The Great British Bake Off

I was having a look at You Tube – as you do – I was hoping that there was a clip from STVs The Hour programme of the Scottish author Gordon Ferris, but no such luck. It was Judith (Reader in the Wilderness) who alerted me to his existence, he’s a crime writer and his books are set in Glasgow. I’m going to try them out in the hope that he manages to capture the great character of my birthplace. I read just one book by Denise Mina and I was disappointed with it because she failed completely on the Glasgow front, but maybe that’s only noticeable if you know the city.

Anyway, back to You Tube, I noticed that there are some videos of The Great British Bake Off on it. I never watch any of these reality/competition things, Big Brother and ‘Strictly’ type things just don’t appeal to me. But I must admit that I started watching the Bake Off, well the first one was on in the background when I was on my Netbook and I kind of got dragged in.

At first I was amazed that some of the contestants had been daft enough to bring in shop bought things to add to their celebration cakes. It’s the sort of thing we all do for kids cakes but surely not in a competition! Then I was less than impressed that they all seemed to make their pastry in machines and some of them had never made pastry before. Machine made pastry was not a success. My boys got cookery lessons at school, including hand-made pastry and there was still time for all the academic stuff.

Mind you when they got to the bread making bit I was full of admiration because the couple of times that I’ve tried to bake bread have been disastrous. I couldn’t even have put the results out for the birds because the RSPB would have done me for cruelty! My bread was so heavy the only possible uses for it would have been as doorstops or even anchors.

Anyway if you’re interested in baking, or just looking at food you might like to have a wee keek! They’re starting off with cup/fairy cakes. Kids stuff!

http://youtu.be/pFOU0UIkcv0

On the Gordon Ferris front – all of his books are out in my local library so he’s obviously popular, I might have to put in some requests.

Some cream cakes

Yesterday morning we went to St Andrews and as Karen K at Books and Chocolate wanted to know what a coffee tower looked like I just had to buy some cakes, for blogging purposes you understand!

Three cakes

So here they are, they got a wee bit bashed in the box on the way home, the coffee tower is the one on the left and it’s like a very big profiterole but it’s filled with coffee flavoured whipped cream and has coffee flavoured icing on top.

The middle cake is called a French cherry delight, again it’s made from choux pastry like a profiterole but there is cherry sauce at the bottom and then it is filled with whipped cream and of course topped with a cherry.

The cake on the right is a chocolate tower and it is filled with ordinary whipped cream and topped with chocolate flavoured icing. They are very similar to those cakes which in France are called a religieuse. I think it would be better if the cream was chocolate flavoured too.

Here they are halved so that you can see how full they are. They are on a large meat platter which gives you an idea of their size.

Three cakes cut

My husband and I had half of each of them, well what else could we do, cream goes off so quickly!

Lamingtons

Nutters – please be aware that this recipe contains nuts!

Back in the dim distant past when Kylie was in Neighbours and I saw it because it was on just before the evening news, the folks in the cafe always seemed to be scoffing Madge’s Lamingtons. I always wondered what on earth they were, never having heard of them before. Some sort of Australian delicacy I supposed. In fact, because of the strong Australian accents I thought it was something to do with lemons!

But I bought an old copy of Marguerite Patten’s Every Day Cook Book recently, I only had her All Colour Cookery book, my husband’s first present to me!! – and – jings, crivens and help ma Boab – there’s a recipe for Lamingtons in it, so I just had to try it out, they’re very tasty and here they are.

5 oz butter or marg.
7 oz sugar
3 eggs
10 oz self-raising flour
4 tablespoons milk

For the filling:
raspberry jam

To coat:
7 oz icing sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
3 tablespoons boiling water

To decorate:
6 oz dessicated coconut

Cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs gradually. Mix in the flour alternately with the milk. Spread the mixture into a greased 8-inch square cake tin and bake for 50 – 60 minutes at Gas mark 4/350-375 F.

Leave it to cool on a wire rack and then split it through the middle and spread the raspberry jam on the bottom layer. Sandwich the layers together, then cut the cake into 2 inch squares, you should be able to get 16 pieces.

Put the icing sugar and cocoa into a bowl and add the boiling water slowly. Mix to a smooth paste adding more water if it is too thick. To stop the icing from setting too quickly place the bowl over a pan of hot water.

One by one dip the squares into the icing letting any excess drip off before tossing them in the dessicated coconut. Allow to set before scoffing.

The recipe says you should put the squares on a fork or a skewer before dipping in the icing but I couldn’t get them to stay on so I ended up getting my fingers very messy! Finger sucking good though. (Be careful how you say that!)

For a richer flavour you might like to add a few drops of vanilla extract to the sponge mixture.

BTW it’s a very good cookery book.

Chocolate Sponge Cake

It was number 1 son’s birthday recently and although he isn’t mad keen on cake, I felt the need to bake one for him. We ate it with home-made vanilla ice-cream and he did enjoy it after all. It’s a very simple recipe.

175g/6oz margarine
175g/6oz sugar
2 eggs
200g/7oz self-raising flour
25g/1oz cocoa powder
6 tablespoons milk

Grease 2 x 18cm/7 inch cake tins.
Cream the margarine and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Mix in the eggs one at a time. Mix the cocoa powder into the flour and add it to the cake mixture, folding it in with the milk to form a dropping consistency.

Divide the cake mixture equally between the two tins and bake in a preheated oven, 180 C (350 F), Gas Mark 4, for 20-25 minutes until risen and firm. Leave in the cake tins for 5 minutes, then remove from tins and cool on a wire rack.

Sandwich the two cakes together with chocolate buttercream or whipped cream as desired.

To make buttercream:

2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 tablespoons of boiling water
125g/4oz butter or marg.
250g/8oz icing sugar sifted

Blend the cocoa powder with the boiling water, then cream the butter/marg with the icing sugar until light and fluffy. Then beat in the cocoa mixture.

This should be enough mixture to sandwich the cakes together and cover the top. Decorate to your taste. I used broken chocolate pieces. Enjoy.

Chocolate Spice Cake

cake

Chocolate Spice Cake


I baked this cake for G’s birthday last week and it went down well. I first did this one 30 odd years ago but for some reason I hadn’t done it again. I think it does look kind of 70s – ish but it tastes good and is dead easy.

8oz self-raising flour
2 tablespoons cocoa
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon mixed spice
1 level tsp cinnamon
6 oz butter or marg.
5oz sugar
2 tablespoons golden syrup
3 eggs
4 tablespoons milk

Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, add the syrup then the eggs one at a time. Mix well then add the flour, cocoa and spices. Mix together until it is all well combined and if the mixture seems too stiff add up to 4 tbsp. milk.
Divide the mixture equally between two 8 inch sandwich tins which have been well greased and bake at 350 F, 180 C , gas mark 4 for about 30 minutes.
When cold, sandwich them together and cover with buttercream
icing. Decorate to your taste. I used glace cherries and almonds.

Chocolate Buttercream Icing
10oz icing sugar, sieved
5oz butter
2 dessertspoons cocoa powder
1 dessertspoon milk

Cream together the icing sugar, cocoa powder and butter until
well mixed and smooth, then beat in the milk.

Eat. Yum.