Japanese cake with roots in Portugal

Posted on May 17, 2012 by bilrob

Japanese cake with roots in Portugal

Kasutera, also called castella, is a popular Japanese sponge cake that has Portuguese roots. This recipe is adapted from Makiko Ito’s Japanese food blog, “Just Hungry.”

The original recipe calls for whisking eggs and sugar together over hot water until thick with an electric whisk. Instead, we had good results starting with a handheld mixer over steaming water to warm the batter, then moving to a stand mixer. We also heated the eggs in warm water first. If you do not have a stand mixer, you can do all the mixing with a handheld mixer, again beginning over hot water.

Ito gives the sugar and flour amounts by weight, but we provide cup measures for cooks without scales at home.

Kasutera (castella)

Prep: 1 hour, 10 minutes
Cook: 50 minutes
Servings: 10

Ingredients:
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon honey
8 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar (10 1/2 ounces or 300 grams), plus a little extra for sprinkling
1 2/3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, double sifted (7 ounces or 200 grams)

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line the bottom and sides of an 8-inch-square cake pan with parchment paper. (Smearing a little butter or shortening in the pan first will help the paper stick.) Top paper with a sprinkling of sugar.

2. Place the eggs in a bowl of warm water (about 100 degrees) until warm, about 10 minutes; drain. Heat a large pot of water to a boil; turn off the heat. Mix the milk and 1/4 cup honey in a small bowl; set aside.

3. Break the warm eggs into the mixing bowl of a stand mixer. Place over the steaming pot of water; mix with a hand mixer, adding the sugar slowly, 5 minutes. Move the bowl to the stand mixer; beat with the whisk attachment at medium speed, or level 3, 5 minutes. Reduce speed one level; beat, 5 minutes. Reduce speed to lowest setting, beat, 5 minutes. (You want to end beating at the lowest speed so that the batter has small bubbles. The batter is ready when it is thick enough to form soft peaks.) Slowly add the milk and honey mixture. Whisking by hand, add the flour 1 tablespoon at a time.

4. Pour the batter into the pan up to the top. (Any leftover batter may be baked alongside in lined cupcake or muffin tins; bake these for 20 to 25 minutes.) Bake until a skewer stuck in the middle comes out clean, about 50 minutes. Meanwhile, mix together the remaining 1 tablespoon honey and a little hot water, to make a glaze. As soon as the cake is out of the oven, brush the top with the glaze.

5. Let the cake sit in the pan until cool enough to handle but still warm. Lift out of the pan, paper and all; place in a zip-close bag. Seal; refrigerate several hours. (This step will help keep the cake moist.)

6. Cut off the sides of the cake with a very sharp knife to expose the yellow interior. Cut the cake into small, neat slices. Count on one or two slices of cake per person.

Nutrition information:
Per serving: 282 calories, 4 g fat, 1 g saturated fat, 170 mg cholesterol, 54 g carbohydrates, 7 g protein, 62 mg sodium, 1 g fiber.

— Bill Daley, Tribune Newspapers

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Thank The Patron Saint Of Bakers For This Cake Today

Posted on May 17, 2012 by bilrob

The author pauses to photograph the St. Honore cake before she digs in.

Thank The Patron Saint Of Bakers For This Cake Today

We here at The Salt usually ignore food festivals and those “Celebrate Whatever We’re Eating Now” Days. They’re a bit precious, no? But this one was too good to pass up: Today is the day the French celebrate the Feast of St. Honoré, the patron saint of bakers and pastry chefs.

And since the French hold their corner bakery right up there with the Catholic Church, the celebration is not complete without a big bite of the complicated confection named for the saint in question. More on the cake a little later.

First, the history: Honoré, also known as Honoratus, became bishop of Amiens in Northern France in the sixth century. Sources disagree over whether he was a baker, but when he was named bishop, a baker’s peel — the flat wooden paddle used to move loaves to and from a hot oven — was said to have put down roots and transformed into a fruiting tree, much to the surprise of the incredulous woman holding it.

After his death, processions in his honor reputedly stopped both droughts and deluges, ensuring good wheat harvests and, consequently, winning him the hearts of bakers.

Pictures of St. Honoré from church iconography reinforce his boulanger roots. He’s holding his wooden peel, often with a few delicious-looking loaves of crusty French bread nearby.

But according to historian Steven Laurence Kaplan of Cornell University, who wrote The Bakers of Paris and the Bread Question, 1700-1775, for many years St. Honoré had a rival in the battle for bakers’ patron.

Initially, bakers organized around both Honoré and St. Lazare, the latter of whom had a reputation for defending against leprosy. Bakers of the time, with their physically demanding profession and rudimentary understanding of disease, were especially afraid of leprosy, Kaplan tells The Salt.

St. Honoratus or St. Honore, patron saint of bakers
courtesy of Catholic Online

St. Honoratus or St. Honore, patron saint of bakers

Eventually the French bakers’ guild settled in favor of Honoré in the 17th century, subsidizing a chapel that became the central point for the gatherings of their confraternity, a sort of religious arm of the guild.

Fast-forward to the 19th century, and Parisian bakers began bringing glory to the saint’s name in the best way they knew how — with a fabulous cake confection. (Given the historical division between bread bakers and pastry chefs, the latter probably had little connection to Honoré, making this more a worshipping of butter and sugar than of a patron saint.)

The St. Honoré cake was developed at the legendary Chiboust pastry shop on Paris’ Saint Honoré Street, which, alas, no longer exists. It started out as a ring-shaped brioche filled with pastry cream, which Chiboust lightened with an airy Italian meringue to create a new kind of filling. That fussy filling became known as crème Chiboust, which is still used by French bakers and even has its own Facebook page.

According the book, Desserts, by Parisian pastry chef Pierre Hermé, one of Chiboust’s bakers, August Jullien, came up with his own version, replacing the ring of dough with a ring of little cream puffs.

By the late 19th century, the St. Honoré cake had taken its present form, incorporating a pastry disk filled with Chiboust cream, topped with a crown of cream puffs dressed up even further with a crunchy cap of caramelized sugar, and draped with swags of whipped cream.

The plain version of the cake — simply flavored with vanilla and the bittersweet notes of burnt sugar — is most common, but you can find fanciful seasonal variations, showcasing everything from tropical fruits to green tea.

It’s a sort of “master class” confection, because it contains all of the fundamental elements that pastry school students need to conquer in one package: puff pastry, pâte á choux, pastry cream and caramelized sugar.

In modern-day France, the feast of St. Honoré still survives as a time to appreciate all sorts of breads and pastries. Baker Dominique Geulin who grew up in Normandy, fondly remembers how bakers (including his parents) would open their doors on May 16 for community festivals, school field trips, and public demonstrations.

The modern French baker’s organization also takes that week as the occasion to hold its annual meeting during a full-on festival of bread.

So, when Geulin left France to set up his own bakery in Portland, Ore., he didn’t think twice about giving it a name that would solidify his connection to baking history: St. Honoré.

Cake baking with Bill & Sheila

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Basic Cake Balls Recipe

Posted on May 16, 2012 by bilrob

Basic Cake Balls Recipe

Cake balls are small spheres of reconstituted cake crumbs, coated with chocolate or frosting. They are made by blending cake crumbs with icing, shaping them to form a ball and then dipping them in a coating, such as melted chocolate. Cake balls were originally created from the crumbs of leftover or stale cake to prevent waste.

Cake balls do not have the consistency of the traditional sweetened, baked and leavened cakes, but have a consistency similar to dough which can be attributed to the cake and icing being blended together. Cake balls are sold in various bakeries as well as mall kiosks; they are also available to be purchased as gifts. The bite-sized snacks may be displayed on a stick (known as a cake pop), and can be decorated with ribbon. They are especially popular during the holiday months.

Cake balls can be decorated with toppings in a variety of ways, using such items as sprinkles, nuts, chocolate shavings, candy, other confectionery toppings, to name a few. Almond bark or confectionery coating are often used as alternatives to chocolate, and can be easily melted in a microwave oven before dipping. Vegan and gluten-free cake balls also exist.

Basic Cake Balls

Makes 48

Note: Allow plenty of time. Dipping the cake balls takes at least an hour.

18.25-ounce box cake mix

16-ounce container ready-made frosting

32 ounces candy coating

1. Bake the cake in a 9-by-13-inch pan, as directed on the box. Let cool completely.

2. Crumble the cake into a large mixing bowl by cutting the cake into 4 sections. Remove a section from the pan, break it in half and rub the sections together over a large bowl, making sure to crumble any large pieces that fall off.

3. Repeat with each section until the cake crumbs are a fine, even texture. Any large pieces may make the cake balls turn out lumpy.

4. Add 3/4 of the frosting –a whole can will make it too moist — and mix it, using the back of a large metal spoon, until thoroughly combined.

5. The mixture should be moist enough to roll into 11/2-inch balls. Roll 48 by hand, placing them on a wax paper—covered baking sheet. Cover with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for several hours, or in the freezer for about 15 minutes. You want the balls firm but not frozen.

6. Place the candy coating in a deep, microwave-safe plastic bowl. Working with about 16 ounces at a time, melt candy coating, according to package directions — or microwave it on medium for 30 seconds at a time, stirring in between.

7. Take a few cake balls

at a time out of the refrigerator or freezer. (If they’re in the freezer, transfer the rest to the refrigerator now.) Place one ball at a time into the bowl of candy coating. Spoon extra over to coat thoroughly. Avoid stirring, because crumbs can fall off. Lift the cake ball with your spoon, tapping the handle several times on the bowl edge so any excess coating falls back into the bowl.

8. Transfer the coated cake ball to another wax paper—covered baking sheet, letting it slide right off the spoon. Some coating may pool around the base. If so, use a toothpick to draw a line around the base before the coating sets. Repeat with the remaining cake balls, melting more coating as needed. Let dry completely.

9. If you have extra candy coating, pour it into a squeeze bottle or a resealable plastic bag, with the corner snipped off, and drizzle it over the cake balls tops in a zigzag motion to decorate. Cake balls may be stored in an airtight container at room temperature or in the refrigerator for several days.

— “Cake Pops” by Bakerella (Chronicle Books, $19.95 160 pages)

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Chocolate Chip Cake

Posted on May 16, 2012 by bilrob

Chocolate Chip Cake

Chocolate Chip Cake and Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate chips are small chunks of chocolate. They are often sold in a round, flat-bottomed teardrop shape. They are available in numerous sizes, from large to miniature, but are usually around 1 cm in diameter.

Chocolate chips are a required ingredient in chocolate chip cookies, which were invented in 1937 when Ruth Graves Wakefield of the Toll House Inn in the town of Whitman, Massachusetts added cut-up chunks of a semi-sweet Nestlé chocolate bar to a cookie recipe. The cookies were a huge success, and Wakefield reached an agreement in 1939 with Nestlé to add her recipe to the chocolate bar’s packaging in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate. Initially, Nestlé included a small chopping tool with the chocolate bars. In 1941 Nestlé and one or more of its competitors started selling the chocolate in chip (or “morsel”) form.[1] The Nestlé brand Toll House cookies is named for the inn.
Types of chips

Originally, chocolate chips were made of semi-sweet chocolate, but today there are many flavors. These include bittersweet chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, butterscotch chips, mint chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, dark chocolate chips, milk chocolate chips, and white and dark swirled chocolate chips.
Uses

Chocolate chips in a chocolate chip cookie

Chocolate chips can be used in cookies, pancakes, waffles, cakes, pudding, muffins, crêpes, pies, hot chocolate, and various types of pastry. They are also found in many other retail food products such as granola bars, ice cream, and trail mix.

Chocolate chips can also be melted and used in sauces and other recipes. The chips melt best at temperatures between 104 and 113 °F (40 and 45 °C). The melting process starts at around 90 °F when the cocoa butter in the chips starts to heat. The cooking temperature must never exceed 115 °F (for milk and white) or 120 °F (for dark) or the chocolate will burn. Although convenient, melted chocolate chips are not always recommended as a substitute for melted baking chocolate. Because most chocolate chips are designed to retain their shape when baking, they contain less cocoa butter than baking chocolate. This can make them more difficult to work with in melted form.

Recipe for Chocolate chip cake

1. To prepare cake: Preheat oven to 350°F. Coat a 12-cup Bundt pan with cooking spray.
2. Beat egg whites in a large bowl with an electric mixer on low speed until foamy. Add cream of tartar, increase speed to medium-high and beat until soft peaks form. Gradually add 1/2 cup sugar, beating until stiff but not dry (this can take up to 5 minutes).
3. Combine the remaining 1 cup sugar, whole-wheat flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in another large bowl. With the mixer on medium speed, beat in buttermilk, oil, vanilla and a heaping spoonful of whites. Fold in the remaining whites and 1/2 cup chocolate chips with a whisk. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.
4. Bake the cake until a skewer inserted into it comes out clean, 40 to 50 minutes. Let cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Invert onto the rack and let cool completely.
5. To prepare chocolate drizzle: Combine 1/3 cup chocolate chips and milk in a small saucepan. Heat over low heat, stirring, until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth. Drizzle over the cooled cake. Serve immediately or let stand until the chocolate is set, about 45 minutes.
Ingredient Note: Whole-wheat pastry flour, lower in protein than regular whole-wheat flour, has less gluten-forming potential, making it a better choice for tender baked goods. You can find it in the natural-foods section of large super markets and natural-foods stores. Store in the freezer.
Tip: No buttermilk? You can use buttermilk powder prepared according to package directions. Or make “sour milk”: mix 1 tablespoon lemon juice or vinegar to 1 cup milk.
To Make Ahead: Equipment: 12-cup Bundt pan

Recipe for chocolate chip cookies

Chocolate-Chocolate Chip Cookies

1. Whisk white whole-wheat flour, all-purpose flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl.
2. Place 1/4 cup chocolate chips in a small, heatproof bowl; microwave on Medium for 1 minute. Stir, then continue microwaving on Medium, stirring every 20 seconds, until melted. (Or place chocolate in the top of a double boiler over hot, but not boiling, water. Stir until melted.) Let cool slightly.
3. Beat sugar, oil and butter in a mixing bowl with an electric mixer on high until smooth, scraping down the sides. Add eggs, vanilla and the melted chocolate; beat until smooth, scraping down the sides. Add the flour mixture and mix on low speed until just combined. Stir in the remaining 3/4 cup chocolate chips.
4. Place half the dough on a large piece of plastic wrap and shape into a 10-inch log (it’s OK if it’s not perfectly round). Repeat with the remaining dough. Wrap and freeze until just firm, about 45 minutes. Reroll the logs to make them rounder and return to the freezer until very firm, at least 1 hour more.
5. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat.
6. Remove one roll of dough at a time from the freezer and let stand at room temperature for 5 minutes. Unwrap the dough and slice crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick rounds, turning the dough a quarter turn after each slice to help keep the cookies round. Place 1/2 inch apart on the prepared baking sheet. If your cookies aren’t as round as you want them to be, shape the dough with your fingers.
7. Bake 8 minutes for soft cookies or 10 minutes for crisp cookies. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with the remaining roll of dough, if desired.
Tip: White whole-wheat flour, made from a special variety of white wheat, is light in color and flavor but has the same nutritional properties as regular whole-wheat flour. It is available at large supermarkets and natural-foods stores and online at bobsredmill.com or kingarthurflour.com. Store it in the freezer.
To Make Ahead: Store wrapped rolls of dough in the freezer for up to 3 months.

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Carrot Cake to Die For

Posted on May 13, 2012 by bilrob

Carrot Cake to Die For

Ok, guys, it’s Mother’s Day: time to put on your aprons and bake. Personally, I think a man who can bake is sexy, and this recipe is about as easy as it gets. Though it may not be as easy as Paula Deen’s English Peas (the key is not using a cardboard pan), the cake tastes so much better. I swear.

This is one of those recipes my mother gave me on a hand written index card that is now ripped and stained, with changes made in the margins. I recently made the cake for a friend’s baby shower where everybody asked me for the recipe. It is one of my favorite cakes, and from the orgasmic noises coming from the other ladies around the table, I’m pretty sure they liked it, too. In fact, when I went to claim my cake plate at the end of the party all that was left was a small lump of cake that had been mauled by several forks.

For the Cake:

2 Eggs
1 cup of sugar
2/3 cup of vegetable oil
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon of ground nutmeg (freshly ground if possible)
1/4 teaspoon of ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of grated carrot (about 2.5 large carrots)
1 cup of grated and drained zucchini (about 1/2 a medium)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

For the frosting:

1 8 oz. package of cream cheese, softened in the microwave for about 30 seconds
3 tablespoons of butter
1 teaspoon of vanilla
2 cups of powdered sugar

Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees. In an electric mixer, beat the eggs and sugar together until creamy and light yellow, then slowly beat in the oil. Mix the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl and slowly add into wet mix. Beat on high for about 3 minutes. Add carrots, zucchini and nuts. Pour into a greased round 9? cake pan. Bake at 350 degrees for about 35-40 minutes or until the center of the cake springs back when touched. Let cool and turn out onto cake plate.

For the frosting: In and electric mixer or by hand, mix together cream cheese, butter, vanilla and sugar until smooth. Frost the cake when it has cooled. I find the cake at its best when served cold.

We like to fancy it up by adding mint leaves or edible flowers such as violas, pansies, nasturtiums or rose petals to the outer rim and base of the cake.

In honor of all of the hard working moms out there tell us in comments one of the special things you remember your mother making and win a $ 150 gift certificate to Bangz Salon and Spa.

baking with Bill & Sheila

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Baking - Jam Roll

Posted on May 2, 2012 by bilrob

Baking – Jam Roll

I’m the first to admit that baking sponge cakes of any description scares the bejesus out of me, so whenever I attempt to bake them (which is rarely), I’m a nervous wreck.

The best sponges, I believe, always come from nanna’s kitchen – they have the special magic that somehow makes them just perfect. Fingers crossed, one day I will find this magic.

Buon appetito!

RECIPE: Jam Roll

Serves: 6-8

3 large eggs, separated
115g caster sugar
2 tbsp warm milk
115g self-raising flour, sifted 3-4 times
150g strawberry or raspberry jam

60g extra caster sugar, for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 200C and line a baking tray, 20x30cm with 1cm-high sides, with baking paper and sprinkle with half extra the sugar and set aside. In a clean bowl, and using electric beaters, beat egg whites until soft peaks form. With the beaters still running slowly, add the 115g of sugar, making sure it dissolves into egg whites. Once this happens, add the egg yolks and continue beating for another 7-10 minutes or until mix is pale and has thickened. Slowly add the warm milk, mixing as you go. Then, using a spatula, fold in flour, working quickly so you don’t knock any air out of the egg mix.

Once combined, pour out on to prepared tray. Spread evenly all the way into the corners. Pop into oven and bake for 7-10 minutes or until sponge is springy to touch. While sponge is baking, place a piece of baking paper just a bit bigger than your baking tray on benchtop and sprinkle with remaining extra sugar.

Remove sponge from oven and immediately turn out on to sugared paper. Gently peel off the baking paper on which it was baked. While still hot, roll up your sponge with paper, rolling from the short side. Leave rolled up for 10 minutes before unrolling. Once you have unrolled sponge, cover surface with jam and roll up again but this time without paper. Allow to cool before transferring to serving platter. Serve with lashings of cream.

Tip: For best results, cover sponge with jam while still warm.

baking with Bill & Sheila

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The History of Bread and Cakes

Posted on April 24, 2012 by bilrob

The History of Bread and Cakes

The first bread would have been hard and flat, made from the local ground grain, and baked on hot flat hearthstones by the fire. The flat metal griddle or girdle, which is suspended over the fire, is an example of this method. The word is thought to come from the name for hot stones in the Celtic language, greadeczl, and the use of the implement is common to all the Celtic countries, from northern France to Ireland and Scotland. Today, the northern bannock or oatcake is the nearest equivalent to that earliest type of bread.

Quite early on, the leavening or raising power of ‘barm’, consisting of fermented liquor containing airborne yeasts, was discovered, and so a lighter bread could be baked, either directly on hot hearthstones or in the hot air under a clay dome set over the stones, the earliest oven. Ovens, however, were not common, and for centuries small, plain, yeasted and non-yeasted bread continued to be the most common. The much later sweetened descendants of these are drop scones, pancakes, crumpets, muffins and the Welsh pikelets.

Bread of this type were still made at home. For bread which needed to be baked in an oven, doughs would have to be taken to the manorial oven or to a public baker. The rich would have white breads, made from the finest wheat flour. This was the ‘manchet’, for eating, whereas the ‘trencher’ (a slice of bread used as a plate) would be of less fine brown bread. These trenchers were always a few days old, so would have been fairly hard, thus more able to absorb fats and liquids. By the end of the sixteenth century, wooden and metal plates had been introduced — as well as the fork — so the trencher ‘plate’ was discontinued. Bread was still used, though, as sops in the bottom of soup or as sippets, little pieces of bread or toast arranged on top of or around a dish. Breadcrumbs, too, were added — and still are — to sauces as a thickener, and to sausages, stuffings, drinks and desserts.

The poor, however, would have to make do with the husks of wheat in their inevitably coarser brown bread, or use other local grains such as rye and barley. These both contained much less natural gluten than wheat so were dense, dark and hard bread, making a much less digestible product.

For special occasions from the Middle Ages on, basic doughs were often enriched by honey, spices or dried fruits, and these mark the beginnings of tea bread, loaves and buns — as well as cakes. In later years, eggs and butter were often added to the dough, the beaten eggs allowing enough air to be incorporated without the addition of yeast. When chemical raising agents were introduced in the nineteenth century, many yeast-raised doughs were abandoned. Bread evolved into cake.

As far as biscuits are concerned, the earliest were rusks, pieces of baked bread put back into the oven to dry out. Later, finer mixtures would be used and baked in an oven or dried. Biscuits like these, cut into animal and human shapes, were known as ‘fairings’ because they were sold at local fairs.

The baking tradition in Britain seems to have always been at its strongest in the north and west, and in Ireland. This may be because these areas were furthest from outside influences, including France and elsewhere, and bread recipes and traditions were able to be retained. High tea, for instance, demands a variety of baked goods, and high tea is a tradition that is quite rare in the south. But the fuel needed for baking was at one time more plentiful in the north than in the south, and this may be another contributing factor. The glory of English cakes, however, is entirely due to the gentry’s adoption of the new meal, afternoon tea. Happy baking!

Simnel Cake

Simnel is a traditional British cake made during Lent, and for a while became associated with the fourth Sunday of that period — Mothering Sunday. Many years ago, young women away from home, probably in service, were allowed home to visit their parents on that day, and would take this cake with them as a gift. It’s basically a rich fruit cake baked with a layer of marzipan running through it, and topped with almond paste too. Traditionally it is then garnished with eleven small marzipan balls arranged in a circle on top of the cake, which are lightly toasted to a golden brown. These balls represent the eleven faithful disciples.

MAKES A 20 CM (8 IN) ROUND CAKE
225 g (8 oz) plain flour
1 teaspoon ground mixed spice
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch of salt
175 g (6 oz) butter
175 g (6 oz) light brown soft sugar
3 eggs, beaten
1 tablespoon golden syrup, warmed
175 g (6 oz) sultanas
175 g (6 oz) currants
50 g (2 oz) glacé cherries, chopped
50 g (2 oz) mixed peel, chopped
2-3 tablespoons brandy
Milk, if necessary
600 g (1 lb 5 oz) marzipan
1 tablespoon warmed apricot jam, strained
1 egg, for glazing

This recipe will need a 20 cm (8 in) diameter, deep, round cake tin, greased and double-lined with greaseproof paper. Pre-heat the oven to 170°C/325°F/Gas Mark 3. Roll 200 g (7 oz) of the marzipan into a 20 cm (8 in) disc.

Sift the flour with the dried spices and salt. Cream together the butter and soft brown sugar until light and fluffy. The eggs can now be poured from a jug slowly while being beaten into the butter mix. Add the golden syrup, with the sifted flour. Add all of the fruits and brandy. The cake mixture should not be too loose. If very thick, soften with milk. Spoon half the cake mix into the lined tin. Smooth completely flat, making sure there are no air bubbles. Place the marzipan disc on top. Pour on and smooth the remaining cake mix. Because of the long cooking time it’s best to wrap and tie brown paper around the tin. The cake can now be baked in the pre-heated oven for 1 1/2 -2 hours. After 1 ½ hours, check every 10 minutes by pressing in the centre; the cake should feel firm when it’s ready. (The cake should not be tested with a skewer. This will simply lift the warm marzipan and give the impression the cake is not cooked.)

When the cake is done, remove from the oven and rest for 30 minutes. Turn the cake out onto a wire rack. The cake must be absolutely cold before topping with more marzipan. Once cold roll another 200 g (7 oz) of marzipan into a 20 cm (8 in) disc. Brush the top of the cake with the warm, strained apricot jam. Place the marzipan disc on top and trim around for a neat finish. The top can now be score-marked for a criss-cross pattern or left plain. Brush with some of the beaten egg and colour under a pre-heated grill to a light golden brown. The remaining 200 g (7 oz) of marzipan can now be shaped into eleven small balls. Place the balls on a baking sheet, brush with egg and also glaze under the grill. Sit the balls on top and the simnel cake is ready. The cake can now be left as it is or finished with a ribbon tied around it and some small marzipan flowers or leaves arranged on top. Happy Easter!

Twelfth Night Cake

Twelfth Night, 6 January, is the last night of the Christmas feast, and long ago there were always festivities before the work of the New Year began in earnest. This cake — very like a Christmas cake, in fact — was made as part of the celebration, and often a bean would be inserted into the mixture. Whoever was given the slice containing this was named King of the Bean, which meant good luck was theirs for the coming year.

The cake is usually covered with royal icing, but I prefer to keep it plain or top it with a fondant icing, the recipe included here. This whole recipe is very quick and easy to make. l’ve also added chopped dates to give the mixture a fuller fruit flavour. It’s not essential to include these; simply replace their weight with extra dried fruits.

MAKES A 20 CM (8 IN) CAKE

175 g (6 oz) butter
175 g (6 oz) caster sugar
3 eggs, beaten
175 g (6 oz) plain flour
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
175 g (6 oz) currants
175 g (6 oz) sultanas
175 g (6 oz) dates, preferably Medjool, chopped
50 g (2 oz) blanched almonds, chopped
4 tablespoons brandy

For the Fondant
50 ml (2 fl oz) warm water
350 g (12 oz) icing sugar, sifted

This recipe requires a 20 cm (8 in) round or square cake tin. The tin needs to be greased and double-lined with greaseproof paper. Pre-heat the oven to 170°C/325°F/Gas Mark 3.

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Pour the beaten eggs from a jug a little at a time, mixing them into the sweet butter. Stir in the flour and spices, followed by the fruits and chopped almonds. Mix all together well, adding the brandy. Spoon the mix into the cake tin, smoothing and levelling the top. The cake can now be baked in the pre-heated oven for 1 hour. If the cake is not quite ready, this can be checked by inserting a skewer or small sharp knife; once almost totally clean, the cake is ready. lf not, return to the oven and cook for a further 30 minutes. It’s important to keep an eye on the cake while it’s cooking. If it’s becoming dark, cover with foil. This will prevent it from burning.

Leave for 20-30 minutes to relax in the tin before turning out and leaving to cool. For the fondant icing, sift the icing sugar into a large bowl. Stir in the warm water a little at a time until the sugar has reached a thick, coating, fondant consistency. Most cakes are decorated on the base, turning it over for that flat finish. This cake is best left sitting on its base, with the fondant poured and spread on top. I like to see the fondant just falling around the sides and not completely covering the cake.

Note: Classically, the top is decorated with glacé cherries and angelica.

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Starbucks to stop using bug extract to color frappuccinos, cakes

Posted on April 23, 2012 by bilrob

Starbucks to stop using bug extract to color frappuccinos, cakes

Starbucks, The world’s largest coffee-shop chain plans to stop using an extract made of dried insects to color some Frappuccinos and pastries after an online campaign asked for the ingredient to be removed.

Starbucks Corp. said Thursday that, by June, it will phase out use of a red dye derived from cochineal insects, a tropical bug found in Mexico and South America. The colorant will be replaced with lycopene, a tomato extract, said the Seattle-based company.

More than 6,500 people had signed a Charge.org petition asking Starbucks to stop using the insects because it isn’t vegan or kosher, and because consumers “don’t want crushed bugs in their designer drinks.” The petition was started by a South Carolina woman who wanted to inform consumers that the chain’s strawberry drinks weren’t suitable for vegans.

The extract had been used in the company’s Strawberries Creme Frappuccino, strawberry banana smoothie, raspberry swirl cake, birthday cake pop, mini doughnut with pink icing and red velvet whoopee pie, according to the statement from the company.

Cochineal dye is widely used in foods and cosmetics products such as lipstick, yogurt and shampoo.

“We’ve learned that we fell short of your expectations by using natural cochineal extract as a colorant,” said Cliff Burrows, Starbucks president for the United States and the Americas.

— From news service reports

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JUST DESSERTS

Posted on April 21, 2012 by bilrob

JUST DESSERTS

It could be said that dessert is the mark of a truly civilized society. As our ancestors gathered round the fire at the end of a hard day’s hunting, there is one thought we can be certain did not cross their minds: ‘now, are we having cheesecake or pavlova for dessert?’ Desserts are rarely eaten to satisfy hunger, but to provide a sweet finish, a closing fanfare to a meal. They are meant for pleasure, not sustenance.

Antonin Caréme, the artistic French chef who served for princes, kings and emperors, including the future King George IV and Tsar Alexander I, is said to have remarked that there were five fine arts, one of which was architecture, and that the main branch of architecture was confectionery. Many of his creations were based on ideas he copied from architectural drawings.

Man has been eating luxurious sweet food for a long time. In Asia thousands of years ago, cane syrup was being used as a sweetener and in Europe, fruit and honey were used. Sugar is the backbone of desserts and its increasing availability as a more refined sugar and a less expensive product has given rise to the invention of a million recipes.

Sugar, like spices, reached the Western world via the Arab trade routes and, when it first appeared, was available only in tiny quantities and used medicinally. Known as white gold, it was prohibitively expensive. During the next few centuries, the rich used sugar, like spices, indiscriminately as a sign of wealth, sprinkled on everything they ate. It wasn’t until the 15th century that the Italians went back to Arabic traditions of using sugar in a select few dishes.

The rich may have been enjoying sweet food for hundreds of years but, in the Western world, the idea of dessert as a separate course is relatively modern. Sweet dishes were originally served on the banqueting table with the savoury: a typical example of one ‘course’ might be veal, tongue, chicken, blancmange, vol-au-vent, a cake and a fish. Many desserts actually evolved from savoury dishes to sweet. For example, one of the oldest known desserts is blancmange, which started life as a dish of pounded chicken breasts and almonds.

Pies often included both sweet (fruit) and savoury (meat) fillings together. Jelly began as a savoury decorative dish at banquets—gelatine boiled from animal bones and moulded creatively would be the centrepiece of the table, displaying the chef’s great talents and control of his raw ingredients.

This gelatine then began to be sweetened. When the Victorians invented the copper jelly mould the idea took off with a vengeance, leading to a frenzy of moulded blancmanges, creams and cakes (often named simply ‘shapes’). Powdered gelatine was created in the 1840s but did not really become popular until much later with the advent of ice boxes and home refrigeration.

The sweet pudding has only existed for the last couple of centuries—before that the pudding was a savoury mixture of grain and dried fruit stuffed into animal guts and boiled in the same broth as the meat and vegetables. (Fortunately for our squeamish modern palates, today’s only reminder of this is the beef suet in a traditional Christmas plum pudding.) This manner of cooking, using nothing but an open hearth, was available to all, while cakes and other desserts requiring ovens were still only enjoyed by the rich. The invention of the pudding cloth in the 17th century coincided with an increased importation of dried fruit to England and a drop in the price of sugar, making it available to the not-so-rich. Hence the sweet pudding was born.

A well-stocked table, with a multitude of dishes set out, had always been a graphic way of displaying wealth, but in the 16th century the banqueting tables began to be cleared for dessert. The word itself derives from the French ‘desssewie’, the cleared or de-served table. Plates were removed and the table swept clear of crumbs. Sometimes the guests would retire to another room (or another building!) for dessert.

In Victorian England the tradition arose of removing the tablecloth before serving dessert. Although there are obviously many old and traditional desserts, the last couple of centuries has seen a plethora of newer recipes. The development of transportation, the invention of refrigeration, and the exploration of the world which transplanted hundreds of different types of fruit from one place to the next and introduced new ingredients such as chocolate, spices and sugar to the Western world has created a myriad of wonderful recipes.

Ice cream, now taken entirely for granted for desserts, was, as a commercially available product, the direct result of the invention of refrigeration techniques. Cold food was originally thought to be poisonous or dangerous to eat and was a novelty served at special occasions and eaten with some bravado. Food and drinks were usually taken tepid (hot drinks such as tea and coffee were equally frowned upon when they first arrived on the scene). Ice, until the first ice-making machines appeared in the 1860s, was a natural commodity that had to be gathered, transported and stored in insulated ice houses.

The advent of ice boxes changed the face of what could be stored at home. It was also now possible to set jelly and freeze ice cream at home. All over the world different cultures have their own versions of desserts and it is surprising how similar they can be. Rice puddings come in many forms, from hot creamy and oven baked in the West to sticky black varieties in the East.

Puddings and desserts made with bread and noodles are common in many cuisines and ice creams are fairly universal, from the gelati of Italy to the kulfi of India. Migrants from Europe who settled in America and Australia took with them the desserts from their own cultures as well as inventing new ones with ingredients now available. Many countries took on their own national desserts; Pavlova is as Australian as Ned Kelly, and ice cream became a national symbol in America—it was deemed an essential foodstuff and indispensable to the morale of the army. (Ironically, in’1942 ice cream was banned as part of the war effort in Britain where it was named as a “luxury’ item.)

The British themselves are associated with steamed and baked puddings as desserts. As well as the favouritism of nationality, desserts fall in and out of fashion: jell-0 made its all-encompassing appearance in the 40s and 50s, baked alaska and black forest gateaux wowed the 70s, tiramisu was the dessert of the 80s, and the 90s gave us sticky date pudding and the ubiquitous crème brûlée. Who knows what the new millennium holds… What do you think will be the desserts of the first decade of 2000?

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'Racist' cake sparks outrage

Posted on April 19, 2012 by bilrob

cake

‘Racist’ cake sparks outrage

(CNN) — Sweden’s culture minister was feeling the heat Wednesday after a weekend art exhibit in which she cut up a cake baked into the shape of a cartoonishly stereotyped African woman.

A group representing Swedes of African descent has called for Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth to resign over what it called a racist caricature. But Liljeroth defended her participation, saying the cake was designed to “challenge the traditional image of racism.”

“While the symbolism in the piece is despicable, it is unfortunate and highly regrettable that the presentation has been interpreted as an expression of racism by some,” Liljeroth said in a statement issued by her office. “The artistic intent was the exact opposite.”

The artist who designed the cake, Makode Linde, is of African descent himself and said the piece was aimed at condemning the practice of female genital mutilation. Pictures from the Sunday exhibition showed Liljeroth slicing into the cake from the “genitals” and feeding it to Linde, who told CNN he made himself the head of the figure and screamed in pain when it was cut.

“I didn’t intend for anyone to feel singled out or embarrassed,” he said. “But we’re talking about female genital mutilation — is there any comfortable or cozy way to talk about it?”

Liljeroth was scheduled to meet with representatives of the National Association for Afro-Swedes, which has demanded she should step down, on Wednesday evening. The group said it hoped to ensure “that similar events don’t happen again.”

“To participate at a racist manifestation portrayed as art is definitely crossing the line,” Kitimbwa Sabuni, the group’s spokesman, said in a written statement. He said the minister’s appearance shows she either supported what the group called a racist event “or that she has an extremely bad sense of questions of racism.”

“No matter what, the Afro-Swedes no longer have confidence for her as culture minister and demand that she assumes her responsibility and resigns,” Sabuni said.

The event took place at Stockholm’s Museum of Modern Art, which was marking World Art Day on Sunday. The museum was closed by a bomb threat Tuesday afternoon, but reopened Wednesday after no explosives were found, spokeswoman Kristin Ek said.

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