Red Devil

After Pear Cafe began discussing on Twitter the fact that it is National Chocolate Week this week, I decided I would just have to bake something. How could such a week go unnoticed, especially by a chocaholic such as myself?

Autumnal weather always leads me on to thinking about Bonfire Night (5th November) and the associated food and drink — mulled cider, parkin, hot mugs of soup and perhaps most exciting, especially for the children, toffee apples. I was never that fond of toffee apples as a child, they were hugely messy and I hated that stickiness, I did however gain a fondness for the combination of toffee and apple flavours; it was that fondness for a flavour combination that led to last nights dessert.

Based loosely on a Jamie Oliver recipe I made a Toffee Apple Chocolate Cake. The cake is basically a nut based chocolate sponge dotted with small chunks of apples, in this case I used Red Devil’s but any apple of your choice or available to you will work just fine, before finally getting scattered with bashed up vanilla fudge pieces, again you could adapt the type of fudge to suit availability and personal preference.

Aptly named, the Red Devil apple is a highly striking bright red colour, and a medium-sized, early season apple. A cross between Discovery and Kent, Red Devil was raised by an H F Ermen at Faversham, Kent in 1975 and later introduced at Matthews Nursery, Worcester in 1990. Compelling to look at, the flavour, however, is less remarkable unless eaten straight away, but Red Devil is sweet and juicy, crisp in texture, and the flesh is pink stained with a hint of strawberry.

This cake is so simple to make as it is done in a food processor, you simply add everything and blitz it up together. If you pre grind the nuts and grate the chocolate it can be done by hand too but if you have a food processor I’d recommend you get it into action here.

I was expecting a cake with a brownie like texture but it wasn’t like that at all. In fact it was very light and cakey, slightly moist but still more like the chocolate sponge to be found in tins made by Heinz, anyone else remember those? They were my mums staple dessert treat for us, I seem to recall I did rather enjoy them at the time. 

Don’t let the comparison to a tinned sponge put you off, oh please don’t, as this cake is utterly delicious, needing nothing more than a wee drizzle of thick double cream to bring it alive with a smile factor like no other. 

What is there not to love about a rich, buttery, sweet chocolate sponge and sweet pieces of moist, juicy apple with a hit of sweet vanilla fudge in every bite? 

Hot it was soft, unctuous and warming to body and soul, cold it became more cake like and suited to mid morning coffee, both ways it was stunning

As with all things chocolate this is hardly the most healthy dessert in all the world but sometimes you need a good, old fashioned, warming pudding and anyway chocolate contains serotonin, the good mood chemical, so it can’t be all bad

Toffee Apple Chocolate Cake

• 250g dark chocolate
• 175g butter
• 120g soft brown sugar
• 100g pecans
• 3 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 4 large eggs
• 150g self-raising flour
• 100g vanilla fudge
• 4 apples, cored and diced but skin left on

1. Preheat the oven to 160°C or the equivalent
2. Break up the chocolate, put it into a food processor with the butter, sugar, pecans, and cocoa , and whiz until smooth.
3. Crack your eggs, one at a time, into the food processor (pulsing well with each addition), then and add the flour.
4. Whiz again until smooth.
5. Get a deep baking dish roughly 25 x 25cm and butter the dish really well and sprinkle with cocoa powder, shake it around a bit so it lightly coats the whole surface of the dish.
6. Pour the cake mixture into the dish and dot with the apple pieces and scatter over the fudge.
7. Pop the baking dish into the preheated oven and cook for 25-30 minutes or until the cake is firm but a cake tester still comes out slightly sticky.
8. Allow to cool slightly before serving.

Mulling It Over

I must say thank you to Delicious magazine for the inspiration behind last nights recipe creation, mulled wine fruit crumble with clotted cream. I reckon I must be in full crumble mode as it’s only a few days since I made an autumn fruit crumble. I’m putting it down to the cold weather, I enjoy the cooler months and love spending the grey days pottering around the kitchen but it does rather unfortunately give me a craving for comfort food.

As per my normal crumble making routine I used a 50/50 combination of flour and oats to rub in with some butter and sugar to make my topping. Along with making the crumble top oaty I added some roasted, roughly chopped cobnuts. Not only do the cobnuts add a little crunch but they impart a sweetness that is almost buttery in taste, giving a little more vibrance and freshness to the dessert.

A Kentish cobnut is a type of hazelnut. Most of the hazelnuts grown in Britain are of the named variety Kentish Cob, which was introduced in the early 19th century, but growers are now beginning to plant other varieties too. However, they all taste relatively similar – more similar than different varieties of apple for example.

Whilst it would be possible to simply use mulled wine to simmer the fruits, I decided to use red wine which I infused with some organic mulling spices from Riverford. These spiced sachets are made by the award-winning Heron Valley using a blend of organic cinnamon, ground ginger, nutmeg and cloves. Although it is really, even for me, to mention Christmas, that is exactly what the house smelt like while the fruit simmered away in its heady broth.  The notion of Christmas being further influenced by my inclusion of cranberries, the cranberry is the Christmas fruit for me, cranberry jam, dried cranberries and nuts, cranberry juice in cocktails; but not the dreaded jars of cranberry sauce with turkey, why I do not know, but I can’t abide it.

I’d be perfectly happy to serve the simmered fruits as they are with maybe a little splash of cream or a shortcake biscuit as they’re so deep and flavoursome. That would be a good idea if a slightly lighter pudding was required. As it was I wanted pure, unadulterated, comfort and the crumble topping was a prerequisite for that.

Clotted cream is my favourite crumble serving partner but double cream or custard also work really well. The choice is yours.

Mulled Wine Crumble

• 6 apples, peeled cored and sliced
• 6 plums, halved and stone removed
• 1 mango, peeled,stone removed and diced
• 3 tablespoons dried cranberries
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 300ml red wine
• 1 sachet mulling spice
• 75g plain flour
• 75g medium oatmeal
• 75g butter, diced
• 50g demerara sugar
• 50g cobnuts, shelled and roughly chopped

1. Melt the tablespoon of butter in a saucepan and when foaming add the prepared fruits (except the mango), toss in the butter until golden and add the wine and mulling spice sachet. Allow to simmer until the fruit is just tender.
2. Remove from the heat and add the mango, stir to combine. Remove the fruit to a baking dish, reserving the liquid and sachet and return the saucepan to the heat.
3. Reduce the sauce by half, remove the mulling spice sachet and discard, pour the sauce over the fruits.
4. Preheat the oven to 180C or the equivalent.
5. Make the topping, put the flour, oats and butter in a bowl and rub together using your fingertips until you have the consistency of bread crumbs, stir in the sugar and cobnuts.
6. Sprinkle the topping over the fruits, mounding it up a little towards the centre.
7. Bake for about 25 minutes or until crisp and golden.

Norfolk Lavender

I didn’t go visiting the famous lavender fields when I went to Norfolk but I did buy a lavender plant and some lavender honey, oh and I did mange to get this shot of Murphy playing camouflage behind the huge lavender bush in our holiday cottage.

I had a huge glut of apples sitting in my fruit bowl and apple with lavender is a match made in Heaven. I decided to use this recipe for an apple tart but instead of buying ready made pastry I made my own. This is the point at which I must make it clear, patience is a virtue … if you don’t wait for the pastry to chill properly you end up with apple crisp! The pastry doesn’t rise but forms a crisp disc, very delicious all the same but not exactly apple tart.

I used eating apples as I hadn’t any Bramley apples, but they worked a treat. The best bit however was the layer of apple puree, so very delicious, in fact next time I will double the quantity of it.

The lavender honey cream was so light and refreshing, perfect against the tartness of the apples. People often assume that using lavender will make the dish taste soapy and overly perfumed but used sparingly it lends a gentle sweetness, a taste of summer.

I was having a glance through David Loftus’ website and came across a fabulous photo of an apple, so I thought I might try the same idea out myself; what do you think?

Fruité

Yesterday I achieved a culinary first for me – I made a clafoutis. It’s not that they’re difficult to make or incredibly complicated with numerous steps to a multiple page method, just that I don’t really do ‘eggy puddings’ and that is essentially what a clafoutis always seemed to be. I’m so glad I decided to take the plunge and just have a go anyway as it was utterly divine; so divine in fact that my Dad and I managed to eat a four portioned size dessert between the two of us! Certainly greedy piggies yesterday.

Funnily enough for a first attempt at something I decided to just go for it and make the recipe up as I went along, after a good bit of research mind you. Google et al and my library of cookery books are a great source of information but sometimes you just need to go it alone

Clafoutis I have come to conclude, is one of the most seductive of puddings. It’s made by hiding a layer of plump, fruit (traditionally un-pitted cherries) under a blanket of thick, fluffy batter, which is then baked until it billows beautifully, with the fruit protruding deliciously through the surface. The dish dates to the 19th century and is associated with the Limousin region of central France.

Apparently if other fruit is used (i.e. not cherries) the dish should be named Flognarde but I’m not about to split hairs over the matter, so call it what you will. The most important thing is that it tastes gorgeous, the added bonus is that it is so simple to make

A drizzle of cream or a scoop of good vanilla ice cream wouldn’t have gone amiss but I didn’t save any cream and ice cream wasn’t lurking in the freezer so we had it plain, no bad thing, just a little extra dairy would have really lifted the pudding to new heights. I will keep this in mind for next time and believe me there will be a next time. This will become a spring/summer dessert staple in this house.

The key is not to over work the batter, doing so would cause the protein in the flour to open up and form long, elastic strands, which would make the clafoutis tough and chewy, rather than soft and yielding. So just mix enough to incorporate the dry ingredients, and no more.

You begin with a dish of lovely plump juicy berries.

Before pouring over a thick, creamy, eggy batter to encase the fruit. At this stage I also drizzled over some red current syrup, see here for the recipe.

After around 35 minutes baking in a moderate oven all you have to do is allow the clafoutis to cool slightly (10 minutes maximum) and dust liberally with icing sugar before plating up.

The Recipe:

• 400g mixed berries
• 2 eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• 250ml double cream
• 100g vanilla sugar (or caster sugar plus 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)
• 30g plain flour
• 50g ground almonds
• 50g slivered almonds
• 50ml red current syrup (optional)
• Icing sugar for dusting

1. Preheat the oven to 180C (or the equivalent)
2. Whisk the eggs, yolks, and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Whisk in the cream.
4. Gently stir in the ground almonds and flour until just combined.
5. Put the fruit into an oven proof dish such as a pie dish or gratin dish and pour over the batter.
6. Drizzle with the red current syrup if using and scatter over the slivered almonds.
7. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until just set and slightly golden.
8. Leave to sit for 5-10 minutes before dusting with icing sugar and serving.

Ancient Capital Of The Peak

The June Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart… er… pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800’s in England.

Bakewell tarts…er…puddings combine a number of dessert elements but still let you show off your area’s seasonal fruits.

Like many regional dishes there’s no “one way” to make a Bakewell Tart…er…Pudding, but most of today’s versions fall within one of two types. The first is the “pudding” where a layer of jam is covered by an almondy pastry cream and baked in puff pastry. The second is the “tart” where a rich shortcrust pastry holds jam and an almondy sponge cake-like filling.

The version we’re daring you to make is a combination of the two: a sweet almond-flavoured shortcrust pastry, frangipane and jam.

So here we have it – the chance to get creative with a Bakewell Tart. I’m so glad though that we didn’t have to recreate the so often seen mass produced horror of a Bakewell like these (sorry Mr Kipling). If we had, I might have had to abstain from the challenge in protest

Image Courtesy of Google Images

There can’t be many dishes as controversial as the Bakewell tart. For starters, there seems to be no kind of consensus on its name. We might call them tarts now, but in Bakewell itself, they’re puddings – as they were generally known for hundreds of years. Personally I think of them as a tart but whatever you wish to name them, they are a true delight.

I only live a relatively short drive from Bakewell but this was the first time I’d actually made the infamous tart, err, pudding.

Like many regional dishes there’s no “one way” to make a Bakewell Tart, but most of today’s versions fall within one of two types. The first is the “pudding” where a layer of jam is covered by an almondy pastry cream and baked in puff pastry. The second is the “tart” where a rich shortcrust pastry holds jam and an almondy sponge cake-like filling. The version we were dared to make was a combination of the two: a sweet almond-flavoured shortcrust pastry, frangipane and jam. The only key components were we make the pastry and frangipane to the letter, the jam/filling was up to us and we could make whatever size tarts we wished. 

Flan-like desserts that combine either sweet egg custard over candied fruit or feature spiced ground almonds in a pastry shell have Mediaeval roots. The term “Bakewell pudding” was first penned in 1826 by Meg Dods; 20 years later Eliza Acton published a recipe that featured a baked rich egg custard overtop 2cm of jam and noted, the pudding is famous not only in Derbyshire, but in several UK northern counties where it is usually served on all holiday occasions.

By the latter half of the 1800s, the egg custard evolved into a frangipane-like filling; since then the quantity of jam decreased while the almond filling increased.

This tart, like many of the world’s great foods has its own mythic beginnings…or several mythic beginnings. Legend has it in 1820 (or was it in the 1860s?) Mrs. Greaves, landlady of The White Horse Inn in Bakewell, Derbyshire, asked her cook to produce a pudding for her guests. Either her instructions could have been clearer or he should have paid better attention to what she said because what he made was not what she asked for. The cook spread the jam on top of the frangipane mixture rather than the other way around. Or maybe instead of a sweet rich shortcrust pastry case to hold the jam for a strawberry tart, he made a regular pastry and mixed the eggs and sugar separately and poured that over the jam—it depends upon which legend you follow.

Regardless of what the venerable Mrs. Greaves’ cook did or didn’t do, lore has it that her guests loved it and an ensuing pastry-clad industry was born. The town of Bakewell has since played host to many a sweet tooth in hopes of tasting the tart in its natural setting.

Despite never having made a Bakewell Tart before I wasn’t daunted by the challenge, unlike many I love making pastry, I conquered my fear of preserves a long while back and have made frangipane several times before (just do a quick search in the side bar if you want to read some of my earlier posts about these topics).

I went for a rhubarb and vanilla jam filling and made both some mini tarts and a rather huge tart too. 

The rhubarb jam was made using this recipe, but to the boiling fruit I added a split vanilla pod (seeds scraped out) and about a couple of tablespoons of hibiscus flowers, not for flavour really but to enhance the vivid pinkness of the gorgeous rhubarb.  That’s the pity with rhubarb, on cooking it can look a bit pallid and that just won’t do.

I ended up with a sweet and sticky jam that was still well textured, achieved by cutting the rhubarb into various lengths instead of the uniform chunks specified and not mashing it all to a pulp.  If the jam was going to be for spreading on toast at breakfast I’d probably have gone for a smoother finish but in a rustic pudding like this I believe texture to be nothing but a good thing.

Even before baking the pudding looked inviting, once covered with the pale golden frangipane.

The rhubarb flavour worked really well against the subtle almond backdrop from the soft, delicate frangipane; all encased in crisp, buttery pastry – tart…err…pudding heaven. 

We happily munched the mini tarts with a cup of tea but the large version was served in slices with hot creamy custard – not ideal considering we are now entering the season of summer warmth, but hey ho in the interests of all that is foodie what else could I do?

The recipe:

• Makes one 23cm (9” tart)
• Prep time: less than 10 minutes (plus time for the individual elements)
• Resting time: 15 minutes
• Baking time: 30 minutes

Equipment needed:

• 23cm (9”) tart pan or pie tin (preferably with ridged edges) 
• Rolling pin
• One quantity sweet shortcrust pastry (recipe follows)
• Bench flour
• 250ml (1cup (8 US fl. oz)) jam or curd, warmed for spreadability
• One quantity frangipane (recipe follows)
• One handful blanched, flaked almonds

Assembling the tart:

1. Place the chilled dough disc on a lightly floured surface. If it’s overly cold, you will need to let it become acclimatised for about 15 minutes before you roll it out. Flour the rolling pin and roll the pastry to 5mm (1/4”) thickness, by rolling in one direction only (start from the centre and roll away from you), and turning the disc a quarter turn after each roll. When the pastry is to the desired size and thickness, transfer it to the tart pan, press in and trim the excess dough. Patch any holes, fissures or tears with trimmed bits. Chill in the freezer for 15 minutes.
2.  Preheat oven to 200C/400F.
3. Remove shell from freezer, spread as even a layer as you can of jam onto the pastry base. Top with frangipane, spreading to cover the entire surface of the tart. Smooth the top and pop into the oven for 30 minutes. Five minutes before the tart is done, the top will be poofy and brownish. Remove from oven and strew flaked almonds on top and return to the heat for the last five minutes of baking.
4. The finished tart will have a golden crust and the frangipane will be tanned, poofy and a bit spongy-looking. Remove from the oven and cool on the counter. Serve warm, with crème fraîche, whipped cream or custard sauce if you wish.
5.  When you slice into the tart, the almond paste will be firm, but slightly squidgy and the crust should be crisp but not tough.

Jasmine’s notes:

• If you cannot have nuts, you can try substituting Victoria sponge for the frangipane. It’s a pretty popular popular cake, so you shouldn’t have any troubles finding one in one of your cookbooks or through a Google search. That said, our dear Natalie at Gluten a Go Go has sourced some recipes and linked to them in the related alt.db thread.
• You can use whichever jam you wish, but if you choose something with a lot of seeds, such as raspberry or blackberry, you should sieve them out.
• The jam quantity can be anywhere from 60ml (1/4 cup) to 250ml (1cup), depending upon how “damp” and strongly flavoured your preserves are. I made it with the lesser quantity of home made strawberry jam, while Annemarie made it with the greater quantity of cherry jam; we both had fabulous results. If in doubt, just split the difference and spread 150ml (2/3cup) on the crust.

Annemarie’s notes:

• The excess shortcrust can be rolled out and cut into cookie-shapes (heck, it’s pretty darned close to a shortbread dough).

Sweet shortcrust pastry:

• Prep time: 15-20 minutes
• Resting time: 30 minutes (minimum)
• Equipment needed: bowls, box grater, cling film
•  225g (8oz) all purpose flour
• 30g (1oz) sugar
• 2.5ml (½ tsp) salt
• 110g (4oz) unsalted butter, cold (frozen is better)
• 2 (2) egg yolks
• 2.5ml (½ tsp) almond extract (optional)
• 15-30ml (1-2 Tbsp) cold water

1. Sift together flour, sugar and salt. Grate butter into the flour mixture, using the large hole-side of a box grater. Using your finger tips only, and working very quickly, rub the fat into the flour until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Set aside.
2. Lightly beat the egg yolks with the almond extract (if using) and quickly mix into the flour mixture. Keep mixing while dribbling in the water, only adding enough to form a cohesive and slightly sticky dough.
3. Form the dough into a disc, wrap in cling and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes

Jasmine’s notes:

• I make this using vanilla salt and vanilla sugar.
• If you wish, you can substitute the seeds of one vanilla bean, one teaspoon of vanilla paste or one teaspoon of vanilla extract for the almond extract

Frangipane:

• Prep time: 10-15 minutes
• Equipment needed: bowls, hand mixer, rubber spatula
•  125g (4.5oz) unsalted butter, softened
• 125g (4.5oz) icing sugar
• 3 (3) eggs
• 2.5ml (½ tsp) almond extract
• 125g (4.5oz) ground almonds
• 30g (1oz) all purpose flour

1.  Cream butter and sugar together for about a minute or until the mixture is primrose in colour and very fluffy. Scrape down the side of the bowl and add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. The batter may appear to curdle. In the words of Douglas Adams: Don’t panic. Really. It’ll be fine. After all three are in, pour in the almond extract and mix for about another 30 seconds and scrape down the sides again. With the beaters on, spoon in the ground nuts and the flour. Mix well. The mixture will be soft, keep its slightly curdled look (mostly from the almonds) and retain its pallid yellow colour.

Annemarie’s notes:

• Add another five minutes or more if you’re grinding your own almonds or if you’re mixing by hand (Heaven help you).

Strudel Doodle

So here I am once again, writing about another Daring Bakers expedition. This month we had a challenge indeed – strudel. Now I’ve never made a strudel before so it was both rather challenging and rather fun too, although I did run into a major problem along the way – lack of work-top space – but more about that later.

The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.

A strudel is a type of sweet layered pastry with a filling inside, that became well known and gained popularity in the 18th century through the Habsburg Empire. Strudels are most frequently associated with Austrian cuisine, but they are also a traditional pastry in the whole area formerly belonging to the Austro-Hungarian empire. The oldest Strudel recipe is from 1696, a handwritten recipe at the Viennese City Library, Wiener Stadtbibliothek. The pastry has its origins in the similar Byzantine Empire or Middle Eastern pastries.

The challenge involved making a traditional Strudel pastry dough, which is made from flour with a high gluten content, egg, water and butter with no sugar added. A legend has it that the Austrian Emperor’s perfectionist cook decreed that it should be possible to read a love letter through it. Now I managed to get my pastry thin, very thin in fact but not so thin that I could read through it. Herein lay the problem; I didn’t have quite enough work surface to roll the dough to the specified dimensions, so it ended up a wee bit smaller than desired. How on earth did the Daring Bakers with small apartment kitchens manage this task???

We had free reign with the filling idea (but the pastry had to be made to the letter) and my original plan was to go down the ultra traditional apple strudel route but the arrival of a great bunch of rhubarb in my vegetable box delivery put that idea out of the frame, I just had to use the gorgeous rhubarb didn’t I?

I didn’t do anything too exciting with the rhubarb, just allowed it to stew down to a chunky consistancy in a couple of tablespoons of water and about 1/2 cup of castor sugar.

Rhubarb seems to be very popular at the current time but this hasn’t always been the case. Rhubarb root has been used as a laxative in China since at least 2700 BC. The dried roots were first brought to Europe by Marco Polo. By the sixteenth century the dried root had also acquired a reputation as a cure for venereal disease and trade flourished. It was not until the eighteenth century that the stalks became popular for eating in Europe. The process of forcing is said to have been discovered at the Chelsea Physic Garden and by 1830 forced stalks were common on London markets. 
Rhubarb was popular with the Victorians and through most of the twentieth century but suffered along with many of our home grown, traditional vegetables with the emergence of supermarkets and the associated globally traded, seasonless fruit that they have promoted over the last 30 years. Apart from domestic gardens, commercial production of rhubarb had largely retreated to the stronghold of Yorkshire (and the rhubarb triangle) until a revival started with the turn of the century.

Instead of sprinkling the pastry with bread-crumbs before spreading on the filling I decided to use ground almonds, simply because I didn’t have bread-crumbs to hand. The almonds served their purpose well as only a small amount of liquid leaked from the strudel on baking.

I expected the rolling and moving of the dough to be difficult but it was in fact no harder than rolling a Swiss roll say, a rather easy job, although my end product did look more like a crab than a strudel.

With the juices left from stewing the rhubarb for the filling I made a sauce to serve alongside the strudel. To do this I added about 100ml of cream to the juices and reduced it down over a medium heat, until a thick pouring consistency was achieved, a couple of tablespoons of icing sugar were also added to boost the sweetness as the filling was quite tart.

As much as we all enjoyed the strudel I won’t be in a hurry to make it again. I just didn’t feel the effort justified the end results, my taste-buds were not a jangling with this one. I’m sorry guys!

The Recipe:

• 1 1/3 cups (200 g) unbleached flour
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 7 tablespoons (105 ml) water, plus more if needed
• 2 tablespoons (30 ml) vegetable oil, plus additional for coating the dough
• 1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar

1. Combine the flour and salt in a stand-mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix the water, oil and vinegar in a measuring cup. Add the water/oil mixture to the flour with the mixer on low speed. You will get a soft dough. Make sure it is not too dry, add a little more water if necessary.
2. Take the dough out of the mixer. Change to the dough hook. Put the dough ball back in the mixer. Let the dough knead on medium until you get a soft dough ball with a somewhat rough surface.
3. Take the dough out of the mixer and continue kneading by hand on an unfloured work surface. Knead for about 2 minutes. Pick up the dough and throw it down hard onto your working surface occasionally.
4. Shape the dough into a ball and transfer it to a plate. Oil the top of the dough ball lightly. Cover the ball tightly with plastic wrap. Allow to stand for 30-90 minutes (longer is better).
5. It would be best if you have a work area that you can walk around on all sides like a 36 inch (90 cm) round table or a work surface of 23 x 38 inches (60 x 100 cm). Cover your working area with table cloth, dust it with flour and rub it into the fabric. Put your dough ball in the middle and roll it out as much as you can.
6. Pick the dough up by holding it by an edge. This way the weight of the dough and gravity can help stretching it as it hangs. Using the back of your hands to gently stretch and pull the dough. You can use your forearms to support it.
7. The dough will become too large to hold. Put it on your work surface. Leave the thicker edge of the dough to hang over the edge of the table. Place your hands underneath the dough and stretch and pull the dough thinner using the backs of your hands. Stretch and pull the dough until it’s about 2 feet (60 cm) wide and 3 feet (90 cm) long, it will be tissue-thin by this time. Cut away the thick dough around the edges with scissors. The dough is now ready to be filled.

NB. Bake the strudel for about 30 minutes (at 200C) or until it is deep golden brown. Cool for at least 30 minutes before slicing. Use a serrated knife and serve either warm or at room temperature. It is best on the day it is baked.

Get Creative

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

April Challenge? Well it can mean only one thing, Daring Bakers time again!

What a lovely challenge we had: Cheesecake! The difference here was that we had free reign, given a basic recipe for a baked cheesecake and then let loose with only our imagination to limit us (oh and that funny little notion of time, cost and availability too).

The real challenge this month is to take this basic recipe and play with it. Make it unique. Make a showstopper of a dessert. Add flavor, sauces, decorations – dress it up and show it off. To be clear, I’m allowing for almost any flavor modification within the basic recipe (alcohol, lemon juice, vanilla), changes for dietary needs, and you can also experiment with the crust (graham crackers not essential). And then what you do on top – you have free reign here.

I just love cheesecakes (baked or unbaked) and over the years have made many of them, from simple affairs to the more complex creations, but I do prefer a simpler version myself. With this in mind I set about devising my dish, I wanted something relatively simple in flavour but attractive

I started my action plan with the base, Graham crackers simply weren’t an option for me due to lack of availability and I desperately wanted something different to a digestive biscuit base – the common biscuit for all cheesecakes in the UK or so it seems; reliable but just that little bit boring. What about chocolate? Good idea but how? What about using cookies as the base but without crumbling them into melted butter to form a traditional base? What would work well? Crumbly or chewy? Sweet or slightly savoury? In the end I decided on World Peace Cookies, a truly amazing cookie however you look at it – chewy but with a delectable crumble, sweet but salty with a deep chocolate bitterness too and above all that studded with chunks of gorgeous chocolate, which when served at room temperature remains slightly molten and oozy. 

A natural train of thought then just took over, and I began to scribble notes in a furious fashion.  Salty chocolate cookie = need for individual creamy gently cheesecakes, caramel sauce or and chocolate sauce, to compliment and for presentation, salty caramel toffees; and so a dish was born.

So to break it down a bit, here’s what I did.

The cheesecakes were flavoured simply with vanilla, scraped from two pods. The pods I buy come via my organic vegetable supplier and are shipped from Uganda. The vanilla is grown by a small women’s cooperative and because of Riverford’s no airfreighting policy is driven through Kenya to Mombasa before being shipped to the UK. The vanilla orchid is a climber needing a supporting trellis and partial shade provided by a cover crop of papaya or bananas. Each flower must be hand pollinated to produce a bean which is picked about 9 months later. Growing is only half the job; the beans are then cured using a three-month process of alternate sunning and sweating in a woollen blanket. It is this long process of producing useable pods that results in vanilla being the second most expensive spice to buy after saffron.

Image Courtesy of Google Images.

I decided to make the cheesecakes in a decorative mould, a rose shaped muffin pan which my lovely Israeli friend Francesca had sent me a while ago, it worked delightfully well although it is essential to let the cakes cool down completely before very gently unfolding them. The addition of the vanilla seeds gave a lovely speckled appearance which worked well against the deep, dark biscuits.

The cheesecake was baked very slowly in a bain marie which (despite it’s lack of a biscuit base) helped it keep a wonderfully soft, luscious textured, almost mousse like  belly, which remained to have a slight wobble as it was forked up.

The caramels were slightly time consuming and required constant watching but were easy enough to do.  I used a recipe from a previous Daring Bakers challenge but this time instead of allowing free form shapes to be used I set the caramels in a silicone mini cake mould. When they were nearly cool I studded them with pink salt and a sugar crystals. There is something very addictive about sweet but salty caramels, it didn’t take long for them all to be devoured at all.

For the finishing touch, the sauces! The caramel one is from Ottolenghi: The Cookbook (Yotam Ottolenghi and Sam Tamimi), the recipe can be found here and the chocolate sauce recipe can be found here. Both were utterly delicious, but don’t do what I did – refridgerate them and then forget to get them out ready for dessert, solid sauce anyone? Once back to a runny consistancy they really highlighted the flavours of the dish and brought the dessert together well. To draw the squiggly presentation lines I used squeezy bottles, a God send to the home or professional kitchen.

We all loved the dessert, and the ultimate compliment: I’d be willing to pay for a dessert like that, and, if it was a restaurant I’d be rebooking right now. A blushing me was very happy indeed

The Original Recipe:
Crust:

• 2 cups/180 g graham cracker crumbs
• 1 stick/4 oz butter, melted
• 2 tablespoons/24 g sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cheesecake:

• 3 sticks of cream cheese, 8 oz each (total of 24 oz) room temperature
• 1 cup / 210 g sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 cup / 8 oz heavy cream
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)
• 1 tablespoon liqueur, optional, but choose what will work well with your cheesecake

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.
2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too – baker’s choice. Set crust aside.
3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.
4. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.
5. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done – this can be hard to judge, but you’re looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don’t want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won’t crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.