Worry | Summer Fruit Millefeuille

[Note: This post was written at the beginning of January, however my brand new, shiny laptop broke down on me! Gah! Maybe I should be banned for technology. Anyway, if this post seems slightly irrelevant my apologies.] 

Positivity once came very easily to me, but now I find myself becoming more and more of a pessimist every day. And that bothers me. I was once described as one of the most laid back people, now I find myself in the alien situation of becoming one of the most high strung ones.

I have always been a worrier. Always. Infact I was once gifted these tiny little wooden people, all beautifully painted, that were called 'worry friends'. You were supposed to tell them all your worries before you went to sleep and they would magically help your worries disappear overnight. This worked for a very brief time until I lost them in a caravan in Wales, which is worrying in itself.

My new years resolution is to focus on the positive and to stop stressing so much. A task that might take a small army, but nethertheless that is my goal. Focusing on the positives also means, to me at least, looking back on the past. In this case looking back to the glorious summer we had last year. I'll admit I spent the majority of it wishing that I could move to Alaska to get out of the dreadful heat, but I did secretly enjoy it.

During the summer my sister hosted a BBQ party and for dessert she served the most beautiful Eton Mess, I plan on stealing the recipe away from her soon. The fruit was cloyingly sweet last summer, which is when it is at my up most favourite. The weekend after I was set with the task of producing a dessert that encompassed the flavour of summer, but I just couldn't get that Eton Mess out of my mind! And thus, this Millefeuille was born.

I loved this, I won't lie. I would have sat and eat the orange cream with a spoon if I was allowed. Maybe I did.

Summer Fruit Millefeuille

This dessert was based upon a recipe made by Gordon Ramsay and was available on the Channel 4 website but it has since been removed. 

• 320–375g ready-rolled all-butter puff pastry
• 3tbsp icing sugar, plus extra to dust
• 1tsp vanilla extract
• 600ml double cream
• Zest of 1 orange
• ½ tbsp orange juice
• 200g-300g of fresh raspberries, strawberries, blackberries and red grapes

1) Preheat the oven to 220°C/gas mark 7.

2) Unroll pastry from packaging, roll out slightly and cut into 3 equal strips. Place the strips onto a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper. Cover generously with icing sugar and bake for 8 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 200°C/Gas 6 and cook for a further 8-11 minutes until golden, but be careful! They can burn quickly. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

3) While the pastry is cooling prepare the cream. Add the sugar and vanilla to the cream ans whip until it forms soft peaks, be careful not to over beat. Fold in the orange zest and juice. Fill a piping bag with the cream (I used a large star tip) and chill in the fridge until ready to use.

4) Assemble the dessert just before serving to ensure that the pastry doesn't become soggy. Add a small amount of cream to the serving plate so the dessert does not slip. Place a layer of pastry to the plate. Pipe the cream in small peaks across the entire layer. On the outer edges alternate the raspberries, blackberries and halved strawberries. Dot the grapes along the center of the layer.

5) Take the next layer of pastry and, with a spatula, spread a generous layer of cream along the base of the pastry. Place it on top of the last layer and apply cream and fruit. Repeat with the last layer of pastry.

6) To decorate, sprinkle with icing sugar and curls of orange zest. Choose a large, good looking strawberry and with a sharp knife make slices a few millimeters apart. Gently twist the strawberry and place on top of the millefeuille.  Serve immediately and enjoy!

Happy New Year?

Well... it's been a while hasn't it? At least this time I have a proper, legitimate excuse. My computer went to laptop heaven in February and it's been a long 10 months stranded without a computer. Thankfully, I must have been a very good girl as Santa brought me a lovely new sparkley laptop this Christmas. To say I'm happy is an understatement.

It's been a very busy 12 months, both in the kitchen and out. I started college in September which has taken up more time than I thought possible, although I am definitely enjoying it. College has taken away my ability to bake as often as I would like but I have been making every effort to bake as often as possible. I have a medly of new recipes to share with you in the new year, although I can't guarantee that you'll see them with any regularity.

Anyway, have a very happy new year and I hope that your 2014 is filled with happiness and joy. I have a feeling that 2014 is going to be a good year.

Happy New Year!

Cherry and Vanilla Cake

My sister loves cherries. No let me rephrase that, she adores cherries. So it was a simple process picking what I was going to make for my sisters Christmas present. I stumbled on this little beauty on Sprinklebakes, one of my favourite blogs, and knew that this was the one I had to make.

The cake it's self, while not complicated, was time consuming and made for an awful lot of washing up. But it paid off. I've had nothing but compliments from my sister. She's insisted that I make this for her for every Christmas and birthday. And she is not one to gush.

I was running drastically out of time, so instead of making the icing perfectly smooth as I planned, I went crazy with the icing bag. It was pretty OTT, but oh well. I piped a small amount of buttercream on top of the cake and then used a teaspoon to drag out the side of it. I did this all the way round. I did a shell-like border round the bottom and used a fork to mess the sides up.

The recipe is Cherry-Vanilla Layer Cake from the wonderful Sprinklebakes.

And the frosting is the Whipped Vanilla Frosting from this recipe.

Three Strand Plaited White Bread

I've never made bread in my life, hell the only time I've ever use yeast was when I made a Stollen for my sisters Christmas present. I suppose it says something about me that the first time I make bread I choose to complicate it further by plaiting it.

Although I am afraid I have caught something of a 'bread bug' since I made this. I've made 2 loaves of plain bread (the recipe is to be posted soon) in a week with plans to make at least 1 loaf a week. I mean why wouldn't I? To bake 6 loaves it adds up to about £2.50! You pay that for 2 bog standard loaves in the supermarket!

Anyway, back on to this bread. I was watching The Great British Bake a while ago (Which I do religiously. I adore that programme. I'm team James!) and they were doing plaited loaves. When I first saw them I cringed and hid behind my pillow, crying 'they looks so hard, oh god, don't ever let me make them'...

Yeah.

They are actually ridiculously simple, although they were doing 6 stranded braids and I did 3. But I looked in to it and they themselves aren't really that difficult. Maybe that can be my next project?

Three Strand Plaited White Bread

675g Strong white bread flour, plus extra for flouring
1 1/2tsp Salt
1 1/2tsp Sugar
3tsp Easy blend yeast
1 1/2tbsp Olive oil, plus extra for greasing
450ml Warm water
1 small egg
optional: a handful of seeds to sprinkle over the top (eg. poppy seed, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds etc)

1) Stir together the salt and flour, then sprinkle over the sugar and yeast.

2) Add the olive oil to the water. create a well in the middle of the flour mixture and pour in the majority of the water. Set some aside to help you get the right consistency. Stir together until you get a soft dough, you may have to use your hands to get it to mix altogether.

3) Knead the bread on a lightly floured surface for around 10 minutes, until it's smooth and elastic. If you've never made bread before you may be worried about knowing it's 'smooth and elastic'. Don't worry. When you're doing it, you'll know.

4) Place the dough in a large, lightly oiled bowl and cover it with cling film. Leave it in a warm place (for me that's my airing cupboard) for around an hour, until it's doubled in size.

5) Turn the dough out on a very lightly floured surface and knead for 5 minutes, this will 'knock it back', which basically means removing the air.

6) Divide the dough into 3 equal portions (I weighed my dough to get it exact) and roll them into equal sausage shapes. DO NOT flour the surface. You wont get enough friction to roll them out properly.

7) Lay the sausages out and join the ends furthest away from you. Plait like you normally would, keeping the plait tight. When you come to the end squish the sausages together and tuck them underneath.

8) Transfer the loaf carefully onto a lightly floured baking tray. Cover the loaf and return back to a warm place until it's one and a half times it's size. This will take between 10-30 minutes.

9) Preheat the oven 220C/400F/Gas 7

10) Glaze the loaf with beaten egg, making sure to get into all the nooks and crannies. If you want to, sprinkle with seeds.

11) Bake the loaf for 10-15 minutes and the reduce the heat to 190C/375F/Gas 5 and bake for a further 30 minutes. It's done when it's risen, golden and sounds hollow when the bottom of the loaf in tapped. Enjoy!

Until next time,

Katie.

The Best Fruit Cake Yet

Or so I'm told.

This recipe is from The Good Housekeeping's Cookery Compendium, a book that was published in 1953 and looks every inch it's age. It truly is a beautiful book.

Anyway, this the cake I make when all else fails. When I need to make a cake that gets a wow but only takes me half an hour to knock out.

For those wondering, my sisters and brother-in-laws wedding went spectacularly! I can't tell you how many times I've heard the words 'the best wedding I've ever been to' and 'the wedding of the year'! Congrats guys!

The Effortless Wow Fruit Cake

Ingredients:
225g Butter or Margarine
225g Sugar (whatever you have lying around)
4 Eggs
340g Plain Flour
3/4tsp. Baking Powder
A pinch of salt
1/2tsp. Cinnamon
1/2tsp. Mixed Spice
400g Dried Mixed Fruit
60g Chopped Glacé Cherries
30g Ground Almonds
A splash of Milk

You can double this recipe if you want, but the cooking time then changes to 3 hours.

1) Pre-heat your oven to Gas Mark 4/350F.

2) Grease and line a baking tin. It's up to you what type you use but I usually use either a 8in square tin or a 8 1/2in circle tin.

3) Cream in the butter and the sugar until fluffy, beat in the eggs.

4) Sieve in the flour, baking powder, salt and the spices (This part is up to you, you can change the spices if you wish. I sometimes just add the cinnamon or replace the mixed spice with nutmeg. It depends on the person you're making it for and the time of year). Then add the mixed fruit, cherries and almonds. Fold it all together, adding a little bit of milk if necessary.

5) Pour into the cake tin and put in the oven. After 30 minutes lower the temperature to Gas Mark 2/300F and let bake for 1 - 2 hours. The time varies every time, so keep your eye out. It should be done when firm in the center.

4) Let the cake cool the either cover in marzipan and icing or decorate with cherries, flaked almond and icing sugar. Enjoy.

Until next time,

Katie.

Chocolate and Salted Caramel Millionaires Shortbread

You certainly feel like a millionaire when you're eating these. The crack of the chocolate, the stickiness of the caramel and the lovely shortbread all make for one hell of a biscuit.

These were made for my brother-in-law's (Well, almost brother-in-law's. They're getting married, in what? 35 days? Ahhh!) birthday. I've been sitting on the recipe for a while, almost a year now. I just couldn't find the perfect time to make it. But when L's birthday crept up on me, I simply couldn't resist any more!

Chocolate and Salted Caramel Millionaires Shortbread

Thanks to the BBC for the original recipe!

Ingredients:

For the Shortbread:
175g Unsalted butter
75g Caster sugar
1tsp Vanilla Extract
225g Plain flour

For the Salted Caramel:
200g Unsalted butter
397g Condensed milk (this is usually amount in a can)
4tbsp Golden syrup
1tsp Sea salt

For the topping:
350g Milk chocolate

1) Preheat your oven to Gas Mark 4. Line and grease a preferably square 8in cake tin, or if you're like me and lose everything you ever set eyes on, line and grease a 8 1/2in circle cake tin. Sigh.

2) Mix the butter and sugar together with a fork, then rub in half the flour. Add in the vanilla and then add the rest of the flour.

3) Press the dough into the cake tin. Prick the dough with a fork all over.

4) Bake the dough in the oven for 5 minutes, then turn the oven down to Gas Mark 2 and cook for another 35. If you notice that your shortbread has a air bubble in the middle, take out of the oven and whack it on the counter until it goes. Prick it a couple more times and put it back in. It should be alright now. Once cooked set aside to cool in it's tin.

5) Once the shortbread has cooled slightly, you can move onto the caramel. Add all the ingredients into the sauce pan and boil for 10 minutes. Stir constantly making sure you get into all the corners of the pan. If you don't, it will burn. It may be an idea to get someone else to help you while you add all the ingredients.

6) After 10 minutes you can add it to your shortbread. Let it cool, then pop it in the fridge until it's cooled and harden slightly.

7) Melt the chocolate and pour and smooth over the top of the caramel.

8) Pop back into the fridge until it's set. Cut into chunks and enjoy!

Until next time,

Katie.