Blood Orange & Cardamom Sorbet

Whisper it – I’m beginning to see the first signs of summer. Sunny days are becoming more frequent (glossing over today’s rainstorm), jumper wearing days less so. I’ve eaten Twisters in the park, gone for a scoop of ice cream after dinner (rosewater – it was delicious), walked into town without a jacket. And now I’ve made my first sorbet of the year!I’ve made a few ice creams at Leiths already but making it under pressure in a busy kitchen isn’t quite the same as taking the time to eat sorbet in the sunshine in the garden. It seemed fitting that my first foray into frozen goods this year was such a beautiful summery colour. I was lucky that my blood oranges were each a bold deep pink, apart from one that lacked any sign of colour at all, making us wonder whether it was a sneaky imposter of a normal orange supermarkets use to pad out their blood orange supplies?! Nevertheless the result was delicious – super refreshing, vibrant and just a hint of bitterness. I really liked the pistachios on top to add a bit of crunch to the icy sweetness. I was also surprised by how simple it was – I don’t have an ice cream machine so I just stirred it up with a fork every few hours to break down the ice crystals and this worked perfectly, inspiring me to make more sorbets this summer. You can find the recipe here – enjoy!

Orange & Honey Torte with Mangoes & Passion fruit

I will only have butter on my toast. No jam, no marmalade, no Marmite or Nutella, no honey. I don’t know why, because I like most of these things in every other way (apart from Marmite), but I can’t stand them on toast. Really this just means that I have to get my honey fix in other, far more delicious, ways such as this summery torte… I don’t usually think of honey as a core flavour for a dessert. I’m sure I’ve added it to biscuits, cakes and flapjacks to add a bit of extra sweet and stickiness, but rarely used it as a main attraction. In this dessert blossom honey is combined with orange to make a really light version of a cheesecake – using just yoghurt and cream instead of any cream cheese. In my mind cheesecakes set with gelatine have a bad image of being overly firm and bouncy, but this is a really light set so it stays super creamy. Blanched almonds are added to the biscuit base (I used Nice biscuits because I thought the coconut would complement the other tropical flavours) which is such a simple idea but one I haven’t done before and was delicious – you know I’ll get almonds into anything somehow! My favourite part, however, was the accompanying fruit salad. Passion fruit instantly make me feel transported to a desert island and are without a doubt my favourite fruit. Combined with fresh mango and a sticky, ever so slightly spicy, ginger and lime syrup and I almost didn’t even need the torte. Almost. You can find the recipes here – enjoy!

Jaffa Cakes

Funny story to go with these Jaffa cakes. I took them to my friend’s house when she was holding a get together of all our friends at the end of Easter break. I always forget to bring in the stuff I make for my friends and I knew that my family of 3 didn’t really need 18 of these lying around! One of my friends brought their cousin with them, who had never met any of us before. He didn’t realise that it was me who had made the Jaffa cakes, and therefore remarked when the tin was passed round ‘Who on earth has time to make Jaffa cakes? Don’t they know you can buy them?’ Cue much, much embarrassment! Luckily he was very sweet and spent the rest of the evening trying to recover from the gaffe. I’d also like to point out that he ate 4!It did make me think though about the funny things having a food blog can make you bake. Some people were similarly bemused when my friend Emily and I made marshmallows, considering you can buy a big bag for 90p! However as you know I really enjoy making homemade versions of shop-bought favourites – you can see my previous challenges here. I’m not sure how well known Jaffa Cakes are out of the UK, but basically they are little flat cakes with a disc of orange jelly on top, covered in dark chocolate. I was inspired to make these after seeing the recipe here by the guys at Sorted Food –my new favourite way to procrastinate is exploring their site!These were really satisfying and fun to make and I was so pleased when they worked perfectly and looked like the original! After a few baking fails I love it when a plan comes together. I followed the recipe to a T and my only comments would be that I think the amounts for the jelly and chocolate were too generous – 200g of each is stated in the recipe and I only used 100g of jelly and 120g of chocolate. I didn’t really mind about the excess jelly as it comes in packets of 200g so you can see why the recipe just says to make all of it (and it was very soothing when I came down with a really sore throat!) but I think it is good to have a heads up. Happily, I also got 18 instead of 12 final cakes and mine were a decent size! The ratios of the layers in the final jaffa were perfect – the classic thin Jaffa cake layers all combining perfectly. I also really liked the method of using a packet of orange jelly cubes (the finished cakes are still a lot more homemade than normal!) and jazzing up the flavour with the juice of an extra orange, which made it really strong and stand up to the chocolate. Enjoy! :)

Chocolate Orange Cream Cheese Pound Cake

Baking, and food in general, can often be a comfort. That might seem strange at this time of year – fair enough to talk about comfort food in rainy November, but surely now that we’re in May (where has time gone?!) it’s time to be moving on to light, summery, bikini-ready food, right? Well, not necessarily. For starters, London summers take a long while to get going so the weather is only sporadically beginning to warm up here.  Secondly, just because it is summer doesn’t mean life stresses (I’m looking at you, exams!) don’t occur. And thirdly, when is cake ever a bad thing? That was my thinking recently when I had a stash of oranges that needed using up and I was looking for a new way to use them. With a title as good as this – Chocolate (tick) Cream Cheese (tick) Orange (tick) Cake (big tick) – this cake that I’ve had bookmarked forever finally got its day! Pound cake is an American classic but I’d never made it before and I think this was also my first time using cream cheese in a cake. I liked that the recipe made a properly generously sized cake – one that keeps well for a few days and is very much a cut-and-come-again cake. Despite sounding quite rich and indulgent, it really didn’t taste that way (particularly as I used slightly less chocolate than suggested) so it was perfect as a 4pm pick me up. I also liked the firm texture of a pound cake and am looking forward to trying out more – I think they would be the perfect sturdy cake to bake before a weekend away and take away with you. As I mentioned, it was my first time baking with cream cheese and I had mixed feelings about the results in that respect. Whilst you could taste it in the cake batter, the flavour really cooked out in the oven and I guess the cream cheese is really there to provide texture. I was a bit disappointed by this as I love the flavour, but I guess if you wanted you could add indulgence to this cake with a cream cheese icing! You can find the original Joy the Baker recipe here – enjoy!

White Chocolate Pannacotta with Roasted Rhubarb

I love rhubarb, and I’ve noticed that I often seem to pair it with similar flavours. The early season forced rhubarb has such a shocking pink colour and distinctive tart taste that I serve it with creamy, white and almost blander flavours to let the rhubarb shine. One of my favourite dishes I’ve ever blogged was this Rhubarb Tart from Mother’s Day last year and with its rich cream cheese filling it is a prime example of my way with rhubarb. Similarly with the rhubarb custard tart where the baked vanilla filling contrasted nicely with the bold rhubarb. So when I had a lot of rhubarb that needed using up I made one unusual recipe I have to blog in the coming weeks, but used the rest in roasted rhubarb with white chocolate panna cotta. Well, who am I to break with such good flavour combinations?This time I opted to make my creamy background flavour a little bit more interesting and created a white chocolate pannacotta instead of just vanilla. I liked the result – it definitely felt rich and indulgent and had a really nice smooth texture despite the quite large amount gelatine. It also lasted for a week in the fridge so it was nice to have it always ready as a quick treat! White chocolate is a tricky flavour to make truly shine and I think in this case it would be more an issue of noticing if it wasn’t there rather than directly being able to pinpoint that the sweetness coming from chocolate. On their own the pannacottas were possibly a little bit too decadent, and I think they need an accompaniment to keep them interesting – another roasted fruit such as plums or fresh raspberries I’m sure would work well too. However I loved the rhubarb and found it the perfect thing to go alongside the pannacotta and delicious to eat just on its own as well. Enjoy!

White Chocolate Pannacotta with Roasted Rhubarb
Serves 5

Pannacotta: 500ml/18fl oz double cream
150ml/5½fl oz milk
100g/3½oz white chocolate, broken into pieces
25g/1oz sugar
4 Dr. Oetker gelatine sheets, soaked for 5-10 minutes in warm water, then squeezed dry

Roasted Rhubarb: 250g rhubarb, cut into even pieces
1 orange, zest and juice
5tbsp golden caster sugar

1. Heat the cream and milk in a saucepan over a medium heat until simmering.

2. Reduce the heat to low and stir in the white chocolate and sugar until the ingredients have melted and the mixture is well combined.

3. Remove the pan from the heat and add the gelatine leaves. Stir until the gelatine leaves have melted then set the mixture aside until it has completely cooled.

4. Pour the pannacotta mixture into ramekins, then chill in the fridge for five hours, or until set firm.

5. Meanwhile, tip the rhubarb into a tin so that they are in a single but snug layer (I used a 22cm square tin). Add the zest and juice of the orange and the sugar. Stir together to coat the rhubarb, then cover with foil and roast at 180’C for 15mins until tender but still holding its shape.

6. To serve, dip the ramekin bases and sides in warm water to loosen the pannacotta from the moulds. Turn out one pannacotta into the centre of each of plate and serve the rhubarb alongside.

Orange Highlanders

Recently I’ve got into a baking routine of doing all my baking at the weekend – one bigger, main recipe such as a showy cake or elegant tart, and then one recipe for happy snacking during the week. Muffins, flapjacks, tablet – something to fill the 4pm sugar dip. More often than not, this recipe is some sort of biscuit.A simple recipe I can make when I’m not completely awake on a Saturday morning and that will be out the oven by the time my sister wakes up. Bright citrus flavours are perfect for February and for a trusty cookie recipe I turn to my Granny’s old WI Book of Biscuits, which led me to these Orange Highlanders. I was confused about the name but essentially these biscuits are an orange version of these so the link must be due to shortbreads origins in the Scottish Highlands. I loved the crunchy demerara coating and the crumbly, buttery shortbread centre – they definitely didn’t last the whole week!Orange Highlanders, adapted from WI Book of Biscuits
Makes about 20 small shortbreads
100g butter
50g icing sugar
75g plain flour
75g self raising flour
zest of 2 oranges
25g demerara sugar
1. Preheat the oven to 180’C/350’F. Cream the butter, orange zest and icing sugar until light and fluffy. Sift the flours together and fold in to make a dough.
2. Shape the mixture into a sausage. Sprinkle the demerara sugar over a piece of cling-film and roll the dough in the sugar, pressing it to make sure it sticks. Wrap in the cling-film and chill for 1hour.
3. Cut the dough into slices (5mm-1cm thick), place on baking sheets and bake for 8-10 minutes. Remove to a wire rack and leave to cool. Enjoy!

Orange Lightning Cake

There seems to be a permanent trend and desire for super fast cooking. Jamie Oliver went from his 30 minute meals to just 15 minutes and magazines sell editions by emphasizing the fast and simple nature of recipes that are perfect for after work. Often, however, these recipes are hardly recipes at all, using pre cooked, chopped and garnished ingredients to get something tasty on the table fast. This cake is the best of both worlds: fits the speedy bill – hence it’s name – yet you end up with something delicious and all natural.I’ve seen lots of recipes for all-in-one whole orange cakes that involve boiling oranges for hours until soft and then whizzing to a smooth cake mixture. Today’s unusual cake goes one step further – simply quartering a whole, raw, unpeeled orange, taking out any pips and whizzing until smooth in a food processor followed by the rest of the ingredients. It feels quite strange, and a little bit wrong, but it works out so well! Whizzing up the fresh orange means the mixture and cooking cake smell amazing and the final cake has a great sunshiney orange colour.The little chunks of orange peel add a nice texture to the cake – just like candied peel but without all the added sugar! All in all I was a real fan of this cake – it’s one of those that you just keep cutting tiny slivers of until you realise rather a large proportion of the cake has now gone… You can find the recipe here (I left out the walnuts, keeping the delightfully soft and squidgy texture of the cake) – enjoy!

Ruby Red Amaretti Crumble

Quite a fancy name for a crumble, but then it is a Nigella recipe and she is famed for her choices of phrase: chocolate digestives are crushed ‘until they look like dark Mexican mud’, chocolate cake is ‘a confection to exult in, not to regret’ and about peanut butter she says ‘Why, I feel the urge to just rub it all over my body!’ So in retrospect, she went pretty easy on this dish. Plus, this is so good it deserves a glamorous title. In essence, its a Plum, Orange and Amaretti Crumble but its probably the best crumble I’ve ever tried. Apple Crumble is good, the deep purple of Apple and Blackberry even better. Peach is nice in the summer and Pineapple for something a little bit different. But trust me, none are as good as this!The changes that make it stand out are small but effective. The plums are cooked lightly first in a bit of sugar, orange juice and zest to give it a little brightness, make the whole thing smell gorgeous and infuse it with orange. Crushed amaretti crumbs are sprinkled over the plums once they’re in the dish, and then a whole heap more are stirred into the crumble mixture. The combination works so well and smells absolutely intoxicating! We made another one for a friend shortly after ours was all gone, and it proved very tricky to give it away without diving in. With heaps of cream, a rainy evening and the finale of Downton Abbey this crumble made the perfect Sunday night. You can find the recipe here (as well as watch Nigella make it in her classic style) – try it and you might become like my family, planning to add amaretti to every single crumble in the future. Enjoy!

After 10 Chocolates

Doesn’t Christmas seem a whole world away now that spring is evidently on its way? Shortly before Christmas, Jamie Oliver had a festive special on television and one of his ideas, After 10 Chocolates, really stuck out to me. So often with cookery books or shows the same recipes keep appearing over and over again. Chocolate cookies, treacle tart, Victoria sponge, lemon cupcakes – there are endless recipes in nearly every recipe book you buy. The After 10 Chocolates were really refreshing because it was an idea I hadn’t seen before and hopefully its new to you to!

Flavoured sugar soaking before being arranged in stripes The idea is you roll out a long piece of parchment paper – over a metre. Then you get five or six (although you could do as many flavours as you wanted) bowls and add a small amount of demerara sugar to each. Then you flavour each sugar bowl differently with a few drops of extract – I used almond extract, orange blossom water, lemon extract, rose essence and vanilla extract. These form pastes, and you spread these in separate vertical strips down sections of the paper. You can add non sugar flavourings as well – I did a strip of coffee and a strip of salt. It helps to label the different strips before the best part: going crazy drizzling a whole lot of melted dark chocolate all over the sugars. Write your name, write a secret, draw a picture with the chocolate – it all merges together into one long, lacy piece of chocolate with all the different flavours hidden inside…You can either go Russian Roulette with your chocolate – break it all into shards and jumble them up so nobody knows what flavour they’ll get, or keep all your flavours separate. It is so much fun to make – especially when you’re mixing up the sugars and your kitchen suddenly feels like a science laboratory. Favourite flavours in my family were the rose (although be careful not to add too much as it can become overpowering and taste like strong Turkish delight) and the surprise hit – coffee granules. I think this would be a fun, different talking point at a dinner party instead of normal shop bought mints especially as its so easy to do. You can find Jamie’s proper recipe here, enjoy!

Orange and Passion fruit Cake

Today I planned my summer holiday. It made me dream of a beach – scorching sand that gets everywhere, paddling and swimming in the sea. I imagined exploring a new city with my friends – shopping, eating, seeing, sampling. It reminded me of sunny days – when its warm and you wear flip flops instead of boots, T-shirts without coats. This tropical cake properly transported me and made me feel like I was already there. Only three months to wait!This loaf cake is from Edd Kimber’s (Great British Bake Off series 1 winner) new book, The Boy Who Bakes. The sponge is like a pound cake, dense and full of orange citrus flavour. The cake is also soaked with an orange sugar syrup which helps keep it really moist and heightens the flavours. My favourite part of the cake, however, was the passion fruit icing. Ahhh. I’ve spoken before about my love of passion fruit and this icing was just pure passion fruit flavour – bright and tropical and summery and zingy and aromatic: I could go on! For me, it completely made the cake and took it to a whole new level.If you are sick of the grey weather, and are loving the start of March and the gradual arrival of spring then this is the cake for you. Just don’t be like me and be impatient, causing you to put the icing on whilst the cake is still faintly warm – melting the icing a tad and causing a cake-stand covered in icing instead of the actual cake… Cut yourself a generous slice, close your eyes and dream of the Caribbean!

William Curley Chocolate Tarts

I wanted to welcome in the new year on the blog in style, and what better way to do that than with a decadent chocolate feast? We’re talking chocolate sponge cake, chocolate orange ganache and quality chocolate glasage. All topped off with, wait for it, silver glitter. Who said January had to be the month of diets and detox? If this is how the rest of 2012 is going to be then I’m definitely looking forward to it!One of my favourite Christmas presents this year was undoubtedly chocolatier William Curley’s debut book, Couture Chocolate. William Curley has two chocolate shops in London, one of which I’ve been to, and all his work looks so perfect. One of my foodie new year resolutions this year was to stretch myself in my baking and I know this book will help me do that. It has so many new ideas and techniques for me, with the majority of recipes having multiple components and steps. They’re the kind of recipe that require at least one whole spare day to complete – especially if you’re me! – but it’s a challenge I’m looking forward to with several more recipes bookmarked. The only issue will be spreading out these chocolate adventures so my whole family does not balloon in weight!I had a difficult time choosing my first recipe. One problem with this book is that the recipes make large amounts – 80 truffles, a cake serving 16 – so I had to choose something more suitable for my family of 3-4. I was baking these for New Year, so there would be a few extra mouths to feed on this occasion, but also more likes and dislikes to be aware of. No coconut, no caramel, no toffee, no nuts – my options were drastically reducing. I was also wary of choosing one of the extremely complicated recipes as I wanted to start gently. In the end I went for the chocolate tarts – multi component but each one manageable. You can just about see the layers here – pastry, ganache, sponge disk, more ganache, glasage (like a thinner ganache, containing liquid glucose). 

I used a different pastry recipe (there were ground almonds in the books recipe and I had a nut allergy to cater for) and that was actually where I had all my problems. The tarts took me most of the day and tons of washing up, but was finished just as my friends arrived. The results? Largely worth it. They aren’t anywhere near as beautiful as William’s, and my glasage sadly lacks shine but it was very satisfying to be finally finished. The tarts were rich, indulgent and a nice sparkly New Year treat. But…I’m not sure they were wildly better than this or this, especially considering the amount of work, and I’m not sure what the glasage added. It’s not the recipes fault, just my bad choosing and it certainly hasn’t put me off making more from this book, but it is something to bear in mind. The recipe is very long and complicated so I’d feel bad reproducing it here, but I’d definitely recommend the book or you could easily form your own with pastry, sponge and ganache recipes. Happy New Year!

Mini Orange Drizzle Cakes

Its currently that time of year when the weather can’t really make its mind up – should it let the sun shine or should it be gloomy and grey? Should it be getting dark at 4pm or 5pm? It’s also the time of year that inspires the spring clean. In my house the bedrooms are being reorganised, paperwork from all corners of the house is being filed, clothes are being sorted, drawers are being emptied and their contents examined. The last drawer to have the spring clean treatment was the kitchen drawer containing baking bits and bobs. Piping bags, cookie cutters, baking parchment, the heavy rolling pin – everything covered the table. Including a set of tiny loaf tins hidden at the back, bought excitedly but never used. Today that changed! Today was one of those gloomy, rainy days but I ignored it, put on an orange jumper and started baking zingy, fresh orange drizzle cakes. I whipped these up in about half an hour but their scent lingered happily in the kitchen: making it smell fresh, delicious and drawing me constantly back to the baking. Also, because they’re mini they only take 10-15minutes to cook so there’s not too long to wait before you can be enjoying these! The cake edges are crisp and golden, giving way to the soft and moist centre. The crème fraiche in the recipe ensures these stay soft whilst giving them a bit of extra tang which complements the tang of the orange. The orange glace icing on the top adds an extra burst of sweet and rounds everything off simply. I liked these because it’s more interesting than one large cake but makes a refreshing change to cupcakes. I hope you give these a try and that they brighten up a gloomy day in another kitchen. Enjoy :) Mini Orange Drizzle Cakes (makes 8) Ingredients: 100g caster sugar
115g softened butter
2 large eggs
115g self raising flour
2tbsp crème fraiche
2 large oranges – the zest and juice
100g icing sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 180’C/350’F/Gas Mark 4 and line the cake tins.
2. Beat the butter and caster sugar until light, creamy and well combined. Add the eggs one by one, beating after each addition. Add the juice of one orange, and zest of both.
3. Add the flour and crème fraiche and fold the mixture gently until fully combined. Divide the mixture between the cake cases – filling them about 3/4 full.
4. Bake for 10-15 minutes until the cakes spring back and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Let cool in their tins.
5. Mix the icing sugar and remaining orange juice until smooth and fairly thin so that it is easy to drizzle. If there is any orange juice left over, use the cake skewer to poke small holes in the cakes and pour over the juice.
6. Once the cakes are fully cooled, remove from the tins and paper and drizzle over the icing. Enjoy!

Back In The Kitchen

Today was my first time back baking in the kitchen since long before Christmas. It felt good to be back: creaming butter and sugar, weighing out flour, fetching the eggs and scales. Tying up my apron strings, switching on the oven. Dusting off the KitchenAid and examining the recipe. Manically charging my little pink camera so I can grab a decent photo before the light goes. I've definitely missed this. The recipe today had to be quick and easy, and sweet – because its January and a pick me up at 4pm is always necessary. This cake was definitely a good choice! It is a Date, Orange and Almond cake and combines the sweet softness of the dates with citrus zing and nutty background. Very moreish! 

The amounts of ingredients seemed worryingly large for this cake – 300g of butter anyone? – and I thought I would end up with a massive cake that my family wouldn’t be able to finish. However, whilst this cake is large, it isn’t as large as the mixture may originally seem, and stays incredibly moist for several days. The top and edges of this cake form a crunchy biscuit-style texture which makes a delicious contrast to the soft cake within. Oh, writing about this makes me feel I definitely need another slice….You can find the recipe here – enjoy!

Stollen Swirls

I made these before Christmas, and the post I’d written about them was pre-Christmas themed. That post never got posted and so new words had to be written. Except, why not keep it simple? It is New Year, a period when everybody is meant to be eating healthy salads and vegetables in order to get over festive excess (although who really does?). So, my main stollen point is: the swirls  were good, but I think could be a easily improved to make them so much better.  I’ve never attempted making the classic stollen before so I was eager to give it a go this year. This recipe was a little bit different and as I can never resist anything involving marzipan the baking began. The end result was tasty, they made the house smell gorgeous and the recipe worked perfectly. My key adaptation would be instead of forming a marzpian log down the centre of the swirls, roll it out into a thin layer on top of the dough and then add the fruit. This way, just like here, the marzipan would melt and go toffee-ish and impart its flavour across the whole swirl. Yum. I’d also up the fruit levels, and cut the rolls thinner so its less plain doughy. Failing that, I’d flavour the dough with spices like cinnamon to give this extra punch. Double Yum. You can find the recipe here, enjoy :)