Mini Lemon Meringues

I'm a big fan of James Martin, especially his cake recipes, and have made his Lemon Meringue recipe a few times now, always with good success.   This time, I wanted to utilise my new tartlet tins, and try and doing some mini ones, and try and hone my meringue piping skills a bit at the same time.  The couple of times I've tried piping meringue in the past it has been a complete failure, and I've ended up trying to rescue it with a palette knife afterwards.  This time, everything went a little more according to plan, and the finished meringues looked half decent and definitely went down well with those who tasted them.

To get the recipe, head over to James Martin's at the BBC website.  Instead of the pastry recipe given here, I used some Pâte Sucrée pastry cases that I had already made for my Strawberry and Chocolate Tartlets.  I also halved the amount of Lemon Curd filling, and Meringue.  In all, this made about 24 mini Meringues, on 5-6cm tartlet cases.  Bake for about an hour in a 160°C oven.

Strawberry and Chocolate Tarts

Since I bought the Michel Roux "Pastry" book, I've wanted to have a go at some of the fruit tart suggestions, especially the cute little ones that are easy to share about.  I'd made a full sized Strawberry Tart from the book before, and wanted to try a variation, adding chocolate to the Crème Pâtissière, and putting them all in mini pastries.  

I bought a bulk load of cheapish 5.1cm Tartlet Tins, then later bought a second bulk lot once I released that they also make far more convenient liners when blind baking.  So if you're thinking about buying lots of small tartlet tins for pastry usage, buy double the amount that you think you'll need at once, so that you can easily line them all.  You can get away without lining them, or you 'could'  line them with baking parchment and baking beans (not something I'm ever going to do when they're that small and making so many, just washing them up is bad enough).

For about 60 or so 5-6cm Pastry Cases

Recipe for the Pâte Sucrée

• 250g Plain Flour
• 100g Icing Sugar, sifted
• Pinch of Salt
• 100g Butter, cubed
• 2 Large Eggs

Mix together the Flour, Icing Sugar and Salt, then blend with the Eggs and Butter, for me, idealising using a Pastry Blender.  Knead it couple of times to get a nice ball of dough, then divide into two, flatten into a couple of inch-thick patties, cover in cling film, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Once chilled, preheat your oven to 180°C, grease your tartlet tins, then remove a patty from the fridge and roll out until about 2-3mm thick.  Then out your pastry for the cases using a 7cm Pastry Cutter.  Chill in the fridge for another 20 minutes, then prick with a small fork, and line each one with an empty tin.  Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, then remove the liners, and bake for a further 5 minutes.  

Leave to cool in the tins for a few minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack.  Once completely cool, store in a cake tin until needed.

Repeat until you've used all the pastry.

Recipe for the Chocolate Crème Pâtissière filling

• 4 Large Egg Yolks
• 85g Caster Sugar
• 25g Plain Flour
• 330ml Milk
• 1 Vanilla Pod
• 50g Dark Chocolate, chopped into chips
• Icing Sugar for dusting

• 400g Strawberries, hulled and halved

Whisk together the Egg Yolks and a third of the Caster Sugar until you get a ribbon consistency, then whisk in the Flour.  While you're doing this, bring the Milk to the boil in a pan, along with the rest of the Sugar, and the Vanilla Pod, split lengthways.

When the Milk comes to the Boil, carefully pour into the Egg Yolks, whisking continuously, then return the mixture to the pan, and continue stirring until thickened.  Pour back into a bowl, add in the Chocolate Chips and stir until completely melted and mixed.  Dust the top with Icing Sugar, and leave to cool completely before refrigerating.

The Pastry and the Crème Pâtissière and be made in advance, but you really want to avoid putting them together until just before you plan to serve them, to avoid the pastry going soggy.  Put about a teaspoon or so of Crème Pâtissière into each pastry case, then top with a few Strawberry Halves.  Finally, you could dust with a little more Icing Sugar. 

Cherry and Coconut Flap-Jack

Flapjacks seem to be everywhere these days, but none of them ever seem to be close to the texture and flavour of the ones my Grandmother used to make. After doing a bit of searching on the web, I found some recipes which got me close to the ones she used to make. So easy to make, it's hardly even baking.

On the whole, my Grandmother's flapjacks would be the plain variety, and this recipe, without the Cherries and Coconut comes pretty close to how I remember them. However, since trying various commercial flapjacks, one combination that I like, even though it just wasn't a real flapjack, was Cherry and Coconut, and so this recipe is my interpretation, whilst trying to keep them nice and chewy at the same time.

These have been a hit the office and pub on a few occasions, although when I tried to do a dairy free version using Soya Butter for one of the guys, it really didn't work as well at all. The taste was OK, but they seemed to fall apart. More the texture of a commercial flapjack, than one that I remember as a child.

Recipe for Cherry and Coconut Flapjack

• 130g Unsalted Butter
• 80g Granulated White Sugar
• 40g Demerara Sugar
• 2 tablespoons Golden Syrup
• 1 tablespoon Honey
• 300g Porridge Oats
• 70g Desiccated Coconut
• 200g Glacé Cherries (halved)

Gently melt the Butter, Sugars, Syrup and Golden Syrup together in a pan until you have a smooth mixture. In a bowl, mix the Oats and Coconut and Cherries, then mix in the Butter/Sugar mixture.

Line a tray (or in my case, Lasagne dish) with baking parchment, then add in the flapjack mixture, and flatten out. Bake in the oven at 180°C for about 30 minutes, until the top is nicely golden.

Leave to cool before removing from the tin. Use a sharp knife to cut into squares, ensure to wipe the blade between slices to help make each slice clean.

Banana and Strawberry Loaf Cake

These days, I like to eat my bananas when they're still a little green. Once they're much past that, I need to find some other way of eating them. When looking around at Banana Bread recipes, I found a couple that also added strawberries, and with them in season right now, I thought it was definitely worth giving that a try.

The cake definitely went down well with most people that tried it. The strawberries seem to add a little extra moisture as they sort of disintegrate to a certain extent, plus the cake was fairly light. So that the texture isn't too open, I suggest cubing the strawberries that you mix directly into mixture fairly small, then just keep a couple of good looking strawberries back to slice and put on the top before putting in the oven.

Some recipes suggested adding sour cream to keep the cake moist too, however, as one of the guys in the office is allergic to dairy, I decided to leave that out and use Soya Butter too. I may try one day with Sour Cream too, although from a moisture point of view, I don't think this recipe needs it.

Recipe for Banana and Strawberry Loaf Cake

• 50g Soya Butter or Unsalted Butter
• 80g Granulated Sugar
• 2 Eggs, beaten
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Essence
• 2 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon Ground Ginger
• 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
• Half teaspoon Bicarbonate of Soda
• 3 Large Ripe Bananas, mashed
• 1.5 cups of Plain White Flour
• 1.5 cups of Fresh Strawberries, cut into smallish pieces

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Beat Sugar and Butter together in a bowl until smooth. Add the beaten eggs and mix together. Add the Vanilla, Cinnamon, Ginger, Baking Powder, Bicarbonate of Soda and mix. Mix in the mashed Banana and Flour until you have a smooth mixture, then finally add most of the strawberries, keeping a few back to drop on the top if there are none showing after you pour the mixture into the loaf tin.

Pour the mixture into a greased 400g (half pound) loaf tin (lining with some baking parchment makes it really easy to extract afterwards). If there aren't any strawberries showing on the top, drop a few of the reserved ones on the top and half poke then in, so that you get a nice display of them on top when it's cooked.

Put in the oven for 45 mins, then lower the temperature to 160°C for another 45 minutes. You should probably check it with a skewer after about an hour's total cooking time, but for me, 45 mins at 180° followed by 45 mins at 160°C works perfectly, and still results in a nice moist cake. Leave to rest in the tin for a few minutes, then carefully transfer to a wire rack to cool down.

Welsh Cakes, and it's not even St David's Day

Since yesterday, Joseph has been nagging about making Welsh Cakes, but yesterday's fare took too long to start thinking about that. So, I made a deal that if we made them today, he would have to eat the fish ball things I was planning for later that day in return. Seemed like a good exchange to me. Also, it meant that I had a little helper to rub the flour and butter together so that I could carry on with working while Joseph got it to a breadcrumb texture.

Not having all the correct equipment to make these stove cakes was not a great problem. We used an empty wine bottle as a rolling bin (as was used yesterday for the pastie dough), glass to cut them out, and a big cast iron pan to cook them in, and so, presentation isn't perhaps their strong point, but they still came out better than the Welsh Rugby Team did against Scotland last weekend. Also, Sally was still at work, so I had to struggle with the photography myself.

Recipe for Welsh Cakes

• 220g Self Raising Flour
• 100g Butter
• 75g Granulated Sugar (should probably have been caster sugar, but this was what I could find)
• Handful of Sultanas
• 1 Large Egg
• 1 teaspoon of Mixed Spice

First, you need to rub the Butter into the Flour using your fingertips until it is the texture of breadcrumbs. Next add the Sugar, Sultanas and Mixed Spice and mix them altogether. Then add the egg and form into a slightly sticky dough. You can add a little milk if it is too dry, but I never need it.

Now just roll out the dough so that it's about 5mm thick and cut into circles of about 10cm in diameter. The pan should not be too hot and only lightly greased with a little butter before cooking the cakes. They should take a few minutes each side then can be served right away, the fresher the better.