Lime and polenta cake
You can tell the state of the economy by the price of a lime, or so the saying goes. What it’s meant to tell you, I’m not sure, but I can reliably inform you that limes in these here parts cost a small fortune at the …
Tag: baking
Herman the German Friendship Cake
Herman came into my life my accident. My plans were to have morning tea with my sister and gorgeous little niece. This did happen. But what I didn’t expect was to leave my sister’s house with my very first sour dough starter for my own Herman the …
Ginger shortbread with orange curd
This idea came to me by accident, really. I’m always a fan of shortbread, so any excuse for that. But the orange part happened when a lonely orange, languishing in the fruit bowl, happened to cross my field of vision whilst I was enjoying a Sunday morning browse through Nigella’s How to be a Domestic Goddess.
I happened to spot Nigella’s cute little Lemon Gems and immediately wanted to create similar little dollops topped with something rich and citrus-y. Lacking the vegetable shortening required by the recipe, however, and not feeling much inclined to go out hunting for some, another hearty biscuit was needed.
Shortbread is the heartiest of the hearty in my opinion. My friend the internet tells me that shortbread is so named due to its texture, as an old meaning of the word ‘short’ was ‘crumbly.’
My go-to shortbread is recipe is the trusty Edmonds’ and so I very naughtily used it here…and I say naughty, as I’m using not using Edmonds as part of my Edmonds Challenge, which reminds me that I am due some more excitement with that particular endeavour. And so, I mixed things up by deviating from the recipe slightly with the addition of ginger.
Edmonds asks the following, and I have added my ginger tinkerings…
Cream 250g butter and 1 cup of icing sugar together until it’s light and fluffy. Sift 1 cup of cornflour and 2 cups of flour together. If you’re me, at this point also add 1.5 teaspoons of ground ginger and 1 tablespoon of grated fresh ginger to the flour and cornflour. Mix the dry and creamed ingredients together, knead and roll out to 0.5cm thickness on a floured board.
At this point, I transferred the shortbread to an oven tray and it into rectangles. I used a (clean!) fingertip to make little craters in the biscuit and popped them into a 150 degree celsius oven.
And now for the curd. Seeing as I was having a Nigella day anyway, I used her recipe for lime curd, replacing the lime juice and zest with the juice and zest of my orange, along with a quick squeeze of lemon juice.
When my indented shortbread had become pale golden (which took about half an hour) I removed it from the oven and filled the little craters with the orange curd.
It was a creamy, custardy curd which was rather pleasant with the shortbread. And the whole lot went at work the next day, so they can’t be all bad.
Raspberry Rings…with jam and Nutella
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 …
Coconut & yoghurt loaf with lime icing
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. And so today, I’m going to tell you all about my fun with a bottle of …
Strawberry and apple tart
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. 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. This, I thought, could either be great or horrible.
I find the way they look a little alarming to be honest. 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). Being stewed apples, they released a fair bit of liquid into the dough, despite my careful draining. 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. My slightly waterlogged strawberries did not appear to me the kind of fruit one blithely ‘scatters.’ 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. My dear friend and afternoon tea guest and my husband both gave positive reports and I was pleased too. 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. Verdict: would happily make this again, and thumbs up to Delia for the excellent, easy base recipe.
Spiced maple biscuits
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
Albert Squares are the next instalment in my Edmonds challenge series, following Afghan Biscuits in the index section of the Edmonds Cookbook. Although not strictly – there is an entry for Afghan Slice hot on the heels of Afghan Biscuits. However, the recipe for Afghan …
Pink and white cupcake glory
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!