Nigella Experiment – Day 23 – Almond Danish Pastry, Tarte Tatin and Toffee Apples

Day 23 – Almond Danish Pastry (page 328 ), Tarte Tatin (page 330) & Toffee Apples (page 226)

Making my own Danish Pastry is not something that would EVER have crossed my mind pre-Nigella experiment, but boy am I glad I gave it a try! Looking at the page there seemed a gazillion steps involved, but once they were broken down into their individual parts it was perfectly manageable.

The first thing was to make the actual pastry, this involved another recipe ‘Processor Danish Pastry‘ (page 327) – this clue is in the title..it’s made using a food processor. Super easy. whizz up the ingredients and try not to feel freaked out by the massive lumps of butter left in it. If you are used to making smooth pastry it is a challenge to accept that the rough appearance is right. Into the fridge and chill for a few hours.

To make the Almond Danish, you use the pastry from the above recipe and roll it into six squares. Make your own almond paste by toasting blanched almonds whizzing them up in the food processor with icing sugar, butter and egg white. I took my eye off the ball for a few minutes as was juggling several kitchen tasks and let my almonds get really toasted..hence the darker colour of the paste. Still tasted fine though.

Create the funny shapes – I followed what Nigella said, honest! Sausage-in-a-blanket appearance is down to the book. Egg wash and leave to rise for 1.5 hours, bake for 15 mins. Once out of the oven the pastries are given a clear glaze and once cooler drizzled with an icing sugar glaze. I used un-refined icing sugar hence the browny colour.

All in all these pastries looked a bit odd, but tasted good! Feedback from Paul was the almond paste could have been smoother and Marie thought there could have been less of it, but everything else good good marks.

Marks out of 10: 9

Bakers comment: a lot of steps, but fun to make.

Tarte Tatin

Mmmmmm, looks good in the book:

The good thing about the pastry recipe is, that once mixed up you can keep it in the fridge for up to 4 days before using..so we were able to enjoy a Tarte Tatin as a very ‘posh’ pudding after dinner. Super straightforward – put loads of butter and sugar in a tin on the hob, boil up, add a mountain of butter and slip on some quartered apples. Cook to caramelize then place the danish pastry circle on top and tuck it in. Into the oven, bake for 20 mins and turn out on to a plate. Marvel at your cooking ability 😉

The family loved, loved, loved this tart. It was eaten up in seconds and given top marks by all of the children.

Marks out of 10: 10

Bakers comment: I love the fact that the pastry can be kept in the fridge for a while or frozen…this means you could create this delicious pudding at short notice. If only it was a teeny bit healthier I’d eat it every day!

Toffee Apples

Bonfire Night = Fireworks and Toffee Apples. I’ve made various attempts at Toffee Apples since Felix has had enough teeth to crunch an apple. Maddie loves the tradition, so spent the whole of Monday persuading me to make them again (it’s not easy, the toffee likes to slide off the apple instead of sticking to it..and toffee is easy to burn and easy to burn yourself with!)

I was pleased when I saw the recipe in ‘How to be a Domestic Goddess‘ – another one ticked off my list. Boil sugar and water until you have a molten bubbling pot, add in golden syrup, butter and vinegar. Bubble up for ages, testing the toffee in iced water. Once ready swirl in toffee (quite hard) and then plunge into iced water (fun).

They don’t look perfect, but what the heck! The apples are mostly covered in toffee and the little sticks are sort of stuck in. They were consumed by Felix, Maddie and Rohan with gusto! We had to miss the annual fireworks display on the Prom as I had my Maths class and Rohan was super tired..instead they ate TApples, sparkled some sparklers on the street in front of the house and peered at fireworks from a window.

Marks out of 10: 8

Bakers comment: these are ok for a once-a-year treat. Quite a faff to make, but beat the weird red ones you get from the Supermarket.

Nigella Experiment – Day 22 – Courgette and Chick Pea Filo Pie & Apple & Walnut Cake

Day 22 – Courgette and Chick Pea Filo Pie (page 93) & Apple & Walnut Cake (page 36)

Yesterday was a Nigella day with two lovely recipes to try. The first one ‘Courgette and Chick Pea Filo Pie‘ had been eye-candy for me for a while. I was debating whether or not to cook it for a family dinner or to save it for a special evening when Paul and I were eating alone. Would the usual cries of “blluurrghhh courgette” ruin things or not? It looks impressive in the photo in the book:

So, what the heck it’s Friday night, celebration of the weekend night, let’s give it a whirl. The recipe itself is extremely easy to follow and quick to make. Shop-bought filo pastry and a collection of ingredients gently sauteed in olive oil and stock – brilliant. I enjoyed stacking in the layers of filo, brushing each one with melted butter, then tipping the rice/courgette/chick pea mix in and popping a filo lid on. So simple!

Into the oven for about 20 mins and voila!

It was a huge hit with the children as well. Felix declared “chick peas are my favourite superfood“, Rohan shovelled lots and lots in – always a good sign and even Maddie managed to eat more than just the filo pastry! This one is definitely going to get made again.

Marks out of 10: 10

Bakers comment: very quick and easy to make, yet the results make you feel like you must have spent ages on it – winning combination.

Apple & Walnut Cake

This was a quick after dinner bake, we wanted to finish Friday evening with a sweet treat. No picture in the book so no visual point of reference. Another fast recipe to follow – all ingredients in to the mixer, whizz up and into the oven. My only reservation was how big to chop the apple – Nigella says into ‘small cubes‘ but how small is small? I think I may have left them a little too large. She’s not kidding either when she says the mixture will be ‘fairly stiff‘ – it really was.

Cooked it for an hour, but made a school-girl error in removing it from the oven when it looked done, rather than testing it. I don’t know what I was thinking!! The glass of Prosecco had gone to my head 😉 So, on cutting it was baked perfectly…apart from the rather runny and batter-like centre. Grrrrrr.

Anway, the family loved it and snaffled it up with gusto so all was fine!

Marks out of 10: 7.…would have been more I think if I’d baked it properly.

Bakers comment: check and check again. Good flavours in the cake, maybe cut the apple pieces smaller than I did.

Nigella Experiment – Day 21 – Lily’s Scones & Spanish Macaroons

Day 21 – Lily’s Scones (page 67) & Spanish Macaroons (page 54)

WOW! The best ever scone recipe! Nigella says ‘These are the best scones I’ve ever eaten‘ and I agree 100% We’re big fans of scones in this household and I’ve made them over the past few years with varying success. I’ve always been on the look-out for a fail-safe recipe and I think I’m in love with this one.

Simple instructions, throw everything into the food processor, whizz it up, Add milk, very quick mix, out on to board for kneading (gently), cut out, egg wash into the oven and 10 minutes later – heavenly results.

The only unusual thing about the recipe is the inclusion of a lot of cream of tartar. I’m not well-versed in using c-of-t, but according to the book it is what gives these scones a ‘dreamy lightness‘.

Maddie and Paul tried Nigella’s suggestion of ‘Thunder and Lightning‘ – clotted cream and black treacle. They thought it was delicious.

Marks out of 10: 10

Bakers comment: very impressed with this recipe. I’ll definitely be making it again. I wasn’t sure what cream of tartar would do…am still not sure, but whatever it does, it does it well! Follow this link to see the recipe for yourself!

I was trialling these recipes last night (Saturday night). Traditionally if we are in, this is the night Paul and I try to have a fun evening – cocktails, music, cooking, hanging out with the kids. Last night was great – Paul was creating delicious veggie burgers from the Wahaca recipe book, Maddie was making guacamole, Rohan was pottering at the table with some pastry making shapes, Felix was in and out of the kitchen, Craig Charles was playing Funk on 6 music and we were having Margaritas and French Martinis. Scones were made pre-alcohol, Spanish Macaroons after a strong martini, must have been a good recipe as I’m not sure I was following it with 100% concentration! 😉

Spanish Macaroons

Another great. throw it all in, mix it up recipe (there are lots of these in ‘How to be a Domestic Goddess‘ which is brilliant. Lots of ground almonds and an orange accent in these little balls of goodness. Into the mixer, whizz up, roll into little balls and into the oven.

Everyone liked them. Again a good, fast recipe with pleasing results.

Marks out of 10: 8-9

Bakers comment: very easy, very pleasing.

Nigella Experiment – Day 16 – Baby Bundts

Day 16 – Baby Bundts (page 26)

Yey!!! My wonderful nephew Dylan is home from his adventures in St.Louis and has arrived with the baby bundt tray. It looks perfect for this baking experiment:

After a busy week baking for my business, a bit of relaxing, pleasure baking is just the ticket for a grey Saturday morning. Good straightforward simple recipe…now came the fun bit filling up the bundt tin. Having never made anything remotely ‘bunty‘ at all I wasn’t sure of the etiquette – over the top of the hole bit or up to it? The amount of mix led me to believe you cover the hole making bit…..think this was a school-girl error.

 

 

 

NIgella’s photo looks nice and restrained – evenly, perfectly-baked, mini perfection:

 

 

 

 

 

 

After baking, MY baby bundts had turned into monster-cupcake-top-bundts….eeekk attack of giant bunting:

I know, I know they don’t look a lot like baby bundts. Quick solution, nip of the giant bottoms with a knife and drizzle with the delicious lemon icing. It hides all baking sins ;):

Mmmmmmm, Maddie described them as ‘tiny, lemon-drizzle cakes’ and she’s about right. They are lovely.

Marks out of 10: 9 and a quarter.

Bakers comment: the recipe was easy to follow, however for bundt novices like me the cake tin was a challenge. Now I know what to do, next time I’m hoping they will look neater and I won’t have to doctor them with a knife!

 

 

Nigella Experiment – Day 14 – Rhubarb Cornmeal Cake & Muscat-Mascarpone Cream

Day 14 – Rhubarb Cornmeal Cake (page 30) Muscat-Mascarpone Cream (page 31)

I’d initially discounted making this cake as I thought the rhubarb season was well and truly over, The Eat the Seasons website told me it was January time not mid-September. Further worry as Nigella says to use the ‘first, forced fruit’.. Imagine my surprise when driving up Alexandra Road in the drizzle, I spied a bunch sitting merrily in the roadside fruit and veg stall. £1 for the bunch – bargain. It may have been a little bit ‘end of season-y‘ looking, but heck I’m a cooking maverick, I thought, let’s go for it.

It seemed perfectly fine when washed and chopped into tiny 1/2 cm pieces. This was done to the kitchen accompaniment of Radio 4’s programme about gold miners in Indonesia and mercury poisoning – interesting stuff and helped the monotony of the task in hand. The rest of the cake preparation was pretty standard, although adding in yoghurt and polenta to the mix was unusual.

Into the oven for an hour. Lovely golden colour on top and springy to touch. Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of the full cake in all it’s glory due to a slight mishap of plate and cooling rack. Bother! Anyway, here is a slice:

The Muscat-Mascarpone cream was super easy to make…lots of whisking of egg whites, egg yolks, icing sugar, mascarpone and muscat. Muscat is a sort of sweet dessert wine and flavours the cream deliciously. Paul described it as “a bit like sherry flavoured cream in a trifle”…you get the picture.

My lovely friend Karen happened to pop in and she had a slice!

My camera phone seems to be letting me down on some pics…..camera for Christmas perhaps?

Marks out of 10: 8, Paul thought the rhubarb staying slightly crunchy was good and bad at the same time…strangely like eating teeny bits of celery.

Bakers comment: I haven’t tasted it yet myself as today is a fast day, but I enjoyed making it! Quite time-consuming, but that is a pleasure when there is something good on the radio 🙂

Nigella Experiment – Day 13 – Greengage Jam & Cherry-Almond Loaf Cake

Day 13 – Greengage Jam (page 348-349)

I’d noticed this recipe when flicking through the book (probably desperately looking at the fact that there are 363 pages of recipes in this book..Oh lordy what have I done?!) anyway my eye was caught by ‘Greengage’..something I’d heard of but, I realised, didn’t actually know what it was. Passing thought. It came back to me when walking past the greengrocers window and seeing seasonal Greengages on display. Ah-ha! little plums..only available NOW. I really hope I will have completed this experiment by this time next year so it was now or never to buy and make the jam.

Having recently wasted quite a lot of time, money and energy on making some very unsuccessful strawberry jam I decided to go small on this recipe and quartered all the ingredients so I’d only make one jar:

0.375kg of greengages, 62.5ml water and 0.25kg of jam sugar. Simple – halve and stone greengages, put in big pan with water. Simmer for 15 mins. Add in sugar, dissolve then boil rapidly for about 5 mins. This was the first time I tried the ‘wrinkle test‘ where you put a saucer  in the freezer before starting to cook. Get it out when mix is boiling and then test by putting drops of mix on it and seeing if it ‘wrinkles‘ when pushed with a finger. Put into sterilized jar (this was an old cleaned-up lemon curd jar, sterliized by filling with boiling water and then putting in hot oven).

Mmmmmmmm! Great results:

Marks out of 10: 9.75 – I was so happy it worked! I was so happy it tasted good!

Bakers comment: give it a go. Super easy and very satisfying results.

Day 13 – Cherry-Almond Loaf (page 28)

Strictly speaking this isn’t the next recipe in the book, I’m missing the mini-bundt cakes until my wonderful nephew Dylan gets back from the States. I’m hoping he’ll get a minute to pop into a baking shop for me and pick me one up. They are a rare jewel in the UK it seems. Trawling ebay and amazon only gets me to the nordicware version for £40. No way.

So, on with the new ‘Fruited Cakes’ section. First up is this cherry and almond delight.

Looks good in the book:

Had some fun trying to find ‘natural glace cherries’ in Penzance. Local shops need to step their game up! Tesco of course had them in the right size pack at the right price. Simple mix for the cake, into the oven and let it cook for ages. About 1.5 hours. Let it cool in the tin. When it was ready my taste testers were in the midst of watching a truly terrible film – ‘The Accidental Spy‘ starring Jackie Chan with indecipherable dubbing and questionable sound levels. I think they were all glad for cake distraction 😉 Verdict from the kids and Paul….tasty. Although I think Andrew (Felix’s friend) was the only one to finish his slice. Think we’ll take some to the beach in the morning and see how it is there.

Marks out of 10: 7.5. Cherries are very nice in it.

Bakers comment: very easy and simple to make. Would be a good cake to put in packed lunches as slices up well and is in a loaf shape.

Nigella Experiment – Day 12 – Autumnal Birthday Cake

Day 12 – Autumnal Birthday Cake (page 24)

According to Nigella this isn’t strictly speaking a birthday cake, or it doesn’t have to be! As we don’t have any birthday’s just around the corner it was a ‘Wednesday-night-treat-cake’ instead. It looks pretty fancy in the book:

Apologies for the grainy pic. The recipe has two parts; the cake and then the icing. Unusually the icing has just as many ingredients as the actual cake mix. It’s a maple syrup flavoured cake with a meringue icing. Now, maple syrup is one of my favourite things in the world…but over the past couple of years it has become very expensive, ridiculously expensive. In the local supermarket 330g is £5.49 for their own brand – eeek. This recipe asks for 350ml in the cake and 125ml in the icing – which equates to 475g. Flip! too much money for me right now, especially as I’m in the process of setting up my business (ha! knew I’d shoehorn it in somewhere) – http://www.theflyingcaketin.co.uk. So, I did really want to make the cake, but knew there would have to be a compromise. This came in the form of Clarks maple syrup blended with carob fruit syrup which is a lot cheaper. Probably not what Nigella would have had in mind, but certainly what my purse could stretch to at the moment.

Anyway on with the baking, fake-ish maple syrup in hand. The cake batter mix was straightforward – into the mixer, whizz up, into the sandwich tins and into the oven. Bish Bash Bosh. Took 40 mins to cook and came out a deep, golden, brown colour. So far so good.

The icing is created on a double boiler (where you boil water in a saucepan and suspend the mixture in a bowl over it). This has to be done whilst mixing it with a hand-held electric whisk. Complicated and involved a wire trailing over a pan of boiling potatoes (it was dinner time too!) and me having to shout Paul to hand me a tea-towel to hold the burning bowl as meringue slopped around as I couldn’t stop mixing. You get the picture, it was a little bit hectic! I think this is becoming a bit of a theme now, but I don’t think I whisked to quite the correct stiffness – when icing the cake it was a little bit too runny…my mistake also in the last 2 cakes.

Oh well, it looked quite pretty sprinkled with the chopped pecans, please ignore drippy meringue:

The taste testers declared it a success! Maddie would like this to be her next birthday cake 🙂 I ate two slices, after all tomorrow is a fast day.

Corrina sent the following text ‘OMG!!! Cake F*ing Delicious! So moist and sweet and creamy and……sigh……!‘ Waiting on the results from the Allcock/Woodhead contingency bit will update when the verdict is in.

Marks out of 10: 8-9

Baker comment: good flavour, I think the meringue was quite a faff and means it has to be eaten on the day it is baked. Might have an experiment with some maple flavoured straightforward icing and buttercream instead.

Nigella Experiment – Day 10 – Coconut Cake

Day 10 – Coconut Cake (page 23)

I was almost tempted to try and skip this cake as I didn’t feel I could justify buying a whole bottle of Malibu (you remember that that drink from the 80’s?!). However, Paul and I have been rejecting the bottle of wine option at the end of the day, instead whisking up French Martini’s to ‘relax’ 😉 with. Hence the purchase of a cocktail shaker set, 2 martini glasses and ideas of setting up a cocktail cabinet. Malibu can slot into this new vision!!

The cake is picture-less in the book so it is another one springing simply from my interpretation of the words on the page.

This may have led to the slight mis-interpretation of how to deal with ‘50g of dessicated coconut soaked in 150ml of boiling water‘. Do you drain it? Do you leave the water in? Hmmm….well I left the water in and the cake batter was decidedly more sloppy than what I would normally expect. Seems to have baked ok, although the dip rather than rise in the middle is a slight worry.

Toasting the dessicated coconut in a dry frying pan was satisfying – watching it turn golden brown from icy white was strangely pleasing (it’s the small things). Coconut buttercream – delicious. The icing for the top of the cake is a mix of royal icing sugar and malibu. I think I must have mis-measured my tablespoons of booze (years of practicing generous measures!) as it was all a bit runny. As with the Boston Cream Pie, I only really realised that once it was on the cake:

The runny icing doesn’t impair the taste at all though! Rohan is back from his second half-day at school and we enjoyed sharing a lunch-time slice of tropical paradise. Not too sure how child-friendly the malibu icing/buttercream are as it’s not like I’ve ‘boiled away the alcohol‘….he seems pretty jolly anyway which is a good thing! I feel like I need a sleep…

Marks out of 10 – 8.5

Bakers comment: this is a cake I think I could make look a lot better next time with less runny icing. Would be nice to try it with lime and malibu icing or a lime curd alongside the buttercream. Interesting.

Nigella Experiment – Day 9 – Boston Cream Pie

Day 9 – Boston Cream Pie (page 21-22)

My oldest Felix (11) and youngest Rohan (4) start their new schools tomorrow and I was delighted to turn over the page today and see that Boston Cream Pie was on the baking menu. I wanted to make something special to mark the end of Summer and transition for the whole family into this new time and this looked just the job.

The picture in ‘How to be a Domestic Goddess‘ looks enticing:

It was with high hopes I set off on this culinary adventure. Step one – super easy, another Victoria Sponge. Tick.

Step two – crème patissière……hmmm…..did anyone else see the Great British Bake Off last night? Well I did and I saw lots of them making custard and it being too runny…guess what? Silly me, I did the same thing. Smugly stirring my thickening crème patissière I was thinking ‘oh yes, look at that, lovely, I’m great, my stirring is great, the world is great’..and other such self-congratulatory thoughts, only to find on adding to my sponge it dripped and had lumps in it. Bums, and this happened despite me following Nigella‘s advice to ‘wet greasproof paper and put it on top to stop it forming a skin‘.

Oh dear.

Step three – chocolate icing. This should have been straightforward, this should have been amazing, this should have looked just like the photo in the book. Uh oh:

Sort of lumpy, sort of weird. A bit like me :)……..and why is my crème patissière not bright yellow?

Despite all of the aesthetic issues I see in this cake, the verdict from my test-crew of tasters is extremely positive! The kids love it, Paul loves it.

Marks out of 10: 9

Bakers comment: definitely challenging, looks a bit of a mess but tastes flippin’ lovely.

Nigella Experiment – Day 7 – Flora’s Famous Courgette Cake

Day 7 – Flora’s Famous Courgette Cake (page 18-19)

Calling all allotment owners – this is the cake for you! When we travel on our summer jaunt ‘up north’ we always stay with my parents in Whitby. Dad is a keen veggie patch owner and always grows a bumper crop of delicious green courgettes (zucchini for those outside of the UK). My poor Mum suffers with courgette-fatigue however, and I think they run out quite quickly of ways to prepare it. Here is the answer – a wonderful cake.

Apologies Dad, the courgettes I used were shop-bought *shame*. Next time we come to see you I promise I’ll make this!

So…on to the recipe & testing. Here is the pic from the book, so you know what I was aiming for:

I agree with Nigella – ‘If courgette cake sounds dodgy to you, think about carrot cake for a moment‘. It’s true we all accept carrot in sweet form so why not courgettes? After all beetroot and chocolate cake is tasty. The recipe was easy to follow and straightforward, the courgettes are grated and stirred in to the cake batter.

The recipe does in fact also take in another from later on in the book, from the curds section – Lime Curd (page 344). This was an additional option for the filling of the cake. I could have used shop bought lemon curd, but in for a penny in for a pound! This recipe was ok to follow, although my curd did scramble a bit and I had to strain it through a sieve to remove some of the eggy bits.

The topping of the cake is a cream cheese icing – super easy to make. Ta-da – finished results:

Pretty close to the picture in the book I thought, so a pleasing result. Paul ran a couple of Friday-night slices over to our taster friends Faye & Rich over the road, here are their comments:

‘That cake was everything a cake should be! Zingy, lovely textures and dare I say it moist! Rich said “sublime”, sponge 10/10, filling 10/10, frosting 10/10, concept – brave, wow factor 200%‘

Yey!!!!!! I think this cake is a winner 🙂

Marks out of 10 – aggregated I’d say 9

Bakers comment: with three distinct parts this cake is definitely more challenging than the earlier loaf cakes, but so much more fun to make. It’s great when something turns out just like it’s supposed to and the testers love it!

*In case you are wondering who Flora is and why the cake is famous, Nigella says ‘This recipe was given to me by Flora Woods, who worked in Harrods Waterstone’s when How to Eat came out, and is now at Books for Cooks. I love being given people’s own or family recipes. I like to credit any recipe given to me, not only out of a sense of propriety, but because it makes it all the more interesting’. So now you know!*