Baking With Miss Sarah

I had a really lovely day yesterday, as I spent much of the day with one of my dearest friends, Sarah. We'd decided that we must simply have a baking day, so I hauled a giant bag full of ingredients and various baking implements to Sarah's house, and we set up camp in her kitchen for the day.

We had a very specific plan for the baking session; we wanted to make something called 'jap' cakes, or japonaise cake. I love these little cakes. I remember having them as a child, and was delighted to discover that the amazing Wienholt's bakery in the village where I live sold these little treasures. Wienholt's sells two different versions, a praline one and a chocolate and coffee one. The cakes are amazing, but they are a little pricey to be buying them every single week, so Sarah and I decided to have a go at making our own.

Searching for a recipe online, there was very little out there. There seemed to be a lot of people asking where they could find a recipe, but only a few people providing a recipe. Luckily for us, 'Caroline Makes...' has a wonderful recipe that we decided to use, adding our own little alterations:

2 egg whites
113g caster sugar
113g ground almonds
Three drops of almond essence
Chocolate buttercream (with two teapoons of chocolate-hazelnut spread)

Chocolate sprinkles

First we whisked the egg whites until they were stiff, and then we whisked in half the sugar, which created a meringue mix. Then we stirred in the rest of the sugar, the ground almonds, and the almond essence. The resulting mixture was spread out to a thickness of about 1cm on a baking sheet, and was then put in the oven at 180°C. We had our mixture in the oven for about 15-20 minutes, which in the end may have been about five minutes too long, but we'll adjust that for next time.

When we brought the mixture out of the oven, it looked and smelled amazing, and we set to work cutting out the little discs using a round biscuit-cutter. The leftovers were very moreish, and were soon eaten by Sarah, myself, and Sarah's parents.

Tasty tasty off-cuts.

We managed to get ten discs in total out of the mixture, which would make five cakes in total.

Ten perfect little discs.

Then it was onto making the buttercream. We used this simple recipe from the BBC Food website, but we halved the quantities and used some this rather nice chocolate icing sugar from Silver Spoon instead of normal icing sugar. We didn't use the milk that the recipe asked for, adding two teaspoons of chocolate-hazelnut spread instead. This produced a really scrummy buttercream that we had trouble not eating straight out of the bowl.

Delicious chocolatey hazelnutty buttercream.

Then we set up the assembly line:

Miss Sarah on the assembly line, with the all-important chocolate sprinkles.

Here, we sandwiched some of the buttercream between two of the almond meringue discs, and then used a palette knife to cover the sides smoothly in buttercream as well. These were then rolled and covered in chocolate sprinkles.

Very nice little delights.

The result was five lovely-looking little cakes, that tasted absolutely amazing. Even the cross-section looked good!

That's a beautiful cross-section right there.

After we'd finished the 'jap' cakes, we took a lunch break, and then came back refreshed to start out next project. We decided to do one of my favourites, the custard tart, but with a slight twist. For the pastry, I yet again made use of the Crazy Kitchen's shortcrust pastry recipe, as it has never failed me. What we did this time was halve the quantities, and again used the chocolate icing sugar instead of normal icing sugar. The un-baked pastry definitely looked very different in colour to the shortcrust pastry I normally make.

Chocolate pastry.

The pastry rolled out as nicely as ever, and was pressed into the tart tin.

Pressing the dough into the tin.

We then pricked the base with a fork, covered it with baking paper and filled it with baking beans, and put it into the oven to blind-bake for twenty minutes at 180°C.

Ready for the blind-baking.

After twenty minutes, it came out, and had an egg-yolk-wash. It then went back into the oven for five minutes.

Complete with egg-yolk-wash.

Then it was time to make the filling. Again, I made use of James Martin's Honey and Date Custard Tart recipe. As usual, I left out the dates, and substitued the honey with 50g caster sugar. I also added a teaspoon of nutmeg to the custard mix, poured it into the pastry case, and then sprinkled nutmeg lightly over the top.

The filling ready for the oven.

The tart was then baked initially for fifteen minutes, after which it was checked, and found to not be quite ready yet. So we put it back in, and kept checking on every two minutes until it was baked perfectly, with just enough of a wobble in the centre.

Just baked!

Once it had cooled a little, we popped it out of the tin and put it on the cooling rack. What is noticeable here is that the pastry, once cooked, actually was not that different in colour to the usual shortcrust pastry.

Ready for testing.

The custard tasted as nice as ever (I do so love nutmeg), but the pastry was a revelation. It had a slight hint of chocolate that was not overwhelming, and didn't interfere with the flavour of the custard. In short, it was beautiful. I do believe I shall be making this chocolate-y pastry again.

Beckie.

Custard Tart

By the time the summer rolled around, I'd had a decent amount of practice making shortcrust pastry (I'd basically made a LOT of treacle tarts), so I finally decided to have a go at making an old family favourite: the custard tart. Once again, I turned to the BBC Food website, and after some searching I came across an intriguing recipe, this Honey and Date Custard Tart by James Martin. Now I'm not the biggest fan of dates, so I decided to leave them out, and just have the honey. Using the same shortcrust pastry from The Crazy Kitchen's Lemon and Ginger Tart recipe, I made my usual pastry case, and then moved onto making the custard filling. This is actually a fairly simple filling to make, the main thing to watch out for is burning the cream when you boil it. I got lucky with it this time, but I get the feeling that it could be just a matter of seconds between just-boiling cream and burnt cream.

After whisking the boiling cream into the egg yolk and honey mixture, I carefully poured the filling into the pastry case and then gingerly transferred it to the oven. 20 minutes later, this was the result:

Slightly over-done, but still tasty.

The only problem here was the fact that the tart filling was slightly overdone. In my desperation to get the custard set, I'd left the tart in the oven about five minutes too long. However, the flavour was not compromised, and I loved the honey flavour that came with this custard filling.

Despite the relative success of the honey custard tart, I really wanted to make a traditional custard and nutmeg tart. Using the same James Martin recipe, I simply left out the dates again, and substituted the honey with 50g caster sugar, put in a few drops of vanilla essence, and added half a teaspoon of nutmeg into the custard mix. Once the filling had been poured into the pastry case (made following The Crazy Kitchen recipe yet again!), I then sprinkled yet more nutmeg over the top to give the custard tart that traditional look. This time I timed the bake perfectly, and the custard was beautifully done, with a beautiful hint of nutmeg and vanilla.

Yummy custard tart.

As you can probably see, the pastry was very thin (not necessarily a bad thing), which meant that there were a couple of cracks in the side of the case that appeared when I moved the tart from the wire-rack to the plate. This is a common issue for me, but I'd rather have a thin and crispy pastry than one that is too thick and stodgy.

This has become one of my favourite recipes to make, and was even requested by my parents when I went to stay with them for Christmas. This time I made excellent use of the leftover pastry scraps, rolling them out and making custard tartlets along with the main tart.

A family of custard tarts.

I must say, they all went down very well with my parents; it's always nice to hear that my parents like your baking (they'd experienced my poor cooking skills in the past, and have been pleasantly surprised by my baking renaissance), and it's particularly gratifying to hear that they liked my version of a long-time family favourite. That makes it one of my proudest baking successes in my mind.

Beckie.