Baking as therapy

I woke up in an absolutely foul mood this morning. No real need for it, just particularly crabby. You know when you haven't even got out of bed yet but you can feel the little dark cloud on your shoulder? Admittedly I am pretty tired at the moment but even that didn't seem to explain it on a Saturday morning when a lovely weekend with visiting friends stretched in front of me. Half an hour later as I stood in the middle of a meadow throwing a toy for the dog while getting drenched in a full-on downpour, the crabbiness seemed at least partly justified. Nice of the world to get in step.

Now its Saturday evening and I am tired but very chilled. What has brought about this transformation in mood? Baking. Getting into the kitchen, grabbing some flour then rubbing some butter in for a short pastry. Grating cheese into a savoury biscuit dough. Best of all, watching the transformation of a golden combination of butter, sugar and eggs as I stirred melted chocolate through it.

So, what did I make? Well after whipping up a quick Victoria sponge last night, today required a little more concentration. First up, Delia's onion tart. We weren't sure whether our friends would have eaten, so preparing a few salads, investing in some good cheese, making hummous and baking this tart seemed to cover us either way, with the prospect of fantastic leftovers tomorrow. The tart has yet to be sliced but looks golden brown and smells divine. Its an old favourite and I'm quietly confident.

Next up, little savoury biscuits. Wine will be drunk tonight and rather than resorting to peanuts and Pringles I thought I'd make a bit of an effort. I haven't tried these before. It's a Good Housekeeping recipe for flour and butter, mustard, grated cheese and egg mixed to a smooth dough then rolled out and cut to about the size of an old penny. They have turned out deeply moreish and opinion is divided on whether the then crispy ones or the thicker, slightly puffed, ones are better, so another batch will certainly be needed.

Finally, good old Nigel's brownies, yet again. We are all involved with a sponsored walk tomorrow (marshalling rather than walking) and, since the others are helping as a favour to me, some kind of cake-based thanks seemed appropriate. The original plan was to repeat the Paradise slices, substituting raspberries for sultanas. Luckily I remembered in time that one of our party doesn't like coconut, so switched to baking the brownies. This will also mean pudding tonight is covered, as with the raspberries plus the cream left over from the tart the brownies will make a really decadent end to the evening.

So sweet and savoury baking, two old favourites plus a new star, have returned me to my natural balance and harmony reigns once again.

Is there anything baking can't achieve? I rather doubt it. There is an old cliche that if women ran the world there would be no war, but perhaps the truth is that if we all spent a bit more time making pastry by hand, mellowness would rule. It certainly seems to work round here. And those who don't like to bake could stroke cats to achieve the same effect. This is my vision. My, if you will, manifesto. The time has come. The time is now. Well, once I've opened the wine and had another of those savoury biscuits, anyway.

If Paradise is... oh you know the rest

Time has once again flown since I last got around the blogging. Blame Easter, blame the weather, blame the government, just don't blame me.

There has been a fair bit of baking, most importantly major developments on the macaroon front, plus Hummingbird cake and Paradise slices. With exciting recipe news on top of all this*, it has been a crazy rollercoaster ride. Or something.

To start with, a macaroon update. Nigella's recipe being a big disappointment I returned to my usual vanilla recipe and simply swapped the ground almonds for ground pistachios. This, to cut a long story short, worked like a dream. I stuck with Nigella's pistachio filling, which is really rather good, and all was well in macaroon world.

I cannot overstate how good these were. If every batch of macaroons turned out like these I would be a deeply happy person - very light yet rich, beautiful to look at, very elegant indeed. And they tasted absolutely fantastic. These actually worked well enough for some to be presented to my father-in-law as a belated birthday gift, though sadly some of the enjoyment was lost for all concerned when my dog stole them from the shelf he had put them on. Turns out she can reach places his dog can't. I can report that six pistachio macaroons with a rich filling call for a serious number of pooh bags 24 hours later. Less beautiful to look at and certainly less elegant.

I have now moved on to trying chocolate macaroons. I found a few recipes online but decided to start by trying to adapt my existing recipe again. It calls for 1 3/4 cups of icing sugar so I tried 1 1/2 cups of icing sugar plus 1/4 cup of cocoa. The results have divided opinion. I don't think the resulting macaroons are chocolately enough but the in-house judge disagrees (husband, not dog. Probably worth clarifying since their current rates of consumption are about equal). I'll be sandwiching them with a rich chocolate filling tonight so it may be that this balances things out.

Having made huge progress with the macaroons generally it is probably as good a time as any to pause and summarise the top tips to date:

- a slightly sloppy mixture works best
- tap the tray on the side after piping
- leave for at least 15 minutes to form a skin
- only one tray in the oven at a time, on the top shelf
- if the top comes away from the bottom they need 2-3 mins more
- leave to cool on the tray for five mins
- put a damp tea towel on a cooling rack then transfer the macaroons to this on their paper
- leave until completely cool before removing from paper
- put the macaroons in an airtight container in the fridge for two days before icing

All this faffing is so worthwhile as it helps to give a smooth, flat finish to the macaroon and a finished texture which is crisp on the outside and chewy in the middle. Damn they're good.

So, back to the cakes.

I'd been wanting to try Hummingbird cake for a long time but never had the right ingredients (a common story due to my lack of organisation when it comes to shopping plus tendency to get distracted by shiny new recipes when I settle down to bake). It is banana, coconut and pineapple incorporated into a sponge, topped off with a cream cheese icing. The banana has to be hugely ripe to stop the cake being too heavy and dense. The pineapple has to be in syrup and crushed rather than pulped or chopped. The former was no problem but I only had a tin of sliced pineapple, which was in juice rather than syrup. Throwing caution to the winds (oh the life I lead) I pulped the pineapple anyway, using a little of the juice and substituting ginger syrup for the pineapple syrup. This actually worked surprisingly well, with a dollop of cinnamon to bring out the best in the banana. I wasn't over keen on the finished product myself, but then I'm not much of a cake person. It certainly got scarfed quickly, and not by the dog.

The real discovery has been the Paradise slice. A shortbread base (oddly, I have no problem making shortbread as a base for something else) spread with raspberry jam then topped with a sponge containing coconut and sultanas. Very Mr Kipling. Only good. Absolutely stunning and, with the exception of the macaroons, the hit of the year so far.

By special request I will be experimenting with these slices. First up will be a version with fresh raspberries rather than sultanas, to be swiftly followed by cherry jam and cherries batch. We have a foodie friend coming to stay this weekend and he and the cake eater in chief will be assisting at a charity walk I am organising, so macaroons for Saturday night and Paradise slices for the walk on Sunday sounds like a plan to me.

One final update - the filling definitely chocolates the macaroons up to a sufficient level. Whipping cream, a lot of dark chocolate, cocoa powder and some butter makes a rich, densely chocolatey filling. What were the chances?

*I have another recipe for shortbread to try. Will I never learn?

Nuts

A day of celebrity recipes, with mixed success. First up, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Jamaican Ginger Cake, as featured in the Guardian magazine last week. Then pistachio macroons a la Nigella Lawson. I haven't tried a recipe by either of them before so was interested to see how they work work out. Most of my cook books are not by celebrity cooks but I have yet to try a Nigel Slater recipe that did not work, not to mention that wasn't a pleasure to read.

So, the ginger cake. I was using electronic scales which turned themselves off just as I started measuring the golden syrup straight into a pan already including other ingredients so judged the quantity by eye only. I was missing All Spice and was slightly random with the amount of ginger I added so was prepared to allow some leeway if the finished cake was problematic. It wasn't. It is dark and gooey and a huge success, making me keen to seek out some of his other recipes. I do like recipes where you can dollop rather than being too exact so this was a very promising introduction. A baking ginger cake does fill the house with the most wonderful, welcoming smell and is far less of a cliche than bread or coffee. Very Sunday-ish.

And so to Nigella. I was planning on making pistachio macaroons by just switching the almond meal in the vanilla recipe for pistachio meal. I didn't think it would do any harm to google first to see what was out there and there was Nigella's recipe. The method was the same as usual but the proportions of ingredients and probably more significantly the cooking temperature and time were very different. Although these did taste good, the texture and appearance was more biscuity than anything. Really disappointing. Returning to google I discovered that I was not the only person to have had this outcome. That'll teach me not to read below the first two results.

Having said that, the pistachio buttercream recipe she gave was pretty good.

So, unwilling to end a day of macaroon baking on a down note (things have been going so well I didn't want to jinx my mojo or something) I did what I should have done in the first place and stuck to my usual recipe, simply switching the quantity of ground almonds for ground pistachios. The result is absolutely fantastic, meaning I now have two flavours well and truly sorted. Next up is either coffee or chocolate flavour.

Four batches in, other news: leaving the piped macaroons to sit for ten minutes before baing does help, lightly smoothing the top with a damp finger doesn't. Tapping the baking tray on the counter before baking does sort out air bubbles. A damp tea towel under the macaroons as they cool on their parchment does make them easier to lift off. And they really do benefit from being left alone for 24 hours (ideally 48) before icing. This time I'll be resting half in the fridge and half in a tin to see if it makes a difference but I'm pretty happy with my method now.

Looks like this particular Christmas plan is actually coming together. Though I'll need to find a recipe that calls for about 20 egg yolks when the time comes.

More macaroons

Well this is just addictive. I got home from work last night and immediately got stuck into making another batch of macaroons. I risked halving the recipe, always a brave move when it calls for three large egg whites.

Having gone with one large egg white and one small egg white, (the joys of getting a box of free range eggs from a friend's assorted chickens are many, including beautifully bright yolks and a wide range of sizes), I ended up with a sloppier mixture than last time, perhaps unsurprisingly. This did not concern me as the whole point of obsessively repeating the same recipe over the next week or to is to perfect it. Though it is certainly challenging trying to control the contents of a piping bag with a large nozzle when your mixture has the texture of a thick smoothie.

Anyway. The macaroons were rather thin and flat on the tray as the raw mixture spread a little. Happily this turned out to be a huge advantage as they rose slightly into absolutely gorgeous looking macaroons with smooth, flat tops.

So, conclusion number two (number one being to only use the top shelf of the oven) is that a sloppier mixture works better than a firm one, although I suspect that think there is some middle ground to be found between the two. Perhaps a medium and a small
egg, though this is not an exact science. I may have to talk to those birds.

This time around I left the macaroons uncovered on the side for a few hours to help them to dry out, then overnighted them in tupperware to protect them from the dog. I sandwiched them tonight and they are deeply, deliciously chewy. They look the part but the texture isn't quite right - in theory they should be flakier on the outside and a little less chewy. But given how wonderful the chewiness is, is it time to compromise authenticity for a fantastic food experience?

I think a third batch is called for, with a slightly thicker texture and a full overnight exposure, before a final decision is made.

This time around I made the Swiss meringue buttercream with a different brand of butter, and apparently it is 'too buttery'. In other news, I'm going to have to remove that pea from under the mattress.

Last night I also made a mango and coconut cake as the same person who claims to be worried about developing diabetes due to the level of baking going on around here started pouting when told that the macaroons were not to be eaten for 24 hours. This is a golden sponge with (ahem) mango puree and coconut in it. It is a fine and firm sponge, albeit slightly dry. Imagine the sponge from a farmhouse fruit cake if it had no fruit in it. The coconut flavour comes through well but not so much the mango, though there is certainly a tropical feel to it. Dear god, I sound like George Lucas. I can write this crap but you wouldn't say it. The coconut frosting is apparently 'weird but works in context'. On the whole, a perfectly fine cake but its hard to imagine it ever coming up as the answer to the 'What cake do you fancy?' question.

More macaroons up next, and either carrot cake or Jamaican ginger cake, depending on which of the missing ingredients I remember to buy first.

Adventures with macaroons, part one of a series

The other week a little flurry of random cooking led to Viennese biscuits. If I have ever piped anything before it was back in my school days, and its not the sort of thing I would expect to be any good at, but I was suprised by how easy it was to control the bag. In fact the hard part was getting the mixture into the bag in the first place. I had intended to half coat these biscuits in chocolate but they all got eaten while I wasn't looking, which pretty much put paid to that.

The same night I also made some chocolate macaroons. These were not the elegant and stylish version currently so popular, but the old fashioned chewy almond cakes. Or at least that was the theory. For me, this has long been one of those foolproof recipes which always works and which I can bash out on no notice, but this time it went wrong. Rather than neat little domes, I produced a pile of thin cookies. They did appear to taste the same - and lasted about as long as the Viennese biscuits - but it was frustrating. What is it that means a simple recipe, followed many times, suddenly takes a random turn?

Some time ago we were given a gift of Laduree Macaroons. The beautiful colours, delicate flavours and stunning presentation made them a gift to treasure rather than to dive in and scarf, and the box lasted the best part of a fortnight as we shared each treat. I don't for a moment expect to be able to achieve what those chefs do, but suddenly there seemed little point in not trying a challenging recipe if the simple ones were going to play up anyway. So bugger chewy almond cakes, I decided to try my hand with the modern version.

I spent a happy evening researching various recipes and found that, as suspected, the authentic Parisian ones tend to look like something Heston Blumenthal came up with after concentrating really hard. Reassuringly though, there are many people out there who have been similarly inspired and have detailed what works for them. There are some variations - oven door open or closed, egg whites left out overnight before use or just at room temperature - and some useful tips such as smoothing the surface of the raw macaroon with a damp finger to get a smooth finish. Cherry picking bits from different websites according to how much sense they seemed to make and choosing a recipe with sensible looking quantities, the baking commenced.

For a first batch, I am absolutely thrilled with the results. The process was far less complicated than I anticipated, although most comments I read suggest that macaroons have a mind of their own and getting the ingredients and method right carry about equal weight with the weather and blind luck. In my case, the sheet nearest the top of the oven produced about half which looked exactly right (I decided not to smooth the tops this time around, focusing on taste, texture and size to begin with, so many of them had a little nubby bit from the piping). The macaroons on the sheet immediately under this rose into a more obvious dome shape, suggesting that I'll need to bake one sheet at a time to get the right appearance.

There is a definite difference in texture between the two types, with the domed macaroons being much more meringuey - albeit about the best meringues I've ever tasted. They are gloriously gooey in the middle and melt-in-the-mouth crispy on top. I may even be tempted to use this recipe whenever I make meringues in the future and just be sure to bake them on that shelf.

The flatter, smoother macaroons look much closer to what I was actually aiming for and are definitely closer in texture. A number of the websites suggest leaving them 24 hours before icing them so that the texture dries out, and that is definitely something I will try next time. This time curiosity got the best of me so I ploughed ahead with a Swiss meringue buttercream. An absolutely stunning combination and luckily too rich to eat much of, as the sandwiched macaroons were just wonderful.

These macaroons are supposed to improve after a day or two, which could make them the ideal Christmas gift, given that we tend to catch up with different friends over a number of days at that time of year. So now I have a plan. Over the next eight months I will be trying out the various tips, perfecting the recipe and to introducing variants.

First up, perfect the vanilla ones. This means trying the recipe with small changes each time to see exactly what works best in my kitchen - leaving the egg whites overnight, leaving the cooked macaroons for 24 hours before icing, refrigerating them, smoothing the tops and who knows what else.

Once I have mastered those it will be time to move on to colours and flavours. Substituting ground pistachios for some of the almond meal in one batch, swapping some icing sugar for cocoa in another. With trial and error I am hoping to be able to produce a range of flavours by December. Although of course its equally possible that I will lose the will to live when it comes to macaroons and end up offering to do everyones Christmas cake for them. Or lebkuchen, I really do fancy giving those a try. Or Florentines. Or maybe gingerbread. So many options, so little time.

Also baked in the last fortnight: vanilla cupcakes (again), Nigel brownies (again), plus a batch of lemon cup cakes with lemon frosting happily described as the perfect combination of cake and icing by the man currently working his way through the last couple left in the tin.

Having finally gathered the right combination of ingredients together, I also got around to baking apricot and coconut cake. I have absolutely no idea who named this recipe, which actually contains more fig than apricot, plus a fair amount of sultanas, but it produced a lovely golden cake full of moist fruit and texture. It was one of those cakes that would also work warm as a pudding, so will be revisited when we have guests who actually like that combination of ingredients. This is apparently going to be less often than you might expect, what with all the coconut haters and fig bashers out there. Hmmmm, fig bashers reads rather like a euphemism, now I come to look at it.Time to call it a day.

Next up - carrot cake(probably) and further adventures with macaroons. Ah, the life I lead.

My citrus phase

Other than a batch of (rather fabulous) wholemeal bread, it's all been about citrus for the last few days. It started with a lemon cake, adapted from a cup cake recipe to become a grown up layer cake. This didn't actually work out all that well - the cake tasted fine but the layers were thin, despite using a small tin size. Next time I'll try it as a single layer top-iced cake. The flavour was great though, and a really moist texture. Sandwiched with lemon and cream cheese icing it was a gooey delight and a good change from my usual lemon drizzle, which was rather the point.

I have a few Australian cookbooks and the lemon cake sent me back to them. Many of the recipes substitute some or all of the flour with almond meal which tends to lead to a very moist sponge, and the use of fruit is fantastic. I keep meaning to make a hummingbird cake but whenever I think I have gathered the right fruits together I inevitably turn out to be missing some crucial element.

I'd been having an urge to bake something with coconut for a few weeks. I am sure other people must have far more interesting urges than me since mine all seem to relate to baking, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. Or something.

Anyway, coconut was on my mind. I had some limes in so googled for combo ideas but was surprised by how little was out there. Various lime cake recipes came up but most had pretty critical reviews, or something about the recipe just didn't look right to me. A fair few cheesecakes, but nothing inspiring.

Returning to one of my Aussie books I found a lime and coconut friand recipe. Friands are a big favourite of the Cake Eater in Chief but since they use a lot of egg whites I have tended not to make them as often as asked. Now that we have a dog who has spent a big part of her life living rough and as a result burns off more calories through nervous energy than she can consume in conventional dog food, I have a ready receptacle for any spare protein lying around the house. Though since she is quite happy to steal what she feels she needs (half a pound of butter and two packs of biscuits last week alone, must get child locks) this still doesn't feel like a good enough reason to go friand crazy.

Either way, lime and cocnut friands it was, and they were absolutely fantastic. Beautifully light, delicately scented and with toasted coconut on the top. The whole batch went within 24 hours (the other reason I don't make them too often is that I am told they do not keep and must be scarfed instantly, although how their staying power can be judged when they are never around for more than a few hours is beyond me). I made another batch the next night which were served warm from the oven with cream. A definite hit.

The coconut urge is still with me, as is a supply of citrus fruit, so tonight I have ventured into boiled orange cake territory. Again the recipe is quite meal-heavy and follows the classic boil-a-whole-orange-or-two-then-pulp method. This was a stunningly easy cake to make - bash all the other ingredients together with a wooden spoon then add the now-room temperature orange pulp and bake. The result is a cake even I could happily eat. The sharpness of the orange means the cake is barely sweet and it is not only gorgeous to look at, with it's brown top and yellow / orange speckled middle, but is also beautiful to eat.

So where does the coconut come into it? Well the original recipe calls for a macaroon topping to be added with ten minutes cooking time remaining. Although it was this mixture of ingredients which first drew me in, as the time to separate the eggs drew nearer I started to have doubts.

There is a phenomenon I have noticed in Marks and Spencer a few times. Glancing around the store something will catch my eye, for instance, on a recent occasion, a pale blue shirt. Walking closer I realise it's pin striped. Nice. Closer again and there appears to be a huge ruffle either side of the buttons. Plus a pocket. And something weird with the cuffs. I barely dare to look at the back, by now quite certain there there will be a ribbon tie. What is going on here? Why does nobody in the design or manufacture team ever scream 'enough'? Why should a single item of clothing be subjected to every single flounce and fancy that the designer can think of?

This was going through my mind as I considered adding macaroon to the top of my orange cake. I felt so sorry for that blouse - the temptation to rescue it from it's hanger and remove the ruffles was enormous - and could not bring myself to flounce the cake. So it is gloriously topping-free and having tasted it I feel vindicated. The sharpness of the orange and simplicity of the appearance make it a grown-up cake, a serious cake for serious times. It will be the perfect cake to go with the Sunday papers and, for those who do, a pot of fresh coffee.

And of course it leaves my coconuty urge un fulfilled, the perfect excuse to bake again. Tomorrow I suspect I'll be trying coconut, apricot and fig cake. But tonight belongs to the orange.

Fudge

Nine chocolate cupcakes in a presentation box. What could be a better birthday cake for a grown man? Nine chocolate cupcakes with chocolate fudge icing in a presentation box, that's what.

When making vanilla cupcakes I generally stick to an extremely light vanilla buttercream but I have never really been convinced by the chocolate version. Somehow the deeper flavour of the chocolate cupcakes calls for something more substantial than the buttercream and more dense than glace icing.

I've written before about childhood memories of bread being baked. Cakes were also a regular treat. My father has a sweet tooth and every weekend my mother would bake a cake. Her bible for such things was a Kate Stewart cookbook and once this had been discovered the norm was for a chocolate or coffee sponge, with fudge icing. I can clearly remember the taste of both, despite not generally being drawn to sweet food myself.

It was the icing that did it. I recently tried the chocolate sponge recipe and found it heavy compared to my usual recipe (although spectacular for a chocolate sponge pudding). But it was the icing that had really stuck in my mind. Butter, caster sugar and a little water brought gently to the boil then poured over icing sugar and cocoa, beaten smooth and then stirred regularly as it cooled and thickened. It would thicken quickly, the top of the mix forming a crust which could then be beaten back in, until the texture of the whole mix became densely spreadable. Spread across the base sponge, put the top on, then leave to set to a thick fudge filling.

So it was this icing I used on the birthday cupcakes, and it worked a dream. The set icing has a beautiful glossy finish which I simply did not know about as it was always hidden in the middle of the cake in my childhood. It was thick and (unsurprisingly) fudgy, densely chocolatey and complemented the cakes beautifully. A palpable hit.

So many cakes these days make a point of using nothing but the finest chocolate but this icing is a reminder that sometimes a good quality cocoa is every bit as luxurious.