Daring Bakers’ October Challenge

This is my first Daring Bakers’ challenge. For those who haven’t heard of the Daring Bakers, we are a group of baking fanatics from around the world who, once a month, all have to bake the same item and share our results. Group members take it in turns to set the challenge and this month Mary of Alpineberry picked Bostini Cream Pie.
I have to confess to being a little concerned when I read the recipe as I’m not a huge fan of chocolate and orange together. However, I sense this is why the DB Challenges work – you get to make something you’d ignore in a recipe book – and sometimes with surprising results.
The chiffon cakes were the most interesting part of this recipe for me; I make a lot of sponge based cakes yet had never come across chiffon cake. The mix was a particularly appealing colour; sunshine in a bowl:

This was partly because of the orange juice, but also because the only canola oil I could buy was a canola and red palm oil mix. The oil replaces butter in the recipe and the lightness comes from egg whites. Here’s my beautiful kitchenaid earning its keep:

I decided to stick to the recipe and make the cakes individually as I wasn’t sure how much extra baking time it would take to make one large cake. Plus, I think they look very cute when they’re baking. This is the mix about to go into the oven – as the recipe stated, I filled the tins almost to the top.

What I wasn’t expecting was for them to puff up quite so much. Stupid really – what else would they do with that much whipped egg white in them?

Beautiful though they looked, I was concerned that the shape wouldn’t be neat enough to pour the chocolate sauce over and get a nice smooth finish. So I tidied them up with a biscuit cutter. Much neater!

When plated up it makes a substantial dessert. I only served 5 of my 8 cakes but used all the custard and chocolate – probably very greedy but what can I say? It seemed so right at the time!

I love this photo – my ten year old nephew took a very careful spoonful out of his cake to make a good picture – he’ll be a fine Daring Baker one day! It shows the beautiful dense, but not heavy, texture of the chiffon cake and the glorious colour contrasts between the sauces and cake.

My chocolate sauce was a half and half of plain and milk chocolate to make it more child friendly. Having eaten the dessert though I don’t think it was necessary as the custard makes the chocolate creamier.
I am wondering why it has taken me until now to realise what a dream combination cold custard and hot chocolate is – how come no one has told me this before? Hurrah for the Daring Bakers!
The challenge required the chiffon cake to be flavoured orange. While I was surprised at just how much I enjoyed the delicately flavoured sponge, I have to admit that if I made this under non-challenge rules I would probably make a vanilla sponge instead but that is only because I’m a vanillaholic.

So – my first challenge met and enjoyed. Roll on November!

Bostini Cream Pie
(from Donna Scala & Kurtis Baguley of Bistro Don Giovanni and Scala's Bistro)

Makes 8 generous servings

INGREDIENTS:

Where ingredients are known by different names in the UK I’ve put this in brackets)

Custard:

3/4 cup whole milk
2 3/4 tablespoons cornstarch (cornstarch is the same as cornflour)

1 whole egg, beaten

9 egg yolks, beaten

3 3/4 cups heavy whipping cream (double or whipping cream)

1/2 vanilla bean (vanilla extract is okay)

1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon sugar

Chiffon Cake:

1 1/2 cups cake flour (If you can’t find cake flour you can make a substitute: 1 cup cake flour = plain flour and cornflour. Take a cup of plain flour and remove 2 tablespoons of it. Add 2 tablespoons of cornflour)

3/4 cup superfine sugar (caster sugar)

1 1/3 teaspoons baking powder

1/3 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup canola oil

1/3 cup beaten egg yolks (3 to 4 yolks)

3/4 cup fresh orange juice

1 1/2 tablespoons grated orange zest

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup egg whites (about 8 large)

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

Chocolate Glaze:

8 ounces semi or bittersweet chocolate

8 ounces unsalted butter

INSTRUCTIONS

To prepare the custard:

Combine the milk and cornstarch in a bowl; blend until smooth. Whisk in the whole egg and yolks, beating until smooth. Combine the cream, vanilla bean and sugar in a saucepan and carefully bring to a boil. When the mixture just boils, whisk a ladleful into the egg mixture to temper it, then whisk this back into the cream mixture. Cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Strain the custard and pour into 8 large custard cups. Refrigerate to chill.

To prepare the chiffon cakes:

Preheat the oven to 325°F (170 degrees, 150 degrees fan oven). Spray 8 moulds with non-stick cooking spray. You may use 7-ounce custard cups, ovenproof wide mugs or even large foil cups. Whatever you use should be the same size as the custard cups. Sift the cake flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. Add the oil, egg yolks, orange juice, zest and vanilla. Stir until smooth, but do not overbeat. Beat the egg whites until frothy. Add the cream of tartar and beat until soft peaks form. Gently fold the beaten whites into the orange batter. Fill the sprayed moulds nearly to the top with the batter. Bake approximately 25 minutes, until the cakes bounce back when lightly pressed with your fingertip. Do not overbake. Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack. When completely cool, remove the cakes from the moulds. Cover the cakes to keep them moist.

To prepare the glaze:

Chop the chocolate into small pieces. Place the butter in a saucepan and heat until it is just about to bubble. Remove from the heat; add the chocolate and stir to melt. Pour through a strainer and keep warm. To assemble: Cut a thin slice from the top of each cake to create a flat surface. Place a cake flat-side down on top of each custard. Cover the tops with warm chocolate glaze. Serve immediately.

Burnt Sugar Cake

This is a cake for when you feel like showing off because it’s a stunner. It does not however require stunning effort – it’s really just a glorified sponge sandwich.

I can’t quite decide whether I like the name ‘burnt sugar cake’; burnt always hints at a disaster. But then again ‘caramel cake’ isn’t quite dramatic enough. But I would like to stress that nothing gets burnt or charred in this recipe – unless you go wrong of course.


The sponge is rich and gooey but not sticky. The recipe is clever as you make an amount of burnt sugar and use this in both the cake and the buttercream so they complement each other perfectly and give a nice consistent taste.


It comes up a very tall cake and you will get a lot of portions from it as it is quite rich. If you’re making the cake in advance, hold off putting in the shards of burnt sugar until the last minute otherwise them may leak on the buttercream as mine have. I think it’s because the cake got too warm – next time I’ll keep it in the fridge.


Making the caramel is a little strange the first time as sugar is quite fascination as it melts. Firstly it goes a bit lumpy:


Then the bit on the bottom of the pan melts whilst the rest stays looking like sugar:


Then it sorts itself out and all of it catches up:


And you end up with this syrup:


Ingredients:
For the cake
450g caster sugar
125ml boiling water
175g unsalted butter, softened
3 eggs
300g self raising flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
200ml soured cream

For the buttercream
125g Unsalted butter
250g icing sugar

For the burnt sugar decoration
3 tablespoons caster sugar

How to make:
- Preheat oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/ Gas mark 4 and grease two 20cm sandwich tins.
- Make the caramel by cooking 200g of the caster sugar over a medium heat in a saucepan, stirring occasionally until the sugar has melted. This will take a few minutes so don’t try and rush it. When it has melted let it cook, without stirring it, until it darkens.
- Remove from the heat and carefully add the boiling water. Be prepared for the mixture sizzling like mad at this point and possibly spitting at you.
- Return the pan to the heat and stir for about 1 minute until the caramel and the water are combined and smooth.
- Measure out 125ml of the caramel syrup and then pour the rest into a separate dish. Ensure that your measuring jug and bowl are heat proof as the caramel is extremely hot.
- In a large mixing bowl cream the butter with the remaining sugar (i.e. 250g) until pale and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs and don’t worry if the mixture curdles a little.
- In a separate bowl mix the soured cream and the 125ml of caramel together. Weigh out the flour and bicarbonate of soda.
- Fold the flour and caramel mixtures into the creamed mixture until combined. I like to do this gradually i.e. add a third of the flour and fold in, add a third of the caramel and fold in, add another third of flour etc.
- Divide the mix evenly between the two sandwich tins and bake for approx 30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
- Let them cool for 10 minutes in the tins before turning out onto a cooling rack and allowing to cool completely.
- Make the icing by beating together the butter and icing sugar until thoroughly combined. Then add the remaining caramel syrup (the caramel syrup left over when you measured out the 125ml that went into the cake).
- Sandwich the cakes together with half of the buttercream and then use the rest to decorate the top.
- To make the decoration put the caster sugar in a pan and heat until it melts and turns golden. Pour onto an oiled tray, or if you prefer, a plate with non-stick foil on it. I did the latter and find it comes off well. Put it in the fridge until set and then break into random shards.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.

Cherry Bakewell Tarts

I may well be lynched for saying this, but when I actually had proper Bakewell Tart from Bakewell in Derbyshire, I wasn’t that keen. I prefer the twist on the theme – the cherry bakewell which takes all the good points i.e. the pastry, the almond filling and adds sweet white icing and then, a cherry on the top.

Here’s the tart 'nude' i.e. before the icing and cherry (I'm sorry if that sentence got anyone excited and expecting something different!):


I’d been looking for a recipe that required glacé cherries since I purchased a ridiculously expensive pot of them at Borough Market . They look quite beautiful on the finished tart – quite literally the cherry on the icing on the cake!


Don’t worry about the jam bubbling up through the almond mix - as long as you ensure the almond mix completely covers the jam you won’t have any problems when baking.

The measurements set out in the recipe produced 14 tarts for me, but my tart tray is quite deep; if you use a shallow tray you may get more.

Make sure that you put the cherry on top before the icing has set so it can’t fall off:


How can they fail to please – just look at the layers: pastry, jam, almond sponge, icing, cherry. Plus, they look like a cartoon drawing of a cake; I think that if you asked a child to draw a cake most would end up with something like this.


Ingredients:
For the rich shortcrust pastry:
225g Plain flour
175g Unsalted butter, soft
1 Egg yolk
2 teaspoons caster sugar
Cold water as required – I needed only a couple of teaspoons.

For the Bakewell filling:
100g Unsalted butter
100g Caster sugar
2 Eggs
50g Ground almonds
50g Self Raising flour
1 teaspoon Almond essence (I’ve only just discovered almond extract is available from Lakeland)
Strawberry jam

For the icing:
175g Icing Sugar
1-2 tablespoons water
7 Glacé cherries (half for each tart)

How to make:

- Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
- Add the egg yolk and sugar and mix with a knife (it’s more effective than a spoon).
- Add enough water to bring the dough together – you’re aiming for firm but not hard. I always use my hands to do this as it gives you better control.
- If you’ve added too much water and the dough is sticky, don’t panic – just add a little more flour.
- Wrap the pastry in clingfilm and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes.
- preheat oven to 200°C/fan oven 180°C/400°F/ Gas mark 6 and grease 14 patty tins i.e. the individual little patty indents – not 14 tins, that would be silly!
- Roll out the pastry between two sheets of greaseproof paper, this saves you having to use any extra flour. However, if you prefer, roll out on a floured board.
- Using a cutter slightly bigger than the diameter of your patty tin indents, cut out 14 circles. You will have to re-roll the pastry to get this many but it’s very good natured and will re-roll several times.
- Line the greased tins with the pastry disks and spoon some jam onto each one. I used about half a heaped teaspoon for each tart.
- Now make the almond filling. Beat the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
- Beat in the eggs one at a time, and after each egg, add half of the ground almonds. The mix will curdle but don’ panic – as soon as you add the flour it will correct itself.
- Add the flour and almond essence and stir well. You can just mix it – there’s no need to fold or be careful.
- Spoon the mix into each pastry case and bake for 20 minutes. Mine took exactly this time.
- Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely before removing from the tin. This is because the pastry is fragile when fresh from the oven and firms as it cools.
- Mix together the icing sugar and water until smooth and glossy – adjust the measurements as required to get the right thickness. You’re aiming for thick but still runny, opaque and glossy.
- Spoon onto the top of each tart. Before fully set, add half a glacé cherry on top.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.

Golden Syrup Dumplings

There’s that bit in Jerry Maguire - I haven’t seen the film (Tom Cruise Phobic) but it’s a very famous scene - where he launches into some romantic spiel and Rene Zellwegger goes all misty eyed and says “You had me at Hello”. Well, this could be my equivalent – this recipe had me at “Golden Syrup Dumplings”.

This is a clever recipe because from start to finish they are made on the hob. No baking at all. You spoon dessert spoonfuls of the raw dumpling mix into the syrup where they simmer and puff up to more than double their size. I’m not going to lie, these are very sweet and sticky but utterly delicious. If you’re looking for the ultimate comfort food these would be a good place to start!


I apologise that the photos for these aren’t up to the usual quality but I made them for dessert at a dinner party and neither my guests nor I could wait to eat them! I served them with ice cream but custard would work too. They are a very impressive dessert for little effort.


I admit that these are very sweet and most likely bad for you, but the one thing they are not is stodgy or doughy. This photo nicely shows the lightness of the dumpling – you can see all the air in the mix:


Ingredients:
For the dumplings (I got 8 dessert spoonfuls from this mix)
185g self raising flour
30g unsalted butter
115g golden syrup
80ml milk (whole or semi-skimmed, skimmed won’t work)

For the sauce
30g unsalted butter
165g light brown sugar
175g golden syrup
410ml water

How to make:
- Start by making the dumplings; rub the butter into the flour then gradually stir in the golden syrup and milk. You’ll end up with a stiff cake batter.
- Make the sauce by combining all the ingredients in a medium saucepan.
- Stir over a medium heat until the sugar dissolves, then bring the sauce to the boil.
- Reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes.
- Drop rounded dessert spoonfuls (or tablespoons) of the dumpling mixture into the simmering sauce.
- Cover and simmer for approximately 20 minutes. The dumplings will puff up and look lovely. After about 15 minutes I turned them over to ensure they were completely covered in sauce.
- Serve with ice cream or custard.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.