Cherry's English Kitchen

Balsamic 'Barb Puff

My kitchen is all but packed up right now, but feeling rather bereft I felt it was essential to my wellbeing to turn something out, and sharpish!

Rhubarb (forced) is in season right now and it has always been something that I have avoided cooking with. Images of sour, bitter, long stalks have been conjured up in my mind and I felt it was time to conquer them.

I cut 4 rhubarb stalks up into pieces about an inch long and placed them in to a pan. I added 4 tablespoons of aged balsamic vinegar, 1& a half teaspoons of ground cinnamon and 1 cup of packed brown sugar. I then turned the gas on to a low heat and began to cook the rhubarb down. I really does not take as long as you think and it's important not to let it burn or to cook it too fast. There is no standing there for hours stirring the stalks and waiting for sign of movement and it is one of the quickest seasonal desserts to prepare that I have come across. It also makes you look like you have been slaving over a hot pan and oven whipping up a magnificent rhubarb concoction! 

The first time around I added the cooked rhubarb to several uncooked ready- made puff pastry shells before popping it all into the oven in order for the pastry to cook around the rhubarb. This does not work and cooks the rhubarb and sugar juices hard onto your oven-ware, so much scrubbing is needed. The next time around I prepared a pizza shape of puff pastry and placed it into one half of a cake tin to bake in. I baked it and then transfered the rhubarb into said pastry shell and sprinkled with powdered sugar before serving.

I'd like to go on, but there really is no need. It is that simple.......and delicious of course!

Bake Fest Friday & My Mum

I am finding myself baking more and more towards the end of each week nowadays. Traditionally you are meant to have fish on a Friday but my household is finding itself with a fridge full of cakes to consume over the weekend. This is great. I am far more prone to something sweet at the end of a long week than baked Salmon. I'll have the Salmon on Monday as penance!

This Sunday we celebrate Mothering Sunday in Great Britain. I am not going to be with my mum on that day as LBH and I are traveling so I felt the need to send her a little something. That something is this.......

Cranberry & Lemon Springtime Cake. (forgive the bad piping of the lettering please!)

Pre-heat your oven to 170 degrees centigrade.

Take 6oz of butter, 6 oz of caster (superfine) sugar, 3 eggs, 8 oz of self raising flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, grated rind of 1 lemon, 4 oz of dried cranberries and pop them into your food processor with the blade attachment. Whiz, whiz and then whiz some more. Making the mixture light and fluffy and chopping the cranberries into tiny speckles in the process. This is a much more desirable state for the cranberry to be in if it's going into a sponge cake.

Pour the mixture into two 8 inch cake tins and place in the oven for approximately 50 mins.

When they are baked right through and golden in colour take the tins out of the oven and transfer the cakes to a wire cooling rack. When they are cool you can begin to decorate. I spread lashings of Strawberry jam on to one of the sponges, placed the other on top to make a jam sandwich cake and then made some vanilla frosting for the top. After much trial and error I manged to get my frosting to a beautiful duck egg blue colour although I doubt very much if I will ever manage it again!

Butter-cream Frosting.
Whiz 8 oz of icing sugar, 1 oz of butter (at room temperature), 1 teaspoon of a good quality pure Vanilla extract and two to three tablespoons of milk together using the blade attachment on your food processor. The lighter you are able to get the frosting the better but don't mistake lightness for it being too runny. You don't want runny! If it's too drippy keep adding the icing sugar.

Happy Mothers Day to mums across the land. Don't forget to let me know if your babies make this for you. I'll be sure to tell you what my mum thought of hers.

Vanilla Squishy Kisses

 

It seems that the lack of faith I had in my oven was unfounded. Another example of a workman blaming his tools perhaps! RHETORICAL!!!!

I am experimenting with my Easter menus at the moment and I feel that Easter is a wonderful time for you to involve young children in your preparation. The pressure is not on to produce perfection at Easter in the way it can be at Christmas & my Vanilla Squishy Kisses are perfect for getting to grips with combining the mixtures, using cake cutters of all shapes and sizes and perfecting the art of that tricky piping gun.

I found it slightly tiresome to make several dozen sponge cakes, so instead I make a loaf, slice it and then use the cutters to make the shapes of individual cakes. If you use the cutters wisely you can minimize waste and the outside edges of the cake slices will be the only part of the loaf that needs to go in the bin.

Vanilla Squishy Kisses

Makes up to two dozen cakes depending on the size of the cutters. This recipe does not include the use of any electrical equipment so your kiddies can really get involved in every part of the creation.

Pre heat your oven to 170 c

Cream 250 g of unsalted butter , at room temperature,  with the back of a wooden spoon. This should only take a moment. Add 375 g of caster sugar and continue to cream together with the butter. Add to that 5 whisked eggs and, you've guessed it, cream together with the back of your wooden spoon. I have used Old Cotswold Legbar eggs for this recipe. Not only are they a superior egg but the shells come in an amazing palette of pale blues, pinks and yellows. The eggs make great candidates to be blown and the shells used in some of your Easter projects. Add three teaspoons of a good quality pure Vanilla extract. Mix together 500g of plain flour, half a teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of baking powder and begin to add, in stages, to the rest of the mixture. When all of the flour has been added and the mixture has been bound together to a golden, lump free, smooth drippy consistency pour in to a greased 10 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan.

Let the mixture settle in the pan for a few moments and then pop into a preheated oven at 170c for about an hour. You are looking for an even colour across the top of the loaf, avoiding letting the loaf becoming too dark.

Turn the loaf out onto a wire rack and let it cool completely before attempting to slice & make shapes from it. If your kiddos can bear it, make the loaf with them in the evening before bed and then ice it in the morning.

Once the loaf has cooled completely, slice into slices. This sized loaf should easily produce 14 - 15 slices. Then you can begin to cut each slice into all sorts of different shapes using your cookie cutters. I have used my star shaped and heart shaped cutters all in different sizes. Place the smaller shapes on top of the bigger shapes to form little cake towers and decorate with buttercream frosting.

Buttercream Frosting.

Cream 8 oz of icing sugar, 1 oz of butter (at room temperature), 1 teaspoon of a good quality pure Vanilla extract and two to three tablespoons of milk. Add the third spoonful if it looks like the mixture needs more liquid and is a bit thick but not before. Beat the mixture together with the back of your wooden spoon until all is as light & creamy as you can make it. If you are wanting to use two different food colourings split the mixture into two bowls and add the colour separately before adding it to your icing gun and piping away merrily!