Peaches and Cream Fairy Cakes

I have to say that I'm not a fan of the American type cupcakes with lots of sickly icing on top, but these are upmarket fairy cakes.
 Peaches were on offer in the local supermarket, so thought I'd try using them in a small cake for a change. The recipe makes 20 cakes.


You need 2x12 hole greased  bun tins [not muffin tins- you need the ones you make jam tarts or mince pies in] or you can cook 2 batches of the cakes. You need 2 ripe peaches with stones taken out and cut into 40 thin slices - you need a good sharp knife!


Preheat oven 180C/gas4       You can use paper cases in the tins if you want.


Beat 225g soft butter with 225g caster sugar using a hand beater, till nice and creamy.
Add 4 eggs a bit at a time, then fold in 250g sr flour; add 3 tbspn sour cream or crème fraiche [and 2 tbspn peach or apricot jam if you want a more fruity flavour] and mix in. Spoon into the cases or tins and put 2 peach slices on top of each cake and bake for 15-20 mins till golden and firm.


Put cakes on a wire rack. Heat 1 tbspn peach or apricot jam with 1 tbspn lemon juice in a pan till the jam's melted, then brush this over the top of each cake while they're still warm. Let them cool on the rack.

A nice treat for my grandsons yesterday. The creme fraiche made them nice and moist, and the peach slices were soft but not too sweet. The original recipe had some jam added in with the cream, but I decided to just use some to brush over the tops.

Banana flapjacks

Seem to have had a lot of very ripe bananas lately. Am a bit fed up with banana loaves and cakes, but was given a recipe booklet recently about Fairtrade bananas, made up with recipes given by some of our church members. We love flapjacks, so banana ones seemed a great idea. I made them in a swiss roll tin, as we like them thin, but if you prefer thicker ones, use a square cake tin instead.

125g butter
85g light brown sugar
2 tbspn syrup
350g oats
1/2tspn baking powder
1 tspn cinnamon
2 medium ripe bananas

Preheat oven 180C/gas4

Grease a Swiss roll tin  23 x 33cm or a 20cm square cake tin

Melt butter, sugar and syrup in microwave or on hob.
Add oats, baking powder and cinnamon then add mashed bananas.
Spoon in tin and smooth top with back of a spoon.
Bake 20-25 mins till golden and firm.
Cut into bars while hot then cool in tin.
I made 15 bars.

We really liked the added texture of the banana, but they are a soft flapjack, not a crisp one. I'll certainly make them again - it's good to have something else to do with ripe bananas.

Scones with mascarpone

I'm on a quest to find the perfect scone. I've tried recipes from various people - Delia, Mary Berry, Nigella etc but still haven't found one that really makes me feel - yes, that's it!
Trying out yet another recipe today, one I've made before, I decided to try using some mascarpone as well as milk to make it more moist. I also used soft light brown sugar instead of my usual caster sugar. Would this be my perfect scone?
Here's my adapted recipe:

340g sr flour
1 tspn baking powder
80g butter in pieces
2 tbpsn soft light brown sugar
80g mascarpone
90ml milk
1 beaten egg to glaze the tops

Preheat oven 190C/gas 6-7
I used a silicone mat on my baking sheet, but a dusting of flour on a sheet would be fine.

Put the flour, baking powder, butter and sugar in a food processor and blitz till breadcrumbs. Add the mascarpone and blitz for a couple of seconds. If you don't want to use a processor just rub the fat into the flour and sugar then rub in the mascarpone. Tip this mixture into a bowl, make a well and add the milk. Use a knife to mix and your hands to bring it all together. Don't overwork it.
Roll out gently to about 2 cm thick, then cut out rounds with a 6cm fluted or plain cutter.
Brush tops with the beaten egg and bake for 10-12 mins till golden and risen. Cool on a wire rack.

I was very happy with the result; they rose and had lovely golden colour.I just gently broke them apart and buttered them and added home made strawberry jam, but no cream! They were really soft and the brown sugar gave them a lovely taste, but they weren't too sweet. I'll certainly make them again, but my search for my perfect scone continues.

Lemon and almond tarts

I've invited an old school friend for tea tomorrow, so wanted to make something nice for her.

Found this recipe in one of my Mum's old cookery books, and as I had my dil here this afternoon, and she's doing a cake decorating class, they seemed just the thing. I've changed the ozs into grams. and it worked fine.

Makes 12 little tarts
212 g packet shortcrust pastry [I used Just Rol}
50g butter
50g caster sugar
1 large egg
59g ground almonds
drop of almond essence [not the almond flavouring]
1 rounded tbspn sr flour
grated rind of 1/2 lemon
1 tspn lemon juice [I put in a bit more as I wanted them to be lemony]
icing:
150g icing sugar
drop lemon food colouring
lemon juice

Preheat oven 190C/375F/gas5

Roll out the pastry on a floured surface,and then cut out 12 rounds with a cutter to fit a bun tin.
Cream the butter and sugar then beat in the egg and ground almonds.
Stir in the almond essence, flour, lemon rind and juice.
Divide this evenly between the pastry cases and bake for 20-25 mins till the sponge is golden and the pastry is cooked.
Cool on a wire rack.
Icing:
Sift 125g of the icing sugar into a bowl and mix with enough cold water to make a thick icing.
Spread over the tarts and allow to set. Leave any left over icing in the bowl.
Add the rest of the icing sugar [25g] too the bowl and mix in a little colouring and enough lemon juice to make a thick icing.
Fill a small icing bag and pipe a lattice on top of each cake. Leave to set.

There's no real need to do the yellow piping - any decoration would do, but I had my dil to do it for me!

The glass plate they're on is one of my Grandmother's. I'd forgotten all about her glass plates till I saw a similar one in a local shop, so I hunted out the box in the attic.

Scones

I found some buttermilk hidden in the back of the fridge, so decided this was the time to try the buttermilk scones from Nigella's 'Kitchen'. They're quite generous, like the lady herself! You can find the recipe here.
They taste really good; a keeper I think.
Next time I'll add some dried fruit - cranberries, sour cherries, chopped dried apples or pears. Wonder what they'd taste like with chocolate pieces?!

A quick cake fix!

I made an apple pie yesterday and had some pastry left over. What should I do with it? Then I remembered a childhood favourite - Welsh cheese cakes. There's no cheese in them nowadays, but they're tasty and quick and easy to make.

you need:

a bun tin
leftover shortcrust pastry
1 egg and it's weight in sugar, butter and flour
1/2tspn baking powder
jam of choice - I used Mirabelle plum [home made]

So, roll out the pastry and then cut out to fill the holes in a bun tin.
Beat the butter and sugar together and then add the egg and fold in the flour and baking powder.
Put a tspn of jam on the bottom of the pastry shell and then a heaped tspn of the cake mixture on top.

I cooked them at gas6/200C for 15 mins, when they were golden.

National Cupcake Week

It's National Cupcake Week, so I made a few this morning as my contribution. I decided that I would make fairy cake sized ones, as this is much more British than the blowsy US cupcakes.

I'm not a huge fan of buttercream, so these are simply dipped in some good dark chocolate from our local chocolatier. I used about half of a 100g bar of 70% dark chocolate for the topping.

It's a simple 100g butter, sugar and sr flour mix with 2 heaped tbspns cocoa powder and 2 eggs.

Just beat the butter and sugar together, add the eggs and beat them in, then fold in the flour mixture.

I also added a heaped tspn of coffee granules to the flour mixture, which Ina says enhances the chocolate flavour. We shall see!

This amount of mixture made 8 small cakes, plenty for the 2 of us.

Whoopie pies

I've seen a lot in magazines and online about whoopie pies so as I had some marshmallows in the cupboard, I thought I'd have a go at some.
This recipe comes from the June edition of Sainsbury magazine and is by Dan Lepard, one of my favourite bakers.
You'll find the recipe on Dan's forum here .
The recipe makes a lot of pies so I halved it. I think the pie is a cross between a biscuit and a cake. As there's no raising agent in the recipe, they don't rise very much. I just spooned the mixture on, but if you want a really good shape, you need to pipe them. Oh, and I added some grated lemon rind to the mixture.

The mixture for the pies is quite thick, thicker than the normal cake mixture.

The marshmallow were big ones, but they melted easily.     

                     

This is the melted mixture.

One very important thing, you must let this mixture go cold before adding the soft butter or it doesn't work! I was impatient and added the butter while it was still warmish and it didn't become a nice fluffy filling, just a runny one!

Only had pink marshmallows left,so my second attempt at the filling is yellow rather than white! But at least it worked this time.

I didn't put any icing on top, as the original ones don't have it and I thought they'd be too sweet.

They taste fine, but to be honest, I don't think I'd make them again. They certainly aren't the 'new cupcake' imho. Maybe a chocolate version would be better?

Apples galore!

When we first came to live in France, we brought 2 Bramley apple trees with us. This type of apple is unknown here. The trees have done well, and this year have been loaded with fruit.
What to do with them all?

Today I decided to try an apple muffin recipe from Susan Reimer's excellent book 'Muffins fast and fantastic'.
It's a nice and easy treat to makeThis is the recipe which I have changed a little.
Apple muffins - makes about 10 -12 muffins
.


250g sr flour
1 tspn baking powder
11/2 tspns mixed spice
85g sugar
1 egg
150ml milk
170g peeled, cored and chopped Bramley [or any other type] apple
90ml vegetable oil

soft brown sugar for the tops

Preheat oven 200C/400F/gas6 and grease muffin tin.

In a bowl mix the flour, baking powder and spice together. Add the chopped apple.
In another bowl beat egg into the milk and add the oil. Mix together well.
Pour the wet mixture into the flour mixture and stir till just combined.
Spoon this into the muffin tin and sprinkle brown sugar over.
Bake for 20-25 mins till lightly browned.
Cool for 5 mins then remove from tin to a wire rack.


My granddaughter is with us and is keen on baking, so she wanted to make the apple muffins and then helped me make an apple scone round. This recipe comes from my Mum's old hand-written notebook, so I don't know where it originated.




Apple scone

1 large cooking apple,peeled cored and diced
250g sr flour
1 level tspn baking powder
60g caster sugar
60g butter or margarine
little milk to mix
brown sugar for topping

Preheat oven 200C/400F/gas6

Sieve flour and baking powder into a bowl. Rub in the fat.
Add the caster sugar and chopped apple.
Mix with milk to make a soft but not sticky dough.
Make into a round and mark into sections with a knife.
Sprinkle brown sugar on top and bake in oven for 25-30 mins till golden.