Lucky me, to receive this lovely baking book for my birthday from my similarly kitchen-obsessed little sister.  Alice Arndell’s Alice in Bakingland is a treat for the eyes as much as anything, full of pictures of dainty plates, matching teacup-and-saucer sets, all showing off delightful …
Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that I am fortunate to have parentals who kindly bring me ingredients from their travels, with which I can then experiment. Â And so today, I’m going to tell you all about my fun with a bottle of …
I have come into possession of two fruity items this week – a lovely big batch of stewed apples courtesy of my sister, and a tin of strawberries.
Yes, tinned strawberries, what a strange thing indeed. Â I found them in the supermarket on special for 99 cents per tin and I figured I was prepared to part with 99 cents to satisfy my curiosity. Â This, I thought, could either be great or horrible.
I find the way they look a little alarming to be honest. Â I think it’s all that pinkness and bulbousness.
When in possession of a large amount of stewed apples and a tinned strawberry curiosity itch, the only appropriate avenue is to consider  baking.  I know strawberries are a summer fruit, and apples an autumn one, but strawberry and apple tart had a nice ring to it.  Our current Spring certainly has a very in-between, mixed up feel, so I think playing around with seasonal produce is a fitting response.
You may recall that I am fond of Delia for the classics, and her Fastest Blackberry and Apple Tart appealed as a reliable candidate for my meddling.
I made the tart base as per instructions, duly sifting rubbing in butter, caster sugar, and making a well for the egg (ooh er, it always feels a bit fancy making a well for the egg).
I lined my lightly greased tin with the tart dough and began layering on the stewed apples (a bit of a deviation, as Delia asks for fresh). Â Being stewed apples, they released a fair bit of liquid into the dough, despite my careful draining. Â To avoid my tart becoming too sog-tastic, I reverted to Delia’s advice, using fresh apples over about half the tart.
Delia instructs that one scatters the fresh blackberries over the apples. Â My slightly waterlogged strawberries did not appear to me the kind of fruit one blithely ‘scatters.’ Â And so, I lined them up neatly in between the apples, which also satisfied my neat-freakish tendencies.
I sprinkled the tart with one tablespoon of caster sugar as instructed and put it in the oven for 45 minutes at 180 degrees celsius.
Although I was concerned the liquid from the stewed apples would result in a soggy base, this did not happen and some of the apple juices pooled and caramelised in the corners of the tart in a most pleasing fashion.
But what you really want to know, I am sure, is how the strawberries fared. Â My dear friend and afternoon tea guest and my husband both gave positive reports and I was pleased too. Â They held their shape well and combined nicely with the apples and crisp base.
This strawberry and apple tart went down a treat with ice cream, fresh strawberries and a glass of peach juice. Â Verdict: would happily make this again, and thumbs up to Delia for the excellent, easy base recipe.
Who doesn’t love a bit of maple syrup?  The indigenous people of the Americas were the first to harvest maple sap.  One legend credits the humble squirrel with its discovery, telling of a young boy who watched a red squirrel nip at the bark of a maple …
Albert Squares are the next instalment in my Edmonds challenge series, following Afghan Biscuits in the index section of the Edmonds Cookbook. Â Although not strictly – there is an entry for Afghan Slice hot on the heels of Afghan Biscuits. Â However, the recipe for Afghan …
As I’m sure you’ve all noticed, the cupcake craze is well and truly in full swing. Although I haven’t jumped on the bandwagon hook line and sinker, every now and then I get the urge to bake and decorate some little morsels of cupcake prettiness. When this urge takes me, I never go past Nigella Lawson’s cupcake recipe from her fabulous book How to be a Domestic Goddess.
The thing I love about this recipe is that it’s so simple – you pretty much throw the whole thing in your food processor, whizz it up, put it in the tins and off you go. It’s funny how something so dinky starts off looking gloopy like this.
But what do you know, a few short minutes later and you have little mounds of golden-brown cakey goodness. Does anyone else find their cupcakes form little peaks like these ones?
Not that I’m complaining, because then you can cut those bits off and dip them into the icing without having to wait until all of the cakes are ready (which is one of the best things about baking cupcakes).
Now, the fiddly piping bit is not really a strength of mine, but I like to think I’m getting there. I set to with my piping set and my icing, or as the Americans like to call it’ ‘Buttercream frosting.’ I did some googling for suggested recipes for the icing and put together my own version, consisting of:
1 cup of icing sugar
1 cup of softened butter
A squeeze of lemon juice – personally, I find this helps cut through the sweetness a little.
And, Bob’s your uncle…there you have it, a plate of iced pink-and-white goodness to make one feel proud and enjoy with a cup of tea. Or, as my darling sister once proclaimed, ‘those cakes look like a fairy threw up on them.’ Charming.
Enjoy!