Sweet Italian Easter Bread

You join me after a busy Easter weekend. Despite the British weather doing its best to put a dampener on things (literally), it was a fun-filled eggstravaganza.

Sorry about that pun.

Anyway, I hope you had a great time too, if you celebrate Easter. And also if you don’t.

My family isn't religious, but I'm a great believer in tradition, especially when it involves me getting two extra days off work. So this Easter I got stuck in painting eggs.

Here are the eggs I painted – the three at the front. I'm most pleased with the one decorated with cherry blossom, but I quite like the minimalism of the black one too.

Before I painted the eggs I had to make small holes in them and blow out the contents, a very laborious process. I also had to thread ribbon through them with a needle that wasn't long enough, which led to me smashing one of them in rage.

By now you’re probably thinking; enough already, get to the baking!

Alright, alright! So I really, really hate wasting food. So I wanted to do something with the contents of the eggs I had painstakingly removed from their delicate shells. An enriched bread was one option.

I could have made hot cross buns, the traditional British fare for Easter. But instead I decided to made Colomba di Pasqua, an Italian bread similar to panettone, eaten at Easter.

Here is my bread. I know it’s usually shaped like a dove, but who really has a dove shaped mould? I certainly don’t.

I made my Colomba di Pasqua to Paul Hollywood’s recipe. The dough is easier to make in a standing mixer as it’s very sticky but you can make it without one and I did. This will serve 8-10 people.

You will need:

For the bread:
400g strong white bread flour
7g salt
40g caster sugar
10g easy bake yeast
120ml lukewarm milk
4 eggs, lightly whisked
100g unsalted butter, softened and cubed
grated zest of 2 lemons and 1 orange
juice of half a lemon
100g flaked almonds
100g mixed candied peel
100g dried cranberries
23cm round cake tin, greased and lined

For the topping:
2 egg whites
25g caster sugar
25g ground almonds
50g flaked almonds

1. Put the flour in a large mixing bowl. Add the salt and sugar to one side of the bowl and the yeast to the other side.

2. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour in the milk and eggs. Mix in with a spoon until it begins to form a dough, then knead with your hands. Add the butter one piece at a time and knead it in.

3. Knead the dough for around 10 minutes until it becomes elastic but is no longer sticky. Roll into a ball and leave in the mixing bowl, covered with cling film. Leave to rise for an hour.

4. Knead the peel, cranberries, zest and lemon juice. Put into the prepared tin and place inside a large plastic bag – I often use a bin bag.

5. Leave to rise for 3 hours until it reaches the top of the tin. When it has nearly finished rising, preheat the oven to 200C.

6. Bake the bread for 20 minutes. While it is baking, mix together the egg whites, ground almonds and sugar for the topping.

7. Take out the bread, spread the topping over it and sprinkle the flaked almonds and a little sugar on top.

8. Lower the oven to 180C and bake for another 20 minutes. If it is browning too rapidly and looks like it may catch on top, cover in foil.

9. Leave the bread to cool for 10 minutes in the tin, then place on a rack to cool completely.

And there you have it. The bread is soft but has an amazing crunchy crust on top and the sour burst of the cranberries stops it from feeling too sweet. You need to have a while to make it as the proving takes a long time, but it’s really not that hard.

Happy baking!

Ellie
xxx

Honey and Walnut Rugelach

Rugelach are a Jewish pastry enriched with cream cheese and traditionally filled with things like nuts, jam and raisins.

Being a good girlfriend, I made these for my boyfriend, who is of Jewish heritage.

I originally attempted to make these little pastries around Hanukah, but unfortunately the recipe I was using was in cup measurements. I hate cup measurements. They are just not precise enough. And at some point, when I was converting all the measurements into grams, I got confused and only added half the flour required.

The results were delicious, but they were not rugelach. They were more like little piles of cheesy, sweet, nutty goo.

So this time I made sure to add enough flour, despite the annoying cup measurements.

My rugelach were a little untidy, and next time I would chop the walnuts more finely or blitz them in a food processor. I also make peanut butter and chocolate rugelach with finely chopped chocolate, but I would use grated chocolate or mini chocolate chips next time.

But Tom was happy with them, trying to eat one before I'd even taken a photo!

Another idea for a filling would be Nutella and finely chopped or blitzed hazelnuts.

This recipe makes 32. Don't be discouraged by my attempts, I'm sure you can do much better!

You will need:

For the pastry:
250g plain flour
220g butter
a quarter tsp salt
225g cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg yolk
icing sugar, to dust

For the filling:
200g walnuts or 100g each pecans and walnuts, ground small with 30 to 40 pulses in the food processor or chopped as small as you can manage
65ml honey
60g caster sugar
55g butter
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Make the pastry by either mixing the flour, butter and cream cheese in a standing mixer with the cake mixer attachment or beating together with a wooden spoon. It should look as below, although this is only half the mixture.

2. Separate the dough into two separate amounts and wrap in clingfilm, then flatten into thick disks. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

3. Preheat the oven to 190C. Dust a clean surface, hands and a rolling pin with icing sugar. Roll out one of the disks of dough into a circle, about 3mm thick. Mix together the butter, sugar, honey and vanilla for the filling and spread half over the dough, then sprinkle over half the nuts.

4. Cut the disk into 16 strips and roll up each strip from the edge of the circle to the centre, taking care to ensure the filling does not fall out. Place on a greased baking tray.

5. Put the first batch of pastries in the oven and repeat with the second batch. Bake each batch for 20 minutes until crisp and golden.

6. Remove the pastries from the baking sheet quickly, or they will stick. Serve warm.

Lovely.

If 32 is too many for you, the shaped dough also freezes well. Put them on a baking tray and ensure they don't touch, then remove when frozen and put in a freezer bag.

Edit:

I repeated the recipe a couple of weeks after, chopping the nuts much more finely. This picture shows the results and is evidence that baking is, like any skill, a process of continuous improvement.

Trial and error is a major part of baking for me. It took me many attempts to get macarons right. So don't give up just because you have one imperfect bake!

Happy baking,

Ellie
xxx

Focaccia

I have a great weakness for focaccia. With its thin, crisp crust and soft, yielding interior, it is one of the most satisfying breads to bake.

If you have ever been to a Carluccio's restaurant, you will understand how my love of focaccia. They serve great hunks of the stuff, drizzled with olive oil and sea salt, for dunking into their thick, bean-filled soups.

So as I had made a Tuscan soup with beans and pasta last weekend, it seemed only appropriate to make some focaccia to go with it.

Here is a picture of the focaccia with eggs that Tom and I ate the next morning.

I used a standing mixer, because focaccia dough is quite sticky and difficult to work. If you don't have a standing mixer, you may want to use a dough scraper or oil your hands when working the dough, rather than flouring them.

You will need:

500g strong white bread flour

2 tsp dried active yeast

175ml lukewarm water

75ml extra virgin olive oil plus extra to grease and drizzle

75ml white wine

1 tsp dried and chopped oregano plus extra to sprinkle

2 and a half tsp salt

sea salt flakes to sprinkle over

1. Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl and make a well in the middle. In a separate bowl, sprinkle the yeast over 100ml of the water and leave for 5 minutes, until the yeast begins to dissipate and looks cloudy. Mix to dissolve.

 2. Pour the yeasted water into well in the middle of the flour and mix in some of the flour from round the edges to form a smooth paste. Cover the bowl with a tea towel for 20 minutes until the yeast mixture has risen.

3. Pour the wine, oregano and 75ml olive oil into the yeast mixture and mix together until a dough forms. If using a mixer, using the dough hook, put on a medium speed for about 7 minutes. If making by hand, knead for 10 minutes until smooth and elastic. Put in an oiled bowl and cover with clingfilm, then leave for 1 and a half to 2 hours to rise.

  

4. When the dough has doubled in size (see below), knock it back by pressing down lightly until most of the air is squeezed out and leave for 10 minutes.

5. "Chafe" the dough for 5 minutes by rotating it while exerting a gentle downward pressure. You should end up with a nice round lump of dough. Roll this out to the desired size and place on an oiled baking tray. Cover in clingfilm and leave for an hour to prove until doubled in size.

6. With floured fingers, make deep dimples in the loaf and sprinkle with oregano and sea salt flakes.

7. Bake for 30 minutes until golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom. Drizzle with olive oil and serve warm. Mmm.

Enjoy!

Ellie

xxx

Pancake Day: Masala Dosa

It was Pancake Day this week! One of my favourite days of the year. And although pancakes aren't strictly baked, I'm going to break the rules and write a blog post about pancakes.

When I was little and we had pancakes, my mum would always insist we ate something proper first. Which ruined it, obviously, because then we had less room for pancakes.

But when I was planning our pancake extravaganza with the boyfriend, we were looking up savoury pancake recipes when I stumbled across the masala dosa, a dish I first ate at a restaurant in Tooting, when I lived there.

This is a savoury chickpea pancake stuffed with a spicy potato mixture. It seemed like a perfect prelude to sweet pancakes and turned out to be fairly easy to make.

This recipe serves four people. Get to it!

For the dosa batter:
95g chickpea (gram) flour
125g plain flour
half tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 and a half tsp mustard seeds
400ml water
olive oil, to fry

For the filling:
600g peeled floury potatoes
4 tbsp olive oil or sunflower oil
1 tsp mustard seeds
30 fresh curry leaves (apparently unobtainable in Wood Green or Finchley)
1 large onion
half tsp turmeric
3 green chillies, chopped finely
2 tsp fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated
scant tsp salt

1. Mix together the flours for the dosa with the mustard seeds and bicarbonate of soda.

2. Make a well in the middle and pour into the water, whisking as you until a loose mixture forms. You may not need to use all the water.

3. Make the filling next. Boil the potatoes for 20 minutes until tender. Drain, then lightly crush with a fork or potato masher. Put the oil in a wok or heavy bottomed pan on a medium heat. When it's hot, add the mustard seeds. When they pop, add the curry leaves and fry for 30 seconds. Add the onions and cook until translucent. Pour in 120ml of water, cover and reduce heat to low. Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring now and then, until the onion softens more. Add the salt, turmeric, chillies and ginger and mix for 2 minutes. When the liquid has evaporated, add the potatoes and fold them in. See below for what the filling looks like - although this is only about a quarter of the total amount.

4. Cook the dosa by greasing the pan with oil, and heating over a medium heat. Drop some spoonfuls of batter into the pan and rotate the pan to spread it in a wide circle.

5. When bubbles start to appear in the batter and it starts to look dry, put some filling in the middle and fold over and fry for a few seconds on each side, so that the dosa is crisp.

6. Serve with mango chutney and natural yoghurt.

Delicious! But no substitute for sweet pancakes, which is why we followed it with thin, crisp crepes with sugar and lemon.

I'm already looking forward to Pancake Day next year!

Happy pancake-making,

Ellie
xxx

Two Bakewell Tarts

Few things can beat a well-baked bakewell tart. I've already made and blogged a bakewell tart, a few months back. But you can't have too much of a good thing, so I'm going to post a couple of recipes for variations on the bakewell tart.

This tart I made to Mary Berry's recipe - there are enough almonds to form a proper layer on top and some water icing adds a bit of decoration.

And this bakewell tart is made almost the same way, but is decorated differently - with raspberries pressed into the frangipane and a handful of almonds scattered over.

First, Mary Berry's recipe. This serves about 8 people.

You will need:

For the pastry:
175g plain flour
75g cold butter
2-3tbsp cold water
23cm tart or flan tin, greased with butter

foil or baking paper

baking beans or dried beans or rice

For the filling:
half a jar of jam (raspberry is traditional but for blackberry and apple jam see my recipe here)
110g butter
110g caster sugar
110g ground almonds
2 eggs
25g plain flour
half a tsp baking powder
50g of flaked almonds

For the icing:

80g icing sugar

2-3 tsp water

1. Mix the flour and salt in a bowl and cube the butter into the bowl. Rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips until it resembles breadcrumbs.

3. Mix the cold water into the crumble mixture little by little until it comes together into a ball when kneaded together - you may not have to use all of it. Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for at least half an hour. Preheat the oven to 200C towards the end of this time.

4. Make the filling in the meantime, melting the butter and then removing from the heat and adding the sugar. Add the eggs and flour at the same time and beat to combine - the flour will stop the mixture from curdling. Beat in the ground almonds and baking powder.

5. Roll out the pastry on a well-floured surface until the surface area is big enough to fill the tin, using an offcut of pastry to press the pastry into the corners.

6. Line the tin with baking paper or foil and fill with baking beans, dried pulses or rice to weigh it down. Then bake for 15 minutes, removing the paper and whatever you used to weigh it down 2 minutes before the end of the baking time. 

7. Spread the jam across the base of the pastry case, then spoon the frangipane on top and smooth it out with the back of a spoon. Add the flaked almonds and bake for 25 minutes until well risen and golden, adding the flaked almonds on top after 20 minutes - if you think the almonds are browning too much, put foil over the top.

8. While the tart is cooling, mix together the water and icing sugar for the icing. When the tart has cooled, pipe or drizzle it over the top in a zigzag pattern.

9. Serve!

Now for the raspberry topped tart. 

You will need:

For the pastry:
175g plain flour
75g cold butter
2-3tbsp cold water
23cm tart or flan tin, greased with butter

foil or baking paper

baking beans or dried beans or rice

For the topping:

handful of fresh or frozen raspberries

handful of flaked almonds

1. Follow the first recipe up to the end of step 6.

2. Spread the jam across the base of the pastry case, then spoon the frangipane on top and smooth it out with the back of a spoon. Space out the raspberries and press gently down on each one so it sinks into the frangipane a little. 

3. Scatter the almonds over and bake for 25 minutes until well risen and golden, covering with foil if you think the filling is browning too much.

4. Serve! Maybe with cream.

There, bakewell tarts. Baked well. 

Happy Baking!

Ellie

xxx

Show-stopping Salted Caramel Cupcakes

Greetings bakelings!

I hope you all had a lovely holiday season full of cheer and goodwill. And baked goods.

I had a great Christmas and New Year, punctuated by walks with my family, visits to pubs with my friends and lots of good food.

I also for the first time hosted a New Year’s Eve party, which started off quite sedate and then became a bit…less so.

But I did provide food, which always makes for a more civilised affair. Amongst the food I provided were some delicious salted caramel cupcakes, which were much appreciated.

Despite their fancy appearance, these cupcakes were quite easy to make. You don’t need to pipe the icing on top, just apply a liberal dollop and then smooth it into a peaked shape. I did this with a new palette knife that I received for Christmas, but you could do it almost as easily with the back of a spoon.

I also piped the filling into the cupcake with a long nozzle on a piping bag, but you could do it by hollowing out a small hole in each cake with a small sharp knife and using a small teaspoon to fill the cake.

It doesn’t have to be a fancy salted caramel filling either. You could use lemon curd, jam, chocolate ganache, anything you fancy.

What are you waiting for? Let’s get baking. This recipe makes 24 show-stopping cupcakes.

You will need:

For the cakes:
225g butter
225g plain flour
225g caster sugar
4 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 and a half tsp baking powder
enough filling for 24 cupcakes (probably at least 240g)
24 cupcake cases
24-hole cupcake tray

For the topping:
280g softened butter
560g icing sugar
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1-2 tbsp milk (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Cream together the butter and sugar for the cupcakes until light and fluffy.

2. Before you add the eggs, one by one, weigh out the flour and add 2 tbsp to the mixture with each egg, mixing well after each addition. This stops the mixture from curdling. Add the baking powder and vanilla extract and mix well, then fold the rest of the flour in.

3. Line the cupcake tray with the cases and divide the mixture equally between the cases. Bake for 12-14 minutes until risen and a light golden brown.

4. Cream together the butter and icing sugar for the topping, adding the milk if the mixture is too stiff, then beat in the flavouring.

5. When the cupcakes are out of the oven but before they cool, fill them. You can fit a piping bag with a long nozzle and, sticking it into each cupcake in turn, use it to pipe in the filling. Or, if you do not have this equipment, spoon the filling in after making a circular hole in each cake with a small, sharp knife.

6. When the cupcakes are filled and are completely cool, decorate them by adding a large dollop of icing to the top of each. Then, taking a small palette knife or the back of a spoon, hold it at a slight angle to the top of the cupcake, so that when you turn the cupcake, the icing is smoothed into a rounded peak.

7. Finish the cupcakes with cupcake toppers, a dash of edible glitter, silver balls, sprinkles or even finely ground biscuit crumbs, nuts or cocoa – anything that you like.

8. Serve to your very impressed guests.

Happy baking!

Ellie
xxx

Christmas Baking: The Gingerbread House Centrepiece

At last, Christmas is coming! 

And as always, I've gone in all guns blazing. I've visited Christmas markets in two different cities (Bristol and Manchester), done nearly all my Christmas shopping, am mid-way through sorting my office party outfit (after ordering and rejecting countless dresses) and have been doing some serious Christmas baking.

So let me tell you what I've been up to. A few weeks ago, on our first Christmas shopping expedition, my mum saw some gingerbread houses in John Lewis. This put ideas in her head, so she asked me to make her a gingerbread house as a Christmas centrepiece.

She was joking, I think.

But I did it anyway. I spent almost 6 hours in the kitchen, burnt my thumbs, got icing and gingery crumbs everywhere and at the end of the day I presented her with this:

A gingerbread house, complete with roof tiles (giant milk chocolate buttons), trees, windows (crushed cough sweets - don't ask) and a liberal coating of snow (royal icing).

We put an electric tealight in the back of the house so that it glows through the windows, almost as if they have a roaring fire in there.

I used a Mary Berry recipe, which can be found here on the BBC good food website, or in a GBBO recipe book - the full title is: "Great British Bake Off: How to turn everyday bakes into showstoppers".  

But having now baked it myself, I can take you through the recipe with a few extra tips and tricks for when the going gets tough. The printable pdf template for the house can be found here or in the book but please note it belongs to Mary and the BBC, not to me. 

You will need:

For the gingerbread:
375g unsalted butter
300g dark muscovado sugar
150g golden syrup
900g plain flour
1 tbsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tbsp ground ginger

a lot of greaseproof paper

2-3 baking sheets

For the icing:

3 egg whites
675g icing sugar
3 tsp lemon juice

one piping bag with a fine nozzle or small hole cut out (I used greaseproof paper rolled into a cone)

To decorate
15 yellow or orange boiled sweets (I could not find these and had to use cough sweets)
12in square cake board
250g giant milk chocolate buttons (Mary says to use 200g - it is not enough!)
1 electric tealight
4 long wooden skewers, cut to just a little longer than the height of the sides of the house

1. Preheat the oven to 200C and sift together the flour, ginger and bicarbonate of soda.

2. Melt the butter, muscovado sugar and golden syrup together over a low heat until they are dark and treacle-like.

 3. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients, stirring with a wooden spoon and then, when cool enough to handle, knead the mixture together with your hands. Divide the mixture into six equally sized pieces and put each on a sheet of greaseproof paper.

4. Roll out the gingerbread and cut out the front, back, sides and roof parts of the template. Keep one of the door cut-outs to use as a front door and roll up the rest of the trimmings and use to cut out the chimney, trees and wedge-shaped supports for the trees (cut out an extra chimey and cut into 3 for this). You'll see I didn't add a chimney because mine didn't come out very well. Bake the gingerbread for 6-8 minutes.

5. As soon as you take the gingerbread out of the oven, put the template over the top and cut around it to ensure the cut-outs have sharp, straight edges. The recipe would have you wait for the biscuit to firm a bit but I found that this made the biscuits more likely to crack. Leave the oven on.

6. Crush the boiled sweets and sprinkle them evenly in the holes for the windows. Bake for 3-4 minutes, checking every 1-2 minutes to see if they have melted. I found that as my sweets melted, they spread unevenly and holes appeared, so have a teaspoon or cocktail stick ready to do any repair work while the sweets are still melted. For this reason you may want to do the biscuits with windows in one at a time. You may also want to use fresh greaseproof paper to ensure you don't get crumbs in the windows.

7. Make your icing by beating the egg whites until foamy and then folding in the icing sugar. Do not use an electric whisk unless you're using a standing mixer with a lid because otherwise the icing sugar will go everywhere! 

8. Measure out 6 tablespoons of the icing onto the cake board and spread to make a base for your gingerbread house to stick to. Then, making sure the biscuits are free of crumbs, pipe a line of icing up the vertical edges of each and put the house together on the base. 

9. Put a small blob of icing on the back of a giant chocolate button and stick it in the corner of one of the roof pieces, then repeat, overlapping the buttons like roof tiles. If you run out of buttons like I have here, don't panic. You can cover that with icing to give it the appearance of snow.  

10. Ice the short sides of the roof pieces and stick them onto the top of the house. In the recipe, it says to use cocktail sticks, inserted blunt-edge into the house to pin your roof pieces on, but when I tried this the biscuit looked like it would crack. Instead, I used long wooden skewers cut short to prop up the roof bits while they dried. 

11. Decorate the house by piping snow along the roof edges, either roughing it up with a spoon or cocktail stick or carefully piping icicles. Pipe a doorknob and design on the door, snow along the windowsills, pipe around the trees and stick the supports to the back of them with icing. Pipe a design around the star shaped window - just be creative and do what you think will look good.

12. Leave the icing to set overnight and stick an electric tealight in through the back door and you're done. A pretty gingerbread house which also smells amazing, meaning you don't have to buy those expensive Christmas-scented candles.

If you're going to eat the house, probably do it within a week, before it goes stale, but you may want to keep it as a Christmas centrepiece, like my family will be doing. 

Happy Christmas Baking!

Ellie

xxx