Aileen's 'Sangria' jelly with wheaten biscuits

Beetroot jelly ‘Sangria’ with carrot, orange and cardamom jelly ‘slices’, served with wheaten ‘straws’ (and additional wheaten biscuits!)

Beetroot jelly

4 whole beetroot, roughly chopped.

100ml red wine vinegar

25g sugar

Salt and pepper to taste

Agar agar (1g per 100ml of mix)

1. Blend beetroot with vinegar and sugar.
2. Season to taste.
3. You can strain it through muslin at this point if you want a nice clear jelly.  I thought it would just result in too much waste of the lovely beetroot so I skipped this stage
4. Heat the mixture over a steady heat and sprinkle in the agar agar. 
5. Stir to dissolve.
6. Spoon the jelly into moulds or glasses depending on the desired affect and pop in the fridge overnight.

Carrot, orange and cardamom jelly

300g carrots roughly chopped

300ml orange juice

3g agar agar

5x black peppercorns

2x cardamom pods

2 tsp gin

1. Put the chopped carrots in a pan and fill with orange juice.  Add the peppercorns, cardamom and gin and bring to the boil.
2. Leave this mixture to boil until the carrots are mushy.
3. Pop it all in the blender and blitz until smooth.
4. Pour through a sieve to remove any lumps and the spices.
5. Cool down the mixture in the fridge.
6. Put the mixture in a saucepan, sprinkle with agar agar and bring to the boil until dissolved.
7. Pour mixture into moulds to create the desired effect.  I used a muffin tray and halved the set jelly to make them look like orange slices to garnish my ‘sangria’. 

Wheaten biscuits

Makes about 30

155g whole wheat flour

20g sugar

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon paprika

55g unsalted butter, cut into small bits

1. Combine the flour, sugar, salt, paprika and butter in a medium bowl. 
2. Work the buter into the mixture until mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
3. Add 60ml of cold water and stir with a spoon until combined.
4. Knead once or twice on counter.
5. Heat oven to 200ºC.  Lightly grease the baking trays or line with baking paper.
6. Roll out the dough, half at a time to a large very, very, very thing rectangle shape.  Make sure the dough is not sticking, but make sure it is as thin as you can.  Cut a number of strips and curl (for the ‘straws’) and cut the remainder into 4cm squares.  Dot these with cocktail stick.
7. Transfer biscuits to the baking trays.  There is no need to space them, they won’t spread.
8. Bake biscuits until crisp and bronzed. It will only take 5-7 minutes so stay with them!
9. Transfer onto wire rack to cool. 
10. The recipe tells me that the biscuits will last for a week in an airtight tin. From my experience, they normally get eaten the very same evening!

Joy's Cosmopolitan Rolls

August:
August was No Bake month, and I was one of 2 or 3 who made Rocky Road so I won't bother posting the recipe for that as everyone knows how to make it!

September:
I didn't go - sorry!

October:
October was cocktail month, and as I was beginning to get into the Christmas spirit, I fancied making some cranberry sauce, but I added orange and vodka as a nod to the Cosmopolitan! However nowhere was selling fresh cranberries yet and so I settled for dried and used this recipe, but used vodka instead of Grand Marnier:

http://frenchfood.about.com/od/dressingpreservessauces/r/Cranberry-Orange-Relish-Recipe.htm

I spread this over bought puff pastry (I know, I know, I'm a terrible lazy person, especially as it's about the 3rd time I've used it!), then added some turkey slices to keep with the Christmas theme! I rolled this up, chopped it into bite-size chunks and baked. Probably at 200°C for about 20mins but I can't really remember, sorry. I vaguely recall that the pastry didn't rise particularly well, so not my best idea yet!

Cake'n'Bake Update

Hello!

It's been a while *coughsixmonthscough* since I've done one of these, and for that I hang my head in shame... Sorry!

But, Cake'n'Bake is still going strong, so here's a brief run-down of what we've been up to in the last six months!

In July we held a fairytale Picnic and raised £86.35 for Marie Curie Cancer Care:

In the August heat we decided to give our ovens a rest and go for a "No Bake" theme:

September's challenge was to bake something that shared your initials...

In October we decided to use cocktails as the inspirations for our bakes:

November was our 2nd Birthday, so we had our 2nd Birthday Party!

In December we helped Santa on his trip by baking Christmas recipes from around the world:

And for January's meeting last week we set ourselves the challenge of baking something "free-from" - here's what we came up with:

The recipes for these bakes will be making their way onto the blog soon - so watch this space!!

Mary-Anne's Mojito Genoese cake recipe

Sorry this has taken so long, I know I haven't put any recipes on here so I'm going to try and get some on!

This can be made with or without the rum, I usually make it without and it tastes delicious.

• 150 g (5.3oz) Soft light brown sugar - Sugar syrup
• 40 ml (1.4fl oz) Water - Sugar syrup
• 2 Finely grated zest and juice of limes - Sugar syrup
• 80 ml (2.8fl oz) White rum - Sugar syrup
• 1 Bunch of fresh mint, leaves only - Sugar syrup
• 260 g (9.2oz) Caster sugar - For the sponge
• 115 g (4.1oz) Butter, melted and cooled, plus extra for greasing - For the sponge
• 260 g (9.2oz) Plain flour - For the sponge
• 100 g (3.5oz) Butter, softened - For the buttercream
• 200 g (7.1oz) Icing sugar - For the buttercream
• 1 Vanilla pod or 2 drops of vanilla extract - For the buttercream
• 1 Lime - Finely grated zest and juice - For the buttercream
• 6 Eggs, lightly beaten - For the sponge

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F), Gas Mark 6. Grease a 20cm cake tin and line the base with baking paper.
2. Make the sugar syrup first to allow the flavours to infuse. Put the sugar, water, lime juice and rum in a medium pan over a low heat. Cook until the sugar dissolves, then boil for 2-3 minutes until the syrup thickens. Add the mint and lime zest and set aside.
3. Fill a large saucepan around a third full of water. Place over a high heat and bring to the boil, then remove from the heat. Set a large heatproof bowl over the pan, making sure the base isn't touching the water. Add the sugar and eggs to the bowl and whisk. This causes them to foam up and gives a lighter, fluffier cake. The egg mixture should be whisked for about 10 minutes, then remove the bowl from the pan and continue to whisk for a further 5 minutes. The mixture is ready when it holds itself well in the bowl and, if you take a spoonful and then drop it back in, the resulting `blob' should take 3-4 seconds to blend back into the mixture.
4. Once you have reached this `ribbon stage', pour the melted butter into the bowl, around the sides (pouring it into the middle knocks out all the air). Fold the butter into the egg mix, moving the bowl around and scooping down to the bottom to fold the mixture over itself, using as few movements as possible to retain the air.
5. Next, add the flour and fold in until the mixture is uniform and smooth. Pour gently into the prepared tin and bake in the centre of the oven for about 30-35 minutes. When cooked, the sponge should spring back when pushed lightly, will be a light golden colour and a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake will come out clean. Leave to cool for 10 minutes or so, then remove from the tin and place on a wire rack to cool completely. Once it is cool, slice the cake in half horizontally and set aside.
6. To make the buttercream, put the butter, icing sugar and vanilla in a bowl and whisk until pale and fluffy. Add the lime zest and juice to taste.
7. To assemble the cake, put a dollop of buttercream on a serving plate (to stop the sponge sliding around the plate). Place the bottom of the sponge on the plate and brush with the reserved sugar syrup. Be quite liberal to make the cake really moist. Put a big dollop of buttercream on top and, using a palette knife, spread the buttercream over the cake until it is level. Take the top half of the cake, turn cut side up and brush with the sugar syrup. Turn it back over and put it on top of the buttercreamed sponge.
8. Next, cover the whole cake with the buttercream, including the top and sides, making sure it is as smooth as possible with straight sides and top. Finish with slices or wedges of lime.