Heaven With Strawberries

Tardis Cake!

2008-04-12T09:12:00.000-07:00

So, I decided it's been way too long since I did a proper, decorated cake. I've been really lazy about it lately, I've been baking, but nothing fancy. I need to start putting the effort back in! Yeah, let's get motivated! *awkward silence*. That's enough of that.
with, I baked a To celebrate the new season of 'Doctor Who' on BBC 2, which frankly I was a little disappointedtardis cake! Well, I actually just baked a plane sponge cake and cut it up, glued it together with blue butter cream, and iced with writing icing to make a tardis-shaped thing. Still, I think it worked out pretty well.

*Woosh*

It was a bit of a nightmare to stick together at first, the cake was really crumbly and kept falling apart when I tried to put the thick butter cream on, but then my mum had the genius idea of putting it in the microwave (the icing, that is, not the cake). That made it really easy so spread on, and it hardened after about ten minutes. Then I just did some simple decoration with writing icing, which I still need a bit of practice with, evident from my not-so-legible writing :P Ah well, it'll come eventually. After that I still felt like it needed something to 'finish it', so I whacked on some blue sprinkle thingies to complete the look.

Enter The Doctor!

I haven't tasted this one yet, but I don't imagine it's anything amazing. I have a confession to make: I forgot to put the jam in the middle >_<>

I think I need practice >_<

For the recipe it's just the good ol' jam and sponge that I've already got posted (look under 'cakes' tag) and a basic butter cream recipe, with a load of blue food-dye (yay E numbers) thrown in. Really easy to make, and pretty cool looking too.

Next time it's going to have to be a Dalek cake!

Rich Chocolate Cake

2008-03-21T13:38:00.000-07:00

If You Want Chocolate...

Rich Chocolate Cake:

Ingredients:

250g butter
270g dark chocolate
6 eggs, seperated
250g sugar
120g flour, sieved
An extra couple of bars of milk or dark chocolate (optional)

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius.
Grease and line a 22cm springform tin.
Melt butter and chocolate together over bowl of simmering water.
Whisk together egg yolks and sugar until thick.
Add in melted chocolate and mix well
Fold in flour using a big metal spoon.
Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.
Fold egg whites into chocolate mixture.
If desired, add extra chopped chocolate chips.
Pour into tin and bake for 40 mintutes, or until cake is set at sides but soft and glossy in the center.
Cool compleatly before removing from tin.
Serve with Bailey's Cream (whip 200ml cream with one tablespoon cream and half a teaspoon ground ginger).

Hello again, all. Hope we're keeping well.
Yup, I'm still on the never-ending chocolate cake quest! I know, I know, how long can it go on for? Well, to be perfectly honest, I don't think it'll ever end. There are just too many different types; Light spongey ones, or really dense, intensily chocolatey ones, ones covered in icing, ones that go with ice cream, ones to be eaten hot, to be eaten cold, the list just keeps going. I don't think there will ever be an 'untimate', but I can at least find a couple of really, really good ones. I've even come across a recipe for one with potato in it! I can't wait to give that a go!
This is definitly one of those increadibly rich cakes that needs no icing, it's cake that's meant to be eaten for its own sake. Serious cake, if you will. It's almost like a giant brownie rather that a cake, so a small slice is satisfying, too much and you will feel sick >_<
I got the recipe out of The Irish Time's Magazine, and it's gone straight into my recipe book. Personally, I wasn't that wild about it, it was all a bit too rich and, well, chocolaty for my liking (I prefer lighter desserts), but everybody else fell in love with it! It's really easy to make too, so long as you take care folding in the egg whites. I was a little concerned when I took it out of the oven, it really did look underdone in the middle, but you just have to imagine it as... like... cement! It'll set when it's cool ^_^
So, that's another triumph over Betty Crocker ;)

Until next time....

Strawberry Meringue Layer Cake, Not So Good Chocolate Muffins, and My Very Own Banana Muffins

2008-03-12T14:16:00.000-07:00

Fancy, no?

As promiced, I have been up to more baking ^_^ Yup, I had a free Saturday and the need to bake, so I got going for some Sunday dessert.
I decided that I haven't really done anything new or interesting for a while, so I decided to try this from Nigella's 'Forever Summer', not exactly the weather for it, I know but it looked pretty.

Mmmm, cake!

Ingredients:

125g plain flour
25g cornflour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
100g soft, unsalted butter
300g caster sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoons natural vanilla essence
2 tablespoons milk
50g flaked almonds
375ml double cream
250g strawberries (I used raspberries)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Line, butter, and flour 2 X 22 cm Springform tins.
Weigh out flour, cornflour, and baking powder in a bowl.
Cream butter and 100g of the sugar in another bowl until light and fluffy.
Separate the eggs and beat the yolks into the butter and sugar.
Fold in the dry ingredients, add the vanilla, stir in the milk.
Divide between the two tins.
Whisk the egg whites 'til soft peaks form. Then add the remaining 200g egg whites. Spread meringue on top of sponge in each tin, sprinkle with almonds.
Bake for 30-35 mins until meringue is dark golden brown. Let cool in tins, and spring open at last minute when ready to assemble.
Whip double cream, hull and slice strawberries.
Invert one cake and pile with cream and berries. Place the second cake on top, meringue side up.

All in all, I think this turned out quite well. I was a bit nervous about there being a really small amount of sponge, I was aftaid that it would just burn and be, shall we say, not so good. Then there was the whole problem with me not actually having two springform tins, but I did have once springform and one loose-bottomed, and that turned out okay. It is a bit delecate, but not half as fragile as I thought it would be. I could'nt get hold of any fresh strawberries, so I had to do with frozen raspberries, which were still pretty damn good.
Taste wise it was pretty much what you would expect, classic taste really. Meringue, raspberries, cream, and almonds, but I think the sponge gave it a little extra something, definitly worth the effort, and I think it looks pretty good too (thought my photos aren't so hot, I really have to try and take them before 12 at night >_<)

YUCK!

Then my sister, not being a fan of cream and fruit, asked me to make here some big ol' chocolate muffins with big, crusty tops and squishy insides. This all sounded pretty tasty to me, but I've yet to find a good chocolate muffin recipe in my cookbooks, so I went online and found one that I thought looked promicing. The results? Not so good, not worth posting the recipe. I mean, they were palatable, but you wouldn't buy them. They stuck to the wrapper, were quite dry (though I might have overbaked them a tiny bit) The only thing I can think of is that, since I ran out of coca powder half-way through, I had to use 25gs of drinking chocolate and reduce the sugar, but I don't think that could have effected them that much. All in all, I was none too happy. So, now I'm asking, anyone out there found their ultimate chocolate muffin recipe? And, if so, would you be willing to share your secrets?

My Very Own!

Finally, I decided to go on a baking adventure of my own! (wow, I sound really lame). I've been making recipes out of books for a long time now, and although I do modify them, I've never made my own. I had a craving for banana muffins and thought: Hey, let's try making up a recipe!
The results weren't bad. I decided to make them healthy, so there is wholemeal flour and not a lot of sugar. I think their lack of 'oomph' was due to this, I've had tastier, sugar-packed ones, but they had a wholesome quality and I'd have them again. Next time I would love to try substituting bran for some of the wholegrain flour, but I didn't have any at the time.
By the way, did you notice my adorable little muffin cases? I got them in habitat in Dublin, only one euro for twelve cases! I was DELIGHTED ^_^

Unfotunatly, in all my enthusaism I forgot to actually write the recipe down >_<>

Mammy's Day Baking!

2008-03-08T13:51:00.000-08:00

Hello, all, and happy March! I hope it's been a good month for everybody so far ^_^
So, slightly belated, here's my post for Mother's Day! Seeing as how me and my friend are poor and cheap, we decided to get together and bake cakes for our mothers for mother's day! There were four of us in total, and we all went over to my friend Daniel's house, where we very quickly discovered that he has a very limited amount of kitchen space and... well... not a whole lot of stuff for baking either - including a weighing scale >_< Still, we had to make the best out of the situation, and I think it turned out pretty well. We went on the ol' interweb and found some recipes; we decided to go for applesauce muffins for starters, followed by chocolate devil's food cake, finishing with banana muffins (nobody else wanted them except me, but in the end they all loved them ;)). Then we went for a walk and got the ingredients, along with some pizza and other lunchables. It took us a while to get around to actually doing the baking, between making the pizza, looking for mixing bowls (we ended up using lasaigne dished), and trying to find a way of doing the washing-up with only boiling hot water (the result? We got burned), but once we got started it all went well, and we had a good time doing it. It drives me a little crazy doing less than precise baking, but I think it's good, otherwise I get way too worked up if things go wrong.

Applesauce and Banana Muffins! Yum!

The applesauce muffins were great, and making the applesauce was really cool, I've never seen it done before and it smelled SO GOOD. They were really moist, and you could definitly taste the apple. Plus, my friend Sharon brought along these really adorable muffin cases her mum got in England, and I added the flags. DECORATION GALORE! The banana muffins were my favourie, possibly because I just like anything with banana in it, but more likly because they just tasted really, really good. Usually I want to have some kind of something in my muffins, nuts or chocolate chips or something, but these were perfect witout anything, just plain muffin goodness (with brown sugar sprinkled on top for extra yummyness).

Decorated with Pockey and love!

I think the cakes turned out looking fantastic! They were mini ones, because there was no way we would have had time to make four big ones. We covered them with chocolate ganache (much of which was eaten off spoons while waiting for the cakes to cool) and then I did the decorating with POCKEY!, and chocolate shavings. I think I went a bit overboard, but I had fun, so it's all good.

Decoration taken to a whole new level

Then, after all of that, we took the dog for a walk ^_^

His name is Murphy :P

I don't think there's much point in posting recipes, seeing as how we altered them so much that I don't think they resemble the originals :P But the one for the chocolate cake is the one I already have posted here, and I must say it's pretty damn good. And appologies for the crappy photos, I didn't really have time to take proper ones >_<
*Yawn*. I'm very tired now, I think I'm gonna go paint, then read, and then sleep. I'm thinking of doing some more baking tomorrow, so there will be another post soon. Chow for now ;)

Chocolate Panda Cake!

2008-02-17T04:20:00.001-08:00

Yay, another update! I think I'm on a role!
I finally found a recipe for chocolate cake that nearly matches the stupid Betty Crocker box mix! I've made it quite a few times now, and the results seem to be good! It's a nice, moist cake, that's chocolatey, but not sickening. It's really easy to make too! I'd definatly reccomend it :)

Recipe: Chocolate Cake

Oops! I just realised I left my notebook with the recipe in it in Dublin >_<>

Kawaii, desu ne?

It was pretty easy to make, and really fun too! I just devided the cake mixture between a big and a small cake tin, then cut the small one in two to make the ears. I then iced it with dark and white chocolate ganache (simply melt together an equal quantity of double cream and chocolate, then cool until spreadable). I bought some kind of fake double cream by accident, it was 'low fat' or something like that, but it still tasted fine, so no dissasters there. Then I just decorated with sprinkles, the icing, and chocolate. I used a piece of toblerone for his nose ^_^

She seemed to really like the cake, so I consider it a sucess!

Vegan Raspberry Muffins

2008-02-16T15:16:00.000-08:00

Yes, after a long, long time I'm finally back! I know, I know, it took forever, but there are a lot of things going on at the moment with mean I really don't have tiime to make a lot of posts, but hopefully I'll manage to find the time between school and other things to keep this blog updated reasonably frequently *is hopeful*.
Anyways, back to baking. I've still been keeping up with it, but I haven't really ventured outside the world of cookies, muffins, and cakes in a while now; I really need to get back into trying things like pie etc., but they just take so damn long to make >_<

Daniel, preparing to bake!

Me, doing likewise!

All mixed up!

Ready to be baked!

The Results!

Overall, we were really happy with these! They were really good fresh from the oven, they tasted really healty! Perhaps just the raspberries were a little too bitter, but overall they made on hell of a good muffin!

Brown Bread, Brown Scones, and Peanut Butter Cookies!

2007-08-09T05:09:00.000-07:00

Lots and lots of food!

Yes, I'm finally making a proper post! The baking is back :) And there's more good news! I'm buying my own computer for my room, so that means I'll be able to update way more often! I like it when things work out my way ;) And now onto some good ol' helathy baked goods...

I got 'The Avoca Cafe' cookbook out of the library a couple of weeks ago and was really impressed by it. The majority of the recipes seem pretty straightforward and they're not over complicated, yet they produce really tasty things! I decided to be good and try their brown bread and brown scones.

The bread worked out best - it was proper brown bread with lots of 'stuff' in it. I never used treacle before, it's so much fun to spoon into the mixture, though it is slightly ominous looking and I was really paranoid about using too much.

Yay polkadots!

Recipe: Avoca Brown Bread Ingredients:

200g white flour
300g coarse brown flour
3 handfuls bran
2 handfuls wheatgerm
2 heaped teaspoons baking powder
1 level teaspoon salt
1 dessertspoon treacle
600-900ml milk

Method:

Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
Add the treacle and stir in enough of the milk to give a moist, but not sloppy, consistancy.
Transfer mixture to a well-oiled 900g loaf tin and bake in an oven preheated to 240 degrees C/ 475 F for 20 minutes until risen.
Reduce heat to 150 C/ 300F and bake for a further hour.
Run a knife around the tin and ease the bread out. If it sounds hollow when tapped it's cooked, if not return it to the oven for 10-15 minutes.

Healthy and Delicious :)

This is a really good recipe if you want to bake your own brown bread every couple of days. It's so quick to put together and dosen't require anything complicated, I think it's brilliant. It gives a really dense, moist loaf, that tastes great with just about anything on it.

Oats so good

I was less pleased with the way my scones turned out, though I think it was more my fault that the recipe's. The dough was rolled out a little too thin for my liking, so they were more like little biscuits than proper scones, but they still tasted good. I would definitly make them again, but I'd double the recipe and make them good and thick.

Recipe: Avoca Brown Scones

Mmmm, baked...

Ingredients:

450g coarse, brown flour
110 g unsalted butter, diced
2 tablespoons greek youghurt
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
75-150 ml milk
1 egg beaten with water to glaze

Method:

Put the flour and salt in a bowl and rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Make a well in the center and add the yoghurt and bicarbonate of soda. Leave to react for a couple of minutes and then add 75ml of the milk and mix well. You may need to add more milk, depending on humidity.
Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and rould out to 2.5 cm thick. Cut out with a round cutter and transfer to a greased baking sheet.
Brush with egg glaze and bake in and oven preheated to 180 degrees C/ 350 F for 15-20 minutes.

Peanut Butter!

I've been wanting to make peanut butter cookies for ages, but since there's only me and my sister who actually like peanut butter I've been hesitant (and rightly so, most of these ended up going in the bin >_<). Still, I decided to give it a go. I got the recipe from my trusty old 'What's Cooking: Baking', I no longer need to talk about the merits of this particular collection, I think it's fairly obvious I love it :)

Recipe: Peanut Butter Cookies

Ingredients:

125g/ 1/2 cup butter, softened
150g/ 1/2 cup chunky peanut butter
225g/ 1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
150g/ 1 1/4 cups plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
75g unsalted peanuts, chopped

Method:

Lightly grease two baking trays
In a large mixing bowl beat together the butter and sugar
gradually add the sugar and beat well
Add the beaten egg a little at a time
Sieve the flour, baking powder, and salt into the peanut butter mixture
Add the peanuts and bring all the ingredients together to form a soft dough. Wrap and leave to chill for 30 minutes
Form the dough into 20 balls and place them on the baking trays and allow for spreading. Flatten them with your hand
Bake in an oven preheated to 190 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes until golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool.

Sandy!

These were kinda bizzarly textured, they were like sand! It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, I just didn't particularly like it. They kind of crumbled away when you bit into them, it was odd. Still, they tasted like peanut butter and that's what counts. They certainly aren't the best cookies I've ever made, they didn't 'dissapear' like others did. I don't think I'll be making these again, but I'm going to try other peanut butter ones.

Okay, I think that's it for now. I'll be back again soon, hopefully from a shiny new computer...

I'm back!

2007-08-04T08:44:00.000-07:00

Wow, that was a long time without posting. I'm sorry >_< I've just been very busy with things and not had a whole lot of time to update with what I've been baking, and now the stupid computer got wiped so I've lost the photos from my brown bread, brown scones, pavlova, chocolate cake, and chocolate cookies :( But never fear! I'll hopefuly be doing some baking tomorrow and I'll be sure to take lots and lots of photos :)
In case you're wondering I was at a musical summer camp, then an art one, and then the last Harry Potter came out, and then I got the new Pokemon game. I've been distracted ;)

Mini Cakes

2007-07-15T09:58:00.000-07:00

A mini dessert

Just a quick update to let you know I'm still alive. There has actually been some baking going on, I'm just too lazy to upload the pictures and type up recipes. Instead I thought I'd post these photos from about a month ago, don't know why it's taken me so long to put them up.
I bought these amazing mini cake tins in TkMaxx and had to try them, so I just made four mini sponge cakes (same as ever). I think they worked really well, the little slices looked so cute on the plates, plus it lets you try out lots of different icings and fillings at once.

Berries rock for decoration

This is Emiy demonstrating how tiny a slice was ^_^

Cakes together!

Sorry about the picture quality, it's really crappy. They were taken at, like, twelve o'clock so I only had crappy kitchen lighting. Oh well.

And again

They don't look so small on their own

And that's the end of that...

Chocolate Malt Cookies

2007-07-08T04:11:00.000-07:00

Cookies!

Apologies for the lack of updates lately, I'm doing a summer camp for the next two weeks so there's not a whole lot of baking going on. There's singing instead! We're doing (DON'T LAUGH!) High School Musical! It's possibly the worst-written thing on the planet, but there people there are sound so it's fun.
For some reason there has been a severe lack of cookie baking going on in this blog, and I intend to put a stop to that right now. I don't know why it is, I guess cookies were some of the first things I baked and now I want to try other stuff. Still, cookies have to be of my favourite things, there's something really satisfying about making them, I guess it's 'cause you get so many at the end ^_^
We, me and my sister, made these cookies after we devoured our pizza and realised we had no dessert! Sure, it was around eleven o'clock, but it's never too late for baking ;)

I love patterned paper :)

Recipe: Malted Drop Cookies

Ingredients:

125g butter, softened
100g sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 tablespoons chocolate malt powder
100g plain flour
50g rolled oats

Method:

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C/ 375 F. Line two baking sheets with non-stick paper.
Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Sift the chocolate malt powder and flour together and beat into the creamed mixture along with the oats until all the ingredients are well combined.
Drop heaped teaspoons of the dough onto the baking sheets, spacing well apart. Bake in the oven until just golden, 10-12 minutes. Leave to cool on the sheets for a few minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Now that's a flat cookie

The recipe was taken from Cookies Galore - I never seem to bake cookies from anywhere else these days. We didn't really change much except we used 2 tablespoons chocolate powder and 3 tablespoons malt powder instead of the chocolate malt powder 'cause we didn't have any. We were kinda surprised with how these came out, they were really, really flat. The recipe didn't have any raising agent in it and it makes me wonder if perhaps it was left out by mistake. Perhaps they're meant to be like this, but I'd like to try them again with a bit of baking powder. I've never actually tried adding a raising agent to a recipe before, any tips? I take it I should just find a similar recipe and see how much powder that uses.
Still, they tasted good. I'd probably add some more oats next time too, but they deliver what they promise: Chewy, chocolaty goodness.
I'm going to leave it at that for now, I'm exhausted after today. I'll try and update again this week, but I'm not making any promises ;)

Pizzas

2007-07-06T04:45:00.000-07:00

The best dinner I've had all month!

You know when you just get sick of eating the same thing for dinner every night but it seems like way too much effort to come up with something new to cook? That's me. I've been living off brown pasta, brown rice, vegetables, omelets, quorn, and kidney beans for the past I don't know how long. I was getting so sick of eating dinner and that's just not right. Food is supposed to taste GOOD. So I finally worked up some enthusiasm and made fresh pizza, and let me tell you it was the nicest, and unhealthiest, thing I have had for dinner in quite some time. I was very, very happy last night.

Onions!

When I say I, I do in fact mean my sister, Emily, and myself. She deserves credit too, especially 'cause I don't think she'd be too happy with me if I didn't give it to her. We got the recipe for the dough from a bread making bread book called 'The Complete Book of Bread and Bread Machines' (yup, I bought another new one! But it was only seven euro so I couldn't resist). I'm pretty impressed by this book, not so much because of the results, which were pretty damn good, but because of the sheer quantity of recipes in it. This is the first thing I've tried from it but there's enough in there to keep me going for the rest of my baking days. It won't stop me from buying more but I certainly don't need any. No kidding, there is every type of bread that could possibly exist, hundreds of them and they're all so different, I can't wait to try more.

We didn't really do anything to the dough recipe. The quantity was enough to make two 30 cm pizzas (we thought my brother wanted one too, but his friend had already stuffed him!). I was going to be good and make it with whole wheat flour, but we weren't sure if it would go with the topping so we said screw it and just made it like the book said.

The topping was mostly Emily's creation, and I think it was pretty amazing. Caramelised onions have to be one of the nicest foods in the world, I just love onions anyway, but these things are seriously amazing. Who ever thought that cooking onion in vinegar, sugar, and olive oil would taste so good? For the cheese we used blue cheese which has a really distinctive flavour, so much better than mozzarella which tends to taste of not a whole lot. And then we put some spinach on because it's just really good on pizza.

Blue Cheese!

Recipe: Basic Pizza Dough

Ingredients:

280ml/ 1 1/4 cups warm water
30ml/ 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
450g/ 4 cups white bread flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp granulated sugar
1 tsp easy-blend dried yeast

Method:

Pour the water and olive oil into the bread pan
sprinkle over the flour to cover the liquid. Add the sugar and salt in separate corners of the pan. Make an indent in the flour without exposing the liquid and add the yeast.
Set the bread machine to the dough or pizza dough setting and press start. Lightly oil two baking sheets.
When the cycle has finished remove the dough and place it on a lightly floured surface. Knock back gently and divide into two equal pieces. Preheat the oven to 220 d

As for the topping, that's really up to you. We used pissata mixed with a bit of sun dried tomato paste for the sauce, blue cheese, spinach, and caramelised onions. I really do recommend it, and the smell that fills the kitchen is amazing ;)

To caramelise onions:

Chop up a good load of onions (they shrink a lot during cooking).
Heat 25g of butter in a frying pan and sprinkle over 1 tablespoon of caster sugar and a tablespoon of vinegar.
Add the onions and cook over a medium heat for one hour, stirring frequently, until they are transparent and golden.

Everything that's good in life (and on pizza)

As you've probably guessed, this was super pizza. Okay, it wasn't the best I've ever had, but I really liked it. I think I'm probably being won over so easily because its been ages since I last has pizza. The base was good, thin but not invisible, and it had that wonderful squishy quality even though it was well cooked, not burned and dried out. The fact that it was freshly baked is what made it so good - I'm sure there are better dough recipes out there, but this one is good for me - It's so easy to make and it gives good results. The topping is what made it, I can't say good enough things about onions and blue cheese. The only thing I would do differently next time (Emily suggested this) would be to leave the caramelised onions off 'til after the pizza had been baked, we think the oven burned some of them as they'd already been cooked for about an hour.
After this I'm keen to get more interested in cooking as well as baking. Who knows, this could be the start of a new obsession!

Meaty!

We put the leftover base in the fridge, covered in plastic wrap, and it kept fine 'til the next day. I was a bit nervous about it but there weren't really any problems (I forgot to grease the baking sheet that it was on so there were some 'issues' with getting it off). We used it to make a pizza for my brother the next night.

Mmmm, pizza

His was pretty much the same as ours, but with meat (chicken), mozzarella and Cheddar cheese, onions, peppers, mushrooms, and spinach. He seemed to like it, and managed to eat all but one slice! I think a nearly a whole 30cm pizza with that much topping is pretty impressive for a fourteen year old.

This time it had a big crust

Curd Cheese Tart and Custard Tartletts

2007-07-03T15:30:00.000-07:00

We finally had a bit of sun... for about five minutes...

Thank you library. I told you there's be more baking, didn't I ;) After much deliberation I decided that I'd try making a dessert from 'Desserts: A Lifelong Passion' by Michel Roux. This book is swish, all the recipes are so, well, fancy! It's definitly a more advanced cookbook, he expects you to know what he's talking about in his recipes, there aren't really any explenations of how to go about creaming things etc. Still, once you know the basics there's really no need for that. The pictures in it are spectacular and all the recipes sound so good, I never want to have to bring it back >_<

The icing sugar kinda dissolved in the middle

I've been wanting to bake a cheesecake for ages, and although this isn't quite what I had in mind it came close enough. I was a bit worried that it wouldn't set properly, the mixture just looked so liquidy. But it all worked out well in the end. I made some pastry a couple of weeks ago from some fat that was about to go off and froze it, so I got a chance to move some of that out of the freezer too :)

The only modification I made to this recipe was to substitute ordinary shortcrust pastry for his sweet pastry, it sounded like it would have been overpoweringly sweet. I think this was a change for the better, though if you're a big fan of sweet things then you might like it that way. He also suggests using puff pastry if desired.

I didn't threaten to fall apart when I took it out of the tin, to my relief

Recipe: Curd Cheese Tart

Ingredients:

Shortcrust Pastry (see recipe here)
150g soft curd cheese (fat content of your choice) (I used cottage cheese)
50g caster sugar
150ml milk
3 eggs, separated
Juice of 1 lemon
Zest of 1 lemon, thinly slivered and blanched
20g flour, plus extra for dusting
30g cornflour
Icing sugar, for dusting

Method:

On a lightly floured surface roll out the pastry to about 2 mm thick. Use it to line a 22cm/ 8 1/2 inch loose-bottomed pie dish.
Refrigerate until firm. Line with tin foil and baking beans. Bake blind in an oven at 200 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes. Leave to cool.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
In a bowl, whisk together the curd cheese, sugar, milk, egg yolks, lemon juice and zest, flour, and cornflour. Beat the egg whites stiffly and delicately fold them into the mixture with a spatula.
Fill the pastry case with the mixture and bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Reduce heat to 150 degrees Celsius and bake for a further 15 minutes.
Take the tart out of the oven and place it on a wire rack to cool for five minutes. Remove from tin and leave to cool completely.
Dust with icing sugar. Serve cold, but never chilled (this will destroy the flavor).

It reminds me of mountains

The thing that impressed me most about this recipe was that fact that it contained so little fat. I'm not saying it's sin-free or anything like that, but for such a creamy tasting dessert it has very little in it; no butter, no cream, just some cottage cheese which isn't exactly indulgent :P If you wanted to make it richer you could use a curd cheese that has a higher fat content, but I really don't see the need to.
The texture is like a baked cheesecake, and the lemon flavor is very subtle, I think I would like it a bit stronger but my mum, the one who wanted it, says it's supposed to be like that, so I guess I can't argue. It wasn't complicated to make, again I was just afraid that it wouldn't set, but it obviously did. It started browning quite early on and needed to be covered with tinfoil, otherwise I would have ended up with what would have looked like a burnt cloud!

Overall, it was a success :)

Then the sun left

I still had some defrosted pastry left over from the tart, there was no point in waisting it, so I made custard tartletts! Not exactly complicated, but they're still really nice.

I love these little foil cups

Ummm, I can't really post a recipe for them. All I did was line the foil cases with the leftover pastry, baked them blind for about 10 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius, removed the foil and beans, reduced the oven to 150 degrees, and continued to bake them for another seven minutes or so until they browned. Then I just made some thick Bird's custard in the microwave and filled them with it. Top with berries, leave to cool, and enjoy!

Until next time...

Brioche

2007-06-30T12:26:00.000-07:00

If only it had had custard in it...

Brioche is a delicious enriched, French bread that tastes really buttery, even though this recipe didn't have that much butter in it :) It's usually served with jam, butter, or used to make French toast, but I there is no beating it with patisserie cream. The first time I tried it I almost died of food related joy, it was like heaven. The squishy, sweet bread combined with the cool cream, topped with sweet icing is one of the nicest things I've ever had. Whenever we get it it's gone in the same day. Unfortunately I have absolutely no idea how they get the custard in it! We usually buy it in Lidl so there's no one to ask about it in the shop. It comes in a foil container, the bread is quite flat - almost like a pie - and the patisserie cream is rippled through it in streaks of pure food magic, but we got one from Alid where it was a braid and the cream was sort of platted into it. I was trying to work it out but nobody really seems sure how to do it.
I did get the suggestion of somehow making it like Cinnamon swirls, and that's looking to be the most promising way of doing it at the moment, but if anyone can help I would be forever in your debt.

Before Baking

Recipe: Brioche

Ingredients:

2 eggs at room temperature
2 tbsp hand-hot milk
225g strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp caster sugar
55g butter, melted
1 1/2 tsp easy-blend dried yeast
sunflower oil, for greasing

Glaze:

1 egg yolk
1 tbsp milk

Method:

Lightly beat the eggs with the milk in a bowl, then pour into the bread pan. Sprinkle the flour over the liquid to cover. Place salt, sugar, and butter in 3 corners of the pan. Indent the flour without exposing the liquid and add the yeast. Set the bread machine to the dough setting and press start.
With the lid shut, let the dough rise in the machine for an extra 30 minutes
Remove finished dough from pan. Knock back gently on a lightly floured surface.
Slice of one quarter, wrap in oiled clingfilm, and set aside. Oil a brioche mould or round cake tin.
Kneed large piece of dough, shape into a ball, place in mould, and indent the top. Unwrap the smaller piece and lightly kneed into a pear shape. Place on top.
Cover with clingfilm and set aside to rise in a warm place for about 1 hour to rise.
Remove the clingfilm. Lightly beat the egg yolk and milk together to form glaze. Brush brioche with glaze. Bake in a preheated oven at 180-200 degrees c for 30-45 minutes, until golden brown.

And after

The recipe came, one again, from 'Essentials: Bread' by Linda Doser. I didn't make any changes to the ingredients, figured it was best to leave it as it was. The one thing that shocked me was the oven temperature and cooking time - originally it says to bake it for 40-45 minutes at 220 degrees C, surly a mistake. After 20 minutes at around 200 degrees mine was thoroughly cooked and so brown it was nearly burnt. I think it would be more reasonable to bake it at 180-190 degrees C for about 25-30 minutes.

The bread turned out very nice, and had a really rich flavour for the amount of butter that was in it. I didn't have a brioche mould so I just baked it in a cake tin, it didn't give too bad a shape. After rising the little pear-shaped ball was beginning to slide a bit, but a bit of egg wash sorted it all out.I will attempt it again as soon as I find out how to make it with patisserie cream and, believe me, I will!

Eggy goodness!

In other baking related news I just came back from the library with four borrowed baking books to devour. My library doesn't have a huge selection, but I could have spent hours agonising over which ones to get. In the end I got two bread machine books, a dessert book, and the Avoca Cafe cookbook. I think I shall have a baking day tomorrow, so expect to see more from me soon!

2007-06-29T05:03:00.000-07:00

The bread with the hole in it

Yup, more bread! I've just been on a kick lately. I decided to make bagels after re-discovering my love for them covered in peanut butter while I was in the Bagel Factory the other day. It is the food of the gods! Granted they don't really toast their bagels very well, but it still tasted good. I'm way too picky about my food, I hate to have it just the way I like it, and when people don't toast bagels properly it really irritates me. Plus it's impossible to buy wholegrain bagels in anywhere, and they're the type I like, so I figured I might as well try to make my own.
It was really weird; the day after I made them I discovered that the Daring Baker's challenge for this month was to make bagels! Of course theirs were made without the help of a bread machine and they all turned out looking and tasting, I'm sure, spectacular. It's really worth checking out their entries and seeing their photos if you have the time :)

They weren't exactly perfect circles, but circles nonetheless

This time I had to go online to get a recipe, the only one I had looked really complicated and confusing. I could see it ending badly. All Recipes provided me with a recipe for bread machine bagels that seemed to have worked out for lots of people, so I figured I'd give it a go. I did require some alterations though, based on other people's comments I added an extra 100ml/ 1/2 cup of water, left the to rise for at least 30 minutes rather than 10, and I substituted half the white flour with wholegrain. I had some trouble converting the American measurements to metric because tablespoons and teaspoons differ slightly - I was ending up with too much sugar, but a bit of guesswork and Google sorted it our in the end.

Close up!

Recipe: Whole Wheat Bagels

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups/ 300 ml warm water/ (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
1 1/2 teaspoons/ 9g salt
2 tablespoons/ 15-20g white sugar
1 1/2 cups/ 205g strong with bread flour
1 1/2 cups/ 205g strong wholemeal bread flour
2 1/4 teaspoons/ 9g active dry yeast
3 quarts/ 3000ml/ a big pot of boiling water
3 tablespoons/40g white sugar/
1 tablespoon/9g cornmeal
1 egg white

Method:

Place water, salt, sugar, flour and yeast in the bread machine pan in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Select Dough setting.
When cycle is complete, let dough rest on a lightly floured surface. Meanwhile, in a large pot bring 3 quarts of water to a boil. Stir in 3 tablespoons of sugar.
Cut dough into 9 equal pieces, and roll each piece into a small ball. Flatten balls. Poke a hole in the middle of each with your thumb. Twirl the dough on your finger or thumb to enlarge the hole, and to even out the dough around the hole. Cover bagels with a clean cloth, and leave to rise for at least 30 minutes.
Sprinkle an ungreased baking sheet with cornmeal. Carefully transfer bagels to boiling water. Boil for 1-3 minute , turning half way through. Drain briefly on clean towel. Arrange boiled bagels on baking sheet. Glaze tops with egg white, and sprinkle with your choice of toppings.
Bake in a preheated 375 degree F (190 degrees C) oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until well browned. Turn bagels over halfway through cooking.

Now where's my peanut butter?

Overall I was happy with the way these bagels turned out. I was a little anxious because of the confusion in converting the measurements - my weighing scale isn't very accurate so weighing out 9 g's of ingredients was impossible, but it was okay in the end. I forgot to add the sugar to the pot of boiling water, I don't know if this effected the bagels or not, I didn't notice anything wrong with them, but I would say it probably did. After seeing bagels that have been topped with seeds etc. I think I'll give mine a topping next time, it makes them look finished. Ideally bagels are meant to first sink in the water and then float when they're cooked, none of my bagels sank, I gather from reading entries by the Daring Bakers that a lot of theirs floated too. I'm not sure what makes them sink, but I know I want mine to! Oh well, maybe next time...

Devil's Food Cake

2007-06-26T12:14:00.001-07:00

Almost there, but not quite...

My quest for the perfect chocolate cake recipe continues. My goal? To bake a chocolate cake that is better than Betty Crocker's Devil's Food Cake Mix. No matter how many chocolate cakes we've had in my house none of them compare to it. It annoys me so much >_<> my loyal bags of flour sitting in my baking cupboard, and yet any time the words chocolate' and 'cake' are mentioned Betty Crocker is all anyone can think of, alhough admittedly it is amaing cake. What makes it so good is the moistness of it, it has the perfect cake texture. I've baked cakes that are just as chocolaty at it, but they haven't got that 'omg, it's squishy good!' quality about them.

The icing reminds me of the cake in 'Matilda'

I came soooo close with this one, but again it just wasn't there. It was damn good chocolate cake though, just the right amount of chocolate, and it was very moist. Plus it was eaten between four people in less than two days, so I'll take that as a compliment. I think this is probably the best chocolate cake I've made so far, and hopefully the standard will keep going up...

Piping sets are so much fun :)

The recipe came from The Australian Women's Weekly 'Chocolate Cakes', a really adorable little book with about 50 cake recipes in it. I can't get over how wonderful all their books are. The recipes are simple to follow, don't involve too many complicated ingredients, and the pictures always make my mouth water. I have to get more of these books - that's the other thing that's so great about them, there are so many different collections. I think I'll buy the 'Cheesecake' or 'Cookie' collection next.
The book suggests baking the cake in two separate deep 20 cm tins to make a tall cake, filled with cream and topped with chocolate icing. I decided to bake it all together in a 23 cm cake tin (mainly because I didn't have two 20 cm ones), and I think this makes for a better shape if you're not planning on filling the cake, which I didn't. I made a LOT of chocolate ganache with the chocolate left over from my melting disaster with the Chocolate Mousse Cake, it's really rich so just covering the cake with it is more than enough, if it was filled it would have been way too much.

An inside look

Recipe: Devil's Food Cake

Ingredients:

For the cake:
180g butter, chopped
385g caster (superfine) sugar
3 eggs
225g self-raising flour
75g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
70g coca powder
3 teaspoons instant coffee powder
1/2 teaspoon red food colouring
125ml water
125ml milk

For the Ganache (this makes a lot):
300g good quality dark chocolate, chopped
200-250 ml cream (depends on how thick you want it)

OR

300 ml cream, whipped
60g dark chocolate, chopped
60g butter, chopped

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C/ 350 F. Grease two deep 20cm round cake tins (or one large, deep 23 cm tin); line bases with baking parchment and grease the parchment.
Beat the butter and sugar in a small bowl with a electric mixer until light and fluffy; add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Transfer the mixture to a large bowl; fold in sifted flours, soda, and cocoa powder with combined coffee, colouring, water, and milk, in two batches. Pour mixture into prepared tins.
Bake in oven for about 45 minutes. Turn cakes onto wire racks to cool.
To make the ganache, melt the chocolate with the cream in a bowl over a pan of simmering water, taking care that the water doesn't boil or touch the bowl. Leave to cool in fridge until mixture reaches desired consistency, stirring occasionally, about 15-20 minutes.
Spread ganache over cake and use excess to pipe decoration.

OR

Join cakes with whipped cream.
Make the chocolate icing. by melting together the chocolate and butter over a pan of simmering water. Remove from heat. Cool to room temperature until spreadable. Top cake with icing.

Now how could I not lick the spoon?

Like I said, these was pretty fantastic cake. I think the ganache worked really well with it, and I love the shiny appearance it gives. The chocolate leaf decorations were really fun to make; All you do is paint non toxic leaves with a thin layer of melted chocolate, wait for it to set, and then peel away the leaves. It's not complicated, but I think it gives a professional looking touch ;)
Apologies for the lack of American measurements, they weren't given in the book. But I'm more than happy to look them up if anyone wants them, all you have to do is ask.
Now, here's the part where I need your help; I'm begging for your best chocolate cake recipe, the one that everyone always asks you to bake, the one that is so frakking good (yes, I'm a B.S.G fan) that it makes you want to eat the whole thing. I know I can find a better cake than the Betty Crocker, I just know it...

Two kinds of muffins...

2007-06-23T11:05:00.000-07:00

English Muffins = <3

"I can hardly eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. "
- Algernon Moncrieff (The Importance of Being Earnest)

Yay for yeast! I've been trying more savory breads now that I've realised that yeast isn't that hard to use, so I decided to make English Muffins... well, my brother wanted them so I decided to make them. He read The Importance of Being Earnest and had to have them.
Fresh bread just tastes so damn good, no matter what kind it is. These were really nice straight off the pan while they were still hot, you didn't even need to toast them!

I found 'baking' them on the pan really strange and I was paranoid that they wouldn't cook all the way through, some of them were really thick. But they worked out fine, better than fine. Though I did absentmindedly start tapping on some of the ones waiting to be cooked and knocked the air out of them >_< The recipe came from 'Essentials: Bread by Linda Doeser. It's a good book for people like me who are just starting to make bread using a bread machine. All the recipes come with pictures, which I love, and the instructions are pretty clear.

I didn't really change the recipe at all except I used half wholegrain flour and half white, and I didn't have any rice flour so I just used plain (it's only for decoration anyway).

Recipe: English Muffins

Ingredients:
350ml hand-hot milk
450g strong white bread flour (or 225g strong white flour plus 225g wholemeal bread flour)
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp caster sugar
15g butter, softened or diced
1 1/2 tsp easy-blend dried yeast
ground rice or rice flour, for dusting
Oil, for greasing

Method:
Pour the milk into the bread pan. Sprinkle the flour over the liquid to cover. Place the sugar, salt, and butter in 3 corners of the pan. Indent the flour without exposing the liquid and add the yeast. Set the bread machine to dough setting and press start.
Remove the finished dough from the pan and knock back gently on a lightly floured surface. Roll out to 1 cm thick. Stamp out rounds with a plain 7.5 cm pastry cutter. Gather up trimmings, knead together, leave to rest for 3 minutes. Re-roll and stamp more muffins.
Place muffins on a baking sheet dusted with rice flour. Dust the tops with ground rice. Cover with oiled clingfilm and set aside to rise in a warm place for 25-30 minutes, until doubled in size. Remove clingfilm. Lightly oil a griddle or heavy frying pan and heat well. Cook the muffins in batched, over a low heat, for 6-7 minutes on each side (I cooked them for about 10-15 each side). Serve warm, or toasted.

I think this recipe turned out really well, I made them twice in two days! It probably just has something to do with my undying love for English muffins, but even so it's definitely a good one :)

... and the other kind of muffin...

The Classic Muffin

I've been longing to make blueberry muffins for ages, they're just the sort of thing that everyone's made. But blueberries are so damn expensive in Ireland, it's insane. Thankfully Dunnes was selling them for about two euro per 125g because they were reaching their sell-by date, score :)
The recipe is from Delia Smith's 'Summer Collection'. I love all her recipes, she explains things in great detail and doesn't leave anything to guesswork. Plus it made some friggin' tasty muffins, so thumbs up from me. Though this recipe makes a freakishly small amount of muffins, so doubling it is a good idea.

Mmmm, crunchy topping

Recipe: Blueberry Pecan Muffins

Ingredients:
150g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
40g caster sugar
110 ml milk
50g butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
110g small blueberries
50g pecans Finley chopped
50g pecans Finley chopped, for topping.
Demera sugar, for sprinkling

Method:
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C/ 400 F
Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl mix together the egg, sugar, milk, melted butter, and vanilla. Sift the dry ingredients into the egg mixture. Fold in the dry ingredients quickly, about 15 seconds. The batter should look lumpy, do not over mix.

Fold in the 50g of chopped pecans and blueberries lightly. Spoon into prepared muffin, sprinkle with chopped pecans and sugar. Bake on a high shelf in the oven for 20-30 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

Ummm, they're healthy because they have fruit in them ;)

This was the first time I've ever had proper, home-made blueberry muffins, and they are so much better than shop-bought ones. In my experience the blueberry part of the muffin is just a kind of blue smudge that looks like there was once a blueberry there, but these had proper chunks of fruit in them, lots of flavour. The topping of brown sugar and pecans in amazing; the pecans toast and the sugar caramelises. It's not the best muffin I've ever had, but it's up there.

Chocolate Mousse Cake and Lemon Meringue Pie

2007-06-21T05:25:00.000-07:00

Cream, cream, and more cream!

Oh dear, I defiantly need to work on keeping my cool when baking goes amiss. Seriously, I let myself get way too worked up over these things. Note to self: RELAX!
My sister, Emily, was having a "fancy" dinner party the other night with some of her friends, and I said I'd do the desserts. After much deliberation I decided to go with Chocolate Mousse Cake, because there aren't many people out there who don't like chocolate, and Lemon Meringue Pie, because she is addicted to it. I've made the Lemon Meringue before so I wasn't too worried about that, and I figured that the Chocolate Mousse would be fine because I would have it made the night before.
The long and the short of it is that we didn't get all the ingredients the day before the party, and I got sick :( I did manage to get the cake for the chocolate cake made for the mousse filling the night before, but that was the easy part.
In the end she ended up buying a box of lemon pie filling (I DETEST baking that comes from boxes) so the pie got put together pretty quickly without much bother. Then came the mousse time *shudder*.
I got to the stage where I was meant to melt the chocolate and sherry together over a pan of boiling water, I usually melt chocolate in the microwave so off I went. The chocolate melted fine and then I added the cold sherry to it. Big mistake. Melted chocolate + cold liquid = very bad idea. I freaked out, mainly because I'd just wasted about 100gs of Lindt chocolate. So I sent my dad to get more chocolate and started again, melting the sherry and chocolate together at the same time. It happened again, the mixture sort of seized and wasn't really a liquid, I figured it was the microwave that was messing it up. I freaked out again, got a third batch of chocolate, and decided to melt it over a pan of water like the recipe said. It still wasn't turning into liquid, and I was convinced that there was something wrong with the sherry that was messing it up.
In the end it turned out that that is just what happens to chocolate when you melt it with sherry, and it loosens once it is mixed in with the rest of the ingredients :P Oh well, I've learned my lesson: Must NOT panic.

The recipe for the Lemon Meringue Pie doesn't really come from anywhere since it was using a box mix. It's just a basic biscuit base, filled with the pie filling, and topped with meringue. Easy, but it makes a damn good dessert.
The Chocolate Mousse Cake was from 'The Women's Institute: Chocolate'. This is the first time I've baked anything from this book, and I can't say I was blown away. But I think I'll have to try a few more recipes from it before I pass judgement because there are some really nice sounding recipes in that book that I'd love to try sometime, plus the pictures are amazing.

It kinda looks less graceful once you cut it...

Recipe: Chocolate Mousse Cake

Chocolate Cake:

Ingredients:
4 eggs
115g caster sugar
100g plain flour, sifted
15g coca powder, sifted
40g butter, melted

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees c. Grease a 20 cm (8 inch) cheesecake tin or loose-bottomed tin and line the base with baking parchment.
Place the eggs and sugar in a large bowl over a pan of hot water. Whisk them for 10 minutes, until the mixture is thick and creamy. Remove the bowl from the heat and continue to whisk for one minute.
Sprinkle the coca powder and flour over the surface and fold them in gently with a metal spoon using a figure of eight action. When they are nearly all incorporated, add the melted butter and mix it in.
Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 25-30 minutes until the cake has risen, is firm to the touch, and coming away from the sides. Allow to cool in tin for 5 minutes and then remove to wire rack. Slice it in half horizontally.

Chocolate Mousse:

Ingredients:

150g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
1 tablespoon sherry
1 teaspoon gelatin powder
3 eggs, separated
150 ml whipping cream, whipped to soft peaks
50g caster sugar
2 tablespoons chocolate spread
150 ml whipping cream, whipped, to decorate
Coca powder, to decorate
Grated Chocolate, to decorate

Method:

Place the chocolate and sherry in a bowl set over a pan of hot water and allow to melt, stir and leave to cool.
Put 1 tablespoon of cold water in a medium bowl and sprinkle the gelatin over. Leave for a few minutes and then place the bowl in a larger bowl filled with hot water and stir to dissolve the gelatin. Allow mixture to cool and beat in the egg yolks, one at a time, followed by the melted (don't worry, it won't be very liquidy) chocolate and cream.
Whisk the egg whites until they are fairly stiff and continue to whisk while adding the sugar a tablespoon at a tine. Add 1 tablespoon to the chocolate mixture to loosen it, then carefully fold in the remaining egg whites.
Smooth the chocolate spread over the bottom half of the cake and place it back in the lined cake tin, chocolate spread side upwards. Spoon the chocolate mousse on top and place in the fridge to set, about 1 hour.

Place the other sponge on top. Spread the cream on top and decorate with coca powder and grated chocolate. Leave it in the tin until you are ready to serve (I don't think this is vital as mine was fine the next day).

I love dusting things with coca powder

Taste wise, the Pie was really nice. I know I say I hate box mixes, but I must admit it had a really good flavor (I think it was by Greens). It also sets really well so you don't get a big bowl of lemon squidgy rather than an actual piece of pie.
The Chocolate Mousse Cake didn't really live up to my expectations, mainly because of the cake. I know I made it a day in advance, but it was still a very dry cake without a whole lot of flavor. Granted the mousse was good, rich, chocolaty, and this really improved the cake when it was eaten with it. If I was to make it again I'd use the same mousse recipe but sandwich it between a better chocolate cake.
They were a big hit and everyone loved them, they were polished off the next day which is always a good sign.

Choc Chip Oat Cookies

2007-06-14T11:44:00.003-07:00

Oaty Good!

I love oats. Seriously, I think I would die without them. I have to have a bowl of porridge at least once a day or I will die, it's a fact of my biology. There's just something so wonderful about them, they're the perfect comfort food. And the squidgier they are the better. So when you combine that with dark chocolate you just can't have a problem, it's not possible.

This recipe is everything oat cookies should be. They're crunchy on the outside but really chewey on the inside, provided you don't over cook them. There isn't so much chocolate in them that you can't taste anything else, but they still have lots of flavor. I'm really not joking about how good they are, every time I bake them they're gone withing a couple of hours.
The recipe is, once again, from Cookies Galore, definitly my favourite out of the 'Galore' series. I make recipes from it quite often, there are lots of different recipes and most of them don't involve too many ingredients.

Recipe: Oatmeal Choc Chip Cookies (Sorry for the lack of American Measurements, the book dosen't have them >_<)

Ingredients:
150g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
175g unsalted butter, softened
100g soft dark brown sugar (I used light brown and it worked fine)
100g sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
250g rolled oats
75g dark chocolate chips

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius. Grease and line two baking sheets.

2. In a large bowl, stir together the flour and baking powder

3. In a large mixing bowl and using a hand-held electric mixer, cream the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy. Add the egg and beat until combined. Stir in the vanilla. With the mixer on low speed or using a wooden spoon, gradually add the flour mixture until combined. Stir in the oats and chocolate chips.

4. Drop rounded tablespoons of the dough, well spaced apart on to the baking sheets. Leave space between each one for spreading. Flatten each cookie slightly with the back of a spoon. Bake until golden for 12-15 minutes.

5. Remove to a wire cooling rack and cool.

I'd just like to thank everyone for their help with the Angel Food Cake, I've worked out what went wrong and am looking forward to trying it properly as soon as I get the right tin for it :)

Angel Food Cake

2007-06-14T11:44:00.001-07:00

So innocent!

Angel Food Cake is not very common in Ireland, I'd never even heard of it before I started baking, certainly never tasted it. But I had to do something with all those leftover egg whites from the Strawberry Tart, and so it seemed like an opportune moment to try it, the only other thing I could think of making was meringue and that wouldn't have been as much fun :)
I got the recipe from Cakes Galore, a really adorable book with some great ideas in it. I'll admit I'll probably never make most of the recipes in it, but I still love to look at it. I didn't modify the recipe but I did omit the icing, mainly because I didn't have that many egg whites to use.

It matches the board!

Recipe: Angel Food Cake

Ingredients:
50g plain flour
1 tablespoon cornflour
200g caster sugar
7 egg whites
3/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Method :
Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C/ 350 F. Grease and line a 23cm spring form tin with a tube base.
Sift the flour and cornflour in a bowl. Add 65g of the sugar and sift together twice.
In a separate large bowl, whisk the egg whites until foamy. Add the cream of tartar and salt and whisk until stiff.
Whisk in the remaining sugar until the mixture is stiff and glossy. Whisk in the vanilla extract.
Carefully fold in the flour mixture, then spoon the batter into the prepared tin and level surface. Bake in the oven for 45-50 minutes, or until pale gold and spongy to the touch.
Transfer onto a wire rack and leave to cool in the tin.

I must say I was pleased with the results, it was very strange, but in a good way. My sister said it reminded her of sponge trifle and I see where she was coming from. I was a little anxious taking it out of the tin, there was so little flour in it I was sure I was going to end up with a giant meringue. I think perhaps I baked it for slightly too long as it didn't have a great height, I was under the impression that it's meant to be quite tall?
Anyway, I think it tasted great, a brilliant way of using up egg whites and certainly more interesting than meringue. Plus there is no fat in it, which is always a good thing when you don't feel like indulging too much.
I just ate mine plain, my mum had it with clementines and said it was delicious. I suspect you could have this cake with just about anything you like, chocolate sauce and ice-cream would be nice (though it wouldn't be quite so innocent anymore). I will defiantly be making this again, though I may experiment with different recipes. And if anyone can tell my how tall these cakes are meant to be I'd really appreciate it :)

Lemon Meringue

2007-06-14T11:39:00.000-07:00

I love putting baking on my cake stand, it makes it seem complete :)

I made these cupcakes from The Australian Woman's Weekly 'Cupcakes and Fairycakes'. It's an amazing books, they have such imagination when it comes to decorating things, really inspiring. The recipes themselves are pretty good too, though there is a little bit too much coconut in most of it for my liking. They defiantly take cupcakes to a new level; they're more like miniature works of art! If you see this book around I would say it's well worth buying, any baking books in their series are, plus they're not exactly expensive.

All in a row

Recipe: Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

Lemon Curd:

Ingredients:

4 egg yolks
1/3 cup/ 75g caster sugar
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon rind
1/4 cup/ 60ml lemon juice
40g butter

Method:
Combine ingredients in a small heatproof bowl over a small saucepan of simmering water, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens and coats the back of a spoon. Remove from heat.
Cover tightly; refrigerate until cold

Lemon Curd Cake:

Ingredients:

125g butter, softened
2 teaspoons Finley grated lemon rind
2/3 cup/ 150g caster sugar
2 eggs
1/3 cup/ 80ml milk
1 1/4 cups/ 185g self-raising flour

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C/ Line a 12 hole muffin pan with paper cases
Beat the butter, rind, sugar, and eggs in a small bowl until light and fluffy
Stir in the milk.
Divide among cases, smooth surface
Bake for about 20 minutes. Turn out onto wire rack to cool. Increase oven to 220 degrees C.

Cut a 2 cm deep hole in the center of each cake, fill with curd. Discard tops ,or you can cut off the sponge filling of the top so you're left with a 'hat' to cover the hole (and it's a good idea to keep the trimmings for the people who just can't wait for the cupcakes to be finished).

Meringue:

Ingredients:
4 egg whites
1 cup/ 220g caster sugar

Method:
Beat egg whites in a small bowl with electric mixer until soft peaks form.
Gradually add the sugar, beating well after each addition. Beat until stiff, glossy peaks form.

Spoon the meringue into a piping bag fitted with a 1cm plain tube
Pipe meringue on top of each cake.
Place cakes on oven tray. Bake for about 5 minutes, or until meringue is golden brown.

It's great when things turn out like they look in the book

This was one of the simpler recipes, and I didn't really make any changes apart from omitting the coconut (they were originally coconut lemon meringue cupcakes, but seeing as how my entire family despises coconut that wasn't really going to happen). They're not too challenging, and if you want to cut back on time you could always use ready-made lemon curd (though this means you will be left with extra egg yolks from the meringue).

Sweet White Scones

2007-06-14T11:36:00.000-07:00

Nothing is better in the morning than the smell of freshly baked scones

Scones have to be one of the easiest breads to make, and one of the tastiest. The smell of them always makes my mouth water, and there's nothing like them when they're still hot from the oven. I prefer plain scones, but you can add almost anything to this recipe: raisins, nuts, dried cranberries, chocolate, anything's good.
I think that this is the perfect white scone recipe. I have actually lost count of how many times I have made these, everyone in my house loves them. It's from Darina Allen's 'Simply Delicious'. This makes a lot of scones, sometimes I half the recipe, but they freeze pretty well, and they taste so good that making a big batch is always a good idea ;)

Putting sugar on top of scones probably isn't the healthiest idea, but...

Recipe: Sweet White Scones

Ingredients:
900g/ 6 1/2 cups plain flour
170g/ 1 1/2 sticks butter
3 eggs
Pinch of salt
60g/ 1/3 cup caster sugar
3 heaped teaspoons/ 3 American teaspoons baking powder
425ml/ 2 cups milk
1 beaten egg, to glaze
Granulated brown/white sugar

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C
Sieve all the dry ingredients together. Rub in the butter
Make a well in the center. Whisk the eggs with the milk and add to the dry ingredients to from a soft dough.
Turn out onto a floured board. Kneed lightly and shape into a round. Roll out to 2 1/2 cm/ 1 inch thick and stamp into scones. Brush with beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar.
Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown on top.

It makes me want to put butter all over them!

It's hard to describe just how good these scones are, I don't know what exactly it is about them, but they're just right. The sugar on the top is probably what makes them so perfect, I always save the top half for last when I'm eating them. They're one of the first things I started making, and I'm not about to stop. I know I'll still be baking these in twenty years time, and they'll still taste just as good :)

The Ultimate Jam and Cream

2007-06-13T00:27:00.000-07:00

So simple, yet so good!

This has to be one of the best recipes I know! It is so quick and simple to make, and it's absolutely delicious every single time. There are so many different ways to serve it; With any type of jam and cream, with lemon curd, with chocolate icing, baked as cupcakes, with fresh fruit, the possibilities are endless. Decorating it is really fun because there are just so many things you can do with it.
The cake itself is incredibly moist and the smell when it comes out of the oven... it makes me drool every time.

The recipe comes from Delia Smith's 'Complete Illustrated Cooking Course'. I'm very fond of all her recipes, they tend to involve few ingredients and not too much time, but the result is always impressive. This recipe produces quite a small cake, which is fine if you're just making it for fun, but if it's expected to feed a group of people I'd double the recipe at least. It doesn't have to be baked in two separate tins, you can increase the cooking time and bake it in one tin either, just cover the top with tinfoil if it begins to brown too much.

There are so many ways of serving it......But I always end up filling it with jam and cream!

I returned to childhood decorations!

Recipe: All-In-One Jam and Cream Sponge

Ingredients:
110g self raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
110g soft butter or margarine at room temperature
110g caster sugar
2 large eggs
2-3 drops vanilla essence

Method:
Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C/ 325 F
Grease and line two 7 inch sponge tins, no less than 4 cm deep.
In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour and baking powder.
Add all the other ingredients to the bowl and whisk them with an electric whisk till thoroughly combined. If the mixture doesn't drop easily off a wooden spoon when tapped against the side of the bowl and 1 or 2 tablespoons of warm water and whisk again.
Divide the mixture between the two tins, level off, and bake on a centre shelf for about 30 minutes. Remove from tins and leave to cool.

To Assemble:
A great way to serve this is to spread both half's of the cake with raspberry jam, place whipped cream on top of one half, and then sandwich together. You also have the option of then covering the entire cake with whipped cream for a richer dessert, but I think it's fine with just the filling.
As I said before, it's a good cake to experiment with, so try lots of different fillings. Lemon curd is delicious, even nutella works!

Cat Cookies!

2007-06-12T10:42:00.000-07:00

I felt really cruel eating these!

I was inspired to make these cookies after seeing bluemotion's post at bakebakebake (which is an AMAZING community that was the real reason I begain baking in the first place, but more on that later). I fell in love with the idea of making cute shaped cookies and couldn't help myself, I had to give it a go. The original creator said it was just a kind of shortbread formed into little cat shapes and covered in icing,so I didn't see why it wouldn't work for me. However, lots of people seem to have had trouble with them in the past, so I was cautious. A special thanks to Bluemotion for then inspiration for these cookies

Having read bluemotion's post and examining other attempts at these cookies I decided not to put anything in the center of them and just go for a solid cookie, meaning that I had to bake them quite small otherwise they wouldn't cook thoroughly. I choose a recipe that was meant to be baked in a cake tin, hoping that this would ensure the cookie would cook all the way through. The recipe is once again taken from 'Baking' by Emma Patmore, this book will be with me forever.
Originally I was planning on dipping them in dark chocolate and the icing on the faces using white chocolate, but since they were a bit of an experiment and the only chocolate I had was Lindt 70% coca I didn't want to be wasteful, so I went with a simple glaze made from icing sugar and milk, and used then end of a Wonderbar chocolate flavoured coting for the features (I think this was bought in the days when I didn't know a whole lot about baking).

They're like a little family!

Recipe: Shortbread Cat cookies

Ingredients:

125g/ 1/2 cup butter, softened
40g/ 8tsp granulated sugar
25g/ 8 tsp icing sugar
225/ 2 cups plain flour
Pinch of salt
2-3 tsp water

Method:

In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and the sugars until light and fluffy.
Sift the flour and salt into the creamed mixture. Add the water and bring together to form a soft dough.
On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough into a 20cm round and cover with cling-film. Refrigrate for about half an hour.

Heat oven to 160 degrees C/ 300 F
Remove from cling-film and place on a lightly floured surface. Break off small clumps of dough and shape them into rounds, then use your fingers to pinch up little ears. Be careful not to make them too big or they won't cook through, but don't make the ears too small either or they will become too hard during baking and bread off.
Place on a greased baking try and cook in an oven for about 30-40 minutes, it depends on the size of your cats, until golden and crisp.
Leave to cool

The decoration is up to you really. I just mixed some icing sugar with water to form a glaze, dipped the cats in it and left it to set. Then I melted some Wonderbar "chocolate" and used a (clean!) paintbrush to add the freatures ( I really have to master the art of piping-bag making). I think they would be amainzing with a dark chocolate coating and white choclate filling, but that's just me. Oh, and don't forget to dip the ears in chocolate, I think it's the icing on the cake ^_^

Bye!

Millionaire Squares

2007-06-12T09:42:00.000-07:00

There's something very satisfying about swirling chocolate...

Caramel and chocolate really are a perfect combination. I love bar cookies, they're a nice choice when you're not sure if you want biscuits or a chocolate bar, you get a little bit of both; it's all there. These are really good just out of the fridge when the caramel layer is nice and cool. They are pretty filling though, so don't cut them too big! This is the best recipe I've come across for caramel shortbread so far, and it defiantly beats shop-bought ones. The butter base is indulgently rich, which makes them even better!

The recipe comes from 'Baking' by Emma Patmore. I'm really fond of that book, it was the first one I used when I started my obsession last summer! It introduced me to lots of different things, and it's really good for beginners, none of the recipes are too complicated and it has great variety.

... and cutting the bars is also oddly rewarding...

Recipe: Millionaire Squares.

Base:

Ingredients:
176g/ 1 1/2 cups plain flour
125g/1/2 cup butter, cut into small pieces
50g/ 3 tbsp soft brown sugar, sifted

Method:
Grease a 23cm/9 inch square cake tin. Preheat oven to 190 degrees C/ 375 F
Sieve the flour into a mixing bowl. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the sugar and mix to form a firm dough.
Press the dough into the bottom of the prepared tin and prick with a fork.
Bake in the oven for 20 minutes until lightly golden. Leave to cool in tin.

Topping:

Ingredients:
50g/ 10 tsp butter
50g/ 3 tbsp soft brown sugar
400 can condensed milk
150g milk chocolate
50-75 g white chocolate (depends on how swirly you like your topping!)

Method: Place the butter, sugar, and condensed milk in a non-stick pan over a gentle heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture comes to the boil (be very careful not to let it burn).
Reduce heat and cook for 4-5 minutes until the caramel is pale gold and thick, and is coming away from the sides of the pan.
Pour the topping over the shortbread base and leave to cool.
When the caramel topping is firm, melt the chocolates in separate bowls in the microwave (on low setting)/ in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water (not boiling, and make sure the water does not touch the bowl). Spread the milk chocolate over the topping, then swirl in the white to give a marbled effect. Leave to cool and refrigerate.
Remove from pan and cut into fingers or squares to serve.
Enjoy!

Everyone who tries these loves them, and they never last very long. Be careful when cutting the up as not to crack the chocolate too much, and don't swirl the chocolates on top too much, otherwise they'll just mix together and it will just look like a light chocolate topping.

2007-06-12T09:33:00.000-07:00

How could you resist?

Lemon Meringue pie has to be one of my favourite desserts, especially when made with a biscuit base. Pastry is good and all, but there's something about the crumbly texture that just works so well with the puffy meringue. The one thing I hate about making this dessert is that the meringue always ends up sliding away from the filling when you put a slice on a plate, and it ends up looking like a big mess >_< The recipe I used was adapted from Williams and Sonoma's 'Essentials of Baking'. Originally it had a pastry crust, but I substituted this for a biscuit base. Other than that I didn't make any changes. I like this recipe a lot, the lemon filling isn’t too sweet and the meringue is light and fluffy :)

I love the way droplets of water form on the meringue after it's cooled

Recipe: Lemon Meringue Pies

Base:

Ingredients:

200g crumbed digestive biscuits
4-5 tablespoons butter

Method:

Grease and line a 23cm ceramic pie dish. Mix together the biscuit crumbs and melted butter and press evenly into the base of the prepared tin. Baking in oven at 150 degrees Celsius/ 300 F for about ten minutes, or until golden brown. Transfer to fridge to cool

Lemon Filling

Ingredients:

6 tabelspoons/45g cornstarch

1 1/2 cups/ 375ml water

5 large egg yolks

1 3/4 cups/440g granulated sugar

1/2/ cup/125ml fresh lemon juice

2 teaspoons grated lemon zest

Method:

In a small bowl, combine the cornstarch and 1/2 cup/ 125 ml of the water and stir until the cornstarch dissolves.
In a saucepan, whisk together the egg yolks, granulated sugar, lemon juice, and remaining 1 cup/ 250 ml water until well blended. Whisk in the cornstarch mixture and bring to the boil over a medium heat whisking constantly, about 8 minutes. Boil for a further 1 minute until the mixture thickens and looks clear. Remove from heat and stir in the lemon zest. Using a rubber spatula, scrape the filling into a medium bowl and place plastic wrap directly on the surface of the filling to stop a skin from

Meringue:

Ingredients:

6 large egg whites, at room temperature

½ teaspoon cream of tartar

6 tablespoons/ 90g caster sugar

Method: In a large bowl, combine the egg whites and cream of tartar. Using a hand-mixer beat on medium speed until the whites begin to thicken. Increase the speed and beat until soft peaks form. Slowly and the caster sugar and continue to beat until stiff, shiny peaks form.

To assemble:

Remove the plastic wrap from the lemon filling and pour over pre-baked base. Using a rubber spatula, distribute the meringue evenly over the filling, moulding it upwards towards the centre, and forming swirls and peaks. Bake until meringue is lightly browned, about 12-17 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and cool for one hour. Refrigerate until cold, at least 5 hours or up to overnight. Serve cold.

It’s really, REALLY important to keep it in the fridge for long enough, the lemon filling needs to get good and solid. It’s meant to be supported inside a pie-crust, but seeing as how I use a biscuit base it tends to ooze once cut, but in my opinion it’s worth it.

Focaccia With Herbs and Cheese

2007-06-11T10:58:00.001-07:00

Mmmm, freshly baked bread

I decided to be brave and make my first yeast bread! And I can gladly say that it was a success. Okay, I used my bread maker to form the dough, but other than that it was my own work ;) I can really see myself getting hooked on bread-making. I've been avoiding a lot of savory things as I thought yeast and kneading would be too hard for me at this stage, but it turns out I was wrong. Working with dough is extremely satisfying, making the indentations after the first rise was the best part.

The recipe came from ‘The Bread Machine Book’ by Linda Doeser. I can't really comment on it since this is the first thing I've made from it, but it has very nice pictures and I'm eager to try more. I made some slight alterations to the recipe, substituting cheddar cheese for mozzarella and I sprinkled mixed herbs on along with the salt.

The sea salt and rosemary give a nice finishing touch

Recipe: Focaccia with mozzarella and rosemary

Ingredients:

210 ml hand-hot water

1 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for greasing

350g strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting

½ tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp easy-blend dried yeast

140g mozzarella cheese

Topping

2 tbsp olive oil

Fresh rosemary springs

Mixed herbs

Coarse sea salt

Method:

To make the dough: pour the water into the bread pan. Add the oil. Sprinkle over the flour to cover. Place the sugar and salt in 2 corners of the pan. Make and indentation in the flour without exposing the liquid and add the yeast.

Fit the bread pan in the bread maker. Set the machine on dough cycle.

When the cycle has finished remove bread pan. Lightly oil a round, shallow, 25-cm/ 10-inch cake tin and flour the work surface. Remove the dough from the pan and knock back. Sprinkle over the mozzarella and kneed gently to mix. Roll out into a 25 cm/ 10 inch round and place in tin. Cover with lightly oiled cling-film and leave to rise in a warm place for about 20 minutes.

Remove cling film. Make deep indentations all over the bread with your fingers. Cover with lightly oiled cling film and set aside to rise in a warm place for another 15 minutes.

Remove cling film. Drizzle the olive oil over the surface of the dough, then sprinkle with mixed herbs, rosemary springs, and sea salt. Bake in a preheated over, 200 degrees Celsius/ 400 F, for 20-25 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool slightly. Serve warm.An obligitory cross-section

Overall I thought this was a great bread, very moist and moreish. The flavours are subtle, though I do prefer stronger ones, and it had a nice, light texture. Everyone seemed to like it and it made a good accompaniment to dinner.

Heaven With Strawberries

2007-06-11T08:52:00.000-07:00

Hello! First post in my new blog! I guess I should say some inspirational words about why I made it etc. Let's cut to the chase; I like to bake and take pictures, that's why I made it. I want to try and develop my skills and get feedback and comments from people who actually know what they're doing, and I just like to go on and on about things. So enjoy!

In honour of my new blog I baked a strawberry tart, it seemed appropriate. I have wanted to bake one of these for ages and now seemed as good a time as any, especially since they were selling two packets of strawberries for five euro in Dunnes. The recipe is taken from Williams and Sonoma’s ‘Essentials of Baking - which is one of my favourite baking books that I own. The recipes are really good and deliver exactly what they pro mice, plus the step by step instructions are really clear and easy to follow.
I altered the recipe slightly, using patisserie cream instead of the suggested mascarpone cream filling and I had to use vanilla essence rather than a pod as they are IMPOSSIBLE to get.

Filled tart case

The jam glaze really helps to brighten up the fruit

And a shot of the yummy, if not slightly squidgy, inside.

Recipe: Strawberry Tart with Patisserie Creme

Rich Tart Pastry:

Ingredients:

1 ¼ cups (200g) all-purpose flour

½ cup (60g) confectioners’ sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup (125g) unsalted butter, cold, cut into 2 cm pieces

2 large egg yolks

1 tablespoon cream

Method:

In a food processor combine the flour, confectioners’ sugar, and salt. Pulse one or two times to mix. Add the butter pieces and pulse 7-8 times until the mixture forms large, coarse, crumbs the size of large peas.

In a small bowl, lightly beat the egg yolks with a fork, then stir in the cream until blended. With the motor running, add the egg mixture and process until the dough begins to come together, but does not form a ball.

On a work surface, shape the dough into a 6 inch (15cm) disk. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, at least 45 minutes.

Remove the disk from refrigerator. If it is too hard to roll out leave it to stand at room temperature for 10-20 minutes. Lightly dust a rolling pin and work surface with flour.

Roll out the dough and line a 9 inch (23cm) tart pan, using a double crust on the edges. Freeze tart until firm, about 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius (400 Fahrenheit). Line the frozen tart shell with aluminium foil, fill with dried beans/rice/baking weights.

Bake until crust dries out, around 15 minutes.

Reduce heat to 180 degrees Celsius (350 Fahrenheit)

Remove foil and weights. Bake until the crust is golden brown, about 10 minutes. Transfer to wire rack and cool.

Pastry Cream (Créme Patisserie):

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups (375 ml) whole milk

1 vanilla bean, halved length ways and scraped

4 large egg yolks

½ cup (125g) sugar

2 tablespoons cornstarch

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Method:

In a saucepan over a medium heat warm the milk and vanilla bean pod and scrapings until small bubbles appear along the edges of the pan. Remove from heat, then remove the pod.

In a bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, cornstarch, and sugar until smooth. Slowly whisk in the hot milk until blended. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and place over a medium-low heat. Cook, whisking constantly, until mixture comes to the boil and thickens, about three minutes. Cook for a further minute. Pour through a fine-meish sieve into a clean bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, poke a few holes in the wrap. Refrigerate until well chilled, at least 2 hours.

3 tablespoons seedless strawberry or raspberry jam.

About 25 strawberries, hulled.

To assemble:
Melt the jam in a microwave on medium power. Fill the tart shell with the pastry cream. Carefully arrange the strawberries, pointed end up and close together, on top of the filling. Brush strawberries with melted jam. Refrigerate until cold.

I thought this was a really, really nice tart, and was quite proud of it if I do say so myself. The cream wasn't too rich but still creamy and satisfying. I would have perhaps liked it to be a little more solid to prevent the contense of the tart sliding out of the case once cut, but sacrafices must be made.