Merry Christmas

                                   Merry Christmas and a very Happy and Healthy New Year.

Caribbean cake

This is a cake I was asked to make by a friend . I'm not a coconut lover, nor do I like pineapple, so not really my kind of cake. Anyway, I learned something by making it - how not to burn deccicated coconut when toasting it! Pineapple jam was new to me, but my OH loved it. This is the recipe I was given, tweaked a little bit, as I didn't add any coconut flavouring as suggested. Enough is enough!

225g butter, softened
225g vanilla/caster sugar
4 medium eggs
225g self raising flour
splash of milk
50g desiccated coconut, toasted *
5 tbsp pineapple jam - or more if you're feeling generous
*Sprinkle the coconut on a baking tray, pop in the preheated oven for 4-6 mins until toasted to a nice brown colour, and the smell is wonderful [of coconut!]. Keep and eye on it as it burns easily - as I found out!


Malibu Buttercream
400g icing sugar
250g unsalted butter
4 tbsp Malibu, simmered in a small pan until reduced to 2 tbsp

Preheat the oven to 180C/gas4. Grease and line 3 x18cm sandwich tins with baking parchment.

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each one, then fold in the flour, milk, and 20g of the toasted desiccated coconut. Mix until light and fluffy, then divide equally among the tins.
Bake for 20-25 minutes until light golden and springs back when the surface is lightly pressed with your finger. Turn out on to a wire rack to cool.

For the buttercream, beat the icing sugar and butter with a stand mixer or electric beater till light and fluffy. While the beaters are still mixing, add the hot simmered down Malibu. Mix well again.
Put a cooled sponge on a plate. Spoon some of the jam over the sponge. Use as little or as much as you like. Sprinkle over some of your remaining toasted coconut. Gently spread some of the buttercream over the jam. I made a mess doing this! Put another sponge on top, and repeat. Top with the final sponge, then spread the rest of the buttercream over the top and finish with a sprinkling of toasted coconut.

I asked my friend to tell me what she thought of it. She said the texture was lovely and soft, and she especially liked the filling and topping with the added Malibu. I was pleased with the end result as I've not made many three tiered cakes. So if you're a coconut fan, this is the cake for you!

Little pecan tartlets

Most of the supermarkets seem to have nuts on offer at the moment, so I've stocked up and now need to use some of them.
I love pecan pie, but it can be very sweet and rich. These tarts are little versions, but still give you that lovely pecan fix. The recipe comes from a magazine supplement on 'Nuts', from Woman's Weekly, I think.
As it's Thanksgiving Day today, pecans seem appropriate.


Recipe makes 18 tartlets, so you need 2 x 12 bun tins.

I love this pastry as it uses ground almonds as well as flour, which gives it a soft texture.

You need:

Pastry:
150g plain flour
25g caster sugar [golden's best]
50g ground almonds
85g butter, cubed
1 medium beaten egg
2 tspns lemon juice

Filling:
70g melted butter
50g light muscovado sugar
2 medium beaten eggs
2 tbspns golden syrup
juice of 1/2 lemon
100g pecan nuts, chopped but not finely

The pastry is easy to make as you put the flour, sugar, almonds and butter into a food processor and whizz it quickly, or of course you can rub the butter in by hand. Then you add the egg and the lemon juice and a quick whizz again then bring the dough together with your hands.
Wrap in clingfilm and put in fridge for 15 mins.
Roll the pastry out thinly on a floured surface and cut out 18 circles with a 7-8 cm cutter, fluted or plain.
Put into the tins, pressing them in gently. Prick the bottom of each with a fork and chill for about 2 hours or leave overnight in the fridge.

Preheat oven 190C/gas 5

Beat together all the filling ingredients except the pecans, then add the nuts. Put some of this mixture into each pastry case and bake for 15-20 mins till golden. Leave them to cool in the tin for about 10 mins then put onto a wire rack.

I love the filling - not too sweet [for my taste anyway] and with a nice crunchy texture from the pecans. Have already said that the almonds in the pastry give it a great soft texture, a nice contrast to the nutty filling.

Norfolk apple cake

I love apple cakes and am always very happy to find a new recipe. It's a very country looking cake with little chunks of apple and dried fruit. Nothing refined about it, but the taste is good. I love spices and this one has cinnamon and mixed spice.
It's made using the rubbing in method, and I found it difficult to get all the ingredients together. I didn't think I'd mixed it properly, but it came out fine. There's a lot of mixture for 1 egg!

400g apple chopped into dice
125g mixed fruit
125g brown sugar
125g butter
1 large egg
1 tspn cinnamon and 1 tspn mixed spice

Preheat oven 180C/gas4

Grease and line a 20cm springform tin.

Rub together the butter and flour till it looks like breadcrumbs.
Add the egg, sugar and spices and mix together.
Then add the apple and mixed fruit.
Bake for about 35 mins till the middle feels firm when you touch it.

I didn't have any mixed fruit so used raisins. You can see that the apple stayed in little chunks; it's very moist from the apples. It's more of a dessert cake than one to have with a cuppa; we had some with creme fraiche. I like it's chunky look and spicy flavour, and it's a cake I'll make again.

Plum tart

As I said in a recent post, plums are one of my favourite fruit. I love making crumbles and tarts with them, but wanted to find something different to try.
This recipe is from a Woman's Weekly magazine; it's one of the hundreds of recipes I have to sort out in my cuttings folder!
I bought a punnet of plums from the supermarket which were marked as seconds, and they were really hard. Anyway I thought I'd use them in my new recipe, and they turned out soft and juicy.

250g plain flour
170g chopped up butter
1 egg yolk

I used my processor to make the pastry, putting in the flour, butter and egg yolk and adding a tbspn of water and blitzing till the pastry started to come together. Roll out and line the flan tin and chill for 30 mins. it's a very short pastry and breaks easily, but is easily patched up.

Filling:
1 tspn cinnamon
2 tbspns soft brown sugar
750g plums, stoned and quartered

Topping:
1 egg + a yolk
125g creme fraiche
45g soft brown sugar

Preheat oven 200C/gas6
Grease a 28cm shallow flan tin

Remove flan tin from the fridge; mix the cinnamon and sugar together and sprinkle over the pastry base.

Arrange the plums, cut side up and pack them together. If there's any left over, put them skin side up on top in a pattern. I just about had enough fruit to fill the tin.

Mix the ingredients of the topping together and spoon over the plums.

Bake for 25-30 mins till lightly browned.

I really like the flavour of the tart; the cinnamon and sugar come through in the background and the texture of the creme fraiche topping is creamy and not too sweet [for my taste anyway]. I'll certainly make this again, and it would work with other fruit like apples, cherries etc.

Aberffraw cakes

These were mentioned recently on the GBBO, so I thought I'd find out more about them. They're made on the Isle of Anglesey and are a traditional biscuit really, not a cake. They're served sprinkled with sugar and even with cream and jam, like a scone.
The bit I liked was that a scallop shell is pressed into the top to give it a shell-like pattern. Nowadays, a lot of the Aberffraw cakes have the pattern put on with a knife. I have a bag of scallop shells, brought back from France so I used a genuine one to make my pattern.
The recipe is a 3.2.1  - quite common for biscuits. This means 3 parts flour to 2 parts fat to 1 part sugar.

175g flour
110g butter
55g caster sugar
a little milk
more caster sugar for sprinkling over

Preheat oven 190C/gas5.
Grease a baking sheet.

I used a processor to make my dough.

Put flour and sugar in a bowl and rub in the butter. Bind together with a litle milk to make a soft dough.
Roll out and cut out circles. I used a 7cm cutter and made 12 cakes.
Use a scallop shell to press the scallop pattern onto the top, or cut the pattern with the back of a knife.

Put the cakes to cool on a wire rack and sprinkle with sugar. You can eat them served with cream and jam, but they're delicious as they are.

They have a nice crunchy texture, and the butter gives them a rich flavour.

Swedish orange cake

I love citrus cakes so had to try this one; the recipe was given to me by a church friend whose son is married to a Swedish girl. This is Anneke's family recipe, and she calls it a teabread and serves it as a dessert with some fruit salad. It's lovely as a cake with your afternoon cuppa.
 Another easy cake for my repertoire.

150g butter
120g caster sugar
3 eggs
greated zest of a lemon
60ml fresh orange juice
orange essence [opt]
250g plain flour with 2 tspn baking powder added
breadcrumbs to coat the tin

topping:
80g icing sugar
orange juice - 1-2 tbspn

Preheat oven 175C/gas4
Grease a 900g loaf tin and sprinkle with breadcrumbs

Beat butter and sugar together till fluffy.
Whisk the eggs in one at a time then mix in the rind, juice and flour. Blend together.
Pour into the tin and bake for about an hour.
Remove from the tin and leave to cool under the upturned tin!

Mix the icing sugar with enough juice to make it the consistency you want; make sure it's smooth, then spread over the cake.

I decided to drizzle the icing over, not easy when the cake has risen considerably. Not very pretty, but the cake is really delicious. It's nice to have an orange cake for a change.

It has a lovely fresh flavour and is light and airy. I enhanced the orange flavour with a few drops of orange essence and used an orange glace icing. I didn't put any breadcrumbs into the tin; am not sure why they're there!

Apricot-banana-cranberry teabread

This addition to my teabread recipe collection comes from a book I bought in a charity shop called 'The complete book of baking'. It really is a very quick bread to make, and is very moist. Another recipe with oil instead of butter must be good!

175g plain flour
11/2 tspn baking powder
1/2tspn grated nutmeg
6-g rolled oats
250g light brown sugar
60g dried cranberries
60g dried apricots
2 eggs
120ml sunflower oil
1 tspn vanilla essence
2 ripe bananas, mashed

Preheat oven 180C/gas 4
Grease a 900g loaf tin

Put flour, baking powder and nutmeg in a bowl and add the oats, sugar and dried fruit. Mix together till blended. make a well in the middle.
In another bowl beat the bananas, eggs, oil and vanilla essence together with an electric mixer.
Add this to the flour mixture and combine together.
Pour into the tin and bake for 45mins- an hour till well risen and golden. Cool on a wire rack.
Dust the top with icing sugar if you want.

I served this to friends with a compote of cranberries and apricots, which really accentuated the flavours in the teabread. Have the compote recipe if anyone wants it.

There's an awful lot of sugar in the recipe so I'm going to play around with using something else for sweetness, and also going to try just reducing the amount of sugar and see if the recipe still works. I love the combination of flavours.

German apple cake

I love apple cakes, and this is a recipe from my lovely German dil. She makes really delicious cakes; when she married our son, she, her Mother and Grandmother made over 40 cakes to have with a glass of wine or beer after the ceremony. The variety was awe inspiring. I have to say that she's a qualified pastry chef and now works for Suffolk school dinners!

This is an unusual apple cake as it has 3 layers. It's not the prettiest of cakes, but the flavour's really good. It's not a huge cake, but it's nice eaten warm as a pudd. or cold as a cake with your afternoon cuppa.

100g butter
100g caster sugar
200g sr flour
1 large egg
pinch salt
500g cooking apples
55g sultanas
1 tspn cinnamon
55g demerara sugar

Preheat oven 190C/gas 5.
Grease and line a 20cm springform tin.

Melt butter in microwave or pan. Remove and add the sugar, flour, egg and salt. Mix to a stiff dough.
Put 2/3 of the dough in the bootom of the cake tin, pressing it to cover the base.
Mix the rest of the ingredients together and then put on top of the dough.
Put the 1/3 of the dough on top in pieces, tearing it and gently pressing it down. It won't cover the apple mixture.
Bake for about 50 mins till golden, but cover with some foil for about the last 10 mins to stop the top burning.
Cool in the tin then put on a plate and serve warm or cold.

It's not burnt! I used dark demerara sugar mixed with the cinnamon and apple.

I love the apple layer with the sultanas, sugar and cinnamon. It's a nice mixture of textures - the cake bottom, the apple layer and the almost cobbler topping.

Toffee shortbread biscuits

A tin of Carnation caramel was lurking in the back of the cupboard, and carrying on with my biscuit theme, thought I could use it as a filling in a double biscuit.

I have an easy shortbread recipe given to me many years ago when I was a student, by my Scottish landlady, and this would go really well with the caramel. You must use butter for these to get the lovely flavour.

Shortbread:
350g plain flour
110g cornflour
110g caster sugar
225g butter

Filling:
tin caramel

100g dessicated coconut -optional

Preheat oven 180C/gas4

Cream the butter and sugar either by hand or with electric mixer on a low speed till nice and smooth. Sift the flours together and add to the mixture. Work the flours in by hand. Knead the dough till it's smooth then wrap in clingfilm and chill for about 30 mins.
On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to about 5mm and cut out rounds with a cutter, the size depending on how big you want your biscuits!
Put the biscuits on baking sheets and bake for 10-12 mins till lightly coloured.
Cool on a wire rack.
When cold, spread one shortbread with some caramel right to the edges and top with another one. Press together very gently, as they break easily.

My duaghter was here when I made them, and as she's a coconut fan, suggested I roll the sides in some coconut, which I duly did. They are really delicious, melt in the mouth,but rather messy;  I'm not sure if I'd prefer them without the coconut - will have to make them again to decide! Should have done some with coconut and some without.

Hadn't thought about using shortbread to make double biscuits, but will now think of some other filling ideas to try.

Pistachio and pear cookies

This is another variation of my basic cookie recipe.  We love pears and finding some dried ones, I had to make some cookies. You could use other nuts if you prefer, other dried fruit too - I've used dried cranberries and cherries and these are good.

Here's the basic recipe again:

:Oven 190C/375F/gas5. Grease a baking sheet or line with parchent paper or a silicone sheet.


Basic recipe:
225g soft butter
140g caster sugar
1 beaten egg yolk
2 tspn vanilla extract
280g plain flour
pinch salt
Beat butter and sugar together in a bowl with a wooden spoon, then beat in egg yolk and vanilla essence. Stir in the flour and salt. Mix together to make a ball of dough.

Additional ingredients:
55g ready to eat dried pears, chopped finely
55g pistachio nuts, chopped
some whole pistachio nuts to decorate

This time, add the nuts and pears after the flour and mix it all together into a ball of dough.
Take spoonfuls and roll into balls, put on baking sheets and space well. Flatten a bit and put a whole pistachio into the centre of each cookie.
Bake 10-15 mins till golden. leave to cool on sheet, and then put on a wire rack.

Not a very inspiring photo, but I didn't have a chance to take another one as all the cookies were whisked off to Luton Airport! The cookies have a crunch from the pistachios and I really like the flavour of the pear.

Swedish rhubarb cake

The other day I found a Scandinavian cookery book in a local charity shop, and this recipe was in it.
We have one lone rhubarb plant in the garden, and there was just enough ready to pick to use in this cake.
I've adapted the recipe to the kind of cake I wanted, so I'm claiming it as mine now! It makes a small amount of rhubarb into a delicious dessert, tho' it's not a big cake if you have a family to feed.

2eggs
150g caster sugar
90g plain flour
1/2 tspn baking powder
about 250g rhubarb
50g cold butter
1 tspn cinnamon
2 tbspn pearl sugar

Preheat oven 175C/gas 3/4
Grease and line a 20cm springform tin [make sure you grease the tin well or the cake will stick like glue!]

Cut the rhubarb into about 1cm pieces.
Beat the eggs and sugar with a mixer till it's pale and nice and fluffy. Then fold in the flour and baking powder.
Pour this batter into the tin and put the rhubarb on top, pushing it into the batter.
Then cut the butter into thin slices - it needs to be very cold [straight from the freezer cold as suggested by Phil] and very quickly becomes difficult to slice. I used a potato peeler then changed to a small sharp knife. Put the butter on top of the batter and sprinkle the pearl sugar over.

Bake for about 40 mins till golden - the original recipe says 25mins, but my cake wasn't anywhere near cooked, so gave it another 15 mins. Leave in the tin to cool and then turn onto a wire rack.

The pearl sugar disappeared with the butter, and gives a lovely crunchy layer on top of the cake, and the rhubarb was moist underneath. I sprinkled a bit of icing sugar on top.