Baking | Coconut lime drizzle tray bake

I have already made this and posted it before but this is slightly different.

This time I made a 6 oz tray bake with a lime drizzle top, vs previously I made cupcakes with an 8 oz recipe and a lime coconut frosting / icing.

INGREDIENTS:

6oz Self Raising Flour

6oz Butter

6oz Eggs 

(Which was 3 Large Free Range British)

4oz Desiccated Coconut

Juice and Zest of 2 Limes

1 tsp Baking Powder

The icing topping was lime, and 3oz unrefined golden caster sugar which is spooned over the cake when still in the baking tray and still warm.

Baking | 80th Birthday Cake

For my Grandad's 80th Birthday I made a large eight-zero cake for 30 people.

I was going to hire an 8 shaped baking tin and a 0 shaped baking tin but in the end I decided that among my 30+ tins I would probably be able to construct my own and save £30 on the hiring fees which seemed pretty steep!

I used a few different shaped tins, carved them into shape using a sharp serrated knife and then to flatten the tops perfectly I used a baking wire which guarantees a perfect level surface.

I made my chocolate cake recipe which is heavy on cocoa powder, the ratio of cocoa to flour is almost half and half which creates a rich, light cake.

I "dirty iced" the bare cake with icing, as well as the the filling which glued everything together, I put the cake in the freezer for 10 minutes which quickly solidified the outer buttercream so when I added the warm (but cooled down) chocolate ganache, it wouldnt melt off the sides.

I tried to make a thick ganache but it didn't seem any thicker than my usual ganache, however as it cooled down it become a firm truffle consistancy. I could have rolled it into balls and used them as chocolate truffles.

I melted some white chocolate to decorate, as well as using ganache to glue raspberries to the edges. The white chocolate was very thin, I wish I had used something thicker or less see-through. 

I added some dark chocolate curls I made from using my sharpest knife to shave chocolate that had been in the fridge for 24 hours.

I added orange roses to the centre of the numbers and then I felt the cake needed some green so I finely grated some lime zest over it too. 

The cake was dry, I think it was because I carved them and the dried out, plus the un-tested baking times of using random measures of cake mixture in a variety of tins, my family said it wasn't actually dry, but it was a dry mix for my usual standards. Especially when my chocolate cakes are light and moist after perfecting the recipe.  With all the gananche and raspberries I suppose the cake wasn't that noticeable! The important thing is that Grandad enjoyed it!

Baking | Tray Bake: Quick lemon drizzle

Pretty much Mary Berry's Lemon Drizzle but with slight changes to the bake, different sugar and more lemon for the topping. I like lemon cakes to be really, really lemony and fresh tasting.

Cake:

6oz butter

6oz golden caster sugar

6oz self raising flour

6oz eggs (3 large free range)

1 tsp baking powder

Finely grated rind of 2 lemons

Juice of 1 lemon

Drizzle:

Juice of 2 lemons

Finely grated rind of 1 lemon

170g golden caster sugar 

Beat together the butter and the sugar until pale and well creamed. Add the lemon rind. Golden caster sugar is delicious because it creates a more golden sponge and it's unrefined which also, in my opinion, seems to create a richer flavour. 

Lightly beat the eggs and add to the bowl along with the lemon juice.

Sift in the flour and baking powder and then beat the whole mix together, use a spatula to clean down the bowl and give a final mix. Do not over stir. 

Pour/scoop into a greased and lined tray, I use my brownie tin which is about 30cm x 20cm.

Cook in the oven on Gas Mark 4 for 20-30 minutes until a skewer comes out clean.

Leave to cool in the tin.

While the cake is cooling, make the drizzle topping. Juice the lemons and simply combine with the sugar in a small bowl. Pour or spoon over the cake evenly when still warm. 

When the cake is completely cold, place in an airtight container. 

The icing / drizzle will firm up and become a crunchy topping while keeping the cake extremely moist.

I can make the batter of this cake in 10/15 minutes, then the cake goes in the oven for 25 minutes and can be iced warm so it is a very quick and simple cake to knock up in a hurry. 

It's also a rather shallow tray bake so very forgiving, if it doesn't quite fit the tin you have to hand you can cook for more or less time. 

The drizzle topping makes the cake moist and keeps it moist, even if you have been heavy handed with mixing or have over cooked it.  

Recipe | Rhubarb Curd

First I had to juice the rhubarb. You need 600ml of the juice.

My juicer couldn't cope with processing rhubarb, it left a wet pulp behind. My Juicer is by Phillips and is usually pretty good but the rhubarb was so fibrous that I removed the rhubarb pulp from the pulp container on the juicer and pushed it through a metal sieve. This was definitely worth doing as I gained an extra 150ml of juice.

The juice was a pale brown pink with a green foam / scum. I wasn't sure if I should skim the top or not so I did, just in case it dirtied the colour of the finished rhubarb curd.

Ingredients:

600g Rhubarb

(250ml Rhubarb Juice plus 100-200ml more to add once cooked)

4 Large Eggs

200g Butter

4tsp Cornflour 

175g Caster Sugar

Splash of beetroot juice (for colour)

Place the eggs, butter, cornflour, sugar and 250ml rhubarb juice (save the rest) to a pan and set over a very low heat. I used a large heavy bottomed saucepan on a small gas ring.

Whisk until all the butter has melted, then use a spatula and stir and keep stirring, scraping the bottom and sides of the saucepan until the curd has thickened to a consistency a little thicker than custard. 

Do not increase the heat or you will curdle the eggs. Do not let the curd catch.

Sieve the curd into a clean bowl to get rid of any lumps or curdled bits, I passed it through a fine muslin. 

Then mix in 100ml more of the thubarb juice and a small splash of beetroot 

Once cooled, taste your curd and add more rhubarb juice if it needs it. This is to your own palette.

The curd will keep, stored in the fridge, for about a week.

I wasn't pleased with this recipe, although I think it was mainly the rhubarb I bought as it wasn't very tart and didn't have much flavour.

I will try this again and look into how I can improve it. 

Recipe | Mary Berry's "French Potato Salad"

Mary Berry's "French Potato Salad" 

This potato salad is not meant to be claggy, it is definitely not a recipe to replicate the 50% mayonnaise potato salads that are hard and glutenous This is so simple, quick and delicious. As with all Mary Berry's recipes, you can trust them to work first time and then alter them to your taste.

RECIPE 

1 Serving of Mary Berry's Vinaigrette (see recipe on my blog).
1 lb New Potatoes
2 Tablespoons of finely chopped chives.
1/2 an Onion, Very finely chopped.
2 Tablespoons of Hellman's Mayonnaise (or more/less to taste).

INSTRUCTIONS
Chop the new potatoes to make them all similar in size so they evenly cook.
Boil them in salted water until tender.
When cooked, leave them to steam in the saucepan with the lid on.

Pour over the vinaigrette and stir.
Add the chives and onions.
Add the mayonnaise small amount at a time until the potatoes are lightly covered.

This potato salad is meant to be lightly dressed and served warm. We have it with our BBQ meats in the summer, also as a healthy-ish comfort food with proper sausages in hot dog buns and salad. As I type this I am remembering that this hasn't happened since before Christmas so I will add it to our meal plan for the upcoming weeks and take some pics.