Clandestine Cake Club - Northampton & District

What a fantastic round of drinks the aptly-titled cakes made at our Boozy Bakes event this week. I think we all must have raided our own drinks cabinets and discovered some of the left-over dregs from Christmas 2011 to include in this month’s baking!  Anyway, the results were amazing, as always, and I am so grateful to the following attendee bakers for making my drive home just a blur and this morning’s headache a fond remembrance!

Lorraine - Gin and tonic cake

Helen - Chocolate Guiness cake

Laura - Cointreau cake

Christine - Coffee and Tia Maria cake

Julie - Amaretto cake

Marian – Grand Marnier bundt cake

Mary-Jane – Chocolate and Amaretto cake

Mark – Chocolate Guiness cake

Marie – Amarula cake

Tina – Banana and Drambuie cake

Carmela – Christmas rum and orange liqueur cake

Lisa – Coconut and Malibu cake

Debbie – Tiramisu cake with Tia Maria and Brandy

Gillian – Pina Colada cake

Thanks, too, to the Yeoman of England pub/restaurant in Wootton village who hosted our meeting. The Manager and staff couldn’t have been more welcoming and, as they have asked us to book again, we look forward to returning there sometime in 2013.

Bottoms up!

(Further photos taken at this event can be seen on www.clandestinecakeclub.co.uk shortly).

New TV programme



Bedfordshire clanger



If, like me, you have an interest in everything to do with baking, have you heard that there is to be a new TV programme starting on Monday, 26^th November? It is scheduled for ITV 1 between 4.00 and 5.00pm each weekday, running for 4 weeks, and is entitled ‘Britain’s Best Bakery’.

More than a food competition, this series will be a celebration of bakeries across the UK, the delicious goods that they produce, their regional specialities and their centuries of old baking heritage. Critics will be sampling the delicacies of the country’s favourite independent, family run and community bakeries, tasting their way through breads, cakes, pastries and pies.

The shortlisted bakeries will also compete in a series of baking challenges that put their skills to the test and the programme will also reveal the heart-warming stories of the bakeries and the people who lovingly create and bake within them.

I’ll be watching, or recording it, will you?

Bake ahead Christmas

Well, I hate to remind you but with the days shortening and with a nippy start to the mornings, we are heading downhill or uphill – whichever way you believe it so - to Christmas.

This year I am going to try and get organised with one or two tasty and perfect treats to bake ahead of time and freeze - ready to pop in the oven over the festive period.

Like most of us, I so look forward to the British apple season. There is nothing like biting into a juicy, crisp and slightly sharp fruit.  However, in my fruit bowl yesterday, I had two forlorn-looking Cox’s apples left and, on the spur of the moment, decided to incorporate these into a Christmas bun recipe. This is one I will definitely bake ahead for my family.

So, like me, go on - spoil those around you – make now, freeze the buns and warm through for breakfast on Christmas morning and fill the kitchen and house with the glorious and intoxicating smells of warm fruit and spices. There’s nothing better!

350g strong white bread flour

7g easy-blend dried yeast

1 large egg

100g butter

200g marzipan, grated

2 eating apples – peeled, cored and cut into small pieces

75g raisins

1 tsp ground mixed spice

Icing sugar

 

In a mixing bowl, place flour, yeast and sugar. Make a well in the centre and add the egg. Melt the butter, then make up to 175ml with warm water. Add to the bowl and bring the mixture together to form a soft dough.

Knead on lightly floured surface for 10 minutes or so until smooth and elastic. Place in a clean bowl, cover with clingfilm and leave until the dough has doubled in size.

Meanwhile, line a shallow 23cm tin with baking parchment.

When dough is ready, tip it out onto floured surface and knead again for 1 minute. Then roll the dough out to a 50 x 15cm rectangle. Scatter over the marzipan, and apples. Mix the spice with raisins and sprinkle over the apples. Starting from the long edge, roll up the dough into a long, thin sausage shape.

Using a sharp knife, cut the dough into 10 even-sized pieces and place them with their cut sides face-up in the prepared tin. Cover loosely with clingfilm and leave to rise again for about an hour or until the buns are tightly packed in the tin.

Bake for about 30 minutes in a 200C oven – gas mark 6 – until a deep golden colour. Leave in the tin for 15minutes and then tip onto a wire rack to cool. When ready to serve, dust with icing sugar or make up a small quantity of runny icing and drizzle over.

Enjoy!

Raspberry muffins

Question – “What can I bake this weekend that is not wickedly indulgent but satisfies my need to fill the kitchen with warm aromas of something fresh and satisfying from the oven?.”

Answer – “The easiest cakes I ever cook - which can come in all kinds of mouth-watering flavours - and can be made occasionally to be quite 'virtuous'.  Of course, it must be American-style muffins.

Recipes for these little cakes are numerous but, today, I wanted to keep to the lower fat version using buttermilk and some raspberries that had been reduced to £1 in the supermarket.  Well.....we all like a bargain!

Sadly, it is no longer easy to find churn buttermilk. Years ago local butter producers would sell the liquid left after butter churning, which resulted in an almost fat-free product. Today most modern buttermilk is cultured, i.e. factory-made using a fermentation process with very low-fat milk. The resulting product is thicker than traditional buttermilk but can be used in the same way for making excellent pancakes, scones, soda bread, and more......including muffins.

My low-fat (0.75g saturated fat per cake and 170 calories) raspberry muffin recipe uses:

275g plain flour

1 tbsp baking powder

115g caster sugar

1 large egg

1 carton buttermilk (around 280ml)

4 tbsp rapeseed oil (or other healthy oil)

150g raspberries (or other fruit)

Icing sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 200c (or 190c fan) and line a muffin tin with 12 cases. Sift the flour and baking powder into a mixing bowl, stir in the sugar, then make a well in the centre.

Mix the egg, buttermilk and oil together in a separate bowl, pour into the flour mixture and mix quickly.

Add the raspberries and lightly fold in with a metal spoon. (Do not over-mix – it’s OK for it to be a bit lumpy.) Spoon the mixture into the paper cases and bake for around 25 mins until golden brown and firm in the middle. Transfer to a wire rack and when cool dust liberally with icing sugar.

Clandestine Cake Club



Veggie cakes



The Northampton & District branch of the Clandestine Cake Club met this week at Irchester Bowling Club for an ‘Eat your greens’ themed October event.

Using hidden vegetables in cakes was the order of the day and surprise, surprise our bakers turned up trumps again with their veggielicious sweet offerings.

Nearly forty members and guests attended together with our VIP guest Ben Frazer – a 2011 contestant from the ‘Great British Bake Off’ TV programme and owner of Northampton-based Cupcake Artisan -  who kindly also brought with him a batch of delicious ‘secret ingredient’ cupcakes for us all to try.

During the first half of the meeting we sampled about 20 beautiful and inventive bakes and a fun competition took place to guess the hidden vegetable – all so abundant at this time of year.  I can now tell you that sales must have gone up in our area this past week of marrows, sweet potatoes, carrots, courgettes, butternut squashes, pumpkins, beetroot, parsnips, swede and even sauerkraut (cabbage) – I hope I haven’t forgotten any!

As the evening progressed Ben shared with everyone just how his involvement with GBBO took place last year and the delights and downfalls of the programme. He also answered many of the nagging baking questions our members asked like ‘Why does my fruit sink’, ‘Does he like to use silicone moulds’ and, of course, ‘How to avoid a soggy bottom’!

Our local Clandestine Cake Club continues to steadily grow and - just like our vegetables - this can only be good for you! And so, until next time......’Eat your greens’.

(Further photographs of the event can be seen shortly on the main www.clandestinecakeclub.co.uk website)

National Baking Week

I suspect most of us have cookery books that we hardly ever open, simply because they are precious and exciting when first bought but now just nestle amongst newer volumes on the shelf. I suspect, too, that I am not alone in reading not a novel but something culinary whilst in bed - before the lights are turned out – or sitting on the sofa with one eye scanning a recipe book, whilst the other is watching TV or, hands up, I confess here and now to taking the latest food magazine into the bathroom with me! Does this make me a ‘foodie’?

Anyway....I have resolved to actually use a recipe each month from a volume that I haven’t opened of late and, for National Baking Week in October 2012, I made some shortbread and ‘Dark Indulgent Chocolate and Walnut Brownies’ from Mary Berry’s Ultimate Cake Book which was first published in 1994.

Mary’s book contains over 200 classic recipes and, on reflection, is just as ‘current’ and useful to me as it was when first bought.  The recipes cover all areas - cakes, bakes and biscuits for every possible occasion – and you can almost hear Mary’s calm and authoritative voice when you read the easy and informative chapters on method, equipment, ingredients, etc.

And, finally, a note to self - shall I put Mary back on the shelf next to Paul Hollywood, or would she like to stay a little longer on the bedside table? What a dilemma!

I love Sunday mornings

Hubble, bubble.....

I love Sunday mornings – a lazy breakfast, followed by the ‘Kitchen Garden’ show on BBC Radio Northampton. However, prior to today’s show, the weather forecast predicted frost tonight and so I was galvanised into action to pick the last fruits and vegetables in the garden before they could be spoiled. To my amazement, I managed to gather a motley harvest of a kilo or so of fruit and vegetables - green tomatoes, red tomatoes, peppers and cultivated blackberries. Now what to do with it? Out came the preserving pan and my trusty chutney recipe.

Ready to eat!

The recipe calls for just green tomatoes but, over the years, I have found that a mix of ‘soft’ veggie varieties – like courgettes - can be used just as successfully, as well as ‘topping up’ the amounts with apple,  pear or, as today, blackberries. I also didn’t have time to ‘brine’ them overnight either but salted the prepared ingredients for several hours before cooking. What could be better than home-made chutney accompanied by some strong cheddar and warm, just out of the oven, savoury scones? Yum!

Here’s the chutney recipe:

Ingredients:

·        2.5kg green tomatoes, roughly chopped

·        0.5kg onions, finely sliced

·        4 tsp salt

·        1L malt vinegar

·        0.5kg soft light brown sugar

·        250g sultanas, roughly chopped

·        3 tsp / 15g ground pepper

Finely slice the onions and washed green tomatoes and place them in a large bowl and stir. Add the 4 teaspoons of salt, stir again and then cover with food wrap or a large plate and leave overnight. This will draw out lots of the tomato juices and help enhance the flavours.

The next day:
Place the litre of vinegar into a large pan. Add the 500g of light brown soft sugar and stir over a medium heat until all the sugar has dissolved.

Roughly chop the sultanas then add to the simmering vinegar and sugar.

Remove the cover from the tomatoes and onions that you've left overnight. Drain well but do not rinse.  Add to the vinegar mix plus 3 teaspoons/15g pepper.

Bring to a gentle boil. Then turn down to a simmer and cook gently until thick and brown. Stir occasionally.

When your chutney has reduced by almost half, and is thick with hardly any liquid left, it is ready to pot.

Spoon the hot chutney into sterilised jars. Simples!