Rhubarb and custard tart

The CCD’s (Caked Crusader’s Da) garden rhubarb has hit its stride in the last week or so i.e. it’s the perfect time to dig out all those lovely rhubarb recipes I’ve been stockpiling all year.


Rhubarb and custard is a classic combination but this tart updates the concept and adds delicious pastry to the mix!


This is a big tart – it’s rare that I ever dig out my 25cm flan tin. The tart is packed full of rhubarb. I cooked it in dark brown sugar rather than the light brown suggested in the recipe and it gave a lovely rich caramel edge to the dish.

I love it when you cut a slice and see the custard seeping down into little pockets in the rhubarb:



The balance of flavours is delightful and it’s important to retain the tangy acidity of the rhubarb to offset the custard and pastry. I think it’s also important to refrain from over-cooking the rhubarb as it’s nice to have chunks in the tart.


Ingredients:
For the pastry:
225g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 tablespoon caster sugar
2 eggs
275g plain flour

For the filling:
1kg garden or forced rhubarb
150g-200g dark brown sugar (use the lower amount with forced rhubarb, the higher amount with garden – but taste it and add more if required)
Knob of butter

For the custard:
6 egg yolks
225ml double cream
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons caster sugar

To serve: lightly whipped double cream

How to make:

- First make the pastry: place all the ingredients in a food processor and blitz until the dough starts to come together.
- Tip the dough out onto floured clingfilm and bring it together. It is exceptionally soft and buttery so you’ll need the flour to stop it sticking everywhere.
- Wrap in clingfilm and chill for 30 minutes.
- Wash the rhubarb and chop it into approximately 2cm chunks.
- Place in a frying pan with the brown sugar and butter and simmer until the rhubarb is just becoming soft. This is quicker to achieve if you put a lid on the pan.
- Remove the pan from the heat and leave to cool.
- Preheat the oven to 200°C/fan oven 190°C/400°F/Gas mark 6.
- Roll the pastry out between two sheets of clingfilm until it is large enough to line a 25cm loose bottomed flan tin. There’s no need to grease the flan tin as the pastry is so buttery.
- Line the pastry with baking paper and baking beans and bake for 15 minutes. Then, remove the baking paper and beans and bake for a further 3 minutes just to dry the pastry out.
- Remove from the oven and leave to cool.
- Arrange the rhubarb chunks in the pastry case and spoon a little of the caramel syrup that has gathered in the pan over the tart.
- Now make the custard. Whisk together all the ingredients until they are combined.
- Pour carefully over the rhubarb.
- Bake for approximately 30 minutes until the custard has set.
- Serve either hot or at room temperature.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.

Austrian coffee cake with coffee buttercream

It’s the CCD’s (Caked Crusader’s Da) birthday on the 28th April. It’s also my uncle’s birthday which isn’t all that surprising seeing as they’re twins!

OK, so I can't explain what happened on the "T" in birthday; it took on a life of its own!

The CCD is rather partial to coffee cake and swiss meringue buttercream so I took a recipe for Austrian coffee cake and teamed it up with my trusted recipe for swiss meringue buttercream. The cake was particularly interesting to me as it used a technique that I’ve only previously seen with lemon cake, that of making a syrup to drizzle over and be absorbed by the fresh-from-the-oven cake to guarantee maximum flavour and moistness. I suppose it isn’t dissimilar to the technique used for making tiramisu. Here’s the sponge after the syrup was brushed over:


The original quantities for the sponge layers looked a bit mean to me so I scaled the recipe up, hence the oddly exact looking volumes. I find that all sponges are scalable and you shouldn’t ever fear doing this. My quantities are 150% of the original (except for the eggs, where I scaled three up to five) and gave a lovely tall sponge.

Candles can be used to express that special heartfelt message (this is probably an appropriate place to explain that my family are all blessed with the same "unusual" sense of humour - I think the candles were the CCD's favourite part of the cake!):



It’s a tricky cake to cut and get crisp, neat slices but no one seemed to mind!


These photos show how the sponge absorbs pockets of coffee syrup and stays extremely moist:


Happy birthday CCD and Nunks!

Ingredients:
For the sponge cake:
75g walnuts, finely chopped
263g self raising flour
2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
263g unsalted butter, at room temperature
263g golden caster sugar
5 eggs
2 ½ level tablespoons instant espresso coffee powder (I used Nescafe) mixed with 3 tablespoons boiling water

For the syrup:
1 ½ level tablespoons instant espresso coffee powder
75g Demerara sugar
83ml boiling water

For the swiss meringue buttercream:
4 egg whites
250g caster sugar
250g unsalted butter
2 level tablespoon instant espresso coffee powder mixed with slightly less than 1 tablespoon boiling water

How to make:
- Preheat the oven to 170°C/fan oven 150°C/325°F/Gas mark 3.
- Line two 20cm round sandwich tins with baking paper.
- Beat together all of the ingredients except for the coffee and walnuts. Ensuring that your butter is soft will make this task easier.
- Add the coffee and walnuts and beat further until the mixture is well combined.
- The mixture should drop from the spoon when tapped on the bowl. If it doesn’t add a little more hot water.
- Divide the mixture evenly between the two prepared tins and bake for approximately 30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Mine took 40 minutes.
- While the cakes are cooking, make the syrup: place the coffee and sugar in a heatproof bowl and then add the boiling water.
- Stir until both the coffee and sugar have dissolved. You will need to stir briskly to ensure this.
- When the cakes are cooked, leave in the tins, on a wire rack.
- Prick them all over – while they are still hot – and spoon the syrup over both sponges, trying to distribute it as evenly as possible. I found this a lot easier to achieve using a silicon pastry brush and gently brushing the syrup over the sponges.
- Leave the cakes in the tin to absorb the syrup and only remove when completely cool. Take care as a moist cake is a fragile cake.
- Now make the swiss meringue buttercream. Place the egg whites and sugar in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Stir pretty much constantly to prevent the egg from cooking.
- After 5-10 minutes, when the sugar has dissolved (when you cannot see any crystals on the back of the spoon), remove the bowl from the pan of simmering water and whisk until the meringue has puffed up and the mix is cool.
- Add the butter and coffee to the meringue and whisk until the butter has been completely incorporated into the meringue. At first it will look a disaster – it will collapse and look curdled but don’t worry! Stop when the mixture is smooth, light and fluffy.
- Spread approximately a third of the buttercream on top of one of the sponges and then put the other sponge on top.
- Use the remaining buttercream to cover the top and sides as desired.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.

Chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream

Chocolate and vanilla is a perfect combination. So what could be better than a delicious chocolate cupcake topped with creamy vanilla buttercream and dipped in thousands of chocolate sprinkles?


The cupcakes looked lovely straight from the oven:


Dipping the finished cupcake in chocolate vermicelli is such a simple technique but gives a rather sophisticated and intricate looking finish. It’s also lovely to bite into and get the crisp chocolate contrasting with the soft sponge and buttercream.

This is chocolate vermicelli:


I’m a big fan of chocolate vermicelli particularly when made from Belgian chocolate, as this variety is. I found mine in my local supermarket so I assume it is widely available. It’s worth buying more than you think they need as large quantities seem to disappear during the preparation of the cupcakes; it’s definitely a paranormal phenomenon and not at all that I’m eating it.

I found I achieved a nicer finish if I domed the buttercream on the cupcake....


....as it flattens slightly on being dipped in the chocolate....


...giving this beautiful finish:


All boxed up and ready to go:


Ingredients:
For the cupcakes:
125g unsalted butter, at room temperature
125g caster sugar
2 eggs
100g self raising flour
2 tablespoons milk
3 level tablespoons cocoa powder

For the vanilla buttercream:
175g unsalted butter, at room temperature
350g icing sugar
3 tablespoons boiling water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

To decorate: chocolate vermicelli


How to make:

- Preheat the oven to 190°C/fan oven 170°C/375°F/Gas mark 5.
- Line a muffin pan with 12 paper cases.
- Start by making the cupcakes. Beat together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
- Add the eggs, flour, milk and cocoa powder.
- Spoon the mixture evenly into the 12 paper cases.
- Bake for approximately 12-15 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Mine took 15 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and eave to cool on a wire rack.
- Now make the buttercream (make it on the day you’re serving it). Beat the butter in a bowl to soften.
- Beat in the icing sugar, boiling water and vanilla until you have a smooth and pale buttercream.
- Spread over the cupcakes and try and shape into an even dome.
- Pour the chocolate vermicelli into a bowl and dip the cupcakes so that the whole surface area is covered with the vermicelli and you can barely see the buttercream
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.

Cherry streusel cake

This isn’t a show stopping cake that dazzles with the height of its layers or luxurious buttercream, but it is absolutely delicious. It falls into the category of rustic or farmhouse style cakes and, as regular readers will know, these are my favourites!


You could use a variety of fruits – I think plums would work well, but I went for cherry as I thought it would be delicious with the crumbly, nutty topping. This photo shows the three layers well; sponge, cherry and crumble:


The topping is extremely crumbly and, for that reason, I recommend you eat this cake in a dignified manner using a plate and a fork. No cramming it in leaning over the kitchen sink or you’ll lose half the topping!

Yes, that is a huge amount of cream. I can’t think of a single way to mitigate it....unflattering camera angle perhaps? Unfeasibly small piece of cake? I think you know me better than that...


Serving the cake with cream works particularly well as you can use the cream to pick up the crumbs – I’ve got it all sussed out!



Ingredients:
For the streusel topping:
85g chopped hazelnuts
85g plain flour
55g unsalted butter, cut into cubes
55g Demerara sugar

For the cake:

110g unsalted butter, at room temperature
100g caster sugar
2 eggs
75g self raising flour
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Approx 20 cherries – I used tinned

How to make:
- Preheat the oven to 190°C/fan oven 170°C/375°F/Gas mark 5.
- Line a 20cm round cake tin with baking paper.
- Start by making the topping: take half the hazelnuts and blitz in the food processor until you have fine crumbs. Chop the other half of the hazelnuts roughly.
- In a bowl rub together the ground hazelnuts, flour and butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
- Stir in the sugar and chopped nuts. Put to one side.
- Now make the cake: beat together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
- Beat in the eggs one at a time.
- Beat in the vanilla.
- Stir in the flour.
- Spoon the thick cake batter into the prepared tin and level the surface.
- Place the cherries on top.
- Sprinkle over the streusel topping.
- Bake for approximately 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out cleanly. Mine took exactly an hour.
- Leave to cool in the tin before removing and storing in an airtight container.
- Serve with whipped or clotted cream.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.