Oooh, a snowy cookie!

The snow has finally begun to disappear (for us at least, and for now...?) and unfortunately no snow day for me.  For a train service that runs shockingly badly a vast proportion of the time, First Capital Connect actually managed to run services in and out of London with a decent amount of frequency. 

Damn.  I really wanted a snow day.

Anyway, talking of snow that seems like a great segue to another one of the Christmas recipes, Pfeffernusse, more German spiced cookies except these ones look like they've been dusted with snow! 

The recipe - Pfeffernuse (slightly adapted from Chow.com)

For the spiced sugar:

1 cup icing sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground mixed spice (I used my own mix which you can find here)

For the cookies:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp fine salt
1/4 tsp ground mixed spice (again, my own mix)
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup sliced almonds, toasted (I used pre-toasted almonds)
8 tbsp unsalted butter (1 stick), at room temperature
2 tsp packed finely grated lemon zest (from about 2 medium lemons)*
2 tsp packed finely grated orange zest (from 1 medium orange)*
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 large egg
3/4 cup honey (I used runny honey)
1/4 cup finely chopped candied lemon or orange peel (or a combination) (I couldn't find any...)

1. Start by making the spiced sugar (although you could equally do this while the cookie dough is is the fridge).  Sift all ingredients together into a large bowl; set aside.

2. Then move onto the cookies themselves....Sift together flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, ginger, nutmeg, salt, mixed spice, and pepper into a large bowl; set aside.

3. Place the almonds in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a blade attachment and process until finely ground, about 25 to 30 seconds. Add the almonds to the flour mixture and stir to combine; set aside (to be honest, I see no reason why you wouldn't just buy ready ground almonds to save a bit of time!).

4. Place the butter, lemon zest, and orange zest in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and beat on medium speed until fluffy and combined, about 1 minute. Add the brown sugar and beat until incorporated and lightened in colour, about 1 minute. Add the egg and beat until incorporated, about 30 seconds more. Add the honey and candied lemon or orange peel (or mixture thereof) and beat until just incorporated, about 1 minute. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl and the paddle with a rubber spatula.

5. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture in three additions, mixing until just combined, about 1 1/2 minutes total. (Do not over mix.) Cover and refrigerate the dough until firm, at least 1 hour (go wrap some presents, watch some tv, have a glass of wine...make more German cookies...).

6. Heat the oven to 350°F and arrange 2 racks to divide the oven into thirds. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper; set aside.

7. Roll the chilled dough into 24 (3/4-inch) balls and space them 1 1/2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. Bake the cookies for 8 minutes, then rotate the sheets from front to back and top to bottom. Continue baking until the cookies are very lightly browned around the edges, about 5 to 6 minutes more. (The tops will be soft, but they will firm up as the cookies stand.) Transfer the baking sheets to 2 wire racks and let the cookies sit until cool enough to handle but still warm, about 3 minutes.

8. Drop the warm cookies into the spiced sugar, making sure to coat them all over, then shake off any excess sugar and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

9. Repeat baking and sugarcoating with the remaining dough. Store the cookies in an airtight container, layered between pieces of waxed paper, for up to 3 weeks (if they last that long!).

Yes, I know this pic looks familiar...

So yes, another batch of yummy cookies.  Bueno.

Right, now I need to go and amend my profile because sadly our lovely cat Maverick is no longer with us.  RIP Mav :(

* Not sure what to do with the now naked orange and lemons and the bells of St Clements are nowhere nearby?  Why not make this little aperitif to go with your cookies??

Zimsterne (German Cinnamon Star Cookies)

Its Christmas!

Ok so its not. In fact it was about 3 weeks ago now (3 weeks?? How depressing).  Its snowing outside though and Le Pose announced this morning that snow meant it was Christmas, basically because every Christmas song talks about it snowing... She now believes that they are linked and I can't bring myself to burst her little bubble.  Its meant to snow again tonight and I'm praying it does.  Snow. Day. Please.

What does this all mean?  Well, in a convoluted way it means I can still post about my Christmas baking. 

I've said it before and I'll say it again.  Whilst I love the idea of giving homemade goods for Christmas (I once spent a week making truffles for all my co-workers) I still don't really get the whole cookie plate thing.  I do get cookies though.  I bloody love cookies.  My longest running cookie memories are the German spiced Christmas cookies which mum used to always buy from Waitrose, every single year, the minute they hit the shelves.  My family go through bags of them.  It seems though that we were the sole consumer of the cookies and they stopped selling them.  Bastards.  This year I decided that they couldn't be that hard so I figured I'd make some for Christmas Day.  So I did.

I did my usual research on the t'interweb and settled on this recipe because of the great reviews. 

The recipe - Zimsterne (slightly adapted from Food.com)

For the dough:

300g ground almonds

100g caster sugar, sifted

50g plain flour

2tsp cinnamon

2 egg whites

For the icing:

Icing Sugar

Water

1. In a bowl mix dry ingredients for dough.

2. Add egg whites and knead until a still sticky dough is formed.

3. Wrap in cling film and put into the fridge for at least one hour.  I left it in the fridge a good 3hrs mainly because I was trying to get other Christmas bits done!

4. Near the end of cooling time preaheat oven (170 C).

5. Line 2 baking trays with parchment paper.

6. Get the dough out of the fridge and roll it out between two layers of parchment paper or cling film. The dough should be a bout 1 cm thick.

7. Using a star cutter (mine was inherited from my ma!) cut out the stars and place them on the baking tray.

8. Bake the cookies for about 10 - 12 minutes until they go golden brown (but not texture like sun -ha!).

9. Take them out and let cool completely.

10.  While they are cooling mix up the icing as instructed on the packet.  Holding the star by the edge, dip the star flat side down into the icing and give it a wiggle (yes, that's a technical term in Kitchen Lucy).  Repeat for each cookie and allow to dry on a wire rack.

How easy is that??  They keep for a while in an airtight container apparently (and actually taste better and better the more they "age" - aged cookies, now there's a gimmick!), not that Pose let them last that long.  Even when I was making them I kept going into the kitchen to find cookies missing from the cooling rack.  To say she loved these cookies would be a gross understatement.  She's been begging me to make more since!  My little sister took one bite and said they tasted like the cookies mum used to buy.  I hadn't discussed the background to making the cookies so I took that as an almighty thumbs up.

Just one point to note - The actual recipe provides for a meringue glaze instead of the icing but I'm not going to lie, the-OCD-hate-to-throw-anything-away-nutjob-in-me couldn't bear to waste 3 egg yolks.  Plus the reviews generally criticised the meringue glaze so I figured I could do without.  I may try it next time though.

Apple-Cinnamon Fruit Bars (or how I broke my stick blender)

apple + cinnamon = love

FACT

I'm super serial. 

I really do love apple and cinnamon in pretty much any form.  Plus I can convince myself that I'm eating healthy if I opt for apple pie over chocolate cake.  Its fruit right!?

We are on a bit of a family health kick right now and I am currently a huge fan of the Eating Well website.  Its a great resource and gives easy-to-follow recipes for healthy eating, like 500 calorie dinners that are actually tasty.  So, I did a little searching on the website and found a recipe for Apple-Cinnamon Fruit Bars (at a fabulous 193 calories a bar!).

The recipe - Apple-Cinnamon Fruit Bars adapted from the Eating Well website

For the Crust:

⅓ cup chopped walnuts

⅓ cup chopped pecans

⅓ cup rolled oats

1½ cup plain flour

½ cup granulated sugar

½ teaspoon salt

4 tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1 large egg

2 tbsp sunflower oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

¼ tsp almond extract

For the Apple Filling: 

6 cups diced peeled apples, divided (possibly extra if little fingers keep stealing it)

½ cup apple juice

½ cup granulated sugar

¼ cup cornflour

1½ tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla extract

1. To prepare crust: Mix together the nuts and oats.  Combine ¾ cup of the nuts/oats mixture with the flour, sugar and salt in a food processor; pulse until the nuts are finely ground. Add butter; pulse until well incorporated.

Or at least this is how it should have gone had my stick blender not made a popping noise, stopped and then emanated an unpleasant burning smell.  Not to worry!  We have a Cuisinart US stick blender....which hubby plugged in and blew the step-down.  So now no stick blender and Berta's out of action until I replace the step-down.  I was not (and am still not) a happy bunny.

I therefore took my rolling pin and did my best to beat the mixture and then mush the butter into it with a fork.  For the rest of the recipe then I had to improvise:

2. Whisk egg, oil, 1 teaspoon vanilla and almond extract in a small bowl. Add the egg mixture to the nuts/oats mixture and mash and the the mixture begins to come together.  Measure out 1/2 cup of the mixture and combine in a bowl with the remaining 1/4 cup chopped nuts (or oats). Set aside for the topping.

3. Preheat oven to 400°F (about 200°C). Generously coat a 9-by-13-inch baking dish with cooking spray.

4. To prepare fruit filling & assemble bars: Combine 4 cups apples, apple juice, sugar and cornflour in a large saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture is very thick, 4 to 5 minutes. Stir in the remaining 2 cups apples, cinnamon and 1 teaspoon vanilla.

5. Transfer the dough to the prepared baking dish. Spread evenly and press firmly into the bottom to form a crust. Spread the fruit filling over the crust.. Sprinkle the reserved topping over the filling.

6. Bake the bars for 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350°F (about 175°C) and bake until the crust and topping are lightly brown, 25 to 30 minutes more. Let cool completely before cutting into bars, at least 1 1/2 hours.

These were pretty yummy and totally more-ish.  On the one hand you have a "healthy" sweet snack (starts well) and then on the other hand you kinda can't stop eating it (ends badly).  So as with most things it starts with good intentions and then...well you find you've eaten the entire tray...

Ooops

The Inappropriate Muffins

"Mummy lets make butterfly cookies" the Pose asked one Sunday while we were eating lunch.

"Ok Pose, if you are a good girl and eat all your sandwich we can make cookies" I lovingly replied.

"Ok mummy"

That's a verbal contract in my book.  

She didn't eat her sandwich.

Not the end of the world I grant you but with the current battle-of-wills-Mexican-style-stand-offs we have begun enduring as our little person demonstrates she has indeed inherited both her father's AND mother's stubborn-must-always-get-my-own-way-nature, I was determined to stick to my guns (ah the sweet sweet irony).

Within an hour I was feeling bad about it.  I had been away on the Thursday night for a biz trip and was departing for another 4 days on the Monday and wanted to have a nice Sunday with Posie.  I had also decided that it would be nice to leave something baked for them to eat while I was gone.  Plus muffins aren't cookies right, so I technically still won this battle (at least I'll keep telling myself that).

We all love blueberry muffins so it seemed logical that I'd make those to leave as a token of my love for my little family (ahhhhhhh).  Now here's where I admit that I've never made blueberry muffins from scratch.  Don't get me wrong, I've made them before but with a little help from Betty Crocker!  We have a little shop at the end of our road and they always have blueberries so we popped down to pick up a punnet.  Except they didn't have any today.  Le Pose spotted strawberries and bright little thing she is, suggested strawberry muffins.

After a little peruse on the t'interweb I found this recipe which seemed like good brekkie fodder...

The recipe - Strawberry Oatmeal Muffins courtesy of the Yummly website

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup rolled oats
2 tsps baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp salt
1 beaten egg
½ cup milk
¼ cup olive oil (light)
½ cup sugar (I used caster)
½ pt strawberries (chopped fresh)

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Grease 12 muffin cups (I just put muffin/cupcake cases into muffin tins, I didn't bother with the oil). 

2. In a large bowl, mix flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk together egg, milk, olive oil and sugar. Mix in strawberries. Stir strawberry mixture into oat mixture just until evenly moist. Spoon into prepared muffin cups.

3. I then thinly sliced some strawberries to use for decoration and carefully pressed a slice into the top of each muffin.

4. Bake 18 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven, until a knife inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.

Ummmm...

They tasted great and at only 174 calories were great for a low cal breakfast (I found dumping low fat yoghurt on top made it even yummier).  The Pose and the hubster both enjoyed them so it made me very happy.  Until hubster made a comment on the appearance.  I was horrified.  These were made with the little one's "assistance" so I felt awful that without thinking I had made "inappropriate" muffins with my toddler....ooops.*

* If you can't see it I'm not explaining!  How embarrassing....(*hands her head in shame*)

Pasteis de Nata (or for those of us who don't speak Portuguese, Custard Tarts)

So it was my Mama's birthday and she had decided to have a very very little party with a buffet dinner.  I of course didn't offer to bake, I simply (a) assumed that I'd be helping anyway; and (b) took it as red that I would be baking something so cut-to-the-chase and asked "what" she wanted me to bake and not "if".  She started off pretty vague so I thought "ok I've not done a chocolate cake, so I'll do a chocolate cake" and then she told me that her friend who makes an amazing chocolate cake was coming too.  I figured that even if she wasn't bringing cake, I just couldn't put a first attempt in front of her (not yet anyway).  Back to the drawing board.

My mum (as I have said before) is a pretty picky eater and I've so far nailed 2 desserts I know she loved - the Lemon Meringue Pie and the Creme Caramel - but felt kinda inspirationless.  Not good.  I said she started off vague when I first asked so I asked again but at a better creative-juices-type-moment (we were in Paris for a couple of days - me, hubster, Pose and my folks - and I was hoping Paris might give her some inspiration).  This time she completely threw me.  I was expecting maybe some type of cake, or little mousse-type-cakey-thing or even some sort of patisserie.  But no.  She turned around and said "Portuguese Custard Tarts".  RANDOM?! 

But.  Her birthday.  Her choice.  I agreed.

Now I'm not a massive fan of regular custard tarts so I've never made them.  I certainly had no idea what the difference is between regular English custard tarts and their Portuguese cousins.  So I had to do some investigating. 

I googled "Portuguese custard tarts" and promptly came up with a recipe on The Telegraph's website and figured "its the Telegraph its got to have done its homework right?".  Well.  Judging by the comments on the recipe from one particular lady, no.  The suggested recipe was apparently practically blasphemous - the custard all sorts of wrong and the puff pastry a big fat NONO!  I decided to leave it.  I then ran through a couple of other recipes that had come up in the search and all of them used puff pastry.  Bad start.

The search had however given me the actual Portuguese name for the tarts so I did another google search for "Pasteis de Nata".  This time we had better success.  I toyed with searching for Portuguese language recipes and then translating them using google translate but they just didn't translate well (and my Portuguese is right up there with my Spanish.  Crap).  And then suddenly a ray of sunshine hit my computer and highlighted this little gem...

The recipe - Pasteis de Nata courtesy of David Leite's website Leite's Culinaria (plus, of course, my commentary!)

For the dough:

2 cups minus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon sea salt

¾ cup plus two tablespoons water

16 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature, stirred until smooth

For the custard:

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 ¼ cups milk, divided

1 ⅓ cups granulated sugar

1 cinnamon stick

⅔ cup water

½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract (homemade!)

6 large egg yolks, whisked

Powdered sugar and Cinnamon for dusting

1. Start by making the dough. In a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, mix the flour, salt, and water until a soft, pillowy dough forms that cleans the side of the bowl, about 30 seconds.

2. Generously flour a work surface and pat the dough into a 6-inch square using a pastry scraper (I personally don't have a pastry scraper and coped fairly well) as a guide. Flour the dough, cover with plastic wrap, and let it rest for 15 minutes. 

3. Roll the dough into an 18-inch square (I struggled with this - I simply don't have the counterspace! - worked out ok though, nothing dramatic happened). As you work, use the scraper to lift the dough to make sure the underside isn’t sticking.

Yes I mastered shapes in school, and YES I KNOW that's not a square...

4. Brush excess flour off the top, trim any uneven edges, and using a small offset spatula dot and then spread the left two-thirds of the dough with a little less than one-third of the butter to within 1 inch of the edge (I started using a spatula but found it really difficult to spread the butter, so abandoned the spatula and just used a knife...worked much better).

5. Neatly fold over the unbuttered right third of the dough (using the pastry scraper to loosen it if it sticks), brush off any excess flour, then fold over the left third. Starting from the top, pat down the packet with your hand to release air bubbles, then pinch the edges closed. Brush off any excess flour.

6. Turn the dough packet 90 degrees to the left so the fold is facing you. Lift the packet and flour the work surface. Once again roll out to an 18-inch square, then dot and spread the left two-thirds of the dough with one-third of the butter, and fold the dough as in steps 4 and 5.

7. For the last rolling, turn the packet 90 degrees to the left and roll out the dough to an 18-by-21-inch rectangle (again a struggle on my kitchen counter but we survived), with the shorter side facing you. Spread the remaining butter over the entire surface.

8. Using the spatula as an aid, lift the edge closest to you and roll the dough away from you into a tight log, brushing the excess flour from the underside as you go. Trim the ends and cut the log in half. Wrap each piece in plastic wrap and chill for 2 hours or preferably overnight.

9. Then onto the custard. At this point I would also put the oven on, turning it up as hot as it can go. In a medium bowl, whisk the flour and 1/4 cup of the milk until smooth. Set aside.

10. Bring the sugar, cinnamon, and water to a boil in a small saucepan and cook until an instant-read thermometer registers 220°F (100°C). Do not stir (I actually don't agree with this. I made a couple of batches of the custard to use up all the dough and with the second batch I went more the caramel route used in the Creme Caramel recipe steps 2 and 3. This worked much better).

11. Meanwhile, in another small saucepan, scald the remaining 1 cup milk. Whisk the hot milk into the flour mixture.

12. Remove the cinnamon stick then pour the sugar syrup in a thin stream into the hot milk-and-flour mixture, whisking briskly. Add the vanilla and stir for a minute until very warm but not hot. Whisk in the yolks (careful the mixture isn't too hot when you do this or the eggs will scramble. Thankfully we were fine), strain the mixture into a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and set aside.

13. Now you can start assembling the pastries! Heat the oven to 550°F (290°C) (as I said up by step 9 I would actually put the oven on earlier than this mainly because most conventional ovens are unlikely to go this high, so whack it up to the max heat early on and try to get the oven super hot). Remove a pastry log from the refrigerator and roll it back and forth on a lightly floured surface until it’s about an inch in diameter and 16 inches long. Cut it into scant 3/4-inch pieces. Place a piece cut-side down in each well of a nonstick 12-cup mini-muffin pan (2-by-5/8-inch size). Allow the dough pieces to soften several minutes until pliable. 

14. Have a small cup of water nearby. Dip your thumbs into the water, then straight down into the middle of the dough spiral. Flatten it against the bottom of the cup to a thickness of about 1/8 inch, then smooth the dough up the sides and create a raised lip about 1/8 inch above the pan. The pastry sides should be thinner than the bottom (I did this for the first batch and the pastry was a little too thin I think, then for the second batch I used my pestle to start the process off - this made the process slightly easier and the pastries came out much better).

On our LEFT, batch no.1 and on our RIGHT, batch no.2 (much better right?)

15. Fill each cup 3/4 full with the slightly warm custard. Bake the pasteis until the edges of the dough are frilled and brown, about 8 to 9 minutes (don't expect the custard to brown much unless you have a super hot oven, apparently this is the secret to the browning).

16. Remove from the oven and allow the pasteis to cool a few minutes in the pan, then transfer to a rack and cool until just warm. Sprinkle the pasteis generously with powdered sugar, then cinnamon and serve. Repeat with the remaining pastry and custard. If you prefer, the components can be refrigerated up to three days. The pastry can be frozen up to three months.

They tasted good to me but I have no point of reference since I've never eaten Pasteis de Nata. I have eaten English custard tarts though and these were much better (well anything's better, like I said, I don't like English custard tarts - too eggy). As for the party these went down phenomenally well. I was told that they brought back memories of Lisbon! I'd say that's a pretty damn good endorsement! 

My favourite endorsement though was from my little sister's boyfriend. I suddenly heard from the corner of the living room "Oh my god, this is delicious!" and looked over to see this 6ft guy perched on a toddler-sized-chair with a look of joy on his face. It was hilarious.

Hummingbird Cake (without the feathers)

Yep, I made this.

I've got no idea why Hummingbird Cake is called Hummingbird Cake.  I can only speculate that its because of how sweet it is.  In fact, before a few weeks ago I'd never even heard of it.  

When I started the blog I often debated whether or not to tell colleagues (especially colleagues on my secondment.  I mean I wanted them to like me and thought that to let them see my silly little mind might not be the best idea).  When I kept bringing in baked goodies to work I got questioned on why I was always baking and having got to know 1 of my colleagues well I finally let on to my dirty little baking secret and she seemed quite enthusiastic about it (well people are...to your face).  I told her that I was very happy to take requests so she sent me a link to Sweetapolita's sky-high version of the Hummingbird Cake.  I was less happy about my enthusiasm about letting people put in requests.

Now I put off making this on the basis that it really looks far too fancy for just normal baking so I decided to wait until the right opportunity, a birthday preferably.  April rolled around and brought 4 birthdays in my team in the space of a week.  There are only 9 people in my team.  Time to attempt the Hummingbird Cake I thought....

I had a look on the web and found a recipe on Joy Of Baking's website and when I looked at the Sweetapolita recipe I noticed that she had also used the Joy of Baking recipe as a starting point.  They both looked good so I kinda worked back and forth between the two, using the Joy of Baking recipe but the Sweetapolita method on constructing the cake.  As usual, the actual recipe is in italics and my additional commentary is in normal font.

The recipe from the Joy of Baking and Sweetapolita

For the Cake:

1 cup (110 grams) pecans, toasted and finely chopped
3 cups (390 grams) all-purpose flour
2 cups (400 grams) granulated white sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup (180 ml) sunflower oil
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 x 8 ounce (227 grams) can crushed pineapple, do not drain
2 cups mashed ripe bananas (3-4 medium sized bananas)

For the Frosting:

1/4 cup (57 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
8 oz (227 grams) cream cheese, room temperature
1 lb (454 grams) (about 3 2/3 cups) confectioners (powdered or icing) sugar, sifted
1 tsp (4 grams) vanilla extract

Garnish:
pecan halves

1.  Firstly to the cake....Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) with the rack in middle of oven.  Prepare three (I used only two pans!) 8" round cake pans with butter/oil spray and a parchment circle on bottom of pan. Set aside. 

I even bought new pans! Exciting times...no seriously

2. Chop the pecans.  I used one of my favourite kitchen tools - my Pampered Chef Food Chopper.  Its great, you just put whatever you want to chop underneath and bash the top, ideally focusing on someone you really dislike or something that is pissing you off then bang, bang, BANG!  All done.

3. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and cinnamon. Set aside.

4. I could only find pineapple rings so I simply blitzed the pineapple chunks using a stick blender.  I then mashed the banana.

5. In a separate large mixing bowl, combine the lightly beaten eggs, vanilla, chopped pecans, oil, bananas, and pineapple.  Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon until combined.  

Looks a little vomity, right?  Tasty.

6. Divide the batter evenly into 3 (remember, I only used 2) prepared 8" round pans. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean from the centre of the cake (about 30 minutes - I don't know if my oven is playing up but I definitely had to keep the cakes in for a good 50mins). Don't open oven for first 20 minutes, then rotate pans, checking after 10 more minutes. Try not to over bake! Let cool on wire racks for 20 minutes (in the tins), then invert onto racks, remove the parchment paper and let cool until cool to the touch.  Wrap the cakes in foil and put in the fridge overnight (this makes them easier to slice).

7. Remove the cakes from the fridge and unwrap from the foil.  Taking a bread knife carefully and evenly cut each cake into 3 thin layers.

8. Then onto the icing...Using electric mixer (how generic, of course I turned to dear Berta), combine the butter and icing sugar until just combined.  Now I had some problems here, possibly due to the fact that I realised I only had fondant icing sugar.  The butter and icing sugar just refused to combine so I had to take some drastic measures.  I needed to warm the butter enough to be able to combine it with the icing sugar.  I thought that actually heating it would be a mistake so instead I took a bowl of lukewarm water and put the mixing bowl into the water - enough to warm the sides of the bowl (its metal).  This definitely helped and put the icing back on track.

9. Add the cold cream cheese, all at once, and beat on medium speed for about 4 minutes. Turn up to high speed for another 1 minute. It should be fluffy (mine wasn't but again I believe this is all down to the fondant icing sugar). Don't over beat, or the icing will start to lose thickness.

10. Onto assembling the cake!  Taking one of the bottom layers spoon a big blob of icing into the centre and carefully spread the icing to evenly cover the cake.  Always cut side down, place the next layer on top and repeat the process.  Repeat with the remaining layers.

No, there is no Tabasco in the cake.

11. Spoon the rest of the icing onto the top of the cake and, using a palate knife, smooth it all across the top of the cake easing it to the edge and down the sides (this was how I had to do it because of the consistency of the icing.  I think it would be more spreadable and less drippy with regular icing sugar).  Make sure the cake is evenly covered and decorate with a couple of pecan halves.

12. Carefully transfer to your serving dish! (I transferred it to my brand new spotty tins to take into work.  I love my new spotty tins)

This cake is quite sweet but fantastic and serves plenty.  It went down very well at work and every last crumb was eaten.  If you want a cake to impress - this is the one.  Personally I found it was best served off ducky paper plates that were left over from one of Posie's parties but obviously you do not have to recreate this ;)

I'm all up for gratuitous self-promotion!

HOT cross buns, HOT cross buns, one a penny two a penny, HOT cross buns

So firstly, apologies galore.  I've not blogged in the last 2 weeks but that does not mean I haven't been busy in the kitchen.  I have.  But we went away for an Easter break so I have also been enjoying the cakey-bakey goodies that Paris has to offer.  In fact I rather overindulged in cheese, wine and patisserie!  We stayed in an apartment right on the edge of the 1st and 2nd Arrondissement that was literally a stone's throw from a market street filled with ice cream parlours, bakeries, butchers, wine shops, flower shops, bistros....it was an amazing location.  I'm hoping to take some inspiration from the trip so watch this space.

Saying that though.  Easter isn't complete without Hot Cross Buns, and whilst the Parisians lulled me into a food coma they didn't do Hot Cross Buns.  I however do!

I have a recipe folder filled with a ton of recipes that I have never tried.  I tear them out of magazines and file them away, never to attempt.  In fact one of the reasons I started writing the blog was to actually start making these recipes.  With the lead up to Easter the supermarkets, bakers and my mum start stocking up on the Hot Cross Buns.  I've spent a couple of weekends at the folks recently and have been loving toasted, butter smothered Hot Cross Buns for brekkie.  So, given my recent bread/dough successes I felt confident enough to give the Hot Cross Bun recipes a go.

I'm pretty certain this recipe is a Delia and certainly is seems pretty similar to the one listed on her website.

Now for this recipe I didn't have any mixed spice to hand but I did have a variety of spices in my spice/herb drawer so I searched around on t'net and made the mixed spice myself.

To make the mixed spice:
2 tbs ground cinnamon
2 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cloves

I didn't have ground cloves but had whole cloves so I started by grinding them in my trusty pestle and mortar.  Then I dumped everything else in and gave it all a good grind (wow, that sounds rather sordid.  Oh well).

Mixed Spice 

I made the recipe pretty much as directed except (as usual, I can't just stick to a recipe!) I didn't have any mixed peel and in all honesty I'm not a massive fan of my Hot Cross Bun being citrus-ey tasting.  

Ooh, frothy!

Here's a handy tip for working out what "hand-hot water is" (I mean, its not exactly a scientific statement is it??  What is lukewarm to me is hot to my little one!)  Anyway, go by this method - 1 part boiling water to 2 parts cold water.  Bosh - hand-hot water.

They smelled amazing when they were cooking.  Filled the whole house with a bready, spicy aroma.  Better than a Yankee Candle!

As you can see I didn't make the white crosses - I simply didn't have time to make shortcrust pastry as the recipe suggests. However, on the Delia website she suggests making the white crosses using "a flour and water paste made with 4 oz (110 g) plain flour and approximately 3 tablespoons water. Roll out thinly and divide into small strips, dampening them to seal" so I'd try that next time. Much simpler!

The best BEST way to serve them is cut in half, toasted and smothered in butter.  Bloody gorgeous!

I took them into work and they went down a treat.  One colleague ate 2...a second ate 3...he claimed he was doing me a favour.  Personally these are the best thing I've made yet.  I had one for breakfast all week and every time I opened the tub I got a waft of spicy goodness.  Yummers.

Carrot juice tastes like evil

Its only since I became an "adult" (and I use that term with not just a grain of salt, but a ruddy great bucket of it) that I began to like carrot cake.  Actually it could have just been that the thought of putting carrot...in a...cake (!?) sent me into a great sadness ("why god why!?!?").  I mean vegetables...in a cake....that's just wrong on all levels.

Then there's the carrot factor.  A couple of weeks ago I was in Pret grabbing breakfast and saw a bottle of carrot juice.  It said "grab me" (it literally said "grab me" on the bottle) so I thought "sure, what the hell".  I mean how bad could it be?  My friend K is into juicing (vegetables not just fruit) and really seems to like her concoctions plus its meant to be super healthy.  I was also trying to be on a new year's health kick, the carrot juice just seemed to come along at the right time.

Sure.

I took a sip of the carrot juice and instantly regretted it.  It tasted like vomit.  Actually carroty vom.  I told myself off, I mean I'm an adult right?  It really can't be that bad, I'm sure I'll get used to it.  So I took another sip.  Still vom.  Another sip?  Yep, still carroty vom.  I gave up.  Carrot juice tastes evil.  I-kid-you-not.  It tastes like the carrot found out about the carrot juicing, topped itself then rotted in the bottle for a year.  I spent the rest of the day belching carrot juice and feeling like I would actually vom carrot juice.  It was vile.  Morning sickness was more fun.

Anyway I wasn't a fan of carrot cake until recently.  Now I realise that it doesn't taste vegetable-y (yes, that's a word, I just wrote it and spell check didn't correct it) or carroty vom, it actually tastes quite pleasant.

My NCT group were having a little meet up and I offered to bake (I'll take any excuse) and figured carrot cake would be a good option.  Now when I was pregnant and suffering from delusions of wanting to be the greatest-mummy-baker but being paranoid of making my unborn child fat, I bought the book Red Velvet Chocolate Heartache by Harry Eastwood.  Sounds good right?  Well there's a catch.  All of the recipes try to sneak in vegetables and contain very little fat.  Sounds like I'm talking sh*t?  To my constant surprise the recipes are actually pretty delish (I've secretly served the title chocolate cake (that contains aubergine, yes A.U.B.E.R.G.I.N.E.) to dinner guests and they've been very complimentary (and I don't think they were just being polite).  The recipes also seem to be largely gluten free.  So...

The recipe - Carrot Cake

I'm too lazy to type this up!

Basically follow the recipe!  Well, unless you're me.  I misread how much lime to use in the icing and instead put in the zest and juice of 1 whole lime (not just half the zest and 2tsp of the juice).  That being said everyone said they really enjoyed the zingy icing.

The recipe doesn't go into any detail on how to go about icing the cake so I've put some pictures below:

1. Put a big dollop of icing in the centre of the base cake (my base cake was a little bigger than the top cake - I realised all too late that none of my 3 loose bottom tins are the same size!).

2. Using a palette knife, spread the icing out across the base.

3. Carefully place the top cake onto the bottom cake and repeat steps 1 and 2 for the top cake.

4. Make some little carrots!!  Using some fondant icing, mix a little water, a couple of drops of red food colouring and a lot of drops of yellow food colouring (alternatively just use orange food colouring!!) and mix into a pliable dough.  Sprinkle some icing sugar onto a board and pop the icing ball onto the board.

5. Now I tried 2 different ways to make the carrot decorations.  The first way I split the dough into 4 portions and then tried to shape the dough into carrot shapes.  This didn't seem to work too well and in fact looked like I was trying to replicate an earlier creation.  I wasn't thrilled with the results of the second way but I needed to leave for the meet-up so the second way was the only way...I started by flattening the ball with the palm of my hand.

6.  Using a knife cut 2 eye shapes out of the icing and cut each of the eye shapes in half again.

7. Taking the knife, make several horizontal gashes across the surface of the "carrots".

8. Next I added a ton of green food colouring to the left over orange icing (yes I could have started again but I HATE waste) and flatten the icing out.  Then cut the icing into thin strips.

9. Cut the long green strips in half and layer them on the cake like the roots of the carrot and place the carrot gently overlapping the ends.

10. Continue to do the same for the other 3 carrots.

The cake tasted really good, even if I do say so myself.  My icing carrots were a bit of a disappointment though.  The icing wouldn't set so the carrots got a little limp.  I'm not having much luck with fondant icing!

All that aside, the cake went down a treat at the meet-up and I was able to take some leftovers to the folks (they had offered to babysit for us that night and I felt I should take some cake by way of a thank you).  In fact, my father insisted I left him the last of the cake.  Sounds like a success to me.