Jamie O's Orangey Carrot Cake

...thats also carroty, spicy and er, quite flat. But that didn't make a cool alliteration.
I came to a bit of a carrot cake conundrum this week when looking for a recipe to use for a fathers day treat (as requested by papa sax) theres obviously tons of variations of every kind of cake, everyone has thier own preferred versions or family recipe's but i must have seriously missed the memo that there is about 500 different ways to make carrot cake! I thought i'd just look one up and have everything i needed already yet every recipe calls for something different and i didn't come across one the same.. after browsing all the books in the house i whittled it down to the following few:

Lorraine Pascales 3 tier carrot cake (asks for 9 eggs!)
Lili Vanilli's carrot cake (made with an entire bottle of fruit smoothie and spelt flour)
Magnolia bakery carrot cake (asked for many complex americany things i didn't have time to source)
Jamie Olivers 'a rather pleasing carrot cake' from his 'cook with jamie' book

In the end i went for Jamies recipe- mostly for the simplicity of the recipe- this was my first attempt at solo carrot cake baking and so i wanted to keep the ingredients to a minimum!
Luckily for me i don't have to type it out as old good jamie is so trendy its on his site, all 'pukka' and ready to go (and luckily for you guys that means less rambling from me)-

CLICK HERE FOR RECIPE

HOWEVER my tips for this 'simple' recipe to actually make it more simple (like it should be) and to stop you using every grater/zester/spoon/mixing bowl/whisk/chopping board in the house in a bit of a flap (as i ended up doing when halfway through mixing ingredients i forgot i needed to zest and squeeze my orange, chop the walnuts finely and ground nutmeg and cloves etc etc)
SO- before you start this-

-weigh your carrots out once grated- not when they are whole
-seperate your 5 eggs! it doesn't state this anywhere in the recipe?! 
-finely chop walnuts, zest and juice the orange, grate the nutmeg and crush the cloves first thing and set to one side so you can add them in quickly (i had to stop everything halfway through which left my mixture sitting for quite a while!)
-use a small to medium size orange, not an L, the one i used was pretty much a wannabee mango and i think made my cake too moist and dense and therefore resulting in a flat cake
-don't split between 2 21cm cake tins or you will be left with 2 very skinny (in my case slightly sunken and flat- sadface) cakes rather than a lovely thick cake like a traditional carrot cake should be! 

However it's whats on the inside that counts with cakes such as this, and im incredibly frustrated that the sponge turned out so dense after been in oven for 60 minutes! Considering this recipe has baking powder, self raising flower and egg whites in i do not understand why both my cakes sank when i took them out the oven and then uncovered a very damp sponge when cutting into it.
Anyway im set on making it again and tweaking it to get the perfect sponge. The recipe was a joy to make and the orange and spices came through amazingly making it a very moreish and fresh cake.

Im happy with the end result now its been iced, it has a nice homemade look to it and perfect for elevensies on fathers day, maybe it will taste so nice my dad will momentarily forget about me turning the heating up in june/leaving lights switched on all around the house/not cleaning my car/owing him money....

Holly x

Macaroon Madness Continued

I am going to admit, hands down, i have no idea how to correctly spell Macaroon/Macaron?! My spell check just tried to make it macaroni. No almonds in that pasta based dish.

Anyway if you want to confuse yourself and question the spelling even more then try making the damn things. After successfully creating these pesky little treats you can call them maccas for all i bloody care. Im just so happy it worked!

Here are the pics from our successful baking session- as you can see you don't have to follow the colors exactly as the recipes suggest- its a great opportunity to experiment- for the below we used violet grape, tangerine and mulberry food colouring paste, which is stronger and less runny than cheap liquid ones so much safer for mixing into delicate mixtures such as this!

You can also experiment with fillings as much as you like also, for example the chocolate rum ganache for the pink ones didn't set right in the fridge so we used a chocolate cream cheese filling instead! Or you could always use whipped cream or a plain buttercream/frosting and add flavours such as peppermint or lavender and dye your macaroons accordingly!
You can also see from the pics the importance of how thick the mixture is (the purple is thicker therefore made much smaller, puffier macaroons) and the spacing you should allow for them to cook!

We made ginger, blueberry cheescake and chocolate rum flavours-

Pesky Purple Piping Bags

Many, many of you will be sitting here laughing at this when i say that at 23 years old, with many many years of baking and cake eating experience under my belt, i have only just learnt how to use a piping bag.
You, laughing person over there, are either:
a) an incredibly experienced baker who has taken baking up as either a full time career or hobby therefore could pipe a cake with your eyes shut because you have the time, patience and practice!
or
b) have never, ever attempted it in your life and think the people on the telly on great british bake off make it look soooo bloody easy surely YOU can do it too! Its just squeezing icing out a bag in a circle right?
RIGHT?!

So my mothers day baking treats this year came in the form of vanilla cupcakes from the magnolia bakery book- another chance to practice this pretty much flawless recipe, adding dry ingredients in 3rds i think has such clear advantages when making cupcake batter, much better than, and it pains me to say this, nigellas 'blitz it all in the processor' approach which i find can end up very runny. This mixture was so thick i almost panicked, but it was easy to put in the cases and baked in about 15 minutes!
I used mini cases and therefore opted for a small nozzle to pipe the icing which when comparing with the mini cupcakes in Lolas bakery a few days later i realised it wasn't essential, a normal/medium sized one works just as well and leaves less lines on the icing, however i twisted and held the bag properly this time, took my time and the icing was a good consistency (cream cheese icing- it holds so well) I also used raspberry flavoring and my absolute first choice for food coloring a lovely violet/lilac one i use on everything!
Not bad for my second attempt. My first attempt we forgot to put the nozzle into the bag before adding the icing. So ya know, baby steps and all that.

Holly x

Nigella's Fresh Gingerbread with Orange Cream Cheese Frosting

So Christmas has quickly sprung upon us as it always does, just as i was thinking about halloween cookies and grasshopper pie for thanksgiving, December arrived giving me no time for autumnal cooking and heading straight for the cinnamon. 

Rachel came round one Sunday afternoon to partake in a spot of christmas baking to kick start the season to be oh so jolly. and boy did this cake make us jolly. The scents of cinnamon and ginger that filled the kitchen were better than any scented Muji candle and the cake was a complete success. I've only recently decided to give cupcakes a break and try more 'grown up' cakes, starting with a successful raspberry cake i made back in summer i learnt that cake baking didn't always mean soggy sponge and cake tin- grease ratio nightmares. 

The recipe is easy, and gossip proof, we still managed to have a good catch up and pay attention to the sifting and the weighing.

Nigella's recipe suggests a regular lemon icing, made simply with icing sugar and water, however i am a massive fan of the cream cheese frosting, it gives more texture, it sets well and its quick to make rather than making regular icing which involves too much add a bit, stir a bit, oh balls i put to much water in, add more icing sugar etc etc. Rachel then stepped up the seasonal flavour a notch and suggested we add orange zest to the frosting. I always said Rachel was the brains out of the two of us. 

The end result was like christmas day and finding your boyfriend actually bought you something in the right size aka: impressive surprise! It didn't stick to the tin, it was spongy and light, yet held together in a good sticky kinda way (the treacles are to thank for this obviously). Once it cooled i spread the cream cheese icing and cut it into perfect squares. This might be a bit filling for a christmas eve/day treat on top of mince pies and christmas cake but it was a perfect winter starter to get us in the mood!

Apologies for the low qual pics, it was dark by the time we had finished at 4pm and these needed to be snapped before they were scoffed- how to fix blurry pics taken on your 5 year old SLR? Instagram them within an inch of their lives, obvs. 

Holly x

150g unsalted butter

125g dark muscovado sugar

200g golden syrup

200g black treacle

2 teaspoons fresh ginger, finely grated

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (try not to drop the glass spice jar your mum has had since the 90's and brake the lid in the process. oops)

250ml milk

2 large eggs- beaten

1 teaspoon bicarb soda- dissolved in 2 tablespoons warm water

300g plain flour

Roasting tin- we used a shallow tin about 30 x 20 x5- this made for a perfect rectangle loaf cake that could be cut into squares however you can use the mix for cupcakes or a deeper loaf just watch your cooking times and temp.

-Preheat oven to 170/ gas mark 3

-Melt the butter, sugar, golden syrup, treacle, grated ginger and cinnamon.

-Take off the heat then add the milk, eggs and bicarb soda in its water mix.

-Measure the flour in a bowl and add the wet ingredients, beating until well mixed- it will be VERY liquid batter but don't worry.

-pour into the greased and lined tin and bake for 3/4 to 1 hour until risen and firm. Its supposed to be slightly sticky and remember it will carry on cooking as it cools- i switched the oven off after 3/4 of an hour and after doing the stick test (Im so technical i know) and let it sit in the warm oven for about 15 mins as we made the icing. And made another cuppa.

We used a cream cheese frosting recipie from my primrose bakery cook book-

175g cream cheese (we used one tub of philly)

450g icing sugar

125g butter- softened

1 orange zest grated

Beat all the ingredients together with a mixer then try not to eat it on its own with a spoon (who am i kidding)