Reciplace

Royal Wedding Afternoon Tea Baking

Being Johnny Foreigner, I'm not nearly as cynical about the royal family as the rest of my British friends. I love ol' Charles for fighting the good fight against Genetically Modified food, Camilla looks like she might be a bit of a laugh after a few glasses of Pinot, and Kate makes a way more believable normal-girl-turns princess than Anne Hathaway did.

So of COURSE I got myself into the wedding day spirit by baking!

First up, my normal stand-by Victoria sponge cake (my grandma's recipe) with a Union Jack in berries on top.  Moments after tweeting a photo of this, I had a reply from BBC London asking if they could use the photo on the news!  Excitement!

Then came the biscuits. I found these lovely wedding cookie cutters while on holiday in Louisiana. I baked up a batch of sugar cookies, then The Husband and I got to work decorating them with royal icing and sparkly balls. (Okay, it was mostly him - he has a steadier hand and a better eye for detail.)

White wedding doves with green eyes

Wedding dresses (The Husband had a bit too much fun designing a different dress for each biscuit. Should I be worried?)

Champagne glasses

Engagement rings

By the time the wedding had finished, and Will had kissed Kate on the balcony the same way he used to kiss his mum, we had finished decorating everything.  We packed it all up, along with some freshly baked scones with jam and thick cream, and headed over to our friends' house down the road for a Royal Wedding afternoon tea. 

Love Hearts - Valentine's Day Cookies

These are the cookies I made for a bake sale I organised at the Good Food Channel.  Love heart cookies for Valentine's Day - a recipe from the lovely Angela Nilsen. 

Her writing is clearly steadier than mine - my cookies look like threatening messages from a zombie.  But they tasted nice - and is that not what really matters in a cookie?

Delia’s vanilla cream terrine from Waitrose

I'm not really a dessert kind of girl. I have no trouble resisting sweet dishes of any kind.  (Put a bowl of salt and vinegar crisps in front of me, however, and I'll have my nose in there like a snout in a trough.)  So it's weird that I keep trying out Delia's puddings every time Waitrose releases their Delia recipe of the week.

But they're just the kind of desserts I like - light, fruity, creamy.   Not a flake of chocolate in sight. 

This sweet little number is Delia’s Vanilla cream terrine with raspberries and blackcurrant coulis.

It was amazing.  It looked like tofu, but tasted like heaven.  It was basically just a big block of cream with some berries drizzled over it.  The base is double cream, Greek yogurt, vanilla and gelatine to set it.  Pretty much like a panna cotta.  The topping was a blueberry coulis (the recipe calls for blackcurrants), with raspberries and basil leaves (the recipe calls for mint - I can't leave any recipe un-tweaked.)

It's while I'm in the middle of making desserts like this that I remember why I don't eat dessert.   This delicious hoover-able dessert consists of an entire tub of double cream, and most of a tub of Greek yogurt, and a whole load of sugar. (I love the traffic light system supermarkets use to help you determine how healthy a product is.   "Hey, this double cream gets a green light for salt!  Excellent!")

We wolfed down two servings, and I reluctantly took the rest in to work.  I must remember next time only to make pudding when I have guests coming around who can help eat it.  Delia's making it hard for me not to become a "dessert person".

The bar has been raised: chocolate orange birthday cake

Normally at work, when it's someone's birthday, we all pile coins into a collection and toddle over to Sainsburys or M&S to pick them up a bit of cake to share with everyone. The usual suspects line up for a slice, while everyone else politely declines - citing diets or upcoming marathons as an excuse. Half the cake goes to waste, sitting on the desk of the birthday boy or girl, until the cleaners throw it away later that evening.

But this week, when our Senior Designer and our Good Food Channel producer got together to share their birthdays, they decided they weren't going to settle for a sub-standard supermarket cake.

They decided to commission a cake.  A real cake.  The kind of cake that everyone stands around oooing and aahhing, and taking photos of for their blog (okay that was just me). 

This beautiful chocolate orange cake was made by the lovely Hannah Frederick.  The daisies were handmade.  Her boyfriend delivered it to work.  (Simon works over in one of our other channels, Dave).

No cake in the history of UKTV birthdays has ever gathered this kind of a crowd.   

The queue for cake was unlike any cake queue I'd ever seen. At 10" round (and probably another 10" high), this was not a small cake. But within minutes there were only scraps left. I hate chocolate cake, and can't STAND orange and chocolate together..... but this cake tasted so moist, so soft, so perfectly balanced, so divine, that I ended up licking the napkin.  It's now officially in my top five cakes of all time. 

The bar for work birthday cakes around here has now been seriously raised.  My heart goes out to the next person who brings in Tesco brownies on their birthday!

Delia's Waitrose Rhubarb and Ginger Brûlée - the verdict

Proof this week that the "Delia Effect" is as powerful as ever, when Waitrose ran out of British rhubarb and had to start sourcing it from Germany.  

I can't find any stats about it - but I'm wondering how much rhubarb sales were affected at the other supermarkets?   I shop at Ocado already, so when I decided to try Delia's Rhubarb and Ginger Brûlée, the ingredients were all from Waitrose.  But I did a quick browse after the Waitrose ad with Heston aired, and noticed that Tesco and Sainsbury's were both pushing rhubarb and jersey cream on their grocery sites.  Inevitably, there will be people who tried the recipes using ingredients from their normal supermarkets, and of course the other grocery giants would have been ready to take advantage of the increased sales.

Delia's Rhubarb and Ginger Brûlée

We put together the now famous brûlée for our Easter dessert last night - and what a treat!  I'm not a huge dessert fan, but this dish was outrageously decadent.   It's one of those rare desserts where you want to put your fork down between every mouthful so you can concentrate on the flavour and enjoy it fully.  It's basically cream and sugary rhubarb.  What's not to love?  

Two things I would pass on to anyone thinking of making it:  First, I made it in a dish that was too big, so the dessert was shallow, and therefore the sugar topping wasn't thick enough to crack it with a spoon like Delia does in the commercial.  Better to use a small, deep dish.  Second, be aware that although this is an easy dish to make, it does take time.  You need to leave the rhubarb to cool completely after it comes out of the oven, and you need to leave time to let the sugar topping cool after you've put the whole thing under the grill.  Instead of throwing this together on a weeknight, you're best off cooking it in advance and putting it in the fridge until you're ready to eat it.  

That being said, this really ticks all the Delia boxes.  It's simple to put together, totally indulgent, and impressive.  It's the kind of thing you could serve at a dinner party and fully expect everyone to request seconds (or thirds).  I dare not think about the calorie count in this dessert, but it's also the kind of thing you could easily whip up and just enjoy the whole thing to yourself while watching Bridget Jones..... mmmm.   

Delia and Heston love Waitrose, and so do I.

I'm loving the new Waitrose campaign coming out today.  Legendary Delia Smith, and molecular gastronomy guru Heston Blumenthal are taking over the entire ad break of Coronation Street tonight to promote Waitrose.

You can preview the commercial before it airs live, (or just because you don't want to spend your Friday night watching Corrie). 

Personally, I loved it.  They are two of my favourite celeb chefs, and neither of them are over-exposed (like Jamie and Gordon), so they're still really interesting to watch.  The tone of the commercial is soft and warm, and even though you're very aware of who they're advertising for, the name Waitrose is hardly in your face.

Delia's rhubarb and ginger brûlée looks amazing, and totally makes me forgive her for her "cheats" sins of a couple of years ago.  In fact, the way she says, "Luscious, thick, Greek yogurt" had me running to the fridge to polish off a half eaten tub.  Oooh, guess I'll have to run down to Waitrose now to replace it!

Delia's rhubarb and ginger brûlée
From Delia Smith for Waitrose
serves 4

Ingredients

800g rhubarb
1 rounded dessertspoon Cooks’ Ingredients Organic Ground Ginger
2 pieces stem ginger, finely chopped
3 heaped tablespoons demerara sugar
200g Greek yogurt
300ml Waitrose Extra Thick Jersey Double Cream or essential Waitrose Extra Thick Double Cream

For the brûlée
175g demerara sugar

I used a heatproof oval dish measuring 23 x 15cm at the base

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C, gas mark 4. You need to begin this by trimming and chopping the rhubarb into 2.5cm chunks, then pile them into a bowl, add the sugar and the ground and chopped ginger and toss them all together. After that, transfer everything to the baking dish, pop it into the oven on the centre shelf and bake for 20 minutes. Then carefully stir the rhubarb, turning it over, and bake for another 10–15 minutes or until it’s tender.

2. When it’s cooked, leave the rhubarb to get completely cold, then tip as much of the juice out by drawing the fruit back gently with a draining spoon and allowing the juice to drain from one end of the tilted dish.

3. When you’re ready to do the brûlée, preheat the grill to its highest setting for 15 minutes. Now combine the yogurt and thick cream in a bowl, and spoon it evenly over the top, making sure it goes right up to the edges of the dish. Next spoon the sugar evenly over the cream right up to the edges, and when the grill is really hot, place the dish about 7.5cm from the heat, and just let the sugar melt, bubble and caramelise to a rich golden brown. This will take about 8 minutes, but you’ll need to keep an eye on it as it may need a bit more or less time.

4. When it’s cooled and the caramel has set, you can cover with clingfilm and keep it in the fridge till needed (it can be made up to 8 hours in advance). To serve, tap the caramel with a spoon and serve just as it is – nothing else needed.

Notes on ingredients

For a lighter version, the brûlée can be made with all yogurt or a 500g tub of fresh vanilla custard. If you don’t want to use preserved ginger add another quarter teaspoon ground ginger. This recipe is also brilliant with summer berries. And in the winter a pack of British garden fruits (or other frozen fruits) but in either case minus the ginger.

Hummingbird Bakery Green Tea Cupcakes

I'm enormously addicted to Japanese matcha (green tea) flavoured desserts.  I'm not hugely into desserts (much to my chocoholic mother's astonishment), but matcha really appeals to me.  I think it's because it's sort of sweet and bitter at the same time, and tastes chalky and powdery like delicious Pepto-Bismol.  

While in Japan, we ate matcha candy, matcha rice balls, matcha cake, LOTS of matcha ice cream, and even matcha pancakes.  This crazy bright green powder actually tastes nothing like green tea - but when whipped up into a dessert, it becomes a totally bonkers taste sensation.

These cupcakes are from my new cake-porn book, The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. They were totally moist and yummy - and the frosting on top was a matcha fueled explosion.  I took the leftovers into work, and they were a hit!  Even with the people who weren't sure about the taste of green tea in a cupcake.

My only complaint about them would be that they might have a bit too much matcha powder in them.  Matcha desserts in Japan are usually a more subtle shade of green - and these look a little like Oscar the Grouch green.   And at £7 for a tin of matcha powder to make 12 cupcakes, I'm not sure I'll be rushing to make them again any time soon.  But I think the dozens of other recipes in the Hummingbird book will keep me plenty occupied until the next time!

Autumnal Pumpkin Sponge Cake

Blimey!  What a fun day today was at work!  The Food Team put on a cake baking competition for all the staff.  Of course I entered...someone had to represent our nerdy team of web developers. 

So I entered my favourite cake:  Autumnal Pumpkin Sponge Cake that I created for thanksgiving a few years ago.  I came up with it the first year that I moved here from Canada.  It's a combination of the classic Victoria Sponge, with a Canadian Thanksgiving twist!

Celebrity chef Sophie Grigson and our our own Roopa Gulati were the judges.  There were some absolutley amazing entries.  I reckoned I needed a bit of an edge - I knew my cake would taste great, but it needed to look a bit better!

So I commissioned my colleague and friend, the lovely Sammi Richardson, graphic designer extraordinare to art direct the topping of my cake!  She insisted on putting some of the cream on the top, in addition to the inside - a bold but successful move.  She also created lots of fancy swirly shapes with the Dulce de leche, and sprinkled walnuts with panache.   Thank you Sammi!!! 

Tension was high.... I could see the judges tasting the cakes from my desk, and it was hard to concentrate on work!  My mates who had been over for thanksgiving and tried this cake in the past were emailing me and cheering me on!  I had such butterflies!!!

I wasn't expecting a prize with the tight competition I was up against, but lo and behold!!!   I won a bottle of champagne and some truffles, and got to tell the whole company the story of Canadian Thanksgiving with a microphone.  (eeek!)    My other lovely friend Amanda won for her delectible Lemon and Raspberry Friands, which she actually thought weren't cooked in the middle!  She thought wrong:  they were lush.  There were also some winners for 'biggest disaster' (heartbreaking!) and 'most beautiful'.

After the winners were announced, the entire company descended on the cake judging room to devour the entries.  By the time I got in, my little pumpkin cake was nothing but a lonely little corner, which I shared with Amanda.   I comforted myself by taking 5 pieces of other peoples' cake to try.  (I ate tofu all weekend - surely it balances out?)    I fell in love with a lemon drizzle, which I'm going to try to recreate this weekend.   Watch this space for news on my ever expanding waistline.....

(Award Winning) Atumnal Pumpkin Sponge Cake 

Ingredients
170g soft margarine
170g caster sugar
170g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg

For the filling:
300ml double cream, whipped
150g pureed pumpkin

For the topping:
Banoffee Toffee or toffee sauce
Crumbled Walnuts

Preheat oven to 170C. Mix all the cake ingredients into a large bowl and mix with an electric mixture until smooth. Divide the mixture between two equal 18cm round baking tins (lined with greaseproof paper if not nonstick) and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the cakes from the tins and let cool on a wire rack.

Stir the pumpkin puree into the whipped cream.

When almost cool, spread the bottom (flat) side of one cake with the whipped cream mixture. Sandwich the two cakes together and drizzle toffee over the top. Sprinkle walnuts over the toffee to finish.