Recipe 13: Lemon poppy-seed muffins

I didn’t exactly make a conscious decision to take the summer off the blog, it just kind of happened that way. One week ran into the next and, with the weather being so nice, the kids and I spent most of it outdoors so the last thing I wanted to do was to start baking. Honestly, I don’t know how people manage in really hot countries (obviously, I do know they acclimatise) but I decided to make the most of the glorious summer we’ve had as the last really good summer I can remember was 1995!

The other thing is that when I started this second blog, I went about it totally the wrong way. With the first blog, I used to leaf through the cookbook and think through the recipes as to which one would be next. I came to the realisation though that I have to approach each recipe as they come in the cookbook so I decided to start on the first recipe but I didn’t have a Bundt tin so I went on to the next recipe which was Lemon poppy-seed muffins and here’s how it went…

I had two large bowls. In the first one, I mixed flour, baking powder, poppy seeds, caster sugar and a pinch of salt. In the second one, I mixed all the wet ingredients which were eggs, milk, oil, zest of a lemon and vanilla extract. I had to add 215ml of milk which is very precise so what I did was measure exactly 200ml of milk in a jug and then I used a tablespoon of milk which equates to 15ml. The recipe said to use vegetable oil and I actually used rapeseed oil – Donegal Rapeseed Oil to be precise. I use rapeseed all the time now so it’s either the Donegal version or the Broighter Gold brand which I use – both of which I get at Harry’s food market in Bridgend.

Anyway, back to the recipe and I mixed the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and then divided the mixture into the muffin trays before popping them into the oven for 25 minutes. I have become so familiar with my oven over the past number of years that I know that if I need to set it to 180°fan oven then I actually have to set it to 165 on the dial. My oven is actually on its last legs and I’ve been waiting for the past few months for it to finally pack in. It has earned its keep though but I already have a mental shortlist of dream cookers that I would like to replace it with so if you have any suggestions, they are most welcome!

Once the muffins were ready, I just checked them with a cocktail stick and let them cool for 5 minutes in their tin before placing them on a wire rack. For the icing, I simply mixed icing sugar and lemon juice. The last thing I did was to drizzle the icing over the muffins and sprinkle poppy seeds over them.

The verdict…

Well, yes, they were extremely yummy and I’ll definitely make them again. Dear Son actually found them ‘too sweet, mummy’ whereas Baby Daughter swiped a second one off the plate and sprinted down the hall after I took a pic of it. Dear Husband’s verdict was that they were nice than he thought they were going to be (!) and had two of course. I would tend to agree with Dear Son that I found them just a little bit too sweet so one was enough for me and that was probably my sugar intake for the day. The ironic thing is that I almost forgot to put the sugar in the bowl – some muffins they would have turned out to be! I found this latest baking endeavour to be something different but in a really nice way. I wouldn’t normally go for muffins as they are usually chocolate ones loaded with more chocolate and I would just find them, well, too chocolately. Nonetheless, these weren’t heavy to eat and definitely a nice way to finish off a lovely Sunday dinner. Overall, a very simple, quick and delicious recipe. Until next time…

Masterchef Ireland

By the way, applications are open for Series 3 of Masterchef Ireland. Click here or on the logo above and it will take you to the RTE website which includes information on how to apply. Closing date is 22 July 2013. Good luck!

Recipe 12: Winter breakfast muffins

I don’t normally talk about work on my blog but I need to in order to put this latest recipe into context. Although I am now on my holidays, Thursdays over the past academic year were the longest day as I would teach 9am-6pm. Now, in many occupations and in former jobs, that isn’t a big deal but when you spend all of that time talking, by the time 6 o’clock comes around, I’m ready for home. That said, I was fortunate enough to have one particular group at 2pm who were such fun to teach that I decided I would bring them in one of my recipes. Well, they were always lively, full of life – befitting of their age group as they were all students who were straight out of secondary school. So, I decided to bring them in Winter breakfast muffins and here’s how it went…

Into a bowl, I sifted in flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt and mixed spice and mixed it all together. I then added butter and worked it until it resembled breadcrumbs. In another bowl, I whisked up eggs, buttermilk and golden syrup. I then tipped this wet mixture with chopped stem ginger and sultanas and beat it well. The next thing I did was to three-quarter fill the muffin cases and into the oven they had to go for 30 minutes “until well risen”. Well, 30 minutes came and went, then 35 minutes, then 40 minutes. I gave them a wee press – no spring back. What was up with that?! Of course, I started to blame the over. Surely it must be the oven – it’s on its last legs so I checked the thermometer that has taken up permanent residence inside and the temperature was perfect. As I stood gawking into the oven like a confused scientist, the reflection of a bowl on the worktop caught my eye against the oven door. Sugar!!! I forgot to put the sugar in the mixture!!! Seriously, how in Heaven’s name did I manage that?! Well, suffice to say, the dogs got that batch of muffins and, as someone who really doesn’t like wasting food, the other batch that were sitting in a second tray, nothing would do me that I then took each muffin case and dumped its contents back into the bowl. Then, added the sugar and repeated the task of putting them into their cases. Thankfully, they cooked fine.

Still concerned though that I had made such a hems of the muffins for my lovely students, I then decided to also make fair cakes with a variety of coloured icings – a form of buffer, if you like. They might not like the muffins but everyone likes fairy cakes. So, in I went the next day, complete with a two tins of muffins and fairy cakes. I actually had to hide them away under my desk out of site for fear anyone else would see them – I have no shortage of people offering to try out my baking efforts. So, 2 o’clock came, I trotted over to class, went in the door, there they were – all sitting working busily at their computer and, as always, there was my cup of tea sitting beside my desk which they insist of buying me every Thursday. Yes, you see, they really are such a good group of students. As they spotted the tins, I could see their eyes light up and so we congregated around the large table in the centre of the room (away from the PCs of course!) and had a lovely 5 minutes of debating which were nicer – the muffins or the fairy cakes. Unfortunately, the muffins (although very nice, I was told), the fairy cakes won hands down – 10 out of 10. The muffins got a 7. And just to incorporate numeracy into this non-curriculum related activity, I got them to calculate the mean and standard deviation of the 15 scores – lol! You know that saying there’s no such thing as a free lunch, well there’s no such thing as a free dessert!

In summarising this recipe, I would say it is straightforward – except I can’t because I forgot to put the sugar in but that’s my own doing – always trying to be 4 steps ahead of myself. I am going to try this recipe again though. Dear Husband missed out on these ones this time but thankfully for him, I have lots of mornings now over the summer to perfect the art of making this recipe…

Recipe 11: Castle Cake

When I did my first food blog, the second most asked question I used to get was where did I get the time to do it? I always said that I was going to make dinner anyway so it’s not that I was adding on anything much to my day. That said, putting the posts up on the blog religiously every day was a task. I think I used to play it down as to how much time it took but, looking back now, even I don’t know where I used to get the time to post every single day from April to December. In fact, there were a number of occasions where I ended up falling asleep as I waited for Baby Daughter to nod off only to wake up at 3 or 4am and I would actually get up and type up the post. Now I realise that there was a method in my madness. I think I knew that if I missed one day of posting, it would start to snowball which is exactly what happened when I went through the two weeks of the broadband nightmare back in February. That on top of a particularly busy 8 weeks where I couldn’t even get time to watch my beloved programmes (Grey’s Anatomy and Revenge) but, alas, it took a very loyal follower of this blog to draw me back so here I am (so thank you Caroline!).

Well, as it’s been a while, I thought I should write up one of the spectacular recipes which was the Castle cake. As a very loyal listener of the Ray D’Arcy Show, it’s not every day that I get to listen to it. Actually during term time, the only time I get to listen to it live is for half an hour on a Friday as I drive from B to C; the rest of the time is on their player. Anyway, at the same stage every Friday, I could almost tell you at what point of the road I’ll be when I hear the theme tune for Fix It Friday. Love that theme tune! As it plays I am happily driving along bopping my head side to side. Surely other drivers I meet must think I’m a loon but other fans of Fix It Friday will understand. So, on this particular day, a listener emailed in to say that she had borrowed her friend’s hand mixer to bake a cake (or something similar). Of course, the hand mixer was of great sentimental value but, unfortunately, the listener actually managed to break the mixer. Of course, it was an old mixer as I think the friend inherited it from her mother so it was going to be difficult to replace. However, I remember thinking “How does anyone actually manage to break a hand mixer?! Seriously.” Well you know that saying about you shouldn’t judge others until you’ve walked in their path? I’m pretty sure that saying is about far greater problems than broken mixers but I’ve learned that I am just an incompetent with the hand mixer because, in making this Castle Cake recipe, I managed to…yes…break my hand mixer!!! That’ll teach me…

Dear Son’s birthday was in April and although I wasn’t brave enough to leave baking his real cake to my own baking skills (!), I thought I’d try making it as a treat the month before and he could help. Honestly, I don’t know what I was thinking but he had fun! Six whole hours of it to be honest – well, in between naps and food and play and occasionally getting fed-up with it and then suddenly getting another burst of excitement to spur him on – him, that is – just in case you’re thinking I’m on about me (!).

I know I joke regularly that I could have a share in Kerrygold as I love butter that much but now I am convinced that I should have a share in Kerrygold – I think I went through 4 lbs of the stuff! I started off by making the sponge cakes and, one of the good things about the recipe, is that it gives you two recipes – one if you’re making it in two batches depending on the number of square baking tins you have and another recipe if you’re making it in four batches. Essentially, you make four square cakes using a typical sponge cake mixture. However, another good thing about the recipe is that you can vary it to make chocolate and strawberry versions.

For the butter icing, it was a combination of milk chocolate, butter, icing sugar and cocoa powder. That’s the point where I broke my hand mixer as I hadn’t left enough butter out to soften and not being very patient, I thought I’d try my luck but with disastrous results. I ended up having to beat it by hand and actually ended up with a blister – reminds me of a time when I used to scrub a swimming pool floor by hand in a former life as nothing would show up the white tiles as well as hand scrubbing them. Anyway, I started to cut and assemble the cakes as per the instructions except my butter cream wasn’t soft enough. I know that having every window open in the kitchen on a very cold day didn’t help but otherwise the heat in the kitchen becomes unbearable. Therefore, going back to my earlier point, make sure you have soft butter and a room that isn’t too cold or hot.

 

The butter icing

 

The first layer

 

Getting there...

 

Up we go... 

 

Finally...

 

Oh, but for the fun part while the cakes were cooling (!). I had to drive all the way to Derry to buy chocolate Matchsticks having gone to no less than seven shops in Buncrana. Of course, if I didn’t need Matchsticks that day, I’d have seen them in every single shop but, as luck would have it, none to be found when I needed them. I also needed cones, Bourbon biscuits, chocolate fingers, Curly Wurlys and chocolate sprinkles. Yes, my kitchen reached new depths of being an unbelievable, fine mess by the time I got to work with them. Hours late and ta-da…

The verdict…

This cake literally blew Dear Son away. He just thought I was the best mum ever which was worth it to hear him say that alone but, ah sure, two hours later and I was the worst because I wouldn’t give him any more treats! That’s kids for you. Top marks from Dear Son nonetheless and Dear Husband said “Wow!” when he saw it. In fact, the day that I made this cake, I posted a pic to Twitter and I got a reply from a follower to say that her husband saw her looking at it and said “I want one of them!” and he’s 32…lol!

I definitely think that if you make cakes then you really should try this recipe. It is time consuming but nothing is overly complicated. The main advice I’d give is to ensure that your butter is at an appropriate temperature to work with so you don’t end up breaking your hand mixer like me. The other piece of advice is to ensure that your kitchen is at appropriate temperature as if the room is too warm, the butter cream will melt when you’re working with it and if the room is too cold then it will be difficult to spread the butter cream. There is strawberry buttercream version you can make of this recipe if you want to make it a bit more girly. A lot of eating this cake so I had to start giving away large chunks of it as, according to the recipe, it feeds 40. It was totally delish though. Yum yum yum yum yum…

Recipe 10: Battenberg Cake

Ah, Battenberg Cake, another childhood memory. Always reminds me of my Granny’s. Granny’s house was only 100 yards over the road and Granny had a sweet tooth so there were always cakes and biscuits to be found. Until this Challenge, I could safely say that baking a Battenberg Cake would be a recipe that I would completely rule out as it’d be way too complicated, right?! Well, that’s what I thought anyway. Here’s how it went…

In fairness, the only complicated part of the whole recipe was sorting out the parchment paper for the baking tin. I must admit that I did have to read the instructions about four times and, just to be safe, I Googled it and found a video on YouTube as to how to sort it out – that was well worth the few minutes of my time. Next, I got onto the mixture which was a fairly standard cake mixture of self-raising flour, eggs, milk, caster sugar and butter. After a mix, I divided the mixture into two bowls and added a few drops of pink food colouring to one of the bowls. Then it was time to pour the two mixtures into the separate sides in the baking tin. So, into the oven the tin went for almost 30 minutes.

Once the cakes were done, I let them cool for 10 minutes before putting them on a wire rack. One thing I have learned for sure when baking is to always ensure the cake is fully cooled before attempting to work with it. With each cake, I cut it in half so that I ended up with four long cakes. I also trimmed the edges of each cake and then assembled them using apricot jam to stick them together. Lastly, I rolled out a block of marzipan and cover the assembled cake with it before tidying it up et voila!

The verdict…

This recipe was a real surprise and I thought Anna Olson would be proud! Admittedly, my Battenberg Cake wasn’t as perfect looking as the ones you can get in the shops but I think it was a good effort all the same. I actually made the cake for St. Patrick’s Day and was tempted to use green food colouring instead of the pink but that’s what I plan to do next year! Dear Sister No.1 was delighted as Battenberg is her favourite cake so she gave my efforts full marks. Dear Husband was seriously impressed as he probably holds Battenberg in the same esteem as I do. It tasted great - really great. Full marks all round.

 

The best thing I can say about this recipe is that there probably isn’t a better one that will actually make you feel like you can bake (even if you can’t!). It really vanished the perception I had that making a Battenberg would be too complicated. Well worth the effort…

Recipe 9: Bakewell cake

Yes, I’m back. No, I did not fall off the edge of cyber space. My official line is that I was ‘experiencing technical difficulties’. Well, isn’t that the most diplomatic way of describing the complete broadband nightmare that we went through over the past few weeks. Seriously, if I was to go into all the details (which I won’t bore you with!), it would be the equivalent of a mini-drama series although I don’t think RTE would be in any hurry to buy the TV rights. So many clichés come to mind but, believe me when I say this, if it isn’t broke then don’t fix it! Seriously. I mean do you ever do something to get ahead only to find that you leave yourself further behind? Remember how I told you before how I have a habit of taking a ‘short cut’ to avoid traffic only to get lost resulting in a journey that actually takes longer had I stuck to the heavy-traffic route? Well, I went through the broadband equivalent of that story. The shortened version is that I got a call from my mobile phone provider asking me to switch my landline and broadband. Seeing as I had been with them for 15 years and not one problem, I said ok whilst explicitly explaining how important broadband is to Dear Husband and me. So, the phone switched over but the broadband didn’t. We were left weeks without it and, in the end up, out of sheer frustration, switched back to Eircom. Oh, Eircom – I love love love you and promise I will never never ever switch again. Promise. Oh, why did I ever think switching away in the first place would ever have worked out?! Lesson learned.

Anyway, the net result is that whilst I’ve been busy baking away each week, the blog posts have been queuing up on my laptop. So I thought I’d start with the one I made this week and work my way back so seeing as it was Mother’s Day, I thought I’d bake myself a cake. Sad I know but, well, who else is going to bake me one??! Somehow letting Dear Son or Baby Daughter within 3 feet of my oven is a no-no and, come to think of it, the same for Dear Husband…for different reasons. Either way, that’d be some cake. I’ll give them another 10-15 years. Seeing as one of my all-time favourite cakes are Mr. Kipling’s Almond Slices, I decided on the Bakewell cake recipe. Here’s how it went…

After approximately 40 minutes of looking for the base of my cake tin (seeing as Baby Daughter loves hiding things), I gave it a good clean before wiping it with some butter. Then, I got working on the mixture which was butter, caster sugar, eggs, milk, vanilla essence, flour and ground almonds. The last thing I had to do was add in fresh raspberries to the mixture and fold them in without mashing them up. Well, that didn’t work out too well if you look at the first photo! I spread it onto the baking tray and sprinkled with flaked almonds before popping it into the oven for almost 52 minutes. I then let it sit for 10 minutes before transferring it onto a plate and giving it a dusting of icing sugar. Just to prove that I wasn't using the icing sugar to cover up a burnt cake, I've included the before and after photos! :)

Oh, and in the midst of me making the cake, Dear Husband happened to see me washing the raspberries and just had to let me know (again!) that he doesn’t like cherries. “Erm, they’re not cherries, they’re raspberries!”, I said. “Aw great!”, he says. So after me actually managing to let the cake cool for 40 minutes, I whipped up some double cream and served up.

The verdict…

Dear Husband’s verdict was 7 marks out of 10. He said he would have given it higher marks only for the ‘cherries’. Again, I said they weren’t cherries, they were raspberries. Six of one and half a dozen of the other and all that. Yes, another cliché but you get the point. However, I would safely say that this was one of the nicest cakes I have ever cooked. It was totally delish and I just had to give Dear Mother half of it who loved it. Don’t worry, I did have other presents for her other than half a cake!

Of course I’m going to make this cake again. It was straightforward, simple and wasn’t time consuming not to mention how much it really, really tasted like a proper cake;  proper cake that I made. The only part I didn’t do right was folding in the raspberries without breaking them. So I suppose I didn’t do so bad with this one…

Recipe 8: Toscatårta or Swedish almond cake

As Giuliana Rancic would say (because I’m such a big fan of hers)…“totally amazeballs!”. That’s exactly how I would describe my latest culinary adventure which was Toscatårta or Swedish almond cake. Better still (and you already know what a hard marker Dear Husband is!), he described the cake as “possibly the nicest cake I’ve ever had!”. You know this cake is good when Dear Husband gives it that verdict – a perfect 10 out of 10. Here’s how I made it…

I used my electric food processor to whisk the eggs and sugar for 7 minutes. I then sifted in plain flour before folding in baking powder, vanilla extract and melted butter. I poured the mixture into a spring-form cake tin and baked in the oven for 35 minutes. At the 30-minute mark, I made the topping for the cake which consisted of melted butter, flaked almonds, caster sugar, plain flour, double cream and vanilla extract. I just let everything boil for a minute. It was then time to take the cake out of the oven and so I poured the topping over the cake and returned it to the oven for another 10-15 minutes. Once ready, I let the cake sit in its tin for at least 10 minutes before transferring it to a plate. I served it slightly warm and with double cream.

The verdict…

Well, you know the verdict but, honestly, this cake was absolutely gorgeous. I know I absolutely adore hazelnuts and almonds so maybe I’m biased about this recipe but Dear Husband isn’t as big of a fan of the same which made his verdict all the more surprising.

Overall, this cake is without doubt one of the easiest cakes I have ever made. One thing I would say is that when you are making this topping, make sure you stick to the one-minute boil as it is extremely easy to burn the mixture – I know as I had a near miss! The cake was relatively quick to make and one of the great things about it was that I didn’t have to wait for it to completely cool to ice which is often the case with a cake recipe.

I have never witnessed such interest in our house over a cake before. I have this great glass dome plate for cakes by Nigella Lawson which I bought at least 6 years ago so for all of three days, the cake took pride of place in the middle of the kitchen table. Anyone who crossed the back door had to have a piece because, as you know, no one is allowed to leave my house without being accosted for their opinion on my latest culinary effort and this cake was no exception and the verdicts were definitely good ones!

So, in essence (pardon the pun!), from now until forever more, this cake will be within the top three favourite cakes of mine…and Dear Husband’s for that matter. That is no easy feat; therefore, I highly recommend you try this one. You won’t regret it!

Recipe 7: Petits gâteaux with Berry buttercream icing

No better excuse to make the Petits gâteaux completed with Berry buttercream icing than a visit to see the 7-week-old twin girls of one of my Dear Friends (remember the chicken-dish expert from my first blog?!). So last night, Dear Husband and I embarked on our journey complete with a large cake tin of goodies. I remember once watching an episode of one of Nigella Lawson’s programmes and she made honeycomb as a present for the friend who was hosting a dinner party; however, she ate quite a lot of it in the taxi en route. Well, that’s the way the story panned out on TV. Therefore, I could forsee the same thing happening in our house and now that Dear Son has recently developed a huge interest in cooking and baking with me, I decided I’d better bake a lot. To keep him happy, we baked 3 dozen of fairy cakes and I let him ice and sprinkle them with 100s and 1000s. So, if he was happy, he was busy which meant that I could get on with my petits gateaux. I know I’ve said this before but I really should have a share in the Kerrygold group because of the amount of butter I go through. Anyway, here’s what I did…

The recipe for Petits gâteaux was pretty similar to that of fairy cakes – butter, caster sugar, eggs, plain flour and baking powder. I creamed the butter, added the sugar and then gradually beat in the eggs. The flour and baking powder just had to be sieved and folded in to the wet mixture and then put into a lined square baking tray. I baked the mixture for almost 30 minutes and then let it sit in the tin until it had cooled. All I had to do then was cut the cake into 16 squares which led me onto the Berry buttercream icing.

 

 

 

For the Berry buttercream icing, I hulled and halved strawberries and threw them into my mini-chopper for a blitz along with a small bit of freshly squeezed lemon juice. I then added the puréed strawberry mixture into another bowl in which I had creamed butter mixed with sieved icing sugar. Then, it was time for the tricky part. I was supposed to spread the buttercream over the sponge squares and then place a strawberry on top. Now, if you look at the picture on page 187 and then compare it to mine below, you will acknowledge that they don’t look very similar; that’s because they’re not. Dear Mother reminds me from time-to-time that patience is a virtue; well, I don’t think I’m too virtuous when it comes to patience. No, not indeed because I couldn’t wait long enough for another pound of butter to soften that I went ahead with the icing and then (as if that wasn’t enough), I didn’t wait long enough for the squares to cool. Yes, I know – a rookie mistake. I should have let the butter soften properly and I really should have let the squares cool properly. The end result was that the icing wasn’t the right consistency and then it sort of melted on top of the square. I had such high hopes for the recipe but my own short-comings let me down. But, alas, mistake = something learned or, in this case, two things learned. Nonetheless, Dear Husband and I still scored the recipe 8 marks out of 10 and Dear Friend and her husband were very pleased with them.

Not content with my efforts with this recipe, I have vowed to make it again and, next time, I promise I really will exercise patience. Now, if only that other pound of butter would hurry up until I make my next recipe. Ah well, some things never change…