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…

 

Recipe 6: Ballymaloe mincemeat crumble cake

So my latest offering is really two recipes in one because I made Ballymaloe mincemeat crumble cake using Rachel’s very own Mincemeat recipe. I’m telling you, I felt very Delia-ish making it. My kitchen TV is permanently tuned in to the Food Network or the Good Food channel and so I had Delia’s Classic Christmas on quite a bit over the past few weeks. Although the series was filmed may years ago, the woman hasn’t sold over 21 million books for nothing. She really knows her stuff and, even back then, she was way ahead of the game. Making homemade mincemeat is exactly the type of classic cooking that Delia would teach and, up until recently, I wouldn’t even have entertained the idea of making my own! Why would I go to the bother of making mincemeat when all I have to do is buy it in the supermarket? Surely M&S is just about the best type to be bought?! As I contemplated whether or not to make it, I kept thinking about that episode of Friends - the one where Rachel made the trifles and put minced beef into the dessert instead of mincemeat but, hey, I wasn’t about to do that! So, having looked through the ingredients for the recipe, I thought I couldn’t really go wrong and it was worth a try so here’s how it went…

The mincemeat had to be made at least two weeks in advance of its use which is what I did before moving onto the Ballymaloe mincemeat crumble cake for New Year’s Eve. The mincemeat started off with cooking apples which I peeled, cored and cut into large chunks. I then added a small bit of water and let them cook on a low heat until they were really soft. Once done, I let them cool before moving on to the next part. In a very large bowl (use a really big one!), I added raisins, sultanas, currants, chopped mixed peel, soft dark brown sugar, mixed spice, the juice and zest of two oranges and two lemons and small bit of Irish whiskey (Jameson to be exact!). The recipe gave the option of using either shredded suet (eugh!) or chilled and grated butter so you know which one I went for. Yes, must keep my shares up with the Kerrygold! I was also supposed to add nibbed almonds but the supermarket was sold out of them so I just chopped up blanched almonds and added them instead. Once the apple was cool enough, I added it to the large bowl and mixed everything.

I always have a great stock of Kilner jars about the house so I sterilised a few of them by simply running them through the dishwasher and then added the mincemeat mixture to them. According to the recipe, the mincemeat recipe can keep up to 1-2 years in a cool, dark place. Not that I suspected my mixture would have the chance to keep that long.

Then, we fast-forward to two weeks later and to making the Ballymaloe mincemeat crumble cake. I began with the crumble which was very simple – self-raising flour, caster sugar, butter (chilled and cubed) and flaked almonds. I just crumbled up the ingredients but added the almonds in last. Next on the list was the cake mixture which consisted of flour, soft, light brown sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, milk and butter. I whisked the ingredients gradually using my electric hand-held whisk and then folded in the flour before putting it into a prepared spring-form cake tin. I was surprised at how thick the cake mixture was so I added in another tablespoon of milk to absorb all the flour. It literally ended up as one large blob which I smoothed around the base of the cake tin using the back of a dessert spoon. I then added some of the homemade mincemeat on top of the cake mix followed by the crumble mix. Into the oven it then went for 50 minutes. I took it out and checked it with a metal skewer but thought it could do with another 5 minutes….and then another 5 minutes….hey, it must be my oven!!! The cake had to sit for 20 minutes and then I carefully managed to get it out of the tin and onto a plate using a large, thin knife without breaking it. Phew!!! Lastly, I dusted off the cake with some icing sugar and served with freshly whipped double cream. Yum!

The verdict…

Okay, now I can understand the difference between shop-bought mincemeat and homemade mincemeat. They really are worlds apart. I’m not an expert on mincemeat but I can confidently say that if I had to do a blind-folded taste test of many different varieties of mincemeat, I could now tell the difference between the shop-bought ones and the homemade variety. Do I now think it’s worth the hassle of making my own? Erm, yes, I do! I’m definitely a convert and, to be honest, it really wasn’t a whole load of work. I mean the only cooking involved in making mincemeat is softening two cooking apples. The rest of the recipe is flinging the rest of the ingredients into a bowl.

As for the cake itself, it was beautiful! The bottom layer is very cake-y, then the thin layer of (homemade) mincemeat (yum!), followed by the even yummier crumble with the almonds (delish!). If you want a Christmas recipe with a slightly different slant on using mincemeat, then this is it. The different layers meant different textures and I loved that about the recipe. The inclusion of the flaked almonds in the crumble really makes a difference. The verdict is 9 marks out of 10 from me. Dear Husband, who isn’t a fan of mincemeat surprisingly awarded this recipe an amazing 8 marks out of 10 so that’s as good an indication as any that this recipe is really, really good.

Overall, the cake is very easy to make and not very time-consuming – just be sure to have the mincemeat made a couple of weeks in advance. It’s definitely worth the effort though and, without doubt, it will be top of my Christmas culinary list next year. In the mean time, Happy New Year everyone!  

Recipe 5: Chocolate chestnut torte

Up until today, the closest thing I’d ever come to roasting chestnuts was listening to The Christmas Song. I only found out today that was actually the name of the song courtesy of Google. Honestly, where would I be without it?! The usual set-up when I’m cooking is that I have my cookbook sitting on its holder and the iPad is sitting right next to it. The reason I chose this week’s recipe which was Chocolate chestnut torte was because I just so happened to see them in M&S yesterday. I thought I’d surely make use of them so in they went to the shopping trolley.

 

So, today, I began by roasting the chestnuts. The recipe said to use cooked, vacuum packed chestnuts but I could also roast my own if I bought whole ones and the recipe said how to do it – just throw them into the oven for 30 minutes and then let them cool. But, hang on – did that mean I had to take them out of their shell first – just the same as I would with hazelnuts? Was I going to have to use the nutcrackers and hope they could manage the task?! Well, as you know, there’s not much that can’t be answered on Google so, once again, the iPad was the ready. I was lucky enough to come across a very good video which you can access on YouTube by clicking here - just remember these words...stick to using a long bread knife to do the cutting; otherwise, you'll end up in A&E. 

 

 

According the chef on the YouTube video, to roast the chestnuts, I had to slit them width-ways with a large bread knife. I then threw them into a saucepan, covered with cold water and added a good pinch of salt. Once they came up to the boil, I put them into a cake tin and roasted them in the oven at 210°C for 15 minutes. After that, I tossed them into a wide, shallow bowl and covered them with a tea towel for 15 minutes. The last thing I had to do was shell them. This was the first time I’d ever tasted roasted chestnuts. I can’t really think what they taste like – possibly like sweet potatoes? Either way, the thought of roasted chestnuts was better in my head. Anyway, it was on to the rest of the recipe…

In a Pyrex bowl, I added diced butter and dark cooking chocolate and placed it over a simmering bowl of water. I used my beloved Kerrygold (of course!) and then used Black’s 70% Dark Cooking Chocolate. That cooking chocolate is particularly handy as it comes in bars of 100g and I needed 200g. Also, each square is easily broken into 4 pieces by hand so I didn’t have to start chopping it up with a knife. That, in itself, saved me having to scrape and scald the melted chocolate off the chopping board which is usually what I have to do if I use a different brand. Once the butter and chocolate had melted, I gave it a good sit and set it aside.

Next on the list was to take the chestnuts to task which was fairly simple. I had to boil them in milk for 3 minutes and then whizz them in the food processer. In another bowl, I whisked egg yolks and caster sugar and, in yet another bowl, I whisked the egg whites with caster sugar until they formed stiff peaks. Yes, I know. Alarm bells were ringing in my head at that point because you know what I’m like if there’s a meringue mixture to be done! A major potential for a major disaster.

Right so, I had to mix the chestnut puree into the melted chocolate and butter. Next, I mixed that into the egg yolk mixture and then I folded the meringue mixture into that. I then poured the cake mixture into a spring-form tin which I had buttered on the base and sides. I let it cook for 35 minutes (just to be sure!) even though the recipe said to cook it for 30 minutes. Once cooled, I slid it onto a plate and dusted it with icing sugar and served with double-cream.

The verdict…

Dear Husband was very happy with it and gave it 8 marks out of 10. He didn’t realise the absence of flour until I told him. Of course, with a mark like that, he said he would, without doubt, eat it again. Well, he is going to have to as there’s still about three-quarters of it left. However, this cake wasn’t for me as I’m not big into chocolate cakes or chocolate desserts – I find them too heavy. Therefore, for me alone, I wouldn’t be in a whole hurry to make this one again. However, I would say that having tasted a chocolate torte before, the addition of the chestnuts was nice. I’d prefer that version over the original if I had to pick.

Overall, a lot of bowls and a lot of bits that have to come together. Once I had the cake cooling, I actually skedaddled out of the house with the two babies in tow as they had a play date and left Dear Husband to clean up that mess and the dinner dishes. I think that’s the first time I left the house with the kitchen in such a mess but there’s a first time for everything. It was great though to come home and see that Dear Husband had done a great job of clearing up. Alleluia!

 

So, if for nothing else than being able to say that you have had the experience of roasting chestnuts and made a Christmas recipe using them, I would still recommend you try this recipe. Sure, it’s the only time of year really when roasting them is all part of the festivities.

 

Recipe 4: Marbled chocolate crumble cake

Like many Irish households, the tradition of putting up the Christmas tree has always been allocated to the 8 December. However, we broke tradition and put it up today; it was mainly Dear Husband’s doing. In fairness though, when he suggested it, I didn’t protest as I think we were both looking forward to it as much as Dear Son. It’s a relatively simple task in our house now as, a number of years ago, our patience ran out with having to continually hoover up the pines from our ‘real’ tree that we vowed that from the next year onwards, we were getting an artificial one and that we did. Thankfully though, it’s one of those trees that really does look real and sure it’s a lot less hassle. Dear Sister No.1 thinks it is sacrilegious because she’s from the brigade that thinks that Christmas trees must always be real. Even though she moved out of home a number of years ago, she insists on picking the Christmas tree every year for my parents and her motto is simple – the bigger the better. It doesn’t matter if the tree is 9 or 10 feet tall, it’ll be grand. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, Dear Father eventually takes his bow saw to it and the poor tree looks like it’s had a run-in with a lumberjack. All part of the tradition – for us anyway. So, in honour of our tree going up, I decided to make a special cake and picked Marbled chocolate crumble cake.

If there’s one thing I love when it comes to cooking from cook books is a picture of the recipe I’m making. A lot of cook books don’t have a photo of every recipe though. I once heard a well-known male celebrity chef say it was because it is good to leave the final piece up to the person who’s making it. I always suspected that it was because they couldn’t be bothered to cook everything before their book is published and, after having completed the what really was 200 recipes from the Easy Meals Challenge, I can hardly blame them. It takes a serious amount of time and effort to cook every single recipe in a cook book. I know I was only doing one a day (on average) and it took me 6 months but even if you were making three a day, we’re still talking months to do every single one. Anyway, one of the many great things about Rachel Allen’s cook books is that most of the recipes are photographed and the Chocolate marble cake was one of them. In fact, Dear Husband happened to glance at the photo on his way past and comment that it looked complicated. Hmmm, I suppose, looking back at the cakes I’ve made in the past, this one was probably was – for me anyway. Ok, so here’s what I did...

I made the crumble part first which involved plain flour, chilled, diced butter and caster sugar. Once crumbled, I added in chopped dark chocolate, gave it a mix and let it sit in the fridge to chill.

Next, I made the actual cake mix. I began by creaming butter in a bowl using my electric whisk. I then added caster sugar and mixed until the mixture became light and fluffy. In a separate bowl, I lightly whisked four eggs and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. I then gradually added that into the sugar and butter cream. Next it was time to sift in plain flour and two teaspoons of baking powder which I then folded into the mix. The recipe said to split the mix into two bowls so, I did and then added cocoa to one and mixed it really well. This was the point where the recipe started to get a wee bit more complicated. Using a spring-form cake tin which I had greased with butter, I then had to add a spoonful of the cocoa mixture and then a spoonful of the plain cake mixture and keep alternating until I’d no mixture left. My cake mixture was probably a bit thick because I’d used medium-sized eggs so I used my plastic spatula to smooth out the mixture to fill in all the gaps in the tin. The recipe then said to use a skewer to mix the mixture to create the marble effect. It did say though not to over mix with the skewer so I did four circles in total. Next, I added the crumble mixture on top of the cake mix and popped the cake in the oven for 53 minutes exactly. I knew the cake was ready then because the top was golden and I inserted a skewer into the middle which, once removed, stayed clean. I let the cake sit for 10 minutes in its tin and then used a sharp knife to cut the cake away from the edges before removing the side panel of the tin. I then let the cake sit on a wire rack whilst still sitting in the base tin. The recipe said to wait until it was completely cook and then slide it off onto a plate. I used a long, think knife and, with some of my limited patience, I managed to get it onto its plate in one piece. Phew! Lastly, I scattered the cake with a dusting of icing sugar.

The verdict…

Dear Son described it as ‘wile yummy’ so his Donegal vocabulary is now well established as any other 3-year-olds in the county. Dear Husband said it was ‘beautiful’ and gave it 8 marks out of 10. I’m not mad about chocolate in cakes but this was a cake that wasn’t too chocolatey and also awarded it 8 marks. It really did taste nice and I must admit that I gave my slice an extra dusting of icing sugar. Afterwards, I was half thinking how nice the cake would be with plain Royal icing added to the top. I just might have to do that next time I make it. However, in terms of the ‘marbling’, as you can see, my cake wasn’t too marbled. I think I didn’t stir the skewer around enough so, next time, I try making eight circles and that make it more marbled. Not a bat attempt though for my first time all the same.