Monday 30 May 2011

Sunday, Monday, happy daze

May is the most generous month for holidays, and even more so this year.  It may only be one extra day, but that pleasant drift from Sunday into monday, avoiding the horrible usual sinking Sunday evening feeling, never fails to disappoint - no matter what you do with it.  This bank holiday weekend, as you would expect, I spent a large amount of my time baking.  It may not have been the sunniest of holidays, but I tried to brighten it up with some summery cakes, these were my final offerings:




Lemon Meringue Cupcakes, with some more violets pinched from the garden.  :)

Sunday 29 May 2011

Flower Power (2)


Flower cake no 2 was for the birthday of Miss Poppy French.  The cake was a blueberry soured cream cake , I addd a few less blueberries ad put in some raspberries for extra colour and taste.  


I topped it with cream cheese/sour cream icing (my cream cheese was low fat which is why it looks quite runny, but it still tasted good and I think the drizzly look suits the cake).  Then I scattered on shards of meringue, piles of fresh raspberries and blueberries, some more meringue crumbs and some fresh flowers and herbs from the garden.  I used little violets (I looked them up to check they are edible and gave them a gentle wash), and some mint sprigs.  


I finished the cake off with some drizzles of peach sauce; I made the peach sauce by heating some chopped peaches to soften them, blitzing them and then pushing the pulp through a sieve.  The remaining juice I then heated on the hob and dissolved some caster sugar in to taste, don't overheat it or it will congeal and loose its pretty pinky colour.  

Any fruit/flower combination would work beautifully on this cake - just make sure the flowers aren't poisonous!  


Saturday 28 May 2011

Flower Power (1)

I have made 2 flower themed birthday cakes this week, and apparently it was the RHS Chelsea flower show this week so I guess they were quite fitting!

The first I made for a friend at medical school who had posted a photo of a stunning flower pot cake on my Facebook wall, I decided to do my own fun interpretation of it.  (Mine may not be as beautiful or realistic, but I bet it was tastier!)


The cake was Nigella's sour cream chocolate cake, I made a mascarpone and cream chocolate icing for the filling and top but I'm sure Nigella's icing recipe would work just as well.  

To decorate I made the soil from crumbled up Flake chocolate bars and grated dark chocolate and then had some fun with some sweets making the flowers! The wafer daises are stuck to mini lollies and their leaves are made from iced foam bananas.  I used fizzy strawberry straws and white chocolate buttons to make the larger red flowers (good old morrisson's 3 for £1 sweeties!).  



Thursday 26 May 2011

Monday's 'Muray Mess' Cupcakes




Monday was the eve of my firm's (tutor group) first full 'night take' on our general medicine rotation.  It's a 12 hour shift overnight including a fairly...intense(!), 6 am ward round. These night takes are somewhat of a rite of passage at the hospital so to celebrate/commiserate the occasion I felt some cakes were definitely required.  

I wanted to make something delicious that would be colourful and cheer us up as we tried to stay awake through the night.  I decided against chocolate as I thought it would be a bit to rich and heavy for the early hours of the morning so I went fruity instead, taking inspiration from the summer dessert 'Eton Mess'.  Rather than the usual strawberries etc. I used raspberries and passion fruit, nice and tangy to wake us up!

The basic cake mix is a simple sponge with some greek yoghurt for added moisture and fluffiness, and some fresh raspberries stirred in for extra flavour.  I topped them with passion fruit mascarpone icing, more raspberries, some crushed meringue and fresh passion fruit.  

They went down a treat :) 



The Recipe:

Cake mix
150g unsalted butter (softened)
150g caster sugar
150g self raising flour
3 eggs
2tbsp greek yoghurt
a few gratings of lemon zest
a handful or 2 of fresh raspberries 

It will make 9-10 large cakes (like mine) or 12-15 small ones

Method
Preheat oven to gas mark 4, 180 degrees
Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.  
Add the eggs one by one and beat in (add a little of the flour if the mixture looks like it's curdling).
Fold in the flour. 
Stir through the greek yoghurt and lemon zest.
Add the raspberries and gently fold in (try not to demolish them too much).  
Spoon into cupcake/muffin cases and bake until lightly browned and firm to touch (about 25 mins, it will depend on your oven and the size of your cakes).  


Icing
Tub of mascarpone cheese
Icing sugar
Passion fruit (about 6)

Method
Cut the passion fruit in half and empty seeds and push through a sieve, collecting the juice in a bowl or jug beneath.  
Put the mascarpone in a bowl and beat with a spoon or spatula to soften it a little ( I used half a pot for 6 cakes, how much you use depends on how much icing you want)
Add icing sugar and passion fruit juice to taste, the sugar dissolves into the mascarpone and loosens it - be careful not to add too much as the mixture will become very sloppy, (I reckon i used about a tablespoon for half a 250g pot of mascarpone).

Meringues
Best to make them the night before, if you don't want to make them just buy some ready made.
I followed Nigella's rule of 60 grams for every egg white. 
I only needed one egg white's-worth of meringue.  

Method
Whisk the egg white until it forms peaks but isn't dry, then add the sugar spoon by spoon, whisking in between until the sugar has dissolved in the egg white and the mixture is glossy.  
Spoon blobs onto a baking sheet and bake for an hour on a low heat (gas mark 1, 70 degrees) then turn the oven off and leave the meringues inside overnight.  
Don't worry if the meringues aren't beautiful, they're going to be crushed up anyway.  

Putting it all together:
When the cakes are cool top them with a generous dollop of the passion fruit icing.  
Add a few fresh raspberries.
Break up the meringues and add a few shapely shards then sprinkle over some of the smaller crumbs.
Finally, drizzle over some fresh passion fruit pulp and any left over passion fruit juice.

The cakes are best eaten soon after assembly as the meringue will loose its crunch if left too long.

Enjoy!








Monday 16 May 2011

Bakeathon

So last week was 'Path Week', a week of lectures designed to fill our brains with all the knowledge we'll need for our next rotation.  Well, I saw it as an equally good opportunity to fill mouths with cake and try out some new recipes.  By Friday I had clocked up 6 different batches of cake! (I managed to photograph all but one of them - some simple but cute vanilla and white chocolate butterfly cakes)

Tuesday



Rich chocolate and strawberry cupcakes.

Thursday

 


Chocolate and banana cupcakes and an experimental creation - apple and elderflower (next stage is to make them look good as well as taste good!)

Friday



A French-style savoury cake with cheddar cheese, feta cheese, sun-dried tomatoes and fresh basil; and another creation of mine, my Masala Mango Cake - it's an exotic twist on Nigella's classic courgette cake recipe.  I replace the courgette with 250g of coarsely grated mango (not too ripe or it will turn to mush - in fact it would be a great way to make use of any of those stubborn mangos that refuse to soften) and I add to the dry ingredients some of my Indian Masala Chai spice mix, which is a combination of ground ginger, cinnamon, cardamon and pepper.  The drizzle is made from mango juice (Rubicon!), icing sugar, and a squeeze of lemon to sharpen it up.  

It was a good week :) 

Saturday 14 May 2011

Come dine avec moi

A lot of my friends in London share my passion for cooking and baking and a couple of years ago, inspired by the high quality television series, we decided to set up our own 'Come Dine With Me'.  It differed in a few ways from its famous counterpart; firstly the participants were not picked big brother-style to deliberately wind each other up - in fact we are all such good friends we decided we couldn't actually bear to score each other (difference 2) - and no.3 the food is always amazing.

Last Sunday it was my turn to cook, I decided to do a 'Tour of Europe' inspired by a nice bottle of wine I bought in France over Easter and some lovely meat and cheese brought back from the same region.  I managed to slip some baking into my menu of course...

We started with the cheese and meats and bottle, and I baked some gougères; little french cheese choux buns - served hot, fluffy and buttery from the oven. Then after a starter of Italian fish stew and a main of Spanish pork tenderloin we went home to the UK (sort of) for a rhubarb and passion fruit pudding.  It's a recipe I came across in a magazine a few years ago and, with the thought that anything containing my 2 favourite fruits surely couldn't fail to be delicious, I gave it a go.  It was delicious and I praise the person who came up with the recipe!  I tweaked it a little this time to make it more dinner-party-y, making individual pots of the roasted rhubarb and passion fruit soufflĂ© top and finishing each one with some homemade greek yoghurt ice cream and a painstakingly(!) crystallised freesia.


Then, to finish the evening, we returned to France for some petit fours; lemon macaroons, chocolate truffles and some rhubarb crisps.  


I was really pleased with all the food, my diners seemed to enjoy it - so totally worth all the time spent in the kitchen.  The only downside of an otherwise very enjoyable day was the by-product of all that time I spent in the kitchen; the mess! I'm not exactly renowned for being the tidiest of cooks, it took 9 of us several hours to clean up after me....thanks everyone! x

Monday 2 May 2011

Red White and Blue

So, the wedding of the decade, think what you will of it but myself - I love any excuse for a cake and a party and I thoroughly enjoyed the day.  The dress was stunning, but what I couldn't wait to see was the cake, and Fiona Cairns (something of an idol of mine...) did not disappoint - it was an intricately beautiful masterpiece.


I spent the wedding day with a wonderful group of people and I brought along my own 'wedding cake' to celebrate, so it wasn't really anything like a wedding cake - it was a gimmicky patriotic piece.  It involved a lot of effort and I'm not sure I'd do it again but it was good fun and served the occasion well :)




They enjoyed it :)