” Laughter is brightest where food is best.”
Irish Proverb.
Irish Creme Chocolate Cakes with an Irish Creme Caramel Sauce … there’s something incredibly infectious about the green posts that have been falling into my mailbox the past few days. Irish Soda bread, shepherds pie, Irish coffee shamrock cookies, chocolate stout cupcakes, beer battered broccoli, Irish floats, corned beef & cabbage. I had to join in!
Years ago, working for BA introduced us to St Patrick’s Day as we had a sizable Irish crew. The accents always stood out, charming as could be. In 2009, the Irish accent beat its French counterpart as the world’s sexiest, thanks to stars like Colin Farrell and James Nesbitt! How sweet was that.
Loads of green is sweeping the net for St Patricks Day. I had a bottle of homemade Irish creme in the fridge, one that I made a while ago when some liqueur inspiration hit me. I made some kumquat liqueur then too. It’s still sitting in some cool dark place!
Cleaning out the fridge rewarded me with a quarter jar of leftover Irish creme caramel sauce and some almond praline, all from a recent recipe shoot. With a few hours on hand yesterday, I thought I’d put the leftovers to good use. With time limited, I opted to use a recent flourless chocolate cake recipe just because it was in my head.
That Gluten Free Dark Chocolate Strawberry Mascarpone Gateau served asinspiration for these little cakes. Since I was experimenting with the basic recipe, I made a few changes, including a teeny bit of wholewheat flour to the batter. If you’d like to keep these gluten free, then by all means use the Gluten Free Dark Chocolate Strawberry Mascarpone Gateau recipe. For 6 small cakelets, just half portions of that recipe will do.
I did an espresso meringue topping, sprinkled over with crushed praline just because I enjoyed doing a meringue topping for the earlier cake. Gave me another chance to experiment. I love the play of textures and colours that different methods bring about. Besides, chocolate is always rewarding to play with!
My touch of Irish green come via mint leaves, and the cakes have the delicious Irish creme stamp all over it. I’ve kept the amounts minimum because of the kids. Feel free to pour another spoon in, or give the caramel a good helping of the same. For the Irish Creme Caramel Syrup, stir your desired amount {upto 1/4 cup} of Irish creme through your to-go recipe of caramel syrup just as you’ve finished making it.
What I loved about these most was the meringue topping studded with crunchy praline. That was literally the ‘icing on the cake’! Do make sure you don’t over bake the little cakes. We want them moist and soft. If they do get a little dry, brush them with a strong coffee solution.
If you are short on time, instead of sandwiching them, you could always serve these with single cream on the side. That would make for a quicker dessert as it’s pretty much together already. A dusting of cocoa, a little dressing up with chocolate shavings, a drizzle of caramel … all done!
Happy St Patrick’s Day to you dear readers.
I love the way food connects the entire globe in such delicious ways!
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Recipe: Irish Creme Chocolate Cakes with an Irish Creme Caramel Sauce
Summary: Irish Creme Chocolate Cakes to celebrate St Patrick’s Day. What’s not to love about these little rustic beauties!
Prep Time: 15 minutes Total Time: 45 minutesIngredients:
Dark Chocolate Cakes
4 eggs, separated
100g vanilla sugar, divided 75g + 25g
1 vanilla bean, scraped
125g dark chocolate, melted
1 tbsp Irish Cream {Baileys or homemade}
25g wholewheat flour
1/2tsp baking powder
1 pinch salt
1 tbsp granulated sugar
1 tsp espresso powder
To finish
100ml low fat cream chilled
1 tbsp powdered sugar
2 tbsp caramel syrup
1 tbsp Irish Cream {Baileys or homemade}
2 tbsp crushed praline {or chopped roasted nuts}
Method:
Dark chocolate cakes
Preheat the oven to 180C. Oil 6 X 3″ dessert rings and secure the bases with foil.
In a large clean bowl whip the 4 egg whites with 25g sugar until stiff, reserve.
In another large bowl, beat the 4 yolks with 75g sugar until pale, creamy and mousse like, 5-7 minutes on high speed.
Beat in the vanilla bean.
Sift the wholewheat, baking powder and salt over the yolk mixture, and fold in gently.
Gently whisk in the Irish cream and melted chocolate.
Reserve about 1 cup beaten whites, and fold the remaining whites into the batter.
Divide between rings and bake for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile beat the reserved white with 1 tbsp sugar and the espresso powder until stiff. Transfer to piping bag.
Remove half baked cakes from over, gently pipe over a swirl onto each cakelet, sprinkle over with crushed praline.
Continue to bake for another 15-20 minutes, until done. Cool completely in rings.
Assemble
Run a butter knife around the edges to loosed the cooled cakes and demold. Slice each horizontally into two. Keep the pairs together.
Whip the chilled cream with powdered sugar until medium stiff. Sandwich the cakes with the cream and a drizzle of caramel syrup. Top with the meringue halves, and drizzle with a little caramel syrup.
“If you don’t let technology help you, if you resist good ideas, you condemn yourself to dinosaurhood.”
Yann Martel, Life of Pi
A Strawberry Pie and a Pie Bird. Strange how good things happen at the same time. Around the week that the Life of Pi won an Oscar, the folk from Zansaar sent me something very interesting … a beautiful aubergine stoneware baking dish with an intriguing creature inside. They call it a Pie Bird!
Have you heard of one? To be honest, I had no clue that such a charming creature actually existed. Google enlightened! From whimsical banter from when we used to chime “Four & twenty black birds baked in a pie” as toddlers, to Alton Brown who wholeheartedly endorses the pie bird, it seems to be quite a handy bakers tool. Many ardent pie bakers swear by it.
What might a pie bird be? It’s a little hollow contraption made of ceramic, that helps keep a pie base from getting soggy. It also prevents it from boiling over, sometimes even saving a pie from dramatically exploding!
A pie bird, pie vent, pie whistle, pie funnel, or pie chimney is a hollow ceramic device, originating in Europe, shaped like a funnel, chimney, or upstretched bird with open beak. Funnel-style steam vents have been placed in the center of fruit and meat pies during cooking since Victorian times; bird shapes came later.
Pie funnels were used to prevent pie filling from boiling up and leaking through the crust by allowing steam to escape from inside the pie. They also supported the pastry crust in the center of the pie, so that it did not sag in the middle, and are occasionally known as “crustholders”. Older ovens had more problems with uniform heating, and the pie bird prevented boil-over in pie cooking.
Fancy my delight when I received it as also the beautiful aubergine pie dish from the Mason Cash collection. It’s a handy dish to bake a classic apple pie, or maybe a chicken / vegetable pie. The high quality stoneware dish has a wide lip that makes it ideal for pie crusts while the stoneware construction ensures that it heats evenly.
I enjoyed ‘playing with it’. It gave me much food for thought, Life of Pi and pie bird quotes flying through my head. You see, at the same time, the younger teen was doing a film review on the Life of P. There was plenty of Pi / Pie happening!
I wanted to make an apple pie but I had my last stash of red luscious strawberries from the recent Pune trip. I thought a strawberry pie just might work. It did and the pie baked up beautifully. Once completely cool, it stepped out of the dish gingerly with no trouble at all. It’s a good size baking dish for a meal for two, or maybe part of a meal for four.
I was in a hurry to slice the pie so the juices ‘leaked’ a bit. It sliced just fine a while later! The dough is a normal short crust that I substituted with a little cornmeal. Cornmeal works really well in all my galettes. This was my first double crust pie. It worked great. A classic American apple pie served with vanilla ice cream seems likely in the future!
I had some leftover dough, and about 1/2 a cup of left over filling. Could I just let it sit? Of course I couldn’t. The leftovers made a neat little galette which included one left over plum from an earlier baking project. The galette was crisp and full of fruity goodness. A drizzle of unsweetened single cream … delicieux!
[print_this]Recipe: Strawberry Pie
Summary: A fruity and delicious strawberry pie. A great way to use fruit in season.
Prep Time: 15 minutes Total Time: 1 hour plus cooling time Ingredients:
Pastry
160g plain flour
40g cornmeal {makki ka aata}
pinch salt
100g unsalted butter, frozen, grated
2-3 tbsp of ice water {as required}
Filling
500g frozen strawberries {or fresh}
35g cornflour
25g plain flour
200g vanilla sugar {decrease if fruit is very sweet}
Juice of 1/2 a lime
25g pistachios, chopped {few slivered}
1tbsp apricot jam, melted
Single cream for brushing over {and serving}
Vanilla sugar
Method:
Pastry
Place the plain flour, cornmeal and salt in bowl of food processor and pulse briefly to mix.
Add the frozen butter and pulse again for a few seconds until you get a breadcrumb like mix.
Add the water 1 tbsp at a time, until the dough comes together when you pinch it between your fingers. {You might need more than 3 tbsp as the absorption property of flours differs across brands, regions etc}
Turn out push together to form a tight ball. Divide into two, flatten into disks, wrap in clingwrap and chill for at least 30 minutes.
Filling
Preheat the oven to 200C.
Place the ingredients in a large bowl and toss well together. {If your strawberries are really sweet, then add about 1/4 cup less sugar. Taste and adjust if required}. Let stand for 15 minutes.
Assemble
Take one disk of chilled dough, and roll out to line the baking dish. Gently transfer to dish, crimp or ruffle the edges if you like, else trim them to fit the edge. Brush the base with apricot jam.
Place the pie bird in the centre of the pastry.
Turn the fruit into a sieve to remove any released juices {if you have the time, you can reduce the juices in a pan over low heat and add them back to the fruit}. Ladle into the pie dish around the bird.
Roll the second disk of pastry to cover the top, cut out a 1 1/2 – 2″ circle and gently place over the pie bird.
Seal the edges of the pie with the tines of a fork. Use some left over dough to make leaves etc for the top if you like.
Brush the top with single cream, sprinkle over with vanilla sugar and slivered pistachios if you like.
Bake at 200C for 25 minutes, and then at 180C for 25-30 minutes more until the crust is golden brown.
Note: Tent the top or cover the edges with foil if the crust is becoming too brown.
Let it cool completely before trying to turn out of baking dish. Slice only once completely cool, 3-4 hours after baking.
“Chemically speaking, chocolate really is the world’s perfect food.”
Michael Levine
Dark Chocolate & Kumquat Creme Pots … these were decadent. Delicious, bowl scraping good and soul satisfying. The season and the colours of the humble little kumquat, a sour citrus fruit that was until a few years ago just an ornamental plant, all inspire creativity. This dessert was the result of one such inspired moment!
We always referred to kumquats as Chinese oranges or tangerines. Food blogging threw up new names. So many references to a similar fruit by the name of kumquat, and then the Google Gods demystified it. These are round kumquats, the Asian cousins of the elliptical round ones that colour the web every now and then.The boughs are hanging heavy with fruit, ready for picking, and more buds and green kumquats are already showing up. My mothers shrub too is full with fruit too. This seems to be a good year for this tart citrus fruit.
I’ve done lots with these beauties this season … Kumquat & Strawberry Tiramisu Charlotte, Kumquat Marmalade, and No Bake Cheesecake Pots. My mind works overtime thinking of how much more we can do with kumquats.
I had serious dark chocolate and orange cravings one day. Two years ago I had made Dark chocolate & sour orange tartlets. My blog was hacked shortly after that and some posts disappeared. I didn’t have the time to check then. Recently when I looked for the tartlets high and low, I drew a blank on PAB.
The pictures are still firmly etched in my head. Googling led me to FoodGawker and I was relieved to see I had indeed made the tartlets, only that the recipe post has been lost forever. I have attempted to recreate it. I remember cooking the whole fruit then.If I wasn’t inspired enough by the fruit of the season, I was even more fortunate that day. Look at these beautiful little ceramic cups and single serve creamers that I got from Urban Dazzle. Adorable!! Love at first sight, it brought out the inner child in me. Took me back to when we were little girls, playing with miniature tea sets. How could I not be inspired?
There’s something about white ceramic bakeware. It holds so much promise. These little round ramekins are one of the best additions to my bursting bakeware collection. There is so much you can do in them … cream caramels, panna cotta, ice cream in summer, chocolate custard pots, lime possets. Do you have any more ideas dear readers? What would you make in these little beauties?
One look at them as I unpacked them, smooth ceramic, neat, clean edges, aesthetically designed and my imagination took wing. There was no time to bake so I took the fast track to dessert. A winning combination of sour orange and dark chocolate, topped with a light white chocolate cream sauce. We were back in business!Dark chocolate from Thorntonsmarried a bittersweet sour orange puree to make thick custard like pastry cream. A light cream chocolate sauce made with melt in the mouth white chocolate made it sublime. Candied kumquats tied the flavours together with some white chocolate garnishing. All we heard after dinner was ‘scrape, scrape, scrape’.
You cannot go wrong with good quality chocolate. The pots were bowl licking good as might be the case with the kids. They too fell in love with the little ‘baby’ creamers, so charming and so unreal in this world which is in so much of a hurry sometimes. It was wonderful to sit back and enjoy the petite servings.
In the days to come I will try and find more ways to use the bounty of nature, i.e. kumquats in full strength. Bitter Kumquat Marmaladehas been made; distributed too! I bottled some Kumquat Liqueur a few days ago in a decanter my Mum gave me. The colours are so pretty!
A few thoughts before I take you to the recipe. Do use good quality chocolate as that is what makes simple desserts like these absolutely shine! Also, if you prefer a smoother texture, you can always skip the almond meal. I just like to add ‘nuts’ in any form to my food.
This post is brought to you in conjunction with Thorntons.
[print_this]Recipe: Dark Chocolate & Kumquat Creme Pots
Summary: Delicious, bowl scraping good and soul satisfying, these no bake Dark Chocolate & Kumquat Creme Pots are inspired by fruit in season. The very tart and colourful kumquats lend deep ‘orangey’ flavour to the dark chocolate, and colour to the presentation.
Kumquat Puree {Your require a few tbsps. Store the ramainder in a jar in the fridge}
250g kumquats, halved, seeds removed
250g sugar
1/2 vanilla bean
Creme Pots
100g kumquat puree {recipe follows}
250g dark chocolate
25g raw sugar {or regular}
20g cornflour
200ml low fat cream
3 egg yolks
100ml milk 2%
1/2 vanilla bean, scraped
25g almond meal
White chocolate cream
100ml low fat cream
25g white chocolate, grated
25g white chocolate for garnishing if desired
Candied Kumquats
100g kumquats, sliced, seeds removed
200g sugar
200ml water
Method:
Candied Kumquats
Place sugar, water and sliced kumqauts in a saucepan. Simmer for about 15-20 minutes until the kumquats become translucent Handle gently and strain the kumquats and reserve in a bowl.
Return the syrup to the pan and reduce to about 2/3rd amount. Return the sliced candied kumquats to the syrup, cool and refrigerate until required.
Kumquat puree
Thermomix:
Place all ingredients in bowl of TM, cook on 100, reverse speed 2 for 8 minutes. Blend until smooth.
Stove Top:
Place kumquats, sugar and vanilla bean in a saucepan. Simmer for 15-20 minutes until the kumquat peel is soft. Remove bean {or leave in as I did}. Puree until smooth.
Place 100g kumquat puree with the dark chooclate and melt over a bain marie, or in the microwave.
White chocolate cream
Gently heat the cream, and pour over the white chocolate. Mix until smooth. Cool.
For the pastry cream:
Thermomix:
Place 100g kumquat puree with the dark chocolate in TM bowl and run at speed 4, 10 seconds.
Place remaining ingredients except almond meal. Cook at 90C, speed 4, 7 minutes. Add the almond meal and run at speed 6 for 30 seconds.
Stove Top:
Mix together the sugar, cornflour, cream and vanilla extract in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan. To this add the egg yolks and whisk until smooth.
Now place the saucepan over low heat and cook, stirring constantly to prevent the mixture from curdling.
Add the milk a little at a time, still stirring constantly. After about 10-12 minutes the mixture will be thick, free of lumps and beginning to bubble. {If you have a few lumps, don’t worry. You can push the cream through a fine-mesh strainer}
Fold in the dark chocolate-kumquat puree, and then uniformly stir in the almond meal.
Transfer the cream to serving bowls immediately, tap gently to level out, and cool to room temperature. Refrigerate at least 2-3 hours before serving.
Assemble
Top each bowl with 1-2 tbsp of white chocolate cream, some candied kumquats and white chocolate scrolls. Serve immediately or chill until required.
“Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.”
Hans Christian Andersen
A Tea Rose Fondant Cake … inspired completely by Peggy Porschens‘Pretty Party Cakes’. I have had this stunning book by this very talented sugar craft artisit for years. It sits by my bedside and provides infinite hours of eye candy. I didn’t once think I could attempt her beautiful work; until yesterday …
I have long delayed making sugar paste at home. LONG! The one day I saw a fondant cake at The Great Cookaroo, sometime late last year, and I knew she had beaten me to it. Bah humbug! It still seemed pretty formidable to me, even though Ruchiraconvinced me it was quite easy. She made her fondant out of marshmallows.
Sugar Paste icing is a very sweet edible sugar dough usually made from sugar and glucose. It is sometimes referred to as fondant or sugar gum or gum paste. It can be used to cover cakes, mould features and create decorations for cakes and many other uses.
Then a few days ago I met a very talented Amrita at I Bake who commercially does cakes with fondant. She convinced me it was really easy to make at home. The sweet girl even offered to send a batch home for me to work with. Enough! It was time to give fondant from scratch a shot, and was promptly entered as a new year resolution; rather an update of one which has been long postponed.
Seems like flowers are ‘in season’!! A few days ago, I was asked if I’d like to host a floral giveaway for readers of PAB from the beautiful Serenata Flowers in the UK. Serenata Flowers is a gift shop where other then flowers, you can find chocolates and wine too. They are hosting a giveaway well in time for Valentines day.
The prize is a £30 voucher at Serenata Flowers, that should give the winner the chance to choose a nice gift. Delivery would only be to an address in mainland UK , the winner may live outside UK though. All you need to do is visit the site and leave a comment saying which bouquet you like best. The contest is on until the 31st of Jan, 2013, and the winner will be announced thereafter.
It was time to pair real flowers with edible ones, and also time to ‘fondant or sugar paste’! This was my first attempt at working with fondant and I have to say I loved it! The end result wasn’t perfect, creases that peeped through, yet it took me back many years. Back to those play dough times, flowers, leaves, roses …
I loved using the leftover bits to cut out ribbons etc. Later thought I could have done bees and butterflies too. Maybe the next time I feel so inspired, now that I can ‘do it’!! Fondant is therapeutic; makes you rediscover the inner child in you!
See the ‘cake’ platter? I have to confess that it’s actually a salad plate from Urban Dazzle. It’s a classic white, round platter. The interesting bit is the offset centre which gives you a slight forward tilt. It’s a great aesthetic platter to have, and happily one that doubled up as a cake plate as in this case.
Cookies, finger foods, cupcakes, fruit, candy seem like some other fun uses. Until I do salads in it, I’m enjoying its versatility! This Tea Rose Fondant Cake was the best baking beginning to my new year. I love you fondant!!
I learnt something else. Kids never grow up! You should have seen their eyes light up when they saw all that sugary sweet prettiness! I thought they were both way beyond it. Pictures of the cake furiously ‘WhatsApped‘, the urgency to have dinner done, the impatience to cut a slice, the happiness at devouring the cake {the vanilla buttermilk pound cake is wonderful on it’s own}… so worth the effort!
If you don’t want too much sugar overload you could always just do a 1 egg mini cake. The little one came away neatly and looked sweet on it’s own. The fondant recipe is minimally adapted from ‘Essential Guide to Cake Decorating’ by Alex Barker, which the kids gave me us on our anniversary 4 years ago. This was my first foray into the book … and I loved it!
So go on guys. Spread out some fondant if you are so inclined. Otherwise send someone you love a beautiful bunch of flowers from Serenata Flowers. Share some joy!!
[print_this]Recipe: Sugar Paste/ Fondant
Summary: A simple fondant recipe that was silky smooth and fun to use. minimally adapted from ‘Essential Guide to Cake Decorating’ by Alex Barker
Prep Time: 5 minutes Total Time: 30 minutes Ingredients:
3 tbsp liquid glucose, warmed {I used Solar, an Indian brand}
1 egg white {or 20g egg white powder reconstituted according to maunfacturer instructions}
400g icing sugar
Method:
Place egg white in a large bowl, whip lightly with fork and then then stir in the liquid glucose. {It tends to harden very fast in winter}
Add the icing sugar bit by bit and gradually work in with a wooden spoon until it begins to form a paste. Gently knead into a ball.
On a very clean surface, knead it until smooth and pliable. Wrap with cling-wrap if not using immediately.
To colour, take small portions, or as required, ans knead in a few drops of the colour as desired. Keep the remaining fondant wrapped in clingwrap at all times.
On a very clean surface dusted with icing sugar, roll out the fondant quite thin. Then cut into shapes with plunger cutters or hand make roses.
I fastened the flowers etc with egg white, though the book says to use royal icing.
Recipe: Vanilla Bean Buttermilk Pound Cake with Vanilla Buttercream
Summary: A lighter version of the classic pound cake, the Tea Rose Fondant Cake is sandwiched with a light confetti buttercream, and makes a delicious base for the fondant art.
Prep Time: 15 minutes Total Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes {including cooling time, and time to make fondant decorations etc} Ingredients:
Vanilla Pound Cake
240g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
150g unsalted butter, room temperature
275g vanilla sugar
3 eggs
130ml buttermilk {or substitute recipe below}
1/2 vanilla bean, scraped
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
To make buttermilk substitute
Take 130ml milk at room temp; add 1 tsp white vinegar. Let it stand 5-10 minutes. When it curdles, it’s ready.
Vanilla buttercream
100g unsalted butter, room temperature
225g icing sugar
50g low fat cream
1/2 vanilla bean, scraped
2 tbsp rainbow confetti {optional}
Royal icing or egg white to secure fondant flowers etc onto cake.
Method:
Vanilla Buttermilk Pound Cake
Grease and flour the sides of a 7″ ring tin, or a 4″ round tin. Line the bottoms and sides with parchment paper.
Preheat the oven to 170C.
Sift the flour with the baking powder, baking soda and salt. Reserve.
Cream the butter and sugar. Beat in eggs one at a time, followed by the vanilla extract and scraped vanilla bean.
With beater on low add the flour and buttermilk alternately in three lots.
Divide the batter between the two tins.
Bake for 50-60 minutes till golden brown on top, and the tester comes out clean. {The smaller cake will get baked in 35-40 minutes}
Cool completely, then slice into two horizontally.
Vanilla butter-cream
Beat the butter, vanilla bean and icing sugar until smooth and fluffy.
Gradually add the low fat cream and whip to desired consistency.
You can add more {or less} depending on how stiff you want the butter-cream.
Assembling
Sandwich the cakes with a light spread of butter-cream with the confetti stirred in.
Give both cakes a thin coat of butter-cream to provide a base for the fondant.
Note: Use squeaky clean hands, counter, rolling pin etc when handling sugar paste/fondant as it is white and shows impurities very easily.
Take about 1/3rd of the fondant {If it is too hard, then briefly, heat it in the microwave wrapped in cling-wrap for 10 seconds. {Keep the remaining fondant well wrapped else it will dry out.}
Sprinkle the work surface with icing sugar, and roll the fondant out thin. {I kept it quite thin to keep the sugar intake a little lower}.
Gently transfer it onto the 7″ cake and press into place. I got a few creases but covered most up with flowers and leaves. Handle gently or it will tear. Trim the edges around the base.
Take 1/2 the remaining fondant and repeat with the smaller cake.
Place the smaller cake on top of the bigger one.
Take bits of fondant, one bit at a time, and colour them with liquid colour as desired. Using plunger cutters or your hands, make flowers, leaves, roses etc as desired.
Roll any remaining scraps and using a fluted or plain pastry cutter cut out ribbons to cover up the bottoms edges.
Use either royal icing or egg white to stick the sugar paste flowers, leaves or ribbons onto the cake.
Note: I used the microwave {10 seconds, high} quite often as the fondant kept getting hard as the weather was freezing cold at 6C.
“Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward”
Kurt Vonnegut
Happy New Year with an Ombre Almond Layered Cream Cake. Sorry I haven’t made an appearance yet. The beginning of the year is always BUSY! Call it bad planning, but the elder teen was born on the 2nd of Jan 17 years ago. In this absolutely freezing cold, where the temperature dips and the power trips, I’ve been baking birthday cakes every 1st January for the past 16 years.
We’ve broken ‘cold‘ records for the past 45 years this January. With a country not planned with central heating, we are surviving in ice boxes at 0.7 C temperatures. Absolutely bone chilling here these days. It’s one thing to shiver; another to shiver and bake!! Must be a glutton for punishment as I shiver through the process every year. I made an ombre cake a while ago for a dear friends birthday. It was TALL with many shades of pink. How the daughter whined! “You never make tall cakes in shades of pink for me”, “Why have I never got one like this”, “I WANT pink for my birthday”.
Then I saw this beautiful piece of art at BS in the Kitchen. Stunning and inspiring. I set off to replicate it but this January has been tougher than ever. Bitterly cold, power cuts galore … and if I may be allowed some more whining, cream that refused to oblige! I got down to whipping the low fat cream thrice … every single time we had a power cut. It usually obliges. Not this time though. I almost wept.
I should have made a buttercream; really should have. We don’t particularly love buttercream at home, so I decided to innovate. Lesson learnt: roses are made from firmer stuff i.e. buttercream! In sheer desperation, I began piping my frosting which was good enough to pipe roses on top, but played slip sliding roses on the walls of the cake. Thank heavens for lace collars. When all else fails, it seems to salvage the situation somewhat.
The cake tasted great and the birthday teen loved it to bits, pink and all. It got over really quick. In all the running around that day, I never did manage a proper picture before it was cut. It was worth the heartache though, well worth it!
[print_this]Recipe: Almond Layered Cream Cake
Summary: A light almond flavoured sponge sandwiched and frosted with an equally light almond whipped buttercream. Inspired from here. Serves 8
Prep Time: 15 minutes Total Time: 40 minutes Ingredients:
Sponge X 2 {to make 4 round cakes. Each portion makes 2 X 7″ cakes}
4 eggs
110g raw sugar {or powdered}
1 vanilla bean, scraped
4 drops almond extract
80g plain flour
25g almond meal
1tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp light olive oil
Pink colour
Filling and frosting
100g unsalted butter, room temperature
400g low fat cream, chilled
150-200g icing sugar {adjust according to taste}
Few drops almond extract
Method:
Sponge {each portion of batter makes 2 cakes}
Line the bottoms and sides of 2 7″ round tin. Preheat oven to 180C.
Sift the flour, almond meal, baking powder and salt together. Reserve.
Beat the eggs and sugar over simmering water on high speed for about 10 minutes until the mixtures becomes thick and mousse like, tripling in quantity {Thermomix, Speed 4, Butterfly insert, 37C, 10 minutes or more}
Take off water, add vanilla bean almond extract and continue beating for 3-4 minutes until it cools down a bit. {Thermomix, Speed 4, Butterfly insert, 3-4 minutes}
Gently fold in the flour mixture in 3-4 goes. {Thermomix, Reverse Speed 2}, followed by the olive oil.
Divide batter into two {approximately 200-210g per portion}.
Pour one plain white portion into tin nbr 1. Add 2 drops of pink to the next. Repeat for another portion of batter but increase the amount of pink in the next two. You could use a drop of purple additionally in the 4th portion to get a darker hue.
Bake for 30-35 minutes until the sponge springs back when touched lightly, or a tester comes out clean. {Don’t overbake els the sponges will get dry}
Cool on rack for 5 minutes, remove from tin and cool completely.
Filling and frosting
Whip the cream and sugar to medium peaks. Add the butter and almond extract and whip until light and fluffy. {You cannot pipe roses with this}
Sandwich the layers with this, then frost the top and sides with remaining cream. Pipe rosettes on top if desired.
“If thou tastest a crust of bread, thou tastest all the stars and all the heavens.”
Robert Browning
Traditional Panettone … the December Daring Bakers challenge sounded like music to my ears, only that I wasn’t sure at all that I would get to doing the challenge. The year end has been quite a roller coaster ride, at times frustrating and saddening. The events around the world make the heart heavy, yet the very thought of food means comfort.
Back from an early Christmas cum birthday party a few days ago, I bit into a sweet rum fruit cake that was part of the goodie bag. That old comforting feeling flooded my senses. Sure enough, I was soaking fruit the next morning. A quick Christmas fruit cake was sure to lift the spirits a bit…
With the fruit soaking, the challenge played on the mind since I knew the panettone also used fruit, not soaked though. Pannetone is a sweet yeasted Italian bread served at Christmas. It is characteristically tall. Mine wasn’t. I misjudged the tins a little {read quite a lot}.
The December 2012 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by the talented Marcellina of Marcellina in Cucina. Marcellina challenged us to create our own custom Panettone, a traditional Italian holiday bread!
I really pushed myself to begin the challenge. One look at the recipe and you will understand. It looked long and daunting. I began early in the morning. Thankfully the Thermomix did all the kneading in minutes. It was the ‘rises’ that took all day, and my panettones finally got ready late in the evening.
So how was the Panettone born? A beautiful bread with a romantic tale. Traditionally it is eaten by the Milanese but now it is available all through Italy and in many parts of the world. There are many stories and legends of the Panettone. The one recounted by Carol Field, whose recipe we use today, is that of a rich young Milanese noble who fell in love with the daughter of a poor baker whose name was Tony (Antonio). The nobleman wanted to marry the baker’s daughter so he ensured the baker had at his disposal the very best ingredients – eggs, butter, flour, candied orange peel, citron and sultanas. The baker created a wonderful bread which became known as pan di Tonio (Tony’s bread). The baker found his fame and fortune and the nobleman honorably married the baker’s daughter.
Well thanks to Tony and Marcellina, {and the author of the recipe, Carol Field, of course}, we have this delicious traditional Christmas favourite delighting our palettes today. Rich, buttery, brioche like, studded with raisins, candied peel, nuts {and dark chocolate chips in the mini ones}, the Panettone is comforting and addictive.
Of course I had no time to make a traditional panettone case, and sadly they are quite impossible to find in India. Mine were baked in parchment cases in 3 tiny cake tins. I made half a dozen in cupcake cases too.
So glad I made them. They were fabulous! I was unsure if the kids would eat them, given their love-hate relationship with fruit and nuts … but NOM NOM NOM were the words out of the daughters mouth. The first cupcakes vanished soon, followed by one small cake.
One bite of the Panettone took me back to the Dresden Stollen; a bread that had ‘stolen‘ my heart a few years ago. The Stollen is an amazing Christmas bread, one that can be made months in advance, and one that keeps really well. A traditional German holiday bread, the Dresden Stollen has yeast and quark as two of the key ingredients.
We also did a Stollen Bread Puddingwith the Daring Bakers in December 2010; yet another amazing Christmas dessert. This year was getting very busy and my time management was rock bottom {so what’s new?}. The quintessential fruit cake was yet to be baked and it was already the 22rd!
Christmas at home is never complete without Fruit Cake. I made a twist to my regular fruit cake this year with a Christmas Garam Masala Fruit Cake. YUM! That was what I originally cut and soaked fruit for. Then figured I could manage the Panettone too.
Lofty ambitions as Mr PAB decided to hit ER running a temperature of 105C on the coldest day of this year. We shivered with cold while he raged with high fever that took us to hospital. Nothing a drip and a few shots couldn’t fix … and I raced home to my beloved Panettone. Talk about dedication to baking!
Don’t get daunted by the length of the recipe or the many ‘risings’ … or the amount of butter for that matter! This is good stuff, well worth the effort, and all the ‘risings’.
I didn’t get as far as the baked traditional glaze the recipe offered. The Panettone looked good without it too, until the boy saw a picture I was looking at and asked why mine had no glaze. Talk about added pressure.Low fat cream + raw powdered sugar + almond extract = good quick glaze. Good enough for some craisins and slivered pistachios to hang on to. Yummy as well!
I dressed the Panettone up in a collar of parchment paper with holes punched through, threading golden ribbon through. The little ones were baked in green Christmas cupcake liners that I placed in deep individual muffin tins like the ones you see in this Plum Fro Yo. The dough baked upwards quite nicely. I loved the way they came out.
Do stop by here and check out some the beautiful Panettone that the Daring Bakers have baked. Thank you Marcella for sharing the beautiful story and recipe with us. Thank you as always Lisa of La Mia Cucina and Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice for hosting this fab kitchen!!
[print_this]Recipe: Traditional Panettone
Summary: A delicious sweet Italian bread like cake studded with fruit, nuts and candied peel. The Panettone originates from Milan, and is traditionally made around Christmas. Panettone recipe slightly adapted from The Italian Baker by Carol Field. Makes 2 Panettone {I made half recipe} Candied Orange Peel from Use Real Butter
Prep Time: 2 hours 10 minutes Total Time: 3 hours {plus resting and cooling time} Ingredients:
Sponge
1 satchel (2¼ teaspoons) (7 gm) active dry yeast
1/3 cup (80 ml) warm water
½ cup (70 gm) unbleached all purpose flour
First Dough
1 satchel (2¼ teaspoons) (7 gm) active dry yeast
3 tablespoons (45 ml) warm water
2 large eggs, at room temp
1¼ cup (175 gm) unbleached all-purpose (plain) flour
¼ cup (55 gm) (2 oz) sugar
½ cup (1 stick) (115 gm) unsalted butter, at room temp
Second dough
2 large eggs
3 large egg yolks
2/3 cup (150 gm) (5-2/3 oz) sugar
3 tablespoons (45 ml) honey
1 tablespoon (15 ml) vanilla extract {I used 1 vanilla bean in half recipe}
1 teaspoon (5 ml) lemon essence/extract
1 teaspoon (5 ml) orange essence/extract
1 teaspoon (5 ml) (6 gm) salt
1 cup (2 sticks) (225 gm) unsalted butter, at room temp
3 cups (420 gm) (15 oz) unbleached all-purpose (plain) flour; plus up to (2/3 cup) 100 gm for kneading
Filling and final dough
1½ cups (250 gm) (9 oz) golden raisins or golden sultanas
½ cup (75 gm) (2-2/3 oz) candied citron {I didn’t have this so I made it up with candied orange peel}
Mix the yeast and water in a small bowl and allow to stand until creamy. That’s about 10 minutes or so.
Mix in the flour.
Cover with plastic wrap and allow to double in size for about 20 to 30 minutes
TM: I just placed everything in the Thermomix Speed 5, 10 seconds.
First Dough By Mixer
In the mixer bowl, mix together the yeast and water and allow to stand until creamy. Again, about 10 minutes or so.
With the paddle attached mix in the sponge, eggs, flour, and sugar.
Add in the butter and mix for 3 minutes until the dough is smooth and even.
Cover with plastic wrap and allow double in size, about 1 – 1 ¼ hours
Second DoughBy Mixer
With the paddle mix in thoroughly the eggs, egg yolks, sugar, honey, scraped vanilla bean, essences/extracts, and salt.
Mix in the butter until smooth.
Add the flour and slowly incorporate.
At this stage the dough will seem a little too soft, like cookie dough.
Replace the paddle with the dough hook and kneadfor about 2 minutes.
Turn out the dough and knead it on a well-floured surface until it sort of holds its shape.
Don’t knead in too much flour but you may need as much as 2/3 cup. Be careful the excess flour will affect the finished product. {I didn’t add any extra flour}
First Rise
Oil a large bowl lightly, plop in your dough and cover
Oil a large bowl lightly, plop in your dough and cover with plastic wrap. Let it rise in a warm place for 2-4 hours until it has tripled in size.
Filling and Final Rise
Soak the raisin/sultanas in water 30 minutes before the end of the first rise. {I used about 3 cups of fruit & nut filling from my Christmas Garam Masala Fruit Cake}
Drain and pat dry with paper towels.
Now take your dough and cut it in half. Remember we are making two panettoni.
Combine all your filling ingredients and mix well.
Press out one portion of dough into an oval shape.
Sprinkle over one quarter of the filling and roll up the dough into a log
Press out again into an oval shape and sprinkle over another quarter of the filling.
Roll into a log shape again.
Repeat with the second portion of dough.
Shape each into a ball and slip into your prepared pans, panettone papers or homemade panettone papers.
Cut an X into the top of each panettone and allow to double in size. If it has been rising on the kitchen bench in a warm place it should be doubled in about 2 hours.
Baking
When you think your dough has only about 30 minutes left to rise preheat your oven to moderately hot 200°C
Just before baking carefully {don’t deflate it!} cut the X into the dough again and place in a knob {a nut} of butter.
Place your panettoni in the oven and bake for 10 minutes
Reduce the heat to moderate 180°C and bake for another 10 minutes
Reduce the heat again to moderate 160°C and bake for 30 minutes until the tops are well browned and a skewer inserted into the panettone comes out clean.
Cool completely.
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Before I go, I am happy to announce the winner for the giveaway of the beautiful retro scale and worktop saver from Zansaar. Put your hands together for Kajal @ For the Love of Food. Congratulations Kajal … will mail you soon! BTW, your blog is beautiful!
