Toffee Apple and Pumpkin Gingerbread Cake

We had quite a lovely autumn this year.  The colours of all the trees around here were just stunning!  I really wish I had thought to get a picture of the view coming into the village before the truly horrible weather set in.  It was seriously pretty with the trees and the church and the local restaurant lit up with its fairy lights.  Especially when the sun is giving off that nice warm glow you only get when it's low in the sky.  Ah well.  It didn't occur to me until too late and now everywhere is wet and grey and most of the leaves have been blown off the trees.

Anyway, since it's autumn I felt like baking with some autumn flavours.  I was determined to include pumpkin, as I have several tins of it in my cupboard from bulk buying it last year.  However, I then started going a bit mad with wanting to add all sorts of flavours so I also ended up using apples, toffee and ginger.  I used a combination of two recipes for my autumnal experiment.  Well, actually, I used three as originally I was going to include cinder toffee too.  I scrapped that, though not until after I made it.  The cinder toffee turned out well but tasted ever so slightly burnt so it left a bitter after taste.  I didn't think that was right so I figure I'll try that again another day.  The cake was fine without it anyway. 

I made this cake twice as the first one did not turn out the way I wanted.  It was far too dense in the middle.  It still tasted good but it annoyed me because I knew it should have been more cake-y.  Turns out I over mixed it.  I got too carried away with my lovely mixer.  Oops.  So the second time around I made sure to do the barest minimum of mixing for each stage and folded in the flour.  The result was much better so I was happy.

It's not the most attractive looking cake.  But I think that seems to be common with fruit baked on the top.  I never think upside-down cakes look particularly appealing unless you've used pineapple.  Cooked toffee and fruit and dark cake can look overdone, even though it isn't.  It probably would look a bit better if my apples were a bit more evenly cut.  Ah well.

This cake was scrummy.  Nice and moist with a distinctly apple taste and a ginger note at the end.  Drizzled with leftover toffee sauce is a necessity and this would go well with warm cream. 

Recipe - inspired by Sophie Thompson (via A Mummy Too) and Very Best Baking by Nestle

Toffee Sauce:

• 100g/3.5oz butter
• 100g/3.5oz muscovado sugar
• 150ml/5fl.oz double cream

Cake:

• 245g/8.5oz plain flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1.25 tsp ginger
• 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (see here to make your own)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 115g/4oz butter
• 115g/4oz granulated sugar
• 45g/1.5oz brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 a tin of canned pumpkin (about 215g/7.5oz)
•  3-4 large green eating apples (like Granny Smith)
• 60ml/2fl.oz treacle 

1. Start by making the toffee sauce.  Put the butter, sugar and cream in a saucepan together and set over a low heat.
2. Stir the mixture until it is bubbling and golden.  Remove from heat and set aside to cool.
3. Line a 23cm/9inch round, spring-form or loose bottomed cake tin with greaseproof paper and preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4.
4. In a large bowl mix together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, ginger, pumpkin pie spice and salt.
5. Cream the butter and the sugars together in a separate bowl until fluffy.
6. Add the eggs one at a time and beat in after each addition until just incorporated.
7. Peel and grate half an apple and add it, the pumpkin and treacle to the mix.  Beat in.
8. Gradually fold in the dry ingredients.
9. Spoon half the cake batter into the prepared tin and smooth out.
10. Peel half of the remaining apples and cut into thin slices.  Arrange the slices in a spiral pattern inside the tin.
11. Drizzle with about 1/3 of the toffee sauce.
Repeat steps 9-11 with the remaining batter, apples and toffee sauce (you should have some sauce left over for serving).
12. Bake the cake in the oven for just over an hour (a skewer inserted through the middle of the cake should come out clean).
13. Allow cake to cool in the tin for at least 45 minutes before unmoulding then finish cooling on a wire rack.
14. Serve with remaining toffee sauce. 

Gingerbread Ice Cream

 

So despite what the weather says (did you see the photos from the St. Andrews Open?), it is summer here in Scotland.  We have had the odd burst of sunshine here in Fife but we've also had a good share of torrential downpours, as well as an amazing thunderstorm.  However, summer is summer and that means ice cream!  Although I actually made the first batch of this ice cream during the Easter holidays and my goodness is it one of the best things I have ever come up with!

Back story time!  During the Easter break the Hubby and I went on a mini holiday to Glasgow, in part because I needed to get away from everything and have an excuse not to think about work.  The Spring term was also the longest term of the year so I was exhausted by the end of it.  A couple of days away from home was very necessary.  We booked into our favourite hotel and enjoyed a couple of days meeting up with my best friend (and assessing her boyfriend, who we liked very much), lots of shopping and a long walk to and wander around the Kelvingrove museum. It was lovely.  We then usually spent the evenings curled up in our room, reading and watching TV and amongst the things we watched was MasterChef.

This started us on a bit of a binge watch of MasterChef on the iPlayer.  I like watching people make food.  It is fascinating.  Anyway, one thing that quite a few contestants made was ice cream (how they did so in an hour baffled me) and amongst the flavours that got made was ginger.  This got me thinking back to Christmas when I was contemplating the idea of a gingerbread ice cream as a nice holiday themed dessert.  I figured this holiday, even though it was not the Christmas one, was a good time to finally put the idea into practise. 

I decided to use ginger ice cream as a basis for my recipe and luckily my David Lebovitz book provided me with one of those.  However, I knew I would not get the gingerbread taste from just ginger.  So I switched out caster sugar for a mix of muscovado sugar and golden syrup, two of the key ingredients in any good gingerbread recipe.  I also decided to use just cream, rather than a combination of cream and milk.  More fat in ice cream means less ice crystals develop when frozen.  I also think it tastes better.  I had to estimate amounts for the different ingredients but I did a pretty good job since it turned out really well (why yes, I am a bit smug about this one).  For a little bit of extra flare, I baked some tiny gingerbread flowers for the original batch that were mixed in after churning along with some gingerbread crumbs.  For my most recent batch I used store bought gingerbread, which works just as well in my opinion, though the Hubby disagrees.

I was surprised at how much this tastes like gingerbread!  It is almost bizarre, given it's cold ice cream but has that delicious sweet heat that comes with good gingerbread.  The biscuit crumbs throughout add a nice bit of crunch too.  This stuff is so scrummy!  I like it, the Hubby likes it and so do his parents.  The Hubby's dad is not a big ice cream person but he loved this and went back for more so if that isn't a good enough endorsement, I don't know what else to tell you.

Recipe - inspired by Fresh Ginger Ice Cream from The Perfect Scoop
Makes about 1 litre

• 85g/3oz fresh ginger root
• 750ml/26fl.oz double cream
• 6 tbsp golden syrup
• 80g/3oz muscovado sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 5 egg yolks 
• Gingerbread biscuits (amount is up to you)

1. Slice up the ginger root into thin slices and place in a saucepan.
2. Cover with 2cm of water, bring to the boil and then let it boil for 2 minutes.
3. Remove from the heat and drain the water.
4. Add the sugar, salt, golden syrup and 500ml of the cream to the saucepan.
5. Stir over a medium heat until the sugar has melted and the mixture is warm and a nice golden brown colour.
6. Remove from the heat, cover and allow to steep for an hour.
7. Put the remaining cream in a large bowl and set a sieve over the top.
8. In a medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks.
9. Use a slotted spoon to remove the pieces of ginger root from the cream mixture and discard.
10. Warm the mixture through.
11. Add the warmed cream mixture to the egg yolks, whisking them the entire time, and then add everything back into the saucepan.
12. Cook the mixture over a low to medium heat, stirring with a spatula the whole time.  Make sure the spatula scrapes the bottom of the pan and that you do not allow the mixture to boil.  Keep cooking until the custard thickens and coats the spatula.
13. Pour the custard through the sieve into the cream.
14. Place the bowl of custard into an ice bath and stir continuously until the mixture has cooled.
15. Chill thoroughly in the fridge before transferring to your ice cream maker and continue according to manufacturer's instructions.
16. Once the ice cream has churned and thickened, place the gingerbread into a bag and crush with a rolling pin so that you have a mix of larger pieces and crumbs.  Add these to the ice cream and churn for about 2 minutes before transferring to a freezer-proof container.  Freeze for at least an hour before serving.

Cola Gingerbread Men for the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap

My oh my, baking has been even more lacking.  Work is hard and distressing right now and not looking to get better any time soon, hence the sheer amount of not posting there has been.  Sorry.  But you don't want to hear about that, you're here for cookies!  Specifically, for cookie swap cookies!

I stumbled across the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap last year, after it had closed.  I was really disappointed as it looked like such fun!  So of course I immediately added myself to the mailing list so I would not miss out next time.

It wasn't until mid October that I began to wonder about whether or not the swap had opened up again.  I hadn't received any email saying so.  Some investigation revealed that yes, it had opened up, and that my email had ended up in the Junk folder.  A good thing I checked or I'd be sitting out this year too!  So I got signed up and then began plotting.

The idea for the cookies came from a book I was reading.  In the story one of the characters is a chocolatier but at one point it mentioned cola gingerbread.  Well, I was intrigued.  What an interesting idea and rather ideal for a festive gift.  Gingerbread is very Christmassy, as far as I'm concerned.  The cola is an added bonus as I have always felt that the Coca-Cola advert with the trucks and the song and the lights is the first sign that it is almost Christmas!  I don't care about what's on sale as soon as Hallowe'en finishes, it's not the festive season until Coca-Cola announces that the holidays are coming!

Anyway, I ended up having to experiment with this recipe for a couple of weeks as there was not an existing recipe for cola gingerbread cookies (that I could find).  So I was having to tamper with an existing recipe.  For my initial batches the shape held up but they caught very easily and the cola flavour was rather too subtle.  So I had to increase the amount of syrup to improve the flavour.  Unfortunately that meant the cookies spread.  Not such a big deal really, except that it meant I couldn't do my original idea for the final look.  Based on something I had seen on Pinterest, I wanted to have my gingerbread men hugging their cola bottles.  This was also part of the experimentation.  It worked well in the early batches but wouldn't in the later ones.  Flavour trumps aesthetics though for me so I just went with the spreading batches and used icing to attach the cola bottles to my little men.  Not quite as lovely but still rather cute.  The only other problem this caused was that packaging the little guys was a bit of a curfuffle as some of the bottles would come away from the hands.  I managed it in the end though and it seems they arrived fairly intact at their various destinations! 

And once my own cookies were away, the ones from the lovely bloggers who got me in the swap started arriving!  It was kinda fun to get mystery boxes of cookies.  I didn't eat any until the weekend though since the Hubby and I decided to pack them all up and take them to Glasgow with us as we were away for a shopping weekend.  You can see them in all their delicious glory in the pictures below.  From top to bottom: Cranberry, White Chocolate and Sea Salt cookies from Ellie of RovingLights; Malted Chocolate Chip Cookies from Kirsty of Ever So Sweet; and Oat and Maple Syrup Biscotti from Tina of The Worktop.  Thank you so much, ladies.  These were scrumptious and the Hubby and I thoroughly enjoyed them!

I am hoping my swapees liked their cookies just as much.  I can tell you that we certainly enjoyed eating the spares.  I'm not much of a fan of gingerbread and even I was scoffing them without thinking.  They're a slightly soft cookie which are not too hot.  The ginger and cola mix nicely, especially when you eat the cola bottle with the cookie.  Yum yum!

Recipe - adapted from Home Baking Biscuits and Cookies
Makes 36

• 350g/12oz plain flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 100g/3.5oz butter
• 175g/6oz light brown sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 4 tbsp cola syrup
• 2 tbsp golden syrup 
• Decorative sugar balls
• 36 cola bottle sweets
• 2 tbsp icing sugar
• Cold water

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas Mark 5 and line a few baking trays with greaseproof paper. 
2. Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ginger together in a bowl.
3. Add the butter in pieces and then rub into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
4. Stir in the sugar and then make a well in the centre.
5. Add the egg yolk, cola syrup and golden syrup and mix together.
6. Knead into a smooth dough.
7. Sprinkle a clean surface with flour and roll out the dough to about 5mm/0.25inches thick.
8. Cut out gingerbread men with a 10cm/4inch cutter.
9. Space out well on the tray as these cookies spread.  Create eyes and buttons by pushing the sugar balls into the dough.
10. Cook for about 10 minutes, until the edges are just starting to brown.
11. Remove and allow to rest on the tray for a minute before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.
12. Once cool, mix the icing sugar with a little water to get a fairly thick icing.
13. Place a blob of icing on one of the hands of each of the gingerbread men and stick a cola bottle sweet to the blob.  Leave to set.

Gingerbread Snowflakes and Orangebread Baubles

Soooo, I'm a bit behind on some updates.  It's been a hectic couple of weeks in the lead up to Christmas, working in a shop and all (though only until the end of the week).  So whilst I have managed to fit baking in to my busy schedule, I haven't had time to do the write-up.  Now I have my first proper day off in ages, I can do just that.  So here is the first.

This is my first Christmas in my flat and the first time I get to have my very own Christmas tree that is just mine that I can decorate with decorations I chose, something I have been looking forward to for a long time.  And I decided I wanted to make gingerbread decorations for my tree, especially since the fiancé likes gingerbread.  I don't like it though, but also wanted something to eat on the tree.  Hence the 'orangebread', which substitutes the spices for orange extract instead.  I also used golden syrup alongside the treacle, so make them slightly lighter, though this was more because I ran out of treacle than anything else.

As for decoration, I did a simple lemon icing for the gingerbread and piped pretty patterns.  Then for the orangebread I cut out fondant and decorated it.

What can I say, they are super yummy.  I only wish they had stayed on the tree.  Unfortunately, I hadn't made the holes for the string big enough, so they closed up when they were cooking.  Hence, I was using very thin thread and a needle to make the hooks.  That didn't end up working so well, which was a shame.  So they ended up back in the biscuit tin, and are pretty much all gone now. Yum yum yum.

Recipe - adapted from A Zombie Ate My Cupcake (altered to make orangebread)

For gingerbread:

• 225g/8oz plain flour
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 60g/2oz unsalted butter
• 50g/1.75oz granulated sugar
• 1 small egg
• 80ml/2.8fl.oz black treacle
• 3/4 tsp lemon extract
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 100g/3.5oz icing sugar
• 1 tsp lemon extract
• Lemon juice
• Water

1. Sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda, spices and salt.
2. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
3. Add the egg and the treacle and mix until thoroughly combined.
4. Add the lemon extract and mix in. 
5. Gradually add the flour a bit at a time, mixing until fully incorporated before adding more.  You may need to use your hands for the last of it as you end up with quite a thick dough.
6. Shape into a ball and wrap in clingfilm.  Put in the fridge to rest for about 3 hours.
7. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line 2-3 baking trays with greaseproof paper.
8. Remove the dough from the fridge and let it sit for about 5 minutes.  Meanwhile lightly flour your work surface and rolling pin.
9. Roll the dough out to be about 5mm/0.25inches thick and then cut out your decoration shapes.  
10. Lay on a tray and then use a skewer to make a hole for the ribbon/string in the top of each.
11. Bake for about 10-20 minutes before removing from the oven and leaving to cool on a wire rack. 
12. Put the icing sugar in a bowl and add the lemon extract.
13. Add alternating spoonfuls of lemon juice and water to the icing sugar, mixing after each addition, until you get a fairly firm mixture that is of pipe-able consistency.  If you add too much liquid, just add a bit more icing sugar to firm it up. 
14. Put icing into a piping bag fitted with a small, round tipped nozzle and pipe patterns onto the cooled biscuits. 
15. When icing has set, thread string through the hole and knot together. 

 For orangebread: 

• 225g/8oz plain flour 
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 60g/2oz unsalted butter
• 50g/1.75oz granulated sugar
• 1 small egg
• 2 tsp orange extract
• 20ml/0.7fl.oz black treacle
• 60ml/2fl.oz golden syrup 
• 1 x 450g pack of pre-rolled fondant icing
• 30g/1oz icing sugar
• Water 
• Red and Green writing icing

1. Sift together the flour and salt.
2. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
3. Add the egg, the treacle and the golden syrup and mix until thoroughly combined.
4. Add the orange extract and mix in. 
5. Gradually add the flour a bit at a time, mixing until fully incorporated before adding more.  You may need to use your hands for the last of it as you end up with quite a thick dough.
6. Shape the dough into a ball and wrap the ball in clingfilm.  Put in the fridge to rest for about 3 hours.
7. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line 2-3 baking trays with greaseproof paper.
8. Remove the dough from the fridge and let it sit for about 5 minutes.  Meanwhile lightly flour your work surface and rolling pin.
9. Roll the dough out to be about 5mm/0.25inches thick and then cut out your decoration shapes with a cutter.  
10. Lay on a tray and then use a skewer to make a hole for the ribbon/string in the top of each.
11. Bake for about 10-20 minutes before removing from the oven and leaving to cool on a wire rack. 
12. In a small bowl, add a tsp of water to the icing sugar at a time, until you get a slightly runny paste.
13. Open out the pre-rolled icing and use the same cookie cutter as you did for the biscuits to cut out shapes.
14. Put some of the runny icing on the back of the cut out shapes to act as a glue to affix it to the biscuits.
15. Use the writing icing to draw patterns on top of the cut out icing.
16. Thread a string through the holes and knot.

Gingerdead Cupcakes

The next couple of days are going to be quite busy baking wise.  I have four different batches of cakes to make for Hallowe'en.  All cakes were baked today and the majority will be decorated tomorrow evening.  However, one set is for the fiance to take to Dundee tomorrow so they had to be finished today.  

So these cakes came from a book I picked up a few weeks ago and after perusing it, I asked the fiancé if he would like these cakes for to take for Hallowe'en.  He jumped on the idea.  Chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream and gingerbread gravestones.  Fairly easy and yet surprisingly effective.  And fun to photograph too.  I had fun playing with the lighting.

I only made two modifications to the recipe.  The first was to leave out the espresso coffee because I didn't want that to come through in the cakes.  At the very least the fiancé doesn't like coffee and I want him to enjoy them.  The second was using lemon extract instead of lemon zest for the gingerbread.  I will also note that the amount of gingerbread that resulted from the recipe was far too much for making 12 graves.  So I ended up with a few spare graves (in case any broke in assembly) and nearly two dozen gingerbread bats.  I figure I'll keep them to hand out to trick-or-treaters.  Hence in the write-up, I'm going to halve the gingerbread recipe.

Recipe - adapted from A Zombie Ate My Cupcake

Makes 12

Gingerbread:

• 225g/8oz plain flour
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 60g/2oz unsalted butter
• 50g/1.75oz granulated sugar
• 80ml/2.8fl.oz black treacle
• 1 small egg
• 3/4 tsp lemon extract

1. Sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda, spices and salt.
2. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
3. Add the egg and the treacle and mix until thoroughly combined.
4. Add the lemon extract and mix in. 
5. Gradually add the flour a bit at a time, mixing until fully incorporated before adding more.  You may need to use your hands for the last of it as you end up with quite a thick dough.
6. Split the dough in two, shape into balls and wrap each ball in clingfilm.  Put in the fridge to rest for about 3 hours.
7. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line 2-3 baking trays with greaseproof paper.
8. Remove the dough from the fridge and let it sit for about 5 minutes.  Meanwhile lightly flour your work surface and rolling pin.
9. Roll the dough out to be about 5mm/0.25inches thick and then cut out gravestone shapes with a knife.  Transfer each shape to a tray, spacing the biscuits about 1 inch apart.  You need 12 gravestones but it's worth making a couple of spares in case any break.  Remember not to make them too big or they won't fit in the cakes.
10. Bake for about 10 minutes before removing from the oven and leaving to cool on a wire rack. 

Cakes:

• 60g/2oz butter
• 140g/5oz caster sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 115g/4oz plain flour
• 30g/1oz cocoa powder
• 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 80ml/2.8fl.oz sour cream (or sour cream substitute)

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line a 12 hole muffin tin with cases, preferably black or dark brown.
2. Cream the butter and sugar together until very pale and fluffy.
3. Add the egg and vanilla and beat until well incorporated.
4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, spices, bicarbonate of soda and salt by sifting them together.
5. Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients to the cake batter and mix in thoroughly.
6. Add half the sour cream and mix.
7. Now add half of what is left of the dry ingredients and mix.
8. Add the rest of the cream and mix.
9. Add the last of the dry ingredients and blend together well.
10. Spoon equal amounts of batter into the cases and then bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
11. Cool on a wire rack before decorating.

Buttercream:

• 60g/2oz unsalted butter
• 30g/1oz cocoa powder
• 1/3 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 250g/8.8oz icing sugar
• 2 tbsp milk
• 2 tbsp double cream

1. Beat together the butter and cocoa powder until smooth and creamy.
2. Add the salt, vanilla extract, icing sugar and milk and beat until well incorporated.
3. Add the cream and mix in until smooth.

 Assembly:

• A small amount of white ready to roll fondant / 12 ready-made fondant flowers
• White writing icing/chocolate
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder

1. Spread about 2 heaped teaspoons of buttercream onto each cooled cupcake and smooth to the edges with a spoon.
2. Set the cakes on a sheet of baking parchment and use a sieve to dust with icing sugar.  Try to cover all the buttercream.
3. Use the writing icing to decorate the gingerbread gravestones and then push one into the middle of each of the cakes.  They should stand on their own.
4. If using ready to roll fondant, use a small flower cutter to make little fondant flowers.  
5. Place the flowers on top of the cocoa covered buttercream.