there are few things that say summer to a Briton like strawberries and cream - so when the sun first began to show its head towards the end of exams a bake containing these ingredients was definitely in order.
this vanilla sponge coated with whipped cream, strawberries and chocolate buttons was baked to spur april on as she continued with her exams after everyone else had finished. so I moved from procrastibaking to motibaking! (I would apologise for the abundance of baking puns but I will only continue doing them...)
this is a great cake for the weather - it doesn't take very long or involve much effort (perfect in the heat) but is a great summer treat.
whipping the cream
another treat made for this afternoon tea were smarties cookies - however I forgot to take photos once they were made (as usual, bakes don't hang around for long!) but here are some snaps of the mixing process....
for now i'm going to take the fact that it has clouded over as a sign from above that I really should do something productive with my day rather than just lounging in the garden again, it's a hard life...
love,
nen
x google-site-verification: googlef2a6b459020c88f6.html
so the second of the procrastibaking extravaganzas was the passion fruit tart from john whaite bakes which is an absolutely gorgeous book and one I would thoroughly recommend to anyone.
this recipe jumped out as another simple one in terms of ingredients (especially as Tesco has a deal on passion fruit at the time) and was another summery recipe to chase away the revision blues.
the pastry recipe was pretty much the same as the previous one, although this was a little more difficult to handle. getting it into the tin is always a bit of a challenge!
the best part of this recipe was getting to try passion fruit for the first time. I couldn't believe I hadn't had them before as they are so scrummy! it was hard to restrict myself to the one spare and not gobble up the whole lot!
such an interesting fruit
the fruit are scooped and sieved so that the juice remains.
the fillings were also very similar and this was also best put into the tart case when it was already on the oven shelf.
the results of this tart were absolutely stunning, it's amazing to get such a vibrant yellow colour from all natural products! and the taste certainly lived up to the visual promise.
the tart is finished with the pulp of the two remaining fruit (which was useful for hiding the crack!)
this was a really tasty tart which I hope to make again over the summer as it is the perfect accompaniment for an afternoon tea or as something sweet to finish off a BBQ.
and I hope this shows how easy and satisfying it is to make your own pastry and turn it into a scrumptious tart!
it is a truth universally acknowledged that a student undergoing exam season must be in need of baked goods...
and so it was that during this exam season several hours were set aside for some baking therapy! this included the night before an exam where I really needed to switch off and so whipped up a batch of fairy cakes - a classic bake that involves so little thought and produces a sweet pre exam treat.
however this was only the warm up for a serious procrastibaking season that featured two tarts! this post will track our first attempt, a delicious lemon tart. this is easily one of my favourite desserts, it hits the spot after a good dinner while not being too sickly like chocolate. making one yourself also involves relatively few ingredients so this was a perfect choice for mine and april's first attempt.
we used a mary berry recipe, as she is the queen of home baking, and it included some really useful hints about rolling out the pastry which is the tricky part. we decided to be good (and waste some more time) by making our own pastry - which went surprisingly well! and it makes the tart taste all the better (even if pride is the only addition!)
all the ingredients ready to go
so the first step is to cube the butter and then cut it into the flour. now I didn't know what this meant at first, but a quick google search revealed it's when you use two knives (or a special tool, but who has one of them?!) to break down the butter into the flour. I found this video quite useful for a visual prompt:
the next stage is to add the egg yolk and water to bring the mixture into a pastry dough. there is quite a bit of pastry resting in this recipe, once before being placed into the tin and then again when the tin is ready.
kneading the pastry together
prepping the tin
rolling out the pastry - remember to well flour your rolling pin and surface
getting a bit cheeky with the rolling pin!
once the pastry is in the tin and has been rested it is ready for its first trip to the oven. it is blind baked at first, we used baking beans but you can also use uncooked rice. once it had started to cook we trimmed the excess pastry from the crust, which started to catch so we used tin foil to protect it from burning.
while this is baking we prepared the filling which consisted of a lot of zesting and juicing!
lemons galore!
once the filling is prepared place it into the blink baked pastry case - it is easier to do this while the case is in the oven (with the shelf pulled out) as you don't have to carry it and there is less likely to be any spillages!
the tart then bakes, filling the house with the most delicious smell ever, which meant - as has become expected - we didn't really wait long enough for it to cool before digging in...!
a dusting of icing sugar finishes this off perfectly, and a couple of raspberries would not go amiss
I am pleased to say this tart continued my love for lemon tarts, the pastry was gorgeous and flaky and the filling was the perfect mixture of sharp and sweet. it was delicious both warm and cold, not that it lasted long in our fridge!
I hope the plethora of photographs and the addition of a video makes up for the delay in posting!
so the title of this post refers to my latest venture into the world of baking. my lovely housemate anna gave me a book of cupcake recipes for my birthday, which has some recipes and combinations i haven't seen before. one of these was the 'hot and spicy' cupcakes. a quick scan of the ingredients revealed chili, mango and vodka as the primary ingredients. i was immediately intrigued and thought straight away of april, who i thought would also love this combination! as she was returning this weekend and had been away for her 21st birthday i decided to whip up a batch for her return.
the recipe is really easy to follow. it's essentially just a normal cake mixture with one finely chopped chili and 125g of chopped dried mango thrown in. the recipe does call for placing half a chili (sliced length ways) across the top of each cupcake but i thought this might be a bit too much! so i left them out, but next time would but a bit more chili in the mixture to give it a little more heat.
chopping up the chili and mango
stir the mango into the mixture by hand
the mixture was also slightly dense so next time i think i would add a splash of boiling water to break it down a little bit.
so i decided to rename these cupcakes 'student and sunshine' for a few reasons. the mango, chili and lime combination are such great summer flavours which are perfect for when the weather is as glorious as it is at the moment (naturally as it's revision season...). the student part comes from the cakes' topping - vodka!
under-rated cake ingredients!
you first make a vodka syrup by dissolving sugar in water (i think it was 50g of sugar and two tablespoons of water). you bring the mixture gently to the boil for a few minutes before adding four tablespoons of vodka (please be careful at this point as it does splutter a bit, and boiling sugar is hot!). you use a skewer to pierce the cakes and pour this syrup over the top so it soaks into the sponge.
making the syrup
glistening with the vodka!
the final touch is to mix icing sugar and vodka for the drizzle. this is where the student in me took over... the icing was too thick and i was aware there wasn't much vodka left in the bottle so i poured the entire remainder in. turns out there was more than i thought! so these cupcakes had quite a serious kick! although thankfully as the icing set this diminished slightly! so this explains the student aspect. a grating of lime finishes these cakes off nicely.
once you get over the initial hit of the vodka these are really good cakes, the dried mango becomes slightly more moist from being in the mixture and adds a lovely sweet, chewy dimension to the kick. combined with the subtle chili and the heat of the vodka this really is great for a summer afternoon. which is precisely what we did when we moved our little table to the garden and had a mini tea party. complete with the absolutely delicious brownies that april baked. this really was the perfect revision break!
living the revision high life
i would now like to take this opportunity to save a massive thank you to emma white and the girls at her campus exeter for their recommendation of my blog! it means a lot so thank you! and please check out the list of other exeter student blogs as there is such an amazing quality and diversity out there. http://www.hercampus.com/school/exeter/best-exeter-student-blogs
for now i hope you enjoy the sunshine, i'll be returning to my revision grotto!
