Sunday bakes - 'Many happy returns' marzipan lace cakes

Goodness it’s been a while since I last posted, happy New Year to all!

So since I last posted I’ve gotten old(er), so I thought for this post I would put up my birthday cakes. They were just little ones that I made for my office, but I tried out my hydrangea flower designs and my new lace mats to decorate them.

I chose a mixture of cinnamon, and vanilla and marzipan flavours, just to keep it simple and focused on the decoration (I left it a little late, so only had an evening, to get these done). As I was a little short on time I used my oven to help speed up the lace-drying process. You can get the sugar lace dried enough to take out in an hour, but you have to keep a watchful eye on the temperature and how long they are in there, otherwise it will discolour or even burn.

Aside from a few small burning mishaps where I got distracted by bowl licking and forgot to keep an eye on my lace, it's very easy to make. You can buy the speciality icing sugar in most baking shops, or online and after mixing with water to make an elastic, gummy paste you use a palette knife (or just the biggest, smoothest flat knife you have, I’ve used a normal dinner knife before) to ‘plaster’ the silicon mould. It’s important that you fully fill the mould, or your lace will have gaps but also be aware that any left-over icing between the dips will stay there, so you might have to spend a little time making it smooth, or trimming any strays afterwards. If you are in no hurry you can leave this to dry out over a few hours, or overnight, but as I mentioned I was in a rush so used the oven for a little while it was heating and cooling and the top oven while I was baking the cakes.

The flowers again require some specialist icing, bit this time I bought it ready made. I’ve opened this pack already but you can re-seal and store in the freezer if you don’t want to use it all at once. I used a hydrangea cutter with built in texture, added the centre part and painting with a dust icing paint.

There are two different cakes, Cinnamon flavour and vanilla and marzipan flavour. They both use vanilla sponge basic mixture so I’ll just add in alternatives for each when I get to that bit of the recipe.

Ingredients

140g Caster Sugar

40g butter

120g self-raising flour

A few drops of vanilla essence, or a tablespoon of cinnamon

120ml milk

1 egg

A block of marzipan

A block of fondant icing

Icing

250g Icing sugar

80g Stork spread
25ml milk

2tsp Cinnamon jam
1tbsp Ground Cinnamon

Method

Cream the butter and sugar together until it’s as fluffy as you can get, this will be a little crumbly. Add the egg, essence (or cinnamon) and whisk up before slowly adding the flour, sifting through a sieve. Add the milk little by little to avoid lumps and whisk thoroughly before spooning into cake cases and baking for 20 minutes at about 180.

Ice with your preferred icing, I have chosen cinnamon butter cream with a small splodge of cinnamon jam for the cinnamon cakes and a layer or marzipan and then fondant icing for the vanilla and marzipan cakes, this is mostly to give a good surface for the lace.

Take these into work to thank everyone for being kind as you age and to buy you favours for the next year.

Sunday bakes - 'fright night fun' figgy brown treacle tart

I read an article the other day about brown sauce, it was an abusive piece, lambasting the poor old sauce for being a taste bully. It made me feel a bit defensive of poor old brown sauce, yes sure it's not everyone's cup of tea and generally I only eat it on a full english fry up, but if you look at the ingredients it's really quite an interesting one. It's jam-packed with spices and tamarind sauce and it got me thinking about the other possible ways brown sauce could contribute in my kitchen. 

This weekend I went to Tulleys farm's shocktoberfest, which is hands down my favourite thing to do all year. It's a halloween theme park, with a selection of 'haunts' in an atmospheric setting and I find it both hilarious and terrifying. I went with a couple of friends and my boyfriend so afterwards we curled up in front of a fire with a glass of whiskey and this pie. 

Ingredients
250g plain flour
4tbsp caster sugar
130g butter
350g golden syrup
50g brown sauce
3 ripe fresh figs
150g fine fresh white breadcrumbs
2 lemons
1  egg

Method
First make the pastry. Chop the butter into small cubes and combine with the flour, rub between your fingers to make a fine breadcrumb texture, add the sugar, then add 2 tbsp of cold water, one by one to bring the mixture together. You don't have to add it all. Don't play with the pastry too much, wrap it in cling film and put in the fridge for 20 minutes. 

Pour the liquid ingredients into a pan along with the zest and juice of the two lemons and heat gently. Once this is warmed through add the breadcrumbs and heat for another 5 minutes. 

Roll out the pastry, grease the tart tin and lay 2/3rds of the pastry into the tin. Prick the bottom so it doesn't rise up. Fill the tin with the breadcrumb mix then slice the figs and lay them in a pattern on top. 

Roll out the rest of the pastry and cut into strips of equal width, arrange in a lattice pattern and place on top, pressing into the base pastry along the edges. Make an egg wash and brush all over, bake at 160 for 15 minutes until the crust is golden brown. 

This is surprisingly nice with a good old fashioned custard in front of a fire. 

Sunday bakes - 'Pretty pleased to be home' plum and marzipan pie

The last few weeks have been a bit crazy with travelling, first going up to Edinburgh, then to Chelmsford for a wedding, then down to Cornwall and then to Dublin once a week ever since. So it's been lovely to spend it a little bit of time at home.

To celebrate homeliness this week I bakes a plum, cherry and marzipan pie to give to my mum in lieu of a birthday cake.

Ingredients
Ripe plums
Caster sugar
Dried cherries
2 tbsp cherry brandy
200g marzipan, chopped into small cubes
1 pack of shortcrust pastry
1.5 tbsp cornflour

Method
Place the plums carefully into a saucepan with the caster sugar and heat gently. One the plums are starting to sizzle a little and the sugar is melting, add the brandy. Cook for just a couple of minutes, you want the plums to keep their colour and shape. Pour them into a sieve over a bowl and leave them to drain.

Roll out the pastry and line a pie dish, trimming the edges.

Place the plums into the pie dish, so the coloured domes face upwards. between each layer of the plums scatter the marzipan and the dried cherries.

Add a small amount of the plum juice mixture to the cornflour and mix into a paste, add a little more juice and mix again. Keep adding until all the juice has been mixed with the cornflour so you have a thicker syrup.

Drizzle two to three tablespoons of the juice over the plums in the pie and then add your pie lid. You can do whatever style lid you like, but remember to leave a space for the steam to escape. I opted for a sun rays design.

Cover the pastry in a milk or egg wash to give it a lovely golden brown colour and then bake at 180 for twenty minutes.

Misty mornings, mussels, and mackerel

I went on holiday!

I had a wonderful time down in Cornwall, thank you to the Anderson family for inviting me. I learned to fish, and make a couple of not fabulous attempts at star photography. The positive news was that I found my camera had a bulb setting, the bad news was that I needed a remote shutter. But never mind, I'll get one for next time. My last morning there was beautiful, it was about halfway through for everyone else so we were all sleeping in a little, but I woke up at 7.30 to find a blanket of sea mist with the sun rising behind it, so of course I had to run out with my camera, still wiping the sleep out of my eyes. So here are a few of my holiday snaps. 

Sunday bakes - 'Little treat for the train' lemon macarons

The weekend I made these treats was the weekend of the wedding of one of my best friends. It was a beautiful day, full of happiness and love. Congratulations Ruth and Dave, I hope you have a wonderful future together and I look forward to seeing you enjoy all the good times you have ahead. 

Now for the train ride home, and the extra train ride down to Cornwall, because after the wedding I was also off on holiday. 

So here's a little treat I made for the train to get me through the long hours of travel. 

Ingredients
6 oz icing sugar
5.5 oz ground almonds
120 ml egg whites – about 4 eggs
5.5 oz granulated sugar
2 tbsp fine lemon zest
50ml water


Filling

Lemon juice and zest of about 4 lemons
3.5 oz butter
7 oz caster sugar
3 eggs, plus 1 extra yolk

Method
After sifting the almonds to get rid of any larger lumps, put into a food blender with half of the egg whites, the lemon zest and the icing sugar and blend into a paste with about 15 long pulses. 

Put the rest of the egg whites into a mixer and whisk up until the egg whites hold soft peaks. At the same time put the water and the sugar into a saucepan and heat gently. The sugar will dissolve and when the water starts to boil. Use a sugar thermometer and the mixture will be ready when it reaches 110°. Keep the mixer whisking as you pour the sugar syrup into the eggs slowly. Once you have finished pouring, keep the mixer going as the mixture gets glossy and slightly stiffer. Keep whisking until it is cool.  

Fold the almond, lemon mixture in together with the egg whites until you have a smooth mixture. Place this into a piping bag and pipe evenly onto a greased baking paper sheet. I add a little more grease because the paper does not seem to be quite enough. Draw a circle with the piping bag about 2 cm diameter and then hold the bag in the center and pipe out to make a small dome. 

Leave the disks out on the side for a couple of hours to form a slight skin and then bake at 170° for 14 minutes. 

In the meantime you can make your lemon curd filling. 

Put all the ingredients into a bowl and place over a saucepan with boiling water. Heat the mixture until the butter has all melted. Whisk up the eggs and yolks together a little before adding to the melted butter mixture. Heat very gently, stirring every now and then until the mixture coats the back of the spoon. Leave the curd to cool. 

Choose disks that are a similar size and spoon some curd onto the flat side and sandwich the two together. 

Eat these little disks of sunshine while on a train, with a good book, on your way to a great holiday.

Sunday bakes - 'bribing people to like me' buns

It's been a while since I made some choux pastry and so this weekend I cracked out my wooden spoon and gave it another shot. 

This time instead of the usual chocolate topping I wanted to try something a bit brighter and opted for a speedy raspberry jam. 

They went down pretty well in the office, I might make another batch ready for project 'make my boyfriend's parents like me'. 

Ingredients
Pastry
200ml cold water
4tsp caster sugar
3oz margarine
4oz plain flour
3 beaten eggs

Cream
500ml cream whisked to stiff peaks with a little raspberry-ripple flavour

Jam
100g frozen raspberries
5tbsp caster sugar

Method
Put the water, margarine and sugar into a saucepan and heat until the margarine melts. Pour the flour into the saucepan in one go and stir vigorously until the dough has a slight gloss and is in one consistent ball off the sides of the saucepan. Put the dough into a bowl and leave to cool for ten minutes before slowly beating in the eggs, little by little. Once the dough is combined pour into a piping bag and pipe into balls on a sheet of baking paper. Tap the tray a little to knock out any bubbles of air. Pre-heat the oven to 180 and place a tray of water in the bottom of the oven to build up steam. Once the oven is at temperature put the buns in and bake for 25 minutes, when they will have puffed up and become golden brown. 

Put the raspberries in a saucepan and heat, one they start to breakdown add the sugar and continue to heat. Breakup any lumps of raspberry left and reduce the mixture until it is sticky and thick. 

Once the buns are done leave until thoroughly cool, snip a small hole in the side, pour the cream into a piping bag and fill the buns one by one. 

Top with the jam and definitely wait before trying one, because the jam will essentially be molten hot sugar. You will burn your mouth. 

Sunday bakes - 'Berry messy' brioche breakfast bake

After a fun-filled weekend at the Edinburgh fringe with my brother (he was in Adam Long's Dickens Abridged, a really good show), I opted for a bank holiday baked breakfast treat. No, I don't have a hangover, anymore. In addition to Dickens Abridged I would highly recommend Spillikin. It was a beautiful show featuring a robot actor that managed to be touching, sweet and funny as well as leaving you questioning morality and scientific developments for the future. A really interesting watch. 

I picked up a bag of chocolate brioche on my way back through the airport and this morning I made an american inspired breakfast. 

Ingredients
3 chocolate brioche rolls
1 frozen sliced banana
2 handfuls of frozen blueberries
5 tbsp egg whites
1 tbsp caster sugar
3 tbsp maple syrup

Method
Lay the fruit in the bottom of the dish and place the sliced brioche over the top. Mix up the egg, sugar and maple syrup and pour over the brioche. Tilt the dish to help the brioche absorb the mixture then bake at 180 for 8 minutes

Now you should have a crispy french-toast inspired breakfast treat, to be enjoyed with fresh coffee, the newspaper and the traditional bank holiday rain.