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 almost number three in a string of 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.

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 on a cake plate or cake stand and spread the top 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 the remaining half of the buttercream on the top.  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