blackberry tart

I picked about a kilo of blackberries at the weekend and made jam.  Went out yesterday and picked a load more so I thought I would make a blackberry tart with a tangy lemon layer.



For the pastry:

150g plain flour
75g butter
1 tbsp icing sugar
water to mix


rub the butter into the flour until it resembles bread crumbs.  Sprinkle in the icing sugar then add water to form a soft pastry.  Grease a 22cm round loose-bottomed tart/flan tin and line with the pastry.  Cover with grease-proof paper, fill with baking beans and blind bake at 180c for about 15 minutes.  Remove the beans and paper, and bake for a further 10 minutes or so until the pastry is cooked and golden brown.

I always line the tin with the pastry but don't trim until after it has blind baked for 15 minutes.  I find if you trim with a bread knife you end up with a nice clean finish.

For the lemon filing:

140ml water
1 lemon (juice and zest)
15g cornflour
1 egg yolk
small knob of butter
55g caster sugar

Put the cornflour in a jug with a couple of spoonfulls of water.  Bring the remainder of the water to the boil with lemon zest and pour this over the cornflour.  Pour the mixture back into the saucepan, add the lemon juice and boil until thick.  Add the sugar and butter and beat until smooth.  When the mixture has cooled down slightly, beat in the egg yolk.  Pour this into the cooked pastry case.

Once the lemon filing has set, arrange the blackberries on top then prepare the blackberry jelly.

For the blackberry jelly:

About 100g blackberries (I used the squashy and small ones that were leftover)
enough water to just stop the blackberries from burning
a table spoon of sugar
6g gelatine

Boil the blackberries with the water and sugar.  Strain to remove all the pips and pulp, then measure out the liquid.  You need 200ml of liquid in total so add more water as necessary.  Bring this back to the boil, sprinkle over the gelatine and whisk until combined.  Allow to cool then pour onto the tart over the blackberries.  Allow to set - takes about 1 1/2 hours in the fridge - and sprinkle with a little icing sugar.

Serve with a cup of tea and a sunny day

owl cake

A leaving cake for someone at work who likes owls.  It was either that or a lemon cake but the owl won the day. 

I made a three layer cake - two chocolate and one vanilla.  To make the chocolate I used my trusty very chocolate cake recipe in 2 20cm loose bottomed tins.  For the single vanilla layer

115g stork
115g caster sugar
2 eggs
115g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder

cream the stork and sugar together.  Add the eggs, then beat in the flour and baking powder.  Bake in a 20cm round tin for approx 25 minutes until perfectly done.

I had a slight accident with one of the chocolate layers and actually cracked it in half as I moved it.  Never mind, made up some ganache with 150ml of double cream and 150g of plain chocolate.  With all the skill of a plasterer I smoothed it over and layer up the cake - chocolate cake, ganache, vanilla, ganache, chocolate, with an extra coating of ganache all over to help the icing to stick.  Using ready-made chocolate fondant icing I covered the cake and decorated in a rather 'angry bird' owl fashion.  Not too bad for a first attempt I think. 

krantz cake

Currently my absolute favourite cookbook is Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi.  It's a beautiful book full of splendid recipes and fascinating pictures.  Everything savoury I've tried so far has been truely delicious so I was keen to try the chocolate krantz cake which is a yeasted cake. 

The only real problem I had was my dough wasn't rising fast enough in fridge and I needed to get some sleep so left it out in the warm for a little while to speed things along.  This meant that the dough was very soft and more difficult to work with.  Also, it meant I didn't get the twists quite as defined and even.

However, it worked. Quite a lot of faffing about a challenge, great fun making it, and really seriously tasty.

Recipe is quite long so here it is:

(click on recipe if you actually want to be able to read it)

chocolate krantz cake

I decided to make one chocolate krantz and one cinnamon so made half the chocolate filling and then the cinnamon filling as described.  Not really keen on walnuts -I always think they are a bit disappointing.  All that work trying to crack them open, most of them end up in tiny pieces (on the floor, on the dog, down your top) and when you do eventually get one of the little bastards out whole, they taste a bit musty.  I know, buy them really shelled but I still find those plump little nutty brains don't taste a nice as they say they're going to!  So I used almonds instead which I do like.  I think the combination of the almonds, cinnamon and syrup gives the loaf a taste and texture rather reminiscent of baklava.  Everyone who tried both actually said the cinnamon was the best.  One comment was 'seriously delicious'.

Thanks Mr Ottolenghi!

cinnamon krantz cake

geraniums are looking good too!

raspberry bakewell cake

Not so many cakes coming out of the kitchen lately.  Far too much gardening to do at this time of year but the arrival of the first raspberries and loganberries (apart from the odd ones I've been grazing on) has prompted a cake.  This one is from the BBC Good Food website.  They've got a bit of a thing going with raspberries at the moment so may be more to come.

140g ground almonds
* 140g butter, softened
140g golden caster sugar
140g self-raising flour
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
** 250g raspberries
2 tbsp flaked almonds
icing sugar, to serve



Pre-heat oven to 160c.  Cream together butter and sugar.  Beat in the eggs one by one then add the ground almonds, flour and vanilla.  Spoon half into a lined and greased 20cm loose-bottomed round tin, top with the raspberries keeping them about 15mm from the edge, then spoon the remainder over.  Sprinkle with flaked almonds and bake (well) for 50 minutes.

Allow to cool and dust with icing sugar.


* I used my trusty Stork once again.  I really should have shares in the company

** only had about 150g of raspberries and loganberries so added a couple of tablespoon of last year's blackcurrant jam to make up the fruitiness.  Seems to have worked out just fine.

bye bye banana cake

My last Monday in the office so it had to be banana cake didn't it!

I started with a standard Victoria sponge

100g stork
40g golden syrup
60g caster sugar
2 eggs
100g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder

Normal method, cream together margarine, golden syrup and caster sugar.  Beat in eggs, then flour and baking powder.  If it looks a little thick, add a splash of milk.

Pour the mixture into 2 greased and lined 6" (15cm) sandwich tins and bake at 180c for about 20 minutes until nicely done.

Now to make it bananary and tasty.  Firstly I made a toffee sauce

* 100ml double cream
100g light muscavado sugar
50g butter

Put everything in a saucepan and melt together.  Boil for about 8-10 minutes until it thickens and stops frothing.  Don't be tempted to lick the spoon as it's really, really hot (but delicious)

* I actually had whipped double in the freezer so I used this and it worked the same as double cream when it melted

Once the toffee sauce had cooled I poured it over the insides of the cake and let it soak in a bit.  I had about 200ml of whipped cream left so smoothed this over on top of the toffee sauce then added sliced banana to one side.  Sandwich the two halves together carefully.

To finish off I melted about 40g of dark chocolate in a bain marie and drizzled over the top of the cake making sure it dripped down the sides a bit.

This was just enough for 8 ladies!

happy birthday Julia

A cake inspired by gardening for Julia's birthday.  It's a bit of a wild garden with unkempt grass, daisies and buttercups and not a reflection on Julia's lovely garden.






I used my trusty Very Chocolate Cake recipe and went over the top with the decoration.  For the filling I had some ganache made up in the freezer (more cream left over from St George's Day) and some homemade blackberry jam.  Never tried freezing ganache before but it works well.  Whipped it up before freezing and it came out ready to use.

grass/hair nozzle

To decorate I smoothed some reserved ganache over the sides and decorated with ivy leaves made from ready-made icing with a bit of green colouring in.

The top was green butter icing using a grass and hair nozzle.  Never used this before and it took a bit of getting used to.  You need to squeeze the piping bag and pull up sharply.  I got better as I went along so some of the lawn was a bit uneven but whose isn't?





Daisies, buttercups and butterflies were made using some more of the ready-made icing again in varying colours.








So there you have it, way too much chocolate, sugar and artificial colourings.
Yum!

Pretty pleased with the results and had a great time making it. 

Right, what next?

happy Friday cake

Thursday afternoon was a bit quiet in the office so the ladies decided I really should make a cake for Friday.  Still jam and cream left over from St George's Day scones (cream ready whipped in the freezer) so chocolate cake with cream and strawberry jam it is....

I recently bought a heart-shaped silicon baking mould but haven't had an opportunity to use it so this seemed like the right time.  It's about 20cm across on the widest point and 4cm deep. 

So, for each layer I used

35g melted plain chocolate
85g stork marg
85g light muscavado sugar
20g cocoa
85g flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 egg
50ml milk

The usual method - cream together the marg and sugar.  Beat in the egg.  Put the dry ingredients together and add half to the marg/sugar/egg mix.  Stir in the melted chocolate.  Add the other half of the dry ingredients.  Pour in enough milk to make it just right and beat until everything is well mixed in. 

Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for about 20-25 minutes.

Rinse and repeat!  (I only have the one heart shaped mould)

Once cooled sandwich together the two halves with copious amounts of strawberry jam and whipped cream.  I reckon I used about 2 tablespoons of jam and 100ml of double cream whipped up.  I tend to mix the jam and cream together before putting it in the cake as it just makes it easier.

OK so the ganache is a bit rough but it was iced at about 5.30 on Friday morning!

To finish I melted the rest of the chocolate I had (I'd bought 2 100g bars so that would have left about 130g less the couple of squares I ate whilst waiting for the cakes to bake) and made a quick ganache* using around 100ml cream and smothered the cake in chocolately yumminess.  Topped it off with pink fairy sprinkles and ta da!  Happy Friday cake

Love you!






* to make ganache, melt the chocolate in a bain marie.  Whilst it's melting, bring the cream to the boil then gradually beat the cream into the melted chocolate a bit at a time.  Once cooled it can be whipped for a lighter texture.