Vodka Christmas Cake & Christmas Cake Vodka

Courtesy of Emma Freeman (first NZ hottest home baker runner up) in Womens' Weekly May 2010

Kueh Lapis Batavia (Indonesian Layer cake)

Also known as Spekkoek, this is a really rich and time consuming cake to make.  More information on the origins of the cake can be found here.  The home made mixed spice is well worth the effort (since you're going to be spending hours grilling the cake you might as well make your own spice right?!)

Mixed Spice
30g Cinnamon quill
20 whole cloves (remove stems)
1 start anise
20 green cardamom (remove husks

Toast the above spices over low heat for 15 - 20 mins
Grind spices in spice grinder until very fine.


Ingredients
450g Butter
1 - 2 tsp mixed spice
115g plain flour
17 egg yolks
250g sugar
5 egg whites
2 T brandy

Cream butter until light and fluffy.
Sift Mixed spice and flour
Beat eggs yolks with 200g sugar until thick
Beat Egg whites with remaining sugar until stiff peaks form
Fold in egg yolk mixture, egg white mixture into the butter mixture alternating with the flour.  Add the brandy last.

Grease the bottom of a small square cake tin with butter and line with baking paper.
Heat the pan under a hot grill for a few minutes.
Put a ladleful of batter into the bottom of the pan and grill until its golden brown.
Take pan out of the oven and prick with skewer to prevent any air bubbles and pour another ladleful of batter into the pan and spread it evenly and grill until it is golden brown.  Repeat this process until all the batter is used up. 
After last layer is grilled, change oven setting to bake and bake for further 10 to 15 minutes to ensure that the cake is cooked.

Cool in pan for 5 minutes before turning out onto wire rack to cool.

Enjoy!

Moroccan snake cake (m'hencha)

So called as it's in the form of a coiled snake, this cake is made for big celebrations in Morocco (one recipe I have for it makes a huge quantity for parties using 1kg of ground almonds!).

Recipe adapted from a Jamie Oliver one:

Moroccan snake cake (m'hencha)

Serves 6-8

250g soft unsalted butter
250 icing sugar
2 eggs
175g ground almonds
50g unsalted pistachios (or extra 50g ground almonds)
1 tablespoon rosewater
1 tablespoon orange blossom water (or another T of rosewater)
zest of a small orange
1 tablespoon plain flour
filo pastry left in packet at room temperature for at least 2 hours (makes it easier to coil)
melted butter to brush filo and grease tin
icing sugar and cinnamon to dust

Heat oven to 180 degrees C.
Grease a 20cm cake tin with melted butter.
Combine filling ingredients in a food processor till smooth.
Lay sheets of overlapping filo out in a line (I used 4 I think). Brush with a bit of butter to stop it drying out and working very quickly, spoon filling out in a line towards one edge of the filo.
Roll up into a sausage shape, brushing with extra butter as you go.
Then comes the fun bit - coil it into a snake shape and place into the tin. (I haven't managed to do this yet without the filo splitting but plonk it in the tin anyway. It doesn't seem to make much of a difference once it's cooked anyway as the filling holds it together.)
Brush with more butter.
Bake in the preheated oven for 35-45 minutes or until golden and crisp.
Put on a rack to cool (it will firm up as it cools) and once cool, dust with icing sugar and cinnamon.

Sacher Torte

Sacher Torte from Austria.  Recipe courtesy of Hanna - an Austrian student who stayed with us for many weeks 2 years ago, it is her mothers recipe.

125g butter
250g icing sugar
1t vanilla
5 egg yolks
5 egg whites, beaten to stiff peaks
100g dark chocolate
2 t cocoa
200g flour
1/2 t baking powder
125 ml milk

*  cream butter, sugar, vanilla and yolks
* add melted chocolate and cocoa. Mix well
* add flour, baking powder and milk.  Mix till well combined
*  fold in egg whites
Bake 45-55 mins at 160 degrees.

Leave cake to cool, split in half and cover middle, top and sides in apricot glaze and then chocolate glaze an hour later

Apricot glaze
1  cup apricot jam
2 T water
heat together and mix thoroughly. Strain lumps out with a seive.

Chocolate Glaze
100 g very dark chocolate
1 C sugar
1/2 C water
Heat together in a pot, stirring occasionally, and then boil together over a medium heat until reaches 234 F (112 C).  Cool for 1 min and then pour over cake.

International Night

International Night

Last night was International Night for the Bake Club.  The task was to bake something from a different country or culture.  We were overwhelmed with delights from around the globe (including down south).  Hopefully some of the recipes will be posted here over the next week or so....

Moroccan Snake Cake

Moroccan Snake Cake

Alfajores

Sacher Torte

Calissons

Lebkuchen

Kueh Lapis Batavia

Almond triangles

Southland cheese rolls

Speculoos

Cherry, chocolate and pumpernickel trifle

Next Bake Club is Sugarpaste decorations

Iced Biscuits

Iced Biscuits

The August Bake Club meeting was themed on Iced Biscuits.  Everyone baked a couple of different biscuit shapes (we had owls, dinosaurs, shoes, castles, rockets, kiwi's, circles, letters, dresses, snowflakes, silverfearns, ladybirds, flowers, planes, stars, crowns, butterflys, pencils and more), and then we spent a delightful evening icing with royal icing.

Next bake club is a bring and taste with the theme of 'baking from another country or culture'.

Mediterranean Orange Cake - by request

Mediterranean Orange Cake

A moist gluten free cake.  And really really easy to make.

Orange Slush - depending on the size of the oranges you use, this will probably make too much but it freezes really well so you can quickly defrost to whip up another cake when you want to.
4 oranges, cut in half
* Put the oranges in a pot, cover in water and simmer uncover for about 1 1/2 to 2 hours, until the water has evaporated down to a couple of cm.
* Puree contents of the pot in a food processor.  Measure out 375g, freeze the rest

The Cake
8 eggs
310g ground almonds
310 g caster sugar
375g orange slush
3 t baking powder

* Line bottom and sides of a cake tin with baking paper.  Preheat oven to 170 C
* Mix eggs and sugar together until combined (don't beat to add air)
* Stir in orange slush
* Add BP and ground almonds.  Stir until mixed thoroughly
*Pour into cake tin, cook approx 80mins
* Cool in tin, cooling overnight in tin is fine

Finishing touches
Not long before serving:
Toast some flaked almonds until light brown
Heat 2T of apricot jam with 1T water - mix thoroughly

Using a pastry brush, brush on the apricot glaze on sides and top
Sprinkle with toasted flaked almonds (either all the top or put a small bowl in the middle of the top to form a template so they can only stick to an inch wide outside ring on the top of the cake.

Cupcake Decorating

The theme for meeting number two was Cupcake Decorating and we all dragged some extra bodies along to join us to grow the club to a comfy number.  Everyone had to bring a dozen un-iced cupcakes and a little something else that contributed to the effort on the evening.  We had some photographical inspiration to help us try some different techniques and ideas (thank you google images!), we whipped up a couple of large batches of buttercream and set to.

Here is a sample of some of the photo's from the evening of the lovely cupcakes we produced

We had a huge amount of fun, learnt a few tips along the way and, as a bonus, had very happy children the next day as they got to take the coolest cupcakes for their school lunches.

August meeting: decorating biscuit shapes with royal icing.

Photo's and info from the inaugral meeting

Better late than never!  Though I had better post these before I post them from the second meeting.

First - the recipe of the very yummy chocolate orange petit fours.  A very true orange flavour coming through on them which we all loved.  We are assured that it is easy to make...

Chocolate Orange Petits Fours

Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup dark brown sugar (packed)
2 tbsps cocoa powder (unsweetened)
1/2 tsp salt
7 ozs bittersweet chocolate (unsweetened finely chopped)
1/4 cup unsalted butter (cut into pieces)
2 eggs
2 tsps orange zest (finely grated fresh)
1/2 cup heavy cream (chilled)
1 tsp sugar
4 orange segments (navel, membranes discarded from each and fruit cut into 1/4 inch pieces)
2 round (special equipment: 2 12 inch long sheets of parchment paper; a 1 1/2 inch, fluted cookie cutter)

Method
Whisk together flour, brown sugar, cocoa powder, and salt in a bowl.
Melt chocolate and butter in a metal bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water, stirring occasionally until smooth. Remove bowl from heat and stir in eggs, zest, and flour mixture until just combined. (Dough will be soft.)
[At this point I added probably about 1/8 to 1/4 cup of flour as the dough was waaay too soft and would have gone everywhere!]
Roll out dough between parchment sheets into an 8-inch round (1/2 inch thick). Transfer round (still in parchment) to a large baking sheet and chill until firm, at least 1 hour, or freeze at least 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Remove top sheet of parchment paper and replace it loosely. Flip over paper-enclosed round and discard paper now on top. Cut out about 20 cookies with cookie cutter and arrange about 1 inch apart on a buttered large baking sheet. Reroll scraps between parchment sheets and cut out 12 more cookies (chill or freeze dough as needed if it becomes too soft to handle).
Bake cookies in middle of oven until matte (dough will start out shiny and turn dull), about 10 minutes, then transfer with a spatula to a rack to cool completely. (Cookies will have a fudgy consistency.)
Beat cream and sugar with an electric mixer until it just holds stiff peaks. Top each cookie with 1/2 teaspoon cream and a piece of orange.

Other photo's from the evening:

Madeleines

Madeleines, I have discovered are a bit trickier than they look.  My thoughts of 'why do you need a madeleine pan, surely a muffin tin will be fine' proved to be wrong and I have discovered exactly why a specialised tin is recommended and how important the buttering and flouring of said tin are.  However, even though my first attempt did not produce a perfectly presented product, they still tasted damn fine!   So therefore, I present to you.....

Madeleines

100g unsalted butter (or regular butter)
1 T golden syrup
2 eggs
1/4 C caster sugar (vanilla sugar good if you have it)
pinch salt
1/3 cup flour
1 t baking paper

Preheat oven to 170 C. 
Melt the butter and use a little to brush the madeleine tray and dust with flour
Add golden syrup to melted butter, heat until able to be well mixed, then let cool
Combine eggs, sugar and salt in cake mixer and beat until very pale
Sift in flour, BP and salt and mix until combined
Drizzle in the butter/golden syrup and mix until well combined
Refrigerate mix for at least 1 hour
Spoon the mix into each mould, almost filling to the top
Bake 10 mins until golden brown and springy to touch
Turn out onto a wire rack and cool for 10 mins then toss in caster sugar
Best eaten fresh.

So why the Madeleine pan - these little cakes are very fragile and stick quite easily to the pan.  The idea of the madeleine pan is that they are much easier to slip out rather than trying to dig out of a muffin tin.

Creations in Blue

Here are a few of my 'creations in blue' in buttercream and blue jelly.  I'll try and recreate on a smaller scale on a cupcake in July.

-Michelle

Welcome to the Narbada Bake Club

Welcome to the Narbada Bake Club

The inaugral meeting was held last night with the theme of "Petit Fours".

Here is a record of our successes (and failures) and any requested yummy recipes.