Monday 28 May 2012

Lemon Ice Cream


To accompany the gingerbread cake was lemon ice cream.  This was one of the first ice creams I made when I got my ice cream maker for my birthday last year.  It was a huge hit and is one I've been requested to make on several occasions, including a couple of dinner parties.

This ice cream has a custard base.  I am just not a fan of the Philadelphia style.  Also, I lost the address where I originally got this recipe since it was saved in my favourites on my laptop, which was stolen a few weeks ago.  Luckily I had the recipe written down in my binder so at least I had that.  Unfortunately can't credit the original source though.  So sorry about that.

Recipe - makes about 1.5l/2.5pints:

Remember to check your ice cream makers instructions.  I have to chill my bowl for 12 hours before hand so be aware of what you have to do so you have enough time.
  • 2tbsp grated lemon peel
  • 125ml/4.5fl.oz lemon juice
  • 170g/6oz caster sugar
  • 4 egg yolks
  • Pinch of salt
  • 240ml/8fl.oz milk
  • 480ml/16fl.oz whipping cream
  1. Mix together the grated lemon peel, sugar and lemon juice.  Put in the fridge to chill.  The longer it has to chill the more intense the flavour.
  2. Beat the salt into the egg yolks.
  3. In a saucepan heat the milk until it just starts to boil.
  4. Pour the hot milk into the eggs and mix well.
  5. Pour back into the saucepan and heat gently, stirring constantly until the mixture becomes thick and coats the back of the spoon. Do not let it boil or it will turn into scrambled eggs.  If you do end up with a few bits though, run it through a sieve.
  6. Pour the custard back into its bowl and chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours.
  7. Once thoroughly chilled, stir the lemon mixture into the custard, followed by the cream.
  8. Pour into your ice cream maker and mix for about half an hour.
  9. I recommend chilling it in the freezer for a couple of hours after mixing it so that it can firm up a little bit.
If left in the freezer for a long time it will go very hard so take it out about 20 minutes before serving to let it soften or you won't be able to dish it up.

Gingerbread Cake


Sunday was a birthday party for my boyfriend's Grandma.  That's who the Florentines were for.  I also got to be in charge of dessert though.  It was requested I make lemon ice cream (which will be followed up next entry) because it is adored by my boyfriend and his mum, and to accompany it I decided to make a gingerbread cake because lemon and ginger go well together.  I'd never made one before so it was interesting but successful!  Clearly I am much better at cakes than I am at biscuits.

I have to say I did not eat the cake.  I tried it but I don't like ginger in desserts.  I use it in oriental dishes and that's it.  I don't like gingerbread biscuits either.  Everyone else loved it though!  It was pretty much gone.  I even converted a couple of people to ginger cake, so I was terribly chuffed.

The recipe comes from Cake Decorating magazine and is the first recipe I've tried from that series.  Very good though I would change around the order I do things, which I will be doing in the write-up below.


Recipe - adapted from Cake Decorating issue 8

  • 225g/8oz golden syrup
  • 125g/4.5oz unsalted butter
  • 125g/4.5oz dark muscavado sugar
  • 250g/9oz self raising flour
  • 4tsp ground ginger
  • 1 tsp mixed spice
  • 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • Pinch of salt
  • 2 large eggs
  • 240ml/8fl.oz milk
  1. Put the golden syrup and butter in a small saucepan and warm over a gentle heat.
  2. Add the sugar to the saucepan and let the mixture bubble for about a minute.
  3. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.  This takes a while so let the pan cool a bit and then put it in some cold water to speed it up.  Be careful not to get the water in the syrup.
  4. In the meantime sift the flour, mixed spice, ginger, bicarbonate of soda a salt together in a large bowl and mix together.
  5. In another bowl or jug, break the eggs, add the milk and whisk.
  6. Preheat the oven to 170°C/325°F/Gas Mark 3 and grease an 8inch/20cm square cake tin.
  7. When the syrup has completely cooled, add to the flour mix and stir well.
  8. Add the egg mix and stir until it has gone runny and everything is completely combined.
  9. Spoon or pour the mixture into your prepared cake tin and put in the oven to bake for 35-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean (mine took about an hour but we think there is a problem with the cooker).
  10. Let the cake rest in the tin for a few minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
If you want an extra-moist cake, wrap it in foil once it is cool and leave for 24 hours.

Florentines

So this was a busy weekend treat-making wise.  As I said  at the end of my last entry, I had three things to make this weekend.  The first of these was Florentines, which were to be a birthday present.  The ones I ended up with were quite chewy and I had to do a number of researches to find that they can be a chewy biscuit.  I was convinced they should be crunchy but then I think most biscuits are crunchy.


I actually made two batches because I was not happy with the first lot (I wasn't that happy with the second lot either but the taste testers said they were delicious so I went with them).  Of course I wasn't sure what they were meant to be like but I also think I should not have tampered with the recipe.  A lot of my reading had revealed a lot of the recipes to use flour but the one I was using didn't.  So I added some in and probably shouldn't have.  We've also recently come to the conclusion that there is something wrong with the oven here because the cooking times are way off.  But I move tomorrow and have a brand new cooker to play with so hopefully that won't be a problem any more.

So, my second lot were marginally better.   They were still really sticky and flimsy though and I'm thinking that may be because the pieces of almond and cherry were too big.  I may also have put the butter/honey mix in a bit early rather than waiting for it to be completely cool.  The chocolate did help them stay together though and, as I said, the taste testers approved.



Recipe - makes about 10
Adapted from Cakebaker.co.uk
  • 50g/2oz unsalted butter
  • 3tbsp honey
  • 50g/2oz ground almonds
  • 50g/2oz candied peel
  • 25g/1oz dried cranberries
  • 25g/1oz glacĂ© cherries
  • 25g/1oz flaked almonds
  • 100g/4oz dark chocolate
  1. Put the butter and the honey into a saucepan and heat gently until the butter has melted.  Put aside to cool.
  2. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4. 
  3. Chop up your flaked almonds a little so you have slightly smaller pieces then place on a baking sheet and put in the oven for 3-5 minutes to toast them.  Leave to cool but don't turn off the oven.
  4. Mix the ground almonds, candied peel, cranberries, cherries and toasted flaked almonds together in a bowl.  Add the cooled butter/honey mix and fold until will combined and the fillings are equally distributed.
  5. Line 2 baking trays with greaseproof paper and place teaspoonfuls of the mixture onto them.  Space them quite well apart since they will spread a little.  Flatten them slightly with the spoon.
  6. Bake for about 8 minutes.  The biscuits are ready when they have spread a bit and turn slightly golden.
  7. Cool on the tray for a bit if they are a little fragile then transfer to a wire rack.  (I had to transfer mine on the paper since they took a while to firm up).
  8. Melt chocolate in a glass bowl over a saucepan of boiling water.  
  9. Turn Florentines over and use a spoon to carefully cover the backs in chocolate.  Leave to set.
That's it for now.  There's two more recipes to come later today though.

Saturday 26 May 2012

Failed Experiment: Rainbow Spiral Cookies

So I'm not posting the recipe of this one because it really was a disappointing result.  There are actually 3 colours in there but because the green faded you can only see pink and yellow.  It's also a shame that the cookies ended up so flat.  I would have preferred it if they'd been a bit fatter, so I need to find a better recipe or maybe use less sugar.  We shall see.  Anyway, here is what I ended up with:



More recipes to come this weekend.  I'm making lemon ice cream, gingerbread cake and Florentines!

Coloured Sugar Biscuits

Yesterday I was feeling down.  My dear Jess had linked me an interesting idea and I thought I would try.  So, I made two different batches of what I hoped would be rainbow sugar cookies.  The recipe I was linked called for a sugar cookie mix, but I like to make mine from scratch.  Thus I went looking for sugar cookie recipes I could use.  The first mixture I made was too sticky to use for what I want to do but I figured I wouldn't waste the mix.  The second lot was a better consistency but the end result was a disaster.  The biggest problem was a matter of aesthetics.  They tasted fine.  But I blame on the food colouring for the poor finish (and possible too much sugar).  I have to say Morrisons, I am disappointed.  Your yellow and, to an extent, your pink worked quite well but your other colours either ended up looking very unappealing (red) or vanished entirely (green).  Such a shame as I reckon these would have looked lovely if they'd remained a decent colour.  Oh well, something I will definitely be trying again with different colouring.

So this entry is for mixture 1.  


This is the sugar cookie mixture I used for those Peek Freans I tried a couple of weeks ago, except I added more flour to try and get a thicker dough.  It didn't work as well as I hope.  Could still just about roll it into a ball though.

Recipe - Made about 35 - Adapted from Allrecipes.com

  • 110g/4oz softened butter
  • 190g/6.7oz caster sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tbsp vanilla extract
  • 260g/9oz plain flour
  • 3g/0.1oz baking powder
  • 1g/pinch of salt
  • Food colouring
  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line 3 baking trays with greaseproof paper.
  2. Cream the butter and the sugar until pale and fluffy.
  3. Beat in the egg and the vanilla.
  4. Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder and combine with the sugar mixture.
  5. Separate mixture equal portions depending on how many colours you are using (so 3 portions for 3 colours, etc.) and place in individual bowls.
  6. Add food colouring to each bowl and combine with the mixture.
  7. Roll the mixture into equal sized balls and place onto the trays.  I had 5 colours and got 7 balls from each portion of mixture.  You want your dough to look quite dark in colour because it will lighten up when cooking.
  8. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes.  They will still be a bit soft when ready to come out.
  9. Remove from oven and leave on tray for a couple of minutes, before transferring to a cooling rack.
 

Friday 25 May 2012

Strawberry Ripple Cakes with White Chocolate Buttercream and Jam


This week seems to be another one of those bad weeks.  It's been a busy week to say the least, with little time for baking but I managed to squeeze some in on Wednesday.  Nothing has really come out like I hoped though.  Not dreadful, but not perfect either.  But oh well.  It doesn't hurt to share.  Maybe someone else will like them more than me.

So these cakes are my standard vanilla cake recipe, but I've put jam in the middle.  It is supposed to be rippled but I don't think I made the jam runny enough for that to work.  The idea came from Cupcake Heaven, though they use raspberry jam.  The topping is also different, as I went for white chocolate and more jam.  Admittedly this turned out to be a strange combination which I probably won't use again.
 Recipe - makes 6:
  1. Line a cake tin with 6 cases and preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4.
  2. Make a half batch of the vanilla cupcake mix but only spoon half the mixture into the cases.
  3. Using a small spoon make a shallow indent in the centre of each cake.
  4. In a small bowl, mix 2 tbsp of strawberry jam until it is very, very runny.
  5. Spoon half of this into the shallow indents in your cases and then top with the remaining cake mixture.
  6. Spoon the last of the jam on top of each cake.
  7. Run a toothpick through the mixture in each case to ripple it.
  8. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
White chocolate buttercream:
  • 90g/3oz white chocolate
  • 30g/1oz butter
  • 60g/2oz icing sugar
  • 1/2 tbsp water
  1. Melt the chocolate in a glass bowl over a saucepan of boiling water.
  2. In a separate bowl, mix the butter and icing sugar together until light and creamy.
  3. Add the chocolate and mix until combined.
  4. Add the water and mix.
  5. Spoon or pipe onto the cooled cakes. 
  6. If you want, add 1/4 tsp of runny jam to the top of each and use a toothpick to create a spiral effect.

Monday 14 May 2012

Muffins! Blueberry, Parmesan and Herb, and Parmesan and Bacon


Yesterday I made muffins!  Three lots in fact as there were a few I wanted to try.  I made 6 blueberry muffins for my boyfriend, 12 wheat free mini parmesan and herb for his mum, and then 12 mini parmesan and bacon for me...or his sister when she comes home on Wednesday.

The recipes for these came from Good Food magazine (February 2005 issue), and are something I've been wanting to try out for a couple of weeks since I picked it off the shelf.  All the recipes in the magazine worked off of one basic recipe (the one for the blueberry muffins) but made substitutions depending on the type of muffin you wanted.

Blueberry Recipe - makes 6 full sized muffins

Ingredients:
  • 70g/2/5oz caster sugar
  • 125g/4.5oz self-raising flour
  • 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 42g/1.5oz butter
  • 1 large egg
  • 100ml/3.5fl milk
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 75g/2.6oz blueberries
  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and then leave to cool.
  2. Preheat the oven to 200°C/390°F/Gas Mark 6 and place 6 muffin cases in a muffin tray. 
  3. Combine the sugar, flour and bicarbonate of soda in a bowl.
  4. In a jug, beat the egg and add the milk, cooled butter and vanilla extract.
  5. Pour the jug ingredients into the bowl with the flour mix and stir until just combined.
  6. Fold in the blueberries.
  7. Spoon the mixture into the cases and then bake in the oven for 15-18 minutes.  You want the tops to be golden and a skewer inserted into the centre to come out clean.
  8. Cool on a wire rack.


Parmesan and Herb - makes 12 mini muffins or 6 full size muffins
Ingredients:
  • 125g/4.5oz wheat-free self-raising flour
  • 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 42g/1.5oz butter
  • 1 large egg
  • 142ml/4.8fl.oz buttermilk
  • 50g/1.75oz grated parmesan
  • 1 tbsp thyme
  • 1 tbsp basil
  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and then leave to cool.
  2. Preheat the oven to 200°C/390°F/Gas Mark 6 and place 12 mini muffin cases in a mini muffin tray (or grease the tray if you don't have the cases).
  3. Combine the flour and bicarbonate of soda in a bowl.
  4. In a jug, beat the egg with the butter and buttermilk.  
  5. Add to the flour mix and stir until combined.
  6. Fold in the parmesan, thyme and basil.
  7. Spoon into the cases/greased tray and top with additional grated parmesan.
  8. Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes.  You want the tops to be golden and a skewer inserted into the centre to come out clean.
  9. Cool on a wire rack.

Parmesan and Bacon - makes 12 mini muffins or 6 full size muffins 
Ingredients:
  • 125g/4.5oz wheat-free self-raising flour
  • 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 1 tbsp caster sugar
  • 42g/1.5oz butter
  • 1 large egg
  • 142ml/4.8fl.oz buttermilk
  • 50g/1.75oz grated parmesan
  • 2-3 rashers of crispy bacon
  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and then leave to cool.
  2. Preheat the oven to 200°C/390°F/Gas Mark 6 and place 12 mini muffin cases in a mini muffin tray (or grease the tray if you don't have the cases).
  3. Combine the flour, sugar and bicarbonate of soda in a bowl.
  4. In a jug, beat the egg with the butter and buttermilk. 
  5. Add to the flour mix and stir until combined.
  6. Cut up the bacon and fold it into the mix along with the parmesan.
  7. Spoon into the cases/greased tray and top with additional grated parmesan.
  8. Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes.  You want the tops to be golden and a skewer inserted into the centre to come out clean.
  9. Cool on a wire rack.

Thursday 10 May 2012

Mini Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Cookie Dough Buttercream


Okay, that title is a bit of a lie.  These are actually chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes.  Each of them has a ball of cookie dough in the centre (it's something I've noticed on a few blogs whilst I was browsing around and wanted to try out yesterday after a bit on a downer of a day).  Unfortunately, the cookie dough is far too floury and not that nice to eat.  But the rest of it is soooo good I can't bring myself to call it a failed experiment.  Hence I'm not.  I'm just missing out the cookie dough middles.  I will attempt the cookie dough centre again at some point but for now I am going to post the recipe for the cakes and the icing.  



Recipe:
 

The cakes were made in a mini muffin tray because it was a trial recipe and I thought tiny cakes would make a nice addition to my lunch.  They use a halved batch of my standard fairy cake recipe, with the addition of 75g of chocolate chips.

Cookie Dough Buttercream - adapted from What's Cooking on Planet Byn 
This is a halved recipe.
  • 85g/3oz butter
  • 45g/1.5oz brown sugar
  • 110g/4oz icing sugar
  • 32g/1.1oz plain flour
  • 1/8 tsp salt
  • 3/4 tbsp milk
  • 3/4 tsp vanilla extract
  • 25g chocolate chips/chunks
  1. Mix together the butter and the brown sugar until creamy.
  2. Beat in the icing sugar until it is smooth.
  3. Add flour and salt and beat in.
  4. Finally add milk and vanilla and keep mixing until everything is combined and you have a reasonable smooth mixture.
  5. Put in a piping bag with a small star nozzle (mine was a 30) and pipe swirls ontop of cakes.
  6. Finish with some chocolate chips/chunks on top.

Monday 7 May 2012

Angel Food Cake With Whipped Cream and Summer Fruits


Huzzah!  Finally a successful bake.  After two failed experiments it is nice to have something turn out right.  Twice in fact, because I made one and then realised I'd made the horrific mistake of not using wheat-free flour!  So I did it again.  So that's wheat free on the left and wheat-ful on the right.

Anyway, this is a birthday cake for my boyfriend's mum (and the spare is going to the school).  She recently gave me a lovely cupcake recipe book and had commented on how nice the summer fruit topped ones were.  So I knew exactly what topping I wanted to give her cake.  But what to go with it?  After some hunting I settled on something I've never tried to make before: Angel Food Cake.  Apparently it's very good if you're on a diet as it doesn't have any fat in it so really she could eat as much of this cake as she liked and not feel too guilty.  However, there was then the issue of finding a small version, since so many recipes involved 12 egg whites and large-ish tins.  Finally I stumbled across one that is baked in a loaf tin.  Perfect!  A delightfully simple recipe, though I made a couple of substitutions.


Recipe - Adapted from Cookie Madness (a great blog with some fabulous recipes!)

This cake is preferably eaten the day it is made but it would probably only last that long anyway.

Ingredients:
  • 6oz/170g caster sugar
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 2.2oz/60g self raising flour (wheat free if you desire)
  • 6 large egg whites at room temperature
  • 3/4 tsp cream of tartar
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 180ml double or whipping cream
  • Various summer fruits
  • Some icing sugar for dusting
  • Pink food colouring (optional)
  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line a 9x5 inch loaf pan (mine was a bit narrower) with aluminium foil.  Do not use non-stick foil!
  2. In a small bowl, mix half the caster sugar with the flour and the salt.
  3. In a large (metal) bowl, whisk the egg whites until they are foamy and then add the cream of tartar.
  4. Continue whisking until you reach the soft peak stage.
  5. Start adding the sugar a bit at a time, still whisking but on your lowest setting.
  6. When all the sugar has been mixed in, add the vanilla and whisk that in too.
  7. Carefully fold 1/4 of the flour mixture into the egg whites with a spatula.  You need to be careful because the flour can fall straight through the egg whites and get stuck at the bottom so make sure you are actually mixing it into the whites.  
  8. Repeat until all the flour has been mixed in.
  9. Carefully spoon or pour the mixture into the foiled loaf tin and bake in the oven for about 35 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.
  10. Cool in the cake in the loaf pan on a wire rack to help keep its shape.
  11. When cool, remove from the tin and gently peel off the foil.
  12. Whisk the cream with some vanilla until soft peaks form.
  13. If using food colouring, drop some drops into the cream and swirl through with a skewer.
  14. Put into a piping bag with a large star nozzle (I used a Wilton 1M) and pipe swirls onto the cake.  I did three big swirls and then lots of little swirls to fill in the gaps.
  15. Decorate with the fruit and then dust with the icing sugar.

Saturday 5 May 2012

Failed Experiment - 'Peek Freans'

(There is now a successful recipe for these, which you can view here, though they are not actual Peek Freans, just something inspired by the description.)

Bah.  It really doesn't seem to be my week.  First the chocolate chip cookies, and now these.  Of course, these were an experiment based on mixing a few things which ended up not working.  But still.  I do hate it when things don't work out.  However, I still think I should blog about these things.  Good to keep track of mistakes so I don't make them next time.  Hence, I'll have entries labelled as failed experiments, which will not include recipes.  Hopefully I'll perfect the ideas and then I can post successful entries with recipes.



Anyway, the idea for these came from watching the first season of 'The Fringe'.  At one point in one of the episodes, a character is offering up cookies.  He calls them 'Peek Freans' and says they are comprised of a vanilla wafer with a lemon cream and raspberry centre.  It sounded interesting so I went hunting for a recipe for such a thing.  I could not find one.  'Peek Frean' is apparently a biscuit company and were the ones that developed Bourbon biscuits.  But nothing like described in the show.  So I decided I would try and make my own version by finding recipes and combining elements.  For the vanilla wafer I ended up doing a vanilla sugar cookie recipe.  They turned out rather nice and would work very well on their own.  For the filling, I found a recipe for uncooked fondant which is usually used for the inside of sweets.  I went with this idea as investigation into Custard Cremes turned up that the filling is a fondant.  Unfortunately, this fondant was what ruined it for me.  It is far, far too sweet.  Teeth rotting-ly so.  I blame the golden syrup, which I substituted for the light corn syrup the recipe asked for because from what I read, that is the UK equivalent, with treacle being the equivalent of dark corn syrup.  

Flavouring the fondant was interesting.  I really wasn't getting the lemon through in my lemon one.  You could smell the raspberry in the other one but I don't feel I could taste it.  Obviously need to work on this area.  Also, I will run whatever I use for the raspberry flavour through a sieve first to get rid of the seeds.

When I try this out again, I'll use the same biscuit recipe because, as I said, I rather liked them.  However, I would probably make the biscuits a lot smaller.  They ended up too big, especially considering there are two sandwiched together.  I'm also abandoning that fondant recipe entirely.  I'm thinking I could just use ready to roll fondant icing.  I really like the taste of that type of icing and it's easy to colour.  I don't know about flavouring it though but then, that's what experimenting is for.

Edit - 21:25: Well, my boyfriend just got in from work and tried one.  He really likes them!  He can taste the lemon really strongly and got a hint of the raspberry.  So that's good.  Someone will enjoy them.

Wednesday 2 May 2012

Failed Experiment - Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

28/06/13: I have now made chewy chocolate chip cookies successfully.  Recipe is over here!

Today I had a free day and when I have a free day, I often want to bake.  I also wanted something I can take with my lunch when at the school as I have only one Viennese Finger left.  Now it's probably apparent that I've been on a bit of a biscuit kick of late.  I go through phases of what sort of sweet treat I crave.  Currently it's biscuits and ice cream.  Not necessarily together.  What I really wanted to do was chocolate chip cookies, but not one of my usual recipes.  I wanted chewy cookies, like you get from Millie's Cookies.  So I trawled the web for recipes and eventually settled on one I liked the sound of.

Then I realised we'd used all the eggs up yesterday and I really didn't feel like going to the shops.  Luckily our hens had produced one egg this morning (they seem to be in a bit of a lull right now) so I at least had that.  Unfortunately the recipe called for one egg plus an egg yolk.  So I spent a fun few minutes separating and weighing the white and yolk and then splitting both in two.  My spare half an egg white went in the ice cube tray I use to freeze my spare whites for later use.

Anyway, here they are:


The result was...not what I wanted.  Sure, they look good but they taste strange (like popcorn, my boyfriend says) and they certainly aren't chewy.  The latter is likely down to me keeping them in the oven too long.  I keep doing that since they never seem to be the right colour.  Really I should just take them out when I'm supposed to.  I also couldn't taste the chocolate chips very well.  That 'popcorn' taste was a bit overwhelming.  I was quite disappointed.  Hence, no recipe today.  I am determined to try it again and see if they come out better.  Fingers crossed.

This coming Monday I have a birthday cake to make so I'll hopefully have a more successful report to make then, along with a recipe recommendation.