More cupcakes............

My cake boxes arrived yesterday so today I managed to get some cakes made and now I'm hoping to give them out for free along with some business cards. Lots of people have told me not to give anything away for free but then again others have told me the opposite. I'm hoping my little bit of generosity will inspire others to be a bit generous in return and order lots of cakes. Obviously I hope they like them and buy them to devour them. The more the merrier.

So a few photos.

I made sticky toffee cupcakes with golden syrup frosting and marzipan strawberries ( i would usually put real strawberries on but i didnt have any!)

Lemon cupcakes with lemon frosting and crunchy lemon sprinkles.

Carrot cakes with vanilla frosting and marzipan carrots.

Vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting and sprinkles.

Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting and chocolate vermicelli.

Fingers crossed for a good response.

Hot hot hot.........

.......It's another lovely, warm day and what better to refresh oneself than with a delicious, cooling, ice cream. This is a really easy and delicious ice cream that is made without a custard base. It has just three ingredients and takes literally minutes to prepare and if you have an ice cream machine about 20 minutes to freeze.

Lemon curd Ice cream is beautifully creamy and delicately perfumed. You can make your own lemon curd if you wish or you can simply buy a jar from the supermarket.

This makes approximately 500 ml. 340g jar lemon curd, 284ml double cream juice and zest of 1 lemon.

Lightly whip the double cream then mix in the lemon curd and the zest and juice of the lemon.

Mix well and then churn in an ice cream maker. Freeze or devour.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy........

Lemon curd is one of my favourites, it is so easy to make I remember making it when I was about 7 years old. If you did fancy making your own there are a few methods to making it but I find this the quickest and best although you have to be careful not to cook the eggs and make it curdle.
You can make it as tart or sweet as you like, just mess about with the quantities of sugar and lemon juice.

Makes approximately 1 small jar
180ml fresh lemon juice
zest of 3 lemons
150g caster sugar
3 eggs
115g unsalted butter

In a saucepan, combine the lemon juice, lemon zest, sugar, eggs, and butter. Heat the mix slowly, cooking it gently over a medium heat until it begins to thicken and the whisk leaves marks in the curd. Remove the curd from the heat and place it in a strerilized jar. Keep it in the fridge.

Too much greek yoghurt......

I bought a load of greek yoghurt yesterday, it was reduced and really cheap. I love it with lots of honey drizzled on top, but I had no honey and decided to make a cake. This is an experiment, a cross between a lemon polenta cake and an orange blossom and yoghurt cake.

The orange blossom cake is a pound like cake that is soaked in a sugar syrup, making it moist and delicious. The lemon polenta cake is pretty much the same kind of thing. Obviously the ingredients differ.

The orange blossom and yoghurt cake recipe I found calls for flour, sugar, eggs, oil, greek yoghurt, lemon zest and ground almonds in the mix. Having no almonds I decided to replace them with polenta. I followed the rest of the recipe and I'm glad to say that the cake turned out beautifully. Really moist and zingy with a delicate hint of cardamon.

This makes a 9inch cake

200g self-raising flour , sifted
100g polenta
150g caster sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder

2 large eggs, beaten with a fork
250g Greek yogurt
150ml sunflower oil
1 zested lemon

FOR THE ORANGE SYRUP
150ml water
175g caster sugar
1 orange juiced and 2 strips of zest
½ juiced lemon

5 crushed cardamom pods
1 tablespoon orange flower water
icing sugar and crème fraîche or Greek yoghurt, to serve

Heat the oven to 180ªC/fan 160°C/gas 4.

Butter or oil a 9 inch spring-form tin.

Put all the dry ingredients for the cake in a bowl with a good pinch of salt.

Put all the rest of the ingredients in and stir with a wooden spoon, gradually incorporating the wet ingredients.

Spoon into the tin and bake for 40 minutes. A skewer pushed into the middle of the cake should come out clean, if not give it a little longer.

Meanwhile make the syrup. Put the water, sugar, rind, citrus juices and cardamom into a saucepan. Heat gently, stirring to help the sugar dissolve.

Cool then strain and add the orange flower water.

Leave the cooked cake for 5 minutes to cool in the tin, then pierce all over with a skewer and, while the cake is still warm, slowly pour over the syrup. Leave to soak in.

Serve with crème fraîche, yoghurt or cream.

This is a really quick and easy cake to make. You can just use lemon or orange rather than both if you prefer.

Strawberries......not just at Wimbledon......

Today at the market they were selling off strawberries for 50p a punnet!
A little bit of information now:
Did you know the British strawberry season runs from late May to early September. When buying strawberries you should look for plump, shiny, tender berries, with a good, bright colour and a sweet aroma, preferably with their leafy green calyx and stalk still attached. If you're buying a punnet, check that the underside isn't stained - that means the lower level of berries has been crushed. Also, large strawberries tend to have a higher water content, so are less tasty and sweet, so go for small to medium-sized ones.

A great and different dessert using strawberries is this. It is a fruity version of Tiramisù using strawberries. It is a lovely summery pudding and looks and tastes stunning. Unlike original Tiramisù this doesn’t contain the coffee pick me up but the zingy, freshness of the strawberries will waken up your tastebuds. Strawberries are used throughout the pudding to make a coulis which is then used between the layers of biscuits.
Small pieces of strawberry are scattered through the layers of the dessert and the biscuits are soaked in some of the strawberry coulis syrup, mixed with strawberry liqueur. The whole thing is topped off with slices of juicy red strawberries. A strawberry and cream feast. This works great with raspberries or a mixture of berries too.

This will serve 8-10 people
50 Savoiardi or sponge finger biscuits about 300g
250g mascarpone
150ml double cream
4 egg yolks
200g sugar
400g fresh strawberries
200ml strawberry liqueur

Make the strawberry coulis by placing a third of the strawberries in a pan with 200ml water and 2 tablespoons of sugar. Heat gently for 5-10 minutes. Remove from the heat and drain half of the syrup into a bowl. Whiz the strawberries and the rest of the syrup in a blender.
Add the strawberry liqueur to the juice you reserved and mix well then place to one side.
Make the cream by beating the egg yolks with the sugar until pale and creamy. Add the mascarpone and whisk in. In a separate bowl whisk the cream to soft peaks and then fold into the mascarpone cream.
Take a square 8 or 9 inch dish and spoon a little of the mascarpone cream into the bottom and spread it around. Take the Savoiardi biscuits and dunk them into the liqueur mix for a few seconds and then lay them into the dish. Do this until you have a complete layer at the bottom of the dish.
Pour over some of the mascarpone cream and spread it around covering the biscuits. Take some of the coulis and spoon it over the cream then take a few of the whole strawberries and cut then into slices and scatter around.
Do another layer of the Savoiardi dipping them into the liqueur and laying them out. Cover the biscuits with the remaining mascarpone cream and the strawberry coulis. Cut the remaining strawberries into slices and place them all over the top of the tiramisù.
Leave the Tiramisù to rest in the fridge for at least 5-6 hours or even better overnight, before serving.

To serve cut into squares and dust with a little icing sugar.
　

Sticky toffee fig pudding to bring a smile to your lips.....

.......and a few inches to your hips.


So today I made some sticky toffee puddings for a catering event next week. They keep really well and freeze great too.


I have a number of recipes which all work really well but of recent I have been swapping the usual dried dates for dried figs and the outcome is just as good if not better.
This will bring your home alive with wonderful caramel aromas. It is really easy to make and even easier to eat. Serve with toffee sauce and cream or ice cream, depending on your inclination.







So this recipe makes enough for 6-8 people. You can make it in a normal cake tin or like me in individual moulds.



You will need
150g dried chopped figs, 250ml water, 2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda, 75g unsalted butter, 125g light muscovado sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, 200g plain flour, 2 eggs and 1 tablespoon golden syrup.



Preheat the oven to gas mark 5, 190°C, 375°F.
Butter your tin or moulds.
Place the figs in a pan with the water and bring gently to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes.
Remove them from the heat and add the bicarbonate.
Cream the butter and the sugar then add the eggs, golden syrup and the vanilla. Mixing well.
Add the flour and the fig mixture, mixing well then pour into the prepared moulds and bake for 25-30 minutes.


Meanwhile make the sauce by heating 100g muscovado sugar, 100g unsalted butter and 150ml double cream in a saucepan until all the sugar has dissolved and the toffee sauce has thickened slightly.


Serve the cake with lots of sauce and plenty of cream, custard or ice cream.

You can simply replace the figs with dates if you prefer the original or try apricots for a different take on it.

World Cup woes.......

Italy got knocked out of the World Cup today. I have to keep telling myself it's only football but I am a proud and patriotic Italian, so I am suitably narked off. (understatement of the century!)

Anyway if we had been given the two goals we should have had (except for a blind linesman) then we would have gone through. Although I was screaming at the tv and shouting abuse at all the players, mainly the Italians, Lippi, the slovakian,timewaster of a goalie and the horrible slovakian team, I have to admit that in the last 20 minutes the Azzurri bucked up their ideas and played with real passion. I wish they had done that from the start. Moving swiftly on before I burst into a fit of passionate, Italian tears, I dedicate the following recipe to the fallen champions. Tis not a cake, alas, but a stiff, alcoholic drink, Italian and world famous.

Limoncello, sour like the taste left in my mouth from this World Cup but refreshing like the memories of Grosso scoring the winning penalty in 2006.

I am lucky enough to have a cousin who owns her own lemon groves along the Amalfi coastline, where this fruit grows in profusion. We always have plenty of limoncello to go round and it works wonderfully both as an aperitive or a digestive.
It is best served ice cold and can be kept in the freezer. Like many liqueurs it can be used in a number of desserts, cakes and cocktails.
Best made with large, unwaxed lemons (preferably from Italy).
We use 96% proof alcohol but if you cannot find it use a very good, strong vodka.

This makes approximately 1 litre.
1 litre alcohol, 1kg caster sugar, 10 lemons, 1 litre water.

Wash and dry the lemons, peel the zest off them and place them in a large jar with the alcohol. Cover the jar, keeping it airtight and leave the peel to macerate for 20 days.
After 20 days make the syrup by heating the sugar in the water until dissolved. Let the syrup cool and then add the alcohol mixture.
Leave this mix for 24 hours then strain the limoncello and place it in a bottle.
Leave the liqueur a further week and then store in the fridge or freezer and enjoy when desired.

As with most liqueurs the longer you leave them to macerate and infuse the stronger and more depth of flavour they will have.

SALUTE

Crap day at work, but....

I finally have my business cards. I hope to be giving them out in the coming days and maybe, just maybe my dream will start to come true. After another stressful day at work I am beginning to think about handing my notice in, sooner rather than later. The electricity tripped at least 10 times today. The electrician said that's because you shouldn't have everything on at the same time. What a prat, he obviously hasn't worked in a professional kitchen and he obviously can't be bothered coming back in to fix his mistake, which it is. I'm sick of telling the people in charge about equipment I need and it going in one ear and out the other. It was sweltering in the kitchen and luckily I went in early and managed to get some bits out of the way before everybody else got in the way. Anyway I could go on all night but I'm not going to because Im, a: tired and b: sure there is no one reading this and giving a damn anyway. I feel really bad about taking it out on my mum when I got in, even if she did give my phone number out to some MFC of a woman from some shitty call centre who wont stop ringing. Breathe and relax... So what wonderful recipe can I tell you about today. Well seeing as it's hot here and I spoke about ice cream yesterday this is a kind of hybrid ice cream and cake rolled in to one. It's a walnut and toffee, ice cream cake. This cake combines a multitude of delicious ingredients and is easy to make. There is no cooking involved and once you've made it I'm sure you 'll be back for more. You can make 1 individual cake or 8 small ones with the following quantities: 300g digestive biscuits crushed, 100g amaretti biscuits crushed, 100g butter melted, 1 litre vanilla ice cream, 150g walnut halves, 300g thick toffee sauce. Firstly you need to grease a loose based cake tin or tartlet cases with a little vegetable oil. Mix the crushed biscuits with the butter and smooth them out in the tin or tins, pressing down well. Pop the tin in the fridge for 20 minutes to harden up. After 20 minutes spread the ice cream on top of the biscuit base and freeze for 30 minutes. Take the cake out of the freezer and pour over the toffee sauce and then sprinkle over the walnuts. Freeze until hard. To serve leave the cake at room temperature for a few minutes then cut and enjoy.

Dulche de leche is great for the topping or even better make your own. It's really easy equal quantities of brown sugar, double cream and butter heated together and left to thicken.

Cherry ice cream with a kick....

I know it's not a cake but this ice cream is delicious and seeing as the cherry season is upon us and going to continue for a month or two I thought I would include it.

I came up with the recipe a while ago after buying my ice cream machine. I had some cherries to use up and some cherry brandy in the cupboard and thought I would mix them together and see what concoction I could come up with. The result, a delicious fruity, creamy ice with a little alcoholic kick. You can use cherry brandy or kirsch and if you don't have fresh cherries use tinned ones or even better preserved cherries in syrup. This is a great adult after dinner treat but if you want to make it for the kids simply omit the alcohol.




The quantities for an approximate pint are as follows. 350g cherries, 200ml whole milk, 200ml double cream, 180g caster sugar, a small glass of kirsch or cherry brandy.


Simply place the sugar in a saucepan with the milk and double cream and heat gently until the sugar dissolves. Meanwhile place the cherries and the brandy in a liquidizer and blitz. Add the cream mixture to the cherries and blend. Chill the mix and then place in an ice cream machine and churn. Enjoy.

Seasonal recipes with cherries...

I mentioned yesterday that I have written a cookbook. It contains mainly Italian food, Neapolitan traditions, recipes that I have learnt from my mother and which have been passed down through her family, but also recipes that are traditionally Neapolitan.

Neapolitans have a great sweet tooth and there are bakeries all over. Pasticcerias containing, all kinds of goodies from rum soaked babàs to cripsy ricotta filled sfogliatelle are found all over Campania and do a roaring trade. The nuns around Naples are amongst those credited with inventing and producing a lot of the Neapolitan specialities that have become very famous and part of the fabric of Neapolitan cuisine.

I'm going to use my blog to plug some of these recipes, not only are they delicious but some are really easy to make too.

Seeing as it is June and there are lots of cherries starting to come into fruit I thought I would mention a few of the more famous Neapolitan (and not so Neapolitan) recipes that cherries are used in.

The first has to be the "pasticiotto di ciliege". The original recipe calls for cherries that have been preserved in syrup but it works beautifully with fresh cherries too.

The pie is basically a sweet pastry which is then layered with pastry cream and then filled with cherries. It is topped with pastry and baked until golden and crisp. It tastes beautiful warm but is mainly eaten cold.





When it comes out of the oven the pastry is decorated with the shape of the cherries underneath. This looks and tastes delicious and is surprisingly quite light too.

Torta Inglese........

Seeing as I had loads of chocolate cream left over from making dad's cake I have decided to make a "torta Inglese" also known as a "torta Galletta". This is an old recipe my mum and her siblings used to make when they were younger. (I have included it in my first book "Grazie Mammà", based on Neapolitan recipes, family recipes and our traditions. I'm trying to get it published....)

My cousin Carmela also makes this and calls it "torta galletta", because of the type of biscuit she uses. The best ones to use are long rich tea finger biscuits, as they make it easier to construct the cake, but morning coffee biscuits or something similar will work just as well.


The cake is made from soaking the biscuits in espresso coffee then layering them with pastry cream. You can use just plain pastry cream or a mixture of plain and chocolate flavoured ones or whatever takes your fancy. The trick is not too soak the biscuits for too long as they need to keep their shape.


This is one I made with plain pastry cream.

The chocolate one will follow tonight. ( I am out of biscuits !!) .........................

..................Here it is

Father's Day and an old favourite

Today I have made a cake for my dad for Father's Day. Obviously it was supposed to be for tomorrow but as the family are over today we are celebrating in advance.

I wanted to try a cake I have seen , called a Blackout cake. It is basically a chocolate cake layered with a chocolate pastry cream and then covered in cake crumbs. I did my own take on it instead by covering the outside of the cake in grated chocolate.

The cakes are a bog standard chocolate recipe but the cream is a recipe I haven't used before. Made with cocoa powder, sugar, water, vanilla, butter and cornflour. It is a cheats chocolate pastry cream ( no eggs!) and once cooled it spreads beautifully and tastes pretty good too.

I followed the recipe and the quantities were far too much for decorating the cake so I have loads left over, but no worries I have a great recipe to use it on. More on that later.

So this is the finished cake. I'm hoping it goes down well.

Fudge cake and jobs on the horizon.

Went to work today and I had just enough time to quickly decorate the two chocolate fudge cakes I made yesterday. We have an event next week and you can't beat chocolate cake.

The recipe is a bog standard one I have used for a while from a book, simply called "CHOCOLATE". It's really easy and the cake always comes out tasting moist and very chocolatey.

I did some simple deocration and now they are in the freezer. They keep surprisingly well, even after they have been iced.

I've had a few enquiries about making cakes for a number of parties and events. They've mainly come through friends and family but I suppose that's the easiest and best way to start my business. I'm hoping the cakes speak for themselves and I get lots of clients through word of mouth. I'm still waiting for my business cards to arrive but when they do I already have a few people who want them and may have jobs for me. So fingers crossed.

More experimenting, good job the kids are here....

I wanted to get some more cakes done today and try some new recipes. It's a bit of a dilemma because I need to make the cakes to see what recipes I'm going to stick with and although I have a very sweet tooth I can't eat all of them. So what do I do with them. Luckily the kids are here today and they love cakes, so i'll treat them. The rest I'm gonna have to freeze.

I had some strawberries left over from yesterday so I wanted to try out a strawberry cheesecake cupcake. I made some strawberry cupcakes the other day at work but for some reason they turned out too mushy. It's probably because I didn't stick to the recipe. But these turned out great. A light, fruity, moist cake, topped with a cream cheese frosting and some digestive biscuit crumbs. It's a recipe from the Hummingbird bakery cookbook but I'm hoping to add my own touches to the recipe, I think some ground almonds and a few extras will make them even more delicious.

I tried some banana and pecan muffins and they didn't come out how I wanted. I tried combining two recipes, a banana and pecan muffin from Martha Stewart and a banana and cinnamon muffin from the Hummingbird book. I used a mixture of milk with lemon juice to curdle it slightly, this is what I usually use when I have no buttermilk at hand (which I needed for the recipe). They taste good but are too heavy. I'm gonna have to experiment a bit more with this one.

Business cards and sticky fingers

So here are my business cards. Vistaprint do an ok deal, well it's a much better deal than any of the printing places nearby. I wanted to use my own design but it costs more and I really don't want to be forking out too much money at such an early stage. Its got the basics and it does the job, I hope!

After sorting the cards out it was time to get in the kitchen and make some cupcakes. I need to decide on the various recipes I'm going to use in the future and have a number that i've been trying out. Today I made some strawberry, vanilla, chocolate, lemon and coconut versions. I tried out a new buttercream recipe using a meringue base and I was pleasantly surprised. It's a lot less sweet than my usual version and I may be a convert. It takes a little more time than normal buttercream but it holds its shape well and is very easy to handle. All you need are egg whites, sugar, salt, butter and any flavourings or colourings. I'll put the methods up later if anyone wants to know how to make it.

So as promised a few photos of todays experiments.

The path to starting my own cake business

I'm a trained pastry chef and for years I've had a dream of owning my own bakery/cake shop/pasticerria, whatever you want to call it. Having always worked for other people and been amazed by their arrogance, cynicism and total lack of brain cells, I have come to the conclusion that I do have a brain and some talent and I have just as much, if not more of a chance to create and run a successful business, as they. I have never bitten that bullet of realising my dream, until now. Maybe it's because i'm in a job that I thought might just be the one to make me happy and give me some real fulfillment, but alas, tis not. Slowly as the days drag by I realise I am wasting my time, working for people who do not appreciate what I do. Baking is not just a job it is a passion. I cook because I like to create but primarily to make people happy. The dream has to become a reality, I hope this time next year I am baking on my own terms, in my own kitchen and creating delights that people will devour on a daily basis. So Mr Blog, I guess I'd better get on with printing some business cards and baking some tasty treats. Cupcakes are on the agenda this afternoon. Must remember to take lots of photos and post them up. Ciao for now