Simple Genoese Sponge

While deciding what sponge to use as the base of a birthday cake, I did a bit of experimentation. I've never made a Genoese sponge before so decided to give it a go. Overall it was quite simple and the cake was light and really spongy. It's not dense enough to support the weight of the fondant I'd need to cover it with for my birthday cake but it makes a really nice light sponge for making a cake for afternoon tea or something. I topped it with lemon curd and fresh blueberries but you really could use anything. There's only one of the two layers in the photos because half of it was eaten warm from the oven with Nutella and custard. That's less sophisticated but so so tasty! 

Ingredients

50g melted, cooled butter

120g plain flour

Pinch salt

4 eggs (if you can, use duck eggs or substitute one in for a hens egg)

120g caster sugar 

Method

1. With a little of the melted butter, grease two sandwich tins.

2. In a bowl over hot water, whisk the eggs and sugar with an electric whisk for about 10 minutes until thick, pale and creamy and at least tripled in size.

3. Remove from the heat and fold in the flour in two batches, followed by the butter. 

4. Divide between the two tins and bake for 20-30 minutes at 170 degrees Celsius until golden and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. 

To finish top with lemon curd and fresh blueberries and then dust with icing sugar. I did take a picture but it seems to have vanished from my phone while all the rest have stayed... mystery! It's really versatile so you really could top it with whatever you wanted. My brother wanted a Nutella one so instead of having two layers of sponge I had one of the cakes topped with lemon curd and blueberries and the other with Nutella and fresh strawberries. Give it a go! 

Tips

-Use a much bigger bowl than you think you need for the eggs and sugar- you'll be surprised how much the mixture expands! 

-Don't be impatient with the whisking - it'll go really thick and creamy and leave a trail when you pull the beaters out of the mixture. 

Almond, Berry and Seed Breakfast Muffins

I saw a recipe somewhere for muffins like these but decided to tweak them a bit. They taste really good and they're way better for you than the muffins you buy from Starbucks on days when you're running too late for breakfast. I made a full batch of 12 then froze some so that when I needed to take one with me I just took it out of the freezer and by the time I got hungry it had thawed out. They keep for a couple of days in an airtight box anyway as they're full of fruit. They're so simple to make and even trick you into thinking you're eating real cake! They also only take 30 mins start to finish and 25 of those are when they're in the oven!

Ingredients
1 cup self-raising flour
1 pot (about 280 ml) buttermilk
1 cup ground almonds
2/3rds cup caster sugar (or muscavado unrefined sugar if you have it)
3tbsp seeds (I used half chia seeds and half flax seeds, Amazon sells them cheap)
1 large egg
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup berries (I use frozen mixed berries) 
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg

Method
1. Put all the dry ingredients in a bowl.
2. Mix the oil, buttermilk and egg in a jug.
3. Add the wet to the dry ingredients and mix until incorporated.
4. Fold through the berries.
5. Divide between 12 muffin cases in a cupcake pan.
6. Bake at 170 degrees Celsius for about 25 minutes until a skewer comes out clean when inserted.
7. Leave to cool on a wire rack. 

Tips

- I topped mine with a sprinkling of porridge oats before baking to give some extra crunch to the top

- Use wholemeal flour if you want them to be even healthier

- Try mixing it up with different fruits and seeds as they're really versatile! Pumpkin seeds and apricots would be amazing... you could even add some white choc chips if you wanted them to be a little bit naughty!! 

Happy baking :) 

Salted Caramel and Peanut Millionaires Shortbread

I love millionaires shortbread but find it too sweet. This is a great way of making it less sickly. However, it does mean that you can eat more of it and are entering dangerous territory if trying to embark on a diet! I used salted peanuts in this recipe instead of salting the caramel to add constrast so that there's parts that are really salty and parts that are really sweet from the caramel. I like it that way but by all means just salt the caramel and leave out the nuts.

Ingredients

75g caster sugar

115g butter

200g plain flour (or 175g plus 1tbsp corn flour)

1 pinch salt

Caramel:

100g butter

100g light muscavado sugar

1 tin consensed milk 

150g dark chocolate

Method

1. Mix the butter and caster sugar until combined and resembling breadcrumbs. 

2. Add in the flour and press into a 20cm tin.

3. Bake at 150 degrees Celsius for about 30 minutes until golden. 

4. For the caramel, melt the butter and muscavado sugar together over a low heat. 

5. When combined, add the condensed milk, bring to the boil and stir continuously until the caramel is thick and coats the back of the spoon. As a test, dip in a cold teaspoon and if the caramel firms up and sets very quickly, it's good to go.

6. Pour the caramel over the biscuit and allow to firm up and cool.

7. When cool, top with the melted dark chocolate and allow to set. 

Tips

Make the caramel really thick. Be patient with it as it'll get there, it may just take a while. You should be able to drag your spoon from one side of the pan to the other and the line you've just drawn on the bottom of the pan to be still visible. This'll allow for an easily sliced caramel rather than having it too gooey and messy when trying to divide it up.

Cut through the chocolate when it's slightly soft so just before it sets otherwise it'll crack and you won't get uniform little squares. If it's set hard, dip your knife in hot water and divide up the chocolate first before cutting all the way through the shortbread. 

Try adding nuts to the base if you don't want to add them to the caramel (use unsalted though) for extra crunch but keeping the smooth caramel. 

Salted Caramel and Chocolate Profiteroles

Today is my aunt's birthday. We went out for lunch to a place that she'd been to before and said they did amazing profiteroles. When we went to order dessert, they'd sold out! She wasn't too happy about this so I came home and decided to give them a bash. I'd never made profiteroles before and the first attempt today failed as I didn't have enough flour, decided to wing it and found out the hard way that choux pastry can't be done in the haphazard way I usually bake. This actually requires measuring and careful following of the recipe. If you do that, it's actually really easy (not on the biceps though! You'd have guns like a superhero if you did it every day) and doesn't take too long. A relaxing afternoon bake for a rainy day!

 

 

Ingredients

120g plain flour

Pinch of salt

200ml cold water

75g butter

1 tbsp caster sugar

4 eggs, beaten

 

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

2. Put the water, sugar and butter in a pan over a low  heat until the butter is melted.

3. Turn up the heat to a boil then once boiling, turn off the heat and tip in the flour and salt.

4. Beat like your life depends on it until its a smooth paste which comes away from the sides of the pan in a ball.

5. Leave the dough to cool a bit.

6. When it's cooled a bit, beat in a little of the egg at a time. You'll need about 4 but stop when it's a smooth, glossy, pipeable paste. Don't keep adding to use it up as you'll get a mixture that's too runny and doesn't hold its shape in the oven.

7. Scoop into a piping bag with a round nozzle (or a food bag with the corner snipped off if like me you don't have a piping bag and nozzle to hand just accept the fact that you won't get symmetrical, perfect little choux buns).

8. Pipe into little balls in rows on baking trays lined with parchment and stuck down with tiny blobs of the mixture. This is the kind of consistency you want to end up with after the eggs are beaten in.

9. Dip your finger in cold water and flatten any 'nipples' on them before baking them.

10. Bake for about 30 minutes until risen and golden. They expand a LOT!

11. Stab each one's bottom with a skewer to release some air and put them back into the oven, hole side up for 5 minutes.

12. Allow to cool completely on a wire tray.

 

Tips

Don't pipe them too close together as they expand a lot when cooked! I didn't realise just how much they grew!

Put a pan of water in the bottom of the oven to create more steam and give them extra puffiness.

Pipe in single squeezes. Don't go back to a blob and add more to it to make it bigger as it won't rise up in a ball shape and you'll get odd-looking random shaped balls.

Don't open the oven while they're cooking as they'll deflate.

Cook them until they're a dark gold. If they're underdone when you open the oven they'll deflate so be patient and let them go slightly darker than you think you should.

Make sure they're filled with cream! If you don't squeeze hard enough you'll get a measly amount coming out of your bag into them and that's no use to anyone... load them up! They should feel heavy compared to the unfilled ones.

 

I filled mine with a big pot of cream (about 600ml I think), whipped up with the zest of an orange. You just pipe it into the buns when they're completely cool (you do need a small nozzle for this though).

 

For the chocolate sauce, I melted 200g dark chocolate in a bain marie (heatproof bowl over simmering water) and added in half a tub of double cream (about 150ml). I just mixed it until smooth and dunked the filled profiteroles into it. If you weren't adding caramel sauce too, some Cointreau would be good so you could have chocolate orange ones. Or even melt in a chocolate orange instead of the dark chocolate which would make it reeeeally yummy.

 

I drizzled over some of the sauce I'd made for the chocolate and chestnut pavlova as I still had some of that left. I just added some sea salt to it to give it a hint of saltiness to cut through the sweetness. To make it I melted100g caster sugar with 4 tbsp water together then brought it to a boil. Don't stir the mixture or the sugar will crystallize. When it was a dark caramel colour, I removed it from the heat and whisked in a tablespoon of butter and 300ml of double cream. It bubbles up and sizzles but just keep mixing and you'll get your delicious sauce in no time. Add in salt to taste and then store the extra (if there's any left) in sterilized jars.

 

They're not that difficult to make and considering this was my first ever attempt at choux pastry, I don't think they turned out too bad! They taste so good that any minor aesthetic imperfections are instantly forgiven by the lucky people that get to chow down on them!!

 



Blueberry Buttermilk Pancakes

I made these for breakfast for my mum when we went on a weekend away to West Wales. I had to wing it as I didn't have scales or a whisk but if they turned out as well as they did despite that, then having the right tools will only increase the chances of this being an idiot-proof recipe! They're really simple and taste really good. I serve them in a big fat stack with lots of maple syrup. They're best eaten straight out of the pan but I've also microwaved them after they've cooled when I'm ready for round two!

 

Ingredients

1 punnet blueberries

5 heaped tablespoons plain flour

1 pinch salt

1 egg

1 pot of buttermilk (about 254ml I think)

2 tbsp melted butter

1 tsp salt

1 tsp bicarb

 

Method

1. Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl.

2. In a jug or small bowl, stir the wet ingredients together with a fork.

3. Add the wet to the dry ingredients and mix until combined.

4. Over a low heat, dollop in tablespoons of the mixture. Top each blob of batter with some blueberries.

5. When the tops of the pancakes bubble, flip them over.

6. Eat hot with lots of maple syrup!

 

Tips

Don't have your pan too hot as the outsides will cook really fast and you'll have raw dough in the middle. They're fine to take their time over a low heat. If you do happen to have them undercooked, blast them in the microwave for 30 seconds and they'll be cooked throughout.



Rosewater Turkish Delight

I guess this is like the sweet version of Marmite. I happen to love Turkish Delight, everyone else in my house hates it. My aunty only likes the ones that aren't covered in chocolate and considering I'd never made it, I decided to give it a go for her Christmas present as I love giving homemade gifts. It was a real success overall! It's also not as hard as you might think....

 

This is the recipe I used. I'll link it straight up as I didn't tweak it at all and it's simple enough to follow. I haven't tried it with lemon but I'm definitely going to. I also want to try it with orange and pistachio as I think that'd be really nice.

http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/573989

 

Here are the photos of the process of making it.

I'm not sure if I boiled it too vigorously as it seemed to be really airy and formed a crispy film over the top when I poured it out. Once I'd dusted the cubes with sugar it didn't really matter but it really bothered me (insignificant a flaw as it may seem to others) so I'm determined to find out why and remedy it before I make more!

It's reeeeeeeeally sticky so getting it out of the dish and into the little cubes is a nightmare. I don't think cling film would work as the mix is soooo hot when you pour it out I don't think cling film would stand a chance. You could try greaseproof or foil but they'd leave ridges in the final product and I'm far too much of a perfectionist for that to be okay!

It's sticky and feels like it doesn't want to come out, but get a palette knife and show it who's boss!! I started in a corner and just worked my way through the tray in rows. It's resilient stuff so don't be afraid to be a bit rough with it to get it out. It'll ping back to it's little cube :)

I hadn't made it before and there don't seem to be many recipes out there, not ones as simple as this anyway. I hope that it helps knowing where I went wrong!

It's really not as hard or labour-intensive as you think and if you're a fan of rosewater definitely give it a go! If everyone else hates it, look on the bright side... more for you!!

 



Coconut and Lime Rice Pudding

This is a super simple recipe but always seems to go down well. I make it with coconut milk instead of milk and really you can just leave it to bubble away itself with the occasional stir. I usually make it with pudding rice but have also done it with risotto rice as I saw someone on TV use Arborio rice with rice pudding and that worked well too.

 

Ingredients

1 cup pudding or risotto rice

Zest of 1 lime

1 tin coconut milk

1 tsp vanilla bean paste

3 tbsp caster sugar (or to taste)

 

Method

1. Put everything into a heavy-based saucepan except for the sugar. Slowly bring to the boil.

2. Stir occasionally until the rice has absorbed all of the milk and is tender. If the liquid is absorbed before the rice is cooked, add a little milk to the pan.

3. When the rice is cooked, stir through the caster sugar and serve. Simple eh?!

 

Tips

Shake the can of coconut milk before opening it as it often separates.

Use low-fat coconut milk if you don't want to use the normal stuff - I only ever use the reduced fat one.

You don't need much sugar at all! The coconut adds a lot of flavour and sweetness to the rice.

Add some orange zest too if you want to add more flavour or some chopped dried apricots as they get really puffed up and juicy. Also, topping with some toasted coconut and serving with fresh fruit makes it more of a dessert and less of a comfort food. There's no judgement if you eat it straight out of the pan though!!

 

Chocolate and Chestnut Meringue

I made this instead of traditional Christmas desserts this year. I know it can be considered blasphemous but I don't really care. I'm not a massive fan of raisins so Christmas cake and pudding really do nothing for me. I'd never tried chestnuts before and Waitrose had tins of chestnut puree on offer so I decided to get one and try something with it. I think they're an acquired taste despite not being too flavourful and overpowering but with the addition of chocolate went down very well indeed!

This is the finished result. Not bad for a bit of experimentation eh?! It's a simple meringue base with a chocolate and chestnut cream, topped with toasted almonds and drizzled with chocolate. I can't remember exact quantities as to be honest, I didn't measure anything! It was all just a bit of judgement and chucking a few things together and seeing what happened.

 

Ingredients

6 egg whites

350g caster sugar

Pinch of salt

 

1/2 tin chestnut puree

Large tub of double cream

Icing sugar to taste (a few tbsp)

200g good quality dark chocolate

100g good quality milk chocolate

Small handful toasted flaked almonds

 

Method

1. Start by whisking the egg whites in an electric mixer with a pinch of salt. When they form soft peaks, add in the sugar a tablespoon at a time with the mixer running. When you have a firm, glossy meringue, stop mixing.

2. Spread the meringue out in a large circle on some baking paper. I did this freehand and just got it as circular as I could but if you're not too good at it draw around a plate on the reverse of the baking paper to give you a guide.

3. Bake at 140 degrees Celsius for 45 mins to an hour until firm and then turn the oven down to about 80 and leave it in there for about another hour to cook through. I didn't make it so it was hard all the way through as I like a really soft meringue. It's really up to you how long you cook it for if you want it firm or gooey and fluffy.

 

Leave the meringue to cool completely in the oven with the door shut. I made mine the day before and just left it in the oven overnight.

 

For the chocolate and chestnut cream, whip the cream with an electric mixer until soft peaks are formed. You don't want it too firm as you'll find it difficult to mix everything together and it won't be as soft. The chocolate will firm up the mix when it sets anyway so don't worry about it being soft. You want the cream to hold its shape but without being stiff.

When the cream is softly whipped, fold in the chestnut puree. I did this in two batches to fold it in without knocking too much air out.

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. You want to leave it to cool slightly before mixing it through the cream.

When slightly cooled, fold in most of the chocolate, leaving some in the bowl to drizzle on top later.

Taste the cream and add sifted cing sugar to taste if it needs it. Remember the meringue will be sweet so don't overdo the sugar!

Spread the cream over the cooled meringue, top with the almonds and drizzle with the remaining chocolate.

 

Tips

I served it with a salted butterscotch sauce which went really well considering I didn't add icing sugar to the cream. It really offset the bitterness of the chocolate. Everyone else seemed to enjoy the 'darkness' of the chocolate but I found it a bit too overpowering so added some milk chocolate to the recipe too.

Make the meringue a day ahead and leave airtight to save time. It makes it a really quick, simple dessert to assemble if all you have to do is make the chestnut cream!

Dust the meringue with cocoa powder if you want to decorate it a bit before you add the chocolate cream. If you couldn't tell before I tend to overdo the chocolate content...

Toast the almonds in a dry pan over a low heat. It's really easy to burn them so keep an eye on them!

Stick the baking paper to the tray with blobs of the meringue.. it stops the paper flying up and sticking to the meringue if you have a powerful fan!