SLIDER

chocolate rum maple pecan pie

18 Nov 2024


When I bought Beatrix Bakes : Another Slice by Natalie Paull, 
this chocolate rum maple pecan pie was the first recipe I bookmarked. With Thanksgiving right around the corner, it was the perfect time to make the pie. 

I've made this pie twice now, once with buckwheat pastry (not a fan) and the second time with a simple shortcrust pastry. I made a smaller pie the second time round, so the quantities have been adjusted (just click on the link above for the original quantities) and I also needed to adjust most of the baking temperatures to suit my gas oven. Natalie recommends baking the pie at 130°C but as my oven only has 'low' followed by 160°C, I baked my pie for 40 minutes at 160°C then 20 minutes at 170°C. 

Here’s the recipe for you which makes a 11 x 33 cm rectangular pie. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.



Chocolate Rum Maple Pecan Pie - filling adapted from a Natalie Paull recipe
Pastry
60 grams cold unsalted butter
150g plain flour
Pinch salt
2-3 tablespoons iced water

Filling
125g whole pecans
185ml pure maple syrup
110g demarara sugar (I used a mix of caster sugar and light brown sugar)
2 eggs
1 egg yolk (reserving the egg white to seal the tart shell)
65g unsalted butter, super soft
40ml cream (35% milkfat)
15ml dark rum (or extra maple syrup for booze-free)
10g Dutch cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla paste
pinch sea salt flakes

To finish
200ml thick cream (45% milkfat)
10ml dark rum (optional)
3g vanilla paste
Pinch of sea salt flakes

Method
Combine the butter, flour and salt in a food processor. Gradually add sufficient water until a dough form around the blade. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 20 minutes. Roll out to fit a 11 x 33 cm rectangular tin then refrigerate the shell for at least 1 hour before blind baking. Hold a little of the excess dough to patch any cracks after blind baking. 


To blind bake, preheat the oven to 200°C, conventional. Trim the edges of the pastry with a sharp knife then cover the dough with a piece of aluminium foil (dull side down), tucking it snugly into the corner of the tin. Fill the lined tin with caster sugar, rice or baking beans. Place in the oven on a baking tray, then reduce the heat to 165°C and bake for 50–60 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for another 5–10 minutes so the base crust is a biscuity brown colour.

For the filling, heat the oven to 130°C/160°C, conventional and scatter the pecans onto a shallow baking tray. Bake for 25–30 minutes until they’re just starting to darken on the outside and are the palest brown inside – cut or snap one open to assess. Set 15 g aside for the end decoration and use the rest for the filling. Keep the oven on 
130°C/160°C and set a rack on a low shelf and remove the upper racks.

Set up a double boiler: heat 5 cm deep water in a 20 cm saucepan to a low simmer and choose a heatproof bowl large enough that the base won’t touch the water when resting on top of the saucepan. Weigh all the remaining ingredients, except the pecans, into the bowl and whisk together thoroughly. The butter and cocoa will be lumpy, but all will melt and combine together as it heats.

Set the bowl over the double boiler and whisk occasionally until the mix thickens and the chocolate and butter melt. This should take around 10 minutes. The mix will read 55–60°C on a digital thermometer and will look like a lustrous brown milkshake. Take care it doesn’t overcook and get chunky/curdled at any stage. Scrape the filling into a jug.

If the mix does start cooking firm at the edge, act fast. Take the bowl off the double boiler and whisk vigorously to release the steam and regulate the temperature. If the mix gets very overcooked, strain out the cooked egg chunks and whisk the drained filling into a fresh whole egg.

Place the blind-baked crust, still in the tin, on a shallow baking tray. If there are any large cracks or dipped sides, soften some leftover dough and gently patch any large fissures – taking care not to press hard and break the crust. Meticulously brush a light layer of the egg white on the inside of the tart to seal any fine cracks, then bake for 3 minutes to seal the egg white.


Bring the tart crust back out and crush the toasted pecans with force in your hands while letting them fall onto the base of the crust. Par-crushed pecans give the top a nougaty texture and make cutting the tart easier than whole pecans. Return the crust to the oven. Carefully pour the filling into the crust, being careful not to overfill. Tease the pecans back up to float on the surface with your finger or a spoon, ensuring there are no pecan-less gaps on the top.

Bake for 50–60 minutes at 
130°C/160°C. The wobble check is different for this pie because of the crusty nut raft: touch the top of the pie to feel how cooked it is below. If liquid and jiggly, bake longer. Gently peel off a pecan from the centre to check underneath – it will look like a stable yet soft cream. There should be gooey residue on an inserted skewer (85°C internal).


Cool at room temperature for a least an hour (2 is good) or chill for a chewier bite. To finish, whip the cream with the rum, vanilla and salt and pile onto the centre of the cooled pie. With an offset spatula, gently spread the cream over the pie, leaving a 6 cm border all around so you can see the pie goodness underneath. Hold a handful of the reserved toasted pecans in your fist and crush them as you let them fall onto the cream.


To serve, cut gently through the cream, pecan top and side crust with a fine serrated knife, clean the knife, then cut through fully along the slice line to chomp through to the base.




This went down a treat both at work and at home and just fyi, the whipped cream topping is not an optional extra.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian


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a cake for midsummer

10 Nov 2024


It might not quite be mid summer here in Sydney but apricots have appeared in the fruit shop and raspberries are plentiful. 
I've had this Nigel Slater recipe for a Cake for Midsummer bookmarked for quite some time. This recipe uses peaches and blueberries but other versions I found online have used apricots and raspberries.


I topped the cake with fresh apricots and some frozen raspberries whilst for the batter I used some frozen apricots I found buried in the freezer. Using frozen fruit rather than fresh meant I had to add an extra 10 minutes to the bake time but the cake still came out nice and moist.



Here's the recipe for you which makes a 17cm cake. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C. If you'd like to make a larger version, please click the link above to the original recipe. 


A Cake for Midsummer adapted from a recipe by Nigel Slater 
Ingredients
4 apricots
1 tbs caster sugar
115g unsalted room temperature butter
125g caster sugar
2 tsp grated lemon rind
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
115g self-raising flour
Pinch salt
65g almond meal
40mls milk 
125g fresh or frozen raspberries
2 tbs flaked almonds

To serve
Icing sugar

Method
Grease, flour and line the base of a 17cm springform cake pan with baking paper. Preheat the oven to 175°C, conventional.

Halve and pit the apricots. Thinly slice 2 of the apricots and sprinkle with 1 tbs of caster sugar. You'll use these apricots to decorate the cake. Coarsely chop the remaining apricots and set to one side. 



Cream the butter, sugar, lemon rind and vanilla together in a stand mixer until pale and fluffy. Beat the eggs lightly, then add to the creamed butter and sugar a little at a time, pushing the mixture down the sides of the bowl occasionally with a rubber spatula. If there is any sign of curdling, stir in a tablespoon of the flour.

Sift the flour and salt together into a small bowl, then stir through the almond meal. With the mixer on a low speed, add the flour mixture in two or three separate batches. Add the milk (if needed) and once it is incorporated stop the mixer and gently fold  the chopped apricots and 1/3 of the raspberries 
through with a spatula or a wooden spoon.



Scrape the mixture into the cake pan, levelling the top, and then decoratively arrange the sliced apricots and the remaining raspberries over the batter, then sprinkle with the flaked almonds. Place the cake on the centre rack of the preheated 180°C conventional oven and bake for an hour and 10-20 minutes or until the top is golden brown. Test with a skewer and if it comes out relatively clean, then the cake is done. 



Leave the cake to cool for ten minutes or so in the tin, then run a thin spatula around the edge and slide it out onto a plate. Just before serving, dust with icing sugar.


I love Nigel's simple but delicious cake recipes and this one was a beauty.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian


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pineapple and coconut cake with fluffy cream cheese icing

4 Nov 2024



I'm constantly time poor these days, so my bakes 
of late have been simple affairs. This is what drew me to this recipe for a pineapple and coconut cake with fluffy cream cheese icing from 'Recipes for a Lifetime of Beautiful Cooking' by Danielle Alvarez with Libby Travers. 



Danielle's recipes are always jam packed with flavour and to make this pineapple and coconut cake, I needed nothing more than a bowl, a can opener and a wooden spoon. It was supposed to be a 2 layer cake filled with cream cheese icing and bedecked with dried pineapple flowers but life got in the way and it morphed into a slab cake. I ramped up the coconut flavour by using dried coconut milk powder in the cream cheese icing and the end result was nothing short of lush. 


Here's the recipe for you which 
makes a 17cm square cake. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C. If you'd like to make a larger version, please click the link above to the original recipe. 


Pineapple & Coconut Cake with Cream Cheese Icing 
Ingredients
220g crushed pineapple in juice (1/2 tin)
1 egg
165g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
75 ml neutral oil
45g desiccated coconut
125g plain flour
35g wholemeal flour
 ¼ tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarb of soda 
 ¼ tsp fine sea salt

Fluffy cream cheese icing
125g full fat softened cream cheese
125g unsalted butter, squidgy soft 
pinch salt
½ tsp vanilla extract
40g dried milk powder/dried coconut milk powder
125g icing sugar

To decorate
30g toasted coconut flakes
15g dried pineapple pieces (optional)

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C conventional. Grease and line the base of a 17cm square cake tin with baking paper. 

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the pineapple (including the juice), eggs, sugar, vanilla and oil. In another mixing bowl, combine the desiccated coconut, flours, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Tip the dry ingredients into the wet and whisk to combine. 



Pour the batter into the tin and bake for 30-40 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely in the tin.

Icing
Place the cream cheese, butter, milk powder, salt and vanilla extract in the bowl of electric stand mixer. Sift the icing sugar over the top. Beat with the paddle attachment for 6-8 minutes on speed 4 (below low) until pale, and fluffy. Store covered in the fridge until needed. If refrigerated, rewarm in the microwave in 20-second bursts until softened.




Lift the cake onto a platter or board, removing the baking paper from underneath. Spread the icing over the cake and finish with the coconut flakes and pineapple pieces, if using. 

It might have been a bit less glamorous than initially planned, but as expected this cake was delicious.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen. 

Bye for now,

Jillian 


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victoria sponge cake

28 Oct 2024



Making a Victoria Sponge cake has been on my to-do list for a while because there isn't one one in my recipe archive. I do have a recipe for the Flour and Stone Old Fashioned Vanilla Cake, which is a classic Victoria Sponge Cake just called by another name.


A Victoria Sponge cake is usually made with equal quantities of eggs, butter, sugar and flour loosened with a little milk. As an avid follower of Nicola Lamb I thought I'd try her version, which mixes things up a bit by adding a bit of cream and some egg yolks to the batter. The batter came together pretty easily but it diid look a little curdled. It baked up just fine though and the end result, sandwiched with cream and some home made rhubarb and raspberry jam, was simply delicious.

Here's the recipe for you which makes a 17cm layer cake. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C. If you'd like to make a larger Victoria Sponge Cake, please refer to Nicola's original recipe.

Nicola Lamb Victoria Sponge Cake
Cake 
135g unsalted butter, soft (20°C is great)
3g sea salt flakes
165g caster sugar
45g cream
2 whole eggs 
1 egg yolk 
1 tsp vanilla extract
60g whole milk
165g plain flour
10g baking powder (around 2½ tsp)
15g sugar for a crispy top

Filling 
200mls cream
1/3 cup berry jam
1 punnet berries

To decorate
Berries to decorate
Icing sugar

Method
Pre-heat the oven to 190°C, conventional. Grease and line 2 x 17cm tins. Set aside.

Cream the soft butter with salt and sugar for 2 minutes on medium speed using a stand mixer. This is enough for the butter and sugar to aerate slightly and become a little paler, but not so much that it is whipped. 

Mix together the cream, whole eggs, egg yolks, vanilla extract and milk in a large jug.

Sift together the plain flour and baking powder. Set aside. Starting with the liquid, alternate adding the liquid and dry ingredients into the creamed butter and sugar, in around three batches, scraping down as necessary. 

Divide the mixture between the two tins, around 315-335g per cake. Sprinkle one cake with the sugar. Place the tins on the centre rack and bake for 25 minutes at 190°C, conventional, then check if the sponge is golden and bouncy, and pulling away from the sides slightly. Bake for additional 5 minutes if it seems underbaked. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then remove and cool completely on a rack.


Filling

Whip cream to very soft peaks, set aside.



Assembly
On the plain sponge, spread jam all over the base. Spoon 2/3 of the cream onto the jam layer and spread to the edges with the back of a spoon - leave a 1-inch border if you don't want it to splurge too much! Cover with berries. As a splurging insurance policy, you can pop your cake in the fridge or freezer to firm up the cream a bit. Place the sugared sponge on top. 


Just before serving, sprinkle with icing sugar, top with a splodge of cream and the extra berries. 
Keeps in the fridge for 3 days.




As expected it was absolutely delicious and I'm glad I put a small slice aside for  later because it disappeared pretty quickly.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian


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chocolate stout cake

7 Oct 2024



This is another classic story of cake redemption. Quite a few years ago I jumped onto the stout cake bandwagon and whenever I made it, using Nigella Lawson's recipe, it was very well received. One of my colleagues so liked the cake that she made it for her daughter's 21st birthday. For reasons I'm unsure of, I stopped making it.


Last month, a workmates' birthday came up and I decided to dust the cobwebs off the chocolate stout cake recipe. I topped the cake with my absolutely amazing Natalie Paull inspired cream cheese icing. T
he cake was a roaring success but I didn't photograph it, so I made another chocolate stout cake just so I could share the recipe with you. I took the cake into work and I can report that my workmates didn't mind one little bit.


Here's the recipe for you which makes a 17cm cake. If you'd like to make a larger version, I've added a link to the original recipe - see below - which makes a 23 cm cake. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.



Chocolate stout cake, adapted from a Nigella Lawson recipe.
Ingredients
120 mls stout
120g unsalted butter
30g cocoa 
200g caster sugar
65g sour cream at room temperature
1 large egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
140g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Icing
80g full fat softened cream cheese
80g unsalted butter, squidgy soft 
1 tsp vanilla paste
25g dried milk powder
pinch salt
80g icing sugar

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C, conventional and grease, flour and line the base of a 17cm springform tin with baking paper.

Pour the stout into a large wide saucepan, add the butter — in spoons or slices — and heat until the butter's melted, at which time you should whisk in the cocoa and sugar. Beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla and then pour into the brown, buttery, beery pan and finally whisk in the flour and bicarb soda.


Pour the cake batter into the greased and lined tin and bake on the centre rack for 45 minutes to an hour. Leave to cool completely in the tin on a cooling rack, as it is quite a damp cake. When the cake's cold, sit it on a flat platter or cake stand and get on with the icing.


Icing
Place the cream cheese, butter, vanilla paste, milk powder and salt in the bowl of electric stand mixer. Sift the icing sugar over the top. Beat with the paddle attachment for 10 minutes on speed 4 (below low) until pale, and fluffy. Store covered in the fridge until needed. If refrigerated, rewarm in the microwave in 20-second bursts until softened. 



Ice the top of the black cake so that it resembles the frothy top of the famous pint.


The cake is a thing of beauty in its simplicity and I believe this is the correct cake to icing ratio.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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blood orange custard creams

4 Oct 2024



Last Sunday I discovered the biscuit tin was empty so I opened up my copy of Beatrix Bakes:Another Slice, by Natalie Paull, and I decided to make some tangelo custard creams. No tangelos? No worries, as I had a few blood oranges in the fridge. The biscuits are made with pantry staples so with everything available I made a batch whilst all around me the world was sleeping. 


I reduced the blood orange juice 
for the filling as instructed and the end result was a blood red syrup. My kitchen looked like a crime scene and the whipped filling turned a hectic hot pink fluoro colour not seen in nature. Undaunted I filled the biscuits and I can tell you that the filling was delicious. It tasted pretty much the same as an elevated version of the filling from an Arnott's orange slice cream biscuit, one of my favourites.



I adapted the original recipe a little and made smaller cookies because I didn't have a 7 cm cookie cutter and I prefer small biscuits anyway. That way I can have 2 biscuits with my cup of tea, not just one. Here’s the recipe for you which makes twelve 5cm biscuits. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.


Blood orange custard creams
Ingredients
100g cool pliable unsalted butter
25g icing sugar
Finely grated zest of 1 blood orange (reserve juice for the filling)
100g plain flour
50g custard powder
Pinch fine sea salt
Cooking oil spray

Filling
80mls blood orange juice
100g icing sugar
Pinch salt
45g unsalted butter, very soft and squidgy

Method
Put the butter, icing sugar and finely grated orange rind into the bowl of a stand mixer. Using the paddle attachment beat on speed 4 (below medium) for 10 minutes or until the mixture forms a creamy orange paste. Scrape down the sides of the bowl twice during mixing.

Lightly combine the dry ingredients and add to the creamed butter. Mix on 1 (low) until cohesive and no flour or butter streaks are visible.

Scrape the dough onto a lightly floured work surface. If the dough feels cool and ‘easy’, divide it into 2 portions and start rolling straight away. Otherwise form the dough into 2 fat discs, cover it in plastic wrap and chill for 15 minutes. The dough should be around 15°C and feel like playdough.


Preheat the oven to 140°C (160°C in my oven). Lightly spray 2 flat trays with cooking oil and line with baking paper.

On a lightly floured surface roll out half the dough to a 4mm thickness. Keep moving the dough and flouring underneath as you roll. If the dough cracks just re-roll it. If the cookies or dough stick to the work surface shimmy an offset spatula underneath to loosen them.


Use a 5cm round cutter to stamp out the cookies. Immediately lift them onto the baking tray. Collect up any scraps and roll again. Repeat the process with the remaining dough. Before baking, prick 3 rows of marks in the centre of each cookie with a fork so they look like deep-set buttons. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until set (when you can easily lift one up) – they should be fully cooked and dry looking but not brown. Remove from the oven and place the trays to cool on a wire rack for 20-30 minutes before filling.

While the cookies bake, juice the blood orange (don’t strain) to give you around 80g of juice. If you’re a bit short, you can top it up with some water. Reduce the juice in the microwave in 2–3-minute bursts until you have 20g of juice then set aside to cool. 

Place the reduced juice in the bowl of a stand mixer and add the remaining filling ingredients. Beat with the paddle attachment on speed 4 (below medium) for 8 minutes until the filling is fluffy, ultra creamy and hot pink (!) in colour. It should hold its shape and not be melty or slack. If the filling does slump, remove the beater and place the bowl into the fridge for 30 minutes. Return to the mixer and beat again until cool and fluffy.


Lay half the cooled cookies bottoms up on a clean tea towel and pipe or spoon a blob of the filling on each one, about 1-2 tsps. To ensure the filling doesn’t form a crust, quickly sandwich with the top cookie and using the palms of your hand, lightly press with a swirly wiggle to bring the filling out to the sides, just flush with the edge of the cookie. Chill for 10 minutes.

The biscuits will keep for 2 days in an airtight container or up to 2 weeks, if chilled, but I can assure you they won't last that long. 


Vibrant aren't they, with a flavour to match. T
he next time my biscuit jar is empty I'm planning to adapt the recipe to make a batch of lemon melting moments filled with passionfruit filling. Yum!

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen. 

Bye for now, 

Jillian
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