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.

Disaster Converted

So, it has often happened that my baking has been completely disastrous, with pastry leaking, treacle exploding in the oven, and bread dough completely failing to rise. However, there have been times when I have been able to convert disaster into something either good, or something at least slightly less disastrous.

One such example was this: I had been making some more red velvet cupcakes, and I was extremely idiotic and (using my novice-status as an excuse) overfilled the cupcake cases with the cake mixture. It meant that when they were finished baking, I did not have 16 perfect little cupcakes, but one large deformed mass of cake that had spread all over the baking tray. Needless to say, I was not impressed, and had one of my wailing fits. Luckily, I decided to pull myself together, and did an Internet search on what I could do with left-over cake.

I came across this recipe for cake-pops, along with other great ideas for what to do with leftover cake. As I had so much red velvet cake on my hands, I made some pink vanilla buttercream and got stuck in. I also did not have an ice-cream scoop to shape the cake-pops perfectly, so I used a teaspoon and my own fair (and meticulously washed) hands. I also used the teaspoon method when covering the cake-pops in chocolate. I used a blend of milk and dark chocolate to cover the cake, and then used to sprinkles I had in to decorate.

Waiting for them to set.

The finished product.

These cake-pops have proven to be very popular with my friends, and I have made variations on this basic recipe, including red velvet and whisky cake-pops (made with Old Pulteney 12 year old whisky). They were completely delicious, and because I limited the whisky to just two teaspoons, it didn't overwhelm the cake. I may have to try using rum or Cointreau another time. What do you reckon?

Beckie.