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

Rachel's Devil Food Cake

By nature, I am a savoury cook; give me roast dinner for 10 over baking cupcakes any day. However, a combination of my boyfriend’s sweet tooth and my desire to master this art that has long escaped me, I’ve recently started trying to get over “the fear”. And so in this blog you will be able to see me recreating certain recipes to some disastrous consequences- although hopefully getting better. Bored of seeing fancy multi-tiered baked goods that look like they’ve been crafted by Michelangelo himself? Then come and have a laugh at my first attempts!
First off, and my boyfriends favourite; Devil’s Food Cake.

*280g Plain chocolate

*100ml milk

*50 g cocoa power

*180g unsalted butter

*140g light Muscovado sugar

*3 eggs separated

*8 tbsp Crème Fraiche

*200g plain flour

*1tbsp Golden Syrup

*1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

200g icing sugar

1.     Preheat oven to 160 Celsius; grease two 8 inch cake tins and line with non-stick baking paper. Top tip: Follow Delia’s guide to lining cake tins to ensure the edges are smooth here: Delia's how to line a cake

2.     Melt 140g chocolate with milk and 2 tbsp of cocoa powder in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of hot water until smooth. Remove from heat.

3.     Beat together 140g butter with the muscovado sugar until pale and fluffy, then beat in the egg yolks, crème fraiche and melted chocolate mixture.

4.     Sift the flour and bicarbonate of soda, and then fold this into the mixture lightly and evenly.

5.     Beat the egg whites into firm peaks, and then fold this into the mixture lightly and evenly.

6.     Divide the mixture between the two cake tins and smooth level- DO NOT PRESS DOWN otherwise the cake will be too dense. Cook for 35-40 minutes.

7.     Once cooked, leave to cool in the tins for 10 minutes before turning out onto wire racks.

For the frosting:
melt the rest of the chocolate, cocoa powder, crème fraiche, golden syrup and butter with 4 tbsp of water in a saucepan over a low heat until smooth. Remove from the heat and sift in the icing sugar, constantly stirring. Set aside to cool.

The mistake I made here was not to let it cool enough- it needs to be thick and gloopy, otherwise it will just run off the side of the cake and look messy (Like you can tell from my pictures!)

9.     Cut each cake in half horizontally, and sandwich the cakes together with some of the icing, then spread the remaining icing over the top and sides. This is easier if you have a palette knife, but if not use anything with a smooth side.

So this cake was absolutely decadent; moist, chocolatey and light. Just the presentation that needs some work I think! To mix it up, trying adding raspberry puree in the sandwiched layers, or make white chocolate icing; in these cases you can probably withhold a bit of the icing sugar as these components are sweeter.

Certainly looks like my boyfriend enjoyed it!

Recipe from The Big Book of Baking by Love Food

Rachel x