My love for Collies, Cakes, Cooking, Eating Out & Days Out.
With Christmas little over a month away my mind has turned to festive baking. This Luxury Giant Mince Pie is a fabulous festive dessert that can be served warm with cream, ice crem or brandy butter. Or, you could just enjoy a slice cold as a cheeky treat. Follow my recipe below to create your own Luxury Giant Mince Pie.
Having made fresh curds for Yorkshire Curd Tart there is always plenty of
buttermilk left over for making Scotch Pancakes, Buttermilk Scones and so many other lovely treats. I decided to make Scotch Pancakes, with smoked bacon and maple syrup the very next day. You may also come across Scotch Pancakes known as Drop or Dropped Scones, there is very little difference other than the name. Traditionally cooked on a griddle or skillet over an open fire you can quite happily cook them on a hob in a heavy bottomed sauce pan or pancake pan.
The English Cherry season tends to end around mid-September but my local supermarket here on Skye had some in stock this week. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth I grabbed myself a punnet and embarked on a cake recipe. It would be very easy to fall into the trap of rehashing a Black Forest style cake so I opted for something a little different. Fresh Cherry and Marzipan Cake, the marzipan gives the almond flavour a real boost!
Pasteis de Nata or Portuguese Custard Tarts as they are known in English are something I have been meaning to make for a while now. Whilst I have never eaten one in Portugal I have devoured my fair share of the Spanish equivalent – Pastel de Nata when I lived in Catalunya. My hens are laying 6 eggs a day at the moment so the time was right for my first try at Pasteis de Nata.
I have simplified the recipe by using ready made Puff Pastry. But feel free to make your own pastry and then just follow the assembly instructions. This recipe makes 24 tarts but it could easily be halved. Continue reading “Pasteis de Nata Portuguese Custard Tarts”
Browsing through a few cookbooks last week searching for a recipe my husband stumbled across Louise Cake in Sweet by Ottolenghi. However after a bit of hunting around this wasn’t a traditional Louise Cake recipe, rather an adaptation. Louise Cake is a popular New Zealand bake which resembles more of a slice than a cake. The story goes it was named after Queen
Victoria’s daughter Princess Louise and arrived on New Zealand shores with British travellers at the time.
My recipes for Chocolate Bundt Cakes have proven to be very popular. However there has been many calls for a smaller version to be made in sandwich tins. I’ve re-written and tested the recipe so it fits into 2 x 20cm/8inch round cake tins. This version is a Chocolate Orange Cake but you could swap the orange for 120g of fresh raspberries and make a Chocolate Raspberry Cake.
To boost the flavour of the Chocolate Orange Cake I used a 100g bar of 
Fairtrade Dark Orange Chocolate from the Co-op topped up to 50g with Callebaut 54% Dark Chocolate Callets. This combination gives a rich chocolate flavour without being too bitter. I also used Yorkshire Rapeseed Oil but this can be substituted for any rapeseed, sunflower or vegetable oil.
With the long summer evenings and warmer weather finally arrived here on Skye my hens are laying well. So what to make when you have a glut of freshly laid eggs. Having never made it before Lemon Meringue Pie was high on my list. I love baking with citrus fruits so Lemon Meringue Pie ticks all the boxes.
My recipe for Lemon Meringue Pie uses the pastry recipe I have used in previous tarts which is fairly foolproof. Which only leaves two more stages to make. So here goes…my recipe is below! Continue reading “Lemon Meringue Pie”
I haven’t baked for a couple of weeks as we are busy refitting the kitchen.
However the new oven is all connected and our new hens have just started laying eggs so a cake was in order. I find that a lot of recipes for Lemon and Poppyseed Cakes turn out to be uninspiring loaf cakes. This recipe turns a run of the mill Lemon and Poppyseed Cake into an indulgent Lemon and Poppyseed Layer Cake!
But first a giggle – the recipe calls for 4 large eggs! Five of my girls lay medium eggs and one seems to lay enormous eggs. I picked two of the huge eggs and two medium ones thinking that would balance out to about 4 eggs. The first two huge eggs I cracked into 
the mixture were double yolkers! A fab surprise but not quite what I was looking for in my cake. I had enough yolk but probably not enough egg white, so I threw in one egg white and crossed my fingers. As you can see the cake worked out well, and is very yellow. My ladies are fairly free range and love a bit of corn every day so in turn we get very golden eggs!
Cake:
225g Stork
225g Self Raising Flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
100g Golden Caster Sugar
100g Light brown sugar
4 large eggs
zest of 2 lemons – finely grated
20g poppyseeds
Filling:
Half a jar of Lemon curd
75g softened butter
250g sifted icing sugar
splash of milk
Heat the oven to 160c fan.
Grease an line 2 x 18cm cake tins.
Put all the cake ingredients into a bowl and mix until smooth and creamy.
Divide the mix evenly between the two tins and cake for 20-25 minutes.
Remove from the oven when baked and left in the tins for 5 minutes before turning out onto cooling racks.
Whilst the cakes are cooling make the buttercream filling. Put the butter and icing sugar in a bowl and mix together, slowly add a splash of milk until the butter cream is soft and creamy.
When the cakes are completely cooled cut each one in half with a sharp knife. 
A very sharp bread knife is good and cut lengthways through from edge to edge. You should now have four circular thin sponge cakes.
Pick one to be the bottom and place onto a plate. Cover the top of this one generously with lemon curd.
Next sandwich the next sponge slice on top of the lemon curd. Smother the top of this one with a generous helping of buttercream.
Nestle the next sponge slice on top of the buttercream and cover this slice 
generously with lemon curd as you did earlier.
Finally add the top layer and cover it with the rest of the buttercream.
There you have it Lemon and Poppyseed Layer Cake.
For all you chocoholics out there, is there nothing better than a perfect
Chocolate Brownie? My Chocolate Brownie recipe is a hybrid of many recipes my husband went through when looking for a great Chocolate Brownie. After a few tweaks to a few recipes we hit the spot.
The standard recipe is for a great quality simple Chocolate Brownie but as it is Easter in a couple of weeks I have tweaked it again to make Easter Chocolate Brownies. Below is the original recipe and a few tweaks for other recipes…
Whilst thumbing the pages of New York Cult Recipes by Marc Grossman I stumbled across a recipe for Chocolate Babka. This is a breakfast cake popular in Jewish New York bakeries and Deli’s. A hybrid between bread, brioche and cake with lots of added chocolate. What’s not to love!
The ingredients are simple and easy to come by. You need a bit of time for the dough to rise twice but not many other tricky skills. So here is the recipe from the book and my experience of making and eating Chocolate Babka.
