DOUBLE GINGER CAKE

For Nick’s birthday I made a ginger cake, his absolute favourite, and tried a different recipe by Nigel Slater in the Guardian from over twenty years ago.  I won’t give the link here as they have a habit of disappearing, especially the Guardian recipes.  You could try googling "Nigel Slater double ginger cake" if you want to see it.

There is a good deal of typically NS culinary waffle with the recipe.  He can rival Nigella for flamboyant intros I think but as with hers I have never had one of his recipes fail.  However, I was tickled by the concept of measuring sultanas by the tablespoon.  It’s hard to achieve a heaped tablespoon of sultanas as once the spoon is full any extras fall off!  Or at least, mine did.  I decided to weigh what I measured and it came to around 45g.  I would guess 50g would be a sensible amount.  

Mind you, the whole lot sank into a single layer at the bottom of the cake, which was not surprising as the mixture was very liquid.  I’m not sure they brought anything much to the party and would probably leave them out another time.  

The cake was delicious, moist and intensely gingery with a lovely, even crumb.  It was perfect with a cup of tea on a grey and misty November afternoon and, for the second slice, with a glass of fizz.  It was his birthday, after all.

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Over the years I used made a lot of really good ginger cake recipes:

Banana, ginger and golden syrup cake

Chocolate and ginger cake

Oat and ginger traybake

Parkin

Dark Jamaican ginger cake

Be-Ro gingerbread cake

Ginger prune cake

Ginger Guinness cake

Orange and ginger Bundt cake

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Ingredients

250g self raising flour

2 level tsp ground ginger

½ tsp ground cinnamon

1 level tsp bicarbonate of soda

pinch of salt

200g golden syrup

2 tblsp ginger syrup from a jar of preserved ginger

3 balls of preserved ginger from the jar, finely chopped

125g butter, cubed

125g dark soft brown sugar

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

240ml semi skimmed milk

2 heaped tblsp (around 50g) sultanas (optional)

Method

Line the base of a 20cm square cake tin and butter the sides.  Preheat the oven to 180°C / 160° fan / gas mk 3.

Sieve the flour, ginger, cinnamon, bicarb and salt into a large bowl and stir to mix together.

Put the golden syrup, ginger syrup and butter into a small saucepan and warm gently over low heat.  When the butter has melted, add the chopped ginger and sultanas (if using), and turn up the heat to bubble just for a minute, stirring occasionally.  Remove from the heat.

In the jug used for measuring the milk, add the eggs and mix together.

Pour the liquid butter, syrup and ginger mixture into the flour mixture and stir well.  Add the milk and egg mixture and stir again so that there is no trace of dry flour.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 35-40 minutes until done.

Remove from the oven and cool in the tin.

Keeps well wrapped in foil and is best if allowed to mature for a couple of days before eating.

Cuts into 12-16 slices.

SPOOKY SAUSAGE ROLLS AND EERIE ECCLES CAKES

This recipe, if you can really call it that, came from an idea I spotted on Facebook. 

Mine didn't quite look quite as regular as the originals!

But fun to make and very tasty.

What's not to love about a frankfurter in puff pastry?!

They are quite easy to do although the markings are a bit fiddly.

With the pastry trimmings I made a few eerie Eccles cakes.

This is also from an idea I also spotted on Facebook, from the wonderful Nancy Birtwhistle.

The recipe is in her excellent book "Green and Easy Kitchen".

You can see the recipe here.

Mine were slightly over baked but tasted good nonetheless.

Ingredients

For the sausage rolls

1 pack ready made, ready rolled puff pastry.  Bring to room temperature for about 15 minutes. 

    Mine was a circle so hence the trimmings.

 ½ pack of snack frankfurters, so 5 frankfurters

Method

Cut each frankfurter into three pieces.  Mine were about 9" long so three 3" pieces.

Unroll the pastry and cut 15 squares about 3" square.

Plonk a square of pastry squarely over the end of a piece of sausage and ease the corners down over it to look like a ghost.

Cut two eyeholes and a mouth in each one.  To do this I used a piece of plastic straw.  I cut one end flat to pinch out round holes for the eyes.  I slashed an angled cut to make holes for the mouth.

Place the spooks on a baking sheet and bake at 180°C for 15-20 minutes until the pastry is golden brown and crisp.

Makes 15 scary sausage rolls.

For the Eccles cakes  (my quantities are very approximate)

Pastry trimmings (if you have any)

2 tblsp currants

a splash of elderflower liqueur or cordial

2 tsp caster sugar

boiling water

milk and demerara sugar for sprinkling

Method

Put the currants, sugar and cordial/liqueur into a small bowl and mix together.  Cover with boiling water and set aside for the currants to plump up.

Gather all the pastry trimmings together and form into a ball.  Roll out as thinly as possible and cut into as many circles as you can using a 3" cutter.  Re-roll trimmings to use as much as possible.  I managed to get 6 circles from mine.

Put a scant teaspoon of currant mixture onto each circle and gather it up like a sack/purse.  Squeeze the edges together and put the gathered side underneath on a worktop or board.  

Flatten and roll out thinly so that the currants are visible through the pastry.

Cut holes for the eyes and mouth as for the sausage rolls.

Brush each one with milk and sprinkle demerara sugar over.

Bake at 180° fan for about 15-20 minutes until golden brown.

Makes as many as you can from your trimmings.

*Nancy says in her book that the Eccles cake is 500 years old.  Really?  So I looked it up.

There is an interesting piece about it that you can read here.  

I am undecided whether it is true or made up!  However, just in case the link disappears I am sharing the text here, it's too fascinating to lose it!

Further research on the battle of Acre in 1189 suggests that the story of Eccles cakes is nothing more than a really good yarn.........but one worth telling..........it could have happened!!

The very first recorded instance of the Eccles cake was during the time of The Crusades, the year being 1191 when Richard The Lionheart was besieging the port city of Acre. It is in fact an ancient Turkish dish which was named after one of Saladins generals Beha-ed-Dineccles. Due to its excellent properties of keeping fresh in hot weather, because of its high content of raisins and sultanas which were in plentiful supply it was an ideal food wrapped in pastry for the Muslims who were under siege in Acre. Towards the end of the siege with ammunition running low within Acre, Beha-ed-Dineccles men started throwing these at the Crusaders who noticed when they hit their shields and the ground they burst open to reveal the ingredients. The Crusaders who were running low on food started picking these up and eating them. They called them Eccles cakes after the general Beha-de-Dineccles and the recipe was brought back to England after The Crusades with lots of people through the years claiming it was they who invented the recipe, when in fact it is an old Turkish dish and not connected with the town of Eccles at all.

CHOCOLATE BIRTHDAY CAKE for children

 

The second cake for the little girl's birthday party was fun to make and decorate.

It's a version of something similar I made many years ago.

I fancied using a different recipe this time so spent a happy hour browsing through my cook books for one that would make a cake big enough for a party. I found one for a "classic tearoom chocolate Victoria sponge" in Annie Bell's wonderful Baking Bible.  This cake is made in one deep tin then sliced into two to be filled.  It’s also made using the “all-in-one” method in a food processor which makes the job simpler and quicker.

Slicing a cake into two is always a nervous moment for me but I got through it (literally) and instead of the buttercream filling in the recipe I just used a generous layer of raspberry jam as there was going to be a lot of buttercream on the outside!

The outside didn't need to look too tidy as it was going to be covered in chocolate fingers and sweets.

For the buttercream I used a chocolate fudge cake recipe from a book called "I love to bake" by Tana Ramsay.  It looked like it would make plenty of it and enough to cover the top and sides of the cake.  It also used melted chocolate rather than cocoa powder for the chocolate flavour.  That turned out to be rather good.

My friend Rachel (the birthday girl's grandmother) helped with the decorating.

It took two whole packets of chocolate fingers to cover the cake.

Then almost two packets of m&ms to fill the top.

The cake stand is an eBay purchase from many years ago.  

I knew it would come in handy one day and it set the cake off perfectly. 

I didn't get to taste the cake (other than the trimmings) but "feedback" from the party was very positive!

Ingredients

For the cake

225g unsalted butter, diced

225g golden caster sugar

175g self raising flour

50g cocoa powder

2 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt  

1 tsp vanilla extract

4 eggs

100ml whole milk (mine was semi skimmed)

For the filling

½ a jar of raspberry jam (or cherry, strawberry or apricot as you prefer)

For the buttercream and decoration

200g unsalted butter, softened

200g icing sugar

200g plain dark chocolate (I used Cadbury's Bournville which has a fairly low cocoa content)

2 packs of chocolate finger biscuits

2 packs of m&ms or other sweets such as Smarties or Jelly Tots

Birthday candles and any other decorations of your choice

Method

For the cake

Grease/butter the base and sides of a deep 20cm springform tin and line the base with baking paper.

Preheat the oven to 190°C / 170° fan.

Sift the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder into the bowl of a food processor.  Blitz briefly to combine.

Add all the other cake ingredients and process until smooth, scraping down a couple of times.  Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin, level the top and tap the tin on the worktop a few times to settle the mixture.  

Bake for 45-55 minutes until done then remove from the oven.  After a few minutes run a knife around the edge of the cake to loosen it and leave to cool in the tin.

When the cake is cold, remove from the tin, remove the paper from the bottom and place it on a board.  Use a bread knife to level the top of the cake if there is a significant dome.  Slice the cake in two horizontally using the bread knife.

For the buttercream

Break the chocolate into squares and place them in a bowl over a pan of simmering water.  Allow the chocolate to melt, stirring occasionally.  Remove from the heat as soon as it has melted and set aside.

Sift the icing sugar into a large bowl (or blitz it in a food processor to remove any lumps).

Add the butter and beat together with a hand held electric whisk until smooth and well combined.  Beat in the cooled chocolate until evenly incorporated.

To assemble the cake

Put the bottom half of the cake onto a cake plate or cake stand and spread it with the jam.

Place the other half of the cake on top and use the buttercream to cover the top and sides.  It doesn't have to be too neat but it's best if the top is level.

Press chocolate finger biscuits into the buttercream all the way around the sides.

Scatter the sweets over the top of the cake.  The chocolate fingers should sit just above the top of the cake and therefore prevent them all from rolling off!

Add a birthday candle and any other decorations you like.

Cuts into 16-20 slices.

GLUTEN FREE CARROT CAKE and a cream cheese frosting disaster!!

 

It was that time of year again - the weekend of the annual food, art and craft festival in the next village which goes by the name "L'Art et Lard".  It's a wonderful event.

On the Sunday there is a pop-up tea room called the English Tea Garden for which I usually contribute some cakes.  This year I made two vegan and two gluten free cakes, one being something I had never tackled before; a GF carrot cake.

I used a recipe from the website "Jane's Patisserie" which you can see here.  The recipe seemed straightforward, very similar to a normal carrot cake but with GF flour.  An interesting tip that I had never used before was to grate the carrots with a medium fine grater, not a coarse one, thereby avoiding strips of visible carrot in the cake and giving a better texture.  That really worked.

As a precaution I used a couple of spoonfuls of the mixture to make two muffins, baked alongside the cake.  This enabled me to taste test the cake before giving it away, something I now always do when handing over a cake to a new recipe that I haven't used before.

The muffins tasted delicious, lightly spiced and moist with a soft texture..  I then decided to push the boat out and ice the cake, even adding the little sugar carrots I had brought with me from a previous trip to the UK.

Then things went pear shaped........I had a total disaster with the cream cheese frosting.

I beat the butter and icing sugar together according to the recipe and then added the cream cheese.  As I started to beat it in and within moments the whole lot turned to liquid.  I went into panic mode.  The cake was meant to be at the festival half an hour later and I had no more cream cheese.  

Nick volunteered to go and fetch more but that would have taken anything up to an hour, probably much longer if the nearest supermarket didn't have any in.  Instead I made a batch of ordinary buttercream and iced the cake with that.  It looked a real bobby dazzler and sold well on the day.

The question is, what went wrong?  A bit of research suggested that the fat content of the cheese was too low.  I hadn't been able to get Philadelphia cheese, which I normally use, and had picked one at random not realising that it wouldn't work.  

As for the glurpy cream cheese mixture - I turned it into ice cream - the ingredients had cost too much to waste them!  I beat a few tablespoons of full fat double cream to the floppy stage, folded it into the mixture and put it in the freezer.  It was delicious - in fact absolutely divine!  I shall probably make it again but will always think of it as my "Accidental Ice Cream"!

I was so put out by the failure of the cream cheese that I did some more research and one fact that cropped up everywhere is that whatever you do, you should not try mixing more icing sugar into the liquid mixture, which had in fact, been my first instinct.  Luckily I had been in too much of a hurry on the day to try it!  A good guide to the problem can be found here.  The website "Jane's Patisserie" has a good guide to making the frosting here.

Ingredients

For the cake

300g (approx 3 medium) carrots, grated medium fine

275 g soft light brown sugar

5 eggs

225ml sunflower oil

zest of 1 orange

325g gluten free self raising flour

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

100g raisins

For the cream cheese frosting

175g unsalted butter at room temperature

175g icing sugar

350g full fat cream cheese

½ tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla extract

Alternative buttercream icing

150g unsalted butter at room temperature

300g icing sugar, sifted

1-2 tblsp milk

½ tsp vanilla extract

Method

Grease a 20cm round springform cake tin and line the base with baking paper.  

Preheat the oven to 180° C / 160° fan.

Put the oil, carrots, sugar, eggs and orange zest into a large bowl and mix well.

Sift in the flour and spices, add the raisins and mix again until smooth and well combined.

Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 30-35 minutes until done.  Cool in the tins.

To make the cream cheese frosting

Put the butter into a medium bowl and beat until smooth.

Add the icing sugar, cinnamon and vanilla and beat again.

Beat in the cream cheese until just combined.

Spread half of the mixture onto one of the cooled cakes and place the second cake on top.  Spread or pipe the other half of the mixture on top of that and decorate as you prefer.

To make the alternative buttercream icing

Put the butter into a medium bowl and beat until soft.  Add the icing sugar a spoonful at a time and beat until smooth.  Beat in the vanilla and a splash or two of milk to get the consistency you prefer.  Use half to sandwich the cakes together and the other half to decorate the top.

Cuts into 10-12 slices.

CHOCONANA BIRTHDAY CAKE

The little girl that I made the pink castle birthday cake for her fourth birthday last year is now five years old.  (It was quite an undertaking and you can read about it here.)

This year a more modest cake was requested, in fact I offered to make two of them.

One for a family gathering on the actual birthday and a second for a birthday party a few days later.

For cake number one I made a choconana cake.

This is a variation of the mocha banana cake that I have made many, many times and which you can read about here.  It's essentially a chocolate banana bake and for a little girl's birthday I omitted the coffee, added some chocolate chips and some chocolate butter icing, plus decorations.

The lovely cake stand was gifted to me by a friend who is selling her second home in France and moving back to the UK.  She bought it some years ago at a French street market and I had admired it many times.  The little pig decorations were given to me by another friend after a recent visit back to the UK.  They are Percy Pig sweets that come from M & S.  The little girl's grandmother helped with the decorating and although I had lots of other decorations she thought the pigs would be fun.

Ingredients

For the cake

8oz self raising flour

4oz softened butter or baking spread (I used Le Fleurier unsalted spread)

4oz caster sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

2 ripe bananas, peeled and sliced

2 large eggs, beaten

1 tblsp milk chocolate chips (optional)

a splash of milk if needed

For the topping

2oz softened butter

6oz icing sugar

1 tblsp cocoa powder

1 tblsp warm water

a splash of milk if needed

Method

Butter and line the base of a 20cm (8") round springform cake tin.  Preheat the oven to 180° C / 160° fan.

Put all of the cake ingredients except for the chocolate chips and milk into a large bowl and beat well by hand or with an electric hand held whisk, until well blended.  

If the mixture seems rather stiff, add the milk and beat it in.  Add the chocolate chips if using and stir in.

Pour or spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 40-45 minutes until done.  

Remove from the oven and cool in the tin.

When the cake is cool, make the buttercream topping.

Beat the butter in a medium bowl with a wooden spoon until soft and sift in the icing sugar a spoonful at a time, beating well after each addition.  

Mix the cocoa powder with the warm water to a smooth paste in a small bowl or cup.  Add to the buttercream and beat in until evenly coloured.  If it seems rather stiff, beat in a splash of milk.

Remove the cold cake from the tin, remove the paper from the bottom and sit the cake on a serving plate or cake stand.

Spread or swirl the topping over the cake evenly and decorate with candles, sprinkles and any decorations of your choice.

Serves 8-12 slices.

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My mum always said, in fact firmly believed, that all things come in threes.  This cake was number three in a string of almost baking disasters, all within a single week!

Number one was when making the cream cheese topping for a carrot cake.  I beat the butter and icing sugar together, added the cream cheese and on beating it in was horrified to see the whole thing turn to liquid within moments.  More about that in another post.

Number two was when making a caramelised apple clafoutis (see here).  The pudding had been in the oven for a good five minutes when I noticed the beaten eggs still in a bowl on the worktop.  I whipped it out of the oven sharpish, stirred the eggs as evenly as possible into the pudding and put it back in the oven.  It was fine.

Number three was when making this birthday cake.  The mixture was in the tin ready to go into the oven when I adopted my usual practice of licking the spoon.  It didn't taste very sweet but I wasn't sure as bananas are quite sweet anyway.  A quick glance around the kitchen and I spotted nothing untoward so put the cake in the oven.  As I turned to do the washing up I spotted the weighed out sugar still in a bowl next to the sink.  I whipped the cake out of the oven sharpish, tipped the mixture back into the mixing bowl and beat the sugar in.  After washing and re-lining the tin I got the cake back in the oven to bake and, as far as I know, it was fine!

Let's hope my mum's theory was right and, after three near disasters, that's it for now! 

FIG, HAM AND HERBY CHEESE GLUTEN FREE APÉRO TART

It's many times that on reading Dominic's blog "Dom in the Kitchen" I have felt inspired compelled to bake something he has posted straight away - or as soon as possible.  That's the case with his Boursin, fig and jambon galette which you can read about here.  

We had friends coming round for an evening BBQ and one of them needs a gluten free diet.  I had previously swooped on a pack of gluten free puff pastry in the supermarket with the idea of using it for some kind of nibbles for apéros.  It occurred to me that an adaptation of Dom's recipe would do the job really well.

I had some purple figs given to me by a friend, the right kind of pastry, some black olives and some ham in stock.  All I needed was the Boursin.  I popped into the village shop and whilst they didn't have Boursin they had their own brand herby soft cheese which worked fine.

It was a delicious tart, very simple to make and a great start to the evening.  The gluten free pastry didn't look quite the same as normal (shop bought) puff pastry when cooked but tasted fine and I would definitely use it again.

If gluten free was not a requirement I would use a pack of ordinary rectangular puff pastry and bake it into small square mini tarts which are easier to hand round and eat for people sitting with a glass in one hand!  Cutting squares from a round pack of pastry produces a lot of waste or some odd looking shapes of tart!  It also occurred to me that the filling would work well made into little filo parcels using filo pastry (known as "brick" in France).  I'll add this to the post if I do try it!

Ingredients

1 pack of ready made, ready rolled gluten free puff pastry

4-5 ripe figs, quartered

2 slices of thin ham, cut into strips

6-8 stoned black olives, halved

1 small pack of garlic and herb cream cheese

a little olive oil for drizzling

 

a little runny honey for drizzling

1 egg, beaten

Method

Take your pastry out of the fridge and allow it to come to room temperature, about 10-15 minutes.  Preheat your oven to 190°C / 170° fan.  Place a sheet of baking parchment on a large baking sheet.

Unroll the pastry onto the baking sheet.  Make a cut all the way around about 2cm from the edge to create a border but not going through the thickness of the pastry.

Spread a generous layer of the cream cheese over the pastry within the border.  Lay the strips of ham on top and arrange the fig quarters and black olives on top of them.

Drizzle a little olive oil and honey over the top and sprinkle with the fresh thyme leaves.  

Brush the edges of the pastry with beaten egg and bake for around 25-30 minutes until the pastry is golden brown and the cheese bubbling at the edges.

Serve warm or at room temperature.

Cuts into 8 - 10 slices.

STALLED and biting the bullet.

Mary Berry's pear tart (with peaches).

It's absolutely ages since my last post and you may be tempted to think that no baking has been going on but that's not so!  The last few weeks have been a very busy time and we have been doing a lot of socialising which actually means quite a lot of cooking and baking, including recipes I had never tried before.  The blog is stalled for the moment but new posts will follow as soon as I have the time.

My adaptation of Dominic Franks' ham, fig and cheese tart. 

My own invention of barbecue pie.

A delicious poached nectarine trifle.

I have been chez nous uk this week and trying to eat very healthily as all that socialising and enjoying life over the summer chez nous fr has taken its toll on the waistline.  I have had huge success with poached eggs.

You may laugh but poaching eggs is, IMHO,  a black art and over the years I have tried a number of methods with mixed success.  I have tried microwaving them (Nancy Birtwhistle's method) which was a bit hit and miss, the silicone egg poaching pods (eggs stuck like glue to the pods), steaming them in a tea strainer over a pan of simmering water (stuck like Gorilla glue to that), and, most successful so far, sliding them into a large shallow pan of barely simmering water from a small cup (Nigella Lawson's method).  This would produce eggs that varied from perfect little balls of deliciousness to something that looked like a strangled jelly fish (but still tasted good).

More recently I have bit the bullet and done it the old fashioned way with HUGE SUCCESS.  Sliding the egg from a cup into a small but deep saucepan of just simmering water containing a splash of white wine vinegar has worked for me.  I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the freshness of the egg but when the white is just no longer transparent the egg seems to have that oh so perfect runny yolk we all aim for.  A thing of joy without a doubt.

Changing the subject, I have begun, for the umpteenth time, to wonder why I write this blog.  Posting recipes takes a lot of time and it's normal to have maybe up to a hundred page views but very few comments.  I have come to the conclusion that I mainly write it for two reasons; 1) that I enjoy writing it as long as I have the time and 2) as a record of what I have cooked.

However, Blogger has recently thrown a wobbly (one of many over the years) and no longer updates my reading list or my blog list and I am nervous about what might be next.  Could my record of favourite recipes disappear?  So I am intending that over the dark winter months to bite the bullet and spend some time creating some other kind of record, maybe by copying the recipes (without all the chat) into some kind of document that is forever stored on my laptop and maybe even printing them out.  I am of the generation that is suspicious of anything that is transient, i.e. not on paper!  Any suggestions would be very welcome!

FIG AND FRANGIPANE TART

Almost a whole month has gone by since my last post and I'm due for a catch-up.  You may be tempted to think that no baking has been going on chez nous but that is definitely not so.  We have been so busy that finding time to post is the problem.  On top of that, it has been so debilitatingly hot that I just haven't felt like writing anything much.  

Some friends came round for an "eclipse party" on 12th August and one of them brought with her a small box of beautiful purple figs.  Her fig tree has produced tons of fruit this year, a year when we have had more heatwaves than ever before, the result of which is that we have hardly any produce at all.

I looked through all my French themed cookbooks for a recipe.  There were more for savoury dishes than sweet ones but I really wanted to make a dessert.  I found one in Rick Stein's wonderful book "Secret France" which is based on the equally wonderful TV series of the same name.  In the days when we were only part-time in France we would watch our recording of the series to help us get through grim Derbyshire winters until we could return to our house in France in the spring.  You can see his recipe here.

His recipe was for six small tartlets and I wanted to make just one large tart so I did a bit of internet research to reassure myself (not that I really needed to) that the ingredients would work for one large tart.  That's when I found a recipe on the brilliant blog "La Recette du Jour" written by Veronica.  She had a couple of very handy tips that I decided to adopt.  You can see her blog post here.

We were having a number of people round for an evening BBQ where I wanted to serve the tart.  The weather was hot, 30°C in the kitchen by the afternoon.  It would make sense to bake the tart early in the morning so I used Veronica's tip, made the pastry case and the frangipane mixture the day before and kept it in the fridge overnight.  It worked!

Veronica's recipe also includes instructions for ginger custard to serve with the tart.  I thought that sounded like a great idea but couldn't face standing at the stove to make custard from scratch.  Instead, I bought a pack of ready made "crème anglaise", the very thin version of custard that is ubiquitous in France.  I stirred a tablespoon of syrup from a jar of preserved ginger into it and served it cold with the tart.  It was a big hit with the guests.

The tart was delicious, something a bit different from my usual offerings, easy enough to do and looked gorgeous.

Ingredients

1 pack of ready made, ready rolled shortcrust or sweet shortcrust pastry (mine was plain as that's what was available when I went shopping and in this heat I wasn't keen to make an extra journey to another supermarket)

For the filling

100g butter at room temperature

100g caster sugar

2 eggs, beaten

½ tsp almond extract

100g ground almonds

9-10 figs, quartered vertically into wedges, depending on the size of your figs

a sprinkling of flaked almonds

To serve

1 pack of ready made crème anglaise

1-2 tblsp ginger syrup from a jar of preserved ginger, to taste.

Method

Preheat the oven to 200°C / 180° fan / gas mk6.

Use the pastry to line a 20cm loose bottomed tart tin.  Line with baking paper and fill with baking beans and blind bake for 10 minutes.  Remove the paper and beans and return to the oven for a further 5 minutes.

To make the frangipane filling, beat the butter and sugar together in a medium bowl, either with a wooden spoon or an electric hand whisk, until smooth.  Add the eggs and almond extract and whisk in.  Stir in the ground almonds and mix well.

Transfer the almond mixture to the pastry case, spreading it out evenly, and level the top.

At this stage you can keep the tart in the fridge until needed or overnight.

Set the oven to 190°C / 170° fan / gas mk5.

Arrange wedges of fig on top of the frangipane.  Don't worry if they look like they are just perched on top of the filling and don't sink in; the filling will rise up as it bakes.

Scatter flaked almonds over the top.

Bake for 20-30 minutes until the frangipane is golden and cooked.  Turn out of the tin carefully when still warm.

Serve warm or at room temperature with cream, ice cream, crème fraîche or ginger crème anglaise.

Serves 8-10 slices.

EASY FRENCH APPLE TART (tarte fine aux pommes)

We were invited to join some friends for lunch on the campsite in the village.  They bring their caravan every year and we meet up with them if we can.  It was all a bit last minute as we had only just arrived back in France ourselves from a stay in England.  I offered to bring dessert then I scratched my head and wondered what I could make, having only done a very basic shop on our return.  I settled on a recipe by James Martin that I had had my eye on for a while and you can see here.  There are a lot of apple tart recipes by James Martin to choose from!

Many recipes for this simple apple tart have a layer of cooked apple under the apple slices but his recipe uses a layer of marzipan.  This very much appealed to me as apple and almond are a great combination.  I also had a pack of ready made marzipan in the cupboard and a roll of puff pastry in the freezer.

I trimmed the pastry to a slightly smaller size (by about 2cm all round) so that it would definitely fit on my baking sheet and also the plate I had earmarked for serving it.

I followed the recipe pretty closely except that when it came to glazing the finished tart I used apricot jam for that "patisserie" look rather than melted butter.  

It was a delicious tart, looked great and tasted wonderful.  Next time I would probably pack in more sliced apples but otherwise it's a lovely dessert which looks way more difficult than it actually is to make.

I have since made the tart several times using golden plums which looks equally stunning and tastes delicious..

Ingredients

1 pack ready made, ready rolled puff pastry

3-4 eating apples

1/3 (approx) of a 450g block of ready made marzipan

1 egg, beaten

50g butter, melted

2 tblsp caster sugar

2 tblsp apricot jam*

Method

Line a large baking sheet with baking paper.  Preheat the oven to 200°C / 180° fan / gas mk 6.

Unroll the pastry and trim to fit your serving plate.  Mine was circular as most French pasty comes in circles but an oblong or square tart is also good as long as you have a suitable serving plate.

Prick the pastry all over with a fork.

Slice the marzipan very thinly and lay the slices over the pastry leaving a small margin at the outside.  It needn't look too pretty as it melts into a homogeneous layer under the apples.

Peel, core and thinly slice the apples*.  Arrange them in a neat pattern over the marzipan leaving as few gaps as possible.  Concentric circles work on a round tart and opposing rows or diagonals look good on square or oblong pastry.  There are lots of ideas for inspiration on the internet if you Google "French apple tart images".

Brush the apples carefully with the melted butter and sprinkle over the sugar.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until the apples are tender, the pastry is golden brown and the marzipan bubbling at the edges.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool until just warm.

Put the jam into a small saucepan and heat gently until melted.  Brush carefully over the apples so as not to disturb the pattern.

Serve warm or cold, with cream or ice cream.

Serves 8-10 portions.

*Cheap apricot jam works best as it has less real fruit in it and therefore fewer lumps of apricot! You can of course pick out or sieve out the lumps or Sainsbury's sell small jars of apricot glaze which is perfect for the job.  Personally I don't mind a tasty lump or two of fruit in my glaze for that home made look!

*Peeling the apples is optional, as seen in some of the Google images.

APPLE CARAMEL CAKE

For some time I have wanted to use a relatively new Bonne Maman product, Caramelised Apple Spread.  Curiously, although Bonne Maman is a French company I have not found this spread for sale anywhere in France.  The only place I have found it is Sainsbury's in the UK.  It tastes divinely like tarte tatin, the wonderful flavour of caramelised cooked apples, and having bought a jar I wondered what you would do with it.  Simply spreading it on toast or a crumpet seemed too ordinary but I imagined it would be fabulous as a filling for a sponge cake.

I had in mind Mary's recipe for her apple and lemon sponge cake (see here) but using the spread as a filling instead of lemon curd and cream.  I also decided to go rogue and add a layer of caramel buttercream in the middle and on top.

I my usual method for grating the apple, which was to cut the apple it half vertically, remove the core with a melon baller or teaspoon and grate using the peel to hold it.  You end up with grated apple and holding a piece of apple skin that can be discarded - with your own skin intact!

It was a very elegant looking cake with a nice moist crumb and lovely flavour of both apple and caramel.  I made this one for a very sophisticated young lady’s thirteenth birthday.  Her mum decorated it simply with two candles which said “13”.  

Ingredients

For the cake

225g each of baking spread

    caster sugar

    self raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

4 large eggs

two eating apples, peeled, cored and grated

For the filling and topping

100g unsalted butter, softened

200g icing sugar

2 tblsp Bon Maman confiture de lait or other caramel spread such as Carnation

a splash of milk if needed

3-4 tblsp Bon Maman caramelised apple spread

suitable decorations for example mini fudge chunks 

Method

Grease and line the bases of two 20cm sponge tins.  Preheat the oven to 180°C / 160° fan / gas mk4.

Put all the cake ingredients except for the apple into a large bowl and beat until smooth.  (An electric hand whisk makes this easier.)

Fold in the grated apple evenly and divide between the two prepared tins.

Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden brown and done.  Cool in the tins.

To make the buttercream, beat together the butter, icing sugar and caramel spread.  Add the milk if needed to make it spreadable (the weather was quite hot when I made this cake so very little milk was needed).

Remove the sponges from the tins.  Making sure the sponges are completely cold, place one upside down (flattest side uppermost) on a cake plate or cake stand and spread it with enough apple spread to make a generous layer (about half a jar).  Then top this with half of the buttercream.  

Place the second sponge on top and spread with the remaining half of the buttercream.  Decorate with mini fudge chunks if liked or serve plain.

Cuts into 8-10 slices.

COURGETTE SOUP

Since my previous courgette soup post I have discovered numerous versions of the recipe for courgette and cheese triangle soup.  In fact I am amazed that I had never come across it before.  Keen to have another go at it I popped down to Tesco for some ingredients.  

However I was shocked to find most of the chiller and freezer cabinets empty!  The current heatwave seems to have caused a problem and they had been cleared.  Fortunately the cheese section was still functioning so I was able to get my “Laughing Cow” triangles. 

Like so many recipes, there are lots of different versions of it.  My friend who first told me about the soup gave me her recipe and she adds crème fraîche at the end for even more creaminess.  She cooks the courgettes in stock, not butter.  Some recipes add the cheese triangles at the start, some melt them in at the end of cooking.  Others include garlic, onion or spring onion.  In the end I took elements from a number of recipes and it was delicious; a delicate flavour and gorgeous creamy texture.

I ate it warm on day one and cold from the fridge with some chopped chives as garnish on day two.

Ingredients

5 courgettes, wiped (mine were huge so I used 3)

5 Laughing Cow or other cheese triangles

3 tsp Marigold stock powder, or a stock cube or pot

2 large knobs of butter

chopped chives or spring onions to garnish (optional)

Method

Melt the butter in a large saucepan.  Chop the unpeeled courgettes and cook gently in the butter on low heat until beginning to soften.  This is the stage at which many recipes add a chopped onion, chopped spring onions or crushed garlic.  I omitted them.

Add the stock powder and cover with water.  Stir well and simmer gently, covered, for about ten minutes until the courgettes are tender.  Add the cheese triangles and stir until they are melted in.

Blend in the pan using a stick blender (or transfer to a food processor/blender) and blend until smooth.  Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve warm or cold.  Garnish with chopped chives or spring onions (optional)

Serves 4

BANANA UPSIDE DOWN CAKE

A very delicious banana cake!

Back in the UK for a spell I did my customary sweep of the five local charity shops.

I found three cookbooks at £1.50 each.  They all appeared to be brand new.

The one entitled "the baker" is very much a "how to bake" book not just a collection of recipes.

The recipe for banana upside down cake caught my eye.

On the way home from the charity shop I called for some milk at the corner shop and spotted two bunches of bananas reduced in price so that clinched it!

The recipe said to line bottom and sides of the cake tin but I opted for using a circle of paper that was bigger than the tin and therefore came up the sides a bit.  It seemed to work.

The recipe said to use a 20cm tin which to me seemed a bit small.  I couldn't fit the right number of bananas in the bottom and also the quantity of mixture filled the tin more than I would normally do.  I came to the conclusion that 20cm was a mistake and would use a 23cm tin next time.  

It produced a very deep cake which dipped alarmingly in the middle!  The picture in the book shows a shallower cake with more sliced bananas on top, lending weight to my theory that the tin size stated was incorrect.

The recipe also included a lot of sugar and less flour than I would have expected.

However, the cake looked stunning and tasted divine!

It was very sweet and very bananery.

In the book it says it should be eaten on the day of baking.  Certainly the next day it was a bit more moist but equally delicious and the day after that made an excellent pudding warmed and served with ice cream!

I would definitely make it again - it would be good for a cake sale - but I would use a larger tin and possibly slightly less sugar.

Ingredients

For the banana topping

50g unsalted butter, melted

60g light soft brown sugar

6 large ripe bananas, peeled and cut into half lengthways

    (Using the size of tin stated I only fitted in 3 medium bananas)

For the cake

125g unsalted butter, softened

230g light soft brown sugar

2 eggs (I used medium)

185g self raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

2 large very ripe bananas, mashed (mine were medium)

Method

Grease and line the base and sides of a 20cm round cake tin.  I used a springform tin and see my notes about the size of tin and lining above.

Preheat the oven to 180°C / 160° fan.

Pour the melted butter over the base of the tin and spread out with the back of a spoon if necessary to make sure the whole of the base is coated.  Sprinkle the sugar evenly over the top.

Arrange the cut bananas in a pattern over the top of the sugar, cut side down.

To make the cake, using electric beaters, cream the butter and sugar until lighter and fluffy.  Beat in the eggs one at a time.

Sift the flour and baking powder over and fold in, followed by the mashed bananas.

Spoon the mixture carefully over the sliced bananas and level the top.  Bake for 45 minutes or until the cake passes the skewer test.

Remove from the oven and leave in the tin for 5 minutes then turn out upside down onto a wire rack to cool.  Sit the rack over a dinner plate to catch any drips of the topping.  

Cuts into 8-10 generous slices.  Best eaten on the day it is made (see my notes above).