No happy baking days this week. I don’t have a working kitchen. It’s being fitted tomorrow but there won’t be any mains water until Friday. But did manage one little oven treat! Pear slices.
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I cut them thinly then steeped them overnight in a pot of hot water, sugar and food colouring. The next day I baked them in a very low oven to dry them slowly. They become translucent, look like stained glass and are still edible and an unusual decoration for cakes. 🙂
This is a big little cake, not really a contradiction of terms, really! It’s about 6″ high with a diameter of about 4″ so not cup-cakey size. It’s a substantial little cake. It’s a white sponge (no egg yolk in the cake batter) layered with swiss meringue buttercream flavoured with home-made raspberry pureé, covered in white marzipan and fondant flowers.
This is a top-view showing the big daisy topped with a Jelly Tot.
xoxox
The blackcurrant ganache was a huge hit. Really delicious, really fruity. I bought freeze dried blackcurrant powder from Amazon.
The almond paste shell was coloured with a concentrated food paste but the ganache was pure blackcurrant powder, double cream and white chocolate.
What could be better than having the oven on for a day’s baking session when the temperature outside is -2?
I made 24 lovely little lemon and poppyseed cupcakes. I also made a jar of lemon curd and used some as a filling for the cupcakes.
I used an apple corer to remove a little core of the cupcake and squeeze in a nice dollop of lemon curd.
The icing was a blend of buttercream with mascarpone, tiny shreds of lemon zest and topped off with a sprinkle of poppy seeds.
The cupcake box was 99p from Dealz. I boxed six cakes as a little present. They looked well in it. 🙂
I have a confession. This cake is actually the Christmas cake that I didn’t ice in time for the big day. It’s been maturing with lots of brandy sprinkles and feeds since last August and smells divinely fruity, rich and heady. I got to it this morning. It really is a properly rich fruitcake. with black treacle and lots of dried fruits. It’s covered in marzipan and roll-out fondant (I actually like the Shamrock brand of roll out fondant. Used to hate the stuff for having a plastic flavour but the Shamrock fondant is really nice). The flowers are made from fondant as well and the bibbly-bobblies are piped on using Royal Icing.
A slightly wider view:
The top is a Katie Sue design: Royal Design Mat:
The mat and Flexilace were Christmas presents and today was the first time I’d used them. If you’ve never made Flexilace before, a word to the wise – a little goes a very long way. I made up 50g of Flexilace to 75ml of cooled water and had enough to make all sorts of lace bands and butterflies and other doodahs (another set of silicone moulds received (with joy) for Christmas).The good news is that they keep well in a ‘wallet’ of greaseproof paper. I only intended to make the single mat pictured above, though! I think 12g and 17ml of water would have done.
The lace is a cinch to make. Boil the required volume of water, let it cool then stir into the Flexilace powder. Keep stirring and ‘beating’ for about 3 minutes till it’s blended, smooth and spreadable. Use a spatula to apply it to the mat or fill a mould. Pop into the oven at 160C for about 15 mins or until dry to touch. Let it cool then gently peel the mould away from the set lace. This stuff is fairly resilient but if there are fine lines you need to take a little more care and peel away from the mat very gently.
I used a little squinch of royal icing here and there on the top of the cake to secure it into place then topped it with a final flower. To finish it all off I used a dry paintbrush to flick pearl lustre-dust over the cake to give it a little shimmer. You can see the bokeh effect in the middle picture. They’re not Photoshopped sparkles.
I loved making all the flowers. Very zen, very soothing. Ahhh! So happy it turned out as beautifully as it did.
The two aprons I use regularly are now in the wash so… I’m off to make one of those dead-hip Japanese cross-back aprons that I’ve envied online. I’ve downloaded free patterns and modded them because they were too long or the straps were too skinny and actually made my template from cheap muslin. The template is good and so it’s time to get some of my fabric stash out and make one to wear! More fun!
Here’s the cake I mentioned in the last post. The cake is a Victoria sponge with blackberry/raspberry goo buttercream, thickly crumb-coated with the same buttercream all over then covered with roll out fondant icing dibbled with bobbly royal icing and lots of fondant flowers.
The buttercream is fruity, sweet, smooth and silky. Definitely the nicest buttercream I’ve ever made.
Lovely, luscious lemon curd. Two jars of sunshine. It took 7 eggs – two whole and 5 yolks. T
Juice of 3 lemons (organic, well-washed)
The zest of 1 lemon
5 egg yolks (buy free range, let’s try for happy chickens)
2 whole eggs
110g caster sugar
60g butter (Irish butter, mmmmm)
Over a Bain Marie, dissolve the sugar into the lemon juice.
Add the egg, stirring continuously.
Keep stirring and occasionally beating for about 15 minutes; the mixture will have thickened as the eggs have cooked.
Take off the heat and stir in the butter.
Sieve into a jug. Cover with clingfilm – ensure that the clingfilm lies on the surface of the lemon curd to prevent it from forming a skin).
Sterilise your jars – wash in hot, soapy water and place in an oven, approx. 160°C for 15 mins.
Let the jars and the lemon curd cool then pour the mixture into the jars and pop into the fridge until you’re ready to eat.
You can use the lemon curd on toast, on bread and butter, in buttercream, in Victoria Sponge batters and probably loads of other things, too. You will have to use it within a week or so as there are no preservatives.
The cake is a 4-layered chocolate sponge with coffee buttercream. I covered it in various sprinkles and topped it with mini piped Italian meringues.
Italian meringue has hot sugar syrup gradually beaten into the egg whites then whisked till it forms firm glossy peaks. This is the meringue mix I use in Macarons.
Swiss meringue is made by stirring sugar and egg whites together over a bain marie (a pot of simmering water) until they are warm then whipping them up to glossy firm peaks.
260g caster sugar
3 free range egg whites
100 ml golden syrup
1/4 tsp of cream of tartar
2 Tbsp water
1 tsp vanilla
Put all of the ingredients in a large bowl. Place the bowl over a pan of simmering water making sure that the base of the bowl doesn’t actually touch the water.
Use a hand whisk and beat for 5 mins.
Take off the heat and beat for a minute more or until the meringue is glossy, white, stiffish and will form soft peaks.
Use it as the topping for lemon meringue or to make chocolate dipped marshmallow topping for cupcakes (pipe the meringue onto a batch of cupcakes, melt some chocolate and while still warm enough to be liquid but not so warm as to melt the meringue, dip the cupcakes into the chocolate).
I made a couple of bonnets and bootees over the last couple of weekends. I love making the little flowers and embellishments. 🙂
First time I made macarons was with macha tea ganache covered in sprinkles. I was surprised. They were delicious.
That was all the motivation I needed to make another batch. Inspired and confident, the process was easier second time round.
The latest batch were decorated with spots of gold food colouring and filled with chocolate orange ganache.
They were left in the fridge overnight and bagged up this morning. My neighbour loved them 🙂
My recipe and method
If you want the piping template as well
Be mindful at every stage of the preparation. They are temperamental.
No More Mondays 
