In the cupcake book, these are dark chocolate wedding cupcakes. And they’re good, ok, but I don’t think they’re quite that good. Now maybe that’s my fault because I didn’t use Grand Marnier – I used orange blossom water instead – and I used Greek yoghurt instead of creme fraiche – but whatever. I also didn’t make the very rich chocolate icing, which in the recipe included double cream; icing sugar, milk and cocoa seemed to me to do the job.
Category: Cake
Desserts #2: the reckoning
And when life hands you the inability to make Swiss roll, MAKE TRIFLE.
With thanks to Tansy and Ju over on Twitter, that’s what I did. TA DAH.
I had used JAM’s In the Library for the Swiss roll – it’s plum and cardamom – so I used blood plums that I preserved in summer; I made the most basic custard ever (milk and whole eggs and sugar); and I cut up that roll and layered it, baby.
So now I hope it will taste ok.
ETA: boy was it ever ok. The jam in the roll had cardamom in it, and it came through beautifully – I would add a bit more to the custard next time; the plums were scrumptious (not a huge plum fan but NOM), and the custard wasn’t very rich but that was ok. Polished off by five adults, with a small amount being tried by the young godson who was diplomatic but not in love with it.
Desserts, baby
1. A dessert that worked.
This is from Indian Made Easy. They’re carrot and orange balls, where those things have been simmered in milk until they go mushy and then the mush is fried in butter and cardamom for a while. Then the mixture is formed into balls, once cold, and then drizzled with chocolate and pistachio (which is what I tried to do artistically on the plates at the back). They were delicious.
2. A dessert that didn’t work.
Recipe from BakeClass. What I really have to say here is I HATE YOU SPONGE. I really thought that I had mixed it properly – there were no gloopy bits in the mixture – and I thought I had cooked it long enough, because it looked the right colour and it sprang back when touched. It had risen and everything! But then when I put it on the tea towel I noticed that it immediately stuck. And then after I unrolled it, spread it with jam, and went to roll it again off the towel… well. It stuck a lot.
Indian Made Easy: the recipes
On The introduction proclaims this as a book “about discovering a casual attitude towards Indian cookery”, and that some of the recipes have been “distilled and pared back for busy modern cooks.” I would say that this is a book for a fairly experienced cook – that is, someone who won’t be put off by making their own simmer sauce or following a few steps – but who has never cooked much Indian food. Which pretty much means me.
The recipes
Paneer: yes, ok, I made paneer. I had a litre of milk nearing its use-by and I didn’t want to waste it, so I thought I’d experiment, ok? I don’t imagine I’ll be doing this every time I want paneer but it’s nice to know I COULD. It was easy, and the instructions (except for that confusing ‘do I turn off the heat when it’s 80C or after I’ve added the acid??’ question) were easy to follow.
Charred Broccoli with Chilli and Fennel: the fennel is fennel seeds, and the garnish is what really makes this – toasted coconut, pomegranate seed and coriander! Broccoli and coconut is amazing! Also the mustard and fennel seeds were nice with it too. Continue reading “Indian Made Easy: the recipes”
The Saffron Tales #2
Yesterday I talked about the book itself; today, it’s the recipes.
They, too, are great.
Sweets
Sour cherry and dark chocolate biscuits: the first time I made these I couldn’t find sour cherries; that has since been rectified. That first time I used dried blueberries, and they were ok. I really like them with sour cherries – these are some new favourites.
Persian love cake: even though I had no rose water, so I used orange blossom water, this was fantastic. And as Khan herself notes, the cake keeps quite well – I think we ate it over about five days and it didn’t go stale just under plastic wrap in the fridge.
Coconut cupcakes
More birthday cupcakes! I’d been eyeing these off for a while but the ingredient ‘creamed coconut’ put me off because I had no idea what it was. I finally googled it and it’s just coconut butter/ oil – which I have, so that was easy. Interestingly, although they have both coconut butter and desiccated coconut, they ended up tasting more lime-y than coconut-y to me. They have lime zest in them, and I had a nicely sized kaffir lime on the tree so I used that. I’m not complaining about the taste – in fact I thought they were quite lovely (yes I make more than I give. Of course). I’ll be making these again – when I have limes to use, anyway.
Orange and almond cupcakes
The full recipe makes 12, you say? I say your cupcakes must be a lot smaller than mine, because this is a half batch and as you can see, they are hardly overflowing.
Gluten free cupcakes! I had no potato flour as the recipe required and little likely use for it in future. So I consulted my Gluten Free Guru (my sister) and she told me to substitute in rice flour, which I had because shortbread. So I did. Not sure what it will have done to the texture because as you can see, Bob, there were NO EXTRAS for taste testing. The batter seemed ok.
Also they’re not quite as pretty as the cookbook illustration because I had no slivered almonds so I chopped up some dry-roasted whole almonds. Taste should make up for ordinariness of appearance, I hope.
Hot cross buns
Or, the trials and tribulations of dough.
Plan: go away for Easter and bake hot cross buns.
I had made hot cross buns from BakeClass a few weeks ago, just to see what they were like and because my beloved has a somewhat fetishitic love of them. They were good. I made a couple slit changes: I did not have enough bread flour so I subbed in some normal plain flour; for me such buns need peel, so I reduced the currants and cranberries (which I used instead of dried cherries) and added the peel.
They were very good. They were also quite large, which wasn’t a problem but good to know.
So, the day before we were to leave, I got the dry ingredients (this time all bread flour) all together and made sure I had the container of chocolate bits as well as the milk and butter. My plan had been to get the buns to the second rise for while we were at church, so they just had to be baked when we got home.
First issue: for some reason my brain got all tied in knots, so I kept waking up wondering if it is was time to knead yet. Is it time? No, it’s 1.30am. Is it time? Nope, it’s 3.30.
You get the idea.
Anyway, when it was 7.30 I figured it was time. And that’s the point at which I realised I had no measuring instruments which meant that 1 3/4 cups of milk was going to be … hard. I eyeballed the milk container and figured, how hard could this be, to guess not quite 500ml of milk? So I guessed. I also guessed 60g of butter. And then I mixed it in and… it was sticky. Quite sticky. I turned it into the bench (onto the flour I’d requisitioned from the dry ingredients because I had not brought extra flour, of course), and there was not going to be any kneading. So I put it into the bowl and rise anyway, just to see what happened.
Then I shed a tear.
After about 10 minutes or so I decided to see whether I could use muesli in lieu of flour, just to make the dough knead a little. And what I discovered is that rising a bit makes the dough somehow rise out of its stickiness. Like, it had become entirely knead-able. So I kneaded, and left it to keep rising; after an hour I punched it and divided it into 16 (instead of the 12 recommended, because they’d been so big), and left them to rise again while we were out. This also involved brushing them with egg with my fingers, and my beloved taking the job of piping on crosses which I wasn’t going to do but he insisted and we had flour because he’d gone to get some from the people who run our holiday accommodation because one of the other people some for rolling out pastry for tarts. Because we are foodie type people.
When we got back from church the buns had risen hugely. They went into the oven and needed to be turned after about 10 min, and put to a higher shelf, because weird oven. But they cooked.
And, in the end, they were excellent.
Apparently I’m to keep making them.
Maple pecan cupcakes
These were meant to be maple pecan cupcakes.
But I didn’t have any pecans (that’s PEEcans, as far as I am concerned), so I decided to substitute walnuts.
I didn’t have as many walnuts as I thought (uh… hardly any), so I mostly used almonds.
The icing was also meant to have candied pecans on top but sadly for their recipient I lost my desire to candy nuts somewhere and I haven’t found it again.
The icing does have butter, icing sugar, and maple syrup – and it has a wonderfully smoky sweet flavour as a consequence. The cupcakes themselves did not have the greatest texture; they really stuck to the paper, which made me a bit sad. Still, tasty enough.
Yet Moar Figs
This is what happens when you have a fig tree and don’t mind fig jam but don’t love it either. You decide not to let the blasted birds, bats and rats have more than their fair share so you pick them which means you have to cook them or eat them. I cooked this batch.
This was actually the second time I made this cake; the first time I took it camping and didn’t manage to finish it because it got hot the second day and it didn’t fit in the camping fridge. THE WOES.
My cake is a fig variation on a plum cake from Stephanie Alexander’s plum cake recipe. I figured figs were a lot like plums, so what could go wrong? You make a batter – top it with almond meal – put the figs on top – then pour over a butter, sugar, cinnamon and egg concoction that’s been cooling since you made it before the batter DIDN’T YOU.
I imagine it’s wonderful with plums but it’s also spectacular with figs. In this case, even if you only have one egg not two for the topping. 
Acts of Kitchen 