Showing posts with label Fiona Cairns. Show all posts

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Coffee, cardamon and walnut cake - gluten free

For the latest meeting of South Lancashire Clandestine Cake Club I once again was inspired to bake from a Fiona Cairns recipe book, this bake is from her latest "Seasonal Baking" which is a stunning book and contains some wonderful looking cakes and bakes.

Feeling distinctly autumnal I plumped for a Coffee, cardamon and walnut cake which is a beautiful twist on the classic combination of coffee and walnut, as the recipe contains ground almonds and a relatively low amount of flour, it converted beautifully to gluten free using a standard gluten free flour.

Fiona's recipe is available on the Waitrose website here

What you need

175g softened butter
50g walnuts, roughly chopped
15 cardamon pods
175g golden caster sugar
1tbsp of instant coffee powder dissolved in 1tbsp of hot water
3 eggs free range - lightly beaten
50g ground almonds
125g self raising flour (gluten free works fine)

For the caramelised walnuts

50g walnut halves
100g caster sugar

For the buttercream

5 cardamon pods
150g softened butter
250g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla paste
1 tbsp of instant coffee powder dissolved in 1 tbsp of hot water
1 tsp milk

You also need 2 sandwich tins - about 22cm diameter oil sprayed and base lined

What you do

Preheat the oven to 160c
Firstly we are going to roast the walnut pieces and halves for about 6 minutes until lightly toasted, don't let them burn. Allow to cool
Now lets make the caramelised walnut halves, place the walnut halves on a baking tray lined with a silicone sheet or baking parchment.
In a saucepan bring 100g of caster sugar and 100ml water to the boil, swirl the pan to ensure all the sugar has dissolved, then bring to a vigour rolling boil. The caramel will eventually turn a lovely golden brown and be reduced.
Remove from the heat and drizzle over the walnut halves to create a sheet of nutty caramel, leave to one side to set. Be careful as the caramel with be very hot.
Next we will make the cake
De seed the cardamon pods, placing the seeds in a pestle and mortar and grind to a fine ground, sieve into a small bowl, take a 1/4 for the buttercream. The rest is for your cake mixture.
In a mixer (I used my trusty kitchenaid) cream the butter,sugar and coffee until light and fluffy
Add the eggs, almonds and cardamon, fold in the flour and the chopped walnuts
Once fully mixed divide the mixture into the prepared sandwich tins.
Bake in the oven for 20 - 25 minutes, tested with a cocktail stick to check baked through.
Remove and cool on a wire rack.
Whilst the cake is cooling, mix up the buttercream using the remaining cardamon and the above listed ingredients, ensure you beat it for a least 6 or so minutes to ensure a light fluffy buttercream.
To assemble the cake - spread the base layer with buttercream and then top with the other cake. Then spread the rest of the buttercream on the top and sides.
Crush the walnut caramel and arrange decoratively on top.

Detail: Coffee, cardamon and walnut cake - gluten free

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Liquorice Allsorts Cake

The theme for this month's cake club was Back to School sweetie favourites, never a great one for sweets I decided to create a cake in homage to one of my Dad's favourites, a liquorice allsort cake. I bought a pack of allsorts to decide which one to create and plumped for the round pink one with a liquorice centre.

I once again turned to what is rapidly becoming one of my baking bibles - The Birthday Cake Book by Fiona Cairns for the underlying liquorice toffee cake recipe and liquorice toffee buttercream and then came up with a simple bright pink fondant topping with a black fondant ring inset in the top of the cake and then decorated with assorted liquorice allsorts.

I normally make my cake the night before I need it so it has time to cool fully and rest and it makes for easier decoration too.

What you need to make the cake

85g butter softened
100ml milk ( I used skimmed and it worked fine)
30g liquorice, roughly chopped
200g chopped dates
175g self raising flour- sieve onto a plate
1 tsp bicarb- sieve onto a plate
140g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla paste
2 eggs , lightly beaten in a mug
Baking parchment to line the base of your baking tins
Oil spray / cake release spray to grease your baking tins

What you need to make the buttercream

100g demerara sugar
60ml double cream
1 tbsp treacle
30g liquorice, chopped roughly
170g butter softened
200g icing sugar

What you need to do

Grease and base line your cake tins (I used 2 x 20cm cake tins, deepest you have as the mixture grows quite a lot, the original recipe calls for 2 x 15cm by 7.5cm deep !, so if necessary use 3 tins or use excess mixture in muffin tins)
Preheat your oven to 170c (fan)
In a saucepan, bring the milk and chopped liquorice (cake) to the boil, once at the boil remove from the heat , squish the liquorice and then leave to infuse for about least 30 minutes or so, strain and retain the liquorice milk.
In a separate bowl soak the chopped dates in 175ml of boiling water, leave them to soak for at least 20 minutes, mush with a fork until you have a smoothish paste.
Cream the butter and sugar (from the cake ingredients) until light and fluffy, then gradually add the eggs, adding a little of the flour if in danger of curdling.
Fold in the rest of the flour, mushy dates and liquorice milk.
Spoon the mixture in to the baking tins and level
Bake for approx 30 minutes until golden and tested cooked with a skewer
Leave to cool for about 10 minutes in the tins, then remove and cool fully on a wire rack, removing the baking parchment

Now on to the buttercream and decoration

Firstly lets make the buttercream, cream the icing sugar and softened butter until you have a smooth no grainy fluffy buttercream, leave to one side.
To make the caramel, in a heavy based pan slowly dissolve the demerara sugar with 3 tbsp water, once the sugar has dissolved, bring to the boil, do not stir, allow to boil until the mixture turns a lovely caramel colour and has thickened slightly.
Remove from the heat and add the cream and treacle to the pan, stir well and then the chopped liquorice and bring to the boil, turn the pan down and keep stirring until thick and glossy.
Remove from heat and leave to cool , remove the chunks of liquorice ( this is hard work as the caramel is very sticky, I used a cocktail stick to spear the pieces)
Now whisk the caramel (please ensure this is cooled sufficiently as you will split your buttercream) in to the buttercream
Use about a third of the buttercream mixture to fill the cake, then cover the whole cake in a coat of buttercream, leave to set in the fridge for about 30 minutes.
Roll out cerise fondant to cover the cake. Smooth and shine.
Cut a suitable sized hole in the top of the cake with a round cutter and remove the cerise fondant
Roll out a small quantity of black fondant and place in the hole, now stick lots of liquorice allsorts around the base of the cake with edible glue.
Ta dah ! Liquorice allsort cake

Detail: Liquorice Allsorts Cake

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CCC No 15 - Tiramisu cake for Baking the Books ! - South Lancashire CCC at Ebb and Flo Books, Chorley.

Here at Lancashire Food we like to support and promote local businesses and as I also love a good book, so I was delighted to hear that an independent bookshop was opening in Chorley which is in my patch Clandestine Cake Club wise. Dianne the lovely owner of Ebb and Flo immediately agreed to host one of our meetings even though at this stage she didn't have an actual shop and the shop was some months away.

Roll the calendar forward and here we are holding our "Baking the Book" event in the cute newly opened bookshop. The shop has a range of books specifically selected by Diane

to offer a selection of interesting reading for all customers and for them to discover books they didn't know they wanted or, perhaps, that even existed. Customers are encouraged to browse, sit, smell, touch and hold the books, have a cuppa and chat about books. The shop also has inspiring areas for children, such as a den and craft room.

As well being a great book shop Diane is keen to hold bookish events as well and has a great whats on section on her website, so there is plenty going on !

We are here with a theme of baking a recipe from our favourite cooking or baking book, my bake was a Tiramisu Cake from Fiona Cairns "The Birthday Cake Book".

We all had a great time and loved the new bookshop and I am sure lots of us will pop in the next time we are in town. Oh and just so you know Dianne stocks the Clandestine Cake Club cookbook. We had a great selection of cakes inspired by books or taken from our favourite baking books, check them out !