Easter Currant Biscuits

I don’t have a very good track record of themed baking. Christmas I can cope with, as it’s basically stretched over a whole month and padded out by lots of days off. Other than that, I’m never good at remembering to bake for specific occasions – Halloween, St Patricks Day, Shrove Tuesday and Valentines Day (aside from the odd brownie) all come and go every year before I’ve had a chance to get the scales out. I wanted this Easter to be different so this post is the first of two fab Easter bakes!I didn’t know why currant biscuits are so tied in with Easter and the research I did gave several different suggestions – that they were given after Church on Easter Sunday in packages of 3 to represent the Holy Trinity, that the rich ingredients marked the end of Lent and fasting, that the tradition originated in the West Country – who knows! Recipes also differ with variations from county to county, so I stuck with Mary Berry. They turned out softer than I was imagining and slightly different to the crunchy Fruit Shortcakes you buy in shops but moreish and perfect with a cup of tea nonetheless. The only changes I made were to do half currants, half sultanas instead of all currants and I realised just after putting them in the oven that the zest of an orange would be a nice addition. You can find the recipe here (I only made the fruited half) – 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!

Spiced Apple Buns

These buns are the recipe I mentioned I was forced to put on hold due to the combination of a lack of ingredients + heavy snow = me not going outside. Normally I’d have just forgotten about the recipe and moved on to one of the many other tempting bakes in my cookbooks or recipe files, but something made me keep thinking about these. Then I was looking back through my archives and noticed that in January 2011 I posted these Stollen Swirls and in January 2010 I made Glazed Fruit Rolls – I clearly have a thing for yeasted rolls in January! It must be a combination of wanting to start the new year by challenging myself in baking including doing more work with yeast, and the more simple desire of something warm, doughy and carby to eat in the cold! Either way it was a clear sign and as soon as the pesky snow melted I was out making sure my cupboards were prepared for these.The recipe was an interesting twist from standard Cinnamon Rolls and I thought the combination of tart apple and super sweet marzipan alongside the rich bread dough would go down a treat. I was not proved wrong! When I was layering up the fillings onto my rolled out dough there seemed to be a heck of a lot of apple, marzipan and sultanas if I was planning to roll these up neatly. I decided just to add one large apple instead of two and whilst the buns were definitely quite full I think they would have benefited from the extra apple for more tartness as the apple chunks reduced in the oven quite drastically. Note to self: stick to the recipe! Having said that, I added a simple glace icing which I think added a good extra element.These are nicest warm out the oven, but even after a couple of days a few seconds in the microwave will easily restore them to this goodness. You can find the recipe here – enjoy!

Tropical Cupcakes

There is always a lot of citrus baking happening in January and February. There’s not a lot of fresh local fruit and vegetables around at this time of year, and after the excess of Christmas it’s time to turn away from chocolate (unless you’re making this, in which case I am rather envious). Also, when the weather is grey and cold the zing of citrus acts as a great pick-me-up. And when combined with rich buttercream and soft cupcake, citrus baking sounds pretty good to me.Depending on where you live, the flavours might not be tropical at all but pineapple, lime and cherries aren’t grown round London! I’ve only baked with pineapple once before but I loved the results here. The pineapple chunks are sweet and juicy and add fresh bursts of flavour as the cupcake is eaten. Lime is also not an ingredient I have regularly used but it’s sharpness stops the buttercream becoming sickly. This recipe was extremely easy to make – oil takes the place of butter in the cake so there is no creaming done and everything is simply stirred together in one bowl. The cake is also delicious without the buttercream, becoming more like a muffin and far less rich. I wanted these cupcakes to be bright and colourful so I used spotty cases and decorated them with Dr Oetker jelly beans and sprinkles, which made for a cheery kitchen! This vibrancy combined with the lime tang and juicy pineapple made these cupcakes a winner for me. Enjoy!Tropical Cupcakes
Makes 12-15, depending on your cupcake case size
Ingredients: 200g self raising flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
100g caster sugar
50g dried tropical fruit
3 medium eggs
100ml sunflower oil
75ml buttermilk (or 75ml milk and 1/2tsp white wine vinegar)
1 x 227g tin pineapple slices, chopped finely and fully drained
Buttercream: 200g icing sugar
100g butter
1 lime, the zest and juice
1. Preheat the oven to 190’C (170’C fan oven). Line a 12-hole muffin tin with cases, although you may need a few more if your cases are small like mine.
2. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda, caster sugar and dried fruit into a large bowl.
3. Put the eggs, oil and buttermilk into a jug and whisk until all combined.
4. Pour the egg mixture into the flour, and add the pineapple pieces. Stir everything together until combined and divide between the cupcakes cases – you can fill the cases quite high as the cakes do not rise hugely.
5. Bake for 15-20minutes until golden and risen slightly. Leave to cool completely on a wire rack.
6. For the buttercream: Whisk all the ingredients together until smooth and fully mixed. Either pipe or spoon the icing over the cupcakes, and decorate how you wish. :)

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 :)