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! 

STRAWBERRY UPSIDE DOWN CAKE

The minute I saw Dom's post about an upside down Victoria sponge (see here), I knew I had to bake one as soon as possible!  

In the end I used my usual all-in-one sponge cake recipe from Mary Berry and constructed the cake slightly differently but it looked stunning and tasted delicious!  I took it to a friend's house for a birthday dinner and it went down very well.

I was pleased with the cream filling.  Whipping up French cream to a suitable stiffness can be a challenge but combining it with cream cheese made a difference.  For once it all stayed in the cake and didn’t run out of the middle!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The second time I made the cake I used a slightly smaller tin and the ingredients for a three egg sponge (175g each of flour, fat and sugar).  I had half as many strawberries so they went into one sponge tin.  I filled the cake with a good layer of strawberry jam and about two thirds of the quantity of cream filling.  I took it to an afternoon tea where it was declared a hit and there was only one slice left.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next time I made the cake, this happened!

It was caused by using too many strawberries I think, plus being in a rush and removing the cake too early from the tin when it was still very fragile.  (It was for a birthday party and we were having a difficult morning with a poorly cat that we had to get to the vet urgently.)  I got away with it by using the damaged sponge as the bottom layer, sandwiching the two sponges together with plenty of whipped cream and dusting the top with icing sugar.  

It looked a bobby dazzler with birthday candles on the top.  The cake stayed together in one piece and nobody noticed.  It even survived being moved by the host from the plate I delivered it on to a cake stand!  Phew!  I have no idea how it didn't fall apart when she lifted it up - the power of whipped double cream!!

Ingredients 

For the sponges

225g each of self raising flour

                      caster sugar

                      spreadable butter, baking spread or softened butter

1 level tsp baking powder

4 eggs

a splash of milk

400g strawberries, trimmed and quartered

1 tblsp granulated sugar

For the filling

150ml double cream

100g cream cheese

1 tblsp icing sugar

Method

First of all, put the strawberries into a bowl with the granulated sugar, stir to ensure all the fruit gets a good coating and set aside while you make the cake mixture.

Preheat the oven to 180°C / 160° fan / gas mk 4.  Grease and line the base of two 20cm sandwich tins.

Put all the cake ingredients into a large bowl and beat with a hand held electric whisk (or a wooden spoon) until smooth and well combined, adding enough milk to loosen the mixture if it is very stiff.

Divide the strawberries between the two tins in an even layer and spoon the sponge mixture on the top.  Spread out carefully so as not to disturb the strawberries too much.  Level the tops and bake for about 25 minutes until done.

Leave in the tin for a few minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool.  Remember to remove the paper lining!  Be gentle as the sponges are quite delicate and may split.

To make the filling, put all the ingredients into a medium bowl and beat together until smooth.

When the sponges are completely cold, put one onto a serving plate or cake stand, strawberry side up.  Spread the cream filling over the top.

If you feel brave, flip the other sponge and place on top of the cream, strawberry side down as per Dom's recipe.  Otherwise, place it on top strawberry side up like mine.

Dust with icing sugar before serving.

Cuts into 10 slices

MICROWAVED POACHED EGGS

I first wrote about how to poach an egg here.  It's the method I use when I have more than one egg to cook and it works well every time as long as the eggs are quite fresh.  If they are not so fresh the whites tend to spread a bit but they still taste good!

A perfectly cooked microwaved poached egg.

Then I spotted on the internet a way to do them in the microwave, which is very handy and quick if I just want to poach one egg for myself.  There were various methods involving mugs, cups, ramekins and other dishes, water on top, water underneath, and I had mixed results including exploded egg all over the inside of the machine!

In the end I arrived at this method and came to the conclusion that the shape of the dish has a lot to do with the success. 

My best results came from using a rather conical shaped dish.

I acquired a set of these little Pyrex dishes (not actually Pyrex but ovenproof anyway) in order to bake a batch of Queen of Puddings (see here) which were a great hit.  The worst results (exploding eggs) seemed to happen when I used a straight sided mug or ramekin.

I also found that these small jars work well as they are about the right size.  They are Weck jars and they are sold in France with paté or rillettes in them.  They have a rubber seal rather like a Kilner jar seal and being oven proof are very useful for various things.  (The lids also make good wine bottle coasters.)

As you can see, they also have a slightly conical shape.

Another rather weird thing I discovered is that the rate of success improved if I put water on top of the egg rather than into the dish before dropping the egg in!

Obviously I have no idea if there is any sensible scientific reasoning behind any of this but as it's now quite a while since I had a less than perfect poached egg using this method I decided to risk sharing it!  I dare say any conical shaped container would work as long as it's the right sort of size.

I recently discovered the quick function button on my microwave too!  One press gives it thirty seconds at 800w, two presses sixty seconds and so on.  This is very handy for cooking the egg just right!  I give it two presses but open the door and have a look when there are still ten to fifteen seconds left on the clock.  If it's not done it goes back in for five seconds more.

Finally, remember to get your toast on first as it takes longer to do than the egg and you want it to be ready on the plate when the egg is nice and hot.

Method

Drop your egg into a smallish slightly conical shaped dish, mug or pot.  Very fresh eggs definitely work best.

Put about 1 tablespoon of cold water on top.

Microwave on high (800w) for 40-55 seconds.  The time required depends on the size of your egg so give it 40 seconds and if the white is still uncooked put it back in for 5 second bursts.  It only takes 5 seconds too long for the yolk to be solid not runny.  Another extra burst may result in your egg exploding all over the inside of your microwave!

Tip the egg into a slotted spoon to drain off the water and slide it onto your toast.  

Poached egg on toast for one!

CHOCOLATE BIRTHDAY CAKE and a tale of more haste, less speed

More haste, less speed, is a saying my mum used often.  What it means is that doing something in a rush will take you longer in the end because things go wrong and you have to re-do them.  I have found it to be very true!

On a beautiful, warm and sunny autumn day I had baking to do.  I thought that if I got a move on there would still be time to do some gardening or sit out in the sunshine but then things went wrong……

The first thing to go wrong was a simple chocolate cake; wrong size tin and wrong flour.  (French flours do not work the same as British flours.)  The sponges were flat and sad looking.  Had it been just for us I would have used them but it had been requested as a birthday gift so I remade it using Mary Berry's recipe for a chocolate sandwich cake and some of my stash of Homepride flour.  (The first set of sponges now resides in my freezer and will be used in future for something like a chocolate trifle.)

The second was in making some Parkin which I had also promised to someone else.  With a double batch in the oven and finally sitting out in the sunshine with my mug of tea I had one of those nagging doubts and went back inside to consult the recipe.  I had forgotten to put in the bicarbonate of soda. By now the Parkin had been in the oven for ten minutes and was just beginning to set.

I hesitated for a second but realised I could end up with two trays of flapjack if I didn't do something about it.  So quick as a flash, between us we scraped the mixture out of the tins and into a bowl.  I sprinkled two teaspoons of bicarb over the top and Nick used my biggest wooden spoon and a lot of muscle to beat like hell and mix it in.  We dolloped it back into the tins and put it back in the oven for the rest of the baking time.  It turned out fine!  You can see the Parkin recipe here.

As we finally sat outside in the last of the afternoon sunshine with a glass of something to calm my nerves I could hear my mum whispering "more haste, less speed!" in my ear and see her cheeky smile.  It’s almost twenty three years since she died and I miss her and her little sayings every day!

The cake went down well with the birthday girl.  Having made one before I knew it would be a lovely soft sponge and I decorated it with my standard chocolate buttercream recipe and a few girly sprinkles.

Curiously, when I looked for the recipe online I stumbled across a peculiar page on the Silver Spoon (sugar manufacturers) website comparing Mary Berry's recipe with Nigella's.  They reckon Nigella's was best!  You can see it here. What a very odd thing to have on a product website. I wonder what Mary would make of that!

Ingredients

For the cake

2 tblsp cocoa powder

3 tblsp boiling water

225g each of

    self raising flour

    caster sugar

    baking spread

1 level tsp baking powder

4 large eggs

For the icing

50g butter

150g icing sugar

1 tblsp cocoa powder

1 tblsp warm water

Method

To make the cake, grease and line the base of two deep 20cm sandwich tins.  Preheat the oven to 180c / 160 fan / gas mk4.

Blend the cocoa powder with the water in a large bowl and allow to cool slightly.  Add all the other cake ingredients and beat well with an electric whisk until nice and smooth.

Divide the mixture evenly between the two tins and bake for 25 minutes until done.  Leave in the tins for a few minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the icing, beat the butter until soft then sift in the icing sugar a spoonful at a time and beat until smooth.  Mix the cocoa powder to a smooth paste with the water and beat into the mixture.

Use half of the icing to sandwich the sponges together and swirl the other half over the top.  

Decorate with your favourite sprinkles and candles.

Cuts into 10-12 slices.

PLUM (OR NECTARINE) TART (can be gluten free)

The nectarine version.

The recipe for this popped up in my FB feed and comes from one of Nancy Birtwhistle's books, the one about gardening.  

The plum version before baking.

There is no pastry involved so some would ask - how can it be a tart?   I spent a happy few minutes looking up the definitions of cake, tart, torte and gateau and came to the conclusion that although it was definitely not a cake, a flan or a pie I still had no idea!  In any case it went down well for dessert at a BBQ one very hot June evening.

The plum version when cooked.

The first time I made this it was definitely a bit overdone - the plums looked a bit crozzled and it was a devil to get out of the tin.  Only when I made it the second time did I realise that I had baked the first one at 160° fan instead of 160° C.  A casualty of the debilitating heat - it had reached 39°C during the day and my concentration withers exponentially over 30°C!

The nectarine version - much less crozzled.

For the second time I used nectarines, didn't cram quite as much fruit in, and kept the slices away from the sides of the tin, which definitely made it easier to turn out, baked it at the right temperature and kept my eye on it.  With its apricot glaze it had that patisserie glamour.  It tasted great too.

Stoning the fruit can be a bit fiddly.  An old fashioned grapefruit knife came in handy for getting the stone out of some of the firmer fruits.  Changing the ordinary flour for gluten free flour (e.g. Doves Farm) will make it a gluten free dessert and a handy recipe to have instead of pavlova.

Ingredients

For the cake base

zest of 1 lemon

2 tsp lemon juice

30ml whole milk

125g softened butter or baking spread (I used Le Fleurier)

125g caster sugar

1 egg

125g plain flour or gluten free flour

125g ground almonds (or half and half ground almonds and ground rice)

For the topping/fruit

10-12 ripe plums or 3 large nectarines

2 tblsp apricot jam

Method

Butter the base and sides of a 23cm loose bottomed tart tin.

Put the milk and lemon juice into a small bowl or jug, mix together and set aside

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, lemon zest and sugar.  Add the egg and beat well until well combined.

Fold in the ground almonds (or almonds and rice), then the flour followed by the thickened milk.

The mixture will be quite thick so transfer it to the prepared tin and level with the back of a spoon or small palette knife.  Smooth the surface as much as possible then put the tin in the freezer while you prepare the fruit.

Cut each plum or nectarine in half and remove the stone.  Cut into quarters and slice thinly.  Plums  should make 8 slices each, nectarines 12 slices.

Preheat the oven to 160°C / 140° fan / gas mk3.  

Remove the tart case from the freezer and arrange the slices of fruit neatly in circles on top of the cake base.

Stand the tart tin on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for about 1 hour.  The fruit should be tender and the cake base lightly golden and cooked.

Remove from the oven to cool slightly.  Remove the tart from the tin and place on a serving plate.

To make the glaze, warm the apricot jam in a saucepan with 1 tblsp water.  Brush over the fruit.

Serves 8-10.

This is my gluten free version, made with apricots.  The cake base is as per the recipe above but using half and half ground almonds and ground rice, plus gluten free flour.

ICED LEMON SQUARES FOR AFTERNOON TEA

We have a friend whose birthday falls on St Patrick's Day so we held an afternoon tea party in his honour with a couple of nods to the Irish theme.  

A chocolate Guinness cake was the star of the show and of course Guinness was served for those brave enough to drink it so early in the day.

The cake stand had dainty sandwiches including egg and cress, always very popular, on the bottom tier.  The eggs were true free range, a gift from one of the ladies in our watercolour painting class and the yolks are an astonishingly bright orange.  She has a number of hens that lay lots of eggs and she brings everyone a box of half a dozen every week! We also used some home grown cress grown on our windowsill from a packet of seeds smuggled in from our trip back to the UK at Christmas.  (I have never found either cress or packets of seeds other than watercress in France.)

There were also ham and tomato sandwiches, smoked salmon, cream cheese and cucumber sandwiches, all with the crusts removed!  I also made a plate of mini sausage rolls using cocktail frankfurters which were very tasty and well received.

The middle tier had home made scones (made by Nick) and some cream horns.  I wrote about them here.  The top layer had little iced and decorated squares of lemon cake.  I fancied doing French fancies but chickened out when I spotted this Irish recipe by Donal Skehan.  

However, they very nearly didn't happen.  The recipe is an all-in-one method and said to use butter "at room temperature". Well, I ended up with little flecks of butter in the mixture.  I knew that too much beating could make the cake tough not soft and had used up all my lemons so couldn't start again.  I looked for solutions on the internet.  Most said "just cook, it will be fine", a couple said beat harder and several said to sieve the mixture!  I tried that - what a palaver and I soon gave up and went with the "just cook" theory!

I baked it as a shallow tray bake, cut it into little squares and decorated with everything I had to make them look pretty. I made a thin icing using lemon juice and coloured half with yellow food colouring.  They looked perfect and tasted very lemony. The texture was slightly firm, a bit like a madeira cake and there were occasional little holes, presumably due to the tiny lumps of unblended butter.  

I would use this recipe again but make sure the butter was very well softened, not just "at room temperature" next time. I suppose that it very much depends on the temperature of the room!  The creaming method would have worked better to ensure the butter was properly blended on this occasion!

I could imagine my mum saying "you're never too old to make mistakes" and the swish of Mrs Stafford's broomstick as she swooped by!

Ingredients 

225g caster sugar

250g self raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

4 large eggs

225g butter at room temperature (well softened would be better)

3 tblsp milk

Zest of 3 lemons

For the icing:

200g icing sugar

Juice of 1 lemon

Sprinkles of your choice

Method

Preheat the oven to 160°C / 140° fan / gas mk 3.  Line a large rectangular baking tin, 30 x 23cm, with baking paper.

Put all the cake ingredients into a large bowl and beat with a hand held electric whisk until well blended.

Transfer the mixture to the tin and level the top.  Bake for 35 minutes until done.  Remove from the oven and after a few minutes carefully lift the cake in its paper out of the tin and onto a wire rack to cool.

To make the icing sift the icing sugar into a large bowl and beat in enough lemon juice to make it runny but not too thin.  

Divide your cake into half if you are using two colours or thirds if you are using three.  Cut into squares of the size you want, very small and dainty or larger.  Separate slightly on the paper or by removing onto the rack.

Coat one section of cake with white icing, allowing it to drip down the sides of the squares.

Transfer half of the remaining icing into a separate bowl if you are using three colours or colour the remainder with just one colour if you are using two colours.

Decorate with sprinkles.

Cuts into at least 20 squares depending on how dainty you want them!

NOUGAT DE TOURS

A few weeks ago we went for lunch to a restaurant called Le George in Loches which has had a significant makeover since our last visit.  We were not disappointed and for dessert we had something called "nougat de Tours".  It's a traditional dish from our region of France and with similarities to the traditional dish from our region of the UK - the Bakewell tart.  It consists of a pastry case, filled with a layer of jam and candied fruits then topped with an almond mixture.  We both chose it for dessert and really enjoyed it so we started looking for recipes how to make one.

There are plenty of recipes on the internet but in the end I adapted one by my friend Susan which you can see here. I used strips of candied orange peel rather than marmalade and then went slightly off piste adding some chopped green and red glacé cherries as well.  Then I went even more off piste and slightly wrong.

To begin with I had chosen entirely the wrong baking dish, a round Pyrex one, simply because it was to hand and easier than trying to wrestle my loose based tart tin from the back of the cupboard.  Then, as I was spreading the almond topping over the tart there seemed to be barely enough to cover it and it wasn’t until the tart was in the oven and I started stacking the dishwasher that I spotted the third egg white in its little pot on the kitchen worktop!

(When cracking the eggs for a meringue I usually drop the white into a small pot or cup and add them individually to the bowl.  I've done this ever since the time that the fourth egg white for a pavlova contained a blob of unwanted yolk as I dropped it into the mixing bowl with the others!)

It was also the devil's own job to get slices of the tart out of the dish in one piece.  Definitely not the best looking tart I have ever made but tasted delicious so I  made a second one a couple of weeks later using the right tin and all three egg whites! 

Using a loose bottomed tart tin made the tart easy to turn out and the end result looked much neater.

That one turned out much better and will teach me not to be so lazy and to pay more attention to what I’m doing in future!  Mind you, both tarts were equally delicious!

It also occurred to me that mini versions, along the lines of the old Be-Ro tartlets, might work very well.  I shall have to try that when the opportunities presents itself.

This is the tart we had at Le George and the topping was, I think, more like a Bakewell almond sponge than macaroon, but it set us on a little culinary adventure and Nougat de Tours will be on the menu regularly from now on.

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Susan's post is worth reading because she explains the history of the tart including the use of local jams.  My jam was an apricot made from local trees by a friend that lives two miles away!  The jar of apricot is now all used up and the next one in line is her peach jam. Tah-dah!

Ingredients

1 pack of sweet pastry

A layer of apricot jam, around 150g

A layer of chopped candied peel and a few chopped glacé cherries, around 150g

75g ground almonds

75g caster sugar

3 egg whites

2 tblsp icing sugar

Method

Remove the pastry from the fridge 20-30 minutes before you want to use it, otherwise it might crack when you unroll it.

Preheat the oven to 200°C / 180° fan / gas mk 6.  Butter the base and sides of a 20cm loose bottomed tart tin. 

Unroll the pastry and use it to line the tart tin, leaving the edges untrimmed and draped over the edge of the tin.  

Spread a generous layer of jam over the pastry then scatter a generous layer of chopped peel over the top.

To make the topping, put the egg whites into a large bowl and whisk until stiff.  In another bowl mix together the ground almonds and caster sugar then fold them carefully into the egg whites.

Spread the topping evenly over the fruit, making sure not to leave any gaps at the edges.  Sprinkle with icing sugar, leave for a few minutes then sprinkle again.

Stand the tart on a baking sheet (this removes the risk of accidentally pushing the loose bottom up on removing the tart from the oven) and bake for 30 minutes.  Cover with foil if it looks too brown after 20 minutes.  Remove from the oven, remove the foil and cool in the tin.

When cool, carefully snap off the overhanging pastry and lift the tart onto a large can of food or small upturned bowl and ease the outer ring so that it drops down. You can then serve the tart from its metal base or transfer it to a flat serving plate by using a large cake lifter.

Cuts into 8-10 slices.

A LEAKY QUICHE RESCUE MISSION success snatched from the jaws of disaster!

With guests arriving for dinner I was flummoxed when, on removing my blind baked quiche pastry from the oven there was a large crack in it and a couple of small ones.  It was bound to leak.

Rats!!  What to do, what to do?  There was no time to make a batch of pastry, or to pop to the shops to buy another pack.  I put my thinking cap on and came up with a solution.

I had half of a "wonderloaf" in the house.  The pappy white sliced bread that’s neither very nutritious nor tasty but is good for cucumber sandwiches and toast with marmalade.  I pinched a bit out of a slice, rolled it into a small sausage, brushed one side liberally with some of the egg filling and squashed it into the cracks with the back of a fork.  I hoped it would stick sufficiently to plug the gap.

It worked!  There was still a little leakage but nothing major.  I shall have to remember this for future and presumably any kind of bread would work. The quiche was delicious and nobody knew how close the leaky leek and goats cheese quiche was to becoming a frittata instead!

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One week after the event/almost baking disaster it has just occurred to me that the thing to do would be to save the pastry trimmings until after the quiche shell comes out of the oven.

I could have easily used a bit of the pastry trimmings to plug the hole if I hadn't already discarded them.  Hmmm........I'll try to remember that in future!

LIME AND COCONUT CAKE

I recently made two cakes for the Tea Garden at an event here in France; a caramel apple cake and this lime and coconut cake.  With my cookbooks all safely under dust sheets because of the ongoing building work I looked to the internet for ideas and spotted this recipe on the Carnation website.

Once the mixture was made I tasted it and thought it was not very sweet.  I looked at the recipe and noticed that it contained no sugar.  "How very odd" I thought.  The recipe must be wrong!

I Googled other recipes for lime and coconut cake and saw that they all contained sugar.  In fact sugar is surely a principal ingredient of all cakes.  The recipe had loads of complimentary reviews, no mention of sugar.  So I decided to add some.  Thinking that evaporated milk is itself slightly sweet I just added 100g.

In accordance with my recent lightbulb moment regarding the conundrum of giving away cakes made to an untried recipe I made a couple of muffins with a spoonful of the mixture.  They tasted good, a nice flavour of lime with a hint of coconut, just as I would expect, moist and with a nice even crumb, which confirmed my conclusion that the recipe on the internet must be wrong and the sugar had been omitted.  The lime flavoured icing was delicious.

It wasn't until I looked at the recipe again for writing up the blog post that I realised my mistake........I should have used condensed milk, not evaporated milk, condensed milk being an already sweetened product.  No wonder the recipe contained no actual sugar!  I can't believe I did that but brain fog has been a feature of my life so far this year!  

In the words of René Artois from "Allo, allo":  "you stoopid wooman!!"

The cake sold well, every slice devoured, so I leave it up to you whether you make it with evaporated milk or condensed milk.  I will add this cake to my tweaking list and try the condensed product myself next time!

(You can buy tinned condensed milk everywhere in France and I think also evaporated milk, sold as an addition for coffee, although I haven't tried it.  I brought mine from the UK in the pre-Brexit days when that was allowed.)

A word here about zesters.

The above is a microplane grater or zester.  It will give you very finely grated zest such as would be ideal for incorporating into cake mixtures and other recipes.  Flecks of the zest are not usually visible.  They are extremely sharp and you have to be very careful not to brush your hand over it as they will easily remove a layer of skin.  They can be quite expensive but a worthwhile investment if you want to get fine, almost powdery, zest.

This is a lemon zester.  It will give you strips or strands of peel that are good for decorating a cake or dessert.  Until I invested in a microplane grater this was all I ever used as I didn't mind the visible strips of zest in a cake.  They are quite cheap and available in most supermarkets.

Ingredients

For the cake

175g softened butter or baking spread

3 large eggs, beaten

55g desiccated coconut

zest of 2 limes

175g self raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

250g evaporated milk*

100g caster sugar*

For the icing and decoration

100g icing sugar, sifted

juice of 2 limes

as sprinkling of desiccated coconut

strands of lime zest (optional)**

Method

Preheat the oven to 170°C / 150° fan / gas mk 3.  Butter a 900g / 2lb loaf tin and line the base with a strip of baking paper, or use a paper liner.

Put all the cake ingredients into a large bowl and using a hand held electric whisk beat together until pale and creamy.

Transfer the mixture to the prepared tin, level the top and bake for 50-60 minutes.  If the top is looking brown before the middle is cooked, cover with a piece of baking paper or foil.

Cool in the tin for 10 minutes then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the icing, mix the icing sugar with enough of the lime juice to make a thick pouring consistency and drizzle imaginatively over the cake.

Sprinkle coconut over the cake for decoration.  If using an extra lime, scatter strips of lime zest over the cake.

Cuts into 10-12 slices.

*instead of evaporated milk and sugar use 250g condensed milk

**if using the extra lime to create the topping it occurred to me that you could drizzle the juice from it over the cake before icing it.

LIGHT GINGER CAKE

On the day I made the banana, pecan and maple syrup cake from the previous post, I felt obliged to make a ginger cake as well.  Nick doesn't "do" bananas and ginger is his favourite kind of cake.  And in any case, in the midst of storm Eunice and the aftermath of storm Dudley, it was a thoroughly nasty day outside so what better day to bake not one, but two cakes!

It's a Mary Berry recipe called "mild ginger loaf" from her "Fast Cakes" cook book, and I baked it in my small oblong roasting tin rather than a loaf tin.  This produces a slightly flatter cake rather than a tall loaf.  

The recipe calls for 50g stem ginger and there were just two balls of it left in the jar in the fridge.  On weighing it out, 50g turned out to be just 1½ balls so I decided to use the last half of the last ball, along with some of the syrup from the jar, for icing and decoration.

Nick declared the cake a hit.  It was certainly delicately spiced and with a lovely, even crumb.  Definitely a good one for when it's blowing a hoolie and you need an easy to bake, easy to eat, cake to go with your tea or coffee.  I intended to use the last pieces as a pudding with some custard but when I looked in the tin, they had already gone........funny that!

Ingredients

For the cake

100g baking spread (I used Stork)

100g light muscovado sugar

2 tblsp black treacle

225g self raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground ginger

50g stem ginger, drained and chopped

2 large eggs

For the icing

½ a ball of stem ginger, diced

3 heaped tblsp icing sugar, sieved

ginger syrup from the jar

Method

After chopping the 50g (1½ balls) of stem ginger, preheat the oven to 160° C / 140° fan / gas mk 3.  Grease and line a 900g loaf tin (or small roasting tin) or use a paper liner.

Put the baking spread, sugar and treacle into a medium pan and heat gently until melted.

Put all the other dry ingredients into a medium bowl and stir together.  Add the melted mixter, the chopped ginger and eggs and beat well until thoroughly blended.

Pour into the prepared tin and bake until done, about 45 minutes.

Cool in the tin for 5 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.

To make the icing, put the icing sugar into a small bowl and mix in enough ginger syrup from the jar to make the consistency of double cream.  Slather or drizzle this over the cooled cake as you prefer and dot with diced bits of the remaining piece of ginger.

Cuts into 8 - 10 squares or slices.