Blueberry Lemon Curd Ring

I had a yen to make bread recently, and after flicking through my books, I settled on the Blueberry Lemon Curd Ring on p228 of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois.

My effort, pictured above, doesn't quite look like the author's version, which you can view, together with the recipe, on their website.

I'll blame the differences on the fact that my kitchen was pretty hot and steamy and the dough didn't take kindly to being manipulated when it was nearly melting into the tray.

The finished product tasted OK, but personally, I'd like more lemon curd in it. My friend Ruth didn't believe me when I said there was lemon curd in this bread (there is half a cup). I'd also probably chill it before making the slashes, because hot dough when slashed just melts back into the slashes.

If you try (or have tried) this, let me know - I would love to hear your tips. (Have just spotted a few bloggers who made this, including this one - they all look something like mine and not the authors' version.)

TWD - Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies

This week's Tuesday with Dorie is hosted by Pamela of Cookies with Boys, who has chosen Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies. Now personally, I find that title a mouthful; however, they are very much like gingernut biscuits. There - now you all know what they are! (Well, as best you can given that they are apparently different in every Australian state.)

The batter for these cookies smelled devine - I wanted to eat it raw, but didn't. And when they were baking - the smell was out of this world! It was a smell to make you feel happy, full of brown sugar and spicy goodness.

I included all of the spices, including the black pepper (which some TWDers balked at), and used treacle instead of molasses.

These cookies tasted oh so good - they were crispy at the edges and chewy in the middle, and were densely caramelly delicious. I ate two while they were still warm - I couldn't help myself! I'd definitely make these again - they are fairly low fuss, although you need to freeze the gooey dough for half an hour before baking.

You can see what all the other TWDers got up to by visiting the TWD blogroll, and you can obtain the recipe for these cookies from Dorie's book or Pamela's site.

Christmas Cake Decorating at Black Pearl Epicure

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas ...

Christmas is creeping steadily closer, and preparations are well underway at Chez Cakelaw. Even though I go to my mother's for Christmas, I have for the past few years been making Christmas treats for my friends, which takes some planning to ensure that there is no last minute rush on, say, the depleted condensed milk isle or the dried apricots at my local grocery store.

On Sunday, just for fun and to get me into the Christmas spirit, I attended a half day Christmas cake decorating course at Black Pearl Epicure. As you can imagine, in such a short time, we are not going to be creating the Sistine Chapel of cakes, but our teacher, Judy C of Cakes by Judy C, showed us three simple designs. The first was simply sticking lustre dusted Christmas shapes and silver cachous on the cake; the next was creating a holly wreath around the edge of the cake; and the third, which I chose, was a candle design.

Here is my finished cake:

The hardest part was actually icing the cake itself, not the decorations. To make the candles, we just rolled up sausages of rolled fondant of different sizes, hollowing out the top of each with our fingertip to imitate a "burnt out" look. The candles (and all other decorations) were stuck to the cake with water. We then cut out holly leaves using a holy shaped cutter and green rolled fondant, marking leaf markings with a knife, which we stuck on in a twisty way at the base of the candles. The little holly berries are balls of rolled red fondant. Next, using royal icing, we piped on dripping candle wax and the candle flames, then finally, highlighted the piping with silver lustre dust and put a glow around the flames using gold lustre dust.

The ferns were painted on using a dab of Wilton green gel colouring which had been diluted with water to make a paint, while the non-edible ribbons were stuck on last using dabs of royal icing.

I think the cake is simple but effective, and Judy C was certainly a good teacher.

I hope your own Christmas preparations are going well!

Farewell to Fay - White Gold Passion Genoise

On Friday, Fay retired to a life of freedom and cruises - we can't wait to hear what Fay does next!

In the usual fashion, I made Fay a cake. She wanted me to make her something new, so I chose the White Gold Passion Genoise from Rose Levy Beranbaum's Heavenly Cakes. It consists of a genoise soaked with passionfruit syrup, filled with passionfruit curd, then topped with a white chocolate cream cheese frosting.






Before I go further, a word from our sponsor - you can now buy the BloggerAid Cook Book online here. Laws of the Kitchen has contributed a recipe, once again using passionfruit, so check it and all the other fabulous recipes out! All proceeds go to the World Food Program's School Meals Program.






Here is Fay proudly displaying her cake, even before she knew what sort it was or had tasted it. Love ya Fay!



This cake is very involved as far as steps go, so I made the genoise and the curd one night and the syrup and the frosting on the night of assembly. The genoise worked out great - I loved Rose's tips, like combining some of the batter with the melted butter before incorporating the butter into the batter; I found that this prevented an oily separated pool forming at the bottom of the bowl. I also liked her idea of sifting the flour into the batter instead of just plonking some in before folding - it helped a lot in the combination process.



Here's a peek inside the cake, showing the layers:




The sweetness of the frosting is cut by the sharpness of the passionfruit, and together it makes a wonderful combination. None was left over, even though I cut the cake into tiny pieces for it to go around as far as possible.


The recipe is as follows:


Genoise


3 tablespoons clarified butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup cake flour
1/2 cup minus one tablespoon cornflour


Preheat your oven to 175 degrees Celsius and grease, flour and line a 9" cake pan with 2" sides.


Put the clarified butter in a heatproof bowl and warm it until almost hot, then stir in the vanilla. Cover the bowl and keep the butter warm.


In a heatproof bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar together. Put the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and heat, stirring constantly, until lukewarm.


Remove the bowl from the heat and whisk the egg mixture with a stand mixer for 5 minutes or until the mixture has quadrupled in volume.


Whisk together 1 cup of the beaten eggs with the clarified butter mixture. Set aside.


Sift half the flour over the rest of the egg mixture and fold in with a spatula. Once it has been combined, fold in the remaining flour and finally the butter mixture.


Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 20-20 minutes or until the cake is golden and has started to pull away from the sides of the pan. Unmould onto a wire rack sprayed with cooking oil immediately, then, leaving the bottom pan lining in place, turn the cake right side up and leave to cool completely.


Curd


3 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
42g butter
1/2 cup passionfruit pulp
pinch of salt


Whisk the egg yolks, sugar and butter in a saucepan until well combined. Whisk in 5 tablespoons of passionfruit puree and the salt. Cook the mixture on medium-low heat, stirring continuously, until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of your spoon. Remove the curd from the heat and strain into a heatproof bowl, then stir in the remaining passionfruit. Allow the curd to cool at room temperature for 30 minutes before covering and refrigerating until cool.


Syrup


1 vanilla bean
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons passionfruit pulp


Put the sugar into a small saucepan, and scrape in the vanilla beans from the split vanilla bean pod, and rub them into the sugar. Add the pod to the pan, and stir in 1/2 cup passionfruit pulp. Bring the mixture to a rolling boil, stirring continuously, then cover it and remove it from the heat and allow it to cool completely. Transfer it to a jug and stir in the rest of the passionfruit pulp.


White Chocolate Frosting


100g white chocolate
2 x 50g butter
1 egg
1 egg yolk
170g cream cheese
1/2 tablespoon creme fraiche or sour cream (I used natural set yoghurt)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract


In a baine marie, melt the white chocolate and 50g butter. Whisk in the egg and yolk, and continue whisking and heating the mixture until it reaches 60 degrees Celsius. Remove the mixture from the heat, and allow it to cool to ~20 degrees Celsius. To speed it up, you may refrigerate the mixture for around 20 minutes. (I had to - my kitchen temperature was 26 degrees Celsius!)


In a stand mixer bowl, whisk the cream cheese and 50g butter until smooth, then beat in the creme fraiche (or sour cream). Gradually beat in the white chocolate mixture and vanilla, then increase the mixer speed and beat until light and creamy.


Assembly


Using a serrated knife, remove the top and bottom crusts of the cake, and cut it in half. Brush the top and bottom of each half with the syrup.


Place one half of the cake onto a cardboard cake round. Spread it with 3/4 cup passionfruit curd, and place the other half of the cake on top. Frost the top and sides of the cake with the frosting, swirling the top, and place the cake in the fridge for an hour to set the frosting. Put small dabs of the remaining passionfruit curd on top of the frosting and swirl to combine.


Enjoy!


I recommend buying Rose's book if you are into making cakes - it is very beautiful and packed with wonderful recipes and tips.

Happy 40th Birthday to Sesame Street - Sesame Street Cupcakes

Can you tell me how to get
How to get to Sesame Street ...

Today is the 40th birthday of Sesame Street. I grew up on a steady diet of Sesame Street and Playschool, so Sesame Street holds a special place in my heart. I can't remember for sure who was my favourite character, but I remember being fascinated by Mr Snufalufagus because he was so elusive. I also vividly remember being called "Big Bird" by a much shorter pre-pubescent boy in Grade 7 at Belle & Beau Ball dance practice for Project Club, so perhaps this explains my fascination with Mr Snufalufagus. Wow, that brings back some memories!


In honour of Sesame Street's 40th birthday (after all, you don't turn 40 every day), I have made some Sesame Street cupcakes. I found the general idea for the decoration here on Petit Chef.

For the base cupcakes, I used my favourite Crabapple Bakery Vanilla Daisy cupcake recipe. For Elmo, I used Wilton red ready-made icing, and piped it on with a plain tip in strands to imitate hair. I then stuck on half of a Delta Cream biscuit from which I had scraped the icing for the mouth, and an orange Skittle for the nose, and finally piped on the eyes using Wilton white ready made icing and Queen chocolate fudge icing.

For Oscar the Grouch, I made green buttercream icing which I slathered on roughly to give the effect of fluffy fur, and again used half of a Delta Cream for the mouth (but this time upside down because he's a grouch), and piped on the eyes. I ran out of Wilton white icing for the eyes, and at 9.30pm I wasn't in the mood to make more, so I scraped up the icing from the middle of the Delta Creams into a piping bag and used that to finish the eyes. It worked like a charm!

I think these cupcakes are gorgeous. They would be perfect for a children's birthday party, and are fairly easy to make - they just take time and patience to decorate, not to mention some elbow grease if you are using the large Wilton ready-made icing tubes to pipe with!

Happy 40th birthday to all the gang at Sesame Street!!

Berliner Pfannkuchen

At midnight on 9 November 1989, the Berlin Wall began to be dismantled, ending 30 years of separation between communist East Berlin and West Berlin. On Monday night at midnight, the 20th anniversary of the occasion was marked in Berlin with celebrations, including the knocking over of painted foam dominoes to symbolise the coming down of the Wall.

I wanted to mark this auspicious occasion, so I have made Berliner Pfannkuchen, a type of jam donut which I understand to be a traditional recipe originating in Berlin. President John F Kennedy is famous for declaring on his visit to Berlin on 26 June 1963 that "Ich bin ein Berliner!" - which unfortunately literally translates to "I am a jam donut!"

I used a recipe for Berliner Pfannkuchen that I found on Cast Sugar's site. Like Cast Sugar, I eschewed the traditional dusting of icing sugar for a coating of caster sugar - as I am a sweet tooth too!

For some reason, my jam spread inside the donuts instead of being contained in an oozy single centre - but hey, they still tasted good! This is my first ever batch of fried donuts.

To all Berliners, congratulations and enjoy this momentous occasion!

TWD - Cran-Apple Blueberry Crisp

This week's Tuesday with Dorie is hosted by Em of The Repressed Pastry Chef, who has chosen Dorie's Cran-Apple Crisp.


The recipe calls for fresh and dried cranberries. As I didn't have fresh cranberries, I substituted fresh blueberries, hence I ended up with a Cran-Apple Blueberry Crisp. I also didn't have traditional oats, and used quick oats instead, which seemed to work just fine. Stupidly, I halved the recipe (which makes 8 serves) and only made 2 crisps instead of 4. I was puzzled when the fruit filled the ramekins to the brim, and I had to throw away half the topping - and now I know why. I also quite happily ate what I now know was a double serving of crisp - oops. The other one is still in the fridge and will be eaten in two sittings.


This dessert tasted delicious! What can be bad about apples, cranberries and blueberries topped with an oaty, crisp topping. As you can see, the proof of the pudding is in the eating:




You can check out how the other TWD bakers went with the cran-apple crisps by checking out the TWD blogroll, and you can find the recipe in Dorie's book or on Em's site.