October 2024 / DELICIOUS BITES

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. The 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

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. The 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!