Friday 18 May 2012

Tom's Bosina and Herzegovinan Apple & Plum Strudel

Filling (this bit is from BBC Food)
5oz Caster sugar
3floz water
8oz Cooking apple peeled, cored and chopped
8oz Plums, chopped
1tsp cinnamon
couple of drops of vanilla essence
I found that if you have not-very ripe plums (which you tend to get around this time of year) you'll want to put them in a few minutes before the apples. It's a bit of a judgement call though; if they're in for too long it starts turning into jam.

Simmer the water, sugar and flavouring for ~5mins, then add the fruit and cook until the apple is just soft.  Drain it well before using or your strudel pastry will get all stodgy.

Dough
8oz plain flour
1 egg, slightly beaten
~4tblspns lukewarm water
2tblspns oil
Some melted butter
I had quite a bit of trouble making strudel dough; having unsucessfully tried a couple of recipes from the internet I nearly gave up. In the end I found a recipe in the Good Housekeeping Cookery Book, which works perfectly.

Mix the flour with a pinch of salt in a bowl, then make a well in the centre.  Pour oil and egg into the well.  Add the water slowly whilst stirring throughly to make a soft, slightly sticky dough.  Once it's binding together remove from the bowl and knead on a floured surface for about 15 minutes.  You really do have to knead it for a long time - It will go silky smooth - don't stop until it does!  Leave to stand under a bowl in a warm place for about an hour.  Don't skip that step: you have to leave it for a while for all the gluten to bind, otherwise it will rip more easily when you're stretching it.  Which is very upsetting.

I did the actual dough stretching in two batches as the it gets quite large and difficult to handle.  If you have a large surface or table which you can  get all around (and don't mind flouring) then you could do one giant lot.

Roll out the dough out nice and thin into an approximate rectangle.  Now take off any rings, watches, bangles or other adornments and flour your hands.  Lift the dough onto the backs of your hands with your hands together in the centre, and stretch it from the centre outwards in gentle pulling motions, trying to keep it approximately equal thickness throughout (well, except the edges, you can trim those off later...).  It's difficult to describe but it's actually quite intuitive once you get some dough in your hands.  Apparently you should be able to read a newspaper through the dough when it is done, it's not too hard to get it that thin if you're careful.  Once you think the limit of thiness is reached then leave to stand for about 10 minutes.  Then chop off any thick edges (you can try ot make it a bit more of a rectangle), and lightly brush with melted butter.  Dollop the filling along near one of the long edges.  Now roll the whole lot up around the filling, a little like a swiss roll, brushing a bit more melted butter on top after each roll.  Throw in the oven on a lightly greased baking sheet at ~200C for ~25 minutes, until the top is nicely browned.  Best served warm.

Thursday 10 May 2012

Jen's Icelandic Iced Prune Jam Sponge Cake


I got Iceland as my country, and during research, the one cake kept popping up. It was a layered sponge cake sandwiched with prune jam. I wasn't confident about making a cake with so many layers, so I thought I would compromise by making a basic sponge cake with prune jam added to it. Bit of a cop out, but it was my first club meet.... ;)) 


So, this recipe is based on Sticky Orange Marmalade Cake from 'The Great British Bake-off' book, which I love, and a traditional Icelandic Vinaterta Prune Cake.


For the prune jam:
500 g dried ready-to-eat prunes
250 g sugar
juice of one small lemon
1 tsp dried cinnamon

Chop the prunes in to small pieces. I didn't, and found the prunes congealed together in the saucepan as one sticky mass; this made it difficult to spread the finished jam on to the cake, but produced a pretty cool effect with the icing!

Heat the prunes for 15 minutes on a low heat in a saucepan. Add the sugar, cinnamon and lemon juice. Cook for approximately 1 hour, stirring frequently, and then transfer to sterilised jam jars (these quantities fill 1.5 jars).

For the sponge:
175g unsalted butter, softened
175g of caster sugar
3 large free range eggs, at room temperature and beaten
175g self raising flour, sifted.
¼ tsp baking powder
3 tbsp prune jam
2 tbsp semi skimmed milk

To finish:
3 tbsp dried prune jam
100g icing sugar, sifted (1/2 cup)
2 tbsp warm water

Cream butter and sugar, gradually add the eggs and the prune jam. Fold in the flour and baking powder then add the milk. Spoon mixture in a 20 cm springform cake tin (base lined with baking paper) and bake at 175 degrees for 45 mins - this time is shorter than stated in the original recipe but any longer I find the edges get too brown. I also cover with foil for the last 10 mins of cooking time so that the top stays a nice golden colour and doesn't get too dark.

When just out of the oven, cover the top of the cake with the prune jam and leave to cool completely. Then make the icing and pour over the cake randomly. I found dripping from a height works pretty well!


The finished cake!

Tuesday 8 May 2012

Lorna's Lithuanian Napolean Torte


So i was given Lithuania as my country for May's Cake 'n' Bake meet so after some internet scouring i found this torte, which i edited slightly from the original although would edit more in the future... The cream recipe for the filling wasn't really a custard or pastry cream because it didn't have enough egg yolks, which may have been a typo on the site i got it from or just a bizarre cream filling... Either way, i'd advise making a buttercream or proper pasty cream (probably the latter) for the filling.

Ingredients;

200ml cup yogurt
60g. soft butter
100g caster sugar
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
2 medium eggs, beaten
250g plain flour

Method:

Cream the butter with the sugar, and beat in the yogurt. Don't worry if it splits a bit - add a dash of flour to get it back together.Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the flour, baking power and baking soda. You should add enough flour to make a soft dough, that's kneadable. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead for  minutes. Wrap in clingfilm and fridge for at least 4 hours, or overnight. 
Take out of the fridge, roll out thinly (~1mm thick if possible; you will have to be able to transfer them to a baking tray!). Cut into rounds of whatever size you like. I did mini ones, you could do one 7" cake. Aim for each cake to have 6 layers. Once you've cut out your rounds... get them back in the fridge for at least an hour. Then cook in a preheated oven (170C) for about 10 minutes until lightly golden on top. Cool on a cooling rack.
Make a filling (your favourite pastry cream recipe) and sandwich the layers into towers of 6 layers each. Fridge (if using pastry cream rather than buttercream) to firm up for a few more hours.

Best of luck!

Wednesday 2 May 2012

May - Around the World in 80 Bakes

This month our bakers decided to escape the wet and windy Spring we're seeing to take a round the world trip from the comfort of their kitchens. Each baker was randomly assigned a country on which to theme their baked treat, and we all had a lot of fun finding, baking and eating something different!




Angel baked some delicious Mamon from the Philippines, Catherine baked an Andorran Croques, new member Jennie baked an Icelandic Iced Prune Jam Sponge Cake, Joy baked some Jamaican inspired Mango and Coconut Tartlets, Lorna baked a Lithuanian Napolean Torte, Sally baked a Venezuelan Christmas Bread - Pan de Jamón,  Stacey baked some Singapore Red Bean Spiral Mooncakes, and Tom baked a delicious Apple and Plum Strudel for Bosnia and Herzegovina.

We all had a lot of fun with our different countries, and there are quite a few countries left so this could be a theme we revisit in the future!