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.

Meringue

Having been fairly successful with the meringue topping for the "S'moreanne Cupcakes", I decided to have a go at making simple meringues using the Italian meringue technique. This involves boiling sugar and water together until it reaches the soft-ball stage, and then whisking it into already-whisked egg whites. Having remembered hearing Mary Berry say on the Great British Bake Off that it was really hard to over-whisk meringue, I was mindful of not under-doing them. I also decided to flavour them with a few drops of almond extract.

The first time I attempted this, I messed it up completely. For some unknown reason, I poured in all the boiling sugar in one go and whisked it all in. It's caused a problem, because most of the sugar sank to the bottom of the bowl and set there. Therefore there was not enough sugar in the meringue for it to set and bake properly, resulting in a sloppy mess when I attempted to bake them. So I tried again, and did it properly the second time round, pouring in the sugar very slowly whilst whisking at the same time. This resulted in an extremely stable meringue mix, and after three-four hours in the oven at 110°C, out came eight perfectly glossy and shiny meringues. They tasted beautifully of almond, and had a very nice crunch when bitten into.

Second-Round Meringues

Only the other night, I made some giant vanilla meringues, and sprinkled in some cocoa powder to half of them as well. I am very much aware of the fact that they look messy, but I promise that they tasted great, and were even approved by my mother.

Messy, yes.  Yummy, definitely.

I've also tried swirling in various different food colouring right before they go into the oven. The success of this depends on how much food colouring you actually swirl in. One drop is enugh, believe me. I made some green, yellow and red meringues the other night, and most were great. However, the three which I'd added the red food colouring to were not so great, as I'd added far too much of the food colouring, causing them to sink during the bake.

Beckie.

Unusual Cupcakes

The Hummingbird Bakery very kindly provided me with my next baking experiment. This time I decided to attempt something called "S'moreanne Cupcakes". These intriguing little cakes are topped with meringue, which only added another level of tricksy-ness to the recipe. In the past, I have had little-to-no-success with meringue, for some reason they always failed miserably. I think I tended to mess up adding the sugar to the egg whites. This time things would be different.

The cakes themselves were simple enough to make; a nice milk and cocoa-based sponge, with biscuit and chocolate embellishments prior to adding the meringue. The bake turned out ok, which was a relief, but then came the meringue stage. Doing my research, I'd found out that the method suggested by the Hummingbird Bakery was for Italian meringues, where boiling sugar is added to the egg whites. These are apparently a more stable meringue form, so I was mildly optimistic as well as slightly terrified.

Having no sugar thermometer, I had to go by timing and look when it came to boiling the water and sugar mixture. Luckily for me, I got it right this time. The meringue held it's form very well, and because the method means that boiling sugar is mixed into the egg whites, it results in the sugar actually cooking the egg immediately, meaning it can be eaten straight away, if you really want to. Instead, though, I topped the cakes with the meringue, and lightly toasted them under the grill in the oven.  The cakes were then topped-off with a piece of dark chocolate.

Mmmmmmmmm.

Next time I'd love to use a blowtorch though, so I may have to invest in one along with a sugar thermometer. 

Beckie.