Almond and cherry slices

Mr CC has been muttering of late that I don’t make his favourite sort of cakes.  The poor thing is practically malnourished due to my neglect! When I asked him what were his favourite sort of cakes he replied: anything that Mr Kipling makes.  Now don’t get me wrong; I am not (ok, I try not to be) a cake snob and will happily enjoy a Mr Kipling cake if there’s one on offer…but the thought of choosing one over a nice home baked treat is something I struggle with; if Mr CC heard my dramatic in-take of breath at his comment he didn’t let on. 

Mr CC mentioned, in particular, almond slices so I pondered how to take the essence of a Mr Kipling almond slice and pimp it up a bit.  I decided on adding a pastry base, chopped cherries and some thick white icing.  It then dawned on me that what I had actually created was the lovechild of a Mr Kipling almond slice and bakewell tart…and it tasted as good as you’d expect!

If you’re pushed for time you can forget the pastry and simply bake the filling; the result will be a very pleasing almond sponge.  The cherries work so well with almond.  Whilst I still can’t manage half a glace cherry on top of a cake, chopped into small pieces I rather like the fruity –almost jammy - chewy little pop they bring to proceedings.  The cake will keep for days - anything with almonds seems to get better day after day as the nut oil is released.

This basic recipe has some alternative options available – omit the cherries and replace with fresh fruit such as raspberries or blueberries; you could also add a layer of jam between pastry and filling.

Ingredients

For the pastry:

175g plain flour
85g unsalted butter – straight from the fridge
30g caster sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon cold water

For the filling:

110g unsalted butter, at room temperature
150g golden caster sugar
2 eggs
150g plain flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
50g ground almonds
100g glace cherries, chopped quite small
1 tablespoon milk
A couple of handfuls of flaked almonds

For the icing:

100g icing sugar
Enough warm water to make a thick, glossy icing - add it a teaspoon at a time

Method

Start by making the pastry: place the flour and butter in the food processor and blitz until you have fine crumbs.

Add the sugar and blitz briefly.

While the machine is still running pour in the egg yolk and water.

Stop the processor when small clumps of pastry start to form.

Tip the clumps out onto a sheet of clingfilm and, using your hands, bring together into a ball of pastry.

If you wish to make the pastry by hand rub the butter into the flour until you have crumbs.  Stir in the sugar, egg and water and, bring together to a ball of dough.

Roll the pastry out between two sheets of clingfilm – this saves having to add any extra flour and changing the make up of the pastry.

Line a 30cm x 20cm traybake tin with the pastry.  I like to use a disposable foil traybake tin as I find it easier to get the cooked traybake out! 

Use any spare pastry to patch the tin – it’s good natured and will patch easily.

Prick the base of the pastry with a fork.

Cover with clingfilm and refrigerate for 1 hour. (Note that the pastry is rested after rolling – not before).

Preheat the oven to 200°C/fan oven 180°C/400°F/gas mark 6.

Cover the chilled pastry with non-stick foil or baking paper and weigh down with baking beans.

Bake for 10 minutes before removing the paper and beans and cooking for a further 10 minutes or until golden.

Put to one side to cool while you make the filling.

Now make the filling: beat together the butter and sugar until smooth and whippy.

Beat in the eggs.

Stir in the flour and baking powder.

Fold in the ground almonds and chopped cherries.

Stir in the milk to slacken the mixture.

Spoon into the pastry case and flatten well to ensure there are no air pockets.

Level the surface and scatter over the flaked almonds.

Bake for approximately 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the almond sponge comes out clean.

Leave to cool, in the tin, on a wire rack.

When the cake is cool make the icing: add warm water, a teaspoon at a time, to the icing sugar and mix until you have a thick, white, glossy icing.

Use a spoon to drizzle over the almond sponge.

Leave to set.

Cut into generous finger-shaped slices – I got 18 fingers.

Eat on its own with a big cup of tea.

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.

Eat.

Anzac biscuits

This is a recipe that has been on my ‘to bake’ list for far too long.  Before baking them I had never eaten an Anzac biscuit but I knew I would love them as they contain three of my all-time favourite ingredients: oats, coconut and golden syrup.

Anzac biscuits originated in war-time and were, so the story goes, a popular biscuit sent by Australian and New Zealander wives to their soldier husbands serving overseas.  The biscuits are egg-free (like so many war-time recipes), keep well and are robust enough to withstand transportation.  There are stories on-line that the military-issued Anzac biscuits were quite different to these lovely home-baked treats; made from hard tack – a long life bread substitute made from flour, water and salt – the soldiers referred to them as ‘dog biscuits’, ‘tooth dullers’, ‘sheet iron’, ‘molar breakers’ and I suspect several other names that I wouldn’t be able to include on my nice, family friendly blog!

I made two batches of biscuits; the classic version and a chocolate chip version.  The latter is identical to the former but for the addition of some chocolate chips, which melted due to the hot butter.  Both were lovely!  The biscuits were crisp and chewy with a lovely buttery taste.  These aren’t tiny, thin little biscuits that you eat without knowing; these are substantial hearty biscuits – perfect with a big mug of tea.

This recipe came from the BBC Good Food site (I love that site!); some of the commenters said the mix was too dry and they had to add milk.  To combat this, in my chocolate batch, I added 2 tablespoons of golden syrup which is why they spread much more than my plain batch (which used 1 tablespoon).  You don’t need any extra liquid and I think I twigged why people may have had a problem.  The key to shaping these biscuits is to do it while the butter is still warm; as soon as it starts to cool the mix becomes crumbly.  Work quickly and it’s fine.

Ingredients

100g unsalted butter
1 tablespoon golden syrup
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 tablespoons boiling water
85g porridge oats
85g desiccated coconut
100g plain flour
100g caster sugar

Optional: 100g milk chocolate chips

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/gas mark 4.

Line two baking sheets with baking paper or non-stick foil.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan making sure it doesn’t burn.

Remove from the heat and mix in the golden syrup.

In a bowl (use a larger size than you’d think based on the quantities as it will froth up!) mix together the bicarbonate of soda and boiling water.

Add the bicarb liquid into the butter syrup mix and stir together.

In a large bowl, stir together the oats, coconut, flour and sugar.

Make a well in the centre and pour in the butter mixture.

Stir to incorporate all the ingredients.

If using, stir in the chocolate chips.

If the mixture is very dry and won’t hold together when you squeeze it, add the milk – only use if necessary.

Take scant tablespoons of the mixture, roll into balls, flatten and place onto the baking sheet – leave them 3-4cm room to expand on baking.

Bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden.  I like to rotate the baking sheets halfway through cooking time to ensure a nice even bake.

When I checked on them after 8 minutes they had puffed up a bit so I poked them to let the air out.  Brutal, but it works!

They will be soft straight from the oven so leave them for 10 minutes to firm up before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.

The biscuits will store in an airtight tin for several days…given the chance!

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.

Eat.

Pine nut and honey tart

A lot of my baking recently has been selected based on the limited time I had available and how low faff the recipe was.  Rather gloriously, this weekend I was able to accommodate a bit of faff, which was fortuitous as I had a hankering for pastry.  I’ve adapted this recipe from the BBC Good Foodwebsite and used dates and sultanas instead of glace fruit.  I still find glace fruit hard to love and had a box of dates a friend had bought me back from Oman (thanks, Jasmin!) so the stars seemed in alignment to make this happy substitution.

Normally, when a recipe gives the option of soaking fruit in either rum or orange juice I will ALWAYS pick rum.  But I fancied a change this time so surprised myself by opting for orange juice.  It did a nice job of plumping up the fruit and added a fruitiness to proceedings.

The filling is reasonably runny pre-baking so, although you mix the fruit into it do not be disheartened when you cut into the tart and see the fruit has settled at the bottom.  This is what’s meant to happen.

Fruit aside, the tart filling is virtually identical to a bakewell tart.  If you’re fed up with jam or berries in your bakewell this recipe provides a nice variation.  The pine nut and honey topping also makes a tasty change.  I don’t use pine nuts very often in my baking but they work very well and take on a lovely toasted flavour.

The flavours in this tart are gentle and harmonious.  There are many different influences in this recipe and I struggled to think how to describe it.  If you like bakewell tarts, baklava, Eccles cakes, marzipan and sticky toffee pudding you will love it!

Ingredients

For the pastry:

175g plain flour
85g unsalted butter – cold
30g caster sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon water

For the filling:

100g raisins
40g sultanas
100g dates – chopped so they are a similar size to the raisins and sultanas
3 tablespoons or either rum or orange juice
175g unsalted butter, at room temperature
175g golden caster sugar
50g plain flour
175g ground almonds
5 eggs
85g pine nuts
2 tablespoons clear honey

 To serve: thick cream

Method

Start by making the pastry: place the flour and butter in the food processor and blitz until you have fine crumbs. 

Add the sugar and blitz briefly.

While the machine is still running tip in the egg yolk and the water.

Stop the processor when clumps are starting to form.

Tip the clumps out onto a sheet of clingfilm and, using your hands, bring them together to form a ball of pastry.  Handle only enough to achieve this – you don’t want to overhandle the pastry and make it tough.

If you wish to make the pastry by hand rub the butter into the flour until you have breadcrumbs.  Stir in the sugar, egg and water and, using your hands, bring together to a ball of dough.

Roll the pastry out between two sheets of clingfilm so it is large enough to line a 23cm round loose bottomed tart tin.  Don’t expect lots of spare pastry overhanging the tin – this recipe makes just enough!

Prick the base of the pastry with a fork.

Cover with clingfilm and refrigerate for 1 hour.

While the pastry is chilling, start the filling: place the raisins, sultanas and dates in a bowl and add the orange juice or rum. 

Stir so all the fruit is covered with liquid and leave to soak, stirring occasionally if you happen to pass by.

Preheat the oven to 200°C/fan oven 180°C/400°F/gas mark 6.

Cover the chilled pastry with baking paper or non-stick foil and weigh down with baking beans.

Bake for 10 minutes, before removing the paper and beans and baking for a further 5 minutes or until the pastry is just starting to turn golden.

Remove from the oven and put to one side while you make the filling.

Reduce the oven temperature to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/gas mark 4.

Now make the tart filling: beat together the butter, sugar, flour, almonds and eggs.

Stir in the soaked fruit, including any liquid left in the bowl.

Spoon into the pastry case and level the surface.  It will look full but don't worry - it doesn't rise much on baking.

Scatter the pine nuts over the top.

Drizzle over the honey.

Bake for approximately 40-50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the filling comes out clean.

If your tart browns too quickly (I’d check after 40 minutes) cover it loosely with foil and continue baking.

Leave to cool, in the tin, on a wire rack and de-tin for serving.

Serve at room temperature with thick cream.

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.

Eat.

Chocolate ricotta cake

I’ve been baking a lot with fruit and ‘lighter’ summer flavours of late.  This week I just wanted something sinfully chocolatey with that lovely rich ‘stick to the ribs’ quality.  Chocolate, ricotta and almonds – perfect!

This is almost gluten free…I know that’s not very helpful and also not possible: something is either gluten free or it isn’t.  I point this out simply because, if you needed it to be gluten free, I wonder whether you could substitute more ground almonds for the flour; it’s only two tablespoons after all?  If any gluten free bakers know whether this would work please let me know via your comments. 

Realising I knew very little about ricotta I did some research.  The first thing I learned was that ‘ricotta’ literally means re-cooked.  I think this is because of the second fact that I learned: ricotta is produced from the by-product from the production of other cheeses such as mozzarella.  It’s made from the whey that’s left behind when the curds are strained – a bonus cheese no less!

The cake is meant to be served warm; I liked it at room temperature too but the texture becomes a little heavier.  This isn’t a bad thing as, like all (almost) flourless cakes the sticky, squidgy texture is a joy.  Serving it with cream was probably an unnecessary indulgence but… I apologise for nothing! (smugly award yourself bonus marks if you know which – admittedly obscure – cartoon character I’m quoting!)

Ingredients

150g unsalted butter, at room temperature
100g caster sugar
150g chocolate, melted and left to cool – I used half dark, half milk
3 eggs, separated
250g ricotta cheese
100g ground almonds
2 tablespoon plain flour

To serve: thick cream

Method

Preheat the oven to 170°C/ fan oven 150°C/325°F/gas mark 4.

Line a 20cm round springform tin with baking paper.

Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy – do not skimp on this stage as this is your chance to get lots of air into the mix.

Add the chocolate, egg yolks and ricotta and stir until just combined.

Stir in the ground almonds and flour.

In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites until they reach soft peaks.

Fold the egg whites into the chocolate mixture.  This is best achieved by stirring a spoonful of whites into the chocolate to slacken the mix, which will make the rest of the egg whites easier to fold in.

Pour into the prepared tin – it will be quite runny.

Bake for approximately 30 minutes or until the cake is set around the edges but retains some wobble in the centre.  A skewer will not help you here!

Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before attempting to de-tin.  It will settle a little as it cools so don’t panic!

Serve the cake warm (although I liked it just as much at room temperature!) with thick cream.

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.

Eat.