Bakewell is a town in Derbyshire, part of the Peak District. There is debate as to whether it’s the Bakewell Tart or the Bakewell Pudding that originated there and there are a few shops in the town that all claim to sell the “original” we tried a couple of them while we were there and they were all good!

The tart, be it an individual portion or a larger tart cut into slices, is either a puff or shortcrust pasty shell. I prefer shortcrust in this instance, and it’s less hassle to make. I actually keep discs of shortcrust pastry in my freezer to pull out as I need them. Make sure the tins you are using are well greased, you don’t want the pastry to stick.Technically a sweet paste is more often used for a tart but with the sweetness of the filling it would be too much.

The tins I used are actually a little shallower than I would have liked. Roll out your dough and cut to an approximate size. Gently press into the tin.

Since my tins are metal I run a rolling pin over the top to cut the dough to fit. A quick press fits the dough into the flutes, raises it above the sides a little and makes it look pretty. I like to chill them at this point so they don’t shrink in the oven.

While the dough is chilling make the frangipane. Frangipane is an almond filling, almost like a sponge, and certainly made like one. The butter and sugar are creamed together, eggs are added and then finely ground almond meal in place of flour.

Pull out the tart shells and spread a layer of jam into the bottom, raspberry seems to be traditional but really, you can use whatever you please (you can also add some lemon zest to the frangipane to compliment the jam). Fill with the frangipane mix and bake until golden and firm to the touch (again, like a sponge), a pick will come out clean but don’t use one of the probes that test temperature as it’ll be done long before it reaches the temperature a cake would be done at.

Once they are cool I like to top them with some icing. If you find that too sweet you can sprinkle with some flaked almonds before cooking so that they’re baked onto the filling. If you do do that then a light dusting with powdered sugar is a nice garnish.

AKA – Cutesey Valentines Cupcakes!

Of course we needed something cute and adorable to mark the day. These cupcakes have the bonus of being quick and easy to make too so you can whip some out for your sweet.

They started out life as just plain white chocolate cupcakes.. Obviously I needed something pink, strawberry seems to be traditional but I am a fan of raspberry. Raspberry buttercream was the plan but then I wanted some raspberry in the cake too, just to tie it together a little more. So a dollop of jam was put in the centre of the cake, adding some extra flavour and moistness.

Start by melting the white chocolate and butter together with a little water, over a double boiler. While that’s melting mix together the flour, sugar and salt.

Pour the chocolate into the flour and start to mix. Before it’s fully incorporated add in the sour cream and egg. It’s a rather loose, liquid batter so don’t be worried!

I half filled my cupcake liners, added a little bit of the jam and then finished filling them. They baked for about 20 minutes.

Once they were cool I made my buttercream and added a good amount of the jam to it for flavour. I would have preferred seedless jam but they didn’t hurt at all. I also added a drop of red food colouring just to give it a boost!

And they all got topped with heart sprinkles, because, why not!

I think in future I’ll let the cakes cook then cut out the core and put the jam in that way. Putting it in before baking led it to all sink to the bottom. They were super tasty though, they’ll definitely make an appearance in our kitchen again.

Firstly a Happy New Year to you all, we’re back and ready to start 2011 with a bang! We hope your holiday season was everything you wanted it to be.

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As we have done the past couple of years we decided to treat our guinea pigs… er.. um.. I mean friends, with a selection of goodies for Christmas. It gives us a chance to try out some new techniques and recipes without the stress of them being for a customer. And we can get reviews on the items from a mix of tastes and preferences, a nice way to see what’s popular.

We started off with two chocolates. First up, a sesame square. Sesame brittle crunched up into chocolate for the base and a chocolate-tahini ganache on top, sprinkled with some toasted sesame seeds. The mix of chocolate and sesame caused some people to stop and think but overall it went down well.

The walnut bonbons were a definite success. A dark chocolate shell, nice and thin and consistent all the way around. The filling was almond, caramel and toasted walnuts, a wonderful mix. These really were the winners this year.

We made two different pate de fruit.. fruit jellies that is. We did a layered one, raspberry, basil and peach. I knew raspberry and basil worked together well although it’s a combination that some people don’t want to even try. I knew raspberry and peach worked so the only gamble here was peach and basil though we were fairly confident. The raspberry layer was thinner than I had wanted but the combination worked really well, nice and refreshing.

Then we tried our hands at some lime slices. These took a bit more effort and still came out a little soft and hard to cut accurately. They had a wonderful tangy flavour that was aided by adding some citric acid to the sugar that they’re coated in. Another winner!

Marshmallows are always a firm favourite so we decided to jazz them up this year with the addition of passionfruit.. It almost worked. They ended up with a hint of flavour, just not as strong as we would have liked. We’ll need to work on them some more.

Finally we ended the goodie box with honeycomb, also known as sponge toffee. Caramel with a hint of honey though the name comes from the honeycomb like structure.

And of course, the furry friends got some of our brew bones. Can’t go leaving them out now can we!

Now, I’ve always known these delicacies by the name Macaroon.. I’m starting to learn that most people think of the wrong type of macaroon when I say that, the French style Macaron is more known in relation to these treats. Of course, if I said it with the true French pronunciation I’d probably still face lots of confusion. For the purpose of the post I’ll carry on saying macaron, know that in my head, I’m secretly saying macaroon!

They are most well known in France where patisseries will have whole cases full of differently flavoured macarons, they actually came from Italty though. They were introduced to France when Catherine de Medicis married the Duc d’Orleans (who later became King of France). They became the version we know today when Pierre Desfontaines, the grandson of Louis Ernest Laduree came up with the concept.

Macarons are less well known in America though they’re slowly making their presence felt, sadly sold at exorbitant prices at the moment ($2 for one bite sized morsel) we can only hope that changes when every bakery carries them!

Maybe I’m just lucky, but while some bakers seem to struggle and struggle with the “perfect” macaron, after making them a few times in class with different methods I found the method I like and it works for me (praise to whichever baking deity listens). Of course, if I’m having a bad day, if the weather is wrong, if I’m not paying attention, they can still go bad.

So here’s my caveat, this is my method, it works for me, in this house, with this oven. I wish you the best of luck with your endeavours and sincerely hope this helps you on your way to making delicious macarons, but maybe, if it doesn’t work out, this just isn’t “your” method.

I start with my egg whites, nice and fresh, whisked in a metal (copper is best but stainless does. Don’t use plastic!!) bowl that is cleaned thoroughly, no specks, no drips of water, perfectly clean. They’re finicky like that! Once they’re foamy all the way through add your sifted granulated sugar and half your sifted powdered sugar. I don’t usually bother with sifting but it is important here, I will stress it at every point. Whip to medium-stiff peaks, they’ll stay nice and glossy.

Gently fold in your food dye and any flavour oils you may be adding (I’ll get to that in a minute). Then in thirds fold in your sifted powdered sugar and sifted almond meal (mine has larger chunks as I blitzed down whole almonds – cheaper than buying almond meal).

The mixture will be really thick. Here’s the strange part. In a method known as macaronner (named for the treats it’s used for) we’re now going to gradually work out all of that air we’ve just worked into them. Rather than run the risk of over folding when adding the almond meal we took everything too far and added way more air than we needed so that we can then work back to the perfect consistency.. does that make sense? For me, it means I don’t have to worry about folding the mixture that one time too many and ending up with puddles.

So, in the first photo here, you can see all the peaks, the mixture is holding it’s shape. Further along a little bit it’s starting to blend together, but if I make a peak it stays there. Finally, there’s barely mark, I can pip this and any peak from the tip will blend back into the macaron. This was actually right at the edge of taking too much air out so my macarons spread a little more than expected.

Pipe into  discs, about the size of a half dollar (a 50 pence piece, without all the corners for all the Brits), and here’s the really important part – leave them alone. That’s right, put them to one side and leave them to sit until they form a skin. In humid conditions this might take a hour or they may never form one, in a nice, air conditioned house, they took 20ish minutes.

Now they can be baked, 325F and don’t forget to turn them so they cook evenly. When they’re done you’ll be able to gently pick them up right off the tray.. you may need to sacrifice one or two to making sure they’re done. They should have barely any colour on them, if any at all. Maybe small amounts of light golden-ness around the edges.

Leave to cool and then sandwich together. There should be not too much filling, of course you want enough for flavour though. It shouldn’t ooze out the sides when you take a bite. Ganache or jams work well and French buttercream is somewhat traditional as a filling, it should be not overly sweet, the flavour should hit you way before any sweetness does.

I discovered, that letting them sit for a day or more allows the flavours to mellow and blend well and changes the texture a little, though they still retain the trademark crisp bite with the chewy centre.

Flavours! More often than not the ‘biscuit’ part isn’t actually flavoured, it’s just coloured to match the filling (like I used pink here for a raspberry jam filling). Now, that’s not to say you can’t flavour the biscuit, you just need to be careful about it. You can substitute out a little flour for cocoa powder, and flavour oils and extracts will work perfectly. You could even change out the almond meal for other nut flours. I wouldn’t want to try adding fruit puree or anything like that.

Once you add flavours to the biscuit, the filling doesn’t necessarily need to match, you can do parings, how about chocolate, with a caramel filling, or orange with a ganache centre, the possibilities are endless, experiment and above all have fun!

I wanted to end the month with chocolate, I’ve managed to stay off it the entire month which is quite a feat for me! Wanting to make a slight twist rather than a ‘plain old’ chocolate ice cream I decided to make a sorbet instead. So, as a bonus this is dairy and egg free, assuming you’re using an appropriate chocolate, it’s vegan and lactose free, and it’s still yummy!

This really is nice and simple to make. Bring the sugar and water to a boil, add the cocoa powder and whisk it together. Here is where I failed a little and didn’t boil it out. My recipe said boil to get rid of the alkali taste, since I was using Dutched cocoa I didn’t think it would be necessary. Turns out I was wrong and it also gets rid of the powdery taste that the cocoa leaves otherwise.

I decided to up the chocolate and use the (specially imported by my Mum) 100% chocolate from Willie’s Cacao. This made it very dark, so not necessarily to everyone’s taste, but this recipe is good with semisweet (milk and white requires different ratios). Chop up all the chocolate and put it into a bowl, pour over the boiled cocoa mix.

Let it sit for a minute or two then whisk together. Bring up to volume with some ice, this helps cool it down, and gives the right ratio of water. It can be churned as soon as it is cooled, or it can be chilled overnight. If you do chill it overnight it may separate out but it’ll whisk back together just fine.

It does seem to get very hard once frozen, but it is very tasty and rich.

I wanted to serve this with something a little more interesting. Brandy snaps are something I’ve served ice cream in many times, their predominant ginger flavour would work nicely with the chocolate (unlike the sorbet they aren’t vegan). They’re very simple, just brown sugar and butter melted together.

Add some brandy and the mix will bubble right up. Stir together and add some flour and ginger. Spoon onto a baking sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes until they have become all lacy.

They will come out very soft and you need them to cool a little so you can pick them up and then mold them over a bowl (or in any shape you like, round a wooden spoon handle will give nice little tubes) while they’re still soft. Once they’re cool they will harden. Store in a cool, airtight container if you aren’t using them straight away.

Serve the ice cream in the brandy snaps, add fresh raspberries, et voila, a dessert fit for a king!

I know, I know, what does gardening have to do with cooking and baking? Well Michael and I last year attempted to start a vegetable patch and herb garden. We’re not so great at “pretty” plants, but something we’re going to be able to eat, we can manage that!

It’s been a year now and it’s had ups and downs, some things have grown really well, others not so much. We had a bumper crop of jalapenos and bell peppers last year but sadly they didn’t survive the winter, we have some habaneros, tabascos and baby bells to try this year.

Our herbs are our best crop, by some miracle the parsley and mint survived the winter and as soon as spring hit they grew like nobody’s business. We had our first herb harvest last weekend, with the parsley, mint and and rosemary plant we bought that seems to have taken well. We take enough to dry, leaving plenty so we don’t kill the plant, and it allows us to take some fresh herbs as we need them too. We pick them off the stems and dry them in a dehydrator then pack them away in vacuum sealed mason jars.

We have some tomato seedlings started this year, a combination of species so hopefully we’ll end up with some good ones. I’m hoping the Roma’s take off, they’d be perfect in cooking, I’m not much of a tomato-in-salad eater, I love cooking with them though.

The strangest thing in our garden right now, I guess you could say is the broccoli! We planted it last autumn, so it’s supposed to grow over our mild winters and then harvest in the early spring.. It did not a lot over the winter, which was admittedly a bit colder than usual, and has suddenly started growing properly now the warmer weather has hit. I guess that’s a lesson there, don’t bother with them in the autumn. It’s so strange to look down the centre of the plant and see this tiny floret of broccoli growing! It’s getting bigger and gradually turning into a head of broccoli. Only one per plant right now, is that all it’s going to be? It doesn’t seem very efficient.

We decided to have a try at growing berries this year. We bought some ready started (yes, I know, we’re cheats) and planted them outside. The blueberry seems to have been eaten by our friendly neighbourhood possum, and he broke the blackberry stem. The raspberries are coming along nicely. Not very big right now but it’s thorns have started to develop and it has a few buds growing.

We’ve been trying, whenever we eat one, to grown an avocado plant.. we know we’re not going to get fruit off of it, but it’s entertaining. After several failures and weeks and months of nothing happening, we finally had one that grew! He’s been planted in a little pot for now, and has made his way outside.

I in no way profess to be an expert at gardening. We mostly feel our way along blindly, learning by our mistakes, but having fun watching it grow

Do you know what Sunday is? It’s March 14th.. Which on this side of the Atlantic is 3.14, otherwise known as the mathmatical term of Pi.. Yes, I’m a math geek. Did you notice, if you look at 3.14 in a mirror it even looks like it says pie!

So, to celebrate Pi day, I of course had to make some lollipops… Pie lollipops!

I had two different types of dough sat in the fridge, so I tried it out with both of them to see what worked best. I had a pie dough, flaky and buttery, and a tart dough, sweeter and richer, but also more delicate to handle.

Rolled out and cut into circles I chilled them while I prepared my fillings. First up a combination of chocolate chips, chopped pecans and raisins, I am all for using up pantry ingredients we have laying around. Then a strawberry jam and a raspberry jam.  I grew up with jam tarts and wondered how well that would transfer into a lollipop. Finally I made an apple pie filling, dicing the apples, sauté-ing them in some butter with some spices and sugar then finishing it off with a touch of brandy.

I popped a little bit of filling in the centre of half of my nicely chilled dough circles and added a lollipop stick to it. Eggwashing around the edge I pressed a second circle of dough on top and sealed it down. To help seal, and to also look good I crimped around the edge using another lollipop stick. Since this was an experiment, to test a concept, I scored the top of each pie with an initial to denote it’s filling.. We definitely need to come up with a better way than that, any suggestions?

The pies were eggwashed to help them gain a nice golden colour and then baked at 350F. They didn’t take long being so small.

For the most part they worked well, the pie dough tasted better than the tart dough with this utilisation, and the winning filling was definitely the apple. The jams didn’t work so well in an enclosed pie, and both erupted, looking a tad volcanic!