Remember remember the fifth of November

Gunpowder, treason and plot!

I'm very aware than bonfire night is far from over and most people are too worried about Christmas to even think of the fifth of November. Not me, I finished all of my Christmas shopping a month ago, with the exception of my dads which I bought today. An MP3 player I'm planning on filling with pretty songs, to further his musical education...awwwwh! And, since most of my uni work is now behind me (hurrah) I can finally catch up on some well deserved blogging.

Bonfire Night in Newcastle usually involves a group of people huddled round a spindly rocket desperately trying to light the fuse despite the biting wind and icy rain. And this year was no different. I guess you could go to a professional display, but I believe Bonfire Night without a glass of mulled wine is a sin and I wasn't about to trail all the way to the local park, soaking wet, for the pleasure of a few fancy explosions in the sky! No way, no how. So, being a natural hostess, don't scoff, I decided to buy a pack of sparklers and hold a wee gathering. Upon sending invitations, by text of course, to my nearest and dearest it was brought to my attention that my 'party' was to fall on the birthday of a dear friend. I'm horrible with dates, the only birthdays I can actually remember is my own and my mothers. So of course, this called for a birthday cake.



Stick a few sparklers in the top and I think it tops even the biggest of bonfires. I mean, how many bonfires have a red velvet cake center? None, that's how many! The cake was a roaring success, cream cheese frosting with mint match makers surrounding a beautifully soft cake. Sadly, I enjoyed a little too much of the high life and had to retire to bed before the cake was cut. This seems to be happening more and more in my old age, eeep. But from the mountain of text messages on my phone the following morning, it was a hit.

Recipe taken from Anne Bell's Gorgeous Cakes:

For the cake:
120g unsalted butter
300g golden caster sugar
2 large eggs (free range, think of the chickens)
300g plain flour
230g buttermilk (for love nor money I could not find buttermilk in my local supermarket, so I went with extra special, Channel Island full cream milk. I seemed to work fine)
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp good quality vanilla extract
20g cocoa powder, sifted
1/2 tsp red food colouring
1tbsp white wine vinegar
1tbsp bicarbonate of soda

For the frosting:
180g unsalted butter
150g icing sugar, sifted
450g full-fat cream or curd cheese
1tsp good quality vanilla extract
2 x 150g boxes of matchmakers (I used mint)
Cocoa for dusting

Recipe:

Preheat the oven to 170C fan/190C normal. Butter two, three is you have them, 20cm sandwich or deep cake tins with a removable base and line with baking paper. Cream the butter and sugar in a food processor till really light and fluffy, Add the eggs one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl with each addition. Now add the flour in three goes, alternating with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with the flour. Add the salt, vanilla extract and cocoa powder. Add the food colouring with the tip of a knife until the mixture is a dramatic dusky red.

Mix the vinegar and bicarb together (it should fizz, fun!), and add to the batter. Divide the mixture between the three tins or, if using two put a third into each tin and bake the final cake while the other two are cooling. Bake the cakes for 20-25 minutes until they are shrinking away from the sides and firm when pressed in the centre. Leave to cool for ten minutes then turn out onto a wire rack, remove the paper and cool the right way up.

To make the frosting, cream the butter and icing sugar together in a food processor (I did this by hand) then blend with the cream cheese and vanilla extract. Transfer to a bowl.

Sack the three sponges on top of each other. With a bread knife carve the stack into a cone, starting about an inch from the centre, to make the shape of a tall bonfire (it says in the book that trimmings can be saved for a trifle, but I just ate them as a pre party snack). Separate out the layers and spread 2-3 tbsp of frosting over the base layer using a palette knife, top with the middle layer and smooth over 1 1/2 tbsp and top with the final layer. Coat the sides of the cone in the remaining frosting then stack the matchmakers upwards around the outside, braking them in half towards the end to fill in the gaps. Dust the whole cake in cocoa powder and place on a cake stand. Cover with clingfilm and chill for one hour. If chilling any longer than this remove the cake 30 minutes before you intend to serve it.

The cake keeps well for several days.

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Tartaholic

Having a boyfriend who isn't really the biggest fan of fruit means I'm always trying out new ways of incorporating it into my baking, combining them with his favorite ingredients so he'll ignore the 'horrible texture of the flesh' and eat it all up! This Chocolate, Almond and Pear tart has been on my to do list for a while so I set about it!

Now, I've made this tart twice as the first attempt didn't really turn out too well. Through no fault of my own, may I add....well, maybe it was a little my fault. The recipe doesn't call for blind baking the case so when the whole thing goes into the oven, the base doesn't actually cook through leaving a big soggy ring in the middle, yack. Also (this is the part that is just down to my own stupidity) once you cream the butter and sugar the recipe calls for you to just add the eggs. Silly me, didn't stop to think and just dumped them straight into the buttery mixture. Needless to say, it curdled more than I've ever seen anything curdle before, and no amount of me furiously adding flour could fix it. So there I was, trying to cover up my lumpy brown mixture with slices of tinned pear. Sure, it tasted fine, but all I could think of was the little curdled lumps. This simply wouldn't do!


The second attempt proved much more successful. I baked the tart blind for 20 minutes with foil and dried pulses then for another 5 minutes without to colour the base. I reduced the final cooking time by about ten minutes to compensate, basically I just kept an eye on it till the filling was risen and darker in colour. Also, I substituted the tinned pear for fresh, which I don't think worked as well. Maybe next time I'll try poaching them in an amaretto mixture.


I'm still not totally happy but Kris has begged me to leave it alone for the time being. Poor lamb is all peared out! I'd defiantly recommend making this tart, if only for the smell! It fills the whole house with the wonderful aroma of almond, which I just find divine.

Here's the recipe:

For the pastry:

100g plain flour
25g ground almonds
60g margarine, plus extra for greasing
approx 3tbs water

For the filling:

50g butter (I used unsalted)
50g caster Sugar
2 eggs, beaten
100g ground almonds
2tbs cocoa powder
a few drops of almond extract
400g tinned pear halves in natural juice, drained

Preheat the oven to 200C and lightly grease a 20cm tart tn.

Sift the flour and ground almonds together in a bowl then rub in the margarine with your fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the water, a little at a time till the dough starts to come together. Wrap in clingfilm and chill in the freezer for 10 minutes. Roll out pastry to about 5mm and use to line your tart tin, prick the base with a fork and chill again.

(this is where I opted to bake the base blind, but you can go with your instincts)

To make the filling, beat the butter and sugar together till light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs (GRADUALLY!! haha) then fold in the ground almonds, cocoa powder and almond extract. Spread the mixture in the pastry case. Thinly slice the pears and arrange on top of the tart, pressing down lightly. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until the filling has risen. Allow to cool before transferring to a plate or tray.

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AWOL

So sorry about my blogging absence, I've been a busy bee this December. I spent the first week in Prague and developed a huge crush on the Trdlnk cake (have I spelled that right...hmmm) Which is a yeast based cake, wound around a long pole and roasted over hot coals. I actually think I came home a stone heavier!

If any of you bakers out there in cyberspace have developed any easy way of making this cake I'd love to hear from you! Like really, I think I'm suffering withdrawals.

Anyway, I digress. I came home, slightly fatter, to a mountain of university work I've since been plowing through! Oh the joy.

I promise I'll have an entry up in the next few days...a decent one I mean :)

Katie xo

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Back to day one...

I was looking over my little blog this morning, as you do when you're a newbie :), and noticed my very first post...awwwh! The chocolate and beetroot cake that started me on my blogging journey. I miss that cake. Anyway, I realised that I never actually got around to posting about it. Better late than never I guess!

I first came across this recipe during one of my many poorly days shlomped on the sofa (I'm a very sickly child, you see). Curled up with a lemsip in one hand and the remote in the other I started channel hopping, a Sky subscribers worst habit one might say. As I was flicking I paused on a show called How To Cook Yourself Thin, interesting, very interesting. Basically, the lovely ladies on this program take your favourite recipes and make them healthier, helping you lose weight without the horror of total food restriction. Phew! This episode took a basic chocolate cake and flipped it by omitting the butter and replacing it with beetroot! Beetroot, I thought, URGH! Now, I have nothing against beetroot, It's actually one of my more favoured of the root vegetables, but in a cake, ridiculous. How wrong I was. I was so intrigued by this delicious looking cake I nipped straight to the supermarket to get me some beets.




2.5 hours later I was reveling in the smell of this glorious cake. The beetroot not only gave a wonderful moistness to the sponge but also a delectably dark, velvety red tinge. The only problem I found was the frosting didn't keep its sheen for very long so I'd advise leaving the decorating till just before you're ready to serve. Although, a quick blast in the microwave sorts it right out. Perfect when pared with vanilla ice cream!!

You can find the recipe here Beetroot Chocolate Fudge Cake.

I'm my excitement at discovering vegetables other than carrots can taste amazing in confectionery, I dove straight into my next project, Spiced Pumpkin Brownies. When I told my Kris what I would be making he begged me to reconsider, I struck lucky with the beetroot cake apparently, it'll be a disaster......


He was right! :(

Still, it hasn't deterred me! Onwards and upwards, next on the list, courgette cake! Fingers crossed.

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Oh, it's a classic....

I remember as a child lemon meringue pie was one of my favorite deserts. I was obsessed with the crispy meringue, the sharp tang of the custard and the crumbly biscuit base. Then, for some reason, my mum decided to get a job and hang up her domestic housewife apron so sadly I said goodbye to freshly baked goods and in turn, my favorite pie :( Till now!

Pretty much every recipe I've come across for this wonderful tart has had a pastry crust, which in my eyes just doesn't cut the mustard...or lemon custard in this case! A lemon meringue pie just isn't the same without a high digestive crust. For some reason, they just don't look as pretty. But a few weeks ago I came across a previously overlooked recipe in one of my favorite cookbooks, Gorgeous Cakes. A lemon meringue pie with my biscuit crust! Hurrah!! I instantly grabbed my coat and bag and set off into town, a girl on a mission you might say! Several hours later, armed with many heavy bags, I burst through my front door ready to bake!

Now usually I don't have any luck with meringue, either they just don't rise or they fake it in the oven and flop into a crusty mess the second I remove them. Crafty buggers. But for the first time in my life, they turned out perfect, if I do say so myself!






Oh it was divine! Next time I think I'll invest in some small tartlet tins and make a few smaller versions. Only because my Kris told his, and my mum about this delightful pie and they both demanded I make one for each of them. Sigh, a girls work is never done!

Recipe taken from Annie Bells Gorgeous Cakes!

225g digestive biscuits crushed (I stuffed them in a plastic bag and attacked them with a rolling pin)
110g unsalted butter, melted
Finely grated zest and juice of 4 lemons
1 400g tin of condensed milk
4 large eggs at room temperature, separated
110g caster sugar

Makes 1 20cm pie :)

Whizz the biscuits in a food processor till fine, or do as I did, beat them within an inch of their lives with a rolling pin! Put the crumbs in a bowl, add melted butter and toss until the crumbs are evenly coated. Press the mixture into a 20cm cake tin, 9cm deep with a removable base. Start with the sides then move onto the base, using your fingers to press the mixture down.

Preheat the oven to 170C fan/190C/gas mark 5. Before juicing the lemons roll them on the counted to release as much juice as possible. Combine the zest ad juice with the condensed milk in a bowl, whisking both till you have a smooth cream. Now, whisk in the egg yolks and pour onto the biscuit base. Whisk the egg whites in a very clean bowl until they rise to a froth. Sprinkle over the sugar 1tbsp at a time, whisking well with each addition until you have a stiff and glossy meringue. Normally more sugar would be used in a meringue, this is to account for the sweetness of the base. You don't want a sugar overload...or do you??

Mound the meringue mixture on top of the lemon cream, taking it to the edge of the tin. bake for around 30 minutes or until the surface of the meringue is lightly golden and crusty, and the custard set. Remove from the oven and leave to cool. run a knife around the collar of the pie to loosen the sides then remove it completely.

The pie is best eaten on the day it is baked. If you do decided to chill it, as I did, remove it from the fridge for about 30 minutes before serving.

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