The pretty Autumn fields of Maine

A glowing vignette

 We have had a recent run of absolutely beautiful temperate weather here in Maine. The day time temperatures have been as high as 74F and it has been so very pleasant being outdoors enjoying the last vestiges of the summer like weather. Plus it made taking in the wood to keep us warm this coming winter so much easier to achieve.

But the autumn/fall in Maine is not just about the brilliant colours of red, orange and yellow but also the lovely muted, antique, dreamlike russets, greyed whites, pale yellows and dark tracery of naked branches and veins on the leaves.

Ghostly white leaves - pretty against the backdrop of russets

Checkerboard leaves - lovely colours - I wonder what they are?

I love the tumble and tumult of the speckled, sprinkly fields

 

 And of course we cannot leave out the young maple leaves that turn such a pretty, almost ghostly pink....

 I leave you though with some of the glowing autumn colours we think of when we think of "Fall in New England"

I hope you are enjoying your season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!

Next up on my blog will be a luscious, sticky, stodgy Pear and Ginger Cake that just screams out for lashings of custard.

STAY TUNED and please consider following me on

 

Eccles Cakes perfected - my they're good!

...

 Ahhhh - a picture of my perfected Eccles Cakes which went through a variety of stages before ending up like this crumbly luscious raisin studded delight you see glowing happily above. My first attempt was on a way too hot and humid day where I added just a tad too much water to the dough, for indeed one needs so much less water in one's pastry on such a day, and I didn't keep my pastry cool so it was a very soft texture thus instead of attaining said Eccles Cakes, and no they are not actually what one would think of as a cake but more of a self contained mince pie - but I digress - I ended up with Eccles Biscuits/Cookies:

...which tasted great but were not what I had in mind. SO I thought I have all these amazing strawberries....

 ...with many more to come from our neighbour - I should make strawberry biscuits/cookies like my failed Eccles Cakes - and so I made them on a less humid and hot day and guess what - I ended up with Strawberry Eccles Cakes - ha ha!!!

James loves "water icing" drizzle so I doused them with said delight and they were very, very good. The recipe for them is the same as that below for the actual Eccles Cakes but instead of the raisiny mix you macerate strawberries in sugar until soft and having given up a lot of their juices strain them - use the resultant juice for a nice refreshing drink, perhaps watered down some, and also use the juice to rub on the 'cakes' thus before baking before the necessary sprinkling of sugar!

SO - to the recipe - I have not made pastry with spelt flour until very recently and now I am a convert - it crumblified and toothified the pastry to a divine extent and I am not sure I will ever make all white flour pastry again:

 THE FANTASTIC PASTRY:

3ozs white flour and 3 ozs regular spelt flour (the brown not the white) mixed together - 3/4 cup each
(the addition of brown spelt flour makes the pastry more sandy/crumbly delicious but you can use all white to very good effect also)

1oz/ 1/8 cup sugar

4 oz/ 1 stick very cold salted butter

1/8 to 1/4 cup - a few liquid ounces of very cold water

1. Put flours in a mixing bowl and grate very cold butter on top - I am not a technical baker but have read the grating is integral to achieving a wondrous texture in your pastry)  - if you keep dipping the chunks of cold butter into the flour to coat it will be easier to grate

2. Rub butter into flours until it looks like breadcrumbs (you can do this in a cuisinart but I like to do everything by hand)

3. Add some of the water and start squushing the pastry and keep adding bit by bit of water until it can be formed into a non-sticky ball - less water is better so squush hard until it comes together: 

5. Put into the fridge to rest for at least one hour - or as long as you like. 

Now to the yummy filling:

First make some hot tea to soak the raisin and currants in - you'll need about 8 fl ozs/one cup - good and strong and soak them for about 2 hours

1 1/2 ozs/about 1/4 cup each of currants and raisins

soaked in hot tea for 2 hours and drained

2oz Golden Syrup

if you can't get GS do 3 ounces total of sugar but GS makes the cakes sing!!

1oz/ 1/8 cup sugar 

1 1/2 ozs/ 3 tablespoons salted butter 

1/2 teaspoon each of nutmeg and cardamom

NB Many recipes add lemon zest or candied lemon peel but I preferred mine without - of course you may add it to yours!

1. Put all these ingredients in a pan and melt til bubbly and stir frequently until juices/butter has thickened. 

2. Allow to cool. 

3. Strain the above and save the sauce - which also tastes great on it's own!!

YOU CAN PUT YOUR OVEN ON NOW TO 400F

4. Roll out the dough nice and thin and cut into 4 inch rounds - I got 9 out of mine after rerolling the scraps a couple of times.

5. Dollop about a good teaspoon of currant goodness in the middle, it doesn't sound like much but it works and if you do more you can't close the cakes, and dot saved sauce around the edges to help stick the cakes together.

6. Fold the dough over the filling thus - all the way round and then squush and squish as necessary to make sure there are no holes on the bottom for the juices to leak out, this pictures a less juicy example but you may experience the juices running out - don't worry everything will be fine, you just get sticky hands!! - beauty is not an important aspect of the cakes at this point - or any really!!

7. When it's all battened down the bottom of the cake should look like this:

8. Turn it over and flatten a little and very gently between your palms then place on a parchment sheet on your baking tray.

The slits on these Eccles Cakes are too long - make sure yours are shorter!

9. Now cut two SHORT slits in the top of each Eccles Cake - I realized too late my cuts were mostly too long and they made the cakes open up too much so maybe only about 1 inch long.

10. Spread some of the leftover sauce on the tops - this will help achieve the lovely browning on the tops - and then sprinkle with sugar before bobbing into the oven for about 20 minutes until golden brown and lovely:

These slits on the top of these 3 were perfect!

OH MY GOODNESS - these are so good - I poured any leftover sauce in the slits when the cakes were still hot to make them even more juicy.

Allow to cool before you enjoy them with your feet up, a nice cuppa in hand and a good read of the latest British Country Living in your near future!!

 

I do hope you make these and if you do please post pics and comments on my Facebook page HERE - thanks!

Next up on the blog is a whole bunch o' new designs at my Spoonflower and Society6 online shops so please stay tuned!!

Happy Baking from Patricia

Twice Baked Banana Cake for World Baking Day 2014

HAPPY WORLD BAKING DAY 2014

I hope you get to bake for someone you love or admire this fine Sunday! The act of baking a cake from scratch to me shows how much you care for someone and my someone this World Baking day is Jane Goodall, even though this is just a token gesture I bake for Jane in the spirit of great admiration, honour and respect for a genteel, kind and elegant woman who has spent her life studying, caring for and fighting for the rights and humane treatment of great apes. I was honoured to recently learn that we share the same birthday, April 3rd - me, Jane and Doris Day!

Here is the mission of her world renowned institute:

"Founded by renowned primatologist Jane Goodall, the Jane Goodall Institute is a global nonprofit that empowers people to make a difference for all living things. Our work builds on Dr. Goodall’s scientific work and her humanitarian vision. Specifically, we seek to:
Improve global understanding and treatment of great apes through research, public education and advocacy
Contribute to the preservation of great apes and their habitats by combining conservation with education and promotion of sustainable livelihoods in local communities
Create a worldwide network of young people who have learned to care deeply for their human community, for all animals and for the environment, and who will take responsible action to care for them"

To add a bit of wit to the day, as indeed the powers that be at WORLD BAKING DAY have chosen to do over on their website, I chose to make a Twice Baked Banana Cake for Jane for as we all know monkeys, chimpanzees and other apes are fond of their bananas. The cake has a banana layer beneath a layer of frangipane - almond cream. It is a quiet cake but substantial, it's not too sweet and it's great with a good hot cup of tea and as Jane is English I thought perhaps that might be her beverage of choice! 

Without further ado I give you:

TWICE BAKED BANANA CAKE

adapted from a recipe in British Country Living magazine - my favourite magazine in the whole wide world!!!

Assemble your ingredients:

This is for a 9" cake, have all your ingredients at room temperature and set your oven to 325F, butter and flour your baking tin.

For the cake:

2oz/ 1/2 stick of butter 

3.5 oz/ 1/2 cup sugar 

2oz/ 1/3 cup toasted almonds ground - I toast in a 325F oven for about 8-10 mins until fragrant and crisp, allow to cool and then grind in a coffee grinder in small batches

(of course you can do all your almonds at the same time as you will need 4ozs more of ground almonds for the topping) 

2 fluid ounces/ scant 1/4 cup whole milk 

1 very ripe banana mashed until smooth

1/2 teaspoon baking soda/bicarb of soda 

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg freshly grated 

1 teaspoon almond essence/extract

1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence/extract 

2oz white flour and 2 ozs of spelt flour (1/2 cup each) - the spelt gives it a nice nutty flavour

METHOD:

1. Sift the dry ingredients together. 

2. Cream the butter and sugar together. 

3. Mix in the mashed banana, the almond essence/extract.

4. Fold in the dry ingredients in 3 goes and mix until smooth.

5. Spread evenly in the baking tin and pop into the oven for about 35 mins. until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

6. Allow to cool for about 10 minutes during which time make your frangipane topping for which you will need:

4ozs/ 2/3 cup toasted almonds ground as above 

2.5ozs/5 tablespoons butter (I always use salted for my desserts) very soft

4ozs/ heaped 1/2 cup sugar 

1 whole egg plus one egg white 

A goodly pinch of salt  

1 teaspoon almond essence/extract

A couple of tablespoons of flaked almonds for the top

(Truth be told I could have happily had twice as much of the frangipane so if you want to be decadent double this topping and hope it fits in the pan!)

1. Place all the ingredients except the flaked almonds in a bowl and beat until smooth - you could also do this in a food processor.

2. Smooth over the slightly cooled cake:

3. Sprinkle the flaked almonds over evenly - unlike mine - and bake for another 25 mins or so at 325F until set and golden brown thus:

Allow to cool completely in the pan then flip over onto a cooling tray and then back over again onto your plate - get the kettle on, make yourself tea, cut a nice neat slice and enjoy yourself this Sunday!

A cup of tea and Twice Baked Banana Cake in honour of JANE GOODALL!! Brava Jane!

Here's a beautiful video of Jane Goodall at work :) 


As a caveat let me tell you I originally made this cake in a 6" round 3" tall pan - my usual pan of choice for my cakes - I made double this recipe above, I messed up by adding way too much baking soda and not enough baking powder (according to the original recipe which I have since tweaked), I got my timing all wrong, I had tea soaked raisins in it and although it looked great as below you can see a problem beginning to unfold in the middle top of the cake...although my test skewer came out clean (but not clean enough) I came back after a few minutes of allowing the cake to cool to find it had completely collapsed in the middle leaving a cavernous hole filled with hot cake batter - it tasted good but was not quite the cake I had hoped for so rest assured not all recipes come out well first time!

I wish I had taken a picture of the collapse!
BTW if you are interested in the background fabric in these pics. above - it's from my Spoonflower shop, it's called "Homespun Quilt Patchwork" and it's available as fabric, wall paper, wall decals and wrapping paper HERE Thanks!
 

My friend Anne over at CARRINGTON LANE BAKERY -  who happens to be a professional baker with an ETSY SHOP

has also been baking for today - she made Chocolate Babka for her hubby James, Anne does such beautiful work and everything she makes tastes as good as it looks!

In the inimitable style of the true wit she is my good friend Elizabeth Loonan changed the title to "World Bacon Day", as she did last year too!, and created this gorgeous "Diner" Breakfast Special cupcake: white cake  with blueberry maple compote filling, dipped in coffee ganache, coffee maple cream cheese buttercream frosting, garnished with candied bacon and a maple drizzle. Cupcake Wars - watch out! 

Beautiful photos by Elizabeth's husband Antonio Rosario

Can you guess who Elizabeth baked for - sad to say it took me a while to figure it out!!

So who will you be baking for today?

Here's my recipe from last year - which was all about Baking Brave - and yes I did....with a combination of Stilton Cheese and Rhubarb - hmmm...it's was definitely different!

BTW if you need a really good, simple and very instructive weights and measures conversion site try The Pastry Scoop!

Happy Easter! Please enjoy this delicious Whole Lemon Cake.

If you like lemon then I feel quite confident you will love this luscious, moist, delicate, many layered lemon flavour cake from the ever lovely Mary Berry - it uses a whole lemon in the cake part of the recipe, meaning skin, zest, pith, juice - everything but the pips, and an unusually made sugared zest for the decoration! I have not seen a recipe using either of these techniques before so instantly I was intrigued when I watched Mary mention such in one of her episodes aired on Aunty Beeb - the colloquial name for the BBC.

To the cake without further ado! I made a half of Mary's recipe for a small cake as there are only two of us and, even though we could easily and happily eat a full sized cake, I prefer to keep us and the cake on the smaller size by baking mini cakes in a 6" diameter pan. I did also bake the cake in one pan and then split the tall cake into 3 layers - Mary does two cakes that she splits into 4. Click on MARY for the link to her original full size cake recipe.

First make your sugary zest for the top of the cake

The peel of one lemon preferably organic - either peel and cut into fine strips or use a zester which will automatically give you fine long strips.

2oz sugar

1. Put the peel in a  small pan, cover it with boiling water and add half the caster sugar. 

2. Boil vigorously for one minute.

3. Drain the peel and reserve the resultant nicely flavoured simple syrup for another use.

4. Scatter evenly onto non-stick parchment paper and sprinkle the remaining sugar over.

5. Put in a warm place to dry out for as long as possible or overnight, until crisp - if you are in a hurry, dry out in a low oven 110C/225F for 30 minutes - I left mine in our wood burning stove with the door open for the evening. This is a nice crispy crunchy version of candied peel that has a delicate flavour and could be used in and on top of many a sweet recipe.

Ta dah.....

Now for the cake....always read through the recipe one or two times before you begin so you know what is involved - you don't want any surprises half way through!

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F

YUM - three types of lemon - whole chopped, juice and sugared zest!

  INGREDIENTS: Have everything at room temp and make sure your butter is good and soft.

1 large thin-skinned lemon - I couldn't find any thin skinned ones in Belfast recently so I used a relatively thick skinned one and it was fine but I imagine a Meyer lemon, or even two because they tend to be smaller, would be wondrous in this cake. Do get the thinnest skinned as you an though so less pith and more flesh.

5oz/140g/1 1/4 sticks of butter softened 

5oz/140g/ 1/2 cup sugar

5oz/140g/1 1/4 cups white flour

1 level teaspoon of baking powder

2 large eggs whisked

1. Here's the interesting part - put your lemon in a small pan, cover with hot water and boil for about 20 minutes until very soft.

2. Drain and cut in half, remove the pips and put the whole lemon in a blender or food processor and chop until smooth but with some chunks - so don't puree it, allow to cool.

3. Add all the remaining cake ingredients into the food processor and blend until smooth OR if you don't have a food processor like me and you like to do all these things by hand cream the butter til very smooth, add the sugar and cream again and then add all the rest of the ingredients and cream until smooth.

4. Add half of the lemon pulp and mix evenly.

5. Like I said earlier I made one small cake in one layer - so - butter and flour a 6" diameter cake pan and dollop all your batter in, smooth the top.

6. Bake for about 45 - 55 mins. until nice and golden brown and a skewer pricked into the centre of the cake comes out clean AND the cake is shrinking a little from the edges of the pan - at about 30 mins. check the cake and if it is browning too much, as mine was, put a hat of parchment paper or foil to stop it getting burnt.

Just out of the oven

7. Leave to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes then turn over onto a wire rack to cool - I decided to use the bottom of my cake as the top because it was so smooth so no need to turn the cake back over from the wire rack.

8. Whilst your cake cools you can make the filling.

  THE FILLING:

1oz/28g/1/4 stick soft butter

6oz/175g/1 1/2 cups icing/confectioners sugar

 5oz/150g/well mounded 1/2 cup creme fraiche or marscapone - I prefer the creme fraiche for the slight tanginess.

the rest of the boiled chopped lemon

 1. In a food processor blend the butter and sugar, by hand cream the butter and slowly add the sugar to cream mixing well between additions - eventually it will be hard to blend anymore so then....

2. Add the creme fraiche or marscapone and blend really well.

3. Add the remaining chopped boiled lemon and blend well - to be honest mine looked a little curdled but it didn't go too far and it tasted really good - with butter and lemon in there I can't imagine it would ever not be a little curdled.

 ASSEMBLE YOUR LOVELY CAKE:

1. Make sure your cake is completely cool or the filling will melt.

2. Mark your cake for two cuts and then be brave and cut into three even horizontal discs:

A close up of the cakes texture

  3. Slather the filling almost to the edges of one of your cake discs, pop the other on top and do the same, pop the final disc on top thus:

 Now make your topping:

3 1/2ozs/100g/heaped 3/4 cup icing/confectioners sugar

1 tablespoon or more lemon juice 

Put the sugar in a small bowl and add the juice bit by bit until you get a smooth and flowing but slightly stiff icing then pour it forth onto your cake top - sprinkle the sugary zest over - I then added some chopped crystallized ginger for a little bite - a good bite - a nice addition.

It's a lovely sophisticated cake - the whole lemon gives it an elegant flavour, a little marmaladey because of the pith - it is neither too sweet or too tart, it is moist and light but toothsome - and I bet it will taste even better tomorrow!

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!!

If you are interested in either of the prints you see in the background on these pics - Blue Rhapsody and Pink Quilt Design - you can find both at my Spoonflower shop in fabric, wallpaper, wrapping paper and wall decals and in my CafePress shop on all manner of items - Thanks You!