Posts Tagged ‘Cake’
Wednesday, August 17th, 2011
Week 15. More cake. But as the title of this post ‘hilariously’ suggests, we moved away from the predominantly flour based sponges and in to mousse cake territory.
Most of these cakes followed a similar format. Some kind of sponge base, ‘inserts’ made either from more sponge or set crème anglaise based layers flavoured with anything from lemon and raspberry to mint, surrounded with some kind of mousse set with gelatin. These cakes get finished with different techniques. Glazes, cake walls, ‘pate decor’, we even got to get the chocolate spray-gun out.
Here are a few examples (for some reason I didn’t get as many pics as usual):
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Tags: Bavarian, Berries, Cake, Creme Anglaise, Diplomat Cream, Fruit, Glaze, Lemon, Mint, Mousse, Pate Decor, Raspberry, Sable Breton, San Francisco, SFBI, Sponge, Vanilla, White Chocolate
Posted in Reviews, Sweet Stuff, Travel, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, August 9th, 2011
Feels a bit odd writing about cake when there’s all this shit going down in London, so to that end I’m going to do what I promised in my last post. Be brief.
So another week, another cake mountain. The cakes last week were definitely more technical than the week before. We compared and contrasted the differences between fat based and egg based sponges, including Génoise and Chiffon, as well as making a bunch of different fillings and icings.
Here are a few highlights:
The Fraisier – a light vanilla sponge sandwiching fresh strawberries and mouselline, all topped off with a marzipan disc. Summer in cake form.
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Tags: Black Forest Gateaux, Cake, Concorde, Egg, Fat, Fraisier, Opera Cake, Sachertorte, San Francisco, SFBI, Sponge, Wedding Cakes
Posted in Opinion, Reviews, Sweet Stuff, Travel | No Comments »
Sunday, August 7th, 2011
We’ve got a busy month ahead with family and friends visiting SF, and I’m already behind with my posts. This may not end well. Thinking I’m going to try and make the next couple as brief as possible so I can catch up. More photos, less words. Capisce?
So the week before last was week 13. Unlucky for some, but not for us, as this was the week we started to make cake, and as always, lots of it.
The week started off in a not entirely cakey way with baking a bunch of scones. Being the cosseted Englishman that I am, I didn’t realise how popular these tea-time treats are with the rest of the world. The Yanks and the Aussies in particular seem to love them. But unfortunately no jam or clotted cream was harmed in the making of these recipes, as they tend to be filled with dried fruit and nuts over here, and eaten dry. Also, the scones over here are almost universally triangular shaped, as they are cut from a circular slabs. The heathens! We made them in two ways (butter and cream based formulas) and in a whole range of flavours, including walnut and apricot, lemon and poppy seed, white chocolate and cranberry, currant and so on.
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Tags: Angel Food Cake, Bake, banana Bread, Bundt, Cake, Carrot Cake, Coffee Cake, Dacquoise, Fruit Cake, Piping Bag, Pund Cake, Quick Breads, Scone
Posted in Opinion, Reviews, Travel | 5 Comments »
Monday, March 14th, 2011
I realised the other day that I hadn’t done a ‘Local Hero’ for AGES, and by chance I happened to pass The Market Coffee House the very same day. Serendipity in the truest sense.
When I was thinking about the whole ‘Local Hero’ side to this blog, The Market Coffee House was exactly the kind of place that I had in mind. Special, but unpretentious, and quietly plugging away at doing what they do best without all the bluster, PR and twitter noise that’s become so common.
I first started going to The Market Coffee House when I worked around the corner in Spitalfields what now seems like ages ago. Before the days of the Aussie and Kiwi coffee shops, the MCH was my go to place for a decent cup of coffee. Back then, it was the only café I can remember that had proper Baristas who took great care and attention over each and every cup. They also sold their coffees in the smaller cups that have now become more familiar. Quality over quantity before it was fashionable.
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Tags: Bagel, Barista, Cake, Coffee, Fan, Food, Local Hero, London, Market Coffee House, Spitalfields, Tasty
Posted in Opinion, Reviews | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, June 1st, 2010
As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I’ve learned quite a lot from my mother in cooking terms over the years. For the most part its been a case of me picking up stuff by watching her at work, but every now and then I’ll steal a recipe or two off her too.
This cake is one of those firm family favourites, and it even gets the royal seal of approval from my very sweet, but ever so fussy niece, Ksenia. It’s a bit tangier than most lemon drizzle cakes because of there’s more lemon juice in the glaze, and that’s how we like it.
Ingredients
For the cake
125g unsalted butter
175g self-raising flour
175g caster sugar
2 large eggs
Zest of 2 lemons
4 tablespoons of milk
A pinch of salt
Butter for greasing your loaf tin
For the ‘drizzle’
The juice of 2 lemons (about 6 tablespoons)
Zest of 1 lemon
100g icing sugar
Method
You’re going to bake this cake in a loaf tin, so first up, prepare and line it. Use a half kilo tin, smear it with butter, and then line with greaseproof paper. Now set your oven to 180 c to get it up to cooking temp.
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Tags: Cake, Drizzle, Eggs, Flour, Icing, Lemon, Mum, Sugar, Syrup
Posted in Recipes, Sweet Stuff | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010
Veal had a bit of a bad rep in the 80s, but that didn’t stop the veal escalope becoming one of my favourite things to eat when I was growing up. There used to be this great Italian restaurant called La Baita up the road from my folk’s place in North London that we’d to go to on a pretty regular basis. I pretty much always ordered the veal escalope, which was served with sauteed potatoes and deep fried courgette. Not exactly healthy, but very tasty.
This is a bit of a remix of that childhood favourite. The prep is a bit fiddly, but well worth it.
Ingredients
For the Veal
2 veal escalopes
Seasoned plain flour
Thyme, finely chopped
Breadcrumbs (enough to coat both escalopes – 250 ish g)
1 egg, beaten
For the Courgette & Potato Cake
1 large potato, grated
3 courgettes, grated
1 medium onion, finely sliced
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Tags: Breadcrumbs, Cake, Chilli, Courgette, Egg, Escalope, Italian, Lemon, Milanese, parmesan, Potato, Recipe, Salad, thyme, Veal
Posted in Dinner, Recipes | 1 Comment »
