7: Assorted Cakes and Biscuits

I’ve got really interested in baking at the moment; most of the recipes I’ve included in this journal so far I have tried myself from the recipe books we’ve got in the house. Mum has supervised some of my cooking but other times I have just got on with it myself, take the results as they come. I can make spaghetti Bolognese, shepherd’s pie and risotto perfectly well; I made the chicken fajita mix myself this evening with Mum’s instruction. I made shepherd’s pie Monday from the lamb we had leftover on Sunday and tomorrow I’m gonna get the spaghetti Bolognese done before Mum gets in. We’re gonna have battered cod and chips and peas later this week.

Gateau Breton
This recipe for Brittany butter cake comes from Nigella’s book and she got hers from Anne Willan’s Real Food, “a cross between shortbread and pound cake.” Pound cake refers to a type of cake traditionally made with a pound of each of four ingredients: flour, butter, eggs, and sugar. The traditional recipe makes a cake much larger than most families can consume, and so the quantity is often changed to suit the size of the cake that is desired. As long as the ratio is preserved, the resulting cake will be identical to that using the traditional recipe. Hence, any cake made with a 1:1:1:1 ratio of flour, butter, eggs, and sugar is also called a pound cake, even if the quantity used is smaller or larger than an actual pound.

There are numerous variations on the traditional pound cake, with certain countries and regions having distinctive styles. These can include the addition of flavoring agents (such as vanilla extract or almond extract) or dried fruit (such as currants or craisins), as well as alterations to the original recipe to change the characteristics of the resulting pound cake. For instance, baking soda or baking powder may be incorporated to induce leavening during baking, resulting in a less dense pound cake. A cooking oil (typically a vegetable oil) is sometimes substituted for some or all of the butter, which is intended to produce a more moist cake. “Sour cream pound cake” is a popular variation in the United States, which involves the substitution of sour cream for some of the butter, which also is intended to produce a more moist cake with a pleasantly tangy flavor. Some of these variations may drastically change the texture and flavor of the pound cake, but the name pound cake is often still used.

Ingredients:
225g plain flour - preferably Italian 00
250g caster sugar
250g unsalted butter, cut into cubes
6 large egg yolks
A 25cm Springform tin, buttered well

The Glaze:
1 teaspoon of egg yolk
1 tablespoon of water

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees. Mix the glaze and put aside while you get on with your gateau. Put the flour into a bowl - sieve if using normal plain flour - stir in the sugar, and add the butter and egg yolks. Shape into a smooth golden dough: if you’re making this by hand, make a mound of the flour on a worktop, then make a well in it and add the sugar, butter, eggs and knead to mix. Scoop this dough into the tin and smooth the top with a floured hand - expect it to be very sticky, it should be. Brush the gateau with the glaze, and mark a lattice design on top with the prongs of a fork. Bake for 15 minutes, then turn the oven down to 180 degrees and give it another 25 minutes or so until it is golden on top and firm to the touch. Let it cool completely in the tin before un-moulding it. It will keep well if you have a reliably airtight tin, and you can eat it cut into narrow cake-like wedges or into irregular criss-cross diamonds.

Holly Bell’s Strawberry and Custard Melts
This is the recipe that Holly made during The Great British Bake-Off biscuit episode, her very delicate strawberry and custard melts, which she said she imagined “ladies having for afternoon tea.” Mary-Anne made a very similar biscuit, which was described as a depression-era biscuit for the modern day recessional times with an interesting buttercream filling. Hers held their spiral ridges better than Holly’s because Mary-Anne put hers in the fridge prior to baking; however, they both looked wonderfully tasty. I suppose you don’t need to make the jam yourself so long as you use a good shop-bought strawberry jam.

Ingredients:
For the Biscuits
115g unsalted butter, softened
30g icing sugar
100g plain flour
1 tablespoon custard powder

For the custard cream
50g butter
100g icing sugar
1 tablespoon custard powder

For the jam filling
150g strawberries, hulled
185g jam sugar
Small knob of butter

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Grease two baking trays. Using a hand-held electric mixer, cream the butter until it is soft and fluffy. Gradually add the icing sugar, mixing on a low speed until it is all combined, then increase the speed and beat until light and creamy. Gradually add the flour and custard powder, beating as you do so. The mixture should be loose enough to pipe through a piping bag; add a little cold water if needed. Spoon in the biscuit mixture into a piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle; squeeze the mixture down to remove any air bubbles. Pipe 24 stars onto the baking trays, 4cm apart. Bake in the oven for 10-14 minutes or until the biscuits are pale golden-brown at the edges.

Remove the trays from the oven and set aside to cool completely. To make the custard cream filling, beat the butter using an electric hand mixer until light and fluffy, then add the icing sugar and beat at a low speed to combine. Add the custard powder, continue beating until thoroughly combined then set the mixture aside. Spoon the filling into a piping bag fitted with a plain nozzle.

To make the jam, blend the strawberries in a food processor or with a hand blender to make a puree. Place the puree in a saucepan and add the sugar. Heat gently until the sugar has dissolved then add the butter. Turn the heat up and when the mixture has reached a rolling boil, continue boiling for four more minutes. Remove the pan from heat and pour the jam into a bowl to cool. Spoon the jam into a piping bag fitted with a small plain nozzle.

Check the biscuits are completely cool and then use a palette knife to lift them onto a clean tea towel, flat side uppermost, pairing them up as you go. Be careful as the biscuits are fragile. Pipe a circle of custard cream filling onto half the stars, then fill with the jam. Place the paired star on top, pressing it down gently.

The Hairy Bikers’ Fat Rascals
“These buns originate from Yorkshire and have been made since Elizabethan times. Serve them warm or cool with a dollop of extra thick cream,” say the Hairy Bikers. A Fat Rascal, also called the Yorkshire tea biscuit or Turf Cake, is a type of cake, similar to the scone in both taste and ingredients. The Fat Rascal often has no definitive shape and is relatively easy to make. Fat Rascals are round domed teacakes with a rich brown crust and made with currants and candied peel. They are closely associated with the Cleveland area on the borders of County Durham and Yorkshire. The origin of the name is unknown, but has been in use since at least the mid-nineteenth century. The name Turf Cake comes from the tradition of farmers baking them on turf fires.

Ingredients:
150g plain flour
150g selfraising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
150g butter
150g mixed dried fruit
100g caster sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon powder
Half teaspoon grated nutmeg
1 orange, zest only
1 lemon, zest only
1 free-range egg yolk
50ml semi-skimmed milk

For the glaze
1 free-range egg yolk
Pinch of salt
1 tablespoon water
Flaked almonds and glace cherries

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Grease a baking tray. Sieve the flours and baking powder into a large bowl and rub in the butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the mixed dried fruit, sugar, spices, orange and lemon zests. Lightly beat the egg yolk and add it to the mixture with enough milk to make a stiff dough (you may not need all the milk). Divide the dough into 12, shape into mounds and place onto the baking tray. For the glaze, mix egg yolk, salt and water together and brush the mixture over each rascal. Decorate with the almonds and glace cherries and bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden-brown.

I don’t see the harm in switching the mixed dried fruit for chocolate chips, to produce plump spiced buns with chocolate surprise. I’m not really fond of raisins, sultanas or currants - the usual dried fruit that goes into fat rascals - but I do like soft sponge flavoured with lemon and orange zest.

6: Lemon Drizzle Cake by the Hairy Bikers

This one deviated a little from the recipe because our oven is really odd; sometimes it over-cooks, sometimes it under-cooks; it burnt the first batch of thin crispy scones I made, and when I made the lemon drizzle cake, after the appropriate time on the appropriate temperature, it was still quite raw inside. Mum turned the temperature down for ten minutes and then down again for another ten minutes, and after that when we put a skewer into the middle of the cake, it came out clean rather than goopy with uncooked cake mixture. It was enormous fun to poke fifty holes into the crisp cake crust to drizzle lemon sugar all over, and it was wonderfully crunchy when the lemon sugar crystallised. Dad had his huge grin and chanted “Cake! Cake!” when I told him and Mum the cake was done. He had two slices, I had two slices, Mum and Tid both had one each. (I had another one this morning - the 11th October - and so did Dad, probably; Tid, Dad and Mum finished it off.)

Ingredients
Two unwaxed lemons
275g caster sugar*
175g unsalted butter, softened
200g selfraising flour
Half a teaspoon baking powder
3 large free-range eggs

*(175g for cake, 100g for lemon sugar)

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Line the base and sides of a loaf tin with butter and then greaseproof paper or baking parchment. Finely grate the zest of the lemons. Put 175g of the sugar into a large bowl and cream together with the butter, before adding and blending in the two eggs, the flour, and the baking powder, until you have a smooth thick mixture. Spoon the cake batter into the prepared tin and level the surface gently with a spatula. Bake for 35 minutes or until well risen and pale golden brown. Remove from the oven and cool in the tin for 5 minutes. Squeeze one of the lemons to get about three tablespoons’ worth of juice and combine with the remaining 100g of sugar until you have a smooth mixture.

Turn the cake out onto a wire rack set above a plate. Remove the baking paper and gently turn the cake the right way up. Make about 50 deep holes in the top of the cake with a skewer. Slowly and gradually spoon about half the lemon sugar over the cake, allowing it to thoroughly coat the top of the cake and drizzle down the sides. Leave the cake to stand for 5 minutes and then do the same with the remaining lemon sugar. Leave to set for at least an hour or until the sugar and lemon has crystallised. Serve the cake in thick slices with a nice cup of tea.

Lemon Poppy Seed Cake
This recipe is one of the adapted versions at the end of Nigella Lawson’s My Mother-in-Law’s Madeira Cake. She says, “I love a good old-fashioned seed cake; if you do too, add a couple of teaspoons of caraway to this mixture. For a lemon poppy seed cake, add the juice of another half lemon and a tablespoon or two of poppy seeds.” Mum makes lemon poppy seed cake herself in the same metal loaf tin that I made the lemon drizzle cake in yesterday (10th October). I haven’t yet made this cake, I’ll let you know when I do and how it turns out.

Ingredients:
240g softened unsalted butter
200g caster sugar
Grated zest and juice of one and a half lemons
Tablespoon and a half of poppy seeds
3 large eggs
210g selfraising flour
90g plain flour
A buttered and lined loaf tin

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees. Cream the butter and sugar, and add the lemon zest. Add the eggs one at a time with a tablespoon of the flour for each. Then gently mix in the rest of the flour and, finally, the lemon juice and the poppy seeds. Sprinkle with caster sugar (about two tablespoons should do it) as it goes into the oven and bake for one hour or until a skewer comes out clean. Remove to a wire rack and let it cool in the tin before turning it out.

4: Lemon Meringue Pie by the Hairy Bikers

Yes - I have actually now made lemon meringue pie, all by myself, with a little assistance from Mum in using the electric whisk instead of the manual one for making the meringue and stirring the lemon filling while I picked up the laptop from upstairs so Mum, Dad and Tid could Skype Lintu. It was very difficult to do and I got very frustrated with it when the pastry started shrinking in the oven down from the top of the pan. I only had time to have a chicken sandwich between blind baking and making the meringue, although the lemon filling went remarkably quickly and I was really pleased with how it turned out.

Lemon Filling Ingredients:
50g corn flour
350ml cold water
200g caster sugar
4 lemons, zest and juice (around 225ml)
1 free-range egg plus 3 free-range egg yolks

Meringue Ingredients:
3 free-range egg whites
175g caster sugar
Half teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Grease a 20cm fluted flan tin - or, the crimped edge glass pan that we’ve got in our glassware cupboard. I used premade shortcrust pastry and rolled it out on a floured surface, turning it and flouring it regularly until I’d rolled it out enough to fill the bottom of the glass pan and up to the top of the edge. I trimmed off the excess with a sharp cooking knife and used the pieces to fill in any gaps that happened. Prick the base all over with a fork and chill the whole thing in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Put the corn flour in a small bowl and mix with enough of the cold water to make a thin paste and set aside. Put the remaining water into a large saucepan and add the sugar, lemon zest and juice - about 225ml worth of juice, you can top up with bottled lemon juice if you don’t get enough from your lemons. Heat gently until the sugar dissolves then bring to the boil. Reduce the heat slightly and quickly stir in the corn flour mixture, which causes immediate glossy thickening. Cook over a low heat for three minutes, stirring until thickly glossy and then remove from the heat and cool for five minutes. Whisk the egg yolks with the whole egg until smooth and then whisk vigorously into the lemon filling. Set aside to cool for 25 minutes.

Put the pastry case on a sturdy baking tray, line with crumpled baking parchment and fill with baking beans; you don’t need to do this if you’ve pricked the bottom of the pie case. Bake blind for 15 minutes then carefully take out of the oven to remove baking beans if you need to take them out, and then put back in the oven for 3-4 minutes until the surface of the pastry is dry. Don’t be alarmed if the pastry puffs a bit, apparently that’s not a problem. Remove from the oven and reduce the temperature to 150 degrees.

For the meringue topping, whisk with an electric mixer in a large bowl until stiff then gradually whisk in half the sugar, very slowly, a spoon at a time. Add the vanilla extract and whisk in the remaining sugar. Stir the cooled lemon filling and pour into the pastry case. Cover very gently with large dessert-spoonfuls of the meringue topping, starting at the sides then working your way into the middle, and gently swirl the top. Bake for 25 minutes or until the meringue is set and very lightly browned. Leave to cool before removing from the tin - or alternatively, serve in the pan like we did and just cut it out from there. It was enormously delicious.