Tag Archives: around the world in eighty bakes

The Caribbean Christmas Cake Collection Continued…

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in Around the World in Eighty Bakes, Baking, BBC Good Food, cake decoration, Christmas, Cookery, Delia Smith, Fruit Cake, sugar craft, The Great British Bake Off and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Caribbean Christmas Cake Collection

This post has been a long time in the making. About a month ago I began the Caribbean Christmas Cakes after an extreme test of my patience in greasing and lining 14 assorted mini cake tins and baking the little blighters for a couple of hours. I don’t mind this of course as I know the fruits of my labours are worth the effort and the wonderous rum, raisin, cinnamon and coconut smell that permeated the entire house let me know just how wonderful it will be.

The baked cakes

I’ve tended to my little cakes every week, topping them up with a bit more rum, until they could take no more. They still required a little house of marzipan and another week to dry out all in their specially purchased enormous Tupperware box.

Roll out a lot of marzipan... this has got to fit round 14 cakes

I decided one Saturday night, before heading out for a party to attempt to coat them all in a quick blanket of marzipan. I managed to finish 9 of them before I decided enough was enough and I would very much like to go to have a dance instead.

Firstly they needed to be glazed with apricot jam to make the marzipan stick…

Warming Apricot Jam

Then as all the cakes are very different shapes and sizes, they each needed to be fitted individually for their marzipan house. In an attempt to minimise rolling out marzipan, as it is frankly infuriating with its tendency to stick to the work surface just as you get it to the right thickness and it’s perfectly smooth so you have to start again, I squeezed as many on to one sheet as possible and trimmed it so there was very little excess to remove on the cake itself.

cutting each cake its own marzipan house

Once it was face down on the marzipan I had to simply lift the marzipan up and force it to stick to the sides of the cake, achieving a (relatively) smooth finish. I’m not too bothered about getting it perfect at this stage as the fondant should cover any major flaws…

Off with its head! (far too wonky)

Occasionally I got too frustrated with the cake being all oddly shaped and cut a lump off it. This didn’t really help matters as the cake was no straighter after being hacked into. I just made a big mess and dropped cake everywhere… but it did mean that I had a midnight snack when I got back in later on. 🙂

Then for the fondant

After a week the marzipan was settled enough to add the final icing layer. I was greeted by a fantastic whiff of almond and rum when I came back to the little cakes. The white fondant icing needed to be kneaded until it was pliable and then rolled out in the same way as the marzipan, however a bit more carefully and precisely (if I can ever be precise?!) as this is the layer that everyone sees. Cue more irritated rolling pin action.

I didn’t have any vodka to brush onto the marzipan so I used the rum in the cupboard. I’m sure that will do the same job and perhaps enhance the rumness of the cake while it’s at it?

Trim its skirt

The cakes needed a little trim to tidy the edges and I ended up rolling the cakes themselves around like a rolling pin (as they’re so small) on the worksurface to smooth them out and flatten the icing down. It’s impossible, even with my childrens sized rolling pin to roll the icing smooth on the cakes. Then they needed a quick polish with the palm of my hand to bring the icing to life.

I love the film Elf. It always makes me think of candy canes so as an homage to Elf I wanted to make Candy stripe cakes. I was very kindly donated a block of red fondant which is amazing!! (Thanks Lucy!) I rolled it out and using many handy palette knife/ruler cut strips of red icing.

Lines and lines and lines and lines

Then I glued them on to the cakes using a dab of water.

Chunky Candy Stripes

Not bad for my first attempt even if I do say so myself (and as I was completely making it up as I went along). Not content with just one design, I had ordered some daisy flower cutters from Ebay and thought I could perhaps christen them and pass them off as Poinsettia?

The daisy/poinsettia flower cutters

Poinsettia Flowers

I added some silver edible ball things (can’t remember their real name) by mixing a tiny bit of icing sugar with water to make a paste then squishing them into the cakes. There’s still 5 more cakes that require some attention and I have some holly leaf cutters and green food colouring to play with 🙂

All shapes and sizes welcome in this collection of cakes

4 hours of icing later... 9 down, 5 more to go.

I’m also entering this in Vanessa Kimbells’ fantastic Let’s Make Christmas Competition as I will be packing up these mini cakes in cellophane with lashings of ribbon and giving them to my friends and family very soon! Have a look at her blog and competition below…
 
http://writingacookerybook.blogspot.com/2011/10/lets-make-christmas.html

18. Disastrous Turkish Delight (No Delight in Sight)

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in Around the World in Eighty Bakes, Everday Cooking, Marguerite Patten, The Great British Bake Off, Turkey, Uncategorized and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Marguerite Patten's Recipe...

This was an unmitigated disaster. I won’t attempt to make excuses for this one at all. It was dreadful!! The recipe supplied by Marguerite Patten (who has never failed me before!) asked for powdered gelatin which I didn’t have so I substituted for leaf gelatine. Not entirely sure if this is a reasonable substitution and I had to guess the number of leaves required too… I think the sheer amount of guess work and hoping for the best resulted in terrible Turkish Delight, I take all the blame.

Having visited Turkey many many times, it’s one of my favourite places. So hot and so beautiful! I always enjoy sampling the local delicacies, rose and mint flavoured Turkish Delight are my favourites along with the apple tea of course! I wish I could make it properly at home.

Delightful

Pancakes anyone?

The recipe asked for the

sugar and water to be melted together

Then to add the gelatin…

Bring the syrup to the boil (no problem)

Then to let it simmer until it reached the soft ball stage. This is when you drop some of the mixture into cold water it forms a soft ball. If only I had a sugar thermometer it would take all of the guess work (fun) out of the experiment…

Soft ball stage?

The recipe called for Tartaric Acid. This is something I’ve never heard of, nor seen in any shops, ever. Rummaging in my cupboards I discovered Cream of Tartar. Surely this is the same thing, right? NO, It’s really really not. As soon as I added it to the syrup it shrank back dramatically into the pan, losing its white frothiness.

At this stage according to Marguerite it should be a lovely Turkish Delight consistency so you can add rose essence and pink food colouring…

Or how about a solid block of sugar? *curses*

I succeeded in making a solid block of pink sugar instead of lovely chewy transparent Turkish Delight. I refused to let this beat me, so tried to melt the block down again by adding more water. Now if I was trying to make Kendal Mint Cake, this would be perfect…

Solid Pink Sugar instead rather more like Kendal Mint Cake than Turkish Delight

Undeterred I found a different recipe for Lokum (Turkish Delight) that uses Cornflour rather than gelatin that I thought might be more traditional and easier to make. How easily deluded I am!

The alternative ingredients

A paste made from cornflour sugar and cream of tartar (looks delicious?)

Add the rose essence and food colouring once at the soft ball stage

Then supposedly once it’s reduced enough it should magically transform into Turkish Delight…

Pink rose jelly. No Delight in sight

I simply can’t figure it out! Is it me? Should I give up guessing and follow recipes properly? Should I buy a thermometer? Maybe I should give this one last try…

17. Matcha Green Tea Drizzle Cake – Japan

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in Around the World in Eighty Bakes, Baking, cake decoration, Cookery, Food, GBBO, Green Tea, Japan, The Great British Bake Off, Travelling and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I love Japan. This is probably an understatement. The North East of England has slowly but surely caught on to the variety of foods that other countries can offer. For a long time we only had one sushi restaurant. I’m happy to report that we now have at least 3 that I’m aware of. Wagamama posed quite a revolution when it first opened its doors and we all queued down the street for a chance to eat some gorgeous food.

The Golden Palace

Traditionally Japanese food focuses more on savoury things rather than cakes I found this fantastic recipe for a Green Tea Drizzle Cake in the Wagamama cookbook.

A delicious slice

I went to Japan last year after dreaming about it for many, many years. I love that pretty much everything has green tea in it. I ate so much Green Tea ice cream…

My favourite ice cream parlour (this may have bee rose but I ate so much I forget)

went to a Tea Ceremony,

Me making Matcha in the Tea ceremony

Tea Ceremony

dressed up in kimono

The Full Kimono Experience

Kimono

and ate tonnes of sushi and noodles and maple leaf cakes (if I can find a recipe I will be attempting this very soon!)

The best cold soba noodles I have ever had. EVER

I’m quite adventurous when it comes to food and when in Japan of course I’m going to experiment a bit further, so yes I ate Bento boxes on the bullet train til they were coming out of my ears, (octopus legs and all)

Tasty Octopus Legs

but I drew the line at raw horse meat which was almost eaten by accident, slightly lost in translation somewhere…

No raw horse meat here!

Luckily during my Hello Kitty splurges I also insisted on purchasing Matcha (Green Tea Powder although the bamboo whisk is yet to see daylight and is still sealed in its packet at the back of the cupboard) My Asian cooking obsessions mean that I regularly purchase bizarre things from the Chinese Supermarkets, so I have a cupboard full of tapioca pearls, jasmine essence and of course gunpowder green tea.

The strong stuff

We had friends coming round for takeaway and I thought Green Tea Cake would be a perfect light end to the meal. It was quite a quick bake too, so just enough time to whip up a double batch as I wanted to bake one to take with me to my friends house the night after too.

Unlike a normal sponge cake, the sugar and eggs were beaten together in a bain marie until it tripled in size.

Eggs and sugar into the whisk

Whisk it all until it triples in size

Magic

then flour, baking powder and matcha powder were folded in.

Matcha Green Tea Powder (and flour)

I divided the batter between the 2 tins and set them away to bake whilst I brewed up the strongest green tea I’ve ever made. It goes against my tea teachings to use boiling water when brewing green tea, but that’s what the recipe called for so I followed the instructions, wincing at the bitter green tea smell.

Brewing tea

I sieved the stewed tea to separate out the leaves and then reduced the tea down to a syrup with sugar.

Dark green tea

When the cakes they had to rest in their tins until cooled. I pierced the top of the cakes with a skewer and then poured the syrup generously over the 2 cakes.

Green Tea Syrup

They needed a little more resting and then wrestling out of the sugary tins, as the syrup hardened and required some brute force to release the cakes. Normally with a drizzle cake I use a solid tin and can dunk it in hot water to release it, but as this wasn’t water tight with a loose bottom I didn’t want to drown it before we had a chance to eat it!

Drizzled

Having saved a little syrup back, I ‘spiked’ the crème fraiche with green tea.

Green Tea spiked Creme Fraiche

I usually don’t like cream on the side of my cakes, but this was divine! The cake didn’t taste anything like how it smelt, which to be honest wasn’t the best smelling cake I’ve made.  (Nor was it the prettiest!)

The Final Cake

It was clean tasting and refreshing, with a crispy coating on the outside and soft and moist on in the inside. Beautiful! I would definitely recommend this to anyone.

The cake was enjoyed by all

Bonsai Trees at Hiroshima Peace Park

 

Things that I used to make my Matcha Green Tea Drizzle Cake (Courtesy of Wagamama Cookbook) 

This will make 1 Matcha Green Tea Drizzle Cake. I doubled these ingredients and made 2 cakes at the same time. (Just in case you’re feeding a few people! The cake should serve about 6-8 people)

For the cake

  • 110 g plain flour
  • 10 g matcha (powdered green tea – you can get this in most oriental supermarkets)
  • ½ tsp baking powder
  • 75 g butter
  • 110 g caster sugar
  • 4 eggs

For the green tea syrup

  • 2 tbsp green tea leaves (I used gunpowder loose green tea leaves to make the syrup)
  • 150 ml boiling water
  • 150 g caster sugar
  • Don’t forget to save a little of the syrup to spike the crème fraîche  with!
  • about 200 g crème fraîche  to serve

We’re painting the roses red… Sugar flowers (first attempt)

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in Around the World in Eighty Bakes, Baking, cake decoration, Cookery, England, GBBO, sugar craft, The Great British Bake Off and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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My Christmas food coloring pastes have arrived. I’ve started icing the 14 mini Christmas cakes and I’ve been watching the Junior Great British Bake Off avidly. I’m so very impressed with the creativity and imagination that the young bakers have.

I’ve been itching to try out sugar craft but been put off slightly by the expense and equipment required.

Improvising to the hilt and having read I read Ruth Clemens sugar rose tutorial a couple of months ago I thought that I’d give sugar craft a whirl. Surely it can’t be too difficult. Can it?

Lacking any official icing tools apart from things I can find in my cupboards which includes a cocktail stick to add food colouring, a glass worktop saver, 2 plastic sandwich bags, my mini children’s rolling pin and of course a block of fondant icing.

Its quite delicate work. Not so much like play dough as I had hoped. I mainly gave up attempting to roll anything out properly and just used my hands.

Here’s the results…

Truffled and Fudged – I’m dreaming of a White Christmas

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in Around the World in Eighty Bakes, Baking, Cookery, England, Everday Cooking, Food, GBBO, Marguerite Patton, The Great British Bake Off, Uncategorized and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

White Chocolate and white chocolate, cocoa and coconut truffles

I feel a bit of fraud putting a number against this bake as its more of a make than a bake. It was also very experimental but who doesn’t love a bit bit of fudge or truffles?! (Yes, I made them both simultaneously and still have chocolate left!)

I’m attempting to find recipes that can be made for Christmas presents, that are wheat free, not perishable and that are postable to Australia. Oh and I also accidentally purchased probably a years supply of white chocolate that needs to be used up quick… Not asking for much am I?

Hence my dalliance with truffles and fudge. As it was an experiment no one was expecting much apart from me. I think I need to learn not to expect everything to turn out perfect as if by magic when I mostly rely upon guess work (despite being guided wonderfully by Margeurite Patton’s Everyday Cooking Bible).

I started with White Chocolate Fudge. The recipe actually asked for dark chocolate but I’m sure it won’t matter that I replace it with white chocolate and vanilla essence. I will let the pictures do the talking…

Lashings of White Chocolate

Melting butter all the butter and sugar and chocolate together

Icing sugar frenzy

This is why I usually don't bother with sifting anything...

Truffley. (Now to set in the fridge)

Bendable, shapable truffles

What flavour would you care to sample? Chocolate, chocolate or coconut?

The Final Truffley Trio

Then on to Fudge Making. It bears quite a lot of resemblance to truffle making, but without eggs…

The beginning of fudge. Looks suspiciously like the beginning of truffles. (White Chocolate, butter, sugar and vanilla)

Let’s whisk

I was aiming for the elusive ‘soft ball stage’ to let me know it was ready. I think I may have missed it as despite over a week in the fridge the damn thing just wouldn’t set!

Fudge (swirly for Halloween)

Fudge (glittery - just because)

In an attempt not to waste this delicious fudgey paste I thought I would bake an experimental cake and shove some in the middle! Like an alternative Victoria Sponge, chocolate and almond with vanilla fudge filling.

It worked a treat and was like a sweeter version of buttercream, (if a slightly crunchy with all that sparkly sugar!) I still have half left. I wonder what else I can make with it?