Stacey's Lamb and Apple Pie

I wanted to have a bash at something savoury for the Easter bake, and I'm a bit rubbish at pastry, so thought I'd take the opportunity to get in some practise with a yummy pie. The recipe is based on The Hairy Bikers' Gloucester Squab Pie

Ingredients:

For the filling:

450g diced lamb
2tbsp plain flour
1-2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 medium onion
650ml hot lamb stock
1/2 tsp mixed spice
salt and pepper to taste
2 sprigs of fresh mint
2 bramley apples

For the pastry:

300g plain flour (plus extra for dusting)
pinch of salt
75g vegetable shortening, cut into cubes
75g butter, cut into cubes
1 medium sized egg
1 tbsp cold water

Prep Time: 45-60 minutes
Cook time: 120-150 minutes
Makes 8-10 slices

1. The filling is cooked for at least an hour and a half before the pastry lid is added, so best to start with that. Preheat the oven to gas mark 5. 
2. Coat the diced lamb with the plain flour. Heat a little oil in a frying pan and stir fry the lamb until just golden, then place the lamb to one side in a casserole dish.
3. Peel and chop the onion, then return the pan to the heat and fry the onions until they start to turn translucent. Add the onions, lamb stock, mixed spice, salt and pepper to the lamb in the casserole dish, then roughly tear the mint leaves and add these. Stir well, cover, then place in the oven for 1.5-2 hours, stirring occasionally,  until the meat has cooked and the sauce has thickened. (Don't add the apples at this stage - we will come back to them!)
4. Whilst the casserole is cooking, prepare your pastry. Tip the flour and salt into a large bowl, then rub in the shortening and butter with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Make a well in the centre.
5. Lightly whisk the egg and water, then pour most of this into the well made in the flour and fat mixture - you'll want to reserve a little bit of this to use as a glaze. Stir the mixture until it comes together to form a dough, then knead the dough for a few minutes on a lightly floured surface. Shape the dough into a round, wrap in clingfilm and place in the fridge until ready to use (make sure this is at least 30 minutes so the pastry is nicely chilled!)
6. Once the casserole is cooked, remove from the oven and leave to cool whilst you peel, core and slice the apples. Carefully pour half of the casserole into a large pie dish, then layer the slice apples on top of this. Pour the remaining casserole on top of the apple layer and set to one side whilst you roll out you pastry. Increase the heat of the oven to gas mark 6.
7. Unwrap the pastry and roll out to around 3 inches large than the dish you are using. Cut a 1 inch circle from the edge of this, and place the around the rim of your pie dish to use as a support. Cover this in egg wash, then place the pastry over the whole dish. Trim and flute the edges, then glaze the top of the pie with the remaining egg mixture. Cut a small cross in the middle of the pastry to allow the steam to escape, then bake in the centre of the oven for 25 - 30 minutes until golden brown all over.

Happy baking!

Tom's (Mum's) Simnel Cake

This Simnel cake recipe is from my Mum's recipe book, looked like it was cut out of a magazine decades ago.

6oz softened butter
6oz soft brown sugar
5oz white self-raising flour
5oz wholemeal self-raising flour
3 medium eggs
A little milk
8oz dried fruit
2oz candied peel
2oz chopped glace cherries
Zest of half a lemon or orange and 2 tblspns of the juice
½ tsp mixed spice
½ tsp Cinnamon
1lb - 1½lb marzipan (depending on how elaborate your planned decorations are)

Beat together butter & sugar.  Sift flour and spices, beat eggs.  Mix both into the beaten butter a little at a time.  Add the dried fruit, peel, glace cherries, zest and juice, and enough milk to make a dropping consistency.

Grease and line an 8" round tin.  Put in half the mixture and level off.  Roll out about 8oz of the marzipan to cover, then add the rest of the mixture - so you end up with a layer of marzipan sandwiched in the middle of the cake.  Make the top of the cake slightly concave so that it rises flat.

Bake at ~170°C for ~2½ hours.  If your oven is vicious try tying some greaseproof paper over the top of the cake to stop it drying out too much.  Leave to cool for a while in the tin before turning out or the marzipan will still be liquidy and ooze out of the edge of the cake.

Once cooled roll out another ~8oz of marzipan to cover the top of the cake.  Glue it in place with a little jam spread on the cake first (apricot jam is traditional).  Roll out some more marzipan and cut into birds or other eastery shapes and stick around the side of the cake with more jam.  Now you can go crazy with whatever decoration you want on the top of the cake; 12 eggs (representing the disciples) is traditional.

Enjoy!

Charlie's Iced Lemon Curd Layer Cake

I used Delia's recipe as a basis for this cake but modified a few things here and there!

Ingredients:

For the cake:

Grated zest of 1 lemon

1 tbsp lemon juice

175g self raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

175g butter

175g caster sugar

3 large eggs

2 x sandwich tins greased and lined

For the lemon curd:

Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon

75g caster sugar

2 large eggs

50g butter

For the icing:

Zest 1 lemon

2-3 tsp lemon juice

50g sifted icing sugar

Cake Method:

Now this is where I deviate from the recipe (already I know!). Delia says to just weigh all the ingredients and use an electric whisk to combine. I am a bit old school I'm afraid and did it the old fashioned way by combining the sugar with the eggs and beating until creamy. I then added the lemon zest, juice and the eggs a little a time. When the mixture looked like it would curdle I added a little bit of flour. After all the eggs had been combined I added the rest of the flour and the baking powder.

Bake in preheated oven (170 degrees celsius) for 35 minutes.

I left the cakes overnight to thoroughly cool and made the lemon curd and icing on the Wednesday night so it was nice and fresh - you can of course make it all at once and while the cakes are cooling make the curd.

Curd Method:

Put sugar and grated lemon zest in a bowl, whisk the lemon juice with the eggs and then pour this over the sugar.

Add the butter (cubed) and place the bowl over a simmering pan of water.

Stir frequently until thickened - I did leave the curd for quite a while before I gave it some attention and it was fine! It took about 20-25 minutes to thicken.

When the cakes are completely cool sandwich together with the lemon curd. (With the leftover curd I suggest dipping some biscuits in to it....it was very yummy!)

Icing:

(I didn't zest the lemon as I don't have a zester that gives long strips - hence the little lemon slices!)

Sift the icing sugar into a bowl and slowly add lemon juice until smooth and runny.

Leave to stand for 5 minutes and then spread over the cake with a knife. I have to say I added more icing sugar than the recipe suggested because it just looked way too runny to my

un-trained eyes and it still ran all over the blooming cake!

As I didn't have nice long strips of lemon zest I used the little lemon pieces for decoration.

Lorna's Chocolate Chip Hot Cross Buns

This is basically the same recipe as for the "Healthy" Hot Cross buns (posted around here somewhere) but with the addition of the zest of one orange (added when you combine the flours) and the replacement of dried fruit and raisins/sulatanas with 100g chopped chocolate (a mix of white and dark; whatever you prefer) aaaaand a handful of peanut butter chips (Reeses is what i have but there may be other types around). Nomnomnom. Basically add whatever you like; nuts would work too.
I did the standard white cross on top although you could do a white chocolate one to go with the theme.

I don't think i mentioned it on the original post, but both types of buns freeze really well (make sure they're fully cooled first though).

April - Eggcellent Easter!

We've gone a bit Easter mad over at the Cake'n'Bake Club, but it's been a great month for trying new things. We also realised that when it comes to baking, mini-eggs are the key ingredient for making your recipe Easter-y.

A few of us thought that tonight would be a chocolate over-load, but when it came down to it there wasn't much chocolate at all. Catherine baked a Raspberry and Amaretto Cake, Charlie baked a Lemon Sponge (filled with home-made lemon curd to boot!), Jaymes baked some Melting Moment Cookies, dipped in chocolate and covered with crushed mini-eggs, Katrina baked some Orange and Lemon Cupcakes, Lorna baked some Chocolate Chip Hot Cross Buns (to cater for those of us adverse to raisins...), Olly baked a Blueberry Pie, Sarah baked some Traditional Hot Cross Buns, Stacey baked a Lamb and Apple Pie, and Tom baked his mum's Traditional Simnel Cake!

We also handed out the prizes to the winners of our Easter Baking Competition, pictured below are Sarah and Jaymes with their goody bags at the meeting, and Katrina, who couldn't come to the meeting due to a last minute change of plans, dropping off her cupcakes and collecting her goody bag. Well done again to the three of them for their wonderful Easter-y creations!

Lorna's Gluten Free Orange and Coconut Cake

I've got a couple of friends who are gluten-free. One out of choice which really doesnt make sense; choosing to give up cake! But anyway, every now and then i send cake to their work via my fella to keep them happy. This is the latest to make the trip

Ingredients:
100g ground almonds
70g shredded coconut
150g fine cornmeal/polenta
2tsp baking powder
juice and zest of 2 oranges
270g butter
270g caster sugar
4 medium eggs


Method:
Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease an 8" round deep cake tin, lining with greaseproof as well if you want. In a large bowl, mix together the almonds, coconut, polenta and baking powder. In a separate bowl beat the butter with the sugar until light and fluffly, then beat in the eggs one at a time. Don't worry too much if it splits a bit - a tablespoon on polenta should bring it back together as with a regular cake. Beat in the orange zest.
Pour the dry mix into the buttery mix and add in the orange juice. Mix until well combined. Pour into the tin and bake for about an hour. I baked for 45mins then covered the tin with foil so the top didnt go too brown and baked for another 25 minutes. Poke with a skewer to check if its done. Pop out of the tin and leave to cool on a cooling rack.
When he's nice and cool you can cut him in half and ice with any icing you want. I had a packet of Polish Dr Oetker icing in the cupboard (for reasons i fail to remember) which, from my apt skills on Google Translation, i made up as instructed. I did confirm it was gluten free first. Tasted a bit like hot chocolate, but not so hot...

Easter Baking Competition Winners

We at the Cambridge Cake'n'Bake Club decided to get into the Easter spirit a little early this year, by running an Easter Baking competition for our members. The challenge was simply to bake something Easter themed, and the top three recipes voted by our members and a panel of guest judges would each win a bundle of baking goodies.

Before announcing the winners, I'd like to take a moment to say a special thanks to the extremely talented pros who took time out of their busy schedules to take a look at our recipes and cast their own vote. In no particular order, our thanks go to to our new friends Suzi at Pretty Witty Cakes, Miss Sue Flay at The Secluded Tea Party, and Cat at Cakes by Cat. Thanks also go to Jen and her wonderful team over at Cake Wrecks, who have very kindly offered to send a copy of their book to the first place winner! You are all very welcome to join us for a cup of tea and slice of cake should you find yourselves in Cambridge on the first Wednesday of the month!

So, without further adieu, I am very pleased to announce our winners...

The prize for third place goes to Katrina's Easter Chocky Cupcakes!

In second place, we have Sarah's Easter Magic Chocolate Cake!

And finally, the prize for first place (and unanimously voted as favourite by our guest judges)... Jaymes' Polish Easter Mazurek!

Well done to everyone who entered, and thanks to those of you who took the time to read all the recipes and vote!