Blueberry Friands and Vanilla Frosting

Hello all

I thought I'd write a short post on some lovely little friands I made a couple of weeks back. The recipe is from my trusty 'Sweet Tooth' bible by Lily Vanilli.

As we all know I find it near on impossible to stick to a recipe and here I've changed the redcurrants Lily uses for blueberries, but any slightly tart fruit would be perfect. I also added a little blob of vanilla frosting to mine for my super sweet tooth!

This is an interesting one as eggs whites are used for leavening and it's made up mostly of ground almonds. I love love love baking with ground almonds, they give such a gorgeous texture. The friands are so moist and light but with a little chew to them! It's almost like a cross between a sponge and frangipane.

Blueberry Friands

This recipe makes between 14-17 cakes depending on how much mixture you add to each case, mine made 16. So if you make sure you have about 18 cases you'll be ready and raring to go. Silicone cases work particularly well.

Ingredients

90g   Plain flour

200g  Icing sugar - sifted

180g  Ground almonds

Pinch of salt

2     Lemons - Finely zested

6     Egg whites

200g  Unsalted butter - melted and cooled

Handful of blueberries

1. Preheat your oven to 180C Fan/Gas 6.

2. Measure the flour and icing sugar into a large bowl and mix together. Now add the salt, ground almonds and lemon zest and mix again.

3. Whip the eggs whites until soft peaks form and then very gently fold them into your dry ingredients followed by the melted butter. Once throughly mixed this will create a batter.

4. Spoon your mixture evenly into the the cases, then gently press a few berries onto each one. Now put them in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until a cocktail stick comes out clean.

5. Once they are done leave them to cool completely before adding any frosting.

Vanilla frosting

This makes a batch of 450g - so you'll need to adapt the recipe to fit the friands if your just going to squidge a little blob on top of each cake. Or you could make the whole lot and keep it by for dipping biscuits or fruit into..!

Ingredients

100g  Unsalted butter - room temperature

300g  Icing sugar

1tsp  Vanilla extract

75ml  Double cream

1. Beat the butter on a medium-high speed for about 5 minutes, until very light in colour.

2. Add the vanilla, sugar and cream and beat on a medium-high speed for another 2 minutes or so.

*Tips*

Just after adding the icing sugar to the butter I use a big spoon to bring the ingredients together. I find if you go straight in with an electric mixer you will be living and breathing icing sugar for the next week. It's a mess and gets absolutely everywhere!

Depending on what you are using your frosting for you may want it softer or stiffer.

- If you are covering a cake in frosting you'll want it relatively soft.

- For piping you'll want the frosting stiffer, so that it holds a peak.

- For a crumb coat you'll want it very soft.

Measure the amount of cream you are adding to the frosting to ensure you reach the right consistency. You can also use whole milk, but you won't need as much.

You can keep frosting in the fridge for a while. When you need to use it let it warm up a little and give it a whizz with the mixer.

And here we have a De La Soul classic!

Birthday Ganache!

Hullo!

It's been a while but I'm back and sooo happy that The Great British Bake Off is finally here!! 

I'm more excited about baking than ever and am counting down the minutes until I can get my next fill of GBBO.

In the mean time I'll be using my blog as a full on creative outlet for all things baking, making, dreaming, thinking, idea-ing... You get my drift.

Although this blog will mainly be focused on baking I didn't want to limit myself to just that. I want to keep it open to lots of things that I, and I hope you, love.

I'll try to find my way with it by paying attention to what we both enjoy, so please keep your comments coming!

Anyway, back to baking (teehee!) for now.

Just a small pre warning, I haven't taken many pics of this bake, so apologies for that. I'll try to keep it short and sweet when explaining something that could have done with a pic!

It was my boyfriends birthday last weekend; it was also his brothers birthday. Yup, they're twinnys! They're non identical but both equally awesome and because they're both awesome I thought I would make them a scrumptious birthday cake, each! I did a bit of research and decided to make two small but tall cakes, both with the same basic recipe but decorated slightly different.

Caramel Sponge with White and Dark Chocolate Ganache Glaze

1. White chocolate ganache 2. Dark chocolate ganache

This was my inspiration, the littley on the top.
One with dark chocolate and the other with white chocolate glaze.
(This is not my cake/photo, although I wish it was!)

*

It was all going so well. I thought 'Wow, I'm actually getting quite good at this'. (You've got to give yourself a pat on the back sometimes, right?) Then, 'The Dark Chocolate Ganache Disaster' struck.

I used equal amounts of dark chocolate and cream to make the glaze, but this made it too thick to pour. It was late at night, the shops were closed and I had to do something to make the ganache thinner so I added some milk.. It worked (I thought)! It was much thinner, had a beautiful shine to it and poured perfectly over the top of the cake. Result! 

Again, I gave myself a nice pat on the back! However, the cake Gods must have been looking down on me in my little kitchen in Bristol and decided I needed to get off my high horse and cast me a nasty spell of 'Dark Chocolate Ganache Disaster'.

The following morning, I was just about ready to leave the house for work, when I decided to have a peek at my little cake beauties, and there it was. My heart sunk. If you've ever had a cake disaster before you will know this feeling!

The dark chocolate ganache had cracked all over like a tiny earthquake had struck the poor little thing. I didn't have time to start trying to fix it or worst of all start again, so I shut the lid on the cakes, got on my bike and rode off to work.

I thought a lot about what to do but the only conclusion I came to was to use a spatular dipped in boiling water (dry it off), attempt to warm the chocolate so it became spreadable enough to smooth over. This sort of worked but I'm quite particular and still wasn't too happy about it! Anyway, the white chocolate ganache cake looked brill and they both tasted delish so it wasn't all bad!

I'm not going to give you the recipe for the dark chocolate glaze for obvious reasons! However, I won't be defeated by chocolate and I will try again and be sure to let you know when I do.

Caramel Sponge

Ingredients

330g  Plain flour (sifted)

320g  Dark brown muscovado sugar

1½    tbsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

175g  Unsalted butter

3     Eggs (Whisked until pale with a little foam on top)

190ml Whole milk

1½    tsp vanilla extract

You will also need the following for this recipe:

Four 11cm cake tins, greased and lined with baking parchment.

I know, four tins, but we are making two four layer cakes. If you don't have four tins you can split the cake mix in half and bake two at a time. You'll be slicing horizontally down the middle to create two layers from each cake.

1. Preheat your over to 180C Fan/350F/Gas6

2. Measure your dry ingredients into a large bowl and mix together thoroughly. Now add the butter and beat on a low-medium speed until the mixture looks a bit like breadcrumbs.

3. Make a well in the centre of your dry ingredients, pour in the eggs and beat on medium until just incorporated. Now add the milk and vanilla and beat again on medium-high until all ingredients are fully incorporated and the mixture is nice and smooth.

4. Divide the mixture between the tins, level off it off and pop them in the preheated oven for about 25 mins or until the sponge springs back when you press your finger lightly on the top and it's coming away from the sides of the tin slightly.

5. Leave the cakes in their tins for about 10 minutes, then take them out and leave to cool completely on a wire rack.

*Tips*

If your cake is a little domed like mine, wait for it to completely cool and then slice the top off with a bread knife so that when you ice it it's nice and level. It's at the point where you will also need to carefully slice horizontally down the centre to create two layers from each cake.

Caramel Frosting

Ingredients

230g Dark brown sugar

230g Unsalted butter

80ml Double cream

460g Brown icing sugar

1    tsp vanilla extract

½    tsp salt

1. Measure the sugar and butter into a saucepan and bring to a boil, whisking constantly.

2. Add the cream and and bring back to a boil, then remove the pan from the heat. Leave the caramel to cool for about 20 mins.

3. Measure your icing sugar and salt into a large bowl then pour in the caramel and beat on a high speed until the mixture is combined. 

*Tip*

If you think your icing is too thick to spread easily onto your cake just add a little cream or milk and beat again until you reach your desired consistency.

Icing your cake

You will need the following equipment:

Small angled spatular

Jug of boiling water

Crumb coat

Just before you fully ice your cakes I recommend doing a quick crumb coat to keep everything neat.

To do this take some of your ready made icing and coat the entire cake in a thin layer. Pop it into the fridge for 15-20 mins to let the icing set and then take it back it out to fully ice.

*Tip*

Don't forget to take your sponge out of the fridge after the required about of time. Sponges don't like being in the fridge for too long, it makes them stale which would ruin all of your hard work.

If you dip your spatular in the jug of hot water, dry it, and then use it hot to ice the cake it helps to really smooth out any lumps and bumps.

White Chocolate Ganache Glaze

Ingredients

100g  good quality white chocolate

100g  double cream

1. Using a sharp knife cut your chocolate into really small pieces (this way it won't take as long to melt) and tip it into a mixing bowl.

2. In a saucepan heat the cream until it reaches scolding point and pour it on top of the white chocolate. Wait a minute for the chocolate to begin melting and then carefully stir it together.

3. Leave the chocolate ganache to thicken before pouring it over the top of the cake.

***

Hobnobbing

I just dove into the social networking sea of crazyness and I am hobnobbing like no-bodies business! Well at least attempting too.

So please follow me, pin me, like and favourite things I post, tweet at me, re-tweet me, tell your mates, your mum, your dad, your nan (especially your nan, they've always got great baking tips) you know what I mean! To make it that bit easier for you I've put links to all of the places you can find me on the side bar..! There >>>>

Here's a nice song :)

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