lamingtons!

So, of course I'll take any excuse to bake. It was Australia day a few days ago (the 26th to be exact) and I decided to try lamingtons this year. I thought I'd make enough for me and hubby to bring to our respective workplaces, which meant I'd be allowed to make one batch of sponge-cake-based lamingtons, and one batch of madeira-cake-based lamingtons, right? :) In truth, that was just an excuse for me to also try baking madeira cake too... and it didn't quite go according to plan, as it turned out that one sponge cake produced enough lamingtons for both me and hubby, and the madeira cake recipe I eventually decided on ended up being a fake lemon cake. But the sponge cake lamingtons turned out well enough, and we will conveniently forget about attempting the madeira cake (although I think I will keep searching for the elusive perfect madeira cake recipe...)

I found my recipe for the sponge cake base here (the latest amazing food blog I've stumbled upon - love the photography and recipes here), which I've reproduced below:

For the sponge cake

Ingredients:
3 large eggs
190g butter, room temperature
190g granulated white sugar
160g plain flour, sifted
40g potato starch, or corn flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbinate of soda

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease a 22.5cm square cake tin with butter.

The original recipe says:
In a large bowl, mix everything together on a slow speed with an electric hand mixer, until combined.

I didn't actually believe mixing everything together would work for me, even though the pictures in the blog told me it would! So I mixed the butter and sugar together until combined, then added the eggs, then the remaining ingredients.

When combined, transfer the mixture to the tin. Smooth the top and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Cool for 5 minutes in the tin, and then turn out onto a wrack. When cool slice as needed.


For the chocolate coconut coating, I adapted the recipe from here.

Ingredients:

20g butter
400g icing sugar
200g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
120ml milk
about 300g desiccated coconut

Method:

Put the coconut into a shallow dish.

Put the icing sugar, dark chocolate, butter and milk in a heatproof bowl and place over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir constantly until melted and combined. Turn off the heat, but keep the bowl over the pan of hot water so the mixture stays liquid.

Dip each piece of sponge into the chocolate mixture so that it is covered in chocolate. I found the best way to do this is to plop the sponge into the bowl with your fingers, use a large spoon to turn the sponge piece around to ensure it's completely coated, and then use a fork to scoop out the piece (not pierce it) so the excess chocolate drips off, before placing (or in my case dropping) the chocolate coated piece of cake into the coconut. But you can use whatever method works best for you. The end result will always be a mess of coconut and chocolate and cake crumbs, as well as lamingtons :)

Gently toss in the coconut so it is completely covered.

Place the lamingtons on a plate until completely set.

lamingtons of a less guilty size

lamingtons of a more photogenic size

hmmm

So J's last day at UBS was yesterday. When I finished up at my last place, I received a card full of baking references, and even my farewell gift was baking/cooking related. This was to be expected. J received a farewell card yesterday, and surprisingly this card also contained references to baked goods... I would never have thought that I could make it into someone else's farewell card! (even if I happen to be married to that someone else)

perfect mulled wine

Don't worry - this will be the last Christmas post for a while. Well, until December (if I can keep this blogging up until then).

I've used Delia's mulled wine recipe in the past - with Delia you usually can't go too wrong. I grew up watching a variety of cooking shows, which included an awful lot of Delia so I've grown attached to her. But I happened to stumble upon The Guardian's 'how to make perfect...' series in December, which included mulled wine and it looked very enticing. I gave the recipe a go, and it unfortunately beats Delia's recipe hands down (sorry Delia!).

You'll see the recipe in The Guardian includes cardamom pods - I thought this would be a little too weird for mulled wine, so have left it out in my version below.

Ingredients

• 1 orange
• 1 lemon, peel only
• 75g caster sugar
• 5 cloves
• 1 cinnamon stick
• freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 bottle fruity, unoaked red wine

Method

Peel and juice 1 orange, and add to a large saucepan along with the lemon peel, sugar and spices. Add enough wine to just cover the sugar, and heat gently until the sugar has dissolved, stirring occasionally. Bring to the boil and cook for 5 – 8 minutes until you have a thick syrup.

Turn the heat down, and pour the rest of the wine into the saucepan. Gently heat through and serve. You can use orange segments studded with cloves as garnish.

perfect mince pies

Most people would blog about Christmas in the lead up to Christmas. But I can't wait 11 months to post my mince pie recipe, and it's not yet a month from Christmas, so I figure it's not too ridiculous a notion to post it now.

I first made mince pies the year before last, our 3rd Christmas here, using Delia Smith's recipe for the mincemeat filling and pastry. Don't worry - I don't put actual meat in my mincemeat and I only use vegetarian suet (although I have toyed with the idea of using beef suet...). The mincemeat filling was perfect, but while the pastry was surprisingly easy to make it didn't have that 'wow' factor - the amazing mincemeat was being let down by the average pastry, which I wanted to be sweeter and crumbly, instead of dry and flaky.

Last year, I wasn't intending to make mince pies at all. Something to do with feeling lazy. But then my brother-in-law left us some mini mince pies that looked very cute and delicious. The pastry lived up to expectations, but the filling was pretty awful. After that disappointing experience, I kept thinking I must be able to make mince pies better than that. I already knew I had a killer mincemeat recipe, so surely I would be able to find the perfect mince pie pastry recipe?

After trawling through the internet, I decided on a recipe that looked promising and gave it a go. The result after the first attempt was what can only be described as shortbread filled with mincemeat! Pretty much a mince pie :) The reason why the pastry turned out more like shortbread was because I didn't believe the pastry would hold as I was pressing the dough into the muffin tins so I left it rather thick, and I didn't want the mince to burst through the pastry so I only filled it about 2/3 full - this resulted in more pastry than filling. Delicious though. I still had 3 jars of mincemeat left so made a larger 2nd batch a few days later with 2 jars, this time pressing out the dough to be quite thin and being more generous with the mincemeat. The result? The perfect mince pie... :) Just the right thickness of pastry with just the right amount of filling. With my final jar/batch I added slightly too much butter to the pastry and I think this caused the pastry to be a little difficult to press into the tins. I also pressed out the pastry too thin so the mince pies came out a little fragile... (at least I know now how far the pastry will let me take it!) But despite all that, the mince pies from the 3rd batch still satisfied my (or perhaps even anyone's? :) mince pie craving.

In my search for a pastry recipe, I also found many promising alternative recipes for mincemeat, but I figure why change when I know that what I have works? So below is the recipe for the mincemeat (from Delia Smith's Christmas) and the recipe for the pastry, which is reproduced below with some editing, was found here. (Note that I've halved the quantities for both recipes - if I left them as the original quantities I'd be drowning in mince pie heaven!)

Mincemeat

Ingredients

• 225g Bramley apples, cored and chopped small (no need to peel)
• 110g shredded suet (I think the expensive organic suet from Wholefoods actually results in more superior mincemeat than when using Atora suet from Tesco...)
• 175g raisins
• 110g sultanas
• 110g currants
• 110g whole mixed candied peel
• 175g soft dark brown sugar
• zest and juice of 1 orange
• zest and juice of 1 lemon
• 25g whole almonds cut into slivers
• 2 teaspoons mixed ground spice
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• nutmeg, grated
• 3 tablespoons brandy

Method
Combine all the ingredients except for the brandy in a large mixing bowl.

Cover the bowl with a clean cloth and leave the mixture in a cool place overnight or for 12 hours, so the flavours have a chance to mingle and develop.

After that pre-heat the oven to 120 degrees Celsius, transfer the mix to a tin (I use a cake tin), cover loosely with foil and place it in the oven for 3 hours.

Remove from the oven. As it cools stir from time to time; the fat will coagulate and instead of it being in tiny shreds it will encase all the other ingredients. When the mincemeat is cold stir in the brandy.

Pack in clean dry jars, cover with wax discs and seal. It will keep in a cool, dark cupboard indefinitely (but probably best to eat within a year).



Mince Pie Pastry

Makes about 10 mince pies

Ingredients

• 110 cold butter, diced
• 175g plain flour
• 50g golden caster sugar
• 1 jar mincemeat (my jars are of the chilli bean sauce or black bean garlic sauce variety :)
  
• 1 small egg, beaten (optional)
  
• icing sugar, to dust

Method

To make the pastry, rub the butter into the flour, then mix in the sugar and a pinch of salt.

Combine the pastry into a ball - don't add liquid - and knead it briefly. The dough will be fairly firm, like shortbread dough. You can use the dough immediately, or chill for later.

Preheat the oven to 200C/gas 6/fan 180C. Line about 10 holes of a 12-hole muffin tin, by pressing small walnut-sized balls of pastry into each hole. Spoon the mincemeat into the pies. (Don't worry about greasing the muffin tin as I think the butter from the pastry will prevent the pies from sticking. Also you only need to make sure they come up about halfway to 2/3 of the way up the muffin tin.)

Take slightly smaller balls of pastry than before and pat them out between your hands to make round lids, big enough to cover the pies. Top the pies with their lids, pressing the edges gently together to seal - you don't need to seal them with milk or egg as they will stick on their own. (The pies may now be frozen for up to 1 month).

Optional - brush the tops of the pies with the beaten egg.

Bake for 20 minutes until golden.

Leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then remove to a wire rack. To serve, lightly dust with icing sugar.

They will keep for 3 to 4 days in an airtight container.

friands

Living in this part of the world, you don't see any friands around. If an Australian were to crave one, the closest thing to a friand would be the financier. Even if you manage to get your hands on a decent financier, they will never be enough to satisfy because even if it was dense and moist, how can something so shallow and rectangular ever be the same as a friand which is oval-shaped and three times as tall? They're just not the same.

However, I started baking friands not because I was craving them, but because on numerous occasions I would have a bunch of egg whites leftover from making custard or ice cream, and I needed to find another way to use my egg whites as I often didn't have the time to make macaroons, or the inclination to make pavlova. And now I bake friands when I have leftover egg whites, as they are incredibly easy to make and take hardly any time at all. I started off with raspberry, made blueberry ones a few times, and the latest incarnation have been lemon and poppyseed.

After several attempts, I have learnt -

• My friands get mistaken for cupcakes or muffins (depending on whether I make 12 or 6) because I am missing the all-important oval shaped friand tin.
• Wash the berries before use, but make sure they are very dry before adding them - my first batch of raspberry friands turned out rather soggy.
  
• Don't beat the egg whites until foamy, as most recipes I've encountered so far instruct; I found the friands came out too light and fluffy (and far too indistinguishable from normal muffins/cupcakes). To get that heavy denseness, just add the egg whites unadulterated to the dry ingredients.
  

Below is a recipe that has worked for me. I've adapted the original recipe (which can be found here) slightly to suit my preference :)

Ingredients

• 100g butter


• 4 large egg whites


• 45g (1/4 cup plus 2 1/2 teaspoons) plain flour


• 140g (1 cup) pure icing sugar


• 85g (2/3 cup, lightly pressed into the cup with the back of a spoon) ground almonds (or almond meal)


• 1 tsp vanilla extract


• Extra icing sugar, for dusting

and for the variations

• About 40g (about 30 large) blueberries or raspberries if making berry friands


• Zest of 2 lemons if making lemon friands


• 1/4 cup poppy seeds if making lemon poppy seed friands
  

Method



Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius (170 degrees Celsius fan-forced). If you are not using a fan-forced oven, adjust the oven rack to the middle position so the friands brown evenly.

Grease a six hole (1/3 cup capacity holes) non-stick oval friand pan, or six individual 1/3 cup capacity friand pans. If you don't have a friand pan, you could use a muffin pan with 1/3 cup capacity holes.

Melt butter and set aside to cool to lukewarm.

Put egg whites, vanilla extract, flour, icing sugar, ground almonds (and lemon zest if using) in a bowl and stir together until just combined.

Add the melted butter to the bowl and stir until just combined.

Divide mixture evenly among the holes of the prepared pan.

If using berries, place a few in a cluster in the centre of each friand.

Bake for about 25 minutes (or roughly 17 minutes if making 12 friands in a muffin tray) or until the friands are a light golden colour and spring back when lightly pressed. A thin-bladed knife or wooden skewer inserted into the centre of a friand should come out without any raw-looking batter attached.

Remove friands from the oven and allow to stand in the pan for five minutes.

Remove friands from the pan and dust with icing sugar to serve



(pictures to come)

lemon cake

I had a really strong craving for a really nice, moist, lemony lemon cake around September last year. After searching for recipes online, I decided on a lemon cake recipe which I had noted down some years ago, but had never gotten around to trying, until then. I don't need to look anywhere else for a lemon cake recipe - this is it. I did increase the amount of lemons used to 3, as I didn't think the original quoted amount of zest and juice of 1/2 a lemon would be sufficient to meet my ultra lemony requirements.

Yoghurt lemon syrup cake

Ingredients

• 125g butter, softened
• 200g (1 cup) caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• zest of 3 lemons
• juice of 1 lemon
  
• 200g (1½ cups) self-raising flour
• 200g (3/4 cups) natural yoghurt
• 1/3 cup water
• 150g (3/4 cup) sugar

Method

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease and line 20cm round tin.

Cream the butter and caster sugar until pale and light.

Beat in the eggs, one at a time. It may look a bit curdled but don’t worry, it will be fine.

Gently fold in the lemon zest and flour and then fold in the yoghurt.

Use a spatula to scrape into the cake tin, making the centre a little lower than the edges. (You might be able to tell from the picture below that I paid no attention to this step, as mine came out quite cracked and dome-shaped)

Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

About 5 minutes before the cake is ready, heat the water, sugar and lemon juice in a small saucepan and simmer for 5 minutes. When the cake is cooked, leave it in the tin, poke a fine skewer all over the top (about 30 times should do it) and spoon the hot lemon syrup over. Try to do this so the syrup soaks evenly into the holes.

Allow the cake to cool in the tin.

(Unfortunately I can't quite remember where I found this recipe, but I suspect it was smh related...)


















that huge gaping hole in the cake is what hubby and I managed to consume as soon as the cake was cool enough to eat

the first step is acceptance

I am a bakeaholic.

Being a bakeaholic is not only bad for my waistline, but I'm also running out of excuses for bringing in baked goods to work... which means I will soon appear to be a bit of a baking freak at my new place of employment.

One of my friends at work said I should blog about my baking, and I initially thought that that would be nice, but I just have no time to do it because blogging does take quite a bit of time (and because I'm too busy baking in all my spare time!!). And just look at my archive in my other blog - enough said. But today, I decided that maybe I will give baking blogging a go. Maybe it will be another way for me to expend my copious amounts of baking energy. At the very least it would be nice to have a centralised location for all my favourite recipes :)