Love Heart Biscuits

Hi,

It's Valentine's Day. I hate Valentine's Day. This is not for any silly reasons like 'Ohh, it's a consumerist conspiracy'. It's because I'm single. So I am taking my petty revenge by posting this recipe too late for you to make these biscuits for your lover. Sucks to be you. You'll have lost the recipe by next year.

You will need:

For the biscuits:
100g ground almonds
200g plain flour
good pinch of salt
80g icing sugar plus extra to dust
125g unsalted butter, chilled and diced
3 egg yolks
2 heart-shaped cookie cutters, one smaller than the other

For the filling:
200g raspberries or blackberries
2 tsp cornflour

3 tbsp caster sugar

1. Put the almonds, flour and salt in a blender and pulse to combine. Add the icing sugar and pulse until mixed in.

  2. Add the butter and process to coarse crumbs.

2. Beat the egg yolks in and stir until mixture forms a dough. Roll the dough into a ball and wrap it in clingfilm, then chill in the fridge for at least 15 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180C.

3. Roll out the dough to the thickness of a pound coin and stamp out as many hearts with the larger cutter as possible. Then cut out the centre of half the hearts with the smaller cutter, and knead all the trimmings together and roll out again. Continue until all the dough is gone, but be aware that the more you work the dough the crumblier and harder to work with it will become. Bake the biscuits for 12 minutes until barely coloured and transfer them to a rack to cool for 10 minutes.

4. To make the filling, put the berries, conflour and caster sugar in a saucepan and heat whilst stirring until the berries soften and the juices run. Bring to the boil and simmer for 2 minutes, still stirring, until thickened. Pour into a bowl and leave to cool. If you have used blackberries you may want to force the filling mixture through a sieve to produce a smooth mixture.
5. Spread the hearts without the cut-out with the jam filling, then top each with a cut-out shape. Dust with icing sugar and serve.

The biscuits will keep for 4 days before being filled, but after you have filled them you should eat them that day.

Enjoy

xxx

Spiced Banana Cake

This is the best recipe for banana cake ever. I will never never never find a better recipe than this. (Like everrr.)

I am very proud of this recipe because I have actually had some input into the way I make it - I altered the recipe so it was even more to my liking. The way I do it is slightly healthier (slightly guys, I'm afraid there's no such thing as healthy cake) and I've also tampered with the spices considerably. 

You will need:

1 large ripe banana

115g butter

150g caster sugar

2 eggs

215g plain flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

½ tsp nutmeg

½ cinnamon

½ ginger 

175ml plain yoghurt (not low fat)

1 tsp vanilla essence

To glaze:

50g icing sugar

1-2 tbsp lemon juice

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4. Grease and line a loaf tin with greaseproof paper.

2. Mash the banana in a bowl and set aside. Don't blend it - the little chunks of banana make the texture more interesting.

 3. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating all the time.

4. Sift the flour, salt, spices and bicarbonate of soda into the butter mixture and stir together.

5. Add the yoghurt, banana and vanilla and mix until combined, do not overmix. Pour into the loaf tin. 

6. Bake for 45-50 minutes until lightly browned and until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Rest the cake for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

7. When the cake has cooled, beat the icing sugar and lemon juice together until smooth and pour over the cake. Leave to set.

Om nom nom

Bye bye bakelings,

Ellie
xxx

Irish Potato Farls

Ok, so I've got a confession. This is not, strictly speaking, a baking recipe. There is no baking and there is no raising agent. However, there is flour, a kind of dough is formed and these are also sometimes known as potato bread or scones. So I'll give you the recipe anyway.

Potato farls make a great accompaniment for eggs at breakfast. This recipe makes four, which should be enough for two people. If you do not cook all the farls at once then refrigerate them between sheets of greaseproof paper. They will also freeze.

You will need:

250g mashed potatoes, no milk added
a small knob of butter
50g plain flour with some for dusting
salt and pepper

1. Mix the butter and seasoning into the mashed potato. You will need to be generous with the salt.

2. Add the flour in two batches to the mash, mixing well until it comes together in a dough. Flour the work surface and the rolling pin and roll the dough out to a rectangle about 5mm thick. Cut into 4 farls.

3. Heat a little oil in a frying pan and fry the farls until golden on each side.

5. Serve with eggs.

I found this recipe in the Observer Food Magazine, in a section written by a blogger called Miss South. You can find her here. She writes about eating well on a budget, so well worth a read for all you students out there. Some of the baking recipes look pretty good, I'm quite tempted to have a go at the chestnut caramel shortbread.

Until the next time,

Ellie
xxx

Camembert Brioche

You may have noticed that I seem to bake a lot of sweet things - cake, cupcakes and biscuits. But sometimes, it's nice to do a savoury bake. Savoury bakes I have pulled off successfully in the past include quiches (one day I will tell you the traumatic story of the first quiche), aubergine filled flatbreads, rosemary and raisin bread and sundried tomato focaccia. 

So, this week, I have mixed it up a bit by making something from the Great British Bake Off recipe book that is a bit of both - brioche filled with hot gooey camembert. It looks like this:

Camembert Brioche

You will need:

375g white bread flour

1 tsp crushed sea salt flakes

1 tbsp caster sugar

1 7g sachet fast-action dried yeast

4 tbsp cold milk

4 large eggs

175g unsalted butter

1 350g Camembert cheese (one of the round ones in a little box)

about 5 tbsp (75ml) of chutney or some kind of sauce or paste that will compliment the cheese (I used red pepper pesto)

1 beaten egg

1. Mix the flour, salt, sugar and yeast in a bowl, then make a well in the middle and pour in the milk and eggs. Stir until combined and turn onto a floured surface and knead until elastic (about 10 minutes).

2. Meanwhile, cut the butter into small cubes and mix it into the dough, either by squeezing it into the dough or using an electric mixer. If squeezing it in by hand knead afterwards to fully incorporate butter.

3. Put the dough back in the mixing bowl and leave somewhere warm for 1-2 hours until doubled in size. 

3. Knock back the dough and cut off a quarter of it and set aside. Roll the rest out to a round about 10cm larger than the cheese. Spread the top of the cheese with a thick layer of chutney or whatever you're using. Invert it in the middle of the dough round.

 4. Trim 1cm from the edge of the dough round and add it to the reserved quarter. Knead together and roll it out to about 14cm across, trimming into a neat round by using a small plate as a guide.

5. Brush the cheese and the outer 1cm of the dough rough with the beaten egg. Lift up the dough and wrap over the cheese.

6. Use more beaten egg to stick the dough down, then place the smaller round on top and smooth down to seal. Turn the cheese brioche upside down onto a baking sheet lined with greaseproof paper. Cover loosely with clingfilm and leave to rise for 30 minutes. While the dough is proving, preheat the oven to 190C.

7. If you wish, score a pattern on the dough before placing it in the oven. Brush it lightly with beaten egg and bake for 30 minutes, then remove from the oven, brush with egg again and bake for another 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 45 minutes before serving, or, cool to room temperature so the cheese re-solidifies.

Tatty-bye bakelings.

Ellie

xxx

Chocolate and Vanilla Chess Cake

Happy New Year!

Now I decided this year that New Year is an event that requires a cake. And as I had received a Great British Bake Off recipe book this Christmas, I went straight to Mary and Paul to find a showstopping bake.
And this is the one I settled on:

Isn't that an impressive cake? And not nearly as hard to make as it looks. Mine doesn't look exactly like Mary's, but it all got eaten before I could swipe myself a slice, so it must have tasted pretty good.

This is what is known as a 'hidden design' cake. That is, a cake which when cut into, reveals a design that is not visible from the outside. There are many different types of hidden design cakes and many different methods of making the hidden design. This is the first I have attempted and one of the most easy I have come across. Others include this cake from the Great British Bake Off:

And this tasty-looking zebra cake, a recipe for which can be found here.

If you want to make the Chess Cake you will need piping bags, and at least two sandwich tins of the same size, preferably three (Mary says 20.5cm). You can find disposable piping bags in most decent-sized supermarkets in the baking section. You can get nylon piping bags in specialist baking shops but I can't be bothered with washing piping bags out so I shall not be buying them. Ever. Also, if you do not have two sandwich tins of the same size, you can sometimes hire them from baking shops.

Now, Mary would have you make the chocolate curls by tempering chocolate, which makes it shiny and stuff. But to Mary I say: "Mary, I am a busy woman. I do not always have time to temper chocolate. Not today, Mary." And so I have given you another (much easier) method to make chocolate curls.

So, the first thing you need to know is how to make up a sponge mixture. For this, you will need:

350g unsalted butter or margarine (such as Stork)
350g caster sugar
6 large free-range eggs
350g self-raising flour (weighed out beforehand)
pinch of salt

1. Put the butter in a large mixing bowl or in the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat until creamy, then add the sugar and beat until mixture becomes light in colour and fluffy in texture.

2. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each. For the last 2 eggs, add a tbsp of flour at the same time to prevent the mixture from curdling.
3. Sift in the remaining flour and salt and fold in gently using with a large metal spoon or spatula.

Chess Cake

You will need:

For the cake mixture:
sponge ingredients as above
1 tsp vanilla extract
50g cocoa powder
4 tbsp milk

For the white chocolate ganache:
175g white chocolate
125ml whipping cream
50g unsalted butter

For the dark chocolate ganache:
300g dark chocolate
300ml whipping cream

To finish:
100g dark chocolate
half a knob of butter

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4. Grease both tins and line the bases with baking parchment. Make up the sponge mixture as above. Transfer half the mixture to another bowl, add 2 tbsp of milk and sift in the cocoa before folding it in gently. Add 2 tbsp of milk and the vanilla extract to the other mixture and put each mixture into a piping bag.
2. Pipe a ring of vanilla mixture around the inside edge of one tin. Then pipe a ring of chocolate mixture around the inside of that. Repeat with alternate vanilla and chocolate rings until the tin is filled. For the third tin, start with chocolate so it is filled with the reverse of the other tins. If, like me, you only have 2 tins you will have to bake the sponge in those tins and then reuse one.

3. Bake the sponge mixtures for 20-25 minutes until lightly browned, well risen and until a metal skewer inserted inside comes out clean. If you have wider tins your mixture will be shallower and it will not need quite as long. Run a knife around each tin to loosen the sponge, then turn it out onto a wire rack to cool.

4. Make up the white and dark chocolate ganaches by placing the ingredients for each in a bowl above a saucepan of barely simmering water. Heat gently, stirring occasionally until cream and chocolate become completely combined in a smooth ganache mixture. Take off the heat and leave to cool until easily spreadable but not set.
5. After the sponges have completely cooled, place one of the 2 identical sponges on the plate you intend to present it on, and spread the top with white chocolate ganache. Then place the reverse sponge on top and spread that with ganache before placing the final sponge on top.

6. Spread the sides and top of the cake with dark chocolate ganache, cleaning any drips off the cake board or plate with a slightly damp cloth or kitchen towel. Place somewhere cool to set (not the fridge).

7. To finish, make chocolate curls by melting the butter and chocolate together in a bowl above a saucepan in barely simmering water. Then pour the mixture into a  rectangular container out of which it can be easily pressed, and put in the freezer to set. Once set, use a vegetable peeler to slice large chocolate curls off the chocolate block onto the cake. Hold the block in some folded kitchen towel to protect it from the heat of your hand.

If like me, you are badass, finish the cake with edible gold glitter, and a sparkler. Or two.

Ta-daah!

Not the neatest slice in the world but you get the idea. Again, I apologise for poor-quality photos. When I am a famous baker-journalist I'll get a professional to take my photos.

Until next time, bakelings,

Ellie
xxx

Christmas Baking

Hello folks.

I have been busy in the run up to Christmas. Very busy indeed. On Friday the 21st, which I believe was the winter solstice, and was also the day on which the world conspicuously failed to end, I held a dinner party.

I made griddled polenta with blue cheese on a bed of rocket, a butternut squash and courgette pie with mint and lemon dressed carrots and greek yoghurt, chocolate bread and butter pudding with vanilla semifreddo and caramel decorations and mincemeat filo parcels. 5 people eschewed the blue cheese, I was so stressed I had two bellinis before I served the polenta and somehow contrived to trip over the heel of my shoe (which was on my foot) with my other foot, I forgot to dress the carrots with lemon and burnt the poo (this is a family-friendly blog) out of the filo parcels. But as everyone ate nearly everything (except the cremated filo parcels), I didn't cry from stress and no one vomited up their food I declared the evening a success.

I had also had enough red wine to be very contented, as Elena filled my glass every time I looked away.

Whilst preparing on Friday, although I was already trying to do several things at once, I decided the need for canapés provided me with the perfect opportunity to learn how to make rough puff pastry. I made palmiers, which are those little curly French pastries. They can be sweet or savoury, and the recipe below makes more than 20. Oh yeah and I didn't measure the amount of filling I used. Cos I'm badass.

Pesto and Parmesan Palmiers

You will need:

150g plain flour
150g butter
90ml water
½ tsp salt

pesto

Parmesan or other grated hard cheese

1. Sift the flour and salt into a bowl and add the butter in chunks. Rub the butter in loosely, not into fine crumbs like a crumble mixture but so lumps of butter are still visible.

2. Add the water bit by bit, stirring until the mixture forms a dough. Add more water if needed (but you shouldn't need to). Once the mixture comes together roll it into a ball and refrigerate for 20 minutes.

3. Take the dough out of the fridge and roll it out to a rectangle about 20x50cm. The butter should be visible in streaks in the dough.

4. Fold the top third of the dough down and the bottom third up as pictured below. 

5. Roll out again, fold again and return to the fridge for 20 minutes.

6. Preheat oven to 180C. Repeat step 5, then the dough is ready to be rolled out and used. Roll out the dough and spread generously with pesto and sprinkle with cheese.

7. Roll up the bottom half of the pastry tightly towards the middle. When you reach the middle repeat with the other half. Your pastry should look like this:

8. Slice off each end of the pastry and then slice into 1cm thick slices. Place on a greased baking tray and bake for 10-15 minutes or until flaky and golden.

9. If you are blogging about them, do not, as I did, forget to take a picture of your palmiers before they get scoffed.

I would like to show you the mincemeat filo parcels recipe but as I mentioned I burnt the poop out of them, and I also did not make the filo myself (bite me, Paul).

So instead I shall show you what I made for Christmas Day pudding. As you may remember from my last post my family Christmas features only a token Christmas pudding, which we set fire to, duly applaud and then fling in the bin. And then proceed to beat out the ensuing flames. So I am in charge of the alternative pudding. And this year we have this delightful tart, which I made for a friend's birthday earlier in the year. I discovered this recipe, by a fellow online chef, whilst looking for a recipe to use up orange curd, but I have altered it slightly. And here is my version:

Dark Chocolate and Orange Curd Tart

You will need:

2 large oranges

500ml water

170g caster sugar

95g ground almonds

175g flour

115g butter

65g dark chocolate

165ml double cream

200g orange curd (you can make your own but I only make orange or lemon curd to use up spare egg yolks)

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Slice the oranges into ½ cm slices, slicing them across so you get a cross-section of the inside of the orange, not the other way, as I managed to do with one of them. Put the water and sugar in a large shallow pan and bring to the boil. Add the orange slices and continue to boil for 10 minutes, turning the slices after 5 minutes. Then lower the heat and simmer for about another 30 minutes.

2. Lower the heat and simmer for about another 30 minutes. You want to continue simmering until the liquid in the pan is nearly gone and the slices are translucent and sticky. They should look like this:

3. Put the almonds and flour into a bowl. Melt the butter and pour it over the dry ingredients.

4. Stir the mixture until it starts to come together. Then pour the crumbly mixture into a tart tin and press firmly down to form the base of the tart. Put the base in the oven for about 20 minutes until it starts to colour and smells delicious.

5. While the base is baking, put the cream and chocolate in a bowl over a barely simmering pan of water, stirring occasionally until fully combined. 

6. When the tart base has cooled enough to not melt the orange curd, spread it on the base.

7. When the chocolate ganache has cooled, pour that onto the orange curd. Be careful not to mix up the orange curd and chocolate layer and spread evenly to the very edges of the tart. Then add the orange slices to the tart.

8. Chill the tart until set.

The person who posted the original recipe recommended you served it with thyme-infused cream. To make this you will need:

150ml double cream

5 sprigs thyme

1. Put the thyme and cream in a pan on a low to medium heat.

2. Bring to the boil then strain through a sieve and chill until ready to serve tart.

So there you are, my Christmas bakes. Enjoy!

Until later, Elflings.

xxx