curd and eggs, then mix into a soft dough.
4. Shape the dough into 30 small balls about 2.5cm wide then put on the baking sheets allowing plenty of space between them so that they can spread. Using your fingers flatten the tops slightly.

5. Bake for 11-15 minutes until risen and light golden. Leave to cool for 1 min on the baking sheets then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.
6. Blend the icing sugar and lemon juice then drizzle over each cookie.
Try them! They are yummy and make lots!

Fat Rascals

The past few days have been fairly busy sorting things out from out holiday and also trying to sort out the whole house after builders laid a lovely new floor on our whole bottom floor whilst we were away. The view from the bottom terrace!

As I said previously, we had a lovely holiday relaxing, enjoying the views from one of the suntrap terraces as above, or just chilling out by the pool with a good book – but some days we did go out and on one in particular we drove down about 2hours to the famous Alhambra gardens on the mountains beside Grenada. A view over Grenada old town (which we visited on my Dad's birthday!) from the Alhambra.

The gardens were beautiful and we did have a nice time looking round the various palaces dotted around the gardens. As it was my Mum’s birthday we ate at restaurant called the San Francisco Parador for a birthday lunch – I can report that some parts were good (my orange chocolate ice cream cake!) other parts were very disappointing (a surprise starter soup where we couldn’t quite work out what the flavour was). We didn’t see everywhere because that day temperatures were around 38’C-40’C and we were desperate to get back to the icy pool! Me in the Alhambra!

Today I made Fat Rascals! I was going to help make birthday cake for my Daddy but the tins are still in storage so that is tomorrows project. These Fat Rascals, however, certainly did not disappoint! They are a cross between a scone and a rock cake and the idea originated in Yorkshire where the recipe was a simple dough with currants. I have watched my Mum make these before (and enjoyed the end result!) so decided to have a go myself. It is a recipe from the Waitrose website, and these cakes are served at Betty’s tearooms in York. They worked a treat. The idea is to make about 6 huge scones and drop them in a “rascally fashion” onto the baking tray. The method is rather similar to the Welsh Cakes I made.

I didn’t have some of the exact ingredients and the weather is so awful I wasn’t eager to go out so I made some easy substitutions – which as usual are in pink with the recipe. Very good results – I would definitely recommend these.

Fat Rascals, from Waitrose Magazine

Makes 6

Ingredients: 150g plain flour, sieved
150g self-raising flour, sieved
1tsp baking powder
130g cold butter, cubed
90g caster sugar
Grated zest of both one orange and one lemon (I used the grated zest of a lime)
1tsp cinnamon (I used 1tsp of ground mixed spice instead which contains cinnamon and nutmeg) ½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg (see above)
150g mixed dried fruit (I used 150g currants)
50ml milk

Glace cherries and blanched almonds to decorate

1. Preheat the oven to 200’C.

2. Sieve both flours and the baking powder into a bowl. Add the butter and rub into the mixture until it resembles breadcrumbs.

3. Add the sugar, zests, spices and dried fruit and mix well.

4. Add the beaten egg and enough milk to bring the mixture together into a soft (read sticky) dough.

5. Form the mixture into 6 saucer sized rounds – 2cm deep.

I split my dough into 2 batches - so if anything went wrong with the first I could alter

the problem and rescue the second lot. Luckily, everything worked well!

6. Transfer to a non-stick baking tray and make for 15-20mins.

7. They are best served warm with butter and jam, but can be frozen and reheated.

Because he has now had to wait 4 days before getting birthday cake, I made a special Fat Rascal just for my Dad:

The end result was delicious - buttery, crumbly dough, sharp currants, crunchy almonds and oh-so-sweet glace cherries! Enjoy! x